#Anyways now I must run to twitter to collect fan art there.

[villain-in-love]

JAMIL WITH HIS HAIR DOWN!!! IN A LOUNGEWEAR!!!!! THIS IS NOT A DRILL, IT IS FINALLY HAPPENING!!!!!

What if I told you that I literally let out a scream when I saw this? BECAUSE I'VE BEEN WAITING FOUR YEARS FOR THIS MOMENT.

Anyways, Jamil, my beloved, Happy Birthday! And move, please, because I'll be also getting in there to cuddle.

[frobin]

Okey serious question here. How much do you actually believe that Oda ships Frobin? Like do you think he actually have like doodles/sketchs of them in a pairing kind of way? like for the strong world film riding the motorbug? (Personally i would love it to be true but he has stated one piece isn't about romance in that way)

Hey there anon! Thank you so much for your question and I hope I can answer it seriously enough. Also once more sorry for the late response. I felt like a question like that needs some research and that is what I did these last few days.

So... I think I'll start with the tl;dr because that way people can read that and ignore the rest.

So, long answer short: I 100% believe that Oda has one or more sketchbooks with drawings of his characters that are absolutely self-indulgent. I am 98% sure that he has drawn Franky and Robin in a romantic way at least once (and supported the ship). I am 80% sure he still is shipping FRobin.

Little disclaimer: I actually have no idea if any of this is true. I pull everything in my arguments out of my own experiences and knowledge and since I'm not a 46 year old Japanese Mangaka my perspective might be WAY OFF.

argument - reason- example - conclusion... behind the cut (or in the google doc)

So, why do I think that Oda has a secret sketchbook?

Simple answer is that he is an artist. He is drawing a lot and no artist will publish everything. That can have multiple reasons like imposter syndrome or because the artist thinks it’s not good or interesting enough or they just forget. There are even more reasons I forget and every person has their own.

For Oda I can imagine two big reasons as to why he would keep secret sketchbooks.

First: He is a horndog. You can skip this part if you don’t want to read about it, to the second reason.

Anyway, we know thanks to answers in the SBS, the way he likes to draw big-breasted women and how some of his characters are classified as perverts that he can be considered one too.

Let me show you a few of a few lewd SBS questions he likes to answer in a funny way:

Chapter 228, Page 46

D: How are ya, Odacchi? I know how much you like getting butt-naked, so this must be a favourite season for you. <3

O: Yes, yes. I just LOVE getting completely naked. In the summertime, after I take a bath I just run STRAIGHT OUTSIDE!! And when the girls' softball team running on the sidewalk looks over at me, they say, "Yup, it's really summer now!!" ... AS IF!! I'D GET ARRESTED!!!

(x)

Chapter 433, Page 68

D: If Lady Robin can use her Hana Hana Powers to make any part of her body sprout somewhere else, does that mean she can do it with her ample bosom as well? "Nyurin-zaki" (Breast Sprout) Boy, I'd like to take a hit from that sometime... P.N. Ero Ero no Mi Devil Fruit User.

O: "Ichirin-zaki" (Single Sprout) "Nirin-zaki" (Double Sprout) "Nyurin-zaki" (Breast Sprout) Very clever!! NO IT'S NOT!! STOP THAT!! I'm sure she CAN do it though ♡

(x)

Chapter 798, Page 64

D: Oddachi, I'll give you a pornographic book, so please answer my question. Sanji won't allow anyone to waste food, but what will he do if a woman does so? P.N. Smoker's Cigar

O: I think he would grab the plate and eat it up. Now please give me the pornographic book.

(x)

Nowadays I’m sure there is a focus on those lewder questions compared to the beginning because that is what 13 year old boys laugh about and we all know that is Oda's main demographic (of course).

I think a very good picture of that is given by Tekking101 in his breakdown video of SBS Volume 100.

“Let’s get diving into these questions (...) now, this is a huge moment. I mean, not many Manga manage to reach 100 Volumes, Okay? Now I know Oda usually starts these off with questions relating to boobs and things that don’t really… you know, aren’t really relevant but you know, this is a big celebration so we’re gonna dive right into it. I bet the most important things that we need to know about the One Piece Story are right here in these pages, okay? I printed them out. That is how important this is. So let’s start off, shall we? Epic voice, Barry!

‘Mister Oda, there is a UFO over there with huge big-breasted beauties on it. That memorable 100 Volume of the SBS is about to begin.’

[pause] Yeah, like the first five of these are all related to boobs in some way. You know what Oda? Sticking true to your guns! Godspeed, Sir Oda. Godspeed.”

(end at around 2:30)

So, Oda is a man who likes beautiful women and who draws.

Coming to the conclusion that he will draw his own characters in suggestive poses, naked and even doing adult stuff is not hard.

Obviously he would not show these sketches just around. He would probably keep them in a secret sketchbook that he keeps at a safe location. Maybe his wife and some close friends know about it? Maybe it is his and only his little secret.

I don’t think it would be unlikely to learn about this years into the future, maybe the next generation of Anime Fans will hear about this.

And it would not be the first time that something like this happened.

Not that long ago the daughter of Osamu Tezuka - groundbreaking Mangaka, known for his works of “Astro Boy”, “Kimba the white lion” and many more - found his adult Furry art. Source; Japanese article;

It’s a fact that many Mangaka did indeed start their career with art of the more risque kind and/or as doujinshi artists.

So again, I have no doubt that Oda, a known pervert, has one or more secret sketchbooks with „the p0rnography“ in it. Is there only hot stuff in there? Not necessarily.

The second reason to keep a secret sketchbook would be to collect information in there, that could be considered canon but he is not willing to use it in the Manga. Maybe they are not important enough or will be used later.

What am I imagining here? Anything that could be considered too weird for the normal sketchbook but isn‘t too risque. Funny things that might still not be „appropriate.“

Like a sketch of the male Strawhat ding-dongs with the sizes beside it. All the lewd jokes the fans did about Luffy's stretching qualities? I’m sure Oda thought about them too and drew that in the past if he had the time and it made him laugh enough.

But also maybe there are scenes in there that never made it in the Manga. The Strawhats interacting with each other in their daily lives, ideas for colorspreads and maybe chapter-titles. Oda probably has noted/sketched down a lot of unofficial stuff somewhere.

Another example, even an artist like Oda himself would have needed to exercise drawing two people kissing. Why not use Characters he thinks that might work out together?

Why not Franky and Robin? I would imagine he sketched up a few panels of Franky and Robin having a romantic date, going shopping together in Dressrosa, having a conversation that we never got to see because it was too on the nose.

Which brings us to the second point of me being very sure that Oda had drawn FrankyXRobin at one point.

I’m sure in those sketchbooks there is at least one drawing of them doing anything couple-related together. Again it does not have to be downright nasty but it could be them holding hands, kissing or even just Robin leaning onto Franky while reading, like all those fanarts that exist out there.

It’s not hard to imagine. Even for other Characters I think that is possible

And there might even be proof for that idea. The sketch of the Strong World movie you also mentioned, anon. The one movie that can be considered canon is Strong World. It was basically written/directed by Oda. Shiki the antagonist had an appearance in the Manga.

This sketch is drawn by Oda. Robin is holding onto Franky.

Can it be read as romantic? Yes. Can it be read as Robin holding onto Franky because there is nothing else to hold onto? Also Yes. But couldn't she just have used her power to keep herself secured on the bike without holding onto Franky? WELL YES. Could Oda never have thought in these circles like I do right now? I hope he did not because I hate it and I don’t wish it upon him.

In the movie Robin is NOT holding onto Franky. Now the really interesting thing - that is neither proof pro nor anti FRobin - is that we can see the sketch provided by Oda as a “between the scenes”.

In the movie Strong World the old trio is collecting information at the Pirate assembly. The next time we see them they use the Batta GT-7000 to slowly approach the destroyed village, which had been ravaged by the animals, and start to look for their friends. No need to hold onto Franky and no need for Brook to lean back. They are looking around.

The sketch is clearly not the same scene as the one we see in the movie.

In conclusion the drawing is indeed a between the scenes drawing. And yes if there exists one, who is to say there aren’t more?

Talking about Animal-Bikes...

Is there any meaning about the fact that in the opening scene (that is part of the talked intro after the opening ‘We Go’ - a huge thanks to antiherofangirl, ccb0nnet, JFL_Estudios and Maems, over at twitter!) Franky and Robin build another grasshopper-based vehicle? Maybe not but I still feel like it’s quite a callback.

Where did the idea to put this in the beginning come from? a) an editor had the idea inspired by Strong World; b) maybe it’s another sketch that Oda provided.

Neither seems very far-fetched in my opinion.

So yes, I am very sure that Oda has drawn things that we would consider FRobin.

Now to the last point (the first being Oda having a secret sketchbook, the second me arguing that Oda might have drawn FRobin).

As I said in the beginning I’m very sure that at one point Oda did and kinda that he still does ship Franky and Robin. Because even though every Interaction of two characters can be depicted as romantic or platonic, Oda used ROMANTIC TROPES with Franky and Robin.

They have never kissed on screen but we had

finishing each other's sentences

coordinated clothes

one using the others lap as pillow

hand on cheek caressing

and we can’t forget that Robin had answered Franky's invitation to ride on another animal-themed bike with a heart.

Edit: I didn‘t say anything about „no romance in OP“ so ask again if you want me to talk a bit about that. Sorry!

Those are things an author of Oda's level would not write or draw without being aware about how teasing this is. He has to be aware that every single line he draws will be analyzed to the end of the universe and back. People earn money by saying their opinion and interpretations about the Manga on Youtube.

These interactions are not something outlandish like “There was once an Anime Scene in which Robin was wearing something blue and exactly 28 episodes later Franky was wearing something violet and then 39 episodes later they both stood beside each other for exactly 69 seconds.”

Whenever I think about these facts, things that are not about interpreting but are factual, black ink on white paper but also about the little things, about how Frank and Robin help each other to become better, how they support each other… I want to say YES! ODA IS 100% on board! While in reality I’m 80% sure and 20% of me is wondering if I’m not actually analyzing too much into it. If maybe he really is abandoning ship. Maybe I will become the person who will curse his name and throw my Mangas and fanfictions in an active volcano?

I don’t know and it’s impossible to say what is going to happen.

And with that I've concluded this answer, and it only took me around 2k words and four days.

[radramblog]

More Inevitable Hot Takes- MTG Announcement Day edition

I only have myself to blame for this one. I forgot this was upcoming, and I went and blathered about dumb preview cards from most of a month ago anyway. Well, now I’ve got to spend two posts in one week talking about Magic cards. Woe is me?

Once a year, WoTC has a big day where they announce, like, everything for the next year’s releases. And with the picking up speed of set releases, there’s a lot there, and thereby I have a lot to talk about.

To be clear, I’ve deliberately avoided Magic Twitter and Magic Reddit for these announcements. Tis a silly pair of places.

Standard Sets 2022

In order:

Kamigawa Neon Dynasty is very concerning, as one of the people who’s a genuine big fan of the original Kamigawa block. The thing is, I like Kamigawa, with it’s spirits and artwork and samurai and the like. I like cyberpunk, with the aesthetic and the themes and the music. I’m not sure I’m going to like the two combined. We better see some fucking weird-ass spirits, and I’ll only be slightly annoyed if they’re cyber-ghosts or whatnot as long as they maintain that bomb-ass art design.

We have a new plane and a set to go with it, which is cool and nice. Urban Fantasy is a thing Ravnica already did, to be honest, but if I had to guess, Streets of New Capenna is going to be a much more low-fantasy, noir-y take on the genre. I think I saw something about Azra returning, which is cool. That one on the key art looks…very Ob Nixilis-y, though.

And then we’re going back to Dominaria and actually doing The Brother’s War, again? I think Urza block was about that arc, though the Dominaria United set might be like, before all that nonsense. They might have given details, I wouldn’t have seen them, I’m going based on someone’s TL;DR. I’m excited to finally have a Mishra card that isn’t the Time Spiral one, though I’m concerned about how they’re going to make an Urza and a Mishra that are both powerful enough for the iconic characters but not so powerful as to be dominant in the Standard they’ll be legal in.

So, so much Universes Beyond

I think the four Warhammer 40k precon decks is kind of exactly what I was hoping we were going to get for that particular crossover. Just enough to get fans happy and make some fun new cards, not enough that there’s a ridiculous influx of Tyranids into Magic’s annals. I’d be interested to see what regular Magic cards translate well into these decks, seeing as they’ll have to be 40k-ified.

I feel similarly about the Baldur’s gate Commander draft set. I remember fans of that particular D&D spinoff were frustrated with the lack of representation in AFR (I think Minsk was like the only thing they got), so now they have a whole set to work with. Ultimately, D&D is now already, and interminably a part of Magic’s multiverse, and more from those particular realms isn’t going to make anything super fucky. Also, Commander Legends was cool as hell, and this is going to be another one of those, so that’s a plus.

And…a Lord of the Rings set? Like, a full set? I’m assuming whatever got them 40K also got them rights to tabletop LOTR, seeing as Games Workshop has run the LOTR tabletop game for a while. Like with D&D, the medium-high fantasy of LOTR crosses over pretty well into Magic, so I’m not worried about that kind of cockup making things Feel Weird. I’m a little confused about the legality of the set, though, seeing as it’s in Arena, but not Standard legal, but it is Modern legal? What and why and what about Pioneer or Historic?

Secret Lairs

Few hits, few misses, though I remember seeing spoilers from a few that aren’t on this list. Presumably, the Art Series: Johannes Voss, Thomas M. Baxa, and Purrfection and Math is for Blockers were announced separately? Anyway.

Hits: The Kamigawa Ink cards look drop-dead gorgeous, holy shit. Add in the fact that I already play two of those cards and that the others are all cards I like? Might have to get that one. Math is for Blockers is a fun lineup though I don’t…really get the theme? Both Artist Series look incredible, though I’m not huge on the card lineups.

Misses: PURRFECTION would be great if it wasn’t apparently a convention exclusive and also if the art of cats were on cat cards. It’s cute as fuck, but eh. The old-format walkers are frustrating, but I’m not as against them as a lot of people are- like they’re ugly, but not worth throwing a fucking fit over. I weep for any new player staring one of these down, especially if they barely understand planeswalkers in the first place and/or haven’t seen one of these particular ones before. Also, the art is kinda just ugly.

And then there’s the Universes Beyond ones. Fortnite and Street Fighter, both with new cards that will eventually have regular versions (which leads me to wonder if TWD will do the same). There’s a clear attempt here to hit the zoomers and the boomers in the community, though the former probably won’t have the money to afford the Secret Lair if they’re burning all their cash on V-Bucks. It’s…not a great look? Like I’m not opposed to cartoony art styles (the Goblins Kaboom SL looked great!) but Fortnite’s in particular looks like dogshit in my eyes and I’m not looking forward to seeing it in a Magic frame. Street Fighter I’m more excited for, because I like Street Fighter, and because they confirmed Chun-Li is going to have multikicker which is kind of perfect. Obviously we’re going to have to see the cards, but in one case I’m dreading that, and in the other I’m welcoming it.

Other Cards

We have more Challenger Decks, for Pioneer this time. The decklists are already out, and they look pretty solid! The Challenger Decks have been pretty cool previously, a really solid set of lists that only needed a bit of tweaking to be FNM-viable, but they were held back by the fact that they were often released not long before rotation. With Pioneer being a non-rotating format, this is going to be great for getting people into the format.

Another Double Masters set is…egh. It’s another thing that’s not for me, I can’t afford to whale on that shit. With shipping and conversion those packs end up ludicrously expensive in Perth, and I’m pretty sure I only got to play with one the first time. Also, this one is going to have all the collectable nonsense of 2020/21 Magic, which is going to be A Lot.

And another Jumpstart. Eh. Don’t cock the shipping on this one up and it’ll probably be okay.

Commander Collection Black is here, and the list is already out. The Green one ended up way overpriced, but at least in this case the cards are all super playable. Actually, they were for Green too, I think, but hey there’s a Deluge reprint and a flip Lilli, so. I kinda miss the Signature Spellbook series already, though.

Finally, Unfinity. Another Un-Set. Unstable was a fucking incredible set, both on a comedic level and as one of the sickest draft formats in a long time, so I’m excited to see that one followed up. On the other hand, Unsanctioned kind of landed with a dull thud. Apparently though, they got some of the folks from LRR (among others) to help write names and flavour text for this set, and I love those guys to death, so I can at least guarantee the comedy element will be present for this one.

Other stuff?

Well we have a date for the Netflix series. I have a hard time believing it’s actually happening. When I first started playing was around when rumours and announcements were still happening regarding a full-on movie, and that basically didn’t go anywhere. So it’s a little surprising to have a solid, actual time frame for Magic Story Content in Video Form. I haven’t kept with the story for a fair bit at this point (since Dominaria, tbh), so I’ve got no idea if it’s been any good, and as to whether this will be any good. Considering apparently Gideon’s in the lead, my hopes aren’t huge.

The only other thing is Pins. I like Pins. I have a bunch of them on my bag. I would like to get more Magic pins. So this is good.

And that, I think, is the sum total of it. These announcements always end up with a combination of excitement, trepidation, and dread, but I think this is leading more on the positive end of that spectrum. There’s still way too many fucking sets, but I think that is largely at Hasbro’s feet. The money machine must keep churning, after all. Maybe someday Magic and WoTC as a whole will be able to unshackle themselves from that particular constraint, but I am not holding my breath.

[minyoongijjangjjangmanboongboong]

Ephemera Chapter Thirteen

Ephemera: In art, transitory written and printed matter (receipts, notes, tickets, clippings, etc.) not originally intended to be kept or preserved.

Alternatively, things that exist or are used for only a short time.

Description: Nobody knows who Vante really is. Everything about the popular artist is shrouded in secrecy: from his face to his name to everything in between. After years of working for his art gallery, Y/N feels she may just be the closest thing he has to a friend. Between her success at work and her relationship with campus hot-shot Jeon Jungkook, Y/N’s life has never been better. But is Jungkook truly who he says he is? And who will Y/N protect now that she knows Vante’s livelihood may be on the line?

Genre: Romance, Drama, Fluff, Angst

Pairing: Jungkook x (f) Reader x Taehyung

Word Count: 5.1k

Tags: Non-Idol!Au, Gang!Au, Art History Student!Reader, Film Student!Jungkook, Art Student!Taehyung

Warnings: Swearing and mentions of alcohol, although infrequently

A/N: BIG NEWS!!! I GOT TICKETS TO THE ROSE BOWL CONCERT!!! I have no idea how I got so lucky, but I cannot WAIT to go and share some videos with you guys! I’ve been a fan of BTS since 2015, and this will be the first time I’m seeing them in concert. I can’t believe it, truly haha. Anyway, please don’t be shy and send feedback, critique, questions, theories, and comments my way. I’ll be sure to respond to all asks I receive within a day of receiving them! Links will be added later, so for now check my masterlist to find previous chapters!

And again, if you want to follow my Twitter, my username is @/plzpunchmebts. I’m super active over there and hopefully in the future I’ll do some livestreams/chats with you all! And concert videos!!

- Mercury

Previous Chapter – Next Chapter

Masterlist

Weekly updates: Sunday, 1PM (PST)

I awoke with a pounding head and my hands bound behind my back, lying on my side on cold concrete. Furrowing my brow, I strained to open my eyes far enough to take in my surroundings. The first thing I saw was a tall, skinny window. Like a warehouse. All around were tall brick walls and plenty of natural light, but not so much as a single other person from what I could see. The room was large, but partitioned with thin panels of bamboo paneling. If I jumped, I could probably see over them. But I couldn’t jump with my ankles bound. Distantly, I heard the hum of conversation and even that simple sound sent my head throbbing. I sat upright, struggling with my tied-up wrists to push myself from my side to my bottom. Gently, I shimmied my hands underneath my butt and wiggled them out from behind my legs so I could see them properly.

I sighed, rubbing my forehead, and rested my back against the wall behind me. “Hello?” I called, surprised by my own calm. “Seokjin?”

“Whoa! You awake?” responded a voice I didn’t recognize from behind one of the panels.

“Obviously,” I mumbled, straining my hands so I could rub my sore wrists. Somehow, my fear was abated by my frustration. Kim Seokjin of all people…

A young man came tumbling around from the front of the partition, skidding to a halt in front of me before pouting. “Your hands are supposed to be behind your back…,” he said with a sigh, crossing his arms.

He was cute: full cheeks and lips, hooded brown eyes and hair dyed platinum blonde. He was slight, but well built. I snapped my fingers and pointed at him with both hands. “You’re the guy that chloroformed me!” I said, nodding my head.

He stiffened and rubbed the back of his neck, glancing to the side with an awkward grin. “Ah, uh…yeah. I kinda had to.”

I sighed. “I don’t know if there’s ever really a scenario where you have to chloroform someone.”

He leaned on one foot then the other before sighing. “Anyway,” he said, crouching down in front of me. “You feeling okay? Need water or anything?”

I stiffened, furrowing my brow. “For a thug, you’re sure considerate,” I said, eyeing him from the floor.

He laughed before falling onto his bottom and sitting criss-cross. “Well, it’s not like we kidnapped you because you’re a criminal. I gotta treat you well since you’re innocent.”

I cocked a brow. “Why did you kidnap me anyway?”

Jimin’s eyes widened. “Oh, ‘cuz you’re close to that Vante guy.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah, kinda.”

I found it hard to believe. This whole endeavor reeked of vendetta. “Where’s Seokjin?” I asked, peering around his shoulder to see the hint of motion behind the bamboo panel. “Is he here?”

The boy shook his head. “Nah. He’s with Jungkook right now. Probably trying to explain everything,” he said with a sigh. “I told him there was probably a better way than this, but he’s stubborn. Jungkook’s scary when he’s mad though.”

I sighed. “How long until he gets back?” I asked.

The boy shrugged, slim shoulders bunching as he leaned back on his palms. “Dunno,” he said, pursing his lips as his eyes wandered around the warehouse. “I could text him?”

“Please,” I said, pulling my knees close to my chest and realizing with a start that my legs and arms were shaking. Adrenaline or fear, I couldn’t say.

The boy’s eyes went wide once more as he looked back at me, shivering. “Oh!” he shouted, scooting close to me on his knees. “Are you alright?” he asked, reaching out to grab my arm.

But I jerked away, bonking my head on the bricks with a hiss. “Ah,” I exhaled, rubbing my head with both hands.

His brows knitted and he leaned back on his legs, pouting. “Let me text him real quick,” he said, pulling a cell phone from his front pocket and typing so quick his fingers nearly blurred.

I glanced around, holding my knees close. “What is this place?”

“Our headquarters,” said the boy, still focused on typing, sticking his tongue just slightly out the corner of his mouth.

“Huh?” I asked. “Like…your company headquarters?”

He chuckled and pocketed his phone, returning his full attention to me. “That makes it sound nicer than it is,” he said with a nod. “This is Bangtan’s headquarters.”

“Bangtan?”

“Only the most lucrative underground syndicate in Seoul,” he said with a grin, revealing one slightly crooked front tooth. “It’s Seokjin’s business.”

“Seokjin’s in charge?” I asked, then sighed and rubbed my forehead. “Figures.”

The boy sat up straighter. “Jin’s actually really cool,” he said, then sighed. “Though I can understand why you might not have a great opinion of him.”

I shrugged, leaning back against the wall as I glanced toward the windows, the tops of trees swaying in the autumn breeze. “I don’t really love being drugged and kidnapped.”

“I know,” he said, and there was genuine empathy in his voice that made me pause. “This must really suck. God, I’m sorry. If I could’ve had it my way, we wouldn’t have gone through you at all.” The boy ran his fingers through his thick hair and sighed.

I opened and closed my mouth a few times, trying to collect my thoughts, but only came up with silence. With a quiet exhale, I noticed that I’d stopped shaking in the time I’d spoken with this boy. I peeked at him once more and saw that his shoulders were slumped, the collar of his plain white shirt sliding just slightly. He looked a little bit like a kid, or maybe he was just cute. But someone like him working in a business like this…

It didn’t seem quite right to me.

“What’s your name again?” I asked, peering at him.

His eyes lit up like he was a puppy and I’d just offered him a treat. “Huh?”

I shrugged, glancing away. “I remember Seokjin called for you before, but I don’t remember what he said.”

“Ah,” he said, holding out his hand for me to shake. I took it in both of mine, maneuvering uncomfortably to meet his outstretched fingers. “I’m Park Jimin.”

“Y/N,” I said, then sighed and let my hands fall. “But I’m sure you knew that already.”

Jimin nodded. “Listen, I really am sorry for what’s happened to you,” he said, brows knitted.

I nodded. “I can tell,” I said, then glanced over his shoulder as another young man approached, his eyes wide as he took in the scene unfolding on the chilly concrete floor.

He was slightly taller than Jimin from the looks of it with waving brown hair, high cheeks, and a strong jawline. Dressed in athletic wear, he looked like he’d just finished a run.

“Jimin!” he shouted, voice echoing around. Jimin jumped and turned halfway to look at the young man, his shoulder bunching. “What’re you doing?”

Jimin opened his mouth, clearly trying to think of something to say, and darted his eyes between me and his flushed friend. “I-uh…,” he turned to me with round, innocent eyes. “Nothing,” he said, standing briskly and dusting off his pants with a sigh. “She just wanted to know where Jin was.”

“Well you don’t have to make conversation with her,” mumbled the newcomer, his voice low enough to be considered an attempt at a whisper.

I sighed and rested my head back against the wall, ready to shut my eyes. But something struck me and I lurched back upright and stared up at the two of them. “I recognize you two!” I said, glancing from one to the other.

There was no mistaking it. Seeing them side-by-side, I was sure of it.

“Huh?” asked the second boy, raising his brows.

I nodded and scoffed. “Damn,” I said, shaking my head. “You guys are pretty high up aren’t you?” I asked, thinking aloud as the memories kicked up in swirls around my head.

Jimin puzzled over me, brows furrowed. “Y/N, what do you mean?”

“I saw you both. That night at the club,” I said, then felt my face flush. I cleared my throat. “When I, uh…started a fight with that guy from Sanyo Industries.”

Jimin’s eyes blew wide and he pointed a finger at me. “That was you?!”

I rubbed my wrist and shrugged, avoiding his gaze. “Yeah…”

The two began laughing and before I knew it, both Jimin and this new young man were sitting in front of me again, criss-cross. “He was so mad about it!” said the newcomer with a beaming grin.

With a shrug, I glanced down to my scabbing knees. “I wasn’t trying to make him mad.”

“What were you doing then?” asked the new boy.

“I was following Jungkook and I saw him with a girl,” I said, then sighed as I remembered Jungkook. Would I have to see him again? At this point, his face would be a welcome one…

Jimin rolled his eyes and leaned back on his palms. “Jungkook’s an idiot, but he’s liked you from the jump,” he said, sliding his eyes towards the new boy and cringing as if expecting a beating. “Sorry, forget I said anything.”

“Consider it forgotten,” I said. The two eyed me, like I’d said something odd, and I raised my brows. “What?”

“Aren’t you surprised?” asked the new boy. “That Jungkook likes you?”

I furrowed my brow. “Not especially,” I began, then shut my mouth. Jungkook hadn’t been keeping his coworkers in the know about our relationship. I watched the ground and cleared my throat, both of their gazes burning holes into my face. “He’s not very subtle.”

The tension dissipated slightly and the two boys chuckled. “Yeah,” said the second with a sigh. “He acts all cool, but really he’s still a kid.”

I nodded and my throat began to constrict. “Yeah…”

Scuffling sounded from the front of the warehouse and both Jimin and the newcomer lurched to their feet, scrambling to stand properly as a figure rounded the corner. Darkly clad in a black hoodie and ripped jeans was a gloomy-looking guy, probably older than the three of us, with smart, sharp eyes and lips set in a thin line.

My heart began to race. Slowly, I struggled to my feet, using my bound hands to push my body up against the wall. Jimin turned to look at me with wide eyes, rushing to my side to try and coax me back to sitting, but I brushed him off and took a few hopping steps forward.

“You…,” I said, voice nearly breaking, as I awkwardly approached the man in the hoodie. His eyes remained cool, his expression collected, not one discernible emotion in his expression. Once I was close enough to be sure, I staggered back a little, nearly falling. “Yoongi,” I said with a nod. “I told you I’d remember your name.”

He lifted his eyes from me to glance over my shoulder at the boys. “Jimin,” he said, to which Jimin stood pin-straight and stared with wide eyes. “Hoseok,” he continued, watching the other boy as he took a few steps forward to take up my left side. “Tie her to a chair or something, for Christ’s sake,” he said in a low rumble, turning on his heels and popping a pair of earbuds into his ears, his head strained downward and his hands jammed deep in his pockets.

The sun was beginning to set outside, my first full day in captivity, and the chill was starting to send my body into fits. My arms, now bound to the back of a creaky wooden chair, were shaking violently as I struggled to keep my eyes open. I couldn’t be sure what these people may do to me while I slept, and despite Jimin and Hoseok seeming okay, that other one…the ice in his eyes frightened me. It was hard to believe the two of us had met before, that I’d watch him blush as he bought cat food. Staring at him now as he worked on a laptop beside me, I felt oppressed by his presence, like the man I’d met before was a daydream and this was reality. Hours earlier, he’d dragged an ancient wooden table around to the back where I sat and hadn’t spoken a single word, just typed away at his computer, the tapping slowly driving me mad.

He lifted his stone eyes toward me, likely feeling my gaze, and I quickly looked down. “You got in trouble,” he mumbled, then went back to tapping.

Well, what the hell did that mean?

I sighed and tried to wiggle my ankles so they’d be more comfortable, but the rope was cutting into my blisters and even the small motions set my skin on fire. Wincing, I simply sat still, glancing around the facility. I’d been searching for a way out since I’d awoken, but it was just as hopeless now as it had been then. I thought perhaps with my hands out from behind me, I could untie my feet and make a run for it.

But I wasn’t all that fast and I only had one shoe left. My second flat had been lost in transit someplace. And besides, I was thoroughly bound now. Wherever I tried to go, this chair would follow. It seemed that me only option was to rely on wit, and with how rattled I was I wasn’t so sure that even that was reliable.

Nearly everyone had gone home already, not that I’d seen any of them through the room dividers, but I could still hear Jimin’s voice in the distance. Perhaps if I could convince him to free me…

I scanned the man, Yoongi, in profile. He was very focused, so focused his skin was a little red around the apples of his cheeks and the tip of his nose. “If you keep staring, I’ll add a blindfold.”

I stiffened and looked away, lolling my head to the side. How had he known without even seeing me? “There’s not much else to do around here,” I murmured in response, wiggling my arms to alleviate a cramp.

Yoongi shrugged. “It’s not a vacation.”

“If it was, I’d have better company,” I said, then cursed myself. My frustration was getting the better of me. If I wanted to charm him-

He laughed, just a little. An almost imperceptible quirk to the edges of his lips, an exhale of breath. “Well…,” he said, still tapping without missing a beat.

I eyed him. Could this be an angle? Shifting my chair slightly so I was facing him, I hummed. “What’re you working on?”

“Want me to add a gag too?”

I swallowed hard and cleared my throat. “Sorry…,” I mumbled, sighing. He exhaled slowly in a puff of white and raked his fingers through his hair. “Stressed?” I asked.

He turned sharp eyes to me and raised a brow. “Think this is a vacation for me?”

I shrugged, glancing away with a shiver. “I dunno. Maybe you’re a sadist,” I said, to which he sighed. “Or maybe a masochist, since you’re here listening to me talk.”

Again, he chuckled and lowered his laptop screen slightly. He turned to look at me, resting his elbows on his knees. “I see you’re not giving up,” he said.

“Persistence is key,” I said with a nod. Quietly, I sighed and shrugged my shoulders. “Besides, a human can only handle being ignored for so many hours.”

He smirked. “You think I should be talking to you right now?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No, I’m sure you shouldn’t,” I said, then met his eyes. “But even if you gag me I’ll find a way to annoy you.”

He shook his head with a scoff and leaned back. “Alright, I’ll bite,” he said, raising his brows. “What do you wanna talk about?”

I blanked. Why hadn’t I thought this far ahead? I flipped through my mental database for some talking point, mouth agape, and released a string of ‘um’s and ‘ah’s.

“If you don’t have anything interesting to say-,”

“How’s that cat?” I asked finally, eyes wide.

He furrowed his brow and clamped his mouth shut, thinking. “Um…,” he began, then scratched his jaw with a nod. “He’s good. Not eating as much these days, but I think he’s healthy.”

“Have you had him vaccinated?” I asked, then smiled. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those anti-vaxxers.”

He sputtered a laugh and shook his head. “No, uh…I haven’t,” he began, then laughed again. “And I’m not.”

“You should do that soon,” I said with a hum. “Nara says it’s very important for kittens to have all their shots.”

“More unsolicited advice from pet shop girl,” he mumbled, sighing as he shut his laptop entirely and gripped the bridge of his nose.

I smirked. “Doesn’t seem like you mind it that much,” I said, noting how his cheeks went just a little pink.

After all, beneath that frightful face was the guy I’d met at the pet shop. It was hard to believe it, but I knew how to grab a chance when I saw one.

And I was ready to grab this one with both of my bound hands.

He rolled his eyes. “I’ll go back to working if you’re just gonna tease me.”

I shook my head. “Not at all,” I said, then sighed. “I’ll stop prying.”

“Better,” he said, turning back to me. “There is something I’m curious about, though.”

I shook my head. “If I can’t pry, then neither can you,” I said, growing bolder. The situation was certainly dangerous, but they were being careful with me. They were keeping me for a reason, after all. Nobody wanted to damage the hostage, it seemed.

At least…not yet.

He laughed and rolled his eyes. “I’m your guard and you’re my prisoner. That’s not how this works.”

I shrugged. “It’s not fair.”

“Then is it fair for you to be sitting there, tied up right now?” he asked, cocking a brow.

I shut my mouth and sighed, shutting my eyes. “You raise a good point.”

I heard him chuckle and opened my eyes once more to meet his, but he was looking elsewhere, somewhere beyond me. “Tell me,” he began, looking at me almost lazily. “Do you understand the gravity of your situation right now?”

My heart kicked up, palms rapidly gathering sweat as the two of us locked eyes like fighters in a boxing ring. I had a feeling in my gut that my answer would be important. Yoongi scanned me like a specimen under a microscope, with the cool indifference of a scientist.

I collected myself, clenching my fists behind me, and sighed. “I…I don’t think that I do,” I said with a nod.

He sighed, and his withdrawn composure snapped, revealing a frustration that comforted me. “This is why I was against taking this fuckin’ job,” he grumbled, running his hands through his hair. “Messy.”

“Can you…can you tell me?” I asked, a fear in my voice that almost drove me to tears. “What the gravity is?”

He set his jaw and steeled his gaze, looking back at me. “This organization…it’s not the place for people like you. People like your friend.”

“What kind of people?”

“Good people,” he said, then shrugged. “It’s like seeing a puppy at a dog fight.”

“You mean…it’ll get devoured?” I asked, shaking.

He met my eyes. “It might,” he said with a nod.

I looked down at the ground and felt a few hot tears trail down my cheeks. I wanted to wipe them away, but my hands were too tightly bound. “I…,” I began, the tears coming faster now that they’d started. “Am I gonna see my dad again?”

Yoongi inhaled sharply. I heard the legs of his chair scrape against the concrete and snapped my head up to see him walking fast and hard away from me, back towards the front of the building. I seized the opportunity to allow myself to cry. The sobs were quiet, a sequence of hiccups and near-silent whimpers, but the tears stained my work skirt, and my legs were shaking so hard that the whole chair was wiggling with every exhale.

With my eyes squeezed shut, I felt something heavy drape over my shoulders and jumped, looking through tears to see Yoongi walking back to his desk, popping his earbud back in and opening his laptop without a word. I glanced around and saw, laying in folds over my shoulders and lap, was a thick blanket. I sniffled and looked back toward Yoongi, his back now hunched as he labored over his computer, just as distant as he had been at the start. Like our conversation never happened.

But the blanket did warm me enough to stop the shivers.

It seemed he really did have a penchant for helping frightened animals…

“I think she’s sleeping,” said a voice I recognized, still hazy as I came to slowly.

“How long?” asked another.

“How long do you think? She’s sleeping on a fucking dining chair,” said the first before sighing. “An hour. Maximum.”

“Good. Leave her.”

Yoongi and Seokjin. As my senses returned to me, so too did my wits and I knew better than to out myself as being awake when these two were talking freely. I struggled to remain still, to keep my breathing long and slow, as they continued talking distantly.

“Why don’t we just let her go?” asked Yoongi with a sigh, audibly struggling with a pocket lighter. “Vante’s not gonna cave so easy anyway. Shouldn’t we shift our focus to Namjoon?”

“She was visiting Namjoon yesterday too,” said Seokjin. “We’re keeping her as more than just bait, Yoongi. You know that.”

“Are you pissed because she ruined your plan?” asked Yoongi with a scoff. “How petty.”

Seokjin said nothing for a moment. “I’m not a child,” he said, then seemed to sit down. “It’s not that.”

“Then why?”

“Jungkook’s messed up about her,” he said, sighing. “Seems like he really ended up having feelings for her. It’s stupid, but I feel bad.”

“So you’re keeping her captive…,” said Yoongi, not so much a question as an objective fact.

“No,” he said. “It’s not so that she’ll take responsibility or anything. My point is that using Jungkook was a mistake. I shouldn’t have had him do something like this to begin with.”

“He was more than willing,” said Yoongi. “He’s an adult, you know.”

“You didn’t see him on the streets, Yoongi,” said Seokjin with a long pause. “He was so skinny. Like he might break if you touched him. Selling weed in the red light district. Barely fucking eighteen.”

“I don’t think he’s the one you should feel bad for, Seokjin,” said Yoongi. “You’re keeping an innocent girl here for no reason.”

“You’re not listening,” said Seokjin with a groan. “Jesus, let me explain it slowly since you seem to be having a hard time.” He seemed to adjust his position, chair squeaking. “We want Vante to sell his shares. Obviously, trying to exploit his identity didn’t work. But he’s close with this girl. And now he knows we’re keeping her. It’s only a matter of time before he contacts us.”

“He still won’t give up those shares, Seokjin. He’s loyal to Kim Namjoon.”

“Right,” said Seokjin. “Which is why she’s more than just bait.” Seokjin seemed to stand, his footsteps pacing around as the scent of cigarette smoke filled my nostrils. “She knows Vante. Knows his weaknesses.”

“She’s not gonna betray him,” said Yoongi. “I’ve been trying to tell you that for a whole day now.”

“If it’s Jungkook on the line…,” said Seokjin.

Yoongi laughed. “You’re bluffing.”

“She doesn’t need to know that.”

I inhaled sharply and sat up straight, locking eyes with Seokjin. Startled, he staggered back from where he stood, just a few feet away from me. Illuminated by the flickering yellow lamp beside Yoongi’s makeshift worktable, Seokjin looked worse for the wear. Purplish eye bags, pale skin, baggy old clothes that seemed slept on.

“Kim Seokjin…,” I said slowly, straining my eyes. I rolled my aching shoulders and stared up at him.

His eyes were wide as saucers as he looked right at me. “You were awake!” he exclaimed, raking his fingers through his hair. “Shit!” he hissed.

Yoongi laughed. “Your fault for shouting your entire plan in front of your victim,” he said, catching my eyes briefly and curling his lips into a half-smile. Had he coaxed Seokjin on purpose? “The world’s dumbest super-villain.”

“Shut up!” said Seokjin, groaning as he scanned me. “Well shit. Now what?” he asked me.

I raised my brows. “How should I know?” I asked.

He sighed and looked at Yoongi for assistance, but he simply shrugged his shoulders and settled into his chair, tapping once more on his keyboard. “Alright, new plan.”

I leaned back as Seokjin walked toward me, narrowing his eyes. “Tell us what you know about Vante or we’ll torture it outta you.”

My heart raced. “Wh-what?” I asked, body seizing.

Seokjin nodded. “I’m not above it and you should know that by now,” he said, eyeing my bloodied knees. He cocked a brow and crossed his arms. “How about it?”

I opened and closed my mouth, shaking my head. “I…I don’t really have any secrets…” It was true at least. I knew his family had supported him. That he’d worked lots of jobs. That he liked his privacy… “I really don’t know.”

Without flinching, Seokjin raised his hand and, at a dizzying speed, struck the side of my face. I screamed, more out of shock than pain, and stared dazed at the ground. I didn’t dare look back at Seokjin, taking half a beat to collect myself as hot tingles bloomed beneath my skin where he’d hit me. My brain felt like it had jostled around my head, and it took me a moment to get myself back together.

“Don’t lie,” he said, bending at the waist to meet my eyes. He smiled. That same familiar smile I’d known for months. That same smile I had trusted like a fool. “You two are really close and Vante doesn’t keep people close.”

“I swear to you,” I said, shaking my head frantically as more tears pooled in the corners of my eyes. “I-I don’t know anything helpful.”

Seokjin sighed and gave my face another slap, this time harder. My head smacked back against the bricks and I cried out, this time in only pain. My head throbbed and my body felt like it was falling apart. I hadn’t ever expected Seokjin to be so cruel, but when I strained my eyes open, he was unrecognizable as he loomed above me.

I sniffled and shook my head. “I’m sorry,” I whimpered, wincing in preparation for another hit.

But it didn’t come. Instead, only silence and the sound of heavy breathing followed by frantic footsteps. “Jin!”

My eyes snapped open. Standing in the light behind Seokjin, his hair windswept and his brows knitted, mouth agape, hurt in his features, was Jeon Jungkook. He glanced down to see me bound and, without pausing for even a single second, shoved Seokjin away by the chest and stumbled to his knees in front of me. He cupped my face in his hands and scanned me, and in his warm eyes I saw nothing but pain and worry.

“Baby, are you okay?” he asked, the familiar nickname rolling off his tongue.

I couldn’t fight back the tears again, and this time they simply fell silently along my aching cheeks. “Mhm,” I mumbled, sniffling.

Jungkook began undoing my bindings, but the second he loosened my right wrist, Seokjin pushed him off, sending him flying against the hard concrete. “Jin!” he exclaimed again, laying on his side as Seokjin pressed one shoe to his chest to keep him from moving. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“I explained it to you already!” exclaimed Seokjin, turning his eyes toward me. “She’s even more valuable now! Listen, I already apologized for getting you involved with her, but there’s nothing we can do about that now.”

Yoongi glanced over his shoulder at the scene behind him and simply sighed before popping in his earbuds and returning to his work. “She’s got nothing to do with this!” protested Jungkook.

Yoongi wasn’t worried then? He’d been so concerned before, and now that the danger had arrived in the flesh, he seemed disinterested if anything. Did that mean that Seokjin wasn’t the one he was worried about…?

I glanced back toward the boys fighting and some small piece of sanity returned to me. Or perhaps, a small piece of insanity.

Wasn’t this…kind of ideal?

I had become my own bargaining chip. If I intended to honor my deal with Namjoon, wasn’t it more convenient to just get in with this organization myself rather than rely on Jungkook? Wouldn’t it be harder to convince him to betray his friends, the people who had raised him out of poverty?

I looked back and forth between the two as they bickered, Jungkook now back on his feet and Seokjin holding the younger boy by the collar of his t-shirt and, in a stunning moment of clarity, found the cleanest way out.

“I’ll help you,” I said, staring at Jungkook’s face, red with rage, arm poised to strike Seokjin full force.

Jin immediately released Jungkook and turned to me, eyes wide. “Wait, really?” he asked.

I cleared my throat and nodded. Jungkook approached slowly, eyeing me from above with a mixture of confusion and apprehension. I tried to communicate with my eyes that everything was okay, that I could do this much at least, but with the tears drying on my cheeks I doubted I looked as confident as I felt.

“Yeah,” I said, meeting Seokjin’s eyes. “Taehyung trusts me. So does Namjoon. I meant it when I said I didn’t gather any useful information,” I began, wiggling my hands free from the rope that Jungkook had loosened. I rubbed my bright red wrists with a hiss and nodded my head. This was the right move. The only move. And as I remembered my red necklace, sitting in its box on top of my dresser, I summoned the courage to pull the trigger. “But I could start now.”

[newagesispage]

                                                                        OCTOBER 2017

 *****The beautiful dino, Sue will be moved to her own gallery in Chicago’s field museum. New to her long fixed spot will be a cast of patagotitan mayorum, the biggest dinosaur ever found.

*****Richard Thomas is selling his NY midtown coop for $2,995,000 and is located at 7th Ave. and w. 58th.

*****California is waiting for Jerry Brown to sign a bill that bans puppy mills.

*****WWF has released wild tigers back into Kazakhstan. Scimitar horned oryx were released into the Sahara desert and indigo snakes were reintroduced into Florida.

*****Toys “R” Us has filed for bankruptcy.

*****Tom Price, health and human services secretary, has resigned after hic charter flight scandal.

*****After 50 years Rolling Stone may be up for sale.

*****Doc Martin is back on Acorn for series 8.

*****As social media has been telling us, we don’t need a border wall. Tourism is down about $37 billion. Thanks Trump!

*****Trump supporters don’t seem to like him fraternizing with the Dems and waffling on DACA. They have been burning their red hats but scary clown already got the money for selling them so what does he care. Anne Coulter wonders if there is anybody left who does not want Trump impeached.** Some states are suing over DACA.

*****”Holes separate men and women.”- Billy Connolly

*****The dreamer program has been signed away. The Deferred Action for Children’s Arrival has been handed to congress for 6 months to deal with. The administration says it violates the rule of law.

*****The Peoria Blues and Heritage fest went off without a hitch. The weather was perfect and we should all be looking at the Jamiah Rogers band, these guys are fucking awesome. John Butler checked them out before his own set and was great with his fans.

*****Bill Withers has his first solo record since 1985 with a cover of (You’ve been quite a doll) Raggedy Ann.

*****In this country, a woman dies every 2 hours of cervical cancer because of improper health care.

*****Can I just say that I do not want to see reporters in the middle of hurricanes. Can they just stay safe in a room and fix a camera outside? I would much rather see different angles of the storm and see no people out there.  It was often impossible to hear then anyway.  The communication between the studio and location was fucked up and did not help anyway. It also seemed like they showed an awful lot of Shell stations. JS

*****An estimated 70 million Americans saw the fake Russian ads during the campaign.  No impact??

*****The Stones are on their No Filter tour in Europe and they brought out ‘Dancin with Mr. D’ which hasn’t been played live since 1973.

*****Trumps lawyers seem to want Jared out.

*****Steve Bannon’s Great Great Grandfather was an immigrant from Ireland who needed no papers to get in this country.

*****Montgomery , Alabama is going to open a Museum of lynching.  There is a wall lined with jars of dirt that were collected from sites of lynching’s from around the country.  Very powerful.

*****Thanks Trump administration for removing references to ‘LGBTQ’ youth from a federal program for victims of sex trafficking. It also eliminates funding to international groups that provide abortions. This comes from mostly evangelical lobbyists who are reporting that they are having more discussions  with this administration than they ever had with any President.

*****Vanity Fair has their best dressed list out which includes Harry Styles, Rihanna, Solange, Jack Schlossberg, Justin Trudeau, Janelle Monae, Dev Patel, Cate Blanchett, Zoe Kravitz, Ruth Negga, and Donald Glover. The hall of fame mentioned Lauren Hutton, Jeremy irons and Prince Phillip.

*****More police brutality against the black man with the subduing of the Seahawks Michael Bennett for no apparent reason.

*****Leslie Van Houten has again been granted parole. As last year she is waiting out the 120 days to get the word from Gov. Jerry Brown.

*****Lovin’ Greg Garcia’s The Guest book on TBS. What is not to love about seeing Charles Robinson and Carly Jibson again.  It made my day to see guest Orson Bean!!

*****The U.S. office of government ethics has changed a policy that will now allow lobbyists to donate to staffers legal defense funds.

*****Cameras have taken the first pictures of white giraffes in Kenya.

*****The Simpsons will be going to New Orleans this season!

*****The Middle is starting its last season. We will miss U!

*****Jay Pharoah has a new show on Showtime. White Famous is loosely based on the life of Jamie Foxx who is the executive producer.

*****John Davis Washington, son of Denzel may head the cast of Black Klansman. Spike Lee will direct and Jordan Peele will produce the true story of an African American who in 1978 infiltrated the KKK. Ron Stallworth used phones and his own writing to communicate with the organization. When he had to appear in person he sent a white officer in his place. They were able to sometimes sabotage cross burnings and other activities.

*****IT just had the biggest horror movie opening ever. The acting is quite nice for chapter 1 but the ending a bit long.

*****Netflix is bringing a delicious doc : Jim and Andy  The great beyond featuring a very special contractually obligated mention of Tony Clifton. Spike Jonze is producing with the hundred  hours of footage from Man on the Moon. ** Other new docs on the way look at Eric Clapton, Grace Jones and Sammy Davis Jr. It is the first time that Kim Novak will talk on camera about dating Sammy.

*****September 16 brought the Juggalos march on Washington. They have been bringing awareness about their gang designation and the harm that it has caused. The running man with a hatchet is considered a gang symbol and gives cops probable cause to search. The FBI labeled Juggalos a hybrid gang in 2011. Also marching were some of the alt right calling their march the mother of all rallies but it only produced about 500 people.

*****Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin requested use of a government jet for his honeymoon and he later withdrew that request.

*****Finally there was a confirmation from a charity that Trump claims to have given to after the Hurricanes. Direct relief received 25 thou. ** There have still been no charities that received money from the inauguration fund.

*****WGN is bringing us a new show called Bellevue.

*****Howard Buffett will be the new Sheriff of Macon county in Illinois. His father Warren had donated millions to the area.

*****Prophets of Rage are here to raise awareness with members of Cypress Hill, Rage against the Machine and Public Enemy.

*****LA summer Olympics in 2028?!

*****Sean Spicer landed on Jimmy Kimmel. Wow.. What a kiss ass whiny bitch. He tried hard to stay in Trumps good graces with compliments for the Pres and constant berating of the press. He reminded me of a ventriloquist dummy with a hand up his ass.** His cameo at the Emmy’s did not go over very well either.

***** Model Monroe Bergdorf was fired by L’oreal because of her anti- racist remarks.  She has now been hired by Illamasqua.

*****Boycott Dragon Dumps! Don’t pay your bill on time and the owner dumps garbage on your lawn.

*****It looks like Trevor Noah will stay with the Daily show until at least 2022.

*****James Woods used his twitter account to try and shame a movie about a gay romance between a 17 year old and a 24 year old. Amber Tamblyn tweeted that Woods had hit on her for real when she was only 16.

*****Scientists are trying to bring back the chelonoidis elephantopus Galopagos turtles. 80 blood samples of modern day island turtles have genetic traces of the lost species. Even though they have been extinct for 160 years, scientists think they can reproduce though not to 100%. Could they reverse the negative effects that humans cause in the environment?

***** Why do bullies feel the need to use the art of artists who want nothing to do with them? It is like using ‘You can’t always get what you want’ for Trump when there are plenty of artists who agree with you that would love for you to use their art. Now Universal music and American recordings had to send a cease and desist letter to the white supremacist site Stormfront to stop using Johnny Cash’s version of ‘I won’t back down.’ The host blames the Jews.

*****Tru tv will bring us At home with Amy Sedaris.

*****North Dakota paleontologists have been uncovering so many bones that they are inviting the public to help.  It sounds like a dream come true.

*****Paul Newman is Jake Gyllenhaal’s Godfather. JS

*****St. Louis exploded into protest with yet another acquittal of a police officer after the shooting of a black man, Anthony Lamar Smith. Peoria, Il is also dealing with the shooting of an alleged bank robber who was shot 18 times.

*****The NFL is standing together in solidarity for equality and scary clown is sniping at them like a bitch. Our leader would not know respect and maturity if it bit him in the ass.** The Packers asked their fans to stand arm in arm with them on their Thursday night game with the Bears. Respect to Aaron Rodgers and the guys for speaking out before the game on equality. Some ‘fans’ are burning their Packer stuff. ..  Why do these Trump supporters always want to burn everything? Do they have any idea how racist and ridiculous that looks?

*****Veep is going to bring us their last season while Julia is battling breast cancer. Joe Biden tweeted that us Veeps must stick together to show his support.

*****The Emmy’s with Stephen Colbert have come and gone. My best dressed were Ellie Kemper, Jessica Biel, Michelle Pfeiffer, Susan Sarandon, Leslie Jones, Matthew Rhys, Claire Foy, Evan Rachel Wood ,Gabrielle Union, Donald Glover, Emmy Rossum, Zoe Kravitz, Nicole Kidman and Julia- Louis Dreyfus. My worst dressed were Uzo Aduba, Debra Messing, Anna Farris, Tracee Ellis Ross and Prianka Chopra. I love Sarah Paulson and the back of her dress was great but …?? There was so much black fabric which was awesome. Was it mourning for the earthquake and hurricane victims or just a general sadness for the country?  Whatever the reason.. hooray black!!**Also happy that hairstyles were mostly long and loose.** I was happy to see Laura Dern win for supporting actress in a limited series or movie. ** The Handmaids tale won for show, directing and writing , for Anne Dowd who looked more shocked and appreciative than I have ever seen and Elisabeth Moss. ** I was happy for Alec Baldwin for best supporting actor but was really routing for Louie Anderson. ** When the noms came out, I could not imagine anything beating out FEUD but everything did. ** The girls from 9 to 5 stole the show with their mention of a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot. ** Donald Glover won for directing and acting. **Alexander Skarsgard won which gave he and his brother quite a week. ** John Oliver won two and he again flew in his whole staff. ** Julia- Louis Dreyfus has now won the most Emmys for the same character in the same show. Veep got best comedy.**It was a wonderful moment when Carol Burnett and Norman Lear came out but DeNiro looked so disinterested.** Cicely Tyson has often been described as a bit of a diva and seemed a bit out of it on the broadcast but her counterpart saved the day.** So sad that Bob Odenkirk did not win but kudos to sterling K. Brown. They seemed to play him off too quickly while Nicole Kidman and big little lies had all the time in the world.

*****Bobby Moynihan stars in the new  ‘Me Myself and I’ on CBS.

*****Word is that the Trump campaign is asking supporters to contribute money to build the wall.

*****Can we pay a little more attention to Puerto Rico? Why is the Pres giving them grief? Things were tough enough before the devastation. Puerto Rico has no bankruptcy and running a business is so costly there. Companies there must buy American which we don’t have to do.  Forty percent of residents don’t have insurance. So many of the supplies sent to help are just sitting there in San Juan.

*****Angela Merkel has won a 4th term as German chancellor.

*****Singapore got their first female President, Halimah Yacob. She was the only candidate.

*****There was a settlement in a lawsuit against Club Cabaret. Dancers sued to be employees instead of individual contractors. The dancers won a million and cost of legal fees.

*****Art Garfunkel has a memoir/diary/ book of musings out called ‘What is it all but luminous.’

*****The personal account of Ted Cruz hit ‘like’ on a porn site on 9/11. He calls it a mistake by a staffer. A college roommate of Cruz said that he was not surprised.

*****After a tweet from the Pres about hitting Hil with a golf ball, Stephen King tweeted: Thinks hitting a woman with a golf ball and knocking her down is funny. Myself, I think it indicates a severely fucked up mind.

*****Brooklyn 99 is back and funnier than ever with the same great cast and opening.

*****Bill Maher and Jimmy Kimmel are rated number 1 of tv personalities based on Facebook, Instagram, twitter et al.

*****R.I.P Richard Anderson, Walter Becker, Don Williams, David Tang, Troy Gentry, Murray Lerner, Mexico’s earthquake victims, those lost to hurricane Irma, Frank Vincent, Len Wein, Grant Hart, Harry Dean Stanton, Michelle Rounds, Bonnie Angelo, Hugh Hefner, Jake La Motta, Eddie Russell Jr., Edith Windsor, Tony Booth and Monty Hall.

ȅ

[horsebitesfence]

One year Sober – Sophie Helf interview

How is New York ? We know from Twitter and your guest spot on the Death Panel Podcast that you spent a year working toward moving back there, and you made it!   How has it been going so far?   

– It’s been wonderful. The past year was incredibly difficult – going through surgeries, relearning to walk – but I knew I wanted to move here so did whatever I could to heal up quickly. So far I’m quite happy here! It’s nice to be able to see all my friends, go where I want, explore different opportunities. Simple things feel so good – having my own room, living with nice people, ‘hustling’ for work (ha!). Not a fan of the weather though.

We really love your piece for the Outline, where you talk about inspo porn, being a little worm  and how you love your legs.  We I hear you’re getting new prosthetics –  how do they compare, and might they lower the chance of another infection? That must have made the move that much harder (and more inspirational).

–– Thank you! My new prosthetics will actually be vacuum-powered – every time I take a step the ends of my legs sort of get ‘sucked’ into the prosthetic, so to speak. Everything is custom made, from the liners to the sockets, so it’ll be a lot harder for my legs to chafe. The infection was miserable but has healed up pretty well so far. Sometimes the leg still hurts but not nearly as badly as it did before.

They sound cool and we hope it goes on healing really well.  

You’ve been tweeting about using the subway since you’ve been back there.  From here it seems like New York’s public transport infrastructure is pretty run down –  kind of hostile for users in general and especially for disabled users.   Has that been your experience?  

–– The infrastructure can be pretty shit, depending on which station you’re at. The one near my place is just a set of stairs leading underground that I have to carefully waddle down (though I’m getting better at that). Most people here stick to the ‘keep right’ rule, which is nice, but there have been occasions when I’ve had to dodge someone and almost fallen down. At the larger stations with various train lines there are elevators and escalators, but if you’re at a smaller one it’s probably just stairs. Good exercise, I suppose, but for people with mobility issues it’s incredibly unfriendly.

Sort it out NYC. You’ve lived in London, SF and New York;  how do the three cities compare in terms of transport, access, attitudes? 

–– The Bay Area actually has a fantastic subway system for disabled people. Every MUNI and BART station has an elevator and the trains can easily accommodate someone in a wheelchair. London stations were squeaky clean and most stations had elevators, even at the farther-out ones; I took it for granted at the time, but looking back it was very well put together. New York definitely has the most unfriendly transport system, but from what I’ve heard there have been rallies to make it more accessible, which I’m hoping leads to something better.

Yeah, London’s public transport infrastructure’s pretty good, but there are just so many people, and not everyone is good at keeping left or moving carefully.  It doesn’t help that the UK is one of the few countries where you’re supposed to pass on the left side, whereas London is such a global city that many people naturally tend toward the right.   

It’s better not to travel at rush hour if you can help it, but that’s not always possible, and it’s also pretty restrictive. London Transport now do a ‘please offer me a seat’ badge, but we also need ones that say ‘don’t push’, ‘give me space’, ‘keep your distance’ . Or maybe just ‘keep the fuck away from me.’ And more ‘keep left’ signs – it makes such a big difference. 

–– London transport gets so incredibly crowded, more than in New York or San Francisco, I think – I definitely understand why you’d avoid rush hour! I generally try not to go places during rush hour; seeing as I’ve mostly been working from home, it’s been easy to avoid it. I’m hoping to get a 9-to-5 job, though, and am not sure how I’ll deal with the crush. Stay posted for developments!

Yes!  Best of luck!  And best of health insurance. 

One of the many things to love about your Twitter is the way you tweet on MH stuff, and meds, and coffee, and coffee on meds. You also tweet about sobriety. What’s it like being at NY parties sober? 

–– I’ve definitely had my mental health issues in the past, which led me to getting sober. It’s the best thing I’ve done for myself, I think; my mental health, though not perfect, is doing better without the guilt I used to get when I’d wake up after a messy night out. I don’t really mind people drinking around me (or doing coke in some cases – oof) and people have been really respectful of my decision not to participate. I feel really lucky that hardly anyone’s pressed me on why I got sober; if someone does, I just say ‘I felt like it’ and don’t go into anything deeper because I don’t really owe anyone an explanation.

Yes to respectfulness, and to not owing.  And congratulations on a year sober. 

[One Horse Bite discloses: I spent years feeling shame about MH stuff, being in denial and trying to ‘act normal’, which in hindsight has had distorting life-effects.  I held out against doing psych meds for a really long time, even though they’re almost free, thanks to the NHS, what’s left of it – maybe that’s why they don’t get pushed on people here so hard.  After my accident, I finally gave myself permission to try meds, maybe because I felt like it gave me a concrete reason to need them, one that carries less stigma than mental illness.  And then I still wasn’t ok!  Both due to the accident and because I was already not-ok, pre-accident. The accident was the last straw really; like I had no spare capacity to handle it. Invisible Strings / @M_Kelter, who tweets on autism and depression, suggests that in place of ‘comorbidity’, we might use the term ‘meanwhile’. Meanwhile, I had to begin to address the MH stuff I’d already been carrying, and admit to myself I’d been carrying it all that time, as well as with the accident. Meds were helpful with that, even tho it took a bit trial and error to find the right ones;  for most of last year I was on what seemed to help at first, and then made me increasingly and dangerously disinhibited. There were – incidents, including but not limited to shouting ‘walk left’ at people on the underground. Still no ragrets – sort of; once I found the right meds, or the more-right ones, anyway, I kind of wished I’d started on them years ago, though it’s important to stress that nothing has helped so much as finally having stable housing for the first time in my adult life, post-accident. Also to note that my being in a state of ‘invisible homelessness’ at the time of the accident was a key causal factor in the accident itself. Meanwhile –. ]

Sophie, you went to art school, but studied design rather than fine art, and are now a coder; so while you’re art-world networked, hopefully you’re a bit less subject to the horrid vicissitudes of all that. How did you get into coding?  

–– I was at Central St Martins from 2012 to 2015, a couple of years after they moved into that awful Granary Building.  Very strange being there; they insisted that the great corridor in the centre was a space for collaborating, but you had to get express permission from tutors or higher-ups to put things there, and – I hated this – your tap-card could only get you into your studio.  So if you were a design student and wanted to go into the fine art studios, you’d have to borrow a fine art student’s card to get in. It really kept all the different programmes separate from each other and discouraged collaboration in the end.

–– I got into coding after coming back to California from CSM without a Bay Area design/art network, without any idea how to get a job. I needed a portfolio site to present my work on but hated all the templated ones (Cargo Collective etc.), so decided to learn a bit of HTML and CSS to build one myself. To my surprise, I really enjoyed it, so started learning JavaScript as well. Choosing whether to professionally pursue coding instead of design was a huge decision to make, but eventually I decided ‘fuck it’, successfully applied to and attended a coding bootcamp. 

Now I do front-end development, which focuses on the look and feel of a website and how a user interacts with it. It’s been interesting navigating the different splits and rivulets of ‘the coding world’, so to speak; there’s ‘the tech community’, which I do feel separate from as I tend to view coding just as something I do and not an entire lifestyle. Code can intersect with art and design in tons of different ways and I do like Twitter as a tool to keep up with some of the people I admire. 

Can we be really prurient and ask what you meant when you tweeted about missing mid-2000s SF ?  

–– I like this question! I guess it was a tweet that was sort of mourning what San Francisco used to be like back before it was stuffed and crawling with tech people. I was in high school in the mid-2000’s and specifically remember San Francisco as – scuzzier, I guess; still kind of eerie and loose and a little more dangerous. I was a little shit back then and spent a lot of time at a park called Dolores Park, which used to be crusty as hell and filled with naked hula-hooping people and boozy high schoolers passing around bad weed (including me and my friends). Now it’s squeaky clean and gets stuffed with frat kids on the weekends. I’ll admit that I do love to complain about current SF a little too much. Cities do change, of course, but it makes me sad that SF is so incredibly unaffordable and losing much of the weird, wonky character it used to be known for. It does still constantly smell like weed and piss though, which is oddly comforting.

Is that what made you so keen to get out of there, aside from the glut of other coders, and the fact that it’s your home town – or was it more about getting to NY  ?

–– Honestly I think you really hit the nail on the head re: tech people and hometown. It’s a tiny city and I felt like I’d explored every corner, done everything I wanted to there, and got a little tired of bumping into parents of kids I went to high school with while I was buying a Diet Coke at the grocery store. And yes, I really wanted to go to New York – a lot of my friends live here, and it’s a whole new city to get to know and explore. I’ve been here for a couple of months and feel like I’ve seen a tiny droplet of what’s out there, which I like. And, truthfully, it’s cheaper both transport-wise and rent-wise, which is important while I’m freelancing while looking for a job, and will continue to be nice once I’m salaried – more to save for retirement, health insurance and occasional fun things. I’ve wanted to live here since middle school so it’s nice to, you know, be here. I like it a lot.

Sophie, thank you!  Enjoy New York.  

Thank you for interviewing, this was very fun!

S

X

[yahoo-roto-arcade-blog]

Closing Time: Brandon Belt puts it all together

Brandon Belt looks like a player who’s finally figured it out (AP)

Brandon Belt has always been a solid player. He’s always been a fascinating at-bat. Is this the year he finally blossoms into a legitimate star?

Belt homered for the fourth straight game Thursday, in what turned into an extra-inning loss to the Rockies. Belt’s career slash is at personal bests for all categories, .305/.404/.583, and given that he’s never topped 18 homers in a year, you might be suspicious at someone who already has 10 in just 41 games. But maybe this is what a career season looks like.

Belt currently has the best zone and overall contact rate of his career. His hard-hit number is far and away the best of his life, and he’s also pulling he ball more than he has in four years. Even his .364 BABIP isn’t that much of an outlier given that his career mark is .335. If you want more proof of what a craftsman he is, consider his classic 21-pitch at-bat earlier this year, or how skilled he’s been at one particular good-swing metric — and this dates back to 2012.

Okay, enough alphabet soup. Take a break from the science, appreciate the art. Tell me this swing isn’t absolutely gorgeous.

Brandon Belt became the first Giant to homer in 4 consecutive home games since Randy Winn did it from Sept. 16-30, 2005. He also became the first Giant with a home run in 4 consecutive games two separate times in a season since Barry Bonds did it in 2004.

#4DReplay #SFGiants pic.twitter.com/RpIvICuWFA

— San Francisco Giants (@SFGiants) May 18, 2018

I always love left-handed batters who can hang in against lefties, and that’s a Belt thing. His career OPS against southpaws is .791. And while AT&T Park costs Belt home runs — he’s hit 28 more homers on the road for his career — he’s still a good batter at home. His career average is 22 points better in front of the McCovey Cove fans, and his slugging percentage is actually five points higher in San Francisco. You get more taters on the road, you get more gappers (and you might need an extra clothing layer) at home.

[Yahoo Fantasy Football leagues are open: Sign up now for free]

I wonder if some Yahoo owners are cashing out too quickly when Belt simply might have grown up at age 30. In recent Yahoo trades, Belt went 1-for-1 for Matt Davidson and Marcell Ozuna, respectively. In both cases, I see Belt as the better play. And heck, Belt was on pace to hit 28 homers last year, if not for injuries. He’s otherwise been durable for most of his career.

Overall, the Giants might not be going anywhere. The offense is 17th in runs. The team dropped a game under .500 after the latest loss, and it’s been outscored by 28. But Belt has turned into must-see TV whenever he’s at the dish. And in the leagues where I have some Belt shares, you’ll have to pony up a major bat for me to even consider a deal. He qualifies at two positions. He’s especially fun in OBP formats.

Sometimes the most important word in fantasy baseball is “hold.”

• The Pirates waited and waited on the Starling Marte situation, but they wait no longer. Marte has an oblique strain and he’s headed to the DL. Rated outfield prospect Austin Meadows gets the call to replace Marte. Let’s take a look at the new kid.

Meadows was the ninth overall pick in the 2013 draft, and he’s been up and down the prospect ranks. He was a Top 25 kid for 2016 and Top 10 into last year, but a mediocre season in Triple-A (.250/.311/.359, four homers, 11 steals in 72 games) silenced some buzz. A torn hamstring wrecked his season, suddenly, last summer.

Meadows has gotten back on track this year, in his age-23 season. Oh, the power hasn’t developed — he has just one homer in 136 plate appearances, and a slugging percentage under .400. But a .294 average and a .336 OBP will play, and he’s stolen eight bases in nine attempts. Look for the Pirates to give him ample opportunities to run. He’s free to grab in 89 percent of Yahoo leagues, if you want to do the Austin Meadows hop.

• The Padres are another offense that’s hard on the eyes. Quality and protective eyewear, please. The Friars are 26th in runs, 28th in average, 29th in OPS.

Travis Jankowski is trying to help.

Injuries forced a Jankowski recall at the end of April, and he’s done nothing but produce since. The 26-year-old outfielder is at .360/.458/.500 for his 50 at-bats, with a homer, four steals, 10 runs scored. And while that slash is obviously over Jankowski’s head, consider he has nine walks against 10 strikeouts. When that ratio is anywhere in the neighborhood of one, get excited — that player is controlling his at-bats.

Call it East Coast bias or Padres ennui, but Jankowski hasn’t caught on with fantasy owners yet. He’s just 13 percent owned in Yahoo. He’s batted leadoff in six of seven games, and I can’t see why that will change anytime soon. Deeper-leaguers have taken the plunge, but those in middle-range mixers should jump in as well.

• I know Carlos Santana must be having an interesting season when my buddy Scott Jenstad keeps asking about him. Scotty J. won’t steer you wrong. That .195 average on Santana might bump you offline, but see the full picture.

Santana is another guy on a power binge, with five in his last 10 games. He’s collected 25 strikeouts against 26 walks — again, that’s such a money metric for us because it stabilizes quicker than most other stats. The .443 slugging is actually close to Santana’s career mark despite a sub-Mendoza average. Imagine when Santana finally starts to hit into some good luck.

Santana has increased his hard-hit rate this year but his BABIP is down 96 points. You can see the incongruity there. He qualifies in the outfield and at first base. The Phillies aren’t going to regret this free-agent signing, not in 2018 anyway. Santana’s actually turned himself into a capable defender. And the batting average might be shielding some fantasy players from a useful asset.

It’s easy to say this now with the pop coming around, but stay the course. And more broadly (and more applicable for the future), take clues from the sharp owners in your own league. And remember how much we can learn from walks and strikeouts, the most Occam’s Razor fantasy approach there is. Common sense remains your best friend in this racket.

Not sure how Jesús Aguilar is just four-percent owned in Yahoo. He’s having a nice season (132 OPS+) and now he pretty much has to play, with Ryan Braun out. I was already in, I thought you guys would be too.

— scott pianowski (@scott_pianowski) May 18, 2018

• A weekend heads up on Pittsburgh righty Nick Kingham, who’s slated to pitch Saturday against San Diego. The Pirates briefly returned him to the minors, but that was just roster jockeying. Kingham has earned an extended audition. His first two starts were outstanding: 12.1 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 1 BB, 16 K. Again, look at those two final stats.

A classic post-hype case, Kingham remains unowned in about two-thirds of Yahoo leagues.

• Your other scouting assignment for Saturday is the Milwaukee-Minnesota game. Minnesota RHP Fernando Romero has been nails in his two MLB starts (0.54/1.20), and Freddy Peralta struck out 13, in Coors Field of all places, when the Brewers tapped him on the shoulder. Romero should be up for good, Peralta is more the wide-range-of-outcomes guy. I’ll put them on the telly and try to figure out where this story is headed.

Romero has been added aggressively, of course, and his ownership tag is high enough that I can’t even promote him as a pickup — he’s gone in any paying-attention league. But Peralta remains unclaimed in 53 percent of Yahoo leagues. This story could go in a number of directions, especially when you consider Peralta is just 21, but when we see plausible upside, we need to consider action. That’s how I’ve always played, and that’s how I’m always going to play.

Follow the Yahoo fantasy baseball crew on Twitter: Andy Behrens, Dalton Del Don, and Scott Pianowski

[randomisedgaming]

The Sinclair QL and one of its greatest games Fleet Tactical Command

This is a freelance Randomised Gaming blog piece written by Vanpeebles, it was first published in the magazine QL Today. Vanpeebles has kindly updated this piece for Randomised Gaming to include a short introduction for readers unfamiliar with this system.

To retrogaming enthusiasts on the outside unfamiliar with the Sinclair QL (QL = Quantum Leap), you might think that the machine is light on games, this partly owing to it's short manufacturing lifespan. The machine itself was cancelled after the Amstrad buyout of Sinclair’s computer interests. But the QL scene adapted, and lived on as a well supported cottage industry , with many small companies, groups and individuals selling hardware/software.

The QL was (and still is!) active mainly all over Western Europe, the QL even saw a US release with a Samsung improved version. The QL had the honour of being the first home computer to use the legendary 68000 series of CPUs (the 68008 for the QL), and featured multitasking, dual network ports, dual serial ports, dual joystick ports and two built in microdrive storage units (developed in house by Sinclair). And 128k RAM, not bad for a machine released in the first month of 1984! It also had a large internal expansion bay, and various socketed chips, which lead to a huge number of hardware upgrades and improvements.

Software came on the distinctive tiny microdrive cartridges. A lot of QL games/software sport a unique appearance due to a high resolution 4 colour monitor mode, with its black, white, green and red colour scheme. A standard 8-colour mode was also available. Another favourite QL fact is that its most famous user is Linus Torvalds of Linux fame, who wrote various programs, and dabbled with multitasking on it back in the day.

QL Chess, one of the most well known games from the system

Anyway, that is a VERY sketchy brief and potted history of the QL, just to give a very rough background to proceedings, it's now time to talk games :) The two most famous games, which are always mentioned on retro websites/magazines, are probably the excellent Psion (another one legendary UK Computer Company) releases of QL Chess and Matchpoint. However, the QL has a lot more to offer, with a good range of games covering various genres, QL fans all know these are not the only two great games, but even then, some real classics remain hidden. One of the best QL games of all, Fleet Tactical Command (FTC), is nearly lost to time, and totally unknown to those outside the QL scene. In sadly my last review for QL Today(thank you guys for all your hard work over the years!) I will pay tribute to one of the real super heavy weight pocket battleships of the QL gaming history.

Fleet Tactical Command is a naval battle simulation with a scope, depth and eye for detail that is quite remarkable considering it was released late into the QL's commercial life in December of 1989. Development took two years alone and the game consisted of machine code listings over 500k. Early versions of the game saw two players each on a networked QL both commanding a sixteen ship fleet named either Marlbrough and San Stefano. The aim is to keep their home port stocked with supplies while hopefully preventing the other player from supplying their own thus leaving their home port open to be captured. No mean feat over 1000 x 1000 square miles of sea and islands. The game was developed further at a steady pace offering player versus computer and even two players on the same machine.

The game itself plays out with a screen display a bit like a wireframe flight simulator. You can look all around you, use keys for controls and type an impressive range of commands into parser (more on this later). The ships themselves bob and sway on the sea with everything from localised currents, wave swell and changeable weather affecting your progress. Storms can blow your ships off course, damage machinery, snap anchor lines and even affect how much fuel you use on the way. To further add to the fun, your crew must be kept happy with food, water and not being kept on high states of readiness for too long. Otherwise, they can take the huff, and start throwing spanners into the works quite literally! Once you multiply this by 16 ships, you have quite a task on your hands.

To help with this mammoth task FTC comes with an extensive collection of sea charts, ships logs, pencils, rulers, protractors, compasses and even drawing pins. Making a gaming session looking more like a wartime operations room, maybe the box set was just short of a tobacco pipe just to finish off the experience.

You really will feel like an admiral as you plan your routes and course for each ship in the fleet.

One feature well worth mentioning is the damage model. Ships or submarines can suffer damage by various misfortunes including slugging it out in battle, damage from stormy weather, sabotage, collisions with other ships/docks or even just poor reliability. To repair things, damage commands are typed in such as LAY EMERGENCY CABLES or PUMP OFFICERS MESS. Repairing the damage can play out as a mini game in itself. If the power is off then emergency cables have to be laid, then rooms maybe have to be pumped out before they can be repaired. Other sections might have to be repaired before others and the damage even knocks out your on screen gauges and dials. I once spent a good 20 minutes trying to save a ship that had run aground in the shallows. I had to repair and pump out various parts while waiting for the weather to worsen to see if it would improve the tide to float me off. In the end, the crew got so fed up of low supplies and constantly repairing things that they ending up breaking more things faster than I could get them fixed!

I could easily spend a day listing the details in FTC. All the ships handling differently according to size and even float higher or lower in the water. Submarines have their own tactics while warships each have their own weapon systems. Some docks are protected from weather better than others, while grounded or damaged ships can be towed back to ports for repairs. Ships running low on supplies can re-supplied at sea by tankers using cargo wires which is a tricky and skilled operation, best not done in choppy weather. Survivors can even be taken on board after other ships have sunk. The ships also have their own little routines with crews coming off various watches and routines, which really brings your ships to life.

I can’t help wonder if FTC’s impressive complexity and detailing are partly responsible for not being the success it deserved. The early versions required two QL’s and a standard game could last hours if not run into double figures. A lot of time and effort is needed to really get the best from a game like this. Hours or maybe even days could be spent just trying to master all the controls and features.

One of the beautifully detailed maps, included in the box of FTC

The support of the game was also second to none with bug update sheets, a dedicated newsletter and continuous development. Later versions would even talk to a PC version offering cross machine play, a feature rarely found in games now.

For me the sheer scope of the game, impressive details and just for pushing the QL to the absolute limit this must rank as one of the best QL games. If only the original authors Robin J A Barker and Andrew Hopkins of Di-Ren could be tracked down and the games re-release secured.

Feature by Vanpeebles.

You can contact him or join in on the discussion for the game over at The Sinclair QL forum at: http://www.qlforum.co.uk/

Follow Randomised Gaming on Tumblr, for video game, art, reviews, features, videos and more. You can also follow us on twitter and subscribe to us on YouTube for even more Randomised Gaming content.

[theloudpedal]

Meet the Gawkers

This is our official coming out.  

We've been at this thing for a few years now, and we need to clear some things up.  On more than one occasion, we've discussed The Loud Pedal with personal friends and acquaintances and figured out that (for better or worse) people don't associate our work/content with us.  Part of this is our fault.  Since TLP began we have made a concerted effort to keep our faces concealed (trust us folks, it has been for your well being).  On the rare occasion that one or both of us has been featured in a blog post or on a FB/Instagram/Twitter post, we have intentionally "helmeted" our ugly mugs.  We like to let our followers know that we're doing something awesome, but that the focus is always the cars or the events.

Well, suffice it to say that humility is about to take a back seat in favor of an elevation of our personal status and visibility.  Perhaps this is isn't the best idea we've ever had, but we're gonna give it a whirl anyway.  Though we will have to show you our hideous visages, we promise to keep the luminaries we meet and cars and events we attend on your behalf, the center of attention.  Though you will now have to look at our admittedly self-pufferizing selfies with drivers and personalities, we promise to keep our standards high and the images awesome and relevant.

In addition to forcing you to know what we look like, we decided to give you a little biographical information about each of us.  No, this information probably won't enhance your life or help with your understanding of the universe in any way, but it will give you a little background on us and help you understand our passion for all things automotive.  

The truth will end up being extremely boring.  If we had more talent, we could weave a fictional masterpiece centered around our elevation as heroes of the automotive press.  In a story you didn’t ask for, written without the clearest of hindsight, never giving ourselves more credit than we deserve, comes the story The Loud Pedal.  We are not aloof journalist that take the high ground toward objective and dispassionate reporting.  We are fans and we don't it.  When we arrive to report on an event we are just as giddy and excited as all the other fanboys and fangirls.

Andrew Langley:

I turn 41 this year, and when it comes to things automotive, I think that age really belies my reality (in car years?).  If I'm honest, when I get to a show or the track, I'm about 13 (some may argue closer to 11 or 12).  In my element, I have to look around sometimes and remind myself to act a little more my age.  I still like autographs, selfies, hero cards, drivers/celebrities and lots of other bright and shiny objects.  For these things, my heartbeat accelerates.  When I see a good autograph opportunity, I imagine that I look like George Costanza running from a cake fire at a kids birthday party.  Ridiculous, yes, but controllable, no.  And speaking of 13 year old boy, here I am:

As far as I'm aware, this was about the time I fell in love with cars and out of love with skateboards.  This was probably about the time the obligatory Porsche 911 (red, with whale tail of course) and Lamborghini Countach posters went up on my bedroom wall.  That said, it probably wasn't that serious.  I mean, sure I was crazy about Kit, Detective "Sonny" Crockett's 365 and 512TR and the A-Team van...but who wasn't???

My serious interest started in the early 90s, when I inherited my mom's 69 Mercury Cougar. This wasn't the boon is sounds like.  It was our "family car" for years.   It had been sitting on the side of our house for ever and hadn't been started or run for a long long time (today, it would be called a "survivor").  My folks said I could have it if I could get it running and pay for insurance and running costs.  My dad and I did end up getting the thing running and moving, if only up and down the driveway #rainman. Unfortunately, because of one big boo boo on my part, and because I soon came to know why FORD was a proper name as well as an acronym, it became apparent that my high school car wasn't going to be a muscle car #sadface.  The loss of my Cougar didn't diminish my growing love for muscle cars, which turned into an appreciation of custom cars and trucks.  My room became littered with the latest copies of Car Craft, Super Chevy, Hot Rod, Rod & Custom and Super Ford, and probably a few others that don't exist anymore.

The first day of the rest of my life came some time in 1994.  I lucked into a job at a local VW Porsche garage in Sacramento, working for Frank and Nick Lettini at Frank's Automotive.  It was there that I drove my first VWs, Porsches, Benzes, Beemers and the occasional Ferrari.  There was something about those Euro jobs that I really began to like and appreciate.  The sound of a mechanically injected 911 got under my skin (probably because it always sounded like all the mechanicals were going to fly apart!).  I also started my love for all things VW...yes, both air and water cooled.  My magazine collection took a tack toward Top Gear, Autosport, Road and Track, Car and Driver, Evo and 911 and Porsche World.  Over the next few years Frank and Nick introduced me to the Monterey Historics, F1 Racing, Le Mans, and historic racing.  All of these things are fixtures in my life all these years later and I elevated Nick to best friend and mentor.

I met Mark while in college,  and found a willing accomplice with a good sense of humor, a mind thirsty for all things automotive and lots of free time.  Our girlfriends at the time (now our wives) had work schedules opposite ours so we had plenty of time to hit the track and car shows whenever we wanted.  

The die was cast.

All of these things still excite me and compel me to be part of The Loud Pedal and drive me to want me to share my passion and experiences with you (yes, both of you!)  

Mark Farouk:

I was always into cars at some level, but my infatuation developed later in life.  It was in college (I know, that’s where everyone “experiments”) that I met Andrew.  By this time, he was fully engulfed in fanboy-ism for almost everything with an engine.  I was skeptical that the amount time he spent on this hobby was worth it.  This friendship introduced me to the automotive world.  It wasn’t that I didn’t care before, it was that now I was friends with someone who read every car related publican known to man.  Andrew talked about it frequently enough to the point where I finally relented and watched an F1 race. Ok, you have my attention!  Enough attention that I would wake up at 4am to watch European F1 races before the days of DVRs and internet streaming.   There was no turning back from that point, and I wanted more.  California is home to several great race tracks, with one being a little over an hour away from our homes.  My first race was an American Le Mans Series race at Sonoma Raceway (aka Sears Point).  Within moments of arriving, though not really knowing what was going on, I was hooked.  It was from that moment that I wanted to attend and smell (Yes, smell) every race possible. 

These were the waning days of film photography (ask your parents), and taking photos was not the cheapest hobby or proposition.  I had been into photography from an early age, but the racetrack was my new canvass.  Not just a canvass but an organic, always changing backdrop with multiple opportunities to blow through roles of film....and that’s just what I/we did.  A race weekend was likely to produce conservatively 15-20 roles of film.  Today, you review your work instantaneously, but back then you had to wait until you found the time and money to have the photos developed and printed.  Digital photography has made things much easier and cheaper, but I still sometimes miss the excitement of going to the photolab to pick-up prints and see images for the first time.

As the years went by, we both went digital.  Rolls of film turned to thousands (and thousands and thousands) of photos and the need for lots of storage.  The advent of cheap web space and social media gave us potential outlets to share our work with our fellow enthusiasts.  In the early days, even those sharing opportunities that were available had limitations.  Web space was expensive and blogging had yet to even arrive on the scene.  We were (OK, maybe we still are) an audience two, keeping ourselves entertained with photos and commentary.   Over the years though, we have arguably gotten better, made a few connections and improved our craft.  Not for any monetary purpose, but just just for the sake of doing it.

Over the years I developed, experimented and sometimes failed at the art of automotive photography.  I was lucky enough to have some opportunities to have media access to shoot for a legitimate media organization at several events through a personal contact.  All the talent in the world will not get you closer to the action unless you extend your network, meaning making new contacts which later become people, that will take a risk on your talent.  Shooting racecars next to the wall as they fly past is addictive and the best rush I’ve ever had.  Even today, I cherish every moment in the chaos, and it's really where I feel my zen.  Just me, a camera and a snarling beast spitting fire and shaking the ground.

It was during that time of shooting as a “pro”, of attending mandatory photographer briefings, and chatting with other established photographers that I picked up some knowledge of how the digital media world works in relation to being considered for official access.  I’ve always been fortunate to be skilled in watching and learning.  I didn’t just use my media access to develop the craft of photography, I used it as a learning opportunity so that one day I could shoot for myself rather than for someone else, and get credit for it.   You must start out with some talent before anything else to serve as a foundation.  I can say with 100% confidence that a social media presence and some great photos aren’t going to get past a good public relations professional, who is likely making the decision on whether you will receive media access.  This also means that one must calculate when they are ready to be considered.  As I was learning the back side of motorsports journalism, Andrew and I continued to build up a massive catalog of photographs from our years at automotive events. 

It was at dinner after a long day the at track that we sat down to eat and I pitched my idea for taking our hobby (sickness) and share it with others.  We discussed this over the next hour or so and came away with a shared goal of not just documenting our experiences but upping our game in every way.  It was the best combination to build on.  While I enjoy shooting the on-track action, Andrew likes documenting the paddock.  He also has an uncanny ability to locate obscure things, and find famous personalities and drivers (because his emotional growth is somewhat "paused" at the 12-year-old level).  Together, we handle all the angles.

From that day forward, after The Loud Pedal was born, our approach was different.  We needed more planning, we entered racing weekends with goals on the material we needed to source to draft a successful review/blog post.  To be honest, it is enjoyable in every way, but its not without self-imposed stress to ensure we capture the essence of the event we are documenting.  That means we can’t just post some good photos, we need a story to tell. 

Finally, this effort is self-funded and self-run.  We don’t have wealthy benefactors (we are however open to it) and must use our substantial charms and marginal looks and talent to make this thing work.  Most of all, we respect the craft and with our efforts do everything we can to avoid smearing it in any way.  We are honored and humbled that you, and maybe one or two more people, follow our exploits, enjoy our photos and wade through our musings.  We make no money from this venture, and we do it all for you.

Thank you for for reading. 

-Mark and Andrew

The Loud Pedal

[momscookingthebooks]

Release Blitz ~ Excerpt ~ Giveaway

Title: Bayside Desires

Series: Bayside Summers #1

Author: Melissa Foster

Genre: Steamy Contemporary Romance

Release: May 9, 2017

Add to Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32595084-bayside-desires

Blurb:

Fall in love at Bayside, where sandy beaches, good friends, and true love come together in the sweet small towns of Cape Cod.

BAYSIDE SUMMERS is a series of standalone steamy romance novels featuring alpha male heroes and sexy, empowered women. They're fun, flirty, flawed, deeply emotional, always passionate, and easy to relate to.

"​With her wonderful characters and resonating emotions, Melissa Foster is a must-read author!" -NYT Bestseller Julie Kenner​

"Melissa Foster is synonymous with sexy, swoony, heartfelt romance!" -NYT Bestseller Lauren Blakely​

In Bayside Desires...

As the co-owner of Bayside Resorts, Rick Savage has a fabulous job working with his best friends and brother, and a thriving business in Washington, DC, which he’ll be returning to at the end of the summer. Spending time with his family is great, but being back on Cape Cod has unearthed painful memories. When sweet, smart, and overly cautious Desiree Cleary moves in next door, Rick is drawn to the sexy preschool teacher, and she just might prove to be the perfect distraction.

Running an art gallery was not in preschool teacher Desiree Cleary’s plans, but after being tricked into coming to her impetuous, unreliable mother’s aid, she’s stuck spending the summer with the badass half-sister she barely knows and a misbehaving dog. If that’s not frustrating enough, she can’t escape the sparks igniting with her strikingly handsome and pushy neighbor, Rick, who makes all her warning bells go off.

Passion ignites as Desiree and Rick spend long summer nights sharing heartfelt confessions and steamy kisses. For the first time in years Rick is enjoying life again instead of hiding behind mounds of work miles away from his family. Desiree has touched him in a way that makes him want to slow down. Only slowing down means dealing with his demons, and he isn’t sure who he’ll be when he comes out the other side.

All Bayside books can be read as standalone novels or as part of the series:

Coming Soon...

Bayside Passions

Bayside Heat

Bayside Escape

Bayside Summers is part of the Love in Bloom romance collection by New York Times & USA Today bestselling and award-winning author Melissa Foster. While each book may be read as a standalone, you might enjoy reading the entire Love in Bloom series. Characters from each sub-series appear in future books. Visit Melissa's website for family trees, series checklists, and more.

​​​Buy it now links

KINDLE: http://smarturl.it/BD_Kindle

KOBO: http://smarturl.it/BD_Kobo

NOOK:  http://bit.ly/2gH9ekr

GPLAY:  http://bit.ly/2kr3evD

iBOOKS:  http://apple.co/2k7T1Ii

PAPERBACK: http://smarturl.it/BD_Paperback

Author Bio -

Melissa Foster is a New York Times & USA Today bestselling and award-winning author. She writes sexy and heartwarming contemporary romance, new adult romance (M/F, M/M, F/F), romantic suspense, thrillers, and historical fiction with emotionally compelling characters that stay with you long after you turn the last page. Melissa's emotional journeys are lovingly erotic and always family oriented. Her books have been recommended by USA Today's book blog, Hagerstown Magazine, The Patriot, and several other print venues. She is the founder of the World Literary Café. When she's not writing, Melissa helps authors navigate the publishing industry through her author training programs on Fostering Success.

Melissa has painted and donated several murals to The Hospital for Sick Children in Washington, DC. Her interests include her family, reading, writing, painting, friends, helping others see the positive side of life, and visiting Cape Cod.

Melissa is available to chat with book clubs and welcomes comments and emails from her readers. Visit Melissa on Facebook or her personal website.

Never miss a brand new release, special promotions or inside gossip again by simply signing up to receive your newsletter from Melissa.

Social Media Links -

NEWSLETTER - http://www.melissafoster.com/newsletter

FACEBOOK - https://www.facebook.com/MelissaFosterAuthor

TWITTER - https://twitter.com/Melissa_Foster

WEBSITE - http://www.MelissaFoster.com

FAN CLUB/STREET TEAM - http://www.facebook.com/groups/melissafosterfans

GOODREADS - https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3023973.Melissa_Foster

AMAZON - https://www.amazon.com/Melissa-Foster/e/B002LTT7U2

PINTEREST - https://www.pinterest.com/thinkhappygirl/

GOOGLE PLUS - https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/108038864557679954956/108038864557679954956

INSTAGRAM - https://www.instagram.com/melissafoster_author

FREE BOOKS - www.MelissaFoster.com/LIBFREE

Excerpt

Oh shit. Rick Savage beached his craft, threw his life vest onto the sand, and ran after the woman he’d soaked. He’d been so captivated by the curvaceous blonde that when she’d started to leave, his first instinct had been to stop her. He’d clearly lost his mind. He knew better than to come that close to the jetty or to fishtail near people.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, jogging over as she stepped off the rocks and onto the beach.

She turned, mouth gaping, strands of wet hair stuck to her cheeks, forehead, and shoulders. The most beautiful green eyes stared back at him in shock and horror. He felt like a total ass.

“I’m sorry. I saw you watching me, and—” There was absolutely no excuse for what he’d done, so he went with the truth, no matter how bad it sounded. “I wanted to meet you before you took off.”

“I wasn’t watching you.” Her eyes darted around them, as if someone else might hear her lying.

He cocked a brow.

“Okay, maybe I was for a second. But you were stalking me.” She swiped at her sundress, which clung to her incredibly sexy body like a second skin.

He tried not to leer, but damn…

Forcing his eyes up, he said, “I wasn’t stalking you—”

Her deadpan stare stopped him from telling his own lie.

“Okay, fine,” he said with a laugh. “I was. You caught me. I’m sorry.”

“Does this usually work for you? Drenching unsuspecting women?” she said with a hint of annoyance, and a smile, as she shook the water from her arms. “Not that I’m an expert on being hit on, but it doesn’t seem like the best way to go about it.”

“I’m sure you get hit on all the time, but this wasn’t planned. It was a stupid mistake. It’s actually illegal to go that fast near the jetty, so you can have me arrested if you’d like. I wasn’t thinking. I was—”

She arched a brow, a slight smirk playing across her beautiful face as she tossed his mannerism right back at him.

He felt himself smiling. Man, this woman was as sweet as she was spunky. “What can I say? If you weren’t so hot…”

“So, it’s my fault?” She rolled her eyes. “You really do kind of suck at picking up women.”

The caveman in him grunted, and he squared his shoulders. “I don’t suck at it. I’m actually really good at it. A pro. A master. A champion.”

She laughed. “Sorry, but…” She waved at her wet clothes. “Evidence proves otherwise.”

And I’m about to prove that evidence wrong. “Let me buy you a sweatshirt and something warm to drink at Mac’s so you don’t freeze.” Mac’s was a walk-up restaurant by the Wellfleet Pier, a five-minute drive by car. Less by Jet Ski.

Her eyes rolled over his face, as if she were considering it. He’d never had anything close to a poker face, which meant she saw his remorse and his attraction. At six two, two thirty, he was a big dude, and he kept in prime shape with running and water sports. He was used to women ogling him and practically doing cartwheels to get his attention. She drew in a deep breath, her eyes dropping to his bare chest, and she bit her plump lower lip. “Sexy” didn’t begin to describe the dichotomy of sweet and sultry this woman possessed. But she wasn’t doing cartwheels. In fact, those hungry eyes shifted away from him.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I was getting ready to leave anyway.”

She was blowing him off? There was no way he was letting her leave without doing something to make up for this debacle. Okay, maybe he also wanted to strip away those wet clothes and warm her up. But that was beside the point.

“Are you staying at a cottage on the beach? I can give you a ride on my Jet Ski.”

“As tempting as that sounds, since I’ve never been on one, I have my car.” She pointed to the parking lot with the hand that held her phone, and her smile faded. “Oh, shoot. My phone got wet.”

“I can take care of that.” He took it from her and wiped it on his shorts. She watched his hands, his biceps, his pecs, his shorts, with laser focus. His fish wasn’t off the line yet. “It should be okay now. Want me to put my number in your contacts? In case you change your mind about that drink?”

That brought a curious smile. He noticed the cutest dimple beside her mouth when she smiled. “Does that usually work?”

“No idea. I haven’t had to use that line before.”

He stepped closer, unable to resist brushing a lock of hair that was stuck to her cheek away from her face so he could see her better. Their eyes connected, and the temperature spiked. She must have felt it, too, because she was licking her lips like a hungry tigress. In the next breath, her eyes darted nervously around the beach. Christ, now she looked sweet and innocent. How did she do that in the blink of an eye? Rick was only at the Cape for a few more weeks, working on renovations at the resort before returning to his real life, and design-build business, in Washington, DC. The thoughts running through his mind were not sweet and innocent. He should let his apology ride, get on his Jet Ski, and drive away. But she had his rapt attention, and he was unable to walk away.

“You don’t have to use my number,” he said. “But you never know. Maybe when you’re lying in bed tonight, unable to stop thinking about me, you’ll wish you had it.”

Her cheeks flushed, and those sparkling green eyes moved over his face and down his chest again, lingering long enough to send a stroke of heat to his core.

“Why not?” she said, surprising the hell out of him. “Go ahead and put your number in my phone…?”

“Rick.” He entered his contact information and handed it back, curling his fingers over hers and holding them for a beat.

Her eyes flicked up, dark and alluring. “I’m Desiree,” she said a little breathlessly.

Oh yeah, you feel it, too.

Giveaway: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/81aa78941300

[frobin]

hi, i'm a shy person but to answer your question about how to get more notes on twitter (based from your twitter post), variety of posts and consistency is key. i took a class about electronic media and got some notes about it. feel free to look up about the timing of social media posting too, there's (sometimes) free guides about it on pinterest and reddit. good luck on your goals!

Hey there fellow shy person! 

(for everyone not on twitter, I’ll add screenshots at the end of the post) 

Thank you very much for your words and your tips! I really mean it, so I’m sorry for using your really nice ask to explain myself a bit... Why I even asked those questions. 

I’ll put it under the read-more: 

I try to be consistent (as much as it’s possible) and I try to vary the posts... on the other hand I rarely post my own content because part of the purpose for the twitter (and also this blog) is to collect FRobin posts and to share them with other FRobin fans and to created places to find that content easily. 

That is something I do for almost two years now on Twitter. After one year I had the 100 followers and did a giveaway. To be completely honest I didn’t think I’d gather many more. I really thought I had found them all.

Now after almost two years we’re nearly at 300 followers... Which is amazing. 

Back to consistency, I try not to be inactive for long periods of time... maybe one or two days when RL is too distracting... So there is a flow of FRobin content... it’s not ideal but it is working. Also it’s not a professional Twitter after all. It’s just for fun. 

Anyway, in the beginning I really never worried about the small following. I am used to FRobin fans in particular to be shy (so you’re in very good company, dear anon) that showed through the fact, that the FRobin events rarely had any participation, that not much new fanart or fanfiction appeared within the years. The last few events had maybe a hand full of people participate. This year we had a different situation. We had almost 30 contributions!! 

Compared to other ships and event weeks that is not a lot... but believe me, that is a lot compared to other FRobin events (after 2014 - back then was a first high of the FRobin fandom 2013-2014, caused by BNFs (Big Name Fans)) it is! 

With other words: I always felt like that FRobin fans are there but do not participate in the fandom. Which is fine. Lurking is absolutely fine because it’s hard to write and draw and to step forward, especially since FRobin had gotten a lot of backslash back then (and today) and/or was considered a rare-pair so getting feedback was also rare. 

That suddenly changed in 2020 when two important things happened in the Manga. 

The release of Chapter 979 and 

Colourspread of Chapter 987. 

What really surprised me was how many people stepped forward after “FRobin became canon” in May and August 2020 and started to talk about FRobin. And I’m thinking about people who are internet famous for various reasons not only in the OP fandom but also - again - BNFs that are now associated with FRobin. But it means more content is created and more people claim to be FRobin fans and it is actually nice! We have a FRobin renaissance right now! 

So, I hope it’s understandable how weird it was to me how many people said they actually shipped FRobin even before that moment. Again that is fine. There is no need to be active and to create if you like a ship, but at the same time I couldn’t help myself and wonder “Where have you been while I tried my best to keep everything running? To keep it alive?” (mind you why I call myself a janitor). Like, back in the day I knew all the usernames of people who were creating content, recognizing their style (that is not possible right now, which again is a good thing).  

Then, not everyone is so focused on one single ship (I do ship others but FRobin will for ever be my absolute one OTP to rule them all). 

Anyway what recently made me (again) consider that I might just be bad as Social Media ist the fact that the twitter account FRobinDaily who is posting FRobin pics once per day, got 1000 followers in less than a month. 

And the postings are not tagged. It’s just the pictures. 

How is that possible? My guess, the owner of the account has over 6k of followers on their main account and an amazing art style, which is probably how they got so many followers. They worked hard for it!  

Compared I do have a meager 300 followers on my private account and an average art style at best (ngl I love my art. but I don’t think the style and the motifs hit a mainstream taste) Additionally I try to keep the accounts a bit separated, creating a fake-anonymity. 

(Fake because many people who are active in the fandom, do know who I am. But I always feel like that it would hurt more than help to make it clear. It’s a feeling I just can’t completely shake. Kind of an imposter syndrome.)

Another point that tells me that I’m just bad at Social Media is that other people say that it’s easy to get “clout” with Frobin tweets. That many do like and  react to FRobin tweets... and I don’t understand because that has never been my experience. Not once in all the years. 

Having a specialized Twitter with people following that look for exactly that content, how come that 20 likes is a lot? Is it really because of the time at which I post? Is it because I share more of other peoples tweets than my own? Do I share the wrong kind of content for the people to enjoy? Is it not mine but Twitters fault? Maybe the active FRobin fandom is already declining again? Maybe FRobin still is and forever will be nothing more than a adorable side-ship? 

Who knows? 

I really went here on a tangent and I’m sorry for that but I wanted to show some of the story that made me once more question my own capability and in the end makes it impossible to find answers. 

I can’t even compare notes because the only Fandom I have ever been that involved is FRobin. 

In the end, all I can do is continue, forgetting about numbers and just enjoy the interactions I do get.

But sometimes it’s just hard to remind myself. I’ll get over it though but from time to time, you people just have to suffer through my self-doubts. And I’m sorry about that. 

If you’ve come this far, thank you very much. If you feel worry now, thank you once more but there is no need. I’m absolutely fine. But I wouldn’t mind some FRobin or One Piece commentary or asks ;)

Here are the tweets: 

okay, someone please tell me what I need to do to get 200 notes on a #FRobin post? Here must be something I'm doing wrong... Do I need to post pictures? Gifs? Giveaways? I already tried all that? Twitter is weird... #fandom #OnePiece

I probably have to start fandom wank instead of trying to diffuse it... that it... right? But that is against my nature. ',:^/

On the other hand I like to call myself "the janitor of the #FRobin fandom" never the "CEO of the FRobin fandom" because I don't want to be a CEO. Janitors are way more important but also not exactly "seen". They are just there to clean up a mess and make everything run smoothly.