#(when I’m active on this blog you underestimate how many asks I send )

[official-l]

Hello L,

Mr Yagami (Light Yagamis father) is in deep denial that you two could be in a romantic relationship. Multiple annons have tried to tell him of your romantic relationship to him straight up calling them liars.

I am aware. Light and I have decided to test the limits of his denial when it come to his son.

[scripttorture]

You likely don't follow Dream Smp but there was just a reveal that one person (Character A) is torturing another (Character B, former villain, now in prison) for info on necromancy while the warden of the prison gave CA the equipment to do it and is ignoring CB's screams for help. And half the fandom is trying to justify it with "oh, CB deserves it for threatening to kill a child, killing (1/2)

another child (who he then revived, not justifying /that/ though) and manipulating/abusing the latter." Not only that, but so many people are telling off anyone who pointing out how messed up it is (and don't worry, the story itself so far is showing that it's messed up and won't work) with "it's just fiction, get over it." Like I am legit concerned over how many people are claiming it's cathartic and the character deserves it for their actions. Rant over I guess (2/2) (Dream smp anon) And I forgot to add that this character was /already/ being tortured; he has been in complete solitary confinement for upwards of 2 months and is being starved) and was actively self-harming and destroying items in his cell in a bid to get the warden to come replace them (looking for social interactions, even if it was negative) and people STILL thought that wasn't "enough of a punishment"

-

I have no idea what this show? Comic? Piece of media is but I’m happy to give my opinion on the general situation and use of violence in fiction*.

 But I’m not here to take sides in fandom wars and the aim of this blog is not to tell people they can’t write about violence or abuse. It’s to make people think about how it’s used in stories and hopefully create something that’s more realistic and respectful to real survivors.

 At the end of the day the reason I’m interested in fiction is because it effects our perception of real survivors. When so much of our popular media is unrealistic in ways that demean survivors that has an effect. I want to remind people that while the violent acts we write about are fiction, similar acts are happening to real people today.

 Torture survivors are real. They’re human and they deserve respect.

 Here’s the thing Anon, the people you’re mad at are real too. And the characters that sparked this are not.

 There’s nothing wrong with having a strong emotional respond to fiction. There’s nothing wrong with getting frustrated with how pigheaded or outright bigoted fandom can be. But it is worth questioning whether responding to this kind of thing is worth it.

 Arguments over fictional characters can become extremely heated and result in real world harm. And so long as you’re engaging with stuff in a purely fictional context… well I think the chances of being dismissed, belittled etc are significantly higher. (Note however that being dismissed and belittled still happens when you’re dealing with torture in the real world.)

 This is not fair. That does not change other people’s responses or the cultural climate.

 I will be blunt; if you are writing and reading in English the majority of fans you deal with will be Western and white. I have personally found this intersection very likely to treat violence as something purely fictional. I have found them unlikely to consider torture as a reality unless they are prompted to.

 And from my side of things that prompting is often like dropping an anvil on someone’s foot during the conversation.

 Believe me I get it. It is infuriating to see real, deadly torture techniques interpreted as harmless. It is hurtful seeing torture victims blamed for their own suffering. This happens on the news as often as it does in fandom so the fact these feelings are being set off by something fictional doesn’t make a lot of difference. Because these arguments are used in the real world against real people.

 Seeing torture apologia touted as this weeks hot take is something you are allowed to be mad about. I’d be a hypocrite if I said otherwise.

 But educating other people is hard work and you are talking about a piece of media aimed at children. You are probably talking to children. If you’re a teenager yourself it might be hard to hear it put like that.

 It’s still true.

 If you really want to have these conversations in your fandom then you need to centre the reality. Underestimating or dismissing the damage solitary confinement and starvation do to people is serious because it props up real world systems of abuse. Because it justifies ‘tough’ sentences to level of isolation that leave people mutilated by their own hand, or unable to function in society. Or dead. Because it leads to doctors ‘prescribing’ diets used in death camps.

 Here’s the thing, talking about that reality to children is a fraught process. Especially when they’re children who don’t have any experience of seeing this stuff. And unless you’re their parent or teacher educating them is not your job.

 Sending them down an internet rabbit hole that leads to photos of real injuries, real torture, real mass graves… I think that has the potential to go very badly.

 Enjoying something and then discovering that the fandom is toxic is unpleasant. But my impression is that’s the problem here: the fandom interactions are leaving you feeling like shit.

 Disengage.

 You do not need the fandom to enjoy uh… whatever Dream smp is. You do not need their permission and if the fandom is a negative space for you, you are allowed to leave.

 If some of these people are your friends then by all means try to privately explain why their words hurt you and use this blog as a resource. But ask yourself how much you want to be friends first because that is a long painful process that might not work.

 Torture apologia is everywhere and fixing it is going to take decades.

 Accept that you can not control other people’s actions. Accept that some people will always be assholes.

 If seeing torture apologia hurts you then… you probably need to find a piece of media without torture to enjoy. Because apologia is so present that I think that’s the only way to completely avoid coming across it in fandom.

 Once again I understand. I’ve volunteered to be bombarded with this stuff every day. It is upsetting. It is also embedded our global culture and the popular media exported to every single nation on the planet.

 Constantly being confronted with it and stewing in that anger and hurt is unhealthy.

 Step back. Do something else for a while. Take a look at this post I made last week. You might find some of the advice on dealing with these feelings helpful.

 You can not make people care. Hopefully most of the people you’re talking to will grow and learn and become more compassionate people. But you can’t force that process.

 And you don’t have to deal with their bullshit while they’re still growing.

 Shouting at other people isn’t always helpful and it isn’t activism. If you want to do something constructive there are a lot of organisations that would gladly accept your money and your time.

 Here’s a couple that seem relevant:

Just Detention

Solitary Watch

The World Food Programme

Amnesty International

 I hope that helps. :)

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

*I asked a friend to explain what Dream Smp is and I’ll be honest I still don’t understand it. But hey I got an idea of the target audience which helps. Please don’t explain Minecraft to me any more let me rest.

[gild-and-fire]

Okay so I gotta ask - I can see you’re watching QotS and I’ve always been curious about it. Would you recommend??

I was so excited to receive your ask, Lauren! Thank you so much for sending it (and humoring me)--especially since I could talk about QOTS all day, but try to restrain myself bc I don’t want to be annoying lol. But unfortunately I have allowed myself to be unhinged and thus wrote a 700 word answer :) If you don’t feel like reading the whole thing lol I will refer you to @riosnecktattoo​’s ask which helped me to decide to watch QOTS. But here’s my spoiler-free, long post for why I love Queen of the South!

General

WOC as lead: I am obsessed with complex, badass, relatable women as leads, and i literally go FERAL when woc are leads. QOTS has two woc as leads and both are incredible actresses playing layered characters (Teresa and Camila).

For Camila, she leaves her husband and daughter to follow her ambitions and grow her business (not a spoiler). I think it’s very interesting how the show builds tension between Camila and her daughter due to this choice, and I enjoy that the show doesn’t answer but explores the “can women have it all” aspect and how she’s underestimated in the cartel business bc she's a woman and has to work harder to get where she is. 

For Teresa, I love her fortitude and moral compass, and like Beth, she’s definitely a badass. She is luckily a little bit more sensible/experienced than Beth when it comes to crime lol and actually has long standing success as the Queen of the South (duh, Audrey).

Worldbuilding: If the premise (mexican drug cartels) is interesting to you, then you’ll enjoy how they’ve built the gritty underworld of cartels and all the ruthless players from Texas to Columbia. Also, QOTS includes fantastic moments with magical realism which is such a neat genre overall and it really adds to the richness of the story. One of my favorite parts

Jeresa

It’s the parallels, it’s the trust, it’s the friendship and the way they sacrifice for the other person and save each other over and over again. 

Tropes: I especially love how James is framed as a “bad guy” (assassin in a cartel lol) and Teresa is the “good guy” (victim of cartel violence and thus against it,) but that over the course of the 3 seasons, they grow in different ways because of the other person. I think a lot about the fact that in their line of work it really does pay to be selfish/look out for yourself, and that both of them are very logical and realistic people. And yet! They both actively choose to protect and make sacrifices for the other person. makes me cry every time :,)

James is hot: James is fucking hot in that white henley and Lauren, I swear to god if this other gifset of James in his signature aviators doesn’t convince you, then I might throw this blog away

GG/BRIO

I want to contextualize this show by comparing it to good girls 

Consistency & Parallels: GG does this really well, but QOTS does it even better because there are plots and people from literally the first episode that come full circle and make a difference many episodes/seasons later. It’s clear that the writers really care about and have thought deeply about the development of their characters and plots. True for GG, but a little less so (looking @ you cancer lie and buddy the dog)

Violence: Okay you know how Rio just brings out the gun once in a while as foreplay? And like we have “seen” only one death in the entire series so far? In QOTS, it is impossible to watch a scene without two guns and a corpse lying around somewhere. If we’re lucky, maybe we won’t see a decapitated head being kicked around like a soccer ball more than once. I think if you can stomach the first two episodes, you’re fine.

OTP: brio’s UST is off the charts and im not sure i will EVER find a show that can match it, but jeresa is just so real. Ofc the cartel stuff can feel a little contrived sometimes, but their friendship and relationship is so healthy (given their circumstances), and it really is true love. For gg, I'm in the camp that they don’t actually love each other.  Side note: James is a main character with his own plots that intertwine with Teresa’s, which means we see him more than Rio’s 2min of him per episode. I know. It is truly a gift.

tl;dr QOTS is so good that I am incapable of acting like a normal human being and would like to scream about my love for this show. And if you decide not to watch this show, at least look at some gifsets of James. 

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, RACHEL! You’ve been accepted for the role of GONERIL with an FC change to Katie McGrath. Admin Rosey: There are so many nuances to Grace that I think are difficult to capture -- her voice, her mannerisms are so unique to her but in the span of a single application you’ve been able to give us all that and more. Your plot points make me so excited for what is to come, while your paragraph sample had me head over heels for the Grace that you put in front of us. Veronesi, we finally have our Daly sisters gathered together and we’re ready for them to wreak havoc! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | Rachel

Age | 21

Preferred Pronouns | she/her

Activity Level | Probably a 7/10? I’m on my computer a lot but it sometimes does take me a while to get through replies because I am a bit of a perfectionist. Inspiration comes in fits so there will definitely times when I rip through a ton of writing and others where is just isn’t coming as fast.

Timezone | PST

How did you find the rp?  | I’m pretty sure I saw a teaser for this when y’all were first starting/again when you revamped but I was not in a place where I had the time/energy to write as much as I wanted so I filed it away and then forgot about it until now, when I finally have the desire to get back into writing!

Current/Past RP Accounts | Whiskey Bishop (past)

IN CHARACTER

Character | Goneril / Grace Daly

What drew you to this character? | Grace wasn’t the character that first caught my eye, but boy did she keep it. I’m a sucker for bull-headed women and Grace’s self-centeredness and bloodlust really drew me in. Goneril canonically is kind of a righteous bitch, played much more one-dimensionally than I’d like; this is where I think the shades of Grace’s character really grab me. She’s ruthless but not reckless, cold not from an absence of love but from too much - Louis Daly’s principessa, first born, beloved, spoiled like milk left too long in the sun of her parents’ affection. This is what intrigues me most, and what I think will be the most difficult part of her to work through for me as a writer. I’ve written characters that are hardened because they had to be, but none that truly chose wickedness simply because they could…. I hope to draw out Grace’s self-confidence and self-centeredness and see how far personal gain can really get her. She’s very calculating but also impulsive; the second she sees an opportunity that benefits her and determines the ends justify the means, she’s all over it. It’s dichotomies like this that really capture me and I think it’ll be interesting to work out all the ways she’s human, despite her seeming attempts not to be.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? | These turned into more of little character studies and possible engagements to further Grace’s character than specific plots - I’ve tried to condense the ideas at the start into more specific playable beats that could become direct interactions!

DOMINION: Playing the long game, working her way up to a power grab that consolidates to herself - what is step one? After all, everyone must start from the beginning…

There are three things Grace Daly is sure of: she was born, she will (eventually) die, and that she alone dictates her life. She’ll take direction, sure, but she knows what she wants. There is always, always something bigger, something better, just out of her reach, something she wants desperately to have. Maybe it’s a fault in how she was raised, never wanting for anything, but now - now she burns with righteous fire for that which is denied her: control. Grace is power-hungry and doesn’t care who knows it. She sold her soul to one devil and sold it again right out from under them when a better price arose. Traitor is too harsh of a word; call her opportunistic. If they look down on her now, well. Let that teach them to underestimate.

There will come a day when Grace will rule - not as a right hand, not as the shadow behind the throne - but as her own. This was a right she was born into, and one that she will claim. Her time with the Capulets was merely a step towards this goal, for how better to know your enemy than to have been amidst them? Now, one step forward, she aims her sights higher, looking to rise beyond that which has been set for her. She starts slow. First step: usurp her captain - a thing she sees as inevitable, with his penchant for drink and her particular brand of determination. She’ll do the grunt work, get her hands dirty like the rest - she will continue to do so even as captain, as advisor, as underboss, as boss herself. Henry is but a minor bump, easily smoothed over, easily moved beyond. She knows there is more for her in the Montagues than simply obeying him, and she will take her future with both hands.

FAMILY: What blood really stands between the sisters? How far is she willing to go - what acts against her own kin can she truly justify?

However much she claims indifference towards her sisters, they are her foils, in some ways. The blood shared between them is a regretful thing, nothing that compels her towards compassion, least of all love - still, Grace is reluctantly connected to them in name and in action. In some ways, the three sisters together make one whole person - Grace’s ruthlessness tempered by Catherine’s compassion; Regina’s apathy filled by Grace’s overconfidence; Catherine’s timidity balanced by Regina’s ability to get shit done. They compliment each other and highlight the others’ flaws in equal measure. Each is a product of the other and their shared home, however much they may want to distance themselves from it.

I would love to see Grade engaging with Regina and Catherine, as each draws out a different side of her. Regina inspires a jealousy in Grace that she is loathe to name - they inhabited in the same spaces, took to the life of the mob in equal footing, yet somehow Regina has pulled ahead of Grace, received recognition even without recognition - it infuriates her. Regina is a machine, dispassionate where Grace is cunning, engaged, though they both get the same results. Grace wants to be noticed, to be known, but there is a seductive quality to Regina’s invisibility, her strange innate ability to act just beyond everyone’s view. They are so similar - it seems like they are the same but Grace got oversaturated while Regina got drained. I can almost imagine them as children, Grace acting twice as large and loud to make up for her sister’s quiet nature, a feedback loop that kept them going on divergent paths to where they are now.

Catherine, on the other hand, seems like Grace’s polar opposite, yet they too are so similar. They operate on their own personal moral codes, though the ends their aim for are differing. Grace acts selfishly, Catherine selflessly - both aggressive in their approach, adamant in their own righteousness. Grace wanted a companion once she found Regina too quiet, saw her fire echoed in Catherine, but where she herself grew bottle sick on her parent’s love, Catherine drew it wholeheartedly into herself. I would love to draw out where their codes of personal honor clash, especially as it relates to Grace’s abdication to the Montagues - Catherine’s engagement with the Capulets rests on her sense of familial honor, but what is that worth now that her sister has (to many - never to Grace) dragged her name through the mud? How far does familial love stretch, for both of them?

If it came down to it, would Grace balk at enacting violence against her sisters? Would she be able to watch them die? Could she kill them herself, if it was asked of her? She talks a big game of disconnect, but I think that there is something about both of her sisters that tugs on a long buried part of her self-dedication, one that would make her question just what the means to an end entailed.

BLAME: Shouldering glory is easy, comfortable - what will happen when she has to take on the mantle of blame?

While external interpretations of honor mean almost nothing to Grace, she absolutely must stay well respected for her ability to get results. What would happen if she majorly messed up a job, or let herself be compromised, or something of the sort? If she causes unintended ruin that does not further her own goals? She doesn’t care about anyone’s trust (is there anyone that merits having hers?), but having fallen out of whatever trust is associated with getting results would, I think, really rattle her. Having to prove herself again, and again, and again, because of a stupid mistake, or consideration for an action ceased just a moment too soon - it would infuriate her. Would it turn her to a self-distrusting, indecisive figure (which she’s seen all too clearly in Henry)? Likely not, but it certainly would heighten her scrupulous calculation for her actions. She still acts on instinct, but with an extra second or two of hesitation that wasn’t there before, moments that could serve as the killing blow to all that she’s worked for.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | Yes! Grace has totally made some enemies and I’d honestly be surprised if nobody tried to hurt her.

IN DEPTH

In-Character Para Sample:

When one wants a job done, one comes to Grace Daly. Her hands are dirty, drenched in years of sin she will never - needs never - absolve. She looked death in the face years ago and smiled, sharp, welcoming the inevitable as violence settled itself around her shoulders like a cloak. A weight that to some seems unbearable, crushing them down, is to her an extension of herself, something always meant to compliment whatever goodness was passed to her from her parents. Like civet balances the sweetness of perfume, so blood fortified Grace’s bright resolve.

She cannot complain about her work for the Montagues - being the muscle is fun, in a sickening way, acting enforcer of the laws of the streets. Even as she rose above simple soldier, Grace was not averse to dipping her hands back into the muck. If you need something done, do it yourself.

Disturbances in the ranks, a supplier stepping too far over the line - who better to quash it than the turncoat herself? Her reputation precedes her, in many ways, and more often than not she can beat out the kinks without much trouble.

[ For every few jobs done right, there is one that goes wrong. No, nothing is every truly wrong, irredeemably broken, just more difficult, the wrong sort of spectre arriving before her to the scene. ]

The man before her had spat at her - traitor, puttana crudele, perché dovrei ascoltarti? - so confident in her degradation that he presumed a rank above that simply was not there. What choice did Grace have but to put him in his place, then? This was why she had been sent to him, after all - one too many missteps, just enough hubris to be considered insubordination. A shipping contact, a nobody, someone that never should have registered beyond the receipt of goods on time. He fancied himself something more, and in doing so outstepped his utility. When an ox can no longer pull the plough, carry what is required of it, the farmer does not coddle it in its useless state. Why then should anything else be expected for such a pawn as this? When something no longer works, it is gotten rid of.

                                              Put down.

She spares him no moment for negotiation - what little regard she could have had was dissipated from the start with the smoke from the bridges his words burnt. She does not draw it out. He does not deserve her time, though there is no want for effort. Just as he did not respect her status, he does not expect such savagery from so small a person, let alone a fallen woman, too blinded by his overconfidence to see that she is the knife up the sleeve that slides, smooth, between your ribs. Her first blow changes his tune, but she is better than him in all ways and makes it clear.

Broken, bloodied, he lies crumpled at her feet, a swift dispatching of rightful vengeance turned his words from barbs to pleas, begging for one last chance, empty promises of a return to clean ranks and subordination. To her, these mean nothing. Perhaps words of supplication may work on a lesser man, but this was how Grace Daly gained her name. Ruthless, frigid, no words cracked her polished exterior. Her hands were stained, bloody, and she did not bother to clean them.

One final kick in the ribs. He turns his face to her, hands rising to beg, and something in her eyes stills him. Her patience is wearing thin. His judgement has been meted out, to be executed at her hand. This - suddenly, terribly - the man knows.

She smiles as his frantic murmurs turn to prayer, the last plea of a dying man.Desperately calling to a god that would not hear, spilling the name of the one present. Ave Maria, gratia plena -

Her smile was a slow, twisted thing, sharp and cruel and tight, measured like the raising of a gun -                                     gratia plena                                                           - like the pulling of a trigger.

                                    - Gratia -

In the sudden silence she stands, angel of death come to collect. They will get their absolution, she thinks, turning away. But who said this god was kind?

Extras:

Character tag

Aesthetics: sunsets like a bruise, the glow of a cigarette cherry in a dark alley, meticulously organized desks, chrome, red lipstick, steel-toed boots, blood oranges and ruby red grapefruits, stilettos (the dagger and the shoes), silk slips and leather overlay, amber, teeth bloody from a split lip, lily of the valley perfume, to-do lists, silver jewelry, fingernails clipped short.

*I’d also like to request here a FC change to either Katie McGrath or Crystal Reed - I know they have more resources than Valeriia (though her face is very striking!) & also I think they both (Katie especially) look more like the actresses that are faces for Regina and Catherine… I’m happy to chat about this, or have y'all pick between the two for who you’d like to see most on the dash, whichever is best!

[pixelgrotto]

Ladies and lords of Waterdeep

From April of 2019 to June of 2020, I ran Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, a Dungeons & Dragons campaign for levels 1-5, for two groups - a party of three gals and a party of six guys. This was a tricky undertaking - mostly because as written, Dragon Heist is kind of a mess (more on that in a sec) - but also because I had to balance an adventure for two very different audiences that really only shared the commonality of being filled with D&D newbies. It was a worthwhile endeavor, though, and looking back on the experience reveals some interesting food for thought on how to remix an adventure, as well as how some ladies and gents experience roleplaying games differently. 

First, let me briefly discuss the adventure itself. Dragon Heist is meant to be an urban outing set in the Forgotten Realms metropolis of Waterdeep, which I described to my New York-dwelling players as “pretty much a fantasy version of NYC.” Over the course of five levels, players inherit and possibly renovate an old tavern, catch wind of an ancient heap of gold beneath the city and run into a bunch of important figures from Forgotten Realms history, ranging from Laeral Silverhand to Volothamp Geddarm. All of that’s epic, and the only issue is that the adventure’s laid out in a pretty shoddy way. 

There are four chapters in Dragon Heist, and the first is the only one that can be run with a minimum of hacking on the part of the Dungeon Master. The other three present a so-called “toolbox” of vague ideas for missions with Waterdeep’s various adventuring factions, as well as middling advice for scenes like a rooftop chase and a battle with a chain devil in a crypt, but it’s all highly disorganized with a minimum of connective tissue, requiring heavy lifting on the DM’s part to stitch together. The book is also rife with excessive red herrings for players to stumble upon as they search for the treasure trove, way too many characters with overly long names, and last but not least, there’s a lack of an actual “heist” in the grand finale, which is more scavenger hunt than Ocean’s Eleven. 

With all these criticisms, why did I choose to run this book for not one, but two different groups at the same time? It was largely because I’d just finished playing through Dragon Heist with my own character - a mask-wearing teenage street urchin who fancied herself a swashbuckler. I’d had a more-enjoyable-than-not time with the folks I played with, but the guy who DMed had a habit of sending us on the aforementioned red herrings for multiple sessions at a time, with nary an interesting combat encounter or social challenge in sight. I don’t really blame him for this - especially seeing at how poorly the book was laid out afterwards - but immediately after finishing, I was approached by two friend groups who wanted to try their hand at D&D, and this gave me the excuse to see if I could do a better job. 

Since I already had a clear example of which pitfalls to avoid, the version of Dragon Heist that I ran heavily remixed all of the elements in the book, with an emphasis on streamlining whenever possible and always making it feel like my players were accomplishing something. This is usually my underlying philosophy whenever I run a game, but it’s an essential strategy for newbies who might be driven off of roleplaying games altogether by bad pacing. For instance, as written, there’s an annoying series of fetch quests near the end of the story where players have to find a number of keys in order to open the hidden treasure vault. These keys are random as heck, ranging from semi-sensible McGuffins like a bronze dragon scale to bonkers junk like a ballad played by two dwarven bards and a friggin’ unicorn. This whole exercise in randomness reminded me of the worst of video game filler, and I cut it out entirely by having the son of the man who hid the treasure accompany the characters, with a drop of his blood activating the magic needed to open the vault’s doors. (This also led to an amusing situation where the guys were stuck as they ruminated on how to open the vault...until the dude playing the goliath suddenly shouted, “I GRAB RENAER’S HAND, CUT IT AND SMEAR THE BLOOD ALL OVER THE DOOR!” and I was like, “Okay. It...opens!”)

Because my players were nearly all D&D virgins, I also wanted them to get their money’s worth by encountering all four of Dragon Heist’s villains - Xanathar the beholder, the devil-worshipping Cassalanter nobles, Manshoon the cloned wizard and Jarlaxle the drow rogue. As written, Dragon Heist touts itself as highly replayable, since DMs are only supposed to choose one villain for their players to go up against. The problem is that all of the bad guys are teased on the cover, and the beginning chapters dangle most of them into the narrative with the players caught in the middle. This created a lot of confusion when I was a player, as my companions and I kept hearing about Xanathar and Manshoon...only for them to suddenly disappear halfway through as Jarlaxle took center stage as the big bad. And so, in order to circumvent this confusion and make both the boys and the girls feel like they were getting a quintessential experience with a minimum of loose ends, I threw in all the baddies. (I wasn’t the only one to do this - tabletop RPG designer Justin Alexander also recommends this approach on his blog The Alexandrian, where he offers an impressive revision of Dragon Heist that I probably would’ve used if I hadn’t discovered it too late.) 

So, when it came down to actually rolling dice, how’d my two groups interact with the material? I think it’s safe to say that both the girls and the boys hit the same major story beats and had a grand time doing so, but the nuances of their experiences were fascinatingly different. The girls, for instance, dove into the art of roleplaying and devising histories for their characters, and one of them decided to play as an elf from a seafaring clan and gave me a whole backstory involving the ocean that inspired my “final boss” for Dragon Heist, an evil, decaying dragon from the Elemental Plane of Water that isn’t in the book. (Hey, it’s called Dungeons & Dragons, the story’s named Dragon Heist, and since I wasn’t sure if all of my players would stick around for future campaigns, I figured I’d better stick a notable battle with a big scaly lizard in there somewhere.) 

The girls also got way more into some of the social justice subplots that permeated my version of Dragon Heist, pushing hard for Waterdeep to remove the anti-dragon magic bubble that surrounded the city and excluded an entire species from its borders. Their interactions with non-player characters - often progressing along the lines of “well, if you feel like you want us to do this quest for you, then we certainly can” - reflected this sort of empathy, and even though this sounds incredibly stereotypical, by the time the final session wrapped up, all three of the gals had either shipped or flirted with NPCs that they’d encountered during their journey. One of ‘em even ended up hitched with a baby!

The boys, by contrast, were much less likely to devise in-depth character histories beyond “I’M IN THIS CITY TO GET MY MONEY,” and their NPC conversations also frequently waded into “GIMME MY GOLD” territory. I don’t want to make it sound like their characters were just two dimensional mercenaries, though, because definite, organic progression occurred over the course of the campaign - the goliath who couldn’t read gradually worked his way through Volo’s Guide to Monsters and became fluent in Celestial after joining the Order of the Gauntlet, for instance.

Where the boys clearly felt more at home than the girls was in combat, probably because 1) there were six of them as opposed to the three ladies, and 2) they collectively had lots of video game knowledge, and D&D’s influence has kinda trickled down to every video game ever made. It didn’t take long for some of the dudes to begin subconsciously min/maxing their characters, and while there were two major deaths in unpredictable boss fights, the boys did go through a long period where they were just steamrolling everything to come their way and yelling, “LET’S FUCKIN’ GOOOO” as they did so. In contrast, DMing for the girls during combat sequences was occasionally a nail-biting experience where I didn’t know who was going to survive, and since some of this was due to my own slapdash encounter design where I underestimated the abilities of the monsters they were up against, I made sure to give them lots of friendly NPCs who could potentially offer a helping hand, or even resurrection spells if needed. 

Both groups were aware of the other’s existence, and I’d sometimes playfully pit them against one another. (Example: The guys often forgot who was who, and one time one of ‘em looked down at his character sheet and was like, “MY NOTES ARE SUCH SHIT” which made me respond, “Well, y’know the girls take really good notes...”) But at the end of the campaign, when my players asked me which party was more fun to DM for, my answer was that both groups were great. The girls were bursting with imaginative roleplay, and they gave me real moments of glee as they responded to story twists with the legitimate surprise and wonder that comes from people who aren’t already overexposed to fantasy tropes and gaming culture. The boys gave me that feeling of what some fans affectionately call “beer & pretzels D&D,” where you’re shooting the breeze with your buddies, playfully teasing each other and going for broke in combat encounters. 

I want to stress that the ladies I DMed for were absolutely not representative of how all women might approach D&D, and the exact same thing must be said for the fellas. This was no planned sociology or gender studies experiment that I conducted, in other words - it was merely a thing that I did with two friend groups, and the resulting experiences were two opposite yet totally valid sides of the same RPG coin. And while I doubt that I’ll run the same campaign in the future for two different groups at once (let alone a campaign as wonky as Dragon Heist), I like to think that as someone who tries to advocate for how roleplaying games can be fun, welcoming experiences for all, I played a small role (hah) in bringing swords, sorcery and storytelling to the lives of people who might not have experienced such imaginative forays otherwise. 

Already, both the gals and the guys are whipping up ideas for future characters and checking out stuff like Critical Role...which means that my work here, at least for the moment, is done. 

[mutantsrisingrpg]

Congratulations DYLAN! You’ve been accepted as NEPTUNE.

Dylan, I was so excited to see you apply for a second character and even more excited to see you apply for Neptune! The cosmic metaphor that you weaved throughout the entire app is something that I absolutely loved. Making Avery be the second born and comparing it to leftover cosmic energy had me howling! I also loved that you wrote about how special twins are when it comes to mutants - their powers being the yin to the others yang was especially something that stood out to me. I’m so, so excited to see you bring Avery to life! 

Welcome to Mutants Rising! Please read the checklist and submit your account within 24 hours.

Out of Character Information:

NAME/ALIAS: Dylan

PRONOUNS: He/Him

AGE: 22

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: GMT. 6/7 Days

In Character Information:

DESIRED ROLE: Avery O’Brien aka Neptune

GENDER/PRONOUNS: Male, He/Him

DETAILS & ANALYSIS:

Avery can take you by surprise. At first you might just see this edgy kid walking down the street, fists clenched and ready to throw them at the first person to give them a skew look. With a packet of Marlboro in his back pocket and tongue primed with his general response, ‘fuck off’, you just simply wouldn’t expect Megan the Stallion to be blasting through his earphones as he walked.

Sure, Avery definitely knew how to get himself into trouble and he had picked up a few bad habits along the way but Avery would probably be the kindest and most loyal friend you could make. He’d often babysit his neighbors kids and he genuinely enjoyed it. His aesthetic was mostly a facade, tough and ready to rumble when he’d definitely prefer to avoid a fight if possible.

He might be young, but don’t underestimate him. He’s been on the street long enough to know how things work and life has definitely taught him how to look out for himself and his sister. He’s pulled off countless jobs since their parents kicked them out and has managed to keep his hands as clean as they could be. So what gives Avery the edge? He’s cunning and smart, he knows how to work angles and get what he wants, one way or another.

As for Avery’s powers, he doesn’t really understand them, and nor does the rest of the world, to be honest. He’s read multiple essays and watched countless videos on dark matter and energy and what that meant exactly. When he uses his powers, it’s as if he can feel each individual molecule of something, measuring up its mass. He can then change how gravity affects the object, making it ‘heavier’ or ‘lighter’. He’s also experimented with dark energy blasts which seem to be an invisible force that pushes everything out of its way and constantly expands if he doesn’t control it. Honestly, his powers frighten him, as does the unknown to all humans. What really gets to him is that if Dark Energy is what causes the universe to keep expanding, should he really be playing around with that shit?

BIO:

TW: Homophobia

Penelope was born first and then Avery, like the leftover cosmic energy when a star is born. The two were inseparable and doing so would bring about the same results as splitting an atom, metaphorically. As they grew older, they spaced apart but were still always in each other’s orbits, one revolving their life around the other and visa versa. As far as Avery could remember, his early childhood was a good one, or maybe he was just far too young to really see how his family life really was. He went to school, worked hard and would come home only to spend the rest of his free time with Penelope.

As he got older, Avery was always testing his boundaries. How far could he push his luck with his parents, peers, teachers, and even law enforcement. He hung around with the wrong crowd and got pulled into things he never originally wanted to do. It was nothing serious until he was involved in the destruction of a school bus. Nobody could explain how the bus had been crushed nor who had been involved. It happened just after summer break, Avery and a group of his friends had snuck onto school campus that night just to mess around and smoke some weed. Avery was mainly there for Mitch Evans, Avery’s love interest at the time.

The night progressed and the group ended up hanging out in a school bus. The group whittled down to just 4 kids when Avery finally gained the courage to make a move on Mitch. He had tried to kiss the other and Mitch’s reaction was violent and resulted in Mitch punching Avery in the face and shoving him out of the bus. The flurry of embarrassment and heartbreak felt as if it was crushing his soul and before he knew it, the bus started to creak as the metal began to indent. The group inside had mostly been able to get out untouched, everyone except Mitch, who’s leg got stuck under a chair whilst the bus was imploding. After managing to free Mitch from the bus and getting him to the nearest hospital, the group vowed never to mention what had happened out of fear that whatever crushed the bus would follow them. Little did they know that Avery was the one that had crushed the bus and the only other person to ever know this would be Penelope. That was also the last time that Avery ever spoke to Mitch Evans.

That was just the beginning of weird events that would follow the O’Brien twins. Their father seemed to end every day with a bottle of whiskey and their mother seemed to become more unhinged every day. Avery pushed through, working hard at school, knowing that getting into college would be his escape. Having Penelope was also a blessing, having someone he could trust and open up too was a privilege he knew not many had.

Half-way through high school was when it all changed. Their parents had officially rejected them and kicked them out of the house. They had nowhere to go and started crashing on their friend’s couches. Soon Avery was given the opportunity to work a job with one of his friend’s older brothers and he took it. They robbed a yacht and got away with a bag full of expensive jewelry and cash from the on-board bar. It took a couple of weeks before the money was laundered, but Avery got his cut and a reputation. He was asked to do a couple of more jobs and started learning the ropes. It was his senior year when he pulled off his own job. He put most of his money into a savings account to buy a place for him and his sister. He finished school and was given a bursary to study engineering at a local college.

Now, at the age of 24 he is still studying engineering and lives in a decent apartment with his sister. He also works as an intern at a local high-end engineering firm that specialises in space technology. At night he works as a bartender which is mostly a cover and is where he gets approached by most of his clients to pull off jobs for them for a percentage of the cut. There’s been a change in the winds recently though and whispers of new and powerful mutant gangs coming to Miami has him watching his back.

His life is extremely busy so he’s constantly living in the now. If you stopped him and asked him what his goals were, he’d default to saying something about making sure that Penelope is safe, not that she needs his protection, but he barely thinks about what he wants these days. That’s why everyone in his life that has a ‘more than friends’ status seems to come and go, Avery doesn’t think about what he wants and always puts others first before himself, stretching himself as thinly as possible which often leaves his partners feeling neglected or toyed with.

EXPANDED CONNECTIONS:

Penelope O’Brien. It’s said that twins have some sort of special connection, and if that were true for humans, it was definitely true for mutants, especially if their powers were the yin to the other’s yang. Penelope was like the birth of a brand new star whilst Avery was the death of one. They were each other’s best friends from the second they were born. Not only was Penelope always there for him, she was the only one he confided in after the school bus incident. They spent countless nights staying up until sunrise chatting about boys and girls, school, life goals, games and so much more! Penelope was the first person Avery spoke to about his powers and he was so happy that he wasn’t the only twin with ‘gifts’. Being able to support each other was so much easier since they shared a secret. If anything weird would happen they’d race to the other and tell them, learning about each other’s powers together. Penelope wasn’t just his twin sister, they were his best friend too! Considering that Avery struggled to keep love around, this meant a lot to him. He couldn’t imagine what his life would be like without her and that’s why he’d die for her. He’d rather not be alive than live a life without her. This is where Avery’s loyalty turned fierce and where he would definitely cross a line if need be. In a sense, Penelope was Avery’s weakness in more than one way, emotionally and physically. He was sure that if there was anyone that could match his powers it would be Penelope and to what extent, he had no idea and he hoped that he’d never have to find out.

EXTRA:

Oh boy oh boy. I MEAN. What shouldn’t I put here?

I’m thinking that his reputation might get one of the groups to approach him? Maybe more than one group gets him to work for them as a freelancer?

Honestly I’m probably going to make a lot of content for Avery throughout the next week purely because I have so much muse for him, but I also kinda wanted to get this app in and this doesn’t influence decisions so… but here’s a link to the Pinterest board:

https://pin.it/3FkPGew

I might also make a mock-blog? And on there I’ll have graphics and headcanons? IDK. I’ll send it in if I do.

ANYTHING ELSE: Nope! All good! I honestly love this RP so much and I’m waaaaaay too invested for my own good.

[sasukeuchiha-eternalmangekyou]

//Hello :) I adore Nagato! You should definitely go for it!! And no problem~ I’m honored that you asked. I haven’t been super active rping myself (on here bc I’ve been rather distracted rping as Noct from FFXV <3 and doing a bunch offline too).

In all honesty, rping isn’t all that difficult. The main thing to keep in mind is that, whether you plan to stay IC or diverge as some prefer, always have faith in your writing. I learned so much from rping with other people and I’ve gained so many friends over the years. But the most important thing is you’re here to have fun.

Now to the basics ;) When I started my blog, I was lost as all hell, but managed with some help. I started off as a question/answer blog and then added threads in. Posting something in Nagato’s tag introducing yourself as a new rper is a good way to let other people know you exist. You can also create open starters that anyone can jump in on and go from there. Those types of threads are great bc they’re small and you get the hang of writing with others real quick. When it comes to themes and all that, don’t stress. A simple looking blog is just as cool as the intricate ones. I clearly didn’t go all out on mine XD Oh and don’t be afraid to ask others to rp! The worst they can say is no. Besides there’s so many others that’d say yes~ Also if someone asks you to rp with them, it’s okay to decline. Never feel bad about it. Sometimes people want to write something you’re not comfortable with or maybe you just don’t want to (and that’s fine).

Also really important! Read the rules and guidelines of anyone you’d wish to write with/interact with. It’s respectful to the other person that you took the time to go through their blog to make sure all is well. Some people are particular with who they write with or what they write (as in plot or ships). It’s also a good idea to have your own rules in mind and create a page for it.

Another thing, if someone doesn’t reply after a certain amount of time, don’t be afraid to ask them about the thread. Sometimes Tumblr’s notifications don’t work as advertised. Or maybe they forgot.

Respect the other rper’s character. Be aware of who they write. Bc I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come across people who disregard Sasuke’s power level and or try to underestimate him or get offended by his occasional attitude problem. It can get frustrating when other’s disregard facts. Just bringing it to their attention is an easy fix though.

I don’t know how much you know when it comes to terms so here’s a few: Mun - The person behind the blog (you :D) Muse - The character you’re portraying Thread - The back and forth interaction between two individuals writing together God-modding - When you take over another person’s character without consent and control what they do (it happens more than you realize and no one is ever happy about it) Headcanon - Elements and interpretations of a fictional universe accepted by an individual fan, but not found within or supported by the official canon (they’re just fun to have ;) Starter - The first part of the thread (basically the opener). They can be small or in paragraph form Drabble - Essentially a mini story or ramble of writing. I often get drabble requests that others are interested in seeing my write. Could be certain scenarios or interactions with other characters Memes - They can include sentence starters or even questions for you to answer. You can limit how many you respond to by indicating whether you’re accepting more or not. Reblogging them invites other rpers to send you something or an opportunity to interact.

And if you get sent hate, don’t let that derail you. I’ve had plenty sent to me and although it can get upsetting or annoying, it’s best to ignore. Sometimes people can be rude for no reason. Stick to the positives. Immerse yourself in what you love. Not everyone has the same opinion. Some just like to be more vocal about it. Never be afraid to rp how you interpret the character or what you want to write. Rping isn’t a chore. If you can’t find your muse, there’s no problem taking a break when it’s required. Life takes precedence. 

So, that’s as much as I can gather at the moment! Hope this is helpful to you!!

[inky-thoughts]

How to Organize a Zine 101

Hey guys!

Since I'm almost through with my very first zine that I organised myself, I just realised how many mistakes you can make without even knowing, and I learned so much within the last few months where a lot was kind of trial and error. So I thought, you guys might like to learn more about this, and I could share my experiences and newly gained knowledge! Maybe this helps if you are looking into organising your own first zine.

If you have any tips and tricks yourself you'd like to share, let me know, I’m excited to hear about them!

I am going to go through the different steps and phases that you should take into consideration, so this might get a small series of some sort? I hope you're up for this.

Also a small disclaimer:

I'm mostly talking about fanzines that have multiple contributors, and it will focus more on artists/illustrators and writers as that is where my experience lies. I have contributed on several free e-zines as well as a printed charity zine, and now have organised my first printed for-profit zine as well.

Phase 1: The Planning

This might sound really obvious and maybe silly, but there are quite a few things that you should take into consideration before just starting a project that might overwhelm you easily. Don't already head off and create a twitter account before you haven't sat down and thought about these questions first!

First of all, you should think about the zine itself:

What topic/theme should it have?

If it is a fanzine: What ships/characters/... should be the focus?

What format does your zine have (printed/e-zine/both)?

What should be included in the zine? (Illustrations, comics, writing, photographs, ... all of them?)

How many contributors/pieces do you want in your finished zine? (especially important for printed zines)

Do you want to have additional merch, e.g. bookmarks, stickers, charms, postcards, ... , that people can purchase with your zine in a bundle?

How are the specs (how many pieces per creator/how long is one piece especially for writers)?

Is it a for-profit, charity, or free zine?

After you now have a vague idea of what you want, you need to think about competition as well if you're not having a free online zine.

How big is the fandom/target group of the specific zine you want to make?

How old are they and how likely are they to spend money on your zine?

Are there only a few, but very dedicated fans?

How many contributors can you gather from the fandom? How is the general quality of fanworks?

Are there other zines that are similar or maybe with the same topic/theme/focus and what sets your zine apart from them?

Are there other zines going around at roughly the same time with the same target group, and should you perhaps wait a little so people can afford your zine again?

Is it a thriving fandom on the rise or has activity already peaked? If no fanzine: Is your theme at the pulse of time, or has some accute relevance to a lot of people?

Especially on tumblr, there are a few blogs entirely dedicated to zines and specifically fanzines. If tagged accordingly, they'll reblog all kinds of posts about a zine, but mostly Call for Submission, Zine Schedules, and Preorder Announcements (we will talk about these later on.) It is really helpful to check those out, sometimes there are even blogs solely about one fandom's projects, so it gets watered down even more. You can also test waters through polls etc. if you have a loyal followership that might just buy your stuff because it has you in or on it. However, I don't really find those very reliable.

The next questions are mainly about the doablity of the zine for you:

If there is any kind of production costs, do you have funds to cover them if the zine doesn't sell well enough?

Do you have anyone you can trust/are friends with who is also enthusiastic about your topic that they can help you?

How do you want to split work? How much do you want to contribute to the zine yourself?

Are you ready to make the commitment to dedicate basically every free minute of your life for the next 6+ month on this project? Are you in a relatively steady environment where you don't need to handle moving, changing jobs, schools, whatever at any point during your zine work?

I highly recommend you to at least have one other person to do the organisation with you, preferrably are two or even more.

Please do not underestimate the workload you'll get, even if it doesn't seem much at first, you will write so many e-mails because you need to get back to your contributors for one thing or another, you need to make sure the files are all correct, if you have writers you need beta-reading while also putting the zine together and finding a good printing service and making sure everyone is on time. For the last 6 months, this zine was basically my job, because it is just that, just without a clear salary, or none at all.

The next thing is kind of working out a schedule, with the rough stages/phases zine creations usually have.

Application/Gathering Contributors You have the option between public applications where people just send in portfolios and you pick from those, or you invite contributors you think are interested in the zine and you would like to have in it. Sometimes, there are zines that do both, but it's rather rare. There are some zines (usually free e-zines) that accept literally everyone who applies, and while it creates an opportunity for lesser known creators and beginners to gain a little exposure and experience, it doesn't necessarily mean that the overall quality of content is consistent and what you want to hold in your hands. I had applications open for a bit more than a month since I was very eager and didn't establish any kind of excitement or build-up thereof until finally applications open, but generally it's very common to have a full month to gather applications. The minimum should be 2 weeks, though. Also, don't let yourself be blinded by the sheer amount of applicants, especially in smaller fandoms, top tier creators are rather rare and everyone tries to get into a zine about something they love.

Curating Contributors If you don't have an Invite Only zine, you'll have a very busy time ahead now: You need to look through hundred or more applications and filter who is a fit for your zine, and who is not. Bear in mind that you aren't only looking for quality of work, but also which creator's style fits your zine best. Especially if you have several disciplines in your zine (e.g. illustrations and writing), I only can recommend to split the work load according to your speciality. That way you work faster and more efficient. Give yourself at least 2 weeks, the bigger/more popular the fandom, the longer it probably will take.

Sending Acceptance/Refusal E-Mails After you chose your pick, you'll need to let people know who's in, and who is not. I would advise to send out acceptance letters first, since there will be first dropouts immediately after you finally agreed on them. As soon as you got everyone to confirm their participation, take those who barely didn't make it and put them in for pinch-hitters. You will be surprised how many you'll probably need along the way. After they confirmed that yes, they'll be pinch-hitters, send out the rejection e-mails. I consider it curtesy to send them because as applicant, you really want to know where you're standing. Calculate roughly 1-2 weeks for the e-mails because things just tend to drag along and people need a long time to respond.

Confirmations This usually only applies if you offer people to make collaborations. They need to be able to check out who else is in the zine, who is up for collaboration, whose style suits them best to collab with, test the waters with each other, and usually should come up with an idea, so again 1-2 weeks would be needed for that. However, if you have got your contributors confirmed and just need the backup and refusal mails, just set those deadlines parallel.

1st Draft Depending on how much you're already asking for, you might want them 1-2 weeks after the rejection mails went out (if you really just want to know what kind of ideas people got), or up to a month if you want first sketches/summaries. The first draft is also helpful to see if two people got the same idea, and you can steer people a little bit into the "right direction."

2nd Draft Usually this is where at least 50-75% of the work should be done if you don't take a 3rd draft. Most common are 2 Drafts and the endproduct. Give people at least a month between 1st and 2nd Draft.

Final Draft This is when the finished pieces should be due. Depending on the time of the year, the contributors might be under a lot of stress, so set this deadline roughly 1 month after the 2nd Draft. You will be stressed, everyone else will be stressed, so give yourself the time you need. Also listen to your contributors and observe if there are a lot not cutting a deadline, then maybe push them back for another 1-2 weeks. It will make everyone more relaxed.

Touch-up Phase Especially with writers, you'll need at least 2 weeks to touch up the final draft they submitted.

Buffer Time (don't write that into the official schedule but definitely calculate with it) There will always be unexpected events that will require buffer times. You also will need time to put the zine together if you didn't work on designing the file beforehand while everyone else was creating. Still, you'll need to fix some things and polish the whole thing. Minimum buffer should be 1-2 weeks.

Contributor Preorders With printed zines, it is curtesy to give every contributor a printed copy of the zine for free with them only paying for shipping & handling. This kind of established itself as compensation for their work that usually ends up to be for free as most zines are either for charity or barely cover their production costs. To know who of your contributors even wants a copy, you should give them roughly 2-3 weeks to preorder. Having those exclusive orders helps you to divide between contributors and the regular costumer if you hold both at the same storefront.

Previews (+ Proofs) Before you're launching public preorders, dedicate at least 1 week to previews to get everyone hyped up. Contributors and the "official" zine site post excerps of zine pieces so people get an idea of what the feel of the zine is. If you already got proofs/samples printed until then, post pictures of those, too! If you don't post the link to the shop yet, there definitely wouldn't be a problem to have the previews start at the same time as the contributor preorders. That way, contributors also have the chance to get a glimpse at their peer's works.

Public Preorders Depending on how eager people are for your zine, you can leave preorders relatively short, but no less than 2 weeks if you don't get an insane amount of orders within the first couple of days. People must be able to check out prices and get their paycheck before preorders close again. Some zines have a stacked preorder system where the first X orders are cheaper, and then there will be leftovers or a second phase of preorders after the first bulk has been shipped. However, this doesn't happen very often. If you don't have a hugely popular zine or are cutting way too close to any important deadlines, consider having 3-4 weeks of preorders.

Production As soon as you got your numbers from the preorders, RUN AND PURCHASE EVERYTHING. Depending on where you get your zines printed (also don't forget the optional merch on this!), you can be ready to go within a week or even more than a month. Calculating with roughly 3 weeks if you're getting your stuff from mostly national level is a good rule of thumb, however shit happens all the time anyway, so to be safe use 4-8 weeks. Let your customers know immediately if there are any delays that weren't planned.

Shipping Depending on how many orders you've got, shipping can be a hassle and most likely will take up one week or longer. Since domestic shipping is fastest, ship international orders first, that way customers don't have the feeling that they're forgotten.

E-Zine Currently, a common trend is to first get the physical copies sold, and then sell e-zines to gather more money and cover leftover production costs of the printed zine. Especially international customers and college students prefer e-zines because of the incredibly high shipping rates around the globe. E-zines aren't linked to any production at all after you got the file put together, so if you set up your storefront with the download, everyone simply downloads it. You can have those open as you like, common is anything between 1-3 month and even a whole year. If no money is involved at all, a lot of zines just exist as a permanent free download in a dropbox or other cloud, so this is the least complicated process.

Conventions Really, it's not necessary to put this up in the schedule, but thinking about it might be helpful. If you have a physical zine, you and some contributors might want to sell it on conventions, so offering them to buy a bulk to a smaller rate can be helpful to spread the zine's exposure. We handled this with "buying on commission" - mainly the contributor only pays for the printing costs + shipping, and later will pay part of the profit back to you. Especially with international contributors, be aware of the longer shipping time. Also reprints might take their time. I personally made it a rule to order the reprints 3 months before the con, and reprints can be made up until one year, but really, you don't need to do this.

After you've got your rough schedule, I would advise you to already gather information on how to produce and spread the finished zine. This also helps to know how much you should have in your backup fund for the zine.

For physical zines/merch

Check out printing services! compare prices and quality as well as product range, and find out how long production takes

Find an online storefront where you want to sell it if you don't have one yet

Research on conventions and fairs where you might sell the zine

Learn about shipping rates and which company is suited best for your purpose

For e-zines

Research on your options:

If it's free, what cloud-service are you most comfortable with?

Find a dowload hosting platform you're comfortable with that also lets you charge per download

Is a round-mailing an option? if yes, do your research on online storefronts as well.

Advertising + Web Presence

This is basically finding your social media where you want to spread the word and store all the information of your zine. It is common for a zine with multiple contributors and mods to have its own web presence.

Tumblr and twitter are very popular for this as tumblr basically is a quick-for-setup homepage where you can spread information incredibly fast if you get to the right people, you have the option to answer questions people have regarding your zine, and twitter is nice and handy to keep applicants and potential customers updated. Also think about where you've got a large following and can advertise the zine yourself. Twitter/tumblr is not required, but most definitely helpful.

If you yourself aren't very known or popular, try to get more influencial people interested in participating, or simply promoting your zine. It definitely helps to have a larger audience. Also find out about the tags used by largely popular zines, and what you can learn from them. Learn how the fanproject blogs filter content they might reblog.

Things you also shouldn't underestimate is affiliations! If there is a zine/project with a largely similar forcus and theme, try to get on their better side, and help each other out. They might be your competition, but if you schedule your zine in a clever way, you won't need to worry about this at all since preorder phase won't overlap at all. They might help you advertise your zine while you do the same for them.

There are also forums on zines and fanzines, but I think nowadays it's rare that you'll go viral through those. I personally don't have any experience with those, so if anyone has, I'm happy to hear about it!

next >>

Masterpost

[socialmediapromotion2020]

How To Be Successful In Content Marketing As a Modern Content Creator

First let me ask you something, would you ride your pony into another town-with your items, compact discs, your craft, your books, blog entries, or projects stuffed into the knapsack tied to your shoulders-and request your substance house to house.

No. You wouldn't...

It would be irregular, fringe improper, and the 1 or 2% of individuals that may buy your substance products would almost certainly do it because of compassion.

Notwithstanding the content creator way that a significant number of us are accidentally executing a comparable technique, there IS uplifting news.

Because your substance promoting efforts have neglected to change over doesn't mean you have a terrible item, a helpless assistance, or a revile from the universe!

It in all likelihood implies that your advertising pipe has neglected to fashion the association and relationship expected to make the deal, regardless of whether the item or administration is great and important enough to your possibility to think about buying your answer.

Notwithstanding what your selling, in the advanced world, the "know, as, and trust" factor is more significant than any other time.

Because you have an item or administration settled away on a third level page canvassed in fair duplicate and checkout button, doesn't mean you have a useful advertising and deals pipe.

This is the place where the Content Marketing Process comes in to loan some assistance and have it's impact in taking your crowd from intrigued prospect to steadfast client.

Content Marketing is the means by which brands assemble a crowd of people in the advanced world. It is a CORE aptitude for Modern Content Creators, and on the off chance that you are selling substance of any kind or organization, your substance methodology and your substance advertising should be strong in the event that you need to contend in 2013 and past.

Comprehend that substance showcasing may seem like another or faddish term. A popular wave here today gone tomorrow...

Despite the fact that it's a popular expression temporary fad starting late, it's anything but another idea, yet the Modern World has made everything fair by giving the entrance and assets to achieve what wasn't ever humanly conceivable up until as of late, and it's taken a short time for everybody to make up for lost time to the "content as money" idea.

Nonetheless, there is a major distinction between the methodologies that are effective and those that are most certainly not.

Two Approaches

There are just two direct ways to deal with selling your substance on the web. (workmanship, items, administrations, instructing, information, exhortation, and so forth)

1) Send cold traffic straightforwardly to an offer... The end.

2) Send focused on traffic to important substance and assemble a connected with crowd through adding more worth and supporting a relationship, and afterward sooner or later change them into a dedicated client.

Highway two is the situation.

That is the part of substance promoting.

The 3 Shortcuts To Successful Content Marketing

As opposed to call attention to where everybody turns out badly, I'll rather plot the most noteworthy influence arrangements, or the greatest easy routes that you can coordinate into your activities, missions, and cycles to put forth your attempts more fruitful.

1) Mindset-The principal alternate route is to move toward advertising your substance with the correct mentality.

The mindset you need to grasp is that of the Modern Content Creator, and all that intrinsically infers.

A. You are an Artist/Creator AND an Entrepreneur. You accomplish the work that is important, lined up with your motivation, and serves your dedicated crowd.

B. Everything from your main goal and reason, down to each project or mission starts with Clarity + Focus. This is consistently the beginning stage. Jobs and obligations are characterized so you can explain and zero in on your most elevated worth exercises, and afterward augment them with the most noteworthy influence.

C. You are narrator AND you are a distributer. As a Modern Content Creator you are both the master/columnist, AND you are the distributer of the magazine.

D. Content promoting is best considered as a cycle. A progressing discussion with your crowd dependent on the creation and conveyance of substance that enhances their lives.

E. Think straightforward yet complex. He who can handle and teach his consideration, will discover a group of people that gives them theirs.

F. The devices are just as successful as your capacity to utilize them. I figure we can kind of underestimate once in a while exactly how magnificent the force we have readily available really is...

I frequently hear a ton of discussion about what the following NEW "thing" will be...

Some super innovation or informal community that in a split second overwhelms the world.

While ceaseless headways in science and innovation and the a remedy for malignant growth are generally energizing, investing energy pondering flying vehicles is a pointless exercise.

It's not MORE innovation we need, it's the need to utilize the instruments we have BETTER.

Think as far as authority.

2) Message to Market Match

Content is relative, and being pertinent is progressively more troublesome across our uproarious advanced channels.

With the correct mentality, your message to showcase coordinate is the following most significant thing you CAN'T get off-base.

Tragically, for certain individuals it will be simpler to communicate in your crowds language than others. Yet, the substance of being a Modern Content Creator is the advanced comprehension of being both Creator/Artist, AND Entrepreneur.

This implies that you are making, making, giving things that are significant to you, yet additionally important to other people! A ton of the further inclining innovative sorts I work with must be helped to remember the way that their is a whole range of abilities and set-up of pioneering duties that should be coordinated and very much oversaw on the off chance that you need to locate that wonderful equilibrium of unending opportunity and satisfaction doing what you love.

... You need to adore what you do, and you ALSO need a crowd of people who loves how you help them!

The inalienable CREATIVE resources for Artist/Expert and Personal Brands can and should most DEFINITELY be applied in discovering this equilibrium, yet comprehend that an "on the off chance that you assemble it they will come mentality is hazardous."

Gotta offer some benefit. Genuine worth. Gotta understand what that worth is. This all requires understanding the most basic parts of promoting, which is truly compelling correspondence to a characterized target crowd or persona.

This expression and each believable stage is littered across the web. Maybe on the grounds that it is so extremely fundamental, thus regularly referenced that a significant number of us basically bypass the inalienable ramifications to offering that expression noteworthy and measured.

You must be altogether investigated and engaged with your commercial center. That is all. You need to know's who at the best degree of profundity to deal with that precarious equilibrium of tuning in to what your crowd is stating, and understanding where you can add to the gathering, in a significant and very much situated way.

You need to know the situating of those all around dynamic in your space so you can characterize YOUR Unique Value Positioning.

It's an equilibrium, and it's the way to finding your voice, regardless of whether that is as a position, or as a columnist or lover...

In the event that you haven't done top to bottom statistical surveying, on the off chance that you don't have the foggiest idea about the top websites, names, discussions, brands, holes, in your market; than it will be MUCH harder to cut your own space successfully.

Dazzle wounds in obscurity can now and then work out in the event that you maintain a strategic distance from the sharks, know the ideal individuals, and need to surrender your vocation to karma. I realize that master coaches/item makers who might view themselves as astute to this and unwittingly point their nose up at those "uninformed craftsman/performer types," while they, at the end of the day, don't even truly comprehend their market at the level i'm discussing.

You don't have to dive this deep with your market to be fruitful. No. In any case, when you do, there is in a real sense MANY alternatives and courses you could seek after in light of the fact that by then you can see all the holes, you KNOW the market and who's in it.

Presently, on the off chance that you're as of now a specialist, as are a large portion of my customers, at that point it's more a matter of dialing into the discussions and expounding on the most important issues, concerns, arrangements, that exist inside your locale.

It's not just about your own thoughts, or essentially expounding on what you want to expound on... Preferably you'd connect both so you are composing something significant for you, however that is most importantly addressing the persona you are meaning to reach, and does as such in an applicable and connecting way...

That seems like such nonexclusive counsel, however it's the name of game. As Brian Clark from Copyblogger showed carefully in a new meeting I heard, it's more about tuning in to your crowd, than talking at them.

3) Integrated Content Strategy: - Build an Intelligent Marketing Funnel

Pretty much each and every one of my customers, upon introductory admission, come to me with the accompanying:

They've set up their data item, workmanship, book, program, CD or administration on an internal level page (2-3-4) with some nice however generally nonexclusive duplicate and pictures.

Their web traffic is negligible, not followed, and has a system that is regularly flawed if adequately characterized or planned by any stretch of the imagination.

Presently, I trust none of them disapprove of this; I'm not saying it to tease them, however to all the more likely represent my point for you. (they will be all JUST fine;)

However, this is certainly not a successful promoting pipe.

Notwithstanding, subsequent to noting the fundamental yet indispensable inquiries for figuring out what to state and who to express it to, distinguishing the best correspondence designs, choosing the correct circulation channels, it's simply test, measure, and refine...

I figure it tends to be hard to think as far as a promoting arrangement for some, and it requires a generous measure of exertion and energy for me to draw the groupings out in my mind, move it onto paper and afterward actualize it.

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Content Marketing Strategy Is The Secret Sauce For B2B Sales

We see internet disruptions every day. The results of which are obvious in highly visible industries, such as media and publishing, music, consumer products, advertising and more.

It has also affected the way B2B companies go to market. Most notably, on the marketing side where advertising has become more competitive, less effective, and usually reaches a point of diminishing returns.

In fact, it’s become so difficult to figure out where our target audience is consuming information, it’s no wonder why marketers are so frustrated.

From a sales perspective, the internet has put a serious damper on the sales person’s ability to prospect. No one wants to talk to them. Most aren’t equipped to prospect online. After all, that’s not covered in sales training. And because they’re under pressure to make quota, most will give up too early. So they go back to doing what they’ve always done—make calls, send emails and go to networking events and conferences.

What’s Different?

This subtle disruption may be showing up in several ways:

• Your revenue has remained flat, or it has steadily declined, year over year–all despite being in an industry growing up around you, or a growing economy in general. • Or, maybe your company has a revolving door of sales people, who are in and out faster than you get to know their names. • Perhaps you’ve always relied on referrals, and maybe you still get them, but it’s not going to be enough to grow revenue like you want. • And you might have noticed an increased animosity between sales and marketing departments. After all, marketing believes they’re doing great because the web traffic is up. Sales thinks the leads are terrible and marketing isn’t doing enough for them.

The Marketing Shift

Investing in marketing has always been dicey for companies with a complex sale. I’m defining complex here as any company with a product or service that requires a sales person to touch it before it becomes a deal. These products and services are usually costly to purchase, have long sales cycles, require education and consultation, and result in some sort of customized solution.

Many B2B CEOs that I’ve talked to are still hesitant to shift dollars into a demand generation system because they haven’t been able to measure marketing success very well in the past.

And even with internet measurement tools like Google Analytics, the measurement is still at the campaign level. In other words, branding and awareness marketing activities will always be difficult to measure when it comes to the true impact on revenue.

Therefore, simply making a larger investment in marketing and assigning a series of new projects (like starting a blog) won’t get you where you need to go in the digital world. Marketing people of the past are ill-equipped to handle lead generation through content marketing.

And here’s why: Over the last 10 years, the sales model has begun breaking down. A good sales person used to be able to prospect enough with the phone, email, networking and knocking on doors to fill their calendars with appointments.

All they needed from marketing was branding and awareness, which is why most marketing people are trained this way.

In fact, as a B2B marketing director in the late 90s, I remember our sales people telling me: “I just want them to have heard of us when I call them.” And therefore, we focused our marketing efforts on mass media—mostly advertising and public relations to get the word out so that our sales people had some air cover. We also developed brochures, websites and sell sheets to help them close deals.

Today’s Sales Cycle

But today, sales people are finding it more and more difficult to get into enough sales conversations to make quota. Branding simply won’t open enough doors.

It’s not that we ever wanted to talk to a sales person, but it was necessary when it came to getting the information we needed.

Think about even a simple example of how you might buy a TV today as opposed to 10 years ago. Back then, you would go to Best Buy, find a salesperson, and start asking questions so you could make the right purchase.

Today, you’ll most likely do an internet search first, read reviews, shop for best pricing, and so on. Now, when you do show up at Best Buy, you’re armed to the hilt with information. So how likely are you to talk to the sales person?

My response when they ask me if I need help is usually, “Where are the TVs?” Or, “Your website says you have the Samsung model XKY in stock—can I take a look?”

Sales is Struggling

This same buying process is happening today with every B2B company, whether they know it or not. People are starting their searches for answers on the internet first. They will reach out to sales people, but only when they are ready to buy.

And because people are diagnosing their own problems and prescribing their own solutions, they often get it wrong.

Take the marketing automation industry for example. Do you know of a company that has bought Marketo, Pardot, Eloqua, Hubspot and more, just to have it sit on the shelf collecting dust? They grossly underestimated what it would take to operate them effectively, but it was the answer to their marketing problem, right?

If they’d been willing to talk to a sales person first, they would have told them what’s involved, what the team should look like, options for finding the right resources, and an estimate of what it might cost so a strategy could be prepared before spending any money on technology.

This is especially true if your sales people are selling products and services in an emerging industry. Prospects may not even know that they have a problem in the first place.

So if they’re not willing to take your call, and you can’t figure out where to find them at a conference or networking event, what are you supposed to do as a sales person?

Marketing Must do the Heavy Lifting

Don’t get me wrong. Sales people today are still responsible for developing 1 to 1 sales conversations and running the sales process. They’re still responsible for prospecting and getting into sales conversations. No one is saying they should wait around for the Glen Garry leads from Marketing.

And Marketing is still responsible for branding and awareness—the problem is, it’s not enough to drive one-to-one sales conversations.

The problem for both marketing and sales is that we now have a highly fragmented audience where the marketing activities that we’re used to — like advertising, public relations, SEO and social media — are all having diminishing returns.

And this is important for today’s B2B company. The only metric that matters for marketing is lead conversion. For those of you that know the lingo already, that’s Marketing Qualified Leads (in other words, someone that demonstrates digital behavior) and how many of those turned into sales conversations, or Sales Accepted Leads.

Creating Purposeful Content

If content marketing strategy is therefore intended to convert into b2b sales conversations, each piece that we produce must provide some sort of lead intelligence. Sales can then use this intelligence to try and have a conversation that leads down a buying path.

The bottom line is: if your marketing isn’t putting out content for people to find on a regular basis, you’re missing opportunities. Marketing strategy must be aligned with sales in B2B companies with a complex sale if they’re going to grow revenue—period.

This is important, so I’ll say it again, marketing’s new role in B2B is to drive one-to-one sales conversations digitally where salespeople either have difficulty getting their attention or are unaware of opportunities in the first place. It’s lead generation first, branding second. Branding in this case usually comes as a byproduct of this process when done well.

Even more critical, most innovative B2B companies know that it is now marketing’s burden to build as much of that trust online possible by providing thought leadership and lead intelligence in the form of engaging content that creates a unique experience for the consumer. In short, marketing must do the heavy lifting.

Marketing Like a Media Company

Some time in 2011, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City decided that it could not rely on its 150-year history to acquire enough new audiences—they needed to launch a massive digital initiative.

When your mission shifts from selling product and service to building audience and monetizing it later, how does that change the marketing that you would produce?

For the Met, they do creative storytelling in innovative ways. The example I like to point to is their Artist project series where they brought in 100 famous artists to the museum, put them on camera, and had them talk about their favorite piece and why. Then, they launched the series Netflix-style on their website so viewers can binge watch if they want.

Sreenivasan told me in an interview that he believes the future of every business is storytelling and finding the right way to tell the right story at the right time. And one of the biggest things he’s learned in his tenure at the Met is these lessons apply to every business, big and small, B2B and consumer.

That includes the importance of mobile, social, and video. But most importantly, it’s not about thinking of your audience as millions of people, even though that’s what they have at the Met, but rather it’s about thinking about the right people following you for the right reasons.

The point of this is example is that effective content marketing in B2B means thinking about your audience first, and connecting them with the right message, at the right time, and in the right sequence.

The digital experience must be so good that people want to stay connected to your content, and to have your audience participate in the conversation, you have to think like them.

Now, you certainly don’t have to build an entire news room (although that would be awesome!) but I show you this example because engaging an audience requires marketers to think differently. More like the mindset of a publisher.

In other words, think like a magazine and not like its advertisers. When publishing content, it’s all about what the readers want. It takes frequency (publishing at predictable intervals) and it takes database management (collection of digital behavior) to continuously serve up content that gets your prospect to pick up your publication at the newsstand (or read your email or blog post and want to consume more).

Getting to Know Your Audience

So how does content become a sales conversation anyway? It starts with the creation of content that is going to identify some lead intelligence on a prospect when they consume it. This is why the content strategy that maps to the sales process from the get go is so important.

But even Before you start pumping out blogs and buying marketing automation systems, it’s time to get to know your audience.

Doing that requires involving every part of your team that is client facing– from customer service, to account leads, to sales, to executives. They all know something about the customer that you don’t as a marketer.

For example, you might want to Interview your sales team about the types of customers they target. If they’re face-to-face with a prospect, how do they probe for painpoints? What did the sales conversation in a recent win sound like when they identified them as a prospect? In other words, what was the key issue that prompted the client to talk to you in the first place?

After interviewing colleagues, you can dig deeper by calling your customers and prospects and asking them to validate your assumptions.

Chances are, your customers were facing similar issues in their day-to-day lives as your prospects. Identifying those problems will inspire the content you’ll create to help them solve their problem and hopefully use you to do it.

I should also note that content at the top of the funnel cannot and should not focus on the products and services offered by the company. That comes much later in the sales cycle, when a customer is ready to make a purchase decision and you’re down to answering objections and running sales process.

Once you get that strategy in place and start developing content, you can then start to figure out how you’re going to distribute it so that it gets in front of the right audience and generates leads for sales.

Where to Find Content

If there’s any question about where to get content from, I’ll reiterate that sales and other customer facing job functions are a good place to start. They’re on the front lines with customers and prospects daily. They know what problems they typically solve, what common objections they hear, and what trigger events lead to sales conversations. That’s where you get content topics to generate top-of-the-funnel interest—by focusing on pain, pain, and more pain.

You’re going to need an ongoing process for extracting information from your subject matter experts so that you can communicate in mediums that make sense for your consumer. And you want that anyway because you want quality writing. So say hello to journalists, designers, videographers and other media personnel!

If there’s any doubt as to why many large companies are hiring journalists to write for them, it should be apparent now.

The Sales Pyramid

But anyway, let’s get back to sales and what the process now looks like with a demand generation engine providing marketing qualified leads.

Any good sales prospector should be able to use marketing’s support in the digital world to prioritize his or her prospecting efforts.

Jeb Blount, in his book Fanatical Prospecting, talks about a pyramid of prospecting where top sales performers view their prospect database as a pyramid:

At the bottom of the pyramid are the thousands of prospects they know little about other than a company name and perhaps some contact information. These are the coldest of the cold.

The goal with these prospects is always be moving them up the pyramid by gathering information, and qualifying. At the tip-top are highly qualified prospects who are moving into the buying window.

These are the highest-priority prospects and should be on the top of a sales representative’s daily prospecting list.

Once those top priorities have been exhausted, the sales person can move down the pyramid, following up on Marketing Qualified Leads and using lead intelligence to foster sales conversations.

If your sales people are always working at the bottom of the pyramid (the coldest of the cold) they’re probably not going to make quota. And even worse, if you’ve got good sales people who are always working at the bottom of the pyramid, you risk losing them to a competitor who can help them with marketing leads.

Measurement and Analysis

Of course, companies want to know the what content marketing’s return on investment will be, but it depends on several factors.

Let’s start with whether everyone in the organization has bought into the concept of content marketing. If the CEO is going to spend a few dollars to try it out, and 3 months later decide it’s not working and goes back to hiring more sales people, your ROI will be nada. (I’ve met several CEOs that fit this model exactly.)

Another question is, can you accurately measure your sales process now? In other words, where are your deals coming from now, and what percentage of them do you close?

Also, do you have technology in place such as marketing automation and a CRM, and do your sales people actually use it?

If your answer to all of those questions is yes, then it should be relatively easy to track some pretty significant numbers that will tell you exactly where to spend money and what needs to be fixed.

If not, then this is where you start: getting buy-in for content marketing, establishing a baseline for sales and marketing metrics, developing content, putting in the right technology, testing, and measuring.

If you are generating plenty of leads (or MQLs) every month, the statistics should show how many sales conversations that leads to. From those sales conversations, how many turn into opportunities? And of those opportunities, how many are we closing?

Playing around with those numbers will start to give you a sense of where to spend money.

If you’re closing a large majority of leads that come from various sources, but you don’t have enough “at bats” to move the revenue forward, you’ve got a marketing problem and you need to spend money to produce more qualified leads.

If you’re generating plenty of leads, but they aren’t turning into sales conversations, you could have a problem with the quality of content that your producing, or sales could be ill-equipped to nurture leads and run sales process.

Once you have real data, the measurement can even get more granular.

By determining your overall customer acquisition costs — all the money you spend on marketing and sales people for a given time period divided by the total number of customers you got in that time period — you can calculate all the way down to how much one lead was worth to you.

Content marketing done correctly should be completely measureable, giving you the ability to know where you’re going to have the best return on investment.

Finding the Budget

Acquiring new customers is expensive. It always has been.

Content marketing is no different because it’s a long game, and you should expect to make some significant expenditures in the short term to get it moving. It’s like pushing a giant boulder down a hill—it takes an extreme amount of energy to get it moving, and then it should generate momentum on its own.

So where to find the money for content? A lot of times, it’s about shifting available resources. I know—easier said than done. But If you’re currently spending marketing dollars on pay-per-click ads that have shown diminishing returns, of if you’re currently spending dollars to have a “presence at trade shows,” those are some good places to start.

Another place to look is the expenditures within your sales force. Do you have too many expensive sales people? Can any of the business development and nurturing functions be transitioned to an inside sales team?

But most importantly, stop hiring sales people because they promise a large rolodex of industry prospects that they can bring to the table. The only reason to hire more consultative sales people is that marketing and business development are sending over so many qualified leads that the closers can’t keep up.

Re-allocate and invest that money into a marketing front end that leads with great content that is going to add value to your prospects.

They’ll thank you with their business.

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MY AMAZING FRIENDS Part Seven. the revenge of the Prequel to the sequel

So anyone new to this, hi, this is a massive list where I tell everyone about how great my friends are, why I love them and just how much they mean to me! It’s shrunk and grown over the years as friends have gone away or I’ve gained new ones, but it doesn’t change the most important things, these are the people I want in my life more than anything. SO, normally I’d post this list around December Christmas, cause, it’s meant to be a treat, a Christmas treat, as I can never get out presents to everyone and I felt it meant something important, well Christmas has come early, why? Cause life is hard right now, people are scared, things are getting tougher and it’s just so frustrating seeing all the people I care about disheartened and worried, I want to do something important for them, so I’ve decided to post the list early, for the people, who need it the most.

@mistercrowbar

BEHOLD probably one of the most important people in my life right and I don’t mean that lightly, Crowbar has been everything to me, a friend, a teacher, a companion, a voice of reason and even a critic, she’s taught me so much about art, myself and even the universe we currently inhabit, seriously this woman is a wealth of knowledge you would not believe. But more importantly, she is my friend and I care so much about this girl, I want nothing more than her absolute happiness, if I could give up everything just to see her smile, I would, she’s been in such dark places and battles them everyday, I’d do anything to stop that from ever happening to her again. she has done so much for me, hell she became a friend to me when I was a nobody and I still am, she encourages me to do better, to push and challenge myself every day, I owe her so much, I care for her so much. Please do yourself a favor, check out her amazing artwork and get to know this beautiful person.

@nightmargin

MY GUUUUUUURL, Holy fluffy apples infested with Caterpillar demons, when I first met this girl, she was awesome, as we talked, she was more awesome, her ideas, her imagination, if she didn’t go somewhere, I’d imagine the world would implode for making a mistake, AND NOW MY GURL MADE A GAME AND IS ACTUALLY BEING PLAYED AND ENJOYED LIKE IT’S THE NEXT UNDERTALE! For better or for worse. I always believed in her, I can’t ever recall a time where her art style a beautiful mixture of darkness and whimsy has ever disappointing me, I’m so proud of her right now, i wish her nothing but the best going forward and if you’ve not bought her game Oneshot, WHAT ARE YOU DOING.

@articbleu

Oh hey is this one of the greatest people ever, why yes it is! Artic’s determination and drive is, MIND BLOWING, I always feel like I’m trying to catch up to her, but in a good way, I’ve also never met someone who agrees with me so much, from video games, story structure and politics, it’s actually a tiny bit creepy. BUT IT A GOOD WAY. When I first met this amazing blazing comet of a woman, she was drawing rose themed anime girls for Original character tournaments, now she has her own store, plans on making a comic and has been in several zines, like, WHAT and, and the best part, SHE AIN’T SLOWIN DOWN. She is such a kind and thoughtful person, fueling with the fires of determination and passion, there is something inside Artic that could fuel the planet. Go check out her art blog, Go check out her store, IMPROVE YOUR LIFE.

@tuz-ohtopia

Have you ever met someone who you graverly underestimated and regretted, I SURE HAVE, I’ll openly admit when I first met Tuz back in the days of Deviant art, I didn’t think much of him, CAUSE I WAS A FOOL. His story chops, his character designs and his overall whit and personality is probably some of the best things you’ll ever run into, if you ever get the chance ask him about his amazing DnD campaign that he runs with some of my other fave nerds, the plans he has are stellar, I just wish I’d gotten to know him better. This guy is pure gold.

@knifetotheback

the moment when you’ve refereed to someone by their nickname so much that just becomes their name, meet Smudge, I met smudge somewhere most people regret to meet their friends, IN A ROLEPLAY GROUP, and at the time I didn’t really know smudge that much, we’d chatted by not a lot, not until I have the pleasure of having them as a player in my DnD game, and while they did grind on others nervous, I am surprised to find someone who put so much effort and emotion into something they cared about. Smudge is a person who is open to criticism and willing to sit down and talk about problems, a rarity in many things, but also very enthusiastic and supportive of peoples decisions, I’ve not had the pleasure of talking to smudge much due to their work. But I do miss them, very much so.

@sunshinedrago

have you ever met someone who screamed excitement, I don’t mean figuratively, I think my ears have actually ruptured thanks to this wonderful human, I’M SENDING YOU THE BILL. This beautiful person, whose actual name I can’t ever type correctly..., is so full of energy and wonder, she is a delight to have in my DnD games just because of the drive she brings, even if it does get the better of her at times. They are also some who actually gets some of my strange interests, such as slice of life anime and cute shit with no shame, it’s beautiful. But more importantly they are a person, a real down to earth person who actually understands people, it’s a rare thing to see and must be treasured, like the dragon she wishes she could be.

@GrittySugar

LOOK AT THIS BEAUTIFUL MOTHAR FUKAR, when I first met this wonderful person she was a funny silly girl who did fun silly, DARK, comics, it was amazing, (Hellen X Ralph OTP), but NONE of us, were prepared with all the stuff she has done recently, the animations, the videos it’s also just so! I am so happy and proud for her, this is a person whom I competed against at one time and got to talk about silly things with and now look at her, look how far she has come and she’s still going. If you haven’t go to her youtube channel, check out her shit, DO YOURSELF A SOLID.

@roseillustrates

Speaking of beautiful people, here is someone I’ve sadly neglected, she is a beautiful friend whom will also be Bubby to me, her art is dark, twisted and fucking amazing! And she herself is also amazing. Some whom I miss dearly and wish I held onto so much tighter, cause I barely get to see them much, their head is swimming with such, amazing potential and stories, like, my god, please, I beg you, do your self a service and check them out!

@ssksscrapboard

BROOOOOOOOOO, I have missed you! but it’s nice to see you’ve been keeping busy, like seriously people if you are looking for fun expressive art that captures personality and humor check this guy out, he has a really addictive style that is fun to look at, with well designed characters, all detailed and simplistic, it’s so fun, he himself is a great guy, probably one of the friendliest guys I know, easy to talk to and always encourages. Please check him out, look at his art, enjoy his humor, all that fun stuff.

@spesiria

Well, well, well, if it isn’t the person whom adore the most, or at least one of them, god I miss you, your activity is either lost in the sea of 639 people I follow on tumblr, or simply you’ve just disappeared. I really wish I had the chance to talk to you more often as you are such a lovely and interesting person, you are the best, I miss you.

@thelovelyghosty

I met this lovely loveable through a friend of mine and I’ve not regretted it, she might have, but not me. She’s fantastic and very smart, probably WAY too hard on herself and probably puts more effort into her writing than I have ever done, I love the time I spend with her, she always make me smile. I hope to spend more time over the following years getting to know her and hopefully making her smile.

@hunnylou0

When I first started out on Devinatart Lou was one of the first ‘big’ artists whom I had the privilege to get to know, it was so weird at the time and to think that I’ve manged to continue following someone whose been such a big influence to me all this time really means something, I know I’ve sadly not been the best of friends, but I have been trying to keep in contact and I hope nothing for the best for this person, she’s such an interesting and fun individual, I hope I get the chance to meet them in person and thank them, please check out her stuff, commission her if you can.

@nickala

Sometimes you need someone who knows what your thinking to make life a little easier, this is my person! Nicky is an amazing girl, she has a great sense of humor, a level head and has a job at cutting up guts and gore, best, person EVAH. Also! Also! She has some dope ass art that will just blow you away with it’s creativity and design work, her colour it’s all just, FWAH! Not to mention with the top included, she’s a person whose helped me realise I’m not.., a freak, to be quite honest, for the longest time I knew there were others out there like me, but I never, connected with them, I felt that I was always on a different wave length that life was just, impossible to understand, then I sat and talk with Nicki and she has helped me so much with stupid brain things and I could never thank her enough, for listening to my insane ramblings and just being a great friend.

@valbey

MAN WHAT AN ASSHOLE, okay, okay not ‘completely’ true, this dude has been with me since my days in college and even went on to be my roommate, for better or worse and despite how we can sometimes get on each other nerves, he still tries to understand and respects my opinion, sometimes, dick, But he is probably one of the most level headed and thoughtful people you’ll ever know, who is also doing commissions, please check him out and call him a dick from me.

@doodlediddydaisy

Do you know many people whom you could say ‘If it wasn’t for them, I don’t know if I’d still be here today?’ Well meet the godsend here, in the literal sense, she saved me during a very dark moment in my life, where I was depressed, unmotivated and scared about the future so much, I was an emotional wreck and she manged to help me, I owe my life to her! And now she’s happily married and I don’t get to speak to her much -cries-, but I’m not gonna be down, why? CAUSE SHE’S HAPPILY MARRIED’, that doesn’t happen a lot to people, so I’m so glad it’s happening to her, and I know she has been through a rough patch this year, but I’m sure she can pull through, she is a strong person.

@funktrash

MY GIRL HAS HER OWN FUCKING COMIC YOU SHOULD GO CHECK IT THE FUCK OUT, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU WAITING FOR! Okay so I knew Hyper all the way back in my early days of creating mary sues and weeb art on DA, back then I wasn’t the best of guys, but I was amazed that someone could find my art.., inspiring, it was so..., INSPIRING! And I hope I leave or left some impact, even if I don’t deserve it, I’ve come to admit my faults and I don’t want to forget them, so I’m gonna do something good for this person who deserves nothing but the best. CHECK OUT HER FUCKING COMIC! No seriously, do it, it started out as an idea, that became a DA group and now it’s own work, if you followed her on DA do it, it’s so amazing to see these characters that you saw from her early days and see how far they’ve come! so, I’m just gonna grab the link and you better be clicking on it! [Link to Comic]

@clauseart

HOLY FLYING CRAB APPLES, MY GURL HAS HER OWN COMIC AND IT’S JUST SO, MMM, MMMMMMNG GOOD. When I first met her she did comics about a crazy girl with an over side pinwheel and I loved her for it, found out she was English and loved her even more, Now she’s writing a modern fantasy story where the real world and the magic community co-exist together, while a buff ginger haired lady punches the undead and has to baby sit a brat, CHECK IT OOOOUT, I want her to succeed so much, she is worth it, here is a link, if you haven’t checked it out, I’ll know. [Comic Link]

@velkro-bitch

I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU FOR LETTING ME MISGENDERING YOU!, wait is it misgendering if they don’t apply to one gender or the other? Either wait, I love this person, they were the voice of reason in my DND group and continue to be a person who’ll always make me laugh and miss so much, they’ve gone off to live a successful and hardworking life and I could not be more proud of them, but it doesn’t hurt that I still them so much!

@a-trashcan-in-a-corner

You and your fucking sibling, I love this girl so much, funny, kind, compassionate and a no shit taker, they are a great source of joy and sadness, cause very much like their sibling, life took over and they had to leave my DND, I try to keep in contact, but as anyone who knows me, knows I’m terrible at that, but if you ever just want to talk to some this is someone whom is the best at doing that and is very good at playing sexy buff shy dudes.

@flunafloon

I WUB MY HEAD, and I’m a terrible friend again this year, I’ve not been as active and as friendly as I would like to be, MAYBE IF SOMEONE WAS ACTIVE ONLINE MORE AND DIDN’T HIDE, HMMM! but I seriously do miss you, I hope you are doing well and everything is going well for you, please take care of yourself.

@mercuziades

I love gothic art, I love this girl and I love her art! Sadly I’ve not seen much of her work of late, as sadly much with many friends I’ve come to know life has gotten in the way, but I’m always hopeful to speak to her more, when my life isn’t getting in the way, but to any and all out there, check out her work, if you love the Gothic esthetic and do mean romantic Gothic, the true Gothic, got do it. NOW!

@riyamilea

So, I’ve followed this person for sometime and I’ve only gotten to know them recently, which is strange, cause I’ve been following them since the rise OCT, and for anyone who still remembers the rise OCT, don’t you feel old now, HUH! But seriously, she has such an amazing body of art work, her designs are outstanding, her skill with anatomy and detail is breath taking and she’s so fun to talk to! She’s level headed, smart and never argues her opinion, she acknowledges other peoples points either adding to them or deconstructing them, talking to this person is a breath of fresh air. And I really hope I get to know them more.

@seriousmealtime

HERE’S SOMEONE WHO MAKES ME FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE, in a good way, I only met Sam briefly last year and thanks to some close friends we’ve been talking a lot more and what I love/hate about this person is they are always lavishing me in praise. IDON’TTAKECOMPLIMENTSWELL,LETMEFEELUSELESS! Sam is great and I love them to bits, their crude enough to get my stupid sense of humor, but kind enough to sympathies with, sadly Sam is dweeb and doesn’t upload any of their amazing art so I can sell it to you, but it’s amazing and if they ever do decided to get off their butt and actually show it, I’d highly recommended them.

@ioanaartblog

I remember meeting this girl after attempting to join a deviantart Roleplay group that went, nowhere and after talking for a bit and introducing them to Critical Role, we started a DnD group, that has lasted for about two years now. It is my first and longest DnD session that has taken up so much of time and energy as a creator and it all started with her, if it was for Ioana I wouldn’t have such wonderful memories as well as a burning desire to improve on what I have done, I’m so exictied each session to challenge my players and watch their reactions with what I have planned. It has meant to so much to be and it of never been possible if it wasn’t for Ioana, likewise, Ioana has gotten herself noticed in many ways, after watching Critical role she became inspired and now she has some of her artwork up for sale in the their official store, not joking, here is the link, [Shop Link] And now she is currently at university studying art and improve her skills, despite anyone else who’d of called it quits and ridden he coat tales of their first success, I’m proud to see her chase her ambitions.

@phantomdotexe

Sometimes it really helps to have someone to talk with, cause not everyone wants to hear EVERYTHING about yourself and we are flawed deep down, it’s what makes life so interesting, no one is the messiah. So I’m really happy I met her, she’s smart, funny and more importantly she allows me to be more open than I have ever been with some other people and she is very supportive, if not a bit nagging ‘why aren’t you in bed’ SORRY YOU GET ON SO LATE!, hehe but if you ever into anything, risque, I suggest taking out her library of work, she’s a writer you see and while her taste lends to the mature, it doesn’t stop it from being an engaging series of work, please check it out if you are into rope and gags, also send her a hi and let her know how amazing she is.

@dansome0203

Mother fucker, let me love you! This guy, besides me being envious of this skill to draw such beautifully curvaceous women, he is just such a nice guy, like, stupidly nice, He’s probably an alien, hmm. I’ve sadly not had the time to talk to him much STILL! God I feel like those assholes who refuse to talk their fav artist then whine about it on their art blog!...wait. But this guy, he just continues to surprise me, found out he’s not just a nice guy and an amazing artist, but he also runs a very good DND session! The stuff I have seen pour out of it has made me so excited if this guy ever plans to do some writing in his own free time.

@totalobelisk

A friend of mine for the longest time, who I’ve sadly not stayed in contact much with, cause I am a terrible human being. That said he’s incredibly bright and funny as well as creative, I’ve never met a guy who just doesn’t give up, he’s driven and determined, willing to do what he enjoys more than anything! I wish I had some of that drive, his work might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but hey, in the end, it matters if it makes him happy and he being happy makes me happy.

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, JENNA! You’ve been accepted for the role of OLIVIA. Admin Rosey: Jenna, I don’t even know what I can say about this application. You had me slowly falling more and more in love with the Omi that you bring to us, which is perhaps incredibly apt due to the fact that I imagine many fall in love with Omi just the same way. All of us raved about this application and what it brought to the table, careful nuances that just screamed Omi. We’ve been waiting for an Olivia for so long -- a beautiful sparrow -- and you’ve brought them to us and given us more. I can’t wait to see what you do with our beautiful Sparrow! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | Jenna

Age | 20

Preferred Pronouns | she/her

Activity Level | I would say a solid 6-7/10. I’m currently on break from uni, so I’ll be around pretty much every day. However, once I go back to uni and my workload picks up a bit, I’ll probably only manage to get to replies every 2-3 days (I aim for every 2!), but I’m always around for plotting!

Timezone | gmt+10

How did you find the rp?  | In the tags! I’ve been admiring this group for a while now and I’ve honestly had an application for Omi half-written for a few months and finally decided to just go for it.

Current/Past RP Accounts | This is one of my most recent character blogs, unfortunately the group closed recently which is why I’ve stopped writing the character.

IN CHARACTER

Character | Olivia, Yamamoto Omi

What drew you to this character? | Honestly, Omi was not the first character I was drawn to. I was considering applying originally for Hermia or Helena, but I stumbled upon Olivia’s bio while reading up on the lore, and I loved it. I liked that they had such a rich backstory, and one that was very unique within the context of the group. She’s had such tragedy in her life, but instead of it making her softer or making her retreat into herself, it’s made her tougher, and forced her to grow up very quickly and build a life for herself in order to survive. They have been so focused on their next move for so long that they haven’t really had a chance to look back and reflect on whether or not this life is really what they want – sure, being a Sparrow provides them with stability and feelings of control and power that Omi lacked for her whole life, but does it make her happy? That’s where I feel the character is at this point, and it’s a very interesting starting point for writing and character development. Often, I feel like I have a connection with a character, but I struggle to write them – with Omi, her voice came easily and writing up the responses to the IC interview was enjoyable, which I think really speaks volumes!

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? |

THE MISSED MARK; Omi’s identity very much centres around the work she does at the Dark Lady, and the fact that she is good at said work. They pride themselves on being able to build intimacy and trust with someone without every becoming attached to them, so that she can sell their information off to Mona without ever feeling guilty or wrong about what they are doing. I would love for her to meet someone at the Dark Lady who challenges her in this way, someone she goes after for information, but becomes unexpectedly attached to. This person would ideally share with Omi some information they wouldn’t normally hesitate to share, something that Mona would consider a gold mine. Her decision to either sell this person down the river, or betray Mona would very much tear her up inside, and I’d love to see someone as sure of themselves as Omi grapple with this decision, and the guilt associated with whichever path she chooses. It would very much make them question the work they’re doing at the Dark Lady, and their allegiance to this person and to Mona.

THE OLD CLIENT; I love the idea of exploring Omi’s actions coming back to haunt her. They’re a character who exudes a sort of confidence – they have to, in the line of work that they’re in. I’d love for Omi to be confronted by someone that she’s wronged in the past, in particular, a former client of the Dark Lady who she may have shared information about with Mona, leading to some extreme consequences for the character in question, and, eventually, leading to them wanting some sort of retribution against Omi in particular. She generally tries not to think about clients after she is done with them, tossing them aside and moving onto the next thing, trying to gather as much information about as many people as possible to build herself a vast wealth of knowledge. So, someone confronting Omi about what they have done and seeking some sort of retribution will do two things; it’ll scare them, and it’ll make them really think about what they’re doing. I love the idea of Omi really having to reckon with herself and the life she has built for herself in Verona. She sees herself as powerful… but is she really? Could they have done better, could they have found a better way to live? Is their work really all it’s been chalked up to be, or have they placed their loyalty in the wrong hands? As I’ve mentioned, Omi strikes me as someone very sure of herself, so having to question her own actions is something I would love to see from her.

THE LINE YOU SHOULDN’T CROSS; Omi’s greatest weapons are her words, and she’s very good at using them to get exactly what she wants. Whether it’s information from clients, or a free drink at a bar, or any number of advantages in their life, Omi uses words and their looks to get what they want. Omi hasn’t had to resort to violence very often in her life, and this is what she believes separates her from the people her father worked for, what elevates her to a level above the fighting barbarians in Verona, the fact that she is able to show some semblance of restraint. They keep their hands clean of the fighting, and of the war brewing between the Montagues and Capulets, very deliberately, focusing on their job and their job only. I want to see this resolve tested, whether being swayed to one side or another of the conflict, or needing to use violence to solve a problem. What will Omi do when she is reduced to the level of those in conflict both around her, and in her past? I don’t think they would react well to such guilt, to the compromising of what they believe about themselves.

these are just rough ideas, and honestly there are lots of different directions I can see this character going, many of which will be influenced by the characters she comes to interact with and plots that she becomes involved with!!

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | I am definitely open to killing off Omi, though I would love to have a chance to develop her properly before doing this!!

IN DEPTH

IN-CHARACTER INTERVIEW

What is your favorite place in Verona?

“The Dark Lady.” They say without hesitation, as though the response were programmed into their mind before the question had even been posed. She shifts in her chair, posture straightening as pearly teeth chew on her red-painted lips - slowly, seductively. Even when they’re not working, Omi’s training doesn’t leave her. She doesn’t need to be at The Dark Lady to extract information - to see the way people squirm as she eyes them, beauty the most powerful weapon they possess - and they only one they need to. “The music, the dark lighting… it’s the sort of place where you don’t know what to expect when you walk in…” She trails off, soft hands finding their way to her hair, fingers twirling through dark locks as she spoke. “It’s a place where I feel in control. People come to see me, they’ll do anything, say anything to me, to please me.” Perhaps they give themselves too much credit, but never has Omi felt more powerful than when she’s working, sitting in the lap of a stranger who thinks to underestimate them, listening to whispered secrets uttered in passion with the capacity to burn cities. “Yes,” She repeats, voice soft and certain, “That’s my favourite place in Verona.”

What does your typical day look like?

“I wake up, I go to work, I come home, and I go to sleep.” A playful smile flits ever so briefly across Omi’s lips, carefully constructed, of course, as all things about her tend to be. “What do you want me to say? To spin tales of fantastical adventures in far-off lands?” She chuckles, light and airy, a sound that has been equated in the past to the soft ringing of a bell, full of light and love, even if the one producing such a sound is nothing of the sort. “I owe Mona everything, you know.” They say softly, a rare moment of sheer candor, one so very rarely seen from Omi these days. Her left hand has settled on the opposite wrist, drawing circles over the skin as they speak, soft and gentle. “So I work. Whenever she needs me. If I don’t? Well, who else will? Nobody else there has quite the same level of… talent that I possess. They can be clumsy, and forgetful. Our clients like me best, and so they should. They trust me.” Another soft laugh escapes their lips, “I’m at my best when I’m there, but I keep myself busy in between. Not all of my suitors are paying customers.”

What has been your biggest mistake thus far?

“I don’t tend to make big mistakes, nor dwell on the past.” Omi lies with ease, a smile flitting instantaneously across her face, gone just as quickly as it had come as she thinks, really thinks about the question being posed to her. “I couldn’t pinpoint a single one, you see. I haven’t made any life altering mistakes.. I’m too careful for that.” Or, at least, they liked to think they were. “Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I’d confronted my father about what he did for a living… I never questioned him about it. Not really. He knew I knew, he must have, but… we never spoke about it. Perhaps if I had asked him about it, if I’d asked him why, how he’d ended up there in the first place… maybe things would have gone differently. Perhaps I could have convinced him to get out while he still could, we could have left Japan, started a new life as a family. I doubt I would have ended up here… but I doubt things are that simple. If my father had any sort of choice in what he did, he would still be alive, and so would my mother. Perhaps it’s just my mind trying to make sense of things.. overthinking it all.”

What has been the most difficult task asked of you?

“The first one.” She says, “My first mark at the Dark Lady. Some Montague boy, I don’t even remember his name. But he was young… naive. If it were now, I’d know exactly what to do, exactly how to get him to spill his secrets. He was about as easy a mark as they come… but I’d never done it before. Mona had explained to me what my role was to be at the Dark Lady… she’d coached me, and I was confident that I could do it. I know that I’m desirable, and I knew exactly the type of person this boy was… but I was nervous.” They laugh, a strange lilting sound, not quite pleasant, but not off-putting, either. “I’m never nervous. But after all the faith Mona had in me, after everything she’d done… I knew I had to do this right. I had to make sure that I did the job, and I did it well, to prove to her, to everyone, that she wasn’t wasting her time on me. I think I got into my own head, which is rare, for me… but I managed to do it. I don’t even remember what he told me, but when I told Mona, she just smiled and said, ‘good work,’. I didn’t see him again, and it got easier after that.”

What are your thoughts on the war between the Capulets and the Montagues?

“It doesn’t concern me.” She says, a soft sigh escaping her lips. “Though, I wouldn’t so much call it a war. If anything, it’s a contest of egos. Two families each trying to prove to one another that they have the most power. It’s almost petty. Real power doesn’t come from fighting, from guns or from money… real power is knowledge, real power is understanding another person completely. Knowing every crevice of their mind in intimate detail, being able to predict what they’re thinking, what they’ll say… what they’ll do.” They shake their head, “These people, they don’t know war. They don’t know pain. They’re playing at games they think they understand… but they don’t, and I doubt they ever will. The only people who suffer are their pawns, their underlings… there can’t be a winner if they’re not willing to have real stakes.” She sighs again, flicking her hair over her shoulder and adjusting her posture, “But, like I said. It doesn’t concern me.”

Extras: Pretty much everything I have for Omi can be found on her mock blog!! there’s mostly inspo on there, I haven’t had a chance to create any moodboards or playlists yet, but when I do, this is where they’ll go!!

Thank you so much for reading my application, I’ve admired this group from afar for a while, and I would love to get the chance to write Omi & write as part of this group!!

[inevitably-johnlocked]

I like Mary. I think she's awesome. I don't see why she has to be evil.

Oh, boy, okay.

Listen you can like Mary all you want – I loved her too before the fucked up her entire story arc – but her entire arc was building up to be a villain, and a badass one that was going to go down with a fight. 

I’m REALLY not trying to be pedantic here, Nonny, but asks like this force me to pull out receipts, all of which I’m sure you’re not going to read, because who likes to be proved wrong, but I digress. I always end up sounding more harsh than I am when all I want to do is educate you on my perspective and what the narrative is teaching us.

THESE ARE THE FACTS (Mary in S4)

Mary is a Femme Fatale

Mary’s Possessiveness

The Problem with John x Mary

Mary’s Brand of Abuse

Mary Made Herself Unpredictable

Mary and the Liar Deduction

Sherlock at the Window

Mary is Moran

Mary Meant to Kill Sherlock

She Went to Finish the Job

“I Swear I’ll Kill You”

Sherlock Died!

Why Did She Kill Him if She Meant to Keep Him Alive?

Mary Chose the Chest Over the Head to Delay John 

Law Student: Magistrate Says She Killed Him

She Shot Him in the Chest

Funny How Mary Says “kill” instead of “shoot”…

There’s Something About Mary…

Sherlock Did Not Forgive Mary

Sherlock Doesn’t Like Mary 

Sherlock is Scared of Mary

No Really, He’s Terrified of Her

John the Dummy

What if Mary had Shot John?

Mary Surely Can Tell When John is Lying (Mary Underestimates John)?

John Did Not Forgive Mary

“I Choose the Baby’s Name”

Was John Mary’s Mission? 

Does Mary Love John?

TAB

Mary Humiliates the Boys in TAB

The Opening Credits Literally Tell Us What Mary Is

The Titles get Larger as John Steps on Them

John to Mary: Shut Up!

Blog Entry in TEH

Horns of Infidelity

Why Is She So Eager for Sherlock and John to Go On a Case?

All About David

AGRA

Mary Since TGG? 

Is She the Sniper in TBB?

A Red Target

Was it Mary in MHR? 

Is Mary the Russian Assassin in TRF? 

Mary and Lady Smallwood: Girl Power?

Was Magnussen a Freelance job for Mary?

Is there a Link Between Her Flashdrive and the one in TGG? 

Mary’s Passport

Mary’s Timeline

Ammo vs Amo

THAT’S Why she’s a villain. When a character kills the title character of a show, they are coded as the bad guy unless they do a redemption arc that actually is a redemption.

Mary had NO redemption arc AT ALL. Even in S4, Mary is STILL manipulating and emotionally abusing Sherlock and John against each other with her fucking creepy-assed DVDs and her belittling of John in T6T. She still runs off to go do her little assassin things and still lied and manipulated everyone. And I know the argument is going to come up, but Mary’s gunshot was NOT a redemption. A redemption arc has the ex-villain doing a good deed and being genuinely sorry for their past actions. Not ONCE Mary has ever apologized for any of the shit she put everyone through. All of it was a plan, especially if she had creepy DVDs made FAIRLY RECENTLY (you can tell because of the hair style) to send out to people. Also:

YOU ARE EVIL IF YOU ACTIVELY OR POSTHUMOUSLY TELL SOMEONE TO GO KILL THEMSELVES.

That and Mary’s entire death scene was RIDICULOUS and completely contradicted EVERY rule that was established in this universe only 2 episodes prior on how characters die.

Nonny, Mary’s character arc is one I have been passionate about for many years, even before I was a Johnlocker, because her character was fascinating to me, and helped me understand the psychology and make sense of events that were happening in my life at the time. Right up until TAB, Mary was being coded as the next Moriarty. For some reason or another, Mofftiss decided to turn her into an “assassin with an heart of gold” and failed spectacularly.

If Mary truly was good, she WOULD HAVE TOLD JOHN FROM THE BEGINNING WHO SHE WAS, OR AT LEAST TOLD SHERLOCK SHE NEEDED HELP. HLV would have not played out as it did. Instead deciding that killing Sherlock was her only option so that she could continue to manipulate John, since she knew he was most malleable when he was grieving Sherlock.

You can read Mary’s character however you want, I could care less… well okay apparently I do because of this reply… But please, seriously consider that what became of her character really made no goddamned sense to the narrative arc the built for her and quite frankly really lazy writing. Just because she is a woman, doesn’t mean that she is nice and sweet and not abusive. Excusing her of her brand of emotional abuse and manipulation is really sexist.

People thought my mother was a nice person, too.

[flyingvgroupca]

What NEVER to Publish on a Real Estate Company Site or Blog

You're thinking about starting a blog, podcast or vlog. Weeks and months pass by, and you’re still no closer to your goals. You want to be heard. You have a message, and you’re anxious to impact the world with your real estate listings, findings, insights and experience, but… I know... You don't want to look or sound unprofessional You don’t have enough time to dedicate to a regular content marketing schedule You don’t have a budget to outsource this process or have not even considered doing it You don’t know where to start, or what to talk about first Let’s face it. Every real estate business needs a website, and every website should have a blog. (1) But most don’t. (2) Or they’re not regularly updated. (3) Or their content is uninspiring and dull. That’s where YOU come in! Here’s what I mean. We both know that nobody likes to read average articles, stuffed with keywords, and posted on a poorly designed website. If you’re reading this, then you already know your real estate business requires: (1) A pro website design You’re losing money and trust if you go with an average, ‘me too’ website look because... A professional website design reflects your real estate brand and vice-versa. So, it has to reflect a color combination and layout elements that are in sync with your real estate company’s mission, core team values, and principles. (2) An SEO blog setup with Wordpress (preferable) Wordpress is ideal for real estate websites because you get a fast, secure, and easily manageable platform to future-proof build and grow your real estate business. (3) A series of high-quality and highly relevant articles AND blog posts, meant for both humans and Google. If your website is the KING, then your content marketing is the QUEEN. What is high-quality content, and how can you ensure that you create more impactful content even when you lack time?

The Secret to Creating Content of Value as a Busy Real Estate Agent or CEO.

Transform your real estate agency into a micro multi-media agency. Here’s how to accomplish this: Start by producing micro-video content. This less-practiced method saves you plenty of time because you don’t have to manually type in new content. The simple solution is to jot down some ideas, create 3 slides, and expand on the pillar concepts, while you record your screen and speak. Imagine this. 10 minutes worth of recorded video can provide you with enough content for multiple blog posts and short email follow-ups. You can load these into your autoresponder service or CRM to convert prospects into leads, and transform leads into customers, via email and SMS, for many months to come. Here’s what you need to do: You can simply answer the most common and frequently asked questions from your target audience while recording yourself with Screencastify, or other screencast recording platforms. They’re so easy to use and make you look and sound professional, without costing an arm and a leg. The free version has some limitations, but you’re ready to go within seconds to start broadcasting your way to the top. This video content may include questions on what to consider when processing approvals for loans, searching for a house, or even buying a new apartment in your city or county. You get the idea, but you know your audience better than I do, so you’ll know what their requirements are or what key topics to focus on. Prepare a list of the most common questions that prospects might have about your service and listed properties, within the realm of your specific Real Estate location. Here is one simple and proven tool (website) that can help you come up with quick ideas for your top FAQ list: visit Quora. With Quora, you can search for questions and the results will show the responses of others. You can identify the related questions, and get an idea of what people are asking.

Next, record yourself for an hour at the beginning of each month, and answer all the relevant questions. You’ll have enough content for 30+ days to post to your website or blog. You can take this idea a step further, and hire a VA or have someone from your team distribute this content to your YouTube channel, as well as engage with prospects via Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. The best invention ever is social media. If used correctly, it can capture attention your target market attention and start significant conversations. All you have to do is hit the record button, and start sharing your screen and slides (you can find lots of slide templates online for free).  Ultimately, these amazing video messages will be your best lead generator and traffic machines. Here are some amazing additional content ideas to help you create premium video content and blog posts to attract your ideal audience. Using these, you can convert prospects into leads, and turn leads into customers - for many years. 100+ Topics and Ideas for Your Real Estate Blog 72 Rock Solid Real Estate Blogging Ideas With Examples 25 Best Real Estate Blog Ideas & Examples (Expert Insights) 7 creative ideas for successful real estate blog posts Real Estate Blog Topics You Can Write About in Less than 30 Minutes Your video content should encourage and entice your prospects to join your lead magnet, and subscribe to your mailing list. This is where most real estate marketers fail miserably. They have their website, location and phone number listed in the video description, or at the end of the video presentation. However, they lack a lead capture offer, or button in the video itself. So, they get stuck, unable to comprehend why their video marketing generate only minimal or no results. However, setting up this lead gen machine doesn’t mean your done. Most automated email campaigns fail, due to multiple reasons. I’ll cover one of the most important ones next.

Here’s why the standard follow-up ‘drip email’ strategy is exceedingly ineffective, and how to create high-converting emails for your real estate campaigns instead

Plenty of these emails are written in an extremely professional way but lack a personal touch. Drip emails are automated and really reduces you to feeling like a number in a mailing queue. If you are sending these emails, the person on the receiving end will not feel any warmth or love, and will definitely know that no-one took the time to craft the message with care. With the rapid development of automation and artificial intelligence, you need to separate yourself from all the other real estate professionals, while using the same technology.

Here’s how to make this strategy work for you instead, and increase your chance to bond create trust, and forge new relationships with leads, from day one, week after week, month after month: Stop trying to be perfect. Consider the tone of the email, and create it to sound like it’s meant for a human, instead of creating a mechanical ‘do this, or else…’ demand that will just end up in the ‘deleted’ folder or recycle bin. Therefore, your prospects should feel respected, and not like their intelligence is being underestimated. Use very short, personal email messages. These friendly ‘letters’ will create a personal connection with your prospects or previous clients. This will exude an aura of ‘they care about me’ and would encourage the person to respond, attend your event or refer a friend, colleague or family member. Here are some examples of brief and friendly email messages you can model that actually have a chance of receiving that “tell me more!” reply:

You can also send out these messages via text / SMS to further build trust and remain in the mind of your prospects, for longer than those from your competitors. Long gone are the days when real estate CEOs and agents wanted to sound like a big corporations whose only intention was to impress and ‘close the sale’ as fast as possible. What happens if people still don’t respond? Or, how do you reactivate previous clients or lost leads? What is the secret, really? The answer may surprise you. It is so simple, yet you rarely hear that real estate agents use it with any significant results. Here’s what I’m referring to...

How to Bring Real Estate Leads Back from the ‘Dead’

The tips I’m sharing with you to help revive leads that have point blank refused to move forward with you before, are often overlooked by most real estate professionals since they are more interested in generating new leads, instead of taking care of lost opportunities. That goldmine sitting right under your nose can be your most precious asset. Call them. As simple as that, it works wonders. In the conversation, you should always share how you acquired the lead, whether from Trulia, Realtor or maybe Facebook. This will remind the lead that they once inquired about buying a home, finding a location, etc. Be ultra-specific, relaxed, and don’t hide the context. This may lead you to responses like, ‘Already bought a home,’ ‘Still saving my money for a down payment,’ or ‘Fixing my credit.’ With these clients, there is a possibility that they will buy, dive or unsubscribe. It should be noted that there is a small fortune to be had if the follow-up is done right, with a proven strategy on paper, and kept consistent. That’s the KEY. What to do if bad things happen. Like for e.g., … It often occurs that the lead does not pick up your call,  in which case you should leave a voicemail. Despite their busy schedule, the lead might find time to listen to your message and act on it. Voice mail messages can make or break your lead gen campaign. That’s why it is so crucial for you to spend a few minutes, maybe half an hour to perfect the irresistible voicemail message, as well as additional follow-ups. Over time you’ll get better and learn to structure these messages more naturally, while improving your response rate as you advance through life and business.

Private message (PM) leads on their most active social media platform.

Some individuals are faster to reach on Twitter, or Linkedin, while others may prefer Facebook. Take advantage of all platforms, go ‘fishing’ where they can easily be found. Testing  your message across all these different channels will help you make an informed decision, while eventually perfecting your approach. This method will help you address the fast-paced life of leads and everyone else.  If somebody is active and ready to go, they will reach out to you. If not, there are enough leads for you to consider, and you’ll never look back.

What to say in order to catch the fishes and profit from leads:

Offer time-sensitive or exclusive information that is not available on the top sites or in the local markets. This will pique their interest since everyone would like to be the first to acquire the information before it is distributed to the rest. Be a natural ‘actor,’ improve your role playing, and show passion when delivering your messages, one person at a time. If you know someone who does not know what to do with their list of ‘dead’ leads, you may consider buying the list from them, and apply the above tips to win and/or revive some of these back into your funnel.  Or, you can partner up with them, and create a joint venture where you split the profits from all revenue generated. Sounds like a win-win situation, right? There is money and opportunities in ‘dead’ leads. Get out there with a simple, and consistent plan. Use the best CRM available for real estate and follow-up extensively. Here are some more drip email & follow-up ideas: 17 Best Real Estate Email Templates & Scripts (I simply love the 2nd idea!) 14 Real Estate Email Templates to Use (Hubspot knows their game) 10 Real Estate Email Templates for Building Leads & Selling Listings (you may want to pay close attention to the very first template because it usually gets the highest response rate) 10 Real Estate Lead Conversion Emails (don’t overlook the first two examples) From learning about…

What NEVER to Publish on a Real Estate Company Site or Blog

You’ve discovered how to rapidly create high-quality content, using the 10-minute micro-video formula. More importantly, you learned how to properly follow-up with prospects and leads - even during busy days. This is one of the best ways to stand out in a crowded, busy, and mechanical real estate market. Remember: make it your #1 goal and vision to transform your real estate company into a micro-content multi-media agency. Thank you so much for reading What NEVER to Publish on a Real Estate Company Site or Blog. We really appreciate it! If you have any questions about our article, or can suggest any other topics you think we should explore, feel free to let us know. Be sure to sign-up for our newsletter to receive monthly emails on all of the latest trends and happenings in the digital marketing space. You will also receive our FREE E-Book with the Amazing Marketing Tools for Powerful Business Growth. Sign-up below! Also, if you received some value out of this article, please share with your friends or colleagues, or leave a comment/question below. We really appreciate you reading our blog and every share/comment means the world to us and allows us to continue producing valuable tools to help you grow your business! Share this PostAbout the Author

Robb Fahrion Facebook Twitter Google+Robb Fahrion is the Co-Founder and a Partner of Flying V Group. He is passionate about helping businesses grow using the power of the internet. Robb graduated from Chapman University in Orange, CA and currently resides in Costa Mesa, CA. Robb enjoys writing about digital marketing, helping his clients turn their dreams into reality, and is a HUGE Mike Trout fan. The Best Strategy to Increase Traffic and Leads to Your Real Estate Website without Any Referrals, Facebook or Paid AdsNovember 25, 2019What NEVER to Publish on a Real Estate Company Site or BlogNovember 19, 2019Real Estate SEO Tools Exposed: SEMrush vs Ahrefs vs MozPro Review (2019)November 11, 2019

Discover the Best Digital Business Growth Strategies! Join 10,000+ Other Digital Marketers, Consultants, and SEO Experts Now: Notice: JavaScript is required for this content. var formDisplay=1;var nfForms=nfForms||;var form=;form.id='35_1';form.settings={"objectType":"Form Setting","editActive":true,"title":"IN USE - 16 Tools - non-sidebar - copy GLOBAL BLOCK EMAIL GLOBAL","created_at":"2018-10-02 23:58:52","form_title":"Top Ten List Blog - non-sidebar - copy - copy","default_label_pos":"above","show_title":"0","clear_complete":"1","hide_complete":"1","logged_in":"0","wrapper_class":"","element_class":"","add_submit":"0","changeEmailErrorMsg":"Please enter a valid email address!","changeDateErrorMsg":"Please enter a valid date!","confirmFieldErrorMsg":"These fields must match!","fieldNumberNumMinError":"Number Min Error","fieldNumberNumMaxError":"Number Max Error","fieldNumberIncrementBy":"Please increment by ","formErrorsCorrectErrors":"Please correct errors before submitting this form.","validateRequiredField":"This is a required field.","honeypotHoneypotError":"Honeypot Error","fieldsMarkedRequired":"Fields marked with an * are required","currency":"","unique_field_error":"A form with this value has already been submitted.","not_logged_in_msg":"","sub_limit_msg":"The form has reached its submission limit.","calculations":,"formContentData":,"order":0,"type":"part","clean":true,"title":"Part Title","key":"sysrdshp"}],"drawerDisabled":false,"key":"","mp_breadcrumb":1,"mp_progress_bar":1,"mp_display_titles":0,"allow_public_link":0,"embed_form":"","ninjaForms":"Ninja Forms","fieldTextareaRTEInsertLink":"Insert Link","fieldTextareaRTEInsertMedia":"Insert Media","fieldTextareaRTESelectAFile":"Select a file","formHoneypot":"If you are a human seeing this field, please leave it empty.","fileUploadOldCodeFileUploadInProgress":"File Upload in Progress.","fileUploadOldCodeFileUpload":"FILE UPLOAD","currencySymbol":"$","thousands_sep":",","decimal_point":".","siteLocale":"en_US","dateFormat":"m\/d\/Y","startOfWeek":"1","of":"of","previousMonth":"Previous Month","nextMonth":"Next Month","months":,"monthsShort":,"weekdays":,"weekdaysShort":,"weekdaysMin":,"currency_symbol":"","beforeForm":"","beforeFields":"","afterFields":"","afterForm":""};form.fields=,"old_classname":"","wrap_template":"wrap"},{"objectType":"Field","objectDomain":"fields","editActive":false,"order":3,"type":"submit","label":"Sign Up","processing_label":"Processing","container_class":"","element_class":"","key":"sign_up_1556741674462","drawerDisabled":false,"id":"188_1","beforeField":"","afterField":"","value":"","label_pos":"above","parentType":"textbox","element_templates":,"old_classname":"","wrap_template":"wrap-no-label"}];nfForms.push(form); {{{ data.renderProgressBar() }}} {{{ data.renderBreadcrumbs() }}} {{{ data.renderPartTitle() }}} {{{ data.title }}} {{{ data.renderNextPrevious() }}} Read the full article

[sylvester-troubledyouth-rp]

Welcome Royal! You have been accepted as Beau Hummel and have 24 hours to create and send in your blog! I’m really interested to see the many different levels to Beau! I was hooked from the begging about looking like an angel but with ulterior motives. I think he’s going to be a really interesting character on the dash! 

Please make an account in 24 hours and send it into the main. Turn on ask and submit boxes and have a link back to the main. Making sure to follow everyone in the follow list and check out which tags to follow in the nav!

Follow List

OOC Information.~

_______________

Name/Alias: Royal

Age: 19

Timezone: EST

Activity level: 8.5/10

Triggers: N/A

_______________

IC information.~

_______________

“ Is that [BEAU HUMMEL]? I heard they’re currently at Sylvester’s Boarding School as a [STUDENT]. Apparently, they can be really [UNSURE], but I also heard they can be [BRIGHT]. Don’t you think they look just like [CONNOR FRANTA]? “

Desired Character: Beau Tristan Hummel

Face Claim: Connor Franta

Age: 16

Hometown: Kirkland, Washington.

Classes:Math, Advanced English Studies, Core Science, P.E., Drama, Social Studies, Media Production

Job: N/A

Clubs: Drama, Soccer, Games Society

Ships: Beau/chemistry, males

Anti-Ships: Forced/no chem, females

Character Bio: [These can be bullet points. As we aren’t asking for a para sample, we’d like to see some detail or alternatively 10 head cannons.]

There are those who will tell you that Beau is an angel in disguise and insist they’ve got plenty of evidence to support it. The latter part is true because from a young age, you could count on seeing him lend a hand in whatever ways he could and just generally being a sweetheart. As he grew older, this came to include taking people under a metaphorical wing, even if the roles seemed like they should have been reversed.

Of course, those same people are quick to remark that the saying clever as the devil applies to him just as much. At first glance, Beau may seem quiet as a church mouse and generally innocent, but it would be a mistake to underestimate him. While his smarts are applied to schoolwork more often than not, heaven forbid word gets to him that someone he loves has been harmed in some fashion. Then you can count on elaborate pranks as well as events that seem like general misfortune to befall the attacker and nobody would dare point a finger at Beau.

His mother’s death took a toll on him, but in a rather invisible way. Worries that once resided in the back of his mind now had a constant spotlight on them and highlighted the potential for even more things to go wrong, his fight or flight reflex became heightened, and uncharted territory tended to aggravate his hyperawareness among many other anxiety symptoms. Of course, mum has remained the word unless necessary in order to avoid sparking concern.

All the same, it’s very clear that he loves his family and friends. Even if his mind is a storm cloud, his green eyed gaze is completely clear as he sings the praises of his loved ones. If you find yourself in his inner circle, believe that this kid will fight like hell for you should the need arise and will always stand by your side until you present a good enough reason not to.

Beau found love with one of his two best friends. It was a classic case of opposites attract. The soft-spoken and artsy kid with the adventurous troublemaker. They’d slipped into dating then slipped right back into friendship for a variety of reasons after a few months, but have remained close as can be.

As for how he was enrolled into Sylvester’s Boarding School, that’s a hint of a long and complex story. After a few episodes of irritability fueled disrespect towards a teacher he despised and failure to concentrate due to mounting fears, it reached a boiling point when he straight up skipped class one day. He’d been in the student parking lot with his best friends when the vice principal finally tracked them down. Out of options, a meeting was called and the end result was a recommendation that he be enrolled at Sylvester’s.

[wingheadshellhead]

Hi, I love your blog! So I've been reading a lot of 616 stevetony lately, and I've noticed that in both canon and in a lot of fiction, Steve seems to really dislike Extremis (even before superior iron man). Why do you think that is? Even without looking at this with shipper goggles (which I always am), I think it's really strange that Steve has so much disdain for something that essentially saved one of his best friend's lives.

(THIS HAS TAKEN ME 5 BILLION YEARS BUT HERE IT IS FINALLY)

i used to be in the same boat and automatically assumed steve’s dislike of extremis was one of those fandom headcanon things that was so commonly accepted it’d basically become fact, but it’s really, actually, all 100% canon. but the comics that deal with it happen right before civil war so i think many ppl have simply forgotten or skipped over that part of tony’s timeline.

execute program is the 6-issue arc that comes right after extremis and it’s the main thing i tell everyone they have to read if they’re putting themselves thru the ringer that is 616′s civil war. it is so so important to understanding tony’s headspace and where he’s at before the events of civil war occur. 

READ EXECUTE PROGRAM. a) bc it’s absolutely crucial to tony’s side of civil war, b) the follow-through from the extremis arc is just… amazing, virtuosic. i really genuinely think it is a fascinating, excellently-written arc, c) when it gets gay it gets very gay. truST ME you do not need your shipper goggles for this at all bc guess which of the following things are canon: the sound of steve saying his voice being the only thing that snaps tony out of (likely a dissociative episode) trying to murder a villain that nearly kills peter, dyeing his hair blond when he’s going on the run, tony stopping his heart to save steve’s life. all of them !!! all canon !!!!!! 

extremis is, basically, terrifying. to the average human being, hell even the average superhuman. it’s p much unfathomable the sheer level/magnitude/scope of extremis. extremis allows tony to access and control any piece of technology on earth and even in earth’s atmosphere, he can hear satellites. it’s like having the singularity as a superpower. 

so part 1, iron man vol. 4 #7 (2006), opening issue and we have tony stopping a villain with lethal force, all while counting down the milliseconds and bidding on priceless artefacts.

now, avengers don’t kill. and tony doesn’t, he stops the man’s heart, then restarts it, basically performing defibrillation. 

and then we get this conversation: 

and after tony jets off leaving the new avengers to sort out the aftermath, we get this disturbing reminder:

a proper reread might prove me wrong but i don’t think the writers ever clarify whether this transformation in tony’s personality is due to extremis or outside manipulation (which is the culmination of execute program’s arc as i’ll go into in a bit). but when your brain is literally a machine and you Have Become more machine than human, this is the natural progression of tony’s humanity – the aspects of compassion, empathy, etc. – fading into the background to accomodate for extremis. 

extremis brings out everything about tony that steve (and possibly the world) fears most. it makes him cold and calculating, and with a brain like tony stark’s elevated by the superhuman capacity to think and react at the speed of a machine, he’s unstopppable.

part 2, iron man vol. 4 #8, we have tony nearly straight up burning a man alive for almost killing peter and laughing about it. 

he’s so deep in Destroy Mode that he doesn’t even register steve’s warning, and here i think he acts entirely out of instinct –– like extremis is thinking for him rather than his brain prompting him to do this. 

extremis is also the cause of tension between tony and the newly-formed new avengers (one of my favorite line-ups!!), he almost gets into a fight with logan and jessica has to break them up. it turns out tony is missing time in his memory, which is extremely worrying for someone w/ his level of power…

what’s so fascinating about extremis, and why we have so much to thank warren ellis for (the writer of the extremis arc), is that it is the perfect and the most logical climax of the modern iron man story. tony’s worst villain, as we’ve known since the very beginning really, has never been anyone else but himself. and in the case of extremis, it’s a highly technologically advanced version of himself that can do and be everything he’s ever dreamed of being able to achieve vs. him. 

the question extremis asks is at what cost? at what cost does technological advancement, bleeding-edge breakthroughs, and the spirit of human innovation come at? how far would tony go to become the Ideal version of himself that he sees as superior in every way? what would he sacrifice for that?

extremis represents basically the pinnacle of sci-fi tech in iron man comics, it’s why even god awful superior iron man used a 3.0 version of it as the foundation for tony’s sins. it’s the farthest point he’s ever reached, and it’s also the lowest in terms of the damage and fallout that comes from it. because ofc, tony stark can’t have nice things like this, but also bc the hubris + nature of extremis allowing its host to play god can’t exist without there being negative consequences. really b ad consequences. 

huge respect to danial & charles knauf, the authors of execute program, too, because they find a way to perfectly bring the arc full circle as ellis did with his extremis. the central villain plot revolves around ho yinsen’s son. the kid hacks extremis and uses it to control tony, sending him to subconsciously assassinate a bunch of people on his kill list, i.e. a list of all the men involved in yinsen’s death. i mean like, HOLY SHIT, an iron man plot where a literal ghost from tony’s past – a direct victim of events tony was involved in, the son of the man that sacrificed his life so iron man could be born and so tony stark could live – shows up, weaponises tony’s own body + technology and uses him to murder people who are scheduled to participate in a peace summit despite the blood on their hands and the human cost of their involvement in the weapons industry.

DRAWING PARALLELS BETWEEN YINSEN’S LIFE’S WORK AND TONY’S LIKE DEATH AND DYING WOULD BE KINDER. again bc of my memory or even regardless due to constant retcons + reruns of the iron man origin story, i don’t know if it’s ever been explicitly stated before that yinsen also got into the weapons industry in order to get the funding necessary to support his other revolutionary work. but his son literally conflates yinsen with tony here, blending them into one + the same with that final panel and it becomes very obvious that at least a small part of him blames father for entering into weapons design. if he hadn’t, he might never have been captured by the the terrorist group that wanted him and tony to build them missiles. 

also, yinsen + villains involving yinsen are a recurring theme in iron man history but can we talk abt the fact that tony has never ever let himself forget the man bc jesus christ

yinsen’s kid is killed by a SHIELD sniper, activating the dead man’s switch and unleashing all the peackeeping units tony built that are now compromised. now, tony’s no jean grey or wanda maximoff but if this arc shows anything it’s not to underestimate him bc intentional or not (lmao) if he put his mind to it there’s literally no limit to the damage he could do. 

we see various heroes fighting off the peacekeeping units, and the new avengers are at the peace summit fighting a hulkbuster. 

and here it is people !!! the 23989485th time tony kills himself so steve can live. 

JUST. THE LOOK ON HIS FACE. AND THEN THIS ABSOLUTE LACK OF HESITATION:

so, yes. extremis was traumatising for pretty much every single person involved. steve has extremely good reasons for HATING extremis, even in the early stages or even if a fic is taking place before the events of execute program.

if you read the full arc, you’ll see tony running himself into the ground with his new abilities (world’s greatest multitasker can now multitask 192483958 things at once? ofc he’s going to use and abuse and exploit that), you see him spiralling and losing his grip on reality (mainly because he’s actually having dissociative episodes and losing time due to being remotely controlled to assassinate ppl but also bc of the Effect extremis is having on him). i brought up wanda and jean earlier as a casual reference but like, to put it in that kind of perspective, people just weren’t made to have this much power.

on a smaller scale, apart from eating up all of tony’s time and attention and mental health in a really bad way, it just Distances him from everyone. especially from the team. it’s Isolating, having this much going on in his brain and no one else in the world to fully understand it. 

and on steve’s side, you also have the fact that tony’s genius is both one of the things he loves and lowkey resents most about him. he has this deep-set anxiety about tony with all his brilliance and intelligence leaving him behind in the dust, or worse, laughing at him and how outdated and dim-witted he is in comparison. this is steve’s version of tony’s “i’m never going to be good enough for him”, a sentiment summed up in a quote from him as early as tales of suspense vol. 2 (1995): “yes, tony stark, a man of today and tomorrow is the man i’ll never be.” he’s so afraid of being abandoned + alienated by tony’s mind and the future that tony’s worked so tirelessly to build that might render him irrelevant. he’s scared of a future where he has no purpose, but more or just as importantly, he’s scared of becoming obsolete in tony’s life, of not being needed by tony anymore. one of the things that endeared him so much to tony, and which laid the foundations of their lifelong friendship, was the fact that from Day One (1), tony made him feel At Home. he never let him feel ashamed or isolated as The Man Out Of Time, he actively worked to make steve feel comfortable and to give him the things he needed to acclimatise and to fit himself into this brave new world. 

extremis undoes all of that. it propels tony so far and so fast into the future that it makes tony untouchable to steve. all of the ‘i can hear satellites’ stuff renders steve helpless and even more out of his depth than usual. it presses all of steve’s secret buttons and then some.

to sum this all up, and to finish my extra rambling abt tony bc u asked me about extremis and i couldn’t not finish with this:

here we have, ladies and gentlemen, everything u need to understand abt tony going into civil war. and it’s not on any of the official civil war fucking reading lists which really pisses me off because whether or not they did it on purpose the knaufs basically wrote all of execute program as the perfect precursor and characterisation groundwork for an antebellum tony stark. 

a tony stark who was just very recently manipulated against his will into assassinating people and causing a world-threatening incident that could have resulted in the deaths of thousands, including his own friends and teammates (and the love of his life), is a very different tony stark to the one ppl see in civil war #1.

what happens in stamford was an accident, too. no one meant for that to happen. tony knows first fucking hand what that means and what it feels like to carry that responsibility and guilt. his position in civil war supporting the SHRA is not only to protect the potential lives that could be lost in another stamford incident but also to protect superhumans and superheroes from ever being exploited against their will by villains to kill and hurt and destroy. 

superheroes are inherently susceptible to being used, it’s just part of the narrative convention –– a superhero is brainwashed or mind controlled or otherwise forced against their will to do something awful. and even if it’s not their fault there needs to be  accountability  for the victims. both the victims that suffer directly because of superhuman incidents but also the superheroes that become victims of ppl who abuse their powers. it’s abt protecting superheroes not just from civilians but from themselves. and if u’ve read a single comic u kno that this kinda shit happens way too often and way too easily.

sO YE S T hIS iS W HY. AND IT Ex PL AINS SO MUC H AND i j UST WISH P PL WOULD GODDAMN REA D THIS. LIKE EVERYONE WHO EVER WANTS TO SAY ANOTHER A GODDAMN THING ABOUT TONY STARK IN CIVIL WAR NEEDS TO FIRST READ EXECUTE PROGRAM FIRST OR PAY ME $10

anyway…………… one last time, i’m so so so sorry this took forever to get to. hope the wait was worth it!