#written audio and visual all

[getrealprim]

Kinda feel like I’ve slipped into bizarro land lately. Yeah I understand in a vacuum that AI art and a new artist will both use other people’s art to create, but I feel like that really glosses over the fact that companies can use AI art that takes from other people’s art without paying a cent to an artist.

[theriverbeyond]

YES i really enjoy watching random people i don't know dissect horror media i have never watched/read/played for several hours at a time NO i don't want to actually watch horror. we exist.

[rossithepixie]

I would really like to stop getting ads for final destination kay thanks.

[arbitrarykiwi]

will there be more producer reader x thanos??

i loved the last one so much!😫

LIVE in the Studio

Originally it was planned as a one off…but ask and ye shall receive 🤲🤭 hope you like it nonnie!!!! sorry for the wait 🧎‍♀️

A/N: if you haven’t read the first producer!reader x thanos you can find it here! This can be read as a one off, but is based on the relationship from my previous fic :)

Warnings: smut (18+) , p in v sex , dry humping , oral (f receiving) , doggystyle, creampie , squirting , multiple orgasms , sex while being recorded (audio), dirty talk , may be more read at your own risk

It was so late…you hated yourself for doing this once again. You really needed to separate work from life. Yet here you are- on your scheduled off day- working over the same small snippet of a beat over and over and over.

It’s not even the actual music composition! That would interest you! That’s why you became a producer! It’s the fucking intro. You know…the maybe 3 second clip of the rappers tag or some cheesy line spoken by some girl about how badly they need the rapper of whatever song it’s on.

You know it’s important, all part of the song is. And arguably the intro is the most important, the part that grabs people’s attention and gets them hooked. But since you know that, you’re prepared! You have samples and tracks galore of various women speaking into the mic in a girly, high pitched tone. Each saying different things in different cadences in different languages. You have enough of these sound files to have finished 300 song intros by now!!

That was if your current client was normal. But he wasn’t. Far from it.

“Nah…too boring.” He says, lackadaisically- you can hear the disinterest in his voice. “C’mon señorita…” He dramatically groans, “that’s all you got!? I know you can do so much better.”

You groan, elbows thumping against the desk as you put your head in your hands, palms rubbing at your tired as you suck in a deep breath. “You do realize I took the time out of my day…my off day…to help you with this and you’re being a fuckin’ dick.”

You deadpan, turning away from the computer in your studio. Your eyes are burning and you’re so exhausted. You have no idea why you agreed to do this.

But when you turn completely, making eye contact with the hazy eyed, every cocky grin of the late night client. A smile breaks through the annoyed frown.

“You’re complaining but yet, you answered my text, you unlocked the studio, and here you are 3 hours later working your magic….all for me.” Thanos grins, leaning forward on the couch and resting his elbows on his knees.

A blunt hangs lazily from his hands, his purple hair is a mess- sticking up in every which way. He makes a show of looking younger you over, drinking you in like the finest wine he’s ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

“You love me! Don’t deny it. That’s why you answered and let me in so late. You jus’ love spendin’ time with Thanos.”

You cringe at him referring to himself by his own stage name. You’ve known him for so long, he’s Choi Subong to you. You were making beats for him since before he even had his stage name!

“I let you in and answered you because you said all you needed was a simple intro for a song you already had written…” you say, scooting your desk chair across the floor, closer to him. “But that’s not what we’re dealing with here…now is it?”

You lean in, matching his position- elbows resting on your knees. Your face is inches from his, as you speak he is overwhelmed by your perfume.

And hes but a man! When you lean forward hes graced with the perfect tease of your cleavage, tits very obviously not contained by a bra- evident by the visual of your nipples poking against the shirt you wore. He wants to make a comment, one that will make your thighs rub together like they did that one night…

The night he’s thought about over and over since it’s happened. Hell, he’s fisted his dick raw remembering the way your cunt felt wrapped around him. Neither of you mentioned it though. You two went about your normal routine, sure you both flirted a bit more than usual but neither of you brought up the night he fucked you stupid while you were both tripping.

While he’s distracted, you yank the blunt from his fingers and glare at him- it has no real mirth behind it. You take a long drag, the weed relaxing your body and wrapping your mind in a warm silken feeling that makes the late night in the studio a little more tolerable.

“I have gone through all the files I have, Subong-“

“Thanos.”

You roll your eyes and playfully huff, “Okay…Thanos” you emphasize his stage name in a tone that has him shifting in the couch, legs spreading to ease the uncomfortable feeling in his pants. “I’ve gone through all the fucking files. You liked none of them. What the fuck do you want for this intro?!”

“I mean seriously, I’ve gone through every possible option and even edited the ones I have to fit whatever image you had in your head for this, it’s been hours and we have nothing. Not even an idea of what you want for this.” You say, scooting your chair back and turning to face the computer once again. Your fingers work against the keyboard, blunt loosely hanging from your lips.

He wants to hear you, he does…but the way you’re rambling about your practice with an enthusiasm that almost seems engraved into your bones and mixed within your blood- he thinks it’s the prettiest you’ve ever looked.

His body moves on its own. He stands from the couch and walks across the studio. Once behind your chair he stills. Thanos smirks, planting his hands on the desk on either side of you, effectively caging you into your seat. He leans down, his head resting on the back of the chair to your left. He’s so close you can feel the warmth of his breath fan your cheek.

“I dunno what ya’ want me to say sweets…none of them are what I’m looking for. None of them fit.” His voice is low and gravely, flowing through your ears and filling your mind with static. “And you’re gonna tell me I’m wrong? I think you know just as well as I do that none of those are exactly what I need.” He says, lifting a hand up to point a finger at the monitor open to a file of audio snippets.

You sigh, as much as you hated it, he’s right. Not one of the hundreds of clips you have fit the song. Sure the work. But they aren’t perfect. “Okay fine. What do we do then? It’s 3am I can’t call up anyone else to come record some voice line for an intro.” You respond, turning your head to look at him the best you could.

He turns his head, mirroring your movement, a devious grin on his lips. The low light of the music studio and the blue hue of the computer’s monitor makes it to where you can almost see your own reflection in his pupils. Blue eyes, pupils blown so big you can only see a sliver of iris, dart from your eyes to your lips.

It takes everything in him not to jump on you then and there, looking up at him from your chair oh so expectantly, lips slightly parted as if you were just waiting for him to kiss you. You were- but you would never admit that to yourself, let alone him. Images of your plush lips wrapped around his cock dance in his mind like his own personal porn video.

“You’ll have to do it then.”

His words make you come out of whatever trance you were in. “W-what? No i’m not….” You look to your computer, the trinkets on your desk, really anywhere but him. “You don’t want me to do that…I won’t sound good. I don’t have the voice like those girls-“

“Bullshit”

You pause, turning your chair more to face him. Thanos is stood tall now, stepping to the side to look you directly in the face, arms crossed.

“Thanos…be serious you don’t want me to do the intro. I don’t have that…” you trailed off, hands waving in the air as you try to find your words, “that whiny, needy, breathy tone you’re looking for here.”

He scoffs at your words, looking at you as if you just tried to argue that the sky was red. “You sure had that tone when I was balls deep in you the other week.”

Your eyes widen, face flushing as the unspoken night of intimacy was brought up. The redder your face becomes and the wider your eyes get as you try to find your words has his grin growing into something sadistic- like he’s finding joy in your embarrassment (he is).

“F-fucking hell…” you choke out, trying to sound indignant. “You’re unbelievable…” you grumble, crossing your arms and scowling at him.

“Yeah, yeah…” Thanos says brushing you off, eyes rolling nearly to the back of his skull. Tattooed hands grip the back of your desk chair and spin you back forward, facing the microphone that sits on your desk, pop filter inches from your nose. “I’m unbelievable, annoying, making you work on your off day…blah blah.”

As he speaks he puts your headphones on your ears and leans over you, hand on your keyboard and mouse as he begins to set up to record. “Why don’t you….” He begins in a singsong voice, “give me what I want and then you’ll be free to go back home and sleep…” He clicks record.

“Spending all this time complaining when ya could have just gone and done the damn thing already and I would have been out of your hair…” A finger finds itself twirling a strand of your hair as he speaks.

You can feel your heart thumping in your chest, his cologne is all you can smell. Drawing in a shuddering breath you look blankly at the filter in front of you, thighs pressing together to ease an ache you didn’t realize had began to bloom. “What the fuck do you want me to say?”

He shrugs, “give me somethin’ like…” He hums to himself and smirks, “‘Thanos it’s so hard~’” he mocks a female voice, voice cracking as he moans out the words. You can’t help but laugh, your own giggle echoing out through the speakers. The sound dies down when you realize that it’s now your turn to do something, give him the intro he wants.

Your eyes flutter shut drawing in a breath as you lean forward closer to the microphone. “Thanos~” You draw out the name with a wanton purr, you might as well do it right if you’re gonna do it, “…it’s so hard.”

You sit back, opening your eyes and spinning your chair around to look at the purple haired rapper behind you. “That work?? Can I go back to bed now?” You ask. Trying to do anything to end this torment you’ve been put through.

Your eyes look over him from bottom to top, catching the very obvious tent in his pants and the was his cheeks are flushed. “Are you seriously hard right now?! From that?!” You say, trying your best to sound mad but admittedly the visual is making your mouth water.

He shakes his head ‘no’, that’s the only reaction you get. “W-what?!” You babble out, it’s cute, he thinks. “You do it then!!” You say, glaring at him like it would do anything.

He makes his way across the studio in two long strides. Large hands grip the back of the chair and tug it to the side. You assume he’s gonna sit down and direct you to what he wants, that would be easy. But no, when you stand up out of the desk chair, offering it to him, he pushes it out of the way completely.

With practiced effort and in quick succession- he moves. He’s pressing himself behind you, one hand gripping your shoulder and pushing you forward. You hate how pliant you are under his touch, immediately folding forward with his light push and landing chest first on the desk.

You lift your chest up the slightest bit to look behind you. You’re trying to catch his eye to glare at him with feigned anger but his gaze is trained downward. His hand that’s not outstretched to your shoulder is pushing up your shirt, fingers dancing over the dimples in your back before going lower to feel over the globes of your ass.

“You didn’t need a f-fucking intro you just wanted to get your dick wet- ohhh fuccckkk” your sentence is cut short when Thanos, the ever confident man he was, grinds into you. He’s not teasing with it, no, he’s pressing his clothed bulge in between your ass cheeks and making sure he catches the zipper of his jeans just right on your cunt. His hips roll slow and steady, pressing into you as if he’s trying to fuck you through the layers of clothes between you two.

“Oh yeah! Seeeeee~ That’s perfect!” He chuckles out, hand crossed over your back and gripping the plush fat of your hips. “Somethin’ jus’ like that…” he says, the octave of his voice dropping. The hand of on your shoulder moves, reaching further over you to grab the microphone and move it in front of you. “Let’s see if we can get you to do something like that again….gotta get the perfect take, huh?”

You bite your lip, eyes already threatening to roll back into your head as you feel the thick imprint of his cock grind into your shorts. A muffled moan is caught in your throat as the fabric of your underwear and shorts, pushed by his cock, rocks into your clit in the most delicious way.

“Awh c’mon…” Thanos whines, you can practically hear the pout on his face without even turning back to look at him, “don’t hide all your noises now…don’t you wanna finish this up quick and get back to bed?” He teases, leaning over you so his lips ghost along the shell of your ear.

You sigh out, the feeling of him trapping you against the desk, pushing his clothed cock harder against the now soaked fabric of your shorts has your mind hazy, all notions of being bratty and talking back are swept from your mind and replaced with the long suppressed need you had for the egotistical rapper.

Painted nails dig into your hips, both of his hands finding purchase on the plush skin. He pulls himself back up to a standing position, eyes turned downward to look at the way your ass is pressed against him, his fingers digging to the the flesh that spills over the waistband of your shorts. A low, animalistic growl reverberates within his throat has he keeps the steady rhythm of rocking you back against him.

Suddenly the feeling of his cock pressing into your covered entrance is gone. His hands remain on your hips, slowly dragging downward to splay his palms across your ass. When you crane your neck backwards you can’t even stop the wanton moan that falls from your lips.

Thanos is on his knees, hands gripping at your ass cheeks and pushing upwards, spreading you open for him. His face is so close to your clothed cunt, eyes right in line with the large darkened area of your shorts you know is there. “Fuckin’ messy thing….” He mumbles in an awestruck, breathless tone. One hand pulls away from your ass to trace a finger down the emphasized crease of your pussy in your shorts.

You keen, hands clawing at the desk as a shaky, soft moan rolls off your tongue, hips moving on their own and pushing back into his hand. “Seee~” He coos, “I knew she missed me…soaked right through these shorts…” as he speaks his fingertips slide under the hem of the shorts that fall on your ass. He pulls at both sides of the fabric, exposing more of your ass to him. His eyes are fixated at the imprint of your cunt that is so very visible, the fabric of your shorts impossibly soaked.

One of his hands drops from your ass, fingers coming up to ghost around the silhouette of your clit in tight circles. “Mmmphf fuck…” you let out after a shaky exhale, knees nearly buckling from the stimulation. Your head snaps back forward, forehead falling to the desk. Thanos chuckles, he’s so close you can feel the warmth of his breath against your cunt.

“Hmmm…” he says, as if he’s thinking over the answer to life, “not quite what I’m looking for….need something more.” He teases, like it’s even for the intro at this point.

“Y-you gotta give me m-more.” You’re spitting out, trying to sound some kind of authoritative. You weakly lifting your head off the desk to look back at him and if you were in any other situation, the mocking look he gives you would have nearly made you kick him out but at this point….fuck he looks so good.

“Ohhooo…look at you tryna’ be all bossy and dominant.” Thanos laughs in your face, eyes trained on you like a hawk. He nods his head to the side, motioning to your pussy, “not really workin’ when you’ve soaked through your shorts like some teen seeing her favorite boyband.” He pulls at the fabric of your shorts, gripping the middle of them with one hand, fingers looping through both leg holes. He pulls up, dragging the seam of your shorts right against your aching clit.

Your back arches, hips pressing back searching for any kind of stimulation, a broken whine of his name ripping through your chest. “That’s more like it….” His hand slides lower, back of his hand pressing against your cunt, “tell me what ya want sweets, I’ll give it to ya’, you know I will…jus’ gotta ask.” He practically purrs out, adjusting his grip on your shorts to slip his fingers under your panties as well, gripping both of the garments in his hand, face moving impossibly closer, his breath fanning your cunt.

Your mind spins, fighting to have some decorum and to list all the things you wanted him to do to you like a mile long check list. Lust wins over in the end and you suck in a shaking breath, “N-need your tongue, fuck, please…” you whine, pressing your hips back, searching for his face. His grin widens, just thinking of the way that would sound being played back.

His hand pulls the fabric of your shorts and panties to the side, letting out a low moan of his own when he’s inches away from your glistening cunt, puffy and leaking for him. “I’ve been thinking bout this cunt every fucking night since you let me fuck…” Thanos drawls out, free hand reaching up to trace a line up and down your cunt, collecting your arousal on his fingers.

“You’re fucking dripping, haven’t even touched you….dry humping gets you going that bad, huh?”

You mewl, scratching at the wood of your desk, trying to have some restraint not to push yourself back onto his fingers. It would be so easy to sink the long digits into your cunt.

“Just fucking do something!” You cry out, getting impatient. The need you felt in your lower stomach was becoming unbearable.

He laughs, a sound that soon becomes muffled as his mouth engulfs your pussy. Your eyes are rolling back, a sound akin to a mewl falling from your lips.

Messy as ever, he eats you like he would never get the chance to eat your cunt again. His tongue lathes over the entirety of your cunt, rolling between your puffy folds like he’s mapping you with his tongue. He’s shameless, moaning and groaning into your pussy as he slurps down everything you have to offer him.

“Sweetest fuckin’ cunt I’ve ever tasted.” His words are muffled against your pussy, lips tickling you with every word. “So pretty too…” he muses, pulling back to admire your pussy, one of his thumbs pulling apart your lips, spreading you open. He watches as you clench desperately around nothing, the visual making him feral.

He’s back on you, lips wrapping around your throbbing clit and sucking. His tongue rolls over the bud, flicking against the bundle of nerves. Your hips jerk back, a wanton cry of his name falling from your lips.

“Yeah….” Thanos groans, a hand coming down in a sharp slap against your ass, the flesh recoiling against his palm, “ride my fuckin’ face, baby. Take what ya’ need.” He hisses through clenched teeth, hands moving to the sides of your hips to guide your hips up and down.

He lolls his tongue out, grinding you against it and swallowing down every drop of your syrupy arousal. When you begin to move on your own he drops his hands completely. He’s so good, you can’t help but chase the pleasure he offers.

Your hips move viciously, dragging your pussy along his tongue and nose. He shifts slightly, moving his tongue to circle your entrance. “Oh fuck, please!!” You cry out, hips jolting downward to spear yourself on his tongue.

He lets you, moaning into your cunt when your velvety walls close around his tongue, completely engulfing him with your taste. You have to still for a moment, catching your breath in a needy cry as you feel the pink muscle lick around your insides.

A hand comes down on your ass again, encouraging you to move again. You whine, moving your hips, lifting yourself up and down his tongue as he kneels below you. You can feel his blissed out grin, he’s practically in heaven- tasting your sweet cunt while your ass bounces against his face.

His tongue lathes against your clenching walls, echoed by obscene slurps. The only thing louder than him devouring your cunt is you moaning, crying out mixes of praises and his name.

Thanos wants nothing more than to continue eating you out. But as much as a front he puts on….he’s an impatient man. His cock is aching and straining against his jeans. He’s certain if he keeps this up he could blow his load in his jeans as he’s kneeling below you.

He pulls away in a mess of saliva and your wetness. You turn back over your shoulder, whining at the loss of contact. “Easy, baby…” he chuckles as he stands up. One hand splays over your back, running down the curve of your spine as the other one works hastily to undo the button of his pants, “imma give you what you need…”

He lets out a hiss as his cock is finally freed from its confines. It falls out hot and heavy, resting against the curve of your ass with an audible ‘plap’. Just the weight of it on your ass has you moaning and pushing back onto him desperately.

Thanos grabs the base of his dick with one hand, dragging the thick cock-head up and down your weeping cunt. Everytime the head of his cock catches your clit, your knees buckle and a whimper falls from your lips.

“Been thinking about this…your cunt squeezing me…” he muses, pressing the tip into your entrance. You barely have time to moan before he’s pulling back out. “Never had a fuck like you…hadn’t fucked anyone since you..”

The admittance makes your heart swell in the oddest way. You know he’s a player- he has a new girl around his arm every day. But since the time you fucked weeks ago, bordering on a month now, he’s not seen anyone else.

“H-hah…please put it in…f-fuck don’t tease.” You plead, turning around to look at him with wide doe eyes.

“When you ask like that how could I deny you, sweet girl?”

When he pushes into you, it’s a stretch that has you arching your back and rolling your eyes back. You know you’ve left claw marks in your studio desk by now.

“So f-fucking right…Pussy was made f’me.” His words hardly register as he continues to bottom out. With a final surge, he’s sinking balls deep into you.

Both of you let out moans, a sinful harmony that is soon over taken by wet squelching sounds. You feel so entirely full. You swear you can feel him in your throat.

“O-oh my fuck-“ your words are cut off in a choked sound as with a slow pull of his hips, his cock is pulling out of you. He pulls out only half way before driving back into your warmth.

“G-gonna fuckin’ ruin you.” His words are a low growl, his hands dig into the far of your hips, eyes fixated on how the flesh spills through his fingers.

A purr of his name rolls off your lips as he begins the rhythmic thrust of his hips. He drives his pelvis flush against your ass with each thrust, making sure he sheathed himself fully in the heaven that was your cunt.

He’s rutheless, driving you back to meet his thrusts. “F-fuck!” You cry, head turning heavenward, eyes screwing shut in overwhelming pleasure. “O-oh s-shit! F-feels so fucking good!” Your words are pathetic, weak syllables that are broken by the rough drive of his cock into your pussy.

“Takin me so well. Fuck…you should see how stretched you are.” Thanos huffs, pulling harder at the fabric of your shorts and panties to pull them further to the side, giving him a better view of the mess he’s making of your cunt. “Pretty little pussy’s taking me so so fucking well.” He’s repeating like a mantra with every thrust.

Your mind has become hazy, the head of his cock bullies itself against your g-spot every single time he thrusts back into you. You need more. His thrusts speed up, becoming violent. It’s a deliberate, delicious pace that is mind numbing. Your thighs are a mess with your arousal coating them, anytime you tip your head down to look between your thighs you’re met with a creamy mess that only becomes larger by the passing second.

“I-it’s too much!” You whine out, syllables broken up by choked moans. Wet squelches fill the room, echoed by slapping of skin. He laughs, low and sadistic, his hands raise up, holding themselves in the air as if he’s at gunpoint. “It’s too much?!” He mocks, “you’re the one fucking yourself back on my cock, sweetheart. ‘S alllll you.”

His words make you realize he’s right, your hips are moving on their own, brutally slamming back into his pelvis before drawing forward so just the bulbous tip of his cock rests inside your wet walls before repeating the motion again and again. He’s completely still.

It is too much, every time your hips thrust backwards your body is locked up with spasms of pleasure that has tears pooling in your eyes. But you can’t stop, it feels so fucking good. Every time you sink all the way back onto him, your cunt is stretched so wide to take all of him in. His cock reaches depths you would never be able to reach yourself, bullying its way through your clenching walls to kiss against your cervix.

“H-holy fuck, feels so fucking good~” you cry out, body falling slack against the desk. Your hips slow, your muscles aching.

“Ahh, princess work herself up too much? All tired…” He hums, hands lowering back down to run over your sides before settling on your waist. “Need Thanos to help you out, huh?”

You nod, already fucked too dumb to care about talking back. “Yes! Yes please!” You cry out, eyes screwing shut in pleasure. “Fuck I-i need it…T-Thanos please, want you so fucking bad.” You sob out, begging for your release that you can feel blooming deep within your core.

The cat like grin stretches so far across his face it almost seems inhuman. He can just hear how that little sentence of yours would sound at the beginning of the rap song right before the beat kicks in. That’s exactly what he was looking for.

“Mhm I know you do…fuckin’ squeezing me so hard.” Thanos muses with a nod of his head, chin tucked downward so he can watch everytime his cock slips out of your cunt, glistening in your syrupy arousal and every time he thrusts back forward, he watches with a salivating mouth, the white creamy ring that forms at the base of his cock- getting messier with each erratic thrust. “Creamin’ all over my fuckin’ cock…so messy”

You whine, his words making your cheeks heat up in embarrassment. His fingernails grip crescent moon shapes into your flesh, using the leverage to bring your hips back to meat each one of his devious thrusts.

Your head is peeled off the desk by a large hand threading into your hair. “You gonna cum? I can feel it, you’re close, just suckin me in anytime I pull out.” Thanos lips dance along the shell of your ear, rough voice filling your mind with fuzz. As if to prove his point, each time he draws back his hips, far enough to rest just the head of his cock in your cunt, you can hear a lewd sound, something between a squelch and a pop coming from your cunt.

“I wanna cum, please, fuck, ohmygod.” It’s shameful, really, he already has you begging for a release without even asking you. “Yeah? Wanna cum pretty girl?” He laughs into your ear. “Begging without being asked…well aren’t you bein’ so good f’me.” He praises. As he speaks the hand in your hair moves across your sternum, pulling you flush against his chest.

The angle drives him deeper into you, stretching you out in ways that have you seeing stars. His thrusts are unforgiving, animalistic even. It’s so sloppy. You can hear the droplets of your mixed arousal fall out of your cunt and onto the tile floor of your studio with a sick wet ‘splat’. “Mhm!! Mhm!! Please!! Ohmygod I’m so fuckin’ close, right there!” You moan out, rushed and babbled, your head kicking back to rest against his shoulder.

His other hand snakes down your stomach, tattooed fingers splayed against your skin as he works his way down. Like he mapped your body out with years of studying and exploring, his fingers find your clit. It’s a sensation that makes you nearly fall to the ground.

“That’s it’s….Thanos’ got you, wan’ you to cream all over my cock pretty girl, make a fuckin mess.” His fingers work your clit in circles in time to his thrusts, it doesn’t take long till your orgasm crashes over you, hitting you so violently you have no time to even prepare. “Oh fucking shit! Yesyesyesyes!!”

Your cries echo out through the studio, one of your hands reaches behind you to grip at his purple hair at the back of his head, trying to ground yourself, you almost think you’re going to pass out.

He continues to fuck you through your orgasm, never letting up and stringing out your high. It’s almost like you’re hit with a second wave, your orgasm gushes out of you- clear liquid spraying on the floor and onto Thanos’ thighs.

“Oh there we fuckin’ go!!” He chides out like he won the fucking lottery, his thrusts becoming sloppy. “Knew you could squirt again f’me. Always so fuckin’ messy. God I love it.” Thanos growls, hips slapping against your ass with reckless abandon.

“Gonna fuckin’ cum so deep in this cunt.” He growls in your ear, “been dreamin’ of it since last time.”

His words make you whimper, eyebrows upturning as you pass the point of fucked dumb, you’re being fucked into another dimension. “Yeah, I know you want it too. Want me to fuckin’ fill you up, hm? T-tell me you want it.”

His voice begins to waver, teeth gritting as he holds off, wanting to hear you say it. You sob out, tears wetting your eyelashes as you feel yet another orgasm begin to bloom, one after the other, giving you hardly anytime to catch your breath.

“Yes! Want it so f-fucking bad! N-need to f-feel it!” Your words are jostled with each of his thrusts, coming out in pathetic hiccups as you weakly move your hips back in time with his thrusts.

You feel his body lock up behind you, his arms tightening around you- pinning to him. When you feel the thick spurts of his cum paint your insides, you’re cumming again, eyes rolling back and body convulsing against him.

“Thatssss it…” he growls behind you, hips jerking up into you sporadically, fucking his cum back into you. There’s so much you can feel the thick, warm globs be forced out of you with each thrust of his cock back into your raw pussy. “So f-fucking good. B-best fuckin pussy.” He’s babbling out obscenities, words slurred as he works himself through his own orgasm.

He stills, chest heaving, arms staying tight around you as if he was afraid you’d leave. Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t, you were still trapped against the desk.

“I think we got what we needed, pretty girl…” he muses, “did so good f’me..”

You hum happily, blissed out. You can still feel the dull stretch of his softening cock in your cunt. An almost comforting fullness. Your hands picking up off the desk to lay on top of his, fingers interlacing.

“I know exactly what sound clip I’m using” He huffs, nose nuzzling along the column of your throat. You can hear him draw in a sharp breath, inhaling your scent.

“Mhm….” You mumble, fucked out of your mind, hardly paying attention. Your eyes and body are tired, you’re sure if Thanos wasn’t still holding you up, you’d fall down to the ground with how weak your knees were. “Use whatever one you want…’m so fucking exhausted…” you sigh, head lolling back against his shoulder.

That was a mistake on your part. Those words. ‘Whatever one you want’ because sure as shit when you send Thanos the finished file, not even listening to the part at the beginning he mixed and added whatever intro he desired from your little recording session, when the song drops your moans are being streamed left, right and center.

It’s not just a noise in the background to emphasize a high hat or a snare, no, it’s so very obviously you getting railed by him, moaning out a ‘fuck Thanos! You’re so good with your tongue’. Your words are even broken up by pants and whines!!!

That’s the last time you let him have any say in what you produce for him.

I reallly hope you guys like this one! This is kinda my first big ask I’ve answered since I’ve been back (besides my sub! Namgyu x thanos x reader fic) so I’m a lil nervy to put this out. This one was started like two days ago because I’ve been thinking about this ask (it’s been in my inbox for a hot minute I’m so sorry) and I just HAD to do it. I love me some producer!reader x thanos. It was so fun to write the first one and this one!

Thank you for your support as always !! - <3 kiwi

[mostlysignssomeportents]

I assure you, an AI didn’t write a terrible “George Carlin” routine

There are only TWO MORE DAYS left in the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

On Hallowe'en 1974, Ronald Clark O'Bryan murdered his son with poisoned candy. He needed the insurance money, and he knew that Halloween poisonings were rampant, so he figured he'd get away with it. He was wrong:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Clark_O%27Bryan

The stories of Hallowe'en poisonings were just that – stories. No one was poisoning kids on Hallowe'en – except this monstrous murderer, who mistook rampant scare stories for truth and assumed (incorrectly) that his murder would blend in with the crowd.

Last week, the dudes behind the "comedy" podcast Dudesy released a "George Carlin" comedy special that they claimed had been created, holus bolus, by an AI trained on the comedian's routines. This was a lie. After the Carlin estate sued, the dudes admitted that they had written the (remarkably unfunny) "comedy" special:

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/01/george-carlins-heirs-sue-comedy-podcast-over-ai-generated-impression/

As I've written, we're nowhere near the point where an AI can do your job, but we're well past the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

AI systems can do some remarkable party tricks, but there's a huge difference between producing a plausible sentence and a good one. After the initial rush of astonishment, the stench of botshit becomes unmistakable:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/03/botshit-generative-ai-imminent-threat-democracy

Some of this botshit comes from people who are sold a bill of goods: they're convinced that they can make a George Carlin special without any human intervention and when the bot fails, they manufacture their own botshit, assuming they must be bad at prompting the AI.

This is an old technology story: I had a friend who was contracted to livestream a Canadian awards show in the earliest days of the web. They booked in multiple ISDN lines from Bell Canada and set up an impressive Mbone encoding station on the wings of the stage. Only one problem: the ISDNs flaked (this was a common problem with ISDNs!). There was no way to livecast the show.

Nevertheless, my friend's boss's ordered him to go on pretending to livestream the show. They made a big deal of it, with all kinds of cool visualizers showing the progress of this futuristic marvel, which the cameras frequently lingered on, accompanied by overheated narration from the show's hosts.

The weirdest part? The next day, my friend – and many others – heard from satisfied viewers who boasted about how amazing it had been to watch this show on their computers, rather than their TVs. Remember: there had been no stream. These people had just assumed that the problem was on their end – that they had failed to correctly install and configure the multiple browser plugins required. Not wanting to admit their technical incompetence, they instead boasted about how great the show had been. It was the Emperor's New Livestream.

Perhaps that's what happened to the Dudesy bros. But there's another possibility: maybe they were captured by their own imaginations. In "Genesis," an essay in the 2007 collection The Creationists, EL Doctorow (no relation) describes how the ancient Babylonians were so poleaxed by the strange wonder of the story they made up about the origin of the universe that they assumed that it must be true. They themselves weren't nearly imaginative enough to have come up with this super-cool tale, so God must have put it in their minds:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/29/gedankenexperimentwahn/#high-on-your-own-supply

That seems to have been what happened to the Air Force colonel who falsely claimed that a "rogue AI-powered drone" had spontaneously evolved the strategy of killing its operator as a way of clearing the obstacle to its main objective, which was killing the enemy:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/04/ayyyyyy-eyeeeee/

This never happened. It was – in the chagrined colonel's words – a "thought experiment." In other words, this guy – who is the USAF's Chief of AI Test and Operations – was so excited about his own made up story that he forgot it wasn't true and told a whole conference-room full of people that it had actually happened.

Maybe that's what happened with the George Carlinbot 3000: the Dudesy dudes fell in love with their own vision for a fully automated luxury Carlinbot and forgot that they had made it up, so they just cheated, assuming they would eventually be able to make a fully operational Battle Carlinbot.

That's basically the Theranos story: a teenaged "entrepreneur" was convinced that she was just about to produce a seemingly impossible, revolutionary diagnostic machine, so she faked its results, abetted by investors, customers and others who wanted to believe:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos

The thing about stories of AI miracles is that they are peddled by both AI's boosters and its critics. For boosters, the value of these tall tales is obvious: if normies can be convinced that AI is capable of performing miracles, they'll invest in it. They'll even integrate it into their product offerings and then quietly hire legions of humans to pick up the botshit it leaves behind. These abettors can be relied upon to keep the defects in these products a secret, because they'll assume that they've committed an operator error. After all, everyone knows that AI can do anything, so if it's not performing for them, the problem must exist between the keyboard and the chair.

But this would only take AI so far. It's one thing to hear implausible stories of AI's triumph from the people invested in it – but what about when AI's critics repeat those stories? If your boss thinks an AI can do your job, and AI critics are all running around with their hair on fire, shouting about the coming AI jobpocalypse, then maybe the AI really can do your job?

https://locusmag.com/2020/07/cory-doctorow-full-employment/

There's a name for this kind of criticism: "criti-hype," coined by Lee Vinsel, who points to many reasons for its persistence, including the fact that it constitutes an "academic business-model":

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

That's four reasons for AI hype:

to win investors and customers;

to cover customers' and users' embarrassment when the AI doesn't perform;

AI dreamers so high on their own supply that they can't tell truth from fantasy;

A business-model for doomsayers who form an unholy alliance with AI companies by parroting their silliest hype in warning form.

But there's a fifth motivation for criti-hype: to simplify otherwise tedious and complex situations. As Jamie Zawinski writes, this is the motivation behind the obvious lie that the "autonomous cars" on the streets of San Francisco have no driver:

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/01/driverless-cars-always-have-a-driver/

GM's Cruise division was forced to shutter its SF operations after one of its "self-driving" cars dragged an injured pedestrian for 20 feet:

https://www.wired.com/story/cruise-robotaxi-self-driving-permit-revoked-california/

One of the widely discussed revelations in the wake of the incident was that Cruise employed 1.5 skilled technical remote overseers for every one of its "self-driving" cars. In other words, they had replaced a single low-waged cab driver with 1.5 higher-paid remote operators.

As Zawinski writes, SFPD is well aware that there's a human being (or more than one human being) responsible for every one of these cars – someone who is formally at fault when the cars injure people or damage property. Nevertheless, SFPD and SFMTA maintain that these cars can't be cited for moving violations because "no one is driving them."

But figuring out who which person is responsible for a moving violation is "complicated and annoying to deal with," so the fiction persists.

(Zawinski notes that even when these people are held responsible, they're a "moral crumple zone" for the company that decided to enroll whole cities in nonconsensual murderbot experiments.)

Automation hype has always involved hidden humans. The most famous of these was the "mechanical Turk" hoax: a supposed chess-playing robot that was just a puppet operated by a concealed human operator wedged awkwardly into its carapace.

This pattern repeats itself through the ages. Thomas Jefferson "replaced his slaves" with dumbwaiters – but of course, dumbwaiters don't replace slaves, they hide slaves:

https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/blog/behind-the-dumbwaiter/

The modern Mechanical Turk – a division of Amazon that employs low-waged "clickworkers," many of them overseas – modernizes the dumbwaiter by hiding low-waged workforces behind a veneer of automation. The MTurk is an abstract "cloud" of human intelligence (the tasks MTurks perform are called "HITs," which stands for "Human Intelligence Tasks").

This is such a truism that techies in India joke that "AI" stands for "absent Indians." Or, to use Jathan Sadowski's wonderful term: "Potemkin AI":

https://reallifemag.com/potemkin-ai/

This Potemkin AI is everywhere you look. When Tesla unveiled its humanoid robot Optimus, they made a big flashy show of it, promising a $20,000 automaton was just on the horizon. They failed to mention that Optimus was just a person in a robot suit:

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/machines/elon-musk-tesla-robot-optimus-ai

Likewise with the famous demo of a "full self-driving" Tesla, which turned out to be a canned fake:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-video-promoting-self-driving-was-staged-engineer-testifies-2023-01-17/

The most shocking and terrifying and enraging AI demos keep turning out to be "Just A Guy" (in Molly White's excellent parlance):

https://twitter.com/molly0xFFF/status/1751670561606971895

And yet, we keep falling for it. It's no wonder, really: criti-hype rewards so many different people in so many different ways that it truly offers something for everyone.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

Back the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle here!

Image:

Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

--

Ross Breadmore (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/rossbreadmore/5169298162/

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

[mysteryanimator]

Breaking down "Even the Iron Still Fears the Rot" (almost) shot by shot!

The fan-animatic can be viewed here!

HEADS UP: This is a fan-made content. I am a fan. I just love Castlevania/animation a lot and I love storyboarding nuances and making people cry over character dynamics. Also apologises for any grammatical/spelling mistakes!

I wasn't planning to do another breakdown of my own work, simply due to imposter syndrome but I genuinely put so much love and care into this animatic! I want to talk about it! Also, people have been really open to hearing about my inspiration and notes, and why I take the directions I do for my work, even if it's fan-made, so here we go!

(Also the reciprocation of my animatics has been so kind and uplifting, and I'm really glad that there's a lot of love for them as much as I love doing them! I learn and grow with every single board I make, it's been really fun! I hope I get to shine this much passion in the future in actual work!)

Since this is also an adaptation of a fan one-shot by Aquila, (which you can read here!) I knew I wanted to evoke what they had written and interject some of my own nuances/personal readings to their story to elevate what they had! In turn, kind of created this monster (positive) of a fan creation haha. There are some changes/rearranging the placement of aspects of the one-shot to strengthen the existing tension going on!

With this out the way, let's begin!

(heads up, for any shots I completely skip over, it is because I'm reaching image limits here)

I wanted to evoke that strong halo light you see in a lot of media. Often than not, this visual is used to depict the character as a divine force of nature and/or when a character is bobbing in and out of death. It can also be a very very terrifying image, as, for example, s02e8, Mizrak is literally all dark with a brightly lit background. It is scary- BUT people will say hot because it's Mizrak but hey, look, all I can say is I fully understand haha. It all depends on your intentionality and what follows before and after to give context to your scene!

Mizrak is dead. Well, undead now. Olrox is the so-called angel giving him life and love and this halo of light gets repeated a few times!

By the end, not only do their literal positions switch, but their roles shift too so I hoped to convey that visually by also giving Mizrak that halo glow for the second last shot. At the start, Olrox consumes Mizrak’s love, and then it ends with Mizrak consuming Olrox’s love. Guh I love blood themes in vamprisim.

This shot honestly took me a bit to do, since I was going a lot cleaner than usual, the expression for Mizrak was super important for me to get right. I wanted him to look like he was about to die- yet still have an unwavering amount of life in him. (Also I hadn't warmed up drawing in this cleaned-up style so it definitely was me messing around). It was important for me for this to feel like a POV shot to contrast the first scene so we can get inside the mind of Olrox!

This too is where I only have sound effects since I can't have voice so I limit my SFX to the only most vital things to elevate things I personally find better elevate the scene with audio. It only happens TWICE. The heartbeat. His wrist is shown and from context clues from not only S01 of Nocturne with Tera's turning, but a whole bunch of other vampire media- the wrist is a place where the dead accept their new life of immortality!

Also, the pulse effect was definitely inspired by the transformation of Sekmet! I'm not sure personally if this went to a further stage I'd want to keep this since I'd personally want something more unique for vampire turning, more specifically for Olrox, HOWEVER, I think it still does a good job conveying the supernatural pull for the time being!

Wow who saw this coming HAHA

Immediately when I saw the line where Olrox said he went to straddle him immediately, my mind went to go and try to parallel this scene again! I don't have much to say about this shot rather than the feet are purposefully cut out for animation convenience's sake HAHA.

Jumpscare for sudden Olrox character layout (even though he's really off model and sketchy here HAHA)

I was again, wanting to depict Olrox BATHED in light and since this animatic is purely in greyscale (with accents of colour), I could really push for dramatic lighting when it called for it! This is also why some of the scenes just do not have backgrounds at all. I wanted to make some of the scenes as "heavenly" as possible and for Mizrak to be embraced by the light because Olrox is giving him a new a life.

If this were to ever be animated (I won't be since it would take too much of my time, but it's still a good thing to note when boarding anything... maybe I'll do cleaned screenshots since those are a breeze, or animate ONE scene from this animatic... we'll see what I have time for. I unfortunately don't have proper time to try and figure out the layout of s02e8 bgs and paint them. I did consider quickly doing a 3d mock-up but no haha), the light in the background can probably be lit with candles since it was already pre-established in s02e8! Also, the windows can reflect light into the room so there's that too since Mizrak was backlit in that episode too!

Fun fact, this entire scene was the first thing I ever thought up and why I started even making it. I thought about how cool of a visual it would be to have Mizrak's eye in the reflection.

I wanted to imbue the fact that Mizrak does not fear Olrox holding a blade, hell, he's not even looking at the blade. He's looking at Olrox. What is described as a relic from a terrifying past, Mizrak is not scared. Mizrak is not scared of Olrox.

This is where the heartbeat occurs AGAIN. This is mostly to signal to the audience what Olrox actually has planned. He's not feeding Mizrak from his wrist but from his actual chest, especially with how gently Olrox runs his hands over it.

I debated a lot on where the initial cut should go. The heart, for sentimentality, under the breast in the same way Christ had been pierced, etc etc- however I landed on just dead set in the middle so it could form a cross that would grow bigger and bigger as the animatic went on. (Fun fact, the blob of blood turns into a little heart as he squeezes his chest)

I wanted to put some weight to the repressed catholic guilt, so I thought a cool visual way to showcase that Mizrak has only known how to love is via worshipping God which has consumed his entire being and self. God has given him faith, a companion in the hardest of times when the world has abandoned him.

Now, once again, his world has abandoned him. The Hospitaller Order of Saint John of God is gone. In the face of death and fearing the devil will be waiting. Olrox has given him love, and he will be a companion in the hardest of times. He will not abandon Mizrak.

This aspect of the cross in the animatic gets expanded upon as time goes on. Both literally as the cross literally turns into a pool of blood more closely to the symbol Mizrak bares, but also it slowly expands upon Mizrak feeding off Olrox's love! I'll add some more of my personal notes when we get there!

Also by far one of my favourite scenes I've drawn. It's still rough but it decidedly made me go a lot cleaner with the rest of the storyboard!

This is supposed to be suddenly jarring because it cuts midway through Olrox in a midshot to a close-up of a hand! We need to see him actively halt Olrox for just a moment, but also to show that even when it's sudden- its not hostile, it's gentle.

This shot does a couple of things!

It showcases how gently Mizrak is reaching out to Olrox

It helps to continually establish Mizrak submission to vampirism. He is constantly placed on the bottom from the composition, or we as an audience, are always looking down at Mizrak! Seeing parts of Olrox here really cements this fact as Olrox towers over him to the point we don't even see him fully!

It helps to lead into the Fallen Angel reference!

This shot makes me sob because it is so gentle. Despite being placed constantly much higher in the composition in the animatic, therefore making him the most powerful in this dynamic- in no way Olrox is intentionally made out to be an intimidating figure. He is comfort. He is a companion. He will not abandon Mizrak. The act of turning Mizrak might be read as selfish. It may be read as cheating the natural cycle of life, it may be everything wrong and doomed as your mind makes it to be, however, it is done out of love. Morals, whether good or bad, no longer matters because Olrox is in love. Love has such a strong chokehold on this series, so I'm shoving as much love into these characters as I can. Both literally make these characters so sickly desiring love that it will be their doom and saving grace, but also me as an artist deeply putting love and thought into this board because care a lot about how to convey these complex emotions! Sure it is quite easy to churn out boards without care, but without putting care into your boards, your characters and stories lack life (in my personal opinion).

Immediately, this animatic shook me and told me to put in a reference to The Fallen Angel by Alexandre Cabnel!

Also, how does one portray the soul? EYES. Eyes are the window to the soul. Mizrak’s eyes are also considerably the most important/crucial part of his design. His eyes in both seasons ‘glow in the dark’ due to the highlights in his eyes. Mizrak is considerably really emotive too and that was important to me to emphasize. I wanted to capture his essence, his soul if you will, into this shot.

This is also why this shot is done really prettily if you will.

The reflection of Olrox's eye in Mizrak's is important here! Olrox is here to act to comfort Mizrak. Even when Olrox is not on the screen with us, he is majorly present here. He will not abandon Mizrak. Also, since it is coupled with this line, people can choose to infer what they wish with Olrox! It can symbolize Olrox does have a soul, it can symbolize how Olrox and Mizrak are now intertwined together, it can symbolize Mizrak reciprocating Olrox's love. The list can go on! I give that room for open interpretation (same as the rest of the animatic, the only reason I'm going through, breaking down almost shot by shot is that I deeply care about this sort of thing, and I know other people do too!)

This shot, is deceptively simple but it's here to actually initiate a bunch of scenes I wanted to happen after this!

Firstly, I needed a very nonchalant but easy way for Olrox to let go of Mizrak's hand without needing to overcomplicate. I needed something that gave it just enough importance for the hand kiss BUT not too much where it is the sole focus on the shot.

Secondly, I needed a way for Olrox to lean down to Mizrak and initiate him being way closer to him.

Thirdly, it acts to parallel another shot that happens with Mizrak where instead of going diagonally down, he goes diagonally up!

This is one of the points where I visually slightly deviate from the one-shot! I really REALLY wanted to emphasize Olrox's dialogue here so I chopped up and elongated the scene to make it that much more intense and tender. Which is why we get the next two close up shots!

Look it was very VERY important to me to have Olrox cup Mizrak's face and intentionally cut off his eyes. The important part I wanted to focus on solely was his hand and Mizrak looking up because genuinely, Mizrak's eyes are 'distracting' and it would remove the focus on the gesture! Also I am saving Mizrak's eyes for the next shot haha

After this shot too, you may notice the blood from his neck disappears for the rest of the animatic. This is because, after this, it began to take too much of a visual focus away from the blood on Olrox's chest since it is bright red against greys in the shot. We can chalk it up to Olrox wiping the blood off when he goes to cup him.

"The most beautiful soul a vampire can posses."

It was so important to me that we get a BEAUTIFUL shot of Mizrak. I needed the audience to see his entireeee face close up, unobscured by anything. Olrox is holding a beautiful soul in his hands. He's holding Mizrak. Actually makes me sob.

This shot by the way has been repeated 3 times with slight variations by this point. Yes, this is a very pretty shot so how could I not help but repeat it? HOWEVER, I was trying to make a reference to how Mizrak has said Olrox's name only 3 times in the show with a variation of what was said around it. After that, Olrox calls him my love, basically unlocking a new stage in their relationship.

So here, three times when he looks at Olrox, he's mentally calling out his name. After this, Olrox brings him to a new stage in the relationship.

Also in Catholicism, a lot of things are in 3s. One of the major ones is that three times, Christ fell over carrying the cross. On the third hour of that day, he died and on the third day, he was resurrected from the dead. The three sacraments that welcome someone into the Kingdom of God are Baptism, Communion, and Confirmation as they all build off one another! I could go on both those are the main points AND I feel you might get the gist now!

It was very important to me that when Olrox makes this promise, we HAVE to see his full face. This is why it's a close-up.

It lets for no shadow of a doubt that Olrox means what he says here. He's looking AT Mizrak. He's telling the truth to him.

This is a parallel to a much earlier shot of Olrox! He moves closer to Mizrak by going from top right to bottom left, while Mizrak moves closer to Olrox by going from bottom left to top right! You also both see them exit the screen too!

In this shot, we bring back that halo vibe but also this is a reference to S01E04 and S02E08! The curtain! It is BOTH their first-ever shots to establish a new scene, so I wanted to go “Hey this is establishing a new scene- a new life for Mizrak and Olrox.”

The camera is super purposefully cut just below the eyes. You can see them open then closed, but we will never ever get to see the look he had in his eyes, the single decision in his brain that let him indulge. That’s only for Olrox, and only Olrox will know.

From here on out, A LOT of the shots of Mizrak get segmented/have his face hidden for that reason too (except for one shot, also done intentionally).

When Mizrak actually closes his lips around the blood- it’s on the growling sound in the song. Mizrak has turned into the animal that he’s been calling vampires. In this new life, he is now given the choice to be freed from the man-made shackles of shame and guilt. To be untamed and unrestricted. A wild animal so to speak!

Honestly, I spent a lot of my time here (besides the pretty Olrox frames) because I was super particular about how I wanted to portray Mizrak giving into sucking the blood. The way he accepts vampirism is vital because it sets the tone and mood for how the rest of the board feel since his face gets hidden and you now have to infer from when you saw his face last.

If you have seen my analyses or my work before, you will know how much I enjoy having a frame within a frame. I loveeee my boxes! They're in the box! TOGETHER! THE CENTER TOO! There are no real divisions with the exception of Olrox's head which is important because it's not Mizrak we're focused on at this point in time, it's Olrox~

This is because the one-shot, even in third person, is mostly through Olrox's perspective!

Also, the camera is moving around in this shot, and the following subsequent shots! It hopefully gives off the "hand-held" feel, which often is associated with feeling as if you're right there in the moment with them.

Why pillows?

This is me shaking you to say how the blood-drinking is an allusion for sex if that wasn't already obvious enough. So showing pillows coupled with Olrox groaning really goes "Yes they are technically doing it."

Originally this shot (and the previous shot) was supposed to be way more pulled out, but I was saving it for the very last shot of the animatic so I went to pillows with the tinest hint of their body in the frame to make it seem super scandalous. Like what on earth could they be doing for me to cut them mostly out of the frame? Also also, the pillow was supposed to have an embroidery of a painting from 1790s or earlier BUT, for the life of me, I could not decide what I wanted and I did not want to keep reusing the same references I have had in past work. I didn't want to fuss about it for too long since its more of an easter egg rather than adding to the story. The main point is pillow = fucking HAHA.

Side tangent, you can get away with SO MUCH by having blood drinking be an allusion to sex. Like obviously when you have an age rating you must abide by, you must be creative with how you go about mature topics (my age rating is YouTube hahaha)! Not only is blood drinking in vampirism just inherently queer-coded, but the intimacy of it can convey so much more if it was just a regular ol' sex scene! I actually deeply enjoy conveying nsfw topics into art because you can discuss character dynamics at a much more vulnerable, raw state that literally bares them to just their essence and their current desires/needs. However I am getting off-topic, let's get back to it!

This shot was actually heavily inspired by the statue Adoration by Stephen Sinding!

While there are a lot of differences now simply because Mizrak is at Olrox's chest, I still hope that the vibe of that statue is still imbued. It also gives the sense of not only Olrox adoring Mizrak in this very moment, but Mizrak is too despite not seeing his face. Again quite intentional because it's only for Olrox to see.

Also, a lot of people have been telling me how Olrox is breastfeeding him, and in technicality, they're not wrong, he's feeding blood, from his chest. It is the funniest thing ever LOL

This shot was important to really focus in on his throat and how, much like in the one-shot, Mizrak is literally not taking breaths and is just continually consuming Olrox.

Wet sounds fill the room as his throat bobs with each steady gulp...He doesn’t stop, doesn’t take a moment to gasp for breath.

I also just wanted to make this scene feel very slow in order to contrast with a much more passion-filled desire that consumes Mizrak in this animatic! Also hopefully the descent of blood and the descent of the camera helps to strengthen the idea of Mizrak descending into vampirism!

It felt really cheesy to have this close-up shot of his eye HOWEVER at the time, I thought this was by far the clearest way to convey the immediate switch from gentle devotion to devouring devotion and how suddenly rapid it is. In my brain, the stylization for his eyes open would be textured and pulse in the same way Olrox's wrist did, which is why it's just outlined. I'm once again not 100% set on the pulse look and it probably needs some iterations if I ever came back to it again.

Also, the green hearts in his eyes only come through when he's actively consuming blood from his chest! The heart motif comes back later when Mizrak ends up throwing up the blood!

Here's the cross again, except it is growing bigger. This was very important to me that you see how "gentle" the blood-sucking is at first. A gentle devotion despite the "terrifying" shadow of Mizrak. Also, super an excuse to have kiss marks in my animatic, I love painting them in my art because it can say a lot with placement and how aggressively smudged they are!

Also, I thought it would be SO FUN to have Mizrak's turned self literally have his eyes overlay where Olrox's eyes are. It conveys how Mizrak and Olrox are now switching roles in this animatic! For the first half of this animatic, Olrox has been placed pretty high up in the shot composition, or where the camera looks up to put him in a high place of power! It makes him appear way more etheral and otherworldly, while Mizrak was placed lower in the composition, always looking up at him! Which I'm hoping invokes religious imagery of a God and his worshipper/follower!

When Mizrak's transformation is set, the dynamic switches up. For the rest of the animatic, Mizrak is now placed at a more supernatural/otherwordly position, while Olrox is just there passively, letting Mizrak BE in this position. He does not fight it, he embraces it, embraces how Mizrak reciprocates his love, his desire, and all his messy complications, much like how earlier in the animatic, Mizrak embraces vampirism.

Also if you slow it down enough you can see how I accidentally left my perspective grids in it HAHA, but it goes by fast enough it doesn't really matter! (I guess it's also kind of indicative of my natural style when it comes to digital painting too, I genuinely like having my sketch still peek through into the final painting!)

Wow even more shots to cement the new role switch AND how much much of the passionate need to consume is controlling his urges! Free to consume at his leisure, he is no longer bound by human nature (for now)!

This shot and his leg shot help to really strip Mizrak of his humanity. Faces in a shot really help to connect people to the characters because we see the emote, we see them breathe, we see them live. Especially for a character like Mizrak? He's super expressive face-wise and I'm purposefully not showing you the defining features of Mizrak. Here I am basically going "Mizrak is no longer human."

This is why in horror/thrillers with antagonist characters, we don't see their faces much and are saved for only key moments (usually, again your intentionality matters). It doesn't allow us to connect with the character on a much more human level. Think of Count Orlok from Nosferatu (2024). Purposefully a lot of his character is shrouded in darkness, focusing on his hands and other aspects, never his face, and even then it is really hard to make out because so much of him is obscured. It makes him that much of an imposing intimidating character! Otherworldly and something that we cannot fully understand.

This is a flipped version of Mizrak's close-up eye shot much earlier when he asked if his soul would remain. Again to hark on how Mizrak and Olrox are switching roles in this animatic! Olrox is looking at Mizrak's soul as we speak.

Despite us not seeing Mizrak's face, we as an audience noticing how unhuman Mizrak has suddenly become, Olrox looks quite gently at him and that was important to convey!

Woo! Lot's of horizontal lines here! While the camera is moving towards the left, Mizrak is moving right!

Originally this shot was going to have Mizrak's teeth sinking into Olrox like a very cool Olrox throwing his head back and Mizrak's fang reveal HOWEVER, I want to leave the "carnage" and bloodshed of the feeding out of the frame and only have it show up in very specific moments so I can have those moments actually have their proper impacts. I did not want to show any part of the front of his face at all since it would dampen the effect later on, so I opted for this instead. The legs give a sense of "something is happening but we don't know what, but it's to a point where Mizrak's entire body is moving oh jeez." Won't lie, this looks very sexual and I'm purposefully toying with that line again because blood drinking is an allusion to sex.

Also, I'm continuing the concept of having aspects of Mizrak's face only for Olrox's eyes. What does he look like when he's actively consuming him with such passion? Idk, Olrox you tell me.

This is everything I was building up for when I introduced the small crosses! The physical manifestation of how Mizrak reciprocates.

My thought process here was that Mizrak only knows how to love by fully devoting himself because that's all he's done for God. So he applies it here. He is reciprocating love, but it is FULL ON. It is intense. It is all-consuming.

The face once again is obscured for all the reasons I have mentioned before, but also it REALLY helps to really hard cut to Mizrak choking on the blood after because before it seemed like he was doing just fine. He is literally looking DOWN at Olrox, he takes up A LOT of the screen with just his back and head. He literally gets pulled into full focus while Olrox is blurred in the background. He appears like he is in control of the situation, however it could not be further from the truth.

Also, I was mostly inspired by the insane amount of bible verses talking about blood, so I'll drop some of those here!

John 6:53-56 ESV

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.

Ezekiel 16:6 ESV 

“And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’

Matthew 26:28 ESV

"For this is my [Christ's] blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."

Absolute contrast to most of the other shots, not only because I decided to add way more character acting here, but it's because we actually see his FULL face. It's intentional because Mizrak realizes himself now so we need to see him have this reaction. I wanted to show that he is still a person. He still has a soul. He may not be human, but he does have a mind that can think and a heart that can love. He still retains human qualities.

He's choking on all the blood (a physical manifestation of love) and his body is rejecting it. He's not used to consuming this amount of love and he's not used to being self-indulgent. It's deeply overwhelming.

I wanted to say I LOVED drawing blood it is SO FUN, planning the camera movement, and how Mizrak coughs at specific moments was sooo fun. I wanted this to be MESSY AND INTENSE. I wanted the audience to feel the weight of Mizrak's sudden distraught. I wanted to throw him around and to really hark on this line from the one-shot.

What has he done? What has been done to him? What has he become?

It helps to deeply contrast with how still and gentle the next scene is!

Yes, that is right, Olrox's pupils are DILATED :)

Coupled with the fact that the blood splatters are hearts! They're outlined in cyan! Olrox has a massive heart-shaped blood splatter on his cheek while Mizrak has a few heart-shaped splatters BUT there are gaps in his bloodied mouth that create heart shapes as if Mizrak spewed out those hearts!

Firstly this is because Mizrak literally eats at his chest where the heart is. Secondly, I'm again pushing for Mizrak to consume and throw up his love due to how overwhelming it is. Not only is Olrox's love for him literally beyond his imagination, but Mizrak is trying to love back in with that same amount of passion and utter devotion. A lot is happening for this new-born vampire that is pushing and pulling at him. His emotional state is so overwhelming that it is manifested in physical form.

The green reflections are shown to visually communicate Olrox anchoring Mizrak back, as, throughout the animatic, it is one of the things that ease or calm him down. I could not portray it through voice BUT I can portray it via visual (guys walk with me here, imagine the insane combo of audio and visual, it would be so tasty). The sole reason why I did not have hearts in his eyes here is simply because I reserved the heart motif for when he's actively drinking out of Olrox's chest (so he's literally consuming his love) or when he's spitting out the blood!

Also, the reason why I cut to his eyes rather than pan to them is purely because I wanted the violence of his mouth to be suddenly jarring to the gentleness in his eyes. I didn't want the slow reveal, I wanted the "OMG the blood- aw Mizrak...."

"Lulled into a sense of hazy compliance by Olrox’s voice, the former monk carefully lowers himself and continues though not for long."

This final shot was soooo important to me to include. The “musty inn room” was mentioned much earlier during Mizrak’s transformation but there was a poeticism by having what is considerably the blossoming moment of their complicated relationship be the final shot. With the lyrics also ending with "Take me back to Eden" how could I not? Clearly, both the rooms between s01e4 and s02e8 are parallel to each other. The only difference is that s02e8 has the room be both red AND GREEN, while s01e4 is just earthy/green. Olrox has taken them both back to their earthly paradise. This is their Garden of Eden.

Woo ok and we're done! Also yes I do thumbnails for these, it's half the reason why I'm fast (this entire animatic, cleaned and everything, was done in 3 days good lord. Is that fast? I can't tell) I make the barest of bones chicken scratch of sketches to get a feel of pace/vibe, then I do my roughs/cleans and add/take away shots necessary for the story that needs to be told. I normally would not let this see the light of day because these are AWFUL BUT, this post is also half a documentation of my personal process so I'm going to close my eyes and share this HAHA

If you got this far, thank you for reading me geek out about this! I find a lot of joy in the visual storytelling medium. As much as I do enjoy animating, (wow could you guys tell in the name?) I have a deep love and passion for storyboarding personally and I get sit back, and enjoy crafting the entire picture! I still have a long way to go but I'm having fun and I'm pursuing my passions of storytelling!

I desperately want to make more animatics, dealing with different tones, pace etc, but I genuinely have to go prioritize other things for now that will help me build these skills hahaha. I say this but who knows, seeing my current track record haha, look I can do both. I follow wherever my creativity takes me. I may have missed a few things but I have to wrap this up now!

Thank you again! The final takeaway, go watch Castlevania again and go be inspired by animation <33333

[effietrinket1619]

lanternfam tiktok chaos

So, by this point, everyone knows Hal has an ex that he's on frankly horrible terms with. but-

the video opens with Kyle and Hal in a legit screaming match, Jess is clearly filming from around the corner, and-

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU MARRIED HIM TWENTY-THREE TIMES?"

"WE WEREN'T LEGALLY MARRIED IN THOSE CORNERS, OKAY? IF I WANTED TO GET MARRIED ON MY HOME TURF, AND THEN HIS OLD STOMPING GROUNDS, AND THEN EVERYWHERE ELSE WE HAPPENED TO VISIT-"

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?"

"IT'S NOT MY FAULT YOU DATED HIS DAUGHTER, KYLE."

"TWENTY-THREE TIMES, HAL!"

"AND TWICE TO JOHN, BUT YOU DON'T SEE ME BRINGING THAT ONE UP EVERY OTHER TUESDAY!"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU AND JOHN GOT MARRIED?"

Jess ducks behind the corner again. there is never an explanation for this. ever.

i am HOWLING over this

The visuals focused while the audio bled in slowly, the cadence of a heated argument clear even if the words were anything but. Jess was giggling behind the camera as the debate reached new heights.

"--twenty-three times, Hal! What the hell were you two doing? Did the Guard--"

"Of course they knew, Kyle! This was before the law that forbade relationships, you idiot!"

Hal and Kyle, standing close together with their faces alight because of this entire debacle, were trading barbs with each other. Kyle in particular looked like he wanted nothing more than to throw Hal out of the window. "You got married to that asshole twenty-three times and you didn't think to tell us?"

Hal threw his hands up in the air. "You never asked!"

"Oh! Sorry then, I didn't realise I had to ask to know the sordid details of the great Hal Jordan's life! I'm asking now! What the hell is wrong with you?" Kyle bellowed.

Jess didn't think she'd quite seen Kyle this angry in her life. Then again, he was always full of surprises.

With a scowl, Hal grumbled, "You want the long answer or the short answer?"

"Long, obviously!"

"I..." Hal rubbed a frustrated hand over his face. "Okay. Listen, it was just diplomacy at first and then it kinda spiralled outta control so now we're here. Really, you're making a big deal of nothing. It's not like we're living together or anything."

"Yeah," Kyle hissed, "I'd sure hope so considering the guy tried to kill me!"

Waving a hand flippantly with a scowl, Hal said, "He's tried to kill all of us. You're being dramatic."

"I'm--" Kyle turned straight to Jess, eyes wild and radiating fury. "You're hearing this bullshit, right? Like, you're getting all of this too?"

Jess's thumbs up was visible for the camera, although the shaking made it extremely clear that she was just barely holding herself together for this. Hal groaned. "Can we please drop this? He's not exactly a great husband."

"Yeah. I can imagine, Hal." Kyle stopped short, looking a little unwell for a moment. "Oh God, I dated your stepdaughter."

Hal rolled his eyes. "Yeah, and that ended so well. Hypocrite."

"No!" Kyle jabbed a finger at Hal, pushing him back half a step with all of the audacity in the world. "No, you don't get to talk! I didn't marry her twenty-three times!"

"It wasn't a weird thing back then!" Hal said hotly. "We married each other all the time for diplomacy shit! I married John, like, twice!"

Kyle's voice cracked right down the middle. "John?"

"And Guy! We're all married to each other!"

"Oh my God. Oh my God." Kyle slumped into a chair. Jess was audibly losing it behind the camera, the screen shaking so violently the image was more or less ruined. "You...oh my God. You're in a fucking polycule."

"Sure. Whatever the hell that means."

Burying his face in his hands, Kyle gave a very distressed, very strangle sort of cry that sounded suspiciously close to a sob. "'Whatever that means,' he says. He's married to John and Guy and he doesn't give a shit. This entire time. This entire time, Hal?"

Hal, thoroughly over this, turned to Jess with incredulity written all over his face. "He's overreacting, right? Like, come on. I married a bunch of people back in the day."

Jess, almost entirely unable to choke out an answer through her genuine tears of laughter, responded with, "You--maybe you should've-should've told us?"

He crossed his arms, petulant. "Maybe you should learn how to ask first."

Kyle sobbed again.

[ckret2]

Long time lurker, first time asker!

How do you keep different voices/characters in your fics so distinct? I'm writing my first longer than 2k word fic and it's... a time.

First, I'm going to link you the best essay I've ever read about How To Write Canon Character Voices—what's too much accent, what's too little, how to pay attention to word choice and the way they phrase things, etc. It's about Transformers but the skills are transferrable to other fandoms (or original writing). The original essay is down so all I can offer is the archive.org version, but it's worth it.

Second, I'm going to link you this post I wrote about how I study character voices. It's about Hazbin but it shows you the kinds of things I pay attention to when I'm learning a character voice.

Third, I'm going to offer you some extra general advice that isn't in the above posts:

Some people try to make characters sound like themselves by basically parroting their catch phrases or most common quotes. Do that and you're just gonna make your version of the character sound like a robot. (Note: if you're writing a character who only knows how to say a few quotes, that's okay lmao.) The readers already know what the characters said in canon, they're reading a fic to hear them say something new. Example: if you have Bill Cipher arrive on the scene and say "Did you miss me? Admit it, you missed me!" word-for-word, you don't sound like you're writing Bill, you sound like you're quoting Bill from That One Scene where He Said That Thing.

But... directly borrowing characters' quotes is kind of a stepping stone on the way toward figuring out how they speak. Think about things they've already said, but use those quotes as a guide for how to write them.

Example: from that quote above, we get that when Bill shows up around people who definitely did NOT miss him, he just... decides that they did and tells them so. This shows you a bit of his sense of humor (he makes jokes to annoy someone who hates him—it's not even a mean joke, just annoying), a bit of his ego (he knows he's clowning around, but even when he's clowning he's going to say something that makes himself sound popular rather than hated), his casual & familiar attitude with someone he barely knows, his tendency to just request people do what he wants (saying "admit it, you missed me" instead of something like "I know you missed me")... etc.

And I kinda already said this in the Hazbin post, but the most important thing you can do when you're struggling with a character voice is just rewatch their episodes and pay close attention to how they speak (or rewatch their movie scenes, or reread their chapters/comic issues—whatever you're writing about). If they're from a visual/audio medium (TV, movie, podcast, etc), then if need be, read transcripts to see how their voices look when written down. Type down the transcripts yourself if there aren't any—and that's also a good physical exercise to make you slow down and pay attention to how they speak. (You notice where they tend to pause in sentences when you're the one who has to decide where to put commas; you notice their accent when you're the one who has to decide whether that word sounds more like walking or walkin'.)

Pay attention to cadence, accent, interjections, sentence length, active voice, passive voice, preferred vocabulary, preferred slang, word choice, sentence length, sentence complexity, any phrases they're fond of (but again—don't overuse a phrase unless they overuse a phrase), how they tend to refer to the people around them (by first name, last name, any titles, any nicknames—and do they change in different contexts?)... Pay attention to anything you can think of. You want to be able to hear the character's voice clearly in your head—read everything you write in their voice, and if it doesn't sound like their voice in your head, change it.

[marimayscarlett]

The untitled album turns 6 today 🎶💿

On this day in 2019, Rammstein released their seventh studio album. What was significant and different compared to previous albums was that this one had no written title on the cover—just an image of a matchstick. As a result, it came to be known as the “untitled” or “matchstick” album.

Richard's recurring statement in past interviews that no new album was planned is widely known. After the LIFAD tour ended in 2013, the band took a year off, and after one more meeting, another year. The general consensus was that they didn’t want to pressure themselves or each other, since the working phase for the LIFAD album had been very exhausting in terms of group dynamics. In an interview in 2015, Till revealed that the band would be meeting in September 2015 for a casual, creative gathering. In October 2015, this photo was published on the official website, showing the band improvising in Schneider’s studio:

It was decided that the band would work between the festival tours of 2016 and 2017, and that rest periods should be respected. Richard worked on his demos together with Till; the final results were presented to the rest of the band during their meetings and discussed.

As the first result of that creative period, the song 'Ramm4' was introduced during the 2016 tour. Flake commented: “We wanted to show the world that we are still together and that we are creating new music.” To this day, the song hasn’t been officially released, although it was used again as the opening song on last year’s tour.

At the end of 2016, work resumed. In March 2017, Richard mentioned in this interview for the Rammstein in Paris film that at that point, 35 almost-finished songs existed, and that the wait would be worth it. Over the course of the year, these drafts were reduced to 28. Sky van Hoff also mentioned that same year that he would be working with Rammstein. Work on the compositions continued until spring 2018, apparently under a rule of four working days per week (Monday through Thursday). The song “Deutschland” in particular weighed heavily on the band - the lyrics prompted them to repeatedly look back on their own past and exchange their views:“Everyone of us expressed his opinion in detail. All of us talked about our experiences and feelings with respect to Deutschland. Some of us even told stories about themselves that I never heard before.” (Deutschland Photobook)

Recording took place in spring 2018 at La Fabrique Studios near Nîmes in southern France, with recordings made for a total of 16 songs.

Jacob Hellner was no longer involved, his role was taken over by Olsen Involtini. In late summer 2018, the orchestral and choir parts were recorded in Minsk. In December of the same year, 11 of the 16 songs were mixed by Rich Costey, Olsen Involtini, and Richard in Santa Monica, California.

As a teaser for the album, a tracklist with placeholders for letters and durations was released in 2019, hinting at the song titles:

DEUTSCHLAND – 05:26

+ADI+ – 03:00

++++ DICH – 03:00

A+S+Ä+D+R – 03:00

++X – 03:00

P+PP+ – 03:00

+AS +CH ++E++ – 03:00

+IA+AN+ – 03:00

WE++ WE+ – 03:00

+A++OO – 03:00

+ALL++ANN – 03:00

Audio snippets, each featuring a short instrumental segment from one of the songs, gave further clues to the tracks.

Starting on the album’s release day, a large truck toured various cities in Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Austria. At each stop, visitors were given a special code they could use to win 2x2 tickets to the sold-out shows of the 2019 Europe Stadium Tour.

The album itself was visually dominated by the colors white and white. A making of video was released showing the photo shoot, which featured photographer Jes Larsen working with the band.

More little facts:

If you ordered the album in Germany from Saturn or MediaMarkt, you received a free promotional T-shirt, which has still never been officially released. Another special promotion took place in Long Beach, California: if you bought the album at the store Fingerprints Music, you had the chance to receive a free Rammstein logo tattoo.

The song “Deutschland” triggered a wave of outrage in Germany, as it was frequently misinterpreted and the music video was considered offensiven - particularly due to its references to the Holocaust.

The music video for “Radio” was projected onto a building wall in Berlin-Mitte on April 25, 2019, at 8:55 p.m., shortly before the album’s release. About 1000 fans attened the presentation:

Olsen Involtini also took on the role of mediator during the creative process. Richard reported the following: “Because of his presence, the energy between Paul and I changed dramatically. I don’t know why. It’s almost like couples therapy. It’s not about going there and getting advice from a therapist. It’s more about if you go to a therapist and you’re sitting in front of another person, you’re listening to what the other person is saying, and while they’re saying something, you’re thinking of strategies on how to fight against it. So, all of a sudden, I was listening to what he was saying and he was listening to what I was going to say. Individually, we are very, very different. Black and white. If he says ‘Yes,’ I say ‘No.’ It’s always the same story. But somehow we need that for the Rammstein universe.” (Revolver)

Sources: rammsteinworld rammwiki affenknecht discogs dw.com kerrang

[hanaybuns]

lawyer kara

so i was listening to doramatsu volume 4 (the iromatsu lawyer one) and kept thinking about karamatsu's characterization in the tracks

for the most part, ichimatsu stays consistent to his neet character in both tracks. he's generally lethargic, negative, rude, antagonistic, and plays the straight man while he's a lawyer and the defendant. But i feel like they take karamatsu's character in a really funny direction

like, he's definitely karamatsu in both tracks. he has all of the karamatsu character beats: narcissistic, pathetic, romantic, painful/cringey, generally kind ... but man they dial it up to 100000000. like seriously, every other sentence is filled to the brim with flowery prose and dumb english phrases.

like, look at this, these are some of lawyer karamatsu's lines

and of course... how could i not mention:

and defendant kara isn't any better

i think lawyer kara is much more ooc, but even then defendant kara also goes on a million monologues about love every 0.05 seconds. he's also extra dumb in the defendant track. now one could make the claim that karamatsu is playing a character in the lawyer track, but for the most part if you listen to the other volumes, everyone else is basically the same. kara is really the only character that's like... deeply ooc. i have a couple theories as to why they did this.

so first, these are audio alone, there are no visuals to accompany the dialogue. so the character acting has to be a bit more exaggerated to keep the listener engaged. if you have no visual gags, you have to compensate for that with funny dialogue and sound effects. basically, the quality of the drama track is heavily dependent the dialogue and the line delivery.

and lemme tell you, yuichi nakamura is hysterical in both of these tracks. like genuinely his line delivery is so funny, i highly recommend listening to these tracks again. so a part of the fact that kara is ooc is because they probably wanted to utilize his more poetic, emotional, and passionate sides to make the most out of the medium.

Secondly, these tracks were released in 2016, before seasons 1 and 2. so they honestly didn't actually know much about karamatsu's character, he wasn't as fleshed out as he is now. at this point, the only point of reference they had for when karamatsu was angry was either during gags or in episode 24 (very serious). so they had to experiment a little with what an angry or aggressive kara would look like and i think they came to a really interesting conclusion.

as we know, kara has a tendency to mask his true intentions under the guise of kindness and love.

this is one of the rarer moments from season 1 where he was annoyed that they wanted him to fill the kerosene. but see what he did there? he took his annoyance and wrapped it in a ball of "i'm so cool and kind and loving, i'm doing this out of love''

lawyer kara is that concept, but dialed up to 1000000000. he starts slapping the crap out of ichimatsu under the guise of wanting to help him prove that he's not servile, when in reality, he's probably just being sadistic.

third, shu matsubara (the head writer of ososan) didn't write these tracks. he actually didn't write any of them! the person who wrote these 2 tracks is kazuyuki fudeyasu. he's a very prolific screen writer, here are some of the shows he's worked on:

and many many more! (these are all from his imdb page)

and from what i know, he actually never worked on the show. he's only worked on other audio tracks for doramatsu. so this karamatsu was written by someone who is a very talented writer... but has never written for karamatsu before.

finally, i'll cap this off with the most plausible and important theory of all:

it's fan service.

[mejomonster]

Some of my favorite writing tools

Just Write: a website, or an app you can download. My favorite thing about Just Write is it only lets you backspace a few spaces. So if you need that motivation to just KEEP writing, to not edit until you're done, Just Write is perfect. It's just text, limited backspace, no distractions. You can copy-paste text when you're done writing or download it as a txt file. I usually type // after I make an error that I want to edit later, since there's limited backspace. I bookmarked this on my phone's Home screen, so it looks like an 'app' and I can just click to open the site.

My Noise: this is a website and app too, I just use the website version. Like with Just Write, I bookmarked this website to my phone's Home screen so I can just click to open the site. It has a ton of sounds you can play, I find many of them help with focus: there's classical music, the sound of water, white noise, adhd focus sounds, coffee shop ambience, binaural beats, tinnitus relief, Dark Dungeon (noises of fictional settings), and all of their sounds are customizable. I usually use Irish Coast or 88 Keys just because the sounds of water and pianos tend to help me focus most. There's a ton of sound options on here. Good for if you haven't already made a focus-music playlist, or if making such a playlist would distract you from writing, or if you just need to pull up a noise quickly.

Lite Writer: an app. I write on my phone a lot, so this is the app I organize everything in. It lets you import fonts, so I can use a font that's difficult to read (to prevent myself from going back and editing/re-reading while writing), and then use an easy to read font when I edit. It has customizable colors (I just use regular dark mode). It lets you make project folders, and then txt files inside each project folder, and number the chapter txt files so they're listed in order. It lets you export project folders as txt files (or other types of files), so I can write a book chapter by chapter in 1 project folder, then export the whole book to edit in a different program. It lets you upload cover images for each project folder (which visually helps me), it's layout is very minimalist (which helps me focus - I get distracted so easily I can't write in something like Google Docs because there's too many non-writing-area things to look at). It also counts how many words you've written each week/month, and in which project and which individual txt file. So you can see how many total words are in a project folder, what the individual chapter word counts are, and how many words you've written total. The app also lets you search for a word within an individual text file or a whole project folder, so if I change a character's name (for example from Varric to Varris) I can just use the search tool to search 'Varric' in my entire story, and then use the replace tool to put 'Varris'. I know you can do this easily in a Word processor program on a computer, but it's nice to be able to do it in Lite Writer while all my chapter files are still separate txt files. Lite Writer also lets you set up an auto backup to locations of your choice, and auto saves, so you can get backups of everything you wrote in multiple places even if you're not actively remembering to back up your writing regularly. The app is free, I believe I paid a one time fee so that I could use a few optional features (like text to speech audio file export, more visual options), but it was a ONE time fee. I paid once for additional features (I think maybe 5 dollars) and then never had to pay again. Which is worth noting, since I hate monthly subscription models. I think the app is useful if you write on your phone or a tablet, not so useful if you don't. I use the app for pasting in writing I've done online (on Just Write) so that all my writing is saved in one central place, and to re-order chapters, to add story notes within the project folder, so for organizational purposes. It's my favorite organizational writing app for the phone.

[windvexer]

@thegodwhocums in response to your post for anon!

First Anon, huge props for seeking sobriety and I understand your desire to stay on anon. Trance state and altered states of consciousness can be totally accomplished during sobriety, without the need to use any substances (including milder 'flying ointments').

Here are just my tips and resources coming the context of Traditional Witchcraft:

First, definitely look up brain wave states :) Trance is a measured brainwave thing, right. And we know how different brain states feel. So you should start by researching the expected sensations and mental states associated with entering trance! Don't leave yourself in the dark.

In Traditional Witchcraft there are close parallels between trance state and spirit flight (or 'hedge crossing'), because spirit flight is undertaken in a trance state. Therefore any guide you find that teaches spirit flight/hedge crossing (and even generic 'astral travel') is probably on some level also a guide to induce trance state.

Many such guides specifically for spirit flight encourage finding trance state through rhythm and meditation, as opposed to ecstatic movement; this is of course because spirit flight is usually undertaken while the body is physically at rest.

Don't take meditation to mean zen meditation of clearing the mind. Rather in this context it's a paradox of relaxed focus, like the cat waiting at the gopher hole.

Entering a relaxed trance state is greatly facilitated by sonic drivers, which are rhythmic sounds (like drumming or chanting) that carry the 'pulse' you ride on towards trance state (youtube ""shamanic drumming"" to find great audio tracks). This rhythm is especially well accomplished through careful counting of the breath (look up 'breath work', not to be confused with breath play; deep and rhythmic breathing, even without hyperventilating or limiting oxygen, can help rapidly induce trance).

Guided meditations themselves can be a powerful way to experiment with trance states. Seek out relaxing meditations that involve systematically relaxing the body, especially ones that combine counting down. But these can be completely secular guided meditations for relaxation on youtube, you don't have to find one necessarily written for 'trance state', although many exist.

Especially with spirit flight, entering trance state very often is accompanied by counting down to descend into the underworld or fairyland. Very common meditations (which do not have to be visual in nature) involve taking your consciousness downwards through a tree, down a well, or to the bottom of a lake. You can combine this with counting, counted breath, sonic drivers, and progressive relaxation to achieve deep trance states.

For example, you can record a meditation for yourself (or just remember the steps) wherein you become physically relaxed (sitting or lying down), and count your breaths (in/hold/out/hold of equal lengths; not limiting oxygen). Every time you take three complete breaths, you imagine taking one additional step into a lake. As the water rises up around your body, you focus on relaxing that part of the body. It takes 13 steps (39 breaths) to completely submerse yourself in this imagined lake, and when you do you see a door at the bottom of the lake. You go through it with the knowledge that it will return you to your body within a full trance state. All the while, you can have on a rhythmic drumming track.

A meditation such as this one may need to be practiced several times, but if you get along with the method of relaxed trance, it's the kind of thing that can really take people in.

Other hints are to block the vision to partial or full darkness, to always burn an incense of the same scent (or daub an EO nearby, etc), to always use the same audio track, and especially to always use the same charm or prayer to begin the session.

But a full relaxed meditation can put people to sleep or be a struggle if you have focus issues. Try using a technique like Horne's 'awakening the second sight' exercises in A Broom at Midnight (which I extremely recommend for those interested in the intersection of trance and witchcraft). This technique is to sit in a dark room with a single lit candle and focus on your 'second skin' until it feels like it awakens and comes alive.

If you have a lot of space, trance can be induced more ecstatically by 'treading the mill' or casting a circle by running, walking, or dancing around the circle; you can also dance or run to enter an altered state. I have arthritis and no experience with these things so I couldn't comment further.

Any technique you like will take time to get right. Asking your gods or spirits to help you enter trance is extremely useful, they can sort of 'carry' you into trance (or dunk you underwater, so to speak).

At first, expect to only enter a shallow trance, especially if you can't do extended and deeper exercises. Entering a deep trance may take 30 minutes, or an hour, or a significant period of time. With experience, you may be able to enter shallow trance states very rapidly, but deep trance typically always takes some amount of effort.

Before you enter any trance state you should have a list of things to do to exit trance state and readjust. These are simple things that include envisioning your second skin perfectly aligned with your physical skin, wiggling your fingers and toes, doing psychological grounding (name 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, etc), eating food and drinking water, turning on the lights, turning off all sonic drivers (and eliminating incense or other scent triggers), turning on the television or grounding music, and talking to people.

Just have a list of things to do that are very within your comfort zone.

Trance isn't dangerous; people enter trance and flow states all of the time. But knowing the process can be under your control can feel a little unsettling and destabilizing, so it's always a good idea to plan to fill your space back up with good and grounded vibes before you begin. Just as often as you practice entering trance, you should practice intentionally exiting trance and returning to an everyday state of mind. You should be able to do so on purpose and when you choose to.

The only caution I have is if you find yourself entering trance states unexpectedly or when it's not safe to do so, such as when you're driving. If this happens I encourage you to stop practicing trancework for a while, and examine your practices for a lack of clear triggers (like sounds, scents, sights, chants or incantations, etc). If your triggers are too generic or aren't clearly established at all, you may be at a higher risk of accidentally training yourself to slip into a trance state when it's unwise or dangerous given the circumstances. In addition, some people may not necessarily be able to safely practice trance on a regular basis without falling into this - we all have unique minds, after all.

Besides that Horne book above, check out Crooked Path by Kelden which has a few exercises for entering trance state.

[mcytblraufest]

MCYTBLR AU Fest: General Rules and FAQ

TIMELINE: 

May 4: Discord opens at 0:00, Artist creation starts. May 30-31: Artists with a finished piece of Art can sign up, submitting their work for claims. May 31: Artist creation period ends at midnight. June 2-4: Writers can claim art and be assigned to Teams. June 6-7: Writers who wish to be assigned a Beta Reader can sign up (this is optional) June 9-10: Beta Writers can claim writers/art and be assigned to Teams June 29-30: Check-in #1 July 13-14: Check-in #2 July 26: Writer creation period ends at midnight. Unless you have an extension, you must be fully ready to post at this point. July 27: Posting period begins at 0:00 August 2: Extension period ends. Unless you are a pinch hitter, you must be fully ready to post at this point. August 9: Posting Period ends. All work must be completely posted by midnight.

ABOUT:

MCYTBLR AU Fest is a mini reverse-big-bang event where artists and writers work together in teams to make stories and art inspired by MCYT and set in an Alternate Universe.

EXPECTATION: 

Artists must make a completed Art piece. Writers must deliver a story of at least 5k words, inspired by the art they signed up for. Dark or triggering topics or themes must be tagged for.

RULES:

You must be a member of the discord, for team matching.

Because of Tumblr, Ao3 and Discord TOS, you must be 13 to participate.

Respect your fellow participants, even when you disagree on fandom matters

You agree to work together with your teammate(s) to make a piece of art and a fic together, and link to each other's works.

All works must be MCYT-centric and set in an AU— no canon-compliance. 

No AI-Generated content.

LINKS:

Discord: Here Ao3 Collection: Here

FAQ:

What is MCYTBLR AU Fest? MCYTBLR AU Fest is a reverse minibang-type event where writers and artists come together to create fanworks centred on MCYT and set in an alternate universe from canon.

How does it work? Artists will have a month to complete an art piece. After a month, once the art is complete, they will submit the art, with information about server, characters, relationships, and any warnings they are opting into, which will be posted anonymously for writers to view and claim, first-come-first-serve. Teams are assigned by mods, and then writers will have two months of creation time to make a pice inspired by the work (minimum 5k words).

What type of MCYT is included? We welcome creations based on any SMP, whether or not they have a canon tag on Ao3. Mianite, DSMP, QSMP, Hermitcraft, 3rd Life, Lifesteal, Witchcraft SMP— it’s all welcome. 

Can I join if my Art is a Game/Web Weave? We welcome all types of art— web weave, game, traditional art, original songs, videos, etc. While the list is not exhaustive, we have outlined some of the baseline expectations for an art piece below.

What are the requirements for art? It is difficult to define precise expectations for art pieces, especially given the broad realm of things that could count as art. We are primarily looking for art that is complete to a level that you would normally post as "finished", ready to inspire a fic piece of 5k or more, containing an audio or visual component beyond the confines of the written word, that does not take more than an hour to consume. While you will have the opportunity to include your understanding of the world in things such as if the relationships depicted are romantic or not, the art piece must stand alone without explanatory text or extra worldbuilding.

The defined requirements for different forms of art are:

Digital or Traditional art: one piece, completed to whatever you would normally post as "finished", ready to inspire a fanfic.

Web Weaves: a web weave of at least ten elements, original or properly credited.

Video/animatic: a video at least 30 seconds long.

Other Art Form: other art forms such as fan games or original songs would fall under this category. If you wanted to sign up with an Other art form, you need to contact the mod team and work out what minimum expectations would be for your art.

Is shipping allowed? Yes. Because there is no broad fandom-wide consensus about how Creator boundaries are to be enforced in specific cases (whether it's okay to write beeduo as /r or /p is an obvious one, or whether it’s permitted to ship Joel Smallishbeans) or between specific fandoms (Lifesteal approach to shipping and boundaries is different from HBG is different from DSMP), the mods will not be policing any specific understanding of boundaries across the event. The event's motivating ethos is Don't Like Don't Read, in that artists will be able to specify for themselves if a given relationship is to be interpreted as romantic or platonic, and writers will choose to opt into that, and NSFW will have to be specifically opted into on both sides.

Is NSFW allowed? Yes. NSFW works are allowed, but must be opted into, both in terms of viewing art and in terms of creating fic. No one under 18 is permitted to opt into NSFW and attempts to do so will be grounds for a ban from this event and anywhere else the mod team touches. For the comfort of the greatest number of participants, and to conform with Tumblr TOS, anything with the tags Underage or Incest will not be permitted to be part of the event. 

Are major archive warnings (noncon/graphic depictions of violence/MCD) allowed? Aside from the content rules governing NSFW (no underage or incest, for the comfort of the greatest number of participants), major archive warnings are allowed. Depictions of real life horrors such as genocide and slavery are not-uncommon motifs in MCYT fics, and the mod team is not interested in legislating which types of horrors, griefs or abuses are inherently worse than others and are therefore off-limits. Because holding writing to a quality standard or saying only survivors can write atrocities is unworkable from a moderation standpoint, the three mentioned major archive warnings (MCD, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Noncon), are permitted to be included.

However, Major Archive Warnings must be explicitly opted into by the artist, and writers are free to not include Major Archive Warnings that their artist has permitted. Delivering un-asked for major archive warnings is grounds for a ban from this event. The mod team reserves the right to warn other mod teams on both the MCYT and Multi-fandom side about your bad behaviour.

What kind of an information will I provide as an Artist? How long or detailed? Artists will be able to specify

the server their art takes place on

the characters in the work

whether the relationships in the work are romantic, platonic, or could be interpreted either way

if they are okay with NSFW work

what age group of people they are okay working with

the type of AU it is

any content warnings present in the work already (i.e. gore, eyestrain, child death)

if the work is nsfw

any major archive warnings they are okay with happening in the story

common fandom themes and/or triggering content that they are okay with happening in the story.

A DNW

What sort of fandom themes will I specify? While this will not be an exhaustive list of every possible triggering concept, the mods want artists to be able to specify if they are okay with dynamics that circulate in the fandom that may be triggering or people simply may have strong opinions on, and for writers to be able to sort by that. Some of the themes include domestic abuse, alcoholism, family dynamics, pregnancy, dubcon, torture, body horror, dehumanization, child death, non-consensual touching, drugging, etc.

What is a DNW?

Artists will have the opportunity to fill out a DNW, which stands for Do Not Want. This is anything that has the potential to ruin a fic for you, and is where you opt out of content that would trigger, squick, or just render the gift unreadable for you. DNWs must be phrased politely, (so no "No foster aus because they suck and you suck if you like them"), and they must be reasonable, (so no "no blood/injury" if the art depicted shows injury, and no attempting to box someone into a specific gift beyond what is depicted in the art, so no "dnw anything that isn't a modern au where scar is a theatre teacher and grian is a biology teacher and they live in a city named hermitopia and grian has a situationship with mumbo and scarian has a rivalry at a coffee shop for the half-price muffins and jellie has psychic powers she's manipulating the muffin market with" if that is not clear from the art), and they must be specific and clear, (so no “no triggering content"), but they can be as petty (disliking 1st person) or as broad-reaching (no modern aus, no specific ships not depicted, no crossovers with specific servers or fics) as you like. Deliberately breaking someone's DNW is grounds for a ban from the exchange. 

Is Dark/Violent content allowed? As long as it is something that the artist has not opted out of, yes. For many of us, the source material that originally drew us to the fandom includes major character death, torture, murder-for-hire, death games, public executions, child death and more. The fanfiction that arose from the source material follows in that trend. We will allow dark content to be part of the event, but it must be tagged for. 

We also ask that participants use best judgement in delivering commonly triggering topics un-asked for. We reserve the right to ban people at mod's discretion for delivering unrequested triggering content, under the "do not be an asshole" rule.

Moreover, if your fic is rated E for any reason, (including violence or gore) your entire team must be 18+.

How can I get involved? You can participate in this event as a:

Author

Artist

Pinch Hitter

Beta Reader

You can even sign up for multiple roles, as long as you’re very sure you can make your deadlines!

What is a Pinch Hitter? A pinch hitter is a person who saves the day and steps in when the original creator is unable to deliver their work for whatever reason, making a new work on an accelerated timeline. You must reach the minimum word count of 5k. . 

When do I have to join the discord? You have the option to join the dicord and hang out as soon as creation starts on May 4, and if you are an artist, you must join before sign-ups close on May 31. If you are a writer, you must join the discord before claims begin on June 1st. If you are a Beta Reader, we'd ask that you join before claims begin on June 9th.

How does team assignment/claims work? We will release a document with all the art pieces linked in it, and 24 hours afterwards we will release a sign-up form. Writers will be expected to list out out a top-five of artists they want to work with, and mods will match writers with art on a first-come-first-served basis.

How does Beta Reader assignment work? Shortly after writer sign-ups end, writers who wish to sign up for Beta Readers will be able to do so. In a similar way to how writers claimed art, beta readers will be given a list of summaries and then, 24 hours later, will be able to submit a short list of fics they want to help work on. Beta readers will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis.

What happens if there are more artists than authors, or more authors than artists? If there are more writers, some artists will be assigned multiple writers. If there are more artists, we will put in place a question where writers can specify that they’d be willing to make multiple pieces, and a (hopefully small) number of writers would be assigned multiple teams. 

What if all the artists I list have already been assigned? If every artist you wish to opt into has already been assigned, mods will contact you and ask if you wish to be matched to people who have not yet been claimed. You will then be able to choose if you wish to claim other teams, or wait and hope that there will be more writers than artists, and multiple writers on a team will be opened up. If that happens, you can re-submit your list and be assigned as a writer to one of your original artists.

I’m in [insert time zone here]. What if I’m not awake when claims open? There will be a spot to input your time zone in the discord. Mods will try to open the claims at a time that works for as many writers as possible. The art pieces will also be available for 24 hours before claims so that everyone can view them and pick out the ones that are the most interesting to them. We will aim for claims to open between 7 a.m. and 1 a.m. for as many writers as possible across all time zones. If claims fall outside that zone for you, you’ll be able to contact a mod and we’ll work out an alternative method for claims for you. 

I don’t know what time zone I’m in? Go to timeanddate.com and enter the nearest major city, and it will tell you your current time zone.

What’s a check-in and how do they work? Check-ins are there to make sure everyone is on track to finish their piece in time, and to communicate any issues with the mods! If you know that you won’t be able to check in on a specific date (lack of internet, etc), please contact the mods in advance.

How long should my fic be? The minimum word count is 5,000 words! There is no maximum word count, but we ask you to be mindful of how much you can actually create in these two months. 

If I wrote a multi-chapter work, do I have to have it all posted by the end of Posting Period? You must post your work in its entirety by the end of the two-week posting period.

What does AU mean in this context? AU stands for Alternate Universe and in this case means anything that would make the work not able to be tagged as canon compliant. Alternate endings, role reversals, complete setting or plot swaps, and crossovers all count. As this is a fest specifically to celebrate AUs, we ask that the AU be a significant and celebrated part of the work, not something that could be skipped if you aren’t paying attention. 

Can I create two fics for my artist? Absolutely! There is no maximum for number of fics you want to create, but again, be mindful of not biting off more than you can chew two months of creation time.  Can I post just the first chapter of a longer fic/Can I use AI to help me with my piece? All fics must be complete (no missing chapters or truncated scenes) and created specifically for this event, inspired by the art claimed at the beginning of the creation period. Writers and Artists must create their work themself. Works may not be wholly or partially created by generative text or art programs (so-called "AI") such as chatGPT or OpenArt.ai. Works may not be wholly or partially duplicated from other works, and may not contain substantial repeated material included in an effort to boost word count (such as paragraphs or comics panels that are copied with minor variations).

Can I sign up with two pieces of art? You are welcome to sign up as part of the fest with multiple art pieces. However, if you do so, we will ask that you prioritize which art piece you want to be matched on first, and you will only receive a match to your secondary art piece after everyone else has an writer. We’re going to proritize every particpant getting a team before we prioritize every art piece getting a team.

Can I sign up with a multi-piece art piece? If you want to sign up with a web weave that features multiple panels, a long video, a long comic, a series of connected art pieces, a song cycle, or any other more complex/more ornate work, you are welcome to. We just ask that you make sure you can complete your art piece during the month of artist creation time, and keep in mind that if your piece is sufficiently complex, that might restrict the writers who are able to sign up for your piece. But if you think you can pull it off, then go for it.

Can I sign up with a writing buddy— as part of a collab team? You are welcome to sign up as a collaborative team, either an art team or a writing team! We ask that you make sure you work together well, and when you sign up for an team, you must declare that you’re a duo, so people know that they’ll be getting multiple team members and not one. 

Can I submit an art piece that is part of a larger AU? All art pieces must stand alone, so you can't have it that your writer has to consider other art pieces to make a work. The art must also be made specifically for the event. We ask that you not submit an art piece that was made prior to the event, or one that is part of an au you've posted about so often that it will effectively de-anon you. Brainstorming or sketching early is fine.

Once my art piece is done, when can I post it? Art and fic should be posted together, during the Posting Period at the beginning of August. Once you have your art done, you'll have to hold onto it for another two months, while your writer is working.

What if I need to drop out? It is your responsibility to communicate with us if you need to drop out of the event for any reason, and we do need that communication. We know that life is no respecter of fic and art deadlines, so no hard feelings if something happens. However, we would hate for any artist to end up having no fic for their art, so please think about this if you are thinking of dropping out close to reveals. Dropping out after the last check-in without informing the mods will result in not being permitted to take part in further events run by this mod team.

I have a question not answered here? Send us an ask on tumblr, contact @antimony-medusa on tumblr or discord!

[marloart]

❝...Say Zach, do you remember the first bar we ever went into? Fun times, wouldn’t you say Zach? That's right. It wasn’t like any of the old movies we saw back then. Such as 1994’s indie cult film, Pulp fiction, written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Boy did that Uma Therman sure know how to dance… Did you know the set location was actually a closed down bowling alley? Still, It was quite the culture shock for us to truly experience the real deal. Though you could never handle your alcohol, could you Zach? For being in a small town such as Greenvale, The Galaxy of Terror has a surprisingly lively nightlife atmosphere. Great place, though they don't serve coffee. I think it could even rival that of bars in other bigger Washington cities, don’t you think Zach?❞

◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽

My piece for Bonus Footage @deadlypremonitionzine for Deadly Premonition's 15th year anniversary! This game has that small town campy charm while simultaneously being one of the most haunting horror concepts that it made a very strong impression on me the first time I came across it about eight years ago.

Mostly this piece was inspired by the thought of these two sisters getting the happy ending that was denied for them, in an alternative universe kind of way. With Carol still performing her heart out on stage, and Thomas able to join in by accompanying her on the piano.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✧ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Prints and more!

Where you can find the zine!

bonus symbolism under the cut;

◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽◽

Thomas is wearing a squirrel necklace specifically modeled after a Beechey ground squirrel (Otospermophilus beecheyi), to go with her special interest and because it's the most common type locally to where the game would take place.

The film strip is homage to Zach and York’s love of movies. The sound waves (which used to be printed on old film reels!) is the actual visual audio pattern with Carol singing “I dream of you” which I transposed using editing software. Even though it's a blink and you miss it detail I thought it was worth the effort haha.

Besides all the police station keys from Thomas’ search request, I added other in game items, such as the red seeds, York’s no smoking lighter, Thomas’ biscuit, York’s coffee (with FK swirled in the cream!), the reversed peace sign, and some cigarettes.

The leaves falling are specifically from the red trees local to Greenvale, that sparks the entire plot (and the horrors).

[xycuro-illuminati]

Marvel Move: Daredevil Series Index

A few mutuals and I have recently discovered that Marvel Move- a running app where you listen to episodes as you run- has one of Daredevil that features a cast including Matt, Foggy, Natasha, and Sam Chung! There's also a feature of original characters made for the series and some DD rogues such as Kingpin, Bullseye, and the Owl. This was done all the way back in 2023. I've gone in and recorded all of the episodes. Unfortunately, these episodes are longer than 10 mins so I'm unable to upload them directly on tumblr. Here's an index of each episode that links them to an unlisted video on my YT. The cast and credits will be noted in the description for each one.

INDEX

Ep 1

Ep 2

Ep 3

Ep 4

Ep 5

Ep 6

Ep 7

Ep 8

Ep 9

Ep 10

All of these episodes were written by Bilal Dardai, directed by Ella Watts, and had Six to Start Sound Team and Matt Part as the sound designers.

Some warnings for each episode:

All episodes are audio based, there are no visuals whatsoever. There's gonna be sounds of walking, running, fighting, glass breaking, gunshots, police/emergency sirens, screaming, and people getting hurt in general.

Ep 1: Some mouth noises of someone eating/chewing in the beginning.

Ep 2: General warnings listed above.

Ep 3: There's some garbage noises but nothing squishy.

Ep 4: General warnings listed above, but mostly screaming, fighting, and sirens due to the prison setting. There is also a loud explosion at 1:38.

Ep 5: General warnings listed above.

Ep 6: General warnings listed above, a lot of screaming, fighting, and things breaking. Brutal noises of someone getting their ribs kicked in at 5:38.

Ep 7: General warnings listed above.

Ep 8: General warnings listed above.

Ep 9: General warnings listed above.

Ep 10: General warnings listed above, there is music playing towards the end as credits.

[jeffffffffest]

JeFFFFFFFFest 2025 Gift Exchange

This exchange is for fanworks based on Jeff Satur’s music videos and related media.

‘Related media’ includes characters such as the rain god from Jeff’s Halloween fan art Instagram post, or the fallen angel from Call Me by Fire. A primer of Jeff’s related music videos with links can be found on this tumblr post, and a resource list with links to media will be available in the Discord server (link to join).

While all Jeffs may be used as visual/auditory/character inspiration, characters from acting roles (KinnPorsche, He She It, Ingredients) are not the focus of this event. Crossovers such as Kim/Sunshine are in the spirit of the event, but a direct KinnPorsche fanwork is not.

Why JeFFFFFFFFest?

Is it because of all of the Jeffs possibly named Jeff? Is it because that’s how we’re feeling after each new release (F!)? Is it because they represent all of the Fun Fabulous Fanworks we’ll be creating? Yes. (There are eight Fs for Space Shuttle No. 8, if you care.)

This exchange is open to all types of fanworks, including text, visual art, audio, and video. The sign-up form will prompt you to list which types of fanworks you’d like to offer and receive. Everyone will be matched with a recipient who meets their fanwork types and prompts as closely as possible. Assignments will remain private until the collection is revealed, so please keep that information secret from your recipient!

You are only required to create one fanwork, in the medium of your choosing. If your recipient requests visual art or written text, you can choose which type of fanwork to create based on their prompts and what inspires you the most. If you’re inspired to create multiple fanworks, that’s a bonus, but not expected or required.

Once assignments are sent out, a channel will be opened in the Discord server for people to share their prompts if they choose. You’re welcome to create additional fanworks as 'treats' based on those prompts and submit them to the AO3 collection. There’s no limit to how many prompts you can fill or how many works you can create!

After the reveal, there will be a 'remix round' for fanworks inspired by the posted exchange works. This is a free-for-all where anything goes! You can make fanvids inspired by art, record podfics of written works, or anything else that inspires you. You can opt out of or limit your participation in this round with a permission statement.

Both the 'treat' and 'remix' rounds are completely optional, and as such we encourage you to create anything, no matter how small or how unfamiliar you are with that form of fanwork! This is a great place for fanworks like moodboards, fanmixes/playlists, and anything else that doesn't fit in the main gift exchange. Of course, large prompt fills are also welcome!

Rules

Please bring complaints or concerns privately to the exchange mods; we're here to help make this a positive experience for everyone! A complaint form (anonymous by choice) can be found here, or feel free to reach out to a mod on discord or tumblr. Respect all DNWs (including requests for no NSFW content) and include appropriate content warnings in posts and discussions; when in doubt, at a minimum, AO3 warnings should always be tagged/warned, or talk to a mod if you're unsure. To ensure that artist credit is always appropriately given, the use of AI and/or gifting AI-generated content is strictly prohibited.

Bigotry and harassment of any kind will not be tolerated. Respect and be mindful of all fellow community members.

If you have questions for your recipient or about the exchange in general, please contact one of the mod team. If you need to drop out for any reason, please let the mods know as soon as possible. Your moderators for this event are @airgiodslv, @mousydentist, and @shubaka (on discord and tumblr).*

*To the best of our knowledge, none of the mods are secretly Jeff.

Clarifications for 2025 Exchange

Double-check the content of your work before the deadline. If you create a work that doesn’t honor your recipient’s DNWs, you may not be allowed to participate in future exchanges. If you have questions for your recipient about their prompts or DNWs, please reach out through their preferred contact method or contact a mod.

Make sure your work is complete by the deadline, not posted as a WIP or first chapter. Your gift can be multi-chapter, but all chapters should be posted by the deadline. You can always create a continuation later, but your gift should be a completed standalone fanwork.

Post your work to the AO3 collection by the deadline. We can reach out to pinch-hitters if you realize you’re not going to make the deadline, but we want to make sure they have enough time to brainstorm and create.

Schedule

Sign-ups:  May 23-June 5

Assignments Out:  June 9

Check-in: July 14

Deadline:  July 31

Pinch-hits:  August 1-August 7

Reveal:  August 8

Remix round: August 8-22

For the most up to date information, please refer to this blog (posts tagged #logistics) and/or join our discord server. Also, we're aware that things happen! We want to make this event as fun as possible, so if you ever feel overwhelmed, please talk to a mod at any time about enlisting a pinch-hitter.

Our AO3 collection is here. Links to fics and posts made on other sites (eg, tumblr, twitter, archive.org) will be reblogged/cross-posted to this blog. If you don't want your gift to be on tumblr, please reach out to a mod ASAP so we can make other arrangements.

Sign-up Form

The sign-up form can be found here! Reminder that sign-ups will be open until June 5th.

Happy Jeff-ing everyone! 🪐