#context is when I was young I was too scared to like... even attempt to draw non-humans

[self-shipper-snowdrop]

The Decepticon dancing doodles 💕💕💕💕

It was a random idea I had which started with KO, but these were fun!!!! I'm pretending they used like. mass displacement or smth for the size thing lmao, because I didn't want humanized versions of them all.

I think I did good for my first ever time drawing... well.. any of them!

[wttcsms]

౨ৎ ⋆｡˚ you know i'll take you there

ᝰ.ᐟ shinsuke isn't too happy after your little escape attempt, and he makes it known. (fem!reader)

word count 2.5k content contains mating press, creampie, yakuza au, yandere themes, dubcon, praise kink, pet names (good girl), depictions of violence (not towards reader) author's notes sorry for lack of context; this is meant to take place after this fic concept

Shinsuke Kita doesn’t flinch when he pulls the trigger on a gun. 

The recoil doesn’t even register for him; when you do something for so long, eventually, it just becomes second nature. Like the mechanical movements you do when you brush your teeth, or the way you can tie your sneakers without having to actually look at the laces — shooting someone in the head is a mundane thing for Kita, for his line of work. He does it so often, has practiced it ever since he was a young boy, that what he does after is muscle memory. He removes the handkerchief from his suit and wipes the tiny splatter of blood that ended up getting on his cheek. He folds the sullied handkerchief neatly, tucking it away in the inner pocket of his suit. He makes sure the safety on his gun is in place, and he nods for Aran to drag the dead body away. 

When Aran takes his leave, the still-warm corpse in tow, the only people left in the room are Kita and a very scared young man. 

One of these men will be leaving this room, and the other will be hoping for a death as swift and merciful as the flawless execution Kita just delivered. 

“I told you there would be consequences,” Kita doesn’t taunt his victims. He’s not the type to do so. Cold and calculated — his own gang considers him to be a robot, and for the longest time, Kita agreed with them. But that was then, and this is now. Now, Kita has a reason to drag out his torture. Now, Kita understands what it’s like to find his very reason for existing. His purpose isn’t to lead one of the biggest yakuza families in the underground criminal world of Japan. His purpose is to devote his very being to you, and vice versa. 

So imagine how heartbroken he felt when he caught you trying to escape from the farmhouse he built for the two of you. And this man, a low-level runt in his group, had been foolish enough to give in and help you. 

“Please, sir, I wanted no part in the escape! She begged me, she—”

“She’ll receive her own punishment. I value fairness, after all.” Kita interrupts him, sounding as cold as the blood running through the young man’s veins. He’s frozen in fear as he tries to stammer out more excuses, more explanations, more promises to do better in the future but—

—there really isn’t much of a future for him. Not one that he’ll be happy to live in, at least. Kita is fair; having you slip away would have killed him internally. So now, Kita has to kill this man internally. Crush his spirit. Make him dream of death, dangle death in front of his face like a treat to a dog, but never, ever allow him such a kindness. 

(Kita is a fair leader, but very rarely is he kind. 

Kindness will get you killed. 

The boy dumb enough to help you — he’s kind.)

Kita retrieves a knife from one of the inconspicuous cabinets in this room. The fluorescent light hanging from the ceiling casts a warm glow over the both of them, but the blade of the knife reflects back the light, makes it shine in the poor boy’s face. He flinches. 

“Do you remember?” Kita asks him, turning the knife as if to inspect it from every angle. 

“Wh-what?” He stutters out, sounding breathless. He might be on the verge of a panic attack. That’ll make things messier than they need to be. 

“Do you remember what hand you used when you held hers?” Kita clarifies. He sounds calm, but the sight of another man holding your hand had him seething. Even now, it takes everything in him to not plunge the knife right into this young man’s heart, to twist the blade ‘round his insides, make him hurt like how Kita hurt when he witnessed it. 

“It was your left hand.” Kita answers for him. “Fortunately, you’re right-handed. Surely it won’t be too much of an inconvenience for you after I’m done sawing it off.” 

Kita’s chopped off a few fingers and one hand before, but never has he attempted to do it with a medium sized knife. A knife with a purposely dull blade. 

He smiles faintly. Sometimes, it can be fun to break routine and try new things.

You’re in bed by the time Kita returns home. He’s back later than he expects; it turns out, his little experiment with the dull blade is very, very messy. Maybe with practice, he’ll perfect that, too. That boy still has another hand to spare, after all. 

Feeling satisfied with himself, Kita starts humming gently as he makes his way to your shared bedroom. Before you, Kita never bothered making unnecessary noise. He rarely listened to music, but now—

The sting of your betrayal has lessened considerably. Kita isn’t even upset with you anymore. It’s normal for couples to fight and want to storm out on each other, but what matters most is that at the end of the day, he’s coming home to find you warming his bed. 

In his line of work, simple pleasures aren’t usually so sweet. 

You don’t stir when he joins you in bed, the mattress dipping just the slightest bit due to the sudden shift in weight, but he makes his presence hard to ignore, even in your slumber, when he presses his chest against your back, his lips nipping gently on the soft skin of your ears. 

You whine, your eyesight blurry as your eyes flutter open, trying to adjust to the darkness of the room. You’re instantly aware of Kita’s body covering your own, and when he feels the subtle shivers of your body, the both of you know it’s not because of the chill of the air conditioner.

He makes a tiny grunt of disapproval. Even after all this time, you’re scared of him? Silly girl — he’d never do anything to hurt you. 

Well, nothing that would hurt you too badly. 

“Did ya have a good dream?” He asks you, breath warm against your ear. 

You swallow hard, not brave enough to shift your body. Ever since the truth came out, the fact that sweet Shinsuke is more than just an average overworked businessman but is a yakuza crime boss, things have never been the same between you two. Kita is nothing if not persistent, though. He still cuddles up against you, he still whispers sweet nothings in your ear, he’s still affectionate and downright loving in every action he does towards you. 

He knows not to expect an answer from you, especially when he plays with the bottom hem of your silk nightgown. “Wish ya would tell me what goes on in that pretty little head of yours.” 

You can picture him frowning; as perceptive as he is, you know that he prefers hearing your thoughts directly from you. 

“What happened to Goto?” You dare to ask, and the air seems to shift in your bedroom. 

Kita is gripping the soft flesh of your thighs, his hand large and imposing, rough with calluses and forever red with blood. You never really learn, you suppose, about how there’s a time and place for such questions. 

“Goto received his punishment.” Kita answers calmly, voice steady but cold. “And I nearly forgot about yours.” 

Liar. You want to call him out, but you at least have enough self-preservation to bite your tongue. As if Kita would ever forget. It hasn’t even been a full twenty-four hours since your little escape attempt. 

Kita adores you, loves you, because in a world of greedy, nasty, spiteful little creatures, you are kind and caring and full of the sugary sweet goodness he’s always going to have a taste for. It’s why he’s not surprised when you ask him, 

“Is he… alive?” 

He lets out a short, sharp laugh. “Is that what you’re really worried about? Goto, over the broken heart of your husband?” 

When you don’t answer, Kita tightens his grip on your thigh, contemplating his next move, before he lets his hand travel to the apex of your thighs, his knuckles brushing against your bare cunt. He’s pleased to find out that you’re still his obedient, sweet girl, following his direct order of going to bed without a bra or panties. Some nights, he’s so tired, any excess fabric is a hindrance. 

“If you have a heart, you’ll tell me what happened to him.” You mumble, trying to ignore the way your body craves for Kita’s touch. Before the truth of his second life came out, you were an addict for him. No one has ever touched him the way he’s touched you, and even now, when you want to ignore him and try to remind yourself of what an awful person he truly is, you can’t.

There’s a traitorous part of your heart and soul that still longs for Kita, no matter the truth.

“It’s because I have a heart that I didn’t kill him.” Kita isn’t lying. The torture was for his pleasure, sure, but he knows how upset and inconsolable you would be if you felt like you were responsible for Goto’s death. The register of his voice lowers as he speaks again, though. His warning leaves you frozen in fear.

“If his filthy hands ever touch you again, I’ll kill him.” 

There are a litany of reasons why you find yourself in the position you’re currently in: wanting, waiting, whining for Kita. Fear, for one thing. You feel compelled to do whatever he wants, considering the sheer difference in strength and power between the two of you. But try as you might, it’s hard to ignore the tiny, nagging voice in your head that lulls you into a state of docile desire. Kita’s always taken care of you, right? You were in love with him, for fuck’s sake. And as you ride his fingers, content to wrap your warm, wet heat around three of his digits as he chuckles at your wanton display, that nagging voice reminds you that you still do — love him, that is. 

Three fingers buried deeply in the warmth of your cunt is enough to make you forget about the events leading up to tonight. He withdraws his fingers, much to your displeasure, and you whine out for him to continue with his ministrations before he shuts you up by forcing you to suck his thumb. You can feel the rough skin of his finger on your tongue, and you hollow your cheeks, treating this situation as if you were about to suck his cock, and your tongue laps at the pad of his thumb before he removes it from your mouth. 

Without any preamble, he’s back to burying his fingers into your pussy, his thumb — wet with your saliva — pressed firmly against your clit. 

“Do you wish it was my cock filin’ you up?” He grunts out, rubbing mercilessly against your clit as you continue to writhe against the bedsheets. Your cheeks feel warm, blood rushing up to your chest and face, and you bite down on your bottom lip, knowing your answer. A shameless, pitiful yes. 

“You’re so beautiful, so sweet, so kind.” In his world, kindness gets you killed. Kita’s no different from any other man in his line of work, and it’s why he’s ravaging you right now. Pumping his fingers in and out of your slick hole, making a mess of his fingers, of your pussy, of the bedsheets, of you. It’s why every time he brings you to your climax, you cum violently. You’re letting out a string of stuttered, fractured fucks mixed in with sharp intakes of breath and Shinsuke’s, and you buck your hips wildly against his fingers, pushing his digits even further in as you cum. 

With your mind hazy from pleasure, your brain scrambled from sleepiness and an intense orgasm, Kita wastes no time pouncing on you. There’s no chance for you to beg for him to wait, and you register that this must be your punishment.

Shinsuke is going to fuck you without any of his normal restraint.

He slides in your sopping wet cunt in one sharp thrust, burying his thick cock deep into your warm, snug hole. He likes having a routine, he likes having set boundaries and rules, he likes being a man of practicality. But right now, he’s fucking you like a wild beast. All you can do is just take it; take his relentless thrusts, his anger, his need to dominate you, to remind you who you belong to. 

“Open up.” He demands, his voice rough and thick with desire. You comply; it’s so easy, considering that you haven’t been able to hold back a single moan as he has his way with you. He spits directly into your mouth, watching the way his saliva sits on the surface of your pink tongue. He doesn’t need to command you to swallow, because you do, savoring the taste of him.

He makes you look him in the eyes as he fucks into you relentlessly. One hand is gripping your hip, practically crushing you as he pounds into your pussy. You’re so fucking wet that the sounds of him moving in and out of your cunt are so lewd, so loud. The inescapable burn of pain and pleasure, the sensitivity of your cunt having to endure his insatiable lust, has you moaning like a bitch in heat. 

“Shin— Shinsuke! G-gonna cum!” You squeak out, and it only motivates Kita to double down. He holds up your legs, your limbs burning from the stretch as he continues to get rougher with his movements. You’re looking at him with a dazed, fucked out expression, and he has the audacity to let out a chuckle. 

“There’s my good girl.” He praises you, spitting into your open mouth once more. 

With your legs trembling and the foggy haze of pleasure clouding your head, you greedily, happily accept his praise. Your legs press tightly against his sides, and with his spit in your mouth and his cock drilling into you with even sharper movements than before, you cum. 

Kita lets out a grunt of approval as he finishes inside of you, a load of hot seed pouring deep inside of you as he keeps your legs folded, his hips pressed against yours, as if he wants to plug you up with his cum. He kisses your forehead that’s glistening with sweat from the heat of his body colliding with yours; it seems the two orgasms he wrung out of you have taken its toll on your body. You’re a pliant, fucked out little mess — his pliant, fucked out little mess. 

“Good girl.” He murmurs sweetly. “I love you so much.” 

He doesn’t wait for you to say it back. He just pulls out his cock a bit before thrusting back into you. This action causes you to let out another long, drawn out moan. He’s absolutely relentless, and as tired as you are, you realize that you don’t want him to stop.

(Pity that you’re not capable of speech at the moment.

Because you would have told him that you love him, too.)

[hotvintagepoll]

Una O'Connor (The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Invisible Man, The Bride of Frankenstein)—One of my favorite character actresses! While many people know her as the shrieking innkeeper's wife in The Invisible Man, I've always loved when she played a character who was a little more grounded (though that scream of hers is pretty iconic.) Her character of Bess is warm and loving towards Marian, but also tough and takes no prisoners. When they are captured in the forest, she comes forward to protect Marian with so much ferocity that Sir Guy (the villain) moves out of the way so quickly because even he doesn't want to feel Bess' wrath. She could switch from hilariously over-the-top to gently and sweet in the blink of an eye and she deserves a little more recognition! Also her hats in Robin Hood are ridiculous and I love them.

Zero Mostel (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, The Producers)—Archetypal. Comedian of all time. The worst combover in cinematic history, probably. Could make more laughter with one muscle in a singular eyebrow than 98% of all men across the face of the earth. Hardcore Committer to the Bit. Man of all time, and also told HUAC directly where they could shove it, which is a primally appealing and scrungly quality.

This is round 2 of the contest. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. If you’re confused on what a scrungle is, or any of the rules of the contest, click here.

[additional submitted propaganda + scrungly videos under the cut]

Una O'Connor:

she eats this:

The things this woman does with her face when she sees Frankenstein's creature. Your fave could never.

Zero Mostel:

"The chase scene in FORUM is just. it's fucking iconic. It's one of the funniest pieces of cinema I've ever seen in any context, everything about it is genius, and the heart and soul of it is Zero Mostel as Pseudolus. Casting him alongside a young Michael Crawford (of later Phantom of the Opera fame) really highlights the differences between the young romantic lead and the older, sensible, and yet entirely scrungly middle aged man (Mostel was 55 at the time) somehow manages to come off as even more desirable. He has no shit together, not very good plans, is panicked for most of the story, and the charisma of a champ. His flailing, helpless attempts at fighting the gladiator is so... he's so scrungly. "

"He's not fancy, he's not pretty, he's not good at much of anything, but he is Genius despite that."

"There is a magic to Zero Mostel that he manages to bring to roles where he is simultaneously the worst person ever, and also, compelling in every possible way. He had his biggest period of fame in middle age after he got taken off the Hollywood blacklist, and being a fat middle aged man with thinning hair is what gives every single bit of his characters power. As the original Max Bialystock he would eat the entirety of The Producers except that Gene Wilder as Leo Bloom is a genius casting decision, as Mostel's intensity against Wilder's deep discomfort ends up being the right chemistry. In many ways he reminds me of Buster Keaton, the pinnacle of hot scrungly little guy—a unique and expressive face, an instinctive understanding of comedy, active at the same time, and also they were both in FORUM together. Mostel came from an Orthodox Jewish family, was a trained painter with a degree in art, spoke four languages, and when he was blacklisted during the Red Scare and brought before the HUAC, he didn't just refuse to name names, he made fun of the senators. He was disabled after an accident, and still did dancing in movies and things like stunts in FORUM. He did a ton of work on Broadway too, including originating Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, making the musical more Jewish as he did so. Frankly, I don't think any of those roles (or the eventual later film versions of Fiddler/musical version of the Producers) would work with anyone else. It had to be a fat balding middle aged leftist Jew from Brooklyn. The scrungly is essential.

"the scrungle factor of max in every version of the producers is through the roof but nathan lane does it as suave scrungle. zero mostel does not do suave scrungle. he does old jewish man getting into an argument with the rabbi at the full synagogue passover seder about how much wine has to be in the glass for it to count as "one cup" scrungle; he does old jewish man whose entire fridge is full of pickled herring scrungle. it's offputting in all the ways that make it genius."

[deathbxnny]

Can i request for JJK HCs of Yuta, Yuji, and Megumi with a Huohuo (from HSR) like reader? I was inspired by Huohuo trailer where she gets possessed by Tail and exorcised a spirit with a technique that reminds me of the Domain Expansion from JJK.

Context:

So the reader accidentally became a vessel for a powerful cursed spirit (which is tail) when they were 6 years old. Immediately, they were taken in custody by the Tokyo Jujutsu High. Like Yuji and Yuta, they were at first planned to be executed but thankfully Gojo stepped in and ensure they do not receive that fate (they're a child for God sake) and put them under his care.

Now they are 13 years old and are now beginning to go to the field because of their abilities which are the same ones Huohuo has in game and also they can exorcise cursed spirits when Tail possess them (with consent) like during Huohuo's trailer

Now how do those three react to meeting the reader and realized they are a crybaby and pretty young and why the hell is a child is on the field rn??? (The elders forced it, despite Gojo doing everything he could)

How do those three react that despite being young and a scaredy cat, the reader is actually pretty strong?

How do those three react to seeing Tail being mean to the reader and it being crystal clear that he does care for them like a father?

I remembered you saying that despite not doing any HSR request, readers who are based on HSR characters for request on other fandoms were still acceptable. If i remembered wrong, sorry 😅, you can just ignore this request or put it in the pending waitlist. Hope you have a good day/night though

- Flower Anon 🌸

Hello flower Anon!! Sorry that this took so long to complete. Work has been torturing me as usual, so yeah, please forgive me. I really love this request, though, especially as it has Yuta in it, who's one of my favorites, lol.

Also, these are technically not headcanons and just small stories for the characters, but I've been desperate to write more, so I hope that's okay with you and that you'll like them!!<33

Content: Platonic relationships, preteen reader, mentions of battles, cursing, kinda unserious, sfw

Reader has no mentioned pronouns!

((Not proofread))

》YUTA OKKOTSU

Yuta was a little bewildered at first when he saw a kid shakily appear onto the battlefield, clearly scared and terrified of the curses that surrounded them. He opened his mouth to tell you to get away and hide, when suddenly a curse in the form of a tail swished into view behind you, clearly annoyed at how you were acting.

"They're not going to exorcize themselves, you know? Get it together and attack them already!" It hissed, making you whimper and quickly wave your flag in terror when a curse attempted to injure you. The tail curse then suddenly posessed you quicker than Yuta could move to save you. Its energy was so strong, however, that it made the teen freeze in surprise. One swipe of your hand essentially disintegrated the curse on the spot.

"Just... who are you?" Yuta asked carefully, arms crossed patiently for answer, when you two got out of the danger zone. You nervously fidgeted under his gaze and went to speak when Mr. Tail beat you to it quite rudely. "Why does it matter to you? The kid got enough to deal with because of you weirdos, so give them a break." He said, making the older boy raise a brow in interest. It seemed like you two had something in common, even if Rika's care for Yuta was alot... kinder, if you could say that.

On your walk back to the school, you told him all about your origins and what got you here in the first place. At the sound of the elders having a hand in this, he couldn't help but sigh. That wasn't all too surprising somehow. He was just glad that the curse you were posessed by seemed to genuinely care for you, despite his uncaring and rude attitude.

"Well... if you want, I can help train you-" "-Absolutely not!-" "-Mr. Taillll!" At your exasperated, teary eyed plea, the curse couldn't help but roll his eyes and give in anyways. "Fine... but no funny business, got it?" Yuta gave you a playful and amused smile as he raised his arms in faux defeat.

"I wouldn't dare to."

》YUJI ITADORI

Yuji tried dragging you off the battlefield before you could even show off your abilities, thinking you were simply a lost child, until Mr. Tail eventually was sick of your one-sided arguing in which you were just nervously trying to stutter out the reason for your appearance, whilst the pink haired sorcerer attempted to "scold" you for being there. "Ey you! Let the damned kid go!" He yelled out, making both of you pause.

Shivering in fear, you quickly tried to make up excuses, considering that you've heard more than enough from Yuji and the curse he was a vessel for. But Mr. Tail clearly didn't care enough. "Huh?? Woah, your tail can speak?? Wait, you have a tail-" "-I'm a curse, dumbass!" Yuji blinked before a bright grin crossed his face. "Oh wow! So we're both possessed by a rude curse? Haha, we have so much in common already!" You attempt to smile back shakily but were clearly too anxious to keep it up for long. Especially when you were still surrounded by evil curses practically waiting to attack you.

"Well, anyways, you look pretty young, so you can't be the backup Gojo talked about..." "U-uhm... actually, we are the backup..." "Oh... that's cool then! Show me what you got!" Mr. Tail deadpanned in annoyance, absolutely over this already, as he simply possessed you and took care of the enemy curses himself.

Once he was done doing so, and he finally let you return to normal, Yuji clapped his hand with a determined and proud nod. "Man, we're such a good team, you know?" Mr. Tail felt a vaij pop then as he narrowed his eyes in agitation. "You didn't even do anything!" "Yes, I did! You just weren't looking-" "Oh you little-" The rest of the walk was filled with the two bickering with a teary-eyed and trembling you stuck in the middle.

At least you gained an unlikely friend who was just like you... kind of-

》MEGUMI FUSHIGURO

Megumi already knew and heard about you long before you entered the battle zone. Gojo had been the one who told him of you, asking him to keep an eye out in case you couldn't handle it anymore due to your rather anxious nature. But what he didn't except was how young you actually were. Raising a brow and crossing his arms, he looked at your shaky form in front of him, which was clearly doing everything it could to not look him in the eyes.

"So... You're the backup?" "Uhm... yes...?" "Hm." Despite knowing that the elders forced you to come here, he still didn't feel too confident or good about this. Sending a child onto a suicide mission was on brand for them, however, so he supposed that being very surprised would be wrong too. It was unfortunately expected.

"What the hell are you looking at them like that for?" The curse that you introduced as Mr. Tail hissed out harshly, obviously very unamused by the entire situation himself. Shrugging, Megumi simply shoved his hands into his pockets before turning to enter the building your mission would take place in. "Nothing. I just don't think they should join, if they're scared." He said, referencing the tears that were about to spill from your eyes, including the clear trembling of your body in fear. You absolutely didn't want to be here. Not that he could blame you.

"But... I have to. Otherwise, the elders will..." You trailed off, head hanging low as you found yourself unable to finish that grimm sentence. Megumi paused in his step, head turning slightly to look back at your defeated form. You were strong, far stronger than most were at your age. And your predicament reminded him of a certain friend of his.

Sighing, he scratched his head in speaking up again and continuing on his way. "Fine. Come with me, but stay close and only use your cursed technique when I tell you to." You looked up in surprise and followed after him quickly, feeling somewhat grateful despite the terror that he gave you and Mr. Tail a chance after all.

[moibakadesu]

I have been rotating one of Haruka's lines from the earphone collab in my brain for a while now, because it stood out to me as very important.

And that would be the line in which he apologizes to Amane in a very distressed and tearful voice.

So, Yamanaka had mentioned that these lines are important to canon or "critical to uncover the secrets of the prisoners", which is also why I think they made sure that they are not hidden behind a paywall, you can read up on all of them on the website of the collab.

And I think this line gives us hints for things to come in t3.

//cw for the topics of suicide and Milgram-typical violence

Alright, so let's assume that the restrictions of the guilty prisoners don't work the way we imagine. For context, I always assumed that they are not physically bound (after all they still have to eat, use the bathroom etc), but it's more of a emotional barrier that keeps them from inflicting violence or defending themselves. But we never got a confirmation on that, this is just what I combined by observation, but it might as well just be that they consider the longer straps (and in some cases sleeves) as restriction, which is ... well, that is not something that is stopping someone with the intent to kill, that is for sure.

So I would say we are all terribly aware about Haruka's threat of suicide. But I think his plan might have changed a bit, he had a long time to ruminate about it after all. And he clearly does not want to die (AKAA even has the lyrics "I don't want to die" translated as "Don't wipe me out", but we are all aware how scuffed the translation for that song is). His conversation with Kotoko on her birthday already made me rise an eyebrow. My first assumption was that he is planning a murder-suicide with Muu, in a way to safe her both from being scared in Milgram and from being alone when he is gone.

But what if he came up with a third option? An option that would show he is serious without destroying the time with his mother. (I still think Muu won't want to hang out with him anymore in t3, but that is beside the question here.) Our blue boy once stated that "he can kill anything that is smaller and weaker than him", and who fits that description the most in the prison and also has a bit of an overlap with his presumed victim? Amane.

An important detail is, that Amane is a prisoner that Haruka had no interaction with whatsoever. He does mention her, in his t1 VD explaining that he is not good with children of her age and in the t2 VD that he apparently does not have problems with her anymore. Still, he seemed to (understandably) always keep his distance from her.

So why of all things does he get a line in this collab addressing her directly? It doesn't feel like a "sorry I'm not interacting with you" kinda line, it's very pained, you can feel the tears in his voice there.

And this lead me to think that Haruka will attempt to attack Amane, which ... oh boy, it will be all kinds of messy. We know Amane is armed, even with the overwhelming strength disadvantage she could easily stab him with her scissors in a death-struggle. Not to mention the conflicts that will bring among the prisoners (I don't even want to think about how that could sour how Fuuta thinks about Haruka tremendously).

And it would be a very interesting turn story wise, instead of going the way too obvious and telegraphed path of Haruka attempting to kill himself and Amane planning an attack on Shidou etc.

It would also be a very mean and ironic way to repeat Haruka's misery (I am crying), getting abandoned by Es/us and very possible his second mother Muu and trying to change things by taking the life of a young girl.

[autism-autobot]

LMK Angst Fic Part 7

Part 6:

"What song does the cuckoo clock play?"

was the question that Sun Wukong never expected to bring him to tears.

It was such an innocent question spoken by Red Son but had clearly been ripping away at his own heart.

Wukong and Nezha were visiting the Demon Bull Family when he asked that, completely out of context and ignoring the previous conversation had between the elder immortals. Wukong hadn't expected to feel his entire soul shatter at the sound of it, how could he?

Princess Iron Fan didn't know what her son was talking about so she asked why such a simple question seemed to weigh so heavily on her son's and brother-in-law's hearts.

Wukong attempted to suppress his tears as he answered her.

SWK: There was this cuckoo clock that Sha Wujing had made for me a while back. As a wedding gift.

SWK: It would cuckoo a certain amount of times before small figures of us pilgrims would dance and spin around to a song Zhu Bajie had written.

RS: Do you remember when you used to allow me to play with Uncle Wukong's children, mother?

PIF: Of course! They were the only children who weren't scared of you nor were too weak to be proper playmates to you.

PIF: But then all that changed when we had that incident with your father.

RS: Yes, well, whenever I would come over to Uncle's house, we would all spin around whenever the clock struck any hour.

SWK: You didn't even care if it was the middle of the night when it sounded, you kids would still dance around it if you were awake.

RS: Indeed. We would have sleepovers in your living room where the clock was and I have very fond memories of us getting up out of bed at horrendously late at night to dance with the figures.

SWK: *full on sobbing at this point* Yeah, I know. I would often hear a chorus of your guys' footsteps spinning around in place when you really should have been in bed.

RS: *also sobbing* It just really pained me that while reminiscing about those days long gone that I couldn't even remember what the song was that we had danced to so many times.

RS: You think it would be engraved into my memory but it isn't.

RS: What song did the cuckoo clock play uncle?

SWK: I don't remember! I let one of my daughters bring it with them when they moved out of my nest.

RS: OH, THEN I SHALL NEVER HEAR IT AGAIN!!! HOW AWFUL!!!!

PIF: I can't believe that you both would get so emotional about a cuckoo clock.

RS: IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT THE CUCKOO CLOCK MOTHER!!!!! That was a fundamental and sacred part of my childhood! And it is no more! I am grown now, as are Wukong's children, my best friends, brothers and cousins. Those days are far behind us now that we are young adults, and I can't even be bothered to remember those moments properly!

DBK: I remember feeling a similar way when I was but a young calf. My grandfather had passed away from a terrible illness when I was about half your age, son.

The Demon Bull King remained untearful but empathetic as he continued.

DBK: When he was alive, he would run around chasing me, my siblings and my cousins with shaving cream upon his face in a half-hearted attempt to scare us.

DBK: After his passing, I would smell the brush that he used to shave himself with, as it still smelled like him. We didn't move his things for over a year after he passed.

DBK: When we did, I was devastated to find that my grandmother had thrown his comb away, never to be seen again. When I had forgotten the smell of the brush, it was a pain unlike any other.

DBK: I understand the pain of moments long gone, and how hard it can be to cope. Though it is good that you have made these memories. I can only offer you my support during this time, my son, and that, you have in full.

Nezha spoke up while hugging Sun Wukong from behind as they wept together.

Nezha: It is better to feel the pain of what once was, than it never having been, is it not?

The five spent the next several hours talking, reminiscing about their respective childhood memories and what had become of each person who has touched their lives since then until it was time to part.

Red Son messaged Wukong's children about the cuckoo clock. As he did, Nezha's words rang in his mind, comforting his bleeding heart.

It is better to feel the pain of what once was, than it never having been.

Part 8:

Masterpost

[smolstarthief]

So, my TF: Prime S2 Finale observations I made in regards to Optimus' expressions, a small analysis!

But context first: So throughout about the 2nd half of S2 the 'Bots and 'Cons are trying to find a set of Omega Keys which if gathered and hooked up a device, can restore and bring life back to Cybertron. They could finally go home. It ends up being a struggle for both sides but the 'Bots managed to grab the keys before Megatron to use them and activate the machine... But unfortunately, their foes were one step ahead of them once again as, due to a grave error and poor communication, their 3 young human companions ended up being found and held hostage. If they don't lower their weapons and give up the keys, they will exposed to Cybertron's toxic atmosphere and they'll be forced to watch the kids die in front of them.

Naturally, having truly cared about the children, they give up without a fight... And that's where things get really horrible for them as despite the kids being safe with them, Megatron's thirst for power isn't satisfied with JUST Cybertron... He wants Earth as well; all life be damned with it. That's where Optimus is forced to make a choice: Either just let the Decepticons do what they want and restore his home planet but then Earth would be wiped of all life in Megatron's attempt to try to rule it himself along with his home planet... Or basically destroy the device capable of restoring said home planet, dooming his home of being lifeless for good and risk having him be demonized for it but Earth is safe from suffering the same fate and history repeating itself.

Now one key subtle thing I notice with Optimus is his facial expressions. He's often criticized for being too stoic but honestly, it's all in the expressions and body language with him. Eyes and eyebrows especially. Even with his face mask on, one can pick up subtle details if observed closely. Basically, he IS capable of expression and emotions despite supposedly keeping them in check.

And he gets put through the absolute wringer this season and one can tell he's nearing his breaking point. He even outright SCREAMS in frustration in one episode which seemed to startle/surprise Ratchet and Bulkhead.

But hoo boy, this finale here... Like his expressions hurt! Like he seems calm at first when Megatron taunts him until he looks back at the understandably panicked children begging the Decepticon leader to leave Earth alone.

Then his eyebrows are raised up a bit when he looks back at the laughing 'Cons, eyes/optics looking more worried now. You can tell what he's thinking. The gears are turning and he's struggling to figure out what to do. He seems almost at a loss on the best way to handle it.

Hell, you can even say he's almost scared. He doesn't want history to repeat itself with Earth. He and the others already had to deal with so much pain and trauma the war caused, some of which he no doubt blames himself for. He does want Cybertron back but at what cost?

Then, in an instant, it shifts to steely resolve and with a clenched fist proceeded to reclaim the Star Saber. He knows the risks but he will NOT let another innocent planet suffer like his did. It seems shaky still but he makes his choice as he destroys the Omega Lock, dooming his home for good.

Granted there might have been a better way but what else can he do at the moment? It was damned if he do, damned if he don't and time was running out. He makes his choice and there's no turning back... Even if he can't go home now.

And when Ratchet calls him out for his decision, he briefly turns his head to the side before shaking it and looking back at him while defending his choice. Like he seems almost unsure of it himself but there's no turning back at this point and he knows it. It was necessary to him.

Then there's the ending where he decided to stay behind to destroy the Ground Bridge controls so that his comrades and loved ones won't be followed. He feels like this will be the last time he'll see them as he believed that he will be captured and interrogated at best, executed/killed to make an example at worst. He's already been demonized and branded a traitor by Megatron as well. When he makes the declaration to Ratchet that he'll stay, it's his usual serious expression.

But once Ratchet is gone... It drops and it's sad. Almost like a mental outer mask is cracking. Once again, it's almost shaky as he looks at the controls and his clenches his fist again in resolve. It's now or never with him.

"I... never imagined it would end like this." "Neither did I, old friend."

Even when he's readying his swing, you can feel the shaky resolve still. But he definitely didn't think that Megatron would outright reduce the base to rubble but god damn!

But yeah, it just feels like that in both moments... Optimus felt lost and even helpless and it shows in his expressions. They all show how much of his serious emotions were almost a mask he put up for everyone else's sakes even at the expense of his own feelings. He seemed to struggle with what to do and even seems unsure of his decisions but also feels like he made the necessary ones, even though they were painful.

But yeah... TF: Prime Optimus needs a hug so damn badly!

[mamamittens]

Empty Cradles

This is part of the Spooktober 2024 Event, for context!

Summary:

Ace has the unexpected talent of story telling which his crew rarely called upon unless they wanted to be scared shitless. They'll tell anyone that listens about how fucked up his scary stories are and tend to leave everyone with sleepless nights. If you asked Ace, however, he'd dryly comment that he hadn't told one 'story'. Because they were all true. And now it's the Whitebeard Pirate's turn, throwing a party to celebrate the Spades joining up with them, the booze flowing freely.

Someone asks for Ace's best story--he offers the same protest as usual--but after a moment he relents. Taking a heavy swig, Ace addressed the suddenly spellbound crowd.

"There are no cribs in these woods."

No one looks at him the same way again.

(Platonic spooks only)

Warnings: Referenced/implied infanticide, harm to children, abandonment, and basically mind fucking illusions. Kind of gross and vague tree-demon-mimic thing. Pretty fucked, not going to lie. Tumblr murdered the format a little, sorry

Reader discretion is advised.

Word Count: 3,765

It would be a lie to claim that the Whitebeard Pirates never threw a party or only rarely did so.

Really, between islands and scuffles with often too-weak-pirate-and-marine-crews, a party was about the only thing to liven up the place. Either that or let the troublemakers get ideas, which was arguably worse than just tossing about a bunch of booze and food to let them play around with.

So it was hardly any surprise when, upon the successful—dear god he’s finally been stopped and not by death—recruitment of the Spade Pirates, Whitebeard declared a celebration.

It took a little bit of work to throw together—they weren’t that ready to party at a moment’s notice—but within the day there was plenty of food, booze, and company to have a proper celebration about the matter. The smaller crew integrating into small bubbles of conversation and games, letting them get to know their new brothers and sisters without the tension of their ex-captain attempting to kill their now current captain. Ace, the aforementioned attempted murderer, was equally having a blast.

And everyone was pleasantly surprised how charismatic the young man could be when he wasn’t pissed off about every conversation he ended up taking part in.

The young man ate like a whole herd of sea kings and the division responsible for mealtimes was getting a little worried—though Commander Thatch viewed it as a challenge and, possibly, an affront to his skill that there would be any doubt he could feed his family. As large and hungry as they were. Besides! Ace was a growing boy! And a D, so the appetite was hardly a shock to the seasoned cook.

No, the shock was saved mostly for how cheerful Ace was, old first mate by his side, as he enjoyed the bonfire and roasted meat. Commenting in agonizingly cryptic bits about previous meals he’d roasted that sounded a lot like bullshit coming from a man raised in the East Blue.

Alligators the size of Commander Jozu?

A troupe of monkeys as competition?

A tiger called King of the Jungle?

Nah, that was just boasting—surely!

But they’d all be lying if each little snippet didn’t leave them begging for more. And judging by the slow gravitational pull Ace exerted on his old crew, they were very familiar with his stories. Not to mention eager for more.

Thatch playfully attempted to sit in Marco’s lap, instantly getting thrown into the sand as the sun hung low on the horizon. Purple skies mixing with the dark smoke of their bonfire, casting flickering tongues of gold across Ace’s face as he stubbornly refused to admit he was lying—or even just exaggerating.

“—I don’t know why you guys keep asking for me to tell you more about where I grew up if you just claim I’m lying!” Ace huffed, chucking his beer to wash down a nauseatingly large mouthful of roasted meat. Thatch personally suspected that his devil fruit helped process all that food. There was no way a man—or boy—could eat that much red meat without slowing down otherwise. D or not!

“C’mon, Ace! You tell the best spooky stories! Real fucked up shit too—not like some of the other ones we heard that were just… mean. Or gross. In an uncomfortably pointed way.” Deuce huffed, his mask shifting as he wrinkled his nose in distaste. “The Bull Frog of the Swamp gave me nightmares.” He bemoaned, a sentiment shared with several ex-Spade pirates.

“Ooh~ What’s this? Our little brother tells good stories?” Thatch cooed, scrambling to sit beside Ace and lean against him, careful to not appear like he was about to steal the young man’s food—kid had a fucking carnivorous reflex about him. “Tell us! I wanna hear! We’ve exhausted all of ours! Some fresh spooks is exactly what this party needs!”

Ace gave him a withering look, silver eyes flashing with fire.

“Don’t you start. They’re not stories, Thatch.” He pouted, expression shifting to something that made Thatch’s insides squirm.

Haunted.

The young man—someone who squared up the Whitebeard, Yonko Pirate Captain and Strongest Man in the World for over a hundred days with intent to kill—was haunted by what he’d seen.

Either that, or he somehow hid a deeply convincing theatrical streak.

“Hey… you don’t…” Thatch wasn’t sure how to respond, not used to the almost vulnerable expression on the young man’s face. He’d seen Ace overwhelmed before. Drowning in his thoughts and self-hate. But never… whatever this is.

After a moment, Ace sighed, rolling his shoulders.

“Alright—alright, fine!” he huffed, raising his voice to an instant outcry of cheers. “I’ll tell you all about a time when I was… hmm. Think I was six? Maybe seven? And Dadan, my guardian, told me something—”

“Boo! It’s no fun if it’s a ‘a guy who knew a guy who told him that his cousin did whatever’ kind of story!” Someone absolutely smashed cried out, laughing his ass off. Missing the sharp glare Ace sent him, but not the spark of fire that snapped inches from his nose. Sending him reeling back into the sand, to which Oyaji barely gave a glance as he leaned in to listen closer. Eyes sharp with interest and growing concern.

Thatch made a note to not interrupt.

“—Anyway, she told me ‘there are no cradles in the woods’.” Ace finished, his voice falling soft and hollow. Eyes drifting to the fire and past it. Shoulders flickering with licks of flame as he seemed to fall back.

Back to when he must have been so small and frightened.

And, apparently, needed to be told there weren’t cradles in the woods.

--*--

Ace’s feet slammed into the ground with a satisfying thump. The Hag’s voice screeching far behind him about getting dinner. Bo was supposed to be scouring the trash heaps for treasure another couple of days.

Ace would join him, but got into a scuffle with some unusually well connected gang members and Bo suggested he lay low for a bit. Just until Bo could figure out who all was involved and how to get rid of them quickly. Which left Ace hunting for food as Bo concentrated on his own hunt.

It was annoying—Ace had gotten used to working beside Bo regularly—but he could live with it.

The forests were well traveled territory for Ace, as well as its many hazards. Monkeys, gators, and tigers wary of him after so many successful hunts. It was as satisfying as it was annoying. Meaning Ace had to either work on his stealth more or go deeper into the woods. Something he was—secretly—a little afraid of doing after the Bull Frog incident.

Every time he thought he’d seen it all, something else seemed to make it its personal mission to crawl out of hell and onto his ass.

The thick trees, wider than any grown man Ace had encountered in his short life, seemed to only grow more dense as he went deeper into the woods. Leaves high above weaving together into a dense canopy with infrequent flecks of sunlight ripping through to tumble onto gnarled roots. A deep, dank smell of undergrowth overpowering his senses as the birds eventually fell silent.

Ace, seasoned as he was in these woods, fell still in turn. Instantly suspicious of what could drive such a reaction.

Only the wind dared break the silence. Not even crickets chirping obnoxiously in the dense undergrowth. No river nearby to gently ripple at the edge of his hearing or soft, deadly footsteps of a predator stalking nearby.

Ace crouched a little, eyes narrowed as he scanned the dense trees around him.

There had to be a reason.

There was always a reason.

uuuu-waaaah! ooooo-wah!

Ace flinched, his focus so intense he was completely caught off guard by the faint crying he could barely hear over the wind whistling far above his head.

It sounded like a baby.

Ace had seen babies before. From a distance. Usually kept close to fretful parents or nannies. Small, squalling things bundled tightly in blankets, faces red as they wailed for no apparent reason. Shoved into weird clothes and cooed over ceaselessly in little carriers and prams. They seemed annoying, something the old hag seemed to agree about—especially when talking about himself as a baby.

But he’d only ever seen babies in High Town. Or maybe between trash heaps. Somewhere people actually choose to live. Not…

In the middle of the forest, fuck-if-he-knew-how-far away from anyone else.

Uuuu-wAAaah! OoOOo-WAH!

Whatever the brat was doing out here, they were pissed. And frankly, Ace would be too if he was shoved into those hideous clothes and then taken all the way out here.

It was weirdly hot and smelled foul. Like something was rotting badly after a summer rainstorm.

Cautious, Ace moved towards the sound. Pipe low at his side as he darted between trees. Getting closer to the wailing cries with every silent step. Eyes noting how the trees looked… off. Like the bark was soaked in something.

Sick, maybe.

Trees could be sick, Ace knew. Had seen them rot from the inside out and crumble under their own weight.

That rotting stench getting worse as the few specks of sunlight vanished behind him. Low, green light bouncing off of softened bark that oozed some strange, sickly liquid.

Strangely off-put by the growing miasma of the forest, Ace slowed down. Shoes digging into soft dirt between the roots that threatened to trip him with every step.

Oo-Ooo-WAH-AHHHA!

Ace stopped, body shaking as his heart raced. Something crunching beneath his feet like bird bones but he didn’t bother to check. Too confused about where the baby was.

It was close.

The baby… was close?

His head swiveled side to side, certain he’d heard it just ahead.

But there didn’t seem to be anything but dark shadows squirming between sickened trees.

Ace began to wonder if he was going mad.

Regardless of how fucking annoying babies seemed to be, people loved them. No one with sense would just… walk all the way into this creepy ass forest and drop it off like there was a wholesome daycare nearby.

Uoooh-hmp! Ooo!

The baby hiccupped, cries softening so close Ace began to worry some psycho was putting babies in the trees.

Then he saw it.

A flicker of yellow light to his right.

Sunlight?

Eating through the darkness of the still forest and skimming over a broken shape. Just a few feet ahead of him, in fact.

Ace shuffled forward, eyes squinting against the dark as he drew closer. Hair on end as a trembling vibrated his bones.

He needed to run.

But… the baby?

Just a couple feet away, the shape became more clear. Fuzzy darkness shifting and melting into coherent form. The stench of rot curling his nose but the steady realization drew him closer still.

The broken shape.

It was slightly crooked bars. Standing vertical to each other. Curling in?—no, standing straight. Can’t you tell?

Just a little taller than himself and wider than if he outstretched his arms by a considerable distance. Soft cooing and cries fainter than even when he first heard the baby. A small bundle squirming behind the bars. That breeze returning hot and foul, a little surprising that the baby wasn’t howling at the discomfort—Ace would be throwing a fit if he was left somewhere that felt and smelled so gross.

There was a creaking, the bars and bundle shifting in unison. The sound oddly sickening and wet but Ace assumed the dirt underneath it was wet.

Wet like the trees.

“This is my baby. You’ll take good care of him, won’t you?” Ace froze, looking up at the source of the voice. It was soft, almost a coo, just above the bars. For a moment, Ace couldn’t make out who it was. His skin writhing with discomfort as he breathed faster, flinching back as the rot settled into his lungs.

Then, with flickers of that yellow—so warm, isn’t it nice there’s a little bit of sun in this quiet, safe place?—sunlight, the figure took shape.

A little hazy in the dark, Ace could still make out the dripping—waves, it’s waves of soft pink—hair. The curve of a soft face with familiar freckles across her cheeks. A soft smile. Eyes that made him want to vomi—cry, because she’s crying too—and the shape of something just behind her ear.

Ace…

He had never met this woman in his life.

Ace knew this woman.

He was shaking, Ace distantly realized.

This woman… he swallowed hard, eyes burning.

“I can’t do this��I-I can’t—you have to fix my mistake!” she pleaded, soft smile and tearful, joyous eyes fixed on Ace. Her head dipped down to the crib and Ace’s eyes followed. He still couldn’t make out the bundle in the dark but assumed the baby was firmly swaddled.

Safe… and sound.

Maybe too swaddled?

Maybe that’s what she meant?

But Ace could feel the acid in his throat. The trembling of his hands on the cold pipe.

Everything in him was screaming but Ace didn’t know for what.

“I don’t care what happens to it! J-Just get it away from me!” She cried out, face still filled with triumphant sorrow.

“…this is wrong.” Ace whispered, trying to believe it.

Certain he had to believe it and fast.

UUUUU-WAH! UU-WAAAHHHH!

Ace jerked, eyes drawn to the bundle again and away from the woman who made Ace want… want to…

Scream.

Cry.

Run—

It was moving.

The baby was moving. Rolling over and looking in Ace’s direction. A small hand reaching out in the vast space of its cradle, a small sob calling to him. He stepped forward without thought. Not even sure what he would do to soothe the baby.

Maybe…

Maybe if he looked into the crib he could see what was wrong?

Ace stepped forward again, leaning closer to the bars. Instinctively holding his breath as the smell of fucking rot swept over him. His eyes adjusting to the dark quickly.

The bars curled inwards, towards the baby, making it hard to look properly. Ace’s foot bracing against the edge between bars and slipping. The baby squirming with discontent as he glanced around.

The bars were smooth?

No—straight and carved with flower motifs like the one in the woman’s hair—thick and secure. Perfect for protecting a baby. Harder to look after it, though, when Ace was so short.

He’d need both hands, wouldn’t he?

To climb into the cradle?

“I don’t want to be a mom.” The woman sobbed and Ace froze, heel planted between the bars, ready to lift himself up and climb in.

He sucked in a sharp breath, blinding rage filling him with the scent of rot—hand gripping the pipe with renewed vigor.

The fuck was he doing—climbing into the damn crib like a baby?

Metal clashed with wood and it gave a sickening wet SNAP!

UUUUH—WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH! AH—AHH—OOOAAAAHHHHGGGHHHH!

The cries of the baby were deafening, warbling and warping into something deep and twisted.

Ace shot back, gasping for air as carved wood twisted and jerked, snapping closed over the baby—lurching up to the side with wet pops. The woman—she…

Ace watched in horror as those tearful eyes twisted. Sickly yellow light glowing against wet trails of puss and infection. Hair writhing in feathery tendrils as any semblance of humanity was stripped away. Rip pulling wide into a gapping maw of jagged teeth, head swaying as a thick tendril coiled out of the darkness, lifting up with the crib now completely on its side.

It was a horrible corpse of a thing, animal and not. Sick but sickened. Bars of the crib its ribcage as thick roots spasmed from under the earth. Head flopping loosely on its writhing neck as it howled with pain. Somewhere between the wails of a babe and the damned. Several of the ribs were shattered and blood spurted across the floor in a thick ooze of rot. Yellow and dark red mixed to Ace’s shocked nausea.

Even in the dark refuge of the dense canopy, Ace could see too much of it—he hated everything he could comprehend and whatever he could not.

The baby wailed from the thing’s mouth, vomit burning his tongue as he struggled to reconcile the truth of what he was seeing.

This demonic crib thing was trying to eat him—Ace focused on that.

It was hardly unusual for something fucked up to try and eat him. Practically normal, actually.

And just like everything else that tried to kill him—Ace was going to meet them with a blow from his pipe.

“Fuck off!” Ace screamed, his whole chest rattling with the denial of its existence.

The sick, twisted feelings it brough up in him. That woman’s face that was achingly familiar and wrong.

It let loose a deep growl, a faint wail of a babe in its throat as something wet in its chest rattled. Body arching up and up and up until it loomed over him like a snake. It’s exact body obscured in darkness and wet, rotting viscera.

And then it slammed down where he had been standing just a fraction of a second before. The trees trembling with the blow as he twisted his body like a cat, lining up his pipe to bring it down onto the thing’s spine. Or at least what he assumed to be the spine. The arching, brittle structure snapping with wet pops as it howled again, more infantile in it’s cries this time.

But Ace wasn’t stopping until it shut. Up.

Uuuu-wah! WAH! WAAAAAaaAAh-HAAAaaaahhhhH!

Smack—PLAP!

UUUU-WAH!

SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! CRA-ACK!

Mmmaa-maaa—

CRACK.

Ace panted, uncaring of how the taste of rot filled his tongue or brittle things snapped under his shoes. Skin soaked in infected blood. Wooden bones shaking as the creature trembled in a loose pile of agonized infection. It seemed to quake, shifting into the dirt as it literally buried itself.

And Ace was too shocked to care.

The image of a shattered crib and a brutalized baby flickering in his mind long after it was gone. Leaving only bloodied earth and gore in its wake.

Ace didn’t remember the walk home. Only that he blinked at realized his eardrums were shaking with Dadan’s scream of horror.

“ACE?! A-ACE! W-WHAT’S WRONG?! WHAT HAPPENED, BABY?!” Dadan fell to her knees before him, hands hovering over his blood soaked skin.

It took Ace a long moment of soaking up the reassuring sunlight and chilled breeze on his wet skin to answer. Unable to meet her eyes.

“…there was a crib.” Ace’s voice breathed out as he cried.

Dadan fell still too and Ace shuddered, sobbing with horror at what he’d done.

“A-A baby—I-I—the baby—I—” calloused hands cradled Ace’s face and he was forced to look into Dadan’s horrified eyes.

“Ace… there are no cradles in these woods.” She breathed out, her words carrying a heavy weight to them. “Just… people who make bad decisions and things willing to… make them go away.”

Ace trembled, eyes squeezing shut. Sobs ripping free from his lungs as he was pulled into Dadan’s firm embrace. Her words drowned out in his head as she rocked him.

Ace was not allowed to go hunting for a while after that. Dadan only wanting to know how bad it was—if Ace killed it—before softly ‘grounding’ him. He was washed up and given a hot meal. His bed with Bo moved to Dadan’s room as she sat between them with a rifle in hand facing the window for weeks.

It took years for him to ask any further questions, and even then, he didn’t ask many.

“… did the cradle eat people?”

“…Babes, usually. Either tricked into being given or… willingly. Learned their cries with practice. You must have been led to the den.”

“…. If I had gotten into it, what would it have done?” Ace asked hesitantly, aware there were worse fates than death.

“It wouldn’t have called out to you at all if it had seen you hunting even once, for starters. Prefers weak prey. If you’re lucky, it would have just eaten you. If not… well… keep you screaming. Crying. Whatever it took. To practice for itself.” Dadan admitted softly and refused to elaborate.

Years later, when he was hunting with Luffy, he heard it again for the first time since the incident.

uuuu-waaaah! ooooo-wah!

Luffy was curious, naturally.

“Was that a baby? What’s it doing out here, Ace?” his little brother asked with a frown. Ace turned in the direction he heard the cries and whipped out his pipe, blocking Luffy from following the sound. “H-Hey, what gives—?!”

“Ssshhhh… hear that?” Ace asked, glaring into the dark.

The woods were still save a soft breeze that carried the scent of rot. Ace couldn’t say if he imagined it for certain though, given Luffy’s complete non-reaction to the faint, foul stench. Ace hadn’t noticed a lot of things until it was nearly too late, after all.

“…No?”

“Exactly. Listen, Lu. There are no cradles in these woods.” Ace informed him seriously, giving him a stern glare before he could protest. “No babies, either. Not alive, anyway. And don’t you go looking for them either.”

Luffy had pouted, ready to insist he was man enough.

uuuu-waaaah!—

“Fuck off!” Ace screamed and the call fell silent.

It did not call out again that day.

Or the next.

And Ace made it very clear to Luffy that there wasn’t any good meal to be had looking for it, or babies, or ladies, or anything but infected trees.

--*--

The burning wood popping was the only sound for a long moment.

Ace’s eyes still lost in the fire.

“…One day, I’m going back there. And when I do… I’m sending that thing back to hell.” Ace hissed with more venom than any had seen from him.

Thatch and Marco shared a look, glancing at Oyaji.

The old man looked a bit shocked and almost like he was remembering some horror story of his own.

“…well shit, they were right. You’re really good at this.” Thatch sighed, breaking the tension. Ace snorted, shoving him aside, and Thatch accepted the rough housing.

It was better than that lost, mournful, vengeful look in his eyes by far.

[scifimagpie]

Back on Ash Tree Lane: Revisiting House of Leaves

Art by Michelle Browne, 2023. Yep, I'm back on my bullshit.

An abbreviated version of this appears as a review for the book on my Amazon and Goodreads accounts, but I realised I had more to say. 

Beware, because 

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS 

for this 23-year-old book (jeez) abound.

 I first read House of Leaves years and years ago, and then some friends suggested reading it for a book club this year. Naturally, I figured it was a good time for a revisit; it's probably been fifteen years or more since I picked it up. Maybe closer to twenty. (Jeez, I'm old.) 

Vibe Check

As much as parts of the book do genuinely deliver a dizzying thrill ride, the beginning of the book actually didn't quite hold up for me. But I have to admit, this is a book you have to binge - try to read it in long sessions. Also there's a ton of content warnings for this book - child abuse, sexual assault mentions, sexual harassment, mental illness, animal harm and death, infanticide, attempted child murder...plus some good, old-fashioned gore and body horror. Lots of horrible, excellent, spooky stuff, and it's generally treated with some respect. 

Once you start to "get" the book, the labyrinthine page formatting and the distracting footnotes - they're there for vibes most of the time, and to instill a sense of authenticity and realism - it's amazing. 

Is this book the most accessible thing I've ever read? Probably not. I don't even know how it is from a disability perspective - I'm not even sure how you'd make an audiobook that captures the vibe. (Maybe with lots of sound effects and clever editing tricks? Actually, if that exists somewhere, someone send it to me.)

And yet, the overall story, about the mental health issues of Johnny Truant, and the possibility of the entire thing being his invention? Or the invention of his mental health? And the subtle nested story meta-structure thing - is really sad and really cool. There's something very visceral about this sad, sad guy's lonely wandering and search for answers. 

A lot of people are tempted to skim Johnny's segments for some reason, but if at all possible, don't do that. Johnny's mother's institutionalization when he was young, his persistent struggles with poverty, mental health issues, substance use, and intimacy, as well as possible ADHD (just to take a few wild guesses), and the death of his "godlike" pilot father and the subsequent abusive monstrousness of his stepfather Raymond, are all essential parts of the narrative. 

Some griping

Yeah, it's at least borderline "dick lit," i.e. a book about man-pain bordering on the fetishistic (i.e., your On the Road, most Hemingway books, Crime and Punishment, Catch-22, Fight Club, plenty of other literary fiction titles - those are just some I've read that fit the bill). But this is "dick lit" that actually shares something scared, vulnerable, and alone, and shows the holes in toxic masculinity - as well as the dangers of mythologizing male figures in one's life. 

The creepy Oedipal stuff with Johnny's mother, as revealed in her letters from the mental institution, and the meta-fictional portrayal of Karen, as well as all the hookup girls, definitely fit too well into that Madonna/whore dichotomy. And it's worth saying that the book is extremely white and quite straight - for someone in LA, Johnny never seems to even encounter a queer person or drag queen/king, and homosexuality is only mentioned in a context of denigrating Will Navidson's masculinity, and questioning the fidelity of his wife, Karen. Even the book metatextually commentating on the mother/whore dichotomy, and having Johnny speculate on the inner lives of his hookups, does not succeed in fishing the book out of basic sexism. 

I can only speculate about ableism a little bit, but the character Reston felt like pretty good representation, and the mental health stuff - well, at least for me, it worked. The visceral horror of developing a family member's mental illness and recapitulating the cycle of trauma? Compulsive lying or avoidance of personal history to hide the horrors within? Yeah, I get it. Not all representation has to be Perfect (TM), and the institutionalization horror of his mother probably has some problems to unpack with it, but the cloying and suffocating nature of her attachment, as well as her desperate hunger for connection with the outside world, also shone through. 

I'll be honest - this is also a book that benefits from skimreading certain sections. I'm just not sure all the physics stuff actually adds to the narrative. I'm not a crunchy enough scientist to take value from it, personally. A lot of people hate Johnny, who is definitely not a Good Person, but I felt sympathetic towards the scrappy young man. I'm surprised Tumblr isn't all over House of Leaves, because he has "scrungly" disaster vibes for sure. (And possibly, considering how much he idolizes his friend Lude, a hint of coded bisexuality? For a book with a central focus on Greek mythology, it's agonizingly straight.)

The good stuff

My favourite sections are definitely the actual explorations of the house. It's no surprise that these are the segments that have resonated the most in pop culture - fans of the SCP (Secure, Contain, Protect) universe and HP Lovecraft have almost certainly run into the main concepts of this book already. 

I guess I'm a sucker for a good gothic novel, because there is something decidedly gothic about this one - it's a House, and it's Spooky, and it's about a Family and their mental illnesses. But in this case, the house is something that travels with Johnny, not just the physical location on Ash Tree Lane. The problems with the house for the Navidsons are all part of the baggage they carry with them. 

I've been sitting with the whole structural thing about the Minotaur, Theseus, Minos, and the whole stepson/stepfather hate thing, for a bit. There's this thematic element about Johnny being emotionally and mentally ill, and his mother being ill as well - that does seem like an intentional parallel? But there's also a thing about Zampano as Daedalus and a father figure, and Johnny as Icarus, soaring too high on his father's creation, only to be killed by it.

Is the entire thing an elaborate delusion? Is Zampano real? Who is this mysterious genius, this Daedalus-like figure whose invention - the book - ensnares and entraps Johnny, our humble Icarus and Minotaur? We certainly don't get answers, but he appears to be lonely, remote, and ripe for idealization. 

Is the Navidson Record meant to be real, or all Johnny's invention? The "editor" character is particularly interesting, especially because at no point do they clarify the reality or unreality of the manuscript.

When, throughout his extended mental breakdown, did Johnny possibly have time to pen this missive? It certainly seems possible that he was doing little else. But when was it accepted and submitted to a publishing company? The book definitely wants to give the vibe of just "appearing" in print. It's very "done" nowadays, but at the time, it was particularly revolutionary. 

Why does House of Leaves still work?

Well - in my opinion, HoL commits to the gothic and keeps you invested, but it also goes deep into the mental health issues that make up the backbone of both cosmic horror and the gothic novel. 

This, then, is probably why military takes on Lovecraftian fiction and the SCPs all kind of suck. I've watched a couple of Youtube videos and listened to a few Actual Play podcasts of Call of Cthulhu games with a Delta Green focus (that's a special forces take on Call of Cthulhu), and all of them just left me absolutely cold. (Maybe other people will enjoy these live-action takes on SCPs more than I did.) In addition to the fact that I'm just not much into jingoism, and I'm kinda critical of that whole carceral-state structure and the military industrial complex, conservative politics really don't work with cosmic horror or gothic novels. 

Sure, military elements can work great - in Lovecraft's Monsters, there's a rather good take on the story of Innsmouth that involves a military intervention - but it's also inherently critical of the role of said military. I do have some fondness for the Warhammer 40K universe as well, but that's also morally complex. 

Any kind of military apologia in the face of cosmic horror just absolutely sucks the scare factor right out of stuff. It's too objective and impersonal, when it should be intimate and invasive. And above all - really good horror must come from empathy. 

If you crave more

T Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon's What Moves the Dead, the HP Lovecraft stories "The Color Out of Space" and "Dreams in the Witch House" as well as the Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle are pretty excellent classic read-alikes; I haven't read Grady Hendrix's How to Sell a Haunted House yet, but I loved Horrorstor, and that's another decent read-alike for building-based horror. The "Endless Ikea" SCP is available on Youtube in multiple reading formats, as well as videos, and of course, there's always the original version on the website. 

The podcasts Welcome to Night Vale, TANIS, and the Rusty Quill Archives also all offer some good horror content if you want to savour the visceral fear of something breathing down your neck, too!

***

A writer and professional freelance editor, Michelle Browne lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partners-in-crime and their cats. She is currently working on the next books in her series, other people's manuscripts, knitting, jewelry-making, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible.

Find her all over the internet: *Website * Mailing list * Magpie Editing * Amazon * Tumblr * Mastodon *Facebook * Medium * Twitter  * OG Blog* Instagram * Paypal.me * Ko-fi

[neutralgray]

9/11 and Spider-Man: A brief Retroactive Revisit

The year was 2001. I was seven years old and just started second grade. I don't remember a lot of the details but I remember enough. People were frightened. Teachers tried explaining to us what was going on in regards to the attacks on the world trade centers. We held school plays to honor the armed forces. Patriotic songs dominated the air waves. People were bound to one another by shared fear and patriotism. Of course these feelings were felt by us children, too. We were young and emulating our parents. If they were scared, then we certainly were. If they were proud and angry, so were many of us. For a little kid caught up in the aftermath of a terrorist attack, it was so easy to feel American.

Say what you can and will about American imperialism potentially leading into the events of the 9/11 attack, but the overarching timeline of "why" 9/11 happened didn't matter much to the average person just trying to live their life. The American government was responsible for a great many sins, often fueled by joint corporate/government interests and looked over due to American exceptionalism... but on a wholly individual level, little of the "why" or "how" mattered to us. We were attacked and guilty of no greater crime than having been born where we lived.

It was a very frightening and unsure time that is difficult to explain for those who simply did not live it.

As with many great tragedies, it affected the storytelling of that age. That fervent patriotism and fear and loss were the brushes that colored many stories. Even in the colorful and larger-than-life stories of superhero comics, this event could not simply be ignored. The pain was weighing directly on virtually every citizen, including those writers and artists.

Then in December, 2001, Spider-Man issue #36 was published. The front cover was simply black with the title overlaying it in stark white. Good comic covers usually tease the fun adventure the 22 pages will contain, but here there was nothing. The cover felt like a breath caught dead in one's throat.

The issue depicted the events of 9/11, as told in the world of Marvel. It was the same great tragedy it was in our world but now serving along first responders were the likes of Thor and Captain America. The comic tried to respectfully depict the great scope of the real world horror, and I personally think it did a good job considering it had to depict such an event co-existing next to colorful superheroes in spandex.

Spider-Man struggles to answer when a crying New Yorker demands to know how he let this happen-- where was he? He tries to console a child whose firefighter father ran into the wreckage only to lose grip of the boy when the he runs off screaming after seeing his father pulled out of the wreckage by other firefighters. The comic depicts our beloved superheroes helping but goes out of its way to ensure the reader that the real heroes in this scenario are the first responders-- the firefighters, police, and simple volunteers who were there to help. It shines a light on them all at the end, noticeably sweeping the colorful superheroes behind the lines of regular everyday heroes.

It was a product of its time and captures a lot of the raw emotions I remember from that period. It could be argued that any depiction of such an event so soon would be distasteful, let alone when you add in superheroes. I would not begrudge anyone who reads it and detests this story for its maybe tone-deaf approach. In the book's defense, though, I do genuinely believe that J Michael Straczynski was attempting to tell a very respectful and solemn story.

Since its release it's been a polarizing issue and while some of these criticisms may be fair, I wanted to address an issue I don't think is a fair criticism. Or rather, it's a criticism that I think misses the cultural context and the reason we tell ourselves stories.

Above is a controversial panel-- arguably the most talked about single panel in the comic. At ground zero for the terrorist attacks, characters such as Doctor Doom, Kingpin, and Magneto are present and assisting. It highlights their shared humanity with the heroes and superheroes. The story even depicts Doctor Doom, one of the most iconic and capable Marvel supervillains, weeping behind his mask at the tragic loss of innocent life. It's a depiction of everyone coming together under their umbrella of shared pain.

A lot has been made of this panel. The biggest criticism is the in-universe absurdity of someone like Doctor Doom crying at such an event. In the world of Marvel Comics, the entire world has been threatened with planet eaters, inter-dimensional dragons, omnicidal maniacs, hostile aliens, and forces beyond our dimension. In universe, the tragedy of 9/11 would be contextually really small compared to so many of the constant dangers the superheroes have faced time and time again. This also means that the tragedies caused by Doctor Doom and his ilk have certainly caused more actual damage in the world of Marvel than the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This criticism demands consistency--logical reasoning in the universe. Why would Doctor Doom cry for the loss of innocent life if he's done worse himself?

I can only speak for myself, but I strongly feel this criticism misses the point of story telling. Stories do not exist in a vacuum-- they don't merely come into being for us to absorb, interpret, and put away. Stories are ideas. They're ideas organized into a narrative that allows for us to share moral lessons, thoughts, and adventures with others. Stories have been used across millennia to explain everything from natural phenomenon to the nature of good and evil. To quote a friend of mine, sometimes it's the UN-REALITY of stories that allows their themes and emotional weights to really flourish. It's reductive to look at a story like this and claim it makes no sense because it's logically inconsistent in-universe. It may pain the nerd in all of us to say it, but that universe depicted on those pages in Spider-Man is not real. It's never been real. Ours is.

This was a story written by real people affected by a real tragedy. It wasn't written to humanize Doctor Doom or provide some new dynamic depth to a silly colorful supervillain. It was written to comfort real readers who were scared and angry and navigating many of these feelings through their unity as a country of people. It reminded the reader they were not alone in grappling these difficult emotions. For a kid who grew up in a post-9/11 world, I can personally attest that seeing my favorite superhero so scared and lost but still trying to do the right thing in the face of real world stakes helped me navigate those feelings, too.

My ultimate point in making this post is to stress that some stories (such as this one) need to be read with the meta-knowledge that it is a story. We may love and cherish our darlings in fiction but their stories are told for our sake, not theirs. A story doesn't have to make sense to them. It just has to make sense to us.

Those stories are the ones that bring us together.

[waveobeans]

@0rainy0muses0 asked: { Laios for Kabru } "You know…I think I could deal with the lying. Yeah, I could absolutely deal with the lying. You're not the first person to lie to me, you know. A lot of people have." Laios looks exhausted, he hasn't been sleeping well. A lot of things have been weighing on his mind as of late. "It's the…it's the…y'know. The absolute firm belief held by everyone that I meet that I'd apparently throw all human races to the monsters if I could! Like I'm some kind of psychopath!" In fact, Chilchuck's called him that before, to his face even. Everyone he meets for more than five minutes seems to be convinced in this. It's very draining. "Nemari, Shuro, you…even Chilchuck and Marcille to some degree. The only one who doesn't look at me like I'll snap and start feeding you to walking mushrooms is Senshi. How is…how is that fair, to me? Huh? You all act like I don't have feelings; life I'm DEAF or something! I can hear when people talk behind my back, I just don't call you out on it 'cause I'm outnumbered and I don't know if anyone would defend me! It's really really really REALLY EXHAUSTING!!!" Laios stands, seized by a rare fit of anger, and kicks over the pot that's been boiling on a magic circle he drew. Nothing was in it besides water, so he doesn't feel bad for spilling the water, and he stalks off to go cool down somewhere where no one can see him cry and make fun of him for that too.

Kabru was the sort to pride himself on being able to read people well. It was a skill- no, not that. It was a talent. One that he’d devoted so many hours to while under the care of his adoptive mother. Observing, learning what did and didn’t cause a reaction. Tracing the lines of similarity until he had constructed a perfect web of how to make someone like him. It was easy. Familiar. Follow the pattern and you were in. Follow the pattern, and you could learn everything about someone.

And then, Laios Touden busted into his life with all the grace of a minotaur in a china shop.

Suddenly, his methods didn’t work. A sly smile, eye contact, and kind words didn’t do it. His pattern fell apart before his eyes, the glass mask that he kept between him and everyone else shattered. And it scared him more than anything.

Fear made him revert to the basics. The knowledge of how to kill a dangerous person. Dangerous, like someone who seemed to favor monsters over people. Who had their eyes light up with wonder at a creature aiming to kill them, but had negative interest in another human being.

He knew he recognized this fellow. Kabru saw him on the surface a few times with his old group- when his sister was still there. And every time he tried to approach, he was ignored completely. Laios never looked at him once, and every attempt to form the first threads of a bond were dashed. The other never even noticed him.

So what else was he to think, except that this person might be dangerous if placed in the powerful position of the Lord of the Dungeon? Monsters would thrive, humans would not. Monsters would reproduce and grow in population until the dungeon couldn’t hold them all. It would crumble, and the monsters would flood out… it would be Utaya all over again.

But contrary to his fear, he didn’t kill Laios. It would be easy, and humans would be safe. But he didn’t. Because he wanted to know, to understand. Kabru understood that his fear was based on trauma… And he never meant to let that show to Laios, not without context.

Only a few moments pass before he follows Laios. Stepping up alongside him when the other stopped. He didn’t look at his face, instead staring forward at a blank point on the wall. He took a deep breath in, before letting it slip away. Context was needed. So he would give it.

“When I was a kid, the village I lived in thought I was the child of a succubus. My eyes were too strange for them… so they ostracized me and my mother. I was too young to know at the time, but they did. Then, when I was just about seven… a dungeon in the area broke open. Too many monsters, not enough people managing their numbers. And… Utaya was swarmed. Everyone died. I watched them all be killed en mass. My family included. It was completely by luck that I didn’t die too. Outside of a dungeon, where we can’t just come back with a spell.”

Kabru hated talking about this. Hated baring his soul to anyone. But if he didn’t want what he’d tried so hard to build with Laios to crumble… he had to. He sat in place, crossing his legs, now staring down at his own hands. Hands weathered by combat, hands that have wielded weapons and killed people.

“I hate monsters. I don’t understand them at all. That day, they weren’t like animals, or anything even remotely similar. They weren’t eating, or surviving, or doing anything of the sort. They were killing. Just killing. So I hate them. I think they’re the worst things in the world, and I think we’d be better off without them.”

At long last he looks at Laios, crystal blue eyes sparkling a bit. His eyes were wet, his face was miserable. It felt like he was ripping open his chest and baring his vulnerable heart to this man. It hurt. God, it hurt.

“Then I meet you. Someone that sees something in these things that I just don’t. And that scares me. You are the first person I’ve ever seen speak about monsters, with their eyes lighting up and their pitch raising as they talk about something that they enjoy. And that scared me. I couldn’t see what you see. So I wanted to know you, to be friends with you. I want to see what you do. Do I believe you like monsters more than people? Yes, I do. Do I believe that you would make a dungeon that benefits monsters more than people? Yes, I do. Do I believe that you would intentionally cause harm to innocent humans for the benefit of monsters? No. I don’t. But I’ve seen what happens when a monster population grows too large for a dungeon. And I can picture it happening again. You loving these creatures, wanting them to flourish. And them flourishing. Until the dungeon collapses. And people die…”

Kabru swallows hard, looking forward again, lowering his head against the knuckles of his interlocked hands.

“You scare me, Laios. Your potential scares me. So I apologize for coming off like I think you mean harm. I don’t want to excuse my behavior. What I did was wrong, and I hurt you. But I want you to understand. My actions have not been from a place of thinking you’re bad. Not been from anything that you’ve yourself done. It’s my own past. And my own fear that is coloring my actions.”

[un-welcome]

Yknow what. Im gonna come off anon for this one! Hi, My fiance is the person Majora targeted in those first 3 photos! This was in turn for pur fiance attempting to defend us during Majora's stalking. [Edited, originally said I was the target, but screnshots got mixed up.]

I found them in my google photos and kinda glad that I did because this finally gives me an in to talk in full about my story with her, though you may have seen a couple of our anons in the past. Hi, we're innapropriate instagram stories anon.

We met Majora when we were freshly 17. The ex friend that we got peer pressured into a relationship with through said ex friend's discord server? His name was Theo. Theo's kinda gone quiet as of recent but both him and Majora's harassment lasted all the way up to our 21st birthday last year, where Theo weaseled his way into Luluyam's old discord server pretending to be a victim of Majora's, only for him to constantly attempt to silence us and even admitted to a mutual friend of our's when confronted that he wanted to use Yam's server for her popularity, and THAT was why he was originally in the server with Majora, not that he was friends with Majora still and was lying the whole time to our face. Hes 25 now and still doing the same shit. Im still oit of over 1k because of that hack who ran instead of paying all of his employees until pressured.

He claims to no longer be friends with Majora now but knowing his history of lying, abusing, and scamming, its likely that was a full blown lie, too.

Majora and Theo's stalking got so bad that we found he had personal art of our oc's we gadnt posted ANYWHERE except for places we had him blocked on saved away when we got back in contact with him back in 2023 hoping for a peace treaty. He's the main reason Majora targetted us for so long, they fueled each other's abuse. Thankfully Yam and their friends/the server mods for the old server were willing to listen to us about Theo's continued harassment towards us back in May to June of last year.

Ever since then, we took over the old studio he used to fester a negative feedback loop towards so many ppl and scam so many ppl out of money, ppl who wanted to see his indie project thrive because the characters were cute and the concept was great.

Majora nearly ruined our lives all for one man.

Context for the screenshots on top:

The first one was mocking mine and our fiance's pet parakeet, who if you've been on call with us long enough would know is a very social and vocal bird. All parakeets are! She's social towards humans because she can't be caged with another cagemate due to her last cagemate attacking her. Unlike Majora, I'm certified to take care of an animal that's disabled to a certain degree. Im a certified Animal Specialist and Caretaker and a dog trainer. I actually do my research and not just feed my pets junk. Ik this is a bit of a low blow but hearing of how she treats Rosie infuriates me.

This harassment was done over on an account she mass reported and got banned. To add onto this, during the harassment, she would make jokes about doxxing ppl, scaring us both into believing she doxxed either us or our fiance, which is BAD since we live TOGETHER.

Posted the day after our fiance's birthday, Dec 11th, 2022.

As for the other 2 screenshots: we both called her a proshipper, bc thats what she was. She was still weirdly into incest at the time, whether she wanted to admit it to the public or not.

Aside from this, we've had a few of our ocs stolen from us by both her and Theo, one of which is in a grey area because it was based on Theo's irl self, but the work was never paid for. The other he blatantly stole with Majora's encouragement and PAID another artist to do so.

Also if you want ANY proof thaf the discord server that had ppl as young as 14 in there wasnt safe, here's a member who was called out later that year for grooming a child sharing suggestive/pushing on lewd art of their oc in the public oc chat. Everyone innocently in there but the weirdo that was censored.

I wish I had more evidence on hand relating to the server but google photos likes to pick and choose what we save. We have evidence of other ocs that were stolen from us, but we either posted about them already or the oc was already changed up by the party that bought the stolen oc.

Anonymously submitted evidence ranging from late 2022 to 2023 of Majora's behavior has been given the permission to be posted here, something that I very much believe to still be relevant considering her current behaviors.

Targeted harassment towards a victim that had formerly called her out on her behavior ;

Targeted harassment towards her ex girlfriend, theft of characters including one using the ex's deadname [name censored] ;

Encouraging a at the time 17y.o to interact with her strictly nsfw persona [victim censored], with the added on fact another minor was encouraged to draw said nsfw sona;

I only bring this up as it lines up very much with her current predatory behaviors, and still holds relevance.

[hotvintagepoll]

Marjorie Main (The Women, Summer Stock)—a world weary dame who wore her midwestern accent on her sleeve. marjorie main kills it as a reno ranch owner in "the women" (1939) and as warm mother hens <3 she was no shabby actor either! this scene with her and humphrey bogart fucking haunts me [link]

Zero Mostel (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, The Producers)—Archetypal. Comedian of all time. The worst combover in cinematic history, probably. Could make more laughter with one muscle in a singular eyebrow than 98% of all men across the face of the earth. Hardcore Committer to the Bit. Man of all time, and also told HUAC directly where they could shove it, which is a primally appealing and scrungly quality.

This is round 1 of the contest. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. If you're confused on what a scrungle is, or any of the rules of the contest, click here.

[additional submitted propaganda + scrungly videos under the cut]

Marjorie Main:

Zero Mostel:

"The chase scene in FORUM is just. it's fucking iconic. It's one of the funniest pieces of cinema I've ever seen in any context, everything about it is genius, and the heart and soul of it is Zero Mostel as Pseudolus. Casting him alongside a young Michael Crawford (of later Phantom of the Opera fame) really highlights the differences between the young romantic lead and the older, sensible, and yet entirely scrungly middle aged man (Mostel was 55 at the time) somehow manages to come off as even more desirable. He has no shit together, not very good plans, is panicked for most of the story, and the charisma of a champ. His flailing, helpless attempts at fighting the gladiator is so... he's so scrungly. "

"He's not fancy, he's not pretty, he's not good at much of anything, but he is Genius despite that."

"There is a magic to Zero Mostel that he manages to bring to roles where he is simultaneously the worst person ever, and also, compelling in every possible way. He had his biggest period of fame in middle age after he got taken off the Hollywood blacklist, and being a fat middle aged man with thinning hair is what gives every single bit of his characters power. As the original Max Bialystock he would eat the entirety of The Producers except that Gene Wilder as Leo Bloom is a genius casting decision, as Mostel's intensity against Wilder's deep discomfort ends up being the right chemistry. In many ways he reminds me of Buster Keaton, the pinnacle of hot scrungly little guy—a unique and expressive face, an instinctive understanding of comedy, active at the same time, and also they were both in FORUM together. Mostel came from an Orthodox Jewish family, was a trained painter with a degree in art, spoke four languages, and when he was blacklisted during the Red Scare and brought before the HUAC, he didn't just refuse to name names, he made fun of the senators. He was disabled after an accident, and still did dancing in movies and things like stunts in FORUM. He did a ton of work on Broadway too, including originating Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, making the musical more Jewish as he did so. Frankly, I don't think any of those roles (or the eventual later film versions of Fiddler/musical version of the Producers) would work with anyone else. It had to be a fat balding middle aged leftist Jew from Brooklyn. The scrungly is essential.

"the scrungle factor of max in every version of the producers is through the roof but nathan lane does it as suave scrungle. zero mostel does not do suave scrungle. he does old jewish man getting into an argument with the rabbi at the full synagogue passover seder about how much wine has to be in the glass for it to count as "one cup" scrungle; he does old jewish man whose entire fridge is full of pickled herring scrungle. it's offputting in all the ways that make it genius."

[bsdthings]

Dazai analysis

I think people tend to forget that Dazai is actually a depressed burnt out genius who has a problem with alcohol (whiskey) and probably smokes to numb the pain or even forget how numb he actually feels sometimes or so he started and then became addicted.

Dazai is basically a young adult, after all, and has a shit ton of trauma.

He's known in the Port Mafia as Demon prodigy and was raised by Mori himself.

When talking about him, the Mafia says "your blood is black. Mafia black, more so than anyone else in this country, "

And yet, we can see glimpses of hurt. We can deduce Dazai is hurt by everyone brushing off his suicide attempts. We can tell he doesn't actually want to form bonds with others because he knows he'll end up leaving and it's better to be hated than to have people crying his death.

He could have just left the Mafia, after all, and yet, he blew up Chuuya's car. Why do you think this is? Because Dazai knows Chuuya cares about him.

Dazai is scared of feelings and scared of even the idea of being loved and doesn't find himself worth it. This is the truth.

Even more, looking at how much he cared about Oda, we can deduce that at some point he believed he could be loved or accepted. But Oda died and I'm sure Dazai blames himself. He probably thinks that people who do stick to him will not end up well. He probably finds himself to be like a black cat—a misfortune.

"The greatest misfortune for Dazai's enemies is that they are Dazai's enemies"

He craves death—or, better said, he craves being free. Some might not understand it, but when you are suicidal, you don't necessarily crave death itself. No, death is too simple and too easy. You crave liberation. You crave the chains to be ripped apart, you crave freedom, from yourself, from people, from feelings. From everything that is considered life and actually brings you nothing but sorrow.

Someone who finds themselves in such situation doesn't think on a too long term. The moral compass is broken beyond limit and, as he said:

He wants to feel human. He wants it so bad and yet he's ingrained into himself and was even encouraged in more or less known ways that he is not human, from quotes like Demon prodigy to mafia black blood and we could go on.

Even more: Dazai respects Yosano and Fukuzawa. Yosano, who had to deal with Mori, just as he had to. It's quite of a bonding over the trauma, even if different. Fukuzawa is like an actual proper father figure he probably never had and seems to understand him yet trusts him. Fukuzawa gives Dazai a stability he probably never had, not in the proper way.

(as someone who studies the development of people, I can tell you that a kid who's not given stability by the important figures in their life ends up insecure)

We are given hints of him being a womanizer and yet only in the context of commiting double suicide with him. He's rather flirtatious if anything else and with how manipulative he is, he could make someone double suicide with him, but he wants a "clean suicide". I am indeed sure that he is probably a womanizer (yes, Dazai bisexual king in my opinion) and is indulging into such things to feel something other than numb or guilt or hurt.

Because Dazai does feel guilt.

He acts like a clown to entertain people, loves nagging at Kunikida, told Kyouka 35 people are nothing and people not being able to change is bullshit with Oda in his mind.

Dazai is complex and I'm not negating that he's bad. He is bad. He is toxic. He is everything you wanna call him. But he's also a heavily traumatized kid who became an adult and you gotta keep that in mind.

Dazai is relatable in the way most of BSD characters are. He's morally grey at best and the Mafia days haunt him.

Like it or not, Dazai is an amazing and very influential character.

[fluffydancer618]

So yeah about that post, here it is

Close-ups and rumbles about the plot under cut

1 - So as I said in the other post this is based on No One Lives Forever by Oingo Boingo animatic I had in my head. And, according to plot of it, c!Fluffy having a stress dream due to selling their soul to c!Adam (by "dream version" of which the song is sang in that nightmare btw. Like a way of mocking Fluffy's mortality), facing all their fears related to that situation, with the main fear being the fear of death.

2 - Cause yes, despite being all "I don't care about death" and stuff, deep inside c!Fluffy: a) do realize they do not want to die in a young age and going to hell; and b) can't stop pondering Adam's line about the ones who sold their souls and how they don't tend to live for too long after that.

3 - One of the main things c!Fluffy hates the most - aka secretly scared of - is not being in control of something they believe should be fully controlled by them. And, by selling their soul, they pretty much give major control over their life - and, if you think about it, death - to c!Adam. Like, sure, the soul still in their body, but it's really easy to fix. Unnervingly easy to fix.

Also yeah, it's the pose similar to the one c!Fluffy did on their first appearance on the board post, aka "Everything is under my control" pose, because cinematic parallels my beloved

4 - Because the assignment was just to draw 9 frames, I had to choose what pictures in my head are more important and easy to draw cause friendly reminder I was speedrunning it at night so not all scenes made an appearance here, obviously. But for your information, after this moment with c!Fluffy's soul being captured by c!Adam, a few golden chains attempts to seize them, but Fluffy dodges them (barely) and runs away.

5 - As they run from Adam, dozens of knives flying towards them.

This one is here mostly because of the "Cuts cuts cuts but he can't get me" line and hehe throwing knives at the knife-thrower I am funny

6 - So, originally it should've been mirrors that popped from the ground and show different variations of c!Fluffy's possible deaths (choking, falling from a big height, cutting their own throat, etc etc) instead of their actual reflection, but 🙄for some reasons🙄 we're not allowed to depict brutal deaths in our college's works so here it's just regular mirrors (which.. would also work if not the context actually, cause c!Fluffy does afraid of their own self in some extent because of rᒷᔑsoリs). Just imagine something traumatizing on them.

Either way, Fluffy sees this all, starts backing up, stumble on the mirror behind them, slowly turns and sees themself as a demon (according to the plot it's still dream version of c!Adam messing with them, so Demon c!Fluffy is just Fluffy with Adam's eyes in official clothes). Because that's another their inner fear: What if, when they die and go to hell, Lucifer will in fact break them making join his army?

7 - On "No one lives forever!" line Demon c!Fluffy (aka c!Adam in disguise) breaks the mirror and pushes Fluffy making them fall. But instead of landing on the floor, they fly down to the dark void.

Fun fact: While eavesdropping on what the teachers say about my works, I definitely heard how one of them referred to this frame as "two eyes looking at the fly" which is hilarious but also pretty poetic and fitting cause like. the character who's often being compered to a spider is currently experiencing the role of the fly trapped in a web and- You get it

Suddenly, they start falling through a bunch of golden chains, entangling in them in the process until they hit the ground. They try to stand up, but they're exhausted and the golden chains are heavy. But then, they notice a person that stands in front of them. Not any person, their friend. Fluffy, covered and seizes in chains, look at them with the hope in their eyes, silently begging for help. Only to face their final inner fear...

8 - What if it wasn't even worth it? What if the person they lost their soul for, agreeing on an endless suffering, gonna leave them behind and doesn't actually care about them as much as Fluffy thought? Was it really a friendship or just an attempt to ruin them? Why do you trust them? Why did you make this decision? W̷̳̩͘ḩ̶̟̗̽̕͠a̸̻̟̖͆̅t̷̞̠̏ ̴̖̉̇̑͜t̸̼̟́ẖ̴̂é̷͇̂ ̵̰̈́͊f̵͎̣͕̍́͘u̷̝̯̓̓c̵̲̓͑̊k̷̺͙̩̑͆ ̷̙̩̪̋h̷̛̟̜̜̀̍a̴̖͓͂̃v̵͈̭͛̒ȩ̵̙̾̈́͝ͅ ̸̼̿ỳ̶̳̫̑o̴̲͛̌u̵̠͛̍̂ ̷̫̖̈̎d̸̪̊͜o̸̘͐ņ̵͍̫̏ě̴̼͝,̸̻͕̄ ̸̦̼̟̃̅͑F̸̹͎́̚͝ľ̴͉͆̍͜u̵̙͛f̸̡̌̀̊f̸̛̺̗͖̈́͝y̸̻͍͑̿̊͜?̴̧̅̔͘

9 - And then they wake up in a cold sweat at The Lair. The End <3

Canonically they don't have a bed - or any furniture in general - in there and obviously should wear the hat but it would be too much to explain + it was 5am I literally did not care that much at this point

So yup that's it, thank you for reading my insane rambles I appreciate that

[afniel]

Well, keep in mind that I did grow up in the Bible Belt and went to a very conservative church (which was also a Quaker church? I can't really make that one make sense but they did not want to walk the famously inclusive Church of Friends walk and ended up schisming off if I recall). I do fully understand that plenty of people make active choices to engage or not with any given thing for religious reasons, and that plenty of denominations take things quite literally. And that's all totally cool with me.

Buuut also I've sat through enough weird youth sermons where they attempted to convince young!Nevi that owning any music at all that wasn't specifically Christian music was basically like inviting demons to possess me, so when I hear about something like this my first assumption is that, well, that's likely the same religious culture I've been in. They've probably been scared out of actually making certain decisions for themselves, which is extra shitty because it's basically denying them the right to think it through themselves and decide how to engage more deeply with their faith.

Far too many churches I've seen through the general area in question (Indiana and Ohio aren't very different in that regard at all) really are high control groups. Which isn't at all me saying they all are, because they're not; plenty of congregations of all religions are genuinely good, healthy groups who are there to worship and support one another as community members. But also, I really did come from a background (which by local standards was considered liberal as a church) where demonic contamination/contagion was not just a belief, but a belief actively used as a method to control people's personal decisions via fear, and geographically the guy in question is within that general cultural region and it may well apply to him.

Also speaking of culture/region/etc., the context that I know Lee and where they are + we're both Midwesterners + presumably their coworker is too, is totally not visible just from this exchange. So I wasn't super specific about the geography because I figured it was understood already and didn't think anybody else was going to be weighing in. It's painfully common in Midwest Protestantism for a church to be full-on hyper conservative evangelical without even realizing it. (I can't speak to Catholicism on that front at all because my entire experience amounts to, 'one time I went to Mass in Chicago because I went on a road trip with a friend whose family is Catholic and I had no idea what was going on but it was very cool.')

Well, that was too many words but I tend to run wordy anyway, we all knew this lol. Basically, the tl;dr is, you aren't wrong at all, you're generally correct even, and I do fully get it, but I'm talking about a more specific thing (that I would like to be wrong about, but I personally wouldn't put money on it). I just was not clear enough about that from the start.

Was talking to a work friend about music a d he was telling me that someone suggested a band to him but when he listened it was all satanic stuff and he had to nope out.

It was Ghost.