#this song reads like their alternating thoughts during this scene

[stsghrs]

"So please hurry leave me I can't breathe, please don't say you love me."

[senualothbrok]

Come What May

Summary: On what Gale believes is his last night alive, you cannot give him your body. But there are countless ways to declare love, and infinite ways to express it.

An alternative act 2 romance scene, featuring a Tav who is a cleric of Ilmater. "Come What May" is a song from "Moulin Rouge".

AO3 link

Non-18+. Angst with a happy ending.

Trigger warnings: references to prostitution (Tav's mother), sexual trauma, grief/bereavement, graphic depictions of illness, Gale's suicidal ideation.

A/N: This fic is a response to the anon who requested an alternative act 2 romance scene between Gale and a Tav who wants to save intimacy for after marriage. I feel that I should apologise because I am clearly incapable of writing a straightforwardly sweet/romantic piece which does not involve trauma and angst of some sort. I have no idea why this happened, please forgive me.

Please note the trigger warnings and exercise self-care. It is, however, angst with a happy ending.

I highly recommend listening to "Come What May" from Moulin Rouge during/after you read this.

I deliberated over whether to post this. It feels like my weakest work, and I feel slightly ashamed about it. I'm still not sure if it's good enough to post, but decided to bite the bullet because I wanted to give it to the anon who reached out. I really hope it does bring some comfort and enjoyment to someone out there.

I cannot thank my dear friends @inglorionamy-ammy and @dekariosclan enough for being truly wonderful beta readers and helping me with some major edits on this piece. Thank you and I am forever grateful for your kind hearts and keen minds.

“I’m in love with you.”

There is anguish in Gale’s eyes. His voice trembles with fear and urgency. You feel it all, a sunbeam shooting through the blue-green haze he has conjured around you. For you. 

You gaze at him, breathless. Nothing compares, not even the beauty and wonder of his creation. When Gale looks at you, you do not feel dread, that ancient squirming beneath your skin. He is not the lumbering colossus of your nightmares, leaving a trail of whimpering bruises on your mother’s flesh. When he is near, you feel a yearning to draw closer, not away. You had never thought that possible with a man.

In that moment, you are possessed by a wild terror. An agonising thought that he will slip through your fingers, as though he never was. His last night alive. 

Your heart surges, and you cannot stop it. You answer without thinking.

“I’m in love with you too.”

Panic seizes you. Your admission is a sacred boundary crossed. A bulwark broken. You have the urge to bolt before all is lost.

But then Gale’s face lifts. It radiates with a smile, and all at once, you are beaming with the knowledge that you are the cause. Fleetingly, you let yourself imagine the miracle of seeing that smile again and again for the rest of your days. It is not a leering grin from which you flee, nor a repulsed grimace from which you hide. Sometimes, in his presence, there is something about solitude that no longer feels like safety, but loss. It bewilders you.

He huffs out a laugh, and you are mesmerised by the curl of his eyelashes, delicate as butterfly wings. 

“That’s a relief. It’d be a shame to spend my final hours making an ass of myself.”

There is a flame in his eyes that sets you alight. You cannot look away. You do not want to. Something swollen simmers in the space between you, just as it had that night when the Weave had made you one. 

He dips towards you. You are drifting towards him, dizzy from his scent. It is like nothing you have breathed before. There is no trace of sourness, no stale grease. It is sandalwood and leather, scrolls and soap. You are entranced by the plump curve of Gale’s lips, the soft earth of his eyes. In your mind, you see the smooth curve of his shoulders, broad and welcoming. His feather light fingers turning a page, like a sculptor’s touch on setting clay. 

The glaring marks on your mother’s neck, withering into wounds. The blood of her scabs, pooling in her navel.

You flinch.

Confusion flits across his features. You shift away.

“I'm sorry,” you manage. “I can't.”

You are winded by his spasm of hurt, a storm of despair, rejection, doubt. Part of you wishes you did not have this gift, this curse of Ilmater - to read others’ pain, to feel others' suffering so deeply it becomes your own. And you know, as you reel from the chains you cannot shed, that you should say no more. But you cannot bear it. You cannot let him suffer from a lie.

“I love you,” you choke. “But I can't.”

His brows steeple. He is silent. The thought that he does not believe you is a torment. You cannot be another loss, another reason for him to believe his life means nothing. To convince himself there is no one who would mourn his death. 

The words spill out as though you are clutching, searching. 

“I made a vow.” 

He sucks in a sharp breath. “A vow.” His gaze darkens. “You're promised to another.”

“No.” You jerk your head, frantic. “No. It’s not that…” 

He stiffens, as though he is braced for a blow. That he would expect harm from you is devastating.

“I made a promise to Ilmater,” you confess. “I can't be… intimate with anyone. Not like that.”

His eyes widen. You notice that there are flecks of gold in the brown of his irises, flaring with surprise. You fumble for proof, excuses, anything to skirt around the edge of it. The scar inside you that no one but Brother Rogier has seen. Your burden, your wound. Yours and yours alone.

“It keeps me safe.” You sound frenetic. “So that I can heal. I can't be charmed, or harmed by phantasm. Ilmater protects me from–”

It is ridiculous. You feel it as you speak. To suggest that such feeble protections would keep you from the magnitude of his love, when he is certain he will soon be dust and ash. Insulting. You are ashamed.

Disbelief curdles in the tight line of his lips. 

“Please. There’s no need for that.” He looks away. “You have a compassionate heart. That much is clear. But there's no need to go to such lengths to spare what remains of my pride.”

You stare at him, bereft. “Gale–”

“I understand perfectly.” His voice is broken glass. “And I would never force my heart on someone who doesn't reciprocate my affections, no matter how pitiful I may appear.”

He turns his back to you. You can no longer see his face. This is the right thing, you tell yourself. The good thing. He will walk away, and you will remain intact. Safe. You will endure. 

But a frenzy has come over you. As you watch the sagging of his shoulders, the clenching of his hands, you realise that you do not want it. You do not want this sacrifice, this secret. 

You want him.

You have never wanted anything so much.

You lurch forward. He spins around at the desperate questing of your fingers, lacing into his. You fall to your knees, pressing his hand to your heart. Recognition sparks in his eyes as your tadpole brushes against his.

“Please,” you whisper. “Let me show you.”

****

She used to be beautiful, you thought, kneeling there beside her. You stared at the welts marring her olive skin, her scarlet hair flaking to rust. There was a sore on your mother's thigh, weeping with pus, and you looked away when Brother Rogier pressed on it, ashamed at your squeamishness. 

You had seen far worse, waiting in dark alleyways and side streets while she heaved, clamped against the wall by some hooded giant, or kneeling as a grunting shadow loomed over her. You had never felt disgust or shock, only vague impatience, as you watched her finish and rearrange her skirts. Coins jangled in her pockets as she took your hand, bounding towards the promise of candlelight in the distance.  Later on those nights, she would hold you close in a warm bed, lulling you to sleep with whispered songs. With a full stomach and a formless hope, you ignored the greasy stench of strangers’ sweat which she could never shed.

It angered you, how nauseous you felt, as you listened to the bubbling crackle of your mother's breathing. You were only ten, but you were no longer a child, and you knew her moments were numbered. To feel disgust as she lay there, leaking into a peeling pallet, a guttering flame - it was the greatest betrayal. A sin you could never forgive. When Brother Rogier covered your mother's modesty with his usual gentleness, you started to cry. 

You had been suspicious of him at first, stooped and shrouded in his tattered grey robe. You had never met a priest of Ilmater. All you could see was his bald head, so shiny it looked wet, and the backs of his calloused hands, hairy as a beast’s. When he first took hold of your mother after her collapse, you screamed.

But he did not scold or strike you. He spoke to you softly, as an equal, not a child. 

“I want nothing from your mother, or from you,” he said. “I have sworn a vow of chastity.”

He had crouched to look you in the eye. It was a dignity you had never been given before, as the ugly runt of a streetwalker. It made you feel like he truly saw you, in a way that no one but your mother did.

“It means I will never take a woman or a man. She is safe with me. And so are you.”

And you were. With him, you felt safe. He was the only other person who would touch her, when  the sickness ravaged her body and her mind.  He tended to her in the temple with poultices and prayers, giving you food, water and shelter. She was well beyond thanking him by then, all speech and thought swallowed up in decay. Yet when her fire was snuffed out, he was the one who stood with you, cleaning her for burial. He was the one who anointed her so carefully, so reverently, for a return to Ilmater’s embrace.

“Ilmater sees you,” Brother Rogier had said. “He bears your suffering.”

And as you wept into your mother's cold, hard hands, with Brother Rogier steadfast beside you, you thought of every stranger who sucked and thrust your mother's beauty out of her. You thought of their relentless claws in the darkness, and Brother Rogier’s tender fingers in the light. You thought of your life, broken and empty, but for Ilmater's unexpected kindness.

And you made a promise. You promised you would never give your body as your mother had. All that you were, all that you had, you vowed to give to the Crying, Broken God, the one who stood with you and endured.

****

There is a tiny scar near his temple, framed by a dew drop of a mole. You had never noticed them before. As you lie facing him, cocooned in the illusion of the lush grass beneath and the boundless night above, you drink in every pore of his bronze-kissed face, every shadow that lifts as his gaze roams over you. You feel it like a caress, drifting over the patches and blemishes marring your skin, and for the first time in your life, you do not feel the need to hide them. 

“Tav.” His voice is so low, you strain to hear it. “I’m so sorry.”

He draws closer. He has seen the gaping hole inside you, and he remains. You can feel his longing to comfort, his desire to heal. It is a familiar urge, your second nature. It would be a gift, if you could accept his reassurance. If you could rest in his embrace. If only.

He senses your hesitation. Abruptly, he pauses, his fingers hovering above yours.

“Is this… alright?” Worry twists his features. “Are you comfortable with–”

“It’s alright.” 

He gestures between you. “Because if it makes you feel uncomfortable, I can–”

“It doesn’t.” 

He frowns, questioning, fretting. 

“I'm sorry.” You look down. “I'm sorry I can't…”

He jolts. Your breath hitches as his fingers find the point of your chin, tilting your face up to meet his.

“I love you.” His brow quivers. “There are countless ways to declare love. Infinite ways to express it. The joining of bodies, the pleasures of the flesh…they're but one stitch in a vast tapestry. My love for you goes far deeper, burns far brighter.”

You gaze at him, motionless. When you speak again, your voice is torn.

“I want to. With you. One day, when I’m not...” 

You grimace as the images flash through your mind. The weeping scratches on your mother’s breast. The oily sheen on her calloused skin. You try to blink them away.

“When I can, I want to.”

He nods slowly, firmly. He shines, as though there are no more shadows between you. That there never could be.

“It’s different with you.” You try to explain. “When I’m with you, I don’t have to hide. When I’m close to you, I feel…safe.”

You know it is not enough, but it is all you have. You can only give him the truth, no more, no less.

“You’re not like the others,” you say finally. “I… want to be with you. To…touch you.”

You clasp his hand. There is the faintest glow of lavender that trails down the muscles of his neck, a glinting sliver of his chest through the opening of his robe. You look at him with concern. He grimaces slightly. You think you see a trace of embarrassment, but you are not sure. 

“I - ah –” 

His mouth opens, closes. He struggles for words.

“Is it hurting?” You wince. “We can try that poultice again, I have some in my–”

“I’m alright,” he huffs. “I’m quite alright, Tav.”

“Are you in pain?”

“Not…quite.” He shakes his head. “Not now. It’s–”

He bites his lip. There is a strange silence, as though you have reached a frontier you cannot pass. And yet, the intensity of his gaze draws you, like a thread tethering your soul to his. Your fingers follow its path, hovering over the dark ring at his centre. He tilts his head, and almost imperceptibly, he nods.

His eyelids flutter at your touch. The lines of the orb feel like a scar, a stitch sinking into his skin. There is a coldness to the purple pulse under your fingers. You notice that Gale has stopped breathing. You draw back.

“Am I hurting you?”

“No,” he answers immediately. His lips are parted. You catch the wet glimmer of his tongue. “Not at all.”

He clears his throat. You swallow. For a moment, you cannot look at each other. He runs his hand through his hair, while you fuss at your tunic. A hushed heat falls over you, and as if on cue, you both roll onto your backs, fixing your gazes on the celestial canvas. 

It is quiet for a long time. And then your hand returns to his, as if it belongs there. You trace the grooves on his palm, as he caresses the callouses of your knuckles.

“I would wait an eternity for you.” His voice is rough, fractured. “If only I could…but the orb, the fate Mystra demands of me–”

“You don’t deserve this,” you choke.

He scoffs, a burst of anger and disgust. “I was foolish. Selfish. It was unconscionable. I endangered everyone around me–”

You spin back to him. “You don’t deserve this, Gale. Not this. Not her abandonment and punishment. Not any of it.”

He stares at you. There is both a hardening and a softening in him as he wrestles with your words. You understand. You know how it feels to grapple with a burden, haunted by whether you can ever lay it down. Plagued by whether you should.

A tangle of hair falls into your eyes. Slowly, tentatively, he reaches up to tuck it behind your ear. Your skin tingles from the ghost of his touch.

“I could never tire of looking at your face,” he breathes. “Hearing your voice, seeing you smile. Watching you laugh. Being with you, basking in the miracle of your presence.” He closes his eyes, as if committing you to memory. “When the time comes, this is what I’ll picture. Only you.”

The sorrow of his smile floods you. The resolution, the resignation in it. All at once, you are drowning. He gasps, flinching forwards. 

“Please.” His thumb draws gentle circles on your cheek, brushing away your falling tears. “My love, please don't cry.”

He speaks with a tortured awe, as though no one has ever wept from his pain. 

“I would never want to bring you grief. Only joy. Beauty. Happiness and wonder.”

“Then don't do it.” You try to stifle your sobs. “We can work this out together. You don’t have to die.”

You cup his flickering hand against your skin. 

“Any goddess who would ask you to do this isn’t worthy of your love. You're worth more than any mistakes you’ve made. So much more than this cruel forgiveness. You’re… everything.”

Ilmater would never ask this. He would see Gale, his regrets, his triumphs, his goodness and kindness. His love. Ilmater would bear his suffering as his own. He would walk with Gale through the roses and the thorns. You wish you could make him see.

But he does not see it. “Please don't cry,” is all he says, as he wipes away your tears. 

***

“What's your happiest memory?” 

It feels like a deflection at first. A misguided focus on your sorrow instead of his own. You do not want to back down. You want to convince him that Mystra is wrong, that he deserves to live, that he should endure. But there is a plea in his question, a ragged insistence, and you cannot refuse him.

You close your eyes as you consider. 

“My mother loved to sing,” you start. “When she sang, it was like time stood still. Her voice was so beautiful… I can’t describe it, but I remember it. Everything about her was beautiful… until she got sick.”

You feel your mother’s crimson waves, wrapped like a veil around you. The cradle of her arms, so thin and willowy, yet strong as spider silk. 

“Just before she got sick, my mother took me to a tavern to see Red Millie. A singer - you won’t have heard of her, but she was a celebrity around our parts. The barkeep took one look at us and tried to throw us out, but we managed to hide away at the back.”

You remember your glee, sneaking with your mother through the gaps in the crowd, shrouded in shadows. There was a whimsy, a spirit within your mother that no amount of degradation and destitution could ever kill. Not until the very end.

Gale’s jaw clenches. “Blind prejudice. Needless cruelty, to deny such simple pleasures to a woman and her child. What I wouldn’t do to give that fool a piece of my mind.” 

A tide of tenderness washes over you. You squeeze his hand. 

“It wouldn’t have changed anything. But thank you.” 

Reluctantly, he eases. His anger moves you in a way you cannot describe. You are reminded of how Brother Rogier chased off the boys that spat and threw stones at you, as though there was nothing that mattered more than your dignity. 

“It was incredible, anyway,” you go on. “My first time at a real show. It was the only time I saw my mother’s face light up like that. Red Millie had red hair just like hers, and a voice that could bring warriors to their knees. And that night, she sang this song, a song I’ll never forget.”

It takes you unawares, how clearly you can still hear it. How it echoes inside you like a temple bell.

“Afterwards, my mother looked at me like she’d never done before. She was smiling, and there were tears in her eyes, and she held me so tightly I thought she would never let me go.”

Your chest heaves. She is a bottomless ache. You struggle to find your breath.

“What was the song?” Gale asks softly. 

The grasp of his hand stills you. No one but Brother Rogier has ever heard you sing. You have always thought your song fragile, brittle, like thawing ice. It has always been a secret part of yourself, set aside for your mother and Ilmater alone. But when Gale asks, it is a foregone conclusion. Something you give him freely and without reservation.

And so, with your tears mirrored in his eyes, you sing him your mother’s song.

“Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place

Suddenly it moves with such a perfect grace

Suddenly my life doesn't seem such a waste

It all revolves around you

And there's no mountain too high

No river too wide

Sing out this song and I'll be there by your side

Storm clouds may gather

And stars may collide

But I love you

Until the end of time

Come what may

I will love you

Until my dying day”

****

“Come.” He stands suddenly, lithe with determination. “I want to show you something.”

He reaches down to you, and when you take his hand, the world around you dissolves into a whirl of blinding light. You stumble, but with his fingers intertwined in yours, there is no space inside you for trepidation. There is only wonder.

He strides forward. You gasp as a vista of oak, marble, and vellum streams from his free hand. Not for the first time, you are enthralled by Gale in his element, working miracles from the Weave. You marvel at the sculptures and paintings that appear around you, the plush seats and ornate walls enlivened by the spines of a thousand books.  Within this sanctuary of deep reds and gilded greens, open tomes and scribbled notes gleam in the glow of the fireplace. All you see and feel and smell is Gale.

“This is my home in Waterdeep. The centre of my universe.”

You stand speechless, taking it all in - the gift of Gale’s trust, the purity of his love as he bears his soul to you. With a flourish, Gale leads you towards an intricately carved piano that waits in the corner of the room. 

“This is beautiful, Gale.”

You are referring to all of it - Gale's art, his home and haven, Gale himself. But Gale beams down at the piano with a special focus.

“It was my mother's.” 

His thumb grazes its elaborate markings. There is such a delicacy in the gesture. An act of worship.

“She gave it to me, when I finally got my act together and moved into my own place. What a day of joy and mourning that was.” 

He chuckles, brimming with memories. You wish you could see them all.

“She was a marvellous pianist, back in the day, when her fingers were nimbler. Truly exceptional. She was no wizard, but to hear her play–”

His hands dance, fervent with admiration.

“She played with such passion, such unparalleled mastery, that her music had a magic of its own.”

He gestures to the bench in front of the piano. As you sit, your thigh brushes against his. His fingers trail idly over the keys.

“It was always a treat as a child, to perch here beside her and watch her play. No matter how much of a menace I'd been, how exhausted she was from the endless havoc I wreaked and all the questions about the universe I demanded she answer. No matter how incandescent she was with me for burning this or summoning that…” 

He gives a huff of affection. 

“She would still invite me to sit beside her and listen. Every time.”

Gale's smile illuminates every part of him. It is a smile like no other, a fixed star in an endless night. 

“She sounds like a wonderful woman.”

He bobs his head. “Indeed. Formidable, and fearsome, and wonderful. You would like her. And she would adore you.”

There is an instant before he holds your gaze - a flurry of his fingers, a low murmur. And then, the piano bursts into life with a familiar song that shatters your heart into a thousand pieces before restoring them one by one, sealed in gold.

You are shaking. “Gale,” you whisper through tears. “The song–”

He takes your hand and presses it against his cheek. You feel it all - the roughness, the smoothness, the swelling storm, the steady sea. There is so much more you want to tell each other, things that spill over the seams of speech, lapping at the edges of all your empty spaces. In this moment, you do not need it. You simply listen.

****

You are sitting on the balcony. Framed by golden shafts of sunlight, he looks like a vision from your dreams, real and unreal at the same time. You know everything around you is an illusion, a haze of yearning and remembrance. Yet it is truer than anything you have ever seen or felt, greater than all your nightmares, the spectres of the past. It is his world, melting into yours, making you one.

“My favourite spot.” 

He pats the velvet seat beneath you. Dust motes shimmer in the rising air.

“Many times, evening turned to night and back to daybreak once more while I sat here, lost in words.”

He looks out into the horizon, the shifting waves and seagulls soaring overhead. You are reminded that he has created all of this from memory. The undulations of the arches before you, the chiselled grooves of the stone floor beneath you. The bustling docks and well worn buildings of Waterdeep in the distance. The empty wine glasses on the table, reflecting the setting sun. You feel the love and longing in his creation. You see the mourning in his frown, the dark determination in the twisting of his mouth. A farewell. 

“You'll come back here,” you tell him. “When this is all over. You'll be back.”

He turns back to you. There is a faltering, a crack in his conviction. You hope, with every ardent prayer within you, that it is enough.

Your hand seeks his. “What's your happiest memory?”

A fleeting surprise passes over his features, but there is no hesitation. 

“This,” he says. “Now. Being here with you.”

You are taken aback by the force of his sincerity, the gratitude that glistens in his gaze. Of all his accolades, all his many accomplishments and adventures, of all the people he has loved and lain with, this is what he cherishes most. You, bruised and battered as you are. Only you.

“And for you, I’ll wait.” He clasps both of your hands in his. “I'll wait for as long as it takes. A thousand years could pass, and I'd still be here, waiting.” His lips curl. “If you'll still have me, that is.”

You cannot help but laugh at his unexpected pun, and the hint of pride in it. Your cheeks flush with the implication of his smirk. It takes you a beat to register what he has said. When you do, you halt.

“Is that a promise?”

He freezes. Desperately, you search his face.

“It's a promise.” You surge forward. “You're going to wait till the day I can give myself to you completely, mind, body and soul. You're going to live.”

He looks down at his hands, wrapped up in yours. You can feel the roiling inside him, the relentless battle between hope and sacrifice. And when his eyes meet yours again, you are overcome by a love that blazes through everything hidden and broken within you. 

There is the ghost of a nod, and his hair skims your neck as you reach for him. When your lips find his, he trembles, his hands questing, coming to rest at the small of your back. You cup his cheeks, and the caress of his tongue against yours is a prayer answered. A vow.

In the warmth of his embrace, you watch the weary sun take its dive into the sea. He holds you close, and as the piano whispers your mother’s song, you let the gentle rhythm of his breaths lull you into sleep.

******************************

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[bloodyfries]

Epic songs that fit Svsss characters/moments

Epic and scum villain are currently my favorite fandoms (not counting tgcf) so I wanted to make this list. Also please give me any epic x svsss fics or art, I'd greatly appreciate it (I've already read the suffering fic)!!!

Just a man: This was actually what inspired this list and the idea for an animation won't leave my head. This is Shen Qingqiu during the abyss scene. This is him trying to rationalize pushing Luo Binghe. The whole first half of the song is him saying how he couldn’t possibly do it. You'd replace "Deep down I'd trade the world to see my son and wife" with "Deep down I'd trade almost anything to save you from this fate" (yes ik it doesn't sound good or rhyme but I'm terrible at anything music based or poem based). The silent beat between "I'm just a man" and the "but when dose a comet become a meteor" is the system reminded him of how many points he'll lose (and maybe how many he has), so he get that final push to turn his sword onto Luo Binghe.

Luck runs out: OK, this one is not even close to cannon but I'd love if this happened even if it's slightly occ. Also this isn't nearly as long as just a man bc that one actually has been haunting my brain like Christmas in October. I can see this is moment between Shen Qingqiu escaping the water prison and self destructing where somehow Shen Qingqiu runs into Shang Qinghua. I think that it would be more likely to happen if they were a bit closer and if Shang Qinghua wasn't fully sure that the mushroom bodies would be ok. I think it could sort of be Shang Qinghua trying to get Shen Qingqiu to flee the city (this gets shut down either by Shen Qingqiu telling him about the blood mites or Luo Binghe almost having qi deviation)

Wouldn't you like: Doing time jumps because I'm going in Epic order. This is literally just some sort of knowledge person rewarding Luo Binghe for helping them. So they tell him about Xin Mo and how all of his enemies (or monsters), that will kill him if he doesn't become stronger, will be easily defeated with Xin Mo

There are other ways: A woman who was supposed to be a wife trying to get out of a lost fight. Of course Luo Binghe doesn't care so instead she gives him information about a prophet that can help him escape in exchange for mercy.

No longer you: I would talk about this but there are already at least three animations on YouTube on this, they're both so good. [animation 1] [animation 2] [animation 3]

Monster: Luo Binghe finally "snapping" or coming to terms with his blackening (in the abyss)

Suffering: Sirens that were either a wife plot or wives themselves originally, probably both. Luo Binghe trying to get info out of a siren that looks like his beloved shizun, thats it. There is also a really cool animation of this on YouTube. [Animation]

Legendary: this on is only being added because the same creator at the suffering did one if legendary and it opened my eyes. It's pretty much white lotus Binghe talking about wanting to be great then cutting to black lotus (during the five years) wishing for his shizun back. [Animation]

Little wolf: Kind of a stretch but Meng Mo training a young Luo Binghe. This would not be a real fight but old fights that Luo Binghe lost and is reliving in his dreams to see what he did wrong. The only problem would be hurting the mind by hurting someone in a dream. Alternatively: Shen Qingqiu silently cheering on Luo Binghe during his "fight" with Ming Fan. Quick thought would just be the leaves being shot

Not sorry for loving you: I already made a post about this and as you can see by the dwindling lengths of these descriptions, I'm getting really lazy (plus it's late) so just read the post please. [Post]

I can't help but wonder: This just feels like something post cannon where BingQiu finally talk about everything. Luo Binghe probably says something about how he's a monster and has done terrible things and Shen Qingqiu is practically offended that Luo Binghe would suggest that Shen Qingqiu wouldn't love him because of that

This post was too ambitious for one sitting, especially this late but I did it. I might add more when my thoughts are more coherent and I'm not just throwing the pink slab of meat in my skull into the post

[vespidclan]

just got here so I'm foggy at best on the lore, but here's some (more generic) questions you might like anyway? Asking a few so that, hopefully, one or two hasn't been asked yet - you of course don't have to answer all (or any) if you don't want to. :)!

What inspired you to do this story?

2. How do you warm up before starting drawing, if you do at all?

3. How do you warm up before storyboarding/writing scripts, etc; if you do at all?

4. When designing a character, what steps do you take? (Pinterest, google search "cat"?)

5. Do you have a favorite, least favorite?

6. What's your VespidClan music, if you listen to music? Any songs that scream your characters? The lore in general?

6a. ^ If you do listen to music, are there any songs that are completely unrelated to your characters that you associate with them anyway?

Bonus: Unrelated to your clan at all, but do you have a song you just hate? (Can you tell I like music?)

That's all I can think of for now. Hope this might spark joy among the... state of your inbox :)

I got inspired by a lot of other clangen blogs I was reading at the time. It sounds very generic but just seeing how many people in the clangen fandom (and warriors fandom for that matter) take the time to write stories simply out of a simulation game made me think “hey I can do that too!” so I just… started writing! Other stories that were big inspirations for Vespidclan were IHNMAIMS and The Mandela Catalogue to name a few. I’m a big fan of things with dread and scariness, I’d totally check these out of you haven’t already.

I usually look at cat references and the way other people draw poses for cats before drawing. Believe it or not I’m not very used to drawing quadrupeds, but at least Vespidclan helped me improved with that?

You all know I do the script/dialogue before I start drawing comics. I base off the script from what event happened during the moon and start off there, sometimes writing several scripts for a scene and figuring out which would be best (there was an alternate ending for The Frame-Up!)

Pinterest is a big help lol, but I try to figure it out on my own. Since they’re from clangen, the design is already there, I just give em shapes to work with and stuff! I really want every cat in Vespidclan to be distinct and unique (there will be a LOT of characters to work with), the sisters were a good starting point for that. Iciclestar is lean and spiky, Heartflicker is long and droopy, and Snakevalley is round yet sharp. Sizes also help differentiate the cats, which reminds me I really should make a size chart for them hehe

Webspeckle and Sparkbreak are my favorite designs, but Heartflicker is my favorite to draw. It’s not that I hate her design but Iciclestar can be such a pill to draw, I made the mistake of giving her cool eyes and head shape that I can’t ever get right!

Secret is out! I DID have a Vespidclan song list on Spotify! I say I did because I have to remake it since I made whipped it up while I was just figuring out the story and I think it doesn’t really fit it much currently. Maybe I’ll fix it someday………….But there is a 404 playlist you can listen to. 404 is a very compelling character to write about, she still is! I thought making a personal playlist for her would help with that.

I’ve somewhat mentioned it before but Shut Eye by Stealing Sheep fits Heartflicker, and Who Can It Be Now? by Men At Work suits Stonepaw, maybe there will be more later on!

Don’t start me now—I despise every and all songs from The Beatles. I get angry when I hear it. It isn’t anything bad, it’s just a personal vendetta that I acquired in the 4th grade that would be too long to elaborate on. Like I ain’t even joking, I’m really not a spiteful person… but hearing The Beatles ruins my mood (one song especially, but that’s a story for another day)

[suzy-queued]

DVD Commentary: These Foolish Games

@stocious asked if I could share behind-the-scenes commentary from These Foolish Games. @shamelessdvdcommentary

Give us some stats - (when you wrote it, word count, how long it took to finish, is it a one-shot/multi-chapter, etc) I wrote it from March through November of 2022. It's a 15-chapter fic, 96,884 words.

What was the initial inspiration for your story? I love the "Shop around the Corner" scenario where people fall in love via text but hate each other in person. I've only seen versions of that trope where the love portion happens via letters but they remain enemies in real life. I wanted to see what would happen if they were chasing each other in a huge love square. Picture me giggling and saying, "All we want out of Gallavich stories is to see them fall in love over and over again. What if every major character in this story is either Ian or Mickey in alternate forms?!"

What was your favorite scene to write? Hands down, it was chapter 4, when they watched the training video. This Mickey is based on a friend I had in high school named Jason. He and I had health class together, and we'd chat and joke around during class. But two strange things happened: (1) when we were OUT of class, he wouldn't even make eye contact with me. It was like I didn't exist. (2) when we watched videos IN class and the lights would go down, it was like we were dating. He'd hold my hand and lock our feet together and trace shapes on each other's arms. I never knew anyone who could Jekyll and Hyde so quickly between three different dynamics. Were we friends, strangers, or crushes? That history with him churns in my brain, and I wanted to capture how that felt in this story.

How did you come up with the title? I took the title from Jewel's song.

Other working titles included: This Bitter Chase Addicted to that Rush Shock + Awe Rules of Engagement Cock it and Pull it Locked and Loaded Brace for Impact A Shot in the Dark Caught in the Crossfire Come Out and Play Mark and Misfire

Are there any little moments or references you hope readers will notice? That every chapter (except one) had a two-word title. I like coming up with chapter titles, and I thought that was fun.

Was there anything you struggled to write? If so, how did you overcome this? I painted myself into a corner with the criminal aspect. My notes said something like, "Hector is doing something related to theft in the facility. This theft leads to unsafe circumstances. These unsafe circumstances are serious enough for his franchise to be threatened." I know nothing about trampoline engineering. I know very little about underground markets and precious metals. You don't hear a lot of media coverage of trampoline parks as mob fronts. I visited soooo many sketchy websites and researched what could possibly net Hector a decent enough chunk of change. I read documents about safety liability and franchise law. The takeaway is, anything can be solved with the right amount of research.

You know what was really fun to research? Videos of people doing wall runs.

Did the storyline change in any way as you wrote the story? I started with a more dramatic rivalry between the laser tag staff and the bounce center. It was a blood feud, and if you crossed those lines, you'd be dead. It was a life-threatening and tense dynamic, which we as the readers would see as parody but the characters would take 100% seriously. Total noir, Quentin Tarantino vibes. The more I wrote, I couldn't sustain that intensity with a straight face.

Jett was originally "Finn," but I didn't want "NotFinn" to have the same initials as "Noel Fisher." Chara was originally "Samantha."

If you are writing a particular trope or genre, was it your first time writing this? I never put so much texting into a story! Whew! It was cool to figure out how to do AO3 skins for this story. I set it up so that Ian's texts were always orange and Mickey's texts were always blue. That was done with a skin, so I didn't have to code it fresh for every chapter.

What are you most proud about in the story? (plot, characterization, dialogue, twist/cliffhanger, etc) I'm most proud of keeping the identities straight. It was … a lot. With all the Shakespearean name swapping, the reader could still follow who was who (I hope).

Are there any ‘behind the scenes’ info you’d like to share - e.g. what’s going on in a characters head in a certain scene or how you came to write a certain line? I can share a little about the process of keeping a long story straight. I made a dossier of all the characters, locations, and scenes as I was going. That way, I could glance at the notes instead of having to re-read entire chapters to find details.

As with all my stories, I hand-wrote this one. I filled three notebooks.

Are there any ‘easter eggs’ in your story - e.g. references to other stories you’ve written, a trope you often use etc? One trope is that I create art for each chapter. I also like to create logos for each story I make. Here is the full TigerZone logo:

I also create Spotify playlists for all my stories. Here is the one for These Foolish Games.

If you’ve chosen your most popular story, are you surprised by the popularity? This is my most commented-on and kudoed fic, which makes me so happy. I think it's well-deserved.

Were you nervous or excited to post this story? Yes. The nerves never go away, no matter how much you've written.

Anything else you’d like the readers to know about the story? Here are a few images that show the inspiration as well as what was happening in my life as I wrote it.

Our family (pre-covid) enjoyed laser tagging and trampolining.

We had a tornado and major power outage in 2022, which didn't stop me from writing. We took a trip to Chicago, and I was poking my head into every laser tag arena we saw.

That summer, as I was writing, Noel was in Brooklyn filming The Calling. I also went to Brooklyn, a few weeks later.

After the story was complete, my husband gifted me a printed copy. ����❤️

This is open to all writers! Pick your favorite story you’ve written or your most popular or the one you think deserves some more love! Or ask your followers to suggest their favorite fic of yours!

Thank you for the ask! This is so much fun. I can't believe how many wonderful friends I made from this fic.

[silly-gizmo]

Hi so I've been listening to Tally Hall lately and I've thought in my head ideas for animations related to 3 of their songs I don't have any animation knowledge and not great drawing skills so I wrote it so I won't forget and also so you can read it I don't have any animation knowledge or great drawing skills so this is so I can come back to it if I ever get the skills this is based on the song (Taken for A Ride)

Martin is inside a office wearing a business outfit (The outside is shown through the windows it is just glowing white and there's no one else in the office) in this scene he is shown feeling down and then he goes into a elevator in his office where the scene then fades to the outside of a airplane the scene is shifting between night & day it then cuts to the inside of the plane where Martin is sitting in his seat and the rest of the seats inside the plane are full of creatures (dinosaurs) and then when the songs says with their beat shirts. Shirts appear on the dinosaurs that show instruments with the word beat! Martin is then shown on top a hill in a flowery and happy landscape with his partner they are sitting together on a sunny day. Then a scene cuts to a white brick house with flowers and Martin (I don't have a complete idea of what to put for these for the stage of time I guess it will show him falling on to a platform with floating clocks or something like that with his pal.)

(After "Tiptoed to that wooden sign that said "Now take your place in line for happy, this is lovely" and "Listening to painted whispered light on top forgotten hill")

The ending of a stage play is then shown the actors are bowing holding hands and waving goodbye to the audience other actors come into frame dressed up as objects related to the song like the plane and some other things. During this confetti is shown and there are petals and roses thrown onto the stage and balloons (or alternatively lights) spell out Taken for A Ride at the top of the screen this scene then cuts into fake ending credits then Martin's bedroom is shown it is night out and Martin is shown in bed sleeping and at the line "was it over?" Tally Hall then appears in his room next to his bed playing to the song and Martin wakes up and the screen then spins into another scene (Possibly a giant picture frame)

(After "Something normal happens somewhere far away in clouds so please stop thinking this is happy")

Martin is then shown again sitting on the same hill at midnight and everything including Martin is sadder his partner is gone the flowers are dying there's a airplane tilted in the ground he then turns around to see a door the inside is nothing but glowing white he then walks into it and he is then shown falling endlessly downwards (in a skydiving pose) and around him is objects and scenes probably related to his life. During this previous moments are shown they are a little transparent and have things altered in them like people in them disappearing and the scenes being more sadder there are also new scenes shown possibly related to his memories he then sees a glowing scene of a grassy area (the same one shown in the Taken for a Ride music video) and he decides to move towards it and then he goes into it and he onto the grassy ground then he sees another door and then he starts running through it into a hallway with another door and multiple mirrors showing himself smiling he continues running through the hallways they're all with the same mirrors and door as the first one until the song says "next to nothing" then he enters a hallway with nothing but blackness he keeps going despite that until the song says "But you're gone" and he runs through a door into a room with a hole which he falls into and then the screen slowly fades into black and Martin wakes up in his bedroom revealing that it was just a dream. (P.S During the scene where he is falling as the music gets more intense the background gets more wackier and the moments shown go by faster)

[youhideastar]

Fit for Purpose Deleted Scenes II: Alternate Version, Second Half

Yesterday I posted the first batch of deleted scenes from Fit for Purpose: the first half of a backstory chapter that I ultimately deep-sixed as a distraction. For more explanation, please read that first-half post! Today I'm sharing the second half of that backstory chapter. Again, I'm going to try to keep my commentary on the scenes to a minimum so as not to make this post longer. Other deleted scenes posts are linked in the masterpost. I hope you enjoy!

We pick up during the Sunshot Campaign, with a scene that I've always found perplexing in canon - WWX promising to let LWJ help him with the demonic cultivation. It's not clear in canon whether he ever actually does that. Here, I decided he would.

On another rooftop in the moonlight, eyes dark and urgent, Lan Zhan says, “Wei Ying. You are trying to snatch grain from a roaring fire.”

Because without that grain, I’ll starve, thinks Wei Wuxian. For a moment, he imagines telling Lan Zhan about his core. It’s a wild thought, quickly smothered.

“Wei Ying. Let me help.”

Wei Wuxian knows what he should do: call him “Lan Wangji” again. Smile like a knife. Shove him away.

But the end of the war is coming, and Wei Wuxian knows he’s unlikely to survive it. A few months doesn’t seem like too long a time to pretend that he can be fixed—that what he’s missing is something Lan Zhan can give him.

He says yes. Lets Lan Zhan play pretty songs for him. Spiritually, they do nothing for him.

But the lie makes Lan Zhan feel better.

They’re at war. Lan Zhan could be hurt or killed at any time. Wei Wuxian doesn’t want the last thing he said to him to be cruel. That’s all.

*

In the end, they win. He wins.

The other sects make the omega Meng Yao—Jin Guangyao, now—the hero. What he did, they understand. One short, sharp thrust.

It makes A-Cheng and Lan Zhan angry on Wei Wuxian’s behalf; for his part, Wei Wuxian couldn’t care less. He did what he needed to do. He fulfilled his purpose. He didn’t do it for the glory.

They go back to Lotus Pier.

A-Cheng and Jiejie want everything to go back to the way it used to be. They treat him like Yunmeng Jiang’s head disciple.

So he tries to act like it.

But there’s a hole inside of him. And so, there are things he can’t do. Things he can’t give, because he gave them already, and there’s no getting them back.

He can’t teach sword cultivation—can’t even draw his sword. And no one wants to hear about his talismans; the ones he writes in blood. The ones that draw evil in, rather than repelling it. Any of a half-dozen others would be a better head disciple than he would.

There’s only one part of his job he can really do anymore. And even that is… harder than it used to be. They want to touch and be touched, but his skin still crawls with the touch of the dead. And he doesn’t want to put his mouth on them. He never wants human flesh in his mouth again.

He’d thought he’d be dead for this part.

He was supposed to be dead for this part.

Maybe he is.

A-Cheng lays into him for failing in his duty. For not giving enough. Wei Wuxian places his hand over his incision scar and keeps his silence. He knows it’s true. No matter how much he gives, it could never be enough.

That previous scene is probably the one that hurt the most to cut. I really liked it. But DAMN did it bring down the vibe of the fic. It's so bleak in tone that it really could not coexist with the cute banter in the Jingshi.

Next is my first crack at the Baifeng Mountain scene.

Come to Gusu with me, he says. Let me play for you, let me help you, he says. I am the one who knows you, he says. Better than you know yourself.

For a moment, he imagines it. Going to Gusu with Lan Zhan. Letting Lan Zhan take care of him, letting Lan Zhan imprison him—he can’t tell anymore what it is that Lan Zhan wants to do with him, but he’s not sure he cares. At least he’d be with Lan Zhan. At least Lan Zhan understands that he’s changed. At least Lan Zhan isn’t expecting him to pretend he’s still the laughing boy on the rooftop.

Ah, but it’s a selfish, selfish thought.

Yu-furen saw it in him all along.

For him to cling to Lan Zhan—brilliant, perfect, unparalleled Lan Zhan, who has never needed or wanted anything from Wei Wuxian, not even his body—is just another symptom of his weakness.

No. Wei Wuxian knows what he is. What he is meant for. He is meant to be of use. That is what he was made for. That is why he was saved from starvation on the streets – so he could be of use. To Jiang Cheng, and to Jiejie.

He ignores the voice murmuring in his head, But what use are you to them, really? Except as a mascot, and a whore.

But that didn't really address what I consider the main point of the Baifeng Mountain sequence in this AU, and an incredibly overlooked moment in canon, imo: Jin-furen's assertion that people are starting to believe that WWX and JYL are sexually involved. To me, this is THE turning point of this arc for WWX. The only way he'd ever leave Lotus Pier is if he thought it was better for JC and JYL if he did. I think by this point in canon, he's long ago decided JC would be better off with a different head disciple, but JYL is keeping him hanging on. He doesn't feel like he's failing her. Until this moment, when Jin-furen supplies him with a reason to believe that his presence is hurting JYL, too. At that point, he feels he has to leave. I think if he hadn't found Wen Qing in the street, he might have just wandered out of Lanling and noped out of the whole cultivation world at that point.

None of Yu-furen’s lectures or Jiang-shushu’s stories or A-Cheng’s threats taught him what to do when the very people he’s supposed to live for are better off without him.

He’s a useless head disciple to Yunmeng Jiang Sect. Everything he does makes A-Cheng angry. Whenever Jiejie sees him, she looks worried. Even Lan Zhan—according to Lan Xichen—is working himself to the bone in a futile quest to purify Wei Wuxian’s nonexistent core and bring him back to the sword path.

Then, on Baifeng Mountain, he learns that it’s so much worse than he thought.

“You shouldn’t be alone with him, A-Li,” Jin-furen says firmly.

Jiejie flinches. “A-Xian is my didi. There’s nothing improper—”

“With your mother gone, there is no one who will tell you what you need to hear,” Jin-furen interrupts. When she looks at Jiejie, her face is kind; the look she flicks at Wei Wuxian is like a knife. “But I will. A-Li, didi or no, people are talking. An unmarried omega who turned down an advantageous match to a powerful alpha to stay with her brother…”

“Yes,” Jiejie says, cheeks pale. “My brother, Jin-furen. Will you tell me to stay away from A-Cheng, too?”

Jin-furen waves her fan. “Of course not. That’s different. A-Li.” She barely bothers to drop her voice when she says, “You know what betas do. You know what they’re for.”

Wei Wuxian doesn’t know what Jiejie says to that. He doesn’t stay to find out. And he doesn’t plan to come back.

If he drinks himself to death, it’ll reflect poorly on Yunmeng Jiang. But if he flashes enough gold in the right parts of Lanling City, he thinks he can probably get himself knifed pretty easily, and bleed out fast enough that no one will wonder why his core didn’t save him.

Then A-Cheng can find a better head disciple, and Jiejie’s reputation will be safe.

And Lan Zhan—

Well. Lan Zhan will be fine. He won’t have to try to save Wei Wuxian anymore. Once the first shock is past, it’ll probably be a relief.

*

But in Lanling City, Wei Wuxian doesn’t find a knife in the dark.

He finds a woman in a red cloak, starving and bruised, searching for her beloved brother.

And some part of him that he thought was dead roars back to life, like a new-fed flame.

He remembers standing side-by-side with Lan Zhan, remembers the vows they made. He can’t be a good brother or a good beta. He can’t be head disciple, or cultivate the sword path.

But he can stand with justice. He can defend the weak. He can live with a clear conscience.

For the first time since his body was shattered against the death-soaked earth of the Burial Mounds, Wei Wuxian feels alive.

*

Lan Zhan doesn’t see it that way. Lan Zhan, sheltered under his pretty umbrella, tries to call Wei Wuxian back to the path of orthodoxy.

But Wei Wuxian has just walked away from a valley of corpses. He has seen what the path of orthodoxy is paved with. His hands are shaking. Behind him are those few he managed to save – cold, dirty, half-drowned, frightened, sick. He cannot walk away from them. He cannot believe Lan Zhan would ask him to.

PISSED-OFF AND INCREDULOUS. “We promised we would devote our lives to fighting the wicked and defending the weak!” he shouts, while the thunder rolls. His eyes sting as rain drips down his face. “You tell me, Lan Zhan: who is strong, and who is weak? Who is right, and who is wrong?”

Lan Zhan has no answer.

It rises in Wei Wuxian, then: the same smooth-polished calm that came upon him in the Xuanwu Cave, when he thought the moment had come for him to die for A-Cheng. A quiet but powerful peace.

Yes. He could die here. Now. Not knifed in an alley by some thief, trying to slip unnoticed from a world where he was no longer needed, but in battle against the mighty Hanguang-jun, defending the innocent. That would be worthy. That would be right.

As he raises Chenqing between them, Wei Wuxian can feel himself smiling. His belly churns with joy and sorrow, fear and anticipation.

“If there has to be a fight,” he says, very steady, “then let me fight to the death with you. If I have to die, then let it be at the hands of Hanguang-jun. It would be no injustice.”

But in the end, Lan Zhan steps away.

So Wei Wuxian rides forward. To Yiling, where Jiang-shushu rescued him all those years ago. To Yiling, where he dragged his body back from broken death.

He’s been reborn in Yiling twice. Maybe he can do it one more time. He can only try.

Here is an alternate version of WWX's decision to go with Wen Qing. I'm ultimately not sure which one I like better.

It would be monstrous of him to follow her. To turn his back on his family. His purpose.

You live for them. Die for them, if you have to. Don’t you dare keep anything for yourself that could go to them.

A perversion; a rebellion against nature, from which there could be no return and no redemption.

He thinks about the prisoners shuffled out in chains before the targets. Thinks about the screaming of the women, at Nightless City, as the blood ran from under the doors. Of the old men shot down from behind by golden arrows as they fled on the road, sobbing.

*

Three.

Two.

*

He swore, once, to live with a clean conscience.

He should never have made that vow—his conscience, like the rest of him, belonged to Yunmeng Jiang. It was not his to dispose of.

But he did. He did make that promise.

And even though it makes him ungrateful, and unfilial—even though he knows there will be no coming back from this—he finds he can’t break it.

This one thing, in the end, is his.

Either way, we pick up with this bit covering WWX's second stay in the Burial Mounds. Honestly, this is mostly me getting high on my own worldbuilding.

In the Burial Mounds, every moment reminds him of his time in hell. Resentful energy courses through his veins. His stomach growls with hunger. He wakes every morning with the knowledge that he has turned his back on the whole reason for his existence; that he is an ungrateful, unfilial disgrace.

And still, it is easier to breathe here than it was in Lotus Pier.

The things the Wen refugees need from him are things he can actually give: protection, and they don’t care that he uses methods other than the sword; labor, and for the first time since Wen Qing cut him open, he is not the weakest of the group; and money.

Most prostitutes are claimed omegas; safe enough, since a person can only be claimed once, but clients complain about the smell of a foreign claim, vinegary-sharp and off-putting.

A beta, then, can command a high price – even a skinny, dirty one, who can only ply his trade in alleys and teahouses, rather than silk-sheeted brothel beds.

Wei Wuxian doesn’t mind it. After all, it’s not like it’s so different.

This is what he was made for. People have always told him that. It’s just that, now, they give him money when they say it.

Then there's the "LWJ visits Yiling" section, which made it into the finished fic. We pick up with:

After Lan Zhan leaves, Wei Wuxian doesn’t expect to see anyone from his old life ever again, unless it’s at swordpoint.

But he’s always been loved too well – loved more than he deserves.

“Jiejie,” he whispers, eyes full of tears, as she stands before him resplendent in red.

“I wanted you to see me in my wedding clothes,” she says gently. “Do you like them?”

“You look magnificent,” he tells her, throat tight.

It’s almost more than he can bear, to sit around a table with Jiejie and A-Cheng eating pork rib and lotus root soup, being asked—at A-Cheng’s urging, how?—to give a courtesy name to Jiejie’s firstborn. He thought this was gone for good, and now, it’s—

It isn’t like he never left. It doesn’t feel that way. Wen Ning is waiting outside; the rest of the Wens up on the mountain; his stomach is growling despite the soup, because it’s all he’s eaten all day; black curls of resentful energy fill the ugly hole where his core used to be.

But it feels like, maybe, he could find a new way of belonging. Like, maybe, he could have both: be true to his family and his sect and be true to the vow he made with Lan Zhan.

*

He’s so stupid. He never learns.

And every time he falls into the delusion, people die.

*

But when he gets Lan Zhan’s invitation to Jin Rulan’s 100-days celebration, it seems like a sign from the heavens. Confirmation. He can have both, and the proof is right here, in his nephew’s name written in Lan Zhan’s perfect calligraphy.

He works in a frenzy on his gift for the baby. Night and day, applying new protections, refining those that are already there. Every mo, yao, gui and guai he can think of will be repelled. Curses, too – every curse he ever learned about, and some he invented himself.

This is how he’ll make up for it – how he’ll pay the Jiangs back for what he owes them. Every disappointment, every time he wasn’t there for Jiang Cheng or Jiejie when they needed him, will be made right. He pours his time, his ingenuity, his expertise, and his literal blood into these beads.

They’re not fine jade or lustrous gold. Probably a kid raised as the heir to Lanling Jin won’t want to wear it. But Jiejie can make him, when he’s little. And when he’s older, he can carry it with him in a bag or in his sleeve – that will be enough. Wei Wuxian takes care to make the protections strong enough for that. He doesn’t want to overlook anything. It has to be perfect. This is his chance.

You do anything your jie needs, Yu-furen’s voice echoes, every time Wei Wuxian’s eyes start to close under the weight of his exhaustion. And her children, someday.

I will, Yu-furen, he promises silently, rubbing his eyes and returning to his work. I swear it. I will.

*

And then, there is the ambush.

The box falls from his sleeve.

Jin Zixun closes his hand and—

Wei Wuxian doesn’t completely remember what happens after that.

The dust that used to be lotus-seed beads, pouring from Jin Zixun’s fist like sand through an hourglass – he remembers that very well. It replays in his mind, again and again.

But afterward. That’s when he loses the thread. Loses control.

Loses—

*

Jin Zixuan.

Wen Qing and Wen Ning.

A-Yuan.

Wen-popo. Fourth Uncle. All of the Wens he fought so hard and gave so much to save.

Lan Zhan – his enemy now.

Jiejie, widowed and grieving. Jiejie, wounded. Then—

*

“Jiejie!”

*

There’s no point, after that.

Lan Zhan takes his hand, holds on, won’t let go when Wei Wuxian tells him to. He looks at Wei Wuxian like he sees something worth saving.

But then A-Cheng is there; Wei Wuxian smiles. Good. This is how it should be. His life is A-Cheng’s to take. It always has been.

Everything happens very quickly, then.

And then there’s nothing at all.

Okay, that's all very depressing... future deleted scenes posts won't be so bleak, I promise! Stay tuned for tomorrow's installment.

[presidenthades]

Once again, I am doing a series of my behind-the-scenes thoughts for The Golds while I do light edits for formatting, typos, and continuity. Here’s Chapter 4!

For this chapter’s title, I picked the Crone’s lyrics from “The Song of the Seven” because Old Willow—who is a crone, as a wise older woman—is so important to this chapter.

Detective Aegon was one of the things I was most excited about as I wrote this fic. The idea was born when I read that TGC interview where he said Aegon is “intelligent and has a keen eye for the weak spots for others.” I extrapolated that as Aegon being observant about what makes people tick, which made me think about Sherlock, then I realized my version of Aegon would love being a detective. He gets to run around the city, meet interesting people, and feel a bunch of adrenaline/endorphins/dopamine.

I think Aegon is also very driven by the pursuit of dopamine. In canon, this manifests in his heavy dependency on wine and sex. In this verse, he gets tons of dopamine from his interactions with Jace. But since Jace is preoccupied with the pregnancy and governance and court, he’s deprived at the moment. So in this chapter, he explores his newfound detective hobby which makes him a bit less dependent on Jace for gratification—but not much. Still a simp for his wife 🥲.

Aegon is a night owl, Jace is an early bird. This isn’t an issue in the early days of their marriage because…well, they’re pretty much having sex whenever they’re in the bedroom, and sleep is optional 😂. But the honeymoon period tapers off right around when they discover the pregnancy, and it’s also when Jace’s LIWs are getting accustomed to their roles. The LIWs in particular are jarring for Aegon. LIWs are supposed to have lots of access to their mistress’ rooms, which isn’t a big deal in a traditional marriage where the husband and wife keep separate rooms, and the husband usually sends a message in advance if he wants to “visit” his wife at night. But Aegon has moved in with Jace, and whereas he views the LIWs as intruding on his private time with his wife, the LIWs view him as impeding their ability to do their job.

I decided that Arryk likes Aegon more than Erryk does (another reason the twins choose different sides in the Dance), and that’s why Aegon thinks Arryk is more fun. Erryk was more judgmental during Aegon’s debauchery days whereas Arryk was more chill. As a result, Aegon learned to tell the difference between them, because he wanted to be sure which twin he’s been saddled with. But Aegon likes to mess with people, so he deliberately gets Erryk’s name wrong because Erryk is annoying/inconveniencing him by dragging him to Viserys.

In the show, Aegon/TGC throws some truly hateful glares at Viserys, but at the same time his dialogue shows he longs for his father’s approval. Here, Aegon clings to that resentment (simmering not burning) but is much less interested in Viserys’s approval. He has plenty of approval and affection from Jace, so even though it stings that Viserys doesn’t care, Aegon can shrug it off more easily because he has something/someone better.

Viserys’s story in the show about the horses and coloring, and various comments about how he would’ve been happier as a simple country lord than as king, inspired me to give him amateur agricultural interests. He’s never done any actual farming, but he likes to read about it and daydream about his alternate universe life.

As I hope I made clear in the scene, Viserys is having this conversation for Jace’s benefit rather than Aegon’s. His favoritism for Rhaenyra’s line continues to abound in this universe, and he follows the old-fashioned school of thought that pregnant woman should refrain from having sex, ostensibly to protect the fetus.

In an early draft, Alicent was the one who had a similar conversation with Aegon to leave Jace alone. Alicent’s desire for this conversation was born from her own experience of being relieved not to have to continue having sex with her husband while pregnant. But I changed it because a) Alicent already has enough haters and I didn’t want to add fuel to the fire, and b) it was more thematically appropriate for Viserys to have this talk, since this is a story about Aegon’s journey to fatherhood and I always planned for him to have some kind of “confrontation” with Viserys near the end of the fic. So I needed another scene that highlights the friction between Aegon and Viserys…also I had a lot of fun with the agricultural metaphors 😂.

When Aegon wanders the city at the beginning of this chapter, he is content but aimless. Although he thinks this is exactly what he wants—freedom to do nothing of consequence and just run around—deep down he wants something more purposeful. He needs some kind of goal/target or he falls into a bored malaise, as he does later in the chapter. The detective adventures eventually fill this need, then later taking care of Jace after her kidnapping, then eventually assuming a role in the game to protect his family.

House Tyrell has no history of being kings, and they still seem like they’re finding their footing as lord paramount of the Reach at this point in time. House Hightower is a very old and revered house with a history of being kings, so I feel like Aegon and his siblings may have inherited an ancestral disdain of the Tyrells 😂.

Jace loves roses, but I imagine a Tyrell lady at the garden party getting snooty about how “roses are so very Tyrell.” Similar to Jace’s feelings about colors, she feels like sigils—especially something as common as a rose—shouldn’t belong to any one family.

I did a lot of research about pregnancy for this fic. I came across a few stories of pregnant people getting nauseated during sex because of the jostling movements. I thought that would be very unfortunate for Jace and Aegon…so I made it happen 🙈. And it adds to Aegon’s growing feeling that his presence is a burden during Jace’s pregnancy.

The LIWs are there to make Jace’s life easier, not Aegon’s. So Jace views them as very helpful while Aegon (who is actually a “private” person at heart re: how he wants to live his life) sees them as intruders. This change isn’t sudden but gradual, taking place over the span of several weeks, like the frog in boiling water metaphor. It doesn’t occur to Aegon to protest until it’s too late, and even then, he sees how the LIWs are helping her a lot and he doesn’t want to take that from her. So he doesn’t say anything to Jace.

The LIWs have a designated solar they could hang out in, but they’re eager to stay close to Jace while she’s ill and nauseated. I also think they’re following Rhaena’s example, and Rhaena is used to having free rein to Jace’s rooms. And I don’t want to throw even more shade on Elinor, but her crush on Aegon is compelling her to go to Jace’s rooms fairly early in the morning in the hopes of catching him shirtless 🤭.

Overall, the line “there was no room for Aegon in Jacaera’s chambers when her ladies occupied it” encapsulates a lot of his feelings of being squeezed out of Jace’s life while she’s dealing with so many other things.

I read in a fanfic somewhere (no idea which fic) the theory that dragons are assumed male until they show signs of gestation or lay eggs. I like this theory because it helps explain why so many dragons seem to be male, and F&B has a line quibbling about the rumor that Vermax laid eggs at Winterfell (I think it’s Eustace who lambastes the theory that dragons can change sex). If Vermax did lay eggs, the “assumed male until otherwise proven” theory jives with him being called male previously. Also, I don’t know how dragon anatomy works, but one can assume that it’s difficult to tell males and females apart as hatchlings, and by the time they develop reproductive parts, you don’t really want to be examining them too closely.

I also wanted to make Vermax female so she and Sunfyre could parallel Jace and Aegon. Jace’s first pregnancy coincides with Vermax’s first gestation, and there’s some foreshadowing with Vermax’s three eggs later 👀. Also, I make the dragons’ personalities reflective of their riders’. Vermax is very docile and calm, while Sunfyre is a horny daredevil.

In this chapter, Aegon is still struggling to come to terms with impending fatherhood. He can’t help but feel like the pregnancy has been coming in between him and Jace rather than bringing them closer together, he’s got a lot of his own daddy issues to work out, and he’s still in a “I do what a want, no responsibilities” mindset. But even now, he secretly wants to grow and mature out of this; he imagines placing a dragon egg in his child’s cradle, and it gives him some warm fuzzies.

I imagine there’s a lot of conflict between the maesters and Targaryens whether it’s safe for pregnant women to ride dragons. The maesters wouldn’t consider it safe to ride horses, and riding dragons seems even more dangerous. Meanwhile the Targs are confident in their dragon bonds protecting them. My headcanon is that Rhaenyra and other female dragonriders, unless they’re exceptionally bold/reckless, at least spend their first pregnancy on the ground to be safe. But if that pregnancy goes well, they’re a lot more confident about flying during later pregnancies. Jace is already a cautious person by nature, so she would abide by the maesters’ recommendations.

Jace honestly doesn’t need to/shouldn’t do so many Small Council things right now, but she’s an overachiever. In the modern world, she’s the kind of person who volunteers for all the extra projects at work so she can prove herself. Aegon calls himself a lazy person with a skewed sense of what is urgent, but in this case, he’s actually right about Jace doing too much. One of his weaknesses: he thinks Jace is so perfect that he hesitates to tell her when she’s in the wrong.

Ever since the witch shouted at Joff during the wedding parade, Joff has been thinking a lot about her. She’s been trying to research what the witch said but she’s reached a dead end, so now the only avenue is going straight to the source. I dropped hints in Chapter 2 of the Handbook that Aegon was Joff’s curse tablet dealer, so she goes to him for help. Aegon is a skeptic about witchcraft at this point in the story, but we know that changes later.

Joff has a talent for insulting Targ men where it hurts. Daemon bore the brunt of it in the Handbook, but now it’s Aegon’s turn with the “big baby” comments 😂.

I’ll probably come up with more backstory for Old Willow in Joff’s fic. I imagine her to have genuine powers of some sort (foresight/prophecy at the very least). She isn’t super powerful, but the people around her respect/fear her as the real deal. She makes her money mostly by doing non-magic witchy things, like brewing moon tea, which is in higher demand and more affordable than the occasional curse tablet.

Joff has a prickly personality, but she can and will fight people in defense of her sisters 🤺.

The puncture wounds on Old Willow’s body are from the longshoreman hook that the Tyroshi sometimes carries around. Her death is over-the-top because, as is established in later chapters, the Tyroshi is a sadist. He decides to kill her because she supplied the love/beauty charm to the whore Daisy, so he deems Old Willow guilty as an accomplice.

Because Joff has been thinking about Old Willow a lot, she’s also been thinking about the curse tablet she used several years ago. I’ve deliberately been ambiguous in the story text about what exactly Joff did with the tablet, but many readers have pieced together that Laenor’s death was involved somehow. So Joff has been thinking a lot about her father’s death, and the guilt she’s feeling seeps into her reaction to Old Willow’s death. Old Willow’s death does greatly inconvenience Joff’s little quest, but Joff is also feeling a lot of things about murder victims and the loved ones they leave behind.

Old Willow’s murder was very different in early drafts. Originally the Tyroshi wasn’t involved at all, and Daisy was the murderer because she blamed Old Willow for the love/beauty charm wearing off, and the random whore on the street played a bigger role in helping Aegon investigate. But as I reassessed how I wanted the second half of the fic to go, I reorganized the side characters’ roles and reduced the unnecessary minor characters so they didn’t distract too much from the main story.

Aegon sometimes makes questionable decisions (is it really a good idea to bring a 9-year-old princess to Flea Bottom without any guards at night?), but he has a few “eldest sibling” instincts that foretell what he’ll be like as a father. He tries to keep Joff out of actual trouble (don’t anger the locals, don’t open the bottle that might be poison), shows empathy to her (realizes this must be the first dead body she’s seen even though Joff acts dark and morbid), and gives Joff time to sort through her messy emotions about the witch’s death (lets her investigate the hut instead of immediately dragging her out—although he could also be criticized for letting a kid linger around a dead body). Basically, as a big brother/uncle/good-brother, he’s pretty indulgent and lets Joff explore her interests so to speak, but he intervenes if he suspects imminent danger. After Cheeseball is born, Aegon is understandably very protective of him. But when Cheeseball grows old enough, I see Aegon as being willing to let him run around and potentially fall and scrape his knees, because that’s just a natural part of life and relatively harmless—but Aegon would absolutely stop Cheeseball from running off the edge of a cliff.

I made Joff an early bird because I wanted to thwart the trope that dark witchy character = night owl 😄.

Bethany likes teasing Elinor about her crush on Aegon, hence the little exchange about Elinor making a good posset. But if Bethany suspected Elinor actually wanted to seduce Aegon (which she doesn’t), I think Bethany would draw the line and might even tattle on Elinor. We see in Chapter 5 that Bethany takes her duty to Jace seriously when it matters.

Aegon is right about Jace not enjoying gruesome murder stories, and telling her about his and Joff’s adventures right then would’ve kept her awake for a long time. But his quality time with Jace is limited so he doesn’t get a chance to tell her about it before the feast disaster. The miscommunication trope can be tricky because it’s so easy to make the people involve ridiculously stupid for plot reasons, so I was trying my best to lay the foundations for genuine reasons they wouldn’t have the opportunity to talk to each other. And the miscommunication doesn’t last for long. I think it’s a week at most between Aegon and Joff going to Flea Bottom and the feast.

Just like Vermax and Sunfyre parallel Jace and Aegon, I wanted Syrax and Caraxes to parallel their riders. Rhaenyra has plenty of thoughts about Aegon as Jace’s husband, but she views it as a good thing if a couple has a healthy sex life, hence Syrax’s lack of concern. Meanwhile Caraxes shares Daemon’s antipathy toward Aegon/Sunfyre 😂.

Gyles is jittery because the Tyroshi has been increasing his demands for payment, which Gyles can’t fulfill. A little foreshadowing for later in the chapter.

I priced a bottle of moon tea at three pennies because that’s the price of a fresh fruit tart during Robert’s reign. Ignoring things like inflation, I thought that was a good benchmark: affordable for the smallfolk, but for a whore who’s barely making it on the streets, she has to choose between the moon tea or eating that day. Aegon has selfish motivations when he gives her the entire crate in exchange for information, but it’s a huge windfall for her, especially if she can sell or trade the moon tea she isn’t using herself.

Old Willow warns her customers that magic always has a price (a recurring theme in ASOIAF). I’m sure she warned Joff when she first bought the curse tablet, and the consequences of that event led Joff to stop digging as much into magic the last few years. But Joff is tempted when she gets her hands on the glass candle, and she learns that lesson again later in this fic.

Aegon compares the whore to a courtier because he’s realizing that all people are fundamentally the same, they just wear different clothes and have more or less money. No matter what level of society, everyone loves gossip/scandal.

The rumors of Daisy’s death are not entirely true, but they’re not too far off the mark, and you can see how the rumors developed based on the true version (as told by the madam). Usually the rumors are worse than the truth, but in this case, parts of the truth are even worse than the rumors.

The description of the Garden’s building is intended to evoke a sense of lukewarm attempts to prettify something miserable at its core, like the girls who work there. I added the detail of the woman drinking on the roof because if she falls and breaks her neck, oh well, it’s not like her life was that great 😢.

Undercover!Aegon is the obvious next step in the evolution of Detective!Aegon. Other than his hair color, he doesn’t have as striking Valyrian features like Aemond and Daemon, and he’s mingled enough with the commoners that he can imitate their mannerisms. (Just imagine Aemond trying to pull off that disguise 💀.)

Even though Aemond is right there, Daeron chooses to run to Aegon for advice on girls/women instead. Aegon actually managed to marry the woman he wanted while Aemond is stuck in a flirty limbo, so Daeron concludes that Aegon is the more successful brother 😂. S2 might change my mind, but S1 Aemond is NOT a womanizer/smooth talker/expert on the fairer sex. The same applies in this AU, although Aemond is fairly well-versed in one particular woman…but even so, he still puts his foot in his mouth a lot.

Aegon is NOT shy about nudity lmao. He seems pretty content to loaf around in various states of undress in canon, and so is he here.

I love writing parallel scenes. In Chapter 3, we got Jace having sisterly bonding with Joff and Helaena, and now it’s Aegon’s turn to have brotherly bonding with Daeron and Aemond. And again, Aegon’s traits as a brother foretell what he might be like as a father. He caves underneath Daeron’s puppy face and indulges Daeron in a city outing so he can buy presents for Joff, but when they’re about to enter a sticky situation with the investigation, he tries to send Daeron home. Just imagine what Aegon will be like when Cheeseball gets his first crush 🥰.

Aegon’s statement “I never make Jace angry” was the universe setting him up to make her angry 💀. But Aegon was also kinda right about how groveling stops Jace being angry, because we see him talk his way out of the doghouse in Chapter 5.

I am convinced by the Episode 8 last supper scene that Aegon and Aemond have some brotherly telepathy going on, and that telepathy is even stronger in this verse where they’ve spent more time together in the Stepstones. Hence their ten-second silent exchange where they plan what to do about the mysterious noise in the hatch.

Notice that Aegon instinctively reassures Ronnel and cleans him up a bit. Big brother/dad instincts coming in 🥰. Aegon categorically refuses to help Ronnel with the bathroom (Ronnel wasn’t asking for help anyway, he was asking permission to go), but when it comes to his own kid? See Chapter 10 and how Aegon very studiously helps Cheeseball pass gas 😂.

Gyles and Ronnel know who Aegon is, but they call him “milord” because they aren’t used to interacting with highborns and they figure that address is suitable for anyone of noble birth. Aegon isn’t fussy about addresses and titles so he never corrected them.

Aemond has been doing his homework about dockworkers while at Driftmark. He wants to impress his future grandfather-in-law 😆.

Daeron and Ronnel are the same age, but Ronnel looks younger. Daeron has grown up on a rich diet and ample physical training. Ronnel has never gone hungry, but he doesn’t get as much variety in his diet as Daeron does, and the physical labor that Ronnel does (helping his father make pies) isn’t very conducive to body-building.

Daemon followed the Targbros because he’s nosy and curious about what would get all three of them out of the castle on an important day for Aegon. He got bored during the shopping trip and but became intrigued again when they discovered the abduction, and now he’s piecing together why Aegon has been acting so oddly the past week. Daemon is sticking around for the adventure so he can gather more information about Aegon’s doings, and because a kidnapping ring in the city is something that would interest most people. But also I think Daemon has been bored with domesticity and he wanted a bit of adventure 😂.

This is the point when Aegon forgets about the feast. His acquaintance/sort-of-friend has been violently kidnapped. That’s a big deal! And this is the kind of adrenaline rush that he enjoys. If he did remember the feast, I think Aegon would still embark on the rescue mission, but he would’ve at least sent a message back to the castle (or convinced Daeron to bring the message back).

I am sorry (not really), but I couldn’t resist making the pun “a stream of grizzled seamen trickled through” the brothel 🙈.

Yes, the madam got very excited by the prospect of three pretty Targaryen men. Can’t really blame her.

The madam mentions her “halfwit” guard. This is actually the brother she mentions in Chapter 6, whom the Tyroshi kidnaps to force her into helping him. I imagine the brother as a sweet and innocent guy, so I like to think he makes it out of the ordeal just fine and returns to the Garden. All the girls there like him, and he’s a large guy (I keep imagining someone like Hodor), so he can intimidate most customers who get too rowdy.

Currency fluctuates a lot in the ASOIAF universes, but at one point a gold dragon is the price of a horse. So that’s a lot of money Aegon is offering the madam, although of course as a prince, it isn’t much money to him. 100 gold dragons is apparently a reasonable ransom for a younger son of a noble family, so when the madam asks for 50 gold dragons for the building, she’s basically saying two of her building is equivalent to a ransom for Oscar Tully or Garmund Hightower.

Aegon claims not to care about royal titles or privileges, but he can still be a snob about things like carrying around a ridiculous amount of money (he’s got people for that). As Queen Clarisse Renaldi once said, “It’s not appropriate for royalty to jingle.”

“Help me, I’m drunk” was 100% inspired by “Get help” from Thor 3. I feel like all the distraction names are pretty self-explanatory. But in pretty much every variation, Aegon is the distraction because he’s a showboat, while Aemond ninja murders everybody.

One of the warehouse guards uses the phrase “pretty girl,” which is Aegon’s pet name for Jace, so that triggers him in addition to everything else.

The rescue is when Gyles becomes Aegon’s number one hype man. I had to delete some scenes with Gyles later in the fic because they didn’t flow well, but there’s a scene where Gyles says he wants to teach his son good values like loyalty, and he cites his loyalty to Aegon as an example.

The Garden’s girls stick around to watch the arrests. The night’s events improve their opinions of the Targs (Aegon in particular). There are other factors, like Aegon’s chill managerial style and him selling the brothel for almost-free to Liane, but this is part of the good karma that pays off later when Jace needs help.

Aegon does enjoy the gratitude he receives for the rescue, similarly to how in canon he laps up the crowd’s adoration during his coronation. So that dopamine hit adds to the appeal of continuing his detective work.

The Gyles & Ronnel reunion makes an impact on Aegon because it’s the first time he’s really seeing a loving father-son relationship and affection. It’s sort of a turning point that plants a seed in his mind of what sort of father he wants to be to his unborn child, because now he has evidence there’s an alternative to what he grew up with. Also, note how Aegon feels like a voyeur to this emotional intimacy, but he’s entirely unaffected by physical intimacy like what happens at the brothel.

Originally the chapter dragged on longer with a scene where the Targs help Gyles and Ronnel move their stuff into the Red Keep, because Aegon offers Gyles a job on the spot. There was a whole comedic bit where Gyles reveals the giant cheese wheel that got him into trouble with the Tyroshi. But I decided it would be better to end the chapter where it did, with Aegon realizing his mistake 🤭.

Chapter 5 commentary here

[jungkookfanfictionhappy]

A Guide to Fanfiction Tropes and Genres:

🟪I made this cuz honestly, why not lol. For people who are beginners to the fanfiction universe. For anyone who wants to get a glimpse of what this world is like and the common themes used in this "off-the-wall piece of literature". Could be for research purposes or for curiosity, or maybe you want to start writing stuff but not sure what things you might use. No matter who is reading this, I hope this guide helps you.

--I also made this for myself, as a lil handbook to look at while categorizing the fanfics i collect in my blog.

🟦There are genres/topes/themes which you won't be seeing much or any at all particularly in my blog; but I wanted to add them to the lists anyways because they are widely used in fanfiction. I tried to include the main, most common things used in fanfics. Because in reality, the possibilities in a fanfic are endless.

--Many of these are self explanatory so I didn't add extra info to most of them.

This may be used by other fandoms as well. Since this is a Jungkook based account, he is used for some of the examples. You can replace him with anyone you wish to write/read about.

🟥I added most things myself from the knowledge accumulated through my years of experience in fanfiction consumption. For the things I thought I might have missed, I used multiple websites and a reddit post as a referance, which I will credit their links at the very end.

🟫Shoutout to chatgpt for alphabetizing my lists in the end. It would take me ages to edit this

🟩 If you think there is anything I missed, feel free to contact me, I can always edit this post to add new things.

PS: I chose to omit much of the specificities of explicit content (such as specific kinks). I tried to keep things a bit chill. Most likely the authors will include the details of the explicit events in their explanation section. You will know what they are when you see them.

Genres:

Action

Adventure

Apocalypse/Post-Apocalypse

Comedy/Humor/Parody/Satire

Coming Of Age

Contemporary

Crime

Cyberpunk/Steampunk

Drama

Dystopian/Utopia

Fairy Tale

Family

Fantasy/High Fantasy/Low Fantasy/Urban Fantasy/Isekai

Friendship

Gothic

Historical Fiction/Alternate History/Period Piece

Horror/Slasher

Kid Fic =fanfic that features children in some way. This could vary from the characters having a kid together to someone’s younger sibling/cousin/niece etc.

Mystery/Murder Mystery

Missing Scene/Gap Filler : a fic that is written as a continuation or with additional events added to a canon scene in a show OR a video of the characters of a fandom (e.g. a specific RUN BTS episode where in the end they all go out and get coffee or some behind the scenes stuff the author creates) idk if i explained this well

Paranormal

Philosophical

Poetry

Romance

Sci-Fi/Science Fiction/Space Opera

Slice Of Life

Spiritual

Supernatural

Surreal

Suspense

Songfic: stories which include song lyrics, which may be interposed between sections of the story, or given to a character who sings them.

Thriller/Psychological Thriller

Tragedy

Travel

Urban

Western

Worldbuilding

Genre (Fandom): Based On Tone

Angst/Light Angst :  ”often used in fandom to characterize things which are intended to provoke the feeling of unrest and uncertainty in readers. It generally signifies that the story will be primarily dramatic in nature, rather than comedic or light-hearted, and that characters may suffer mental or physical anguish during the course of the story. ” -fanlore.org

Awkwardness

Case Fic =focus on solving a given mystery or case

Character Development

Crack Fic = “fanworks with a fundamentally ludicrous premise, or otherwise including a plethora of unbelievable, incredible, or just plain silly elements - that is, implying the author/artist must have been on drugs to produce something so bonkers” -fanlore.org

Crossover/Fusion = where multiple fandoms are combined in a way

Curtainfic (Domestic Tranquility, Such As The Characters In A Romantic Pairing "Shopping For Curtains" (Literally Or Figuratively) And Building A Home Together.)

Cute

Dark Fic

DILF/MILF

Domestic

Fix Fic/Fix-It/Deconstruction

Fluff/Tooth-Rotting Fluff

Hurt/Comfort = A character who has been hurt, physically or emotionally, is comforted by another character.

Light-Hearted

Mature

Melancholy

Porn, PWP, Porn Without Plot

Secret Identity

Shipping

Sickfic, Illness, Sick Character

Single Parents

Slow Burn/Slow Romance

Smut

Soft

Sweet

Tension

Character Types:

Aged Up:  a character in a fanwork who's been set to an age notably older than they are (or appear) in the original media.

Aged Down

Alien

Androids, Robots

Angel

Animal Transformation

Anti-Hero

Boss/Employee/Secretary

Canon: the author is trying to stick as close to the canon character as possible.

CEO

Cop

Criminals

Demon

Demigod

Doctor

Dragons

Fairy

Fan!Reader

Gamer

Greek Life/ Frat Boy/ Sorority girl

Gardener

God (Mythical)

Hybrid

Idol!Jk

Idol!Reader

Jock

LGBTQ/LGBTQ Character/LGBTQ Themes

Mafia

Merpeople

Morally Grey/Ambiguous Characters

Mythical Beings & Creatures

Nerd

Noona

Non-Idol

Nurse

Orphans/Orphanage

Out Of Character/OOC

Prince/Princess/King/Queen/Emperor/Empress

Rich Girl/Guy

Shapeshifting

Spies

Stalker

Stripper

Tsundere

Undercover

Unreliable Narrator

Vampire

Villain

Virgin

Werewolf

Witches, Witchcraft

Yandere

Zombies

AU/Alternate Universe:

Afterlife

Aliens AU

Band Of Misfits

Bounty Hunters

College AU

Crime AU

Coffee Shop AU

Destiny/Fate

Dreams/Dreamscape

Dystopian AU

Future AU

Ghosts

Harry Potter AU

Heroes AU

Highschool AU

Historical AU

Hitman AU

Immortality

Magic AU

Marvel/DC AU

Medieval

Medical, Hospital, Doctors AU

Military

Monsters

Mythology

Omegaverse : A setting where humans have a secondary sex (alpha, beta or omega).

Pirates

Pornstar AU

Royalty AU

School AU

Soulmate AU

Spiderman AU

Spy AU

Time Travel

War

Western AU

Witches AU

Zombies

Relationship To One Another:

Bodyguard

Childhood Friends

Childhood Sweethearts

Dating

Divorced

Dorks In Love

Established Relationship

Exes

Exes To Lovers

Enemies To Lovers

Enemies To Friends To Lovers

Fake Relationship/Fake Dating/Pretend Relationship/Pretend Couple

Forced Marriage

Friends To Lovers, Best Friends To Lovers

Friends With Benefits

Frenemies

Fuck Buddies

Hallmark AU

In Which They Are Exes Thrown Back Together By A Chance Visit To Their Hometown (Usually For A Holiday)

Highschool Sweethearts

Idiots to lovers

Long-Distance Relationship

Long-Term Relationship

Marriage

Mutual Pining

Oblivious Pining

Requited Unrequited

Neighbors

Pen Pals

Platonic Relationships/No Romance

Rivals

Roommates

Secret Relationship

Soulmates

Step-Siblings

Unrequited Love/One-Sided Attraction

Best friend’s sibling

Specific Situations:

Accidental Marriage

Adoption

Aftermath

Amnesia

Arranged Marriage

Babysitting

Betrayal

Blind Date

Bonding

Breakup

Cheating

Confession

Desert Island

Disability Fic

Elevatorfic

Eventual Romance

Falling In Love

Fempreg

First Kiss

First Love

First Time

Flashbacks

Forgiveness

Forbidden Love

Grief/Mourning

Hatesex

Healing

Heartbreak

Heartwarming

Holiday, Vacation

Hospital

Idiots In Love

Imprisonment

Injury

Jealousy

Kink

Love At First Sight

Love Confessions, Drunken Confessions

Love Potion/Love Spell

Love Triangle

Marriage Of Convenience

Marriage Proposal

Mates

Make-up sex

Misunderstandings

Mutual Pining

Next Gen/Next Generation

Nightmares

Parenthood

Pining

Plot Twists

Pregnancy

Protectiveness

Pst Lives

Rags To Riches

Rebels

Recovery

Regret

Reincarnation/Resurrection/Rebirth

Rejection

Religion

Rescue

Reunion

Revenge

Revolution

Roadtrip

Snowed In

There is only one bed, Forced Bed Sharing, Sharing A Bed

Teenagers

Teamwork

Time Travel

Training

Trapped

Weddingfic

Based On Text Style Or Elements

First Person POV, Second person POV

Script format

Y/N (your name)

Facetime, video call

Sexting

Social Media AU:

Twitter (X)

Instagram

Messaging App

Warnings,Possibly triggering things or Dark themes:

Abuse

Alcohol

BDSM

Blood

Bullying

Crime

Curses

Death, Character Death/Major Character Death/Minor Character Death

Depression

Drugs

Fights

Gore

Kidnapping

Mental Health Issues

Self-Harm

Stalkers

Substance Abuse

Suicide

Toxic Relationship

Trauma

Violence

Weapons

Yandere

Length:

Drabble: A very short fic, usually said to be around 100 words. But I’ve read plenty of drabbles with 1K-2K words so 100 is not always the case

One-Shot/Two-Shot/etc

Series/Duology/Trilogy/Saga/etc

Long

Short

Short Story

Pairing:

M/F - F/M - M/M - F/F - F/F/M etc.

[Character] x [Character],

Jungkook X Original Character/OC : usually OCs are characters with disclosed names and physical features withing the story. (e.g. Jessica, blond hair, brown eyes, etc.) However i have seen many fanfics where the author writes “Jungkook x OC” in the explanations but the character throughout the story is in fact written like a self-insert/YN/reader with little to no physical descriptions.

Jungkook X Reader (Y/N or “_____” )

AFAB- assigned female at birth

Jungkook X gender neutral reader/character

OTHERS:

POV -point of view

POV Alternating, POV Multiple, POV First Person, POV Second Person, POV Third Person, POV Outsider

Completed / Ongoing — a fanfiction series is one of two things, it’s either completed or ongoing

Ending: Happy Ending, Sad Ending, Bittersweet Ending, Ambiguous Ending, etc.

Epilogue :  the final chapter at the end of a story that often serves to reveal the fates of the characters.

🟥Credit:

reddit - very well made, i used this a lot while making this list

fanlore.org

tvtropes.org

wikipedia

-The end

⚠️You may reblog or share the link of my post. But please dont repost this without crediting me.

[sorcerous-caress]

What are your thoughts that we can now recruit Minthara in a play through where you defend the grove?

I like it honestly, because at the end of the day whether you slaughter the grove or not, she still ends up at the same situation in moonrise tower.

I have a lot to say about this.

She is still deemed not good enough for failing at her mission, no matter how far she went, no matter if she actually found the grove and killed the innocent and the guilty. At the end of the day, she is still scorned by Thorm and sent to prison.

Failure is essential to her story, failure proves how conditional the love of the absolute for her is. That's what gets Minthara to leave.

Also it gives her more opportunity to interact with good aligned characters. I read this post before about someone's experience with Minthara during their first game and how they skipped the whole goblin camp thing, so from their point of view, Minthara was just an innocent person as any other being sentenced to death by Ketheric Thorm, the man you learn early on is the obvious bad guy who you need to kill. So their lawful good paladin saw absolutely nothing wrong with freeing her and letting her join them.

What I'm saying is, it takes a certain kind of person to kill the grove, and if your Tav just didn't happen to be that person then it's a massive OOC which will bother you a lot. I'm glad the developers took initiative and allow for alternative Minthara recruitment because of how much the people loved her.

Then you might say what's the point of slaughtering the grove? Well what's the point of anything really, it's a role-playing game. What's the point of helping Alfira with her song or the point of exposing kagha to the grove you'll end up leaving alongside the tieflings? It's a role-playing game, the point is to roleplay.

And there are some benfits still, her only sex scene is locked behind the grove route. And she tells you that she prayed for you to come and save her while being in prison if you've met her before, she tells you that spending the night with you was something she did out of her own free will.

You can still slaughter the grove even if the consequences outweigh the benfits. Because well, let's be real, those consequences aren't loot that you're losing but your companions, future friends and innocent children. You don't lose anything of actual value besides the people, those consequences are just reasonable consequences, not a reward, not a punishment.

Of course when people die their questline stops, of course the good aligned companions will leave when they see this mascara. The devs aren't punishing you, they're being true to the characters.

Evil isn't always rewarding, good isn't always the easy route.

It's still an option, still a choice offered to you. Even in terms of loot, the tieflings were poor they had nothing worthy to steal, only the druids did.

Evil is the easier fight between the two, you're killing a handful of civilians and inexperienced fighters instead of a whole camp of goblins with their leaders. Not to mention you even get backup when killing the grove, you're at a clear advantage, you can let your turn skip and still win the fight.

Evil is the fastest one too, all the goblins leave afterwards and you're granted the spider lyre. Which you would've had to go to the underdark and do the much harder Nere fight to obtain.

Evil is convenient, easy, fast and straightforward. You lose your friends but you gain loot, respect, and a clear way to your destination.

Minthara had little to do with taking the evil route, she says it herself that she is just a typical drow that happened to be at goblin camp at the time. That you could've just as easily killed her like you did to the others, but you didn't. Your small act of mercy barely changed anything in your world, but it changed the whole world for her.

I really don't get it when people say the evil route locks you out of so many good stuff, characters are not stuff or loot in the game world, they're people and they have free will. In terms of loot I think it evens out at the end, you do get that amazing Warlock robe for killing Karlach and the slayer form for killing isobel don't you?

It's all about choices, evil isn't fun for everyone and that's fair. Good isn't always fun too, Ascended Astarion and God Gale are more interesting concepts but it's not the right path is it.

Minthara deserves redemption, if she wants it. She deserves a small mercy out of the universe, a chance to escape the clutches of death that no one else in the goblin camp was granted.

It's not about you, the player, it's about Minthara and her story. The writers granted her this small miracle, why take it away just to make her exclusive? To make her do something that she calls horrific later in the game, that she admits to not wanting to be held responsible for the lifes she has taken.

She is evil aligned yes but she is never needlessly evil, she doesn't have a lust for blood she kills because she has to so she can survive. She tells you to control yourself when you express how excited you are to slaughter the grove, she doesn't seem to care for the chance to kill people, her main motivation is the absolute that she believes she is doing the right thing.

Minthara does not kill for the sake of killing.

When you prob her futher as Durge, she tells you that it's a good thing that murder excites you because it will make it easier for you to do, she subtly confesses that she does struggle with murdering people but she still does it no matter how hard.

Because that's how she was raised, that's the cruelty of drow culture and the Baerne family, that's why she is so fast to condem Lolth and her ways.

She wouldn't bother to kill the grove on her own is what I'm saying, she wouldn't see them as worthy opponents, she wouldn't care for them. Wasn't it for the absolute absolute orders, she would've been somewhere else.

Also keep in mind that they purposely isolated and seperated all the drows they kidnapped. Each absolute stronghold so far only has one or three drows per order. Underdark has Nere, Goblin camp has Minthara, Fireworks shop has the drow guy, Moonrise tower has Oblodra.

They purposefully spread them out so they can't have a resemblance of their home back in the underdark. Drows are very exclusive societies, most of them only interact with other drows for the rest of their lives, everyone else is a murder on sight kinda of deal.

She tells Thorm that, only if he has given her drow warriors, someone she can understand.

Yet she is supposed to work with these goblins. Why do you think her station is kept in the dark and most isolated part of the camp? Ragzling has an entire throne room with followers, the priestess has a throne too in the entrance and a private chamber.

Minthara has the crumpled edge near a cliff that's an abandoned library or something? Evening getting to her is very inconvenient and deliberately misleading. The two drow soldiers were following ragzling too and didn't even mention Minthara. Her own people were ignoring her while only 3 goblins stayed around her station.

Minthara wasn't loyal to these people even in a leader sort of way, yet she craved loyality so unlike a typical drows who are known for stabbing people in the back. She wanted to be loyal and she did give her genuine best to Ketheric.

But he didn't care for what crimes you and her have commited or not, he has done worse and killed many more people. He discards her just as easily and that's why it stings so much more when he does it after you slaughtered the grove.

Because you were there, your remember their screams, their helpless attempts at fighting back. The guilt is still fresh sitting at the pit of your stomach like poison refusing to resurface, preventing you from throwing it up.

At the end, it didn't matter, it nevered mattered to Ketheric. All her efforts, all that you sacrificed, everyone who died by his orders. The end results is always the same.

And so this small act of mercy of sparing her is like a gift to her honestly. After all she has been through, she deserves a chance at redemption, an easy way out, the one time the scale of fate actually leaned her way.

[reginarubie]

Kissed by Fire ~ Kissed by Steel 1: What inspired you to write the fic this way? 2: Which scene did you put on first? 3: What is your favorite plot? 4: What's your favorite line of dialogue? 5: Which part was hardest to write? 6: What is your fic special or different from all your other fics? 7: Where did the title come from? 8: Did any real person or event inspire any part of this? 9: Was there an alternate version of this fic? 10: Why did you choose this pairing for this particular story? 11: What do you like most about this fic? 12: What do you like least about this fic? 13: What song did you hear that made you want to write this story? Or if you haven't heard anything yet, what do you think readers should hear to keep us reading? 14: Is there anything you would like readers to learn from reading this fic? 15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

Hi nonny,

These are very throughout, I hope I manage to satisfy you on all of them!

I was inspired by some friends here on tumblr who were all like, “you like Aemond, you like Sansa, why don’t you write a fic about them?” and by that time there were very few fics about them so I thought “why not?”. About writing it that way, the thing about me is that I go “braccio” which is that usually I go with the flow, this way it felt best, it felt the most plausible.

What scene did I put in first… this is kind of hard, because I don’t usually put scenes down. I imagine them though, and the first few I imagined were: how Sansa was pushed back in time, so the prologue; Sansa waking up and Aemond telling her that he would show her his scar because he had seen hers.

I think I have a few favorite plots: AemondSa being the first one for how it’s going to play out, close second Daeron/Symon and last… well I won’t tell because it’d be spoilerish 😉.

My favorite line of dialogue … I think this one is hard, but I think the whole convo between Aemond and Sansa after she managed to be naturalised as a Whent. “I told you I could not tell you everything, told you I was willing to work beside you. I did not work behind your back, I did what I had to do to ensure your family came off clean from this. Lord Strong has no lawful way to pursue me anymore and it’s not any of yours fault!” she said “that was the goal and I reached it. If this is not enough for you to believe me, then what are we talking about?” Aemond let his hands fall at his sides “I don’t know” he said at last “what are we even talking about?” Why do I love this convo so much, you may ask, it’s because it’s a relationship cracking under pressure, like coal becoming diamond under pressure. It was part of their journey, and it was so overwhelmingly real to me that made it one of my favorites convos in the entire series.

I think the hardest are Rhaenyra’ chapters because I feel out of place in her mind, but on the all the most taxing one to write was Rhaenycent cold end.

This story is special to me, if confronted with others, because it’s the first one I have written about a time-travel plot and the first one I have felt the need to expand creating a whole AU universe.

The title actually comes from a poll I opened, the idea was because Sansa is kissed by fire for her hair and Aemond is kissed by steel because of his scar, plus Aemond kisses Sansa and represents fire whilst instead Sansa represents steel. Instead, the subtitles usually come from songs that inspired me during the writing.

Not really. Though some of the relationships dynamics I have seen in my life seep through the writing at times. I think a bit of my own sarcastic sassiness seeps at times in the characters, but that’s mostly it, really.

Is there an alternate version?, not that I know of, not written by me. 🤔 though perhaps there will be in future, whose to say?

This pairing sort of was suggested by @sansaissteel and @maddiethefashionista and I kind of became hooked, it made sense for the time-travel plot and I thought that if Sansa was pushed in that time Aemond would be the one to whom she’d naturally shift her attention and love.

I like the most how many great characters I could explore and how many interesting dynamics. I think I love especially — beyond the AemondSa and the way it weaves with Sansa’ original timeline — the Starks of that time and little Celia and the Royces.

I like the least the character of Lord Strong. But not much anything else.

I actually have a Spotify playlist (which I’ll link down below) though not all songs I listen to are there — I have been a bit remiss on updating it tbh — and tbh, the songs I use in the edits are pretty much the song I listened to on repeat when I wrote that particular chapter.

Oh, I did not start to write this to teach readers anything, but I think I’d like them to put their attention to the way the dynamics shift and the way characters can have or not redeeming arcs or qualities if treated correctly and mostly how to be able to set boundaries and learn to work together as a team which is what Aemond and Sansa are currently doing.

What I learned? I like the way the dynamics between Daeron and his brothers and between the Targtower siblings is flawed but still good, I think I learned much more about my own dynamic with my sibling than I consciously knew by writing these complex siblings dynamics.

I think that’s all! Hope you enjoyed and thank you for showing so much interest in me and the story!

Firesteel instrumental playlist

Firesteel playlist

[kinetic-elaboration]

February 25: Daria Music Resource

I was reading a reddit thread about where Daria and Jane’s music tastes might diverge because that’s what happens when you go down internet rabbit holes on the weekend, and since I’d already sort of been thinking about characters’ canonical music tastes, I thought I’d make a list. A lot of people seemed to think Daria would be into death metal, which was never the vibe I got, but to each their own. There were also one or two people who said classical music; I got that vibe even less. And at least one who said she didn’t listen to music—unrelatable, truly, and anyway there’s headphones and a CD player included as part of the perpetual clutter on her bedroom floor, so I think it’s fairly obvious she does. But there were also some interesting points made that I would accept as headcanons, or that merged with some of my own ‘I have no evidence for this but it’s the vibe for sure’ thoughts that I’d already had.

Personally, I think their music tastes are very similar and if they diverge it’s because Daria likes some stuff that’s more obscure and weirder. I think Jane has a wider, broader taste, and I also think she’s probably more into music—she has the big-ass stereo in her room, the musician brother, the headphones she wears while running, etc.

But what I wanted to do really was more along the lines of a resource based in textual evidence, to start off with. I definitely think people should just use the general vibes of things, or what is most relatable to them, for headcanons, but I also really like being able to base headcanons and other beliefs in the text and there’s more evidence than one might think. One confusing point is that the show has—or had, haha, in its original run—a LOT of music in it, because in every scene that would usually just have a TV score they were using recently released music instead. I do not count any of this background music as specifically indicative of a character’s taste unless it’s shown to be playing in a way they can hear. In a very general sense, sure, the music played in Daria the TV show might be indicative of the musical taste of Daria the character—but that music is pretty eclectic, so it’s quite wishy-washy as evidence.

So, here’s what I’ve found:

Daria:

Boss Hog – written on a CD in Dara’s bedroom in Café Disaffecto; I might be reading this wrong since it looks a little like “Boss HxxS” where the X’s are illegible, but I can’t think of who else it could be

Bog Men — written on a CD in the same scene

Also in this scene is a CD that looks like it has “Delta” written on it, idk what this is, and a partial title “GH” at the end of a word.

The Beatles – gives Ted a tape of The Beatles in The New Kid

Jane:

Boss Hog – big poster in her room visible in multiple episodes

The Foo Fighters – Color and the Shape poster in, I want to say IICY, or something else toward the end of the series

The Presidents of the United States – Peaches was playing in her room when Daria walked in on her and Tom in DDMD (this is per Outpost Daria; I can’t personally identify it in the fan-restored version or remember it from when I first watched the show)

10Speed – Jane was listening to Space Queen in her headphones when ‘speed walking’ with Helen in Lane Miserables

NY Loose – Spit playing on Jane’s stereo in Esteemsters during the commercial break before Sick Sad World

Radiohead - listening to Paranoid Android through headphones in The Misery Chick

Theme from the Poseidon Adventure - favorite song per Sappy Anniversary

Trent:

Korn – poster on his wall in That Was Then, This is Dumb

Slipknot – poster on his wall in the same episode

Nirvana – he’s practicing the intro to Come as You Are, per Jane, in The Invitation

General alternative/grunge – Jane refers to the Zen as a “grunge club” (Ill) and Trent and Jesse want to go to the Alternapalooza (Lolapalooza c. 1997) in Road Worrier; this probably also applies to Jane, who invited herself to go with them, and possibly Daria as well

Jake and Helen:

Jake, showtunes – he’s singing Give My Regards to Broadway in The Teachings of Don Jake and talks about his own attempt at writing a musical in The Story of D

Helen, Joni Mitchell – quotes Big Yellow Taxi in the flashback in The Teachings of Don Jake

60s Classic Rock – they did not go to Woodstock, but Jake was at Altamont, where artists like Santana, Jefferson Airplane, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, and The Rolling Stones played. Also… they were hippies. Enough said.

That’s all I can remember for now. As far as headcanons go, I definitely think Daria would be into some classic rock through her parents. I think Jane would be into post-punk like Joy Division (personal major hc for me lol). I think they’d both be into punk, grunge, alternative stuff; that seems to fit with the bands they actually are shown to be listening to. I’m neither the right age nor the right level of coolness to name names lmao but I think these bands and the other bands used in the show (with the caveat above that they aren’t canon interests technically and with a priority to scenes with the character in them) would be a good place to start spinning out headcanons or brainstorming band names for fic purposes etc.

[dangan-kagura]

Why I Don't Like Ibuki Mioda

Let me just point out that this isn’t a rant, this is just my opinion, so you can read it if you’re up for it. I know I’ve probably shared stuff like this in the past, but now I’m trying to share every bit of detail I can think of so that it could make things clearer, and I took the liberty of including images and links as sources (it was hard to find good quality images, so some of these are video links, not to mention I could only use 30 images, and I do hope that certain images came out okay, if not, please say so). But if you like Ibuki, go right ahead, you don’t have to agree with me. Also, I should point out that there might be spoilers.

To Begin With

When I first met Ibuki, my first thoughts were, “She looks like a scene girl.” I didn’t seem that interested in her because, even though she's called the Ultimate Musician/Ultimate Light Music Club Member, somehow I had a different idea as to what kind of music Ibuki was into and the purpose behind her character just from looking at her fashion sense. When I found out that Ibuki wants to be a death metal musician, not only did I try to deny it, but I knew immediately that I wouldn’t like this character. But it wasn’t her concert that led me to realize this, I was suspicious about her taste in music ever since I met her.

In the first class trial, Ibuki said “*Splat shank stab*” and I knew from her tone of voice that it sounded like a screaming vocal. That led me to think that Ibuki also probably plays metalcore/screamo, and boy was I disgusted with that thought, the title for Ultimate Musician going to someone who plays extremely aggressive metal subgenres was not cool and not funny. I knew then that Ibuki would automatically be my least favorite character in the series if she’s into that kind of music. When I tried to listen to what her music sounds like, not only was I feeling anxious and uncomfortable, but my blood was boiling. During my first playthrough of SDR2, when I got to the part where she performs her concert, I skipped it obviously because I knew I wouldn't like it and just had to put the game down for a few days until I got over it. At the time, I wanted to believe that Ibuki Mioda sucks and is the worst Danganronpa character.

Why Does This Bother Me?

For over a decade, I’ve been disgusted from having to see how popular metalcore/screamo (call it whatever you want) have become, to the point where not only are mainstream rock stations now playing this kind of music, but popular culture is making references to their subculture. An example is the fictional "Horns on a Rabbit" band from the Nickelodeon series, The Loud House, which is a kids cartoon by the way. Let me just say that I enjoy listening to rock, punk, metal, and alternative, but I have my limits and particular tastes. I don’t listen to metal songs involving death growls and screaming vocals because I believe that music like that is mediocre and talentless. But what really upsets me is seeing how popular this kind of music became during the 2010s, and for every modern rock music playlist I’ve seen, literally the top songs are metalcore/screamo songs. It was so ridiculous, it was enough to make me argue, “Why would you put that band as track #1!?”

Here’s an example of a playlist. In 2015, there was a special rock music edition to the NOW That’s What I Call Music series. It consisted of some of the top rock songs of the mid 2010s, and would you know it, track #1 on the album was “Throne” by Bring Me the Horizon. Why on Earth would a band like that be number 1 on the album!? In fact, in comparison, this album also included “Shut Up and Dance” by Walk the Moon, but that song was listed in the last quarter of the album. You’d think that a song like that would be a better choice for track #1 due to how popular it was back in 2015, so there is no way in Hell you can convince me that a band like Bring Me the Horizon would outsell Walk the Moon. But Walk the Moon is just one example of a band that could’ve been track #1. The album also included “On Top of the World” by Imagine Dragons, and again, you’d think that a song like that would’ve been a good choice for track #1, but apparently not.

Feeling provoked about this, I wanted to see if any metalcore/screamo songs were included as being labeled as the worst kind of music. But unfortunately, for every “worst songs ever” lists I’ve read online, none of the songs included are songs of those genres, instead they consisted of top-charting pop and other rock songs. These articles are just some examples.

Wikipedia article for list of music considered the worst

Rolling Stone’s 10 Worst Songs of the 1980s

Rolling Stone’s Worst Songs of the Nineties

NME’s 32 of the Very Worst UK Number One Songs of All Time

Metacritic's Top 50 Worst Reviewed Artists

Buzzfeed’s These Are 30 of the Worst Songs Ever Written

Out of the songs from the last article, I found it upsetting that The Offspring and Fun were among the list all because this critic hated their genres and trends without giving it much detail. In case you didn't clink on the link, these images were taken from the article (they aren't links to Youtube).

What gives this person the right to say that hipster indie bands like Fun and 90s punk bands like The Offspring sound like crap but screamo bands like Bring Me the Horizon don’t!? That makes no fucking sense at all!

Not only that, but I found it hard to believe that there was nothing highly controversial surrouding the genre's popularity. I think at one point, I tried to compare screamo's popularity to the controversy about Marilyn Manson's music inspiring the Columbine massacre. Let me just say that those were false accusations and I'm on the side saying that Manson had nothing to do with Columbine, but I'll get to the point. When I thought about it, for all the mass shootings and school shootings that happened in the 2010s, not once did anyone point fingers at any screamo band for inspiring them. Of course, such a controversy would only be my excuse to flame these bands, because like I mentioned, they would just be false accusations to criticize the genre. And just to be clear, I would actually prefer Mairlyn Manson's music over screamo any day.

Getting Back to Ibuki

The fact that I hate metal songs involving death growls and screaming vocals is preventing me from liking Ibuki and that’s unfortunate, because not only is she a fan favorite, the fandom calls her a cinnamon roll, but I think otherwise. You know how Miu and Teruteru make sexiest remarks? I assumed Ibuki was doing something similar, in which every sentence she says has some sort of death metal reference. An example are times where she would bite Hajime and say something like, "I'mma take a bite outta you!"

Artwork found on Danbooru, artist is renshu usadayo.

I assumed Ibuki was referencing human cannibalism which is a topic used in death metal lyrics. That gave me the impression that Ibuki’s comic relief was more like dark humor and the purpose behind her character was to make the player uncomfortable. Another example: “I’ve thought up a new song! The title is “I’m Gonna Dismember You for Doubting Me!”

Dismemberment is another topic in death metal lyrics. Another example: "We could totally dress this place up with some splattered organs."

Doesn't that sound bloody or gory to anyone? Can you still call Ibuki a cinnamon roll? Did what Ibuki just say make anyone uncomfortable? Don't you think it's similar to the gory stuff Genocide Jack said?

Dissection is another topic in death metal lyrics. Last example (V3 spoilers): "Do you got the guts to make such a heartless choice?" When Ibuki used the word "guts" don't you think it sounded like a reference to something gory? And yes, I know that it was just Tsumugi cosplaying as her, but it still bothers me. How would Ibuki's quotes be any different from Miu’s aggressive fanservice quotes like, “If you’re gonna fuck me in front of everyone, at least buy me dinner first!”

I’m aware that Ibuki didn’t like Miu in UTDP or even Teruteru, but this is what I thought at the time, and I’m aware that Kodaka wrote Miu to be hated even though the fandom loves her.

I Wanted Her to Die Before Chapter 3

Even though Hajime said all his pain melted away when he was with Ibuki (see here) I never felt that way about her and I felt nothing but relief for her death. Ibuki’s behavior was just really annoying, like how she invaded Hajime’s cottage to wake him up, and certain sprites made me feel uncomfortable, namely the one where her nose extends like Pinocchio.

I'm willing to tolerate this sprite if she had an event scene with Kokichi or Celestia. It would work like this, Ibuki would say something idiotic using that sprite, but Kokichi and Celestia act unimpressed and see right through her. Would that imply that Ibuki is lying when she makes that pose?

Aside from that sprite, there's also that one where she’s waving and her tongue is sticking out.

I get that other characters like Kazuichi have similar sprites, but this one with Ibuki bothers me because she's bound to say something that'll upset me.

And then there's that one where it looks like she’s screaming.

Because I was suspicious about what kind of music she plays, I wanted nothing to do with her. When I tried to get her free time events, I was feeling anxious because I was scared to wonder if her next move would be to make some reference to her taste in music, and I didn’t want to have any triggers because I hate that kind of music. I even thought that Ibuki's cottage had posters of all these unfamiliar death metal bands with that font style of theirs, but I'm glad that there weren't.

I’ve never met anyone in the fandom who’s admitted that they don’t like Ibuki because of her music, instead they say they love her for her positivity, humor, fashion, sexuality, her acceptance to who she is, and help during the class trials. For someone who acts so positive, it doesn’t feel right for her to sing songs about extremely dark, negative topics. I’ve been told that that was the whole point, the game starts off thinking that Ibuki is always sweet and nice, until you find out that she enjoys listening to extremely aggressive metal subgenres, but that just wasn’t funny to me. How would that be any different from Kirumi starting off as a hard-working maid until you find out that she's the prime minister? Even though that was upsetting for me, I still love Kirumi and think she deserves better, but in Ibuki's case, learning about her taste in music only makes me want to not like her. It would’ve been funnier if Ibuki played gangsta rap, but she’s never made any hip-hop references. But I guess her taste in music would explain her loud personality, and her hyper energy is probably due to all that coffee she drinks.

Free Time Events

Her free time events weren’t even inspiring, it was more like she was forcing Hajime to start a death metal band and Hajime couldn’t do anything about it. In some of her free time events, like when she was showing Hajime how to play drums, it felt like Ibuki was saying stupid things that would make Gonta and Yasuhiro look like geniuses (Gonta's case) and I’m a fan of both of those characters and even thought Hiro’s free time events were funnier.

Ibuki once said she was trying to find an eight-leafed clover, don’t you think that would’ve been either funnier or ridiculous if Hiro said that? Would it be any different from Hiro's interest in things like OOPArts, aliens and conspiracy theories?

In fact, some of Ibuki’s weird antics felt on par with Angie’s weird antics (see here) whether it's her obsession with Atua or blood sacrifices, and I’m not an Angie fan. But that’s the thing about Danganronpa characters, they’re supposed to do weird things.

Regretfully knowing what kind of music Ibuki is into, even her normal conversations felt dark to me. Her last free time event where she says that her dream is to play music with people who trust her felt dark because, to me, it was more like she said she wants to play death metal with her friends even though they all feel uncomfortable around her when she plays that kind of music. Even Ibuki’s advice about finding who you are was no help to me, because I thought back to her music and thought that she was telling Hajime that joining her metal band was what she wanted him to do. In other words, I assumed Ibuki was using Hajime and that she didn’t actually care about him. I’m aware that the purpose behind her free time events was for her to try and cheer Hajime up and help him find his talent, but it just wasn’t serious enough for me.

Her Relationship With Hiyoko

Out of everyone in the series, Hiyoko is the only one who actually likes Ibuki’s music and I’ve got a good idea as to why. Call it a headcanon or theory, but I think the reason Hiyoko likes Ibuki’s music is because she wants to imagine her bullies killed in whatever kind of dark situations are used in Ibuki’s music. It’s hinted that Hiyoko was also a victim of bullying just like Mikan (see here) and thanks to Ibuki’s music, Hiyoko probably wants to imagine her bullies getting killed in the most fucked up ways like the following: Rape, torture, dismemberment, decapitation, dissection, cannibalism, all of which are topics used in death metal lyrics.

Hiyoko is basically one of those kids who wants to kill her bullies to get revenge for bullying her, and in Mikan’s case, Hiyoko was someone who was bullied and ended up turning into the bully. Why else would Hiyoko like squishing ants? Because she wants to imagine them as her bullies. Why else would Mikan murder Hiyoko? Becasue Hiyoko always bullied her and Ultimate Despair Mikan wanted revenge (that, and Hiyoko was a witness to Mikan killing Ibuki). And it's not just her bullies, Hiyoko probably also imagines Mikan getting fucked up in whatever kind of dark songs Ibuki sings.

Was what Hiyoko just said about watching a gory horror movie similar to what Ibuki said about using splattered organs for her concerts? Compared to how the fandom loves Ibuki, the fandom hates Hiyoko, obviously because she acts like a spoiled brat and is always bullying Mikan. But no one says anything about not liking Hiyoko because of the fact that she’s a fan of Ibuki’s music. If you're someone who loves Ibuki's music, you're no different from Hiyoko even if you hate her.

She Acts Like an Oni

The only thing about Ibuki that I admit I thought was a little interesting was the idea that Ibuki acts and looks like an oni. I realized this when I was comparing her to the oni characters in Touhou, namely Suika Ibuki. In a way, Mioda does kinda behave similar to Suika (see here) Suika’s childish behavior could be similar to how playful Mioda can be, and the horns Mioda has in her hairstyle are supposed to be oni horns (I’m saying her last name to avoid confusion).

Artwork of Suika is from the Touhou Wiki.

And since it’s confirmed that Suika is based on the oni king, Shuten-douji, that led me to believe that Mioda is also trying to be like Shuten-douji. “Ibuki” would refer to Mount Ibuki where Shuten-douji was born, and out of the gifts you can give to her, Mioda loves Lust Setsugekka which is sake, and Shuten-douji was an alcoholic (even though the game says it’s alcohol free but it still gets you drunk).

Even the outfit Ultimate Despair Ibuki wore reminds me of something Shuten-douji would wear (or at least like how Shuten-douji is portrayed in the Fate series) making me think that Ultimate Despair Ibuki acted like a real oni.

Sprite edit found on Reddit.

Artwork of Fate's Shuten-douji is from the Type-Moon Wiki. It's not really identical, but the outfit Ultimate Despair Ibuki wore just looks like something from Japanese culture.

But the fact that Ibuki acts like an oni can still relate to her interest in heavy metal music and here’s what I mean. Remember the times Ibuki tried to bite Hajime? In Japanese mythology and folklore, oni are monstrous youkai that have devil horns and eat people (see here). The occult is the most common theme for heavy metal music, and as I mentioned before, cannibalism is a topic used in death metal lyrics (see here). And remember that I pointed out that Shuten-douji was an alcoholic and there are rock and metal bands that have songs about alcoholism (although I've read that extreme metal subgenres don't use this topic). So Shuten-douji would be like Ibuki's version of Satan, like Shuten-douji and other oni, Satan is often portrayed as a monstrous being with devil horns (see here). The reason Ibuki is dressed like an oni could be because she’s into metal bands that like to dress up as monsters, but I’m not talking about bands like Slipknot, Hollywood Undead, or that guy from Limp Bizkit, I’m talking about all of the unfamiliar and underground death metal bands no one has ever heard of. And as a Remnant of Despair, Ibuki probably used death metal lyrics to hypnotize people into committing violent acts, not just terrorism, but especially cannibalism.

Moreover, there are other oni characters from Touhou such as Yuugi Hoshiguma who is described as being an underground youkai and resides in the Old Hell. Don't you think that's similar to how Satan resides in Hell? And in the Touhou manga, Wild and Horned Hermit (spoilers if you haven't read that manga) Ibaraki-douji's Arm threatened to eat Reimu Hakurei (see here). Don't you think that's similar to how Ibuki wanted to bite Hajime? Think about it, what would chapter 4 of SDR2 be like if Ibuki was trapped in the funhouse starving to death? She would obviously resort to eating everyone.

Aside from the oni characters, there’s also Hecatia Lapislazuli. Even though she’s not an oni, she is described as a Goddess of Hell, and Touhou series creator ZUN confirmed that her design is based on the death metal subculture (see here) and the Touhou fandom even calls her “Hot-Topic-chan” because her Welcome ❤ Hell shirt looks like something from Hot Topic.

Doesn’t that feel similar to Mioda’s fashion sense? And Hot Topic sells plenty of metalcore/screamo shit, so Mioda is like a fusion of Suika and Hecatia. I know that the Danganronpa fandom says Ibuki’s outfit is punk, but compared to Leon, I’ve never seen Ibuki make any reference to punk rock music, it all just feels like metal to me. I’m aware that metalcore/screamo are both inspired after hardcore punk, but that’s not enough to convince me that Ibuki is into the same kind of bands Leon is into.

According to this character analysis video by Weeby Newz, the reason Ibuki left her band is because she refused to play traditional pop music and was instead interested in playing metal, the aggressive kind at that. Let me compare that to something about Yuugi Hoshiguma (see here). It's stated that she and other kinds of oni and youkai refused to follow the rules of Gensokyo and decided to move to the Old Hell in the Underworld and became underground youkai. Don’t you think that’s similar to Ibuki’s rebellious behavior when she left her band to play underground death metal instead of mainstream pop? Would Ibuki's case be similar to how, in religions like Christianity, Satan was a fallen angel who fell from Heaven and now resides in Hell because he wanted to be independent from God? (see here) I know that Ibuki's case might be more similar to the rebellious punk behavior Leon and Kazuichi had in their free time events (Kazuichi's case) but like I said, I’ve never seen Ibuki play punk.

Her Connection With K-ON

I’m aware that K-ON had some inspiration for Ibuki’s character, it turns out that the kanji in Ibuki’s name contains different kanji from the four main characters of K-ON (see here) and her cottage even has the same guitar Yui Hirasawa has.

This led me to think that another purpose behind Ibuki’s character was that she’s supposed to be a K-ON parody that makes references to the death metal subculture. Danganronpa literally took the character names from K-ON and transformed them into a Shuten-douji reference. Cool, but still a little dark.

On a personal note, my birthday is November 30th which is only a few days apart from Ibuki's birthday which is November 27th, and I'm aware that she has the same birthday as Yui Hirasawa who was my favorite character from K-ON. Compared to how cute Yui is, I just can't picture Ibuki as a cinnamon roll or even as a best waifu because of her music.

Theory About Her Music

Here's a theory, her metal sounds bad because that kind of music is not part of her talent. Ibuki wants to be a rock/metal musician, but because her talent name is Ultimate Light Music Club Member, it implies that pop music is the only kind of music Ibuki is good at and if she tried other genres such as rock or metal, her music is gonna sound bad. Think about it, can you imagine Sayaka playing metal even though she's called the Ultimate Pop Sensation? Her music would sound really bad if that ever happened. Ibuki is secretly in denial of her talent name and wants to be a different kind of musician instead of being the person she was back in middle school believing that that's not who she is. She even wrote a song for her old band and it was a best seller, if that song was really that popular, Ibuki is most likely better at playing pop music but refuses to admit it.

Strangely enough, Ibuki doesn’t even care if her rock music is bad, because she somehow believes that that’s who she is. She wants to believe that she’s a rockstar or a metalhead, not a popstar. But her rock music is so bad, she tried all kinds of subgenres but took it too far and went for extreme metal subgenres, and that still didn’t make a difference for her. So what does Ibuki do about it? Lie to herself and everyone else saying her rock music is great, but it actually stinks. Why else would her nose extend like Pinocchio? Because she's lying.

But unfortunately, if her rock or metal is really that good, this theory would just be my excuse for not liking her music. Also, her character development ended with Mikan killing her, so now I’m stuck with the thought that the whole purpose of Ibuki’s character was for her to be a K-ON parody involving death metal, and to me, everything she says feels like dark humor. She's a joke, and that's all she'll ever be.

What Could've Been Done to Make Her Better?

It would’ve been great if the game focused more on her backstory and came with a reason why Ibuki took interest in that kind of music instead of saying she left her old band due to creative differences, and apart from my theory, I do have to agree with that theory Weeby Newz had in her character analysis video. But from what I’ve read (see here) when Ibuki was a kid, she got hit in the head by three coconuts and almost died, and that led me to come up with a joke that that was the origin of Ibuki’s stupidity, Ibuki gets hit in the head with three coconuts and suddenly she believes that the Ultimate Light Music Club Member should instead play death metal.

That analysis video by Weeby Newz said that Ibuki was a positive influence to both the other characters and the player, but I disagree, Ibuki has not once made me laugh or made me feel happy, everything she said and done made me feel uncomfortable. Even if I try to compare her to other kinds of anime or cartoon characters who act funny or stupid just to make people laugh, it won't make any difference because of her music. If it were up to me, I could headcanon Ibuki as a fan of my favorite hard rock bands, or headcanon her as a fan of hard rock and metal bands with female lead singers, such as Halestorm, Otep, and Kittie. But because she’s only made like one reference to a band that doesn’t play death metal (her fourth free time event referencess the bridge to “Freak on a Leash” by the nu metal band Korn which I admit I thought was interesting) this can never become canon.

In fact, I find it unfortunate that fans don't seem to headcanon Ibuki as a fan of kawaii metal, which yes, is a fusion of metal and j-pop idol music. Ibuki used to be in a light music club, so if she wanted to change genres from pop to metal, then kawaii metal would be a better choice for her.

In Conclusion

Overall, my opinion about Ibuki isn’t negative, it’s mixed. I like her for her punk fashion which does make her slightly attractive, whether it's her normal outfit, her despair arc outfit, her 10th anniversary dress, or her swimsuit in USC, all of which I thought were a little cool. I also slightly like the idea of her oni appearance being similar to that of Shuten-douji, so long as I think of the oni characters from Touhou (i.e. Suika, Yuugi, Kasen) or even how Shuten-douji is portrayed in the Fate series or any other series that involves Japanese mythology.

The downside is that I hate her taste in music all because I don’t want to acknowledge how popular it became during the 2010s. Every time I try to play Danganronpa involving Ibuki or read someone's opinion about how much they love her, I’m always feeling anxious because I know that whatever comes out of Ibuki’s mouth is something related to death metal or any similar subgenre, and that just feels like a red flag for me and it makes me want to not like her. But I’m also upset because Ibuki is apparently one of the most overrated fan favorite characters in the series, which puts me in the minority for not liking her, and I'm also upset because some of my favorite characters like Kirumi and Mahiru are treated as underrated. I cried when Mahiru died and thought that it was unfair that Ibuki got to live longer than her.

I do apologize for how long this is and also for using so many images. I hope that I included everything that I wanted to include, otherwise I would have to update this with new info or edit something. Feel free to like or reblog this and share your opinions, I’d appreciate it.

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the st soundtrack choices and the way that they’re edited and incorporated are fucking genius seriously you guys it ties into the narrative and queerness and other themes so well and also if you enjoy my gay mike analysis you’re def gonna want to read this imo

if i ever start talking about the ST song choices and their relationship to songs/song choices regarding songs that are seemingly pro-protest and anti-conformity but are actually still safe enough to still enforce the norm and have  been ACTIVELY USED by conservative politicians to give the appearance of counterculture and rebellion while still upholding and enforcing the norm while giving their supporters the illusion of rebellion and freedom, and how oppressors like to frame themselves as the underdogs and how not only do oppressors/rightwingers want to squash counterculture music and expression but also will actively steal and twist it to make it reinforce the norm and fit their agenda, i Will Not Stop talking about it, like once that can of worms is opened it is uncloseable sorry. 

yes i am staring DIRECTLY at “raise a little hell” being used for steve’s party which is tied to conformity and seems like rebellion but actually isn’t rebellion (like how jonathan talks about how nancy is just a suburban girl who thinks she’s rebelling but is actually just doing the same thing as other suburban girls) 

yes i am staring DIRECTLY at ‘rock you like a hurricane’ and ‘shout at the devil’ and ‘the four horsemen’ and billy, somebody who sees himself as counterculture and rock and roll but in reality is using rock and roll to reinforce dated, bigoted beliefs and promote hatred. and how all of those songs, despite all being rock songs, occupy different subcultures and tie into politics and culture in very different ways. 

like they didn’t do this accidentally, this pattern of songs is constant and it’s backed up by scenes like what i mentioned with steve and jonathan and nancy and conformity. and thats why i have a LOT TO SAY ABOUT THE SONG CHOICES IN S4 RELATIVE TO S4′S THEMES OF ANTI CONFORMITY AND HOW WE HAVE TO LOOK PAST THE SURFACE AND JUST ARGHHHHH 

like i remember seeing a genius quote about it in an article awhile back (not abt st specifically but about the phenomena of how conservatives and those who want to maintain the norm use rock and roll and previously counter-culture efforts in order to twist it and enforce the norm): 

“rock n roll isn’t dead, rock n roll is alive and wants tax cuts for the rich”

it’s not just limited to rock and roll though, pop songs that are deemed to be nostalgic and counterculture are used in that way too (even if they actually ARE counterculture and QUEER TOO, they get twisted), specifically Rise Up by Parachute Club comes to mind, which isn’t in st, but similar songs ARE and thats why im so excited to analyze them, because Rise Up was thought to be a queer anthem but was used WITHOUT PERMISSION as the theme for the United Alternative convention (a canadian rightwing convention) and im certain that there’s other pop and rock songs in ST that have similar things that have happened to them, in addition to the ones that i’ve already mentioned 

imo this ties into why we don’t HEAR any really harsh metal etc. it’s not an accident. there’s a REASON why metal doesn’t play for eddie until his scene at the end and also why they chose master of puppets specifically and how rock music is literally constantly used as a puppet to reinforce the norm under the guise of rebellion and how EDDIE STILL DIED DESPITE HIS REBELLION and how master of puppets is also about drug use and how people think that they’re in control/the master but they’re actually the puppet of their addiction just like how people often think that they’re being counterculture and progressive but they’re actually reinforcing the norm (see: billy) 

and reason this ties into why we hear a KISS song during the hellfire game instead of a dio song or an iron maiden song or any of the more harsh metal songs that eddie is CLEARLY A FAN OF, ones that LITERALLY HAVE FUCKING SONGS ABOUT WIZARDS AND DND RELATED THINGS but they didnt use that but they DID use ‘detroit rock city’ but they CUT THE SUBSTANCE OUT OF IT JUST LIKE HOW CONSERVATIVES CUT THE SUBSTANCE AND COUNTERCULTURE OUT OF SONGS WHEN THEY TWIST THEM FOR THEIR OWN NARRATIVE, because they cut out the intro of detroit rock city where a radio broadcast plays talking about a boy in a car crash AND they cut out the car crash at the end. and this ties into what im saying about cutting the substance out of it because without the context, the song just seems like it’s about rock and roll and having a fun time and a guy recklessly driving to a concert.

but WITH the context, we learn that the guy that the song is talking about, the one driving recklessly to a concert, IS THE ONE WHO THE RADIO BROADCAST IS TALKING ABOUT, THE ONE WHO DIED. because we hear the CRASH AT THE END. but the show didn’t include the radio broadcast OR the crash!! because THEY LITERALLY REMOVED THE DANGER and the SUBSTANCE OF THE SONG THEY REMOVED THE FULL CONTEXT, JUST LIKE THE CONSERVATIVES, THE SHOW USED IT TO SUPPORT THEIR OWN NARRATIVE AND NOT SHOW US THE FULL PICTURE/NOT MAKE US AWARE OF THE DANEGR (THE DANGER BEING A.) HOMOPHOBIA AND CONFORMITY BUT ALSO B.) THE LITERAL DANGER OF VECNA AND HOW WHAT HAPPENS IN THE DND GAME MIRRORS WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED WITH HENRY/VECNA BUT HOW WE DONT REALIZE IT BECAUSE IT JUST SEEMS LIKE A GAME. and THAT’S just like how the GA sees dnd and the dnd arc in s4 as being JUST about the game, as JUST hearing ‘detroit rock city’ without the context and thinking it’s just about a guy going to a concert, not realizing that it’s about his DEATH AS A RESULT OF THAT CONCERT, just like how the dnd and hellfire arc in s4 it was NEVER just about dnd, it’s about queerness and the aids crisis and homophobia too. 

Just like how the satanic panic was NEVER JUST ABOUT DND but the media and conservatives manipulated the rhetoric to make it seem like they were just scared of the game. It was about hating outcasts, upholding the norm, homophobia, and all forms of bigotry.

It was about control and maintaining the norm, anti-conformity.  and this lack of use of actual metal music up until master of puppets also ties into how rock music and metal specifically was demonized in the satanic panic and how while people could see eddie as being counterculture and would demonize metal music, they never actually take the time to get to know him just like how they never actually take the time to listen to metal music. because just like how if they took the time to get to know eddie, they’d realize he isn’t evil, the same applies with metal music. and this sounds like im pulling stuff out of my ass but this is why eddie mentions ozzy osbourne to steve and that’s why steve narratively doesnt know who ozzy osbourne is.

 it’s not just a random scene, the purpose of this scene is to tie “not getting to know/listen to eddie” to “not getting to know/listen to metal”- why? because OZZY OSBOURNE AND BLACK SABBATH IS LITERALLY KNOWN FOR HAVING VERY POSITIVE MESSAGES ABOUT PEACE AND LOVE AND KINDNESS AND ANTI-WAR IN THEIR SONGS. BUT PEOPLE CAN’T SEE PAST THE HARSH METAL OF IT TO ACTUALLY LISTEN TO THE MUSIC. JUST LIKE HOW THEY CAN’T SEE PAST EDDIE’S APPEARANCE AND GET TO KNOW HIM. Steve doesn’t *know* who ozzy osbourne is, just like he doesn’t know eddie, just like how people don’t know metal music, just like how people make baseless assumptions about both of them. 

THIS IS ALSO WHY WE SEE STEVE BITING A  BAT, JUST LIKE EDDIE MENTIONS OZZY DOING: BECAUSE STEVE AND OZZY ARENT THAT DIFFERENT, BLACK SABBATH AND THE BEATLES ARENT THAT DIFFERENT, MUCH OF THE CORE MESSAGE IS THE SAME, MESSAGES OF LOVE AND PEACE AND ANTI WAR.This is why we don’t hear ‘real’ metal music in s4 until the end, with master of puppets, because people aren’t seeing eddie for who he is, people, the audience, literally aren’t hearing the music until the end, people don’t see eddie for what he is (a good person and a hero) until he is dead.

Just like how people NOW see the fact that black sabbath is full of good messaging, but didn’t see it at the time (which also ties into how black sabbath HAS been used in present-day to reinforce the norm). And all of this ties into ‘shout at the devil’ too, and how Billy and so many people at the party but esp Billy and his character, don’t realize what the song is actually about (motley crue talking about how ‘hey i mean technically this supports you christian folk, because it’s shout AT the devil, not WITH the devil,’  but how that’s rooted in sarcasm because the rightwing christians don’t realize that THEY are the devil, just like Lucas’ ‘normal’s just a raging psychopath’ quote, they don’t realize that their ‘normalcy’ IS the hatred) and then ALSO how ‘shout at the devil’ has been repurposed by nostalgic rightwingers trying to reinforce the norm while thinking that they’re rebelling (ie, again, those rightwingers think that they’re the victims, that they’re shouting at the devil, not realizing that they ARE the devil.) 

Just like how black sabbath’s messaging of peace and love but also taking action and even violence against hatred WAS counterculture, because the current culture is hatred, so love is the real counterculture. Just like how I’ve talked about before, having a happy ending for the queer characters is the most counter-culture thing that the show could do, more counter culture and shocking than any violent bury your gays death could possibly ever be, because those circumstances are the NORM, queer success and joy and happiness is the real counterculture. 

and how we DID hear metal music with Billy in previous seasons, with him listening to Metallica, but how that’s tied to the fact that BILLY is the one not hearing the music, ignoring the counterculture reality of the lyrics and instead continuing to conform with misogyny and racism and homophobia and heternormativity, he sees hatred as counterculture which is not true because the current norm and culture is rooted around hatred and bigotry. 

 and then how THAT and the satanic panic ties into a queer allegory and the aids crisis panic and how the music choices circle back to that and how the oppressors tend to see themselves as the oppressed and position themselves as victims (cough Jason cough and cough catholic victim complex cough and the people pushing the satanic panic acting as if they were the ones being being targeted when in reality they were the ones targeting others and how during the aids crisis, homophobes etc saw themselves as the victim of ‘the predatory gays trying to give them aids’ instead of seeing the aids victims as the victims and how it ALL TIES TOGETHER and how VECNA SEES HIMSELF AS THE VICTIM WHEN HE’S THE OPPRESSOR HE SEES HIMSELF AS SAVING PEOPLE AND HAVING BEEN VICTIMIZED WHEN HE IS THE ONE VICTIMIZING PEOPLE!!!!!

AND HOW ALL OF THESE BIG THEMES TIE INTO THE CYCLE OF ABUSE IN A BIG WAY BUT ALSO IN A MORE PERSONALIZED AND SMALLER SCALE WAY WITH ABUSERS SEEING THEMSELVES SOLELY AS VICTIMS AND CONTINUING TO PERPETUATE THAT ABUSE. EVEN LONNIE POSITIONS HIMSELF AS THE VICTIM IN A ROUNDABOUT WAY WHEN IT COMES TO WILL’S DEATH, WANTING TO COLLECT MONEY AS ONE OF THE ‘VICTIMS’ OF THE QUARRY’S NEGLECT/WILL’S DEATH. MEANWHILE, LONNIE WAS THE ABUSER TO WILL, LONNIE WAS THE ONE WHO HURT WILL. BUT HE POSITIONS HIMSELF AS A VICTIM, JUST LIKE HE DOES WITH JOYCE AND JONATHAN, WHEN HE’S TALKING TO JONATHAN IN S1, HE TALKS ABOUT “maybe i’m not the bad guy,” and how JOYCE is the problem. Abusers and oppressors positioning themselves as victims is a constant theme in ST and it only makes sense that it would be reflected in the music, which is why i DONT think that i’m looking too far into it with this writeup!! 

and yes this also ties into the s3 trailer baba o riley remix LIKE GOD I NEED TO WORK ON MY ST MUSIC ANALYSIS I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY and how theres a reason why they use certain songs from the 70s vs the 80s and themes of nostalgia but also of using that nostalgia to reinforce the norm of heteronormative, conservative and hateful beliefs. 

and i also have a LOT TO SAY ABOUT THE SONG CHOICES FOR WILL AND JONATHAN AND THOSE SONGS BEING USED IN A GENUINELY COUNTERCULTURE WAY WITH WILL BEING GAY AND JONATHAN BEING AN OUTCAST AND HOW BEING COUNTERCULTURE ISNT ABOUT WHAT YOU LISTEN TO BUT ABOUT WHO YOU ARE AND HOW EVEN THOUGH SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO IS ONE OF THOSE SONGS THAT  *HAS* BEEN USED BY THE RIGHTWING TO REINFORCE THE NORM, THE *WAY* THAT ITS USED AND PRESENTED IN ST AND IS LITERALLY ONLY EVER USED IN SITUATIONS WHERE THE CHARACTERS CAN HEAR THE SONG VERSUS OTHER SONGS LIKE ‘ROCK ME LIKE A HURRICANE’ THAT ARE USED IN A WAY THAT CHARACTERS CANT HEAR THEM AND SO ITS NOT ABOUT WHAT THE SONG IS SO MUCH AS IT IS THE ACTIONS TIED TO IT AND HOW ITS BEING USED AND HOW THAT LITERALLY APPLIES TO HOW THE SHOW USES IT BUT ALSO  HOW IT GETS USED IRL AND HOW EVEN SONGS THAT ARE GENUINELY COUNTERCULTURE GET STOLEN AND USED TO REINFORCE THE NORM AND HOW SONGS THAT WERENT INTENDED TO BE COUNTERCULTURE CAN BECOME COUNTERCULTURE AND AND AND 

JUST ARGHHH I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS AND ALSO HOW WE HAVE SONGS *ABOUT* ROCK AND ROLL BUT ARE LACKING IN ACTUALLY GETTING TO HEAR THOSE ROCK AND ROLL SONGS THEMSELVES

Regarding songs that are about rock and roll but not actually really rock and roll songs, I am staring DIRECTLY at you, ‘rock and roll hoochie koo’ and ‘rock me amadeus’ in s4 and even ‘detroit rock city’ which sure its a rock song but its also ABOUT ROCK, we get more songs ABOUT ROCK than we do ROCK SONGS and even with detroit rock city, like i said, they REMOVE THE CONTEXT, and it’s very interesting to me, especially with the rock song, ‘play with me’ by extreme that plays when mike is looking for dnd players and how that ties into my gay mike analysis- sorry not sorry- and into the themes of conformity for mike but explicitly how those themes tie into him being GAY, not just that he’s affected by conformity, because he IS affected by it in multiple ways outside of his sexuality, but it’s also explicitly tied TO him being gay and how just like the dnd arc was never just about dnd/games and is also about homophobia and queerness AND how games/dnd has been tied to mike and will’s sexualities and relationships, the song ‘play with me’ is not just about games/mike trying to find people to play games with, it’s also about mike trying to figure out his sexuality/who he wants to be with/’play’ with (be in a relationship with/who he’s attracted to.

 and that’s why we get so much ‘mike doesn’t like women’ imagery in those scenes but ALSO more ‘mike DOES like men’ imagery in those scenes and in the van scene with ‘boy’ behind his head whereas in previous seasons the imagery was more focused on ‘mike doesn’t like women’ and how a lot of his attraction towards men in previous seasons was directed towards Will Specifically rather than acknowledging his attraction to men as whole (ie in S4, he has the word ‘boy’ beside his head instead of the word ‘will’ behind him or something representing Will, whereas in s3, we see things representing Will Specifically rather than boys as a whole, things like the Will the Wise drawing beside Mike’s head when he’s making out with El in the bedroom) but now in s4, mike is coming to terms more with his attraction to men as a whole. 

and how mike may be disgusted with himself about his attraction to men but just like how other people/will’s love for mike specifically makes Will feel better/not like a mistake/helps him get over his internalized homophobia, mike’s love for will specifically is what helps him get over his internalized homophobia regarding his active attraction to men, just like how i said, we saw the imagery shift from “attraction to will specifically vs lack of attraction to girls as a whole (rather than lack of attraction to el specifically)” to “attraction to men as a whole specifically in addition to attraction to will and how his attraction to will helped him come to terms with that attraction to men vs still having that lack of attraction to girls as a whole because he’s already come to his realizations about that in s3″

especially with mike’s obvious crush on eddie and how he’s branching out in attraction to men as a whole outside of will because he’s already realized his lack of attraction to girls but is now figuring out his attraction to men in s4 AND how this STILL ties back into how will/mike’s love for will helped him get over his internalized homophobia AND into the music choices in st, because the songs that play during the mike-eddie cafeteria scene are “i was a teenage werewolf” and “fever,” and how long story short the “Teen Wolf” poster in the video store 100% represents Will, especially with ‘Teen Wolf’ literally having a scene where the character comes out as a werewolf but the other person asks them initially if they’re coming out ‘as a fag’ (and theres a million other parallels to will that i could go into but wont for the sake of the length of this post but WILL go into at another time so just take my word for it rn or go look for yourselves at the movie), and so then,  we have “fever,” a song about infatuation that represents mike’s crush on eddie/his sexuality/attraction to men as a whole, but then also ‘I was a teenage werewolf,” a song that TIES THAT ATTRACTION/ABILITY TO COME TO TERMS WITH HIS SEXUALITY to his FEELINGS FOR WILL. It’s not just his crush on eddie that helps him come to terms with it/admit his sexuality for himself, it’s that his feelings for will help him come to terms with his CRUSH ON EDDIE and with his sexualty, since again, like I said, Mike may be able to apply that internalized homophobia hatred to himself, but he CANNOT APPLY IT TO WILL. 

And how all of THAT is part of WHY mike seems to go back into the closet (in terms of being out to HIMSELF) at rink o mania/in lenora, why we get ‘in the closet at rink o mania,’ because MIKE IS LITERALLY GOING BACK IN THE CLOSET.

because WILL is what makes him feel better about his sexuality, but now that he’s having conflict with will, he’s questioning his sexuality too/his willingness to be out, ESPECIALLY SINCE LIKE I TALKED ABOUT IN ANOTHER POST, HE SEEMS TO THINK THAT WILL TOTALLY HAS A CRUSH ON ANGELA AT RINK O MANIA, SO NOW NOT ONLY IS HE DOUBTING THE IDEA THAT WILL COULD HAVE FEELINGS FOR HIM BUT HES DOUBTING THE IDEA THAT WILL LIKES MEN AT ALL.

AND SO IF MIKES LOVE FOR WILL IS TIED TO HIS ABILITY TO BE OPEN WITH HIMSELF ABOUT HIS SEXUALITY AS A WHOLE, THEN WHEN HE FEELS LIKE HE’S LOSING WILL/IT ISNT REQUITED/HE’S WRONG ABOUT THINKING THAT WILL COULD BE GAY, THEN HE STARTS TO DOUBT HIMSELF AND HIS OWN SEXUALITY TOO AND WHETHER OR NOT HE’S ACTUALLY GAY OR IF THERE’S JUST SOMETHING ELSE ‘WRONG’ WITH HIM/IF HIS LACK OF ATTRACTION TO GIRLS COMES FROM SOMETHING ELSE. 

AND SO MIKE IS LITERALLY GOING BACK INTO THE CLOSET AT RINK O MANIA HES LITERALLY GOING BACK INTO IT DESPITE THE CLOSET DOOR BEING OPEN IN S4 EP1 DESPITE HOW HE SEEMS MORE LIKE HIMSELF AND PLAYS DND IN HAWKINS BUT THEN TOTALLY CHANGES IN LENORA. He’s BACK in the closet at rink o mania, but started closing the door as soon as he saw will/was gay panicking and having doubts. 

And how imo that ties into why we see so much bi imagery at rink o mania, but how I still think that aligns with gay mike and actually plays a key role in backing up what i’ve said here about the connection between mike’s love for will and his ability to get over his internalized homophobia/embrace his attraction to men: because we specifically see WILL in front of the bi imagery more than we do mike: because not only is mike reconsidering his own ability to be out/his own attraction to men, but he’s also reconsidering any suspicions that he may have had about Will being gay, because he seemingly sees Will having a crush on Angela, which i talked about at length in this post, and how like i’ve said before, when you look at the evidence objectively without the context of Will’s sexuality being confirmed, WILL seems like the possibly bi one because his sexuality isn’t nearly as framed around lack of attraction to women as mike’s is- and mike doesn’t have that outside ‘will is gay’ confirmation from noah schnapp/the duffers, so he IS relying on that ‘objective, in-the-show- evidence,’ but actually has even LESS evidence than us for will being gay and not bi, because Mike hasn’t seen things like the conversation between Hopper and Joyce about Lonnie calling Will a fag, he hasn’t seen Will’s pov the way that we have, at rink o mania, he hasn’t seen Will making a painting for him, he didn’t see Will’s reaction at the sauna, there’s so much gay Will imagery that mike HAS NOT SEEN. 

He’s seen the homophobic bullying etc though, so he does still have enough to go off to suspect that will could be gay/into men, but he doesn’t have confirmation, and he DEFINITELY hasnt seen a ton of ‘will explicitly doesn’t like women imagery’ because even we are the audience havent seen very much of that, not nearly as much as we’ve seen for mike, which, mike’s own lack of attraction towards women is what he’s going base his analysis of Will off of, and we know that mike has a LOT of scenes where he’s put into a situation where he feels that lack of attraction, whereas not only does will have many, he has EVEN FEWER that mike actually gets to see (ie, the girl in lenora, mike doesn’t see that)

which, THAT, imo is why we see the bi imagery at rink o mania, when the two of them are fighting and mike is confused about his sexuality and will’s sexuality, but see way more explicitly gay/not interested in women imagery everywhere else in the show. it’s not that they forgot to put the bi imagery in other scenes and instead their hand slipped and they put explicitly gay/lack of attraction to women imagery. it’s that the bi imagery at rink o mania serves a specific purpose in regards to will and mike’s dynamic and sexualities and trying to figure themselves and eachother out. (not that bi people are just confused but that this is the 80s and that will and mike are trying to figure out labels and mike is trying to figure out if will IS bi and mike is trying to figure out if hes going to continue to try and pretend to  have attraction to women/stay in the closet due to the connection between mike’s relationship with will vs mike’s ability to embrace his own sexuality) 

(which, just expanding on that, like i said, mike has seen the homophobia that will’s faced AND mike in s3 feels like he’s seen will having a lack of attraction to girls- the ‘day free of girls’ scene despite the fact that that scene was more about will’s friends ignoring him than it was about will’s attraction to girls, we’re looking at this from mike’s pov- so i think that mike could absolutely have suspicions that will IS gay and that it’s not just random bullying IN ADDITION to his own hopes about his feelings being requited)

It’s like how if Lucas was mike’s “straight” guide (mike going to lucas about girls in s3 constantly and letting lucas take the lead and how lucas also pushes mike towards el when making fun of him in 1), then Will is mike’s gay guide LMAO.  It’s not that Mike is only gay if he can be with will/if will is gay: mike is still gay regardless, but it’s about mike’s ability to accept and embrace that gayness. Especially since if Mike is being internally homophobic to himself and believing in the homophobic stereotypes, then he, in his mike brain, has to also apply that hatred/stereotypes to Will, which is where it becomes difficult for mike and why Will is tied to mike’s ability to embrace his sexuality outside of just his love for will specifically. 

And how while Mike’s love for will is what helps him get over his internalized homophobia, his platonic love for el is what helps him get over his heteronormativity (he experiences BOTH imo because heteronormativity alone does NOT explain his disgust and shame towards HIMSELF during the sauna scene and how he was the one holding the door open etc etc but thats a topic for the full gay mike analysis) because he’s hurting her as a result of it and doesn’t want to hurt her because he DOES love her platonically and care about her!  And so that’s the thing. Mike’s love for Will is tied to his active attraction to men/his internalized homophobia, whereas his platonic love for El/his relationship with El is what’s tied to heteronormativity.

This is also why I don’t believe that Mike has been intentionally using El as a beard all along, because El isn’t narratively connected to the internalized homophobia side of things, she’s connected to the heternormativity side of things. 

and how THAT ties into that fact that gay mike works SO WELL with el and her arc and character and how once el finds out that it was never ABOUT HER as a person, that it’s not that mike doesnt LOVE HER but rather that he’s not attracted to girls AT ALL, she’s going to be HAPPIER than if she found out that mike just fell out of love with her for who she is or something about her/that mike chose Will over her. That’s REALLY one of the big things that makes me a gay mike truther is because if he wasn’t gay, El wouldn’t need to be set up the way that she is as a character, wouldn’t need to be set up in such a specific way with a lack of knowledge about homophobia, wouldn’t need to be set up as a character who’s felt inherently unloveable for who she is, wouldn’t need to be set up as being twins with Will/the writers clearly not just wanting to pit them against eachother, wouldn’t need to be set up in a way where BOTH her and mike don’t understand attraction/romance, because if she was a typical straight girl not raised in a lab, she would have a better/even just a more existent understanding of romance and attraction due to the pressures of heteronormativity that results in girls having to face those topics at a young age, and so then, Mike would be the only one in the couple who doesn’t understand it/is having to figure it out from scratch because he’s gay. But with the way that El’s set up, it’s meant to put them both on equal footing with not understanding attraction/not having a great knowledge of its existence/what it is/how it’s defined and how it feels. 

And sure, they’re kids and of course ANY kids don’t understand attraction perfectly: but a gay kid in the 80s and a girl raised in a lab have less of an understanding of it/experience with it. And absolutely, bi people did NOT have it easy in the 80s, I’m not saying that it was easier for them to understand their feelings, I’m saying that they DID have feelings towards the ‘opposite’ gender, whereas for Mike that attraction to the ‘opposite gender’ it’s a blank slate because it doesn’t exist for him, just like it is for El, because it didn’t exist for her in the lab. 

If mike was anything other than gay, El wouldn’t be need to set up in a way where Mike being gay is the best-case scenario for her relationship with him and her own arcs and themes and having a happy/satisfying conclusion to them. 

So many girls in the 80s who aren’t El, who HAVE been raised with that heteronormativity and understanding of attraction/even if they dont understand, having more of a knowledge of its existence at ALL than el does from a young age would be angry and very likely homophobic if they found out that their boyfriend was gay. But El won’t be. And that way, her relationship with Will isn’t hurt, her relationship with Mike isn’t hurt by him being gay (whereas if he was anything but gay, their relationship would be hurt by him ‘falling out of love’ with her for who she is/something about her, but if he was never in love with her, and isn’t into girls at all, then it’s not about her), that way, El isn’t put into a position of having to choose whether or not to be on the same side as homophobes, who are portrayed consistently as the bad guys in the show. 

(I am NOT saying that El being mad at mike would be homophobic. I AM saying that if she was set up in a different way, she would have to make the CHOICE of being homophobic or not, of what side to be on, but this way, she isn’t put into that position, which aligns more with her narrative and character)

And like we see in the s4 bedroom fight, El is upset about Mike not saying he loves her, but I also think she’s more upset about Mike lying to her. She KNOWS that he doesn’t show that he’s in love, but she wants to see if he can even say it, if he’ll lie about it or not, and I think the REAL hurt comes from him lying about it. 

And so, if Mike is gay, then not only is “mike lying to el about being in love with her” resolved, but “el being hurt by mike not loving her/feeling unloveable for who she is” is resolved, because it was never ABOUT HER. 

And sure, “mike lying to el about being in love with her” could be resolved if mike was bi and just fell out of love with her and then was honest with her about it, but again, that doesn’t align with a.) the cracks in their relationship from the VERY BEGINNING IN S1 and b.)  with a satsifying conclusion for el’s arc, themes, and characters, and with her and mike and will all staying on good terms with eachother. 

Like I’ve been saying: if not el, then who? Then WHAT GIRL if will specifically wasn’t an option bc it’s not just that he wants to be with will? If mike isn’t in love with el/attracted to her but IS still attracted to girls, then WHAT WOULD HE CHANGE ABOUT EL? WHAT GIRL DOES HE WANT? HE’S ALREADY TRIED TO MOLD HER INTO HIS ‘IDEAL’ GIRL FROM S1 TO S3 AND NOT IN AN INTENTIONALLY HARMFUL WAY BUT IN A ‘VERY INFLUENCED BY HETERONORMATIVITY AND TRYING TO MAKE EL MEET THE SAME EXPECTATIONS THAT HE FEELS HE HAS TO MEET’ WAY. BUT THAT STILL WASN’T ENOUGH!!!

Because Mike’s ideal girl DOESNT EXIST. And the closest that we get to it, the scene where Mike initiates the affection, the closest we get to him being attracted to her (even though he isn’t, but it’s the closest scene we get), is when El is a.) dressed more stereotypically masculinely, b.) she looks so similar to will that the guy at the police station literally mistook her for will and c.) she has very little understanding of the world/unique personality/ability to articulate that personality (she does have a unique personality but it isnt SHOWN to mike very much in s1 compared to the other seasons which is the thing).  

The closest that we get to Mike being attracted to El, the scene where HE initiates it for once (even during the makeout/affection scenes in s2, El is the one initiating more, she’s the one holding onto HIS arm, she’s the one holding HIS face while they makeout and just sits there or takes her hands off of him), is a scene where El is the closest that she is to resembling a man. And it’s not just that mike still likes women but prefers masculine women, because even THEN, he’s still not fully attracted to her, he’s still operating around heteronormativity and what he thinks he has to do rather than what he actually wants/is attracted to, because he’s still figuring out what he wants/is attracted to. 

 El is literally his ‘ideal girl/the closest thing to it’ in that scene because she MUST BE the closest thing to an ‘ideal girl’ for him in that scene because it’s the only scene where HE initiates the kiss, its the closest he can get to loving her/being attracted to her, even though he doesn’t/isn’t, it’s the closest that he gets to it. 

 How are all of the issues with mike and el’s relationship explained if Mike was genuinely attracted to her at some point? They’re not. They’re not fully explained or fully resolved, even though parts of them can be explained. If they wanted to make Mike anything other than explicitly gay, it wasn’t necessary to set El up in the way that she’s set up. Not that El’s character revolves around Mike, but rather, that they could have addressed the exact same themes and ideas with her character without needing to set her up in a way that works perfectly with gay mike. 

And how going back to my discussion about counterculture and music, and what is and isn’t counterculture and how people like Billy think that hatred is counterculture when in reality, love and happiness is counter-culture (just like how homophobes and bigots today bitch about how ‘the woke mob is overtaking everything and cishet white conservatives are a minority’), and Mike is starting to embrace counter-culture and anti-conformity in s4 because he’s realizing that love and happiness is the real counter-culture, and beginning to get over his heteronormativity and realize that hatred is the norm and that conformity and the norm sucks and hurts people (whereas in s3 he was trying to embrace conformity and continue to reinforce the norm).

Mike is starting to realize that just like I talked with the music, bigots are using symbols of freedom and love and anti-bigotry to turn themselves into the victims Mike is getting over his internalized homophobia because like I said, he not only can’t apply that homophobic rhetoric to will, but being unable to apply it to will makes it more difficult for him to apply it to himself. 

 People who have enforced heteronormativity and homophobia are acting like they’re the victims of having to deal with queer people rather than the other way around, acting like they’re the victims of the aids crisis rather than queer people, acting like they’re the victims of people like eddie rather than eddie being the victims of people like them. Mike is realizing that society isn’t victimizied by his attraction to men, that it isn’t something bad- that it ISNT BAD because something that hurts something that’s bad (ie mike’s sexuality ‘hurting’ society/heteronormativity) is actually something good. He is realizing that the norm sucks, that the norm is hatred. 

People are also using dnd to push their bigoted narrative, it’s all wrapped into the satanic panic alongside the music which is then tied to queerness and the aids crisis and homophobia. Mike was rejecting dnd/embracing that bigoted narrative to an extent in s3 but now he is starting to go against that narrative and embrace dnd and that ties into him embracing his sexuality like i’ve talked about already in this post. 

Anyway im gonna explain these last few sections and the links between counter culture, conformity, the ST soundtrack choices and gay mike in a different post/in the analysis, but I need to rewatch the show and analyze the music relative to mike in order to really fully make the point about mike and counterculture and conformity and how it ties into gay mike and how it’s all demonstrated by the ST music. 

conclusion: mike wheeler is gay the music is gay the music supports gay mike, the stranger things music team are absolutely genius and the way that the narrative is so interwoven with various topics and how that interweaving is supported by the music choices and the ways in which those music choices are implemented is absolutely fantastic. 

god i need to finish both my music analysis and gay mike analysis.

the st soundtrack choices and the way that they’re edited and incorporated are fucking genius seriously you guys it ties into the narrative and queerness and other themes so well and also if you enjoy my gay mike analysis you’re def gonna want to read this imo

if i ever start talking about the ST song choices and their relationship to songs/song choices regarding songs that are seemingly pro-protest and anti-conformity but are actually still safe enough to still enforce the norm and have  been ACTIVELY USED by conservative politicians to give the appearance of counterculture and rebellion while still upholding and enforcing the norm while giving their supporters the illusion of rebellion and freedom, and how oppressors like to frame themselves as the underdogs and how not only do oppressors/rightwingers want to squash counterculture music and expression but also will actively steal and twist it to make it reinforce the norm and fit their agenda, i Will Not Stop talking about it, like once that can of worms is opened it is uncloseable sorry. 

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[blogtozone]

Wake Me Up When September Ends Piano Notes | Green Day

Wake Me Up When September Ends Piano Notes

Notes :-  Music G4 G4 D5 G4 G4 D5, G4 G4 D5 G4 G4 D5 Summer has come and passed A4 B4 B4 A4 B4 B4 The innocent can never last D4 A4 B4 B4 G4 E5 D5 A4 G4 Wake me up when September ends D5 G4 G4 D5 C5 G4 A4 B4 Like my father's come to pass A4 B4 B4 B4 A4 B4 B4 Seven years has gone so fast A4 B4 B4 G4 E5 D5 A4 G4 Wake me up when September ends D5 G4 G4 D5 C5 G4 A4 B4 Here comes the rain again A4 B4 B4 A4 B4 B4 Falling from the stars C5 B4 G4 A4 B4 Drenched in my pain again A4 B4 B4 B4 G4 F4# Becoming who we are E4 C5 B4 G4 A4 A4 As my memory rests A4 B4 B4 A4 B4 B4 But never forgets what I lost D4 A4 B4 B4 G4 E5 D5 A4 G4 Wake me up when September ends D5 G4 G4 D5 C5 G4 G4 A4 A4 G4

About Song :-

"Wake Me Up When September Ends" is a song by the American rock band Green Day. It was released as the fourth single from their seventh studio album, "American Idiot," which came out in 2004. The song was written by Green Day's lead vocalist and guitarist, Billie Joe Armstrong. Here's some information about "Wake Me Up When September Ends": Release Date: The single was released in August 2005, a year after the album "American Idiot" was released. Album: "American Idiot" (2004) Genre: Alternative rock, punk rock Songwriter: Billie Joe Armstrong Background: "Wake Me Up When September Ends" is a poignant and emotionally charged song. It was inspired by Billie Joe Armstrong's personal experiences, particularly the death of his father, who passed away in September when Billie Joe was just a child. The song's lyrics reflect themes of loss, grief, and the passage of time. Music Video: The song's music video, directed by Samuel Bayer, is a powerful and cinematic piece that tells the story of a young couple separated by the Iraq War. The video's narrative is intertwined with scenes of the band performing the song. It adds depth to the song's emotional impact and resonated with many listeners. Chart Performance: "Wake Me Up When September Ends" received significant radio play and charted well in various countries. It became one of Green Day's most recognizable songs. Legacy: The song has continued to be a fan favorite and is often associated with themes of loss and remembrance. It's a common choice for covers and tributes during the month of September and is frequently played on the radio and in pop culture during that time. Overall, "Wake Me Up When September Ends" is a heartfelt and enduring song that showcases Green Day's ability to create emotionally charged and thought-provoking music beyond their punk rock roots. Read the full article

[uozlulu]

Yammering about the week 3 (outfits/character looks) fic

I decided to explore what the vampire troupe might look like onstage by having Daniel go through the album. This morning I realized I could dig a bit deeper here and actually show what’s going through Daniel’s mind as he’s looking at the articles/advertisements/photographs.

So the second edit of the original version of things reads:

Daniel continued to turn pages, working his way through the decades. The handwriting underneath the articles, posters, and photos remained the same steady lettering. Daniel made many notes including a reminder to look into camera technology and alternatives to silver in mirrors. As he studied the articles and posters, Daniel’s mind created elaborate scenes, imagining ever story described. There was an entire reenactment of the decapitation of Marine Antoinette and Louis XVI where their severed heads complete with giant powdered wigs sang songs while sitting on plates on an uncovered table. Several vivisection plays put brains and organs on display while the troupe wore black, the reviews describing the “costuming” as “life-like” and “unthinkable” and the “smell effects” as “disturbingly accurate.” Daniel’s mind lingered on the thought of a vivisected torso pumping blood through its exposed heart. The most popular plays were the vampire plays full of blood splatter, gore, and theatrics.

But then I thought I could describe these plays instead because we know Daniel’s mental images are probably what we’re seeing during  Louis’ or Claudia’s narration.

So as I’m expanding and creating some small scenes for these concepts I have to wonder if maybe this is a bit over the top? Although that’s kind of the point of the troupe in general anyway.

I’ll probably write it out, sleep on it, edit it tomorrow, and then let it languish until I have to decide what I’m posting for week 3.