#The J-Horror Virus

[may8chan]

[moviesandmania]

THE J-HORROR VIRUS (2023) Documentary being shown at FrightFest

The J-Horror Virus is a 2023 British documentary film that explores the influence of Japanese horror around the world. Directed and produced by Sarah Appleton (also editor) and Jasper Sharp. From its origins in Teruyoshi Ishii’s 1988 fake documentary Psychic Vision: Jaganrei (1988) and Norio Tsuruta’s seminal Scary True Stories (1991/92) straight-to-video series, through such key titles as Hideo…

[vagabond-art]

all my drawings so far for Prototype, legit one of my favorite games. super excited for [PROTOTYPE] week 2023!

[mater-argento]

Posters for Japanese hospital horror "Infection" (2004)

[peepsibrandsoda]

so uhhh! did this for day one of Protoweek! the prompt being ‘wound’. The rest may just stay as sketches tho cuz oofie but! we’ll see!

[feyfetched]

I'm gonna make multiple versions of the journalist based off the different colours for fun.

Idk make them all sextuplets for fun and all equally as deranged. All end up somehow on the island and it's utter chaos. See what happens. I legit don't know where I'll go with it but I'll have fun.

Adding to the to-do list.

[the-s1lly-corner]

Heyy me again so about the creepypasta thing, I just wondered if you can do Ben drowned with a gen z reader platonically? It's okay if your uncomfortable doing it ><

Ben drowned x gen z!reader (platonic!)

not uncomfortable at all! love that im getting ben drowned requests since i enjoy him a lot and kind of want to write for him more; just strictly platonic ..which reminds me, i need to draw him again soon! gonna answer this then take a break and get back to requests yipe!

admin is still sold on the idea of ben being confined to electronics most of the time so i can easily see him gaining access to your devices so he can pester you whenever he wants; though this may get a little annoying since youre... well still alive! you have a life

whether or not the reader is a creepypasta themselves or is a normal person is up to you! i think both can work, though i must say the idea of the reader being just some random person is really funny. like can you imagine? you get some haunted virus but the ghost is chill an you guys become friends

i do think ben can only mess with devices, i dont think he can mess with like. any internet browser stuff.... which segways me to my next idea; the og creepypasta came out in 2010, majoras mask came out in 2000, so putting it in the middle lets say ben died in 2005.. bro has missed a lot. youre going to have to fill him in on a lot of stuff, and boy let me tell you hes going to be going nuts

tell him about the new legend of zelda games. i think he would be hyped. throwing admins hc of ben being sick and tired of LOZ due to being trapped in the game out the window, admin needs this boy to get joyous!

he probably pesters you and asks you about the dumbest shit, does it on purpose because he thinks its funny

sometimes you guys play video games together, bro is absolutely astounded by how far games have come since he passed away. i think he would go insane over five nights at freddys. fill him in on the lore

going back on the video game stuff and playing together, just know that hes going to break the game and cheat + hes a sore loser, soooooooo...

do you think sometimes he comes and tries to spend time with you more and more over time because hes been stuck for years and hasnt really had many people to talk to? like yeah hes an angry spirit, but even angry spirits deserve friends!!!

ponders

probably messes with you by messing with your recordings if youre trying to make a video/tiktok/reel/what have you

probably interjects his own texts into your posts, never really says anything harmful, just messes with spelling or adds dumb messages

honestly its not your SM account/blog, its yalls shared account/blog now/j

stuck with old 2000s humor but i think he would absolutely love present day humor and how unhinged its gotten, though quick warning hes going to start quoting stuff

definitely quotes the sticking out your gyatt thing, hes going to drive you insane with it and hes going to laugh at you

do not play roblox tycoons with him hes going to bully small children

you guys play a horror game together on roblox and you can hear him freaking out through the speakers (likely using an old device for him so youre not fighting for control over one device)

absolutely DEVASTED when you tell him club penguin shut down

just know hes punching the metaphorical wall

on the rare chance ben is able to pull himself into the real world for a brief period of time, you guys probably do the same stuff hes just physically there for a short time!

make him touch grass while hes out, bro hasnt touched grass in nearly 20 years. this isnt even a haha "hes chronically online" joke, he hasnt actually touched grass in years due to circumstances

closing this with a hit of angst that made me go :( but imagine that it starts out as you guys being around the same age (well... close enough, since ben doesnt age anymore due to being a ghost) but overtime, you obviously grow up and have less and less time for him and :(

like owie

"what happened to us? we used to be best friends?" audio but its you two SOBS AND CRIES

[dia-smthidk]

Pomni looks fantastic with a ponytail (I think that's what her style is called?). and I firmly believe she should go hatless more.

Nine lives??? Oh God how much do they remember between lives? Do they remember everything until the darkness finally takes them? Is the pain of death the first thing they wake up to after resurrection?

Resurrected in the bloody waters of the digital lake. A baptism of blood, that's metal as fuck. Will we ever get to see that?

(Lotta guessing here) Knowing what we know of TADC and Kaufmo's fate... The implication that on a 10th resurrection everything that you are is consumed (or worse, subsumed) by an unspeakable horror while your body is contorted in terrifying ways to suit its new owner... That's miles worse than Abstraction. Christ alive.

This AU and your artwork are a horrific, self-replenishing meatcake, keeping us poor sods stuck in the trenches well fed until the next episode (and then hopefully beyond!)

You dropped this, your majesty: 👑

If she keeps that thing off for too long she’d probably pass out (/j) 

2. They remember pretty much everything, though sanity loss might start to affect that. At first they’d feel the sting of whatever killed them, then a hunger, causing them to kinda just throw up on the spot, but still feel hungry- for flesh :) 

3. Eh, depends on whatever future me plans, but for now, I have something planned that still involves the Digital Lake & its virus-warped abilities, such as dealing with missing limbs from AIs (tiny hint for a certain upcoming Caine & Pomni related comic teehee) 

4. And that’s why you shouldn’t leave the tent when the Moon is out of hiding :D

Ahuhuhu you’re too kind, all of you are, seriously it’s quite refreshing. I’m glad I can turn my delusions into something intriguing for other fellow Tumblrians to watch unfold before their very eyes 🫶

[hootbon]

My friend, online person whom I adore for harming characters brutally (aka using the horror theme) and giving me lore to lose my mind with, question…

CAN I FUCK UP CAINE (as in fight and/or murder) PLZ? (/j… unless—)

Like as a person who codes, if I was there, would I have the physical ability to fuck up shit if I was there? I like the idea of that, pulling some bs when I die like ‘jokes on you MORTAL’ and than we, the people who code, can than take over tadc/j

…But seriously, if someone who is highly experienced with code/hacking (for those of you who don’t know, hacking doesn’t mean illegal stuff, it just means someone is highly skilled in cyber and cyber security. I just know code, so I wouldn’t count, but I figured it was a way to into it—) was in the game, in your perspective, could they mess with stuff? What would happen if there was someone like that and they found a way to deal with the virus?

(YET AGAIN SORRY FOR ASKING SO MUCH— I think too much, it’s 10:20 at night rn and brain go brrrrr)

You would have to be outside of the computer running the program to mess with it. The code itself isn’t capable of being messed with from the inside unless you somehow broke the game so much you reached the code.. which isn’t all that easy or possible.

But if you would like to beat the shit out of him, go ahead

[jeahreading]

(Right I think It's time for me to finally get this over with )

Helloo and Welcome to my Blog, This is Primarily a Writer/readerBlr, but there are other things too(Particularly listening to podcasts ) since I can't be bothered to make a side one.

My reader side - I am an avid reader and am almost always in the middle of a book, I will be updating here on which books I'm reading

Current read list -

Dracula (Bram Stoker)

The Screaming Staircase (Jonathan Stroud)

A Dance with the Fae Prince (Elise Kova)

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Kai Bird)

The Silver Birds (Apolline Lucy)

That Night (Nidhi Upadhyay)

The Complete Adventures of Feluda, Vol 1 (Satyajit Ray)

The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)

The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy)

The War of Lanka (Amish Tripathi)

City of Bones (Cassandra Clare) [@1indigoisles don't kill me]

And that's all I can remember Right about now , Yes I'm reading 10 books or more simultaneously, no I do not have an explanation to that.

My main Genre is Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery and thriller, But I do love widening my scope so do recommend me any books you might think may pique my interest. 😁

My reader side also includes me obsessing over podcasts, I'm including my Favourite podcasts here too, and I assure you they are amazing!

Podcasts for you - I usually listen to them on Spotify and love True crime, mystery, Murder mysteries etc. Here they are -

Rotten Mango by Stephanie Soo (True Crime) - I wouldn't suggest you listen to this if you get disgusted or scared easily, I usually am not affected by these kinds of things and I was still very disturbed, The first 2 episodes are quite... I would suggest you research about it more before you listen to it.

Baking a Murder by Stephanie Soo (Books and movies) - This podcast is again one of my favourites, the way she explains the movie is just so immersive, if you want to understand a story but don't have time to sit down and read the book/watch the movie then this is for you.

7 Suspects by Cryptic Radio(Murder Mystery ) - OH MY GOD, holy- this is probably one of the best mystery podcasts I've ever listened to, tbh you think you know what is going on and till the very end that is kinda sorta true, but then in the like the last 5 moments the plot twist so intense you are left sinking on to the floor thinking "What just happened", listen to, right now.

Magnus Archives by Rusty Quill (Story? horror? not sure what it comes under) - I've started listening to it after getting intense FOMO and can confirm it's going pretty well, I mean I have a LOT to catch up to, but I can say, it's caught my interest.

Murder in HR by Caspian Studios (Murder Mystery) - Again OH MY GOD, again, this is one of the best mystery podcasts I've ever listened to, I mean yeah, the gym ad thingy gets a little bit annoying but the rest of the story compensates for it, again, you think you know where you are going, again up until the very end you just don't know what the hell is going on, and again (Do you see a pattern) when the mystery hits you you are flabbergasted, soo I suggest give it a listen(also kinda obsessed with the soundtrack).

Murphy's Inc. by 97toNow Productions (Scifi mystery) - This is one of the better ones, I'm still listening to it and it's just actually really good, It's kinda the thing you listen to once a day, kinda relaxing (for me at least )

Ok, so this one is a bit different, there is a podcast Caso 63: Enigma: Spotify studios but it's in Spanish which I still haven't quite learnt and I didn't know this existed. I was recommended 2063 theke Esechi by Spotify Studios which is in Bengali which I do, in fact, understand. It was voiced by one of my favourite actors and I was absolutely in love with it, It feels like I wasn't listening to a podcast but a movie and there is so much confusion and so many twists. This podcast has been made in other languages as well, the other two ik are Case 63 (In English) and Virus 2062(In Hindi). So check it out!!

Treat by C13Features (Horror, gory) - This is like a podcast movie, it's around 2 hours long maybe? this is pretty good I would say, you can give it a listen.

Welcome to Night Vale by Night Vale Presents (Absurdity?) - I really don't think I need to say anythi_-_- HAIL THE GLOWCLOUD.

Morning Cup of Murder by Morning Cup of Murder (True Crime) - True crime yk...

The Sounds of Nightmares by Little Nightmares - Bandai Namco Europe (Horror, gore, mystery) - Uhh it's a little unnerving how detailed the actions of characters are As if they were compensating for the fact that there are no visuals, but it was pretty good I would say(Also like the soundtrack)

My writer side- My most popularly known name is Jeah (jee - ah) and I'll be using that here, I am a new author getting started on writing. I still have a looong way to go but, I enjoy writing very much even though my mind and body are definitely not on par with my will to write which is why my second unintended hobby is procrastination. Most of the time that I'm here on Tumblr I am supposed to be doing some other work, like right now.

Anywaysss here are my current WIP's

Mirror My Way - This is my first and only properly published Book. Tbh Not very proud of it, I did it in a hurry, because I took part in the school's Writing program, did nothing the whole year, and finished it in the last week, I honestly think It had potential but I kinda ruined it trying to finish it within the deadline. I wouldn't recommend you read it, It was supposed to be a part of a duology or trilogy but I think I'm just gonna let it sit in the corner for now, let it be there, think upon its mistakes, it did wrong 😤.

Tots and Coffee - Now this one I like better, this was actually inspired by the Scam Caller post here on Tumblr. Kinda had a sudden burst of inspiration and Wrote the first Chapter and since then it's still going pretty strong. Unlike the previous one, it is there on Ao3 if you wish to read it 😁.

I dunno what to call this but I occasionally write short stories in the replies of Pinterest pins when I come across writing prompts. This isn't a wip exactly but , I once posted the starting of a story and jokingly wrote "Continue-!" at the end thinking that would be the end of it, but someone did eventually continue it and that led to a string of events and a very weirdly Eledritch, beautiful Frankestine story formation, I'll be posting it slowly here on Tumblr as well, so keep checking!

Forgot to put it in earlier, but check out @the-writers-corner-inc It's a group blog I initiated, and you can find lots of fun stories, prompts, visuals and more!!

And that's about it, I don't what else to say, but while you're here, grab a cup of coffee or tea, pick out a book and read a page, I'm right here on the other side with a book as well, let's be booky buddies 😄😄😃😃🍵☕

[narujenreacts]

Hi! I'm the guy who offered my insights on Murder Drones E5.

I know Cyn's visor has been analyzed before, what I did is figure out some of the words that fit in the obscured parts based on the shape, size, and partial letters. Here's what I have:

"Hello :

I see you are [discarded] (gap) [sorroful/sad]

I see you are inoperable - (gap) [[end]]

---- | [fD--t] [selfDestruct] [selfDestru [ ] - d [ ] end]]

I see we could [trl] [sct] (gap) [edit] for you

I will not discard you

[ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][Absolute[SysAdmin]

Access? Y/N

[.0001%]

I see you will be here for a while"

The important bits to me are:

The Solver isn't just displaying a boot-up message, it's talking to Cyn, saying how sad and awful her situation is, and asking to be let in (kinda vampire-style, needs to be invited in). I think the repeated 'selfDestruct' string is the shutdown code trying to take her offline again, and I think the Solver interrupts it and stops that, though I could be mistaken.

Most notably though, the line where it says [trl] [sct] has meaning in programming circles. Those usually stand for 'tech readiness level', a term used to define how far along a prototype is in development, and 'software compatibility test'. This is what most convinced me that the Solver isn't a corrupted internal program, but something from outside: it had to check if Cyn's OS could host it before it could offer the deal.

The other notable bit I found is more of a conjecture, but I found some indication that the Solver is related to the Yellow Sign, from Lovecraftian mythos. It's more just visual similarities from a symbol seen on the wall in E5, and a much better match under Nori's feet in E6, but to me it looks too compelling to be pure coincidence.

Anyway, I'd love to hear what you think!

Hey, Cookie! c:

It's funny, because while I had been able to figure out the text on Cyn's visor I have very little knowledge on coding, so I was not aware what the "[trt] [sct]" meant! You said it USUALLY stands for it, and while there's a chance it doesn't in Murder Drones, I'd lean more toward that it does. Especially when one of my theories was the Absolute Solver isn't just some random AI virus mutation, but possibly an alien, demon or some type of creature. Doesn't help that we see all those symbols and pentagram-like drawings in Tessa's room. Why are they there? Who drew them? Cyn? Tessa? Someone else? Were they used to summon the AS? I was able to find what 3 of the symbols mean, but I'll save that for the TiN E5 video. We know that it wasn't just a one-off thing either. In the teaser for E7&8 we see more evidence of there being a cult.

As for the Absolute Solver symbol (both the digital and organic version) looking like The Yellow Sign, it's for sure not a coincidence. We know from Liam that while he was developing the story for Season 1 he steered away from the "vampire + high school" story and in the direction of "Eldritch Lovecraftian horror," which has been evident from the design of holo spooky snake crab J and Cyn and the aforementioned AS symbol resembling The Yellow Sign.

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/13-14/2023: THIRTEEN WOMEN, SVENGALI

I really loved this. I wonder what the book is like, I might have to read it! Author Tiffany Thayer sounds like a pretty interesting guy as per this collection of provocative reviews on Wikipedia:

I don't know about you, but that makes me want to read everything he wrote. THIRTEEN WOMEN concerns a circle of grownup sorority sisters who are beset by an anomalous series of murders and suicides. It so happens that all of the women recently received damning horoscopes in the mail from a self-styled New York Swami--but the Swami himself is just a pawn in a greater conspiracy masterminded by Ursula Georgi (Myrna Loy). The master hypnotist has a bone to pick with these smug society ladies, which I am about to spoil so plug your ears if you'd rather watch the movie first (and you should! It's only an hour long): As a half-Javanese girl "saved" by a missionary who sent her to a western finishing school, Ursula believed the key to her future was to pass for white. Therefore, she's vowed revenge on the racist sorority that rejected her in college, and honestly the revenge she has plotted should have earned her an honorary PhD. It's hard to imagine that either a 1930 novel or a 1932 movie really mean to say "fuck racism" so frankly, but the sharp premise and Myrna Loy's incredible charisma make it hard not to side with the ostensible villain in this picture.

Some people have remarked that THIRTEEN WOMEN is an early iteration of the slasher movie, with its female ensemble (of sorority babes no less) being picked off one by one. To me it was more reminiscent of the cursed media motif familiar to J-horror. Maybe I'm just saying this because I rewatched RINGU this Blogtober and I was encouraged by the documentarians behind THE J-HORROR VIRUS to consider its influence on SMILE, which I also rewatched, and which I'm realizing I love. The victims in THIRTEEN WOMEN have signed a round robin chain letter, for which they each receive a star chart describing their imminent doom; the power of suggestion takes the place of power tools here, with Ursula's sheer force of will acting as a free-floating contagion that rots the guilty and weak from the inside out. I was reminded of movies like RINGU and JU-ON as much as of Jorg Buttgereit's DER TODESKING, an experimental horror film about a chain letter that causes its recipients to self-destruct. It's fun to think that THIRTEEN WOMEN is a progenitor of movies like BLACK CHRISTMAS, but I see reflections of it elsewhere, too.

I wound up pairing this with SVENGALI just because they're both hypnosis movies, but that movie turned out to have its own racial tensions. In George du Maurier's foundational 1894 novel Trilby, the evil hypnotist is explicitly Jewish; in Archie Mayo's 1931 adaptation, Svengali is referred to abstractly as "Polish or something", which seems to be a euphemism for a Semitic Eastern European identity. This might not invite such analysis if it weren't for the styling of John Barrymore as a swarthy, rodent-like embodiment of greed. When I say that, it sounds pretty negative, but I'd still insist that SVENGALI is a great movie well worth seeing for its perverse humor, surprising grimness, expressionistic design (courtesy Anton Grot), and unusual horror elements--in addition to Barrymore's unforgettable performance.

I guess there has been some debate over whether SVENGALI is properly a horror movie, and I refer you to author Tony Burgess who once said that if you have to argue about whether or not something is a horror movie, then it's probably a horror movie. The only causes to argue are if you insist on an extremely narrow definition of horror to guide your personal consumer habits, or if you're squeamish about admitting that you've ever enjoyed or respected anything that falls under the horror umbrella (and I tend to think the latter case is more prevalent). Admittedly, SVENGALI blends comedy, romance, and musical elements such that the viewer is never quite sure how dark things will get until the very end, but I think that anyone should be able to see the horror in the incredible sequence of the eponymous villain sending his disembodied consciousness through the CALIGARI-like city to possess the unwitting Trilby (played by Marian Marsh who must have been the most adorable person alive at the time). A few different visual effects are used to evoke Svengali's power, some of which are still modern-looking and scary, and the film's breezy humor and charm do not promise any particular safety.

On some level, the aura of antisemitism and xenophobia itself lets us know we're in horrific territory. This is the genre of fears, rational and irrational, where we face whatever society perceives as threatening. Today we're in the midst of a lot of arguments about whether or not "separating the art from the artist" is ever appropriate, with full cancellation of the art AND artist positioned as the only alternative, but both of these options suggest that we must never have to face immorality, ambiguity, or ambivalence in art at all; we're forced to either avoid it or ignore it. This denies us the opportunity to understand what these darker emotions consist of, and understanding is the only way to defang them. Personally, I don't think it's any more helpful to condemn e.g. Dracula or the Wicked Witch of the West for their bigoted elements, than it is to simply pretend those things aren't there at all. SVENGALI provides us with a similar opportunity to confront antisocial phobias, with its troublingly caricaturesque villain and the unavoidable fascination one feels when his hypnotic gaze projects itself at us from the screen. Recommended viewing.

[elephant-in-the-pride-parade]

⭐️Star ⭐️

I think I'll dust off Eden's Deception for this one.

So what you'd never know about Eden's Deception is this story actually went through three drafts.

2018 - The romantic fluff fest hyperfocused on a J/C romance in their scifi "Garden of Eden" on my first rewatch of the series as a 25 y.o. i felt absolutely cheated and teased by the romantic undertones that this episode failed to fulfill. the first draft was wish fulfillment where they frollicked around new earth falling in love, but it kept getting disrupted by my impulse to write scenes with some very intense melancholy about being stranded. Think one second theyre cuddling on a home made couch making out and the next Kathryn is somberly assessing what would happen when one of the died and how she would bury his body all alone by herself. really sad shit. kept breaking the romantic story i had envisioned.

That first draft stalled completely when the romantic fantasy plot peaked at an accidental pregnancy. I was watching Call the Midwife at the same time (hollar at all the ways pregnancy can go wrong for older women with limited resources and no medical care) and I just could not figure out how to move forward with the romantic fluff tone when i had just put my character in this situation of functionally mortal peril. I put the draft down and had a long re-think.

2020: The second draft was a Viidian organ farm horror fic. Mid pandemic. I was very isolated. dark thoughts abounded. and I like everyone else got a crash course in virus behavior from the wall to wall news coverage. So I rewatched resolutions again and this time rather than the lack of romance it was the bullshit virus that needled me. Why had a virus that affected spacefarers evolved on a planet with no space faring civilization? Why was it's only symptom triggered outside the atmosphere? Why did the Viidiians have the cure. I tried to anwer that in the second draft, while still satisfying my wishfullfillment need to get Kathryn a baby. In that second Draft the vidiians had engineered the planet to be a tempting venus fly trap and the virus to first trap victims on the planet and then entice them to have a lot of sex and babies that the vidiians could swoop in and kidnap later. I'd intended pregnant Kathryn to go full rambo on their facility and somehow bs she and chakotay a way off the planet and back to the ship. but i never got that far. that draft was just a little too dark for what I wanted and also the idea of the show's modern vidiians forcing their prisoners to breed new organ donors the natural way seemed dreadfully inefficient for a species that had figured out how to create a whole ass klingon adult in a lab in a day from just half a dna strand. but I did like the idea that the virus was somehow their fault. and I was intrigued by the speculation that their organ harvesting plans might have started out on a much more accessible population than kidnapped passing spacefarers. so i hung onto those tidbits and some of the smut scenes too (one of the smut scenes from this draft became Fever actually).

The final draft was written in 2021. In the US we had the looming threat of losing protections from Roe by then and that really put a damper on my own baby fever. That and I had by then watched like 7 seasons of call the midwife. So suffice to say I had come to see new earth baby was just a horror fic waiting to happen, and felt like Kathryn would just never go through with that while stranded or in the captain's chair. So I had Kathryn put a new earth baby in long term stasis for Parent Trap and I did away with the concept in Eden entirely.

Having also experienced two years of people trying to control a real pandemic by then the vidiians approach to the phage continued to facinate me. I don't think I would have come up with the idea of the New Earth virus as a quarentine measure otherwise. Creating a plot for Chakotay and his own skill set also helped bring the whole thing together. I let the potential of a maquis freedom fighter out to play to create a solution that was definitely the best option and definitely not starfleet sanctioned. He flies under the radar as a self-sacrificing maverick given how often it's Janeway pulling out the big guns. But he absolutely also is one. And that was really fun to explore.

Ultimately I think you see undercurrents of the first 2 drafts in the final story. The romantic yacht that they sail back to Voyager in certainly harkened back to the fluffier iteration. I really was very pleased with how it turned out. Rereading it two years later there isnt much that i would change. And that makes me really proud of it. I loved writing a mystery. I loved exploring a more mature and measured version of a romance. I loved bringing the science into it! (and I lucked out having someone with an anthropology/archeology background betaing it)

One thing I would change is the inclusion of some of Chakotays spiritual elements. It was kinda a trend at the time to have him say "Spirits" in lieu of saying "Oh, God" as a way to honor whatever indigenous beliefs he is supposed to have (as we all know theyre very mismashed/made up/etc.) and to show he wasnt from a judeo-christian background. I've realized that was quite foolish now. Saying "Spirits" doesn't come from the show or from any actual native american tradition that I can find. I'd just have him say "God" or swear or something completely different now. In the same vein I want to eventually go back and edit the vision quest scene. I've grappled for years with how much of his canon beliefs to include since theyre all appropriated from different nations or just made up whole cloth. Vision quests aren't something I have personal knowledge of and not something I can research or give the appropriate respect to. So I think that while I might still have him leave their campsite to do one, I'd change the vision/memory itself into a dream, similar to the way his flashbacks to the war worked in a later chapter.

[yanderes-galore]

Yandere Halloween Event 2022 Masterlist

Halloween Event that was meant for 2022. All fics were requested this year :)

Edited: 4/11/23

Day 1 - Yandere! BLU! Medic Prompts W-1, O-1, Z-1 (TF2 - Eldritch) (Romantic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 2 - Yandere! Oni! Genji with Easily Scared! Darling (Overwatch - Oni) (Romantic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 3 - Substitute - Yandere! Medic-Bot/Uber-Bot Short (TF2 - Doppleganger) (Romantic/Platonic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 4 - Yandere! Lady Dimitrescu Prompts K-2 and K-3 (Resident Evil - Dragon) (Romantic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 5 - Yandere! Vampire! Phobos Prompt A-2 (Madness Combat - Vampire) (Romantic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 6 - Yandere! Mimic Prompt C-2 (Sonic - Deception/Shapeshifter) (Romantic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 7 - Yandere! Sonic The Werehog Prompt P-3 (Sonic - Werewolf) (Romantic/Platonic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 8 - Yandere! Engineer with Medi-Bot! Darling (TF2 - Husk) (Romantic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 9 - Yandere! Parasitica! Leonardo Prompts 11 + 30 (TMNT - Parasite) (Romantic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 10 - Yandere! Platonic! BLU! Medic Prompts H-1, H-2, H-3, I-1 (TF2 - Isolation) (Platonic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 11 - Scientific Reasoning - Yandere! Donatello (2012) Scenario (TMNT - Mutation) (Romantic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 12 - Yandere! RED! Medic Prompts F-2 and B-1 (TF2 - Incubus) (Romantic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 13 - Yandere! Jack Prompt S-2 (Bioshock - Brutality) (Romantic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 14 - Yandere! BLU! Medic with Angel! Darling (TF2 - Angel) (Romantic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 15 - Yandere! Mephiles The Dark Prompts C-2, P-2, T-3 (Sonic - Stalking) (Romantic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 16 - Yandere! RED! Scout Prompts M-3, N-1, Q-1 (TF2 - Murder Game) (Romantic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 17 - Yandere! Atlas/Frank Fontaine Prompts E-3 and J-2 (Bioshock - Hypnotism) (Romantic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 18 - Yandere! RED! Pyro Prompts C-1, G-3, S-2 (TF2 - Demon) (Romantic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 19 - Yandere! Vampire! Albert Wesker Prompt A-1 (Resident Evil - Hunt) (Romantic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 20 - Given New Life - Yandere! Scout-Bot Short (TF2 - Experiment) (Platonic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 21 - Yandere! Sonic.EXE Prompts G-1, I-2, Y-3 (Sonic - Virus) (Romantic but mostly horror) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 22 - Yandere! Platonic! Rat King! Splinter Concept (TMNT - Insanity) (Platonic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 23 - Going Crazy - Yandere! RED! Medic Short (TF2 - Ghosts) (Romantic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 24 - Yandere! Platonic! ROTTMNT! Raphael Prompt J-2 (TMNT - Festivities) (Platonic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 25 - Yandere! Shadow The Hedgehog Prompts P-3, H-1, T-1 (Sonic - Frankenstein's Monster) (Platonic/Romantic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 26 - Yandere! Nikolai Zinoviev Prompts K-1 and K-2 (Resident Evil 3 - Fate) (Romantic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 27 - Underbrush - Yandere! Naga Short (OC - Naga) (Romantic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 28 - Yandere! Noah Prompt P-2 (OC - Folklore) (Romantic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 29 - Yandere! Ethan Winters Prompts H-1, N-2, N-3 (Resident Evil - Spores) (Romantic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 30 - Late Night Visit - Yandere! Demoman Short (TF2 - Imitation) (Romantic/Platonic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

Day 31 - Target - Yandere! Tiger Claw Scenario (TMNT - Feral) (Romantic) [GENDER-NEUTRAL]

[msfcatlover]

AT LAST! THE ZOMBIE TIMELINE!!!

Huge thanks to @666imgoingtohell, whose suggestions finally gave the creative side of my brain the kick it needed to work out Steph’s timeline! Here’s what I’ve got so far.

(Warnings for all things Joker, implied torture & experimentation, disease, death, suicide, eye trauma, asphyxiation, overdose, isolation, depression, drinking, self-sacrifice… fuck, I am definitely missing a few, but that’s all I can think of for now.)

(…yeah, they all come from dark, depressing futures where everyone they cared about died, but Steph’s is definitely the most fucked up.)

.

The Joker captures both Tim & Damian. Joker thinks it’ll be extra funny if he can make a Robin corrupt themself, so Damian is used as leverage. (Damian hates it, hates every second of it, but especially hates the guilty way Tim glances at Damian before acquiescing to Joker’s orders. Make this, do that, eat this, take a deep breath off this inhaler we all know is horribly poisoned while Joker cackles like it’s the funniest shit he’s ever seen. Every free moment, Tim looks for an escape. Every chance Tim gets, he works in some sort of message or sabotage to whatever he’s made. Even as Tim’s face sets in a permanent smile, even as he becomes increasingly bright & cheerful about following orders, Tim keeps at it. Even as the orders switch to using Dami as a guinea pig—Tim blinks rapidly, cheeks twitching, and says with a sort of happy confusion, “That wasn’t the deal.” Joker says the other option is Robin dies right now. Damian can see the horror in Tim’s eyes when the first needle slides in; Tim’s twisted lips form a silent “sorry” in the moment Joker can’t see it.—even then, Tim keeps antidotes and medical supplies as close as he can, scrambling to fix whatever he’s done in the aftermath.)

(Once, after Tim started to change but before the deal changed to match, Joker had to go fight Batman and left both of them handcuffed to the same pipe overnight. “Robin,” Tim whispered into the dark, “I need you to promise me something.” “What is it?” “Joker’s not curable, everyone knows that. If I become like that—” “No!” “It’s already happening.” Tim giggled. “I can feel it.” “Absolutely not! How dare you, ask me to—” “It doesn’t have to be you. But I need you to make sure.” “No,” Damian says again. It’s a little less forceful, a little more desperate. “I know what happens when I go bad, Dami.” Tim sounded almost giddy, though his words were grim. “That’s without Joker-fication. I—we can’t let that happen, okay?” “Stop being an idiot.” “No.” Tim laughed, but it was quickly muffled, like he was biting down on something to bottle it up. “Contingencies, baby bat! They’re important. If I go bad, I need you to make sure I can never hurt anyone again.” A pause. “We both know locking me up won’t be enough.” “It’s doing an impressive job so far.” Damian yanked his own handcuffs, so they rattled against the pipe. “If something as pathetic as this can hold you, you really think you stand a chance with Arkham?” “Arkham doesn’t have my baby brother in a death collar.” Tim’s voice went soft and distant-dreamy. It was the most serious he’d sounded in a long time. Damian swallowed. “I won’t let you hurt anyone. I promise.” “That’s the spirit!” The giggles were back as quickly as they’d left. It was awful.)

It took 2 months to find them. Damian was rescued, but the Joker just barely escaped, dragging a breathless Tim behind him. Damian had to be sedated, he was fighting so hard to go after them.

.

People started getting sick, seemingly at random. What started as lightheadedness bordering on dizziness turned to giddiness, and things escalated from there. Damian knew about Tim’s little rebellions and told everyone; the micro-doses of Joker venom worked to burn the virus out of their systems, but more victims just kept popping up.

(The fact it was so obviously Tim’s handiwork left the whole family shaken.)

The Bats kept searching for Tim.

.

They found him alone in a lab, Joker’s body laid out on the floor and left to rot. It was obvious Tim had been dipped since they last saw him, his skin bleached by the chemicals that first made the Joker. During the fight, one of the tables got overturned and Tim’s mysterious science setup got smashed.

“It’s out,” Tim whispered, almost reverently, before bursting into laughter. “It’s out! You can’t put it back, I can’t stop it anymore, because you let it out!”

(The fight ends with gas in the air and Steph’s hands around Tim’s throat, a too-wide smile creeping onto her face, before Damian drags her off, snapping at her that she’s not herself, and giving her an extra dose of antidote. Tim scrabbles back to the wall, one hand at his throat. The hoarseness from the choking almost drops Tim’s voice back to its normal register. “You promised. Dami, you promised.” Damian shakes his head. “It’s not too late—” “It is!” The cackle was just a horrible, rasping cough. Tim’s voice takes on a sing-song cadence once he gets his breath back. “Can’t come back from where I’ve gone, can’t fix what I’ve done! Red Robin’s gone, long gone. Make it stop.” The giggle is nearly silent, more of a shudder. “Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop!” Tim’s voice cracks back to laughter, like he’s telling a joke so good he can’t get out the punchline, and tears run down his cheeks.)

(It goes further, but the point is: Steph watches Damian drive a scalpel from the table into Tim’s eye, watches him twist until the twitching stops. Tim’s hands come up on instinct to grab Damian’s in the first moment, but Tim doesn’t fight it; he just holds on. Damian stumbles back and sits down hard on the floor.)

.

When Batman asks what happened, Steph speaks up before Damian can. “He killed himself.” Damian looks at her incredulously, but Steph plows forwards without hesitation. “It looked like he had a moment of lucidity. Tim asked us to kill him—his exact words were ‘make it stop’—” Her voice cracks, but she keeps going. “—and when Robin said we wouldn’t, he…” Steph swallows, and mimes jabbing herself in the eye. “Da— Robin tried to stop him, but Tim was… he was laughing, but he seemed really upset.”

Batman looks at Damian, who’s staring down at his blood-stained gloves (less blood-stained than Tim’s hands, which all but covered Damian’s.) “I promised,” Damian whispers, “that I wouldn’t let him hurt anyone. When we were both prisoners, I promised.” He looks up at Bruce, eyes full of tears. “I was going to break it! But he—”

Bruce places a hand on Damian’s head. “It’s alright, son. It’s not your fault.” (Damian doesn’t say anything else, just bursts into tears in his father’s arms. Steph wonders how long the can maintain the lie.)

(It’ll turn out she shouldn’t have worried; they’ll have much bigger problems soon, and you know what people say about keeping secrets.)

.

Here’s what they don’t realize: the Joker virus couldn’t survive outside of the human body or near-lab conditions. Transmission was near-impossible, and all victims up until this point had either been part of one of Joker’s schemes or subtly injected in crowded spaces; almost nobody caught it from anyone else.

Tim’s new strain (which he had been fighting with himself not to release, getting into a perfectionist loop as a distraction from the urge to just let it loose) as it turns out, is highly contagious. It can survive for a good few hours in open air, and rapidly colonizers any surface it lands on.  Tables. Floors. Clothes. Skin. Hair.

Steph & Damian rode back to the Batcave and underwent thorough decontamination of themselves, their gear, and the car alone. They took their shots just in case of exposure, and played cards while waiting out the hyperactive high a micro-dose of Joker Venom causes. Bruce came back, decontaminated, and sat down to run tests (because otherwise he’ll have to face the fact his son died tonight, and he’s not ready for that. Tim’s not dead until Bruce processes it, and you can’t make him.) 

Bruce did not realize he needed to take the shot too.

.

(Gonna be completely open right now: we are NOT going Batman-Who-Laughs. Mainly because he relies on several of my least favorite interpretations of Bruce’s character to make anything resembling sense, but if you need a different reason… Tim’s strain is much less about re-creating the Joker a million times over, and more about twisting how people emotionally react to the world around them; everything makes the happy-chemicals, and the stronger the emotional reaction ought to be, the higher that rush. While not inherently a degenerative condition, the ever escalating self-destructive behavior this leads to means it might as well be. For example, some of the infected are probably going to seek out fear toxin just to get that high, but just because their happy chemicals are going nuts doesn’t mean the fear isn’t under it, and doesn’t mean they’re safe from heart attacks.)

(It’s just not funny if everyone is telling the same jokes, is it? If everyone has the exact same sense of humor? Wouldn’t that get boring after a while? Obviously. Big J was just too self-absorbed to realize Timmy’s joke was better.)

.

The early symptoms can be easily mistaken for sleep deprivation & too much caffeine. The secondary ones can be chalked up to grief. It takes a little over a week for the infection to become obvious. The incubation period is only a couple of days.

Wayne Manor: compromised.

The Batcave: compromised.

Literally everywhere Bruce went before he realized what was going on: compromised.

(Wayne Enterprises, city hall, the public funeral, the Watchtower: all compromised.)

(Bruce locks himself in quarantine as soon as he realizes, but here is another problem: the micro-doses of Joker Venom are not a vaccine. They burn through the bloodstream like a secondary immune system, wiping out the J-virus specifically, but they do nothing to build up immunity. Re-exposure is always a concern. Bruce is perpetually contaminating everything in the room, and no sooner has the Joker Venom left his system than the infection sets in again. His blood work is never clean for more than a few hours.)

Heroes infected. Allies lost. No matter how hard they try, there’s not enough Joker Venom to go around, but oh, oh do they try.

.

The family falls apart.

Alfred’s heart can’t handle the treatments. 

Babs goes into complete lockdown. 

Damian feels so guilty, he throws himself into helping as many people as he can, taking only the bare minimum of shots so that there’s more for other heroes & civilians; when Damian gets sick, those borderline suicidal tendencies mesh with the J-virus in truly horrifying ways. 

Cass is the one who finds Damian’s body, barely managing to choke out her message to the other Bats as the gasses start to take effect. She manages to drag Damian almost to the window before she just can’t do it anymore, gasping laughter over the coms as her lungs give out, with backup still several minutes away. 

Jason (not yet reintegrated into the family) goes from a not entirely trustworthy, usually distant maybe-ally who would at least reliably back them up in an emergency to a usually hostile, paranoid mess, spiraling even deeper into his own depressive tendencies & terrible coping mechanisms as the virus spread, the shelters fell, and his trauma compounded on itself by the day.

(Once, Steph found a stash of liquor while searching for survivors. She, Jason, Dick, and Cass (who wasn’t dead yet) proceeded to get absolutely plastered that night, each talking about how they’d want to go out and making promises about what they’d do if the others died. It was the closest thing to relaxed any of them got since Tim & Damian first disappeared, and it would be the last they had together ever.)

(Here is why Jason is unrecognizable to Steph: he’s been a hostile loner for as long as she’s known him, pushing others away to protect himself, never abandoning them but never lingering any longer than he had to. He made it very clear he was helping because he “had” to, not because he wanted to, and even when they became closer after the world had fallen apart, Jason was still gruff & distant even at the best of times; even when they got along & liked eachother, the paranoia of never knowing if one of them might actually be sick was a constant wedge keeping them from getting too close. A Jason who doesn’t just occasionally let people stick around but seeks them out, whose insults are more affectionate than razor-edged, who grabs on and says, “This person is one of My People(TM), and anything that wants to mess with them has to do it over my dead body,” is an alien concept to her.)

Dick died evacuating some survivors from a 3rd floor apartment. Purely reflexively, he tried to give them a reassuring smile. Purely reflexively, they shot him in the face. (Steph, on the building just across the street keeping lookout, heard the shot and saw Dick fall. Whether he would’ve survived the gunshot is irrelevant when hitting the pavement practically head-first.)

One rescue mission was almost a clean success. They got the survivors all the way to the escape vehicle before realizing there was a kid still in the building. Jason’s jaw set, and Steph barely had time to scream for him not to go, don’t do this, don’t leave her like this, before he was running back in. (The kid made it out. Jason did not.)

Steph broke every promise she’d made about not giving up, about fighting to the end, about going out in a blaze of glory, after being cornered by a swarm. She chose to go out on her terms, though, refusing to give them the satisfaction of her pain or of her becoming one of them. All Steph’s cures would be unusable by the time help came, either smashed or tampered with by the Joker-zombies, but she had enough for the Joker Venom to do its original job.  She took all of them, and died laughing at her own ultimate failure.

.

.

.

(And then she wakes up.)