#Real Virtual Theater

[xxplastic-cubexx]

chat htey fuckin jumpscared me while im trying to do my assignment

[broke-art]

Macaque x Fangirl reader

"You must be my biggest fan." The hooded storyteller leaned down next to your seat. "I hope that journal isn't to steal my stories." He gestures to the open notebook in your lap.

"What?! No! No of course not." You promised hurriedly. "Your stories are so good but, they're yours. I couldn't tell them half as well. No I'm-" paused trying to collect your thoughts. You certainly had been taking notes but not to steal anything. It's just the story reminded you so much of someone.

The hooded figure smiled indulgently.

"And who is that?" He asked clearly meaning the sketches next to your notes.

Some heat flared to life in your cheeks.

"Oh that is my depiction of the six earred Macaque." You explained ensuring to keep your eyes glued to the journal. "He was the brother of the monkey king? Played a super important role." You rambled. "Actually your story reminds me of-" the words died in your throat as you saw his grin slowly turn into a slight frown.

"You.....you know about the six earred Macaque?" He said slowly.

You nodded slightly.

"He's my favorite. It's really unfortunate how he died." You mumbled with a shrug.

The figure seemed to flinch a bit but when you looked at him he pasted on a grin that felt a touch forced.

"Sooo....you're a fangirl?"

A blushed burned at your cheeks and you tensed.

"I wouldn't call it that!" You shook your head adamantly.

The figure chuckled.

"Hey it's nothing to be ashamed about. Although-" He sat next to you thoughtfully touching a hand to his chin. "Why does my story remind you of him?"

You blinked.

"Uhm well it's pretty well known that when Sun wukong and Macaque parted ways it wasn't under the most...ahem....amiable conditions."

For a moment you thought you heard the man mutter under his breath, 'No kidding' But you couldn't be sure.

"But Macaque was still pretty renowned in his own way and when they did work together they were virtually unstoppable!" You slipped into explanations and gushed about how cool you believed the monkey brothers were.

That was until your own brother ran into the theater.

"Y/n! I can't find Mei or the others any-" He stopped short suddenly and summoned his staff.

"Macaque. I should have known."

"Wha-"

"Get away from my sister. Now." M.k growled twirling the staff.

A low chuckle sounded behind you making you stiffen and slowly turn.

The man pulled back the hood to reveal a black monkey with purple eyes and a wicked grin.

"Ohohoho sister huh?" He looked at you with a risen brown and you felt your gut twist in knots.

"So... Fangirl." He addressed you stepping towards you. "Ready to meet the real deal?"

"I said-" Gold flared around M.k just before he launched at Macaque. "Get back!"

You screamed and raised your arms as purple and gold magic clashed and the resulting sonic blast threw you back into the bleachers.

"Careful there, bud." Macaque's mockery reached you just as your shadow morphed under you. "Wouldn't want someone to get hurt !"

At the last word the shadow opened a portal in the floor.

With a gasp you reached for M.k as you fell only to see him lunge for you.

"Y/N!" He shouted only for his fingertips to just brush your own before the world vanished into a void of black.

You came to with a groan touching a hand to your head.

"M.k you've got some explaining to do." Pigsy groused somewhere in the background as you got your bearings. Slowly, as the world righted yourself you spotted your journal.

You picked it up carefully as M.k dashed out the doors for some unknown reason. You flicked through the pages and froze on your latest page.

'To my biggest fan. Thanks for coming to the show. Was nice to hear someone remembers me. ' - Macaque.

You blinked and despite yourself you smiled slowly. Perhaps you really were a fangirl.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

I saw your post where anon asked "what is sex" and you responded "sex is anything you want it to be sex" and it reminded me of a discussion I had in a class about theater production. During the pandemic lockdown many production companies in my city, both big and independent companies, started doing virtual theater via Zoom and there were a lot of purists clutching their pearls because "it's not Real Theater if it's through a screen". We were debating in class wether it counts or not as Real Theater and I said "virtual theater is theater the same way sexting is sex, if it brings you pleasure then it counts" and the professor almost spit his coffee.

extremely true and also the people whining about virtual theater not counting are wieners. just btw.

[soon-palestine]

So it turns out that Elons trip to Israel wasn't just for kosher theater and an IDF propaganda tour.

A secret meeting took place while he was there that went virtually unreported by any news media outlets.

In attendance was Netanyahu, Musk's tour organizer, investor Omri Casspi, Brigadier General Danny Gold, Head of the Israeli Directorate of Defense Research & Development and one of the developers of Iron Dome, Aleph venture capital funds partner Michael Eisenberg, and Israeli cybersecurity company CHEQ CEO Guy Tytunovich who is ex-israeli intelligence unit 8200.

The six men talked about technology in the service of Israel's defense, dealing with fake content and anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli comments, and the use by non-democratic countries of bots as part of campaigns to change perceptions, including on the X platform.

The solution Musk was presented was the Israeli unicorn CHEQ, a company founded by ex-Israeli intelligence unit 8200 CEO Guy Tytunovich that combats bots and fake users.

Following the meeting, Elon signed an agreement with cheQ, and apparently, the reason for the quick closing of the deal was Elons "direct involvement" with the company.

Now. What they won't tell you.

Israel is primarily responsible for the creation of bots. There currently exists dozens of ex-Israeli intelligence firms whose sole purpose is perception management, social media influencing/manipulation, disinformation campaigns, psychological operations, opposition research, and honey traps.

They create state of art, multi layer, AI avatars that are virtually indistinguishable from a real human online. They infiltrate target audiences with these elaborately crafted social-media personas and spread misleading information through websites meant to mimic news portals. They secretly manipulate public opinion across app social media platforms.

The applications of this technology are endless, and it has been used for character assassination, disruption of activism/protest, creating social upheaval/civil unrest, swaying elections, and toppling governments.

These companies are all founded by ex-Israeli intelligence and members of unit 8200. When they leave their service with the Israeli government, they are backed by hundreds of billions of dollars through Israeli venture capital groups tied to the Israeli government.

These companies utilize the technology and skills learned during their time served with Israeli intelligence and are an extension of the Israeli government that operates in the private sector.

In doing so, they operate with impunity across all geographical borders and outside the bounds of the law. The Israeli government is forbidden by law to spy on US citizens, but "ex" Israeli intelligence has no such limitations, and no laws currently exist to stop them.

Now back to X and Elon Musk.

Elon met with these people in secret to discuss how to use X in service of Israel's defense.

Elon hired an ex-Israeli intelligence firm to combat the bots…. that were created by another ex-israeli intelligence firm.

Elon hired an ex-israeli intelligence firm to verify your identity and collect your facial biometric data.

Do you see the problem yet?

Israel now has end to end control over X. Israel can conduct psychological operations and create social disinfo/influence campaigns on X with impunity. They now have facial biometric data from millions of people that can be used to create and populate these AI generated avatars.

They can manipulate public opinion, influence congressmen and senators, disrupt online movements, manipulate the algorithm to silence dissenting voices against Israel, and they can sway the US elections.

When the company that was hired to combat the bots is also Israeli intelligence…

Who is going to stop them?

Cyberspace is the wild.west. There are currently no laws on the books to regulate foreign influence on social media. There is nothing to stop them from conducting psychological operations and disinformation campaigns on unsuspecting US citizens. These companies operate with impunity across all geographical boundaries and there is nobody to stop them. But don't take my word for it.

For anyone wondering what the end game is for this, it was recently verbalized by Vivek Ramaswamy here on X. To narrow and completely eliminate the gap between what we say (think) in private and in public. In practice, the thought police of the future. And X is actively working on it.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

by: Beck Levy

“Maybe now vocalists will finally start bringing their own mics,” I tweeted in the first days of March 2020. My virtual audience was mostly friends I met by participating in subcultures in and adjacent to the DIY tendency of hardcore punk rock. In those early days, we on the cultural fringes shared a sense that the pandemic, in its capacity as a social intervention, could meaningfully disrupt the oppressive ruling order.

When I booked and played shows before COVID-19 hit, I tried to harness energy and rally when crisis arose. Touring band is lost on the road? I was ready to DJ to keep people from leaving between sets. No one came to unlock the club? Let’s play in the parking lot. The last show I’d played, just weeks earlier during Mardi Gras, was on a trailer being pulled by a dump truck. We’re responsive to shifting circumstances, right?

I couldn’t get a clear look at the new terrain through the brutal haze of my first-wave infection. I was disoriented, waking up breathless, fevered, delirious from nightmares about drowning in my own blood. I could not fathom taking any action that would contribute to COVID-19 circulating, and my symptoms made me believe I would be a risk to my community. With home tests scarce, every flare had me conceiving of myself as though I might be a biological weapon.

Friends texted their fears to me frantically: “Is music over? Are shows done?” I thought back to informal and unconventional gigs, the freedom and potentiality those moments held, and reassured my friends, sequestered in our separate biomes. I said and believed: “Music always finds a way, youth culture always finds a way, underground culture always finds a way.”

Slowly, reimagined, remote, and socially-distanced events returned. In lieu of Jazz Fest, New Orleans radio station WWOZ charmed us with “festing in place” on the airwaves. I did a solo set in a virtual anniversary showcase for my old record label. Another friend live streamed a show from a cavernous church. I’d guessed performances mediated by technology might salt the wound, but desperate for connection, I treasured those experiences.

I watched my place in the world creep away from me. There were rumors of scandalous secret shows during lockdown. But the first real sign was pictures on Instagram of people traveling and touring again. Scroll to that last image: a row of COVID-19 tests, all negative, smug. Or positive, chagrined but only a little; a mismatch to the scale of: “For fun I traveled as a disease vector and personally participated in the proliferation of an airborne pathogen that can kill or maim.” Was it a character limit? A limitation of character?

The world passed me by, carouseling through normalization phases, like COVID-19 tests phasing their way out of tour posts. I watched scenes regroup from my new vantage point in biopolitical exile. Pandemic gloom catalyzed a spate of reunions, which is wholesome and beautiful except for the fact that at least one band knowingly toured with a member who tested positive.

Was I overreacting? While COVID-19 left me with an immune system that attacks my body, my mind attacked itself with this question. I’d traded amps for this mental feedback loop. The counterargument was implicit: people need unfettered access to music more than we need safety.

Live music came back. It just didn’t bring me with it.

I didn’t see a critical mass of bookers, venues, or bands advocating for COVID-19 safety with measures like outdoor shows, improved ventilation, livestream options, or just adding tests and masks to the earplug bin at the door. Some hand disinfectant; a little hygiene theater at conventional venues. The will just wasn’t there. I thought our deal was fuck the state, we’ll do it our way. I found myself slipping through the subcultural safety net that exists for outcasts who are slipping through the cracks of mass culture and late capitalism.

Of course, punk was already inaccessible to some. And I actually believe a certain amount of gatekeeping is necessary to protect punk from posers, jerks, and cops. But among the nebulous community clustered around shows, the sexism and racism people have experienced has always been very real, to the tune of entire zines, books, films about that exclusion. I monitored my heartbreak, critically. Resource-scarce, informal, and underground operations often exist at a quagmire of conflicting access needs. Was the sting of betrayal just this painful because it affected me, directly? Can the subaltern mosh?

There was a brief period where my baseline had plateaued, and I enjoyed medium-functionality between flares. Clinging to my modest recovery, a memorial service was my first congregant risk. That was the last time I tried to play guitar. I got the twisties, psychic vertigo from grief and from the contradiction of my setting and my experience, but the band played on, complete with a brass section. And at that otherwise beautiful event, I was ceremoniously reinfected by an asymptomatic tuba player. My health has been steadily deteriorating ever since.

Isolation is hard: it can feel like rejection, it can feel real personal. I struggled to adapt. I know I can have a persecution complex, but I also know I’m materially being made surplus. So what do I tell the complex? Are people being thoughtless, or do they explicitly not give a fuck about immunocompromised people like me?

Life is never totally safe, danger is often exciting, sometimes risk is the point. I know that. I’m not (just) a joyless scold. In the era of potentially deadly airborne pathogens, we’re playing with other lives when we make “individual” health decisions—I thought we’d learned that, but there was no such reckoning.

Punks accepted the sociological production of the end of the pandemic, moving in lockstep with the state, sacrificing medically vulnerable people on the altar of pleasure, just as the state had sacrificed us on the altar of capital. I thought our ingenuity would create new forms of shows. Instead, it exposed our limits under duress. To quote the band Allergic to Bullshit, “If this is what we’re for, this is what we’ll get.”

Maybe my shock seems naïve—after all, there’s a difference between “subculture” and “counterculture”—but there’s a reason I expected better. There are visionaries with love, passion, and fearlessness who organize shows in strip malls, caves, skateparks, churches, parking garages; shows with immediacy like distributing free Narcan, and conviction, like benefits toward Palestinian liberation. I await, with diminishing faith, the eruption of that tendency in the bioethical arena.

Since immune ableism is hegemonic, congregating is a question of building a realistic threat model, making decisions with people who are directly impacted by your actions, and taking all possible precautions. I’m encouraged by radical formations with accessibility modifications, particularly those connecting social abandonment, climate crisis, and genocide. I see this reflected in art book fairs that require masking, outdoor Shabbatot, test-first leftist reading groups. Queer and drag events are making adjustments. Mask blocs and clean air clubs collaborate, with limited resources, to make spaces more accessible. These are people who insist on collective health, demanding freedom to live and breathe clean air.

For those of us with severe Long COVID, exclusion from live music represents a profound loss of humanity. This disconnection feeds into my daily despair; in medical terms, my depersonalization/derealization. Having hoped this crisis would push us closer to communism than complacency, I feel whiplash, what Naomi Klein calls “political vertigo.” Millions of Americans with Long COVID have disappeared from the workforce. Data on the underground music scene are unavailable. It’s hard to count ghosts. I’ve wanted to ask: Have you noticed that some of us are gone? Do you ever miss us?

Four years later, I still can’t even make it to a well-filtered show. My last recreational outing ended in hospitalization from merely ascending a steep hill. I hear about shows from my roommate, the only person I see, who is also the only masked person at them. I tell myself I could try to go to an outdoor gig one day, maybe, if my governing health planets aligned. Instead of being an active musician, I pretend I’m like Jandek, a reclusive genius, but really I’m too clumsy and unfocused to play at home.

I do what I do with everything: act like I’m in a different world. It’s not difficult, because I am. The Well do their thing out there, I do mine in here. I moved across the country in search of better healthcare and, homebound, routinely forget I’m not still in New Orleans. Either way I am inside. I gave up and I don’t fight the world leaving me behind. I am back here, rolling the boulder of my body up steep hills.

In spite of everything, I’m glad shows continue. It’s bittersweet comfort knowing freaks are getting raucous in basements, with noise made by other freaks, sprayed with wet yells, aggressively jostling with teens; in a reprieve from control, experiencing music together. I’d die for your right to do that. And thanks to you, I just might.

[letteraddressedtothefire]

✨ Pre-Birthday Preparations Timeline for Xavier: A Global Celebration of Our Star Prince ✨

As Xavier's birthday draws near, the fandom is buzzing with excitement across the globe! Our community has been hard at work since May, creating memorable ways to celebrate our beloved Prince of Philos. From our CN Star Sisters to Xavier’s Little Stars, the love for our Light has transcended borders, uniting us in preparing for his special day.

Aside from our international cupsleeve events, here’s a sneak peek of some of the highlights of our preparations:

⭐️CN Star Sisters and Global Little Stars gathered heartfelt written and audio messages to be sent to a satellite in honor of Xavier.

⭐️Collaboration with the elemeo food app, where fans could collect points (wishing stars) to help fund Xavier’s birthday.

⭐️Announcement of personally-sponsored 100K boarding passes with Xavier’s image at Beijing Capital International Airport.

⭐️Donation of 2 solar street lights to rural areas.

⭐️Xavier’s Little Stars symbolically purchased and named twin stars in the sky “Starhunter and Moonchaser” in Xavier’s honor.

⭐️Another symbolic buying and naming of a star in the sky "Xavier-Lumiere" with its own star website and virtual reality access (personal project).

⭐️10+ shopping malls were rented for Xavier's birthday with giant LED screens, interactive photo walls, and decorations.

⭐️The Stellaris fan site was launched to unite Xavier’s global fanbase.

⭐️Milk tea collaboration kicked off, distributing 6,000 custom cup sleeves across 20 stores.

⭐️A personally-funded tree-planting project in Sabah, Borneo.

⭐️300+ Xavier billboards across the globe, including LED light shows, giant screen previews, sky curtain screens, LED office buildings, and LED screens on one of the most crowded subway tunnels in China.

⭐️The “Seeds of Hope” (tree-planting) and “Nourishing Hearts” (food for the needy) fundraising campaigns were launched by Xavier's Little Stars.

⭐️A personally-rented yacht where 6 other Xavier stans were invited to celebrate.

⭐️Ferris Wheel collaboration

⭐️52 movie theaters to broadcast Xavier videos before every movie on October 16th.

…and more!

This celebration is more than just a birthday party— it’s a symbol of the unity, passion, and light that Xavier has brought to all of us. Swipe through the supporting graphics for a full timeline of events and stay tuned for even more projects, events, and surprises that will make this celebration truly unforgettable! Let’s keep shining our light for Xavier. 🌟

The real countdown starts on September 16, leading up to Xavier’s birthday on October 16. Celebrate with us!

Thank you to every Star Sister, Little Star, and Global Stan for making this celebration shine as bright as Xavier himself! 🌟

Disclaimer: these projects and events are fan-hosted and not affiliated with the official Love and Deepspace game.

[jbaileyfansite]

Interview with the Los Angeles Times (2024)

“This is where all the cruising happened.”

Jonathan Bailey and I are standing in Pershing Square on a bright, blustery spring afternoon, nearing the end of a homemade queer history tour of downtown L.A.: One Magazine, Cooper Do-Nuts/Nancy Valverde Square, the Dover bathhouse, the Biltmore Hotel and this, the city’s former Central Park, a haven, since before World War I, for “fairies” and “sissy boys,” servicemen on leave and beatniks on the road.

“Is it still happening now?” he asks.

“Probably not as much,” I venture.

“Well, you let me know if it’s happening,” he teases, a mischievous smile lighting up his face.

Bailey understands the uses of the charm offensive. As Sam, the handsome Lothario of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s delightful pre-”Fleabag” curio, “Crashing”; Anthony, the romantic hero of “Bridgerton’s” second season; and John, the jerk of a protagonist in Mike Bartlett’s love triangle play “Cock,” the English actor, 36, has swaggered up to the precipice of superstardom. With roles in such studio tentpoles as “Wicked” and “Jurassic World” on the horizon, he may just break through. Yet he delivers career-best work in Showtime’s queer melodrama “Fellow Travelers,” as anti-Communist crusader-turned-gay rights activist Tim Laughlin, by leaving behind the self-assured rakes and tapping a new wellspring: soft power.

Tim may be, as Bailey puts it, “an open nerve,” but as it turns out, the devout Catholic and political naïf — who falls for suave State Department operative Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller (Matt Bomer) just as Sen. Joseph McCarthy tries to purge the federal government of LGBTQ people — is formidable indeed.

Stretching from the Lavender Scare to the depths of the AIDS crisis, in scenes of tenderness, cruelty and toe-curling sex, Bailey’s performance communicates that little-spoken truth of relationships: It takes more strength to submit than it does to control. The former demands discipline, courage, trust; the latter requires only force.

“In ‘Bridgerton,’ [Bailey] is like a Hawkins Fuller character — he is very sexy and has lots of power, has that kind of confident charisma that absolutely is not Tim at all,” says “Fellow Travelers” creator Ron Nyswaner.

But any doubt about Bailey’s ability to mesh with Bomer, who boarded the project early in development, was put to bed with the actors’ virtual rehearsal of a meeting on a park bench in the pilot. “‘Well, that’s a first,’” Nyswaner recalls an executive texting him. “I cried in a chemistry read.”

‘Am I inviting people in?’

Bailey grew up in a musical family in the Oxfordshire countryside outside London, and this, coupled with an appreciation for the morning prayers, choir practice and Mass he attended as a scholarship student at the local Catholic school, fed his precocious talents. (“I loved the performance of it,” he laughs. “Not to diminish the celebration of religious process, but I did love the idea of wearing a gown.”) By age 10, he’d appeared in the West End, playing Gavroche in a production of “Les Misérables,” an experience he now recognizes as an encounter with a queer found family — albeit one shadowed by the toll of the AIDS crisis, which peaked in the U.K. in the mid-1990s.

“When I’m asked about my childhood, there’s so much I don’t remember, and I think that’s true of anyone who’s been in fight or flight for 20 years,” he says. “I would have been in a cast of people whose friends would have died in the last seven years. I think of where I was seven years ago. I had all my gay friends then. It’s only retrospectively that I can retrofit a real gay community around me [in the theater], that I just wasn’t aware of [then].”

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, American and British culture presented queer adolescents with a bewildering array of mixed signals. As beloved celebrities came out in growing numbers, and the battle for marriage equality became a central locus of LGBTQ political organizing, the media continued to propagate harmful stereotypes of gay men as miserable, lonely, perverted or worse — and, Bailey remembers, callously turned George Michael, arrested on suspicion of cruising in a Beverly Hills restroom in 1998, and Irish pop star Stephen Gately, who revealed his sexuality in 1999, fearful he was about to be outed, into tabloid spectacles.

No wonder Bailey, like many LGBTQ people of his generation, should feel the “chemical” thrill of “validation and acceptance” during London Pride at age 18, then embark on a two-year relationship with a woman in his 20s.

“Dangerously, if you’re not exposed to people who can show you other examples of happiness, you think that’s the easiest way to live,” Bailey says. “It’s funny. You look back and you can tell the story in one way, which is that I always knew who I was and my sexuality and my identity within that. But obviously at times, it was really tough. I compromised my own happiness, for sure. And compromised other people’s happiness.”

Disclosures about his personal life have become particularly thorny for the actor since the premiere of “Bridgerton,” the blockbuster bodice-ripper from executive producer Shonda Rhimes.

“The Netflix effect does knock you off center completely,” he says, recalling the experience of finding a paparazzo waiting outside his new flat before he’d even moved in. “Suddenly, you do start having nightmares about people climbing in your windows... Even now, talking about it makes me feel like, ‘Am I inviting people in?’”

He is also critical of the media for churning out headlines about the smallest details of celebrities’ private lives, often detached from their original context. In an interview with the London Evening Standard published in December, Bailey described a harrowing encounter in a Washington, D.C., coffee shop in which a man threatened his life for being queer — and, in recounting the experience, offhandedly mentioned the “lovely man” he’d called, shaken, after it happened. Although Bailey acknowledges that the original story handled the subject with aplomb, he felt dismayed that more attention wasn’t paid to the intended warning about rising anti-LGBTQ sentiment: “The only thing that got syndicated from that story was that I had a boyfriend, and it wasn’t true,” he sighs. “It was kind of depressing, if I’m honest.”

Still, Bailey, who once turned down a role in a queer-themed TV series because it would have required him to speed along revelations about his personal life he wasn’t ready to make, is prepared to embrace the power of vulnerability when it feeds the work. Although a member of his inner circle expressed doubts about “Fellow Travelers’” steamy sex scenes, for instance, the actor intuited that they were what made the project worth doing: “I was like, ‘I’m telling you, they are the reason why this is going to be brilliant.’”

‘He’s changed my trajectory in my own life’

To those who would complain about the state of sex in film and TV, “Fellow Travelers” is the perfect riposte. All of it matters, from Tim’s first flirtation with Hawk to the finale’s closing minutes, because the series, at its core, is about the importance of soft power: the strength required to bend, but not break; to adapt, but not abandon oneself; to survive without shrinking to nothing in the process.And depicting that through sex, specifically gay sex, makes “Fellow Travelers” radical indeed.

Bailey understands that baring so much comes with certain risks. When I tell him that research for the story has filled my algorithmic “For You” feed on X (formerly Twitter) with speculation that his onscreen relationship with Bomer has a real-life element, he notes that “shipping” fictional couples and costars alike has long been part of Hollywood fantasy. But he bristles at the implication that he and Bomer are anything but skilled actors at work.

“I would love for people to know that the success of our chemistry isn’t based on us f—. It’s actually about us leaning into the craft,” he says. “It’s a vulnerable situation to be in, talking about it on record. I don’t want to rob people of their thoughts. But I do have a set of values, and as an artist, you don’t need to be f— to tell that love story.”

Underlying that craft, Bailey adds, is the confidence to speak up, as with one scene in “Fellow Travelers” that was adjusted because he said, “I don’t want to be naked today.” He learned to use his voice the hard way: In his early 20s, he recalls, he was once “bullied” on set when “someone was threatened” by him and vowed to himself, “I’m never going to do that to someone. I’m never going to allow that to happen.”

This impulse to direct his influence in support of others has blossomed further with “Fellow Travelers.” On the day of our interview, Bailey enthuses about an upcoming meeting with legendary gay rights activist Cleve Jones and shares his idea for a docuseries recording the stories of elders in the LGBTQ+ community while they are still here to tell them. He describes lying in a hospital bed on set on World AIDS Day, in character as Tim, surrounded by gay men who had lost friends and lovers during the crisis, and finding himself thinking, “What do I want to leave behind?”

“I think he’s changed my trajectory in my own life,” Bailey says.

This is, perhaps, the most common reaction I know to diving deep into queer history — the understanding that we, like our forerunners, are responsible for shaping the queer future, whether in politics, society or art. No one is going to do it on our behalf.

As we stand on the nondescript corner now named for her, I relate the story of the late queer activist Nancy Valverde, who was arrested repeatedly while a barber school student in the 1950s on suspicion of “masquerading” because of her preference for short hair and men’s clothing, and later successfully challenged her harassment by the police in court.

“What a hero!” Bailey exclaims, wondering at Valverde’s bravery. “The thing that’s so interesting with power battles is, ultimately, identity is the thing that gives you the most strength and power in your life, isn’t it?

“Because that’s one thing people can’t take away from you: who you are and how you express yourself.”

Source

[asordinaryppl]

A3! Main Story: Part 4 - Act 16: Crossing Paths Translations

budding spring | dream catcher | painful re:bake | crossing paths

all episodes of the story are also proofread by myuntachis!

last updated: 19/11/2024

The Final Baton Pass

"Today's Special"

The Winter Troupe's Role

The Missing Piece

Broadening Horizons

About Our Circumstances

The Theater Nerds' Influence

My Father's Family

Still Recruiting!

The Unexpected Encounter

Admiration for Theater

The Four's Starting Line

Things Left Undone

The Silent Picture Book Author

The Unknown Sides Of Our Families

Unfading Presence

The Script, The Actors, And...

Someone I Used To Know

GOD-za First

Following Traces Of The Past

The Virtual World

Fate Tying Us Together

Uncovered Identities

Status Report

Surpassing The Passing Grade

The Doctor From That Day

The Promise Of Some Day

Father's Feelings

Two Irons In The Fire

Real Name

log-in messages:

Tsumugi Tsukioka (Michael) + Tasuku Takato (Raphael)

Hisoka Mikage (Uriel) + Homare Arisugawa (Metatron)

Azuma Yukishiro (Fred)

Guy (Derrick)

[cyphyree]

bestie what did you call those fucking parrots??? "bloodthirsty parakeet satirical caricatures of the Mussolini facist regime" like... what?? genuinely confused, could you explain it to me?

Yeah! Tbh I read this post that made the connection, and thought “damn that made sense actually.” They explain it really well:

(Og post for ask context)

To add on:

The parakeets carrying Himi to the great grand uncle were passing through the world of their ancestors and were tearing up about it. It relates to the above post about fascists glorifying the mythic past

The parakeets held up signs with “Duch” when rallying around their king. This might be a reference to the Italian word “Duce” (meaning “duke” or “leader”). Mussolini is known as Il Duce (“The Leader”), and the term is virtually inextricably associated with him

Parakeets symbolize a variety of things, but in this case may symbolize mindless herd mentality

The culture of the parakeets is very militaristic—even the way they walk is a march—as well as nationalistic. It parallels the show of Japanese nationalism at the start of the movie

When Mahito wakes up in the parakeet kitchen, the chef is gleefully preparing to cook him. It’s almost as if he expected Mahito to celebrate the fact too, but regardless the parakeet doesn’t care about the massacre of others because the victims will serve their regime. Someone I know has a more personal reading of this scene, and they connect it to how, historically, oppressors would celebrate their atrocities as some great deed while the oppressed watched and suffered. The parakeets only cared about their own “greater cause”

Ive seen people also say that the parakeets are stand-ins for the Japanese fascists, German fascists, or human fascists in general—but whatever the specifics may be, the parakeets do seem to represent fascism.

Maybe when the parakeets escaped the underworld and turned into normal birds, it’s their wish being fulfilled: they’ve become their ancestors they glorified so much. They returned to the “great mythic past,” but as it turns out, the “great mythic past” is a great big lie, and probably different from the glory they imagined.

Alternatively, they coveted the peace and simplicity of their ancestors, but they were trying to achieve that through violent and militaristic means, and felt justified in doing so

Alternatively, the parakeets like the pelicans were trapped into this fantasy world, and forced to play roles to parallel the wars of humanity. When they finally escaped, both they and Mahito are free to live as themselves in the real world.

Maybe I’m wrong about some details or missed something, but yeah, that’s where “bloodthirsty parakeet satirical et cetera” came from

[lonelylonelyghost]

Re-watch of The Spirealm. Episode 30

Ah yeah. The iconic "Theater Gay vs Math Gay" moment

Friendship in the umbrella is the key that we've found along the way or something, idk

Well, she's a proper spoiled brat, but she seems to genuinely love her boyfriend. I don't know how to feel about her... She is a human I guess

I like her

The stairs in the forest - it's my favourite thing!!! I'm obsessed with those images, even managed to find several in real life

yey!

YOO-HOOO!!!

"It said that in a village where it rained incessantly, crops were about to fail. The villagers, in their ignorance, heard of a method: chopping off someone's head and hanging it in the yard would make the torrential rain stop.

The villagers, believing in this superstition, selected a child. The village school teacher tried to dissuade them from this foolish act, explaining that the village, situated between the mountains and the sea, was naturally rainy. the villagers, unwilling to listen, insisted on sacrificing a child.

The school teacher, determined to sacrifice himself in place of that student. The ignorant villagers wrapped the teacher's head in white cloth and hung it high..."

First of all, who even came up with this method? Who told the villagers this? I need to have a few words with them.

Second of all... So, like - the superstition was correct? Because it worked, didn't it? The rain stopped immediately...

And third of all, I can't believe that Gao Dawei canonically based this entire Door World on some random popular internet search. This dude used Bella Swan's research method lmao

:)

oh great...

"Have you ever thought that the world inside the Doors is real? And everything we're experiencing now is an illusion."

"Of course, I have. But I can't figure it out."

"If it were you, would you choose a real but scary world or a virtual but safe world?"

"I'll choose wherever you are."

And he'll be true to his word...

Ah, my heart...

They're so cute together....

"Ruan-ge, I don't have the courage and guts to face everything inside the Door. If I have to experience the world inside the Doors again, I'd rather die. Dead as a door nail."

But as much as it hurts, I understand her decision. The Door world is terrifying, and in order to have a slightly higher chance (and not a guarantee!) of passing her 6th, she'll have to experience the horrors of other Doors time and time again. I don't know what I would've chosen if I were in her place...

But it still hurts, it hurts, it HURTS! Why did I even start this re-watch???...

"I'll help you in the Door, Zaozao."

"Nonsense. You've passed a low-level Door alone so far and Li Dongyuan sacrificed his life to save you. How can you protect Tan Zaozao?"

"Because there is nothing I could do about Li Dongyuan's death. I don't want to lose another friend!"

"You're not saving her, you're just going to die with her!"

"Isn't that what being friends mean?"

"The meaning of friendship is to live for each other, not die for each other."

😔said the person who will not heed his own advice...

And now we feel guilty for the argument...

≧ ﹏ ≦

"Cheng Yixie, you're risking your life! Why won't you ever listen to me?"

"Ruan-ge, I'm sorry."

"You're just drinking poison just to quench your thirst, do you know that?"

"If it works, I'll drink the poison. If Qianli can quench thirst, then it'll be enough."

Yixie and Qianli, these poor babies! 😭😭😭

They are really such different characters, that's why I still had doubts at the time that it was the same actor, even if I already noticed the specific camera movements

🐱and🐶

oh nononononono

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[clumsiestgiantess]

Honestly I don’t feel like finishing the October horror prompts stuff right now…

BUT I have this one short story saved from a while ago that I do really like, and I want y’all to have it! Enjoy!

It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of thing, being copied.  It’s little snapshots taken from your life — less than a second of living that gets bottled up as information and stored in some vault deep underground.  A security measure, world leaders decided, for when the planet inevitably comes to an end.   

…whenever that will be.

The war ended before the threat of nuclear extinction became reality.  All those years of people scrambling to get implants that would preserve them after death, all the times people had fought with money and power over who would be saved and who wouldn’t — and now you can do it for free.

For a long time, the servers inside the Humanity Vaults went untouched.  Without a fear of mass death lurking in the air, no one was willing to take the information back out once it was stored.  People went on living, kept getting implants and snapshots to give themselves the chance to get another life at the end of theirs.  Or several.  

Just like those desperate rich people who froze themselves to be revived when technology caught up with their ideas, so it seems all of society would do the same — their lives copied and stored until someone found a way to revive them.  And that someone, or rather something was SLT.  Simulated Life Technology.  It gave the digital information a virtual body, processing things a brain, nerves, and hormones normally would through a simulation.

Unfortunately, people were expecting physical bodies and actual brains, not simulations.  So the technology flopped.. until a video game company picked it up.  People became obsessed with their games due to how real the characters seemed.  It was artificial intelligence trained with real, lived-through, human thought.  

That’s where things finally begin, with a program — a game — that lets you simulate running the life of an actual person right on your laptop.

I’d heard about the game before, but never played it myself.  There was no end goal, no story, just some fake person wandering around a screen.  It just didn’t seem interesting to me.  So it was all the more jarring when I went from reaching for the gym doors one morning to stretching an arm into an endless void of white.  

I shrieked at the sudden change, and didn’t stop shrieking as I found no exit to the place — pounding on walls I couldn’t see.  I finally ran out of breath when I turned around and saw the glassy wall of a theater-sized computer screen behind me — some guy staring me down from the other side, mouse in hand and keyboard at the ready.

Choking for breath, I stumbled backwards and fell on my ass.  “N-No,” I managed to squeak out.  I could barely put two and two together as I increasingly got closer to a panic attack, but once I hit the back wall dreaded realization tinged the back of my mind.

It’s supposed to be a simulated me.. not… me me.  Only it isn’t me.  I’m probably still at the gym.  I’m sure the original me didn’t even notice.  

Wait.. so simulations actually have a consciousness!?  

“HELP!  Please!  There’s been a mistake!  Simulations aren’t supposed to be actually alive!  No one said these stupid computer people were conscious!”  I rushed to the glass to bang on it and demand my release, but was immediately deterred by the very large form of a person reaching for me.  I yelped and ducked down expecting to be snatched up, but his finger only tapped the screen.

In seconds, soft carpet seems to grow up from beneath the floor, and a little living room takes form all around me.  A table pops up from the floor; a shelf slides in from the wall to my right.  Something bright bubbles into existence behind me and I find a window on the opposite wall.  

A window!  I race across the room and try desperately to open it and escape that way, but even when I do I find a fake landscape lit up on the wall behind it.  The sudden and jarring lack of exits sends me stumbling backwards, staring blankly at the false background.  Oh fuck, this really is a computer.  How am I inside a-?  

“Hello?”

I flinch so badly I trip on my leg and nearly fall to the floor again.  My hands slam over my ears as he speaks again.  “Sorry, I don’t think my mic was on.  Why are you- oh!  I turned the volume up all the way when it was off, my bad.”  There’s a brief pause of blissful silence.  “Is this better?”  I look up at the collosal stranger with tears in my eyes, but they either don’t notice or don’t care.

“Alright, first things first…” he mumbles, “Let’s get your sanity bar back up.”  My legs weaken and I have to brace myself on the fake couch beside me in the fake room.  “What.. do you mean?” I ask in a shaking whisper.  “You know, your little hunger, hydration, and sanity bars?  Ohh wait this is probably a tutorial.”  He shrugged off the interaction so nonchalantly it made goosebumps lift across my arms.

Glancing around the room, I try to find the stats he’s talking about, but all I can see are structures and furniture.  They’re all nearly real, save for the slight pixelated fuzz on the very edges of everything.  It’s like looking through a headset.  My stats must only be visible to the player.  The real person.

If it’s all fake — some video game — then… but I’m not some made-up character!  I’m real!  I- I have to be.  Only real people can think like this, right?  This is only supposed to be some simulated bullshit that draws on my memories, which I won’t even know they have.  Not.. not another entire me.  With shaking arms, I lift my hands up to my face.

They’re tinged with those same fuzzy pixels.

I’m not real.  Wh- Why?  Does real me know about this?  I didn’t know about this.  Are there OTHER me’s?  How many times have I blinked and become a fake reconstruction?  

“Woah!”  I’m startled out of my thoughts by that guy — that player’s — voice.  “Your sanity’s tanking!  I know the intro said to ease you into it or your sanity would plummet, but I thought I did ease you into this place.”  Before I can get a word in he gasps an ‘ohhh’.  “My mic was muted!  You didn’t hear me introduce myself!  That’s probably why.”

I sneer involuntarily.  Like introducing himself would’ve done anything to soften the blow of: I’m not real.  

“Let’s try again; my name’s Sam, but-”  He hesitates.  “Just call me Sammy.”  I turn to speak, but my mouth goes dry.  What is my name?  It can’t be Rhea.  That’s whoever-is-still-out-there’s name.  But who else would I be?  I’m not supposed to be anyone else.  “Rhea,” I answer abruptly.  I don’t know what else to call myself.

“That’s a nice name!”  “Do you think I’m real?” I blurt, then immediately regret it as he gives me a strange look.  “I mean.. I just…  I feel real.  This isn’t real.”  Sammy goes quiet for a moment, leaning in closer to the screen to look at me.  I want to run away, but I hold my ground.  There is a wall between us, after all.

“You feel real?” he repeats, “Well.. I mean, you are real — a real SL.  But is that what you mean?”  An SL, a Simulated Life, is that all I am?  My head shakes in slow shock.  “I guess you might feel like you’re whoever they took your life data from,” Sammy suggests, “But it’s.. kinda hard to believe you’re real when you’re a flashing image on my laptop.”

A sharp pain seizes my chest and I unsteadily fall onto the couch.  It feels real, but it isn’t.  And I’m the same.

“What do I do?” I ask quietly, more to myself than anything.  Minutes tick by with my face buried in my hands before the feeling of a cold hand on my back sends me across the room screaming.  “What the-?!”  “Sorry!” Sammy calls before I can go into a full panic, “I meant to pat you on the back.  You know.. like: ‘it’s going to be ok’?”  He sighs, “I’ve never been good with people.”

I rub my hands over my arms and cautiously peer around the couch.  “What was that?”  “My clicker,” he admits, as I watch him move around a mouse outside the screen.  I can feel my mouth drop open, “You can interact with all this?”  He nods as I gesture around the place.  “That’s just unfair!  You can at least let me have this space to myself!”

“But how will you get food?” Sammy asks me earnestly.  “Your hunger bar’s at half by the way.”  The second he points it out I realize I’m feeling hungry, but I don’t bring it up.  “What?  I’ll get it out of this mini fridge right here.”  However, as I walk over and pull at the handle, it doesn’t open.  I grab it and rattle it around a few times, but it doesn’t open.  “I.. I can't…”

“I’m pretty sure only the player can make meals,” Sammy tells me, as calmly as if he were making a passing comment on the weather.  “So I’m what?  Helpless?!  You’re supposed to feed me?!”  Sammy leans away from the screen looking wildly confused.  “That’s like the whole point of the game…  I’m supposed to take care of you and level up stuff by treating you well.”

I just stare at him.

“What..?  I- I thought you would at least know that.”  I don’t even go back to the couch; I just crumple to the floor.  “Wait, you just started getting your sanity back up!” Sammy gasps, “Don’t drop it back down!  I’ll take care of you!  I’m not like those video game nerds who try to find all the special dialogue by starving their SLs or doing a sleepless run.  I just wanted to…”  He pauses and his cheeks flush, which actually startles me out of my raw horror of learning that I — or any of the potential other me’s — could be tortured like those examples.

“You wanted to what?” I ask hesitantly.  Sammy looks at me.  Like really looks at me — leaning close against the monitor.  I freeze as the invisible hand of the clicker carefully turns me around, then back.  His irises flicker all over me, and I realize I’m still in slightly revealing gym wear.  

Worriedly, I take a few steps back.  All sorts of media with online digital girlfriends start flooding into my head.  “You wanted to what?” I ask weakly.  Sammy glances at his door, gets up, and locks it.  Fear causes the blood to feel like it’s being drained out of my body.

“Please don’t do that shit to me,” I beg, trying to keep my voice from cracking.  “Not on the first day.  Please.”  

Sammy’s face scrunches up in bewilderment before his eyes widen in realization.  “Wait, what?  No!  No, I don’t want to do anything like that!  I just…  You’re just…  You’re supposed to be me,” he eventually spits out.  “The uh.. character traits I put in — they’re mine but — ok, actually I put in a lot more confidence too — but it’s supposed to be me, just.. a girl.”

Ohhh.

“So all the secrecy and the blushing and the-”  “I- I’m not blushing!” he gasps.  “That’s.. I-  You won’t tell anyone about this, will you?”  I sigh, just relieved my initial impression was completely wrong.  “Of course not.  I can’t exactly tell anyone from in here, can I?”  “I guess you can’t,” Sammy realizes.

I sit back down heavily on the coffee table in the room, facing Sammy.  “So I’m.. I'm really an SL?  All these memories, they’re just what was uploaded to the Humanity Vault?”  My nerves get fuzzy as Sammy’s head finally moves away from the screen.  “Oh.. yeah, I guess.  I didn’t realize you had all those memories.  No wonder you feel human — that’s all you can remember.”  He blinks, “That’s kinda fucked-up, actually.”

Those are all things that were placed in me from the start — I never lived through them.  The only memories I’ve made myself so far are the ones when I’m in here.  “And that’s why there was such an abrupt cut between being outside the gym to being in here!” I realize, slowly piecing together what exactly I am, “That’s where my uploaded memories end and my actual ones start.”

In a weird way, it gave me comfort recognizing all this.  I actually know what I am and why I’m here.  Even if it isn’t what I wanted or thought it would be, at least everything makes sense.

“Hey, your sanity bar’s rising again,” Sammy noted.  “Kinda weird that it happened when you found out you’re not a person, though…”  I nod slowly, looking up at him.  “I think the recognition helps.  I.. might not be a person, or actually alive, but I feel that way.  All of this-” I gesture around the vaguely pixelated room — running my hand over the coffee table.  “It feels physically real to me.”  “So you.. you feel better about it now?  You’re ok?”  I begin to nod, then hesitate.  “Better, but I’m still not feeling all that great about being some video game character for the rest of my life.”

“I’ll make sure it’s a place you want to stay in, or at least not mind it,” Sammy assures me, “And at a certain level I can add another apartment with another SL!  That way you won’t be too lonely while I’m not playing.”  I hadn’t even thought about that — about what happens when a player logs off and leaves me here alone, or the fact that I can cure that loneliness by dooming some other poor soul to a simulated life forever.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” I tell him hesitantly.  “I think I just need to take some time to calm down.”  A microwave meal floats out of the mini fridge as if by magic, but I notice Sammy’s arm moving and I realize it’s the invisible clicker again.  “I don’t know if I’m up for a meal right now,” I tell him tiredly, “I really just want to rest.”  

His eyes dart to the corner of the screen.  “Your hunger bar says otherwise.”  I grumble slightly, “Well I say I’m not hungry.”  A prepared meal rests itself on the coffee table on the opposite side of me.  “I’ve gotta go soon, so I’ll just leave it here.”  I stand up abruptly, suddenly aware that I’d be stuck sitting here without the ability to do anything.  “Wait!  Just do a few things for me before you leave?”

Sammy looks at me confusedly, then leans closer to the screen again and peers around the room.  “There should be a manual or something…  A new one appears with every update I make.  It should have a list of things you can do and how to access them.”  “So there’s a whole list of things I can do.. and getting myself basic necessities isn’t on it?”  

The entire wall of the monitor flickers and molds into the final wall of the room in only a second or two.  I rush to it, suddenly desperate for someone to talk to.  “Wait!  No, please come back!  I still need-”  It flicks back on just as quickly.  “Woah!  I- I’m not going anywhere; I’m just pulling up a different tab to check what you can do on the first level.”  I pause about a foot from the screen.  He looked a hell of a lot bigger that close — the monitor only displaying me at a tiny size that would fit the whole room and me on it.  “O- Ok,” I stammer, stunned to silence by how small I felt right then.  

I was left alone for a moment as the wall slid back in.  This is how it’ll feel like for me for the next…  Until the game gets booted up again.  There’s a point when you play any game that you get bored of it and shut it off for the last time.  What would happen to me then?  I didn’t want to imagine it, but my brain slipped in a couple of thoughts about perpetually starving and being forced to stay awake for maybe forever.  

Hopefully I’d end up like a forgotten tamagotchi and just die.

When Sammy returned, I found out that — on the base level — I couldn’t do much of anything at all.  The player can’t even buy items for me to interact with yet.  All I can do is walk around and sit in different places.  

“And how do you get fake game money again?” I ask tiredly.  “Well, you can pay real money for it, but you get paid some every in-game day.  The amount depends on the level, and there are bonuses I can get for completing different tasks and an extra reward if all your bars are full before the day ends.”  Damn, I really am a video game character.

After getting me a few cups of water that I could drink from whenever I wanted, Sammy closed the game and I was left in my single room with a coffee table and an empty bookshelf.  Oh, and a pullout couch I can’t turn into a bed, a sink I can’t use, and a mini fridge I can’t open.

There’s one window, one lightbulb that has no switch, and no door.  I’m utterly trapped here, but there’s nowhere else for me to run to even if I do manage to get out.  If I leave this little game, I stop existing.  And honestly, I’m not sure if I want to stay and suffer or leave and stop existing.  It’s not like I have a choice, anyway.

I wandered the entire room to be sure, but there really wasn’t a single exit.  The only thing that would open for me was the stupid fake window.  Sitting down heavily on the couch, I curled up against myself and cried.

[pjsk-story-summaries]

Wonderlands x Showtime Main Story Summary

TL;DR: Tenma Tsukasa, an egotistical aspiring actor, auditions for a cast member position at Phoenix Wonderland. He is picked up by Otori Emu, an optimistic dreamer, at the run-down Wonder Stage. They encounter the mysterious director Kamishiro Rui performing alone within the park, who upon invitation into the troupe also brings along his shy childhood friend Kusanagi Nene.

The four of them work to put on a show, but disaster strikes when Robonene runs out of battery halfway through the show. Tsukasa yells at Nene out of frustration, sparking Rui to leave the troupe.

Tsukasa goes to the SEKAI to reflect, where he finds Usa-chan, one of the plushies, crying. Through his attempts to cheer her up, he finally remembers the true reason he wanted to be a star: to make others smile, especially his dear younger sister.

Tsukasa apologizes to Emu and Nene, who both decide to rejoin the troupe; however, Rui is not convinced. The three of them put on a new show in the SEKAI that ultimately causes Rui a change of heart, officially re-forming Wonderlands x Showtime.

Official English Youtube upload / Song (The World Hasn't Even Started Yet) / Animation

Chapter 0: The story begins with Tsukasa narrating about the show he had seen as a little kid with Saki, sparking his dream to be a star that makes everybody smile. After a hard cut to the present day, we find Tsukasa preparing for an audition at Phoenix Wonderland. Saki comes up to talk to him, which eventually reaches her asking why he wanted to become a star in the first place. Tsukasa can't remember. Suddenly, his phone flashes with the new Untitled song, transporting him to SEKAI. Miku and KAITO introduce themselves and the place, but Tsukasa denies it all.

Chapter 1: Tsukasa arrives at his interview. He introduces himself with his standard stardom speech, shocking the interviewers but catching the ear of a certain onlooker. A short time later, Tsukasa receives his acceptance letter with arrogant pride. Both Rui and Nene overhear him talking to himself about it, but don't interact. Kigurumi (Mascot) leads Tsukasa over to the Wonder Stage, much to the latter's disappointment. Suddenly, Emu leaps down from the rooftop and reveals she's the one who invited Tsukasa.

Chapter 2: Emu had specially requested Tsukasa after he failed the initial audition. Tsukasa is less than impressed with the current state of the run-down stage and lack of an audience. He tries giving Emu his autograph before leaving, but Emu tackles him instead, saying she had made a promise to do shows at this stage specifically. Suddenly, the stage projector switched on to reveal Miku. When trying to call and resign, Emu finds Untitled and clicks it, sending the both of them to SEKAI.

Chapter 3: Tsukasa encounters Mikudayo, who soon reveals herself to be the actual Miku. She pushes him into the show tent, where KAITO and Emu are preparing for a show. The Virtual Singers explain the concept of SEKAI. Tsukasa insists he knows what his true feelings are, but the Virtual Singer's aren't so convinced. Usa-chan, a talking stuffed rabbit, also introduces herself. Tsukasa panics and passes out.

Chapter 4: After regaining consciousness, Tsukasa demands to leave the SEKAI. Emu promises to help find Tsukasa's phone only if he promises to do shows at the Wonder Stage with her, to which he reluctantly agrees. Back in the real world, Kigurumi attacks Tsukasa for "kidnapping" Emu, intimidating him to the point where he fears going back on his word to help her out. Tsukasa and Emu then set off to find more cast members. They find some small robots, who lead the pair to Rui's performance.

Chapter 5: Rui begins telling the tale of an alchemist who loves theater. However, his story is cut short by Security chasing him out. The next day, Tsukasa learned the strange performer is a new transfer to his school. Rui had been waiting for him on the rooftop, following his movements with a drone. Impressed, Tsukasa offers him a spot in his new troupe as director. Rui declines.

Chapter 6: Rui explains that he wants to do the shows he wants to do, ones that exist to make the audience happy. Tsukasa affirms that he'd perform any role given to him "to 12,000% satisfaction". Rui catches a glimpse of Nene walking down below. He decides to accept the offer, if and only if Tsukasa would take one other member. Later, Tsukasa takes Rui to the Wonder Stage and introduces him to Emu. The two instantly hit it off.

Chapter 7: Rui introduces the other two to Robonene. Tsukasa is hesitant on the concept, but after Nene's display of skill, he reluctantly agrees to accept her in (though he's more worried of losing the limelight than anything else). Afterwards, Rui and Nene chat about the new adventure in front of them.

Chapter 8: Tsukasa and Saki chat. When things take a melancholy turn, Tsukasa begins reciting script lines to cheer her up. Saki thanks him and talks about how he always used to do shows like this when they were little, especially with a small bunny plushie. The next day, Tsukasa brings the rest of the troupe the newly completed show script, along with a proposal for a troupe name. It was bad and immediately shot down. Through Emu's ramblings, Rui suggests naming their troupe after the different worlds the stage can become through showtime. Emu adds an x to represent the multiplying wonderlands, giving birth to Wonderlands x Showtime.

Chapter 9: Rui runs over the script with everyone and suggests some extreme stunt ideas, much to Tsukasa's horror. Nene tells Emu about Rui's history with this, and how most people avoided him afterwards. Despite the outlandish ideas, Tsukasa and Emu warm up to them. Later, Nene comments on how much happier Rui looks now. The next day, the troupe works together on the show. Emu suggests going to "that place" to look for inspiration and sends the four of them to SEKAI.

Chapter 10: Rui immediately begins analyzing the SEKAI and wanders off. KAITO gives Tsukasa and Emu advice while Miku greets the real Nene hiding somewhere else. Nene's too shy to have a conversation, however. Before the four leave SEKAI, Miku again questions what being a star means to Tsukasa, who's true feelings are still unknown.

Chapter 11: Wonderlands x Showtime finishes rehearsals for their show. Emu thanks Tsukasa and the others for performing shows with her here at this stage. Rui and Nene stay late to rehearse a little longer. The next day arrives, and the show begins.

Chapter 12: The play starts off as a hit! Halfway through Nene's song, however, Robonene loses power and crashes into Tsukasa. They try their best to recover, but any momentum they had gained was lost. The play was ruined.

Chapter 13: Tsukasa lashes out at Nene for the mistake. Rui tries taking the blame instead, while Emu desperately tries keeping the peace. Despite Rui's insistence, Tsukasa continues his outrage. Nene runs off. Rui tells Tsukasa that "you can't stage great shows alone", and that Tsukasa's selfishness means he will never become a star. Rui officially quits the troupe. Later, Rui goes to apologize to Nene for making her join the troupe. Tsukasa goes to the SEKAI for advice.

Chapter 14: Tsukasa runs into Usa-chan crying. Though his dance only made things worse, he managed to distract her by immitating Emu's wonderhoy. He spins it to form an improv play and invites Usa-chan to join along, to which she happily agrees. After playing for some time, Tsukasa notices the name "Saki" written under her foot. Tsukasa finally realizes the SEKAI is full of things from his memories, and a memory of him cheering up a sick Saki in a hospital room. Tsukasa finally remembers his true wish to make others happy, and how grateful he is to have met the other members of Wonderlands x Showtime. Tsukasa resolves to set things right with them.

Chapter 15: Tsukasa finds Emu by the ferris wheel, so they ride together. Emu tells Tsukasa about how her grandfather had built Phoenix Wonderland and the Wonder Stage specifically, but had sadly passed away a year prior. Emu's family would save the Wonder Stage if Emu managed to attract enough visitors by the end of spring break, but since their show only made everyone sad, she'll have to say goodbye to it. Tsukasa tells Emu that she's a part of everyone needing to be happy and asks if they can try to save the stage one more time. Back at the Wonder Stage, Nene went to retrieve Robonene and reminisces on how much she'll miss theater again.

Chapter 16: Emu and Tsukasa find Nene singing on the stage. Nene runs away, causing the two to chase her around the park. After Emu catches her by jumping from a gate, Tsukasa formally apologizes for what he said and asks if she would want to rejoin the troupe. Nene tells the two about how she had messed up the lines of her performance when she was young and became too anxious to stand on the stage anymore. Tsukasa tells her that making mistakes is how we get better, and that he's truly sorry for yelling at her for trying to learn. Nene officially rejoins the troupe.

Chapter 17: Nene reveals she and Rui are neighbors and takes the two to meet him. They find him continuing the story of the alchemist on the street: the alchemist had found acceptance through their shows, though short-lived. The townsfolk and alchemist simply thought differently, so they left, leaving the alchemist all alone once again. Tsukasa tries to apologize to Rui, but he doesn't believe he's changed yet and leaves. Emu and Nene don't want to give up on him, either.

Chapter 18: Rui walks around the streets, remembering the fear and harsh words of his past classmates over his show ideas. Suddenly, Emu, Tsukasa, and Nene ambush him and send them all to SEKAI. They begin a play made specially for him. A traveling troupe consisting of an arrogant showman, stubborn clown, and shy songstress meet a lonely alchemist and invite him to the troupe. The alchemist builds a doll for the songstress to sing behind and other inventions. However, when the doll broke during a show, the showman lashed out and broke apart the troupe. A cute fairy had reminded the showman of his true desire to make people happy through shows, driving him to make ammends with the rest of his troupe. Though the clown and songstress agreed to come back, the alchemist didn't believe him. The three decided to make a play to show him their true feelings. KAITO asks Rui what he thinks will happen next, to which he questions if they thought this would really work through just a monologue. Fortunately, the alchemist is now here to help them improve.

Chapter 19: Suddenly, Tsukasa's phone flashes as Untitled changes into a song: The World Hasn't Even Started Yet. Tsukasa asks if the others would sing it with him, since the song is just as much theirs as it is his own. Afterwards, he thanks Miku and KAITO for their help before returning to the real world. Emu finally tells the others about the fate of the Wonder Stage, but they realize there's still hope to save it. They put their show back together and begin saving the stage once again with an enthusiastic wonderhoy!

Chapter 20: All of their remaining shows went spectacularly, even though they had to do so many in a row. Their efforts had paid off, however; the Wonder Stage was officially saved! Wonderlands x Showtime decides to keep putting on shows there, too. The story ends with Emu and Tsukasa's laughter echoing in the distance, all the way into SEKAI.

Card Stories: Tsukasa / Emu / Nene / Rui

Virtual Singer Chapter 1 (Pre-Chapter 0): Miku, KAITO, and the plushies prepare a show to help Tsukasa remember his true feelings. Miku runs off to put on the Mikudayo costume to match with the plushies. There's one of KAITO, too, but he refuses to put it on. Tsukasa finally arrives in the SEKAI, but Miku is now stuck in the Mikudayo costume.

Virtual Singer Chapter 2 (After Chapter 4): Miku is disappointed she couldn't put on a show with Tsukasa and Emu, so to cheer her up, KAITO puts on a magic show for her. KAITO teaches Miku some magic tricks after. Miku is a bit sad that the show has to end, but KAITO reminds her that without an ending, there can be no beginning.

Virtual Singer Chapter 3 (Concurrent with Chapter 14): Usa-chan is upset Tsukasa didn't remember her. Miku and KAITO decide to put on a show to cheer her up, but it doesn't work to well. Tsukasa arrives in the SEKAI halfway through, but before the Virtual Singers can greet him, they find a crying Usa-chan already talking to him. Miku goes to help, but KAITO stops her, opting to watch things play out instead.

Virtual Singer Chapter 4 (After Chapter 20): Wonderlands x Showtime goes to SEKAI to thank the Virtual Singers for their help, and to ask if they could watch one of their shows for inspiration. They decide to put one on in the flying train. Emu and Miku fall out the window, so Tsukasa, KAITO, Rui, and Nenerobo save them.

[tixdixl]

Let the nerds talk, lel <3 🗣️: Who’s the one that will ramble on about their highly specific interest while the other just sits back and nods along?

So since you specified in the server that you wanted to see which ship would fit this the most, I'm gonna be so real- this is Pas d'Action.

We know that Rook is not only one to speak very openly about his thoughts, but that he has many, many thoughts about the things he is passionate about. We know from both book 6 and book 7 that this man can and will talk your ear off if he feels safe and comfortable, OR when he feels like he needs to take his shot.

...And somehow he managed to find a partner who loves to listen, so much so that it's their job! And as eccentric and odd and obsessed as Rook is, René will enjoy and bask in every single moment that he is gushing, waxing poetics, and even verbally giving an essay about the things in life that he adores and/or has criticisms about.

While I haven't gotten around to writing the ficlet yet, I actually imagined that the date where Rook realizes that he's found an incredible catch is when the two of them are out, enjoying each other's company. He begins gushing about filmography and musical theater (as we know he is want to do) ans midway through he stops. Completely. And he apologizes because he's realized he's spoken without restraint for a long time, and that René hasn't really said much since he started. But they place a gentle hand on his shoulder and inform him that they don't just want to listen to him just to get info off of him- they want to listen to him because clearly he feels free and is enjoying himself. (Because you know... themes of freedom and authenticity are at virtually every crux of their developing dynamic.) He sort of does that sprite he does when he's surprised, before smiling at them and putting an arm around their waist. And when he asks them if they would like him to continue, they simply nod with a smile and gesture to him that the floor is his.

Prompt

Tag list: @ramshacklerumble @rainesol @elenauaurs @thehollowwriter @blithesharem

@cyanide-latte @boopshoops @starry-night-rose @theleechyskrunkly @lumdays

@inmateofthemind @the-trinket-witch

[hometoursandotherstuff]

2003 very modern farmhouse is an interesting architectural design. It's in Iowa City, Iowa, has 4bds, 5ba, and is $2.75M. It doesn't look like much from the front. Those windows are beautiful, and look at the pond. But, you have to see the middle courtyard.

From the front hall you enter the rotunda.

The living room isn't extremely large like most similar homes, but it's cozier. The feature wall is nice.

Nice home office. I like the built-ins. But, if you want privacy, there's no door.

In the courtyard, the house turns round, (sort of), with walls of windows and a pool.

Round table in the dining room looks crowded. Can you get a regular long one in here?

Comin' around the bend to the kitchen. This is a little weird.

The kitchen's big, but it seems cold, especially with the stainless steel counters. Were those 4 built-in shadow box display niches necessary? You need a ladder to dust them, put up new stuff & change the bulbs.

The windows from inside, and a narrow, weak looking staircase.

The main bedroom has quite a few glass walls. The main en-suite bath is large and very Zen- look at the fountain in the corner. Unless it's a fancy urinal.

Huge walk-in dressing room w/laundry.

Secondary bedroom is a good size and has a nice little niche for a lounge.

Very large bedroom. It may be in the attic, b/c there's a staircase on the left.

Nice black shower room.

Lackluster home theater.

Game room and a gym. Meh.

What a depressing lap pool room. Also, in the corner it says "virtually staged," so is there, or isn't there, a real pool?

Look at that long building that seems to be attached to another one. I wonder what that is. It has 1.87 acres of land.

[garmgeyr]

Updates to Concept

// My writing process for Gallagher has been something of an experiment, so I've been making changes and trying new things continuously over the past 6 months. I haven't really made any official notes about it, but at this point, he's far enough away from my initial concept that I thought I should bring up the changes for those who might still think I'm writing him that way. Especially with the lore event and the potential to interact with new and old faces on the horizon.

This all, of course, is subject to change over the next several months now that Mr. Reca has been officially introduced and I wait for hoyo to prove or disprove a connection between them.

(Some mild 2.2 and 2.6 spoilers below)

First off, now that we know that Mr. Reca was likely the director for the Penacony main story, this opens up the possibility for Gallagher, as a virtual character, to have been created by Mr. Reca specifically for the story with the Trailblazer, and that Gallagher doesn't have any real connection to Mikhail or Penacony's history. This would mean that everything about him, not just parts, is completely fabricated and that he's basically Mr. Reca's OC for his Penacony fanfic. Cool concept, however, this possibility has me screaming into a cup (/neg) when it comes to RP.

None of my current HCs involve this theory. I'm simply putting it here as a disclaimer in case you see me completely rebuilding my concept for Gallagher in 3 or 4 months.

Changes in bullet format:

I'm no longer writing Gallagher as an avatar for an off-screen History Fictionologist. From now on in my writing, italics won't denote this faceless History Fictionologist's thoughts or make any sort of separation between character and creator. Gallagher is simply Gallagher.

My current concept is that Gallagher the character and Gallagher the History Fictionologist are one and the same. His persona and history are half fabricated, his appearance is entirely fabricated, and he's the figure responsible for creating the story about the Watchmaker and his legacy. A new NPC (Ligeia) in Paperfold Academy talks about "a group of History Fictionologists" kidnapping Sunday, and while this rumor is about Sunday disappearing from the Grand Theater and not from Dewlight Pavilion, the fact that the Death of the Crow readable that she references is found in Dreamflux Reef in 2.2 instead of the Grand Theater gives me reason enough to believe that the "group of History Fictionologists" is indeed Gallagher. Likewise, this now gives a steadier foundation for connecting him to other instances when a "group of History Fictionologists" is mentioned, such as the attack on the amusement park. For the record, I don't necessarily think that "Gallagher" is an individual or a collective. I believe that these rumors are just imperfect reflections of "his" influence.

Related to the above, I write Gallagher akin to a spirit of Penacony. The person we see in the story is 1) Trailblazer privilege and 2) a mode of communication. How he appears changes per person, and I've already begun to reference in threads this idea that he may look like Gallagher the Bloodhound or Gallagher the Drinksmith to one person, while at the same time appearing like a statue of a Hound to a passerby. His appearance is nebulous.

Gallagher, like the Origami Birds and other memetic entities, only shows himself to others when he wants. He doesn't "live" like an ordinary person and is more like an on-off switch, appearing when he's needed and disappearing when he has nothing to do. Like a Memokeeper, he can exist like this outside of Penacony, and I've completely gotten rid of the idea that he'll change his identity and name if he goes elsewhere. Felt weird for me to write. Gallagher is Gallagher.

Post-2.2, Gallagher the character is "dead" in Penacony, but in GH he's still kicking around. I'm updating what I wrote back in July about how he exists and doesn't know why to say that he hasn't changed, but everyone else's memories of him have. Everyone who had contact with him should believe that he's dead or gone, but he can still be found in Penacony if one looks hard enough. For those who never met him in canon, it doesn't really matter. To them, Gallagher's story never happened, so meeting a drinksmith named Gallagher would just be like meeting any other random person. For those who did know him, however, I'll leave it up to the mun to recognize him post 2.2 or not. Enigmata obscures memory and perception, so in most cases he will be merely "the bartender" or "the Bloodhound" until the other character sees through the fog and calls him by the name they know him by. After which, he'll appear to them as Gallagher.

To simulate the idea of fictionalized history, I'll be writing Gallagher's posts exclusively in past tense starting with the next thread I start. Usually I match my partner's tense, but in this case, I want to capture the concept of something that has already happened and been recorded, but has been edited in some way afterwards.

I think that's all for now, inb4 I come back in 2 months to completely rewrite this

[frankie-the-bad-guy-lupelli]

I think I’m gonna buy a VR headset. I ain’t much of a video game guy, but I hear you can get like a virtual movie theater thing goin’ on. And what can I say, Beat Saber looks real fun.