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drummerqueenrmt · 6 years ago

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Home - Roger Taylor x reader (smut)

Summary: Roger returns home after the tour and has missed you so much.

Warnings: SMUT (bad), non protected sex, and lots of fluff as always in this blog.

Notes: I love but I hate writing smut (?) but here we are, this one is the one who win the poll (don’t worry I will post the rest soon). I hope you like it bc I’m very satisfied with the result! Thanks for reading my shit again, love you 💛 (Comment/reblog/like if you like it plz)

“I’m home!”

“PAPI!” Your two children shouted at once, running wildly to give their father a hug.

“Hey! Here there are my two favourite little monsters!” He dropped his bag to the ground and picked them up. “I’ve missed you so much…”

He gave them little kisses on their heads and they hugged him strongly. “I’ve missed you too, papa…” Your oldest son, Ben, told him. “I have take care of mum and sis as you told me!”

“I’m sure you have and I’m so proud of you! And how about you, princess? Have you missed me?”

“Yes… I don’t want you to go again…”

“Oh… honey… I promise that I’m not going anywhere for a while”

“Pinkie promise?” The girl showed his little finger to his father, he put both of them on the ground and interlaced his pinkie with his daughter's one. “Pinkie promise”

“Yes!” She hugged his dad’s legs and he patted his back softly.

“Well, well, well… Look who we have here” You were standing by the door of the living room watching the scene, melting at how happy your children were now that Roger was home again and how he seemed to be delighted too. Although he had called you every day you had missed him, his little kisses to wake you up, his touch, his smiles… But the tour was over and your husband was home again, looking at you smiling widely.

“You know what, kids? Your father has seen many beautiful women when he was away but I’ve got to tell you he was so fffff-”

“Language!” You shouted funnily to him.

He giggled and started approaching you. “He was so lucky to marry you mother because God knows she’s the most beautiful one” He looked at his daughter. “Apart from you, little” He winked to her and she winked back happily. “And knowing that she was waiting for me at home make the time parted less painful”

“Who says that I was waiting for you? Maybe my lover-” He captured your face between his hands and gave you the kiss you both wanted to happen since the day he left, softly but passionate.

Now Roger felt that he was really at home.

He passed his arms around you waist and pull you closer to him and you passed yours around his neck. When the kiss ended both of you buried your faces in the other’s neck.

“I’ve missed you so much, my love…”

“I’ve missed you too, Rog… I’m so happy that you are finally here”

“I needed to hug you so bad… and to kiss you and... “ He lowered his voice. “I need to make love to you, I need to feel you again…” He started kissing your neck.

“Love… I need it but not now” You reply in a whisper. “The kids”

“Oh, right!” He moved away from you. “Who wants to order a pizza?

“ME!” Both shouted.

“Great because I’m starving and too tired for cooking. Honey, do you want pizza too?”

“No, I actually prefer a salad”

“Really?”

“Of course not! I like salads but I love pizza, my husband should know that”

“I knew that you were joking, ok?”

“Yes… sure” You smirked at him and he pinched your ass.

“Pizza for everybody then!”

---------------

You spent the whole day hearing Rog’s stories from the tour, playing with your children and enjoying again the time together. When the night arrive it was more than obvious that the drummer and the two littles were exhausted. You found them in Ben’s bed sleeping cuddled, and a smile appeared on your face. You had the cutest family possible, you felt so lucky your heart was going to explode.

You let them sleep and returned to the kitchen to finish pick up everything. You were so focus in your thoughts that you only realized that Roger was there when he hugged you strongly from behind. “I told you I would pick everything up tomorrow” And started planting little kisses on your neck.

“It was nothing and now that I’ve done it tomorrow you can’t rest as much as you want”

“Yeah… you’ve said it… tomorrow”

One of his hands find his way below your shirt and started massage your boob, his thumb playing with your nipple; while the other find his own way below your pants and underwear and started caressing your folds. You wanted this so bad that you stopped what you were doing and just let yourself go under his touch.

“Do you know how many times I have thinked about this moment while on tour? Do you know how many times I’ve touched myself thinking that was you who was touching me instead?” He was whispering all of that into your ear and your body was receiving a million shivers at the same time. You rested your head on his shoulder and one of your hands grabbed his hair, pulling it. He began to slowly rub circles on your clit while his index was tempting your entrance. “Tell me how much you’ve missed me, love”

“Rog… I…” He inserted his finger into you and you could only reply with a moan.

“What was that, honey?” His raspy voice was only making things worse. “Tell me”

“I… I’ve…” He inserted another one and an ever louder moan escaped your mouth.

“Do you like this?” You muttered a yes in response. “Have you missed this?” He fasten the movement of his fingers and you quickly felt the orgasm building. “Cum for me, babe” And you did.

God, you definitely had missed that.

Roger hugged you while your breathing was returning to normal and you were regaining the control of your body, leaving littles pecks on your neck. Once you felt able to, you turned to face him and kissed his lips fiercely. “Yeah… I think you’ve missed me”

“Oh… you don’t know how much… Let me show you” You winked at him and neal in front of him, starting to lower his tracksuit pants and his underpants. His eyes went wide and his mouth opened when your tongue started licking the tip of his cock slowly. You were looking at him all the time and he could have cum right there only watching you like this so he closed his eyes and bit his lower lip. After a few minutes like that, you took all his length in your mouth and started sucking it more and more harshly and you noticed that Roger’s legs were starting to tremble to a point he had to support himself with one hand on the kitchen table, the other one pulling your hair.

“You feel so good… Gosh! I’m not going to last…”

You stopped at his words.

“Hey! Don’t-”

You shouted him by kissing his lips. “I want you to cum, but not in my mouth”

He then took you in his arms to leave you lying on the table. “So… if you want to play, I know how to play too” And hungrily began to lick and suck your clit and your folds making you become again a moan mess. When he felt you were going to cum again he stopped.

You let out a snort. “I hate you”

He laughed and grabbed your hand pulling you closer to him, making you change position. Now you weren’t lying, you were sitting on the edge of the table with one arm around his neck and the other on his shoulder. He spread your legs a little bit more and teased your entrance with the tip of his cock.

“C’mon, Rog… Need you inside me…” That’s what he needed to introduce all his length into you and you wrapped your legs around his waist allowing him to go deeper.

In a moment, the kitchen filled with the sound sex and of your moans. The rhythm was much faster than usual, but taking into account how needy both of you were it was normal. You were kissing all the time, even when both of you reached the orgasm together.

You stayed hugged for a while, forehead against forehead, feeling how you breathings were becoming normal again.

“I’ve missed so fucking much, Roger Taylor” You finally said.

You both laughed. “I’ve missed you too, my love”

He exit from you and took you in her arms again to take you to you bed. Once he cleaned both of you he laid besides you, wrapping his arms around you to pull you closer to him, noses touching. You put your hand on his face, caressing him.

“Can you imagine having an amazing wife like you? Not only you are intelligent, beautiful, a wonderful mother to my children but also you are a sex goddess…”

“Shut up!”

“What? It’s true! All the time on tour when a girl tried something with me I told myself why are I’m going to have sex with her if is not going to be anything compared of what I will have when I arrive home” You kissed him sweetly. “Nothing compares to you… You’re my everything, [y/n]” He kissed you too.

“And what about our children?”

“They are a world apart, you know… They are more than everything”

“I know… they are the bests… And you are the best partner of life I would have chosen, Rog”

“You have a very bad taste in men, haven’t you?” You pinched him and both giggled.

“I love you with all my heart, you silly drummer”

“I love you too, my perfect girl”

You kissed one more time till a thought crossed suddenly your mind.

“Fuck!”

“What?”

“The condom!”

“The condom?”

“We didn’t use one!”

“Oh…”

You remain in silence for a while, both looking at the roof.

“Honey?”

You nodded softly.

“In a scale from one to ten, how much do you mind to have another little monster?

“Mmmm… to be honest...” You turned to look at him. “Zero”

He smiled widely to you and pulled you again into a kiss.

In nine months a little baby girl was born.

THE END

#queen #queen band #roger taylor #roger taylor x reader #roger taylor x you #roger taylor fic #roger taylor smut #roger taylor imagine #smut #fluff

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quietdaysco · 6 years ago

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Primrose Path - Devlog #006

Hey, it’s us again—two indie devs with fresh dirt on our visual novel progress. Ready?

Behind the Scenes

Playtesting Feedback

Last month we closed the pre-alpha Ink build of Primrose Path’s common route outline. It met its purpose of proving the basic concepts of our game were viable and that it interested players in our target demographic. In fact, playtesters gave us overwhelmingly positive feedback in our post-test form about the characters and story. Here are a few quotes from their responses:

“The number of elements of the MC's [main character’s] life added in to the story in increments helped me not only relate to the MC but also stay interested.”

“There's a good variety of calmer moments and more outlandish/exciting/otherwise more high tension moment [sic], no issues for me.”

“[T]he clients are a rainbow of people with a few that [sic] very much stand out [to me]”

“By the end, I was definitely considering who I was going to chose as my client and was sad the pre-alpha ended even though I knew it was going to.”

“I 100% would dance [in a mini-game similar to] DDR [Dance Dance Revolution]”

As you can see, the beginnings of Primrose Path went over well and players definitely had a lot of interesting things to say about our mischievous clients! We can’t spoil them here, but you may be able to see for yourself when alpha testing comes to our server in the future!

Now, for all the good we received, it’s not to say the pre-alpha went without its criticisms:

“This might be silly, but I wish there were an option that weren't a dress for her outfit to the party.”

It’s not silly at all, playtester! It had us thinking about the different ways our protagonist, Lynn Austen, could express herself. This concern lead to one outfit redesign and introduced a number of new ones!

“The beginning was a little slow, but I love Priya, so all of her scenes brought my attention back instantly.”

We love co-worker and bestie, Priya, too, but she can’t be an exception for pacing. We’ve since reevaluated and tweaked Part 1: Work Day. Plenty of visual changes and cutting scenes entirely were discussed in order to tighten up the overall pacing.

“Harper seems harsh but has pressure on her to make her harsh, but then you see her and shes [sic] just straight up scary.”

While all playtesters understood Harper’s role as Lynn’s no-slack boss, a few found her consequentially unapproachable. We have a lot in store for her in later routes, but acknowledge she was sparse during the common route. We’ve since taken this concern and made her more available in new scenes, adjusted her tone in some of the older ones, and had other characters—who have a very different relationship with her than Lynn does—reflect more openly on her. We think this humanizes Harper much more.

“Unfortunately [Bellarmino] feels like a snobbier, more irritating Matt. [...] I personally don't find him very likable but I'm looking forward to being proven wrong.”

In our feedback form, we asked about character impressions. We also polled if players didn’t have to play all routes at least once, which clients they’d pick. While character impression responses expressed a willingness to give our model and fashion designer, Bellarmino LaFauci, a chance, he was our least popular choice in the poll. We figured it may have been that his personality wasn’t differentiated enough against the company with whom Lynn encounters him, so we’ve made adjustments to contrast him more against his judgmental cabal.

So as we went through and addressed feedback, we had some ideas of our own to implement, which leads us to...

Updated Revised Outline

Double the wordcount! Yep, we’re just shy of 32,000 words for the revised common route outline. How could this be? Look: don’t mistake Primrose Path for a linear narrative. Your choices affect the world from day one.

Beyond changes from playtester feedback, other new content includes:

New Characters! We work to make sure our side characters leave an impression. We’ve added a few more with the means to salvage or devastate Lynn’s career. Until you yourself can meet them, look out for future Lore snippets on our Twitter!

New Events! Lynn has more opportunities than before, and under different states of mind, to navigate and impact the world around her. Depending on what Lynn did, where, and when can completely change an encounter within that same space and time.

New Key Items! There are a couple of items Lynn can collect if she meets the right people and takes certain actions. These items can reveal some important information in client routes later on—and some hints for others, too!

New Areas! A few more places have been added to the common route, including whole new scenes. What could possibly lie behind these doors?

So how’s that sound? If you said “Damn, that’s hella rad,” well you just took the words right out of our mouths. But we’re not done yet; we take feedback seriously. When we can’t decide on what our audience may want, we leave no room for speculation. There’s really only one way to settle that.

VN Protagonist Sprite Survey

We run a survey! We wanted to know how visual novel fans preferred to see a customizable MC represented as a sprite, if at all. It’s tough for us because as much as we want to make Lynn as visually present as her sense of self, we also acknowledge that “immersion” for many players also means different levels of “intrusion” from MC’s sprite—down to none at all, for folks wanting to self-insert despite taking on another character’s existing backstory. While we think we’ve come to a happy medium that serves our purposes and would appeal to a good number of players, we’ll be sharing with you all in a separate post our findings.

Two things are for certain:

Visual novel players are an incredibly dedicated base, having turned out over 100 responses to our form! Thank you so much for helping us see your side on the matter!

The communities we frequent overwhelmingly take issue with one specific manner of MC representation—one that seems to plague the industry. If you’re not an avid consumer of visual novels, this begrudged answer may surprise you!

But hey, we haven’t closed it yet: you can contribute your opinion too until August 5th, 11:59 PM EDT. Stay tuned for our detailed write-up on the results, next time. We’ve got another survey in the works too (sounds like we’ve got a few hard decisions, huh?) so keep tabs on our Twitter when we release that form.

Greyson’s Twitter

Greyson’s been taking a break from Twitter for a minute. Working Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday overheated him, and in that vulnerable time, he caught a virus! So now he’s on sick leave and we’ve promised him an easier schedule of one day a week when he gets better. His posting schedule will be announced soon. You can still send him some love on his Twitter account. He’ll be sure to respond when he’s feeling up to it. He’s always there for you. Will you return the favor?

Main Game Progress

Common Route:

Rough Outline: 100% ✔

Revised Outline: 100% ✔

Draft Script: --%

The Artist: Matthias Barousse

Rough Outline: 100% ✔

Revised Outline: --%

Progress on the main game has primarily been on the common route outline. Some interesting things to note are that last time we reported our revision to be at 90%. After implementing feedback, our clean outline doubled in word count and we’ve reviewed it entirely since then. So now we’re thoroughly at 100%!

The breakdown of that is:

We finished up the common route’s Part 3: The Interviews, in which Lynn meets all her clients whom she may or may not have stumbled upon at a legendary bash.

We elaborated on Part 2: The Party encounters and added more variations which subsequently trickle over into alternate interactions in The Interviews.

We added an interactive, portent dream sequence the night of The Interviews, right when Lynn hits the bed after evaluating all potential clients at work.

... and a few other additions. Also among other things, we’ve actually started work on the draft script already, but we’ve not had time to properly calculate the percentage. It’ll be updated accordingly in our next log.

What’s Next For Us

We’re going to finish up our script draft and start focusing our efforts into creating a playable, visual alpha build of Primrose Path. Yes, we want to play our game as much as you do and that’s motivation enough!

We’re focusing on monthly devlogs for our Tumblr, but we have to ask:

Are there other kinds of content and updates you folks would like to see here? We want to know! Shoot us a message in our Ask the Devs inbox here on Tumblr, or hit us up on Twitter, Discord, and Lemma Soft!

Thanks for reading! Keep up and remember to enjoy your Quiet Days. ♥

Socials

- Micro-updates on Twitter!

♦ Factoids with Greyson!

- Live art development on Twitch!

- Art logging on Instagram!

- Ask us anything here!

- Continue the discussion on Discord!

- Master thread on Lemma Soft!

#devlog #primrosepath #visual novel #otome #english otome #indiedev #gamedev #otomedev

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theguardiansseries · 6 years ago

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From the Beginning Chapter 8

Make sure to follow this blog so you can stay up to date on the latest chapters and news about the Guardians series!

If you’re willing, you can also pledge to me on Patreon where you can unlock polls, read chapters in advance, and even get links to the docs on stories I’m currently working on. There’s also a tier that will allow you to receive monthly physical copies of one of my completed works.

Don’t have the money to pledge monthly? Consider making a one time pledge by buying me a coffee on Ko-Fi. It’s basically Patreon without the monthly part of it. Every $25 I’ll be doing a giveaway so anyone who donated during that period will have a chance to win a published copy of one of my fanfiction works!

Click here to read on Fan Fiction Net Click here to read on Archive Of Our Own

Summary: Danny Fenton was a simple, sixteen-year-old teenager who loved fast food, video games, and getting a B on surprise pop quizzes. He’s also the half-ghost teenage hero Danny Phantom who defends Amity Park from ghost attacks on a daily basis. Somehow, the ghost attacks make a lot more sense than crushes, friendships, and falling in love with someone he is definitely not supposed to be falling in love with. It was a lot easier to separate Phantom and Fenton before, but now it’s getting harder the more he learns about himself. Just who was he? The dorky son of scientists who loved the stars or the hero that protected the town. He’s starting to feel like he won’t like the answer. (Iambic Prose) (Prequel to Guardians and Partial Show Rewrite)

<<First Chapter>> <<Last Chapter>> <<Next Chapter>>

Chapter Eight

“I think a threat that’s stronger than Pariah is about to wake up.” It sounded silly when he said it out loud, but Danny had been thinking on this for a while now and it was the only thing that seemed to make sense after his walk around Pariah’s Keep.

“What- Wait, what?” Sam looked surprised and even scared, almost, before her expression dropped and her eyes narrowed. “What kind of a threat?”

“I don’t- A threat.” It sounded stupid, but it all lined up! Danny had been seeing the signs for weeks and he hadn’t even realized what he was staring at until it was almost too late - almost. “Sammy, you have to trust me on this one.”

“Uh huh. Why do you think we’re about to face a threat, Danny? And give me an exact reason, not a ghost sense sort of reason.”

“None of the ghosts have attacked in almost two weeks!” Alright, Sam’s groan was unappreciated and wildly unhelpful. “C’mon, Tuck, back me up here. You think it’s weird, don’t you?” Maybe he was exaggerating a little with it being a Pariah level threat, but it was weird.

“Yeah. Weird.” While Tucker gave strange responses sometimes, that was weird even by their standards. He usually never shut up, but thinking about it, Tucker had been weirdly silent during lunch this time.

“Tucker? You alright, buddy?” The three were in the cafeteria, so Danny had been a little concerned with eating before his food was stolen or shoved down his shirt, but now that he was looking, Tucker had a lot of papers and notebooks out. “Okay, last I checked February wasn’t even over yet. What’s with the finals level studying?”

“It’s not studying.” Tucker was staring down at a packet of papers with utter seriousness, food completely abandoned and ignored beside him. It was, Danny decided, absolutely terrifying. “It’s for the student council elections coming up.”

Danny didn’t even get to open his mouth before Sam was kicking him, which, alright, he probably deserved that considering he hadn’t even known that his best friend was running for student elections. “Cool- Cool. That’s cool. Uh, refresh my memory, which position are you going for?” Because if Tucker was aiming for President, then he had quite the depressing news.

“Vice president. In this school, the VP always is the one behind the big changes. The jocks can fight for the figurehead position all they want, but I know what I’m doing.”

“Never doubted you for a second, buddy.” At least he had done his research, this year. “So, uh, what kind of plans you have in mind? Hopefully nothing that will end up with a changed lunch menu.”

“Hey! We agreed to never speak of that moment again! Nothing I did or said as a freshman can be held against me and you know it.” Sam glared at him and Danny knew without any doubt that she could kill him anytime she pleased.

“Right, right, so, uh, student council. Vice president. You wanna… talk about it?” That’s what supportive friends did, right? Talk about student politics?

“You have time for it?” All three of them seemed to realize how harsh that was at the same time since Danny winced the same moment as Tucker and Sam. “Sorry- Sorry, that was… Sorry, man.”

“Yeah, no, hey, I get it. I haven’t exactly been around the past few weeks like I should have been.” It had been one crazy thing after another, it seemed, but things were settling down, now. “The ghosts haven’t been by in almost two weeks, though, so I think I’m good on time for the moment.”

“Oh… Right! Well, uh, so first-” The next few words were drowned out by the ringing of the school bell, Tucker looking disgruntled as Sam hid a laugh behind her napkin.

“Raincheck?” Danny grinned, happy when he saw Tucker give a grudging one of his own. “We can talk about it after school. Gaming party at yours?”

“You know it.” Sharing a quick fist bump with the both of them, Danny helped Tucker gather a backpack’s worth of paper as Tucker looked like he tried to stop himself from smiling too widely. “Just you wait, man, I have so many ideas on how to keep this place from becoming hell- Oh! I had a few ideas about our, uh, club.”

“Club? Tuck, we don’t-” Oh. Oh! “Right! The club.” Ghost hunting was a club now, then. Great. “Uh, sure- Yeah. That sounds great.”

A little gaming time with Tucker while talking about their lives sounded like something that was long overdue.

Unfortunately, the ghosts never stayed quiet for long. What was supposed to be a fun night of gaming turned into six hours of fighting off Technus and his latest plan to use the Gamestop in the mall to take over the internet. It was six hours of his life that he was never going to get back, but he figured he could at least make it up to Tucker by taking him to the mall that, thanks to ‘Phantom,’ was still there.

Of course, it would have been better if Desiree hadn’t shown up and started granting wishes by the fountains. One would think that the town of Amity Park would have learned not to wish for things out loud, but four hours of hell proved otherwise. Danny was still trying to figure out who wished for walls to be made of jello. He would kick their ass, if he ever figured it out, that was for sure.

After that it was the Lunch Lady causing a riot at one of the local soup kitchens, Ember trying to enslave a group of teenagers in the park, the Box Ghost taking over the post office, and Johnny and Kitty having a fight that almost destroyed an entire city block.

Finally, though, March was here and things were calming down once again. “Tucker- Hey! Tucker! Wait up!” Student elections for next year’s positions weren’t going to be voted on until late April so Danny had plenty of time to listen to Tucker’s plans and help him out with campaigning and all of that. It would be easier, of course, if Tucker would slow down and wait for him. “Hey, so, I was thinking that today-”

“You could leave me behind and go off and hunt ghosts on your own? Yeah, sounds perfect, Danny, let’s do that.” It wasn’t the words that hurt so much as the way Tucker sounded so bitter. “Here, you can even get a head start. I’ll go home, and you can stand here and wait for the next ghost attack, which should be in, oh, ten minutes? Five, maybe?”

“Okay, no gaming marathon today, then.” Danny shook his head, trying to find out where the bitter attitude was coming from and finding himself unable to. He knew it had been a rough few weeks, but it wasn’t like any of that was Danny’s fault. “Okay, right, I’ll bite, what the hell? I mean, I know I’ve been busy-”

“Busy?” Tucker near knocked Danny over with how fast he turned around. “No, busy would be dealing with the ghosts and then coming to talk to me afterwards. You’ve been a jerk-”

“I’ve been a jerk? You’ve been avoiding me all day when I’ve been trying to catch up to you so we can talk. And I’m sorry, since when am I considered a jerk for taking care of threats that no one else can?”

“No one else- Do you even realize- Do you even see us?! All of this - everything - is all your fault! And you’re too much of a stubborn jerk to even see that!”

“My… And just what, Tucker, is my fault?” None of this was his fault! How was any of this his fault? He had his own stuff to deal with, too, and by the time the fights ended these days, he was too tired to do much more than to make it home and collapse.

What Tucker thought was his fault was something Danny didn’t get to hear. Instead he heard a high-pitched whine, saw Tucker look shocked and scared, and then he felt nothing but pain. Pain and fear were the last things he felt before he saw black.

“Greetings, prey… I had a feeling that my weapons wouldn’t trigger that little detection power of yours.”

“Oh, God, of course it’s you.” Danny’s ears were still ringing, and his mouth felt like it was stuffed full of cotton and sand, but he had enough sense to recognize Skulker’s voice when he heard it. “And here I thought you finally chased the wrong prey and got your suit destroyed or something.”

“Unfortunately for you, that is not the case. No, whelp… You see, I’ve decided that it was high time that we bring our little hunt to new grounds.” Right, Skulker was just going on with his dramatics. That gave Danny at least five good minutes to figure out where the hell he was and why he felt so awful.

The second one he could probably blame on whatever Skulker had used to knock him out. He remembered electricity, just barely, and that was enough. Skulker had probably gone to Technus to have his weapons upgraded, the jerk.

Okay, okay. Focus. He had been leaving school and- Tuck. Tucker. Right. Well, even if they were fighting, he was still sure that Tucker would call Sam and Jazz and some rescue attempt would be put together. At least, that was what he thought until he heard a familiar groan beside him.

“My brains… feel like oatmeal.” Pushing himself up faster than he should have, Danny’s vision swam as he stared down at where Tucker was lying down next to him.

“Ah, yes. I even brought along a friend of yours for our hunt today. I couldn’t have him running to tell others and interrupt our hunt too soon, now could I?”

“Skulker, the second I can see straight I am going to punch you in your face!” Of all the things to happen of course Tucker would be trapped alongside him! Sam, at least, could have kept pace with him, but Tucker? Depending on where they were, they might just be doomed.

“Maybe once you might have been able to, whelp, but I have the home field advantage.” The… The home field advantage? Stomach feeling like it had been taken out of him and dropped off a skyscraper, Danny shot his gaze up towards the sky and saw nothing except green. Green meant that they were in the Ghost Zone, but Skulker wouldn’t be so smug if it was just that. “Now, since I like to give my prey a sporting chance, I’ll give you a ten-minute head start.”

Feeling a tug to his wrist, Danny’s gaze snapped over to where Tucker was looking shocked and scared, eyes wide as he stared at the handcuffs that chained them together. This, Danny realized, just became a lot more difficult.

“Oh, and did I mention your ten minutes began when you awoke?” Skulker’s smug, satisfied words had Danny scrambling to his feet, fighting the wave of dizziness that swept over him as he grabbed Tucker’s arm and pulled him along as he started to run.

“Danny! Do you even know where we’re going?!” Tucker’s shouts only had Danny pulling them along faster, because the sooner they got away from Skulker, the better.

“I think that as long as we’re running away from the crazy mecha suit, then it doesn’t really matter,” Danny yelled back, eyes wide as he tried not to run them into any trees. He had caught glimpses of a forest in the Ghost Zone once before, but since when had there been a jungle? Were they at Skulker’s island or lair or whatever it was?

“And how do we know we’re not gonna just wind up going in circles!” Feeling a jerk on his arm as Tucker tripped over something, Danny swore as he slowed down enough to make sure Tucker didn’t fall before pulling him along again. “Ow- Danny!”

“Just shut up and run, Tuck. We wouldn’t even be in this mess if you hadn’t been acting like a jerk-”

“You’re blaming me for this?!” Tucker stopped again, and Danny grunted as he felt a sharp tug to his wrist where the handcuff was locked around him. He was starting to hate these handcuffs and he couldn’t wait to punch Skulker in the face for this. “This is your fault, dude.”

“My fault? It’s my fault that you’ve been ignoring me for the last few days?” Seeing the other ready to reply, Danny sharply shook his head the same time he pulled on the chain of the handcuffs. “We don’t have time for this. Just shut up and I’ll fly us out of here.”

Danny let himself relax before he was triggering his change into his ghost half, except there were no rings - or anything else. Trying again, Danny swallowed as, again, nothing happened. “Oh no.”

“Oh no?” Tucker frowned, crossing his arms and bringing Danny’s own arm with him. “Why are you saying oh no?” Changing wasn’t working, nor was flying, or intangibility, invisibility, ectoblasts, or anything else.

“We might have a problem,” Danny finally admitted, looking to the handcuffs and realizing for the first time that they were glowing. “Scratch that, we definitely have a problem.”

Tucker followed his gaze after a moment and it seemed to click at once considering the loud swear he let out. “This thing stops your ghost powers?”

“Seems to be the case,” Danny hissed, fingers scrabbling against the cuff on his wrist. He almost started swearing when it didn’t even budge. “Okay- Okay, just- Don’t panic. Just follow me-”

“And who put you in charge?” Tucker looked even more defensive than before as he took a step forward, poking at Danny’s chest, and, seriously? “This is my life on the line, too, you know! Why do you get to make all the decisions?”

“Can we not do this right now?” Danny frowned, batting Tucker’s hand away. “Look, I get it, you’re pissed I don’t get to spend time with you anymore, but we need to get out of here before Skulker tries to skin us or something. As for the other thing, I get to be in charge because I know about ghost things.”

“And I don’t?” Instead of his words reassuring Tucker, the other only seemed to be getting even angrier. As great as it was that they were finally talking, now was really not the time. “Dude, I’ve been right here the entire time! You don’t even see me, but we’ve been learning all of this stuff at the same time! The same pace!”

“Where is this even coming from?!” Danny finally shouted back, not caring that their ten minutes were probably up and Skulker was on the hunt for them. Skulker was the last thing he was worried about, right now. “It’s only recently that we’ve been fighting like this-”

“Recent?” Tucker’s voice was whisper soft before he was yelling again, looking angrier and angrier with each word. “Recent- It’s always been like this! You’ve always been so damn prideful and full of yourself and it’s gotten worse ever since you became ‘Phantom.’ You think you’re above everything!”

For a second, Danny could only stare at his best friend in shock. Then the shock ended and anger set in. “Above- You have no idea what I go through!” They could never understand. Tucker and Sam could never understand what it was like to be half-ghost. They saw him, but they didn’t see the aftermath. They never saw. “I’m trying to be ‘in charge’ because I, at least, know about all these damn ghost things-”

“And I don’t?!” They were the same words, but this time Tucker screamed them as if Danny had just stabbed him. “I’ve been right here this entire time and learning it all the same time as you! I’ve been here the whole time and you don’t even see me! I’m nothing but the tech guy to you!”

“At least you know what you are!” The words exploded out of him, Danny certain that his powers would have already been reacting if they hadn’t been suppressed. “I don’t even know if I’m alive anymore some days-!” Danny’s words died in his throat as he saw green energy that was speeding towards them.

Their ten minutes were definitely up, and Danny realized in that moment how loud they had been screaming. He then realized that while these weapons could hurt ghosts, this was technology that could kill humans, and it was flying right for Tucker’s back and no-

Danny was moving before his brain could make the decision, hands grabbing Tucker by the arm and back of the neck before he was spinning them around to switch places. He then immediately pushed them towards the ground. The blast of energy felt like fire against his skin as it seared across his back, gritted teeth feeling like they would break as he suppressed a scream and hit the ground a second after Tucker.

He didn’t give himself time to recover, instead dragging the two of them up before running through the jungle again, trying not to focus on how Skulker’s laugh boomed all around them. Danny knew Tucker was trying to say something, but Danny ignored it until he was skidding into a cave opening, knowing the hiding spot was only temporary.

“-alright?!” Tucker’s whisper shouting finally sunk in, Danny blinking as he looked over to see Tucker was staring at him with wide, wet eyes and shaking hands. “Dude- Dude, you pretty much just took a bullet for me.”

Staring at him for a minute, Danny finally shrugged and tried for a grin, “I can handle stuff like that.” Tucker couldn’t. Danny was stronger against these types of things even in his human form.

“But- We were fighting. We were fighting and you still- Ow! Hey!” Watching Tucker clutch the back of his head where Danny had just hit him, Danny gave a mock glare.

“Dude, do you seriously think that I would let you get hurt just because we’re fighting?” Danny was definitely pissed at Tucker and he had the urge to drop him off a small hill or something, but even at their worst he would never want Tucker hurt, let alone killed. “Idiot.”

Hearing leaves rustling, Danny jerked them further into the cave, biting his lip at the wave of pain from his back even as he pulled Tucker down to the ground and into the shadows. The two were utterly silent and still as the rustling leaves slowly moved away before they disappeared altogether.

“Okay, we need a plan,” Danny finally said, looking to Tucker and giving him a nudge. “Any ideas, VP?” There was a long moment where Danny thought Tucker was going to make a thing of it before he looked away with a grudging smile.

“Elections aren’t until April, you know,” Tucker said quietly, Danny beyond grateful that they weren’t the type to go into feelings. “Sorry. I-”

“Nope, no, nuh-uh, we don’t have time to deal with emotions. You’ve been a jerk and I’ve been an arrogant asshole or something and got carried away and forgot to tell you that we’re a team, and you’re not just backup.”

“I’ve been a jealous asshole,” Tucker finally corrected, looking suspiciously emotional. “And you’ve been a prideful prick who doesn’t like to take suggestions.” Ah, much better. “You think I would have learned the first time about being jealous.”

The memory of Desiree and her powers sent a shudder through Danny and Tucker both, especially as they remembered the end result. While ‘Tucker Phantom’ hadn’t been bad at first, it had showed Danny that he could get as wrapped up in himself as anyone else. Had he really started slipping that easily, again?

“I haven’t exactly given you reason not to be,” Danny finally said, sitting up slowly and trying not to show how much his back was hurting him. Tucker probably knew, anyways, judging by his wince. “Tuck… I didn’t think I had to say it because I thought you knew, you idiot.”

“As always, you’re full of such affectionate nicknames,” Tucker grumbled, peeking his head out of the cave. “Looks clear, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had Technus rig up some kind of spying system.”

“Yeah, but Tucker, look, man, I’m trying to emotionally connect, here.” At the look on Tucker’s face, Danny did his best not to laugh. “I’m serious. You’re not just tech support.”

“Yeah, yeah, man, I know, we’re friends and I’m part of the team and-”

“We’re not friends.” Danny let Tucker’s shocked silence sit for a moment before he grinned, giving him a nudge. “We’re brothers, aren’t we?”

“Oh my god you almost gave me a heart attack.” Even as Tucker dramatically clutched his chest, Danny could see the way his eyes were getting wet. He knew his own were the same, so at least they had mutually assured destruction. “This conversation never happened.”

“What conversation? Seriously, though, please tell me you have a plan or something, because otherwise we’re kind of screwed.”

“I don’t know how to get these cuffs off, but I do have something.” Watching as Tucker twisted and squirmed around, Danny shook his head as the teen finally got his backpack open from where it was stuck on one arm.

“Tell me that you’re not about to pull out some plot device to save the day or whatever. I know our lives have gotten kind of crazy, Tuck, but-” A Fenton Thermos was being waved in front of him. A Fenton Thermos that was black and green. “Whoa. Dude, what…?”

“I told you I’ve been working on our ghost stuff, too. This is one of the things I was trying to show you, dude.” The Thermos, which looked a lot less like a thermos these days, was the same size as the old ones, but had a metal plate that had a circular pattern to it covering the top instead of the lid it used to have. “It’s like one of those cool sci-fi kinds of openings, you know? You just a press button, this opens up like a circle thing, and boom, you have a ghost capturing ray.”

“Tuck, you’re a genius.” Taking the Thermos, Danny’s grin got even wider as he thought about how much work must have gone into something like this. “You’re my favorite.”

“Sweet. I’d tell Sam, but I don’t know if the satisfaction would be worth both of our deaths,” Tucker laughed, falling silent the same time Danny did. A branch had snapped not far off from where they were sitting. “Wanna take that thing for a test drive?”

“Tuck, you read my mind.” Danny grinned as the two of them stood back up, Danny realizing in that moment that Tucker really had been through it all with him. As Skulker stepped out of the foliage, Danny’s grin grew wider. This was going to be fun.

“I was wondering when you would be back! Honestly, you could at least give warning if you’re going to disappear for weeks on… end.” Ghostwriter stared at him and Danny could see the exact moment that he registered Danny’s back was bleeding and he was chained to Tucker. “This one must be Tucker, I presume?”

“Oh, cool, you do talk about us!” Tucker’s voice was a cheerful little chirp as he stuck his hand out. “Yo. I’m Tucker Foley, Danny’s best-friend-slash-brother. You must be the ghostly book nerd he won’t shut up about.”

“You’re going to make me regret bringing you here, aren’t you,” Danny grumbled, reluctantly amused when Ghostwriter cautiously shook Tucker’s hand. “So, uh, hey, do you know how to lockpick handcuffs?”

“I do, actually, yes.” Oh, cool. That made this easier. Danny also knew what he was asking Ghostwriter about next time he visited. “I take it those handcuffs were not a choice, then.”

“Why- Why would you think it was a choice?” Danny was grateful that Tucker looked just as horrified, but Ghostwriter only looked amused as he opened the door properly for them.

“Who am I to judge another’s preferences? Come on, then. It shouldn’t take me long. I take it that’s been cancelling out your abilities?”

“Yeah, Skulker’s a dick,” Danny nodded, pulling Tucker into the library and using the handcuff like a leash when it looked like Tucker was about to run off to explore. “Do you have bandages, too?”

“Goodness, you’re certainly high maintenance,” Ghostwriter sighed, looking amused instead of concerned, thank God. Danny was good enough with all the concern he already got. “I should have something.”

“So, hey, you know, you could totally go digital and get rid of half these books - maybe free up some space, even. I mean, paper copies aren’t really efficient.”

Ghostwriter, after faltering in his steps and looking back, gave Tucker the dirtiest look that could ever be imagined, Danny breaking and starting to laugh when Tucker only beamed back before going in depth about the advantage of technology over books. It was good to have things back to normal.

Danny couldn’t wait until they got even better, though.

#danny phantom #guardians series #from the beginning #ftb chapters #iambic prose

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mahalidael · 7 years ago

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Sparkboys #2: A Roof Redneck Offers Me Brownies

Content warning: Profanity, drug mentions, screaming rednecks.

The polls are in and the polls want Murphy! Buckle up, buttercups, because Murphy ain’t done falling into this vortex of terror.

My tablet is on the road to recovery, so if the guys from Best Buy pull through, you might be seeing chapter art for each of these.

(Chapter 1)

“They’re staring at us.”

“Yeah, because you broke into a goddamn bathroom stall,” Jacob replied through a mouthful of shrimp. “Anybody reasonable’ld be starin’ at you.”

Picture this: you’ve got a scrawny looking kid with a bad dye job, a ratty hoodie, and the beginnings of a nosebleed. You’ve got a linebacker who’s been beat to hell and dunked in water. Put them in the same restaurant booth. That’s what was going on.

We figured we were both hungry, and that nobody would bother us if we sat together. Jacob looked socially pathetic, but he was still a whole lot of dude, and I was sure I would be eternally branded the Crazy Toilet Guy™, but at least no one would fuck with me.

The ideal football player looks like an all-American boy. Jacob looked like somebody who mugged all-American boys in a dark alley. Maybe the black eye was part of it (lord knows how that happened), maybe the piercings was part of it (earrings, nose stud, the whole works), but mostly he was just moody-looking. If Allison thought I was scowling, she should have gotten a load of this guy.

“Nah, they were already staring when I first came in…” I was looking out the window, pretending not to notice the gawkers. The outlet looked creepy, though I imagine it looked better in daylight. I thought of the people who were whispering Allison’s name. “Does it have anything to do with Dr. Allison?”

Jacob jumped a little, as if stabbed. “Why’d you think that?”

“Well, you seemed surprised when you read my texts. Come to think of it—thank you,” I said to the waitress, who put two drinks down. She, too, gave me a bit of a stink-eye. “—everyone seems to know who she is.”

Jacob took some sugar packets from the little tray on the table and started dumping them in his drink. I eyed the reddish-brown drinks cautiously—I had been getting my food while the waitress was at the booth, letting Jacob order drinks for both of us. He looked at me, lit up with curiosity. “What’s she to you?”

“Eh, she’s my mother,” I said evenly.

“You call your mother by her last name?”

“Fostered.”

“Oh. Like… real recently?”

“Yeah, how’d you guess?” I took a tiny sip of the drink. It already tasted like sugar. I couldn’t understand why Jacob was putting more in it.

“Sweet tea.”

“What?”

“The drinks. You were starin’ at ‘em like they were gonna bite you,” he chuckled, low. Masculine. I made a note to work on my laugh. “But Dr. Allison has a strange reputation in this town. We know maybe one thing about her, and it’s that she’s a doctor.”

“Robot scientist. Roboticist?”

“Really?”

“It’s what the social worker said.”

“Man, I knew she had to be doin’ somethin’ with all that sheet metal. My dad works at Lowe’s,” Jacob added. “Her neighbors swear up and down that she’s an organ trafficker.”

I picked at my dumplings uncomfortably—and there’s something strangely comforting about how, no matter where they are or what the sign says, Chinese restaurants will always serve dumplings. “Why?”

“Uh, foreign people showing up at her doorstep with briefcases. Strange noises from her house at night. General weirdness. But mostly because she don’t talk to anyone.”

“What, that’s an issue?”

“Ev’ryone knows ev’ryone in Cottonport. Nobody knows Allison—‘cept you, I suppose.” He got very quiet. “How is it?”

“The sweet tea, or Allison?”

“Both.”

“The tea’s sweet. Allison’s… I don’t know. I haven’t been there long enough to really have an opinion,” I admitted.

The waitress came back with the check and two fortune cookies. I was glad that I was at a buffet, otherwise she might’ve spat in my food. I looked over the restaurant again. The other teenagers had gotten bored of us, and instead, their eyes were on two women in suits speaking to the cashier. Local lesbians, I guessed.

I offered to pick up the check. At the same time, Jacob offered to pick up the check. “Dude, seriously, let me handle it, you’re already putting up with the town witch—”

“You were in a toilet when I met you, you don’t get to feel sorry for me—!”

“Lemme be nice to you!”

“Never!”

This was the first in what would prove to be a friendship full of arguments.

We ended up splitting it halfway. I still think I should have covered the whole check, especially since I got an extra box for Allison. Maybe if I gave her enough food she’d let me keep my kidneys.

“Are you awake?”

“Yeah, I’m awake.”

“You’ll have to tell me where to turn.”

Sitting in Jacob’s car was way more calming than I thought a ride with a stranger would be. It helps that his car looks like a mom car. You know those cars that you always see a million of at a carpool? That exact car.

I racked—wracked? Raked? I can never get those words straight—my brain, trying to remember where my house was. “Uh, turn left here.”

I’m not a fan of the suburbs at the best of times, but when I see a quiet neighborhood at night, my fight or flight instinct goes off. It was pitch dark, except maybe one or two streetlights. It was dark in Jacob’s car, too, but a nice dark. Allison’s takeout box burned in my lap. I hoped she liked fried rice.

Jacob kept driving down the winding roads as I tried to direct him. The poor guy, he was doing his best, but I wasn’t paying attention on my way in the first time. We were both thinking that we were lost but we were also both too busy wallowing in social anxiety to voice that.

We had been driving for about ten minutes when I looked at something on the side of the road and said “what’s that.”

At that point I knew we were Lost As Fuck, because this street had some odd houses. I knew what a McMansion looked like, but these weren’t really big enough to be mansions, they were just… Mc. But as much of a hot mess as these houses were, I was focusing on the moving light on top of the house.

“What’s what—wait,” Jacob said, slowing down. “What is that?”

It looked like somebody was waving a flashlight on the roof, though it was too dark for me to make out anything else. “Fuck if I know. You’ve got the good eyes.”

Jacob stopped the car and stared at the roof for a good moment. The syrupy light calmed down, apparently done with spinning around. “Is that—oh my god, it’s Rebecca!”

I squinted at the roof, still seeing nothing. “Who’s Rebecca?”

“The only person who’d climb onto a roof in the middle of the night, that’s who.” He covered his mouth, his eyebrows coming together. “Damn, what’s she even doing here?” He asked himself. “I thought her dad moved to Tacoma.”

Then the flashlight was aimed at the car. Jacob ducked like it was a gun. “Get down!”

I automatically bent over as far as the box would allow, and only afterwards did I realize I had no clue what this was about. “What? What’s going on?”

The beam was pointed through the car window. From the distance, I heard a girl shouting: “Jacob? Is that you?”

Jacob shushed me. “You can’t let her know I’m here!”

“I know you’re in there, silly, you left your headlights on!” Rebecca drawled. She also had an accent, but it was softer, I think? She sounded like that Gone With the Wind chick, which I think she’d find ironic.

Jacob groaned, sat up, and rolled down his window. “Don’t mind me, Rebecca, I’m just passin’ through!”

“Who’s that?”

“None of your business!” I peeked out the window, and immediately got a face full of light. “Hey! Don’t let her see you!”

“Oooooooooh! You got a boy in there!”

“No I don’t!”

I covered my eyes and squinted at the roof, but the nighttime was the wrong time this time. “Hey, roll down your window, stranger!” she shouted.

I looked to Jacob, but he had his head in his hands. I rolled the window down. Rebecca nodded her flashlight in approval. “Yeah, that’s what I thought, you don’t look familiar. Are you new in town?”

“Uh, yeah,” I called out.

“You want a brownie?”

“I… what?”

“I got some brownies, do you want a couple? Consider them a housewarming gift!”

“Do not,” Jacob hissed.

I was super confused now. “Hey, what’s up with this girl?” I asked Jacob.

“She’s just creepy. Don’t talk to her,” he whispered.

“I figured, she’s yelling at us from her roof. But how does she know who you are?”

“I was the top linebacker, a lot people know who I am.”

It didn’t explain the overly-familiar friendly rudeness, or how she knew what his truck looked like, or how he recognized her from so many yards away—but Jacob was close-lipped, and pumping him for answers would be stupid.

There was only one question that I could get a real straight answer on. “But does she have, like… drugs?”

“What? No!” Jacob sputtered. “...W—why? D’you want any?”

Hm, Rebecca was weird and possibly troubled. Sounded like my kind of company. So I grabbed some stuff and got out of the car. “What’re you doin’?!” Jacob demanded, getting out of the driver’s seat.

“Going to meet the crazy roof girl. Hold my box.”

“See, Jacob? Some people know how to have a good time,” Rebecca chortled.

“You mind your own goddamn business, Rebecca!” Jacob yelled at the roof.

“There’s a ladder by the wall here,” she continued, pointing her flashlight at a spot on the grass. “You don’t have to stay, you can just grab you a brownie.”

I started towards the spot, only to be stopped in my tracks. I turned and saw Jacob holding the hood of my sweatshirt. “What are you doing?!”

“What are you doin’? This ain’t your house! We’re trespassing,” he snapped. “You know what could happen? We could get arrested!”

“Bad things can happen every day, you ding-dong. I could get herpes every time I walk outside! That doesn’t stop me from living my life!”

“That ain’t how herpes works.”

“You don’t know what I do in my free time!” I spotted the shape of a ladder leaning against the building. Great!

I think a lot about that ladder. I guess Rebecca put it there, but she could have gone out the window to get on the roof. Without it, I probably wouldn’t have taken her offer. How different would my life turn out if I had?

Anyway:

I started climbing up the ladder, and Jacob was basically scurrying behind me. “If you don’t come down from there, you’re gonna be walkin’ home!”

“Cool.”

I couldn’t see his face, but I imagined it was turning red. “Fine! Stay here, see if I care!”

“Uh huh.”

“I’m drivin’ off, and you’re either gettin’ arrested or draggin’ yourself into one of Rebecca’s dumb shenanigans! I’m tired of enablin’ ev’ry mildly quirky boy that says hello to me!”

“Then drive off.”

“I am, asshole! Good evenin’!”

I heard him storming off behind me. He wouldn’t be gone for long, I had his car keys.

Vote for more Sparkboys by giving this post a like or reblog!

#word #sparkboys #4books #my writing

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eandg81 · 8 years ago

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What fandom can do to get The 100 a season 5 and beyond.

There are so many things The 100 fandom can do to make sure we get another season. Most of these things only take a few seconds but they will make a big difference when the CW is deciding which shows to keep. People talk about live tv ratings all the time but live ratings are not that important these days. Social media, dvr viewing, cw app viewing….all these things matter! Mark Pedowitz himself said they don’t care much about live ratings here.

Here are some of the things those of us without a Nielsen box can do.

First and most importantly….TAG YOUR TWEETS AND FACEBOOK POSTS FOLKS!! Tag all of your tweets/posts about the show with #The100. Heck, I do it sometimes even when it isn’t what I’m talking about because it still counts. If you are a shipper add your ship’s tag too. Even if you are too lazy to do it all the time at least make sure you do it 3 hours before the episode starts, during the episodes, and 3 hours past when the episode ends in your area. Link to the full Nielsen article here.

We know the tag is very important but Nielsen is finally catching up with people who don’t use it. They are now tracking names of characters, show names, and other (ship names, nicknames) program-related phrases. Make sure you are using them in your tweets. Don’t use intitials and make it clear that you are talking about the show if you aren’t going to use the tag. Nielsen is also tracking official accounts rts, likes and the number of times someone responds to them. Turn on your notifications for the CW, CWthe100, the writers, producers, actors, and like, rt, respond immediately. Even better if we can fill their mentions with positivity before the antis get there to bash them. These things are being tracked and counted by Nielsen all the time but our main goal is to make it on the Nielsen Daily Top Five every week we have a live episode. Here is a long article about Nielsen tracking engagement.

Now let’s talk about actually watching the show.

Even if you watch the episodes live make sure to play them on the CW’s website here or on the app the next day. If you don’t actually want to rewatch it go to the website, mute your computer, and let it play in the background. The CW looks at these numbers.

Live +7 numbers are also important to the CW. That means DVR ratings matter. Record the show even if you watch live and play that thing multiple times during the week. Starting the day the episode airs and for 7 days after play the episode and DON’T skip the commercials. We want those Live+7 numbers high every single week.

Watching on Netflix. The CW and Netflix made a deal starting this season. 8 days after the finale all the episodes will be available to watch. As soon as s4 up we need to start watching and before it's up continue to watch s1-3. MP just metioned again at TCA's they pay attention to which shows are being binged. Netflix knows how many people are watching their shows. They don’t release the numbers to the public but they know.

Finally, for people who want to spend money. Buy the episodes on Itunes and Amazon. Every season I buy the season pass on Amazon as soon as it’s available. Of course not everyone can afford to do that but if you can and you are going to buy the DVD anyway preordering the dvd or buying a season pass is always a good thing.

Some smaller things we can do that don’t seem like they matter but they really do.

1. Watch ALL trailers (every single trailer they post throughout the whole season) on the CW’s offical Youtube channel and give them a thumbs up and a positive comment. I know people love to download the videos and tweet them but posting the link to Youtube is so much better so the CW knows how many people are watching.

2. When any media outlet posts articles, interviews, screencaps, etc. about the show make sure you rt the original tweet from the media outlet (Not just a link from a show source account, although you can rt those too), like the tweet, respond to the tweet, click the link, keep the article open for at least 40 seconds, and comment on the article itself.

Speaking of articles and interviews. I have been guilty of this too but if you are going to tweet or post a screenshot of an article try not to post the whole thing. SS a small part and include the link. If no one clicks on articles about the show or the ships people will stop writing them. If people stop writing articles about that means less buzz for the show. That’s bad.

3. Spoiler TV is especially important because it keeps track of all show activity and puts out a list for the top shows weekly, monthly, and yearly. The 100 can and should be very high on those lists if we do these things. The site has a tag for every show so it’s pretty simple to go through The100 section every week and take a few minutes to comment on articles/vote in polls.

4. TUMBLR- This one is so easy. We are all on here talking about the show anyway. Please, please, please, tag the show. Tag the actors. Tag your ships. Tag the character names. We talk about Bob and Bellamy all the time but Bob didn’t even make the list for the most talked about actors in 2016. He should have but he’s not getting tagged. If we are talking about Bellamy tag Bob Morley, if we are talking about Clarke tag Eliza Taylor. I am really bad about this one but this year I am going to do better. Same for the show and the ships. Bellarke made the list but they can be higher in 2017. @thefandometrics does weekly and yearly updates so let’s try to get on there every week.

5. Rate every new episode on IMDB here and Rotton Tomatoes here if you haven’t done it yet go give all the old episodes high ratings. Do the same on Netflix, Amazon, and anywhere else you you can upvote/rate the show.

6. Follow or subscribe to the The 100 and The CW official accounts on instagram, YouTube, twitter, Facebook. I know I already mentioned this some but like and comment on every single new thing they post and if you have time go through the older stuff too.

7. This one seems silly but if you are planning on getting the official funko pops preorder them when they become available. We want them to sell out so they make a second wave.

One last thing- Let’s talk about promoting ships

This is probably going to be unpopular but if you go to cons it’s ok to talk about your ship. If you pay money to go you are free to ask what you want. Not only is it ok but it’s important to let the actors know what you watch for. Producers and writers pay attention to the questions, the fans, and the panels at these cons. This is one of the easiest ways to tell them what you care about. If you don’t care about ships that’s fine…talk about the characters you love. If you only watch for ships that’s fine too…you can tell them what ships keep you invested. Shipping and talking about ships is a HUGE part of the CW and they know it. I have been to numerous conventions and The 100 and Bellarke fandom are the only ones I’ve ever been involved in where people tell you not to talk about your ship. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT IT! YELL ABOUT IT! LET EVERYONE KNOW WE LOVE *BELLARKE! *or whatever ship it is that you love

Shipping is not a bad thing. Talking about and tagging your ship promote the show. Keep talking, keep tagging, fangirl all over the place. It’s not only ok it’s promoting the show.

Please, if anyone has something to add that I haven’t posted here message me or reblog and add it. Also @infobellarke and @bcrevolution posted something like this a while back with some of the same points and some additional points (things about trending and writing letters to the producers) that I didn’t go over again since they already did. You can read it here.

I know some of this feels like a lot of work that we don’t get paid for but most of it takes just a few seconds and it really does make a difference. If we work together and promote the things we’re passionate about we can get a s5,s6,s7,s8…I don’t know however many we think the characters can survive through.

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rhinctus4 · 7 years ago

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02//48HOURS

Yeah, so much for weekly updates! Based off previous attempts to do weekly content on youtube and tumblr, it’s not at all easy to keep up with. Also, i haven’t touched on gamedev much at all, everything to do with school changed within probably two weeks after posting that so nothing to say in that regard. Something which did happen recently (on August 25th) was the 48HOURS Furious Filmmaking Challenge, which is probably one of the biggest events of the year. It’s always a huge buildup to the event and it turned out to be heaps of fun this year, so I want to put my experience on here.

So every year around May we check on 48hours.co.nz to check if any new updates are posted. As of last year that hasn’t so much been the case as the dates got moved towards the end of the year due to sponsorship issues. After checking multiple times the registration finally opened near the arse end of term two, sometime after I posted the first post just below this one. For a while we had been desperately trying to figure out what on earth the team name should be, as we didn’t like the old one and no one was coming up with a good one to replace it. After holding a proper set of polls we nailed down the new team name. Mach One. Which we thought could possibly be mispronounced as mack one, but we decided it didn’t matter. We were making films at the speed of sound.

Our first meeting was with a small group of people, the writers and directors, which helped us boil down what we wanted to do over the weekend. The big white table was set out at the bottom bock of Max’s house, an area which became known as “The Pit”. As lunch approached we continued the discussions over lunch at the international food court

Ruby, Max in the distance, Felix, and Donald with some hearty meals. We can all agree that Wave is still the best chocolate milk in nz.

The man in the distance

That pretty much concluded our meeting for the day, not too much else happened other than writing up a timeline for the weekend. The next meeting was scheduled for the Friday before 48HOURS, on the 18th.

This year was our first year inviting Eamonn onto the team, which rounded off the team member number from 9 to 10. It was a huge meeting, held again in The Pit, we discussed ideas, roles, and went through the entire timeline which had been written previously. People were falling asleep towards the end of the night, which was a bit of a worry in light of the upcoming weekend! Despite this, the meeting was a success and put us in good step for the weekend.

Welcome to the pit! In this shot, going clockwise from the bottom left, is Oscar P, Ruby (face obscured by fatt hed), Joe, James, Eamonn, Max, Sharn, Donald, and Felix

Max holding the talking stick

Sunglasses for everyone!

Here we see Doggie tapping away at organisational documents

Things get silly with the now broken talking stick

Making a point

Oscar appears

Impromptu drum jam sessions are in order, and are tradition for us with 48HOURS at this point.

Sleepy boi Sharn

Grandpa Max reading out his genius 15 minute ideas

Sleepy Oscar towards the end of the meeting

Oh no

Max evaluating his choices

Quick escape!

James and Donald are not impressed

So that wraps up our meeting. Everyone headed home on their own merry way. The next event was on the Thursday before 48HOURS, the 24th of August.

I actually didn’t hear this was happening while I was at the meeting, just a bit of oversight on my part. The gear test was a small thing held with only a handful of people, even less than the initial meeting. We set up computers, talked gear and equipment, and were out of there in no time at all. We were so close to starting!

Macbook for writing, Duck computer for doing any audio, editing, or VFX

The table is moved out of the pit

Co-director doggie at his last supper. Wait...who is that on the poster above him?

And with that, I left. I left my duck laptop there and had to wait just one more day.

The big night arrives. There’s always the usual excitement of getting all the gear out of various cars and into the house. There was also something about Ned’s Declassified?

youtube

Ned! NED!

In the background there you can see all the gear which Donald brought in, and off camera is Oscar’s electronic drum kit which he brought in as well, which turned into the drum kit of choice for the weekend. It was a total blast to use.

There’s heaps!

After everyone piled in, we sat down at the big table, sending Joe and Sharn off to pick up the genre from Hollywood cinema in Avondale. We all waited in anticipation, with the livestream of the event up on the big TV. While we waited Max and I finished off the team intro clip which goes at the beginning of a 48HOURS submission, we had actually been working on it for some time and only on the night had we actually gotten the time to finish it off. We had that done and exported pretty quickly and we got back to the big table. Ant Timpson, big boss of 48, had been teasing about changes to the required elements of the film. They were pretty different from last year. No required line, no required prop. This year there was a selection of 20 different narrative themes which you had to pick one of. Our details for the weekend were:

GENRE: Action

THEME: Transformation (which we eventually came to pick)

CHARACTER: A female

PHYSICAL ELEMENT: A collision

TECHNICAL ELEMENT: A smash cut

SOUND EFFECT: The Wilhelm scream

The required sound effect was new too, and we all groaned when we found out it was the fucken Wilhelm scream. Once we had all the required elements we set off for 10 minutes to think of as many ideas as possible. When we came back we all sat around the big table and in a circle went around everyone’s ideas. After hearing many ideas we came down to two main ideas. The 18 Dollar Man and Reaction Woman. The 18 dollar man is about a powerful android being created my a master engineer, only to have the powerful android best the engineer. With only 18 dollars left in pocket, the engineer creates the 18 dollar man, who must train his arse off to beat the powerful android. Reaction Woman was about a world where everyone is fighting, except for this one person. We eventually went on with the latter. We had meter long pizzas for dinner, then while Max, Felix, and I went into Max’s room to write the film in separation from the noise, Ruby, Donald and Sharn figured out cinematography, and everyone else figured out choreography for fight scenes in the film, as it was going to have a bunch of hand to hand combat. They figured out an awesome looking fight, choreographed entirely in The Pit, and the camera people figured out some brilliant shots despite only having random snippets of the script and story to go off of. Us three writers actually managed to produce a full script by our deadline of 3am on Saturday. It looked pretty solid, and had everything we were required to have. Shortly after we all found places to sleep and got ready to wake up by 6am.

Figuring out story beats

These shots are only from 11pm on Friday, we had a long night ahead of us.

6AM came fast, and we got up feeling peppy and ready for shooting. Donald and Sharn had completed the shot list, and the choreography was nailed down. After a classic breakfast of eggs, bacon, hash browns, and bread pretty much everyone got ready to go out and shoot. This included the two directors, Sharn the camera man, Max as the on set editor advisor dude, Zarina as our main character, Joe the supporting role, and the parent which took them, which I remember to be either James G. or Ruth. That was the longest shoot of the day, and the whole time Felix, James, Oscar, Harry, and I were back at the house. Hereafter Felix and I are the “Resident Editors”, and to prepare for the first batch of footage to come in we made our master premiere project with the team intro we had completed on Friday evening, our team’s title card, a blank video with a length of 5 minutes to show the maximum time allowed, and then 5 seconds of black. It was up to the competition’s standards in no time at all, so the rest of the time was just milling around for us.

James on the other hand had been tasked with making music composition ideas despite not having any idea of what he was meant to be scoring for at that point. It more so provided the opportunity for his gear to come out, my bagful of gear to come out, and also to dig out some of Max’s instruments which he had hiding in his closet so that people wouldn’t get audibly abused by everyone during the weekend. We didn’t clearing off any of the writing guff from the previous night, we just set laptops, keyboards, synths, audio interfaces, and a bunch of cables onto the big table alongside pens and refill pads. It was chaotic but it worked! We also moved Oscar’s drum kit over from beside a couch in The Pit to beside the big table. It was a musical banquet! It also proved to be an opportunity to test out the gear which I hadn’t gotten around to using. Us playing music continued until around 12:50PM when everyone got back from filming the office scene.

A text from the Big Cheese, with a bunch of strange hieroglyphics littered between mangled text

Harry at the Casio, Oscar in the back at the drums. James on the Microkorg, which was plugged into the Scarlett, which was plugged into the macbook through logic 9, out to a tinny burger speaker which turned out to be useful for making loud noises.

The full music table, taken shortly after everyone left to film the next scene.

When the office crew got back, everyone started rushing around getting ready to go shoot the big opening scene up the road. James, Oscar, and Harry gapped it too so it was just the resident editors at home. While we imported footage I took a bit of time to rearrange the desk, then Felix and I got going. There were three scenes shot at the office, a short fight scene between Sharn and Max, which was part of a montage, a dialogue scene between Joe and Zarina, and a short scene of Zarina and Sharn. We reviewed the footage, and were super happy with the amount of footage and coverage which had been taken. It didn’t take us long to cut together a rough edit for the three scenes. After a bit more milling around, people began to make their way back to the house. Felix and I started importing the footage once it arrived, and we got to work. This scene was fun, and because it was only roughly 6 shots it didn’t need that much editing out. The coverage was fantastic, and only a small reshoot for a shot of a phone was needed. It was more a case of what we wanted to put where.

By this point the crew had gone off to another shoot, this time down by Wynyard quarter. Problem being that it was starting to get dark. By now James had some pretty solid ideas about what to do music wise, so we locked the edit on the opening scene and made a low quality video export of the scene. James got to work making music along to the beats of the opening, while I dug into sound effects. In the opening scene alone there were a fucken tonne of sound effects. Most of them I found on the spot from freesound.org, which is a fantastic website. The crew got back with the Wynyard Quarter footage and Felix mostly dug into that after importing it, I kept going with SFX, and James kept going with music. By this time it was around 7PM. Things started mellowing down, some people had gone to sleep. James had pretty much done the composition for the first scene, we bounced that in 3 separate parts to use in the opening and eventually in the outro. At what was probably 10pm a small collection of non-sleepers had gathered in Max’s room, and I was looking to record some actual sound with a microphone. Felix had gone up the road to his house to get his mic and audio interface, the latter of which turned out not to work with the duck computer. So, we grabbed the M-audio from the back room and for the first time I got to press the phantom power button, which was just super exciting. It glows orange! I was fucking stoked, and a blue light turned on upon Felix’s mic too. We got multiple hilarious recordings of people making grunting noises, a bunch of which got used in the final piece. We then started finding objects to use for foley, one of which was a nerf sword. Oscar tried swinging it but we weren’t quite getting the noise we wanted. A bunch of people tried, inching it carefully closer and closer to the mic. Then, Donald volunteered, and with one fell swoop he topped the microphone off onto the floor. He was thenceforth banned from swinging near anything significant. I don’t have any photos of this, but Oscar did have the brilliant foresight to take a fast one of us in the room:

In this photo of Oscar’s is myself, Max behind James, James, Felix, and Sharn. This was when we were bouncing James’ tracks, before we got into audio recording

As the night went on past 12AM on Sunday, more people began to fall asleep, and eventually Max went to sleep and requested I vacate his room, so I quietly took all of my shit into the back room to find the big table had been filled with extra cables and game controllers from people playing smash to pass the time. It felt like some kind of stealth mission trying to move loose game cube controllers off the table. One of them fell of at one point, that caused me to freeze up. At this point it is probably around 2:00AM on Sunday, i’m the one person awake as I was determined to make it until 3:00AM without sleeping. We were out of V at this point as well, as we had somehow managed to drink it all by Saturday at sunset.

In previous years we always had a surplus of V, but not this year. As a matter of fact, there came a point I think on Saturday where we were running out of drinks. We had slammed down all of the Lift, both cans and bottles, most of the cola bottles were gone, especially the vanilla stuff. There was also the odd drink out, like a single bottle of iced tea or bottles of juice, but even they got drunk at some point. Donald, Ruby, and possibly Max had to go on a quick drink run at the local countdown to refresh the supplies. Everyone was doing something at all times, and it really showed in the quota of drinks consumed over the weekend.

So I actually made it past 3AM doing the audio, but by that point the smallest delay in doing literally anything caused me to lower my head and close my eyes, and I was lucky the ridiculous grunting recordings got so loud at parts, because I would quickly scuttle though the 50 or so different sounds we had to find a certain one, often to be awakened by one of Donald’s fucking loud noises. Hootin’ and Hollerin’. The opening was mostly done, and the need to sleep was gnawing at me without the caffeine, so I mindlessly climbed onto the nearest unoccupied couch, which was a single leather sofa was Donald has taken up post on the double, and fell asleep for 4 hours.

By the time I woke up Eamonn had come back from being at home, and had just snuck inside at 6am when everyone was failing to wake up on time. He mentioned just how uncomfortable my sleeping position looked, which was completely true. Nonetheless, we all got going pretty quickly. William arrived not long after we had woken up, and we couldn’t afford to wait around for long at all to people just scoffed down some bread pull aparts and were off to Wynyard Quarter to shoot the next major scene. I got back into audio work in Max’s room after transferring most of the equipment back there from the big table. Joe and I to record radio announcements, and not long after that the crew got back from Wynyard Quarter dripping with rain.

Joe recording his radio announcement, also this is the best view of the VO and recording setup. I didn’t get a good look at the phantom power light which is a bummer. Duck computer really pulled through during this 48HOURS

Felix once again imported the footage, I was somewhat distant from editing at this point as I was completely immersed in sound editing. After Felix got that scene together, we had a segment without any good sound to use, so he sent over the edited scene and a copy of the room tone. That was a pretty quick job and I got back to fine tuning the first scene’s audio. By now the crew had gone off to record the final piece of the montage over at Browns Reserve.

Photo credit to Donald, a shot of smooth operator Sharn holding both camera and boom whilst donning the HD-201′s and slick shades. Meanwhile, Zarina is psyching herself up for the next shot of hooligans launching kicks at thin air.

We got Joe to figure out some music for the montage earlier, and now that James was back he was able to refine it. We kept on making small edits to what we had and added in music and sound where we could. The crew got back from Browns and we imported the footage again. This meant we had all the footage for the montage and we were able to refine that further. The only footage left to do was the ending and the pickup shot of the phone. We completed the montage fairly quickly while the crew left to do those last shots.

Turns out that Donald had been putting in our name for the text-in sweepstakes which had been going for the entire weekend, and we finally managed to score a prize of a chicken lunch from Bird on a Wire, thing being that they didn’t get back to us about it until after Donald had already made an arse of himself in the cafe. Then we ended up having lunch from the house which consisted of chicken. Then an HP rep got back to us saying that we could go and pick up our lunch from the place under his name, so that was just ridiculous. We had it for dinner in the end.

It was around now that this beautiful image arose, credit to Oscar for the photo

After we had the last scene completely filmed it was approaching crunch time. Things were tending to become a little bit more tense, stakes were rising. We quickly got the final scene cut together so I could do some fast audio done on it. Then we all went through it to make some changes to the sound, and adjust things we needed to do. We placed all of our sub sequences into the master sequence, made more changes, then people began to be kicked out of the room. I was one of the last to go before Max and Felix got down to the knitty gritty and did the final checks on the cut. Max was the last person to come out and say that it was all done. So, we quickly got onto exporting it which didn’t take too long. Despite things going so smoothly, it was still slightly stressful if literally anything messed up. People stopped playing smash out the back when we were done, and we quickly transferred the film to two different USBs. One which we bought and the one HP gave to us in our goodie bag. With the films on the USBs, we jetted off from the house over to Hollywood cinema for the hand in. We left shortly after 6PM.

A view of the pit just before we left to Hollywood Cinema. Looks like a battle happened in here

The chip packets had returned to the music table once more

My last photo from the weekend, standing outside the house as we’re about to leave

We raced off the Avondale, and despite our car leaving second we actually made it to Hollywood Cinema first. Got there at around 6:30, only a small crowd had gathered there at that point. Got the usual applause as we walked up and handed in our film. Hooray! Always such a rewarding feeling being able to walk up to the tables and have your name ticked off. Mach One had done it. Once the others got there we set up shop on the second floor and amongst giving people signature seal pup congratulations, we were screaming, shouting, clapping, and overall just having a great time. When the countdown to 7:00PM was done, we headed off back to the house to watch the film and have dinner. We ate our bird on a wire lunch, watched the film a couple of times, then the frantic rush to pack up and charge out the door began. We all said our farewells to each other, many sweaty bro hugs were in order. I was one of the last to leave as I had brought so much shit in my bag. And just like that, it was done! I had lost my voice from screaming, and I could see that I had a long sleep ahead of me. However, this year’s 48HOURS had been absolutely heaps of fun.

So that’s it. We came third in our heat and didn’t win any significant prizes. We were proud of the film though, as it had been our most solid 48HOURS production to date. In retrospect we thought that the world we had to set up in less than 5 minutes may have been a bit far fetched, but the story was clear and everything else about it was fabulous. The acting from Zarina and Joe was super solid, all the supporting roles were funny and really added to the film. Sharn’s camera work, with the help of both Donald and Ruby, was absolutely fantastic. All the work done in post was heaps of fun to do. As always I loved the musical efforts from James, and even though Oscar didn’t have as much involvement in the actual compositions this year, I really valued his input too, as with Joe’s help on drums for the montage. I think the one thing I regretted the most from the weekend was not taking enough photos and videos. I absolutely love looking at them, and there are large parts of this write up which are lacking photos entirely as I didn’t get around to thinking about them. If Ruby uploads her photos from her 35mm I wouldn’t mind crediting her on those in this post.

Finally, looking back upon the weekend, I never realised how much fun 18 dollar man would be to make. I wouldn’t say I regret not going with it, as both of the ideas were fantastic. Eamonn was the genius behind 18 dollar man, so sometime these summer holidays him and I are going to write it, and from writing this post I realised that I would really like to nab Sharn to do cinematography again. The idea has absolutely HUGE potential and i’m slowly going to get things in order for that to happen during the summer summer holidays. I have to hold myself back from getting too excited about it!

Oh and just a last thing, there is now a site for any compositions I’ve made:

rhinctustunes.tumblr.com

I’ll be posting there again soon.

#words

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