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chirpsythismorning · 2 years ago

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Do you think there's a possibility that they might straight-up cancel ST because of the strike?

Because of the strike? No.

The only way ST would end before it was supposed to, is if the world was literally ending, or Netflix took a huge hit somehow and lost all their investors or something? Even in that case I think they would go out with a bang and invest all of their money and resources into a final season of ST tbh lmao

This does make me think about how the WGA is not encouraging the public to unsubscribe to Netflix or other streamers (yet), as a way to support the strike. I think it could be in part leverage they are saving for later, because maybe that's something they can encourage people to do if the strike is going past like the 3+ month point? It's also been said that Netflix wants to up their prices again for their plans, but with the strike going on, many are speculating that it would be too much of a risk for them to increase prices rn. If they did, say in the summer at some point, that would be a great time for the writers to tell the public to unsubscribe, because the impact would be massive since so many are already unsubscribing anyways, writers getting paid horrendously could have the potential to be the final push for subscribers already ready to call it quits.

But it also could honestly be because they don't want to totally ruin the relationship with their employer, who ideally they still want to work for when this is all over. Hurting Netflix financially with intent, is where it might get into nasty territory for future collaborations together.

This is also why I think the production for ST all around is fairly quiet. They themselves cannot do too much bc they are SOOO tied to Netflix, quite frankly they are Netflix. There's a reason they're not posting pictures together out during the strike, there's a reason all of the million dollar actors are being pretty quiet. Because when filming inevitably starts back up again and ST5 is being promoted and released, they're going to be back to praising Netflix for all they do for them. And spoiling that relationship, by going too far, might make things, at the very least, awkward in the future, or at the worst, well I don't really want to think of hypotheticals for that.

I think all they could do at this time, is have the Duffer's themselves speak out in support of the strike, disclosing that they will not begin filming ST5 until a deal is made for the writers. And so they did that, and now all they can do is wait and stay pretty quiet hoping it goes well. THIS is why they're out here trying to hint at it subtely to get fans involved. In that context the byler sign is actually quite hilarious, bc it is potentially a big spoiler and therefore a fuck you to netflix, but bc it was posted on tumblr and no one really takes us seriously, it's gone under most of the audiences radar. Like I'm pretty sure there has been zero official reporting on it, whereas the Steve one did get that. Though that one was, again also from a writers account sneakily. So there is definitely this feeling that subtlety might be their only option rn.

Otherwise when it comes to the strike in general, we've got SAG AFTRA potentially joining in, which means now you've got actors striking. And then potentially even DGA joining. Directors are a lot harder to pin point in terms of their potential support, though in this day in age, I think they have a lot more in common with being exploited just like their writers/talent do. Not saying that plenty of high paid directors aren't in kahoots with studios, but also, the honest ones want a good environment for their productions and I doubt they would want everyone below the line hating them (and it being rightfully deserved).

Shawn Levy is a big name director, with both ST and Deadpool under his belt. It's likely he would support a directors strike, and others among him could as well. There's only been one DGA strike in our history and I guess it lasted like 3 hrs, bc that's how fast the studios were willing to make a deal to get the directors back... So directors have a lot of power to put a stop to this hold out by the studios. Not only that, but writers, actors and directors have never in our history had a strike all at one time. We'll have to wait and see.

For a rough timeline of what is to come:

May 17th: SAG agreed to allow its members to vote on a strike authorization. SAG represents 170,000 members roughly, so that's a lot of people in the industry making that choice to potentially stop filming to strike in order to fight for a fair deal themselves. Right now, it seems like there is a lot of support from SAG saying that they will be voting yes.

June 7th: SAG will begin negotiations with AMPTP.

June 30th: The current SAG contract with AMPTP will expire. If negotiations between the TV/Theatrical negotiating committee and the AMPTP are unsuccessful, the National Board may declare a strike. The current DGA contract is also set to expire that same day as the SAG. This would essentially be like May 1st with the writers strike all over again. If a deal isn't reached on June 30th, a strike could begin on July 1st.

It's possible a deal with the writers and studios could be reached before then, especially if they are preparing for the other two to strike and make deals as well. They might have no choice but to get their shit together sooner than later while that is happening.

But who knows. In a worst case scenario neither SAG nor the DGA would strike and it could go longer without more support. The support right now from the public is also good, but it will need to continue full force and not dwindle if we want to see things get resolved sooner than later.

Very cautiously optimistic rn, but prepared for anything to change.

#byler #stranger things #st writers #duffer brothers

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alittlefrenchtree · 1 year ago

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(Spotify part 2)

Oh cool, thank you! I really like the context notes each time. It adds some narrative behind your songs; it makes it personal, I think. Not that songs can't be personal in themselves, but I don't know. It's just nice to see how these musics and you met.

Well, I might share it yep. It would only be fair, after all. Probably not anonymously 'cause, at this point, I'm not sure that it changes anything (and even if it did, it wouldn't really matters I guess).

Ophelia: Of course you have. I love this song too (which appears in my 2023 playlist as well, by the way). It's very catchy. I can listen to it many times without getting bored.

Katoum: Well, I already know the guy, so it's hard to judge your explanation. But it seems clear to me, for what it's worth. In fact, I'm glad that you mentioned him. You reminded me that I didn't listen to his album enough; and that's a shame, 'cause it's actually good? I mean, of course, he is technically not a singer (some could say that he is since he literally made an album but, yeah, it's not his first job), but I like most of his songs.

(And we can't even compare him to Trivia, who is already well-known for her singing ability. She showed it several times, including at two - if I'm not wrong - concerts. Of course, it was also for the Z-Event, but she is just so talented. Oh and her work with PV Nova? Amazing.

Blinding Lights and Toxic are obviously in my 2023 recap. I will put the links - in case some people were lost here, in the French side of Tumblr, and wanted to discover a really good singer. I may not be utterly objective 'cause, well, I love her. But honestly, you could make an unexpected discovery).

https://open.spotify.com/track/51HwpMwkMJacQ32ircRGMZ?si=GeiaguXoSjWobdaBUuVIhw&context=spotify%3Aplaylist%3A37i9dQZF1Fa1IIVtEpGUcU

https://open.spotify.com/track/0PG40nP8ZNcRz6xEF4xfnh?si=XcaEL2wvS0ixMmA_wToN1Q&context=spotify%3Aplaylist%3A37i9dQZF1Fa1IIVtEpGUcU

Mh yes, that's understandable. He makes it hard not to like him, I guess. By the way, it's ok for him to be handsome and charismatic, I can live with it. But he shouldn't be allowed to have that voice as well.

I still listen to the 2021 Z-Event karaoke sometimes (my favourite one, I think). It makes me feel nostalgic - obviously - but that's also very pleasant to hear (and also funny at some specific moments).

And, well, from what I remember, I was quite surprised by ZeratoR back there. I didn't know that he sang, or at least never heard him (I don't have the chronology and so don't remember when the album goal came; but anyway, as he said himself, it's almost common for a famous video maker to do some songs now, mostly for fun, so it's hard to know at what point it is serious). His Graver dans la roche cover was definitely something.

So, yeah, I don't really follow ZeratoR (I guess that - for once - everything is perfectly healthy. 😌 ) I watch Twitch sporadically, following my current random interest (streamer or even video game), so nothing surprising here. But I'm still interested in some of his projects - and this one is definitely one of them.

Now, which are my favourite songs from him? I'm trying to drop some titles, but that's not that easy. I would mention Anonyme, Katoum, Ralentis and The Void (don't get me started on Antoine Daniel's voice 'cause fuck, it doesn't help).

Oh and the two last ones - I Say and Décennies - are not bad either. And let's not forget Lyrics, which I'm listening to right now (and probably a good one to discover his album as a non-French speaker, so I will put the link too; I seriously doubt that any lost soul will ever read it but, just in case, a link doesn't hurt).

https://open.spotify.com/track/04OhfYHHYCEap1coJgObAd?si=mcYjSkPhS3CJgnHXyQVLxA

https://open.spotify.com/track/2fqK2DYGXwysdU27vYlj9o?si=xWM9vdBlSKKpCZcxT57kfg

Belobezvodnoe & Moskva: Ooh it's interesting again! Not for the same reason I guess, 'cause I know nothing about Thylacine (not even his name). I also missed Arrête avec tes mensonges (like pretty much all the films this year). My last time at the movie theater was in September (if I don't forget anything), and it wasn't even for a discovery; so my true last time was in July with the last Pixar, Elemental (a very good surprise, by the way, I don't know if you saw it), which was a long time ago now that I'm thinking about it.

(Time flies again).

(I should take a cinema subscription. Well, it's not that easy of course; it's expensive. But at this point, it appears to be that or nothing. At least, with a subscription, you're quite "forced" to go (if not, it feels like a dumb waste; it's partially irrational, but it's here and it's a good motivation in itself) and - more important - you can go like that, just to give it a try. You can't waste anything else but time - which seems freeing. It's just about you and your envy. Nothing more, nothing less).

I don't even know what Arrête avec tes mensonges is about, but the soundtrack seems to have some potential. It's relaxing, but not only. The two songs that you mentioned are quite different, so I don't imagine the same things for both of them. I'm curious to know if I get them like we're supposed to - like they're used in the movie.

Anyway, thank you again. It influenced my Spotify recommendations in a nice way. It was like: "Wait, you like instrumental songs? Like really, you couldn't say it earlier?", and then Spotify suggested other instrumental stuffs.

Scar Tissue: It happens sometimes. Spotify Wrapped shouldn't be surprising (at least for our most listened to songs) but somehow it is. I don't know much about Red Hot Chili Peppers. I know well the few songs I downloaded like... a decade ago (omg 🫠). But this one wasn't in my playlist, so it feels like my first time. It's a nice one.

Weed For Speed: Ah, a song from You Suck At Parking (perhaps a bit of ZeratoR influence again). I see what it is (Z-Lan oblige, even if I didn't follow the whole thing), but nothing more.

(No context but it reminds me Etoiles and his nightmare (also known as the puzzle). I'm not gonna lie, it was quite funny to watch. But it was way less after on Trackmania. He was just a bit disappointed by himself, if I'm remembering well).

But to talk about the song itself, it seems quite unknown. Less than 1k plays on Spotify? That's not much (it doesn't even appear when you search the title only). Anyway, I like the vibe. It seems to be a good focus music (well, it's a video game song after all).

Your whole playlist: Mh, I literally have nothing to say since the link doesn't work. 🥲 It's not the first time I see that. It may be linked to your confidentiality settings on Spotify? The playlist may have to be publicly shared on your profile to work? I don't know.

But think is : when I just click on the link, it opens my Spotify application and shows me my own playlist. So then, I tried to open without being connected and had a message like "your link is broken", or something very similar.

So, to me, the easiest solution is to create a new public playlist with all the songs on your Spotify Wrapped. I don't have a better solution, at this point. But, well, you'll see what you want to do again.

And that was probably too long again (with a very approximate English, which wasn't even necessary). But, well, here it is I guess. I liked to listen to these few songs and see a bit of your pov. :)

omg please never do that again 😂 and by "that" i mean totally break my brain the first time i read this on a week day at 5am. For the first part I was like who the fuck i'm talking to and then it became pretty obvious - or at least 99.9% obvious (no offense but only you could right this 😘) but I had no idea you were following here? (or i feel like i didn't know, but maybe i should have?) Give me a quick second while i second think each of the 11,845 posts i ever shared on this website? 💀💀💀 bit of self-consciousness going on there but we're going to be fine. i think.

I'm not going to answer to everything but DM me your secret identity when you have a minute? it will be easier to talk, even if my brain doesn't fully grab the concept of writing in French on tumblr dot com 😅

Just a few things that could be interesting for general audience:

I've tried something else for the whole playlist, maybe it'll work better here? Otherwise I have no idea.

Also, as not-so-anon said, listen to Trivia (aka LittleBigWhale) :

#alft asks #spotify wrap 2023

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griavian · 3 years ago

Text

the 36 questions that lead to love

x <- read on ao3

dream finds a list of questions that can supposedly lead to two people falling in love, so him and george try it out on stream. turns out, they don't really need all 36.

“Come on, George. It’s just a couple of questions.” Dream pleaded into the call, making George roll his eyes. He’s been trying to end stream for the past 15 minutes, but Dream always convinces him to go “just a little longer!”.

“36 questions is not just a couple of questions, Dream.” George glances at his second monitor to make sure his green screen was still black and to check a few discord messages. He had no intention to fall into Dream’s trap for another hour of streaming.

“But it says it’ll lead to love!” Dream says, exasperated. He googled ‘questions to ask your friend’ earlier and found a list of them that apparently lead to falling in love. To George, it was bullshit.

“That’s such bullshit.” He expresses.

“You’re no fun.” Dream’s voice lowered, and George can feel the pout Dream has plastered on his face. He can already predict what the next 12 hours would be like with Dream: silent treatment and being a general dickhead. George was used to it when they lived an ocean apart, and even found it amusing, but it was a totally different experience living with him. Dream would mope around, go into George’s room randomly just to not talk to him, and go as far as to blast sad music from his own room across the hall while George was trying to finish up some editing. Sure, it was all light-hearted jokes, and Dream would stop his act in a heartbeat if George was truly annoyed by it, but George still dreaded it.

“Fine.”

Dream immediately cheers up and starts typing on his keyboard while George watches his chat fly by, seeing a lot of emotes and positive messages.

“Okay, um- first question. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom,” Dream mocks the formality, “would you want as a dinner guest?”

George’s nose crinkles. “How is that gonna make me fall in love with you?”

“Just answer the question.”

“I don’t know! The queen?”

“That’s a stupid answer.”

“What!” George screeches and Dream barks out a laugh. “You’re so dumb.”

“You gotta give me a better answer than that, or else we won’t fall in love with each other.”

George rolls his eyes, but decides to think about his answer. Truthfully, he wouldn’t want anyone special as a dinner guest. “Um. My mum.”

George eyes his chat as it’s filled with “aw”s. He almost scoffs.

“See? That wasn’t so hard.” George wants to punt Dream into another universe.

“Alright, who would you want as a guest?”

“Tom Brady.”

“That’s the stupidest answer ever!” George yells, his eyes wide, perhaps offended that Dream picked Tom Brady out of anyone else in the world.

“Question two!” Dream ignores, “This one is kinda dumb, but would you like to be famous and if you do, what for?”

George hums. “Probably don’t want to be famous-famous. Maybe being well-known for being the first person to invent IRL-VR. I want my body to be submerged in the Minecraft universe.”

“That’s sick. I dunno what I’d want-”

“You’re already famous.”

“Shut up. I don’t even- I don’t even want to be famous, really. I just want to make whoever knows me smile.”

“Aww, isn’t that sweet, Dream.” George teases and he knows Dream waved him off. George has his habits practically memorized.

“Whatever. How about you ask some questions?” Dream sends a link on discord and George reads through them.

“There’s no way these can make people fall in love. What even is this question? Before making a telephone call, do you rehearse what you’re going to say and why?”

“Trust the process. I mean, I do that. I don’t want my brain all jumbled up, I guess. Words are hard.” Dream answers.

“I don’t think I’ve ever done that. I wing it.”

“That’s very you. Next question.” Something about Dream saying that made George smile the tiniest bit, made the serotonin flow through his brain.

“What’s a ‘perfect day’ for you?” George reads. It’s quiet for a moment.

“Hanging out with you,” his voice is sincere, “You and Sapnap. Recording, streaming, anything like that. What about you?”

“Hm. Me too.”

George isn’t one to show his feelings often. He remembers being asked if he did, and he answered with “not ones that matter”. It still rings true to this day. His walls are still built up and that’s okay to George. Mushy feelings aren’t important, but he’d be damned if he didn’t say his heartstrings were playing a beautiful melody during this moment.

The questions and answers fall easily after that. George knows it’s around 1 am, and he should go to sleep, but answering the questions was kind of addicting.

“Do you have a hunch on how you’ll die?” Dream reads the question with a chuckle. “That’s such a weird question to ask someone you wanna fall in love with.”

George tries not to read in between the lines.

“Heart failure. For both of us.”

“You know how I’ll die?”

“We’re Minecraft streamers, Dream. We’ll probably die at 40.” They share jokes and giggles of scenarios where they die and what they’d do, and something about it feels a bit too honest.

“I’ll die the day you die, George. Emotionally and physically.” Dream says, dramatic as ever. George only huffs, and they leave it there.

“Name three things you and your partner have in common. Dream, do you have a secret girlfriend?” They start to bicker back and forth, because of course they do.

“It doesn’t mean romantic partner, you dumbass. Like- it’s like a science partner,” Dream sighs, “Well, we do have a lot in common. We have the same job, we care about the same things, and we love each other! Easy.” Dream answers.

“Who said I loved you?”

“You literally did last night.” George had closed chat a while ago, already prepared for what was to come. He can only imagine what they’re saying.

“They’ll never believe you.” George says with a sadistic grin.

“Ugh. Okay, what are you grateful for in life? You have to answer this.” George can hear Dream get a little closer to his mic, almost anticipating George’s answer. Dream knows how much he doesn’t like to express any feelings, and probably expects him to skip the question overall. George prevails.

“You. Obviously,” and before Dream can get out an aww, George says, “You made my career, dummy, and I’m grateful for that. And my friends, family, all the normal things. Chat! I’m even grateful for chat.”

“Well, I’m incredibly grateful for you especially.” Dream’s voice is soft, almost loving. George rolls his eyes. He could’ve guessed Dream’s answer, but it weirdly hurts him when it was spoken aloud. He doesn’t know whether it hurts because it might be a fun little joke or if it’s because someone might care about him that much. George decides to stop thinking.

They answer more questions, from taking four minutes to tell each other their life stories (“There was no reason to add that detail; you’re so gross, Dream.”) to what significant quality they would want to wake up and suddenly have (“You’re already good at code shit, George. That’s the saddest answer ever.”). They move onto section two of the list, which are deeper questions.

“Is there something you’ve dreamed of doing but haven’t yet, and why haven’t you?” George asks. He knows about Dream’s unfinished projects. There’s probably a million answers to the question, and George would listen to every single one.

“Uh, well. You know I was writing a book, yeah? I was halfway done with it, and I can’t make myself finish it. It’s probably writer’s block, but I don’t think I’ll be able to do it.” George frowned.

“You can’t finish it with that attitude, silly. You’re annoyingly amazing at everything.” George says with a snort, “I don’t have an answer to this. What did you say that one time? Your future is my future? Well, your dreams are my dreams, then.”

George cringes a little at what he said. He doesn’t know his viewer count, but knows that at least a million people will watch that clip out of context. Dream doesn’t say anything back and moves on to the next question.

“What is your most treasured memory?” Dream asks, and George immediately laughs.

“I definitely know your’s.”

“Do tell, George.”

“Our first Christmas together. Sapnap insisted on getting a real Christmas tree, and when we started decorating the stupid thing, Sapnap sees a spider and screeches. Then, our neighbors come knocking on the front door and you had to explain to them that nobody was being murdered, it was just your roommate being a big baby. And as if it could get any worse, I got tree-sap all on my fingers and clothes and you couldn’t help me because you were laughing too hard.”

“Pretty sure I almost choked on my own spit.” Dream adds, and George scoffs. “But no, that’s not my treasured memory.”

George sputters. “What? You’re telling me I told that to thousands of people for nothing?”

“To be fair, you were all soft on Christmas morning, so our first Christmas might be your treasured memory. Anyways, remember the first time you helped me with a code?” George stays silent, giving Dream the answer. “Well, that was the first time we had a real conversation. I made you laugh, then I started to laugh because you laughed, and we didn’t get the code done. It sounds dumb, but I always smile whenever I think about it.”

George’s face falters a bit. God, he just wants to hug Dream; he wants to make a beeline for his room and attack him with affection and make sure he knows that George loves him, platonically or romantically, George wants him to know.

He just can’t express it with words.

“That… sweet.” George’s eyes travel down the following questions and panics, seeing how personal the questions are. He fakes a yawn. “As mushy and stupid this thing is, I’m really tired.”

Dream doesn’t say anything. It almost scares George, but he deafens on Discord and bids farewell to his viewers, who were completely freaking out. George doesn’t blame them. He’s abruptly leaving after a sweet moment? That’s a recipe for disaster, and George knows better. Yet, he clicks the end stream button.

The door to his office swings open instantly and startles George. It was Sapnap, someone he didn’t particularly want to see.

“What the fuck was that?” His roommate whisper-yells.

George groans and slides deeper into his chair, covering his face. “I don’t know,” he muffles.

“Are you even trying to hide your feelings at this point?” He can hear Sapnap close the door and flop on his office’s couch. “You might as well buy a billboard that says ‘I’m in love with my best friend! His name is Clay!’ with a big ass picture of your dumb face beside it.”

“I know,” George whines. “Do you think he knows?”

“He’s not the one I’m worried about knowing. I’ve told you a million goddamn times that he’s too whipped to notice. I’m worried about the fans. They’re gonna go fucking bonkers because of this stream. Clips are gonna be shared. People are gonna speculate.”

George uncovers his face and narrows his eyes at his friend. “Thanks for the reassurance,” he deadpans.

Sapnap rolls his eyes. “I’m being serious, dude. I know you’re very deeply in love with him in the gayest of ways, but you gotta be careful in front of the fans.”

“Oh my God. I know, Sapnap! I know. I forgot we were even streaming. It felt like it was just the two of us, and I got too comfortable. And it was so nice. I can’t even do anything about it now, so it doesn’t even matter.”

Sapnap sighs and pulls himself from the couch. “You need to talk to him before this gets out of hand. You know I love ya, and that I’m here for you.” George cringes out of habit, but nods. It reads as ‘I love you too, I guess’.

Sapnap leaves without another word, and George is left alone with his thoughts. It’s not long before he sluggishly makes his way back to his bedroom. He opens the closed door, enters, and shuts it. He turns around, only to be greeted by a familiar person in his bed, and yelps.

Dream laughs. He’s wearing blue pajama pants and a white t-shirt. His hair looks messed with, and his cheeks seem to have more color to them. George can’t help but stare.

“Well? Aren’t we gonna finish it?”

George cocks an eyebrow.

“Finish what?”

“The questions, dummy. You don’t… you don’t have to. I mean, it’s kinda stupid that I want to do it in the first place, but…” Dream trails off. George hops on his bed and grins lightly.

“Go for it.”

They answer questions they skipped, like what is your most terrible memory (“My, uh, grandma. She died when I was about 14. It was… hard on me.” “Oh, George…”).

The overhead light was off at this point, the only light coming from a lamp on his desk and the stars shining through the window. The two are on their sides, Dream on the right of the bed and George on the left, facing each other, occasionally looking at their phones to ask the questions.

“What roles do love and affection play in your life?” Dream asks, his voice softer than ever. George can almost not answer. He doesn’t know.

“I’ve never been a super affectionate person, so I don’t know. I’ll give you guys quick hugs of course, but with really close relationships, I don’t know what to do.”

Dream looks as if he’s searching for something in George’s face, and George can’t tell what he’s looking for. His movements are hesitant, George sees.

“Do- um. You wanna maybe,” Dream pauses, closes his eyes,and scrunches up his face. “Try?”

“Try what?”

“Affection.” Dream lets out a breath and opens his eyes. “Affection is my strong suit, afterall.” His mouth forms into a teasing smirk despite his eyes showing nervousness.

“Um. Take the lead.”

It’s slow. So, very slow. Dream’s hand raises up and lands itself on the dip of George’s waist. He’s whispering instructions, and George listens. His hands are hung around Dream’s neck, and their legs are starting to tangle together. They laugh when they realize how far apart they are, and Dream pulls him closer. George can feel his heart beating out of his chest as he lays his head where Dream’s right shoulder meets his neck.

“Do you want me to ask the rest of the questions, sweetheart?” It sounded like a coo, and George is surprised at how effortless the pet name comes out of Dream’s mouth.

“Was that okay?” Dream whispers after a moment of George going still. He perks up.

“Yeah! Yeah.”

“Okay.” Dream pulls George closer and rests his left hand on his back. He starts rubbing up and down in slow motions.

George simply melts.

The questions and answers go by slower, and their voices become gentler. Dream announces that they’re on section three now, and to state three true “we” statements. Dream goes first.

“We… are cuddling?”

“Obviously, idiot.” George chuckles. “We are really tired?” Dream hums.

“We meant everything we’ve said tonight.”

“We are going to mean everything we say tonight.”

“You can’t just steal my answer.”

“Just do your third one.”

“We will be ‘Dream and George’ forever.”

Forever is a long, long time. And yet, Dream’s statement is still true.

“We don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow.”

There’s a beat of silence.

“Very vague.”

“Next question, Dream.”

“Alright, alright. Complete this sentence: ‘I wish I had someone whom I could share…’”

Without a second thought, George replies, “My emotions with. Your turn.”

George swears he felt Dream squeeze him.

“My everything with. Every single little thing. Physical, metaphorical, emotional.”

“Even Patches?”

A laugh.

“Yes. Even Patches.”

“Next question.”

“Tell your partner what you like about them and be very honest.”

“Your voice. It’s like… I don’t even know how to describe it.”

“Does it get you going, George?”

“Shut up. I definitely don’t like your smart-assery.” George can feel Dream lean down into George’s shoulder and smile. “I like how you act around people. It’s always different depending on the person. Different with me.”

“I like how you act around people too. You’re almost always bubbly, even though you like to say you aren’t. And, God, your laugh. It’s so overwhelming, but in the best way possible. You have no idea how many times I’ve said the stupidest shit just to hear your little laugh.” George digs his head deeper into Dream’s shoulder. “I also… really like it when you say my name. My real name.”

George raises slightly, gaining the tiniest bit of confidence. “Clay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, that.”

“Clay,” George whispers.

“George.” Dream sounds weak. So, very weak. George gets closer to his ear.

“Clay.”

George can’t tell if he’s joking.

“You’re gonna kill me, George.”

George’s lips brush against the outer of Dream’s ear, and his friend shivers. He decides this isn’t a joke anymore. He thinks the invisible line they had drawn in the sand many years ago has been kicked and stomped on to the point where neither of them remembers the line being there. George goes further.

“Clay, Clay, Clay,” George is still whispering, slowly brushing his lips across Dream’s jaw, and the hands around his waist get the littlest bit tighter.

George finally raises his head to meet Dream, who was a mess. His cheeks are glowing and his eyes are almost bloodshot. His breath is labored and his hands are shaky.

“Calm down, love.” George whispers and raises his right hand to meet Dream’s cheek, who leans into the touch.

“Kiss me.” Dream begs quietly, as if saying anything louder would shatter the moment in little pieces.

An adrenaline rush fills George’s veins. “Anything you want,” he says, and closes the gap.

The kiss is soft. Dream is maneuvering their bodies to be more comfortable, meaning George is pulled on top of Dream. Their lips didn’t part once.

They move together in harmony, both in the kiss and their bodies, putting everything they got into it. It was unsaid feelings and years and years of thoughts, and George felt every single one of them. George is straddling Dream’s middle and Dream is leaning up to meet George’s touch. His hands are rubbing up and down and squeezing George’s hips and George’s hands find their way into Dream’s hair. It’s perfect and imperfect and everything George has been waiting for, yearning for.

They part, and Dream pushes their foreheads together. George assumes they look dumb, but how could he care in this moment?

“Beautiful. You’re beautiful.” Dream says, his breath tickling George’s mouth. He lets out a breath and breaks out into a smile. His hands start brushing through Dream’s hair and George backs away to get a good look. Dream is staring back.

George lunges forward and wraps his arms around Dream’s neck, sending him flat on the bed with an “oof”.

“Jesus Christ, George. A warning would be nice.”

“I love you. I-love-you-I-love-you-I-love-you-I-love-you-I-love-you-I-love-you-” George couldn’t get enough of saying it. George’s dam cracked when Dream held him and fucking exploded when they kissed. He doesn’t have to hold back anymore, so he doesn’t.

“Slow down, baby.” Dream says through a chuckle. He makes George lean up with tans hands on pale cheeks and a lot of eye contact. “I love you, too.”

George’s breathing slows down to a normal, less-adrenaline-filled pace, and Dream kisses him again. George forces his head back up.

“What does this mean for us?”

“Isn’t it a little obvious?”

“Not really.”

“Boyfriends, George. We’re dating now.”

“How do you know I wanted to even be your boyfriend.” George narrows his eyebrows in faux-suspicion.

Dream’s stare is blank. “I mean. You’re- well- you know, um-”

George dismisses this shortly and confirms, “I want to be your boyfriend.”

Dream sighs in relief. “You’re such an idiot.”

“Yeah. Whatever.” George slides off Dream’s waist and lays facing him. Dream turns as well. “Was that question the last question?”

“No, actually. There were a few left.” Dream blinks, then muses, “Guess we didn’t need 36 questions after all.”

“That was the cheesiest thing you’ve ever said and I hate you for it.”

“You wound me, George. You wound me.”

George makes up for it by letting himself be engulfed in Dream’s embrace, and feels tiny kisses on the top of his head. George nuzzles closer.

Yeah, everything was going to be fine.

#idk how to tag this but um anyways u should read this #I SPEEDRAN THIS SHIT IN 3-4 HOURS #dnf fic #dreamnotfound #dnf #dreamnotfound fic #dnf fic rec #dreamwastaken #georgenotfound

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zaph1337 · 4 years ago

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Monster Hunter Rating 21: Khezu, the Blank Stare

When I reviewed Basarios, I made a joke about how the devs likely gave it human teeth over sharp teeth because the latter might not give children nightmares, but I don’t actually think that the devs ever intended Basarios to be more terrifying than any other monster in the game. This monster, however, is literally the stuff of nightmares, and I’m not misusing “literally” here. This may be the longest review I’ve written yet, so buckle up. Time to get spooky with Khezu!

(How it appears in Monster Hunter 1)

(How it appears in Monster Hunter Rise)

Appearance: I think there’s been a mistake here; last I checked, Capcom wasn’t making Silent Hill games. Seriously, this thing would fit right into that series, and not just ‘cause its phallic neck lends itself well to metaphors. The pale, veiny skin, the leech-like mouth, the complete lack of eyes...Khezu’s unlike any other monster in the series because it’s the only monster that’s meant to be horrifying to look at. It’s got flabby, tattered wings and gecko-like feet, but its main characteristic (other than the head) is its tail, the tip of which can open up into a suction cup that allows Khezu to stick to ceilings.

Obviously, Khezu’s an abomination that came from a really dark place in someone’s mind, but that’s just it: Khezu is a monster that appeared in an MH developer’s nightmare either before or during the production of the first Monster Hunter game, and said developer (I don’t actually remember who) decided to put it in the game. I learned of this from the Twitch streams of a streamer called DuncanCan’tDie, who’s a huge MH fan that’s on great terms with Capcom. Unfortunately, I can’t find any other sources for this claim, but I don’t think he’s lying for a few reasons; firstly, like I said, he’s on great terms with Capcom. He’s friends with some people who work there, and he even has a tattoo designed by someone on the MH team he called “Kaname-san” (who didn’t actually give him the tattoo, but drew the design that a tattoo artist used) and the only person who could go by that name is Kaname Fujioka, the man who literally directed several MH games, including the first one, and who was the art director for Monster Hunter World. So yeah. Duncan and Capcom get along great, and if he was spreading false rumors, they’d probably know about it.

The second reason I believe Duncan about Khezu’s origin is that someone once came into one of his streams (and I was there at the time) and started spouting “lore” about two monsters that looked like they could be related, but actually weren’t. Duncan flat out told this person that what they were claiming wasn’t mentioned anywhere and asked for sources...which the loregiver did not provide. In fact, after Duncan started getting on their case, I don’t think they said a word for the rest of the stream. Duncan believes that this person was just making stuff up to sound like they knew a lot about MH and weren’t aware that he was an MH expert, and I doubt that someone who would call someone out on that would do the same thing, especially if he had a reputation to uphold.

I apologize if I spent a lot of time talking about that, but I didn’t want people getting on my case because they couldn’t find anything to support my claims. But in conclusion, I believe that Khezu truly was born of a nightmare, and that’s awesome. It makes the Silent Hill comparison even more fitting since the enemies in those games are basically projections of the protagonists’ psyches. Disturbing enemies are much more effective if they scare(d) the people who created them, and Khezu is certainly disturbing. Because of that, as well as its ominous origin, I’m giving it a 9/10.

Behavior: Khezu mostly inhabit caves, jungles, and swamps due to the need for their skin to be moisturized, though they usually only leave caves to hunt, which they don’t have to do very often due to the plentiful fat beneath their skin, which also keeps them warm. Their favorite hunting strategy is to ambush their prey from a location usually concealed by darkness, which is made easier by their extendable necks. However, their reliance on darkness, as well as their preference to dwell in caves, has made them completely blind and reliant on their other senses; despite not having visible nostrils or ears, Khezu have great hearing and a very good sense of smell. Back to hunting, while they need to subdue larger prey, smaller ones, like Kelbi, are slowly swallowed whole...which is apparently something you can actually witness in the games, according to TV Tropes (I normally stick to the wiki and what I already know for resources, but I went to the “Monster Hunter / Nightmare Fuel” page while searching for another source for Khezu’s origin as a nightmare). As if this thing needed to be more disturbing, it doesn’t always kill its prey before it tries to swallow it, so the Kelbi you can see it eat is constantly struggling as the Khezu swallows it bottom-first. That’s...that’s messed up. But it gets worse.

Practically every monster in this series isn’t any more intelligent than what we consider a normal animal to be. Aside from Lynians, which are people, the smartest monster I’ve talked about is the Velociprey, which might not be as smart as, say, an irl crow, which is very intelligent by the standards of nonhuman animals. What I’m getting at here is that most of the monsters in this series don’t really take any sadistic pleasure in killing and eating prey; they just do it to survive. But Khezu is different. In several MH games, including Rise, the first time you go on a quest to kill a specific monster, the gameplay is preceded by a cutscene that shows off how powerful or intimidating that monster is (and in Rise’s case, you also get a poem). Here’s Khezu’s intro, and I want you to pay attention to what Khezu does from 0:24-0:30:

youtube

That’s right: this thing “looked” right at the monster it was going to eat, and smiled. That isn’t just me anthropomorphizing it, either; I’ve seen what Khezu looks like outside of that cutscene, and even with its mouth closed it has a neutral expression, so it smiling actually means something, and considering the context, it’s obvious what the devs wanted us to take from it: Khezu likes killing. It enjoyed the prospect of swallowing that monster whole while it was still alive and struggling, which means that this is the first monster I’ve talked about that we can definitively say is evil rather than just an animal. Rather fitting for a living nightmare, I would say. And if you thought all that was disturbing, I have some...unfortunate news. I hope you aren’t eating anything right now, ‘cause this next part is just gross.

Y’know how some wasps lay their eggs inside other bugs so the eggs have incubation they can eat when they hatch? Well, uh...Khezu do that, too. And they’re hermaphrodites that, from what I can gather, don’t need to mate, so any adult Khezu is capable of injecting another monster with its “whelps” (not saying that Khezu are always “pregnant,” just saying that any of them can be). And you know the really crazy part? After everything I said about Khezu, there are still people in the MH world that tame them and keep them as pets. Why would you want to have a slimy, flabby, sadistic, parasitoid, 14-to-40-foot abomination as a pet!? God, people are so freaking weird.

EDIT (05/07/2021): My older brother reminded me that I forgot about one of the odder aspects of Khezu; when you enter a fight with a Main Monster, its battle theme plays (don’t know if every monster has a unique theme, but several do, to my knowledge), but Khezu has no theme to speak of. I don’t know if this is true in every game, or even if it was intentional at first, but it’s still both funny and eerie at the same time. There’s no background music until you get in a fight, so if you somehow tick off a Khezu without seeing it, then it can sneak up on you. “But Zaph, the moment a monster enters ‘fight mode,’ it roars! So the Khezu will give away its position!” See, you’d be right about that if it wasn’t for the fact that, according to TV Tropes at least, Khezu’s roar sounds just like wind--howling wind, yes, but wind all the same. I don’t know if there’s any howling wind SFX in the areas where Khezu live, so for all I know you’ll still be able to identify it in a hurry, but just imagine what that’s like in-universe! Imagine that you’re walking around in the Frost Islands or something and hear a chilling wind from out of nowhere. Unless you’re an experienced hunter, you’d likely have no idea if that was a Khezu or not, so you wouldn’t know if it’s too late to run or not, or even if you should run at all. Going back out of universe, the details I just described are very nice touches to a monster that was already horrifying in behavior, so I’m bumping the score here up from the 7 I initially gave it to 8/10.

Abilities: All of the “Flying Wyverns” I’ve talked about so far have had a lot of trouble with the whole “flying” part, and Khezu are no exception; they’re better at it than Diablos and Gravios, but they still need to flap really frantically to stay in the air. They’re great at jumping, though, and their gecko-like feet allow them to scale walls and stick to ceilings, something that their tails also allow them to do. Khezu are Thunder-element monsters capable of discharging electricity in a manner of ways, including shooting balls of it from their mouths and emitting it all around their bodies. Since Khezu like to spend time around water, their attacks are even more dangerous, as everything near them will likely be wet and therefore more conductive. This also applies to Khezu themselves, which may be why they stick their tails onto the ground before discharging electricity; they ground themselves so that they don’t shock themselves. Finally, Khezu saliva is very dangerous; we don’t know if it’s electric or acidic, but anything that gives off smoke when it touches something probably isn’t good for your health, which is why owning a pet Khezu is so dangerous; their drool can literally kill you. 7/10.

Equipment: Most Khezu weapons are as interesting as you’d expect them to be, considering the monster they’re made from. Most of them have a horror aesthetic, like this Great Sword called the Khezu Shock Sword:

I just noticed that the skin is actually stretched over the blade, rather than being what the blade’s attached to. Gross, but I never expected Khezu weapons to look pretty. There are also weapons which emphasize the monster’s electric aspect, like this Gunlance called the Full Voltage:

It still has Silent Hill vibes due to its “rusty hospital” aesthetic, and looking at it long enough reveals little details it inherited from Khezu. Speaking of hospitals, there are a couple of weapons based off of syringes, such as the Khezu Syringe, which is a Light Bowgun, and a Lance from MHFG that’s literally a giant hypodermic needle, but I didn’t want to show those off in case they triggered anyone with needle phobia. The last weapon I’m gonna show will be very familiar to those of us who’ve played the Rise demo a lot: the Insect Glaive known as the Bolt Chamber!

I like the green tube running from the sac between the blade and the shaft of the glaive; according to the Bolt Chamber’s in-game description, it uses that “pulsating device” to steal energy from its targets. If you mentioned that to me before I grabbed its image for this review, I probably would have asked how it did that. If you then pointed out the mouth at the glaive’s end, I would have thanked you for cursing me with the knowledge of its existence. Seriously, I’ve used this thing probably more than 20 times, and until I saw this render, I never noticed that. As for the armor, here’s the Blademaster Khezu Armor from MHGU:

The male armor here is almost identical to the one from Rise--which sadly doesn’t have any pictures on the wiki yet--and yes, it does look like the main character from Assassin’s Creed. The female armor, on the other hand, looks almost like a nurse’s outfit, especially with that metal thing on the woman’s head with the cross. The more I look at this equipment, the more I feel like they wanted people to think of Silent Hill, and if so, that’s pretty cool. I’ve got another armor set to show you; the Gunner version of the Khezu R Armor from MHGU:

Jesus, is this an armor set or a medical emergency? I can’t imagine bandages are very effective at protecting your body from physical damage, but thankfully it looks like most of them are just covering actual armor...meaning that the people who designed this stuff in-universe wanted the people wearing it to look like they were in an accident. Not sure I get why, but I’m not here to--actually, I am here to judge, so never mind; it’s gross. Also the female set has Khezu mouths as arm coverings, which is someone’s fetish, I’m sure. The equipment as a whole is macabrely interesting (TIL that macabrely is a real word) and calls to mind a fascinating horror game franchise, so 8/10.

Final Thoughts and Tally: I figured that Khezu was gonna be interesting, but I didn’t know how far the devs would take the horror theming. Everything about this monster is creepy; it looks disturbing, it acts even worse, and its equipment makes me feel like I need a tetanus shot just from looking at it. But that’s not at all a bad thing...unless you’re really squeamish, in which case you were likely cringing this whole review. I’d apologize, but you made the choice to stick through ‘till the end. 8/10.

#monster hunter #monster hunter rating #monster hunter rise #zaph1337

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repentantsky · 4 years ago

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9 Things I’d like to see at E3, 2021

So E3 2021 is a thing. It’s gonna be all digital, and several companies have already signed up to join, sounds like a good deal, but the question is, will it be what we normally expect out of E3, or will it be more like Summer Game Fest Last Year, where everything that looked like it was gonna be great, but just turned out to be okay? Who can say, but I have some...suggestions, that might make it better, along with some game announcements, that might make it all it should be cracked up to be.

9. No low quality, at home interviews during the main show

E3 has had a history of doing interviews during game shows to try and break pace a little, and keep people from being too excited, only to potentially be let down later. However, possibly the worst problem with Summer Game Fest last year, was the at home interviews, which broke pacing during game announcements in a way I can’t imagine was on purpose, and for many, was the time to take a bathroom break, or simply look away for a while. It’s important of course to hear from developers about their projects, and they can divulge some interesting information about games, that either puts something confusing into context, or is accidently leaked, but when we watch shows about game releases, we want to see the games. Interviews should be held in between shows, or better yet, the days following the conferences themselves.

8. Nintendo finally talks about the big three

While it’s safe to say Nintendo has done some banger numbers over the last year espeically, due to better console availability, which I never thought I’d say about Nintendo but here we are, it’s also safe to say that fans have been waiting for literal years on Bayonetta 3, Metroid Prime 4, and Breath of the Wild 2. While some have been more patient than others, and of course I understand there’s a flipping pandemic going on, Nintendo told us far too long ago about these games, or the restart of their development, and Breath of the Wild 2 was promised to at least get an update this year, and E3 seems like the best place to do it, especially after their last direct, one that was more than a year in waiting, and left so many people disappointed. And this is coming from someone who had literally only hoped to be excited about one thing, and it didn’t happen The future of how they present games, almost feels like it’s in question after such a show, which did not justify itself, so hopefully, they can finally let everyone walk away happy, and talk about the projects that have been generation the most excitement, for literal years now.

7. Space things out better

You might now know this, I only made one list about it after all, and literally no one reacted to it, but I’m a huge wrestling fan, and one of the promotions I watch, is WWE. Now, WWE is about to launch WrestleMania, their equal to E3 in a lot of ways, and are splitting it up over two days, and that goes for their third brand NXT as well, because they have a history of making the show sometimes 8 hours long. For fans of video games, watching The Game Awards, which can be two to three hours long, is arduous, and tiring, and E3, can also have that same effect. I remember in 2019, I literally fell asleep watching Bethesda’s conference, because I was so tired trying to write about the previous shows in between them, never mind actually watching them, that I was burnt out. Since E3 is going fully digital this year, and everyone is going to be in that same boat, it would be nice if we didn’t have too many shows, spanning over a near 12 hour period, which was happened before, making people stay up late to enjoy what they want to, or you know, work, which is free promotion for whatever gets announced. Spacing the shows out to no more than three a day, and giving people enough time to get their thoughts together, would just be really nice.

6. Devolver Digital, tries a different style

Look, I don’t hate Devolver Digital’s approach to talking about games at E3, but what I do hate, is them telling the same jokes over and over again, and expecting everyone to laugh, because you know, it’s so funny when something that’s already been said, or shown, is modified ever so slightly for years on end. I’m not saying they can’t still tell jokes, please do, E3 is as much a good time as it is stressful depending on who you are, so the change of pace can at times be a lot of fun, but the last time they had a “conference”, it was a slog, and generally left me feeling annoyed, and I can’t help but feel I’m not the only one. They want to be different, I say that’s great, but they need to do it in a way that for one, is actually different, because their style has become a cliché in and of itself, and where they don’t spend time talking about fake games, because it’s hard to know at times what’s real and what isn’t. I honestly thought the last time they did one, the final game they talked about was just a play on the “one more thing” trope conferences have, and when I later realized it wasn’t, I never got that first sense of hype, and so lost interest, and that’s not a good business model. We don’t even know at this point if they’re going to declare for E3, and since it was announced late, it might be too hard to get a show at all, but if they do show up, or even when they next do a conference, it would be nice if they considered this line of thinking.

5. Drop the “Exclusive Online Portal” idea

Yeah I don’t know what the ESA was thinking with this one, but they mentioned that E3 will be streaming from an exclusive online portal, and not only do we not know what that means, but no one flipping cares! We’re all going to watching it on YouTube, Twitch, or dare I say it but it’s possible, Facebook Gaming, and any other platform is completely useless. We are all tired of hearing, download a new program to do a thing you can already do on other platforms, PC gamers especially, stop releasing new flipping launchers and...sorry, that’s for another list in the future perhaps, but the point stands. You might get streamers to download, or go to whatever site they need to, to watch the shows, but everyone else, is either going to watch those streams, or as it often happens, watch the highlights at a later time, so to add a potentially extra step to that process, is just not going to go anywhere, and since E3 will be free to watch, it’s not like this is going to be a good way to make money, unless you do plan to do the following...

4. Throwing flipping ads at everyone between shows or otherwise

Look, I get it, even an online show that’s going to be talking about games costs money to make, and so money must be made by other means, many of which are not available to the ESA without people actually being present, but the thing about E3 is, as much as we all love it, it is one massive ad, and even though it’s an add we like, it’s not one that needs too many ads thrown at it beyond what it already has. There are other, less annoying ways to make money, like having products from the games announced be available at a store online that people can access, that sees them getting part of the profit, or something of that nature, but this portal that was mentioned, seems like a place where the ESA can just throw ads at people all day, and that just seems like a horrible idea. A lot of people don’t see E3 as an ad, even though it absolutely is, and blowing away the smoke and mirrors that it’s not, by throwing countless ads at people for the sake of trying to make money, might be the end of E3 as we know it.

3. Don’t spend too much time talking about games that are coming out close to the event, or just came out

Like I said, E3 is one big, massive ad, and for the most part, that’s totally alright, but E3 also has a habit of sneaking in little bits talking about games, that are coming out during the week of, or very close to the shows, to the point of being annoying. Most of the time these ads are short, show nothing new, and generally kill the pace of the conferences on display. While it’d be one thing to try and shadow drop a game this way, because we all love a good shadow drop, we really don’t need ads for games like FF7 Intergrade, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, or flipping Mario Golf: Super Rush. We know those games are coming, we are paying attention, give us a little credit, and save that for games that could use the push like Neptunia: ReVerse, Legend of Mana, or maybe even Scarlett Nexus who actually in way, has to compete with Mario Golf. This might be more a developer problem, and E3 itself might actually have little to no control over this, but whoever does it, needs to do it right.

2. Xbox needs to stop lying, and go big

I love Xbox, I really do, for whatever reason it’s become my go to place for physical indie games, and whenever I want to play a shooter, I start thinking green, but in their conferences, Phil Spencer has a tendency to oversell what Xbox is going to show, by talking about how many games are going to be at the show, or by constantly mentioning how Xbox is more powerful than it’s competitor consoles, like it does any good for the bottom line of the company. I don’t want to hear Phil say they are going to show off 80 games during their show, and have half of them be ports, or shown off in a montage. Doing that means everyone has to go look up a large portion of what they actually announce to learn anything, and that’s no fun. I don’t want montages during E3 at all, and while I’m at it, Xbox espeically needs to bring in the big guns. I’m talking Halo Infinite, Gears 6, the next Forza game, and maybe, finally, a Japanese exclusive title that will get people really hyped. Xbox might just have free reign over the show on the day they present, but another show that has extremely mixed opinions like in 2019, might not be the best thing ever.

1. GET. SONY.

Obviously we know that Sony and the PlayStation brand haven’t been associated with E3 for a while now, and I get it, it’s kind of hard to justify going down to L.A. every year, when an online digital show, saves a whole bunch of money, and can get people just as hyped as if they had been there, but this year, everything is online, and Sony’s State of Play’s have been a mixed reaction as a whole. Taking them to E3 not only sets up more hype for them, but it also gives people something they really need right now, something close to the norm, with all of console developers, showing off their best. E3 2019, just felt weaker, and too safe without Sony there, and last year was a total, long winded disaster because of Summer Game Fest. If the ESA is really going to go for this, and give it an earnest shot, and give us the best that they can, they need Sony to show up and blow our minds with, I don’t know, God of War 2, Spyro 4 (hopefully) and a new IP or two to really get the show to being considered one of the best. E3 will probably be alright regardless of if they are there or not, but if they are, the chances of it being truly great, go up in spades.

And that’s my list, did I miss anything else you can think of? Let me know in the comments below, like this list if it interested you, reblog it if you love it, and have a wonderful day.

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spicycreativity · 3 years ago

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Fanfic Appreciation Week Day 7: A Place Where I Can Breathe

Yes, folks, I'm appreciating my own darn fanfic for the final day of Fanfic Appreciation Week because I worked really hard on it and it was a labor of love for/with one of my QPPs, my roommate, the man who got me into Sanders Sides: @\cadeorade-powercade (That's him in the aesthetic board)

Allow me to present the director's commentary for A Place Where I Can Breathe:

Content Warnings: All content warnings mentioned in the fic apply.

Chapter 1: I actually wrote this fairly late in the game. It's meant to serve as a prologue and orient the viewer in the universe, s opposed to staring on Chapter 2, which just throws the viewer in without context. I think it was a good choice, as it also allowed me to introduce the concept of the Sides having power focuses early on.

The Premise: Cade is a Virgil stan and he was getting frustrated looking for Virgil fic. He was finding a lot of stuff written without nuance by young authors, a sort of "by teenagers for teenagers" type deal. We are not teenagers, so we both have a hard time relating to that kind of teen angst fic, as we're not the target audience. So he asked me to write him a Virgil fic and we worked together to identify what plot he wanted, what the Mindscape looked like, and what quirks the Sides have. So a lot of this fic is quite gratuitous and self-indulgent

The Title: Lizzie McAlpine has a song called "Apple Pie" which includes the lyric "I've been running around trying to find a place where I can breathe." Apple Pie SCREAMS Moceit to me, and I had taken notice of the lyric and wanted to use it as the title for a Moceit fic. I didn't really have an idea beyond that, and when Cade asked me to write this fic, I realized it was actually perfect and summed up Virgil's inner struggle quite nicely. So cheers to "A Place Where I Can Breathe," the Moceit Fic That Wasn't

-Cade asked me specifically to include Virgil having a spider and I wrote nearly the whole fic without doing so, then had to go back and sprinkle some references in. I think I managed 2 total.

Chapter 2:

"Uh, how about I hold off on that until I actually see my room?" Virgil stared expectantly at Roman, who bounced on his toes. "Lead on, Macduff."

"That's not the line and you know it," Roman complained, but he turned to lead Virgil to his room. "It's ' lay on, Macduff,' and--"

-This fic was originally supposed to reach a climax with a confrontation between Remus and Roman, and "lay on, Macduff" would come back as a brick joke. Unfortunately, the original ending was a result of me getting tired and lazy, so I had to go back and fix it, and we lost the Roman-Remus confrontation.

It was hard for Virgil to not shudder at the sudden heat and weight on him. With his senses already open and taking in more information than his brain seemed to want to process, touch was an added stressor, more unwanted sensory input.

-Virgil being touch-averse is a direct shoutout to Cade, who is also touch-averse.

Roman had already transformed the living room: metallic streamers of purple and black stretched across the corners of the ceiling, and shiny balloons spelling out A-N-X-E-I-T-Y hovered above the TV.

-Upon first writing, Virgil had already given the upstairs crew his name, so the banner spelled out "VIRIGL" which is way funnier than "ANXEITY." But then his name reveal became a plot point so I had to go back and change it.

-Let! Virgil! Be! Mean!

-Virgil's line about hearing refrigerator noise when Roman talks is another shout-out to Cade, who has leveled that accusation at me

A small, cruel part of him protested at the idea that he would need special treatment and desperately wanted to throw it back in Patton's face. He wasn't a sweetheart, he wasn't a baby. He didn't need to crawl into a blanket fort with Dad just because he was a little stressed.

-Remus calls Janus "Janus Geminus" because I was tired and couldn't come up with a pun. "Geminus" is one of the Roman god Janus' epithets; another is "Pater" meaning "Father." That led to a conversation about Remus deliberately confusing Patton by calling Janus "Daddy," but I couldn't think of a clean way to fit the explanation into the narrative, so I stuck with "Geminus."

Chapter 3:

"There's nothing normal about that! " Roman stared in horror at the coffee massacre Virgil had orchestrated. What had once been a respectable (if not very tasty) cup of black coffee was now part of a 1:1 coffee to milk suspension, the liquid a tasteful shade of tan suitable for business casual trousers or a show-ready chihuahua.

-Cade is a certified Nightmare Man and came up with Virgil's horrifying coffee order after I asked him about it. Keep an eye out for Janus' equally horrifying coffee order later in the fic.

1) Shouts out the fact that Janus is canonically a Dostoevsky fan

Chapter 4:

Janus smiled at him. "Where reason fails, the Devil helps." He fussed with his gloves and straightened his capelet. "It's showtime."

-I fucking love Crime and Punishment. Look at me. Look at me. I fucking love Crime and Punishment. Janus' quoting Raskolnikov serves multiple purposes:

2) Lampshades the fact that Roman just conveniently happened to be alone in the living room, because I didn't want to waste time getting him there. That makes me, the author, the Devil

3) Foreshadows the impending disaster. When Raskolnikov says this line it is because he had planned to commit axe murder. The axe he was planning to steal had been moved, but he finds another, different axe to use. Raskolnikov messes up the murder and ends up killing an innocent witness in addition to his intended target. Janus messes up his manipulation attempt and ends up murdering Roman's self esteem

-I was going to include a reference to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Remus' line "debauchery and vomit" was originally going to be "blood, love, and rhetoric") but I didn't because... Uh... Hm. Why didn't I do that. Maybe I just forgot about it???

-Roman is too stubborn to manipulate for long and that is a fact.

"I was pretty much done anyway," Remus said. "There's only so much debauchery and vomit you can fit into one story."

-Cade specifically ask me that nobody cry in this fic, but after I had Janus eviscerate Roman I knew he couldn't not cry a little. I kept it to a minimum because there's already a billion fucking fics about [literally any Side] crying on the shoulder of [literally any other Side] and it's really just not interesting to either of us.

-It didn't come up because it doesn't matter, but Thomas dreamed he was participating in the exact Dionysian orgy that took place in The Secret History because it's my fic and I said so.

Chapter 5:

He just sat back and watched and tugged at his hair while Janus spooned mound after mound of crisp white sugar into his mug and Virgil poured his customary eight fluid ounces of milk into his own mug.

-Cade strikes again. Virgil's coffee order is equal amounts milk to coffee; Janus' is equal parts sugar to coffee. He had asked me to include a scene where Roman catches Janus massacring his coffee and is appropriately horrified, but I uhh... Didn't write it. I still might include it as an omake someday.

-I imagine that Roman feels really strongly about dragons vs wyverns, and Remus just pretends to give a shit because he thinks it's funny to wind Roman up. Fortunately for me but unfortunately for my sense of realism in writing, I can't relate because I adore my sister and we get along perfectly almost 100% of the time.

"You shut us down every chance you get!" Remus said, baring his teeth. "How would you like it if your pens never wrote, hm? What would you do with all those thoughts in your head?"

-I do wish I had developed the concept of power focuses a bit more, established rules and such. Basically, Patton is always on the prowl for wrongthink and actively represses it, which in turn breaks or sabotages the Dark Sides' power focus.

Chapter 6: This chapter really should have been Janus and Roman but I was really tired and didn't want to bother with it. Plus, you know, Moceit. This chapter was meant to demonstrate how the characters would get along without Virgil nannying them. There's friction, but everyone is making a conscious, deliberate effort to get along because they love Virgil, and love is a series of choices you make.

I chose "Leo" as the answer for the answer to the crossword clue instead of "Virgo," because my other QPP is a Leo. She'll never read this fic, but I did it anyway because I love her. (Trivia: My sign is Virgo, so it was really a choice between shouting her out and shouting me out, and the last chapter is self-indulgent enough, thank you).

Chapter 7: I was gonna write a fic where all the Sides watched Cats the Musical because I was going through a phase. Then Cade requested this so I combined the two ideas. By this point I was fucking exhausted, and that's the only thing that saved you and the rest of the world from me writing the Sides riffing on the movie scene-by-scene. I could come up with snarky commentary for almost every, if not every single song from the movie.

Most notably, I cut a Patton-Remus interaction where Remus declares his love for Grizabella and Patton gets all staryy-eyed about Remus connecting with the idea of rising above rejection and being loved and accepted only for Remus to shoot him down and explain that he just likes that she got to die in a tire fire.

Other cut scenes include Janus quietly pretending not to go feral over Mister Mistoffelees, Patton full-on fucking sobbing over Grizabella and the kittens, and Logan experiencing a deep, soulful kinship with Munkustrap during Of The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollices (and henceforth introducing the phrase "like herding cats" into his regular vocabulary

#spicypost #fanfic appreciation week

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kai-keda · 4 years ago

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So something on twitter got me rambling this to someone who I don’t even know whether or not they’re involved in the same communities as me or not and I kinda just realized this is actually a big problem.

Why are fandom spaces having age wars? Or would it be more appropriate to call it generational wars?

Basically what I’m going on about is how now that I’m 25 years old and have joined and become super involved with a relatively much newer community than any other I’ve been in before I’m seeing a lot of hostility.

Hostility thrown at me by complete strangers.

Okay, so, if you’ve known me for long enough you’d know that I’m used to people not liking me because of actions I did or words I said. Specifically I’m referring to that mega dark time in the Dragon Ball fandom when my mental health was unchecked, I was overly emotional and stupid.

When I say “Hostility being thrown at me by complete strangers” in this context I don’t mean it in that same sense. I mean people who only know my age and that I’m in their fandom.

With my previous fandoms they were things that a lot of adults were in as well because they initially joined said fandom as children themselves. This includes Dragon Ball and Naruto. So I never really had a problem with people hearing my age and running for the hills screaming since they were used to seeing adults. There were also communities with source materials that were geared more towards adults like Trigun.

Heck I was still more often than not on the younger side of any particular group discussion. At most I would be more in the middle of the groups age range and never the oldest.

That is until now.

See I’ve recently gotten really excited, obsessed, hyperfixated or whatever you want to call it with the MCYT content creators. I’m talking of course specifically about the Dream SMP stuff but also the creators individually.

I love the Sleepy Bois Inc group and the Dream Team and Fundy and Ranboo and Niki and BBH and Tubbo and just the whole lot of them in the right contexts honestly.

To me this wasn’t really anything new. I mean, once upon a time I enjoyed Yogscast but I was really young and not involved in the internet’s current world of fandom culture. Also, I never obsessed over them and their story. I was into other things at the time.

When I get really invested in something I tend to immediately go searching for a community to share it with and I’ve started following on tumblr and twitter a lot of wonderful fan-artists and analysts and shitposters and man the lot of you are so great. And I’m also subscribed to a LOT of animators on YouTube. I’ve been leaving as many positive comments ranging from pointing out the finer details of a piece of work to fully emotional responses as I can possibly leave.

And it seems like you guys are really awesome and open and friendly! You guys tend to reply to my comments and even if you don’t (which is totally fair! Don’t feel pressured, my comments are to make you feel good not a trap to make you interact with me!) you’ll leave a like or heck a heart on my YouTube comments to y’all’s animations.

Seeing my positive energy getting returned with positive energy gave me the courage to join some discord servers and I started, of course, with the official ones. Wilbur Soot was the content creator of this group of people that I watched first so of course by this point I was subscribed to him on Twitch. I was also subbed to TommyInnit so I joined their servers. I’m in a few other servers including SAD-ist’s server and Techno’s members only server.

I started out joining vc’s and chatting in text channels but it’s been quite a long time since I’ve done either of those two things (not including a stray opinion here or there being thrown into the DreamSMP Boundaries discord).

I’m pretty sure it’s been since early December since I’ve really interacted in ANY of these servers - including the much smaller non-official fan ones!

Why is that?

Honestly, I got tired of the hostility thrown my way at any mention or reminder of my age.

I’m 25 years old and when people in these servers hear that, a good chunk legitimately feel really awkward.

I was asked not once, not twice, but FOUR TIMES in a single night from FOUR DIFFERENT PEOPLE in the SAME VOICE CALL “Why are you in a fan server for a sixteen year old Minecraft streamer (referring to TommyInnit) if you’re 25?” with NO trace of irony and with complete seriousness and out of all those times only ONE PERSON defended me because they were in the call for the third instance only for them to leave, someone else to join and it to happen again.

And each time, the call went quiet and everyone waited silently for my answer. They were all legitimately concerned for the fact that I happen to be a fan of a streamer who happens to be younger than me.

And when I pointed out what I THOUGHT was obvious which was “90% of the other streamers he’s with and openly calls friends are also adults including Wilbur who is only one year younger than me and Philza who is seven years OLDER than me” only a portion of people responded with “yeah that’s true.”

The rest said “That’s not the same.”

I tried again to “explain myself” (we’ll get to how shitty THAT is in a minute) by detailing how I just genuinely think Tommy, and Tubbo as well, are fun to watch. They’re entertaining, they’re funny, they’re energetic, they work well off the other streamers and I also find them adorable the same way I find puppies and kittens adorable. Heck, I love referring to Tommy as a Chihuahua because he’s a tiny little child with a really loud bark. It’s funny and cute and that’s the appeal.

That got a few other people to relax but there were still some people who at this point just said “well, I still think it’s weird but whatever.” and continued on only with an awkward air of nervousness around them.

Alright so it’s really important for me to stress that being a fan of a content creator does not equate wanting anything romantic or sexual with them in any capacity and therefore there is nothing inherently “creepy” or predatory about an adult being a fan of a content creator who happens to be a minor. I get that that seems like a hard concept to grasp but it’s true.

I’m sure there’s plenty of musicians and actors y’all absolutely adore who you don’t want to marry and/or bang. Heck, I’m positive there’s a good chunk of you who love Miyazaki films. You love his work, you’re a fan of what he does, of his content and you’re a fan of him yet you don’t want to marry and/or bang him. I’m sure a lot of you also have really close platonic friendships that you enjoy.

Assuming I’m only a fan of Tommy to get closer to him and his fans who are minors for some gross reasons is really shitty. NEVER assume the worst in someone like that. Be cautious around adults on the internet in general, sure, but this particular attitude I’ve described is disgusting.

Anyways, beyond that though this rabbit hole goes deeper.

It’s not just people being concerned that an adult is a fan of a content creator who is a minor. People have actually openly shamed and mocked me for being 25 years old in these other servers. Including the one you have to pay monthly to get into in the first place!

And now I go on twitter and I see a post pointing out how silly it is for minors to push adults out of fandom spaces that are based on content created BY ADULTS and the replies are people arguing FOR THE EXCLUSION OF ADULTS?!?!

HELLO?!?!

Are you guys okay?!?!

How is me being a fan of Philza and wanting to interact with other fans of his weird and creepy?? THE MAN IS LITERALLY SEVEN YEARS OLDER THAN ME AND MARRIED WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!

I heard that there’s been a lot of drama in the JoJo fandom recently where minors are trying to say the whole fandom needs to be purged of adults??? That it’s meant to be a safe space for children and teenagers?? THE ANIME JOJO’S BIZZARE ADVENTURE?!?! DO Y’ALL KNOW HOW OLD THAT FRANCHISE IS?!?! IT’S OLDER THAN SOME OF YOU!!

Should teenagers have safe spaces in fandom where they don’t have to worry about strange adults if they’re uncomfortable with that? Absolutely.

Should adults be shamed and kicked out of fandom as soon as they become an adult? Should “20” be the age where fandom must stop? Absolutely fucking NOT!

I want so bad to make friendships and be a part of a community of people who enjoy these dorky Minecraft streamers as much as I do. It kills me to open Discord, see all the activity in these servers and shy away at the last minute from joining in because of my age.

I’m rusty on this quote so forgive me if it’s not exact but this has been my life motto since I became an adult and accepted my place in fandom. I think a lot of you guys can learn from it:

“When I became an adult I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

- C.S Lewis

#long post #mcyt #might as well tag the fandom in specifically talking about the most #you guys seem like so much fun to talk and hang out with #i want to be a real part of this community #y’all are so nice and awesome until my age is discovered or brought up #fucking hell #and don’t say oh just don’t mention your age #cause then I just feel dishonest and like I’m being fake #fandom #discourse #I guess #Kairi Yajuu rambles #Kairi Yajuu rant

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samsylviasmoustache · 6 years ago

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So have some self-indulgent GLOW fanfic!!

The Birthday Paradox

In a room of just 23 people, the odds of 2 people sharing a birthday are 50:50...

“Okay, so.” Sam puts his hands down flat on the scored wood of his stolen desk. “Friday night after the show we’ll—”

“Oh, we can’t do Friday,” says Debbie.

He scowls up at her. “Why the fuck not?”

“It’s, uh, Ruth’s birthday.”

“Oh.”

Silence reigns for an awkward thirty seconds. Debbie’s immaculate eyebrows arch. “We could do Saturday instead?”

“Right. Sure. Yeah.”

He roots about his papers, discomforted, until she rolls her eyes and asks the obvious question.

“Are you… okay?”

It’s not the kind of thing they have to ask very often, both of them usually perfectly transparent to the other. Like a pair of housecats. Just about able to tolerate being in the same room, and good at giving the other space when they come in hackles raised. Their claws generally reserved for other people. Which is probably just as well, given the amount of fur that would fly should they ever turn on one another.

“I’m fine,” he says, too quickly. He makes the mistake of catching her eye and sighs. “It’s her actual birthday on Friday?”

“Don’t you have all of our birthdates written down on those consent forms you made us sign?”

“I’m not Klaus fucking Kinski, alright? I don’t remember that shit.”

“Who?”

“It doesn’t matter. Forget I asked.” He tries to handwave her confusion away, but she’s damned if she’ll be dismissed like that by him.

“Fine. Yes, it’s her actual birthday on Friday. Are you…what? Wanting to buy her a present?” If she sounds incredulous it’s because she is. The idea of Sam giving enough of a shit about anybody else to go and buy a gift is laughably ludicrous.

“No.”

“Well, what then?”

“Jesus Christ. Will you just—? I mean, can you not—?” He stutters to a stop, scowling; realising he’s going to have to spill. “Because it’s my fucking birthday, too. Alright? Are you happy now?”

She blinks. Of course, Sam must have birthdays. He moves through linear time like the rest of them, despite his efforts to remain firmly stuck in his Seventies heyday. It’s just hard to think of him in the same context as cake and candles.

“Oh.”

He is shaking his head. “Don’t, don’t fucking tell—”

“I won’t. Any anyway, nobody’s going to care.” It comes out more harshly than she intends; she can see it stings from the sudden droop of his moustache. “I just mean: we’re all too old to give a shit about birthdays. Apart from Jenny.”

“Right,” he says, flatly. “We done?”

“I will… make the arrangements for Saturday,”

“Great. You do that.” He’s making a show of taking out his cigarettes rather than look at her.

“Fine,” she says, determined to have the last word.

He slides open the door to his balcony, fumbling for the carton in his shirt pocket again. It’s a real Vegas sunset outside, the sky a lurid pink. He pulls out his lighter and hears the chirrup.

“Not this again,” he says, cigarette wobbling. The little white cat jumps down onto the concrete from the balcony above, winding herself around his ankles. Against his better instincts he pets the thing, and she starts purring like a thundercloud.

He sighs. It’s a sad fucking thing to have to admit, but it feels nice there’s something in the world that’s glad to see him.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” he says, rubbing his thumb across her little bullet head. Somehow, she purrs even louder; batting at his hands when he stops. “Yeah, yeah...”

She tries to run inside when he’s finished his smoke, nosing at the door as he puts his hand on the glass. “Hey, no.” She chirrups up at him again, intentions clear. “No. I don’t want fucking fleas. Okay?”

Purr-purr.

He sighs again. But he’s always a sucker for a woman who won’t take no for an answer.

“Hey.”

He looks up from his seat on the bleachers, half-watching Cherry and Carmen plan a match. “Oh, hi Ray. How’s things?”

“Good, man, good. A little bird told me tomorrow is an important day for you.”

Sam groans. “Was this bird named Debbie?”

“I can’t reveal my sources.” He smooths down his goatee. “Is it a big one?”

“Oh, no. But thanks for flattering me.”

Ray grins. “You have plans?”

“Ah,” he squirms, “I mean, it’s a Friday night in Vegas, right? If you can’t find a good time you’re just not looking hard enough.”

Ray purses his lips. “Sure, but it’s a birthday. You’re not inviting friends into town? Or family?”

He swallows. “Well, you know, they’re pretty busy with – with school and shit.” It sounds pathetic, Ray looking at him with something like sympathy in his eyes. And he can’t stand being pitied like this. Fucking Debbie. Why she couldn’t just keep her mouth shut—

“Well, I’ve been waiting to invite you to the monthly poker night,” Ray continues, oblivious. “Sounds like this Friday’s a good fit.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Eleven o’clock in the Sinatra Suite. Unless, you know, your girls decide to take you out instead.”

“Ha,” he snorts, “I fucking doubt it. Thanks, man.”

“Don’t thank me. It’s a fifty dollar buy-in and last time I barely made it out with my shirt.”

Sam bares his teeth in something like a grin. “Sounds great,” he lies.

Something sharp bites into his neck, dragging him up from the depths of dreamless sleep with a yelp—

It’s the cat. Curled on his chest, digging her claws into him for reasons known only to herself. “Ow!” he says, grabbing hold of her to stop her doing it again. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

She merely purrs in response, as if this is all perfectly normal; trying to lick his face with her rasp of a tongue.

“Jesus Christ...” He wriggles upright, finding his cigarettes on the night stand, lighting one. It’s a little after five in the morning. Which means he is officially fifty-two years old.

It’s a funny thing, but the older he’s gotten, the more his thoughts turn to his mother on this day. After all, she was the one that put all the work in. He just turned up, fat-headed and late enough to make everything a real ordeal. Starting, it seems, as he was destined to go on.

The fat little cat curls into his side, as he finishes his cigarette and tries very hard not to cry.

The lighting box door opens, noiseless, and Ruth is framed in the lintel. “Hi,” she says. Still wearing Zoya’s face but dressed in a button-up shirt and jeans. The sight of her like that does something complicated to his chest.

“Hey,” he replies. “Happy birthday.”

She bites her lip and looks at her feet. Still, she’s smiling. “Thanks.”

“You have fun?”

“Mm-hm. Sheila has a contact at The Aladdin. We got to see all the animals.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Mm. Sounds great.”

“We’re all going for a drink. Do you… wanna come with us?”

No, if he’s honest. He’s sad and consumed with a horrible kind of nostalgia; thinking back to this day five years ago, fifteen and thirty. Counting all the ways he’s screwed things up for himself, lost every good thing he ever found.

But not Ruth. Not yet, anyway. Why not spend an hour or two in her company before he loses all his money in a poker game? There are worse presents he can give himself. “Sure,” he hears himself saying. “Which bar did you have in mind?”

“Oh, Ray said we could use the member’s one tonight.”

“Really?” Jenny’s party-planning skills are clearly better than he gave her credit for.

He follows Ruth down the stairs and sticky-carpeted corridor, to the door with the Members Only sign. She pushes it open and they are hit by a wave of noise: fourteen variations on “SURPRISE!” and a dozen party-poppers exploding at once, leaving them both covered in paper streamers.

“What the fuck is this?” he says, stupidly. The home-made banners make it clear enough, one at either end of the long table loaded with party food. HAPPY BIRTHDAY RUTH says one. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM says the other.

“Sorry man,” says Ray, coming over to pass him a glass of champagne. “I couldn’t stop them.”

“Jesus.” He shakes his head but takes the glass. “And no poker?”

“No poker,” confirms Ray. “But I did manage to get us some other entertainment…”

The doors at the back of the room open on those words, and a literal circus enters the room. Fire-eaters and jugglers, gymnasts with spangled hoops and spinning plates. He vaguely recognises some of them, performers from a show at their sister casino.

“Thanks,” he shouts over the din. “I guess.” He catches Ruth’s knowing gaze. “And you can stop that right now.”

She presses her lips together, compressing her smile. Eyelashes fluttering as she makes up her mind about something; he recognises the tell even if he has no idea what she’s debating internally—

“Happy birthday, Sam,” she says, and kisses him on the cheek.

And there are too many people in the room for him to do anything other than swallow the sudden lump in his throat; to hope the sudden heat in his face will be attributed to the fire-eaters.

“Yeah,” he manages. “As these things go, it’s not so bad.”

#netflix glow #sam x ruth #fanfiction

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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How The Old Guard Ending Sets Up a Sequel

https://ift.tt/2WabjJT

Gina Prince Bythewood’s action-packed The Old Guard has officially hit Netflix and the gritty mythological Charlize Theron star vehicle–based on the comics from Greg Rucka (who also wrote the screenplay) and Leandro Fernandez–has left fans asking, “What happens next?” Although the streamer has yet to announce whether the movie will get a sequel, the final act sets up something explosive, and when we spoke with Rucka he teased that all would be explained if and when The Old Guard got a sequel. So what might that look like? And what are the biggest questions that fans need answered?

Well, Old Guard fans, this piece has got you covered!

How did The Old Guard Become Immortal?

The biggest question that The Old Guard poses is how the crew is immortal in the first place. It’s the driving force between the movie and the comic’s conflict, but is left completely unanswered in both. When we spoke to Rucka, he addressed this choice, the influence of Rian Johnson’s Looper, and when fans might potentially learn more about the mythical powers.

“I wanted to do that [Rian] Johnson take, which is just that it doesn’t matter,” Rucka says. “It’s just there and this is the nature of it. And oddly enough you can go right down the line of people who have approached the material, and the people who accept it and the people who are like, ‘No, it has to be answered.’”

Fans could potentially expect more information about this to be revealed in The Old Guard comics first.

Movies

The Old Guard: From Comics to Netflix Movie

By Rosie Knight

“We just finished the last issue of the second series of The Old Guard. We actually just sent the issue to press–it got delayed because of COVID stuff–that goes into the mythology,” he says. “I imagine that, should we be fortunate enough to make a sequel, we’ll also be pursuing it further there.”

The final issue of the first Old Guard miniseries left off with a promise that the team would get back to what they do best: working. So what happens next is really wide open, but if the sequel does get approved it would be really cool to see Andy potentially seek out the origins of her immortality. We know that’s what drove Booker to betray the crew to Merrick, and now that he’s out on his own for a century there’s a chance he might be on the same mission.

Is Andy the World’s First Real Superhero?

One of the biggest departures from the comic was the expansion of the character played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, Copley. In the comics he’s simply a brutal CIA recruiter who betrays the Guard, but in the movie he cuts a more empathetic figure who had been following Andy’s exploits for his own reasons. Though he still plays a key part in Merrick’s maniacal plan, he has his own reasons for keeping tabs on the woman who he believes to be the closest thing to an avenging angel that the world has ever seen.

Rucka and Fernadez’s original comic is a tight five issue arc that doesn’t have much time for unnecessary exposition or detail, so something that we get in the movie that we don’t get in the comics is a brief yet expansive look at Andy’s history as a hero. As Nile (Kiki Layne) looks over a wall, we get an idea that Andy is essentially the world’s first superhero and has been saving the day for millenia. It’s a particularly interesting angle and fits in with Rucka’s larger plan.

Movies

The Old Guard Review: Netflix Action Movie Showcases Immortal Heroes

By Don Kaye

During our chat with him Rucka shared why he thought this was such an important moment for Andy and why he expanded on it in the screenplay for The Old Guard movie.

“In large part this first story for Andy is about one question, and it’s not a terribly profound question,” he says. “I mean, it’s a question that everybody asks, which is, ‘Why do these things happen to me? Why am I enduring this? And why must I live through this?’ For Andy that’s writ very, very large. We meet her and I think Charlene does a brilliant job of conveying this. You see the fatigue and it’s not emotional fatigue, it is a world weariness that in the context of the universe we’ve created is quite literally the most profound world weariness possible there is. Therefore for her, finding some answer, some reason to go on, to continue trying to change a world for the better that is absolutely and undeniably resistant to this, is key.”

That idea isn’t one that’s explored explicitly in the comics, rather leaving the reading of the team and their impact up to the reader. It’s clear here, though, that we’re looking at a new kind of superhero, as well as a new vision of the superhero team, and a new type of superhero movie. With the massively positive response to the movie for subverting what we’ve come to expect from the genre, it’s likely that we’ll get to see this side of the story explored more in a sequel.

Will Nile Become The Old Guard’s New Leader?

KiKi Layne’s new addition to the team was a highlight of the Netflix flick. A rare nuanced and layered “in” character, her relationship with Andy and journey of self-discovery are at the heart of The Old Guard. It’s also her reading of Andy’s history that causes the tired immortal to realize that maybe there is something worth living for. As the team heads out into the world to save the day again, it’s clear Nile will play a large part. And if Andy heads off to find out the truth about how and why the members of the crew are what they are, Nile has great potential to take her place.

Are There More Immortals?

This is obviously a big question going forward. We know that Nile existed without the knowledge of the Guard until she was magically resurrected. Like most of our questions here, a lot of this will be easier to parse when the second series of The Old Guard comic comes out later this year. For now, however, we can theorize that there likely are more immortals and that a potentially cool conflict would be Andy and co. coming up against some old friends turned foes, or even a whole new collective that they didn’t know existed. Whatever happens we doubt that Andy, Nile, Joe, Nicky, and Booker are the only immortals that we’ll come across if we get another movie.

Could There Be a Shift in Aesthetic?

As we touched on earlier, The Old Guard stuck really close to source material when it came to narrative. But aesthetically, Gina Prince-Bythewood went for a realistic look that was far removed from the stylized look of Fernandez’s art and Daniela Miwa’s stunning colors, which for this writer are one of the strongest parts of the series. Although the gritty look of the first film has been a hit with viewers, it would be super cool to see a little more of that stylized look come into a sequel, maybe some bisexual lighting that leans into the incredible work that Miwa did to shape the look and feel of the original stories. We’re not expecting a full change but with a whole world to explore and infinite time to do it there’s plenty of space for experimentation.

Do We Sense a Time Jump?

The most exciting thing about The Old Guard is the fact that having an immortal cast means that the story can essentially take place in any time period. Seeing as the first movie was relatively light on backstory, we could definitely see some flashback/origin work that plays into the immortality of Andy and her crew. But there’s also potential for a massive time jump. We know the team will likely still be alive in a hundred if not a thousand years, so if the creative team is feeling ambitious this could be a really interesting way to shake up a sequel.

Whatever happens next, The Old Guard has changed the way that people see superheroes and will likely be a talking point for a long time coming.

You can watch The Old Guard on Netflix now.

The post How The Old Guard Ending Sets Up a Sequel appeared first on Den of Geek.

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theextraspoon · 5 years ago

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Remember Pewdiepie? The Swedish Youtuber once had a slip of a racial slur cost him his YT Red Series, cost him hundreds of thousands of followers and changed the way we use Youtube and Google. Thanks to the media, we've moved from cancelling people, to getting them fired, and when that doesn't work, we call the papers because we know they're the types to give us that feel good by default narrative that sent my view into the spiral of media puppetry. It baffled me that Youtube would want to throw it's poster boy under the bus like said to the advertisers summit in 2015. Since then Youtube ran ad campaigns for some really sketchy places, like the data-mining of Candid to the exploitation of mental health through Betterhelp yet denied completely legal ads from hemp cultivation. That's where we step in.

Last night I was watching one of my favorite streamers, Hyphonix, when it suddenly became clear that he was one of the owners of the businesses stuck in the cross-hairs of the media wars attempting to contact me and he was upset with me for being upset with him, understandable. However, he didn't dox me and he didn't dox my dad. He just didn't. I've tested it. People tried to convince me he was poison and stealing from me.That he was a "literal Hitler." He's not though. At least, I've not seen it.

He's a dick, sure, but most of us are dicks too. I think he's funny. Next to another streamer whom I found humorous outside of gamer gate for his delivery was, Jim "Metokur," whom we've mentioned before here. I like the kid. He didn't dox me. So when I apologized for wrongfully judging him, it was then his chat gave me the name I needed.

The real person who've been behind digging into my personal information, doxing me, doxing my biological and adoptive family and even stole their identity so they can't be held accountable for their actions. This person, PPP, Pepe, AP, Adonis Paul or whatever name he give himself today, decided to claim a gang affiliation with the hells angels (whom he's never met in real life or even spoken to) in an effort to threaten people into or out of working with select sponsors and other streamers. However, I DO know a few angels and they don't take kindly to this behavior and blamed me directly for it putting me in quite a bit of danger I had worked 2 years to get out of. However when I came to ask Adonis Paul to stop, he began to poorly gaslight me. I tried to tell him I could hear a girl by the name of Riley, roleplaying as my uncle Irish (by the same name even) in GTA. For years, my life story has been Riley's online persona and it began to catch up to me, but I had no idea what the hell was going on or why everyone was claiming I was crazy and gaslighting me with "schizophrenia" which wouldn't be the correct diagnosis anyways. It's been terrifying and cost me a lot of money just to feel safe. You see, Adonis Paul drove me away from sponsoring youtubers and twitch streamers due to the threats, alleged theft, sponsored parties pulling and haven't even made a streamlabs donation since 2019 because someone named "FT WORTH, TX HENDERSON" frauded our card for $400. Since my dad was doxed and my child threatened which, as a victim on protection order with a missing child, no youtube channel or stream herself, no public non-business socials it was a very real perceived threat. I went to police. I NEVER go to police, for obvious reasons. This person terrified me that "he and leaf had kidnapped my son to raise themselves" and not having seen him in a year, I was forced to go to police. Since this began, at least once a day, I've been followed into chats mocked for being raped in jail when wrongfully arrested and laughed at for my kid going missing and then mocked for going to the police for it.

Ironically the same guys were still there playing GTA, which you can only watch really if you want to get in on pixel. They suddenly knew I was there. Obviously. They'd been role playing with the online version of my identity, according to someone else, for YEARS. Before you ask, no, I have no idea who this person is. I know who they are now, but I've never met or spoken to this person and many don't even refer to them as Riley but as Lucy or Lara.

You know what was happening today? Live?

We had just lost George Floyd, the entire country is in protest and getting looted after being shut down for months from Covid-19. The internet socialites were pulling everyone in all types of ways. From God, to Godzilla, Satan, to political parties. Everyone is hurting everyone and I've been watching it get worse and worse for months.

The gamers were investigating in game after a year of my crying out to no one hearing me. By now, the Youngsliving organization was doing "movie reviews" in regards to... me? The lion tribe had copied and stolen my website. Aiden of Hemp City literally copied my site word for word. It was an attack. So I stopped and I let them start to get the back up and overwhelming stress that comes with my job and... because I would be at a halt, they get no more free work while they harass me.

The pixel server was already familiar with who I was because it's where the identity was being used most and how everyone kept hearing my info to report me. The GTA cops were investigating for me. Like legitimately talking to real characters that also appeared in real life, because this was real crime being done... in game. It's the wildest thing I've seen. With the zoo, the review channels, the political channels, I honestly was surprised again, not by identity but to see police in a video game behaving better than the real police outside my home during the riots. They were investigating. Who took her? How did they know her? What's she look like? They speculated as much as I had. This was an insane situation and suddenly I realized all of us were placed into this by someone else like a chain reaction online. Hurt people, hurting people. I was taken back and many people told me they had no idea this was happening or they thought it was all in game. They forgot people were watching.

That's when I heard the chatter over the radio.

You can read chat. We can hear her now. Today's nature's law! It came from Metokur. He said it's Nature's birthday!

I heard a two game cops say and that's when I believed it was kind of over.

That brings me back to the level guys, on the floor. They could hear me and you know. I was so hurt by these people that I didn't for one second think "why are they doing this to me?" I automatically assumed they did it to cause me harm, so I was hurting others in conversation with the ways I lashed out against it.

Hurt people, hurt people.

Everyone has shat on my favorite streamer. Everyone said things so vile against him, I wouldn't have looked twice at his stream if that came first. He was being hurt... right now. Today, in this moment, he was being hurt by not being given a fair shot at business like I had not gotten a fair shot before. I KNOW that feeling.

So I've decided to be the one to stop the cycle. I know, I know. I'm such a lame, loser, boomer. Thing is when you act out as a real life identity you effect their life and the lives around them. You take more than sales you take away the persons security, safety in their own home, freedom to exist. You hurt everyone around you and if it's bad enough you'll do it to someone like me who will hunt you down and track you like the best GTA cop pixel.

This is what happened with Pewdiepie. His fair chance was taken from him while people like Jake and Adonis Paul literally threaten SPONSORS, friends, family, jobs and eventually, the papers until they get what they want and all they want is submission and like Pewdiepie, I'm a stubborn Scandinavian who won't apologize if she doesn't mean it and won't say sorry if I'm not. These types of manipulators don't like that, so they attempt to control the narrative on your name. It should be illegal. Look at what the media does RIGHT NOW. Turn on the news and just listen for a few minutes. Isn't that insane?! The reason I bring up Pewdiepie is that he's in this game I'm somehow dragged into as well. You can catch it with the right bot or knowing what to look for with the out of context statements and the random, repetitive words. It's those words that trigger the mind (or A.I.) into the game. Point is, I had it done to me and I was about to turn around and do it AGAIN to Pewdiepie, the very man I quit the ad program for in the first place. The very one they threw under the bus. This woke me up.

I'm not going to say the words or things Pewdiepie says is okay or stand by his thoughts and ideas, that's not why I'm here. I'm here to make fair what was made wrong in the first place. It's the whole reason I went private sponsorship and here I am, angry that he's involved, blaming him and even Markiplier of doxing and threatening me simply because they're using the same words in the same game at the same time unbeknownst to one another. I was online, threatening the Wallstreet Journal to Pewdiepie and that is the most disgusted I've been with myself all year. I was hurt. I was going to hurt someone else because of it.

So, all of these thoughts in my mind, I've been awaken. I've been humbled. I saw myself in the mirror becoming the very same monster I was hunting and collectively, in a way, the "game" these youtubers were playing actually made me a better person. It woke me up. I honestly feel if Adonis Paul had not doxxed me, my biological father, the man who took me in, my fathers motorcycle enthusiast group whom I finally had gotten away from and was now literally handed back to, threatening me, my youtubers and my son, I think the game would have ended much sooner. I had to come to the end myself though or I wouldn't learn.

No, what happened to me wasn't fair and no, it probably will never be made okay but in time maybe it will. All I know is I will NOT become one of them and I will NOT become the monster I hunted to hurt the people I protect.

I've decided to let the streamer and his business in. I've decided to stop the cycle. I like the streamer and watched as a fan but right now, men are being censored and taken down, presented as nazis and literal Fuhrers. If I let him him sit and watch his friends and accomplices be accepted and moved out of the city it wouldn't be fair as he would have been first. It wouldn't be fair because as long as his labs are legit and not stolen, he deserves to go up like the rest of us or it will feel like he's singled out, attacked, and he will take it personally. It will hurt, he will hurt others, the cycle continues.

I believe in checking for thorns in the paw before condemning the beast. I honestly see good in these streamers the media has labeled and thus, cost their jobs and finances. I've watched them struggle, yell out for help, have families in need, and now go through a pandemic with not so much as a squeak from the big dogs at Youtube. I almost missed an important video myself clearing a lot of this up by my dog/pig, or youtube friend in the game that guided me a bit, knowingly or not. That pig knows who he is and I don't want to risk his current position in the game by exposing him. I'm not the media, but thank you for exposing the bootlegging in the gulf of our brand lines as they think we own all 150. If you're reading this, you helped all the way to Pewdiepie. That's an impressive reach we can have, guys.

So, I hope you all understand my stand on this. The cycle needs to stop. We can't leave people behind. This is a movement for all of us. Whether you believe in freedom or you believe in karma, green or light, our future will be grim if people are left behind. We can't build on cracked foundation.

Please stop a cycle.

We'll keep everyone updated as we reopen and upload products for our customers, our sponsored creators, our friends and families and as promised, are looking forward to working with unexpected our new friend and partner soon!

Not everyone is literal Hitler. Some are hurting from the thorns of the past. Pull them out and you tame the beast.

via Natural Healthy: Latest News

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theextraspoon · 5 years ago

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You know what was happening today? Live?

That's when I heard the chatter over the radio.

You can read chat. We can hear her now. Today's nature's law! It came from Metokur. He said it's Nature's birthday!

I heard a two game cops say and that's when I believed it was kind of over.

Hurt people, hurt people.

Please stop a cycle.

Not everyone is literal Hitler. Some are hurting from the thorns of the past. Pull them out and you tame the beast.

via Natural Healthy: Latest News

#IFTTT #Natural Healthy: Latest News

0 notes