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sweetmariihs2 · 8 months ago

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Today I found and bought two new Sofia The First magazines in a magazine stand, in a town next to mine. (That's what the post is about) 🪻✨️💗

I live in a small town, I came to the neighboring city (a slightly bigger one; where there is a cinema, adequate medical care and clinics, things that are scarce in my town and everyone comes here when they need one of these things) to do an eyesight exam, because recebtly I've been feeling my vision getting worse. Going to the clinic, I found a magazine stand on the other street, and I asked my family (who were with me) if they could accompany me there later. I did the exam, and I'm still under the influence of the eye drops, so it's been torture to write this text, but I need to tell you what I found. You won't believe it: TWO DIFFERENT EDITIONS OF SOFIA THE FIRST MAGAZINES! THOSE THAT ARE NO LONGER PRODUCED! IN FACT, SEVERAL COPIES OF THEM! There were like, 7 magazines from the same edition, perfectly new, never touched, ON THE FLOOR. (And no, I'm not from Rio De Janeiro, there are a lot of sidewalks with this pattern here in Brazil)

A while ago, I think it was in January, I was wondering if I should also go to this city and look for Sofia The First merch, because in my small town I've already looked at all the stores and there's nothing left to see here (how many, about 4 ? 5? Yes, it really is a small city, I know all these places and you can visit them all in 1 or 2 hours at most, walking down the street, without a car). I found some stickers and birthday invitations, I posted them a while ago, I used them for journaling in my sketchbook.

(@shychick-52 do you see the Donald Duck magazines there?? When I saw them I immediately thought about you, they're on the bottom left of the pic and there's more in the top right. Pato Donald is Donald Duck, Tio Patinhas is Scrooge McDuck's name in Brazil. I don't know a thing about Ducktales, I'm sorry!)

I literally gasped. I was just going there for fun, as I like books, magazines and vintage products like records and CDs, so I really like physical media. Those places full of trinkets are extremely fun for me, and whenever I have the opportunity I like to look at everything, down to the smallest details. I love music and vinyl stores, stationery stores, party stores, haberdashery, so a magazine stand sounds amazing to me too! I hadn't been to one in years! (I never went thrifting in my life. It would be an amazing day to spend an evening)

There weren't only Sofia The First ones, you see, these kinds of magazines aren't produced anymore since kids don't have any interest in them. So most of the children's magazines there were dated around 2012-2016! You don't even have to look for the dates to know that, the Strawberry Shortcake ones, Frozen (FROZEN, DUDE! FROZEN!!!) (In one of my STF magazines there's even an ad of these Frozen magazines, they were produced during the same time), there were Disney Junior ones (If you look closely you can see the Lion Guard cover on that pic where I show you the pile of STF magazines, it's on top of them), Disney Princess, EVEN MONSTER HIGH. I didn't took a pic of this one, but as far as I know, you don't find these anywhere anymore. I felt like going back to 2015, when I was a kid those activity magazines and visiting the magazine stands were extremely fun, the themes on the children's magazines were exactly these, I remember the sticker albums, so many good memories. It makes sense, since they're the same ones, but they were never sold.

Besides the children magazines, they sell mangas, magazines, books, word search and activity books, cooking books, comic books/magazines (superhero themed or not- DC comics, Marvel, but also Disney and national works, for example our beloved Turma Da Mônica), and even toys and stuff.

So I figured maybe I'd find silly things here too, it's a bigger town but after all it's still small, it's just 40 mins away from mine, maybe I could find little birthday hats that I can cut out? Gift bags? Maybe stickers and coloring kits, silly things. Of course, knowing about the magazine stands there, something that my hometown NO LONGER has, inside of me had a small amount of hope that I could find something, but not much, as I live in the rural/interior part of Brazil and many products are bootleg, you know those princess books with wonky faces written "princess coloring book"? Stuff like that. But there was still a shred of hope, despite knowing that there probably wouldn't be anything interesting. I just went there because I have fun searching for little things.

AND WHEN I GOT THERE.... THE MAGAZINES WERE JUST THERE. AT THE ENTRANCE. ON THE ?!?!?!?!? FLOOR?!??!??! (You can see the pic up there) ON THE DIRTY SIDEWALK FULL OF DIRT AND DUST AND ALL KINDS OF NASTY THINGS?!??! HELL NAH

It was like they were just waiting for me to get them, they were the first things that I saw. I KNEW THAT I WOULD FIND SOMETHING. In fact, as I always hope to find cool things in these stores I frequent, I always expect something. I'm usually disappointed, but I always try to find it. AND THIS TIME I FOUND IT. NOT ONE, NOT TWO, BUT LIKE A DOZEN of STF magazines from the same edition, still packaged AND WITH THE GIFT. ALL OF THEM.

As my parents had work to do in our town and needed to return, I had to look at everything quickly. Luckily the magazine stand was small, so I was able to look at a few things, and while the attendant (who seemed bored (thankfully, the fact that she was very slow gave me time to look a little more)) served other customers (she was slow with them too, which gave me more time thank god), I continued looking at all sides of the stand, observing every small detail to look for treasures. If there were several copies of an issue of Sofia The First magazine still packed there, then there must have been more, hidden behind that enormous amount of information. I didn't had enough time because my parents needed to go back home, but I wish I could have saw the content from the Disney Junior magazines. I opened it and looked through the pages, only the last two pages were about Sofia The First, but I still had a lot to look so I put it back and went to search for more.

That's the one I got, the edition I mentioned

12 brazillian reais are worth around 2,50 dollars. For us, in talks about value, it would be like- 5 dollars? Not too cheap like literal 2 dollars, it's like, a cheap price, but not that much. For us, I mean. I don't know if you get what I mean, my explanation was terrible

Before, as we were late for the exam and the whole family was going (we all went to take the exam) I only took with me my cellphone and headphones, I didn't bring my money or even a purse or a backpack. My father bought me the magazine, I got so happy. Actually, he just let me have it and gave me the money, so I went to the attendant. The magazines had an elastic band around to secure them, as you can see in the pic, and I took them to the girl and asked for her help to get one out. As I'm used to being very friendly, and I was very happy, I approached the girl, asked for her help, and as she got them out of the elastic band, I kept talking "I can't believe I found this!! They are no longer produced, they are rare items, and I'm collecting them! I didn't think I would find anything like this here, it definitely made my day." I noticed that the attendant wasn't very friendly back, in fact she was very quiet and seemed a little bored, but I didn't care, I was too happy to worry about judgement looks from people I don't know, at least I was friendly and I did my part. My young brother later told me that when I turned my back she looked confused and shrugged, perhaps thinking "to each their own, right?". She went to serve the other customers and in the meantime I continued to look through the magazines, hoping to find more.

Important detail: I still had eye drops, my pupils were extremely dilated and I could see nearby objects blurred, so searching thoroughly was very difficult. Imagine looking at all that information without being able to see things closer than 1m from you. I'm still convinced I didn't manage to look at everything. I found more Disney Princess magazines (dated in 2014? 2015? somewhere around that) and that's when I saw it. I literally had to crouch down to look at the magazines in the lower sections of the shelf, they were stacked and they covered each other, and when I saw the Sofia The First logo I quickly grabbed it. IT WAS ANOTHER EDITION - A FLOATING PALACE THEMED ONE. Unfortunately this time it was out of the packaging, and I have no idea if someday there was even a gift with it, but I don't care, it was amazing to find this.

That's the Disney Princess magazines I was talking about! In that first pic I took, at the start of the post, you can see a Belle themed one. The Ariel themed magazine looks so old that the paint is stained and started to fade (it was in the front showcase while the other ones were carefully placed inside the stand), thankfully the STF ones were brand new. Well, almost.

Now that I'm home and I'm already seeing a little better, I'm gonna show you the magazines. Not all of them unfortunately, because a post only supports 10 pics and each magazine has 15/20+ pages so like... yeah. I wanna scan them and put them in a Google drive folder, or at least post a video about them in my YouTube channel, but that's more unlikely. If I had all of them, definitely, but I don't think it's worth recording a video if it's not with all the issues, don't you think? Anyway.

What's written in the first one: The Queen's Birthday Party! (This one came with the necklace)

In the second one: Sofia's vacation!

Let's take a closer look at the necklace

I'm fighting the urge to use it. I really want to use that tag in my sketchbook and the charm of the necklace in something like a keychain, but I cann'ttt bring myself to destroy something that is not produced anymoreeee😭😭😭

In the Floating Palace magazine, there is not even a single page where the sea monster is in. Not even a single one.

But in the "Queen's Birthday Party" one, there are three pages where Cedric is in! Yayy!!! They did him justice!!!

If anyone's curious about Miranda's birthday party, it's a comic and someone already posted it on Tumblr. Here is the link.

You know, that "Queen's Birthday Party" it's very exclusive, I don't remember the show having any episode like this, and the next activities in the magazine talk about the vacation they did in the comic and also the birthday party. Besides that, we have a lot of activities related to Tilly and family, and the main arts and crafts activity from this magazine is making a family tree. I believe that this magazine's topic is family.

I can't show you all the pages, but at least I can publish the pages Cedric is in and add more stuff to my Cedric merch masterlist (and personal research)

Well at least he's there. I have seen this art around like 20 times but they remembered that Cedric is a Sofia The First character so that's good I guess

They did him dirty here

AND THIS!!!! THIS ABSOLUTELY THIS!!! MY FAVORITE ONE!!!1!1!!!1!1!!1

YOU GUYS DON'T KNOW HOW LOUD I GASPED, WHEN I TELL YOU THAT I ALMOST STARTED JUMPING AND SCREAMING "YIPEE YIPEEE"

I'll translate it to you this time, so you can understand how I'm feeling right now

✨️Translation:✨️

Enchancia Castle

Title: Fraternal Bonds

Before leaving, Aunt Tilly gives her brother a big hug. Which pairs of siblings do you know from Sofia's world? Mark the correct pairs below.

THAT IS SO AAARRRGGGAGGAGAVVSGGSBBAVSGJ💖💖😭💗💞💗💞😭💞😭💗😭💞😭💖💗💖

I KNOW THAT CEDRIC AND SOFIA ARE THE WRONG OPTION, BUT I CAN'T. THAT IS SO CUTE I MIGHT EXPLODE I DON'T KNOW

that's what we had for today, I reached the 10 image per blog limit as always, no one's surprised

#sofia the first #sofia the fandom #merch #magazine #stf magazine #cedric the sorcerer #cedric the great #cedric the sensational #queen miranda #king roland #prince james #princess amber #baileywick #aunt tilly #oona

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brighter-by-the-daly · 2 years ago

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Millie Bright x Reader

Part One: Triggered

Posted 05/04/23 : Edited 27/06/23

AN - I wrote this after a dream I had last night sparked the initial concept. I woke up midway through and didn’t want the story to end as Millie being mean so had to finish it. Based on my own struggles with ADHD and Autism and judging by this dream I’m a bit anxious about the game next week!

A text came through to your phone “mate, Millie is such a bitch she keeps giving me evils and barely even talking to anyone, it’s so awkward!” with a photo taken on the sly. “Omfg Millie’s there?! Get her to sign something for me pleeeease!” you replied. “Fat chance of that! She’s well stuck up!” “I don’t care, I love her!!!” was the last text you sent to your friend. He had won a chance to be at an open training session for Chelsea, he’d asked you to go with him but you had tickets for the England game tonight. Millie was injured so you didn’t expect her to be at either event but here you were with a photo in your hand showing she was at Chelsea rather than supporting her national team vs Brazil tonight.

You had met up with your friends earlier in the day who live around the corner to the stadium, his mum had made dinner and passed you a plate. It was a lovely sunny day and Mack’s mum was the type of person to have the front door open at all hours of the day. You perched on the door step watching the fans trickle towards the stadium, munching happily away at the bbq chicken when you heard the garden gate click open and shut. Looking up to see the familiar blonde figure approaching the house. Gobsmacked at who it was and why she was there you moved your body to the side so she could enter the house. “Millie! I didn’t think you were coming, I just gave your plate to (y/n)!” your friend’s mum called from the kitchen. Feeling a shift in her positioning behind you, you looked up to see the defender towering over you “I’m assuming you’re (y/n)?” she snapped. Yes, that was me. The bitch eating Millie Bright’s chicken, of course that could only happen to me. “Do you want some? I’m not gonna eat all of this anyway” your words quickly exiting your mouth in panic and becoming more frantic when she nodded in a ‘well duh’ sort of way as she opened her mouth. Screwing up your face in confusion “y-you want me to uh“ stabbing your fork into a piece of crispy chicken as Millie rolled her eyes and nodded again. Lifting your fork to towards her mouth you were obviously shaking and accidentally smeared bbq sauce on her cheek. You felt the mood lift a little when she chuckled wiping her mouth as you passed her the plate to avoid anymore mishaps. Your friend went inside to wash up leaving a space next to you on the door step where Millie plopped herself down, her knee grazing yours. “How’s the injury?” you asked trying to make small talk “I’m not allowed to say” she replied bluntly still shovelling food into her mouth like she hadn’t eaten in days.

“Guys we should probably leave soon” you called through to your friends in the lounge. “Why? Kick off isn’t for another hour yet” Millie scoffed at you “because I get anxious” you responded honestly “why? It’s just football” she sneered like you’re an alien species. “I just like to know I’m on time” your friends knew your AuDHD traits come out the most when there is a set timed thing to do. Like football. You liked to be there early so you could find your seats without an overwhelming amount of people staring at you arriving. You found comfort in knowing you wouldn’t have to tell people they were in your seats and you could relax knowing you were in the right place. You’d never been to this stadium before and new places triggers your anxiety. “You don’t need to worry about that” she muttered between mouthfuls “gee thanks, I’m cured” sarcastically rolling your eyes at her ignorance as you rose from the step and entered the house to move away from her. Maybe your friend was right, she is a bitch!

An hour passed before you actually left, you were now a nervous mess and on the brink of a meltdown. Millie lead you and your friends down an ally to a gate you hadn’t seen when looking up the maps online. You fell behind your friends as you rushed to find the tickets on your phone and missed the email containing them. “I can only find two guys!” you called out to the group in panic “slow down, I can’t find the other two!” you pleaded. “You don’t need tickets you’re with me, put your phone away” Millie sniped at you. This game you were so looking forward to now made you want to leave and go home, everything was wrong and nothing like you had planned for weeks. Millie handed over her pass to a steward as you were frantically trying to find the other tickets, your friend noticed, pushed your lock button and gestured for you to put your phone away with no explanation. You stood there wondering what the hell was happening until you heard the steward “5 yeah? All good.” With that, the others started to shuffle you inside and to seats that weren’t the ones you had carefully chosen when booking them. To be fair, they were really good seats just above the dug outs and in front of a box but you couldn’t help feeling on edge knowing these weren’t actually your seats, worrying someone’s going to come at any moment and tell you to move. Millie sat down next to you with her huge England puffer jacket encroaching on your personal space, hearing every squeak of the fabric against the chair and the rustling against your body, you had never felt more uncomfortable.

Noticing you were stimming - your foot tapping and fiddling with your thumb ring Millie heavily placed her hand onto your thigh making your leg stop shaking instantly. “What’s wrong?” she asked moving her hood so you could see her face “nothing” you shook your head violently trying to stop her from asking anymore questions. You were trying so hard not to have a meltdown and anymore questions might push the tears you were trying desperately to hide out of your eyes and you wanted nothing more than for her not to witness this. You’d looked up to the defender since you were young and thought meeting her would be like a dream but today had been nothing short of a nightmare. She’d hit all your triggers without realising you had any and you were really struggling to hide your contempt. “Tell me” she said forcefully. Staring out to the pitch you thought deeply about what to say but it all came blurting out like a car crash of words leaving your mouth. “I have ADHD and Autism, I’ve never been to this stadium before so had looked up all the maps and knew what time to get here so I could find my seats, I always feel like someone will be sat in them and I’d have to have an awkward conversation to get them to move, The Lionesses are my special interest and I was so looking forward to this day but you changed all the plans and it’s been a lot to deal with. I like being on an aisle so I don’t feel trapped, I wanted to watch the warm ups, I hate being late and your jacket is so noisy it’s making me want to throw something at you.” Your words left your mouth in one extremely long sentence barely making time to breath, your monotone voice wasn’t raised just sad that nothing had turned out right. Millie stared blankly at you like everything you had just said flew straight over her head. You couldn’t help that you felt uncomfortable, your friends knew what triggers you and should have been more understanding to all these plans changing. One thing you could have dealt with but this.. this was a lot.

“Do you drink tea?” the blonde asked you after a long awkward silence, nodding gently she asked how you have it then rose from her seat and entered the box, re-emerging with a cup in her hand. “Sit in this one” she gestured to the seat she was in before which was on an aisle and passed the cup to you; instantly feeling a little relief as the warmth spread through your hands. Hearing the zipper of her coat undo she took it off and started to put it around your shoulders. “What are you doing?” you asking while trying to shrug it off, “trust me, it’s a like a big safety bubble, put it on” she nodded smiling as encouragement. Feeling the warmth around your body and the weight of the coat acting like your blanket at home you sunk into your seat, your heart rate returning to normal and your eyes were no longer acting like dams for your tears. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realise” her words sounding sincere “why would you? I have to work very hard to appear like everyone else, to seem normal. Nobody would know unless I told them or I suddenly snapped. They’d just see me flip out over one tiny thing without recognising all of the other things that had lead me to snap” you said looking down at your cup. “I get it, trust me” she smiled. With that the teams walked out onto the pitch - immediately making you happy again. Millie took hold of your hand and held it between hers on her lap. It’s like she had heard you and understood exactly what you needed - to feel safe.

Part Two

#millie bright #millie bright x reader #woso masterlist #woso x reader

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ariel-seagull-wings · 2 years ago

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FICTIONAL CHARACTER ASK: BIG BIRD

Asked by @princesssarisa and @amalthea9

@thealmightyemprex @angelixgutz @softlytowardthesun @the-blue-fairie @themousefromfantasyland @goodanswerfoxmonster

Favorite Thing About Them: How sincerely curious, sweet and innocent he is! There is nothing ironic in his personality, he is always genuine about his feelings and his desires to do good and befriend other people, all this balanced with a dificulty to deal with frustration and anger and craving for attention, wich avoids that the character becomes "too perfect", while still continuing to be a simpathetic and wholesome figure to wich anyone can confide on. Also, is fascinating how universal he has become that his name and design could change depending on the culture of the country to where the program's format was sold, while the core personality is always the same: a child with the desire to learn.

Least Favorite Thing About Them: Probably that backstage, Carol Spinney founded very phisically tyring to play both Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch and the Count, wich in the proccess reduced the character's appearances so Elmo had to fill most of the program. The makers should think better to divide the roles between actors so to avoid this kind of exaustion situation.

Three Things I Have In Common With Them:

*I am curious to learn new things;

*I have dificulty to deal with frustration;

*I could find the behaviour and rules of the adults around me a bit weird.

Three Things I Don't Have In Common With Them:

*I am not good at drawing like he is;

*I don't have his sweet mellow voice;

*I am not a bird.

Favorite Line:

From his cameo in The Muppet Movie

"I'm on my way to New York City to try to break into public television"

brOTP: Cookie Monster, Grover, Oscar the Grouch, Bert and Ernie, Elmo, Snuffy and Bel.

OTP: No one, he is too young

nOTP: Any of the adults who are his parental figures.

Random Headcanon: When he grows up, he will become a professional of education and will be the co-creator of an educational children's public television show inspired by his childhood adventures and friends back in Sesame Street.

Unpopular Opinion:

Not much an opinion, but a needed correction of a bit of misinformation that circled here on Tumblr for a while:

In Brazil, Big Bird (named Garibaldo in the dub) only was blue in the 70s version of the show, where the channels Rede Globo and TV Cultura bought the rights of the show's format, naming it Vila Sesamo in the translation, while making a different design for the puppets and shooting original footage with brazilian actors.

Then the show was rebooted, this time only by TV Cultura, for a new generation of brazilian children in 2007, with the Big Bird character still named Garibaldo, but now with the yellow design of the american equivalent, who in the brazilian original footage interacts with a brazilian original character puppet character named Bel and interviews brazilian entertainers, while some sketches are dubbed american footage for the characters of Kermit, Elmo, Groger, Cookie Monster and Bert and Ernie.

Yeah, basically we did a Power Rangers with this editing trick.

So yeah, the so called brazilian cousin of Big Bird was only blue in the 70s. Nowadays, he is yellow and just like his american cousin.

Song I Associate With Them:

The openings of the brazilian version of Sesame Street, called Vila Sesamo here

First the one from 1972

youtube

Them the opening of the reboot that started in 2007

youtube

Favorite Picture of Them:

Stills of the American Version

During the 70s version of the brazilian Vila Sesamo, with the original character of Gugu (played by a man in a green puppet) who never leaved the barril, and the humans Juca (Armando Bogus), his wife Gabriela (Aracy Balabanian), the teacher Ana Maria (future international film star Sônia Braga) and her boyfriend Antônio (Flávio Galvão)

During the modern version of Vila Sesamo, with Bel

#fictional character ask #character ask meme #sesame street #big bird #tumblr mutuals #replied #answered #Youtube

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zedecksiew · 3 years ago

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Kriegsmesser

When I received Kriegsmesser in the mail I finally googled "kriegsmesser", and found out it meant "war knife". Which makes sense; Gregor Vuga's ZineQuest 2021 project is a tribute to "roleplaying games named after medieval weapons".

I love Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay's piss-renaissance Old World setting. I tend to pick up WFRP-a-likes sight unseen:

Warlock (quality);

Small But Vicious Dog (yesss);

Zweihander (which I have come to hate); etc.

Anyway: I backed Kriegsmesser without really knowing anything about it. So Kriegsmesser surprised me.

Kriegsmesser grew out of a Troika! cutting. Its 36 backgrounds are compatible with that system: each come with a couple of lines of description; a list of skills and possessions; an a visual cameo cropped from actual 16th-Century woodcut art.

Cohesive and competently flavourful. My favourite is the Labourer, who always starts with "an empty pine box":

"You've spent your life breaking your back, working hard for other people's profit. You have nothing to show for it but a spectre of the future."

(The obligatory ratcatcher-analogue , called the Vermin Snatcher, is here -- check that box!)

Kriegsmesser also comes with its own ruleset. Hits all the notes it needs to, with lots of orientation and advice for how to run a game -- but ultimately super-simple, mechanically:

Roll d6s equal to the value in a relevant skill, look at the highest result. 6 means you get what you want; 5 or 4 means you get what you want, at a cost.

It's not quite a dice pool, since only the highest result matters. No opposed tests.

Kriegsmesser intends to have this base mechanic handle fights, too. The combat rules - with armour, toughness and weapon values -- are nested in an optional section.

For a WFRP-a-like, this feels like a purposeful departure.

Many of WFRP's most celebrated adventures are celebrated for bits that their underlying ruleset does little to support: the investigative structure of "Shadows Over Bogenhafen"; the complicated timetable of "Rough Night At Three Feathers".

Ludwig von Wittgenstein never needed a statblock to be memorable.

Not to say that lethal, hyper-detailed fights isn't super Warhammer-y. (Kriegsmesser includes an injury table, broken down by body-part -- check that box!)

But here it feels like Gregor is saying: "I'm not Games Workshop and Roleplay isn't an ancillary of Warhammer Fantasy Battle; we can evoke grim-and-perilous-ness even if we fork away from heavy combat rules."

It has become ritual for me to read my partner Sharon to sleep.

Sometimes I read her RPG things. The other night, after I read her Kriegsmesser's introduction --

" The Empire wages an eternal war against Chaos. Its priests preach of Chaos as an intrusion, something unnatural ... These men see Chaos in anything that does not buttress their rule. They call it disorder, anarchy, corruption. They say that to rebel against their order is to rebel against god and nature. That the current arrangement is natural, rather than artificial.

" Meanwhile, the common people look to the Empire to deliver the justice that they were promised and they find none. They look to the Empire and do not see themselves reflected in it. They look around at what they were taught was right and good and see only misery.

" Their world begins to unravel. Chaos comes to reside in every heart and mind sound enough to look at the world and conclude it is broken. "

-- Sharon remarked: "Nice one."

The RPG things I read her generally leave Sharon lukewarm. She has enjoyed a couple -- but, yeah: for many of these books, text isn't their strong point.

Kriegsmesser is the only time I can recall Sharon praising the writing of an RPG book without my prompting.

Nice one.

That introduction surprised me. It underlines Kriegsmesser's biggest departure from its WFRP-a-like pedigree: how it characterises Chaos.

Corruption, a mainstay of most grim-dark-y games, is made an optional rule, like combat. Explaining this, Gregor writes:

" Kriegsmesser partially subverts or deconstructs the traditional conceit of Warhammer where the characters are threatened by the forces of Chaos. In this game it is the player characters who are the agents of 'Chaos': they are likely to become the 'rats' under the streets, and the wild 'beast-men' in the woods bringing civilisation down. It's the Empire and its nobles and priests that are corrupt ... "

Describing the Empire, Gregor writes:

" The Empire encompasses the world yet is terrified of the without. It enforces itself with steel and fire yet considers itself benevolent. It consumes the labour of others with bottomless hunger yet calls its subalterns lazy, or wasteful, or greedy. "

Holy shit this is the first time I've seen the word "subaltern" in an RPG thing, I think?

I love this.

Rant incoming:

With every passing decade Warhammer abridges its Moorcockian roots more and more; nowadays it is "Order = Good" and "Chaos = Evulz", pretty much.

Gone are the days when chaos berserkers are implied to grant safe passage to the helpless (because Khorne is as much a god of martial honour as he is a god of bloodletting); Or that the succor of Papa Nurgle is a genuine comfort to the downtrodden; Or that Tzeentch could unironically embody the principle of hope, of change for the better.

As Chaos is distilled into unequivocal villainy, Order goons get painted as Good Guys by default --

Giving rise to Warhammer's contemporary problem, wherein fans are no longer able to recognise satire.

When I was introduced to 40K, it seemed pretty clear that the Imperium was a Brazil-esque absurdist-fascist bureaucratic state: planets are exterminatus-ed due to clerical error; the way it stamps out rebellions is the reason why rebellions begin in the first place.

Tragi-comic grimdarkness. That was the point.

Nowadays that tone has shifted -- and you're more likely than not going to encounter a 40K fan who argues that the Imperium's evils are a justified necessity, to prevent worse wrongs.

We went from:

"Space Nazis because insane dumbass fuckery, also chainswords vroom vroom rule of badass!"

To:

"Space Nazis because it makes sense actually, and also chainswords make sense because [insert convoluted rationalisation here]."

Even Fantasy Flight's Black Crusade line, which ostensibly offers a look at 40K from the perspective of Chaos, never truly commits to its conceit.

With prep you could play a heroic band of mutant freedom fighters, resisting the tyranny of the Evil Imperium --

But I don't remember Black Crusade giving that kind of campaign any actual support. Its supplements service the relatively more conventional "You can play villains!" angle; the Screaming Vortex is a squarely Daemons-vs-Daemons setting.

This tonal drift culminates, in my mind, with Age of Sigmar, Games Workshop's heroic-fantasy replacement of the old WFRP / WHFB setting.

Here's the framing narrative for AoS's recently-launched Third Edition. Let's see whether I've got things right:

A highly professionalised, technologically-superior tip-of-the-spear fighting force (the Stormcast Eternals);

Backed by an imperialist military-industrial complex (Azyrheim);

"Liberating" rich new territories (Ghur) for exploitation by a civilised settler culture (Settlers of Sig-- I mean, Free Cities);

Justified because the locals are irredeemable heathens (Chaos and Kruleboyz).

I mean, that's a sweet-ass Warhammer setting. It's contemporary, laser-guided lampoon. Except it is played totally straight.

In AoS, a literal crusade is justified as the moral good.

I think Kriegsmesser surprised me because its framing of Chaos -- as a promise, as the light of hope shining through cracks of a broken world --

It feels so fucking right.

Yes: its a subaltern deconstruction of the conventional moral universe of Warhammer -- but it is a take that is also already implied / all but supported in the various depictions of the setting: from WFRP to the modified title-crawl of Black Crusade.

I'm annoyed I didn't think of it, myself. Damn you, Gregor!

And I'm annoyed that more Warhammer fans aren't thinking it, also.

lmagine if Kriegsmesser's perspective stood on equal standing as the GW orthodoxy. Imagine if, instead of simplifying stuff into "Order = Good" and "Chaos = Evulz", GW did a Gregor Vuga.

You'd have a Rashomon-ed Warhammer, where villainy depends on perspective:

You are fearful villagers, huddled around your priest, muttering prayers against the wild braying coming from the trees beyond your gates.

You are Aqshyian tribeswomen, defying the thunder warrior towering over you, the foreigner demanding you bow to his foreign god.

You are a Tzeentchian revolutionary cell, desperately trying to disrupt a Inquisitor's transmissions so your home planet isn't destroyed by fascist orbital fire.

Get Kriegsmesser HERE.

+++

( Image sources: https://theenemywithinremixed.wordpress.com/2021/05/21/thoughts-on-the-4e-death-on-the-reik/ https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/59-brazil https://www.deviantart.com/faroldjo/art/Warhammer-40k-Black-Crusade-273596035 https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/06/09/fancy-a-new-life-bringing-order-to-the-mortal-realms-join-a-dawnbringer-crusade-today/ https://www.nme.com/blogs/the-movies-blog/team-america-15-anniversary-south-park-2558750 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palestinian_children_and_Israeli_wall.jpg )

#reviews #kriegsmesser #gregor vuga #warhammer #writing #rants #overthinking #rpgs #wfrp

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14ehertzog-blog · 2 years ago

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1. "On 3 or after 3?""Not this again." made me LOL 2. "Ashlyn's boyfriend!" "My friend first." 😂😂😂 3. I love the Caswen friendship 4. That's right Ricky. Where IS Gina? 5. OK BUT I WANNA KNOW THE CAMP NICKNAMES!! 6. SIR READ THE SCRIPT PLEASE 7. Happy birthday 😢 8. Emmy is adorable 🥲 9. MISS JEN IS MOTHER 10. This Is Me made me oddly emotional 😢😭 11. ELTON 12. Jet calling himself a theatre kid! 13. Really really unpopular opinion but I've never liked Nini 14. Aww Kourtney 😢😭😭 15. ANXIETY DOES NOT GO AWAY IN A NIGHT 16. Carlos is adorable 🥲 17. INNNN SUMMMMERRRRRR 18. ARE THEY BREAKING UP?!?! 19. Alex and Kourtney 😢😭 20. AWWW BIGGIE!!!! 21. YOU GOT THIS KOURTNEY!!!!! 22. CHANNING 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬 23. Those spotlights would make me more nervous TBH 24. YAAAAASSSS QUEEEENNN!!!! 25. LOVE BADASS GINA 26. SO PROUD OF KOURTNEY!!!! 27. PUNCH CHANNING 28. SIR IF YOU BREAK GINA'S HEART AGAIN OVER NINI YOU AND I ARE GOING TO FIGHT 29. Born to be Brave!!! 30. I may not like Nini but I love her and Kourtney's friendship. It's so genuine. 31. So I know Olivia Rodrigo left but they really made it seem like she was going to stay. 32. LOVE BADASS RICKY 33. Kristoff's Lulably!!!! 34. "You've gone and changed it kid" 😢😭😭😭 35. Good for EJ standing up for himself!! 36. HE HUNG UP?!?!?! SIR WE ARE GOING TO FIGHT!!! 37. I'M PROUD OF YOU EJ!! 😭😭😭 38. Again, love the Caswen friendship 39. Might sound harsh but bye Nini 40. "So much talent at East so I'm going to go West" gives me "can't handle sharing the spotlight/attention" vibes 41. Maddox looks awesome honestly 42. NOT CORBIN CALLING HER JESSICA 😂😂😂🤣🤣 43. BYE CHANNING 44. NOT EVERYBODY SCREAMING WILDCATS WHEN HALF OF THE DON'T EVEN GO THERE 😂😂😂🤣🤣 45. Which now that I've said that, reminds me of mean girls. iykyk 46. Corbin singing is *chef's kiss* 47. Awww they're signing their names :') 48. I feel like EJ signing "Elton" and not "EJ" was him accepting that he's an adult now. 49. Every day was done beautifully 50. I just love seeing everyone having so much fun 51. TRENDING IN BRAZIL 52. Yay a lotto ticket!!! 53. Gina you looked a lil jealous🤨 54. Ohh ok we're doing a time jump 55. EVERYONE LOOKS AMAZING 56. Also lowkey concerned about the "wearing Kourtney Greene" & "it's Kourtney. No last name" difference 57. "You're watching Disney+" 😂😂🤣. Also showing my age here but I thought he did it wrong because I was thinking about Disney Channel, not Disney+ 58. I'm almost willing to bet "You think you know someone" was about EJ cuz that's her outfit from 3x05 59. Hello Val 😂 60. Don't ever change Ricky 🥲🥲 61. Maddox x Ashlyn!! I love Maddox's reaction 😂😂 62. IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE CRASH THAT CARLOS IS WITH?!?!?! 63. NOT WHOEVER THAT GUY IS (i'm going with Crash) ADJUSTING HIS CLOTHES!!! WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY DISNEY?!?!?! 64. "This is not what I signed up for" 😂 65. No editing was needed for Jet. Love the sibling energy from Maddox 😂😂🤣 66. Ricky just looking cute and smiling adorably for the camera 😂 67. BIGGIE!!!! 68. I feel like he did that so publicly so that Ashlyn wouldn't feel alone. 69. But also SIR WHY ARE YOU EVEN IN THE DOC?!?! 70. "Good for him" 😂 71. EJ WAS RESTRAINING HIMSELF 😂 72. Does that mean 3x05 was a fake slap? I could never tell 73. Awww "You're my brother" can't say it enough, LOVE THE CASWEN FRIENDSHIP🥲🥲🥲🥲 74. RINA?!?!?! 75. IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING?!?!?!?!?!? 76. GIRL HOW DID YOU NOT SEE IT COMING?!?! 77. "You aren't a maybe. You're a yes" 😢😢😭😭😭😭😭😭 excuse me while i freak out 78. I hear you in the background Rina cue 79. BOY YOU BETTER STOP HER!!!!! 80. WAIT?!?!?!?!? 81. OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 82. RINA CUE IS SCREAMING NOW!!!! 83. SIS GRABBED HIS FACE!!! AS A QUEEN SHOULD!!!!!!! 84. "Don't get me started" 😢😢😭😭 SIR PLEASE DO CUZ I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR ALL ABOUT IT 85. Also does that mean everyone has to come back into the room when the trailer premiers? Cuz that's hella awkward. 86. I'm dying. I'm deceased. ☠️☠️☠️☠️

Now that I've had a few days I just wanted to share this:

It was nice looking at everyone's names!

#rina #ricky x gina #hsmtmts #hsmtmts s3 #way too many thoughts

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royallyprincesslilly · 4 years ago

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Title: Healthy Competition***

Regé-Jean Page x Reader x Trevor Noah

Warning: Cursing. SMUT. Threesome. NSFW AT ALL. DP. Oral.

Words: 5k

Summary: Non-Covid world. End of Summary.

Note: I cannot be stopped. This is my first dip into either of these two on here. I tried to talk myself out of this, but I have no self-control. This is probably an acquired taste, but fuck it, I wrote this for my sanity.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy this.

If you enjoyed this, please, LIKE, COMMENT, REBLOG ❤️❤️

**Loosely Edited/Proofread**

**Slightly Interactive**

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

“A toast to Regé, our good friend who we’re out celebrating tonight. Every guy should hide their girlfriends tonight because Mr. Steal your girl has arrived,” Trevor teased.

Regé snorted and dropped his head back, laughing at his friend of almost ten years. He was absolutely ridiculous.

“Mate, you think you’re hilarious, don’t you?”

Trevor shrugged, “I mean, I am the comedian here, so--.”

He shook his head. “You’re not a very good one,” he teased back.

“Well, your tastes are slightly askew than the rest of the world. You are British after all,” Trevor quipped, making him and their shared friends bust out laughing.

“Oh, shut up. You’re the only one who has a problem with me being British, though we all know my Zimbabwean side would outperform your watered-down South African any day. The ladies prefer full strength over all else,” he slid home.

Trevor laughed loudly, slinking to the side as he snickered. He knew he had him but knew Trevor would have some comeback. This was their usual banter.

“Why do I smell a wager coming on? I feel like you’re saying you can get any woman in here to choose you over me.”

He knocked back his drink with a smile. “Maybe I am saying it.”

He watched Trevor gulp down his drink as their friends looked at each other with a cautious eye.

“All right, enough. Y'all remember the last time this happened,” Adam interjected.

“The last time? How about every time,” Marcus added before he took a sip from his glass.

“Remember that girl in Brazil, that one we met on Ipanema Beach, she owned the beach shack,” Adam reminded.

He remembered, and a few seconds after he did, he saw when Trevor did. His snickers returned.

“There was nothing wrong there,” Trevor pointed out.

“Yeah, because you won, proceeded to rub it in all night.”

“You couldn’t even bother to close the door of the shack. You just wanted me to hear her,” he said, shaking his head as the memory washed over him.

They’d gone back and forth with her all night. Each of them laid their game out, charmed her, put in their best work. He went to grab them all another round of beers and came back, and her small shack was shaking as her moans filled the night sky. Trevor’s laugh brought him out of his thoughts, making him roll his eyes.

“See, that’s why we’re not doing this,” Marcus finished.

“You’re not still salty about that, Regé, are you?”

He shook his head and raised his hands. “Not at all. you win some, and lose some.”

“One day, the two of you are going to pull this on someone who will make you two the competition,” Adam professed, making he and Trevor laugh.

“It’s not like we swindle anyone, there is consent, and everyone knows what to expect and not expect,” he threw out as he stood.

“Where you going?”

“Refill,” he said, holding his glass up to show its empty state.

He walked out of their section of the VIP area toward the VIP bar slipping through the crowd, making sure to not bump into anyone. When he was mere steps from the bar, someone bumped him from behind, sending him lunging forward, knocking into the back of someone else. He heard a gasp and automatically thought he’d spilled someone’s drink. Sliding beside the stranger, he leaned closer.

“I’m so sorry.”

You turned to him, pulling an oversized candy cane from your mouth. Instantly his eyes dropped to your mouth and that candy cane that slowly revealed itself to be several inches long. When he clocked that it was about seven inches or so that you’d pulled out of your mouth, he lost every single thing he was thinking, even his bloody name.

“Mmm, almost went too far,” you said, with a smile before you put the tip of the candy cane into your mouth. He instantly wanted to put something too far.

He watched you raise your glass to your lips before you put it back to the bar’s surface, and in went the candy cane. He was speechless, and it was something that rarely happened.

“Uh—I’m—sorry.”

You smirked and swiveled the stool to face him again and perched the candy cane to the side of your plump painted lips, and spoke. “You said that already.”

The way the red, white, and green colors of the candy cane looked with your lipstick made him wonder how other things looked with it. Clearing his throat, he looked away to behind the bar where all the bottles of liquor rested. He wasn’t trying to decide on what he wanted to drink. He was trying to gain some composure.

He heard your snort beside him. “Cat got your tongue?”

He looked to you, zeroed in on your eyes, and rose a brow. “What’s got your tongue?”

You smiled slowly, then pulled out that damned candy cane making your lips make that juicy puckered kiss sound.

“This candy cane at the moment.”

You stared at him as if silently daring him to say something to it. He smiled and nodded his head. “You brought a candy cane to a club?”

“It came with the drink,” you said, bringing the confection to the red-tinted liquid before you.

He watched you stir the liquid and return the candy cane to its rightful place—against your tongue for you to lick it slowly. He didn’t know what the hell was wrong with him. It was a damn candy cane.

“What can I get you?”

Before he could speak, you did.

“You look like a fun guy no matter what that crisp accent says. May I?”

He studied you for a few moments, then shrugged before he motioned for you to go ahead. You trailed the candy cane along your bottom lip as you looked over the bottles that lined the wall. You looked like you were in deep thought, and he made a note of how adorable you looked with your perfectly crinkled eyebrows, pursed lips, and fist resting on your jaw.

“Okay, I just need to know two things,” you began.

He smirked and sat on the stool next to you. “And what is that?”

You turned to him again. The crossing of your legs brought his eyes down to see the tempting split in the dress you wore. The luster of your skin raised the temptation he was feeling. He imagined how his hand looked on your body. It was the wrong thought at the wrong time because it made it impossible for him to look into your eyes again. He did, though, and when he did, he saw the mischievous glint in your eyes. He knew then, you were dangerous.

“Your name and favorite color.”

“Why my favorite color?”

“If you tell me red, chances are you like strawberry undertones. If blue, maybe a blueberry or blackberry.”

“What if it’s orange?”

“Then we should end this conversation now and go our separate ways because no one can pull off orange anything.”

He snorted and laughed. He liked you.

“Safe to say red is yours?” he nodded to your drink as his clue.

“Wrong, but this is about you. So tell me.”

“Regé and grey.”

Your eyes widened. “Regé as in reggae music?”

He nodded but didn’t speak.

“Wow, nice. I thought it was something stuffy like Albert.”

“Just ’cause I’m British?��

You smiled and shrugged. “And your favorite color, Regé, is grey.” I’m tempted to say grey isn’t a color, but okay. He’ll have that fifty shades of grey cocktail you tried to give me earlier.”

“Uh-oh, something fruity, huh.”

“Let’s add an extra shot for Mr. adventurous,” you added.

Turning his attention to you, he licked his lips and watched you devour that candy cane.

“What’s your name?”

You smiled and pulled the candy out of your mouth. “Y/N.”

He held his hand out for yours and waited for you to take it. Once you did, he shook it, never taking his eyes off of yours.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

You didn’t speak for several moments, and he wondered if he should have kept that to himself.

“Yes,” you said.

“Yes? Yes, what?”

You sucked the candy cane back into your mouth and took a sip of your drink. “Yes, I’ll let you buy me another drink.”

Ten minutes came and went, then fifteen, and he was in no hurry to go back to his friends. Your conversation was entertaining and titillating. You held his attention easier than any other had. Not to mention everything you did had his heart pounding. Once you’d finished that damn candy cane, your glass was what brought his attention to your mouth. When the drinks were finished, his eyes roamed your exposed shoulders, cleavage, and thigh until his palms itched to touch.

“I see what’s been holding you hostage, over here.” Trevor’s hand rested on his shoulder as he stood to there to his left.

“Hostage? Hardly,” you responded with a smile.

“I’m Trevor,” he said, holding his hand out to you.

After a few seconds, you took it and let him shake it.

“Trev here is a good friend of mine,” he began before taking a sip of his third drink. “Meet Y/N.”

Trevor smiled again. “What a beautiful name for a beautiful woman.”

He couldn’t help but smile. He knew the game had begun. However, he’d had a twenty-minute head start. He watched Trevor order you another drink before suggesting you moved from the bar to go back to their section. You didn’t answer right away, and he didn’t know what you’d decide.

“I’ll meet you there. I have to freshen up,” you said, pointing toward where the restrooms were.

He pointed to where their section was before you walked off.

“May the best African win,” Trevor said, holding out his hand, making him roll his.

~~~~~~~

-Y/N-

You made sure to reapply your lipstick and rearrange your hair as you inspected your face. Pleased that your products were holding up, you stood there just staring at yourself, making a plan. They thought they were slick, you thought to yourself.

MSG Fifi: He looked hooked.

You smirked.

MSG: He’s hot.

MSG Fifi: So is his friend. What’s the plan?

You thought for a few moments because you hadn’t decided yet.

MSG: I’m going to go have a little fun. I’ll let you know.

You adjusted your dress then walked out of the bathroom. In the loud club again, you looked around, trying to remember when they’d pointed. You didn’t remember. Suddenly you felt a body behind you and a hand on your hip.

“Lost?”

The sexy British accent told you just who it was. Smiling, you bit your bottom lip, deciding you liked how he felt pressed up on you.

“What if I said I was?”

You could feel his breath at your ear and smell the hint of grape and vodka.

“I’ll find anything you want me to,” Regé groaned, making you tilt your head back to look at him over your shoulder.

“Anything?”

He smirked then licked his lips. “I’m not if not a gentleman. Anything, Y/N.”

The look in his eyes had you frozen in place, wishing he’d bring his large hand lower. You scoffed and got yourself under control

“Good to know,” you said before walking away, leaving him to follow behind you.

Once Regé led you to the VIP section, Trevor stood holding your drink to you. Having not been born yesterday, you asked a passing waitress for a fresh drink. Neither of them took offense. When you sat, you were in the middle of both men and able to appreciate the beauty that you both were. They could have passed for brothers, and when they assured you that they weren’t, you relaxed a little more.

After an hour, you’d learned quite a few things about both men. You leaned that while Regé had this overwhelming sensual vibing coming off him, he tended to hang back physically, but his eyes were all intensity, and you could tell he preferred words. When it came to Trevor, he approached things differently. He was a flirt through and through, and you could tell he preferred touch.

They were both like opposite sides of a coin, and you couldn’t decide which side you preferred. Some days called for heads and others tails. One thing was sure; they were both feeling you, and neither of them could hide it. It was in the way Trevor touched you with sly touches and in the way Regé reacted when you went close to him to whisper something or bit your bottom lip.

Two hours and countless drinks later, you still sat there with the two men, and you’d all but made up your mind. Regé leaned to you and whispered in your ear before he met your eyes. Nodding, you took his hand and let him lead you to the dance floor. Once you got to a semi-secluded spot, the song changed to Teyana Taylor’s new school version of Tell me what you Want, and you watched him bop to the beat while keeping on point. You were impressed.

Regé spun you around, so your back pressed to his chest and his hands wrapped around you. he smelled incredible, almost as incredible as he felt. That was when your movements synced together and slowed. You were now swaying from side to side. You began circling your hips against him and let him hold your hands in the air as you got into it. Regé came to your ear and whispered.

“Tell me what you want.”

Your panties were instantly wet. Fuck, you thought. In front of you, you watched Trevor approach the two of you. Once he was in front of you, the song changed again, and the slowest, sexiest tune came on. The lights in the club changed to a deeper hue of red. Trevor came so close that his face was just inches from yours. His hand wrapped around the small of your back, pulling you against him.

Goddamn, you thought as he moved your body how he wanted it. Your eyes met, and Trevor’s hand clasped your jaw in his large but soft hand. Slowly he slid his hand across your skin before you felt a hand on your hip spin you around. Your back was now pressed to Trevor’s chest while Regé was the one who was now inches from your lips.

The two men sandwiched you between them, each focusing on different parts of you. Trevor’s hand was wrapped around your abdomen, searing absentminded circles on the material of the dress you wore, while Regé’s was squeezing your hip, sinking in his fingertips, so they marked you. Trevor’s jaw pressed to your ear, which Regé’s was resting against your cheek on the other side of your face. You doubted anyone could tell where you began and either of them stopped. When you felt a pair of lips press against your right ear, your breath hitched in your throat.

Pulling back slightly, you gazed into Regé’s sultry almond-shaped eyes, and your hand balled the fabric of his shirt at his waist, hoping to control yourself.

“Tell me what you want,” Regé repeated.

Fuck it; you thought as you brought your lips to his kissing him with the scorching energy that was between the three of you. Regé delved his tongue into your mouth, wrapping it around yours, and it was then his hand slid lower on your hip and snaked back to your ass. As he cupped it, you released a moan unable to contain it any longer. When he sucked your tongue, you pulled back and nibbled his bottom lip. His moan caught you off guard and only fueled your steadily uncapping desire.

You felt Trevor behind you begin to pull away from you, no doubt feeling like the loser of their masculine competition of the night. That was when you pulled from Regé’s lips and pulled him back to close the space he’d created. You had both men’s undivided attention, and the power you felt was unmatched. Bringing your lips to Trevor’s, you kissed him with the same fire you had Regé seconds ago.

Again, you held control of this kiss. Trevor allowed you to decide just what you wanted to do, and it was probably going to be his downfall for the night. You bit his bottom lip, and his moan swam in your mouth, making you eat it like a succubus taking his life force. The decision was made.

You pulled away and found their eyes on you. Smirking, you turned with their hands in yours and led them through the crowd. You were thankful you’d decided on the club inside the hotel rather than the other one you and Fifi were thinking of. Once in the hotel’s lobby, you beelined it to the elevator bank and wondered if they were at this hotel too. As the elevator doors opened, you stepped on and waited for either of them to press a button. This was their turn to make a decision.

You pretended not to notice them give each other a look before Regé stepped forward and pressed nineteen. You smirked and rode up in silence. Interestingly enough, the elevator made no stops until it came to the nineteenth floor. You let them lead you, this time keeping a few feet behind them. You could feel their angst as they exchanged looks every few steps, no doubt trying to formulate a plan. It’s funny they still thought they were in control.

The two stopped at the door at the end of the hall then opened it. Regé was the one holding the door open, and Trevor stood on the other side, letting you walk in. You glanced at both men, smirked then walked inside. You walked toward the bar you saw in the corner, then took up two bottles before you continued walking through the suite. You knew the layout was similar to yours, so you just walked where you expected the bedroom to be.

Finding it easily, you walked in and found some music on the bedside table system, another easy feat thanks to apple music coming with every room. You pulled two chairs in front of the large window of the bedroom. You then walked to both of them and led them each to a seat.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

You smiled at Regé’s sweetness and went toward him to sit on his lap.

“Would you like me to leave?”

He shook his head.

“Then tell me what you want.”

His lip quirked up at the side. He had to remember his words to you a little while ago.

“Will you give it to me?”

You kissed him again. as soon as your lips touched, his hands were cupping your ass, pulling you closer onto his lap. You felt the strain of his manhood against his jeans, and the anticipation had your sex quivering. Groaning, you pulled away and walked to the window. You put the bottles you held on the floor and turned to them.

“Since you like competitions so much, the first one to move loses.”

Trevor and Regé looked at each other quizzically. They didn’t get it yet. You untied the neck of the dress and slowly brought the straps down, careful not to allow it to fall from your body yet. Though the light in the room was scarce, you could tell the desire in both men’s eyes. You walked to Regé then turned your back to him.

You swayed your hips from side to side to the rhythm of the music bringing yourself down to the floor before coming back up to bend in front of his face. Peeking behind you, Regé’s jaw was clenched so tightly that you thought it had to hurt. You stood and swayed again to the sounds of Sabrina Claudio. In no time, you were lost in the music bringing your hands to the back of your neck, letting the straps hang around your waist.

Turning to them, you heard both audibly exclaim.

“Fuck.”

The accents were entirely different but sexy nonetheless.

“Something wrong?”

You stood between Trevor’s legs, topless, and circled your hips while doing your best snake charmer dance. You deemed it was acceptable because neither of them gave any indication otherwise.

“You’re gorgeous,” Trevor whispered.

You could see his hands clenching the arm of the chair and wondered just how much control he had in him. You pushed the dress off your hips and stood there in your thong.

“Fucking hell,” Regé uttered when you turned your back to them. Using the strong knees you were blessed with, you brought yourself low and popped a baby twerk, not wanting to give either of them a heart attack. Every time you changed the direction of your hips, you looked over a shoulder to watch them watch you. They looked absolutely tortured.

You walked to Trevor and stood there but stared at Regé. You motioned for him to come to you, and in seconds, he was by your side. You kissed him, taking the time to tease him with each passing second while noting he was a great kisser.

“Lay right there,” you said, pointing to the spot between your feet. Regé obeyed, then you dipped down to your knees, your sex hovering over Regé’s mouth. You were about to speak, but shock cut you off.

Regé wrapped his arms around your hips where your thighs met them and buried his face between your legs.

“Oh fuck!”

That was not the end of your shock because seconds later, you felt a wet velvety tip brush against your lips. You opened your eyes and came face to face with the impressiveness that was Trevor’s dick. You opened your mouth to speak, but a sharp stab of pleasure between your legs prohibited it. Your mouth fell open, and Trevor pushed himself into your mouth.

You almost laughed. They were the dream tag team. The room quickly filled with moans and groans as you pleased Trevor and Regé pleased you. The way his tongue flicked against your clit was quickly bringing you closer and closer to your first orgasm of the night. You knew if they had anything to say about it, you’d have more.

“Shit, your mouth—it’s—incredible,” Trevor panted, rolling his head back.

Not relenting, you bobbed your head faster on Trevor’s cock, taking him as far as you could. He grabbed your head and held it in place, then fucked your mouth, making you gag every so often.

“Uuuug!”

When he released your head you continued the pace and moaned on his flesh from the pleasure Regé was giving you but also the pleasure you got from giving it to Trevor. When you felt gentle nibbles, you pulled back and gasped, then began using your hands.

“Oh, fuck, yes! Right there, mmmm!”

Regé sucked your clit into his mouth as he reached up to one of your breasts to pinch your nipple. Following suit, Trevor did the same to the other, and that pushed you over the edge. Your screech was loud as it filled the room and probably the hall outside. Bucking your hips against his mouth, you rode his face as it was meant to be ridden.

When you rolled off of Regé and collapsed to the floor, the men stood and surrounded you. Regé went to your head while Trevor between your legs. You watched him sheath himself with a condom before he met your eyes.

“Are you sure?”

You nodded before you reached to palm Regé’s pulsating and impressive member. As your mouth slid along Regé’s length, Trevor’s slid inside your heated core, stretching you deliciously before filling you perfectly with his thickness.

“Good god,” Trevor whispered, hovering over you to catch his breath.

“You’re so tight, Y/N,” Trevor moaned, beginning to circle his hips.

With a full mouth, you were unable to speak and instead used the pleasure you felt to return it tenfold to Regé. His head lulled back while his jaw dropped, and he grunted, sending the last few inches of his need into your throat. You fought your gag the best you could. Trevor then sped his thrusts. Each time he connected your bodies, your breasts swung, and your sex clenched around him, gripping him like a vise.

Soon your moans and mumbles made it almost impossible to properly enjoy what Regé had to offer, so your hands to make up for the job your mouth couldn’t do. Trevor’s thrusts got rougher, and in seconds you’d come for the second time. Using your feet to push him off, you stood and crawled onto the bed. While lying there, you watched both men slowly approach you. Regé was the one between your legs this time while Trevor was beside you.

Trevor wrapped his lips around a pert nipple, then sucked, licked, and nibbled it. As your mewls spilled from your lips, Regé still had yet to move an inch. He kneeled there, rubbing the tip of his cock across your soaking slit.

“You’re so wet. Show me, Y/N.”

You slinked your fingers between your legs and dipped one inside to show him the evidence of your overwhelming arousal. He smiled, then sucked your finger into his mouth before he thrust forward in one powerful move.

“Fuck!”

The men ravaged you, one with their mouth and the other with their skillful appendage. Where Trevor was girthy and nicely proportioned, Regé had been blessed with girth and an overabundance of length. It didn’t take much for you to come again and again and again. When you rolled onto Regé to take control, you took your time crippling Trevor as he stood in front of you.

The room was sweltering, and your bodies were slick with sweat, so every move the three of you made, the sound of bodies rubbing together echoed throughout. If it wasn’t the slickness of skin, it was the squelching of your wetness as they plowed into you or you rode them into oblivion.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

The feel of both men nestled snugly in your tight trove was close to have to see stars. You crashed your lips to Regé, who was underneath you while Trevor was behind. He pumped more vigorously into you, making you pant and whine with each connection. Trevor, not being the one to be outdone, slammed into you, coaxing that spot in you that you knew would soon have you combust into a million specks of dust as you floated the galaxy.

“I’m coming,” Regé and Trevor both shouted as if competing for who could say it louder. You rocked your hips against Regé while slamming back onto Trevor. You intended to bring both men to their knees, but after a few movements, you realized that you’d come undone just as ferociously.

“Come for me, Y/N!”

Shivering, you tried to ignore the command as you repeated your actions over and over. Underneath you, Regé bit your nipple, and behind you, Trevor your shoulder. Either way, these men intended to sear their marks into your flesh. Something about that was so fucking hot. You sped your movements, and that was when your body shook.

“Fuck!”

Both men shook with you and released such loud grunts and groans that rivaled your own whining. Your orgasm was expected but what was not expected was how long it continued. After a minute, you were still coming with both men still trying to secure themselves as deeply into you as possible. Both thrust into you once more, and that was all you could handle before stars erupted behind your eyelids, making you clench around both of them.

Trevor and Regé gasped and hissed before the three of you dropped onto the bed. You were between them as all three of you tried to catch your breaths.

Your eyelids were heavy, your limbs tense, muscles tight, and between your legs sore. You couldn’t move even if you wanted to. So you didn’t.

~~~~~~~

-The Next Morning-

When you opened your eyes, the sun had yet to rise from behind the high rise next to the hotel. It took several moments for your vision to return clearly. When it did, you looked around, recognizing you were not alone. You felt a body nestled to your back and one in front of you. You froze, not wanting to stir anyone awake. You didn’t want a whole morning after thing. This was not what this was. It took you some time to slither from the clutches of the gorgeous men you’d spent the night with.

Once free you stood there for a few moments and took them in. Trevor was on his side back to the window completely bare assed. It was a nice one too. His arm was thrown over his head leaving only part of his face visible. He looked adorable asleep. Regé was on his back, one arm over his head tucked underneath the pillow he rested his head-on. That was where your head had laid, right on his chest as if it belonged there.

You shook off any attachment that was trying to creep its way in. You didn’t often do things like this, matter of fact, this was downright as rare as a blue moon. However, you hated the cliché of women who got attached after clear one night stands. You never wanted to be one of them because you knew for a fact men always laughed at them. You wouldn’t be that cliché, you thought to yourself. You gave the men one last look, then turned to gather your things.

Once dressed and inside the elevator, you smiled to yourself. They really thought they picked you up when in fact, you’d heard their friendly competitive banter and decided a little fun was in order. Seeing how the night went, it was safe to say you were the real winner.

MSG Fifi: Everything okay?

You smiled to yourself.

MSG: Pussy put their ass to sleep. Call me, NyQuil.

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

TagList:

@chaneajoyyy @caramara3 @night-of-the-living-shred @mauvecherie @areubeingserved @queenoftheworldisdead @ramp-it-up @i-just-like-fanfics @give-me-a-million-dollars-pls @wondersofdreaming @koko-michelle

#risk it all fic #regé jean page #rege jean page fanfiction #trevor noah #trevor noah fanfiction #black fanfiction #healthy competition fic

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spices-and-cherries · 4 years ago

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Rampage (Chapter 2)

JAMES BOND X READER

I do have to say that I’m kind of trying to mirror this after the flow of a normal Bond movie, so there is a Bond girl here (the relationship is completely platonic). Of course, I have no idea how well it’s all going to work out, but hey, it’ll be fine (right?).

I did not reference race, gender, sexuality, or physical appearance. If I missed something, please let me know so I can change it!

Warnings: violence, death, breaking and entering

Chapter 2: Magic

It's three in the morning.

James had been waiting in Slane's dingy apartment since the previous night. If he was on a normal mission, he'd have left hours ago, but this wasn't a normal mission. Technically, it wasn't a mission at all. Therefore, no matter how impatient he became, he had to sit and wait. He simply had no other option.

Besides, Slane didn't own anything of any significance to him. No receipts, letters, banknotes, phone numbers... Nothing.

So this was how he found himself spinning a pencil for hours. The plus side was that Slane had some good leftovers - chicken wings and pasta. It wasn't until eleven o'clock that the door knob jiggled. James watched as a man walked in whistling.

"Sit down, right there." James motioned to a seat with his gun, realizing a moment too late that the man hadn't even locked the door.

"Shit!" Slane jumped for the door. James, pocketing the gun, started to run after him down the winding stairwell, through the front door and out on the street. The man dashed into an alleyway and was already climbing up a fire escape by the time James caught up to him. With a running start, he leaped up onto a closed dumpster and scrambled his way up. It seemed that Slane didn't expect to be followed all the way up, so James watched as the man clumsily jumped to another rooftop.

And thus the chase began. They hopped from rooftop to rooftop. At one point Slane managed to get himself in a tree and started his way down. James took the shortcut by jumping on a mini-van, leaving a sizeable dent. He followed Slane down alleyways, jumped over toppled trashcans, and narrowly avoided being hit by a car.

James finally managed to tackle Slane in a dead end. After a few punches, the man gave up struggling. He drags Slane to the wall and sits him up, crouching down beside him just inches away.

"Now," James, without breaking eye-contact with Slane, pulls out his wallet and opens it. "Where did you take them?"

"I've never seen that person in my life." Slane's voice slurred a little at the end.

"Is that so," He tosses his wallet on the man's lap. "Because a little bird told me that you were seen in the station by Chelsea, pulling them along with you. I won't ask again. Where. Are. They."

"I really don't know! All I was told to do was take them to a spot - an alley a block away from the station - and hand them over."

"Hand them over to who."

"Shit, man! I don't know!"

"Hmm." James pulls his gun out and turns off the safety. "How about now?"

"I got the job from an envelope with cash! I didn't see nobody!"

"Then who was it that stepped out of the car to greet you?"

"Some henchman? A gun-for-hire like me? I don't know!"

"What did he look like?"

"Burly. Uh-shaved head? Neck tattoo of a bird. Three rings on one hand and a scar on his eyebrow. Sounded American..."

"Thank you for your time." James stood up with a smile. With a simple pull of the trigger, Slane was dead. Bending back down, he rifled through Slanes pockets. There wasn't much of interest except for a pocket knife and a business card with The End Club written on it.

-----

"Q" James was making his way back to Slane's flat.

"What is it now, Bond?"

"I need your help finding someone." James found that he didn't need to tell him why he couldn't do it himself. Q would just have to trust him

"...Give me a moment." A minute passes by. "Alright, who is it?"

"What do you have on American guns-for-hire currently in London?" He could hear him tapping away on a keyboard.

"There are currently 23 in the area. I have their files up."

"How up to date are they?"

"Very."

"Are there any bald men with neck tattoos?"

"...Yes. Three of them." He bit back a groan of frustration.

"Are any of the tattoos of a bird? Or is there a scar on the eyebrow?"

"Ah. Finn Stone. He's from Brooklyn, New York... He's currently employed by a meat packaging company. There's a warehouse located in Hackney."

"Who owns it?"

"The End Club. In fact, I think-"

"Q." He hung up. The End Club... James started to run.

-----

James burst through Slane's door and was met with a shriek and a gun pointed at his head.

"...You're not Slane." It was a woman.

"Neither are you."

"Are you his friend?"

"Not that I know of."

"Then why are you here?"

"I'm looking for something, now if you'll-"

"What are you looking for?"

"...Papers."

"You won't find anything - I've already looked."

"Maybe not, but what's the harm in trying?" With a smile, he passes by her to get to the desk. There really weren't any papers to be seen or in the drawers. He pulled the top drawer out again and started to feel around the underside. Nothing. The second and third were the same, but the fourth was a success. He grabbed a pencil and poked it through the little hole. Sure enough, the wood that looked to be like the bottom pushed up to reveal a stack of papers. He pulls them out.

"Huh. Seems like someone's done this before..."

"...Comes with the job." He began flipping through the pile. He finally comes across what looks like a receipt with The End Club written on it, the girl gasps and snatches it out of his hand. "Hey-!"

"Thank you for helping me - I'll leave you to it." She turned around to leave.

"Can I look at that?"

"Huh?"

"Can I please look at that paper?"

"Why?" James grit his teeth in frustration.

"I just do."

"Uh..." She looked at him with confusion. "Why would I show you? I don't even know who you are?"

"I'm looking for someone and I have a reason to believe that The End Club has to do something with it." He pointed to the page in her hand. "That paper is the only lead I have!"

"...I..."

"Please?" After hesitating, she shook her head. "Look, I need-" His immense frustration at his situation was sliced away with fear as a realization came to him.

-----

"You kill me, then what? Your case is closed and you get to go home happy, is that what you think?" The man jeered. For a man inches from certain death, he was very sure of himself. The man waved his hand around, as if to showcase the building. "This organization doesn't end here with me! I have subordinates all over the world!"

"I wouldn't count on that. Johnson was was drowned two days ago in Brazil. Harrison committed suicide to escape debts a day before that in Russia. Reiss was stabbed in an alleyway in Italy yesterday morning..." James watched as Keery's face morphed into surprise then anger then mild amusement.

"So a few of my men die - so what? Killing someone doesn't always mean killing the idea - the mission - Mr. Bond." Keery shrugged nonchalantly. "I still have a trick or two up my sleeve. A magic rabbit, if you will."

"Too bad I was never one for magic tricks." And, without a second thought, James pushed the man off the roof, watching as Keery fell to his death with a thud.

-----

How could he have forgotten so easily?

The last man of any importance, Keery's husband who went by the name of End, had reportedly committed suicide just days later. James had been too preoccupied to bother following the movements of the remaining men, but he had heard whispers a year ago about a club being formed with some very similar faces affiliated with it...

What if Keery's husband hadn't died after all? And this was some sort of sick and twisted revenge plan?

For the first time in a long while, James had genuinely no idea what to do.

I might go back and edit this again... I made some big changes just before I posted it, so if there are any issues, that’s why.

- Simpy

#james bond x reader #james bond #x reader #daniel craig #established relationship #angst #fanfic #fanfiction #gender neutral reader #action #movie characters #agent 007 #007 #bond movies #bond girl

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lokiondisneyplus · 3 years ago

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Loki is the latest Marvel Studios TV series in the long-running franchise and it’s currently ongoing with five episodes so far available to stream on Disney+ Hotstar Malaysia. For previous breakdowns of Loki episodes, check out Episode 1 here, Episode 2 here, Episode 3 here, Episode 4 here and Episode 5 here.

If you want a non-spoiler guide to Loki, you can head on over here.

Courtesy of Disney+ Hotstar Malaysia, we were lucky enough to be the only Malaysian media to participate in a roundtable interview with Loki Costume Designer Christine Wada and Loki Production Designer Kasra Farahani.

This interview with Loki Production Designer Kasra Farahani has been edited for clarity.

Keep in mind that we’ll be discussing some elements from all five episodes of Loki so far, so there will be spoilers below:

Q: You’ve previously worked on Black Panther and other MCU movies. How different was the experience of working on a TV set instead of a movie’s? Were there limitations?

Yes, I’ve worked on several Marvel projects. For me, this is the most fun one, maybe because I’m in a different position than I was on the other ones. But also, just because this project is unique in a couple of ways.

Number one; it’s literally in its own timeline from the rest of the MCU. It’s separate from the stories we’ve all enjoyed and seen in the MCU so far. The other thing that this one has that’s really great is the amount of visual and narrative variety. We have this kind of base in the TVA that we spend a lot of time in but also we have all these exciting different places in the world that the story takes us to. These were great worlds to design and to imagine.

In our case, there was no difference. The thing about the Marvel series is that it’s pretty much like Marvel movies; in terms of their creative ambition, in terms of the way they’re scheduled, the fact that we have one director.

There was not much about it (Loki) that resembled an episodic project, except for the fact that it was six hours of content that we were trying to make, so it’s a very long project.

In terms of resources, I didn’t ever feel that we were unduly stretched. Always, when you get a creative brief like this, there’s always a period at the beginning of every project where you’re reconciling the creative brief and the resources that you have. That has been the case for every project that I’ve ever worked on regardless of the size. There’s this beginning phase where that’s the case and oftentimes, it’s in that process where you come up with some very great creative solutions that are a direct result of some of the limitations, actually.

Yeah, I wouldn’t say that we had some extraordinary limitations in this case (for Loki), but that’s generally true for all projects, in my experience.

Q: What were you inspired by when making designing the sets of the TVA with its retro-futuristic and anachronistic aesthetics?

In the source material, the TVA had a lot of different things going on, but one of the strong themes also was this armada of desks, which is kind of typical of a post-war era bureaucracy look. There was a grain of that in the source material but a lot of it also came from the show’s creator and writer, Michael Waldron, who described in the original document I read before interviewing for this job.

He described the TVA as a kind of mix of Mad Men meets Blade Runner. Part of these two strong visual references for us. On top of that, me and director Kate Herron, even before we met and spoken to each other, were inspired by Terry Gilliam’s Brazil also as a strong influence because of the anachronisms that that story had and also because of the clear presence of this strong monolithic bureaucracy, which is something that we have in the TVA also.

For the TVA, we were looking a lot at wanting to create a world that had a paradoxical feeling, being an imposing monolithic architectural space that has brutalist elements in them and had almost Soviet modernist elements to them. The colour palette and the materials and the whimsical patterning were much more like American style modernism.

The result was hopefully when you’re in an environment like this, you don’t know whether to feel terrified or invited. Hopefully, it creates that feeling in both the characters and the audience; this kind of cognitive dissonance in not knowing whether they can trust the TVA or not. That’s the narrative objective.

The writers came up with these ideas and the idea with that was to kind of create the bubble gum wrapper in the Renaissance era (Loki Episode 2) and the futuristic shovel in the early 20th-century farm field (Loki Episode 1). These ideas were placed there to create a trail of clues for the TVA to follow before they have clarity on Sylvie’s identity. But for the anachronisms generally, that was something we tried to do throughout the TVA to have all kinds of strange things from different timelines and different worlds popping up in terms of props, like the Infinity Stones in the mail cart and stuff like that.

Q: What was it like working with Tom Hiddleston, who is a producer on Loki?

It was very exciting to have this opportunity to take the character and his storyline in a different direction. It became all the more exciting when I read the scripts and I saw the type of journey they were going to take the character on.

Tom is a professor of Loki, basically. After all, ten years or so of playing the character; he knows it better than anybody and he has an in-depth understanding of the character and his backstory; the character’s family relationships and he was really helpful in giving a little talk to all the department heads about the background of his character, which was very informative.

Q: Recently, Loki series director Kate Herron said that 90 percent of production sets were physical. Does this include the world of The Void, and can you tell us more about how you brought it to life?

That’s true. That was what was unique about this show, because of my own design approach, and my goal in creating this large monolithic brutalist environment, I felt strongly that the sets needed to be built kinda wholly and that they needed to have the ceilings in-tact. This was also supported by Loki cinematographer Autumn, in that the way of her own style of photography is very wide and low-angled photography, which is why for both of our creative goals, it made a lot of sense to build these sets like completed and 360-degree environments.

For the TVA, that was almost always the case, with the exception of when you saw outside a window. With the Void (in Loki Episode 5), a lot of that was built practically as well. What I can tell you is that we build a large piece of this landscape on a soundstage, which was about 150 feet by 200 feet of undulating wilderness terrain. In that, we would bring in these different scenery elements on different days to make it feel like different places within the Void.

For example, one day there was the bus stop terrain where we meet Loki. One day it was the giant head. One day it was the drive-in movie theatre where we find Sylvie. All of these things were brought in and we shot there over the course of seven days. The terrain was designed in such a way that depending on what angle you shot, it felt like a very different place. Backgrounds were put in during post-production in visual effects. The Loki palace, where the Loki variants kind of hang out, the bowling alley, all of that was also a 360-degree built set as well.

Q: What was the most challenging set of the entire Loki series that you had to work on?

We had a lot of very ambitious sets but I think the city of Sharoo at the end of Loki Episode 3: Lamentis was a very technical set. The goal was to create this virtual one-in, that appears as a single shot. This was a very involved and elaborate process of choreography, basically.

All the different departments were involved to make this happen because as we watch the sequence, we see tons of actors running around, there are explosions happening, the camera’s panning up to see the planet above crumbling and asteroids pelting the surface.

There was a lot of planning that went through at the very beginning. We brought the paper models of this to Autumn, our cinematographer and creative director, to use to plan some of their shots. One day, we had some more information that fed back to the art department where we developed more involved and elaborate drawings and models which again, fed back to them. In this way, we had kind of an iterative conversation to arrive at what the design was.

So, as we start to build the set, many of the department heads came to visit and check the progress. We rehearsed what the shot was going to be, so we could exactly fine-tune the set to meet the needs of this shot and see where the edits needed to be. In order to do this, we needed to adjust the exact width of the roads or move a piece of scenery here and then figure out exactly, okay, there’s going to be an explosion coming out of the ground here and another explosion coming out of the building here and this is when the camera looks up to the sky and sees the planet explode. This is where the window breaks and this is where the guy jumps out and grabs him and there’s a fight.

There are many, many people involved; Monique Garderton, our stunt coordinator, Kate Herron, the director, and also the special effects team, and of course, visual effects, deeply involved, and Richard Graves, who is kind of our AD (Assistant Director), the circus leader of all of it, organizing everybody to kind of work on this thing altogether. It’s the sort of thing that involves so many different departments that it can only really be discovered when working in a big group together.

I would say that was maybe the most challenging technically because there were so many logistical parameters and so many moving parts.

Q: What are your thoughts on diversity in the production of the creative industry?

I think that it is critically important. As somebody who is myself an immigrant, I was born in Iran and my family moved here when I was quite young. I’m super happy to see the direction that the industry is going in. I think Marvel has been particularly excellent in providing leadership in this way and I honestly have to give a lot of credit to Kate Herron, our director.

Almost more than any other project I’ve been on, she prioritised inclusivity and diversity. I mean, lots of people, don’t get me wrong, it’s on every project and on everyone’s mind, but I think Kate went above and beyond because it’s so fundamental to her worldview and she’s such a sensitive soul in this way. One of the many ways in that it was such a joy to work with Kate and I’m very proud of the many different ethnicities we’re representing, and how many women we’ve had. In our art department, we had close to fifty men and women.

It’s important and leads to better creative results that are more fully realized and more representative of what the fans really want.

#Kasra Farahani #production design #Loki #interview

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anxiouspotatorants · 4 years ago

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Honestly the amount of fuck ups from mainstream English-speaking media (Netflix, Hollywood, UK mainstream etc.) when it comes to diversity is more than worthy of discussion, but some of the posts made just make me tired. Anger is good, but momentary outrage is not enough to actually improve mainstream media diversity. But you know what is an active step in the right direction? Consuming and supporting non-English media and media from marginalized communities (which does exist and does in fact fluorish, you native-English speakers seriously need to branch out when it comes to the media you consume). So I’d like to take this opportunity to ask people this: what are some lesser known «foreign» films/shows/docs/animations you recommend? Here are some of mine (some mainstream and some less mainstream):

Las Lindas (The Pretty Ones, 2016) dir. Melisa Liebenthal, Argentina

This is a really intimate essay-type documentary that the director made around herself and her childhood friends about growing up and their perceptions of beauty and feminity. It’s a really personal and casual yet hardhitting take that I have yet to really see be done in such a way by North Americans or Brits. It tends to come in and out of Mubi and Kanopy.

Atlantique (Atlantics, 2019) dir. Mati Diop, Senegal, France and Belgium

Available on Netflix, this film is labeled as a supernatural romantic drama but if you ask me it is a much needed crash course in magic realism. I’ve seen too many people watch Pan’s Labyrinth and misunderstand what makes that film magic realism, so I ask anyone who’s still confused to watch this. I don’t want to spoil the film as the best first experience to this one really is a blind watch, but I can say that it’s a gorgeous and somewhat mysterious movie about a young girl with a lover going to sea...

Gräns (Border, 2018) dir. Ali Abbasi, Sweden

Now for this one I do reccommend checking out reviews/interviews with the director because there are some elements that you are likely to miss if you’re not Scandinavian which I really think everyone should still know about. It’s a story about a troll-woman working in the border control between Sweden and Denmark who has her life turned upside down when she meets another troll for the very first time. You could make a pretty strong argument for this film discussing themes of ethnic cleansing and imperialism, and it additionally is such a rich and modern yet faithful take on creatures of Norse folklore. But I have to warn that the film is not for the faint of heart: look up warnings. Border is available on multiple platforms as either stream, rent or buy.

Vuelven (Tigers Are Not Afraid, 2017) dir. Issa López, Mexico

Magical realism baby, and this one is a heartbreaker! It’s about little Estrella living in a city devastated by drug wars and being given three pieces of magic chalk that she uses to survive the events of the film. It is just so good, it blends the fairy tale aspects and the modern setting so seamlessly. The amount of visually amazing stuff it manages to do with a relatively small budget (animation, vfx etc) is brilliant too. Available on multiple platforms.

As Boas Maneiras (Good Manners, 2017) dir. Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra, Brazil

Speaking of fairy tale-inspired films with elements of animation: As Boas Maneiras is a trip. This is another one that I recommend people go into relatively blind, but I will say that it’s about a woman getting a job as a housekeeper and a nanny for a wealthy pregnant woman, whose pregnancy is somewhat unusual.... Also this is categorized as a horror film so beware. Available on Mubi, Kanopy and others.

Showgirls of Pakistan (2020) dir. Saad Khan, Pakistan

This is a beautifully stylistic documentary about exactly what the title says. Khan and co show the lives of several mujra dancers and the struggles they face in a society that shuns their work and puts them at risk of death, and it’s all edited together with old and new Lollywood media. The documentary and a director + editor interview is up for free on Vice News’ YouTube channel so it really is available for anyone to see!

Here is a quick list of others I recommend:

Olla (short film, 2019), dir. Arianne Labed, France

Hva vil folk si (What Will People Say, 2017) dir. Iram Haq, Norway

Saul fia (Son of Saul, 2015) dir. László Nemes, Hungary

Una Mujer Fantástica (A Fantastic Woman, 2017) dir. Sebastián Lelio, Chile

I Am Not A Witch (2017) dir. Rungano Nyoni, UK, France, Germany and Zambia (I also recommend her short film Listen)

Now please feel free to add your recommendations!

#btw I’m not trying to shame people who need to vent #this is more of a challenge to allies with doomer mentality #like #the amount of times I’ve seen White Americans/Brits etc complain about lack of diversity #in ‘all’ entertainment #and then refuse to watch anything that isn't in English....#don't get me wrong serious improvements need to be made in English speaking media #like you assholes made yourselves one of the biggest influences in worldwide entertainment so you have the responsibility #but also part of making things better is to stop making everything about you and actually support watch and fund 'foreign' media #I've got several Oscar noms and big time films on this list but I don't see them get nearly the same amount of buzz as your US/UK faves #moral of the day: SUPPORT ACTUAL INTERNATIONAL MEDIA #ESPECIALLY INTERNATIONAL INDIE MEDIA #and don't get me wrong non-English speaking media fucks up too #which is why making lists that lift up marginalized creators is so important gIVE ME ACTUAL RECS PEOPLE #film #cinephile #diversity #movies #the discourse #fandom discourse #the potato rants

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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The Three Caballeros Ride Again Review!: And Ladies (Ride of the Three Caballeros)

Saludos Amigos! I’m back with yet another comics review! And we’re back on The Ride of the Three Cablleros! Thanks again to WeirdKev27 for commissioning this retrospective. It’s going to get pricey and I greatly appreciate it. PREVIOUSLY ON RIDE OF THE THREE CABLLEROS

In short.. a bunch of short segments of varying quality, a very thirsty Donald hitting on ladies, the first appearance of Panchito and some very good music. A fun time was had by all. Along with a LOT OF drugs by the Disney Animators. The film wasn’t a huge success, but out of the 6 package films, it was a fan faviorite alongside the Mr. Toad and Ichabod movie, and thus was rereleased quite a bit, as well as being one of the first of this era to end up on VHS due to it’s cult popularity. As for Panchito and Jose they’d get plenty of success overseas, with both getting solo series in their respective home countries, Jose himself having just resumed having comics again this year, and being rightfully massive characters. But despite being a hit with fans across the world.. in the US... they were pretty much shoved in the Disney Vault for a few decades. Jose would show up on the Wonderful World of Disney, in it’s various forms, three times after the Three Caballeros while Panchito just vanished aside from reuses of the Three Caballeros footage. Their careers in the US just sorta vanished for a few decades. But as suddenly as they vanished, our boys returned triumphantly. Naturally being the most used out of the duo, Jose would show up for the first time in decades during Mickey Mouseworks, a show full of new late 90′s produced Mickey Mouse shorts, all but two of which would end up being recycled for the much more popular and well loved House of Mouse, which would feature the triumphant return of the Cabs to animation after so long away. We’ll get to that next time, as just a year before the Cabs had already reunited in the pages of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories in one of Don Rosa’s best loved tales. The Ride of The Three Caballeros was something Don Rosa had wanted to do since he got the job writing Duck Comics in the first place. As he explained in the back of the complete library edition named after this tale, Uncle Keno isn’t the biggest fan of the Donald Theatrical shorts. Having experienced the Carl Barks comics first, and having built his career around them later, he just wasn’t a fan of the goofier, angrier, less nuanced theatrical short Donald, often feeling like he was an entirely different character from the one he loved. And.. honestly he’s not wrong. Both were built for entirely different kinds of comedy: While both did slapstick, Slapstick, along with standard comedy shenanigans, was the main weapon in Shorts Donald’s comedic arsenal. Barksian Donald, while not immune to slapstick, was more like a well built sitcom character: Multi layered, sympathetic when he needs to be, but still having tons of faults to be exploited for laughs and to play off other characters. As a result while I like Donald in the shorts I do prefer Barks version of him, and the shorts Barks did are usually the best of both worlds, combining Donald’s everyman schtick with his slapstick schtick. Of course later cartoons would pick one or the other or combine both, but I do get his point and at the time he wrote this story the only cartoon show starring Donald was.. Quack Pack.. which I can only imagine his reaction to seeing that train wreck.

But as you can probably guess there was one exception and it was The Three Caballeros. Don genuinely enjoys the beautiful music and the wonderful chemistry the three have. So after a trip to Mexico gave him the perfect setting and the fire in his belly to finally do it, he finally wrote the story. And since they weren’t Barksian characters and hadn’t had any other apperances in decade, Don also took a dive into their comics. Since Jose was more of a fancifial freeloader in his comics, Don decided to ignore this characterization and go with his own based on the film: A latin playboy and lounge singer. And i’m okay with him doing that, as unlike say with Marvel and DC when they destroy a character, Disney characters are both more fluid continuity wise and his is still rooted in a version of the character, and he’s fully accepting and apologetic that some fans hate him for this. Also for some damn reason they redesigned Jose at some point in his Brazil to look like this:

This is far from the dumbest comic book costume change i’ve seen, but it’s certainly one of the most lame, as his original outfit is dapper, stylish and fits the Brazilian version of him well. And it’s not like you CAN’T update the classic Disney characters with modern appearances. Quack Pack, which has somehow come up twice in this review, did so great with Donald and Daisy, giving them new clothes and a haircut in Daisy’s case but both still look great. Same with Goofy for Goof Troop who just wore a dad sweater and bow tie, which puts him in the small but significant club of “Bow Tie Wearing Characters who have defined my life” with Opus the Penguin and the 11th Doctor. You can update a classic character’s’s appearance without coming off like...

Which given Jose’s outfit there is horrifyingly similar, says something. Anyways, Rosa had more use for Panchito’s stories, which had him as a cowboy protecting small towns with the help of his trusty steed Senor Martinez. Rosa loved both aspects and thus used them here, with Martinez getting a makeover to fit Rosa’s style better. Rosa is also the one to popularize Panchito’s last name, having found it on a scrap of research, not realizing the character’s last name was not at all widespread and thus giving him a canon one that has stuck to this day, and sighing in relief when he finally got conformation from another fan this name was indeed something Disney had used after loosing his research scrap. So with the two boys characters set, a plot set up and a whole sequence planned we’ll talk about on the way “The Three Caballeros Ride Again!” was born. How good is it? Well join me under the cut and i’ll tell you.

We open in Mexico, specifically near the Barranca Del Cobre, aka The “Copper Canyon” of the Sierra Madre, a natural land formation simlar to the Grand Canyon that Don Rosa saw during his trip and thought would make a great setting. While larger than the Grand Canyon, Rosa figures in his notes it simply isn’t as popular because it’s more isolated than the Grand Canyon and that, combined with it having trees inside distracting from it’s rugged beauty, makes it much harder to build a tourist industry around. The four are headed to El Divisadero, because this comic is determined to kill me with it’s difficult to spell names apparently, where Huey, Dewey or Louie spouts off for no particular reason about the currently being built Chihuahua El Pacifico Railway. Seriously the boys might as well be the security guard from Wayne’s World in this comic, their role for most of their brief page time is just to set up stuff for later. I mean i’m fine with setting up your setting but there are better ways than just spouting off tons of exposition apropos of nothing.

Donald has driven the boys here for a Woodchuck Jamboree. I did actually look into Jamborees, as before this it only had ever come up in one of my favorite movies of all time, Moonrise Kingdom, and mentioned occasionally in the Ducktales Reboot. Jamboree was first used for a worldwide scouting Jamboree but has gone on to mean a huge gathering of scouts, with the Boy Scouts of America having one every four years, so odds are it’s just a big yearly or quarter yearly thing for the woodchucks. Still it would be nice to see a big gathering like this in the series, especially since several of our cast are involved in them, including the possible power trio of Huey, Violet and Boyd, and Della and Launchpad could easily be slotted into the plot as seen in this season’s premiere.. as could Dewey and Louie if they really want to since according to Frank their members.. they just aren’t nearly as invested as their brother, and thus don’t do Woodchuck stuff unless he drags them into it, as seen with “Day of the Only Child” in the series itself. It does make sense: Dewey doesn’t have the survival instinct or patience for camping, and Louie hates effort, the out doors, and doing things for anything but profit. Scouting is all of that. So the boys have driven all this way for the Mexican Jamboree, as they’ve been carefully raising their tarantula Tara, and the Tarantula Breeding Badge is only given out in Mexico, which is plausible: Different branches of a worldwide organization would have different awards and what not in different countries. And Tarantula’s are also native to mexico so that makes sense.. and I want you to apricate that I’m afraid of spiders, not cartoony ones, for instance, this is adorable.

Galvantula4Life. But real life ones or realistic looking ones? Yeah no fuck that. So I had to go to the Wikipedia entry and see several horrifying looking sizeable spiders for this one tiny fact. Your welcome. Tara ends up on Donald’s face with the boys assuming Donald is sad to see her go instead of you know FUCKING TERRIFIED A GIANT SPIDER IS ON HIS FACE. This gag does not work.. but probably because as I said i’m afraid of spiders and this is my nightmare, you little sociopaths.

The boys however worry about what Donald will do for the weekend as they prepare to board the bus to the Jamboree... why it’s meeting in an out of the way town like this I have no idea, but i’d guess plot convince. They realize he has no friends, which Donald shrugs off, and they REALLY shouldn’t say to his face, but ruminate on it once he leaves to do whatever after vaguely talking about friends he had in the past.

I like this scene even though it annoys me a bit: Ilike it because it does set up how Donald really DOSEN’T have any friends in the comics. It’s part of WHY Rosa was drawn to the Cabs: Their one of the few equal relationships donald’s ever had, people who treat him as a partner, in both sense probably, a friend, a true amigo. As the boys point out Scrooge is a monster to him in the comics, paying him 30 cents an hour which I actually put into an inflation calculator to get an accurate read on how little that was by 2020 standards.. and it’s 3 dollars an hour. Hence why I call him a monster, why that bit hasn’t aged well, and why Rosa REALLY, REALLY should’ve retired it. It dosen’t help reading that knowing Disney largely treated Rosa the same way is cringe inducing at best, if not for any fault of his own. It being cringe inducing for an employer horribly mistreating and underpaying his employees though is his fault, he’s a grown ass man, even in the 90′s this had to be a problem, be better.

And yes i’m being hard on Don Rosa but just like with the comics thing, I simply expect better from the man given just how much respect I have for the guy. His art is gorgeous, his research is immaculate, his knowledge of old films is wonderful and his love for them so infectious i’m tempted to seek the ones he’s mentioned in notes out. He’s a truly wonderful guy and one of my faviorite comic writers.. but I have to treat him fairly like I do ANY of my idols. Just to prove that, I love Grant Morrison, especially his run on New X-Men, but a lot of it hasn’t aged well including some of the language and the entire subplot with Emma manipulating Scott into having an affair when he wasn’t in the best mental place and she knew that and was acting as his therapist, and treating that as a regular affair REALLY doesn’t play well nor should it have. I love Al Ewing, with all my heart and soul, but his run on Ultimates, while having some great worldbuilding and a spectacular cast, ultimately wasn’t very good after the first arc. Not terrible but not good. John Aliison, of Scary Go Round and Giant Days fame, while impressive has had plenty of stories I just didn’t like for various reasons and will probably get into some day and some parts of his stories haven’t aged well. It’s the hard but necessary part of being a critic: You have to be objective and see all the parts of a creator’s creation, not just the ones you like and call them out when they screw up. To me being a fan isn’t about just blindly loving something, it’s about knowing WHY you love it and being willing to call out faults while still thoroughly enjoying the work. There’s a fine line between being blindly loyal to someone, which has created Zach Snyder's awful cult of personality that I hate so much, and being an overly critical shithead and I hope I’m straddling that line.

Back on the scene after that filibuster they point out Gladstone, who himself is a monster to me for how he doesn’t lift a finger to help his nephews or cousin, and constnatly flaunts his luck to Donald, and is a bit more than teasing especially since he tried to, you know, steal your house once boys. That’s canon.. that’s a barks story so it’s canon here. You.. You remember that right? He tried to steal your house. And we will be getting to that one next month, just you wait. Finally the Daisy part that annoys me slightly. The boys being sexist.. was sadly the style at the time this story is set, the 1950′s, and thus plays better for me than it does in Ducktales, as their just little boys and don’t know better. Them assuming Girlfriends aren’t like having friends, while accurate though does bother me a bit, but only because the way this story treats Donald’s relationship is PRETTTTTYYYY bad and this sets that up. But we’ll get to that. Thankfully this foreshadowing of terrors to come is quickly forgotten as we get a GENUINELY great two panels of Donald lamenting his lack of friends. It just works really well, selling his loneliness and how isolated he truly feels without any, which while I have friends I can relate to as I only really hang out with on regularly.

This is what I was talking about. While I will point out Rosa’s flaws.. their truly outweighed but his artistic mastery. In just three panels he really has a truly emotional and heartrending scene, and just that one close up among them is all we need to get the true depths of Donald’s loneliness. I can be hard on the guy, but it’s because he’s one of the best there is, best there was, and best there ever will be and thus I hold him to a high standard. But with that we transition to...

Or rather first his boss at the hotel, whose pissed his headliner has skipped out on him again to woo a lady, and while he plans to fire the guy, only isn’t throttling him because he figures one of his “Senorita’s” boyfriends will do that for him. And while I do like Jose as a playboy i’m not really fond of him trying to have sex with someone in a relationship, as it puts both him and the person he’s having an affair with in a really bad light. It does fit the character, I just don’t have to like it. As for this particular Senorita, it turns out her boyfriend is a notorious Bandito and is thankfully out of town. So yes, Jose is essentially acting out Come A Little Bit Closer by Jay and the Americans.

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Naturally just like the song, said Bad Man returns, Alfonso “Gold Hat” Bedoya, a machete wielding baddie who while understandably pissed about another man making time with his girlfriend, is less understandably about to murder Jose. Though unlike the song, Alfonso’s Lady, rather than help Jose, encourages her boyfriend to murder him and clearly has a fetish for cheating on her boyfriend with various men and watching as he kills him which.. Jesus. This is why while I don’t LIKE the idea of Jose hitting on women in a relationship it does work here, as he’s still not nearly as bad as either of these two, so it evens out. Jose escapes with his umbrella but crashes.. right into the back of Donald’s car. Rosa, Alfonso’s lady, encourages him to murder both of them for funsies, and being a brutal thug, Alfonso obliges and shoots at the car. And since, to quote the duck himself, Donald doesn’t like being killed “Even a little”, he books it out of there.

Alfonso doesn’t peruse them though. He’s on the trail of a treasure hunter who has a map to the lost town of Tayopa, which contains untold silver, but before he can do that he has important buisness to get to.

I fucking love that gag and that Rosa snuck more adult gags in there knowing plenty of Duck Fans, such as myself, are grown men, women and others who can handle this sort of thing, while still slippnig it past the kids.

Donald, once the fear’s worn off a bit, starts to wonder WHY he’s running when he’s not the one who pissed off the guy, and ignores Jose’s good point about the fact Alfonso really dosen’t seem like a guy who sees nuance.. until Donald sees a wanted poster for Alphonoso and keeps driving. He eventually gets far enough away to feel safe.. and confront the guy who got him into this mess.

Now kiss. While sadly, they do not, we do get a lovely warm reunion between old pals. Rosa keeps their past vauge as, correctly, he pointed out in his authors notes that the Cabs movie really had no plot, accurate, so instead just vaguely alluded to Donald having known the two in his pre-daisy and boys past and likely had similar adventures to the movie, but adapted more for Rosa’s barksian universe. Jose explains he often finds himself cash poor and thus hits the road to drum up some money, and Mexico is a great place for that as it has plenty of tourist money.

Though as Jose talks about their past we get the most uncomfortable running gag of the story.

While Donald’s paranoia here is played for laughs.. it just.. isn’t all that funny that Donald’s relationship with Daisy in the Rosa canon is apparently sooooo deeply unhealthy that just HEARING about him having a romantic past before him, as Rosa confirmed this was pre-daisy in his notes, causes Donald to panic and worry she actually somehow heard this. It just isn’t funny.. it speaks of MASSIVE relationship issues and some form of domestic abuse on Rosa!Daisy’s part. It’s stuff like this why there’s only a handful of Donsy relationships I like: Her treating him like shit is reduced to a punchline, instead of being used for character growth. It’s also why I’m deeply dreading covering “Legend of the Three Cablleros” at the end of this retrospective. I just don’t like when Disney media treats Daisy expecting too much of Donald or being hyper jealous of him as hilarious and while I take this more as the story not ageing well rather than barks fault, as since then Domestic Abuse against Males has become a more widely known and talked about issue, it still doesn’t’t make it plesant. It just makes this not entirely his fault. Just like it’s not Stan Lee’s fault this panel is both deeply hilarious and uses a now kinda racist term.

I named an entire youtube channel after that.. we all have our regrets. I also bring it up since currently Harry’s become terrifying villain Kindred... and thus the current big bad of an entire Spider-Man run and the being hopefully bringing one more day into the light and hopefully leading to it’s undoing.. once had a goofy mustache he genuinely referred to a “Fu Manchu Face Fuzz” that for all we know he regrew under the mask.

Donald fondly remembers the old days of being a badass adventuring team and decides, screw it, let’s go show that Gold Hatted Paloka whose boss.. but being Donald ends up driving them into The Copper Canyon instead. Our heroes end up lost in the canyon and , fitting for Donald get shot at. I can only imagine his thoughts right now.

Their mysterious attacker threatens them.. before revealing himself to be Panchito, whose glad to see his friends having mistook them for Alfonso. Turns out HE’S the mysterious treasure hunter Alfonoso was after, to no one’s surprise. We get another deeply unfunny “Daisy’s only a thousand miles away gag” as the boys reminisce and get introduced to Panchito’s horse, Senior Martniez. He also tells the boy about his map.. but how he’s hit a snag as the lost town where the silver, from a silver mine.. is now buried under pounds of volcanic rock, a volcano having erupted. This is artistic license as Don Rosa admits there aren’t any known volcano’s in Mexico, but that they also still haven’t found that missing town, so this was his explanation. All is not lost as Donald’s globetrotting with Scrooge meant he knows his history.. and thus spots an old mission which, at the time, were used by preists as cover for secret mines. Donald naturally bungles his way in and we get the much better running gag of the Cabs thinking Donald did something amazing when he really just wondered into slapstick. They end up down the shaft, with Jose deciding Donald can’t do all the work, and finding a secret entrance under a sanctum sanctorum.. a religious thing I have no idea what it ii s but is clearly where Dr. Strange got the name. Regardless they find some old kegs filled with pure silver. As Panchito puts it:

And he did ideed. In a nice moment that shows off his character, Panchito has no hesitation for sharing the wealth: He wouldn’t of got this far without his friends, and he wont get the Silver cashed in without their help. He also fires off his guns in celebration.. forgetting their in a cave, a gag I genuinely like.

After some off screen loading and hoisting, the boys are slowly on their way out of the canyon, with Donald’s Car and Senor Martinez pulling the cart with the silver together. With some downtime the three talk about what they’ll spend the money on.

About what you’d expect. A big beautiful music venue

For Jose, and a nice ranch to retire at for Panchito. Both despite being wondering souls would love a simple place to call home, in their own personal styles. While they are BIG goals, their also likeable and understandable ones: Jose just wants to stop having to do all these tours and carouse and party and perform at home. Be his own boss, and live his own dreams instead of working for whoever will put up for him. Panchito just wants to retire from being a wondering hero to a peaceful life of farming, an honest reward he well earned. And Donald?

This is easily one of my faviorite moment’s of Rosa’s, one that really cuts to comic donald’s character: Sure he can be lazy, a trickster, hot tempered, and overconfident.. it’s why we love him.. but at the end of the day he genuinely loves those boys and their his first prority and I can see why the reboot took that trait and made it his defining one. They may annoy and frustrate them and he may pull a switch on them, 50′s after all.. but he loves his boys and knows they’ll do great one day and despite his spendthrift ways when given big money.. their all he can think about. Sure Donald probably has his own personal dreams, but instead of going big and retiring he’d probably just take only a small sliver of that money to open a humble hot dog stand or something, so he could have something of his own to provide them, while still giving most of the money to their college. Scrooge is who we all want to be.. Donald is who we are at our core: Flawed people who just want to do our best. It’s why I love the guy so much. The boys rest in the small town of El Divisadero, which like the town we started in is a real place, though both are much smaller, even as of 2000 when Rosa made his visit, so he had to embelish slightly. THey stop at a local watering hole only to find Alphonso. While Jose is naturally worried, Gold Hat has moved on to Panchito and wants to know why he’s here. However Donald thinking quickly says he’s part of their nightclub act, and we get a rousing version of the three cablleros, which when reading this I synched up to the song. I won’t put it here, as it’s too big for tumblr and it really works more as a whole, but needless to say, it’s the highlight of the comic. While Rosa did have doubts about putting a musical number in a comic, and it’s often trickey, he makes it work with the energy, vibrance and number of gags, that compensate for the music not being there. There’s tons of great gags, from Donald getting thrown out window, to the stone faced crowd who only cheers when Alphonso ends the number by whacking the three with one of their own guitars. Alphonso quickly realizes what’s goin on, finds the silver, and then hyjacks the train. The boys take off after him in the car, as Donald triumphantly states “The Three Cablleros Ride Again!”. The three head after Alphonzo, who finds them when trying to release the other cars to increase speed, and then shoots at them. It seems hopeless... until donald gets launched into the air, into a cactus then back into Alphonzo knocking his guns out in a great bit of slapstick. The Conductor, likely not knowing about the others or not carring, detaches the cars though, so our heroes and villian are now sent rocketing through the world’s most dangerous railway. Which, as you’d probably already figured out, is very real and what inspirited rosa to use this setting and thus indeed wind through dangerous mountainsides and over thin cliffs like a real life Donkey Kong Country level. Eduardo still has his machete though and easily beats Jose’s umbrella, but some more Donald slapstick and him apologizing to daisy about the senioritis as he wishes her goodbye seriously GET SOME COUPLE’S COUNSELING IF THAT EXISTS IN THE 50′S. It puls his sombrero down over his head, and with jose’s umbrella top landing on it, carries him off where he ends up in a lazy asshole sheirff’s jail for a gag. The boys however continue going back.. and the railway is unfinished at this time in history and while they save the silver, their fucked. But Donald has a plan, running to the back of the cars to get his car, and while it has trouble starting, Panchito throws some chilie’s in the tank to get it moving again. The boys find the silver.. but when one barrel spills they find out it’s not actual liquid silver.. but quicksilver, which was used for silver refinment. So while i’ts shiny, and toxic so of course Jose sticks his hand in before knowing what it is, it’s worthless. Probably. The boys.. all have a nice laugh over it. I love this moment. Sure the boys lost their dreams.. but like Scrooge, the three belivie theirs always another rainbow. What matters is the journey they had and the reunion that restored their friendship. Donald also muses the boys are smart enough to get their own scholarships anyway, so it’s no big loss.. but he does have to get back to Disvadero as the jamboree ends tonight and Jose agrees as he now needs a job again. The owner balks, understandably since Jose missed a performance to get laid and then disappeared overnight.. but the Hotel Owner is visiting so as long as he can provide a big act he’s good, and while Jose is worried as he already gave them his best, the boys naturally pitch in to be the cablleros once more. After all

So we close on Huey, Dewey and Louie returning, still worrying about donald, when they find him on stage. We then end on a truly heartwarming and great last few panels.

Final Thoughts: What else can I say? This story is beautifully drawn, as usual for Rosa, well paced, fun and really fleshes the Cabs out from the movie. It has a warm, fun adventurous tone and it’s nice to see Donald in the lead since Rosa usually did Scrooge stories and thus Donald was the justifiably surly sidekick instead of the main man> here he’s in the spotlight and gets to show just what he’s made of, while still being the hilarious mess we all know and love. The story honors the original film well, while forging it’s own path and is beautifully built into history. My only real complaints are the nephews being annoying, Alphonso’s somewhat overwrought accent, and of course the daisy gags.. but it’s all HEAVILY outweighed by one of Rosa’s finest hours and easy enough to ignore. Check this out if you can. It’s a classic for a reason.

If you liked this review, you can commission your own by messaging me on here or at my discord technicolormuk#655 for five dollars a comic story or animation episode. Whenever the ride resumes next, we’ll coming on down to the house of mouse to see the boys return to the screen. In the meantime keep an eye on this space for regular Ducktales reviews every Monday, including once this run ends as I intend to start playing catchup, loud house reviews whenever, my tom retrospective that’s returning soon, and my retrospective on the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, with chapter 2 of that also coming soon. Until then, there’s always another rainbow.

#the three caballeros #jose carioca #panchito pistoles #donald duck #don rosa #ride of the three caballeros #the three caballeros ride again #huey duck #dewey duck #louie duck #daisy duck #mexico #comics #reviews #elmo keep

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snowdice · 4 years ago

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Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 22]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. Chapters 3-8 and what I have of Chapter 9 are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

The hope is to work on this for quite a bit today. Please come keep me company with asks if you feel so inclined.

Chapter 6

“Really, Khalid,” Janus said, storming into his boss’s office. “A yellow?” It had been about a week since the 1920s incident, and his incident report had finally been cleared. Sure, it wasn’t a red or a black and he wasn’t facing any reprimand, but it should have been a green.

She looked up at him, clearly unconcerned. “There was an incident,” she said. “You handled it well, but there was one. Therefore, yellow.”

“It wasn’t a time travel incident! It was a rouge time traveler.”

“Janus, you helped me make these rules,” she said impatiently.

“Which is why I know this is bullshit,” he snapped.

She rolled her eyes. “If it was anyone else, you would agree with me. While you didn’t go against protocol and had no time related incidents, the fact of the matter is, you were still distracted by this ‘rouge time traveler,’ didn’t complete your mission, and were arrested.”

“He was good,” Janus said. “You can’t fault me for that. He also could be dangerous and you’re busy handing out yellows instead of working to track him down.”

She raised an eyebrow. “We are working on tracking him down,” she said. “We have done an analysis on the mask and found fibers dating to the 2010s and some DNA. Though it isn’t exactly a high priority.”

“We have no idea who he is or what he’s planning to do. Why is that not a high priority thing?”

“At the moment?” she asked. “Because we have reports of a time bomb being activated.”

“What?” Janus asked sitting up. “When?”

“New Years Eve going into the year 3,000 in Brazil,” she said. “Which you’d know about if you’d bothered to check your integration port this morning before storming into my office.”

“It’s my mission?” Janus asked.

“The incident investigation is over and your active again despite the dreaded yellow,” she said, clearly making fun of him a bit. “So, yes, and it’s a high priority mission, so I’ll be running it.”

“Who all is going?” he asked.

“Other than the two of us, Remus, Lena, and Fred,” she told him. “We leave in three hours, so, you might want to run off to Rhi before Fred gets to her and ties her up for an hour on details.”

Janus nodded and got to his feet. He turned back at the door. “I still don’t deserve the yellow,” he hissed.

She waved him off. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Picani.”

He ground his teeth a bit about the dismissal of his worries, but his resentment was slightly soothed by the fact that she’d assigned him to go on such a high priority mission and with only senior agents.

He took the advice and grabbed Remus from the office, noting Lena hadn’t been able to wrangle Fred yet as she was still at her desk, and they both headed off to see Rhi.

A few hours later, they were all in decontamination together, decked out in truly god-awful costumes. The turn of the third millennia had been a wild event, and the best way to fit in was to look like you’d grabbed something from every century in recorded human history, dyed it in neon paint, and rolled around in a vat of glitter.

Remus had opted to stick his head in a vat of thick glow in the dark green paint that costuming had offered them, and it wasn’t even going to be slightly disruptive to their covertness. It was so caked on that Janus couldn’t even recognize him.

In fact, costuming had frowned when Janus had insisted he not get his hair dyed and instead wore a bowler hat. They had required him to have flowers made out of glitter on it.

There were five people waiting for them when they landed 6 hours before the turn of the millennia. Three were touchdown agents, including Remy, and two were on location tech support. Usually it would be overkill to have that many people there just for support even with five agents in the field, but today the TPI needed to be cautious because they were planning on instituting a time lock.

Time bombs were dangerous things that would ripple through time if not contained. Even if it did end up going off (killing everyone in its reach), the time lock would serve to prevent most damage outside of the city and, more importantly, the year it was planted.

Janus had only been in two time locks before, and he was one of the most senior agents in the TPI, outranked only by the founder: Lia Khalid. Time locks were designed to keep all time linear in a certain fixed time and geographical area as well as prevent any time travel in and out. Once it was engaged, all forms of time travel would not work for the duration, bar the pin device. Khalid was already switching out her regular timepiece with the slightly bigger one that was designed to support the time lock.

There was a failsafe back at the TPI that could be engaged in an emergency, which was why tech support was here, but other than that, the only thing that could break the time lock was that timepiece, and it would break the moment the time lock ended.

As soon as it was on Khalid’s wrist, she looked up at them all. “Our information says the time bomb was planted in the costume of one of the ‘Millennium Birds’ who are the organizers of the different events,” she said. Janus had seen a photo of the identical costumes in the mission details. They were all robe like garments with giant fans of feathers coming from the neck that coalesced in a peak a foot above their head to hold a fake bird egg. At least they’d be easy to find. “There are 25 of them throughout the city. We need to find each of them. So, we don’t double count, you’ll need to subtly,” her eyes touched on Remus, “scan each one you find for the bomb and tag them with a tracker if it’s not on them. You can view the already tagged ones, as well as the rest of us on your timepiece even once the time lock is engaged. When you find the bomb, call it in.”

They all nodded, and Khalid looked over at one of the techies. She nodded at her and then the techie flipped a couple of switches. “Three, two, one,” the techie said. There was a slight shift in the air that most people would disregard, but Janus as a seasoned time traveler could feel the change even before his wrist buzzed. He glanced at his timepiece to see it had a big red ‘X’ across its display. He tapped it and was still able to bring up the map of the city with 10 green dots on it all clustered together in their current location.

After that, he tested the scanner on his timepiece that he would use to search for the bomb, just to make sure the time lock hadn’t messed anything up with his equipment. He glanced up to see everyone else was doing the same.

“Keep in contact,” Khalid said before everyone split up. Janus and Remus started by going North while Fredrick and Darlene were to go South. Khalid was a floater who would tag any Birds she saw but was mostly there for backup and orders.

Janus and Remus stepped into the chaos of New Years Eve before the turn of the third millennia. The streets were already swamped with people and it would only be getting worse the later it go.

“Where should we start?” Remus asked.

“Let’s go all the way North to the games area,” Janus said. “We can work our way back here.”

“Okay!” Remus said. “I wonder if they have those fun little genetically modified goldfish as prizes. I’ve always wanted to eat one and see if I end up getting whatever design was on the fish on my body.”

Janus gave him a disgusted look.

“What?! People eat fish all the time!”

Janus shook his head. “We’re not playing the games anyway. We have work to do. Important work.”

“Boo,” Remus replied. Janus chose to ignore him as he spotted one of the Millenia Birds letting people into the gaming area.

They walked over towards the entrance. Janus got in range first and moved to subtly scan the Millenia Bird, Remus doing the same the next moment. After a second, Janus’s timepiece buzzed and lit up red, meaning the bomb was within range. “Well, that was easy,” he said. “It was on the first one we found.”

“Uh…” Remus said. “Jan.” When Janus looked, he was holding up his wrist to show his green lit time piece.

“What?” Janus asked. He quickly moved to rescan the Millenia Bird, and his timepiece came up green as well. Which, meant the bomb was not in range, even though the Millenia Bird had not moved. “But…” He and Remus’s eyes met, and they quickly both started turning in a circle to look at the crowd around him. No one looked like they’d just stolen a time bomb off the Millennial Bird, but then Janus’s eyes caught on a man. He blended in perfectly to his surroundings. He was wearing the disgusting garb of the times, a large light blue piece that bubbled near his hips, and had most of his skin covered in rainbow neon paints. Yet, something about him, the curl of his hair or the way he moved, drew Janus’s eyes to him. He recognized the man immediately even in a completely different dressing style. Yet, what cinched it was the moment Janus’s eyes met his and they seemed to sparkle slightly in the afternoon sun. The next moment, the person Janus knew as Pat, turned to disappear into the crowd.

Chapter 7

“Him,” was the only thing Janus said before taking off after the figure who had just disappeared into the game area.

“What?” Remus’s voice followed after him. “Janus! What?!”

Janus did not pause, just continuing to run after Pat, hopping over two barricades as a shortcut. Janus cursed when he lost sight of the man for just a moment near the prize table filled with colorful goldfish, but he was able to spot him once again walking into one of the tents. Janus blasted into the tent. It was a game where they raced rats, and when Janus entered, Pat was cooing at one of them.

“Who’s a tiny little squishy precious baby?” he was asking one of them, wiggling his pointer finger at it.

“You,” Janus growled stepping up to him.

He turned and tilted his head at Janus with a frown. “Um, me?” he asked, pointing to his chest, all sorts of innocent, but Janus could see a spot of hidden amusement in his eyes.

“Where is it?”

His eyebrows drew together, but it was an act. It was clearly an act! “Where is what?”

“The…” he glanced around them at the people surrounding them. “Thing you just took.”

“I didn’t take anything,” Pat said with a frown.

“Oh, no,” Janus said. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fooling me twice is not an option.”

“I’m sorry sir,” Pat said. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bull. Shit.”

Just then, Remus jogged into the tent. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“It’s him,” Janus said pointing. “He took it. He has it.”

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about,” Patton said. He looked over to Remus with a confused frown.

Remus looked at Janus. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “It’s him. It has to be him. He’s the mask guy.”

Remus squinted at Pat. “He is?”

“Whoever you think I am, I’m not. I haven’t worn a mask all night. I just did the face paint,” he pointed to his cheeks.

Remus raised his wrist and his timepiece lit up green. He looked at Janus.

“I lost sight of him for five seconds. He must have stashed it somewhere,” Janus said. He turned on Pat. “Where did you put it?”

“…Are you,” Pat asked, his eyes going back and forth between Janus and Remus, “… the police?”

“We are, actually,” Khalid said as she stepped into the tent. Remus must have called her. She inserted herself between Janus and Pat. “Agent Khalid,” she said, offering a hand with a smile. Pat looked at it in surprise and then smiled back hesitantly as he took it. “Apologizes, one of the big game prizes was stolen by someone matching your description. Would you mind coming down to security for questioning? Just to clear it up.”

“Oh,” Patton said, hesitant. Janus expected him to refuse outright, but then he said. “Uh, sure.”

“Thank you very much, Mr…”

“Jonas,” Pat told her earnestly. “Do I need to be handcuffed?”

“No,” Khalid said. Janus frowned at her, but she ignored him. “It’s just a talk for now.” She gestured to the tent entrance. “Come with us.”

He did without argument, and Remus and Janus followed behind the both of them. Khalid did not lead them back to the base, but to a little spot that said “security” near the center of the event. Remy was already there waiting for them at a desk.

“Remy, would you please take Mr. Jonas to go sit down?” she asked.

“Sure, boss,” Remy said, standing up. He led Pat away.

Khalid turned to Janus and Remus once they were out of earshot. “What is going on?”

“It’s the mask man,” Janus said, “the one from 1923, and my scanner said the time bomb was on the Millenia Bird outside the games entrance, but then it was gone the next second, and I saw him, and then he ran away.”

“So, does he have it on him?”

“No. I lost sight of him, and he must have stored it somewhere, but I know he took it.”

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“He’s the man from 1923?” she asked.

“Yes! Remus, that’s him, right? You recognize him.”

“Well,” Remus said thoughtfully. “He was in a mask, and it was dark in the room with the necklace. Other than that, I only really saw his back, and he was wearing pants. Mr. Jonas is wearing a dress, so I can’t really tell if their asses match.”

“Okay, but I was with him for hours. I swear it’s him, and I swear he took it,” Janus just about shouted.

“We’ll question him,” Khalid placated, “and Fred and Lena will keep looking in the meantime.”

“He knows where it is,” Janus insisted. “I swear.”

“Okay,” Khalid said, before leaving to follow where Remy and Pat had gone. She stopped Janus with a hand on his shoulder. “I think Remus and I will do the interrogation.” He opened his mouth to argue. “You know the most about him, so observe from the sidelines and see if he makes any mistakes that indicate you’re right.”

“That’s just to placate me and you know it.”

“Observation’s over there,” she said pointing.

He got a thumbs up from Remus as he walked by, and Janus glared at his back before walking off to the indicated location.

He watched as Remus and Khalid entered the room, and Remy left it. Remy joined him in the observation room after leaving and leaned against the wall.

Pat was sitting at a table and watched Remus and Khalid with that same rubbish placid confusion that he had before. “So,” Khalid said, “Mr. Jonas.”

“You can call me Nick,” Pat interrupted.

“Lia,” Khalid replied. He smiled at her happily. “So, are you enjoying your day?” she asked.

“I am!” he replied. “It’s a big day. You only get to see the turn of a millennia once in your life.”

“Ah, yes,” Khalid said. “Doing anything special for it?”

“Um, not really,” he said. “Other than the party. I’m going to meet up with my roommates after dinner. Kevin doesn’t like this sort of thing, and Joe couldn’t come.”

“Your roommates,” Khalid said, considering him. “Do you live around here?”

“Uh huh,” Pat replied.

“Do you have any ID?”

“I do, want me to get it?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Pat unzipped one of the bubbles on his waist and handed her a chip. “Remus, would you mind going out and getting the ID scanner?” she asked, even though her timepiece would be able to read it.

“Ah, shit,” Remy said. “Props. What do those things even look like?”

As Remy scrambled to find something that would pass for an ID reader so “Nick” didn’t get suspicious of Khalid using her timepiece, Janus watched the two alone in the room like a hawk.

“I see you’re wearing a dress inspired by the 2770s,” Khalid noted, as Remus came to stand next to him.

“Yeah!” Pat replied. “Joe made it for me. He’s really good at fashion design!”

“Can I see?” she asked.

With a happy smile, he reached over the table to let her get a look of the sleeves. Janus saw her subtly scan the fabric, probably to make sure it was from the 2990s and not actually from the 2770s. Considering she didn’t mention it, Janus assumed it checked out.

Remy came back with some sort of device then and handed it to Remus who saluted and wandered back into the interrogation room. Khalid pretended to scan the ID in her hand. She handed it back to him without comment. “So, you said you live with your roommates: Joe and Kevin?” she asked.

“Yep!” he replied. “We’re practically like brothers.”

“Would you mind calling them?”

“Erm,” he titled his head like he was confused by the question. “Well, like I said, Joe is a bit busy, but I could definitely call Kevin.

“Here,” Khalid said, “use my phone.”

“I have my own,” he said with a frown.

“Humor me,” she requested.

“Uh, okay,” Pat agreed. He took the offered 2999 phone and dialed a number on it. Khalid reached over to put it on speaker.

“Hello?” a voice asked after a few seconds.

“Um, hey Kevin, it’s Nick.”

There was a sigh on the other end. “Hello Nick, is something wrong? Why are you calling me from someone else’s phone?”

“I’m fine, I think.” He looked up at Khalid. “Why am I calling him exactly?”

“Hello, I’m Officer Khalid,” Khalid said. “I just wanted to confirm that you are Nick Jonas’s roommate, and he does live in Manaus.”

“Yes, we live together with our other roommate,” the man replied flippantly. “Officer? Is something wrong?”

“I believe there was just a case of mistaken identity,” Khalid said.

“Bullshit there was!” Janus hissed, though she could not hear him.

“No need to worry,” Khalid continued.

“I’m good Kevin,” Pat said.

“Are you absolutely sure?” Kevin asked.

“Don’t be Paranoid, Kevin. I’ll see you Tonight for the New Years Celebration. You know I Live to Party.”

“I am hanging up now,” Kevin said.

“No! Comeback.” The line went dead. Pat handed the device back to Khalid.

She took it and smiled at him. “Give us just a couple of minutes,” she requested. He nodded easily, and she and Remus exited the interrogation room. “I… think we’re done here,” Khalid said.

“No, he’s lying,” Janus insisted, and got a dubious look in return. “I know he is! Remus!”

“The alibi is pretty solid…” Remus said, “and he doesn’t have the bomb on him.”

“Oh, come on,” Janus said. “You can’t say there is nothing fishy going on here.”

Khalid and Remus shared a look. “Janus,” Khalid said. “I respect your intuition. It is usually very good, but you have been a bit intense about the man from the 1920s, and I think that may be blinding you a bit...”

“I am not imagining this!” Janus said. “That’s him and he took it.”

“You only met him once while he was wearing a mask,” Khalid pointed out with a frown, “and you didn’t see him take the bomb, did you?”

“No, but he looked at me and I knew,” Janus argued. They both gave him a skeptical look. “Oh, come on!”

“You know that’s a little weak, Jan,” Remus said.

“Let me talk to him,” Janus requested. “Just give me five minutes to talk with him.”

Khalid raised one eyebrow. “Fine,” she agreed. “You have five minutes, but after that, you have to let it go. We can’t waste any more time.”

Chapter 8

Pat looked up as Janus stepped into the interrogation room. “Hi,” he said with an innocent smile that could cut steal.

Janus didn’t say a word as he took a seat; he just watched him intently. He leaned slightly over the table and steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “So, your name is Nick this time?” Janus asked.

“Nicholas Jonas,” he said. “Always has been.”

“Stop it,” Janus said.

“Stop what?”

“Cut the crap. I know.”

Pat leaned forward, mirroring Janus as he leaned closer, interlocking his fingers and laying his chin on top of his knuckles. “What did you say your name was again?” he asked, pleasantly.

“Janus,” Janus replied.

“No, I’m Jonas,” he said, pointing to his chest.

“Not Jonas,” Janus spat. “Janus.”

“Um,” Pat said, eyes alight with amusement. The bastard. “Those are the same words.”

“No, they’re not. It’s Janus. J-A-N-U.-S.”

“Well, that’s confusing,” Pat said with a frown, but his nose was crinkling. “It’s close to my name. You should go by a nickname instead.”

“What?” Janus said. “No.”

Pat hummed. “How about Love Bug?”

“What! No!” Janus sputtered, almost flipping the table, as Pat winked at him.

“BB Good?”

“What does that even mean?!”

“Mandy.”

“No!”

“Okay, okay, how about Macy Misa.”

11594

Janus stared at him for a moment. “Fine. Whatever. What was I even talking about?”

“Hmm. I Believe we were talking about my name and how you think it’s not my name.”

“Right,” Janus said. “So, Nick. That was your roommate, Kevin on the phone, right? He seemed a bit unhappy with you. Any reason?”

“Nah, we’re Cool” said Pat. “That’s Just the Way We Roll.”

“Not because you’re messing up a mission right now?”

Pat’s eyes crinkled together. “A mission?” he parroted. “I’m not messing up a mission.”

“Oh, really?” Janus growled. “Because you’ve been captured by the TPI, and I know who you are and what you’ve been doing.”

“I have no idea what the TPI is,” he claimed.

“Yes, you do!” Janus said, standing up. “You obviously do! Or you wouldn’t be playing this game!”

“Game?” Pat asked. “Macy I ask you what you’re talking about.”

“This is all just a game to you isn’t it!” Janus said, slamming his hands down on the table in front of them.

“Whoa,” Pat said, putting his hands up. “Calm down. Your face is getting all red. You must be Burnin’ Up.”

“I’m not sure what, but something about what you just said pisses me off.”

“And that is five minutes,” Khalid said, bursting into the room. He felt a tug on the back of his shirt and glared back at Remus who was putting his own body between Janus and Pat.

“There was no way that was five minutes,” Janus growled.

“It was five minutes,” Khalid gritted out. “Remus, get him out of here.”

“Come on Jay,” Remus said, dragging him back towards the door.

“Remus, I swear to god.”

“Just chill, Janus,” Remus said, slamming the door closed behind them.

Janus shrugged him off. “You chill!” he snapped. “He’s playing you all for the fool.”

“Wow, Macy,” Remy drawled like an asshole. “I’ve never seen you so fired up.”

“Oh, my gosh. No one is going to believe me, and he’s going to get away with this.”

“You’re not really helping your case, babe,” Remy said.

Remus grabbed him by the shoulders again. “Here, let’s go get some water.”

“I don’t want water,” he said even as he let Remus lead him to another room to get a glass of water.

“Look,” Remus said. “I know the Mask Guy thing really sucked, but you have to look at the facts.

“I am looking at the facts,” Janus insisted, “and the facts are, he’s fucking with me.”

“You don’t know what mask guy looks like,” Remus said. “You didn’t see Nick take the time bomb, he has an ID from this time period and a roommate in this time he called on the phone, and he legitimately seems to not know what any of us are talking about.”

“Did you even listen to our conversation?” Janus asked. “He was screwing with me the entire time!”

“Janus…” Remus said.

“What?” Janus said, narrowing his eyes at Remus’s tone.

“I know you recently had a bad experience, but not everyone who flirts with you is doing it out of evil.”

Janus’s mouth hung open for a few seconds. “That’s what you got out of our conversation?”

“He called you Love Bug.”

Janus felt his face heat a bit at the reminder. “That’s not… I. I’m stealing your cat and then never speaking to you again.”

Remus laughed. “Ah,” he said. “Young lust.”

Janus elbowed him roughly in the side. “No!”

“Yes!” he crooned, pleased.

“You are the worst partner,” Janus hissed. “When I’m right you owe me 10 loafs of your fresh bread.”

“Branching out from poptarts?” Remus asked.

Janus shook his head. He still wasn’t happy about the state of things, but he could feel himself cooling down a bit.

Khalid came out of the integration room after a few minutes, leaving Pat with Remy. “What was that?” she asked him.

“He got under my skin,” Janus said.

“We’ll talk about it later,” she said. “For now, we’re letting him go and then going back to looking for the bomb like we’re meant to be.”

“Fine,” Janus relented. “Just do me the favor of tagging him before he leaves. Just that. I beg of you.”

“Sure,” she agreed. “If it will calm you down.”

He nodded.

“Then, let’s go,” she said. When they met back up with Remy and Pat, he saw Khalid make the subtle gesture that would tag Pat like they would have for the Millennium Birds. Pat sent him what could pass as a sweet smile if Janus didn’t know better. Then, they walked him outside, leaving Remy on clean-up duty for the make-shift security office.

“So, I’m free to go?” Pat asked. His bemused expression edged far too much on the side of amused verses confused for Janus’s taste.

“You are,” Khalid said. “Have fun at the festivities.”

His hands went flapping about. “Oh, you too!” he said. “Well, I guess you’re working, but you can have fun anyway, I’m sure.”

“We’ll do our best,” she said.

He gave her a blinding smile and reached forward to shake her hand enthusiastically. Janus rolled his eyes and looked up at the heavens. “It was nice to meet you!” he said, “and you too, Remus!” He turned to meet Janus’s eyes. “Macy Misa.”

Janus pressed his lips together.

Then, Pat turned and walked away.

“Well, now that we’re done with that,” Khalid said, turning to them. “We have only a few more hours before midnight and we really need to find the time bomb.

“Oh,” Pat called. He’d paused a few yards away and turned back to them. “Thanks for letting me go so easily by the way,” he said, “and just in the Nick,” he winked, “of time too.” Janus narrowed his eyes at him. He smiled back. “Wrist check,” he said holding up his arm to show off the timepiece there. Khalid immediately looked down at her own wrist just to see that the one timepiece that could move through the time lock was no longer there. Pat made a gesture and disappeared.

All three of them stared at the spot he’d been for a long moment.

Janus was the one to speak first. “I want. The yellow. To be erased. From my record.”

Chapter 9

Khalid immediately called everyone back to base.

“What happened?” asked Fred when he and Lena arrived. The tech people were already scrambling to get through to the TPI and get the time lock broken from the outside.

“Remus, Remy, and Khalid got played by Pat or whatever his name is. It certainly isn’t Nick. He was just setting up a joke,” Janus told him.

“Stop being smug,” Remy said. “It’s not a good look for you.”

“Pat is…?” Lena asked.

“They guy who fucked me over in 1923,” Janus said, “and is currently in the middle of fucking us all over because he stole the pin timepiece, and by extrapolation, probably the time bomb too.”

“It will be fine,” said Khalid, “because what he doesn’t know is that timepiece has a tracker on it. Wherever and whenever he went, we’ll have his coordinates.”

“Speaking of,” one of the techies said. “It’s about to break. You might want to hold onto something.” Janus grabbed for a support beam next to him as the techie put a device on the ground in the center of the base. It blinked once, twice, and on the third blink the ground rumbled. There were sounds of panicked yelps outside. The fail safe for the time lock was not nearly as gentle as ending it correctly.

Everything settled after a few moments, and they all straightened themselves out. Janus’s timepiece buzzed to indicate it was now functioning normally. Khalid had returned her usual timepiece to her wrist and now used it to open a display they could all see. “The pin timepiece’s closest time/space coordinates are…” she trailed off. “Right outside?” She frowned. “That’s strange. Why would he still be here?” She turned to march outside, following the coordinates to a trash can. She pulled the pin timepiece out and stared at it. “Fuck,” she said.

“What just happened?” Remy asked.

“He ticked us,” Janus said. “Again.”

“He was stuck in the time lock,” Khalid said. “That’s why he got our attention. He couldn’t leave with the time bomb unless he had the pin timepiece or we broke the time lock. Apparently, he’s smart enough to know that if he took the pin timepiece away from here, we’d probably be able to find him, but he knew we’d break the lock as soon as the pin went missing. So, he must have stashed his own timepiece and went back in time within the time lock to grab it while we were distracted with the past version of him. As soon as the time lock went down, I imagine he left.”

“Probably with the time bomb,” Janus said.

“Probably with the time bomb,” she confirmed.

And everyone knew the only thing worse than a time bomb was a time bomb you didn’t know the location of.

They evacuated after that, of course, and time locked the location once they were out just in case they were wrong, but midnight 3000 struck without thousands of people dying in Brazil, so the time bomb had defiantly been removed from then.

The, they initiated a time travel lockdown for all nonessentials, not willing to let random history students get caught up in an explosion if Pat decided to set the thing off somewhere.

Then, it was a matter of figuring out everything they could about ‘Pat.’ First, they checked the tracker data as Khalid had tagged him with one of the Millennium Bird trackers. It wouldn’t work outside of the zone they’d set up that day, but the record would show his behavior during the time lock after he’d escaped with the pin timepiece.

There had been many little green dots on the map that day as Fred and Lena had actually been doing the job they’d set out to do, but most of those were running around in the south. There had been one green dot, however, that appeared suddenly in the game area about 10 minutes before the time bomb had been stolen.

They could see Janus’s yellow dot almost brush his when he’d been chasing the earlier Pat down, around when he’d lost him briefly. The earlier Pat must have all but handed it off to his future self.

“He doubled back,” Remus commented when they watched the recorded data. It was a ballsy move and one that most people balked at, because there were inherent dangers any time you interacted with yourself from a different point in the timestream. It was ripe for paradoxes. It made everyone at the agency even more worried, because if he was willing to risk that, then what else was he willing to do?

Because of the lockdown of all nonessential time travel, people working for the TPI were not allowed to go home for the night. They were allowed to pick up anyone or anything dependent on them for care like kids and pets if there wasn’t someone in their home time to care for them, but other than that, they were unfortunately all sleeping in their offices for the foreseeable future.

“You are the only tolerable one,” Janus told the cat who upon being let loose in the office by Remus, immediately jumped on Janus’s lap.

“I have literally done nothing to you,” Lena said, but then added. “Yet.”

“You exist. In my space.”

“Can’t we just all get along?” asked Fred. “It’s only been an hour past when we’d usually go home. I went and grabbed milk and I have my giant thing of different flavored hot chocolate under my desk. We can try them all and vote on which is better.”

“Fuck your hot chocolate, Fred,” Janus growled, having been one of the three who had chipped in to buy it for him on his last birthday.

“Don’t go after Fred, jackass,” Lena spat.

“He’s just testy because his boyfriend escaped,” Remus contributed.

Janus’s lips turned down into a frown and he cupped Diesel Fuel’s face. “We agree we’re eating him first, right?” he asked her.

She purred her agreement.

“I’d have it no other way,” Remus replied.

“There is plenty of food,” Fred said, sounding stressed. “In fact, I was thinking we should all chip in on ordering take-out soon. “What does everyone like on pizza?”

“This is not a slumber party, Fred,” Janus pointed out.

“Shut it,” Lena snapped and turned to Fred. “I’m fine with almost everything, except…”

“Bananas and tuna salad!” Remus interrupted.

“…whatever Remus is about to say.”

Janus rolled his eyes as that started a debate about whether or not fruit and/or fish belonged on pizza. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, which was when there was a knock on the door.

He froze when he heard the familiar voice. “Hello, hello,” said Emile, cheerfully. Janus looked up to see Emile standing at the open office door. Shit. Apparently, the man had decided to give up on sending lackeys to come fetch him and had decided to track him down himself when Janus couldn’t even escape without breaking a time lockdown. They met eyes briefly and Janus could see irritation if not anger in his eyes despite his otherwise cheerful expression and tone.

“Janus,” he said when he’d gotten their attention. “I’d like to have dinner with you.” The word choice told Janus everything he needed to know. Usually Emile was careful with how he said things to make sure people knew they had a choice. Typically he’d say something like, “I was wondering if you’d have time to have dinner with me tonight,” or “I’m about to go get food, would you like to come?” Today, there was no choice in the statement.

Janus still dried to dodge anyway. “Uh,” he said. “We were actually about to order pizza.”

“Go ahead,” said Fred kindly. Janus wanted to strangle him. “We can order pizza with olives if you’re not here.”

“I…” said Janus. “Guess, I’ll be going with you.”

“Great!” Emile said. “Let’s go.”

“Oh,” Janus said. “Uh, now?”

“Now,” Emile said a bit of uncharacteristic steel to his tone.

Well, Janus was screwed. He swallowed his nervousness and got to his feet, taking Diesel Fuel with him. He turned to hand her off to Remus with a plea in his eye, but he just got an eyebrow raise in return. Traitor.

Then, he followed Emile out of the office door. “What would you like to eat?” asked Emile.

“Uh,” Janus said. “I don’t know. You asked me to eat, don’t you have any ideas?”

“I don’t actually,” Emile replied. Right.

“…Noddle Bar?” Janus threw out the nearest restaurant he knew.

“The one noodle restaurant? Sure,” Emile answered simply. They walked side by side out of the front doors of the TPI building. Janus actually couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken these stairs. He usually used his timepiece to get in and out.

The noodle bar was only moderately busy at this time. They were quickly able to find a table near the back and Emile pulled his menu up in front of him. Emile hummed as he flipped through the different displays. “What are you having?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Janus said, only then pulling up the menu himself, but still not quite looking at it.

“What about the fortune noodles,” Emile suggested.

Janus shook his head. “I don’t like those,” he said.

Emile glanced at him through the menu displays. “You used to.” Fortune noodles were a bit cheekily named. They didn’t actually indicate anything about your future. They were just supposed to taste like what you wanted from your future. A grad student might experience a feeling like they’d just aced a paper. A child that they got to stay up an hour later that night. Janus had liked the experience when he was younger, but in recent years, he’d begun to taste the underlying chemicals in the dish until that’s all he could.

“Well,” Emile said lightly, eyes on his menu. “That makes me even more worried for your mental health than I already was because of the almost three years of you avoiding talking to me.”

“No small talk, huh?” Janus asked.

“Forgive me,” Emile said, eyes now focused on Janus, and tone much darker. “How has your life been since I last saw your face 5 months ago during a business meeting and you refused to look me in the eye? Anything interesting happen? Shave your head and let it all regrow? Develop an allergy to peanuts? Join a convent and take an oath of silence that you only just broke today?”

“No,” said Janus quietly into the table.

“Great,” Emile said clipped. “Small talk over. Order your food.” Janus reached up blindly to select the first thing that came up on the food and drink menu as Emile punched something into his own and both menu displays disappeared, meaning there was nothing between their faces anymore. “You know, I was willing to give you a year,” Emile said. “I was willing to let you deal with it on your own because I thought eventually, you’d come talk to me about it, but apparently I was mistaken. The next year, I thought maybe you thought I didn’t want to talk to you, so I subtly made myself available, and you never took me up on the offer. I thought maybe I was just not being clear, and I should make my desire to talk to you more explicit, but as you have been routinely, clearly avoiding me at every single turn, I’ve decided I’ve had enough. So, let’s lay it all on the table. Is it me or do you need help?”

Janus closed his eyes. “It’s not you.”

“Then you need help,” Emile concluded.

Janus shook his head.

“Yes,” Emile snapped. “Whatever this is has gone on far too long.”

Janus stood up and slammed his hand down on the table. “And it’s going to keep going on!” he said. The food popped up at that moment. It appeared Janus had ordered lasagna and bubble tea, and Emile had ordered something with spaghetti and a fizzy drink.

“So, you’re just planning to go on being miserable then?” Emile asked, and Janus wasn’t sure if it was worse or better that he didn’t sound angry anymore.

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Janus slapped his hand down on the “To Go” button and his dinner was insta-wrapped by the table. “Yes,” he said.

“What exactly do you think you’re paying penance for, Janus?” Emile asked.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Janus said, paying for both of their meals with his fingerprint.

“That’s a cop out and you know it,” Emile said. “All you’d have to do is talk to me. Or even just talk to someone else. Please.”

“Just…” Janus said, grabbing his bag of food to avoid looking at him. “Just, leave me be.” He walked out of the noodle shop without another word.

Chapter 10

“And I thought Remus was going to be the most disgusting roommate in this equation,” Lena grumbled. Janus and Lena were apparently the earlier risers in the group as Fred was still curled up around a pillow and Remus was sprawled out under his desk.

Janus flipped her off.

“Protein infused Poptarts and caffeinated orange juice for breakfast?” she asked. “Just eat an energy bar and have a cup of coffee like a normal person.”

He took another pointed bite of his Poptart.

“You’re a horrible roommate. This is why they gave us different partners.”

“Yeah, well you snore, asshole,” Janus said after finishing off his meal.

“I’d tell you to go eat shit, but you already did that once this morning.”

A pillow flew across the room and somehow managed to hit the both of them. “S’op fighting,” Fred mumbled. “It’s sleep time.”

“It’s morning Fred,” Lena said.

“No,” Fred mumbled.

Janus ignored them, turning back to his integration port to continue to keep plugging in phrases of interest, but he kept getting nothing.

“What are you doing?” Lena asked after a few moments of him huffing at his screen reader.

“Trying to do anything that may change our current living arrangements.”

She puffed out an amused breath. “Can I help?”

“Can you see any connection between these words and phrases?” he asked, pulling away his screen reader and tapping at the words he’d typed out.

“Paranoid, tonight, I live to party, comeback, love Bug, BB good, Mandy, Macy Misa, I believe, cool, that’s just the way we roll, burnin’ up,” she said. “What are these?”

“They’re things Pat said when we interrogated that struck me funny,” Janus explained. “I feel like he was saying something more than what he said.”

“Hmm,” she said. “PTI for the first three?”

“Maybe,” Janus agreed, “but what about the rest of it? I feel like I’m missing something.”

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“Millennia,” Remus mumbled from under his desk. Janus hadn’t been aware he was awake. “He said something something about it being the only time he could see the change of the millennia.” He turned his head to look at Janus. “Considering he’s a time traveler, that’s definitely a weird thing to say.”

“Millennia,” Janus contemplated. “A different turn of the millennia. Oh no.”

“What?” Lena asked.

Janus sighed, and rubbed his temple. “I know someone who studied the 1700-2200s.”

“Isn’t that good?”

“No,” Janus groaned, “because now I have to go talk to him.” He stood with a sigh and then paused. “How do I even get to Silver Mountains University without my timepiece?”

Luckily Sliver Mountains ended up only being about an hour away from the TPI by time adherent travel, but considering Janus was used to his travel being instantaneous, it was an aggravating trip. He had to show ID and be buzzed up to the fourth floor since it was usually locked to everyone not traveling by timepiece or who worked in the office.

The receptionist was the same man as before. “I’m here to speak to Professor Eran,” Janus said.

The receptionist nodded. “He mentioned you asked to meet him but didn’t know when you’d arrive. He’ll be done teaching his class in about 5 minutes. You can wait over there.”

Janus nodded and sat, waiting for time to slowly tick by. Virgil arrived after a few minutes, lugging a giant bag with him. He caught sight of Janus and wordlessly jerked his head towards the hallway. Janus followed him.

“What’s in the bag?” Janus asked.

“Early 21st century cell phones,” Virgil said, dropping it on his desk. “I let my students mess around with them for their lab.”

“I see,” Janus said.

“What did you need?” Virgil asked. “You said it was official business.”

“You’ve heard about the lockdown, I presume,” Janus said.

“Yeah, it really screws up my research schedule for the summer,” Virgil said.

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“Do you know why the lockdown was instituted?” Janus asked. Virgil shook his head, so Janus explained briefly that they had been trying to find a timebomb on the eve of the year 3000, but it had been swiped by a free agent time traveler. “Some of the things seemed to be references to things that I couldn’t place, and I was wondering if you would recognize any.”

“Shoot,” Virgil requested, seeming intrigued by the prospect.

“Okay,” Janus said. “First, the alias he was using was Nick Jonas.” A weird expression crossed Virgil’s face immediately and Janus paused.

“You said the year 3000?” Virgil asked.

“Er. Yes.”

“Nick Jonas. Year 3000,” Virgil repeated with a snort. “Were Joe and Kevin a part of this too?”

Janus blinked. “Yes, how did you know that?”

“Yo-you’re going to have,” his sentence was broken by a giggle, and actual full-fledged giggle, “have to give me a minute.” With that, he sort of listed to the side and seemed to purposefully fall off his chair onto the floor under his desk.

Janus blinked and when he didn’t surface after a moment, he stood up to lean over the desk and look down at him. Virgil had his arm thrown over his beat red face, as he shook from what Janus thought was suppressed laughter.

“What?” Janus asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Just…” Virgil said, sobbing through his laughter. “Just tell me the things he said.”

“Er, mostly he just had weird inflections on words and phrases. There was ‘paranoid, tonight, I live to party, comeback…’”

“Wait, stop,” Virgil said. “Let me guess a few. That’s Just the Way We Roll, Burnin’ Up, Sucker.”

“The first two were, but not the last one.”

Virgil laughed. “Maybe the last one was just implied.”

Janus frowned down. “What are you talking about? What does this all mean?”

Virgil pulled himself out from under his desk and grabbed his bag of phones. He dug through it for a few seconds before pulling one out and handing it to Janus. “I have a lab for my students where they get preloaded phones from the early 21st century and are supposed to guess the demographics of the person who owns it. This one is an iPhone 3 meant to belong to a pre-teen to teenage girl from the year 2009. Look under music artists starting with the letter ‘J.’”

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Confused, Janus scrolled through the old style phone, finding the music app and opening it easily. Upon getting to the ‘J’s, he immediately paused on an artist called the ‘Jonas Brothers.’ He clicked on it and read a few of the song titles. They weren’t all there, but…

“That rat bastard,” Janus said.

“Scroll to the bottom,” Virgil said. Janus did and found a song titled ‘Year 3000.’

“You’re kidding me.”

“Click on it,” Virgil requested.

Janus did, listening to the fairly standard pop like intro from the time period. It wasn’t until he got to the lyrics saying, ‘He told me he built a time machine’ that he cursed, understanding exactly what Pat had been doing. When the singer a few lines latter proclaimed that his neighbor said ‘I’ve been to the year 3000’ he almost smashed the artifact to pieces right then and there.

“I have no idea who this guy is,” Virgil said, “but he’s a comedic genius.”

Chapter 11

Khalid caught him on his way back into the TPI building. “I heard you went to Silver Mountains to follow up on a lead,” she said.

“Yeah, but it was garbage,” he seethed. “All I learned was ‘Pat’ knows early 2000s popular culture and likes to fuck with us.”

She hummed. “I’d still like a report about whatever you found. Who knows what we might end up getting from seemingly inconsequential data.”

“Sure,” he said.

“Anyway,” she continued. “I have a mission for you.”

“We’re on lockdown,” Janus pointed out with a frown.

“For nonessentials,” she said. “This is essential.”

“What happened?” Janus asked.

“We picked up a small time distortion in France 2027. At the moment, it is small enough not to cause any disruptions, but it is slowly growing, and we don’t know what caused it. Usually we’d just send surveillance agents at this stage, but considering what’s going on, I think it would be best to send a field agent. And it would just be you, because we don’t want to send too many people out at once.”

“Is this related to the time bomb?” Janus asked.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “At the very least, it’s not it being set off as it was in 2999, but if it’s been altered for some other purpose…”

“I’ll go,” Janus said.

“I’ll send over the mission directive to everyone who needs it. You’ll go in around 3 hours.”

He nodded. “I’ll be ready,” he agreed.

In less then 3 hours, he was dressed for 2027 France and in decontamination. “Well,” he said out loud when he was given the all clear sign, “I hope I don’t explode.” He selected the coordinates on the timepiece and the next moment he was in a small alleyway in the city of Montpellier, France in 2027.

It was a little bit warm, but not stifling even in the mid-afternoon and he could faintly smell the sea on the breeze.

After a moment to get his bearings, Janus made his way out of the alleyway and onto a small street. The street was lined with restaurants and shops as people went about their daily lives. He carefully integrated himself into the crowd and began weaving his way through them. He needed to find the source of the distortion but doing a quick scan with his timepiece told him there wasn’t any sign of it yet. He’d have to wait for it to act up.

For now, he decided to get slightly away from people by heading towards the river. He found a park that had benches along water.

As he walked towards the river, he noticed a man on the bench, angled slightly away from Janus and looking out at the water. He immediately recognized the man. “You!” he exclaimed.

Pat’s head shot around to look at him, and he gave a slight head tilt. Then, he smiled, amused. “You are not the person I’m here for,” he said.

“Well, I am now,” Janus snapped. “Where’s the time bomb?”

“Time bomb?” Pat asked, eyebrows drawing together, but amusement on his lips. “Oh sweetie, the time bomb happened a long time ago for me.”

“What?” Janus asked.

“Oh, you’re just a baby,” Pat laughed. “Don’t you get it yet? The two of us are out of sync timeline wise. You’ve been apparently running around with a much younger version of me, but all of that happened quite a while ago for me. Don’t worry though, it gets better.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The time bomb has been long deactivated. Here,” he reached into his pocket and tossed him something. Janus caught it on instinct. “Proof. Don’t worry, we took all of the dangerous bits out years ago from my perspective.” It was the core of a time bomb, the time bomb Pat had stolen if he was to be believed. “You can tell your people it’s safe to remove the lockdown.”

Janus curled his fingers around it. “I don’t get it.”

Something on Pat’s wrist beeped and he looked at it curiously before he stood from the bench, “and I don’t have time to explain it.”

Janus jerked forward to grab his wrist. “Don’t you dare.”

Pat reached up to pat his face. “Don’t worry honey, you’ll be seeing me later.” He twisted his wrist and a small electric current sparked between them. Janus jerked his hand away, and Patton smiled at him. “Or… earlier.” He winked, and then he was gone.

Janus cursed, but he didn’t have more than a moment to be angry because in the next second there was a yelp, and something landed on top of him. He was bowled over into a tangle of limbs and pained noises.

“Oh my god, we need to figure out the height thing,” a familiar voice groaned, just as Janus managed to pull himself away. Pat blinked up at him and his eyes narrowed. “You,” he hissed.

“…What?”

Pat jumped to his feet, leaving Janus on the ground in front of him. “What are you doing here?” he spat, his tone much different then the one he’d been using a moment earlier. His hair was longer than it had been before, and if Janus looked closely, he did seem like he was a couple of years younger suddenly. Out of sync timelines. I’ll see you earlier. Holy shit.

He was suddenly very glad he’d been forced to let the other Pat (the older Pat?) go, else they’d have a whole thing on their hands.

“What are you doing here?” was Janus’s retort as he stood up and dusted himself off.

“It’s none of your business,” Pat told him.

“It is my business,” Janus said, “because for all I know, you are the cause of the time distortions I’m after. Considering that I doubt you have a license for that,” he waved at the odd looking timepiece of Pat’s wrist, “it’s very possible.”

“What are you?” Pat asked, “the time police.”

“Yes.”

Pat dared to roll his eyes, but then he tilted his head slightly. “Time distortions?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s why I’m here.”

He still had a confused frown on his face. Did… did he not know what a time distortion was?

Just then there was a sudden flash of lightening through the sky despite the absolutely lack of clouds. He and Pat both looked up.

“Is that the time distortion?” Pat asked.

“It’s probably the beginning of it,” Janus said.

“That doesn’t look good,” Pat said as he squinted at the sky.

“Just wait,” Janus answered grimly. He looked at Pat. “Usually I’d arrest you on the spot,” he said, “but I’m alone for this one, and that is far more important at the moment. So, have a nice day doing whatever bullshit you are doing.” He glanced at his timepiece.

Janus turned to walk away from him.

“Wait!” Pat exclaimed, and Janus turned back to him to see that his eyes were wide. Janus raised an eyebrow. “So, this time distortion thing is dangerous, right?”

“Depending on the severity, it could cause time to fracture around this place and time, basically erasing it from existence and killing everyone in it.”

“Well, in that case, I should go with you. To help.”

Janus looked him up and down. “You… have no idea what’s happening, do you? You’re an amateur.”

“I’m not,” he claimed. “I just. Pooling resources. You know?”

Janus sighed. “Well, you going around mucking about this time period without knowing what you’re doing could just exasperate the situation, so fine, you can tag along.”

“I know what I’m doing,” he grumbled even as he rushed to Janus’s side at the permission.

“Sure,” Janus said with an eyeroll. He guessed he was a babysitter now. “I believe you.”

Chapter 12

There was something off about his readings. Clearly the time distortion was starting to pull at this place with the way the weather was flickering between storming and sunny, but he still couldn’t quite pinpoint the exact location of the source of it. He could, however, get that it must be somewhere on this side of the river more into the downtown area, so that’s the way he was walking, Pat close on his heels.

“What’s your name, by the way?” he asked.

Janus shot him a glare. “Elvis Presley,” he said.

Pat frowned, clearly knowing who that was. “There’s no reason to be mean.”

“You did it to me first.”

“…Introduced myself as a famous musician?” he asked. Janus didn’t respond, and after a moment, Pat laughed lightly. “You really don’t understand time travel, do you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Janus said. “Name the three types of time distortions.”

“Just because I don’t know the names of things doesn’t mean I don’t understand them.” He stuck out his tongue. Janus was dealing with an actual toddler. “Unlike you who has a bunch of fancy words, but just caused a time loop.”

Janus scoffed. “I did not just cause a time loop.”

“Maybe not a big one,” Patton agreed, “but you did.”

Janus raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never introduced myself to you with a musician’s name, but now you’ve told me that I will. So, at some point in the future I will have to, thereby making you think to say that now. Time loop.”

“That’s not… that doesn’t count.”

“Does too,” Pat claimed. “Like I have said once before and you may or may not have heard me say before, anything you do to me to get back at me for something I haven’t done yet, just causes whatever that is to happen in the first place.”

“But you’re still going to do it.”

“Then take it up with future me. I haven’t done anything to you.” Then he paused and sighed. “…Which I guess means you’ve done nothing to me.” He seemed to mull this concept over for a long moment. “Well you were a bit crabby about me not knowing what a time distortion was, but I can forgive you for that.”

“And I’m supposed to forgive you?”

“Like I said,” Pat said. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

“You also haven’t done anything to endear yourself to me either,” Janus grumbled.

“Hmm,” Pat said. “Fine.” He pulled something out of his pocket. “You’re obviously not having much luck finding whatever you’re looking for. Tell me what it is and I’ll help.”

Janus squinted at what was in his hand. “Is that… an iPhone 5?”

“No!” he said. “It’s super-secret time travel tech disguised as an iPhone 5!”

“We’re in 2027,” Janus said. “Not a great disguise. Those things have been obsolete for a decade.”

“Well I’ll keep in mind to have my tech disguised as phones from the right year next time,” Pat said, sticking out his tongue. “Now what are we looking for?”

“If my timepiece can’t find it, I’m certain yours can’t.”

Pat rolled his eyes and tapped on the device’s screen a couple of times. “I’m going to guess it’s that,” he said proudly.

Janus leaned over to look at the screen. “Are you using google maps?” he sputtered.

“It integrates time relevant data like traffic conditions and local weather warnings with time travel technology,” Pat explained. “Something seems to be going on in a museum a couple of blocks that way.”

“I…” Janus said. That was actually a really good idea, usually unnecessary with scouts observing that data beforehand, and Janus wasn’t sure how good the accuracy would be considering whatever was taking it into account was automated, but still a good idea. “Well, I guess since we have no other leads, we can check it out.”

Pat looked far too proud for having only used a piece of tech that hadn’t even been confirmed as accurate. “Then, let’s go,” he said right as a chilly wind started to pick up and a couple of snowflakes began to fall around them. “Before that gets worse…”

Janus let Pat lead with his iPhone. Janus’s timepiece still wasn’t picking up a clear signal for some reason, but it seemed to point in the same general direction as Pat’s. Strangely though, as they got closer to their destination, the signal started to get fuzzier. Pat’s tech seemed unaffected leading them closer to the museum.

When they got to the museum, Janus stopped. “What?” Pat asked. He was shivering slightly in the cold and holding his arms around himself.

“My timepiece stopped working completely,” he said.

“I’m assuming that’s weird?” Pat said.

“It is,” Janus confirmed, turning to squint at him suspiciously. “How do I know you’re not the one doing it?”

“If I was doing it, wouldn’t I have just knocked it out from the get go?” Pat questioned.

Janus pursed his lips. “I don’t know,” he said. “Would you have? Maybe it’s a trick.”

Pat’s eyes narrowed a bit on him. “Think what you want, but I’m freezing. Come in with me if you want.”

#study break stories #not writing

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brighter-by-the-daly · 2 years ago

Text

Rachel Daly x Reader

Part Eight - Fantasies 🔞

Posted: 19/03/23 Edited: 10/08/23

Rachel had told you where the family stand was, that it’s a private entrance and to come early as family were allowed in an hour in before the general public. You, your friends and your family made your way up the steps to the stadium, found the entrance Rachel was talking about and handed over your tickets for inspection. Adjusting your shirt as they waved you inside and handed you vip lanyards you made your way through the corridor. Turning a corner you spotted Rachel was leaning up against the wall, her face lit up when she noticed you and leant in for a hug placing a kiss on your cheek. “I thought you’d be talking tactics by now, what ya doing?” you asked, surprised to see her. “I’ve come to show you to your seats!” Rachel said to everyone, taking your hand and leading you out through the tunnel, you got butterflies knowing this is where it all started, last time you were here you were flirting and now she’s actually your girlfriend! Who would have thought! She walked you out onto the pitch with your family where Millie and Rachel’s families were too, “I thought you’d like some photos in the empty stadium?” she asked. Posing while Rachel snapped away on the camera, you introduced everyone to both families and Millie’s said they’d heard a lot about you the took the piss out of your shirt “someone requested it specially” you quipped giving Rach the eyes which made her look away embarrassed. They all went to take their seats while Millie took some photos of you and Rachel who had specific poses in mind. “Y/N!” you heard someone shout your name, startled at the noise echoing through the tunnel but you couldn’t tell who it was coming from until Mary and Beth appeared. “Why didn’t anyone tell me you were coming?! I need to make another tiktok with you, the last one got soooo many views!!” she exclaimed. “Hey, you’re just using my girlfriend for clout!” Rach shouted, pushing her friend jokingly. “That’s only because they were trying to figure out who I was, they’ve worked it out now!” you laughed. You didn’t mind, you liked feeling like part of the team. The five of you made a few dance videos together and then Mary directed one of just you and Rach for the gram. As the rest of the team started heading out on to the pitch, they all waved and high 5d you as you ran towards your seat which was front row and with everyone else’s family. You were so excited for this game, you flicked through Insta stories and realised Rachel’s brother had posted a video of you all on the pitch with the caption “love seeing my sister so happy”, you looked at him behind you and pulled a cute teary face like the emoji 🥹then chatted amongst yourselves while the girls warmed up until it was time for kick off. Your besties posted so many photos bragging that they were front row at Wembley which you thought was funny. There was an incredible light show and fireworks which got you all geared up and dancing before the girls walked out on the pitch to face Brazil. It was a tense first half which finished 0-0 so it was all to play for in the second. Rachel was playing where Sarina liked to keep her - as defender. All the girls were in top form, they had to be, they all wanted to be seen as a threat in the World Cup. Half time came and went but when the girls came back you noticed Rachel had moved up front, you felt in your bones that this is her moment, she’s going to score in this position and Brazil didn’t know what was about to hit them.

Sure enough, ten minutes into the second half Millie shot Rachel a beautiful long ball which she headed straight into the back of the net. The crowd went absolutely wild, it was electric, you were all screaming and hopping around! Rachel jumped into Millie’s arms as they raised their hands to the sky for her dad. You actually started crying you were so happy but you knew there was still at least half hour to go.

Brazil had a good few chances but nothing ever succeeded until suddenly catastrophe struck, a tackle gone wrong awarded Brazil a penalty and the atmosphere changed dramatically. They were huddled talking tactics while our girls were gearing Mary up, Brazil struck the ball which felt like it took forever to land safely into Mary’s gloves. You heard 90,000 people breath a sigh of relief as the ball was played back down our end of the field where we gained a corner. Sweetly taken by Russo where Millie was patiently waiting at the back post and used her signature header to plant it nicely in the back of the net. You screamed so loud you thought you were going to lose your voice! Surely it’s all over for Brazil now! Sure enough they couldn’t claw it back and England were announced the winners! The crowd sang out a very loud rendition of ‘Sweet Caroline’ as the players celebrated with each other and when ‘Freed by Desire’ started playing the whole crowd was dancing as they took their lap of honour. The girls came dancing over to the family stand as they jumped in front of you singing with the crowd. Rachel leant over the barrier with a pouty face, looking at her questioning whether she actually wanted you to kiss her in front of everyone, as soon as she nodded you rushed over and grabbed her cheeks to kiss her. “I’m so proud of you!!” shouting in her face “and you!!” grabbing and shaking Millie’s shoulders, all of you with the biggest smiles ever. They danced off with their friends and you realised the cameras caught everything, including Katie’s who was live on Insta.

The girls stayed behind to sign autographs while everyone trickled out of the stadium but you hung around until your girl came and got you to go back to the dressing room. Hand in hand walking back down the tunnel, you kissed at the entrance. “Can you believe this was less than a fortnight ago?” you said as you both turned around to look at the empty stadium again. “Becoming a bit of a tradition isn’t it” she smiled as she wrapped her arm around your shoulders. “Except.. later I’ll be taking this off not telling you to put it on” she laughed as she tugged at your shirt. “Wear your kit home please” you begged “but I’m so dirty (y/n/n)” she whined in response. “Riiight, there’s no point showering when you’re just gonna get all hot and bothered again is there” nudging her slightly. “You’re not wrong” she admitted, “I’ll bring my spare kit home, deal?” holding out her hand for you to shake. She pulled you in with her arm around you and walked you into the dressing room. Everyone was dancing and drinking, Mary was filming everything as usual, even Sarina was having a boogie! Everyone cheered as you both walked in, except Leah but you didn’t care, they weren’t cheering for you anyway! You sat down on the bench watching the girls have the best time of their lives celebrating getting one more step closer to being the best in the world. When Rag Doll came on everyone pushed Rach on top of the water cooler to sing it - a tradition born in the Euros - you had to record this, seeing her so happy made you happy. Everyone else was singing too but Rach was the star of the show. When the chorus came she jumped off the cooler and held her hand out for you to take “do I love ya my oh myyyyy, river deep mountain high” she sang towards you. “Yeah yeah yeah!” everyone sang back at her, “if I lost ya would I cryyyy, oh how I love ya baby” “baby baby baby!”. You wondered if she was just really getting into the song or if she purposely sang those words to you but kept recording regardless, trying not to overthink and just enjoy the moment of everyone being so happy. You noticed Leah left the room when she was singing to you but you didn’t let it dampen your spirits! In the end, Sarina sent everyone home for a well earned rest.

As always, Rachel opened the car door for you to climb in, before driving away you made out a little and your hand slipped into her shorts before she pushed you away laughing. “Not here! Anyone could see us!” her voice had turned high pitch. “Well hurry up and get home then, you’re hard to resist looking like that!” As you both pulled your seatbelts on, she put her foot down to get you home. Fast.

Once on the driveway, Rachel was quick to open the car door for you and without letting her move another step, you pulled her head towards yours unable to resist her any longer. Picking you up and wrapping your legs around her, still kissing as she carried you up the garden path. She struggled to unlock the door so put you down but the minute you were inside you pushed her back against the door, slamming it shut and shoving your hand back where it belongs - between her legs. It was messy but passionate as she picked you up and carried you up to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, you straddled over her lap while her hands were fumbling your body. You pulled her scrunchie out to wrap her hair around your fist and she did the same pulling slightly. She turned to chuck you off her and onto the bed so she was on top, sliding down your body to take your shorts off, as you went to take your top off she grabbed your wrists and shook her head smirking at you then suddenly flipped you over to eat you out. Slowly pushing your butt plug in she slipped the strap on over her shorts and plunged it between your legs making you scream with pleasure. She slapped your ass then grabbed the bottom of your shirt and wrapped it round her fist, the other hand doing the same to your hair as she rode you from behind. You were so turned on by her taking control and doing what she wanted. Rachel was so turned on fucking you from behind with you in her shirt. She pulled out then slapped and bit your arse so hard you screamed in pain, but a good type of pain, sexy pain. She turned you over so she could look at your face then shoved her hand over your mouth as she sneered “shut the fuck up” in your face. You have never been more turned on. As she started thrusting harder, your legs became weak and your eyes rolled back into your head. Rachel was loving the power, she held your wrists tightly to the mattress and as she came closer you tried to kiss her “don’t you dare fucking cum yet” she muttered into your mouth not letting you kiss her “I’m not done with you”. “I haven’t even started with you!” you said filthily as you mustered up all of your energy to push her off you so you could climb on top of her and clutch her throat with your hand “you don’t get to treat me like all of the others” you said through gritted teeth as you rubbed her pussy under her shorts. Feeling how wet and turned on she was from having her way with you, you pulled out and made her suck her own juices off of your fingers, biting your lip loving the sight. You pulled her shorts and strap on off and plunged your face between her legs messily eating her out. Her hands were pulling at your hair so hard you thought she was going to rip it out, you shoved three fingers inside her and watched her eyes roll back into her head and felt her cum dripping down your fingers. You pulled them out and made her watch you suck them before using them to play with yourself. “Got your breath back yet bitch?” when she nodded weakly you planted yourself on her face. Facing downwards so she could stare up at your bejewelled arse and her name on your back. Her cold hands rose up your shirt, undone your bra then fondled your tits, pulling hard on your nipples. You reached down to play with her sensitive clit while riding her face. She wrapped her arms around your waist to pull you deeper into her mouth until you came onto her tongue making sure she came for a second time as well before rolling off of her. Your heads the opposite ends of the bed stroking each other’s legs making you both quiver absorbing what just happened.

“Come here sexy” Rachel muttered with a happy undertone. You crawled up and laid next to her, staring into each other’s eyes and stroking each other’s naked bodies. “That was amazing” you whispered as you kissed her softly. “You liked it?” she asked shyly. “Couldn’t you tell?!” you asked shocked, “I was just testing the boundaries” she smiled. “There are no boundaries with you baby” reaching up to kiss her soft lips. “Tell me your fantasy (y/n/n)” she asked quietly “which one?” You chuckled with a smile, leaning your head on the palm of your hand. “All of them” Rach encouraged as she stroked your hair. “Well…” sitting up cross legged “the first is being in a tight little skirt with suspenders, cuffed” you rambled on with every detail like you’d been waiting for someone to ask you that question forever. Studying her facial expression displaying a raised eyebrow and a one sided smirk, clearly enjoying what you were describing. “The other is a Lioness picking me out from a crowd, fucking me senseless.. and falling in love with me” you paused before saying the last part looking up at her shyly while stroking hair out of her face to see her reaction. “I can certainly make the first one come true, that sounds.. hot!” she smiled thinking about it. “As for the second…” she paused, waiting for her reply your heart felt like it had stopped. “That’s already in progress” you let out a sigh of relief as she cupped your cheek with her hand to pull you in for a kiss. The biggest smile spread across your face, unable to control your happiness as you kissed her back. “I was so worried for your reaction then!” you breathed heavily. “Why? It should be obvious how much I like you” moving her other hand to squish your face. “It is, but yknow “love” is a big word” you shrugged suddenly bashful, “so is besotted but that didn’t stop you from using it three hours after we met” she laughed prodding your ribs. “In fact, I’d say besotted is bigger than love” she continued to tease you, rolling your eyes as you went to slide away but she grabbed your waist and pulled you back into her. Holding your face again to make sure you were looking at her before saying “I don’t date people for fun (y/n/n), I date for the end game”. Your stomach flipped over at her admission which made you uncontrollably grin. “What’s your fantasies then?” you asked laying your head on her arm that was around you. “Apart from finding the perfect woman to spend the rest of my life with?” she said with unwavering eye contact making you melt, “I’d love a threesome” she chuckled “with two women or..?” you enquired. “Two women babe, I’m fully gay not like you” she nudged teasingly. “Hey! I don’t want a naked man near me ever again!” pushing her back. “I’d quite like a threesome too yknow, have you had one before?” “No that’s why it’s a fantasy silly! Have you?” “No, I was offered one once though - wish I took the chance now!” you giggled. “Oh my god, who with?!” her voice high pitched as she asked. “You won’t believe this… my ex girlfriend’s brother and my school best friend’s sister who I had such a huge crush on growing up!” laughing at the words coming out of your own mouth. “Your ex’s brother?!” she was astonished which made you laugh. “We’re still friends!”you exclaimed “the brother, not the ex she’s a dick” “ex’s usually are!” she sounded. “Hopefully no more exes for us aih” climbing on top of her and pinning her to the mattress. Rachel winked at you, “I don’t plan on it baby.”

Part Nine - Brighter Days

#rachel daly #lionesses #rachel daly x reader #millie bright #woso x reader #woso masterlist #beth mead #mary earps #daly brightness

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argumentl · 4 years ago

Text

The Freedom of Expression Ep 1 - Haruna Fuuka files lawsuit against internet slanderers

*with Kaoru (K), Joe (J), Tasai (T) , who is a journalist writing for the newspaper Tokyo Sports, and Kami/god.*

Kaoru: Hi, this is Dir en grey's Kaoru. Have you heard of 'The Freedom of Expression' somewhere before?

Joe, Tasai : *noding*

K: I've a feeling we've done this before...

J: Thats right, yes...Its not a feeling, we actually did.

K: We are reviving the show we did on the radio station InterFM from 2015-16, on youtube this time.

J: Awesome

*applause*

J: I was really happy when I was first told about the revival.

K: I was also surprised *laughs*

J: Its not that you were made to revive the show though, right Kaoru?

K: The suggestion just came at me.

J: Oh really, like 'How about it?'

K: Like, 'Wanna tryy?' 1*

J: Ah, in a Kansai accent?

K:Yes yes

J: Like, 'Lets tryyy'..kind of thing...it started like that *laughs*

K: Yep

J: We did quite a lot (on InterFM). We even did a special edition

K, T : Yes, we did

J: We even made stickers

K: Brazil!

J:Yes

T: Ah, the live broadcast..at the Olympics

J: It was Dobashi san...Bishbash Dobashi san.

T: It would be good if we could do another live broadcast at this year's Tokyo Olympics.

J: On this You tube channel?

T: Yes *laughs*

J: A live broadcast might be a bit difficult legally, as for the Olymipcs *T laughs*

K: Um, thats *shhh*

J: Oh, its a secret!' *K laughing* Maybe if were are asked by Tokyo Sports..?

K: Yes yes...So, as to the freedom of expression...

Kami/god: Wait, wait, wait..I've come down too.

J: Oh, Kami?

K: He's saying it from himself *laughs*..I thought he would come if we beckoned him though.

J: Thats what usually happened. He was the kind of god that would come down after we called him, but now a god that comes down on his own accord.

K: Wasn't he like that before too? Should we keep him in reseve a bit more?

J: He'll want to appear, we can't help it?

Kami: You were forgetting about me!

K: We are not forgetting you!

Kami: You musn't forget your god!

*laughing*

T: We are not forgetting you!

Kami: Its not good!

J: You are always in our hearts.

T: Yes, he is.

Kami: Yes, thats it..you have to think like that.

J: But, you are not in the studio today, kami?

Kami: Oh..um, im just getting off a night shift..

J: A night shift?!

K: Ah, but it was like that before..

Kami: Right.

J: You are doing night shift work again? *Tasai laughs*

Kami: yes, thats right.

K: That was a while ago wasn't it, how many years ago?

J: Oh, is this the night shift season?

Kami: No, its..

T: You worked for ￥1000 per hour right?

Kami: Yes, yes...my hourly rate has risen a bit though. They were telling me 'Take a rest, take a rest', so my income dropped.

J: Ahh, its what they called a 'reformed working style', right?

Kami: Right

J: Its tough for you too, Kami.

Kami: *laughs* Yes it is.

K: He's the same as ever... so lets get started.

J, T: Please

K: Ah, by the way, Tasai san, as well as Bishbashi Dohashi san, wasn't there another person before (at InterFM)?

T: Yes..a beastly guy *K laughs* An old aquaintance of the listeners', a guy called Monster Hiranabe.

J: Its a strange story, but once when a certain celebrity died, Hiranabe-san called me up, and asked me if I had known the deceased guy...as soon as I said that I hadn't known him very well, he hung up on me straight away!

T: Thats awful!

J: He is awful

T: This very guy, Hiranabe, even got a promotion from the manager.

J: Eh? Promoted to what?!

T: To Director

J:Eh?! Really?

K: Is that okay??

J: No, it'll be terrible!

K: Right, lets move onto the main news...I'd like to get deeper into the concept of 'The Freedom of Expression'.

J: Right, so Haruna Fuuka has filed a lawsuit againts those who engage in 'internet slander'.

A tweet stated 'Both her parents created a failure'.

On Jan 14th, 18 year old Haruna and her mother filed a lawsuit at Yokohama district court demanding ￥2,654,000 in damages from a person engaged in spreading falsehoods which have damaged her dignity.

On the acknowledgement that these tweets went beyond what was deemed acceptable by society at large, on Nov 1st the internet provider was ordered to make public the persons name and address etc.

Haruna has been tweeting since the age of 9, giving her opinion at random about society's problems, and creating a stir. She now has over 200,000 followers and is fighting 10 years of slander. Kaoru, what do you think about this?

K: Well..I mean, naturally, you'd feel like that..

J: Hmm, but I don't know the details but..the name of the defendant has been withheld...well, its a common problem that as a person speaking in the public eye, you are going to get criticism along with praise...like a 'fame tax'. That said, how far do you go before honour is damaged? On SNS, you are of course free to express yourself, you can write what you want, but the issue is what constitutes damage to honour. This might be a very difficult area in which to draw a legal line, but on the other hand, if you don't draw a legal line, things may escalate out of control...Kaoru, what do you think?

K: Well for example, if banter between friends is written down...controlling that...Its best not to look at whats written in the first place.

J: Ah, the person in question right? By the way Kaoru, its a strange question, but do you search for yourself online?

K: No, not really. I hear things, the office staff will tell me.

J: Oh, if anything is being said?

T: In the world of fame its quite true, that even if 98 or 99 opinions out of 100 are good, the one negative thing will stand out.

K: Well, yes, its the bad things that..

J: On the other hand, from the writers' perspective at Tokyo Sports, how far are you willing to slander someone? You could write an article in a good or bad way..

T: Of course balance is important, but of course, if the courts want to complain to us, they can call us, and start an exchange, but in the case of slanders on the internet, its like, who do you complain to? So, if you ask celebrities, they will say Tokyo Sports slander is better than anonymous online slander because at least they can complain to our face.

J: Mm, absolutely. Just how far do we protect these tweets, these freedoms of expression? Its difficult.

K: Are these really 'expressions'?

J: Well, esentially, yes. When you say 'tweets' you think of nonsense, but really its media expressing things, or artists expressing things..

K: Yes, yes, you can get a sense of individual expression.

J: And this especially has the power to influence...

K: Yes, and people get swept up in it.

J: I think this is universal, but at the moment I think Japan is bit like a geyser, people will rush towards any incident and some will start complaining, I mean, I think its important to say what you feel, but its complaining without trying to solve anything, only satisfying yourself.

K: Thats it

J: Its sounds strange to say, but it ends like masturbation. If it turns into something towards a soloution its ok, but just creating thoughtless slander to satisfy yourself is questionable.

K: So its often said, if you continue the conversation only looking at the bad things, it can't be helped. There are also good people out there..you know, put more importance on those people. How to put it...its like we said before, if you focus too much on that one out of a hundred, its kind of rude to the other 99.

J: I see. Still this person has over 200,000 followers and its said she has been fighting slander for ten years.

T: She's always been a bit of a talking point online. I'll just search for her.

J: I also have Instagram, I do stuff to do with societal problems on The Dave Fromm show's youtube channel, and whenever I upload about it (on IG), my followers decrease! *everyone laughs* Outrageously decrease! Im serious, despite getting so far, that channel updates every week, and with every update my followers decrease. Maybe people hate reading about societal problems..*to Tasai* What did you find?

T: So for example there was that thing recently about regulating gamers to 60mins per session, she had quite a few things to say about that, playing vs learning etc.

J: I see..Young people do complain, well you can't really tell here, but on the other hand, young people these days, i know they would hate us old guys talking about this, but young people apparently have three main taboos. The first is talking about sex, they dont follow this, the second is politics, they don't follow this either, and the other one is, they don't like being made to talk about the kind of things that they really need to be talking about...there seems to be this kind of trend. So i think in this way...theres a chance Haruna is getting right to the point of this. But certainly, applying the law in a way that recognises infringement/damage to honour by way of personal utterances has the potential to lead to restrictions on the freedom of expression. Its a difficult play off, isnt it?

T: Yes, it really is

J: Obviously, when it comes to race, or racial discrimination, there has come to be rules concerning hate speech and so on, but how far can you regulate one-to-one slandering, or..how far can you protect the person being attacked? Should the country or the judiciary decide this? Its difficult.

K: Kami, what do you think? Are you there?

Kami: Well, I hear slanders towards me all the time *everyone laughs* Like, god tells lies, god is useless, or even that there is no such thing as god!

J: Ahh, i see. They deny you!

Kami: Yes, thats it. If I care about those things, I lose!

J: Do you search for yourself online?

Kami: I do. *everyone laughs* ..and whenever I do its only ever those things that come up.

J: Ah of course...Kami, you have an exceptionally good handle on social media dont you?

T: He's great

Kami: Ive got a good handle on it.

J: Do you use an iphone?

Kami: I have two.

J: God has two iphones! Thats brilliant.

Kami: Yep, I have two...im not allowed to use them while im working.

T: Does he have a contract? With his address and such?

J: I can't tell whether he's great, or whether he's not so great...

Kami: If i care, I lose...I prefer them to hate me, rather than to be indifferent to me.

K: Kami, what do you think about playing computer games for one hour?

Kami: If the kid is good at it, they should keep doing it.

T: I see, i see.

J: Ohh not sure about that. That seems a bit out.

Kami: No, i really think so. Skilled kids can carry on playing.

K: Should unskilled ones give up?

Kami: Yes, they shouldn't do it...When they play all day, and they just can't clear the level..that kind of kid.

K: Its a waste of time right?

Kami: Exactly, its a waste.

J: They should do something else?

Kami: Yes

K: You should quit if you have no talent for it?

Kami: Yes, yes, its talent.

J: Well, just getting off a nightshift must be tiring.

K: For us too, you know, we should try not to say 'stop it' too quickly...we have to keep it interesting.

Kami: It was interesting though, I was listening.

T: Oh thank you.

Kami: But don't tell lies about me.

T: If you thought it was interesting, you should write about it on your social media.

Kami: Yeh, everyone pretends on social media anyway, they won't know its me.

K: Well, that was the first episode of 'The Freedom of Expression' but, should I ask how it was..? *laughs*

J: But, being together again after a while was refreshing..

K,T: Yes, thats right

T: Im happy.

J: So am I.

K: Well, so we started in this vein....Tune in next time to see how it goes. So this time, only this camera, theres nothing here *gestures behind*, but if lots of people watch, we could go different places, increase our cameras. I still don't know about your fee, Joe.

J: Eh?! What do you mean? It says here my fee will stay the same!

K: I might have to lower it *laughs*

J: *coughs* You're only lowering mine?...But everyone please subscribe.

K: Yes please. Please look forward to next time. Thank you very much.

1* They are saying 'How about this?' in a Kansai accent, how to translate that??

#dir en grey #the freedom of expression #kaoru #薫 #tfoe #tfoe01

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