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tamamatango · 16 days

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“Holy shit they actually froggin did it”: A Keroro Gunso anime revival preliminary info and speculation post (late as hell edition)

Okay first of all,

AWAKEN

That’s right, vanished-into-the-void bastard Kirb here, I am an alive person still, though I’m certain a lot of stuff on this blog is horrifically outdated. Don’t get too used to my presence, I’m a whole ass adult with a 9-to-5 now and don’t really have the energy to put into consistently maintaining this account, at least not to the degree that I used to (took me well over a whole ass MONTH just to write this post). However, I’ve returned for a special occasion, as basically anyone still in this fandom is already aware considering it’s been forever now:

We are so fucking back

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It took thirteen years and counting, but here we are, a brand new Keroro anime project is in the works—no “the short anime of all time” Flash series here, this is the real deal, straight out of 2004–2011, and goddamn is it beautiful. I might’ve been off the mark when I called it for the 15th anniversary, but it’s now the 20th, five years later, and the madmen did what was once thought impossible by many.

So let’s break down what the hell is actually going on here, because when this got revealed last month, Keroro fans on all sides of the globe basically started collectively running around like headless chickens. I’m gonna divide this aggregation post into the following sections:

Where did this even come from

Clearing up misconceptions

Okay so like what is “““Project”””

Collection of statements from official accounts, staff and cast, etc.

The Localization Question (TM)

Miscellaneous thoughts that don’t really fit anywhere else

I was originally going to make this a living document of sorts but some small stuff has already happened since I started drafting this the day after the reveal happened, so this should be it for the time being. It’s a hefty enough post as is. I am just a master procrastinator :V

That takes care of all the goofy intro nonsense, now for the parts you actually want to read, starting underneath the cut!

Section 1: The Signs Were There

As previously stated, 2024 is the 20th anniversary of the Keroro anime, along with the 25th anniversary of the manga’s serialization but apprently even they don’t care about that since they’ve made no fanfare around it whatsoever, unlike the joint 15th & 20th anniversary back in 2019. Maybe they will as we get closer to the manga anniversary in November, but for now-obvious reasons the anime has been overshadowing the manga side by a lot.

If you’ve been monitoring the Keroro PR account on Twitter (you bet your ass I’m still calling it that) you’ll have noticed an increasing output of Stuff over the last year or two, even compared to the prior anniversary. These include but are not limited to:

In 2021, the series opened an official YouTube Channel, where they’ve been doing reruns of the anime (region locked to Japan), PR podcasts, etc. It’s also where the revival announcement premiered on April 1 at midnight JST.

In 2023, the series opened an official Fan Club with a paid membership. Originally it was a temporary project meant to last for only the two anniversary years (2023 for the pilot oneshot’s anniversary, and 2024 for the anime/manga), but was ultimately extended indefinitely due to “good reception” (my guess is it was always planned to be more than two years but they didn’t want to make it too easy to guess as early as last year that the anime was returning lol). They have a merch store, giveaways, and some kind of social component. I don’t know much about it otherwise because it’s a paid membership that I don’t have access to.

The series has had an overall increase in merchandise and collabs since 2022 or so. This has pretty much always been the case, but there was a bit of a lull between the Flash series ending and the ramp-up period to this (I’d start at 2021 when the YouTube channel opened). Save for the 15th/20th stuff in 2019, for which the major project was Keroro UC, a spinoff manga/plamo line that just…never released all the models and has never been brought up again. Guess it didn’t do very well :V

A number of international releases/rereleases happened as well, but I’ll get into that a little bit more in its dedicated section. For now let’s just say that the anime being finally licensed and put up on streaming in North America may indicate the new series will be English translated in some capacity. It’s also made a resurgence in Korea, its biggest market outside Japan, where it’s had new exhibitions and collab cafes, a redub (that only got through 2 seasons I think), and even a new mobile game.

And finally, a week or so before the announcement, a new Twitter account was created specifically for the anime side of the brand. I think this was really the big tip-off, as Keroro PR has been the hub for all things related to the franchise for the last nearly 15 years, even when the original anime itself was still running during Twitter’s infancy. Keroro PR has posted everything for every other anime anniversary. The fact that now all of a sudden they had to sector off the anime stuff into its own account made it clear something bigger was going on. (Accordingly, the Keroro Anime account has labeled Keroro PR the “original work” account, AKA the manga side of things.)

Essentially I think they’ve been planning this to some degree since as long ago as 2021, the first time the president of Bandai Namco Pictures (animation studio comprised of Sunrise staff that took over the Keroro IP in 2015 and are now producing the new anime) openly acknowledged the possibility. I’ll just link my own tweet with the translation of his statement here. This was right around the opening of the YouTube channel, so I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

tl;dr Momentum for the anime component of the franchise has been building for the past couple of years pointing toward a new anime around the 20th anniversary, so I wouldn’t say this comes off as a huge surprise, though I was expecting something smaller scale than what we might be getting (more on that in the “what is this” section).

Section 2: No It’s Not April Fools, Guys, Plus Other Clarifications

With the announcement spreading across the internet, I’ve seen a few points of confusion going around that I’d like to clear up before I go any further.

As I’ve made clear in the section title, yes the new anime was revealed on April 1, no this is not a prank. A lot of Japanese companies do post April Fools pranks, but keep in mind April also marks the start of the new fiscal year in Japan, so many legitimate announcements are made as well. Plus, the original anime’s exact anniversary was on April 3, just a couple of days after the announcement.

I’ve seen a lot of people call this a new series, season, etc., but officially, the only term used to describe this so far is “new anime project”. That could mean literally anything, from TV series to movie to ONA and so on. I am leaning closer to a certain interpretation, which is what the entire next section is for, but for the time being, calling it anything other than “new anime” is technically not concrete info.

There seems to be a little bit of confusion on what studio is working on this, but in short: it's Bandai Namco Pictures (BN Pictures or BNP for short). As previously mentioned, this is the studio that inherited the Keroro IP when it spun off from Sunrise in 2015. Sunrise, the anime's original studio, is now a brand name for the larger anime management company Bandai Namco Filmworks. Although they've held the IP for almost a decade, this is the first time they've really gotten to do anything with it besides merchandise licensing and some anti-piracy commercial from a few years ago that they’ve ironically scrubbed from the internet now. If you've seen the name Studio BIND (Mushoku Tensei, Onimai) floating around, they're assisting with the production but are not the primary animation studio. Of course this is all assuming this setup continues on to the final project and not just for the PV, but I see no reason to assume otherwise at the moment. It would be rather unusual for BNP to outsource anything if it was solely for a 30 second trailer.

I think that does it for the main points of contention I wanted to address for now, so moving on to the thing we all really want to know…

Section 3: Okay But What Is It Actually???

Well, as I said in the previous section—we don't know, lol. At least not officially. But if we put our thinking caps on, we can make a few deductions:

The anime project will be broadcast on TV. In other words, it won't be an ONA (original net animation). This is determined based on the fact that TV Tokyo, the network the original anime aired on, is on the production committee. For those who don't know, a production committee for an anime is the collection of parties/companies who contribute to the production and funding of the anime. For comparison, the Keroro Flash Series, which aired only on the TV channel Animax to accompany a dedicated timeslot for the original anime reruns, did not have TV Tokyo in its committee. So, it will likely air on TV Tokyo once again.

It's (probably) not a movie. This is going to be more evidenced by point 3 than anything, but BNP has been pretty clear about when something is a movie specifically in the past, such as when Kaiketsu Zorori had various feature films in the 2010s before getting an actual TV anime revival in 2020. Still, we can't be 100% sure until someone directly says otherwise.

It's going to be more than a one-off. I will post the statement in full in the next section, but the Keroro PR account uses specific wording (“resumption,” “new start,” etc.) that sounds very much like they’re making a longer term commitment, so this is straight from the horse’s mouth, essentially.

The series will be a continuation of the 2004-2011 series rather than a reboot. This one’s probably my flimsiest prediction as the PR statements sort of obfuscate whether it’s one or the other, but the character bios section on the new anime portal site gives away a big hint: the Garuru Platoon, Pururu included, is there. This means that we can reason that, at minimum, all or part of Season 3 has already occurred. The character bios themselves also summarize things that weren’t revealed until a little while into the show, such as how Momoka and Tamama met. That all said, the Garuru Platoon members do not have bios, so I suppose they want to keep what’s being done with them a bit of a secret; perhaps they intend to reintroduce them with some kind of dramatic arc again. Either way, if the series does retread/retell some old material, it probably won’t be the bulk of the story. This makes sense to me, as it’s not like the show has been so hard to find in the last decade that a reboot is necessary to get a modern audience on board—it reruns constantly on kids’ TV channels like the Japanese version of Cartoon Network, is available in full on multiple streaming platforms (movies included), and is now on its second rebroadcast of the whole series episode by episode on the YouTube Channel. Unless you’re a literal toddler, if you’re interested in the series, you’ve probably watched at least some of it already.

In conclusion, based on the above (admittedly sparse) evidence, I am inclined to believe the new anime project is a TV series that will air on TV Tokyo as the 2004 anime did and will be a continuation rather than a reboot; however, there is no way to determine episode length, episode count, etc. at this time. It could be a cour (for those who don't know anime, "cour" is your average 12-episode season), it could be consecutive cours, it could be split cour (in other words, goes on break for a season before returning), it could even be a year-round anime if they really wanna go all the way with it. Granted, I hesitate to believe that they would do the latter simply due to the nature of anime production these days, and as far as I know, BNP has not done a single year-round airing since its founding. Even the aforementioned Kaiketsu Zorori revival was a two cour (24-25 eps) series each year from 2020-2022. My guess is we're looking at something similar here, but Keroro is a pretty big deal, so could they make an exception? Maybe, but this setup would already lead to more episodes than the vast majority of anime these days, so it would still be plenty enough to be happy with.

Considering all this and the list of numerous hints that we were potentially getting a new anime as far back as three years ago as bulleted in Section 1, you might question what made me doubt that it could be a series in the first place. Well, besides just the series being so old and it being so long since the anime ended that it felt a little like wishful thinking, at least three members of the cast said that a new series was not something they were specifically looking to do...I think, anyway. Let me explain.

Last year, on December 9, a Keroro birthday event with Kumiko Watanabe (Keroro), Etsuko Kozakura (Tamama), and Takeshi Kusao (Dororo) was hosted in person and livestreamed on TwitCast for fans that paid for a ticket. There were two timeslots for the in person event, and only the evening show was streamed, with the afternoon one being in person only. Now that I have adult money, and being the impulse driven gremlin that I am, I paid for the virtual ticket. Most of it was just cute little segments like the three cast members doing live commentary on some of the birthday episodes, discussing the results of a “favorite lines from their characters” poll hosted on Twitter a few weeks before the event, and a brief visit from Jashin-chan of Jashin-chan Dropkick/Dropkick on My Devil, a series that Keroro recently collabed with for a series of merchandise. Unfortunately the event wasn't archived publicly and they specifically asked to not upload materials to social media, and I'd like to respect that request mostly out of consideration for the cast, so you will just have to take my word for it :P (besides those who were watching me talk about it in real time on discord).

The reason I'm going on this tangent is because, at the end of the stream, a special prerecorded video featuring the three cast members was shown exclusively for virtual attendees. In it they essentially explained that they still greatly enjoy the characters/series and would love to partake in more events and projects, but "not necessarily a new series." I promise you I listened to this clip over and over the entire time it was available and that's what I heard. Now look, the room they recorded this in was echo-y, and my Japanese is pretty decent (enough for my N2 anyways, yeah I did that while I was away from here clap clap) but listening comprehension is my weaker area, so maybe I just take a massive L here. When I started writing this post there was a sentence here guessing about whether they were just being cheeky or didn’t know yet, but an interview came out last month that gave what’s all but a conclusive answer to that. More on it in the next section but tl;dr, they likely did not know it was happening at all. Well, at least they got to be as surprised as we were :V

Anyways now that the thing has been revealed none of the last two paragraphs even matter, so I just prattled on for no reason besides to admit my own shame. Next bit.

Section 4: SAUCE PLOX??? (Current testimonies from relevant people/entities)

Naturally, when the trailer dropped, we got a pretty decent handful of comments from whatever staff and cast are on social media. Most of these are just people going “yay we’re back hooray!” (paraphrased) but the Keroro PR account statements are actually kinda sorta hints? So I’ll start out with those. There’s two tweets that I want to highlight here:

First is from April 1 (JST), the day of the reveal. In this tweet the account wishes everyone well for the new school/fiscal year, but the important part is the last sentence, This can be translated any number of ways (thanks to yoroshiku onegaishimasu and its 50 potential meanings, every Japanese translator’s worst nightmare), but essentially it’s something along the lines of “we hope you’ll support the restart/resumption of the Keroro anime for a long time to come.”

The keywords here are obvious: 再始動 (saishidou) meaning either restart or resumption. I know you’re probably thinking those are two very different things, but the nuance here is that it’s more of a restart in production than restart of the continuity. For the latter, I think it’s more common to see リメイク, which is just the English word “remake” in katakana. Worth noting that the Flash anime used none of these words in its marketing, but it did use language such as “brand new invasion plan,” “rebirth of Keroro,” and so on…in addition to, you know, having a completely different artstyle and a title change to just “Keroro”, which this clearly does not (the artstyle is relatively faithful to the old one and the project is under the original Keroro Gunso name).

The other big word is 末永く(suenagaku), which…also doesn’t have one exact translation, but implies somewhere between years or even an indefinite period of time. I didn’t want to say a specific unit of time in my translation of the statement because well, we can’t really be sure of anything here, but either way, they’re signaling that they’re most likely in it for the long haul.

Then there’s the tweet from the PR account commemorating the actual anniversary of the original anime (April 3). This one uses 新しいスタート, “new start”—no real multiple definition shenanigans here, this is about as literal and straightforward as you can get. In terms of the reboot or not question, this could lean either way, but it definitely adds to theory that it is a series of some sort.

Okay, that’s all for the individual tweets I’m gonna totally overanalyze, otherwise I’d be stuck here for even longer than I already have been. Here’s a quick list of involved staff who tweeted about the reveal:

Unsurprisingly, Kumiko Watanabe (Keroro) posted that day, reiterating that it is real and saying “believe usssss!” (As a reminder, half the internet was convinced it was April Fools for like a whole week)

Adding to the cast comments, Etsuko Kozakura (Tamama) says, “Whoo-hoo! Can’t wait for more news! Keroro Gunso is still the greatest!!”

Jouji Nakata (Giroro) didn’t make a specific comment about the trailer, but has been retweeting the other official accounts and such and replying about it, so he has acknowledged it otherwise. As a substitute, here’s a picture of him visiting the Keroro Exhbition in Ikebukuro a day early.

Here’s an interesting one—Haruna Ikezawa (Momoka) said about the trailer, “Really?! Is this real?!?!?!” While no cast members outside of the Keroro Platoon were officially revealed to be reprising their roles, I’m assuming they’re going to try their best to reassemble as much of the cast as of season 7 as possible—besides Keiji Fujiwara (Paul/Narrator), who sadly passed away in 2020—so I kind of figured Ikezawa would know about this, but maybe not…? Well, considering that the main five were completely blindsided by this to the point where they weren’t even sure this was a real thing until they were in the middle of recording it (as I said previously, more on that later), I suppose the other cast members were just. Not told. I don’t really doubt Ikezawa would return (she even stated it could happen someday all the way back when the then-final season ended in 2011 and did come back for Flash)…but unless they were like really worried about leaks why even keep them in the dark to learn with the rest of the public, idk man :V (so much for not overanalyzing tweets huh)

On to production staff now, here’s the tweet from Satoshi Koike, animation director of the latter third of the original and also the reveal trailer, indicating that he’s most likely back for the new project. It’s just a simple “Welcome back! (de arimasu)” but the images he used were drawn back in 2019 to commemorate the start of the Reiwa era, spoofing the original lyrics of the first opening. The reveal trailer tweet itself from the Keroro Anime account does this too (“Starting today, the Reiwa era shall be known as the Keroro era!”).

New to the staff is Jouji Furuta (yes we have two Joujis now har har), who did the storyboards and direction for the trailer. He’s relatively new to the scene as a whole, with his most well known project being Shaman King Flowers. Although he never worked on the series before, he did a pretty good job emulating the original, and based on the last line of the tweet, it seems like he will be staying on for the full project as well.

And now for a kind of weird section where I talk about the few related accounts that the Keroro anime twitter is following but haven’t made any kind of verbal acknowledgement yet.

First and foremost is Mine Yoshizaki—you know, the guy who created the fucking series, whose name is on the copyright string and whose explicit permission they had to get to do another anime in the first place? Yeah so it’s been over a month since the reveal now and there has been zero acknowledgement from him. I do know his personal social media account has been inactive for quite a few years now (I feel like the anime account is only even following it for symbolic reasons), but he had multiple other opportunities to say something at this point. He did contribute some signed artwork to the anime-focused exhibition that just ended but nowhere in it does he directly mention the new adaptation, and so far he hasn’t commented on it in Shonen Ace (maybe in the next volume, assuming that’s soonish). I have my theories about his relationship to the anime, especially now that the Kemono Friends fiasco has occurred, but that’s all a story for another day or never. I’m sure he’ll contribute something later, but even so it’s just really bizarre to have nothing to say about your biggest creation’s first new adaptation in over a decade. Oh well.

Character designer Fumitoshi Oizaki, who has been around since the beginning if I remember correctly, has been retweeting things, but no official comment just yet. (He discretely left a message at the expo apparently, but didn’t post it online, so no idea if it mentions the new anime.) He isn’t credited on the trailer, but considering he’s still been pretty involved with the franchise’s promotion over the last few years, I would be very surprised if he wasn’t returning.

Last but certainly not least is Junichi Sato, the chief director for the original anime for the first two seasons, arguably its most well-known and critically praised era. He’s also a very notable director in his own right, having headed other famous series like early Sailor Moon and Ojamajo Doremi. Sato didn’t direct the original anime for the majority of its runtime (though he did direct the first four movies), but he still directs and storyboards on projects to this day, including for other franchises’ major anniversaries (namely Doremi and Precure). Though not certain, I think it’s very possible that he returns for this in some capacity, if not as director than perhaps for storyboarding or general advising.

To close out the testimony section, I’m going to share here the translation I did of the aforementioned interview with Kumiko Watanabe in last month’s issue of Newtype (anime-centric magazine published by Kadokawa). I won’t re-summarize it here since it’s not particularly long, but the main takeaways from this in terms of hints as to what we can expect are that a) the cast was surprised by this and potentially didn’t even know back in December when they last discussed the possibility of working on Keroro again, and b) as I previously speculated, this is going to be a long term enough project that at least Watanabe feels the need to physically prepare for it lol. And thankfully, it seems they’re all excited to go back to the series. I spent a long time thinking they might not be up to it again since it’s been so long and they’re much later in their lives/careers (Nakata just turned 70 oh man) but I’m glad I was wrong! Though I don’t expect this to be another 300 episode commitment anyway; in spite of the PR comments I don’t think we’re going for that long with the nature of anime production these days lmao.

And now for a topic which I think many of you are concerned about…

Section 5: “But what if my 日本語 is not 上手???” (The Localization Question)

If you did not get the joke in the above headline without looking it up, it’s probably safe to assume that if you want to watch this Thing, you will need it in a language other than Japanese (and even if you did get the joke you will know if you are truly 日本語上手 when people stop saying 日本語上手 to you). I’m going to focus on English for this post since that’s the primary language of the audience here, though I would be very shocked if there isn’t at minimum a Korean translation—dub more likely than sub imo, since the most famous version of the show there had different names for the characters and was changed to be set in Korea, and the series is HUGE there to the point where it almost rivals the Japanese market.

So, English. Well, if it were a few years ago (say, if this came during the 15th anniversary like I was originally coping over), I would be markedly less optimistic about getting any official translation at all. At that time, the dub was explicitly dead and the only English sub had been delisted for a few years, and even that was only available in a select few countries in Continental Europe on a pretty obscure streaming service called Viewster for like a year or two before getting pulled. It’s no surprise that this particular sub eventually became more well known as the subs on the torrents compiled by ColdFusion (whoever that was, I’m still not sure myself). That was until…

…the magical year of 2021, when our heroes at Discotek licensed the ENTIRE SERIES (minus the movies) for an official English release using Viewster’s existing translations! That’s right, we got all of it. And not only that, the whole series was also added to Crunchyroll, though only the sub; Discotek had the Funimation dub but it seems it did not get ported to Crunchyroll when the merger happened this year. It does seem that Crunchy has still not made the series available outside of the US and Canada, which is a shame, but man is it still surreal to have the entire series legally available both digitally and physically after nearly two decades of scattered fansubs and hardly accessible official releases. Surely this was a huge win for Discotek, right?

Weeeeeell…no. Of course they weren’t able to say it out loud, but it’s been extremely heavily implied that unfortunately the BluRay/DVD releases flopped for them, and they did say they definitely won’t be getting the movies or the Flash series. They also stopped releasing the discs on a one season a year basis and started bundling them together, with seasons 5–7 coming out all at once later this year, so they’re clearly trying to just get it off their plates. To be honest, this was pretty predictable because…it’s been on Crunchyroll since before the discs even came out. Look, physical media is super cool and all, but who in this economy is going to pay $40-60 per box for a handful of seasons at most when they can get the whole damn thing on their phone for like $8 a month. Crunchyroll isn’t necessarily a disc killer; their release of Digimon Adventure, for example, still seemingly did well despite that series being available on Crunchyroll two years prior, but in addition to Digimon being more popular in the west, it’s one $60 purchase for the whole series versus having to spend like over $200 for 358 episodes. I applaud them for rolling the dice and trying to get this behemoth of a release out there, but I’m not surprised about the lack of financial returns.

However, since Crunchyroll now has set a precedent of having the original series available on their platform, we just might get the new series available on there as well—if not as a simulsub, then at least dropped in batches later on. I’m not 100% confident in this, particularly because technically Discotek still holds the license, but my guess based on the way they’ve talked about the series is that they’re pretty open to someone else taking it off their hands when they’re done releasing the original series (and the translations weren’t originally theirs to begin with anyways, they purchased them and did some touch-ups to the existing translation with added typesetting). As far as simulsubs go, the kids’ shows that get simulsubbed tend to be from Toei, with whom Crunchyroll has a known partnership. But if it is split into cours rather than being a year-round anime, I think the chances of a simulsub go up. Whatever the case may be, it’s for sure in a better position to get an official subtitled release than it ever was before. I’m certainly praying this happens because I believe most of the people capable of fansubbing (with good translation anyway) have gradually moved away from the fandom over the last decade for various reasons—myself included, though mostly I just quit fansubbing/scanlation in general for Personal Reasons(TM). Fingers crossed, everyone.

So subs remain as a not-guaranteed-but- definitely-not-low possibility. But what about a dub? If you recall, Keroro has had a very rocky history in 3D with English dubs, with the American dub being in licensing hell for years before finally falling into Funimation’s lap and subsequently failing to take off despite remaining a beloved cult classic to Some Fans (I am not as high on it, but longtime Kirb followers probably know that by now), and the only other English dub is relegated to the network Animax in Hong Kong + Southeast Asia with no official home release, leaving all of it besides parts of seasons 3 and 4 as lost media (and the voice acting sucked ass but at least the script was accurate). But we’re not in the mid 2000s to early 2010s anymore; this is the screamin’ ’20s, baby! So much anime is getting dubbed now, sometimes at almost the same time as the Japanese release! There must be a chance, right?!

Eeeehhhhhh I wouldn’t bet on it. Even the Toei kids’ shows Crunchyroll started simulsubbing usually don’t get dubs (Digimon is an exception, and the reboot’s dub took YEARS to come out). Anime dubs, as far as I’m aware, are not cheap to produce (though it’d be great if more of what the companies are pocketing went to the actors’ wages >_>), and if the show does have the potential to become somewhat of a long runner, I think they’ll need to see more interest around the IP to fund one, and both Funimation and now Discotek’s releases have proved that the audience for it isn’t always there. I also speculate they’d be doing a lot of recasting; the casting process is not as smooth and (I believe) more expensive than it is in Japan, and a lot of the original cast are not working as often in the field anymore and/or have been involved with some pretty serious controversies—I’m sure those in the know are thinking of a specific drawn-out conflict but I’m pretty sure it’s more than just About Him at this point. So let’s just say that while some of the cast still remembers the show fondly, I think trying to get them all in the same project again would potentially open some cans of worms better off left closed. It’s not 100% impossible it gets dubbed, you never know what the industry can manage to make work these days, but I’d wager it’s like 90% not happening. Just a hunch. If anyone more knowledgable than me on anime localization (this goes for both the dub and sub stuff) would like to argue me with better explanations than I have I’d very much be glad to hear it.

Section 6: The Stuff That Doesn’t Fit Elsewhere + Final Thoughts

There’s not going to be any real organization to this section. Here’s just some bullets of miscellaneous stream of consciousness thoughts related to whatever:

The character bios page on the site linked in section 3 has some WEIRD romanization choices. I don’t expect these to reflect on any official localization because chances are they’ll go with what Viewster used, which is largely what the fandom is used to besides the Kululu/Kururu split. It is indeed Kululu here and Kululu has been the de facto official spelling for a very very long time now but I still have a personal preference for Kururu because “Kululu” loses the onomatopoeia joke and I’m a rebel. But like. “Tololo”? Since when has Tororo ever been called that in any media? And worst of all, “Pole”? POLE?? That’s literally never been a thing what glossary did they pull these from.

Also worth noting, Alisa and the Narrator had merchandise sold at the Keroro expo (will talk about that next btw) despite not being on the characters page. This isn’t a confirmation of anything but I would be very surprised if Alisa doesn’t return at some point since she was pretty prominent later in the show and Yoshizaki seems to have a particular fondness for her, and the Narrator will obviously be there with a recast, though jury’s out on if his little ’sona guy will show up too. It won’t be the same without Fujiwara :(

I do want to touch upon the “Keroro expo”, officially known as the “Keroro Gunso Super Gerogero Museum” (expo is a fine shorthand because the Japanese word can mean exhibition also), since I’ve mentioned it a couple times throughout this write-up. This was an event that was held in Ikebukuro just recently from April 27–May 12 that was basically a walkthrough experience recreating settings from the anime, having artwork and stuff sprinkled in between (all reused, no new concept art or anything sadly). The main gimmick was that the venue had an exclusive app that let you take AR pictures with models of the Keroro Platoon. It also had an AI chatbot feature where you could talk to each member of the platoon, and not too many posted pictures of this feature but apparently the chatbots were uhhhhhh weird. I have no idea how much of it is generative from other LLMs, and I’m assuming they programmed it at least partially with their own original input/databases (which is the only way to make generative AI even close to ethical), but from the few screenshots I’ve seen their speech was just a little bit awkward and some of the stuff they said was really bizarre. At one point users started to turn it into an otome game and successfully romanced the frogs, which I’m assuming is a little bit out of the bounds of what they were expecting from this experiment. If they do release that app publicly at some point—they labeled the version at the expo to be a “test version,” so maybe—I sincerely hope they at least fine tune it because Good Lord. Finally and maybe most importantly, there were new voice lines recorded for the exhibit to give it an audio-drama type simple story, but unfortunately it was probably not archived because video recording was not allowed inside the venue. The platoon all had new voice lines along with Fuyuki and Natsumi, reportedly still played by Houko Kuwashima and Chiwa Saito respectively, so most likely they will return to reprise the roles for the new anime, though I don’t think those two were much in question. That’s really like the only important part of this for the purposes of this post I’m not sure why I mentioned anything else here actually. AI chatbot Dororo wants you to know he enjoys tickles from Giroro and Tamama. Yeah this thing’s a little fucked

I didn’t want to get too deep into this in section 3 because it’s not really a production related question, but…are Shin Keroro and related new characters gonna be in this or not? For what it’s worth the site seems to count the Flash series as part of the anniversary celebration, and screenshots with Shin in them are there even if he is completely absent from the character page. Flash was a total reboot so I don’t think it will be that exact iteration of the character if he is in the new anime, but there must be some way to work his stuff into the existing anime canon even with its many differences from the manga. Honestly I think the main obstacle to him appearing is just that the guy is not very popular lol. He’s hardly in the manga anymore and Tomosu and Myou are in it even less. I’m not sure if it was just franchise fatigue following the end of the anime but the reception to Shin was very meh across the board (at least among longtime fans, kids might’ve liked him I think. Which makes sense). So I could totally see them skipping him entirely. There’s still a lot of post-anime manga-only stories without his involvement at all, some that included him but he could easily be changed to some other character, and for the stories that revolved around him, well, the Flash anime got to a decent amount of them. This could really go either way but for now I’m going to lean toward him not being included. If he’s put in I think it will not be until the “second season” (whatever the definition of that ends up being) so we can be eased back in to the existing cast first before shaking things up significantly.

I like the new artstyle, assuming it carries over from the trailer to the final project. It looks like they hit a happy medium between the early and late artstyles of the original anime. This is the most obvious with the human cast who haven’t received new official artwork by Koike and/or Oizaki in a looooong time, and they look much better than the last time we saw them in season 7 where everyone got weirdly lanky for some reason.

Okay FINALLY I’m done here for now I think. At the time of writing we’re pretty much just in a “wait and see” phase with no other real concrete info around that I haven’t touched upon in this post. Trust me, I’ve tried digging for more, but I couldn’t find anything really interesting staff-wise and very few of the staff credited in the trailer are even on social media (sometimes staff can be a bit loose-lipped so it’s possible to get hints there). I’ve also checked every nook and cranny of the official sites of both animation studios and the companies on the production committee and turned up with nothing of note. I’m hoping we get some more info at least sometime between now and autumn.

Thanks for reading all the way to the end (or speedscrolling here, don’t worry I won’t be disappointed lol). I hope you found it informative even though I probably spent way too much time yapping about dumb shit. It took me entirely too long to write this post, but I don’t have as much time as I did as a teenager and it’s been a good few years since I’ve done a really deep dive into Keroro stuff. Needless to say, I’m beyond excited for this project and can’t wait to see how the last seven years of me huffing unhealthy amounts of copium pays off. I’ve had like a month and a half to sit on it now and it honestly still doesn’t feel real!

I will most likely return to report when we get some amount of substantial info—hopefully with way fewer words lmao. Until next time! Ge-gero~

#keroro gunso #sgt frog #sergeant keroro #anikero reiwa #I’m gonna call it that in tags because we don’t know if it’s airing in 2024 lol #infodump #translation #did y’all miss me #I hope not

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mittensmorgul · 5 months

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2023 in Mittens Fic

It's once again time for the annual accounting of things I have written! I think this year's total fic count, at 4, is my lowest ever, but I still managed more words than my two lowest years (peak pandemic, i loathe you still).

For reference, past year end summaries can be found here:

2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | the closest thing I have to a 2015 wrap up post is the lil bit of text at the bottom of 2016′s post… even though my two most popular fics were from 2015 lololol

So I guess my main writing goal for 2024, since I know I will never surpass my 2015 totals, is to just do better than I did in 2023. Here's to more fic!

I managed a Pinefest fic, a fic I started for DCBB but didn't finish by the draft deadline and posted on my own, an annual destielversary fic, and an annual holiday fic. I think that's the bare minimum of what I try to aim for in a year, so even if I'm personally disappointed I didn't get anything else written in addition to that bare minimum, I'm glad I was at least able to hit that goal. Across this year's four posted fics, there's a total of 110,875 words.

Also, again slightly cheating, but since I've mentioned it for the past two years, I'm still making the @spngeorg podcast! In case the millions of words of meta I've written over the years aren't enough, and you want to hear me yell out loud about the show, you can start from the beginning on Spotify or wherever you enjoy podcasts! Or if that sounds daunting, since I just uploaded Episode 138, 7.12 Time After Time, which makes the backlog a lot to catch up on honestly, you're also welcome to just jump in now. Everyone please come yell with me! I swear, if you do start from the beginning, that I get dramatically better at this whole thing as we go on... at least, I think I have. If nothing else, episodes are far more manageably shorter now that I've developed a system. Only took 2 1/2 years, but here we are... :'D

With that business out of the way, let's break down those numbers! Presented in the order they posted:

Dear Western Red Cedar #2409 (63,433 words rated M) Written for @deancaspinefest with gorgeous art by @alexiescherryslurpy, and inspired by this tumblr post that had been plaguing my imagination for several years. It's a two person love triangle with Forest Ranger and secret bestselling author Dean and small town librarian Cas. Heck I want to go reread it just thinking about it now... this is a happy place fic for me.

one working part (40,051 words, rated E) I started this for DCBB, but failed to make the draft deadline, then finished it before posting began anyway... another canon finale fix-it fic, but this one is heavily It's A Wonderful Life flavored and based on a conversation I had with @greywrenn last year. This story picks up at the beginning of 15.19, and then slowly veers more and more from canon, running alongside canon and making rude hand gestures at canon along the way, because they all deserved to have nicer things than canon gave them.

all the time in the world (1,289 words, rated T) This is my annual Destielversary story, short and sweet. It's set immediately after the events of One Working Part, but you don't have to have read that to enjoy this one. Just know Cas is back with Dean, and they've got the rest of their lives stretched out in front of them.

Christmas, Present (6,102 words, rated T) My annual holiday fluff fic, this time set in an AU, since most of my past holiday fic has been canon universe. A Dean/Cas college AU, with Matchmaker Charlie who just wants her friends to be happy already!

And that's my year in fic (unless I manage to post something else in the next 33 hours or so, and lol no that ain't happening...)! As per usual, I've already written more than half of this year's word total for the 2024 Pinefest, which will post in March... or april... heck when is my posting date even... it's coming soon anyway! But it's all written! :'D

Once again, I've still got so many more stories I want to write. Even the To Be Written list has grown again. My idea list long ago surpassed SABLE status, and yet now there's even more on it...

It's five pages, and two thousand words longer than it was last year. this just gets worse every year :'D

But that means I'll never run out of things to write, and that's always something to celebrate!

Thanks again to everyone who’s read, kudos’ed, commented, reblogged, liked, rec’ed, and enjoyed anything I’ve written in the last year. I love you all. <3 See you in 2024!

#spn fanfic #destiel #things i have written #2023 fic roundup #shameless self promotion

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fairytales-and-folklore · 7 months

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20 Questions for Fic Writers

Thank you for the tag @marimbles! ♥️ No pressure tags: @litfeathers @lollytea @ashanimus @greyhavenisback @princecharmingwinks @tails89 @nutellarghh @ash-mcj @childlikegoblinqueen @daydreams-and-honeybees @avatarmerida @asarcasticwitch @sailahina @secretly-of-course @sapphic--kiwi @haystarlight @zyrafowe-sny @peachytea04 @slightecho

1. How many works do you have on AO3? just hit 100 last month!

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 479,814

3. What fandoms do you write for? I've dabbled in quite a few over the years, but the ones I've written the most fics for are doctor who (eleven/amy) teen wolf (sterek) and the owl house (huntlow)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Error 404: Brain Cell Not Found (teen wolf | sterek) You Always Want What You're Running From (sleepy hollow | ichabbie) What To Do When Your Emotionally Constipated Werewolf Boyfriend Gets Cursed By A Witch: A Guide (teen wolf | sterek) Gold Rush (the owl house | huntlow) Lovesick (the owl house | huntlow) 5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I do! Every kind comment means so much to me, so I always take the time to respond to all of them (though I'm not always great at getting to them on time.)

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hmm probably The Courtesan and the Writer (doctor who | eleven/amy) I used to dabble in angst a bit more when I first started writing fic, but these days all my fics are pretty much guaranteed to have a happy ending, because real life is hard enough lol

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Pretty much all my fics have happy endings, but one of the happiest I wrote would probably be my huntlow college AU Until You Meet Someone Who Makes The Fall Feel Like Flying

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I wouldn't call it outright hate, but I have gotten a handful of rude comments over the years (complaining that I don't post often enough, telling me my headcanons are wrong, telling me how they think my story should have ended — one time someone yelled at me in all caps because I said that a character chilled red wine lol that one was wild)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do! Smut is fun. Mine is typically more focused on the emotional aspect than the physical, is usually the result of a long tension-fueled slow burn buildup, and is usually tooth-rottingly fluffy, soft, and sweet.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I have! Back in the days where superwholock plagued tumblr, I wrote one of the silliest cross-overs imaginable, combining doctor who, torchwood, bbc sherlock, supernatural, the avengers, and sleepy hollow: Lords, Gods, and Madmen

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yup 🙃

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have! But most of them never saw the light of day 😂 one that did is called An Eggcellent Morning For Cooking Lessons co-written with @ash-mcj @tails89 and @nutellarghh

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

I think my top three ships are reflected in who I've written the most fic for: huntlow, sterek, and the eleventh doctor/amy pond

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Luckily, everything that's posted to AO3 is finished, but at this point I'm thinking I'll probably never get around to writing the little nightmares, reylo, and captain swan WIPs I've had sitting in my drafts since 2019

16. What are your writing strengths?

I've been told I capture the characters really well, which means a lot to me. I've also been told that my writing is cozy and comforting and fills people with warm fuzzy feelings, which is always nice to hear 🥰

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I will sit there and agonize over the same paragraph trying to make it sound perfect instead of just letting the writing flow, so sometimes a fic will be in the works for a very long time until it's finally ready to be posted (by which time I'm probably sick of it and never want to look at it again 😂)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I've dabbled in this a little bit, but it's usually been plot-relevant, like a character learning to speak the language (i.e. when Hunter tried to learn Spanish in Being Human.) When I do write in another language, I always do my best to research and try to get the translations as accurate as possible, and I always include the English translation either in the fic itself or as an author's note so readers don't have to break away from my fic to google anything. (And also so that they know what my intention was, on the off-chance I translated something wrong and accidentally wrote something offensive.) 19. First fandom you wrote for?

Does anyone remember that vampire show that came out back in like 2009? Moonlight? Yeah, that one lol

20. Favourite fic you've ever written? God, that's like asking me to pick my favorite child. Okay fine, it's Until You Meet Someone Who Makes The Fall Feel Like Flying

#tag game #writer tag #writer tag game #fan fiction

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immortaldesiresproject · 2 years

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Hello friends and fans!! I finally have some updates for ya’ll!

I’ve been working on this project alone for months, specifically since the day Pixelberry announced they will no longer continue forward with Immortal Desires. I was so crushed and saw so many other players and fans feel the same way. So, I decided to start messing around with making my own fan sequel after seeing @itlivesproject @thedistantshoresproject and @nightboundthesecond doing so well and seeing amazing products. I’m going to school for a BA in Game Art and Design, and my minor is Creative Writing, and I thought this would be a good go for my first video game. And I couldn’t be more excited to see things falling into place! I now have a writer onboard! Meet Mir! @timetravesty Hey everyone, I’m Mir and I’ll be helping out with the Immortal Desires 2 project! I’m a writer here on tumblr (couple of months till I hit the 1 year mark😯) and am really excited to be a part of this amazing project with everyone, but more importantly, helping deliver an amazing story to a series that ended too soon! Since we might know each other for a bit, some fun facts about me 🤔I’ve wanted a dog since I was around 6. I probably listen to my Spotify account 20/24 hours in the day.My favorite video games to play are animal crossing, stardew, undertale, Minecraft, and I was pretty into Haven recently, which I highly recommend 😌My favorite ghibli movie (since I had a marathon recently) is spirited away.I’m very excited for the future of this project and please look forward to future updates! 😗Nice to meet you all!

We’re still slowly moving, but, Mir and I have started expanding upon the plot points I’ve had planned for a while. We’re confident we’re going to be able to work well together to deliver a wonderful, full story for all of you.

And I couldn’t forget Ally! @fuckyeahilovemarcolinfan

I’ve been a long-time fan and player of Choices; I started playing in December of 2016, but I started getting into the fandom somewhere around the end of 2018, and started on an IG that I created way back in 2014. I didn’t really intend to make my IG account about Choices, but I wanted to connect with people who have the same interests as me, and to share my ideas and opinions about the book releases. A very dear friend of mine started teaching me how to collect assets at some point in time, and I’ve been kind of considered a Spoiler Queen ever since then lol. I focused on posting premium scenes because I want everyone to see those scenes since not everyone can afford them. I started making edits way back in October 2019 because I really wanted people to distinguish me. All in all, I’m very fortunate that my best bud showed me how to access these assets.

Ally has been wonderful in helping me acquire assets and just being super supportive and so helpful. She is so enthusiastic about this project and has been just giving the best vibes!

Now that you’ve met the team, time for some awaited updates for ya’ll! First, lets start with the preview!!.

So, to state the obvious, this is everyone in their formal wear! I have also given all of the side characters formal wear, but I felt like these are what the people are screaming for! And of course, we have our lil Sethy-poo included in here too and he got a makeover! If you would be so kind to click play at the video at the top because it’s featuring a rough draft of the title song. It’s my own lil creation, however, I’m recruiting folks from my local music scene to not only help out with this project, but to help support their bands and their projects!

Super bummed that the quality of these dropped because of the formatting, but I have included all three of the new expressions I’ve created: playful, shy, and disgusted. All of the main and primary characters have these faces! I have also gotten all of the female MC sprite sheets done, most of the female clothes, and all of the hair; I’m so excited to give you guys that update in the future!! From here, Mir and I will be working on a very rough draft of the story. I will continue working on assets for the MC since almost all of the primary/main characters are done.

The next update will likely be a few weeks from now; I’m not sure what I’ll have for ya’ll quite yet, but please stay tuned and ask any and all questions. Thank you all for the overwhelming amount of support and love; it’s greatly appreciate between me and the team.

#immortaldesiresfanproject #immortal desires #pixelberry studios #choices you play #cas harlow #gabe adalhard #astoria

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jtl07 · 9 months

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jtl07 fics, summer 2023

Kinda liked doing the half year recap in June and had planned to do another one at the end of the year, but since I had quite the posting spree this month, decided to do one now.

General stats

Total on this pseud: 12 (all avatrice / Warrior Nun fandom)

Fics posted (chronological order):

to all the girls (to you, to me) -- or: Ava watching people fall in love with Beatrice, including herself

leave it all behind (I’ll see you on the other side) -- or: Ava comes back - healthy, whole, quiet. Too quiet.

the long, delirious, burning blue -- or: the moody Top Gun 2 (Maverick) AU

another little peace (restful pieces): something old, something blue -- or: the girls buy cereal; or or: Bea learning the difference between safety and familiarity

looks for you in everything (finds you there) -- or: Switzerland vignettes based on items found in their bedroom

Enhanced Beings Tech Support transcripts -- or: What if there was technical phone support for “enhanced beings” like halo bearers?

another little peace (restful pieces): lets you see the wonder of it all -- or: Ava meets a member of her family

another little peace (restful pieces): like a boat -- or: Beatrice plays Stray Gods

late night vigil -- or: camila learns about beatrice's strap; she helps in her own way

another little peace (restful pieces): to always wake up to you -- or: avatrice proposal based off of SimplyKorra's fantastic headcanon

another little peace (restful pieces): perchance to dream (no more) -- or: Ava wakes up from a dream

can't go back -- or: Five times Beatrice tries a food for a second time

(More numbers, thoughts, and some plans below the cut)

More numbers

Total words: 36720

Shortest: 685 (to always wake up to you)

Longest (one-shot): 5987 (the long, delirious, burning blue)

Average/Median word count: 3060 / 2019

General thoughts

Nearly 10k more words in the past 3 months than I wrote the first half of the year - I guess being in a safe space after your life has been turned upside down makes a difference, huh?

I still don't know what happened this month - specifically, the two week period from 8/14 - 8/26 where my fingers were just trying their best to keep up with the stories pressing in my brain lol (willing to bet it's somethingsomething healing and how it can take many forms, like this kind of intense spike)

Fun fact: This is only the second time I've written a one-shot over 5k words this year (3rd time ever in my many years of writing fic). It's always interesting to look at the average / median word count because it's been firmly in the 2k range. I still want to challenge myself with longer work, they just take time and energy yknow? Under 3k, I feel really comfortable now, which is a cool feeling

Fic that surprised me:

Honestly, everything that happened in that intense two week period (i.e. everything posted after "the long, delirious, burning blue") was a genuine surprise. Every time one of those ideas happened, I felt like I was just trying to keep up. I was really glad to have the space - emotionally, physically - to write those stories.

And I guess what surprised me also was just how wide a range they all were. I've been trying to work on just "writing what will get written" and learning to turn off the judgemental voice in my head that says things like, "you should be writing more," or "you should be writing better ideas." It was a surprise that these ideas just kinda flowed without much friction, yknow? I'm taking it as a sign of growth :)

Fic that was the hardest to write:

Oh gosh hands down leave it all behind (I’ll see you on the other side) - I had to discard full drafts and start over from scratch multiple times to get to what's actually posted. I had tried different perspectives, different settings, different points in the story, but I just kept getting stuck. I think part of it was because when I write, I usually start with a vibe or an arc - with this one, I was starting with the turn, the twist - which I don't often write either. So writing this kind of story was new on all fronts

can't go back was also a bit frustrating to write - I've been dealing with a sudden recurrence of brain fog so I know part of it was that, but idk, I feel like it could have been tighter thematically

Fic that I'm proud of:

Definitely the Top Gun 2/Maverick AU, the long, delirious, burning blue. I mentioned this in a comment that when I first had the idea, I'd expected it to be more of an action fic - I don't often write action, so I thought it'd be a good opportunity to practice. But, as with most of my work, it ended up quite moody, more a reflection of grief and duty.

Why am I proud of it? Because despite my initial intent, and my initial disappointment when I realized the direction it was going, I allowed myself to go with it. Writing this piece helped me accept where I am in my writing, to accept the stories I choose to write and how I write them. This fic was not at all what I had expected, but it turned out to be exactly what I needed

Runner up: looks for you in everything (finds you there) - the final word count shocked me, honestly, I didn't expect to write so many vignettes. But I was mostly proud of the diligence behind this and letting my sappy side run free lol

WIPs in the wings

Lol my WIP list is hella long - and that's not counting a whole separate document I have that's just prompts. I still have some Supercorp ideas that I've not yet fleshed out that are more on the "experimental" side that play with form and formatting - I've also some avatrice ones in "genre" as well.

Surprisingly, I've a couple AUs I've been turning over in my mind - I blame playing Stray Gods for making me remember some video games I'd grown up playing lol Oh and I've been pondering how to do a litrpg/gamelit style fic as well.

There's a couple longer one-shots that I've been pecking at but are going to take me a while to finish - there's one that's sort of a sister to every leaf that falls (never stops falling) (not a continuation, more like a sister in terms of vibe and tone), and another that explores Ava having a new ability (will I ever stop being enamored with Switzerland era? The answer is no lol).

But mostly, I'm just going to vibe with happens - "write what will get written" and all. We'll see where it all goes!

If you've read this far, thanks a ton for your support and going on the ride that is my fics lol - much appreciation to y'all!

#my writing #jt writes fic #words about my words #avatrice #jt's fic recap

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radiowrites · 5 months

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2023 Writer Year-In-Review

Hi, I’m RaisedonRadio & FortressofmyPast on AO3 and FF.net. This is an on-going tradition since 2015. Check out my past year-end posts: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015.

Tagging a few, but if you come across this, consider it an open tag! You’re welcome to tag me back, I’d love to read it!

@writercorianarose @shesailsships @talesofsorrowandofruin @azdesertwillow @goneahead @littlemissfandomworld @dreams-of-kalopsia @halleyuhm

Big change for me compared to last year—in addition to NaNoWriMo, I actually posted fanfics! I tried to add some new questions to this year’s edition, I hope they might even move out of my tiny circle.

Total Word Counts: 51,920 for 2023 NaNoWriMo 15,570 on 2022 NaNoWriMo project 19,193 for July 2023 Camp NaNoWriMo (mostly fanfics) 28,310 in published fanfics (this number is overlapping with camp nano, I wasn’t paying attention, so I’m not going to add everything together)

Total Number Of Completed Works: 10 Total Number of WIPS worked on this year: 10 or so How Many WIPs do you still have: 23

Looking back, did you write more than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected? I wrote way more than expected! I seriously didn’t think I would do NaNoWriMo again. And I published ten fics! That’s ten more than last year!

Did you take any writing risks this year? The NaNoWriMo project was definitely a risk for me. I basically had an idea and no outline. It was quite a challenge to my perfectionism issues—I had to basically never reread anything and just keep going, fully aware that I can better foreshadow the ideas that came up halfway through in the next rewrite.

Biggest Surprise: I wrote for NaNoWriMo again, which I was pretty sure wouldn't happen lol, and hit the word count, all through discovery writing, and having very little idea where I was going with it.

Biggest Disappointment: I dropped that above mentioned project the moment November ended! I can tell it has potential, hidden in there. I will definitely return to it.

Do you have any writing goals for the new year? I’d love to at least finish the first draft of the 2023 NaNoWriMo project, bringing it to a tentative end so I can actually reread it and go from there. And keep writing fanfic, and maybe even work on the 2022 nanowrimo project…

Fanfiction Questions Below! (if you don’t write fanfiction feel free to skip or rework the questions for your original works.)

Fandoms I’ve written in this year: I wrote fics for 7 different fandoms! For the following kdramas: Island, Tale of the Nine Tailed, Memorist, Royal Secret Agent, W: Two Worlds, May I Help You?, and a little Korean Web drama called Handmade Love.

Your most popular story of the year? That would be Besides You with 327 hits and 47 kudos. However Superhero got the most comment interaction with 4!

The story that was easiest/or most fun to write: I Think He Knows was fun to write! I do just love brooding with a heart of gold formerly immortal male leads.

Hardest story to write: Rescue Me, Superhero, Restore, and Prayers & Promises were four works that I had left for dead, and came back and found them to be basically finished and just needed proofreading. (So just in case anyone wondered how I turned out three of those in like two days: they were actually done and I was hellbent on getting them out of my WIPs list)

Your sweetest story: That would definitely be Superhero. I altered my normal narrative style to better fit the child’s character, and I was really pleased with how it turned out.

Your saddest scene: I feel like I hit a lot of angst this year, but nothing really sad?

The sexiest moment you’ve written this year? *coughs* I wrote five pieces of smut. (Half of my fanfics were smut this year?!) Umm, I’m torn between Beside You and Don’t Blame Me? But also Never Be the Same and Take On Me???

Your favorite tag: (whether you use it the most or just something witty/perfect for the story) My brother announced to me that he reads all my tags (he was trying to embarrass me about one of my smut pieces) so I did a shout out to him in the next fic. He saw it within the day, I was actually impressed.

Most unintentionally telling story: (have you accidentally or purposefully exposed a detail about yourself?) Religious guilt seems to be a reoccurring tag this year. In all seriousness, not quite sure why, but yet it kinda makes sense? (its complicated lmao) And for some reason not one, but two fics ended with marriage proposals?! (I’m so single.)

Are any of your fics named after/heavily inspired by music? I’m RaisedonRadio and it would be concerning if—checks list—less than 8 of the 10 fics weren’t named after songs, haha! (I’m actually just really bad at naming fics…)

Good To You and Besides You are both songs by the band Marianas Trench, and are heavily inspired by the songs. Rescue Me is by OneRepublic, one of those more vibes than lyrics inspired. I Think He Knows by Taylor Swift was definitely on repeat for that fic, as well as Don't Blame Me. (Poems), Prayers, and Promises was more a steal the name of the song by John Denver, for some reason I think Cold by Corbyn was on repeat when writing that one. Take On Me was named more for the similarities between the MV and the series! Never Be The Same was for the vibes of the song by Camila Cabello but not really the lyrics.

What’s your own favorite story of the year? Maybe it’s cheating but I’m not sure if I can really choose? I know it’s not a common writer sentiment but I really do like them all for different reasons.

Like I churned out Good To You and Besides You within ten days of each other in July, after not writing any fanfic basically for a year and a half.

And then I pulled Rescue Me out of the dead drafts pile and made myself work on more description.

I Think He Knows was my first foray into a brand new fandom.

Don’t Blame Me is one of my rare canon divergence fics.

Restore was another dead draft that I found to be mostly complete, and decide to release into the world even if I knew there was so much more I could have done with it.

Prayers and Promises was not only another new fandom, but for some reason, I decided to write for a side character. It’s still sitting on just 1 hit and that makes it all the better that I really wrote it for myself.

Superhero was out of my comfort zone of writing for a kid’s perspective and I was so happy with how it turned out.

Take On Me was a draft sitting at less than 1k words and I challenged myself to finish it before the new year, and got it done in two days.

And then, to finish it all off with the intense desire to have ten fics under the belt for 2023, I wrote Never Be The Same in less than two days for the last drama I had watched, and the speed that the last two fics were actually finished was a huge change for me.

Fanfiction risks you took this year? I wrote fanfic for not one, but two fandoms that I had to create the first tags for on AO3! Also, as I started to slip into just writing for kdramas this year, I’ve basically become my own proofreader and editor at this point. Any mistakes are my own, lol.

My favorite part of fandom this year: That would be getting two kudos and a comment on I Think He Knows, one of the fics that is the first in its fandom tag. To actually connect with more fans of such a tiny project was so cool!

Thanks for reading and here’s to next year!

#fic in review #writer year in review #fanfiction #radiowrites #raisedonradio #fortressofmypast

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contaminatedlamb · 1 year

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Paint ペイント -[tmnt2012] Leonardo x Fem!Reader

summary: To your limited knowledge, something is going on in the midst of New York City. From the Bronx, all the way down to Brooklyn, creatures are emerging from the woodworks to ease their claws into the lives of every inhabitant. From a sous chef who dreams of refining her artistic skills, an androgynous woman with a dark past and a violent soul, to a once lively mutant teenager who's grief has morphed him into a shell of his former self. Together, with the help of their friends, family members, and wary allies— the truth will be revealed. No matter what the cost. Who knew that it would all start with a bit of paint?

notes: posting my first ever fanfiction on tumblr! I hope you enjoy, this is a passion project of mine that I have been working on since 2019. Show some love if you can, and let me know what you think of it! This book is also cross posted on Ao3 and Wattpad. Currently being rewritten as we speak.

warnings: gore and blood.

(Accidentally added a poll and can’t remove it from my draft so here we are lol)

Chapter One - Nothing to see here, folks! Everything is Fine.

You woke up that morning dreading to take out the trash.

It was Friday, that dreaded day of the week. While many celebrated it as the last day before the relief of a weekend, it happened to be only miserable for you. It was the busiest day in Murakami's Japanese restaurant, with all the drunk college men stumbling into the little hole in the wall to harass the three employees, and its blind owner/head chef. They made a mess, per usual, figuring out how to break down the token driven vending machine, demolish the bathrooms, leave their tables in chaotic disarray; all while somehow leaving drunker than before... If that was even possible. You were convinced that it had to do with those 'water bottles' they carried, which you were sure were just filled to the brim with vodka. There were times, when you were busy moping up a spilt drink, dizzy from their boisterous noise and the fumes, that you hoped they choked on their 'water'.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the only reason that you dreaded going to work. Every Friday was also the day where the garbage had reached unfathomable levels of toxicity and needed to be tossed into the dumpster for the workers to take it away the next morning. How was it that the small portion of the human race that came to the restaurant seemed to make the biggest, most disgusting mess possible? New York. Disgusting down to its very own garbage.

Black trash bags would pile up by the pounds against the back door, so much so that it may have become a safety concern and an entire health violation if you thought about it for too long. You were certain that some sort of mutant would sprout from the bags and squeak a pleasant hello~ towards your horrified face. And yet, that wouldn't even be the strangest thing you had seen happen during your almost two years living in Manhattan. You wished you were joking when you told the story about how you had once seen a grown man with a glorious beard dressed as a nun take on a costumed Elmo, who looked as if he discovered cocaine with those tech bros that cluttered the streets of the city. Only in Times Square at eleven at night did something like that happen— and it hadn't even been Halloween! The absurdity of it all meant that you couldn't help but begrudgingly be amused by the chaotic energy of New York City.

Now though, as you stood slouched over, your lower back pressed against the beige wall lined with awards and old pictures of simpler times, you glared with a burning ferocity at the trash bags. The trash bags which always seemed to come up with new scents and would send you to the bathroom to heave up the few crackers you had eaten for dinner. Those black plastic trash voids which oozed and dripped with weird discolored sludge that made the bags stick to the ground when you dragged them through the back door, leaving behind horrible slime trails in their path. Only once before in your life had you accomplished a feat of strength, and that was when you had jumped up from your chair to do one 'pull up' in P.E. at seven years old. You had been extremely proud of that loophole, and it was one of your most cherished memories, depressingly enough. That made this attempt of physical strength all the more difficult, in the end.

At this moment, glaring at the trash as if it had insulted your entire family, you were finally snapped out of the inner roasting that you had directed to the garbage— by being unceremoniously slapped in the face with a pair of neon latex gloves. You sighed loudly, closing your eyes to collect yourself before you, to put it in modern terms, cut a hoe. You bent over and snatched up the pair of yellow gloves with more rage than expected. Straightening, you met the grin of your friend, none other than Sukiyaki Ashika; the source of your constant suffering.

The young adult of Japanese and Pakistani descent leaned in the doorway which led to the kitchen, dark arms crossed over her flat chest, that same cheeky grin that she used against those teenage delivery boys plastered across her Asian based features. It was a weapon, paired with her psychedelic slanted red brown eyes, the sort you saw on vampire men in those terrible low budget movies. These weren't any different. They were real, and they were lovely. It felt at times that she would hypnotize you with her stare, so powerful were they. There were times where you couldn't hold her gaze, having to lose the staring contest by dropping your gaze to the ground.

"Make sure you put on them gloves, by the way." The teenager reminded you, tossing her Wolf cut bangs to the side, the back of her straight black hair cropped short. The bangs were wispy, perfect, flowing in the wind as if she were in a shampoo commercial. It was comical, and you wanted to stab it.

"Yeah— I remember what happened when you didn't wear them that one time." You snorted with a lopsided smile as you slid them both on, the latex snapping loudly against your skin as you raised your eyebrows. "How's your hands by the way?" You questioned, a grin growing across your face.

Yaki made a noise of annoyance as she looked over at the hallway between the kitchen and the main restaurant area, sniffing in distaste. "Its not my fault that the stuff in there stained my hands yellow." She grumbled, looking down at her hands with their splotches of light neon yellow blemished along her pecan brown palms.

"It's literally toxic." You noted, as you wrapped your hands around the tied knots of the black garbage bags, inhaling deeply as you attempted to lift them up. All that was obtained from that movement was a sore back and almost dislocating your wrists. You let out a groan through your clenched teeth, your shoulders shakily sagging.

Sukiyaki guffawed loudly, a grin growing on her lips as she curled a finger around a strand of her coarse hair to play with it. "Awe, babaaa." Cooed the woman, tilting her head to press against the doorway.

"Don't 'awe baba' me." You huffed back like the annoyed teenager you were, glaring at the bags filled with garbage that resembled you, kicking at the receptacle. "You're enjoying this." You huffed, dropping the bags, placing your gloved hands on your hips as you shot the bags another dirty look.

Yaki gave a half shrug coupled with her signature smile as she continued to watch in amusement at the train wreck starting before her. "Put 'cha back into it!" She called as you began to slowly roll each large trash bag across the linoleum floor and through the backdoor. You managed to shoot her a scowl over your shoulder as you began your process of piling all the bags outside the door. Finishing up, you pulled back one of the bags holding the backdoor open, allowing the heavy wooden door to fall shut against its doorway.

You listened for a moment as Yaki faintly sang All Star to herself through the closed door, as you began the long process of figuring out how exactly you were going to drag each humongous bag into the six feet tall dumpster bin. Your arms already shook with the effort, your tendons stretched out against your skin, as you tried your best not to fall over. You would've loved Sukiyaki to help you, or take over even, but you knew it was your turn. If you ended up asking, you knew what would follow. The teasing, the pokes in your sides, ruffling up your hair before she would finally submit and get the job done. Effortlessly tossing in the bags as if she were playing basketball, not a bead of sweat to be found, her hair perfect as always. It was annoying how perfect she was, and this time, you decided that you would put the garbage in its place without submitting yourself to the mortifying experience of asking Suki to help. At least you could try to hold onto a silver of dignity left in your body.

After loud fits of swearing, prayers to God, squealing as the bulging bag teetered back from the edge of the metal container and almost crushed you (if you hadn't ran off before it crashed to the floor) and, embarrassingly enough, a bit of frustrated tears being shed, you managed to shove a bag into the dumpster. Placing each on the edge and shoving them all inside with a loud grunt, you found yourself finding a rhythm. It did little to cheer you up as you felt the muscles in your arms beginning to complain. You were definitely going to blackmail Yaki into buying you some ice cream after your shift was finished— after all, it was the most your roommate could do to soften your pain.

"This is supposed to be your job." You grumbled to no one in particular, feeling the bead of sweat tickle the side of your temple as it slid. You dragged the last trash bag towards the dumpster bin, loudly (and explicitly) directing your frustration towards an imaginary Yaki. Fuming, cursing, you planned in your head, allowing your mouth to run wild. You could mess up her perfectly styled hair (though she would attack your hair then too, and it looked bad enough as it did after a long hot day of work), you could hide her earbuds in her locker (but then she would talk your ear off in the subway home), or, you could smack her with your broom. The broom smacking seemed the easiest, the most surprising, and frankly, the funnie—

Something squeaked back in response.

Your head swiveled around, your fingers gripping the trash bag as it teetered on the edge of the dumpster (dangerously so, as you dug your heels into the ground), your eyes wide, shoulders aching and nostrils flaring. The rats in New York City were as large as an alley cat, and you were not prepared to catch the bubonic plague from one of those buggers. You were pretty sure you had been vaccinated against rabies as a child, but a quick trip to the hospital to confirm that was not something you looked forward to. Either way, the thought of a rat sinking its dagger like teeth into your ankle did not sound fun.

Your eyes scanned the dark narrow alleyway, listening closely to hundreds of flashing cars zooming by on nearby streets, their horns blaring in the distance. Your pupils dilated and adjusted to the shadows cast by the towering buildings surrounding the alleyway, making sense of the shapes along the walls. Garbage bins, loose trash, scattered needles, rotting garbage bags from the business in the next building, cardboard boxes. Nothing. Nothing suspicious at all. Your knuckles turned a shade paler as you held onto the trash bag for dear life, turning towards the giant receptacle, finally releasing as it hit against the bottom of the bin with a loud thud.

Another squeak echoed in the alley as you brought your hands abruptly to your chest, ("protecting your innocent little heart now, baba?" You heard sukiyaki's voice tease you in your mind), your eyes falling towards a pile of trash bags against the opposite wall. Your heart thudded angrily against your chest. It felt as if it wanted to crawl up your throat and escape, running. You wanted to run, but your feet were glued to the asphalt. You cautiously reached for the rickety broom that was propped against the wall, right next to the garbage bin. Isidore must've been here recently, brushing the loose vegetables out into the street to be run over or stolen by the rats. Your fingers curled around the cool blue plastic, your sweaty palms squelching against the material. You were ready to slap any demon rat that came anywhere near you.

You gripped the plastic broom tightly with both hands, watching closely as one of the trash bags began to vibrate. Yes, vibrate; as if it were a ringing phone laid against a glass tabletop. You gulped, shuddering violently, as you began to take delicate steps toward towards the bag.

I'd rather it be a mutant than a freaking rat,— you hoped in your mind. At least mutants didn't try to bite... Right?

A gasp ripped from your mouth as a circular white face popped out with a rat-like squeak from a chewed up hole through the material of the plastic trash bag. There was the sound that you had been hearing all along. It belonged to a 2-D face with two white skinny stick arms stabbing into the bag as it wiggled out its beanpole of a body from the hole inside the trash bag. A drawn stick figure, about the size of your hand. It looked like it had been cut out of paper by a child, the edges showing pencil marks where the shape had been carefully drawn. It leapt out of the bag to perch itself onto the black bulging trash bag, sticking its face forward. Staring. Staring at you.

You didn't realize your mouth was hanging open until a fly smacked against your upper lip and ricocheted away. You spluttered, wiping the back of your hand across your mouth as you took a step backwards. Big mistake. The abrupt noise and sudden movement startled the stick figure. It arched its back, on all four nubby sticks (like a cat, you thought numbly in amusement), hissing at you even though it had no visible mouth. The noise that it emitted was enough to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand straight.

You stared at it. This was... unreal. A stick figure, (or a cut out figure?) coming to life, hissing at you like an angry pigeon. Did pigeons even hiss? You couldn't recall, you were just frozen. In utter shock.

...Were you high? Okay, yeah, sure, it was probably those delivery boys, their fault at is, smoking weed freely whenever they dropped off their shipments of vegetables, frozen fish and meat, including the occasional ice cream. At least you hoped; it would certainly make more sense than the stickie in front of you. Obviously, you had inhaled some second-hand-devils-lettuce smoke and now you were high as a kite, imagining a two year old's drawing cut out of a stick figure aggressively arching its back in and out at you as if it were performing some sort of mating dance.

The stick figure hissed once more and you finally noticed a hole appearing on his face, (because of course you assumed it was a male), and tiny paper like sharpened teeth baring at you.

Yeah, no.

You swiftly swung the head of the broom, bristles and all, at the sentient stick figure, slapping the surprisingly light thing in the torso and sending it flying. A loud squeal escaped its empty mouth as it sailed across the alley wall (you stared, mesmerized, wondering how paper could hold such weight), and tumbled onto the sidewalk. It scrambled to its feet, sickly yellow light from the street lamps throwing shadows against its flat white skin. It stared. And stared. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, it hissed once more at you and scurried off. The sound of its flat feet scratching lightly against the ground quickly faded away.

You stood there, sucking and exhaling rapid breaths. You stared at the place where, just moments before, a living drawing had stood.

After a few minutes, you had successfully convinced yourself that none of it had been real, or had even occurred. It was the toxic fumes from the garbage bags, mingling with remnants of the evil weed as your mother called it. It had come together to corrupt your brain and had made you hallucinate for a few minutes— that was all. It was something psychological that you were sure could be explained through a quick google search. You really had to make sure you wore a gas mask next time you took out the trash. That was a joke, but it barely amused you. Maybe it would make Sukiyaki laugh, if she didn't start cackling at your story of weed, poisonous fumes, and stick figures coming out to attack you.

You spent a few spare moments gingerly poking the hole riddled trash bag with the end of your broom, (letting out a gasp when something inside it fell over, causing you to jump), before shaking off that nagging feeling scratching the back of your mind. Everything was a-okay, perfect, absolutely fine... everything was fine.

You cleared your throat, turning swiftly on the soles of your stained beat up, formerly white sneakers, twirling the broom lazily in your free hand. Around and around, you twirled, as if you were trying to mimic the actions of a Jedi. Your heart had calmed down from the mini heart attack it just had, as you wiped your free shaking sweaty palm on your stained light blue jeans. You walked back towards the backdoor, a trembling hum resonating in your throat, dragging your shoes against the dirty concrete floor of the alleyway. Everything was just fine.

You felt the ground tremble before you heard it. The sound of feet hitting the ground behind you, slapping against the ground clumsily, a small grunt following it. Softly, albeit messily, but gently enough that you wouldn't had even noticed. If it hadn't been for the hand that grabbed your shoulder.

A shrill shriek escaped your lips as you swung around the broom (really, this had become second nature after what you had just gone through) spinning around to beat the person who had grabbed you. Grabbed you! This was New York City after all, it was late, and hadn't there been reports of mutants, gangs, and weird looking alien robots in this area as well? You were not the type of person to willingly go if you were kidnapped or, god forbid, harassed. If it came to it, the good Lord had given you two dirty hands for wielding whatever was available. Which happened to be a cheap, held-together-by-prayers-and-duct-tape-broom. Put together, you were the shining representative of all pathetic, weak, easily scared girls worldwide.

Unfortunately, before your weapon of choice could loudly thwack against the face of your adversary, the broom was gripped tightly in a shaking bandaged three fingered hand.

You were face to face with a creature.

You were both breathing heavily in sync. This thing, this animal, was injured and heaving in rhythm with you. How rude!

In the dim yellow light emitted from the streets that dragged into the alleyway, he was red— no, he was green, covered in red. You narrowed your eyes at him, trying to hide the fact that you were beginning to hyperventilate at the pure shock of this mes— wait; was that a panic attack you felt coming on? You hadn't had one in weeks!

He was taller than you, that much you could tell as you stared into his eyes. You were caught in his piercing gaze, your eyes only being able to flicker around before being dragged back into this stare. He appeared to be brawny in his physique, though you on the contrary seemed as breakable as a twig. A huge gash ran across his green face as you, for the first time, noticed a blue mask around his neck that was soaked with... blood. Torn up bandages swayed limply from his elbows, shoulders and hands, with a few knee pads barely holding on. His left shoulder leaked blood through a large open gash that didn't seem to relent with its flow. His right eye was reddened and beginning to swell shut, the other a piercing blue that seemed wrong belonging to a thing like him. Your eyes trailed to his back, oh hello there shell, where large multi colored gashes peeked at her, contrasting against the brown. The streaks seemed as if they were made out of… paint.

Your attention was pulled away as remembered the broom you were gripping with both of your hands, his three fingered hand holding the other side, his own grip in between your hands. You let go, stumbling backwards, your arms outstretched into a t-pose as you stared wide eyed in silence. Whattt was happening? What was this? Why was this? Why? Why?!

A noise that sounded like a pigeon choking on a piece of hot dog meat escaped your parted lips as you pointed at his face. The thing. The turtle. The mutant. With eyes you had only seen before in cliché anime gif's that you would usually spam to your former nanny to confuse her.

He stood there, looking embarrassed and uncomfortable, mimicking the exact expressions that you were experiencing too. He clutched the broom in one hand, his arm falling limply to the side. His grip on the pole was tight, so tight that his knuckles turned white. His hand began to shake. His grip loosened. The broom clattered to the ground. The shaking in his hands didn't stop there. It only spread, up his arms, down to his knees; his entire body seemed to be having a shaking fit. You realized, late as it was, that it was probably the buckets of blood covering him, (hey-o! blood loss!).

You took a small step forward.

"Um..." You cleared your throat, embarrassingly loud as it echoed throughout the alley, trying to draw his attention. He was staring straight ahead, his gaze empty and in some far off place other then the present. "My, my guy." You said, unsure of yourself as you scrunched up your nose at the stupid words spilling out of your mouth. You held out one hand tentatively, eyebrows knitted in concern as you licked your very dry, very salty lips. "Are you... good?"

The mutant hesitantly shrugged, his one working eye squinting and shining in the sickly yellow light. "No." His hoarse voice squeezed out, barely a whisper as it echoed along the dense towering concrete walls of the alleyway. With that one word, he collapsed in on himself, like a soda can being crushed between two hands.

You stared at the pile of blue, green, brown, beige, yellow, purple, and red before you and inhaled deeply. You gazed upon your familiar surroundings, calm as ever, and clasped your gloved hands together. "God..." You declared quite loudly, as if you were confessing to the Lord himself. "I'm high." And with those cheerful words, still trying to convince yourself that this was all a hallucination you turned on the heels of your white sneakers, opened the door, and walked inside. Humming a loud tune, the door shut closed behind you, ringing throughout the alley, out into the empty street.

A squeak rang out from a familiar hole riddled trash bag.

Everything was fine.

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sailorspazz · 9 months

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Inouesatoh Exhibition 2023

In the summer of 2019, Vanilla Gallery in Tokyo hosted an exhibition for Inouesatoh featuring her 10 Dance art. In July 2023, they announced they would be running a second exhibition from September 7th to the 24th, this time additionally including her works from before 10 Dance, serving to also celebrate the 20th anniversary of her manga career. In addition, there would be new 10 Dance goods for sale, as well as some merch from earlier events. After attending the amazing Real 10 Dance event in February 2023, surely I couldn't justify going to Japan twice in one year for 10 Dance related things, could I...? Well, spoiler alert, I did, so below the cut you'll find my report on attending this special exhibition!

After a rather long trip that included a one-hour technical delay of my first flight and a three-hour weather delay of my second flight due to a typhoon going through Tokyo, I made it to Japan on the evening of September 8th, with my exhibition ticket set for entry at noon on the 9th. After doing various things in the morning such as getting a nice bowl of fresh seafood at Tsukiji, walking around the Hama Rikyu gardens, and stopping by the large Uniqlo in Ginza (where I ended up buying a Magic Knight Rayearth shirt, one of my old fandoms from the 90s lol), I arrived at Vanilla Gallery about 10 minutes before noon, where I saw several other people lined up on the sidewalk. Once the doors opened, we were led down a couple flights of stairs, where the above poster was displayed on one of the landings. Then, after getting to the bottom of the stairs, there were two different rooms labeled A and B. The left side was A, which contained all of the 10 Dance pieces as well as the merch selling area, and the right side was B, which featured Inouesatoh's older works, as well as displays of 10 Dance art reproductions that were available for pre-order. Everyone headed into the A side first, where all of the walls featured either original drafts (for chapter 31 and earlier) or large digital copies (for chapter 32 onward) of manga pages, plus various illustrations such as volume covers and special colored pages. For the earlier chapters you could see things such as white out, corrections, and notes about which screentones should be used. For the later, digitally created chapters, the pages looked mostly the same as how they were printed, except some were larger and showed bits from the edges of pages that were originally cut off and hence not fully drawn in detail or screentoned. There were over 100 pieces on display in total; some of the scenes featured included chapter 11's flirting practice, chapter 15's subway makeout session, the entire farewell dance sequence from chapter 33, and Suzuki and Norman's *ahem* "arrangement" from chapter 38.

The absolute "wow" piece was the new artwork created specifically for this exhibition, featuring Suzuki being a devil and angel simultaneously (and Sugiki indulging people who are into feet lol). I had seen some pics of it on Twitter, but it still surprised me with how impressive (and big!) it was in person. It was the only piece that pictures were allowed to be taken of, so here're the shots I took (due to the lighting, I couldn't really get a shot without reflections, unfortunately):

I'm absolutely o b s e s s e d with their expressions.

For a sense of scale, here's a picture Inouesatoh and Teacher shared on Twitter:

In the middle of the room, there was a set-up that included a map of the Ginza area that showed locations used in the series (including their route to Tokyo station from chapter 33), a chair that included an artfully draped dance tuxedo, four sketches of merchandise ideas (one that was used for the stand, one that turned into the angel/devil piece, one that she colored and shared on Twitter before we even knew about the exhibition, and a fourth that hasn't yet been used anywhere, but I hope it will be since it shows a really cool and dynamic pose), several flower arrangements celebrating the exhibition/Inoue's 20th anniversary as a manga artist/her birthday (September 10th), and a guestbook for fans to leave messages. I was wary of writing anything at first, since I don't ever practice hand-writing Japanese, so I know my penmanship is sloppy and I have a hard time writing kanji from memory (I tried turning to my phone for assistance, but alas did not have a wifi connection in that underground level). But I thought I should still try anyway, so I just wrote a short and simple message congratulating her on the exhibition, saying that I'd come from America to see it and it was great.

Here's an image that Vanilla Gallery shared on Twitter that gives a good view of the center and a partial wall:

I then headed over to the B room, where Inouesatoh's earlier works from 2003 to 2011 were featured. Many of the pages included sex scenes, which somewhat amusingly had bits of black tape covering the naughty bits (I saw a fan note on Twitter that if you looked at them from a slanted angle you could totally see under the tape lol). One of the walls also had information about the signed reproductions that could be pre-ordered for delivery in mid-December. This is an image from the online sales afterward showing the options and prices:

I didn't place an order at the venue because I wasn't sure if they would deliver outside of Japan, and didn't know if my friends who live there would be available to receive the artwork in that timeframe. Instead, I waited until afterward and placed a proxy order for the new piece through Buyee.

There were other items available to purchase on site, so I indulged myself in a bunch of merch! On my first trip to the register, I picked up the tote bag, washi tape, art books for both this exhibition and the previous one, the acrylic stand, two blind pack keychains, and six blind pack art cards. The art cards included five regular designs and one rare special (the new angel/devil piece), and I hoped I could get all of them in one go. I tried to quietly open the packs to see if I'd gotten lucky, and while I did get all of the regular designs, no special was among them. So I bought a second round of six cards, plus two more keychains just because. Again I checked to see if I had gotten the one I wanted, but all I had was doubles/triples of the five regular designs. So I gave it one more shot, six more cards, and again ended up with duplicates. At that point, I figured I shouldn't let myself keep gambling since I'd probably just get more and more duplicates of the ones I already had, so I sadly accepted my fate lol. At least there's a beautiful print of the new art piece in the catalog book for me to stare at (plus the signed version that'll be coming my way in December!)

After the event ended, they started selling the exhibition catalog and acrylic stand online, which can be found here. Also available is a separate catalog featuring her pre-10 Dance works (assuming the split is because her earlier series are owned by a different publisher). That book is sold here.

Though I had wanted to visit some more of the sites used in the series that I didn't get to see on my previous visit (when I had been racing against the clock as it got dark), ultimately I didn't end up having time to go on a full pilgrimage. However, on my last day just before heading to the airport, I wanted to at least visit one of the most important series locations and take a few photos with the adorable acrylic stand. So here I present to you, the Shinyas having a date in their favorite park!

Overall, it was a short but fun trip! I'm glad I was able to go to this exhibition, to see the original drafts in person and admire the craft that went into them. Also to feed my need for merch; I'm so happy to indulge in a more direct form of support than the secondhand goods I've bought before. I hope that this event was considered a success and let Inouesatoh feel the love and encouragement from her fans, inspiring her to keep pushing onward in her now two-decade career in manga!

#10 dance #10dance

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liangxinn · 1 year

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untitled fantasy/royalty AU

For someone who supposedly doesn't care much for writing royalty AUs, I sure have a lot of them in my WIPs... including a King's Maker AU which I really really want to see through to the end ><

Anyway, I found this abandoned draft for a different fandom from 2019. Looking back at my writing from 4 years ago sure was an Experience, but I didn't want to immediately throw up at least, so I consulted the oracle (Twitter) and decided to tidy up a little excerpt as a SVT/Minwon fic. Here's the basic gist:

Elven princes Mingyu and Seungcheol are shocked to discover that their late father has named Mingyu his heir instead of Seungcheol, the eldest

Newly appointed captain of the royal guard Wonwoo is assigned to protect Mingyu (spoiler: they do not like each other lol)

To avoid taking the throne, Mingyu pledges himself to the god of the hunt, joins a band of hunters (I'm thinking performance unit), and leaves for six years

He returns to the kingdom when a mysterious affliction sweeps the land, turning the people into demon-like monsters, and has to work with Wonwoo to investigate...

I actually have the entire story plotted out, and I am more than happy to answer any questions if anyone's curious to know more! You can find 3.2k of one of the early chapters, mostly unchanged from the original draft, below the cut ^^

Mingyu's sleep is fitful, leaving him tossing and turning and tormented with snippets of strange dreams.

He walks for an age along the secret corridor, only for it to lead him to his father's room when he exits through the trapdoor. Just the sight of it, unopened since the king's death, stirs up a sick feeling in Mingyu's stomach. He doesn't know what possesses him to press his palm against the wood, only that it feels like fire trying to burn the skin from his hand. Of its own volition, his other hand drifts up as well, and he watches, entranced.

Mingyu pushes lightly against the door, hears the snap of splintering wood. A voice escapes through the cracks like scalding steam, and he pushes harder. His father's sharp words rush back to him from weeks, months, years long past. A heavy ache settles over his body, throbbing dully in the places where he could not be forced into the mould they made for Seungcheol. Pain lances across his cheek, but whether it's from the flames or a blow meant for his brother, he can't tell. The door collapses beneath the pressure, and he disappears into the flames.

He wakes, gasping, and sleep claims him again.

At a coronation, a crown is placed upon Mingyu's head, so heavy that it threatens to crush him. Hundreds of eyes bore into his flesh, picking like crows at every part of him they can reach, ripping him apart with their scrutiny. His own eyes dart around frantically and land upon Queen Consort Hyeyoung only to find a cold, insincere smile. Seungcheol is somewhere among them, flashing in and out of sight.

Mingyu tears the crown away in repulsion. When he hurls it to the ground at his feet, it shatters as if it were made of glass instead of precious metals. A moment passes, then the crowd erupts into raucous sound. He has displeased them. They surge upwards from their seats in a writhing, screaming mass. They call for his head. They call for his blood to be spilled.

He wakes, feels the prickle of those eyes on him, and shudders.

By now, the sun has begun to rise, throwing weak light into the room. Mingyu had gotten just a couple hours of sleep at the most. His body struggles against him, forcing his eyelids to droop and demanding more time to rest. Just as he's about to succumb, a sharp rap on the door seizes his attention.

Mingyu knows exactly who it is when the person enters before he even has the chance to respond. His brother slips into the room with those distinctive footsteps of his, dark eyes alight with excitement and the corner of his mouth curled upwards in amusement. He perches on the edge of the bed, yanking the covers away when Mingyu tries to bury himself underneath.

"You got caught last night," Seungcheol says, mirth laced in his tone. Mingyu rolls over to throw a glare in his direction.

"Good morning to you, too."

"Was it him? That Captain Jeon?"

Mingyu scowls at the mention of Wonwoo, having forgotten his existence momentarily. Seungcheol takes his stubborn silence as confirmation. In a more serious voice, he asks if Wonwoo found out about the passageway. Mingyu mulls it over for a moment before deciding that Wonwoo shouldn't have been able to figure out how he left castle grounds. He must've traced his path by some other means.

"I have a guard, too," Seungcheol sighs, flopping back onto the bed and across Mingyu's legs, ignoring his squawk of protest. "His name is Vernon. He's quiet, but he seems like a good kid. Must be capable if he became a guard at his age. He thinks quite highly of Captain Jeon."

"Good for them," Mingyu remarks sarcastically before he can bite it back. He shoves his face into a pillow to avoid the intrigued look Seungcheol sends his way.

"What, don't you like him? He was pleasant enough when I met him. Surely you've heard that he's the youngest captain in the history of the royal guard."

Mingyu refuses to answer. There is silence for a long moment, which borders on suspicious, then Seungcheol says in a sage-like, all-knowing tone, "Oh, I see. You fucked him."

Mingyu's expression cycles between outrage and disbelief before deciding to settle on embarrassment, to his dismay.

"Hyung!" he hisses, springing upright to hurl a pillow at his brother's head and shoot a look at the door as if Wonwoo could hear them from outside. Seungcheol blocks the pillow with ease, the sound of his delighted cackling quelling Mingyu's outburst. There hasn't been very much to laugh at as of late.

"There's no need to be embarrassed, Gyu-yah. Come to think of it, he's exactly your type-"

"I did nothing of the sort and I have no desire to!" Mingyu fumes, even as a giggle of his own threatens to escape him. He's painfully aware of the incriminating heat rising to his cheeks and ears, but he can't help the smile that tugs at his mouth. The roguish grin he receives in return is more than worth it.

Seungcheol has been run so thin lately, what with the burden of kingship dumped upon him in such an abrupt manner. And now, it may turn out that all of his efforts over the years were for naught. Mingyu reflects on what the queen consort told him last night, and dread fills his stomach at the very thought of having to take the crown. The vision of the coronation from his dreams flits to the front of his mind.

"How have you been, Mingyu?" Seungcheol asks softly as he pulls the pillow onto his lap and rests his hands atop it.

"Hyung," Mingyu begins with a heavy sigh, "did you know about the will?"

Seungcheol's gaze slides away. "Yes. I saw it the day before it was posted in the city centre."

"I don't blame you for keeping it from me, but how are you... alright with this?"

"The king's will is law, Mingyu-yah. I know this, and so do you."

"It doesn't make sense! Why would he name me his successor over you? He barely acknowledged my existence for twenty years and yet he left the entire kingdom to me? I don't believe it. I cannot believe it."

"Father took his reasons with him to the grave," Seungcheol says with grim resignation. "The only thing that we can do is follow his wishes."

"It should be you, hyung. It was always meant to be you. I'm not worthy," Mingyu finishes with a miserable sigh.

"I thought you would say something like that. But honestly speaking, I think you're just as capable of being a leader. Don't be so quick to undermine your skills."

Though Mingyu knows that Seungcheol is trying to be reassuring, he can't help but think that his brother sounds just like Queen Consort Hyeyoung. A product of her teachings, he supposes.

At Mingyu's skeptical raised eyebrow, Seungcheol gives his shoulder a light squeeze as a comforting gesture. "We'll figure something out. I'll still be here to help as much as I can."

Regardless of Mingyu's faith in his ability to lead the entirety of the kingdom, it simply isn't right for him to take the crown. Not when Seungcheol is the eldest, not when he has spent much of his life preparing for the inevitable day of their father's death. Despite having no choice but to take up the role of heir, Seungcheol has a true interest in the responsibilities of kingship. The life of a king has never appealed to Mingyu in the same way.

Seungcheol rises to his feet, tossing his pillow lightly at Mingyu's face and startling him from his thoughts. "Get dressed. Let's go to breakfast."

"Don't want to," Mingyu whines in response. "Can't we stay in here?"

It's definitely not because he doesn't want to face Wonwoo and be reminded of his wounded pride. Not at all. He's simply too tired to go all the way down to the dining hall and he'd much rather have breakfast in his room without having to take a single step outside, where Wonwoo is standing right now-

Mingyu yelps as the pillow makes contact with his face for a second time, more forcefully than the last. In his serious, all-business voice, Seungcheol insists that he comes down to have breakfast with Queen Consort Hyeyoung, so Mingyu acquiesces with a grumble.

"Choi Seungcheol, you are the rudest elf I have ever had the misfortune of meeting."

"I know you love me, dearest brother."

Mingyu's exaggerated eye roll threatens to earn him a third smack with the pillow, so he leaps out of bed under the pretence of getting dressed and shoos Seungcheol out of his room. After he's cleaned himself up and made an attempt at taming the bird's nest that is his hair, Mingyu scrutinises his reflection with a critical eye.

He's visibly tired, his under eyes stamped with dark half-moons. His mouth is set in a displeased line, his shoulders are hunched, and his eyes are too full of worries. The image staring back at him doesn't look at all like a king, not even when he tries to picture a crown on his head. Its phantom weight pushes his head down, forcing him to break his gaze from his tired reflection.

Seungcheol always resembled their father more, anyway.

Breakfast is doomed to be a sombre affair as soon as Mingyu and Seungcheol enter the hall, followed closely by Wonwoo and Vernon. They slide into their seats across from Queen Consort Hyeyoung under the sympathetic eyes of the staff present, and Mingyu resists the urge to steal a sideways glance at his father's empty place at the head of the table. He almost prefers it this way.

The last time they all had breakfast together must've been at least four years ago, when Mingyu and Seungcheol were only sixteen. He barely remembers what it was like, though it isn't a particularly fond memory to begin with. It was around that time Mingyu took to having his morning meal alone in his room or the gardens. Immersed in his studies, Seungcheol wouldn't even come to eat sometimes either.

When Queen Consort Hyeyoung greets them, her slight smile doesn't quite reach her tired eyes. Mingyu meets her gaze, and the knowing look he finds there is enough to make him break eye contact to stare at his plate. A welcome distraction comes in the form of food brought out by the kitchen staff, who he thanks courteously.

Queen Consort Hyeyoung and Seungcheol begin to discuss an upcoming trade meeting with one of the western nations, so Mingyu helps himself to a roll still warm from the oven. After a liberal application of butter and honey scented like the local flowers, he bites into the soft bread, relishing the satisfying sweetness. Honey spills over his fingers and threatens to turn into a sticky mess. Perhaps he was a little too generous.

"Prince Mingyu," Queen Consort Hyeyoung calls to him. "What do you plan to do today?"

Before he even has the chance to open his mouth to respond, Mingyu feels a shift in the air, something odd that makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up. And before he even has the chance to even furrow his brow in suspicion, it happens.

The sound of shattering glass pierces the air, followed by a soft thud. The razor sharp tip of an arrow impales an orange perched precariously at the top of the fruit bowl, sending it flying off the edge of the table. Mingyu tracks it with his eyes as it rolls in a wobbly line to stop at Wonwoo's feet. A note written in black ink is tied to the shaft of the arrow like a mockery of a white flag.

A violent chill races down Mingyu's spine when he realises that the arrow had flown straight through the space between his and Seungcheol's heads. There had barely been a beat between the moment that he'd felt it twist the palace magic and the point of impact. He would've been dead before his mind even processed the window shattering.

After the last shards of glass have settled, the dining hall is silent. No one dares to move an inch, all eyes glued to the arrow which interrupted their morning meal. Slowly, carefully, with tension lining his body, Wonwoo leans down to pluck the arrow free and straighten out the message. Mingyu can see that his jaw is clenched, his knuckles pale with the intensity of his grip.

"I will come for what I am owed," Wonwoo reads out in a grim tone. His eyes flicker to Mingyu, then Seungcheol.

A murmur erupts throughout the room, pulsing in waves of concern. To their credit, none of the staff panic or dissolve into hysterics, though the palpable tension sits heavily on Mingyu's shoulders. He shares a sideways glance with Seungcheol as Queen Consort Hyeyoung says in a dangerously calm and even tone, "A perimeter search, if you will, Captain Jeon."

Wonwoo strides out of the room with a curt nod, still clutching the arrow in his hand. The remaining guards band closer towards the three of them left sitting frozen at the table. It makes Mingyu's chest constrict with snake-like fear, the kind that suffocates hope. Such a blatant threat, a direct attack. Mingyu and Seungcheol aren't the only ones left of the royal bloodline but they're certainly aware now of the bright red targets stamped upon their backs.

Queen Consort Hyeyoung clears her throat pointedly, and the maids, startled into action, bustle about using spells to gather the broken glass shards and dispose of them safely. A shield is put up across the empty frame in the meantime. The arrow must've been enchanted to break the protection on the window, powerful magic to counter the intensive safety measures woven into every single brick of the palace. It will take some time before a replacement is ready.

"Who would dare do something as bold as this?" Seungcheol asks in a low voice as Queen Consort Hyeyoung speaks to the guards. There's something almost like incredulity in his tone.

"I don't think they were acting alone," Mingyu murmurs back.

"Sounds like it has something to do with Father."

All this talk of an assassination plot has sapped Mingyu of his good mood, filling him with anxiety instead. But still he wonders, why? Whoever it was had both the resources and the opportunity to kill either of them in that moment, perhaps even both. So why go to the trouble of revealing themselves and their intentions in such a brazen manner?

Mingyu casts his gaze down at his half-eaten roll, regretful now that his appetite has entirely vanished. The honey has soaked into the bread and formed a golden sheen, but not even that enticing colour is enough to assuage the sick feeling in his stomach. He nudges the plate away with some reluctance.

"As I was saying," Queen Consort Hyeyoung begins in a slightly tense tone. "Prince Mingyu, what are your plans for the day?"

"I was... actually hoping to visit the city centre."

"Absolutely not."

Mingyu cannot say he wasn't expecting to get shot down immediately, but it does nothing to quell his disappointment. His dismay only deepens when Queen Consort Hyeyoung contemplates a total lockdown of the palace until the threat has been eliminated. If there's one thing he hates, it's being confined. The urge to protest is too compelling to push aside.

"My lady, we're playing right into their hands. Whoever was behind his, they want to create fear-"

"Prince Mingyu. Your safety is no trivial matter."

"I refuse to be afraid," Mingyu insists, all too aware of how stubborn he sounds, how he's playing a dangerous game with the line that marks defiance. "I will not stay shut up in the palace and wait for someone to kill me."

The warning Seungcheol gives him in the form of a kick under the table reminds him to keep his tongue in check, though he doesn't pay it much mind after that. He's not ready to back down on this just yet. Queen Consort Hyeyoung shows no indication of her thoughts except for a slight, almost imperceptible, flaring of her nostrils.

"Very well," she begins in a steely tone. "I don't doubt that you can take care of yourself, Prince Mingyu. But Captain Jeon will accompany you at all times, and I want a tracking spell bound to you."

Dissatisfied with these conditions, Mingyu clenches his jaw. He loathes the thought of being monitored at every step, but he recognises the immense leniency Queen Consort Hyeyoung is showing in allowing him out of the palace in the first place.

"Of course, my lady," Mingyu concedes quietly as he bows his head in respect. He's given a sunset curfew which he agrees to without any resistance; the idea of being out at night with a potential assassin in their midst is none too appealing. At that moment, Wonwoo returns with a steely expression.

"We weren't able to find anyone, Your Majesty," he reports, his deep voice tinged with frustration. "But we did catch a faint trace of magic. I've got someone looking into it."

"Thank you, Captain Jeon. I trust you will keep me informed. In the meantime, please accompany Prince Mingyu during his visit to the city centre."

The incredulous look that crosses over Wonwoo's face would be amusing if not for the tension still throttling the room.

"I'm beginning to get the impression that you are quite stubborn, Prince Mingyu," Wonwoo remarks dryly, leaning against the wall with his arms folded. "Foolishly so, one might even say."

Mingyu raises an eyebrow, but otherwise remains unaffected by the obvious bait.

"Think what you like about me, Captain Jeon," he shrugs even as the urge to retort does a tantalising dance at the forefront of his thoughts. He shoulders his satchel and sets off down the corridor without waiting for Wonwoo. The way that Wonwoo falls smoothly into step right beside him is something Mingyu will have to get used to.

"All I'm saying is that I don't think it's very wise for future King Mingyu to be so insistent on leaving the palace, especially when someone wants you dead."

"There won't be a problem as long as you do your job," Mingyu replies airily, shooting a sly sideways glance at Wonwoo. "Are you implying that you're incompetent, Captain Jeon?"

The sight of Wonwoo's face scrunching into a scowl might be the most satisfying thing Mingyu's seen all morning.

"Let me make this clear, I am your guard, not your mother-" Wonwoo begins in an irritated tone, but Mingyu stops walking and effectively cuts him off.

With narrowed eyes, Mingyu says, "I'd watch my tongue if I were you, Captain Jeon. I may tolerate the less than appropriate way you speak to me, but others certainly will not."

There is a moment in which Wonwoo holds his gaze firmly, expression unreadable. It's rather tense, and Mingyu finds himself unable to look away from those sharp eyes. Then, Wonwoo seems to relax a little.

"My apologies, Your Highness. I misspoke," he murmurs, and though Mingyu doubts its sincerity, it's better than nothing.

#yan writes #snippets #long post #minwon #seventeen fic

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