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heich0e · 1 year ago

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THE WITCH'S SONG - part two knight!osamu/witch!reader tags: fem!reader, royalty!au, supernatural!au, witchcraft, enemies to lovers, mentions of violence/illness/death, persecution and oppression, tw blood/gore, please read the tags on each chapter as updated and minors do not interact. crossposted to ao3 MASTERLIST

For as long as you can remember, you have always risen with the sun.

It’s a habit so deeply constitutional that you've never bothered to question that part of your own nature—the breaking light cresting over the horizon each day, perfectly in time with the first flutter of your eyelids.

Your bedsheets are gentle against your skin as you rouse from your slumber. They're buttery soft, perfectly worn-in from the many nights of rest you’ve found under their cover, and the scent of fresh air still clings to them from an afternoon spent hanging on your clothesline a few days prior. You nestle your cheek into the downy embrace of your pillow, breathing in deeply to savour those lingering notes of summer breeze. You let the breath fill every corner of your chest as you inhale, feeling the way your ribs rise to make room for it, and then you let it out again in a warm rush. You repeat the cycle a few times more, and slowly take in the first moments of your day as your eyes adjust to the early morning light.

With your your arm crooked at your elbow, your hand sweeps lazily around beneath your pillow. You search blindly for a moment, unhurried but sure, and then your fingers brush against something solid and cool hidden away under the feathery mass. You wrap your fingers around the object and draw it out, holding it up above your face to appraise it.

It’s a pair of silver scissors, with a sprig of dried lavender fastened to them beneath a thrice-knotted length of thin white twine.

Outside your window, the milky indigo sky provides very little light. The distant sun is still only a sliver of light peeking out over the eastward sea, but what little glow the new dawn provides catches in the scissors's polished silver surface. You see the distorted image of your own eye, just a glimpse reflected along the narrow blade, staring back.

Sleep does not come to you peacefully, and it hasn’t for a long time. It seems to fight you, tooth and nail, each night, but the battle is ever-changing. Sometimes sleep evades you completely, leaving you to toss and turn restlessly until the moon disappears and the day starts anew. Other nights, slumber overtakes you quickly, but its true violence strikes when you’re left at your most vulnerable—nightmares whose claws sink themselves so deep into you, you can still feel their phantom pain long after you tear yourself awake in a cold, trembling sweat.

Your fingers tighten around the scissors in your grip—still cool to the touch, as though your body heat cannot warm them.

The scissors are a simple charm to keep away terrors that might creep in while you sleep. Just like them, the collection of carefully crafted and curated trinkets that surround your room—dried flowers, jagged crystals, hand drawn sigils inked upon slips of silk and parchment—are all kept in an effort to rest peacefully. To ward away anything that may prevent it.

You didn’t always have so many.

You didn’t always need them.

These items are tacked to your walls, line your windowsills, and hang from the tall posters of your bed—each and every one a remedy originating from a carefully documented entry in your mother’s grimoire. The massive tome rests presently at the foot of your bed, tangled in your quilt. You often fall asleep—as you had the night prior—poring over the parchment pages, bound in strong leather tanned a deep midnight blue, filled with a familiar sloping script that makes your heart ache. Her life’s work and story, her own magic and every piece of knowledge ever shared with her, is contained within those precious pages.

It’s one of the last parts of her that remains.

Thankfully your mother's charms served you well throughout the night, as you feel relatively well rested as you rise from your bed—pulling a housecoat on atop your poplin nightdress and stretching your arms up over your head to welcome the day. You tug your quilt up to meet your pillows, tucking it in neatly at the corners, and then you close the heavy cover of the grimoire that rests at the mattress’s edge. You let your fingers trace lightly over the embossing on the cover as you appreciate it, and then you slip it safely into the trunk at the end of your bed where it belongs.

You’re a little surprised that your visitor from the night before hadn’t caused more of a disturbance to your sleep, already so capricious, particularly given the terrible sense of foreboding that had been hanging over your cottage in the days leading up to his arrival—like a heavy, briny fog rolls in from the sea. You choose not to question good fortune, at least not so early in the day—shaking your head as if willing the unwelcome thought away—and you set about your usual morning routine as though nothing in the width of the world is different than it has been any day prior.

You wash, prepare a light meal, and dress yourself in simple attire suitable for a day’s labour, all before the sun has fully risen from the cradle of the horizon. You plan to work in the garden again today, tending to your plants with the meticulous care they require. You aim to start early in hopes of completing the task before the hottest part of the day makes the work less pleasant—the air at dusk the night before had smelled so sweet, a faithful harbinger of a sunny day ahead.

The grass still glimmers with dew as you step outside your cottage, breathing in the clean, crisp air. Across your property, the sun is just about to creep up over the sea, though there’s a lilac brume that cloaks it—a gentle shroud that lets you see her shape without straining your eyes. You keep your feet bare as you tread towards the garden, listening to distant birdsong, and the blades of dew-damp grass kiss against your soles with every step.

You pause at the break in the wall that surrounds your cottage, the threshold between your garden and your home, and take a deep breath in. The wind kisses your cheek as a breeze rushes past, and the plants rustle around you as if bidding you good morning. On your exhale, you breathe the greeting back.

The light continues to rise in the sky as you labour, soon burning off the gossamer mist that tends to linger early in the morning until the day is bright and warm and fully underway. You shuck the knitted sweater you’d worn out at dawn as the temperature climbs with the sun, and eventually cuff your trousers at the ankles too, but you pay little attention to the heat of the day as you go about making sure your plants are watered, pruned, and any that require special attention are given what they need.

You sing softly while you work.

Witches have long sung songs while they toiled, or gathered together, or just as a means to pass the time. It's a cherished tradition among your kind, and you were taught when you were very young that a witch’s song is a sacred, honoured thing—her voice a gift and a powerful tool.

You don’t sing as much as you ought to, nor as loudly. Perhaps, not least of all, because there’s no one there for you to sing to save for your budding rows of plants. Some of y our earliest memories, the ones hazy at the edges as they’ve been eaten away by time, are of your mother singing in her own garden at the house that you were born in.

Why do you sing to them, mother?

On the edge of a northern breeze, you can hear your own voice—higher, lighter, happier than what it grew to be. You squint up into the midday sun as you reflect.

So they can remember us, Button.

Button.

She called you that because you were always losing yours when you were young; returning to the little cabin you called home at the end of the day with dirty knees, pockets full of shiny rocks, a handful of berries to share with her before dinner, and with one less button on your dress than you’d set off into the woods with that morning.

You remember her impossibly soft hands patting over your head, your arms, your legs, as she appraised you for any bumps or bruises. You remember her breathy laugh as you told her your scrapes and nettle stings didn’t even hurt. You remember her gentle eyes, always sparkling like she was telling you a secret.

Don’t you like when I sing to you? Doesn’t it make you happy?

Your little ribbon-haired head couldn’t have been quicker to nod if you’d tried—your answer to her question came immediate and fervent. Your mother's voice was your most favourite thing.

Well, it makes the plants happy, too—and that happiness will help them grow. Their roots will dig down deep into the earth, and they’ll take all our stories that I sing to them there, too.

You recall the childhood fantasy of each word of your mother’s song spelled out in sprawling, knobbly roots, hidden underground, being kept safe by the earth.

Your eyes flutter shut, blocking out the sun and trapping in the fleeting memory.

The songs she sang to you, the stories that she told, the grimoire in the truck at the end of your bed. Those are all that you have left of her now. You keep them safe just like the soil covered up the roots.

Since time immemorial, song has been used to pass tradition from one generation of witches to the next—the legends of your people, the same ones you recite now as you snip the reedy leaves away from your precious plants, were all taught to you in verse and chorus.

Men flock to the melody of the witch’s song like moth to flame. To hear it is to be bewitched by it. Your mother warned you of such a thing, in the same way all young witches are, and of what might happen should your song be overheard.

The history of man calls the witches temptresses, because of their own weakness to their song. Sirens. Man-eaters. That’s how they choose to remember it in their own egocentric folklore; the witch's song is a weapon used to ensnare them, and nothing more. They hide their own antecedent failings by laying blame, and burning any testament that remembers it otherwise.

You've known one truth as long as you've known anything: men are gluttonous, self-serving beasts. They see the world solely as it relates to themselves. They'll take anything in which they see beauty. And they'll immortalize their story, inked in your kind's blood, only as seen through their own eyes.

But the witch’s song was never meant for man.

You pause, your eyes still tightly closed, with your face turned up towards the sun.

Miya Osamu is standing at the forest’s edge.

You know he’s there even without opening your eyes, but when you eventually do, your sight immediately catches on the glint of the polished sword hilt at his waist.

He’s come armed today.

It’s noon on the day following his unceremonious arrival—the one where you had warned him, at risk of his own life, not ever to return. You know it’s noon, or very near to it, because the sun sits at its highest point in the clear midday sky as he emerges from the thicket of the wild, towering woods at the edge of your property.

For a moment upon seeing him, you wonder if you ought to flee—if you should seek shelter on the other side of the little rock wall you know he cannot cross. Instead, you hold your ground, still resting in the dirt of your garden—the knees of your twill pants stained with grass and soil, with grime caked beneath your fingernails.

You will not run from him.

He approaches you slowly, with careful steps as not to tread upon any one of your still-budding plants. You don’t bother watching him draw nearer.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve to come back.” You sink your spade into the earth at the base of a plant that’s showing signs of rot. Its your final task in the garden for the day: you plan to cut it out at the root, take it back into the greenhouse, and try and salvage at least a few slips for propagation.

Your only hope now is that any affliction hasn’t spread beneath the soil.

“I’m not here to prove my nerve,” he says to you, pausing a few paces away between a patch of rosemary and another of oregano. His voice is clear and sure like the blue sky overhead. “I’m here to help Atsumu.”

You place the uprooted plant into a small tin pail beside you, prodding into the soft edges of the hole you’ve dug to excavate it for any signs of further blight. You see none, thankfully.

But rot’s a tricky thing. Sometimes it's in plain sight, and others it hides where the light can't reach it.

“I don’t care why you’re here,” you tell him, setting aside your spade and meeting his eyes as you drag the back of your wrist against your perspiring brow. “And I don’t care about your brother.”

The knight looks worse than he had the day before when he showed up in your workshed, but you’re not surprised by that fact. He spent the night in the woods, that much you’re certain of—not least of all because the nearest village is too far for him to have travelled their and back by midday. His hair is unkempt, his clothing rumpled like it’s been slept in, and the shadows under his eyes are darker, more severe than they had been the night prior—though perhaps their stark contrast is just more evident in the light of day.

At his waist, Osamu’s hand rests lightly upon on the hilt of his sword, but it seems more instinctive than threatening given the way his fingers are slack. There’s a frustrated furrow in his brow that deepens in the wake of your words, and he sucks in a sharp breath.

“Yer the only one who can help him.”

“No, I’m the only witch your king hasn’t culled,” you parry. “There’s a difference.”

Osamu’s lips pull into a thin line. “So you admit it.”

You blink.

You suppose this is the first time you’ve confirmed his accusation. The first time you’ve admitted to your truth. It wasn't so much a slip of the tongue as it was an inevitability.

“It does me little good to say anything otherwise,” you respond, unshaken by his observation. “You need me to be a witch. As you’ve made clear: your brother’s fate relies on it. The help you hope for me to provide to you is all that’s keeping that sword in its sheath.”

The knight’s fingers curl loosely around the hilt of his weapon at your mention of it, as though becoming conscious for the first time of its weight against his hip.

But it’s not strictly true, what you’ve said, and you both know it.

There’s one other option Osamu has available to him—one other cure to heal what ails his beloved brother—and it very much requires the use of his sword.

Witches have been driven to near extinction now—every coven you’ve ever known to inhabit this kingdom wiped out in their entirety—with little more to prove they ever existed but your own fleeting memory of them.

The only pieces of them worth saving were their hearts.

There’s a reason why witches have forever been hunted for them—a reason why the king’s knights would cleave them out before their bodies were burned. The hearts of your kind have long been coveted by men for the residual magic that they hold. Even when a witch dies, her heart will keep beating, though only for a short while, and to possess a witch’s heart while it still beats—however faintly—will bring luck to the one who possesses it. It can cure any ailment, or end any drought, or even turn the tides of a battle.

Those hearts and the promises that they assured were worth more to glory hungry men than the lives of the witches they rightfully belonged to.

You feel a white hot flash of anger roll through the pit of your stomach like a violent tide at the thought of it, digging your fingers deep into the soil below you to find comfort. You stare up at the man above you, no different from any of the rest of them, and your eyes narrow resentfully. You clutch dirt by the fistful.

“All the hearts the crown has ripped from witches over the past two hundred odd years, and to what end?” you ask him, disdain dripping thick and venomous from every word. “The fortune of a trophied heart is fleeting, their power fades with every passing beat until eventually the pulse stops altogether. Your king knew that, and he chose to pillage them regardless. That old bastard was born with the world in his hand, yet he hoarded those spoils for himself—wasted them—only to die, like all mortal men do, and leave the rest of you behind to suffer for it.”

“Hold yer tongue,” Osamu warns you sharply, his lip curling in time with his hand tightening on the hilt of his sword in a white-knuckled grip. “How dare ya speak ill of the late king.”

“Why defend a man who left his country in ruins?” you goad him further, twisting the knife you’ve managed to wedge between the plates of his composure’s already straining armour. “A man who stripped his kingdom of its greatest resource—of the lives dedicated to the keeping of this land—and left his infant son to take a throne he drove into the ground with his greed. A son I’m sure has grown into just as pitiful a ruler as his father.”

The knight’s sword glints in the sunlight as it’s quickly drawn. The sound of the finely honed blade scraping against the sheath is almost pleasant; surprisingly delicate in its own way, even in its violence.

You kneel beneath Osamu in the glare of the all-seeing sun, the point of his blade held level at your throat.

“Don’t say another word against King Shinsuke,” the man hisses, and much like the first time you mentioned his brother by name, it seems you’ve struck a tender nerve.

You don’t flinch, but your eyes do flicker down towards the garden beds.

A tense moment passes with his steady sword resting just beneath your chin.

“You’re stepping on my spearmint.”

Osamu’s gaze follows yours down to his feet in surprise, to where his left boot treads upon a small mint plant. He inches his foot back slightly, almost without thinking, after you point it out. Some of the outer leaves are bruised, but you’re fairly certain the plant will still survive.

A breeze rolls in from the east, rushing through the blades of grass and rows of plants until it lifts the sleeve of your shirt as it passes like a kiss from the sea. You find it comforting. Reassuring.

Osamu speaks again.

“I could just take it, y’know.”

You don’t need him to clarify what it he speaks of.

What’s strange to you isn't the threat he utters, but rather that the words were spoken so quietly they were very nearly lost in the passing breeze. Part of you can’t help but wonder if he knows he uttered them aloud at all, or if they were merely one final fervent encouragement to steel his own resolve. You look up at him, and see his eyes are burning with insistence—wild in their hopelessness.

His expression is grave, remorseful almost. “I’ve got no other choice.”

Ah.

The final fraying morality of a desperate man.

“Good luck,” you say to him. You still meet his gaze without flinching. His sword is still pointed at your throat. “You’ll have to find it first.”

Confusion flashes behind those frantic grey eyes, and then creeps in the horrified realization.

At the tree line in the distance, a raven takes off from the highest bough of an old oak tree with a piercing caw.

“I don’t believe you,” he says, but his voice is tight and unconvincing—almost like you can hear the bile creeping up his throat. You wonder if he’s saying it in hopes of persuading you or himself.

You lift your shoulders in a dispassionate shrug, reaching up towards the neckline of your blouse. “Would you like to check?”

It’s quiet for a moment as you wait for a reply you know will never come.

Behind the knight’s own rigid shoulders, the soaring raven swoops down into the treetops out of sight.

“You cut it out yourself,” he finally breathes, your finger pausing where it’s looped underneath your collar. His expression clearly conveys the disgust he feels at the very premise.

You drop your hand, swiping your dirty fingers on the thighs of your trousers in a lazy attempt to clean them.

“I thought I ought to beat a man like you to it.”

The knight before you looks like he might be physically ill, a sallow hue overtaking his skin that wasn’t there a moment prior. You’re not sure you entirely blame him for the revulsion, considering what he must be thinking—considering the vile things he must be picturing in his mind. The image of you harvesting your heart from the cavern of your chest; the idea of you holding it—beating and bloody and hot to the touch—in your own hand.

Your gaze hardens with renewed contempt.

“I watched my people be massacred for their hearts," you tell him. "I watched knights just like you drag them in front of crowds, tie them onto stakes, and burn them for a spectacle. An immolation that the king—the one whose precious memory you stand here and defend with that sword—presided over like a jubilee,” your voice threatens to waver, but you keep it even as you stand. Osamu’s blade follows you as you lift yourself up to your feet—but his wrist is limper now than it was when he first drew it. Weakened. You swallow back the bitter taste creeping up your throat. “If not for my mother, I would undoubtedly have been among those lost, and I swore to myself that if it was the last thing I did—the only thing I ever did—I would never let my own heart suffer the same fate.”

Osamu lowers his arm to his side, his blade withdrawn.

You meet each other, eye to eye, but there’s no doubt now who stands as victor.

“Kill me if you want to,—” you tell him, your tone indifferent to the very challenge you make on your own life.

From deep in the forest, you hear the raven’s caw once more—the shrill cry of a predator catching its prey. The knight’s head turns slightly towards the sound, just the subtlest tilt of his face in the direction, but yours doesn't.

Your eyes don’t leave his.

“—What’s one more dead witch atop the grave of hundreds?”

He considers you for a moment in silence, and then slowly he sheaths his lowered weapon.

He turns his back to you, and your eyes trace the broad lines of his shoulders as he retreats in the direction of the forest from whence he’d appeared.

“I will not help you, no matter how many times you seek me here. If your brother's days are numbered as you say, save your efforts and return to him.”

Osamu pauses, a few furrows away from you in the lush green of your garden.

He's unnervingly still for a moment, still facing towards the forest, but then he turns to you once more.

His eyes are supplicating—no trace of the anger or the malice they’d held moments before. His voice is soft when he speaks again.

“I’ll give ya anythin’ you ask in exchange for yer help. Anythin’.”

You laugh, but the sound is acerbic like the taste clinging to your tongue. The chill in your voice stands in stark juxtaposition to the gentle warmth of the early summer day surrounding you.

“There’s nothing on earth that you could give me that could ever make up for the things your kingdom took away.”

Osamu’s face falls, but he nods almost imperceptibly. It catches you by surprise, that seeming resignation—acceptance—to the only answer you offer him.

Wordlessly, the knight turns and continues towards the trees.

He doesn’t tread on any of your sprouting crops as he departs.

#osamu x reader #miya osamu x reader #osamu miya x reader #hq fic #hq writing #writing #tws

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atamascolily · 5 months ago

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Thinking about hands again, which brings me back to this shot of the bar where Junko Kaname and Ms. Saotome go for drinks, with Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam looming over everything. It's very hard to see in this shot, so here's the original for comparison:

This is an obvious reference to Kyubey's speech earlier in the episode about how contact (contracts) with the Incubators is what created modern humans: we have the divinity--albeit with a human form here--bringing life to mankind. There's a close-up a few moments later of the relevant bit, just in case we missed it.

(just noticed that the lines running vertically through this close-up are not present in the wide shot above, so they must have been added for Symbolism, lol.)

This imagery appears again later, when Madoka wishes to erase all witches "with her own hands" and we are treated to a much more benevolent deity hovering over a fallen human with outstretched hands, taking away the cruel fate that the Incubators have given to them along with the "gift" of being a magical girl.

This imagery is repeated in Rebellion, too, with Madoka/the Law of Cycles reaching out to Homura in her purple goop witch form, where she is reduced to nothing but a hand.

(Oh, wow, you can see the self-harm scars on Madoka's human hand in this shot, too, holy crap. Or maybe they're supposed to be wounds from the battle against Walpurgisnacht? Either way, Shaft really wasn't messing around with the symbolism there--from Homura's perspective, it's all the same thing.)

A connection is made and Homura transforms back into herself through the contact, again mediated through hands. Note that although they start out at the same angle as in The Creation of Adam, the camera pivots so they end up on the same level, but Homura's position makes it clear that this is still not exactly a relationship of equals:

Then we have an image that is incredibly evocative of The Creation of Adam, as Madoka comes to take Homura away to "Heaven":

... except things veer wildly off-script.

Instead of Adam accepting the gift of life from God, or an exhausted magical girl accepting her fate, Homura yanks on those outstretched hands, pulling the human Madoka out out the divine shell in a subversion of everything that has come so far and setting herself up as a divinity in her own right.

Given all the emphasis on hands in this series, I have no doubt this will continue to be a running theme and that any resolution between Homura and Madoka will involve holding hands--as equals this time--though we'll see how long it takes them to get there.

Additional Notes:

The original anime doesn't directly come out and say this, preferring to focus on historical figures like Cleopatra and Joan of Arc, but given Kyubey's role as the devil, this segment strongly implies that part of the "secret history" of magical girls at key moments throughout human history, myth, and legend would naturally include Eve gaining the "knowledge of good and evil" after an encounter with a certain serpent… which in turn would naturally lead to death.

"Human woman giving the transformative fruit of knowledge to her male partner at the behest of a telepathic alien entity who is diegetically both the Tree and the Serpent" is the central theme of Kamen Rider Gaim, so I think it's safe to say that Urobuchi was already thinking about it here, even if he didn't develop the idea more fully until later.

The Creation of Adam is also parodied in the forthcoming Rusty Rabbit game, also written by Urobuchi, this time with Peter Rabbit and Mr. MacGregor from Beatrix Potter.

What can I say, this guy knows what he likes.

#puella magi madoka magica #pmmm analysis

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mask131 · 6 months ago

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What Oz could have been: the 1939 movie

Last time I talked about what Disney's "Oz: The Great and Powerful" would have originally looked like, based on the first version of the script. But today I want to talk about THE big Oz movie, THE classic: the 1939 MGM movie.

Everybody knows this picture, it became iconic and cult, and is such a big part of culture today... Yet, you might be surprised to learn that the movie could have ended up looking VERY different from the one we know today.

Indeed, the "Wizard of Oz" script kept being written and re-written and re-re-written by a dozen of different authors and co-authors, to the point that when it came time to credit who was behind the script problems arose to find an exact name to put on there... If you want to know the detail: a first draft was by William H. Cannon, Mervyn LeRoy's assistant, before the contracts were set and when everything was just beginning. Once the project started, the first full scenario was written by Irving Brecher, but he was then overtaken by another project and replaced by Herman J. Mankiewicz, who worked for one month over the script until a co-author arrived in the form of Ogden Nash. Then a third author joined the team: Noel Langley (he was the one who had the idea of changing the Silver Slippers in Ruby Slippers, and he brought the idea that the three Oz companions would have counterparts as farm helpers in Kansas). HOWEVER Mankiewicz ended up quitting the team. He was replaced by Herbert Fields, who only stayed for three days and didn't change anything, before being also replaced by Samuel Hoffenstein, who also only stayed for a few days without modifying much (or anything). FINALLY Noel Langley gave back the final product of the writers' team... Which of course was edited, rewriten and modified by a second team, formed of Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf. They were then brutally moved to another movie, and the script returned into the hands of Noel Langley to be again rewriten and adapted. One month before the movie started Noel Langley was given another co-author, Jack Mintz, and the second "final" scenario was delivered... Before being corrected and modified by a new author recently brought by Victor Fleming, John Lee Mahin. And THEN it was done!

Of the fourteen different authors that worked on the script, only three ended up being given credit in the final picture: Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf.

The result was a project that varied wildly in production. In fact, while the final movie is still vaguely faithful though a bit loose adaptation of the original novel - the very first drafts of the movie had NOTHING to do with the original novel. The "faithfulness" to Baum's Wizard of Oz can be considered almost an accident as each rewrite got closer to Baum's story, only in an effort to get away from the older script... Anyway, here are some highlights and best-offs of the Oz movie we could have had:

The MGM movie has a lot of deleted scenes and songs, that were recorded but not included in the movie. Hopefully a lot of them were released online and can be easily found on Youtube, or elsewhere on the Internet. Most of them were cool reprises that were cut short for time: for example the song "The Wicked Witch is Dead" had a reprise after the death of the Witch of the West, sung first by the Winkies Guards and then morphing into the song being sung by the Emerald City denizens (fragments of this reprise were still used in trailers for the movie). There is also the very famous "Over the Rainbow" reprise that a scared, crying Dorothy was to sing while trapped in the Witch of the West's castle, before the Witch taunted her with an image of Aunt Em in the crystal ball. The reprise is REALLY touching and Judy Garland really put her best in there. There are also alternate takes which reveal a lot about what the movie was intended to be - for example we have alternate records of the "Lollypop Guild" which shows that the high-pitched voice of the final movie was actually an intent to create a "little boys" voice, to match the little girls of the Lullaby League.

The most famous of all these deleted songs is without a doubt the "Jitterbug" song. It was only cut at the last minute, and this brutal removal leaves bizarre remnants in the final movie (for example the Witch says she "sent a bug" to take care of Dorothy and her friends ; and when the Flying Monkey arrive they look sweating and exhausted). This was because originally the Wicked Witch of the West was supposed to send to the heroic party a magical bug (the titular "Jitterbug") that would have forced them to dance until exhaustion, so the Winged Monkeys could easily pick them up. This was however removed out of fear this would date the movie, and they were very much right... Because the entire pun on which the scene relies does not work anymore today: the "Jitterbug" being a specific style of dance very popular in the 1930s and 1940s, but that stopped existing beyond the 1960s. However the "Jitterbug song" earned enough of a fame to get included into the recent "Tom and Jerry" animated movie of "The Wizard of Oz".

Originally, a child-actress was envisioned for Dorothy, and the first choice was Shirley Temple. She declined (but she would later play the role of Tip/Ozma in a Marvelous Land of Oz production). When Judy Garland was cast, there were attempts at giving her a makeup that would make her look more like a child - but everybody pointed out it made her into a ridiculous "baby doll". The first plans were also to have Dorothy be blond, as she was in later Oz books.

Everybody knows the iconic, creepy look of the Wicked Witch of the West, but did you know she was supposed to be... beautiful? One of the main and biggest inspirations for the MGM movie was the huge success of Disney's Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs. Since they attempt to recreate it, their original plan for the Wicked Witch of the West was to have her be a beautiful villainess evoking the Evil Queen of Disney. The original actres cast for this "glamorous witch" was Gale Sondergaar, and we still have shots of her in costume. However it was later decided to make the witch into an uglier, more grotesque character evoking a traditional fairytale hag. Mervy LeRoy was the one who wanted to have the "glamorous, sexy" witch but many (among which Arthur Freed) defended the idea that the witch had to be like Disney's old crone, not evil queen... So they decided to recast the role - leading to the arrival of the one of a kind Margaret Hamilton.

Speaking of the Wicked Wich: One of the original plans for the character was to have her be the Oz counterpart of... Aunt Em. Indeed, no Miss Gulch of any kind. Early on, Aunt Em was considered to be a meaner and colder caretaker to Dorothy, and the one who wanted to get rid of Toto - which explains why she became the Wicked Witch of Oz. (This idea was by Langley, the one who also had the idea of making Dorothy's companions into the farm-helps of Kansas) The Wicked Witch also had a son, Bulbo, an ugly and dim-witted man she wanted to make King of Oz, and who was... the counterpart of Uncle Henry. Later, when the character of Miss Gulch was created, she was given a son named Walter to match Bulbo, before the character was scrapped altogether.

The Jitterbug scene was actually a left-over of a much earlier version of the movie which would have put a strong emphasis on the "musical aspect". This version wanted Oz to be under the tyranny of a spoiled brat of a princess that would have outlawed all forms of music that were not classical music and opera ; young and hip Dorothy, however, would have brought the swing and the jazz from the 1930s USA and used it to win over the princess in a singing duel, and becoming a hero in Oz. Who would have played the princess? I had conflicting reports: some say Deanna Durbin (one of the early candidates for playing Dorothy, alongside Shirley Temple) was considered for the role ; others said it would have been Betty Jaynes playing a certan "Princess Betty".

The earliest version of the script we have (created by William H. Cannon) was heavily inspired by the 1925's Wizard of Oz movie (because yes, there were Wizard of Oz movies before the MGM one), and wanted to remove all forms of magic and supernatural from the story. The brainless scarecrow would have been a man so dumb the only job he could find was to scare crows in fields ; the Tin Man was supposed to be a heartless criminal that the law had forced to wear a suit of tin as a punishment, punishment which did encourage him to learn kindness...

Oh yes, everybody noted in the final movie how Dorothy favorizes the Scarecrow above the other companions. This is a remnant of the scenario drafts wher the final scene of the movie would have been the teary farewell of Dorothy to Hunk, as he leaves for agricultural college and she promises him to write him every day - implying a romance between the two...

People might note a bizarre editing during the scene of the companions freeing Dorothy - such as the door being axed down not corresponding to the door the group escapes from. This is due to yet another cut sequence: the door the companions axed down was to be a trap by the Wicked Witch, who was to imitate Dorothy's voice and song to lure the companions. Once she had captured the three friends, she would have used them as baits, forcing them to call out for Dorothy and to encourag her to take a magical "rainbow bridge" that appeared out of nowhere... Except said bridge would have been created by the Wicked Witch's magic, and while the rainbow was solid enough to walk onto for a certan distance, at one point it returned to being just light. The Witch hoped to kill Dorothy by doing this - but didn't count on the Ruby Slippers' magic actually preventing Dorothy from falling through the rainbow.

Before it was decided to have Glinda send snow to kill the cursed poppies, the original concept was that the Tin Man's tears would have awakened Dorothy (an idea that, as people pointed out, was reused in "The Wiz").

There was at one point plans for the Cowardly Lion to actually be just a... a regular lion that tagged along as a sort of pet with the team, and had dubbed lines, to be revealed as "Prince Florizel", a Prince Charming-type of character that had been cursed under the shape of a lion, and would in the end have married his lover, princess Sylvia (this version was one of Noel Langley's, and very influenced by traditional fairytales). This version most notably pushed Dorothy into being a secondary character: it was the Prince/Lion who was to kill the Witch, by somehow cutting her broom so it would fall into pieces while in the air. There was also a dragon the prince was supposed to fight. This version, being Langley's, was the one that included the Witch having a son (see above). In the older versions of this story, the Witch's plan to make Bulbo king of Oz was to have him marry princess Sylvia, heir to the Ozian throne (hence why Florizel's feud with the Witch is personal) ; later it was changed to the Witch planning to attack the Emerald City and dethrone the Wizard with an army of men, wolves and winged monkeys.

When the MGM learned that Disney was working on their own adaptation of the Wizard of Oz back then, there were brief talks of the two studios uniting their efforts to make a half-live-action, half-animated movie.

During the scene where the Wicked Witch threatens the companions at the cottage in the forest, the Witch was supposed to threaten the Tin Man by briefly turning him into a "beehive", aka filling him with bees, and after crushing one of the insects the Tin Man would have cried, causing his jaw to rust and be blocked.

Early on, there were plans to keep Oz as an actual magical place that truly existed - but the movie-makers of the time considered fantasy was not "sophisticated" and "serious" enough for the audiences, and so they added the entire idea of Oz being shown as a dream-world so adults could "buy" the movie.

#what oz could have been #the wizard of oz #1939 wizard of oz #mgm wizard of oz #oz #wizard of oz #deleted scenes #what could have been

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cellarspider · 3 months ago

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Qunlat 1/??: Introduction

⭅ Previous =⦾ Index ⦾= Next ⭆

First dive into canon Qunlat! I’ll be starting with a bit of history and background on constructed language creation, what I think the strengths and weaknesses of Qunlat are, and how they likely came about.

Note: This post and all others in the series will contain image alt-text that includes optional side-material. It's not necessary to read to understand the main text, but it does contain spicy details like "How old is Sten?" and "who could the Witch-King of Angmar have been defeated by, if the prophecy about him had been written in Qunlat?"

People have always been making new languages–ever come up with a secret code between friends, siblings, or partners? Congratulations! You’ve dabbled in making a new language.

Constructed language creation goes back many centuries–usually for religious use, such as Hildegard von Bingen’s mystical use of her Lingua Ignota. In the 18th and 19th century, an interest in language reform and international communication created attempts at more “logical” and “universal” languages like Esperanto, Volapük, Ido, and Novial. Constructing new writing systems also has a long and successful history–Hangul is used by 81 million people! The Cherokee syllabary, wholly created by the singularly dedicated Sequoyah, is still in use today!

But for our purposes, the story starts with a fellow named Tolkien.

As a historian, linguist, and big ol’ nerd who wanted to write a mythological epic, Tolkien famously built the elven languages of Middle Earth first, and then folded the rest of the world around them. He also produced limited amounts of Khuzdul (dwarvish), Adûnaic, Rohirric, Entish, and the Black Speech, creating a rich and alive-seeming world in the process.

Ever since him, big ol’ nerds have been influenced by this. Most constructed languages since have flourished in the hobbyist space of “conlangers”, folks like me who do this for fun. And oh boy, is it fun. Here’s a sample of an original language I’ve created:

But the most well-known conlangs sit at the intersection of art and commerce: languages constructed for mass media. These have a unique set of constraints, which will explain a few things about Qunlat. Yes, I promise, I haven’t forgot about Qunlat. I’m just excited to talk about my hobby.

When Star Trek made the jump to the big screen, James Doohan threw together some words that linguist Mark Okrand eventually transformed into the Klingon language. Doohan wasn’t really focused on making a usable language, he just wanted something that sounded right–it had “phonaesthetics” that matched the audience perception of the Klingons. This created something unfamiliar to English speakers, requiring you to make guttural sounds that most dialects of English never touch. Phonaesthetics were also among Tolkien’s leading principles with his languages–Quenya was influenced by the sounds of Latin and Finnish, Rohirric by Old English, and the Black Speech by the extinct Hurrian language. To him, these had certain associations that informed the character of the language’s speakers.

Phonaesthetics are usually priority number one in constructed languages that appear in mass media. While many modern projects will hire professional linguists to create something robust and to instruct actors on how to speak their lines, this isn’t always the case. In fact, it’s a very recent development.

Mostly, constructed languages have been the province of some jobbo in the writer’s room or sound department, who has fifteen other things they have to be doing. They create something they think sounds good, and then send it off in the script. When the conlang is plonked down in front of an actor, they may not be given any direction on pronunciation, because nobody in the room has been given a pronunciation guide.

All this is to say: Many constructed languages in media are produced very quickly, they’re poorly-documented, and they’re often performed by people who haven’t been coached on their use. Those that survive are often passed through multiple hands, which may lead to refinement of the language, or artistic direction may be lost.

Qunlat has a lot of the hallmarks of this sort of language. So does Elvhen, but I’m only passingly familiar with it. Qunlat, though. It has a very simple, very Indo-European language structure, which primarily functions in ways English considers “default”.

This is very common when an English-speaker makes a constructed language without a lot of practice: you write what you know, after all. And because most people never have to think too hard about their native language, they recapitulate the bits they think are vital, shave off a lot of the complexities that they don’t want to deal with, and never replace them with anything else. If a complex sentence does rear its head, something is slapped together ad-hoc. There are specific examples I can point to throughout the series that fit these patterns.

The phonaesthetics of Qunlat also have the hallmarks of a project that’s passed through many hands, or been poorly documented. While it began with a fairly strong sense of phonaesthetics, some additions are notable for their dissonance with the rest of the language. It's on a journey without a road to follow.

So while I focus on canon Qunlat, I’ll also be trying to point out the things I like, and the rough edges that make things difficult or uncertain, while attempting to take an understanding view of it all–Heck knows, I’ve made some real clunkers in my time as a conlanger, and I didn’t have to publish any of it on a deadline.

We start with a discussion on how I’ll be handling sources next time, as Dragon Age is… well, it’s complicated.

⭅ Previous =⦾ Index ⦾= Next ⭆

#dragon age #qunari #qunlat #conlangs

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humbledragon669 · 7 months ago

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S1E3 – Hard Times Write Up P5 - Friday (One day to the end of the World) up to "the break up"

So, here we are, more than halfway through the episode yet only just getting to the credits. That really threw me the first time I watched this episode! I do think it’s a very clever way to handle the format of this episode though – you couldn’t exactly break the flow of the historical scenes to make way for the credits, and those scenes definitely don’t belong nestled in amongst the main storyline, particularly as all of those scenes were additional material written specifically for the show (as described by Neil in the introduction to the Script Book – this was do with ensuring consistency for seeing Crowley and Aziraphale in every episode of the season). Despite the fact that the storyline covered in these scenes is newly created, the information we learn from them is crucial to understanding the motives, emotions, and thought processes that the angel and demon show throughout the show, and I genuinely don’t think the rest of the episodes, or our relationship with the two main characters, would have been the same without them.

I also think the crazy-fast montage of scenes that we see immediately following the credits is a great way of bringing us back to the main storyline of the show, picking up right where we left off at the end of episode 2, which in fairness does seem like an awfully long time ago – after all, we’ve just been through a whistle-stop tour of 6000 years of history.

The entire sequence takes 5 seconds and appears to use a different image for every frame of film, which means it consists of approximately 130 different tableaus, in chronological order of their appearance in the season. Some editor had fun doing that I’m sure.

Knowing that I should be looking at any instances of writing whenever it’s used, I paused my rewatch of this episode at the point where we’re shown Aziraphale’s little planning board. Whilst most of it makes perfect sense (a map, notes about Adam’s name, relevant prophecy numbers), there is also a sheet of paper covered in writing that, to me at least is completely ineligible:

If anybody knows what this writing is, or even if it’s just made-up scribblings to look cool, I’d love to know the answer.

The conversation between Adam and Anathema has always struck me as slightly odd. I mean, it’s nice that Adam stops to ask if she’s OK (when she clearly is not), but there doesn’t appear to be any recognition from either party that they actually met just the day before. And forgive me for imposing modern-day suppositions on to work that was written a few decades previously, but a fully grown adult inviting a kid into their house for something to drink just feels creepy to me. We know she’s perfectly fine to be around though so we’ll let it go. What I do like about the conversation is that there’s an echoing of the exchange that Crowley and Aziraphale shared as they were leaving Tadfield Manor (about angels not being occult but ethereal) but this time the labels in contention are “witch” and “occultist”.

ADAM: Are you a witch? ANATHEMA: No, I’m an occultist.

It’s a nice nod to the notion that words have power. Both parties are describing the same idea but choosing what connotations they want to associate with it. And what’s really important to note on that matter is that changing Anathema’s label completely changes Adam’s opinion of her immediately.

Side note: anybody else find the juxtaposition of some manky old thumbscrews right next to a colourful birthday candle to be a beautifully accurate summation for what an oblivious shitshow the Witchfinder’s Army really is?

I find the choice of location for Crowley’s meeting with Shadwell to be an interesting one. The café they meet in proudly declares itself to be the “Best Café in Wandsworth”. Wandsworth is a long way from Crouch End, where we know Shadwell lives, and Mayfair, which is where the book states Crowley’s flat is located. And just so we’re covering some of the other possibilities, it’s nowhere near Soho and Aziraphale hasn’t set up the meeting at the 3rd rendezvous point yet for it to be a precursor location for the meeting on the bandstand. Why Wandsworth?

There are a couple of Easter Eggs in Crowley’s newspaper here, and perhaps one on the TV playing in the background. Let’s start with the newspaper. It’s no surprise that Crowley would be reading the Infernal Times, but who knew that demons would consider a bit of hiking for their holidays:

It’s a bit hard to make out, but I’m pretty sure that the headline reads something about walking trails. And it’s a pretty pathetic sounding front page headline:

In case you can’t read it (again, it difficult to make out), it says “SOUL MUSIC: Catalogue your collection of Souls?”. As a headline it doesn’t make a great deal of sense, but I think this is probably a reference to Crowley’s soul music collection mentioned in the book.

He was very proud of his collection. It had taken him ages to put together. This was real Soul Music. James Brown wasn’t in it.

The last of the headlines I can actually make out is the following:

Again, if you can’t quite make it out, this one describes some latest research that suggests exorcisms are on the rise in Wales. Just who has done the research, and why specifically concentrating on Wales, remains a mystery. Now let’s have a look at that TV in the corner of the room:

This was really tricky to get a clipping of something that made sense but the footage on the screen looks like it’s set in Puritan times. The guy on the right in this image is even wearing a costume reminiscent of Adultery Pulsifer’s clothes in the previous episode, so perhaps this a witchfinder? I couldn’t get anything concrete, but I think it’s probably a little Easter Egg nonetheless.

It’s nice that we have an acknowledgement of Shadwell’s involvement with Crowley going back decades during the conversation where we discover the demon is sponsoring the Witchfinder’s Army. We know, from the 1967 historical scene, that Crowley has been dealing with this dense oaf for 50 years by this point. I suppose in a show where character recognition, or rather the lack of it (see previous scene with Adam and Anathema, or even the use of the same actors to play different characters as we see in season 2) happens regularly, it was probably necessary to script something that explicitly states that these two characters are aware of the “resemblance” that Crowley bears to someone Shadwell knew many years previously.

Moving back to Anathema and Adam now (this episode does fair rattle through the sub-plot development doesn’t it?!). What’s with the whale obsession please? This isn’t the first time we hear about how whales have big brains (Crowley already raised this point when he was very drunk in episode 1), and it won’t be the last. I mean, I’m not denying that they do have huge brains, I just didn’t realise it was a thing that so many people thought about. I wonder if it’s one of those questions you supposedly can ask men about to get an unexpected response, like how often they think about ancient Rome? Regardless, the whale comment is just one of a bunch of foreshadowing Clues in this scene for later on.

They’ve got it all covered – ley lines, nuclear power stations, the Kraken, Atlantis, and Tibet, all mentioned or seen in a very short space of time. There’s even mention of the destruction of the Brazilian rainforests, something Adam tries to resolve in the book.

Up in Heaven, which looks like an incredibly boring place in my opinion, Aziraphale is busy telling his superiors things they’re either not interested in or already know. I don’t know whether Uriel’s line “what’s happening” is a little reference to Jesus Christ Superstar (the song “What’s the Buzz” uses this phrase repeatedly throughout), but if it is it would effectively put Aziraphale in the role of Jesus, with the archangels being disciples. Not exactly fitting with canon, so maybe this is a little Easter Egg. Or maybe it’s nothing at all.

Whilst I was doing this write up, I noticed that Aziraphale is the only one of the angels to be wearing a patterned garment – his trademark tartan. It’s a nice way to subtly distinguish him, or more precisely his relationship with the concept of free will, from the other angels, and whilst we know he has been exercising his own free will for centuries, his addition of a non-standard item of clothing to angelic attire would suggest he is becoming more comfortable with his stance. Looking back through the historical scenes (including the ones from season 2 we are yet to see), I think the tartan first makes it appearance in 1862, but I’m happy to be corrected on that.

It's a good job that the archangels are a somewhat dense bunch because Aziraphale does not do a good job of hiding when he’s hiding something here. He has a tendency to overact when it comes to the discussion around Crowley, and the pause he puts in before his non-committal answer to Gabriel’s questioning is almost painful.

It should be obvious to them that he’s covering something up but luckily they’re totally oblivious and Aziraphale actually manages to buy himself some time. Credit to him here – he went to Heaven with preconceived ideas of how this conversation was going and he not only manages to adapt to the deviation from his expectations, he also considers what this means, how it changes his plans, comes up with a plan for how to achieve his new objective, and executes that plan very convincingly. There’s a lot of talk about how Aziraphale can often be pretty dense at times, but this little scene should tell you that that’s only really true when it comes to Crowley – outside of the blinkers of friendship and love, this is one quick-thinking and intelligent angel.

We’ve had a couple of mentions of Crowley being “fallen” before now in the show, but I think this is the first time we get any clues as to why that might have been. And surprisingly for such an important piece of information, it’s delivered in an almost nonchalant way.

There was war in Heaven, long before the Earth was created. Crowley and the rest were cast out. Not nothing was ever really settled.

We already knew that Crowley wasn’t the only fallen angel (see Hastur’s comments in episode 2) but this is the first mention of him being involved in all-out war against Heaven. Hastur talks about rebelling in the previous episode, so we can only assume that these are two puzzle pieces that fit together. I don’t know whether season 3 will bring us a fuller answer for Crowley’s fall, but I hope so. I feel like it’s a huge part of his history and who he is; as a fan it would be nice to be able to put it all together for an even better understanding of his character.

Gabriel’s comments about the war and Armageddon make for some interesting discussion points. He says that even though the fallen angels were cast out of Heaven, nothing was settled. What exactly were they hoping would be the outcome of that war? If it was the destruction of those who rebelled, why only cast them out? Why not destroy them at that point? And why exactly does Earth have to get tied up in all of this? His parting line about Earth’s destruction offers little to the debate about what Earth’s role is in the whole Heaven/Hell war, only that Heaven is determined to destroy it, regardless.

The Earth isn’t going to just end itself, you know.

Charming. And unfortunately for Aziraphale, his lack of enthusiasm for another war has triggered the suspicion of the archangels – it’s interesting that he was able to cover his intentions through his talk of Crowley and poorly disguised buying for time but what really makes them think he can’t be trusted is that he clearly isn’t fully on their side when it comes to war.

There is a line in the book about anybody who meets Aziraphale believing him to be “gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide”. I can see how this might have been a little difficult to get into a TV show, but I think the double entendre delivered by the following exchange probably serves as a suitable alternative:

AZIRAPHALE: Do you have any men free? I need them to poke about a bit. SHADWELL: Poke, eh? And where exactly do you want them poking?

And if it wasn’t clear what Shadwell’s thoughts on Aziraphale were, calling him a “great southern pansy can probably fill in the blanks for you.

Remember what I was saying about Aziraphale not being dense earlier? Well this is one of those moments when he proves the exact opposite. He genuinely appears to believe all the stories Shadwell has fed him about the soldiers of the Witchfinder’s Army. I suspect he simply can’t bear to think that somebody would lie to him for financial gain, something which Crowley appeared to be fully conscious of when he dismissed Shadwell’s presentation of the ledger in the café earlier on. Whatever the angel’s reasons for this gullibility, we as the audience can now see that both of our hero pair are not only funding the Witchfinder Army (for the paltry combined sum of £500 per year according to the Script Book) but making use of their services, and hiding the organisation from the other for fear of reprimand. How very Shakespearian.

There are a few little things I’d like to show appreciation for in the Famine scene. First off, and I did have to look this up, but the word “sable” can be defined as “black”. So Famine’s chosen name consists of 2 words that describe black. Given that one of War’s alternative names is Red (or Carmine, which means crimson, as well as her chosen surname of Zingiber, which is another name for ginger – a word you might use to describe a red-headed person), this is hardly surprising. Next up. I love how beautiful the plate of non-existent food in the fine dining restaurant is. I have eaten at a Michelin starred restaurant and I can assure you, that isn’t far off the mark at all.

Next little Easter Egg – there’s a picture of the Bentley, albeit in red, on the wall of the burger joint that Famine and his assistant go to:

And how many times have we heard/read terms and conditions that sound very similar (scratch that, there are some phrases that are word-for-word perfect) to the ones for Chow for any/all new health product that comes to market with the sole purpose of making money out of gullible/vulnerable people. Neil really nailed the wording and delivery in the script there. Elvis’s presence in the restaurant is a cute bit of humour too, and halfway makes up for one of the lines in the script that didn’t make it to the final cut but made me guffaw like a loon – it’s Death’s response to a question about the year of Elvis’s death from the quiz machine:

I DON’T CARE WHAT IT SAYS. I NEVER LAID A FINGER ON HIM.

Lastly, I’d like to think there’s another instance of script mirroring in the use of the word Chow here. Cast your mind back, all the way to episode 1…

LIGUR: Wassat mean, “Ciao”? HASTUR: It’s Italian. It means “food”.

Except to anyone actually eating Sable’s prized invention Chow isn’t food at all, but eating it might result in you having to say “goodbye” to a lot of things like “hair. And skin tone. And, if you ate enough of it long enough, vital signs.” Beautiful word play.

Side note for the next scene: the Witchfinder Manual actually has a price on the cover (I can’t quite make out what it is, but it’s “old” money), which means at some point that sack of crap was actually sold to people.

One last tiny note: Crowley tells Aziraphale to meet him at the 3rd alternative rendezvous. Not the 3rd rendezvous or the alternative rendezvous. And Aziraphale can’t remember which location it maps to, though he can list off three possibilities, much to Crowley’s annoyance. I’d quite like to know how many formally named rendezvous locations they have, and why they think that referring to them in “code” prevents their respective superiors from knowing they’re meeting in the first place.

I am going to call it on this part of the write up at this point. I had intended for this part to be the last one for this episode, but I’m already at nearly 3000 words and I haven’t covered the “break-up” scene yet. I think I’m partly just putting off the inevitable by not including it here because I find the last scene of this episode very difficult to watch. Nevertheless, I hope you’ll forgive me. I’d hope I can give that scene the attention it deserves if I split it out into its own write up. So for now… comments, questions, discussion, all welcome, as always.

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timeofjuly · 1 year ago

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Trick or Heat

Summary: You’re sitting at the kitchen counter, laptop in front of you and trying to get a little work done before you’re pulled away for the evening, but you’ve written and rewritten the same sentence six times now, and each rephrasing is clumsier than the last. You just can’t focus. It’s like first date jitters, maybe, if the first date in question involved an hours-long, magically fuelled sex-fest that’s been scribbled in underneath October 31st ever since the calendar was purchased. You feel hot (ha) at the very thought of it. Whether it’s a sexy hot or a nervous, sweaty hot remains to be seen.

Sans' first heat with you happens to fall on Halloween. Missing out on trick-or-treating, you find, is a worthwhile trade-off.

Notes: Merry Halloween lmao here's 5k of horrortale sans/reader porn with feelings

Tags: NSFW!!!! Smut with feelings, heat cycles, established relationship, fluff, oral sex, unrealistically enjoyable shower sex, face-sitting, multiple orgasms, size kink, reader has a vagina.

Read it on AO3 or read it below the cut!

Before moving in with your boyfriend and his brother, you didn’t use a physical calendar. You never felt the need to; your phone kept track of your various appointments and commitments and why bother pencilling in haircut at 11am when you’d get a reminder text from the salon the day before anyway?

That fast-and-loose attitude served you well when you were single, but these days, a calendar sits smack-dab in the middle of your fridge. Sans’ occupational therapist had been the one to suggest it; she’d rightly pointed out that leaving sticky notes for himself around the house isn’t a very effective memory aid, considering that he’s prone to forgetting about the notes themselves.

Sans had been less resistant to the idea than he’d been to the other mnemonics the OT had suggested, and so the refrigerator calendar had gone up. It wouldn’t be out of place in the home of a WASP mom of four; Live, Laugh, Love is proudly proclaimed in flowy script at the top of each page and the image for each month is themed in accordance of whatever holiday happens to fall in it. For March, there’d been a picture of a rabbit surrounded by colourful eggs with ‘Hoppy Easter, every bunny!’ written beneath it. For October, there’s a scowling cartoon woman, broomstick in tow, with a speech bubble saying, ‘this is my resting witch face’.

Sans, obviously, had been the one to pick it out. You’ve peeked ahead and you’re looking forward to watching him flip it over onto November tomorrow; the Thanksgiving-themed ‘Thankful, blessed, and mashed potato obsessed!’ spread will undoubtedly give him a laugh.

First, though, you need to get through tonight.

You’re not nervous, exactly, but what you’re feeling is too sharp to purely be called anticipation. The feeling flutters against your sternum, a lightness that sets your heart ticking just a little faster than normal.

You’re sitting at the kitchen counter, laptop in front of you and trying to get a little work done before you’re pulled away for the evening, but you’ve written and rewritten the same sentence six times now, and each rephrasing is clumsier than the last. You just can’t focus.

It’s like first date jitters, maybe, if the first date in question involved an hours-long, magically fuelled sex-fest that’s been scribbled in underneath October 31st ever since the calendar had been purchased.

There are four things written underneath that date. The first, in your handwriting, is Halloween! and the second, also in your handwriting, is pay power bill (shit, you better do that now).

The third, in Papyrus’ handwriting and taking up almost all of the room, is PAPYRUS’ SPECTACULAR HALLOWEEN EXTRAVAGANZA!!!

Then, written at the bottom, so small that your eyes strain to read it, is heat.

You feel hot (ha) at the very thought of it. Whether it’s a sexy hot or a nervous, sweaty hot remains to be seen.

Either way, you feel like a virgin on prom night. All of the monsters in your life – even Papyrus, mortifyingly, who is the last person you want to talk to about your sex life – has assured you that you’ve got nothing to worry about, and you’re not, not really, save some lingering concerns about your stamina and your ability to walk tomorrow.

This is just new and new things are inherently a little scary, but you’re not going to let your irrational fear of failure ruin this for you. Not today, insecurities, not today.

Papyrus left for the Halloween festivities over an hour ago and Sans is napping on the living room couch – apparently tonight’ll take a lot out of him and it’s normal for monsters to sleep more than usual in the days preceding and following a heat. For Sans, who already dozes off at the drop of a hat, this means that this is his third nap of the day.

You close your laptop with a sigh, giving up the pretence of actually getting any work done. No point bullshitting yourself for any longer.

You decide that you’re going to have a long, hot shower. There’s some personal grooming you want to do before Sans wakes up and you’ve got lingerie that you purchased for this specific occasion to change into. You don’t normally bother with frills like that - neither of you are particularly fancy people – but you feel like you should make this special.

Sans is still asleep when you creep through the living room to get to your shared bedroom, sprawled adorably across the couch. A little line of drool leaks from his slightly open mouth and the sight of it makes your chest feel all warm and soupy.

God, he’s so cute. You love seeing him like this, so unguarded and peaceful and soft.

Once in your ensuite, you strip off your clothes and turn on the shower. You test the temperature of the water with your palm. Steam is billowing in soft sheets from the water by the time that you deem it to be an acceptable heat.

You step into the shower, sighing as the heat cascades over your head. Your hair sticks in wet tendrils to your face and neck. You hope that you can get it dry before your boyfriend wakes up.

Washing your hair is always a pain, but at least it gives you something hands-on to do to distract you from the tension slowly curling in your belly.

You and Sans have had dozens of conversations about today. In the beginning, he hadn’t wanted you to be here at all, worried that he’d be too rough with you. You’d scoffed at that, certain that he’d never hurt you, even by accident, and you still stand by that sentiment but after he’d explained this heat business to you properly, you’d understood his concerns.

It still feels like a strange term to use: heat. Too animalistic. Too wild.

Neither of those words are ones you’d use to describe Sans. He’s always so careful with you, so cautious. So afraid of hurting you, or even scaring you. Even in the throes of passion, he always has a firm leash on himself, no matter how hard you try to shake it off.

The idea of him, uninhibited, unrestrained –

You press your thighs together. Shit, you’re getting ahead of yourself.

Sans has explained the biological side of it to you a few times, but so much of the explanation had ultimately boiled down to it’s just magic, babe, so you’re still not sure that you entirely get it.

You have the basics down pat, you think; some monsters go into heat roughly once every twelve months.

Why some monsters and why every twelve months, you have no idea. The fact is that Sans ticks the first box and it’s been the allotted time. Even without checking the date he can tell, apparently, when a heat is coming; his already sharp senses have grown even keener over the past week and of course there’s the sleeping. There’s been some other stuff, too; he’s been all over you for the past week, even more so than usual, bringing you blankets and food and drinks. Making sure that you’re happy and comfortable. It’s been really nice, but he’s bashful about it, so you’ve done your best to not make a big deal about it.

Thank stars you managed to convince him to let you stick around for it. It had taken a lot of cajoling and promises that you’d leave if you so much as felt uncomfortable, but you’d done it.

The only downside is that you’re missing Halloween, but whatever. You can gorge yourself on candy any day of the year. The kind of ravaging you’re expecting is well worth that sacrifice.

You finish scrubbing shampoo into the roots of your hair, your head haloed in suds. You’ve washed the rest of your body in the time that you let the shampoo sit on your head and it’s well and truly time to wash it out. You turn the cold water tap a bit higher to temper the water a little and then close your eyes and duck your head beneath the spray.

The water feels lovely against your face, soothing the tension between your brows. Eyes still closed, you bring your hands up to your head and begin rinsing the suds from your hair, going section by section to make sure nothing stays soapy. The sounds of the shower fill your ears, raining down on your senses.

Hard phalanges scrape against your waist from behind and you gasp, eyes flying open. You’re immediately assailed by a blast of water directly to the face, a little going into your mouth but most of it mixing with the shampoo and flowing into your eyes.

“Fuck!” you hiss, vision gone blurry. The hands immediately fall from your sides.

You grope forward blindly, searching for the towel you’d slung over the shower door. The soft fabric meets your fingertips and you drag it towards you, wiping your stinging eyes.

“sorry, sorry, sorry,” a deep voice chants into your ear and the words are familiar, but the tone isn’t, filled with a new urgency. “you okay? didn’t mean to scare ya’.”

“It’s okay,” you say hurriedly, feeling awful at how torn-up about it he sounds. “It’s just soap.”

“sorry,” Sans repeats. “thought you would’ve heard the door open.”

You blink a few times until your vision clears. “Nah, I was totally spaced out.” You throw the towel back over the shower door and turn around to face him.

Sans is completely naked, the majority of the space in the large shower taken up by his bulk. How the fuck he manages to move so quietly, you’ll never understand. It probably doesn’t speak well to your situational awareness that he managed to just sneak into the shower without you realising, but that’s a worry for another time.

He’s looking at you with a concern that makes your chest hurt, his single eyelight unusually fuzzy and scanning your expression for pain or panic. There’s none to be found, of course, but you’re sure that the shampoo’s made your eyes a little red, which might be giving the wrong impression.

“I’m fine,” you say, reaching up to press your hand against his skull. He’s warm to the touch, even to your shower-flushed skin. “Everything alright with you?”

He doesn’t reply verbally, but he leans into your palm with a sigh and some of the tension fades. You let him nuzzle into your hand for a moment, enjoying the intimacy, but then you remember that you’ve got half-rinsed shampoo in your hair that you need to finish washing out; it’ll make your hair go dry if you leave it sitting for too long.

“I’ve got to finish rinsing this out,” you explain, gesturing at your sudsy head.

“can i do it?” he asks you, hands fluttering towards you. “i wanna do something for you. i wanna take care of you.”

Aw, that’s sweet. You’ve showered together before, of course, but Sans has never offered to wash your hair for you. For a moment, you wonder what’s prompted the offer, but his hands drop back to his sides – you must’ve taken too long to answer – and your eyes follow them down and land on –

Oh. Yes. Right. The heat.

Well, that makes more sense. It’s clearly started. No wonder he’s climbed into the shower with you in the nude. Hell, no wonder he wants to wash your hair; he’d warned you that he might be a little more demonstratively affectionate and attentive.

Your gaze lingers on the slate-blue erection straining towards you for only a second before it shoots back up to his face. The same blue colour lightly stains his zygomatic arches.

“Sure,” you say, voice gone a little husky. “Hold on, I’ll turn back around.”

You step back under the spray and spin around, your backside to Sans, and tip your head back so your hair is under the cascade of the showerhead, but your face stays somewhat dry.

“Go for it,” you say over the sound of the water.

Heat prickles across your scalp when sharp phalanges slip into your hair. You hum, staticky pleasure flowing from your head and down your neck. You let your eyes flutter closed. The pressure and lack of give in Sans’ bony fingers make him great at giving head massages.

He must step a little closer, because something hot and hard bumps against the small of your back. You shiver, goosebumps tingling across your skin.

It’s difficult not to relax completely into the head massage, but as nice as it feels, you realise that all of the shampoo isn’t actually being washed away. No wonder: it’s not like Sans has any hair to wash and you can’t imagine that he’d have done this for anyone else before.

“You’ve got to part it a little to get all the soap out,” you say. You tip your head a little further back and to the side to demonstrate, letting the water wash away another pocket of shampoo.

His fingers comb through your hair and then begin to wash a little more rigorously, going section-by-section. “don’t worry, babe, i’ll do a sud-sational job.”

That startles a laugh out of you. “Oh yeah? Well, I’m rooting for you.”

The remaining shampoo is soon washed away, but Sans continues with his ministrations to your scalp with one hand. The other hand drops to your hip, where he rubs little circles with his thumb into the slick flesh. You cant your hips back towards him, pressing his cock more firmly against your lower back.

The hand at your hip tightens, sending a thrill shivering through you. His hand is so big that you can feel the tips of his phalanges digging in close to where your thigh joins your pubic mound, whilst the base of his hand rests on the outer curve of your ass. The reminder of how big he is compared to you – fuck, it always gets you going.

Looks like your hair is going unconditioned today. Ah well; you’ll use a hair mask tomorrow to make up for it. You have far more pressing issues at hand.

You step back through the water – keeping your eyes firmly shut – and into Sans’ embrace, his hand dropping from your hair to curl around your torso. It wraps around your chest and settles on the curve of your breast, his fingers toying with your nipple. You can feel his cock throbbing against your back, so hard, especially considering that neither of you have touched it yet.

“This heat thing is no joke, huh?” you say.

His fingers pause on your breast – you and your big mouth. “nope. are you sure that you’re okay with this? i can stop-.”

“Absolutely, one million percent sure,” you say firmly. “Never been surer of anything in my life. I want this.”

“yeah?” his voice has gone a little shivery. You much prefer this to the worried, hesitant tone of before. “yeah, you want this? want me to make you feel good?”

The hand at your hip dips a little lower, brushing at the cleft of your pussy. It reminds you of how very badly you want to be touched there.

“Yes, please,” you say and because you know that it gets him every time you use his name, you continue, “please touch me, Sans.”

You hear him exhale shakily and then blessedly, finally, his hand slips between your thighs. You groan, head tipping back to rest against his sternum. His phalanges trace along your outer labia, using your wetness to glide against the sensitive skin, before moving inwards to slowly circle your clit.

“i'll take good care of you, i promise,” he mutters against your ear. “spread your legs a little for me, babe, that’s it.”

The words send heat spiralling in your core and pull your muscles tight. It normally takes loads of foreplay to get Sans talking like that, voice pitched even deeper with need, and even more to for him to take the lead like this.

You hurry to spread your legs, glad for his arms around you to keep you from slipping on the shower tile.

He uses the extra room between your thighs to play with your clit a little more firmly, touching you exactly the way you like. Even over the roar of the shower – which you should really turn off, neither of you are really underneath the showerhead and water isn’t cheap – you can hear how wet you are, hear how his fingers slip against you.

“Fuck, that’s good,” you sigh, feeling him gently slip a finger inside of you to gently press against your g-spot.

Your eyes had been closed but you force them open now. You want to watch.

You look down the plain of your body, taking in the hand cupping your breast, the other between your thighs. His hands look huge between your legs, bones thick and long, pleasantly textured against your skin.

“say it again,” he urges you, hands speeding up. “tell me how good i make you feel.”

“So good,” you gasp, feeling the heat tighten in your belly. “So fucking good. Please don’t stop, oh my god.”

Another finger is slid inside of you and they both tap in tandem against your g-spot whilst his thumb rubs tight circles against your clit and it only takes a few moments for the dual stimulation to build into a crescendo. You let out a strangled moan as you come, feeling yourself tremble around his fingers and letting your head thud back against his sternum.

Sans groans against the top of your head and you feel his cock pulse against your back, warmth seeping into your skin.

It takes you a moment to catch your breath and trust that your legs aren’t about to collapse underneath you.

“I like this heat thing,” you breath.

Sans huffs out a laugh behind you. “aw, you tuckered out already? told ya you should’ve napped with me before.”

You turn around to face him, pulling faux indignation to your face. “Hey, don’t count me out yet. It’ll take more than one orgasm to wear me out.”

His browbone quirks, an expression you see on him so rarely, and sweet affection rushes into your chest, overlapping with the lingering buzz of your orgasm. God, you love him so much.

“is that a challenge?” he says.

You get the feeling that you might be biting off a little more than you can chew, but you’re not backing down now. “Sure is, baby. I’ve got stamina for days. I wanna touch you first, though. I owe you one.”

His smirk gives way to bashfulness. “i – uh, no you don’t, babe. we’re both one-for-one.”

“What do you mean? I haven’t even -.” You pause, remembering how he’d ground against you as you’d come. You twist your head back to see if any evidence remains on your back, but you’ve been standing under the water, so there’s nothing, but Sans’ face says it all.

“… holy shit, that’s so fucking hot,” you say. “Bed now, please and thank you.”

The water is hastily switched off – Papyrus is going to flip his lid when he sees the water bill for October – and then you’re shrieking with delight as Sans lifts you clear off your feet and into his arms. You blink and then you’re being gently deposited into the soft sheets of your bed, still completely soaked.

Sans looms over you, knees caging your hips with his arms bracketed around your shoulders. His single eyelight huge and fuzzy. It’s trained on your face, unmoving. His ribcage heaves. Something crackles in the air around you, so palpable that even you, human and magic-less as you are, can feel it dancing across your skin.

“I think that takes the record for the shortest shortcut to date, lazybones,” you say breathlessly.

You’re expecting a clever quip in return, or perhaps a joke or a particularly horrific pun, but he just sucks in a low, unsteady breath, eyelight moving down from your face to laze down the length of your body. You can’t help it: you squirm under his discerning gaze. Your heart is racing, beating a frantic staccato beat against your ribcage and even though your skin is wet and rapidly cooling, you feel hot.

“See something you like?” You’re trying for coy and cocky, but it comes out a little strangled.

“fuck yeah,” he breathes, and then his mouth crashes onto yours.

The kiss is intense, but not as urgent as you’d expected it to be. If anything, you’re the one moving things along, wrapping your arms around his clavicles and hooking your leg around his pelvis to draw him closer. That’s one thing you’ve always loved about sex with Sans; everything is deliberate and considered, never hurried, never rushed. Apparently even heat can’t speed him up.

His tongue licks a wet stripe up the column of your throat, making you hiss. His breath comes out in hot pants against your neck and his teeth just barely scrape against your skin.

“I want to -,” you start, sliding a hand between your bodies to find his cock.

Your wrist is caught in a bony grip before you can reach far enough, and your hand is pinned above your head. His face is still buried in your chest, laving wet kisses against your collarbones and between your breasts and you can hear him mumbling, you think, whispering something against your skin.

You give a cursory tug at your wrist – you’re not interested in breaking free because this is way too fucking hot, but you want to see the reaction the token resistance gets.

Sans fucking growls against your skin and holy shit, you need him to touch you, right now.

He pulls away from your neck, leaving your chest heaving.

“sit up,” he says. “wanna eat that fucking pussy.”

Sounds good to you!

You rush to sit. You’re a little confused when he lies down in the place you just vacated but then you squeal as Sans grasps your thighs and uses his hold to abruptly flip you around and then up, towards the pillows, towards his face, hauling one of your knees over his head.

Off balance, you curl forward and brace your hands on his iliac crests, chest heaving. It’s a struggle to stay upright.

Your hips ache with the delicious stretch, knees planted firmly on either side of his skull. His phalanges dig into your ass, guiding you to press more firmly against him. You try to pull yourself a little higher to give the poor guy some breathing room but he just tugs you down even more and, to your delighted surprise, actually gives your ass a little slap.

It's barely a slap at all, really, all sound and no sting, but coming from your normally shy boyfriend, it sends new pleasure throbbing through you.

Okay, then; if he wants you to ride his face, then you’re going to ride his fucking face.

You roll your hips against him, feeling the soft slickness of his tongue and the unyielding press of bone against your sensitive flesh. You’re tentative at first, but his hands start moving in tandem with your undulations, urging you on, so you take that as a green light to speed things up.

It feels so fucking good. The wet slide of your pussy against his mouth, the way his tongue follows your motions to stimulate your clit. Your thighs tremble around his head.

God, you must be making a fucking mess of his face and just picturing it makes you clench.

You can feel your second orgasm gradually building, waves of heat pulsing in time with your hips. Then you’d be two to one, you realise. Pretty unfair, considering that he’s the one with the raging biological (magical?) need to fuck.

You’re loathe to move from your position on his face, though, so you’re gonna have to get creative.

He’s too tall for you to reach his cock with your mouth – you love the size difference ninety-nine percent of the time, but it makes certain positions impossible – but luckily, you’ve got two perfectly good hands.

He grunts against your pussy when you wrap your hand around his cock, the other still gripping his hipbone to keep yourself upright. It’s so hard, twitching in your grip, and when you trace a single finger up the underside, it drips with a bead of precum.

Trying to time your strokes with the rhythm of your hips, you touch him the way you know he likes best; slow, firm motions, lingering at the head. You’d normally use two hands for this, but you don’t trust yourself to stay seated with your core strength alone.

He seems to be enjoying himself just fine anyway; even muffled through your body, you can hear his grunts and moans. The sounds and the feel of him in your hand barrel you closer to orgasm, heat pulling tight in your belly. You’re still a little sensitive from your first orgasm but with you controlling the pace, the extra sensation only makes it better.

A particularly firm slide of his tongue against your clit pushes you over the edge and you come with a cry, grinding down onto his mouth.

You’re shaking as you slide off of his face, rolling to the side to burry your face into the pillows. Your thighs slide wetly against each other and the whole of you is singing with pleasure.

You crane your neck to look back at Sans, but he’s already grabbing your hips and hauling them upwards and backwards towards him, your ass high in the air and your face buried deep into the pillows.

You go to pull yourself up onto your elbows but then you feel his fingers carding through the sweaty hair at the back of your neck, the base of his hand ghosting along the top of your spine. It’s only the tiniest suggestion of pressure, but you get the message all the time.

You let your elbows collapse underneath you and fall back onto the bed.

A wet, toothy kiss is pressed to your hip. “so good for me,” he says.

You moan something insensible into the pillows and spread your legs a little wider. A huge hand presses between them, spreading your wetness along your thighs. Everything feels oversensitive and tingly; you’re not sure if you’ll be able to come again quickly, but you’re excited to find out.

The blunt head of his cock bumps up against your pussy, glancing away from your entrance. It rubs along your clit, slow and lazy and so fucking huge.

It can fit inside of you – mostly, anyway - but it takes hours of careful prep-work and rivers of lube good quality silicone lube, and as relaxed and ready as you’re feeling right now, trying for penetrative sex without some dedicated stretching is just a bad idea.

You press your thighs together, wedging his cock between them. The base of it is hot against your clit and the head nudges at your lower belly. His hands grip your ass and slowly, he begins moving.

The slick grind against your clit is just enough to make new arousal spiral through you. You press yourself back against him as much as you’re able – not a whole lot you can do with just your ass in the air – but you’re soon lost to the sensations.

“fuck, babe, you feel so good,” he says, hands tight around your hips. “so fuckin’ good.”

Your response is lost to the pillows. You’re drooling, but you can’t bring yourself to care.

He starts to speed up and you press your thighs together even tighter, increasing the friction on your clit. You feel – you feel fucking wild, out of control, lost to the incomprehensible magic thrumming through the air. God, you can’t believe that you were nervous about this, that you were worried that you’d fuck it up. This is perfect.

A hand grips your shoulder and tugs you upwards – you’re loving all the manhandling tonight – and you pull your hands beneath you, leaving you on all fours. Sans curls over you, ribcage pressed to your back and skull pressed to the side of your neck.

“love you, so much,” he rasps, scraping his teeth down your neck. “you’re all mine, aren’t’cha? tell me.”

“I’m all yours,” you agree. You decide to risk losing your balance and snake your hand down to touch him. “Want you to come for me, baby, make me yours.”

The combination of your words and touch makes him cry out. He throbs in your hand and thrusts harder. Such indirect stimulation wouldn’t normally be enough to get you off, but you’re so turned on that you careen over the edge anyway, tired muscles clenching around nothing. It’s the softest orgasm of the night, the least intense, but no less satisfying for it. You feel him coming too, spilling on your hand and belly.

When the orgasm fades away, it leaves bone-deep exhaustion in its wake. Your arms collapse underneath you and your bottom half soon follows suit, your shaking thighs failing to hold up your weight.

“need a break?” he asks you. You can hear the amusement in his voice and as annoyed as you are to prove him right, it makes you so happy to hear him sound so happy.

You groan in response. Speech is beyond your capacity.

It takes you a second, but eventually you unearth your face from the pillows to look at him with bleary eyes. Part of you wants to insist that you’re good to keep going, to push through the overstimulation, but your bits are starting to go numb.

“Maybe just a little one,” you concede. You roll over onto your back to face him, careful to avoid the wet patch.

He looks so pleased with himself. So satisfied.

Warm fondness unspools in your belly, bringing a flush to your cheeks that has nothing to do with physical exertion. You’re so fucking lucky.

“what’s that look for?” he asks you, tilting his head the way he always does when he’s trying to work you out and fuck, how can one person be this cute?

You resist the urge to grab him by the zygomatic arches to smoosh his face between your hands, but it’s a near thing.

“I just love you a lot,” you say. You look back down at his pelvis; no dick. Satiated for now, apparently. “Wanna have a quick nap before the next round?”

“stars, you’re perfect,” he mutters, making you grin.

“Yeah, I’m the best,” you agree. “C’mere, lazybones.”

He curls up next to you and you snuggle against his side. It’s always a bit of challenge to navigate your soft, fleshy bits with his sharp, pointy ones, but you make it work. He lets out a contented sigh as you settle in his arms, your legs thrown over his femurs.

You doze for a few minutes, soothed by the gentle rise and fall of his chest beneath your head.

“sorry that you’re missing Halloween,” he says. “could’ve bagged some good candy.”

“I’d take staying in with you over squeezing myself into some Party City costume to totter around the city in this freezing weather any day. Trick-or-treating is overrated,” you say. “And I’m sure Paps’ll be happy to share.”

Sans hums. “hope he brings back some of those hershey’s things.”

“Kisses, you mean?”

“well, if you’re offering.”

You sigh into his clavicle. “That was one a stretch, even for you.”

But you press a quick kiss to his teeth all the same.

Sleep tugs at your eyelids; loathe as you are to concede defeat, you really are tuckered out. The bed is so comfortable and warm - the company’s not too bad either - and the room is perfectly dark, save the gentle shine of the glow-in-the-dark stars Sans has stuck to the roof.

“Shit.” You sit up. “Fuck, I forgot!”

“what’s wrong?” His voice is a little groggy.

“I forgot to pay the power bill.” You’re going to have to get up - and put clothes on, horror of all horrors - and go into the cold kitchen to get your laptop. “Urgh, sorry, I’ve got do it, otherwise they’ll hit us with a late fee.”

Sans tugs at your arm. “relax, babe, i already did it.”

You pause your attempts to wiggle out of his grip. “What?”

“i already paid it,” he explains. “saw that it was on the calendar. you can chill.”

“Oh, thank you, calendar,” you say.

“hey, what about me? do you doubt my cents of responsibility?”

“Thank you to you too, then. I really don’t want to get up,” you say, settling back down next to him and curving your body into his.

He huffs a laugh against the top of your head. “good, ‘cause ‘m not letting you outta this bed for the foreseeable future.”

You can only muster up a yawn in response. That sounds perfect to you.

#horrortale sans/reader #horrortale sans x reader #smut #truly a grab bag of my kinks #it’s not Halloween for me anymore but shhhh #I also wrote this in two days so if there’s mistakes or the pacing sucks also shhhh

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xmendieverse · 8 months ago

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If you had to write your own X-men story line, what would it be? Who would it feature?

Hello fellow mutants!

I've created 5 connecting plot lines for 5 x-men characters in my AU (the dieverse) through my vision that you can get a glimpse of below. The order I have so far is:

Book 1: Quicksilver

(the story of a trans boy and his sister living in containment, breaking himself to become the soldier they want him to be while questioning what it is his father wants him to be)

Book 2: Scarlet Witch

(the story of a child learning to control her incredible abilities, while discovering just what exactly the people who experimented on her and her brother were really up to)

Book 3: Nightcrawler

(the story of a young boy in a circus, questioning why exactly God would make him this way, this image, this love, and learning to accept himself for everything he is, and was)

Book 4: Angel

(the story of a boy, who's always been told to be good, to be seen, not heard, finally snapping, and becoming someone he never thought he could be, with the help of someone who's supposed to be his enemy)

Book 5: Rogue

(the story of a girl and her mother, and finding exactly what happens when she's forced to push her powers, and mental limits, to the edge)

so far I have their main plot points and concept maps, and I have a script completely written for quicksilver. I'm working on making it a book that I will publish on ao3 first, then hopefully I will be able to convert it into a comic of some sort.

My request is : Let me know if you have any characters you want to see that haven't really had time to shine. I plan on exploring a lot more niche characters in future books hopefully, such as Magik's backstory in connection to Colossus's, Lorna's connection to Pietro and Wanda, and etc (I really love the interconnection of character's and MAKING connections between characters, hehe) but PLEASE let me know your thoughts.

If you had to write your own x-men story, what would it be?

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transbunn-coins · 6 months ago

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TransScript Wizard of Oz

A script is a media used to help map out the system's inner world, parts, and purpose for programmers.

The blue represents Dorothy.

The yellow represents the Lion.

The grey represents the Tin Man.

The green represents the Witch.

[ Image ID: 7 horizontal striped flag with blue, yellow, dark grey, dark green, dark grey, yellow and blue strips. In the middle is a pair of red sparkley heels. The right flag has a vertical curved yellow brick stripe. End ID ]

If a flag for this already exists consider this an alternative!

#my coins #transid #radqueer #transramcoa #transtbmc #transscript #transprogrammed #transharmed #radqueer coining #transid coining #transabled #para safe #endo safe

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corvusblackk · 1 year ago

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when i first shifted to my fantasy dr (part 1)

i shifted to this dr in the past and i made a google doc about it because i wanted to send it to my friends but now that i have this account i can share the experience with y’all too :)

i recently shifted there again and wanted to share that too but i thought it would be better to post this one first as it explains more about my dr.

i’ll just copy and paste the document but it says that it’s too long so i have to split it into two posts.

so here we go.

OKAY SO I don't know where to start because I'm still freaking out okay. first of all, to shift, I simply set the intention to wake up in that specific reality (which I called “fantasy reality” because I didn't know what other name to give it) and went to sleep without doing anything else except visualising some parts of my dr house. the next morning i felt something on my face like someone was holding my face in their hands which scared me because i went to sleep alone and usually no one wakes me up but then i remembered it could be mom since we had something to do that morning. only that it wasn’t mom- opening my eyes I was hella shocked, I can't even explain what I felt after seeing that I had neteyam in front of me (yes, I added him to the script of this reality too), after all these months of pure agony (and I'm not kidding) I was finally in front of him and him in front of me. i immediately tried not to act weird but it was super hard so after he asked me if i was sick i told him i had a very weird nightmare and i still had to recover. the fact is that in this reality where I shifted he is not a blue alien but a "human" version (not so much human because he's an elf) and god, he was beautiful, the most beautiful person I've ever seen in my life. at that point he seemed kind of worried about me because i was staring at him the whole time in silence trying to realize what had just happened so to avoid freaking him out more i told him i was so tired again and fuck, he laughed and then he fucking kissed me. to say that I exploded at that moment is an understatement, but let's overlook it. we got out of bed and started getting ready because, from what I understand, we had decided the night before that that morning we would go to my best friend's café (her name is auri and she is a fairy) and it was initially strange to realize that I had wings on my back (they are not so big anyway, that's why I didn't even feel them at first) and I immediately wondered how the fuck do I put a shirt on 🧍🏼but in the end I wore something all shredded. auri (one of my best friends) was so energetic, she never stopped talking but it didn't bother me. then my other friends yuri and will joined us (it’s will byers lol, i added him to the script after watching stranger things this summer). and will is a faun here 😭 he is truly a love, the sweetest and kindest person i know. I'm writing too much maybe I should cut it a bit, i’ll try to summarize from now. in the afternoon comes my favorite part: my work. in this reality I am half fairy half witch, which is a rare gene there (i scripted so because i wanted to be main character), in fact I am almost the only witch in the village apart from my mother and grandmother. so I went home to prepare a potion that someone had asked me for, they had to spray it on the garden that would make the crops grow well. meanwhile, while I was working on my table/altar, neteyam was working on a wonderful painting (that’s his job) which represented the image of the ocean at sunset with a ship in the centre. it was incredible, he was so talented. after i finished the potion i had another customer that day who ordered me a tarot reading so i went to her house (customers often come to my house but it is more usual for me to go to them). she was a young fairy and lived with her mother. as soon as I arrived they were both very kind and asked me if I wanted something to eat or drink before the reading, I said maybe later but they insisted so they made me sit down and gave me a slice of lemon cake (y’all it was so good) and some tea made by them.

(go to my next post for part 2 cause i can’t fit the entire text here for some reason)

#shifting realities #reality shifting #shifting #desired reality #success story #shifted #shifting stories

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felixcloud6288 · 3 months ago

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Madoka Rebellion Discussion part 2

I hit the image file limit so I'm going to put the other things I noticed on a second post.

Part 1

During Homura and Kyouko's lunch meeting, the number of cups on the table would increase between shots.

Mami was kind of the most vicious aspect of PMMM's deconstruction of Magical Girls. Mami gleefully indulged in the magical girl genre tropes, having an elaborate transformation sequence and shouting the names of her finishing moves. Then she is murdered horribly and the rest of the series is about the horrors of being a Magical Girl. And then it turns out that she and Sayaka, who subscribed to her ideals, couldn't cope with the realization of what they are.

There was a moment during Homura and Mami's gunfight where Homura managed to knock Mami off balance and she panicked when she realized Mami wouldn't be able to defend herself from Homura's counterattack. While Madoka is Homura's top priority, she cares about the others as well and does not want to hurt them (She still has a low opinion of Sayaka though).

But still, Homura has opted to abandon the others in the past. When she had the opportunity to kill Mami, she had to force her gun arm down to shoot Mami in the leg. And she had to look away when the bullet was about to hit.

When Kyouko and Mami started to realize something was off about their memories, the world became slightly threatening to them. But Sayaka did not activate the Witch's defenses when she made it abundantly clear that she understands everything going on. It turns out that Sayaka was immune to the memory altering effects of the Witch and was just playing along. So the Witch probably keeps tabs on everyone trapped in its labyrinth by reading their memories. And this would mean Sayaka is undetectable to the Witch.

Homura's phone turned into paper when she threw it away.

The key with a heart handle was one of the things in the background of Madoka's transformation sequence. And then it appeared again in a bottle when the city began to transform.

I found out from TvTropes that the doll familiars are called the Clara Dolls. There are 15 of them and they are all named and based on various negative aspects that Homura despises about herself.

Interestingly, one of the dolls "Love" never shows up. It's stated to have not yet arrived. I have three ideas about that detail: 1) That statement is literal and Love just never shows up to help. 2) Love does not exist and the actual aspect of it being a flaw is Homura does not have any love. 3) Homura herself is Love.

I personally think the third is most likely. Even though Homura is the Witch behind everything, she frequently acts independently from the Witch's will itself and it keeps trying to make her abandon her quest to uncover what is going on. The Clara Dolls are all background actors playing their roles in this performance while Homura is the main character. They only break their roles when Homura goes off-script.

And when Homura first awakens as a witch, she's wearing the same outfit the Clara Dolls wear. If she is indeed the 15th Clara Doll, then Homura fully transformed into a Witch when Love awakened and decided that she needs to die for Madoka's sake.

Here's the moment Sayaka and Bebe explained things to Madoka.

When Homura decided to become a Witch, all the invitations she'd been sending out were destroyed, effectively cutting off all contact with the outside world.

Homura burst out of herself the same way she does in her transformation. And she is being judged by her self from before she promised to save Madoka.

Bebe got blown away when Mami used Tiro Finale.

I did a whole rewatch specifically to find every instance I could of that spool of pink thread. The first time I saw it was when Homura began recounting how they are all trapped in an idealized world.

Shortly after, Homura goes on her rant about how they have to fight forever or else Madoka's sacrifice will be wasted. The next time I saw it was when it appeared in the coliseum that Homura and her Familiars were in. Right before it appeared, we had a shot of the Madoka goddess image being covered with inky handprints and the ooze started to fall. That made me feel like the spool fell from the statue.

I think the spool is an abstraction of Madoka. It's pink like her hair and it is sort of shaped like her when she has her hair up. Homura said she was upset that she began to think Madoka was someone she had made up, and we see her turning Madoka into an ideal. She kneels at a statue of the goddess Madoka and swears to serve her will and decries everyone who is not equally as devoted.

Of course, the Clara Dolls have a different mindset. They throw tomatoes at her and her goddess while shouting "god is dead" and they casually kicked the spool away and walked away from such a worthless thing.

But that spool became part of Homura's new Soul Gem. That abstract idea of who Madoka is became the foundation for what Homura chose to become.

So much of the issue that comes up in the ending is that Homura has lost sight of who Madoka truly is. She doesn't see how Madoka has grown or who Madoka truly is. Homura is not truly interested in Madoka's wellbeing or doing what Madoka wants or thinks she should do.

Homura is instead worshiping the ideal perfect goddess Madoka who might as well be a spool of pink thread for how accurate it is to the real Madoka.

And when Madoka attempted to defy the idea of who Homura thinks she is and escape the world Homura made, Homura desperately tried to stop her and realized that the real Madoka is not the idealized Madoka in her head.

So what happens next? I feel like this is the setup to an eternal conflict of the most toxic yuri imaginable. Madoka and Homura both want to be together forever, but the problem is they both have the exact same idea of "I will make you happy forever and I don't care what happens to me in the process." They both want to be completely selfless for the other's sake and consequently will be entirely selfish in how they treat each other.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the next movie.

back

#puella magi madoka magica #pmmm #pmmm watchthrough

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panda-escapades · 1 year ago

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Easter Eggs/references from Kiss Kiss Fall in Portal

I wanted one place where all of this was together so I'm putting it together. I was hooked when I saw that the episode title itself was a reference to Ouran Highschool Host Club. I primarily enjoy DC content through their animated works, please let me know if I'm missing something from the comics, live action, or something else.

First we get Superman from Earth-F aka Superman from the Fleischer Superman Theatrical Shorts(1941–1943) (Mxy calls it Earth 12, this seems to be a typo in the script as Earth 12 is the MAwS earth and mentions that earth just before in the list, or there are multiple Earth 12s.)

Then we get Superman from Earth 50 aka Superman from Super Friends (1973-1985)

Then we get Superman from Earth 508 aka Superman from Superman: The Animated Series (1996-2000)/ Justice League (2001-2004) / Justice League Unlimited (2004-2006)

Then the final Superman from this scene Superman from Weird Earth. I think this is first instance of this kind of variation with superman as doing a quick search links the DC character 'The Weird' But I also love when multiverse productions just do weird and silly versions of things (looking at you hot dog hands Everything Everywhere All at Once)

Our next batch of References is to and to the League of Lois Lanes, founded by Lois Prime, the first Lois to discover (and based on how she is talked about communicate and or travel to other universes). Our introduction to them has he League of Loises asking Lois lane and Jimmy Olsen of Earth 12 to come with them. While discussing the situation The League of Loises tell us that Earth 12 was a previously unknown universe to them (until Monsieur Mallah and the Brain opened it up last episode) and Mr. Mxyzptlk has used that opportunity to get MAwS Superman to help them. (We know that the League of Lois Lanes has lied to our MAwS Lois and Jimmy, and that Lois Prime didn't trust everyone. The very foundation of the organization could be fabricated to some degree as they all could be considered unreliable narrators but I can't see why they'd like about that big of world building so for now I'm taking that exposition as is). Lois Prime is also always refereed to in the past tense so we as the audience are supposed to assume she's dead.

For the Time Being I'm not going to discuss the League memebers as I am trying to just focus on the easter eggs (or so I told myself) But in the credits they are listed without an earth number and as Leader Lois; Grizzled Lois Lane; Robotic Lois; Lewis Lane; Jalana Olsen

Here are the images we get of Lois Prime. She appears to also be from the Fleischer Superman Theatrical Shorts(1941–1943) just with the art style blended a bit with MAwS.

The next batch of references are the ones from the museum, which is said to be on earth prime.

First we get some establishing shots with a Big Mace (Thanagarian Mace) aka Hawkgirl's next to a Mother Box. This version of the mother box is based on Jack Kirby & Mike Royer's design.

The Next Establishing shot we see a green lantern Power Battery, a T-Sphere, and a leather bound book with a that has a circle with a triangle in it. I'm just not sure what it is. The Book of Black does have a circle with a triangle on it, but it's black so I figure it's probably not that.

Then we have Mxy and Superman enter and Mxy drops the act and admits he just wants to steal and knocks off a golden helmet. The gold helmet that is Doctor Fate's Helmet. Then in the background we have some metal objects, a sword, and a blue cloak. The silver and gold metal objects could be shields, but there's just not enough details for me to sink my teeth into looking deeper. The sword is very generic, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was Excalibur as that shows up from time to time. Another Option could be the Vorpal Sword as its in the same display case with a blue cloak which could be Blue Boy's Witching Cloak. Though its also possible to be Raven's Cloak, or anyone who used a blue cloak.

Next are named objects by Mxy Cosmic Rod aka Stargirl's staff.

And the Flight Ring aka Legioneer flight ring. In the background we can also see Wonder Woman's gauntlets as well as her lasso of truth. The flight ring also blocks the view of a triangle on a staff as well as some metal tubes.

Then Mxy Passes by the Soultaker Sword (The Katana) before grabbing the tape recorder he came for and that's the last of any clear objects in the museum.

Then we get a cute bonding moment with Jimmy and Jalana where she shows off meeting Comet the Super-Horse.

While that happens Earth-12 MAwS Lois sneaks into the locked room to see files on other Loises. The first we see is Lois Lane from Earth-52 who's an award winning reporter.

Then we see Lois Lane from Earth-24. She's sporting a key to the city, but with her style of fashion is very kingdom hearts. They even have the detail of using one of Utada Hikari's hairstyles for her as has been done for Kairi.

Then we get the last computer file Lois Lane from Earth-1 who is "Ready to meet with Dad" I personally think this is another foreshadowing moment that in this iteration of the characters her dad is going to be "The General" that we saw back in episode 2.

Next bit we get is the meet up in Earth 14, which could have them landing in an uninhabited area, or it could be fully desolate. While everyone else is there Mxy steals the ship with Earth-12 MAwS Lois and go Headquarters. The entrance of Headquarters has holograms of several Loises.

The front most Lois lanes we get include Lois from Earth-F aka from the Fleischer Superman Theatrical Shorts(1941–1943) (just like the first other Superman we saw). And across from her we get the another Lois paired with one of the other Superman we saw. Lois Lane from Earth 508 from Superman: The Animated Series (1996-2000)/ Justice League (2001-2004) / Justice League Unlimited (2004-2006)

Next to Lois Lane from Earth 508 we see a Lois Lane as Superwoman.

Next to Lois Lane from Earth-F we see a woman with a Hijab and Labcoat. There are 3 more holograms on this side of the hall, but we don't get a close up and the other Loises.

We do get a few more details of the others as Mxy and Lois of MAwS walk through the hall. We see one black woman and an indigenous woman.

The Last bit of HQ potential Easter Eggs we get is this shot of Mxy opening storage for weapons. However, if they are references I think they're to things outside of DC. The biggest sword in there is Gut's sword from Beserk. I would love to hear from people if they recognize any of these objects. I'm going to make a second post focusing on just that shot here.

The the last ones we get are Lois reviewing the Superman File X

The first Superman we see doesn't have any kind of chest logo is Overman from Earth 17

The second Superman with white cape is Superman is a villainous Justice Lord called Lord Superman.

The Last Superman we see with the face scar doesn't seem to have any counter part so my money is he's a Superman from one of the League of Loises Earths.

I'm really enjoying My Adventures with Superman. The team seems to really get what a Superman story is supposed to be about and how there is supposed to be fun and love in it. I do wish we could have a longer season because the pace is just so fast and it would be nice to settle in. But that's a bigger issue with the industry right now with studios ordering seasons to be short mini series instead of the traditional 26, but that's a conversation for another post and not a reflection of the team making the show.

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himehikoshrine · 1 year ago

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Mary Jane and Frankenstein

In honor of Spooky Month and the imminent arrival of Mary Jane Day, I have done the scariest thing imaginable, returned to tumblr dot com to write a meta/analysis post.

[image description: images side by side of the top of the Mary Jane poster, showing Mary looking down sewing Jacob, next to the 1831 edition front panel illustration of Frankenstein, showing Victor looking down on his creature in horror]

This is a mostly informal attempt to collect my thoughts on the fact that Neji’s little spooktacular, in addition to being a very pointed exploration, as all of his plays are, of art and theater, the school, himself and his classmates (without their permission, the menace) and just, a lot of fun, is perhaps one of the best piece of Frankenstein related media I have EVER seen in relation to the original novel.

This is pulling a lot of things from the Stage Script rather than the in game version, which summarizes a lot of the things I'm mentioning specifically. You can find the full Stage Script in the game menu, or

[ here ]

because I love this play so much that I needed a searchable version.

Caveat Emptor here is that it’s been a long time since I’ve read the novel in its entirety. If this game gets me to read it again, I may have to revamp things. But again, largely informal. But very long, somehow.

Oooops.

If you're curious about anything in here and want to expand on it more, or hear my thoughts on it, please feel free to reblog, send an ask, or message. Or ask me elsewhere if we're already connected there. There's a lot I glossed over, especially at the end of this. I have a lot to say, and if we're back to writing metas on tumblr dot com the chances of stopping at one are slim.

Mary as Frankenstein, Mary as Mother

Mary’s name is acting as several allusions at once. I mean, there are at least 3 Mary’s in the bible one could point to - Mary, Mother of Jesus is absolutely at play. But Lazarus’s sister is also a Mary. And while technically Mary Magdalene is often misrepresented and amalgamated with other characters in retellings, the idea of “purifying” her has canon precedent - having had seven demons driven out of her.

Of course, Neji’s twisting all of it, in his Neji way.

(Interestingly enough, these are the Three Marys of the Quem Quaeritis - widely considered a point of "rebirth" of theatre in Europe during the middle ages.)

But Mary is also the name of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, author of Frankenstein. And this, this is a Frankenstein story. It is, in fact, a beautiful inversion of so much about the book that gets left out in most far more serious attempts at a Frankenstein story.

The original book is about motherhood and its inversion. Much could be said about when during her life she wrote it, or her own mother’s death shortly after she was born, or any number of things that have been hashed and rehashed a thousand times from AP English to the ivoriest of towers. But, fan of Death of the Author that I am, I posit you don’t need any of that to see in the text.

Victor creates a person with science, rather than by ‘nature’. It is an unnatural birth. And Victor is just about the shittiest possible parent. The Creature spends a good deal of time explaining to him, when they meet up again, that Victor is his father, and that he was literally abandoned as a newborn, and maybe that was kind of the worst possible thing he could have done. It’s not a mantle Victor has any desire to take up, the role of a parent. He wanted to create life, but he didn’t want to be a parent. But that’s what it means to create life.

By gender swapping the role, you’re already inverting the inversion - but Mary’s creation is no more “natural” than Victors. But it is different. Neji, ever witch-coded himself, has Mary put one of her own hairs into every doll. It’s returning the shared body to the act of bringing these creations into being.

But even without that. Mary considers herself a mother. She considers herself a mother despite having no memory of one herself - Mary knows lots of things she shouldn’t, and doesn’t know many things she should. But she calls herself a mother. Even before any of the dolls move, she is their mother. A motherhood she wants to desperately share with others. She considers the act of selling a doll a kind of ‘adoption’. These are her children. And they know it. It’s stitched into every stitch in their doll bodies. They know Mary is their mother. And they know she loves them.

[image description: screenshot of Mary in her workshop. The text shows Mary's line saying "I'm back, dear dolls. Mommy's home."]

The Creature comes to think of Victor as a father - an absentee one at that, and craves that love, a love he is never shown. Mary averts this spectacularly. She creates out of love.

Names

Mary takes great care in naming Jacob, and ends up doing so, though she doesn’t say it, after a biblical pun (Jacob, in the bible, is explicitly named such as a pun on the word “Heel”). But names are important to Mary, and she is sure to give one to Jacob as soon as he’s fully formed, even before she sees him wake up. Victor very particularly does not name his creature. Instead, he tends to throw around insults, many of which are demonic or satanic. When they finally meet again, the Creature says to him “I should have been thy Adam.” Mary averts this mistake, among so many others, spectacularly. Being called by her name is important to her, and she extends that offer to Jacob even before he’s fully “born.” Like a good mother.

[image description: a screenshot showing Fumi and Kai dressed as Mary and Jacob, as seen from the stage with the audience in the background. Kai is saying Jacob's line "I did, Mary. You are Mary Jane. My mother."]

Not only does she give him a nice biblical pun of a first name, she shares her last name with him, again before he’s even more than a doll. That’s her boy, that’s her best friend. That’s her family.

The song here, which is only sung and dance AFTER Mary has given him a name is called "A Friend Without A Name" Almost as if specifically calling attention to this fact. Mary is as much the friend without a name as Jacob, if not more. She is the one that has never heard another voice say her name, where as Jacob is called his before he's even awakened by the Island's magic and Mary's love.

[image description: the screen from just before A Friend Without A Name showing Mary and Jacob's CG of Mary Stitching Jacob.]

Mary as a Good Mother

Some of the weirder moments in the play actually make a lot more sense when you look at them through this light. Jacob randomly saying he hates Mary in a fit of jealousy? It’s because he’s a child. He’s a baby. That’s a baby boy. Mary, herself quite childish, forgetting so much of what’s important, as the Island is known for, reacts incorrectly, but understandably. This is her first friend - and far more of one than the others she thinks she’s made, in terms of mutual respect, compassion, and small acts of kindness. But this level of connection and emotional reciprocation is still new to her. She’s hurt. She runs.

And The Order of Shadow’s duo is quick to tell her that that’s just the nature of ghosts, telling themselves a little joke about how they have been lying to her from the start, and fully intend to stab her in the back, far more than any ghost. Victor’s instinct is to consider his creature a monster, a fiend, a demon. Mary is told by characters positioned as far more knowledgeable about the world than her that he must be exactly that.

And how does Mary react? She refuses to believe it. Even hurt as she was, even with someone who just said this is their entire expertise telling her it’s in his nature to be cruel, Mary refuses to accept it. She still loves him. She makes the right choice. That’s her best friend. That’s her family. That’s a (un)life she brought into this world, and she stands by him. No matter what. She would risk her life to rescue him. She will fight for him.

This is why that scene has to be there. Because she has to be given that temptation, that trial. And she passes spectacularly in a way Victor will not, to the end.

It’s also a thematic explanation for the garbage scene, which is probably there as much to be silly as anything. I mean, it’s also there to show many other things — Mary’s eccentricity is ingenious in its own quirky way — the islanders who hated her, who she didn’t understand, give her the tools to save Jacob and the others — Mary not even considering the same level of violence — it being a moment of empathy between Mary and the islanders who never showed her even a shred of it back — she understands that they couldn’t tell which food was rotten. She sees things from their point of view. And many more besides.

But, from the point of view of Mary as a Mother, Mary succeeding brilliantly where Victor failed… Mary is literally willing to coat herself in filth to rescue Jacob. Parenthood is messy. It involves a lot of gross things. Even Victor's, sanitized of the normal processes and cloaked in science, was made of corpse parts. But the play actually brings back a part of parenthood that Mary had been able to avoid thus far - the mess. Mary, once again, doesn’t hesitate. For Jacob? She’ll do anything.

Jacob is shown love and kindness, and he responds with the same. He has the same unnatural strength as Victor’s creature, but he’s only ever shown using it to rescue himself and others. When Mary asks for a handshake, he replies that he can’t, because such would be an invitation for a duel. And that they should hug, instead. Mary didn’t even know what that was. Far from disgusted by the lack of warmth she feels from his skin, she looks beyond that, to the emotional warmth and connection.

Frankenstein’s creature, famously, lashes out in violence. While Victor views this as his responsibility only in so far as he brought a demon into the world, he doesn’t understand, even when the Creature eloquently explains it, that the Creature was a being who had only known cruelty.

Jacob knows love. He knows kindness. He knows sadness and loneliness and pain. And refuses to engage in any form of touch that could even be considered violence. They hug.

Which is not to say Mary’s creatures can’t kill. But they do only to protect their mother, and only after Mary has risked everything to protect Jacob. They are Mary’s children, not Victor’s. Even their violence is an act of love. And in another inversion - they are the ones telling Mary to run. Something she does not want to do. She doesn't want to leave them behind. After all, they are her children. She departs from them only at Jacob's literal tug away, and with an apology and a thanks.

[Image description: screenshot of Fumi, dressed as Mary Jane, shown from stage view, with the audience behind, while a Doll's lines "Protect Mommy, let mommy run away." are shown below.]

Boats and Framing

But the parallels are not only in the most famous part of the novel - consider this - Frankenstein, the novel, is written as a series of nesting framing narratives. The bookend narrative, the one we open and close on, is a boat. Most Frankenstein adaptations cut the boat trip frame, but Mary Jane very specifically opens and closes on a boat at sea, and its ending is EXACTLY the reverse of Frankenstein’s. If for some reason you’re this far in and don’t want more spoilers for a 200 year old book, now’s the time to click away, I guess.

The boat is on a course to the Arctic. Victor is on board, telling his story, because his creature has fled there, away from humanity. Victor intends to pursue him endlessly, to kill him, fully aware that he is almost certainly going to die, frozen and alone, in the process. We don’t get to see this happen - the story ends merely with the certainty that this is what is coming. Victor, on a boat, intending to go to the ends of the earth alone to kill the Creature he brought into the world, treating it like some burden and punishment.

[image description: a screenshot from Mary Jane, with the CG of Mary and the Ghosts on the ship, with the summary text overlayed on it reading "Friends together, fun forever."]

How does Mary Jane end? With Mary, and Jacob, and a cast of playful characters — her friends — sailing off for the ends of the world, together, in pursuit of life and happiness - even in death.

Ghost Party ends the play because its a triumph. Neji throwing out Horace’s Ode to Cleopatra in there because he can’t not do silly things like that — but Frankenstein famously contains many references to classics — many made by the Creature himself, who was forced to educate himself via books, lacking a parent to help him.

Mary Jane takes a section of sheer joy out of a poem of complex mixed emotions, and says them repeatedly. This is a party. This is a triumph. Mary leaves on a boat for the ends of the world a success, a good mother, a friend. And a human.

Humanity, Connection, Isolation

The play deconstructs so wonderfully this question of humanity. Mary doesn’t find any joy in it, despite barely understanding it herself - until she is able to use it to help others. The first time in her life she’s been glad to be human - something she only really understands as “needing to eat food” - is when it gives her the ability to save her ghost friends. If that’s what humanity is, the ability to care for others, the ghosts of the chapel, the play is telling us, are far more human.

One of my favorite exchanges in the play is after Charles and Figaro explain to Mary that the corpse parts used to make Jacob were their friends. Mary is not malicious in the least. She has no concept of this act as sacrilege or desecration. She is genuinely childishly innocent in most of what she does. And she can’t understand it.

Mary says “If you can love unmoving corpses so much… How can you not feel for living ghosts...?"

[image description: Mary in front of the burning town. She's saying "How can you not feel for living ghosts...?"]

Charles responds that she must be completely off her rocker. But she’s correct. Mary sees life in front of her, even undead life, and wants to protect it. Even the Islanders, who only ever treated her with distain, who only ever made her miserable — she doesn’t want them to die, even knowing they are already dead.

Outside of Mary, her oddball eccentric self, in this play, the more human someone is, the crueler they are. Figaro and Charles are only ever here to mess with her before dragging her off to be killed. They have no willingness to even try to understand anything outside their world view. The Islanders, who think themselves human, revile Mary, and make up terrible rumors about her.

Both of these groups do so, in part, for similar reasons. Because to have empathy would force a realization on them they cannot bear. The last thing Figaro realizes, before he’s dragged into the most poetic of justices, is that the dolls have SOULS. They are ALIVE. It’s a moment of anger and madness, but it’s a last minute realization that he’s been wrong now that it’s too late. Of course it’s not a revelation he’ll remember. You tend to forget what’s important on Kakuriyo Island.

If Mary averts all of Victor’s mistakes, Charles and Figaro make many of them. Seeing the Creature as a collection of corpses, as demonic, as an abomination against God. Reacting only in anger, in cruelty, in violence. Chasing something they view, wrongly, as an abomination to the ends of the earth, until it kills them. Mary has Victor’s role, but Victor’s actions and outlook are given to the antagonists.

It’s fascinating to me, then, that there are two of them. In the version of the play that gets performed, they’re twins - doubles. Two halves of one whole, who egg each other along in their cruelty. But they also exist to show that even these two are capable of empathy and connection. They do in fact understand the thing they tease Mary with. They have the ability and understanding to extend that to Ghosts, or to Mary. They simply refuse to. Figaro really does love his brother - his grief at his death is genuine. It’s a clever way to show that.

In the book, Victor is extremely isolated, by his own choice. He withdraws from everyone in order to work on his creature, and after he runs from it, he keeps to himself just as much, now blaming the idea that he can tell no one what he’s done. Even when he’s surrounded by family, he is utterly alone. By choice. The Creature eventually lashes out and kills the woman Victor intended to marry. In Victor’s mind, he cares about this girl, but it is not in his actions. Like much else, she exists more as a creation of Victors mind than something in the world for him to interact with and care about. Until she dies. Then he’s furious. And decides to spend the rest of his life chasing down the Creature to kill him for it.

This contradiction in Victor has always read as intentional to me. The book is calling out his hypocrisy here. He doesn’t actually desire connection - the connection his Creature eloquently explains his longing for. But if it is denied him, he acts like he’s been affronted, painted with a shallow layer of sanctimoniousness or justice. Murder is bad, of course, and the Creature shouldn’t have killed an innocent young woman to get at Victor, of course. But the discrepancy between the way Victor reacts to her in death and the way he does when she’s alive is intentional.

Victor has every chance for human connection. Time and time and time again he’s given that chance and refuses it. Even to the very end, on that boat. He could stay with the crew. Sail back home. Let it go. The Creature has run away from humanity which it has come to despise as much as its absentee father disdained it. There is no need to keep chasing. But Victor cannot let it go.

The Creature longs for connection and is denied it. Victor disdains and refuses it, even when it’s available to him.

Mary as The Creature

Contrast this with Mary — It is Mary, rather than Jacob, that is in the Creature’s situation here. Mary is constantly chasing connection. Constantly trying to find something to reflect humanity (compassion, life, emotions — rather than the matter of blood and flesh that Figaro and Charles always talk about it as) back at her. And she can’t get it. She, like the Creature, hides in the bushes and watches it from afar. She, like the Creature, chases after it only for people to run away, to treat her with cruelty. Mary is Frankenstein, but she is also a reflection of the Creature. She is both in one, in this sense.

[image description: screenshot of summary text over the church and figures of the church ghosts. it reads "The friendless Mary dreamily watched the ghosts as they sang a happy song.]

Her costume specifically makes her look nearly as much the doll as the ones she makes - in the world of the story, because she's sewing both - but thematically, it ties her to them not only as their mother, but as a reflection of the Creature, herself.

Like the Creature, Mary is an odd mix of naivety and childishness, with startling gaps in her knowledge, and extreme skill and adult abilities. She knows what she knows well. Like the Creature, Mary has no memory of kindness, of family, of parents. She has only ever seen it in the way the Islanders interact with each other. She is the Creature here - raising herself, learning of the world through watching it, being reviled for every attempt she makes to reach out.

One thing the Creature explains to Victor is that he didn’t even understand, at the time, why he was being treated this way. He had no awareness of his own nature and what he looked like in the eyes of others. Only that they ran in fear and chased him away, and reacted with violence.

Mary Jane inverts this. Mary is human, but the humans around her are something she cannot understand. Like the Creature, Mary doesn’t understand why people react this way. The book expects you to come to the same conclusion as the play - the fault lies not with the Creature anymore more than it does with Mary, at this point. It is those around him, those around her, that are at fault, that are a thing neither can understand. Human’s are cruel. Ghosts who think they’re humans are cruel. It is a disconnect between themselves and the world around them they don’t understand, and desperately try to bridge over and over.

Even Mary, as quirky and childlike as she is, is on the verge of giving up, of being consumed by the Lonely Darkness. We don't know what her fate would have been if the Order of Shadows had not come. Victor's Creature, far more morose than Mary, gives up on connection, as well. He is denied the most basic of needs, and eventually, he learns the violence and hatred being directed at him, and, newborn that he is, lashes out.

But, ultimately, companionship and connection are the Creature’s goals, and it is that that he requests of Victor, who refuses to provide it himself. Make for me a mate. Mary is the Creature, and she is Frankenstein. She makes a friend for herself. Her motivation in creating Jacob is not science, it is not in defiance of death or God — very pointedly — it is out of loneliness - the same motivation that the Creature gives for his desire that Victor make him another like him. And when Mary does so, she’s a good mother, and a good friend.

Religion

Frankenstein’s full title is Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus - it is about forming people, but it is also about stealing fire from the Gods. The question of if creating life out of death the way Victor does is an affront to God is something that Victor himself thinks about, but the book is much more interested in exploring it as the way characters view it. Victor punishes himself, it is not the Divine that punishes him. The Divine acts not as a force, but as an idea. One that both Victor and the Creature end up grappling with and trying to find their place within.

So that Mary herself seemingly has no concept of it, is fascinating. She goes to watch a chapel every night, but I don’t know she knows what a chapel even is. She mentions God once herself, saying that the smell of the garbage would be enough to affect even God, but she also talks to the Moon as a companion and a friend. Her worldview is uniquely hers, in relation to all things. As I said, the idea that making the dolls the way she does, or using corpse parts to do it might be sacrilege does not even occur to her.

Rather than go the route of the novel, Mary Jane twists this around too. In the world of Mary Jane, religious objects hold not only the power of an idea but an actual force. And it is a force that is completely, within the world of the show, amoral and nonsensical. The blessed weapons and fire the Order of the Shadows use are “holy” as a property, but that gives it no moral weight within the world of the play. And the play is messing with it the whole time. Holy wood or water can destroy a ghost, but they live in a church. Something that Charles and Figaro comment on, but cannot interrogate in terms of what it means for their conviction. But they’re split on how to proceed - the fact that ghosts can live in it doesn’t shake their faith, though. Sister Ghost is there largely for this joke. A nun who is constantly evoking the divine, who would be killed by a consecrated item.

[image description: the summary text over the chapel backdrop with the text of "the chapel where Jacob and the others were left behind was being filled with the scent of holy water.]

If I could add something to Mary Jane, I would have loved for Mary or Jacob to ask Sister Ghost what “God” means (this is a conversation that happens in bonus material for Tokyo Ghoul once, actually). I would have loved to have that brought up more explicitly. But it’s also very funny that it never is.

The first definitions for a God we get are them being applied to Mary herself, with plenty of ambiguity on if the Order’s faith itself has a mother figure at its center or not. And either way it’s a fascinating play on the idea, and the themes of the novel.

Closing Thoughts, Other Connections and Ideas "Beyond the Scope of this Essay"

Anyway, all of this while playing around with everything else going on in this play, Neji’s totally, without permission, commentary on Fumi, on Tsuki’s legacy (please read the stage script, somehow the game thought it was a good idea to cut that whole specific reference even when making Kisa pick between an “erase Tsuki” option) and on Kai. On himself as an artist. ("I am the one who is strange. With my changing moods, with my hobbies. That is why everyone thinks I'm strange and avoids me.”). As with several other plays, a commentary on authority, and on creation, and on isolation and friendship and connection.

And, of course, what I’ve been holding back this whole little essay is that Mary Jane is, thematically, at its core, playing off the exact same situation as I Am Death. Like — both of these plays center around a woman pouring her emotions into an undead creature. I see you Neji. You can’t hide from me. Reading I Am Death as a Frankenstein Story remixed into an old Japanese mytho-history is a LOT of fun to do, but is, as the academics say, beyond the scope of this essay.

(and, I Am Death itself is about Neji and Chui, and the twisted, messy love-hate revenge drama they are acting out across all the routes in the game. Neji writes the plays that introduce Chui to the world. Then he runs. And spends the whole game trying to beat him (affectionate.). “Make me another like me” you say…

Literally the only thing I’ve come up with to make the “bad end” CG more compelling to me, is that this is what it’s riffing on. I like my I Am Death costumes way weirder.)

Mary Jane is a Frankenstein Story, I Am Death is a Frankenstein Story, Jack Jeanne is a Frankenstein Story. The other, other thing I’m leaving out here is that the Order of the Shadows are OBVIOUSLY pulled from Tokyo Grand Guignol, aesthetically. And the most famous TGG play is Litchi Hikari Club, which is, say it with me, a Frankenstein Story. Also one that takes the themes of the novel (gender, love and sexuality, childhood, genius, violence, blind pursuit to the point of madness, god complexes) harder than most, but runs with it in nearly the exact opposite direction. But again, very much beyond the scope of this essay.

Also also also leaving out the fact that Tokyo Ghoul is... kind of ... not not a Frankenstein story. It certainly riffs on the motif quite a bit. Even if you've never read it, you've seen the mask design (an in universe riff on the joke.).

Even just one dimension of this play, and look how many words you've made me write Neji-senpai.

[image description: image from the bottom of the Mary Jane poster, with the cast list, showing the chapel ghosts with a focus on Ushinoko, Neji's character, looking towards the 'camera'.] Some little Halloween Spooktacular you’ve got there. Bravo.

#jack jeanne meta #jack jeanne #Mary Jane #frankenstein #lit crit #doing lit crit of stories within stories - what a trip #meta

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