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sineala · 3 years

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How would you say fandom culture has changed over the years? What are some differences you notice between older and younger fandom folks?

I’ve been thinking for a while about how to answer this, and I’m not sure I have a really good answer, but I’m going to try.

I’ve been in fandom since approximately 1995. Maybe 1994. At that point, the world wide web was a relatively new part of the internet, and the fandoms I was in had most of their activity on privately-hosted mailing lists (predating eGroups/OneList/Yahoo Groups) and on Usenet newsgroups, with fiction beginning to be available on websites as part of either fandom-specific or pairing-specific archives as well as authors’ individual pages. Fanfiction.net did not yet exist. LiveJournal did not exist. AO3 definitely did not exist. If you wanted real-time chat, there was IRC. I was coming in basically at the tail end of zine fandom; zines were no longer the only way of distributing fanfiction, as fandom started to move online. So I have a selection of zines from 90s-era Western media fandoms but even by then zines weren’t where I was doing most of my reading.

I think in terms of generally “what it was like to be in fandom,” the big-picture stuff hasn’t changed. Fandom still produces creative fanwork and likes to, y’know, get together and talk about fandom. Also, almost every fight or complaint that fandom has about something is a thing that has been going on for actual years. People complain that, say, the kudos button is ruining comment culture because back in the LJ days the only way you could comment on a story was, well, by leaving an actual comment, or sending an email on a mailing list, and this might mean that people who would have otherwise commented have left a kudos instead. But back in the LJ and mailing list days, people were complaining that commenting was going downhill since the days of zines, when in order to comment on a story you had to write a real paper letter and mail it and because you had to do that, the quality of feedback was so much better than you got nowadays because people could just dash off a quick email or comment. You get the idea. Top/bottom wars are not new either. Pairing wars are not new. If you’ve been in fandom a while, you will pretty much have seen all the fights already. I think one thing that is new, though, is the fandom awareness of things like privilege and intersectionality and various -isms, as well as things like “providing warnings might be nice” (do you know how much unwarned deathfic I have read? a lot!) and I sure won’t say we’re perfect at any of this now, but I think fandom is trying way way more about all that stuff than it used to.

There are some fights we actually don’t have anymore, as far as I can tell. I feel like it’s been years since I’ve seen the “real person fiction is wrong” battle, but also I don’t hang out in a whole lot of RPF fandoms, so it’s possible that’s still going and I just don’t see it.

There also used to be a recurring debate about whether gay relationships that were canonical were slash or not. When slash started, obviously this wasn’t a question because there weren’t canonical gay relationships in fandoms, period. But as gay characters began to appear in media, people started to wonder “does slash mean all same-sex relationships, or does slash mean only non-canonical same-sex relationships?” Now, you may be reading this and think that sounds like an incredibly weird thing to get hung up on, but that’s because what appears to have happened is that the term “ship” (originally from X-Files Mulder/Scully fandom) has, as far as I can tell, come up and eaten most of the rest of the terminology. Now people will just say, “oh, I ship that.” For any pairing, gay or not, canonical or not. Fandom seems to have decided that for the most part it no longer actually needs a term specific to same-sex relationships as a genre.

Similarly, there are a few genres of fic that we used to have also pretty much don’t exist anymore. There are also plenty of genres that are well-entrenched now that are also extremely recent -- A/B/O comes to mind. But there are some kinds of fic we don’t write a lot of now. Like, I haven’t seen smarm in years! I also haven’t seen We’re Not Gay We Just Love Each Other in a while. There was also a particular style of slash writing where you’d basically have to explain, in detail, what made you think that these particular characters could be anything other than straight. You’d have to motivate this decision. You’d have to look at their canonical heterosexual relationships and come up with a way to explain why all those had happened in order to reconcile how this one guy could have romantic feelings for another guy. When had he figured out he wasn’t straight? Who might he have been with before? How does he interact with people in ways that make you think he’s not straight? That kind of thing. You had to, essentially, show your work. And these days a lot of fanfic is just like, “Okay, Captain America is bisexual, let’s go!” It’s... different.

Fandom also used to skew older, is my sense. A lot older. I don’t know, actually, if it really was older, but I get the sense now that there are some younger people who are surprised that adults are still in fandom. I have seen people saying these days that they think they’re too old for fanfiction because they are not in middle school anymore. And I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that the barriers to access fandom are a lot lower than they used to be. You used to basically have to be an adult with disposable income (or know an adult with disposable income who was willing to help you out; but even then if you were reading explicit fiction you also had to swear you were 18+, usually by sending in an age statement to whoever you were buying the zine from or to the mods of the list you wanted to join, so a lot of fandom was very much age-gated). Internet access was not widely available. Even if you had internet access, you maybe didn’t have your own email address, so you couldn’t sign up for mailing lists; free email providers didn’t exist. If you wanted to buy zines, you had to have money to buy them. If you wanted to go to cons, you had to be able to afford the cost of the con, travel to the con, et cetera. If you wanted to have a website you had to know HTML. Social media did not exist. You want to draw art? Guess what, you’re probably drawing it on paper! You might be able to upload a picture to your website if you have a digital camera or a scanner, but both of those things are expensive, and also a lot of people don’t have the capability or the money to download pictures from the internet (some people have data caps with overage charges, and some people have text-only connections!), so they won’t get to see it. Maybe you can sell your piece at a con! You want to make a fanvid? We called them songvids, but, anyway, you know how you’re doing that? You’re going to hook two VCRs together and smash the play and record buttons very fast! If you want anyone else to watch them, you are either making them a tape personally and mailing it to them or bringing your vids to a convention. Maybe you can digitize them and upload them, but it’s going to take people hours to download them!

(Every three hours my ISP would kick me off the internet and I’d have to dial in again. If it was a busy time of day, it might take me 20 or 30 minutes to get a connection again. And that was assuming no one else in the house needed to use the phone line. Imagine if your modem went out every three hours now.)

And now, for the cost of my internet connection, I can read pretty much whatever fanfiction I want, whenever I want it. I can see all the fanart I want! I can watch vids! Podfic exists now! Fanmixes exist! Gifsets and moodboards exist! If I want to write fic I can write it with programs that are completely free, and as soon as I post it everyone in the entire world can read it. If I want to draw or make vids that may require some additional investment, but I may also be able to do it with things I already have. Do you have any idea how good we all have it?

There are a couple of kinds of fan activity that don’t seem to exist anymore, though, and I miss them. I know that roleplaying still goes on, but I feel like these days most people who do real-time text roleplay have switched to things like Discord. I know that in the LJ days, RP communities were popular. But I really miss MU*s (MUDs, MUSHes, MOOs, MUXes..), which were servers for real-time text-based RP with a bunch of... hmm... features to aid RP. There were virtual rooms with text descriptions, and objects in virtual rooms with descriptions, and your character had a description, and they could interact with the objects as well as with other characters, and you could program things to change descriptions or emit various kinds of text or take you to different rooms, and so on. Just to, y’know, enhance the atmosphere. It was fun and it was where I learned to RP and I’m sad they’re pretty much gone now.

I also don’t think I see a lot of fanfiction awards in fandoms. Wonder where they went.

Going back to the previous point, the barriers to actually consuming the canon you are fannish about are way, way, way lower now. You can pretty much take it for granted that if right now someone tells you about a shiny new fandom, there will be a way to read that book or watch that show or movie right now. Possibly for free! Of course you can watch it! Why wouldn’t you be able to?

This was absolutely, absolutely not the case before. I’m currently in Marvel Comics fandom. If there is a comic I want to read, I can read it right now on the internet. I have subscribed to Marvel Unlimited and I can read pretty much every comic that is older than three months old; the newer ones cost extra money. But I can do it all from the comfort of my own home right now. I was also, actually, in Marvel Comics fandom in the nineties. If I wanted to read a comic, I had to go to a comic book store and hope they had it in stock; if they didn’t, I had to try another store. Not a lot of comics were available in trade paperback and they definitely weren’t readable on the internet. I used to read a lot of Gambit h/c fic set after Uncanny X-Men #350. I never found a copy of UXM #350. I still haven’t! But I did eventually read it on Unlimited.

Being in TV show fandoms also had similar challenges. Was the show you were watching still on the air? No? Then you’d better hope you could find it in reruns, or know someone who had tapes of it that they could copy for you, otherwise you weren’t watching that show. It was, I think, pretty common for people to be in fandoms for shows they hadn’t seen, because they had no way to see the show, but they loved all the fanfic. The Sentinel had a whole lot of fans like that, both because I think it took a while for it to end up in reruns and because overseas distribution was probably poor. So you’d get people who read the fic and wrote fic based on the other fic they’d read, which meant that you got massive, massive amounts of fanon appearing that people just assumed was in the show because it was a weirdly specific detail that appeared in someone’s fic once. Like “Jim and Blair’s apartment has a small water heater” (not actually canonical) or “Blair is a vegetarian” (there’s an episode where his mother visits and IIRC cooks him one of his favorite meals, which is beef tongue).

Like, I was in The Professionals fandom for years. I read all the fic. I hadn’t seen the show. As far as I know, it never aired in the US, and it certainly never had any kind of US VHS or DVD release. I’d seen a couple songvids. I eventually saw a couple episodes in maybe 2003, and that was because my dad special-ordered a commercial VHS tape from the UK and paid someone to convert it from PAL to NTSC. I didn’t get to see the whole show until several years later when I got a region-free DVD player someone in fandom sent me burned copies of the UK DVD releases and then I special-ordered the commercial release of the DVDs from the UK myself. But if I were a new fan and wanted to watch Pros right now? It is on YouTube! For free!

I think also one of the things about fandom that’s not immediately evident to new fans is the way in which it is permanent and/or impermanent. There are probably people whose first fannish experience is on Tumblr or who only read fanfic on FFN and who have no idea what they would do if either site, say, just shut down. But if you’ve been in fandom a while, you’ve been through, say, Discord, Tumblr, Twitter, Pillowfort, Imzy, DW, JournalFen, LJ, GeoCities, IRC, mailing lists. And sure, if Tumblr closed, it would be inconvenient. But fandom would pack up and move somewhere else. You would find it again. It would, eventually, be okay. Similarly, if you’ve been in a lot of fandoms, if you’ve made a lot of friends, drifting through fandoms is like that. You’ll make a friend in 1998 because you were in the same fandom, and then you might go your own ways, and ten years later you might be in another fandom with them again! It happens.

But the flip side of that is that I think a lot of older fans have learned not to trust in the permanence of any particular site. If you like a story, you save it as soon as you read it. If you like a piece of art, you save it. If you like a vid, you save it. Because you don’t know when the site it’s on will be gone for good. I have, like, twenty years of lovingly-curated fanfic. And I feel like people who have only been in fandom since AO3 existed might not understand how much AO3 is a game-changer compared to what we had before. It’s a site where you can put your fic up and you don’t have to worry that the webhost is going out of business, or that the site might delete your work because they don’t allow gay fiction or explicit fiction or fiction written in second person or fiction for fandoms where the creator doesn’t like fanfiction, or whatever. Because all of those things have absolutely happened. But, I mean, I still save pretty much everything I like, even on AO3, just in case.

So, basically, yeah, fandom is a whole lot more accessible than it used to be. I think fandom is pretty much still fandom, but it’s a lot easier to get into, and that has made it way more open to people who wouldn’t have been able to be in fandom before. There is so, so much more now than there ever was before, and I think that’s great.

#Anonymous #replies

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fivedayslater · 2 years

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2021 AO3 Wrapped

I wrote a lot this year!! Certainly more than last year, probably the most since 2010, so in a rare bout of self promotion I am going to tell you about them

Febuwhump (One Piece; Sanji-centric, various pairings)

I did all 28 Febuwhump prompts (all for one piece, all about Sanji, with various pairings) because I had barely written anything in 2020 and had to literally force myself to bang out a Christmas fic. I had hoped that doing a full month of prompts would get me back in the habit of writing semi-regularly and you know what? I was right.

Keeping Secrets (One Piece; ZoSan)

I first had the idea for this back last spring, just the basic idea that ZoSan is the worst kept secret of the Straw Hat Pirates, in that everyone knows but they all pretend not to. I mention in the AN that I had the idea at 3am, and what I meant was I was trying to sleep one night and suddenly had the idea of “what if everyone thought it was a secret but them???” Also stat wise this was my most popular fic of 2021, which is a shock for me.

The Only Way Out (Is Through) (One Piece AU; ZoSan)

My birthday gift to me, because I can’t get enough of knight Zoro and Prince Sanji!! I was working on another fic involving princes for a friend (and if you’re reading this i haven’t forgotten it and i am working on it I promise!!!!) but then there was a thunderstorm and the power went out, and I lost all the progress I’d made. In my frustration I started this, because when your computer loses everything you’ve worked really hard on for the past week self-indulgence is the only answer, then realized I could maybe finish it by the 14th and post it for my birthday, which I did.

Also fun fact: the title is from the song Bob Dylan by Fall Out Boy, because the first line of the song is ‘When they say you and what army/i guess they’re talking about you and me’ and if that ain’t a whole entire ZoSan Mood. To long for a fic title tho

The Fox and his Samurai (One Piece; Onimaru & Ushimaru, Onimaru & Zoro, ZoSan)

I read chapter 1023 and could not stop thinking about Onimaru and Ushimaru and comparing them to Zoro and Sanji. Then I’m pretty sure I got possessed by the fox because I’ve never written anything faster in my life.

Also this was the first fic on AO3 about Onimaru and Ushimaru, so if I’ve accomplished nothing else this year, I at least got them AO3 tags 😎

The Swordsman, The Fox, and the Onigiri (One Piece; Onimaru & Ushimaru, ZoSan)

Again with the fox. Cannot stop thinking about the fox. Actually what happened was that I have some how managed to befriend two of my favorite writers in the fandom and we were talking about this fanart, and how maybe Sanji making so much onigiri for Zoro was Onimaru’s way of thanking Ushimaru for all the onigiri, and, well. This happened. Also pretty sure the fox possessed me again because i somehow finished this faster then the first one.

Also as last time I checked these two fics were the only fics about Onimaru and Ushimaru on AO3, and while it’s nice to literally own a relationship tag, it’s also very lonely. Where’s the love for the fox people??

Sanctuary (One Piece AU; ZoSan)

I wanted to write a spooky fic in October for Halloween, so I was like “what if Sanji was a vampire and Zoro was a werewolf, how spooky would that be?” Then I was like “what if they were roommates???” And instead of being a spooky story it became a domestic fluffy with some light angst story about two people who outcast by societies coming together to make their own family.

Also the title is both a reference to the sanctuary Zoro and Sanji find/create with and for each other, and a kinda ‘fck you’ to the religious connotations of the word, since they are both considered monsters and hell spawn and all that. But also I was listening to A Lot of Kingdom Hearts songs while writing the first chapter 😅

Say Something (One Piece; ZoSan)

I had off December 2nd, I forget why, and it was ZoSan day, so I figured why not see if I can bang something out? I’ve had the idea stewing in my head for a while, ever since I saw this comic by marciaillust (which is a brilliant and beautiful and moving comic), zeroed in on Zoro’s face in the last panel, and spun off a big old What If? I did end up finishing it in 24 hours, but I didn’t get to put it through the 250 edits I usually do. I might go back and edit it later, but I also think it’s alright as is.

All I Want (One Piece; ZoSan)

I joined the ZoSan Club Discord Server in August, and it’s been a lot of fun! They had a secret Santa, and this was my gift for Yuu, an artist I admire a ton, so I was very nervous writing a gift for someone I like so much, but I had a blast writing this, and I think it came out well.

Also since I don’t think I mentioned it, her prompts were ‘Zoro and Sanji getting lost in the winter woods and having to help each other survive and stay warm’ and ‘Zoro doesn’t like holidays. Sanji shows him that they can be important’

#fanfic #opfanfic #zosan #most of it is anyway so #2021 one was one of the years ever but at least I got some writing done

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soyouareandrewdobson · 4 years

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Alex ze Pirate “Mini Review” 1: About Male Abuse

Alex ze Pirate is in my opinion the WORST “comic” series Dobson has ever written up until this point (date for archives: June 2020). Sure, I agree with people that his “hot take” comics on Star Wars Fans, political issues and virtue signaling for the sake of making brownie points are worse overall cause they are uneducated propaganda that give insight in how much of a loathsome human being driven by spite he genuinely is, but Alex “offends” me as someone who enjoys fiction. It may not be the worst thing ever written, but it just does so many things wrong in terms of storywriting, storytelling, presentation and creating fictional characters, I can’t help but wonder what went wrong that Dobson even remotely thought this thing would be a “successful” comic series to establish him as a creator. Cause I can tell you, having read the likes of Don Rosa’s work on Disney, Hilda, Cleopatra in Space, Spirou, Asterix, One Piece (of which I will talk a lot in my next few posts) and many more, I can confirm by comparison that Dobson’s pirates as a published comic would have only one use on the public shelves: alternative for toilet paper during the COVID-19 epidemic

Believe me, I would love to write an in depth analysis of everything wrong with Alex ze Pirate, from the lazy artwork up to even the publication history of this trainwrack. But doing so would take a lot of time and there is one individual part of this I think deserve at least extra attention. Something that in my opinion embodies quite well a lot of things I consider wrong with this comic. So before I am going over Alex in its entirety (and believe me, the day will come) let me just talk within the next few posts about one certain aspect and story of the comic, that genuinely got me to loath this comic to the core: Sam the Cabin Boy and “his” own individual story Dobson drew in three parts around 2010.

For starters, lets talk who Sam is: Sam is one of the main characters in the comic and actually the first person who joined Alex and Peggy in the initial pages of Legends, the “original” form of Alex ze Pirate.

See, back in 2004, Dobson released Alex ze Pirate in form of a single comic volume called “Legends” which features Alex trying to recruit a crew. The thing is around 78 pages thick and based on what I saw pretty terribly paced. For comparison: When Luffy in One Piece got his crew together, he spend multiple volumes and at least three minor story arcs to get Zoro, Nami, Sanji and Usopp to join him. All while also giving us good insight into the kind of people his new crewmates were (especially Sanji’s and Nami’s backstory got to me), defeating the likes of Buggy and Captain Black, meeting Dracula Mihawk and defeating one of the biggest bastards Eichiro Oda ever created in form of Arlong. What is the story how Sam joins the crew? An orphanage organizes an auction and sells kids off. Which I assume was even illegal in pirate times, so kudos for already showing us how despicable the world of Alex ze Pirate is to begin with and how much it deserves to be nuked in some sort of alien invasion.

Sam also doesn’t really get anything to do when he is introduced, just helping Alex escape on a small boat. Which is weird because he does not know her at all, she is just some stranger who bought him off and has no means to keep him in check, so why even bother following her and not let the mob get rid of Alex?

Anyway, I wish I could tell more about Sam’s involvement in Legends, but I don’t have really more than some scans of it in the beginning and near the end. So I don’t know his involvement in the rest of the volume. I also can’t say how he plays out in volume two, because that does not exist at all. Cause for reasons I will never understand, Dobson just abandoned the idea of telling a “coherent” and ongoing story with Alex ze Pirate and instead went to his colored one page comics/strips with it, turning it into what some people called “Garfield with Pirates” (which I consider a genuine insult towards any newspaper comic out there, even something as Boondocks). And the first thing we see of Sam in “classic” Alex ze Pirate?

The perverted dwarf of the crew showing of his shota underwear so that Alex and Sam stop bickering who is the cutest, leaving him embarrassed and humiliated.

Which kinda sums up his role in the comic to a t. Cause this is what Sam is: He is the buttmonkey of the crew. And honestly, I would not have a total problem with Sam being a buttmonkey, if a) he wasn’t it all the time, b) he would actually do something to deserve any form of humiliation and c) if the other characters in this comic itself would not be some of the biggest assholes I have ever seen, who get away with abusing the poor lad.

See, here is the problem: In a crew featuring a choleric homophobic soulless ginger

A black rat person who wants to fuck the ginger even without her consent

A furry abomination that has the same brain wavelengths as Chris Chan

And a perverted dwarf who tries to impersonate Happosai from Ranma 1/2

Sam is the only decent person in the entire crew. He works hard, he even questions the morality of his friends at times, he is honest, he is not perverted, almost good to the point of childish innocence and he has a very humble “goal” which is he wants to own his own piece of gold. Not even a big pile of treasure, just one single coin would be enough for him.

So he is likeable and relatable. In fact, if anything goes by, he may have been one of the most popular ones in the comic. And yet he is the one who gets constantly abused by “fate” and his friends, because as Dobson would say it, he is supposed to be the buttmonkey. There is just one problem: People do not necessarily like buttmonkeys.

I can primarily speak only for myself here, but I hope what I have to say resonates with others too. See, I get it: A character who is the butt of a joke can be fun. Like Daffy in Duck Amuck. But there is a fine line where a character being humiliated for the sake of a joke is fun (and perhaps even deserved because of his own shortcomings or deeds/actions that make the humiliation sort of kharmic, like lets say Johnny Bravo) and a character being humiliated to the point it feels disproportional, unfunny and mean spirited if not outright sadistic, can be crossed. Take Meg Griffin from Family Guy for example whose only “purpose” for existing within the last 12+ years is to get shat on by her family and the writers. People have no idea for a plot with her, so what do they do? Have her father physically and emotionally abuse her, fart in her face for what is supposed to count as a joke and then add additional insult to it by acknowledging that they are only doing this, because they have no other idea for her and think abuse is fun. Let me just tell you from experience, it is not.

And that is essentially what Sam is: He is the Meg Griffin of Alex ze Pirate, used by his creator as the butt of very unfunny jokes, even if he does not deserve any of the things said or done to him. Want to see some examples?

How about the description Dobson gives Sam within the introduction of one of his volumes, showing how little Dobson as the creator even cares for him.

Why is he called an unworthy “slob” if he is the only one who actually works? Shouldn’t a slob be someone like Dobson, who can’t even take care of himself anymore? Also the confirmation that he was kidnapped at the age of 16. And as we have no clarification how much time passed between Legends Vol. 1 and anything afterwards, that means that in a way Alex is a child abuser.

And now, here some examples by the rest of the cast. Like Uncle Peggy framing him for all sorts of his perverted actions and even trying to kill him for no apparent reason?

Alex trying to kill him with chicken pox…

…Destroying all his worldly posessions which is hilarious because he is a poor orphan…

…Essentially describing him as worthless because he was born with an Y-chromosome…

… doing the kind of thing Dobson claims women would never do to man, using their sex appeal to hurt them…

…forcing him to do some unnecessary and rather petty work for her in a physics defying manner (seriously, the way he holds the axe does not compute with how he swings it. Try it out yourself)

… stealing his food and just being a cruel sadistic cunt to him just because it is fun.

Which is “funny” in so far as that there are a few comics indicating she would jump his dick and ride it like a little pony if she could.

By the way, Talus and Atea are not better. None of them calls Alex out on her bullshit on average, Atea uses Sam to trigger traps in one story arc…

And Talus, the closest to a “friend” he is supposed to have, once for no apparent reason made him dig through his litterbox

And don’t get me even started when the characters decide to gang up on Sam, to the point he gets sexually harassedor is called to be less worth as a human being than the dirt you find in your belly button

Fuck’s sake, even in fanart everyone gangs up on him, even the freaking big bad of the story everyone is supposed to hate or be afraid of

Bottom line, Sam is an abuse victim played for laughs in this comics. And just to clarify, I do not think this was Dobson’s intention. But if the character is undeservingly the butt of jokes for the majority of over 120 strips, it turns nasty. The way Sam is treated, I just find disgusting and indictive of just how unlikable any other character in this comic is to the point I do not want to see this being turned into a proper “franchise”. And I assume others were disgusted by it too, cause Dobson eventually decided to make a story more or less addressing the treatment Sam receives, while also attempting to prove that deep down the assholes with starring roles in this trainwrack care for him. How did this play out? Well, I am going to talk about it, so likely not well. If you want to see the details, grab yourself some popcorn and take a toilet break before we tackle part 2 of this thing.

#andrew dobson #so you are a cartoonist #sjw #comics #comic #webcomic #alex ze pirate #sam the cabin boy #legends #tom preston #disgusting #male abuse #unfunny

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saiyanhajime · 4 years

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My First Artist Alley at a Comic Con… What I’ve Learnt

I’ve thought about selling my wears in artist alley for something like ten years now… And aside from feeling like my stuff isn’t good enough to compete until relatively recently, the main reason I hadn’t given it a whirl until now was the cost. I couldn’t understand how it would be financially viable, and if you’re here to find the quick answer to that same burning question, the answer is it’s not - at least for me. But if I’m being honest and perhaps a little harsh, I can’t really see how it could be what I would consider truly “worthwhile” for all but the most successful artists in the alley when you factor in all expenses.

But would I do it again? Hell yes. Did I have fun? Absolutely! Was there value in networking, making friends and social media gains? Yes, yes and yes!

I went to London Comic Con Spring run by Showmasters. I choose this con because of a few reasons, namely that it was the next local con with tables left when I started seriously obsessing over wanting to do this.

The stall was very reasonable at £80 (but I paid an extra £30 for an additional person to help out.)

This convention is a lot more Film and TV focused than was ideal for what I thought my audience would be - with their main highlight being their guest signings. I knew this going in and my assumptions were right, I think. That said, the “small press” section of the event was wildly varied, but it did feel like actual comic creators were doing the best of us all.

The Expenses

The costs add up, fast. A £ here and there and you’ve racked up £500 or so worth of expenses before you’ve even factored in potential travel, food and hotels… Let alone time. I know you’re probably thinking you wouldn’t spend that much, but believe me - if you record EVERY cost related to getting your stall together, you’ll be shocked how fast it accumulates. You’ll find yourself looking at all the £3-5 you spent on bits n bobs wondering how the final sum is so high.

I know what you’re thinking… You can do it cheaper. I just didn’t try hard enough to get these costs down. But believe me, I did.

I spent way more time than was worthwhile researching costs - these prices include VAT & they include shipping - I wanted the most accurate picture of the hard cash I would actually have to spend up front… And the oddly expensive ones like the postcards cost so much because I effectively paid a premium to have multiple designs. My logic was to try lots of different things, learn as much as possible, but have few in quantity of each design. That way, the flops hurt less. You pay more per item for that privilege, but what’s the use in having 100 of something that won’t sell? I’d rather learn from x10 of something even if I’m making half the profit “per item”.

That’s a mistake a think so many businesses make - don’t think of profit per item, think of it in profit on entire expenses. I made a huge loss, just like I expected. :) My 100 postcards for example costing £50 makes them 50p each, and selling at £1.50 means £1 profit per postcard. That’s £100 profit! Except I only sold 10 - that means a £35 loss for the time being. It’s not a profit until you recoup the whole cost. And I thought of the whole cost as that £550 sum from the get go. Only once I cover all accumulated costs am I making a profit.

But most of these costs are reusable… I could go to another con tomorrow and only pay an additional £150 or so for the table, travel, etc. and have enough stock and a decent display. And that’s my intention - don’t give up, do a few, then evaluate. THEN give up. :)

So realistically, you need to be willing to waste £800+ to find out if this game is for you. That’s a big chunk of money not to be sniffed at and you should be aware of that before you jump in.

The Products

What should I take? Who should I order it from?? How much stock do I need???

These are unanswerable questions because they are highly personal. I see soooo many “where should I get prints from??” with people expecting an easy answer. There isn’t one. But I can try and explain why there isn’t one. I think a lot of newbies assume creators don’t want to share their suppliers because they’re being protective or don’t want the competition - nonono, it’s that the answer is different for everyone. An established, popular and successful artist in the alley is likely ordering huge bulk orders from a supplier that has a minimum order of hundreds or thousands. What good is that information to us newbies? It’s useless.

Prints

In the end, I took 7 print designs…. All fanart, with 4 of the designs being Dragon Ball, 2 of the designs Sonic the Hedgehog and one of GLaDOS from Portal 2. Two of the designs were on A3 and the rest on A4.

I ordered A4 and A3 prints from different suppliers, as they were cheaper this way, EVEN with the postage factored in - which is absolutely ridiculous I know, but you begin to see why “x company is best for prints!” is a useless piece of advice. But sit tight, cuz it gets way worse.

I ordered as few as possible, but a couple of websites had the same price for 5 as the other did for 10, etc. so I went with the one that offered more for the same, obviously. I had x6 (including the display print) of each A4 print and x10 of each A3 - not because I thought they would sell twice as much, just because that’s the least I could get for the cheapest price! And to make matters even more complex - I made those orders based on coupons I had found and you often can’t see the total inc postage until you’ve got everything in your basket and entered your address and email. I looked at maybe 20 suppliers. Imagine how long that took, just for prints. And if I did the same thing tomorrow, it wouldn’t be the same suppliers who were cheaper - coupons and offers change the game, quantity required changes the game. Getting 30 A4 prints might be cheaper on one site, but it might be better to get them from another if you’re after 40, and it definitely will be if you’re wanting them to be all the same - then you can probably get 100 for less than I paid. Nightmare. And you find yourself going “but I can get 100 of the same print for £17 - maybe it’s worth the investment…” Maybe? Who knows! Probably not though.

I don’t think I’d bother with ordering A3 again anytime soon - the main reason is that A3 cellophane bags and carrier bags big enough for such a large print are quite a considerable added expense… And a lot of potential buyers commented how they loved a print but just don’t have the wall space. I also couldn’t find a supplier that would offer to print less than 10 A3 prints in one design. One buyer commented that they would get one of my other prints if it was larger - but would they? I know from experience selling online that people often say “oh man I’d so get a ____ if you did one!” and you do and you even link it to them and then silence. Don’t take what potential customers say too seriously, unless you’ve got a decent number of them telling you the same thing. But for me, 3 people telling me that on top of my other reasons for disliking A3 is enough to go, ok… Forget A3.

Perhaps my best piece of advice is to sign up to every supplier's newsletter. I get emailed deals almost daily now and if you’ve got the time to play with, it’s worth getting your stuff ready for print and just sitting and waiting for that coupon to drop. 15-20% off can make a huge difference to your margins. I purposefully waited until January to place my orders, expecting a post Christmas assortment of deals, and I was right. Bare in mind that many suppliers can take a while to get stuff to you and it might not be right - so don’t cut it too late to order things. I ordered everything just under two months ahead of the con and had plenty of time to then play with and practise setting up how I was going to display things.

So, how did the prints do? I sold out of the Sonic and Shadow print - including the display, which I sold at a marked down rate. I sold 2 of each A3 print - Great Ape Vegeta vs Goku and GLaDOS… 1 of Majin Vegeta, 2 of Fleetway Super Sonic. None of Gogeta or Shenron.

So, Dragon Ball wasn’t so hot, Sonic absolutely was. Is that a long term trend, or just this con? Hell if I know.

I didn’t have a portfolio book with my prints in on the table - I thought that was a waste of space if I can fit them all up on my display - but with hindsight, you get two types of people... Those who aren’t interested in artist alley stalls and pass through at a distance and a print up high MIGHT catch their eye and bring them over. But the vast majority of people you’ll sell to have their eyes down at the tables as they pass. This was the most important thing I learnt - I’d read so much about how important it is to use “vertical” space and tried to get as much off the table as possible, but by day 2 I was spreading more out on the table until every inch of it was covered. I often had to tell people about my prints and they would look up having not noticed them! I had read that people recommend having a portfolio book for people to thumb through - but I hadn’t really understood the benefit of that. Having people touch and interact with stuff on the table is such a valuable interaction that sparks natural conversations. It’s really important to have physical stuff ON the table, perhaps more so than getting a fancy vertical setup. If you’re strapped for cash - ditch the idea of grid cubes or similar completely. Just lay stuff out.

Postcards

When my postcards arrived I immediately realised I’d made a stupid mistake. I was obsessed with getting the display vertical and having lots of different designs. Having so many different postcards to display was a nightmare that I think impacted the whole setup. The wall they created took light away from one side of the display, they were really quite oppressive! - and I knew this before I even went to the show, but I didn’t know how else to display them. I don’t think I would order postcards again, they barely sold… But the 90 I have leftover will be displayed in a photo album on the table next time for sure. Seems so obvious now! They were a HUGE waste of money - they’re expensive for what they are to get made and the retail price of them is abysmal. But, there were a couple of times when people who didn’t have the money for a big print maybe wouldn’t have bought anything, but I had something cheap and cheerful to offer, which was nice. The other cool thing about them is you can have your website on the back and it doesn’t seem out of place or weird.

The main problem with finding a postcard provider was I couldn’t find anywhere that would do small print runs to allow me to order several designs, so I ended up going with the one company I knew who’d do that - Moo. But man are they expensive - I could have got 500 postcards of one design for less than half what I paid for 100 of 25 diff designs - but again, having the variety mattered to me.

Postcards are a pain and not worth it, which explains why I so rarely see them for sale. Lesson learned!

If you have a decent inkjet printer, postcards are super easy to make and I used to do this before I lost patience with inkjet home printers and switched to laser. Just get thick photo paper, already the correct size!

Stickers

I had a mix of kiss-cut and die-cut stickers that by day two I was spreading out on the table and absolutely getting more sales as a direct result… They still didn’t do exceptionally well, but I don’t regret having them. They’re a solid low-retail-price staple of the artist alley table. Pieces of art with a purpose, especially in the age of reusable water bottles. A couple of fellow artists noted that my stickers were very cheap priced at £1.50 and I kind of agree. I think next time they will be £2 and this won’t negatively affect sales. There’s a common fallacy that making something cheaper will increase sales - the likelihood is that it won’t, and when you think how many more sales you have to make to gain the same profit, you realise this is the case. Just that small difference of 50p would mean you have to sell 25% less stickers to make the same amount of money. Isn’t that insane? When you think of it this way, pricing your items right really matters.

I also had sticker sheets - the Baa (from Dragon Ball) ones I only sold one of, to a child who I’m not sure even knew what they were from, but the Sonic sheet did pretty well! I didn’t see many other artists rocking Sonic stuff - or even much Sonic stuff on the wider show floor - which is surprising given the recent film release. I guess I just tapped into a niche, but it’s hard to tell.

Several suppliers of stickers offer multiple designs as standard, or a small surcharge for having multiple designs. Shop around. Stickers are overpriced from many suppliers. The popular choice of Stickermule often run deals where you can get 50 for £19, but even this deal price is quite expensive for x50 of the same sticker. They are by far the best quality stickers, to be fair to them… But you don’t need x50 of one sticker for the purpose of artist alley. I’ve jumped on Stickermule promos in the past where they charge £1 for 10 stickers. That’s a great opportunity to try out design you’re really not sure about. I can’t stress enough how important newsletter signup to suppliers is!

Honestly, Zap Creatives are the only company I’ve used that I would recommend without a second thought. Their customer service is exceptional, their postal packaging is not only environmentally friendly but also adequate (I had a lot of issues with other suppliers packaging and items arriving to me damaged! Another reason you need to order far in advance.) and their prices are transparent and extremely good value. They have free postage (globally, I believe!), which makes it so easy to see how much you’ll be spending at a glance. They have detailed “how to” pages for setting up your files. They’re a dream come true. Sign up to their newsletter, follow them on socials, give them your money - they deserve it. Not sponsored, just genuinely impressed.

Comic

Back at Uni a friend and I made a little comic, and I got some more copies made and took it along because, why not… It is COMIC con after all, and this convention actually calls the artist alley “small press”. It sold pretty well for an independent original to a wide variety of people, young and old. It made me really happy to see an original work sell! You’d be surprised how cheap getting a book printed can be - but be willing for the pages to be slightly misaligned and the paper quality eh. But if you just want a cheap comic printed or a zine, it is very doable in small runs even as low as 10. Remember that stuff doesn’t need to be perfect. Don’t stress over imperfections. I wouldn’t recommend the supplier I used because their delivery was an abysmal royal shit-show, but their customer service made up for it and then their re-delivery was only a slightly less abysmal royal shit-show on the second attempt. So, I won’t mention them.

On that note - if a supplier isn’t good enough, get in touch with their customer services and be nice but tell them it’s not good enough. Give them a chance to fix things.

Traditional Art Originals

I took a lot of traditional media original artworks with me, mostly because I had them already. I sold one low value original.

This was a little heartbreaking because the sale of just one high value original would have pushed the worthwhileness a long way - but it is a lot of money to expect people to spend and is a luck of the draw situation, for sure.

However, the larger ones definitely attracted attention to my stall and created conversation - so I’d say if you have larger originals or small low value quick drawings, they’re worth bringing, but I wouldn’t make any for the intent of selling in the future.

I don’t think a single person thumbed through my plate rack of originals. It was a poor display idea. Don’t recommend it at all. But I can’t think of a better idea other than individual easel displays which take up valuable table space better used for spreading out other items flat.

How could I have done better?

I think having more variety of franchises in my prints was the only HUGE mistake that I kinda knew before I arrived might be an issue. The reason I didn’t was I was worried about space and this could have been avoided had I just listened to the advice I read and had a portfolio out - I even have an A4 portfolio book! Stupid. I’m stupid.

Would I have done enough better to make a profit? No way haha.

How did other people seem to be doing?

It didn’t seem like anyone was doing particularly well… But without knowing peoples numbers, it’s hard to say. And I doubt many people keep the obsessive books I do.

I am pretty sure a lot of convention artists don’t realise the amount they are spending vs the amount they aren’t making… But I could be wrong. There’s a lot of talk of “making table” which I did make back, but I came nowhere close to making back all associated costs. I think for it to be legitimately financially “worthwhile”, you’d have to take about £2k over a weekend - to account for the time and all expenses and paying yourself a decent wage. And if your prints are £10 each, that’s more than 10 prints sold an hour. No one was anywhere near this busy. No way.

A few artists told me this isn’t the most amazing show in the first place and they’ve done worse than they did at this same show last year, even if it seemed physically busier at times this year. A lot of this game is luck of the draw - who’s turning up, how much do they have to spend, what's the weather doing, etc. etc…

Do I need a card reader?

My sales were about 50/50 cash and card… But I ran out of exact change at one point, so being able to take card payments saved the sale. I have a Sum Up reader as it was the cheapest to buy up front and I had no issues with it the whole weekend. At £20 it was a bargain. I think I would rather have that than the cube display grid, for example.

Do you have any cost shaving tips?

Oh hell yeah!

First up - like I said before - sign up to every single potential supplier newsletter. Some of them send out coupons almost weekly.

I bought very little in the way of display equipment and salvaged the rest...

I borrowed some plate stands from my nan, I took empty cardboard displays from ASDA and Sainsbury's (I’d try Walmart or Target in the USA). These were great because they fold down flat for transporting, are light and FREE! Keep your eyes peeled when you’re out shopping for ones which might be the right size for your products. Often times you can transfer the one or two items left in them to another box in the store, or they’re simply empty. I found ASDA best for having completely unbranded boxes. I also made some stands for my small originals from thick card rather than by expensive display racks that are heavy to transport and cost a bomb.

Pick local shows if you can and research thoroughly your transport options and the cost. Parking, trains, hotel costs and eating out can be extortionate additions to your overall expense that are easily forgotten.

Make sure you can carry your setup and don’t need to spend additional money on an Uber or something to help you move shit around!

Use what you have. Don’t buy storage boxes and suitcases and trolleys if you don’t have to. Sure, they might make your life slightly easier, but maybe wait and see how your first few cons go.

Any other tips or things you wish you’d known?

One thing that was kinda stressing me out was leaving stock overnight, but I realised there’s a whole show floor of high value figurines down there...

Leaving the stall unattended isn’t a big deal, either. Obviously take your money with you, but your neighbors can let potential customers know you’ve popped to the loo and I saw several “Back Soon!” signs throughout the day. I took a friend mostly as company, but I would confidently do a con alone having seen how much of a non-issue this is. Having a friend is great for chatting and having a chance to have a look around the show and chat to other artists, though!

I’m not sure carrier bags are necessary. They’re a pretty substantial extra expense you can skip.

Check all your stock as soon as it arrives in the mail. I had an order of cello bags for A4 prints where about 50% of the pack were unusable as the bottom seal with just... open.

Oh! And the “Sundays are always quieter” rhetoric? My Sunday was twice as good as Saturday, despite being quieter on the show floor.

Overall...

I really enjoyed myself. I loved everything. Chatting to customers, chatting to artists, seeing what people were selling, people watching, eating junk, setting up, tearing down and having a friend to chat with and chill the whole time. I gained a pretty significant Twitter follower boost over the weekend and gave away approximately 150-200 business cards as well as meeting some awesome new friends.

I’m not sure if I will be back for the same show next year - we’ll see. I’d like to try a bunch of different shows with different audiences. Many overlap in terms of being around the same time of year. And all the while I’m carrying limited stock to see what works and what doesn’t, I’m reluctant to book two close together.

I’m lucky enough to live in London - so I have access to several big conventions throughout the year on my doorstep.

I have a table at Hyper Japan in July. A very different con to this one with a table almost half as big. So I suspect most of what I’ve learnt won’t even apply! But that’s kind of exciting. My logical brain tells me not to make more stuff, but I think I’ve got the con bug now and just wanna make more profits!

I hope this has been slightly useful to anyone toying with the idea of doing a convention. I recommend checking out @howtobeaconartist here on Tumblr as well as Ben Krefta’s incredibly detailed experiences of being a UK convention artist.

Another thing I found helpful was to watch youtube video walk-arounds from previous years at the same show - see what people are selling, their set-ups, get a feel for space, see if you see the same people returning year after year. Here’s a video from the show I’ve just done! Artist alley starts at around 7:50.

#artist alley #my art #saiyanhajime art #saiyanhajime #conventions #comic con #lccspring #london comic con

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sgnjoowon · 4 years

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hey hey everyone! this is my first time in seongnam and i’m super excited to be here. it’s kind of late for me, but i wanted to throw up an intro for my boi before i head to bed, so here we are! this is noh joowon, twenty two year old junior. he’s an animation major and a pretty popular BL webtoon author, but that last part is a ~*secret*~. he’s pretty loud and outspoken and often times annoying but he’s a... well... not good boy but a fun boy? anyway! i have his ABOUT, BACKGROUND, and PLOTS pages up if you’d like to take a look, but i’ll drop some info and wanted connections under the cut! and if you’d like to plot, please hit like on this post and i’ll pop into your ims, or you can reach me on TWITTER if you’d prefer to plot there! ♥️

QUICK FACTS !

so tl;dr - 22, a junior, majoring in animation with a minor in art. wanted to do things the other way around but he fucked up his registration forms and went with it

is also a pretty popular BL webtoon author under the pen name byungari (you can find more info about his webtoons here). only a handful of people know about this... it’s a Big Secret, he’ll have to end you if you find out

basically, entered a webtoon contest online in freshman year - didn’t win, but the company asked him for a story outline and quickly sent a contract over for a serialized webtoon to be published online. it did well, and then he got a contract for another one which was also well received/ranked

long story short, he just recently started publishing webtoon #3 which takes some heavy inspiration from the seongnam campus, so you’ll probably see familiar landmarks and faces if you follow it closely... honestly, he’s not all that subtle

anyway! he has a makeshift studio in the student centre and an assistant to help out with meeting deadlines and such. even then most days he barely submits his work on time and he’s always drawing in class instead of paying attention

considered a campus cryptid because he barely attends class and yet manages to pass most things... actually he’s there, just tucked in the back napping or quietly taking notes. he doesn’t participate much unless whatever’s going on is ‘interesting’

it’s just weird because he’s v. loud and opinionated otherwise - will get into debates right in the middle of class when it’s a subject he’s passionate (and right) about. some of his classmates are just straight up scared of getting into it with him

part of the art club (nominally; he joined because he felt obligated to but he doesn’t participate much), the cooking club (kinda; he’s just there for the food and also never like... ‘officially’ joined), and the paranormal club (this one’s legit. he loves paranormal stuff)

is the baby of his family; has 2 older siblings but they have a significant age gap with him so they were never close while growing up. they’re both like... very academically aligned with ~respectable careers~ (professor and doctor) so sometimes joowon feels like the odd one out with his focus on animation/art

his parents are divorced - dad has a whole other family that joowon has complicated feelings about!! he doesn’t like to think on it too much. was raised primarily by his mom while his dad really just pays for his education and stuff. compared to most kids from divorced homes he feels like he’s pretty well adjusted

his family isn’t super elite or wealthy, but they’re probably like... very comfortable but also very well connected with people who are considered elite (dad’s a lawyer and mom is the chairman/director of a elite private academy)

incidentally, went to that private academy before attending seongnam. it was very academics focused even though joowon was... not. but his parents are like whelp we did it right with the first two kids so it’s okay if kid #3 is into art and shit as long as he graduates from a good uni! hence him being at seongnam

really, his post graduation plans are just ‘i am going to make more webtoons and then maybe work in animation’ and he’s pretty happy with that

he’s very... hm... very blunt and straightforward in most of his dealings with people. super loud and confident and doesn’t hold back even if there’s a risk he might offend someone. he’s also pretty impulsive and short tempered so it doesn’t take much for him to go off. like, he’s passionate about a lot of things and sometimes that explodes out of him in a not-fun way

but he’s also like a very open, easy-to-befriend kinda guy, super supportive of his friends and generous where it counts. he’s very loyal and the kind of person who’d fight you but also fight FOR you in a heartbeat. he hates unhappy endings so he’s always trying to low key look out for his friends even if!! admitting he cares is embarrassing!!

he’s a cute kid who can be a lot sometimes. please be his friend anyway

WANTED CONNECTIONS !

friends!! some super casual friends to spend time with in between classes or grab a bite to eat with - he’s honestly pretty friendly when it comes down to it and even if you don’t know him well, he’ll probably consider you a pal. maybe you got paired for some activity during freshman orientation and stuck together, shared classes in the past, etc. you just know joowon as an entertaining dude

fellow animation / art majors or minors!! classmates, people to get stuck doing group projects with, we always work on our assignments together, looking for an empty studio to write and found you there so uh can we share. or on the flip side, department rivals?? getting into arguments / heated debates in the middle of class and getting sent out? always competing to see who’s better but they’re both good!

art club members who are like please come to a meeting please please come to just one meeting - or, y’know, forcibly drag or trick him into participating. someone who recruited him into the art club to begin with and now they have regrets. someone who finds an old exhibition piece he did for the club or something and is like omg please come back sunabe i want to learn from you--

cooking club members who he kind of follows around because they make really good food. people who don’t realize he’s not officially in the club and try to get him to participate but he’s like these hands are not made for cooking. someone who does realize but is like aw he’s harmless let him hang around. let him lick the spoon--

paranormal club bros... it’s the one club he’s actually serious about for reasons unknown (actually, it’s known: he wants to fuck a vampire) so members who share similar interests or just like his intensity or just think he’s a riot. maybe they try to film their own version of buzzfeed unsolved and hit up a bunch of supposedly haunted places or chase paranormal activity idk

people who read / have read his webtoons! whether they’re fans of him or antis... maybe someone he’s friends with irl who reads every update but doesn’t know he’s the author, or someone he’s friends with irl who hates the webtoon and joowon has to stop themselves from fighting them. or like... interacting on twitter about the webtoons, someone who writes fic or draws fanart and always dms it to him, idk, someone who leaves hate comments whom he fights with on a sock account??

he has a weird relationship with sunbaes in the sense that he can get really needy / attention-seeking around them (maybe he craves the close older sibling figures he’s never had in his life!) so sunbaes he can bother / be cute around. whether they tolerate him, shoo him away, or take care of him... idk

enemies?? for various reasons - maybe they’re rivals, maybe they just pissed joowon off or vice versa, maybe they just made eye contact and challenged each other to a fight pokemon style, maybe he just can’t stand the way they act, but enemies are fun...

some romantic connections like exes? hasn’t dated much recently maybe a few people in the past, or like people who have confessed to him but he turned them down pretty callously. or someone who falls in love with his art and thinks that means they like joowon but when they try to get to know him they’re like oh... oh no

i know i missed a bunch of stuff but i have more specific plots here if nothing sparks your interest + and i’m always open to brainstorm something as well!

#out of comics #/ idk if there is an intro tag but #/ anyway please plot with us we don't bite #/ :)

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mia-cooper · 4 years

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Fanfiction Questions

from here

Fandom Questions

1. What was the first fandom you got involved in?

Involved as in ‘frantically read every book I could get my hands on, daydreamed about being part of that universe and wrote stories/made art inspired by the books, if not actual fanfiction’? Mm, probably The Chronicles of Narnia when I was six or seven. The next great obsession was The Silver Brumby when I went through my horse stage around age 12, and then Sweet Valley High when I was 15. Hahaha.

2. What is your latest fandom?

Marvel! I’m not into comics and I’m definitely not interested in consuming every last bit of canon material or memorising the variations of every universe, but I love (most of) the movies and Agents of SHIELD is pretty cool.

3. What is the best fandom you’ve ever been involved in?

Star Trek Voyager. No contest. I venture to suggest that the older fandoms, the ones that are all about defunct shows, are a hell of a lot more chilled. Maybe because we’ve come to terms with our shitty canon endings and learned that liking the ship you hate doesn’t make someone problematic, unlike some newer fandoms I could name (Yes I’m talking about you, Game of Thrones fans. What the fuck.)

4. Do you regret getting involved in any fandoms?

I’ve dipped a toe into one or two fandoms for shows or books I’ve really enjoyed and backed the fuck out when the vibe gets weird (oh hey, it’s GoT again), but nope. No regrets.

5. Which fandoms have you written fanfiction for?

All the Star Treks except TOS, and a Trek/MCU crossover. I’d like to write more for MCU someday. Plus I’ve written longhand entire notebooks full of teen romance shit that bore an uncanny similarity to SVH, and my first short story was a fantasy fic that featured a girl whose guardian was a wise talking lion who led her into mystical secret worlds, which is kind of familiar.

6. List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in.

Wow. I’m going to define ‘involved in’ as ‘cared enough about to have an OTP’, but I’m guaranteed to forget a ton. In no particular order:

Voyager: Janeway x anyone who can get her off

Discovery: Lorca x Cornwell or Pike x Tyler x Burnham (or any combination of)

DS9: Kira x Jadzia Dax

TNG: Picard x Vash, I guess? I don’t really have any TNG ships

ENT: T’Pol x Trip x Hoshi (or any variation therein)

MCU: Cap x Widow

AoS: Coulson x Skye... no May... no Skye... I don’t know

CAOS: Madam Satan x Zelda

Timeless: Garcy

The Good Place: Eleanor x Tahani

The 100 (shut up): toss up between Clarke x Bellamy and Kane x Abby

Veronica Mars: Veronica x Leo (first run), Veronica x Logan (s4)

Orphan Black: Cosima x Delphine

BSG: Apollo x Starbuck

SG1: Sam x Jack

Arrow: Olicity (so over the show now though)

This Life: Milly x Egg

Yeah you know what... I’m drawing a blank. I can’t think of any other shows where I’ve been invested in The Romance that much.

7. List your NoTPs from each fandom you’ve been in.

I’m too tired to do every fandom, and besides, I can come around to almost any ship if the headcanons (or fics) are convincing enough. I do have a few hard no-gos, but they might be someone else’s OTP so I’ll shut up about them.

8. How did you get involved in your latest fandom?

Reluctantly. The MCU movies are not something I ever thought I’d enjoy beyond a dull evening’s entertainment. I never expected to get attached to the characters. And yet.

9. What are the best things about your current fandom?

Voyager is my forever fandom and the only one where I’ve really interacted with other fans. The best things about it? In general, everyone is just cool, accepting, open and basically awesome. And talented. I love my Party Bus people.

10. Is there a fandom you read fic from but don’t write in?

Sure. The 100, Veronica Mars and Agents of SHIELD are the ones I’d dip into more frequently. I really enjoy crossovers between Trek and BSG or the Stargate variants, too.

Ship Questions for your Current Fandom

11. Who is your current OTP?

Janeway x Chakotay.

12. Who is your current OT3?

Janeway x Chakotay x Paris.

13. Any NoTPs?

A few.

14. Go on, who are your BroTPs?

Janeway & Tuvok! Also Torres & Chakotay, and I’d have killed for more Janeway & Torres in canon. (If they kissed sometimes that would be okay too)

15. Is there an obscure ship which you love?

Yeah. Paris x Seven. There are like two fics in existence, and yet ... the potential! (Sorry, B’Elanna)

16. Are there any popular ships in your fandom which you dislike?

Nope.

17. Who was your first OTP and are they still your favourite?

Janeway x Paris. And they’re still way up there, but not quite at the top.

18. What ship have you written the most about?

84% of my fics feature Janeway x Chakotay as either the primary or secondary pairing... holy shit.

19. Is there a ship which you wished you could get behind, but you just don’t feel them?

Paris x Torres. I mean, I feel them. I just don’t generally feel the need to write about them.

20. Any ships which you surprised yourself by liking?

Chakotay x Seven. In another universe, it could’ve been beautiful.

Author Questions

21. What was the first fanfic you ever wrote?

Actual story that was clearly fanfic? A farcical drunken romp told in the 24th century equivalent of email format called PADDemonium (see what I did there?)

22. Is there anything you regret writing?

Lol, a few things that should probably have never seen the light of day for various reasons, some of them leola related. But I’ve only deleted two fics that I can recall.

23. Name a fic you’ve written that you’re especially fond of & explain why you like it.

Relieved. It’s a 30k AU Chakotay moral dilemma backstory that brings in DS9 characters, Section 31 and his longstanding history with AU Janeway. I did so much research for it (way back in the days before memory alpha and chakoteya.net) and I’m really proud of how I wound in canon stuff across series but changed a few key bits and pieces. Only problem is, it’s a sequel to ...

24. What fic do you desperately need to rewrite or edit?

... Pressure, which I can’t even read without cringing. My characterisation of Janeway, even Angry Maquis AU Janeway, is way over the top and there are moments that verge on Mills and Boon and give me first, second and third hand embarrassment. God, I’d love to rewrite it. Actually, that’s a lie. I want someone else to rewrite it so I can read it without covering my eyes and moaning.

25. What’s your most popular fanfic?

Desperate Measures, by about 70,000 light years, lol. Although Fragile Things beats it on bookmarks.

26. How do you come up with your fanfic titles?

You know what? A fair percentage of the time, I think of the title first and come up with a plot second. Aside from that, I prefer shorter, punchier titles that clearly tie into the story (Flight Risk, Speechless), though sometimes it’s song lyrics (Burn Our Horizons, your body like a searchlight) or a literary quote (Required to Bear, All the Devils are Here) or a turn of phrase from the story itself (The Prisons You Inhabit). Hey that was fun. Thanks for letting me pimp the shit out of my stories.

27. What do you hate more: Coming up with titles or writing summaries?

Ugh, it depends on the day. Summaries are harder, I think. I never want to give away too much of the plot, but there has to be enough there for people to know whether they’ll bother clicking. Funny story: I actually ran the stats on this a few months back. Here they are for your edification:

Fics with a one line plot summary = 54%

With two or three line plot summary = 18%

With a short snippet directly from the fic = 16%

With a snippet + a one line explanation = 3%

With a one line plot summary plus a line to date the fic (eg "set in season 3", “episode tag to Worst Case Scenario") or the fic prompt = 7%

And finally, a quote from something other than the fic = 2% (that's only 3 fics).

28. If someone were to draw a piece of fanart for your story, which story would it be and what would the picture be of?

Ooh. I’ll say the final scene in Explosive.

29. Do you have a beta reader? Why/Why not?

I used to regularly ask @jhelenoftrek and @littleobsessions90 to beta for me, and both of them are brilliant at it. Lately I’ve been posting without sending my stuff off for editing. This is partly because I’m impatient to get stuff out there, partly because I don’t have as much time to write/edit, and partly because I’m a little less focused on improving my writing and more on enjoying it for its own sake.

30. What inspires you to write?

Little bits of episode dialogue I haven’t noticed before, other people’s fanfiction, stray conversations, fic prompts, song lyrics, random headcanons, fever dreams, dares ...

31. What’s the nicest thing someone has ever said about your writing?

I’ve been really lucky with comments on my fic. The least helpful comment I’ve ever received was on one of my early 30k fics and all it said was “Did you have to take the name of the lord in vain?” Which is kind of funny. The nicest thing anyone’s ever said? I’m very partial to the feedback that starts “I don’t even like this pairing/genre/trope/show but you made me love it”, and particularly “I’ll read anything you write, I don’t care what it’s about.” But all comments are gold. The little heart button is cool too.

32. Do you listen to music when you write or does music inspire you? If so, which band or genre of music does it for you?

I’m not someone who can tune out music I love, or leave it in the background to inspire me. If it’s on, I’m fully invested in it. I’m that annoying person in the car who flips radio stations every three seconds until I find something I like and then it’s on 11 and I’m singing along to it. I’m also really picky but extremely eclectic, although there are genres I can’t stand (anything with autotune makes me stabby). That said, sometimes I find a song that I can’t stop listening to for weeks and often that perfect combination of music and lyrics will inspire me to write a fic. For example, I just plotted out an entire J/C story because of this song.

33. Do you write oneshots, multi-chapter fics or huuuuuge epics?

All of the above. Although I’m not sure if my longest epic is huuuuuge or just huuuge.

34. What’s the word count on your longest fic?

101,467.

35. Do you write drabbles? If so, what do you normally write them about?

I have two drabble collections. One is all J/C, full of responses to random prompts and I add to it sporadically. The other is episode additions set on Kathryn Janeway’s birthday (May 20) and added to annually.

36. What’s your favourite genre to write?

Angst, definitely. Sometimes it’s smutty angst or fluffy angst or hurt/comfort angst, but often it’s just fucking unrelenting angst. And I’m okay with that.

37. First person or third person - what do you write in and why?

I did the stats on this once, too, haha. Pretty sure I came out fairly even on first and third person with a smattering of second person in there. I’m probably even-ish on present vs past tense, too. I make it a point to mix it up to avoid my writing getting stale or same-y. And sometimes a fic doesn’t really click for me until I try it in a different POV or tense or from a different character’s perspective.

38. Do you use established canon characters or do you create OCs?

I mostly write for canon characters - the fun is in all the different ways you can interpret and imagine them - but I’ve been known to throw in the odd OC, or focus on a character who only got a brief cameo appearance, or write about someone who only appears in beta canon, or who only rates a mention on screen.

39. What is your greatest strength as a writer?

Oh, wow. I’m not sure. I guess the thing I value most about my own writing is my willingness to try different styles, characters, pairings and so on. The thing I strive for most is characterisation that feels true, and I really love it when I get comments on that. Exploring a character in a way that rings true with a reader is the best thing ever.

40. What do you struggle the most with in your writing?

Overly long sentences and adverb abuse, haha. No, truthfully, there comes a point in most of my fics, particularly the longer ones, when I really just want to scrap it because in my heart I know it’s dreadful. Usually that passes once I slog through the ‘I don’t wanna’ stage because I’m a bloody-minded bitch, but sometimes fics do get left in the dust half-written. Honestly, though, they’re the ones that probably should stay there.

Fanfiction Questions

41. List and link to 5 fanfics you are currently reading:

This is hilarious because I was just talking on discord about my problematic ‘to read’ pile. My unread AO3 subscription emails currently number 29 and my phone browser has 71 tabs open. So here are 5 random picks from that list of exactly 100 fics I should be reading:

Sex on the Beach (E, Janeway/Chakotay) by @traccigaryn

The Ruby Ring (T, Janeway/Chakotay, Janeway/Tighe) by @trinfinity2001

Earth is But an Idea (T, Janeway/Chakotay, Carter/O’Neill) by @caladeniablue

Home (E, Janeway/Chakotay) by Cassatt

Wise Up (E, Janeway/Chakotay) by KimJ

42. List and link to 5 fanfiction authors who are amazing:

Only five? Shit. Okay. In no particular order, these are five of the writers I keep coming back to:

quantumsilver (also here)

northernexposure

LittleObsessions

Helen8462

Cheshire

But there are so many others. My chosen fandom is chock full of amazing talent.

43. Is there anyone in your fandom who really inspires you?

All of the authors above for various reasons, but also august because her writing is so spare and delicate and devastating, and runawaymetaphor because she writes the most delicious Janeway/Paris, and @seperis because I read In the Space of Seven Days literally 20 years ago and I still haven’t recovered, and I could be here all night raving on this topic but there are still many questions to get through.

44. What ship do you feel needs more attention?

Janeway x Paris. I’m so happy there’s been a little bit of a resurgence in J/P fics lately. Thanks, @curator-on-ao3, you’re doing the lord’s work.

I’ll also take Janeway x Johnson content any day of the week.

45. What is your all time favourite fanfic?

What the hell? I can’t pick just one! Ugh!

... but okay, here’s the first one that came to mind when I tried to think about this: if you came this way by tree. I’m not sure I’d call it my favourite, but it’s one I revisit often. Ugh, there are so many other fics I’m thinking of now that I really want to list.

46. If someone was to read one of your fanfics, which fic would you recommend to them and why?

Oh, that’s hard. I should probably pick an angsty smutty J/C because that’s a fair proportion of what I write and it’s good to let a new reader know what they can expect. But honestly, I think the best fic I’ve written is The Uncharted Sea. (It’s safe for work. Maybe not for makeup.)

47. Archive Of Our Own, Fanfiction.net or Tumblr - where do you prefer to post and why?

The Archive, of course. Where else can I find ad-free hosting on a stunningly user-friendly interface with absolutely no moralising content restrictions and the world’s best tagging system? That Hugo award is well deserved.

Tumblr is good for headcanons and meta and gifsets and a few other formats that I’m less likely to post on AO3 because I’d feel like I was pissing off people who subscribe to me by giving them some random garbage.

I also have my own website, but I’m not really sure why. Sometimes I post fic there that doesn’t make it to tumblr or AO3.

48. Do you leave reviews when you read fanfiction? Why/Why not?

I try to. Honestly I do. I love it when I get reviews, so I figure paying it forward is the least I can do. I’m less scrupulous about leaving comments when I’m busy or reading on my phone.

49. Do you care if people comment/reblog your writing? Why/why not?

I mean, I love it when people reblog, but I certainly don’t expect it. @arcadia1995 is amazing for reblogging stuff *blows kisses*

Nobody owes fanfic writers shit, but I feel like there’s a tacit agreement that if you like what you just read for free and you’re on a platform that makes it easy to do so, you leave a review or at least a kudos, because I’m not gonna lie, posting a fic you’ve worked super hard on and seeing it get very few kudos or comments is a bit deflating. I’m sure a lot of us have been there.

50. How did you get into reading and/or writing fanfiction?

During Voyager’s original run I was trawling the internet for Endgame spoilers (I don’t know why; I usually love surprises) and I guess I googled (or whatever the 2001 equivalent of googling was) something like “how does voyager get home” and somehow I stumbled across Revisionist History. At first I had no idea what I was reading - was this a lost story pitch that somehow got leaked? A professional novella commissioned by the showrunners?

Then I started following links and discovered yahoo groups and webrings and Trekiverse and fanfiction.net and all sorts of incredible things I’d never guessed at, including the now defunct ‘archipelago of angst’, a collection of Voyager writers who focused mainly on a darker Janeway than most of the other fic writers I was encountering, and I was hooked. So I wrote a few of my own pieces, and then I lost interest for 15 years. I’m still not sure how I got dragged back in.

51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!

Honestly, in what other way can I indulge my obsessions, hone my skills and talk about it endlessly with like-minded people? Where else can I instantly find a plethora of fiction about the exact topic I feel like reading about on my mobile device and for free? Fanfiction is fucking amazing and I’m so glad it exists in my life.

#miamemes #fanfiction #fanfic asks

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missjanjie · 5 years

Note

Prompt: Branjie Youtuber AU

this was submitted before dans coming out video so clearly you guys just really get me

It started out casually enough – two guys with a passion formakeup and a personality for the internet. They each had their own channelsthat had amassed millions of subscribers a piece. That in it of itself was moresuccess than either Brooke Lynn or Vanessa had ever anticipated. Going tomassive events, being recognized on the street, who would’ve thought all ofthat could’ve stemmed from the at-whim decision to enter the world of being aYouTuber?

Perhaps the biggest surprise for both of them, however, wasfinding themselves at the center of one of YouTube’s most popular couples – andit started before they were even together, as it turned out. They had bothrecently moved to Los Angeles after starting on the path to mainstream successand had been introduced through mutual friends. Being in similar situations ledthem to decide to become roommates – that’s when the videos together started togo up.

“Come on, it’ll be fun!” Vanessa insisted, sitting withBrooke Lynn in front of his filming setup. “And it’s a cute way of, like,letting people know what the living situation is,” he rationalized.

And Brooke’s resolve was especially weak when it came toVanessa. “Alright, sure,” he hummed, getting up and returning with his makeup.“So, what is it? Just a ‘roommate does my makeup’ sort of thing?” he asked,fixing his hair absentmindedly.

Vanessa nodded cheerily. “Exactly,” they took a littlelonger to prepare themselves before turning the camera on and getting the introout of the way. He decided to do Brooke Lynn’s makeup first.

“Now listen,” hewarned, “I’m a real hands-on person, so we gonna get to know each other realwell through this,” he announced and, sure enough, within ten minutes, he waswell within his personal space as he applied makeup.

“You smell nice,” Brooke remarked offhandedly. Apparently,Vanessa had been in the middle of rambling because, for a moment, it wentsilent.

Vanessa was blushing but tried to brush it off. “Thanks. Ialways say it’s important to smell good,” he hummed and went right back to histask at hand.

Everything was copacetic until it was Brooke’s turn to paintVanessa. Nothing was wrong, per se, but Brooke just couldn’t stop himself fromcomplimenting Vanessa’s features; “Your dimples are adorable,” or “You havesuch nice cheekbones,” and even just “God, you’re so pretty,” he wasn’t tryingto flirt with him, he was just calling it like he saw it.

“You got a man, Brooke Lynn? Cause he ain’t gonna like howyou sweet-talking me,” Vanessa tried to laugh it off, but he would be lying ifhe claimed to not like the attention his attractive new roommate wasshowering him with.

Brooke chuckled as he lined Vanessa’s lips, absentmindedlylicking his own. “I don’t – why, are you offering?” he joked with a flirtatiouswink.

Vanessa made a show of rolling his eyes, making it clearthat they were both in on the joke, that he totally wasn’t susceptible toBrooke’s charm. “Don’t get cute with me, boo,” he retorted playfully. He turnedto look in the mirror when they both had completed faces. “Oh, bitch, we lookgood! We should get some wigs on,” he went to grab a couple and they used themto complete their looks.

Once they finished filming, they both felt a sense of pridein a job well done. “I liked that, I think the viewers will enjoy it,” Brookemused as he started cleaning up the makeup.

“Yeah, well, I think you liked it a little too much,”Vanessa joked. “Get over here, we should take a selfie while we’re all dolledup,” he waited for Brooke to sit back down with him and took a few pictures,Brooke kissing his cheek in the last one. “You know everyone’s gonna think wemore than roommates, you know?”

Brooke shrugged. “Let them think that, then. Then we can doa dramatic reading of the fanfiction they write about us,” he laughed.

Vanessa quirked his brow. “I think you’re enjoying this alittle too much, Brooke Lynn,” he pointed out with a tongue-in-cheek grin.

And he was, especially when the video was uploaded and becamea massive hit with their fans almost instantly. Perhaps there was an element ofvanity in his enjoyment, and it did give him an excuse to keep flirtingwith Vanessa, after all. “Vanj, have you been on Twitter lately? We have a shipname now,” he let himself into Vanessa’s room as he spoke.

Vanessa looked up from his notebook and took his headphonesoff. “Do we? What’d that take, like a day and a half?” he paused his music,setting all od his previous task aside. “What’s it called?”

“Branjie,” Brooke answered, sitting next to Vanessa on hisbed, scrolling through the new tag with him. “Look, even got some fanart done,”he pointed out, wrapping his non-phone-holding arm around his waist.

Admittedly, Vanessa was impressed by how fast everyone hadboarded ship. “So, what do we do about it anyway? Or are we just along for theride?” he asked.

Brooke pursed his lips and thought. “Beats me, let’s just gowith the flow.”

Going with the flow, as it turned out, just meant flirtingon and off camera for two weeks before they bit the bullet and started dating,to the thrill of their growing fanbase.

#branjie #branjie fic #setau #fluff #Anonymous

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bakudekuficlibrary · 5 years

Text

BakuDeku: Oblivious Izuku

1 Series. 57 Works.

What The Fuck Did You Just Call Me? by reading_raindrop (T | 8,303 | 4/4 )

“A-ah B-Bakugou! You dropped some pencils!”

Katsuki stiffened. Kirishima and Kaminari froze. Basically, everyone within earshot stopped what they were doing to look at Izuku like he sprouted a second head. What did he just call him? “What the fuck did you just say to me?”

Katsuki whipped his head towards Izuku with his signature death glare as he stood up from where he picked up the fallen supplies.

“U-um I said you dropped some pencils! I think this eraser might be yours to-”

“No. What the fuck did you just call me?”

Izuku starts calling him Bakugou and it pisses the explosive teen off a lot more than he thought it would

It's Okay, Quirkless by VMarus ( M | 34,187+ | 15/? )

Izuku just wants to make his mother proud and to be happy with himself.

AU. Quirkless Vigilante Izuku!

[Major Character Death | Graphic Depictions Of Violence]

A Challenger Appears by MariaMediaOverThere ( T | 9,467 | 3/3 )

"Oh, so is Midoriya really seeking a relationship like that then?" And for the first time, there's a crack in Kota's impassive stance. Vulnerability. But also a glimmer of something excited- hopeful.

"I don't give a shit, but if Deku were, hypothetically, looking for a relationship," and Bakugou would be the first to know if he was, as well as the first to line up, and also suspiciously the only one alive in line. "He definitely wouldn't be trying anything with some shitty high schooler." Bakugou sneers, not even attempting to mask the distaste in his tone.

"So stick your obvious fanboy crush up someone else's ass, okay?"

The kid seems to consider this at first before looking Bakugou dead in the eyes, "Well in ten years when your pro hero injuries are forcing you into retirement, this shitty high schooler will have graduated med school and then it will be you versus a hot young doctor with a stable income."

With an air of finality, Kota shoulder-checks Bakugou while carefully holding the coveted Deku figurine in his possession.

"...Bitch."

Heart Out by minzie ( E | 65,588+ | 12/? )

Bakugou Katsuki was not the type of person you’d call in an emergency. Sure, he’d help you out if he was standing right next to you and you were about to get stabbed because of his damn hero complex, and because he’s maybe, kind of, somewhere a decent person, but that’s about it.

It was just his luck that someone needed saving tonight, in more than one way.

Lights. Camera. Hero! by brichibi ( E | 23,248+ | 6/? )

If there’s one thing Izuku Midoriya’s good at, it’s dreaming big, and dreaming hard. That’s why he’s in Hollywood, of all places, his hometown an entire ocean away along with his graduating high school class and single mother. But he’s gonna be an actor, an international sensation, a superstar like no other.

He just.

Has to convince the rest of the world.

Which is, admittedly, a difficult task.

[AU where "My Hero Academia" is an upcoming television series, everyone's an actor/actress, and romance happens behind the scenes]

Not All Heroes Wear Capes by vulcanhighblood ( T | 11,002 | 3/3 )

When Kacchan offered to scare off pushy groupies and nosy reporters for Izuku, he hadn't realized that Kacchan was planning to lie about the two of them being in a relationship in order to do so.

Room 207 by bakudeku ( Not Rated | 8,796+ | 4/? )

No one, not even Bakugou Katsuki, could deny that Izuku was adorable as fuck.

ᶜᵃⁿ ᶦ ᵍᵉᵗ ᵘʰʰʰʰʰʰ

ˢᵒᶠᵗ ᵏᵃᶜᶜʰᵃⁿ

[Suicide Attempt]

Oh, These Aching Bones by IAmStoryteller ( T | 17,470 | 10/10 )

The cold weather rolls in and Izuku suffers unexpectedly, which leads to a series of events to make Class 1-A and a certain loudmouth childhood friend turned rival realize that despite Izuku's greatness as a hero, they have to look after him.

The Childhood Friends-To-Sweethearts Contest by Merrywetherweather ( G | 3,064 | 1/1 )

Present Mic just wanted to throw together a little event for couples and soon-to-be couples and these two 3rd year idiots come in and utterly destroy the competition while remaining 100% oblivious to everything that's going on around them.

This is more of a comedy piece than anything. I wanted to play around with the idea that Katsuki and Izuku probably still know a lot about each other and are ultimately still on the same wavelength. Like, you expect them not to know as much about one another, since they appear to not get along, but they know each other like the back of their hands.

[On Hiatus] Stay away from him, he's mine! by AShippingAddict ( E | 12,143+ | 4/10 )

Bakugou Katsuki knew Valentine's Day was just a day where everyone went crazy trying to make love happen. He didn't care for it. He especially didn't care that everyone seemed to want Deku. He didn't care. It didn't matter that people were starting to invade Deku's space. Or that people kept touching him. He did NOT care, not one bit.

Or people flirt with Midoriya Izuku and Bakugou nearly kills someone because he's jealous.

Bakugou's Childhood Sweetheart Survival Guide by Butterfree ( G | 28,333 | 4/4 )

Childhood Sweethearts is a Japanese game show series inspired by the popular book The Childhood Friends-To-Sweethearts Contest by Merrywetherweather originating as far back as 2018. Childhood friends who are now lovers from all over the world compete in what is known as the ultimate challenge to prove your love to that girl next door, or to gain confidence to propose to the boy you've been protecting since you were both toddlers. Gaining a huge following and recently signing a contract to have their show aired internationally, the organizers opted to set up camp for the fifth season off the beach that Class 3-A happened to be spending a vacation on.

“Kacchan.”

“No.”

Deku gave him a look. “But I didn’t say anything yet.”

“You were thinking it. That’s enough incentive.”

Otherwise known as that other fanfic where Izuku and Katsuki sign up for a childhood sweethearts competition while remaining 99% oblivious to their growing feelings for each other.

[Homophobia]

Dirty Little Thoughts by MariaMediaOverThere ( E | 5,680+ | 2/3 )

“Think you can take me on one-on-one, shitty nerd? Better prepare yourself, because I’ll fucking knock you up!”

“You’ll what?”

“OUT! I MEANT OUT! I'll knock you OUT!"

Or Bakugou grapples with being a Deku-vert. That's right; a Deku-pervert. That's just what he is now.

Defenestration by amarielah ( E | 1,834 | 1/1 )

A drunken Bakugou pays Izuku a visit via window. Things get messy.

Series Part 3 of Bakugou Katsuki: Human Disaster

[Dubcon]

there are a million things to run from, but i'm not one of them ( T | 3,961 | 1/1 )

Soulmate! AU Bakugou Katsuki is a firm ideologist in the belief that winners conquer everything and losers gain nothing. He's lived his life with an explosive demeanor and icy heart, and even as a model, he refuses to lighten up for the sake of public image. There is little that can change him, and nothing that can shake him- until he meets an insecure photographer whose fingers shake behind flash, but whose eyes shine stronger than anyone he's ever met before. Oh, and who makes a soulmark spring up on Bakugou's wrist the second their eyes meet. [In which Bakugou has no idea what secrets Midoriya Izuku is hiding, but he's determined to find out and in doing so discovers that sparks don't just come from cameras.]

[Past Abuse]

Drunk Confession by bombingking ( M | 4,613 | 1/1 )

In which Izuku is invited to his first college party and is oblivious to the fact that the person who invited him also happens to have a secret crush on him.

[Series] Arranged by amiluna ( Not Rated | 2 Works | Complete )

Izuku knows as a quirkless he will be married off soon...he had hoped it would be to someone he wanted, but then life always messes with him like that. Add in the childhood friend he forgot and you have one hell of a mess for the boy who just wants to decide for himself for once.

After Arranged, Izuku moves in with Katsuki. From here on out, he encounters hardships revolving his former friend and the joys of making a new friend. The only question now being will it all blow up in his face and threaten everything he has?

Forgetful by Pop_Rocks (v_love) ( E | 3,436 | 1/1 )

Normally Bakugou managed to contain his temper -- even if it was just a little -- when it came to Midoriya. Even still, his outbursts just seemed to make Midoriya laugh now, mostly because it was never over anything big and Midoriya was no longer afraid of Bakugou doing anything but make little threats that he very rarely went through.

Normally.

Today was different though.

----

In which Midoriya forgets his and Bakugou's anniversary.

Series Part 1 of Kacchan and Deku's Shenanigans

[On Hiatus] “can’t sleep love” by avalescence_hurlocked ( G | 20,782+ | 7/? )

tell me, am I going crazy? tell me, have I lost my mind?

alternatively; Bakugou's got a crush, and he's got it really bad, but he doesn't want it at all. at least, that's what he tells himself.

Only for a bet (I fucking swear!) by Dana91 ( M | 3,096 | 1/1 )

Inspired by Tinogeb's fanart

Bakugo Katsuki teased. Bakugo failed. How did he end up fucking the damn nerd?!

That’s Not It! by Pop_Rocks (v_love) ( T | 5,800 | 1/1 )

Midoriya felt distracted lately, he couldn’t exactly pinpoint its cause (although he had an idea) which was even worse. However, he found himself spending less time focusing in class and during quirk training. He found himself drifting in and out of the conversations around him, and he found that he was a little flustered.

��———

In which Midoriya realizes he has feelings for Bakugou after Bakugou’s gotten a little soft.

Series Part 7 of Kacchan and Deku’s Hooplas

Bakugou Deals With Jealousy in a Creative Manner by Renex ( E | 1,672 | 1/1 )

“That fucking half and half bastard I swear to god next time he pulls some shit like that again I’ll blow his head right off his shoulders.” Bakugou practically snarled, slamming the door to his dorm room shut before tossing his bag to the ground and collapsing down onto the bed.

“Kacchan, relax. He was just helping me that’s all.”

“Helping you?” The short-tempered blonde practically snorted, sitting up on his elbows so that he could get a better look at the freckled boy standing in front of him. “The man was practically tongue fucking you.”

Distance by IAmStoryteller ( T | 32,273 | 11/11 )

Distance makes the heart grow fonder. (Izuku and Bakugou deal with living life thousands of miles away from each other in their own way)

The Way You Used To Do by edema_ruh ( T | 23,710+ | 3/? )

"We're really sorry", his father says, in that teary-eyed, wobbly way Katsuki most certainly didn't inherit from him, thank fuck. "But your friend, Izuku, he's...", he hesitates for a moment, as if trying to find the right words for that situation. "He's gone, son", he concludes, giving Katsuki's hand a squeeze. Behind him, his mother stands, face almost as impassive as ever.

Katsuki can do nothing but blink up at them for moments that feel like an eternity, eyes darting between both his parents in obvious confusion, disbelief, and, more than anything, indignation.

"What the fuck are you two talking about?", he asks, not as aggressively as he would have liked to. "The damn nerd is standing right beside you!"

During a battle, Midoriya gets hit by a villain whose quirk detaches his soul from his body. Being assumed dead from his lack of brain function, the boy enters a race against time in order to save himself from permanently dying. Much to his luck - or lack of it -, the only person who can see and talk to him in his soul-like state is no one other than Kacchan.

Tempura Spitfire by Chyme ( T | 17,977+ | 4/6 )

‘Fuck. Flowers it is. Massive, sunshine, everything-is-fucking-great yellow ones, that will make him sneeze his head off.’

Months ago, Bakugou Katsuki had had a conversation with his father that had inspired him to act on his feelings for Izuku. This is the story of how said attempt turned out.

And don't give me that look, dear reader. Things are gonna turn out fine.

Series Part 3 of Dinner and A Show (Of Explosions, Presumably)

Bad at Love by officiallytrash ( T | 102,022+ | 11/? )

Class 1-A is put to the test in one of U.A.'s classes and tests where they face a faux-villain they can't seem to win against. During the two-day fighting, Bakugou noticeably becomes more and more shaken by the faux-villain.

Midoriya wants to help him and to become his good friend once again. Bakugou knows there is more than friendship in his own head but wants to keep Midoriya close, if only to keep him safe. But with jealousy, friendships, and their dreams on the line, they have to get even closer to help the other.

[On Hiatus] Efflorescence by SleepieAsh ( T | 10,349+ | 4/? )

As beautiful as they were, he grew tired of the sight (and taste) of green chrysanthemums after the first petal fell from his mouth.

(Somewhere between the bug-catching and hand-holding, Bakugou fell for his childhood friend. In turn, he traded the relief of surgery for feelings of fondness and the misery that came with it.)

spring snow by altruisticizuku ( G | 1,008 | 1/1 )

izuku is a bit of a lightweight and katsuki might be kinda jealous.

bakudeku week 2018; day 2: romantic nights / dancing / your eyes

Series Part 2 of Bakudeku Week 2018

Broken Horns & Fragile Wings by zuccin ( G | 1,682 | 1/1 )

When Izuku was a child, he met an angel. An adorable angel that lived next door, Bakugou Katsuki. Years passed and Midoriya (or Deku) is sure his angel got even cuter by the time; he's glad they are together.

// In an universe where Angels and Demons live peacefully together, a green haired demon falls in love with an angel.

Series Part 1 of Angels & Demons

[Abandoned] Your Only One by iKrazybear (Hyuuwi) ( Not Rated | 14,258 | 8/? )

Bakugou gets pretty jealous of how much admiration Midoriya has for Todoroki.

He wants the cinnamon roll for himself.. so much that he can't control his emotions for him.

early bird gets the worm by yjslaugh ( M | 1,091 | 1/1 )

This is bullshit, he thinks. Katsuki was there when Deku shit his pants in elementary school. Since then he's made it his personal life mission to get everybody to stay the hell away from him. Partly because he hates his guts and partly because he's hopelessly in love with the damn prick. Ninety-nine and one percent respectfully.

Katsuki knows it's probably not exactly healthy to be so possessive over somebody whos not his, especially somebody he's meant to hate, but when has he ever been healthy? He's filled to the brim with trauma, anger issues and more emotional baggage than a white family going to Hawaii.

Endeavors of the Mind by KittKatt420 ( M | 44,464+ | 5/8 )

Bakugo and Midoriya both struggle with different aspects of their newfound relationship. Katsuki wants to be more open with his affections for Deku, but is hindered by his intimacy issues. Izuku covets Kacchan's affection, but is too afraid of being overbearing. BakuDeku-centric with mentions of KiriShido and TodoMomo. Yaoi. M/M Lemon flavored chapters.

[Panic Attacks]

Cookies by Dana91 ( M | 2,641 | 1/1 )

If Bakugo Katsuki receives a gift, he makes sure to say Thank you (mostly if it's a gift from Deku).

Inspired by: Cruxnix's art (thanks! (シ_ _)シ)

[Underage]

Don't Burn the Mackerels by Starpotion ( T | 1,376 | 1/1 )

Kacchan was willingly going to make breakfast.

The world was going to end early indeed.

Five times Bakugou Katsuki tried to get into Deku's pants, and the one time he succeeded by Moratorium19 ( T | 2,733+ | 3/6 )

« Is the smile included in the service? »

The waiter with the nameplate “Bakugou Katsuki” directed him the sourest glare he could muster.

“No,” he gritted out.

“Oh, good. You wouldn’t want to cheat your customers. I’ll take a light coke, a Big Mac without salad and onion rings instead of fries.” Izuku smiled, handing the menu back to the fuming ashen blonde.

“Sir” he bit out with barely restrained fury. “May I remind you that this is not Mc Donalds, but a Michelin star restaurant? Did you even have a look at the menu?”

“…No?”

“You fuckwad,” Bakugou hissed and cussed twice more internally. There went his paycheck.

(What you need to) Overcome by neerapen ( T | 2,751 | 1/1 )

Waking up in an hospital bed is normal routine for Izuku. Waking up with Kacchan's quirk still humming in his veins, however, makes him think. And everybody knows he shouldn't do that.

Or: Izuku doesn't know. Katsuki doesn't say it.

Series Part 2 of Nantonaku

[PTSD]

Not-Dates and Makeup by zuccin ( G | 2,137 | 1/1 )

Midoriya and Bakugou were hanging a lot lately. Not as a couple, obviously (at least Midoriya thought so). But the catch is: why is Katsuki so pretty with makeup?

Series Part 2 of Bakugou & Makeup

Falling by Dokuine ( G | 2,016 | 1/1 )

Midoriya Izuku did not have much experience or luck when it came to love, but he never expected it to literally knock him onto his rear one day. Not that he recognized it for what it was, not in that first meeting.

tribulation by insanityxspeaks ( T | 5,852+ | 2/? )

At least fifteen minutes of pep talk and reckless alcohol consumption later, Izuku and Ochaco stood pink-eared in front of Katsuki’s door. The duo didn’t dare look at each other. They didn’t dare breathe. They didn’t dare move, aside from Ochaco’s nerve-induced reaction of floating several inches from the ground. The only sounds that broke through the silence were the creaking of their open jaws and the creaking of the bed inside the room. Explicit utterances. Breathy moans.

A minute later, Ochaco: “. . . Those are one hundred percent the sounds of two men fucking.”

[A five-year reunion and drunken shenanigans brings Izuku to a door he swore he'd closed. A love story.]

Warm by Fitzfire ( G | 3,564 | 1/1 )

After graduation, Bakugou and Midoryia move in together. Still oblivious to the nature of their bond, and the feelings they harbor for each other, they fall into a routine.

Could a broken air conditioner throw a wrench in that?

Series Part 1 of Have Your Cake And Eat It

The Walk Home by artemancy ( G | 1,105 | 1/1 )

It's dangerous to walk around with your head in the clouds.

Workplace Relationship by bkdkwritingsdump ( T | 5,916 | 3/3 )

Izuku, the son of an extremely wealthy family, works at a high-end department store shortly after graduating college to get some real world experience and figure out what he wants to do with his life. His total jerk of a boss, Katsuki, also happens to be his old childhood friend who he hasn’t seen since middle school. And, on top of it all, his parents are breathing down his neck to find someone he can marry before he’s thirty. Katsuki overhears this… and asks him out.

Private Practice by thiefqueen ( M | 2,670 | 1/1 )

Midoriya accidentally sort of sets up a private fight with Bakugou during class after realizing he has a "problem" with the other teen. Their teachers are happy to set the fight up (and they not-so-secretly ship it).

Put It On Me by mangosmoothiecoran ( T | 31,018+ | 9/? )

Izuku has always had a passion for dancing. Looking up to the Pro-Dancers of the country, he always wished to be great. However, after moving away from his hometown and all he has known, he lost something inside of him. Fast forward eight years and Izuku finds himself in his second year at the prestigious dance academy of U.A.. Under the wing of Pro-Dancer All Might, his second year brings him face-to-face with a dance competition that will challenge his skills as a dancer and the normality he is used to. Unable to feel confident in what he is doing though, Izuku is reunited with a childhood friend who sparks a fire in him that died when he left his hometown.

(This summary will most likely change)

It's Not A Date! by otaku916 ( M | 3,672+ | 1/? )

“If he doesn’t attack you the moment you walk through the door his dick is broken.” Ochako interrupted, making Izuku and Iida both choke on their spit.

What happens when you have the emotionally constipated, gruff, socially inept guy ask out the oblivious nervous wreck? An awkward disaster of a date that's what. Go through the pain of first dates, hormones, and running away from your feelings that comes with going through puberty - all while training to be a hero!

Island by ScreamingYearly ( T | 4,825 | 1/1 )

There wasn’t any room in Katsuki’s heart for crushes or love. He didn’t want to indulge any of those things until he had the proper time, but becoming the top hero wouldn’t allow him that time, and that was something he was fine with.

So, of course, during the beginning of third year, Katsuki promptly fell head over fucking heels for Midoriya Izuku.

[Underage]

Fae Boy and Explosion Girl by Swifty_Heart ( T | 11,196+ | 2/? )

I wanted to write a story about Izuku being a cute little fairy, this is fluff and Katsuki is an adorable girl. Izuku doesn't need One For All he's a badass fairy. Mythical creatures live among humans but humans don't know this

Fate Awaits by empressrice ( T | 4,329+ | 2/? )

Soulmates are supposed to be perfect for each other. They are supposed to meet and fall in love and be together for the rest of their life.

When Izuku and Katsuki find out that they are soulmates it feels like that for the moment, but reality comes crashing down on both of them, a rift forming between the two, one that neither of them can ever see being fixed.

But when the universe declares something, it will come to fruition, whether they want it to or not.

Home Is Where Your Deepest Scar Is by Glamgas ( E | 7,121+ | 1/2 )

When Bakugou had heard that true bravery was loving the person you hated the most he could have laughed in the person's face. Doubled over in pure disbelief. How were you supposed to love someone you hated? How could you care for the person who had caused you so much pain?

---

Snapshots of Bakugou's journey in finding home in the person he hates the most.

Gift in Winter by DragonKRZ ( T | 5,854 + | 2/? )

No fucking way, it wasn’t possible. It was Deku they were talking about. The only thing Bakugou knows is that he's fucked. Kirishima should stop grinning at him and giving him thumbs up before he gets his face pummeled. Midoriya is an oblivious fluff ball while Todoroki joins the Deku squad. Tentatively set in the summer after their first year.

But I'm Batman (Deku) by theskywalkerkid ( M | 1,781+ | 1/? )

When Izuku was eight years old his parents died in a car accident and it left a hole in his heart. They left him with happy memories, company to run by himself, and his best friend/ butler Shinsou. To fill the hole in his heart Izuku started to do vigilante work under the name Deku, although quirkless he still manages to get his job done. However, when a threat against his life is made known his childhood friend and business partner Shouto, gets pro heroes to protect him. Enter Bakugou Katsuki the number one pro hero who is working with the police to hunt down the vigilantes for doing illegal hero work and also protecting Izuku not realizing that he is one of the vigilantes that he's hunting down.

Basically, a story where Izuku is Batman, but goes by Deku and works with other vigilantes to save people who he feels that the pro heroes neglect.

The Dragon Mark by multi_bnha ( M | 2,737+ | 2/? )

“Momma?” “Yes dear?” Inko asked. “Why do I have this mark?” Confused, Inko looked at her son. What is this little boy talking about? She checked all over his body and didn’t see any kind of mark on him. “What mark are you talking about sweetie? I don’t see anything on you.” “This one right here,” he says while lightly tracing above his elbow. Looking over his body again, she didn’t see anything different on him. “Are you sure there’s a mark on you Izuku?” Inko questioned one more time. “Yes momma, don’t you believe me?” Izuku said as tears started to form around his eyes. ‘Oh no, I didn’t mean to make him upset,’ Inko thought to herself. Pulling him in a hug she said,"Of course I believe you, don’t ever think that.” Sniffling he looked up at her, “Then how come you can’t see it? Is something wrong with me?” Feeling more guilty over what she said before she tried to reassure him that he’s normal and nothing seems to be wrong with him, even if she can’t visibly see it. As she’s comforting him, his tears slowly started to fall, but he made no sound and stayed in his mother’s embrace until he fell asleep.

Say you love me by Marsbears ( M | 32,919+ | 5/? ) I’m not really good at summaries but this should kinda spark your interest.

Izuku is going through his very first break up and suffering the whiplash affects of it. He very shockingly discovers he’s got a new neighbor and his name is Katsuki. They’re not the best of neighbors but by the end of the story they will be.

But basically Izuku and Katsiki end up falling in love but don’t necessarily know that they both feel the same way about one another because they’re both very slow in the feelings department when it comes to other people. But with the help of Bakugous best and only friend, Eijiro, and a lot of prolonged effort shit happens.

[Panic Attacks]

You're Always on My Mind by ariela_jack ( T | 3,034+ | 2/? )

Midoriya Izuku has a dangerous empathy/fuubutsushi quirk that could be taken advantage of, so he grows up not knowing and believing that he is quirk less.

A fic where Izuku figures out about his quirk and Katsuki helps him through it. Also, this is all going on while Izuku is battling through his mental health issues.

and/or

Izuku finds out about his quirk at a stupid class game on a field trip, with all the sexual tension there he realizes he can feel what everyone is feeling and goes red.

(I'm really bad at writing summaries, and just writing in general but I hope you like it.)

[Panic Attacks | Self Harm]

Bakugou's Aversion by Foolish_Observer ( E | 1,436+ | 1/2 )

Bakugou grew onto his classmates surrounding themselves around Midoriya since they started dating, but there was was one person who always seemed to piss him off since day one.

Chances by RyvernTerrus ( T | 2,002 | 1/1 )

Katsuki is apologetic. Izuku is shook. Both are oblivious fools.

How do we call this? by ravioligirl ( Not Rated | 2,973+ | 2/? )

Misunderstanding /ˌmɪsʌndəˈstandɪŋ/ [ (n.) a failure to understand something correctly.]

In which Katsuki and Izuku find where they fucked up and fix it

Snow and Forgotten Memories by Akira575 ( Not Rated | 938+ | 2/? )

During a trip with their classmates, Bakugo and Izuku get caught up in an avalanche! Izuku gets injured and loses his memories. Bakugo has to keep them alive during a blizzard and deal with Deku being basically useless. Will Izuku forget Kaachan forever? What will happen?

Make A Move (Katsudeku) by Death_by_Crayola ( T | 444+ | 1/? )

Katsuki Bakugou is what they would call a teenage delinquent, but he considers himself a hero. He's fighting against an oppressive government who's bargaining to create a "utopia" but who are leaving the world stifled and grey. He runs a rebellion, one of no name, and is a highly wanted person in the world he lives in.

Izuku Midoriya is a quiet mannered, rule-abiding kid, but when he sees the infamous Bakugou in person, running from the police, when he's out buying groceries for his mother, he becomes fascinated with him and his cause, and ends up putting himself at risk to know what it means to want more than what's given to you.

(Originally called Uprising Imminent, I changed it and I like this title better)

#BakuDeku #KatsuDeku #BNHA #bkdkfl masterlist #Masterlist #long post #w:underage #w:violence #w:mcd #t:s #t:homophobia #t:panic #t:sh #t:pa #t:dubcon #t:ptsd #curator jay

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trashboatprince · 5 years

Text

…

I have fallen into the small pit that is this ship and I’m not even bothering to get out. So, aside from doing some fanart, I’m writing up a story.

Summery: Finding someone special isn’t as easy as Susie thought, you never know who will steal your heart. Could me a musician, a director, or it could be a little angel, sent from above…

How far will you go to get that special someone into your life?

Warning: implied death/body horror, blood, Joey being a jerk as usual, Susie making a big mistake

Pairing: Susie/Alice (implied, onesided, at this point at least)

On with the fic!

When Susie was a child, she asked her mother when she find herself true love like in the books she read, or like the starlets of the screen. Her mother replied, ‘you’ll know who the right one for you is one day when they make you feel something very special, something you’ve never felt before and it makes you happier than you’ve ever been’.

For years Susie tried to figure out what that ‘special’ was. She dated and flirted with many a boy in high school and college, never went beyond five dates, at the most. She never even slept with any of them, men could be cute and charming, but she never found them… attractive? She wasn’t sure, she did find a few attractive, but not in the way that her friends seemed to find men they dated or married.

When she was hired to work at a little animation studio, Susie seemed to find some of the men there to be… interesting? She wasn’t sure, but she did find that the music director, the one in charge of her voicing characters for their new talky-toons, to be so charming. He had a nice smile, and lovely hair. Susie couldn’t help but to work her magic on the man, and they hit it off!

But not for long. Susie liked his company, but he was so quiet, reserved, and outside of work he was so fidgety and confused. She… decided they’d just stay friends.

Then Joey Drew himself seemed to enjoy speaking with her more, and Susie found that she didn’t mind his company. He was charismatic and seemed to have a big personality. He also liked to leave her little gifts, extra money in her paycheck… was this that special feeling? When a man made a girl feel like a queen?

Susie didn’t mind that at all, but there was something… strange about it. She didn’t feel like it was right, but she wasn’t sure.

Only two months into this business at the studio and already she got promoted to be the voice of the newest character to the batch, a special lady, sent from above!

The man who designed her, Henry, was a former employee who came back to work for a bit. He seemed to be on strange, bitter terms with their boss, but he was sweet. Out of everyone here, Henry seemed to be the nicest man in the studio, his wife was a lucky lady. He had approached her one day, politely asking if she’d like to be the voice of the new character he designed. He even showed her the design he had done.

Something about seeing the sketches and designs of the new character made Susie’s heart skip a beat.

Alice Angel, that was her name, a beautiful angel who fell from heaven. She could sing, she could dance, she was perfect! And then Henry asked her if she was willing to help him develop the character more. Susie remembered her face feeling hot, her heart beating harder in her chest.

Wow, this felt like such an honor! Henry had explained that since she’d be voicing the angel, she might as well have a hand in bringing her to life in other ways.

Susie was quick to agree and helped in developing Alice into the sweet gal she’d end up being when her first cartoon finally debuted. The actress remembered being in the viewing theater and holding back tears when she saw Alice coming down through the moonlit sky, on a little cloud, singing her heart out.

She was quick to take a poster of the short home. And every poster for every short she played in after that. All of them were framed, hung around her small home.

Black became a common color of her wardrobe, including black lipstick. There was just something about wearing these little changes that made Susie think, just maybe… Alice would notice? Oh, such a silly thought! She’s a cartoon character, she can’t see her in real life! But why does that fact make her chest ache?

She did her best to ignore these thoughts, maybe it was just her thinking too much of her perfect character. The actress had other things to focus on, like her developing relationship with Joey! The man had taken her out on a date recently, and he was such a gentleman about it, even paying the check!

During dinner, he called her Alice, and Susie couldn’t believe how happy that made her feel. Just… the idea of being called Alice, it made her so excited. She couldn’t help herself when she got home and told her posters.

Not too long after this, Susie found that Joey wasn’t the gentleman he came off as. She found that Henry had departed, leaving and not planning on returning. Why? No one knew, but Norman had mentioned that they got into a huge fight, but he didn’t know the details himself. After this, Joey became bitter, demanding more and more from the employees, and Susie was no exception.

Long hours were spent in the recording booth and even she was having trouble keeping up with all the voice roles that he kept giving her. But she never tired or became distraught over doing Alice, no, the angel kept Susie going through this difficult time. Until an incident happened, where her voice cracked during a recording for a song.

Joey had screamed at her about it, telling her he had no time for delays, that she was the reason that Alice wasn’t anywhere near as popular as Bendy! Susie was the reason that the merchandise wasn’t selling, or why they weren’t making money off of the Alice shorts! Maybe Alice should never have been created, she had just been a waste of time and money!

Even with a damaged voice, Susie screamed back at him, striking her boss across the face.

How dare he blame her for this! Alice as perfect, Alice was a star, Susie knew that people loved her almost as much as Susie did!

And in that moment, she stopped, eyes wide as she realized something.

No one loved Alice, at least… no one loved her as much as Susie did. Nor in the same way that Susie did…

She had left the studio and didn’t return for three days, Sammy calling her to tell her to rest her voice, they’d continue when she was better.

Susie spent the time at home, looking over her growing collection of Alice Angel merchandise. Much of it was the prototypes that Shawn had made, letting her have them. Many plush toys of the little darling, of different sizes and styles. Posters covered the walls, she had at least five cutouts, even a few cells that Henry had been kind enough to let her have.

Was… Alice really that person who made her feel special?

The actress had never felt anything like this before in her life, all her storybooks from childhood, her romance novels from now, all the things she’s seen in movies made her believe that these things she felt to be true.

But Alice is a character on the screen, beautiful, perfect, a true angel, and someone that the studio didn’t deserve! Especially that horrible Joey Drew, how dare he say all those awful lies about her and Alice!

When she went back to the studio, Susie was ready to give Joey another piece of her mind. But instead, she found Sammy in the recording studio with a girl.

Someone Joey had hired while Susie rested her voice.

To replace her as Alice Angel.

Nothing Joey had said days before compared to the pain Susie felt the moment Sammy told her that she was no longer playing Alice’s voice.

She felt like the man had reached into her chest and pulled her heart out, crushing the beating thing right in front of her face. She left in a daze, finding herself in her private area of the studio, past the toy factory. Susie finally broke down when it hit her like an axe to the side of the head, she had been replaced because she stood up to Joey for her true love.

There’s gotta be a way to fix this! There has to be a way…

Susie still worked for the studio, as an understudy for Allison Pendel, and as just another voice actress. Just like those first two months…

She was bitter, furious, she rarely said a word to anyone that wasn’t work related. And nothing was said to the replacement. Mama always said ‘if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all’ and Susie had nothing nice to say to that angel thief!

Recently, Susie had taken notice to strange things in the studio, people vanishing, strange noises, more ink than usual, and something in the vents that banged around and whistled. But she ignored it, probably just Wally up to something, or Joey being an idiot about not getting things fixed around here.

Speaking of the bastard, he had approached her earlier, said he had… an opportunity for her. Alright, Susie figured she’d give him the benefit of the doubt, but if that man thought he could double cross her again…

Oh, he had another thing coming. Alice, and Susie herself, did not like liars…

When he spoke with her in his office, Susie had been surprised at the offer he gave her: help him bring Alice to life, outside of ink and paint, outside of reels and screens.

Joey asked her to help make Alice a living, breathing, creation.

Susie was conflicted, this was playing God, this was dangerous. And yet… this gave her a chance, she could see the one she had fallen for, the one that was right for her, alive and with her…

She said yes.

And regretted it soon after, when she was introduced to Joey’s… other living toons. If they could even be called that. There were strange, living ink blobs that moaned and reached out at her, but he told her not to worry, they were trial and error creations! Nothing like what Alice would become! And then he introduced her to ‘Bendy’.

He was a sight to behold, a strange creature made of ink, wearing the devil’s signature smile. Joey told her that he was a proto-type for the real Bendy, that this ‘Bendy’ was a trial and error copy, it was just missing the proper ingredient.

That worried Susie, but he assured her that what Alice would need was nothing like what Bendy needed to come to life!

A few nights later, Susie found herself in a strange room she had never seen before, standing on a pentagram. There were people in the room with her, hidden in the shadows, but she could make out cardboard masks of the characters of the series, though they were mainly the Butcher Gang and Boris. She wore an Alice one, the only one, on her face.

Looking through the eye holes, she could see the two Bendy’s, one of them was Joey, the other she wasn’t sure. Joey gave her some sorta boring speech about how she was going to help bring Alice to life, to give her the heart and soul she needed to be on the mortal plane. Something about his words filled her with dread and doubt, but she was determined, she had to meet the beautiful angel that made her feel so special…

Then the lights went out, and when they came back on, the room was rumbling, the scent of ink was suddenly strong, something wet fell from a hole in the ceiling, and Joey was behind her. She barely had time to react as he shouted Alice’s name and slit her throat

Susie gagged on the blood that filled her mouth, then it mixed with the ink that suddenly poured from the ceiling and she dropped to the ground. The pentagram glowed brightly under her, gold, then red, then back to gold. Susie tried to scream for help, but all that came out was gargled words of blood and ink. She tried to scream for Wally, Norman, even Henry! But they weren’t here, she had no one in this room. The actress stared up at Joey, was he still talking? She couldn’t tell, but he seemed conflicted, concerned, gesturing to her as the other seemed to panic.

This was a mistake, she didn’t want to die to bring Alice into the world, she was depressed, yes, but she had so much to live for! Why was this happening!? She didn’t want to die, she didn’t want to die!

Susie~!

What?

Was… was that Alice? That voice, saying her name…

With what little strength she had left, Susie opened her eyes, seeing not Joey, not the strange people in masks, but the perfect angel, sent from above. Alice was solid, real, perfect, and smiling right at her as she held out her hand.

Come on, Susie, come with me so we can make you into an angel!

Yes… yes! Susie wanted to be an angel, an angel worthy of being with Alice!

With shaky, bloody fingers, she reached out to grab Alice’s hand, but her strength was gone. All she felt was her fingers brush against Alice’s own, and hearing her beloved gal sigh softly.

Oh dear, were you really not the one?

NO!

No, no, no! Susie was the one for Alice, the only one for her! No one could have Alice, no one! Not Allison, not Joey, not even Henry! Only Susie could have Alice Angel!

Only Susie could be Alice Angel!

With a screech from a voice that should have died moments ago, and with new found energy, Susie launched herself as the cartoon and grabbed her, pulling her close. The ink and blood that coated her seemed to be covering the black and white of the angelic toon as she struggled to escape, the actress’ skin melting like liquid ink all over her perfect form.

Pain erupted for Susie’s head, as if two things were growing from her skull. There was a bright light over her head as she felt Alice fuse with her skin, blood, and ink. Yes, yes, so this is what her mama meant, that she’d find someone who could make her feel so special. It really was Alice all along, she was her special feeling, her true love.

Dreams come true, Susie. Dreams come true.

Years of work, of slaughter and stolen hearts, of too many encounters with the Ink Demon and his Dark Puddles had resulted in something close to perfection. A form that was deserving of the title of ‘Alice Angel’.

She smirked as she strolled through the halls of her domain, where she ruled, where the Ink Demon dare not try to stain her walls with his filthy ink. An axe held tight in her grip as she went to check on traps she had set up for rogue Boris clones or mutated Butcher Gang members that wandered her halls, trailing their tainted ink with them.

It didn’t hurt to see if the Projectionist had left any goodies behind, the fool just liked to maim, never really doing much with the prizes inside. Except on rare occasions where he’d take the hearts and hide them away in the Buddy Boris railway shop. Not even the studio’s angel knew why he kept them there, then again, Norman had always been a strange man in life.

‘Alice’ heard struggling coming from a trap, down a hallway that not many really ventured into. Not much there, just a tape of Wally and Thomas’, a Little Miracle Station with a door that never closed right, and a viewing hole to where the Ink Machine could rise and fall into the dark abyss.

It was in this area that ‘Alice’ stumbled upon a sight she never expected. In so many years of wandering these yellowed, rotten floors has a sight like this never appeared, but right before her eyes was a perfect Alice Angel, captured in a simple rope trap.

Flashes in ‘Alice’s’ mind gave her images of a sweet smile, a gentle hand, and harsh words that made her feel like she wasn’t worthy of the angel of the stage. But this was different, this wasn’t a trick, a spell caused by Joey to spare her, to keep her alive, this was the real deal.

Alice was struggling to untie the rope around her ankles when she noticed that she was no longer alone. Large, dark eyes stared into yellowed ones and ‘Alice’ smirked at the look of fear and curiosity of the sweet cherub’s face.

“Look what Heaven left for me, someone to make me feel so special.”

END

If you follow my tumblr and/or twitter, you may be aware of the au I have where Alice saves the studio, Henry, and her girlfriend Susie/Malice.

This is a prequel to that.

Thanks for reading! I have another fanfic in the works for this au!

#bendy and the ink machine #batim #susie campbell #alice angel #alice x susie #joey drew #john's drabbles

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myragemylovemylife · 5 years

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Making of the We Are Revolution Radio book

This year, I published a book of Green Day fan stories and art. I wanted to document the band’s incredible impact on a diverse fanbase. So, I gathered stories and fanart from fans of all ages, from Greece to California to Costa Rica to China. All 161 pages are a truly wonderful testament to how Green Day have changed lives and the devotion of their fans. I knew I was going to be proud of it – and everyone in it – but quite how proud I was didn’t hit me until I opened up the box.

Click “keep reading” for the full story (don’t want to hog your dashboard with a big post!)

How it all began

I was making My Rage My Love My Life – a documentary of my own experiences following Green Day on tour – when I got the idea. I knew I was going to exhibit my photos. They'd quickly become a document of the fan community as a whole, rather than just myself. I thought a little book of other fans’ stories would be an amazing addition. I asked for submissions – at this point just for stories, not fanart – and made a short book in InDesign. Then I exhibited it. It was the most popular part of my exhibit (sadly, no one got in my survival bag).

Exhibiting My Rage My Love My Life in Cornwall

A while later, I put the book up for sale so everyone could read it. It was surprisingly popular!

I knew at this point – shocked by quite how much the stories moved me and knowing there were even more out there – that I wanted to make a bigger, better book. This time, I asked for fanart submissions, too. It would be the final book, so it had to be good!

Volume 2

Looking for more stories and art was a slow process. A lot of people who weren’t too shy, or too busy to submit already had. I kept plugging the submission page, but there was little interest. I tried approaching fan artists on Instagram, but they didn’t reply, deleted my comments or blocked me. With my 9 to 5 job, I didn't have much time to continue going out of my way to get submissions. The deadline passed, but I never got around to printing. I felt very disillusioned with the Green Day fandom and its drama and hierarchies at the time, too. How much the book meant to me and what a great project it was faded from my memory.

When I pinned My Rage My Love My Life as an Instagram highlight, I included a few excerpts from the book. Unexpectedly, a lot of people messaged me saying they wished they’d been part of it, that they weren’t even aware of it until then, or that they wanted a copy. I went back to read it again. It immediately reminded me why I was doing it and how important it was to me and to document this. So I reopened submissions (feeling bad that I'd never got it done before!).

People now had months to submit. It was, again, a slow process, but this time I wasn’t letting it go until I’d got as many fans as possible into it!

Getting more submissions

I tried a few different strategies. One was offering the option to submit in Spanish, French or Portuguese, but no one did. I made fun and more ‘serious’ calls for submissions. I encouraged friends who’d previously expressed interest or I thought would like to be in the book. Half of my attempts were successful. My most successful plan was recruiting my East Bay native partner to speak with fan friends in the area and one in LA. Some were shy or struggled to write, so I ‘interviewed’ them or we just chatted about Green Day and pieced together stories. They were stories I’d never have found by only appealing to visible or ‘super’ fans – but they were some of my favourites and moved me to tears!

The biggest obstacle was definitely convincing shy or uncertain people their stories or art were absolutely worth a place in the book. I don’t know if I made a mistake giving people months to submit. Other than my partner’s unpaid internship at My Rage My Love My Life, the most submissions came in with my last minute reminders. Maybe I should have done that all along. It’s so easy to procrastinate or just forget to make time when you have forever to do something.

Deciding whether to publish an eBook

I had a long think about this. At first I was definitely going to offer a cheap eBook version to make it more accessible to everyone. A few weeks later I thought about how if I did, a free PDF would be much more likely to end up on the internet for anyone to see. Which isn’t inherently bad – I wasn’t looking to make money from it, after all. But the contributors shared personal stories under the assumption it would be a limited physical print people had to buy to see, not an easily accessible PDF. I also felt it wouldn't be fair to people who’d previously bought the physical book. So I decided against it. It’s a shame because I’d love it to be more accessible, but I don’t trust the internet with everyone’s stories.

Why not make more books?

A few people have expressed disappointment they weren’t in the book. Some felt I should make more books. Volume 2 is the final version, though. For starters, I don’t think expecting people to keep paying for extensions of the same book is fair. In total, people had almost two years to submit. I chased a lot of people who said they wanted to be part of it and approached others I thought might be interested. The majority didn’t reply or just never got around to it. Most genuinely didn’t have time and that’s a real shame. Before printing, some people had been waiting months to buy the book, so continuing to extend the deadline wouldn't have been fair to them either.

I really wanted as many people as possible to be part of this, but if people don’t submit, there’s not much I can do. The same will happen if I make another book. A few more people will submit, but most who didn’t have time last year won’t have time this year. I did make it clear when I opened submissions for Volume 2 that it would be the final book, so I don't think it's unreasonable.

Printing

This time, with the book being over three times longer at 161 pages, I had to use a professional – and pricier – printer instead of the simpler company I’d used before. In early February, I put the book up in my store for £14.99 until February 18th. After that, I’d put in a bulk order. If I only sold a few books, I’d lose a huge amount of money and end up paying to send the books out. It was a scary gamble at first, but I soon sold enough to cover everything. As February 18th approached, I finalised the file in InDesign and prepared to send it to the printer.

Despite having learned all about this at university, I was nervous. After all, studying something in a classroom and actually executing it are totally different things… and I wanted the books to be perfect for all the amazing people who’d supported and contributed to the project over the last two years. What if I messed it up somehow? I had a quick chat with the printer to make sure I was doing everything right and then I sent off the file.

A heavy box arrived with DPD on March 6th. I opened it and there were all my very own, professionally printed books! It was surreal.

Opening the book box (having excitedly taken a few out already!)

They were thicker than I expected. Even though I’d already published one book, this even better final product was somehow even more incredible. Flicking through and seeing everyone’s amazing art and stories there, in full colour and all their glory – I felt so proud! Despite having stared at my own art and story on InDesign for months on end, I was excited and a bit emotional to see that there, too. I knew then exactly why I’d done this and, regardless of inevitable drama, how special Green Day’s fandom really is.

Shipping the books

This was quite a big job, but also exciting! The first five orders got a little gift for their support. After carefully wrapping the books, I passed them to @greendaycollection to be sealed in mailers. Her sellotape fortresses then went into a Primark bag, ready to be shipped the next day.

The parcels were transferred to some transport sacks (also known as my Pokémon backpack and Berkeley Bowl shopping bag) and we took them to the Post Office. I was a bit worried the Post Office lady might run away screaming. But no, she was professional and got it all done quickly. She even knew American Idiot. I left with a stash of comically long receipts.

And then it was done. My books had officially been published and dispatched. I felt like a proud parent.

I hope this might inspire someone else to make their own book! If you need any guidance, feel free to get in touch. 💖💚💖

#green day #we are revolution radio book #green day fans #green day fan stories #green day fanart #green day book

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ship-ambrosia · 5 years

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A Year in Review for ship-ambrosia - Fanfiction Writers 2018

So I saw a blog I’m a huge fan of do this sort of year reflection of fanfiction writing, and since this was the first year I’ve ever posted my fanfictions, I thought it’d be fun to do!

First off I wanna thank @sweetmemories2606 @allie-and-her-fandoms and @a-fairy-tail44 for constantly encouraging me, being there to bounce ideas off of, also basically being beta readers for me and my hype men... you guys rock. I’m so glad I met all of you.

total number of completed stories

- “Completed” is kind of relative isn’t it? Lol... I have 13 stories posted on AO3, 4 that are on tumblr only, and of those 17 three of them, Heavens Bringer, A Fool Like Him, and Inherit Thunder (previously Heir of Electricity) are unfinished. Three of them are a collection of one-shots from Gruvia, Jerza, and Nalu week, but they’re all so short I’m going to count them as all together.

- There is so much unposted stuff in my backlog that you wouldn’t even believe lol most of it is unfinished though

total word count

- 81000 on AO3. I don’t even want to go and count otherwise

fandoms written in

- Fairy Tail

- My Hero Academia

- RWBY

- Persona 5

- Voltron (behind the scenes)

- Fire Emblem (behind the scenes)

looking back, did you expect to write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected?

- Let me just say that posting the first two fanfictions, Inherit Thunder (BNHA, kamijirou) and Liberation (RWBY, Blacksun), were totally on a whim. My roommate encouraged me to do it and see what kind of feedback I got on them. Boy am I glad I did. So let me tell you my motivation and progress has been absolutely astounding to me.

what’s your own favorite story of the year?

- This is so hard, because I’ve been in love with all the stories as I posted each of them, like oh yeah this is it this is my best one. Every time lol. I’d have to say though it’s probably The Droplet (FT, Gruvia). Reading my first gruvia fanfiction Four Degrees, and then going to The Droplet, you can really see not only how well my writing has improved, but also how much better I’ve done in understanding Gray and Juvia. Also I happen to find the beginning of it still really sexy lol that was difficult for me, writing a scene that was sexy that was going to be posted for the world to see.

did you take any writing risks this year?

- I think the style that I wrote A Sound Like Thunder (BNHA, iidamei) and Beauty and the Crow (P5, Akeharu) was a different style than um used to, with the story being told in chunks that didn’t quite fit together perfectly but still built off one another. Basically they could have been multi chapter fics but I wrote them like a short story and both of those stories I had to have read over a thousand times because I wanted them to be perfect.

do you have any fanfic or profit goals for the new year?

- One, to finish Heavens Bringer which I think is very plausible since I’ve been working on the last chapter a lot lately. Another is just to get more consistent with finishing and posting works, because right now it’s just like, here from me every so often and going like a month or two without posting any sort of writing. Maybe even to write less ship-focused works. I love ships but I don’t think all my writing has to be only romantic

best story of the year?

- Certainly one of my Fairy Tail fanfictions, though I’m not sure which. Heavens Bringer definitely has the most effort put in, but both The Droplet and A Fool Like Him (Ft, stingyu) have such in-depth, emotional breakdowns of Gray and Sting respectively and how I see them viewing their primary love interest that I think both of those stories have a fascinating draw. Also, I’m extremely proud of my Nalu Angst week prompts, I go back and re read them all the time. I think some of my best work resides in that collection, most notably the story titled “Miles Apart, Two Inches Away” from when Natsu and Lucy reunite after the post-Tartaros timeskip.

most popular story of the year?

- That’s easily Everything was the Same (Except when it wasn’t), my first Nalu story. On AO3 it has 755 Hits and 72 kudos, the most for both of all my stories. Which I find so funny because I wrote that story in under an hour lol.

story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:

- Heavens Bringer, by far. I like to think it’s amazing, and my friends seem to love it, but it’s gotten very little recognition. I’d love for more people to read it, and it has all the big four ships and I’ve devoted soo much time to it. But the feedback I HAVE gotten has been absolutely wonderful!

most fun story to write:

Beauty and the Crow, A Sound Like Thunder, or Nalu Angst Week. I hurt so much while writing all three, but I loved it. Beauty and the Crow because Akechi and Haru’s relationship would be just as tragic as I’ve written it, A Sound Like Thunder because iidamei is normally such a goofy ship and I literally almost killed Iida and made Mei Hatsume cry, and Nalu Angst Week because well... painful feels. But I enjoyed the dark places that my writing went.

story with the single sexiest moment:

Haven’t written (read: published) a ton of sexy scenes. I think The Droplet wins for the part where Gray almost pulls off Juvia’s underwear with his teeth, only to be interrupted by their baby.

most sweet story:

- Nuclear Fusion. No angst, it’s straight up injecting Nalu parenting fluff into your bloodstream lol

“holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you!” story:

- Nothing yet?? Maybe hurting Iida and Mei in A Sound Like Thunder. I need to write a goofy fic with the two of them, honestly.

story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:

- I’m going to say Inherit Thunder. I used to think of Kaminari as just a total goofball. Coming up with the idea of his parents as villains gave so many deep possibilities to why Kaminari wants to be the “trendy” popular boy or where he could come from, what his motivation for being a hero could be. I could be totally right, or totally off. But it definitely made me so much more intrigued by what Horikoshi could have planned for him.

most unintentionally telling story:

- When you read Heavens Bringer you see exactly what kind of Fairy Tail fan I am. Lol

hardest story to write:

- Heavens Bringer! Lol. Also worked on Beauty and the Crow for a long time, because I couldn’t decide what direction I exactly wanted to take Haru and Akechi - did I want to follow the plot? Did I want to make Haru and Akechi fall in love, or make it a series of moments? Did I want lots of dialogue, or did I want it to be more narrated? It was a lot of stylistic choices that went into that one but I’m totally happy with how it turned out!

biggest disappointment:

- I worked on a Baccana story for sooo long and then I ended up deleting it because it was turning into very cliche, Gildarts-doesn’t-approve-so-he-challenges-Bacchus-to-a-fight and I didn’t want to write a fic that had already been done 30 times (not that Gildarts and Bacchus fighting because Bacchus likes Cana isn’t great... it’s just that most people who like that ship have already written that).

biggest surprise:

- Uhh, Inherit Thunder being as popular as it was received? I’ve gotten dozens of messages asking for a sequel and it’s really an incredible feeling to know people want more of a story. It was originally gonna just be a one-shot, but now I’m writing a second chapter that will probably come out after Heavens Bringer is done.

some stuff in the works for the new year:

- Obviously, Heavens Bringer part 5 and chapter 2 of Inherit Thunder

- Working on several more chapters to A Fool Like Him, it’s basically just all suffering for Sting lol

- A multi chapter Baccana fic AU-ish in which Cana joins Quatro Cerberus during the Tartaros timeskip after Fairy Tail is disbanded

- Multi chapter Gruvia and Gale fic about Juvia disappearing after leaving to search for answers to her origin, leaving Gray and Gajeel desperate to find her

- Stingyu Cinderella/Princess and the Pauper AU

- A Yang x Ilia piece (FINALLY! LOL)

- May eventually clean up and post an experimental fic where I practiced writing combat with Sun and Neptune vs Mercury

- Ryuji x Ann getting together post-canon

- Future Ryuji x Ann single dad Ryuji AU

- Haru x Akechi Military/sort of Fullmetal Alchemist AU?? Idk it was inspired by fanart

- Maybe post some of my Voltron/Fire Emblem stuff eventually? Idk about those

If you read this entire post seriously thank you!! And thanks to everyone who’s read my fics, sent me messages about them, or just talked to me in general!! I love interacting with the communities!!

#random post from bree #bree writes #heavens bringer #the droplet #a fool like him #nuclear fusion #a sound like thunder #inherit thunder #beauty and the crow #fairy tail fanfiction #persona 5 fanfiction #bnha fanfiction #rwby fanfiction #this was so much fun to do #let me know any thoughts you have on this!!#also tag me if you do it too #long post #long text post

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sunwukong-stoaway-blog · 6 years

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Oh shit, 3AM, time for a hot take on the FNDM from the perspective of someone who’s drifted in and out of it for years now. And yeah, spoilers, it involves Sun, the Bees, and experience therein.

We do need a few things set for the record before I dive further in. First, there is indeed a difference between normal Bee fans and flat out Wasps. Y’know, the psychopathic harassing jerks. There is also a segment of the Blacksun fndm that is more than happy to be as harassment heavy and take things too damn far. The problem in judging which is bigger is that you’ll only ever see the size of whatever groups you happen to be in contact with, which means if you’re a normal fan of one side, you’re likely to only see the hate-filled opposite side. And if you’re removed, then it’s a roll of the dice whether you see Wasps or... whatever the BlackSun equivalent is. And whichever side is bigger, they both still exist, which is the main problem. Now let’s take a stroll down memory lane and acknowledge a few things.

First and foremost. The Bees as a ship only exists as it does because people were throwing the first characters on screen at each other and held to them. This was true of Ruby and Weiss after the Red and White trailers, then true of Blake and Yang after the Black and Yellow trailers. We didn’t know anything about any of these characters, (in fact it completely flipped Ruby and Weiss’ personality traits, making Ruby a cool and aloof sniper chick and Weiss a soft melting princess) but the ships were already cemented and beloved by the community.

This kept going into the first season proper. Sure, we had alternate blends of ships, like Ladybug, Freezerburn, and Monochrome. Even Enabler, Ruby/Yang if anyone remembers that incestuous ship, before it was burnt to the ground by canon. But Whiterose/The Bees were the biggest game in town. Seemed to be backed by the canon too, to an extent. All the characters introduced were paired off and sent on their way, including JNPR, but this didn’t stop FNDM from laughing and enjoying themselves. (One particularly popular joke during the Jaune Arc was snickering that Yang and Blake were doing the do offscreen instead of running for help, for instance.) It didn’t matter Yang and Blake didn’t have a single conversation that didn’t end in Blake snubbing Yang and Yang writing Blake off as a “lost cause,” they were the pairing and nobody else was around, so, that was canon. And then episode 15 rolled around.

Everything broke down with episode 15, though not all at once. It introduced Sun and Penny, and FNDM wasn’t entirely sure what to do with them. Some, like myself, found the new characters and their dynamics fun and interesting. Some, on the other hand, declared immediately that Sun was a rapist/stalker/murderer/assassin of the White Fang, sometimes all at once. Some people had been a little bored of Jaune by this point but Sun was the first morally good character the FNDM declared a monster, and to this day, has received the roughest ‘welcome.’ And, among the accusations, the declaration that Sun was nothing but a genderbend of Yang for a hetero ship. And so the tensions began to mount.

Bear in mind, up until this point the Bees had grown to be the de facto biggest ship in the FNDM. Nothing against Ruby, Weiss, or Whiterose, but Blake and Yang were the most mature/adult of the team, and consequently, got the most attention, desire, fanart, et cetra. Now here comes the first character to make contact with Blake in a definitively different fashion and connect with her. Without question, they saw Sun as a threat and an excuse to attack the show for not giving them the Bees. Hell, it’s no surprise they even shipped him with Penny (Optimal Primates) for a time, just because they debuted the same episode, to try and get him ‘away’ from Blake in the fandom’s eyes. The response to Sun by these proto-Wasps, otherwise known as ‘the entirety of the Bees at the time’ was swift, overwhelming, and nothing short of cruel. Especially when they started harassing Sun RPers, those who defended him, liked him, and so on. People who drew those first few pieces of Blacksun art were flat out attacked and screamed at to shut down their channels. (Similar attacks started appearing at this time too at artists for other pairings, noticeably Ladybug.) And for a time, that oppressive and painful atmosphere was reality.

Then, I put up a post pointing out how little canon the Bees actually had, and compared it to Blacksun. In V1? This was an overwhelming difference. I outright called the Bees a “Ghost ship,” a ship that had absolutely no basis in canon yet sailed anyway... And attacked others. Needless to say, this was not taken well by the proto-wasps.

It didn’t matter that I actively shipped Whiterose, passively Ladybug, and eventually Nuts & Dolts. It didn’t matter if what I said was true, that the emperor had no clothes (or canon.) All that mattered to these people was slamming me down and declaring me to the world a homophobic monster for not shipping their ship. To do everything in their power to break my spirit, break my connections with people, and break any place I had in this fledgling FNDM of comfort. All for their blatantly bullshit moral highground arguments.

This went on for a good three weeks after that first post. Round the clock attacks, harassment, and vile displays of power. It really did break me, all things considered. That much negativity drove me into a deep depression, to the point I could barely leave my dorm room in university for food, let alone class. I’m still hesitant to use the term for fear of it’s overused impression, but this made the Bees ship into a full on trigger for me. Triggering every emotion of fear, depression, and anxiety that constant bombardment thrust upon me around the clock. To an extent, it still is such a trigger, and so I can admit without issue I’m biased.

Thankfully, it did all have a silver lining. I became a lightning rod of hate, but the heavy atmosphere was broken. Bees no longer were unchallenged rulers of the FNDM, and people legit began to call out the behavior of these proto-wasps as full on bullying, or at least stopped acting like the Bees were canon. There was room to move forward now. But... of course, it didn’t stop there.

V2 rolled around. On the one hand we got Yang and Blake having the first dance, as well as actually having a real conversation on screen and developing some kind of unique bond, flimsy as it may be to some. (Seriously, Blake’s having severe overwrought depression and anxiety over Adam and the White Fang, Yang makes it about her. Yeah, that can show solidarity for the cause, but it does little to assuage Blake’s issues. I do see it as a good scene, but it’s still not a great relationship.) On the other hand, we were confirmed halfway through the year, and thanks to Sun/Neptune being cut from that last part of the Paladin fight, Blake had to be the one to ask what Yang’s Semblance was. ...Yeah. Half a year of being partners. And she doesn’t canonically know yet what Yang’s Semblance is. Hell of a partnership, yeah?

And on the other side of the coin. Sun and Blake had their full on dance, came to it as a date, and it included Yang stepping aside to give Blake to Sun. This on top of meeting Sun’s team for the first time and solidifying his place as being right there with RWBY and JNPR. ...And to counterbalance, we got Neptune. Seriously. Wasps had Neptune pegged as Sun’s “actual girlfriend” from the second his name was dropped. Then the design came in, they declared Neptune FtM trans, and that Sun was dating him. I mean, clearly, right? Then Neptune actually showed up, he turned out to be the most aggressively straight-showing guy on the show yet, and the FNDM HATED him for it. Pitched him into the same bin as Sun right then and there, while shouting they’d be a better couple than the alternatives. (This also ended up, for the first time, generating enmity from Monochrome shippers for Sun. Before, Blacksun and MC shippers were effectively “ship and let ship” considering both had suffered under the Bees, but since that stranglehold had been broken after V1. Now Neptune came to town and fucked that peace up too.) Seriously. Just like the Bees, Seamonkeys only exists as a ship because the FNDM slammed the characters together without a clue what they were even like. Same as with Optimal Primates, remember?

Overall, V2 ended up being more or less like the aftermath of V1 the whole way through. Salty and bitter Wasps bickering and yelling about Sun even being in the same frame as Blake, trying to reaffirm their position, while everyone else just relaxed, some bitched about Jaune existing, and others enjoying the moment. ...Then V3 happened.

V3 was a powderkeg of moments for both Blacksun and the Bees. From the fingerguns/blushing/”dork” scene, to Blake tearfully holding Yang’s... one remaining hand, to the questions of where Blake was going after the ending. And consequently, the ship-to-ship combat had grown once again. Things like editing the fingerguns scene into a gif of Weiss proposing to Blake, or conspiracy theories that Sun was a mole for the WF hiding in plain sight, or just generally arguing back and forth over how important Blake holding Yang’s hand and Sun’s poppy love song were. The thing was, by V3, enough new fans of the series drawn in to all the Bee fanart that didn’t have the Wasp mentality existed to properly differentiate between the two groups. And consequently, some would-be Bee fans were surprised when their open appreciation for the pair was met with negativity and disdain by those who were used to liking the Bees being associated with far worse. The Wasps still existed, without question, but their presence muddied the waters and turned what was once a straight-forward fandom war into messy, vile person-to-person conflict, with bystanders dragged into the fighting. This, to my knowledge, is where the wasp-equivalent of Blacksun fans ended up coming to be, unable to differentiate between the Wasps that they hated and the Bee fans that they shouldn’t. In short, V3 was the most divisive and painful of the seasons for this warfare.

As we approach the modern day it should be noted that the longer the show runs, the less and less these ship-to-ship combats make an impact on the FNDM as a whole. This is a good thing, realistically, but it comes from an unfortunate division in the FNDM in general, with camps splitting off into effective echo chambers, and generally only interacting to spit hatred at each other.

V4 was easily the single lowest point for all of the Bees. With Blake and Yang canonically split apart, and Sun hanging around Blake full time as her only traveling partner, the Bees had effectively nothing to do but sigh and hope for a reunion soon. The Wasps, on the other hand, eagerly took to instead tearing into Sun’s character again, this time jumping on the questionable decision to shadow Blake and keep her safe, and characterizing it as flat out stalking... even without full knowledge of the situation. The Wasps just painted the scene as “Sun has spent months following Blake in a coat,” and a large part of the fandom picked it up in turn. Then, as a follow-up act, decided to screw with Sun a different way and ship him with, of all people, Kali, or Blake’s mom. Yeah, it was creepy and fetishism, and had no purpose other than to break Kali’s implicit acceptance of Sun as a partner for Blake into bizarre OOC lust. It’s telling that there was far and away more porn and pure shipping for Sun/Kali than Ghira/Kali for a while, despite the Bees laughing to themselves that “of course YANG would be accepted by Ghira, unlike Sun~.” Legit, Sun/Kali was just another attempt at slamming Sun together with the nearest character that wasn’t Blake. Just like Penny. Just like Neptune. But, V4 was the volume of personal growth and discovery for each of the main cast... And consequently, this journey down each of their four paths was panned by many “rwde” fans for not having the inter-team connections they wanted. Funny how the volume most about each member of RWBY and their personal stories gets panned as the one least about them. Whatever. All of this led to V5, however, and where we are now.

And where we are now is... Right back to how we were in V3. With giddy Bees squealing over Yang and Blake exchanging eye contact and words, while Wasps re-characterize Sun’s connection to Blake (including pushing her back to the team that she ran away from because it was time to reconnect and he knew that) as “pushing Blake to be with Yang.” It’s kind of absurd, right? Well... That’s what this FNDM war has been to me. Just absurd.

I’ve watched wasps shout down Micheal Jones because they don’t like Sun being close to Blake. I’ve seen wasps countless times call out RT as queerbaiting for not giving them the Bees right fucking then. I’ve heard directly from Wasps that it doesn’t matter to (the ones I talked to) whether any other LGBTQA+ people/ships/focuses appear or are naturally featured in the show, unless the Bees are made canon, they believe RT lied to them.

And that astounds me. RT did not lie to you. Either you were lied to by fans from that Trailer era, the original proto-wasps, or you lied to yourself. You were told the lie that the Bees were canon, had to be canon, needed to be canon or something was wrong. That Sun is a monster. That you are owed anything. Hard fucking stop.

So where does all this leave us? ...Hopefully, understanding that this fighting has been going on for far too long, and is over far too little. I want anyone in the FNDM who has ever been affected by the ship wars to read this, to share this with others with similar experiences, on either side of it. Because ultimately, I’m only on one side, and I’d love for Bees to give their take on all this. To get both sides to come to an agreement to ship-and-let-ship, to put to rest the anger and frustration and fear of the other side that fueled Wasps and, perhaps, myself for so long.

This shit’s gone on long enough.

#ooc #rwby #fndm #shipping #I truly hope this goes over well.

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thedarkenedkeeper · 7 years

Text

Glitched: Part 4 - Glitch in the System

Author’s note: I made some posts before about how the 4th part would be centered on when Schneeple was trying to save Jack in “Kill Jacksepticeye”. However, when I was figuring out the timeline of how I wanted the whole overall fanfic to pan out, I realized it’d be better to do the 4th part on the origins of Anti and what happened in October leading up to Halloween. I do plan to write the Schneeple part, don’t worry. That’ll be Part 6, and believe me, when I write that, everything onward will be a feels trip. Also, a daily reminder: this fanfiction is full of angst and horror. It’s dark and there’s nothing happy about it. There are feels and blood at every corner. This chapter in particular deals with psychological horror, as well as a detailed blood/gore scene that can be disturbing to some readers. You have been warned.

Also, listen to this playlist while reading it

It had been nine months.

He had been here, caged in this cold dank prison for nine whole months.

Now he knew the answer to his gut-wrenching question: How long had it been?

And yet, he couldn’t fully wrap his mind around it. He couldn’t fathom the thought.

Nine months – That was an awful long time, more than half a year. He’d been gone for that long with the glitchy demon in his place and no one had noticed?

No, there was no way that could possibly be true. Surely someone would have noticed something was wrong, something was off. Mark, Bob, Wade – they would notice something off about his speech. Robin and Felix would easily be able to recognize any changes in his speech and personality, as well as his mannerisms. And Signe…of everyone, she would most definitely sense something wrong; there was no doubt about it. There was no way he had been gone for nine months, he refused to believe it.

And yet, an uncomfortable leech of dread remained festering in the pit of his aching stomach.

If what Anti had said about the community was true – that they wanted to see him again at his strongest – then they had been blind to see that the demon had been in front of them all this time. Maybe for a time they could’ve had their suspicions. Maybe they had thought Jack was dead and Anti had in fact taken over. But given how long the YouTuber had been gone for, if the community had been suspicious of Jack’s behavior, then they would’ve done something. They would’ve banded together, and being the smart fans Jack knew they were, they would’ve come up with a solution to get their favorite Jackaboy back.

But they did nothing…they sat back and watched…which only led the Irishman to believe that they had been played. They thought they had Jack, when really they’d been watching a demon this entire time.

There he remained laying on the stone-cold floor, still in the exact same position he’d been in ten minutes ago; in chains, laying on his stomach, facing the right side of the cage. He was staring at the watch Anti had left for him. It now read 3:10 PM, fifty more minutes until his awaited death.

The green-haired man let out a faint, raspy breath at seeing, let alone thinking about, how much time he had left. How had this happened? How did any of this come to happen – what caused all of this? Was it true that the abomination that had locked him up in this prison was the community’s creation? And if it was, why had they created him?

Unfortunately, the emotionally-abused Irishman didn’t know the truth. He didn’t know how Anti had been created or of what had happened during the month of October that led up to where he was now. And it was better he didn’t know.

Yes, it was true, the alter ego had been created by the community. They had given him a form, a face, a name – Anti hadn’t lied about any of that. However, what the demon had failed to mention was how no one had planned for him to become a reality. He was a mistake.

Long before October had come around, many loving fans of both Markiplier and Jacksepticeye had come to know of Mark’s darker half, Darkiplier. They grew intrigued by him, and from this, a question emerged: If Jack had an evil corrupt side, what would he look like? How would he act and what would his name be? Naturally, this peaked everyone’s interest. The Jacksepticeye fandom instantly scrambled off and set off to work on this new idea – to construct a brand new alter ego for Jack. One by one, day after day, members of the community began to make this darker half of their favorite YouTuber; each and every one giving him a different unique design, each imagining him in their own distinct way. Some envisioned him as a demon – complete with pointed ears, razor-sharp teeth, claws, and sometimes a tail and/or a set of horns – while others as a shadow-like entity, a virus, or something else entirely. He was an evil version of Jack, and as such, was out to destroy the Irishman, whether that meant making his life a living hell or just straight-up killing him, it didn’t matter. And one day, this abomination that the community had created was given a name.

His name was Antisepticeye.

Over the course of a few months, this name went viral; spreading like a virus and getting the entire fandom’s attention. It had been settled, Antisepticeye was now Jack’s evil persona. However, unknowingly to the community, the more they spread that name, the more fanart they created surrounding their new creation and the more attention they gave him, the more real he was becoming. From the abyss-like void of nothingness came a being. A pale lean figure with forest-green hair and eyes a soulless black came glitching spastically into reality, and he was not happy.

It was dark and cold where he was, hovering in the back of Jack’s mind. He was all alone with only his own thoughts to keep him company. No one knew he existed – not yet, anyway. The community had created him – they had given him life through the amount of recognition they gave him. He had been put together by each individual representation of him by the fandom; piece after piece ripped away from different takes on the ego to stitch together the perfect being. The community had inadvertently and unknowingly given life to a Frankenstein-like monster. And that monster was not pleased to discover this. He was grateful to be alive, but he wasn’t alive, not truly. He had awakened to complete darkness, getting no proper greeting from his makers. They hadn’t realized what they’d done; there was no proof of his existence. As an idea, yes, but not as an actual spiritual creature. And so, in that moment, the glitchy entity came to a conclusion: If they, his creators, couldn’t present him with a proper greeting and accept that he was real, then he would make his own grand entrance. He would make them believe.

But how? How could he get everyone’s attention? How could he make himself known?

There had to be a way to get noticed, there had to - !

Jacksepticeye.

That name – he had heard that name repeating in his head like a mantra ever since he awoke, almost like it was constantly taunting him. What was so important about that name? Why did he suddenly feel his entire form glitch violently at just the mention of it?

And then he heard it.

“Top of the mornin’ to ya laddies! My name is Jacksepticeye, and welcome back to – !”

There it was, there was that name that caused his blood – did he have blood? – to boil furiously. Searching through the endless gloom, the manifestation looked for something, anything, that would grant him a clue as to where he was. He followed the Irish voice to the ends of the dark, finally coming upon some light. And through this light he saw everything.

The man whose mind he was residing in was seated at a desk, currently playing a video game of sorts on his PC, taking glances at a nearby camera every few seconds to speak to someone. Who was he speaking to? What was with the set up and the odd name?

Jacksepticeye…Antisepticeye…

In a matter of seconds, everything came flooding at the being full force. He had been created as the other half to Jacksepticeye, a YouTuber – a very popular YouTuber. A YouTuber with a lot of followers and a large community made up of millions of viewers.

At this discovery, the abomination grinned from ear to ear with delight. He had found his creators and more, so much more. This was far better than he could’ve ever imagined. All of those people – if he could make himself known, the amount of attention he’d receive would give him immense strength and power. And maybe, just maybe, if he managed to get enough power, he could take this “Jacksepticeye” character out of the picture and make the channel his own. If he could do that, he’d have all the attention put on him and him alone – he would be loved by millions. Is this not the reason why he was created? Had his makers not made him to get rid of the YouTuber? Perhaps they had grown tired of the Irishman; maybe they wanted something new – a replacement. If that’s what they wanted, then he would provide. He would make them proud and give them exactly what they asked for.

Now if only he could find a way to show himself…

No…No, it was too early. He couldn’t show himself just yet. He needed to familiarize himself with this “Jacksepticeye”. He just got here; he needed time to understand who this Irishman was – how he spoke, how he behaved on and off camera, all of it. He needed to know how to become his host.

From that point onward, Anti stayed in his place, off to the sidelines. For months, the unhinged manifestation studied his host, watching everything the green-haired man did and learning everything about him, inside and out. He mimicked his speech patterns day after day, getting used to the way Jack spoke, and did just the same with any of his noticeable mannerisms as well. He established a general understanding of Jack’s personality, his likes and dislikes, and how he was as Jack versus how he was as Sean. He even went as far as managing to crawl his way into the part of Jack’s brain where all of his memories were stored; going through each and every one and memorizing them all right down to the faintest detail. He hadn’t shown himself yet, but if his plan worked, he would have to put on an act and the only way that would fly is if he were to become Jack – both in body and mind. He would do anything and everything to make his performance believable when the time came.

And then it was October, the month of spooks and scares. When better a time to reveal himself than now?

Oh, but he couldn’t straight up possess his host. No, he’d wait. He’d tease them all, make brief appearances to stir up the pot. That would get their attention. But first things first: trying to actually project himself so others would know he was there.

October 8th is when it happened.

Jack was just starting to record himself a new game called “Five Nights at Freddy’s Sister Location”. The glitch wasn’t all too familiar with the game yet, but he knew it was from a popular horror game franchise. And if it was popular, the likelihood of the video getting seen was at an all-time high. Now was his chance to show himself to everyone and reveal to his creators that he was actually alive.

As his host carried on playing the game, every few seconds speaking into the camera about it, Anti gave an attempt at breaking through the barrier that kept him at bay from possessing Jack. Nothing much happened. He didn’t manage to project his form, but he did manage to make the screen glitch out for half a second. That was better than nothing. Now if he could just show his face…

Focusing on channeling his energy out of Jack and into the recording camera, Anti glared at the lens, not wanting to break concentration. Shifting his attention to the computer screen, he almost thought it hadn’t worked, until he saw it glitch out again, and very briefly show another Jack pop up, glaring sinisterly at the audience. Upon seeing this, the entity grinned wickedly, and to his surprise, that very expression of insidious glee got caught on tape, even though he had barely concentrated at all this time.

It was working, it was actually working! He was finally able to show his face to everyone without trouble. With this in mind, and knowing there was still plenty of recording time left, the demon chuckled deep in his throat and figured he would have some fun while he had the chance.

During the remainder of the recording, Anti continued to mess with the camera; making the screen break out into static and glitches, letting brief glimpses of his face leak through here and there. The first couple were unsettlingly happy, while the last few were actually violent in nature and clearly showed how angered and unstable he was at the core; gripping and tugging on his hair, screaming out of rage, and head twitching spastically. His audience deserved to see just how twisted and erratic their creation had become. They made him this way, now he had to wait and see what they thought of him – that is if they noticed him. And notice him they did.

Two days later and the video was uploaded, and within an hour after the upload, comment after comment came flooding in about the glitch.

“OMG! It’s Anti!”

“What’s up with Jack’s facecam? It keeps glitching out.”

“Is that Jack’s evil alter ego, Antisepticeye? Oh my God!”

“Does anyone else notice the creepy faces showing up in Jack’s facecam? Pretty spooky.”

Everyone was finally beginning to take notice in him – one after another, these people had come to realize he existed. A jack o’ lantern-like grin stretched impossibly wide across the demon’s face. It was time to toy with his makers.

* * * * *

Over the course of the month, the troublesome demon continued to make unannounced appearances in Jack’s videos left, right, and center. Just like with his grand “introduction” as he put it, the glitches varied from frighteningly gleeful to sudden manic behavior. And as he expected, with each show of his face, more attention was put on him. With each day, the demonic entity could feel himself growing more powerful. He could physically feel jolts of tantalizing energy coursing through his veins, rejuvenating him and making him feel stronger than he ever had before. He felt like he could take on his host. He felt like he could take on the world.

Poor Jack, he hadn’t the slightest idea what was going on. He barely even took notice of the glitches, he automatically assumed there was either something wrong with the camera or Robin had gone and added some pretty cool effects for Spooktober. He had no idea that what was living deep inside of him wanted out and was planning to take control.

Nonetheless, as the days flew by and Halloween was nearing, the Irishman began to experience out of the ordinary phenomenon that he wouldn’t admit was unnerving him to the bone.

Within the first two weeks, the chronic headaches started. At first, they were barely noticeable – just a small faint pang of pain, nothing Tylenol or Advil couldn’t fix. But the closer it got to the 31st, the harsher the pain grew to the point of being so agonizing, it felt like someone was actually physically trying to pry his skull open from the inside out. Jack rarely ever got headaches, let alone ones this painful. Maybe it was from stress? Had he been working himself too hard lately? Maybe a long overdue break was called for. But things only got worse for the green-haired man.

He was starting to hear things, especially at late hours of the night. There were always thumps and shuffling, like someone was moving around the apartment, all accompanied with faint, bone-chilling giggles of glee. After staying up late for nights on end, he’d swear up and down that he’d seen something move out of the corner of his eye; a shadow passing by at breakneck speed or an object on his desk shaking a bit with no explanation as to why. He felt like he was losing his mind, but he wouldn’t dare tell anyone about any of this, especially not to Signe. He most certainly didn’t want her worrying about him, and more importantly, he didn’t want to scare her off. She didn’t need to know about any of this – none of them did. Nothing was wrong with him, everything was fine…right?

How very wrong he was. He was in complete denial.

After the 10th, Jack found himself having very odd, very unnerving dreams night after night. Just like with the headaches, they started off fine. It was normal to have weird and bizarre dreams, everyone had those. The Irishman thought nothing much of them…that was until the following week. The following week was when the indescribable dreams underwent a horrific transformation into nightmares. Jack had had his rare bad dream every couple of months, but these were so different. These were so much worse.

For fourteen nights straight, endless night terrors haunted and tormented the Irishman repeatedly, tearing apart at his sanity bit by bit and plaguing his mind with the worst visuals imaginable. And they were quite often the same. Maybe the images were shuffled around, but they always seemed to have the exact same feel to them: like he was being watched. The dreams were getting increasingly more vivid as the nights passed, until one night, the nightmare became so vivid, so lifelike, he couldn’t tell where the dream ended and where reality started.

It opened up to complete and utter darkness, swallowing the green-haired man whole and sucking out any and all bravery he had. He was all alone in the dark for what felt like a decade, and yet he knew – dread and gut-wrenching anxiety swelling in his chest – that he wasn’t alone. Someone or something somewhere in the eternal darkness was watching his every move, and for all he knew, that thing was right behind him or at his side. He heard a mirthful giggle reverberate throughout the room, if that’s what it was. Chills raced up his spine, all of the hairs on the back of his neck standing at attention. There was something breathing down his neck, and it wasn’t a hot puff of air either – it was freezing cold, like an icy breeze during the winter season. Almost instantly, he whirled on his heel to see nothing but black in his wake. He suddenly made out the overwhelming scent of copper and the giggle he heard before returned with a vengeance, louder and more of a sadistic laugh that would belong to a deranged psychopath. His breathing began to quicken, as did his heartbeat as his wide eyes desperately tried to find whatever it was in the dark. Something was very wrong here.

This demented laughter echoed and became distorted after a few seconds, the smell of blood growing stronger to the point of crashing a wave of nausea over him. The darkened space before his eyes started to ripple and glitch out, giving him brief glimpses of a paled figure coming towards him with what looked like a knife in its hand. Frightened, Jack tried to step back, but to his horror realized he was unable to move. He was paralyzed where he was standing, not taking his eyes away from the glitching being. Blood spotted the edges of his vision as the distorted figure neared closer, one moment yanking violently on its hair, the next laughing manically and having its head spastically twitch from side to side. And the closer it got, the more Jack recognized the figure as himself – an incredibly unstable, frightening version of himself.

His breathing hitched when this demented Jack suddenly gave a glitch of his body so fierce it made his neck snap forward, a loud cringe-worthy crack emitting from it and making Jack reel back in disgust. And with a blink of his aquatic blue eyes, this sinister version of himself was standing in front of him, a Cheshire smile plastered onto his pale face. The mirthful being shook all over, distorted versions of himself glitching into view for a few fleeting moments, the most disturbing of them all being one of him clawing at his bleeding eyes while leaning towards Jack, screaming out of both pain and rage. The poor Irishman didn’t know what to do – he couldn’t move, he could barely even breathe properly. He was shaken to the core and didn’t know what to expect. He felt his lips struggle to part to question the duplicate standing in front of him, but nothing came out. He was too scared; it seemed any words he longed to get out had gotten crammed in his throat, unable to escape.

He flinched when the being went to move, slowly raising the knife up to his own throat, the grin never faltering. As the twitchy version of him did this, an extremely loud ear-piercing ringing erupted in both of Jack’s ears, immediately causing him to wince and cup his ears, trying desperately to block out the sound. He could make out distorted, disembodied whispers bouncing off of the walls, some much harsher and threatening than others. Many of them were overlapping, so it was quite difficult for him to make out each one, but he managed to catch a few.

“Unw-wanted…I-In the way…”

“Release me…”

“N-Need…Need m-more…”

“To d-dissect…”

“P-Power-er…”

“NEeD iT!”

“M-My host…A-All mi-ine.”

“I-In the way….I-In the way…”

“W-Will su-uffer in h-here…”

“1, 2, 3 – 1,2, 3, 3, 3, 3….3, 2, 1, 1…”

“EnD It aLL!”

“Th-They’ll c-call my na-ame…”

“S-Sa-ay G-Goodb-bye…”

Jack’s face scrunched up in both fear as well as confusion. None of it made any sense, not even when he tried to piece it together. Why was he dreaming this? Was this even a dream to begin with? This felt far too real to be a dream. The manifestation in front of him looked so lifelike; he felt that if he were to reach out to touch it he’d actually feel cool flesh against his fingertips.

Those words continued to repeat themselves in the endless darkness as Jack watched his mirror image raise the knife to his windpipe. His eyes widened in horror as he watched the blade press deep into the sickeningly pale skin before gliding along, slowly cutting the creature’s throat open; a thick spray of warm crimson spewing out and onto his face as the cut grew. But as horrifying as this was, this isn’t what scarred Jack – this isn’t what made his bones quake with terror. What did was as the blade cut into the manifestation, the green-haired man could suddenly feel an earth-shattering strike of pain blossom in his own neck. And as the glistening sharpened knife sliced into his other self’s throat, tearing open the flesh, Jack felt the pain in his neck muscles stretch and pull apart, followed by a warm wet substance oozing and dripping down his body.

He opened his mouth, a silent choked scream bursting free as he instantly raised a hand to his throat to feel around for a cut, but there was nothing there. There was no evidence of there being a slit in his throat, and yet, the more the creature cut away at its neck, the more agony he felt. His vision was beginning to go red, the rush of blood thumping and pumping loudly in his ears. He felt sick, like he was going to vomit or pass out at any moment, which ever came first. All he smelled was copper now, that’s all he could smell. He swore the words echoing around him were getting louder to the point of deafening. He tried to close his eyes, or at least look away from the horrific display, but he couldn’t tear his gaze off of the demonic entity. It was like he was hypnotized, almost intrigued in a way at what was happening.

Without fully realizing it, Jack had collapsed to his knees – when had that happened? – and his head felt heavy, his vision swimming. He inhaled and exhaled sharply and shakily, struggling to get any air in his lungs. The air here was tainted by the strong scent of blood, and it only made the urge to hurl a whole lot stronger. He dry heaved and glanced up at the twitching being. Slowly blinking and now having trouble making out the figure clearly, he watched as the twisted version of him finally stopped slicing into its neck. It dropped the knife and with both hands, Jack witnessed the most horrifying thing he had ever seen. The demon gripped its hair and slowly began to pull its own head backward, the flesh, muscle, and veins all tearing and separating, giving way until the head had been entirely removed. A vast amount of blood gushed out and splattered all over the Irishman’s face and body as a blood-curdling scream finally managed to burst forth from his lungs.

In an instant, the YouTuber bolted up in bed, gasping for breath; clutching his chest with one hand, the other caressing his throat gently. His entire body was trembling all over and he breathed in shaky breaths, glancing around the dark room wildly; sweat running down his forehead as he took in his surroundings. He was at home, in his room in bed. He looked to his right, his heart still pounding violently against the palm of his clammy hand. Through the darkness of the room, he managed to make out a figure – a woman – under the covers, fast asleep; her brown flowing curls pushed away from her face. Signe. Jack let out a trembling breath of relief at seeing her there before glancing around the room. It had been a nightmare, that whole thing had just been one really vivid, intense, horrifying nightmare. None of it had happened. He was at home, safe and sound.

Pressing a hand to his forehead, he closed his eyes for a brief moment, letting out a long sigh in attempts to calm his poor heart down. He needed to relax. This had been the fourteenth night now that he’d woken up from a nightmare, except this time had to be the worst one. None of the others had been nearly as terrifying, not even remotely close to being this vivid either.

“F-Fuck me.” He whispered to himself, shaking his head in disbelief.

There was no way of going to sleep again, not after that hell. Being as quiet as he could, not wanting to wake Signe, Jack pushed back the covers and snuck out of the room, going down to the kitchen. He flicked the light on, opened the cupboard, grabbed a glass, and ran the tab, getting himself a glass of ice-cold water before seating himself at the table. After taking a long gulp of the liquid he finally took a glance at the time. It was 3:10 AM, still dark and quiet as ever outside. He lightly scoffed and shook his head once more before taking another sip. He couldn’t believe how late it was, let alone how he had been having nightmares for nights on end now. What the hell was that all about?

“Sean?”

The Irishman’s heart nearly jumped out of his ribcage at hearing Signe quietly say his name. His eyes shot to the opening to the kitchen, seeing her standing there in her pajamas, rubbing at one of her eyes sleepily. He looked at her a bit sheepishly, taking glances at the glass of water resting in his hands.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.” He said softly.

She yawned. “What’s wrong?” She turned her head, taking a look at the time. She blinked with surprise, even though it was apparent she was having trouble staying awake. “Why are you up so late? It’s three in the morning.”

“I know, I know. I’m…I’m sorry.” He apologized. He really didn’t want her worrying about him, especially not this late. “Don’t worry about me, I’m fine, honest. Please, go back to bed.” He tried to reassure her, eyeing her and hoping she would listen.

Signe didn’t look convinced. “Like hell I’m leaving you alone.” She shuffled forward, nearing the table. “What’s wrong? This is the fourth time this week you’ve woken up in the middle of the night, Sean.”

Jack shook his head, shrugging his shoulders and attempting to brush it off as nothing. “It’s nothing, honestly. Just a bad dream, that’s all, I swear.” He lifted the glass to his lips and took a long sip. Unfortunately, his hand was shaking, and though she was tired, Signe easily noticed.

Her eyes shifted from her boyfriend to his trembling hand and then back again. “Sean…” She moved to the table, pulling out a chair beside him and taking a seat. She didn’t take her eyes off of him. “Tell me the truth…What’s wrong?”

He looked at her over the edge of the glass, slowly pulling it away and setting it down on the table. He sighed deeply, moving his hand to rub at his eyes. They were so sore from the lack of sleep he’d been getting the last few nights.

“I don’t know, Signe. I haven’t been sleeping very well the last fourteen nights in a row and I keep getting headaches.”

“Maybe you should go and see the doctor.” Signe suggested, noticing the dark circles under Jack’s eyes.

Her boyfriend shook his head. “No…No, I’ll be fine.”

She shook her own head in return. “No, you won’t be. Sean, you just said you haven’t been getting sleep for the last fourteen nights. That isn’t healthy, something is wrong.” She moved a hand to gently rub his back in circles. “I really think you should go and see a doctor about this.”

Still, Jack refused and remained in denial. “No…No, I’m fine.”

“Sean - .”

“Signe, I think all of this is just because of the amount of work I’ve been doing lately.” He finally looked at her. He spoke like he truly believed his own words – he was actually surprised how convincing he sounded. “I’ve been getting up early, gaming for an hour or two, editing stuff and sending the recordings to Robin. I’ve been staying up until two every night, trying to get as much done as possible, as well as continuing to interact with the community on Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram.”

“Well there’s your problem then.” Signe said. “You’ve been working yourself far too hard. This – all of this – is the stress catching up to you.” She looked at him softly. “I think you should take a break, a long one. Take the whole week off.” Jack went to object, but she didn’t let him. “Don’t try to argue with me. You’re working yourself too hard and you need a break. Let the community know. I’m sure they’ll understand.” She rubbed his back in slow gentle circles, causing him to close his tired eyes and relax into her touch.

Reluctantly, he gave a nod and realized she was right. Maybe this was all because of work. Maybe he did deserve a good long break from it all. He sighed.

“Alright, maybe you’re right. Maybe a long overdue break is needed.” He reopened his eyes and took a small sip of water before eyeing her. “I’ll tell you what. Tomorrow, I’m going to record my Halloween video, and after I’ve done that – after it’s been recorded, edited, and uploaded – I’ll give myself a break. And as I bonus, I’ll give the doctor a call and see about getting myself an appointment, alright? How’s that sound?”

She searched his eyes, trying to decipher if he was telling the truth and would actually do as he just said. “You promise? You’ll give yourself a break and go see the doctor?”

He nodded, a faint tired smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “I promise.”

She gave a smile in return. “Good. ‘Cause,” Her smile faded, replacing it with a worried look, “you’ve been scaring me lately, what with how you’ve been acting. You’ve seemed a bit jumpy lately.”

Jack felt his heart skip a beat and his smile vanished instantly. He shook his head. “No, no, no, I don’t want to be scaring you. Please, believe me, Signe, I’m fine. It’s just all the stress from work that’s been affecting me, I swear.” He gave her a reassuring smile, pushing a loose strand of her hair behind her ear. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

She still looked a tad bit uncertain, but gave a nod anyway, accompanied with a sheepish smile. “I know you wouldn’t.” She gave him a kiss before pushing her chair back and getting up, shuffling towards the exit of the kitchen.

Jack watched her before shifting his attention to his glass of water, his facial expression falling to one of dismay. Fragments of his nightmare returned to him, flashing before his eyes. The grip on his glass tightened. He heard Signe stop walking.

“Aren’t you coming back to bed?”

He shifted his attention back to her, and instantly he noticed the worry written all across her face. He gave her another reassuring smile, though he had a feeling she didn’t buy it.

“Go off to bed, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Signe stared at him for a moment longer before nodding and turning to leave, walking out of the kitchen and heading off to bed. Jack’s eyes went back to the glass of water, staring off into space as his nightmare played on repeat in his head. Letting out a shaky breath, he downed his drink, stood up, and went to place the glass on the counter before turning off the light and leaving the kitchen himself.

Before he had left though, the glitching demon lingering in the back of his mind managed to spot the calendar hanging in the kitchen. He knew what day it was, and he knew exactly what his host was planning to do that day for Halloween. He grinned sadistically, a sinister cackle of laughter ripping from him.

Tomorrow was the day.

It was time for everyone to say goodbye to their precious Jacksepticeye.

Part 3 - A Storm is Coming

Part 5 - Say Goodbye

@fear-is-nameless @golden-eyed-guardians @n-o-ra-xi @steffid101 @anti-support-group This came out as 10 pages long in Word and I am SO sorry for that! I didn’t think it’d come out this long!

#holy crap this took forever to write x_x #writing the nightmare sequence though #that was so much fun to write #i felt bad but oh my god #i love writing horror scenes #antisepticeye #anti #jacksepticeye #antisepticeye fanfiction #anti fanfiction #jacksepticeye fanfiction #antisepticeye fanfic #anti fanfic #jacksepticeye fanfic #glitched

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marshmallowgoop · 7 years

Text

TRIGGER MAGAZINE: Kill la Kill Issues

Back when Kill la Kill was first airing, Studio Trigger sent out a weekly newsletter containing a production report from Higuchi, the script writer’s literary assistant, as well as commentary from Tatsuru/Tattun, Trigger’s PR specialist. Each newsletter also contained key frames and layouts from the show.

There was a newsletter devoted to each of the first 24 episodes of Kill la Kill, as well as one issue discussing the premiere. Compiled below is a list of these issues (Issues #000 - 025), complete with information about which episode the issue describes, production report highlights, and which key frames or layout drawings were included. All links to the magazine are courtesy of @triggermagazine.

If you would like to subscribe to the newsletter, you can do so by setting up an account at Trigger’s online shop here.

Please note: As these newsletters describe Kill la Kill, there is a tremendous amount of nudity and fanservice included. Please also be warned that there are depictions of sexual violence and harassment as well.

(All images in the magazine can be found here.)

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 000, October 2, 2013

Prior to episode 1

Production report highlights: “I bet all of you are familiar, but “KILL la KILL” is produced by Hiroyuki Imaishi and Kazuki Nakashima, the duo from “Gurren Lagann.” With the staffs being close with each other, each and every staff meeting was filled with jokes and laughter. Each and every staff was really having fun! Despite the staffs horsing around at time, their boldness to create what they truly enjoy, and not catering to the popular trend is something I admire. “KILL la KILL” definitely reflects on the creators passion, and it just might be the punch Japan needs in this laid back times.”

Included key frames/layout: Ryuko holding the Scissor Blade when she first meets Satsuki

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 001, October 8, 2013

Episode 1

Production report highlights: “KILL la KILL is a very distinct series, and I think we can agree that the talking sailor uniform got everyone’s attention. To those who are familiar with very old anime series and I mean “really” old series might have caught on to the similarities with Dokonjo Gaeru [Gutsy Frog]. Yes, KILL la KILL is influenced heavily by anime from the Showa period. Other series such as Sakigake!! Otokojuku [Charge!! Men’s Private School], Harisu no Kaze [Harris’s Whirlwind], and other major titles from the Showa period was brought to topic numerous time in the production meeting as well. However, just because the resource is from the Showa period, it does not mean that it will just be a reproduction. With modern techniques and talent worked in, it creates a whole new style of animation. So please stay tuned with KILL la KILL! You won’t be disappointed!”

Included key frames/layout: Senketsu and Ryuko’s first meeting, Ryuko/Senketsu vs. Fukuroda

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 003, October 16, 2013

Episode 2

Production report highlights: “Whenever I watch KILL la KILL, it reminds me of this specific act from Mr. Nakashima’s theatrical play Hana no Kurenai Tengu [Renaissance of the Scarlet Phantom]. This act also happens to be Mr. Imaishi’s favorite, and the title is “I will take the path I trust. Vigorously, even if there are no roads.” I feel that this phrase is the intersection between Mr. Imaishi and Mr. Nakashima. Just as their creators are, every character in KILL la KILL share the same unfaltering courage to stay bold with their beliefs. The story is full with passion but so is the character!”

Included key frames/layout: Satsuki and Bakuzan, Ryuko collapsed from blood loss, Aikuro stripping, Aikuro taking Ryuko’s blood

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 004, October 22, 2013

Episode 3

Production report highlights: “Some of you may already know, but KILL la KILL was originally planned to become the typical monster/villain of the week style of anime. The first time I attended the staff meeting was a year and a half before the airing of KILL la KILL started. And, that just happened to be the time when the staff decided to throw that style of composition out. With the static format gone, the weekly meeting became even more hectic, and it was almost impossible to keep up with the conversation if I were to take even one week off.”

Included key frames/layout: Baby Satsuki, Satsuki in Junketsu, Ryuko/Senketsu vs. Satsuki/Junketsu, Mako in pajamas, Ryuko and Senketsu trying to work together

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 005, October 29, 2013

Episode 4

Production report highlights: “It may be a surprise but all of the KILL la KILL episode titles come from popular Showa Japanese songs! Mr. Nakashima carefully picked out the most fitting song title for each episode, taking in the artist and the lyrics itself into account. The main staff would gather early to a meeting and listen to these songs to further discuss about the episode the individual songs were bound to. Believe it or not, these song titles were taken into account from a very early stage of production. To those who are familiar, the song title will feel nostalgic. To those who aren’t, the title should definitely leave a strong impression.”

Included key frames/layout: Guts and Senketsu, Mankanshoku boys leering at Ryuko, Maiko kicking Guts, Ryuko panty shot, Ryuko embarrassed by pajamas

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 006, November 6, 2013

Episode 5

Production report highlights: “How did everyone enjoy the 5th episode? Pretty hardboiled compared to the previous episode, right? A lot of people probably noticed the difference in the script. To reveal the secret, the scripts for episode four and five is actually not done by Mr. Nakashima. Episode four is done by the creative officer Hiromi Wakabayashi, and episode five is done by Hiroshi Seko! It’s quite the surprise how the script can affect the tone of the work so much! Each and every staff has their own taste, for example Mr. Wakabayashi always manages to come up with the most playful ideas and Mr. Seko favors a hardboiled stories. To top it all off, Mr. Nakashima somehow manages to get more pumped up in the script meeting than the actual characters in KILL la KILL! It’s really interesting to see how their taste reflects so much to the different episodes. Although all of the scripts will be done by Mr. Nakashima from episode 6, it may be interesting to re-watch the previous episodes with the individual script writers in mind.”

“One of the bigger surprise to us is the unexpected support we are receiving from oversea. KILL la KILL has little sprinkles of taste from the showa period, and we were worried if it would even appeal to the audience here in Japan at first. Regardless of the reason, it really feels nice to know that we have a supporting fan base even oversea.”

Included key frames/layout: Tsumugu smoking, Mako speech (“Up until now, the only friends I had were in my head!”), Nonon conducting, two more Mako speech frames

This issue also includes a fanart piece done by @belindraw!

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 007, November 11, 2013

Episode 6

Production report highlights: “…this episode was our first chance to get in touch with the Elite Four’s past. Not only does this episode function as a turning point for Sanageyama, it is also a vital episode for the other Elites Four as well. According to Mr. Nakashima, the scene where Sanageyama encounters Satsuki and the other three at North Kanto wasteland was the key factor to determine the individual characters personality. I guess if you observe carefully, you can get an idea of who met Satsuki first, and what kind of relation they have. It’s amazing how a single short scene is sufficient enough to provide the characters with their depths!”

Included key frames/layout:/layout Uzu’s Blade Regalia, Uzu’s defeat, Mataro, Mataro’s photos of Ryuko, Ryuko/Senketsu (during their fight against Uzu), Ragyo’s first appearance

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 008, November 19, 2013

Episode 7

Production report highlights: “Every week Mr. Toshihiko [Senketsu] wraps up the recording session with his narration for the preview. Mr. Toshihiko is precise to the second with his script and does not fail to impress Mr. Imaishi and Mr. Nakashima. A round of applause from the director’s booth is not a rare sight when it comes to KILL la KILL’s recording session. Did I mention that the preview covers more than just an advance showing of the next episode? The extended 30 second preview (available to view online) contains exclusive information from time to time as well!”

Included key frames/layout: Satsuki, Satsuki (during one of her “pigs in human clothing” speeches), Mankanshokus and Ryuko hug, Mako in her Goku uniform, the golden bust statue of Barazo, Mako in Fight Club

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 009, November 26, 2013

Episode 8

Production report highlights: “The idea of Naturals Election originated in one of the scenario meetings when Mr. Nakashima decided to throw out the original idea of 党首頂上決戦 and decided to play with words and went with 塔首頂上決戦. (The two kanji 党 and 塔 is pronounced the same with a different meaning. 塔 resembles tower or a pillar while 党 resembles a political faction or a party.) Mr. Imaishi quickly replied by drawing a sketch of an arena placed on top of a large tower. The teamwork between the two is simply amazing! Mr. Imaishi manages to pick up all of Mr. Nakashima’s idea! Watching the two create such an amazing piece of work out of almost nothing but paper and pencil is truly a magnificent sight to observe.”

Included key frames/layout: Ira, Ira in car, Ryuko/Senketsu, Satsuki, little Ryuko, Nonon

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 010, December 4, 2013

Episode 9

Production report highlights: “While the characters of KILL la KILL are distinct, the production of the series is also very distinct. For many animation series, the personality and the orientation of the characters are determined in the plot/script meeting. The designs of the individual characters are then determined in the visual design meeting. It’s normal to think that the characters are developed along with the plot. Surprisingly, there has been few occasions where that was not the case in KILL la KILL. Mr. Nakashima will at times like the character design so much, he would go through the trouble to rewrite the already made script to accommodate for the character. Even in the recording session, Mr. Nakashima has changed the character’s line in order to better match the actor’s voice. This flexibility in production is truly distinct for animation production, and I believe it is one of the many reasons that makes KILL la KILL such a wonderful series.”

Included key frames/layout: Ira’s Scourge Regalia, Ryuko/Senketsu vs. Ira, Mako nosebleed, Ryuko/Senketsu hanging from stage

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 011, December 13, 2013

Episode 10

Production report highlights: “I bet many of you are already hooked to the KILL la KILL tunes already, but the BGM to our series is really powerful! Many of the characters like Satsuki would just sound like a lunatic if we were to listen to them without the BGM. What makes Satsuki’s tyrannical speech sound convincing is definitely due to the help of Mr. Sawano’s BGM. Once the sound track is released it may be interesting to review the previous episodes again.”

Included key frames/layout: Nonon’s Symphony Regalia, Houka’s Probe Regalia, Nonon wink, Nonon transformation, little Nonon, little Nonon and Satsuki

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 012, December 17, 2013

Episode 11

Production report highlights: “One of the more popular gossips I hear amongst the animator in the studio is how hard it is to draw Mako. She’s cute, yet crazy in the mind. She’s crazy yet she somehow manages to be charming. Even trying to express her verbally is difficult! It really does surprises me how the crew manages to pull off such a crazy character. Mako is also the reason why KILL la KILL had to be written mostly by Mr. Nakashima. The original plan was to have multiple scriptwriters, but her wild personality proved to be too much for outside scriptwriters to handle. Mako is hard to draw for the animators; her personality is way over the top, yet something about her sounds very natural. Why is that? What could possibly make her insane nonsense sound so convincing? Yes, it must be due to the acting done by Ms. Suzaki! She even looks like Mako with her new haircut! Now, I’ve yet to confirm this myself but according to the rumors, even her personality seems to be identical to Mako! I have come to the conclusion that Mako as a character is only made possible due to the love and care of all of the staffs involved in this series!”

Included key frames/layout: Nonon’s defeat, Ryuko/Senketsu (during the Nonon fight), Satsuki telling Uzu to get away from Nui, Nui, Rei, Ryuko/Senketsu (during the Nonon fight), Sukuyo

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 013, December 25, 2013

Episode 12

Production report highlights: “We had Nui, Ragyou, and Hououmaru introduced in this episode, and they all have a powerful personality! But, something about these characters felt awkwardly masculine. Come to think of it, that applies to almost all of the female characters in KILL la KILL. A good amount of the characters in this series are female, but it feels as if this series is compiled of just male characters. According to Mr. Nakashima, this is not due to the fact that the characters in KILL la KILL possess a manly personality. It is because the supposed female characters are simply males “packaged” in female bodies. Although the characters gestures and reaction is very feminine, their behavioral principle is the one of a male personality. Mr. Nakashima says that he has intentionally designed his characters in this way. While having the cuteness of the girls, the characters possess the wildness to stir the story and the hook the viewer’s attention at the same time.”

Included key frames/layout: Satsuki vs. berserk!Ryuko/Senketsu, Tsumugu shooting, Nui flashback (with two eyes), Satsuki preparing to kill berserk!Ryuko/Senketsu, Satsuki striking berserk!Ryuko/Senketsu

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 014, January 16, 2014

Episode 13

Production report highlights: “With the story entering the second half, the recording booth is also becoming more and more crowded with actors. But that doesn’t stop the voice actors from having loads of fun! The recording session never fails to surprise me. For instance Ms. Koshimizu and Ms. Yuzuki would be having a pleasant conversation one moment, but as soon as the recording lamp lights up, the two would become hostile at each other as their given role as Ryuko and Satsuki. The booth that was filled with laughter is immediately transformed into a stern mood with shouting and yelling. How fast the actors are able to snap into their role amazes me every time, and the whole experience truly feels like a stage play.”

Included key frames/layout: Nui, Ragyo, Satsuki, “the bald dudes from the REVOCS business meeting”

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 015, January 21, 2014

Episode 14

Production report highlights: “How is everyone enjoying KILL la KILL’s stereotypical image of Kansai? If episode 4 was Mr. Imaishi’s free ticket to do whatever he wishes to do, Mr. Nakashima says episode 14 was his turn to do so! A lot of new characters were introduced in this week’s episode, but the most impressive out of the bunch is Kaneo Takarada without doubt! It seems like Kaneo has some feud going on with Satsuki, but what’s really amazing is the person inside the character! Mr. Awane who does the voice for Kaneo Takarada isn’t actually a professional voice actor, but a stage actor from Mr. Nakashima’s theatrical team Shinkansen! Mr. Nakashima and Mr. Awane have been working together for about 30 years, and the recording session really reflected that. Some of our subscriber may already know, but Ms. Shintani who does the voice for Nonon also comes from a theatrical team Nylon 100 Degrees Celsius. According to Mr. Imaishi, stage actors take a very different approach when acting their characters. That difference from normal voice actors may also be one of the many factors that give KILL la KILL such a distinct taste!”

Included key frames/layout: Ryuko without Senketsu, Mako in Osaka, tracksuit Nonon, Nonon with band member, three Takarada frames

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 016, January 29, 2014

Episode 15

Production report highlights: “According to the plot meeting, many stage performers call the cliff hanger scene “The end of the first act.” If KILL la KILL were to be a play, episode 15 would apply to the end of the first act. I have also made a comment to Mr. Nakashima that excluding Mako and Nonon, all of the characters that support Ryuko and Satsuki are men! Mr. Nakashima says that he has intentionally positioned the male characters to assist the female lead. He says that situation is very similar to the first work he and Mr. Imaishi worked as a pair, Re: Cutey Honey. Male characters supporting a struggling female lead, Mr. Nakashima sure is a gentleman!”

Included key frames/layout: Nonon (with a “scorning look” expression, jitome), Uzu’s Blade Regalia MKIII, Nonon’s Symphony Regalia MKII, Ira’s Shackle Regalia MKII, Houka’s Probe Regalia MKII, Satsuki in Overridden Junketsu, Ryuko and Senketsu (Senketsu-Senjin), Ryuko/Senketsu vs. Satsuki/Junketsu

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 018, February 5, 2014

Episode 16

Production report highlights: “The storyboard for episode 16 was done by Mr. Maeda Mahiro. Mr. Maeda has participated in many popular series such as Evangelion! Just a few days ago I had the honor to meet him in person, and was I surprised with how fashionable he was! This happens to remind me of the day I first met Mr. Nakashima as well. My first impression of Mr. Nakashima was oriented toward a father like person. I felt a considerable gap between his personality and the scripts he would write. After attending the KILL la KILL meeting for the first time, I saw Mr. Nakashima joyfully talk about his favorite past time manga and anime. That was the moment when I finally understood what kind of person Mr. Nakashima is. I also thought Mr. Imaishi to be a person with a bold personality since all of his works are so energetic and powerful. He actually turns out to be a lot different than what I imagined him to be. He turns out to be a really frank and kind hearted person. I have yet to see him without a smile on! There seems to be a considerable gap between the personality of the main staff and their creations. I guess the old saying “You can’t judge a book by the cover is ture!””

Included key frames/layout: Aikuro on the world, Ryuko embarrassed by Nudist Beach, Aikuro (before he goes “skinny diving”), Isshin, bath scene

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 019, February 13, 2014

Episode 17

Production report highlights: “The first time I attended the audio recording session, I was surprised that the session is conducted with only 4 microphones. Within the recording booth, about 20 voice actors work by sharing the limited microphones with each other. Talk about sharing and caring, right? This is something you don’t get the chance to see at the movies or stage acting. However, according to Ms. Shintani (Nonon Jakuzure) some people do feel uncomfortable when a stage actor gets involved in the scene of animation for their first time. But, I personally thought that the 4 microphones added to the whole experience! Some of our subscriber may already know, but the Elite Fours’ voice actor show strong physical resemblance to the characters they act as. It really packs a punch when the four stand in front of the microphone! It almost feels as if the Elite Four are actually standing in front of me! I’ve also found out that the four get along quite well, and they often go out for a drink together. The actors support one another just as the Elite Four do so in the series. How wonderful, don’t you think?”

Included key frames/layout: Satsuki and her Elite Four, Shiro, Satsuki stabbing Ragyo (two images), Barazo’s “serious” face, Satsuki with tea, Aikuro (DTR!)

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 020, February 19, 2014

Episode 18

Production report highlights: “According to the creators, KILL la KILL was intended to depict the characters in great depth! Because there are fewer characters than Guren Lagann, each and every character receives the necessary spotlight to display their personality and their beliefs in greater detail. Even then, there seems to be a lot of untold stories behind some of these characters. For those who are interested, this month’s issue of “Newtype” includes a short novel by Mr. Nakashima which covers the relation of Satsuki and the Elite Four. The BD/DVD also includes a drama CD which gives you the slice of life experience at the Honnouji Academy.”

Included key frames/layout: Ryuko/Senketsu vs. Nui (three images), Ira in his Shackle Regalia MKII, Ryuko/Senketsu and Satsuki, Rei

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 021, February 26, 2014

Episode 19

Production report highlights: “It really amazes me on how much effort and passion is put into KILL la KILL by the creators! Just the other day meg rock, the lyrics writer for KILL la KILL’s opening attended the audio recording session. (I must say that she was quite adorable, not that it’s important or anything.) During the first half of the session, she was enjoying the recording just as if anyone would. However, during the 2nd half of the recording, I noticed that she was in tears. After the recording she explained to me that she was extremely touched by today’s session. I say this again and again, but KILL la KILL really is created by the love of each and every staff involved in the series.”

Included key frames/layout: Little Ryuko in Isshin’s study, Uzu’s gang and COVERS, Ira, Nui, Ira

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 021, March 04, 2014

Episode 20

Production report highlights: “The recording session for the last episode has finally ended! Just as the session finished, I over heard Mr. Miki (va for Mikisugi) and Ms. Bak (va for Ragyo) commenting that the dialogues for KILL la KILL is very simple and pleasing to the mouth. According to Mr. Imaishi, he intentionally limited the dialogues to contain simple yet exhilarating phrases. His goal was to create a strong set of quotes by using simple vocabulary. Mr. Imaishi explains that it will leave a stronger impression to the viewer if they are familiar with the vocabulary. The simple dialogues also allows the voice actor to recite the line with passion without difficulties. I guess this is the secret to keep long dialogues sound interesting to the viewers!”

Included key frames/layout: Ryuko in Junketsu, Junketsu!Ryuko vs. Senketsu!Satsuki (two images), Nui coughing blood, Senketsu abandoned by Ryuko, Takarada salute

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 022, March 13, 2014

Episode 21

Production report highlights: “Just yesterday, I was talking with Mr. Nakashima, and he explained to me that he was surprised that he was able to make episode 20 and 21 so rich in content. He explains, that it’s definitely not a plot to be handled in a 22 minute episode, but it’s obviously not impossible. There must be some contents that other series wouldn’t dare to exclude. We gave it a good thought, and concluded to the fact that the characters in KILL la KILL never stumble upon a mental conflict, or even troubled. A typical series will depict several characters going through mental distress. These issues are barely depicted in KILL la KILL. Most of the characters in KILL la KILL are bold and believe in their motives without doubt. I guess the creators of KILL la KILL can relate to that (laughs).”

Included key frames/layout: Opening scene, Junketsu!Ryuko holding up Senketsu!Satsuki, Nudist Beach!Satsuki vs. Nui, Ryuko removing Junketsu (three images)

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 023, March 18, 2014

Episode 22

Production report highlights: “When Mr.Nakashima writes his scripts, he occasionally has an episode where his characters would start a conversation against his will. Mr. Nakashima explains that from their conversation, he is able pick up the overall plot of the story. The conversation between Ryuko and Nui from episode 22 is a great example of this. Nui claims that she is sick of Ryuko ranting about “friends.” Ryuko then explains that the term “friends” come nowhere close to explaining her relationship with Senketsu and Mako, and that their relationship is something much greater and unexplainable. Mr. Nakashima explains that their conversation was what lead to the concept of KILL la KILL. Something unexplainable and ambiguous. Despite having such a creative production team, the person who held the answer to the series was Ryuko. It was at this point when I realized that Ryuko was indeed leading the series as the main character.”

Included key frames/layout: Ryuko and Senketsu come back together (two images), Ryuko blushing at Senketsu’s words, Tsumugu, Shiro, Mako in her Goku uniform

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 024, March 27, 2014

Episode 23

Production report highlights: “KILL la KILL is of often compared to the composition of a manga due to their similarities. The series introduces new interesting ideas to the latest episode without hesitation. KILL la KILL is truly living in the moment. Only downside is that we are continuously tested to top or previous episode. This may be the reason why each episode seems so climatic!”

Included key frames/layout: Group shot before the heroes enter the final battle, Satsuki, Ira’s final Shackle Regalia, Uzu’s final Blade Regalia, Houka’s final Probe Regalia, Nonon’s final Symphony Regalia

TRIGGER MAGAZINE, Issue # 025, April 4, 2014

Episode 24

Production report highlights: “Episode 24 has really taught me the values of nonsensical things. The world is beautiful because there are so many things that are beyond our comprehension. It is the result of countless threads of unknown factors woven together. KILL la KILL is a grand example of this. Each and every staffs feelings, their passion are aggregated into a canvas we know as KILL la KILL. I know I am not making much sense right now, but I felt the same way with our creators as well. They are all crazy and over the top! But, after being able to interact with some of our viewers, I realized that our fans are just as crazy as our creators.”

Included key frames/layout: Final group hug, Ryuko in Senketsu-Kisaragi (two images), Ryuko’s tears at Senketsu’s death, Ryuko and Senketsu in Senketsu’s last moments, Ryuko panty shot, date (three images: ice cream together, Satsuki with hat, Satsuki trying on a new outfit)

#kill la kill #trigger magazine #studio trigger #kazuki nakashima #hiroyuki imaishi

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