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argumentl · 7 months ago

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Kaoru Interview - Burrn! Japan Vol.23 (Feb 2024)

Interview by You Masuda

FAN TRANSLATION

(Note: This interview was held mid-way through the Phalaris Final tour)

The next person to interview was Kaoru, straight after Die. When I asked Kyo about new material going forward, he simply said, 'Ask Kaoru about that', but to be sure, if there is any member creating the blueprints for future new material, there is no doubt that its Kaoru. Of course, I'm aware that its slightly too soon to be asking such things, but I started the interview hoping to at least pick up a few hints.

ーYou are currently mid-tour, but after finishing both days at Zepp Haneda, how are you feeling about it?

Hmm. Its quite.....exhausting (lol). It consumes a lot of energy, much more than we usually use for live shows. Phalaris has a lot of power packed into it, and you really feel it bearing down on you. I'm not even trying to be that active on stage, but still....its tiring (lol)

ーBy that you mean its something different from physical tiredness?

Yeah, the tone, the content of the show, there is a heaviness to it, its something that you just can't approach half-heartedly.

ーKyo said that the songs are all hard work to sing this time. As for performing, there seems to be a lot of songs that you just can't relax through.

Yeah, its the same when playing. It really questions the type of person who is stood there playing on stage...this isnt the type of stage I can just stand around carelessly on. I mean, not that I'm like that anyway (lol). But there is something about it where I just can't express myself unless I fully throw myself into that world. It feels like a heavy weight crashing down on me for this tour.

ーThis is the third tour in the Phalaris cycle, but I get the feeling the first two rounds were not as heavy as this?

They weren't. The first round was quite tasteful, and in the second round we emphasised the 'live' element of it more, it was like a lighter version. If its too heavy from the beginning, its kinda tough on the audience too.

ーWould you say this is an album with such a heaviness that it requires this kind of considered moderation?

Yeah, but we did think we need to moderate this tour too. If for example, we were to do a single limited live show in a big venue to close Phalaris, that would be even more intense. In the shape of a tour, there are times when we are reaching our absolute limits. Thats how tough it is (lol) It didn't seem right unless each show of the tour encompassed that sense of weight and culmination.

ーIn other words you are almost right at your tipping point?

Yes. If we were to increase the intensity further, there is no doubt that the shows would collapse into chaos...which may be ok in some sense, but then we would be unable to continue touring properly.

ーYou touched on this earlier, but don't you have any plans to do a seperate finale for Phalaris in a big venue at any point?

No, we aren't thinking about that, not for now at least. It doesn't mean there is a zero percent chance, but recently there just isnt the venue availability for that kind of thing. This has been going on for a few years now. If we had been able to find a big venue before announcing the tour, then this tour wouldn't have been seen as the 'Final'. So in a sense, ending Phalaris in this way is very rooted in actuality. It probably still would have been this heavy though, even if it wasn't labeled as the final.

ーFor Uroboros, you held a finale live in Osaka jo Hall after a bit of time had passed. Is there no possibility of such a thing happening for Phalaris?

Well, I don't know. Its a timing issue. If we found the perfect venue at the perfect time, and if we were all mentally in that space....I mean, it will be easier to know as time passes, but if we are mentally for it, there may be a possibility.

ーYour answer has raised my expectations somewhat, but I'm not going to get too carried away for the time being. Have you discovered any new feelings towards this album during the current tour?

Hmm....I've been thinking its a good album (lol)

ーIts not like you to sing your own praises (lol)

Well, I mean, after this, if we realease a new single, there will probably be Phalaris-like elements to it, but even putting that to one side, so many of our past songs just fit really well alongside Phalaris. So I think we have been very true to ourselves with this album. Although it sounds a bit odd for me to say that myself (lol). I'm not entirely sure about the overall balance of the album as a piece of work, but it fits so well with our other songs, there is a mysterious feel to it.

ーFitting with your other songs may have something to do with it, but at the time you completed the album, you also said that it contains every part of Dir en grey. I'm sure you werent consciously thinking that while you were making it though.

No, I think I was at times. Of course, this isn't the end for us, but I was thinking that IF the band were to end now, I would want this to be seen as our best work. So as for consciously putting all of Dir en grey into it, no, I don't think thats wrong.

ーMaking the album with that much conscious effort means its not all new. There are links to the past, as well as that link to pull you forward onto your next step.

Yeah, and I've been feeling this even more so on the current tour. That's why I've been thinking this is a good album (lol)

ーI love hearing this kind of thing from the artists themselves. Hearing about the songs fitting well reminded me...With all these songs from Phalaris in the setlist, certain other songs might also come to mind, but to hear songs like Different Sense and Downfall in there, its like they were meant to be. That may be an odd way to describe it...

Heh, I understand. They wouldn't be out of place even if they were on Phalaris. We didn't choose to include specific types of songs while we were making it, but if you search through our past music there are some things that do just roll into place. Its probably going too far to say I was realising this when completing the album, but I feel like I can see Phalaris more clearly now. With this tour, I really do feel that sense of completion.

ーThat may be what a sense of completion actually means. You finally reach that point after realising for yourself what the flow of your past work has created.

Yes.

ーIn that sense, I think this is a very interesting outcome. But with such an intensity to the show from the outset, there is the possibilty of the audience being left behind at somepoint, if you don't get it exactly right.

Hm, I wonder. Some people might have felt that way about Phalaris 2, but this is just us being us. Its just not blowing up with excitement at the end this time, its kind of a different feeling from what we've done previously. The heaviness of the mid-section of the show is due to us being thorough, but I don't feel like its exceptional (lol)

ーAs you just said about the end of the show, closing with Kamuy is a bit different from the feeling we usually get at the end. Did you choose to play this song last, in line with bringing Phalaris to a close?

Well, it was also the first tour to play Kamuy. If we had played it at previous tours, it might have ended up in a different spot in the setlist. But for sure, to play it for the first time at the final, it could go in no other spot. Even if we were to do a seperate final in a big venue, I think it would still come at the end of the encore, not the end of the main.

ーEnding the live with the disquieting tone of Kamuy in the air, then raising the lights and bidding farewell to the audience...even with this familiar parting scene, its quite different from past tours.

With that we simply just want to say thank you to the people who came. Its a way to express thanks at the end of each show. We could just disappear off stage after Kamuy if we wanted to, but as I was saying before about 'the type of person who is stood on the stage', I want to keep this time that I have to express my thanks to the peole who come to see us. I mean, the 5 of us could all gather together in the centre for a farewell or something too, but that kind of structure somehow doesn't seem very 'us' (lol)

ー Yeah, lets save that for another occasion (lol) By the way, it must have been a difficult transition to go from finishing this phase of Phalaris, to confronting the new single 19990120.

Well, it wasnt easy. We did the 25th anniversary tour last year, so from there it was like, 'Should we do some old stuff?'. We would usually be looking at doing new material at this kinda time, but we talked about it, and what with covid and such, we thought there might be a few people out there who hadn't been to see a live show for a while. So we thought we could use some kind of tool to get more people coming back as we move forward. Not in the sense of making an album of self covers or anything, but since the 25th anniversary of our debut is in Jan 2024, we thought we might as well try something. We just wanna try out what we can, because of course there is always loads that we can't.

ーYeah. Self covers or remakes can give the impression of being backwards looking, but as we talked about how past songs have fit so well in the current tour and helped you realise how far you've come, it could be said that looking afresh at these songs from 25 years ago might be the link to future discoveries.

Whether or not this links to new things is hard to tell untill we do it, that wasn't really in my mind. But for now its more like a tool to stir up the 'Lets go and see Dir en grey again' feeling. I can say this, back in the day there were a lot of so-called heavy bands I used to go and see. I admired them and started my own band, I'm that kind of person too (lol) But I think a lot of people like that eventually start to think 'Ah, I havnt listened to that kind of music for a while', they even stop listening to music at all sometimes. Or if they do listen, its the same stuff they listened to back in the day. I wanted to strike a chord with those kind of people and get them thinking about coming to see a show. As well as letting them connect with Phalaris, its just a good starting point to get back in. So these new remakes are part of a plan, as opposed to something we just really wanted to do.

ーDir en grey have rerecored old songs in the past, but those past remakes have been more about updating old songs to match the contemporary sound of the band. Was there no such intention this time?

Its not like there was NO intention, of course, we wanted to put some of our current selves into them while making them. But we didn't want to change them outright. So in that sense, they are different from our past remakes.

ー Without trying to make any big intentional changes, you wanted the natural differences between then and now to shine through?

Yeah, that kind of thing. I think in that sense, we achieved our aim.

ー I see. I actually dug up an old interview from 25 years ago, and have been re-reading it. In it you were speaking about the background to each song and such, but Kaoru, how did you feel back then about releasing 3 songs at once for your major debut?

I though it was a great talking point, but it was hard work (lol) We had first talked about releasing two songs. So we went to LA with this idea and got to work in the studio, but then it somehow got suggested to do three songs. I honestly didn't even know how we were gonna get even two songs recorded, so I was rather skeptical that we could manage three. (lol)

ーWhat song was number 3?

That was Yurameki. We had started pre-production on all three at first, and sent them to Yoshiki. After that we chose the diametrically opposed Zan and Akuro no oka as the two songs to record. But when we went to LA, it was like, 'Ok, lets just do all three'.

ーI can hear the voice of your producer when you say that (lol). Back then, it wasn't that unusual for two songs to be released as a single at once in this category, but three had a big impact. What kind of things made a big impression on your memory back then?

Firstly, there were a lot of people around. Also, it was non-stop photoshoots and interviews. I was always writing music within this kind of bustling situation. It was really easy to lose focus of where we were heading with it all, so I tried to keep a tight hold on only that. But there were still a lot of days where I just had no idea what I was supposed to be doing.

ーYou were having like, 10 interviews at day, right? Wasn't it a bit like those artists who come to Japan for promotion, but like every day?

Yeah, even for photoshoots we would have 3 different studios booked, going here, going there, interviews in between, every time.

ーI'd like to ask about the three songs. On the new release, Yurameki is song number one. Was there any meaning behind recording them in this order?

After finishing the arangements, when we were starting the recording stage, we thought this order would be good based on how the song starts and ends. Its only for this reason.

ーI was going to ask more about the song order, but as for Yurameki, it was a bit of a curve ball for Dir en grey back in the day, wasn't it?

No, not really. We had melodious songs even then, I didn't think it was that much of a curve ball. Its Shinya's song, but he had been writIng songs during the indies era too. It was a recognition of our Shinya-esque songs.

ーAt the time, you said, 'Its a pop song, but we wanted to change up the style'. Does that mean you thought a lot about how to put it out there?

In the end, if we kept it ordinary, it would end up sounding like a totally ordinary song. I actually paid a lot of attention to parts that you wouldn't notice even if you listened to the song (lol). For example, the chord work. Yoshiki would tell me to do impossible things like, 'How about we try this?'

ーWhat do you mean by 'impossible'?

To put it simply, impossible chords and stuff. (lol) But he would say, 'Its only for the recording, so its ok, right?' So we changed our plans, and recorded all the chords one string at a time, then layered them up to make the sound. Not like playing every string simultaneously, but recording phrases one string at a time. So in the end the texture of the sound came out with more of a bang. I was spending a lot of time on those parts that no-one would probably notice.

ーIn other words, you deconstructed the song during recording.

Yes, I took advantage of the fact that they were chords that couldn't be played normally, and recorded them in a way which was unique to the studio.

ーI see. And about the songs Akuro no Oka and Zan, Yoshiki's opposite comments about both songs are in this old article. You said that for the former, he said he was concerned about the collision of sounds, and for the latter, he said 'I don't care about the collision of sounds'.

Heh, that sounds about right.

ー The collision of sounds. These are words I sometimes hear. In short, its where sounds are mixing at a place and a time where they shouldn't, right?

Yes. Maybe its because I'm a guitarist, but I tend to like adding more and more sounds and layering them up. I would suggest something like, 'I want to add this kind of phrase here', and Yoshiki would say, 'No, that gets in the way of the other sounds, change it'. So I would add something different, and he would say, 'No, thats no good either. Do you really need to add something here?'. For me it was like, 'well, I may not need to, but I want to'. It might be a guitarist thing. I say this, because Yoshiki did tell me, 'HIDE was like that, always wanting to add extra stuff in'. (lol)

ーIt must have sent shivers down your spine to hear that. In addition to this, you also said about Akuro no oka, that 'Including the guitar solo, the developments in this song are really satisfying to play'. Is it these chord progressions and such that feel pleasant to guitarists as a rule?

That is part of it. I've always felt comfortable playing this song. But when we were doing the remake, I did wonder whether I should try to go even further with it. Like, could I make it feel even more satisfying? I did actually try it, but it ended up feeling so good, it didn't line up with the original song anymore (lol). So I gave that up. It wasn't Akuro no oka anymore, it had a kind of palacial feel to it. I thought this wouldn't work (lol)

ーI feel like I also want to hear the palacial version, but we do need to preserve the foundations of the song, right? (lol) Okay, so next, the complete opposite of Akuro no oka, Zan. The song itself had been around from the beginning, and it seems like it went through many minor changes to get to where it was?

Well, because we had played it a bit live. But originally, we made it in the studio with me just telling everyone stuff like, 'Im gonna play this part like this, so you play the drums like this' etc etc. And then for the CD release, I actually remade the arrangement, so we could do it properly.

ーGenerally speaking, this is the least fitting of the three songs to be a single. Did you ever question or doubt putting this out as a single?

No, I definitely wanted to release it. So much so as to even say 'I want Zan as the first song' (lol). But it would be tough with only Zan, so thats how we came around to the idea of releasing two songs. Like, 'It has impact, but we need something with a different feel to it too'.

ーI see. It might have been a lot different if not for this decision. The three songs were recorded at the studio 'ONE ON ONE' in LA. (Note: This later became 'EXTASY STUDIO' when Yoshiki bought it, and is now in the hands of a different owner under the name '17 HERZ STUDIO'). This place was well-known for being used by Metallica, but how was it, recording overseas so suddenly?

Well, it was super luxurious. I've never had such a cushty recording experience since (lol)

ーDid you feel like, 'We made it!'?

No, I didn't. Not that long before that I had being doing home recordings, or usIng super tiny studios etc up until our indies era. So no, even being placed in that situation didn't make me feel like we'd made it. It was more like, 'Okay, what do we do now?' (lol) Being in that unfamiliar environment, there was a lot of pressure to make something lasting. We had unlimited use of equipment, but at that stage in our growth, we had limited knowledge, and undeveloped ears. So even if we heard something, we were unable to tell whether or not it really sounded good. It was me, who listened to nothing but heavy music, being told, 'Maybe this sounds better?', but then just responding, ' Nah, I just wanna make it sound more distorted'(lol) I only ever had this kind of exchange back then. But of course, my knowledge, brain, and ears were not fit for that environment. It was a bit of a waste in some sense. But it could be quite interesting if we were to do that kind of thing now. I didnt understand how the sound of a studio works back then, but if it was now, as well as having understanding, I would be able to really experiment with different things. I'd understand about mic positioning, about creating ambience, and all sorts. But back then I knew nothing. (lol)

ー Its seems almost pointless to be in that environment with such a lack of understanding and appreciation, but I think the experience itself probably meant a great deal to you, right?

Yes. I learned the importance of taking time to make something. Looking at a song from different angles, trying to dig into it in different ways. Before that things were never really much deeper than, 'Ok guys, lets make something'. I learned how to put great care into my work for the duration.

ーIts a very valuable thing to learn early on that its not all easy. Ok, so in January you will hold the FC limited live shows in Kawasaki and Osaka. You'll be in 25th debut anniversary mode in mid-Jan, right?

Well, yeah. And after that is the European tour, which will be a bit different from a regular tour. And the after that, a domestic tour entitled PSYCHONNECT. This time its 25 years since Gauze (lol).

ーIt's one anniversary after another, right?

Yeah (lol) The timing was just right to fit a tour in this Spring, and when we talked about what kind of thing to do, a Gauze themed hall tour was suggested.

ーJust to make things clear, this doesn't mean you are going to re-record the whole of Gauze, does it?

No no no (lol). If we did that people would be like, 'Enough of this already, record some new material!' (lol)

ーOf course. But at same time, I'm still kinda curious about hearing something like that.

Even if we were to do that, now isn't the time for it. People would end up thinking, 'What, are you gonna rerecord your entire catalogue??' (lol) That wouldn't be much fun.

ーYeah, interest would drop if it was nothing but rewriting history.

If I was a fan, I'd probably be thinking, 'Is this all they're doing from now on?'

ーRight. The thing we are really all waiting for is some new material after fully digesting Phalaris. Have you begun anything in that direction?

Nope, not yet (lol). I don't even know whether its ok to say this, but I haven't started yet. But actually, I was thinking about getting started today (lol).

ーYou might start writing new music straight after this interview?

Yeah, the interview just came into my schedule at exactly this time.

ーI can't wait to hear what you come up with. When I interviewed you just after the completion of Phalaris, you said that with no regular touring during covid, it had been difficult to communicate and exchange ideas with the other members. Does this mean that normality has returned to the bands' interactions. Are you able to make new music whilst interating with the other members on tour again?

Yes, we had already got back to a sense of normality by the tour before this. but now we are actually discussing next moves and stuff, and we are ready to get started. Straight after this interview, to be exact (lol).

ーLet me ask you one more thing. We touched earlier on the European tour which will be held in March. Its the first overseas tour to have past albums as a theme. What were you thinking about when deciding this?

We had originally talked about doing it in 2022 as part of the 25th anniversary run. But with the pandemic, and also trying to balance it out with the Phalaris tour, we were unable to make it happen then, so we slided it over to 2024 just as it was. People might be wondering why we are doing it at this time, but we had planned to do it from before, and now we just finally have the chance to.

ーWould you like to return to overseas touring as it used to happen previously?

Well, yeah, but its not easy. The reality is a lot different now than how it used to be. Its really not as simple as to just say, 'Let's go' now. In this case, we managed to make it work by seeing if we could do it at this particular time, but I can't be sure about future overseas tours. So to the fans in Europe, I want them to come and see us this time. Don't wait for next tme.

ーIts really interesting that the themes for this European tour are Uroboros and Withering to death. Your first ever tour of Europe was with Withering to death. These two albums have been influential in Dir en grey's overseas activities.

Yeah, we were overseas the most with those albums, and with The Marrow Of A Bone. I had thought about digging a little deeper, era-wise. Like maybe taking Vulgar overseas or something. Maybe if we have a chance in the future.

ー There are still many paths open to you. What about a Gauze world tour?

Heh, that would require a lot of motivation (lol) It would be impossible otherwise (lol)

ーWhether or not you ever manage that, there are still a lot of other things you need to do, and things you can do. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of year 2024 is for you.

Thank you. Hopefully it won't be long before we have something new to put out.

#dir en grey #kaoru #薫 #I agree that Phalaris is thier best album #great interview #Comments about overseas touring #Vulgar overseas tour!#long post

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phoenixyfriend · 3 months ago

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Guide to Writing OCD Characters

DISCLAIMER: I started writing this post nine years ago, which is also when I started working on it. I do not remember everything I planned to add, nor have I actually reread it because the awkward horror of Reading My Own Stuff From Almost Ten Years Ago is real... but my mental state has not changed that much since, in regards to the hyperawareness of contaminated surfaces and distrust of others, so it’s probably still fine.

Everything under the cut is from back then, and has not been edited. I have not reread it.

Or rather, a guide to writing one type of OCD at moderate severity. But more on that in a minute.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a mental illness that is defined by the repetition of actions or mental patterns in an attempt to stifle anxiety. These actions and mental patterns are generally sorted into obsessions and compulsions, as the name suggests. Obsessions can take the form of a reliance on a certain number or color, e.g. the computer’s sound/volume must be set to a multiple of ten, I’ll feel more comfortable on a street that is a multiple of twelve, I want these random numbers I have to add up or multiply into a square. Compulsions take the form of a need to perform certain actions, often a certain number of times, e.g. repetitive hand washing, itemized destruction of small objects, etc.

OCD is not the same thing as OCPD (Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder). OCPD is what most people assume OCD is. OCPD is a mental illness that is defined by a need to control one’s surroundings to a degree beyond what is reasonably expected and feasible; this is the perfectionism disorder, to put it bluntly, and it’s not something I’m at all qualified to talk about beyond explaining the difference between OCD and OCPD.

OCD can generally be separated into the following categories:

Checking

Contamination / Mental Contamination

Hoarding

Ruminations / Intrusive Thoughts

There are also others, but these are the most common. The DSM-V also describes OCD as the point at which obsessions and compulsions:

Consume excessive amounts of time (approximately an hour or more).

Cause significant distress and anguish.

Interfere with daily functioning at home, school, or work; or interfere with social activities/ family life/relationships.

I, personally, have a moderate variant of OCD that is primarily centered around contamination/mental contamination. I’m going to list off a number of my symptoms, mental patterns, and coping methods that can be used as a general guide for writing a character with OCD. If you have OCD, I would not suggest reading this list, because it may cause something to trip in your brain and cause new symptoms (it’s happened to me before).

There is always a logical pattern. It may not make sense to you at first glance, but it makes sense to the person with OCD.

The phone. I mainly use my phone on the subway, so my brain immediately tracks the germs’ journey from subway pole to hand to phone to bag, and unless I clean my phone and bag up at some point with a Clorox wipe or hand sanitizer, I will refuse to touch it unless I have some way to clean myself immediately afterwards or it’s an emergency.

When I come home with groceries, I will wipe down the boxes and bottles with a Clorox wipe as soon as possible (with the exception of feminine hygiene products). I generally get groceries as soon as I get off the subway, so my brain tracks germs from the subway to my hands to my groceries, as well as assuming that there must already be germs on them from other people touching them.

Prior to starting to use the Clorox wipes on my groceries, heating up bread (because I put bread in the freezer because it lasts longer that way, a quirk that actually has nothing to do with my OCD) required me to wash my hands at least twice because my brain focused on how the germs were still on the outside of the package. Once I opened the bag, I had to go wash my hands in order to take the bread out, put it on the plate, and start heating it up. Then I had to close the bag and wash my hands again. If I didn’t finish the entire can of pašteta or tuna or whatever, I had to repeat the process to get more. You can see how this could be irritating, but the brain literally will not shut up about the germs and contamination.

Any part of your pants is considered dirty after the first five minutes. Any part of it. The undersides have touched your shoes and the bus/subway seat and the upper sides have touched the undersides when you crossed your legs. The belt has been dirty since the first time you wore it and the belt loops on your pants have picked that up, but the pockets and zipper and everything in that area is also dirty because that’s the part of your pants that you touched when you pulled them up in the bathroom before washing your hands.

The same goes for the hem of your shirt. You touched it with dirty bathroom hands before you washed them. The hem of your shirt is off limits unless you plan on washing your hands or using copious amounts of hand sanitizer in the near future.

That line about your pants getting dirty because they touched other parts of your clothing that were already dirty? That applies to everything. Especially coats and shoes.

You do not trust anyone that says they just washed their hands. You smile, shake their hand, and then use hand sanitizer as soon as they turn away. Chances are they tripped one of your own contamination lines without realizing it.

Like touching a door handle. Most people consider that an everyday thing. I will do whatever it takes to avoid touching a door handle unless I have immediate access to a sink and soap, especially if it’s a bathroom door handle, because those are nasty and a lot of people don’t wash their hands.

Hand sanitizer is a godsend. It’s a massive coping method that makes it ten times easier to get things done because you aren’t running off to teh bathroom all the time.

Certain parts of your environment are designated as ‘safe’ zones that you don’t touch unless completely clean. The upper half of the bed and the pillow are big ones. Everything else, not so much.

Neatness is helpful but it’s not an immediate necessity. So long as things stay in their own area, even if the garbage needs to be taken out or there’s blood stains on the floor, the brain compartmentalizes that into “not touching my hands or face and as such is okay to ignore for the time being.”

#obsessive compulsive disorder #ocd #phoenix posts #mental illness #mental heatlh

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udretlnea · 2 years ago

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A Conundrum at Cotea Cafe

Inspired by @kunichigo (Owner of the Cotea Cafe concept. Go follow them. They're cool...!)

Prompt: A customer arrives at the Cotea Cafe just before closing time, and he brings a message.

A/N: Hey, been a while, though for those following y’all know I'm still active. Fyi btw you can expect more of these shenanigans prompts in the future; I just want to try to write for fun while getting checkpoints on my growth at the same time. Anyway, enjoy.

“Don’t go dimension hopping soon,” he said with utter seriousness. “Or else you'll end up hurt.”

You widen your eyes. Your hands suddenly felt limp as you processed the threat-no, it was a warning.

///

20 minutes earlier…

You relaxed into your seat as your eyes scanned the page in the light novel; it was about a samurai who was thrust into the future where Teyvat was taken over by a demon with a robot army. You pictured the samurai facing off against an army of Ruin machines with nothing but his magic sword. The scene felt so vivid you thought you could see it in your mind.

You turned the page to continue when you heard the bell rung. Somebody had entered the cafe!

You placed a bookmark in between the pages and got up. You stretched your legs, feeling the circulation return. Making your way to the front, you frowned.

Who could be here at this time? Last I checked, the sun was nearly setting…

When you opened the door to the dining area, you expected to see the Traveler and Paimon. A teenager in a white and gray hoodie looked at you with brown eyes. He had black hair and youthful features; he put on a friendly smile while inertinghis hands in his pockets.

“Hello po,” he said in a meek voice. “Is this…a cafe?”

You nodded. “Yes.”

He put a hand on his chest. “Um, are you open?”

You smiled amicably. “Of course! Would you like to look at a menu?”

He nodded, but his hand didn’t fall to the side. “My name is…Aaron. It’s nice to meet you.”

He took a seat at one nearby one of the windows. You grabbed a nearby menu and handed it to him; while he was reading it with interest, you couldn’t help but stare at him. He didn’t appear to be from any of the nations, at least judging from his clothing. It looked like something one might wear at home. Furthermore, he seemed to know about this place despite the remoteness of this location.

“Excuse me, but do you happen to have…peach mango pie?” His question snapped you out of your thoughts.

“Yes! Would you like that?” He blinked shyly and shook his head.

“No. I was just curious,” he clarified. He pointed at a line of words. “I’ll have a halo-halo please.”

“Sure!” You turned towards the kitchen, deciding to pick up your train of thought after making his dish. Ten minutes later you come back with a tall glass cup full of halo-halo.

“Sal-salamat po…thank you.” He nodded to the glass. You set it down in front of him; he takes a moment to silently observe it. A happy smile slowly forms on his face. “Ah, it looks delicious.”

He gave a brief prayer before picking up the spoon and mixing it.

You decided now was the perfect time to leave him and fiddle away your time; it usually didn’t take long to finish Halo-Halo so you went back to the kitchen to reorganize.

You tidied the kitchen up by cleaning the tools you used to make halo-halo. When you just about finished, the sound of the spoon clattering in an empty cup made you look up.

“I’ve finished,” Aaron announced almost proudly. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pouch. He put it next to his empty cup and you heard the sound of Mora clinking; he got up and turned to the door. You made your way to where he sat. The Mora pouch was moderate-sized. A quick calculation told you that he overpaid. You were about to stop him from leaving, but you saw that he was standing a couple feet from you. He looked at you as if he could peer past your mask.

“...Pardon me, but you’re like me, aren’t you.” Aaron put a hand on his hip. “You’re also a...Creator”

You felt the urge to suppress a wave of panic. “I-I’m sorry?”

“Well, they call them Creators. You probably know them as writers. Self-inserts,” he explained. He shook his head. “My apologies for the strange question, and for offending you, if I did. I just thought I finally found someone to talk to. I…can leave if you want. It’s no trouble.”

Rather than tell him to do just that, you waved him off. “It’s fine. Are you one as well?”

“I’ll tell you if you tell me.”

You examine his form, searching for anything that could tell that he’s lying. When you found none, you shrugged. “...Sure. Although I’m currently living out my cottage-core fantasy at the moment. I don’t care for the stuffy paperwork that comes with being in charge of an entire continent."

“Same. And cottage-core is cool, but I never can find the time to do that. Not that I-not that I deserve anything good,” A moment of silence passed as they let that information process. Internally, you felt a strange sense of kinship beginning to form in your gut. It was certainly strange to find another being like yourself standing in front of you, but given that he was similar, or perhaps greater in power than you it made sense to desire to travel to other branches of the SAGAU multiverse.

“Well, with pleasantries out of the way, um…I actually came here to deliver a message for you,” he said. He raised his hands in the air as if he thought it would ease the anxiety in the atmosphere. “Not-not from any of the Archons, I mean. From me.”

“Eh?” This suddenly turned interesting. What could he possibly have to tell you? He took a deep breath and stared into your eyes.

“Don’t go dimension hopping soon,” Aaron said with utter seriousness. “Or else you'll end up hurt.”

You widen your eyes. Your hands suddenly felt limp as you processed the threat-no, it was a warning.

Aaron bit his lip. His eyes darted from side to side as if he were engaged in an intense internal debate. After a couple seconds, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of flash cards. He flipped through them until he stopped at one “No, but for your own safety, I advise not traveling to other universes in SAGAU until They give you the signal that it’s safe. That's all. Thank you for your time, and the food. I hope your story has a happy ending.”

He put away the flash cards and turned around. Then, he placed a hand on the door knob. But he couldn’t leave yet, not when your interest was piqued!

“Wait,” you interrupt. He turns his head back at you with a surprised look “This…thing that’s going to happen? Call it intuition, but I can't help but feel like it'll be terrible, especially for you. Are you.. alright?”

Aaron simply smiled knowingly. His eyes were glossy. “Thank you for your concern. No, but I will be soon. Ingat po…goodbye."

He opened the door and stepped outside; just as it shut there was a flash of light. When you opened it again to look for him, Aaron was gone.

Something hung in the air, but you weren’t sure what it was. Was this regret, awkwardness, or ominousness? Perhaps it was a mixture of all three.

With nothing else to do, you took the empty glass back and cleaned it. Then you flipped the sign to CLOSED before making your way to the backroom. You reclined back into the comfy chair, settling into the plush cushion. You picked up the book, opened to the bookmarked page, and resumed reading.

///

The next day you wake up and found posters plastered in front of your door; they informed you that several AUs and ATs were missing and that creator deities had been displaced. Furthermore, it advised everyone to stay calm and continue their routines while this incident was sorted.

Suffice it to say you were grateful when the Traveler brought Paimon, Yae Miko, the Raiden Shogun, Arataki Itto, and Gorou with them. A distraction was just what you needed. They kept you busy, dodging questions and cooking them food. They left and you closed the cafe for the day.

When you woke up, the posters you collected were gone, replaced with a single white sheet of paper with the words, "THE PRIOR INCIDENT HAS BEEN RECTIFIED. THANK YOU TO THOSE WHO FOLLOWED DIRECTIONS." -M.

You wondered if Aaron was alright and if whatever happened yesterday was related to him. It was clear you weren't getting any answers soon. With a sigh, you head back into your cottage to get ready for the day.

#sagau #genshin sagau #genshin fanfic #self aware genshin #genshin impact sagau #genshin imagines

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sanakimohara · 11 days ago

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🖤[ DISCORD LINK ] 🖤

Calling all STAYs and dark-hearted dreamers! 🌙 Step into my cozy corner of chaos—a sanctuary for those who adore Stray Kids, K-pop, and all things creative and hauntingly beautiful! 18+ ‼️

I’ve officially launched a Discord group tied to my Tumblr page, and I’m inviting YOU to join the fun!

🔮 MODERATOR & TOP AUTHOR APPLICATIONS OPEN 🔮

Want to be a guardian of the shadows or a recognized fanfic master? Applications are now LIVE!

• Moderator Requirements: Be active, responsible, and drama-free.

• Top Author Requirements: Must have published at least 2 well-loved fanfics and actively engage in the community.

✨ WHAT TO EXPECT:

• Share your fanfictions, edits, NSFW content, and more.

• Discover works from other creators and show them love.

• Build connections with like-minded fans in a judgment-free zone.

+ Early access to previews and fanfic updates!

+ New ideas and plots for your own fics!

+ Writing advice and recommendations!

+ Editing and Grammar help/improvement!

+ 18+ (no minors allowed) ‼️

Tag fellow STAYs, grab your coffee (or blood-red wine 🩸), and join me ASAP. Let’s build a dark and cozy world together.

🖤 JOIN NOW: [ DISCORD LINK ]🖤

I’ll be waiting in the shadows. 🌌

authors note: put my soul into this so I hope you guys have fun with it 🖤 instagram and X gc links coming soon btw.

other links: none

TAGS / TOP AUTHOR PICKS: @whatudowhennooneseesyou 🖤 @imastraykidsfan 🖤 + @channniesslefttt 🖤 + @jaiuneamesolitaiire 🖤 + @flowersun 🖤 + @kayleefriedchicken 🖤+ @silentlycb97 🖤 + @the7deadlysans 🖤+ @vxllxnsworld 🖤+ @lokislilkitten 🖤+ @minnieprincesss 🖤 + @realrintaro 🖤 + @xxeiraxx 🖤

(more will be added upon request)

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shifting-shadows-writes · 3 months ago

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hi. i'm back.

to my lovely lovely friends, i am so sorry for abandoning y'all. especially @sorrowlovingbirds i hope you are doing alright and i would love to stay in contact with you.

it's almost november again and i'm finally in a good spot to share a bit about what has happened in the past year and honestly before that too.

i'm putting this below a cut. this is long and chaotic and i'm really sorry that this is my returning post to tumblr and my little ywp community but i owe y'all an explanation, and i'm hoping i can speak out now about what i experienced.

this is my turn to step forward about the nano drama of last year, and my apology letter to any friends i've worried.

(tw the nanodrama, mental health spirals, toxic/abusive friendships, bigotry and threats)

for any of y'all who see this post and don't know me, my name is shadows. my first foray into the online world was the nanowrimo young writers program forums.

i'm sure many of y'all have heard about the abuse and trauma many of us have faced, and if you haven't, my friends have plenty of posts about it.

i joined the forums in april of 2020. i was lonely and isolated and the community there helped me figure myself out.

i wasn't particularly active most of the time. i had a few friends. people i knew and liked drifted in and out, and i had no way to contact them.

i ended up in a toxic friendship with someone on nano and it took a year to cut that off. i was going through my own separate mental health shit at the time so i didn't really realize how bad that person was for me for a while.

that was the first time i really learned people on nano and the internet weren't always who they said they were. i had learned internet safety and i kept my own life fairly private, but it didn't occur to me that other people who didn't keep their lives private could lie about the details.

at some point i joined the ywp discord server, moderated by basically the popular kids of the forums. (i hope y'all don't mind that i say this; it's how i viewed it.)

i learned other kids had been going through some of the same stuff i had--bullying, grooming, etc and had received little to no support from the moderators for it.

collectively we had a very jaded view of nano, but i think we all felt it was our duty to protect other younger users. (this led many members of this server to spiral in mental health because they had to deal with all the drama.)

but things were okay ish for me. i had recovered and i was pretty active on both the nano forums and the discord server.

then october 7, 2023 happened. (it will become very clear why this is relevant soon.)

i am not a politically involved person. i know a little between history class and what my parents have explained to me, but political dynamics always confused me and upset me so i generally avoided things.

being a jewish kid, i had a vague understanding of israeli history. i knew it existed and how old it was and i could recognize it on a map. i knew there was an ongoing war and that it was complicated. i knew the idf had mandatory service from my israeli camp counselors (most of whom had served roles other than active fighters) and i was confused that people would attack gal gadot for having served when it's mandatory. but that was it. my working knowledge of israel was basically nonexistent.

and all of a sudden, i was expected to know everything.

nano had a lot of jewish kids, all of whom seemed to know way more than i did. i got most of my information from them, and from my parents. (a little from school.)

in theory, i'd had lessons on the history of zionism and different branches of what zionism agreed with, i'd read israeli founding documents, i'd had a brief history of the conflict explained to me.

in practice, i hadn't paid attention to any of that. i didn't know what was going on, but i knew that i was expected to. i also didn't trust non-jews to give me information, in part due to a specific incident on nano which happened a few weeks later.

on october 13 somewhere in my community was targeted with a bomb threat. i told my friends on nano about it because it was scary and i wanted support. they gave it to me.

i also ended up writing and posting a brief overview of antisemitism (using knowledge i'd gathered from hebrew school and the internet for fact checking). here is the link to that if anyone wants to read it. the wording was last updated in december 2023.

it was pretty common practice on the nano forums to write a psa about something you'd noticed or that had affected you recently, and i had several other people say they would like a psa on antisemitic tropes and dogwhistles.

not long after i posted that, someone in a "diverse character help" thread asked for help writing a palestinian character. i will call them eva as that was part of their username and i need to refer to them.

one of my friends who is from northern israel responded with a bit of basic background information.

the response eva provided did not seem to line up with anything my friend had said. i was already wary of a non-jewish non-palestinian person writing a story about israeli/palestinian dynamics as that is incredibly complex, and i could tell eva was not well informed.

so i responded to the thread, warning eva that this was a sensitive and complicated topic and as a jew i felt someone israeli or palestinian should be writing this book. if eva isn't from israel like my friend is, maybe don't write a main character from the area. let actual palestinians tell their stories.

(unfortunately, i do not have my exact wording, though i did save their posts. i will be paraphrasing my responses to the best of my ability; i will paraphrase eva's and pull relevant quotes.)

eva responded to my message by saying: "Im not from PALESTINE, but I am VERY familiar with the topic" (even though they didn't seem to be).

they continued: "I want to inform people about the TRUTH. [...] Maybe you should try doing more research as to what is ACTUALLY happening, not what the internet and social networks have been lying to you about."

a reminder here that i had not mentioned anything more than: leave talking about palestinian trauma to palestinians. not what "side" i took (it is so much more complicated than that).

they continued to accuse me of not having a heart or having a bit of human in myself.

my antisemitism dogwhistle alert was blaring. i had just spent a week writing that psa, and here were real life examples of exactly the tropes i had been talking about!

but i kept my cool. mostly. i held a hope they could be reasoned with. "don't write this, please. you do not know what you're talking about. i think your perception of the conflict is just going to hurt people."

i need to include most of their next post.

"Netanyahu even said he will not stop bombing, killing and torturing Palestinians. The media has really gotten to you. Even some Jews are on the side of the truth, because they know, killing thousands of innocent civilians is wrong. Are you going to ignore the protests that are going on, because HUMANS actually care? You don't have to be Muslim to support the ones who are oppressed. I hope God puts you in the same situation as the Palestinians are going through right now. And I hope that you get to experience that. Does it really not hurt you to see kids bombed into pieces, getting Phosphoric Acid on you? Have YOU ever talked to a Palestinian because I have. You are blind as to what is going on. And don't come at me saying, "WeLl WhAt AbOuT hAmAs? At least they know who to challenge. You evacuated from Germany because of Hitler, and now you're doing the same. Netanyahu is Hitler in disguise. Beheading babies! Is that normal to you? If so, I hope you figure out what is right and what is wrong, and not being influenced by the media."

this whole paragraph was full of antisemitism accusing jews of being inhuman and controlling the media. and accusing me of being inhuman and unable to tell right from wrong.

the kicker is that i mentioned zero politics. i did not mention netanyahu or how i feel about him. i did not mention hamas or how i feel about them.

but what really got me was this: "I hope God puts you in the same situation as the Palestinians are going through right now. And I hope that you get to experience that. Does it really not hurt you to see kids bombed into pieces"

i had received an active bomb threat about a week beforehand. i didn't need to imagine going through that--i very nearly had.

i couldn't respond. i knew i would respond poorly and i would say something i didn't mean.

luckily, my friend stepped in once again and agreed with me, telling eva to stop and that they were misinformed. my friend, having lived in israel, had more knowledge of the active situation than me and tried to explain this to eva.

and eva responded with this:

"At least YOU actually have some knowledge but not enough. I will not say any more because I don't want to waste my precious words on you guys. [...] But, at the end, false knowledge doesn't work on me. Israelis and Jews are different, as I've heard and seen from different Jews myself."

if someone who lived in the area doesn't have enough knowledge, who does?

this rant is cut down because after saying they "don't want to waste [their] precious words" on us, they continued to accuse us of being immoral, uninformed, and duped by the media.

then finally: "israelis and jews are different." what? does the media controlling immoral inhuman stereotype only apply to israelis? are half of the world's jews different from the other half?

more of the same conversation happened. other users stepped in defending me from a literal bomb threat and the accusation that jews or israelis or "the media" or whatever else were corrupt, immoral, and inhuman.

the whole thread was removed, though some people asked for my original response (leave these stories to people who have actually experienced it) to stay up, as it was an important point.

this was one of many frustrating moderation decisions made recently on the site, and one of many where a mod stepped in only when things got wildly out of hand. (not to mention the speed of moderation response suggested the mod had been active while that conversation had been ongoing.

it was also one of the last straws for us. just a few days later, we posted about what we had faced on the ywp site to the main forums.

y'all can find what happened next on my friends' accounts. there was drama and investigations and a ton more stuff we didn't even know about.

i was glad we had kept receipts from all the times we had felt hurt. we had evidence that we were being mistreated, and the adults on the main site rallied to our side.

it turns out the main staff didn't even know the teens had a separate forum space on our own website.

the forums were shut down. i don't know if i was relieved or upset. there was a lot of community and collaborative work and safe space for so many kids out there. i know many kids from abusive families who got away with having the social media of a writing forum and found friends and explored their identities. and at the same time we faced so much shit on that site.

the discord server continued though it turned into much the same problems as the site. there were cliques and constant gossip and now it wasn't even moderated by adults but by involved teenagers.

by febuary i was stressed. it had been a rough few months for a lot of reasons, and i had happened to have a particularly bad day with people getting mad at me that i vented about. even though i put it under spoiler marks and tagged it, i was told not to post it there, which frustrated me since i'd posted much the same stuff before. then later a fight where some people disagreed with me just set me over the edge.

that was when i last posted on tumblr. i was having a meltdown and not in a good headspace.

i took a hard break. i deleted every single messaging/social app from my phone, even the ones that had nothing to do with the drama. i stopped responding to or checking things entirely.

(it turns out the discord server shut down just weeks later due to drama anyway.)

i genuinely believed that everyone hated me and the only way i could make myself deal with that was to cut off contact with everyone.

i've spent the last 6 months dealing with my shit, getting better therapy, and slowly re-engaging.

to be honest i am proud of myself that i survived until now because things were very rough and i wasn't dealing well.

i'm in college now. i'm meeting new people and making new friends. things are going a lot better.

thank you to all the people on nano that gave me advice and encouragement about college and applications, and about my family emergencies and grief.

thank you to all the people on nano who stood up for me and supported me through the toxicity i faced while y'all dealt with your own.

i hope i've been able to do the same for some of you.

to some degree, this is the grad post i'd always hoped to make. i know most people won't see this, and i don't know how many of y'all will care. but i'm ok with that now. i'm sharing to get this off my chest and maybe also hope that my friends who see this will know where i've been.

i know what the worry is like when someone disappears and we don't know if they're in trouble with their parents or if they've had a mental health crisis or something. i've seen that play out on nano before.

to anyone who knows me, you're welcome to reach out. i won't be super active on here. but i will be here for any of you who need my support. y'all gave me yours.

this is a bittersweet goodbye to nano as well. the forums have been gone for nearly a year and i will not be participating in the challenge this fall.

i will remember our little community, the good and the bad. i hope i will remember what i've learned from it.

keep writing, lovelies. keep being your amazing selves.

-shadows

#nanowrimo #writers #anti nanowrimo #nanowrimo 2023 #nanowrimo 2024 #antisemitism #ywp nanowrimo

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comfortlesshurt · 3 months ago

Text

On it, yes, indeed (on it, watch me bleed)

TWs: canon-typical unhappy ending, vague injuries

Pseud: occasionalvoltronfiction

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Character: Keith

Timeline: After Kuron is able to pilot Black, soon before Keith joins the BOM

Summary:

Tucked underneath a large bit of debris, Keith is only moderately well-hidden from the sentries patrolling the area. The goal had been to take advantage of the upset of the rest of Voltron attacking and grab the information needed in the confusion. It should’ve gone off without a hitch. OR A take on Keith's final Voltron mission before his time as a Blade.

Challenge: Seven Songs of Suffering

Read on AO3

Read on FFN

----------

Adrenaline pumps through Keith’s veins, and it is not helping the situation.

Tucked underneath a large bit of debris, he’s only moderately well-hidden from the sentries patrolling the area. The goal had been to take advantage of the upset of the rest of Voltron attacking and grab the information needed in the confusion. It should’ve gone off without a hitch. The major tactical benefit of having Shiro back in action is that the Galra don’t seem to have realized that Voltron now has six active members, so when all five lions are accounted for and the castleship is the only Voltron-allied ship in the entire solar system, they don’t expect a sixth force acting against them. They get cocky only to go down that much harder.

Technically, this planet is allied with the Coalition. Well, sort of. It’s conditional on Voltron freeing their planet from Galra control, which is conditional on Keith getting this information to help them target every last base on this planet without putting the civilians at any more risk than necessary. The leader they’d met with had been adamant about that. Apparently, centuries of Galra occupation had already gone a long way toward reducing the population, and they couldn’t afford to lose even more.

Anyway, the important thing is that they likely will have some assistance from the planet once they realize the Galra are actively falling, and then it will be easy to finish what’s left… if they can get that far fast enough.

It should have gone well. It was the choppy landing that did Keith in. The cloaking could only do so much with the bad intel—hopefully just outdated, but they’ve been through enough false potential ally situations that Keith wouldn’t be surprised to learn this is yet another of those traps based on intentional fake information—they were apparently working with. The supposedly deserted area of the planet he’d been pushed to target for landing wasn’t so deserted today. It could’ve been worse, but the damage is done. He’d taken heavy fire that managed to take out his ride out of here and injured him on the way down too.

Something in him tells him not to check his injuries too closely just yet, though it’s a stupid instinct. It’s not so bad that he wasn’t able to walk away from the crash. What’s he going to do when he sees? Go into some kind of shock and shut down completely? Doubtful. He’s made it this far, but he has further to go before the mission’s over, so as long as he’s not leaving a blood trail to lead the sentries and live troops right to him, it doesn’t matter yet.

It’s definitely bad enough that unnecessary risks are off the table until he can get himself into a cryopod, though, and that’s throwing him off. His gut tells him to tackle the sentries passing by in singles and pairs as usual, recognizing that those are rookie numbers for him on a normal day.

That, and the adrenaline may be wearing off if the growing twinge from his calf is anything to go by. Welp. Must be time to get moving then.

Contrary to Lance’s popular belief, Keith can control himself when he needs to. It eats at him to do it like acid bubbling just beneath his skin, but it’s not impossible. So, he resists his urges, lets the troops pass by unhindered, biding his time until he can make a break for the destination blinking on the GPS on his HUD. That being said, he’s way too close to his crashed shuttle for comfort, and it’s only a matter of time before some of them think to start canvassing the area rather than assuming he managed to immediately run off into the distance.

After glancing to both sides, he slips out from under the debris, and the way he involuntarily jerks back when he first puts weight on his leg confirms the adrenaline from the crash is on its way out. It’s more the shock of first putting his weight on it that gets him, though. He can keep going. He’s made it this far, and there’s no extraction until someone can swing through with a lion anyway. No use in being a sitting duck until that point if he can still complete the mission, iffy leg or not.

It’s not easier to forget about it once he’s in motion, even with the distraction of more attentively scrutinizing his GPS for the path to the base the intel had indicated had the location data they’d need. The good news is that it’s not the main base established on this planet, so it shouldn’t be too heavily fortified in comparison.

Every step continues to serve as a reminder of his wound, but soon enough the base comes into view, and he ducks behind a group of trees to get a better visual before approaching.

Normally, Pidge would be able to work her magic and give him a good bit of information to go off as far as the sentry headcount and the heavily surveilled areas to avoid, but what bits of the situation have been making it through the comms tell him she’s in no position to take any focus off her lion. Hunk can stand in sometimes when Pidge is indisposed, but he’s in the exact same situation. All the paladins are. With Coran needing to focus on helping them, Keith can’t ask him to divert any attention, especially not when he doesn’t even have the expertise to figure it out quickly like Pidge.

Considering it’s him that’s holding them back, it doesn’t feel right to demand more of their attention anyway. The sooner he gets this data, the sooner they can form Voltron and know where to target without needlessly taking out civilians.

So he’s going in blind, which shouldn’t be a big deal. There’ve been plenty of times the team has split into groups, leaving Keith without Pidge’s help, and he’s gotten through every one of those.

He edges his way closer to the denser tree line of a forest that seems to extend well beyond the base along one side, trying to loop around the building and come at it from another angle, one that will at least let him avoid the main entrance. No way that one’s not under heavy surveillance; he doesn’t need Pidge to point that out.

He flips his comms over to the passive mode, wary of the possibility of needing to communicate something in a hurry later and not having his hands free to start the mic in the moment. It’s something Shiro gets on him for annoyingly often, but Keith’s gotten better about it. He’s still not on board with leaving the mic on at all times—there’s no damn reason they all need to hear him panting and grunting as he navigates rough terrain at top speed while he’s nowhere near potential combatants—but it’s second nature to switch it on once he hits the more active parts of missions.

There’s some comfort in knowing they’ll hear if something happens to him once he’s deep into a Galra base or when he’s about to get into something else dicey. They may not like him all that much, but they’d never leave him for dead. They’ve proven that much many times over, even times where it’d made more sense to leave him behind.

“I’m looking for a way in now,” he advises quietly once the mic is on. “Shouldn’t be too much longer.”

“You’re just getting there now?” Pidge asks.

“More Galra than I expected on the way. Got held up.”

“Well, can you speed it up, mullet? We need to form Voltron and take everything out before we’re all exhausted from taking this fleet on.”

“I’m going as fast as I can,” he shoots back.

“Easy to say when you’re not the one getting shot at! Go faster!”

“Alright, settle down,” Shiro orders. “But Keith—the faster you can get those locations, the better. We’re dealing with more Galra than we expected up here too.”

“On it,” Keith mutters, barely getting to appreciate the lack of a jab on Lance’s end over the now definitely increasing pain jabbing at his leg.

It takes a couple minutes, but he spots what looks like a side entrance and sets a path toward it.

A shot rings out.

“Fuck,” he hisses involuntarily when a corresponding pain blooms in his abdomen.

He freezes while he takes in a shaky breath and groans as the sting grows during the exhale.

“What!?” Shiro’s voice crackles through the comms.

Shit. His mic was still on passive mode, wasn’t it?

Not that that should be his biggest concern, he realizes with a start accompanied by the sound of another blaster shot. This one only succeeds in taking out a chunk of tree to his left, but the ongoing threat is enough to send him careening away in search of cover further from the base.

It only sinks in that he’s down for the count when he can’t run in a straight line for the life of him. There’s no way he’s taking on any guards or managing any high-stakes sneaking like this.

“I got shot,” he finally mutters in the mic when he gains some distance.

A branch snaps, too near for comfort, and he shuts his mouth and looks down at his feet as he picks his way forward, avoiding anything that could make a sound and reveal his own location to his pursuer.

He tunes out the voices overlapping through the comms to focus on making his escape undetected, slowly reaching up to dim the volume to near silence once he’s settled into a position with a slightly better vantage point to spot anyone approaching from the direction he’s fleeing. Wrapping his arm around his stomach doesn’t relieve the pain at all, but there’s a comfort in it, even if he has to contort oddly to also keep his bayard at the ready. It doesn’t stop him from trembling in the wake of the pain.

Minutes pass by with no indication of anyone continuing to follow before he risks taking some of his focus off his surroundings and notches up the comms volume just enough to properly make out everyone.

“—ith, respond!”

“Sorry, here,” he hastily whispers. “Had one on my tail, but I think I lost him.”

“Alright, what’s the plan? Can you complete the mission or do you need an extraction?”

“Uhh… extraction,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry, Shiro. I can’t do it.”

“We’ll figure something else out. Hang tight while we take out the fleet so we can send someone your way.”

Keith nods, catching himself after a second and realizing he’s not in a lion with a video feed anymore.

“Okay,” he whispers then, letting himself lean back so the tree bears more of his weight before the strain of standing upright can weaken him any further.

When he looks down, he finds blood trickling down the front of his leg armor and starting to puddle on the ground. He jerks his head around to look back the way he came, but the bleeding must not have been too fast because there are no signs of it outside of where he stands now. Small mercies.

He lasts about a minute more before the wooziness kicks in regardless of the tree’s flawless support, and he has to let himself slide down to the ground when blackness starts to overtake his vision. He reaches up to pause his own mic feed before allowing himself one misery-filled groan.

Nausea creeps its way in, and it’s a focused effort to keep reminding himself it’s in his head. It’s just the… the pain, or the blood loss, or the shock. Something. He’ll be fine. He just has to make it long enough for someone to find him. Then his body can do whatever the fuck it wants. Not now.

The blackness that had receded when he first sat down starts tunneling his vision once again, and he has a frenzied moment to realize his body’s not going to hold off until he’s rescued before he’s out completely.

----------

The timeless blip to falling out of a cryopod is always confusing, and jumping from passing out alone deep in enemy territory to falling out of the pod even more so.

“Keith!” Pidge’s voice yells out as he falls and arms wrap around him before he can try to bring his own limbs under control and stop from braining himself on the floor.

“Man, never do that to me again!” Hunk exclaims from much closer, and when he can convince his eyelids to slide open, it’s to the sight of Hunk keeping him upright against his chest. “I thought you were dead when I got there.”

“Sorry,” Keith tries, still struggling to catch up with his own memories.

“You worried us,” Shiro chastises from further back.

“You must be starving,” Hunk adds. “What do you want me to make for you?”

“Nah, it’s fine. I’m just… I’m gonna go sleep off the cryopod,” he says.

It sounds like a weak excuse to his own ears, but no one stops him from leaving.

Shiro’s barely a minute behind him and lets himself into Keith’s quarters without knocking. Leaving the door open, he jumps straight into a lecture from the doorway.

“Keith, none of that was okay. Not telling us you were hurt before that shot? Not letting us know you were going to need an extraction as soon as you crashed the cruiser? How are we supposed to make plans when we’re missing information? When you don’t communicate with us, you put the whole team at risk, not just yourself.”

“I was—”

“Look, I don’t know where this is coming from, but we can’t afford for you to backslide like this. I get you’ve got trauma—we all do—but the rest of us have worked to overcome our bad coping mechanisms. There’s no room for you to be so reckless and to refuse to communicate your needs on top of that.”

“I didn’t—!”

“No, Keith, I don’t want to hear more excuses about this. I’ve been more than understanding, hoping you’d be able to work on it yourself, and you’ve just taken advantage of that up to this point. It needs to stop. Period.”

“Yes, sir,” he deadpans, sinking into a false apathy that fills him with cool familiarity even after years away from it.

“Take the rest of the day off and do whatever it takes to get it out of your system. I expect better communication on the next mission. I’ll be handling the team for today.”

He doesn’t spare Keith another glance before he walks out, shutting the door behind him and leaving Keith in silence. He sinks down onto the bed.

Maybe it’s time to rethink Kolivan’s offer to go full-time.

#my writing #sevensongsofsuffering2024 #vld #keith #the idea was originally inspired by the song for day 7 (rescue by lauren daigle) but i'm mindless self indulgence trash recently so #that's how it got stuck with this title

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mysteryshoptls · 2 years ago

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SSR Trey Clover Outdoor Wear Personal Story: Part 1

"Something a little tastier"

Part 1 (Part 2) (Part 3)

[Dwarfs' Mine – Campsite]

Trey: Are you ready? We'll be heading out to do the mining task soon.

Science Club Member A: I need you guys to wait just a bit. I thought I had put in my mining research kit in my bag, but I can't find it at all!

Trey: Got it. Hurry and find it, will you?

Trey: Seriously… He's really going to put his own research before our tasks? There are way too many guys in the Science Club that just go at their own pace.

Trey: I guess I'll sort through my things while I wait. …Hm? That looks like…

Idia: Rule 1. Small fires require small logs. Rule 2. Don't crowd the fire, leave a moderate amount of space.

Idia: Rule 3. Once the flames grow higher, feed it branches with High Attack power… Whew.

Idia: Fuheehee, I've totally memorized Premo's 3 principles of making a bonfire.

Idia: Might be obvious steps, but their word choice makes it easier to remember.

Idia: I need to complete the wood gathering missions so I can mimic what they did in their video, too.

Trey: Idia, you seem pretty fired up.

Idia: Eek!? T-T-T-Trey-shi!? You scared me… Don't just come up from behind and start talking…

Trey: Haha, sorry, sorry. I was just surprised that you're getting into the groove of camping. Didn't mean to startle you.

Idia: Getting in what groove? If I could go home ASAP, I would…

Idia: B-But, I know I can’t… S-So I thought at least I could watch the stream my faves made on bonfires…

Trey: Neat, so there are things that even you want to do while camping, huh.

Trey: There's a guy in my club too, who's all excited to do some research in the mines since we're all here for camping, anyway.

Trey: He's usually always doing research on geology and mineralogy. I remember that his reports are always pretty fascinating.

Trey: That reminds me, that guy did say something interesting before.

Idia: …Something interesting?

Trey: He said that there's a theory that this whole area around the mine used to be underwater many, many years ago.

Trey: Although, this area isn't anywhere near the sea, so we really can't tell if that's true or not.

Idia: …Don't think it's that impossible. Mines like this with magical gemstones are more prone to form in areas that have high volcanic activity…

Trey: You really know your stuff.

Idia: Eep… N-No, no, no, anyone would know that kind of thing. It was just taught in class, so…

Trey: Was it? Well, sorry. I didn't mean to talk about something you weren't interested in.

Idia: Ah, I mean, it's not like I'm not interested�� And originally, I was looking to join the Science Club…

Trey: Eh, really?

Idia: Y-Yeah… I thought it'd be time-efficient if I could research my interests as part of my club activities…

Trey: Yeah, I get that. A bunch of us in the club had the same sort of idea as you. You should have joined us.

Idia: Wh-When I went to check the club out, there was a lot more people than I thought, so there was no way…

Trey: A lot of people…? True, I guess we have one of the larger culture clubs.

Trey: Ah, but what a pity. If you had joined our club, I might have picked up a thing or two in new fields.

Idia: Hah!? A pity!? T-Trey-shi, what are you scheming…!?

Trey: Scheming…? Are you that shocked I'd say something like that? There's no one out there more knowledgeable about digital engineering or technomancy.

Trey: That's why I thought if you had joined the Science Club, you would have found a different way to do your research than the others in the club.

Idia: I-I only want to do the things I like to do… I'd rather not have to deal with presenting results, or other people's expectations…

Science Club Member A: Trey, I'm ready now. Sorry I made you wait.

Trey: Gotcha, let's go, then.

Trey: Thanks for chatting with me. Good luck on your tasks, Idia.

Idia: Ah, y-yeah…

Idia: …HAAAAAAAAAAAAH～～～～～ THAT WIPED ME OUT!

Idia: I heard that the guys in the Science Club just do their own research on whatever they want, but in the end, they still rove in packs!

Idia: They seriously go and do their thing in large groups like that? No way, no way, I'd never be able to do that!

Idia: He's not as intense as those other happy-go-lucky guys, but even Trey-shi'll just keep the conversation going like that…

Idia: I can't deal with that kind of thing. It's the worst. I hope he never talks to me again…

Part 1 (Part 2) (Part 3)

Requested by Anonymous.

#twisted wonderland #twst #trey clover #idia shroud #twst trey #twst idia #twst translation #twst vargas camp

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ask-sonata-dusk · 9 months ago

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February/March 2024 Update: Extended Hiatus

Hey guys!

So, ASD’s hiatus might be a bit longer than I expected…

You see, I think my life is starting to take a bit more of a different direction than it originally did, with the main reason is me considering making my first Visual Novel (which is based on a canon series that I know). So of course, it's going to require a lot of practice, watching tutorial videos, time, effort, and dedication. However, I am uncertain about the exact amount of time it will take. While I would like to believe that I can manage both a VN and ASD simultaneously, the truth is that it won't be easy. Therefore, I have decided to focus solely on my visual novel project as it would be more manageable for me.

I hate to make this decision, but as I’ve said countless times before (sorry 😅), the truth is that ASD is based on a story that has ended long ago. Although I don't want to let go of ASD yet, I want to focus on developing this new Visual Novel, in which I plan to work on alone also as an indie developer. This project may take a few months to a year, or even longer. Therefore, I must be honest and say that I don't know exactly when I'll be back (or if I am coming back). I want to come back, but it will take longer than one month. So, I'm technically going on an indefinite hiatus, but I hope to return to ASD in the future.

You are still allowed to send asks, but this blog might be inactive for quite a while, or at least the story itself will take a break. Maybe I’ll come back within time to post some EQG & ASD-related art from time to time. Now, do I recommend that you unfollow me? No, I don’t. I mean, I wouldn’t want you to. However, it wouldn’t be right to hold you here either 😅 So the choice is solely yours.

If your still looking for some Sonata Dusk askblog content, I recommend @sunsets-serenade. It’s the only MLP/EQG blog that I know it’s still active at this point. So all in all, the Ask Sonata Dusk story is on a semi-indefitnite hiatus, but it might post from time to time for art. I’ll let you guys know when I’ll return to continue the story!

Thank you everyone for following Ask Sonata Dusk for all these years. I hope to return soon one day!

- @ask-sonata-dusk Moderator

If you to reach me, contact or follow @misssakurapetal27

Please take care everyone 💖

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ramblingsandwhateverelse · 26 days ago

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I have spent the past 24 hours ping ponging between varying extremes of emotion. I sat at my desk at work, and sometimes would spend 2 minutes holding back a blood-curling scream and crushing my water bottle in my fist. Sometimes my eyes would instantly water up and I would spend several minutes with my head tilted up, holding back tears and trying not to dry sob. I had to take frequent bathroom breaks as frequent waves of nasauea crept up on me without warning.

If you voted Democrat and are not just as scared or angry or miserable right now, it is for one of two reasons: you either do not fully understand the consequences of this election, or you do not truly care.

If you are in the second camp, there is no helping you. I hope you learn human empathy soon, but it won't be from me.

But to the first, this is not entirely an indictment of your character. American governance and politics are horribly messy, and our education system and media do a sub-par job at educating most Americans on either. What you need to immediately learn and understand is this: a presidential election is never solely about the singular president. If you do not believe that Donald Trump is truly evil or competent enough to cause the deterioration of human rights and living standards that others on the left expect, then that is fine. Honestly, you're probably right.

However, a president is never just one man- he is an entire Cabinet, hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats, multiple media machines, millions of active combatants and agents, thousands of judges. During his previous presidency, Donald Trump did not ban transgender people from the military; those he appointed to the Department of Defense did. Donald Trump did not remove healthcare protections for LGBT people; those he appointed to the Department of Health and Human Services did. Donald Trump did not overturn Roe v Wade; those he appointed to the Supreme Court did. Donald Trump did not personally deny thousands of visas and asylum applications to migrants; those he appointed to the Department of State did. When a US president is elected, it is not the simple, singular election of one man to the office of the president; it is the welcoming of an entire political party and administration into a million-person machine that wields immense federal, state, and local power.

Furthermore, do not be fooled by the supposition that Trump's administration could not possibly enact all of the campaign promises they made. It is true that, between 2016-2020, his administration was never able to erect a wall along the US-MX border. However, his administration did deport record numbers of undocumented migrants, essentially freeze legal entry of asylum seekers and refugees, separate families of undocumented migrants, and hire tens of thousands of undertrained ICE and border patrol agents. Campaign promises are never truly important because of the actual content of the promise; they are important because of the ideals they uphold and strive to implement legislation in favor of.

Project 2025 is rife with campaign promises moderates have deemed too impossible to achieve, but Project 2025 should not be treated as an instruction manual the Trump administration will stick to word for word; rather, it is more of a Bible, a religious text that will oftentimes not be interpreted literally, but whose core beliefs will be espoused and followed faithfully. The underlying ideals of gender essentialism, heteronormativity, Jingoism and American supremacy, authoritarianism, social conservatism, and fiscal conservatism are what the Trump administration will prioritize and focus on. These will be the foundations of their legislation and political efforts.

You cannot pretend that everything will be fine simply because you can or did not perceive the differences and shifts that occurred between 2016 and 2020. You cannot look at the buffoon who will soon be Commander in Chief and honestly or intelligently believe that he is the sole person everyone is worried about. The time for coddled ignorance, willful or unwillful, is over. If you are reading this post, you have the phone battery and internet bandwidth to go educate yourself, so you have no excuse whatsoever anymore.

#us politics #trump

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beautifulpersonpeach · 10 months ago

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What do you think are the chances SM will drop out of the big 4 eventually soon? All I hear about them recently is how the company CEOs are milking it for all they can without care, I know big ships sink longer but it can't last forever, and Kakao doesn't seem to do SM much good too. Both companies are quite a pair to be honest, lawsuits, investigations and all, Bang PD must be happy he left that disaster for Kakao to deal with 😁 I wonder how SM falling apart would influence the entertainment industry.

***

“eventually soon” feels like an oxymoron lol, but I’ll assume you mean anytime in the next 5 years.

So what are the chances SM drops out?

My gut feeling is 0%. (With a caveat in point 3). SM is still going to be a prominent company in this space for the next 5 years for three reasons.

1. K-pop stans. That company has lasted this long because it’s perfected the model of k-pop - gamifying music consumption - on the largest swarth of fans for the longest time, longer than any other k-pop company. In fact I’d say you’ve not really met a company stan until you’ve met an SM stan because those creatures are the blueprint. Like, I see the way they move, decades later, and feel some respect for Lee Sooman because he’s created a formidable army that’s kept his company rolling through cultism scandals, a government subpoena, an Interpol indictment, several lawsuits from idols under his management, and a HYBE takeover… for starters.

SM dominated 1st and 2nd gen k-pop (alongside YG and JYP for 2nd gen) and a lot of k-pop stans who got in back then were pre-teens and teens. K-pop dominated by SM wasn’t just a hobby for those people, it was their childhood. And they cherish it as such, which also means bias on SM generally skews the way you’d expect. Many 1st and 2nd gen k-pop stans are still very active, they’ve grown up now and are no longer the pre-teens lost in the lights learning about Girls Generation. No. Now, those stans are now the ‘tastemakers’ of k-pop spaces. Much of the mythos around the Big 3 is created and actively sustained by this group of k-pop stans. They are the people you’d typically see being k-pop ‘journalists’ today, they run the main podcasts on k-pop, they moderate the main k-pop forums both in Korea and internationally, and so on. They play a significant part in driving ‘consensus k-pop’ opinions (though ARMYs seem to also make sure they have a voice). K-pop stans will be the first people to tell you how much they “hate” SM for being so shitty in treating their idols, but the bias towards SM in k-pop spaces is implicit. And no, it’s not because of the ‘vocals’.

2. SM’s cost base is low: (I rambled a lot in the first point and now jet lag is kicking in so I’ll try to keep this point brief.) SM spends next to nothing on their staff and talent. Part of the reason HYBE and Kakao could acquire them relatively easily last year, was because that company has next to no cost base, compared to other Big 4 companies. Almost every costing ratio has SM at the bottom compared to peers (excluding legal fees and other non-operating costs); on Korean blinds their employees self-report being the lowest paid among the Big4; Black composers SM hires have reported to The Guardian that the company doesn’t pay them… My point being, even if half of SM’s idol roster stopped putting out music for 1 year, the company’s cost base is so low that they’d still be afloat. Aside from all the auxiliary businesses SM is involved in (they also own hotels in Korea and other businesses), the company is more nimble than it seems at first glance and just needs a bit more time to get stable again.

Which brings me to my 3rd point.

3. New Groups. By this time next year I expect at least one of three things to have happened to SM. I’ll list two. (1) There’s M&A with a Western music label, and (2) SM (as a standalone entity) are back at the topline ratios they were at in 2019. Scenario 2 is already feasible with SM’s Moon&Back partnership, the new girl group debuting in 2024/2025, and RIIZE maintaining their current momentum, even as NCT begins enlisting this year. Nothing revives a company like SM better than new blood, and after the last few years of stagnation, SM is likely to see significant growth from those projects.

I agree with you that nothing lasts forever, empires rise and fall and HYBE will too at some point. And so eventually, SM as we know it will cease to exist. But I’m not expecting it to be anytime soon, save the caveats in point 3.

#kpop #kpop industry #sm entertainment #big 4 #kpop fandoms #fandom behaviour #Lee Sooman

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dayfaresthenight · 1 month ago

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Forged in the Flames [Part 2]

TWs: Moderate Gore, general spooky eldritch horror stuff:

"This should be the place, Kriston."

"Are you certain, H? It seems rather... Damp, and run down."

We had made it to the old water filtration plant. It hadn't been active for around a decade, replaced by the much fancier and "hi-tech" water treatment plant made by the Asmond Corporation. Despite my reservations, though, my dear friend insisted:

"If we are to trace the cases we have seen so far, it is but elementary to assume that they come from this central location. Surely, if a theoretical hivemother exists, it shall rest here. Do hand me that Crowbar, if you shall?"

A sense of looming dread came over me as I handed him the instrument. The previous creature we had contained had been so... vile and wretched. What would the beast at its apex look like if that was merely the larva? Perhaps it would be wise to just call it in and leave the case to those far more well-prepared than ourselves.

CLICK!

...Too late. He was already inside.

"H, wait for me!!!" As we entered the complex, it seemed as if he had been wrong. The place looked to be about as one would expect—the machinery long since stopped and the two giant filtration tanks sitting sealed and untouched.

"See? There's nothing here. I told you that it must've been the new place that it got into."

"Hrm... perhaps you are correct. But, to be certain..." He took out his walking cane and tapped on the leftmost filtration unit. A hollow clang echoed out, indicating it was empty. Walking over, he did the same for the rightmost one—yet... no such noise was made...?

'What... is Water still doing in this place?"

"Not water, my dear friend. Thousands of them, all sealed off in that container—getting in through the pipes. The Hivemother in question is likely somewhere amongst that cluster."

"And... you theorize killing off this... hivemother will stop it?"

"Like an Ant Queen, they appear to communicate through pheromones and a traditional monarchial system akin to an ant. As for how I intend to solve it... Why, that's simple!"

When he took the match out, a very small part of me died inside.

"We can't just burn down this entire place! Have you've gone mad?!"

"HA! You thought I was going to become an arsonist so soon?" He couldn't help but toy with the matchbox, borderline hauntingly. However, he reassured me as he moved it up to what appeared to be some kind of ignition lighter.

"This is what I intend to say. From my studies, the creatures respond rather poorly to boiling temperatures, and they should as such be melted away within the flames."

"And if that doesn't work?"

"Hrm... we'll figure that out when we get there." He flicked the match to life with a swift motion of the wrist across the matchbox before using it to whirl the machine to life.

Mtttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttw sjw lwuhicw sjw lwuhicw sjw lwuhicw sjw lwuhicw mmmhrmnwkeewktdbw" came bubbling out of the chamber as a terrible, inhuman SCREECH came from it. If a demon would have a voice, this surely would be it!

Soon enough, the top of the container was kicked off, and a terrible beast emerged from it. It appeared to look vaguely humanoid in features, with two arms, a chest, and an oval head. However, its form appeared to be more that of a gel, and its legs were replaced by a singular, long tail-like appendage protruding out of its back.

I couldn't help but to immediately lose my cool as I let out an admittingly embarrassing and shrill screech of terror, leaping back as the creature jumped down. This was still only my first year, so sights like this... unsettled me.

Immediately, the two of us began to both draw our weapons, shooting at the boiling beast as it thrashed and charged towards us. Each BANG echoed throughout the old facility, yet the beast seemed to be barely affected by our weaponry.

However, my friend did something that, to this day, I thought was foolish—but... impressive. He leaped in front of the still-boiling tank and yelled, "COME AT ME, HELLBEAST!"

As it leaped towards him for what would've been surely a lethal blow, he leaped out of the way, causing the monster to crash directly into the tank, causing the very floor to rumble.

As the both of us got to our feet and breathed heavily, we watched as the contents of the tank—a mixture of bone, a blackish substance, and the boiling water—all collapsed onto the creature.

As the beast gurgled and gagged, it desperately tried to desperately put itself out. It was a terrifying and ghastly sight, as... I suppose the human in me simply could not stand seeing another creature suffer.

Yet its movements slowed, and soon enough... it stood still in the water.

"..."

As the two of us breathlessly stared at the now-deceased monstrosity that had once desired but to only slay us, we couldn't help but to just begin... laughing. Perhaps it was the insanity claiming us, or just the sheer absurdity of the creature's plan. However, we laughed, and we laughed until finally I said:

"So, guess we're not doing the sushi place tonight?"

"Haaa... I'm afraid not, Kriston. I'm afraid not."

//END OF PT 2//

#dayfare lore stuff

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antimony-medusa · 1 year ago

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hey, medusa!!! i’m wanting to run an exchange, but i’ve never done so before. do you have a guide or some tips?

Okay. Oh boy. I do not have a formal guide. What I know off the top of my head (this is a bit fragmented cause I've been at a wedding all weekend) is this.

If you are running an exchange, it is orders of magnitude easier to do it on Ao3 rather than using a google form and hand-matching. This is for two reasons. One is the aforementioned hand-matching— it's more complicated to get people to sign up on Ao3, but you can make guides for it, and matching through Ao3 is a like 90 minute process including checking for people who've made Do Not Match requests, and hand-matching if you have more than like 9 people is a multi-day process. I think it took me four day to match the holiday exchange last time, and I had an insane spreadsheet about it. The other aspect is communication— through Ao3 you just press a button and everyone gets their assignment emailed to them. If you're using a google form, you have to fall back on either having a discord you get everyone to join (which you then have to moderate, and then send individual messages) or using tumblr messaging (and if you send more than 50 messages to people a day it caps you, and if you do that three days running, you get shadow banned).

It is vitally important that you allow a space for people to put down their Do Not Wants, to avoid people getting fics or art they hate or are actively triggered by. But it really helps if you can emphasize that your Do Not Want needs to be neutral and polite, cause who knows who is gonna get your request, cause otherwise you do have people signing up with things like "no dark fic or creepy stuff" and not only is that rude to people who like dark fic, that's REALLY hard to moderate— what's "creepy stuff"? Who decides?

If you are having an exchange that's over a month long, it's really helpful to have a check-in to make sure everybody is still working on the gift and to remind people that the deadline is coming. You'll always get defaults around check-in time as people go OH SHIT.

Expect that about 20% of your exchange will either default (communicating this with you) or just no-show at the deadline. Do not assume that someone who missed a deadline is going to get it in soon, you need to follow up with them IMMEDIATELY and start saying things like "if I haven't heard from you in 8 hours I'm going to assume you've defaulted and send this to pinch hits", or things will stretch on for WEEKS. You'll need pinch hitters for these people who didn't get their gift done— and like, this isn't a thing to be mad at— people get sick, computers blow up, people leave the fandom, internet goes out, life happens— and you'll need a plan in place to get assignments to the pinch hitters, and a timeline for them to get their gift done. I've had people noshow because they left the fandom and they didn't think to tell anyone, and I've had people noshow because they were in intensive care. You get the whole spectrum. Remember that when you're communicating with someone, you COULD be talking to the intensive care person, so be direct and actionable (I need to hear from you within x timeframe or I'm gonna assume you're unable to get your gift done) but still be polite. With a 1k assignment minimum, most pinch-hitters can get a gift done in a week or less.

Spend some time thinking about your content rules and how you'll enforce them. The point of moderation is not to provide a value judgement for anything, no matter your personal opinions, you're there to be an impartial enforcer of the rules— rules that were clear enough to start with that everyone had a reasonable understanding of them when they entered the space, so that they could make an informed decision about the space and if they would be comfortable there. So a rule like "no e-rated fics" is fine and enforceable, and if you have an exchange with minors that's a reasonable idea, but a rule like "no dark content" becomes very hard to enforce, because who's defining that? Does dark humour count? How dark can angst-with-a-happy-ending get before it counts? If there's torture in your source material, can it be used in work? Major Character Death? And so on. You need to look at your rules and go "how would someone who doesn't know me interpret that" if at all possible, and try and think of worst case scenarios, and try and make things clear and understandable and enforceable.

Within MCYT spaces, if you're doing anything multifandom/anything that goes outside of your circle of friends, I'd really recommend not trying to enforce streamer boundaries, because every different social circle has a different understanding of what those boundaries are. Trying to make a set of rules that includes both hermitfandom and lifesteal fandom and dsmp fandom, while including boundaries, is a screaming nightmare. Plus you start having to run down clips for things instead of actually running your exchange, and it is flat out impossible to find recent and fully informed clips that can't be misinterpreted, for a startling variety of streamers who you'd think (from your social circle) was settled known fact where we had a powerpoint presentation from the streamer. In my opinion running an exchange as Don't Like: Don't Read, maybe with major content warning rules (enforcable and clear!), and then making sure to match carefully is the only way forward.

As a mod, you become basically a non-judgemental customer service guy for a month. You are non-partisan. I've had this happen, and it is REALLY demoralizing to have a mod go "lol that's weird" or "this segment of the fandom is kind of funny" or "we don't want any of those guys" in a space that's theoretically supposed to be welcoming, so if you have said things like "everyone is welome" you have to mean it. There is nothing someone can bring you that makes you go "that's weird" for the duration of the exchange, even if you personally are absolutely not vibing with a person's ships or prompts or aus, or their reason for not getting their fic done seems flimsy, or whatever else. Your entire job is to be non-judgemental supportive helpful rules person, and that's it. You will answer questions already answered in the FAQ a lot.

That's all I can think of, if you have futher questions ask away. :D

#x-ca1iber #ask #fic exchange

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wolfgabe · 2 years ago

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Spoutible a few months later

Okay a few months out and I can really safely say Spoutible really is the best Twitter alternative out there. I also would like to point out some obvious misinformation I have seen going round. And give a bit of an update on my own personal experiences as well as what has changed.

The site is perfectly safe. The claim that your data is being stolen and leaked is all bullshit. I have yet to see any signs that my information has been compromised and the information Spoutible asks you for is relatively basic stuff.

The claim that Spoutible is hostile to romance authors is also complete BS since there are a good number of romance writers over on Spoutible that have posted with no issue.

Spoutible is a scam is also fake. You cannot tell me that the whale is a scam when the person behind it has been highly up front and transparent about the various issues and working to address them. Spoutible being largely funded by donations right now makes sense considering it lacks a proper advertising model and has yet to attract the support of any major advertisers. They don't even force you to give money either. Donating is completely optional.

Yes I will acknowledge the site has some bugs still but that's to be expected for any new platform really and they have been working on fixing them as fast as they can.

I don't really understand why people are throwing a fuss over Spoutible's stance on porn considering its basically identical to virtually every other social site out there. In case you didn't know Spoutible's TOS was crafted based on the input of users during the beta period and they made it clear they didn't want porn

I have seen people complain about too much political content or how it feels like a left wing echo chamber but there being a lot of politics right now isn't surprising considering a lot of first wave Spoutible users were political journalists and commentators who migrated over from Twitter. If you are wondering why a lot of Spoutible feels very left centric a lot of it likely has to do with the fact that I think many aren't used to being on a platform where more balanced political discussion doesn't have to worry about being constantly drowned out by right wing trolling and disinformation.

And personally, I think it is important Spoutible be allowed to grow as a platform for news and political activism with how much of a right-wing disinformation cess pit Twitter is rapidly devolving into. Its probably no coincidence that I am seeing many journalists jumping ship to the whale right now. Also, here's a tip dont be afraid to check the explore section and remember to look for accounts that match your interests. I can't help but notice a trend/pattern of people coming over to Spoutible just to start shit on purpose knowing they will likely be banned just so they can then run back to Twitter and proclaim how Spoutible is unfairly censoring its users.

What elevates Spoutible above sites like Twitter is that they actually have shown they are taking moderation seriously. I remember earlier a bunch of people showed up Spoutible just to spew racist crap and they all got bounced right away. You would never seen that sort of enforcement over on Twitter. Giving people more tools at their disposal to help cut down on harassment, trolling, and bullying goes a long way in making Spoutible a healthier and more inclusive platform especially for the more marginalized groups such as LGBTQ people.

And now as for what has improved, what I like, and what could be fixed.

Video uploading is now available although still a bit buggy at the moment.

For artists and content creators Spoutible now allows you to monetize your content for free. No fee required. Just click on the red gear on your profile and look for the monetization options. Tips, donations, and subscriptions are all possible.

Still no app but I believe it will be launching soon.

More gamer people are needed which hopefully won't be much of problem if they can get the major gaming companies on board

Image upload limit way more generous than Twitter

I am really enjoying the far stronger engagement on my posts.

Need more companies on board but they are getting there. I think the first major company joined Spoutible today. It was Leap Frog.

Spoutible needs more celebrities and high profile figures. Getting someone like the POTUS would do wonders for raising its image.

Right now I think its highly premature to claim Spoutible will flop just like all the other Twitter altenatives considerings its still relatively young as a platform and still has much potential for growth. I feel I cannot stress enough that Spoutible really is the best Twitter alternative out there. It doesnt have the stability and security problems of HIVE nor does it suffer from Mastodon's server based bullshit and gatekeeping problems. The whole platform was perfectly designed to make migrating from Twitter as painless as possible so once again I will encourage people to give the whale a chance if they are tired of the bird.

#spoutible #twitter killer #twitter altneratives #information #join the whale

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