#Not me queueing this literally 1 day in advance

[vee-is-a-clown]

Happy birthday, Keith!

[trillscienceofficer]

A long time ago @nebulouscoffee asked me to write the DVD commentary of “Best Left” (which is a Raffi/Seven/B'Elanna fic set between Picard S1 and 2) and now I'm finally doing that.

This is inevitably going to get long because the fic itself is much longer than anything else I've ever posted, and I still have so many feelings for a story I put a lot of effort and heart into! But first things first, here's chapter one.

Cris, I know you’re really busy these days on the Stargazer, so I’ll keep this short.

As I was coming up with ideas for “Best Left”, my main goal was to have Raffi (which I knew would be the POV character) in a very different place than where we see her first on Star Trek: Picard. I wanted her, by this point established, long-distance relationship with Seven be a part of the network in which Raffi is now deeply enmeshed (ie La Sirena's crew). That said though, both canon events (by this time Rios has been made captain) and my plot ideas were not very accommodating of having literally everyone on board the ship. It would've been too unwieldy for a project that was already shaping up to be very ambitious for my standards. But while Jurati and Picard's absence is, I think, not that big of a deal, I still very much wanted to underline Raffi and Cris' friendship, which I think is essential in order to understand Raffi and one of the few relationships she's had that didn't go sour on her. I obviated to his physical absence with both real and imaginary correspondence, from which Raffi could draw strength in difficult moments. The fic both begins and closes with Raffi writing a message to him.

Raffi hits send on the message and looks up only to find Elnor at her side, looking just as morose as he’d been a few days earlier, when she’d told him first about the road trip idea. She sighs internally; the queue to transporter hub number four advances. It’s a busy day on the new Betazed spacedock, but luckily no one among the crowd seems the wiser to a Romulan young adult carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. He holds the straps of his bag and his staff with a white-knuckle grip. Raffi hooks her left arm into the crook of Elnor’s right. “What’s the matter?”

Rereading this I remembered how fun it was to write Raffi and Elnor interact. My intention here (and throughout the fic) was to have Raffi obviously care for him while also not losing her somewhat world-weary attitude because of her affection. Raffi is still a woman who analyzes everything around her, and acts accordingly—not to mention all the unacknowledged guilt she carries wrt her son Gabe. I didn't want to have Raffi be straightforwardly ‘maternal’, it didn't feel right and I think older women in fiction should be allowed to have mixed feelings about this role more often. Plus, like Raffi herself realizes later in the fic, Elnor has already had plenty of other women bossing him around all his life, he doesn't need one more.

Soji is at the navigation console, smiling and waving a little awkwardly. And finally, Seven watching them from the captain’s chair, which she occupies with ease, leaning on one armrest. The very image of the roguish pirate captain; Cris wishes he could pull it off this well. “Welcome aboard,” Seven says, the hint of a smirk on her lips, as if she’d just heard every single one of Raffi’s thoughts.

I honestly think Raffi is constantly roasting Cris in her head. Also when rereading I was surprised about this reprise of the idea of mind-reading from the previous dialogue between Raffi and Elnor, that was cool and I can't remember if I even wrote it entirely on purpose. In any case, I wanted to have both Soji and Elnor along for this story because (1) they could offer an interesting outsider perspective on the older women drama about to unfold and (2) I wanted to have them interact with each other and have an adventure that had nothing to do with their specific backstories. Writing Soji in this story was so much fun! It was a nice challenge to balance her characterization between the right amounts of deadpan honesty and genuine care, and making it obvious that she's still figuring out how she wants to live her life.

“I don’t think Cris would forgive me if I tried to take La Sirena into another Borg transwarp conduit,” Soji says. “And honestly I’m not sure the ship can take it.” “It wasn’t particularly pleasant on a Borg cube either,” Seven adds. “As I’m sure Elnor remembers.” “Crashing on the surface was worse,” he replies, and some of the gloom lifts from his face. The effect Seven has on people sometimes—but Raffi should be the last to judge, shouldn’t she? It’s not as if seeing Seven again, sitting on that chair so lazily and yet still projecting intent, isn’t reminding Raffi of the few weeks they’d spent on board La Sirena before. But it’s probably best if she revisits that particular recap reel in private.

I based this little Seven-Elnor interaction from my own feelings about my Cool Aunt, which I think are fitting lmao (ie especially as kid, if she was speaking to me I would immediately feel better no matter what)

Also while rereading I was like, damn I made this first half of the chapter so horny... but I've been in a ldr myself and this is pretty true to my own experience. Reuniting always means a mixture of attraction and awkwardness, and it's what I wanted to convey about Raffi and Seven here, especially since they both have a hard time trusting in people or believing that they're capable of being around people without fucking it up. The following misunderstanding about room assignments is part of this pattern.

She’s re-learning restraint, in the hardest way possible, in other facets of her life.

So here comes the part of this fic I agonized over the most... Raffi's history of substance abuse and her current commitment to sobriety. I thought the latter is what fit better with Raffi's actions on the second half of S1 (ie locking herself out of the replicator) and some scenes of S2—imho those are clues that she (wants to) simply quit. Now, a commitment to complete sobriety (including weed snakeleaf, like in a 12-step program) is not necessarily an effective way to treat addiction long term—actually quite the opposite, from what I could learn from the research I did, even if still the most popular recommended form of treatment today. I'm not entirely sure it would be at all recommended in the 24th century. So how to reconcile this with the hints about Raffi quitting cold-turkey? Is it even something I would want to depict in a good light? What I eventually tried to do is treat the matter strictly from a character perspective. I hinted that Raffi is seeing a counselor, and now feeling part of a network of people, and is now restored to her place in society via Starfleet (from her perspective). Sobriety is something she thinks she should do and can do now, so that's what Raffi did; it's all part of her wider commitment to live a different life. If this also has a whiff of self-punishment... I don't think you'd be entirely wrong. I tried to hint that Raffi has her own thoughts on her addiction but I don't necessarily share them myself (see the disclaimer on top of chapter 4), and those thoughts might be another way in which she's denying herself (because no one else grants it to her either) the compassion I think she deserves. It's a really complex topic and I don't know if I did it justice here. I welcome feedback if you have any.

She’d thought she’d lost any interest in making out, over the years—she was surprised to find out how much Seven enjoys it, and how much of that enjoyment is infectious.

I have this headcanon that Seven really enjoys making out (it's appeared in other fic of mine too, eg “Doing the Unstuck”) and her partners never expect this of her. I think I like the idea that Seven's approach to sex and intimacy is still about the sudden thrill of closeness she displayed when she twirled Chakotay around in order to kiss him lol. I especially like the idea it's one of the things about Seven that's not changed despite all that happened to her since said kiss, and that she could bring Raffi to enjoy making out again as well.

It’s still the same suitcase-shaped contraption that she cobbled together months earlier with Borg parts from the Artifact, as far as Raffi can tell. Some other parts Seven had replicated on La Sirena, and then had proceeded to build the device with surprising ease. She’d explained that it was a modular design she and other friends had come up with over the years. It hadn’t been the first time she’d found herself needing a regenerator without having one handy. Raffi had admired her resourcefulness then, and still does now.

I ranted a lot about Seven's regeneration last summer, and all my thoughts and headcanons ended up in this fic. Regeneration for Seven is now a bit different than what it used to be on Voyager; still a necessity but quicker, and something that doesn't tie her down to bulky machinery any longer. Something that ultimately Seven has more control over. However, it's also a necessity that now needs to be articulated explicitly to the people she's close to, and that other people have to learn to take into account about her. I also wanted Seven to determine clear boundaries around regeneration—eg, here she doesn't want other people around when she regenerates—but boundaries that she is still constantly renegotiating, as it happens in chapter two when she invites Raffi to stay. Seven isn't used to be around people much anymore, so she's still adapting to new realities (like her relationship with Raffi) and rethinking what is comfortable for her.

“I hope your other stops were less frustrating than Trill,” Raffi offers, making her presence known. Soji looks up at her, and her face breaks into a smile. “Oh hey, I didn’t realize you were here, Raffi. But yes, I can honestly say it was the worst one so far. I think, and Agnes agrees, that their academic institutions really opposed the lifting of the synth ban for some reason.”

This little piece of Trill worldbuilding came to be because in “Second Self” Una McCormack wrote that Raffi has taken part in the zhian'tara of a colleague. Which is absolutely bonkers to me!! I couldn't help myself and expand on it a bit, all the while maintaining my stance on Trill being very conservative when it comes to decide on people's personhood. I know it's maybe controversial but I really don't think Trill institutions are that enlightened on the topic. They might think they are, but in presence of someone like Soji the appearance would crumble immediately. I honestly loved revisiting my Trill feelings through Raffi and Soji, I haven't written Dax fic in a very long time, so this was a nice way for me to scratch that itch.

Raffi crosses her legs, raises an eyebrow. She’s reminded all too well of when Soji had first come aboard, the confusion of a young woman whose entire life as she knew it had been a deception. She can recall how Soji described her relationship with Narek, and how Raffi had been the one to name his behavior for what it was. Maybe some pointing out of the obvious is needed here too.

This is one of the things that caught my attention the most when I rewatched S1—Raffi has been looking out for Soji practically from the start, calling out Narek's presence for what it was (abusive). I wanted to let Raffi speak her mind here as well, about the kind of interactions Soji has had while on tour.

A scratchy, stuttering audio signal starts playing from La Sirena’s bridge speakers. ‘—damage. Propulsion systems offline. Atmospheric controls—’ More digital artifacting of the signal. ‘—predict where the subspace eddies will take the ship. I don’t know how long I still have—’ The audio signal cuts off, then the message repeats once again. ‘—damage. Propulsion systems offline. Atmospheric controls—’ “I think that’s all of it,” Soji says, soberly. “Damn,” Raffi says, at a loss. “She’s dying, if not already dead,” Elnor says, voicing what everyone is thinking. He turns to Raffi. “What do we do?”

When she read this chapter, my partner asked me about the use of pronouns for the yet unknown person in distress—here Elnor assumes it's a she, while Raffi and Soji don't. It was actually on purpose, I wanted to hint at the fact that Elnor's default assumption is that the people that do stuff out there in space are women because the Qowat Milat usually speaks in these terms as well. Maybe it's silly, I don't know, but I wrote it in anyway as a subtle wordlbuilding detail. Maybe too subtle if it leads to pronoun confusion.

“I’m not sure I could live with myself if we didn’t try to save the crew of that ship. There’s a chance they might still be alive.” “Then let’s do it,” Raffi says with a curt nod. “You’re in command of La Sirena now.”

In the rescue scene I tried very hard to let Raffi do tactical evaluation in a way that didn't come off as callous as it sometimes does for Worf on TNG or Tuvok on Voyager—she's honestly trying to give Soji, now in command, a good overview of the situation.

Raffi takes a long look at Elnor, and to his credit he looks genuinely curious, hands folded together, leaning with his elbows on his knees. She knows better than to doubt his intentions, but—when he wants, he knows exactly when and how to ask one of his blunt questions for maximum effect, doesn’t he? In this case, distraction. She idly wonders if this is a skill that everyone in the Qowat Milat picks up, along with the assassin training. Using the truth as a finely honed blade, rather than the cudgel it’s always reminded her of.

That the absolute candor tenet of the Qowat Milat may be used in more than one way and for more than one goal is something I already written about before (ie in “Policy of Truth”). I think Raffi has her own different ideas about telling the truth because she's trained in intelligence gathering and also because pursuing the truth has always been painful for her—see her quest to find out who was behind the Mars attack. So here she's surprised to find out that Elnor's honesty is not at all a weakness, which she's assumed so far, but rather a very well-honed skill.

“It is the ship we’re looking for,” Soji confirms, going through the readings with, once again, an ease that belies her actual experiences. “It is still transmitting the distress call, though it’s extremely garbled. The hull is pressurized, somehow, at least partially. Life signs—one, I think. Humanoid. Very faint” She looks at Raffi, eyes wide, and Raffi braces herself. “We have to beam them over. The subspace tug might breach the hull at any time. I know that we have no idea who we’ll find, but they’re dying.” Goddammit. They really should’ve woken Seven up before getting here. Then again, at this point it’s probably best to ask for forgiveness than permission. If they’re all still alive to do so. But they will; a boy assassin, an android with super strength, and Raffi. Risk assessment used to be her job in Starfleet, long ago.

I still really like Raffi thinking 'oh well, too late to go back now, but at least I have backup'. I thought about her characterization a lot while writing this fic, and tried to convey her dry humor at best I can. She's really funny in canon! I really enjoyed writing her constant quips, even if they're just in her head.

Down the stairs, she hears Emil grumble. “I can’t deliver proper emergency care if you rush me.” “You’ll replicate what you need, as you need it,” Soji retorts impatiently. “Just initiate the transport.”

All EMHs are the same.

She’s older now, and out of uniform, looking much worse for wear after what she just went through. But there’d been a time more than twenty years prior when her face had been on every Federation newsfeed, along with the rest of the crew of the USS Voyager. “You know her?” Raffi turns to Soji, frozen in bemusement beside Emil. “I’ve never met her but yes, I know who she is,” Raffi says. “You two stay here and keep an eye on things. Seven needs to see this.”

I really like the way this chapter ends (so much so that it's the quote I chose for the fic summary on AO3). I thought about the idea of generational difference a lot when coming up with this fic, and how Raffi has witnessed so many momentous events, like the return of Voyager, that Elnor and even Soji really have no context for. It's an interesting aspect of having older characters that weren't around in previous shows, and an opportunity for a different perspective that unfortunately I think Star Trek: Picard squandered completely (Una McCormack was more attentive in her novels, luckily). Regardless, Raffi's experience turns out to be an asset more than once in this fic—no one aboard La Sirena at this point is as intimately aware of the events of the Dominion War as she is.

[thelealinhypehouse]

Sometimes i cant complain on my healthsystem. Ok most of the time you wait months/years for the doctor. We have eternal queue that you cann die before any apoinment or you can go to ER and get everything in few days

Thats how i get my multiple sclerosis diagnose. If i fifnt go to hosspital in week where are 2 holidays my diagnose would be in 1 week.

On this monday i had my checkup and doctor give my quite alot of paper for Laboratory to get my blood and for xray

"Ok the laboratory is next to my office and then go behind main reception desk to find MRI/CT/X-ray unit"

Me: I was ok? Like...now?

Doctor: "Yes : D "

Soo i go there got a literal bag of many virals and nurse said "What they didnt have more?" in sarcasm Than the x-ray reception desk. Lady ask me "Ok when you wanna that x-ray?" Me: Well i would like today i have day off so i can wait till evening even. Lady: Ok *typing my info ect* Ok take this paper the x-ray technician gonna be in 10 min. Im shocked again. I got my next check up in next month, i got all my examination done and tada.

My medicines gonna be redy at october so i was waitin like half year when other people can wait over the year or more for this so i was lucky. The hospital im in is one of the advanced hospitals in my country, many experimental operations or so are done by the doctors here. And is part of University so all my medical records are used to teach next gen doctors. When i waled about my clinic unit i pass by literall classrooms. The STUDENS go rounds with doctor and doctor having the role of the professor at the same time talks about our illneses. They are not residents yet. They are students. They learn early to be better doctors and nurses later. Im amazed by my hospital and god damn free healthcare should be for everyone.

[actuallysara]

Hey I'm sorry to bother you about this but I know you're going to the convention in paris and I would really like to come too but I've never been to a convention before so I really don't have any idea of how these events work and I don't even know where to start? Do you have any tips for me? 😭

Hello anon, this is not a bother at all! this turned out into a full DREAMIT CONVENTIONS GUIDE so I apologize in advance lol but hopefully it will help you and other people out! You can also always dm me about it, I really don't mind talking about it or helping people out in any way I can.

This is all from my experience at DINAH last year so please mind that some things might be a bit different for FRR but here you go:

DREAMIT:

This is dreamit website (you can select the language on the menù at the top on the right), twitter and instagram.

I suggest you turn their notifications on to keep updated since twitter and instagram are where they make all their announcements.

WHEN AND WHERE:

WHEN: June 3rd and 4th, 2023

WHERE: Centre Evénementiel Mairie de Courbevoie in 7 Bd Aristide Briand, 92400 Courbevoie, Paris, France.

The location is not in the city centre but there are several big chain hotels nearby such as: Best Western, Ibis and Mercury hotels among the many.

How to reach the location from the city centre: either by metro, train, taxi or uber. If you use public transports get ready to walk a bit.

GUEST LIST:

Guests are announced whenever Dreamit gets a signed contract. According to their last update (March 2023) they're now focusing on bringing more Station 19 and Grey's Anatomy guests while 911 Lone Star guests are currently on hold. There will be minimum 10 guests.

So far the guests announced are: Stefania Spampinato from Station 19 (bonus guest), Ronen Rubinstein and Rafael Silva from 911 Lone Star (regular guests).

BONUS & REGULAR GUESTS: the difference is basically on their request and their cachet. Bonus guests cost more and their activities will therefore be more expensive than regular ones.

PAYEMENT:

You can pay on their website with credit or debit card, by wire transfer and with PayPal. PayPal gives you the option to split your payement into 4 parts if you want.

ACCESS PASSES:

You need to have one of the below passes to access the event and to purchase extras:

FIRST RESPONDERS PASS: a pass for the whole weekend. It can be paid in 2 parts. In this case you need to buy the First Responders Pass 1/2 first and then the First Responders Pass 2/2.

EMERGENCY PASS: a pass for 1 day only, either Saturday or Sunday.

FAST ACCESS:

This is an extra pass that gives you priority for activities for all/some guests, they basically let you skip queues:

Fast access+ will give you priority access to all the guests activities for 1 day only (you need to choose for which day or you can get it for both days).

Fast access Stefania/Ronen/Rafael/etc etc will give you priority access for the activities of the chosen guest(s) for 1 day only (you need to choose for which day or you can get it for both days).

I personally don't recommend getting these cause they're expensive and not worth it in my opinion. Queues are not that long anyway and there's time for everyone to get their extra done so there's literally no rush. Also sometimes these priorities in line aren't really respected and queues are where most friendship start so just take advantage of that!

PACKS:

Packs allow you to buy extras in a bundle and save a bit of money. They are on sale per guest and per day:

REGULAR PACKS: include a photo, an autograph and a selfie for 1 day only for 1 guest.

FULL PACKS: include a photo, an autograph, a selfie and an individual meeting room for 1 day only for 1 guest.

ACTIVITIES:

You will get a complete schedule of all the activites 1 week before the convention by email.

Every activity gets announced on screen in the panel room. So you don't have to wander around waiting for the activity to start or for your turn. You just need to sit in the panel room and wait for the activity to get announced. Once the activity has started, you can go where it will take place. Staff members will be everywhere to help you out in case you need it. Photo ops are all taken in one room, autographs in another and meeting rooms in other rooms.

PANEL ROOMS: with any pass you can get access to ALL panels for all guests. In a panel you basically have the guest(s) on stage and you can ask them questions going through a moderator first. They usually last 30 minutes.

MEETING ROOMS: they're basically a panel but have place in a separate room with a limited number of people (max. 30 people + guest(s)). They last 30 minutes. You can ask the guest(s) questions and just talk with them. At the end a group photo is taken. Sometimes they let you take an individual photo/selfie with them instead. These meetings can also come under the form of breakfasts, tea time, board games, etc etc. Meetings can be individual (with one guest only), or group ones (with 2 or more guests). The duo/group meetings usually happens with actors from the same show or who portray a couple on screen (see Ronen Rubinstein and Rafael Silva). There's usually an individual meeting per guest per day and a duo/group meeting per guests per day.

1:1s: usually very limited. You have 3 minutes with the guest alone. At the end you'll get a selfie with them.

PHOTO OPS: it's your chance to get a photo with the guest(s). There are individual photo, duo/trio and group photo ops. There are usually 2 photo op sessions per guests and per duo/trio/group per day (one in the morning and one in the afternoon). If you want you can show guests what pose you want to do on your phone or you can just explain it to them. Obviously no inappropriate poses are allowed and guests are allowed to say no if they don't feel comfortable with any suggestion. At the end of the day you will get printed copies of all your photos. Once the convention is over you will get the chance to buy the digital copies too.

AUTOGRAPHS: it's your chance to get autographs from the guests and this is the only moment where you can give them gifts if you brought any. You can get signed anything you want, something you brought from home or photos that you can buy at the convention. You can ask guests to write anything you want on the autographs and have them personalised.

SELFIES: they happen at the same time as autographs so you need to have an autograph if you want a selfie. If you have a selfie ticket but not an autograph one, they won't allow you to take a selfie with them. So you get the autograph done and then you can take a selfie with them. You can ask the guest to take it for you if you want.

PARTY: limited. It happens on Saturday night and NOT all guests will be attending (Stefania Spampinato will be there, Ronen Rubinstein and Rafael Silva won't).

ONLINE ACTIVITIES:

Sometimes they add some online activities so that people who can't be there in person have the chance to interact with the guests too:

ONLINE 1:1s: it usually happens on zoom and you get 3 minutes with the guest alone. At the end you'll get a screenshot of the two of you.

ONLINE 3:1s: it usually happens on zoom and you get 5 minutes with the guest and 2 other fans. At the end you'll get a screenshot of the group.

SHIPPED AUTOGRAPHS: you can order autographs from guests that will be shipped to your home. Dreamit will give you photo options so that you can choose which one you want to get signed and you will have to email them your personal details, shipping info and any request you have for your autographs so that you can get it personalised. They might take some time to get delivered.

VIDEO RECORDINGS: you can order a video recording from guests. You will have to email them any request you have for your video so that it will be personalised. If you don't have any special request the guest will just record a general video. The lenght of the videos is usually around 1 minute but depends on the guest. They will be sent it to you by email. They might take some time to arrive.

TO KEEP IN MIND:

DISCOUNTS: Dreamit has a fidelity program called "Dream It Club" so that you can accumulate discount points with each purchase made. You need to sign up for it here. It's 1 point for 1€ spent: -10% with 500 points, -20% with 1000 points, -40% with 4000 points, -50% with 6000 points.

FANBOOKS: if you want to do a fanbook for a guest you need to fill in a survey that Dreamit will post on twitter to show your interest. You need to have a pass beforehand. Dreamit will randomly pick a winner and contact them directly to be in charge of it.

Bring water and food with you. They don't have stands at the convention where you can buy something to drink or eat so be prepared in advance. There are some grocery stores in the area where you can go during lunch breaks if you want.

The convention place has no running AC so be aware that it's gonna be very hot in there but bring a jacket too cause it gets chilly outside in the evening.

There are several bathrooms at the location.

IMPORTANT:

VIDEOS: the general rule is that you cannot film anything including guests except for the welcoming and farewell parts of the panel room. You can film some bits here and there of panels as long as they're not too long. They'll be making a DVD of the event so they don't want people to leak the whole thing before that happens.

PHOTOS: you can take as many pictures as you want during panels. You cannot take pictures of the guests anywhere else or during any other activity.

AUDIO RECORDINGS: you cannot record anything at any time.

BE DECENT: people are there to have fun, have a good time and share the experience with other like minded people. Every single person will get their chance and time to interact with the guests. If you have a ticket for an activity you will get that activity done. If something happens at one session and you can't get it done then, you will get another chance at another session, that's exactly why there are multiple sessions during the weekend. The staff will make sure that you will get what you paid for. So there's no need to scream, yell, run around, push people to arrive first or be disrespectful to anyone, whether it's other fans or staff members who are just there to help. Please.

[givepie]

Some of my Unpopular Opinions about theme parks [that I will stand by and have in some cases]

1. Alton Towers is better than Thorpe, in my experience. I went Alton Towers and Thrope Park back to back last year, spending 2 nights and 2 days at Thorpe while visiting Towers with a school trip. The operations at Towers were better, and I am not kidding. When I went Thorpe i went on 2 rides [Swarm and Zodiac] where me and my mum watched and listened to the operators just stood around gossiping about other employees while the rides stood at hour+ queues. And then we tried to do ghost train [got there 30 minutes before it was due to open at 12 cause everything was 90+ mins.] And we waited an hour for that cause the ride broke down and they didn't tell anyone. The reason we could tell was because the line DID NOT MOVE for around 40 minutes and they turned people away from the fasttrack queue. For such a subpar experience me and mum were not bloody happy. Oh also Stealth was closed most of the time and it was in the middle of a 3 week long downtime for Inferno so we had Swarm, TWD, Colossus or Saw to go on. Compared to the day after where all of the rides were pretty consistent at Towers and I managed 3 large-queuetime rides such as Galair, Smiler, and Wickerman. Keeping in mind I missed ropedrop and left an hour earlier. Also all the rides were comfortable unlike 2/3 rides I went on in Thorpe.

Of course I enjoyed Thorpe and can't wait until I'm at uni so I can get a hotel room and do Thorpe + Chessington off-peak. Hyperia looks better than any coaster at Towers, but whoever says Thorpe has the better operations, environment, or lineup is incredibly biased.

2. A phalanx retheme for Galactica would ruin the Entire Fucking Point and would make the ride worse. This comes from the infuriating pov that thrilling = good and not thrilling = bad. In archival photos of the construction of air you can see the ride EXPERIENCE. THE LAYOUT. is based on a sense of victory and being the antithesis to Nemesis. Not the enemy, the FOIL. Air - and therefore Galactica - was created to be a sense of tranquility, removed from conflict. You are literally proposing a change to the ride that would be directly misconstruing the gentle nature of the ride. Isn't 13 hated for literally this exact reason. Like come on now.

3. Bigger=! Better. I was sceptical of Hyperia at first cause the title of "tallest in ___" is usually taken by a rather unimaginative ride with a lack of theming (or themed around cars.) which was created JUST to snag that title. This links in with my idea that Thrill=!good. Most b&m hypers (to my knowledge) are intimidators but not particularly thrilling. And yet, I have not met anyone who calls it a bad ride. Odd, that. Turns out, Hyperia isn't just a title snag and actually brings something new and creative to the table. On the other hand, I dislike rides like Stealth, Red Force, TTD, KingdaKa and anything else from that model on principle. I prefer coasters where the creators clearly had some fun. Where they actually thought about what they were doing.

4. I dont like Oblivion. I have never liked Oblivion. Lore wise? It's quite cool. But it is by far the most overhyped ride. Its a one-trick-pony. "but it does the trick really well!", so does Galactica! 13! Wickerman! But yall don't want to hear about that, you want rides where you can simplify it to something that seems quantifiable. In reality "It has a good drop!" is just as obscene as "It is a decently intense coaster that is not particularly intimidating so its a really good step-up". Or, "it really replicated the feeling of flying and freedom" or "a gentle ride with one relatively shocking element to help younger kids see that the sensations aren't that bad.". When it comes to ranking by my own criteria (taking out my own ride experience as I have not ridden all Towers rides), Oblivion ranks at the bottom of the SWs. Its not that technologically advanced compared to some of the others on lot; its incredibly short; and most of the ride is manufacturing suspense.

[emojiburst]

I just want you guys to know that every single comment, like, reblog, any interaction on anything I post absolutely brightens my day. I don't care if it's on a 8 month old emoji at the bottom of my blog, I don't care if you like/reblog 45 things in a row! I actually *love* when people do that, it feels amazing, tbh.

If you want anything, PM me or send a message. Anything! Even just to talk for a while or say hello or make a request! Even if it's anon. I crave *the attention*.

Don't be scared to interact/comment on literally anything, you're only giving me that sweet syringe of serotonin that I desperately need.

(If anyone didn't know, this blog automatically uploads from the queue at 1 pm every day and I draw enough to keep it stocked for like a month in advance because art block is scary and I only get motivation on one Tuesday at 5 am every month, so even I'm surprised at what pops up and gets likes sometimes. Sometimes, when I get excited, I release things early. Unrelated, but I wanted you guys to know that.)

[literaticat]

Hi! Real question. Not being snarky. Why does it take MONTHS for editor/publishing contracts to be done? What are the agents and editors actually doing?

I mean we'd all love it to be faster. The bottleneck is not generally happening with agents and editors.

Here's how it goes. (Picking numbers absolutely out of thin air, I have no idea what the actual numbers would be and I imagine it varies!):

You have a publishing house, right? In the kids division, let's say there are six imprints, with six to ten editors each. There are new book acquisitions weekly for sure, probably multiple, at each imprint. Let's say 1-2 books gets through acquisitions at each imprint every week, so between 6-12 new books across the board. We'll aim high and assume 12 new books get offers, which some are accepted some are not, and say they end up moving forward with 8 new books per week across these 6 imprints.

First -- before accepting! -- the editor and agent negotiate a deal memo (this is the basic thing that says all the "big picture" terms such as advance, royalties, etc.). Sometimes things have to be approved by the financial folks, etc. Once the deal memo is complete and we have officially accepted the offer, the editor sends all the paperwork to the contracts department. It is now out of both of our hands.

The "contracts department" may consist of like... two people, and an utterly overwhelmed assistant. They are SWAMPED. They are DYING. They are, I have to assume, trapped in windowless cells doing a painstaking job that requires lots of attention to detail and is utterly thankless and probably getting yelled at by assholes all the time. (I'm so sorry, contracts people, I LOVE YOU, and I don't thank you ENOUGH! You should all get raises!)

So each contract takes time to draft. They can be 20, 25, 30 pages long (or longer!). Each agency does have their own "boilerplate" which at least gives them a place to start so they aren't reinventing the wheel every time, but each book deal does have its own terms (as outlined in the Deal Memo) and there are new terms and bits of wording being changed and asked for all the time -- for agencies like mine, with a lot of business at certain publishers, the contracts people and the agents are basically in a constant conversation, making sure that new terms are being carried over properly, etc etc. It's a nit-picky thing, they are comparing multiple contracts with one another at a granular level, it just takes a long time. No I don't know how long - but I know it takes ME hours to even read them, so I would imagine it's at least a solid half-day with no interruptions to draft them.

Once the contract is drafted, it gets sent to the agent, who carefully reads it and makes notes, those notes get sent back to the contracts person, who carefully reads them and responds, there may be a little more back and forth, finally we get a final contract that can be signed.

(This whole process might, in a fast world, take 1-2 weeks, because the agent ALSO has a queue of things and needs a solid half-a-day to do the notes, and when the notes get back to the contracts person, they go into the notes queue, then the agent needs to re-read the final version, etc. But it could for sure take longer than that. I would not be surprised if it took a month just for a normal contract with all the back-and-forth, and if there are significant changes being asked for, it might literally take months as each side has to get lawyers and such involved to make sure the wording makes sense, etc. This is pretty rare but it DOES happen.)

So back to our bottleneck. The big number of editors filter a ton of submissions into 8 books that are moving forward, those 8 books get filtered to 2 contracts people -- each of those contracts people might be able to realistically do, say, 2 draft contracts per week and 2 notes/final contracts per week. One of them went on vacation once, and both of them have had COVID this year, so unfortunately they are always backed up, and can never actually catch up, because there are more coming in every week than they can possibly do and there's already a queue.

So... That's why contracts take so long. Sorry. Everyone is doing their best, I promise.

[anarchywoofwoof]

hi there

it's me again

that nagging voice on your dashboard

remember when i posted about this back in August?

November 1, 2023

For over a century, the Panama Canal has provided a convenient way for ships to move between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, helping to speed up international trade. But a drought has left the canal without enough water, which is used to raise and lower ships, forcing officials to slash the number of vessels they allow through. That has created expensive headaches for shipping companies and raised difficult questions about water use in Panama. The passage of one ship is estimated to consume as much water as half a million Panamanians use in one day. “This is the worst we have seen in terms of disruption,” said Oystein Kalleklev, the chief executive of Avance Gas, which transports propane from the United States to Asia.

...

Container ships, which transport finished consumer goods, typically reserve passage well in advance, and have not faced long delays. But ships carrying bulk commodities generally don’t book passage. This presents bulk shipping companies with an expensive calculus: They can risk waiting for days, pay a big fee to jump the line or avoid the canal entirely by taking a longer route. Mr. Kalleklev, the shipping executive, said his company decided in August to pay $400,000 in a special auction to move a ship ahead in the queue, roughly doubling the total cost of using the canal. Other companies have paid over $2 million, a cost they will sometimes bear to ensure ships don’t miss their next assignment. A portion of these extra costs will be passed on to consumers, already pummeled by inflation. The pain, however, has been limited because the U.S. economy is not running very hot and demand for imported goods is relatively muted.

ladies and gentlemen: capitalism hard at work.

what decides if you're gonna have food on the table or the basic necessities for survival?

whether or not some shipping executive decides to pay a literal bribe to get his ship through a drought-stricken canal before a bunch of other ships undoubtedly carrying equally important goods.

the system is broken. the system is broken. the system is broken.

‘this is going to get worse before it gets better’: panama canal pileup due to drought reaches 154 vessels

the panama canal, a key route for global trade, is facing a crisis. 154 ships are waiting, with an average wait time of 21 days. drought has reduced the water level in the main reservoir to critically low levels, which has resulted in the canal's locks struggling to function.

40% of all u.s. container traffic travels through the panama canal every year. the current situation is a direct result of climate change and overuse of natural resources.

climate change: weather patterns have shifted, and the area is receiving much less rain than it used to. the lake that feeds the canal is refilling at a much slower rate.

overuse: development around the area has increased reliance on groundwater and freshwater sources. shipping traffic has surged, flushing more water down the canal.

each ship requires about 200 million liters to pass through, amounting to 2.8 billion liters per day at just 14 trips.

at peak season, that's 10 billion liters per day, all of it fresh water flushed into the ocean. gone. wasted. unusable.

the low water level creates two main issues: availability and pressure. emergency water conservation measures are in place, restricting the biggest boats movements and slowing down the entire process.

this ultimately leads to inflation. shit is about to become even MORE expensive.

this isn't just a problem for some boats or the shipping business. it's a reminder of how our actions and the changing climate are impacting the world in real and tangible ways. the panama canal is a microcosm of a global issue.

we have failed to recognize the interconnectedness of our world and we are paying the price. it will not improve under capitalism.

[mcknitface]

My top 10 in advance of the final

so. i've finally written and thought about my actual top ten songs going into the final. i've actually also compiled my top 40 and my tops for the semis, but that's a bit late now. i'll do them in advance of next year though!

so, here, with comments, is my top ten for the final

1 - DE DIEPTE - an amazing song, by an amazing artist. i'm british but very into the dutch alt-pop scene (a joke scott and rylan made on tuesday) and when S10 was announced i was so excited. this song is everything i wanted and more - she's changed her style to suit a wider audience, and the da-da-da-da oeh-oeh aa-aa really brings in non dutch speakers, essential for this competition.

2 - MEÐ HÆKKANDI SÓL - wasn't too keen on the first listen (morning of sunday 13th march) but by the evening of the monday i was obsessed. amazing meaning behind the lyrics, and icelandic is such a lovely language to listen to. when this was announced as a qualifier i almost screamed (had to not tho as i was in the queue for a club) as i had prepared for the worst.

3 - LIGHTS OFF - one of the first entries to be released back in december. i had covid at the time, was on day 8 of 10 of isolation, and this buoyed me through the last two days. a great dance bop, the revamp arguably isn't as good but i love the pause before the chorus. she's improved a lot as a singer as well, literally screamed when this qualified, amazing song.

4 - IN CORPORE SANO - watched it, was bemused, watched again, watched again, looked up the lyrics, obsessed. amazing concept, almost performance art, i cannot get enough of this. look up the rest of her triptych, it's amazing. the other songs are called nobl and mekano, and the fact she entered the serbian national selection only to broaden her songs' reach, not intending to win, is iconic.

5 - HOLD ME CLOSER - i don't really have much to say here, it's just a very good song. a powerful chorus? maybe that's what draws me into it and separates it from other ballads for me.

6 - SENTIMENTAI - lithuanian is a beautiful language and it's amazing to finally have a song in it in the final. the older feeling of the song lends it an elegance and from everything that i've seen monika is an icon. i'm mostly excited about the lithuanian, but it's a song that i can't help swaying to. again i was thrilled when this qualified as it was borderline

7 - FULENN - i am in love with this devil-summoning masterpiece. something different from france, and in one of their marginalised langauges, really make this stand out. i particularly like the vibration-esque part of the second chorus, after the "tria' a ra ar c'haoud". great to have some celtic language representation as well, it's a travesty that we've (in the uk) never sent a welsh entry.

8 - TRENULEŢUL - this is another one which came out fairly early. i can't help bopping along to this and i really hope it does well in the final. it's such a jolly song with a serious meaning behind it, and the music video is so fun. not sure what i think of the slight revamp - i will still listen to the original - but i understand why it was revamped for the stage.

9 - SNAP - a non-offensive song with a great staging (that's unaffected by the broken sun). i didn't really pay attention to this until the second rehearsal on youtube, but i really do like it. maybe not something i'll still be listening to in a year, but definitely one i want to see do well.

10 - LLÁMAME - a nice surprise qualifier from thursday. the song definitely works better when you can see it being performed, but nonetheless it's a great song, with great choreo, and we love us some bisexual representation.

in case anyone is interested, my original top ten was the netherlands, iceland, czechia, slovenia, serbia, sweden, latvia, croatia, lithuania and france. semi one was particularly painful - i'd like to have seen thirteen of those songs through (but only seven from semi two)

judge me as you will, and enjoy the final!

[indigoelfinspirit]

All the odd numbers, please :D

All the odd numbers hmm? You would do that to me 🤣 1. how big is your mods folder? I think it's almost 3gb? Which is huge for me. I had to be super careful about package sizes with my old laptop, so I have lots of little things. 3. what is your favorite challenge? I love BPRs (which might be why I have multiple 😅). I will read any and every BPR I can get my hands on. I just don't follow the rules. There are a few cute new challenges I want to try, but I always come back to the BPR format. 5. what type of cc do you hoard?   All of it? 🤣 Um... the largest offenders that are my must downloads are skin details and tattoos. I also have a fondness for houseplants, kitchen clutter (I love the Snowy Escape cabinets because I can clutter the shelves), and rugs. 7. how many urls have you had, and what are the meanings behind them? Oof. Coming after all the secrets. So My main has a double meaning. Indigo Elfinspirit has been my online moniker for a while. Indigo for actual decades, and Elfinspirit for about 8-9 years. Elfinspirit is a combination of the fan club names for my two favorite Kpop groups Super Junior (E.L.F.) and Infinite  (Inspirit), but it also means elf in spirit because I absolutely love Elves and Fairies and Shee (if you couldn't tell from my berry elves running around everywhere). My other urls are not so special. @Elvinarchive is just a place to keep things for simblreen or other treats that I don't want on the main page. Though I have thought about actually using it to archive things someday. @Elveinposelibrary is me keeping to a theme. It is literally just the place where I reblog poses I think I might need someday and for some reason people follow it... 9. who is your favorite storytelling blog?   Dangerous Question. I have a lot. @simmancy's Pastel Pastilles was my first BPR and I will always love it. @simblrinterests Light Family Legacy is probably one of the best written one's I've ever read. It is beautiful, and painful, and magic. Jex and Kit's stories are my inspiration. Jex's made me want to write my own BPR, and Kit's mix of fantasy and personal experiences inspired me to write Starfall with all the personal messy experience mixed in. So blame them the next time things take a turn 😉 Everything @samssims does is just pure joy in a post, and makes me happy. @tainoodles is posting again and I am loving every second of it. Then there's the little story called Mimic that is everything my sci fi loving heart could hope or dream of. The days it posts are magical. It also has this really bad habit of making me want to do a Sci Fi story, but I don't have the time to make it look right. Literally I think I've start a sci fi save every other time you've posted a Mimic update in the last 3 months. 11. how do you edit your photos? I don't.  I am notoriously lazy. I don't use reshade. I only crop or occasionally turn a photo black and white when I absolutely have too. I did edit one photo properly in photoshop for Sam's love photo challenge. I have learned how to use tab mode and my new laptop is capable of running poses in game (and a real graphics mode) so the photo quality is at least going to get better. 13. what do you do when you are unmotivated? I start a new save 🤣🤣🤣. Or I pick up an old one. Usually either option involves taking tons of screenshots and posting them on discord and talking about posting them on tumblr, but never actually doing it because I always end up missing Starfall and Rusty and go back to working on Starfall and Halcyon Days (I literally have two AU saves where Rusty gets a long and happy life, because he is my favorite... don't tell the others).  15. who is your current favorite sim that is not by you?  Questions that are impossible to answer hmm? I will take Atlas from @lazarish‘s story almost anyway I can get him. I love Jack from Jex's legacy. Rae in @ancenth's NSB is adorable. Oh, and Tharen, Hal, and Freddy, of course. I have a real weak spot for Tharen, and I ship Hal and Freddy something fierce.    17. do you talk about sims with people in real life?  Never actually. I have practically no life outside work, tumblr, and discord. Simblr is how I socialize and I have met some amazing people on here. (Lest ya'll worry too much I do have irl friends but with the pandemic and my crazy job and the fact that we're now spread across the country we don't physically see each other too often. I'm not like a weird hermit or anything).    19. how many posts do you have on your blog currently?    934 👀👀👀   21. how many posts are in your queue currently?   7, I rarely queue more than 3-5 days in advance because tumblr screws something up if I do. In this case I just haven’t queued next weeks posts yet.     23. are you in any sims related discord servers?     Just one really awesome one.    25. how many hours have you played sims?      Nobody knows... I have played on 3 different laptops in the last couple years, and the tally doesn't transfer. I think I was at 500+ hours on the one I used during the pandemic.     27. what’s the farthest you’ve gotten in a challenge?     LMAO challenge? Me? I don't actually follow the rules or play challenges as challenges, so it doesn't actually count. I technically haven't gotten past Gen 1 yet in any of them. Though I am so close to Gen 2 in my Starfall save like I can see the finish line

[the-road-goes-ever-on86]

Blog tag

Was tagged by @just-bros! 💜

1. Why did you choose your URL? - It's one of my favorite LOTR quotes. (Well, technically a song but... you get me.) It makes me feel optimistic.

2. Any side blogs? - Nope. I do have several twitters but now use them only to lurk. For several years I was very active in ARMY fandom (BTS), but now find keeping up on ARMY twitter too time consuming. (And frankly frustrating, lol.)

3. How long have you been on Tumblr? - No clue. My first tumblr was surely over a decade ago, but this one I've been using about four months.

4. Do you have a queue tag? - No... Don't really understand why people do. I just schedule stuff, sometimes well in advance. (Even a week.) I try not to spam too much; spread my posting out. Probably still post too much daily, lol.

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place? - Wanted to get back into SPN fandom, with a focus on wincest.

6. Why did you choose your icon/pfp? - Jung Hoseok is one of the most versatile artists around; he's a natural talent, a hard worker, has the kindest heart and is a pretty, pretty princess. My bb is a style icon! What's not to love about Hoseok? 💜

7. Why did you choose your header? - I'm too lazy for a header so you get literally nothing babes.

8. What’s your post with the most notes? - Hoseok's rap verse in Dis-ease... As it should be.

9. How many mutuals do you have? - I don't know 🤷‍♀️

10. How many followers do you have? - 25. I wasn't kidding when I said idk how those destiel people found me for the blocklist. Not many people have my overlapping interest in SPN/Wincest and Bangtan Sonyeondan. 😂

11. How many people do you follow? - 100. Mostly SPN with a few BTS blogs. I'd like to follow more Wincest/Bibros blogs but I'm also too lazy to go through the whole blocklist, so.

12. Have you ever made a shitpost? - No, but coincidentally if I ever start posting more I will definitely make posts that are shit, even if they aren't technically shitposts.

13. How often do you use Tumblr each day? - Idk, but too much.

14. Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? - Not on tumblr, on Twitter... Wouldn't call it a fight, but some disagreements. Got on blocklists/recieved some unhappy comments for being ARMY who would sometimes criticize BigHit/Hybe. You aren't anyone online until you've made multiple blocklists. 😌

15. How do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts? - Depends on what it is. If it seems important or helpful then fine, but generally... Don't like being told I must reblog something.

16. Do you like tag games? - Sometimes!

17. Do you like ask games? - I don't even have asks open... Don't you need to be tumblr famous for that to matter?

18. Which of your mutuals do you think is Tumblr famous? - Probably @not-a-perfect-metaphor & @starrose17 .

19. Do you have a crush on a mutual? - Not a crush, but there are lots of kind and hilarious people on tumblr that I much appreciate, even though the majority I haven't personally spoken with. I'm bad with approaching people for conversation, lol.

I tag: @cordellwinchesterwalker & @samdeanbitchjerk (Only if you want! 💛)

[guigz1-coldwar]

'Followed': New chapter for "Redemption in a Spirit in a Cold War" is out !

'Followed'

'Grigoriev, what you did is going to have big repercussions...you're the first one in line to affirm that!'

Chapter Summary: Yirina, Park, Zasha & Portnova are heading to the nearest Burger Town of London but something soon caught the eye of Yirina...something that is more a problem...

Link of the Picrew used !

To read it on AO3, click here!

Words : +3500

Taglist : @snowgoldwaylon , @clxudtea , @efingart

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

After the shocking news & the meeting with that CIA agent in our office where I was almost unable to stop Park to throw a punch at the guy as he was trying to get on her nerves and mine too, it was time for me, her, Zasha & Portnova to left the building and to get some lunch to maybe distract ourselves from the situation for the moment and it came to me like that that we should go eat at Burger Town and I was surprised when everyone including Park and even Portnova agreed on that.

Of course and to make sure that our efforts weren't in vain, the nearest Burger Town in London was in another borough than the one where Century House was located: in the Southwark borough and when we approached it after a lot of walk through the streets of London, I could see that the place was having a nice view on the Tower Bridge as it was just located not so far from the restaurant. At least, our efforts weren't in vain after all...

"Finally," Zasha was sounding a bit exhausted after the no-stop walk when we arrived in front of the Burger Town, leaning to put their hands on their knees. "I thought that we were never going to make it," They stated.

"Zasha, we did only 1 kilometer and a half of walk," Park said to them, releasing a little & lovely laugh off her mouth.

"Really, I thought we did larger," They proclaimed as Portnova moved to tap gently behind their shoulder.

"You're very exaggerating, Zed," She scoffed, keeping her hand behind them as they go back in a normal standing position

"Yeah, I remember the time where you could run with me," I told them, causing them to look at me with a raised eyebrow, thinking that I was joking. "Come on, it was just a joke," I clarified as their look at me weren't changing.

"You better hope so or we're making a race after we eat," They warned me, pointing at me but the smile they were making betrayed the threatening part of their voice.

"Anyway, are we going to stand around here the whole day or we're getting inside?" Park demanded, sighing at us with her arms crossed as we were still standing in front of the restaurant because of Zasha.

"Of course not," I replied, taking the lead of the group and walking to reach the front door.

The exterior was filled with people who were eating, talking...everything that what we should in a restaurant in resume...and for me, it was quite strange to find myself in the middle of a place that was having a lot of people around as it was my first day back out of the apartment, now wondering if it was in fact a good idea of me to go into a place like that and when I reached the door and putting my hands on the door handle, I was looking a bit confused as if my mind wanted me to run away...

But I hold on and I managed to keep calm, get myself back together by stepping out of the apartment, and that thought in my head, hissing in my ears makes me able to open the front door of the restaurant seconds before the others could ask why I wasn't opening the doors, my thinking almost happening for a millisecond for me, and then, we could step inside the typical American fast-food restaurant, discovering how it was.

It was my first time inside a Burger Town as every time I was eating something coming from that place, it was always someone else who ordered the menus and bring it to me, remembering the time when Woods literally go out of the car during my first mission back into the team 4 months ago to go take out some burgers for him, me & Park and to say, the decorations of the restaurant looked very American to me.

"So, how do we proceed?" Zasha spoke up after the group was all inside the place, them closing the door gently. "Who is paying?" They asked literally.

"Is this really a question that you just ask?" I looked at them, crossing my arms, joining Park & Portnova who were having their eyes on Zasha. "Of course, you're the one who will pay," I joked, having faked my incomprehension.

"Ha, ha, funny," They rolled their eyes, making a laugh out of their mouth but looking on their face that the question was also a little serious. "Seriously, how do we do?" They repeated.

"Well, I can pay for Yiri while you two are paying on your own," Park proposed to them, gesturing to the two. "If you two have brought their wallets with them, I presume," She added before Zasha moved their hands inside their jacket, taking out a black wallet.

"Have it with me," They said, showing up the walled to me & Park.

"Now, we should..." Park stopped to look at the two queues near the counter with behind it, the opened kitchen while two cashiers were taking the commands of people. "Get ourselves in the two differents queues as we could all have our lunches at the same time," She resumed, gesturing at the two queues.

"Why not?" Portnova agreed on this, followed by a nod from Zasha.

"Okay, we'll see where we'll eat, supposing that we eat inside," Park told them before the two decide to walk towards the right waiting line as I & Park were moving to reach the left waiting line behind it, now awaiting.

"Uhm...Park?" I silently called her out about something I've been wondering at the moment we arrived in line.

"Yes?" She breathed.

"I never ask if I've got a paycheck as I'm working with..." I started to demand but as we were in public, I couldn't say that our jobs were at the MI6. "Well, you know what I mean,"

"Are you asking me this now?" She asked and I nodded at her. "Of course that you got a paycheck, you're working with me," She responded, grinning at me.

"And...why I wasn't aware of it before? Do I have a sort of...bank account since I'm a British citizen?" I questioned, taking a step as we were at least two people before we could be taken into account while Zasha & Portnova were at the same level as us.

"First, you didn't ask about it at all but I thought about it and two...yes, you have one but as I said, you never asked about it," She answered, fully honest in her voice and adding a lovely nudging at my left arm, making a very silent moan because of it.

"That's hurt," I said in a low voice.

"Come on, it was nice," Park protested in a good voice, and honestly, that part of her did really manage to get over the recent events of today and that was for the better. "So, what are you taking?" She asked me, making me look at the panel where everything about menus, drinks & desserts were shown up.

"Let me think," I muttered, my hand moving above my chin in a thinking pose by looking up, the various choices of burgers flowing in front of my eyes as we advanced in the line, arriving in front of the woman who was the cashier.

"Hi, welcome to Burger Town, what are you ordering?" The woman asked hands-on the cash register.

"Hi, I would take a Classic Burger with medium french fries & a coffee," Park started, having made her choices pretty fast before turning her head around to look at me, still having my eyes on the big panel. "Made your choice?"

"Yeah, I would take a...Crispy Chicken Burger with medium french fries too & a coffee...like my girlfriend," I responded and Park's eyes went wide at my last word, adding a cute blush on her face.

"Oh, you two are together? That's so great," The cashier exclaimed, Park, turning her head around with a smile to her.

"Uhm...yes, we are," Park affirmed, giving me the best grin I could make, peaking my eyes a little to my right to see Portnova & Zasha still waiting for their turn.

"Wow, I can say that you're looking both cute together," The cashier confessed, this time, blushing with Park on my face. "Anyway," She purposely coughed. "Your order has been registered, it will be 11.22 pounds," She announced the price as Park got her own brown wallet out of her jacket and giving two bills and some coins to the cashier. "Thanks, we're going to assemble your order, you can wait here," She said, pointing towards a meter away from our position.

"Thanks," Me & Park told in unison, complying with the cashier's demand to step aside as some people behind in the kitchen were starting to prepare our order.

"Wow, I didn't expect that," Park spoke up.

"Expect what?" I narrowed my eyes at her, wondering about what she was thinking.

"About been together, that's good and surprising to say," She revealed before surprising me literally by giving me a kiss on the left cheek, bringing back my blushing that I was only able to get away. "Thanks, Yiri," She whispered, keeping the smile on her face and reciprocating it on my own as we were now waiting for our lunch.

The people behind were working very fast to gather what we ordered, never saw people moving like this and...it kinda makes me think that this place wasn't called a 'fast-food' by now looking at how those people weren't making a pause in their moves, always moving, never saw one actually stopping at the same place and only a simple minute after we give away our order that it was ready and given to us on a platter.

Park took it in her hands, now looking around inside to find an empty table and our search wasn't so hard at all, having found a perfect table in one of the corner of the restaurant and directly moving towards it and sitting on the comfortable seats, Park getting in front of me, letting either Zasha or Portnova sit next to me. About them, we were just getting sit that they were also finished with having their order and finding us.

"You got everything?" Park asked at seeing the two arrive near the table, Zasha holding the platter in their hands.

"All good," They replied, putting the platter on the table as Portnova moved to get sit next to Park, Zasha sitting next to me. "What did you get?" They demanded.

"Well, Yiri got a Crispy Chicken Burger, medium french fries, and a coffee like me...and all of us," She started, moving my hands on the things that are mine: burger, fries & drink and also looking at both platters, seeing that everyone ordered coffee. "And me, staying classic with a Burger Town Classic Burger," She added. "And what about you both?"

"I ordered a Double Cheeseburger with large french fries," Zasha responded, taking their things from the platter.

"I asked for a Burger Town Special Burger even if I'm new to this sort of place," Portnova told, moving the platter towards her.

"You never had eaten a Burger Town?" I questioned her, sounding curious.

"No, our old Mother Russia isn't having restaurants like this, and my lovely Zed didn't introduce me when I arrived here...until now," Portnova answered, unwrapping her own burger, not looking like the one on the panel...but still looking tasteful. "That's going to be the first burger of my life,"

"And to say that I had to ask the cashier about removing the tomatoes from your burger," Zasha scoffed, Portnova looking at them with a sort of deadly glare. "What? I remember that you said that you hate tomatoes,"

"I do," She smirked, not sounding affected as I was unwrapping my own burger and the little bag of fries along with Park & Zasha. "And you, Grigoriev? Did you eat a burger before?"

"I did...the last time I ate one was the day of my birthday," I revealed, remembering the night that we came back this day with Zasha at the MI6 safehouse in West-Berlin, Garrett & Greta having ordered Burger Town for us & them.

"Yeap, I remember, that was a nice day," Park smiled at me, thinking either of the birthday...or what happened during the night..."Anyway, I think that our burger awaits to be eaten, right?"

"I'm damn hungry so yes," Zasha breathed, taking their own Double Cheeseburger in both hands before taking a bit from it.

"Enjoy your food," I exclaimed and everyone smiled at me before tasting my own Chicken Burger in my mouth.

It was nice to make some changes from the usual food we were eating since days at the apartment and that was a thought shared by the others who were enjoying their fries & their burgers by looking at their faces and of course, we talked about everything and nothing except for work during the large part of the lunch, wanting to keep it a bit enjoying for the moment but also to stay discreet above all, having bystanders around us and acting like normal people taking a lunch....if only it wasn't acting.

"Well, our burgers were nice, now for the coffee," It was Zasha sounding enthusiastic as we were all finished with our burgers & fries after a good ten minutes, grabbing their coffee in their hands.

"You were more excited to be on that part of lunch than the burger, right?" I presumed, seeing them like that.

"You & your coffee," Portnova rolled her eyes around with a smile on her lips.

"Ain't my fault if I catch a coffee addiction," Zasha protested before taking a sip of their coffee, seeing on their face the relieving part of having caffeine in them. "So...Uhm...can we talk about what happened with that CIA guy?" They started after looking around, the place was less filled, and no one was passing or near us for the moment.

"Wasn't so nice, to be honest," I replied, my right fingers moving in a circle around the top of my cup. "Guy acted like an asshole, he said that the CIA was 'going to do what the MI6 couldn't do'" I added, gesturing with my fingers about the last part.

"What? The CIA is in London? And they're going to give us troubles to search for Perseus?" Portnova demanded, sounding a little confused.

"They have ears & eyes everywhere and yes, they will give us more troubles than help," Park responded, taking a deep breath while looking outside.

"Do you think that they'll try to disturb us in our search?" I nodded when Zasha asks that, knowing the CIA too well now.

"It's the CIA, don't need to ask for that when you heard its name," I muttered, shaking my head before looking outside, seeing a lot of cars along the sidewalks of the street.

"Guess that's something typical from the CIA," Portnova added but then, I was getting less into the discussion as a detail in the street was troubling me.

In all the car that was parked, there was a particular one that was keeping my attention: it was a dark black one, looking like a sedan type of car on the other side of the street but then, its occupants were suddenly too familiar for me...the same CIA guys that were guarding our office earlier in Century House, the same ones and for me, they weren't here for the burgers or the coffee but for us...the CIA has eyes & ears everywhere...

"Fuck," I thought to myself, only moving my lips a little, drifting my eyes back on the discussion between the trio, trying to think of something until I found in the middle of the table, a salt shaker..."Might be useful," I continued to speak to myself in my head as I grab the shaker in my right hand, putting it between my middle & ring finger. "Zasha, can you move? I need to go outside to get some air,"

"Uhm...of course," They complied in an instant, moving to get up and allowing me to move.

"You're okay, Yirina?" Park asked, worried.

"Yeah, it's just...I need some air, I'll be not long," I replied, reassuring her even if I was lying about it before I start to walk away from the table to get outside by a side door.

Honestly, I didn't know what my plan was going to be but I couldn't let the CIA have their eyes on me, and making a stand was the only way for me to get it done and a direct confrontation with those two agents was going to be the thing. I took the salt shaker with me for precaution, keeping it between the fingers of my right hand and not wanting to be spotted by the two, I decided to faint to go away from the restaurant.

After a few seconds of having faked to walk to another street, I came back, taking the pedestrian crossing to get on the other side of the street where their car was and thankfully for me, the street was empty to let me do what I needed to do here. I took a deep breath and checking if everything was good until I arrived at the right side of the car, seeing from up close the two men looking in the direction of where we were sit in the restaurant.

"Hey," I started, knocking with my left fingers on the window to get the men's attention on me and they turned around, their faces looking a bit confused. "How it's going?" I asked, awaiting no response before I go into action.

I used the salt shaker in my right hand to punch the window so hard that it breaks at the impact but the punch wasn't stopping here at it landed right on the man that was on the driver seat, hitting him right below the right eye and bloodying him before wrapping my left arm around his neck to get him up and reach his gun at his belt as the other one was trying to get his one too but...

"Don't!" I ordered in a clear voice to the man, stopping him and aiming this friend's pistol at his face. "Show me," I said, causing him to take out his gun, holding it with two fingers at his grip. "Give it to me," I demanded, still complying as he handed over the gun, the cannon aiming at the ground and I took it in my left hand. "Let me guess, CIA?"

"Yes, we are," The man replied, his hands up. "It's 'Alex' who ordered us to follow you, said that it was 'orders from the top'," He added, giving me away what I needed.

"Hudson?" I suggested.

"I don't know, miss, that was the only thing he said to us, nothing else," The man responded, his eyes trying to look away from me as I moved my left hand to hide the second gun below my jacket, releasing the unconscious guy.

"Tell your 'Alex' that you don't follow me and my friends because if you continue, it's not because we're 'allies' that I will start to cut off every ears & eye of the CIA in London, is that clear?" I warned him and the man nodded in fear before I aimed down the gun. "I don't like being followed, hope that got well warned, asshole," I continued, done with those guys now, having given my warning.

Once done, I walked away from the scene, taking out the guns and disassembling them along the walk, unloading them and make them useless before throwing them both inside a trash bin on the other side of the street, crossing it like that to join back the restaurant and tell the others about what happened, still having the salt shaker between my fingers.

"We should go back to Century House," I spoke up when I arrived near the table with the others as Zasha got up, thinking that I wanted to sit back.

"What's wrong?" Zasha asked me, Park & Portnova looking at me confused.

"The CIA has followed us, the same two guys that were guarding our office are in this car at the other side of the street," I replied, pointing outside with my hand towards the black car who at the second I said this, was starting to drive away. "That's why I got to get outside,"

"Bloody hell," Park muttered, breathing in desperation of that. "They actually meant it that they were having their eyes on us," She continued, Portnova going up from her seat.

"What do we do now?" She demanded.

"Go back to Century House and...keep an eye at our backs now," I suggested to the trio who nodded at me in approval. "They will maybe still listen and keep watching us despite my warning," I thought as Park got up from her seat, Portnova putting on her jacket and Zasha taking the last sip of their coffee.

"You're right, let's go back to the MI6," Park whispered, moving to get next to me before Zasha & Portnova take the lead to get out of the restaurant, now having another personal problem to face in just one day...

"If it wasn't enough, the CIA has to stay the assholes they're always has been,"

[thecassadilla]

Change of Pace - Chapter 3

Pairing: Kristanna

Chapter 3 on AO3

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

Word Count: 3,481

Summary: With her sister’s blessing, Anna takes a step back from her royal duties and finds herself working for a ski resort nestled in the mountains. A chance encounter with the resort’s maintenance technician leads them down an unexpected path, as they must work together to plan the resort’s annual ball - and maybe fall in love in the process.

Author’s Note: Hi everyone! Happy December! I can’t believe it’s already December - like, I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but this has simultaneously been the fastest and slowest year of my entire life lol. Anyway, here’s the next chapter. I hope you enjoy it!!!

“I’m sorry...what? Are you kidding?...Okay, we’ll be right down,” Holly said, slamming the receiver down and standing up. “Come on, Anna, we have to go.”

“Wait, what happened? Where are we going?”

“We have to go to the ballroom,” Holly explained frantically. “Right now.”

Anna slid her chair back and stood up from her desk. “Did something happen?”

“Come on, we have to go.” 

“Can you please tell me what happened?”

“There’s some kind of an emergency, Bonnie didn’t go into detail but she said we have to talk to the maintenance guys because we may not be able to have the ball here.”

“What?”

Holly waved her hands dismissively. “I don’t know, we have to go.”

The two women ran out of the office and into the elevator, all the while Anna wondered what possibly could’ve happened that would have derailed their plans so far in advance. The party wasn’t for another three months, so she was trying to remain hopeful that whatever had happened could be rectified by then. Just as they reached the first floor and the doors slid open, Holly grabbed Anna by the wrist and began to pull her in the direction of the ballroom.

“Is this really necessary?” Anna asked, trying to pull back slightly. 

“Come on!” Holly answered frantically, tightening her grip and pulling harder.

“I don’t really have a choice!” 

They made it past the lobby and to the back area of the hotel where the ballroom was situated with only minimal staring; Anna imagined that two of them had to be quite funny to look at, especially considering that Holly was a lot shorter than her and had still managed to drag her across the length of the hotel.

When they finally reached the end of the hall, they were met by a tall, blond man staring at them with brooding eyes. Her first impression was that he was incredibly handsome and strong-looking, but she quickly made note of the fact that he seemed quite angry, as if he was having the worst day of his life. It did nothing to soothe her anxiety, and instead increased it tenfold. 

“What’s going on?” Holly asked breathlessly, finally dropping Anna’s wrist.

“Pipe burst in the ceiling,” he answered, irritatedly. “The ceiling is destroyed, the floors are destroyed, the tables and chairs are ruined.”

“How soon can it be fixed?”

“With damage like this? A couple of months, at the very least.”

“We’re supposed to be having a party here in less than three months. Will it be fixed by then?”

He scoffed before shaking his head. “Not a chance in hell.”

“Do you mind if I take a look?”

He shrugged. “Do I look like I care?”

Holly walked over to the entrance to the ballroom, opened one of the doors, and peered inside. In the meantime, stared at the stranger in front of her while he was keeping his eyes rolled towards the ceiling; his eyebrows were tightly drawn together, his lips were pulled downwards in a scowl that would not budge, and his nostrils were flared as he breathed heavily. Despite his agitated demeanor, he was quite attractive, and she thought back to the conversation she’d had with Holly about dating just that morning - maybe she had been looking in all the wrong places. And then he caught her looking at him and she quickly diverted her eyes to her feet, feeling her ears burn with shame.

“Okay, that’s bad. Like, really bad,” Holly announced upon returning.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Anna groaned. 

“I wish I was kidding.”

“First, Jenny quits and now this?! What am I supposed to do?”

Holly took a deep breath before placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, Anna. There are plenty of other venues in the area - not here in Valley, but within a few miles. You’ll have to call around, but we can’t think of this as a death sentence.”

She shook her head, trying to maintain her composure and avoid a breakdown. “This is terrible. No, it’s worse than terrible - it’s a literal nightmare.”

Holly nodded sympathetically. “I know. I’m sorry. Look, I’m going to see if Bonnie is in her office and then I’ll go through Jenny’s paperwork and see if she had any connections to catering halls nearby. We’ll have better luck if we start calling around right away.”

“Thanks,” Anna said, though as soon as the other woman was out of earshot, she turned back to the man. “Are you certain that the repairs will take that long?”

“Do you want to see the damage for yourself?” he offered. “The entire room has to be gutted. It’s not an easy fix.”

She nodded, and he motioned to the door. She peaked inside and her jaw nearly hit the floor; the room was in shambles, far worse than she could have imagined. “One pipe caused this much destruction?”

“Unfortunately.”

“This is unbelievable.” She raised her hands to cover her mouth. “Oh my god, what am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t…I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” she sighed. “At least I have some time to find a venue. Thanks for letting us know.”

He fidgeted in place for a moment, and just as she started to turn away and head back up to the office, he called out to her. “What if I told you that I know a place?”

“You do?” 

He motioned for her to follow him, and he led her over to the textured map on the wall of the lobby, before pointing to a building that was located in the mountains. “Right there.”

She squinted. “What is that? Where is that?”

“It’s a huge, empty building that was supposed to be a restaurant, but they scrapped the idea when they expanded the resort. You can take the C Ski Lift up there and check it out for yourself.”

“There’s a ski lift that leads to an empty building?”

“It doesn’t lead directly there,” he explained. “It’s not a far walk from the hot chocolate bar, which is the first stop.”

“I’ve never been up there,” she admitted. “I don’t take the ski lifts. I don’t even ski.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You work at a ski resort and you don’t ski?”

“I’m not proud of it. If it’s not too much to ask, would you mind taking me up there? I can’t pitch it to Bonnie unless I know what I’m working with.”

“...I don’t take people places.”

“Please,” she begged. “I’ve never been up there and I really don’t know where I’m going.”

“Fine,” he reluctantly agreed. “I guess I can do that.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you so much, you may have just saved me.”

“No problem. Let me just go tell my boss that I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Okay,” she agreed, watching as entered the decimated ballroom. She rocked back and forth from her heels to the tips of her toes and rolled her shoulders back in an attempt to relieve some of the tension that built up while she was freaking out. In no time, he emerged.

“Let’s go,” he said, as he strode past her.

She raced to catch up to him. “I don’t believe I caught your name.”

He glanced over at her for a moment before answering. “Kristoff.”

“I’m Anna,” she smiled, offering him her hand. 

He paused to shake it before pulling his hand away and continuing. “So, uh, how’d you get roped into this? You said someone quit?”

“My boss did - it was very unexpected. I was her assistant and now I’m...her.” 

“Isn’t that a good thing? You got a promotion.”

“A promotion I did not want, or ask for. A promotion that is requiring me to finish planning a huge party with not much time to spare - something that I’ve never done before, by the way. And to top it all off, the one easy part of my job got destroyed today when a pipe burst.”

As soon as the automatic doors opened and the blustery wind hit her, she crossed her bare arms over her chest to preserve any warmth she could. It probably wasn’t the best idea to agree to an outdoor excursion without a coat or any other winter attire. 

“Weren’t you around the last time your boss planned this party?” he asked, as they got into the queue for the C Ski Lift. There was no line, so when the next gondola approached, they climbed in and the doors closed around them. “Like, can’t you just go off of memory and try to replicate everything from last year?”

She sat down before shaking her head. “I just started working here in September. This will be the first and last time I’m responsible for something like this.”

“Last?”

“Yeah, I’m only here until the season ends and then I’m going home.”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “Home?”

“I’m not from here,” she explained. “I’m here temporarily for work.”

“Oh, sorry, most people who work here are from this area and I just assumed.”

“Are you?”

He faltered for a moment before answering. “Yeah, I live in town. I’ve worked here for a few years and I’ll probably work here until the day I die.”

“That’s depressing.”

“Not everyone can afford to travel around and work temporary jobs,” he pointed out.

She grimaced. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. If it’s any consolation, I was born into, um...my family’s business, so I don’t have much of a choice in terms of my career, either.”

“Our stop is coming up,” he said, changing the subject and saving her from any further embarrassment.

The car pulled into the station, and when the doors opened they stepped onto the platform. 

“That’s the hot chocolate bar?” she asked, pointing to the small building next to the ski lift station. 

“Yup,” he answered. “We just have to take this path and we’ll be there.”

All she could see to the left of her was snow. Lots and lots of snow. “I don’t see a path.”

“It’s buried.” And without further hesitation, he started along the hidden path,  burying them deep in the snow and then pulling his legs straight up with each step.

“You would think they would shovel this every once in a while,” she remarked with a scoff, taking the bottom of her midi dress in her hands and stepping into the two foot deep pile. With each step she took, the cold snow fell onto the tops of her exposed feet and she sorely wished that she’d managed to put her snow boots on before she left the office. She was only partially grateful that she’d chosen to wear a dress today. Though the snow was stinging her legs, it was better than the alternative - wearing cold, damp pants until her heater managed to dry them.

He glared at her. “First of all, nobody ever comes this way so the path doesn’t have to be cleared. And second, you’re talking to one of the guys who would be responsible for shoveling if it was necessary for this path to be cleared.”

“Today is really not my day,” she groaned, feeling her cheeks heat up. “I am so sorry.”

“Let’s just make this fast, okay? I have to get back to work.”

Luckily, the building wasn’t very far from the station, and they were there in no time. Her first impression was that the building was large and could seemingly accommodate the amount of guests that were invited. There was an entire wall that was made of paneled glass, which provided an excellent view of the ski resort down below, the snow covered trees that surrounded the area, and even the sky. The interior was much more modern than the ballroom, with hardwood floors as opposed to carpet, elegant chandeliers dangling from the high ceiling, wall sconces, and a neutral color scheme. 

“Wow, it’s so nice! I love all of the windows,” she said excitedly, as she peered through the glass. “And it’s huge inside. There will definitely be enough room for the guests and a dance floor, and tables and chairs. And you said that it was supposed to be a restaurant, so there must be a kitchen where the caterers could set up and store the food. I actually think this may work.”

“Told you.”

“You’re a lifesaver! I just need to figure out a way to get all the equipment up here and then I think I’ll be all set.”

“There’s a road right over there.” He pointed to the large clearing between two wooded areas. “It hasn’t been plowed, but if Bonnie is willing to let you have your party here, it’ll get done. The path will be shoveled, too, so people can take the ski lift up from the hotel and walk over.”

“Seriously, you’re the best!”

Before he could respond, she’d managed to pull him into a hug, squeezing his waist tightly. He awkwardly patted her on the back until she pulled away.

“Sorry, I probably should’ve asked if it was okay to hug you.” She sheepishly tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m just so thankful that you showed me this place.”

He cleared his throat, obviously a bit flustered from the sudden contact. “It’s fine.”

“We should probably head back now,” she said. “You said you have to get back to work, and I’d like to run this by Bonnie.”

“Good idea.”

By the time they got back to the ski lift station, her teeth were chattering and she was shaking like a leaf. She couldn’t wait to get back to the resort and warm up, deciding then and there that she’d never venture out into the cold without the proper attire ever again. As soon as they were seated in the gondola, she bent down to rub her reddened legs with her hands, hoping the friction would heat them up faster.

“You should probably wear snow pants and boots.”

“To be fair, I work in an office,” Anna rebuked, glancing up at him. He quickly diverted his eyes away, as if he’d been staring at her. “I wasn’t expecting to come outside and walk through the snow.”

“Touché.”

“At least I can go back upstairs and sit next to a space heater for the rest of the day.”

“Be careful with those things, they catch fire easily.”

“I wish I could go without it, but I’m not keen on numb toes,” she laughed. “But I do remember to turn it off and unplug it before I leave for the day.”

“Good, the last thing we need is another disaster.”

“Tell me about it. It’s been quite an eventful day.”

“I’d describe it as hellish, personally,” he remarked. “I had a bad feeling about today. I thought about calling out.”

“Really? That’s so interesting,” she mused. “I had a great feeling about today.”

“Well, you were given a promotion and I was given a huge mess to clean up.”

“I didn’t want the promotion,” she reminded him. “If it makes you feel any better about today, you’re basically a hero in my eyes. You literally saved the day.”

He offered her a lopsided smile. “How about you hold off on the gratitude until Bonnie approves this as the new location?”

“You don’t have to be so humble.”

“It’s really not a big deal,” he said with a shrug, standing up just as their gondola reached the station. 

They stepped onto the platform and speed-walked toward the entrance of the hotel in a silent attempt to escape the blustery cold. 

“Thank you again,” Anna said, once they’d reached the lobby. 

“You’re welcome. And I believe the person you’re looking for is right over there.” He pointed to the front desk, where Bonnie was engrossed in conversation with another employee.

“We have to go tell her. Come on,” Anna insisted, motioning for him to follow, which he did. “Excuse me, Bonnie?”

The tall woman spun around at the sound of her name and smiled. “What can I do for you, Anna?”

“I may have found a location for the ball,” Anna explained. “I wanted to talk to you about it.”

Bonnie nodded excitedly. “Go on.”

“What do you think of the empty building near the hot chocolate bar? It’s big so it should accommodate the amount of guests on our list, there will be enough room for a dance floor and a buffet, and it’s on property.”

“What a wonderful idea!” Bonnie gushed, clapped her hands together. “How did you come up with that?”

“It was all Kristoff’s idea,” Anna insisted, motioning to him. “I really can’t take any credit.”

“Really?” she raised an eyebrow, looking over at him. “Well, I think I found your new assistant, then.”

Kristoff’s face fell. “Excuse me?”

“You’re going to help Anna finish planning the party. We won’t have enough time to hire a new assistant event planner, and since you came up with the idea to use that building as the venue, then you can assist with the rest of the planning.”

“No, no, no,” he interjected. “I am not a party planner. I’m a maintenance technician, and that ballroom is currently in shambles. I have plenty of other things that I’m supposed to be doing.”

“Relax, it’s only temporary. As soon as the season is over, you will return to your regular position.”

“But -”

She raised a single finger and he stopped talking. “No buts. Starting on Monday, you will report to the event office upstairs and you will assist Anna, or you will be looking for employment elsewhere.”

Bonnie’s word was final, and as she walked away from the two of them, Anna finally gained the courage to look at Kristoff’s face - which was clearly a mistake, because if looks could k*ll, she’d surely be d*ad.

And once again, she found herself apologizing to him. “I’m so sorry, Kristoff, I had no idea that she was going to do that.”

“Why did you tell her that I was involved?”

“Because you deserve the credit! I didn’t even know that that building existed until you told me about it.”

“You shouldn’t have said anything,” he snapped. 

“You don’t even have to help me,” she insisted, trying to placate him. “You can sit in the office for the next couple of months and not do anything, and I won’t tell her, I swear. Kind of like a paid vacation - just come to the office and play on your phone.”

“And what do you plan on telling Bonnie when she comes in and sees that I’m not doing anything?”

“I don’t know! I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”

“I guess I should start looking for a new job,” he sneered, before marching away. 

She felt herself physically deflate; she had made mistakes before, but she’d never managed to make someone that upset. It wasn’t even technically her fault, it was Bonnie’s fault but she still felt horrible. She stood in place for a moment before slinking over to the elevator and ascending to the third floor.

“Where’ve you been?” Holly asked, as soon as she re-entered the office.

“I found a new venue for the party,” she answered, in a low voice.

“How’d you manage to do that?”

“That maintenance guy knew a place,” she explained. “Right here on property, not too far from the last stop on the C Ski Lift.” 

“Ooh, the maintenance guy! He was really cute! Did you get his number?”

“No, he hates my guts.”

Holly’s eyes widened. “Wait, what? Why?”

“I think I ruined his life.”

“Anna, what are you talking about?”

“I thought that he deserved recognition for finding a new venue for us, so I mentioned it to Bonnie. Now she’s forcing him to step away from his maintenance job and be my assistant for the rest of the season.”

“Why would she do that?”

Anna shrugged half-heartedly. “I don’t know, but he’s not happy about it and I don’t blame him.”

“You were doing the right thing, though. He can’t hold that against you. It’s literally not your fault.”

“I don’t know, Holly, he seemed very upset with me.”

“You’re the sweetest person on the planet. I guarantee that he won’t be able to stay mad at you for very long.”

“I guess we’ll see what happens on Monday.”

With a resigned sigh, she retreated to her desk and buried her face in her hands. How the day had gone from bad to worse in the blink of an eye? She wasn’t sure, but her snap judgment when she saw Kristoff in the lobby and assumed he was enduring the worst day of his life was correct - if only she had assumed that this would be her worst day ever, too. 

[vgm-in-irregular-time-of-the-day]

DAY 1850) Tron 2.0 - Credits Medley

Composer: Nathan Grigg, Wendy Carlos

Given that this is a medley; there’s lots of timesig changes but they’re more like unrelated sections from each other, often totally fading in/out or with ambiguous pauses, so I’ll just talk about each section separately.

0:00 - 1:29 is all just 4/4, frantic drums, crazy synth sound design, but no odd time really for this section.

1:29 - 1:44 i’m counting as triplets in mixed meter: 4/4, 4/4, 5/4, 5/4, 6/4, 5/4, 4/4. if you were to count those as 8ths instead of triplets it’d be more like 12/8, 12/8, 15/8, 15/8, 18/8, 15/8, 12/8 (replace the 8s with 16s if you’re going to be weird like me and count them as 16ths if you find x/16 more natural to think about for some reason) !

1:46 - 2:17 is polymetric! The syncopated bell-like synth ostinato is in 7/8, but the slower synth hits and most everything else behind it really are in 6/4. For a short bit before 2:17 I guess there’s some 5/8 polymeter in one of the synth layers also. Some other more ambiguous stuff you might be able to interpret as even further layers of polymeter but the point is like, yeah this part’s lots of layers looping in different loop lengths from each other on top of each other!

2:17 - 3:06′s at a bit faster a tempo than the previous section. Also polymetric but a lot simpler case of it. 4/4 in that metallic bell-like synth rhythm, and 6/4 polymeter in the beeps under it from 2:17 - 2:42

3:06 - 4:03, here it’s 6/4 through most of the parts of this that have enough of a rhythm to latch onto something, which only really happens starting with the echoy drums that come in at 3:31.

4:03 - 4:45 is interesting; this is taken from “FCon/The Root of the Problem (Combat)”, which is one of the tracks I have on my biiiiig queue of possible tracks to eventually post on here but never happened to ever post. I’d count this snippet of it as all 7+8, 15/16, but just being aware that there’s a constant four-on-the-floor “4/4″ kick acting “polymetric” to it from the bits at 4:15 - 4:21 / 4:27 - 4:34.

4:45 - end is all loose, but just 4/4 stuff whenever concretely countable

Hopefully I addressed everything important here! there’s a lot going on in all of these sections, so it wouldn’t surprise me if I missed an obvious polymeter layer or something and just didn’t realize it! Lots of these sections come from other tracks in the game too, so are in a bit different of a context musically from their amalgamation here. Obviously wild tempo changes between each section that i’m not bothering to write out lol

This is a great cross section of the crazy stuff present throughout this ost though, tron 2.0 is totally one of the most odd time/polymeter/etc filled game soundtracks out there. Part of that’s obvious influence from Wendy Carlos’s original score to the 1982 film being much like that (and this game borrowing a lot of the material she wrote), but Nathan Grigg’s style is always full of that kinda thing as well, and he only adds to that intricacy in his original additions to the mix!

For all those reasons I thought this would be a pretty good sort-of-sendoff for this blog i’ve been running for over 5 years...........

....so...

...!

...THE FINAL DAY sort of...! As I said many posts ago (https://vgm-in-irregular-time-of-the-day.tumblr.com/post/623135939348365312/day-1828-shining-force-cd-track-25-composer) [probably a better read than my post right now here today], this will be my final post that’s in the “1 song presented with a text post daily” format; I’ll take a break but I will eventually shift to talking about this again in (most likely) YT video vgm mixes, including other related content besides just the very specific odd timesig stuff in vgm too!

Thank you to everyone who has supported me all this time! ULTRA SPECIAL SHOUT OUT TO CHz who has helped me out with this blog FAR more than anyone could possibly imagine, he’s done far more work than anyone ever needed to do, far beyond my expectations to help me along with this. And he doesn’t get enough credit for that, this blog would’ve probably died a long time ago without chz’s help. Thank you so much CHz for all your assistance! Sharing me things you remember when I’m in desperate need of a new track to post at the last minute, uploading so much music for me, helping me organize so much, writing out timesig charts for me so many times, sharing overwhelmingly huge amounts of odd time vgm with me, probably even more than anyone else. So many other things all these years you’ve helped me with on here, I can’t thank you enough!

That said, thank you to EVERYONE who has shared odd time vgm with me (and this is like, a LOT of people, far too many to list, and i’m sure plenty would be uncomfortable being listed too, so i won’t subject this post to that).

I’m very bad at responding to PMs and other messages sent to me; I apologize greatly if i’ve left you hanging for months...or years...or forever. I’m just bad at that form of communication lol, but I’ve read the majority of what’s been sent and still try to keep as much as possible in my big list backlog of stuff to eventually post. I get excited and happy when I see people linking me new odd time vgm i’ve never heard and stuff like that; so if i’ve never responded or never posted stuff you’ve linked me here, please know that I actually do appreciate it even if i might not show it haha. I’ve honestly mostly only maintained this blog pretty sporadically and rely heavily on queuing everything in advance on occasion, rather than constant observation of it.

Once i shift to the new format of presentation i’ll still include the suggestions that’ve been linked to me, and stuff. I’ll maybe try to be more communicative in the future now that i’m not going to be bogged down by the load of keeping a constant daily stream of these posts. (though i probably won’t be paying too much attention to tumblr for a while during my break from doing this stuff)

thank you to everyone for every positive comment, every intent to help by sharing, and just...general inquisitiveness and enthusiasm about this THING i’m doing for no reason! This is all literally just me nerding out about my favorite combination of niche subjects together “proggy/mathy/etc music” and “video game music” at the same time as each other. I never expected this would get anything close to the following it’s gotten, but now occasionally it’ll get pointed out that this blog is me in some group i’m in or something and 5 people will be like “WAIT...that’s YOU?! I’ve been watching that blog for years!” or something; like i’m really startled by how many people follow this sometimes lol.

Really thankful for everyone showing interest in me just being me, having fun talking about things i like in music. I hope that can continue even if i’ll be changing what I talk about and how I talk about it!

It might be quite a while before I return to doing this kind of thing again, and it’ll definitely be a much less constant pace, but I think that trade-off be worth it. I’ll return to making posts here again when I finally have new stuff to post, big video mixes with animated visual transcriptions or WHATever i wind up doing (probably a new dedicated youtube channel for the new stuff too) and stuff! I’ll find out what that will be when I get there

Thank you all for everything!

THank you!

WOW

THANKJ YOU for all 5 years of this website being a fun place to post music i like inside of

BYE

OH WAIt here’s my twitter/soundcloud/etc links and stuff if you want to contact me in a place i’ll be far more attentive to than tumblr, since i won’t be paying attention to here for a while:

https://twitter.com/chimeratio_

https://soundcloud.com/chimeratio

ok now ACTUALLY BYE

THANK YOUI

(thank you part 2)

[samssimsarchive]

i love your sims and your storytelling!!! do you have any advice for storytelling/story writing? i really want to start my own simblr, but i dont know how to make an intriguing story -bee

Thank you!! And a very interesting question, I am probably not the best person to ask since I have like 17 stories and can never seem to stick to one. But I’ll offer some advice that could help: 

This got longer than I thought so under the cut for more: 

Find something you like

Find the subject you want to write about. Magic! Mermaids! Magic mermaids! Find the theme you want to go with. Romance or action or both. Find your niche and dig in!

Create the characters!

The coolest part of sim stories is how visual they are. They personally combine both my interests of writing and movie directing because you are doing literally everything (the sets, the sims, setting the scene, the dialogue) like you are the director putting this show on. And that’s just such a creatively cool thing we get to do with this game. Have fun in Create-A-Sim. Push and pull places you haven’t before. Match clothes you would never. See who you get. And then get to know them. 

Have fun with the game

Reminder that you are playing the sims. And honestly maybe you wrote something but your sim does something totally different in game. Roll with it. Or don’t But keep you options open and have fun with it. Let your sims create their own story when you get stuck!

Have fun with it! 

If you are not having fun, set it aside, work on a secondary (or like your seventh project if you are like me) and come back when you are feeling inspired. Don’t stress yourself out over it. And so long as you are having fun with it, it’s going to be a fun read! 

Utilize the queue.

Tumblr isn’t always the best sharing platform but there are pros and cons. I use the queue to set up my post about a week in advance so I can work on my projects during the week and just queue them over the weekend or whenever I am feeling inspired to. That way I don’t have to stress about being on here every day for an update. And it’s okay if your post rate is only 1 or 2 posts a day. And it’s also okay if you don’t use the queue at all. Post when you are ready to share content. This is your story, not a race.

Use Sims as a rough draft. 

In this I mean, don’t stress if it isn’t perfect. The good news about sims is you can reboot it at any time. Or keep moving forward and learning. I promise if you continue writing on a simblr you will improve with practice and first generations always tend to look weaker as you grow and become more confident in your writing. And that’s okay!!! Growth is good! Do not be afraid you are too “weak” to start. Everyone starts somewhere. (Looking at you DPR Gen 1-5 and BPR Gen 1-3)

Use Inspiration

I for one love tropes. Use some common tropes. One Bed? Love Triangle? If it’s interesting to you and self indulgent for you, then it’s going to be fun to read about. Create the story you want to create. Retell a story but change all the genders and make it gay (hey @lazarish good job!). This story is for you. What content is missing from your world? Go out and write it! 

Plan Ahead

I say this loosely because I plan nothing, lol. I am writing dialogue as I queue. But some people have tons of files with scenes and dialogue and things scripted out. It’s different for every person. My biggest advice in this category is just to have an end goal. Know your characters are going to start at Point A and need to get to Point T but wherever they go along the way can be looser so long as you keep going toward that end goal. And if that end goal changes midway through writing because you figured out Point R was actually where we were going, well, that’s just writing.

I am sure I have more and would love to talk more about writing or storytelling at any time! If you have anymore questions or want more advice, feel free to drop me another line in my inbox and I’ll rattle your ear off more about it. I love story telling (as you can tell from my million unfinished stories....) and writing and using the sims to do it. It’s such a fun and creative way to see your work really come to life. 

Thank you for this ask! And if you made it all the way to the bottom, bless your heart. I hope something in here helps!

[fundielicious-simblr]

wips!

Hey y’all, author here (still feels weird calling myself that ngl) I was inspired by @meetthefundies​ post about pose making from a while back and decided I’d take the dive and finally get into cc making for the sims 4. It’s always something that I’d thought about, and with corona basically shutting everything down I’ve had ample time to try and learn how to do things. The whole of last month was basically a bunch of trial and error, YouTube watching, and Tumblr scrolling (coupled with my parents asking why I have pictures of random white people saved onto my google drive almost every other night 😂💀)

In the middle of august my dad caught corona, and so the government isolated my whole family and I in the house (he’s all better now thankfully) for 2 weeks, meaning I had 14 uninterrupted days of just coming up with different designs and trying to make things work. So this post is to basically just put out there what I’ve been working on, a few have made it into my game to be play tested, but so far only one has actually left CAS 😂 I know these are definitely major works in progress, but my anxiety means that I’d keep redoing things over and over again in an attempt at perfection while the rational side of me tells me that everyone has a starting point - this one is just mine. Anyway, I’m rambling (as usual), so let me just post the damn picture so I can go back to actually working on these pieces 😂😂

I’ll start with the casual clothes,

This is what I’m working on right now, ironically it’s the easiest thing I’ve done so far. This is essentially one of those ‘Snoga’ sports skirt things that fundies wear, this is the second round because the first had annoying clipping that meant I had to go in and change the design. If this one turns out fine enough then I will make different skirt/legging length combinations, but for now I just need this to be usable enough in game to warrant making different styles. 

Sleeveless frumper dress thing (I’ll sit down and come up with names for these later 😂) 

This was inspired by Anna Marie Maxwell and her #fabulous frumpers as well as the frumpers the Maxwells used to wear in the 2000s, I stalked the Maxwell blog right back to the beginning and just started saving pictures 💀 This is so far the only thing that’s made it into an actual game save, and you’ll be seeing a sim or two wearing this in different swatches in around a month since my queue is now below one month long. This dress is probably between the 8th and 10th attempt at making a basic frumper as this is what I started trying to make as I was trying to learn everything I could about making cc.

Basic short sleeved cheap looking dress (like I said, official names will come later 😂)

This your basic average amazon dress that fundies love ( a la bates sisters boutique style) I’m at that point where my instagram explore page thinks I’m a 14 year old Apostolic girl or a baptist mother of 8 looking to change my style, so I have a wealth of inspiration to choose from 😂 This is something I made and forgot about because I got excited about the exercise skirt almost working in game, meaning that this hasn't even made it into blender yet. 

Now we can move onto the formal stuff:

Ruffle mother of the bride/groom dress

This is my attempt on that blue ruffle dress that Kelly Jo Bates wore to Erin and Zach’s weddings. I initially tried to make it exactly like the dress she wore, but then I realised I was falling into the tendency of making things hard on myself unnecessarily 😂 This has made its way into CAS but there was some awkward clipping around the arms which I need to fix in blender, and will fix the textures before I can try and test it again.

Fishscale type dress 

Yup, you guessed it, this is my take on that dress. This made it into blender, but seeing the uv_0 layout made me go “eek” and distract myself with something else 💀 I’m probably going to go in and change the design, take some creative license and change the ‘fishscales’ around because there's only so much space in the uv map. 

Wedding Dress 1 aka the ‘Anna Marie’

I’ve highkey been calling this one the ‘Anna Marie’ in my folders because this wedding dress is directly inspired by hers (fyi: this link does take you directly to the Maxwell family blog, that web archive website is banned where I live and I’m not sure how to upload an archived link with my vpn on cause sometimes my laptop starts moving mad) This dress is one step away from being tested in game, and was so far the easiest dress to ‘design’ because there's literally nothing on it. I have been watching some more advanced texturing tutorials and want to try and make this look a bit better than it came out in my initial texturing attempts before I bring it I game to test.

Wedding Dress 2 aka the ‘Elissa’

This dress was inspired by Elissa Maxwell’s wedding dress, there's not many close up details of her dress so at some point I just got creative and probably the only thing I can really lend to her dress is the gathering on the side. The bolero came in as an idea after I had attempted doing these cute sleeves but was defeated after a while, so I changed things up so as not to frustrate myself 😂 This dress also has a bit more texturing needed before I can attempt to see how it looks in CAS, but I think I'll just see what happens with this one.

Wedding Dress 3 aka the EBP

In my head this dress was meant to resemble what Erin Bates Paine wore to her wedding, as in, a dress that is fine and would be considered modest (albeit a bit dated) but is chopped and skewed to make it EVEN MORE modest. The kind of changes that are obvious so the whole world knows you’re extra special and extra modest. This dress was an experiment as I played around and attempted to construct a corset back for this dress and the ruched tacked on sleeves, which turned out alright but it needs a bit of tweaking here and there, as well as an overhaul of the initial texture I'd tried out for this dress. In the notes app on my phone the initial look I was going for with this dress was “EBP overly frilly disaster” because that’s what I thought her wedding dress was like, but when I found pictures I decided I’d save the overly frilly disaster for when I was slightly better at the whole cc making thing.

Anyway, this is what I’ve got for now, I’ve got a swim dress thing next on my list which might be slightly easier to bring from start to finish? Not sure, at this point its hit and miss with how the weights transfer which affects the end result. I do have to say, seeing all these unfinished things laid out has sort of reinvigorated me to try and finish what I’ve already started before making something else, especially since a lot of them just require me to play around with the texture.