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miks-delusional-blog · 3 months

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Hair- Mizu x fem! reader

Tags: Fluff, mild angst? (Again idk how to tag guys, somebody who does know please tell me that would be amazing <3), gender reveal (reader discovers Mizu is a woman), mentions injury and violence, maybe a slow burn? (might make into a series)

Notes: in 2nd person (you), 995 words, Mizu x fem! reader

Context: you and Mizu are friends with romantic tension, also it’s a bit awkward between you two after you find out she’s a woman

A/N: Hello there. Fanfiction. Read it. Hope you enjoy. I’m going to get back to doing school work now. Or I’ll procrastinate and make a part 2.

Also this is inspired by a scene that was cut from the show where Mizu plays with her hair.

Toodles, love Yamz x

Mizu huffed, frustrated as she tried to tie up her hair. It was normally a simple task, however, on this morning it was not.

In a scuffle with some assassins, Mizu had hurt her arm quite badly. Although it was the day after the battle, the pain still lingered. Pain was not the only thing that lingered, but an awkward air. After yesterday’s battle, you treated Mizu’s injured arm, finding out that Mizu was not the man you thought she was.

She was a woman.

The image of your shocked face when you pulled down her haori lingered in her mind, like a reflection in a window pane.

The two of you sat on the floor of the inn, with a noticeable gap, getting ready for the day. Her annoyed huff brought you to look up from the mirror you were holding. You turned to her chuckling softly, “You alright over there?”

She shot you a small glare. “I’m fine.” She attempted to tie her hair up again but the strands cascaded out of her grasp. Her arm fell to her side, she sighed a little defeated.

You crawled behind her, propping yourself up on your knees. Taking the hair tie from her hand, you began gathering her hair together.

Mizu hesitated before uttering, “What are you doing?”

“Shaving your hair off.” you casually remarked as you brushed the knots out of her long hair with your fingers.

Mizu jerked her head back to face you, grabbing your wrist.

“I’m joking! I’m tying up your hair, obviously.” you laughed.

Mizu’s lips curled to a frown, her grip loosening.

“Just let me help you out.” She let you move her head so she faced away from you. You shuffled a little closer to her, her back up against your front as you continued brushing through her hair.

Mizu relaxed a little as your fingers softly graced her. She thought of how gentle you were with her. Something she wasn’t used to.

Her usual contact with people tended to be violent to say the least.

Mizu thought of a time before she had to shave her hair as a child. How her mother would tug and pull at her hair, telling her to sit still.

Your touch was nothing like her mothers.

You were careful and soft, touching her as if she was silk.

Mizu closed her eyes with a small sigh of relief as you gathered all her hair into one hand, using your other to smooth out any bumps.

“Sorry I don’t have a comb. I think I lost it in the heat of things yesterday. Hands are nature's comb anyway.”

Mizu hummed in response, melting under the way your hands moved through her hair.

“All done.” You pick up the mirror, holding it so Mizu could see your handy work.

She opened her eyes, catching yours in the reflection.

“Not bad right?” You smiled at her through the mirror.

Mizu smiled back, “not bad. You didn’t shave it off.”

“Don’t give me ideas.” You tried to brush her cowlick behind her ear but it failed to stick.

Turning around, she chuckled. The two of you became face to face “for every strand of hair you cut, is a finger lost on your hands.”

You felt the heat of her words touch your face, eyes widening slightly at your closeness . You sit back on your feet, creating a bit more distance between the two of you. “Well I guess my fingers are safe.”

“For now.” Mizu smirked.

You crossed your arms, hiding your hands away from her. You playfully glare at her which she returns before the two of you start laughing.

After the laughter subsides, Mizu gazes at you with soft eyes. “Thanks…Uh for helping me with my hair.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m happy to help.”

“I won’t be like this for long.” She adjusted the sleeve of her haori.

“I know. You always spring back quickly. By the end of the day you’ll probably be fighting the whole town with no problem. And even if you’re not, and you still need my help, I’ll do your hair.”

Mizu smiles again, bowing her head slightly. “Thank you.” She paused thoughtfully, her gaze lowering to the floor.

Noticing the slight shift in mood, you offered a kind smile. “Everything okay?”

“It’s nothing.” Her eyes flickered to yours.

“There’s always something.”

“It’s just… I don’t understand.” She looked down at her hands.

“What is it you don’t understand?”

“How can you be so normal? You know my secret. I’ve been deceiving you for so long… How can you act like it’s okay?” Her blue eyes gazed into yours with worry.

“Because it is okay.”

“But I lied to you. I am not a man.”

You took a breath, one which felt like an eternity to Mizu. “Listen, I understand why hide the truth from everyone. It’s easier to walk as a man in our world than it is to crawl as a woman, and it’s easier to keep a secret if you’re the only one who knows it.”

“Well… Ringo knew.”

“What?!” You exclaimed. Mizu winced slightly.

After a brief pause you continued, “That’s… fine. A-anyway, my point still stands. I’m not angry or upset with you because I get it.”

Mizu stayed quiet, reflecting on your words. After a moment, she speaks. “You are very kind to me… I’m not sure if I am deserving of it.”

“Well, I give my kindness to whomever I want so whether you think you deserve it is not for you to decide.” You crossed your arms. “I think you are deserving of my kindness and compassion, and you’re not the boss of me so, nyeh.” Your serious facade couldn’t stay up as you began smiling.

Mizu chuckles, putting her hands up in defeat. “OK, OK, I won’t talk more about it.”

“So we’re OK?” You asked carefully but with a smile gracing your lips.

“We’re good.”

“Good.”

#mizu x reader #mizu blue eye samurai #blue eye samurai #bes mizu #blue eye samurai x reader #mizu x fem!reader #wlw fluff #mizu #blue eye samurai mizu #wlw #sapphic fanfic #ahhhhhhhhh idk how to tag #mizu brainrot

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tossawary · 24 days

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When writing both original fiction and fanfiction, it's my personal preference and style to remind people who characters are in the narration when I feel it might be needed. It's especially handy when bringing OCs into a fanfiction. Example: "The person calling out to them was [Character's Name Here], the baker they had met earlier that morning." This quirk of narration often reads to me as the POV character internally reminding themselves who someone is.

Sometimes, a character is quite bad with names or wasn't given one, which is where it's handy to refer to this other character by a fixed epithet. Example: "The person calling out to them was the square-faced man from yesterday, who had given them those bad directions." OR: "The person calling out to them was the mayor's daughter." This reads to me as though the POV character is distinguishing people by a particular feature or remembers them by their relationship to someone else, which is a common way to remember people, until their own name becomes more fixed in your mind.

I also think it's important to keep an epithet / title the same across a scene. Epithets are best used, in my opinion, when that particular feature or quality is actually relevant. It's a little weird for a POV character to suddenly think of their own husband as "the tall man" unless his height is suddenly important in some way, and it might confuse the audience into thinking another person is in the room. If a character doesn't have a name, then "the square-faced man" or "the mayor's daughter" effectively becomes their name, and it's confusing to have a character's name change too much with every other paragraph. (It would be fine to also refer to "the mayor's daughter" as "the girl" or "the young woman" as long as there aren't any other nameless girls speaking in the scene.) Keeping the same title allows it to blend in in the same way that the word "said" does, rather than break up the flow of a scene.

Not every person or character is bad with names and remembering people, of course, or is inclined to give them funny little internal titles. There are people who are very good at names. There are tricks to use to get yourself to memorize names as you're introduced to someone. Narrative styles are going to be different by author and by the current POV character. (Sometimes, you might want the audience to be confused and disoriented!)

In fact, thinking about how different characters think about each other is one of my favorite starting places for crafting a perspective voice. A single character might be referred to in the narration as "His Majesty" by one character, "my husband" by another character, "the king" by a third character, "the usurper" by a fourth character, and "Dad" by a fifth. The name that a character calls someone else by will often say a lot about their relationship and their opinion of that other person. If the prince appears to think of his father as "the king" rather than "Father", that implies something about their relationship.

But back to introducing character names, you as an author, in my experience as a writer and reader, generally can't rely on the audience to easily recall very minor character names unless they're very distinct or the character was introduced in a particularly memorable way. Like, if you introduce a character as the protagonist's best friend, Mary, and immediately start refering to her as Mary because it's followed by a conversation between the protagonist and Mary, that's fair! It's reasonable to expect the audience to just learn Mary's name here! But then if Mary disappears after Chapter 1 and doesn't show up again until Chapter 10, I think it's reasonable to subtly reintroduce her to the audience again. Example: "It was Mary smiling at me from the doorway, and I jumped up to hug my best friend immediately."

Like, there's no one way that you have to refer to characters and introduce them and reintroduce them, of course. Characters have different levels of importance and sometimes we don't really need to know who they are. Sometimes, an author wants an audience to feel grounded, to recognize people, and sometimes they want their audience to feel lost and scared. It's all situational. Style is a thing.

But because it's all situational, this is something I like thinking about and I think it's something worth studying when you're reading original fiction. It's interesting to pay attention to how characters enter and exit scenes in different forms of media, and how the narrator introduces them and how other characters greet them aloud. (Shakespeare comes to mind as a neat thing to look at, to see how theatre does it. Comic books and films and visual media will do it differently to a text-only story.) The audience doesn't have the background that you, the author, carry around in your head all of the time, and you often need to give them a helping hand in keeping your cast of characters straight. Even in fanfiction, without including OCs, not everyone in the audience has the whole canonical cast perfectively memorized, and not every character in any given cast actually knows every other character! It's not just OCs who need introductions, whether those introductions happen subtly or a character enters the story with a bang.

Kind of another side note:

One of my favorite character introductions comes from the book "The Princess Bride", in which Princess Buttercup is kidnapped by three men who are referred to only as "the Spaniard", "the Turk", and "the Sicilian". You don't know their names for quite some time. Buttercup doesn't know these people.

You only learn the Spaniard's name when the Sicilian leaves him at the top of a cliff, tasking him the Spaniard fighting and killing "the Man in Black" who is pursuing their kidnapping. When the Spaniard is about to fight someone to the death, the book pauses to tell you that his name is Inigo Montoya, and then there is an ENTIRE CHAPTER dedicated to Inigo Montoya's long and tragic backstory, in which you learn about his decades-long quest to find the six-fingered man who murdered his father. And then the book abruptly dumps you the audience back out onto that cliff, where Inigo (no longer just "the Spaniard" and no longer just some random kidnapping thug) is about to fight for his life.

I think it's a terribly fun piece of whiplash that suits the comedic style of the book really well. (The book is a little different to the movie and there are things about it that I don't like, the movie gets across a level of a sincerity and love through the acting that the book misses in places, but there are lots of really funny elements to the book that the movie sadly couldn't cover.) The transformation from "the Spaniard" into "Inigo Montoya" is really neat to me.

#tossawary fandom #tossawary reading #long post #tossawary tpb

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privwrites · 5 months

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Geto's Golden Girl

Suguru Geto x female Reader x Gojo being Gojo

summary: You're Suguru Getos best and favourite student. He sends you on a new mission, and technically there's nothing that could go wrong. That is until you meet a former friend of your Sensei, who is all to eagier to get to know everything about you and your connection to Geto...

wordcount: around 4300

authors notes:

• not many spoilers really, but you should know what happens to Geto at the end of the jjk movie

• fanfiction takes place in an AU in which Geto will NEVER die (I'm still traumatised). Let's just say Gojo didn't have the heart to actually kill Geto at the end of jjk 0. Instead he left him severely wounded and walked away. That was your chance to save Geto and bring him home.

• English isn't my first language, so I might mix up some JJK terms.

tw: age gap (it's not a fanfic of mine if it doesn't have an age gap haha sorry), student x sensei/mentor/kinda father figure dynamic, violence, fight scenes, emotional rollercoaster, mentions of death, mentions of manipulation and kidnapping, humour, angst, fluff

Beta read by no one, I need female anime friends <3

backstory: You're one of Geto Sugurus scholars. Years ago he had rescued you from the humans of your village. You were able to see things they didn't, so they tried to exorcise you. You would've been dead if it hadn't been for Geto. Back then you were eight years old. Ever since then you lived with the sorcerer. He became your personal mentor, since he saw great potential in you and your cursed energy. The other two girls he rescued, Mimiko and Nanako Hasaba, were a few years younger than you. You viewed them as your sisters, but they never got as much attention and training from Geto like you did.

You were on your way home when you felt the first raindrop on your cheek. Looking up, the sky was gray, framed by orange-brown leaves on the trees lining the pavement. Autumn had finally arrived in Japan, and you felt relieved to bid farewell to this summer's heatwave. More raindrops fell, splashing on your dark blue jacket. Sighing, you opened your umbrella—this morning, the sky had been sunny and blue. Luckily, you always came prepared. The first humans hastened towards the stores, seeking shelter from the rain, hands raised over their heads. The sound of rain grew louder, amplified by the cars navigating the wet streets. You never particularly hated humans, but you didn't find them very interesting either. They simply coexisted with your world of Jujutsus and cursed energy. You didn't even resent the people in the village where you grew up. Hatred was a weighty emotion, and you enjoyed living an anger-free life. Eventually, your mentor Geto had accepted your relaxed attitude towards humans. Although you were probably the only one in his community that he allowed to have such a different opinion compared to his. You had always liked to talk back and had Geto questioning his will to actually teach and raise you a million times. But your were the strongest sorcerer your age, which was a big bonus point for you.

It was still raining when you reached home. The huge traditionally japanese mansion had space for your bedroom, Mimiko and Nanakos room and Geto's private chambers. Besides that there were many taijutsu practice rooms and guest rooms. Walking through the inner courtyard connecting various rooms via a small garden, the clacking sound of the Shishi Odoshi echoed across the space. Placing your umbrella on the wooden engawa, you removed your shoes and slid open the door to your room. Inside it was warm and cozy. The sound of the rain became quieter. You changed from your outdoor attire into comfortable indoor clothes and settled onto your futon. it didn't ake you long to feel tired. Sleep always came easily to you; you had a substantial need for it. The relaxing pitter-patter of the rain accompanied you into your dreams.

It didn't take Suguru Geto long to notice your return home. There was nothing in his house that the great sorcerer didn't know about, and the sight of the dark blue umbrella on your engawa was all too familiar. "Always prepared," he thought to himself. Geto was aware that you were likely asleep, as it was often the case on your days off. Despite it being only afternoon, your cursed technique of controlling all four elements of nature could be draining, requiring ample rest. Today it seemed like you just did a simple stroll through town, but even then, your cursed energy was always present. So the sorcerer waited another two hours before he sent Mimiko to wake you.

He had plans for you. He always had.

***

Geto could hear your footsteps long before you entered what could be described as his living room. You closed the sliding door behind you. Outside, it was still raining. Geto's gaze fixated on you instantly. The light blue Japanese kimono wrapped your figure elegantly, and your shiny hair framed your delicate face. "You called for me, Sensei?" you asked in your typically soft voice. "Yes, my dear. Sit down, please." You settled onto the tatami mat, your movements fluent and elegant. "So much like me," he thought, observing you. "I have a mission for you, y/n. There's an abandoned mall outside of Tokyo. From what my informant said, there's a cursed spirit that is powerful enough to be of great value for us." As he spoke, he turned on the andon lamp on the flat table between you two. It was already getting dark outside. You rolled your eyes. "Let me guess – you want me to bring it to you?" The sorcerer in front of you had an amused smile on his lips, his dark eyes holding a certain allure. You were different from the rest of his followers - while they would agree unquestioningly, you always dared to contradict or doubt him. And Geto allowed it- every time. "Precisely," he continued. "I can't get it myself; I'll be occupied. And I only trust you to get this done. I know you won't disappoint me." He was right. You wouldn't. If you followed his orders, you did it to his satisfaction - every time.

"I need more details, Sensei. When should I go? Where exactly is it? Should I bring Mimiko and Nanako? They could use another training session." Geto grinned at your numerous questions. You had a love for details and disliked not knowing everything about a mission. Geto ran his large hand through his raven-dark hair, a few strands falling onto his forehead. "You will go alone. Tomorrow afternoon. One of my drivers will bring you there. Capture it in the evening and come back during the night. We can't risk being seen." The golden light of the lantern flickered in your eyes. "We?" you mocked, "You won't even be there!" Geto sighed. "You couldn't let that slide, could you, y/n?" - "No chance," you answered, now grinning too. "Alright, I will take care of your cursed spirit for you. May it help you with whatever devilish plan you're coming up with next," you said, rising to leave. Geto observed you in silence until you were almost out the door. "When did I tell you that you are dismissed already, y/n?" he asked sharply. "Oh," you retorted, wearing a hypocritically thoughtful expression, "never." You grinned and left, leaving behind your sweet scent that lingered in the air—Geto took a deep breath. Blackcurrant lychee, the same perfume he had bought you years ago.

***

The mall to which Geto had sent you had been abandoned for quite a while. As you approached it, the deserted structure loomed ominously in the night, its once vibrant exterior now a faded, dreary facade against the relentless rain. The stench of dampness lingered in the air, mixing with the earthy scent of decay. The stars and the moon were shrouded in clouds, and it was raining again. Closed to the public, the mall occasionally attracted adventurous teenagers, some of whom mysteriously vanished. "Stupid mission", you grumbled to yourself, yearning for the comfort of your bed and a good book. You swore to yourself to complain to Geto once you were back. Fucking idiot for not getting his cursed spirits by himself. But since you had decided to stay out of his other mad plans as much as possible, tasks like this one were becoming more regular for you. Finding the entrance, cordoned off with barrier tape, didn't take long. Stepping inside, a familiar tingle coursed through your stomach— the cursed spirit wasn't far. All you had to do was to follow your gut feeling. Meanwhile, you carefully looked around the mall. Smaller raindrops were dripping into bigger puddles on the ground, and many store entrances were barricaded. The eeriest thing was the flickering of some of the store neon lights. Why did they still have power? Your steps echoed on the wet floor. Maybe it was the cursed energy in the mall that made some of the lights flicker. Sneaking your way into the building, you could feel the energy of the curse grew stronger. Carefully you took out your sealing box. Capturing a curse with it was pretty easy for you. Also because Geto made your practice it a million times when you were younger. He used to have this annoying little spirit that always jumped around laughing and was incredibly hard to catch. Thinking about it made you grin-but this was neither the right place nor the right time for that. Besides, you were still a little annoyed with Geto for sending you here.

Suddenly, a strange, eerie mumbling echoed through the mall. That had to be the cursed spirit! "Of cou-course I can check the ware-warehouse for the item, which is obviously already sold out." You chuckled. Sometimes, the spirits last words were quite comical. Following the echoing sounds, you traced the spirit to a secluded corner of the mall. It was a grotesque manifestation, its malformed figure adorned with bones protruding from its mouth. Its skin bore a sickly hue of purple-turquoise, marred by blisters. Despite its repulsive appearance, you sensed its huge strength, yet nothing beyond your capabilities. The cursed spirit let out a squeak upon sighting you. "Better get this done quickly", you thought to yourself. Your power of controling the elements (fire, water, earth, air) made it easy for you to capture the curse inside the sealingbox after a short fight. Once the curse was sealed, you left the corner of the mall as quickly as possible, mainly to escape the stench of the curse still lingering in the air.

You got back to the main hall and were about to take out your cell phone to text Geto's driver-when something suddenly made you pause. The main hall of the shopping mall stretched around the corner about 30 meters in front of you. You hadn't been in this area before. And suddenly you could feel something - cursed energy? But the curse was sealed in the box in your hand, wasn't it!? The energy grew stronger. Very strong. You immediately got into a fighting stance. Whatever was so strong wouldn't let you escape anyways. Footsteps—long, deliberate—echoed in the flickering neon-lit corridor. Your heart raced with apprehension. What the hell was going on!? A figure emerged from around the corner, and you froze. A man, tall and adorned in dark, sophisticated attire, stood a few meters in front of you. He was wearing simple sunglasses, but despite that, you could see how handsome he was. His blue eyes seemed to shine through his sunglasses, and white hair framed his face. Recognition dawned on you. You had heard much about him but never encountered him in person. "Fuck," you muttered, stepping back a few paces in defense. What was HE doing here!?

"'Fuck?' the man asked, scratching the back of his head thoughtfully as if contemplating what you just said. You observed him anxiously. Suddenly, his expression brightened. "Fuck? Yeah, that probably is what most women first think when they look at me!" You opened your mouth and closed it again, unable to bring out any answer. Geto had told you alot about his old friend, including that he was quite full of himself, but it seemed that you only just now understood what he really meant. It took you a few moments to compose yourself. "That's not—what I meant!", you finally defended yourself, holding the sealing box behind you defensively, anticipating any attacks from him. "Meant what? Fuck? I'm sorry love, but that's not why I'm here." He casually slipped his hands into his pockets, grinning carefreely. And you? You couldn't believe it. You had never encountered a more unserious man, that was certain! And he was Geto's best friend? The contrast couldn't be more stark between the two. "You know, I'm actually here to get to know someone. I'm looking for a girl, around (your/age) years old, (your/haircolor) hair, and with a quite good curse technique", he explained. It was obvious that he was searching for you for some reason. However, the sorcerer seemed to enjoy to tease you. But you weren't having it. "Seems like you found her then", you answered grim. "Excelent! You know, I do really hate searching!" He looked genuinely happy about it, "I heard a lot about you, my dear." You swallowed. You couldn't trust him at all. Of course he was stronger than you and whatever reason brought him here, couldn't mean anything good for you.

"What would Satoru Gojo want from me?", you asked sharply, watching his every move. "Oh, you know my name already, perfect!" The urge to wipe that stupid smile off his face grew stronger inside you. "Anyways, Miss (your/lastname), here's my brilliant plan: you're gonna give me the cursed-spirit that you captured so well. And then I will kidnap you too. Agree?" He made his plan sound like it was the best thing in the world. "What- no!", you spat out, "why would I do that?!" Gojo Satoru scratched his neck again. "Because the other option would be for you to fight me. In that case, you would obviously loose. And I personally just hate fighting a pretty woman!" His dumb comments started to trigger you, prompting you to shoot a small fire ball into his direction. You'd never surrender without a fight! "Oops!", Gojo squeaked in surprise, taking a step aside. The fireball left a hole in the old storefront of a former restaurant behind him, igniting it. He watched it burn and sighed. 'That store used to have really good Kikufuku, you know?" - „I do not care!", you shouted. Gojo was incredibly irritating. „Well", he continued, „I should've known Getos golden girl won't submit to me that easily." You raised an eyebrow. "Geto's golden girl?" - "Exactly", he said, "you are his best and favourite student after all, right? That's why I'm here, y/n." You wanted to say something sassy back, but you couldn't even deny the 'best and favourite' part. Instead a new fireball started to form in your hand. You shot it towards him- faster this time, but the tall man easily dodged it. It seemed as though Gojo was enjoying your attacks.

If only you would have enough time to flee with the captured spirit! Instead Gojo continued his unbothered talking. "You were also the one to save Geto after I defeated him, right? He must mean quite alot to you. And honestly- I can't even blame you! He is incredibly smart and hot!" - "I don't need your opinion!", you shouted, sending a wave of air in his direction. Any other opponent would have been smashed against the wall, but not Gojo. He stumbled back a few steps. "Wow! You really are talented! I understand what Geto sees in you! I'm glad he didn't lose his taste after all!" - "That's none of your business either!" Did this guy ever shut up!? "Actually, it is. Geto is my best friend as much as he is my enemy. And therefore his plans concern me. And so do his students that he manipulated into staying with him." A contemptuous sound escaped you. "I enjoy my life and freedom with Geto, and so do the others!" Gojo nodded. „I knew you'd say that. In that case, show me what you got, dear! For you, I'll take off my sunglasses. Strong fighters deserve to face me without them." He put his glasses away and his blue eyes seemed to stare into your soul. There was no escaping him. You couldn't defeat him. But you never surrendered either. And strangely enough, something within you sparked a sudden surge of fighting spirit. This was your mission for Geto! You always promised and delivered for your sensei, and you wouldn't stop just because blue-eyes decided to show up! „Fine, I'd rather die than hand over the curse or even myself!" You utilized your power over air to elevate yourself off the ground, hovering a few meters above it. In your hand, a flame grew, intensifying with each passing second. Fire was your strongest skill—essential for this battle. "This could've been much easier", Gojo sighed. Before you could answer, you were struck by a punch, hurling you through the air. How was he so fast? Luckily, your air-skills saved you. You threw the fireball back, and within seconds you and Gojo were engrossed in a fight. In the meantime, he kept shouting comments at you about your cursed techniques. "Aim a little further to the right!", "Yeah, you got me there!" , That was better!" - You couldn't answer his comments. He grew stronger with each passing moment, and soon, you found yourself crashing into walls and barraged with waves of cursed energy. You stood no chance.

So, you did the last thing you could do: you secretly did a special cursed technique, anchoring the sealing box itself firmly into the ground. Geto had taught you this particular technique. It was designed in a way that only a person of your choosing could effortlessly retrieve the box from the ground- Geto in your case. It was an impossibility for anyone else since the technique was intrinsically linked to the Sorcerer's life—yours. Then all your strength left you in exhaustion. Gojo immediately pulled you toward him, your back pressed against his, his arm against your throat. "I haven't encountered such an intriguing opponent in a while", his breath brushed against your neck, "Unfortunately, you don't stand a chance against me. I will now take you and the imprisoned curse with me. But mark my words—you will grow incredibly strong one day." - "You're... not... my sensei!' you managed to utter, straining to speak with whatever breath remained in your lungs.

"That's right, but I am!" an all too familiar soft but serious voice interjected, "and now, Gojo, my old friend, could you please release my y/n? She hates being restrained like that." - „Geto!", you shouted. In the neon light, a few meters in front of you, stood your sensei. He was clad in a dark kimono, his eyes glaring sharply at Gojo behind you. The light reflected his beautiful face. „Geto, finally! It's delighting to see you!", Gojo exclaimed enthusiastically, "I knew you'd show up eventually. You can't leave your dear y/n alone after your sources have told you that I'm here too, I understand that!" - "Release her, Gojo, now!" Your sensei's expression was more determined than ever. An intense tension crackled between the two powerful men, their presence adding to the charged atmosphere. "Gladly, Geto," Gojo replied, "but I just realized you'll have to release the cursed anchor of the sealing box in the ground. Apart from y/n, only you can open it. Nice technique you taught her, by the way." For a plit second, Geto glanced at you with pride. The anchor technique was incredibly challenging to master. "The alternative is for me to kill your student, Geto," Gojo's voice turned dangerously serious. "Geto, you need that curse! Take it and leave!" you shouted. Getos gaze met yours, and his facial expression softened immediately. "Leave you?" he asked, then turned to Gojo, "I'd sooner give up everything I've achieved in my life than to leave y/n. If you want the curse that badly, Gojo, I'll hand it over!" You stared at Geto in disbelief. You knew how much your sensei had sacrificed to reach his current position—it meant everything to him! "Geto—" you managed to say, "no...!" He looked at you, a faint smile on his lips. "It's alright, y/n. I've made my decision."

Suddenly, Gojo's grip around your neck eased, and you broke free, almost tumbling to the ground before Geto swiftly caught and supported you. Clinging to the fabric of his soft kimono, you caught the familiar scent of cedarwood. "Shh, it's alright", Geto reassured, his hand gently stroking your hair. A chuckle from Gojo drew your gaze upward. "So, there's still good in you, old friend", Gojo spoke surprsingly soft. "I'm sorry I had to put you both in this situation, but I needed to make sure Geto hadn't lost his old self. I needed to know if he still cared for those around him." Your eyes widened in realization. What the hell? „You didn't come here of your own accord, isn't that right, Gojo?", Geto asked him, "the council of Jujutsu sorcerers sent you." You looked questioningly at Geto, whose gaze was fixed on Gojo. Geto continued: "Someone told the council that I would look for the curse in the old mall. So they sent you to defeat me for good." Gojo nodded. „You have a sharp mind as always, Geto. I was instructed to end your life here, in this very mall." Realization struck you: "So the council thought Geto would show up, and instead you met me! But how did you know about me anyways? You couldn't know Geto wasn't here!", you exclaimed. "You're not entirely wrong, y/n," Gojo replied. "The council had no clue that Geto sent you. But given that Geto is my best friend, I'm usually well-informed about his actions. Thus, I assumed that for a mission like this, his top student—namely you—would likely handle it. Even though Geto couldn't have known I was waiting here for you instead."

You nodded in understanding, but suddenly, Geto's hold around you tightened. "Does the council of Jujucists know that y/n is here too, Gojo?" he asked tensely, surprising you. Geto appeared nervous. "No, they're unaware," Gojo replied. "I didn't inform the council of my suspicion of meeting y/n here instead of you. That way, I could test you, Geto, by forcing you to choose between your goals and your heart", and looking at you he said: "I would've never killed you, y/n. Because that would have meant I'd have had to fight an incredibly enraged Geto - and then I might have ended up losing after all." You shook your head. "You're completely insane, Gojo Satoru." Gojo winked at you. "Well I care about my best friend's loved ones." You rose to your feet slowly, and Geto was there, lending his support as you straightened up. You brushed the dust from the earlier fight off your clothes, then looked at two special grade jujutsu sorcerers. "And what happens next? What will you tell the council, Gojo?" - "That's a smart question, y/n. And our next problem. I could never kill Geto, but even if I didn't, the council would, if I captured him instead of killing him. You grabbed Getos arm immediately. "That's not an option!", you stated. "I know, dear. But the councils has spies anywhere, so they definitely know that I've met Geto here in the mall. And by now, they probably know about you y/n too. The only solution is for you two to leave this place immediately. Hide from the council until they give up searching for you", Gojo said, seemingly unhappy with the situation.

Geto took a step infront of you. "I won't drag y/n into fleeing and hiding from the council with me! It's dangerous and only I am responsible for my current situation!" His voices conveyed a deep seriousness. Gojo nodded understandably. "Then I'll take y/n with me, back to Tokyo Jujutsu High School. I'll tell the council that you manipulated y/n and that she's entirely innocent. And that I didn't have the physical strength to defeat you, but instead freeded y/n. This way, she can stay safe until the council stops their hunt for you." Geto nodded immediately in agreement, whilst your eyes widenend. "No!", you shouted, "I'll stay with Geto! I don't care if they chase us!" Gojo looked at you with pity. Suddenly you all heard a noise from the other side of the mall. "Geto, you need to leave! Someone's coming!", Gojo spoke hurriedly. "No, Geto no!", you pleaded, "no sensei abandons their student!" Geto leaned down to you, his expression a blend of sorrow and determination. "Listen, y/n," he spoke softly, "you're no longer just my student. I'm not your sensei anymore. You've surpassed me in wisdom and kindness. You're more than my equal now." He delicately brushed a strand of hair from your face, his gorgeously dark gaze meeting your watery eyes. "What I mean, y/n, is that you deserve a life free from the dangers I've attracted. As I'll be hunted, I want you to be safe. I trust Gojo to protect you until I return." Tears streamed down your face, making you speechless. Another sound echoed from the mall, but Geto remained composed as he continued: "You'll go with Gojo. Train at Jujutsu High School. Grow stronger, and we'll meet again. I'm certain." His words were clear, leaving no room for an argument. You nodded, sniffling, "I'll miss you terribly. Please take care." Geto nodded back, a soft smile gracing his lips. Gently tucking your hair behind your ear, he placed a tender kiss on your forehead before nudging you toward Gojo, who put an arm around you immediately.

As Geto stood up, he glanced at Gojo, "Take care of y/n. Without her, I'd be devoid of my humanity." - "I promise," Gojo affirmed. You brushed away your tears, whispering, "I'll make you proud, Geto." He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "You've surpassed that already, my love," he smiled warmly. Suddenly, the screech of an eagle pierced through the broken ceiling of the mall. In the next moment, it lifted Geto off the ground, perching him on its back. "Goodbye, y/n", Geto spoke softly. The eagle let out another cry and soared into the sky. The silhouette of Geto atop the eagle diminished until it vanished into the night. You gripped Gojo's hand, tears still cascading down your cheeks. "It's okay," Gojo murmured, "I'll stay by your side until better days arrive. And until then I have just the right classmates for you to help you find your new way at Jujutsu High." You gazed at him questioningly through the wet lashes of your tears. "What do you mean by that?", you asked suspiciously, "I don't think anyone would want to be friends with someone who was with a villain for that long." Upon the Jujutsu Sorcerer's lips, there appeared a subtle yet discernible grin. "I currently have three students- one of them had an aweful father- and the other one, well, ate his villain. So I think you'll be good." You stared at Gojo. That man was always good for a surprise it seemed. "Ate...him?", you asked in disbelief. Gojos grin was now clearly visible on his face. "Exactly. You see? I'm sure Getos golden girl-", he winked at you, "will fit in just fine!"

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accio-victuuri · 1 month

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i’m someone who can’t get enough of (fake) stories from the time of cql shoot. so when i see a “story” that i haven’t before ( or maybe i did but forgot about it ), i get excited. lol. even if it’s not a juicy kind of information— i’m cool with it. 🤍 i like this one cause OP seems closer to wyb, it’s more of a short analysis of him & his relationship with XZ during that time.

the usual disclaimer: these are all fake and treat it as fanfiction. obviously, this content is for cpfs. if you don’t like it then scroll along. if you are somehow offended by stuff like this, it’s your problem. feel free to unfollow or block me.

i got the screenshots over here. enjoy!^^

W often catches up on sleep as soon as he gets on the car because he has a lot of engagements. He doesn’t talk much. Last year, he was not in good health. He had a cough and fever and went to get an IV drip at night. Many fans knew about it, so he talked even less in private. Later, I found that he talked a lot on the set. This is a matter of opinion. He needs to refresh himself when he is so tired.

But he does have a good relationship with X. He is not very outgoing, so he should not have many friends, but he is not the kind of person who really looks down on others and does not talk. Many times he does not know what to say (personal feeling hahaha), so he does not start a conversation. Some people are like this, thinking that it may not be meaningful to say it, so they do not say it. He has changed a lot in recent years, and this drama he has successfully made friends with X.

W didn’t communicate much with me. After all, we had never met before, so I could understand the distance. Once, I was discussing tomorrow’s arrangements with the coordinator. He had just finished shooting a scene and passed by me and suddenly asked me if I had a hemostatic patch (this is a consumable item in the crew, and I had just used it up and didn’t bring a new one). I was shocked. I said no, and he didn’t say anything and seemed to go to the bathroom. Later, I don’t know where he asked, but it was a very girly pattern. I feel that he may have asked around, but I didn’t see him use it. That day, I saw a new hemostatic patch on X’s leg, but it wasn’t the one that was used by the transporter?! When I was chatting with the coordinator, I found out that someone had given it to X first, and W saw it and quietly put away the one with the girly pattern. At that time, he had just joined the crew not long ago. Because we were really not familiar with each other, he might have felt that it was too obvious and a bit embarrassing.

W and X have a lot of scenes together. As the main characters, they interact a lot, much more than what is shown. X is not as talkative as the footage shows. On the contrary, he is a person who cares about other people's feelings. In the footage, we can only say that he was: 1. He fainted from the heat (he almost had a heat stroke), 2. He was too tired, and 3. He didn't expect that everyone would exaggerate it. W was the same. He was just joking and making faces, just like everyone would have some such pranks when they were in school. When he felt something was wrong, he quickly changed the subject.

The main reason was that it was really tiring and hot at that time. Every time I went to the scene, I felt that I could get a heat stroke at any time. They also wore long robes with wide sleeves, which was very hard (W didn't dare to eat too much to maintain the fairy feeling of the character) In short, although this matter fermented a lot, it did not have any substantial impact on the relationship between the two. At that time, the crew also knew that this was their childish behavior and was used to it. After all, they were like this all the time. The two are ordinary people who are more casual in private. If they have a good relationship, they will definitely play around, but they will not be fussy about such trivial matters. W's personality is very interesting. He will suddenly act weird and then return to being calm. When he acts weird, he acts seriously. When he is silent, he is serious. I later thought that this kind of personality may have something to do with his love of street dance, motorcycles, and skateboards. Whether it is physical, emotional, endurance, psychological quality or anything else, he wants to try to touch or even challenge the upper limit in all aspects. He is a true adventurer. Most of these people are quite opinionated. He also said that he is a male chauvinist and has a strong desire to control himself and the outside world.

A double-edged sword, not a weakness. Being serious is good, but it is always difficult for people to grasp the precise degree. If you exceed the limit, you will develop a conditioned reflex of vigilance, which will prevent you from revealing too much of yourself, and on the other hand, you will be wary of outsiders' attempts.

This kind of self-defense is actually related to his experience. One is that he left home very early to work hard, and the other is that he went to Korea for training. You must have heard about the trainee system there, which is fiercely competitive and full of intrigues, and it is easy to fail. Many young trainees don’t have much life experience. No matter how cautious they are at the beginning, they may not be able to play better than the older or Korean people. The habit of not offending others for many years has become one of his personality. I am not so familiar with W, so it is difficult to remind him, but I found that he has improved in his relationship with X. It is very subtle. It is generally a good thing. Hahaha. Maybe it is also due to experience. X’s past is relatively simple. He entered the circle a few years after graduating from college. Before entering the circle, it was relatively smooth. It’s not that he has never experienced setbacks and lows, but it is definitely not as shaky and cautious as W faced during adolescence. It directly changed a person. I believe that W is still a positive and enthusiastic person in his heart, but he doesn’t show it easily. He needs someone to guide him.

What I really found strange was one time when the two of them were standing on a downhill slope. The scene was built in a studio and was a bit high. X walked in front of W and slipped. There was a few steps between the two of them. W rushed forward in two steps and quickly grabbed X's waist. They both almost slipped. He intended to grab his arm with his fingers spread out, but he miscalculated and poked X's lower back. We shot that scene in two or three takes and it was passed. After that, W's hand was a little swollen. I found some ice cubes to apply to him and it stopped swelling, but it looked painful. There were still a few scenes that day, but he didn't tell me because he didn't want to delay the progress. He applied ice when he left the camera. Because he had to go to the hospital for an IV drip after work, I thought I would deal with it together.

The strangest thing about this incident was not his behavior, but that X did not see W come down to apply ice, and came over to ask if his hand was okay. W directly stretched out his hand to show him, twisting it vigorously, shaking his fingers flexibly, trying to prove that he was fine, but X grabbed his wrist and looked at it clearly. X said that it was swollen, and W said it was caused by the intravenous drip. X muttered a few words of doubt, and saw that there were indeed many needle holes on the back of W's hand. He believed it a little. I was about four or five meters away at the time.

The director often asked them to be more ambiguous. At the beginning, it was quite awkward because they were not familiar with each other, but it was fine after they got used to it. X made a lot of small moves, and W would shout his name when he couldn't stand it anymore. W was very smart and could find the door. He didn't lose to X at the beginning. It was forbidden to move. It was common for them to insult and fight each other.

Many people are talking about the drinking scene, so I'll share another one. After the day's shooting, W took off his makeup and walked unsteadily. After walking out of the studio, he was looking for something. I said the car was over there (the exit was narrow and the car was a little further away). He said he knew, and then he turned around and pounced behind me, which scared me. I subconsciously turned around and hid, and found that X also came out, but he hadn't taken off his makeup yet. W stuck to him like an octopus. X was also scared, and his wig was pulled by W, and X screamed in pain. His assistant came out the next second and quickly pulled W away. I reacted and supported W. X was not angry, and told me that W had secretly drunk some more later and might be really drunk, so he asked me to make some honey water for him to sober up. I said okay, thinking where would I find honey water in the middle of the night. W is very thin, but very strong. X's assistant couldn't pull him away completely.

I am a little anxious, but I can’t say anything, I can only worry.

X was in a good mood, and cheerfully patted him and said, "Isn't W laoshi known for not getting drunk even if he drinks a lot?"

W didn't refute, and hugged him so tightly that I felt X was about to suffocate, and then X said: "It's late, see you tomorrow." W let go as if he had suddenly lost his temper, reluctant to let go, wanting to look at X but not daring to. I don't know why, but I felt that he was a little sad.

X joked with him: "Go back after you graduate from kindergarten.

W said sullenly: "I will definitely beat you next time."

X changed his tone of voice and complained: "W wants laoshi to win everything. save me from losing a few times, okay?"

I went back to the hotel and asked X's assistant who the winner was. She said that the two of them competed to see who could talk in the other's ear without blushing, and the loser would drink a small sip. I was speechless. No wonder he rarely played mobile games last night, and went to sleep after chatting on WeChat (he got off work earlier yesterday). It turned out that he was saving his energy to play this today (wrong). I asked again, "No one took the photo (mainly referring to the fans who were waiting there.)" She said that it should not be possible, because the place where the two people were standing was difficult to take a photo.

-END.

#yizhan #bjyx #there is no science here i’m just clowning like i always do #accio victuuri translation #accio victuuri gifs #accio victuuri edit #i think this is wyb assistant story lol i just.. my god i forgot… idk idk #sometimes my brain loses bits of info about them lol cause they occupy alot of my brain capacity already

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shrewtia · 1 month

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𝕸𝖟 𝖙𝖍𝖔𝖚𝖌𝖍𝖙𝖘 𝖔𝖓 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖚𝖓𝖚𝖘𝖊𝖉 𝖕𝖔𝖙𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖎𝖆𝖑 𝖔𝖋 𝕳𝖆𝖓𝖙𝖊𝖓𝖌𝖚'𝖘 𝖇𝖑𝖔𝖔𝖉 𝖉𝖊𝖒𝖔𝖓 𝖆𝖗𝖙

Since the release of the third season I've often thought about the upper moons bdas, mainly about Gyokko's and Hantengu's. And I think especially Hantengu's has been really underestimated. In my opinion, it has a lot of potential and is probably even more terrifying than most of the other's blood demon arts if you try to imagine it in a realistic setting. So I thought I'd share some of my thoughts for those interested.

Urogi's scream ⊹ His power is probably one of the most underrated ones. And interestingly, the one power that most of them share - him, Zohakuten, Urami and Hantengu's main body.

A lot of people underestimate the danger of loud noise. Not only is it crucial for demon slayers to be able to hear their surroundings to identify where an unseen attacker might come from - the ear is also the balance organ. Seeing Tanjiro struggling to hold his balance during his fight with Urogi would have been a nice detail.

Judging from the effect that Urogi's screams had on Tanjiro, I think it's safe to say his screams are above 120 decibel, which is when it actually starts to be painful. Sounds above 150 decibel burst your eardrums while sounds above 185 damage internal organs and can be deadly. I am not sure of the total range of his volume, but Zohakuten demonstrated that he coul rip someone apart with his scream. Mitsuri only survived because of her special muscle densitiy.

Also, sound travels faster through water. Urogi could e.g. pick up his victim and drop them into a body of water before diving under and screaming at them, causing a lot more damage. Of course his feathers would need to be water-repellent. And not even taking into account his power, just utilizing his ability to just pick up a weaker slayer and drop them into a lake for example, would already debilitate them, as it's difficult to get out or they might even drown if they can't swim.

Sekido's lightning ⊹ His power would obviously be extremely powerful if it worked like actual lightning. But in the anime/manga he rather imitates lightning. Aside from the obvious fact that physics laws don't seem to exist in most media and we're dealing with a dark fantasy anime, it's still fun to imagine his power as realistic as possible.

Sekido could make people's heart stop, partially blind them and even cause the blood vessels in their brain to burst. Those few who survive to tell of the demon's power would be marked by unique patterns stretching across the skin where lightning hit, known as Lichtenberg figures. Perhaps blinded and deaf, they wouldn't be able to fight anymore.

Even though most people who get hit by lightning survive without major injuries, it's still a unique power that is perfect for stunning an opponent. I suppose the author made him appear weaker for the plot. In a fanfiction it would have a lot of potential though.

Urami's size ⊹ This is mainly about how terrifying his size actually is. He's twice as tall as Tanjiro, standing at about three metres or nine feet tall. Imagine being in Tanjiro's situation and having Urami's giant hands wrapped around your head. The immense pressure would be insane. Genya really was Tanjiro's savior in that moment.

Additionally, it was interesting to see him not burning up immediately when hit by the sunlight. The scene was definitely stretched and felt longer than it actually was, but he still didn't make an effort to find shade. Comparing this to Akaza, who seemed terrified by the upcoming sun, indicating he is likely not as resistant to the sun despite having a higher rank, this seems like Hantengu developed a bit of a resistance to the sun even if only for a few seconds. Or this might be a unique feature about the clones. Since Urami is not the main body, he might be able to regenerate faster than the sun destroys his cells as long as the main body is safe and therefore survive longer when hit by sunlight.

#demon slayer #kimetsu no yaiba #hantengu #kny hantengu #upper moons #twelve kizuki #hantengu clones #urogi #sekido #urami

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smytherines · 2 months

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I often wonder if I would feel differently about The Staircase Scene if I had seen SAF when it first came out in 2016. The first time I saw it was probably around October or November of 2023, and like... the context is different now.

Whatever we want to say about the personal story arcs of these characters (and I know I'm in a tiny minority because, for me, killing Owen does not constitute a satisfying close to Curt's arc, that's totally fine), there is the very real issue of the sociopolitical context that this scene takes place within- both in their time (1961) and in ours.

One very cool thing about SAF is that, in order to understand these characters better, a lot of younger queer folks end up learning about the Lavender Scare, about Executive Order 10450- which officially prohibited gay people from working for the US government- for the first time. That's an incredible, precious thing to me. Yay queer history! It's important!

The show itself never addresses the fact that both the US and UK governments had very public, very brutal campaigns equating homosexuality with communism with being a traitor to your country. But if you want to understand these characters, and especially write fanfiction, you're really incentivized to teach yourself some fundamentally important aspects of queer history.

In the 54 Below concert, before singing Not So Bad, Brian Rosenthal talks about how when they were developing the show they thought N@zis were more or less a thing of the past, that they're fully aware of how differently that song might be taken now after an escalation into a more open embrace of fascism in the US. And they're absolutely right about that.

But I think that's also perhaps an issue with the staircase scene, or at least it is for me. Obviously homophobia and transphobia were not "fixed" in 2016, they were still massive problems resulting in violence and discrimination and brutality. But institutionally, at least, you could look at the situation and point to some things that were gradually getting better.

In 2016 trans youth in my state were legally allowed to receive gender affirming care. In 2024, they are not. It's not that homophobia and transphobia went away and then came back, but there was a very real resurgence of the use of the media and of governmental power to inflict pain on queer & trans people and chase them out of public life- bathroom bans, gender affirming care bans, Don't Say Gay laws, trying to make drag illegal, equating queer and trans people with pedophilia. There has been a big cultural shift back towards the same kind of violent governmental moral panic that our beloved Curt & Owen would have lived under.

Whatever we want to say about these characters and this story (and there's tons of fascinating debate there), there is still the base of a gay man killing his ex-lover ostensibly to protect US foreign policy objectives. Killing the man he loves- or loved, at least- to protect the secret that he is gay. And that hits different for me now.

I watch that scene and it is heartbreaking on a personal level, but its also heartbreaking as a queer person who just wants to scream "your government will destroy you for being gay, you don't owe them shit!"

Owen tries to explain that the surveillance network is happening, that the future won't wait for Curt to catch up. Barb has been saying she's working on the same thing for the US government the entire show, but Curt just kept ignoring her. And I just want to say "Curt, honey, what do you think your government is going to do to you with that surveillance system? Do you think you're useful enough to keep around even though you have sex with men? Because I promise you they will not care."

It feels tragic to me because on some level it seems like Curt would actually be safer with another gay man having control of all the world's secrets than he will be if the government he has dedicated his life to gets their hands on that same technology.

And the thing is, having a tragic ending doesn't make the show bad. This show is great. This scene is spectacular. It makes you think, it makes you feel things, it does all the stuff that great art is supposed to do. Absolutely none of what I'm saying here is meant to denigrate the show as a musical or a story or even a queer story. I hope it doesn't come off as me saying "actually this show is bad," because I don't feel that way at all.

Clearly I live and breathe this show. That's why I spend all my time on here analyzing every scene, every frame, every facial expression. I love this show so much that I can't help but deconstruct it and look at all its component parts- including the sociopolitical context both now and in 1961. Because that context, despite never being explicitly mentioned, is important to our understanding of these characters.

I love these characters so much that it's actually pretty difficult for me to watch A2P7 anymore, because the staircase scene is so emotionally devastating to me that it's hard to try to swing back into that more comedic tone (even though Spy Dance is a certified bop).

I'm not even sure what my point is with all of this, other than to say that Spies Are Forever is a show that is great and fun and funny as written/performed, and becomes gradually more emotionally devastating when you rewatch it or when you understand the subtext of it. When you can engage with the themes of gender and sexuality, surveillance and technology, trauma and trust, and tease out even more satisfying theories around this show.

So yeah. It's a musical. It's about spies.

#spies are forever #tin can bros #curtwen #agent curt mega #owen carvour #saf #tcb #its about spies

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party-lemon · 3 months

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okay so. the kiss, right? after gathering information and reading so much meta (and fanfiction, because honestly, it has helped form my opinion on this also), I've come to a very long conclusion.

let's start with the fact that crowley apparently didn't realize he was in love with aziraphale. which goes against SO much fanfic and beliefs of SO many good omens fans. as someone who started watching after season 2 came out, i didn't think much of it because i wasn't as familiar with the characters. but now i get why people might have been confused by that writing/plot choice

but it's also really interesting. crowley is, essentially, TOLD that he's in love with aziraphale. and that's fascinating because he's been on earth for 6000+ years, how does he not know that, how does he not know what love is?

but for 6000+ years, he's been surrounded by HUMAN love. human love is fleeting, it's dramatic, it's romantic, it's sexual, it's silent, it's all these different things. human love is not only confusing, but it's distinctly HUMAN. and though they've taken up many human things in their thousand year stay, aziraphale and crowley are distinctly not human. crowley watches films and listens to music, sure, but he might see human love as something fantastical. humans watch fantasy films and read sci fi books and consume media and we think "that would be cool if we could experience that." we know it's fantasy, but it would be cool if it wasn't.

i think crowley kind of viewed human love like that. he knows it exists, but also it's sort of shrouded in fantasy. he's almost...indifferent to it. like it would be cool if it happened, but it won't. i think what he knows he feels for aziraphale is a distinctly NOT human kind of love, of which i don't think we're entirely meant to understand, because they're an angel and a demon and they've been alive for millenia and have known each other as they are for 6000+ years. from what we've seen, it's this deeply burrowed fear of losing one another, this desire to simply spend time together, share things they enjoy, exchange philosophical musings, pester each other, save each other, etc, etc.

and like i said, i think they know that that's love. it's unspoken, sure, but i think they both recognize that this deep, distinctly NOT human thing is love, in their own way. they've just been careful not to show it too much because they didn't think they could (flashbacks of "you go too fast for me, crowley"). after the not-pocalypse, they seemed a little more open to showing it, especially aziraphale.

but then nina lets crowley know that, not only is this distinctly not human love (she doesn't know they're not humans, of course) showing very clearly, but it LOOKS like human love. they look and act like a human couple. and i think crowley realizes that he loves aziraphale in a very human way also, that it's not just a fantasy, it's not off limits just because they're an angel and a demon.

so then the final fifteen happens and both aziraphale and crowley are desperate, and i think crowley kisses aziraphale, mostly, as a last push to show aziraphale what he's feeling. everything beforehand was him silently screaming how he loves aziraphale and wants to be with him in their not human way and that didn't work so he decides to show him in this distinctly human way. he's saying he wants to be with him and love him like a human, and kisses him, because it's what HUMANS do.

not sure if this made sense, and decipher that scene how you will obviously, but that's what i think, after being obsessed with this show since august lol

#good omens #good omens 2 #ineffable kiss #ineffable husbands #ineffable divorce #good omens meta #aziraphale #crowley #long posts

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bellamer · 11 months

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Just woke up sweating from my nap because I was feeling weird about some portrayals of Pavitr and did the whole Alex The Lion Madagascar 2 Escape from Africa "De Ja Vu Like I've Been Here Before" scene realizing where I've seen this before and why I don't particularly like it

In my own words:

They're doing to Pavitr what they did to Kakyoin which is turning him into a yaoified feminized skinny bottom twink who's only there to make sassy remarks and be the manic pixie yaoi boy, they're gonna do what they did to Jotakak with Chaipunk because I mostly see this happening in Chaipunk fanart and fanfiction

It's the typical case of a character being hyper feminized by the fandom, like how it tends to be in a lot of yaoi series because someone always has to be "the girl" in the relationship because the "bottom" is always portrayed as small, skinny with hyper feminine features or traits and the "top" is always portrayed as some dark, hyper masculine, tall, looming figure

And it tends to bleed into most mlm ships even when the characters in the source material are completely portrayed as being opposite as this like say for instance idk another JoJo ship like Josuyasu where just because Josuke takes pride in his appearance like Pavitr, fans automatically label him the "feminine one" or the "girl" in the relationship and tend to draw him smaller and skinnier than he is and by default draw Okuyasu bigger and taller when Josuke is actually taller than Okuyasu by an inch and the two more or less have the same build but I know you've had to seen it somewhere before because it runs so deep when it comes to MLM ships that I've seen it happen in the fucking OSMOSIS JONES FANDOM (don't ask, you don't wanna know. Unless you do want to know, then I'll share with you the shitshow of what I saw)

And this isn't about the people who may have headcanons of Pavitr being transfemme, ya'll keep doing what you do.

This is about the people who will look at a mlm ship and force hyper feminine and hyper masculine traits onto both of those characters just because they need someone to be the "girl" in the relationship and they choose who's the "girl" based on traits they might consider feminine, example, Pavitr takes pride in his appearance, he's typically cheerful and happy go lucky, he's short (shorter than Hobie at least) and he's "sassy" (Y'know the whole chai tea rant which wasn't really him being "sassy" it was more so him ranting about western cultural appropriation and people using words they don't even understand incorrectly but I digress)

And of course Hobie is given the hyper masculine traits because he's a tall black man which is a whole other problem I'd have to make a whole different rant about of how whenever black men are in mixed race mlm ships they're always automatically made out to be the hyper masculine ones because black men have always had hyper masculinity pushed on them and they're never allowed to be the "soft" ones in the relationship, even if a black male character is canonly portrayed as being not being typically masculine the fandom will still write them or draw them as having some secret " aggressive dominant dark side"

In ChaiPunk's case ? It's literally just feminized asian person and masculainized black person with all the shit I said before about how fandoms always need to make someone the "girl" in the relationship and yeah

Y'all get the point

#spiderman across the spiderverse #across the spiderverse #spider man across the spider verse #spider man: across the spider verse #atsv #atsv spoilers #spider man atsv #spiderman atsv #pavitr prabhakar #hobie brown #chaipunk #fandom discourse #fandom criticism

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hajihiko · 2 months

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Hey. So, I saw your Chiaki & Fuyuhiko comic that I like to call "Look on the Bright Side" (since it didn't have an official name in the post itself), and I loved it. I loved seeing Nanami & Kuzuryu interact with each other with the former comforting the latter on Peko and complimenting on how brave he was to save his friend, the scene between Fuyuhiko & Peko during the latter's execution, and then the scene of you making a throwback to your DR3 rewrite from your Talky Talky Tuesday content where the DR2 cast witness Human Chiaki's death and chose not to help her because of how awful Junko's influence on them was. It was heartwarming, bittersweet, and terrifying all at the same time, and as @/self-in-dulled-gent put it in their reblog of the comic, the 4th & 5th panels depicting your DR3 rewrite is a cool and visceral indication of how far the DR2 cast had fallen into despair. Heck, both the comic & the rewrite even serve as inspiration towards my au/rewrite/reimagine of DR3's Despair Arc & how Junko corrupts the DR2 cast into despair. So, thank you so much for the inspiration. I really appreciate it.

With all that in mind, I have some questions I wanna ask you regarding both the comic & DR3 rewrite, if you don't mind.

May I have your permission to do a review on your DR3 Rewrite post for my Advian Reads & Reviews content (which in case you're curious about, AR&R is reading review series where I read something, like fanfiction for example, while also doing a review on it at the same time, giving my thoughts on whatever I'm reviewing as well as potentially even sharing my own stories)?

Will you ever showcase the bonus panel of the rest of the class witnessing Chiaki's death that you mentioned in the comic's tags?

Who is the 5th person on the right between Kazuichi & Hiyoko in the 4th panel (I'm assuming it's Sonia based on the hairstyle, but I thought I'd ask for some confirmation)?

Will we ever get to see the dialogue of Chiaki not resenting Hajime/Izuru for not helping her you also mentioned in the comic's tags?

Follow up on that previous question, do you think it's possible that we might also get to see if Chiaki resents her classmates for not helping her, or if she would also get it with them like she did with Hajime/Izuru?

How exactly does Junko kill Chiaki in front of her classmates? Does she still have her go through her execution like in canon, or does she kill her in a different way, and if so, then how? I ask because I saw Nanami had blood coming from her eyes & mouth (making it look like Junko literally pulled her eyes out), there's blood on her hoodie & left thigh, and she appears to have been stabbed on her right side.

And those are my questions. In regards to gaining your permission to review your DR3 rewrite, if you do grant permission, great! I'll be sure to credit you and give you a shoutout too if you do. And if you don't, then I'm content with that and will understand and respect the reason behind your refusal, whatever that reason may be. Feel free to respond back to me whenever you get the chance. Thank you and have a wonderful day/afternoon/night. 🤗💕❤️🧡💛💚💙💜💖💕🤗

that's one heck of an ask so I'm using a readmore:

Thank you! I remember that comment hehe I'm really glad people like it

1: sure! Just know that I'm like, you know, just a fan and a hobbyist and not even really a writer so I'm not saying my rewrite is more right than anything else!

2: the bonus panel was actually everyone else's deaths (in SDR2) since they all sort of died alone, too. But it didn't feel relevant enough, I prrrrrrrrobably don't have the sketch anymore

3: yep that's Sonia

4: I'll be totally real i don't remember what I was thinking there at all. Sssssorryyyyyy

5: I think Chiaki, if she got to see the events of SDR2 as the AI, wouldn't resent her classmates so much as feel sorry for them and be disappointed. At the same time though I think she might be shocked at what they're capable of. Maybe she can't help but be a bit bitter, who knows. Hajime/Izuru is a different deal since that guy literally got his brains scrambled, can't really blame him. (sort of like deleting all the save data, maybe?)

6: the blood and amounts of it was more about the drama lol. But I thought the obstacle was like, a little too fantastical, not serious enough, so in my rewrite she straight up beats Chiaki to death with some kind of instrument. I think the image of Junko doing something so realistic (and slow) while everyone watches passively is even worse.

Thanks for asking beforehand! 💙

#not an art

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oh-koenig-my-koenig · 7 months

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Fit for a King - WIP - "Let me patch you up"

Fit for a King - Masterlist

König and FMC just came back from a mission that went well, but FMC got hurt as they were trying to help one of the other operators. (random chapter in the König x FMC fanfiction, not chronological)

CW: bullet wound, some medical stuff, NSFW, explicit scenes 18+, slight tension & angst

a/n: I just keep writing, we'll see what will come out of it (this got way more angsty than I anticipated it to be)

(NSFW - explicit sex scenes - later in the chapter)

Medic ward:

"Are you sure, you're okay?" I can hear the worry in his voice, even if he seems to try and hold back. "Yes, I already said it thrice. ‘T’is but a scratch." I smile up at him hesitatingly, ignoring the pulsating pain in my thigh. The Monty Python quote is lost on him anyways. His brows are furrowed as he's looking down at me. He doesn't believe me. I sigh when he suddenly whips his head to the side.

"Doktor*, can I patch her up?" Before I can protest, Doc already put the first aid case in his hand. "Knock yourself out, as long as you do it somewhere else, Colonel." He looks at him like a father who has a child with bad temper tantrums on his hands, but König – as always – is oblivious to that. "Thanks, Herr Doktor*.", he says with a pep in his tone. Then he picks me up and carries me out the medic ward. "König, I can walk. The others are gonna see…", I protest, weakly, but I do protest. "Shut it, Mauserl**.", he throws back at me, clipped. "You should have never been there." I sulk a bit, but I know he’s right. "Should have, would have. How do you say? Hätte hätte Fahrradkette***?", I say between clenched teeth. My wound is still seeping blood into the fabric of my pants and now on König's shirt.

He carries me with ease in just one hand, with the other still holding the case. His long legs make huge strides down the hall, heading to the dorms, but as we pass my room, I get that he’s carrying me to his. “König…” He doesn’t look at me, just shakes his head. “Don’t.” I know him well enough already, that I can sense the distress emanating off him. Making it hard for him to say what he’s really feeling. He opens up the door to his room. I mean, it’s smart, we’ll be alone here, but it might also raise suspicions if the team gets wind of it. He sets me down on his bed and turns on the bedside lamp. “Hold still.”, he says and gets all the stuff out to dress my wound. Before I even see what he’s doing, he’s already cut my pants off. “What are you doing?!”, I scream at him. “That’s how you do this. Stop fretting.” His Austrian accent is as strong as ever. I don’t listen to what he’s saying, everything being too much. “You didn’t need to cut it off, we could’ve just-“ I move again, I can’t even sit-

“STAY STILL.”, he shouts and his hands grip me, gripping my waist, almost reaching around, as he pushes me down on the bed. I still because he never – NEVER – shouted at me like that before. My mouth stands open, I look up at him. He sighs, deep and desperate, and I hear his voice wavering as he puts his forehead against mine and says: “Please… just let me patch you up.” I feel his hood falling against my face and his warm and comforting smell cuts through the stench of blood and sweat. “Okay”, I breathe. His hand caresses over my cheek as he nods. “Gut****” He sits back on his knees and the room is immersed in silence.

He takes the disinfectant and cleans the area around the wound of the graze shot. The small noises and our intermingled breaths are all I hear. I feel his hands on my naked legs and the pulse in my wound quickens. “It didn’t stop bleeding.”, I whisper as I don’t want to disturb the quiet we’ve sunk into. “Hmm.”, is all he says before he presses a bandage against it. The bloods seeps through again and stains his fingers even more. “I’m gonna have to give you stitches, Liebes*****.”, he murmurs. I nod and he gets the needle and thread ready. “You have to stay still, okay?”, he orders me. “Hold onto me.” I grab his arm, the one not stitching me up, and as the needle sinks into my skin, I gasp dragging my nails into his muscles. “Yes, you’re doing so well for me.”, he whispers as he caresses my other thigh, preparing for the next stitch. I press my lips together, not to make any sounds. When he’s done, he puts a bandage over it to secure the stitched-up wound.

König sighs like there’s a huge weight falling off him and he meets my eyes again. The raw emotions in them scare me a bit. “Are you okay?”, I ask him as I put my hand on his cheek. He doesn’t answer my question but pulls me to the edge of the bed. “I need to be inside you. Please.” His hands trail up my inner thigh until he reaches my panties. The surprise hits me as he leans forward, his hood brushes over my skin and then I feel his lips on my neck. Soft kisses trail up to my ear and need settles in, low in my belly. “I need to feel you.”, he whispers, his hot breath skitting over the wet patches of his open-mouthed kisses, as he carefully pulls down my undies. He holds me close to him which gives me the opportunity to undo his belt. He nibbles at my neck and sucks on the sensitive spot, right below my ear, as I take out his dick and position him at my wetness. He doesn’t hesitate one bit, pushing into me slowly. A soft moan falls from my lips as I stretch around him. “Fuck.”, he mutters, burying himself in me. He’s still holding me close, not moving at all for a few seconds. I grip his sides, letting my nails sink into his back, as I adjust to his size and wonder if I’ll ever get used to it.

All the other times it had been fast. Passionate. Entangled limbs and hard thrusts until my legs gave out and I couldn’t move anymore. The other kind of human battering ram, if you catch my drift, because König fucks just like he fights. Putting the ‘insertion’ and the ‘specialist’ into ‘insertion specialist’. I was used to him jerking me on his cock how he liked it and me just taking it like a good girl, that I was completely… at a loss for words. Seeing him kneel before me, buried deep inside me, fucking me with lazy, languid strokes, while his hands are caressing my back, stroking over my sides softly. This is different. Slow, tender. Almost lovingly.

“You feel so good.”, he tells me. “But…” I halt. “But what?” – “I want to kiss you.”, he whispers. Okay, so this is definitely different from all the hasty stolen moments we had together so far. Even when he ate me out, he didn’t remove his cover, so I actually never saw his face before, except for his eyes. “We can do that.” I swallow down my nerves. “Should I lift your… mask?”, I ask him. He nods and my shaky hands reach for the hem of the hood, slowly pulling up, stopping right over his mouth. I look down, seeing the curve of his lips beneath the fabric as he leans forward. My hand cups his right cheek and I feel his stubble against my fingertips when he kisses me for the first time. His lips press against mine. Soft, so soft, in contrast to his big burly figure. He breaks away for just a moment, his eyes searching mine. König sees something in them that seems to satisfy him and he leans down again. I answer his kiss as a moan slips over my lips, giving him the chance to deepen it.

When his tongue moves against mine, he starts to push into me again. Tingles erupt all over my body and even if it’s not hard and fast like I’d normally prefer, the way he’s holding me, kissing me, fucking me is building up my arousal with every languid roll of his hips. I don’t think I had somebody ever do me like this before and I feel a pang of… some kind of emotion in my chest that I’d rather not dwell on right now. I push it away and concentrate on König again.

I want to feel him close, closer, my other hand, currently not on his face, is trailing up his back, feeling his warm body beneath my fingertips. He pulls me flush against him, picking up a little bit in tempo. Our movements are getting needier and I grind against him, not breaking the kiss, so he swallows up all my sounds and sighs. “Please, Liebes*****.”, he whispers against my lips. “Come for me.” His fingers trail down, finding my clit, stroking at the same pace, repeating his plea. The flood of arousal washes over me as he fills me up again and I can’t hold back the soft scream that escapes me as I come around his dick. I feel him tremble beneath me, coming inside me as the waves of my orgasm subside. All I hear are our intertwined heavy breaths as I still try to grasp what just really happened.

König pulls back, kissing me one more time, then the hood falls back down again. He puts his dick away and buckles his belt before he raises his hand one more time. His thumbs caresses over my cheek, I can feel his fingers on the side of my face. “For a second today, I was afraid that I lost you.” His voice is a whisper, almost soundless. His words hit me, like a punch to the stomach, I didn’t expect him to say anything about it, to feel this way. Before I can answer, he gets up and for the first time I register that he is still fully clothed, stains of blood all over his shirt, mine and the enemies. His tattooed forearms and hands are bloody. We didn’t even wash off the remnants of the fight before we fucked. The tender moments form a stark contrast against the blood and violence. The 6’10’’ killing machine standing in front of me whose hands can rip enemies apart, but I only know the pleasure they give me, how they caress me, how they patched me up today,

“Where are you going?”, I ask him as I look up at him. He looks down on the floor and I can see him shutting down a bit. “I just wanna get some workout done.”, he says finally. “You can stay here, get some rest.” With long strides he’s at the door. “I’m gonna be back… soon. Okay, Mauserl**?” I nod as light from the hallway streams into the room, then the door closes, he’s gone and I’m alone in his bed. I lie down, ignoring the wet sensation between my legs of our combined fluids. I grab the covers and pull them over me. The soft light still illuminates the room and I bask in König’s smell, the blanket and the warm glow giving me the comfort that the man himself couldn’t right now.

Translations: *Herr Doktor: 'Mister doctor', polite salutation for a doctor in german **Mauserl: more austrian version of small mouse ***Hätte hätte, Fahrradkette: a silly german way to say 'what happened, happened, can't do nothing about it now' ****gut: 'good' *****Liebes: 'my love'

#könig #könig cod #könig mw2 #konig #konig cod #konig mw2 #könig x fmc #könig fanfiction #cod mw2 smut #könig smut #konig smut #cod smut

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jacksgreysays · 29 days

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Extremely late, completely unnecessary opinion of the Watcher situation, (2024-04-24)

So this is a relatively belated post — several days after the initial “Goodbye Youtube” and one day after the “An Update” videos — and surely by this point there are more interesting/insightful op-eds (both in written form and video form, especially penguinz0’s fairly objective POV as, essentially, a YouTube expert) but there is something about the Watcher situation that made my brain itch. Thus, I wanted to write about it in order to make sense of it all as well as get into a philosophy that seems to be haunting me in recent years and which I think applies greatly here.

This may seem completely out of left field considering 1) definitely not fanfiction and 2) about Watcher Entertainment, a YouTube channel which—as far as this tumblr is concerned—I’ve not engaged with whatsoever, but I don’t know where else I would put this, and weirdly enough I think the general tumblr response to this whole predicament is maybe the… if not objective… then at least, most thoughtful?—or, perhaps, least immediately reactive?—amongst the various social media platforms, that I think some people might appreciate this anyway.

In terms of my relevant background: I majored in Management Science (which is just a fancy way of saying Economics + Business + Accounting because they are, weirdly enough, separate things) and minored in Film Studies in school, I am currently working in the stage tech industry (which, I know, is obviously different from film/video industry), and I like to think I am a fan/consumer of a wide variety of independent creators, some of whom I am lucky enough to be able to afford being a patron/subscriber. I won’t go into all of them—because it is a lot—but there are four in particular whose business models I want to analyze in comparison to Watcher’s admitted blunder:

A) RocketJump (known for Video Game High School and Anime Crimes Division; the core group which turned into the podcast Story Break, then became Dungeons and Daddies) B) Dropout (formerly College Humor, we’ll get into their discography later) C) Drawfee (previously an offshoot of College Humor, now fully independent) D) Corridor Digital (used to be mostly behind the scenes of how VFX studios work, have since become a mostly original content creator)

I will say, right off the bat, I am a patron of Drawfee as well as Dungeons and Daddies, and I am a subscriber to Dropout. I am not subscribed to Corridor Digital’s streamer, which I will get into why later. I understand that being able to sustain those two patronages and one subscription is a luxury that not everyone can afford and so my point of view is already skewed by being such a person who could theoretically afford another streaming service if I so chose. I also acknowledge that many fans of Watcher are not in similarly financially secure places as I am and that regardless of the business model, any monetization that comes from fans would have been a rough ask. However, I wanted to go into this essay in a way that accepts Watcher’s statement—that they needed more funding—in relatively good faith rather than assuming the worst (although that is another point I’ll get into later, largely related to the philosophy I brought up earlier.)

All four of the above listed content creators started or, at least, hit their stride on YouTube:

RocketJump and College Humor were, if not household names, then the digital equivalent of it in the “early days of YouTube.” They were part of the wave of content creators that made YouTube seem less like a bunch of eccentrics with cameras making videos on the side and more like a viable way to support yourself/your team with the art you create.

RocketJump’s Video Game High School went from short (less than 10 minutes) minimal location episodes in season one, to 30 minute plus episodes with full on fight scenes and car explosions by season three thanks to a Monster Energy brand deal. They also had two seasons of Anime Crimes Division, a literal TV quality show, thanks to a Crunchy Roll sponsorship. Unfortunately, RocketJump shut down not long after (their videos are still up on YouTube but they obviously don’t add anything new) but the core creative team behind that have been involved in several projects outside of YouTube (Dimension 404 on Hulu being one of the biggest ones so far) including the podcast Story Break (part of the Maximum Fun network) and now the independent podcast Dungeons and Daddies, the episodes of the main campaigns which are free with ads or, for patrons, ad-less along with additional mini-campaigns and other benefits.

I will say, during RocketJump’s decline, they did try their best to keep going. The partnerships with Monster Energy and Crunchy Roll were the big swings to get the funding to make those TV quality shows they wanted. I believe they lucked out with those brands in particular, or, at least, those brands didn’t seem to inhibit the creative process or ask too much of them that it felt like “selling out” but I also don’t have insight into why they didn’t pursue this model of, essentially, very weird but interesting season long commercials. Maybe they just couldn't find the right brands or maybe they did feel like it was too stifling. Regardless, before they shut down completely, they did also downsize—moving out of the actual city of Los Angeles over to Buena Park. Which is in Los Angeles county, and basically counts as LA still, but is way cheaper than literal Hollywood real estate. (I should have added to my relevant background that I’m born and raised LA county, and have relatives and friends in the film/movie industry, so trust me when I say literal Hollywood/city of Los Angeles is so overrated and unnecessarily expensive. There is a reason why LA traffic is the worst and it’s because everyone is commuting INTO the city. Respectfully and with affection, no one should live there. No one’s start up should be located there.) Obviously the downsizing didn’t necessarily work for RocketJump, but they also didn’t have multiple successful revenue streams the way that Watcher currently does.

In contrast, College Humor was acquired by InterActiveCorp and was turned into CH Media which was three pronged: College Humor, Drawfee, and Dorkly. In 2018 they made Dropout, which had exclusive content separate from their YouTube videos which involved all three prongs. Then some financial shenanigans happened early 2020—IAC withdrew their funding—and there were a bunch of layoffs right before the pandemic which extremely sucked. It has been stated by multiple people involved that it was basically a miracle that Dropout survived through all of that, but there were definitely some sacrifices along the way to make that happen. Currently, Dropout seems to be thriving with mostly exclusive content with the occasional “first episode of a season” posted to YouTube, OR if Dimension 20 is doing a “sequel season” in an already established campaign they will put the entirety of the previous season on YouTube.

IAC withdrawing their funding did put CH Media in a bind. They had to layoff a lot of people right before pandemic and, understandably, a lot of trauma was had. There were also weird issues with who controlled certain IPs/brands/digital assets (I mostly come at this from a Drawfee POV, it took several years for them to own the Drawga series and be allowed to host all of the episodes on their YouTube, and there was also something about the sound file for their opening animation?) but mainly the difference is what kind of content they generate. Originally Dropout had multiple scripted shows with high budgets and pretty cool effects/animations/stunts (Troopers, Kingpin Katie, Gods of Food, Ultramechatron Team Go!, Cartoon Hell, and WTF 101) whereas now almost all of their shows are variations of improv comedians being put into different scenarios or given different prompts. I’m not just talking about Game Changer and Make Some Noise, because Dimension 20 and Um, Actually also technically fall under that description as well. Which is not to say that these shows are worse than the scripted shows—I subscribe to Dropout, so clearly I’m a fan of their current shows—and the budgets for them have since increased to resemble, if not match, those early shows, but it is a noticeable shift in their content creation strategy as a response to the lack of IAC funding. And I will say: Dropout releases at least three videos a week if not more and at least two of those are long form at 30 minutes plus (Dimension 20 being the longest, of course.)

So, these first two business models are not really the most applicable to Watcher Entertainment considering their origin was to get away from Buzzfeed—they’re probably not keen to be partnered with or purchased by a larger company—but there are some aspects to both that I believe are valuable in at least showing the strategy in how these former YouTube creators could successfully extract themselves from YouTube or how they still utilize YouTube even if it is not their main hosting platform or revenue stream.

Then there is Drawfee and Corridor Digital, both of whom are currently—if not primarily—on YouTube, whose situations are more comparable to what I believe are Watcher’s goals.

Drawfee had to rebuild themselves like a phoenix from the ashes of the CH Media layoff during the beginning/worst of the pandemic. Side note: I’m happy that Nathan (one of the four main artists of the current Drawfee team) at least has forgiven(? or let bygones be bygones) Dropout enough to be on an episode of Game Changer (although I will say that this happened after Drawga was “returned” to Drawfee, and after Dropout officially split from College Humor as a brand.) All that being said, Drawfee was a team of four artists plus their editor who wanted to stick together but basically had all of their support system taken away from them. They took a bit of a break to assess their goals and options, announced a patreon with several tiers with great perks, and stuck to their upload schedule. In addition to two videos a week, they also stream on Twitch weekly, have a patron only stream once a month, and a draw class (for one of the higher tiers) once month. After asking their patrons on the relevant tiers if they were okay with it, they began releasing the patron only stream and the draw class to the general public for free after a month. The patreon perks also include things like merch discount codes, high quality PNGs of the final rendered art, access to the draw class with live interaction/critique, and a commission from the artist of your choice. The only “ads” they run are for their own patreon and merch store and, even then, they’re usually at the end of the videos with a credit scroll of the patron names during their exit banter.

Admittedly, they only have MAYBE eight employees—that’s including their video editor(s?) and their discord mod(s?)—with the main four artists doubling/tripling up duties as additional video editors, CFO, and marketing/merch leads. It’s a very streamlined crew and their production costs are not very high since it’s mostly screen recording of their drawings with their audio recording overlayed onto that footage. Although the video editors do sometimes have clever cuts to relevant images depending on their vamping. Sometimes they will have a guest artist but, again, since it’s screen and audio recordings, there’s no travel/housing costs. So, very minimal expenses due to low production costs and small crew but, again, their only revenue source is the patreon/merch, they don’t do outside ads and they very rarely do live shows.

Corridor Digital is, I think, the most applicable to what Watcher would ideally do, which I suppose is somewhat ironic for this essay in particular considering they’re the only one of the four that I don’t financially support. They have two YouTube channels: their main one being where they show the “final product” videos, but I believe their Corridor Crew channel which started primarily as behind the scenes type of videos is where most of their views come from. Especially their React series (VFX artists, Stuntmen, and Animators React etc.) On Corridor Crew they usually upload two videos a week — one which is a React and the other which goes into fun projects/challenges (involving VFX or not) or using VFX to explain scientific concepts — as well as the first episodes of their exclusive content on their streamer. Also behind that paywall are longer and ad-less versions of the videos on YouTube. They also have merch. All of them have merch, I don’t know why I’m stating that. They don’t have a patreon as far as I know, but I also don’t know if their subscription to their website comes with similar perks like discounted merch or something similar.

Anyway, their studio seems to be about 15 to 20 people — not all of them are VFX artists, of course. I believe they have higher equipment costs than Watcher since, understandably, Corridor has to be on the cutting edge of video editing technology. They do occasionally travel for shoots, but it doesn’t require big teams, and that’s only when the local locations available to them don’t match the requirements for the “final product” videos. Otherwise most of their videos are set in the studio or in the alleyway outside their studio in Los Angeles (the city itself, not just the greater county, though they are in a rougher and thus probably cheaper part of Los Angeles). I personally don’t subscribe to their website primarily because their exclusive shows don’t appeal to me—either they’re too technical or a little too dry; to be fair, most of them are VFX artists first before they are performers—and I don’t particularly feel the need to see the extended cuts of the videos uploaded on YouTube. Also I sometimes get a little bummed out by their lack of diversity.

All of this to say, from these four different business models, a bespoke Frankenstein business model for Watcher could be cobbled together. But also, even with that bespoke Frankenstein, there are some changes that Watcher would have to make: primarily their upload schedule. As of right now, I think they do MAYBE one video a week if not, perhaps, one video every TWO weeks. If they want a monthly subscription model, their rate of content generation would ideally be higher to double/quadruple their current upload rate. Obviously they want to create videos with higher production value, but at that rate of generation, something’s got to give: supplement their TV quality shows with either a behind the scenes type series or an increase of “we get four episodes out of Shane and Ryan get increasingly drunk in someone’s backyard” or something similar. Leaning into shows like Worth A Shot (the first season in which Ricky Wang makes cocktails based on a random ingredient, the second season threw in some competitive aspects which I didn’t really find necessary) or the Beatdown which has relatively low production costs (no travel, one location, maybe two cameras at most therefore smaller crew requirements) but a higher polished look. Otherwise, for a separate streaming subscription service, 2-4 videos a month is not going to cut it.

As of right now they probably can’t back out of the separate streaming subscription service because those set ups usually require some level of contract/paying for servers for the website and whatever is hosting their videos for a set amount of time. However, what really strikes me is that I literally didn’t know they had a patreon until I scrolled through the comments of the first Goodbye Youtube video. Maybe it’s been linked "tactfully" in the descriptions of videos, but considering they claim to be lacking in funds, the fact that they weren’t plugging their patreon at the end of every video is not just strange, but also irresponsible considering they do have 25 employees that they don’t want to layoff.

Additionally, I understand artists needing to be in a space that promotes creativity, but there are cheaper places that must be comparable that aren’t in literal Hollywood. It’s an unnecessary expense. On top of that, other people have already brought up that it was fairly crass to introduce this paywall, attributing it to the increased production costs, when the next planned “new series” is a reboot of an old Buzzfeed series in which people travel and eat expensive food. I’m not even talking about the personal expenses of Steven, Shane, and Ryan; what kind of car they drive or the cost of their wedding venue doesn’t matter on a business model basis.

But getting back to the patreon: again, I literally didn’t know they had one. I’m looking over their tiers— they have $5, $10, $25, and $100 — and for the most part they seem okay, although I think they have more to offer that wouldn’t necessarily cost them more. Ie, something that has baffled me for a while: the fact they don’t sell the mp3s of the Puppet History songs; they already exist and it doesn’t cost them anything additional because they don’t need to put it on physical media. Or maybe they do and they’re not marketing it similarly to how they weren’t overtly marketing their patreon?

And, okay, maybe they didn’t want to seem desperate — in the early days of Dropout and independent Drawfee, they both were very blatant in getting people to subscribe/join their patreon. As they should be. Desperation maybe doesn’t look cool and sexy, but it is earnest in a way that conveys equal effort that fans who can afford it would want to see. The fact that we weren’t getting rotating ten second clips of Steven, Shane, and Ryan asking people to join the patreon at the end of every video — even if its the same clip every three videos — is wild. And yes, the $25 tier includes a shoutout every 3 months on Watcher Weekly+ (which I don't quite understand what that is,) but the fact that they weren’t doing a quick post movie credits scroll of all the patreon names is, again, wild. Once you have that initial list, it’s not too difficult to add any new names that join and put that title overlay on top of, again, those nonexistent ten second clips of the three.

As others have already stated, it seems like an extreme mismanagement of their existing successful revenue streams, if they are actually struggling to pay all of their employees. Which goes into the philosophy part of this essay: don’t assume malice when it might just be incompetence. It’s something that I have to remind myself of often because I do get paranoid about people’s intentions sometimes and I have to check myself. Am I being overly suspicious of what might be just an honest mistake? Am I assigning ill will to an action just because it inconvenienced me?

Yes, of course, a lot of this situation could be misconstrued as straight up greed. But, also, Watcher is a relatively young company, helmed by three people who certainly don’t have experience running their own company:

They like to travel. They like to bring a full crew around with them. They’re renting out a shiny office in the heart of Hollywood where everyone knows is where real show biz happens. They’re adding more employees to the team because surely more people means better. And they want better productions values because the prettier the videos the more people will like them right?

It’s naive. It’s a level of inexperience combined with giving responsibility to officers whose main priority is to entertain. And if that means entertaining themselves and their staff, then they might not know the difference. It’s the kind of mistake that first time managers make—trying to prioritize fun over getting the job done. Prioritizing making friends with their employees rather than making sure the work the employees put in is equal to (or greater than) what you spend on them whether that is in paycheck or bringing them to cool locations for fun shoots. It’s a mistake anyone can make, it's just unfortunate that they made this mistake in front of millions of people. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s solely a greed induced cash grab.

But then comes the catch-22 of the philosophy—is it worse to assume incompetence than it is to assume malice? Or, in this case, greed. Especially for the heads of a company that holds the livelihoods of 25 employees in their hands. At what point does it not matter if it’s incompetence or greed if the end result is the same?

Is it better to think that Watcher knew about the various other business models of independent creators and just ignored the efforts put into achieving those successes or is it better to think that they didn’t know and just stumbled into one of the worst moves they could have done. Again, other people have mentioned that Great Mythical Morning—which Watcher has had multiple collaborations with—has managed to make the YouTube subscription/tier system work to the point that they can sustain themselves as well as spinoff channels. Is it incompetence or greed that led to Watcher thinking they could bypass that completely in less time and with less content?

I’ve been at this mess of an essay for several hours when I should have been asleep. Ultimately I want to say, regardless of incompetence or greed… yes, Steven is CEO and yes he is ultimately the one who makes the final call but it is disheartening to see the pointed vitriol at Steven specifically and the infantilizing of Shane and Ryan in comparison. Either they’re all silly uwu boys who are messing around not knowing how to run a company, or they’re all complicit in a crass cash grab in an extremely busted economy.

I think what’s most frustrating to me in all this is that there were so many other channels and creators who have literally walked this path before them and, again, whether through incompetence or greed or arrogance, for them to just ignore it… It’s not betrayal because I don’t know them and so there’s no relationship to betray, it’s just so inefficient and convoluted that I don’t understand. Or, no, even if it was greed, it’s an incompetent greed because at least pure greed would have been pushing that patreon every second they could. Their ratio of YouTube subscribers to patreon members is less than 1% and I bet that’s because a lot of their audience, like me, literally didn’t know they had a patreon. I probably would have become a patreon member of theirs had I known earlier, ESPECIALLY if it included access to those Puppet History songs. Drawfee has half as many YouTube subscribers and nearly double the patreon members as Watcher. I’m just baffled, is all, and maybe by this point sleep deprived.

Anyway. That’s my extremely late, completely unnecessary opinion of this situation.

Edit (several hours later after some sleep): I forgot to mention, because they did walk this back almost immediately, even before their "An Update" video, but I believe the original plan was to put EVERYTHING behind that paywall and pull their content from YouTube entirely. Which is, again, extremely baffling, because if ALL of their content is behind a paywall, how would they possibly gain new fans? Even if all of their current fans were able and willing to pay for their separate subscription streaming service, how would a brand new person even stumble on their content enough to want to subscribe if there wasn't a significant amount of "proof of value" free content on YouTube? Again, extremely baffling, and a level of incompetence that overshadows a "cunning" greed. But, like I said earlier, they did walk this decision back almost immediately. If I've misunderstood this and that was never their plan, please let me know, I don't want to be spreading misinformation in a situation that is already so convoluted.

#jacksgreyson #writing #nonfiction #essay #watcher #op-ed #youtube #drawfee #corridor digital #dropout #rocketjump #dungeons and daddies

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