#source: samurai cop

[littleeyesofpallas]

Goyou Kiba[御用牙]: Arrest Fang

aka Hanzo The Razor

#manga covers #the classic samurai thriller #kazuo koike #and the source material for the cult classic chanbara films of the same name #despite being one of THE most prominent faces of samurai films in the west #Hanzo was never a samurai #he's basically a cop in the imperial capital #but specifically he's the head of detainment torture and interrogation

[godshivered]

not me stalking your posts and seeing your 'melissa has ptsd' headcanon. care to share more? 👀

okay so! melissa with ptsd — this is a headcanon i’ve had since the pilot episode, but i’m only working on my own experiences/observations as a person with ptsd myself. i don’t know how much is lisa’s intentional acting choices, but she puts a LOT of thought into melissa (as seen in interviews) so i wouldn’t be surprised.

so my thinking is: melissa has (1) a sketchy relationship with the law, and (2) a sketchy relationship with her ex. both of these can result in dangerous experiences and post-traumatic stress. there are brief moments that suggest her relationship with her ex was tumultuous — it’s clearly left a mark on her and kept her from dating again. i remember a line about her staying at her sister’s after a fight? and she has a rough enough relationship with her sister that i doubt this was an easy decision. just little things that stuck out to me.

then there’s these psychosomatic details that catch my eye in lisa’s performance. off the top of my head:

the BIGGEST cue to me is melissa’s body language. she’s always taking a defensive posture — arms crossed over herself tightly — and usually seems to lean back into other people or the wall…

… as well as what barbara mentions: she always sits facing the door. that screams “hyper vigilance” to me, which is a symptom of ptsd.

her body language during the phone call with joe, her ex, is SUPER interesting to me. she curls in on herself in an uncharacteristic way — she softens her voice, even tears up. her tough guy persona is absent and she looks unusually small?

she seems to have a strong “fight” reflex and rises to conflict quickly, another aspect of hypervigilance. she often seems keyed up and sometimes expresses herself through aggression before using words (coming at sahar with the book, punching the samurai cutout). she jumps to assume the cameramen are cops, too. this reactivity is interesting to me because…

when she reaches emotional conflict, she’s actually prone to concede. she accepts apologies easily — from janine in the courtney episode, and in the cooking episode — from barbara in the “play in the mud” episode, too. for a seemingly aggressive person, she’s a bit of a pushover sometimes, almost like she loses her nerve to defend her boundaries. that can be a trauma response, especially after being gaslit.

small note, but the first time i noticed lisa’s body language was in the pilot, when ava rushes up behind her to greet gregory for the first time. melissa jolts back a bit and doesn’t seem to react or say anything — just silently looks away. weird for a “confrontational” south philly native with a bad attitude, right? (gif source is @christinecagneys )

also… keeping a bat under your desk at work. at an elementary school. that’s hypervigilance to a T 👀

idk these are just the little things i can remember right now! it’s a healthy dose of projection too fjdbdj anyway ty for asking!

#melissa schemmenti #lisa ann walter #abbott elementary #melissa x barbara #barbara x melissa #work wives #sorry for how long i left this sitting in my inbox i wanted to get my thoughts together! #ptsd!melissa

[agentgrange]

What is some fiction outside of the mythos or DG that you look to for inspiration?

Excellent, fun question. I've been on a narrowboat trip through the countryside and hadn't had a lot of time to get my thoughts out so this is a great way to get back in the headspace actually. This isn't going to be the most coherent answer in the world but off the top of my head here's some ideas and recommendations in no particular order.

Philip K Dick-- I've talked about his work a bit before, less because of his works themselves (there's a lot there that's problematic and can be cut) and more because he really channels that bridge between Lovecraft's historic paranoia and a modern contemporary setting

Basically any works by Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Grant Morrison-- I feel like I don't need to say a lot about these authors, they really are the triarchy that serve as the prime example of how to distill complex occult principles into media. They really paved the way for how to take an abstract idea and shape it into fiction as a way to sort of upload an idea into another person's brain.

Rawhead Rex by Clive Barker and Les Edwards-- this graphic novel really was my gateway into horror as something more complex than the slasher / torture porn that was en vogue when I was growing up which had previously turned me off of the genre.

Strangehaven by Gary Spencer Millidge-- beautiful and inspiring labor of love about a small town subject to extraordinary circumstances

Mononoke & Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales-- Beautiful stories that give a window into how another culture expresses the same ideas as a lot of the works above

Satoshi Kon's movies to me really tap into the same energy as Philip K Dick but without a lot of the ugliness and much more beauty. Perfect Blue and Tokyo Godfathers are my two favorites to the point that I honestly get emotional just thinking about them.

I don't need to tell you about Akira, but I will absolutely recommend you don't discount it's more low brow contemporaries like Urotsukidoji and Wicked City for some fucked up exploitation anime.

Possession (1981) is genuinely my all time favorite work of surrealist horror and a cornerstone for a lot of my ideas

Society (1989) what if Possession was even more fucked up & grind house but also silly? :3c

Obviously X-Files, Twin Peaks, and True Detective are giant influences but I'd like to recommend a fourth "weird cop" show-- FX's Fargo. The original movie was already a true crime classic but the show really takes it to 11. Season 2 is probably my favorite for reasons that will be apparent for anyone who's watched it.

Lastly the bulk of media I regularly consume is usually actually non-fiction. History, particularly US history, is fucked up and clown shoes enough that it has all the inspiration you might need if you just have a good source that can present it as an interesting narrative. Last Podcast on the Left is a good gateway into this but there's plenty of other more "serious" sources that can still be just as entertaining like the podcast Blowback. Once you're able to put history into a narrative you can be entertained by and feel invested in it becomes a lot more interesting to read books from authoritative sources that help feed into that interest because you have an emotional connection to it instead of it just being a series of context-less names and dates.

#field scribbles #asks #this was a lot of fun thank you! #bonus answer only for tags-- deathproof #its the only Tarantino movie i endorse #horror inspo

[knightotoc]

I'm wondering what a hard sci fi lightsaber would be like. The most interesting scientific questions might be beyond me, but I can at least grapple with the philosophical question, how many things can you take away before it's not a lightsaber? and the social question, would this work as a traditional weapon for an ascetic, chivalric, state-funded order of monk-cops?

If you look up "real lightsaber," you'll see a lot of fuss about how glass blowing torches look a lot like lightsabers, and of course can be used to cut things. There's even references to the protosabers from the worst part of Tales of the Jedi my beloved, Golden Age of the Sith, because "real" lightsabers need an external power source. So there's a compromise that even Kevin J. Anderson, in his wisdom, would allow.

The problem with the gas-guzzling plasma/fire-based lightsaber is it gets the light but not the saber. Cutting through doors is a silly thing Qui-Gon invented; sword fighting is the whole point.

So you NEED them to be able to whack against each other; you WANT them to be able to glow. You NEED them to be convenient and transportable; you WANT them to be able to retract. They have to be as useful as a samurai's sword; they ought to be better; but they can't be worse.

Google and Wikipedia say there were some physics experiments in the 2010s to make "solid light:" a cold metallic cloud can get photons to stick together. So if we get this thing big enough, is it gonna glow, is it gonna grow, and, most importantly, is it gonna hurt if you whack your son's elbow with it?

#star wars #lightsabers #star wars minus genre assumptions #solid light putting the hard in hard sci fi #science fiction

[emcandon]

You know I think an interaction between the Jedi of Ronan and the Jedi of the Prequel Era would be quite interesting because Ronin's Jedi Samurai are pretty much everything they fear they might be becoming.

The Jedi of the Prequel Era are a well-meaning but flawed organization that have arguably been more enforcers of the Republic then Servants of the Force and of the people in recent decades. Their counterparts however are pretty much a nightmarish return of the Jedi Lords of Old, an aristocratic warrior class and violent enforcers of a tyrannical feudal Empire that straight-up take children regardless of the parents consent, snuff out any potential rival organizations (I mean the Canon Jedi actually seem to be pretty chill with other force using organizations outside of the Sith, even letting the Nightsisters be for the most part), and if I'm not mistaken don't take too kindly to members trying to leave.

Meanwhile the Jedi Samurai would view the Republic Jedi as dangerously heterodox for teaching "the wrong type of ideas" and would probably either just want to wipe them out for being potential rivals or forcibly drag their cousins into the fold.

This is a fun think!

When I first offered this setting to Editor Tom, I knew that the Jedi would essentially be vassals to lords, like with samurai to daimyo, etc. A given Jedi clan might have more power than another and Jedi vassals of its own, (see Ronin's knight/guardian divide), but they are fundamentally subordinate to a nobility, and in turn to an empire.

But after I brought the outline to him, he and the editorial team suggested that we needed closer contact with the system of lords to make it a more palpable pressure and threat -- which is when Hanrai went from the head of a Jedi clan to a lord in and of himself. In conversation, we likened it to if the Jedi Council of canon ceded to Palpatine's sway: what happens if the Jedi, who strive to hold themselves apart even as they've been sliding into a kind of ambassador-cop, then active military leader position, finally gave up all attempts to maintain a separation of state and mystical warriors and just. Gave in.

I really loved the idea of playing with this on the page. Hanrai was already a character with whom I wanted to work through thoughts abt moral compromise, ideological devotion, and the human cost of pride and dignity, and making him a vessel of the state just magnified the possibilities. Delicious.

(If the Ronin universe and the canon one were somehow spatiotemporal neighbors, I do agree that the Jedi Order and Jedi clans would at best behold each other with suspicion, if not even a faint underpinning of disgust. The order would view the clans as, you know, inexcusably violent, and the clans would view the order as embarrassingly naive and arrogantly permissive with their own power -- at least they know that power ought to be well regulated and disciplined.)

(There are also allusions in Ronin to a pre-clans era, for which Chie is the main source of knowledge, though there are hints threaded elsewhere. The Jedi of the empire have been subsumed by it. They weren't always so. But empire does do what it can to devour.)

#star wars #star wars ronin #ask reply

[crescentmoonrider]

If this unreliable self can become someone… - Part 3 (Annotated Edition)

It's been almost two years since Yuuta started travelling with Toji-san. Almost two years since Yuuta started hating himself a little less. It can't last, he knows it, but still he hopes it will. It's all he has. [Edo AU]

read on AO3

read on FFn

Today in “Yumi rambles about their own writing” : historical research about cops, a personal favorite folk tale, and, uh, Barney ?

... yeah this one’s going to be interesting

I need you, you need me (Won’t you say you need me too)

I love you~ You love me~ Let’s kill Barney~

… is that how it goes ? I don’t know, I never knew Barney the purple dinosaur as a child, since I live in a French-speaking region of the world and all. The generation before me had Casimir and “L’île aux Enfants”, and let me tell you Casimir is a darling ! He’s orange, and very sweet, and doesn’t look like he consumes the souls of the damned for breakfast. The theme song for “L’île aux Enfants” is also very good, although it is admittedly a bit of an earworm.

Okay, fine, it’s a lot of an earworm.

Anyway, you might be wondering why I settled on this for this one’s title. There’s a few reasons honestly – one of them being that I wanted to inflict psychic damage on the readers before they even opened the fic itself.

But also, like, I can’t even remember why I looked up the lyrics to Barney’s song in the first place, but the whole “I love you, you love me […] Won’t you say you love me too” part of the text just. Haunted me. Who thought this was acceptable lyrics for a kids’ show ?? It’s deliciously creepy and needy and fucked up. Now, obviously love isn’t really a factor in this story, not in the romantic sense at least, so I decided to instead emphasize the codependency aspect of the relationship.

As for the fact that these lyrics work so well for a story about people unhealthily relying on each other… well. Let’s not dwell on that.

(The last reason was simply that the working title for this one was “Fuck the police (no not like that)” and uh. I really didn’t want it to stick)

Dōshin (同心)

The machikata-doshin (or mawarikata-doshin, depends on their actual job) were basically the police patrolmen of the Edo era, at least in shogunal cities (more detail on those in the first research notes for this series). Their best documented job was mostly to look out for burglars and arsonists, using okkapiki (or meakashi, basically professional snitches, although they could also help during investigations) to assist them. Okkapiki were employed by the doshin himself, and paid for with his own money. As for the doshin themselves, their direct superior was called the yoriki.

In the city of Edo, they were also sometimes called hatchōbori, as this was the name of the place where they had their quarters. You may recognize the name from a train station in Chūō, Tokyo.

With the political stability brought by the Tokugawa shogunate, many lower-rank samurai chose to become doshin as, even though it wasn’t exactly a well-regarded job (still samurai work though), it was still a guaranteed source of income, and with time the position ended up becoming basically hereditary.

Anyway, ACAB

 “Being found guilty […] would mean lashings and a criminal’s markings.”

I tried looking up laws and like, crimes and punishments in the Edo-era. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find the specific laws I was looking for, specifically regarding the punishment for carrying sharp weapons as a non-samurai, so uh. I went with classic Edo stuff. Lashings, exile (marked by tattoos, so the exiled person can’t just disguise themself and sneak back into town), that kind of thing. There could be a prison sentence too, or it could be one of those many crimes sentenced by death, I genuinely don’t know. Then again, neither does Yuuta, probably, so it’s fine. Maybe.

By the way, did you know that the punishment for arson was death by fire ? Love the irony of that, 10/10

 The hour of the ox

Hours in pre-Meiji Japan were named after zodiac animals, with six hours during the day, and six at night (each hour was about as long as two of our current ones). The hour of the ox would then be between 1am and 3am… kind of.

See, since the number of hours dividing the time of day was the same as the ones dividing night-time, these hours couldn’t all last the same, outside of like. The equinoxes. Since this story is taking place in ~early summer, that means days are longer than nights, and as such night hours are much shorter. So when does the doshin finish his shift ? Fuck if I know, I haven’t done this kind of maths since applied maths in high school, and even back then I sucked at it !

 Ojizou-sama

Jizou (地藏) is originally a bodhisattva under the name of Ksitigarbha, but his role as a folk figure in Japan is pretty different from the rest of the Buddhist world’s traditions, so I’ll just focus on the Japanese stuff. In everyday life, you’ll often find statues of him on roadsides, wearing a red bib, and he is seen as a protector of travellers.

He is also a protector of children, especially dead ones, since he is said to come by the shore of the river Sai, where souls wait in purgatory and pile up stones in the hopes of one day making it to Buddha’s paradise. Normally, onis will come and destroy the stone piles and the dead will have no choice but to start again, but when Jizou comes by, he will protect the children, hiding them in his robes.

Maybe the most famous story about Jizou, however, is the tale of the six Jizou, also known as Kasa Jizou (笠地蔵, Jizou with a hat). Here’s one version. On New Year’s eve, a poor old man goes into town to sell five straw hats, but he encounters six statues of Jizou, covered in snow and looking quite cold. The man gives each of them one hat, and then uncovers his own head to give the sixth statue a hat as well. He comes home to his wife, who is kind of sad he didn’t make any money, but understands his gesture and agrees with him. During the night, the couple wakes up to the sound of heavy stones being moved, and as they light their lamp, they realize their house is filled with gifts. The six Jizou statues decided to thank them !

So yeah, that’s Jizou. He’s a really cool guy, I think

#jujutsu kaisen #yuta okkotsu #yuuta okkotsu #okkotsu yuuta #fushiguro toji #toji fushiguro #rika orimoto #orimoto rika #jjk edo AU #yumi writes #manifesto commentary #just got back from a 2-days holiday #took some hot baths got some bubbles #ate some good food. basically i just relaxed #and wrote. i did do that too

[incorrectgundamwingquotes]

Duo: The hell does “katana” mean anyway?

Heero: It means “Japanese Sword.”

#source: samurai cop #duo maxwell #heero yuy #submission #submitted by: ostracizedcunt

[incorrectbnhaquotes]

Monoma: I’ll see you in court.

Bakugou: Motherfucker, I’ll see you in Hell!

#submission #anonymous #monoma neito #bakugou katsuki #boku no hero academia #incorrect bnha quotes #source: samurai cop

[komaedanagitotrash1]

Mahiru: I'll see you in the class trial.

Fuyuhiko: Motherfucker, I'll see you in hell!

#mahiru koizumi #fuyuhiko kuzuryuu #source: samurai cop #danganronpa #incorrect quotes #danganronpa incorrect quotes #mod aiko

[incorrectagsquotes]

Patrick: I’ll see you in court.

Pan: Motherfucker, I’ll see you in Hell!

#pan #patrick rebarre #the devil's engine #the devils engine #tde #incorrect quotes #source: samurai cop

[ppikol]

#tf2 #source #samurai cop

[graphicpolicy]

Source Point Press' Releases in August 2019

Source Point Press' Releases in August 2019 #comics #comicbooks

Dead End Kids #2

Order Code: JUN191916

Things get worse as the kids come face-to-face with Ben’s killer! And, as Murphy continues to take more drastic measures to avenge his friend, Tank and Amanda are faced with the question of how far are they willing to follow their friend down that dark path. Friendships are tested and broken, and that’s not the worst of it as this breakout series from…

View On WordPress

#boston metaphysical society #comic books #Comics #dead end kids #floppy cop #hope #norah #samurai grandpa #sham #sioux fals #source point press #the love she offered #the rot #twiztid: haunted high-ons darkness rises

[charlesoberonn]

I’m writing one story pitch a day for a writing challenge.

Here’s the first one:

Title: Out Theres

Genre: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Crime Drama

Premise: A man is in prison for a murder committed while an alternate self was in control of his body. While in prison he discovers the ability to swap bodies with alternate versions of himself from other universes. Now he is trying to find the real killer out in the multiverse.

Characters:

Carl - Previously an unambitious office worker in his 30s. He was in the middle of proposing to his fiance when he found himself in another universe. Sometime later he came back and found his fiance dead. He was convicted of her murder and sentenced to life in prison.

He used to be timid and careful, taking things slow and keeping his head low. But ever since going to prison and discovering his abilities he became much more ambitious and outgoing and discovered darker aspects of his personality.

Carl can swap minds with alternate versions of himself in the multiverse. While he is in their bodies, they are in his. He has limited access to their memories, allowing him to more or less take their place, but he has a limited time before the swap reverts, so whatever he has to do he has to do it fast.

Jeffrey - Buff guy in his late 20s. In prison for killing his rapist who got away with it. He is Carl’s cellmate and close confidant. The only one who knows Carl’s ability and when the alternate Carls take over his body he makes sure nobody notices. He is carefree most of the time but when things get intense he freaks out and can even lash out. He is good natured and kind and polite but he also has a dark side.

Yolana - Carl’s fiancee. A sophisticated but outgoing and cheery woman. Fiercely intelligent and a lover of puzzles. A bit of a short temper, and a bit of a guilt complex. In our universe she is killed by Evil Carl when he is in Carl’s body. But in other universes she is often still alive and is there to help our Carl when he needs her. 

Evil Carl - Another version of Carl with the same ability. He used his powers to cause havoc and commit crimes with no conquesques, or so he thought. He was a fugitive from an interdimensional police force, but he managed to convince them that our Carl was him. So now he’s scot free to go about his business causing havoc. He is all of Carl’s negative traits to an extreme degree. Outgoing, charismatic, but sociopathic and violent as well.

Officer Xen - An interdimensional cop. She travels physically from universe to universe and can take the form of the inhabitants wherever she finds herself. Whenever Carl is out of his own universe, she goes after him. She is a bit of a maverick who loves her job, but gets annoyed easily by small things. She is tough and pretends not to care, but it hides a softer, sadder inner self.

MuPH - The Multiversal Personal Helper. Xen’s assistant, a helpful robot with a cheery attitude. One of the main sources of annoyance for Xen. Is more sympathetic to Carl than his boss. He also has a bit of a twisted sense of humor, and he enjoys violence and drama.

Setting:

The Prison - A maximum penitentiary full of hardened criminals. Killers, gang leaders, and corrupt guards. For allegedly killing his fiance Carl is particularly hated by the other prisoners and staff. Besides normal criminals, the prison is also home to various mysteries and weird stuff due to sitting on top of an interdimensional nexus.

Whenever Carl uses his powers, this nexus is probed and something else comes through. Jeffrey and the alternate Carl in Carl’s body often have to contend with these visitors.

Interdimensional Police Headquarters - A labyrinthian extradimensional castle full of doors into different universes. The place is ancient, and existed long before the Interdimensional Police made it their headquarters. They fitted it with technology and transportation to the different universes, but it’s still not fully explored and is full of weird entities and secrets.

The Multiverse - A possibly infinite number of alternate universes, each of them sharing some similarities with our own, but with a lot of differences as well. Some universes have the same laws of physics but a different history. Others operate differently, like with fantasy rules of magic, or cartoon logic, etc.

Examples of alternate universes:

Elfworld - A fantasy world with magic and elves that constantly wage race wars against each other for the most minute of differences. Elf Carl and Yolana are both magical peacekeepers in a neighborhood particularly fraught with racial tensions.

Congressworld - A world similar to our own, except that Carl is a congressman currently running for president. This world’s United States is in the middle of a crisis caused by a recent civil war against Fascist rebels.

Swordworld - A world of roving knights, samurai, and musketeers. Some of them robbers, while others are vigilantes. Carl is the squire of a heroic but full-of-herself knight Yolana.

Asteroidworld - In this world the Earth has been destroyed decades ago and its remains are a mining operation for an alien corporation. The few remaining humans live on a reservation on the planet Mars. Carl is a meek office worker in the mining corporation.

Factoryworld - This world is a grim, black and while, horror dimension. The entire universe is a massive factory complex full of enormous dark machines, roaming monsters, and mindless zombie workers. Carl is one of the zombie workers. When he travels to this world, our Carl retains his intellect at first but slowly loses it, becoming more zombie-like.

#writing #a pitch a day #charles writes

[animenostalgia]

Announcements from Discotek’s 12/13 streaming panel!

In regards to older anime, here’s what Discotek announced on their streaming panel last night:

A true HD bluray steelbook release of Angel Cop, made with newly found HD source and including new special features! This will be Discotek’s first steelbook release.

A bluray release of Lupin III Part 1, with a brand new English dub.

A bluray release of Lupin III Episode Zero: First Contact with a brand new English dub.

An SD-bluray release of Galactic Gale Baxinger.

A bluray release of Cat’s Eye.

Pre-orders for upcoming releases (such as the upcoming City Hunter 3, Samurai Troopers with Ronin Warriors dub on HD bluray, Urusei Yatsura movies 3 & 4, etc) will be up on Rightstuf starting Dec 14, 2021 after 2PM ET!

#news #Discotek Media #announcements #steelbook #Angel Cop #Lupin III #Baxinger #Cat's Eye #anime on bluray #affiliate link

[ashenpages]

Current Projects & Emoji Voting Key

Quick disclaimer: I’m a romance writer in all aspects of the term, so most of my works will contain mature content. Engage at your own risk, you know the rules, you’re responsible for curating your own experience of the internet, blah blah blah.

This post serves as a current mock up of fic ideas I’m either actively working on or considering working on next. You can drop me an ask about any of them, or just vote via the emoji combo I’ve assigned them.

Voting lets me know you’re excited about an idea and makes it more likely I’ll actually work on it. You can vote anytime, there’re no deadlines or winner announcements, just me gauging your interest by what I see in my ask box most often.

You can also ask me about the original stuff I’m working on currently. The current WIPs are Medusa centric and the emoji for them is: 🐍

Support my original work on Ko-fi and Patreon.

- Lupin: 🤑🤠💍  These are all oneshot ideas, between 5-15K each. If you want to vote for a specific idea, send me the emojis and the number of the idea.

Born from the idea that Goemon and Zenigata probably couldn’t be an item, my brain decided to come up with how I could write for them. Goemon’s teaching an ikebana class as part of his training, and Zenigata shows up as a student on forced recreational leave for his health from the ICPO. Zenigata wins the samurai’s heart through flowers. But what happens when Lupin and Jigen find out? (Only good sexy things, I promise. These beans are in a healthy polycule--be gay, do crimes) (WIP)

Jigen/Lupin, but it's Jigen deciding to seduce Lupin while wearing his own Lupin disguise. The thief is waaaaay too into it, and some artistry is taken with the sex so that they don't mess up the disguise too much during their encoutner.

Jigen/Zenigata/Lupin where Jigen has some fantasices about Zenigata, but is pretty sure they'll never happen. Tells Lupin about them. Suddenly the fantasies are coming true, in the middle of a heist, and Jigen doesn't what to do except get swept up in the moment and enjoy. Plot twist, it's Lupin dressed up as Zenigata granting all his gunman's dreams. Plot twist again, Zenigata catches them at it.

Zenigata/Lupin, where Lupin keeps doing good things in illegal ways and Pops has to find a way to punish him for it. Good thing for Pops Lupin's a masochist?

Trans!Lupin and Trans!Jigen premise: Jigen cares for Lupin after the master thief has top surgery, since Jigen has Been There and Done That. Caring, sweet, and a little sexy. Lupin is a much better patient than Jigen.

The one time Zenigata caught Lupin in an alley and kissed him and it was Jigen in disguise. Things get sexy anyway, and Zenigata has crushes on two thieves now. Lupin and Jigen "kidnap" him later for an evening of taking care of their inspector.

The background plot of Jigen's Gravestone where we see Jigen think he's done for and try to leave Lupin. Our thief has none of it, and we get to relish in the inherent eroticism of Lupin sitting in sniper fire, knowing Jigen's got his back. This is the moment I think Jigen finally believes he can be with Lupin forever.

I love the idea of something longer and more plot driven like a Lupin special where Lupin ends up in hot water and Jigen and Fujiko have to work together to save him. Jigen and Fujiko have such an interesting relationship. They're both partners of Lupin, they don't really like each other, they constantly screw the other over, but when it really matters they take care of each other. I'd like to see that highlighted a little more and also give them space to call each other out and bicker. Nothing sexy between them, but maybe a really interesting threesome with Lupin and Fujiko in a strap on once they save their boy.

- Sonic Vampire Novelist Coffee Shop AU: 📚☕💐

Shadow is an immortal vampire who has seen the world change for the worse too many times. These days it feels like he only lives for his coffee dates with Rouge, another immortal who loves each new era they encounter, warts and all. He has to admit that the book series she got him into speaks to him, at least. If someone in this era can understand him without meeting him, it can’t all be bad. But he hardly expected the goofy blue barista at the new coffee place to understand him the way those books do.

This is a novel length romcom romp with some big feelings about what it means to watch as things change, grow, and die. Expect lots of Big gothic feelings from this one, emotionally charged kissing, and overly-adoring sex. But also expect shenanigans from everyone in the coffee shop, which include Rouge, Amy, Tails, Knuckles, Cream, and more.

- Sonic Blazamy, "Like the Sun": 💖🌸💎

Amy Rose has been in love with Sonic for a while.

Or has she?

When the Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, and Silver are trapped as the fuel sources for Doctor Eggman’s newest evil scheme, Amy teams up with Blaze, Rouge, and Cream to save them. With Sonic out of the picture and Amy fulfilling his role, was she ever really in love with him? Or did she just want to be like him?

This is a novel length epic romance with lots of competent women and lots of romantic Blazamy content. Expect flowery hopes and dreams, badass self-actualization, and glancing hand touches that give way to cuddly and sweet sex.

- Persona 5: 🗡🍛☕

After bringing down the Metaverse twice, Ryuji didn’t think graduating high school and figuring out what to do with his life would be so hard. Akira’s back in town, and the gang’s more-or-less all in Tokyo, but everyone else seems to have a plan while Ryuji just floats. How’s he supposed to change the world when he’s not a phantom thief anymore?

This is a novel length fic that addresses how powerless one can feel being just one person in the face of all the corrupted systems and bigotry the world has to offer. It’s about holding on to what you believe in, working through the doubt, and fighting your way to a better tomorrow with the power you do have. The whole gang is queer, featured relationships being Mako x Ann, Ryuji x Akira, Futaba & Yusuke as platonic life partners. Akira is polyamorous and omnisexual, Futaba’s asexual and aromantic while Yusuke is demisexual and very romantic, Makoto’s a lesbian, Ann and Ryuji are bi, and Haru’s pansexual, demisexual, and aromantic. They’re one giant band of queer Phantom Thieves, and even if they’re not really doing the Metaverse thing anymore, they’re still gonna save the world!

Also, I’m gonna make Makoto not a cop. That super didn’t age well. Zenkichi and his boss can work on making them better/abolishing them for other better organizations.

- Hades Game: ❤️‍🔥💀

Oneshot. I just really need to elaborate on the threesome you can have with them in-game, okay? Healthy and canon poly relationships are so few and far between, so often I have to do a ton of groundwork to explain why it’s working in the fic, but NOT WITH THESE KIDS!

Get ready for Meg helping Zag and Than be better at expressing their feelings, lots of kissing, and probably pegging.

- Castlevania Animation Trevor/Sypha/Alucard: 🧛🏰🛌

Castlevania gave Alucard a threesome last season, and I just really need S4 to give me him being taken care of by his partners. They’re probably not going to give it to me, so I’ll need to do it myself. This is just an everybody loves Alucard oneshot, with the gang’s signature banter (to an extent), Sypha being sexy, and Trever being remarkably sincere. This fic is gonna feel like that Ann Hathaway picture with Trevor kissing Alucard and Sypha holding the end of Trevor’s whip while she leans her head on Alucard’s shoulder adoringly.

- Devil May Cry Nico/Lady/Trish: 💋✨😈

Nico’s gay, okay? Like really, really gay. And Lady’s bi and not into men who make her pay bills, but very into women who make amazing guns for her and demonesses with hearts who fight by her side. Trish is ace, but loves people and is pretty attached to Lady at this point. Plus it’s cute when Lady blushes and says nice things like they’re insults. I don’t have super solid ideas for them yet, and I envision these more like a polycule where Lady’s with Nico and with Trish but they’re not with each other more than seeing it as a threesome, but who knows what might happen. This is probably 1-2 oneshots depending on ideas, but might turn into a series of oneshots if people are interested (or I can’t control myself and inspiration strikes).

- Post FMA:B Blind Roy & No Alchemy Ed: 👀👑🙏

This is actually an old novel-length fic I wrote ages ago and didn’t post that didn’t turn out well because I was new to writing sex when I first wrote it. The plot is good, and is all about Roy learning to work with his blindness to reclaim his ambition of being Fuhrer and changing the system to something that actually cares for its people. He and Ed reconnect, fall into bed, and both set about working through their respective traumas about being “useless” having lost their sight/alchemy. They go to Xing as an ambassadorial party to offer Amestris’s collaboration on Al and May’s Alkahestry experiments--and uncover a plot that might threaten both kingdoms.

- Age of Calamity continuity Mipha x Revali: 🦚🐟💘

The first time Revali noticed Mipha, it was in the heat of battle. She stole his mark, taking them down with a flurry of quick blows from her spear. Violence rained from her like water--and then she healed him on her way to her next battle. No questions, no conditions, just pure kindness. The usual need to measure himself against those around him was quiet in her wake. And Revali couldn’t understand it. But how to get to know more about her? A fish and bird may fall in love, but where would they live?

This fic could be a oneshot or novel length depending on how far down the hole I fall. I need it to cover time, but it could be done in linked vignettes or with actually covering events in detail. I may elect to do a oneshot just to get it done and out of my system faster. So much fic to write, so little time.

Expect trans!Revali, polyamorous Zoras, scary competent Mipha, songbird Revali, love confessions that are made up entirely of berating Link for not loving Mipha the way she wants him to, and breaking these characters a little outside of their assigned roles in BotW and Age of Calamity. Background Link x Zelda, and Urbosa x Zelda’s Mom.

- Epic desert romance about Urbosa and Zelda’s mom: 🏜🏝⚡

I just think Urbosa should kiss women and Zelda’s mom should get more development and maybe a name or something. Also, lightning imagery/metaphors/play.

It also went way over my head that Riju wasn’t Urbosa’s daughter the first time I played BotW, so now I want to write about the Gerudo queen who refused to produce an heir. The Gerudo are fascinating and have a very interesting cutlure, but I think it could be examined from a nonbinary perspective that rejected pregnancy and wanting to find a husband. Not in like a hateful way, but in a way that examines if that’s really right for everyone. There’s that shop in town that sells Voe armor, after all. Maybe finding a husband and having children isn’t something you have to do if you don’t want to. And Urbosa really doesn’t want to.

#age of calamity #Devil May Cry #RoyEd #Castlevania #Breath of the Wild #Hades Game #Sonic the Hedgehog #Lupin III #Persona 5

[watusichris]

The movie legacy of “Red Harvest”

Strange but true: Dashiell Hammett’s fantastic 1929 hardboiled novel Red Harvest has spawned no less than four movie adaptations – including two certified genre classics – but has never been credited on the screen as the original source material.

The book was the debut full-length work by Hammett, who would go on to create such enduring screen characters as detectives Sam Spade (in The Maltese Falcon) and Nick and Nora Charles (in The Thin Man). However, screenwriting sleight-of-hand robbed the writer of full credit for his blood-soaked work, which spawned the samurai opus Yojimbo (1961), the spaghetti Western A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and the gangster sagas Miller’s Crossing (1990) and Last Man Standing (1996).

Originally serialized in the tough-guy pulp magazine Black Mask, Red Harvest featured a protagonist/narrator already familiar to readers of Hammett’s short stories: the short, fat, hard-drinking, and clever operative of the Continental Detective Agency known only as the Continental Op. (Hammett never gave him a name.

The book was inspired by Hammett’s own early career at the Pinkerton Detective Agency, which was frequently hired by industrialists to break strikes, employing any means necessary. The writer’s biographer Diane Johnson suggests that he may have been involved in the 1917 murder of a union organizer named Frank Little in Butte, Montana.

In the novel, the lone wolf detective arrives in a corrupt, lawless Montana town named Personville (known as “Poisonville” by some) at the behest of a local mining magnate and newspaper publisher, whose empire is being threatened by the warring gangs of mobsters he hired to bust up a labor conflict and have now taken over the city’s rackets. The first corpse hits the pavement in the novel’s first few pages, and the bodies pile up so fast and so high that the Op himself loses count at 19 or so.

Amid the mounting carnage, the Op manages to stay alive by playing the murderous thugs and on-the-take cops against one another. Like Spade in The Maltese Falcon, the nameless detective, who is not afraid to ignore the letter of the law, uses the snares and tactics of his criminal adversaries to defeat them at their own game.

Hollywood made only one ill-fated attempt to translate Hammett’s book to the screen, in the little-seen early 1930 talkie Roadhouse Nights. The Op became a newspaperman played by comic actor Charlie Ruggles, and the film itself dispensed with most of the plot to become a vehicle for two singers, Helen Morgan (the star of Show Boat on Broadway) and vaudevillian Jimmy Durante.

It was left to Japanese director Akira Kurosawa and his co-screenwriter Ryuzo Kikushima to make the first, savage movie version of Red Harvest, 31 years later, as Yojimbo (The Bodyguard).

Transplanting the action to provincial Japan in 1860 and dramatically paring down Hammett’s byzantine plot, the movie follows the machinations of a lone ronin – a masterless samurai – who wanders into a nearly deserted town ravaged by violence and disorder. (Played by Kurosawa’s frequent star Toshiro Mifune, he assumes the moniker “Sanjuro,” though his true name is never known.) Deserted by its law-abiding citizens, the city is being torn apart by conflict between a pair of rival gangs in the service of two wealthy adversaries, a sake brewer and a silk merchant.

All the elements that would reappear in later versions of the story are in place here. A master swordsman, Sanjuro sells his services to both sides in the conflict, flip-flopping his loyalties from one minute to the next. His only ally is the town saloon keeper. He slyly rescues a married woman who has been taken as a hostage and concubine by one of the bosses and reunites her with her husband.

His deception is uncovered, and – in a sequence drawn from another serialized Hammett novel, The Glass Key (1931) – he is beaten nearly to death before making a dramatic escape, during which he witnesses the wholesale extermination of one of the gangs. Finally recovered from his wounds, he has a climactic duel with the other gang and its punk second-in-command Unosuke (Tatsuya Nakadai), who owns the only pistol in the town.

Yojimbo was a great enough success that it spawned a sequel, the comedic Sanjuro, in 1962. Perhaps more importantly, a 1963 screening of Kurosawa’s original film at the Arlecchino cinema in Rome inspired a B-movie director to make a Western adaptation, which failed to credit its samurai derivation.

Sergio Leone’s low-budget 1964 feature A Fistful of Dollars – perhaps not the first “spaghetti Western,” but certainly the most famous – translated the elements of Kurosawa’s story to the fictitious Mexican border town of San Miguel. “Sanjuro” became a poncho-clad Western gun-for-hire played by Clint Eastwood, late of the American TV series Rawhide. (Though one character refers to Eastwood’s character as “Joe,” ads for the American release of the film pegged him as “The Man With No Name.”)

The battling factions of Kurosawa’s picture became two outlaw gangs tussling for control of the city, the Rojos (Mexicans) and the Baxters (Americans). The mercenary anti-hero’s main adversary, patterned after Unosuke, was the crazed Winchester rifle-wielding Ramon Rojo, played by the masterful Italian actor Gian Maria Volonte (incongruously billed as “Johnny Wels”). With one major plot addition – the massacre of a Mexican army detachment by the Rojos’ gang – the feature followed Kurosawa’s film point by point, with a uniquely gritty, sunbaked look and operatic approach that set the spaghetti Western style for all time.

Noting Red Harvest as the source of Yojimbo, Leone said in a 1971 interview, “What I wanted to do was to undress these [Japanese] puppets, and turn them into cowboys, to make them cross the ocean and to return to their place of origin.”

But Leone paid the price for his piracy. Sued for plagiarism by Kurosawa – who remarked in a letter to the Italian filmmaker, “[A Fistful of Dollars] is a very fine film, but it is my film” – he was forced to surrender 15% of the worldwide gross and turn over distribution rights of his film in Japan and the Far East to the Japanese director’s company. Undaunted, Leone brought back the Man With No Name in a pair of larger-scaled, more violent sequels, For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), with Eastwood returning in his career-making role.

Oddly enough, the slam-bang action of Red Harvest and the heady box office receipts of its two adaptations did not inspire an American rendering of the story for decades. And, when it finally reached the screen for the first time, the tale ended up as an original pastiche of two Hammett novels.

Written by brothers Joel and Ethan Coen – who had used a phrase borrowed from Red Harvest as the title of their 1984 debut feature Blood Simple – and directed by Joel Coen, Miller’s Crossing reinstated the Prohibition-era setting of Hammett’s stories. The gang war conflict of Red Harvest is staged in the Coens’ feature between Irish mobster Leo O’Bannon (Albert Finney) and his Italian rival Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito), who come to blows over the activities of Jewish bookie Bernie Bernbaum (John Turturro).

However, the film’s stormy central relationship, between O’Bannon and his fixer, friend, and confidant Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne), replicates the alliance between mobbed-up political boss Paul Madvig and his faithful right-hand man Ned Beaumont, who fends off gangster Shad O’Rory’s power play in The Glass Key.

Despite its obvious derivations from Hammett’s books, Miller’s Crossing was a wholly original piece of work that transcended the uncredited glosses on its sources. The same could not be said for the other gangster-pic adaptation, Last Man Standing, which, while it more or less restored Hammett’s original setting, credited the Kurosawa-Kikushima script for Yojimbo as its inspiration.

Bruce Willis plays a freelance gunman calling himself “John Smith” – a name that draws cackles from his foes – who rolls into the Depression-era Texas border town of Jericho in a Model T Ford, packing two shoulder-holstered .45s and an immutably sullen expression. Dressing the ceaseless violence of the plot in a dusty neo-Leone palette, writer-director Walter Hill trots through Yojimbo’s original plot points, turning the warring factions into rival bootleggers (Irish and Italian, of course) and tacking on the massacre from A Fistful of Dollars to lift the body count.

Willis’ Smith is the putative hero of the piece, and, while he rescues the damsel in distress like his samurai and spaghetti Western predecessors, his relentless misogyny and utter humorlessness, and the actor’s silly, open-mouthed “shootout face,” make him a difficult figure to root for. The lone bright spot in the picture is the reliably weird Christopher Walken’s chilly turn as the scar-faced top gunman Hickey, a clone of his psycho precursors Unosuke and Ramon Rojo, who wields a Tommy gun instead of a pistol or a repeating rifle.

Last Man Standing is a poor excuse for an American rendering of Red Harvest, and it leaves one hoping that someday a truly gifted director will take up Hammett’s grimly funny, dark novel and its pudgy, boozy, cagey hero and give them the widescreen homegrown treatment they deserve. The book is an American classic, and it deserves a rendering in its own, long-buried name.