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kinsey3furry300 · 3 years ago

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So how the heck do the Avengers pay for stuff, and how rich are they?

So, in the wake of “Falcon and the Winter Soldier” There’s a lot of debate about why Sam didn’t seem to get paid well for his work in the Avengers (at least in the MCU continuity), and this has got me thinking: we’ve got no evidence that the Avengers are, financially, anything but a hot mess. So lets break it down, Avenger by Avenger, using real-world pay scales for the ones who have jobs.

Tony: a billionaire, so clearly he’s a financial genius, right? Well….. his actions say otherwise. He’s shown to be wildly irresponsible with his money. He inherited a lot of wealth form his parents which was managed by the first Jarvis, Obadiah, and Pepper for him, he buys and then gives away not just woks of art, but entire collections by major 20th century artists on a whim, destroyed his own cars and home without concern, he tanks the value of his own company in the first Iron Man with a bad press interview, gets kicked of his own bord of directors, and ultimately, in Iron Man 2, gives control of his company to Pepper. He’s insanely rich, and insanely smart, but man, he’s not smart with his money. So all the cool stuff, his suits, the Avengers tower, the facility up-state: that’s all paid for by him, but Pepper is holding the purse-stings. So, does he pay the others? We have no evidence for most of them… but we do with Spidey. Peter Parker is in the Stark Internship Program a euphemism to hide the fact he’s training and mentoring him as a super-hero, but I find the wording interesting: he refers to Spidey, his surrogate son and chosen heir, as an intern. I.E., Unpaid. I’m guessing this is Howard’s influence over him, some sort of ‘make you own way in the world, son’ attitude, but if he’s not paying Spidey, is he paying anyone else? He certainly pays for stuff super heroes suits and things, equipment, fuel, the base, but does he pay anyone a wage? No one ever mentions it. You think it would come up.

So, if he’s not paying them a wage, where do Avengers (and thier allies) get their day-to-day money from, and are they rich? Using google and https://www.federalpay.org, lets find out.

Cap: Well, before Civil war, he’s a shield operative, and he presumably still holds his military rank: he’s a US Army captain, with (well) over 40 years service, so USD$88,142.40 per year, with $237.71 drill pay (pay per drill you have to do on weekends, on leave or outside of normal service) and $175.00 per month hazard pay (which I bet is interesting) on top of that. As a WW2 veteran, he’d be eligible for a war pension if he:

Was not discharged for dishonorable reasons; and,

Served 90 days of active military duty; and,

Served at least one day during wartime ("wartime" as determined by the VA); and,

Had countable family income below a certain yearly limit; and,

Is age 65 years or older; or

Regardless of age is permanently disabled, not due to wilful misconduct.

As he’s still receiving 90k per year, he’s ineligible for a pension as his countable yearly income is above the limit. So if shield pays him in accordance with his rank and years of service, about $90, 600 per year incuding hazard pay.

After civil war, he’s a fugitive on the run, so presumably flat broke. I’d asume he gets his pension returened to him after the snap.

He’s also just gone from the 40’s to the present day, so 70 years of inflation probably makes buying things very confusing for him: everything would seem insanely expensive at first. He’d also not know what the correct prices are for anything invented after 45. You might get used to how much more expensive food and coffee is, but how much is a smart-phone worth? $200? $2000 $20000? Who knows? I bet the others have to facepalm a lot when he either refuses to pay for what he sees as clear price-gouging, and at the same time regularly pays insane amounts of money for goods and services because he doesn’t know better. He also has no known assets other than his pay: he rents an apartment making him one of the few American males in his age-group who isn’t a home-owner

Thor: Does Asgard even have currency? It’s depicted like a “Crystal spires and toga” type utopia with no poverty: even working class Asgardian’s like Scourge seem to be pretty well-off and want for nothing, so he’s from a post-scarcity society where actual magic is a thing. His “Another” coffee cup smashing and the fact he doesn’t have a computer of phone in Ragnarök might indicate that, no, he just doesn’t have, need or understand money. Splitting a bar tab with him must be a nightmare. His breakdown post snap indicates he’s got some cash, but not a huge amount, and is probably skiving of Valkyrie and the other Asgardians.

Banner: Okay, so a PhD could make you a lot of money from patents… in pharmacology or engineering. Theoretical physics? Not so good. And if Banner did have any patents, they’ve probably been seized under eminent domain by the US military. At the start of The Hulk film, he’s working a entry-level factory job at a botteling plant in Brazil. The minimum wage in Brazil is 1069.62 Real per month, that’s 12,835.44 Real per year, or around $2437.79 US per year, before everything goes wrong for him! He then runs off to India, works for Tony for a bit and then gets shot into space. Spidey may actually make more in allowance than Banner does, and Banner is a gown ass man with bills to pay: I’d imagine he loses a lot in ripped clothing.

Natasha and Barton: Pre Civil-war, both are government spooks, so how well does that pay? The salaries of CIA Intelligence Analysts based in the US range from $25,838 to $685,701 , with a median salary of $125,340, so let’s assume that Shield pays in a similar range: $685,701 per year for Director Fury, around 125,000 for Natasha and Cliff, which explains Cliff’s nice, middle-class mid-western home. Post civil war, presumably not great: we know that Natasha spends a lot of her savings running and hiding all across the world, and Cliff takes a deal and presumably lives of his savings, pension and his wife’s income.

Rhodes: Full USAF colonel with over 10 years service? $105,562.80 per year, plus $293.23 drill pay per drill and $175 per month hazard pay, and because he’s team Stark and not Team Cap in Civil War, he’d not lose any of that. He presumably also gets an injury pay-out after his accident. After T’challa and Stark, he might be the best paid avenger.

Dr Strange: spends all his money he made as a surgeon on trying to cure his hands: spends literally his last dollars heading to Nepal to train. Wong even jokes with him about their lack of worldly money when asking for a tuna-melt. But, can use illusion to make people think he has money, and his home and clothes etc. come with the job, so in the same boat as Thor in that he has no money, but needs none AKA, he’s a bastard to try and split a restaurant bill with.

Wanda and Vision: No know source of income, just sort of live in Tony’s hose and eat his food, and on top of that Wanda goes on the run after civil war… yet they can stay in fancy hotels in Edinburgh, a relatively expensive city, and Vison apparently bought them a house to retire in, so one of them has some source of money. Maybe Tony gave Vision years of back-pay form when he was still Jarvis, or maybe the vison has a day job, which is, frankly, hilarious. Could you imagine him as a barista? I can, and it makes me very happy.

Scott Lang: I’d assumed he’d be super, super broke, but apparently the average pay for a private security consultant in the Bay area is $85,430 per year. Not bad. Pity he gets sucked into the quantum realm just as his business is taking off, so presumably, flat broke again.

Bucky: no known income, and I doubt Hydra paid him for being the Winter Soldier so he probably has no savings, but he should, technically, qualify for a military pension. As a single veteran, he’d be eligible for federal tax-free pension of up to $1732 per month, or $20,784 tax free per year. Not much for someone who lives in NYC. He may also be eligible for medical benefits over the loss of his arm. Whether or not he got to see any of that money given how confused his life has been over the past 10 years is unclear, but on paper he’s eligible.

T’challa: He is, quite possibly, richer than Stark, and as an absolute monarch pays no tax and has access to his Nation’s vast wealth in vibanium. It’s good to be the king!

Captain Marvel: USAF captain, and a test pilot; the test pilot school only accepts applicants with a service length of less than 9 years 6 months (10 years six moths of helicopters) as they don’t want older applicants. With 8 years service, $79,538.40, plus drill pay and hazard. However, no know (human) pay since 1990. Flat broke.

Guardians of the Galaxy: no data, but I’m assuming “Cowboy Bebop” levels of perpetual never-ending poverty given the way they choose to live. I’d also assume Rocket has taken all their cash into some sort of Ponzi scheme of his own creation, because just look at him, of course he has.

Spidey: he’s got about $10 of his aunts’ money at any given time, so he can buy lunch… which may in fact be more than Banner or Lang, and we know it’s more that Strange or Thor.

So, here the big one: how rich or how broke is Sam?

Sam Wilson: annoyingly, we’re not directly told what rank Sam held in any MCU film. USAF pararescue “Maroon berets” are generally NCO’s (but there’ are officer-ranked pararescue) , and he’s seen working on his wings at one point, where as officers don’t generally work on or maintain airframes. He’s shown wearing a Nation Air guard grey while jogging at one point to confuse the matter further. The general consensus on redit is he’s a former USAF tech sergeant (E-6). But how long was he in the air force? With six years service (the minimum sensible time he could have served to work in pararescue based on his age), that would be $41,464.80 per year, plus drill pay and hazard. As Anthony Mackie, the actor that plays him, was 36 as of Civil War, and assuming the character is the same age, and assuming he retired from the air force that year, and he joined the USAF at 17, the youngest you can join, he’d have served 19 years, giving him a pay of $51,566.40, the maximum pay you can get at this rank before promotion to Master Sergent, but meaning he left just before he’d qualify for the 50% final salary pension you’d qualify for after 20 years. Which seems weird. So let’s assume the character is one year older than the actor that plays him and served 20 years (ages 17-37), that means Sam has a military pension of $25,783.20 per year (20,784 of it tax-free), plus any injury benefits. He councils other veterans, but doesn’t get paid for that. He also chooses Team Cap in Civil War, so would become a wanted criminal, and so lose his income between 2016 and 2018, and then gets snapped and has no income for 5 years, which would destroy his credit rating. Like the rest of Team Cap, he presumably gets his post snap pardon, and goes to work for the US government at his former pay and rank. However, given how Captain John Walker treats him as an equal, it’s possible he’s been promoted to a captain when the hired back, giving him a pay of between $54,176.40 to $88,142.40 (with 20 years experience, depending on if they take into account his prior service or not, and how much prior service he has), but either way, he’s just starting this as a new job after being legally dead for 5 years: no savings, and no credit.

Commercial fishing vessels cost about 10% of their total value per year in maintenance alone. I can’t identify what sort of boat the Wilson’s have, but some quick googling indicates that the cheapest 15m long wooden in-shore shrimp trawler costs around $140,000, so that’s $14,000 per year in maintenance costs alone, minimum. And that’s a lower estimate, assuming the rest of the business is sound, which we know it isn’t.

So, in concussion, yes, Sam is in some serious financial trouble until he can re-build his savings and credit, but the scary bit is he’s not alone in that: he’s probably better off than Lang, Banner, Danvers, Strange, Thor, Bucky, Wanda and Parker. Only Clint (if he gets a full pardon and gets his full pension), Rhodes, Stark and T’challa aren’t in some sort of potential financial problems. That asshole bank teller was right: despite the fact it seems to pay well on paper, with a few exceptions, the Avengers financials are probibaly a mess. EDIT: Rocket is running the Ponzi scheme, if that’s not clear from context. The others know they have money somewhere, but not where it’s gone. And It’s been pointed out to me that as he’s technically a POW while he’s the Winter Soldier, Bucky is owed over 70 years back-pay, equal to over 3 million dollars, details in the notes.

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mysticalmusicwhispers · 4 years ago

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hey,,,your thoughts and headcanons on indchuran college au 😳😳😳😳😳(i am very predictable as per usual)

o-o o-o college aus have my heart so thank you for the ask! These turned out as platonic/general hcs but I hope you like them nonetheless! (also this isn’t really associated with any set AU and is separate from the indchuran bros for life AU)

notes: this is based on the little I know about how US colleges/universities work ahahah sorry for any inaccuracies lol

— They’re all in the same year, and China and India got put in a dorm together with Iran next door (oh my god they were roommates ;) )

— They meet when Roshan heard Aditya’s got a copy of a book they wanted, went over to borrow it, and found Aditya trolling Yao with meme songs while the latter was wearing headphones and trying to study (this is kinda half assed and I don’t think it’s funny enough so if you’ve got another meeting scenario please do tell 👀)

— Yao’s fashion is a hot mess, per usual. It’s half lazy college student wear and half blinding eye-strain. Sometimes he still goes edgelord mode and does dark colors and goth attire when he’s particularly annoyed or grumpy (in addition to threatening to evict Aditya/steal all his possessions if he’s bugging Yao); Aditya and Roshan just coo at this.

— Roshan dresses very eccentrically. I think it’s called the art hoe aesthetic? They dress like an art student but pick even more outlandish outfits. But it’s elegant in an eye-catching way, and it makes them stand out a lot. They like it and also love the attention it gets them :) also Roshan would be an amazing person to ask for clothing opinions, except that they might criticize your current outfits too much hksdfsdf

— As for Aditya, I don’t really have a set image for him really? lol I'd give anything to see him dressed in some kind of academia aesthetic (glasses are a bonus), but I feel like his style is more casual and comfy? just average person casual shirts and hoodies. Still knows how to pick good outfits though, but makes awful decisions when in the wrong headspace (like being Severely sleep deprived)

— Yao either studies a) business b) politics c) game theory d) a mix of all three (overachiever). I think he’d also take some of those like, quantum math classes and stuff just to ~expand his horizons~ and ends up taking enough to get a minor in that. Also absorbs STEM stuff from other people although he never went that route :\

— Roshan studies art history! They’re wicked at math as well though, I think they’d definitely be interested in studying pure mathematics as either a minor or a fun side hobby.

— Aditya minors in literature/creative writing and regularly waxes poetic about life. He also complains about the school cafeteria food in flowery prose. Yao yells at him to just make food himself if it’s so bad, but it’s too much effort 😔 (this is literally me)

I’m still undecided on what he majors in, but for now I’m stealing your hc that it’s biophysics :>

— Yao’s tried dabbling in stocks as part class project and part personal side hobby; one of his professors probably helps him with this, and somehow he gets a lot of money even though he invests in some very questionable things that look like shitpost material

— Courtesy of talking with @luyous, these three competitively study during midterms/finals season. They hardcore compete to get the best grades, even though they’re in different majors, and literally. the temperature heats up a couple degrees in the dorm when they’re revising because they all want to “beat” the other two 😭

— Literally they’re such bookworms but have a thirst for being The Best 😔

— Yao has a shit sleep schedule and both Aditya and Roshan have called him out on this multiple times; Aditya more often because they share a room and it’s kind of annoying when your roommate’s desk lamp is still on at 3 AM while you’re supposed to be sleeping. He eventually bought an eye mask for this but still has to forcibly drag Yao to bed at least once a week.

— Aditya is the resident boomer and tech hoe (although he fools around on the computer more than he does useful stuff) inspiration from you raunak <3

— Roshan and Aditya once tricked Yao into watering a fake plant they bought from Target for a full five months :) They keep a log of the shenanigans on their respective social medias as proof <3

— Roshan has a windowsill with a line of very cute potted plants! It’s very aesthetic and they show them off to anyone who asks.��Don’t touch though because the plants are their babies

— Aditya sings very well! Has perfect pitch and all that. Does karaoke nights with friends, drags Yao along even though all he does there is type away on his laptop (and sometimes glances up to simp for Aditya). Often prank calls acquaintances, occasionally with Roshan, because he’s also pretty good at voice acting

— Out of the three, Aditya’s probably the friendliest if you’re a stranger, but it do be hard trying to build a friendship with any of them 😔 yao’s condescending to strangers and it takes some time to crack him if you don’t come off as quick-witted and smart on the first try, Roshan doesn’t really take people they just met super seriously unless they can impress/charm them, Aditya’s flashy but is kinda flaky and sometimes talks down to you and seems to always have something else to do besides hanging out one on one unless you win his respect. They’re good with each other though, occasional spats are mostly misunderstandings unless there’s Too Much miscommunication going on

— They’re all kinda legends for academic achievements. Roshan probably got a paper published in some vaunted journal about idk, changing methods of making pottery in ancient Iran or something; Yao has his stocks (and is also kinda rich in the first place so he’s “famous” before that) and Aditya probably got an internship or opportunity to do lab work for a cutting edge research thing

— they no-homo each other all the time it’s insane. It doesn’t help that they’re in close quarters (Yao and Aditya being roommates and Roshan right next door) so it’s like, accidentally wearing the other’s clothes, stealing snacks, so much touching and closeness lol classic pining material

— Yao jokes at least once a day that Roshan is just a parasite of his and Aditya’s dorm, with the amount of time they spend in there instead of in their own dorm, but they sniff haughtily and say that at least their dorm is much more organized than whatever indchu have going on (it’s true; Yao believes in organized chaos and pretends his organization system is having No Organization; Aditya just does whatever he wants and “anyways I’ll find it when I need it”, Roshan is the only sane one here)

— Roshan drinks tea religiously (all three of them do, but Yao chugs energy drinks sometimes, Aditya binges coffee when needed, whereas Roshan’s solution is tea)

— They’re kinda chaotic but it’s fine they’ll make it through uni :)

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ithinkilikeit-reactions · 4 years ago

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Seunghyub “Boyfriend Headcanons”

Seunghyub version // Chahun version // Jaehyun version // Hweseung version // Dongsung version

- congratulations you are dating a father

- I’m kidding lmao

- or am i?

- Dating Seunghyub comes with children

- You are dating a father and that’s facts

- Seunghyub is just such a great guy

- the person who lands him is very lucky

- he’s marriage material

- Seunghyub on the first date

- Such a gentleman

- the whole time

- like I feel like if Seunghyub dates

- he dates to find his forever partner

- very not into dating around

- if he’s on a date with you it’s because he sees that in you

- Probably will take you out for dinner

- nothing too fancy

- nothing too casual

- a perfect inbetween

- he saves the other dates for other moments

- He’s not very serious on the date though

- he figured if he was so serious it might be intimidating so he definitely puts down that wall

- he’s very smiley the whole time

- He let’s his hand move over the table to hold onto yours

- If you want him to of course

- When the date is over

- Seunghyub will walk you home

- he doesn’t like the thought of you walking home alone in the dark

- he never does

- His fingers will toy with yours as you walk

- not fully holding your hand but just playing with your fingers

- making you laugh and smile because he already absolutely adores that sound

- 10/10 kisses on the first date

- with permission of course

- when he walks away he can’t stop smiling

- his mood is intarnishable for the next 2 days

- Walking you home when it’s dark is one way he shows affection

- If you’re working late, he will pick you up and walk you home

- Seunghyub sees this as prime time to talk about your day

- and like, he feels better knowing you made it home safe

- it puts his heart at rest knowing you’re safe

-when it comes to cheering you up

- Seunghyub is the best listener

- he’s so good at listening to your problems

- and things that bother you

- holds your hands while you rant

- drawing small shapes into your skin while you do

- he does this to keep you calm

- he prefers calm talks over yelling rants

- he can concentrate on what you’re saying better and might even be able to offer solutions

- When you’re sad he really just wants to hold you the whole time

- He has a hard time letting you go when you’re upset because he just wants to comfort you

- When Seunghyub is sad or upset

- He kind of just comes in and hugs you

- burries his face in your neck and you just know something is wrong

- He really just expects you to do the same as he does for you

- listen and come up with solutions if you can

- it’s just so important to him that you two can work and help eachother with problems, even if they aren’t your own

- Arguments with Seunghyub can get heated

- arguments don’t happen often though

- and a majority of the time they are pretty small things

- things you can just sit down and talk about

- but every now and then there’s that one argument

- his voice raises a little

- your voice raises

- there’s silence for an hour or two

- then you sit down and talk things out

- however Seunghyub never gets mean while arguing

- no he’s very civilized

- If you’re in the wrong and apologize

- he’s always very quick to accept

- he doesn’t like arguing with you

- if that was the case you two wouldn’t be together

- If he’s in the wrong

- he feels really bad

- apologizes to you with flowers

- and lots of hugs and kisses

- doesn’t let you go for a few hours

- Seunghyub really hates fighting with you

- it just leaves such a bad taste in his mouth

- that’s why it doesn’t happen often

- sleeping with Seunghyub is actually quite nice

- so before you two go to sleep he tends to hold you close

- running his fingers over your back as you cuddle into his chest

- If you fall asleep like this

- he just falls asleep too

- but preferably

- he really likes spooning you

- loves having his arms wrapped around and likes being able to press kisses to base of your neck

- it’s just a small endearing thing he does

- not always with dirty intentions (save those for later)

- he just feels like he can protect you this way

- Seunghyub also prefers sleeping on the side by the door

- if anything should happen

- he just wants to be there and protect you

- That’s just the type of man he is

- the type to sleep on the door side to protect you

- Seunghyub obviously works very hard

- He’s so proud of everything he makes

- You would be so proud of everything he makes

- Like it’s such a work of art and the music is just amazing

- He loves showing you what he’s working on

- his eyes get all sparkly watching you listen to something

- waiting for your feedback

- he works on music alot

- obviously he’d be so amazed if you did something with music or were at least interested in learning from him

- Oh the amount of songs he’d write for you or about you

- there would be so many

- you’d cherish each one

- if you two get married

- bet your butt you are getting serenaded

- anyways

- free time is majorly spent on relaxing

- you really need to remind him to take it easy sometimes

- so when you’re together and have free time

- you tend to want to just relax with him

- lay on the couch and watch some tv

- or read in comfortable silence

- or to disrupt that silence with a bad joke

- just to think about something else besides work

- Relaxing comes in many forms though

- he really likes going to cafes and bookstores with you on off days too

- he considers this relaxing too

- Seunghyub likes doing things like this

- he just likes going out and holding your hand

- he would think it’s pretty cool if you worked out with him too

- obviously he’d never force you

- but he’d think it’s fun to go to the gym with you

- another way to relax together in his eyes

- He appreciates that you help him relax

- he loves that you’re considerate

- it’s something that he adores about you

- Jealousy and Seunghyub

- Seunghyub does get jealous

- but he smiles through it

- he knows you won’t do anything

- he doesn’t trust the person he was jealous of

- He’ll pull you closer into him and smile

- you’ll know he’s jealous because he’s tense

- but the second he looks at you that melts away

- and he forgets about being jealous

- he gets over jealousy as quick as he gets jealous

- Okay time for growling bedroom Seunghyub

- Seunghyub is a dom

- no discussion about it

- he’s good mix of soft and hard though

- but even when he’s in hard dom mode he isn’t that intense

- because in Seunghyub’s mind, sex is something that’s like special

- so if he gets really rough he feels kind of bad about it

- so he kind of draws the line at extreme things like choking and such

- but he gets rough in other ways

- loves biting your skin

- leaving little marks all over your chest and neck

- he absolutely loves your neck

- marking it up

- kissing it

- running his fingers over it

- however he loves your whole body

- he’s such a fan of body worship

- Seunghyub knows just what to say to make you feel absolutely beautiful

- with that deep voice of his

- the praise can be said sweetly

- it can be growled

- either way it’s appreciated

- soft praises are always being sung to you

- no matter what mood he’s in rough or not

- that never goes away

- also morning sex

- morning sex with Seunghyub is a favored thing

- his deep, deep, raspy morning voice

- coupled with some needy whines on his end

- maybe you wear one of his t-shirts

- morning sex is his favorite

- the slow lazy energy around it

- he adores it

- Seunghyub doesn’t have sex he makes love

- thats all I can say on that

- he also doesn’t like positions where he can’t see your face

- except for spooning

- that’s the exception because he likes the close proximity

- Aftercare

- aftercare with Seunghyub isn’t that intensive or anything

- because he doesn’t get that rough

- it’s filled with loving stares

- running your fingers through his hair

- soft kisses over your skin and the marks he left behind

- coupled with even more praise

- he praises you so much it’s insane

- soft laughter as you get flustered

- his eyes are always so sparkly after sex?

- looks at you with the most loving gaze

- loves showering together afterwards

- it doesn’t lead to more

- well sometimes but not that often

- he likes the intimacy of just being able to shower together

- washing your hair and massaging your scalp

- holding you to his chest and just running his hands over your skin

- he loves that

- he loves leaning down for you to wash his hair too

- looking at you with a dopey, gushy smile

- Relationship with Seunghyub is equal give and take

- he’s a classic romantic

- he’s in it to find his forever love

- the person he wants to start a family with

- the person to spend the rest of his life with

- because he’s ready for that

- he wants kids

- he wants that life

- he’s in it for the long run

A/N: So I had a real hard time writing this for some reason. It has been sitting in my drafts for 2 months and I restarted it like 5 times. So if this sucks I apologize

#n.flying #n.flying scenario #n.flying reaction #seunghyub #seunghyub reaction #seunghyub scenario #seunghyub smut

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palmtreepalmtree · 4 years ago

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Alright friends and enemies, here we are with another edition of

The Worst Movie on Netflix Right Now™!

Today we’re going to talk about an absolute Netflix classic... Christmas Catch

*deep sigh*

Alright, I guess we’ll just start with the premise.

As with our last movie, the premise might be the only thing that’s actually any good about it. Now keep in mind, ‘good’ is a term-of-art when we’re discussing these made-for-TV Christmas romance specials. There’s a whole other scale for them. A WHOLE OTHER SCALE. Got it? Okay.

Mackenzie is a police detective in some unnamed (I swear they didn’t even fucking name it) small-ish town (it might as well be Toronto for how uncharming it is). She randomly meets this guy, only to find out the following day that he’s the prime suspect in a high profile diamond theft. Now, she must spend Christmas staking out the new man in her life.

I mean -- allowing the proper handicaps and deviations from the mean (I have no idea what I’m talking about) this is a promising premise. We’ve got secrets and false motives and a reason for two people to spend a lot of time together. It’s all there!

So, what went wrong? Let’s just say it in unison together:

BAD WRITING.

I mean... I have zero idea what the financials on these fucking movies are, but the biggest problem they always have is absolutely horrendous writing. This guy had an hour-and-a-half of run time to work with and the only connection he could manage to make between the leading lady and her love interest is that they both use the word ‘serendipitous’ and they like the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

Ah, yes. Vocabulary. The pillar on which all true love is based.

FOR FUCK’S SAKE.

Listen, there’s nothing of substance to talk about with respect to this movie. It’s got all of the plot elements of a perfectly decent romance, but the writing is SO BAD these poor actors never had a chance. The screenplay has the depth of a fucking peep.

Mack as a character is primarily just insanely awkward. The running non-joke is that she’s bad at flirting and dating. And she is! But at a certain point being excessively awkward rises to a level of moronic. We’re supposed to believe she’s a detective? Multiple times in this screenplay she blows her cover in casual conversation. Can we just stop making the female lead the butt of the joke?

And let’s be real. Her love interest is basically just a walking chin. No amount of good beard can hide that, dude.

Someone just tell me, where is the money being made on these movies? Yet again, we’ve got sets that look like poorly set-decorated AirBnB rentals. And the cast is peppered with C-List stars who have to be bored out of their minds.

Shout out to Lauren Holly’s plastic surgeon. GIRRRRRRLLLLLLLL... you aging backwards or what?

Also, the ad for this one literally says, “The Gilmore Girls’ Yanic Truesdale stars in...” I mean, my dude is in this movie for like maybe ten total minutes? He plays friend of the lead. That’s it. Friend. Also, he’s the draw? He’s the draw!?!?!

*throws things*

WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING HERE!?

Alright, let me find a way to wrap up. Look, I want to write one of these. I mean, it has to pay something, right? And there’s obviously zero repercussions for writing a bad one.

The writer of this one, Patrick McBrearty (is that a real name!?!?!), has had five more writing credits since this one including last year’s classic................

.......

...........

A Very Corgi Christmas.

I’m in the wrong fucking job.

#ptpt reviews #i don't think i'd write under my real name either pat

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moodyoranged · 4 years ago

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stephen & bree

big spoon/little spoon: they don’t feel like the spooning type to me. if they do, stephen’s probably the big spoon, but i more so see them as the type to cuddle where they land if they’re cuddling at all.

favorite non-sexual activity: they feel like gig people first off just as far as like social outings go the type that would go to whatever bar or basement had live music because they have hipster inclinations. but i think they also spend a good amount of time just holed up along together not even doing anything in particular she’s painting he’s playing clash of clans on his phone they’re just vibing <3

who uses all the hot water: very tough call but probably stephen <3 i think bree likes a good hot shower but knows how to be reasonable about it and get in and get out.

most trivial thing they fight over: most trivial again probably goes back to them being hipsters arguing about who’s music is better n who should get to control the aux when they’re driving around together.

what has a season pass on their dvr/who controls the netflix queue: bree. stephen again stays playing games on his phone which is probably something else they got into trivial fights about because he’d turn on some insane period piece mobster show and then not even pay attention so it became bree’s job to pick that kind of thing out.

who calls up the super/landlord when the heat’s not working: they both would but stephen probably takes more pride in doing it than bree who just wants the heat back on.

who steals the blankets: faith. but she’s allowed, because she does have to call the super, so it’s just fair.

who leaves their stuff around: i think bree has hobbies that take up more space like her art stuff can spread and kind of get left where she’s working on it just because you don’t wanna pack it up before you know ur done. but stephen kind of stays losing shit so like he’s more likely to leave random dishes or work keys and stuff just sitting around.

who remembers to buy the milk: they both do <3 but again stephen probably takes some kind of pride in being the person who remembers.

who remembers anniversaries: they both remember the big stuff, but i think stephen remembers like the little things that may seem more silly to try and commemorate like the day she became his emergency contact or the first time they went out of town together.

who cooks normally?: stephen genuinely enjoys cooking and is decent so i think he would offer to take this over. if bree also likes cooking they can split it but i think he would like enjoy getting to be that person he thinks it’s very subversive and cool.

how often do they fight?: more often than they would like :pensive: like a lack of communication is just a huge deal here because they’re both people who take the feedback they get and act accordingly without like making an attempt to actually discuss something bugging them until it’s too late and they’re fighting. </3

what do they do when they’re away from each other?: they keep in touch but not obsessively because like when they’re Together if they’re apart it’s usually just because they’re busy or have something specific they’re doing so there’ll be like a nightly text/twitter dm check in kind of vibe maybe but nothing too obsessive.

nicknames for each other?: i don’t think they’re big pet name people. the ones they do have are like dorky ones that started ironically and then they actually stuck. like stud and nutter butter or something insane like that they didn’t intend to be anything at all but here they are way later. stephen called her an earnest “hon” once and got roasted he learned his lesson.

what would they get each other for gifts?: bree’s the better gift giver just because she’s the creative one and i think that’s a currency that goes far for them. like gifts between them are usually lighthearted kind of things meant to make the other smile or laugh or something based on little inside jokes or things they notice about the other.

who kissed who first?: bree because stephen’s a pussy <3

who made the first move?: stephen but it was so awkward and clumsy he basically walked away assuming he had fucked it up big time so bree had to make like the second first move in confirming that no she did still have interest in him somehow.

who remembers things?: they both do <3 i think stephen thinks he does until one day they’re arguing and bree could absolutely be the type to be like oh is that how you feel? because two weeks ago when you were on the couch drinking blue hawaiian punch you felt differently.

who cusses more?: stephen but not by a lot i feel like bree could get into it.

#loveback #meme reply.#bree & stephen.

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fipindustries · 4 years ago

Text

list of comics i made so far

i already shared the list of all the novels i tried to write throughout my llife so i see no reason why not to do the same with the comics i tried to work on. no i should clarify, with my lists of novels there was a clear cut distinction between what was a novel and a short story so to parse one from the other was an easy task. it should be known that i wrote hundreds of shorts stories that i havent shared with anyone. now a similar situation occurs with my comics, i have done hundreds upon hundreds of little comics, short jokes, little skits and short lived strips through my life, so in order to give this list some weight and not make it longer than the bible the criteria i used was that it had to be something i did on a regular basis or that tells a self contained story with a beggining middle and end.

now without further ado, lets begin!

spike Vanderville (age 7)

you can tell i was way more into comics than i was into novels from a young age. done with pen and folded paper, it was the story about a young kid called spike, whose design was heavily inspired by bradley from sticking around, who had magical powers which allowed him to manipulate reality. it was a mix of harry potter and a series of illustrates short stories that came in a magazine in argentina. his best friend was a scarecrow with a pumpkin head that he had brought to life, his archnemesis was a fat bully.

curiously enough i was so passionate about this project even though i had no idea what i was doing and no talent that i actually did like three full colored issues of it. my family was really proud of me. sadly those comics are completly lost to time

andrew and the monkey (age 10)

this was the classical story about a boy and his best friend the talking animal. one page comedy strips done in pen and paper. nothing too clever, just a way for me to try lame jokes mostly stolen from spongebob squarepants. not much else to it. i tried to do like a revamp in 2014 but it was short lived, as you can see the jokes didnt get any less lame

FIP industries (age 17)

mostly done in digital. yes as you can see fip is something that has followed me my whole life in quite the variety of mediums. there were as a matter of fact multiple attempts to make this comic a real thing but time and again they would peter off as i saw that my skill was just not up to the task. i think i have talked more than enough about fip industries on this blog, one interesting thing is that if you follow the link you will come across a lot of proto ideas that i had before they cemented and took their definite shape in the novel (and even after the novel i kept retconning and retooling things over and over again, fip industries is an ongoing thing that will probably last my entire lifetime)

Disregarding Reality I (age 20)

the first iteration of disregarding reality, a humorous strip done in pencil and paper, a fairly short lived affair, lasting no more than 3 months. the entire premise of the comic was an MRA activist and a feminist live together, they are friends, they argue a lot. remember 2013 guys? back when this whole politics bullshit truly kicked off online? this was before gamer gate, mind you. but by that point i had seen more than enough of it on tumblr and i was like “someone should do some scathing commentary with wit and penache” and that someone had to be me. mainly inspired by commics like f@nboys and el goonish hive and a thousand billion others that were so popular back in those halcyon days.

i got bored of it pretty quickly and it wouldnt be until three years later than i would finally decide to re-start the project but until then...

Strangers in the forest (age 21)

here comes a rather productive era in my ouvre, ink and paper, based on a short story i wrote, its about an eldritch monster pretending to be human and a ghost girl, killed by her father. they have a dispute because the monster wants to eat the corpse of the girl but the ghost doesnt want to give up her bones because its the one thing that tethers her to the mortal plane. they eventually resolve their dispute. by this point i was actually, unironically trying my best to do comics which i felt looked professional.

Song of a nightmare (age 21)

another one based on a short story i wrote. ink and paper, a private detective wakes up in the middle of the night and sees a mermaid lying in bed next to him. he spends most of the comic trying to figure out how the hell is this possible. still one of my favourite ones and certainly one of my family’s and friends favourites as well. a rather poetic tale, strongly inspired by argentinian fiction and their propensity towards magical realism, i was reading a lot of cortazar back then.

Aika (age 21)

as you can tell i was on a fucking roll that year. ink and paper, this was a story based upon a simple and basic idea that i had in my mind for years and years. i always liked the concept behind the movie “the kid” where bruce willis mysteriously comes across himself as a kid. so of course one day i came up with the idea, what if you recieved a visit from your future self... but she was a woman?

this is probably the most aggresively trans story i ever wrote in my life, it is literally about a guy realizing they are trans and breaking down over it. here is the giant kicker, i did not realize at all what i was doing. i was completly unaware of what was going on here, i was still deep deep in the closet and not even realizing i was there. it really is astounding the honesty and the rawness with which i wrote this comic and it went all over my head. a perfect example of “im such a great ally lol”

oh also there is time travel i guess. my main impetus (beyond whatever my subconcious was forcing me to do) was my desire to make a complete clusterfuck of a story, i was a huge fan of homestuck, i had read fleek and demon, i wanted to do my own take on a hypercomplicated time travel puzzle plot. other things came out on top of it but i didnt noticed them. fucking hilarious

Hello Agatha (age 21)

a comedic strip about a wacky pixie dream girl having wacky adventures with her wacky friends, one of which is a man with a toilet for a head. what a gut buster, what a knee slapper!

there is not much to say about this one, wacky surreal comedy was always my favourite and so time and again i would try my hand at it but it is surprisingly hard to do!

The /co/ ventures! (age 20 - age25)

an ongoing project done in multiple mediums. i think i said more than enough about this in here and here. it was me practiscing comics, practiscing my humor and adding my tiny grain of sand to the 4chan culture. i am proud to say these comics were actually very well liked there and that i would be recognized without a name or signature of any kind, just on the strength of my style.

the vest kind of madness (age 22)

probably one of the projects in which i put the biggest amount of effort to make it look professional. traditional inks and digital colors. a crossover that i cant believe never happened in comics considering how obvious it is. Rac Shade, the changing man and delirium of the endless, the two flagship vertigo characters associated with madness. clearly a match made in heaven.

to this day im flabbergasted i seem to be the only one to think of this.

Disregarding Reality II (age 23)

another work where i have already spilled rivers of bytes explaining my thought process behind it. after having a no good, terrible, very bad day, finding my self aimless and without purpose, deep in denial and depression, i decided to give my self a big project to have something to get me out of bed every day. these three guys came from the depths of my mind to save me.

this time leaning a lot more on silly humor and surrealism than political commentary, still insanely proud of how much i managed to make this last, almost three years, well over 200 pages! and in here i found the inspiration and the creative energy to tackle all sorts of diverse projects of which we are about to see all about.

Mama Bird (age 24)

my masterpiece.

by far the best comic i ever did. a kid with a bird for a mom. hilarious, touching, heartbreaking. it was a concept that i had come up with when i was 21. back then it was supposed to be exclusively a humorous comic strip but then i found a dramatic angle for the story and that was when everything clicked into place. that was when i realized this was a comic i had to do. and i did it. it took me five months but it was well worth it. still insanely proud of this one

Soft boys (age 25)

a weird experimental little story where i decided to sit down and deconstruct one of the most popular superpowers. super elasticity. more akin to me just mashing my toys against each other than me trying to tell a serious story. i am actually really happy with some of the art here and some of the sequences presented. particularly the final one where a brick joke twenty pages in the making finally pays off.

Hexen Snatch (age 25)

a semi spinoff to my novel FIP industries, we focus on a side character that managed to survive after the events of the novel and how they’ll manage to survive further beyond that. insanely soaked by the magical world of pact by widbow i wanted desperatly to share my own take on magic, every page is accompanied by a little text where i expand upon the lore and the way magic is supposed to work on this world. i really like the prose on those snippets and the ideas they work almost more that the comic itself with which i was not happy at all when i was working on it. i didnt like the character design, i didnt like how the art in general was coming out, i didnt like the pacing of the story or how superficially we were getting to expore this world in the comic proper. i had to take a very long hiatus just to accumulate the will to finish the comic and once i did i feel it really petered off without much of a satisfying payoff.

on some level i blame the exhaustion and frustration that i came out of this comic with for the fact that i ended up quitting disregarding reality soon afterwards.

Maxplosive (age 26)

another project that has followed me across multiple mediums. came up with an idea for a videogame back in 2015. saved it on the back pocket for a while, used it as a story within a story on my novel fan.tastic, practisced a couple of animations with the characters and eventually decided that, if my skills at videogame making were not enough, i had at least more than poven myself as a comic artist so maybe that was the definitive medium in which this idea would have to exist.

the original idea was to tell the story in two parts, the first half would introduce the character and the videogame as if the comic was a playthrough of the game. all fun and childlike and innocent. then the second half was meant to explore the life of the main character as an adult, how being “a videogame protagonist” had ruined her body, her mental health and her life. i tried all sorts of weird stuff with the format here, using reciclable assets, static camera angles and generally presenting the whole thing as if it was a videogame.

sadly the project got too big for my breaches, i was fucking exhausted back then, swamped with a bunch of other projects, my job, other responsabilities, unsatisfied with the story and with no idea where to take it. eventually i got tired, decided to skip a day, then the day became a week and then the week became a month and by then i had to face the facts, i was just no longer able to continue the comic. and so i quit not only maxplosive but disregarding reality all together.

i still did the occasional comic here and then but it wouldnt be until the very end of 20-fucking-20 that i was finally inspired to tackle a new project, my newest one, my last one....

Lapsarian (age 27)

an interesting experiment, i decided to do the whole comic in one sit and then post it chapter by chapter on a weekly basis. a surprising result of this was that i managed to do in one month the same amoung of pages that would have taken me 5 months back when i started disregarding reality, is good to see that after al this time i still got it.

took me a while to get the hang of it again and find my own style once more but once i armed up it was smooth sailing for 40 pages all the way to the end. but what is this comic even about?

its... weird, with full disclosure and no shame, it is mostly a fetish story about big lizard creatures commiting vore. the milkman had already shown me that i could do those types of stories and no lighting would come from the heavens to strike me down so i said, why not as a comic? i like to think that beyond the fetish content it is still a decent story in its own right, an interesting feedback that i got from this is that people are suprised how earnest it is, one saying something like “this is the best pitch for a fetish that i was never interested in”

Conclussion:

looking back on this im surprised, turns out i was a lot more prolific and working a lot more regularly than i expected, in here are documented ten years of creative output that never seems to wane. it was fun to do the roundabout trip and see how my style, my technice and generally my work ethic evolved through the years. another nice thing to see is the multiple formats, the multiple tools and mediums i experimented with, i find myself constantly trying new things, new methods, new angles, new interesting ideas for how to make a comic (without even getting into what to make a comic about).

something i always knew about myself was that drawing is a fundamental part of who i am, it is something that just cant be taken away from me and that will always be a part of my life one way or the other, is good to see it so plainly, in black and white, on this list. here goes for what i might be able to do in the future

#art #writing #fip living life

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let-it-raines · 5 years ago

Text

Catch Me If You Can (38/40)

298 days. That’s how long Killian Jones was away from a baseball field. It’s less than a year, only part of a season for him, but it might as well have lasted a decade as he alternated between physical therapy and spending an excessive amount of time sitting on his couch.

But then he came back and won the World Series.

It’s something no one saw coming, and it’s certainly not something anyone who knows about his arm would predict. Now it’s a new season with new possibilities, and anything could happen. On-field reporter Emma Swan will be there to cover it all even if she is not his biggest fan right now.

Asking her out live on-air will do that.

Rating: Mature

a/n: Thanks to @resident-of-storybrooke for being my beta, @imagnifika for the cover art, and all of you for being awesome, whether you read this story or not ❤️

AO3: Beginning | Current

Tumblr: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35| 36 | 37 | 38

-/-

The thing about being a starting pitcher is that Killian rarely plays. It’s every five days usually, and Killian is too competitive to simply be able to sit and watch while everyone else gets to be out there on the field. If it wasn’t absolute murder on his shoulder, he’d be in Al’s office every damn day asking why he can’t be out there.

Understandably, having to watch his teammates play without being able to help has been killing him more in this past week than it did while he was out on injury, and that was actual hell.

Rob did a fantastic job that first night clinching the first game for them by making it nearly impossible for the Dodgers to get on base, and Killian, while he didn’t play his best, pitched a good enough game and had help from Eric’s three-run homerun for them to win the second. It’s simply that everything after that has been a bit of a nightmare.

They lost two incredibly close games in a row in California to tie things up, won the next one, and now they could clinch the entire Series at home in New York.

Tonight.

With Rob pitching and Killian sitting on the bench.

And as much as Killian would love to get to be an active part of it all like he was during the winning game last year, he would give absolutely everything for them to win tonight so that he doesn’t have to get up on the mound tomorrow. The pressure and desire and want is so damn intense that it makes Killian’s heart ache, but he knows that this isn’t really about him. No part of him could be selfish enough to want to lose today so that he could have the possibility of the glory tomorrow.

That would be ridiculous, and he doesn’t know what the hell he’d do if he wakes up tomorrow morning with a stiff shoulder and he’s got to get out there and play.

Sighing, Killian stretches out his legs to the seat in front of him as a whisper of wind whirls through the stadium to bring in the late October chill. He fiddles with the sleeves of his sweatshirt, pulling them down to cover his wrists where chill bumps are rising, and he wishes that he had a hat on to protect himself from weather, his ears likely red from the cold. It’s only seven in the morning, most of the stadium completely empty except for the maintenance crew and a few people in the offices, but Killian knew that this would be his only time to take it all in with no one around him.

An empty stadium is nearly as magical as a packed one.

He’s spent his entire life building up to things like this. Sure, there were times when he had other goals. He wanted to be a teacher, wanted to get his degree and help others, but that was always the fallback goal. It was never the main one.

Baseball has been his life.

Lately, though, Killian’s been thinking about life outside of the game more than ever. It’s insane because he feels like he’s one of those obnoxious people who only lives and breathes baseball all the time, especially with what’s going on right now, but his mind has managed to find a way to wander elsewhere.

There are saved searches on his phone about going back to Vanderbilt to finish his degree and a sent message in his email to an advisor asking if it would be possible for him to finish in New York instead of having to take classes in person. He hasn’t told anyone that he’s thinking about it, not yet. Telling someone makes it real, and Killian’s not entirely sure that he wants it to be real quite yet. He’s a grown ass man, but change is still terrifying when he’s grown comfortable in his life.

Baseball isn’t forever, though, and while he may still work in the sport later on, he’s not going to be someone who goes throughout his entire life living out the glory days through memory.

Tonight, might be another big moment that defines his life, but the past six months have been pretty life changing as well. Hell, the past year has been.

Things are changing in ways that he wants and ways that he doesn’t, and that’s simply how it is.

“So, we woke up at the ass crack of dawn so that you could sit out here all by yourself?”

Killian twists his head to the side to see Emma standing a few seats over dressed in a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, scarf wrapped around her neck and Yankees cap on her head. He was so wrapped up in his own mind that he didn’t even hear her move toward him.

“Hey, love,” he smiles, reaching up and holding out his hand so that the cool tip of her fingers touch his as he intertwines their fingers while she settles down into the seat next to him and props her feet up on the seat in front of her. “I told you that you didn’t have to come with me.”

Sitting here reminds him of another time in San Francisco when he put his heart on his sleeve and willingly handed it over to Emma to crush before they decided that they would give the two of them a go and simply see how things worked out. If she had said no that day, he could have listened. But damn is he glad that she said yes.

Or, well, technically, he was the one saying yes.

Either way, everything in his life shifted.

“I know, but you get all moody and introspective, and I didn’t want you psyching yourself out.”

“I would not do that.”

“You’re a liar.”

“Just a little bit.” His hand flexes against hers, shifting his fingers the slightest bit so that he can get a more comfortable grip on Emma’s hands. “What have you been doing while I’ve been sitting here being introspective and psyching myself out?”

“I was taking some pictures. It’s kind of cool to see the calm before the storm, you know? And then David called me with some work stuff and to give me shit about us making out being all over Instagram, so I sat on a bench and talked to him for awhile.”

“He called you this early? Is he crazy?”

“I think David forgets that not everyone wakes up this early, and he has no qualms about waking me up. Usually I’m much meaner to him.”

“I’m surprised you’re not being mean to me.”

“The coffee we had at home really works wonders.”

Killian almost opens his mouth to say something about Emma referring to his apartment as home. But only almost. They’re both aware of the living situation, have joked about it to each other and others before, and they don’t need some kind of official discussion about things. It’ll all happen naturally, and when the time comes, they’ll talk about it. For now, things are perfect just as they are.

Life has been crazy with his injury and then Walsh and Brennan and the aftermath of them being absolute assholes. It’s gotten crazier with the World Series and how much press he’s now getting, both for the games and for his relationship with Emma, much of which is now weirdly being caught on camera. All Killian really wants is a bit of normal here.

The sun continues to rise in the sky, darkness shifting into an orange glow that will eventually turn into bright sunshine that makes it difficult to see without a pair of sunglasses perched on his nose. The grass on the field is wet with condensation, water coating the blades, and if it wasn’t freezing out there, he thinks he’d go out and sit along the edge of the back wall instead of in a stadium seat.

Bringing Emma’s hand to his lips, he presses a kiss to each of her knuckles before pulling their joined hands back down to rest on his thigh.

“I think,” he starts, not entirely sure where he’s going, “that I could stay out here forever. I don’t know…maybe I feel things too deeply compared to everyone else, but this place has always felt like home. I can’t imagine what things would be like if I’d been drafted somewhere else or if I’d never been called up at all.”

She hums next to him, and Killian looks down to see Emma’s thumb rubbing across his knuckles like she always seems to do. “What’s that thing you’re always saying? There’s no such thing as ‘what ifs.’ Not in life and not in sport. What happened, happened.”

“Doesn’t keep me from wondering.”

“It doesn’t keep anyone from wondering, twenty-nine.” Her hand squeezes his again, and Killian’s mind dares to ask once more what his life would be like had he not met Emma. It’s a question he doesn’t want an answer to. “What if my parents had kept me? What if Ruth had never decided to foster a shitty teenager with an attitude issue? What if I had never met Neal or Walsh or Ruby or anyone who has impacted my life they the way they have? What if I never met you?”

“You’d be missing out on the best sex of your life.”

Emma knocks her foot into his as he snickers at his own awful joke. “You’re full of yourself.”

He shrugs. “It happens. And I know. I’m just – my stomach has been in knots over all of this for an entire month. I’m not sure my body is going to make it ten more hours. Or hell, possibly even thirty-six. I’ve had to hype myself up for all of this, and I’m a little…fuck, Swan, I’m exhausted and excited, and I’m scared I’m going to have some kind of adrenaline crash.”

It’s Emma’s turn to bring their hands together so that she can brush her lips over his knuckles. His heart stutters at the movement.

God, he loves her. It’s actually insane how much. Truly, it shouldn’t be possible.

“For one, getting up and coming to the stadium before the sun even fully rises is not something that’s going to help with your exhaustion.”

He twists his head to look at her, and she’s got mischief in her eyes and a smirk stretched across her lips that he has to kiss away. She still tastes like coffee.

“Also,” she whispers against his lips, kissing him again, “you’re not going to crash. Not yet. I know you’re really big on not riding on what happened last year, but you’ve got to do that. You’ve been through this before, and you made it. Those butterflies in your stomach are being felt by everyone who’s involved with this team, and hanging out by yourself the entire time isn’t going to help things. Why don’t we go get breakfast together? Or maybe go back to bed?”

“How about a game of catch?”

“What?” Emma laughs as she pulls back from him with furrowed brows? “I am not playing catch with you. Are we five?”

Killian shakes his head and chuckles as he stands from the seat and begins to stretch his shoulders out, letting go of Emma’s hand and rolling his shoulders back as he laughs at himself.

“We’re twenty-eight. I know you remember your birthday last week. And come on, Swan. I play a game of really expensive catch for a living. It’s part of my job to work on my arm today, just in case, and I need a practice partner.”

“That’s what Will and Eric or August are for.”

“Yeah,” he smiles, reaching forward to tug her up only for her weight to go dead so that he can’t move her, “but they’re not here. You are.”

Emma closes her gaping mouth, and her lips move in different directions while her nose scrunches up so that little crinkles appear around her eyes under the shade of her hat. “Okay, but if there’s one misogynistic quip about me throwing like a girl, I’m breaking up with you on the spot.”

“There’s nothing wrong with throwing like a girl, Swan. It’s pretty badass. But there’s something wrong with throwing like shit.”

“I’m not going to throw like shit.” Killian starts walking over the chairs, easily maneuvering through the stands with Emma following behind him. “But I ask you to remember that while I pride myself in my fitness, it’s in things like Pilates and running or boxing. It’s not in baseball. You, meanwhile, do this for a living.”

“These sound like a hell of a lot of excuses.”

“That’s because they are.”

“There’s no excuses in baseball.”

“I thought it was crying.”

“Fuck no,” Killian scoffs. “There’s a lot of crying in baseball, and anyone who tells you something different is a liar.”

“I can’t believe you just called Tom Hanks, America’s sweetheart, a liar.”

They have to go back through the tunnels to get a bucket of balls and some gloves as well as a few towels to wipe the grass in the bullpen down since it’s wet and neither of them are wearing the right shoes for this, but they do eventually get to the point where he can lightly toss the ball back and forth between the two of them. He’s not going to pitch at full speed, not until he has Will later, but it’s soothing to simply be out here getting a little movement in. He’s been back for two weeks, practicing for four, but it’s still all brand new again to him and shaded under a light that wasn’t there before.

Emma isn’t bad at all. She’s actually rather good, a natural some might say, and he jokes with her that if sports broadcasting doesn’t work out for her, she might take up a career in this. Naturally that gets him an eye roll or two, but she keeps on throwing until the sun is high in the sky and the day has truly begun.

Killian’s ready for it.

Everything seems to pass quickly then. The entirety of the Dodgers team walks out onto the field for their scheduled practice while he and Emma are still messing around in the bullpen, somewhere between still doing a bit of practice and Killian backing Emma up against the wall to make out with her. No one sees them, though, the loud blaring of music startling the two of them away from each other, and Killian presses Emma a little further into the wall while he buries his face in her neck so that he can muffle the sound of his laughter.

He’s not entirely sure that works, especially when Emma is doing the same, but they eventually manage to grab their things and slip inside so that an entire professional team isn’t aware of the fact that he was using the early morning stadium to kiss his girlfriend.

That would certainly have been something.

There is an actual practice that Killian has to attend today, an hour of which needs to be spent with him running on the treadmill and then getting massaged by Archie to work out any knots and kinks in his shoulder and to make sure that it’s not inflamed. Killian is always terrified that he’s going to be told that his shoulder is inflamed again and that he won’t be able to play on a day where he thinks he’s going to be able to. That would completely screw up the lineup, and…No, now isn’t the time to think about that.

Killian tells Emma that he’ll see her later, that he’ll probably come bother her wherever the network has her sitting even though he’s splitting the time in the game between the dugout, the clubhouse, and the suite where his family is going to be sitting. She has to go home and get ready for the day, and even if she didn’t, he very much doubts that she’d like to stick around and watch him run.

And then they’re both off.

Let the game begin.

-/-

“Are you guys going to win today?”

Now, that’s the question of the day, isn’t it?

Killian looks down at Roland who is dressed in head to toe Yankees gear, all his dad’s of course, and there’s a nervous smile on the kid’s face. Roland is almost never nervous. He has that childlike faith in everything even with all of the tragedy in his life of having lost his mom, and he nearly always believes that things are going to work out. There’s no good or bad, just the belief that things will work out the way you want them to simply by the power of wanting them to.

If only it were that simple.

“I don’t know, lad,” Killian answers honestly as he reaches down to pick Roland up, easily putting him on his shoulders as Killian walks him down the hallways to the suite he’s staying in for the game. Roland was in the clubhouse for all of the pre-game celebrations, and the kid heard and saw things that he probably didn’t need to hear for several more years.

A decade, really. Maybe two.

Yeah, definitely two decades. There was some creative swearing.

“Why not?”

“Well, because we can’t predict the future, and the other team is really good too.”

“But I want to win.”

“Me too,” he sighs as he pushes open the doors to lead to the suites. “And everyone is going to try their best. But you know what?” “What?”

“I think if you cheer extra hard, it might help your dad out, okay? He might lose because the other team is good, but you’ve got to cheer him on no matter what.”

Roland’s ankles hit against Killian’s collarbone, and Killian pretends that the bony lad doesn’t hurt like hell when he hits him. “I can cheer really loud. Like, Grandma says that it makes her ears hurt.”

“If you’re not making Grandma’s ears hurt, you’re not cheering loud enough.”

That sentence pretty much sums up why he’s the best uncle in the world, Killian thinks. It’s basically the equivalent of giving kids a pint of ice cream right before they go back to their parents.

Killian pushes open the suite doors and ducks down underneath them so that he doesn’t knock Roland out. Everyone is situated on the couches and around the tables in front of the TV, and no one pays him any mind as he puts Roland down so that he can run to where Addy, Lucy, and Leo are. He imagines that between the four of them, they’re going to make everyone’s ears hurt from their screaming.

Maybe Killian will go spend time sitting in the dugout instead of in here, but it’s a long game. He’s got time to move around as long as he does make time to study Robin’s throwing patterns against each batter.

“Hey,” he murmurs to Elsa in the kitchen area while she pops a chip into her mouth. “I don’t know that it’s good that you’re playing hooky from work and letting the girls do the same with school.”

“Shut up,” she says in between crunchy bites of food, her hand covering her mouth. “You think that joke is funny every time, but it’s not.”

“It is.” Killian dips his head down and presses a kiss to Elsa’s cheek. “But I fully approve of the skipping work thing, especially when your husband’s lazy ass took the entire week off.”

“He’s supporting his baby brother.”

“Younger, Els. Younger. I don’t need you encouraging that.”

Her bottom lip sticks out. “But it’s so fun to see your ears get all red with embarrassment.”

“Every single thing I’ve ever said about me being glad to have an older sister in you and Anna? Yeah, I’m taking all of those back.”

“You can’t.” She swipes another chip through the dip. “They’ve been said, and I keep them all in my heart right next to where Addy told me that even if she got to choose her mom, she’d still choose me.”

“Classy.”

“I know,” Elsa laughs. “Where’s your better half?”

“She’s working.” Killian pinches his brows together. “So we’re not even going to pretend that I could possibly be the better half?”

“Nope. Just like Liam isn’t the better half either. And don’t make some quip about being equals. Just let me have this. I’m already stress eating chips.” He laughs while reaching forward to drag the bowl away from Elsa so that she can’t eat anymore, but she doesn’t let him, grabbing onto it and pulling it back. “I didn’t say to stop me. World Series week is like the holidays. The calories don’t count until my jeans feel a little snug next week.”

“Ahh,” Killian sighs in understanding. “That’s likely a good thing for how many baked goods I’ve sent your way.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be in the dugout?” Ariel questions as she steps up to them with her glass of water in her hand. “It’s kind of a big game.”

“It’s also kind of the top of the first inning, and I’m not playing.”

“Excuses.”

“A legitimate one. How’re you holding up, A?”

She waves him away and reaches for the pitcher of water. “I’m fine. Eric is the nervous wreck. I have enough confidence in you guys that I won’t worry until, you know, we’re losing.”

“Only worrying when we’re losing? What kind of method is that? You have to worry all the damn time.”

“That’s how you have a heart attack, and I have not suffered eating healthily and exercising so much to have a heart attack this young.”

“This is where Liam would tell you that it can happen to anyone in any age.”

“Where is Liam?” Killian questions as he looks around the suite for his brother only to have him nowhere to be seen.

“He and David are sitting in David’s regular seats because David was complaining about Mary Margaret and Leo not wanting to use them. I imagine he’ll be up here soon when he realizes how expensive food is to buy.”

“They’re such old men.”

“Says the man who was wearing a sweater while drinking a cup of tea and reading in his apartment last night instead of coming out to dinner with all of us.”

Killian sputters a bit as he narrows his eyes at Ariel. “First of all, there is nothing wrong with doing any of that. Second of all, how could you possibly know that?”

Ariel shrugs, mischief in all of her features. “Emma sent it in the group text.”

Of course she did. A man can’t even relax in his own home without being called out for it.

“Who is in this group text exactly?”

“Oh, just me, Elsa, Anna, and Belle. Don’t worry. Not everyone gets to see the embarrassing pictures of you drooling in your sleep.”

He’s going to kill Emma.

Or get his revenge. Somewhere in between those two.

There’s a loud groan from everyone watching the game, and that’s when Killian is reminded that there’s a game going on. He didn’t know that he could possibly forget, but apparently being teased about how he spends his nights will let him do that. When he sees what’s happening out on the field, though, Killian wishes that he’d been able to completely and totally forget about the game.

There are three men on base for the Dodgers, only one out, and one of their best hitters is up to bat.

Fuck.

This is not a good start.

This is a long game, but bad starts can change the momentum of absolutely everything. It gets in everyone’s head. The losing team is convinced that they’re going to lose, that they can’t come back from this, and the team that’s ahead gets all the belief in the world with their abilities.

Momentum shifts are everything, and it’s not time for the momentum to shift. Not yet.

And yet it does.

Robin throws what Killian knows is a good fastball and Rob’s specialty, but Stewart hits a sharp line drive down past third base that Arthur doesn’t get to. By the time that he does, the Dodgers already have two runs, Stewart is on second, and Ferguson is sliding into home before the ball can get there.

0-3 for the Dodgers eleven minutes in.

Shit.

Now it’s time for Ariel and everyone else to get nervous.

And it never gets better. Not really. There are times and chances and shots that have Killian grabbing onto his hair in frustration, but nothing comes of it. Nothing at all. Every single time there’s a real chance, something happens: the Dodgers have an unbelievable get, someone fumbles when the Yankees should have an easy chance at a double play, or every single person somehow forgets how to hit.

Until they don’t.

Because now it’s the bottom of the ninth, and after an absolutely incredible eighth inning, it’s now 7-9.

They’re only down by two runs.

(Two runs.)

Killian is pacing back and forth in the dugout now exhausting every bit of emotional energy he has left in him. He left the suite the moment that first inning was over, texting Emma and Liam that there’d been a change of plans and he wouldn’t be meeting up with them after all. There was no way that he was going to be anywhere other than with his team when things were going to hell.

Being two runs behind is both nothing and everything.

There have been plenty of times when they’ve come back from a deficit like this. There have been plenty more when they’ve blown a two-run lead. And yet, like fifty-five thousand people in this stadium know, this isn’t any other game. This is The Game, and they’re closing in on the golden hour of chances.

It’s win now or come back tomorrow for one last chance of glory or crushing defeat.

Best of seven means nothing when there’s the possibility of there only being one game left.

“You’re going to exhaust yourself if you don’t sit down,” Robin tells him from his seat behind him on the bench.

Will has just stepped up to home plate, his bat in hand and feet in position, and Killian can’t breathe. His lungs have stopped taking in air.

“How could you possibly be sitting down for this? Is your blood not on fire?”

“I just pitched five innings, mate. My adrenaline high is gonedown. I’m exhausted.”

The ball is launched through the air toward Will, and Killian immediately knows that he shouldn’t take a swing at it.

He does.

Strike one.

“Shit,” Killian murmurs, kicking his foot at a water cup on the ground. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“You’re going to give yourself a heart attack.”

“Funny, Fisher, I told your wife the same thing. Aren’t you supposed to be warming up?”

Killian doesn’t even have to look to know that Eric is rolling his eyes. “I’m grabbing my stuff to do just that.” There’s a warm hand on Killian’s back, and he turns to look at it just as a “ball” is called. “Take some deep breaths, man. We’ve got this.”

“Aye,” Killian sighs, “we’ve got this.”

Strike two.

“Shit.”

Ball two.

Ball three.

Foul ball.

Killian’s phone buzzes in his back pocket, and he opens it up to see Emma’s name.

Emma: They’re having to censor you on television right now.

Emma: Just thought you might want to know that. Literally every time they show the dugout, you’re cursing. Ruby is getting a kick out of it.

Killian moves to text her back, to say something witty in response, but then the wood of Will’s bat is making contact with the ball and it’s flying gone, gone, gone…

Until it’s caught in the outfield.

Out one.

“Fuck.”

They’ve still got a shot. They have to. And as much as Killian hates cheering for Arthur King and hates that he only got a monetary fine for what he said to Emma and about her, he’s exactly who Killian has to cheer for now as Arthur hits a line drive that enables him to get on first base.

That’s progress.

It’s even more progress when Eric hits a triple sending Arthur into home.

8-9.

Holy fuck.

They might do this. They just might.

Killian still can’t breathe, but this is obviously his natural state now. This is how he’s going to have to live out the rest of his life.

Emma: Okay, now I understand all of the cursing. I’m freaking out.

Killian: Me too. We make quite the pair.

Emma: The best pair. It’s all going to be okay, twenty-nine.

He smiles down at his phone, his lungs taking in a bit of air at that.

Killian: It will be. I love you.

Killian: A frankly ridiculous amount.

“Out,” the umpire yells, and Killian immediately rests his head against the dugout railing, his nails digging into the hem of his sweatshirt as sweat drips down his back even with the late October chill whipping through the stadium as the night fully comes into effect, the sun long since gone.

Out two.

“For fuck’s sake,” Al yells, throwing his hat to the ground and slapping his hand against the railing. “Why would you swing at that, Whale? You could have fucking walked, and then we’d have two men on base with one out. That changes everything.”

It’s not Whale’s fault. It’s not. He messed up, sure, but it’s a team effort. Killian doesn’t always believe that when he’s the one pitching. It’s hard to get that out of your head when you’re being yelled at by managers and fans and people online sending death threats, but it’s true. It’s not one person out there even when it feels like it.

Killian’s going to have to remind himself of that tomorrow.

No.

He can’t go there. They’re not going to play tomorrow. Booth is up to bat, and he’ll get Eric home. Then it’ll be tied up, and they’ll have their shot to close this out right here and right now.

Hope bubbles up in Killian’s chest, his throat closing up with excitement and anticipation, and that lack of breathing thing comes back again as his knuckles go white from the strength of his grip on the railing. When he looks to the right, he sees that Robin’s knuckles are just the same.

They might do this.

Roland and Addy have to be screaming their heads off up in the suite. Killian almost wants to text Elsa or Liam to see what’s happening, but his eyes are glued to the field as August swings his bat at the very first ball.

It’s a fucking foul.

Strike one.

“Come on Booth,” Will shouts out, clapping his hands together. “You’ve got it, man. Be smart about it.”

“I’m not entirely sure that’s helping, Scarlet.”

“It is, Professor Jones. I’m a great motivational speaker.”

Killian’s lips stretch into a smile, a bit of calm returning, until the ball flies from the mound again, whipping through the air and curving into the strike zone at the last minute.

August doesn’t swing.

Strike two.

The stadium absolutely erupts then, hands clapping together and feet hitting against the floor while thousands of people scream, a mix of cheers and boos for August. If anyone can handle this kind of pressure, can handle the weight of world on his shoulders and the pressure, it’s August.

Pressure is a privilege.

He’s likely not feeling too privileged right now.

And as suddenly as the noise started, it calms down. While there are still people talking and cheering and making all kinds of noise, Killian can’t focus on any of it. All he can focus on is what’s right in front of him.

One. Two. Three.

Foul.

One. Two. Three.

Foul.

Killian’s stomach flips, his entire hand going white, and Will is grabbing onto Killian’s forearm so tightly that he could break the bone there.

One.

Two.

Three.

There’s a thwack of ball against Booth’s back, and it absolutely flies into the air. It’s flying, and Killian nearly jumps out of the dugout to get a better view of where it’s going. It’s got to be a home run. It’s got to be. That’s where it’s headed, and Killian’s arms break out in gooseflesh beneath the thick material of his sweatshirt.

They’re about to win the fucking World Series for the second time in a row.

Holy shit.

But then the ball dips.

It dips, right at the line of the back fence, and the ball is caught.

The. Ball. Is. Caught.

The ball is caught, Booth is out, and the game is over.

And just like the ball, Killian’s mood dips, every high hope crashing down around him and weighing down on his shoulders while his stomach flips before everything heavily settles in its place. This isn’t how today was supposed to end. They were supposed to come back from their bad start. They were supposed to win.

They didn’t, though. They lost, and even though Killian tries to be encouraging to everyone around him as they all finish up their post-game on-field routines, in his head he knows that they’ve only got one more shot at this.

They’ve got one more shot, and a lot of it is resting in the palm of his hands. Killian has been a screw up for this team so many times before, and he doesn’t know if he can do that again.

He can’t let everyone down again.

The mood is subdued in the clubhouse as everyone strips out of their clothes, just a constant murmuring of curses and complaints. Even Al is quiet when he’d usually be fired up yelling at everyone, a combination of disbarring comments and encouragements, and that may be the most shocking part of it all.

Reporters begin to fill the room as well as agents and wives and the occasional child, and Killian sits in his locker with his head between his legs taking several deep breaths to calm himself down. His heart is beating far too quickly. It’s thumping in between his ears, and that’s not how it’s supposed to be.

It’s simply not.

“Hey.”

The voice is soft and very much Emma’s, and Killian looks up to see her softly smiling down at him, Jeff no longer trailing behind her with his camera.

The smile that stretches across his lips is forced and half-assed, and he knows that Emma can tell. She steps in between his knees so that his head rests against her stomach while her hands brush through his sweaty hair. They don’t say anything else, simply stay there together while Killian breathes in the scent of Emma’s perfume on her sweater and shivers run down his spine at her touch.

He is undeniably a fan of every part of her, but being able to simply be, to exist, with her is one of his favorites. There’s nothing quite so soothing as knowing the person you love will always be by your side no matter what happens.

They lost. They did. It’s what happened, and there’s no changing it.

Tomorrow is the last chance.

It all comes down to the last one.

-/-

Tag list: @onepunintendid @authorarsinoe @stunningswan @eala-captian @galaxyzxstark @xellewoods @mariakov81 @ultraluckycatnd @royalswan @shey-starsfury @superchocovian @sals86 @iam2307 @ashley-knightingale @karenfrommisthaven @scientificapricot @captswanis4vr @ultimiflos @jamif @idristardis @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @tiganasummertree @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi @teamhook @notoriouscs @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @cs-forlife @andiirivera @jonirobinson64 @qualitycoffeethings @carpedzem @tornadoamy

#catch me if you can #cs fic #cs ff #cs fanfic #captain swan ff #captain swan fic #captain swan fanfic #captain swan

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theewrites-tf2 · 5 years ago

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(Kudos to @teamfortressaswell for the idea, OC REVIVAL FOR 2020!!!)

OC information of Theewrites, ENJOY Y’ALL!

WARNING: LONG, LOOOOOONG POST AHEAD! (And I info-dump alot, so be prepared for some heavy reading material)

(Also, not all of these backstories/OC canon’s are set in stone, and i’m still doing research on their respective characterizations/lifestyles/ect. they’re still in the editing/drafting process, but these are the basics of some of my older OC’s that you may know… and some of my NEW Oc’s that you may NOT know…. Yet, Mwhahaha!)

Regine: Eldest abandoned & disowned daughter of the RED Spy. Born in Marseilles, France, Parisian-raised until five years of age. Vanished suddenly for nearly a decade, resurfaced in Japan as an assassin prodigy at fifteen. Is totally not soft on her half-siblings, but is totally soft on her half-siblings. Cool, regal and calculated, plans to have the world in the palm of her hand before she hits 30. Long-time girlfriend of Matthias, identifies as pan. Has lost her temper one (1) time in her lifetime, immediately went to reapply lipstick afterwards like nothing happened. Definitely has night-terrors about her childhood, doesn’t discuss them with Matthias, and absolutely takes those nightmares to the grave.

Matthias: Unauthorized clone of the RED Medic, is physically near-identical to him with only minor changes and a stark age-reduction. Has considered bleaching/dying his hair to look more different than his predecessor. Expert in human biology and chemistry, experimented with his own blood cells so to transform them into a more… internal version of the components of the Medi-Gun, so as not to carry around clunky equipment. Is the low-key tired dad of the group. Probably designate roadtrips with the squad and immediately regrets it. Romantic-dork for his girl, Best Supporting Boyfriend 197X.

Emma: Daughter of Ex-MannCo employee, Julia V. Henry and [REDACTED]. Legal goddaughter of Dell Congher. Child-genius, though deep-seated anger issues since childhood, potentially as a behavior coping tragedy. Built her first plane with her bare hands at twelve, can dismantle and rebuild a shotgun in exactly 63 seconds. Doesn’t wear helmets on motorcycle. Feels happiest flying in the air, alone. Absolutely, 100% adores kids, and will never admit it. Can’t go more than a minute without cursing. Also, though not information she shares immediately, she’s an elder twin. And she doesn’t like talking about it, so it’s best not to push her luck on the details.

Lui: Ultimate flower/pastel lesbian. Fluent in Japanese and English, though prefers her mother’s language, Hawaiian. Brings snacks to battle, often rehearses her battle catchphrases the night before. Makes friends with every animal she meets, owns a duck named Bartholomew. Reads teen fashion magazines, draws hearts around models she crushes on. Almost everything she owns has pink, no matter what shade, including her rocket launcher. Shares Emma’s love of the sky, is basically Emma’s favorite person. Infectious genuine smile, and will sing along to every new bop on the radio.

Tamela: The eldest out of the entire group, born in Nigeria, doesn’t know her parents. Considers her squad her family, Emma and Lui are her baby sisters, who can MORE than handle themselves but she still worries. Was gifted with abilities of fire-manipulation/telekinesis and heat resistance at a young age. Entire body, from knuckles to toes, is covered in jet-black flame tattoos. Demisexual, has not been in a romantic relationship as of yet, likely to change. Improvo leader, often first into battle and last to leave. Looks imposing and intense at first glance, is actually very warm (haha) and friendly personality-wise, but has a serious streak from having to grow up quickly.

Denny: Mute from birth, youngest of the group. Has never missed a shot in his life, expert target-shooter and excellent sniping protege. Definitely idolizes Annie Oakley, dressed up as her one year for Halloween. Often corrects Emma’s sign-language, but appreciates her efforts. Like Tamela, see’s the group as his family, sticking together through thick and thin. Likes to hike, but also enjoys reading, keeping a raggy, decades-old copy of Sherlock Holmes in his knapsack, right next to his additional ammo.

Ricardo: Born Rosetta, the youngest of a fairly well-off hotel-chain family business throughout Tijuana, Mexico. Was often the forgotten one and left to his own devices, so he practiced running, dreaming of being an Olympic runner. Became Ricardo at 15, traveled to the US a year later. A bit boastful and chatty, though is often last to get a joke. Had a crush on Lui for sometime, before reconnecting with an old schoolmate, Maria, who he plans to move back to Mexico with after his job is done. Hasn’t given up on the dreams of the Olympics, often wakes up long before the sun rises to run laps around.

Sigríður Anja Dis Jóhannsson, or just Sig: Operational MannCo. Shipment Specialist Expert, has been on the payroll for only the last decade, but has become invaluable with the knowledge she has. Born in Iceland, has traveled the world on specialized shipment and cargo missions, even in more dangerous missions and item-requests. Has had to play poker for her own life, more than once. Single and childless, though she took care of her half-sisters children when she died suddenly, her niece and nephews now all grown up and located elsewhere. Sig is happy to travel alone on the open seas, though she’s had more than a fair amount of lovers around the world, men and women alike. Looks forward to retirement, hopefully with someone more long-term whose also ready to lean back, put away the balisong and let the kids take care of the damn gravel pit…

Jonathan Marks: Born Jane to wealthy stockbroker located in Manhattan, Jonathan is the promising CEO of Marks Enterprises, an international trading and environmental-studies. As the youngest CEO of his company, he’s expressing interest to making big changes, including looking into MannCo, hoping to form a co-ownership or eventually takeover, mostly for the sake of his own company, but the fact that MannCo seems to have a few secrets in the closet that seem suspicious… Jonathan knows Regine from childhood, as they both attended the same private school in Japan, prior to Jonathan’s transition. Very book-smart, often tries to lead by example, he’s persistent with getting a meeting with representatives of MannCo, growing more suspicious as time goes on with dodged replies, forcing him to contact a current employee for an opportunity of a private tour of their facilities, one Miss. Binyamin-M’laney

Angelita de los Reyes: Second-generation of Cuban immigrants, Angelita was considered one of the kindest, sweetest people while in school in New Jersey, unfortunately, her studies were often halted as she suffers from CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) leaving her exhausted before noon often times, though she managed to graduate with a specialty in painting. Though she turned mostly house-ridden after high school, she honestly enjoys spending her day painting and creating art to decorate the family-restaurant downstairs, and also sending her artwork to commissioners all over the state. It also gives her time to send plenty of letters to one of her oldest and closest friends from high-school. He was VERY much higher than her in energy, and could literally run blocks in minutes, but they practically grew up together, at least until he moved to New Mexico for work… Though, strangely enough, Angelita doesn’t get much information about Eric’s company Builders League United, even though he has a whole CONTRACT with them… Hm. How odd.

Sarai Binyamin-M’laney: Born in Tel Aviv as a Mizrahi Jewish woman, her parents sent her to vacation in California when she was six, in which they died suddenly, leaving her overseas with her relatives in Cambria, California. Book-smart and a lover of the beach and surfing, Sarai was popular throughout her younger years, especially with the ladies. Though she identified as bisexual, it wasn’t until she graduated college with a degree in human relations and psychology that she had her first, though admittedly short-lived relationship with an unnamed man in Vegas, returning to Cambria shortly after and finding out she was pregnant. A year later, Sarai suddenly expressed interest in the minute human-resources division in MannCo, relocating to New Mexico shortly after her employment. Quiet, smart and with a very private personal life, she was a perfect, though secretive employee, with a bit of a soft-heart, as seen with how concerned she is for her ‘niece’ and ‘nephew’ back in Cambria, and how quickly she snuck in Mr Marks into the private industries. Her personality, perhaps, is meant to be a more opposing to that of the father of her two children in Cambria. After all, though she lives mere miles from his work location, Sarai has yet to bring herself to walk over and face the red-suited mercenary over in the RED base, whom she still can’t help but remember from their time together in Vegas.

I told y’all it was long as hell, Also it alludes to my OC-canon, which is INSANELY long and i’d hate to waste more of y’alls time on my stuff Xp

Anyway, GO REVIVE THE OC COMMUNITY, PEOPLE HAVE SUCH AWESOME OC’S THAT NEED/DESERVE TO BE SHARED AROUND!!!

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timeisacephalopod · 6 years ago

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Action

Have uh, some random Peter Q/ Tony thing in which Tony is Tony and Peter is a movie director.

“You,” Peter says, pointing at the hottie with the coffee. Everyone is going to hate his guts but they can all deal. He knows what he’s doing, its why people love his shit. “Want to be a cool space vagabond in a movie?”

Hottie with the Coffee stares at him for a long moment, clearly trying to determine if he’s serious. “Do you even know if I can act?” he asks.

Nope but he’s got a feeling and his feelings always end well except that one time he worked with Ronan and nearly ruined his career that movie was so bad but then he bounced back with some heartfelt Oscar winning daddy issues shit people loved so. He’s good. “You can probably act, lets go,” he says, walking off fully expecting his new casting choice to follow him.

Yeah, okay. This isn’t where Tony thought he’d spend his summer but he’s not complaining either. “I thought only rich kids could end up directors,” he says. He knows a few, they’re all shit but Peter is excellent. Fucking insane but excellent nonetheless. Really likes improv, which means his actors have to be good at it. Lucky him Tony happens to be great with a witty one liner.

“Yeah, that’s pretty true. I robbed the tits out of rich people all over California to raise money to make a movie. It ended up being a smash hit success and it put me in demand a little. People came to me to do a couple things, I proved myself a little more, and now I get regular work. None of the show pilots I’ve written have been picked up but I still get stupid amounts of money for writing them so whatever. Movies are more my thing anyway,” he says. “Gamora, move the lights a little to do that thing!” he yells across the set.

Gamora immediately begins moving the lights around and explaining what’s needed to the rest of the lighting crew. That’s not unusual for Peter, handing out some weird instructions and expecting people to get it. You get used to it working for him. “That’s a great backstory, you should make a movie about it,” Tony tells him, laughing.

“Thought about it but I already write a bunch of self insert characters, figured there was no need to do more of it,” he says. “Besides, sci-fi has always been where I wanted to be.”

“Usually you do drama,” Tony says and Peter raises an eyebrow.

“You did your research,” he says and Tony nods. “Yeah. Got stuck in it for a bit, not really that unusual for writers, getting stuck writing one genre in the industry forever. But I got a few people to take a chance on me and now I’m a proven genre jumper so I get a bunch of different shit. Except horror, I can’t write that to save my life. Always ends up horror comedy.”

Tony nods, “but people loved Black Lagoon,” he points out.

“People are dumb, that movie was hot garbage. The only redeemable thing was the fact that the fans started shipping the creature with the fish man from The Shape of Water and that was hilarious,” he says.

“Yeah, I’ve seen the art. So what exactly drew you to me anyway?” he asks because he’s been dying to know.

Peter shrugs, “your hot.” Tony raises an eyebrow. “No really, that’s it. I mean yeah, also you’re ridiculously expressive and carry yourself in a unique way that’s interesting to watch but mostly you’re hot.”

So it was the way he carried himself, interesting. Not really what he’d been expecting, all things considered.

Gamora looks amused, “and the rumor mill has started,” she says, handing her phone off to Peter. He grabs it and rolls his eyes at the TMZ article headline claiming he’s shacking up with Tony but its Tony’s response that catches his attention.

#CanNeitherConfirmNorDeny

More than that the tweet has gone viral. Obviously its a joke, Peter knows that, but he had no idea Tony had such a large and active Twitter base that’s now all interested in his movie for no other reason than Tony being attached to it.

��Bitch, what the fuck? How is this guy a one man marketing campaign?” he asks the screen more than Gamora.

“Probably because he’s already famous, idiot. You do know he’s the son of a billionaire and a genius who’s been in the public eye for years, right?” she asks and no he didn’t know that.

“Well shit, I knew that feeling I had was for a good reason,” he says. Suck it execs.

“Peter he’s well known for being difficult and an asshole, plus he has a history of addiction,” she says. “The fact that none of this seems to be a problem for you is a miracle.”

“Is not, its because I had a good feeling and he looks great on camera. His eyes are unique,” he says and Gamora rolls her eyes.

“Stop hiring people because you think they’re hot, its weird and creepy.”

“I hired you because you’re hot,” he lies and Gamora rolls her eyes.

“You hired me because we worked a job together and you know I’m good with tech. You hired Drax because you think he’s hot,” she says.

“Did not. I hired Drax because he’s a big ass dude and I didn’t know how to say no in the face of all those muscles. I hired Rocket because I thought he was hot.”

Gamora wrinkles his nose, “he looks like a rat.”

“He’s striking, don’t be rude.”

“If you find rats striking,” she mumbles.

“I think rats are very cute and you’re being a dick. Rats are good, Gamora.”

Peter considers Tony for a moment, head tilted to the side. “Okay, yeah, Nebs- Fast and Furious but for all those gay guys and women out there. Feel up Tony’s sexy space booty with the camera,” Peter tells her.

The younger Peter who follows Older Peter around with the clip board gives him a funny look. “Don’t be creepy,” he says.

Older Peter frowns at him, “what? Women deal with it all the time and I, personally, have been victimized by the lack of men’s space booties on TV. Its equality,” he says and Tony snorts.

“What, do you want me to bend over too?” he asks, amused.

“Can you work that naturally into the scene?” he asks and Nebula laughs behind the camera.

Mini Peter smacks Older Peter, “don’t be weird! Don’t do that,” he tells Tony and for some reason Peter allows it. Weird, considering he’s laid back but not afraid to tell someone off if they step on his toes.

“Its this your kid?” Tony asks, squinting at him. There’s a resemblance, sure, with the slightly curly dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. Beyond that they look nothing alike.

“Yes,” Older Peter says at the same time Mini Peter says, “no.”

They exchange a look. “No he’s just like my son, I adopted him three movies ago and we’re feeling up Tony’s space booty. This will vindicate every man who’s been attracted to me ever and also women. Straight dudes are officially the minority here and don’t we make movies to please the majority?” he asks Mini Peter, who rolls his eyes.

“That is a totally twisted take on that argument.”

“So is every take on that argument. Space. Booty. Feel it up,” he says.

Tony rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “You’re ridiculous,” he tells Peter.

“Look, just be lucky I didn’t include the original sex scene with an A'askavariian,” he says like anyone knows what that is.

“I’m not fucking an alien. Feel my ass up all you want with the camera, but I draw the line at alien fucking,” Tony tells him.

“Yeah, I got told that was uh. Not appealing to the public and hello, Del Toro had that woman fuck a fish man. Monster fucking is palatable to the public, my editors are just dicks,” he says.

“Peter, A'askavariians have tentacles and needles for teeth,” Mini Peter says, baffled.

Tony wrinkles his nose. “Yeah I know you thought the ass thing was creepy but the alien thing is worse so can we get back to my ass?” he asks.

“Hell yeah, sounds good. Nebula, I assume you know how to work that thing,” Peter says, waving a hand around. “Do stuff. Wait, action,” he says, forgetting fifty percent of the relevant words to his job spontaneously. Not unusual for Peter.

Mini Peter looks horrified.

Peter looks like hell, probably, if the rumors are true, because he’s been up all night looking over footage and consulting Rocket for edits later. The guy’s process is a fucking mess. “You should probably sleep,” Tony tells him, bumping shoulders with him. “Today’s going to be a long ass day.” The scene they’re shooting is like ten minutes, which doesn’t sound like a lot but it is when its all stunts and action that looks ridiculous without the CGI to make it look like things are actually exploding. Right now there’s a lot of green screens, sticks with tennis balls on them, and people running around in morph suits.

“Yeah, I’m not leaving anyone else in charge. I have a really specific vision for this and sure I’ve got a good team but also I don’t trust a single one of those assholes,” he says and Tony laughs.

“Will this be more or less painful knowing that you’re tired as hell?” Tony asks. Because some people get nicer and some people turn into massive assholes when step deprived.

Peter looks him over, “for you? Probably a good thing. I assume actors are having as bad a day as I am given that I end up making the poor bastards go through like thirty five takes of one scene. Everyone else? Not so good. I mean I’m a total dick, but shit Gamora knows how lights work why are they like that?” he asks, clearly finding some type of problem and he takes off to go deal with it, leaving Tony to ponder what today will hold.

He decides to make light of that Buzzfeed article that recently came out regarding his supposed relationship with Peter instead of worrying about things.

Peter finds Tony in the morning after he fucking sleeps because he has questions. “You, yeah you, what’s with the Twitter speculation?” he asks, catching Tony with a croissant in his mouth looking confused. “You know, about our non relationship,” he adds.

Tony snorts and pulls the food from his mouth. “That? Good marketing gimmick, people love stupid gossip like that. Figured it couldn’t hurt the movie considering your marketing budget is garbage.”

Yeah, true, he spent too much money on music and landed himself in a three week battle over why he needed to blow that much of the budget on music only to win it by pointing out that music often makes movies. Like Halloween without the creepy Micheal Myers theme song? Just some weird guy in a mask following idiot high school students. Sure he gets stabby but its the music that really sells it. Or it did when it first came out, not its just campy to the modern audience. Point is music can make or break a film and yeah sure, he took the money out of marketing but he’s famous enough now that people who know him will go see his shit because they follow his work- built in audience means he can spare marketing dollars.

“Thanks man, appreciate it after three fucking weeks of arguing over that damn budget,” he says, shaking his head.

“To be fair, I’ve heard the music you want paired with the scenes you shot. It’ll sound amazing,” Tony says and finally some appreciation here.

‘Damn right it will. Didn’t think i’d get marketing in the form of celebrity gossip though and when were you going to tell me you’re already famous?” he asks.

Tony laughs, “thought you recognized me but uh, became clear pretty fast that you didn’t so props to you. The last time I ran into someone who didn’t recognize me on sight I was six. Plus I was bored anyway, might as well spend four months on a movie set.”

“Yeah, but I looked you up. Your company has like five new products launching in the next month,” he says. Which is insane given the time and effort that goes into inventing all those things, testing them and he’s been reliably informed by Wikipedia that Tony’s testing process is extensive, and then comes production, marketing, distribution, customer feedback, and then improvements. All of those things on their own is a stupid amount of work, but together plus spending anywhere from ten to eighteen hours a day on a movie set doing random shit? Tony must have the stamina of a robot because keeping up with it all is borderline impossible.

“Half that stuff was already done when I started this and I have an amazing business partner. Honestly most of the credit for all that should go to Pepper. Marketing was all her and she’s a genius at it,” Tony says.

Peter nods because he followed up on the marketing for it. He’s written a few commercials, he knows how difficult it is to run a good marketing campaign when people fucking hate commercials. “You should keep her around forever. She’s way too good a resource to lose when your commercials don’t fucking suck ass,” he says.

Tony snorts, “you don’t have to tell me twice. Pepper is invaluable.”

Maybe he should hire her to run his marketing campaigns. He pretty much hates everyone he has now and in this industry you’re subject to be fired at any moment so he should fire them all and poach Pepper.

Tony walks over to Peter and throws himself down beside him, “smile for me,” he says, leaning into Peter’s space and grinning. He snaps a picture of a mostly confused looking Peter and posts it to his Twitter.

“So like. Are you two a thing? Because I don’t know anymore,” Drax says.

“They aren’t,” Mantis tells him. “But its a good method of attaching Peter’s movie to something.”

Drax frowns at her but says nothing. Tony raises an eyebrow and Peter shrugs, “Mantis is never wrong about stuff like that. She’s like... freakishly good at reading people.”

“Oh you’ll end up together but you’re not together now,” she tells them, not looking up from her tablet. “And Peter, please make sure the boom is not in the shots. I’m tired of editing them out.”

“I thought Rocket did the editing?” Tony asks.

“No, Rocket gets the credit,” Mantis says. “I’m kidding. Mostly. I help.”

“Meaning she’s the only thing that keeps Rocket from spontaneously combusting. She’s almost as good with editing tech as she is with emotions and Rocket needs someone to balance him out.” Yeah, Tony has met Rocket. Guy is wound a little tight and inseparable from that friend of his, Groot. Poor bastard probably has the worst name known to man, Rocket following shortly after. Shit, Mantis isn’t far out from that either.

“Huh. Make my ass look good,” he tells her and Drax’s eyebrows draw together.

“Your ass doesn’t need help to look good,” he says.

“Hey eyeballs off his ass,” he says like he has a right to complain. Everyone currently at the table gives him the same look because he’s a total hypocrite. “What? I told Nebula to feel up his ass with the camera, I didn’t feel up shit,” he points out. “My eyeballs were focused on that one fucky light.”

Tony snorts, “yeah, okay.”

“Don’t look at me like that, its true,” he says. “I maintain that until I’ve felt up Tony’s ass no one can give me the looks you’re all giving me.”

“I mean, if that willing,” Tony tells him and the look on Peter’s face is hilarious.

“Are you willing? Because I may actually have dreams about this.”

Drax shakes his head, throwing his fork at his food. “And people say I need to learn how to be less blunt. At least I’m not ruining people’s meals with admissions to sex dreams,” he mumbles, picking himself up and walking away.

Rhodey looks down at the article in his lap. “Is there truth to any of this?” he asks and Pepper looks up, leaning out of her desk to see what he’s reading before sighing. She doesn’t even need to speak for him to know what’s going on.

“You know how Tony is, he’ll get bored of Peter once they aren’t spending as much time together. Its a fling,” she tells him.

Which is why, three months later, Rhodey is annoyed to be standing in front of Peter fucking Quill, guy who is absolutely not good enough for his best friend. Tony looks hopeful, like he thinks Rhodey will like this pasty ass cornfed fucker when that’s so not going to happen.

“Let me be clear- I don’t like you. You look like someone stuffed you with some low quality hay, shoved a stick up your ass, and stuck you in a cornfield in Missouri until you managed to come to life, pulled that stick out of your ass, and walked onto a movie set. You’re not good enough for Tony and there is nothing on God’s green earth that will convince me otherwise,” he tells Peter.

“Well, I am from Missouri,” he mumbles.

“Yeah you look like you’re from Missouri,” Rhodey tells him, tone disparaging.

Tony sighs. “Rhodey, he’s great. Really.”

Rhodey squints, “have you watched this man’s movies? He couldn’t write himself out of a paper bag if it was made out of some damn ad libs,” he says and Peter clenches his jaw.

“I’m real upset that you’re coming up with better insults than me,” Peter tells him.

“Rhodey,” Tony tells him. “He’s actually awesome. Give him a break.”

He looks Peter over. “Give him a break? The only thing that needs to be broken here is this ugly ass relationship. Go date Pepper, she’s perfect for you,” he tells him. That is the only person he will accept because Pepper is amazing and treats Tony right. And he’s good for her too, they balance each other out. This shit he’s got going with Knockoff Chris Pratt? Not attractive.

Across the room Pepper looks vindicated.

#fanfiction #starquill #tony x peter quill #alternate universe

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arecomicsevengood · 6 years ago

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A YEAR OF READING ACKNOWLEDGED MASTERPIECES #3: E.C. SEGAR’S POPEYE

So, while the original idea behind this series was for me to read an acclaimed comic I expect I’ll like but had not yet actually read, or to read something I’d read a little of but not its entirety, covering E.C. Segar’s Popeye is something of a cheat. When Fantagraphics began their reprint series, a roommate had the first volume, of what would eventually be six, and I read that; I later ordered my own copy of volume 3, and I own a copy of The Smithsonian Collection Of Newspaper Comics, which reprints the “Plunder Island” series of Sunday strips covered in volume 4. I enjoyed all of it, but didn’t feel a pressing need to acquire more, and now Volumes 4 and 5 are out of print and command high prices on the secondary market. This motivated me to get a copy of the still-available volume 6, which might seem less appealing because it’s the last stuff Segar did before he died, and health issues led there to be periods of time where the strip was entrusted to his assistants, in sequences not included.

The editors say those strips aren’t good, I’ll take their word for it. Other people have tried to sell other Popeye product, and I’m sure some of it is quite good: There are some people who take pains to point out that the Segar comic strips are not similar to the Fleischer brothers cartoons, but I’m sure those cartoons are good fun, I generally like the stuff that studio produced. I have seen the 1980 Robert Altman movie, starring Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall, with a screenplay by Jules Feiffer and songs by Harry Nilsson, which is a notorious flop, but with some admirers: Still, it’s a slog, which the comic strip never is. IDW’s comic strip reprint line put out books collection the late eighties/early nineties run of former underground cartoonist Bobby London, what I’ve read of that stuff (just previews online) is unfunny garbage. I think they also were behind reprints of comic books by Bud Sagendorf, and a revival written by Roger Langridge, neither of which I’ve read, though Langridge’s work is always ok; good enough for me to think it’s good, not compelling or transcendent enough for me to spend money on it. It’s all work done by those who have rights to the license, which makes me view it as essentially merchandise, like a pinball game or something. The Segar stuff is where it all comes from.

While other masterpieces of the first half of the twentieth century comics page, like George Herriman’s Krazy Kat or Winsor McKay’s Little Nemo are definitely acquired tastes, Popeye was not only popular enough to make its creator a rich man back in the day, it remains functional as populist entertainment today. I feel pretty “what’s not to like?” about it, and would recommend it to whoever. It’s funny, the characters are good, there’s adventures. The humor is three quarters sitcom style character work and one quarter the sort of silliness that verges on absurdism.

This light touch separates it from the first half of the twentieth century’s “adventure strips” that didn’t age as well, despite having well-done art that would influence generations of superhero artists. Segar’s art isn’t particularly impressive, but every strip tells a joke or two, and even if you don’t laugh at every joke, you’ll appreciate its readability, especially if you’ve ever tried to read a Roy Crane comic, or even Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy. I don’t want to praise E.C. Segar by merely listing works his comics read better than, but it really is notable how many people today are basically trying to do what he did, but are failing at least in part due to not understanding that’s what they’re trying to do. If you want to do a comedic adventure story that becomes popular enough for you to be financially successful, it might be worth reading a volume of Popeye and observing its rhythms. When I was reviewing Perdy a few weeks ago, I was thinking “This basically just wants to be a R-rated Popeye.” I recently found 3/4 of the issues of the Troy Nixey-drawn comic Vinegar Teeth for a quarter each; despite that comic’s high-concept pitch involving Lovecraftian monsters, it would probably have been better if it thought of itself as being a descendant of Popeye, rather than something that could be adapted into a movie. I’ll just phrase it in the format of a popular Twitter meme: Some of you have never read Popeye, and it shows.

Lesson number one, which just sort of emerges naturally from the format of the daily strip, is you’ve got to make jokes, and they can’t just be the same one, over and over again. To that end, you need a cast of characters, who each have their own bit, and who play off each other in various ways. It is easy to see why people don’t do this: Large ensembles grow organically, and most people start telling a story with either a central character or something precisely in mind they want to chronicle. The comic strip, with its long runs originating from a practitioner’s ability to tell a joke, can be a bit freer to stumble onto something that works, without even necessarily having a title character to return to. The collections might be named after Popeye, but the comic strip being collected in these books was called Thimble Theater, which ran for a decade before Popeye showed up and circulation sky-rocketed. For a while, I think the consensus on the early stuff was it was pretty boring and hard to read before Popeye came in and livened the whole thing up, but recently there was a reprint of this earlier material, and I know the dude who reviewed it for The Comics Journal liked it, though I’m sure it’s easy to find someone at The Comics Journal who will like an old comic strip even if it’s bad. Either way, modern cartoonists don’t have Segar’s luxury, or having their work run for a half-disinterested audience until something clicks so much word spreads.

The gag-a-day pace, built around getting into new situations and adventures, itself creates a pressure to be inventive today’s graphic novelists can’t really match. After Popeye is established as a good character, prone to getting into scrapes, Segar can show us the comedy of him caring for a baby. He can also introduce Popeye’s dad, Poopdeck Pappy, that this character looks basically exactly like Popeye but is a piece of shit is a funny idea that would not occur in the early days of planning a project.

One reason why you wouldn’t necessarily do such a design choice is because, if you’re thinking of different media as a way to success, having characters with the exact same silhouette runs counter to the generally accepted rules of animation. Thimble Theatre, as per its name, is based on theater staging, rather than the more expressionist angles of film: We’re looking at characters from the side, usually seeing whoever’s talking in the same panel unless one of them is out of the room. These characters tend to have the same height, basically. Someone once said that looking at Popeye, printed six strips to a page, is kind of like looking at a page of sheet music. It’s not a particularly visually dynamic strip, the amount of black and white on a page is close to unvarying.

This is why I don’t believe in prescriptivism, or a suggestion of rules: I’m pretty sure that Popeye works because it’s not working super-hard to be visually interesting. This would be the number two lesson of what there is to learn from Popeye. I think this transparency in style is what allows this comedy/adventure hybrid to work, though I know others would blanch at this. It’s going for a big audience, and while I think this visual approach serves that end, I know why others, especially those who’ve been struck by later superhero comics or manga, would see visual excitement as the best way to achieve that goal. The audience that read newspaper comics wasn’t necessarily adept at following visual storytelling, and the sort of relationship that newspaper strips could have with a wider readership is not going to be achievable now. The folks that ride for Segar these days are mostly alt-comics people, like Sammy Harkham or Kevin Huizenga, who aren’t attempting the sort of popular entertainment extravaganzas he trafficked in.

Reading Popeye feels like reading, basically, which is a nice, contemplative experience, that not all comics can capture. I read a few pages of it before bed. Obviously, this pace is not how people consumed it in its heyday, but the pace people took it in at, a strip a day, is even more deliberate and steady, and I think, was crucial to its popularity. For a comic to be popular, it has to have characters that are interesting, obviously; there is probably no better way for an audience to build a relationship with fictional characters than over extended periods of time. This speed corresponds to the pace it was created at, one that now seems insanely luxurious to anyone whose workflow is dictated by the internet’s demand for content. It’s a total crowdpleaser, but it existed at a time where crowds could slowly gather. Popeye’s a popular entertainment from an era of reading, listening to the radio, going to plays or movies. It holds up, owing to a basic pleasantness we can understand as low stakes, and that’s helped along by the restraint of the art. It’s telling a story. It’s not a farce, crowded with visual jokes, and it’s not dictated by characters’ emoting either. I love a visually expressive art style, but here it’s important that the visuals remain “on-model,” reinforcing the stability of the characterizations. This sort of thing is also evident in Chris Onstad’s Achewood, which I would argue is the preeminent 21st century character-driven comic strip, with an audience that feels relatively “wide” rather than pointedly “niche.”

Lesson number three to how to make a popular comic is the thought I find myself thinking all the time, which is “Everyone needs to chill out.” The number one impediment to making entertainment that just quietly works is the desire to stand out and make a name for yourself as quickly as possible. This is similar to how the number one impediment to a peaceful and contented life is the demands of a failing capitalism where we are all competing for a shrinking pile of resources. To read these books now is a luxury, an indulgence, and while I don’t much go in for those, reading older comic strips carries with it this sort of nostalgic appeal for an era where it didn’t feel like everything was screaming at you for your attention all the time. As broad as Popeye is, it now possesses a certain dignity, owing to this dislocation in time from its origin. I don’t know if this felt like a feature at the time. I do think that if you are an artist that wants to be successful now, you should do what you can for the sort of circumstances that allow for genuine, long-lasting success to build, which involves a certain degree of permission to fail. Mainstream comics companies, with their mentality of “we’re going to print hundreds of comics a month, in hopes some find a niche large enough to be briefly profitable we can then try to milk for their last dollar and they quickly become exhausted,” act against this. As in a garden, there needs to be space for things to take root and grow.

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whiteroseisendgame · 6 years ago

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Here’s the Bumbleby Social Link of my Persona/RWBY crossover! For those of you that prefer, the full thing is below the cut of this post as well, Tumblr has been eating tags as of late so idk if this’ll even post, but whatever.

13/09 Yang asked me to hang out with her after school. It felt a little like she had something more to say to me, but we ended up going to a café and just… Enjoying each other’s company. Asked if I was enjoying my time at Beacon, unconscious teammate notwithstanding. Told her it was fun, partly because I enjoy seeing her face light up, though on some level I think it’s the truth. There’s this, passion, she carries with her wherever she goes, and it’s hard not to get caught up in it, to start enjoying life just that tiny bit more when she’s around. Even just sitting on a terrace and drinking tea, listening to her puns. In a way, it’s hard to picture this girl as the same one whose hair and eyes catch fire when she’s rushing down Shadows in the Dark Hour. But the smirk is the same, regardless of the situation. Ever-present. Encouraging. A spark that motivates the rest of us to do our best.

I am thou, thou art I. Thou hast formed a bond with the free spirit, an embodiment of power. We bestow upon you the gifts of the Strength Arcana. Strength Rank 1-Follow-Up Attack: Chance to follow-up should an attack trigger a One More

20/09 Got a text asking if I wanted to spend the Saturday with “my favourite teammate,” so she took me to the manufacturing district like some sort of twisted field trip. Not a single fiction book in sight. Plenty of manuals on what looked like ancient technology to leaf through, though. Strangely, when we’d stopped for lunch, she turned beet red before admitting she was the one who built her weapons. Apparently, most people who talk to her only do so for the looks, not expecting the brain that comes with them. Not that it was something I would have expected either. I reassured her it was nothing to be ashamed of; after all, we could use that expertise to make our equipment better. A conclusion she came to herself, offering to enhance anything we found in Beacon provided I also brought her the parts needed to do so.

Strength Rank 2- Start with a Yang: Yang is now capable of basic upgrades to your weapons. Back Talk: Chance to step in if Shadow negotiation fails.

22/09 Decided to spend my free time with Yang. On a whim, she offered to take me for a ride on Bumblebee. Honestly? I could get used to living life like this. Spontaneous, energetic, free. It’s like the antithesis to life with Adam, he had to control every. Little. Thing he could. Plus, she stopped at a flower store and ended up buying a bouquet of Deadly Nightshade, talking about how it should be my codename for missions. When she asked what flower I thought of when I pictured her, I answered honestly; Chrysanthemums, after all, I read somewhere that they symbolised optimism, and that’s what Yang is to me. On the other hand, it might’ve just been because they remind me of her hair. If she ever asks, I’m going with the first one. After all that, it felt like she wanted to say what she’d originally intended to on our first outing, but she stopped herself again, mumbling that it wasn’t the right time. Whenever she’s ready to tell me, I’ll listen.

Strength Rank 3- Baton Pass: Allows Yang to set up an enemy for a killing blow from a teammate.

29/09 Xiao-Long finally worked up the courage to talk to me about what was on her mind. Huh, calling her by her surname doesn’t work as well as when she does it to me. Having “Belladonna” shouted across the hallway certainly gets my attention every time! Before I knew it, I was being pulled into an empty classroom and listening, watching as Yang drew her uncle’s insignia on the board. She opened up to me about Raven (her mother), and her desperate attempt to find her when she was younger. Apparently, even Ozpin doesn’t know what happened first-hand, just Qrow’s last report, which he turned in before refusing to do any more work. I finally cracked and told her. About Adam, what the White Fang were doing, how they had access to the Dark Hour. How I couldn’t sleep because I was scared he’d find out where I ran off to. Strangely, she simply offered to stand guard in the hallway every night until I felt safe. Her own way of lightening the mood, and the insanity of the suggestion certainly did just that. After a comfortably long hug, long enough that we were both smiling by the end of it, she reiterated that she meant it. Something tells me I might actually be sleeping comfortably tonight.

Strength Rank 4- Intimidating Stance: Yang’s imposing stature means enemies may ask for less during a negotiation.

12/10 After taking out the train of White Fang, Yang stopped me at lunch to ask how I was doing. I didn’t even say anything, but I could feel my pulse start racing. Apparently, she could tell as well, insisting I spend time with her after school. Part of me considered ditching her; I didn’t want to talk about it. Not so soon after putting everyone in danger. Instead, we found a nice little ramen shop where Yang seemingly knew the owner. After a few whispered words, he returned with a huge bowl of tuna! Only noticed I was drooling when she reached to dab it off my chin with a napkin, embarrassingly, but the food was really good. She still ate way more than me, insisting it was her treat after the ordeal, and ignoring the fact I was holding all our funds from Shadow fighting. Granted, I’m sure people would be asking questions if I casually spent hundreds of thousands of Lien like it was nothing. I think it had its intended effect, though. Everyone had been handling me like I’d break if breathed on. We finally talked as friends again. Not as teammates, or in deference to me as field leader. On the way back to the dorm, she admitted to practicing more with weapon upgrades in her free time, saying she might have found a way to increase the firepower of our guns.

Strength Rank 5- Continue with a Yang: Firearm upgrades now available Harisen Recovery: Yang can now cure status ailments inflicted on party members

14/12 I agreed to see a film with Yang during our Christmas break. Her pick. She wouldn’t admit it, but I have a suspicion she based this choice on what she thought I’d enjoy. Action, but with a message. And a helpful dollop of mushy romance. Thankfully it wasn’t an adaptation of one of my books, I’m not sure anyone could properly translate them onto the big screen. What keeps going through my mind isn’t the film, however. At some point, I felt her hand gently graze mine, before gripping it more affirmatively. Caringly. Not that I was going to protest. Almost instinctively, my hand curled around hers in response, urging her not to let go without saying a word. For the rest of our time out, she did her best to avoid eye contact, like locking eyes would turn her to stone, or something. I couldn’t tell you what it meant, but I wasn’t opposed to most of the conclusions I reached. There was definitely something between us. While she’s probably embarrassed about it, as most people would be, I got to see a different side to her once again. For once, it felt like she let her guard down, stopped putting on airs and just… Enjoyed being herself, briefly. The girl I went out with today wasn’t Ruby’s sister or my second-in-command, but Yang herself. I’m not sure I can really put the sensation into words besides those, but it’s like we were dragged much closer than we’ve ever been before.

Strength Rank 6- Smooth Technique: Chance to step in during negotiation and steer discussion

03/01 I messed up. Seeing her in that hospital bed just drives it home. I can only imagine this is what I looked like to her as Adam towered over me. All motivation, just… gone. Resignation. I thought going alone would make it easier, and less like we were there to look after her. That I was coming to see her as a friend, like she’d done for me after the train. No amount of ramen could mend this. I did my best to make jokes like she did, but even that wasn’t working. When I finally got her to turn around, she was fixated on the bandages around my waist. My own reminder of the encounter. She asked me to take my jacket off, to let her see it. It was probably only a few seconds, half a minute at most, but it definitely felt like an eternity in uncomfortable silence. “Don’t go.” The last thing I expected Yang to say. Her smile was definitely forced, lacking in its assuredness. But I could see in her eyes that there was still determination, pleading, screaming for me not to go, that in that very moment she wouldn’t be able to bear it. Not after almost losing me once two nights ago. So I stayed. Held her remaining hand in both of mine. Watched it shake as she finally let all of her rage and despair boil over. “I’m not leaving.” Any other time, that line would be as cliché as they come, but not tonight. Tonight, it was the truth. And the weird thing? Afterwards, that was the first time I’d seen her smile properly since losing her arm. If it weren’t for the missing limb, you could’ve easily convinced me nothing happened that night.

Strength Rank 7- Endure: Chance to withstand a fatal attack with 1 HP remaining

01/02 Exactly a month. That was how little time it took Yang Xiao-Long to start training again. Admittedly, I jumped a little when I heard her ringtone after class, and it was hard not to blush when I found her leaning against the school gates, like a cool anime character, prosthetic sprayed yellow-and-black to match her aesthetic. On the surface, she was better. Laughing, joking, insisting firing her arm at Shadows was a viable combat tactic. But those cool amethyst eyes gave everything away. I didn’t press her on it; no matter how much I wanted to, trying to force her to open up would have the inverse effect, and I knew that. For today, we focused on getting her back in the field. What really stuck out to me was how quickly she’d come to accept the substitute as the real deal. In fact, were it not for the brightly coloured paintjob, you could be lulled into thinking it had always been there. Apparently, the weapon wasn’t in there when Weiss left the box outside her room, she referred to it as a “Yang special,” a shotgun hidden in the wrist. When we were done, she explained that, thanks to making her modifications, she might be able to tweak our weapons further before we next head into Beacon.

Strength Rank 8- Finish with a Yang- Upgrades to weapon critical hit chance are now available.

05/02 Even though I was the one who asked Yang to hang out with me, she still insisted on choosing where we go. Of all places, I didn’t expect to be back at the flower shop again. And she had a request. Pick out a flower that I thought represented her now, and she’d do the same for me. Even before doing it, the whole thing felt like a strange test, almost wanting to make sure my opinion hadn’t changed because of what happened. Or, at the very least, hadn’t changed to something she disliked. I don’t think it surprised her when we both picked something different to our first choices. She handed me a light purple rose, explaining that it meant love at first sight, and adding that she thought purple things complemented my eyes well. My choice was slightly less romantic. A black tulip, an association I’d formed with her after finding out that specific colour represents strength. No one else could possibly understand how strong Yang was to me. No other people were there when she saved me from Adam. When she stood up to the one person, I thought was unbeatable. And stood back up again when he tried to destroy her. The bear hug was unexpected though. She was practically in tears the moment I explained. We both knew there was more between us now. You just don’t do what Yang’s done for me on friendship alone. Love. It’d always been there, I think. Especially since she thinks of me as being a love at first sight. The hand-holding, wanting me to stay despite telling everyone else to leave, all of it was shoved into focus now I had a glimpse of her perspective. Even opening up about personal things, things she couldn’t tell anyone else. Our trust was more than that of good friends, of teammates. Somehow, we’d fallen right into each other’s laps. And I was all the happier for that.

Strength Rank 9- Protect: Chance for Yang to take a fatal blow for Blake. It would seem your relationship with Yang is getting intimate.

10/02 Yang finally let me pick where we go on a date. Feels weird calling it that. A good weird, though, like it’s what we should’ve been calling these outings the whole time. Something tells me she knew I’d just want to ride somewhere on Bumblebee, already knowing “just the place” after I suggested it. A small piece of nature, untouched by the sprawling metropolis below. Even the road we’d stopped on was a fair walk away. Almost too many types of flower to count. And a small clearing just on the edge of the cliff. The romantic in me wants to say it was just big enough for two people, though that’s probably an exaggeration. She grabbed my hand again, without hesitation this time, and promised we’d do everything together, even when we’re done with school and the Dark Hour. I believed her, too. Especially when she leaned in for a kiss. Had to stop myself blurting out “finally!” But it was worth it. I never want to be apart from her again. From the sounds of it, I’ll never have to be, either. My Yang was back. The one who stood by me when my worst nightmare came true, and had the balls to fight it. The Yang that opened up to me because she saw me as an equal, not as someone to be protected. We’ve both grown so much from when we started, and we’ve still got a ways to go, but now we can do it together.

Strength Rank 10- BumbleBY: When Blake and Yang are in a party together, both are immune to status effects.

#bumbleby #rwby #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #bmblb

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houseofvans · 6 years ago

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ART SCHOOL | Q&A WITH DAVID CHUNG (THE CHUNG)

Artist David Chung’s paintings, drawings and sketches are filled with colorful anthropomorphic characters from sword wielding pandas to rainbow spilling landscapes where skeletal heroes battle fuzzy cute creatures. Drawing from his own experiences and psyche, David’s uses his adorable and hilarious creations to help deal with the everyday stresses of life and as a form of catharsis. We’re excited to feature the work of David and talk about his art, his work as an Art Director at Dreamworks TV, and what new projects he’s got in the works!

Find out more about David Chung by taking the leap below!

Photography courtesy of the artist.

Introduce yourself? My name is David Chung, but a lot of people might know me as The Chung!! I’ve been living in Los Angeles for the past 11 years now, which technically makes California the longest place I’ve ever lived in my entire life. During the day I work in animation, currently as of this interview, I’m an art director at Dreamworks TV, but at night, I’m my own artist, free to do whatever I want!

How did you get into painting and art as a kid? What kinds of things were you influenced by? I’m not really sure how I got into art as a kid. I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember. Much like all kids, I’ve always just enjoyed drawing and making art. I realized early on that I could be as weird as I wanted to be in my drawings, and that was a really liberating feeling. Earlier in my childhood I was raised in Hong Kong and Taiwan but my highschool years were spent in Upstate New York, where I graduated from. I pulled a lot of my influences from growing up in Asia and having a Chinese background, but the subjects and humor mostly came from living in the States.

How do you describe your work to folks who’ve never seen it before? I might describe it like watching an animated kids’ movie with a lot of jokes your pervy parents would appreciate.

You have various creatures and characters throughout your work that we love. Storytelling and humor are elements in your works as well. Can you tell us a little about how each piece evolves? What is your general artistic process like? I’ve been finding myself creating new characters based off of new ways I need to deal with my life at the moment. The characters that are in my work are compartmentalized parts of my psyche or emotions. Being able to take the everyday stresses of life and make cute characters go through it in a more harsh and humorous way is a really effective form of catharsis for me. About 90% of the subjects in my work are autobiographical. The humor in my work is just another way for me to prevent myself from ever taking myself too seriously. If I can’t laugh at my own work, then what’s the point.

Do you have a main protagonist in your work? And who or what is it? How did it come about? It really depends on what I’m going through at the time of my life when I paint my characters. For example, my XiongMao (Panda) character was created during some pretty rough times. He represents my persistent side to survive. Grimothy (the little reaper dude) and Xiaguai (his little chinese demon friend) are my two mischievous daydreamer characters that are all about ditching their responsibilities to have fun adventures. Pouty Pig is the side of me that throws silent tantrums anytime he is unhappy about a certain situation, which apparently is a lot. These are just some of the few recurring characters in my work depending on how I’m feeling. I even have a few recurring antagonists such as the Happy who are pink soulless zombie-like creatures who roam the earth seemingly always happy, but they feed off of people’s energy like vampires. If you ever let them get a whiff that you’re not happy, that’s when they attack. I think we all know people like this. Right?? They’re the worst. I hate them.

What was your last adventure that showed up in one of your work, thematically or just visually? I do these sketches in my Instagram feed called “Procrast-O-Sketches” that usually follow my most current adventures. The overall sketches can be interpreted however you like, but for myself, friends and family in my inner circle, the subject matter is pretty esoteric.

A pretty straight forward Procrast-O-Sketch is from Sept 21, 2018. We just moved into our new house in the beginning of September, and about 2 weeks after moving in, my 2 year old kept crying that there is a monster living in the house. He keeps saying it’s a shadow man that “kind of looks like Daddy” but sometimes it turns into a dog-like creature. He’ll be playing and being super happy, then all of a sudden he’ll see his shadow man, then will let out a terrified scream, scramble over to myself or his mom and cry that “The man is back!!” We’ve been trying to turn it into a game now by going monster hunting together, which seems to be helping. At least helping him... I’m terrified as shit now.

What is your favorite thing to draw or paint? I love drawing or painting creatures and characters in familiar situations that are way worse than my own.

What are your favorite tools? Currently, I always have my little Pentalic Traveler Pocket Journal, a kneaded eraser and a good clutch pencil with me just in case I need a quick therapy sketch session to take out any frustrations. I feel like brands and mediums change all the time, but a good ol’ fashioned pencil and a sketchbook are always constant.

What’s a medium you have yet to try and would love to take a stab at? Oh man, there are way too many mediums I’d love to try one day. I would really like to try oils again. I haven’t messed around with oils since I was in college. I also really want to try out ceramics and bronze casting.

Not only do you draw and paint, you also work as an art director and designer at DreamWorks by day? What’s that like and how did you find yourself working for such a cool company? Dreamworks is a pretty awesome company to work for, and I’m not just being paid to say that. They’ve made me sign a contract to say that. But you know, overall it’s pretty awesome because of the people. I love being able to collaborate and riff off of other artists every day. All of whom are working toward the same goal of making the best looking product possible. I’ve been working in the animation industry for about 10+ years now, and over the past decade, I’ve met some really great people who I know I’d work with again and again like I have in the past. So when a lot of those people who felt the same about me ended up at Dreamworks, I was brought on over, and I’m super grateful for it.

How do you balance your work life with your artistic life? Or are they sort of one in the same? It’s actually pretty easy and difficult all at the same time. I deliberately try to separate my work-life from my art-life because what I do after work, is mine and mine alone. This keeps me from taking anything too personally when there are ridiculous amounts of notes and revisions to be made at work. Nothing is personal, and I’m totally okay with that. My job is to provide them with the work that they want. It’s a lot easier to make revisions when I know that as soon as I go home, I can start working on my own personal stuff that nobody can say shit about.

The hard part is finding the time to have an art-life after work-life. It usually means eliminating good health. Fortunately passion usually wins out over sleep, but unfortunately, “usually” isn’t always. Typical days at work can last 10-14 hours, and when I get home, I still want to be able to hang out with my wife and kid, which means I won’t even be able to get started on my own stuff til around 12-1am. Especially lately, due to the monster keeping my son up all through the night.

What are you constantly inspired by? And who are some of your early and current art influences? I’m constantly inspired by life and all of the little idiosyncratic behaviors we have. Human life is so interesting even at its most mundane moments. There’s always inspiration to be pulled from who we are. When I was in the second grade, I saw Alien for the first time in my life on TV. It fucked me up. I needed to know what this monster was. Then I found out about H.R. Giger when I got a little bit older. It wasn’t necessarily the style that inspired me, but the way the he created. It seemed like an obsession that he turned into a profession. I didn’t even know being an artist for a living was allowed! Lately I’ve been super digging Travis Millard (IG: @theotherfudge), Alex Solis (IG: @Alexmdc) and I was recently introduced to Kamila Mlynarczyk’s (IG: @Woodedwoods) work which is pure insanity and I love it so much.

What do you do when you are not painting or drawing? Lately it’s trying to spend as much time as I can with my family and soak as much of it up as I can before it slips away. While doing that I’ve been messing around with photography and filmmaking as a hobby. Filming my son doing weird shit is super fun. He makes a great subject.

What advice would you offer to an aspiring artist who might wanna follow in your footsteps? You gotta want to do it. And not just because you think it’s a good way to make money. You have to want to do it because you love it. That’s really where it all begins. Next step is to just go fucking do it.

What’s your best Art School tip that you want to share with folks? Could be technical or just advice. This is a continuation of my previous response, but it’s important, after you “just go fucking do it” expect to fail. Don’t even just expect it, LET yourself fail. As long as you learn something from it and never stop trying, you’re totally allowed to fail all the time!

What do you think you’d be doing if you weren’t an artist or doing anything art-related? This one is difficult, everything I can think of that I’d possibly be doing is art related. I’ve always wanted to be a fiction writer or a filmmaker, but those can be very creative. The other thing is to start my own business producing products for creative enthusiasts.

What are your favorite style of VANS? Every time I end up buying a new pair of VANS, I always end up getting the Authentic style. You can never go wrong with them!

What’s coming up for you the rest of the year that you’re super excited about? I’m super excited about two new toys that are currently in production with Martian Toys and Wetworks. Also there’s a bunch of new stuff I’m trying to launch on my own that I’ve been pretty excited to work on, I just need to find the time!

FOLLOW DAVID | INSTAGRAM | WEBSITE

#Art #Vans #Vans Art #Art School #David Chung #The Chung #interview #animation

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starship-squalleater · 3 years ago

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hey there! I started Critical Role earlier this year (mid-march), and I’ve been obsessed ever since.

When I started, Campaign 2 was airing live every Thursday, so that’s what I started with. I watched it from episode 1 on Youtube, but since the episodes are 3.5-5 hours, I definitely didn’t watch every second of every one of them. Generally (not so much in the earliest episodes, but in later ones) there will be youtube comments with comprehensive timestamps for the episodes. Flando Maltrizian is a name most critters are pretty familiar with, since he is the one who does them every episode.

If you sit in front of the computer and skip through, you can go through a 4 hour episode in about an hour, which is how I got through most of campaign two.

Now, campaign two is finished. If you’re going to be super busy and you want a huge backlog, you can watch that one or campaign one (because they’re both done and have 120+ episodes). If you want to watch live in order to keep up and not get overwhelmed, Campaign three started a few weeks ago and only has about seven episodes, with new episodes coming out every thursday night.

If you decide to watch it, you can subscribe on Twitch or Youtube to their channel (Critical Role for both). if you’re subscribed on twitch you can watch new episodes whenever, if you watch on youtube then you have to wait until Monday to see the new episodes if you don’t watch it live. Youtube has all the previous episodes in a playlist, as well as the other two campaigns (campaign one is called Vox Machina bc that’s the party name and campaign two is called The Mighty Nein, again bc it’s the party name. Campaign three does not yet have a party name, though they’re brainstorming and will probably have one in the next few weeks).

I’m in midwest USA, so it airs from 10pm to 2am for me. Often I fall asleep around 1:30, but I finish the episode on monday. because it’s so late, it really doesn’t interfere with anything else that I do, so it seems very short, much shorter than when I was catching up. I say this because four hours seems SO LONG when you’re beginning- it’s the reason I didn’t even try to watch it for several months, but I swear that it’s worth it. I love having huge amounts of content, and the cast gets along so well and is generally so funny that watching it is sooo comforting.

I love the world, filled with magic and lore- and the fandom is pretty great too, most of the time. There are bad parts, as there are in every fandom. In campaign one especially, there’s a lot of random hate towards one of the player’s that’s generally misplaced, but I think the majority of the fandom completely disowns those people. Creators make such beautiful art, too- pictures, cosplay, even fan songs (I love Lilli Furfaro’s work so much). There are inside jokes with the cast, Sam’s ads (which, if you’re not familiar, are insane), and the fact that we get to spend four hours a week with characters- how often to you get the luxury of knowing characters so well? they grow. they heal, they fall in love. It’s amazing.

I’ll leave you with a quick note: if you ask people which campaign to start with (as in, if they like campaign 1 or 2 better, since it’s too early to tell with 3), their responses will most likely be based on which one they started with. I haven’t met a single person whose favorite campaign wasn’t the one they started with. All that means is that there isn’t one campaign that’s objectively better, so people’s opinions are super subjective. (my favorite campaign is 2, it feels like home. It’s the one I started with).

sorry for the really long post, but I hope it helps!

Anyone here in the Critical Role fandom? It's looks good but I have no idea how to start it

#critical role #long post #dnd #cr #vox machina #the mighty nein

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bigbrothernetflix-st · 4 years ago

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EPISODE ONE

“its week ONE. why is everyone being so cracked i hate it here i absolutely hate it here someone take me out with a sniper rifle” - aria

HOH: Jev UPSIDE DOWN: Jacob & Gina NOMINEES: Kiki & Nash POV: Nash FINAL NOMINEES: Kiki & Mo EVICTED: Mo (14-1)

PRESEASON CAST ASSESSMENT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEdLzVoyttU&list=PLFEwPPy8j010XXwntq80VSU0qLNTNpSIN&index=2&t=0s

JOEY

WOO holy shit this cast is filled with such insane personalities, and I cannot WAIT to play this game!

NASH

tell me why i'm already nervous

NASH

waits patiently for mo to pick another damn person to infect

GINA

skghkdgljhgdlj BRAIN HURTY,, sm people to talk to and everyone is so so nice! just glad I'm not winning hoh

ARIA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-bwCxQGRhk

alternative title: im very mean for 20 minutes

KIKI

so far the cast seems very sweet! a little quiet so far but otherwise im really enjoying talking to them!! and i think the twist is a cool idea but could be dangerous.... maybe a little too easy to expose alliances

GINA

I really like this cast! I'm actually really good friends with Aria (but we keeping that a secret) and I recognize Joshua from other orgs! Also, this twist seems super fun!

ARIA

okay,,,,okay,,,ok,,,k my brain is struggling to complie everything ive learned today i am STRUGGLING!!!!

So!! Lets make a tier list

We're working together (didnt even need to discuss)

-Nathan

-Jacob

-Gina

Asked to work together

-Joey

-Joshua

Implied we're working togther but lower tier

-Jev

-Josh C

-Monty

Super Sweet & Nice

-Bri

-Kiki

-Dem

-Mo

Sweet but i want a response

-Nick

-Emma

_saira

-jake

-Nash

So thats what i've gathered for today mostly, Jacob-Joey-Jev-Joshua all seem to really want to work close with me and we've talked a bit of game ( ITS ALL THE Js HELP) and seem super open while the girls seem more closed off as of now, kinda worried gina isnt gonna be active enough but idk, oh also everyone is noticing bri is CHAOS and that nick is talkative/assertive. more to update in a bit but heres a trust ranking for night one, one more thing jev said he doesnt like nathan or nick :OO and someone else mentioned nick being overbearing

1.Gina (i love her to the moon and back)

2. Nathan( the charisma SNAPPED this game go off sir!!)

3. Josh C (they're also charismatic but they're hecking hilarious and our view are pretty similar)

4.Jev (they cared about me!! and im nice to them and this is just really wholesome)

5.Jacob (LOVE him but we havent talked enough beyond "we're winning this game")

6.Joshua (super fun to talk to, same og community king)

7.Bri (they wont keep info to themselves but shes SO sweet pls take my heart)

8. Joey (hes kinda sketching me out tbh but also he wants to work with me so)

9.Nick (they wouldnt put me up and thats all i could ask for)

10.Monty (PLEASE trust me i need ur braincells)

12.Kiki (sHES SO SWEET AND GOOD AT ART ADORE HER)

13.Mo (existential dread buddies <3)

14.Dem(approached game w/ me,,,but on the first message so might be doing that w/ everyone)

15.Nash (kate protection gang!!!)

16.Saira (we loVE DOGS! and thats it)

17.Emma (feel better soon,,,then pls talk to me k thanks)

18.Aria (dont trust anyone,,,not even yourself)

DEM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykD4dZjsDl0

BRIANNA

https://youtu.be/odNZXz-jNtw

If alliances have been made already, I am gonna have some QUALMS... This cast is very cute, I love meeting new people, let's see we have

Aria - an ANGEL we've been talking about SIX the musical and slime tutorials

Brianna - The first person to recognize me using a Carole & Tuesday song in any of my videos. I'm v grateful.

Dem - He kinda jokes like a mom...

Emma - I'm friends with Emma outside of the game and she is such a chaotic sweetheart. We been in the house a day and she plays Lois Griffon singing Doja Cat... for what...

Gina - I have not talked with her, I just said hi.

Jacob - Jacob is nice. I think I've yet to have a super positive ORG experience with him tho. So. Yeah.

Can I do the rest tomorrow cus I'm tired and just not in the mood. Okay thank you.

SAIRA

I was a little surprised by the amount of people dming me but they all seemed pretty nice! The twist sounds cool, I'm excited to see how it plays out

JEV

i definitely did NOT expect to win the first hoh but here we are, i have no idea what i'm gonna do but i need sleep so that's tomorrows problem

JOSH C

HELLO! it's your boy josh coming to give you some thoughts on the cast. coming into this game, the only person i know of beforehand is.. JACOB who has managed to snake me in both games we've played together so that's cute. i don't really have a choice but to trust him for now bc that's my only outside connection so we'll see how it goes. he's fun to talk to so i don't really mind but my eyes are PEELED for it going south.

my favorites just from the first night are probably aria, kiki, nathan, and saira. for no REAL reasons other than i just feel like i've had the best conversations with them and they were more fun than the rest of the cast. i'm not sure if those will stay the same but that's HOW I FEEL RIGHT NOW!!

i've reached out to everyone and heard back from everyone (other than nash.. dunno what that's about so i'll just let it sit there. i don't REALLY mind bc it's good if i win HOH because it's a good reason to throw someone up there). everyone is cute enough, though i think i've connected LEAST with brianna, dem, joey, and monty? just haven't gotten a lot of energy back from them but i'm hoping that was just FIRST NIGHT jitters of people not putting in their full effort into their social game.

i'm going to spend today just chatting with people so i have a base relationship with them and that way if jev goes the route of asking people who they'd him to nominate -- i'm not someone they name simply for not knowing who i am. trying to be a little SOCIAL QUEEN. fun and funky so let's hope it pays off.

for the twist, i'm not really sure how to play this. i don't think the first round is going to have the BEST power hidden in it but it'd be nice to know that i for sure won't be first boot. (though i'm feeling OKAY enough that jev won't kill me bc we've talked at least). i think i'm going to wait a minute before i ask someone to send me in, or someone just sends me in on their own accord. that way people don't look at me for having a secret power bc it'll be really easy to narrow down who has one and that's just such an unnecessary way to get a target on your back. i like the twist, it's just hard to figure out how to play it and maybe i should just wait until someone does it for me or i'm one of the later people to get it so i get safety when there are less people in the house and it'll be harder to survive.

xoxo gossip josh

SKINNY NICK

https://youtu.be/yNBReh_pBPk

NATHAN

He's here, he's queer... and oddly enough starting off by not doing a Video DR; however, I think when making an initial first impression/trust list this method seems to go a little smoother... First off, coming right off of Big Brother Pasio and thrown into this game has made my head hurt more than it should. I forgot how annoying and tiresome the initial conversations are with everybody. With that said, I have begun to kinda pick out a path that may be suitable for me this season. In Pasio, my goal was to lay low, not be seen, and form connections. That strategy is going to be partially active this time around as well. I'm a big personality, and while that's fun and cute, I learned by keeping a low profile in the beginning portion while remaining social it does wonders. I don't need to be a Skinny Nick character and be talking in the house call and house chat at every ounce I get. With that being said, this season is full of Pasio players... some in which I had both good and bad experiences with. However, pushing that aside I really have my eyes set and locked on Aria. I have a feeling that the other Pasio alumni may see her for how she played in Pasio and I do as well, but I want to make sure her and I are on as good as terms as possible. She did NOT like me in Pasio, so rekindling that flame is ultra important. Alongside Aria, I get to play with both Monty and Jacob who I've had rocky relationships with in the past, but have grown to become great friends outside this. Working with them is going to be vital, but keeping them too close is suicide. With that being said, here's my initial trust ranking:

1. Aria

2. Jacob

3. Nash

4. Jev

5. Josh

6. Monty

7. Joey

8. Nick

- - -

END LIST

JOSH C

okay, well nominations just came out and i can't say i'm too surprised that nash got nominated for eviction considering she hasn't responded to me yet and most everyone else is saying the same. i can't really imagine anyone using the veto on her unless she has a complete social turn around in the next 24 hours but that seems like.. a stretch. just gotta hope she doesn't win! we love an easy first week boot!

i'm a little sad about kiki getting nominated because i've really hit it off with them, but i think it's a good way to secure some trust with them and spark off a relationship. i've been trying to already be like YOU GOT THIS, YOU'RE STAYING! NASH DOESN'T TALK TO ANYONE! and i think they're being receptive. i like that i can joke around with them, so i'm hoping they enjoy me as much as i enjoy them.

i've also had aria and jake come talk to me about noms which means they trust me and that's GOOD. i want to try to secure something with them soon because i think they're both people that would want to work with me and i know that jake doesn't have a lot of connections already so being an early ally of his would be BIG.

just trying to focus on being a cute little social presence so people don't really focus on targeting me early on. i think this is a game full of half social players and some.. not so exciting people so it'll be easy to just slip through by not being the most boring person around. i don't want to promise TOO many people loyalty just yet but i think building a small core for myself will be important to keep me safe and i'm hoping that can come with jake/aria/kiki/jacob(?)

JAKE

chile............. where the fuck am i?

i dont know what dimension i'm in right now with these people but i am ready to show them what i am made of!! so far i've felt..... on the outs of most of what is going on so im just gonna give my perspective on things so far!!

the cast....... ill just do an assessment

dem: said maybe three words to me since we've started... so there's that

saira: seems like a queen! i def need to talk to her more i've been sleeping on her and i think we'll get along well

joey: girl sometimes idk what this man is saying to me but we're rolling w it..

nash: her "sick" ass hasnt responded to my message from yesterday so bye

joshua: oh he can work! hes fun to talk to and i def see some potential to working with him. hes only 16 so yung so pure i remember those days </3

nathan: hes so hot god i literally want to eat his entire ass but i dont wanna be creepy so im trying to subtly flirt with him SDLKJFSKF he seems to be a sneaky player to me but hopefully thats not the case and we can be a showmance later on hehe

emma: LEGEND. QUEEN! PUT SOME RESPECT ON HER NAMEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! my ride or die in this thing <3

jev: oh jevfrey my angel im so happy he's here!!! he's a loyal guy from what i remember and ill def be working with him ESPECIALLY now that hes the first hoh ayyyyY!!!! i feel completely safe with him

kiki: oh i LOVE THEMMMM we had a great connection from the jump and i have a soft spot for them for sure. theyre sadly nominated this week i did not know why jev made that decision but i will make sure they stay know THAT

monty: monty left me on read :( we had a kinda awk convo so idk how monty feels about me right now?? i def dont think he trusts me and ugh i hate the tension!!!!!!!! i hope we can resolve it all and be friends again

josh: KDJKFG i love this man... hes not entire truthful and is def playing me a bit but i think he's great and hopefully he doesnt turn out to be the snake i think he has the potential to be

gina: idk what to think of this girl she doesn't reply much to me and we haven't really spoken much for me to really get a good read of her. i infected her and idk if she'll take that a certain way i came to her with the explanation that we just havent talked as much. idk shes fine?

mo: hahhaha hes a cutie too and i think hes not much of a talker so i think hes nice for the most part it's just kinda hard talking to him sometimes

brianna: um....... yeah we haven't spoken yet and she infected me so idk how to feel about her yet. she claims it was this number system but do i fully believe thats what she based it on? not really.. so ill def have to talk to her more

aria: NOW THIS........ THIS IS ELEGANCE. THIS IS CLASS. THIS IS EXPENSIVE. THIS IS TASTE, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! this 15 year old girl has me shaking to my god damn core with her social game within a 20 minute conversation ive already devoted my entire game to her and our "attention whores" alliance. iM GAGGGEDDDD i really like her and i know shes a big threat but if shes with me then we can do some damage together hehe

skinny nick: SKINNYYYYY i dont have much to say about nick i think they're well connected in this game so i have to make sure i'm good with them a little more. our convos are a little dry hopefully that'll change as the game goes on

jacob: a sweetie.. i really like jacob as a person but as a player he scares the shit out of me DSLKFGFKJ he lied to me like every round in BBHOS9 so i dont rly know if i can trust him. he def has other friends in this community hes playing with so ill have to sus out who exactly that is...

and......... yeah! kiki and nash are nommed. gina n jacob went to the down under. i think jacob will def get whatever power is down there he is one lucky man so i wouldn't be surprised if it's something good. oh well hopefully when i go i get whatever the best thing is a dpov mayhaps!.......

i hope the next hoh is something i can win because i want these people to TALK TO MEEEE tell me where their heads are at for god's sake! me on day 2: why arent you telling me all your alliances? dFGKLF i feel like im okay just gotta talk to some said people more and try to make sure they dont hate me!

JOSHUA

I thought Jev was nice but I'll have to go back on that because he absolutely is not fooling a single person, I thought we'd be allies but he's been acting sus all day so he can choke on rat piss. Joey and nick literally aren't talking to me at awl so... they can choke and die too. Aria is talking to me a lot but I know she talks to everyone a lot sjdkjds queen of big brother pasio... but I trust her for now I guess. Other than that I'm not super like concerned with anyone else I mean brianna kiki gina mo are nice I guess.. mo is a little hard to talk to though so :( anyway glad to be here but my social is kind of rocky skjdjskdj : ( ( ( ( (

JEV

SKINNY NICK

https://youtu.be/0Kb-twzCkYI

trying to hint to dem that I’m not okay... wonder if it’s working

ARIA

its week one. its week ONE. why is everyone being so cracked i hate it here i absolutely hate it here someone take me out with a sniper rifle im sick of this, but its fine im gonna try to do my best to explain EVERYTHING bc whew is there a lot..

First off lets start with the fact ive been talking with everyone from the moment i woke up and my fingers hurt so much but also now people like me and thats all i need in life so heck yes!! So when it was nash vs kiki i start planting seeds to keep kiki with people and then nash wins veto so thats thrown out the window yayyyy-

Things start happening after jev renoms Mo. First off i get a call with crack kills (joey bri me) and we discuss the vote a little bit with Joey leaning towards keeping Mo and Me/Bri wanting to keep Kiki, joey leaves and me and bri talk about the alliance we were invited to (jacob josh jake kiki us) and then i notice theres a house vc which i then go and join alone.

It was silent for a bit before they mentioned they were talking about votes and were being kinda secretive about names but i asked directly so Mo tells me that dem told him that there was 5 confirmed votes against Mo (nash Jacob Nick Joshua/Jacob(dont remember which) and Josh c) he said the names really fast so i mightve missed a few and nathan interjects about my notes and like??? shut up nathan???? anyways i act all shook about an alliance and we talk about votes and apparently when mo campaigned to bri she just sent "hugs" and im caCKLIGN FDSGFDSH anyways that confirmed 5 votes is gonna make people nervous and cause people to keep Mo which like, im not totally against but i just want a unan vote please. Also i think dem & emma dont really trust me which is big ughhh idk if one of the pregame girlies (any of the names from that list) win hoh next week ill throw one of them utb easy peasy

So then i start asking around to gina and she ghosts me??? gina NEVER ghosts me so im sketched out there and Mo is asking for my help when i already told kiki i would save her its such a messsss. So if i had to guess the sides i would say

PREGAME GIRLIES: Nash Jacob Jake Joshua Josh c kiki

UNCONNECTED NOT PROTECTED: Dem Joey Emma Nathan Mo

Whomst: Saira Jev Monty Nick Gina Bri

Help: Aria

So, where do i go from here? How do i make sure this vote comes out hecking even,,, im not sure. nvm i am sure because Mo just told me they want to give up HFBHJBSDFS MO MY SAVIOR ILL NEVER FORGET YOU KING <<<<3333333 okay nvm hes not fully giving up but im giving him an avenue that would make my life much easier where im telling him to have good convos with people so they connect more and if anyone feels moved theyll come to me and ill get the ball rolling with a easy peasy unan vote hopefully. But i think i might be able to manipulate this situation to my advantage WHEW im hyped now!!

So lets say mo leaves the thought of those "five confirmed votes" is still gonna be in peoples heads mainly dem/joey/emma/nathan which might form into a side and go hard for hoh taking out some big social player and then we have two sides going after each other which would be cute.

I would make trust rankings but i trust no one fbhsafd and thats on pewiod

JAKE

WHEW!!!!!!!!!!! im not the first boot :~) let's celebrate that....

but i'm not too thrilled about these noms...... im happy nash won POV she started talking to me more and shes actually really cool so i wanted her to stay. i am sad kiki is nominated i don't want them to go at all..... and mo being the replacement nominee was a shock to everyone i think.....

i don't have a problem with mo leaving cuz we have a weak connection i just thought dem was going up based on my prior conversations with jev. he says dem started talking to him more but i just wish jev would talk to me and emma about his decisions if we're "aligned"?? like whats the point of having an alliance if we don't have any say in your decisions?

today i woke up to a message from josh asking me what i think about being in an alliance with jacob brianna aria and kiki........ and im just like wtf where this come from and he said that jacob is making it and its just his fave ppl??? im like ok like im not one to turn down an alliance but i let him know that i dont rly trust jacob n brianna as much as the others in the alliance. hopefully this makes him feel close to me and not blab his mouth to jacob ab that!

brianna has yet to speak to me and jacob is just someone im always gonna have a hard time trusting sooo if i have to nominate them down the line i won't hesitate unless this alliance is genuine and helping me in the game.

i really only trust emma so far with aria being my secret spy and big meat shield im gonna need in this game. aria's super well connected and im hoping she'll be able to provide me w the information i need to take bitches down later on.

i think i'd be worried about brianna winning bc we've never talked but at least we have this alliance possibly in the works?? and i dont know if nick would nominate me we haven't talked much..

but i want to win the next hoh so people actually talk to me LOL praying i can win

#bbnetflix st

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