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antonballdeluxe · 2 years ago

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The Eternal September's Late-Stages From A Disabled Woman's Viewpoint

But then again, was there anywhere for me to go in the first place, being, well...

While I try to stray away from mentioning it on other pages of my site, it does occasionally come up -- I am considered disabled. Not physically, mind you, this will not cover that. I have multiple mental disorders sprawling over both the sides of what one would call neurodivergancy, and the side of what is mental illness. It sucks, but I'd rather not host a pity party here over it. Neurodivergancy is a new and funny word, coming mostly from, well, the internet. There are a lot of disabled people on the internet, and if you asked me, I'd say that disabled people also are major creators on the internet, and it makes sense. For us, it's an easier way to communicate to keep it online and simple.

Or at least, it used to be. Within the last two years or so, the pandemic forcing more normal people to be online as much as we are for school and work, they've been able to explore the internet more than ever before. Niche websites no longer niche, and subcultures growing more popular as people find them. I guess this isn't neccessarily a bad thing, but I digress. Normies keep things alive and able to have money made off of them, but they also tend to dilute the subculture into being more acceptable to parade around in public. This includes places directly for disabled people (...like me) to be able to talk comfortably about the issues we have with our lives and what cards we've been dealt.

Before writing this, at a wit's end, I decided to look for one of those places on DISBOARD, which is basically just an advertising place for Discord servers. What I found was dissapointing, to say the least, and speaks more of a wider problem. A lot of the servers were for teenagers and younger, which is concerning giving how teenagers are with sharing their personal information online, and alienating because I usually don't like being around, say, anyone under the age of 15. Scrolling further -- a lot of these servers are obviously too friendly towards too obvious malingerers. Disorder fakers. This has grown expotentially since the pandemic started, and I'd say that if there was no pandemic, faking of a certain romanticizable disorder would've either stayed or died on fucking Tumblr. Now, there's entire conventions, communities, merchandise, for something actual doctors debate over if it's even real or not. A lot of the servers I saw for the disabled explicitly were aiming for this group of disorder fakers, it seemed, acting friendly, giving accomodations.

And maybe this is just me, but they all seemed too well held together. As if there was already a social line for the communinities and if I stepped out of that line, may Heaven grab my hands to save me from a screaming Hell. Every server I saw had to immedietly outline that if you didn't fit in the owner's personal Disability Discourse Opinion Box, go elsewhere. I am not good at staying within those lines, because my neurodiversity directly affects how I attend a social situation. I am often out of that line in general, hence how I ended up here in the first place. A normal person does not get this involved in small web communities, and if that bursts a bubble, I'm so sorry.

Oddly enough number two -- I found my best bet for disability support was to look the opposite way from those places aimed at it -- I've been able to find home recently in the official server for a game I've recently fallen in love with. Making a shrine-page for the game soon, of course! It's what I do. But everyone there kinda...got it. I wasn't good at being social, and it was ok, a silent approval of that. I feel welcome, loved by most, like I can actually talk and not worry about making people mad just by existing. Thank you, and if you are from that place, thank you even more.

Now, where does this tie into the idea of the Eternal September, where the people just living life on earth gain access to where only hobbyists have been? Because the entire internet seems like it's headed this way, since, well, after the pandemic started again. Remember the "Alternative" boom of Summer 2020, where teenage girls and alike suddenly wore all black and partied like it was 2006? Direct result of that. And it's only gotten worse for the underground communities I've been in since, including some breakcore artists, mobile games, looking at pretty things, and more. It's not just the youth, but the normie adults seem to be worse at blending in with the rest of the underground, which is...again, outcasts, more, and, bluntly, the disabled that spend a lot of time online because going outside is haaaard. Yeah, I know touching grass isn't that hard, and I've been doing that more and more often since this boom in subculture popularities has occured. Doing my art, my writing (like this one!), exercise, more. Getting into stuff I haven't cared about in years.

I'd also like to mention that this is why you just can't seem to ever escape politics online anymore. You used to, but you can't now, because the radicalized have spread, and so have the normies, the shitlibs, the 40 year old Facebook dads with their...y'know what I'm not going further into this point just know I'm right on it.

This has further isolated my disabled ass more than I was isolated when I was actively bullied for it in public schooling, where I went to the internet to just...hang out, be with people as weird as I am. But now people are socially ok and in these places and they make more rules and whatnot, and I always end up fucking things up for myself in those places. Flopping on the floor like a fish in my head right now, because that's all I can really do about it. I am just a fish in the ocean, and surfing the world wide web just isn't that fun anymore. And as fish do, it's a fight with other fish to survive. I guess I'm surviving ok so far. But I'm still a fish. Why am I a fish? Fish.

Q: What do you call a fish with no eyes?

A: A fsh.

#disability #autism #autistic #actually autistic #neurodivergant #neurodivergancy #mental illness #cptsd #stpd #schizotypal personality disorder #schizotypal #disability fakers #illness fakers #the eternal september #webcore #essay #nephro.txt #nephro.pdf #ask to tag

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lilchibi-chan · 4 years ago

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Reader Has a BF x MHA Boys Pt.3

Part 1

Part 2

It’s the next day and everything from yesterday feels like a dream. You’ve never seen Todoroki that angry and even though you weren’t proud of what he did, you thought it was kinda hot. Seeing Todoroki as something other than composed brought this sort of rise out of you.

This week, UA is going to be doing a cultural festival and class 1A is in charge of coming up with different booths to have for everyone to enjoy when they come to the school.

Some people came up with games like ring toss and the game where you knock down the bottles, other people said a booth where you sell charms for luck, love, etc.

“Ooo!! Guys!! What if we do a kissing booth?!” Mina asks excited

Some of the other girls and boys agreed that a kissing booth was a great idea.

“I really do not think that is and appropriate feature that we should advertise as an academic institution,” Iida says

“Oh c’mon, Iida! It should be fun, that is what the cultural festival is all about,” you say, encouraging Mina’s idea

Everyone else chimed in and thought it was a great idea as well.

Iida was out voted.

“Well, if you all want it so bad, then pick who would be in charge of running the booth,” Iida says

“I think Y/n should do it,” Mina says

“Mina!! I have a boyfriend! I can’t,” you say protesting the idea

“Oh yeah.. you’re right.. sorry,” she says rubbing the back of her head

“W-what about Todoroki,” Hagakure asks shyly

Although no one can see her, you can tell that she was blushing.

“Todoroki would never-”

“I mean I don’t see why not,” Todoroki says, cutting you off

“R-really,” you ask confused with a tinge of irritation

“Yeah,” he says monotone

“Oh,” you say somewhat sad

You don’t even know why you’re sad. Todoroki is single and free to do what he wants. Not just because he’s single, but he’s also his own person.

But you also know Todoroki has feelings for you.

‘Maybe he’s trying to make you jealous’ you think to yourself

‘No way, Todoroki isn’t that petty’ you mentally respond

“Y/N, you feelin okay,” Mina asks, snapping you out of your thoughts

“Y-yeah, just zoned out..sorry,” you say, putting on a smile

“Okay, so now we just need a girl to run the booth with Todoroki,” Mina says excitedly

“What about you Mina, it was you who came up with it. It would only be right,” you say

“Sure, I don’t mind,” she says

“Alright, then it’s settled, Mina and Todoroki will run the kissing booth,” Iida says

Mina moves closer to you and whispers

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on Todoroki for you”

“W-what’re you talking about,” you ask nervous as to what she’s implying

“I saw how you reacted when Hagakure offered him up. I’m not dumb ya know,” she says

“I know,” you say laughing,“but it’s not like that”

“Okaaaayyy,” Mina says not believing you

“It’s not,” you say back

“Look, I’m not gonna bully you into admitting it, but I can see that there’s an attraction there,” she says and makes her way to her desk

‘I don’t have feelings for him. I mean he is handsome and brave and when he smiles it’s really cute,”

‘Don’t forget that time with the tub,’ your other inner voice chimes in

‘Yeah that was-wait!! NO!! YOU HAVE A BOYFRIEND!!’ you say mentally shaking yourself to get a grip

“Y/n,” Todoroki says, snapping his fingers and taking you out of your head

“Y-yeah, sorry what was that,” you ask

He laughs

“You somewhat resembled Midoriya for a second when you were thinking to yourself,” he starts,“but I was asking if you wanted to have lunch together today.”

“Of course!! We always eat lunch together,” you say with a smile

“Good...I was hoping yesterday didn’t mess anything up between you and I,” he says

“Todoroki, we’re best friends. Nothing can break us apart. Not even a misunderstanding with my boyfriend,” you say honestly

At lunch, you, Todoroki, and the rest of the squad sat together. You sat across from Todoroki.

“Todoroki,” you speak up

“Yes,” he says

“Why-why are you doing the kissing booth,” you ask, wanting desparately to know

“Just because,” he says, not looking you in the eye

“Todoroki, have you even had your first kiss yet,” you ask

“N-no,” he says, somewhat embarrassed,“but what does it matter, if it doesn’t mean anything.”

“A first kiss is special and it should be with someone you truly care for and they care for you too,” you say honestly

He looks at you for a moment

“Mm,” is all he says and goes back to eating

It’s been a couple weeks since you and Bakugou have spoken and the same goes for your boyfriend.

Flashback

‘We need to talk,’ you text your boyfriend

‘Sure babe...is everything alright,” he asks concerned

‘Yeah...I just really need to see you,’ you respond and send him a ping to a park that happens to be half way between UA and his house

You decide to sit on the swing set and wait for your boyfriend.

There is a soft breeze blowing, so you decide to close your eyes and hum a tune until he arrives. Softly swinging back and forth for a few moments, allowing the wind to caress your skin and kiss your hair.

All the while, your mind drifted back and forth between your boyfriend and Bakugou until it just just stopped and stayed on Bakugou. That moment in the photo booth kept sticking out like a sore thumb.

You could only think about how it felt when you two were close and how badly you wanted to kiss him. You never really felt that with your boyfriend as long as you two have been together. You were definitely attracted to your boyfriend, but the way you felt with Bakugou just felt so...magnetic.

“Hey,” you hear behind you,causing you to jump

“Hey,” you say, knowing exactly who it is

“So what did you wanna talk about”

“Us” you say, getting straight to the point

“Where is this coming from,” your boyfriend asks confused

“We’ve needed to talk for a little while, but it was further confirmed today,” you say anxiously

“Well, what happened today,” he asks starting to get mad about what you might be implying

You explain everything that happened today, even the part about the photo booth.

You both sit in silence but you can tell he’s fuming.

“I’m gonna fucking kill him,” he says getting up to punch a tree

“If you’re gonna kill him, then you’re gonna have to kill me too,” you say honestly

“And why the fuck is that,” he asks getting angrier

You stay quiet, dreading the thought of telling him, but you swore not to break his trust.

“You wanted him to kiss you,” he says, almost as if reading your mind

“How long have you felt this way,” he asks, demanding an answer

“A while...” you say, not giving him eye contact

“How long is a while”

You stay quiet

“Goddammit! Answer me!! HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN MAKING ME LOOK FUCKING STUPID?”

“LOOK I NEVER SAID I WAS PROUD OF IT OKAY,” you say finally losing it,“AND FOR YOUR INFORMATION, I NEVER ACTED ON ANY OF WHAT I FELT BECAUSE I LOVED YOU AND HAD ENOUGH RESPECT FOR YOU AND OUR RELATIONSHIP!”

“OH YEAH AND HOW IS LETTING HIM KISS YOU RESPECTFUL?!”

“WE DIDN’T KISS!”

“BUT YOU WANTED TO...and that’s the point. You may not have physically cheated, but your emotions are clearly with him.”

He turns around and starts rubbing his forehead.

“You know what,” he starts,“maybe we need some time apart. You gotta figure out what you want and I’m not gonna be made to look like an idiot while you do so, so for now we’re done. Don’t call or text me until you’ve made up your mind,” he says then walks away

End of flashback

You’ve mostly been hanging out with the girls and even switched seats to sit next to Mina leaving Bakugou with Kiri which you knew he wouldn’t mind. As much as he wouldn’t like to admit it, Kirishima is his best friend.

“So how’s the whole situation going,” Mina asks. She could tell something was off between you and Bakugou and you knew she wouldn’t stop until she figured out what it was so she is the only one that knows everything from how long you’ve had feelings for Bakugou up until the events that took place two weeks ago.

“Honestly...horrible. I’m still so confused. Part of me wants to be with my boyfriend and work it out and the other huge part of me just wants to give everything to Bakugou. Why is this so hard,” you say, putting your head down on the desk

“If you’re having this hard of a time, maybe you should make a pros and cons list for each of the boys,” she says jokingly,but with a hint of seriousness

“A pros and cons list?” You ask

“Yeah. Just write out everything you feel for your boyfriend, then everything you feel for Bakugou and make a list of what the pros and cons are for dating each boy. At the end if you’re still confused, you might just have to suck it up and make a choice. They’re not gonna wait forever and you can’t really make them,” Mina says

“You’re so right, Mina”

When you get to your dorm after classes, you sit down at you desk and take out a notepad. You start to write how you feel about Bakugou and your boyfriend, but write them as if you’re writing a letter and you just let everything out.

Once finished, you start on the pros and cons list for them.

At the end, you’re no longer confused. In fact you feel like a weight has been lifted. Emphasis on A WEIGHT. There were other things you had to do before everything goes back to “normal”

“Hey...Can we meet...”

“Sure...I’ll come to you. See you soon”

Once you all get back from the trip, you drop your luggage off at your dorm and decide to take a trip to your boyfriend’s house since you got back pretty early in the day.

When you finally reach, you ring the doorbell.

You wait a couple seconds before someone answers.

“Y/N?!” your boyfriend asks surprised

“Hey,” you say smiling,“I figured I would come surprise you since we came back from our trip!”

“I’m definitely surprised,” he says

“Can I come in then since the first phase of my mission is complete,” you ask

“Yeah, sure...sorry” he says nervously

He unlocks the gate and opens the house door for you.

When you enter, you see a pair of shoes there that you’ve never seen before.

“Oh you have company,” you ask, taking off your shoes and putting on a pair of slippers you left over there

“Heyyyy, you’re missing the movie! What’s taking so long out the-oh! Who’s this babe?” the girl asks

She was stunningly beautiful and seemed really nice.

“She’s an old friend from middle school. She was just stopping by since we haven’t seen each other in a while,” he says, blatantly lying

‘She’s an old friend,’ just kept circulating in your head, cutting deeper and deeper each time

“Okay, well I’ll leave you both to it then,” she says,stepping down to put her shoes on

“I’ll call you when I get home,” she says to your boyfriend and kisses him on his lips, to which he responds by kissing back

“It was nice to meet you...”

“Y/N,” you say,“but it’s not really worth remembering. I won’t be here much longer,” you say, the words stinging as they came off your tongue

After she walks out, you slap your boyfriend

“So this is what you have been doing. This is why you give me one word answers or just ignore me completely. Ya know I’ll give it to you...she really is beautiful. Gorgeous even...I wish you two happiness. I really do,” you say, trying to fight to tears but they just keep coming

“Y/N.. I didn’t mean-“

“Didn’t mean what? To cheat on me? You can save that sorry ass excuse or whatever “apology” you think would be acceptable. You told her I’m a friend, but you’re wrong. I’m nothing to you and you’re dead to me,” you say turning around to leave

“Oh,by the way, act like you never fucking knew me. We’re done.”

With that you walk out with your slippers on your feet and shoes in hand. As you’re walking back to the bus, you see, your now ex boyfriend’s, current girlfriend.

You try to walk past her, but she recognizes you.

“Hey Y/N, long time, no se-” she stops when she sees you’re crying

“Are you alright?” She asks, genuinely concerned

“I’m not just a friend,” you say quiet and your voice cracking really bad

“’Scuse me,” she asks, not quite hearing you

“I’m not.just.a friend. He lied to you and he lied to me. You seem like a sweet girl and you’re stunning, so I see why he would pick you over me and you seem nice enough. You don’t deserve to be treated like this. You deserve better. I deserve better,” you say adding emphasis on I

“My bus is here. Have a good rest of your evening,” you say getting on

You cry the rest of the way to UA.

Once you arrive, you head straight to the dorms. On the way to your room, you bump into someone and don’t look up to see who it is. You apologize for bumping into them and keep on going.

You throw down your shoes and slowly crawl into bed, pulling the covers over your head

Soon there’s a soft knock on your door.

“Go away,” you say softly

“Y/n...it’s me,” the familiar voice says

You get out of bed and make your way to the door, pausing before you decide to open it.

“You okay,” Kirishima asks softly

“He cheated on me...” you say, tears welling up again

He pulled you into a hug and held you tight.

“Whatever you have to let out, just let it out. Cry all you want. I’ll be right here. Even if my shirt gets soaked, I won’t pull away. I’m here y/n”

You let him fully enter the room, still hugging and close the door behind him. You guide him to your bed and both lay down, him still holding you against his chest.

“You wanna know what makes this worse...he kissed her right in front of me. Do you believe that? Even said I was just an old friend. We dated for 2 years! How could he be so cold?...It didn’t help that she was so beautiful either...She looked like an idol. I see why he would wanna be with her over me. I’m just regular.”

“Y/n, you are the most beautiful and amazing person I have ever met. I see other girls and not one of them outshines how fucking beautiful you are. I don’t even think the word beautiful is enough to describe you. You’re perfect. Don’t let what this guy did ruin you. You deserve much better and you were way out of his league anyways.”

“Thanks, Kiri,” you say into his chest

It was silent for a while. Kirishima just stroked your hair or rubbed your back in small circles in efforts to console you.

You started to stir in his arms because you wanted to sit up. He unwrapped them, so that you could get up and you wiped your face. You headed to the bathroom and rinsed your face with some water to calm the puffiness from your crying.

When you re-enter, Kirishima is awake and leaning his back on your head board.

You join him on the bed and he moves over to give you more space. You lay your head on his shoulder and he starts massaging your temples.

“Kiri,” you start

“Hmm,” he answers

You sit up and turn to face him.

“Can I try something?”

“Sure. What do you wanna try?”

“Don’t freak out, okay?”

You move in closer until your lips are only a few centimeters apart

“Y/n...are you sure?”

You look in his eyes and see he’s genuinely concerned.

“I don’t want to take advantage of you when you’re emotional and I don’t want you to make a mistake you’ll regret because of how you’re feeling right now. I’ve dreamt of this day for so long and-”

“Wait...what do you mean you’ve dreamt of this day for so long” you ask confused

“I really like you, y/n. I’ve never really felt this way about anyone, but I’ll try my best to tell you. From the day I met you, I’ve had the BIGGEST crush on you. You’re all I think about when I’m alone. If I’m not next to you, I think about you and what you could be doing and-“

You cut him off by crashing your lips together.

He’s surprised, but soon accepts it.

“Wait,” he says pulling away,“as much as I want this to continue, you just found out you were cheated on. I want you to be sure about your feelings and you should sort that out. I’m not leaving. I’m never leaving you, but you should think about if this is what you want.”

“You’re right. The last thing I would EVER want to do is hurt you and...no you’re absolutely right,” you say

It’s quiet between the both of you now until he finally speaks up.

“I can go if this is too awkward,” he says getting up from the bed

You grab his hand and look up at him with pleading eyes

“Stay...please. I don’t wanna be alone right now and you’re my best friend and the only person I want with me.”

He agrees and takes a spot on the floor right next to your bed.

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sweet-rintarou · 4 years ago

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"How long have you been in the limelight?" You asked as you popped an olive into your mouth. Right now, you were on your entrée meals of an Alfresco pasta dish, and Oikawa devouring a shrimp Alfredo. You were expected to spend at least an hour or so to allow the media to think it was a legitimate date. However, since the food started coming in, the two of you were only ranting about each other's agencies, the media being idiots and also how the entire plan is going to crumble at some point.

"Since I was in middle school, around that time—I think towards the end of middle school," he explained, "I started getting a lot of popularity in high school though, but that was only within my prefecture."

"Must've sucked to never go to nationals, huh?" How you nonchalantly stated it caused him to send you a dumbfounded look. "Hey, I'm just saying."

"Yeah, I know," he huffed, "but nah, it sucked I couldn't take my team, but we've settled everything now and we've all moved on."

"How mature."

"Thank you," he smiled sarcastically, "anyway, after moving to Argentina, I was off the Japan radar for a while, and when I came back, I became a national pride despite playing for another team, and they've approached me for advertising and stuff, and now, they asked for me to star in a web series to which leads us right here."

"How things work out, ya know?" You couldn't help but say out loud.

"Yeah, I just wish Ushijima could've stayed in volleyball so I could play against him and beat him, ya know?"

"How're you so sure that you'd beat him?"

"If you've seen my team, we'd win for sure," he boasted. "It's funny though, I thought I'd never meet him if he didn't continue volleyball, but look at you being a complete simp for him."

"Hey!" You protested, cheeks flushing red. "I'm only partly a simp."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever lets you sleep at night." You rolled your eyes, wiping the sauce with your bread. "Did you tell him about this?"

"Nope, couldn't if I wanted to," you told him, "the agency won't allow it."

"How do you think he'd react?" You stared at each other, sure enough you were both thinking the same thing as the image of the stoic and almost expression-less Wakatoshi Ushijima came to mind.

"Yeah, I shouldn't have asked."

The conversation began to flow towards each other, and if anyone were to observe the both of you, no one would ever believe that you'd be dating, even if it was for a PR stunt. You both shared similar views, and personalities weren't too far apart, that it seemed you were best friends since birth.

"I feel like if Ushijima and I were to go to the same school, we'd be a great duo," Oikawa rambled on, "he was a very powerful offense player, while I had a name for myself in setting, and if were to be in the same team, it would've worked out incredibly well and our team would probably be one of the toughest.”

You only listened, other than Semi, Oikawa would be one of the few sources you could be in contact with that would allow you to get to know Ushijima.

"But his ideas didn't match with mine and he was suffocating when were played against each other," he said, "I'm sure he's a great guy and to be honest I'd like to meet up with him and get to know him outside of volleyball, but damn, I'd probably punch him first."

"Yeah no, do not do that," you complained. "He was... interesting when I first met him—he hated my band." The dry laugh indicated it was still a bitter memory.

"Damn, really?"

"Yeah, he refused to support Semi on his choice to pursue music, but that was because our genre didn't cater to his taste," you explained, "but it's fine now... I hope."

"Yeah, I feel like your company will change the image of the band." You nodded, unable to think of anything to say. "When does your contract end with them?"

"Around five years, if I'm not wrong."

"Damn, that's a long time." Again, you nodded.

"But, if there's any mistreatment then there's a possibility to terminate it," you tried to view the bright side, "then again, the company itself has a huge presence in the industry..."

"Your fans won't allow anything to happen to you, I'm sure." You could only nod and send him a small smile, but even he was sure you were skeptical. Seeing that you were over the dinner, he stood up and extended his hand. "Shall we proceed?" Releasing the last groan of frustration, you linked arms with Oikawa and prepared to reveal yourselves to the public.

"Prepare for your social medias to be flooded," he whispered before you both exit through the front door. You'd almost think it was day with how much light was flashing from the cameras, and you hastily pushed your way through the crowd and into the car that was waiting. Eyes casted away from the paparazzi, questions inquiring your date, when it had all began, and if its official were being yelled throughout the crowd.

Once seated in the car, Oikawa began driving and glanced at you worriedly.

"I'm gonna blackout tonight," you stated out loud with a heavy sigh, which Oikawa responded with a laugh.

silver lining | w. ushijima smau

previous | masterlist | next

part thirty

—blackout

author's note: heyhey heyy, let us pray that i will have ideas for upcoming parts🥵

taglist: @alienvarmint @amberalisa @naughtylittleweeb @tycrackculture @someone-you-dontknow @iloveyouasmuchaspoohloveshoney @stargirlara @brownsugartease-blog @leviathans-watching @kenjiru @ushiwakaismybae @elianetsantana @kagebunshiin @koushiwrites @marajillana @wannakeillmyself @bokuto-buns @smolcactusqwq @ihateccmber @changkyun-not @mischevious-pixie @mochi-the-uwu @haengbokpixie @kiritokunuwu @kittyddandnyla @runningwitches @cevanswhre @mint-mai @morpheus-rex @franko-pop @bigchaosenergy @luhvsnoir @shadowpurr @fueledbyapplepi @bellesowl @nonbinaryh0e @somis0 @farmertoshi @a-moon-fairy @cat-kinda-moon @halesandy @putmeinyourdeathnote @kookie-doughs @nikanikabitch (send an ask if you want to be added)

if your username is crossed, that means i cannot tag you

#haikyuu!!#haikyuu #haikyuu smau #angst #haikyuu fluff #ushijima wakatoshi #haikyuu ushijima #ushijima x you #florist! ushijima #ushijima wakatoshi x reader #ushijima x y/n #ushiwaka #ushijima #ushijima x reader #band au #band!au #band! reader #social media au

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bao3bei4 · 4 years ago

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kpop music videos that gave their fans sexual brainworms

OR accidental fetish pop and its fringe fanbase: meditations on gendered desire

large warning here: i am someone who has been into kpop for the past 10 years. however, i have always been an extremely casual fan. i do write fic, but not rpf. if any of that makes you not want to hear me talk about kpop rpf (or you don’t want to hear about it in general), please keep moving.

anyway, obviously pop is corporate, soulless, and manufactured. but sometimes some truly bizarre shit gets past the committees and destroys a generation. these are their stories.

the video that started this is all is got7’s just right, released july 10th, 2015.

yes that’s all 7 members of got7 (one is out of frame) shrunken down for your viewing pleasure. they live in your room and tell you you’re just right.

this sheer fetish power of this video is nerfed only by how utterly sexless it is.

they’re styled like and dance like this. it’s a totally unironic sendup of the seminal work that preceded it by four years, “what makes you beautiful” by the white kpop group “one direction.” the chaste energy of the whole thing makes you legitimately wonder if the good people at jyp have just never heard of microphilia. (during a dramatic reading of this piece, here a friend interjected seriously, “i think it’s korean culture not to talk about things like this, fetishes in the workplace.”)

it’s for the best, honestly, though because the actress in the music video is lee ja in, who was 11 when the video was shot. considering that the members themselves ranged in age from 18-23 at the time, i think it’s actually very impressive that we only have to cancel one.

you receive absolutely no prizes for guessing that it’s jackson wang we’re sending to social justice prison. why’d he do this? no one asked.

at any rate, got7 fans, or “gans” (they actually call themselves igot7s which is too twee for me), have much to think about here: all 7 very small members of got7 sneaking into their room, possibly weird age play, and jackson wang eating a very large cake.

let’s see what they actually did.

twitter was actually very tame. the most charged thing i found was (unsurprisingly) from a bts fan (“ban”). i don’t actually know what it means, but i think it means something.

so, of course, i turned to the internet’s last bastion of free speech, where you can say whatever the fuck you want and receive cheers, or as the kids say, “kudos.” that is, i read fanfiction.

for those of you who don’t know your herstory, i started my journey at Asianfanfics.com, where, at the time of writing, there were 12,067 got7 stories. i want to start this by saying that i think feminism won, because someone was paying real human dollars to advertise their irene/wendy fanfiction on a banner ad, which is quite possibly a win for women for everywhere.

anyway, Asianfanfics.com’s search engine sucks ass (i kept on finding stories about different combinations of bts members worrying about their weight and being reassured by another member that were entitled “just right”), so i decided to look through all got7 stories written between july 2015 and december 2015.

but, alas, not a single got7 microphilia fic to be found.

also, some genre commentary while i’m here: i think the stories i respect the most are the “[y/n] is a ordinary girl who’s assigned to be got7’s manager! can she make them into superstars? as sparks begin to fly, can she keep it professional?” like fuck yeah that sounds like a kickass dating sim. it almost definitely already is one. i salute all the teens around the world for buying into the fantasy of dating a boy band member that they themselves sell you.

however, i don’t think i respect the “[member a] and [member b] are mafia/jocks and nerds/college students/high schoolers” concepts. in my opinion, the whole fantasy of boy band member is their personas, their hidden real personalities, their celebrity, and the show business setting. find a different intellectual property if you wanna write about school. i even respect the “yugyeom drank girl juice [not estrogen] and turned into a sexy girl” story more, because at least it knows exactly what it wants, and also because they’re all still boy band members. well, band members. shout out to yugyeom.

so, anyway, i looked elsewhere. at the time of writing, archive of our own only had 11,645 got7 stories, but it does have a better search, so it effectively has more. as an aside, i think it’s so funny, and mildly disorienting at first, that archive of our own separates the “music & bands” section from the “celebrities & real people” section. boy band members aren’t real people.

the first problem i encountered is that only 20 or so stories were written within a year of just right’s release. absolute cringe gans. don’t you care about your boys? there were zero stories tagged “vore” or “microphilia” either. stories containing the word “tiny” that were rated either “explicit” or “mature” were all normal (“normal”) size fetishization rather than, you know, just right.

however, i learned my lesson from twitter. i realized that what had happened was that watching this video had created sleeper agents, just waiting for their activation phrase. that activation phrase? bangtan boys. and yeah, lo and behold, there was one! unfortunately (fortunately?) it had nothing to do with got7, let alone just right, so i’m not going to talk about it.

basically what i learned is that this video may have actually been very normal, and my brain has just been destroyed by being too online at a young age.

however, there are plenty more videos in this genre. i present to you exo wolf, a banger from may 30th, 2013. i say banger, because in a comedic inversion, it’s actually fucking terrible.

this video is pretty self-explanatory in terms of why it might induce certain responses.

let’s get the formalities out of the way. this video, the member who’s getting cancelled is kai. he has braids in this video :/

also skating on thin ice: xiumin and chen. guys what was up with the whole exo-m thing? like, we’re gonna have a cpop subgroup, but it’s going to be part chinese members and part korean members that we’ll give a chinese name? unsurprisingly, the three exo members who have departed from the group are all chinese. they weren’t able to stand the microaggressions probably. but xiumin and chen remain uncancelled as an official chinese apology for five thousand of years of on-and-off invasions of korea. sorry guys that was kinda fucked up. our bad!

anyway, there are basically three avenues for exo fans to take: 1) humans with wolfish characters (usually wolf pack dynamics, which even wolves themselves don’t fucking use so i think all of you should shut up. the real omega here is your brain), 2) werewolves (duh), and 3) wolves with human characteristics (i.e. standard furry fare).

exo themselves let all these possibilities exist at the same time, superimposing them over each other, which is very woke and egalitarian of them. let’s see what the people decided. awoo.

Asianfanfics dot com had many stories in this vein. i feel very validated that this time i was able to correctly predict a fetish. that said, briefly returning to my earlier comment regarding alternate universes: it’s intense psychic whiplash reading about these vampires and werewolves, and going okay okay luhan is a vampire this that whatever, and then seeing the actual real performance photos the author attaches at the bottom of each chapter. bro i forgot these were actual people.... it breaks immersion so bad... i’m sorry, i just can’t believe that any of these dancing boys are having weird vampire sex with wings or whatever.

archive of our own also had many stories in this vein. and i think there are some important difference between the two sites worth talking about.

first of all, i think the higher engagement rate of archive of our own really enables some of the authors to get super bold. it makes Asianfanfics.com seem a little quaint, actually. like the wordcounts are waaay longer, for one. it’s uncommon for a story hosted on Asianfanfics.com to be more than a few thousand words long (most of them could easily be published in the new yorker), whereas some of these archive of our own people have written full length novels about if the members of exo were werewolves. i guess it’s just intensely demoralizing for the aff.com crew to get, like, three comments per story.

the second big difference is that i’m noticing more common themes between the ao3 crew’s writing. like stan intertextuality, or plagiarism, or whatever, but they seem to be implicitly engaging with each other’s characterizations, storylines, and tropes. i think it is because they probably all follow each other on twitter. (i have been active on twitter for three weeks now so i am an expert on fanfiction twitter.)

anyway, like not that i am a particularly big gan (cannot even list all the members), but these people seem to have reached a very specific consensus on how jackson wang, for instance, would react in a variety of situations that really surprises me? if i were to sit down and write a got7 story, i think the fuckboitude, the douchebaggery is a big part of his charm. not to be nationalist or anything, but for god’s sake, he’s from hong kong. but these people have him as very sensitive, lots of protective instincts. not that i understood what anyone on aff.com was doing with his character either, but they did all seem to be doing different things. “kudos” to that, i guess.

but: exo. wolf. i searched the “wolves” tag. this filtered the list down from 33459 stories to 52 stories. and the “wolves” tag was very different from the aff.com “wolf” tag. for the most part, aff.com liked stories where a member was a wolf (usually shapeshifting), feral boy, lots of y/n, lots of y/n dating a feral boy who is secretly a wolf.

ao3 really, really, really likes alpha/beta/omega stories. sorting by the most popular stories, only five on the first page weren’t a/b/o. and one of them was a cis f!baekhyun story, so i think the intended effect was communicated. anyway, let’s talk about some of the themes.

first of all, i’m disappointed. today’s bonus cancellation is of ao3 “wolves” writers. why the fuck are you drawing so heavily from european wolves?? there are wolves in asia!! you don’t need to keep giving their packs and ranks weird latin names. i will kill you. i hate italy. korea literally has a native wolf. i hate all of you!!! if you want to write caucasian wolves go watch that dumbass cw show!!!! my god.

the second theme (the first one was white supremacy) is that no one wants to be a wolf who fucks. i think that we need a sex positivity movement, or something, for omega rights. like, are all of you doing okay? you’re queering misogyny by inventing new genders to oppress. another level to “no one wants to be a wolf...” is the “who fucks” part. there are so many consent issues. and not even in like, a sexy intentional way? in a “i genuinely do not think this author understands how their writing comes off” way. unfortunately i am sensitive to untagged sexual coercion, and there was a lot of that.

at any rate, the aff.com wolves were at peace with being wolves, very self-actualized. the ao3 wolves know that every minute they spend alive on this bitch of an earth is suffering, and also sex.

the third theme is the evolution of y/n. y/n, who, in a startlingly woke move for aff.com, is almost always korean, is a girl main character stumbling into love, boy bands, and wolves (i think it’s because aff.com is oldschool kpop fandom, so therefore heavily asian itself in userbase). but y/n is not the main character in ao3 stories. she is the straight best friend. in what i think is a hilarious move, ao3 authors invert the gay best friend paradigm to give the gay main character a straight girl as best friend. she usually calls him “a gay,” she has lots of thoughts on boys, and she knows his sexuality better than he does and before he does. (sidebar: if all the men are gay, and all the women are straight...)

there’s a really fun twist to this, though, because the main character is always a self-insert in fanfiction. but where older fanfiction like aff.com was at peace with this and literalize it via y/n shenanigans, modern fic writers who haven’t finished distangling their complicated relationship with wanting to be a man who loves other men instead simply imbue their main character with their essence. a little voodoo doll sehun, with a lock of y/n hair.

this creates a deeply ambivalent relationship with gender in these stories. the main character is usually an omega, but one who resents being an omega. their body and its parts is usually described, if at all, as ostensibly intersex (except more offensively), but in practice, these discourses inscribe a trans body. (nb: i think cis writers approach this in a really fucked up fetishizing way, but i hope by this point we know that that goes without saying) it’s incredibly straightforward to read this, and see the underlying desires and fears in a heady cocktail of unfiltered writing that’s deeply confessional. you know when freud had people say whatever the fuck they wanted and figured they’d eventually free associate into releasing their subconscious into reality? yeah.

okay, and while we’re on the topic, let’s talk f(x) nu abo, released on may 4th, 2010.

this is a blitzy, maximalist, amped up dance hit that even has its own applause and cheers built in. it’s so fucking annoying, and i love it.

this song is on here because the second most popular kpop a/b/o story on ao3 is called “nu abo” except it’s about bts. that’s offensive enough in its own right. write something about f(x) (702 works). when will women win the right to have their own self-lubricating holes.

anyway, even though f(x) is probably innocent in all of this, i’m still cancelling amber liu.

for queerbaiting. who told her to look like ruby rose but hot? and for what? i’m also cancelling her for racism, but that wasn’t in this video.

moving on to a double feature: vixx voodoo doll and vixx chained up, released november 19, 2013 and november 9, 2015 respectively. this is because while voodoo doll is more formative, i think the fans who write fanfiction today got into kpop more recently, so we are casting a wide net.

anyway, voodoo doll is jam packed with weird pseudo-medical imagery, blood, vivisection, bondage, puppet shit, femdom, sharps, piercings, asphyxiation, dollification, stabbing/penetration metaphors, and a really sick and catchy dance. god that looks like the list of tags on the a/b/o wolf stories.

for this song, we’re cancelling you, for being way too into this song when you were 13.

vixx voodoo doll made me goth i guess! insert that pic of the your music saved me sign, except it saved me from getting into emo or pop punk probably.

chained up, comparatively, is much more tame. the only thing of note about it is that there are around 10 completely different chokers and choker looks the members wear in this music video. also they’re singing about being chained up, but that seemed a bit obvious.

we could argue that voodoo doll is gay while chained up is gay (derogatory); that voodoo doll is queer while chained up is gay; that chained up is a sensitive masterpiece of omega4omega sexuality. but we’re not going to.

we’re going to talk about what voodoo doll fanfiction was and was not. first, Aff.com had plenty of it. however, i was extremely disappointed to see that much of it did not hew to the spirit of vixx voodoo doll. my god, the voodoo doll becoming the one preying upon you disgusts me. the fantasy of the voodoo doll is that of absolute power. the idea that the doll itself has agency? instantly breaks the fantasy. i’m even not into voodoo dolls and i’m offended.

i also don’t think it’s part of the voodoo doll fantasy to release the doll. the only story on there that involved Y/N kidnapping vixx members like in the music video was unavailable because the author deactivated their account. come back qxeen what did you see.

i think this got off track, actually, in that i was mostly wondering why these people imprinted differently onto vixx voodoo doll than i did. like i don’t think you’re supposed to actually like straightforwardly absorb the morals and aesthetics of music videos like it’s propaganda. however, it’s more entertaining if you do. i hope ao3 doesn’t let me down.

out of the then 5932 works in the vixx fandom (the least out of every group so far, excluding f(x) because they’re women), 59 of them included the word “voodoo” somewhere. that’s 1%. i legitimately can’t tell if that’s high or not.

after some more cursory reading through the first page of popular results, my big takeaway is that people watched that video and wanted to be tortured and enslaved? but not, like, in a sexy way where the torturing is the point, the way where the point is to suffer bravely and beautifully, to endure the world’s harms like jesus on the cross, and then to fall into the arms of a beautiful boy who may or may not be the one hurting you in the first place.

there’s a certain predictability to these fantasies. like it’s not even masochism, which would be fun at least, it’s literally just like the desire to be beautiful, even as you suffer. and i do find that a little boring. (but, i mean, you can’t help being a woman!)

sidebar: on chained up. what’s interesting about chained up, is that most of the then 38 “chained up” works (likely because the video has no storyline) are about the members fucking during chained up promotions. no one’s ever actually chained up, but whatever. it’s fine. it’s fine!

anyway, here, more than ever, the nature of desire is stripped bare. i’ve written before [elsewhere in the unreleased tshirt cinematic universe] on how kpop boys are, through fandom, re-formed as white, or more strongly, i guess, blank slates. it’s really interesting to me how so much of this dynamic of projection is enabled by the fact that they’re asian men. they’re infantilized, feminized vessels; they’re seductive, but childlike, oblivious to their own charms, so nonthreatening; they have uncontrollable desires for sex, they’re scared of sex. and above all else, white women submit themselves to them, insert themselves into them. basically kpop fans tend to rework old school yellow peril and emasculation fantasies to reenact their own desires, often white, often cishet on them.

what i am saying is that there’s another thesis about forced feminization and its racialized subtext in here. obviously gender is a racialized construct to begin with, but like it’s fascinating to argue that when white women remake asian men according to their own desires, that is, into themselves, they (hopefully) unintentionally echo these old fears about the sexual order.

it illuminates, it seems, the underlying dynamic in the denigration of asian men, which is of course the fear of miscegenation. now, my breathtaking ability to make everything about me aside, miscegenation is interesting because it presents a racial synthesis, beginning to collapse and trouble the artificial designations of purity. so we make asian men into white women, and end up with an unsettling hybrid. i’m sure this has deep implications for me personally.

but i think we already knew that quite a few of these people had yellow fever, so let’s talk about the gender dialectic at play. basically, the above dynamic, of making men into women (whether literally, in body; or subjectively, in mind; or even relationally, as they are objectified into passive vessels for your desire) coexists with the ostensibly converse dynamic, in which the straight women desires to be a gay man. these aren’t necessarily in conflict: it could easily be that these are different writers writing different stories, that both are ways of expressing discontent with existing in a raced, gendered body, or even that the end product of both is the same.

it’s been a while without a picture. all of you now have the legal right to hunt and kill me for making a d&g joke.

anyway, what i want to talk about is how these two fantasies can coexist. that by making a man into yourself, you can speak on your own desire in a passive way. my normal interest is analyzing forced masc fantasies (albeit in chinese opera lol), and they bear little to no resemblance to this kind of fantasy. this kind offers plausible deniability, of course, because wanting things is embarrassing. but also the fantasy isn’t about wanting to be a man, it’s about having no choice but to be a failed one. the gender pessimism running through these stories is palpable. basically andrea long chu wants what wolf fanfiction writers know: everyone is an omega, and everyone hates it.

at any rate, this racialized dynamic is one that i wasn’t sure how to bring up throughout this piece, mainly because there is no definitive way for me to tell the race of any individual writer, beyond just like the clear and present vibes that i receive. but i think it structures a lot of the fantasies contained in this essay. (i felt more comfortable bringing up the gendered dynamic, because it was fairly trivial to find out the current gender of the person writing each story i was reading.)

obviously we should return to the specter haunting this conversation: the very much alive david eng. i think this sort of argument is familiar to readers of racial castration, especially his chapter on m. butterfly. btw sorry for mentioning that play 2 out of 3 posts on this blog. i have problems.

let’s talk about the parallel imagery between the depiction of gallimard’s final speech and the fanfiction i’ve described above. in it, gallimard makes himself into his own dream woman, dressing in yellowface and robes, the costume of puccini’s original madame butterfly. and he laments his lost love:

there is a vision of the orient that i have. of slender women in chong sams and kimonos who die for the love of unworthy foreign devils. who are born and raised to be the perfect women. who take whatever punishment we give them, and bounce back, strengthened by love, unconditionally.

in that, i see the self insert, and i see the sufferer of vixx voodoo fic. the fantasy that gallimard has about asian women is repeated, this time about asian men and a helpless identification with them. and on some level, gallimard’s women do have something very compelling to identify with: they suggest that there’s a way to endure white male violence without sacrifice, and even more potently, to enjoy it on some level.

but onward to the titular racial castration. eng argues that gallimard’s wilful ignorance of song’s true gender is a psychic castration -- song’s masculinity is diminished so that his own can be enhanced within their relationship. this, eng believes, acts out “richard fung’s contention that in western imaginary ‘asian and anus are conflated.’” this process stabilizes the relationship between the asian man and the white woman: they occupy the same place within the sexual dyad.

this is, i think, why some people are addicted to writing from the bottom’s perspective. again -- not implying that irl bottoms don’t exist or that bottoms are psychically castrated lol -- but rather that you can fantasize about this ideal asian man that you can come to embody. in kpop rpf, rather than it being between a white man and an asian man (unless someone’s started writing chad future fic), it’s between two asian men. so this transformation is performed. whiteness is always intruding and so i think eng is helpful here to making it visible again.

this essay isn’t a callout or actual cancellation or anything like that, i do wanna be clear. i guess i just like talking about fantasies, even the embarrassing ones, and where they come from. i think oftentimes in fandom spaces, we write a lot of stories off as idfic, and i think virtually every single one of the stories i referenced to write this fairly uncontroversially fall into that category. but i think calling something an “id” something or the other naturalizes the satisfaction it gives as purely instinctual and unconscious, when i do think there are deeper narratives at play. while i didn’t ever actually reference the base here (sorry), i do think it’s worth talking about how real world power shapes & maintains the superstructure, and thereby our fantasies.

anyway in conclusion, maybe i was the one with sexual brainworms the whole time.

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dajaregambler · 3 years ago

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AAside - Gyroaxia Band story - Chapter 4 (full)

Translation of Gyroaxia’s band story from the game ‘Argonavis from Bang Dream! AAside’.

This post contains all parts belonging to Chapter 4.

(Recommendation to read this along the ingame band story, since it’s all fully voiced!)

Part one - “Joint declaration”

-----At GYROAXIA’s sharehouse

Reon: Kenta-san, have you seen this?

Kenta: What?

Reon: How members of Fantôme Iris are dissing us, and that from there fans started to fight each other…

Miyuki: I saw it too. Like, how Fantôme’s comments started it all, although I’m suspicious if they actually did say that

Reon: I was thinking so too but….

Reon: On the contrary, our fans went out to get revenge after Fantôme’s live had ended…

Kenta: I’m aware of it. I had shrugged it off as baseless rumors that would disappear on their own soon.

Kenta: And then it turned out to be a bigger commotion than I had expected it to.

Miyuki: What’re we gonna do? Are we gonna leave it be or

Kenta: The leader of Fantôme shall be coming here tonight. I intend to discuss what we should do about it.

Miyuki: Haha, always first on the move ain’tcha now

Reon: It’d be good if it didn’t influence the voting for the starting live, but…. today they’ll be announcing the results, right

Kenta: What now, are you not confident?

Reon: That’s not….

Miyuki: Well, I’m not worried about our ranking, it just doesn’t feel too good thinking how these strange rumors still out there

Kenta: I’ll be taking care of it. Leave it up to me

Miyuki: Yeah, yeah. Please do so, Kenta-sensei

----A few hours later

Felix: ---Then, I shall be taking care of the draft for the statement. Could you verify it for me once I had sent it after returning home as soon as possible?

Kenta: I’m sorry for the inconvenience. I’ll respond as soon as possible.

Felix: I could say the same. Ah… that reminds me, I had forgotten to mention something

Kenta: What may it be?

Felix: Congratulations on reaching first place at the starting live. It’s still an amazing accomplishment, even without the impact of the rumors.

Kenta: Thank you very much. However, I believe that you are not intending to leave things as they are now, right?

Felix: Why of course. We may have ended up last now, but one could say it was a mere warm up for next time.

Felix: It ought to not take long before we get tired of staring down on your backs.

Kenta: …..GYROAXIA will not lose.

Felix: I see… fufu. Now then, I suppose it’s time to---

(Door opening)

Nayuta: Any coffee

Nyankotarou: Nya~

Felix: Good evening, Nayuta. Pardon my intrustion. And hello to you too, you must be Nyankotarou

Nayuta: …..A guest, eh

Kenta: You seem to be well informed, to the point of knowing his cat’s name.

Felix: Only because I have checked the official blog of your band. A fan ought to know this much, or am I wrong?

Kenta: Haha

Felix: Now, I shall be taking my leave. I would love to sit down and have a nice chat with you when possible, Nayuta

Nayuta: ………

Felix: À bientôt. And to you too, Nyankotarou

Nyankotarou: Nya~

Nayuta: …..What did you talk about

Kenta: I had consulted him about what we should do about these baseless rumors. Nothing that should concern you.

Nayuta: ‘Kay

Kenta: Ah, right there is coffee. I’ll go make some right now

Kenta: (Even though I’m doing everything I can to not distract Nayuta with any unnecessary trouble, it has to blow over as soon as it can.)

Kenta: (If... this would put an end to it, though...)

Part two - “Joint interview”

-----At an office

Miyuki: Soft and fluffy chairs, some way too delicious coffee…. at last, the kind of treatment we deserve

Nayuta: ….Oi, Sakaigawa

Miyuki: Mh? What’s up, Nayuta?

Nayuta: It’s time. Let’s leave

Miyuki: Eh? I mean sure it’s been a while since it was supposed to start but… wouldn’t it be good to wait for a bit at least!

Nayuta: Tch….

Miyuki: The management of the Fes had set this interview up for us too. Hold it out just for a bit, okay!

Miyuki: Handling advertising is also an important part for the Fes, didn’t Kenta say so too?

Nayuta: Where is he

Miyuki: He said he suddenly had a meeting to attend and is at the office now

Nayuta: ………

Miyuki: I’ll contact the person in charge too, c’mon sit down!

Interviewer: Excuse me. My sincerest apologies for being late!

Shu: So sorry for bein’ late. Was busy with school an’ all that

Reiji: Forgive us for making you wait.

Miyuki: Eh? You guys are Epsi’s….

Nayuta: ….What’s the meaning of this

Miyuki: Wasn’t it supposed to be Nayuta’s interview today or...

Interview: Huh? Have we not informed you about it? That it’s a joint interview with the frontmen of the participating bands...

Shu: Aah, that’s ‘cuz I asked to not let ‘em know. Wanted to get a good scare outta ‘em!

Nayuta: ….We gotta leave

Miyuki: Heey hey now! This kinda interview isn’t too bad, is it! And it’s not like you speak a lot on your own to begin with!

Reiji: My deepest apologies for spoiling the mood. Ujigawa has a tendency to enjoy pulling suck pranks...

Shu: Aw c’mon, stop talkin’ as if I’m some lil’ kid

Interviewer: We are very sorry for the lack of communication on our part! I promise it will not take too long, so please….!

Nayuta: ………

Interviewer: ----Now then, could you tell us what you think of each other’s bands?

Nayuta: Got nothing

Shu: Eeeh, that’s makin’ me sad. I’mma big fan of Gyro! Nayuta-san’s vocals are a given, but the rest of the band---

Miyuki: Wonder if it’s okay for Nayuta to act like that….

Reiji: Isn’t it more exciting to have an interview with a feeling of tension in the air

Reiji: It’s quite interesting, like Asahi-san himself

Miyuki: Haha… A relief to hear that then

Reiji: ….Speaking of which, that secret live from the other day was exciting too wasn’t it

Reiji: Somehow to the point of Asahi-san collapsing from singing too much….

Miyuki: Hm, aah… that. Yeah, Nayuta just went a bit overboard with giving his all

Reiji: Is his physical condition stable?

Miyuki: All good, good! Not a big deal at all!

Reiji: Then that is fine…. The vocalist collapsing must be undeniably troublesome for the members too.

Miyuki: Well… honestly, what came after that was more troubling than him collapsing

Reiji: Had something happened?

Miyuki: Nah well, it was more silly if anything you know, like a whole coup d’état was being staged!

Reiji: Coup d'état…. Haha, that does indeed sound quite funny.

Reiji: If you don’t mind, could you tell me more about it?

Part three - “Stand and talk”

Miyuki: ---And with that, the whole coup fell apart. And one way or the other we all got back together again.

Miyuki: See? Told you it was silly, right?

Reiji: ….It’s necessary for the surprise attack to land its mark, if one wants a coup to succeed.

Reiji: For that moment, you have to bow down to those in power and patiently await your turn to strike...

Miyuki: Uum… What’s that about?

Reiji: ….History that I had learned in class about.

Reiji: Either way, thank you very much for talking with me.

Reiji: We’re respectively having our own fair share of issues due the nature of our frontmen, however we shall be doing our best for the Fes going on forward.

Miyuki: Seriously mature for your age, aren’t you….

Nayuta: Let’s leave, Sakaigawa

Miyuki: Sorry, sorry. Got caught up in talking. So, how did that interview go?

Nayuki: Dunno. You’ll see tomorrow when we get back

Shu: Nayuta-san, good work. Was plenty of fun to talk with you!

Reiji: Thank you for your time too, Sakaigawa-san. I wish you good luck at the live tommorrow.

Miyuki: Ah, hold on Nayuta! Sorry for this, we’ll sit down to talk again some other time

Reiji: ….How did it go with him?

Shu: Wasn’t fun at all. That mister wouldn’ react at all despite pushin’ his buttons

Shu: Anyway, you seem to have heard somethin’ interesting?

Reiji: Yes. Exactly the kind of thing you enjoy.

Reiji: I’ll go collect evidence from the livehouse and hospital at once. I’ll be able to have it done in a few hours.

-----At GYROAXIA’s sharehouse

Ryo: Ah, Miyuki-kun and Nayuta, welcome baaack

Kenta: Welcome back, good work today

Miyuki: Huh, you got back too?

Kenta: Yes, it was a simple meeting. More importantly, how did the interview go?

Miyuki: It was… the whole thing turned out different than expected. Nayuta had to do a joint interview with Epsi’s Ujigawa-kun

Kenta: With Ujigawa Shu.... Was there anything strange that happened?

Miyuki: Nah? It went pretty smoothly, right Nayuta?

Nayuta: Don’t remember. Don’t care

Kenta: Then, that’s fine….

(Door opening)

Reon: Ah, Kenta-san! Did you check online!?

Kenta: What is it, have fans started arguing again?

Miyuki: We commented on it, shouldn’t it have calmed down?

Reon: Not that! Look, it’s about this!

Miyuki: Uuum… “GYROAXIA’s vocalist, Nayuta Asahi has been spotted at the hospital! Troubles arise regarding the continuation of the band”----

Ryo: “Which leads to tension between the band members! Are they on the verge of breaking up with LR Fes right around the corner!?”

Miyuki: ...What, what the hell!? Where did all of this come from?

Kenta: I had assumed the possibility about hospital-related rumors spreading but…. not that it would reach about the state of the band itself.

Reon: It’s strange right! And way too detailed! To the point of a coup being mentioned!

Nayuta: ….What’s the meaning of this?

Kenta: I can only think it was one of us that had leaked it. But, how…. doesn’t anyone here remember this?

Miyuki: Think about it, going out of your way to talk about th--

Reiji: If you don’t mind, could you tell me more about it?

Miyuki: ….Eh? Don’t tell me….him!?

Kenta: Is there something you know, Miyuki

Miyuki: ……..Shit! Sure did it this time!!

Part four - “Reiji’s strategy”

Miyuki: While… Nayuta was doing the interview, I had talked to Epsi’s drummer…

Kenta: The drummer…. Karasuma Reiji

Miyuki: But, we didn’t talk too long ago, and I didn’t say anything about Nayuta’s asthma either!?

Kenta: There was more than enough time to spread rumors online about it.

Reon: It’s about an illness, and with how he collapsed at a live, you can make up as much as you want about it….

Kenta: ….There were a lot of awful rumors about Epsi when they were in Kyoto. How they’ll do anything to crush whoever piques their interest, and the like

Kenta: Which makes me suspect that they’re the ones behind our trouble with Fantôme.

Ryo: Why…. why would they do such things?

Kenta: To cut down the amount of rivals for the Fes…. I wouldn’t know for any other reason why.

Reon: Still, to go like that about it… it’s way too foul!

Kenta: They’re still middle and highschool students, but have plenty of funds and human connections to make use of.

Kenta: An example of what happens when a child who doesn’t know any better becomes drunk on power, I suppose

Nayuta: ……….

Miyuki: Goddamnit….!!

Reon: What do we do? Make another statement?

Kenta: Compared to last time, these rumors aren’t completely baseless. Any wrong moves will increase our amount of problems….

Miyuki: I’m sorry, everyone…. All because I just can’t keep my mouth shut….

Kenta: Apologies are for later. We need to focus on what to do about this right now...

Nayuta: Ain’t gonna do a thing

Miyuki: ...Eh?

Nayuta: We’re gonna rehearse. Get ready

Reon: Is it really fine to just leave it at that!?

Nayuta: Don’t give enough of a fuck to play around with some shitty brat

Kenta: Still… will the fans agree to it?

Nayuta: As if I know

Reon: “As if” you say….

Ryo: Then… wouldn’t it be better to admit to everything?

Miyuki: …..Eeeeh!?

Ryo: Let’s admit it at the beginning of the live. About Nayuta’s illness, and our coup d’état too

Kenta: …..Isn’t that asking to invite even more chaos?

Ryo: It’ll be all good!

Reon: How even

Ryo: ‘Cuz we’ll be doing a live right after it?

Ryo: Once our live starts, everyone’s worries will fly right out of the window and they’ll become happy!

Miyuki: What’s with that…

Kenta: ….I see

Reon: You’re agreeing with him!?

Kenta: Because… it might be a chance to demonstrate our power. Rumors and facts, GYROAXIA’s music will bring it all to the ground

Kenta: If it goes smoothly, we’d be back on track for the Fes...

Nayuta: ……..

Miyuki: Nayuta, I’m sorry…. It’s my fault that your fans came to know about your illness…..

Miyuki: But, it’s as Ryo and Kenta said… If it’s with you…. with our performance, everything will be blown away

Nayuta: Cut it out with the whining….

Reon: You’re so….!

Nayuta: I’m only gonna sing

Part five - “What about it?”

----At the livehouse

Gyro fan A: Hey, did you see it? Those rumors online. Like, “Gyro in a crisis of disbanding” and all…

Gyro fan B: Isn’t that fake? And, Nayuta’s illness….

Gyro fan A: Yeah but… there’s also how Nayuta collapsed during the last song at this secret live the other day, right?

Gyro fan B: Yeah… and it does seem that the members often fight too….

Nayuta: …...Listen

Gyro fan A: Eh…. He’s gonna talk? Isn’t this unusual!?

Nayuta: Everything online, those shitty rumors--- All of it is true

Nayuta: I have a respiratory disease. There’s guys that started going on about quitting

Nayuta: But… what about it?

Nayuta: Even if I fall, I’ll sing. Even on my own, I’ll sing.

Nayuta: As long as I live

Nayuta: …...GYROAXIA

Reon: (All you had to say or what… still… it really fired up everyone!)

Miyuki: (Amazing, eh… that it wasn’t “us” either.)

Ryo: (Yeah, this feels nice… everyone looks happy)

Kenta: (Go, Nayuta…. crush them….!)

Gyro fan A: GYROOO!!!

Gyro fan B: NAYUTAAA!!

Gyro fan A: Hey, is that illness part true!? He’s still going at full power during the encore!!

Gyro fan B: The instrumental part was amazing too! No way that they’re breaking up!

Ryo: Aah, how nice… this kind of atmosphere… it’s very happy….

Reon: Haah..haah.. alright! The best performance…. yes… yes!!

Miyuki: Fuuh... for real, he’s some kinda monster... the fact that he pulled off a live beyond flawless

Kenta: You did it, Nayuta…. Alright, time to wrap it up

Nayuta: …….

Kenta: Nayuta….?

Nayuta: Oi… dunno if you’re here… some damned guy that has the nerve to pull some shit---

Nayuta: Whatever you wanna do, don’t drag me in it

Nayuta: That shit won’t crush my music

Nayuta: Still, you’re an eyesore. Don’t get in my way a second time. And if you wanna keep going...

Nayuta: I’ll destroy you… at the Fes battle

Miyuki: Haha… As if he’s some pro-wrestler

Reon: He.. was considerably angry

Kenta: Really? Isn’t that---

Ryo: Yeah, it’s the Nayuta that we know

Gyro fan A: That was so awesome! But… what Nayuta said at the end there...

Gyro fan B: “I’ll destroy you at the Fes”.... does this mean that a participating band spread rumors?

Gyro fan A: Seriously… that’s straight up awful

Reiji: ………

Reiji: (Failure, huh… No, they turned the tables around….)

Reiji: (There’s many other bands that aren’t this straight-forward… Well, whether it succeeds or not, either is fine.)

Reiji: (As long as Shu has been entertained)

#aaside #gyroaxia #nayuta asahi #kenta satozuka #Miyuki Sakaigawa #Ryo Akebono #Reon Misono

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lavenderek · 4 years ago

Note

hi, A/3 volunteer back again! i hope i can answer your questions properly, but i’m on mobile so sorry if i get a bit confused. it’s also going to be quite long but i hope you can figure out which questions i’m replying to. let me know if you need any more clarification!

1 - as tag wranglers, we don’t moderate content via deletion, etc - we just move fics into the correct tags, and it’s typically on a fandom basis (for example, i might solely wrangle for something like the supernatural fandom only). i’ve never come across ‘problematic’ tags since most of the time, it’s just sorting tags into like... more general tags? so example - someone tags a fic with ‘kinda fluffy kinda angsty’. we would then kind of make it so that tag redirects to ‘fluff with angst’, even though it still appears as the original tag on the fic. does that make sense? i’m also a little unsure of the other questions you had here - which is totally my fault, i’m in the middle of writing an essay for uni that needs to be in in like... 12 hours and my brain is frazzled - but if you were asking about a situation where if i was concerned that a single user had a collection of fics that were all entirely based upon something illegal and reported their entire account to mods, would it be deleted - i’m not sure. tag wranglers are kind of like low-level moderators, and we’re not what would typically be thought of as moderators since we simply reorganise content versus actually removing it. since the reporting process is typically through the site itself and is handled by an entirely separate team, i cant speak for how they think or what their process is.

2 - it’s up to our judgement as to if we want to report it, but again, the tags we wrangle are VERY general. tags like ‘dead dove don’t eat’ and stuff that are typically full of polarising content arent something i’ve come across, because i think they make up a minority of most fandoms when put against tags like ‘fluff’ and ‘angst’ and even stuff like ‘chocolate’, lmao. i’m not certain what happens when a report is processed and the fic is found to be removable - what i do know though is that with fics that are seen as breaking specific laws (i.e depictions of CSA, slander, etc) mods are often a lot more hard-handed for several reasons (reputation both within the community and in terms of the fact they could very much get in legal trouble). again though, i’m a low-level moderator and don’t see that side of the process. however, if i report something and it’s not taken down, i’m not implicated in any way. it’s been a while since i’ve been on the site and reported anything so i’m not entirely certain if reporting is 100% anonymous or if you have to supply details like email, but i think if you DO supply things, it’s to ensure you aren’t mass-reporting someone (bc i think that counts as targeted harassment). email is also possible to fake, so i think you can make the process anonymous if you want to. as for how often i personally report fic - not often. i’m a CSA victim (which is why this topic is touchy for me tbh), and i don’t like to go through the process because i find it arduous - you have to give an explanation as to why you’re reporting the fic, and i find it triggering at times. i’ve also never been in a position where i have found a fic while actively volunteering that i feel has been necessary to report, so i can’t speak for that either. all of that being said - i’ve heard of and seen on one occasion fics and entire accounts be deleted for harassment/slander - in particular, i’ve heard multiple times that accounts dedicated to purposely like... making fun of? or like technically harassing? kpop boy group members have been taken down because even though their content is ‘technically’ fanfiction, it’s obviously just there to incite hatred against a specific person. so, imo, if mods are quick on taking down accounts obviously run by 14 year olds in fandom drama writing numerous fics where boyband member A calls boyband member B stupid and tells him nobody likes him, i think they’re very likely just as serious about taking down more serious content. that’s just my opinion and my personal experience though, and it’s distinct from my volunteering.

overall, on the whole topic of CSA on the website - it’s really tough even just as a basic content moderator. there’s lots of reasons as to why people post it, and though people are very obviously welcome and encouraged to think critically about everything, it’s a fact that the topic is really really difficult to manoeuvre (culture, who is posting it, when was it posted, why it’s being posted aka vent fics, etc). as i said, i’m a CSA victim myself, so i understand the frustration, but it’s too nuanced and difficult a topic to be able to say ‘ban it all’. however, i do think the site is doing their best to crack down on stuff that is very obviously on there for one specific reason, and i also think generally, they’re changing things so people are able and sometimes encouraged to anonymise themselves by not giving any profile info and to protect themselves by turning off comments completely, etc. i find that you can make it really easy to curate your posting experience so that essentially, you can post but nobody can really interact.

3 - i like tag wrangling! i got into it because i saw a position on the front page of the site and decided to go for it. it wasn’t very taxing to get into and you don’t have to put much work in - a couple of hours a week is enough, and they’re understanding about work/uni/etc. it’s easy to meet other people through volunteering, and they ensure everyone is over 18. i don’t read through fic myself - just through tags, and then i sort them into their proper places. if something is tagged wrong, we don’t get in touch with the author, we just do our best to reorganise the tag so it redirects into the correct place - again, for instance, if someone writes a fantasy AU that they tag with ‘high fantasy prince/princess AU’ and that tag doesn’t exist, we would sort it into the main tag for a royalty AU or something like that. re: monetisation of fics: technically, monetised content is not allowed on A/3 - if someone is advertising their patreon or kofi in their authors notes or profile, you’re supposed to report it just as a general user. i think it’s because it puts the site at risk of being sued or something? but as a low level mod, i don’t HAVE to report these things unless i see them while i’m tag wrangling (aka i see a tag like ‘my patreon is XYZ!!!!! send me money!!!!!!’) and i personally don’t report monetised fics because ... i don’t find it a prominent issue, lmao. people are also learning to avoid it by being like this is my tumblr or this is my twitter, and when you click on their social media they link their patreon or whatever There instead. also, idk who decided the colour scheme! i think it was just like a generally agreed upon thing with the site designers. i also think there’s been convo for a few years about dark modes and stuff on the site, but i’m pretty sure the site has to get a few more things out of the way before they’ll prioritise that (i know they’re trying to work on a better moderating system for things like spam and harassment atm bc the spam filter absolutely sucks dick lol). i’ll totally drop a mention like WOW, wouldnt it be AMAZING if we could have this SPECIFIC COLOUR SCHEME, tho <3

thank you so much for responding!!! this is really cool to know, i've never even seen a post by an a*3 worker before so you're a total unicorn right now

heh uni-corn because you're in uni. sorry i'm tired too

good luck on your paper!

#haters #who is this even #long post

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gumnut-logic · 5 years ago

Text

We’ll Be Home For Christmas 4.3

Title: We’ll be home for Christmas

Day Four – Five Billionaires and No Wives – Part 3 Prologue | 1.1 | 1.2 | 2.1 | 2.2 | 2.3 | 3.1 | 3.2 | 3.3 | 3.4 | 3.5 | 4.1 | 4.2 | 4.3

Author: Gumnut

11 Feb - 23 Apr 2020

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: The boys can’t fly home for Christmas, so they have to find another way.

Word count: 2876

Spoilers & warnings: language and so, so much fluff. Science!Gordon. Artist!Virgil, Minor various ships, mostly background.

Timeline: Christmas Season 3, I have also kinda ignored the main storyline of Season 3. The boys needed a break, so I gave them one. Post season 3B, before Season 3C cos we haven’t seen it yet.

Author’s note: For @scattergraph. This is my 2019 TAG Secret Santa fic :D

I’ve finally got my head back into this fic!

Many thanks to @scribbles97 and @onereyofstarlight for reading through and for all their wonderful support.

Disclaimer: Mine? You’ve got to be kidding. Money? Don’t have any, don’t bother.

-o-o-o-

Gordon stared at the two dots circling A Little Lightning.

Raoul Island sported some excellent scanning equipment and with John enabling access to Thunderbird Five, Gordon could see for miles.

He could even see the far off dot that was their ultimate destination tonight. Tracy Island was such a tiny smudge in the middle of the ocean, so much smaller than Raoul. A moment to acknowledge it and he realised he missed it badly.

Well, they would be home tonight if they got moving soon enough.

But the whales...

“Yeah, they are the same two from yesterday.”

Sam stared at him. “How can you tell?”

Gordon pulled up the feed from the Raoul sea buoy network ring. A hologram appeared of the mother and calf with just enough detail for Gordon to point out the healing net injuries on the little one.

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, she was caught nasty.”

“Bastards.”

“Don’t worry, we got them. Hell, IR has identified the money responsible and we have our legal team in motion.” A polite way to say his beautiful girlfriend was wreaking havoc in a calm but final way only she knew how. He had no doubts there would be very little left of the Polominka guy by the time she finished with him.

And what was left would probably be swept up by Parker and deposited in the nearest trash can.

Gotta love a girl who knew how to get a job done.

“Gords, you with us?”

“Huh?” A blink. Sam was grinning at him as if he knew exactly what Gordon was thinking about. He glared at him.

It didn’t faze the man. “Penny for your thoughts?” That was followed by an outright snigger.

“Shut it, Samwise.” So, he flushed scarlet, big deal. Idiot.

“Hey, is it my fault you go all moony-eyed at the mere thought of your girl?” Sam’s smirk was glare-worthy. “So, do I get a chance to meet this legend of blonde and pink?”

The glare turned into a frown. “How do you guys know so much about me and Penny?” It wasn’t like he had posted a billboard to advertise what was a very new relationship.

Sam shrugged. “Mel heard you were injured, raised a ruckus and Lady Penelope fell out of the sky. Apparently, they get on like a house on fire.”

Gordon stared at him. “Penelope and Mel?”

Another shrug. “Don’t look at me. Liam and I were in Perth.” He poked Gordon in the ribs. “You need to find a way to let us know how you’re doing, man. The news nets were screaming about an injured Tracy brother. It took them hours to work out which one and during that time you had died and been reincarnated six times. You gave us a bloody heart attack. I know you have to be secret and all, but you’re my friend, Gords. Don’t do that again.”

A blink. “I’ll try not to.” But there would be no promises. “I’ll speak to John and make sure Raoul gets notified.” But there would have to be restrictions. Their privacy had to be maintained. Scott would be a challenge. “You have to realise that there is just us, and we prefer to play it close. The media sucks.”

“I bet.” Sam turned back to the holographic display. “They appear to be waiting for you.” A breath. “Extremely odd behaviour.”

“What do you think they want?”

Sam shook his head. “My initial suspicion is either you or Virgil. Scott said Virgil was trying to walk into the water. You yourself had very close contact yesterday. My guess would be they want to make contact again? But really, we know so little about cetacean reality, our interpretation is far too anthropomorphised to be considered.”

“Virgil said the mother spoke to him with emotion. That he received an impression from her singing.”

“A human interpretation. This is where linguistics between species breakdown. Points of reference. The cetacean environment is so different to ours, there is very little shared reference to enable translation.”

“But they are mammals like us, surely they feel emotion?”

Sam held out his hands. “I’m sure they do. Hell, I know they do. But how do you communicate emotion through dissimilar body structure? We primarily communicate through our facial expressions and body language. Across species we don’t have that avenue.”

“We have their song.”

“Yes, we do. But human communication is only five percent vocal.” Sam swallowed. “I have theories and suspicions that whales rely much more on sound than we do due to their environment, but research is difficult.”

“That is why you pounced on Virgil.”

A sharp nod. “This is a bloody breakthrough, Gords. It’s a first.” He prodded the display to bring up audio. “Your brother managed something no-one in the world has ever been able to do. We need him.”

Now that wasn’t a first. Virgil was needed on a variety of fronts daily, not the least of which was by his brothers.

“Take it slow, Sam.”

“I know, I know.”

“We should also speak to John. He’s our communications expert. Speaks a gazillion languages. He might be able to help.”

“How many is a gazillion?”

“That you will have to ask him. I’ve lost count and he keeps learning new ones. Useful on the job.” Gordon twiddled with the focus of the sensor array. The two whales continued their slow circle around A Little Lightning. “How do you think they will react when we return to the boat?”

Sam drew in a thoughtful breath. “Hard to tell. Humpback whales don’t tend to be aggressive. In fact, they are one of the gentlest species. The only cases of aggression I’ve encountered involve threat to an individual or a calf. Having said that, this behaviour is very unusual.”

“You want to come out with us?”

Pale green eyes shot at him. “You just try keeping me away. I’ve already got the inflatable ready.”

Gordon had to smirk. He had already figured he’d have company. Hell, Mel would probably want to come with, as well. Even if only to kiss Scott goodbye.

Hmm.

“Well, I guess we will find out.”

-o-o-o-

It was an hour before they made it out onto the water. Packing and the fact Virgil had fallen asleep, held them up.

Scott was missing for most of that hour and John refused to say where he was. Not that Gordon had to work too hard to guess with Mel missing at the same time. The less time spent thinking about his eldest brother getting ‘together’ with his friend, the better.

Alan surfaced talking a mile a minute about the telescope on the other side of the Island. Apparently, it was ‘brilliant’, ‘amazing’ and ‘John should get one’.

John’s response to that was two words, “Thunderbird Five’.

“Oh, yeah.” But Alan was undeterred. “I might get one myself.”

“Alan, you have access to Five.”

“Yeah, but it is so cool!”

John rolled his eyes and went back to packing.

Virgil woke eventually and stumbled off to the coffee pot. The expression on his face warned that any obstacles would be obliterated.

Even Sam read that one correctly.

Scott appeared in his running clothes shortly after. He was flushed and Gordon noted several suspicious marks on his neck.

That thought led in icky directions and he had to derail that train. But at least Scott’s mood appeared to have improved. He disappeared into the shower and emerged ever the efficient director of operations.

John was seen to roll his eyes again.

During this time, Gordon kept an eye on the whales. They were still circling when the Tracy brothers, Mel and Sam finally left the compound and made their way back to Fishing Rock.

“No.” Virgil’s expression was stubbornness itself. The skyrail loomed above him, the harness set and ready.

Scott’s shoulders straightened, lining up for a bullfight with his bull-headed brother. Gordon readied to intervene, but was pre-empted by John.

The astronaut stepped up to Virgil’s side and simply touched his arm. Brown eyes flickered and were caught by turquoise. The engineer’s lips thinned but John’s frown deepened just a little.

Virgil’s shoulders dropped along with his eyes. “Fine.”

John’s frown hit Scott between the eyes and big brother relaxed just a little.

Virgil was harnessed up without further protest.

Scott squeezed his arm gently before they released him onto the line and Virgil turned to stare at him as he disappeared into the foliage. Their luggage followed.

Mel stepped up to Scott, rather closer than necessary, noted Gordon. “Race you to the bottom?”

Scott’s first grin for the day spread across his face.

Gordon couldn’t help but smile with him.

A heartbeat and Mel and his eldest brother took off down the path.

Sam snorted. “They make quite a pair. I hope he knows what he has got himself into.”

John frowned a little, but it was Gordon who answered that one. “Does she know what she has gotten into?”

“I guess we’ll all find out.” With that Sam headed down the hill. Gordon, John and Alan trotted after him.

The reason for the impromptu foot race revealed itself when Gordon finally made it to the beach. Virgil was already out of the harness with no repeat of the dangling helplessly incident. Scott was laughing, obviously the victor, though the expression on Mel’s face had Gordon suspecting a little planning on her part.

But the best part of it all was the arm Scott had around his brother.

Oh, thank god. It sucked big time when the two eldest were at loggerheads. Nothing worked smoothly when Scott and Virgil fought. A glance at John and the small smile on his face only provided more relief.

Their inflatable was where they left it, secured and protected. Gordon examined it from bow to stern satisfying himself of its safety and he and John lugged it over the rocks and used the crane to lower it into the water. Sam and Mel were only a few steps behind with their own, much larger inflatable. Both boats were secured on the swell, Gordon jumping into his first to make it ready and help load their luggage.

Scott joined him a moment later as he and John helped Virgil to board. A grunt and his engineer brother made the stretch and holding himself, curled up in one corner. Alan climbed on board just as Mel joined Sam in their boat.

All secure, Gordon started the engine and turning the boat around, headed out towards the distant A Little Lightning.

-o-o-o-

He felt it as soon as he set foot in the boat. A deep hum in the soles of his feet.

His belly ached from the trip down and sitting in the boat itself wasn’t the most comfortable, but the inflatable was bare insulation from the water and it carried the sound he couldn’t hear.

Around him, his brothers chattered and settled. Virgil closed his eyes and just felt.

Water on rocks, water on boat, water on water, birds, the breeze….and a weaving hum. He frowned. No, two, there were two voices singing through his feet.

He cherished the accomplishment of identifying the soft interwoven-

Gordon started up the outboard engine and the boat shot out into ocean.

“No!” His hand shot out. “Stop!”

It was a sign of trust and instinct that had Gordon killing the engine at that simple word from his brother. Mel and Sam shot past them.

“Virgil?” Scott was frowning at him. “What is it?”

“No engine.”

“What? You don’t expect us to row all the way out there do you?” Alan’s eyes were wide.

Mel and Sam turned their boat back towards the Tracy’s becalmed inflatable. A word from Gordon over comms and their engine died under Sam’s hand. They coasted alongside the Tracys.

Virgil reached over the side and put his hand into the water.

Song sung up his arm and he closed his eyes again, noting the notes by intensity.

“What’s going on?” Alan’s voice was worried.

“Shh!” Gordon’s voice was quiet but sharp.

Virgil was suddenly surrounded by brothers. Gordon sat down beside him and Scott and John opposite. Alan hovered behind them.

“Thunderfish?”

Virgil didn’t hear his brother’s response, but the question wasn’t asked again.

“Virgil?” Scott’s voice was ever so quiet. “What is it?”

Opening his eyes caught concerned blue. “They’re singing.” He frowned. “Calling.”

“Calling? How do you know?” Gordon’s voice was just as soft.

Virgil turned to his fish brother, catching those curious russet-brown eyes. “I…I don’t know.”

“We need to get out to the boat, Virgil.” Scott, ever the goal orientated.

“No engine.”

Gordon shifted beside him and began unfastening oars. “Then I guess we are rowing out.” One oar free, he nudged his older brothers out of the way. Scott ended up beside Virgil and John beside Alan at the bow of the boat. With the second oar free, Gordon secured them and himself and dipped their tips in the water. “It’s been a while. Should be fun.” Swimmer’s shoulders bunched up and he took the first stroke, a second and then eased himself into a steady rhythm.

Beside them, Sam broke out their oars and followed.

It was slow, but steady going after that.

Virgil let his fingers trail in the water. Except for the water, wind and birds, it was peaceful, the song interweaving amongst it all as if luring him.

His eyes closed again.

A random beep and he opened them to find Raoul further away and John with his tablet out, a holoprojection above it. Four dots, two circling, two approaching.

Gordon smiled at Virgil.

And the song changed.

It was so sudden his heart missed a beat. Scott grabbed his arm. “Virgil?”

“Can you hear it?”

Scott just stared at him, but Gordon stopped rowing and tipped his head to one side. Behind him, John had a puzzled look on his face which was quickly replaced by one of concern. “The whales have stopped circling. They are headed this way.”

As his brothers turned as one to look in the direction of the yacht, Virgil realised they were closer to A Little Lightning than he had thought.

“Here they come!”

Virgil leant over the edge of the boat, ever aware of Scott’s grip on his arm, and caught sight of what was no doubt the mother whale as she passed under their inflatable. Virgil’s jaw dropped. She was massive. Sure, he’d seen her from a distance, holographically in scale up against his brothers, but to see her this close.

“Oh my god.”

“Are we safe?” Scott’s sharp words were aimed at Gordon.

“Humpbacks are gentle creatures. Generally, they only become aggressive in self-defence. We’re not attacking them.”

“But what are they doing?”

“They are curious.” The words fell from Virgil’s lips without much in the way of thought. The sense of the song had switched from calling to curiosity. He hummed the dominant audible melody. It was little more than a series of pulsating tones backed by the infrasound in his bones.

His hand was still in the water, still seeking the unheard notes when John drew in a sharp breath. “Gordon, move the boat!”

Their fish brother grabbed the oars, but before he could take a single stroke, something touched Virgil’s hand.

The mother whale surfaced, the tip of her massive chin lifting out of the water directly beside Virgil.

“Woah.” It was a whisper of wonder from Gordon.

Virgil, initially pulling his hand back in surprise, was mesmerised. The very colours he had painted barely two days ago, the shapes, the glisten, the immensity…

The all-consuming sound.

His fingers touched soft skin.

It felt like touching music.

He couldn’t help but respond, deep in his throat as best he could as the song shifted to one that echoed his amazement. The notes were organic, simple, yet complex and missing the sound he could not create.

Curiosity.

Puzzlement.

“Virgil?”

His voice wasn’t deep enough.

Or high enough.

“Virgil?” Someone was touching his cheek, a hand cupping the side of his face. He opened his eyes to find Scott in front of him, that ever-present worry on his face.

“I still can’t answer.” It was frustration and sadness all of his own.

“We’ll get you back on the yacht. We have the technology there.” Scott ever the enabler.

Ever the rescuer.

But suddenly his connection was lost. The song stopped and mother whale slipped beneath the surface. Virgil leant over the edge of the boat and might have followed if it wasn’t for that same grip on his arm.

There was an order from Scott that Virgil wasn’t focussed on, the oars cut the water and the boat resumed moving towards the yacht.

Virgil stared into the turquoise depths, lost without the buoy of the song. He sagged against the inflatable plastic.

“Gordon, faster!” It came from John. “She’s coming up again, but she’s not slowing down! Move!”

“I’m try-“

The whale hit the underside of the inflatable lifting it and all the brothers off the surface of the ocean for just a moment before tipping it over and throwing all five of them into the water.

-o-o-o-

End Day Four, Part Three.

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds fanfiction #thunderbirds #Virgil Tracy #Gordon Tracy #Scott Tracy #John Tracy #Alan Tracy #kermadec fic #kermadec islands

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like-twilight · 4 years ago

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The Last of Us 2 thoughts eyyy longgg and spoilers

This is my opinion before hearing anybody else’s opinion about it.

I only want to discuss the story as it is the only thing I can really speak of since I didn’t play it for myself. All I can say is I wish I could’ve and I’ll always regret not being able to because I really wish that could’ve been my experience as it was with the first game that I could play myself. It’s also probably noteworthy that the first game was the first video game I’ve played in my life so I’m probably biased.

So I’ll go all over the place because why not.

The false advertisement is extremely scummy and I don’t really know what to do with it, I blame it all on the No Spoilers Culture we currently have going. I don’t think anybody would’ve watched any of the promotional stuff a better marketing team could’ve put together and said “ah you can’t see old Joel in action, I bet he dies early in the game, I won’t fucking play this”. There was plenty of buzz around the game and there was no reason whatsoever to falsely market it. That part’s bullshit and I condemn the company for this.

From the story side though, Joel dying was honestly not that huge of a surprise or shock to me. TLOU is a game that has you watch a kid die in the first section of it then does more than enough to establish itself as a game without taboos. Now whether that’s something you like or not is not important, what cannot be said about the game is that it didn’t establish itself as a game that would do this.

I also think arguments like “Joel wouldn’t go out like a bitch” are silly. The beginning told me Joel, the badass and smart survivor he is, was very quick to adjust back to a small town life with a now pretty much surrogate daughter. I’m not saying that excuses the unceremonious death but to me Joel is not a gun-blazing badass hero, not even an anti-hero. He’s just a dude. He got overpowered and then he died.

See this is where the game could never win. If you leave Joel alive and he’s in the story then it’s just a repetition of the first game. If you leave him alive but he’s not in the game much then you underutilise him and people miss him. Also if you leave him alive then people will just say you’re a little bitch because it’s fanservice that Joel is technically invincible because he’s the face of the game. But if he dies, people riot. The creators couldn’t win either way and so I’m glad they made up their mind and stuck to it. It’s also very useful to get people talking.

Before I tie that into the rest of the story, I also have to mention that one of the few things I heard about the game was the expression “torture porn” and maybe I’m just desansitised but I didn’t feel like it was that overwhelming or unjustified. I didn’t watch too much of the promotional material but I saw what I think was the gameplay reveal where the devs said in this game enemies would call each other by name when you kill someone or they find someone dead. And I think that’s a neat detail but I think it also has a lot to do with what the game is... about.

That the hundreds of faceless people you slaughter during the game all have a video game or more worth of story behind them. They are people with their own twenty plus years of survival in a world gone to hell whose story ends the way Joel’s did. By meeting a person who just... wins the fight over them.

So that the deaths are really personal and intimate in that way feels justified. You also have this crazy technology that allows them to animate people very realistically. This is the last big game for the PS4 and they really just brought the technology to its limits, I feel. For them to then say “oh a sledgehammer to the face doesn’t look that bad” or “we just won’t add more types of weapons and have one type of death animation just cause we don’t want to overdo it” is just. It’s not gonna happen.

I never felt like those were glorified, I think they all added to that feeling that bubbled to the surface towards the end of Ellie’s first stretch of the story where I just couldn’t stop shaking my head, going Ellie... Ellie, what are you doing, look at yourself... look at what you’re doing. So to me that wasn’t really an issue.

I can imagine some people, maybe even most people would play the first stretch of the game in revenge mode. You know, let’s get this bitch. But in the same time, I also couldn’t really deny that Abby was like... kinda right to want revenge. I’m not saying I’m glad she killed Joel I’m just saying she had a reason to. (On that sidenote, Abby being that surgeon’s daughter did nothing to enhance this feeling. I could’ve imagined Abby in a settlement much like Jacksonville where they’re all hopeful because they found a surgeon who’s leading research about the cordyceps, maybe he’s a super good leader, inspires the Fireflies to keep up their spirits, all that. Maybe Abby’s group could’ve been his super close-knit group of soldiers taking care of him and running errands for him, even then the rage would’ve been justified.

I get they wanted to draw the parallel between Joel-Ellie, surgeon-Abby, dad-daughter relationships but that added nothing to the story for me. It didn’t take anything away either, I just kinda rolled my eyes like okay, whatever.)

So when Ellie was on her revenge quest, I liked that she and Dina were in Tommy’s footsteps, I thought that was a nice touch and kinda foreshadowed another section of the story where we would meet up with Tommy eventually.

Now, Dina and Jesse, I found nothing wrong with Dina or her being pregnant (except that it reminded me of Aniara and I hate that movie with my whole being). I thought it was a good enough source of conflict and I really liked Jesse being around. When he shows up and they’re just saying they’ll get Tommy and then get the fuck outta there you can already tell Ellie is obsessed but you’re still holding out hope that Dina will be enough to get her mind off of it but she’s just too far gone.

So the shift to Abby and the scars.

Jacksepticeye said it while he was playing that Abby’s part should’ve been like a DLC or something but I honestly don’t agree. I mean I don’t disagree but I think it worked the way it was. I definitely think most problems people have with this switch that doesn’t stem from the fact that people disliked Abby or that they can’t admit to themselves that they were caught off guard by the changed narrative style, could’ve been solved with different pacing. Now I don’t know if they would’ve had to constantly switch between Ellie and Abby for it to work or figure some other way out because I’m no expert but still.

I liked the beginning when it switched to Abby, the whole atmosphere was so eerie like you could tell they were on a collision course and it was going to get ugly. Maybe something like that could’ve worked but it could’ve just been either too suspenseful and tense the whole way through that it draws the attention from the gameplay or it would’ve been even more on the nose than it already was with the parallels between Abby’s group and Ellie’s group.

Now I honestly really liked that Abby’s story was so different because when she returns to the stadium, the part of her story that involved Joel is over. She got her revenge then she goes on with her life. She had a life before Joel entered it, she has one after she killed him. And it just so happens to be a good opportunity for the game to showcase some of the shit that goes on outside of what we’ve known so far and what Ellie knows.

I didn’t mind the religious aspect, I think it makes sense, like enough time passed since the apocalypse that the then grown up generation is distant enough from their old lives, and the generations after them are growing up in the ruins of the old society, that a messiah figure like that lady could emerge. That it just had to be transphobic and shit sucks of course and I do understand the frustration with it. I can imagine better writers coming up with a way to make the Scars despicable without them having our current society’s problems. They could still have the trans and the Asian characters still of course, but without them having to face the struggles trans characters do in our current world.

So that Abby only realises Ellie’s just one step behind her when she still has the climax of her individual story to get through was just. To me it worked so well. Like here we play as Ellie for half the game, this girl is consumed with rage and then Abby’s just fucking off and doing something entirely different because that’s... how little... it affected her. Or at least she personally got her closure and is ready to move on.

I personally liked the conflicts she had in her group, it was believable, it felt reasonable for the kind of life they lived. Of course we already spent one full game with Ellie so Abby was never going to catch up, but if you’re thinking like me then by less than half of Abby’s story you already don’t want Ellie to kill her.

The confrontation in the theatre was messy but since it’s not the end of the story I sort of don’t mind. I know some people don’t like how Jesse died or how little time we have to process certain deaths and story beats and of course it can just be bad pacing but that was again something that to me just brought the player’s world on the same level as an NPC’s world. That for one enhanced the experience for me.

Okay. Let’s talk about the last part that starts with Dina almost dying at Abby’s hands, especially after she says “good” when Ellie tells her she’s pregnant. Of course there’s the callback to dead Mel. But I liked that Lev was there and his presence sort of switched Abby’s role. Up to that point Abby had been Ellie. But then when she has Lev, and she acknowledges him as “her people”, she becomes Joel. And then she becomes a better version of him. Or at least a version of Joel that has mercy.

And you’d think being this close to losing Dina is where Ellie would snap back to it. And she does, for a while.

Here’s when I admit the pacing definitely needed some work regardless of anything. Up until that point we go through three days, albeit twice, but three days. Then suddenly we’re nine plus months later and the setting is different and we don’t get enough time here before Tommy shows up with the end of the story...rope... we got cut in half in the theatre.

I’ll take some time here to genuinely express my what the fuck at Tommy here.

My memory is a little fuzzy here but wasn’t Tommy on board with returning to Jacksonville when they return to the theatre? I actually just checked, Tommy says “they got what they deserved” to which Ellie says “but she (Abby) gets to live” and Tommy says “yeah”. And then when he visits Ellie and Dina suddenly he’s a dick about it saying Ellie made a promise? Is that something that was supposed to happen off-screen or a plot hole? Did that conversation in the theatre have more versions they went through and the wrong reaction got included? Maybe I just didn’t pay enough attention but it felt out of the blue for me and I can safely say that’s the character moment I’m disappointed in the most, especially because we never see Tommy again.

One could argue that the choppiness of time is supposed to symbolise the dissociation and out-of-body experience you can have when you’re living with trauma but I truly just have it down to bad pacing here. I get that they wanted to show the baby but I truly believe with enough polishing they could’ve come up with a scenario that works better and flows better.

I truly could’ve had Ellie maybe leave with Dina and Tommy and then have her turn back before they leave Seattle and then they have the conversation with Dina and then Ellie starts tracking Abby. Here we could’ve had more of what was in the beginning of the story, sort of switching between the two, maybe slightly altered gameplay, etc. Even though the last level as Ellie was really cool and once again I liked how we just barely got a glimpse of how other people live, you know. Those prisoners in those cells have a hell of a 25 years behind them and being freed by this stranger might be the best thing that will have ever happened to them, but to Ellie they’re just a background noise to her mission.

I truly liked those parts.

I could imagine Ellie being kidnapped similarly to Abby but they are treated differently and somehow still end up escaping together, maybe even helping each other the way Ellie almost did with cutting Abby down and letting her get Lev to the boat. And then you’d have Ellie still be consumed by her rage.

The whole time I wanted her so much to just scream everything at Abby. Because look, life for these people is a whole ass trauma. Some people like Dina might handle it differently, or it’s easier with a community around you, but Ellie’s life has been very strange, with her immunity, with the realisation that Joel killed and lied for her, all that. She would need a fucking good therapist. I wanted that catharsis, for her to scream at Abby, to sob until she can’t even breathe, for Abby to do the same, except she realises she got her closure while Ellie never did, and then maybe for Abby to give some sort of... forgiveness to Ellie. For her life not having meant anything in the end.

I don’t know, I wanted that for her.

If there never is a last fight, if Ellie never so much as punches Abby, that would’ve been fine for me.

Two more things that I liked were that Ellie actually started down a path of forgiveness before Joel died. You know, when we see the scene where Ellie tells Joel off you’re like “oh that’s the last thing she said to him, no wonder she feels so guilty” and then you realise, oh no wait, they were actually eventually going to be alright. They just never got the time. To me that hit so much, that was a good scene.

The other thing I liked is Dina leaving. Once again this could’ve been something like, Ellie goes back to Jacksonville and there they tell her Dina left or sum shit idk how that could’ve worked, I’m just saying that losing that farm life didn’t really make me feel anything because we didn’t get the time to grow attached to it.

So Dina leaves, and suddenly you’re back in the room with Sam in the first game when this bitten boy asks Ellie what she’s most afraid of, and she says she’s scared of ending up alone. And this immune girl Joel killed and lied and died for, eventually ends up alone.

So I understand that a lot of TLOU’s fanbase that belongs to a marginalised group, especially those part of the LGBT+ community would be hurt by this ending. By this interpretation. The LGBT+ community, as far as I know, at least a huge part of it, seeks to heal. We use fiction as escapism in a way people who don’t know, who can’t know our struggles will never be able to sympathise with. And as such, we as a community in a large part, have moved on from stories of pain. Not necessarily in that we turn a blind eye on it or anything, but I think it’s a mostly universally agreed thing that after so much suffering we’re ready to see ourselves, and people like us end up happy. And as such the demand from this community towards creators have shifted to not necessarily fully happy endings, but some sort of relief. And as such, this ending is cruel.

It is heartbreaking. My heart breaks for Ellie because I can practically feel the weight in my chest that she carries around when she walks away. She lost everything and she never got the closure. She never got that relief and neither did we.

Once again, if you personally have a problem with this ending and it ruined the game for you, I understand it completely. That’s your own experience with the story, and even though I feel much of the same things, I’m once again left here thinking this is the way the creators wanted to do this and that they did it like this makes sense. It makes sense for the story, the characters, it just does. If it had happened differently in a way that also makes sense, I would not think “oh this should’ve had a heartbreaking ending, this is bullshit” but I do think the ending makes sense.

Overall, I’m pretty much pleased with most everything, except fuck false advertising, fuck Tommy, and fuck uhhh, I’m pretty sure I mentioned something else too. Oh yeah, pacing. Jack actually offered a really great alternative to the beginning, where the museum scene of Ellie’s birthday should’ve been the first scene, and then you could’ve had Ellie wake up four years later at the end of the countdown. That Joel told Tommy about the hospital could’ve been implied through dialogue and interactions.

I also don’t think Joseph Anderson’s theory is hurt by this, he said personal decisions and morality aside, the Fireflies were fucking idiots and they couldn’t have come up with a cure even if they had given Ellie the chance to say yes, because of how unprofessional they’d been and how much they rushed into the surgery. Just because Abby’s dad was a good dude and a good surgeon doesn’t mean shit when you’re dealing with something you’ve not seen before, such as Ellie’s immunity. And I think knowing that wouldn’t have mattered to Ellie either to change her mind about forgiving Joel. And this is what I’ve always said. Like the Fireflies or not, believe in them or not, taking a choice like this away from Ellie because you can’t stand losing your daughter again (and that is why Joel kills the Fireflies, not because he shares Joseph’s opinion) is objectively wrong and borders on the same obsession we see consume Ellie. Joel is just as unhinged by that point as Ellie is, he’s just more... mature about it, I guess.

That could’ve been even more painful, sort of, to not have Abby be the surgeon’s daughter but just for her and her group believe in this doctor that might just be talking out of his ass so much that them avenging his death sets off this terrible cycle of vengeance. I think that could’Ve been very “gritty” and shit, that would’ve hurt because it’s even more pointless. People killing over lost hope.

So, pacing, Tommy, false advertising, bad points, everything else, yeah alright. 7/10 sounds good to me. I will play this one day >)

#the last of us spoilers #tlou2 #tlou 2 #tlou 2 spoilers #the last of us 2

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charliejrogers · 4 years ago

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Birds of Prey (Or, Men Suck: An Action Movie!)

Before 2019’s Captain Marvel or 2017’s Wonder Woman had the opportunity to be smash successes, Margot Robbie’s turn as Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad, a character that was equal parts bad-assery, sadism, and unabashed sexuality, was the closest the comic book movie world had to a genuine female star. And, yes, that’s a direct knock on ScarJo’s Black Widow. Given the character’s popularity, Robbie’s interest in playing the character, the Me Too movement, and the subsequent success of Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, a Harley Quinn movie was somewhat inevitable. The marketing for the film made it quite clear that Quinn’s new movie, Birds of Prey, aimed to rise far above the ashes of its predecessor. The previews advertised Quinn literally killing off the Joker (and symbolically cutting ties with one of the most complained-about aspects of Suicide Squad) by blowing up an ACE Chemicals building with Joker presumably inside. It was the location in the previous film where the Quinn and Joker’s relationship was born. This seemed like a bold, exciting jumping-off point for the film. Combined with its striking art design and lengthy sub-title (Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) the movie had me excited to watch a spirited indictment of the patriarchy under the guise of a comic book movie. That’s mostly what I got.

The movie indeed starts with an effectively brief animation detailing Harley’s life up to that point: haunted by her abandonment by her father and raised by harsh nuns, Harley’s need for male approval and hate of the establishment were finally realized when she met the Joker, a man for whom she cast aside her MD/PhD in psychology for a life of crime. But she gets tired of doing all the work and planning for Mr. J., but receiving none of the credit. It’s here you’d expect some big fight between Joker and Harley culminating in the explosion from the trailer. But the trailer was deceiving. We don’t see the fight. We just see Quinn’s reaction to being dumped by the Joker in a manner similar to how break-ups are portrayed in thousands of other pieces of fiction: crying hysterically, getting belligerently drunk, getting a pet, and denying that the break-up even happened. All this onscreen activity is accompanied by constant narration from Quinn who, instead of telling the truth about her pain and insecurities, lies and brags about her strength and maturity in dealing with the situation. When she ultimately decides to blow up ACE Chemicals, it is not an attempt to fight back against her abuser, but is instead her response to hearing other women talk shit about how she will likely go running back to the Joker. Blowing up the building doesn’t kill Joker (he’s not even present); it was just an immature, symbolic gesture to let the Joker know that she wasn’t coming back to him (like he would even care).

This rather weak portrayal of Quinn stands in stark contrast to the character as portrayed in the pilot of the recent animated show Harley Quinn. Interestingly, the show has Harley, who has recently been left for dead by the Joker, empower herself to leave the Joker. Yet, the portrayal at the start of Birds of Prey is intentional. It paves the way for eventual growth. It wouldn’t be much of a movie if she achieved her emancipation in the first five minutes. Plus, it perfectly falls in line with the relationship and characters established in Suicide Squad. There, Quinn and Joker were a couple madly in love, always desperately trying to get back to one another. Still, by shying away from the truth and horrors of the abuse Quinn suffered from the Joker and instead choosing to couch her abuse as “not getting credit/appreciation,” the movie weakens her power, strength, and growth in character. Her emancipation becomes less an empowered victory over abuse and misogyny and more just escaping the shadow of her arrogant boyfriend. This is unfortunate as symbolically it is satisfying that even Quinn’s first step towards independence, blowing up the ACE chemical building, is met with punishment and the assumption by male society that she can no longer defend herself. Seemingly every other bad guy in Gotham City knew to interpret the explosion exactly as Harley intended, and now they all seek vengeance for Miss Quinn’s many misdeeds, now that she lacks the protection of Mr. J.

The actual plot for the movie focuses on its villain, Ramon “Black Mask” Sionis, the epitome of white male privilege but without the confidence, a wealthy billionaire man-child so insecure he lashes out violently in response to the smallest insult. Sionis is trying to acquire the film’s MacGuffin, a diamond, on the exact same day all of Gotham’s underbelly, including Sionis, is out for Quinn’s head. The diamond is inadvertently pickpocketed by Cassandra Cain, a teenaged, female ne’er-do-well (Ella Jay Basco) who, like Quinn, is the victim of abuse and abandonment and has now turned to thievery to get by. For reasons I won’t spoil, Cassandra is unable to part ways with the diamond, so the hunt for the diamond becomes the hunt for Cassandra. It’s a hunt that involves multiple female protagonists. There’s Detective Montoya (Rosie Perez), a veteran detective trying to make a criminal case against Sionis. There’s Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), a singer in Sionis’s nightclub whom he forces to be his personal driver and errand-girl. And then there’s the Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a cross-bow-wielding bad-ass who actually isn’t after Sionis at all but is just kinda there on her own, separate revenge scheme. And, of course, Quinn inevitably gets involved in the hunt as well.

But for as much as the plot is about acquiring the diamond and escaping Sionis and his goons, it really is a film about female empowerment. The patriarchy, its inherent misogyny and perpetuation of rape culture, is the true villain. And emancipation from the grips of patriarchy is ultimately desired by all its female protagonists, not just Quinn. Detective Montoya is constantly passed up for promotions at work for decades even though she’s the brain by many successful operations. Black Canary, a Black woman, has an arc that combines misogyny with racism as she is forced into near slavery by Sionis (a white male who refers to her as “his little bird” and, not so subtly, “owns” an extensive collection of shrunken African heads). Her arc is my favorite in the film. And then there’s Huntress who… well, she’s just doing her own revenge thing, man. Like she’s killing dudes and stuff, but it’s hard to really link her with the deep anti-patriarchy themes the other three protagonists have. But where the movie really elevates itself beyond the sort of surface-level “girl power!” (that the Huntress unfortunately sorta represents) is in its willingness to be honest and nuanced about the brutality of sexual assault, even in the small degree it does address it.

Twice, Quinn finds herself incapacitated while being directly threatened by a man. The first occurs after her post-break-up binge-drinking night out where on the verge on consciousness, she is being caressed and fondled by a man in an alley and nearly kidnapped (and presumably raped) by two men. In the second instance, she’s hit with a paralytic agent. Her assailant crouches down next to her, puts her arm around his neck. “You’re still conscious,” he says to himself, as if reassuring himself like a man about to rape a drunk girl on the drink of consciousness. It’s rather disturbing and powerful to see our protagonist who is, in every sense of the phrase, a bad-ass be just as susceptible to be raped and taken advantage of as any other woman in society. No one is safe, and she’s not alone. There’s another rather difficult scene where the movie’s villain, Ramon Sionis, forces an innocent female patron at his night club, under the threat of death, to strip and dance on top of a table in front of the whole club. These are powerful and scary scenes that generally aren’t a part of superhero movies. No doubt, the success and nuance of the scenes is due to the fact that the movie is directed by a woman, Cathy Yan, written by a woman, Christina Hodson, and produced mainly by women (including the star Margot Robbie herself). If allowed to explore these issues more deeply, it would have been a fantastic film.

Still, this movie is not intended to be a deep, serious dive against real issues women face; I recognize its an action-focused comic book movie. And to that degree, the movie is mostly a success. It’s a fun movie with clever, visually-stunning action sequences. I was floored by its use of color (of purples, reds, and blues particularly) throughout all the fight scenes. There’s an extremely satisfying scene where Quinn infiltrates a police station with a gun that shoots out what looks like bean bags that release colorful dust/confetti upon impact. And the final battle scene in an abandoned boardwalk’s funhouse featured one of the most creative set pieces for an action movie this side of Temple of Doom, replete of trampolines, mirrors, and gripping melee combat (with mallets, bats, and kicks to the groin, instead of the often-more boring-shoot-outs.)

I really cannot say enough good things about the visual style of the film or its tightly choreographed fight scenes. Less good things can be said about scenes that do no feature fighting/action. McGregor as Sionis is fine, but Sionis is an uninteresting villain, and his over-the-top childish nature is boring to watch. The movie would have been better served by a villain like Jason Schwartzman’s Gideon from Scott Pilgrim vs the World, a well-respected, successful, confident, misogynistic tool, rather than the insecure mess seen here. Also, Ella Jay Basco as the teenaged pickpocket Cassandra is not a great actress and there was little chemistry between her and Robbie. This is unfortunate since the movie aims to cast Harley as Cassandra’s new foster-mother to highlight Quinn’s growth and this sequence takes up a good chunk of the middle of the film. I did like how the film explored the idea that Harley Quinn, though a “super villain,” is a normal person who needs to get groceries like the rest of us. Scenes like these helped to make Quinn more sympathetic but were largely hampered by bad dialogue.

Furthermore, are we just going to ignore that Harley handed Cassandra a bomb with a lit fuse, giving Cassandra no choice but to throw the bomb out a car window thereby killing one of their assailants?! Cassandra cannot be more than 15 years old, but the movie does nothing to explore what this obviously traumatic situation does to Cassandra. I’ll buy the film’s excuse that she has a penchant for pickpocketing as a consequence of her social circumstances… but you can’t tell me that she would have no second thoughts/trauma about killing another human being! Sorry, that’s the pediatrician in me getting out.

So yeah, I liked the movie. It’s not great, but it ain’t bad. Its weak dialogue and weak villain are made up for by the film’s great visuals and its absolute commitment to doing right by its themes, even approaching serious issues with nuance and grace, something that would never have happened if a bunch of dudes crafted this picture. And even if the first hour isn’t great, most of my complaints washed away in the last half hour when all the female protagonists finally join together and that awesome funhouse battle takes place. Further, it is satisfying to see that Harley Quinn really does change throughout the film. In defeating Sionis, she is able to finally free herself from the Joker, but also from all the men who assumed she was nothing more than the Joker’s bitch. The movie doesn’t leave much room for a sequel which in itself is refreshing. It tells a complete tale. Still, I’d happily seek to watch more of these birds of prey having been let out of their cages, free to take on more of patriarchy.

**/ (Two and a half stars out of four)

#birds of prey #margot robbie #harley quinn

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aprilwritesabook · 5 years ago

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I appolgize in advance for this long ass post haha.

Alright, so here's the deal. This post is gonna be part rant, part confessional, and part inspirational speech. So if your following this blog purely for the updates on my books you can skip it haha.

I know a currently published author. I used to kinda be friends with them in highschool, but it was more like a friend of a friend type deal. But I digress. Point is. They recently released there second book on Amazon. And I really wanna be happy and proud of them, and to see it as an inspirational thing, buuuuut I'm almost 100 sure they are actually a fraud?

And that's not me being bitter. I really really really wish this wasn't the case. But I have the evidence to back this theory up.

1- they claimed that there first book sold out multiple times. And to be fair this one might be at least partially true. Its rated pretty high on amazon, But then again they only have 4 people rate it and three of those people are the editor formattor and artist for the book. Soooo. Yeah I sure hope they rated it well.

2- they are constantly posting stories to there social media that are far fetched at best. They work in a bookstore. And almost every other week its a slightly diffrent story about a customer who "didn't even know" he was the author who would "burst into tears" the second he told them what the book was about because they were just Soooo touched by the message that they wept to a total stranger??? If that had happened even once it would have been an odd occurance. And this is something that apparently happens alllll the time to them. (I hate to drudge up old memes like this, but)

3- this person has recently made a tick tock and a youtube channel. And like, the content isssss questionable? And that's not necessarily a crime or anything. But they give updates about it on social media as if they are speaking to a mass of adoring fans and like...you can see how many subs and views a person has. We know he dosn't have a big fan base. And I know that sounds harsh. But like, some more gullible people have asked him for advise on how to be "successful" and "gain a following", and he answers them with authority. Like he has the answers even though he clearly dosn't? And that feels really... disingenuous at best?

4- along the same vein as 3. They recently made a post on twitter about how they are "overwhelmed by the amount of love and support they have found on the site" and how they get "some many heartfelt messages." Annnd again. I clicked the account. They literally have 5 followers. And not a SINGLE person has EVER liked, retweeted, or commented on a SINGLE tweet of theirs. Not one. Soooo like not only are you pretending to have a huge fan base that dosn't exist your also making up there engagement with you? Which this alone I feel brings validate to my doubts about the other things. Clearly they arn't above blatant lying and extreme over exaggeration. And also they either don't realize we can all seeeee these facts. Or they don't think anyone will actually check and call them on it ?????

Now there's a lot of other examples I could give. But my point isn't to put this ONE person on blast. I'm not trying to start beef or cause damage to their reputation or anything. Which is why I won't say their name or what there books are. The only way you'd know who I'm talking is if you also knew them in real life. In which case you either already know all this, or you should, so you don't fall victim to their lies.

The reason I'm saying any of this at all is because I think I know why they are doing it. And why so many indie authors or would be media mogels feel the need to do this.

The issue with trying to "build an audience" and "self market" yourself, is that you really only have 2 ways of guaranteed sucess.

You either need to have a pre established audience based on success you've already had in the past. (IE youtubers and movie stars writing successful books cause there fans will buy anything of there's reguardless.)

Or you need to buy your way in. Be it by quitting your day job to make social media your full time job, buying ads, hiring a social media person,or hiring a team of people with their own audiences (audio book narrators, cover artists, managers, ect)

And if you don't ALREADY have an audience, and you don't have the funds to BUY your way in, then your just gonna have to get real lucky.

You can be lucky for knowing somebody with an "in". They work in publishing, or advertising, or they're your rich uncle. Just someone who you can go to to get that boost one way or another to get one of the first two methods going for you.

You can get lucky by commenting the right thing on the right post and gaining followers that way. Or by being in the right place at the right time to meet somebody important.

You can be lucky by having lots of supportive friends and family who will promote you and your work FOR you.

Or lastly (and this is in the realm of being a one in a million case here. So it basically never happens without one of the other things I mentioned also being true.)

You can be lucky by working REALLY hard, and being REALLY talented, and having the world actually NOTICE YOU somehow? Just one person with influence who can find you in your dark hole of insignificance and shine a light on you so now the world can actually seee you.

And that sucks.

You could write the greatest book in the whole world. Truly a masterpiece. But if nobody buys it or reads it because they don't know who you are??? Then it dosen't matter does it?

It sucks Soooo hard.

Because untill you get those people with influence to shine a light on you, theres nothing you can do. And the market is soooooo drenched in new indie authors that the odds of the right people finding and liking your book are slim to none.

Its super unfair.

The people who have the influence arn't gonna buy a book with 0 reviews and no social media following.

Why? Because THEIR brand depends on only recommending the good shit. And they need to find that good shit NOW. If they read every book written by nobody's online, they'd have to wade through ALOT of garbage. wasting all their valuable time and money till they found something worthy. And honestly, from a business stand point, you cant really fault them for that

This is where the lies come from.

So basically no matter how you look at it, or what your strategy is, In order to get fans, you need to ALREADY HAVE THEM.

When your just starting out. And I mean truly at square one. It really feels like the only way to "make it" is to "fake it"

If you PRETEND to have a big following. And you PRETEND your books are selling really well already. And you PRETEND that people care deeply about you and your work... Then there is a chance that nobody will do the homework to find out its all a lie.

And if they think your successful already, then it sends a message to the consumers brains of "well they must be good. Everybody loves it/them".

It sucks that so many people who have found real success did so with lies, cash, and being already well connected.

And then they buy it, and they follow you, and the confirmation bias sets in, and eventually you'll dupe enough people into liking you that you don't HAVE to lie anymore.

Those of us with no cash and too high a conscious to lie our way to the top are left with virtually no chance of succeeding no matter how hard we work or how good our content is.

And I'm not claiming to be "better than" or "more worthy" than anyone else. I wanna make it clear that of your in the portion of having it fake it so you can follow your dreams then more power to you. Its a valid strategy. I hate that it works and I hate that its the only option sometimes. But I don't hate the people as creators for "doing what it takes." I get it. Really I do.

And it suckks major ass that so many people feel like this is the only way.

My whole point here. Is that we have slowly built a system where this is our reality. And honestly? End of the day? There's not a damn thing we can do to change it at this point.

In a perfect world made of unicorns and puppies. I could say "hey lets all go ready books by completely unknown authors. Be the change you wanna see in the world." But at the end of the day, especially in the unfiltered world of self publishing, It would be a complete shot in the dark to spend your resources on something completely unknown. We rely on word of mouth, and "best sellers" and high following to do the work of filtering out the bad stuff for us and it would be unrealistic if not impossible to go back on it now. Even if we wanted to there algorithms and shit built into the code. You'll never find the books that Amazon dosnt want you to find unless you search for it directly.

Now comes the confession/inspirational bit

I know all of the above to be true...But I'm choosing not to care

I'm not gonna lie my way to the top. I'm not gonna hide my struggles out of fear of seeming inferior. So here goes

I struggle a lot with depression and anxiety. I've been working on it, and I've gotten so much better in recent years. But there are always gonna be times when I slip up and my mental illnesses take over

When I was writing my first book I felt really empowered and good about myself for finally getting past all my own barriers and following my dreams.

And then once I was done writting and editing and I was ready to show the world and get feedback. I flopped.

I couldn't find anyone willing to beta read. Those who said they would do it (even people who claimed they "couldn't wait") ghosted me after I actually sent it to them

I was hoping to get 20 people. I really wanted it to be the best it could be. Only 11 actully signed up. Of that 11, 5 people actually read it: My spouse, my brother, my best friend, and 2 others. Those two others read the first bit I sent them, took a few weeks to get back to me, said they loved it, but then Neeeeeeeeever got back to me when I sent them the next chunk.

Now you can look at all that and come to the conclusion that it sucks. I know I sure did.

The struggles at each step made me doubt myself more and more to the point that I almost gave up writing all together.

And I didn't want to take about it or how it was making me feel, even though it was having a serious impact on me. I wanted to bottle it all up and let it consume me. Allllll because I didn't want people online to write me off as a failure before even giving me the chance.

I wasn't lying about being successful. I was just trying to hide the fact that I wasn't.

And that's almost as bad. Because then all the new authors just feel worse about themselves and their journey because they think they are the only ones.

Your not alone.

Everyone is struggling.

We just aren't talking about it.

I haven't written a word in over a week because I've been so afraid my second book will be dead on arrival like my first.

And I KNOW somewhere out there is someone just like me whose thinking of giving up.

Don't.

Just keep going.

Do your best. And then come find another struggling writer and share with each other. The world outside might not understand your struggle. But another author might.

We can't change the market. We can't change the way social media works, or how people decide if they will buy things

But what we CAN change, is whether those of us within the community want to be honest about our struggles and frustrations. Or if we want to hide them away and lie about them for the sake of making more sales

I think by being honest with one another we can create a better network.

That way the next time you feel like garbage for not being an "instant celebrity" like everyone else. you can look at the community and realize that you were never the problem

If we just keep making new writing friends our collective reach will eventually take hold in the outside world. Don't wait for a random influencer to notice you. Just make one friend at a time. Be known amongst your peers and maybe the rest will follow

And if your a writer desperate for feedback, or just a friend to share your troubles with. Hit me up. My inbox is always open.

19 notes · View notes

comicteaparty · 4 years ago

Text

July 4th-July 10th, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from July 4th, 2020 to July 10th, 2020. The chat focused on the following question:

What was an unexpected aspect of making webcomics you didn’t realize before making one yourself?

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

How much our comic and it's story we're going to change during the years of creation was the biggest and most jarring aspect for sure. There's scripts and thumbs that were all made before we ventured out to make GJS with paths completely different from what we initially thought we would take that have completely changed how we approach not only writing but reading webcomics too. Webcomics as a medium have the biggest connection to time, whether it be production or the consumption, they have this opportunity to exist and transform in the long hours it takes to enjoy and read them. It's honestly one of the biggest advantages imho. To see a story slowly unfold, listening to ur audience reactions, peer critiques, or new inspiration can make such a drastic and intense impact on a long form work- its both jaw dropping and humbling to be apart of!(edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

For me it was the community aspect of comics. I knew a community existed on the reader side of things (comments!), but I didn't expect the creator side to be how it is! I don't know why, but for some reason I kind of always thought that all of us were sort of throwing our comics out from the void... I guess that was me looking at comics from a reader's point of view! But as soon as I started making comics, I started meeting people who made them too... and it's been incredible!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

@deo I never really understood what an internet community or internet friends were until I started making a webcomic

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah, I had been in (and quickly decided to not be in 0_0) gaming communities, but nothing really as wonderful as what I've found through comics. Closest I had gotten other than that was comments on social media

Shizamura 🌟 O Sarilho

Community definitely one of the big things, much like Deo pointed. I was kinda expecting to have get connections through readers, but it's much more with other creators, which is super satisfying in it's own way. Also gonna second Krispy's comment about how time affects how you see your story's past and future. A lot of things changed in the past four years that made my comic change as well and having so much time to think each individual scene allows them to be much more complex and interesting than they would when I first thought them through. Having the time really helps. This also kinda touches the topic of personal change too, which affects how I write and what feels most important to focus on and that's interesting to think about as well

eliushi [Keyspace]

How long things will take, the longer the story goes on! I started out being able to complete a page in 2h but then I found more I wanted to try on each page (colours, layout, composition etc) and even wanted to extend certain scenes. With 500 pages planned, I definitely thought I’d be farther along by now, heading into AWT’s first year anniversary in a month. That being said, I’m also enjoying the ride and it’s all thanks to the great community here and making connections with other comics folks/readers. I never expected to get comments and so each one has been a treasure to read.

Desnik

An unexpected aspect of making webcomics is how much people respond to them. I figured I'd be creating into a void but I met so many people as a result of publishing my dinosaur comic

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Ditto on the webcomic community. I didn't realize how far reaching it was to have a community that supports each other. And I've enjoyed meeting so many wonderful and creative people who raised each other up. Another thing I didn't expect, however, was how invested I got into my comic.(edited)

At first I was doing it mostly for fun. But the more I delved into it, the easier it was to get sucked into my story and want to draw it out. And as a result taking it a lot more seriously.

Desnik

yeah sometimes I miss my dinosaur comic even though I had some pretty good reasons for moving on. It was created out of desperation and evolved into something that made me feel good about myself

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

How much work and time it takes to keep a weekly update going with no backlog

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah same

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

For me, I didn't realize how much it would affect my life to make comics, and vice versa. In a weird way, I didn't know how interrelated the two were, or how easily life could interfere with my comic, or the inverse.

eliushi [Keyspace]

Making comics became a lifestyle for me

@Haruh2 (Colony Life) When I had no backlog I was updating every two weeks with 7 pages per update; so about 14h of work. But this is with a finished script. I am also told I work fast.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

omg

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

That's soooo much, Eli!

That's at least twice as much as I do (edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I hadn't realized how much I put myself into my comic! My friends who read it have all said that it's incredibly in my voice and reflects my opinions and worldviews Before I shared it with people I hadn't thought of it in that way at all

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

As an artist, I didn't expect how my comic production and mindset will change. Once I started comics, it brought out my ideas from thoughts to a physical form. I start to invest more time into it. Each project evolved through each chapter. How to balance script writing to a polished piece. I put alot of time and research in my works. It makes me glad to hear other creators do the same. I'm not the crazy artist who's wasting her time. One of the positive change was meeting other creators, how we give advice and receive praise.(edited)

eliushi [Keyspace]

The support has been amazing. It makes the work less lonely

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Fish, oh for sure! I didn't realize until recently how much my characters are all just facets of myself!

eliushi [Keyspace]

(I don’t work that quickly anymore and I’m making big changes to the format soon so it’s going to be a Transition)

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I've been in school with art students who never made comics, so when I came to CTP discord, reading comic discussions. It was comforting and fun. I enjoy the cooperation our group has, helping each other.

eliushi [Keyspace]

I like to commiserate about the unique challenges comics have

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Hahaha, yeahhhhh

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I agree, it's different from illustrations. Different approach(edited)

eliushi [Keyspace]

I am perpetually balancing time spent on a panel vs how much time the reader will spend on it

Vs illustration: lemme make all the details

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

Oh I agree, each panel takes longer than it takes to read it. Hence I dislike when readers call manga creators 'lazy'

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

how much time does it take to read one of my pages?

20 seconds?(edited)

haha

e.e

wait is that emoji supposed to be someone rolling their eyes??

i jsut looked it up

i might've been using it wrong this whole time

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Pacing

It's way different than in novels, and definitely came as a shock at the start

eliushi [Keyspace]

Yeah have to play to the strength of the medium. Still imagining AWT as an animated movie written from a novel, in the format of a comic

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Haha, same kinda

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

@eliushi [Keyspace] ah haha, that makes me feel better about my update habits, but thats a good goal for me to shoot for now that im learning a new way to make long comics specifically

cAPSLOCK (Tailslide)

I completely underestimated the amount of effort that would have to go into formatting, website design and maintenance, etc. If I got to do it again, a little more research beforehand probably would’ve saved me a lot of time and hassle.

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

I really overestimated the "if you build it they will come" aspect of webcomics lol. Like, you actually have to work to advertise your comic in order for people to read it. Nobody ever got hundreds of readers just from posting their comic onto some hosting site without doing major marketing work.(edited)

dako

yeah, I feel that

I've never really been an advertising type before my comic, im learning to just get used to it

Deo101 [Millennium]

I've not really done much advertising tbh, it makes me uncomfortable

dako

it feels kinda...embarrassing? might be too harsh of a word

i dunno

Deo101 [Millennium]

its just uncomfortable idk! i feel awkward doing it

dako

yeah, same ive done it a few times on reddit but i have to force myself

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

it does feel, odd..hell most of the time it just feels like i open the door to my house and toss a bunch of paper to the wind hoping someone can see it

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah, I dont know if ive done anything other than posting updates on twitter and talking about it in groups like this

and twitter is mostly just me talkin to people who already read it...

idk talking about my work without being asked first makes me feel like im inserting myself where im not allowed

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Self promo got MUCH less intimidating for me when I started thinking of it like: "okay, so my comic is made for readers like me, people who share my tastes. That means I only need to answer one question: what can I say to get me to check out this comic? I don't need to impress anyone else. I just need to appeal to me." (since "me" is my target audience)

Deo101 [Millennium]

mhm ^^

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

But take it with a grain of salt because I'm still not really promoing

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

exactly, thats why i find it hard to tweet about it most of the time, but i get the whole if i dont care about to talk without being asked no one else will either

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah lmao mood im like what would get me to read... hmmm... probably exactly what im doing.... I'll keep it up then :)

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

yea i get excited to draw out certain parts..but wouldnt want to just tweet about all the little tidbits of the story ruining it for others

Deo101 [Millennium]

sweats

dako

i made a whole side twitter for my comic cuz talking about it on my main intimidated me too much

it is my containment chamber

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

hm may do that, just to say i did it and to get my mind away from the thought

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

yeah same

Deo101 [Millennium]

My main is just whatever I want it to be idk. Its kinda for all my comics, since my comics are all I want to talk about

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

though my main is mostly just retweeting from my side twitter lol

Deo101 [Millennium]

it removes a lot of the pressure of like what if my followers dont wanna see this??

cause they wouldnt be here if they didnt wanna see it

cause its all Ive been doing the whole time

dako

thats a good point

i had my main way before my comic so most of my mutuals/followers dont follow for that

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

yea, it can feel abit disorienting when there is no interaction one way or another on anything you tweet (also if twitter has messed up and causes your tweets to not show up)

Deo101 [Millennium]

but yeah I dont really advertise cause it just makes me so uncomfortable >.<

dako

understandable

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I'm kind of somewhere in between. I advertise my comic mostly because it is all I wanna talk about, like Deo. But I also don't think it's gotten me many readers. Most of my readers came as far as I can tell because I was making something that appealed to them. (The whole "if you build it, they will come" thing.) Although, I really don't have a big audience, I do have an audience, and I am certain most of them came from me just posting.

I think it's determined a lot by luck, and also, how big your niche's audience is to begin with (and some skill tbh).

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah like I think "gay sci fi" is a p big niche so ive got a big amount of people I could potentially reach

which makes it much easier to draw people in

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I'm particularly lucky, I guess, that fantasy/romance has a lot of readers (also more competition, but...)

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah fantasy romance is a damn big one

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

eh i think im in an awkward void with my action/drama story (since im not doing romance drama)

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I just go with the mindset: "what makes my fantasy/romance different from the rest" and go from there.

Deo101 [Millennium]

mhm

tbh I dont think my sci fi romance is doing anything special?

but im having fun so :) I dont rlly care about that hahahha

dako

having fun the most important thing

Deo101 [Millennium]

its not my goal to make somthing mindblowing ^^ truley im just here for a good time

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I mean, LGBT+-inclusive sci-fi is pretty unique

I haven't seen a lot

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It's clear that your characters are people, and that's special, regardless of how common/uncommon

dako

think if i didnt love my comic as much as i do id have stopped a long time ago

Deo101 [Millennium]

thats true keiiii, thank you <3

also yeah its Sad that theres not more LGBT+ sci fi cause its like youve got aliennnssssssssssssssssssss you can do whatever you waaaaaant

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I knooowww

Deo101 [Millennium]

guess it shows what ppl want or something

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

yup

Deo101 [Millennium]

off topic

so to make it back on topic

I underestimated how much people would like gay sci fi GJKLAGJLAJLKAGJSLAKGJKL

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

One thing I learned specifically with my current comic... I did not realize how much difference the reader's cultural background would make in terms of interpreting my story.

Deo101 [Millennium]

!!!!!

I actually almost mentioned you in class once tbh keiii

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Big oversight, in retrospect

Deo101 [Millennium]

saying "someone I know makes a comic which they noticed, it's interpreted completely differently just depending on cultural backgrounds" kind of a thing

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

like I would not have made the comic any different, but I would have approached the... presentation differently. Like, talk about it differently

Deo101 [Millennium]

cause we were talking about how narratives affect rt

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I guess another thing that was unexpected about making webcomics was... there are way more people with my exact tastes than I thought

Deo101 [Millennium]

and I was saying that I think the viewer's narrative affects art more than the artists narrative

I mean, the artists narrative obviously is what makes it so.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

In the eyes of the beholder

Deo101 [Millennium]

but interpretations and all that... yeah!!!

so. actually I might have offhandedly mentioned you I cant remember if I did or not

lemme check

I did! very like "second hand" offhandedly mentioning though ahaha

hope that doesnt make you uncomfortable GSKLGSJALGJLGK no one replied to me so e.e

in the class I mean

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I am super uncomfortable and offended !!!!!

j/k

Deo101 [Millennium]

hgjkghsjkagskajgdhsakgjhgjd

but... yeah idk starting out I truly just was making it cause I really love my characters a lot, the idea that other people would like them too is very unexpected :) in a good way

I also definitely didnt expect how important enviornments were e.e

didnt plan those well enough.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

that relatable feel

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I really desperately advertise my comic everywhere. I don't really know how to do marketing effectively though & I don't know if its working

eliushi [Keyspace]

I find what increased readership most consistently is still the feature aspect from the hosting sites. It’s really about finding the right readers/right readers finding you

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Same, I'm basically a rounding error away from being 100% reliant on the features for subs

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I don't think my comic has ever been featured on the hosting sites. My numbers have always been low on Tapas and maybe thast why

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yeah, features help a lot

I've been featured on Webtoon, but not Tapas, and you can really see the difference in readership there

Deo101 [Millennium]

Ive been featured on both, uhh in a couple of diff places, if you wanted a breakdown of how many readers i got from the diff spots and stuff ever just lmk im happy to share

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I've been featured on both. It certainly got people to check it out and even sub, but retaining those people (even if they've subbed!!!) is a different story. I think my story is just not the right type for the platforms, but eh, even if 99% of the platform users aren't into the kinda thing I'm making, 1% increase is still an increase.

Which is another thing I learned over the course of running this comic, specifically (since the internet has changed so much after my first two attempts). Just because the majority of your subs don't actually read the comic, doesn't mean your work sucks. Today's internet caters to casual users, and there's a bajillion factors affecting who's actually reading your stuff.

dako

i agree

my comic has never been featured on either, and webtoons doesnt have a guideline on what they pick but tapas does and my comic doesnt really meet their featuring requirements so i dont think either site ever will feature mine haha

so i gotta advertise on reddit and use twitter tags a lot

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Don't go too crazy with twitter tags; they can make people zone out and not look at your tweet.

dako

i try to use 5 at the most, i know too many is unpleasant to look at haha

Jib {WIP haha}

Oh huh, my rule of thumb is to use 1-2 on twitter and as many as I can on Insta but I’m no expert lol

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, IG seems to be where you want all the tags XD

varethane

Webtoon's algorithms are like turning a hose on and off lol

The difference between views and sub growth during periods of being featured vs not is stark(edited)

carcarchu

i've never been featured by webtoons but i've seen series grow from 100 followers to 10k overnight

not an exaggeration

varethane

I put my new comic on webtoon in november 2019, and in 1 month I crawled up to.... maybe 50 subs?(granted I only put up one episode and then paused for a bit)

Then in December I started updating it weekly and got placed in the new and hot section of the app

And bam, 6k subs

It last 2 weeks and then the section updated and all growth stopped, and subs went down by 10 or so over the next week

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

(Omg featured is like the new Daily Deviation goals from DA way back in the day!)

varethane

Until it got another feature on a different part of the website and went up another 2k. It was like playing with the handle on a faucet lol

dako

I got some pretty good growth during canvas week, but beyond that not really

I get 1-2 subs after an update if I'm lucky

varethane

I feel like their algorithms are very reliant on the regular rotation of features that staff have to do manuallt

Outside of that, discoverability is quite weak

Mostly because of the volume of comics on there

boogeymadam

same boat as vare. the only thing i know about webtoons features is they have stated a couple times one of their recquirements is consistant updating, so if u skip a week that disqualifies u for a lil while i imagine

varethane

I wonder what they count as consistent. I was doing every 2 weeks for awhile, but this month I'm gonna try weekly to see if it helps me earn more $$ from ads :U

dako

I wish there was more incentive for readers to check out the new section on webtoons and tapas

carcarchu

i have found some amazing gems in the new section

i swear i've seen stuff in featured that were not at all updated consistently

dako

I have too, there's a ton of good comics that get overlooked because they're not in the front page

some featured comics havent updated in months sometimes

varethane

I definitely would not have considered myself consistent at the time of the first feature, considering there was a gap of a month between episode 1 and 2 lpl

carcarchu

the consistently updating thing is more of a recommendation than a requirement i feel?(edited)

boogeymadam

ooohh good to know!!

varethane

I'm sure it cant be a hard rule, especially for comics that have just launched

boogeymadam

im just going off their canvas qna's from last year

dako

if it's actually a hard rule for staff to feature comics that regularly update they break that rule a lot

i also heard a bot picks up comics too

carcarchu

well i at least think the staff or bots or whatever at webtoons are doing a better job with features than tapas is

tapas is always pushing their premium comics way more than their indie stuff

boogeymadam

tapas needs to bring new comics onto the frontpage more often than it does, yeah

dako

yeah I agree

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I mean, I get why they put premium on the front page. But I feel more variety would help them because it's more interesting for the readers?

dako

I can't tell whats premium or not with tapas sometimes

boogeymadam

i do like that they've been asking stuff like this in the forums tho

carcarchu

more distinction would be helpful to me too dako

i don't think its as clear as it could be

dako

yeah, webtoons at least it's clear what is and what isnt featured or canvas

Jib {WIP haha}

Huh, anyone remember that really popular writing podcast? I forgot the name

Or have any recommendations I guess

Moral_Gutpunch

Terrible writing advice? It's sarcastic

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

is this related to the topic?

Moral_Gutpunch

It's a podcast about writing, so I'm going to say yes.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I think snuffysam meant the weekly topic for the channel

Moral_Gutpunch

Just for this channel, no. I'm too new to know that.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Please check #rules

Moral_Gutpunch

Sound more like someone forgot context than the rules

That's why I'm hardly here. I don't know stuff people who've been here for a long time know like podcasts or older comics(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Basically each of the channels under "CTP Activities" on this server has its own topic of the week.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

It's not a matter of being here for a long time or not. This channel is used solely for discussing the weekly topics, and such information can be found in #rules

Moral_Gutpunch

Kudos then. I came for creator babble only.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

For general webcomic creation-related advice (either seeking or giving) and such, #shop_talk usually is the place!

creator_babble is for answering the topic of the week

It's not actually for generalized "creator babble" despite the name.

dako

looks like they left

Jib {WIP haha}

Oh my bad, it’s been a while since I read the rules, I brought up the new subject

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Happens!

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

No problem, we were just reminding you all :)

Jib {WIP haha}

Ty for that then haha

dako

I think one unexpected thing for me is that no one tells you how crazy the highs and lows can be

well I guess people do but you really don't know until the highs and lows happen to you if that makes sense

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Oh God, that's so true

Burnout is way more dreadful than I could ever guess prior to experiencing it

Feather J. Fern

One unexpected thing for me was how many people I would meet because of my comic. It surprised me greatly that I found so many cool people through the comic community and made the friends I have made now. Love you all

rajmews

The unexpected thing for me was just how much you have to just...predict...what the market will want to read. Like even if you research a whole lot, and you draw really well, and have been doing art professionally, you can still strike out. It's a humbling experience, but being able to just let go of poorly received pages and move on and try things differently is a lot of the battle for doing a webcomic. It teaches you how to fail gracefully because...it's all a process of learning your readers better. Even if they're few at first.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

My major unexpected thing was how much my initial ideas change as I work through a page. Everything from the expressions, dialogue, and layout can change as I look at it and 'solve' it more closely than I did in thumbnails. There are pages I look back on and realize they are ENTIRELY different than what I had first sketched. And they're better for it. Allowing myself the freedom to edit during the artwork... it's created some majorly awesome opportunities.

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yes!!!!! Me too!!!

It's exciting thoufh

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Absolutely same

Could plan something out meticulously but then change it in the last 2 secs before uploading

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yup... I don't thumbnail much ahead of where I'm at cause of this(edited)

I thumbnail a scene at a time, and then usually I end up changing stuff halfway through ahahfjjdkskdkss

varethane

Same hat, haha. I often make changes at every stage-- even the thumbnails will often depart from the script. If anything, I wish I made even more changes-- I feel like my page layouts tend to be pretty standard, I do a lot of pages with the 3 rows of 2 panels each, and I want to break out of that more. But... well, that's a work in progress.

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #comic tea party #ctp #creator interview #comic creator interview #creator babble

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365daysofsasuhina · 5 years ago

Text

[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day One Hundred Ninety-Nine: Lawnmower ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata, Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Mikoto, Uchiha Fugaku ] [ SasuHina ] [ Verse: Best Years of Your Life] [ AO3 Link ]

“So, got any summer plans, Sasuke?”

“Hn...not really.”

“No big trips, orrr...anything?”

“Nope,” the Uchiha replies, leaning his chin in a hand and regarding Naruto boredly. “Just a plain, boring old Summer.”

“Well that’s…” Lips purse. “...dumb.”

“Well what are you going to be doing?”

“My godfather’s taking us to the beach in a few weeks! And I’m thinkin’ about applying for a part-time job!”

“...oh yeah?”

“Yeah! Get some spendin’ money, man! There’s some games coming out this summer I wanna get, and you know my PC’s gonna need some upgrades if I’m gonna be running the new stuff. And I might see about saving up for a better car. I mean, the one I’ve got runs, but...it’s a gas guzzler, man...and it’s a pain to take Sakura anywhere cuz it’s so expensive!”

“Mm.” Mostly tuning the blond’s rambling out, Sasuke instead focuses on one aspect in particular: that being jobs. He hadn’t really considered it, but...that might not be a bad idea. Sasuke gets an allowance for keeping up with his chores, but...well, it’s never a bad thing to pad his pockets a bit, right?

But what would he do…? Surely everyone else is going to have the same idea and snap up any jobs for their age group the minute classes get out for the Summer. Actual employment might not be the way to go about it. Maybe something that he can just...do on his own...but what?

“...sucks cuz I hate mowing the lawn, y’know? It’s so boring and it takes forever...I’d rather do dishes!”

A blink, and then - “...that’s it.”

“Huh?” Naruto perks a brow as the last bell of the day rings out.

“...never mind. Have fun at the beach, huh?”

“That’s not for a few weeks, ya dummy! Weren’t you listening?”

Turning back from the doorway, Sasuke shrugs. “Guess not.”

“You -!”

Stepping out into the hall, Sasuke starts to formulate a plan. He lives in a...fairly decent neighborhood. Nice, but not too nice. Pretty sure nobody has a gardener. Which means less competition. His dad has both a push mower, and a riding lawnmower. Surely Fugaku won’t mind if Sasuke uses them...so long as he doesn’t break them, and makes sure there’s still gas in them when he brings them back. He can put up flyers and advertise. Even if just one household hires him, if they want him to come back once or twice a week, it’ll add up. And, if he does a good job, maybe word will spread and he can pick up more clients that way.

A bit old-fashioned, mowing yards for the Summer, but if no one else wants to do it, he’ll gladly capitalize.

After a pause, he snorts. Maybe Jiraiya will hire him if Naruto gets obstinate enough.

Riding his bike back home, Sasuke stashes it in the garage. His dad won’t be home for a few hours, but he’ll try shooting him a text

[ Hey dad, got a question for you when you’ve got a sec. ]

Waiting for a reply, he moves to the kitchen, raiding the fridge as his mother pours herself a glass of lemonade.

“Hey hun! Finally free for the Summer, huh? That’s exciting!”

“Yup,” he replies, munching into an apple.

“Going to spend some time with your friends now that you won’t be buried under a mountain of homework?”

Scoffing, he jokes, “What friends?”

“Sasuke Uchiha, I swear…”

Grinning, he feels his phone buzz as he heads toward his room.

[ I’m suspicious, but sure. What’s on your mind? ]

Apple in his teeth to free up his hands, Sasuke pushes into his bedroom and types up a reply.

[ Could I use the mowing equipment for a job? Wanna try maybe doing that for some extra cash this Summer. Promise I won’t break anything… ]

Powering on his computer, Sasuke opens up his favorite image editing software. Time to make up those flyers...even if maybe he’s getting a bit ahead of himself. Fugaku hasn’t agreed yet, but...surely he will, right?

[ Taking an entrepreneurial route, eh? Just like your father. ]

Scoffing at his dad’s teasing, Sasuke just asks, [ So is that a yes, or a no? ]

[ A tentative yes, but you have to do our yard for free. ]

[ I guess I can give you guys a discount. ]

[ Deal. ]

Grinning, Sasuke abandons his phone and keeps working on his ads. He’s not a genius with image editing, but...it looks decent enough. Add a few tabs along the bottom to pull off with his name and number, aaand...print!

A few copies in hand, he calls a temporary goodbye to Mikoto before heading out into the neighborhood, attaching the posters to some telephone poles with a stapler.

And now...all there is to do is...wait!

The first day, no calls...which honestly he expects. The next day...nothing. When four days pass without a peep on his cell (except Naruto being obnoxious…), Sasuke honestly starts to wonder if this was a stupid idea.

Grumpily browsing the net that afternoon, he barely reacts as his phone vibrates. A text. Plucking the mobile from his desk, he opens the message quickly, thinking it has to be the blond again. But...a double take shows no previous messages. This is someone new.

...wait a minute!

Refocusing, he leans over the screen, eyes scanning the message.

[ Hi, my dad saw your ad for lawn mowing? Are you still doing that? ]

A moment passes with a blank stare before scrambling to reply.

[ Yes, I’m still taking jobs. ] It’s not like he has to admit he hasn’t gotten any yet… [ All I need to know is the address and name, and whenever you want me there. It’s 15/hour. ] He mentioned on the flyer, but...well, it doesn’t hurt to remind them.

A few minutes pass in silence, and he assumes this guy must be talking to his dad. Trying not to just sit and stare, he busies himself with his computer again...and then another buzz.

[ Perfect! Is Friday afternoon okay? ]

[ That’ll be great. ]

With that arranged, he receives the address. The dad’s name is Hiashi, and...his name is Hinata?

...wait...that’s a girl’s name, right? It...vaguely rings a bell for some reason…? Oh well, he’ll find out Friday.

That morning, Sasuke loads everything onto the little flatbed trailer, ensuring everything is running okay before heading off. It’s a few blocks north...not too bad, really. Scanning addresses, he pulls to the curb in front of a sizeable white house with a nice front lawn. Seems this is the place.

Hopping out of the truck, he pauses as the front door opens. Rather than a grown man, however...a teenage girl walks down the path toward him, looking a little...apprehensive?

“Hi,” she offers, tucking hair behind an ear shyly. “You’re, uh...you’re Sasuke, right?”

“Yeah. Hinata?”

“Mhm. Sorry, my dad’s not here, he’s...he’s working. But he said to just do...whatever it is you do. I’ve got a signed check, so...I just need to fill it out depending on...how long it takes you…?”

Nodding along, Sasuke fights his foggy memory. She looks...kinda familiar? But he can’t quite place her. “Sounds good. Is it just the front, or…?”

“Oh, no - there’s a back, too. I, um...I went ahead and cleared it all off, so there’s nothing - there’s nothing on the grass.”

“...thanks.”

She gives a flicker of a nervous smile, then...about-faces back toward the house.

Huh...shy little thing.

Deciding on the push mower, Sasuke gets to work, trimming up the green grass and emptying the bagger into huge garbage bags to take and compost. Once he neatens up the edges, it’s into the backyard he goes.

And...wow. It’s...really pretty? There are flowers everywhere, a brick patio coming off the rear door. Trees make some shade and give the yard a bit more character.

Well...no time to gawk. He’s got work to do.

All the while, he doesn’t notice a face peek out every so often through a window upstairs at him.

All in all, it takes him two and a half hours, start to finish. Powering down the mower, he heaves a sigh, arm wiping at his brow.

It’s then the glass sliding door opens, and Hinata reappears. She carefully carries an icy glass of lemonade. “Here…”

A blink. “...thanks.” Taking off his gloves, he accepts the drink and tries not to just rudely down it.

“You...you did a r-really nice job!”

Swallow. “Thanks. You have a pretty yard.”

“Thank you...I take care of all the flowers.”

“Really?”

“Mhm.”

Considering her as she smiles at them, Sasuke decides to just...ask. “Sorry if this is rude, but...do I know you?”

Glancing back to him, she blinks. “I...think we went to the same elementary school…? But I’ve been homeschooled for, um...for a long time now.”

...well that explains it. And at her words, it clicks. “...ohhh, now I remember. You were always stalking after Naruto, right?”

Her cheeks flare red. “I...I was n-not stalking! I was just shy!”

“...uh huh,” he replies, taking another sip.

“...a-anyway, it - it doesn’t matter. I haven’t seen him in...a long time. Just as well, really. He never really liked me.”

“Nah, he was just too preoccupied with Sakura. I dunno if Naruto’s capable of actually disliking someone, honestly.”

In spite of herself, Hinata smiles. “...yeah. He was always, um...a-always very friendly.”

“Almost too friendly at times.”

A light giggle escapes her...and then she stiffens. “Oh, I...I should get you your check…”

“I’m not in any hurry. I don’t have any other jobs today,” Sasuke assures her. “Take your time.”

“Oh...well, would you -? I mean, can you come back next week? You do r-really good work!”

“Thanks. And yeah, I can do that. Should I just...plan on making this a regular thing?”

“Sure! My dad said if you did a good job, he’d have you back. Um…” Making her way in, Hinata just...disappears.

Not sure if he should follow - he’s covered in dust and grass clippings - Sasuke instead moves to wait by the slider until she returns, check in hand.

“Here you go!”

“Thanks.”

“Thank you! And, um...I-I guess I’ll see you next week…?”

...something about her tone and phrasing makes him blink. “...yeah. Was this time okay…?”

“Perfect! A-any time in the afternoon is fine, really. Dad’s at work, and...well, I’ll be here.”

“All right.”

Packing up, Sasuke makes sure everything is secure before moving to get into the cab...then noticing Hinata by the front door. After a pause, he...waves.

...she waves back.

A bit...unsure, he gets in, revving the engine and heading back around toward home. What was that all about…?

...maybe he’ll find out next week.

.oOo.

Guhhh, late as usual, lol - tired, so I'll keep this short. Pretty basic idea, and...not quite as fluffy as I'd like, but I guess it works! I think someone's going to enjoy Sasuke working for her all Summer~ Anyway, I gotta head to bed, so...thanks for reading!

#sasuhina #uchiha sasuke #hyūga hinata #uzumaki naruto #uchiha mikoto #uchiha fugaku #best years of your life [ au ]#365daysofsasuhina

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mel-is-sanonymous1994 · 5 years ago

Text

Exploit Found

Part 1 Part 2

A/N once again I am not an expert in anything. I did my best.

PART 2

NOVA’S POV

The Next Morning

Alarms suck. I groaned, stretched, and then walked into the bathroom. Turning on the speaker, I pressed play on my shower playlist, back to back queen. Once I had gone through my routine I got out dried off and got dressed. At Safety Net Cybersecurity there is a pretty strict dress code. I put on a button up baby blue blouse, a pair of khaki skinny jeans and a dark blue blazer. To finish off the outfit I curled my hair, put some light makeup on my face and a pair of heeled short boots. I took one last look in my full-length mirror. I looked ridiculous. I took some deep breaths and walked out of my apartment locking the door behind me. Driving in New York is basically impossible so I waited outside for a cab, which terrified me. As I waited I saw Elliot walk out of our building.

“Hey, Elliot!” I called waving. He glanced at me before walking towards me.

“Where you headed?” I asked trying to make small talk with my less than talkative neighbor.

“Work.” He said, hands still in his hoodie pockets and his eyes looking anywhere but at me.

“Cool me too, where do you work?” I questioned further.

“Safety Net Cybersecurity, I’m a tech.” He said.

“Woah, that’s crazy, I start there today, however, I'm not smart enough to be a tech, I'm basically a secretary kinda.” I babbled.

“That is crazy, well I gotta go.” He said politely attempting to leave the situation. I got an idea.

“Hey! Wait! Would you wanna take a cab with me? I know it sounds ridiculous but I've watched too many crime shows. I’ll pay.” I offered. He looked like he was gonna say no.

“Pretty please Elliot, I promise I won’t say anything to you the entire cab ride, plus it’s a free ride to work,” I begged. He caved.

“Fine,” he said as I hailed a cab. I opened the door for him to slide in. Once I got in I told him the address with a shaky voice. I kept my eyes on the driver as I tried to control my anxiety. I couldn’t bite my fingernails or play with my hair so I resorted to listing all of my family members in order over and over again in my head.

ELLIOT’S POV

We’ve only been in this cab for 5 minutes but I can tell Nova is on edge, she kept tapping her leg in some sort of rhythmic pattern, her eyes are firmly planted on the drivers back which I can tell is making him uncomfortable. Another two minutes had gone by and the driver had had enough.

“Miss if you don’t stop staring at me I’m kicking you out of my cab.” He yelled. She jumped.

“Hey, Nova, uh what made you decide to move to New York?” I asked attempting to distract her. It worked, now she was looking at me. I once again looked anywhere but her eyes.

“Um, personal reasons.” She said looking back at the driver. Crap. Think Elliot.

“Tell me about your family,” I said. She gave me a surprised look.

“I promised I wouldn’t talk.” She smirks slightly.

“If it will keep you distracted and keep us in this cab then go ahead.” I offered.

“I just met you yesterday, how do I know I can trust you with my family information.” She countered. The stalker, it’s made her more cautious and untrusting. I needed to think of a non-personal question. We drove past a bus with some sort of musical advertised on the side of it.

“What’s your favorite musical?” I asked.

“You know for someone who isn’t very comfortable with talking you sure do talk a lot.” She pointed out. I leaned closer to her to whisper in her ear.

“Listen, I know you are super anxious right now, the driver won’t kill us, unless you keep staring at him,” I said trying to help her. Krista (Elliot’s therapist) would have a field day with her.

“Fine.” She said making direct eye contact with me, I looked away.

“Then tell me, Elliot, tell me about your life.” She countered. I froze. I didn’t expect her to turn my questions on me.

“Nothing to it really,” I said shrugging, she was right, we just met.

“Wicked.” She blurted out now staring in her lap at her hands fidgeting.

“What?” I questioned thinking I missed something.

“My favorite musical, Wicked.” She said smiling at me.

“As for the family, and the reason I moved here questions, we are gonna have to wait until we’ve ridden the cab together for at least a month before I answer those questions.” She said nudging me. I flinched slightly at the touch but brushed it off pretty quickly.

“Sorry.” She said noticing my flinch.

“It’s fine. So are you saying that there will be more cab rides?” I asked. I found it slightly easy to talk to her, it felt like talking to Angela (best friend) or Darlene (sister).

“I mean, I have to get to work somehow and I don’t completely trust the subway just yet, if you don’t wanna ride the cab with me for free then I guess I can ride alone.” She said as she began scratching her palm with her opposite hand. I looked at her palm and noticed it was red and rough, must be a coping mechanism, something she does to keep her anxiety at bay. I sighed.

“I’ll ride with you,” I said.

“Thank you.” She said smiling and blushing. She now rubbed her palm with her thumb. I made a mental note to ask Krista about anxiety mechanisms.

“On one condition,” I said with a smirk of my own. She nodded.

“You promise to talk, it seems to distract you and I’m 90% sure our cab driver here almost kicked us out at the last red light,” I said in a whisper once again. We pulled up in front of the building. She pulled out her wallet. I stopped her and paid for the cab ride.

“But whatever will I talk about?” She asked with a smirk.

“Anything, I once had a friend who talked about TV shows, nonstop for months,” I said shrugging. She nodded as she apologized to the driver and thanked him for giving him an additional tip to the one I gave him. Once we got out he drove off.

“Ok, I promise, but be prepared I don’t shut up.” She said laughing nervously at herself. I shrugged once again.

“I’m a good listener,” I said.

“Hi welcome.” A receptionist greeted us at the door. Elliot showed his badge and then walked to the elevators. I gave a slight wave and he gave a polite smile. I took a deep breath and approached the front desk.

“Hello Ma’am, what can I do for you today?” She asked with a megawatt smile.

“Hi, I am here to see Mr. or Mrs. Brown of Safety Net, it’s my first day,” I said nervously.

“Perfect, ride the elevator to the 4th floor, walk into the main room off of the hall and all the way at the back is their offices, whichever one is in right now will get you started. I nodded and followed her instructions. I walked to the offices and saw only one occupied, Mr. Brown’s. I knocked and waited for the wave to enter.

“Yes?” he asked once I opened the door.

“I’m November Peterson, your new employee,” I said as clearly as I could.

“Ah yes, come sit.” He said pointing to the chair across from his desk. He stood to shake my hand and sat back down once I did.

“Welcome to Safety Net, I'll spare you the full backstory but my wife and I started this company only a couple months ago, after the E corp hack, the wife and I were left with nothing, no jobs, no home, and just when we were trying to start a family.” He said drifting off in thought. I cleared my throat.

“Anyway, once E corp had got back their system and the economy was restored my wife and I went to investors with the promise of opening up a company that is pretty hard to hack, we’ve employed the top tech’s in New York, we handle some of the biggest companies in New York's data, we may be just starting out but we already have over 50 companies in our care.” He proudly stated. I noticed the way his face lit up when he talked about his wife. He reminded me of a younger version of my Dad.

“I’m happy to be a part of that sir,” I said smiling. He smiled in return.

“My wife is currently at a doctors appointment otherwise I would take you over to introduce you, finally starting that family, anyway, if you follow me, I'll show you to your desk.” He said standing and opening the door for me.

“I’m sorry it isn’t more glamorous but this is the best we can do for you right now, you can personalize your desk however you’d like, feel free to help yourself to coffee or water in the break room just down the hall, your phone at your desk is set up with it’s own number and line, if reception receives a call for me or the wife and it’s not an urgent matter it will be directed to your phone, answer it, if we are in our office and it seems important or they will not take no for an answer you can transfer it to us by pressing line 3 or 4, if we are out of the office, take a message, or have them call back, use your own judgement, if they seem like assholes and won’t take no for an answer hang up, they will eventually call back anyway. Any questions so far?” he began my instructions as I looked over my desk. It was a half circle set directly in between the Brown’s offices. It was a clear glass top with a nice desktop and a phone. I shook my head and he continued.

“Ok so your main gig while here will be answering phones, but other than phone calls you will be in charge of inputting the simplified reports, the companies we protect each have a number of tech’s on their accounts, every day the companies demand reports, at 4:45 P.M the techs will send a simplified status of all of the accounts they monitored that day, all you have to do is copy and paste them into the program, just click on the company’s name and that will open a page where you will paste the tech lead’s simplified report press send and then do that for every company, it shouldn’t take you very long. Still following?” He asked. I nodded but was still worried I would forget something.

“For today I’ve asked Mr. Alderson to help you at the end of the day, he is our best tech, he oversees most of the tech leads, he doesn’t like the attention but the simplified reports go through him first, other than that you’ll just be sitting here and being an assistant for my wife and I, until the end of the day when you are inputting data. Sound good?” He asked with a smile.

“Yes, sir,” I said sitting in my desk chair. The desk and desk chair were higher than the other desks in the room so I could just about see the entire office. I saw rows of cubicles and heads buried in computers.

“You will have a company log in, your username is your last then first name, the password will automatically generate once you type in your username, we’ve set up the computer so the first time you turn it on it will only ask for your username, then it will send your cellphone a message containing your password that will self delete in 30 seconds to write it down or if you have a good memory then you are good, but the next time you log into your computer you will need that password, if you ever forget your password or for some reason it isn’t working then you can call Mr. Alderson, like I said he is our head tech, best employee.” I nodded.

“Oh and the last thing before I leave you to it, make sure you turn your computer off or log out before you leave your desk if you forget you won’t be in trouble but it’s how we make sure people stick to their desktops.” He said patting my back. I smiled and nodded.

“I’m just gonna stand here for a second while you log in so that I know you get your password.” He said. I turned the computer on and a screen popped up with the heading, Welcome to Safety Net. I clicked in the textbox that said username and typed it in.

Username: PetersonNovember

Once I had typed in the username another screen appeared asking for the password. I felt my phone vibrate and I saw the password. Mr. Brown looked away as I wrote down and typed in my password.

Password: 6683623771987NP

“Thank you for joining Safety Net.” The computer said in an automated voice.

“Perfect, ok well, I’ll leave you to it, if you have any questions or need me feel free to come ask otherwise there is a list of phone numbers next to your phone including mine and the wife’s office phone so feel free to call. You are gonna do great.” He said with one more encouraging pat on the back. I felt my phone vibrate once more. Once he walked away I looked at who it was.

Mommy: Hey honey, how is the first day going, we miss you, Mason and Max say hi, they miss their big sister.

Me: It’s going great, just started, it’s a lot but I got this, tell them I say hi, and I miss them more, also tell them that they can text me themselves lol

Mommy: You know the twins, they don’t wanna bother their sister, they think because you are 28 and living in New York you don’t have time for your 16-year-old siblings anymore.

Me: well that is just not true, I always have time for the little miracles, please tell them to text me whenever and for whatever reason, even if it’s just Mason telling me about her most recent attempt at a boyfriend or Max’s incessant need to try every single sport.

Mommy: will do, oh lord Max has moved on to hockey, poor boy.

Me: What happened to soccer?

Mommy: that’s a summer sport dear, and at the end of this year, Mason will be performing at Walleye, she is only going to be on a small stage but her little girl band has attracted quite a bit of attention here in town.

Me: OH MY GOSH, I will have to fly down to see my little sister kill it, but listen I gotta go I'll call you later when I get home to talk to all of you.

Mommy: Oh before I forget, your old house was broken into, James knows you moved, there is no way in hell he would know where since you are so far away but I just thought I'd let you know.

Me: Thank you. I’ll keep it in mind.

I locked my phone and set it down on my desk and took a deep breath, James is continuing to be the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life. I glanced at my computer and saw messages popping up in a company group chat, every single tech in the room had welcomed me to the company. I blushed and took another breath as my phone rang. So it begins.

“Hello, Safety Net,” I answered as cheerfully as I could. This job could either go really good or really horrible, being an assistant might seem easy at the moment but the data inputting, that doesn’t seem easy at all.

#elliot alderson x oc #elliot alderson #elliot alderson imagines #mr robot #rami malek

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kunoichi-ume · 6 years ago

Text

Dressed for the Occasion

@cinlat sent me several prompts from a list I cant find anymore so here is the first one from that round:

“Is my outfit too festive/not festive enough?” (Noara/Torian: Give our girl Holiday feels!)

The streets of Nar Shaddaa were even more lit up than normal as Torian made his way toward the space port. It was impressive that they could find anywhere to hang up more lights between the abundant neon signs and advertisements but between the orange and yellow signs for casinos and bars were green and red trees, golden stars and white snowflakes. It should have looked gaudy and overdone, but it had a charming effect on the grimy setting.

Torian had always enjoyed Life Day but he was especially looking forward to this year. It was the first year he would get to spend the holiday with Noara and to make it even more important, it was the first year she was going to get to experience it at all. It seemed so unfair to him; the Jedi deprived her of a family, of a happy childhood, even being able to express her emotions without feeling guilty about feeling them. But holidays? How were holidays something they took away from their people? Life Day was a special day to celebrate the diverse life across the galaxy and honor the fallen, how could the Jedi have an issue with that? Thinking about everything they took from her, and the way it still affected her today no matter how hard she tried not to show it, made him angry. He tried not to show it, anger outside of battle made Noara nervous because she didn’t understand it, but he couldn't help it. She deserved to be happy. He wanted to make her happy, so happy it made up for everything she had missed out on. That meant this first Life Day needed to be perfect.

He was planning on doing everything he could to make sure of it.

The first step was their dinner tonight, a holiday celebration with the soldiers that made up her family and a few close friends - mostly Mandos Fynta had introduced to the rest and he knew she wanted to look her best for the occasion. Torian had bought her a necklace, a fine silver chain with a single pendant of green and red crystals. He didn’t know much about jewelry, the women he had dated before Noara would sooner have a new blaster than a gemstone, but he thought she’d prefer this.

Personally he would rather have gotten her the blue pendant that was in the shop, it was almost as light and clear as her eyes, and he was still thinking about going back for it. But this one was Life Day colors and just a few days ago Noara had said she wished something in her wardrobe was properly festive for the party.

It wasn’t a full outfit, not like what she wore for Halloween - the black and red gown he still dreamed about - but it was something Torian hoped would make her less nervous about the unfamiliar event.

Torian didn’t pause before making his way up to the airlock of her ship. He had come and gone so often it almost felt like a second home to him and Noara had assured him he was welcome to come and go as he pleased - even if Cormac glared at him when he passed the galley on the way to Noara’s room and growled out that he better “keep the door open”.

The overprotective soldier still hadn’t quite forgiven him for the corruption of his adopted little sister. Torian was sure the man would try to kill him in earnest if he knew he details of what exactly went on between them behind closed doors. He waved the large man’s words off but had no intention of doing anything with Noara that needed privacy, at least not until after the party when there was more time.

Though if she decided a locked door was required far be it for him to protest.

As it was Noara’s door was already open when he reached it. Torian stopped just in the entryway at the sight of her lounging on her bed with a datapad. It wasn’t the way she was lying that stopped him in his tracks, reclining against the headboard with her legs folded to the side and giving him a rather nice view of her bottom, but her clothing. Tight green leggings under a matching skirt paired with a high necked sweater in shades of dark green and red.

He should have realized she wouldn’t need his help to dress up for the party, Fynta and Cormac had a way of talking Noara into spending the meager stipend the Jedi gave her on things for herself. Embarrassed by his assumption she would be unprepared for the night, he slipped the small box he had been holding back his pocket.

The movement drew Noara’s attention and she grinned at him. “Torian! I didn’t think I was going to see you until later,” she said, setting the pad aside and standing.

Instead of moving to meet her, Torian leaned against the doorway and watched her walk toward him. The outfit she procured hugged her figure, showing off every lean, toned curve as she moved. His heart sped up at the sight of her and he suddenly wished they didn’t have plans tonight. There was nothing he wanted more than to sweep her up into his arms and show her just how much he enjoyed her company.

Instead he waited to see what she would do when she reached him. It would kill poor Cormac to know how often Noara took the lead in the bedroom but Torian liked to let her have her way. It thrilled him how comfortable she was with him now compared to the skittishness of their first few months together.

Noara stepped up to him and slid her arms around his waist. She looked up at him and rose on her toes to tempt him into leaning down to meet her lips with a kiss. Torian smiled at the warmth of her mouth on his and, hands on her sides, pulled her tight against him. Her hip hit the box in his pocket, digging the corners painfully into both of them.

Pulling away, Noara’s eyes drifted down to his pants. “What do you have in there?

“Nothing,” he said quickly, stepping backward when she reached for his pocket.

“What are you hiding from me?” She grinned, darting forward.

Torian dodged her lunge, skirting past her and further into the room to put some distance between them. He turned around to face her just in time to be tackled to the floor. They went down in a pile of tangled limbs and laughter, finally coming to a stop with her straddling his waist and pressing his arms into the floor with the Force.

“Now what does the Mandalorian have in his pockets?” she asked, smiling smugly and leaning back to reaching for his pocket. As soon as he felt her pull the box out he bucked his hips to knock her off of him. Noara fell to the side with a surprised squeak, and the box went flying across the room. They watched it arc through the air and land near the foot of her bed.

They exchanged a look before both were scrambling across the floor. Noara pulled slightly ahead of him and Torian shoved her to the side with his shoulder. She fell to the side with a laugh as he reached out to grab the box. Just as his fingers were brushing the edge of the box it flew out of his grasp and toward Noara’s hand.

“Hah! I got it!” She cheered, grinning proudly and sitting up to examine her prize. Torian watched with bated breath as she opened the box, unsure how she was going to react to his presumptuous gesture.

The victory grin fell off her face when she saw the pendant. Red and green crystals, arranged to look like a snowblossom. “Oh Torian, it’s beautiful, but why-” Noara looked up at him and frowned, “is it for someone else?”

“What? No!” he gasped, moving across the room to kneel in front of her, shocked at her assumption. “There is no one else, you know that. I just thought,” Torian sighed and cupped her cheek, running his thumb across her scar, “I thought you might not have anything festive to wear to dinner but it seems I didn’t need to worry.”

Noara looked down at her outfit, to the necklace before smiling at him. “You for this for me? All because I felt under dressed the other day?”

Torian nodded before she lunged forward and landed in his lap. He grunted as she wound her arms tightly around his neck, hugging him tightly. His arms encircled her as soon as the surprise wore off. “Does this mean you like it?”

“Like it?” Noara pulled back to look at him, “of course I do. It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever had why wouldn’t I like it?”

He gave a half shrug. “Never seen you wear jewelry, wasn’t sure if you’d want it.”

“Never had any before,” she said before smiling softly. “I kinda like the idea of you giving me the first piece I own.”

“I kinda do too.” Torian picked up the box from where she had dropped it to throw herself into his lap, “can I help you put it on?”

“Yes please.”

He removed the necklace from the box and, undoing the clasp, leaned forward to reach around her and fasten it around her neck. Before he pulled back, she gave him a quick kiss.

“I love you Torian, you know that right?”

Torian pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I love you too.”

Noara beamed at him before looking down at the pendant. “How does it look? Is my outfit too festive? Not festive enough?”

Pulling her forward so she was straddling his lap properly Torian grinned. “You look good enough to eat,” he said before lowering his face to her neck. Noara’s laugh turned into a moan as he kissed and sucked on the sensitive skin below her ear. She buried one of her hands in his hair and closed her eyes, lost in the feel of his lips.

Her body was against his tight enough Torian knew she could feel his arousal against her thigh. His hand found the hem of her shirt and slipped under it, smoothing his way back up her spine and pulling her shirt up. She shifted, grinding against him and he groaned against her throat.

Torian was about to work on getting her shirt all the way off - he wanted to see the necklace he gave her nestled between her breasts - when a throat was cleared in the doorway behind them. Pulling away from her throat, he looked over his shoulder to see Cormac standing in the doorway with his arms folded across his massive chest.

“Did you forget why you have to keep the door open?” The soldier growled, disapproval evident in his tone.

Torian fought the urge to sigh or roll his eyes and was grateful when Noara saved him from having to respond to the upset soldier.

“Did you need something Balic?” Her voice was so causal it was as if she didn’t notice the glare the large man was sending her boyfriend.

Cormac’s attention shifted to the Jedi and his expression softened, all hostility gone. “It’s time to head to dinner, don’t want to be late for your first Life Day feast.”

Noara grinned, jumping to her feet and reaching down to pull Torian up as well. “We can’t be late, I don’t want to miss any of it.”

Torian smiled at her excitement. “Can’t have that,” he said, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and leading her toward the door. Leaning over he pressed a kiss to her temple as they walked. “Happy Life Day Noara.”

#swtor #Torian Cadera #Torian Cadera x Jedi knight #OC: Noara Starspark #Ship: Mando and Jedi #My writing #Life Day #christmas fic

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