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samandcolbyownme · 17 days

Note

more zach justice smut pleaseeee

As you WISH! I’m excited to write this one!

Warnings: SMUT18+, strong language/swearing, sneaking around, Bridgerton setting/themed, unprotected sex, kissing, biting, hair pulling, secret sex, almost getting caught, lots of proper language/actions, and lots of fluff and nasty filth

This is inspired by Bridgerton. There will be no spoilers for part 1 of season 3! But, if you have seen the show, you know they’re all british.. so.. read this as if everyone has an accent.

Word Count: 3.5k | not edited

I genuinely thought this song was bridgerton coded for this specifically?? (also, I added this at the end, so instead of daddy it will be mother - when you read, it’ll make sense, hopefully, k love you all bye!)

◦❥•◦❥•◦

You’ve been tossing and turning for hours into the late night.

Your mind bouncing back and forth between Duke Zachary, or as he likes only you to call him, Zach, and the Queen’s ball.

You loved Zach, you’ve come to love him with your full being, you just didn’t know if he knew that, but you didn’t think he was that foolish.

You were named, what the gossip letter in your town - Lady Felicity calls, the Diamond of the season. Mainly because you gained a lot more looks than any of the other girls who are also looking for a suitor along side yourself.

You wanted a husband, of course, but you want Zach to be the one to take your hand in marriage. He’s never said about if he wanted to or not, but you just wanted him so bad you didn’t care what you had to do or say.

You were wrapped around his finger, but he couldn’t deny it no matter how hard he tried - He was wrapped around yours, too.

You rolled over, staring up at the ceiling as you remember the first time you saw him.

- Your mother reaches over, tapping your knee gently, “Y/n, sweetheart.” You remove your stare from the window and place it onto her with a soft smile, “Yes Mother?”

“You look beautiful tonight, darling.” She smiles, placing the edge of her fan to her lips as her eyes grow watery, “oh.” She shakes her head, “I just knew you would be this seasons diamond.”

You shake your head as you look down, “I don’t recall you ever taking a liking to Lady Felicity, now Mother, I-..” The carriage jolts forward and you laugh slightly, “I will find a husband on my own terms. Lady Felicty can speak about whatever they must.”

The door opens and your mother steps out first, followed by your brother and sister, and then you. You look around, nodding your head at the man who helped you step down.

“Alright.” Your mother says as she links her arm with yours, “Come along, my dear. I hear there’s a Duke looking for a lady to wed.” You raise your eyebrows, “A Duke you say? Is he handsome?” You laugh slightly, eyes glancing around at the beautifully decorated ballroom.

“From what I’ve come to know, he is the most beloved suitor by all the young ladies.” Your mother nudges your side, “But just remember, you need to keep your options open.”

You walk up to Queen Darcie and the person closest to her, Lady Caswel. You both do a small curtsy as you bow your heads. “Your Majesty.” Your mother smiles, looking over to Lady Caswel, “Lady Caswel.”

They both nod and then their eyes turn to you. You give them both a smile, “You both look magnificent tonight.”

“Mm.” Queen Darcie nods, “I must say, agreeing with town gossip is not my strongest moment, but you my dear, are the diamond of the season, if I do say so myself.” She points to you and you manage to keep your composure, “Oh my, thank you, your majesty.”

You curtsy to her again and your mother thanks her quickly before walking away with you. You look up at her and you both can’t help but giggle happily as you walk further away. As you rounded the corner, you were bumped into, kind of roughly, by some man walking by.

“Excuse yourself, mister.” You say as you turn, giving him a glaring look, which quickly broke as soon as his eyes met yours, “Please, accept my apologies, um..”

You instantly finish his sentence, “Y/n y/l/n.”

“Please.” He repeats as he moves closer, his hand, his grip just hovering over the skin on your bicep, “My apologies, Miss Y/n.”

His hand moves down to take your hand in his. His lips press against your glove covered knuckles, and even thought his isn’t touching your skin, his touch still sets you on fire.

Giving you a feeling you have never felt for someone before, “Duke Zachary.” —

You let out a sigh before finally giving in to just being awake.

A yawn slips out as you swing your legs over the edge of the bed, reaching forward to grab your satin robe off of the arm of the chair by your bedside stand.

You slip your feet into your matching slippers before standing up. The back of the robe falling to cover the back of your legs as you tie it closed in the front.

You pause, your fingers coming up to cover your lips as your eyes meet the man you shouldn’t be seeing, like this at least.

You glance over your shoulder before you move to unlock your window and push it open. You lean forward, shaking your head as you fight back laughter as you watch the man scale the walls of your home to get to you.

He’s finally face to face with you and you can’t help but smile and lunge in to kiss him.

He wraps an arm around your waist, pushing you backwards as he climbs in and closes the window, “Have you missed me, sweetheart?” He whispers against your lips as his hands move to undo the bow resting on your torso.

“More than you can ever imagine.” You smile as you pull him back to your bed, “We have to be qu-“

He kisses you mid sentence, mumbling a quiet, “I know” before pushing you back to lay on the bed, his body moving up over yours, kissing the skin that isn’t being covered by your robe or nightgown.

“Please.” You beg as you lace your fingers through his hair, “Touch me. It has been far..” His hand drags your nightgown up your thigh.

“Too..” you breathe out as you feel his hand dip between your, now parting thighs, “Long, my darling.”

You lay your hand on his neck, biting down on your lip as your feel his lips press against your skin, his fingers moving to lay on your clit and he looks up at you with a smirk, “Mm, no panties, sweetheart?”

You bite your lip, giving him a shrug, “Couldn’t sleep.”

He licks his lips, parting them as he watches your face twist with pleasure as he starts to slowly rub circles on your clit.

Your nails dig into his neck and you let out a semi loud moan. Zach kisses your parted lips, your panting breathes brushing against his, “Shh.”

He slides two fingers down and pushes them into your soaked cunt, “Did you succeed with pleasuring yourself?”

You whimper as Zach’s question makes a rose colored tint appear a top your cheeks, “N-no.” He tilts his head, “No? Did you do it like I showed you, darling?”

You nod, rolling your hips as you desperately chase your release that’s building up rather quickly, “I-I tried, Zachary.”

He groans at his full first name coming from your lips, “We shall work on it another time, my love.” He leans in, moving his lips with yours and your hands pull him closer to you, whimpering against his lips as his fingers are dragging you over the edge.

He pushes his bicep under your head and curls his arm around to lay his hand over your mouth.

Your walls squeeze his fingers as they work you through your high, his other hand keeping your moans from getting the two of you caught.

That would be a nightmare, people knowing that you have been, as they say, defiled before marriage.

“I have missed this.” Zach whispers, “I have missed you.” He plants a few kisses to your cheek as he withdrawals his fingers from you.

He brings them up to rest upon your bottom lip and they part like they already knew what to do.

He gasps as he watches your lips wrap around them, humming as your tongue works up and down, licking off the taste of yourself, “If anyone knew.. just how devious you truly are..”

He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth as his eyes scan over your face and you smirk, bringing your finger up drag along his jawline, “And just what would they say?”

You hum lowly as your eyes meet his, “Do tell me, my darling.”

He rolls over, pinning your hands down by your head, “I think they would go on a ravenous tangent about how I defiled your pureness and ruined such a beautiful..” he kisses your chest, “young woman.”

He groans into your neck as his tongue drags up your skin, “But they wouldn’t be saying those things if they knew just how radiant you look beneath the touch of my own hand.”

You moan out at his words and his kiss cuts it short. While your lips move in a heated passion, his hand moves down to drag your nightgown up your legs and hold it at your waist while he grinds against you.

Your hand that isn’t still pinned down, moves down to undo the button on his trousers. Zach smirks and shakes his head, “Getting so much quicker at that.”

You smile and slip your hand in, both of you gasping quietly when your hand slides against his cock.

Zach reaches down, laying a hand over yours, “I need to be inside of you.”

You move to take off your panties as quick as you can, all while he’s pushing his trousers down his thighs, “so beautiful.” He leans forward, eyes locked onto yours as your legs fall over your waist.

You feel the tip of his cock rub against your opening and you feel your heart beating faster, “P-please.” You whisper, hips practically moving on their own, begging for the feeling of his cock inside of you.

Zach’s head falls, resting against your forehead as your moans from him sliding into you, mix together, “Oh, my god.” He sighs, shaking his head slightly, “It always feels like I’m taking you for the very first time again.”

You whimper as he crashes his lips onto yours, his hand sliding up to gently wrap around your neck, “I love you.”

You part your lips, adoring those words like you haven’t heard them over and over again.

You’d marry Zach now, but your mother thinks it’s best to give it a little while, make sure you truly feel happy with him, and not just because of his title.

Your mother would turn into an absolute lunatic if she knew just how often you see Duke Zachary and also, what you do with him when no one is watching.

“I love you.” You whisper, nodding up at him as you lay a hand on his cheek, “I love you.”

He pulls you close to him, rolling over onto his back. He grips your hips, getting you to keep moving. He moves the nightgown that fell down to block his view, “You take me so incredibly well, darling.”

You look down at him, biting into your lip to muffle your moans as your hands push his crumpled dress shirt up.

He reaches up, pulling down the low cut neckline so it’s under your breasts. His eyes focus on his hands moving to knead and squeeze, earning whimpers from you.

You gasp loudly and Zach pulls you down onto his chest, his arms wrap around your back before he begins to thrust upward.

You bury your face into his chest, gasping and clawing at his chest as you feel suddenly feel nothing but pleasure radiate all through your body.

It wasn’t long after, Zach’s hips come to a slow stop, his arms loosen around your body and his chest heaves you up and down with each quick breath he takes.

It’s silent, nothing but the faint pants coming from your bodies, which lay motionless together on your bed.

“The Queen’s Ball is tonight.” You say as your eyes glance over at the clock on your nightstand that reads 04:26 AM, “I’m going with Mother in a few hours to fetch my dress from the Modiste.”

You sit up, fixing your nightgown before standing, “Mother thinks I should explore more options.”

Zach furrows his brows, sitting up as soon as the words leave your lips, “Hang on, that doesn’t make any sense, I thought she loved me?”

You laugh slightly, “She does, darling. She does. And I do, too.” You lean down to kiss his lips, “I think the Queen wants to watch the men fall for this seasons diamond.”

“Mm.” Zach nods, pursing his lips, “I’m going to have to put up a harder fight out there, huh?”

You cover your mouth as you giggle, crawling back into his lap, “I think it’s quite..” you scrunch your nose and smirk, “Sexy.”

He straights his posture and smiles, “Well, thank you m’lady.” You laugh and press kisses to his neck. He pulls his neck away and turns his face into hours, “I don’t believe we have time to go again, my love.”

You sigh, still attempting to kiss him, “Are you certain?”

He chuckles quietly and lifts his hand and grabs you by the neck. You gasp at the sudden move and he pushes you back, biting his lip at how much control he has over you, what you and Duke Zachary have is once in a lifetime.

“My mind isn’t going to be able to focus on the Queen’s Ball tonight.” He shakes his head, eyes moving from his hand to your eyes, “Not when I have the imagine of my hand wrapped around this beautiful little throat in there, as well.”

Your breath hitches at his words and he can’t help but smirk, “I’ll see you tonight.” He pulls you in, pecking your lips before moving to fix himself as he walks over to your window.

“Be safe.” You stand up, watching as he climbs out the open window. He looks up at you and gives you a wink, “Always.”

And with that, he’s gone, but you knew you were definitely seeing him way before the Queen’s Ball.

◦❥•◦❥•◦

Your secret romance with Duke Zachary has been going on since the night he ran into you, even after the nights you spent dancing and flirting with other men, mainly just to make your other and the Queen happy.

You and Zach both knew that it didn’t mean anything. You saved everything for him, especially when you got him alone afterwards.

You were certain, as soon as you laid eyes on him, that he was the one, and just like you told Zach, you were the diamond of the season.

You had more suitors coming to your home to try and swoon you in a day than you really thought was unnecessary.

Zach, of course. Showed up everyday and stayed until they all left. He intimidated them, which you couldn’t help but snicker secretly at when you seen the look on the losing suitors face.

You can never bring yourself to ask Zach about it, you just convince yourself that it’ll happen, but it’s almost the end of the season and you haven’t had a ring slipped on your finger yet.

You took a deep breath, smoothing your hands over the fabric of the beautiful dress beneath your bare hands, “Anastasia did a marvelous job.”

You look over at your mother in the mirror, “Don’t you think, mother?”

Your mother looks up, “Oh yes. Yes. I believe she did do a very-“

“What is it?” You cut her off, turning to face her. The housemaid glances up at you and you sigh slightly, trying to compose yourself, “Sorry.”

You look up at your mother and she tilts her head, “The Queen wants you engaged by tonight.”

“Tonight? Why so soon? What has changed, mother?”

She tilts her head, “You are drawing.. too much attention away from the other girls. The Queen thinks it is best you accept one of the engagements you already have extended out to you.

You feel a dull ache in your chest.

The engagements.

You were actually dreading this, but you can only blame yourself in this situation. You were too caught up with sneaking around and lying to everyone around you that you’re forced to pick one of the options given and the one you one isn’t there.

“Talia. Please give my mother and I a moment.” You glance down at your housemaid and she instantly leaves the room.

“I love Duke Zachary, mother.” You shift towards her, moving the loose skirt of your gown with your hands, “He loves me. I know he’ll propose, I just..”

“He’s..” she steps close, leaning in, “Your brother told me that he’s what they call.. a rake.. I believe.”

You shake your head, “If Duke Zachary spent his time at that underground drunken gambling ring, he would know about the three engagement offers.”

Your mother raises her brows, “And you know this how, sweetheart?”

“He would have spoken to me about it, of course.” You swallow, “On our afternoon walks, he would have asked me what I was going to do because he is still an eligible suitor to me, mother.”

She nods, “Very well then.” She takes a deep breathe, “If Duke Zachary does not propose before midnight tonight. You will accept another suitors proposal. Right.”

“No.” You shake your head, “I won’t, mother. You cannot make me marry someone I do not love and I promise you I will not love anyone like I love Zachary.”

You step down off of the platform, “I will marry him. I will have him children.”

Your mother’s eyes grow wide and she lays a hand on her chest, “Have yo-

You bite down on your lip, “I’m not, but you should see your face.” You raise your brows, laughing at the fact that Zach has rubbed off on you in more ways that. One.

Your mother scoffs, “Y/n. You will not disgrace the name of this family by not obeying the queens order. You will be engaged by to-“

“I’ll tell you something right now, mother. I would rather burn my whole life down than to do something that will not bring me joy for the rest of my life.”

She stares at you for a few moments, “Is there a reason he hasn’t proposed yet, darling? Has that thought crossed your thoughts at all?”

You shake your head, “Have you not heard the rumors? What lady Felicity has said about Duke Zachary and I?” You walk over, ”He is poetry, and I am his poet.. Please, mother. Give him time.”

She shakes her head, “We must do what the Queen has asked of us.”

You take a few steps back, bunching up your dress as you shake your head, “No.” You run towards the door, dress unbuttoned and ruffling behind you as you run down the hall.

Your mother running out the door after you, “No! Y/n, come back here!”

“Mother no.” Your eldest brother grabs her and holds her back.

You make your way out the front doors, a small crowd following you, unsure of what’s happening, they’re just trying to ensure your safety.

“Y/n!”

You freeze, tear soaked face looking up at Zach, “Zach?” You whisper, barely audible, “What.. what are-“

You stop walking when Zach drops down to one knee, “Y/n..” he starts, reaching out for your hands, “My love.”

You walk up to him immediately, placing your hands into his, not even bothering to wipe away your tears.

“I love you. The other day you asked me why I love you and I told you the truth. You feel like home to me. You have bewitched me. Your mind, your body. Your soul. You complex me in the best ways and I just have this fire within me that only your kiss can put out.” He pulls you down to his level and you sit on your knees, hands moving to cup his cheeks as his do the same to you.

“The most beautiful part about all of this, is that I wasn’t even looking when I found you. If you hadn’t snapped at me for bumping into you, I would have kept moving right along.”

You laugh slightly and sniffle. Zach wipes away your tears and looks into your eyes, “Will you choose me to be the one to spend the rest of your life with?”

“You know about the other engagements?” You squint your eyes and Zach nods, “Well, when you’re running down the street trying to get to you while listening to your sister scream that you need to be engaged by tonight, I got the rest myself.”

“My sis-“ you look over at your sister and she smiles, giving you a small wave. You laugh, “Unbelievable.” You look at Zach, “So what are you asking Duke Zachary?”

He smiles, “I believe, I’m asking if you will do me the honor in marrying me, Miss Y/n.”

He pulls out a ring from his suit pocket and you gasp, “Oh my gosh.” You look up at him, nodding, “Yes, over and over. Yes.”

You pull him in for a kiss and everyone around you cheers as he brings you to your feet, slipping the ring in before he lifts you up, lips on yours as he spins you around, “I love you.”

“I love you.”

◦❥•◦❥•◦

Let me know what you thought of this! As always, I love you all and thank you for reading!! 🖤🖤

Likes and reblogs are majorly appreciated!!

#samandcolby-ownme #Zach justice #inspired by bridgerton #bridgerton #bridgerton fic #Zach justice x reader #Zach justice smut #smut #dirty one shot zach justice #dirty one shot #zach justice dropouts podcast #zach justice fanfiction #zach justice fluff #zach justice x reader smut #zach justice x y/n #zach justice dropouts #zach justice fanfic #Zach justice dirty one shot #bridgerton smut

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autisticgaledekarios · 6 months

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Hey!

i know u stated that u are not confident in honkai star rail but, i was wondering if u could do a luka x reader?

i have a prompt which hopefully is not that detailed.

luka and reader try to set up seelie and Bronya but they pull an uno reverse and they are in fact pretending to not be dating to set luka and reader up (becuz them setting seelie and bronya and bringing them together)

i hope this is not too much! also u can call me 🪞 anon!

Fake dates and cake trays : Luka x gn!reader

I’M SO SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG!ALL MY WRITING MOTIVATION DISAPPEARED 😭 take this apology fic anon-which-i-cant-find-the-emoji-for [also i have 0 idea if my writing Luka was accurate or not :,> ] anyway i edited it so it was like christmas special :D i like ice skating expect ice skating fics WC:1079

Tick,tock,tick,tock. You glanced at your watch, the other two were supposed to be here ten minutes ago.

“Calm down [name], it’ll work!Our plan is foolproof” He chuckled to himself, his red hair swaying a bit. You glanced at his meal, he had ordered a starter. You hadn’t been hungry, so you simply got some water. Luca had scoffed everything down, well almost everything. Even the post-match hunger couldn’t convince him to eat some simple vegetables that came on the side.

You smiled to yourself, “are you even going to eat that?” you moved your hand to the side and grabbed your fork, moving it towards his plate. He made a defensive pout sort of expression. Before giving up and sliding the plate towards you. And you continued chatting.

“Are you going to order anything else?It’s been an hour since you both finished your food” The rather agitated waitress said, the still smile not moving. You glanced nervously at Luka, neither of you had seen Seele and Bronya, the entire reason you had been here.

“Yeah! I’ll get… that please” Luka chirped, pointing to something on the menu. “And they’ll have [your favourite meal idk] “ The waitress nodded, walking away quickly. “I mean, we’re here already?Might as well get some food too.” He chuckled and shrugged.

You didn’t question how he knew your favourite.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

You both waited by the fountain, your eyes were scanning the crowd— and mostly Luka, who was currently trying to pick up a pigeon. To no avail.

FINALLY! You spotted Bronya walk out of the flower shop with Seele, you quickly grabbed the back of Luka’s vest thing, and yanked him towards you.

“Hey— be careful next time” he huffed,rubbing the back of his neck.Before he saw what you saw. “Wait— they didn’t buy anything?!C’mon that was the best plan we have tried so far!” he whined slightly,running his hands through his hair before grinning. “Well! we’ll just have to try again”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You watched as Luka tapped his fingers on the bench, the other two were late again. He seemed restless, or maybe excited. Maybe both. You sighed, resting your chin in your hands.

“do i have something on my face?” He said, and you snapped back. He was looking you directly in the eyes, and for a moment, one moment, you wanted nothing more than to cup his cheeks in your hands and kiss him.

At that thought, you forced a cough, trying to fight the heat rising in your cheeks. “It’s nothing, i just zoned out” You chuckle, and for a second he frowns, before his phone beeps,and he quickly— far too quick to be normal— grabs his phone. He sighs, but you can see his eyes glitter in a way.

“Bronya and Seele aren’t going, apparently there’s some business about the underground they need to sort out.” He says, leaning down to tighten his ice skates. “it’s just us two again”

You stood up, shaking your feet a bit to get used to the weight on your feet, you grabbed Luka’s arm and pulled him up too. He stumbled a bit, but you managed to catch him. You couldn’t help looking at him for a few seconds longer than usual.

He started to walk forward towards the rink, happily dragging you along now, he seemed eager to get on the ice. I mean, it was the best chance ever! If you fell over he could catch you and it would be just oh so romantic, and maybe afterwards he’d be able to ask you to be his partner like he’d been meaning to for the last month. Seele had officially put the boot down, if he wasn’t going to say something. She would do it for him.

You both stood at the edge of the ice, Luka was eager, too eager. He immediately set a foot out, but he clearly didn’t expect it to slip so much as it did.And his leg gave out under him. You managed to catch him , and the look of embarrassment almost made it harder to not laugh than it already was. He was bright red!

He tried again,this time a bit more careful. He stumbled and wobbled around the place,managing to stand up straight while clinging to the railing. After a set of finger guns and almost slipping again. You joined Luka on the ice, it was a bit slippy. But you were able to more or less stay upright. Unlike your friend, you grabbed both his hands, the warm skin of one contrasting with the cool metal of the other.

With some movement you were able to go slightly backwards, you did almost fall. But you got the hang of it, Luka however did not. And every few metres he’d fall again, you’d catch him.

You weren’t able to catch him the last time, he had been improving, and wanted to go a bit of length without your help, but ended up slipping on the ice, and ended up with his palm and knees scratched by the now roughened ice.

Now you were both sitting in an attached cafe, hot chocolates in hand. You watched as he tried to discretely eat the cream before continuing to drink it, but with the low quality wood stir he had picked up it wasn’t going too well. He looked up, and you spent a full moment staring into those damned blue eyes. He tilted his head, and scrunched his eyes slightly in confusion. But you just chuckled in response.

As the time passed, you could sense him getting nervous, his legs were bouncing and he kept glancing around the room. You knew what was going to happen, he wasn’t exactly subtle.

But it was still impossible to not smile when it finally happened. When he finally turned to you and smiled that same damn smile that made your heart feel like it was about to explode. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while, so, wanna be my partner?Like officially and all—“

You grinned, and he seemed confused for a moment. Not seeming to get it. “Can i kiss you?”

“what?”

“can i kiss you” you repeated, and he nodded. You moved forward softly, kissing him softly on the lips, his lips tasted faintly like cherry chapstick, and you faintly recognised it as one of your old ones.

“you stole my chapstick again didnt you?”

#honkai star rail #hsr #honkai star rail x reader #luka x reader #hsr luka x reader #honkai star rail x you #star rail #hsr x reader

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relenafanel · 6 months

Text

For everyone waiting on my next fic, I’m in the middle of rewriting the ending and about to go into the final editing phase for a new fic (“new” as in I started in Feb and it sat there for months)!!!

wangxian modern au

temporarily unrequited love

BFF to lovers pipeline

probably funny?

some very questionable kiss scenes re: whether or not they’ve communicated enough to be kissing at this point in the plot (I don’t want to label it as dubcon so much as it’s dubious life choices on both their parts)

Basic premise:

Wei Ying needs to start considering his feelings for Lan Zhan after he drunkenly climbs into LZ’s bed in the middle of the night (platonic) and sleeping LZ kisses him (non-platonically).

And Wei Ying makes it a habit to not think about feelings, ever. ESPECIALLY where Lan Zhan is concerned.

(Current word count is at about 15k of WWX not looking closely at a single thing he says or does on purpose)

Hopefully it’ll be up soon. I’m thinking Friday unless edits bring up huge issues. I might just throw it on the internet even if they do.

#I will name this fic soon #RelenaFanel writes

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daakjenaar · 9 months

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Sci-fi writers not being racist and unimaginative challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)

I had a dream that I tried to write this recently and accidentally replaced it with footage of me playing Deep Rock Galactic when I tried to post it, so I’ll try my best to not do that.

I know saying that a lot of fantasy and science fiction worldbuilding is barebones and bland is a pretty tepid take. In many fictional settings, the idea of nationality, ideology, and race are conflated. One and the same, effectively. Mass Effect has the Turian Hierarchy and the Salarian Union, galaxy-spanning governments made up of almost singularly the species turians and salarians respectively, who all believe in roughly the same things, have the same broad personality, and have seemingly been stagnant for thousands of years. Deviation from the turian mentality is treated as a unique trait worthy of ascending a random NPC to a supporting character. To all other races, the idea that humans can believe in different ideologies is fascinating. I think it’s an uncontroversial take to say that this is pretty bland writing, and at least a bit racist. Outside of the special and unique (and overwhelmingly European) humans, all other cultures are monolithic and simplified.

I should stop myself here because I genuinely have at least half a dozen essays’ worth of Mass Effect topics I would want to go on a rant about. I should move on.

Orson Scott Card’s writing beyond the original Ender’s Game is also emblematic of this approach. In his sci-fi universe, all of the countless worlds that have been colonized are entirely monocultural. Specifically, they are takes on cultures from the point of view of a 30-something center-right mormon in America in the 1980’s. Highlights include a world colonized by the Japanese which bears the name Divine Wind, which translates to ‘Kamikaze’, which might be in slightly poor taste. There is also a world with a predominately Chinese population that is notable for a) being largely covered in rice fields, and b) not knowing what neurodivergency is. It gives overwhelming ‘I read a Wikipedia article and skimmed a really racist history book and am now an expert on all other cultures” vibes. He also wrote Xenocide and Children of the Mind, so maybe we should stop taking him seriously.

So often, worldbuilding in fiction refuses to reckon with the idea that the nations they depict can be anything beyond overwhelmingly monocultural stereotypes of real-world people. After all, it’s much simpler if all of the aliens are just caricatures of other people that really exist, right? No work needed. Oh no, what's this picture of a T'au doing here?

This took me a while to write because I’ve got a lot of takes on the topic of writing and worldbuilding, and it was hard to figure out what to include and what to save for a more focused post later. On that topic, I do have another one planned focusing on my personal, insignificant takes on the ingredients to make a coherent backdrop for a story, and some hot takes and blanket statements to make about worldbuilding as a whole. It’ll hopefully be something more positive and constructive than this.

EDIT MADE MINUTES AFTER I POSTED THIS: I forgot to include the funniest example of all time, the world of Warhammer Fantasy. There are some incredible examples of this kind of worldbuilding. Kislev, the Lizardmen, Cathay, Nippon, Araby, the Tomb Kings, Bretonnia, all comically transparent carbon copies of the most obvious, stereotypical parts of real-world cultures that managed to become a relatively successful media franchise that helped to launch Games Workshop into the company it is now.

#mass effect #mass effect is actually kinda bad #worldbuilding #orson scott card #ender's game #warhammer #sci fi #short essay #okay but seriously mass effect is baffling #did we all forget the line about autism from the dlc #orson scott card is a hack

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gertritude-art · 2 years

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Progress Report!

youtube

As promised, here is another progress report for DemonVN - or, as it will officially be known, Demon Detangled: Horror at the Homecoming Dance (subtitle pending). You can view the first (rough) six minutes of it up there. There’s still quite a bit to edit about it, as I’m sure you can tell, and a lot of it is stuff I have already shown, but for once, it’s all up there together.

Anyway, let’s get started!

FIRST...:

DemonVN has an about page on this blog, now. You can read it here!

MENUS:

The title screen is officially done! You can see what it looks like up above. And, yes, the official name is Demon Detangled! I’ve had the name in mind for months, but was waiting to officially say it in case I wanted to change it (spoilers: I could not think of a better one). The subtitle is still in need a rework, but I’m including one on the off chance that I gather enough willpower to turn this into a series, rather than just a single game. Gotta make ‘em distinct, somehow...

I still need to customize all the other menus, but I already have drafts of how they should look in the works! They should be done in the next few weeks.

SPRITES:

Lillie now has a new sprite, as does Catherine! It is only looking at them now that I realize just how inhuman Lillie looks. Hm. Perhaps this is a deep metaphor for how, really, humans are no different than demons... or that she just needs to get out of the church more often.

Anyway, the rest of the cast is also in the progress of being edited a bit, but I don't have anything official to show for them... Please imagine them in your minds.

POINT AND CLICK ASPECTS:

As I have mentioned, DemonVN does have point and click aspects, so as to excite and challenge the average three-year-old who may want to play. I spent a lot of the past week or so trying to iron out some of those aspects. Did you know that at one point, you’ll be able to select multiple items to use on someone? Check this out:

Aside from that, I’ve been slowly fixing and figuring out all the other item interactions in the game! I almost got that done in time for this update, but I think it’ll take me another few days to get the base of all those implemented. There have been a lot of if/else statements at play...

THE WRITING:

I’ve been jumping back and forth quite a bit with the writing of this game, but I have made some progress! The introduction is still getting written (it remains my white whale), but all the interactions you can have with your classmates are close to finished. That is something I did not realize I had actually done until I wrote it just now - it feels like I’ve been writing them for forever! Here’s a fun interaction to show you:

Aside from that, a lot of my writing energy has been spent sitting and figuring out how the ending is going to go. There is a specific, very important emotional section of it (SPOILERS: MORDRED EXPERIENCES AN EMOTION) that I’ve been trying to figure out the tone of for over a year, and I think I finally understand how it needs to be written without it coming across as overwrought or undeserved. I wish I could show off what I’ve written of it so far, but... it will be good :^)

THE ART:

Didn’t do much in the art department, recently, but I do have a lot of placeholder assets in place! Shout out to this funky guy:

I have a really cool CG I drew a few months back that I had to reluctantly cut, and so I could show you that... but I’m not going to #cruelty #hatred

IS THE END IN SIGHT?

Not yet! Check back next month for another report on how it’s going, though! I should have some more answers by then. Hopefully.

WHY DID YOU WORK ON YOUR TITLE SCREEN SO HARD BEFORE YOU FINISHED THE GAME. I WAS SO EXCITED THINKING YOU WERE DONE. EXPLAIN.

1) I needed to do something for the game one day, and I didn’t feel like doing anything else. 2) Doing this helped me learn that buttons can perform multiple functions, which! I had no idea was possible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you for telling me, Ren’Py!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, that’s all for now. See you next month with another progress report! :D

#my ocs #demonvn #wip #HI. here's a big ol progress update.#enjoy!!!!#THIS TIME I REALIZED I CAN USE GIFS #also please forgive any typos. my eyes are blurry today

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crueclown22 · 1 month

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Hey, hey!, I'd love to hear a bit more about you're zombie AU/ home sweet home (can't wait for the next update btw!) and your psych ward au if you're willing to share more details! :)

I’d love to share more details about both <3

Home Sweet Home is basically the love child of me being in love with both Left 4 Dead and Motley Crue. At the time, I was very fixated on L4D which made me think about how I could mash them together. After I got the thought in my head, I came across a video from Casual Geographic where he was talking about rabies and then cwd (chronic wasting disease) and decided to combine both of the diseases, creating the zombie virus that’s present in HSH :)

The virus is a very complicated thing; like in left 4 dead, there’s different types of zombies. The type of zombie depends on the way that you catch it; if it’s a water contamination, your stomach rots out along with your esophagus. If it was transferred from flies, there’s a hive in multiple parts of the body that carry the virus and spreads. If it was transferred from an already existing zombie, from a bite, you’re pretty much gone if you try to outrun it or shoot it. They can be killed but it’s much harder than the other zombies, and they’re a lot stronger than the others. It has to do with the potency of the virus being transferred. Water contamination allows the virus to be pretty much watered down, while the direct bite isn’t watered down at all. Water contamination zombies are the weakest and the direct bite zombies are the strongest :)

The boys are getting introduced soon, and while I won’t say too much about how they meet, I can tell you Tommy’s coming very soon and Mick’s going to be the last introduced (but he’s going to play a big part in the story <3). I’m working on the new chapter, it’s just taking me stupidly long because I’m fighting the urge to make it a bit more casual but I need to match the tone of the first chapter 😭 Along with that, just being busy. It’s probably going to be updated by June, or late May (don’t quote me on that though, I never truly know lol)

The story is set around 1981, when Nikki was still in London. Nikki’s like 22-23, Vince is around 20, Mick is around 30 and Tommy’s around 18-19 :)

Onto the psych ward au!!

I am having a bit of trouble with this one (as my other posts say, along with not wanting to come off insensitive and to feed into any stereotypes about mental health or mental hospitals). Done a LOT of research but I’m gonna do a more, so it’ll take some time for the story to come out. A lot of it is based off of my own experiences, like I’ve said, I very much based Nikki off of my own shit to the point that it was almost not Nikki anymore, which is why I’m going back and editing and rewriting it.

The basis for it that I have right now, as I’m redoing the plot too, is that Tommy was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder (still working that out to see how everything played out and how he got diagnosed). He ended up crashing his car on a bridge one day during a period of mania and his family put him in a hold. He ended up being transferred to a mental hospital. He’s been there for a while now.

Nikki’s there for an attempt; he has severe depression and struggles with a few other things that I can’t say too much about (I’ve got to tone those down from the original story so it doesn’t trigger others too much, which is why I’m not saying anything). It’s also going to be set in the 80’s, and in a mental hospital instead of a psych ward (as it’s not short term care, and I used the wrong term at first. I do call it the psych ward au though because that’s what I called it before.)

Nikki had just come in at the beginning of the story. I’m not sure what to do with Vince or Mick yet. Not a lot is known rn about the rest of the au <3

Hopefully this made sense and wasn’t boring 😭

#asks #starry-eyed-extraterrestrial #home sweet home

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turtlethon · 9 months

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Reflections & The Road Ahead

ABOVE: The Turtles make a promotional appearance in the UK, circa 1990. These puffy versions of the green teens showed up on TV and in the press often during Turtlemania, and resemble the characters as they were depicted on licensed Hero Turtles items during that era.

I’m old enough at this point to feel comfortable in saying that life is full of periods of awkward re-adjustment, where the world moves around you and it can take a while to find your bearings. You go to school for years and it feels like it’ll never end, then one day you’re just... done. A day job that perhaps you feel like you’ll be doing until you reach old age and keel over abruptly ends for whatever reason, and suddenly your routine is gone, leaving you wondering what to do with yourself.

Years ago, on a whim, I made the decision to re-watch the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon from the beginning and live-tweet about it over on the birdsite. Things were stop-start in the beginning, but at some point during the pandemic the project began gathering momentum. The threads got longer, my need to point out every weird little thing that happens in any given Turtles episode outgrowing the format of a Twitter thread. And so, almost exactly two years ago, Turtlethon made the jump to Tumblr, and in short order the format for each entry began to take shape: a beat-for-beat walk through a single episode of TMNT, complete with screengrabs and the occasional video clip, and an analysis of why that particular adventure does (or doesn’t) land, typically 2,000 words in length, longer still if it’s really good – or exceptionally bad.

In time, we settled into a routine: two new entries would appear every week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Sticking with that turned out to be an undertaking that I vastly underestimated the scope of early on, and there were times where the obligation to write about, screencap, edit and post about Turtles became exhausting, but I didn’t want this to be a project I abandoned halfway through. It was of the utmost importance to me to persevere, to get to the end no matter what.

Now that day has been and gone. We watched Splinter hurriedly declare the Turtles to be his equals, the credits rolled, and honestly it was all underwhelming. Upon further reflection, there’s no doubt there was more story to be told – there's no way Mung angrily telling Dregg he’d gone mad was the intended payoff to him getting pushed around all season – and presumably that’s something we would’ve seen followed up on had the show returned in 1997. But that’s not the world we live in, and so instead, we have to assess Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as it is: the 192 (or 193) adventures that were broadcast, which we can now observe as one overarching body of work. And I guess now all that’s left to ask is... what even was TMNT ‘87? Beyond the obvious and most cynical analysis – that it was initially an effort to promote a line of action figures, before becoming the heart of the Turtles business empire in its own right – what, if anything, was the series about? What was it trying to communicate to those of us who grew up watching it?

Peel away that initial "toy cartoon" layer of interpretation, and the next observation is perhaps only slightly less world-weary: it’s about communicating the idea that the Turtles are cool, to create adventures that will be compelling to kids, ensure they keep coming back and hopefully convince them to explore the other facets of the franchise too. Early on, the show was successful in these respects commercially, but from a creative standpoint it took a while to find its feet. Through the first three years the Turtles were first and foremost a unit, rarely getting to venture beyond their respective descriptions in the theme song. Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines, Raphael is... not exactly rude but certainly quippy, and Michaelangelo is indeed a party dude, whose pizza fixation sometimes appears to reach “this guy genuinely has a problem” territory. (It’s remarkable how integral pizza is to the first seven seasons of the show, only for it to be abandoned completely in the Red Sky era: I’m sure there must have been a strict “NO PIZZA” edict handed down from S8 onward that explains why the series ended on an ill-fitting popcorn gag instead.) One of the common themes explored in the Turtlethon entries for the golden era episodes is that Shredder, Krang, Rocksteady & Bebop make the show work comedically in the early goings, in part because they’re allowed to be flawed and vulnerable: meanwhile the Turtles are constrained by that need to be super cool dudes, the world’s most fearsome fighting team.

With the success of the show assured around season four, we finally begin to see a willingness to explore who the Turtles are beyond those base traits conveyed in the theme song. I’d argue that in this incarnation of the series, Leonardo is the member of the group whose personality adheres closest to what the team were when originally conceived for the Mirage comic: he’s a ninja first and foremost, even memorably declaring his intent to finish off Shredder in the first season. Season three’s “Take Me to Your Leader” explores how the burden of leadership weighs upon him but it’s the following year where he’s fully rounded out, the pros and cons of his overbearing strictness explored in “Leonardo Lightens Up”, while his competitive nature turns compulsive in “Leonardo Versus Tempestra”. More than anything, his role is to serve as an anchor, ensuring TMNT stays somewhere in the neighbourhood of being an action-adventure cartoon and doesn’t float off into complete tomfoolery.

Raphael is the inverse of Leonardo, encompassing everything that makes the Fred Wolf TMNT what it is – for better or worse. He’s the goofball, the one typically given the task of breaking the fourth wall, and if anything is actively pushing against what Leo is here to achieve. With his incessant zingers, Raph is the embodiment of everything that purists who resent the show for not being a faithful recreation of the Mirage comic dislike about it, a situation exacerbated by the fact that the 1987 cartoon version of the character is such an outlier, eschewing the angry, brooding depiction of him seen almost everywhere else. This idea that there’s something inauthentic about Fred Wolf Raph is so pervasive that modern media and merchandise based around the MWS show often skews towards making him “the angry one” instead of the wise guy. It’s an unfortunate bit of revisionist history that loses sight of the fact that 1987 Raph is wildly popular, perhaps now more than ever. The fans who like him really like his witty retorts, outings such as his memorable romance with Mona Lisa, and the entertaining performances from Rob Paulsen that brought him to life. His value is in keeping things light, and in doing so he differentiates TMNT from the earnest action cartoons that preceded it.

Okay, but if Raph is the fun one, where does that leave Michaelangelo? I’d argue that his depiction as the team’s “party dude” is merely window-dressing, a means to convey what makes him marketable but which doesn’t really get at what makes him tick, in part because as alluded to above, in the early days of the show none of this stuff had been thought out. Anyone watching seasons one, two and much of season three would be forgiven for seeing him as one-dimensional, the cowabunga guy. Pizza, pizza, pizza. Dude, dude, dude. These aspects of him can be... grating, to be certain, when watching the series as an adult. Eventually we start to occasionally see beyond this. There’s a sense that Mikey is the youngest member of the team, even if there’s nothing in the show itself directly confirming this: by extension he’s the most innocent, sensitive, and personable member of the group, the one who’d be most likely to befriend you and invite you into the Lair if you were to encounter him, rather than viewing you as a threat. Michaelangelo is both the most “human” Turtle and the one who displays the greatest longing to live as a human, something seen in episodes such as season three’s “The Gang’s All Here” and the following year’s “Poor Little Rich Turtle”. When it comes down to it, Mikey’s character is easy-going but more importantly, he’s kind. There’s an irony in him being the one whose weapons had to be excised from the show entirely, though if anything I think that only gave him a little renegade appeal over and above even the other Turtles.

Donatello has always been my favourite Turtle, and not just for aesthetic reasons as “the purple one”: coming in from Ghostbusters as many of us did back in the day, I think it’s natural that if you were on Team Egon, you were likely to be Team Donnie, too. He's the most creative Turtle and arguably the most introspective, two qualities that also make me gravitate towards him. Putting my biases aside, he’s by far the most necessary member of the team for the series to work: his intelligence and ingenuity seem to almost always play into the climax of any episode as the Turtles scramble to stop whatever enormous threat is facing the city, and without him it’s inarguable that Leo, Mikey and Raph would have been majorly screwed countless times over the course of the show’s run. Around the mid-point of the series his accomplishments seem to go to his head, and his abilities make him vastly overpowered relative to the other Turtles. Despite this, Donnie remains the big purple cog that keeps TMNT ticking.

The show upholds its four main characters above everything, even in situations where this becomes detrimental, and this goes hand in hand with a focus on immediacy: what anyone else is doing isn’t a concern unless it will impact the Turtles somehow, and nothing that’s happened to anyone in the past matters unless if affects the team in the present moment. There’s an unspoken anxiety at work in TMNT that runs throughout the series, apparent even at its height: a fear that if the Turtles aren’t front and centre, chasing the macguffin of the day, then young viewers will grow bored and switch off.

These considerations are apparent in the series from the outset, affecting even the origin of the Turtles themselves, who in this continuity go from pet turtles to their established forms in the space of seconds: they’re not allowed to grow into their teenage selves over the course of years for the same reason that only the most barebones information is conveyed to us about the Hamato Yoshi / Oroku Saki feud that led to their creation. This show isn’t about getting caught up in the details, it’s about the Turtles existing in the present moment.

Yoshi and Saki’s ongoing rivalry is one of the most fascinating aspects of the entire series, and yet one barely explored because the show only cares about the elements of it directly relevant to the Turtles. At some unspecified point in the past Saki framed Yoshi and took control of the Foot Clan because... he was just naturally power-hungry and evil, I guess (later we learned that his mother was also villainous, so there might be something to that). There’s a huge chunk of the timeline which takes place after this of which we know little, covering Yoshi presumably stowing away on a boat and beginning a new life as a penniless refugee living in the sewers of New York. By all rights the story should end here, with Saki having vanquished his enemy and now ruling over his own turf as the head of a criminal organisation in Japan, but his inability to let go keeps things rolling: at some point he follows Yoshi to America, sets up an elaborate network to spy on him, and in a botched attempt to kill his enemy inadvertently mutates the four heroes who will ultimately be his undoing: Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Donatello and Raphael.

Oh, and along the way Saki happened to run into a disembodied alien warlord brain from Dimension X who had himself been on Earth for an unspecified amount of time, the two bad guys forming an alliance to achieve world domination. None of these events unfold on-screen as the Turtles weren’t involved: instead, Shredder and Krang arrive fully formed, how they met and the circumstances that led to them working together are deemed unimportant. Similarly, Splinter is a wise old man whose exact age is unclear, capable of applying mystical ninja abilities that vary depending on what the plot of the day requires.

Given how scant the details of Splinter and Shredder’s feud were, it should perhaps come as no surprise that in the end, it was never resolved in any satisfactory fashion. By the end of the series Shredder and Krang were banished to another dimension by the Turtles for the umpteenth time, but the power struggle between Splinter and Shreds over the leadership of the Foot Clan that kicked all of this off doesn’t receive any closure; to make matters worse the final three appearances of Shredder and Krang tease the idea of them becoming... well maybe not good guys, but at the very least neutral figures having been overshadowed in the evil stakes by Dregg. I think by season ten, the viewers would have been ready for that: to have Shredder and Krang perform a heroic act to stop Dregg that definitively concludes their run on the show as villains, then let them ride off into the sunset. If we’re to assume there were plans for a twelfth season, there’s no reason that Karai or another villain new to the series couldn’t take their place.

I’m going to skip over writing about Bebop and Rocksteady here as this post is long enough as it is, and I covered their contribution to the series in the entry for “Turtle Trek”. The only thing I would add is that if anyone was truly deserving of that elusive redemption arc and/or a happy ending, it was them: this is one of the areas where the Archie TMNT comic got it right, the idea of them living peacefully on the animal-friendly Eden Worlds providing an opportunity to for the duo to move on.

April is perhaps the most important character in the show other than the Turtles: there are plenty of episodes in the first seven years of TMNT that don’t feature Splinter, Shredder or Krang but none prior to “The Legend of Koji” that don’t incorporate her into the adventure in some capacity. She's interesting to view through a feminist lens: for a character who first appeared on TV in 1987 in a cartoon primarily marketed towards boys, not only is she integral to the proceedings but from the outset she’s her own person, a (somewhat) established career woman who just happens to cross paths with the Turtles and strike up a friendship with them. Because of that need to keep the focus on the green teens we never get to see her grow much beyond this – she likes the Turtles, she likes getting to cover anything that will make for a Great Story™, but that’s as far as it goes. There are a few rare occasions where the show will toy with having a male guest character serve as a potential love interest for her, but it’s not central to what she’s about. First and foremost, April cares about journalism and about sticking up for her friends, the Turtles, and for a cartoon from 35 years ago it’s kind of refreshing that’s she’s allowed to maintain that focus.

Irma’s introduction to the series feels as if it was intended to play up April’s qualities by bringing in someone who in many ways is her opposite: there’s little indicator that Irma cares about her job or is any good at it in the early goings, and while April only makes occasional references to finding a partner throughout the series, Irma is obsessed. Her desire to find a man to sweep her off her feet in some paperback romance novel scenario is a constant theme throughout the first four years of the show, and I get the sense that part of the intended gag is that all of this would come easily to April if she wanted it, but for Irma – frequently inferred by the show to be frumpy or plain – such things remain perpetually out of reach.

When it comes to Turtles discourse there sometimes seems to be borderline hostility towards Irma, perhaps in part because she’s driven by a desire for those old traditions, but I think largely based on people focusing on her appearances in those first three seasons (the only ones people tend to pay attention to, especially outside of the fandom) and viewing her on a surface level: April, so the thinking goes, is glamorous and exciting, Irma is merely her gawky sidekick. I’ve consistently gone to bat for her throughout Turtlethon’s run precisely because The Struggle is Real: Irma exists, living and growing as a flawed human being alongside the successful, infallible April and her friends, the ever-valiant Turtles. She messes up, she fails, she frequently ends up being on the receiving end of pure bad luck but through it all she keeps going, persevering in the background while the focus remains on April and the Turtles. As the show continues, we start to see her maturation, both in terms of taking on different roles within Channel 6 and the downplaying of her man-hungry antics. By the end of season seven there’s a sense that Irma has grown into a fully capable person and shed her insecurities, culminating in her brief reinvention as an action heroine and her defeat of Krang(!) in “Shredder Triumphant!”

There’s an argument to be made that season seven should have been the end point of the series, or at least that years eight through ten ought to be viewed as merely a possible continuation, a look into how things could have continued rather than something set in stone. The truth is that aside from maybe Shredder, the core cast is served poorly by the Red Sky era: the Turtles come across as miserable throughout, April seems adrift after moving on from Channel 6, ultimately losing prominence following Carter’s introduction to the show, Bebop and Rocksteady are robbed of any semblance of personality and Irma only makes two appearances in season eight before being unceremoniously dropped entirely. I’ll freely admit that by the end of season nine, watching each episode for Turtlethon was becoming a deflating experience: by that point the spark was gone from the show, and seeing what it had become just felt sad. Happily, things improved a bit in S10, but I can’t shake the feeling that Shredder, Krang and The Boys riding off in the pick-up truck at the conclusion of season seven would have been the right time for the Turtles to bow out.

TMNT ‘87 was looked down upon from the outset by readers of the Mirage comic who saw it as sacrilege, a mockery of everything the source material was about, and once newer animated iterations came along that adhered more closely to Eastman & Laird’s vision the perception of the MWS version took an even greater hit. Ironically there are a bunch of disgruntled guys around my age – Xennials and the youngest Gen Xers – who will now swear blind that the ‘87 Turtles are the one true faith, and that any deviation from the way the team were depicted then is a disgrace. Click on any TMNT post on Instagram, especially the ones pertaining to Mutant Mayhem, and you’ll find these dudes in the comments pissing and moaning about how much better things were in their day, when the Turtles were real tough guys and manly men, which is an oddly rose-tinted perspective of a show where a significant portion of fights were won with a cream pie or pizza to the face. That’s the thing: at its heart, Turtles is a fun adventure show, one that over its run draws heavily upon martial arts tropes, sci-fi macguffin chases, aliens, monsters, dimension hopping and occasionally time travel: these concepts are all part of the DNA of the superhero comic book, and in that respect, the show is absolutely in the spirit of the Mirage comics which were themselves conceived as both a parody and a loving tribute to that artform.

That’s it. That’s what the point of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show is: it’s a fun adventure cartoon that might not aesthetically resemble the Mirage comics, but it has an innate understanding of how to adapt the underlying concepts of those stories into a series that connects with its target audience.

One of my intended aims for Turtlethon, in pulling apart and analysing every episode of TMNT, has been to dispel two commonly held stances about the show that I see online all the time:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) was never good.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) was only good for the first five episodes, everything after that was terrible.

People who take the first stance are harder to reach. Some of them are from that group of Mirage readers who were around back in the day and still hold a grudge, but the majority of those who hold this opinion have a wider disdain for eighties cartoons in general. They dismiss the contributions of everyone who worked on these series entirely because they were all “thinly veiled toy commercials”: to them TMNT and every other show from that era are nothing but sound and fury, signifying nothing. I hope in my analysis I’ve shown how far this is from the truth: even the clunkiest episodes of Turtles occasionally have moments where the animators go above and beyond to create impressive sequences, and when the show was at the height of its popularity during seasons three and four these teams created a lot of television on a modest budget within a short timeframe. On the writing side, over the course of the series Turtles incorporates themes into its stories of environmentalism (including climate change and conservation), how sensationalist media and wealthy individuals in positions of power can cultivate hate movements against marginalised groups, and gentrification, to name just a couple of topics off the top of my head; an entire side season was also dedicated to having the Turtles travel around Europe to be exposed to its arts, history and culture. These efforts are a drop in the ocean compared to what the Archie Comics version of TMNT was doing during this period but are respectable, nonetheless.

The second position – that the show goes off the rails after “Shredder & Splintered” - is something you’ll hear from viewers who have perhaps purchased the first few seasons or the entire series on DVD and have started watching it, but they’re not engaged with the source material. If you’re only half-watching the show, if it’s background noise while you perform other tasks, then the visual drop-off from “Return of the Shredder” onward combined with the drudgery of the Eye of Sarnath arc might make you wonder if there’s any point in venturing further. Undoubtedly there are stretches of the series that tested even my patience: the ungainly syndicated adventures in season four, the bizarre, sometimes directionless Vacation in Europe arc, and pretty much all of season nine. There’s still great stuff in there, however: the second half of season two is far stronger than the first, season three is full of classics such as “Turtles on Trial”, “The Ninja Sword of Nowhere” and the concluding Big Trilogy, and seasons four through six have phemomenal adventures and character spotlight episode scattered throughout. Season seven – the proper season seven, not the vacation episodes – might be the strongest stretch of adventures in the entire series as TMNT regains its focus and attempts to mature in step with its original audience. There’s so much good stuff in Turtles if you stick with it, and I can’t see how anyone could watch the series in its entirety and come away thinking only season one has value unless your criteria for what makes a good cartoon comes down purely to looking cool and some vague aura of edginess.

ABOVE: A June 1990 TV Guide cover in which Ariel from The Little Mermaid mingles with Bart Simpson, Donnie, Leo and Raph. Yes, Bart is missing his ear, but also WHY DO THE TURTLES HAVE THREE TOES WHAT THE HELL

I hope that if you’ve never actually sat down and watched the 1987 version of TMNT from beginning to end that maybe the breakdowns of each adventure I’ve cobbled together for this blog will inspire you to do so, and that if you’ve seen the show before they’ll allow you to rewatch it with additional insight. More than anything, the goal of Turtlethon has been to point out why Turtles works, while also acknowledging the times when it doesn’t. It’s lost to history now, but there was a vanishingly brief window of time – pretty much just the entire calendar year of 1990 – where the ascendancy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in pop culture occurred in parallel to the rise of The Simpsons. The two series were linked by their indie comics origins and their anti-establishment appeal, however Simpsons was able to reinvent itself after the hype around Bart died down as one of the greatest TV series of all time by continuing to up its game and making Homer the central figure of the show. TMNT was never in a position to make that leap, hampered as it was by budgetary restraints, parental backlash and being more overtly targeted towards children, but as a body of work it still has value, and its longevity speaks to how strongly it resonated with viewers around the world. It is, in a word, tubuloso.

---

When Turtlethon was in its early stages, I gave some consideration to what series I might like to deep-dive afterwards. I reference Transformers all the time on this blog and it’s without a doubt my First Fandom, so there’s a natural inclination for me to want to go back and examine the 98 episodes of that show. Between that and TMNT, Ghostbusters was my second major fixation, and there’s a lot of The Real Ghostbusters to explore too.

The natural extension of our journey is to move on to Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation, but I honestly doubt it would be fun for me to write or for you to read. I dunno, maybe you want to see me rip it to shreds, but I'm unsure how much financial compensation I’d need to make up for the psychic damage that would inevitably be incurred. (The tip jar is there, if you’re so inclined; let’s just say that Yale could use an international airport.) Moving on to the 2003 version of TMNT would be much more fun, but also a tremendous undertaking that - for now - I don't want to approach. After years of writing about the Turtles, I’m exhausted. I’m also acutely aware that while Turtlethon has been beneficial for me in many ways as a writer – it's allowed me to refine my skills, to learn how to create and maintain a regular schedule, and made me a more effective editor, even if you’d never know it from the length of my posts – the time I’ve devoted to writing about the Turtles would have been better spent working on my own comic series, Corinne Morgan, Corbie, which has been on hiatus throughout the life of this blog.

[SIDE NOTE: If you want to see me put my money where my mouth is, and if I’ve learned anything through analysing Turtles, read Corbie when the new edition of issue #1 comes out in a few weeks. Its influences are more rooted in the Archie version of TMNT than the MWS series, but if you like cute, light-hearted and socially conscious superhero adventures then I think you’ll soon become a dedicated flocker.]

I’ve undoubtedly been teetering on the edge of burnout lately, and my workload has been further encumbered by the technical changes implemented by Tumblr that negatively affected the last two seasons’ worth of Turtlethon entries. Behind the scenes, I’ve gradually been making moves to port the blog in its entirety to a stand-alone website where all 193 entries can be enjoyed in the original format. The thinking is that this will allow me to also write about anything else that takes my interest, post my art and generally keep you up to date on the status of all my assorted ongoing projects. With that in mind, I’d like to introduce you to Portertronic, which is now live. The Turtlethon entries for the first two seasons of TMNT have been posted there already, with the rest of the series to follow in the weeks and months ahead.

This isn’t the end, for Turtlethon or for this account: you’ll still see new TMNT posts from me here, as I have a laundry list of one-off bits and pieces related to the series I still want to explore. The plan is that new content moving forward will be made available first to Patreon and Ko-Fi supporters, then appear on Portertronic, and eventually get posted here too. To kick things off, there’s a pair of upcoming Turtles-related CDs I’ll be looking at as part of a crossover event to introduce Excess Volume, a sub-blog that will cover pop music of the 1980s and early 1990s. I’m not going away, just getting off the treadmill I’ve been on for the last couple of years, and trying to refocus on writing shorter bursts of material while I return to working primarily on Corbie.

Turtlethon has always had a modest following – there are only so many people in the world who are interested in reading long-form analysis of a decades-old cartoon – but going into it I had zero expectations that anyone would connect with it at all. I’ve never lost sight of the fact that in real life, if a classroom’s worth of people were willing to listen to me talk at length about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles twice a week that would be incredibly edifying, and over time the readership grew to roughly double that. It probably should have been a YouTube channel from the beginning, but the thought of continually being struck down by DMCAs from Lionsgate ensured that was a non-starter, and perhaps that would have defeated the purpose. I like to draw, and I like to write – obviously! That you’ve indulged me in doing the latter and gushing about the Turtles for the last few years means a lot, and I hope you’ll join me – either through Corbie, over on Portertronic or here on Turtlethon – for the adventures still to come.

#Turtlethon #teenage mutant ninja turtles #TMNT #TMNT 1987 #Ninja Turtles #I have always liked... cowabunga

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tytach · 1 year

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Happy holiday truce @justalitlecreacher! I'm your gifter for this year~

Once again I apologize for getting your gift to you so, so close to the deadline. The ending still needs a bit of editing, but I'm too tired to look at my screen without seeing every words in double ^^' And you deserve to have a nice gift with a clean ending, so I'll deliver your gift in two parts. I hope that's ok with you!

I went with your second prompt: Jack and Danny bonding; mayhaps another camping trip.

Enjoy!~

Danny was looking dispassionately through the window, head resting in the palm of his hand, gaze lost in the ever blending rows of trees that lined the road. He sighed for the up-tenth time, sensing the draw of the portal growing fainter and fainter the further they drove away from Amity Park.

"Come on Danno, it’ll be fun," Jack chimed in, ever the enthusiast.

Danny hadn’t had a say in this ordeal. His dad caught him breaching curfew one too many times and, for some obscure reason, had come up with this camping trip as a punishment.

"If you say so," he grumbled.

He didn’t mean to be rude, but he couldn’t help the bad temper. It irked him to leave Amity Park for so long, even though he trusted his friends to hold the fort while he was gone. He couldn’t really explain where that feeling was coming from, but it left him with a bad after-taste in the mouth and a strange buzzing in his core.

He rubbed at his chest irritatedly.

Couldn’t his dad have come up with a normal punishment? Like no video games for a week? Like every other normal parent would have?

The only silver-lining in all this was the promise he had managed to wriggle out of his dad.

No ghost hunting.

Hopefully he wouldn’t have to worry about his safety this week-end; at least nothing more than his dad’s regular carelessness.

Jack’s eyes briefly left the road to focus on Danny, his fingers drumming on the wheel. He was not oblivious to his son’s mood; he just didn’t know how to deal with it. He hadn’t for a while.

Short of having a better solution to lighten up the atmosphere, he turned on the radio, inserted a CD he fetched from an old dusty case and, soon enough, country music filled the vehicle.

The familiar tune brought a smile to Jack’s face. They used to play these songs every trip they took when the kids were younger, and the whole family would always sing loudly to the lyrics. He automatically joined the chorus out of habit, finding joy in the memories it brought.

Danny resisted the urge to put his headphones on and tune him out. It would just be two days of this.

Just two days.

________________________________________

Slowly, practical asphalt roads turned into bumpy dirt tracks. The last half hour of the trip was spent cutting through the forest on paths barely large enough for the GAV. With his dad’s questionable driving skills, Danny was glad he was already dead.

They eventually arrived in an empty clearing a couple hours before sunset. Despite being here against his will, Danny wasn’t above helping unload the GAV —especially if that gave him the opportunity to make sure his dad had kept his word. While Jack was busy mounting the tent, Danny looked around the modified van, searching for hidden weapons his dad would have brought regardless. He was relieved to find none.

They kept busy setting up camp, barely exchanging words other than giving directions to each other. This was fine with Danny. Occasionally though, Jack would point to something he found funny, or tell a story he was reminded off. Danny would acknowledge him, but he didn’t see the point of continuing the conversation beyond that. Jack didn’t seem to mind.

He really started to feel the awkwardness when they settled around the fire for dinner.

With nothing else but the food to busy their hands and minds, Jack tried to open a proper conversation with his son.

"So, Danno. What have you been up to lately?"

Danny raised an eyebrow at him.

"What do you mean?"

Jack stuck a raw sausage to a stick and brought it to the fire.

"We barely talk anymore. What’s new in your life? Any new video games? A new cool place to go in town? …A girlfriend?"

Danny refused to acknowledge that last suggestion.

"Er… the Nasty Burger has a new burger with twice the meat and four different types of cheese," was the first thing he thought about. "It’s pretty good? We’ve been ordering that a lot with Tuck lately."

Jack looked at him with interest.

"Oh really? What types of cheese?" He prompted.

Danny shrugged.

"I don’t know, it’s cheese."

There was an awkward pause.

"Well, you make it sound pretty good," Jack commented. "Maybe I’ll try it one day."

"You should."

The conversation lulled to an uncomfortable silence.

Jack turned his sausage, watching it cook slowly, while Danny munched on his own.

Jack wasn’t stupid. Sure, he was often lost in his work, and he tended to be oblivious to what most people apparently tended to notice naturally; but that didn’t mean he was unobservant. He just picked up on details no one paid attention to.

Like the fact his son had grown progressively more distant in the last two years. Oh, Danny did try to act like it wasn't the case; but he couldn’t fake the missing glee that used to fill his eyes. That’s what had first given away the fact that something had changed in his life. Something big.

Jack had a few theories, and he feared any of them were true. But it was his duty as a father to try and help his son, no matter how much it implied he had failed his child.

He took a deep breath.

"Listen Danny, I—"

Danny got to his feet abruptly, effectively interrupting him.

"You know what we forgot? The ketchup! I’ll be right back!"

He was gone before Jack could tell him the bottle was right next to him.

Not long after, the Fenton Ghost Detector beeped in his pocket.

________________________________________

Danny flew as fast as he could, following the pull on his core. He couldn’t believe a ghost followed him all the way here.

No, scratch that— actually he could. With his luck, there was no way this wouldn’t have happened the night he didn’t bring a thermos with him. He silently cursed himself for his negligence.

Danny flew in circles in the general area he could feel the ghost being, until he spotted a young boy moving slowly through the darkened forest.

Huh, not one of his regulars then.

His irritation receding, he approached the boy carefully.

"Hi," he greeted in a warm tone.

The boy turned to him. He looked to be around seven, and was dressed in clothes that were definitely not from this century, nor the last one. Yet he barely had any glow to him; if it was not from his floating bare inches above the ground and Danny’s ghost-sense, he could almost have been fooled into thinking he was talking to a living, breathing child.

"Hi!" The boy replied, seeming genuinely relieved to see Danny. "Can you help me?"

"Sure! What do you need?" Danny smiled at the wandering soul.

He wasn’t used to that kind of clientele, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t try to help.

"I’m lost and I think I broke my ankle, I can’t walk. Can you help me find my dad?"

The boy’s right ankle was indeed all twisted. Danny didn’t point out that it didn’t stop him from moving around; the kid probably hadn’t realized what had happened to him yet, and Danny knew better than to bring up that kind of subject.

"I can’t stay for long, but I can search with you for a bit if you want," he offered, knowing full well that the boy’s dad had probably passed a long time ago.

"Thank you!" The boy smiled as he resumed his trek. "The forest is very big."

Danny nodded.

"That it is. What’s your name?"

"Allaster. You?"

"I’m Danny."

Danny floated next to him as they passed slowly through the bushes, calling the boy’s dad with him.

But as the minutes passed, Danny realized he couldn’t bring peace to Allaster. At least not at this time of the night, and definitely not while his ghost hunter of a dad was waiting for him not too far from here. If he found out about Allaster… He might not have any weapons with him at the moment, but Danny was sure that wouldn’t stop him from turning the weekend into a ghost hunting trip nonetheless. And thus despite his promise.

He decided to bite the bullet.

"Allaster, I need to warn you."

The kid ground to a stop, his attention returning on Danny.

"I came into this forest with my own dad. If he finds you, he could hurt you really badly. You need to leave."

Allaster’s eyes clouded over.

"What?" He asked, his voice small.

"Just for a couple nights," Danny insisted.

The kid shook his head vehemently.

"No!"

"Please, I don’t want you to—"

"My dad told me that if I got lost, I had to stay right where I was so it was easier to find me. I can’t leave! I CAN’T!"

And with that last shout, he vanished.

Well, that had gone well. Danny ran a hand through his hair with a sigh. He should have known better than to ask a ghost to leave its haunt.

Hoping that the kid wouldn’t reappear before their trip was over, he flew back towards the camp.

________________________________________

Danny landed behind the GAV. In a flash of light he turned human and hurried back towards the fire.

"Sorry, it took so long, I really couldn’t find the…"

Danny stopped suddenly.

"…ketchup. Dad?"

The camp was empty, a burnt sausage resting over the dying fire. His dad was nowhere to be seen.

He started looking around the camp, inside the GAV, in the tent.

Nothing.

He was mildly starting to panic when his dad emerged from behind the trees, closing the zipper of his hazmat suit.

"Wow, that was a big one," he laughed, before sobering at the sight of Danny’s state. "You ok, Danno?"

Danny chuckled awkwardly, suddenly feeling very stupid.

"Yeah I’m ok," he said, rubbing his neck. "I just thought— you know, with all the ghost attacks that maybe…" He didn’t need to elaborate further.

"Careful Danno, you’re starting to exhibit symptoms of chronic Amity Parkers," Jack winked. "But I’m glad to see you’re staying alert."

He put a new log in the fire, and just like that, they resumed their awkward dinner.

________________________________________

Danny didn’t sleep well that night. It wasn’t because of his dad’s overly loud snoring —although that clearly didn’t help.

Danny couldn’t stop shivering, assaulted as he was by a constant chill. His breath kept fogging.

He could feel Allaster roaming the forest.

At some point he sneaked out and went looking for the kid, to no avail. Allaster didn’t want to be found.

He just hoped it would last until they left.

#2022 holiday truce #danny phantom #dp fanfic #danny fenton #jack fenton

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bvannn · 3 months

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Weekly update March 22, 2024

I’m still exhausted beyond words. I’m also on a bit of a spiral where I’m worried about the quality of my art and about my output, but it’s okay because I’m chipping away at old big projects still and as soon as classwork is subsided I’m going to try to learn a new skill, because any time I feel insufficient I learn a new skill so I can be better. Classes have been kicking my ass mostly but hopefully big things will be coming sooner rather than later.

I’ve been doing a number of drawings to time myself and update my comms. Turns out I’m a lot less consistent than I thought so it’ll be a bit longer till I get prices sorted out but it’s coming along. Also good chance I’ll add more on to it later once I sort out more things I can offer. My usual drawing style will be the main one, but I’m hoping I can also add the epithet erased style, the chibi dnd mini style I do sometimes, options for backgrounds, and eventually also music.

Problem with music though has been my exhaustion. The only music stuff I’ve really been drilling at has been bigger projects, but I’d like to just sit down and do a small beat as well at some point. Once I catch up with classwork I might try. I have been chipping away at a couple instrumental pieces, as well as the larger vocal cover and I did some lyric writing today for the two ‘finished mostly’ ones I’ve been sitting on. I did have to scrap and redo a character theme for the second time this week but once I have some time with a clear mind I can reroute that one and use the melody I wrote for the last draft. In development right now are an ambient character theme, a 16bit-ish instrumental theme, a Zelda medley, a song cover with Kyo, a small gabber song with no affiliation to anything, the two original vocal songs, one symphonic rock and one EDM, and a handful of others that I haven’t been actively working on. As soon as I have significant time I’m going to try to finish off some of them.

Once the music is finished I’ll have to throw visuals together for them too. I really want to put in effort to make animation rigs again but I don’t have the time or energy. I might do one for the vocal cover song since I could be reusing the character but I’m not sure it’ll be necessary. Once the cover is done I’ll storyboard something and decide then.

Comic is also still going, I haven’t had a ton of time to do thumbnailing/writing, but I should be down to the last scene. No guarantee I won’t have to add more after editing, but it’s getting there. Once that’s done I’ll try to post roughs of specific panels so it’s a bit easier to keep track of where it’s at. The thumbnailing is a big bottleneck right now because it takes a lot of brain power but it’s almost done. If I get myself together this next week it should be done by the next update. No promises though, I have a lot of classwork.

Last couple things, a good amount of my exhaustion is the result of insomnia, but I’ve been using that time to plan out TTRPG campaign stuff. I think I have some really fun creative encounters. I think I probably will try to write it out and find a way to release it, just in the interest of getting more people to play the anime campaign system (or whatever they end up renaming it to when the epithet erased version of the rules drops… eventually). I might throw together art for that too, but that’ll be a ways off, after the writing and encounters are done. Plus ideally I’d want the module to be available for free, so I don’t need to add too much anyway.

Last thing, as I mentioned I’m a bit unsatisfied with where I am with art stuff. I want to thank everyone who has been sticking around, I am trying to make it worthwhile for you too. But whenever I am unsatisfied with myself I need to learn a new skill, so I may be dipping my toes into pixel art soon. I do have that 16bit ish instrumental song I mentioned, that’s been on the back burner since January but I’ve finally been hit with the inspiration to finish it, and a little pixel animation would be nice to go with it, but that would require me to learn pixel art itself first, so I’ll try to do that in the coming weeks. Idk how soon though.

This next week will be primarily dedicated to clearing up schoolwork and fixing my sleep problem. After that I’ll try finishing up that cover song, finishing up comic thumbnailing, and finishing up that instrumental song, in that order. Anything else is a bonus. Will class work and insomnia get in the way? Probably, but I’m still doing my best.

#weekly update

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caltropspress · 10 months

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RAPS + CRAFTS #17: PremRock

1. Introduce yourself. Past projects? Current projects?

My name is PremRock, I’m a solo artist but ½ of ShrapKnel, ¼ Wrecking Crew. I’m currently working mostly with Backwoodz Studioz, but also with Ockham’s Blazer in conjunction with Fake Four and will always put out projects on my own when I deem that fit. I’ve been releasing music since 2010 I suppose officially.

2. Where do you write? Do you have a routine time you write? Do you discipline yourself, or just let the words come when they will? Do you typically write on a daily basis?

I would say the best way to describe my process is chipping away. I am always thinking of phrases and “bars” so to speak and often don’t have control over when they come. For that, it’s on the notes app and later I’ll comb it for things I feel are usable or something to expand on. I work a full-time night job so days off typically start late but I like to use them for the bulk of writing practices but the muse often strikes at late hours. Deadlines make things different and are absolutely necessary and most are self-imposed. I wish there was more of a routine or structure but the schedule is a balance between carving out time through discipline and when inspiration strikes.

3. What’s your medium—pen and paper, laptop, on your phone? Or do you compose a verse in your head and keep it there until it’s time to record?

iPhone notes, Gdocs, pen and Moleskine in that order. My iPhone notes are full of couplets at all times. Typically I will try to compile them all into one place at some point, but they are pretty piecemeal at first a lot of the time.

4. Do you write in bars, or is it more disorganized than that?

I just write and hopefully it fits a four count. I’ll work it out either way.

5. How long into writing a verse or a song do you know it’s not working out the way you had in mind? Do you trash the material forever, or do you keep the discarded material to be reworked later?

I think pretty soon at times and sometimes it’ll take months. I don’t think I ever trash anything forever. Good writing should find a home.

6. Have you engaged with any other type of writing, whether presently or in the past? Fiction? Poetry? Playwriting? If so, how has that mode influenced your songwriting?

Playwriting is a def. Or screenwriting rather. I have a couple outlines of screenplays I pick up and put back down depending on my mood. I think it’d make for an exciting second act (pun!?). Fiction I think plays a role in that. I’ve mostly sought out fictional work when I’ve read, save for autobiographies or historical things that interest me. Poetry and rap are pretty intertwined to me so perhaps down the line I’ll compile a list of things that don’t fit the song structure I’m into making. Who knows? A lot is certainly on the table.

7. How much editing do you do after initially writing a verse/song? Do you labor over verses, working on them over a long period of time, or do you start and finish a piece in a quick burst?

I always revise and edit. At least once but usually twice and sometimes more. This all depends on what the work calls for. A guest verse will typically see less revisions simply because the assignment is often laid out in plain terms so I grasp it quickly. Solo work will be revised more as I whittle down a lot - I write too much there it needs refinement. ShrapKnel or Wrecking Crew stuff comes easiest. Spirit of both competition and collaboration makes the work really enjoyable and easy. I labor over solo stuff more than I would like. Maybe I’ll change that!

8. Do you write to a beat, or do you adjust and tweak lyrics to fit a beat?

Def write to a beat unless it’s a weird circumstance but couplets are always being written and sometimes when I’m at work so they’ll be grafted and fit to a beat later. No writing is definitively assigned to a particular beat unless it’s very clear at first or that’s the distinct job I have to do. I will move verses around if I see that fit.

9. What dictates the direction of your lyrics? Are you led by an idea or topic you have in mind beforehand? Is it stream-of-consciousness? Is what you come up with determined by the constraint of the rhymes?

A theme will carry and pallbearers vary.

I love a strong idea and interconnectivity. Death, love, life are heavy so if I address those I like to build trusses to support my claim. A lot of it is stream-of-consciousness for certain. It’s interconnected in my mind for a reason and sometimes that reason isn’t clear at first. It takes time to see why I thought of that. All of it makes sense to me in its own way. Even if it starts out very knotty I like to untangle it. When you’ve been rhyming for a long time, rhymes appear as guardrails and sometimes accidentally. It’s up to you to keep, polish, or discard, I suppose. Some people can write a 100 songs a year and they all sound like they’re keepers. I don’t really work that way, but I suppose if people heard a lot of what I cut they’d ask why I cut it. My answer would be rooted somewhere between “vibes” and “quality control.”

10. Do you like to experiment with different forms and rhyme schemes, or do you keep your bars free and flexible?

I don’t believe in 16 bars. Unless that’s what you pay for or ask for. I don’t believe in a lot of structure in general. When the rhyme is finished the rhyme is finished, but I understand metrics and not everyone should go beyond 16 bars simply because there’s not more to say in an interesting way. But I think we are past the point or need for defined structure. Just write until the writing is finished to you. Jazz and prog rock began taking things far out and you should take things as far as you feel.

11. What’s a verse you’re particularly proud of, one where you met the vision for what you desire to do with your lyrics?

I am definitely proud of “Gravity Falls” on the most recent ShrapKnel album (that people have heard, that is). Felt like I captured a very particular mood and stylistically took some chances. Sometimes that connects and sometimes it doesn’t, but here it did. Certainly validated by the fan and peer response!

12. Can you pick a favorite bar of yours and describe the genesis of it?

Nobody planning to leave…Context to come in '24.

13. Do you feel strongly one way or another about punch-ins? Will you whittle a bar down in order to account for breath control, or are you comfortable punching-in so you don’t have to sacrifice any words?

Whatever best serves the record. Twenty years from now you will be awarded no points for one-takes, only the quality of the records you left behind.

14. What non-hiphop material do you turn to for inspiration? What non-music has influenced your work recently?

Phil Elverum, David Berman, Big Thief, Japanese Breakfast, lots of SAULT...Jason Isbell, Alton Ellis.

Ocean Vuong...Kurt Vonnegut, Clarice Lispector…recently.

15. Writers are often saddled with self-doubt. Do you struggle to like your own shit, or does it all sound dope to you?

It's because we are sensitive to everything. The good, bad, beautiful, and hideous. We are also the most observant. That’s a dangerous cocktail in general. Couple that with societal pressure to conform to something we are not and a self-imposed barometer hard to match and you have a struggle on your hands. I labor over my work, but ultimately I have a healthy respect for myself and my output. So when I doubt myself, I don't languish for long. I hope others who struggle get there too. Most writers have great triumphs and poignant lulls. The triumphs are a reminder of your brilliance. I try to hold onto those.

16. Who’s a rapper you listen to with such a distinguishable style that you need to resist the urge to imitate them?

Would say Saafir but that’s past tense…I think. I used to imitate unwittingly in freestyles. Perhaps early Del was one, and the way Tash from Tha Liks rode beats, plus Daz. Always fancied myself an East Coast rhymer with West Coast sensibilities. Like stepchild of Wu and Hiero…Boot Camp…Death Row.

Current? I think I am a pretty good appreciator of art at this stage of my life. I can observe and admire without picking up tendencies. I feel bad for people who say they can’t listen to much music while creating because it will influence theirs. I think that’s part of the point. You’re not supposed to jack their style. Rather, it’s like one of those sticky-hand things kids used to play with, but except for dust, dirt, and grime, you pick up bits of inspiration and process it through your filter. Nobody has or can change your filter.

17. Do you have an agenda as an artist? Are there overarching concerns you want to communicate to the listener?

My agenda as an artist is to be remembered as a writer who took the craft very seriously and left behind a wealth of work to sort through. It’s to be remembered as a kind spirited artist who sought to empower others if I was lucky enough to get the chance. It’s to have practiced tolerance, inclusion, and used the privilege I’ve had in a way that hopefully spread this exact sentiment. To be useful in the tool of collaboration and have seen a great deal of the world and left behind an imprint that you remembered. To have been as great a performer as I possibly could be. Maybe, folks leave the show and know they have to get to the woodshed. As grandiose or idealized as that sounds, that is what I want. I want people to feel proud to have known me. And above all I want people to have said, “He sure was a motherfucker with the pen.”

RAPS + CRAFTS is a series of questions posed to rappers about their craft and process. It is designed to give respect and credit to their engagement with the art of songwriting. The format is inspired, in part, by Rob McLennan’s 12 or 20 interview series.

Photo credit: Edwina Hay

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