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blooddrop-palace · 4 years

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Project Updates - What to Look Forward To

<3 Hello all! I've realized (humbly) that I have a small following of very nice people that seem quite interested in what I've written so far, and after seeing some mutuals post update-status posts, I thought I should share what's going on with my projects, also. (Thanks for the encouragement, @queenmuzz!)

Updated Dec-10-20

Sons of Fortune

Probably somehow my main focus now, though I am steadily working on other works. Currently working on the “In Between” special short before I start on Chapter 12.

I would also like to talk a little bit about my plans for this story: if anyone has paid attention to this story's tags, yes, I am touching up on the plots of most of the games. In fact, all of them, and the anime. (I already dealt with DMC4. No, I will not tear apart Fortuna lol.) Not all relevant tags are in, yet, because small spoilers. It looks like it's going to be a long while before I even get to the Temen-ni-gru, though. (There is a reason why that event is getting pushed back.) I want to have fun with the family fluff that is the twins each learning how to parent, first.

Hell Froze Over, and We Shall Reignite It

The drama of it all! Dante and Vergil are finally back from Hell, and Nero doesn’t even know his mother is now standing right in front of him. Meanwhile, even I’m anticipating seen how Snow and Dante is going to handle the obvious things currently unsaid... and I have a feeling a small measure of stupidity is still going to be involved.

Current chapter progress: Outline complete.

It's going to feel so interesting, shifting from "Fortune" back to Reignite. I get to write Sera and Vergil falling in love all over again, with a different set of circumstances. Whoa.

And, and... Nero meeting Sera... odd that I'm saying this as the writer, but I have a "I hope he likes his mom" feeling going on.

Also, no doubt Dante's brain is going to 404 when he sees Snow.

Nico prepares popcorn.

This is Not an Office Rom-Com

I have... about 8 new skits planned out. Nothing more written just yet.

That’s all I’m saying about this for now. =P

Hierarchy of Kings

Purely indulgent M/M romance of Vergil and an OC, existing all thanks to

@wordborne

Working on chapter 2.

I know I said 3 chapters only. I might have lied depending on how much I want to write. It's supposed to be just... awkward fluff of a listless part-devil who somewhat-recently lost his mate, got in a bit of a tiff with his brother, and now his children are trying to set him up with the prospective-king-of-hell, Vergil.

I think about this one a lot but I haven't written anything new for it yet, only because "Fortune" is taking over my life right now, haha.

Through the Lens of the Beholder

Okay, so...This story has no real plot. As a result, my drive for it is purely down to "if I think of a badass or cool photograph to describe." There is a TINY bit of plot. Only a little. And I don't know when I'll update. But this is why I'm trying not to START new projects. Four is a lot already! But because this one is supposed to be simpler than the other two, I will most likely finish this one before the others, so I can open a new project.

---------------

Speaking of new projects... Here are things ideas bouncing through my head:

- I still have a prompt from @maybeishouldwait sitting in my inbox. I WILL have it done one day, when I find the perfect way to write it.

A whole, entirely royally late set of Dadgil week fics. Yep. I want to write them. They just won’t be on time.

Written in Ink

A plot-less post-DMC5 story.

I say plot-less. There is a plot. The plot is:

Dante: Damn it, Verge, are you trying to turn my office into a zoo??

In which Vergil compulsively starts contracting strong demons he's defeated, left and right, because he's discovered "the joy of pets." The demons all take on a dark animistic form and things get wild.

A Persona and DMC fusion/AU

I have no title for this yet, and I absolutely cannot start this one until I have finished one of my other big projects. This one will take a lot of big planning, because I am making a new plot, using the mechanics of Persona, with DMC characters and setup.

What I want to write, is a teenage Nero as the protagonist, trying to solve a mystery... probably starting with the sudden disappearance of his mother. (Most likely Sera.) And he meets a lot of "new" people, and even finds new family... and yes, he will find his dad. (I'm thinking he'll know about Vergil, though. At least in name and a photo? Isn't that an interesting difference?)

For those of you not familiar with Persona, the major theme I really want to play with is that of the protagonist growing as a person (and in power) by befriending different people that helps them grow as a person. Each party member and important NPC is represented by a Tarot Card, signifying the type of journey the protagonist (The Fool) "embarks" with that character. There is growth in both the protagonist and that characters.

Again, this is ambitious to try and pull off... but it's in the back of my head. I'll focus on it once I've cleared some other stuff.

Sugar Sweet

A somewhat short-chapter series reader fic... of a surgeon/doctor!reader (barely 30 and good at what you do) who often saves the lives of shady people (e.g. mafia) because you care about saving lives, not the politics. But you do make good money out of it. (Hey, you gotta be at least a bit morally ambiguous if you're going to deal with devils.)

You meet one mess of a young mercenary named Dante, who is totally not human and deals with things like having bullets healed into his back, and he can't reach them to cut them out.

Dante doesn't care about bills for his office, or a lot of the debts in his life. You don't know where his money is going, or if he even makes much money at all (for the kind of specialty work he does? Money's going somewhere, but that's none of your business.)

You won't pay Dante's bills, or his debts, but he will accept pizza and ice cream. And new parts for his jukebox. And maybe a motorcycle. Or a new coat. Or a new car...

And you might complain to him about your dumb patients. Or just listen to him talk about his job. Or you two watch a movie together.

And this just continues. For years.

Tokusatsu DMC fusion/AU

So. First thing's first: I'm a big fan of Sentai/Tokusatsu. What is that, you might ask? It's a Japanese genre, and if you're familiar with Power Rangers, that's derived from Sentai.

Basically: Masked heroes with transformation gadgets, sometimes with motorcycles, fighting against evil. ("Magical girls" but strictly the opposite, a lot more physical combat involved, may involve upgrade gadgets, and not strictly limited to male heroes though mostly a male cast. Also not strictly for male-only audience. Girls like the eye-candy, too. :eyes-emoji:)

Why am I thinking about this?

Because I have found out that: Vergil's VA, Dan Southworth, was the Quantum Ranger (WHICH WAS RED). Nero's VA, Johnny Yong Bosch, was a Black Ranger and a Green Ranger.

...And Dante's VA, Reuben Langdon, had a role in a Japanese Toku show as "B-Fighter Yanma" forever ago???? (HE WAS BLUE!!)

What am I going to do with this info? I'll let you know later. But my Sentai/Toku-loving little heart is about to burst with hyperfixation overlap.

If I ever write this out, expect it to be just as cheesy as an actual Kamen Rider show. Or, at the very least, expect some art. I love Kamen Rider stuff!

Family Fantasy MMO

Snow introduces Dante, Vergil, Nero, and Kyrie to Final Fantasy 14 (because that’s the MMO I play) for family bonding. Yep. Mainly for silly indulgence.

Stardew Valley Visit

Post DMC5, Vergil and Dante accidentally end up going on a vacation when they try to leave Hell. No pairing with the farmer, but instead just a relaxing and somewhat introspective moment of the boys being stuck with most of their power temporarily sealed, learning how to take care of a farm, and maybe do a bit of healing by interacting with the townsfolk while they try to find out where their swords went and how to get home.

Re-Colourize

Otherwise what I would call the “re-colour of Nero and Snow” AU.

What if Vergil was found by Kassy’s family and raised among them? What if Dante ended up briefly in Fortuna and then convinced Sera to run away from the island?

What if we have a Nero who, though brash, is outwardly more soft and open-hearted, and has red-orange and gold colours instead? What if we have a Snow who is named Chiyuki, who wields her katana more like Vergil does, and has a more ice-queen aura about her, and has a teal and blue colouring about her?

This is my excuse to switch up the pairings, but also write Vergil being taught to fight more like an assassin.

Raised by the Blade

Imagine: Yamato, cracked, broken, and separated from her Master... desperately searching for a way to get back to him, and ended up washed up on the shores of Fortuna. Humanoid, but clearly not if anyone saw the cracked, broken, and no-normal look of “shattered” in her torso, that she would have to keep covered.

Made from the power of Sparda, she is pale with white hair... and she finds herself drawn to the orphanage...

Where she finds the toddler that is Nero.

Devil Hunters’ Podcast

Nico “accidentally” finds entertainment in recording the Sparda Family arguments as they talk about hunting; after all, they all share one braincell.

Ascended Monochrome

A white angel remains by the side of Nelo Angelo. Mundus was not pleased by the behavior of his second creation, from the human woman that he had picked up with the treacherous Son of Sparda. But he later discovered that by using her, he could keep Nelo Angelo complacent. Eventually, underestimating love will be his downfall.

Fall to Royalty

A story of where Vergil wins against Mundus the first time, and takes the throne of Hell. But what is he to do next? Eventually, ruling Hell seemed meaningless when there was no one by his side, so he goes to seek out the Lady Knight that he had vowed to never think of or go back to unless he had obtained the power he sought.

Doppelganger Woes

So, I heard Capcom retconned Gilver to be some sort of imitation created by Mundus. I’m all for this! And I’m going to DO something with this.

Side-Project: DMC Tarot List

I started on this maybe months ago; and I have a tentative list oh what characters go with what card and a few detailed descriptions. I think I should confer with

@harlot-of-oblivion

at some point about this, and anyone else interested in, well, Tarot stuff.

#devil may cry #fanfiction #Project Update

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fandom-collective-writers · 5 years

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Reader x Nobunaga Oda - Tangled Limbs

Title: Tangled Limbs

Fandom: Ikemen Sengoku

Character: Nobunaga Oda

Genre: Romance + smoot

Warnings: Sexy time

Kinks: hOHOHO lemme tell you we got dirty talk, nipple play, mutual masturbation, wall sex, probably more

Intended Gender Audience: Female Audience

Word Count: 2136 words

POV: second person

Authors: @mythiica and @rikumorimachisgirl

Requested by: @elievalentine

Other comments: we took this and ran with it; sorry for the late posting! We both had issues with technology/not having access to a computer, but trust us, the smut in this makes up for it. We hope you enjoy!!

You might have poked yourself hundreds of times trying to complete the kimono, but you finally manage to finish it. The fabrics that Nobunaga bought you seem to shine in the sunlight, and it is very soft to the touch. Happy with your creation, you slip it over your shoulders and tie it in the front. The pattern overlaps and flows seamlessly – as if it is a single piece of fabric.

Twirling around in front of the full-body mirror, you smile widely, and with the first ray of the sun just peeking through the horizon, you quickly make your way to Nobunaga. After knocking on the door to the tenshu, you wait for him to reply. You hear his voice through the screen and enter quickly.

“Look, Nobunaga!”

He lifts his head from the documents he had been reviewing and grins when he sees you. “You made this?”

“Of course I did!”

“With your own hands?” he teases. “Come, let me inspect it closer.” Nobunaga reaches out and offers you his hand. You place your own in his and sit down. He pulls your sleeve close so that he may admire the fine stitching. “I don’t believe you!”

“Nobunaga!” you whine, pulling your hand back.

But he shakes his head. “I’ll have to ask you to take it off so I may look closer.” You whip around, suddenly blushing, and stare into Nobunaga’s eyes. He is casually leaning his head against his arm, looking at you with wide eyes as he wears a sly smirk. “I bet you look even better with your clothes off, anyways.”

“W-What?”

Nobunaga stands up to match your height and wraps his arms around your waist, rocking you back and forth. He tucks his chin into the crook of your neck and kisses the exposed skin. His touch makes you pulsate with electricity, and you shiver at his mercy. “Come now, I’ll help you…” Nobunaga’s hand slips past the fold in the kimono and his fingers graze your nipple.

You arch your back against him when he pinches your bud and twists it slightly. When your mouth falls open to moan, Nobunaga slips the fingers of his other hand past your lips. You choke slightly on his digits, causing saliva to dribble down your chin. Panting heavily, you try to twist your neck so that you can see him, but Nobunaga keeps your jaw in place.

He lowers his head and whispers into your ear, “Won’t you show me what else those nimble fingers of yours are good at?” Nobunaga’s voice is low and husky like he knows that his voice can turn you on easily.

Leading you to the futon on the other side of the room, Nobunaga removes his hand from inside your kimono and spins you around. He works quickly to remove his own clothing, suddenly fueled by an urgency to take you right then and there. You simultaneously strip the kimono you made and are careful to fold it and put it away. Nobunaga catches your wrist and throws the clothing article onto his desk before cupping your face and kissing you deeply. He cares little for the formalities, and demands he have you.

His tongue invades your mouth, and you moan against him as your hands trace the muscles of his torso. You can’t help but grind against his erection to tease him back, but he bites your bottom lip in annoyance when you do.

Nobunaga takes a seat on the futon and pumps his member slowly while keeping eye contact with him. You take a seat between his legs and reach for his cock, but Nobunaga stops you. “No, come here,” he orders.

Though you are confused, you do as you are told and take a seat next to him. Nobunaga pulls your leg over his lap, exposing your cunt to him. He wraps his arm around you and rubs his fingers against your slit. The position is strange, but it allows you to give Nobunaga a handjob – so you lean forward slightly and run your fingers down his length, showing off your nimble fingers, as he called them.

You don’t recall ever doing mutual masturbation, but besides the hassle of tangling your limbs with him, it’s quite the thrill. Nobunaga’s movements are completely fluid – his fingers slip in and out of you before he starts to rub your clit mercilessly. You pant heavily as he drags his tongue across your neck. “You’re slowing down, princess. Is that what you do your fabrics when they give you a rough time?”

The lit in his voice angers you, but this is merely a ploy to urge you to match the lust burning in his blood.

Because you do not reply immediately, Nobunaga grips your ankle with a hand and yanks it swiftly, causing you to slip from your position. “Nobunaga!” you squeal as you scramble to sit up. “I thought you wanted me to-”

But, like the tease he is, Nobunaga cuts you off by smashing his lips against yours. His fingers reclaim your clit, and he is quick to remind you of the pleasure you had been experiencing not a few minutes ago.

“Oh, I do want you to… so be a good girl and make me cum at the same time I make you cum.”

Your breath hitches in your throat at his challenge. Certainly you were not expecting this when you decided you wanted to show Nobunaga your new kimono. Nonetheless, you would not change your place for anything in the world.

His smirk is contagious, and you feel the corners of your lips curling upwards. “Yes, my lord.” You curl your fingers round his hardened length and rack your memories for the things he likes the most. As you strum your fingers along the side of his member, you rub his frenulum until his breathing becomes more labored than before.

Nobunaga grunts and arches his back before curling his fingers inside of you. The squelching sound arouses him greatly, and he catches your bruised lips with his own to kiss you.

When you press the tip of your finger to his cock, Nobunaga bites your bottom lip to suppress his moan. You pump his member until the prominent veins in the side of his cock bulge against your palm. Your essence dribbles down your open thighs as you reach your climax — Nobunaga is soon the follow as his seed shoots forward as a strangled rendition of your name escapes his mouth.

You wake up to the feather-light feeling as someone strokes your hair ever so gently. Outside, you hear birds chirping happily, and inhale the delectable aroma of miso soup wafting in the air. As you squint your eyes as you adjust to the brightness of the room, you hear him chuckle beside you.

"You finally decide to wake up, " Nobunaga whispers in your ear just as he stops stroking your hair.

"I didn't even know I fell asleep, " you respond while rubbing the drowsiness of your eyes. You then notice him staring at you, with a mischievous smile upon his handsome face, and you blush. "So…"

"So?"

You feel your face turning several shades redder by the second. "Did you like it?"

He traces your jaw fondly. "Did I like what? You'll have to be more specific." Your pout makes him laugh, and the sound instantly lifts your spirit. "I don't deny that I liked our little morning tryst."

"Me, too, Nobunaga. I'm so happy." You boldly inch closer to give him a peck on the cheek, before getting out of the futon, much to his disappointment.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting dressed, " you respond as you pick up the discarded kimono from the floor. It was slightly wrinkled from being carelessly thrown off, so you shake it a few times.

"But it's still early."

"No, it's not. I'm the chatelaine and I've got a job to do, " you remind him while you slip the sleeve over your shoulders.

"Yes, your job is to make me happy, " he declares arrogantly. As he spins you around to face him, you gasp in surprise at how he'd gone from lying on the futon to standing behind her in a matter of seconds.

"Nobunaga… really?"

He backs you up against the wall and starts to trail kisses your cheek down to your jaw and your throat. "Why are you in such a hurry to leave?" He ran his hands up and down your body, cupping your breasts as he continues to pepper your neck with kisses. Once more, he slips one hand in the open lapel of your kimono and took one of your pebbled nipples in between his fingers. As his hands played with your breasts, his mouth settles on your pulse point and begins to suck on the tender flesh. You moan and begin to feel wet and warm down your core.

"Still thinking of leaving?"

"I… I…"

"Perhaps I have not made myself clear, " he murmurs as he presses his middle finger into your hot core. Your raspy whimpers as he pumps his finger in and out encouraged him to continue his ministrations, and you feel your legs turning to jelly. Your eyes widen as he drops on his knees in front of you and lifts one of your legs over his shoulder.

"Nobu - ah…" you moan as his tongue skillfully laps at your wet folds, flicking his tongue against your clit. The sensation is far too strong, you suddenly feel the need to hold on to something to keep you upright.

"Hold on to me, " he says, his voice vibrating against your sensitive pussy. With your hands tangled in his hair, he shifts his head to a different angle. And as he slips his tongue inside you, lapping at every bit of your sweet nectar, you were so sure you had died and gone to heaven.

The moment you came down from your high, Nobunaga stands and you sag against him, catching your breath. "You are amazing, " you whisper, and he laughs heartily.

"Of course I'm amazing. I'm your boyfriend, " he says cockily, and adds, "but I do hope you don't think that was the end because we're just getting started."

And with that, he hoists you on his waist and enters you in one swift motion. You throw your head back and moan as you feel him fully sheathed inside you, but he doesn't move. You usually love how considerate he is in giving you time to adjust to his size, but not today. He's made you want him so badly, you grind your hips against him to coax him. "Nobunaga… please…"

"Please what?"

You frown at him. Was he really going to play hard-to-get now of all times? "Now's not the time to - ohhhh… " You throw your head back as he rolled his hips and pushed every last inch of his cock inside you.

"You were saying?" The smug look on his face says it all - he was going to make you pay for even thinking of getting out of his futon earlier. You feel him pull his cock out, leaving the tip at your entrance, before pushing in at a slow and steady pace. You whimper and thrash against him impatiently, but he continues to smirk at move leisurely, knowing the pace of his movement is pure torture. Desperately, you hold his face and kiss him deeply, your tongue slipping in his slightly open mouth. You move your legs around his hips as he picked up the pace and started pounding on you relentlessly.

"Yes, yes… just like that…" You dig your fingernails on his back and throw your head in ecstasy. Your moans become louder as he drives his cock inside you harder and harder every single time.

As you reach your climax, you feel your muscles clench around his cock, and you marvel at his self-control as he allows you to come down from your orgasm before moving inside you once again, building up his own orgasm. It doesn't take long before he grunts and shoots his seed inside you, and you moan at the heavenly sensation of being filled by his cum.

Nobunaga pulls out and takes an uneasy step backward. Exhaling slowly, he stretches his back and runs a hand through his hair. Sweat makes his muscles gleam in the light and mattes his hair down to his forehead. He picks you up again and tucks you into the futon before laying down next to you. He pulls you close to inhale your scent.

“For the record, the kimono is beautiful.”

“Thank you,” you reply softly as a blush spreads across your face.

He takes your hand and kisses your palm. “But I still prefer you without clothing~”

#nobunaga oda #ikesen nobunaga #ikesen #ikemen sengoku #cybird #otome

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cactusspatz · 5 years

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September recs

On the menu this round: ex-soldiers with feelings, dumbass superheroes with feelings, and vids! (please note there is some overlap between categories *g*)

Take My Whole Life Too by muccamukk (Band of Brothers, Lewis/Nixon)

After spending the whole war pining, Dick finally confesses his feelings. The trouble is, he doesn't know what to do with Nix now that he has him.

In which they don’t have a great first time so Dick decides he must DO RESEARCH. *cackles* God, I love him so much. Sweet, funny, and (eventually) very hot.

Worthy of Trust and Confidence by Alethia (Generation Kill/West Wing, Brad/Nate)

"Mr. Vice President, I believe you might be familiar with Special Agent Colbert."

The world stilled.

And in walked Brad. Black suit. Black tie. Perfect.

or: Generation Kill/The West Wing futurefic fusion. The Seaborn/Fick ticket sailed to victory in the 2016 presidential election. Amidst governing and getting the last of the troops out of Afghanistan, Nate's daughter starts receiving threats. Naturally, it's Brad to the rescue.

Once again, reading Band of Brothers fic slingshotted me sideways in GK fandom. It’s been a few years, so I finally found and read this one, which is a gorgeous story about grief and letting go as much as it is a romance.

The Department of Special Collections by @cesperanza & @albymangroves (MCU, Steve/Bucky)

It was a messy thing of leather and papers and rope. It looked like Phillips had carelessly thrown a bunch of documents onto an old piece of black leather and then rolled the whole thing up and tied it . . . The papers inside were all different sizes, everything out of order and haphazardly stacked, like someone had been in a hurry and just grabbed it all.

Outsider POV *and* archival porn *and* epistolary? With beautiful art? Yes please!

what’s up danger by @tempestaurora (MCU/Spiderman multiverse, gen)

Gwen snorted. “You and Miles would get along-” A smile appeared on her face, growing wider. “You wanna go on a trip?”

“A multi-dimensional trip.”

“The only fun kind,” she agreed. Gwen turned to him, her smile large and coaxing. “It’ll be great. I’ll get you back here as soon as you want – but it could be fun! Meet Miles, maybe another Peter if we have time.”

Peter really wanted to go to another universe, let’s be clear. But he a) had homework, b) didn’t need his brain to melt out of his ears, and c) had a dinner to get to in three hours.

He totally ended up going to another universe.

Admittedly I am 100% the target audience for this because I love all Peter Parkers forever and ever amen, but it’s also flat-out adorable and a fun, gossipy twirl through the various movieverses.

you keep me hanging on by @lamujerarana (Marvel 616, Peter Parker/Johnny Storm)

Johnny, reeling from his breakup with Medusa and the loss of his entire family, turns to Peter for comfort...that eventually involves casual sex that isn't so casual for Johnny, since he just so happens to be in love with Peter.

Everything becomes incredibly complicated.

Ahh, mutual pining while actually having sex on a regular basis is a hard trope to pull off, but this was right on the mark. And super hot.

Stress by @findmeinthealps (vid, Iron Man)

I’ve seen this song vidded in other fandoms, but it’s a great choice for Tony. Zippily edited and damn charming - right up until the gutpunch of an ending. (no I haven’t been able to watch Endgame again, why do you ask?)

I Found A Reason by @trelkez (vid, The Eagle, Marcus/Esca)

Very simple, both in construction and music, but it really captures the intense connection (bad and good) between Marcus and Esca. I’m kind of annoyed at myself for only just finding it. *watches again*

#band of brothers #generation kill #west wing #avengers #mcu #steve/bucky #spiderman #spideytorch #iron man #the eagle #marcus/esca #monthly recs #fic rec #vid rec

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incarnateirony · 6 years

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“Stay in your lane.”

What fucking lane? This shit is a vat of crazy.

I literally just tried to map this shit out. It’s not exactly 100% scientific but.

Look I was just fucking around on paint so it’s not pretty, but if anybody seriously wants to do something similar now that you have ways to wrap your braincase around it, go all out.

I’d add that anyone within the TFW positive line can be a multishipper and may or may not also ship Destiel, but people hanging in that breakout bubble do adopt the anti rhetoric as mentioned and sort of want All Ships Treated Identically. For reasons that we’ll pretend basically have to do with being pulled into its orbit of dialogue without realizing it. Some “non shipper” zones might also have multi shippers sprinkled in there, but the shamey narrative seems to vanish once outside of the Wincest sphere.

But my point is, fam, this place is an entire warehouse full of landmines with overlapping vectors even within your own friend group. For example,

I would be in the “Sam Knew” zone: I’m Sam centric, but trying to be about 10,000 miles removed from the Wincest and Tinhat sectors, which gives me a very small playing area in reality. But oddly it’s one of the more center ground areas on the grid. True-Bibro adjacent before we start getting absorbed by the wanky Tinhat Zone. But in the Wayward and Destiel pool.

But because of my placement, I end up with, say, heavy overlap from the Cas sphere, and I tend to be one mutual over from “No Cas no care”. Or I’ll have strong Wayward fans as mutuals, which can put me one mutual out from CakeWoke. Or I have strong Dean focused Destiel Positive or shipping friends that put me one mutual out from extreme Dean fans.

There are no lanes, there’s just a crazy cobweb of spheres thrown into each other.

You’ll notice I pulled Sam’s sphere a little further out than the others, because of the push caused by the Tinhat Wincest vector, which makes it a little harder to float in the inclusive zone.

I’ll also leave a subnote that once you start entering single character stans outside of the TFW zone we start tilting into extreme sectors, but also some less EXTREME X FANS and the vicinity of actor fans which overlap back in.

I’ll also add a few prisms of Destiel feelings from what I gather in the lanes

Red being “generally positive and accepting”, white being “pretty solidly invested” and the other sphere labels already speaking for themselves.

I also had trouble mapping out where Cockles is since it seems to have saturated through a lot of non-anti areas almost at random. Like sure fam it’s mostly in the core Destiel aisles but I’ve seen it as far out as Wayward or any character branches or even just general TFW lanes.

Yes, this is largely anecdotal, but it’s not some “I had a few friends that said,” as much as “I’ve been watching dozens of thousands of people in this fandom for a long assed time and could probably name at least 5,000 accounts off the top of my head at this point” based on where I see them falling. Trying to make a color scaled chart like this manifest on a census would be fucking insanity.

But that one little super outlying sphere center-right is the one always telling itself that it rivals the center TFW positive or Destiel positive zones

And in reality this is more of what we see.

lmao tell me I’m wrong

Seriously though the “canon Destiel” is more of a crown of people that are there almost exclusively for it (hence being outside the TFW ring), whereas “people who see it strongly supported in canon but aren’t just here to grind on that alone” are more like in this egg

The adjacent zones are more “positive”, they don’t hate on shippers, enjoy the content, kinda-sorta see/understand but don’t feel it’s going anywhere but wouldn’t care if it did. You know the people. Pleasant Nonshippers that support people in the red egg.

Tell me I’m wrong while they brag up blocking 5,000-8,000 accounts and still manage to miss major Destiel fans like tink.

Update: people keep asking me for accessory things like “What about give Sam a Romance That Doesn’t Die”

Red: “Give Sam A-” casual. This can be Give Sam A Girlfriend, Give Sam a Dog, Give Sam a Velma, just GIVE SAM A *SOME FUCKING THING*

Black: Self explanatory

A FEW MORE CHART NOTES

I didn’t really give Jack a sphere because we don’t have a huge swath of JACK ONLIES, and he’s more dead center in the TFW zone, in a smaller ring, and can be shared across to almost any duo.

Lucifer/Pellegrino is sort of a free agent drifting around, a microcosm unto itself, with many external fandom influences I’m not gonna wank up this post with but can bubble into a few spheres on occasion.

I’ve not really seen, say, Rowena Onlies or Gabe Onlies beyond a fluke of each. If you’re fans of those, they tend to fall under the TFW sphere, as it’s also a general audience that loves most/everything sphere.

And even then most of these can be put into the chart.

Example: A Gabe fan that doesn’t like 99% of things, isn’t a Destiel fan, but is into Sabriel as a connection, be it platonic or romantic, would gravitate into Sam sphere, outside of TFW sphere

Regarding the absence of Megstiel: At the risk of pissing off that part of the fandom, I didn’t see it worth trying to vector into the chart. Some true Megstiel fans have even noticed and called out the number of people from the Tinhat Zone that come in and fake ship it just to cause horse shit. They would have a node, in the Cas zone, half in and half out of the TFW zone, likely settled largely in the same zone as “nonshipper Cas fans”. Rachel has a huge fanbase but Meg not so much considering how long she’s been gone and there’s really no way to reasonably vector that in. Once the faux shipping self-conflicting tinhats pretending to ship it get removed, it’s a small ship that mostly minds its own business aside from the ones that unknowingly bite the tinhat wank bait and feed into those narratives that have started to saturate it. Otherwise it would have to be sphered at both completely conflicting ends of the chart.

I mean. Y’all. Sabriel fandom is considered small and has over 11,000 fics on Ao3. Megstiel has 1,100. A viral Megstiel post gets maybe 100 notes. Like. This isn’t intended as shade, it’s just reality. A vector place outside of "half in Cas sphere, half in nonshipper Cas TFW sphere” as a blip is almost impossible once you remove the tinhats that argue points that simultaneously drags Megstiel.

Yes some people also multiship Megstiel too, but not many. That might ride closer to the Destiel line then, but it’s still very cas-line-centric.

Like let’s not try to play the game where everything is equal in volume just to make everybody feel better. If you have a few working brain cells, Destiel is the ship that’s freaking everywhere in this fandom whether you like it or not. Then the next biggest, which is still a fraction of performance on everything from presence, social trends, or fanfiction creation despite a many-year running head-start would be Wincest, then after that there’s a number of others, with shrinking presence much less expectation.

Those generally fall into bigger lanes. As Megstiel, or addressed various zones Sabriel might fall. Not all Sabriel is anti Destiel -- that was just an idea if someone was an outlier looking for where they fall. In fact, Destiel is the highest overlap hashtag with Sabriel when you pull Sabriel’s numbers. And so on.

Being Destiel doesn’t mean you only want Destiel. Hell, as shown by the chart, there’s plenty of Wincest multishippers in multiple lanes. But trying to graph in everyone’s special snowflake bubbles would be insanity.

Generally my reason for doing this is that there’s always the “NOT ALL BLAHHHHHHHHHHHHH” argument and, no shit sherlock, we know. This isn’t a fandom of lanes. It’s a ridiculous vector overlap chart that probably would need to go 3D to catch a proper model of what’s really fucking going on.

#supernatural #fandom #mine

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lorrainecparker · 6 years

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Some thoughts on color, brightness, and contrast

I’m not happy with just knowing that colors work together in artistic ways. I want to know why. Here are some thoughts. I’m a strict amateur in the world of color (I’m not a color scientist or an art expert) but I have some thoughts on the matter that I’d like to share, just in case they’re thoughts you haven’t had yet. Awareness is the key to discovery, so keeping some of these thoughts in mind should help me, and perhaps you, to learn how to use color better.

PRIMARY COLORS

This is the spectral response of the cones in the human eye. “S” relates generally to blue. “M” relates generally to green. “L” relates generally to red.

The additive primary colors are red, blue and green. A primary color is generally defined as a set of colors from which all other colors can be mixed. In this case, each of the additive primary colors corresponds to a peak in the graph above. “Additive color” means that if one starts with black and adds colors together, they will appear brighter than the black background, and if one adds them in equal amounts the result will be white. This is the way light works.

Years ago, while shooting for MTV, a young producer asked me to make the background a more saturated hue. “Add some more lights with deep gels back there,” they told me. “That won’t work,” I said, “because light is additive.”

“Just do it, please! We’re running out of time, I don’t want an argument!” Okay… we added some more lights to the background and put very saturated gels on them, and the background only got brighter. Eventually the producer relented, I pulled most of the lights out, and we used large cutters to remove ambient light from the background, which made the colored lights that remained appear more pure.

That’s the way light works. No matter how heavy the gel, if you add more light, you’re going to end up with a brighter subject.

Subtractive color is different. Where adding the primaries in equal amounts results in white in the additive system, it results in black in the subtractive system. Water color painting is a great example of this: one starts with white, and the application of paint filters part of white’s spectrum and leaves the desired color behind. Adding subtractive color always makes things darker.

The subtractive primary colors are yellow, magenta and cyan. Looking at the curve above, it occurred to me that this can be described as:

Yellow: red + green

Magenta: the complete absence of green

Cyan: blue + green

Magenta can be manufactured in the subtractive color world by mixing red and blue, but in light it can only be created by removing green. When one dials CC to a negative value on a multicolor LED light, for example, all one is doing is turning down the green LED. Minus green gel works the same way: it holds back green and lets the rest of the light through.

It’s interesting that additive color works in the realm of light (projected images, light sources like LEDs and displays, traffic lights, etc.), but it’s not the way we’re meant to see things. In a world before electricity, subtractive color defined how we saw the world. And, in that process, everything revolves around green. This makes sense because it’s the one color we are more sensitive to than any other.

I don’t know if that’s useful, but it’s really interesting.

WHAT IS THE BRIGHTEST COLOR?

Yellow.

Looking at the graph above, it’s pretty easy to see why. The spectral response curves of the L and M cones overlap a LOT. There’s a theory that says that the L cones are simply a mutation of the M cones, which means that the color “red” might be an evolutionary accident, but also explains why they are so similar.

Another aspect of this can be understood by looking at the luma coefficients for Rec 709:

Red = 0.2126

Green = 0.7152

Blue = 0.0722

In other words, the luma channel is comprised of:

Red = 21%

Green = 71%

Blue = 7%

When video is encoded into Y’CbCr for broadcast, the luma channel (Y’) is calculated using these percentages because they match how humans sense brightness.

Note for geeks: “Y” is luminance. “Y'” is gamma corrected luminance. “Cb” says where a color falls on an axis between blue and yellow. “Cr” says where a color falls on an axis between red and green. This is because humans don’t see yellowish blues or blueish yellows, which implies that they are mutually exclusive. The same is true of red and green.

This is very handy for encoding color and luma separately, and allows for chroma subsampling. I’ve been told that Y’CbCr hides chroma subsampling much better than does RGB.

“What does this have to do with yellow?” Sorry, I’m getting to that.

As green and red make up so much of our sense of brightness, it is the brightest color that we can see. If red is 21% of our sense of brightness, and green is 71%, then together they make up 92% of our sense of brightness. It’s hard to beat that in saturated colors.

Blue, on the other hand, is a lowly 7%. A pure blue is never very bright.

WHY DOES THIS MATTER?

It matters because of something that interior designers have known for… well, a long time:

Warm colors advance, cool colors recede

The “Hollywood blockbuster” look is well known and often used, to the point where it’s become cliche. The biggest problem, though, is this:

IT WORKS.

Let’s go back a few hundred or thousand years. The things that differentiate foreground and background are:

Foreground: flesh tone (warm).

Background: sky (cool).

WARM

We see flesh tone amazingly well, because it’s a combination of both red and green—the two colors that contribute the most to our sense of brightness. The first time I worked with an Arri Alexa under low light I kept checking my meter against the monitor, as my meter said faces should have been a lot darker than they were on the monitor. Arri appears to emulate the subtractive color model of film, where the most saturated hues are also the darkest, so they saturate colors heavily until they reach about middle gray in brightness. They don’t look over saturated because they are never bright and saturated at the same time: beyond middle gray, hues only become brighter, not more saturated.

This saturation throws me off, though, because flesh tones feel brighter than I think they should be.

I think this is one of the reasons Sony’s LC709typeA LUT feels underexposed. Years ago Sony asked me to make a presentation at CineGear about the Sony F55 and Cine-EI, and the audience complained that the “normal” exposure felt too dark. By meter and luma waveform, though, it was dead on. My suspicion is that they pulled the saturation down a bit in the mid-tones and that made faces feel a little darker than they were.

As flesh tone consists of the two colors to which we most derive our sense of brightness, it makes sense that a little goes a long way.

Years ago I worked on a black and white short film on which I was not the DP. The DP exposed the film as if it were color negative, and dailies showed all the flesh tones as a dull gray. That’s when I realized that flesh tones in old black and white movies are always brighter than they would be in color—by at least a stop—because without color information they appear a dull light gray, and need a bit more exposure to pop and appear lifelike.

In this frame from It’s a Wonderful Life, Donna Reed and Jimmy Stewart are lit just a little brighter than everyone else to make them stand out. The elderly woman to Stewart’s right is lit to a level that would probably feel close to normal if this still were in color.

COOL

Blue sky is consistently bright, so it makes sense that we wouldn’t need to be as sensitive to blue as we are to other colors. There really isn’t anywhere else in nature where we see lots of blue. There are very few blue foods (and the Wagner Color Response report says that the best way to make food look unappetizing is to light it with blue light). The vast amount of blue that we see is in the distance, behind everything else, and it’s really bright.

WARM AND COOL CONTRAST

So: if we’re hunter gatherers, we’re used to seeing flesh tone near us and blue sky farther away. Flesh tone looks bright because it contains the two colors to which we’re most sensitive, and blue—to which we’re the least sensitive—is always in the distance and brighter than anything else in our visual field short of the sun. There’s a saying in interior design circles that “Warm colors advance, cool colors recede,” and in the context of how we evolved as primates this makes perfect sense.

When a colorist warms skin tones and cools everything else, they’re just playing off an innate human response to color to generate a guaranteed visual response that adds to our sense of depth and foreground/background separation.

Also, remember that we don’t see yellowish blues or blueish yellows, so this is a built-in biological contrast effect.

Green, the great brightener

Anyone who has seen a comparison of the Rec 709 (HD) and Rec 2020/2100 (UHD/HDR) color gamuts knows that green benefits more than any other color:

Remember the breakdown above, where green comprises 71% of our sense of brightness? It’s also the most saturated color we can see. I’ve often wondered why.

If you’ve ever shot in a forest, you’ve discovered that they are extremely dark places. The heavier the foliage, the darker they are. There’s a reason that green is such a popular color for plant life: it absorbs blue/ultraviolet and red/infrared, leaving green behind. Leaves are little energy-sucking machines, and they don’t leave cameras and film much to work with.

This is perhaps why we can see green so well: in a dark forest with predators overhead, the ability to see movement among leaves and branches could mean the difference between life and death. According to the book “Vision and Art: The Biology of Seeing” (highly recommended) our ability to see motion is largely based on brightness alone, which may explain why so much of that sense is based on green.

Artistically, green is a complex color to work with. It attracts attention, both with its presence and its absence:

A light that has too much green (and appears yellow on faces) or not enough green (appears magenta or ruddy) is visually disturbing.

It brightens any color with which it is mixed, and many of our favorite hues contain some amount of green. It’s rare to see a pure blue or pure red in the real world: green is often mixed into blues to create a brighter hue that many think of as pure blue, but isn’t; and green is often mixed into reds to create a brighter, slightly orangish red that has more “punch” but still feels red.

Blue, the great desaturator

Once, when shooting the Golden Gate bridge with a Canon camera, I found I could get make the grass green or the bridge the proper hue of orange, but not both at the same time. Canon normally skews reds toward orange, apparently to blend skin blemishes (which are red) into flesh tone, and that threw of the color of the bridge, which is a very orangish red.

Using the one matrix that made the bridge the proper color, though, made the grass in the foreground so intensely green that it distracted from the people in the frame. I realized that the original matrix, that skewed reds toward flesh tone, also pushed green towards blue, desaturating the grass and making people pop out of the frame a bit more.

One matrix made the bridge the bridge the proper color but emphasized the grass at the expense of everything else, as it was the brightest thing in the frame; and the other made the bridge the wrong color but de-emphasized the grass, putting the emphasis back on the people.

This is when I realized that technically correct color is not always perfect color: clearly someone understood that bright greens upstage flesh tone, and they did something about it. My only complaint was that I couldn’t make the bridge the proper hue while desaturating the grass at the same time, at least using the built-in matrices. That would have taken some custom work that I didn’t have time for.

Adding blue to any color reduces its brightness, because blue contributes very little to our sense of brightness. This often reduces that color’s saturation as well.

This is one of the reasons green screen compositing became popular. In any situation where a green screen is being used on set, the green screen will always appear brighter under existing light. (Green = 71% of Rec 709 luma vs. blue = 7%. Pure blue is a very dark color.) Also, any object in front of a green background creates one of the highest contrast scenarios in film making, which is great for generating mattes but tends to stress both cameras and codecs—revealing flaws in both.

Blue and cyan: we love them because we can’t have them

When the Varicam 35 was released I found it visually stunning, especially for day exteriors. For the longest time I could figure out why. Eventually I realized it was because it punches up blue hues in a way that most cameras don’t.

I have a theory that we love cyan because we don’t see it very well. In the diagram at the top of the article we saw that blue and green don’t overlap much at all, so subtractive color cyans—the kind we see in nature—are never very bright. Additive color cyans, though, can be as bright as desired. Some camera manufacturers will add a little green to blue skies to make them pop a bit more (I think of them as “candy-coated skies” because they’re a bit too much for me). In Panasonic’s case, the day exterior footage I saw, shot in some sort of fog, was lit by skylight, and the billowing cyan fog was beautiful.

That may have been a grading choice, but if so, the footage gave a lot of leeway for grading. Here’s a Panasonic HDR TV commercial shot on Varicam 35, and most of the blues are actually a bit greenish—but subtly so, without being cartoonish. This spot contains some great examples of the Hollywood blockbuster “Warm colors advance, cool colors recede” look.

The yellow flower petals require the most visual processing power as yellow stimulates both the L and M cones. The teal windows in the background provide both color contrast and a sense of depth as they define the maximum depth of the frame. (Warm colors advance, cool colors recede.)

Same effect, only a bit more obvious. Notice how this image is fairly low contrast, as there aren’t any bright highlights or deep shadows, but the choice of colors makes the contrast feel higher than it is. It’s interesting to note that the flower petals are yellow (red + green) and teal (blue + green). The costumes are either warm (red + green), or a dull white, or black. Without the black costumes the image would feel a bit flat.

Once again, warm colors advance and cool colors recede. The red foreground and cyan highlight in the background bookend the actress nicely. The green highlight on the car contrasts nicely with the red reflection in the window, and likely accentuates it. (Red and green are opposites: we never see a greenish red or reddish green, so using them together results in greater contrast. They “pop” more.)

Although the image has an overall green cast, the green mixes with the foreground warmth to create highlights that are slightly yellowish. (Yellow in an image usually translates to an excess of green.) Once again, the warm foreground stands out nicely against the cool background. This is the classic “Hollywood blockbuster” look, and there’s a reason you see it so often. It really works. (Also, as this spot is meant to sell HDR sets, the extra green probably pops a lot more on a Rec 2020/2100 display, as green benefits the most from that extended color gamut. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s more saturated, but that it’s possible to create more subtle hues of green than we’ve ever seen on a Rec 709 display.)

This is that rare occasion when the foreground isn’t the warmest thing in the shot. That fireball sure draws attention, though, with our old friend yellow playing a prominent role. It’s interesting that the colorist popped the cyan hues on the actress’s legs—my suspicion is that the cyan hues in the previous shot didn’t play well against the fireball, as the brightness of its yellow center probably made the cyan of the space suit appear much darker.

In this next example, the ice that appears later n the piece are mostly greenish blue but also have a bit of red mixed in, to create a very complex hue of blue that I’m not used to seeing… well, anywhere.

This may be a subtle example, but it’s fascinating to me. The highlights are greenish blue, but the shadows are very slightly reddish blue. This has the effect not only of making the ice feel colder somehow, but it increases the contrast in what is otherwise an all white chunk of ice. The blue is constant, but the contrast between highlight and shadow is one of green vs. red (which, in the realm of human vision, are color opponents).

I don’t think that human beings want to see images that are realistic. They’re boring. We want to see reality with a twist. As cinematographers and artists, we make lens choices, lighting choices, exposure choices and color choices that, together, tell a story from a point of view that can’t be found in nature. It’s an interpretation, or even a visual story, and humans love stories.

I started writing this article because it occurred to me that there must be biological reasons for why we like the things we do. Reading a book like Vision and Art prodded me to jot down the thoughts that came into my head, even though I’m not close to finishing the book yet. There are lots of artists who intuitively understand color, but I always want to know the “why” behind artistic choices. That helps me to learn to use these tricks consciously as well as intuitively.

What can I say, I’m an artistic geek.

I hope you found this interesting.

Art Adams Director of Photography

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