cainight

im cainight on ao3

[cainightfics]

hey yall... so i did end up making a discord server (like two months after ppl asked LOL) bc i might stream some stuff at some point... also idk it sounds like ppl just want somewhere to talk.

if you wanna join, the link is below:

https://discord.gg/ZwaXfQFGT

[cainightfics]

What inspires you to write romance? (I love your work, thank you!)

hmmm well i think a lot of it is bc im very cynical about relationships and don't think "romantic love" actually exists lol. yet at the same time everyone in the world is obsessed with it and says it's what makes life worth living.

ill compare this to my interest in religion. i think religion is FASCINATING for the culture it inspires and the ways it makes people act, but 1) i can't take it seriously, 2) i can't stop myself from looking down on people who base their whole lives around it, and 3) it disgusts me and i think it's been a net negative for people's views of the world and for its use as a coping mechanism/method of universal explanation.

"romance" as a concept, or really an ideology frankly, is very similar. i guess i write romance because i have this perverse fascination with it as a concept that manifests in a very pessimistic way. i think this is probably why all my fics skew somewhat disturbing in nature/why i cant write fluff.

and of course you are free to think of me as crazy for this, as most people do lol

[emeraldelysium]

my dealer: got some straight gas. this strain is called “fsociety” youll be zonked out of your gourd

Me: yeah whatever. i dont feel shit.

5 minutes later: dude i swear so much depends upon a red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens

my friend tyrell, pacing: the dark army is lying to us

[cainightfics]

sorry if this is overstepping LOL but i know from your posts you are resistant to smut, yet interested in other people's fetishes... would you ever include any of that in your fic?

there are a couple fetishes ive been accused of having. like my invention of asexual bdsm (i feel like nobody uses this term but me 😭) is one. but there is another fetish i have been accused of having by NUMEROUS PEOPLE and when you look at my body of work and consider a frequent plot device you have good odds of being able to figure it out lmao. i didn't even realize i was doing it until it was pointed out by oomf

[cainightfics]

Have you watched Severance?

i watched half of s1, i rly need to lock in and finish 😭

[cainightfics]

Have you watched

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE

OR

SUCCESSION

Xx

yes both! im actually watching iwtv rn (just started s2) and watched succession as it came out. i think there are a few posts on here about succession if you search it on my blog (but the search function does often suck).

as for iwtv i have some mixed feelings about it and i have a sense of impending doom about what im hearing on twitter about s3 lol. ig i can't really form an opinion on it until im done s2 tho. i read i think the first 2 books and the devils minion chapter when i was like 12 so i don't rly remember much, but i find what they're doing with the frame narrative of the "second interview" and the increased involvement of daniel through his interrogation of what louis believes to be true and armands manipulations of the truth interesting. my big issue is honestly the claudia rape scene in s1. in what fucking world was that necessary. and there are a lot of little bits like that + characterization i find off that are building up to make the show irksome to me at times. ive already been complaining about it elsewhere lol but it's sometimes like the show is finding ways to ragebait me three seconds after im like "hmmm im rly enjoying this"

im excited for s2e5 tho. six days of daniel being tortured after the first interview while he begs and cries and armand tries to get him to kill himself YAYYYYY i love psychosexual abuse

[cainightfics]

what gets me the most about the whole "i only use ai to generate ideas for fics!" "i only use ai as an editor!" "i only use ai because i struggle with writing summaries!" shit is like. whatever happened to having a beta reader. whatever happened to taking requests or asking the community for concrit

i dont get why fanfic is treated on the same level as a homework assignment now. this is a collaborative creative process all about commenting on a property you have a love/hate relationship with and want to build upon. whats even the point of using ai.... if its not fun for you to struggle through writers block or come up with your own ideas or work towards improving your writing fic by fic, why do you even bother

[cainightfics]

can we join the discord even if we just intend to lurk? (permanent anon here... i am shy)

yes ofc! i made the server bc ppl asked for it a while back, but there's no expectation of any activity if you join. you can do whatever you want in there lol idc

the reason why i finally got around to making it is because i think it could be fun to stream. whether that's just watching stuff (i have been contemplating doing a mr robot rewatch), or i might play some games, or i might actually go live at some point...

im weird and when i get rly bored i like to stream myself walking around and doing whatever ppl tell me to. like when we had a snowstorm i streamed for oomfs and made them judge my snow creations and tell me which direction to walk while exploring. like choose ur own adventure but u control me idk this is genuinely how bored i get sometimes

if nobody joins we will probs do nothing tho bc it's embarrassing to flop 😭

[cainightfics]

if given the opportunity to rewrite the mr robot finale, how would you do it?

ok tbh im not gonna claim i could write a tv show bc i can barely even write a fic lmao....

but what i would have done is follow the arc beginning to be set out at the end of s3. prices suggestion that elliot needs to build a revolution of the people rather than being a lone wolf, and darlenes friend in the post s3 credits saying she needs to go read some marx and figure out how capitalism actually works before trying to critique it.

also in this answer i will assume i get 5 seasons bc this was esmails original plan and he just didn't do it for some reason. i think that pacing crunch is part of why the back half of s4 feels a bit off for me

i would still have s4 start with angela dying. elliot enters a deep depression, darlene is losing it, price is angry yet resigned and just waiting for his revenge, tyrell is lonely and wallowing in the realization that he's a puppet, etc. i would keep all of this the same. HOWEVER i wouldnt do the big time skip to christmas.

id spend more time developing the final arcs for each character. i would also show the impacts elliot helping whiterose move her project to the congo has on the world, the war in iran, as well as e corps recovery process. there would still be an undercurrent of desire for change, and people wondering "is this really it? are we just going to pretend that didn't happen?" sort of how 2022 felt when everybody just decided we would collectively forget covid exists and never address it again because the government just claimed it was over lol

i would keep a lot of stuff with the first 3 episodes the same, but intersperse it with a bit more footage of tyrell trying to be the new CTO (and hating it) as well as the worldbuilding previously mentioned. id want the first 5 or so episodes to build towards a breaking point, much like s3 did before runtime error.

the breaking point in question would be some disaster in the congo. massive human rights violations, slavery, abuse etc being broadcast as a result of the acceleration of resource mining for whiteroses project. id want elliot to realize SOMEHOW that his efforts to do everything on his own have only made him a pawn of the dark army—and this is a realization everyone else is having, too. tyrell is alone and miserable living a sham life he used to think he wanted. price is preparing to step down as ceo, realizing his own power was always that of a puppet actor. darlene is living in the refuse of angelas life, seeing the evidence all over her abandoned apartment that their efforts to keep her out of their plans only pushed angela into whiteroses arms. everyday trenton and mobleys faces are on the TV being held up as terrorists, fuel for a war in iran that's just as meaningless and constructed as iraq in 2003. everybody's miserable.

i still want tyrell to show up at elliot's apartment, and maybe most of the events of 404 can happen, but tyrell doesn't die lol and elliot realizes he can use tyrell as his "man on the inside." the rest of s4 will be the remaining characters (price, elliot, darlene, tyrell) coming together reluctantly, disjointedly, to attempt to sway public opinion against the official e corp narrative. fsociety gets active again, and the public is encouraged to question the idea that everything is going "back to normal" after 5/9. disaster capitalism critique basically lol.... importantly whiterose will be getting ZERO SCREENTIME and will remain a shadowy figure that is always watching. we only see her actions through the impact they have on the world.

id still be doing 10-episode seasons and tbh id have s4 end with the events of 407. id set up the episode to have fsociety plan to enact a big scheme, then YOINK elliot is kidnapped and brought to kristas house. we get the big reveal, krista murders vera, elliot dissociates and stares blankly at nothing. the camera pans around, invading his space, his gaze meets ours, and after a season of silence he finally acknowledges the viewer again.

s5 would flesh out more slowly the host elliot stuff, further explore the aftermath of elliot remembering his trauma, and provide a more detailed account of how they rob the deus group (which would happen a couple episodes in). as the shit about the deus group starts to come out (fsociety releasing the in-universe version of the epstein files basically lol) it incites massive riots. just like in canon, it would be used by fsociety to provide cover for what they are doing as they rob the deus group, but it would get out of hand and tonssss of people would be shot by police. price would die facilitating this, just like in canon, but again i want to reduce whiterose screentime so their conversation would happen over phone or smthn and right after price gags her he would be killed. i want him to actually die as a result of the mob violence chaos incited by the truth about the deus group coming out, but it's uncertain whether whiterose ordered a "protestor" dark army spy to kill him, or if it was some random angry person who saw their chance and took it. just as price always admired ww1 beginning because of one man firing a gun, his reign will end in a similarly minute way.

the aftermath of such a huge riot, and the ceo of e corp being murdered during it, would cause the bourgeoisie to clam up and send the national guard. darlene redistributes the money, but it does very little to quell the revolutionary temper growing in the populace, which has been emboldened by the assassination of price. tyrell is promoted to ceo but whiterose is getting wise to the fact that he might still be working with elliot behind her back, so she starts having him followed. e corp is struggling to remain legitimate and overall things are getting volatile and dangerous in the streets. fsociety has largely lost control over what they've started.

tbh i am fine with tyrell dying lol i just want it to happen a bit later. i want darlene to have an ongoing arc about realizing she isn't just elliots second fiddle. meanwhile mr robot is starting to get nervous that no conditions will make host!elliot come back, as mm!elliot is on a neverending revenge quest. the out of control unrest in the general population is a mirror to masterminds increasing simmering rage, making mr robot wonder if there will really be no natural "end" to it all where mastermind is satisfied and retreats. mind you throughout all of this i want mastermind to be growing increasingly unhinged, morally questionable, and nasty. i wanted him to have a downward spiral arc soooooo bad

i still want elliot and whiterose to have a final showdown, but this time it will be more gaggy because she's finally showing her face (and she hasn't had all that screentime because im keeping her in the shadows). i will follow canon by having this segue into the host!elliot time loop fake out where they have you believe whiteroses machine actually worked lol. i would mirror the canon move of having mm!Elliot run around the nightmare of his own creation where he's kept the host trapped the past year, BUTTTTT i would make it more like "funhouse"/"join the club"/"mayhem" from sopranos where it's less literal and more dreamlike (because it's pretty obvious to me that esmail was borrowing heavily from these sopranos episodes for this sequence, but just didn't really hit the mark). id intersperse this with elliot occasionally waking up in the hospital and watching the aftermath of his actions through news reports on tv. this would also serve my purpose of showing how heavily mm has constructed what the audience gets to see, how he's trapped the host in a narrative, how so much of the show is about BEING in a tv show and being aware of it.

my issue with the actual ending, as in the final scenes of the show, is that it's too on the nose. i don't really have a problem with the way it ends, and i do like the "hello, elliot" scene. id just be a bit more subtle about it and not have elliots did explained to the audience like they're idiots. s4's tendency to get down into the nitty gritty of how elliots mind works is so unnecessary and comes across as plunky, overly literal writing. like we don't need the diagnostic terms lol just have it be dreamlike and confusing and chaotic without so much explanation. don't hand it to the viewer on a platter lol...

but yeah it's not a HUGE change from canon, most of the major story beats remain, id just take more time to have it play out and be less on the nose about it all. that's my actual issue with esmails writing in s4 (plus the socio/political/economic critique sort of falling away in his rush to make an ending)

[cainightfics]

I just finished rereading that newest chapter of TROTW and the outsider perspective from Irving at the end remains so genius to me. Really puts into focus how dysfunctional and codependent T+E have become

i loveeee writing outsider perspectives but it's especially fun for me with trotw because tyrell and elliot BOTH think they are the more clear-headed and rational one who is taking care of the other. tyrell interprets everything as a Sign that he and elliot are destined to be together, that he is the only one who could ever understand elliot, that elliot needs him, that they have been put on earth for each other, etc. elliot thinks tyrell is a psychopath who can be controlled and used for Good Purposes while also thinking tyrell is an emotional ticking time bomb/pathetic manchild who could explode any second if elliot isn't guiding him in the right direction and protecting him from Bad Influences.

but in reality they are both insane and anyone observing them can see that lol. i love it it's so funny

[cainightfics]

june 27 2026

where things are at wip wise/life update

fics:

- tryptich trojan finale will likely come out first. I've got the rough story notes planned out. i MIGHT stretch it to 3 chapters just because i have a sort of "epilogue" planned, but ill post it all at once/in quick succession if i do this. im estimating itll be around 20k words for the fic total.

- trotw is being worked on sporadically. it's my goal to finish it this year. things are starting to move towards an ending plot-wise. be warned that the ending ive always intended is gonna be kind of a fridge horror bad ending in the greater context of the show. i think it could be controversial depending on your tastes lol. but it won't be out of line with the tone of the story so far, and some comments have already anticipated the direction things are heading, so hopefully nobody will be shocked

- i am experimenting with actually sitting down at set times to write instead of just writing everything on the bus. lol. virtually all of my fics have been written during work/on the bus so making a routine will hopefully help me lock in. as part of this routine ill be doing warmups, so there could be some smaller one shots coming. i have to decide if they're worth uploading on ao3 or if they should just go on tumblr

life stuff:

- yes, i am moving to japan. this development has happened VERY FAST as i only found out in the beginning of june that a private school in tokyo wanted to hire me, after having given up on the applications i sent in and concluding nobody was interested. i am currently on the hunt for an apartment (which is hard, as only like 20% of tokyo listings even allow foreigners). this move will probably take up a lot of my time for the next couple months so i apologize is im less active. then again, i tend to be more active when im procrastinating, so it's possible ill be on here more than usual....

[cainightfics]

have you watched barry (hbo)?

i haven't felt ive heard it falls off bad at one point ... is it worth watching?

[cainightfics]

I love batjokes, do you have any recs?

tbh im more of a tourist in that tag than anything, i just surf around until i find smthn that looks entertaining. there is a phenomenon called "therapy speak joker" that always makes me ijbol in fics

so tbh i probably can't help you here bc i am not all that knowledgeable about the fandom i just read their fics for fun. ive read probably everything in the first few pages of the "top kudos" filtered results, and now sometimes click on random new stuff. let me ask oomf @scurvyratt do u have anything....

[cainightfics]

Have you watched SPN? What do you think of it?🫣

i watched it back in the day and i think i got up to like... maybe s11?? before i tapped out. i remember the shit with "the darkness" (lol) was where i stopped. i was never a megafan or anything but i remember the basic arcs of the seasons

spn was very obviously a buffy copy+paste that turned slayers into hunters, aged up the characters, and focused on more of a southern/middle americana aesthetic. i think its aesthetic is actually what made it most successful and what people remember it fondly for. buffy and xfiles had already established "the monster of the week, but slowly building towards the seasonal arc" format that spn borrowed, so the blueprint to make a successful weekly tv format was there. add in two attractive main characters who fall victim to brotherly angst and you have a bestseller. there's absolutely nothing about the form or methods of spn that is interesting or surprising to me bc it's basically the easiest way to build an audience lol

i stand with the very popular opinion that the first five seasons were good and they should have ended it with that. the longer the show went on the worse it got. like obviously some seasons were better than others (the mark of cain stuff was more interesting than the leviathans, lol) but at the same time i have to cut them some slack because after a certain point it's like well what more can they really do without running out of ideas. ironically as time went on the monster of the week format became monster of the SEASON, which reduced the impact of every successive season. like when sam dies at the end of s2 and dean makes a deal to bring him back, you're gagged. when characters die past s5 it's like well whateva this won't effect much on the long run bc the show must go on.... and this isn't necessarily just the fault of the writers it's also the fault of the show being like 20 yrs long, buttttt it does get to a point where the world around them becomes just a set for the ongoing drama of sam and dean. all of that is made worse by "the bunker" which also eliminates most of the wandering homeless americana aesthetic that was so great in earlier seasons.

the thing that spn is so good at is creating fandom. and again this has a lot to do with its similarities to buffy, and how the buffy fandom had created the blueprint for what came later. actually back in the day the spn fandom was using almost exclusively buffy fandom terms (jossed, motw, big bad, 'verse, etc) because the shows both used so many of the same fandom building writing points. if u read old livejournal posts about spn u will see what i mean. the myriad episodes where spn breaks the fourth wall are also hugely indebted to buffy episodes like "wish" or "once more, with feeling." spn does it far more frequently ofc but again these kinds of things are like crack to an audience. the shipping stuff too is ofc a major part of what keeps ppl in the fandom, and the show is good at always keeping you wondering... even in like 2011 there were A LOT of people who GENUINELY believed destiel might happen lol and it's bc the writers knew how to string ppl along. it also had the slash factor that buffy lacked, since the main ships there were either het or femslash. same with early season jokes that turned into angst points—the jokes about sam being girly for having long hair and eating salads turned into eating disorder headcanons, for example. even a bad episode could usually provide some fuel for theorization or fic writing.

the beauty of spn is that it followed a reliable format while always adapting and expanding on things the fandom was interested in. it was veryyy aware of its audience. this is why ppl kept watching it for like 10 yrs after its notable drop in quality lol. it's one of those shows that's way more interesting for its fandom than for the show itself

but that's just my opinion ofc

[cainightfics]

i’m bored & love sending questions so marvel or DC (or a secret third option… neither?)

ok i honestly dont like superhero stuff at all... but i have read so much of the batjokes tag on ao3 i probably have comic-reader-level knowledge of batman. no joke everytime my usual ships are dry asf on ao3 i have two random ass ship tags i browse to look for something entertaining: the batjokes tag, and the harry potter x tom riddle/voldemort tag. some VERY ENTERTAINING fics on there and since everybody writing them is like 30+ they dont play around

[cainightfics]

Have you watched Dexter, if so, thoughts?

I'm currently watching it for the first time.

i watched it earlier this year but didnt keep watching after s4 (trinity killer arc). ill just go through what i DID see and give you my opinion lol but im by no means a dexter expert

in general i thought the first season was good. like do you know when you watch an older, genre-heavy, solid season of tv and youre like "yeah that was decent, i probably would have tuned in weekly back then." it was stylish, fun, it maintained this air of mystery, dexter was more of the lone wolf type still, etc. but ofc the shining star of s1 is the antagonist. i wont spoil *who* the ice truck killer is because im not sure how far in you are but they missed a MASSIVE opportunity killing him off. and the fact that they apparently diverged from the books on that annoys me. if they kept him as a recurring villain/dexter helper it would have given the overall arc of the story more bones to rest on. s1 has easily the best overarching storyline and pacing to me, and since at this point dexters origins and emotional problems havent gotten old, i was still interested in discovering more about it.

s2 for me was a slog. the last 3 or 4 episodes are SOOOO entertaining like ijbol 😭 but again, they do the same thing as s1, where they kill off one of the few super dynamic characters in the story. s2 also sets into motion the tradition of giving dexter a "helper" every season, who agrees with his killings and assists him. do i love this decision? not really. mainly because, like i said before, i prefer dexter as a lone wolf, and intermittent visits from the ice truck killer either helping or challenging dexter would have been more fun. i also found lila so severely annoying and i wish they had written her to be more outright manipulative and evil rather than the "crazy bpd girlfriend" trope, which to me is so one-note and played out

by s3 you know how the show works, and this is where i started to actually get annoyed. every season follows the same format. the miami police are after a new killer. deb has a new boyfriend. dexter meets a mentally ill person who wants to help him. he struggles to balance life with his new family, his work, and his serial killing. he has an ideological disagreement with the Serial Killer Of The Season and reflects on how his fathers code shaped him. oh shit, is dexter about to get caught? nope, nevermind, he found a way around it in a couple episodes. oh shit, dexter had a disagreement with his Helper Of The Season. oh shit, the killer is closing in. no worries, both the killer and the helper die, leaving things conveniently wrapped up for the next season storyline. like lmao i dont hate the arc storytelling format, but with dexter its particularly boring at times. s3 felt like it had basically wrapped things up thematically by episode 9 and then it just.... keeps going. considering tv shows back in the mid 00s were still usually running on a 22 episode per season run, its actually baffling to me how they couldnt figure out how to work with 13 episodes a season for dexter and have it feel "full" enough

.... but wait, its actually not baffling at all, because the side characters HAVE NOTHING GOING ON. seriously. just about every side plot in this show is romance that they somehow expect us to care about. oh no, laguerta and batista are in a secret relationship that could cost them their jobs???? deb is learning how to trust again after relationship #397429743 ended badly???? rita is seeing through dexters flimsy excuses for why hes gone all night???? oh shit, we have a little extra dialogue space this scene, lets have masuka say something both nerdy and sexual! like it just gets so old lol and mind you this is a CRIME SHOW surely we could find some INTERESTING CRIMES to pad out the season with??? sometimes they even introduce side character plots only to forget them like 5 episodes later. for example in s3 they bring in this investigator who is following one of dexters new coworkers (who is also lowkey romantically involved with deb, because of course). cue the intrigue: "could quinn be a dirty cop, like doakes? could he be using a fake identity to get closer to the killings, just like the ice truck killer did? would we be able to bring back some of the intrigue for any of the myriad characters we randomly killed off early in the show? umm well writing any of that would be too hard. lets forget about it!!" its SO ANNOYING. there is such a lack of care from the writers and it becomes noticeable fast.

a lot of ppl call s4 the "best season" so i stuck it out for that. i honestly, truly, was not that impressed by the trinity killer. SAWRYYYY i know thats an unpopular opinion. he was an interesting foil for dexter, but again, to me, not as interesting as the ice truck killer. dexters pattern of both looking up to trinitys "mask" and ability to seem normal, mixed with disgust for the thought that he himself could one day become a killer like that, again just feels like chasing the thematic notes first brought from the ice truck killer, who is hardly ever mentioned despite the fact he should probably be pretty big in dexters mind??

john lithgow did a great performance playing trinity but to be honest it really did just feel like dexters whole family man struggle was getting super old by then. the twist at the end of the season also did nothing for me lol. again super unpopular bc a lot of people somehow say it was the best moment of the show. but meh. its so hard to say much more without spoiling lol so ill leave it there

the praise i can give dexter is that it has probably one of the best pilot episodes ive ever seen (and i stand by my pet theory that the mr robot pilot follows its structure almost 1:1). the first season is also a great watch, and ive even put it on again to watch in the background while doing work. butttt the writers have such an annoying tendency to kill off the super dynamic characters in favour of drawn out seasonal dramas that dont have a lasting effect on anything. its actually very telling to me that if you go on reddit/older forums, people were making predictions about the ice truck killer returning EVERY SEASON up to the series finale. he felt like a much bigger part of the story than his actual screentime reflects. after he died i was kinda like ok so will we be getting another heavy hitter like that?? but nope, never. thats why i gave up after s4 lol i was like ok if these are the "best" seasons then ive definitely seen enough

[cainightfics]

btw my main is @siyal8r so if you have been getting likes from that account it's me lol. also, for whatever reason i don't get notifs for this blog , so if ive missed a reply/reblog/DM from you, im sorry, it's not on purpose 😭