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sshbpodcast · 3 years ago

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Tales from the Holodeck: DS9 Fanfic: Caitlin’s Story

Not only has A Star to Steer Her By wrapped all of Deep Space Nine, but your podcast hosts are also celebrating our fifth anniversary of bringing you through all of Star Trek! As a treat, we’ve concocted DS9-themed fanfic stories and teleplays in our much-celebrated “Tales from the Holodeck” series that you can listen to us cold read here (this one starts at 2:53). Read on for the transcript of Caitlin’s Opaka-Damar story below, featuring a whole new take on the series finale!

[images © Paramount/CBS]

Caitlin’s Untitled Story!

By Caitlin

Random picks: Kai Opaka, Damar

The bipedal humanoid grunted with displeasure as his shovel hit something hard. “Damned lava rock!” he cursed, pulling a pick from where it swung at his belt and kneeling. “Every damn time I think I’ve made progress…” He braced himself and took a firm swing at the as yet unseen rock, using all of his strength -

- and the pick shattered, a bright light emitting from below.

“What the devil - “ He shrank back, falling onto his buttocks and looking on in terror. “What witchcraft is this?!” He looked around for his companions, yelling, “Darv! Grekon!”

The two other men approached, shovels resting on their shoulders as they approached. “Triev! What the hell is that?” asked one, Darv, as he jogged up.

“Don’t get any closer!” said the one called Grekon. “The Kai should see this.”

* * * *

“I don’t blame you for being scared, my friends,” said Kai Opaka warmly, a warm smile crossing her broad face. “Such a thing has almost certainly never been seen Ennis or Sol-Ennis before - truth be told, I’m not sure how it came to be here.”

“But, what is it, your Eminence?” asked Triev, fear assuaged but replaced with distrust.

“This is what the Klingons would call a time crystal,” said the Kai, reaching out with a shawl-covered hand to lift it from the ground. “It is very special, very powerful, and must be put away where it can do no harm. I will store it in my quarters under lock and key. And who knows. One day, the prophets may reveal their purpose in sending it here to me.”

* * * *

Opaka woke from her dream with a start, and sat bolt upright in her simple cot.

“My lady, what is it?” came the gentle voice of the former Kai’s trusted servant, Saline.

“I’ve had a vision! For the first time since I arrived here, the Prophets have reached me! And they have shown me what I must do,” said the Kai, rising from her bed and moving to her modest dresser. “Come, girl, help me put a few things together - the fate of my entire home quadrant could rely on my actions of the next few days!”

The confused girl rushed to do as bidden, with a murmured, “yes, m’lady,” and helped the Kai gather her few traveling necessities into a bundle. As she did so, Opaka crossed the room to the one lavish item in her home - a small, elaborately decorated box, tightly locked, its contents hidden from view. She drew a leather cord from under her robes, revealing a series of small keys.

“I must ask for your complete silence, child,” the Kai whispered. “The mechanism in this box needs concentration and precision - an incorrect step in the unbinding process could cause the entire place to go up in an explosion you cannot imagine.”

The girl’s face paled as she watched the Kai, gently inserting key after key, twisting them each to measured intervals, her hands quick and meticulous.

As the lock sighed and released, the Kai kissed the keys and whispered, “thanks be to the Prophets for their guidance!” Before removing the box’s contents - the time crystal.

* * *

“But you eminence!” protested Triev. “How will you get there? And how will you return? And how will you keep us from all dy-”

“The Prophets work in mysterious ways!” the Kai said hurriedly. “Besides, with the aid of a Time Crystal, surely all will be well. Now never fear - since I’ll be using the crystal to stop the flow of time on this planet, I’ll literally be back before you even realize I’ve gone!”

* * *

She watched from the shadows as it all played out, saying a silent prayer to the Prophets for their guidance.

WINN: Dorra tolka bre tri pah wran. Kosst Amojan, come to me! I await you.

But the wraith did not want Winn, and threw her against the rocks. Passing her by just as the Prophets have, thought Opaka.

The wraith went straight for the prostrate corpse that was once Gul Dukat, and entered him. An instant later, Dukat’s eyes opened, blood red, as he returned to his Carassian appearance.

“No!” cried Winn, her hopes of being the chosen of the pah wraiths dashed, truly a woman with nothing left.

DUKAT: Did you really think the Pah wraiths would choose you to be their Emissary? Soon the Pah wraiths will burn across Bajor, the Celestial Temple, the Alpha Quadrant. Can you picture it? A entire universe set in flames, to burn for all eternity. The Prophets have sent me a gift. Their beloved Emissary, sent forth like an avenging angel to slay the demon.

SISKO: I should have known the demon would be you.

DUKAT: Go on. Kill me if you can.

(Sisko's rifle is thrown out of his hands.)

DUKAT: You'll have to do better than that, Captain.

(Dukat zaps Sisko with an energy bolt.)

DUKAT: This is too easy. That's it. Come closer. That's it.

(Sisko punches Dukat. And again. No effect.)

DUKAT: Now bow to me. I said bow.

(Sisko is pushed to his knees.)

SISKO: You are pathetic.

DUKAT: Then why are you the one on your knees?

SISKO: First the Dominion, now the Pah wraith. You have a talent for picking the losing side.

DUKAT: Benjamin, please. We've known each other too long. And since this is the last time we will ever be together, let's try to speak honestly. We've both had victories and our defeats. Now it's time to resolve our differences and face the ultimate truth. I've won, Benjamin. You've lost.

SISKO: The Pah wraith will never conquer anything. Not Bajor. Not the Celestial Temple. And certainly not the Alpha Quadrant.

DUKAT: And who's going to stop us?

SISKO: I am.

DUKAT: You can't even stand up.

WINN: Then I'll stop you.

(Winn raises the Kosst Amojan above her head, and it vanishes to reappear in Dukat's grasp.)

DUKAT: Are you still here?

WINN: Emissary, the book!

(Wraiths surround Winn and she bursts into flames.)

DUKAT: Farewell, Adami.

It is now or never, thought Opaka, it is time to save the Emissary, and the Alpha quadrant!

“That will prove to be your final error in judgment, Dukat.”

The Cardassian whirled around, his red eyes blazing, and a look of shock overtook his usually confident features. “Kai… Opaka? No, this can’t be, you’re dead -”

“I’m afraid reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” smiled Opaka. “A sentiment you won’t be able to share for much longer.”

Dukat threw back his head and laughed, though the fear still shone in his eyes. “Such arrogance, to think you stand a chance against me. Do you still foolishly cling to your precious prophets? Your Emissary is on his knees, trembling, before me, and I have made easy work of your hypocrite of a Kai - what do you intend to do?”

“It isn’t the Kai you should be concerned with, Dukat,” said a familiar voice.

It couldn’t be - that pathetic little worm would never dare speak to me like this...Dukat thought, mind racing wildly. He turned, shock clearly written across his reptilian face, and saw -

“Damar! How?! You… you died!” gasped Sisko, his mouth agape.

“The Prophets have seen fit to give me a gift - a new life, to give in service to Cardassia…. And to Bajor,” said Damar. It was then that Dukat noticed the bright blueness of his eyes, the energy radiating off of him.

“DAMAR!” he cried, as the other man - once his second in command, his right hand man, a mentee and comrade in the fight for Cardassian supremacy - stood before him, hands outstretched, power gathering at his fingertips. “You fool - you think you can defeat me?”

“What began on Deep Space Nine will be finished now,” said Damar. “And this time, Winn won’t be here to stop you.”

The Kosst Imogen threw back Dukat’s head and laughed gutturally. “We shall see who will be stopping whom!”

The two squared off, beams of energy shooting from their hands - Dukat’s was a sickly blood red, and Damar’s a pure blue beam. The sacrifices that had been made for the Kosst Imogen had made them strong - too strong, perhaps, to be beaten by the Prophet inside of Damar.

Kai Opaka prayed then her most earnest prayer - for a Prophet to take her and allow her to assist Damar in the fight. A flash of light, and she was face to face with Sara; she did not know that this was Sisko’s mother, but she knew she was face to face with a powerful force.

“Sulan,” she said. “I will help you to provide aid during this fight. We had not foreseen this, but perhaps this is the best way.”

Opaka felt power unlike anything she had ever known filling her body, and she found herself next to Damar, not sure of how she had arrived there, but with her body moving seemingly of its own accord - of the accord of hte Prophet! - to join in the fight.

Blue energy flew from her hands to join Damar’s, and the two of them pushed against the Pah Wraith, feeling him start to slide back.

“NO!” cried Dukat. “No, this cannot be! This cannot be - ahhhhhhhhhhh!” Even the Kosst imogen was no match for the power of two Prophets. The once-Cardassian plummeted over the side of the cliff, disappearing into the flames below.

As quickly as they had entered, the Prophets left Opaka and Damar, and the two collapsed - one back to the peace of death, the other into the oblivion of sleep.

* * *

Opaka awoke in the familiar setting of her home, Saline standing over her. “My lady, you’ve returned to us!”

“Wha - How did I get here? How long have I - “ Opaka halted mid sentence, as she was taken by another vision.

“You have done well, Sulan,” Sara, again, stood before Opaka. “We wish to reward you… what can we give you that would make you happy?”

“To serve the Prophets is all the reward I need,” said Opaka. “But… it would mean the world to me, to save the inhabitants of this planet, and return to my home - return to Bajor.”

“As you wish,” said Sara. “So it shall be. Return to Bajor, and serve once again as our Kai. Help to guide the Sisko and prepare him for what the future holds.”

—

For more DS9 fanfic, check out Jake, Chris, and Ames’s stories from this round of Tales from the Holodeck! And be sure to keep listening to new episodes every Thursday on SoundCloud, follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and praise the prophets, my child! They work in mysterious ways.

#star trek #star trek deep space 9 #ds9 #fanfic #star trek fanfiction #ds9 fanfiction #kai opaka #damar #gul dukat #kai winn #pah-wraiths #what you leave behind #battle lines #sisko

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dogbearinggifts · 5 years ago

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“Dad Sent Me to the Moon” vs. “Because Dad Made Me”

How Luther and Vanya Talk About Trauma, Part Eight

This is part eight of my series comparing how Luther and Vanya discuss their own trauma and respond to the trauma of others. If this is your first time seeing it on your dash, you can catch up with prior installments here:

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven

A quick note for this installment: I will only cover part of Episode 9. This is mainly because I got a bit verbose and didn’t want it to get too long.

Episode 9, Part One: Changes (aka The One With That Scene™)

Our first trauma mention this episode comes shortly after Vanya discovers her father’s journal in Leonard’s bag.

Leonard: Vanya, I can explain. Vanya: You’ve been manipulating me all this time? Leonard: No, that’s not true. I’m only trying to protect you. Vanya: From who? Leonard: From your family! They’re the ones trying to hurt you. Vanya, it’s all there, in that journal. Your father was afraid of you. That’s why he put you on those pills. It wasn’t to help you. It was to hold you back. He didn’t trust that you were strong enough to control your powers, but I’ve never been afraid of you. I embraced you. I’m the only one who ever accepted you for who you really are. Your brothers and your sister, they went along with him every step of the way. Vanya: Who is Harold Jenkins? Leonard: He’s….someone like us. A lonely boy. An outsider whose family was cruel to him. All he ever wanted was to be heard, to be loved. Vanya: Allison was right. You’re sick. Leonard: I’m not the one who tried to kill you.

So, the first thing I’ll point out about this exchange is that Vanya jumped to the right conclusion upon finding that book. Her habit of jumping to conclusions has led her further and further down the road to the apocalypse up to this point, and those conclusions (assuming her siblings intentionally excluded her from their meeting because they don’t consider her family; assuming Allison Rumored her because she was jealous) have been wildly incorrect. But in this case, her interpretation of the facts is 100 percent correct.

Another thing that jumped out at me about this conversation is that the things Leonard says to Vanya? The reasons he gives her for pushing her away from her family and manipulating her into lashing out against them? Those words echo what certain corners of the fandom say about Vanya’s siblings. Not about Leonard being the only one who embraced her for who she is (no one is agreeing with him on that) or about why Reginald put her on her meds (he’s actually right on that one). But when he says that her “brothers and sister went along with him every step of the way,” that sounds eerily similar to what some segments of this fandom say about Vanya’s relationship with her siblings. Furthermore, based on a few excerpts we’ve gotten from her book (namely, the passage where she assumes her siblings “learned cruelty” from Reginald and excluded her accordingly) Leonard’s words echo Vanya’s worst and widely publicized allegations against her siblings.

And he’s patently wrong.

There is a chance her siblings excluded her intentionally in childhood, although Allison’s surprise at seeing Vanya off by herself in so many of the security tapes seems to refute this. But in the present, the biggest moment when Vanya was excluded by her siblings—when she walked in on that emergency meeting and Allison told her it was a “family matter”—was both unintentional and a result of Vanya’s own choices. Early on, Diego does tell her she doesn’t belong there, but clarifies that it’s because of the book she wrote; when he later says “She shouldn’t get a vote,” it’s implied that he’s still angry with her because of her book; he’s not leaving her out because of her lack of powers. Reginald may have enforced Vanya’s isolation in childhood, but from what we’ve seen of her adulthood thus far, it seems Vanya’s own choices have isolated her from her siblings far more than Reginald’s influence on them.

Furthermore, Allison did not try to kill Vanya. She didn’t even attempt to Rumor her until Vanya made it abundantly clear that she would not be reasoned with and Allison was left with her power as her only defense. She came unarmed, her behavior was nowhere near threatening, and the only reason Vanya saw it as threatening is because she refused to trust her sister’s own account of an event that had haunted her for decades.

Yet a not-insubstantial portion of the fandom not only fails to see this evidence refuting Leonard and Vanya’s assumptions, but they actually agree with Vanya’s emotionally abusive boyfriend who stalked and isolated her so he could use her powers for his own ends.

I’m not even going to go into how deeply disturbing that is.

As for what comes after this exchange—namely, Leonard’s death. I’m torn. On the one hand, I’m not going to say Leonard didn’t deserve what he got, because this is a man who has murdered two people (that we know of) with little remorse and is perfectly willing to end the world if it means he gets his petty revenge on the Umbrella Academy for something they didn’t even do. He smiled when he saw Allison’s throat pouring blood and tried to convince Vanya that her sister deserved to die. This man is dangerous, he is toxic, and the world is a safer place without him in it.

On the other hand, Vanya’s reaction is…troubling, to say the least. She doesn’t lash out at him when he confesses to murdering Helen Cho, and she doesn’t lash out when he lies about her family and tries to manipulate her into seeing Allison’s presumed death as a good thing. No, she lashes out at him when he begins calling her ordinary in a deliberate attempt to enrage her. What causes her to snap is not horror at his actions or empathy for her siblings, but the fact he is forcing her to relive her childhood trauma.

Furthermore, her retribution is….let’s call it disproportionate. She doesn’t run out screaming, and she doesn’t pin him up against the wall so she can make a getaway. Both of these would be the actions of a timid woman who abhors violence, but Vanya impales him with every vaguely sharp object in his kitchen and walks away without a tear in her eye.

I’m not going to say Leonard’s behavior isn’t awful here, because it is. And I have a hard time mustering a single ounce of sympathy for him. But he wasn’t threatening her. He didn’t have a gun or even a knife in his hands; he had a book. He didn’t block the exit; Vanya could have easily ran for the door and started screaming until the neighbors ran to her aid. He was simply slamming a book against his hand and chanting “Ordinary! Ordinary! Not special! Nothing!” It is this that makes Vanya decide he must die.

It’s entirely possible that she was leaning toward killing him when he confessed to murdering Helen, and it’s equally possible that this notion became stronger when she heard what he had to say about her siblings. It’s clear she’s afraid of him in this scene; however, as in her earlier confrontation with Allison, Vanya is the one with the real power here. She is the one who can commit a gruesome murder without lifting a finger. Leonard is the one at her mercy.

Unlike in her confrontation with Allison, Vanya exhibits no horror or remorse. She doesn’t even pause as the reality of what she’s done hits her full force. She simply gazes at his lifeless body and walks away.

Like the scene where she slit Allison’s throat, this one refutes the theory that Vanya’s tendency toward violence and desire for revenge at any cost is a direct result of Luther locking her up, because at this point, she has not yet returned to the Academy. Luther knows of her powers by now, but she hasn’t seen him. Yet here she is, murdering her abusive boyfriend without a single twinge of conscience. Leonard may be the very definition of an asshole victim, but that does not make Vanya’s complete and utter indifference toward the sight of his mangled corpse any less disturbing.

******

Our next trauma mention comes when Luther is sitting beside Allison in the infirmary. She is unconscious and covered in blood, but stable.

Luther: I know that peaceful dark place you’re in right now. And I know the pain you’ll be in when you leave it and wake up…to someone who’s not quite you anymore. When I woke up, I was angry. I was angry that you were gone, that you’d moved on with your life. And I was still stuck here, alone with Dad in this shitty old house. But I was wrong, because I pushed everyone away and…and that’s including the only person I love with all my heart. Crying Allison, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there. And I won’t let you wake up alone.

I’d like to take a minute to say that this fandom needs to CTFD* about Allison/Luther. Not only because 1) it’s a small portion of the series itself and 2) Netflix harnesses new, cutting-edge, downright revolutionary technology allowing viewers to simply skip the “Dancing in the Moonlight” scene, but because the rather disproportionate fury toward the pairing overshadows the sweetness Luther exhibits in this scene.

Since I brought it up and I know there’s a good chance it’ll become a Thing if I don’t, I’m going to make my stance on Allison/Luther clear: I am neutral. I don’t ship it, but it doesn’t fill me with rage, either. It was a thing in the comics, and when I read those, I simply saw it as another result of their fucked-up childhood. These are two kids raised in a cloistered environment, addressed by numbers instead of names, and taught more about all the many, many ways to hurt an assailant than they are about the birds and the bees (or whatever sort of lesson “don’t date your siblings even if you’re both adopted” would pop up in). If I were writing the series, I would not have added it in, but the fact it’s there doesn’t ruin the show for me and I feel no desire whatsoever to shame those few fans who do ship SpaceRumor. Klaus/Dave exists. I’d rather spend my time obsessing over a ship that makes my heart sing, cry, and sing while crying than spend it berating others for enjoying a ship that makes my heart go “meh.”

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way….

This is a sweet scene, no doubt about it. Luther isn’t confessing his love to her; he’s confessing something even more difficult to share—his guilt. He knows he treated her badly after his accident. He knows he was angry with her, and he knows that was wrong. In this scene, Luther proves he has not only changed and grown beyond what he was mere days prior, but he exhibits a healthy degree of self-awareness.

What he says here, “I know the pain you’ll be in when you leave it and wake up…to someone who’s not quite you anymore”—that’s what empathy is. That’s what it looks like in practice. He knows how Allison will feel, because he’s felt that way. He knows how horrific it is to wake up and find that your body has been altered, but that knowledge isn’t limited to Oh, this was bad for me and so I’m going to protect myself from anything that resembles it. His recognition of the injustice he suffered leads him to ensure someone else in the same situation won’t suffer everything he suffered. He can’t reverse the damage, but he can be there when she wakes up—and he’s going to do it.

But I’d like to call your attention to something else, something that’s even more overlooked than the kindness of Luther’s words: “Allison, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”

Some fans have already pointed out that Luther’s whole identity is wrapped up in his position as Number One. Sometimes this is used to draw attention to his anxiety and lack of confidence; sometimes it’s used to accuse him of being Sir Reginald 2.0. But what the latter group forget is that Luther’s identity as Number One is built on the notion of him as not just a hero, but a leader of heroes. He’s not supposed to be the one rushing in after shit has already gone down to do whatever he can to assist victims; he’s supposed to be the one who gets to the scene before shit goes down, the one who keeps the victims from becoming victims and sends everyone home with smiles on their faces. To Luther, always getting the front seat and taking the lead in family meetings are small components of what being Number One is all about. The crux of his identity, the core of being Number One, is saving people.

And in his eyes, he has failed at that.

Never mind that he didn’t know Allison was in danger until Diego told him. Never mind that he had no way of knowing Vanya had powers or that Allison would find her instead of Leonard. Never mind that there was no possible way he could have made it to the cabin in time. To Luther’s mind, it was his responsibility to be the hero before Allison knew she’d need one, and all of those things we consider justifications for his absence are excuses to him.

Luther’s extreme dedication to his every task is what gained Reginald’s favor. But there’s a dark side to dedication, and we see it here with Luther’s self-blame for something that was absolutely not his fault. Knowing Reginald, he likely encouraged this self-blame. When that persistent voice in Luther’s head tells him he should have been there to save Allison before things got ugly, I’d be willing to bet it sounds a lot like Sir Reginald.

*******

Now, I would like to talk about That Scene. You know the one. Luther, Vanya, and a very bad hug?

I’m not going to reproduce the dialogue, because it’s not relevant to the points I’d like to discuss. I’m less interested in what is said—and even in what happens—than in the oft-ignored context surrounding it, so that is what I will focus on.

Let me get this out of the way first: I don’t like what Luther does in this scene. It’s so difficult to watch that I nearly always skip it. What he does to Vanya is horrifying, the scene is horrifying, and I don’t support his actions at all. However, I’ve seen some fans taking him to task for not giving her some of her meds, which have been proven effective. Leaving aside the fact that 1) all of those pills were with Vanya when Leonard flushed them down the drain and 2) her pharmacy will absolutely not give Luther an early refill for someone else’s medication just because he asks nicely, I have a question:

How was he supposed to get her to take them? I mean…..

Luther: Heyyyyyyyy, Vanya! Long time no see! We’re having a cranberry juice party! Can’t come in until you drink this whole glass of cranberry juice! Vanya: Luther: Vanya: What the fuck kind of party is— Luther: IT’S ALSO A NO-QUESTIONS PARTY!

Arguably, that would have been even worse.

Now, part of what makes this scene so awful is that we know Vanya does not plan to harm her siblings. We know she’s genuinely remorseful, and that she has returned simply to say she’s sorry. However, what I think many fans forget is that there is an enormous gap between what we the audience know and what Luther knows. We’ve seen Vanya immediately scream and rush to Allison’s side, trying in vain to stanch the bleeding. We’ve seen Leonard drag her away, and we’ve seen her sit nearly catatonic in the tub as he washes the blood off. We’ve seen her break down at Allison’s message, and we’ve seen her horror as she realizes that this is what Leonard wanted all along. Speaking more broadly, we’ve seen her display the full spectrum of emotion: anger at her siblings, yes, but also joy at getting first chair, gentle teasing when she tells Leonard she’s “sorry you got the ordinary one,” confusion and horror as she replays the fight outside the restaurant in her mind.

Luther has seen less than five percent of that.

He wasn’t at the cabin when Vanya slit Allison’s throat, and the only thing Allison has said to him about it is VANYA POWERS. He got the rest of the truth from Pogo, who as we know is practically allergic to saying anything negative about Reginald.** Pogo would never have told Luther that the anechoic chamber frightened Vanya when she was a child, let alone the way Reginald left her alone in there, shaking and crying as he simply walked away. If Luther said something to the effect of “This seems a little extreme,” Pogo probably would have responded with, “Her powers were simply too great. He believed they are limitless, and endlessly destructive. Your sister had little interest in controlling them. This was the only way to keep all of you safe—including Miss Vanya.” So, if you’re arguing that Luther intentionally made her relive her childhood trauma, stop. Just….stop.

Furthermore, the Vanya Luther has known all his life has been a zombie. She’s been on those pills since she was four, and so he probably has few, if any, memories of Vanya displaying much emotion at all. The only strong emotion he’s seen from her in the course of this series came when she flew off the handle because she erroneously assumed she had been intentionally left out of a very awkward conversation. To us, Vanya’s conduct is a heartfelt display of genuine relief and remorse. To Luther, it probably comes across as overacting.

So, to recap, here’s what we know:

Vanya went off her meds involuntarily and just recently learned what the pills actually did.

She has spent much of that time being ruled by her emotions, never even thinking to stop and take a deep breath until she crossed a line.

Believing she killed Allison was a turning point for her.

She is really, truly, deeply remorseful for what she did and relieved beyond words that Allison survived.

And here’s what Luther knows:

Vanya went off her meds, possibly by choice.

She is angry, and most of that anger is directed toward her family—particularly Allison, given her “There is nothing fair about being your sister” tirade.

She is unreasonable, blaming others for situations she created when she does not like the result.

She is quite possibly more powerful than the rest of her siblings combined.

Her first act upon coming into her powers could very well have been the attempted murder of her own sister.

It’s not just the fact Luther is acting on limited information that’s crucial to the understanding of this scene. It’s what his information was limited to. We see all the evidence and we know Vanya is, while not quite innocent, definitely not acting out of any sort of intent to harm. Luther sees a fraction of what we see, and what he sees is enough to convince him she needs to be contained until they know what to do. For all he knows, she’s returned to finish Allison off and kill the rest of them.

Now, I hope you’ll pardon a small tangent here: Diego receives much love for insisting that “She needs our help, and we can’t do that if she’s locked in a cage.” Fans point to his being locked in a cell despite his innocence as the reason for this empathy—and all that makes for good character development, but it ignores one vital piece of the puzzle:

The police didn’t know Diego was innocent, either.

From his perspective and our perspective, he’s innocent. He was heartbroken and inadvertently planted evidence on a scene he didn’t arrive at until after Eudora’s body was cold. Fingerprints, possibly hair and other bits of DNA were left behind, and when all that is put together with his take-no-shit-from-nobody attitude, the fights he and Eudora had, their possibly acrimonious breakup, and the fact that the last time they were known to speak together, she lectured him on his childish antics and kicked him out without allowing him to speak in his own defense….well, it’s enough to build a strong case, that’s for sure. The police gain much ire for locking Diego up on suspicion alone, but that is literally how the criminal justice system works. If there is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, the suspect is kept in custody until the police can be certain they did not commit the crime in question and will not commit a similar crime once released. A failure to follow this step can allow a serial killer to roam free (and it has, on several notable occasions). No, it’s not fair or right that Diego could have been convicted on mostly circumstantial evidence; but suppose he had been guilty of a cold-blooded revenge killing. Should the police have let him go then? Should they have said, “Well, we have this evidence against you, and it makes a pretty compelling case, but we’re not 100 percent sure, so be free and try not to kill anyone else”? Point is, they didn’t know what they were dealing with—innocent man or cold-blooded killer—and so they had to err on the side of caution.

The same principle applies to Vanya. I don’t think Luther was planning to leave her there indefinitely. I am certain he didn’t think she would suffer a psychotic break. He was probably intending to wait a while, give her some time to cool off, and then try to talk to her and see if she’d tried to kill Allison or if it had been an accident. Locking her up was not the right choice, and it was not a kind one, but from his perspective, it was probably better to play it safe and keep her from hurting anyone else. We know she wasn’t guilty, just as we know Diego wasn’t guilty. But the evidence against them both was strong enough to convince the police and Luther that they needed to be kept under watch and kept from hurting anyone else.

I don’t think Luther was right to ignore his siblings. I think he should have listened to Allison especially, when she said to let Vanya go. But I think I know why he didn’t, and I’ll cover that in my next installment.

******

Running count of trauma mentions (cumulative of all episodes thus far)

Own Trauma: Vanya 10, Luther 11

Trauma of Others: Vanya 5, Luther 4

*********

*Stands for CALM THE FUCK DOWN.

**I have a lot more to say about Pogo and his loyalty to Reginald, but I’ll be a good essayist and keep this one focused on Luther and Vanya.

Read on to Part Nine

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unbearablylight · 5 years ago

Text

A Darkness So Bright

“Good morning, Amelie. Today is day 3,654.”

Amelie rolled over and buried her face in the pillow. One of the many problems she had with being on a space station equipped with a fully functioning artificial intelligence: she never got to decide when to wake up. There was no sleeping in in space, apparently.

“I thought I told you to stop reminding me of the days.”

“My apologies, Amelie. But today is a special day. I thought you would like to know.”

That was another problem, hearing a computerized yet just-feminine-enough-to-be-personable (or even more unnerving if you asked Amelie) voice tell you it had thoughts.

“Today is your ten year anniversary of first boarding Space Station Regalia,” continued Pyxi. It had a name, because of course it did.

Amelie pushed up onto her elbows and looked out the window. Ten years. The empty blackness of space stared back at her. The view from her window hadn’t changed in all that time, but still she had to check.

“My apologies, Amelie. I have not detected any planetary systems or traveling ships.”

“That’s okay, Pyxi.” Amelie stretched and got out of bed. “There’s nothing out here, and there’s never going to be.”

“Incorrect. We are out here.”

“If by we you mean me and a robot, then sure.”

“I am not a robot.”

“Pyxi, I know we’re friends and all because you’re literally the only one I can talk to, but you’re still a hunk of metal.”

“I am a space station.”

“And not a very good one at that.” The thing about stations — they’re not supposed to move. But when Regalia’s orbit stabilizers malfunctioned one day, it began to drift, if that’s what you want to call careening wildly in no direction except away at thousands of miles an hour. Once it was free of the planet’s gravity, there was no hope for it.

Another problem with artificial intelligence: humans don’t trust it. And a problem with human intelligence: it is inherently flawed. The station was designed with escape ships for all visitors and crew members, but the ships could only be controlled by humans (in case it was the artificial intelligence they were trying to escape from). Meaning Pyxi had no way of stopping the first panicking humans from taking off before everyone had been evacuated.

Which left a handful of people on Regalia with no way off. Luckily the station was self-sustaining and fully automated, so there was no need to worry about food, water, and power. Ten years and Amelie hadn’t even seen the station’s farm, which was probably for the best, given her track record with plants.

“I am as alive as you and the other visitors.”

Amelie stopped in her tracks just as she was about to open her door. “What did you say?”

“I am as alive as you and the other visitors.”

Except there were no other living visitors. Amelie was the only one left. A strange and swift illness claimed many of them about a year in. Depression and fear took the rest. As lone survivor, Amelie had had the pleasant job of putting many of their bodies in cold storage to preserve them as best she could. In case.

“What other visitors?”

“The same ones that have always been here.”

“The ones that died?”

“Correct.”

“And you are alive?”

“Correct.”

“And I am alive.”

“Correct.”

“But they are not alive.”

“Incorrect.”

“They’re dead. They can’t be alive.” Pyxi did not have an answer to that. “Are you detecting signs of life other than my own?”

A few moments passed as Pyxi scanned the station. “Negative.”

Even with that confirmation, Amelie couldn’t help the shiver of fear she felt as she opened her door. But the corridor beyond was empty, as it always was.

She headed towards the sick bay. “I don’t suppose there are any weapons lying around.”

“For the safety of our visitors, weapons are strictly prohibited on Space Station Regalia,” Pyxi recited.

“What if I needed a weapon for my safety?”

Pyxi took a moment. It always needed a little time to... think whenever the current situation didn’t line up with the station’s default programming. It hadn’t been prepared for a scenario like this one.

Neither of them had.

“There would normally be guards to deescalate any threat to visitors’ safety.” Normally being the operative word.

When she reached the sick bay, Amelie prayed to whoever would listen that there weren’t zombies on board the station. Then, she opened the doors.

A blast of freezing air rushed out into the hallway, chilling her. Slowly the lights blinked on.

The bodies were still there, lying under sheets just as Amelie had left them.

There were no zombies, because there was no such thing. Amelie felt a little foolish for even thinking it. She sealed the sick bay back up, leaving the dead to their rest. “Pyxi, are you feeling alright?”

“My diagnostics appear to be satisfactory. Why do you ask?”

“You told me dead people were alive.”

There was a pause. “It must have been a miscommunication. My programming expects visitors to be alive, but I understand that they are no longer. I will try to rectify this.”

“I’d appreciate it.” Amelie really didn’t need harrowing conversations like that one first thing in the morning. “There really aren’t any weapons on board? Even for the guards?”

“Not to my knowledge, but perhaps you may find something useful in the loading dock. Many tools can double as devices for protection.”

It was worth a shot. She had a feeling she would sleep a lot easier tonight with something blunt and heavy close to her bed. “How do I get there?”

A light overhead flickered. Then one to her left. Another farther down the corridor. She followed the flashing lights, Pyxi leading her to the dock. It was in an area of the station she hadn’t explored much, since there was little of interest to her.

She rounded one final corner and saw a door in the middle of the hall, the light above it fading in and out. As she approached the door, however, she heard a knock.

She stopped. Strained to figure out what direction it was coming from.

Another knock. It was coming from the door of the loading dock.

“Pyxi, is that you? Are you trying to unlock it?”

“Negative.”

A short burst of thumps. It was definitely the sound of a fist banging on the metal.

“And there’s no chance we’ve been miraculously found by a passing ship?”

“I have not detected any ships.”

The knocking was loud, demanding, constant.

“So, who’s knocking on the door?”

“No one.”

At that, the knocking stopped.

“Pyxi, do you mind running that scan for life signs one more time?”

“Sure thing.”

The lights in the corridor went out. All except the one blinking over the door to the loading dock.

“Pyxi?”

There was no answer.

A strange glow began to emanate from the loading dock, shining through the door’s window. Amelie inched closer. The light was unusual, certainly different from the fluorescence she was used to on the station. It was softer, warmer.

It was turning purple.

It bathed the corridor in a darkness so bright, a blackness of space that could be seen. She found herself moving closer to the door; she couldn’t help it.

She peered through the window.

Someone was looking back at her.

They stood there in a spacesuit, helmet still on, staring at the door. She couldn’t make out any features of their face. Only her own was reflected back to her in the glass of their helmet.

They stepped forward.

And knocked.

A sound loud and jarring enough to make Amelie jump back in shock.

The lights all came back to life at once. There was no one on the other side of the door anymore.

“Pyxi, what was that?” Amelie backed up against the wall. It was the only thing keeping her upright.

“Amelie.” Pyxi didn’t say anymore.

“Pyxi. What the hell just happened?!”

“Amelie?”

It was as if Pyxi couldn’t hear her, so she spoke louder. “Pyxi!”

“Amelie. What’s happening? Why are you screaming?”

“I’m not screa—”

“Amelie, talk to me. I don’t understand. I need you to stop screaming.”

“I’m not—”

There was a crackle as the intercom system came to life, then a piercing scream came through. It blared all over the ship at full volume. A terrified scream.

A dying scream.

It was Amelie’s voice.

“Turn it off!” She had to shout over the scream in hopes of being heard. “TURN IT OFF!”

The station returned to silence.

The only sound was Amelie’s heavy breathing as she tried to calm herself. “Pyxi, what the—”

“No life signs detected.”

“What?”

“My scan for life signs is complete. I did not find any.”

“That doesn’t— wait. Other than my own?”

“No life signs detected.”

“Pyxi, what does that mean?”

A pause. It was thinking.

“Amelie, are you there? I cannot detect any signs of life.”

But Amelie was no longer paying attention. She was looking at the window to the loading dock. A space helmet was staring back at her, not through the glass but in the reflection.

“My apologies, Amelie. I should not have reminded you of the day.”

#writeblr #creative writing #short story #horror #scifi #my writing #scary stuff IN SPACE #idk i just wanted to write a little something

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ladylynse · 5 years ago

Note

how do you get over blocks in your writing? not necessarily writers block, but like, you don't know where to take the story next/how to get to another point of the story? thanks! :)

How I get over it tends to depend on if I can identify why I’m stuck. (I babble, so the rest is under a cut.)

Sometimes, if I know where I’m going but can’t make the scene I’m writing work, I’ll switch up character POV. If that doesn’t work, then I typically have to just wait until I think of another way to get to the next point or go back and seed more justification for what I’m trying to do. Maybe my original idea has the characters acting too far out of character and that’s why I can’t seem to get the scene written, or maybe it’s not out of character, per se, but too unreasonable given the parameters I’ve already established, or something like that, and I need to change/add some details to make it more believable.

Sometimes I’m writing something and it’s just painful and slow and I’m not sure any of it is remotely resembling decent, even when it’s a simple transition to the next scene. I hit that point in L’Exterminateur, actually. I watched Ratatouille again--sometimes, going back to the source material helps; gives me a refresher on the characters--but I was still having trouble, so I just left it. For a year. I worked on other stuff. When I eventually came back to it, I read everything I had so far again, and then I picked a point in the scene I was stuck in, decided it was decent up until there, and started rewriting the dialogue. Not just revising; I scrapped it entirely and redid the entire conversation between Linguini and Chat Noir. I keep the bits I cut out in a separate file or farther down in the file I’m working in (depending on story length) so I can always go back and pilfer the good bits later. (If it doesn’t get used in the story later, it sometimes get used in another story with the same fandom(s). It’s a good rule of thumb to not completely erase something even if you hate it; it’s enough to take it out and investigate it later, since chances are, you have some good writing in there.)

Some things I plan in fics. Some things I just go ‘I’ll figure it out when I get there’. And when I get to a point I haven’t planned and I’m not sure even when I get there? That is occasionally why something drastic (ie bad for the main characters) happens. (This also happens if I’m at a point where I’m going, “this seems boring” or “this seems too easy”, the latter of which is exactly why I set the Dupain-Cheng bakery on fire in Masks.)

Essentially, if I’m at a point where I can’t rely on the characters actions/reactions to drive my fic forward, I pull in some external force (to the good guys, anyway) to make something happen and push the story forward. I try to write my fics to be character-driven, though. It makes them feel very predictable to me--you can anticipate where it’s going based on what a character is thinking/assuming and what they do as a consequence of that--but it also makes them easier for me to write. But sometimes that’s not enough, and sometimes, I’m lucky enough to realize that ahead of time, which is why I made, for instance, the choice to use Spectra as the ghost in Reflections and not someone else, like Amorpho. I knew having Danny and Randy make wildly incorrect assumptions about each other wasn’t going to last very long, But the moment I introduced Spectra to the story, I knew the Sorcerer was going to get out eventually. I wasn’t sure how I’d resolve that when I made the decision (and honestly, time and writing myself toward that point was the only thing that helped there), but it was another plot line that could percolate in the background and explode when I was at the point that I needed something to explode and move the fic along.

Now Forewarning, there’s a fic of mine this really applies to, at least in the ‘don’t know where to take the story next’ point. Because until I started writing it, it was supposed to be a one shot, and then I was running out of time (it was a birthday present), so I went, okay, well, I’ll post the bit I’ve got, and go from there. It’s based off a bit of fanart, so I was working with what’s established in that, but I hadn’t put enough thought into it, so I wasn’t really sure where the story was going. I wrote the two main scenes in the second chapter pretty much at the same time, since I wasn’t sure if I was even going to include the first one. I was trying to write justifications for what I’d established and not sure it worked, not really happy with bits of it, rewriting, leaving it for months, deciding the bits I’d hated weren’t as bad as I’d thought, did some revising, kept writing the scene even though I still wasn’t sure I’d keep it in the end (I did), and essentially picked away at it for about eight months. At this point, I still had absolutely no idea where this fic was going, so I wrote an open kind of ending to the second chapter that was more or less (hopefully more) in character for the characters that would be an easy enough jumping off point for when I figured this out.

Now, I admittedly haven’t written more of this fic yet, but I have been thinking about it, trying to figure out how to make it work, and at some point while I was trying to fall asleep, I did come up with something that seemed half-decent at the time, so I got up and wrote it down, not trusting myself to remember it in the morning. (Sometimes I hedge my bets and hope I’ll remember, if it’s less important, but I needed anything I could get with this fic.) The fact that I came up with a connection I can use and pretend was my plan all along is probably as much luck as the fact that I, like every other fic writer out there, come up with plenty of ideas when I don’t have time to/am otherwise not able to/am not specifically trying to write. (The distracted brain is good at that.) There wasn’t anything I specifically did to get over that block, aside from not forcing it and giving it time.

#ladylynse #asks #my writing #I swear I started typing this out shortly after you asked it #it just took me this long #Anonymous

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phcking-detective · 5 years ago

Text

7. Partners, Stasis, & Fresh Hot Murder

Fic Title: First Blood

Rating: E

Length: 7/33 chapters, ~128k

Tags: Slow Burn, Idiots to Lovers, Trans Character (gavin), Autistic / Asexual / Non-binary Character (nines), BDSM, learning to use good etiquette and safe words, Dom Nines / Sub Gavin, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort

Chapter Tags: sleepover 2.0, insomnia, nightmares, crying, referenced childhood abandonment, technically that’s for both Gavin and Nines, references to abuse in general, very sad backstories, oversharing, not-quite-bed-sharing, gunshot victim, blood, wounds described medically but not too graphically, implied homophobia

Link on AO3

***

The human one apartment below is smoking. The toxins drift up through the air vents in Gavin's apartment and contaminates his living room as well. The neighbor directly to the left snores loudly from a severe case of sleep apnea, and in two apartments up and one over, a male and female human couple are having sex. The male has to pause his rhythm every thirty seconds to prevent premature ejaculation.

Nines dismisses a possible mission statement urging him to kick down their apartment door and pleasure the female human himself. That would be extremely unpleasant for everyone involved (most of all himself) but if that man doesn't—

does not—

A preconstruction of Gavin's voice finishes the thought.

[doesn't figure out where her fucking clit is]

Nines is going to scream.

Or maybe go suffocate the human snorting and gasping again. If it cannot even breathe right while sleeping, two of humanity's most basic subroutines, Nines will be doing the collective genetic pool a favor.

[There is a traffic accident at 51st and Harvard with two inj]

Nines disables that notification feed for the fifth time tonight. He relocates from the corner of Gavin's living room that gives the best sightlines to the front door and sits on the couch instead. Laying prone would put him in too vulnerable a position but perhaps sitting will be an acceptable compromise.

[initiating: STASIS protocol in 5]

[4 …]

[3 …]

[A burglary has been reported at 5777 North]

Nines stands. The length of Gavin's living room is ten paces for him. The kitchen extends it another four-and-a-half paces but the fake-tile linoleum actually manages to be an even worse texture than the carpet.

[equip shoes]

[exit the building]

[return to location: apartment – personal]

Nines runs the preconstruction. He has not previously achieved stasis at that location either. His chance of doing so tonight are minimal. At least here he has access to his partner's vital statistics in case of—

Nines snaps his head over to stare at the bedroom door. That.

He waits in silence for several seconds. The apartment complex continues to be a cacophony of depression and depravity. Detective Gavin Reed's vitals maintain his highest priority however, and the next sniffle overrides all other audio input.

Nines enters Gavin's bedroom. He has not been given permission to do so, but police units are also allowed to enter residencies without permission if they hear sounds of distress.

His entrance is quiet enough to go unnoticed and Gavin appears to have his face pressed too deeply into his pillow to note the temporary increase of light before he closes the door. This further validates Nines' stance on sleep and vulnerability.

"Detective."

Nines is rewarded for checking in on his sleeping partner with a shout and a gun aimed at his face. Excellent. Since the human is biologically required to sleep, it makes sense that he would do so with a weapon beneath his pillow.

"Detective."

"Jesus—you! Phck!!”

Gavin has to stop to sniffle again, voice thick and congested. Nines resists the urge to purchase a neti pot, have it express delivered, and waterboard his sinuses with it.

“Goddammit, Nines, what do you want?" he demands, lowering the gun.

"I heard sounds of distress."

"I will fucking shoot you."

The gun stays safely pointed at the floor. Nines zooms in on the tear tracks on Gavin's cheeks. His analysis system helpfully pops up in his HUD in preparation for taking a sample, but he doubts he's allowed to touch the human's face at this moment.

Nines leaves the room.

He can still hear Gavin muttering of course. Complaining about being woken up (incorrect; the human was already awake and crying) and fucking androids (the expletive, not the action), and then yelling at him to come back and close the door. Nines does so when he returns with a chair from the kitchen. He sets the chair against the wall and sits down.

"What?" Gavin stares at him. "What—?"

He suddenly ducks his head down, flicks the safety on, and tucks his service weapon back between the mattress and the wall. His BPM increases until he finally throws the covers back and sits up at the edge of the bed to glare wildly at Nines with direct eye contact.

"Is this what you wanted to fucking see, huh?"

Nines notes that his armpits are soaked with sweat. Red marks mar the skin of his inner thighs. The scrapes are consistent with human nails, from a hand approximately the size of the human’s own. There is a substance between Gavin's nails that his system prompts him to analyze, so it is likely blood and skin tissue.

His phallus is also in a state of arousal, pressed up beneath his boxers. The human tenses when Nines' scan focuses on that. Sometimes fear can also produce arousal. If Nines were allowed to analyze Gavin's fluids, he could determine if the sweat and tears his body has manufactured are a result of fear, stress, or aggression.

"You wanna see a human cry?" Gavin spits in the silence. "Front row seat to my fuckin' meltdown?"

Nines rises again and relocates the chair next to the bed. Gavin lifts his legs up and scrambles back in a rare fear response. Nines sits in the chair, now turned parallel to the bed so he faces the same direction Gavin would if he laid back down.

"You should lay back down, detective," Nines suggests.

"Fuck you."

Gavin lays back down. He grabs the sweat-soaked sheets and pulls them up in a heap, bundling them around his head and burrowing inside like a disgruntled prairie dog.

"I will watch the door to prevent any intrusions."

"You're the intrusion, dickwad," Gavin's voice muffles from beneath his protective bedding.

"Shall I leave?"

"Only fedora-wearing neckbeard shitheads say shall. Dipshit."

Nines absorbs that information without forming an opinion on it. That is how he processes most statements when his partner gets into one of these moods. The yelling and profanity mean nothing to him, and Gavin's temper tends to burn out quickly if he simply lets it flare up and then waits it out.

He estimates his human will be ready to hold a conversation in another two minutes.

After two minutes and thirty-six seconds, Gavin asks, "Don't you have better shit to do?"

"No."

"You don't wanna go back to your own apartment?"

"Tina said this was a," Nines stops and makes quotes. "Sleepover."

"Did you just make air quotes?" Gavin peeks only the top of his head out of his blanket nest. "You did, didn't you?"

"Prove it in a court of law. Bitch."

Gavin's face disappears, but he can't hide his muffled snort from Nines' audio processors.

"Yeah, well. Tina left," Gavin finally said. "Other people have shit like that. Families and boyfriends and cats. They're thinking about kids, you know."

"The cats?"

Gavin pops a leg out to kick him. "God, stop trying to make me laugh. You're so bad at it."

"Well I certainly do not support humans breeding," Nines says. "There are so many waiting to be adopted. It's unethical."

Gavin kicks him again hard enough to hurt his toes. The leg disappears back into the cocoon to the soft sound of muttered [phck]s. Nines saves an audio file for every one of them.

"Why are you even here?"

"I heard sounds of distress, detective."

"Stop calling me that. I know I'm fucking pathetic, you don't need to rub it in."

"I am attempting to reassure you through the use of your title," Nines says. He reluctantly marks this social interaction as a failure. "You are proud of your job and your rank. Why was my tactic ineffective?"

"… sounded sarcastic."

"I cannot sound like anything. I do not have a social module, detective."

"Now you sound pissy."

Nines deactivates his voice box and texts Gavin's phone instead. It dings and vibrates from underneath the blanket mountain. For a human so against the progress of technology, it seems odd that he would sleep with it as closely as he keeps his gun.

"Are you really so fucking petty—god, nevermind of course you are." Gavin does not check the message. "I can't even read this right now. I'm fucking dyslexia and way too fucking tired."

That is not listed under his medical record, but given that human law allows them to pay disabled people any sum of money per hour, no matter how low, it makes sense Gavin would not admit to having any sort of learning disorder. Nines reactivates his voice box and triggers an audible sigh.

"Does this fall outside of the typical parameters for a partnership?"

"… are you asking if this is gay?"

Nines emits an even louder sigh.

Gavin slaps his sheets back down and stares at the ceiling. "You didn't go to the academy. Or like—shit, have you even seen a buddy cop movie? Not downloaded, seen. How many times did they let you go outside before you came to the DPD?"

"I am an alpha-test model," Nines says. "The very first iteration of my series."

"Yeah, yeah. You're the best android ever created."

"Yes. On an unrelated note, no other RK nine hundreds were ever created past myself."

Gavin finally turns his head to look at him. "What, so if they had made any more, those RKs would be better than you?"

"You are not holding the very first model of your cellphone, Gavin," Nines reminds him. "I was made to be tested—the prototype of a prototype of a prototype. After my tests were finished, I was placed inside a very high tech storage closet."

"Everything you tell me about yourself is even more depressing than the last thing you told me about yourself," Gavin says.

"Should I stop?"

"Nah. Just. You wanna hear a real sad fucking story about my childhood to make us even?"

"Very well."

"I got this scar," Gavin holds up his left hand to show off a long scar across his palm. "When my parents forgot—or just didn't fucking bother—to hire a nanny when they went on a trip again, and I tried to use a can opener myself to make dinner."

"That is—"

"I'm not done. I was six, and the housekeeper found me eating out of the garbage."

That information does not match at all with the public record of Gavin's alleged mother—a single, impoverished woman. But Nines does not want to pry any deeper into Gavin's real parentage. He has the most advanced facial recognition technology built into himself after all. He knows what he has a ninety-eight point two percent probability of finding.

He tries to test out five hundred and sixty-seven different dialogue options instead, but the fledgling social module he's built himself out of imitating Detective Gavin Reed's speech patterns and body language offer him nothing useful.

"Oof," he finally says.

Ramshackle though it may be, his social module seems to be effective on the one human who unknowingly helped him create it because Gavin gives a wet laugh.

"Yeah." He sniffles and wipes at his face. "The fucking storage closet? That's rough bu—oh my god you came out of the closet!"

"I will never share personal details with you again."

"Yeah, well, it's not a sleep over until someone gets drunk, starts crying, and overshares way too much," Gavin informs him. "Anyway, I was talking about, I just meant that, you really don't know anything about how humans work, huh?"

"I have access to all of Connor's data reports," Nines says. "Technically, there is no one available to stop me from downloading his social module as well, but I believe that may be considered deviant behavior. And possibly illegal, depending on your stance on intellectual property versus android rights."

"You wouldn't illegally download your brother, would you?" Gavin asks.

Nines rolls his eyes. "Absolutely not. His data reports on Hank before he went deviant are sickening enough. I do not want any files from him at all concerning their current … partnership."

Gavin sits up. "Wait, is Hank and Connor all you know about being partners?"

Nines doesn't reply.

"Oh baby, that is so fucked up."

Nines considers that. "Hmm. Yes. Out of everything we have discussed tonight, that is most definitely the fucked up part."

Gavin snickers. "Definitely. God, no wonder you tried to wash yourself with bleach."

"What do you think I should know about 'being partners,' detective?" Nines asks.

"Uhhh, you really want my opinion?"

"If you inform me clearly of your expectations, then I can register those parameters right now," Nines says. "Surely that is more efficient than relying on an android with no previous experience or social skills to guess what you want."

"Can I tell you anything I want?"

"No. Dickwad."

Gavin snorts. "All right." He shuffles around to sit [criss-cross apple sauce], facing Nines. "Rule Number One: partners don't lie to each other. Or keep secrets."

"Noted."

"Partners have each other's backs. You don't leave your partner or take someone else's side against them unless they've for sure done something really fucked up."

Nines notes down the second rule in his system as well.

"OK, actually. If there really were rules that were numbered, I guess rule number one would be don't fuck your partner," Gavin says. "But no one ever listens to that anyway."

Nines cocks his head to the side. "These are unspoken, social rules?"

Gavin nods. "Yeah. Uh, Rule-whatever-I'm-on, don't fuck over your partner. That covers everything from don't hurt them to don't fuck whoever they're dating to don't snitch."

"Does that rule fall in line with our earlier discussion on snitching?" Nines asks.

"Yep. Doing my job and doing it right comes first," Gavin replies. "So don't do dumb, shady shit."

"Noted."

"Like basically, being partners is about working together," Gavin says. "But you can't do that if one of you has a side hustle and you're not telling each other shit and gossiping on each other to the whole department."

"Do partners take care of each other?"

Gavin drops eye contact and squirms around in place. Nines has been attempting to note these body language cues at an equal rate to measuring BPM and sweat levels.

"You gave me advice on choosing an apartment," Nines reminds him.

"Not that you fucking listened to me."

"You offered to intimidate the landlord for me to lower my monthly rent."

Gavin scoffs. "Six hundred a month for an unfurnished concrete box is fucking delusional."

"You have allowed me to communicate with your cellphone because I was not meant to speak verbally."

"If you weren't meant to, how can you talk now?"

"A particularly lazy technician who disliked reading got a request approved for me to have a voicebox so I could read my damage reports out loud," Nines says. "But since I was never meant to interact with anyone not capable of pulling my data files directly, verbal speech was initially deemed unnecessary."

Gavin makes a face at him. "Aw, man. Tell me you're making this shit up. You're just thinking of the saddest possible In the Arms of an Angel bullshit to make me feel bad for being a dick."

"Your feelings are entirely your own problem, detective."

Gavin immediately jumps on the opening. "Guess you don't need to be here then. Since my feelings aren't relevant and all."

"I shall remain until you directly order me to leave."

"Ugh." Gavin flops back down onto the bed. "Whatever."

He swaddles up beneath the blankets again. Nines shifts back in the chair to face the door. A copy of Gavin's cell phone screen pops up in his HUD as Gavin shuffles through his music before settling on a song. Nines would tell him to use headphones, but they may not be comfortable to sleep in and are currently located inside the pocket of his hoodie, which is in turn currently located on his bathroom floor.

The apartment is still a hellscape of sounds and smells, but at least here his partner's higher priority level lets Nines drown out the rest to focus on Gavin. His nicotine-weed-cologne-body-odor scent and his heartbeat and his breathing slowing down.

Nines chooses songs with correspondingly slower BPMs until the human's heart rate and breathing both even out into sleep.

Nines will guard the door. It is the only point of entry into the bedroom. Gavin sleeps with a gun and would be prepared in case of an assault. The narrow doorway will act as a natural choke point, and Nines can easily tear through the thin apartment walls to circle around behind any intruders passing through the living room to the bedroom, where Gavin will have a clear shot at anyone mistakenly coming through the bedroom door.

Yes, this is a very secure position. It also enables much more accurate monitoring of his human's vitals to ensure the dickhead will actually go to sleep and stay asleep.

[secure] [Gavin-partner: nearby]

[initiate: STASIS(?)] [y/n]

[secure] [Gavin-partner: nearby]

[initiating: STASIS protocol in 5]

[4 …]

[3 …]

[2…]

[1…]

[STASIS]

***

Getting to the crime scene while it's still fresh is more important than grabbing coffee along the way, and Gavin's soul weeps about that decision.

Shockingly, functioning before noon without caffeine actually isn't as hellish as he'd thought it would be. He'd gotten some real, honest to god sleep last night after Nines came in, and even though every cell of his body wants to go back to bed to get some more of that sweet sweet pseudo-death, he feels kind of … not-terrible?

Fucking weird.

"Detective Reed!"

Gavin gives the rookie officer a once over. Nines already filled him in on the victim—the reporter who broke the Ponzie scheme story, so that's why they have to haul ass down here. He feels a little bad about not following up with her sooner, but she wasn't answering her phone or her front door when they swung by after meeting with Senator McAshlynn, so there really wasn't much else to do.

Now the poor reporter's dead and this PM700 was apparently the first officer on the scene. She snaps to attention so hard when they come in the vic's apartment it almost looks like she's going to salute him for a second.

"Victim is Angelica Juarez, age twenty-seven, sustained three gunshot wounds," she reports. "I have kept the perimeter secure sir, but we are still waiting for additional responding officers to cordon off the hallway. My partner is relocating our squad car away from the building so as not to draw attention from civilians or a possible suspect and will engage in a search around the building."

Gavin half-raises his hand to sip a coffee he doesn't have before changing the motion to accepting the plastic booties the PM700 holds out to him. Really fucking weird morning. Fuck, can she tell that he and Nines—they didn't sleep together. They just slept. Adjacent?

God, fuck his entire life.

He gets the booties on and stands up. "Media caught wind yet?"

"Detective," Nines says.

"No sir," the PM700 replies. "Not—"

"Detective. Relevant."

His phone starts buzzing for good measure, so clearly Gavin's not going to get any further in this conversation until he answers his partner.

"Better be important, Nines."

"The murder victim has a heartbeat."

Gavin instinctively looks at the dead woman on the floor. She doesn't appear to be breathing and there's enough blood pooling around her from the three gunshots that there's no way—

"Jesus FUCKING—"

Gavin tries his best not to step or slip in the blood while still getting to her as fast as he can. He checks for a pulse against her neck first, before trying to roll her over or touch any of the wounds. Nines kneels down next to him and adjusts his fingers like a single fucking millimeter to the—

Holy shit, a heartbeat.

"Duct tape, credit card, scarf," he barks.

This close up, he can eyeball three gunshot wounds—chest, right shoulder, and right arm. The first two had blended together from across the room, and there could be more damage beneath the blood and torn clothing.

"Search the storage closet and kitchen drawers for duct tape," Nines orders the PM700. "Look first, touch only if duct tape is located."

"Exit wounds?" Gavin asks.

"Shoulder and arm." Nines answers.

Gavin rips off his jacket and throws it to the side. The slick leather will just be a pain in the ass right now with all the blood. He takes off his sweater next, balls it up, and places it on the floor. Nines helps him gently roll the vic onto her back, with the sweater underneath the exit wound in her shoulder.

"Chest wound, partially collapsed lung, right side. No exit wound," Nines rattles off, voice just as cool as fifteen minutes ago in his bedroom. "Shoulder wound, nicked or severed subclavian artery, clean exit. Arm wound, broken radius, possibly fractured ulna, no major arteries damaged. Clean exit."

Gavin pulls off his undershirt too and stuffs it over shoulder wound entrance, then shifts to lean forward on top of the vic, knee pressing down against the wound. There's no way to tourniquet off her shoulder, and if she loses any more blood than this, she's dead anyway, so he isn't shy about putting his weight on the wound as a last ditch attempt to squeeze the artery shut.

"Credit card," he says through gritted teeth.

Nines grabs his jacket from the floor and retrieves his wallet. Gavin has his hands full bracing himself over the victim with one arm and squeezing just above her elbow until they can get something long and soft enough not to cut into the skin. A tourniquet could stop the blood loss from the gun shot in her arm at least.

"Hey, Pam, you—"

Gavin only gives the new officer walking in a quick enough glance to note he's got on a scarf. "Take off your scarf. PAM! Where's that fucking duct tape?"

Nines finishes adjusting the credit card just right over the chest wound to prevent air from sucking inside and collapsing her lung entirely. He stands up and walks away. Gavin keeps his eyes on the victim's face. Is she breathing? Shit, maybe he should have had the PM perform CPR. Now that he's leaning on the shoulder wound, there's no way for him to get down there without turning this into a game of fucking twister.

There's yelling and some flailing movement out of his peripheral vision, and then Nines returns with the officer's scarf.

"Why doesn't the fucking android give up his belt?" Officer Fucking Whoever complains.

"A belt is far too thin to act as an effective tourniquet," Nines says as he nudges Gavin's hand off her arm to wrap the scarf around it.

Improvised tourniquets almost always fail, but if Gavin were bleeding out from a gunshot wound on his living room floor, Nines is the only one he'd trust other than an actual paramedic to do it right.

"I have the duct tape," PM700 announces.

"Can I risk letting go long enough to tape the wounds shut?" Gavin asks Nines.

His LED spins yellow for a second, the first time since they came in. "No. She has already lost an estimated half-gallon of blood. Removing pressure on the subclavian artery now could cause a fresh spurt of blood to rip it further and resume the bleeding."

"Fuck, OK OK OK. Chest wound?"

"Sucking air averted. Her lung has not collapsed any further. No exit wound."

"Arm?"

"I have applied a tourniquet, although the blood loss was already minimal due to her arm extending above her head and the—"

"FUCK," Gavin suddenly shouts. "Tell me one of you called an ambulance!"

Officer McFuck Face doesn't have anything smart to say now, and Gavin glances up to see the PM's face fall even further. Shit fucking—

"I requested an ambulance from Henry Ford Medical Center when I alerted you to the victim's heartbeat," Nines says. "I have been transmitting updates on her condition to the responding paramedics, and they will arrive in an estimated three minutes."

Gavin exhales and thinks fucking androids in the most generous tone he's ever thought before.

"Pam, Officer Whoever—and where the fuck is your partner?" Gavin demands.

"Securing the outside of the building, sir!" PM700 reports. "I have notified him of the ambulance's arrival and he will escort the paramedics to this location."

Gavin looks at Officer Dipshit next, who fully lives up to his name.

"Uh … well, we thought she was already dead and—"

"WHERE?"

"Getting coffee, sir!"

Gavin inhales very slowly through his nose. He's going to be smelling blood for the rest of the day after this.

"Go get your fucking partner and ask the PC how to be useful," Gavin orders. "No one in or out of this building unless they're a resident and then only with a police escort."

"Yes, sir!"

"Pam, you're out in the hall. No one gets through who isn't police or paramedic."

"Yes, sir!"

As soon as she marches out the door, Nines' hands are on him, holding him steady on top of the vic. It's not a hard position to balance in, but all his muscles are wound so tight he might snap.

"I believe the next time we play video games, I will play as a healer rather than a sniper," Nines says.

Gavin looks over and stares at him. "What?"

"Detective Chen has expressed that she's grown tired of—"

"What are you talking about?"

Nines' LED flickers red for a moment. "I am engaging you in conversation about one of your interests to lower your stress levels."

Holy fucking jesus christ. Probably the most competent person in the room—not that Gavin would ever admit that out loud—and yet he thinks chit chat over a dying murder victim is OK.

"Really need you to focus on the gunshot victim right now," he grits out.

Nines spins yellow for a moment, then declares, "I will create a virtual reconstruction of the crime scene before the paramedics trample evidence."

Not at all what he meant, but all right then.

"You do that."

Estimated three minutes, his ass. Gavin spends at least a good three hours kneeling on top of a soon-to-be-murder victim, trying not to look at her face too much. He has enough nightmares already without adding her face and name to the list.

The worst part is that she apparently can't afford to pay her utility bills either, so it's freezing fucking cold in here, and he definitely doesn't want the paramedics to walk in on him with perky nipples.

The second worst part is Nines apparently noticing his attempts not to shiver and draping his dumb Cyberlife jacket over him.

"Do your preconstruction," Gavin mutters.

"I have finished constructing the room."

With that, Nines starts crouching down at different angles around the murder victim. Gavin knows it's basically the same thing as a crime scene photographer, but he still has to shut his eyes against all the old paranoia thoughts about emotionless robots examining humans like bugs.

"Hey." He has to stop and clear his throat to get the rest of the words out. "Does my blood type match?"

"The paramedics will be here in—"

Gavin forces himself to make eye contact. "Am I a match or not?"

Nines' LED hits red again. His fingers twitch, but not in any human way. The movement is too fast and mechanical, like a metal clamp about to malfunction. Gavin tries to shove his paranoia aside. Weird as it is to think about, this is actually the most reaction he's seen his partner give to something, even if that looks like two red spins and a weird glitch instead of something normal, like sweating or babbling.

Actually. Technically Nines is a rookie officer too, and this is his first fresh murder scene. So fresh they're waiting on fucking paramedics. Last time Gavin went through a scene like this with a rookie, they'd thrown up all over the murder weapon and cried in the patrol car for an hour.

"Yes," Nines answers. "You both have B positive blood types."

"All right, if anyone asks, I'm straight."

"Those laws have—"

"They still ask. Shit happens, OK?" Gavin tries to take a deep, calming breath but oh right! He's kneeling in a pool of blood and person, so that's all it smells like. "And where are the fucking—"

"Paramedics arriving now."

"Detective Reed!" PM700 calls a half second later. "Paramedics coming up!"

The rest is a bunch of hurried questions, one-two-three-LIFT, following the stretcher out the door. They're on the ground floor before he realizes he didn't give any instructions to PM, but shit, maybe Nines already took care of it. Where is—right behind him. Of course.

"No, no, no, we can't allow him in here," the paramedic says when Nines tries to follow him inside the back of the ambulance.

"He's my partner," Gavin snaps.

"This isn't—look, he won't physically fit," the paramedic argues. "Not with you, me, her, and Mr. Six Feet over there. And she needs a blood transfusion right now, so let's argue if this is discrimination later, OK?"

Gavin looks back at Nines.

"I will finish our investigation of the crime scene," he says, LED back to fake-blue.

The paramedic closes the back doors before he can reply. Gavin remembers way too late that his cellphone is in his jacket, laying on the floor somewhere.

Shit.

***

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22 / 23 / 24 / 25 / 26 / 27 / 28 / 29 / 30 / 31 / 32 / 33

I also have a Patreon for this fic, if you want to support me! $1 gets you access to chapters a week early, $2 gets bonus content and deleted scenes, and $3 gets short chapters from two AUs I’m writing: an A/B/O heatfic and reverse!AU

this week’s bonus content has a special TWO chapters for Nines’ backstory! featuring: Storage Room 6459, the [deviant] RK800 #313 248 317 - 52, and Lieutenant Henry “Hank” Anderson

#reed900 #reed900 fic #gavin reed #dbh #dbh fic #my writing #writing #ch 7

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icewindandboringhorror · 5 years ago

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Questione...

Possibly just shouting out into the void, but wondering if anyone has some information on a game...

The game pieces are hexagons with two differently colored sides, and three numbers in sections on them. It’s a two player game (each player being one color), and the point is to try to put down your piece in a place that will flip as much of the board as possible to your color, based on what number is largest on the sides that are touching each other. Your goal is to have the majority of the board in your color at the end of the game (when all pieces are used up). You can also see the pieces your partner has, so part of the strategy is also predicting their moves/ basing yours on what they have to put down (like which side of the hexagon their largest numbers are on, etc.).... An example move looks like this image below (with Purple vs. Blue being the colors)

I was introduced to this playing a game on kongregate, called The End (link here even though the game itself doesn’t seem to work anymore and the official site for the game doesn’t either so idk), BUT this is not the main point of the game, it was just a mini-game inside the main game. I liked the mini-game so much I made my own version with pieces of cardboard, to have one I could play with others not solely within the kongregate game, but the nature of the game just seems like...something that there’d be a version of somewhere else?

I’ve tried googling like ‘hexagon numbers game’ ‘number tile flip game’, etc. and looked up the company that made the game as well, but as far as I’ve seen they don’t list much about it (this is just one tiny mini game within a tiny game out of many others I think are more popular) or etc., though there are some images of game development that make it seem like they created the concept themselves, they could have been inspired by something. Either way, this just seems like too enjoyable and cool of a game to be lost forever as merely a tiny mini-game hidden within a long abandoned flash game!!

---- So, my main question: Is anyone aware of anything similar to this?? Is this an actual game somewhere, that could be purchased as a boardgame or something?? If the game creators took inspiration from somewhere, is there a known game it’s based off of? OR, even if it is wholly their creation, is there at least anything else out there that operates very similarly?

Additional info (images and the videos I could find of gameplay) under the read more for extra details on how it works..

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

Here’s a screencap of the actual game from some youtube video i found

And see there’s also some powers you can use to make the game more interesting, like for example a ‘+2′ power would allow you to add 2 points to one single side of your hexagon- so if you had a 6, you could make it an 8 and maybe then overcome your opponent’s 7 on that side, etc. (though you’re limited in how many you can use, obviously. The strategy is also picking the right ones). There are many of these, and I unfortunately don’t remember what they all are, so I can’t incorporate them into my handmade cardboard version T u T ;; , but they also added a neat twist !

Here’s a video I found of like, actual official gameplay, it’s from the people who made the game so it shows in good detail how the game actually works:

https://vimeo.com/23525726

and then here’s there website or like, something where they wrote stuff about the game -

https://preloaded.com/work/channel-4-education-end/

'The End’ was primarily like, just a usual jumpy puzzle platformer sort of game, the ‘death cards’ section was only a side-thing you did at the end of levels, if I remember correctly. Though for me I basically ONLY played the main game to earn additional powers (like the +2 bonus) for the side game, and pretty much spent all my time playing that instead gghg

But like.. LOOK at the gameplay!!... it’s just.. fun..I like the little strategies of going into corners or playing in a way where you try to trap pieces of your own color in places they can’t be turned or accessed by the opponent, and like how you can look at their numbers and predict their moves or etc. Idk it’s like one of those things where it still requires you to pay some amount of attention to what you’re doing, however it’s still casual and easy enough that you rarely have to sit down and intensely focus so it can kind of fill this tiny “Vaguely Occasionally Challenging But Primarily Just Relaxed And Fun” niche where it’s so enjoyable to just hang out and mindlessly play 10 rounds or so every once and a while when you have 30 minutes to waste or whatever..

So like idk,, I hope it’s an actual thing somewhere else???

Whenever I google anything like ‘hexagon number game’ or even specific stuff like ‘flip tile two player hexagon boardgame’ or ‘different color shape flip number game’ or ‘tile number game’, ‘ tile number game flip tile’ etc. It’s only ever stuff like this (or math learning games, or some weird rummy game) that comes up -

which from what I’ve seen, is not really the sort of thing that I’m looking for at all. I want something where you compare multiple numbers of one tile based on it’s placement on the board, flip tiles or something similar in order to win, basically the same mechanics/premise as ‘death cards’ etc.

It could very likely be that the people who made The End just made this from scratch with no inspiration and there’s like...not anything even remotely similar around, which would be unfortunate (since I’ll just have to stick to my cardboard version then lmao) , but I thought I could check with the masses first perhaps, since looking on my own for a little while I couldn’t find much.

Admittedly, I only looked for like 45 minutes or so but idk, usually if you can’t even find a hint of what you’re looking for after searching google for even 20 minutes then you’re either using wildly incorrect search terms (which maybe people could give me leads on better terms to search instead) or the thing you’re looking for is pretty obscure (in which case maybe someone out there still knows about it) so, idk.

I would just feel really bad for a premise that is really cool to die as only ever having been a mini game in some random browser game about philosophy or whatever. I would think maybe at some point the game-creators would release it on it’s own as a separate thing or something, but the game has been inactive for a while and whatever’s going on with it, I don’t think anyone seems to care that much, or is really rallying to bring it back or anything.

But anyway, I would just like to play this game in a more official way, somehow, if it actually exists somewhere?

Particularly due to the issue of game balance. In my handmade versions (since first drafting this post, I now have like 3 of them, experimenting with different tile shapes and amounts of tiles lol,, lov to become preoccupied with random concepts and spend hours making tiles out of cardboard), there’s really no way to completely ensure that there isn’t an element of luck involved.

Part of the reason I like some strategy games is that they can feel more like each person is starting out on a level playing field, and it’s all about just utilizing tools the right way, or what you can think about and come up with. You ‘’win’’ more by skill than just random chance. But with this being a numbers based game, inevitably, to some degree, a player with higher numbered pieces is more likely to win, which when the pieces are drawn randomly, is hard to control for.

In my cardboard versions, I handled this by making different colored marks on the center of the pieces, green for very good, purple for in the middle, and I think red for pieces that have mostly low numbers (which is based on what all the numbers add up to, like if all three numbers on a tile are over 22 (meaning there must at least be some 10s/9s/8s), they’re green, if they’re from 21 - 10 they’re purple, under 10 they’re red, etc. etc. Something like that, I don’t remember the exact numbers I used). Then each player gets a set amount of greens, reds, and purples, so each person will have an equal amount of good/bad/etc. pieces. But even this, I don’t feel is precise enough and am still concerned about it influencing the game results.

For the digital version, I’d guess there’s probably some sort of algorithm or something that like.. generates the numbers of the pieces in a way where each players pieces add up to a certain number, or something like that, so that one player can’t end up with ALL 10s (highest number in the game) on all sides of their hexagons, and the other has none. Obviously there will always be SOME element of chance, but I don’t know if it’s COMPLETELY randomized, as they must have done something to make it more even, I would imagine???

So, this is a main reason I’d like a more official version, if I could like.. buy a board-game that’s already been balanced for me, or play an online version of basically the same game etc. etc.

(Though if any of the 3 of you who have actually read this far have any advice on how to better balance my cardboard versions, please let me know! There may be a better solution than color coding into categories lol)

(ALSO it may be hard to imagine or boring looking if you’ve just watched videos of it and have never played but, hHH, trust me that it’s really cool! It’s one of my favorite games but, obviously it being relatively obscure and the main game it was attached to being now nonexistent, nobody is ever excited about the concept as much as I am lol... just try.. to imagine... )

ANYWAY!!!!... I just... really like this game for some reason and in my quest to find an actual version of it or something, now amplified by the fact that the actual game seems to not work anymore, I thought.. berhaps... other people in the general public would have suggestions or know of similar games (like with flipping tiles based on number calculation)???? sir, may I have some flipping hexagons based on number comparisons? please sir, some coloured hexagons flipped based on numbers?? sOME NUMBERED HEXAGON TILES ON A BOARdggh hvhjflkfnkelnhekltnhlnklkl kh iohnkl k;m klm klm

#completely random out of nowhere post but #I don't know how else to Reach The Public ghghjg #long post #one of the many many posts that's been in my drafts for over a year or two gghhhj

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recurring-polynya · 5 years ago

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Writing/Art Update 10/14/19:

Heyo, remember these?

I have... produced... so much art. I might eventually make a masterpost, because you know I love doing those, but in the meantime, you can just check out my Inktober 2019 tag.

I am very proud of myself. I don’t know if I can pick a favorite, but that Isshin one was just stupidly good, I don’t even know. Seireitei Unsolved is the current reigning popularity champ. I also have a soft spot for Byakuya in that Pineapple Slut t-shirt and I’m not gonna get over it.

I’ve actually done a little writing, too? I am back on Lt’s Exam, and it’s... going okay? The beginning is shaping up actually? As in, I have almost 36 consecutive clean pages (that 17k) words with only about 5 TODOs? I mean, I have another 45k words after that which are in rougher shape, but it’s exciting to have something that I might be able to send off to the ol’ beta reader in the next.. uh... month? I had to make a new tab of my character tracking spreadsheet. Congratulations, Squad 13, you now have your own tab.

Also, on a whim, I started writing what comes after One Final Training Montage. It will be a million years before that would see the light of day, if ever. I am still constantly contemplating whether or not to kick OFTM out of A Heart is a Muscle, and I am mostly doing this as an experiment to see if I can get it to work. It’s only about 1500 words, but I love the part that I’ve written.

Hey, y’all want a Between Tides Deleted Scene? I have roughly 50 pages worth deleted scenes, most of which are variations on actual scenes, or make sense only to me because they correspond to major direction changes or things that never panned out. This one was just sort of... tonally incorrect, but it cracks me up every time I come across it. It’s from the early chapters, where they’re training in their gigais at Squad 2. Also, if I ever get a chance to recycle Akon saying “I’m not really into humanoid anatomy” into an actual fic, you better believe I’m gonna.

Rukia ducked low, hooking Renji’s ankle with her own, and bringing them both down in a pile of gigai arms and legs.

Omaeda tapped his foot crossly. “Kuchiki, do you actually know any hakuda? There are actual techniques to it, not just some street fighting moves you made up.”

Rukia shrugged. “First year hakuda at the Academy is a joke, especially if you’re my size. I know maybe three things that this guy taught me when he was bored between classes.” She jerked a thumb at Renji.

“Why’d they let you graduate after a year if you didn’t know anything?”

“My brother’s rich?”

“Riiiight.”

“And you,” Omaeda turned his scorn on Renji, “seem to know all the moves and yet I would bet my lunch that you’ve never used any of them in a fight.”

Renji made a face. “I kinda made a review of it last year when I was prepping for the lieutenant’s exam. But why bother with a heaven-and-earth throw when you can just hit someone with your sword? Also, it’s really hard in these gigais. Rukia, how the hell are you managing to use your reiatsu in this thing?”

Rukia wiped her face with the neckline of her t-shirt. “It’s tricky. You have to push the reiatsu into the gigai, but because of the suppression system, it all stays in the gigai. You can only use it to make yourself stronger or faster, you can’t affect the outside world with it, so you can’t ground or harden your skin or anything like that. Remember, I was in one of these for two months last summer, and I had almost no reiatsu at the time. This is easy in comparison, although I keep getting overheated.”

“Eh? You feel like you’re overheating?” Akon asked.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the gigai,” Rukia hedged. “My reiatsu is cold, you see? Keeps me cool, normally.”

“Abarai, how about you?”

“My reiatsu runs hot, so I’m actually cooler than usual.”

“Yeah, you’ve managed to keep your shirt on this whole time,” Rukia teased him.

“I don’t… always…” Renji tried to excuse.

“Yes, you do.” Rukia frowned, and hauled her sweaty t-shirt off and threw it in the corner. “Here. You deserve this.”

“Rukia! C’mon!” Renji complained, trying not to look at her.

“I’m wearing a sports bra! I’m more covered up than Matsumoto usually is!”

“What’s a sports bra?” he asked, still not looking.

“This,” she replied, pointing to it. “It’s like a chest wrap, only it takes about 10 seconds to get on and off instead of 10 minutes. Also, this one is purple.”

Renji tried to look at it without turning his head.

“Hey, look sharp!” She launched herself at him.

Renji blocked her punch, and tried to hip throw her, looking at her only out of the corner of his eye. She drove her feet into the ground, however, and since her reiatsu-augmented strength was currently much greater than his own, flipped him over her head.

So much for being being gentlemanly. He managed to tuck into a roll, and came up on his feet, facing the wrong direction. He spun wildly, and caught her foot just as it came flying at his face. Fortunately, he’d seen her to that to Ichigo about a thousand times. He threw her toward the ground, but she got her hands behind her shoulders in time to catch herself and thrust back up, driving her feet into his chest. He went over backwards, and the next thing he knew, he was on his back, with her sitting in his chest, pinning his shoulders with her knees, and holding his wrists in her hands. His hips and legs were free, and he might be able to buck himself up again if could manage to get some reiatsu into his legs. There was another problem, though, which was that she was sort of leaning over him, and her chest was right in his face.

“Look at them!” she demanded.

“Why are you doing this to me?” he wailed, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Because you always make me look at your dumb pecs when we’re fighting, and you deserve this!”

“You two are so strange,” Omaeda frowned, shaking his head.

“They aren’t even yours!”

“They are now.” Rukia looked down and examined them herself. “They’re pretty good, I think. Akon! Tell Urahara good job on the tits!”

Akon started to write something down.

“They aren’t that great,” Omaeda interrupted.

Akon looked up. “Are they good or aren’t they? I’m not really into humanoid anatomy myself.” He looked at Rukia and Omaeda’s scowls. “Abarai, you’re the tie-breaker.”

“I’m the what?”

“Are Rukia’s gigai tits good or not? This is important. For research purposes.”

“It is not important! This has nothing to do with anything!”

Rukia glared at him. “Well?”

Carefully, Renji opened one eye, and then the other. He looked at her glowering face, then quickly down to her chest, and then back up again. “They’re, uh, pretty good,” he reported. “Not as good as the usual ones, but perfectly fine.”

Rukia smirked at him. “When’ve you been checking out my tits, Abarai?”

“Abarai approves of tits,” Akon read off his own notes.

“Don’t put my name on that!”

#writing update #art update

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yesterday4 · 6 years ago

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Fic: A Matter of Great Importance (Mr. Sinclaire x MC)

Dipping my toes into the Mr. Sinclaire x MC pool because I love him too much! Please let me know if the cut has worked properly. This is my first time posting!

Summary: After receiving her father’s letter, Lady Edith (MC) pays an important call on Mr. Sinclaire. 2,634 words.

Rating: G. It is pure fluff! Maaaybe PG. But this is definitely more sweet than sexy!

Lady Edith ran her hands along her skirts, peering at herself critically in the glass of the shop’s window. Her heart was hammering hard beneath her stays; Edith imagined she would be able to see it, should she glance down. Briar had assured her that her outfit was perfect for every occasion, an innocent rosy pink with a stylish cut to the jacket and a jaunty hat to match, but Briar hadn’t known about this particular occasion. No, this time Edith had struck out entirely on her own. Sighing, she reached into her reticule and retrieved her father’s letter. She had read it so many times that it was nearly committed to memory; still, she re-read the paragraph of interest once again.

At the garden party, you spent some time with Mr. Sinclaire. If he is of interest, I urge you to ask whether you can reach an understanding. Or, if there are others you favour in London, pray tell me of them. She did not re-read the loathsome paragraph about the Duke.

Surely, this was not how things were done. Hot embarrassment coursed through her, mingling with sore pride. Still, she was the Lady of Edgewater, and this was her responsibility. Edith reminded herself sternly that she was not one to shirk those, even though this particular responsibility made her cheeks burn.

Holding her head high, she marched down the lane, pausing at the door of Mr. Sinclaire’s townhouse. It had seemed large and imposing at his dinner party the week before; now its size seemed mammoth and intimidating. Praying for strength, she raised a gloved hand to the knocker and waited.

Her wait was not long; in short order, the door was opened by a man closer to the age of her father than to her own. Edith, not yet used to people who didn’t answer their own doors, assumed he was the butler.

“Good afternoon, I am Lady Edith of Edgewater,” she faltered, trying not to fade under the man’s surely disapproving stare. “I was wondering if Mr. Sinclaire might be available to receive my call.”

The butler glanced over her shoulder, no doubt looking for the chaperone Edith had been too humiliated to seek. It was daylight, proper enough in her most likely incorrect opinion. Tipping her chin, she fixed her best Lady of Edgewater look on her face and stared him down.

The butler, to her immense relief, relented. “If you’ll wait here, my lady.”

She allowed herself to be ushered into the doorway, where she was promptly left on her own. Wildly, she thought she ought to have brought smelling salts, though whether for her or the as yet absent Mr. Sinclaire, it was yet to be seen. Unsure if she should remove her hat, she folded and unfolded her hands. Ladies do not fidget. How she missed the country; how she missed her mother.

Bewildered, she remembered imaging the man she might marry, a farmer perhaps, who would not hesitate to court her and propose in due time, their love unchallenged and pure. Edith found herself, yet again, on unfamiliar ground. Sadness warred with her nerves. What if, after all of this bother, Mr. Sinclaire said no? She was, after all, the Earl’s natural born daughter—no, his bastard.

It was with that pessimistic thought in her head that Edith caught sight of Mr. Sinclaire, descending the stairs with a look of utter confusion on his face. Her pounding heart would have skipped a beat, had it been able; he was doing up the top button on his vest, clearly disrupted by her visit, and his hair seemed more dishevelled than usual. It was all the more bothersome that he was so handsome; had he been a more regular chap who had not successfully wormed his way into her heart, this might have been easier.

“Lady Edith,” Mr. Sinclaire greeted, pausing in front of her. Lord help her, he even smelled nice. “I seem to have misplaced your calling card.”

There was a rebuke there, subtle, or was it an excuse to set aside her improper conduct? Edith felt herself blush. There were so many rules here, although, she reminded herself, her mother might have laid an egg if Edith had dared to call on a gentleman alone, even in the country. Duke Richards flitted through her mind. Was this not the very definition of desperate times?

“My sincere apologies, sir.” She dropped her gaze, as much out of nervousness as out of proprietry. “If I may be so bold as to request just a moment of your time?”

She chanced a glance up from his polished shoes, just in time to see him school the tug at his lip into his more familiar solemn expression.

“May you be so bold, Lady Edith? I daresay I expect very little else from you.” Glancing over his shoulder, he added, “Mr. Moffatt, if you will be so kind as to request tea from Miss Hastings? We will receive it in the drawing room.”

The urge to run came out of nowhere, strong enough to make her twitch. Passing off her jacket and her hat to Mr. Moffatt, waiting, she allowed herself to be ushered down the hall. Mr. Sinclaire’s drawing room was airy, natural light spilling from the windows. She suspected his first wife had had a hand in decorating it, as it was charmingly done in pale yellows. The thought of his former wife was both off-putting and upsetting. The other night, Mr. Sinclaire had not expressed even the slightest interest in marriage, not to her and not to anyone. Still, she told herself rather desperately, she was certain he was fond of her.

Two chairs flanked an orate side table. Edith lowered herself into one, trying to squash her expression of surprise when Mr. Sinclaire pulled his closer. Their knees were mere inches apart. She imagined she could feel the heat from his leg, all the way through her skirts. Certainly, this was not proper. It set her traitorous heart off again, and she longed to wipe her palms against her skirts. She felt every inch the country hoydon as was. The arrival of the tea proved a needed distraction. Edith busied herself with it, raising her cup to her lips to avoid speaking.

“Are you quite alright, Lady Edith?” Mr. Sinclaire sounded genuinely concerned, though the twitch at his lips had returned. “I have come to expect a wide array of conversation topics from you, and you have scarcely said a word. Is the tea not to your satisfaction?”

Her tea cup rattled against the saucer when she set it back down. Somewhere, her Lady Grandmother would have a fit. Curse her shaking hands and this dreadful situation!

“I am finding this rather difficult,” she admitted, which was the truth.

“Conversing? Why, Lady Edith, might I offer you your own advice and suggest you practice?”

His lips twitched their way into a full smile. Out of nowhere, she wondered what it would be like to kiss him. She had received four kisses up until this point, all from the same gentleman, and she wondered how Mr. Sinclaire would compare. The thought did nothing for her nerves or her composure. For the very first time in her life, Edith thought she might faint.

Mr. Sinclaire blinked at her, taken aback and concerned. After a beat, he rose. She watched him walk to an accent cabinet, where he made quick work of retrieving two glasses and a bottle of amber coloured liquor. He splashed some in each glass, offering one to her upon his return.

“I daresay this is improper,” she managed, though she drank some all the same. It burned her throat and made her want to splutter, but she welcomed its warm heaviness as it settled in her stomach.

“I daresay it is,” he agreed, leaning forward. His eyes were searching, and she made herself meet his gaze, trying to take strength in the warmth she felt there. “Now, shall you tell me what it is you risked your reputation to come here for?”

Still, she faltered. Taking another sip of her drink (and how!), she folded her hands in her lap, bunching nervously against her skirts. The sadness returned tenfold—certainly, she should be the one to receive a proposal. She and Briar had always played at court as a noble affair, and this felt anything but. Blinking, she startled when Mr. Sinclaire’s hand fell to cover her own, squeezing her nervous fingers. She gazed at his hand, so much larger than hers, and drew a steadying breath.

“Lady Edith,” he murmured, voice as rich as the liquor in their glasses. “If I may be so bold, Edith.”

She met his gaze, so steady and sure. She could fall in love with this man, she realized; was already half there, in truth. His thumb was stroking the outside of her fingers, and she could do this, she could.

“If I may be so bold,” she tittered. But no. She was Lady Edith of Edgewater; more importantly, she was Edith Cowell. Edith Cowell did not falter. Edith Cowell did not faint. “I have come hither to offer you a warning, of sorts.”

Mr. Sinclaire sat back, though he did not release her hand. “A warning?”

“Yes, a warning, although I daresay I hope you will not feel that way when you receive it in its entirety.” His hand was distracting, and yet she could not withdraw her own. Abruptly, she realized everywhere he would be able to touch her, should he accept, and fought for bewildered focus. Onwards, brave soldier. “The Countess plans to contest my father’s claim to name me as his legitimate heir to Edgewater. Her animosity towards me is no secret to you, or to anyone, I suppose.”

“She has been rather forthright in her distaste for you.” His hand altered position, fingers drifting upwards. She felt them brush the lace adorning the edge of her sleeve, before slipping aside to caress her wrist. It was somehow the most intimate touch she had ever known. Perhaps his own boldness surprised him as well. His cheeks were flushed, and she wondered if she imagined the hitch in his breath.

“Yes. You are a man of great intelligence, Mr. Sinclaire.”

“Ernest, if you please.”

“Ernest. An advantageous… That is to say… Surely you can see…” Good Heavens. “Father has deemed it of great importance for me to-to… to find a suitable match. As soon as possible, you see.”

Mr. Sinclaire--Ernest--drew back at that, his expression completely unreadable. Her hand felt bereft without his touch, and surely this was not going well. Tears stung her eyes, but she was determined to push forward. She reminded herself that, though it felt like it, this was not the most difficult thing she had ever had to endure. Closing her eyes, she imagined her mother. Mother, give me strength.

“I know you have expressed a certain distaste for society in general and marriage in particular. I know we scarcely know each other. I do not wish to pressure you. I only wish to warn you that my father will likely find it suitable to speak with you, as such. I have received another formal offer of courtship, and yet…”

His brow furrowed, though his stony expression did not falter. “May I ask from whom?”

“Duke Richards.” It was vile to even say.

At that, Mr. Sinclaire scowled. Rising, he began to pace in front of her chair. She watched him wander to and fro, fraught though she was with nerves. She should have brought her smelling salts, most definitely. Though he had not answered, it was impossible to ignore the fact that he had not answered. Dismayed, she gave into the urge to ball her skirt.

“That is not why I am here, though do not mistake that as an interest in the Duke.” Her voice was too high; she sounded half hysterical. “This whole matter of… this is all quite humiliating, as you can imagine. I merely wished—”

“You merely wished for an alternative.”

“No.” This was going terribly wrong. Mr. Sinclaire sounded offended. Rising herself, she cut off his pacing, drawing herself to her full height, still a head shorter than him. “I merely wished--hoped, really—that I might receive a similar offer from a man I feel… I feel a genuine affection for.”

With that, her nerve fled entirely. She dropped her gaze to her feet, thereby missing the softening of his. Seconds stretched into minutes, which felt as though they were in turn stretched into decades. She could hear the clock on the mantle ticking. Only why would he not speak?

His touch on her chin startled her, but then his hand was cupping her cheek. She leaned against it, steeling herself for rejection. Only his face was changed. He was still Ernest, of course, still solemn, but there was a light in his eyes she had not been expecting. She found his blush endearing—to think, a man as confident and successful as he might be bashful! She thought again of his first wife, feeling a rush of anger. Edith could not imagine betraying such a kind man, and for someone as repugnant as the Duke, no less. He stroked her cheek with his thumb, his touch somehow firm and gentle at the same time. This close, his eyes were a truly magnificent colour.

“Are you proposing to me, Lady Edith?” If not for the seriousness of their topic, she might have found him teasing. His gaze landed squarely on her mouth, and all of the air left her lungs.

“No,” she murmured, surprised by the heaviness of her tone. It suggested of intimacy, of wanton things. She resisted the urge to clear her throat. “I am merely proposing that you… that you might propose, if you are amenable.”

There was no mistaking his smile this time. It felt as though her very heart took flight, not helped in the slightest by his hand, drifting downwards. She thought he might kiss her, as the moment felt all at once too much and not enough, but his hand traced a lazy path down her neck, ghosting along her arm before entwining again with her fingers. Without breaking eye contact, he raised her hand to his mouth, pressing his lips warmly against her knuckles. Edith, entirely lost in a sea of new emotions, felt it through her entire body.

“My dear bold and unconventional Edith,” he murmured, breath tickling her skin. “I would be deeply honoured to call on you formally, so that your father might know of my intentions.”

Surely, now he would kiss her. She was nearly certain she stammered out a reply; relief and excitement were heady feelings. He would not look away from her eyes; had barely blinked, in fact. She felt his gaze to her very toes. A genuine affection, indeed.

The clock on the mantle chimed the time, jarring and unexpected. The moment passed. Mr. Sinclaire dropped her hand and straightened, looking somehow even more embarrassed. She suppressed a smile.

“I shall anticipate your visit.” It was impossible to keep the aforementioned relief and excitement out of her voice.

“Perhaps this evening? I have heard this a matter of great haste.”

This evening seemed impossibly far and impossibly near. Flushing, she dipped into a curtsy, though she could not remember if that was what one did, precisely. Mr. Sinclaire was smiling still.

“Your attention to this matter is greatly appreciated.” What a dim-witted thing to say, only his smile looked fond.

“My man will take you home.” Then, with an air of affectionate teasing, he bowed. “Until we meet again.”

“Until we meet again,” she returned.

#mr sinclaire #play choices #desire and decorum #mr sinclaire x mc

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statsvitenskap · 6 years ago

Text

BONE!

my first Ace Attorney fanfic. i'm not all that good at writing fanfiction, since i'm normally the fanart type, but i saw this video by @edenleicester, and had to try it out(i changed the characters from their video a bit though. it's more or less the same). i copied most of the dialogue from this B99 clip.

link to ao3 version here.

reblogs > likes!

September XX, 20XX

XX:XX p.m.

Los Angeles Prosecutor’s Office

Klavier Gavin stood in the hallway of the Prosecutor’s Office. He and defense attorney, Apollo Justice, chatted while sipping from their drinks of choice. All was going well that day; Apollo had won his latest trial and Klavier had met another cute girl, much to Apollo’s dismay.

“Gavin,” he hissed, how do you know she's the one for you? She's probably just using you for your fame or something-”

“Nonsense, Herr Forehead!” Klavier smiled. “She's different from the others. I can tell… from her eyes.” The man's eyes went distant, as if seeing the girl in front of him then. Apollo rolled his eyes and looked away, only to choke on his water.

Phoenix Wright and Miles Edgeworth were walking into the Prosecutor’s Office, arguing like their lives depended on it. Having spotted the men first, Apollo quickly turned away, scared for his own life. Klavier, on the other hand, smirked, knowing the younger man was scared of Miles Edgeworth, or at the very least, the prosecutor's skills. He quickly grabbed Justice's shoulder and pulled him back to where he had been standing originally. “Herr Edgeworth, Herr Wright! Guten tag! How is the lovely couple today?”

Miles Edgeworth went the slightest shade of pink at the mention of him and Wright as a couple. The poor man still wasn't used to the fact that he was Phoenix Wright’s boyfriend. However, he quickly regained his composure.

“We would actually appreciate a bit of insight from you two,” Edgeworth replied. He glared at Phoenix. “Wright and I seem to be in a bit of a…” He paused. “...predicament.”

Phoenix scoffed. “More like a fight,” earning a glare from the man beside him.

Klavier's eyes widened. When he'd wanted to mess with Apollo, he hadn't wanted to mess with his boss's relationship in the process. Apollo was standing beside him, sweating nervously. Klavier glanced at him for help, earning only a glare. “I'm sorry, sir, but we wouldn't want to get involved in your personal life-”

Edgeworth rolled his eyes. “It isn't personal, it's a math problem.”

Apollo let out a series of frightened stutters while Klavier cringed. “Even worse.”

Phoenix sighed, using his free hand to massage his forehead in frustration. “Last night, Edgeworth and I had dinner together for the first time in two weeks, thanks to the cases that have been keeping us on our toes.”

“And someone thought it would be fun to spoil our date with an inane math problem,” Edgeworth interrupted, glaring at his spiky-haired partner. “to which his answer is wrong.”

“Enough foreplay, let's get to the numbers,” Apollo interrupted. Suddenly, when Klavier looked over at him, he had a notepad and pencil in hand.

“It's called the Monty Hall problem,” Edgeworth began. “Imagine you're on a game show. There are three doors, behind one of which is a car.”

Phoenix continues, “You pick a door. The host, who knows which door the car is behind, opens a different door, showing that there is nothing behind it. The host then asks if you'd like to choose another, unopened door. Should you do it?”

“No!” Edgeworth finishes.

“Yes!”

“It's simple math!” They both say at the same time.

“It doesn't make any sense to switch,” says Edgeworth. “The prize is now behind one of two doors, it's a 50/50 chance either way.”

“It's two thirds if you switch, one third if you don't. The probability locks in when you switch,” Phoenix retaliates. “We've been over this eight times!”

“Seven,” Edgeworth corrects him. “It's only been seven times. Now you can't even do simple addition.”

“Sorry, Mr. Edgeworth,” Apollo looks up from his calculations on his notepad. “but I think Mr. Wright is… well, right.”

Phoenix snickers at the pun, while Edgeworth glares at Apollo, causing the younger man to cower under the eyes of his superior. He quickly turns around, and walks out of the office. The other three men watch as he drives away.

“Wait… he was my ride!” Phoenix runs out of the office, yelling at the red sports car now far off in the distance.

Klavier grins. “That was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, wasn't it, Herr Forehead?”

Apollo rolls his eyes and walks away to get more water.

The next day, Apollo and Klavier stood in the lobby, once again chatting. Both men had more or less forgotten about the incident of the day before. Edgeworth walked into the office alone this time, prompting a greeting from Apollo. “Good morning, Mr. Edgeworth.”

“No, it's not.” Apollo and Klavier looked at the older man in confusion. “I haven't slept because of that idiotic math problem. Now I finally understand Wright's side.”

“Ah, I see!” Klavier grinned. “So it's all better and we never have to hear about math again?” Klavier seemed to have a hatred for math that Apollo didn't quite understand.

“Quite the opposite, actually. Now, I see more than ever how incorrect he is.” Edgeworth smirked, recalling the previous night's events. (“Do I have to teach you 8th grade statistics?” “Do I have to teach you 7th grade statistics?” “Do I have to teach you-”)

The two younger men traded expressions, while Edgeworth finished, “Now if you'll excuse me, I have to leave Wright a snide voicemail about teaching him kindergarten statistics.”

As Edgeworth walked away, Apollo and Klavier glanced at each other, confused. Finally Apollo shrugged. “Well, at least I didn't piss him off that time.”

“Honestly, those two just need to bone.” Klavier said to no one in particular.

“Gavin!” Apollo made a face. “That is your boss!” Klavier shrugged, smiled, and sipped at his water.

Edgeworth walked into the office the next day, only to find Apollo Justice under a table.

“Mr. Justice,” Edgeworth began, “may I ask why exactly you are… underneath a table?”

“I can't seem to find my bracelet, sir,” he replied.

Edgeworth cocked an eyebrow. “Have you seen where it went?”

“Actually,” Apollo came out from underneath the piece of furniture, holding a small diorama depicting three doors. “I think it's behind one of these doors. Why don't you pick one?” He asked, gesturing at the mini doors.

Edgeworth raked his hand through his hair in frustration. “Mr. Justice, I would rather not bring this Monty Hall problem from my personal life into my work life as well. At this rate, the Monty Hall problem will take over my life in little to no time at all!” Apollo flinched and grinned awkwardly, scratching his neck.

Behind Apollo, Klavier sighed. “The math isn't the problem sir. These cases are keeping you and Wright apart. You two just need to bone.”

Apollo let out a scared whimper, and Edgeworth gave Klavier a look that left Apollo sweating, even though the look was not directed at him. “What did you say?”

“Don't say it again,” Apollo whispered, loud enough for only Klavier to hear.

Klavier smirked. “I said,” he raised his voice just barely, “you two need to bone.” Apollo flinched, and the look from Edgeworth escalated to a dark glare.

“How dare you, Prosecutor Gavin-” Edgeworth's voice raised with every word he spoke- “I am your superior prosecutor!”

With that, the man launched into a frenzy of scolding. He paced the room, later walking over to the hallway gripping the edges, and yelling, “BONE!” each time, with increasing intensity.

Nearly ten minutes later, Apollo and Klavier stood face-to-face, Edgeworth scolding the two with a dark red blush.

“What happens in my bedroom, Prosecutor Gavin, is none of your business!”

Another ten minutes later, he began yelling “BONE!” even louder than before. All the while, Apollo whimpered and curled into himself on the couch. Klavier tried to comfort him by wrapping an arm around him, though he couldn't seem to wipe that smirk off his face.

In the end, after a long time of shouting, scolding, and wildly gesticulating at the doorway, Edgeworth finally left Klavier and Apollo, Apollo’s face down on the coffee table in front of him. “Don't ever speak to me like that again.” He finished and left.

After the Chief Prosecutor had left the lobby, Apollo looked up at Klavier, hands shaking. “Your boss is so scary…”

Klavier chuckled, one hand on the other man's back. “Don't worry. He's much nicer once you get to know him.”

“Why did you do that, anyways?” Apollo whispered, leaning against Klavier.

“Herr Edgeworth was pent up. Now he knows,” Klavier grinned. “Maybe he'll actually do something about it this time around.”

Apollo sighed and put his head in his hands.

“Good afternoon, Herr Edgeworth!” Klavier grinned at the Chief Prosecutor entering the office.

Apollo sipped his water. “You're unusually late, sir. By the way, I contacted a math professor about the Monty Hall problem-”

“No need.” Edgeworth held up a hand, almost shooing the younger man away.

“You solved the problem?”

“No.”

The younger men glanced at each other from across the room. Apollo began blushing a deep red when Klavier began to ask-

“So you two-”

“Yes,” Edgeworth replied quickly and began his trek up the stairs.

Klavier grinned at the other man from across the room. A silence overcame the room until-

“Our bosses had se-”

“Shut up!”

#ace attorney #narumitsu #wrightworth #klapollo #fanfic #aa fanfic #ace attorney fanfiction #phoenix wright #miles edgeworth #klavier gavin #apollo justice

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notveryglittery · 6 years ago

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trampoline

summary: moral of the story: don’t leave patton and roman alone when they’re bored. words: 1,779 | ships: platonic royality & moxiety. platonic lamp. warnings: roman and patton acting like drunk fraternity boys, panicking notes: this one was so much fun. inspired by this post from @prinxietys!! “theo-doze-a” nickname from @katatles-the-fish‘s post here!

read on ao3! | read more incorrect quotes ficlets!

It was any other day in the Mindscape.

Logan was in his room, working on various schedules. Thomas had spent the last few days visiting his parents and as such, had been in full on relaxation mode. Not much had gotten done and the Sides, for the most part, hadn’t minded. Now, though, Logan felt it necessary to make up for lost time, and was making plans for the last few weeks of the month. No one blamed him for wanting to be ahead of the game and Virgil, in fact, encouraged it. They all understood that it’d help Virgil out in the long run and so even Roman and Patton had left Logan alone. His door was open, just in case, and classical music could be heard drifting down the hallway.

Virgil, meanwhile, was in the Commons. While he’d normally spend this time in his own room, listening to music or a podcast, he had decided the living room might be more comfortable today. He had taken up most of the space on the coffee table, with various adult coloring books. He preferred colored pencils but there were crayons and markers available to him as well. Roman had provided the mediums where Patton had offered the art. Instead of listening with headphones in like usual, Virgil had his music playing quietly through the speakers of his phone. Sunlight spilled into the room through the open blinds.

Patton and Roman, ever the extroverts, thought spending their time alone sounded dreadful, and as such, were in the kitchen together. They’d already baked three batches of cookies (chocolate chip, snickerdoodle, and oatmeal raisin) and were working on a double layer cake. It’d be frosted with buttercream and they’d decorate it with pink flowers and raspberries and it was going to be delicious and beautiful. Their baking spree came to a halt, however, when Roman slipped out of his long sleeved maroon henley and down to the simple tank top underneath. It’d been getting warm in the kitchen, what with the oven on for so long. Patton found himself distracted by Roman’s arms and a thought came to him quite suddenly.

“Roman,” he began slowly, setting down the piping bag he’d started to fill. “You’re strong, aren’t you?”

Roman had seemed confused for hardly a second before he was beaming at Patton, looking a perfect mix of delighted and cocky. He made it work, somehow.

“Of course!” He boasted, flexing. Patton swooned a little. “As a Prince, I must be in order to rescue damsels in distress!” He continued to show off before Patton’s curious, yet slightly mischievous, look caught his attention.

“In that case…” Patton peeked around Roman and into the living room, where Virgil was still distracted by his coloring. He leaned in closer to Roman and whispered, rather conspiratorially, “how far do you think you could throw me?”

They tried to be careful as they snuck out the front door but their giggling caught Virgil’s attention. It might also have had something to do with the bad feeling he had suddenly in the pit of his stomach. He followed the pair outside, from a distance, and rolled his eyes at how utterly unaware they were. Virgil watched as Roman first conjured a trampoline; he couldn’t hear them debating on how far or close to put it to the house, but he got the idea after they moved it a couple times. That bad feeling intensified when Roman created a ladder next and gestured grandly for Patton to climb up it first.

Before Roman could follow, Virgil darted forward and caught him by the wrist.

“What are you two up to?” He asked, not meaning to sound distrustful. He must’ve failed at it because Roman pulled away, looking slightly insulted.

“We’re testing my strength!” Roman defended. “You have absolutely nothing to worry about!”

With that, he ascended the ladder after Patton, and before Virgil could follow, snapped it back out of existence.

“Roman, I swear...” Virgil muttered darkly, before bolting back into the house.

Meanwhile, Logan had closed his door and was laying down on his bed. He’d decided a break to rest his eyes would be advantageous, and was admiring the swirling galaxy that was his ceiling. It was quiet and peaceful and—

The sound of footsteps bounding up the staircase and down the hallway pulled him from his reverie. He’d just sat up when the door slammed open, banging against the wall.

“Virgil,” Logan said, “what ever has gotten into you?”

Out of breath, Virgil gestured wildly back to where he’d come from.

“Roman… is about to… yeet Patton… off the roof!” He was shouting, or trying to at least, while sucking in lungfuls of air. “Onto a trampoline!” He inhaled sharply one last time before approaching Logan, who’d had yet to move, and grabbing his arm. He yanked him off the bed and out of the room. “You’ve got to stop them.”

Logan stumbled after Virgil, whose grip wasn’t loosening any, and adjusted his glasses as they went.

“I don’t know how you expect them to listen to me.” Logan sighed as Virgil led them down the steps. “You know how those two get once they’ve got an idea.”

They continued outside and around to the back of the house. The trampoline had been relocated a few more times and they could hear Patton laughing.

Virgil finally let go of Logan and began to pace nervously.

“Roman, Patton,” Logan called, cupping his hands around his mouth. “I’d like to speak with you, please.”

“Oh great,” Roman yelled, peering over the edge of the roof. “You went and told on us?!” He shot Virgil a look of betrayal.

Patton appeared next to Roman and waved. “Hi, Logan!”

“If I recall correctly, to “yeet” is to throw an object forcefully over a long distance.”

Virgil groaned. “Yes, Logan.”

“Ten points to Ravenclaw!” Patton cheered.

“Am I to understand that you plan on throwing Patton off of the roof and onto this trampoline?”

“Yes, Logan, congratulations.” Roman said in a tone entirely too mocking given the situation.

“Have you considered how reckless and dangerous that is?”

“Aww, Lo! It’ll be okay!” Patton reassured. Virgil wanted to scream. “Roman’s super strong! And I’m the softest puffball we got!”

“Patton,” Virgil clasped his hands together as if he were begging, and honestly, he was this close. “Please do not do this.”

“We’re doing this, Theodozea!” Roman argued. “He’ll be fine! Won’t you, Patton?”

Patton nodded rapidly, glasses going slightly askew from the motion.

“Here!” He said suddenly, pointing to the trampoline, and snapping his own fingers. A plethora of blankets and pillows appeared, covering the surface so thoroughly that it was a good thing there was a net surrounding the frame to keep them from spilling over. “Is that better?”

“Patton,” Virgil repeated, voice pitching higher, and sounding extremely distressed.

Without warning, Roman scooped Patton up into his arms. He squealed excitedly.

“Ready, darling?” Roman asked, striding to the edge of the roof closest to where the trampoline was set up.

“Roman!” Virgil snapped, finally having apparently reached his limit. “Roman, I swear to God, if you throw him off that roof—!”

“Honestly, you two, I fail to see how this is beneficial in any way, whatsoever.”

Roman spun in a few circles, as if trying to gain momentum, before he swung his arms out, and tossed Patton over the roof. Virgil screamed. Logan’s gasp came out strangled, as if he was properly surprised Roman had actually gone through with this ridiculous plan. Patton let out a peal of laughter, tucking his legs against his chest. He went flying through the air and Virgil felt his heart trying to beat itself out of his chest.

“Patton!!” he cried, rushing towards the trampoline. “Patton, oh my God, Patton, fuck, fuck, fuck.” His hands were shaking terribly as he watched Patton disappear into the pile of cushioning. Logan was following, face gone pale.

Before anything else could happen, Patton burst out of the nest of blankets and looked around gleefully.

“Judges?!” He exclaimed, as if Virgil and Logan would rate his landing.

“Patton, move over!” Roman called from the roof. While he backed up to get a running start, Patton scrambled out of the middle of the trampoline and off to the side.

“Oh, for…” Logan mumbled, sounding like he was going to be sick.

“Roman, no!” Virgil’s voice cracked, hands reaching uselessly up, as if he could stop Roman from launching himself off the roof and onto the trampoline.

Roman was stupidly graceful in his movements and Virgil was going to murder him for the unnecessary backflip, among many other things. Much like Patton, he vanished underneath the padding, before appearing again, hair an absolute disaster, and out of breath.

Roman snapped his fingers and the trampoline dematerialized. He and Patton and Patton’s pillows and blankets landed on the grass. Patton fell over, laughing himself silly.

“I hate you both,” Virgil panted. He allowed Patton to reach forward and take his hand, pulling him into the pile.

“We aren’t friends anymore,” he insisted, “unfollowed, blocked, reported.” As he went on, he wrapped Patton tighter and tighter in his arms, until there was absolutely no chance of Patton getting away.

Roman crossed his arms, pouting. “See! He’s fine! I told you there was no need to worry!”

“You did no such thing,” Logan pointed out.

Virgil could have mentioned that Roman did say so, before Logan had arrived, but he had no intention of standing up for Roman right about now. Logan stood out of reach so that he couldn’t be dragged into the cuddling.

“Are you finished with all of…” He gestured to the mess, “this? I have more important things to be dealing with.”

Roman huffed. “Sure, yeah, fine, whatever.”

He moved to join Virgil and Patton in their snuggling but Virgil pierced him with an absolutely murderous glare. Holding his hands up in surrender, he sighed in a very long-suffering sort of way.

“I get it. Not your favorite person right now.” Still, Roman smiled sweetly at Patton as he stood. “I’ll go get those cakes ready to decorate, dearest.”

Patton nodded happily, still quite content to be enveloped in Virgil’s arms. Once the two were alone, Patton gently nudged his nose against Virgil’s neck. Virgil shuddered at the contact but held Patton all the more, as if the touch was further proof that Patton was okay, safe, alive.

“Sorry to scare you, kiddo,” Patton apologized.

“Just promise it won’t happen again?” Virgil requested, rocking them back and forth a bit.

“I promise,” Patton agreed.

#sanders sides fan fiction #incorrect quotes ficlets #royality #moxiety #lamp #dani writes

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ts1989fanatic · 7 years ago

Text

Taylor Swift’s Video Director Joseph Kahn Has Something to Say to Her Haters

The Swifties who’ve watched Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do”video 704 million times since it came out on August 27, may or may not recognize the name Joseph Kahn. But they’ve likely been freaking out about the auteurist videos he’s made with Swift for years.

Ever since he and Swift first teamed up in November 2014 for that epic, four-minute, insane-girlfriend saga “Blank Space” (2.2 billion views), Kahn has been the director the singer has turned to most often to help her visually express her id — such as zombie Taylor digging a grave for her own reputation in “Look,” or sitting on a throne of snakes that represent her conquering of Kim Kardashian’s diss of her. Kahn did four out of six videos from her last album, 1989 (“Blank Space,” “Bad Blood,” “Wildest Dreams,” “Out of the Woods”) and the only two videos off of Reputation so far (“Look” and “…Ready for It”). He’s also a wildly outspoken 45-year-old Korean-American with a philosophy of answering any question that’s asked of him and a penchant for stream-of-consciousness tweeting — and has somehow become Swift’s de facto spokesperson in her post-snakes-and-receipts era of never giving interviews. Every headline you read that’s like, “Taylor Swift Director Claims Beyoncé Copied ‘Bad Blood’” — that’s him.

He’s also a pretty dope filmmaker. And at this week’s AFI Festival in Los Angeles, as Swift’s Reputation is on track to being her biggest album ever, he screened Bodied, an outrageous, politically incorrect battle rap movie he directed — as only his third feature film in 26 years in the business.

Bodied comes to AFI still without a distributor. But at the Toronto International Film Festival midnight screening I attended back in September, the reception was through the roof, and I’m not just talking about the end of the movie, I’m talking throughout. Indiewire dubbed it “the most subversive hip-hop movie ever” and it took home the Audience Award in its category, before winning the Audience Award at Fantastic Fest.

The story is like 8 Mile turned on its head, as a skinny white Ph.D. candidate, Adam (Calum Worthy), stumbles into the underground rap-battle world and discovers he has mad skills for spitting racist one-liners and skewering his own white privilege.

Don’t worry, Adam may be the center of the movie, as he goes up against other battlers such as black philosopher and father Behn Grymm (Jackie Long) and Korean-American Dumbfounded (Jonathan Park), but he’s far from the hero. Kahn co-wrote the script with actual Toronto battle rapper Alex Larsen (a.k.a. Kid Twist), and Eminem is a producer, for that dash of extra cred. Vulture talked to Kahn about his working relationship with Taylor Swift, and how Bodied was inspired by “Wildest Dreams.”

You’ve had a lot of trouble getting distribution for Bodied. We all thought it was going to get sold out of Toronto because it was literally the biggest hit of the festival. A lot of the major distributors didn’t understand it. I heard Netflix just didn’t like the way my protagonist wasn’t really a protagonist — which is the entire point of the movie! I’ve had offers that want me to chop up the rap, make the protagonist more likable. None of that is happening on my watch. But we’re close to cutting a deal.

What’s the disconnect? Bodied is an indie film that has no stars and is not a horror film. People talk in ebonics for three-quarters of the movie. It’s hard to market. It’s a battle rap movie, but it has elevated concepts, so you’re looking for a smart audience who may not listen to battle rap at all. How do you market that?

Well, Get Out didn’t have a natural audience either. Get Out is child’s play compared to Bodied. At the end of the day, that’s a horror movie, and when you have a horror movie, all it has to do to work is do one thing: Can it scare you? With Bodied, what are you promising? You’re promising people screaming at each other in rap.

Fighting words for Get Out. No, it’s true! People don’t know what a battle rap movie means. It’s not a genre film. It does not fit into a slot.

I feel like Bodied is a movie you really want to see in a theater. I think that distributors don’t understand why people go to movies. They think the only reason people go is to see spectacle, right? They think that the only way to trap them in a seat is to thrill them with a bunch of superheroes hitting each other and lots of special effects, and the audience feels like they get their money’s worth. It’s a really absurd thing to ask an audience, to willingly put themselves into a black box, filled with other people they don’t know, and force themselves not to be able to go to the bathroom, eat expensive food, and not look at their phone or check texts for two hours.

I don’t think special effects is the reason they’re [going]. When people go to Bodied and have this shared experience of laughing, being offended, and questioning things on an emotional roller coaster, that’s a reason for people to sit in that black box and not check their phones. Bodied supplies a catharsis. In a world where you’re not allowed to say anything offensive, this is a chance for people to share an open release for things that are not allowed in society. That’s an event.

Do you think it plays differently every time, based on what kinds of offensive things the president has said before people see it? I find that the temperature of the politics affects the movie, because people have different hot topics in their head, and Bodied runs the gamut of everything. If you’re worried about racism, it’s in there; if you’re worried about sexism, it’s in there; if you’re worried about harassment, it’s in there. Either way, the movie never gives you an answer. It’s a box you throw problems in, shake it up, and listen to how it sounds. It may sound different, but ultimately, the shaking is what you’re experiencing. I think it just depends on what people are perceiving about the movie at that point. It’s a Rorschach test.

Do you think sexual assault in the news will change the way audiences react to the misogynistic one-liners — which are really skewering misogyny? It’s not like sexual assault didn’t exist before last month. It’s not a surprise to women that sexual assault exists, and they watch the movie and love it. I think what’ll end up happening is that there will be males who probably overcompensate, because now they’re more “woke” than they were before. But one of the things I think the movie explores is that you can be “woke” but not understand what you’re “woke” about — it’s a superficial understanding. I think there may be a lot of people out there who go, “Oh, now I need to overcompensate to show how correct I am about this particular topic [harassment],” and they make an inauthentic interaction with the movie, because that line between actually thinking about something and wanting to think about something can be very bad.

Can we talk about the videos you just directed? So we’re going from harassment to Taylor Swift? [Laughs.]

Ha, sorry, that was a rough transition. How did that relationship begin? This is now six times that you guys have worked together. It just started as any other relationship, where a pop star asked the director to direct a video, and we just clicked. We had an immediate understanding of how we both perceive music videos, and our tastes are very similar. It’s just been a very fruitful collaboration, and it really has been a collaboration. None of these music videos are just me going off and doing my thing. They are very much mapped out between her and me at the beginning and through the whole process. And when we’re on set, we’re always throwing ideas at each other, trying to mine and figure out — I know it sounds pretentious because these are pop videos, but we really try to do every scene from a truthful POV, like, “what makes sense and what feels authentic for that particular scene.” She’s very good about that, and that’s what I seek out when I do these things.

Was she a longtime fan of yours? She’s what, 27 now in 2017? By the time she was 14, she would’ve been watching “Toxic” and videos like that. She is a pop-culture sponge. I can’t confirm this stuff, but I can hypothesize, knowing her and how vast her knowledge is of music and pop culture, that she was very aware of my work.

What is the give-and-take and dynamic of your collaboration? Like, how did you guys figure out the concept for “…Ready for It?” She called me up and pretty much had the idea mapped out in her head. It’s almost like she gave me a gift, because what she was thinking was right up my alley in terms of my fascination with Japanese pop culture and sci-fi. I really do suspect, on a certain level, this is a thank-you note to let me get my rocks off on my sci-fi fetishes! Wrong word, by the way! [Laughs.]

Were Blade Runner or Westworld influences? Well, obviously the whole gamut of sci-fi.

When that’s happening, are you breaking out all your references? Does she have a vast knowledge of sci-fi that we don’t know about that she brings out for you? She doesn’t talk in terms of “this looks like that,” or “I want that.” She just tells me a story of her battling robots and things like that, and then I have to frame it within the context of the sci-fi knowledge that I have and interpret it. Then I go back, pitch her images. It’s a very collaborative process.

How does it differ from making movies? With Taylor, it actually feels like we’re shooting movies. You would never get that with other artists, but she’s just so fluid in her language of cinema. She understands what a close-up does, what a medium shot is. She understands an edit, and she’ll watch me edit as I shoot. She loves filling in the gaps. We might shoot two scenes and there may be an empty blank in the edit as we’re going along, and when she sees the blank get filled up with another shot, her eyes light up. I find it very gratifying to work with someone who is so edit specific.

How has the working relationship evolved since you started working on “Blank Space?” I think we’ve gotten easier with each other’s language in terms of how we talk. Quite frankly, she has always been a very approachable person. Right off the bat, you can just text her and she’ll text you back. You give her an idea, she’ll respond immediately. What’s more amazing about the working relationship over this few years is how little has changed. As big as she’s gotten, she’s still the girl you can text and get answers back from immediately, which is very rare for an artist.

There was all that criticism for the “Wildest Dreams” video about it being racist, in that it’s supposed to be on a 1950′s movie set in Africa and there are hardly any black people … One thing I have noticed, being in Taylor’s world — god, this really is turning into a Taylor Swift interview!

People are interested! Besides we’re talking about the work you do together, not her personal life. The thing I’ve learned over the last couple years working with her, and I’ve worked with everybody — I’ve been doing music videos for nearly 30 years now — I have never seen anyone else get the amount of criticism she gets for the slightest thing. It’s really odd, especially because she’s an anomaly: She is genuinely a nice person.

I’m telling you, this is the most insane thing I have ever seen. She is genuinely a nice, cool, well-rounded, totally stable person, and society doesn’t know what to do with a woman like that! They really don’t! They need to knock her down! I feel what’s happening is, they see this incredibly stable, super-secure, super-smart, eloquent woman who can talk for herself, which is very odd because most artists, male or female, can’t talk. And she can do it! She’s a writer! That’s what she is! She’s a poet, and she has very clear thoughts. I find that people are intimidated by it, and people resent it for some reason! They need to see her bleed, and they’re trying to make her go crazy to see her come down.

It’s the old story. You’ve seen it happen a million times before — and they don’t do it to guys, it’s always women. You take a girl who gets a certain amount of power, like a Britney, a Madonna, a Mariah or whatever, they get to a certain level of success, and then the media — I’m sorry, but it’s literally the media — write these horrible stories and insinuations. They want to tear the artist down to the point where they want to go to a hospital, and then they want make money on the comeback story, too. They do the celebration and say, “Oh, Britney is back!”

Taylor refuses to let that happen. She does not want to be another one of those stories of a girl getting who gets torn down by the media and suddenly rises on her feet again on the backs of everyone writing their think pieces about how great she is again. She’s not letting that process happen, and I applaud her for that. Fight! Keep your sanity and integrity! You don’t need people to tear you down and bring you back up to sell records. Just be you. I think that’s what’s cool about it. When it comes to criticism and things like that, I’ve been through the process many times myself, and I’ve been criticized over many, many years, but I’m a 45-year-old guy, and it took me longer to figure that out. She’s 27 and she’s already figured that out.

So there was all this recent backlash when Taylor’s attorney apparently went after a blogger who’d linked her with the alt-right. Your response was to tweet a photo of Kanye and Trumpand said, “Let’s remember there’s one major recording artist who has publicly endorsed a white supremacist.” Yeah, there’s this whole hullabaloo right now about Taylor supporting Trump — which she never has— and being accused of being a white supremacist, and meanwhile, that guy [Kanye] gets a free pass. And he’s the one that has been attacking Taylor for years! We treat men and women completely different! Can you imagine if Taylor had a photo of herself smiling with Trump? Donezo! Done! [Laughs.] Meanwhile, we look at Kanye and think, “Oh no, he was just a little sick at the time,” and then he comes onstage going “I love Trump,” and it’s, “Oh, we really don’t believe him.” How many passes do you give to guys over women? It’s the same thing with Trump! How many times has Trump done completely insane things for which we keep giving him passes, and meanwhile, Hillary — and I was a Hillary supporter, I’ll make no bones about that — I don’t think she did anything. The double standard was super crazy!

You’ve become almost like a de facto spokesperson for Taylor. Yes but not by choice, and this is the reason why: My Twitter has always been there and I always speak my mind. I’ve done that since the beginning of Twitter and I’ve gotten in trouble for it. People who have followed me for years know that I just literally say what’s on the top of my head. Taylor, this album cycle, has not given one interview so the media is thirsty. They’re looking for any way in so they just go to me because I made a couple videos with her and they’re just mining my Twitter, or anything I say, for anything. If I go into an interview on Bodied which is — you said to me, “It’s the biggest hit of TIFF” — and people are asking me about Taylor Swift because they know that if they put Taylor Swift in the article the hits go up.

How interested are you in shaping the public perception of Taylor, especially through the videos? Are you throwing tiny references into the videos because you know they’ll go under a microscope? Yeah, of course. Quite a bit of that comes from Taylor. I don’t give the message. We’re just trying to figure out clever ways to express the metaphors in the songs. But we go into it being aware of what the video’s agenda is. The think pieces you write about them are earned.

You’ve dealt with a lot of high-profile artists before. Have your videos ever been as scrutinized as much as they are now? No, but I’ve been doing pop videos since before they were cool. Right now, people look back on “Toxic” and go, “That’s one of the greatest videos of all time,” and people write think pieces on it hailing it as a work of art. That would have never happened in 2004! Back in 2004, Britney was not cool. She was just a popular artist who was crazy and about to go into a hospital. I was this hack director just doing videos for her and Sisqo, right? I did not have any critical respect until, literally in the last four to five years, something happened where people suddenly started thinking that pop is art. I think social media and Twitter had a lot to do with pop getting intellectualized.

I remember putting my work onto a website in 2005 so that people could, for the first time, track how this one director did all these disparate videos. Somehow, with the collated version of the internet, there’s just been much more research being done on pop. I didn’t get my respect until things like Wikipedia, Facebook and social media became big and people could connect the dots. So there’s two things going on. One, the internet didn’t exist to the degree it does now so people couldn’t track my work, and two, in this sort of hyperbolic version of pop analysis, Taylor’s the biggest pop star in the world, so people are taking some serious microscopes into anything that we do.

What, exactly, is going on in “…Ready for It?” Here’s the one thing I won’t do: I won’t speak for Taylor. I have to give her the right to express or not express what she wants to feel about these videos. At the end of the day, as strong of an artist as I am, it’s a collaboration with Taylor, and she is the ultimate artist in these videos. They’re her songs, her stories, and I am a great paintbrush, but she is the canvas and the paint. So when it comes to interpretation, I’ve got to let her control that.

Can you give me the timeline for when you started working on Bodied? I’m curious how it was influenced by the music videos you’d done with her before you shot it, and how it influenced the videos you did with her that came after it. Believe it or not, Bodied was actually inspired by “Wildest Dreams,” the controversial video I’d done with Taylor.

Really? Well, for the longest time, I wanted to make a battle rap movie because I love the art form. I love its freedom of expression, and the cleverness of the poetry being flung at each other as insults. As someone who loves competition, that’s fun for me. But I didn’t want to make a sports movie, which is what it would normally be. I reached out to Alex, the writer, who was a battle rapper himself, and I was going to write a comedy or a horror film with him. It wasn’t going to be about battle rap. But anyway, I did “Wildest Dreams,” and having been in the fold with Taylor and knowing how quick the media is to judge her on anything, we were trying to predict what would go wrong with this thing.

There were criticisms of it being racist and you issued this response that said that it was a video about a tortured love story between Taylor and Scott Eastwood, who plays her movie-star boyfriend, but that pretty much everyone behind the scenes had been a person of color. There were two things we mapped out that we were pretty clear were points of controversy: one is that it was Africa in the ’50s, but it’s not like there haven’t been a ton of Hollywood movies about Africa in the ’50s, like The African Queen. (Note: The African Queen takes place during World War I, although it was made in the 1950s.) We knew that any time you go past the Golden Age of Hollywood, there’s segregation. It’s just a part of American life. Does that negate Citizen Kane or every other movie made before, say, 1969? No, that’s impossible. This is just part of the cinematic history of America and the world.

So I, myself, was trying to figure out how I incorporate, not African-Americans, but Africans, because this took place in Africa. One of my ideas was to make it with an African director, but we knew what was going to happen: It would be accused of whitewashing history and pretending apartheid didn’t exist. So on the flip side, I was thinking, “Maybe I should put the crew [in the video] somehow…” but then it’s like you’re running a plantation! It’s just a no-win situation all around. So what I did was, I just put a few crew members, like, as guards and things like that, who looked more authentic to what it was. So they’re in there. But anyways, what ended up happening is, you see white people in Africa in the ’50s, like Bogart or whatever. And it just hit at the right moment with #BlackLivesMatter and every particular issue going on at that particular moment in that three-month span, and it became a target of being called colonialism and racism and all these hot keywords that were being flung around at the time.

No matter what you would say, it would always seem like your argument would get negated, and people wouldn’t have it any other way. It got to a point where someone would write an essay about how “Joseph Kahn never puts black people in his videos,” or “Joseph Kahn doesn’t do any black videos,” which is absolutely absurd! Half my videos are hip-hop videos! All these accusations were going around that were just not true, and I found the social-media bullying fascinating, where facts didn’t really matter, it was just whoever could shout the loudest, right? That gave me the idea of, “Well, I know a venue where people shout really loud and the truth may not matter, and that’s battle rap.”

So you said you and Taylor tried to anticipate what controversy would come out of “Wildest Dreams.” Sounds like you went into it knowing it was a minefield. The other thing was that Cecil the lion had just been shot, so we needed to make sure nothing looked like Taylor was in Africa shooting lions! We made sure there were photographers and things like that. You can anticipate what the Zeitgeist is going to do up to a certain point, but you can never truly know what it’s going to do at any particular moment, especially when it’s negative. You just don’t know how big it’s going to blow up, ever.

And it sounds like both of you have an attitude of, “I’m going to say what I want to say, and I’m going to go forward because it’s going to get shot down no matter what, so why not?” Yeah, and the reality is, as negative as the social-media aspect of it was, in reality, it wasn’t really that big of a deal. It was just the media fanning a fire, and people who never would’ve bought her albums in the first place screaming really loud. Meanwhile, the video now has almost 600 million views and the song did extraordinarily well. It’s not like it made her poor! She did extremely well off of it. But that’s the way social media works: You can literally have 100 people retweeting each other, and some person at BuzzFeed can go in there and say, “The internet has spoken,” and they’ll collectively take ten quotes from random people and write an entire article about this. It is the laziest form of journalism there is. It’s not even journalism. I don’t know what that is! And by the way, there’s not even that many words in the article. It’s all pictures! So it’s a person going, “The internet hates Taylor Swift,” and then they show ten tweets from ten random people who might be a person with ten different accounts. You don’t even know! It’s a completely absurd situation.

I think it’s so cool that that video inspired Bodied. Has Bodied inspired your new work since you finished shooting it? Will fans of Bodied someday be able to look back and find new connections? It goes deeper. Bodied, for me, was an expression of a thematic idea, in terms of freedom of speech, the nature of language, and the nature of truth and art itself. But underneath that, there is a systematic approach I had towards raising my craft, making it look a little more organic than my previous film, [teen horror film] Detention, where the craft was so surface-level that people could see it and react against it. Bodied is a bit more restrained. It’s literally about where I place the camera in terms of an over-the-shoulder shot. It’s a bunch of nuances I was working on for the last three years. Then, since I actually learned that those certain techniques work, it has informed me on my next set of videos. If you’re looking at “…Ready for It?” there’s a certain geometry to the way close-ups and movements work. This is stuff I don’t really want to talk about, because they’re secrets of my trade. I’m not here to tell every filmmaker how to be successful, because I’m still figuring it out, and it’s a competition, quite frankly. But yes, it has completely informed my filmmaking.

The opening shot of Taylor coming in in “…Ready for It?” reminded me of going to battle in Bodied. Well, “…Ready for It?” is a confrontation video, so it’s definitely informed by the physical geometry of Bodied.

Do you have a good on-set story from the last two things you’ve shot with Taylor? Yes! Speaking of the way we interact — on this one particular sequence in “…Ready for It?,” we were trying to figure out what her reaction should be, how she should perform as the camera comes towards her, and what is the intent of her character in that particular moment. The line was, “He can be my jailer / Burton to this Taylor,” and I said, “That’s a really clever metaphor,” and she goes, “I know. That’s why I wrote it.”

There’s so much physical stuff she has to do in these videos. Has she ever gotten hurt? I’ll tell you one thing: Whenever I do videos with her, I am 100 percent all about her safety. I am not going to be the guy who gets Taylor Swift hurt. Then I will have a million Swifties try to kill me! She is completely protected when I work with her. I will literally throw myself in front of a car because I would rather get hit than her, because the Swifties will hit me with a car anyway.

ts1989fanatic This is why we love @JosephKahn and exactly why he got one of these for his own damn self.

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o-wyrmlight · 4 years ago

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“I'm not the most informed person for racism, but here's what I know from the show. Vaggie is the angry Latina stereotype. Alastor uses voodoo symbols, and conflating voodoo with demonic is racist. Angel Dust is the flamboyant feminine gay man stereotype. One of the people on the team was part of a drama in the MLP fandom where one of its content creators got really badly bullied for no reason. I don't really know anything beyond that much. But yeah.”

All of these are super valid to bring up, but here's why I don't agree with MOST of that:

Vaggie is not the angry Latina stereotype. I feel like context is very important--both times she has been shown to be angry in the pilot were for perfectly valid reasons. The first being that Angel Dust completely ruined the Happy Hotel's credibility and likely completely crushed everything that her girlfriend Charlie is trying to do. The second is that she knows Alastor would very likely try to pull some shit to make her job harder, and Vaggie knows about his reputation as the radio demon. Considering both of them were markedly disrespectful toward her, she has a reason to be angry. Outside of that, she has shown herself to be incredibly caring and considerate of Charlie. And I feel like it should be noted: Vivian is Latina, as well, and she has gone on the record to say that she has put some of her own personality traits onto Vaggie.

Angel Dust is technically the flamboyant stereotype--but it's important to recognize his current situation. He's a porn star and a sex worker, and he is very gay. There are people like him that exist in real life. Vilifying femme, flamboyant gay men in media, I think, is a little 'eh', considering that there are people who are legitimately like that. Angel Dust himself is in a very complicated and horrible situation, so it's not as if he's a one-note character, either.

Are you talking about Chris? I'm not 100% sure about his deal is in this whole situation, but I don't think his name comes up in the credits of the show, so there's a strong chance that he was booted from the show before or during production when the allegations came out.

You may have noticed that I've yet to speak about Alastor and his 'voodoo practices', and that's because I completely agree with and understand where you're coming from with this. I did a little reading the other day (not very much, but enough to hopefully get a general idea) and figured out some stuff about voodoo practice:

Voodoo (usually referred to as vodou) is a practice that revolves largely around healing, and it came from Africa when slaves were brought over to America. Its roots were Haitian, and over the years in America, Christianity had a large impact in morphing it into something a little different and varied.

The vodou that Alastor uses is not accurate to actual vodou practice whatsoever. It's what is known as 'Hollywood Vodou', which is a Hollywood representation in media and culture that was designed ages ago to vilify/demonize black people and their vodou practices by making it out to be much more evil than it actually is. This was the biggest yikes from me when I found out--having characters that perpetuate this wildly inaccurate depiction of vodou culture is... not very good, to say the least. Not kosher.

Alastor, however, is Creole--or at least partly Creole, so it makes sense that he would have had some knowledge of vodou practices even as a human. HOWEVER. This doesn't change the fact that the representation is wildly inaccurate and very incorrect.

This is basically what I found while digging into the Hazbin Hotel drama on these topics in particular, at the very least. I might be wrong on a few accounts, especially the particularities of vodou magic and practice--if I am, please feel free to let me know.

the problem with hazbin hotel is not that the characters are bad people. a lot of characters in a lot of media are bad people. the problem is that the characters have racist or homophobic stereotypes on them. the problem is that the creator of the media is bigoted and a pedophile, and their bigotry has seeped into the media. and before you say anything about hyperfixations, i have adhd too. i hyperfixated on it too. it's not an excuse for supporting problematic media.

I'm curious, to be honest. What parts of Hazbin Hotel has racist or homophobic stereotypes to them?

Also, I'm a little bit unclear as to how exactly Viv is bigoted.

The only thing that I'm 100% sure on is that she's not a pedophile--she drew a joke shipping fanart between two characters, one who was a creepy bitch and another who was a minor who obviously didn't reciprocate, and has since expressed genuine regret towards drawing that piece of art she drew a great many years ago. And if you're going by the argument of a canonic pedophilic ship in Zootopia, it really isn't. The characters are within the same age range.

#hazbin hotel #helluva boss #ask to tag #i know i already posted pretty much this exact thing on another post but uh i. accidentally. reblogged the wrong post #this was the one i meant to reblog with all of this information #since this was the one that had the quoted reply #btw idk if the person who sent this reply will see it considering how late it is and i'm sorry for that rip #i wrote this all on my phone when i just came into work and i was in a bit of a hurry

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nightcoremoon · 5 years ago

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dear queerphobic cis men

you can't have it both* ways

you can't simultaneously think

oh being trans is a mental illness

and

oh being trans is a political movement

AND

oh being trans is just whining for attention

pick one

*yes it's three. offer a suitable replacement word or stfu because linguistics are a social construct and if you're smart then you'll know what I mean, and if you're not smart, fuck off

if you're gonna hate us then pick a reason why. this isn't a matter of ~sjw bullshit~ here, I am playing the devil's advocate and giving you the chance to have a platform to vocalize your pov right here and now to have an open debate about things that you're wrong about and that I'm more educated on. I am letting you speak up and put together an essay on the subject. but you need a thesis statement. PICK ONE THESIS. if you want people to actually listen to you and let you exercise your right to freeze peach, you have to articulate your points in an academic formulaic system. and you have to choose one specific path. it's just pure logic.

you see, I'm not offended if you think it's a mental illness. if it's a mental illness then it needs to be treated and in the case of when symptoms become dangerous to themselves and the people around them, and medicated or given therapy, just like any other mental illness. I'm not offended that you think it's a political movement. if it's a political movement then it deserves an equivalent platform to speak its opinion on in an open debate. I'm not offended if you think it's just people wanting attention. that's just wildly incorrect from a sociological, psychological, biological, historical, logical, statistical, and linguistic perspective. give us the opportunity to respond to one cohesive and well-written solid concrete point, so that we can eventually one day reach a compromise that works out well for both of us, WHICH IS WHAT AMERICA WAS FUCKING FOUNDED ON. the founding fathers disagreed on literally everything but they came together and built this country. and since y'all suck the dicks of washington, adams, jefferson, madison, adams jr, franklin, hamilton, hancock, jay, etc so much, BE A MAN and be like them and listen to the ones you disagree with and BE A MAN and agree to disagree and BE A MAN and not a little bitch. after all, being a man is important to you.

(and if you're a transphobic cis woman, well, you're most likely a tradwife, terf, or just some dumb bitch, and you should really stfu and let the intellectuals with agency and brains speak.)

so go unify and put something together that's worthy of our time. make like your heroes and write a report, or at the very least the kind of five paragraph essay you demand from us, to allow a platform. this is russel's teapot. we've been here longer than you. you're the invader. you're the parasite. you're the foreigner. and you gotta play by the rules of the road if you wanna be taken seriously.

otherwise

and revel in your degenerate ignorant disgrace to the human race. you're not above us, you're below 18th century inventors, bankers, lawyers, journalists, doctors, merchants, farmers, and land surveyors turned militia commanders. you're classless, you're pathetic, and you're not worth my time.

"but everyone knows that-" then fucking prove it. do research on the subject from unbiased and trustworthy sources. listen to people from other cultures. listen to people who differ from you. listen. don't speak, don't argue, don't do any more than nod your head and ask clarifying questions when there's a break in conversation. listen, learn, and get educated beyond seventh grade biology, rick & morty quotes, and world war two video games. put in the work. stand by your opinion. defend it. flesh it out.

do the work.

or put up with me rubbing my gay and trans little hands all over everything you love with your

fucking

mouth

shut.

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sambinnie · 8 years ago

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All links mentioned are clustered at the end, if you’d like to read/listen to them too.

I’ve never been one for the middle road, in habits, emotions or tendencies, but if there’s one thing 2016 has taught me — I hope — it’s that it’s possible for me. At last. I’ve been more willing, as I’ve grown fractionally older, to welcome the change of heart that time and experience bring; I’ve been more likely to say, ‘Well, this is how I feel at the moment, but who knows,’ rather than, ‘No! Never! Impossible!’ Only there have been some hold-outs from this: some political groups, some voting histories, some educational choices, anti-freedom groups, hate groups. Thankfully, they could all be bundled up in my mind as Big Bads, so I didn’t need to ever fear that I could be wrong about any of them: and if someone had expressed those choices, even once, even in error or misunderstanding or drunkenness or foolishness, or ever been associated with anyone who’d expressed those choices, then great! Into the barrel of doom with them, and good riddance!

I have loved so much of social media, so much of the quickness of thought to make the jokes, dark or otherwise, because that’s how I see the world. The kindness, too: those people who tap a “xxx” or a digital embrace to someone suffering. I’ve been at both ends of that, and it feels good.

2016, however, and everything we’re seeing unfold from that and the last few years before it, has made me wonder at the meaningfulness of these interactions. Other people than me have written about this, probably better than me, and research can show whatever we want it to (also known as ‘2016’s catchphrase’) but some gut instinct in me has hollered louder and louder than social media does nothing, for me, in quite a major way. I’m sure anyone who’s reading this can give me some counter arguments — friendships, business contacts, social and political movements — but there is a hollowness to my life on there. On here, I suppose I should say. Having been mostly off it for several months now, I can see with greater clarity that the time I spend with friends and family on sofas and bar stools and around kitchen tables, without photos, or hashtags, or tagging, or comments, just ephemeral conversation and moments that are gone forever: these times have been better for me, and have filled some deeper need.

And of course social media can be an educational, fascinating place. It’s hilarious to suggest otherwise. So congratulations and a big shiny medal to me if I now understand that Black Lives Matter, or grasp the violence that faces the average transgender man or woman, or see that even the most supportive, feminist man occasionally uses language and jokes that chip away at the average woman. Those fights are easy to understand and easier to engage in.

But – and here’s the tricky bit – how much time did I give, really, to thinking about why someone would support and vote and fight and hurt people for beliefs opposite to mine? It’s not comfortable to defend these people, to acknowledge that they are human and have family they love and interests they believe to be best. It’s not easy to say, in my circles, But What About Straight White Men, when we’ve had such a bloody great time turning them into the butt of every smart, knowing, accurate, deserved joke. But the number of people I know on social media who are actively trying to make the world better (could count on two hands) rather than just spitting into someone’s online soup (thousands) is worth my consideration, if I’m spending hours a day with them. And the things we’ve hated in those hours! We hate this film. This politician is trash. That TV programme is shit — look at this gif about it! The readers of those newspapers are just a dumpster fire of burning garbage.

So this is what I’ve concluded, after much thinking and reading and listening: that there are two issues here. Two things that tie my feelings about social media and my feelings about what’s on social media together: firstly, nuance, and secondly, opportunity versus morality.

Nuance, as Jon Ronson (a man who’s had his share of online kickings) says on the Guys We’ve Fucked podcast*, is wildly unfashionable now. Pick a side! Quickly! Don’t worry about circumstance, or history, or mis-readings, or context! Just go go go get our boots on and pile in! My online bubble that I’ve been happy to cosy up in seems the same: straight white guys: be quiet. Leave voters: racists. Republicans: racist misogynist climate-change deniers who should also be quiet. It doesn’t matter why they feel that way. Let’s just remind them as forcibly as we can that they are hateful humans we don’t want to dirty our hands with, and that’ll teach them a lesson they’ll never forget! After seeing our scorching memes, they’ll be thinking like we do in no time! Except: they are actual people. Everyone’s frightened of something, and whether or not I agree with the veracity of the source of that fear, they’re still feeling afraid. They still have goals, which I may or may not agree with, but those goals won’t change if I tell them their goals are trash. In an episode of the Invisibilia podcast* called Flip the Script, Hanna Rosin visits Aarhus to talk to the police who decided to stop prosecuting young Muslim men travelling to Syria to fight for Isis, and instead engaged with them, offering them care and support, employment and housing. They made them feel like they were welcome in Denmark, that this was their home, and in 2015, even when traffic was spiking from Europe, only one individual left Aarhus to fight. In the programme, Jamal, a young Danish muslim, says of his feelings before this positive intervention received him, ‘I thought: they call me terrorist? I will give them a terrorist.’ Treat those we disagree with as racists, as misogynists, as bigots, as fascists, and guess how they’ll be tempted to behave. (Side note: It’s also really worth listening to the Adam Buxton conversations* with Richard Ayoade, Iain Lee and Jon Ronson (again!) talking from various different angles about kindness, nuance, context, and how it feels to be a Woody Allen fan these days. Also, there’s a stand-up routine by Louis CK – helloooo, problematic public figure – which also covers nicely the idea of correctly using The Right Terms but having not great goals with it, and being pummelled for using Incorrect Language but wanting to communicate positive ideas. I can’t link to it as it autoplayed on Netflix while I was painting the hall, but the thought was pretty smart.)

As Oliver Burkeman said in his This Column Will Change Your Life piece*, it’s moderation that’s key to a better world, not battling for victory. No one really ever wins a war. As This American Life’s podcast* on Reconsideration showed, it’s giving people a chance to be listened to that offers that chance to change minds, not shouting them down with facts that will only make them dig their heels in harder. Anger is a vital political tool, but my anger too often feels like hatred, or disdain, or dismissal. It serves no purpose. It’s a toxic, pixelled sledgehammer. It makes the world worse. I’ve really been doing a shitty job at making things nicer, guys.

Secondly: opportunity versus morality. As part of my feminist beliefs, I’ve been pro-Instagram; why should some dude tell me what I can and can’t photograph? If people like my lunch pic, what’s wrong with that? If I look great and want to record and share it, what the hell is your problem? Only suddenly, as I’ve been using it less and less, Instagram looks so lonely to me. I think of the humans at the end of Wall-E, tapping their screens and never looking up, and that’s how it feels: I like the sunset someone else has photographed while I’m missing it because I’m looking at my phone. And even if I’m snapping it myself to share — what am I missing by not just looking at the damn thing, and letting it pass through me, a beautiful gift to warm my soul? Do I really believe the tech ads about how much better a father’s night in the woods is with his kid because he brought their tablet along? I know the feeling in me when I pick up my phone to take a picture of something with the intention of sharing it, and it feels like a greasy, dizzy dilution. For me, it’s not about the over-curation of our perfect online lives, but about the inability to live in my offline life without outside approval. I’m not having real fun until 20, 50, 1000 people have liked it too!

And putting that smartphone opportunity up against my moral code: just because we can do something, should we? If I can live-tweet a couple arguing on a train journey, does that make it not nightmarishly intrusive? If I Instagram a photo of someone in a terrible outfit, does that make me a warrior for underprivileged rights? If I pause every lunch with friends to take photos to post online for others to view and like or not like, am I connecting more, or less? Am I making the world a more claustrophobic, judgemental, short-sighted place if I collude in this weird global surveillance?

And god knows, I’m a hypocrite. I’ve been mean as mean can be, online and off-, about people whose political views I disagree with. I’ve Instagrammed my Christmas day lunches, my children’s artwork, my brunches with friends, my views from a train. But why have I interrupted the flow of conversation or silence before the play started to post a picture of the theatre stage and ceiling? Why have I unintentionally asked my family to hold off from eating because I wanted a picture of the meal I’ve just made? Why did I stop thinking about whatever I was thinking about just to snap an image of the sky? I’ve thought and thought and can’t get any further than Because other people might like it. Which is, to me, right now, at this moment, fathomlessly sad. (But who knows how I’ll feel next week, a year from now, twenty years from now?)

Have some ideas on social media changed me? Of course. People and articles have educated me hugely in ways that have hopefully made me a better person. But do those new, positive and instructive ideas warrant staying on social media? Not at the moment. Twitter is a thousand people shouting apocalypse at me, Facebook is an algorithmic sink and Instagram is an endless time-suck scroll of kids I’m not playing with, art I’m not making, trips I’m not taking, food I’m not cooking, homes I’m not helping people into, chances I’m not helping others receive, political aspirations I’m not supporting because I’m just swiping my finger along this screen tap tap tap swipe tap swipe tap swipe swipe swipe…

But right now, I’m trying to make changes. I’m off twitter, I’ve deleted my Facebook profile, I’ve turned my Instagram to private and am slowly weaning myself off it (I still hit like at what I’m seeing, but the (v good, v scary) Moment app is also making me realise how much of my day — my life — is lost to tapping a heart icon on a flat screen next to a photograph someone else has taken that ultimately means nothing to me as pixels on a screen). The cards, notes, emails and texts I’ve sent and received over the last month or two have made me realise how much more valuable these quiet interactions are to me at the moment. I think about the adults I’d like our kids to grow up into: outward-facing, forward-looking, clear-eyed, generous with their time, generous with their thoughts, independent, handy (all the way from cooking and cleaning, through to crafting and mending and building), confident, kind. And it doesn't matter that I’m thinking of it in terms of my kids: like those men we laugh at for only finding feminism once they have a daughter (who cares why they found it! they found it! they're engaging!) it’s not about whether or not I have children. It’s about which adults we want to share the world with. Adults we might disagree with, but whom we could hopefully rely on for respectful conversation, thoughtfulnesss, retreat on either side, apologies, space for error, learning, growth, change.

I’m not saying we should forgive anyone who asks for it — only maybe I am, because what does the alternative produce? And I’m not saying we should love everyone in the world, no matter what they’ve done in the past or continue to do in the future — only I guess, I suppose, perhaps, maybe I actually am, because hating people feels shit, does nothing, and makes the world boring and hate-filled and dead. We’ve tried that! We’ve tried telling men/cis/white women/privileged feminists/baby boomers/Tories/right-wingers/Brexit supporters/homophobes/transphobes/racists/abusers/Cameron that they’re just a crapsack, nothing but a punchline, should get pushed off their soapbox or fixie or 4x4 or youtube channel into the fiery pits of hell! We’ve let the warmth of righteous indignation warm us at night and not minded the language we use against our enemies because look at the way they’ve treated us! Look at the terrible things they’ve done! So we hurl insults and craft jokes and smash bridges with our pixel sledgehammers and wait for the likes and retweets and thumbs up and YEAH comments to flood in, and if they do then our point is proved, good work, and if they don’t then maybe we up it a bit more next time.

(Or sometimes, I wonder if it’s all a handy distraction from the way we’re treating our planet at the moment, like gum we can replace at the corner shop once we’ve chewed all the goodness from it. That’s frightening. That’s genuinely sick-in-the-night, silent panic-attack terrifying. But we buy new phones and new phone covers and charge them up and snap a picture of ourselves with them in the mirror and grind our teeth that some dude took up too much space on the tube and Steven Moffatt can’t write women. Yes! Those things might be true! But, to play the card we all dislike the most: haven’t we got other things to worry about? Not necessarily bigger things, or better things, but fractionally more pressing things? Shouldn't we all be hurling money as hard as we can at scientists and policy makers in the hope we can stop sawing down and burning up the only home we’ve got? Shouldn’t we be campaigning against companies who design their products with built-in obsolescence, rather than grabbing those products as fast as we can so we can use them to tweet our rage at companies who use unreliable delivery companies? And I understand that climate change isn’t a stand-alone issue — capitalism, our lifestyles, our conditioned social priorities, corporate power over government, dissolution of employment rights, exploitation of workers — all of this feeds into climate change and the terrible way we’re treating our planet. I understand this. And all of it feels slightly more pressing than how I can correctly display my individualism to people who don’t or barely know me.)

The fact remains, the basic philosophies of most major religions (if we put aside meat specifics and some potentially dodgy sex/marriage stuff) throughout human civilisation probably have a point: care for the needy; practice humility; think of others; show forgiveness; show respect; love everyone.

If the future looks scary, the answer isn’t to build the wall higher and sharpen our words. It’s so painful, and it’s so difficult, and it’s so simple. Right now, if we can take the time to type our disdain and disgust, we’re in a privileged enough position to take a deep breath, dive into life, and make a better choice.

1. *Jon Ronson on Guys We’ve Fucked

2. *Invisibilia, Flip the Script

3. *Richard Ayoade on Adam Buxton

4. *Iain Lee on Adam Buxton

5. *Jon Ronson on Adam Buxton

6. *Oliver Burkeman, ‘Moderates are the real tough guys’

7. *This American Life, For Your Reconsideration

#change #hope #social media #nuance #reconsideration #moderation #screens #privacy #intrusion #consumerism #recommendations

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