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kvetchlandia · 4 years ago

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Richard Meltzer Lester Bangs Passed Out on Meltzer’s “Highly Uncomfortable Living Rm. Chair,” 104 Perry St., Apt. 4, West Village, New York City 1972

On December 14th, this December 14th, Lester Conway Bangs, while probably not the greatest writer of his generation, arguably its most vital so far to die, would have been 36. Haunted and driven by demons, so- called, a cheerless many of whom/what/ which — or their kindred ilk — he directly sought, found cum stumbled upon, or was inadvertently ensnared by on the demon picnic grounds of Rock and Roll, he never made it to 34.

Following the lead of a handful of babes in the rock-critical woods, one of which I'll admit (if sometimes reluctantly) to having been. Bangs at the dawn of the seventies played as prominent a role as anyone in both expanding the expressive boundaries of rockwriting as a form and giving it a voice that played the newer, more mannered and cautious, mass-market rockmags like Rolling Stone and Creem — the latter of which he even edited for awhile — as on the dime as it had played the catch-as-catch-can, limited-edition fanzines whence it came. Though he also served as the burgeoning genre’s most prolific scribbler, a mission he sustained with relative ease for the bulk of his days, it is to the man’s lasting credit that he rarely delivered copy on anyone’s dotted line. In fact, he probably “got away with more’’ in major- publication print than all his rockwrite brethren combined, conceivably (however) because it merely simplified matters to have a single Designated Outlaw, one entrusted with a blanche enough carte — and unmonitored options galore — to spike with “authenticity ’’ a rock-media stew of bogus Freedom and ersatz Candor.

Retrospectively cliched or not, there was an existential purity to the sheer commitment evinced by Lester’s prolonged wallow in (and about) the rock- and-roll Thing-in-itself. It was, in many ways, the critical headbang to end all critical headbangs; it would be hard to even imagine, for instance, a professional art-film bozo, a jock-sniffing sports jerk, or a food-review lunatic more uninsulatedy gung-ho vis-a-vis x — either as primary experience or typewrite wankery. His patented shameless multipage gush, coupled with an unswerving advocacy of certain conspicuously over- the-top rock genera (Velvet Underground offshoots; Heavy Metal; Punk Rock), made him a must-read favorite with both cognoscenti and dipshits alike, and he came as close to encountering idolatry per se as any non-musician in R&R. A good deal of which — natch —could not help hitting the self-consciousness fan, but while a man’s life was ultimately undone in the process (“I’m Lester — buy me a drink! ’’), the integrity of his art/craft was essentially unaffected. For, while he might have been a tad too glib-messianic those last couple years, he was by no stretch of things an opportunist, never really giving a hoot for what in squaresville would be known as a career. (Or, perhaps, unlike his role model Kerouac, he simply didn’t live long enough for that, too, to be strenuously tested.)

In any event: dead, cremated, literal ashes. California born (Escondido ’48), bred (El Cajon, ages 9-23), and traveled (I first hung with him in San Francisco, last in L.A.), Lester bought the big one on the opposite coast — his final home, the fabled Apple — April 30/82, ostensibly from a hefty pull of darvon employed, in lieu of aspirin, to placate the flu. Since his death, variously interpreted as a mile-radius teardrop’s once-in-a- lifetime terminal burst, a joke and a half on both himself and his precious chosen whole damn Thing, and — by occasional uncouth louts — the final glorious triumph of his excess, the spectrum of Bangs-in-ongoing-print has dwindled from monochromatic /sparse to colorless/ nonexistent. Of the two books in his name which appeared during his lifetime, quasi-coffeetable numbers on Blondie and Rod Stewart, neither a particularly representative Lestorian effort (or even particularly good: the former admittedly hacked out “in two days on speed,’’ and looking it, i. e., ad hoc and forced; the latter disowned as a clumsy, if innocent, foray into “writing as whoring’’), both are either out of print — officially — or on the back burner of barely having ever been in same, at least as regards this coast, where I’ve yet to see either in bookstore one. Nor have two posthumous whatsems. Rock Gomorrah, cowritten (early ’82) with L.A.’s Michael Ochs, and a projected collection of unpublished fragments scrounged from Bangs’s apartment a day or two after his death, gotten more than inches off the publishing ground — the former for reasons which if herein revealed would get me sued but good, the latter because, in the words of editor Greil Marcus, “the stuff is less tractable than I thought at less than 5000 words or so.’’ Also stalled, and/or abandoned (and/ or nonspecific pipedreams to begin with) : all known plans to reissue out-of- print Live Wire LP Jook Savages on the Brazos, recorded, Austin, TX, Dec. ’80, by Lester Bangs & the Delinquents, lyrics and vocals by guess who. In fact, the only anything by L. C. Bangs readily available where availables are sold is his liner copy for The Fugs Greatest Hits Vol. I, released by PVC/Adelphi some months after he’d croaked, for which he (or rather his atoms) later copped a Grammy nomination, and for which, reliable word has it, he never was paid.

Well, I’ve been proven wrong; it hasn’t been easy recollecting Lester in even half a toto in so much tranquility. Didn’t seem like such a bad idea back when obits were appearing left & right and at least two- thirds of ’em smacked of revisionism at its well-intentioned worst; having ridden the range with the guy, having been as intimate with his daytime/nighttime revealed essence — I would bet my boots — as anyone in or out of various possible beds with him, I had fiery goddam galaxies to say in his behalf that were simply not being said, at least not in print by his designated peers; and, although my no longer living in New York couldn’t help but delay my shot, remote and after-the-fact seemed like the ticket, y’know anyway, for some major necessary rerevision.

But here it is two, two and a half years gone & more, and whuddaya know if all the raw goddam pain (at the loss of, yes, a brother) and jagged fucking anger (at a waste of life, life-force, and relative inconsequential like “talent” and “genius”), an unbeatable duo which for weeks, weeks, months gave the Lester totality so cosmic a shape, scale and intensity, have by their own inevitable burnout given way to the contemplation of standard-issue mere data, of the skeletal remains of a larger-than-life life which have come to make sense (or not) in too neat, too linear, a manner. Well — hey — fuggit: Even if grocery lists, chalk diagrams and hokey storytellin’ are the forms ongoing life-as-life has imposed on the mission, there’s still a heap of essential Lester information that could use, uh, exposure to printed-page light.

What too many write-biz intimates sought to do in the wake of his death was debunk the Lester Legend (solely) by reciting evidence that his bark was worse than his bite. While I’m sure he’d have “wanted it done” (i.e., have the saga-as- litany scraped of treacherous barnacles, or at least of their treacherous vogue), I can’t imagine the projected post-life intent of such a wish as in any way entailing cosmetic overhaul, especially in the service of moral/experiential object lessonhood. Lester’s day-to-day transaction with post-adolescent life-as- dealt was — let’s be conservative — 94 % anything but pretty. If he’d have wanted his entire whatsis to serve up viable scenarios for intimates and non-intimates alike (gee, would the Pope prefer to be Catholic?), there’s no way the deal’d come out even provisionally Lester-functional without interested non-intimates having retroactive access to as hefty an eyeful of the not-so-pretty — in all its hideous, non-Clearasiled blah blah blah — as intimates galore regularly managed to cop and, in their various personal ways, have already learned from. To deglorify an earlier incarnation of shit (which the man himself was clearly hellbent on doing in his waning days on earth) you’ve got to at least speak its name — loudly! — for the whole entire planet: c’mon now, one & all. A solemn responsibility (I call it) which, credibly/incredibly, the smelly sumbitch’s closest associates have, to this day, all but refused to consider.

To wit: For every time anyone saw the defanged, declawed Lester teddy bear rear its cuddly li’l head (see obits 2, 3, 5 & 7) the man was uncountable times the asshole, the buffoon, the sodden tyrant; been those things myself — in semi-prior lifetimes — so I know. Back in ’73, for inst, the soon-to-be-dead Lillian Roxon gushed shameless love for the s.o.b., in New York on Creem business, ordering up a Lester button and leaving it in his hotel box; response to this purest of offerings was “What’s that fat cunt want from me?” About a year later I get this call from Nick Tosches requesting that I please take Lester, who’d shown up at his door on acid, “off my hands”; took him to a party at John Wilcock’s place, during which he verbally brutalized Wilcock’s wife (in green Fingernails) for being a “hooker,” snapped at an affable Ed Sanders for being “the only alkie in the counter-culture,” and had nothing more to say to Les Levine’s Asian girlfriend (wife?) than “Yoko is a lousy gook”; further into the night, at Vincent’s Clam Bar in Little Italy, he literally bellowed ( more than twice), “There’s a lotta tackin’ wops in this joint.” And how can I forget the way he treated me and Nick, his closest approximate friends f'r crying out loud, as our wonderful editor while at Creem? He’d call us each up at 3 a.m. to urgently solicit various (rather specific) reams of pap, needed via Special D toot sweet; we’d climb outta bed, peck away bleary-eyed to whack out the closest possible takes on what he’d claimed he wanted, whereupon he’d reject ’em with a vengeance (“I won’t print beatnik shit”), then run thoroughly like-minded i. somethings — under his own byline — or with our words, usually verbatim, laced throughout. Just a few “examples,” dunno if they sound like big stuff or small, in any event typical Lester, with plenty, plenty more where they came from — y’know times n-plus-many.

In spite of such anticommunal upchuck, or quite possibly because of it — post-adolescent of a post-summer-of-love feather & all that — I did have deep affection for the bastard during my final years in New York; he could really piss me off (and I, I’m assuming, him) but bygones were always eventually ditto. In those days I generally shared his affection for The Edge, and might even’ve gone extreme slightly ahead of him; in January ’72, this is true, he actually dubbed me “the Neal Cassady of rock and roll.” But by fall ’75, when I split New York to at least simulate an escape from the Frantic and Hyper (and he subsequently arrived, ostensibly to embrace same), I was feeling the first stirrings of apprehension re my own prolonged massive intake of Edge Substances (emotional, cultural, but above all chemical) and was on the verge of an early series of attempts to, y’know, cut down, to maybe get off my collision course with all sorts of walls, both metaphoric and real. Lester, meantime, seemed on a rapid upswing in the intake dept.; what had so far served as mere horizon or frame for his trip, or at most been its semi-essential fuel, was now lunging headlong for the foreground of his life ... or should we call it the twin foregrounds (life as Mythic Construct; life as physical/emotional/cultural Hard Mundane Reality).

Hey, the guy was beginning to scare me. Certainly as an advanced — or rapidly advancing — version of what I no longer wanted to be and could (possibly) imagine once again becoming, but more as this vivid, palpable spectre of specialized human decomp not just out there but right there: a pal & a buddy headed (willy nilly?) for the sewer. From late ’75 immediately onward, on those unlikely occasions when separate coasts — underscored by far fewer rockwrite junkets — any longer allowed for it, I was usually unable to handle being in the same room with him, knowing I’d have to witness whole new increments of what could really no longer be passed off as anything but (gosh) misery and (dig it) horror. Where in the earlier ’70s it was almost cute — once in a while — the way Lester would stumble into classic self- directed drunk jokes (like the time he called me from the Detroit airport to tell me he was headed for an Alice Cooper show in London, presumably England, only he’d drunkenly got it wrong and was on his way to London, Ontario), there was this half-week in ’79, for inst, during which he hung out at Michael Ochs’s house in Venice with no daily design but to get skid-row-calibre gone and stay there, that was just fucking grim. Looking an unhealthy as I’d ever seen him, basic shit-warmed over with an ngly bump on his forehead (which he claimed he was “treating with Romilar”), he refused to eat without an Occasion. When, one evening, Michael and I pretty much dragged him to a Mexican restaurant, he refused to actually step inside until he’d fortified himself with the cottons from six Benzedrex inhalers — the local pharmacist was out of Romilar — busted open on the sidewalk with a shoe.

Washing down their remnants with a Dos Equis as his enchilada sat there staring at him, he quoted (or claimed he was quoting) Sid Vicious: “Food is boring.”

So, inevitably, when Billy Altman rang me up from N.Y.Clearly on a California morn, to let me hear it straight from a friend — “instead of from a creep” — my immediate response to no more Lester, steps ahead of all the pain & anger & whut, was holy fucking shit, the fucker finally did it; it’d been in the real-world cards for long-long times for Lester to cease to be. Though even on his gonest days he was no way a classic cornball suicide-romantic — heck, I don’t really think he was all that clinically suicidal (big-sleep fantasies never overtly/covertly lured him, not even metaphorically, from the darkest sub-basement of his World of Dread; nor was Danger, though he often nonstop lived it, itself the merest tickle of a ripple of a thrill for him, a context before the fact) — he’d sure staged more corny, frightful dress rehearsals than Jim Jones plus Judy Garland (squared) for simply ending up dead.

Biggest of which I ever saw was January ’81. I’m at Nick’s place in New York, en route back to L. A. from Montreal, when who should pay a surprise visite but Mr. Bangs, cassette in hand. It’s a tape of these tracks recorded during an Austin romp I’d heard about second or third hand (he’d planned to “live there forever,” it was said, ’til a night in the local drunk tank — on top of who knows what else — totally changed his mind), and in the course of the next 12-15 hours he played it, for us and at us, many times. Also during this stretch, after boasting, rather proudly, that he no longer drank, he managed to ingest at least 36 cough- suppressant tablets (three 12-packs of Ornical — we weren’t always watching) washed down with sizable slugs of bourbon, as there was nothing else but water to wash ’em down with.

All stages of this ordeal, in which Nick and I were little more than foils for surge upon surge of what we’d come to regard as typical Lestorian bathos, were hardly bearable in the state we were in (after far too many “nights with Lester,” going back to the days when we even could dig it, we’d opted for a change to take this one straight), but the morning-after phase was literally one for the books. On the umpteenth playback of what was soon to hit the racks as the Jook Savages LP, Lester insisted that one particular vocal was pure Richard Hell (in Lester’s cosmos an a priori yay); my dogtired no-big-deal of a response was it sounded existentially neater than that, more on the order of Tom Verlaine (a Lester nuh-nuh-no). Suddenly hair-trigger sensitive — in a performance-trigger vein — he tapdanced back with “Then I might as well go sell shoes in El Cajon.” Next cut he compared himself to somebody (very contempo) else, prompting me to comment, for non-pejorative, sleep- denied better or worse, that his vocals (across the board; in general) had the same basic flavor as those on such country-western parodies as Sanders' Truckstop or the Statler Brothers’ Johnny Mack Brown High School LP. Affecting grievous offense, as if any of his b.s. actually mattered (the Lester of ’73/’74 — in any chemical state — would merely’ve giggled), he took things up a full notch of indignant/sarcastic: “Well I guess I’m just no fucking good. ”

But he wouldn’t stop playing the crap, not with every cut looming as a supercharged occasion for kneejerk call- and-response, a challenge for him to goad Nick and/or me into goading him, in turn, into mock-self-deprecatory one-liners ad nauseum — a dress rehearsal, as it were — his puke-stained sweater seemed appropriate — for his triumphant appearance on Johnny Carson, which he had no doubt the worldwide success of his Blondie book would imminently require . . . along with a shot of his mug, cleanshaven, on the cover of People (over which he whined “fear” of besmirched personal image).

Ultimately Nick and I, weary of further compliance in so shoddy an interpersonal number, old buddy or not (and/or old bud in particular), found ourselves laughing in his face; enough was enough, and the sight of this bumbling mammal going gaga for an audience of two-who-knew- better was kind of otherworldly amusing. The object of our yuks, however, took it as us laughing with him: Great Moments in Standup/Audience Rapport! Swollen with illusory (or whatever) whacked-out self, Lester then proceeded to announce his program: (1) to save Rock & Roll; (2) to become president (presumably Oi the U.S. of A.); (3) to move to England and in turn save their Rock & Roll. As mere dipshit goals, nos. 1 and 3 meant topically little to either of us — geez, we’d all but buried the Anglo-Am mainstream as even an idle, y’know, sometime hobby or whatnot — but (2) hit us firmly, instantaneously, in the breastplate.

Lester’s neurons, no recent model of health to begin with, had made the short-circuit of Lester Bangs . . . [tenor saxophonist] Lester Young . . . (latter's nickname] Pres . . . Pres/U.S.A. per se!!!

Guffaw, guffaw — we guffawed — though I guess we could've gasped (or shuddered). Then: a heavy silence, as cosmic (or whatever) as it was awkward, filled presently by the man himself:

"Hey! I'm gonna buy some import albums! I'll get a whore I know to lend me her charge card! Cab fare too!" And he was off; no amiable nudging, no “Get the fuck out of here" could take the place of timeless vinyl hunger. Gone at last — and we gave him (in all solemn, empirical, non-jive reckoning) six months to live.

But of course he fooled us, by (nearly) a whole damn calendar year. Surprise, surprise: but an even bigger surprise was the extent to which he managed to actually turn things around — well, almost — during that extra annum, especially during its. and his. final months. Not only was he still among the living, not only did he no longer seem conspicuously earmarked for premature exit — the Lester with whom I spent a rather refreshing week in February '82 gave every indication of having already gone beyond mere survival (as an issue) and appeared, astonishingly, to be thriving on the theme.

In L.A. following his mother's eventually fatal stroke and staying with his 56-year-old half-brother in Studio City, he accompanied me one night to a low-stakes poker game attended by members of the Blasters, the perfect setup, you’d figure, for Lester to revert to type. But no, he just minimally fun-&- games'ed it like anyone else — no lookin' for opportunities to “be Lester," no showing off for rock-roll peers either verbally or intakewise. no diving for the evening's jugular and letting 'er rip — and after two beers (!). without so much as a grimace, he declared he’d had enough. Postgame he engaged Phil Alvin in a lively musical dialogue, but at no point did fightin' words fill the air, or were axes even poised for grinding. The pair agreed to exchange tapes — a wholesome friendship in the making — and next day Lester complained (true, true) that reefer had been smoked.

As the week wore on in consistent, low- key fashion. I was struck by the fuckload of inner capacities the guy was perceptibly calling on, left, right and center, to extend his defiance of Death to the domain of just plain living, capacities I hadn't caught sensory evidence of — all previously told — for more than 11 minutes total. A far cry from anything as cheaply benign as, let's say, more frequent eruptions of "Lester washes the dishes" (see obit 04), what I got to witness was kind of on the order of a whole new Lester, one who'd finally found a non-lethal, functionally less jagged (though in no way “benign") rhythm for his life. Engaging him in tight quarters with more open-heartedness per se than I*m sure I’d ever mustered (sharing an Edge does not always make for brotherhood-by-numbers. let alone by pure, unedited inclination), I willingly submitted to his rap/rant and bought its tenor if not its verbatim transcript; by the time he returned to New York, his mother still hanging on. I’d seen and heard a New Lester series pilot that could credibly have played — prime time — on the Pro- Life Network.

For starters, he’d learned to slow down, to proceed apace through a given experience without easy reliance on everpopular on-off switches. He'd gotten far more selective about the company he kept, seeking out, for the first time in his known adult life, social interactions stressing soulwarming interpersonal comfort over thrash-trigger me-you tribulation. A good deal less insistent upon strapping each day to an emotional chopping block (as recalled, for inst, in that old chestnut of his, “I need to be in love!"), he'd begun to let his life embrace emotional motifs of greater duration and resiliency. And. as stuff like this fed back to his theoretic apparatus, even Lester's ideas (as stated) began to display an unexpected day-to-day congruity; no longer, it seemed, would he write an anti-racist wowser for the Village Voice in one breath and scream, "Fuckin’ niggers!” at Village Oldies the next. Lester-as-flux had had its thoroughly engaging run. and for this to give way to a “maturer” unpredictability was not the worst of possible outcomes.

Even the drastic reduction in Lester’s intake of physical poisons bore little trace of on-the-wagon-or-bust — y'know, as if any day, minute, second the tension of it all would cause him to snap right back with equal vengeance — particularly with its status as but part of a whole-body package that included both eating at regular intervals and a radical olfactory modification: He now took baths. (One afternoon in ’74 Nick and I met Lester at some ritzy midtown hotel. Though he��d been in the room all of an hour, the smell was like a dog had died there, and been left to rot, weeks or months before. Consequently, we vetoed his offer to call down for drinks on Creem’s tab, suggesting, to his consternation, that any dump of a bar would be more, uh, whatever. Many of his heterosex liaisons had foundered on the rocks of precisely this issue.)

In terms of cultural orientation, no longer was he monomanically enslaved to rock & roll (-or-perish). For virtually the first time since the sixties he didn’t need, burningly, brand new Big Beat LP’s in his mail slot each (and every) day; the state of the Art, wobbling on a multi-year terminal gimp, no longer served as his external psychic barometer, his armband of first-person pride (or shame); having finally produced Music of his own, to severe personal specifications (regardless of the giggles it inspired in jerks like me), he no longer needed to prove anything with it or through it. Crucially, though some would probably like to deny it. he no longer saw Rock’em-Sock'em as a viable metaphor for his (or any, kindred or otherwise) state of being, viewing it as the all too easy — and ultimately, revoltingly, unsatisfactory — crystallization of (mega-numerous) blank and scattered lives. Lester's break with rock-roll mythos as his be-all/end-all of etc., which I have no doubt (had he lived) he’d've sooner rather than later made official, was as profound, and profoundly moving, as his break with the Myth of Lester. As one committed jackass who’d made the same painful transition — goodbye, Rock-Automated Self! — I knew how tough a bond the chronically intermingled personal/cultural can be to crack (and my heart went right out to him).

It also warmed my cockles, considering his record in the mere civility dept., to see him relate (graciously) to his half- brother’s wife, this unaffectedly pretty 21- year-old rural Mexican the macho blusterer, a stuntman by trade, had recently acquired, maritally, while on location Down South. Though she knew pun near zero English, my first sight of her she was watching some random English-language crap, while hubby rested for a shoot of the Fall Guy series, on the tiny TV in her fussy suburban kitchen; materially cozy for the first time in her life, she seemed lonely, disoriented, far from home. Silent and solemn, she visibly stiffened — shyly? menially? — at the intrusion of Lester, my girlfriend Irene and me. only to be put at ease by Lester introducing us, without missing a beat, as, well, friends of the family. Like it mattered to him that she feel like family — and thus shared in all aspects of etc. — and for a moment the loneliness left her face; she smiled broadly, shook (or at least took) our hands, went back to her tube.

But what came off as so genuine when he was dealing with his family, his friends, kind of sputtered into the ether when he tried to branch it to the family of Man. Whenever he got to talkin' Hard Humanism, which had all the earmarks of being his preoccupation of (Rock- replacement) record, he’d make these broad, lecture-ish, relatively flavorless statements which often didn't wash.

Never wholly credible 'cause once again he seemed to be performing — without booze/etc. but surely with a script — he’d say thus & such about human courage and folly that not only had an artificial ring, it tended to run in direct opposition to what had clearly been his experience. Even his word choice sounded stilted, alien, not his own; when he spoke of "women" he could easily have been reading straight from a column in Cosmo.

A lot of which suggested a Lester so hellbent on being a good boy once and for all that to merely work overtime cleaning up his own act was scarcely sufficient; he had to render a transpersonal commentary that made his good intentions “universal,” even if the topical universality he’d taken an option on was simply the first he found it comfortable song-&-dancing a provisional connection to. There were moments when his bill of particulars made me uneasy, realizing that to intellectually challenge any of this would be like kicking mud on some kid’s newest/truest pastime, 'specially when it was one so socially redeeming, so non- self-destructive. one which, for all intents and purposes, I basically shared with him anyway. What really counted was the miracle of Rock Tough Guy #1, after 15 years of rocknroll plug-in and little else, during which he'd come to thread that needle upside down (and asleep), to the point (even) of smugness, flipness, pomposity, out on a goddam limb over something else: a neophyte at last! (I could dig it.)

Anyway, finally, on the last night of Lester's stay — which worked out as our last time together, period — we did something we’d previously never found the appropriate nexus for: trading rants (in earnest) with blank tapes a-rolling.

For something like five-six hours we went apeshit re such topics as: the sellouts & prejudices of mutual colleagues; novels and novelists; New York as (quite possibly) the coldest outpost on Emotional Earth; the usual standard rockish garbidge (plus some un- and some non-). We also hit on shrinks-we- have-known, with Lester's rap on this rooty-toot of a subject being the single one, from the four-and-a-half hours I’ve so far transcribed, which most tellingly nutshells the excruciating self- examination he had to've undertaken — and undergone — just to be sitting around discoursing as fluidly as he was, to’ve transcended whatever the fuck en route thereto:

“Like I went to a psychoanalyst, one in New York and one in Detroit, for a total of, I dunno, three-and-a-half years. I finally concluded, I mean yeah I’m insane, I’ve got my problems, my sicknesses are fucking me, yeah, I’m sure they both probably helped me, y’know, I know the last guy in New York, it's like everybody I know was totally appalled by my drinking and drugging, well like you, right, and everybody else had the same reaction, y’know, except my shrink. He’d say, ‘No, that's alright.’ I went out to this, he had a country retreat, a whole bunch of us would go out there on weekends. And the first time I went there like I got drunk on Friday night, and Saturday morning I got up and washed down a bottle of Romilar with a bottle of beer while sitting on a slick rock by the stream. I got this great idea for something I wanted to write, I stood up on the rock in boots like these and whoosh, went like that and smashed, see it, the scar on my nose? That's how I got it, smashed my face open.

“And he thought my druggin' and drinkin' was great, y'know? He said, in fact he kind of told me I'd be not as great of a writer if I gave all this stuff up. And I said, 'Yeah, but look at all these people, they rot away, they end up like self- parodies like Kerouac and Burroughs and all that sort of shit.' And he said. 'No. no, not everybody's like that.' I said, How could I someday be 55 years old and have to take a handful of speed to sit down at the typewriter?' Well he said, 'People do it. heh heh heh!' Well both my shrinks, especially this guy, they had real great humanist compassion and empathy and all that, but I know what both of 'em did, and in the long run in essence they were no good for me, because they were getting off on me being there. It’s like they’re so bored, one housewife alter another, 'I don’t love my husband, I don't know why.’ Then they get someone like you or I that's actually interesting, that has ideas, and so it's fun time for 'em. I mean if I hadda follow this guy’s advice I’d be dead, uh, pretty soon.”

Hmm: one effing eery end-of-quote as, alas, all is now dust — reactively acquired caution or no. Possibly possibly possibly, any tonnage of prudence would inevitably have proven insufficient for the autopilot courses he was still, evidently, all too capable of flying. Or, reversing horses and carts, maybe his tortured shell was already jus’ too beat-to-shit, with even a radical lessening in his scale of abuse being too little — archetypally — too late. And then there’s this pharmacological biz about purified cells succumbing to doses they’d have been more than up for when poison was all they knew. (And can we ignore the Wrath of Influenza?)

Even if, to some bitter-enders, his death remains as shrouded in formal “mystery” as those of Eric Dolphy and Warren G. Harding, all-of-the-above can't help but provide a not-unlikely profile of how Lester came to die. Throw in a few more mainline Causalities (cultural: rock-roll glut, esp. coupled w/ too literal an intoxication with Kerouac, Celine, et al; primalpsychological: a childhood more woeful than most, his Jehovah's Witness mom — pushing 50 when she had him — mind-setting, almost singlehandedly. a chronic “inability to cope"; geographic: the Apple, even when it wasn't absolute Edge Central, affording him. given his makeup, scant opportunity for inner peace) and you'd easily have an explanation that 'd hold up in a court of his cronies/cohorts/camp followers.

But if Lester was the pawn, victim, and (indeed) fellow traveler of such easy- Aristotelian a-implies-b, he was also, in those last fitful months, a scatterer of all such shit to the winds, a man who showed his true destiny muscle by throwing all the elements out of on-the-head mythopoetic sync just when they threatened, conspiratorily, to reduce him to merely another Jim Morrison. Jimi Hendrix. Mr. Kerouac. Screamingly, courageously, he committed himself, as wholly (really) as possible, to a counter-causal gameplan which even if flawed — and accidents, y’know, happen — did actually manage to defuse (at least where I live & breathe) the mythic oompah of any time-delayed rat-trap he may subsequently (or previously) have fallen in. If there's anything almost pleasing about the timing, the anti-drama, of Lester's death, it's the monumental Mythic Disjuncture factors he'd set in motion were thereby — implicitly, explicitly — to forever effect.

LESTER’S (WRITERLY) LEGACY — “One of rock’s most colorful characters, Bangs made his reputation as a pugnacious, participatory journalist who was not above picking fights with rock stars in pursuit of a good interview." So wrote one voice of prevailing wisdom, Patrick Goldstein, in the May 9/82 L.A. Times; nothing — latter part — could be farther from the truth. If Lester (the writer) more than once battled Lou Reed into (and beyond) the wee hours of etc., it was not to get a story, it was to live a story: to encounter all the rock-related being his writerly credentials (as a wedge) were able to afford him (as a person)'. Nor was he in any way enthralled by the sickening spectacle of stars being stars; artists, maybe, but stars, fug 'em. When he as mere citizen found himself face-to-face with the pose, pretense, and professional guardedness of such gaudy, extraneous creatures, Lester could not (for the life of him) deal with such crap but to cut right through and speak, directly, to the mere citizen in them, or (failing that) force the situation into functional self-destruct — before the fact of anything so dispassionate as actually “writing it up."

That his eventual write-ups tended to display utter contempt for the entire food chain of music-corporate life, often biting, intentionally, a grimy hand that could not’ve been more willing — his mighty Credentials & all — to feed him, heck, fatten him, was but half the take-no-shit of Lester's essential statement as a writer de rock; forcefeeding the stuff, his stuff, the stuff-as-writ, to the only marginally less corporate (or grimy) running dogs of rockwrite publishing was at least as pugnacious a gesture of this-is-what-I-am/this-is-what-I-do/take-it-or-be-fucked. Since the extent of his success in shoving it down so many otherwise unyielding editorial throats may have had less to do with his willful intent than theirs — camouflage, for inst, for their being life-deep in major-label record company pockets — its significance at this juncture is, at most, merely ironic; the reciprocal influence, in any event, of his ease at getting published upon subsequent moments of raw critical-expressive spew was procedurally nil. In fact, what may most enduringly matter about Lester's approach to his chosen profession, way ahead of dandy journalistic touchstones — "courage," “integrity,” “pride in craft" — that he ate for breakfast like so much broken glass (but which, really, you can still get from Nat Hentoff and Howard Cosell), is the “anti-professional," forcibly non-dehumanized square-one struggle he by design submitted to — and could not. with any kernel of his humanity, avoid - in order to pump out critical prose of any scale of note. (Pugnacity with form; with ritual creative context; even — especially — with roleplaying writerly/critical self.)

That he was ofttimes a great writer/critic, so-called, was but icing on the cake. That scant few others, on the hottest days of their lives, have even approached him — or particularly cared to, considering the requisite gravity and passion of the chore he’d set — probably says as much about their investment in lesser quals of cake as it does about the relative inadequacy of their writerly follow-through. Rockwriting is, and nearly always has been, the trade of simps, wimps, displaced machos, brats and saps; of, in Lester's own words, “ass-kissers of the ruling class”; of fuddy-duddy archivists with cobwebs on their specs; of pathetic idealizers of a lost youth no one has ever (even approximately) experienced or possessed; of sycophantic apologists for chi-chi trends, musical and extramusical alike, without which (so they've always claimed) “rock is dead”; of binary yes/no cheeses with the cognitive wherewithal of vinyl, shrinkwrap, the physical column- inch. Rockwritin' Lester, like anyone else in the trade, was certainly each of these things from time to time, though (probably) none of 'em, singly or in tandem, for longer than the odd off review. Sadly, though his untradelike comportment surely tantalized mere tradefolk while he lived — at least in terms of Style — and even begat a not-half-bad (early-’70s) clone in “Metal Mike" Saunders, his actual abiding sway among such clowns, beyond the occasional liftable riff, was — as it continues to be — infinitesimal.

Finally: the twin silly questions (1) where a still-living Lester might hypothetically've taken it (i.e., beyond the rockwrite fishpond) and (2) what such imaginary newstuff could/would conceivably’ve meant to his basic audience. Second one first. Okay, that Lester's rockstuff generally read so hot as personal testimony is one thing; for it to have been perceived by so many as being eminently, genuinely about something — something rather specific, in fact something "rear’ — is something else. When you get down to it, the gospel of Lester's radical about-ness rested largely on a big hunk of readerly illusion, the illusion of a functional one-on-one between the guy’s fertile imaginings and the psychic infrastructure of rock & roll as dealt; there could be harsh discordance, of course, but as long as a firm relationship could (for whatever readerly vested interest) be consistently inferred between Lester’s mindgames and rock’s g-g-games per se, you at least had the stamp of a viable — if totally simulated — one-on-one. But, really/truly, while Lester’s psychic playground may surely have been one drastically twisted maze, its actual correspondence (sympathetic, hostile, whatever) to rock's own labyrinth, one so airtight and dank as to make his seem like wide open etc., was far too often naught but a matter of readerly convenience. Everyone loves a cipher, a living/ breathing anagram or two. even some — hey — with flaws more rampant than Lester’s, but for the man’s writerly service to’ve been gauged (almost solely) vis-a-vis his reliability as a stand-in cipher-of- x, y’know for readerfolk too lame — or lazy — to suss out x themselves, is the real tragedy of the trip, particularly when the first-&-final glue of most folks’ attachment to his writing was never much more than their own desperate attachment to an x they could, and should, have been accessing more independently (and less desperately) to begin with.

So, anyway, here's the rub. Had Lester lived long enough to both sever his own desperate rock connection — officially, in sheets read by his fuckheaded fans, simply by writing other stuff — and, furthermore, to back it up with an equally official rejection of the Fount of Neurosis from which he'd sung its tune (and they'd listened), it ain't really much of a longshot to imagine him losing a huge percent of the fuckheads — certainly the most gung-ho among 'em — in, well, no time flat. And, c’mon, how much of an immediate, uh, new audience was he likely to yank in writing up (as he insisted he would) such transcendently pivotal mere-humanistic trifles as the dearth of love (as we know it) in scene X or Y . . . how this set of new-age culture jerks uses that set of new-age culture jerks as props in regards to bluh . . . New York editors who pull rank (pshaw!) along collegiate lines [a hard-hitting exposé] . . . or, I dunno, something about shams and follies in clothes and/or grooming?

Plus, well, though, um — (even if) — then again: Aside from loss of ad hominem authority due to the fickle scumbait nature of the pop-world Beast, aside from the fact that many of his generic partisans would prob'ly now be targeted, topically and even personally, in scathing printed-page rants, aside from the limited run such goulash (Sensitive Ties His Laces, w/ Brass Knucks & Footnotes) has ever had — hey — can ever/will ever have . . . aside, aside, aside — the most glaring fact fact is how few times, as of his death, he'd as yet even aspired to the heights (or whats) or non- rock journalism. Four-five-six, some number like that, in the Voice and wherever else, all of ’em still pretty much rockwriterly appendices to the rockwrite “adventure," meaning he had a good ways to go before he'd’ve got the wings/chops/ legs for a total-pulp plunge (or at least a regular shift) at full oldtime capacity (but with newtime thrust and content). Which would’ve been no fall from grace no matter how you scope it — give the boy time (for fuck sake) to stumble and bumble and get it right — but how would any possible Lester have dealt with a (previously amenable) shithook book co. like Delilah telling him not now, sonny when he handed ’em a ream of copy on (let’s imagine) friends who’re fuckups? Personal persona limelight Lester had learned to live without — but writeperson limelight? (It would not’ve been easy.)

Okay, he's dead. All this brand new grief and hardship never befell him; never will. But words on pages remain: What is their lot? Lester's standard fare was so paradigmatically “of the moment" that he was the rockmag shootist. But books of the stuff? Nah; it’s kind of nebulous how even his best mag outings will wear when inevitably (??) anthologized. For someone so public in his orientation, both as input and output, he was — don't laugh or even smirk — one of rock’s more precious and fragile "private moments.” Private moments you can always document — coercively, of course — but try and play ’em back and. well . . . we'll all see, I reckon.

LESTER LEAPS IN — Y’all know all by now how Lester leapt out of New York; lemme just finish with how he leapt in. His first night in town, just a visit, fall "72, he stayed with me and my girlfriend Roni, West Village, 104 Perry St., apt. 4. Arriving semi-direct from JFK, he split pretty quick for the nearest grocer, returning with three six-packs of Colt 45. What he did for the next day and a half — all he did — was wade through 18 big ones, half quarts, as follows: start can, drink fast, get tired; fall out, dropping remainder; awaken following can’s impact with floor; stagger to fridge for fresh one; repeat cycle. What he mumbled or muttered during any of the 18 pre-fallout phases I simply do not recall.

So like hey y’know wo hey hey wo-wo hey, OLD SPORT: love ya, hope I didn’t cramp yer style, g’bye.

--Richard Meltzer, “Lester Bangs Recollected in Tranquility” Dec. 6, 1984

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toziers · 5 years ago

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can you explain what's going on right now? i keep seeing big IT blogs talking about some discourse or something but i have no idea what they're talking about other than it involves you lol

alright i like. i truly do not like having diScOurSE out in public because i’m not one to air out my dirty laundry 24/7 but seeing as how it was brought into public against my will i feel like the least i can do is clear up the situation for those who’ve been seeing the posts.

i’m putting this under the cut bc it’s long. tws for some biphobia, brief mention of transphobia and, at the end, a rape mention.

so if you don’t know: hi, i’m migz, i’m an it fandom blogger. its okay, i know, its really cool. part of my shtick here is that i like to turn normal thirst tags into works of art for the sake of comedy. perhaps you’ve seen some of my highlights from my “fhg” tag - perhaps your brain has been spared. either way, it became kind of “my thing” around the third or fourth week (mid nov) of me having this blog. at first, i tagged just about every ask i got mentioning the thirst tags with “bill hader” - they had to do with him, so why not tag him? it would draw more like minded people! about two days into that i got a message asking me to tag my nsfw. i am a big dumb idiot, and apologize for not initially doing it. i havent had a following bigger than like 10 in several years and completely spaced on basic etiquette. so by the end of november i was tagging everything applicable with “notsfw” and “bill hader”.

now you’re caught up.

on december 1st i got this message from user billhaderanti:

now i want to start by saying i absolutely was in the wrong here. i didn’t even think about how many people were being subjected to the asks i was getting - especially ones who had no idea they were all jokes. i don’t track the bill hader tag, so it just didn’t even occur to me - that’s ignorance on my part, and to anyone who was subjected to the terrors of me before my tagging system: i am genuinely sorry. i relay the same sentiment in my response, though you can tell i’m on edge.

and they replied:

clearly they Were offended by it but thats.. not the point. at this point, im feeling Really weird about the whole interaction, but still understanding, because again - i GET it. i know my posts are gross - that’s the point. it doesn’t make it excusable, though, which is why i understand why people are offended. so i responded with the only solution i Knew would keep us both safe and happy posting on our own blogs.

so i thought this would be the end of things! i’d been pretty anxious lately already since i’d started to receive anons telling me i was gross and whore-ish for thirst posting in this way (i delete all of those, so if ur thinking about sending one, i guess no one’s stopping you but it won’t be seeing the light of the dashboard). i’m unsure if it was immediately or a few hours later, seeing as how i have a bad concept of time and the post-dates are right on the edge between nov 30 and dec 1, but i went to their blog - because anyone who has been on the internet knows the opportunity to vague post is near irresistible. and...what do ya know

fair! it’s their blog. however i am an emotionally fragile egg girl and immediately got freaked out. the odds that they were the only one who thought this were low. and, again, i’ve been very open on my blog about how important it is to respect boundaries; my posts are absolutely prone to breaking those boundaries people have created for themselves.

so i made my own, semi-vague post, letting my following know (and i’m pretty sure i’d answered asks about it before, but this is going to be long enough w/o me searching those up too) that i understood if they wanted to block me or unfollow or whatever - people need to create their own safe spaces. the tension is pretty clear in the tags, i’m not trying to hide that. i felt that the way this woman slid into my dm’s was pretty abrasive (just my opinion/how it made me personally feel) and i let myself be a lil emotional about it in the tags of my post.

alright! maybe this is the end. maybe we both go our separate ways and post happily on our own blogs... except it’s not the end. later in the day (some of this was happening like 1/2am, so now its Day day, i believe - again, not good w time passage lol)

clearly, i’m upset. my groupchat double checked that i didn’t get too emotional in my response - did i mention im anxious about discourse lol - and apparently.. it did the trick. she didn’t message me again. great. it was over.

at this point, i decided i needed to make an even bigger change. so a few days after i’d calmed down i created an entirely new tag for my thirst posts so if people hadn’t already hidden the notsfw posts or just blocked me outright, they’d have a third option to escape the madness. at this point, id had my blog about 6? weeks, but there were still 2k posts for me to sift through - some of them were completely untagged. i also had to do it post by post, because one of xkits features - the mass re-tagger - was getting blogs deleted for some reason, and i wasn’t going to do that. so i spent a few days going through all 2k+ posts, adding the “fhg” tag.

YEEHAW! a brand new tagging system, no more hopping into the bill hader tag (minus one or two really funny, not super explicit asks, like the bill hader farquaad meme), and, tbf, i’d completely put this woman out of my mind. i don’t seek out drama and do my best to stay in my lane. yesterday, i checked my activity for the first time in awhile since id put out a couple new original posts that had started to get traction and i Love reading tags. i noticed a mutual had @’d me, and realized i havent checked my @’s in...ever, maybe. i see a post from my good pal billhaderanti.

since i dont follow them and never check my @’s, i’d completely missed it. however, once i did see it, i was horrified. id gone through all that fucking work to keep my blog My Blog and also respect everyone’s boundaries and it still hadn’t been enough. i’d been awake for almost 24 hours and went. a little crazy. and i didn’t reply immediately because i just had no words. i sent it to my friends because i... i just wasn’t going to be able to figure it out myself.

there’s a lot to unpack in this post alone, but whatever, i’m gonna put my own grievances with the immaturity of 1. making a callout post to begin with when i’d been nothing but civil 2. making a callout post about something as (in the grand scheme of Life) minor as some tags where i refer to a someone’s genitals as a “whack pack” and 3. making a callout post in such a rude way - aside. at the end, she calls me (and whoever else!) a demonic mlw (man loving woman, we assumed, and then later confirmed with a post further back on her blog).

which - yeah, we started scrolling. at first we were looking for more vague blogs, and then we just...started finding things. billhaderanti is a self proclaimed lesbian separatist, which... fine. but it’s already pretty clear that this woman hates me on some level simply because i am a bi woman (demonic mlw, remember!) which is just. damn man i can’t believe we are still fighting the biphobic fight lol. so the more we scrolled, the more we uncovered - and not just the biphobic / vaguely mtf transphobic things they posted (or put in tags), but we also found that they had their OWN thirst tags. certainly not as hyperbolically comedic as mine, but they were there, talking about his body and his person the same (and, frankly, a bit creepier for other reasons) as mine.

there’s one post in particular that snatched my wig in it’s creepiness - and i say creepiness in the sense that it feels personal. like this woman feels like she knows bill to some degree where she can say these things. my tags have always had a sense of distance, as they’re written for humor. and maybe this particular post was written for comedic purposes, but it doesn’t read that way, and if it WAS, then she has no right to call ME out for MY comic tags and posts.

i’ll let it speak for itself, mostly because i don’t want to read it again.

i also won’t be going through her blog again to find the posts with biphobic and other Interesting:tm: tags because there are plenty and i just really! want to be done with the whole ordeal! her blog is public and i’m sure you can all find it and look to your heart’s content.

feeling a bit feral and a bit pissed off now that we knew the depth of how rotten this woman’s vibes were, a couple of my pals made a post or two similar to what my tag’s are like except turned up to eleven (if possible) - and tagged them with “bill hader” (and notsfw!!). yes, a bit childish, but at this point, the entire situation was childish, and making jokes was truly the only way we were going to get through it. another vague post went up on her blog soon after.

talking down to us, calling us children, and then for whatever reason calling us virgins... whatever, weird post. around this time most of us (est) went to bed, because it was nearing 3 or 4 in the morning.

and then today happened. i woke up fresh and ready for the day after a wonderful 4 hours of sleep and found that jane had made an incredibly intelligent post in response to the situation. i won’t ss it, but i’ll LINK in case you missed it. attached there in the reblog is my own response. i think they can speak for themselves.

after that, things were kind of jumbled, since i wasn’t online a lot and when i was i was Not checking my activity simply because i was afraid of what i’d see. for the most part, it ended up just being support (which i am very grateful to all of you for - it means a lot that you all enjoy my content to any degree).

there was some more vague posting from both “““““sides”””””” of the “““““argument”””””” - mostly just people restating the fact that this is a public space and we should All be aware of how we effect others. i still hadn’t heard directly from billhaderanti, so i assumed we’d all be dropping and disengaging and moving on. i still wasn’t blocked, though, so who really knew what would happen.

eventually, it culminated in this last post. tw for mentions of rape

i’m going to start by saying that

1. there are nearly no teenagers that were involved in this. im turning 23 in january and most of my friends are 20+. maybe one or two are 19.

2. none of us sent any sexually violent asks - most of us didn’t send asks at all. i believe one or two of my friends admitted to sending asks however they assured me their nature wasn’t bad; as far as i know, everyone remained civil in whatever went on (again, unclear to me as to what was being sent; no one was actively posting or talking about it. if billhaderanti wishes to elaborate, they can, but i don’t have anything to put in).

3. before i finish this, i would like to apologize to billhaderanti. as a comedian - not just my stupid tags, i mean in real life, too - i know that humor can hurt. it’s not always funny, it’s not just stupid hahas. sometimes things that are supposed to be jokes just hit people differently and cause bad things. i recognize that. i never meant to trigger you (if you’re reading this) or cause you any severe mental/emotional harm. i apologize for my humor bringing up your trauma, and i never meant for that. regardless of my own thoughts and opinions about the nature of my posts/the thirst tags themselves, they hurt you, and i’m sorry.

anyway, i’m going to wrap this up (i’m bad at endings, what can i say! steven king and i took the same writer’s class!). if you read all this... sorry. i probably won’t be taking any asks about it, because i find the whole “drama” of this to be stupid and rooted in some seriously biphobic issues this fully grown woman has.

tldr; i attempted to contain my blog so this woman could exist and function safely on her blog, but it wasn’t enough for her, so she called me out, and then some of the fandom called Her out for being biphobic and mean and overall just immature about the situation. as of now, she’s yet to block me, though her and her wife have blocked a few of my friends. her wife continues to clown on my friends. this post was made for clarity’s sake. the end, i’m getting a drink.

#discourse #biphobia tw #transphobia tw #rape tw #ok goodbye im done with this im back to #only posting gay clown movie #Anonymous

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quackspot · 4 years ago

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i started thinking about that gay bastard oc of yours. platano. can u tell me about him

omg u wer thinkgin about platano..... mr banana man... mr 4011. i am obsessed with the banana code srry i just got back from work (it was good :-D)

any way. um. im going below the cut. he kidnaps people and he murders people and i hate him because he’s also a massive weeb so. hm

HISTORY OF PLATANO... yea his name is spanish for banana

his father, pablo, will probably get a name change someday but i literally never think of his father since the only thing he did in platano’s backstory was disappear

since platano’s world has characters based off like. fruits and vegetables (there aren’t really any limit to what the characters are based off of. it was in my lazy google translate name phase so we have like... a gay character named arcenciel who becomes dadlike through my powerful canon-changing touch. also arcenciel wears the colors of the rainbow as often as he can i haven’t figured out a good design for him since i’m not used to using more than 5 colors. he also owns a hat factory)

i think arcenciel and platano are friends they met when platano was like. 17 probably and arcenciel would be around uhhhhh ummmmmmm 21??? idk man but in canon he’s probably around 30 . yes i m saying “in canon” because i wrote a really dumb and horrible story back in 2018 arcenciel used to have HUGE internalized homophobia and i turned that into a running joke and i dislike that so that’s a reason why i’m not sharing the fun little story i wrote for my friends

(the best part of that story is when arcenciel threw his light-up rainbow heelies at platano, thus starting the boss fight which the main cast LOST.)

ok back to the topic at hand. platano.

i have a whole doc named platano where i just wrote drabbles about him so i’m going to summarize them

the first one was his friend, percisi (my only cishet oc he’s very short and very aggressive while also dressing in a soft-colored turtleneck since he’s based off of peaches) using a misunderstood form of satanism to summon satan. guess what percisi and platano summoned satan for. it was a manga update! wow

i won’t say the mangas name it was an inside joke

so platano was like “hey satan can i have this manga now please please” and satan went “sure just kill people for me”

that determined platanos job for the next 7 or so years <3 wonderful.

(it was basically me writing a backstory for a scene to happen in the main writing i wrote for my friends. he killed someone because someone else in the building was trying to summon satan. very confusing but okay i guess.)

i think right after that i wrote about platano meeting his boyfriend, sage, for the first time. i have horribly mixed feelings about their relationship since it’s very. Hm.

so platano kidnaps people to watch anime with him because all his friends left him and his best friend, mangue, is too busy being a dictator over the Land of the Fruits. i shit you not fruits oppressed the vegetables. i wrote that dynamic between the two because i was learning about the revolutionary war in US History. something like that at least

(the Land of the Fruits is not the official name)

on the topic of kidnapping people. guess who his favorite person was. sage. it was sage. so he tried to take sage often but they probably discussed Proper boundaries since everyone else tried to run away. hmm i am now going to write a bit right now

“Platano,” Sage started. “Why do you keep kidnapping me? It’s rude and I hate it.”

“What else am I supposed to do?” The yellow-haired fool leaned on his sword, digging the tip deeper into the ground.

“ASK ME IF I WANT TO HANG OUT??”

“I can do that?”

“You keep making my dads worried.” Sage looked around the area, fidgeting with his hands.

“Oh. Okay. Want to hang out? Watch some anime?” Platano paused for a moment, but managed to say “Maybe kiss?” before Sage got to answer.

“I- KISS??? We can watch anime together. We can go now.”

Sage ushered Platano through a portal as fast as he could.

His dads were never worried.

hmmm maybe that’s alright idk i’m a little tired so it’s probably a little out of character. sage probably isn’t that loud but i think it was trying to be the dynamic of “oh, we’re not dating” when they kiss every sunday at 5 pm by a romantic river scene

he’s a character who is, at his very core, horrible and bad. he is portrayed in a way i DESPISE but i’m too lazy to correct it. his interest in sage actually started with me going “hmm i think platano would draw sage like this” then sauce giving me fun facts about his oc, sage, yea sage is sauce’s oc <3 epic win . so sauce gave me fun facts about sage and i was like “time to doodle these in platanos ‘art style’” when in reality it’s just the mockery of people just getting into an anime art style, with the chin so pointy it could cut a cake

i might reread my old writing from 2018. i gotta agree with the judges for that year i did not write very well

it mightve actually been made in 2017 which would be FUCKIN CRAZY im gonna check rn

yea it was started in 2018. february 14th... huh . finished it completely in june of that year it was 41 pages total and it’s not even double spaced how did i write something without double spacing it

OH MY GOD BOB IS GOING TO HIJACK THIS RANT JUST FOR A LITTLE

so bob is a fluffy little anthro cloud with a grey top hat and bowtie. he is amazing. i love bob. bob is another one of sauce’s character and mangue (mentioned earlier) was made by my friend jamie

(you can always ask for their tumblrs but i’d ask them if its okay to share their tumblrs. i might just look at them and reblog their stuff cuz i like their art!!! maybe jamie posted a drawing she made recently on her blog but tbh i don’t think she would she’s more of a twitter user)

ok so im skimming thru UMG which is the story it stands for “Universe of Magic Gardens” and it was originally made for a prank on ponytown so people would go “what’s UMG” and my friends and i would be like “ur mom gay xDDDDDD” or something like that . horrible but i’m glad i’ve changed from . that.

here’s a bit i actually like AKLJFISJFIO

“What the actual FUCK, Ilkie?!” Arcenciel cringed in fear. “Put it back- it’s too ugly.” He pointed at Platano, whose arms were crossed.

why is it bolded. anyway.

i just saw a part where eau used y’all... water cowboy moments <333 i really need to make refs for all of those old characters. all of my umg-related characters have to be my oldest-living ocs.

i cant believe this is making me genuinely reread my old writing just to go “WJHFSIDAJKSFIOJ WTF????”

some of the lines on it sound like something you would hear on like. a school bus or somethin

looking at umg like “wtf how did i add so much Meat to this writing” bc most of my writing now is mostly quotations to progress the story (like the quickie i wrote earlier. i could add meat to it but im tired lol)

OK THIS IS MORE GENERAL BUT MY FAVORITE THING ABOUT THIS WAS WRITING HAIKUS FOR PORTALS. after you visit a place enough times it’s kind of just an instinct to open a portal there so you don’t have to recite a haiku

uhh ok here’s another bit becuase im feeling like living la vida loca. ur biggest regret should be “can you tell me about him” by this point bc i’ve written too much to go back now

He landed on his face once he was outside of the hat. Meko quickly walked over to the guest room, opened the Portals for Dummies book, and flipped to a page. It looked devious.

“Banana, mango,

Each tasting amazingly.

A taste of evil.”

Meko did the dance on the page, it consisted of something that looks like it’s from an anime. A portal opened, the familiar scent of bananas and mangoes coming from it. With some hesitation, Meko stepped in. He quickly made it so only his head peeked in.

it wasnt bolded this time but i like it bolded. ok i understand how i added meat it was just shitty expired meat ALKFSJSHDAIUJKFEIODSJAK . it wasnt even that much meat DAMN. it just looked like more.

actually that’s all i will write. i could do more w platano but yea at his base he is a blonde twink who kills people because he wanted a manga but now he’s friends with a dictator. woo! wow. amazing character writing. i cant wait to get motivation to rewrite everything and make platano a good villain (he will still be very interested in anime sadly. idk why around that time i liked making characters who were obsessed with anime i didn’t even watch it much myself. i think it was because i wanted to put capes on them)

#I REALLY WENT SLIGHTLY OFF-TOPIC #like i went broader then refocused in at the end #so if you want the basics its just. right at the end #my brain's out of work mode now it's going into the deepfry machine #melon-official

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winterironbang · 5 years ago

Text

Art Previews

Below you will find the art previews for this year, remember authors that its not quite time for claiming yet!

Take a good look and pick 2-3 favourites and remember which Number they are for when claiming does begin.

1. Prompt: Tony was taken by Hydra not long after the New York invasion and experimented heavily on Tony. The Winter Soldier escapes his captivity and kinds Tony locked up in his dragon form in a huge cell and decides he should break this poor creature out as well.The Winter Soldier could be his own personality next to Bucky, and if so he doesn't like Steve if that would come up. Restrictions: No Rape/Non-con, No OT3 (Stuckony), preferably a rather happy ending, or bittersweet. No sad endings. CLAIMED

2 Prompt: Tony has always had a thing for swimsuit models.Limitations: go wild.Additional notes: happy to be as involved or uninvolved as the writer wants! CLAIMED

3. Warnings: None that I can think of? Prompts: Definitely don’t have to stick to this, but this was just what was in my mind drawing this — They’re a Shoulder Angel and Shoulder Demon each trying to do a good job for their assigned Human - Natasha Romanov. I’d love it if maybe they’ve been working together over time to help Natasha (maybe to get out from under Red Room) without actually really seeing each other for a while until eventually they do. Not-Quite-Identity!Porn of some sort, with a bit of oh no he’s hot when they meet. Just imagine the hijinks with a little Nat and these boys as her conscience! Ha! Limitations: I know Tony is depicted as a Demon here, but this is Tony, please don’t make him out to be the actual Devil? He’s just doing his job but - oh no! - he gets attached to his Human and adversary and only wants the best for them, screw Hell’s policies CLAIMED

4. warnings: none i thinkprompt: Post-apocalyptic AU! Scrappy mechanic Tony meets badass loner and fighter Bucky (with a clunky metal arm)? Maybe some getting to know (and later: trust) each other and surviving (together?) in a hostile world? Trying to make a living? limitatons and any additional notes: No dubcon/noncon between Tony/Bucky, no sad ending, no super descriptive toture/body horror, Tony and Bucky should survive. Angst/Pain/Suspense otherwise are fine :)The second art is optional. CLAIMED

5. Desired collaboration level(s): I would love to be included with the writing/brainstorming process, even just so much as being a cheerleader for it!-Additional details/requests/Prompt: Pre-WI/getting together fic. Wing Au. Maybe something like "Winged beings are discriminated against/unliked/people are nervous of them. Picture scene is: Tony was sitting out in the rain/stuck in the rain, Bucky comes and sheilds him from it with his wing. -Do Wants: Hurt/Comfort, angst is fine too, must be happy ending please, I prefer canon-divergent, but total au is fine too. -Do NOT Wants: Beastiality, Mpreg, A/B/O dynamics, BDSM, D/S verse, Hardcore kinks, Genderbends, Non-con, MCD, underage/age-changes/de-aging, Sad endings!(I would prefer no other/background ships, but can be discussed!) CLAIMED

6. Warnings: blood Limitation: non-negotiable absolutely no Steve Rogers bashing Wants: OUAT crossover (non negotiable). Jefferson IS Bucky OR Bucky is Jeffersons twin. Steve as a main character as well. Prompt; Bucky goes missing after a mission, with seemingly no reason. A year later They find Bucky, only he's calling himself Jefferson and crying about a broken hat, and a horrific scar around his neck.

7. warnings: possible gun violence, languageprompt: loosely based on Killing eve "you hired me to kill you!?" "I wanted to see you..." basically, Tony and Bucky (established relationship? Mutual pining? ) haven't spoken in awhile for reasons (are they fighting? Busy? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) so Tony Hires Bucky to kill him. limitatons and any additional notes: none that I can think of but if you think there's something that could be squicky/a no go, just lemme know. I'm very open to collaboration with my author. CLAIMED

8. No warnings or limitations. CLAIMED

9. Warnings: None Prompt: Tony Stark meets Bucky Barnes in 1993 and they both fall for each other. One night, Bucky starts to cry. Tony asks what's wrong and Bucky tells him what happened to his parents. Notes: It really doesn't matter how you end this fic as long it includes some good old fashioned angst! CLAIMED

10. Warnings: noneNotes: Was thinking of a Brookly-99 spin on it, something cute and funny for some feel good happy, but very open to anything really :) CLAIMED

11. warnings: None Prompt: (Description: View is outside of a building. In one window Tony plays the violin. In the other Bucky types away.) CLAIMED

12. Warnings:NonePrompt: (description: Bucky is sitting atop a motorcycle. Tony is approaching him, offering his hand for a handshake. Scene is dusk on an empty road.) CLAIMED

13. prompt: tony is one of the last of his kind (inherited from his mother’s side). he hides his wings from the world, and only pepper, happy, and rhodey know what he is. everything else is canon as per the mcu. it’s up to the author to decide how far in the universe they want to take it, and if they wish to incorporate his wings elsewhere in the series, but tony is iron man and it must be post winter soldier. pre-relationship to getting together. limitations: please no graphic depictions of rape, suicide, or self-harm (specifically cutting. other forms of self-harm are okay, but please no self-inflicted cutting). no character bashing, ESPECIALLY of steve. no major character death. things i would like to see: BAMF!tony, ptsd (from either bucky or tony, or both!), a COOL secret reveal, angst, hurt/comfort, and fluff. some smut is okay! i would love if tony keeps the arc reactor. arm maintenance!! please!! tony being terrified of bucky finding out about his wings, and bucky being scared of hurting tony. relevant notes: tony’s wings are 18 ft (5.4 m) in diameter, and are red and gold. bucky still has hydra arm. that’s about it! i’m flexible on most things :) CLAIMED

14. Description/Prompt: John Wick AU in MCU Open for brainstorming or alternate interpretations Warnings: canon typical violence for story (john wick levels or mcu levels up to author?) Limitations: DNWs include a/b/o, mpreg, noncon, dubcon between major protagonists, death of major protagonists, unhappy/ bad endings CLAIMED

15. Description/Prompt: any frontier myth/ old wild west tropes welcome Open for brainstorming or alternate interpretations Warnings: canon typical violence for story? Limitations: DNWs include a/b/o, mpreg, noncon, dubcon between major protagonists, death of major protagonists, unhappy/ bad endings CLAIMED

16. Prompt: Romancing The Stone AU. Tony is a tech reliant city boy who is out of his depth in the South American jungle while trying to save a friend. Bucky is the broke traveller who he convinces to be his guide. Adventures and hijinks and a happy ending ensue. Notes/Limitations: Doesn't have to follow the movie if you're not familiar with it. I don't want Tony to be a damsel in distress that needs to be rescued, just a fish out of water who adapts to his new environment. Any rating is fine, smut is welcome, no character bashing. CLAIMED

17. warnings: general audiences prompt: Bucky is part of the Avengers but he and Tony keep their distance. On a mission Tony saves Bucky from another fall. Later he asks Tony why he didn't let him slip when he knows he killed his parents. He doesn't believe Tony forgave him and confesses that he sometimes hates Steve for not catching him limitations: no Steve/Bucky/Tony, preferably no Stony, no ABO, no mpreg, preferably no BDSM or dom/sub CLAIMED

18. warnings: malnutrition, (minor) injuries, shackleslimitations: anything involving children and/or pregnancy CLAIMED

19. Warnings:none Prompt: Mage Tony and assassin/rogue Bucky. Limitatons: No major character death, no infidelity, no unhappy ending, Bucky did not kill Tony's parents, would be absolutely fine with graphic sex Additional notes: Art will have at least one more companion piece featuring Bucky/Winter in Assassin type garb and probably wielding daggers. CLAIMED

20. warnings: none? prompt: Dreadful pirate Bucky with a heart of gold! limitaions and any other notes relevant to the authors for claiming: I'd prefer it if Bucky wasn't actually a bad guy. Go easy on the gore, and please don't do any noncon or dubcon between the OTP. Angst or pain are good as long as there is at least a hopeful ending! CLAIMED

21. Prompt: After the death of King Howard Stark, his son Anthony had to step up to the throne as the rightful heir. James Buchanan Barnes, a knight and new member of the Royal Guard, is sworn to protect his king no matter what. Even if that means protecting Anthony from his own damn feelings. Warnings: N/A Limitations: major character death, terminal illness, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, racism, incest, ableism Notes: Their designs are fantasy-influenced more than historical, and even though I was using MCU as reference, I aged Tony down since canonically Howard died when he was younger anyway! Also the scribble of a background is supposed to be inside the castle, during a party/ball or something? CLAIMED

22. Artist Withdrew.

23. Warnings: None Prompt: The Addams Family AU Limitations/notes: None CLAIMED

24. warnings: none? prompt: Warlord Bucky gets a new conquest: Tony. (How? tribute? prisoner? Marriage contract?) Tony may expect the worst, but slowly discover Bucky isn't so bad... limitaions and any other notes relevant to the authors for claiming: please no evil Bucky. I like getting to know each other and slowly falling in love. No dubcon/noncon between tony/bucky. CLAIMED

25. Warnings: implied violence, kidnappingPrompt: I went with four comic panels sort of depicting a kidnapping scenario. Bucky (probably) wouldn’t be the kidnapper — i'm gonna try and make him look more surprised in the final draft. Limitations: Go wild. G ratings through Explicit is fine with me. Preferably no M-Preg though. CLAIMED

26. Warnings: None CLAIMED

27. Warnings: None CLAIMED

28. Description/Prompt: fluff or comfort? Warnings: - Limitations: DNWs include a/b/o, mpreg, noncon, dubcon between major protagonists, death of major protagonists, unhappy/ bad endings CLAIMED

29. Desired collaboration level(s): I would love to be included with the writing/brainstorming process, even just so much as being a cheerleader for it! Additional details/requests/ Prompt: Human!Tony/Werewolf!Bucky. Werewolf au. Do Wants: Hurt/Comfort, angst is fine too, must be happy ending please, I prefer canon-divergent, but total au is fine too. Do NOT Wants: Beastiality, Mpreg, A/B/O dynamics, BDSM, D/S verse, Hardcore kinks, Genderbends, Non-con, MCD, underage/age-changes/de-aging, Sad endings!(I would prefer no other/background ships, but can be discussed!) CLAIMED

#winterironbang #winteriron reverse bang #winteriron #first draft #ironwinter

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melroesplace · 6 years ago

Note

Gonna steal your question and ask for your top 10 ships of all time for Valentine's Day :D

Ok this is super late (and also super fucking long) because it took forever to narrow down my top 100 ships to only 10, but here we go:

1. Ron & Hermione (Harry Potter)

My very first OTP and still my favorite. Their slow burn development from enemies to friends to lovers makes this the best relationship of the entire HP franchise. Haters can deny it all they want, but these 2 have always and will always belong together. Harry & Hermione would be together if Ron wasn’t around? Nope, Hermione and Harry was pining for Ron when he was away in Deathly Hollows. Ron & Hermione will get divorced because of their arguments? Lol you thought, they are planning to renew their vows after 20 years of marriage. I’m sort of gloating now, but Idc because this is one of the very few endgame ships I have.

2. Zuko & Katara (A:TLA)

In the exact opposite of what happened with Romione, this was my first ship that wasn’t canon and the first one to make me cry angry tears over the fact. Zutara introduced me to the dark side of my fangirl, engaging in shipping wars, hating on Bryke for not getting them together even tho I should’ve known it was never gonna happen. I’m not proud of everything my preteen self did in the Avatar fandom, but *tune of God Bless the USA* I’m proud to be a Zutarian, where at least there’s fans like me They are twin flames, 2 sides of the same coin, and forever friends. Plus, Dante Basco and Mae Whitman shipped them, so neener neener neener. (Sorry, my 12 yr old fangirl came out a bit)

3. Katniss & Peeta (The Hunger Games)

#RelationshipGoals That is all. Ok, not really. I love seeing a hardened badass fighter like Katniss with such a gentle soul like Peeta. He is her anchor, she is his passion, and I am their bitch. No matter how many times I read the books or watch the movies, I fall to pieces over them in the best way. And to think when I first started reading the books, I was convinced Peeta would end up dead because all the signs seemed to be pointing that way. I’ve never been so glad to be wrong in my life.

4. Magnus & Alec (Shadowhunters)

Let me start this off with #SaveShadowhunters. I will miss Malec, I will miss the Malec fandom and I will especially miss the showrunners being so lovely to the fans. After being disappointed by JKR, Bryke, Plec, and Shonda, it is such a relief to feel validated by a creator. Todd, Darren, and Matt Hastings are real supporters of the LGBT community who actually listen to fans’ concerns and fight to include as much diversity as they can get away with. I’ve never watched a show that treated an interracial same sex couple the same (or imo better) as all the other couples. Magnus & Alec had me at “Who are you?” with their amazing chemistry. I love one badass shadowhunter/warlock team who are also adorable boyfriends.

5. Jackie & Hyde (That 70s Show)

Sigh…..what could have been. I will never understand how the writers could throw out such an amazing relationship after so many years together. Jackie & Hyde are the epitome of the Opposites Attract trope. Hyde is a sarcastic little shit and Jackie is a materialistic snob and they love each other exactly as they are. He keeps her grounded and she makes him open up. Since I don’t consider season 8 canon, I like to imagine Hyde opening up his own record shop in Chicago so that Jackie could pursue her dream. They’re still together.

6. Isak & Even (Skam)

Just look at these pure babies! You should really watch this show if you haven’t already. I think you would love them and I don’t mind spoiling that they’re endgame so you don’t have to worry about that. Evak probably have the hottest chemistry of everyone on this list, but they’re also 100% soft boyfriends.

7. Bonnie & Jeremy (Vampire Diaries)

TVD is responsible for at least a quarter of my ships, but Beremy was my first OTP from the show. After watching everyone treat Bonnie like little more than a magic wand for over a year, it was nice to see someone want her simply for her. Jeremy didn’t care about what Bonnie could do for him, he genuinely admired her strength and morals. Bonnie stopped seeing him as her best friend’s kid brother and saw him for the hot, strong protector he is. I will never forgive the writers for ruining their relationship twice, but I still head canon that Bonnie & Jeremy reunited as adults.

8. Harry & Uma (Descendants)

My favorite thing about Huma is that Harry is a hook wielding maniac who is also completely head over heels in love with Uma, a beautiful black girl who is Captain of their pirate crew. He is unapologetic in how utterly devoted he is to her and even tho she keeps her feelings close to the vest, it is obvious Uma has a soft spot for her First Mate. My least favorite thing about Huma is that despite the overwhelming evidence, I still don’t know if they’re an actual couple. I hope D3 clears that up.

9. Dante & Ari (Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe)

*There are plenty of amazing fan art of them, I just couldn’t decide which one to post*

You should read this book if you haven’t already, it classic coming-of-age queer literature. Ari is an introverted smart ass kid with no friends until he meets cinnamon roll Dante. These are my favorite type of relationships to see/read, especially when its a slow burn like this. Idk what else to say other than how much I love these two makes my heart ache in a good way. Right after finishing the book, I went back and reread my favorite parts.

10. Kelly/Yorkie (Black Mirror)

My favorite wlw ship only appears on 1 episode of a tv anthology, that’s how amazing they are. I relate so much to Yorkie, uncomfortable in my own skin and socially awkward. All I want is someone like Kelly who can bring me out of my shell, but still love me for who I am. Their relationship honestly gives me hope that even someone like me (with little relationship experience) can maybe find love. You know, if I ever leave my damn house for anything other than work.

#Romione #Zutara #Everlark #Malec #Evak #Huma #Beremy #gifs not mine #Danielle #ask and answered #kelly x yorki #otps

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reigensarataka · 6 years ago

Note

S7 is the season we see Klance is canon or not. The final cannon shall be shot in August 10th announcing our lost or victory. We have come a long way, my fellow soldiers. - 🦑

GOD THIS RLY IS FORREAL HUH………. I AINT READY FELLAS…………………

im putting the rest under a read more bcs its rly long HGDJAHGJA

I took your advice and treated myself. I got two video games and a Pokémon plushie, Thnx boo~💖 - 🦑

HELL YEAH MUAH!!!!!!!! also which two video games *eye emoji*

I feel bad for not using the emoji anon thing cause I have an emoji. I just overthink my ask every time. Anyway how’s ur day been-🏳️‍🌈

IK U SENT THIS YESTERDAY IM SORRY ILY but im gnna say that Today has just been. one big ass rollercoaster……………..

I took a nap! But yeah- I sleep talk/walk a lot and this is the 2nd time this week I wake up in the middle of sleep talking. Its weird because I continue speaking while conscious but also unknowing. Its kinda hard to explain- All I remember is the broken fire alarm beeping and me sitting up muttering- “I cant believe they did that to Keith- Its sooo obvious- I just-“ It was something along those lines- Knowing me, I probably dreamed of straight!Keith and just went off hahah ~🍞~

WJHGBHJASHJJ i used to sleepwalk a lot when i was a kid and that shit was rly creepy tbh…… my sister used to do it a lot too and one time we just started screaming and shaking eachothers shoulders at the same time and UHWUHFU still dont know what the fuck that was all abt but creepy……….. ALSO ME AT THE KEITH THINBG KAMKGJIAG

My dad bought me a red backpack for Christmas last year and I really like it but it has Keith’s galra sword and bayard on it on a really small patch so it’s lowkey, but I’m going into hs now and I want a cute aesthetic backpack and I don’t really want a voltron backpack in highschool soooo wish me luck on trying to get one -🦎

BRO, BE A REAL ONE AND TAKE THE KEITH ONE……………. uhwuhwutgf it sounds so sexy…………………………….

sorry nessa it seems that imma be telling you every time i have a gay moment but… the girl i like SO much drew me today and im feelin v confused lesbian bc of that, bc she’s sending me mixed signals since i confessed some time ago and she said she needed time to think then, and we never talk about it now bc im an anxious mess&hate confrontation but then SHE comes OUT HERE with her CUTE ART and SEDUCES me all over AGAIN!!! what does that mean!!!! does she like me too??? no?? yes??? UGH! - 🐢

GOD NEXT THING SHES GNNA ASK U TO MARRY HER DUDE!!!!!!!! ask her out……….. I WLD DIE IF SOMEONE DREW ME LIKE HELLO???? thats Love bitch….. keep me updated i love hearing abt ur gay moments wuhwzutuzhguh

lance wears his hood when he’s moping and he doesn’t like to feel like the downer by moping around the paladins which is why we don’t see him wear the hood on screen -🍓

man…. this lowkey made me sad but……. ur right…………….

IM OPTIMISTIC AS FUCC AND YALL PESSIMISTIC KLANCERS CAN FIGHT ME WE’RE GETTING KICK THIS SEASON!!!!!!! -💧

HELL YEAH BABY THATS WHAT I LIKE TO SEE

ADAM…..!!!!!!!!!!!!!????!!!!!! hansome. -🐀

HES LITERALLY SO GORGEOUS i wld let him ra

OK SO,,,, I LITERALLY HAVE LIKE FUCKING BUTTERFLIES IN MY STOMACH RN AND MY HEART SPEEDS UP EVERY TIME I SEE ADAM AND EUZNWKFKALW IM RUBBIJG UP AJS DOWN MY HALLQAY BC I LOVE MY SON SM AMD HES SO PRETTY MY BOY I WOULD DIE FOR HIM VLD KEEP YO UGLY ASS HANDS AWAY FROM HIS BEAUTFIUL GLASSES AJD GORGEOUS EYES A FSNGIRL UWU COME THROUGH GIVE ME MORE OF ELZHWHDISNWJEJ A D A M - 🐢

i literally wrote this entire thing, turtle anon how r u me, im me

(KFGHFAJGKJADHFHAGJKSDGZH)

So season 7 really is that binch huh? -☕️

S7 IS GNNA DO IT TO US SO BAD………

URGH AND WE STILL HAVE 4 MORE DAYS!! ~🐩

IM NOT GONNA HOLD ON FOR FOUR MORE DAYS DUDE…………

ASKSDJFS I’VE BEEN ASLEEP FOR SEVEN HOURS AND I COME BACK AND ASKEFJLDSFJJ -🍓

IM SCARED TO EVEN GO TO SLEEP TONIGHT LMFAJUJHGKAJG

concept: veronica and lance are twins -💧

DELICIOUS POST raindrop anon i STAN u

In the middle of all this bullshit I just gotta stay relentlessly positive and everything will be okay!!!!! -🧚‍♀️

YES BABY THANK YOU MUAH

black paladin veronica or we riot - 🐚

M E ME EMEE EGHAGKJDG

“you’ll all love veronica. trust me” YEAH BECAUSE SHE’S ONE OF THE GAYS I’M CALLING IT - 🐜

DAMN RIGHT!!!!!! WLW QUEEN

Since were talking about moms, my mom thinks Keith is a girl and she once said “Oh that’s a cute girl” while pointing at a photo of Keith. - 🦑

LMAO?????????? FORREAL??????????? SADHGKJADGKJ

i think we all know the real reason why keith named his wolf cosmo is because he’s secretly a massive fan of the fairly odd parents and just doesn’t want to admit it - 🐜

GOD u r so fucking right we r all fools………….

#JSKDSMSNSJ SORRY THESE TOOK SO LONG TO ANSWER I LOVE U GUYS MUAH #Nessa replies #Anonymous #squid anon #pride anon #toast anon #lizard anon #turtle anon #strawberry anon #raindrop anon #rat anon #coffee anon #poodle anon #fairy anon #seashell anon #ant anon

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shysweetthing · 7 years ago

Text

Victor Nikiforov is a financial genius: you asked for it, now get punched in the face with the new 22-point version

What do I mean by financial genius? I mean three things:

A. Victor Nikiforov is substantially better at making money than most people, and that includes the extent to which he is able to capitalize on his own success.

B. Victor Nikiforov is better at not spending money than he usually gets credit for in fandom.

C. Victor Nikiforov is able to understand disparate financial situations and help others navigate them to their success.

One brief note: I’m sure someone is going to say “I don’t see it like that!” which will be entirely not surprising, since this is a headcanon and not a canon. You don’t have to headcanon Victor as a financial genius! But this is why I do!

All of the 7,000+ words and 22 points in support of that follow after the jump. I apologize for any formatting issues but I’m doing everything on my iPad and Tumblr is apparently not well suited for outline architecture that occasionally goes four levels deep? Argh.

(Edited to add: I know this is long, but point 16.B. is my favorite and please read it because I love Victor so much.)

1. Let's start with this post from Johnny Weir on the economics of skating. I mentioned this in my original post, so I'm not going to go into too much detail here. Suffice to say that skating is an expensive sport, probably one of the most expensive sports.

You need gear. If you're skating competitively, you need good skates--and if you can't afford good skates, you're never going to skate competitively, and you're never going to be found. You need lessons, and coaching, and rink time, and choreography, and costumes. Add in--for higher level athletes--trainers and gym time and ballet lessons. Skating is a sport and an art and it charges double time for all of these things.

2. Skating is a much harder sport to monetize than most, and it pays dividends for a very short space of time. It is instructive to thumb through something like the Forbes list of world's highest paid athletes to see where people get their money from. The list is here: https://www.forbes.com/athletes/#dc1a9bd55ae5

2.A. Team sports like football, baseball, basketball, and soccer (showing my American ways, sorry) have regular games which produce steady income. They have teams, which have fanbases that can be built up over the course of decades, and which result naturally from geography. Merchandizing for those teams is purchased to show not just a like for an individual player but an allegiance to the team and a membership in a club. These sports are much, much easier for athletes (and others) to make money off of for that reason.

2.B. You don't start hitting athletes from non-team sports until #14 Sebastian Vettel (auto racing), #16 Novak Djokovic (tennis), #17 Tiger Woods (golf). (I cannot express my disgust that Serena Williams is only #51 on that list, given that she is one of the greatest athletes of our time, but this is an entirely separate discussion, goodbye.) All of those sports allow for much greater longevity in the sport than figure skating, which means more time to build a fan base, which translates into more income. Those three sports make up most of the non-team well-paid athlete lists, and they fall into two categories.

2.B.i. Golf & Tennis: These are sports that have, um, how to say it, a particular cachet as country-club sports. They are things that even people who are extremely bad at them will do, or at least purchase the accoutrements of doing it, so that they will Fit In to the Right Place. That means that popular athletes in these fields can be used to market heavily to wealthy country-club goers and those who wish to appear to be the same. (This is part of the reason why Serena Williams is not much, much higher on the list. You're smart. You can figure it out.)

2.B.ii. Automobile racing: I am not best suited to explain the appeal of automobile racing, but suffice to say the demographics and nature of appeal is quite different from figure skating, and I can’t imagine that anyone is going to fight me on this point.

2.B.iii. Figure skating is clearly more popular in the YOIverse than in our universe, although more on this in point #6 below. This means that Victor almost assuredly has a larger fanbase than, say, Yuzuru Hanyu would today.

2.B.iv. That being said, there are reasons why even a more popular figure skating sport would yield substantially less money on a yearly basis for its top billers than some of the items on that list.

2.B.iv.a Figure skating events are fewer and further apart than most other events, and while this is somewhat a function of popularity, it is also largely a function of the fact that when people see events, they want to see skaters do jumps, and jumps are really, really hard on the body. Skating more would lead to more injury.

2.B.iv.b. There isn't a "team culture" around skating--it's about an individual. It takes time to build up a fanbase, and for the vast majority of skaters, by the time your fanbase is well-known outside of the avid followers of the sport, you are on the verge of retirement.

2.B.iv.c. There is very little to sell that is unique to your sport. For some sports, you can sell jerseys, or even general gear as in "Serena Williams uses this tennis skirt!" Because skating is almost uniquely part performance, part sport, this is much more difficult to achieve. Skaters perform in individual costumes that cost thousands of dollars. This is impractical merchandise to sell.

This does not mean that there's no way to make money in skating! There is! I will go into it later! Just that the monetizing of skating is a much, much harder thing to accomplish.

3. I know what many of you are saying. "But shysweetthing, Russia is different than the US." This is true. For instance, while we here in the US leave skating to (basically) the super-wealthy, with zero support available except where you can cobble it together from gofundmes and the occasional helpful check from a kind individual, Russia (and Japan!) both have actual state support.

3.A. This is true today. Historically, though, this has not always been the case, and it's relevant to the sport. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, and for a period of maybe 10-12 years, there was very little state support for skating. Russia basically lost a generation of figure skaters because of this. Brief discussion here: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/05/sports/olympics/in-russia-skating-booms-again.html?_r=0 It wasn't until around 2001 that skating resources began to come back, and not until maybe 7 or 8 years later that they started scouting rinks early to identify child prodigies.

3.B. Canonically, Victor has been skating since he was a child (source: http://yoimeta.tumblr.com/post/154990523062/lookiamnotcreative-has-anyone-done-this-yet), which means he started skating in maybe 1996 or 1997. He won the Junior World championship at 15 (same source), which is around the time of the resurgence in Russian state support for skating.

That leaves a lot of uncovered skating expenses in young Victor's pre-championship life. By the time Yuri Plisetsky came around, there were skating scouts again looking for great athletes to discover. Victor did not have that benefit. While Victor probably received a modest stipend/has skating expenses covered after he became a champion, he was very likely on his own in terms of support in the crucially formative years on his way to becoming one. I'll come back to this.

3.C. Russia doesn't provide as much support as Victor's apparent wealth indicates. I cannot for the life of me find this interview although I've searched for it extensively, but apparently I'm missing the keywords. In one of Kubo's interviews, she mentioned that she happened to be on the same flight as Evgenia Medvedeva after she'd won gold at worlds, and lo and behold, Medvedeva trooped back into coach.

3.D. As an additional datapoint, Japan also provides some degree of support for its skaters, and yet see this (https://toraonice.tumblr.com/post/162732055900/sinkingorswimming-victors-flowercrown-okay-so#notes) about how Shouma Uno says he isn't making a profit on skating right now. Like, damn. Again, skating is more popular in the YoIverse, but no matter how you slice it, Shouma Uno is one of the top 5 male skaters in the world (at least) (don't argue) and he's not making a profit.

3.E. Given the history at play here, Victor Nikiforov should actually be given substantially more in-universe credit for Russian stipends and expenses (as Plushenko should in our universe). Victor would have been the face of Russian skating while there was a resurgence of the sport.

He's the one who would argue about what skaters need and yes, you should cover this fee, and yes, we need to have a resistance trainer at the rink who understands pliometrics. Victor Nikiforov wasn't given these things simply for being a figure skater, the way that Yuri Plisetsky was. Victor Nikiforov almost certainly would have been involved in the creation of the current system of support, thank you, and would not have been a simply passive recipient.

3.F. (As a total aside from this, this is a great discussion of institutional support for figure skating in the US and Canada, which I deposit here for all your fic needs: http://www.twofortheice.com/price-skating-glory-part-2-institutional-funding/ Please note that all this "Yuuri gets a scholarship in the US" thing is...so highly unlikely, simply because the scholarship funds in the US are distributed by the US Skating Federation and...are thus unlikely to be given to a foreigner.)

4. Let's talk about Victor before Victor was Winner McWinnerson. Canon leaves a pretty blank hole about Victor’s history between the ages of 17 and 22. We know, canonically, that he was the world champion in Sofia as a junior. We know he's the five-time consecutive World Champion and Grand Prix final winner, so he has five years of being Winner McWinnerson. Canon hints that he won an Olympic gold--he wears a Russian Olympic team jacket, so he's definitely gone, and one of the medals he waves in his self-introduction in Episode 10 appears to be a gold medal from the 2006 Olympics (http://itshawkeybaby.tumblr.com/post/154176904080/look-at-the-medal-that-is-donut-shaped-in-the). So...what happened in those five intervening years? Probably a lot of things.

4.A. Puberty. We see a very different body type between 16 year-old Victor and current Victor, and he almost certainly had to relearn his center of balance and how to do jumps et cetera et cetera, which meant that he probably had a period of adjustment where he wasn't doing that well.

4.B. Injury: Victor possibly suggests that he's been injured in the past.

Conclusion: before Victor was the Living Legend, Victor almost certainly has had periods of financial distress. Victor also knows that his success is ephemeral and that he has basically no damned job skills but skating. If Victor is spending all his money he is a freaking idiot. (Victor is not a freaking idiot. Getting to that.)

5. Here is a not-quite exhaustive list of Victor's potential income sources, and how they factor into his income.

5A. Prize money: We should almost certainly assume that the prize money in YOI-verse is higher than it is in the current universe. The current universe prize money is dismally low. Take this listing here: http://soyouwanttowatchfs.tumblr.com/post/153867523490/hey-i-have-always-wondered-how-much-money-figure I know, I know, $25,000 for winning the Grand Prix final sounds like a lot of money, but as a figure skater, you really only have about 7 total events where you can win real prize money per year: Two Grand Prix qualifying events, the Final, your national competition, either 4C or Euros, Worlds, and WTT (if it's available).

Add in that the cost of attending each event is significant: You need to get yourself there, have a hotel, have a place to train, eat well (which is not easy to do when you're traveling) and so forth, and provide the same for your coach. Some of these costs will be born by the RSF on Victor’s behalf, but some won't--especially if you want to get there a day early, or want to fly business/first instead of coach.

Put it this way: If Victor flies first class to Japan for Worlds, he will lose money on the event if he doesn't hit the podium. Yuuri's fourth place finish at the Rostelecom cup got him $3000.00, which probably means that he only lost about $1,000 on the event, and that's with Victor not charging him coaching fees.

Associated costs for an event will bump up some in YOI verse because the sport is more popular, of course, but there will be corresponding increases in costs--because the sport is more popular, hotels will be more expensive to compensate for larger crowds, trainers, nutritionists, and the best sports massage therapists in the area will be in greater demand because there's more at stake, and so forth.

My point with all of this is not to say that Victor is not making a crapload of money; he is. It's just to say that non-Victor people who are, maybe, just top 10, are probably not earning all that much money, and there’s probably at least an order of magnitude of earning between Victor and Chris (and don’t think that Chris is above feeling jealousy here.)

5.B. Non-skating speeches, appearances, et cetera: Some of these he will do for free (e.g., Good Morning America, because it's worth the publicity), and others he will charge for. My guess is that Victor can probably command about 30-40,000 on an appearance, assuming that he's an excellent public speaker. (This puts him about on the level of Neil Gaiman.) However, it seems unlikely to me that he'd want to schedule lots of these events given his schedule. Victor probably has a bog-standard cheesy inspirational speech that he gives to Google about Never Giving Up! and Getting Over His Injury! and Working Super Hard! You can Do It To!

5.C. Advertisements: Victor almost certainly advertises for skating gear, clothing, and other manufacturers. I'll talk about his image later, but think about the number of athletes that advertise for brands outside their sport. It's actually quite small, and only for household names. Victor has a leg up on his competition because he's hot and considered desirable, but this particular train almost certainly wasn't available to him until he was established as Winner McWinnerson.

5.D. Merchandise: Victor likely collects a royalty on licensing his name and image for T-shirts, posters, and other merchandise.

5.E. Participation in Ice shows: Victor participates in ice shows and is paid for his participation. I suspect that the ice shows provide transportation/hotel + stipend. For someone like Victor, that stipend is probably pretty decent--$30,000-$40,000 or so--and the travel is first class. Victor probably does not do ice shows that would net him less than that. For your average skater, that check is probably more like $3,000-$6,000 and sardine class travel. Where I'm sourcing this: This discussion on the Golden Skate forum (free login required to view). http://www.goldenskate.com/forum/showthread.php?50195-How-Much-Do-Skaters-Get-Paid-For-Shows&styleid=5 Michelle Kwan was listed as getting $15,000 a show, back when skating was much more popular than it is now, so I'm bumping this up for Victor.

5.F. Since I keep mentioning that skating is more popular in the YOIverse than present reality, I need to point out that a major difference between our reality and the YOIverse is Victor Nikiforov. He is the face of skating. If the sport is prominent in YOIverse it is because the spokesperson for that sport is Victor. He's the non-doping, clean-cut, sexy-as-hell everyone-wants-him guy that everyone calls for a comment on any skating related matter. He has been utterly dominant for years, and he’s never a jerk. You cannot say that skating is more prominent in the YOIverse without recognizing that Victor Nikiforov is almost certainly substantially responsible for that prominence. This, too, must be attributed to Victor.

6. Let's talk about the distribution of gains in an area like skating. Like all income distributions in highly competitive fields, it's a power-law distribution with the top earners earning TONS of money and almost everyone else making close to nothing. At this link there's a fantastic graph of what the distribution looked like for prize money in the 2014-2015 season. If you can't tell from that graph, basically, TL;DR, a handful of people are winning all the prize money in skating.

The same is probably true--but magnified--for the non-prize-money rewards above. If you aren't winning substantial prize money, nobody wants to hear you give inspirational speeches, nobody will be convinced to bank with Bank of the Egret because of your ad, et cetera et cetera. You may get to go to ice shows, but you're essentially interchangeable and your check will be substantially smaller. This is relevant to our current discussions for two reasons:

6.A. It gives us some idea what Victor's top earning potential is (high).

6.B. It tells us that before Victor reached his current level of income, he was almost certainly making somewhere in the "barely comfortable" range. I'll come back to this later, too.

7. This concept probably has a real economic name but if it does, I have forgotten it and Google isn't loving me. (It might be net present value, but I'm not sure this is adequate.) For now, I'm going to call it "effective salary"--that is, the amount of money that you effectively have to spend, given the costs (or perks) of your job.

7.A. If your job gives you meals for free, that raises your effective salary--money that you would otherwise have spent on food is now free to do other things for you. If your job provides you housing for free, that raises your effective salary. If your job requires that you wear, say, a suit and tie all the time, that lowers your effective salary.

7.B. There are also jobs that have a lower effective salary if you properly account for the present-value of costs imposed in later years by current conduct. As an example, let's take football. People sometimes bitch about how even unknown 18 year old players in the NFL get paid ungodly amounts of money. The truth is, though, many of those unknown players, they are almost certainly operating at a loss if you account for the present value of future costs. Since almost 30% of NFL players will develop Alzheimers or dementia as a result of their playing, taking into account future lost income and years of skyrocketing health care costs, a million dollars a year for two years is probably operating at a loss for those players.

7.C. Skating is almost certainly a sport that operates--for most players--at an effective loss, even if that year's balance sheet appears to be in the black. This is because it imposes an incredibly high toll on the body. Victor is almost certainly going to be dealing with early arthritis and chronic hip/joint pain. We don't really know what the long-term toll of this will be because Victor is the first generation of skaters that skated under the new system that so heavily emphasized quads and jumps.

I'm putting this out there simply to say that any skater who isn't saving a crapload of money, is going to end up paying the costs of his skating career at a point when they no longer have the proceeds to support them. We'll talk about Victor's saving money later.

8. Whew. Now we've gone through how Victor gets money. Let's recharacterize them: Victor gets money by (a) being good at skating, and (b) monetizing his personal image, which he has developed into a platform by being good at skating. The point of much of the above is that (a) is actually not an incredibly lucrative source of income. There isn't that much money out there even in the enhanced YOI-verse to do much more than give skaters a semi-comfortable living, and to (maybe) save enough to deal with future costs of skating. (b) is where Victor makes all his money, so let's talk about Victor's image.

8.A. Victor's image is canonically calculated to a degree that no other skater manages. He thinks about what stories he is telling the audience, and micromanages the story he is telling to all degrees: commissioning his own music, choreographing it himself, and so forth.

8.B. Victor's image is canonically pervasive. Minako very firmly believes that Victor is a playboy, and that he is also (simultaneously) incredibly nice to his fans. Ditto for Nishigori. This is a tightrope to walk. Think about what this means--there is no footage out there of Victor snapping at some fan who just got on his last nerve, no pervasive rumors of him being a shithead to staff. Victor Nikiforov is just an incredibly hot, handsome, nice guy who has that tantalizing whiff of availability, and if only you were wearing this cologne... Whew.

8.C. Victor is canonically incredibly savvy about his image. At some point, he must have realized that his image had gotten away with him. "Holy shit," thinks young virginal Victor at some point, "they think I'm...uh...what?" But what does Victor do? He accepts what the audience thinks of him, and he runs with it--with his only goal being to surprise and delight them so that he doesn't lose their favor. Victor makes a point of telling Yuuri and Yurio that they don't get to choose their image, and so they need to learn to express things that aren't natural to them.

8.D. This is again an aside, but let's think about the Victor that nobody really knew? Look at even his friendship with Chris--even that is filtered through the Fake Victor image. Nobody wanted Victor for Victor until that moment on the beach with Yuuri. A moment of silence for the Victor whose personal self was pushed aside for the relentless rapacity of his public image, please. *bows head, wipes away silent tear*

Again, I see people treating Victor’s image as something that Victor simply fell headfirst into by virtue of his godlike skating, but the truth is that this is something that Victor has managed and pursued. Victor is good at monetizing himself.

9. Let's talk about those ice shows again. VICTOR RUNS HIS OWN ICE SHOWS. He does it for Onsen on Ice (by implication; it's "Victor Nikiforov presents" and Victor did not get to be where he is by ignoring the value of his own damned name) and he does it for Victor and Friends, and those are just the two that we see.

This deserves it's own bullet point since this is HIGHLY RELEVANT to Victor's genius. Running your own ice shows when your name is a draw is substantially more lucrative--see the estimate in the above link from the Golden Skate that Yuna Kim's ice show took in a profit of about a million dollars. Stop. Take a deep breath. Compare that to what Victor could command for performing in someone else's ice shows. Victor can get maybe $40,000 to perform in an ice show, and maybe $200,000 to run an ice show.

(Onsen on Ice wouldn't have generated that much profit; there wasn't the time to ramp up ticket sales, and the venue wasn’t optimal either.) This is not something that most skaters are generally able to do. Victor is an entrepreneur, dammit, and I want him to get all appropriate credit.

10. While we're talking about giving credit to Victor, let me make one thing clear. I swear in this point because this is eye-rollingly infantilizing ways that Victor gets treated.

Victor (with the help of appropriate professionals that he handpicks himself) manages his own damned finances.

Yakov does not manage Victor's finances. I've seen this one come up a bunch of times. The implication is that Victor is irresponsible and so Yakov handles things. This is ridiculous for a number of reasons.

10.A. Victor Nikiforov is a grown-ass adult of 27 years who canonically has a "zero" under his cooperation skills and never does anything that Yakov tells him to do. It is flatly unbelievable that it is in his character to just hand his finances off to Yakov and allow him to manage them.

10.B. Yakov does not have the damned time to be an accountant/babysitter. Inevitably, of course, he does have to do some things that resemble babysitting, and I'm sure he has some rules for conduct for those who skate at his rink that relate to RSF morality rules/skating health. That being said, he is a damned good skating coach. He coached Victor. He coached Georgi who is not terrible. He coaches Yurio. He coaches Mila.

Yakov is a coach for champions, and that is an incredibly specialized skillset. He does not have the time to mess around with his skater's finances, and he absolutely did not develop the necessary skillset. Maybe he hands them a list of "dos and don't"--"don't forget to save money for taxes" for instance, or "hire an accountant as soon as you're making enough"--but general financial management, or acquisition of merchandising opportunities, is not his bailiwick.

10.C. While we're at it, the coach-student relationship between a world champion and a world champion coach is nothing like a student-teacher relationship. The world champion has to bring their own thoughts to the table. The world champion can fire their coach at any minute if the relationship isn't working. There is very little disparity of power between them.

Victor and Yakov's relationship is one of respect, not one in which Yakov holds power over Victor. On a more mundane approachable level, I would say that the relationship is much more like a client-realtor relationship. A good realtor will give you excellent advice on maximizing your property's curb appeal. You can choose not to take any of it. You can walk away and use someone else as allowed under your contract. An unethical realtor can mess up a client in many ways, but a savvy client is unlikely to get played.

10.D. If Yakov actually had any control over Victor's finances in canon, don’t you think he would force Victor to stay in Russia instead of going thousands of miles for a skating video-booty call? Yes. Yes he would.

10.E. I understand that sometimes fic writers need someone to conveniently impose limits on Victor, because having a character who has a shitload of money means that there are many monetary problems you can't have in a fic. That's cool, it's fine, but let's be real, this is just a convenience of the fic, and God knows that if any of my above points are inconvenient in a fic I will magically unheadcanon them myself. That being said, it's completely and utterly irrational to imagine that Yakov plays such an actual role in Victor’s finances.

10.F. Look back at where Victor makes the majority of his money. YAKOV CANNOT DO THESE THINGS. Yakov is a skating coach. He is unlikely to have a firm understanding of what rights of personality Victor has in the global intellectual property market and what he needs to have put in a contract in Korea versus in California. He is unlikely to know what the going rate is for advertisements for top-level athletes. He is unlikely to know when he can make a client walk away from an exclusivity clause and when it's a given. He probably might give him an idea if the offered compensation for an ice show is low, but that's about it.

Yakov is a damned good skating coach but these other things require a team of people. Victor almost certainly has a booking agent, a merchandising agent, a modeling agent, an events team that helps manage the ice shows he does put on, in addition to accountants and investment bankers.

11. Victor probably receives tons of things for free. People seem to think that just because Victor has $7,000 sunglasses, or has driven a million-something dollar pink convertible, that he shelled out his own money for that. Victor is a celebrity who gets instant airtime wherever he shows up. Brands send him things. The classic car rental place in Tel Aviv where he picked up that convertible paid for him to come and drive it and Instagram himself in front of their front office. Victor does not need money to buy things.

12. In addition, many of the things that Victor spends money on that gets characterized as "extra" is spending on legitimate business expenses that contribute to his bottom line.

12.A. Yes, his costumes cost on the order of $5000. This is a business expense that is absolutely necessary to maintain his image. He's not going to be the guy that everyone wants to be--an image that nets him tons of money from 1-3 above--if he's wearing an old T-shirt over jeans as his giant romantic costume. He has an image, and he's not going to practice false economy by hurting his image.

12.B. Yes, he flies first class. Flying first class allows him to arrive in much better shape, better-rested, with less chance of cramps and blood clots. The dude is 5'10", and his body is his greatest asset. He didn't get to be one of the oldest reigning champions of his sport without learning to treat it well.

12.C. Let's talk about the times when Victor critiques what Yuuri is wearing, because I think these are mischaracterized as Victor being extra, when it’s actually Victor being savvy. There's that tie, and his suit, both of which Victor does not like. This is not just Victor being a fashionista.

Victor understands that you need to dress for the job you want, and if Yuuri is constantly dressing like a college student with a $10 tie and an ill-fitting suit, nobody's ever going to take him seriously as a business person and potential business partner. This is why he buys Yuuri a damned suit.

Notice that at no other time in the show does he ever criticize Yuuri's clothing. He only does so when it's related to business.

12.D. Ditto for having all his costumes shipped from Russia. I'm not sure how much that cost him, but it sure was cheaper than Yuuri/Yurio paying another $4000-$5000 a piece for their own costumes, and see above about dressing for the job you want.

Wearing a great costume at Onsen on Ice will make people take the event much more seriously, and since Victor is RUNNING it, this is not a selfless move. Having them wear Victor's costumes helps keep Victor in the public eye, and keeps interest in his prior career, which helps keep his income stream level.

13. Victor exhibits signs of frugality in his every day life.

13.A. As extra as we say Victor is, let's take a look at his room in Hasetsu.

What does he have in here? A sofa. A king bed, which isn't particularly expensive in the grand scheme of things, and besides, we all know Makkachin is a bed hog. Books. Lamps. A set of Russian dolls. A framed picture of himself which he probably stole from Yuuri. Aside from the statue (?! what the hell Victor), this is not a lavishly furnished room.

13.B. Victor's the one who worries about the strength of the Euro when they're shopping in Barcelona.

13.C. Victor's apartment in St. Petersburg, as nice as it is, is an apartment, and not, like, Lillia's mansion. He actually lives in a very reasonable space for a person of his income.

I mean, it’s nice! It’s very nice! But he doesn’t even have a large screen TV.

13.D. Victor has no problem staying in an unused banquet room in Hasetsu for a year even though if he were actually as spoiled as everyone imagined, he would get his own damned apartment. He never acts like he's slumming.

13.E. I know everyone talks about how freaking extra that pink convertible is, but why does nobody talk about the vehicle that Victor canonically purchased to transport himself while he was in Hasetsu?

It’s not even a three-speeder!

Look at you, Victor, spending as much as 10,000 yen.

14. Because someone will bring it up, here is a brief note about the one totally extra thing that Victor does is not a great money maximization choice: Victor's move to Hasetsu.

14.A. I’m gonna come right out and say that this was a bad economic decision, in the sense that it will cost him a lot of money, and the decision is executed in a way that maximizes that decision for many reasons, including:

14.A.i. He almost certainly loses any funding he gets from Russia.

14.A.ii. The speed of the decision almost certainly pissed off some long-time people he has worked with, who would have preferred that he try to be the World Champion for the sixth time.

14.A.iii. He ships all his stuff internationally via FedEx for god's sake has the man not heard of ground transportation? (For the record, he almost certainly shipped his luggage as a pallet through them--not as expensive as the package rate, but still, Victor, wow.)

14.B. It was nonetheless the right decision for him to make. Yes, even the FedEx thing.

14.B.i. Victor knows he needs a change and he needs it desperately.

14.B.ii. He knows that the decision is on its face so irrational to the outside world--he's moving to Japan for a guy he danced with for one night, to do something he's never done before--that he cannot give himself a way to back out or he might get cold feet.

14.B.iii. He needs to make the decision so complete and irrevocable that people--Yakov, the three agents mentioned above--will have a hard time talking him out of it.

That's why he ships all his stuff to arrive immediately. His decision is made fast so that nobody has the chance to talk him out of it. (Yurio tries.)

This is not a money maximizing choice, but it is the right choice nonetheless. Being a financial genius does not mean always putting money first. In fact, that is a particular form of financial distress. Being a financial genius means making your money work for you rather than the other way around, and this is an example of Victor doing exactly that.

15. I'm now going to circle around to some of the breadcrumbs that I've laid here. I've said before that I think it's pretty clear that Victor has not always had access to the kinds of money that he has now. Before he got RSF support, money was probably tight. Between the ages of 17 and the current onset of Winning All the Things Forever at 22, he probably didn't have access to tons of money. Victor survived.

Furthermore, I think that these periods of temporary imperfection probably made him a much, much better financial manager. You are better at budgeting for crises and future loss of income after you’ve expereinced it once. 15.A. He is less likely to spend all his money. I know that we are talking about income in the millions, and it's hard to think about spending income in the millions, but tons of celebrities manage to do just that every year.

15.B. Loss of prior fame means that Victor is more aware that what he has is temporary. His image is driven by his winningness, and he's getting close to the end of his natural career.

15.C. Knowing that this period is short means that he has dumped a lot of effort into maximizing the results--so much that he really hasn't had time to do anything else.

16. Now something completely different: Victor notices the signs of income distress in others and acts accordingly to help alleviate it. (I cannot tell you how rare this property is in people who are rich now, and have always been rich. It is so rare.)

16A. Let's talk briefly about what Victor was expecting to find in Hasetsu and what he got. Victor probably got a translation of what Yuuri said to him in Japanese--when Yuuri invited him to stay at his parent's resort--and what he was thinking to himself was, oh, Yuuri's parents own a resort.

For the reasons mentioned above, most people who are in skating are usually pretty wealthy. Yuuri was unusually blessed with non-financial resources--a skating rink that let him skate there when they were closed, a childhood ballet teacher who is a close friend of his mother's--that allowed him to develop.

I suspect what Victor imagined was something a little bit more like "his parents have desks in the office at a major seaside resort that brings in millions" and a little bit less like "Yuuri's mom personally does all the cooking."

It takes Victor a while to adjust to the reality of Yuuri's family--when he first arrives, he asks them to take his luggage up to his room because he has no freaking idea that the onsen does not have a staff. When Yuuri himself starts hauling his luggage along with another uniformed staff member, he starts to wonder. Then Yuuri introduces the other uniformed staff member, and Victor discovers it’s his sister, and oh my god, you mean to say that very nice woman who personally brought him his dinner is Yuuri’s mother, and the guy who explained how an onsen works was his dad? The only staff at the onsen is Yuuri’s family?

Yuuri is a rarety in figure skating--he’s someone who doesn’t come from money at all, whose family in fact in their entirety makes most of their living from actively working in the service industry.

But Victor very quickly figures out a score that quite frankly, I don’t think most people would get. Yuuri’s family is literally running the onsen, Yuuri’s sister never went to college, Yuuri is an outlier in the skating world, and holy shit, is this why Yuuri came back home from Detroit?

So imagine Victor gamely pitching in when he realizes there is no legion of staff to bring his luggage up to his room. While he's helping move everything, he’s recalculating his assumptions in his head. He comes to the totally reasonable conclusion that the reason Yuuri has been acting so bizarrely about his arrival, after coming on to him so strongly at the banquet and skating his program, is because he can't figure out how to afford to pay Victor.

(And honestly, this says so much about Victor--that someone at his level of income has the empathy to understand that someone else might be stressed about money.)

Victor immediately acts to try and alleviate what he thinks may be a point of distress--that is, he tries to take the issue of coaching fees out of the question between them in hopes that this will help fix everything.

(It doesn't at all because Yuuri doesn't remember the banquet, but good try, Victor.)

I almost feel badly that this point is stuck like 80% of the way through this post at 16.A. because it’s such an incredible moment that really captures how great Victor is, and I want to scream so loudly about how we don’t deserve Victor, because we don’t, we really don’t.

16.B. Let's talk about Hasetsu in general. Everyone (with the possible exception of Yuuri, who has been gone for five years and also is so wrapped up in his own head that he either avoids thinking about this or freaks out too much when he contemplates it and avoids it altogether) is aware that Hasetsu is rapidly losing people and falling apart.

All the other onsens have gone bankrupt. Minako has essentially no ballet students. Yuuri's parents have no back-up staff at the onsen, something that means that they have very, very little margin--not enough margin for either of his parents to ever travel to Yuuri's events, or to Yuuri's college graduation. The Nishigori triplets are constantly scheming about ways to bring attention to Ice Castle and their town.

When Yuuri first arrives in town, Minako basically expects him to help turn things around by spotlighting the town, and Yuuri's response is "I'm tired right now." Minako rightly thinks WTF, but lets him be Yuuri, because he has been Yuuri for a good long while and is unlikely to abruptly change into anyone else. The town is dying; Minako is barely staying afloat; the onsen is understaffed and there’s no money to pay anyone, and Yuuri needs to sit around and think about what to do next. Thanks, Yuuri.

Then Victor comes.

16.C. Victor's arrival immediately brings customers to the onsen--more customers than anyone has seen in recent years.

16.D. Victor is shown to frequently visit local businesses--Minako's bar, Nahagama Ramen.

16.E. Victor of his own free will tries to advertise Hasetsu as a tourist location during Onsen on Ice. He runs Onsen on Ice, which probably brings more money to Ice Castle in a single day than they pulled in last year.

16.F. Victor Nikiforov is the best damned thing to ever happen to Hasetsu. He is exactly what Minako hoped Yuuri would be, except he's not an anxious bean who can't imagine why anyone would like him, and so he can actually use the image and platform he has built up to make a difference.

17. Victor is not so spoiled that he is incapable of doing his own damned chores.

17.A. Victor had Makkachin as a puppy. I guarantee you that if he had not been able to pick up after himself his skates would have been chewed to bits. There is no amount of staff that will prevent puppy destruction.

17.B. Victor's room in Hasetsu is not a complete mess. Given how short-staffed the onsen is, he has to be picking up for himself to some degree. (No, there is no way that Yuuri is doing it for him, please do not suggest that, I love Yuuri but he is the WORST.) Compare to Yurio's space.

18. Let's calculate Victor's potential income!

No matter how you add up Victor's income from the above streams, he's probably bringing in maybe around 5 million a year after you deduct his agents' cut and so forth. The number of ice shows he can put on is relatively limited, since he's still training, and so forth.

To put Victor's earnings in perspective, in 2016, Beyoncé earned $54 million. No matter how you headcanon Victor's celebrity status in YOI-verse, (a) Victor does not have as monetizable an income stream as Beyoncé, as she sells the direct product of her labor, which is infinitely duplicable and (b) Victor is not as popular as Beyoncé. I love him but come on.

19. Let's figure out his net worth! I recognize that 5 million bucks a year sounds like a lot of money but many, many minor celebrities/lottery winners/sudden recipients of windfalls have absolutely no problem blowing through that and ending up with nothing. These earnings will be offset by taxation and all the costs of skating not born by the RSF: upgrades to first class, for instance, spa treatments, make up artists, legal fees because the man is signing contracts and he's not stupid enough not to hire a lawyer to look them over, another lawyer because he's probably incorporated a business or whatever the Russian equivalent is. Plus he needs to pay someone to take care of Makkachin, cover the costs of directly commissioning music for his own programs, etc.

While skating, he probably has around $400-$500 K in necessary business expenses--commissioning a piece that’s performed by singers and a full orchestra isn’t cheap--not counting expenses accrued by traveling for speeches/endorsement or the costs of running his ice shows. This leaves him with something (after taxes--I'm not super-familiar with Russian tax rates, but I'm guessing he will have to pay their personal income tax rate and their social security rate) like 2-3 million dollars net--that is, net of taxes and business expenses.

From that, deduct basic living expenses. From that, deduct anything he spends extra money on--food, clothing, cleaning expenses. And he's probably only been at the 2-3 million dollars amount for the last two years or so. It's taken time for the machinery to ramp up; for most skaters, it never ramps up.

At best, Victor has been Winner McWinnerson for five years. This gives us an upper and a (somewhat) lower bound on Victor's nest egg:

A. Upper bound: Victor's present net worth at present is something like $15,000,000.

B. Lower bound: Victor spent all the money he made and is in fact in debt. This is not the case, but honestly, if he were as stupid about money as people thought he was, he would be.

20. A moment here. Over the course of my life, I have (a) lived in a tent, and (b) worked with people who were so stinking full of money that they had no idea how anyone could function on what is even an average income, which has given me an interesting view of how rich people approach money.

For all that people say that Victor is extra, Victor has never been canonically shown to have any of the vices that typically accompany vast amounts of money being dumped in your lap. He flew first class (on Aeroflot, which is actually basically business, not first), instead of getting himself a private jet. He lives in a reasonably swanky apartment by himself; he didn't get a mansion with a personal chef and a full complement of staff. When he moved to Hasetsu, he didn't get a separate place (which he totally could have done); he stayed in a banquet room, which is (by Russian standards) small.

Victor does not live the life of the rich and famous. Victor lives a life that you could have on a lower six-figure salary.

As Yuuri's coach, when Yuuri is paying for his plane tickets, he has no problem flying coach if that's what needs to be done. Victor is vastly underspending his apparent earnings, adjusts to Yuuri's very different financial reality without standing out or making a fuss, and he never once complains about it. Can we please give this man a hand for how well he adjusts to someone else's reality?

21. Likewise, people who cannot learn to manage money quickly discover that money is like closet space: If you don't make an effort to impose order, you will run out, no matter how large the paycheck, or how gargantuan the closet.

You can figure this out by reading the deeply distressed letters written by people sobbing about how it's not fair that they're considered part of the evil 1% because they're not that rich and until you've tried living on $800,000 in New York you don't know what real poverty is. In one of my many cat-like lives, I worked with some incredibly rich, privileged people who would tell me that they were barely staying afloat as a couple making $400,000 a year in a not-super-expensive part of the country, and they could not possibly afford to drop even as much as $10,000 from their salaries without being unable to pay off their credit card debt. I've had colleagues who went into a flying panic if their monthly income went below $17,000 (this is almost a direct quote). These are people who are rich in revenue but who have never adopted spending habits that allowed them to become remotely wealthy.

Victor Nikiforov is not that person. Victor Nikiforov was able to basically quit a job that was bringing in possibly 5 million dollars a year (technically, he still has income streams that will continue through his time in Hasetsu, so it's not that cut and dry, but yeah) to go coach a man who might never be able to pay him.

Victor has never, ever freaked out about money, and if he were budgeting on a shoestring, he would have.

People simply do not do that kind of thing if they have made themselves dependent on their massive income.

22. There's a number that gets called the "safe withdrawal rate"--that is, it's the percentage of invested funds you can withdraw without risking the bulk of your principal. This number has typically been based on historical market performance and Monte Carlo simulations. That number is about 4%--if you can live on 4% of your savings, which are dynamically invested, your net worth will (on average, over time) not decrease. (Here's a good discussion of historically what this means.

A financially frugal, rational Victor, with his potential $15 million stashed in appropriately diversified asset classes as approved by his financial advisor, can safely spend $600,000 a year without really risking his principal. Victor does not appear to spend anywhere near $200,000 over the course of the show--which would be financially frugal for someone with even just $5,000,000 in the bank, discounting his earnings for that year.

Even if you assume that he paid for his clothing and that pink Cadillac all on his own, Victor is living--very comfortably--on a sum of money that he can retire on, without actually touching the principal.

TL;DR you can call Victor extra but he has not made any of the mistakes that befall most people who receive a financial windfall; he has done an incredible job of earning money that demonstrates real entrepreneurial spirit and an understanding of what he’s contributing, and he exhibits a compassion and a sensitivity with regard to the money issues that others have that suggests that he's very, very aware of what the value of money is.

VICTOR NIKIFOROV IS A FINANCIAL GENIUS.

#yoi meta #victor nikiforov #heart-mouthed financial genius #i just love him so much #please love him too

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freeway-diner-blog · 7 years ago

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Thanks @lady-caden for tagging me!! :,D

Rules and shiz: 10 facts about yourself, tag 10 followers (this gon be hard cause I only have 6 including a porn bot)

Warning: very long text, my only personality are my interests

1. I’m learning spanish! Mostly because I want to get more in touch with my culture and there’s cute girls at my school who only speak Spanish x_x (I’m at about an elementary level)

2. My favorite shows are: Total Drama (its a childhood classic, man) Steven Universe,The Magicians (why isn’t there more fan art? :,l) End of the F***ing World, Camp Camp, and Bojack horsemen (ofc there’s hella more but I don’t wanna make this too long)

3. My music taste is all ova the place, it ranges from Panic! at the Disco, Marina and the Diamonds, Musicals (BMC, DEH, Heathers, more but they’re less popular) Lil peep, and Dodie 💛

4. I’m a very nostalgic person,, catch me in the club hiding in a corner playing Animal Crossing, Pokemon, and Mario Kart on my really shitty DS, silly bandz all the way to my elbowz, just wanting to go home and rewatch old adult swim cartoons (and probably bum a joint off of someone)

5. I play a bunch of dumb PC games that are embarrassing especially at my age lol. Minecraft, Animal Jam, DDLC, Town of Salem, Roblox (I used to build a lot but kinda quit after they broke a lot of the stamper games...) and Toon Town

6. Cats > Dogs sorry man, I have a little chihuahua who loves to poop everywhere and ruin my art,,, L I C C and B O R K at EVERYTHING. Cats are gentle and mine loves to snuggle uwu, I also love hedgehogs, birds, rats, skunks, ALL the underrated animals!!

7. I love art!!! So much!! I’ve been drawing since I picked up my first crayon at 2 and haven’t stopped since, I mostly post them on Instagram cause the art community here is kinda,,, uhh mean?? ;_; DM me if you want my username tho! I’m also more active on there than here

8. I still haven’t decided what I want to be when I grow up?? I don’t even know if I’m gonna make it another year but my career choices would be Animation, Writer (if you couldn’t tell already. God damn. When I’m finished im gonna see what the word count is) Game developer, Actor, Architecture, or something to do with Psychiatry, to help people who have to deal with the same problems as mine

9. My whole wardrobe consists of oversized sweaters, boxers, and cute socks from forever 21 or hot topic

10. I like more than I reblog,,, it’s always been a habit cause I don’t like clogging up people’s dashboards or my own

475 words..... 2506 letters.... I’m so sorry.....

I nominate, @goth-kid @kiriclover @sincerely-the-stars @arhiemcsterling and whoever else wants to break their fingers

#long post #im sorry again holy shit

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knightofbalance-13 · 7 years ago

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http://dudeblade.tumblr.com/post/169097966661/sokumotanaka-as-mostly-a-spectator-in-the-class

You still don’t get it do you?

As mostly a spectator in the class of people who say they can rewrite rwby, I can see why some would be peeved by that; but I can also see that some people genuinely have the talent to take the jumbled bits of rwbyâ€™s plot, lack of world building and character and write it better than the current writers

And your two examples are Fatmanfalling and one of his meat puppets, both of whom are NOTORIOUS for being flat out liars when it comes to RWBY, proving time and time again they can’t write worth a damn. But they coinside with your idealogy ergo they are better than individuals you disagree with.

Because that’s what this is about. Not writing skill, just pandering to YOU and what YOU want. Because fuck quality, everything must be for you.

That may not be something you want to hear nor believe but it is true; there are many fanfics, videos, discussions etc that flesh out the world and characters in a shorter amount of time and doesnâ€™t contradict itself, As a person who writes as a hobby and took creative writing miles and kerry fall into a lot of the traps teachers have told me to avoid, and make many mistakes along the way. (Need I remind everyone they said they avoid timelines to keep from running into plotholes which is a surefire way to run headfirst into many plotholes.) A writer would notice rwby has its major flaws but itâ€™s still salvageable to some degree, yes itâ€™s harder making your own universe as many writers have demonstrated, but itâ€™s incredibly easy to make the world, flat, nonsensical and empty.

Its also easy to lie your ass off and pretend otherwise to make your point look valid.

You have NEVER pointed out ANY fanfic or discussions that did this better and the videos you brought up are from two liars you had so little faith in that you wouldn’t even link to them because it would make it easy to show you why you’re wrong.

The ONLY time you assholes have EVERY tried rewriting was RE;RWBY and let me tell you, that was 90% copy paste of the original fucking show with all the changes dipping the quality of the show. From Volume 1. You people can’t even fix Volume fucking ONE let alone the entire series.

I don’t give a shit what you say Soku: I have taken creative writing classes too. Not only that, I have been an avid reader since I was 7 and an avid writer since I was 13. I’m 19 now. That’s six years I’ve been working my hardest to hone my craft to the best of my abilities, analyzing other’s styles, seeing what I enjoy from them and adapting and applying it to myself while constantly reading the numerous ways to use tropes and how they function. I spend most of my time consuming critical media, learning the art of analysis to grow and evolve. And I haven’t seen a FRACTION of the problems you bring up in the writing. What I have noticed is that you lie constantly, spew shit from your mouth constantly and act like you know what you are talking about when you clearly don’t. And judging by the fact that the only reason you have a place here is to effectively use cult tactics to brainwash and control people: Not many people side with you.

The fact that so many fans can take said ideas and make them better not only shows an ability to do better (there are certain writers who plain just arenâ€™t great.) but also show an interest in the world. Â Miles, Monty and Kerry have made a very interesting world; But weâ€™d all be lying if we said it wouldnâ€™t be done better, and thatâ€™s not from a place of arrogance, but from the fact that it could be written better if the writers applied themselves, took the time for some classes, explained their world so it doesnâ€™t seem like theyâ€™re playing it by ear etc.

You say it isn’t from arrogaunce but you say that the writers aren’t applying themselves when this entire Volume has been nothing but them trying to fix their problems is pretty fucking arrogaunt. And the fact that you have agreed with the idea that the show only got famous because “White Mediocrity” and that you think that RE;RWBY is better is more proof of your arrogance.

Your words say one thing but your actions tell the truth.

Trust me it would be a nightmare to rewrite rwby but not because â€˜writing is hardâ€™ but because of how entangled the overall series is, but it can be untangled and I read many fanfics that do this, I can see where this may seem like an attack to some but itâ€™s from a place of frustration in the heat of the moment from some people, remember is is also a vent tag. But I canâ€™t lie Iâ€™ve seen writers weave the story so well it can only improve on the current rwby.

Fucking prove it.

Point me to a fanfic that goes from the ground up and rebuilds the series without atking a single god damn thing from canon. I’ll wait and Ill wait forever because such a fanfic DOESN’T EXIST. There is only ONE true example of this and that is SAO Abrigded. And SAO was objectively not good and even then, was made BY fans of the show doing their own thing. And for every SAO Abridged, there are thousands RE:RWBYs and it’s ilk. The fact remains: You people say that you can do it better while proving time and time again that you can’t write.

Youâ€™re stepping on my â€œFans do a better job at this with their fanfictions and fanartâ€ area.Â

But overallâ€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦ Same. Writing IS hard, and it feels that the current writers thought it would be a breeze to make a story from the ground-up, when itâ€™s actually quite difficult. Iâ€™m still working on how my own mass crossover works out, but I donâ€™t do any retcons. Hell! I even have an easy out for that, and I STILL refuse to use it.

Aside from the Mewtwopoint...

And Yang’s reasoning for hating her dad despite it being out fo character...

And Yang and Tifa’s sexualities...

Not to mention, you occasionally write 1000 words at most. COme back when you write 3000 words on a weekly basis. Then come back and write about 6000 words without relying on ANYTHING while only having a week to do it. Then come back and do all that while needing voice acting, music and animation. Then come back with all that and I’ll lie my ass off about your work, make up shit, insert politics into it and call you a bigot, demand you step down for not being the right race/gender/sexuality/gender identity/body nd ask when you’ll die while also bring up your dead friend to use against you. Then you claim to do better than them.

But in the end, itâ€™s kinda worth it. Itâ€™s WORTH putting in the effort of creating your own world because it your world. And if people like it enough that they are willing to write about it, thenâ€¦ good job. But if people have to go the extra mile to make any sense of it, then thatâ€™s a bad thing.

And when people shit all over your world, calling it shit and calling you shit and saying you’re worthless while not paying an ounce of attention, making shit up on the fly, spreading lies about you, trying to tear you down at every oppritunity while saying they can do your job better while ripping off and FAILING Disney clichés, then what? When you are forced into their shoes with all the shit that comes with it, the shit YOU created: What will you do besides break down?

Take Star Wars for example. It has spectacular stories, and fantastical world-building. Only when it tried to over explain things did it get complex (Need I bring up Midichlorians?) and infuriating. But when it did what it wanted to do right, it did it in such a spectacular fashion that it blows people away.

And yet when they try to not explain Aura and Dust, you demand a Midichlorians-esque explaination. Because fuck standards, we gotta abuse the writers so we can control them.

And RWBY is doingt what it wants to do right and IS blowing people away. For fuck’s sake, it’s basically the American eqvilanet of Sailor Moon/Dragon Ball Z right now as the first American anime to get a dub. And it’s grown in popularity so much that it has a manga, a light novel, figurines and even an appearance in a famous fighting game alongside the likes of PERSONA and BLAZBLUE. And yet, you demand the show change on a fundemnetal level because it’s not what YOU want. You never gave a damn about the quality of RWBY: You just want control.

This scene tells SHOWS so much about Lukeâ€™s internal conflict, and how itâ€™s affecting him. Which is more than I can say for the show we all know, love, and get irritated by.

What about this scene:

Where you can tell their personalities from just their body language.

Or this scene:

Where you can tell what Illa is gonna say without even hearing her.

What about this scene:

Which tells you how Yang is not right without a single word of dialogue.

You NEVER acknowledge when RWBY does ANYTHING right unless it is done exactly how you want it.

Thereâ€™s never going to be such a thing as a perfect show, but there are moments in the show that are really good.

As much as I hate to say it, Jaune admitting that heâ€™s not as good as anyone else is actually some smart writing. Sure, itâ€™s a cliche, but if itâ€™s used right, it works. The unfortunate thing is that it wasnâ€™t used right.

Tropes are tools, and in their endeavor to avoid the problematic ones, they run head-first into ones that are just as, if not worse than the original trope.

Like ripping off a cliché, talking about how you’re ripping off a cliché, point out how stupid it is you are ripping off a cliché, create an asspull, acknowledge it was an asspull, rip it off from another source and completely fuck it up right? No wait, that’s you Dudeblade.

Jauneâ€™s refusal to accept help doesnâ€™t make him more interesting, it makes him a crybaby. It makes him someone who thought that being a Hunter would be easy when itâ€™s not. Other characters had to train, get educated, or prove themselves to get into Beacon. What does Jaune do? - He fucking cheats his way in. And that aspect of his character isnâ€™t used to itâ€™s fullest.

While Jaune uses weaponry that would traditionally be used by a combatant with honor, it could have been turned on its head, and Jaune could have been one to use dirty tricks to win a fight. Throw sand at his opponentâ€™s eyes, take cheap shots, kick them while theyâ€™re down- stuff that would make sense from someone who cheated his way in.

What about how his refusal to accept help rebounds on him, is treated as wrong and he has to overcome it? What about his constant efforts to become better, pushing himself to be a better fighter? What about him trying and failing, causing him to become embittered and cynical like anyone else would? What about him acknowledging that Ruby is hurt too by the events that happened, showing that he has moved away from his selfish past? What about Jaune beinga Foil to Ruby that while he is more cynical than her, he is more able to process grief and emotions better than her? What about Jaune relationship with Pyrrha and how they interact with one another and grow from one another? What about his reactions to her death and the drive he has from it?

What about everything ELSE about his character that you ignore to shit on him and the writers because A. The writers didn’t dow hat you wanted B. The wrters can never do good or else I’m a monster and C. You’re a racist, sexist asshole.

There are so many other ideas that fans have come up with that not only would have expanded the lore, but would have also kept things simple (My favorite example would be my idea on half-breeds). Iâ€™ve seen fanfic writers use this to its fullest potential, and it hurts knowing that actual canon canâ€™t ever use it because of that bullshit â€œ100 percent faunus, or 100% humanâ€genetics.

So instead of making an entirely new race of people to explain and make the world more complicated while dealing with things like recessive and dominant genes as well as mixing of genes, they just decide to keep the races they have and have a simplistic genes. But that's bad because you had a different idea and thus the writers had to bend to your whim.

There are good ideas in there. Itâ€™s just buried under mediocrity.

Though, occasionally, a light comes forth.

And as cynical as I am, I do appreciate it when that light shines through. I appreciate it a lot.

Which is why you never say anything nice unless it’s something you want or you can’t get away with being negative, even if it means lying your ass off and selling out your morals and integrity.

That’s why you judge their writing ability not by what is there but rather by how much it coinsides with what you want and their race.

That’s why you belittle them at every turn, attacking them for trying to improve because eit wasn’t exactly how you wanted it.

That’s why you demand they pander to your political agenda and not let them have a voice of their own.

That’s why you ask for their deaths/firings because they aren't the right race or whatever.

That’s why you do the exact opposite of what you said.

You’re all nothing but a bunch of egotists who think they can do better because you’re living a delusion and you cannot comprehend that maybe, just maybe you are wrong and that you are worse writers than Miles and Kerry. Because you are all nothing but a bunch of narcissitic sociopaths.

Before you can even begin to think f approaching their level of writing, learn to admit your damn flaws.

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swingbeard · 7 years ago

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Matt’s Top 7 Games of 2017

2017 was a weird year.

At times, it was hard to focus on games.

On a global scale, we found ourselves often transfixed on news both positive and negative; in my opinion, it was often more of the latter. Games became an afterthought in a lot of ways.

But at times, it was easy to focus on games.

They provided a sanctuary, a place to take a breather and relax, to joke and laugh and have fun with friends or on my own. Even at times when the subject matter of some games took on relevance to real world issues, it was still fascinating and an escape in a way but a thoughtful one.

With this all in mind, I still wanted to take some time to celebrate some games I very much enjoyed (and others I’m just starting to get into and very much enjoy) in 2017.

Originally… this was going to be a much longer and more involved thing.

Instead, I’m going with something a bit shorter and more succinct so here’s seven games I really enjoyed this year, one of which has taken up a spot as my favorite game of the year. Thanks for reading and following along this year!

ABSOLVER (Sloclap)

As someone who doesn’t exactly enjoy playing fighting games, Absolver would seem a bit of an anomaly, right? You’re correct!

When it was presented at E3 a few years ago, I actually saw it as a Dark Souls-esque RPG with martial arts combat and lore instituted in place of sword-and-board action. I was so into the world, into what they were trying to build, into the ideas of gameplay (stances and switching between them, the moves themselves).

To a degree, this game is that… but the true endgame? What really drives the game once you’ve defeated the campaign? It’s the PvP, the actual “fighting game” part, and it’s something I’ve very much enjoyed - I never thought those words would leave my mouth.

Ever.

For someone like me, Absolver has proven to be a perfect introduction into that world; into fighting the same people online over and over to learn their movesets, to practice timing and get that down, to get frustrated but also understand why I’m getting beat and getting better.

The year is 2017 and I now enjoy playing an honest-to-god fighting game. What has happened to me?

FINAL FANTASY XIV: STORMBLOOD (Square Enix)

2017 was the year I truly got into Final Fantasy XIV.

I had struggled in the past, but the quality-of-life improvements plus finding two jobs/classes (Samurai and Monk) that I really liked propelled me into the main story of the core game, the Heavensward expansion, and the recently released Stormblood which brings you - the Warrior of Light - to far-off places like Gyr Abania, Othard, and the Ruby Sea.

I’m someone who’s never really been into the series in general, but the story and characters of FFXIV has grabbed me in an unexpected way and brought me along for a pretty wild ride at times. What World of Warcraft lacks in terms of consistency in its lore and sometimes not going far enough with its visuals? That’s what this game makes up for me.

I’m glad I finally got into this game and am looking forward to whatever patches and stories Yoshi-P and team have next for us.

* A shoutout goes to the people in my free company too, some of whom I like to think are pretty dang good friends now.

DOOM (id Software)

A game from 2016 on 2017’s list?

You’re correct, but this game is just that good and there’s a good reason for why it shows up on this list.

I actually purchased this game last year, but was never able to play it due to technical limitations. When I purchased a new PC in early September, this was one of the first games I installed.

And holy shit, all of the hype? All of the coverage I read? DOOM delivers on that, and more. It understands what it is, reverential in a way to the first games in this series… but also fresh, fun, and thrilling with modern twists and turns. While short, the campaign is worth the price of admission and I hope we get to see more of this story in a proper sequel after a good cliffhanger ending.

All in all, this game is a hell of a thing.

Literally.

WOLFENSTEIN II: THE NEW COLOSSUS (MachineGames)

I’m only a couple of hours into this game, and there’s already been a few moments where I’ve had to just sit back and let out a loud “What the fuck?” at what I’m seeing on the screen. It’s enough to put it on this list. Really.

As someone who never played The New Order but is generally aware of what happened, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus appears to be something that stays true to the themes and roots of what that game set… and then expands that beyond those boundaries and confines to a degree that at times feels unsettling and uncomfortable in a way which reflects the fears of many in modern times.

It’s a game that is both an escape and a reality check in a way.

Even in a game with such great characters and shows reverence for them (but also will pull the trigger at any time), the compelling performance and depth Brian Bloom gives as B.J. Blazkowicz is absolutely incredible. The little things he says as you traverse levels, the flashbacks to a brutal past; the catharsis you seem him go through in often spectacularly bloody and violent fashion? It’s incredible to watch, mesmerizing almost.

Sure, the gameplay isn’t exactly what a lot of folks love… but at the same time, it almost doesn’t matter.

The New Colossus succeeds because the themes and message are heard loud and clear.

DESTINY 2 (Bungie)

I’ve seen a lot of negativity aimed toward Bungie lately.

And I think it’s understandable.

They’ve messed up a lot on a variety of fronts, including the most important - communication and transparency - and at times? It seems like Destiny 2 may be an unsalvageable situation, a repeat of the mistakes the company with the first game.

But a lot of the time? I have a great time with this game still and have spent hours exploring, raiding, or just chaining Strikes over and over with an occasional foray into the Crucible. I still appreciate the lore of Destiny to a ridiculous degree, to how the idea of “post-apocalyptic space fantasy opera” is explored. As frustrating as it can be sometimes, when Bungie does their lore right? It’s some of the best worldbuilding and storytelling I’ve ever seen.

I hope that Bungie can iron out the issues, because this game has the makings of a great foundation with which to build upon. Only time can tell if they can pull that off.

SUPER MARIO ODYSSEY (Nintendo)

Remember the crazy trailer for this game at E3?

I don’t think we actually thought this would deliver, right? Maybe?

Who knows?

What matters is that Nintendo delivered on that crazy gameplay reveal and gave us Super Mario Odyssey, which at its heart is the Mario everyone wanted all along with a few twists and turns that make it a fresh experience. Incorporating the “Capture” mechanic to the way this game does is tremendous and getting to utilize Cappy himself as a tool for exploration allows for you to fully explore the beautiful and vibrant worlds of this game.

Plus there’s the 2D sidescrolling element, and the photo mode, and the post-game stuff which-

You get my point. There’s so much here.

The thing I want to give Odyssey the most credit for? It’s just a happy game. It’s about making exploration fun, it’s about having a damn good time, and it delivers on those in every single way possible. In any other year, it might be my favorite game of the year but…

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD (Nintendo)

If you know me, this is no surprise.

I’ve been thinking on how to best write this since early March.

For Nintendo to basically blow up the standards of what a Zelda game is? To bring back the roots of what made games like the original the thing that caught fans’ attention and kept them hanging on for thirty-plus years? It’s a hell of a thing to do, but I feel as though they stuck the landing and with aplomb.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is an incredible thing; an open-world action-adventure game which takes so many elements plucked from so many other genres and then blends them all together in something that never fails to awe or amaze. It’s something I wanted for them to do for so long, to shake up the franchise and do something different.

Does it have some flaws here and there? Absolutely. It’s not a perfect game daresay, but damn it’s… an experience, it’s something I’ve told almost all of my friends who likes games to go play. Those dungeons you loved to explore or those items you so loved from past titles? They’re not here, but for good reason.

Why?

Because Breath of the Wild’s true challenge is exploration in this vibrant and amazing world of Hyrule. It’s conquering that highest mountain top or finding that shrine in a den full of dangerous enemies; maybe it’s hunting Lynels all day or trying to find all 900 Korok seeds.

In a year where I feel like I needed an escape at times? This game provided just that.

Hell, I’ve put 400+ hours into this thing and I can see myself putting in more.

What surprises me most about this game is the emotional impact I felt. In previous games, the same plot is often followed; many of the tropes and story beats in Zelda games are often circular. While this story is sparse in some places, the delivery of it is interesting enough that it makes me more interested in the canon of this universe than I have been since Wind Waker. I want to know what’s next for this incarnation of Link and Zelda in this world Nintendo has so elaborately constructed.

All in all, I wouldn’t call Breath of the Wild just my favorite game of 2017.

It’s without a doubt one of my favorite games ever, a classic that propels this franchise into the future and for the better by drawing upon its “you can do anything anywhere at anytime” beginnings.

#matt plays video games #sometimes i write things

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ambalambs · 7 years ago

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I was tagged a long time ago by @zylphiacrowley ♥♥ thank you so much! sorry this took me so long to get to D: (this is also kinda long so under a readmore it goes!)

1) Name/nickname: Lambs, AmberScamber, Amers. tbh idk how people manage to make a nickname of my real name but they do

2) Gender: ♀️

3) ⭐ sign: Taurus *a soft and faint mooing in the distance*

4) Height: a proud 5′4″!

5) Hogwarts 🏠: Hufflepuff badgerbadgerbadger

6) Favourite animal: Tigers and the potoo bird. i also have a strange fondness for underwater creatures

7) Hours of 💤: about 5

8) Dogs or cats: BOTH

9) Number of blankets: 2-3 depending on how warm it is. but the real question here should be pillows

10) Dream trip: Hobbiton in New Zealand ;3;

11) Dream job: a marine biologist. i tried but damn science is hard x_x

12) Time: either really late or really early depending on how you look at it

13) 🎂: April 20th

14) Favorite Bands: hmm this is always such a hard one for me to answer. i dont really have favorite bands. i just sort of find songs i like and roll with them

15) Honorable Song Mention: Stand by me- Florence + The Machine ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ

16) Song Stuck In My Head: I Will Be Here - Tiësto & Sneaky Sound System

17) Last Movie I 👀: Split (that ending reveal tho had me freaking out! its been twenty years waiting for a sequel!!! thank you M.Night!)

18) Last Show I 👀: ...Supernatural. i’m trying to get through that last season so i can finally lay it to rest

19) When Did I Create My Blog: pffft a couple years ago?? idk anymore this question is just making me feel old lol

20) What Do I Post/Reblog: video games. things that make me happy mostly

21) Last Thing I Googled: a fishing location in final fantasy xiv

22) Other blogs: an art blog that i rarely update

23) Do I Get Asks: from time to time yes ;u;

24) Why I Choose My URL: it was a nickname a friend of mine called me back when i was in highschool. its sort of just stuck with me ever since (also it makes me happy it has balamb in it cuz...y’know...ff8)

25) Following: people??

26) Followers: yes??

27) Lucky Number: 3! :D

28) Favorite Instrument: Cello, Violin, and Piano

29) What Am I Wearing: yoga pants and a comic con t-shirt

30) Favorite food: anything with pumpkin

31) Nationality: american >.>

32) Favorite Song: dont do this to me. Simple and Clean. there. that seems like a safe and sure answer

33) Last 📓 Read: The Blood Mirror by Brent Weekes (part of the Lightbringer Series)

34) Top Three Fictional Universes I’d Like To Join: Eorzea, Middle Earth, or Mass Effect (without the reapers)

#lambs personal junk

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eglantinian · 7 years ago

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I’m happy to be tagged by the wonderful @ladywolfmd (merci à meilleur) (^_^)/~~~

rules: answer 30 questions and tag 20 blogs you would like to get to know better

1. nicknames: in here, I’m called as either these: enjolras, prouvaire, courfeyrac, or leara (the last is owing to my leara bribage accounts in FFNET and AO3. feel free to call me any of these).

2. gender: hmm. biologically female. well, for the most part. i’m demi/sapiosexual and biromantic, but i still am sort of confused at the moment. so let’s leave it at that for now. although if you’re an expert on this kind of discourse, please talk to me.

3. star sign: the twins

4. height: i’m 5′1, too ladywolfmd so i feel ya

5. time: 21h07

 6. birthday: june, about a fortnight after the barricade falls

7. favourite bands: (too many, but here are my top 4 in random order) a. post-modern jukebox (your modern songs with the pizzazz of jazz, r’n’b, soul, etc -- sang by varied artists) | e.g. Maps - Vintage 1970s Soul Maroon 5 Cover ft. Morgan James

b. up dharma down (if you’re in for some really, really feels song, this band would give you this) | e.g. Feelings - Up Dharma Down

c. fréro delavega (chill ass music) | e.g. Ton Visage

d. queen (need i say more?) | e.g. Don’t Stop Me Now

9. song stuck in my head: jean-jacques rosseau’s j’ai perdu tout mon bonheur

 10. last movie i watched: antigone (1961) (this sophoclean greek tragedy is my new obsession)

11. last show i watched: erm. i don’t watch tv a lot. nor do i stream a lot. so i can’t really recall properly.... but i think it’s the disappointing donerys episode of got

12. when did i create my blog: april 2013... of course. les misérables was the highlight of that year.

13. what do i post: anything les misérables, assassin’s creed, star wars, greek tragedy, some political stuff, litetary faves, mood stuff, my fanfics, fic recs, and other distant mesh

14. last thing i googled: jean-paul sartre’s existentialism is a humanism

 15. do i have any other blogs: was planning on starting up a personal langblr to practise french, but well.... that kinda faded into nothingness, i guess

 16. do i get asks: once in a blue moon. i tend to give more asks for other people. and chat with about 2-4 people on this site only.

 17. why i chose my url: it’s been what i’ve used ever since i decided to try to put up my poems since 2009 so i guess it kinda stuck. i kinda wanna change it now, but i dunno what exactly will i change it with.

 18. following: 938

19. followers: 259 (i kinda don’t like counting since it fuels my anxiety, but here you go)

20. average hours of sleep: a solid 12 hours when i’m deprived. a solid 7 hours a day.

22. lucky number: 6, 13, 9? idk why

23. instruments: i used to do piano, but i’m planning to study violin sometime soon

24. what am i wearing: pjs

 26. dream job: consul-general / human rights commissioner / writer

 27. dream trip: i know little of the africas, but i would like to go to rwanda, botswana, and south africa. and then after that, abu dhabi, france, germany, uk, italy, japan, singapore, thailand -- ack you know what? i’ll travel the whole wide world

 28. favourite food: P A S T A

29. nationality: i come from the country that innovated yoyo to become a weapon

30. favourite song right now: à la volonté du peuple

Tagging: @courageandbravery (our running gag will be tagging you here hehehehe), @bisexual-eponine (yo keiiii), @eponineinthebarricade (éponine!), @textsfromumbridge (hi! - from your most avid fan), @hihiyas (hi!!!!!!!!!!! your art and stories make me laugh always), @astoryinred (the most kickasssss enjonine authoress you will find, omg guys read her stuff seriously), @jediwhinetrick (ok guys her metas will give you life, no shit), @lesfillesenfleur (i know it’s so obvious in your url, but i call you little flower in my head, it’s such a pretty url tbh), @kylorenvevo (your stories have so much feels), @the-great-mr-bad-guy (yoooooo), @ranichi17 (sup?), @norationalthoughtrequired (your stories are amazing seriously), @aurimaedre (i love your vignettes), @genericpseudonyms (the way you make stories, guuuurl, its so damn fine), @loveholic198 (your enjonine edits give me lyf and hoope), @xreyoflight (your metas give me a lot to think about tbh), @barriss (your art, your edits, your stories, especially The Only One made me rekindle my e/e sparks), @eponniia (your stories are disparately amazing), @youareiron-andyouarestrong (i know you ship e/é, too, but i really hope to know you beyond that), and @kugirocks (i know you from so many fandoms, especially e/é, but i’d also like to know you more) - CHEERS YALL

#personal #rainfire

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no-gorms · 7 years ago

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Rules: Always post the rules, answer the questions given to you, then write 10 questions of your own, and tag 10 other people.

I got tagged by @flyingcatstiel eyyyyy :D This got a bit long so I’m putting the bulk behind the cut.

1. How many languages do you speak? List them, even if still learning or already forgetting.

Just English and Malay! I don’t think handfuls of phrases in other languages count.

2. Favorite Dean/Cas moment on the show?

ONLY ONE? If I have to pick then I’ll pick that it’s the bit between Dean and (our) Cas at the end of 5.04- The End, with the way they were just so damn relieved to see each other, when by all accounts they were just starting to figure out their friendship/allyship with Cas as an independent-from-Heaven agent (boy did that have its ups and downs from that season onward). As it is, that sequence is just brimming with affection and understated comfort in the other’s presence, where there’s no demands for answers or explanations from each other. There’s just the look, the smiles, the touch, and that “Don’t ever change” line which I reckon pretty much assured that Cas would from then on always be changing in every arc and action.

3. Favorite fanfic tropes in destiel fics?

I know I’m going to think of more in the days after I post this, so I’m going to limit myself to three tropes. (1) Unreliable narrators in the situation where the POV character has no idea that the other character fancies them and keeps misunderstanding what the other one is doing. Bonus difficulty: the other character likes the POV character before the POV character likes them back, i.e. the bulk of the story’s pining is external. Is there a shorthand for this? Basically, like Pride & Prejudice, is what I’m saying, but not necessarily an antagonistic relationship to start with, if they’re friends that’s good, too! (2) REUNIONS. GIVE ME ALL THE REUNIONS. Especially well-paced reunions where the characters are !!!! but don’t fall back together easily. (3) For AUs, non-human Cas is my jam, be it animal AUs or creature AUs, and I like all sorts of variations but I tend to have a soft spot for creature!Cas with human Dean.

4. Fruit or vegetable you don’t like (mango is not an acceptable answer, pick another one)

I dislike taugeh with a passion. NO BEAN SPROUTS.

Edit: I FORGOT, I HATE CARROTS MORE THAN I HATE BEAN SPROUTS. NO CARROTS

5. Tell me about a destiel fic you’ve read recently and really enjoyed. [please include title, author and link]

Not including of the tumblr ficlets I’ve read here and there, the last long fic I read was Angel Cookies by noxsoulmate, which was written for the recent Destiel Harlequin challenge and I swear had me cackling loudly every other chapter and flashing back to the iddy joy I got from secretly reading some of my aunts’ Harlequin books (the good ones). It knocks some of my hotbuttons right on.

6. Which one of your own (recent) fan works (fic, art, gif set, vid, side blog, etc) you are proud of? If you don’t have any, give a shout out to a (recent) fan work that you really loved. [any fandom, please include title, creator and link]

Sorry, this is not Dean/Cas! I’m really tickled by my MCU Steve/Tony pair ‘o fics under the Guys and Dolls title, because this is the answer I gave to an ask about a year before. Basically, I’ve read a lot of Steve/Tony fics and at the time didn’t feel I could ever write it because of the sheer amount of extra canon that exists, but in the end what tipped me over is A MIGHTY NEED to write what I, specifically, wanted to read.

7. Recommend me a new TV show to take my mind of SPN. Tell me why it will help.

I really enjoyed The Good Place, a fantasy-comedy that comes in 13 bite-sized episodes (20+ minutes each) and clips along at a brisk pace in its first season (second season hasn’t started yet). The story’s about a woman who, after dying, ends up in the Good Place due to a clerical error (OR IS IT) because she’d been a terrible person while she was alive. It’s funny and light viewing, and with some drama kicking in when the plot thickens about halfway through. DON’T LOOK FOR SPOILERS, OR THE WIKI SUMMARY.

8. Are you going to watch season 13 of Supernatural? If not, when did you stop watching the show? (I’d love to know why but you don’t have to justify your decision)

I’ll probably watch whatever episodes sound really worth my while, like I watched Baby back in season 11, but other than that, I’ll probably just keep up with the show via my dash. I can’t actually remember when I stopped watching the show week to week since it tapered off, but my interest plummeted once Kevin died, so it must’ve been late season 9, or early season 10.

9. Cats or dogs?

Dogs are fine but I’m a cat person. MAO MAO MAO this is my cat

10. What is your happy ending for Cas on the show?

If you mean an ending as in the Cas’ fate in the final episode of the show and implied beyond, I’d be most pleased if he is alive and healthy and has finally found a solid purpose that does not involve him being manipulated by any external party. Ideally, I’d love for him to take on a role that Ellen and Bobby used to have, or Jody now has, as a stable return point and a source of wisdom and security, not just for the Winchesters but for others as well.

#meme #scaramouche makes a post #flyingcatstiel #deancastiel #cat

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winterscribe · 7 years ago

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Vampire Hunter D Fanfic

I was inspired by THIS : http://kokoko-sir.tumblr.com/post/162672980752. awesome piece of @kokoko-sir ‘s art and asked permission to post this little ficlet. (Forgot to add the link and mobile wont let me edit in a hyperlink) Of course it turned into a bit of a beast (3044 words wtf?) but I couldn’t help it, somebody needed to comfort that poor child, even if I had to use time travel shenanigans so my OC Avaleara (his wife) could do it. Also I might come back through in a few days for some minor edits, but for now I’ve been staring at it too long to catch any typos. I hope you all enjoy!

I’m putting under a read more cuz DAMN this got three times as long as I thought it would.

D ran as fast as he could, scrambling up desperately every time he tripped. Tears slipped out as a stray branch split his lip, stinging the cut around his eye he’d already gotten from the angry villagers. He forced himself to keep going despite the pain from his beating and the burning in his lungs. Humans couldn’t follow as fast, but if he stopped to rest too soon or too long they would eventually catch up.

An hour passed before he finally collapsed in a trembling heap, every inch of him aching. The broken ribs from a farmer’s boot had healed a bit, but while they weren’t broken anymore, they were still badly bruised. There were other cuts and bruises all over him, and they likely wouldn’t heal much further without him drinking anything. Hand used up too much energy stitching together his bones to worry about such minor annoyances. Still they throbbed and ached as D curled up into a ball on the forest floor, trying not to let anymore tears fall. Not only were they a useless sign of weakness but they hurt right now. Besides that they wouldn’t change that the farmer hadn’t seen a lost child but a monster to be killed, and had called backup to help do the deed.

D staggered to his feet. He had to keep moving. Even if he’d managed to go far enough the humans wouldn’t catch up for days, there were other things out here. While he was trained enough to handle minor beasts, the frontier was full of monsters that were dangerous enough to annoy even Father. D wouldn’t stand a chance if he ran into one of those. That, and he needed to get out of this forest so he could use the stars to navigate home.

“Hey kid, you should call your d-” D idly smashed Hand to shut him up.

“I’m fine.” No, he wasn’t but dad had dropped him on his own, claiming it was a test. D wasn’t sure exactly what was being tested, but he’s pretty sure calling for help would mean failing. In which case calling for help didn’t mean things wouldn’t go from bad to worse. Besides… if he could make it seem like he got his wounds in the forest, father wouldn’t go back to the village. Father wouldn’t stop at the bastards that attacked a lost child, he’d wipe out every single person, most of whom had no idea D had even been there. D didn’t want that much innocent blood on his hands.

D’s tired feet tripped over a protruding root. This time as he fell, there was the strangest sensation, a tingling warmth, then a flash of light blinded him for an instant before he caught himself. When he could see again, it wasn’t the dark, root and leaf covered forest floor under his hands, but a sunlit paved path. Quickly he scrambled up and tried not to show his shock. The- mutant? Monster? Being? - in front of him was a massive wall of muscle, towering to a height that rivaled Father’s. It's arms covered in scars, and the two short swords at its hip would make it seem intimidating even without the thick horns and inhuman face.

D looked up and up and hoped like hell it couldn’t smell fear.

POV Switch

Avaleara stared down at the tiny child in front of her. She’d seen a lot of shit in her life, but even she was a little thrown by a tiny version of her husband suddenly taking his place. One that was clearly injured - a fact that had rage filling her almost as quickly as panic. She tamped down on both quickly and firmly, briefly checked the telepathic bond she shared with D (it hadn’t snapped so much as a thick fuzzy veil was between them. Odd and uncomfortable, but suggested he was aliveish) and decided that figuring out whatever bullshit fuckery this was needed to wait. Right now there is a child in front of her, hurt and trying to hide his fear. While she’d processed this in a few seconds, if she took much longer he’d notice.

Crouching down so she wouldn’t tower over the poor kid, Avaleara spoke as softly as her rough voice would allow, “Hello Little One.” D’s flinch was almost imperceptible, but it broke Avaleara’s heart as much as the bloody scrapes on his face. “I won’t hurt you.” The ancient Romanian was strange on her tongue. Adult D didn’t use it often since it brought back too many childhood memories, but it was the only language she shared with child D. Any other frontier languages she knew were evolved thousands of years beyond what little D would understand. Yet it didn’t reassure him as she’d hoped, just made him stand even straighter.

“I assume you’re another part of father’s test.” No child’s voice should be that flat. Even worse was the fear little D hadn’t quite learned to completely hide. Dracula could burn in hell for eternity and it wouldn’t be enough.

“No, I’m not part of any test.” Gah, her voice was far too rough to soothe any Earth child, but she couldn’t help that. Quickly considering what to tell him, Avaleara realized that with any version of D, straightforward honesty was best. Even as a child he’d be too intelligent to swallow any lie she came up with. “I’m not sure what exactly is going on. All I know right now is that I was just speaking with the older you, then suddenly here you are as a child.”

D’s little face showed his skepticism. It would be endearing if it didn’t show how young he’d learned mistrust. Avaleara wanted to rip Dracula apart all over again, but she controlled her rage so it wouldn’t frighten D more.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” She told him again, firmly. When he didn’t respond, she sighed. “Do you mind if I look at those cuts? Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“I’m fine. It’ll heal soon enough.” There was no doubt in his voice. D had already been injured enough to know. D couldn’t be more than 6 or 7, yet he had already been injured enough to know for sure how long it would take. Not for the first time, Avaleara was tempted to resurrect Dracula just to kill him again more slowly.

“I’d still like to make sure. Please?”

“Ok.” D’s voice was quiet and resigned, but at least he let her help him. It had taken years for Adult D to trust her enough for that.

Avaleara reached out and gently pulled D’s hair back. The cut was healing quickly, but there was enough dirt mixed in that Avaleara wanted to wash it. She wasn’t sure how great his healing was this young, but the fact that such a little cut hadn’t healed already meant it was definitely slower. No sense risking infection if D wasn’t powerful enough to prevent it yet. D stared at her as she took out a rag and pulled water from the air to make it damp. He flinched when she reached for him, staring at the rag. “It’s ok.” Hopefully he wouldn’t make her explain, by the time she finished the science talk, the cut would have healed completely, possibly sealing the bits of rock and dirt inside.

Luckily Little D seemed more determined to be brave than suspicious. He shifted closer and gave her a look that was clearly get on with it. Avaleara resisted the urge to smile at the adorableness, and reached out again.

D’s eyes widened slightly at the warmth as Avaleara gently wiped the cuts around his eye, exposing the bruising underneath. Yet again she repressed the sheer rage that welled up. She focused on the familiar action of cleaning a child’s face to help keep her calm. Keeping her movements gentle and slow, she moved onto D’s split lip. By the gods all she wanted to do was cradle him in her arms. None of their children had looked so human, but all the same she couldn’t look at this D and not see them. She ached to comfort him the way she would any of them, but D was already so used to cruelty she doubted he’d react well.

Finished with his face, Avaleara rocked back on her heels and rinsed the rag as she contemplated how to convince him to let her check his other injuries. She could see at least another few scrapes on his arms, and his breathing was shallow. At first she’d thought that was fear, but it might not be and she was familiar enough with chest injuries to be concerned.

“Who are you?” At least confusion replaced the fear in his voice as D calmed, though he still watched her warily.

“My name is Avaleara and I’m someone who cares about you. I’ll keep you safe while we figure out what’s going on. I promise.” She held out her small finger in the human tradition Takashi had taught her as children. D hesitated before copying her and she wrapped her finger around his. Careful not to split her scar and make it bleed, Avaleara grinned as wide as she could.

POV Switch

D had no idea what to make of the strange being crouched before him. While he still hadn’t completely ruled out it being part of father’s test, they were strangely gentle. Nothing associated with Father was gentle. The usual method of dealing with D’s injuries was throwing a blood pack or a body at him to drain. D even had a few hazy memories of Father’s wrist pressed to his mouth, but in those he was too far gone in pain to ever be sure it wasn’t just a dream. Never had anyone gently wiped away the blood, calm and tender despite obvious flickers of anger. Even their anger was strange. Father raged when he was damaged by anyone else, but it was half at D for not being strong enough and half rage that someone dared to challenge father’s edict that D not be harmed. Except here D got the impression this Avaleara was more angry at whoever hurt him, for him.

"You never answered me little one. Are you hurt anywhere else?"

D's ribs still ached, his hands had been shredded by many falls, his arm was still bleeding sluggishly where bone had pierced his skin, and everywhere else ached from his long run. But could he trust Avaleara not to hurt him further for admitting it? His caretakers sometimes lulled him into admitting weakness then punished him for it, would this be different?

Avaleara sighed again, "I can tell you're hurt in at least a few other places. I don't want to push you, but I'm worried. Please let me help you. I promise, I'll keep you safe. I'm hoping no bones need set, but if they do I'll be as quick and gentle as possible.”

"I took care of his bones. He'll heal fine enough on his own." Hand finally spoke up. "He just needs rest." For D's ears alone Hand added, "And some human blood, but I don't thi- ack"

"D may heal fine enough on his own but he shouldn't have to damnit." Avaleara was glaring at his hand, irritation but no surprise on their face. They looked back at D, "I'd still like to look after your other wounds. But I don't want to make you uncomfortable. If you agree with Left Hand I'll back off." Looking around, they added, "We should get indoors first, or at least get out of the middle of the road. There's a rest house a short ways ahead we should get too."

D had been too preoccupied with the immediate threat to look around, but he took the chance now. Nothing was familiar. From the sky tinted a shade of purplish blue, the trees with strange colored leaves and even stranger fruits hanging off the branches, to the grass a shade of green so dark it was almost black, everything was different. Even the paved road beneath their feet was different- while the bricks were an innocuous beige, the grout between them was a color gradient starting in the left distance a brilliant blue fading through to pink towards the right distance. What strange noble had built this place and how did he end up here?

He looked back at Avaleara, who hadn't moved while he looked around. "It's a lot to take in. I'll explain it as best as I can once we get somewhere more private. I don't like the idea of advertising Adult D has been replaced by Child D, even temporarily. There's too many enemies that would take advantage. Is it ok if we get moving?"

D nodded. Avaleara stood. They hesitated for a second before asking, “ Are you ok to walk?” D’s legs screamed that he wasn’t, but he nodded again anyway. They raised an eyebrow and sighed, but didn’t challenge him, just turned and started walking slowly. Obviously they could have gone much faster with such long legs, but their steps were measured and slow. D stubbornly stomped ahead, ignoring both the increasing pain in his legs and the long sigh from behind him. His irritation at being coddled gave him just enough courage to throw back, “So what are you anyway?”

“I’m an alien.” D stopped in his tracks and spun around. Their lopsided grin looked horrifying with the scar stretching across it. They held their hands behind their back and leaned back with a mischievous glint in their eyes.

“Stop Teasing me and Answer.” D tried to inflect his voice with as much authority as he could, which was quite a lot. He’s the son of the Vampire King and not to be trifled with.

“I’m not teasing you. Well, only a little cuz the reaction is always priceless, but I really am an alien. Or technically you’re the alien since we’re on my homeworld, Le’ Shevare. Also since it seems to matter so much to Earthlings- I’m a female.”

D stared. They- she- sorta made sense, but it was hard to wrap his head around. First Avaleara claimed that she’d been talking to his older self before he was swapped in, now she claims he’s on another planet. Except it was plausible- while the nobility hadn’t found alien life on any of the planets they’d reached so far, certainly it was only a matter of time. If he really was switched out with his older self then it was also plausible he’d been visiting one of these colonies. Also, not only would it be plausible that technology capable of switching him would exist in the future, but also that a future enemy of his could get ahold of that technology and use it to revert him to a less powerful state. It could even make sense to turn him into a child. It would seem like the perfect opportunity to ransom him off, not realizing Dracula would kill them for the insult regardless of whether or not it could harm D in the process.

D turned around and started walking forward again as he continued thinking. He still didn’t know if he could trust Avaleara.But at the moment he had no other ideas on where to go, and if Avaleara’s story was true, even calling for his father wasn’t an option. That thought was terrifying. No matter how brutal father’s punishments got they were still a known quantity. Father wouldn’t kill him as long as he continued to be a success. Here he was completely cut off in the unknown. Of course it was still entirely possible that this was an elaborate test and Father was watching right now.

D lost his train of thought as he tripped on his own feet. Strong hands wrapped around him and kept him from hitting the ground again. His face heated up as embarrassment washed through him. Just because it had been almost two days since he’d slept was no reason to be stumbling around like this. Father had made him go much longer, and would be angry at his laziness. Tears burned at his eyes again and he rubbed them away fiercely.

“Its alright little one. I’ve got you.” Avaleara’s voice was rough as gravel and her Romanian was flavored with a strange accent. It shouldn’t have been reassuring, he shouldn’t trust her at all. He should hate how clearly she was trying to be gentle, but instead he liked it. It was a weakness brought on by exhaustion, clearly. Tears spilled over and his shoulders began to shake as he lost control. Gentle hands turned him around and he was pulled close into a strong embrace. It should have scared him how powerful the arms wrapped around him were, but instead he felt safe. It was so different to any other time his father held him. Dracula was kind on a whim, violent on another. D was used to knowing that the strong arms embracing him would eventually hurt him. This time should be no different, yet it felt so different. He buried his face into the crook of Avaleara’s neck and let go, damn the consequences. He cried and cried until he was completely drained of what little energy he had left, all the while that deep rough voice crooned softly in his ear. Avaleara gently rocked him from side to side, and as D ran out of tears he began drifting off to sleep. He stirred briefly as she picked him up, but was quickly lulled back to sleep by hand carding through his hair. He didn’t stir again until he was placed on soft furs, but again gentle hands sent him right back to sleep.

POV Switch-

Avaleara looked down at the child sleeping softly. She was still worried about her D, and needed to figure out what was going on and how to fix it. But for now she’d watch over this Little D, and give him all the love she could. When he returned she doubted he’d remember anything, but maybe, somewhere in his subconscious, a memory of gentleness could rest and help him through the long years until they met again.

#vampire hunter d #my writing #tried not to make it too much about avaleara's world but it needed something #you don't just land on an alien world and ignore that #well #maybe adult d could but not kid d #anyway #if anything didn't make sense let me know I'll try and fix it #hope yall like it

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