#he didnt build a tent just to build a tent he built a tent because a tent symbolizes a temporary stay

[blissfali]

Ive always thought about how, since the first time i eevr experienced and watched exile, that c!tommy never specifically built a houise in logsted. he built a tent, and when he built that tent, he built it specifically with the idea in mind that this would be temporary (i cant remember the exact words but i know for sure there is a quote about him saying something like this before he builds it).

in ctommy's mind, exile was never supposed to last forever. if he had to think about it as an indefinite amount of time, it wouldnt really make sense to him. instead of accepting cdream's "you leave when i say you can leave", he builds this hope throughout the entirety of it that he will be going home to l'manberg, at some point, whether it be in one day or one year. he held onto that hope that there would be a foreseeable end in sight, and thats why he only built a tent. he did not build a house or a shack, and he did not move into the house/van that ghostbur built for him, because moving into an actual home in logsted would mean it lasting "forever". he needed some kind of date in his mind that would mark the end of it, and by building tnret he kind of had a symbol for the fact that he would be leaving at some point.

there was no idea in his mind that ctommy would be barred from l'manberg FORever. he would go back even if he was in his 30's by then. it didn't matter when or how, it just mattered that that date Existed.

[ancientgoddessofegypt]

'Special'

In the summer months I had been enjoying myself at the river, cleansing myself and becoming one with it all. I had become a different me at this time, and the world had become a whole new universe. Basking in the sweet waters and enjoying the fresh air I had seen this guy from the other side of the water. He seemed handsome far away but I hadn't had a clue at the time.

One day he was tubing in the water and I got to see him up close, however I was nervous back then and didnt want to look him too deep in the eye. There was a moment where I left a bunch of my crystals at the river because I knew someone else could use them on their journey. When its time to let go, I let them go.

A few days later I come back and notice that there is now a tent on one of rocks where people normally come to chill.

I say to myself 'who out here camping'? I hadn't seen a face so I paid it no mind.

A week goes by and I come back on the days most people aren't around to enjoy the river, my favorite time. No one is really around because of the duties of life, and I was still granted more free time before my journey was to be elsewhere. I see the tent is fully built from tree branches and wood. Whoever made it did a fabulous job.

Im enjoying the water falling on my face, its like a baptism. I keep in mind im going through so many changes at the time and I was reluctantly on meeting someone new, even though I had been asking the universe for a good one this time around.

This smooth looking guy with long locs comes walking by with a catfish hanging from his fish hook. He came up to me and told me I was beautiful, I said thank you.

'You come here often?' he said to me.

'I do.'

'You come by yourself?' he asks.

'Yes I do, all the time.'

He goes to say that he likes that I enjoy the water and he loves how natural I am. I had my hair out, normally I wear braids. or maybe even a wig depending on how im feeling.

'I see you went fishing, you caught a big one.'

'Yes I love to fish my love.' He sits the cat fish down.

'I've seen you here a few times I believe, you've gone tubbing down the river and I seen you chill on the rocks.'

'Yeah that me, I love di nature'. he says smiling.

The more I hear him talk, the more I notice an accent.

'Are you from here? I hear an accent my boy.'

'Nah nah, im not from here. Im from Jamaica'.

He gets a little excited in his voice. I noticed he loved me noticing his voice and his natural accent.

'Aren't you the girl with the crystals?'

Me?

'yeah you, you left them over here. I remember because you normally stay at this spot yea.' he pulls them out for me to see.

I had left a clear quartz, and aura quartz, a few tumbled stones, and a necklace.

'Oh wow, so it was you who took em! I was wondering who did.'

He tries to hand em back to me.

'No, no.' I say. 'You can keep em, I left them here for anyone to have em. My time with them is finished.'

'Ah okay. I keep.' What you do round' here?'He asks.

'Well like you I just enjoy my time here. I love the water. its my happy place.'

'Ah you a nature girl, I like that yea'. He smiles.

I laugh. Yeah im a nature girl at heart. Born like this.

'Not a lot of women like to be in nature, you different.' He tells me.

'I see'. I look and point at the catfish. 'What you bout to do with that big ole fish?'

'I got a tent back over there and I'm gonna go cook it, would you like to have a bite for lunch?'

I looked shocked. 'Wait hol up, thats all you over there? You made that tent?'

'Yeah that me, I know how to build. Imma construction worker.'

I smile with surprise. 'Wow thats cool as fuck, you did so good on the tent omg. What made you want to camp out here?'

'Im doing 30 days out here, im getting close to nature so I can be close to God.' He says with assurance.

'Wow, I love the sound of that. Im glad you're out there doing it. The weather is lovely for it now. I always wanted to go camping.' I tell him.

'You can camp at anytime.' He laughs. 'Just being out here in nature by the river is considered camping.'

'Oh really?' I say with a smirk.

'Yes way, I would do so all the time back in Jamaica.' he smiles.

'Ah. I see.'

'Would you like to come back with me to the tent , I would love for you to try my cooking. I am also a chef.'

'ahhhh a chef, I see you. You a jack of all trades type of guy. I see you!' I say with laughter.

'Yea, yea.' He laughs. 'I don't want to bother you and let you enjoy your time in the water. If you want, you can come chill as I cook the fish. I would like to get to know you more.' He says to me.

'Hmmm, ill have to check and see if I have time. But I would love to.' Im lying, I had no where else to be but I couldn't be so up and ready to go with him. In fact, I really did want to spend more time in the water. I had to get some me time.

'Ok, I'll be over there. I let you be. It was nice talking to you.' He waves goodbye and he heads down to the other side of the river where he goes to prepare the fish.

I enjoy and relax in the water for a while but eventually I decide to go over there. He hadn't finished prepping the fish yet. So I was just in time when I got over there to see him in action.

[nestable]

Has anyone wondered why the illyrians hate cassian so much that they'd rather freeze to death than take his hand outs?

We know from one chapter that cassian may have a tendency of doing a little charity shopping for his people, but beyond that we dont get any indication of any additional work he does at the camps. Yes he trains the females and is trying to build the first ever female legion but what else is he doing for the betterment of the entire race? He's a bastard who raised himself in a tent for most of his childhood but has he every done something to improve the bastards living situation? Has he done some advocacy work to ensure the better treatment and respect of bastards given that he has such a huge platform and is an example to thousands in his position?

Idk, it just seems disingenuous to me that the illyrians hate him so much just for being a bastard. He's been the general for 500 years, they should been used to it by now. So that leads me to believe that a different sort of resentment is fueling their hate.

Maybe illyrians saw him as a someone who'd represent them on the high odds counsel and advocate for their better treatment, but he just came back to the camps after getting his title and treated them and viewed them in the same condesening way the high fae do. Maybe the bastards there expected that one of their own would understand their struggle and work to improve their lives but he didnt do any of that, he just adhered to the status quo. Maybe they expected him to improve their living situation since hes got that proximity to power but instead built himself a house while they continue to live in tents. Maybe they hate him for abandoning them to live in squalor while he lives it up in Velaris knowing his people are suffering. Maybe they dont like the fact that he's barely in the mountains and visits seldomly and when he does he bosses them around and is as self righteous as rhys even though they dont know the current affairs of the place. Or maybe they just hate the fact that they couldnt appoint their own general and instead got the high lords bestie who'd legit do anything he asks, even if it's to the detriment of the illyrians.

All these points seem more probable to me than just hating him because he's a bastard. Otherwise a rebellion targeted at both him and rhys wouldnt be building. He must've done something. But then again, since the introduction of the IC, theres really no nuance and the illyrians have so far been portrayed as one dimensional sexists so they might turn out to be one dimensional villains when the rebellion is addressed. Just to make rhys and the IC look good at the expense of sense. Idk. Guess we'll get the answers in acosf.

[sanstropfremir]

ok alright alright alright kingdom episode two

kinda disappointed that they only showed half the stages, but that's just an editing thing to draw out the content so you can air for longer, i'm not super surprised about that. i would have liked to evaluate them all at the same time, but at least this gives me time to go more in depth for all of them since they're full stages this time and I wrote 3000 words for last episode when they only had 100 secs. so this format will probably keep me sane for longer, i think. 

solid stages all round for them, none had especially glaring flaws on the whole. i'm not gonna do a full ranking for this episode since we haven't seen them all, but i will say that btob’s was my favourite from this set and both ikon’s and tbz’s stages were about equal; they both had things i liked and disliked in equal measure so i'm tentatively giving them the same ranking. full opinions and analysis on each stage below the cut, plus another section of general notes because hey what the fuck did you do to that stage mnet???

and for anyone that’s wondering yes i do have the qualifications. also seriously grab a drink or something because this is LONG.

some general notes

and here i thought this section wouldn't be as big as it was last time because mnet was going to get their shit together about the stage design, but noooooooooooo they had to go and make it worse! thanks mnet i hate it! remember how i said you shot yourself in the foot last time? well ya fuckin kneecapped yourself AND all your idols with this one ya dumb fuckin idiots. alright folks welcome back to stage design 101, my recurring segment where i explain the different types of stage layouts and their effectiveness for kpop idol survival shows, i guess.

ok so last week i covered the basics on theatre in the round and traverse staging, which i’ll link here if there’s anyone new or just wants a refresher. i mentioned that its likely that mnet will switch to an in the round style staging because it offers a lot more freedom for camera movement and also for directional blocking. well, i was wrong. so i'm gonna give you a quick rundown of prosceniums. a proscenium, proscenium arch, or just prosc, is an architectural feature that sits around the front ‘opening’ of the stage that delineates the stage from the audience. if you've ever been in or seen any pictures of old european style theatres it can be quite ornately decorated with scrolling, but it's almost always there in most western theatres. it basically provides your ‘wings,’ which are where you exit off into to get offstage, they provide cover from the audience sitelines. pretty much any theatre where the audience is directly opposing the stage across the 180 degree line is a proscenium stage, even if it doesn't physically have the arch. hell, movie theatres are prosc stages. now, there's a secondary architectural feature/device called a false proscenium, where you set a second, smaller archway inside the first prosc, usually done for a specific effect. think of it like a literal framing device; it's often used to visually signify that ‘this is a play, we are telling a story, please be aware that this is a play thank you.’ but sometimes, it can be a semi-permanent structure that’s set in place to narrow the prosc opening. we had this at my university, there was a false prosc set just inside the actual prosc because the stage had a hilariously big prosc opening for a university that never had casts larger than 24 people. so they set false prosc in to make the stage slightly narrower and to widen the wings, because it doesn't matter what size theatre you're in, you always need more wingspace. makes sense? ok, now here’s a very quick drawing of what i'm pretty sure the kingdom stage looks like:

before you get lost: stage directions are oriented to a person standing on the stage, hence SL and SR being reversed. a quick tip for remembering which way is upstage and which is downstage: if you go too far downstage you fall down (most stages are raised between 2-4’ from the floor, so if you step off the end you will actually fall.) the arrows on here signify the entrances i observed during the performances, which is not necessary in this explanation but i just thought it was interesting to note. still not entirely sure what the surrounding architecture is but it appears that the stage is a raised platform inside a room, and not actually built as part of the building. the ‘house’ is just a technical term for where the audience is, and in this case it's where it looks like most of the film crew and the producers/staff are. there’s pretty clearly a platform upstage centre, and i think there may be some others but i don't care about those right now. what i want to talk about is this dumbass false prosc they set IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STAGE. now i suspect that they did this to solve some problems that they could have had that i don't know about, since i don't know who the stage designer was and what the actual limitations of the space are. but basically they've built two stages and stacked them on top of each other to create one very deep stage, and then separated it off with a false prosc in order to control the size of the space a little better, and possibly to add some visual interest. this stage is functional for its purpose, absolutely, and i think, if mnet actually gave a shit about point of view and camerawork, it could produce some really interesting performances. however, because this stage is so deep, it kind of has the same properties as the traverse stage from before, but just with some big led screens in the middle for reasons. you extra have to pay attention to the directionality because you have all the staff and cameras concentrated in one specific cardinal point, so you have to get creative if you want to crossover between the two sides frequently. again, this is not necessarily bad; restrictions often produce some of the most creative decisions.  but! we have not seen a lot of consideration for camera and sightlines and audience pov, hence why i think this setup is dumb: it’s not facilitating the best performances it could.

ok now to the actual performances

btob

this is my favourite of the group because it's very clean lined and utilizes a few simple devices to pretty good effect. i realize these reviews are making me sound like i only like simple performances but i promise this is not at all true i'm just very critical and very picky. let’s start with the costumes, because why not. 

costumes

i like these very much, i love modernized traditional clothing in all forms, and these are very well tailored and well coordinated. they do the bulk of the work establishing the theme for the performance, along with the costumes on the backup dancers. personally i would have liked them to be a bit more colourful, à la the teal detailing that was on minhyuk’s final look. i'm getting a bit tired of the whole trend of having groups only wear all dark or all white, or maybe sometimes red if they're feeling spicy. obviously uniform colour is the easiest way to tie a group together visually, but on a show like this i think the groups would actually benefit more from looking distinct from each other internally rather than establishing the group as whole.

i liked that minhyuk had a costume change but i didn't really care for how it was how it was broken down. this is a very personal quibble because i literally have spent years prepping quickchanges but the method it broke down wasn’t the most visually compatible with the garment and felt kinda clunky. please ignore this anecdote it's just me being picky.

set

i loved the forest! a very excellent way to divide the stage area and obscure the weird stage lines/architecture that mnet has made. plus the snow, flowers, and fog? makes a really sharp and immediately indicative atmosphere, a very good use of visual shorthand to establish place.

i didnt love the screens, they reminded me a bit too much of rolling whiteboards from grade school, but they are thematically relevant. also, i feel like we didnt actually get to see about half the choreo for them? fuckin mnet and idiocy again. fun use of rear projection with the dancers’ shadows, and also good use of them to direct traffic, if you will. 

personally i think that the sheet gimmick from tbz’s performance would have been a better fit here instead of the screens, especially since the fabric motif was already established at the very beginning of the performance. plus you can do some really fun shadow work with a stretch fabric screen. 

personally i think there could have been a little bit more integration between the forest area and the screen area, or they could have done the whole thing in the forest space, but that would require a bit more consideration of camera and choreo maneuverability

sound

really liked this arrangement, obviously the song is iconic but they added a more traditional instrument sound. has good structure for the loose narrative that they had and they were well to label this as ‘theatre’ version because this did follow very closely to a traditional musical theatre sound and style

lighting

no complaints. the overall theme for this episode is apparently blue and red? again with them i like their dedication to a limited colour palette and i especially like the blossoms at the climax

staging

there was pretty clear camera choreo and a minimum of nausea inducing moves. i think some of the effectiveness of the staging got chopped by the editing but that’s not really btob’s fault.

i was just saying i wanted them to give minhyuk some time to shine, i was not expecting to get it so soon! this is a very smart choreo that proves you can be interesting without doing a lot of tricking. minhyuk obviously did a lot of practice and work with that sword, his movements are very fluid and he knows how to handle it. and it looks like its either a blunted proper blade or a correctly weighted replica. a lot of the times when sword choreo looks fake it's because the person either hasn't had enough practice or the weapon is not weighted/weighted incorrectly. only complaints are that you would never hold your fingers/palm that close and un-anchored over the edge of the blade, which is just a safety thing. also you would never scrape your blade on the ground like that, nor toss the thing like dead fish but that's a respect thing with a live blade and this is clearly done for dramatic effect so i’ll forgive it. please ignore this anecdote also it’s just my third dan getting uppity.

ikon

costume/set

smart thematically to go with the sort of miscellaneous 30s-40s (western) aesthetic because it's the fastest way to make it look like you built a theme with mnet’s weird pseudo art deco nonsense they've inexplicably got going on in the set dec. however, they should have stuck the theme all the way through, it would have been more visually cohesive and more interesting. we expect more hiphop/electronic sounding songs to come with these kinds of 4th gen costumes, it would have been anachronistic in a fun way to have them do that second half in 40s style suits. here’s a performance from sdc3 that uses that kind of anachronistic play (this was a combo stage with two ballroom dancers and it has a 20s aesthetic but close enough.) also here’s another routine from sdc3 that does a similar effect on a much more abstract scale, and also it’s a fucking incredible performance and it got slept on by the captains. also yes i know these are incredibly experienced career dancers but they way they construct narrative within their routines and their stage presence is SO GOOD. 

do not speak to me about the backup dancers costumes, holy shit i hate them. i hate them so much. how do you manage to hit too shapeless AND too fitted in the same fell swoop? i'm so mad at these. i'm neutral on bodycon dresses on the best of days but these were absolutely the wrong choice for this stage. generally kpop has abysmal costuming for female backup dancers on the whole but this is just like.....especially lazy. the point of the costume are to help give an indication of where and when you set your performance. they started off with a vaguely 40s theme and then jumped abruptly modern. why? also skirts like that are the literal worst choice for dancing in, hello?? the men’s looks are just sloppy, when you have a garment that big you want it to serve a purpose within the choreo, whereas with this it's just hiding the dancers’ movements.

as for ikon themselves, see everything ive said about black on black on black styling in the previous two reviews. 

the actual set is minimal and that's tragic. i mentioned mnet’s weird art deco theme and it was smart of them to try and play off that with a lack of stuff. definitely a mismatch of stuff pulled from yg’s prop storage, but they made it work as well as they could. no other meaningful comments i’m just kinda sad about it.

sound

the arrangement is fine, no complaints from me. they keyed up the old hollywood style musical theatre sound in the beginning which i really liked. i didn't mind the song/tone switch, i think they pulled it off.

staging

same as btob they learned more towards a theatrical style, which is smart for this particular format of show. i think this was the smartest staging of these three, and also i think the only ones to not get the crew in shot.

despite seemingly leaning into a more old hollywood style the narrative was a bit too loose for my taste. i'm not sure what i would have done to make it clearer at this moment since they had so little to work with, but i did get by on my previous knowledge of the songs. that shouldn’t be the only indication of narrative though! all elements need to support it!!

also like btob they had a pretty intentional point of direction and there weren't a crazy amount of spins. they also used the camera cuts the most effectively that i've seen so far. the first half is actually all in one take!!! incredible!!! thank you!!!! this is how you do it!!

the lighter flick gimmick was well pulled off and a good example of how to use a couple of simple tricks to good effect.

ikon as a whole has really great stage chemistry with each other, and they're extremely cohesive performers. this is a really strong physical performance from them, the dance was very solid and clean. good use of levels without verging into acrobatics. this might be the best group choreo i've seen so far, but we’re not very far so that's not a very high bar to clear.

it's a shame they had the budget of 1 banana.

tbz

i liked this stage better than their intro stage, but i still think they have a long way to go and they're still over ambitious. personally i find stages based on specific pop culture properties to be kind of twee and ineffectual, because it requires a specific knowledge of that pop culture property to work. sometimes the specificity can help with a narrative but you're at risk of alienating a larger portion of your audience out of sheer non-knowledge than anything else. 

costumes

again, interesting garments physically, but not much clarity of relation to the theme other than the colour. also the backup dancers???? another case of backup dancers being from an entirely different stage, what is up with those coats/dresses? looked more like they belonged in either sweeney todd or a vampire movie. 

hands in front of the camera again, but these were used much more effectively.  i'm not the biggest fan of mixing metals and i’m partial to silver on the whole so i didn't love the jewelry, but at least it was vague and stereotypical enough to denote ‘fire magic’ even if it does rely on a derivative middle eastern shorthand.

set

the stage set itself is fine, although definitely feels a bit haphazard to me. doric columns and frozen rocks and whatever that cover for the pyrotechnics was at the front, combined with the candles and the chaise lounge? like ikon, it felt a bit like they were pulling out of the props/set storage. not that all these things do not work together, it's just that you need a thread to tie them together, and this didn't have that for me.

sound

it's a crime they have a song called ‘no air’ and its not a jordin sparks cover. just saying.

i didnt really like this arrangement, again like their intro stage it didn't have a strong structure that suited the narrative, because they were pretty clearly trying a narrative on this one. also were most of the adlibs playback? they were singing live but there were so few shots of anyone specific singing. 

lighting

probably the weakest of the three. the projection design was a bit too tacky for me, and although i appreciated the small amount of variety in colour, it felt way too concert-lighting for me.

staging

the editing on this stage is wack and did no one any good. the hands leading/pov was a really smart device and they should have stuck out the one takes like ikon did, it would have made the whole stage feel a bit more cohesive. a lot better directional camerawork from them this time around, well done. again with the hands in front of the camera gimmick which i actually preferred this time, since they were a part of the narrative. the stretch/silhouette fabric i think they pulled off quite well, even if it didn't really fit thematically with the piece. i actually worked on a show a very long time ago that used this exact same effect with dancers and also rear shadow projection, and it requires a lot of rehearsal and trust to pull off well, so props to them. i think it was the wrong choice because there isn't an established motif for the fabric, so it kind of appears out of nowhere for one specific visual moment and then disappears, and i think that time could have been better served for something else narratively relevant.

again, these 4th gen groups are overly focussed on gimmicks as a way to make up for the lack of experience. personally i think this will be detrimental in the long run, and a reliance on gimmicks means that you don't trust your performers. tbz have the manpower to be doing some pretty cool collective dance work and i dont think its being trained or utilized correctly. they are suffering from a lack of cohesive stage presence right now and that can be fixed with training and time.

this might be because the group sizes are so different between these three but this choreo is very directionless. mnet is also providing to be absolute garbage at editing and i feel like i can't see the choreo at all.

this is a thing i've noticed with kpop camerawork in general, there’s very little regard for actually viewing the choreo as a singular work. and for some reason the camera always needs to be moving???? people do actually want to see what’s happening on the stage. the choreographer can only see from one spot, so from that spot is how they are intending it to look. you wouldn't need to upload full cams of every music stage if you just filmed the choreo properly in the first place. if you watch the two sdc3 clips i linked you can see a clear difference in maintaining the integrity of the choreo, even though both shows use several cameras and a lot of cuts.  obviously for kpop you want the money shots of idols’ faces but i definitely think there’s a healthier middle ground than what we have now.

ill wait for full subs but i want to know where in the fuck in sk you can rent a tank thas clearly been custom made for underwater photography, because that’s extremely cool even if it was absolutely unnecessary to the actual stage itself. i can think of several ways off the top of my head that would have achieved that same freezing effect without any of that wasted time and effort.

mnet decided to drop full cams while i was writing this and despite watching those my opinions are the same.

in conclusion, some more general thoughts:

i think ikon and btob got it right by leaning more into the theatrical than the cinematic, if that makes sense. i might be talking up my own ass here but these are theatre performances, and they should be treated as such. trying to do things that you can do on film isn't going to do you any favours in the long run, and it makes it harder to make a cohesive performance. i’m harping a lot about narrative but it is so important to performance. although it is not technically necessary, when doing big theatrical performance stages like this it does help with clarity of intent and general success. humans have brains structured around storytelling, it is literally the way our history has been passed down for tens of thousands of years. the atlantic published an article recently on narrative and memory, and it's a really excellent read for maybe after you've taken a break from this behemoth, oh dear god. 

tldr: the stages were good but disappointing in their own ways. mnet continues to sabotage via weird stage design decisions and bad editing. see you next week! (or in my ask box if you have questions)

[strawberiitea]

[Infinite Deaths Anon]

Phil's whole things ends up taking at least twice as long as techno's because to be quite frank I feel like phil hurt Tommy and everyone worse than techno had.

Perhaps techno had always been up front about his intentions but Phil wasn't. So things are a lot more shaky between the rest of the server and Phil.

Its only after techno has reconciled with everyone that he starts putting effort into it. Especially with revivedbur and Tommy.

Tommy rejects the attempts. He doesnt really need a dad, not at this point in his life. Hes getting the support he needs now from the community in snowchester.

Revivedbur has even less of a want to reconcile because Phil just... Destroyed everything he worked on for months along with his pets because he didnt agree with the fact that there was a gov there.

(At least thats how it comes off to the rest of the server.)

Eventually it gets out that they're going to build a memorial over the crater of lmanburg. A memorial for everything lost there so that people can get some real closure.

Techno agrees to help build it and tells Phil about it. The guy is torn but ends up agreeing to help build it as well.

No one knows what to make of phil coming nor of him helping build the memorial over the crater that is slowly turning into a lake.

Things never smooth over with revivedbur and Tommy but eventually they have a tentative relationship of 'we kind of hate each other and dont agree with each other's ideals but we'll tolerate each other for everyone else's sake.'

... I completely forgot about connor btw but it would be totally in character I feel for him to not know anything is going on until he sees the memorial being built.

As for what happened to dream: he didn't get totally like. Obliterated. Not like the blood vines. There was just enough of the person he was before he became obsessed with his 'game' with tommt and co that he sort of like a ghost.

But hes less then even ghostbur was: he barely remembers anything, hardly has any sort of personality, and just sort of... Exists so he can keep the server running. He's a ghost of an admin who keeps the server running.

(Hes the reason why, one day, when someone checks the canon lives that discover that no one has canon lives anymore. That no one can die permanently anymore. They're safe.)

JKDKDKKDKSMS ANON I LOVE THIS SM FUCK

WHY ARE MY ANONS SO FUCKING COOL

[versatilewindow]

Lego Sets

Find it on Ao3

Warnings: None, just fluff

Summary: A chill evening with your boyfriend, SunaRin

A/N: Earlier this week i was like, I dont wanna do my chem homework, ill project my sappy feelings and wants onto my man, SunaRin. And thanks to my friend for suggesting including legos.

The evening sun creeped in through the sheer curtains drowning Rintaro in a warm glow on the couch, a forgotten Netflix show playing faintly in the background. You walked in the front door and set down your shopping bags with a light yawn and stretch. The quiet of your shared home was a godsend after all the bright lights and sounds around the city, the smell of home instantly relaxing you. 

Hearing the sound of the TV, you walked towards it, noticing Rin asleep, curled up in your guys’ favorite blanket. You crawled over him, careful to not disturb him (not that it mattered, he usually slept like a rock), and tentatively sat down on him. He moved and your breath hitched, but he stayed asleep, damp hair splayed over his face. You always told him to dry his hair before sleeping, not wanting him to catch a cold, and he always argued he wouldn’t get sick, simply because he was ‘built different’. Giggling at the memory, you moved the hair away from his eyes with a feathery gentle touch. You’ve always loved his pretty face, gentle features, pinchable cheeks, and smooth clear skin (courtesy of your skincare routine that he adopted when you two moved in together). Taking advantage of the lighting and his serene sleeping expression, you quickly got out your phone and snapped a picture, even though you were lucky enough to see his face everyday, you wanted to admire his features without being teased by him for looking like a simp. Not that he was one to talk, he spoiled you, checking your online shopping search history to find you a surprise gift, bringing your favorite meal without being prompted, massaging your shoulders after a long day, pampering you in any way possible. He never really spoke too often about his feelings, but his actions were loud enough for you. You leaned down, the ghost of a kiss over his nose and forehead, but before you could lean away to leave him alone, strong arms wrapped around your waist, trapping you with no chance of escape. His head buried itself into your neck leaving a soft kiss before mumbling something about joining him in sleeping.

“Well, good evening to you too SunaRin.” He lightly chuckled at your nickname for him, remembering your explanation the first time he heard it years ago, ‘it just rolls off the tongue SunaRin!’, and nuzzled closer to you, breathing in your scent. “Are you hungry? Because I forgot to stop for food on my way home.”

He lifted his head enough for you to hear, “Not really, but I will be soon. What do you want?”

Mumbling an ‘I don’t know’, it was your turn to cuddle closer to him, warm breath over his neck making his heart speed up ever so slightly (it used to speed up a lot whenever you were near, but constant exposure helped his heart relax).

He sat up, taking you with him, asking “Dumplings?” already knowing you would say yes to that. “Go shower, I’ll call the place.” 

“Are you telling me i’m stinky?” 

A light snort filled the space between you two, him rolling his eyes, and you with a mischievous grin “You know what I mean, now go shower.” 

An hour later the two of you were back on the couch, in your comfiest clothes, with a spread of your favorite dumplings and other sides on the coffee table. Finishing to chew your food, you said “Thank you for the food honey.” and pressed a kiss to his shoulder.

He kissed the crown of your head, “I’ll buy you dumplings any time you want.”  A beat passes, “What were you out buying earlier?”

“It's my cousin’s birthday next week, we’re going to the party remember?” His eyes narrowed but let out a hum in affirmation as he remembered you mentioning it a while ago, “She really likes Lego sets, so I got her one Aunty said she’s been wanting, wanna see?” You had already gotten up from the couch, so he was going to see it whether he wanted too or not. Going to the bags left in the entryway, you pulled out the Lego Star Wars box and Rintaro’s face lit up.

“Wait is that the new one? That like, just came out?” His eyes widened.

“Yeah, the store had a lot of them.”

You handed him the box for a closer look, “Babe, can we PLEASE build it.”

As amusing as his cute expression was, you placed a hand back on the box, “Taro, it’s not for you, its for my-”

“I know, but you said the store had a lot, I’ll even go with you tomorrow to get another.” He looked like he was ready to get on his knees and really beg. You narrowed your eyes, and crossed your arms. He would never beg about anything, not even his beloved chuupet.

“Keep going.”

An exasperated look took over his face for a split second, but he took a deep breath, got on his knees, and did his best Puss in Boots impression, tilting his eyebrows up, eyes widening, and a cute pout on his lips, “Pleeease? I’ll give you a massage anytime you want?”

“You already do that.”

“I’ll clean the bathroom for two weeks? Please?” 

He would never willingly clean the bathroom, so you savored the moment before responding with a sigh, “Make it four and you pay for the new one, then you have a deal.” He cheered in celebration, getting up giving you a tight hug and messy kiss on the cheek before diving into the box. You chuckled and cleared the table before joining him in building the set.

The set was finished a few hours later, the two of you admired your work slumped on the couch together. You lay your head on his shoulder, lightly yawning while he wrapped his arms around you, resting his head on yours.

“Thanks for letting me steal your cousin’s present.”

“Well when you beg and offer to clean the bathroom, how can I say no?”

He grumbled softly, but pressed a kiss to your head. “Wanna go to bed and do… stuff?” you could practically hear his eyebrows wiggling suggestively.

“If by stuff you mean cuddling, then yes.”

“Of course I meant cuddling, who do you think I am, some kind of heathen?”

“With the way your dirty clothes always miss the laundry basket? Yeah.”

He got up, pulling you with him and mumbled, “Really comin for my neck with that one huh?” you could only giggle lightly in response. When you two had gotten into bed, he lay on his back, with you cuddled against his chest, breaths moving in time together. Thinking you were asleep, Rintaro pulled you closer to him, saying I love you. Grinning when he heard you respond with an I love you too. 

Extra:

The two of you were shocked in the store the next day, they were sold out of that set when there had been plenty the day before, and they wouldn’t get a new shipment till after the birthday party.

Not that you told Rin, but you definitely filmed him on his knees apologising to the 10 year old birthday girl at her party for stealing her present.

A/N: Hope y'all liked it!!! leave a kudos or comment if you liked it!!! if you didnt like it, u can tell me in a comment or ask, im a big girl

[peterpumpkinparker]

Shatter Me- Peter Parker x Starks Daughter! Reader

After the death of your father by the hands of Thanos, you are more than determined to risk everything to get the life you had before the Snap

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Hey lovelies! I’m so sorry it’s been so long since a story-I’ve just been so busy and hecktic with life! But hopefully I’ll be able to post more with summer vacation ☺️

Genre: Angst

Warning: mild cussing, some mentions of depression (not much, just some actions/ symptoms describe depression)

AU: Infinity War (but instead of Peter dying, Stark does)

Word Count: 2300

Also-sorry if this has wierd spacing, the mobile app of Tumblr is NOT enjoyable to use when trying to post a fic

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“Almost got it,” you mumbled, your mind completely overtaken on the task at hand. Your hands were sore and raw from working with the rough metal, the wires scratching your fingers, but you didn't cared.You didn’t care that you hadn’t eaten since yesterday. You didn’t care that you hadn’t talked to your friends, or your boyfriend Peter, in a month. You didn't care that you felt empty inside. That you had no life after what happened. That almost everything you loved was gone. Just getting it all back was what mattered to you.

You worked tirelessly in your dad’s old workshop, the Iron Man suits and parts laid around like he had last left it. It was yours now- well, until you got him back. All of them back.

The metal arm you were working on was almost complete, the exoskeleton reflecting your tired face. The dark circles around your eyes made you turn away, hating the world for giving you this momentous pain that you had to fix. The remaining Avengers had told you countless times that if you ever needed help, that they were there for you, that if you needed anything all you had to do was give them a call and they would show up. But what you really needed was your father-nobody could give you that except the monster that took it away from you.

And you knew they wouldn't help you with your plan try to defeat Thanos- you knew it was suicide to go on your own to defeat him- but you had to to at least try.

You continued to tinker on, not noticing the worried boy in the doorway. Peter stared at your arched back, your exhausted face, and wondered how he was going to even talk to you. Even though you and Peter were dating, you haven't called or seen him in weeks, and he just thought that maybe you were dealing with stuff beyond his control. Everyone mourns differently, he was dealing with it himself, but- he didnt realize it was this bad when Cap called him in. Now as he looked at you, he felt like he was staring at stranger; the snarky, smiling girl he once knew was seemingly lost in the ocean of grief she was quietly drowning in.

He knocked on the glass door, leaning on his shoulder to make it seem he was relaxed, but the clench in his jaw said otherwise.

Your head shot up, annoyance first riddled in you- but instantly disappearing once you realized Peter was the one that broke your concentration.

You brushed your hair out of the way, realizing you haven't washed it in a while.

“Hey,” you greeted aloud, your voice crackling a little from not using it in a while.

“Hey,” Peter repeated back. An awkward silence filled the room as you fumbled to tie up your hair in a quick bun. “Mind if I sit?” he asked, wondering how long you had been in here.

You shrugged your shoulders, and tried avoiding his gaze by inspecting a little bolt next to you.

Peter pulled up a chair next to you. “How are you holding up?” he asked, his voice laced with concern.

You shrugged again. Saying too much would make him scared- too little would do the same thing. “Not amazing,” you sighed, “but nobody really is after what happened.”

Peter stared down at his hands. “That's true.”

Another awkward pause filled the air. You hated this. All of this. Everything was going great before- you and Peter had just started dating, and you guys had the best relationship ever. Stark was completely fine with it, even though he acted like he was super protective, you being his daughter. You guys were inseparable, always together, always able to tell each other anything and everything. Now, you couldn't even look at each other without feeling awkward, without feeling like you were back to Square 1. Everything just seemed so backward and messed up now, it was hard to wrap your head around fixing it. But you had to.

You turned away from Peter, putting in the last few bits and pieces into the metal arm. It was a crude weapon, built off of one of the unfinished inventions of your dad’s.

Peter began to look around the room, the awkwardness making him worry more. You used to be so bubbly and full of life, but now you had drawn into yourself, a shell of who you were. Peter didn't know how to bring you back out.

He looked around the workshop, noticing the disarray. There were objects everywhere, broken parts scattered on the floor, a makeshift bed in the corner, notes and paper strewn on different tables. He passed a desk, noticing the writing on the paper as yours. He picked it up, glancing up to see if you were watching. You were so intent in your thoughts, you didn't even notice Peter’s body leaving your side. He tentatively looked back at paper and at the words, the gibberious making him confused- all it talked about was about some weapon and the parts it needed. He turned the page, watching again to see if you were paying attention to him sneaking in your belongings before he looked. Once Peter finally looked down, he felt his heart sink- you had drafted up a replica of an Iron Man suit, with notes on the side for space travel. He looked at the notes in confusion, wondering why you would be go into space, until it hit him- your quiet moodiness, your concentration for building, your absence in any type of life outside you dad’s workshop. He realized you wanted revenge on your dad’s death.

He looked around, his heart beating frantically. Being Stark’s daughter, you were incredibly smart, so he didn't put it past you to make an Iron Man Suit, no less finish it in a month. He set down the paper as if it were a bomb about to ignite, and turned around, trying to see if you had finished the suit and left it somewhere. He had to see it for himself-he couldn’t believe that you would risk yourself so dangerously like this.

He began to walk again, looking for anything that resembled your drawing, until he came upon a tall object draped over with a brown tarp in a dimly light part of the workshop.

You looked up, the sound of Peter’s footsteps beginning to echo, which made your nerves tingle in annoyance. You loved Peter, you truly did, but right now, he was ruining valuable progress and wasting precious time. You watched him walk around the lab. You hoped that he didn’t realize what you were planning, and you lied to yourself that he didn’t. But deep down, you knew your deep connection with him was still there-he figured it all out before you even said a word.

You kept watching him, sadness turning into horror as you helplessly sat and watched as he raised a corner of the tarp-the tarp that hide your massive plan-and began to yell at him to stop. Instead, he ripped it off to reveal what you had been working on- a crude version of a Iron Man suit.

“Holy crap,” Peter breathed out in shock, his eyes wide as he looked at your guilty face.

He looked between you and the suit. “Did you…?” he asked hesitantly, pointing at it.

“I didn't exactly build it,” you said, answering his question sheeplessly. “They’re pieces of my Dad’s suits that he never really finished. I just pieced them together to make,” you raised your hand at your creation, “this.” Your hand came down, slapping your outer thigh,the sound ringing in the silence as Peter gawked and you sat back wearily,waiting for his reaction.

He swallowed, looking back at your creation. “So does it really work like an Iron Man suit?” He didn't want to ask you straight out your plans, because he didn't want you getting angry at him for snooping in your things. But leading you to saying it sounded a little better than being blunt at that moment.

“I dont know for sure,” you explained, your hands shaking, “but it should. I've learned enough from my dad just watching him make his suits. It took me forever though, and it's definitely not like his suits- its not as sturdy, but it should be okay if the power source is not tampered with. If thats broken,” you laughed sarcastically, “all hell breaks loose in it.”

“How do you know that?” he asked curiously, his arms folding in front of them stiffly.

“Well,” you smiled a little, “ I tried to readjust the router through the chest on time- thats were it at- and I got shot across the room like a rag doll.”

You two laughed, it being a little forced, but the air felt so strange that any type of dry humor was appreciated. You guys felt like total strangers, yet you knew each other’s secrets- Peter being a superhero, you at the moment, building a massively technological machine under cover for the past month.

But after the little bit of light heartedness it went back to tension and awkwardness.

Peter stuffed his hands into his pockets. “This is really- intuitive- and amazing y/n,” he smiled with concern, “but why?”

You sighed, dreading the question you knew he would ask. You looked down into your lap, rubbing the red mark on your thigh.

“My father died Peter. And almost everyone he knew, and I knew, are gone.Nobody has tried to do anything. Everyone's giving up. And nobody wants to try to fix this mess except me. So this is how I'm going to fix it”

Peter listened to you, scared at what you said. He was hoping that maybe this was a joke, that you werent really planning to go out and get revenge, but you were. Peter stared at you, trying to read your emotions. He had never seen you like this- so low yet so determined at the same time- and he was worried for you. terrified.

“What are you planning y/n?” he asked, his brown eyes boring into yours.

You looked back at your work table. “Nothing, Peter.”

‘Its doesnt look like nothing, though.”

“It's nothing.” you said with force, frustration spilling out.

“If you don't tell me y/n, Im going to tell the Avengers.”

“Like they care!” you spat angrily at him. “Like they ever cared! Ive been down here for God knows how long, trying to get back the life I had, trying to fix everything, and they havent done jack shit”

You knew everything you were saying was false and wrong. Natasha had been the one bringing you food and made you the make shift bed you sleep and eat in. Steve came to ask if you needed to talk every Friday without fail. Rhodey gave you the news that your father died, and gave Peoper and you his mask-and hugged you as you cried from the shock of losing your father. They did care and they were trying-it just felt good to yell at something, anything. You were angry that you didn’t have your father, and you were impatient for everything to be back as it was.

You shook your head, anger raditating off your body.

“Absolutely nothing! they haven't figured out a damn plan either. And if they had, they haven't let me in the loop.”

“Y/n their going to fix this,” Peter tried to reason.

“No. I'm going to fix this.”

Peter stared at you in disbelief, not really knowing you anymore. You were never this lost in your own head. He understood you were going through a lot of pain, but going after Thanos was usicide.

Peter stared at the contraption, contemplating what to do.

“Nobody has thought of a new plan,” you continued, “it's time for a change. Im sick of waking up every morning, and realizing everyone is gone. Im sick of waking up and feeling guilty- Like I couldve done something.”

“ I shouldve done something.” you said, almost saying it to yourself.

Peter felt empathy swarming his body. How could he tell you he felt the same way?

“But, y/n- you couldn't have done anything that day. None of us could- we all tried our best.”

“Really?” you countered angrily. “I did shit- I literally stayed home and watch my dad fly onto that weird spaceship. I watched you leave. Did I leave? No. You know why?

Tears began to brim in your eyes, your lids binking rapidly to hold them back.

“You know why?” you repeated, your tone getting smaller as your voice cracked, “because I was scared. You breathed out heavily, letting that new realization hit you like a ton of bricks. You didn’t want to admit this to yourself, but it was true to you. The day Thanos and his warriors came, you stayed back. The one time your dad yelled at you to stay back, you listened. You never listened to your dad-you always were the first to fly in and help save the day. But the one time your dad truly needed you, the one time the whole universe needed help, you didn’t do that. Seeing those aliens and that ships freaked you out- you were terrified you’d actually lose your life that time. And because of that, you didn’t die-but your dad was gone. You worked tirelessly every day to keep that evil secret away from your mind because it was too hard to come face to face with-now you had to work to fix that fatal mistake.

“I was scared because I had no idea what to do. I wanted to help, but I was too selfish about my own safety. I could have grabbed one of my Dads suits. I couldve flew up there with you guys. I could've helped. But I didn't.”

You looked up shaking your head, your lips pursed as you tred to will your body to hold back the tears.

Peter walked to you, his arms open and welcoming, but his expression full of pain. Every day he felt the same pain- that he could’ve done something more to save everyone he loved. It was the worst pain he ever felt in his life- it ate his insides, anytime it was quiet, anytime he allowed himself to relax; that guilt and sorrow and hate for his actions at that time ate his insides until he felt like screaming. Some days were better than others, and he'd been learning to cope with it. But he just never realized you were dealing with the same thing. And so much of it.

You looked at Peter, your lips quivering as a single tear spilled onto your cheeks. You looked down at your hands, terrified that talking more to Peter would make you break down. You had broken down so much in the last month that you thought that one more would destroy you.

Peter knelt down, eye level to you, sweeping the hair out of your face that was curtaining off your tear stained cheeks.

“Its okay, y/n,” peter said softly, “Youre okay.”

You looked up, your eyes full of pain. You shook your head, chuckling sarcastically as your smile quivered.

“Im not,” you whispered out of your throat, your voice tight with the effort of keeping yourself together. To not cry. To not show that life was really messing you up right now.

Peter wrapped his arms around you, the purity of the embrace and the warmth of his body making your shoulders shudder harder, your hiccups louder, your heart hurt more and less at the same time as you wrapped your arms around him. The waves of tears wracked your body,one after aother, the pain making you hurt. You grabbed the back of his shirt, the fabric balled up into your fist as you let all your emotions leave your body.

‘Its okay y/n,” Peter whispered, his voice low and soothing, “eveyrthing’s going to be okay. I know you wont believe me right now, but- youre going to be okay.”

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Requests open! If you’d like, Check the blurb list and send me a # and I’ll do your request as soon as possible!

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@just4muggles

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Happy a great night (or day) lovelies! I’ll see you in the next fic ❤️

[happyorogeny]

The Investment

(~2000 words)(Jarlaxle, Artemis Enteri, background drow)(tw racism, xenophobia, drow-typical sexism, needle mention, torture mention.)

Jarlaxle hadn’t managed to survive so long and build the Underdarks most notorious mercenary organisation by allowing preventable social problems to grow underfoot. He had long ago realised that the High Priestesses didn’t want drow to cooperate. Particularly not the men. Cooperation led to the construction of social units beyond the family, led to power and influence that they couldn’t directly control.

Artemis and his men were not getting along.

That was to be expected. In a way he had put a great burden on his poor abbil, to show his drow how an unbroken human behaved and acted, that he was their match in many ways. To have them learn to doubt. If humans weren’t necessarily so weak and inferior, what else in their world was worth questioning?

But unfortunately, such change took time. Not everyone was quite as adaptable as Jarlaxle was, as he had had to be. Change felt like chaos and so they resisted it. So much of drow society and philosophy rested on the concept of solidity and tradition. Indeed, hadn’t they been thrown out of the feywild because they’d demanded a measure of continuity and stability from Corellon? Hadn’t they had to carve themselves a place in this world instead? Yes indeed, drow had never had anything, had never been given anything aside from what they could take for themselves by force. If they allowed chaos to fester, if they allowed change and the instability that came with it, they would be destroyed.

Jarlaxle had sat through such sermons often, listened to young priestesses preaching to passersby in the low city. He wondered about it in idle moments. All good lies had truth in them. Just how much and just what parts, now, that was the whole trick of it.

Let them have their tricks, for he had his own. Men didn’t run houses, except that the Bregan D’aerthe were basically a house and everyone knew it. Folk stepping outside their role in society would be struck down, except that he hadn’t been yet. Drow didn’t work with lesser races, except now Artemis was here and the match of half his men.

Change took time. Time ought to be the one thing an elf had in abundance, but that didn’t hold true for drow and especially not for him. Change was painful, particularly for those who brought it. Including Artemis, who didn’t seem to realise quite how much of a marvel he was down here. Who would probably stab him on the spot if Jarlaxle suggested that he was an ambassador for the betterment of all mankind.  

And so he was delighted to see his office door had been tampered with. Very subtle work, too. Artemis had broken in and taken the earring. Wonderful!

He set his hat on the back of his chair and settled down into his chair, stretching out his back with a satisfying pop. The day had been tiresome indeed. Payment negotiations were tedious and House Matrons were very inclined to try and shortchange him. He had been sure to make friends with the lower men of the house, and one of them was close with the daughter-treasurer. The house had the money. They didn’t always pay willingly, but they did pay. Eventually. Not the clients he would have chosen, but work had been slow of late.

That led to trouble. Many of his men held other jobs- couriers, bodyguards, entertainers and consorts- and he had bade his battlemasters hold extra training sessions. But even with that the Bregan D’aerthe had an excess of free time on their hands. That was always dangerous. His men made their own entertainment and so many of them were stunted by their upbringing. A drow, frustrated and bored, would take out their annoyance on whomever they perceived to be lower than them. It caused issues with social cohesion, wearing away the tentative bonds forming amongst his men. It lead to splinter groups and rival mercenary factions. He would not have it, not when he had worked so hard to bring near every sellsword in the Underdark under his control.

And poor Artemis, well. Drow society marinated its citizens in superiority and xenophobia. They couldn’t conceive of a human amongst them that wasn’t a slave. Never mind one that outstripped them in many areas, one that Jarlaxle valued as much as he did anyone else.

And so it had become a common and mean-spirited game to needle Artemis, speaking around him in rapid-fire undercommon that he couldn’t quite understand, throwing stones and darts into whatever little crevice he slept in, poking fun at the size and shape of his ears.

Little cruelties that built into something dangerous. Last week, a group of five had decided to flush him out of his usual haunts, the abandoned rooms and quiet corridors. It had taken them half a day, but by sheer force of numbers they had succeeded in bullying him out into the main thoroughfares and cornering him in a side room. Jarlaxle wasn’t quite sure what they had ultimately intended. It would mean very little to them, to decide to kill some upstart human. Alternately, they might well have decided that frightening him was enough.

What they had intended didn’t matter. Finding himself backed into a corner and outnumbered, Artemis had killed three of them and taken two very dangerous injuries. Only the intervention of some older mercenaries, irritated by the noise, had prevented things taking an even more lethal turn. The onlooking crowd had considered this great amusement by all accounts, taking bets on who they thought likely to win.

Artemis had promptly caused great financial loss for many of them by hunting down one of his tormenters and killing him in the tunnels. The fifth bully, being semi-sensible, had taken a reconnaissance mission to the surface that would render him unreachable for several months.

His men had killed each other before. Of course they had. But over time, over hard won experience he found the bulk of such deaths to be preventable. But he preferred to reduce the chances. Much as Artemis was an interesting whittling mechanism for the stupid amongst them, it seemed a time-consuming strategy and a waste of a valuable asset.

And it wore a person down, to be considered so low and worthless despite all their skill and all their cleverness. Artemis didnt care what folk thought of him- he couldnt afford to- but been surrounded by constant dismissal...well. Jarlaxle remembered it. Remembered being an amusement at best.

Thus he had presented Artemis with a darksight earring, framing it as a strict investment on his own part. Artemis was already skilled enough in surveillance and stealth to match and even outstrip some of the drow. An aid to allow him to see as they did was the next logical step. Why have one of his better operatives run around half blind?

Better yet, it would stop a repeat incindent. Artemis had already killed those who irritated him. Now that he could see them coming and had proved himself almost drow-like in his ferocity, all but the most hostile conservatives would be disinclined to actively attack him. After all, that greater shame than to be killed by a human?

Artemis had refused point blank to take it. Much as Jarlaxle had expected. Rewards and gifts were all too often vectors of control and obligation. And so the box and its contents had remained on carved edge of Jarlaxle’s ironwood bureau, small and dark and velvet, while Artemis decided what to do. All of it took time, time where Jarlaxle bustled around the undercity and sent out his more socially inclined underlings in search of work. He had no intention whatsoever of allowing these violent delights to grow entirely out of his control.

And why not invest in a new lock in the meantime? Something large and ominous and magically warded. Something that looked like a headache to break. Something that looked like a challenge. Jarlaxle himself, had he been confronted with such a thing, would have deemed lockpicking a waste of time and gone in through the nearest window.

But Artemis was clearly pining for an opportunity to challenge himself, perhaps remind himself that the drow were wrong about him. He had spent the last ten days studying the new lock from a distance, sitting proudly on the fungalwood door into his office. Fungalwood doors could be charmed to swallow up the lock if they sensed an intruder trying to pick their way in. Drow didn’t tend to have wooden furnishings. Trees were rare in the darkness. Only the blood orchards bore any kind of wood at all, and all of that tended to stain a nasty shade of brown over time. Instead they grew their furniture from larger, more solid variations of the very same mushrooms that made up their everyday diet.

Artemis was clearly very light of touch, for the edge of his desk was completely empty. He considered returning the lock to its creator, telling her that an untrained human had broken through in under five hours. The thought of her expression made him grin.

Quick footsteps in the hallway outside had him palming a dagger, but it was only Scrap that appeared in his doorway. A young courier with long white hair twisted into a braid, a group of Jarlaxle’s street runners had discovered him half-dead in the gutters of the lower city and immediately dragged him back to Jarlaxle, proud of their find. Jarlaxle suspected the commoner had been grabbed off the streets by some noble house, to teach their young the finer arts of torture. He hadn’t spoken aloud since his recovery and communicated entirely in handspeak.

“Artemis is bleeding.” He was one of the few to refer to the human by name. “He did something to his ear with a needle and an icecube.”

Overworlders had a haphazard approach to many things, including piercings. The icecube was a traditional method from what Jarlaxle understood, though his ears ached at the thought. He had been most careful with his earrings, so as not to lose any sensitivity.

“Come, tell me where your message-running brings you. Any hint of dueling matrons or a nice house war?” Message runners knew more about the politics of the underdark than folk tended to realise. And Jarlaxle could discern much from where messages went and how many there were and the various wards and runes placed upon them.

“But the human. Won’t he die?”

Oh, that old nonsense. It was taught to young drow that overworlders were so weak a single scratch would kill them. Which wasn’t strictly a lie, if the blade was poisoned. In all lies linger the truth.

“Don’t you worry about our human consultant, he’ll be up and about in no time.” He plucked a bottle of mushroom wine from under his desk. A passive-aggressive gift from a priestess who knew he hated the stuff. “Drink?”

Artemis took full advantage of his new skill in the following weeks, testing it against the utter darkness that prevailed in the upper reaches of the fortress and squinting down into the clawrift. Indeed it became a brief and much more light hearted game to try and sneak up on him out of the darkness, only to be spotted and cursed at. A human that could see like a drow! What fun.

“Artemis, darling. Please don’t teach my men to swear.”

And he couldn’t deny that he had been looking forwards to this moment just a little, as Artemis turned to scowl at him. Colour looked very different in darksight, and so did drow. Drow women tended towards complete inky darkness, pure and clear in its depth of colour. But the men often had a subtle sheen to them of midnight blue or deep indigo or a rich green. And Jarlaxle was lucky enough to show all three, purple highlights across his shoulders and collarbones, blue on his chest and stomach, green on his hands and legs.

Artemis had never quite seen him like this before, which was surely why he stared.

“You look like a magpie.”

“A magpie?” Whatever that was, it had to be a handsome creature indeed.

“A flashy bird that steals anything shiny and makes all manner of noise.”

“Why, they sound quite marvelous! Now, I have a fine little rescue mission here, two houses scrapping kidnapping one another’s family members for ransom...”

[trulymj]

65 Questions You Aren't Used To

I pretended it was myspace and just filled this out in it’s entirety. cool.  1. Do you ever doubt the existence of others than you? -Nah man, I could but it wouldn’t do anything but increase my anxiety levels so I’ll just avoid thinking about it like I do with most things. 

2. On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you? -Like a 2? Depends a lot if Im alone in the house or not.

3. The person you would never want to meet? -The person who would answer this question with my name probably. 

4. What is your favorite word? - Im cheating its a phrase “l’appel du vide,” that feeling you get when you’re driving and you just think “I could jerk my wheel and ram into that barrier..” but don’t. 

5. If you were a type of tree, what would you be? I’d like to think I would be a great big old willow tree where people have first kisses under in August because Summer is ending.

6. When you looked in the mirror this morning what was the first thing you thought? -Damn, I forgot to take off my make-up

7. What shirt are you wearing? -A black cami tank top

8. What do you label yourself as? -I don’t really? A loving person I guess?

9. Bright room or dark room? -Dark room, alwayssss. 

10. What were you doing at midnight last night? - in bed..watching The Office and trying to sleep. 

11. Favorite age you’ve been so far? 26 was really great...but this year has been amazing in its own right. 

12. Who told you they loved you last? -My man via ship email because he’s floating in the middle of the ocean somewhere. 

13. Your worst enemy? -Procrastination and avoidance.

14. What is your current desktop picture? -Some cool night sky shit with a tent in the foreground

15. Do you like someone? -Probably the guy I married...just a little bit though.

16. The last song you listened to? -Baby it’s cold outside. I was wrapping presents and enjoying myself man, don’t judge. 

17. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up? -Probably a child rapist

18. Who would you really like to just punch in the face? -Myself sometimes, but no one really. Not my style. 

19. If anyone could be your slave for a day, who would it be and what would they have to do? -This is too kinky for tumblr now.

20. What is your best physical attribute? (showing said attribute is optional) - my right nostril, it resembles a bean which is cool.

21. If you were the opposite sex for one day, what would you look like and what would you do? -Probably just do a lot of that helicopter dick thing that guys do...or and finally figure out what it’s like to stick your dick in stuff because I’m so curious. I’d spend most of the day trying to get a BJ I think. I guess just as hot as possible to increase my chances of getting said BJ?

22. Do you have a secret talent? If yes, what is it? -Nah I dont think so...maybe like talking to people?

23. What is one unique thing you’re afraid of? -Escalators. 

24. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your disposal. -Oven Roasted turkey, thick ass bacon, tomato, tons of avocado, a layer of clover sprouts, some jersey style cherry pepper relish, oil and vin. Damn that sounds good. 

25. You just found $100! How are you going to spend it? -Rainy day fund mang. Responsibilities and shit. 

26. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere in the world, but you have to leave immediately. Where are you going to go? - Iceland, a bitch is trying to see the northern lights. 

27. An angel appears out of Heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. “Be brand-specific” it says. Man! What are you gonna say about that? Even if you don’t drink booze there’s something you can figure out… so what’s it gonna be? - Laphroaig 31 year please and thanks. 

28. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place? - Don’t be a dick.

29. What is your favorite expletive? - Fucker

30. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the one thing you’re going to save from that blazing inferno? - My Moms ring

31. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? Probably getting molested on that plane when I was 9. I didn’t grow from it so it’d just be cool not to ever think about randomly. 

32. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can move to anywhere else in the world! - Mexico so I’m close to home I guess.

33. The Celestial Gates Of Beyond have opened, much to your surprise because you didn’t think such a thing existed. Death appears. As it turns out, Death is actually a pretty cool entity, and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family-member/person/etc. of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back? - This is weird to think about...next...

34. What was your last dream about? Jesse and I were doing something...Don’t remember what though? we were at a party I think. 

35. Are you a good….[insert anything you’d like here]? Listener? Sometimes. Usually. 

36. Have you ever been admitted to the hospital? Nope. 

37. Have you ever built a snowman? Yes but it was only like a foot tall

38. What is the color of your socks? Flesh socks...aka no socks.

39. What type of music do you like? The good kind.

40. Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets? Sunrises feel more serene.

41. What is your favorite milkshake flavor? Oreo duhhhhh

42. What football team do you support? (I will answer in terms of American football as well as soccer) IDFWU

43. Do you have any scars? emotional or physical? short answer, yes. 

44. What do you want to be when you graduate? Happy

45. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? - My ability to start shit.

46. Are you reliable? Depends on what for? Money, no. advice yes, being on time yes, helping you keep up a lie, no. 

47. If you could ask your future self one question, what would it be? Did it all work out?

48. Do you hold grudges? Not really, just remember and take mental notes. 

49. If you could breed two animals together to defy the laws of nature, what new animal would you create? A dogs personality in the size of a rat. 

50. What is the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had? - The conversation I had with Jesse on the steps of a catholic church at 3am in San Francisco when we were both drunk. 

51. Are you a good liar? Nahhh. 

52. How long could you go without talking? not long at all. 

53. What has been you worst haircut/style? The triangle haircut I had freshman year of highschool. Bitches didnt know about curls apparently. 

54. Have you ever baked your own cake? Like for my own birthday? No. But for other peoples, all the time.

55. Can you do any accents other than your own? Southern and British. 

56. What do you like on your toast? Copious amounts of kerrygold butter. 

57. What is the last thing you drew a picture of? A christmas tree two days ago. 

58. What would be your dream car? -new: Subaru Crosstrek, blacked the fuck out.  -Classic: 67 Corvette Stingray, black outside, burgundy inside. 

59. Do you sing in the shower? Or do anything unusual in the shower? Explain. Rarely sing...usually watch scientific youtube shows...

60. Do you believe in aliens? I don’t think they’ve visited us but there’s other life out there. 

61. Do you often read your horoscope? -When its easy, yes, but I dont go out of my way. 

62. What is your favorite letter of the alphabet? Z I guess. 

63. Which is cooler: dinosaurs or dragons? Dinos, them bitches were reallll. 

64. What do you think about babies? They’re expensive, poopy, cry-y sacks of flesh that don’t sleep and I want one. 

65. Freebie! Ask anything interesting you can think of. I don’t know what to ask myself so bye. 

[buginabog]

We're All Monsters Here

Summary: Thomas goes into the forest on a dare, he doesn't exactly mind.

Pairing: royality, analogical, remas

Trigger Warning: implied suicidal intentions

Note: Remy is nb, because I can.

"Ok, truth or dare?" Thomas thought, "dare." Remy smiled deviously, "go into the forest." "What forest?" Remy giggled, "THE forest." Thomas shook his head, "no, nonononono. Absolutely not, do I LOOK like I want to die?" Remy smiled, "oh come on, what's the worst that could happen?" "The legends could be real." Remy rolled their eyes, "gurl, that's about as likely as me going a day without coffee." Thomas grimaced, "fine! Get in the car." Remy smiled as they jumped up, "dont mind if I do."

The car stopped, "alright, are you going with me?" They laughed, "sorry hun, but it's your dare." "Admit it, you're scared." "No, I just dont wanna go in!" "Suuuuuure"

Thomas walked in, "this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid" he shone the flashlight back and forth, "nothing so far." He walked further, and all.of a sudden, his cars headlights went off. "Remy! Did you cut the lights!" He walked back in the direction of the car, and he walked, and walked, and walked. "No way I walked THAT far from the car." "No, you're just another one of the Unlucky." Thomas jumped around to see, nothing? "Up here genius." Thomas looked up to see a winged human figure, "hey, I'm Anx." "That's an odd name." Anx landed on the ground in front of him, "I'm an odd person." "What do you mean I'm one of the Unlucky?" "You walked into the Night Forest, terrible place, I'd tell you to leave if you could." "If I could?" Anx looked at him funny, "didnt you know? You're here for a reason, you cant leave until you figure out what it was." He looked at the sky, "we better go, Morning Light will be soon, no monster can be out during that time." Thomas nodded.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, before Thomas asked a, probably rude, question, "what...are you?" "Dragon." "A..dragon? Then why aren't you-" "a hideous beast covered in scales and breathing fire? Those aren't dragons. They're something worse." Thomas nodded, "good to know."

"We have to help him, he might be in danger!" "I dunno kiddo, he looks harmless." "All dragons look harmless, doesn't mean they are!" "I agree with Patton on this one, Roman, he poses no danger to that human," "but we have to help him before he-" "changes?" "Yes."

Anx stopped, and held out an arm in front of Thomas, "I hear something." He jumped into the bushes, "ow!" Anx walked out, growling, holding a pouting person by the collar of his cape. "What the hell vamp?" The vampire growled, "I only wished to protect the human!" "Ok princey, and that's different than what I'm doing because....?" The vampire pouted, ".... its not." A transparent human, a ghost? Walked out of the bushes, "you dramatic imbicile! Leave the dragon alone!" Vampire growled, "but-" he was interrupted by a fatherly voice, "now kiddo, hes not evil, those are dragon WITCHES, not dragons." "Ok pat." Pat smiled, "I'm Patton, the ghost is Logan, and the vampire is roman!" Thomas nodded, "ok. Well, I'm gonna go process all of this, I'll be back in an hour." Anx grabbed him, "no time, it's almost Morning Light." Roman looked at the sky, shocked, "shit! We're too far from our house to get back there, can we stay at yours, please?" Anx growled, "if your highness has no issue with staying in a cave." Roman grimaced, "fine."

The silent group trekked through the forest, Patton riding on Roman's back. "Moon sickness," he explained, "the full moons in two nights, so I'm feeling ill." Roman kissed him, "but I will carry you until you once again feel vigilant my prince!" Anx rolled his eyes and made a gagging sound. They made it to Anx's cave, "THIS is what you call a cave! Do you think of a castle as a hovel then!" "No, but it is built out of a cave after years of collecting and building." Roman blushed white, "sorry." They entered, "alright, before I send all of you off to separate obscure corners of my house, do any of you need anything?" "Food." "Blood" "wolvesbane." "Isnt that-" "poisonous to werewolves? Only in wolf form. In human form it can help with moon sickness symptoms." "Oh, that makes sense."

After Thomas had his food and water, roman had his blood, and Patton had his wolvesbane and had been carried off to bed by Roman. Anx and Logan sat quietly in the living room, "so, what are you going to do?" Anx spread his wings around the chair and leaned back, "I'm taking him to Emile." Logan nodded, "that might be satisfactory." They sat in silence. "Are you cold?" Logan smiled and shook his head, "Virgil, I've forgotten what cold feels like." Virgil blushed purple, "right, sorry. I am though, cold." He breathed a small flame into the fireplace, "lo," "yes?" "Why is Roman adamant on the idea that I'm....evil?" Logan thought, "it may be because you were with deceit back then, and he no longer trusts you." "But I've put deceit behind me! Why can't he realize that!" Logan rested his cold, cold hand atop of virgil's, "he will, with time." Virgil rested his head in his clawed hands, "virgil, your claws are out, why?" "I couldn't...help you. Get you out of the forest in time. And I'm sorry" "virgil, I told you, I wasn't leaving this nightmare unless you could too." Virgils claws retracted, and he smiled up at Logan, "thanks Logan." Logan rose from his chair and started off, "I will see you in the morning." Virgil smiled, "yeah, ok."

Thomas yawned and walked into the bathroom, he brushed his teeth and spat out into the sink, he looked at his reflection to see his ears pointed. He ran out of his room and to the dining room, "My ears, they're, they're..." Logan examined them, "pointed, that gives us three options, fairie, elf, or nymph." Thomas looked around, "wait, what do you mean?" Patton and Roman looked anxiously at each other, "if you stay in the forest long enough, you change. Become a creature like the rest of us." Thomas laughed, "but I become human again when I leave, right?" "We dont...know."

Anx shook his head, "I know, I left to see what had become of me, if anyone had cared, but I never made it to the town. There was a barrier at the edge of the woods. It might be different if you find out why you're here." Logan walked toward Anx, arms slightly outstretched as if to give him a hug, but backed off after he looked around. "Well, what's the plan, I have to get back, I cant just stay here the rest of my life, Remy would be devastated, so would my parents, and my friends and and and," he stopped at the cold feeling on his shoulder, "it's alright, Anx will know what to do." Logan nodded at Anx, and Anx smiled back, "alright, the plan is we go to Emile's mountain." "And what's emile?" "A mountain troll, but he's wise, and has managed to stay for centuries without forgetting what being human is like, if anyone can find you're purpose, he can." Roman laughed, "and you expect us to get to his mountain before we each disintegrate! It takes days to get to Emiles mountain," "I have tents genius, we can stay there during Morning Light." "Not to mention the full moon! We'll have to have a day off for Patton to recover." Anx waved a hand, "I have something we can pull Patton in as he recovers." Anx stalked off to gather supplies. "Nice going roman, you annoyed him more than usual this time." Roman scoffed, "no, I was only mentioning worthy worries!" Logan rolled his eyes and floated in Anx's direction.

"Hey." "Not now," "calm down virgil, I'm only here to help." Virgil turned around, "sorry, I'm just... tense." "I understand, Thomas has started to change, the full moons soon, and Roman is antagonizing you. No wonder you're tense." Logan stood in silence for a while, watching Virgil gather supplies, "why didnt you ever tell me?" "Tell you what?" "About your trip out of the Forest?" Virgil shook his head, "it..hurts." he sighed and ran a hand through his hair, "when I went, I saw two of my friends, the only people that I thought cared about me. I hid behind a tree, I was still a dragon, and I wouldn't let them see me like that. And they said, 'poor Virgil, it was only a matter of time'" he stopped to wipe a tear, "they thought I had either killed myself or ran away, and I vowed to myself I would help every Unlucky I could find, because no one deserves to have people in pain because they're stuck in this fucking forest!" He punched the wall, "I just want to help, but that idiot roman thinks I'm a villan." Logan walked towards virgil and hugged him, "so that's it, Virgil, I'm sorry you have to deal with this, but nothing was your fault, Roman stayed because deceit was sabotaging you, Patton because he loved Roman too much to leave him, and I, because I loved you too much to leave you." Virgil hugged Logan back, "but there must have been something I didnt do," "no, you did everything you could, remember that." Virgil wiped at his face, "I'm a monster." Logan smiled, "we're all monsters here."

Logan walked down, and Patton grabbed his arm, "is he ok?" Logan smiled, "hes fine patton, now get some rest, we have a long journey and you're still suffering from moon sickness." Patton grimaced, "about that, can I have some wolvesbane?" Logan smiled, "of course, let me grab some." He came back with a bundle of the flower, "now go sleep."

Patton walked into his and Roman's room, "hey roro?" Roman sat up, "yeah patton?" "Do you think you may have taken it a little to far with Anx?" "No." Patton sat on the bed, "why dont you like him?" "You know deceit?" "The naga that disappeared a few years ago? Yeah, why?" "He was working with him, and they kept me here long enough that I changed. I never forgave them for that." Patton snuggled up to Roman, "you cant hold a grudge against him forever, its not healthy." Roman pouted, "I'm aware, but deceits gone, and I cant blame him now, and it's either blame anx or myself, and I really dont want to hate myself." Patton smiled and kissed romans forehead, "I dont want you to hate yourself either, but I also dont want you hating anx." Roman smiled a little, "I'll try, my heart, now sleep, moon sickness always takes a lot out of you, and we're going on a quest tomorrow." Patton smiled, "ok my prince." Patton was out almost immediately, but Roman stayed awake into the late day.

"OFF TO OUR GREAT QUEST MY FELLOW MONSTERS AND HUMAN!!!!!" Patton sipped from his coffee, "roman, dear, I love you to death, but please be just a little bit quieter?" Roman immediately calmed down, "of course Patton, I'm sorry." There was a flap of wings and Anx landed in the dining room, "hey guys, hurry up, we've got to leave soon if we want to travel a decent distance before Morning Light." Logan nodded, "I'll go get Thomas." He floated up and to Thomas's room.

"Thomas?" Logan called out, "go away!" "Thomas we must leave." "....fine." Thomas exited the bathroom, "let's go."

The group walked, first exchanging jokes and conversation, but soon becoming too tired to do more than trudge through the forest. Finally, Morning Light came, and the exhausted group set down four tents, a purple one for Anx, a dark blue one for Logan, a red and gold one for Roman and Patton, and a green one for Thomas. Thomas, roman, and Patton quickly retired for bed, but Logan and anx sat next to the fire for a while, exchanging quiet chatter, which eventually evolved into a comfortable silence.

The first day was certainly the hardest, Pattons moon sickness slowing them down so much that they had to stop midway through the day, Patton immediately fell asleep and could not be awakened, The group set up camp once again, and awaited the transformation.

That night, all four of them sat anxiously in their tents as Patton howled and screamed, the pain of his change causing him to loose all human reason and morality. As soon as Patton, bloodstained and tired, stumbled back into the clearing, roman rushed out and dragged him back into the tent before Morning Light.

But Thomas's skin had become like wood overnight, and the trees seemed to beckon him, and he spent the day resisting the alluring call of the trees. By this point Logan knew he would become a Dryad if they didn't make it.

On the third day, they had been confronted by several creatures, the worst of which was a dragon witch, Anx had protected them, spreading his fireproof wings as protection. Roman admitted, after this incident, that Anx was not the villain he had previously thought he was.

They finally reached the foot of Emiles mountain. The mountain rumbled, and split, and a smiling personage with rock skin walked out, "Do you how do? I am Emile Picani, and I think all of you have the same question for me." The other four looked Anx, who had become the leader of their medley band of creatures, "we want to know how to go home." He said, looking the troll in the eye.

Emile smiled, "that's easy, each of you has to want to go home." Anx snarled, "I've wanted to go home for years you rocky-" he was interrupted by Emiles peaceful voice, "no, you didnt." He laughed, "you've all forgotten, I'm a wise man, and wise men know everything," he pointed at Virgil, "I know you didnt want to go home because no one missed you," at Logan, "and you thought no one respected you," roman, "and you were lonely and broken," Patton, "and you," he smiled sadly, "went into the forest looking to leave for good." Roman hugged his boyfriend, and wiped the tears threatening to spill. Then Emile pointed at Thomas, "and you wanted to leave, but you had to help them all first." The troll gathered them all in an embrace and then-

Thomas groaned, he was laying on the ground, "was it all a dream?" He whispered, looking around, but he saw four other figures on the ground. A short man wearing a cat hoodie, a coil of rope and a note resting next to him, and a tall, latino man, with a backpack next to him. On his other side was a man in a polo shirt and tie who was clutching the hand of a short man wearing a purple and black hoodie. The four of them woke up, the one in the cat hoodie waking up first and throwing the things next to him in the bushes. The one on the purple and black spoke up first, "are you guys who I think you are?" "I'm thomas." "Roman." "Logan." "Patton." Thomas interrupted the person he was pretty sure was Anx, "so it wasn't a dream, you're all real! And you must be anx" he said, turning to the man in purple and black, the man blushed, "actually, my names virgil." Logan smiled, the he and virgil realized they were still holding hands, Logan began to let go, but Virgil just held on tighter. Patton squealed, "I knew it! Roro, didnt I tell you!" Roman smiled, "yeah, you did." They were all interrupted by a voice yelling, "Thomas! Thomas! THOMAS!" Thomas jumped up, "Remy!" He ran through the bushes, the other four following, until he ran right into his enbyfriend, "remy!" "Thomas! You're alright!" They hugged him, then let go and frowned at him, "dont you EVER do that again, or I will kill you. You were gone for six days! Everyone else had given up! Hell, I was about to give up!" Thomas smiled sheepishly, "sorry, I wont do it again, also, I made some friends." Remy took a step back, "hang on a minute, they aren't serial killers right?" Thomas laughed, "of course not! Guys, come out!" The four walked out, and Remy's jaw dropped in disbelief, "Anx?" Virgil stopped dead, "Remy?"

[arplis]

Arplis - News: How to Keep it Simple with Your Camper Van Conversion

If you have dreams of traveling and camping in a photoshoot-worthy campervan, youre not alone. Lots of people are inspired by the beautiful campervan conversions they see on social media. But do you really need your camper to look like something out of a catalogue? Or do you simply want to live and camp comfortably while traveling?

The reality of converting a van into a campervan is that everything you add has the potential to create more work and more issues when youre on the roadnot to mention the upfront time and money youll need to install every fancy feature you find on Pinterest.

When I bought my GMC Vandura and started living in it part-time, simplicity was my focus. I wanted to seriously downsize my life, so I didnt want to fill my van with too many extras.

The Key to a Successful Campervan Conversion? Keep it Simple.

The van life movement is rooted in minimalism. The VW van-dwellers of the 60s didnt have Pinterest to source ideas from. They lived and camped in their camper vans as a way to escape the confines of too many possessions. And the recent resurgence of van-love, now replete with a hashtag (#vanlife), grew in tandem with the tiny house obsession, along with the idea that less is more. People wanted to reinvent the American Dream, without expensive mortgages and working their lives away to pay the bills. They wanted to get outside more. Mobile living (including tiny homes, vans, RVs etc.) offered a simpler version of comfort, along with mobility, freedom, and low-cost living.

Kelly S. is keeping it simple with her 2002 Chevrolet Express camper van conversion.

But as this alternative lifestyle has turned into mainstream clickbait, the minimalism is sometimes overshadowed by expensive Sprinter van build-outs and elaborate rigs.

Now, dont get me wrong. I love a gorgeously curated interior. I bet you do, too. But the reality is I dont have the budget or the time for all the bells and whistles. And when Im sleeping at campgrounds, I really dont need them. If youre looking to turn your van into a camper van, you might not be interested in the fancy build-outs either.

Whether youre parking at campgrounds or boondocking, you dont have to spend tens of thousands of dollars in converting a van into a camper van.

Lets break down the things you do need in your simple camper van conversion

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Camp fire in the woods

. . . . #campfire #campfirecooking #camplife #camping #campinghacks #adventure_culture #adventureland #adventurers #outdoorliving #gooutdoors #vanlifecamping #vanlifeexplorers #vanlifeproject #welovecamping #Mountkidd #rvparklife #summeradventure #coupleswhocamp #campgoals #campvibes #weliveinavan #modernnomad #modernmillennial #lifeofadventure #twogirlsonevan #exploretheoutdoors #explorers #lesbianswhocamp #gaysinthewoods

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Two Girls One Van

(@two_girls_one_van) on May 30, 2018 at 3:29pm PDT

5 Things to Focus on for a Simpler Campervan Conversion

I spoke to some fellow vanlifers some of them live in their vans full-time, others camp in their vans on weekends to round out my own advice on what you need for a simple van conversion.

M own camper van conversion is a 1986 GMC Vandura. Its old and creaky and slightly unreliable, but (most of the time) I love it, and its perfect for camping.

A Bed

The bed is the foundational difference between a van and a campervan. (Related: once you have a bed in your van, its officially an RV, according to AAA, and youll need their RV coverage if you ever want a tow. I discovered that on the side of the highway in Seattle.)

Ive seen vans with the backseats removed and a mattress thrown in. Ive even seen a hammock strung up inside of a van, which can be easily removed to maximize living space when youre not sleeping.

My van came with a bed that folds into itself to create a bench seat. Its similar to this one, built by @gnomad_home:

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Everyone has been asking us how our couch to bed situation works in our #van! So we decided to make this little #timelapse video for you all to see! Thanks for all the questions and compliments so far, and feel free to keep 'em coming!!

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John

Nymeria

Delilah (@gnomad_home) on Mar 5, 2017 at 12:43pm PST

But I keep mine out like a bed all the time, and find the bed works fine for sitting and occasionally working on my laptop. If I did a camper van conversion myself, I wouldnt bother with the fold-up feature.

The vanlifers behind Two Wandering Soles built a super simple platform bed in the back of their Chevy, and they offer detailed instructions on how to make your own.

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The sleeping area! A custom cut (bigger than) king sized mattress! It fills the back of the Doka and creates a HUGE bed!

>>>

@Vanlifeing_com >>> #ThisisVanlifeing Captured by@vwdoka

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(@camper.lifestyle) on Jun 21, 2018 at 12:11pm PDT

When it comes to bedding, Im a big fan of an excessive number of pillows. And Im kind of in love with my Pendleton wool blanket. But now that the weather is warming up, its much too hot. I love the concept of the Rumpl blanket its made out of sleeping bag material which stays nice and cool, but also keeps you warm. Plus, my dogs hair wont stick to it, like it does with the wool blanket. I dont have one yet, but its on my list for summertime van camping.

Power + Light

Theres something special about being in the van at night. I drove miles up into the coastal mountains of Oregon to reach Horse Creek Campground on my first van camping trip. The dark tunnel of dirt road was eery, as I drove further and further away from civilization. But then I reached the nearly empty campground, turned on my collection of Christmas lights, strung around the vans ceiling, turned off the headlights, and felt right at home.

The thing is, if you want to do anything in your van at night, youre going to need light. Ive amassed more and more Christmas lights, which I plug in to The Lycan Powerbox from Renogy. If I want to read, I also turn on a little lantern I have hanging over the bed.

My lights, computer, and fan can all run at once from The Lycan Powerbox. So I have power for camping or working in a Starbucks parking lot (as Im doing, here).

I have a foldable lantern in the storage compartment over the drivers seat in my camper van conversion, so I can see to find my clothes. And a few smaller lights scattered around the van, so theres always one in arms reach when I climb in and need to see before I accidentally step in my dogs water bowl.

The UCO Gear Sitka Lantern is another appealing option. The extendable arm can give you light from above, which is especially handy when cooking or reading.

Im also a big fan of battery operated twinkle lights. Theyre not great for reading, but they give my van a cozy vibe for nighttime relaxation.

My dog, Jackson, likes the twinkle light vibe. He does not like it when I shine my headlamp in his face to take a photo.

Because you can never have enough options when it comes to your ability to see in the dark, I also keep a headlamp on hand. Ledlenser Headlampsare so much brighter than most headlamps Ive tried. Stick one behind your gallon of water for a makeshift lantern when its not on your head.

Fellow van camper Kelly S. also keeps it simple when it comes to lights:I didnt want to mess around with wiring a van, storing an extra battery, figuring out how to charge an extra battery, etc, so I have hooks on the ceiling for battery powered LED lanterns. This way, theyre portable too, and you can use them outside of the van!

Econoline-dweller Rachel loves her LED lights for keeping things simple, too: For lights I have an LED strip that plugs into USB and I just use those little backup phone batteries and switch them out and charge them through my lighter while Im driving.

Shelly S. is hooked on LUMINAID. I get the Cairn subscription box, which is how I received the initial run of this awesome little lantern and have been stuck to it ever since.

Water

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We recently upgraded our water tanks. We bought 3 taller tanks that fit in the same space as our 2 old tanks. We now have ~ 15 gallons of water which can last 1-2 weeks depending where we are and what we're doing. Great decision. #garageviews

A post shared by Megan Cable (@meganmcable) on Jun 7, 2018 at 2:49pm PDT

Rule number #1 with any type of camping: Bring more water than you think youll need. This isnt hard when youre van camping theres plenty of room! But you have a bunch of options when it comes to water storage.

Kelly S. shares how she sourced her best van ideas from traditional tent camping, including water.

For water I have a 7-gallon aquatainer. If you need drinking water? Theres a spout right there! Coupled with a tub on the floor underneath the split, you have a sink to wash your hands, too! Having it bungee corded in place for transport works great, and then if you want to spread out somewhere you stop, you can take it out!

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This Family is Building a Modern Camper Out of Free Materials Found on Craigslist

When it comes to water storage, you really cant beat the classic big blue jug. The Reliance Aqua-Tainer 7 Gallon holds plenty of water for a summer weekend of water drinking, dish washing, and the occasional foot rinse after a barefoot stroll around the campground. Just make sure you have a way to secure it to the floor when youre bouncing down dirt roads.

As for showers, if your van is strictly for camping, then you can usually rely on campground bathrooms for bathing or simply embrace the dirt while youre out there.

If you want to get a little crafty, you can add a makeshift outdoor shower to the roof of your van with ABS piping and a hose.

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One afternoon last spring, we wandered into a Home Depot and stared up at the black ABS piping in the plumbing section. Keith figured there had to be some way to make a shower outta that stuff. Wed mount it to our @yakimaracks roof rack, the sun would warm it up, and gravity would send it down. And thats exactly what it does. Simple. Just like everything else we have goin on in this home of ours. We dont have a fridge, we have a cooler. We dont have LED lighting, we have an old string of Christmas lights. We dont have air conditioning, we have wet rags and a tiny tower fan we got for 9 bucks. We dont have a toilet, we havethe groundand Starbucks.. What Im saying is, you can install plumbing in your van if you want toyou can spend months on end googling every tutorial on earth if you want toyou can pay big money to build out the most well-equipped vehicle around if you want to We simply hope to serve as a reminder that you dont necessarily *have* to.

A post shared by Brianna Madia (@briannamadia) on Apr 3, 2018 at 7:50am PDT

Since I sometimes spend several weeks in my van, I wanted to have a place to wash my face and brush my teeth. I relied on disposable face wipes and gym bathrooms for the first few months. But then my friends at Wood Intimations built a gorgeous sink that is super simple and looks great and its been a game changer.

The pump faucet draws water from a 4 gallon jug beneath the sink, and gray water drains down into a hole in the van floor, so I dont have to empty anything.

It also provides some much needed counter space, and a little shelf for storing those tiny things that always get lost in the van, like the remote to my twinkle lights and my chapstick!

Organization

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TO ALL WEEKEND WARRIORS

. . #doit #doitagain #comfortzone . . #ontheroad #optoutside #wanderlust #nature #vwcalifornia #vankit #freedom #solitude #stayandwander #wilderness #rygg #vegan #croatia #roadtrip #issiontour #vanpuppy #explore #adventure #vaninterior #handmade #bagdesign #travel

A post shared by VANTALE (@van.tale) on Jun 8, 2018 at 8:31am PDT

Organization is so important for your sanity when living or camping in a camper van conversion. Even if youre a minimalist guru who wears one outfit and lives off protein bars, youre going to manage to collect more stuff than you think.

And if your lighting isnt great, its going to be even more difficult to find that stuff.

Staying organized will make you feel like you have a handle on the whole #vanlife thing. Organization can be as simple as a few plastic bins that can slide under your bed. Just make sure you know exactly what youre storing in each of them. (Clear storage containers are ideal so you can see whats in there when you inevitably forget.)

Shelly S. camps in her 4Runner. Its not a van, but the same concepts apply, she tells me. Organization is important for her, too. Mountainsmith has some nice storage cubes soft sided and stuffable. That being said, you can do about the same with those free cloth shopping totes, stored in either a cardboard box or a plastic bin.

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#HELP All right Vanlifers or Van designers or Anyone reallyI need your help! I have this space. All this space. Crazy right when you live in a van, usually it's the complete opposite. So.what the heck do I do with it!? I'd prefer not to put any more storage or I'll just fill it with crap (most of this stuff in the back is not mine). I don't need a pull-out kitchen or a place to store bikes, adventure gear. So other than turning it into a bedroom and renting it I'm at a miss.. Any suggestions???

A post shared by Sian Knox (@exmouth_vanlife) on Dec 22, 2017 at 9:07pm PST

Leah W. recommends as few belongings as possible for staying organized. My biggest recommendation is really paring things down to what you NEED. I had one set of basic utensils, one pot, plate, and bowl, a one burner stove, etc. A small toiletry bag, one duffel bag of summer clothing, one duffel bag of winter clothing. She agrees with Shelly about using bags for organization. While most people are fans of creating boxes for organization, we found that sturdy-ish bags worked best.

I went to the Container Store and bought a couple of soft containers with attached lids. Because the structure of the containers is fabric, theyre easy to stick into places where they barely fit, like the storage area above the driver and passenger seats of my GMC Vandura.

Hooks have also been a sanity saver for me in my sometimes not so organized camper van conversion. I keep a jacket and a couple of shirts that I dont want to be all wrinkly, hanging on a hook by the door. I always know where they are, and I can reach extra layers if I get cold at night. I also have a hook for my headlamp, because that is something that always gets lost.

When it comes to food storage, youll need to think about uninvited house visitors.

Store your food in closed containers or bins, advises Leah W. We started our trip with our food in an open crate, and quickly had mouse friends also enjoying our snacks.

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The post How to Keep it Simple with Your Camper Van Conversion appeared first on The Dyrt Magazine.

(function(){if(window.instgrm)window.instgrm.Embeds.process()})() Arplis - News source https://arplis.com/blogs/news/how-to-keep-it-simple-with-your-camper-van-conversion

[clockworkkatana]

why did rome fall (I already asked your girlfriend but wanted to compare notes - no cheating guys)??

constantinople

i mean, okaythere isnt one specific reason by any means - rome wasnt built in a day and neither did it fall in one - but rather a whole host of them, all incredibly complex and nuanced and im going to be here for fucking hours arent i but mostly its constantinople and the audacity of naming a city after yourself and instantly moving there and declaring it the new capital of your empire and when i say that i mean actually just splitting your empire in two because you wanted a change of locale

also full disclaimer i prefer classical antiquity to the constant teenage deathdrama of late antiquity if your teen angst bullshit included political intrigue, murder plots, assassination by stabbing, assassination by poisoning, assassination by strangling, assassination by decapitation, assassination by the praetorian guard, forced abdication, forced abdication and execution, forced abdication and mutilation, forced abdication and blinding, torture, exile, and im literally still just listing ways emperors were deposed do you potentially see a possible trend and/or theme that could possibly be indicative of a federal fucking issue with regards to the roman political theater: a circus, or rather, the panem et circenses of every history major who ever thought it was maybe a little telling that “murdered roman emperor” is its own fucking category on wikipedia with subcategories to spare

also second full disclaimer im qualifying ‘fall of the roman empire’ as ‘fall of the western roman empire’ because byzantine is its own thing and im not particularly interested either in that portion of it or typing up a whole new dialogue just on the eastern roman/byzantine/ottoman empires because its too far removed from the prelapsarian concept of rome and the aesthetic ideal of the roman empire to count in my opinion

anyway

we begin, as a great deal of roman history lessons begin, with a murder(there are diatribes i could go on about how really when you think of it all of roman history begins with a murder - romulus to remus - so is it any wonder her demise begins the same way but im not even started yet so thats a bad idea just on general principle)march 19, 235. mogontiacum, the citadel that would become the city of mainz in germany. a tent flap is thrown open, and forth strides a young man in a fury like one possessedhe is severus alexander, 26, emperor of rome, and hes fucking pissedwhy so upset? enter a man named maximinus thrax, a barbarian from thrace and a goliath of a manmostly illiterate, but then soldiers never cared for literature, and it was soldiers who rallied around maximinus, soldiers who murdered severus and his mother for choosing diplomacy over open war, soldiers who proclaimed a barbarian from the black sea the new emperor of rome, and soldiers who legitimized that claim in the senate

thus begins the crisis of the third century, a fifty-year period that sees no less than 26 claimants to the imperial throne (the empires youngest emperor reigns during this time, gordian iii, who took the throne at 13 and ruled for six years before his death and was, by my account anyway, a nice kid), the fracture of the empire into the competing factions of roman, gallic, and palmyrene, a great deal of plague, a slew of invasions from the north, and some good old-fashioned economic depressionso basically a tuesday

i wont get too into the brunt of everything because im gonna be here all night as it is but while, yes, the crisis was indeed averted and the empire restored by diocletian in the early 284, the crisis of the third century marked a huge shift in the history of the empire as a whole (from augustus to severus alexander was 26 names and 262 years, from maximinus to diocletian was 23 names and 49 years) and is actually the turning point from classical antiquity to late antiquity, which i mean is telling in and of itself but frankly its only due to diocletians reforms that rome managed to survive the next 150 years as it did but im getting ahead of myself

diocletian was, by all accounts, a good ruler: he came up from nothing, the son of a peasant farmer who rose up through the legion ranks before being declared emperor after the deaths of carus and numerian he only reigned a single year as the sole emperor - he appointed his friend and fellow soldier maximian as augustus of the west, and from there he delegated further, appointing junior co-emperors called caesars (romans had a thing for titles based on previous rulers - part of the imperial cult, in a sense) to create a tetrarchy, a rule of four which actually worked out for him? with maximian and constantius dealing with germanic tribes in a scorched earth campaign along the rhine and galerius fighting the sassanids to the south, diocletian was able to secure the border (didnt even have to build a wall, fancy that) and focus on much-needed imperial reform, though perhaps his greatest achievement is that he was the first in the history of the empire to abdicate and retire peacefully and voluntarily, living out the rest of his days in the small town of spalatum (now split in croatia)

without diocletian, things, as they tend to, go to shityet another roman civil war burns itself out for the next 8 years or so before we get constantine the great, who takes a bunch of diocletians work and either rolls with it or upends it based on whether or not it suited him at the time, and its with constantine where the empire really starts hemorrhaging

personally i think constantine gets too much credit there are like maybe three people in history who deserve the title of ‘the great’ and just because you got venerated by the dominant religion in all of western civilization doesnt mean youre great it just means youre not a fan of persecution and i mean thats cool but im not a fan of persecution and im certainly not so titled, no i just get dubbed ‘the pure’ because i dont hit on every maiden from here to camelot listen lance buddy gwen was better off with arthur and you just need to get the fuck over yourself alreadythis turned into a roast track for lancelot all of a suddenanyway constantinea lot of it is because of the whole religion thing which ill go over briefly but likeyes he pulled off a lot of reform that did a lot of economic and social good and he stopped the persecution of christians which i mean yes is a good thing and yadda yadda yawn listen he fucked up big time with constantinople alright you could narrow down a lot of this answer to just the word ‘constantinople’ and frankly youd be the better for not reading and having forced me to write what has to be like at least a thousand words by now but all in all constantinople in my mind marks the period where shit really starts tanking because up until then - with the crisis and the tetrarchy, etc - the empire had been divided but never so explicitly and finally separated. this is a major turning point for the empire as it actively splits the whole of rome pretty much down the middle - diocletians tetrarchy had done this before, yes, but not nearly as callously nor as resolutely: once every great while a strong emperor would reunite the west and east under one ruler but eventually hed die and it would be civil wars all over again until we came back to east and west

from constantine it was a slow march towards the grave for rome - the crossing of the rhine, a constant plague of invasions and failed wars that slowly chip away at her lands and resources and put considerable strain on her already absolute shite economy (turns out an economy dominated by slavelabor and conquest isnt feasible when you lose all your wars and your empire is splintering before your eyes)

the last “true” emperor of what i, anyway, consider rome - and even that is up for debate - is romulus augustulusonly 14, and his claim disputed everywhere beyond italy, but it seems fitting, to me: named for romes founder, called ‘little augustus’ after her first emperorhe is deposed - but not killed, exiled to a seaside castle where he disappears from historical record - by odoacer, who becomes the first king of italy, as there was no more empire to rule, and with the death of the office of emperor so dies the state of the empire

this is a vast oversimplification of a lot of things and you should also read radias answer which is probably better than this one - i summarize a lot in my theses and probably need to work on thatbut yeah pretty much there you have itblame constantinople

[maggscreations]

Pennsic, Peace Week, Thursday Such a lot happened today, I don't even have time to journal it all. First pic is a shot of my tent glowing at night, just because. Second pic is a shot of me in garb, had to hand my camera to a friend, because I realized that all of the pictures of me thus far have been selfies, which just don't show the whole getup.A few pictures of camp setups, and a couple of shots of the medieval bead furnace building class I took today. LOT of heavy mixing of clay, sand and mulch (traditionally they used manure, thank goodness we didn't go to THAT level of realism). Tomorrow they'll fire up the furnace and make some beads. Hopefully I'll be able to scurry out there, but I have another bunch of classes I want to take tomorrow, might not have the oomph. On my way out to the bead furnace class I stopped and got a basket backpack that I'd coveted last year, then taught myself basketweaving in the thought that I'd just make myself one, then decided that hey, it's worth the money for the lifetime guarantee and the lack of angst and profanity that making one would require (although Pillbug the cat is, I'm sure, very sad that he won't get to sit in another basket while it's being built around him). Best part of the day was back in the encampment, where Gwen taught me more handsewing techniques, gifted me with a curved needle, then said she was going to have to reclaim her needle because it turned out she didn't actually have a spare. I was okay with that, since the needle was actually a little small for me, at which point Gwen perked right up and said she has a lifetime supply of the large size of curved needles, because they come in a 4-pack with 2 small and 2 large, and she hates the large ones. Works out well all the way around. We talked for hours. Well... I concentrated on sewing a vaguely straight hem and Gwen talked for hours, with me listening avidly and occasionally asking questions, telling tales of previous years at Pennsic, fun stories about people I don't know but that might be a good thing, after what I've heard. (hee, always fun to listen to drama that didnt' happen to you). I really enjoy the pageantry and everything, but the quiet moments of storytelling and laughter are really probably my favorite part. Plus all the classes! I love learning new things! And now it's 1am and I need to get up at 8 in order to make it to my 9:00 class on... something interesting. I forget what it was, but it's in my calendar. G'night, all.

[thewidowstanton]

Dangerous Steve, outdoor showman, comedy actor, Sideshow Illusions performer

Dangerous Steve is the stage name of Steve Collison, who was born in King’s Lynn but grew up near the Buckinghamshire village of Middle Claydon. He had the most extraordinary childhood and started living up to his name by doing dangerous things at a ridiculously young age. He was billed – by agents such as Bernard Woolley, TB Phillips and Temple’s Gala agency – as ‘the World’s Youngest Motorcycle Stunt Rider’. As well as touring internationally as Dangerous Steve, he has also worked with Magic Carpet Theatre – where he is company manager – for 30 years. And he regularly performs with Jon Marshall’s Sideshow Illusions and Dr Phantasma’s Amazing Ten in One Show.

Steve is married to fellow Sideshow Illusions performer Alexandra Collison, who was my first Widow interviewee, under her maiden name of Boanas. Alex, who is a trained soprano and has an MA in performance, often plays Yvette – the Headless Lady, Miss Elastina and No-Middle Myrtle, as well as Romana the Gypsy Queen on the Ladder of Swords. They have two children, Flossie and Winnie, who are almost destined to follow in their parents’ showbusiness footsteps. Steve chats to Liz Arratoon.

The Widow Stanton: When and how did you start stunt riding? Dangerous Steve: My dad, Peter, was the butler at Claydon House stately home in Buckinghamshire. At Christmas when I was five, Sharon, my sister, was getting lots of presents and I almost started getting a bit teary because I noticed I wasn’t getting as many. Then I was taken into the other room where there was a big present. Somewhere I’m on Cine film; there’s me unwrapping a motorbike, and apparently I just stood there shaking for ages, which was very funny. I started off just riding round the estate for a while but dad wasn’t very impressed with me just haring around on a motorbike, he wanted me to do tricks and stuff like that.

As a child, to be brought up at Claydon House… I was the only one on the estate as my sister went away to boarding school as a dancer. Sometimes I just wanted to kick a football around with my friends; on the other hand I did go around the estate thinking how lucky I was and how amazing the views over the lake were on summer evenings. We used to live in the courtyard. There was a swimming pool and stuff like that, which Sir Ralph and Lady Verney never really used, so I had my own little swimming pool. They were like my grandparents. I’d go round there on Christmas day and open presents with them.

I joined The Spirit of Britain junior motorcycle display team, which was run by a guy called Gus Scott, who used to train Eddie Kidd. I was with them from when I was five years old to seven. They were based in Luton and I toured around with them, but because I had so much space at home and they could only meet twice a week, I started practising all the tricks alone. My dad was thinking, ‘Well, he can now do all these tricks himself’, so he started taking me to do all the galas and carnivals around the country to perform on my own. Your dad sounds amazing. What sort of dad would give his kid a motorbike? Did he want to be in showbusiness himself? Yes, he did. He was very different. He managed to get an Equity card and had done some extra work and been in shows doing whatever he was asked to do. I think people are now quite interested in butlers and stately homes. My mum was very proud of me but would only watch me once I could do the tricks without falling off. I hurt myself but I never broke any bones with the motorbike. My dad was very good at starting off with quite basic things and was very strict on making sure I did things the right way. How much fun was all this for a kid? It was very exciting. I couldn’t sleep the week before a show. We’d go away in a big lorry and it was like a holiday, apart from I used to have to map-read. Some of these country fairs are in the middle of nowhere and one wrong turn, you could end up backing the lorry two miles down the road in the way of tractors… I soon got very good at map-reading because otherwise I’d get into so much trouble. I was doing tricks jumping over fire and through fire at seven or eight. Dad was very good at building props and made a tunnel of fire. Once we’d got the frame with all the fire straw in the middle of the park – we’d found a field without any sheep on it – I remember saying to him just before we lit it, ‘Dad, when we light the fire, what if I don’t want to do it?’, and he said: “You will do it. Now I’ve built it, you’ll do it.”

Once they were built, there was no going back and I’d practise and practise and practise. As I got older, people expected more from me, so the ability went up with my age; bigger jumps, bigger fire, pyrotechnics… because it was only me, whereas some of the bigger army display teams, like the White Helmets, would fill the stage. I had a load of publicity when I was awarded The Star newspaper Best in Britain award, presented by David Essex. I was sponsored by National, the petrol firm who used Smurfs to promote their brand. Sharon joined the act. Later she became a dancer and choreographer and now runs Claydons Academy, teaching dance and drama, but then she was a Smurf! Were you paid appearance fees? Yes. Once when I had a three-week tour in Scotland, the whole family came up there because it was in the summer holidays. We all stayed in a tent and it rained for most of the time. I can remember waking up one morning floating on an airbed. I didn’t realise until I put my foot outside the sleeping bag into a load of water that the whole family was floating! I’d get paid every week and we’d accumulated quite a bit of cash. The Leeds Building Society was doing deals at the gala that if you were a child you could open a bank account with £1 and you got a money box and a bag and stuff like that. Mum and dad decided the safest thing to do with the money was to go to open up an account. I was about eight. They were expecting me to give £1 and suddenly I had this wad of cash. They must have wondered where I’d got it from and just thought I’d stolen it or found it.

Did you ever go to school? I did. The school was very good and if ever there was a school fete or anything like that they’d always ask me to do my motorcycle stunt show. I was filmed on my motorbike for children’s TV with Anneka Rice, who once came to school. We had a mock school fete and she was lying down and I ended up jumping over her. What happened next? The motorbike act stopped when public liability insurance started getting really expensive. I was about 14. Then my dad and I toured the Crazy Brigade – a comedy fire brigade, very much Keystone Cops, very visual – round country shows and big galas. It was a comedy car act that drove on its own and fell apart, but it was more like a stunt comedy act. There was a lot of water! My dad built a human cannon and we thought, ‘Oh, we need an act for it’, especially when he’d taken a picture of it and sold it. We had ten shows booked in before we even had an act.

I used to worry; we had a prop, a comedy cannon, but no show. It blew up at the end and I went flying out of the end of it but not a great distance. I never got to the net on the other side of the arena. But we did it in the end and it was very successful. I knew Martin Burton of Zippos Circus from the galas and carnivals, rather than as a circus contact. When I was 15, in my last year at school, he kindly said I could do work experience on their theatre tour. Other people worked in the local bakery. I went to Wales and Carlisle and never went back to school.

What does Dangerous Steve actually do? It kind of depends where I’m booked to do it. If it’s in the middle of a town centre early on a Saturday morning with a few people walking past with shopping bags, the last thing they want to do is get stopped to watch a show by some nutter in the street. I try to make my show very entertaining and try to be likeable on stage. If it’s indoors and the audience is put there for me, it’s the same show but I have to work in a different way. I do ten things; I start on my motorcycle monowheel. It builds up a big crowd straightaway. I sit inside the wheel – the engine is inside it – and it’s a very difficult bike to balance and ride. I’ve spent the last three years learning how to do a new trick on it; a double loop the loop.

I then go on to my motorcycle sidecar, which I ride round, introduce myself, and then stand on top of the seat and juggle knives. Then I do some fire. With outdoor shows I try to make it really very appealing at the start to distract people from the funfair and the stalls by doing fire tricks and some big fireballs with fire whips and things like that…

Fire whips? Yes, they create a massive fireball. I go from there to the unsupported ladder, so I’m up high, talking to people telling them what they’re about to see, and if they don’t want to see it now’s the time to leave! I’m very proud of balancing on top of a ten-foot ladder. It’s scary, as I don’t like heights! Then I then do a giant rola-bola, so I’m on a tower, on top of a beer keg on its side and on top of a board, and then I go through a fire hoop. Then I juggle a chainsaw, and do my giant unicycle, which is bigger this year, a ten-foot unicycle, and then into a blindfold motorcycle stunt. I set two chainsaws going – possibly four this year – on a frame, and I ride round blindfolded and through the frame with a steel shield on my face and a hood over my head, which I get the audience to check. And, you know, hopefully I don’t cut my head off.

Has anything ever gone wrong? When I was learning, I broke my arm just before doing a show in a school hall. I thought, ‘That really hurt, I think I’ve damaged my arm’. In the first part of show I had to play the drums. Oh, my goodness, every time I hit the drums it was excruciating. 15 years later I finally learnt to do the trick I was trying when I broke my arm! I did a show in Scotland last year and before I went on, they announced that they were having a dog show and they’d put a big marquee in the corner of the arena, which made it quite narrow. I was driving my monowheel but I tipped over too far and the foot peg stuck into the ground and I went right over doing a somersault in the wheel, I flew out of it, got back on it, and carried on and the crowd loved it! [Laughs]

Then I got on my sidecar to juggle the knives and I went over a bump and one of the knives went into my face. I had blood running down my face. I looked at the organisers who were looking at me, like, ‘What have we booked, some cowboy?’, but actually, afterwards they loved it and they want me back. [Laughs] So it pays to hurt yourself sometimes.  

How did you learn all your other skills? Because I’ve been involved in so many shows over the years, I kind of picked up all these skills individually. It was a bit of watching others and trial and error. My show is very different to anyone else’s on the outdoor circuit. I don’t know anyone else who does some of the tricks, but I’ve seen someone else doing others and I’ve thought, ‘Oh, that would be perfect for my show’.

Do you have a natural ability to pick things up? Probably not. It’s practice, and a lot of the things I’ve learnt to do, I was a teenager. If you’re a teenager you don’t mind falling off so much. It doesn’t hurt so much. I must admit some of the time now, when I’m trying new stuff out, I do think, ‘Am I a bit old for this?’.

I believe there’s one motorbike stunt that I’ve done that you haven’t… [Laughs] Yes, yes. The Wall of Death! It’s a dream and an ambition one day to do it.

It was horrific but you would love it! I’m going to contact Jake Messham and try to arrange it. I should do it September because it’s always a little bit dangerous trying new tricks out just before you get really busy for the summer season.

And the Globe of Death, do you fancy that? I would love to try. I’d try anything really.

How do you divide your time? We’re trying to stay busy all year round and it is really busy. The summer is now crazy with Dangerous Steve, so every weekend and Bank Holiday and there seem to be a lot of agricultural shows in the week as well. Last August I went from Orkney to Guernsey, doing shows on the way down as well. Summer season now… outdoor shows seem to be really good, really healthy and a full season of shows, like the olden days, really. When that quietens off in September, we go into Magic Carpet theatre shows and December, we’re sold out in schools performing a theatre show.

How did you come to join Magic Carpet so young? After Zippos the school let me go off on more work experience with Jon Marshall, who I’d worked with in the galas and carnivals when he was The Man with the X-ray Eyes. Magic Carpet is his children’s theatre company that tours schools, art centres and theatres up and down the country and occasionally we get to go abroad. The shows are very visual, good fun and exciting. It’s a comedy play. We don’t have any big message; it’s just a great way to introduce children to live theatre. They laugh all the way through and if they haven’t seen much before, they come out absolutely buzzing. Jon is very good at making it exciting and understandable. It’s a bit of a rollercoaster with highs, but we also bring them down again. We know when the dangerous bits are coming up where the kids might shout out, but no one needs to be on edge as we’ve got them under control.

Do you feel you sort of owe your career to your dad, really? Yes, very much so, dad and Jon. All through my childhood I had so much respect for my dad and so much help, hours and hours of dragging me round the country, which I enjoyed. I enjoyed where I lived at the stately home, and also the travelling around at the same time. He would be working after I’d gone to bed out in the workshop, building props for me and I’d be practising with them after school the next day, probably falling off, breaking it, and he’d be back in the workshop again mending it and telling me not to fall off again.

Do you think your experience could happen to a child these days because of health and safety… It would be very difficult. Even now with Flossie, if she falls over, the first thing that goes through your mind when she goes to pre-school, they’re going to see a bruise and it’s going to have to go in a report and they ask how it happened. They also ask the child as well to see if the stories match, whereas when I was a child and did The Spirit of Britain, I remember we were doing some practising and I set off the wrong way round the arena, ending up colliding with another bike, fell off, the foot peg went into my foot, I ended up in hospital, and then a couple of days later it was all forgotten. I wouldn’t want Flossie to hurt herself and there are ways of learning tricks with protection, but I wouldn’t put her off doing what I did. I try not to be too pushy with her because I think slow and steady will win the race.

Not like yer dad then? [Laughs] [Laughs] To be honest she’s only four, a little bit younger than I was when I started. But she is very keen on running onstage at the end of the show and she likes to go in the blade box, with blades in it. I’ve got a motorbike and sidecar and last year in Poynton, near Manchester, she sat on the sidecar.

Did you ever imagine that this would be your life? No, but later on in school everyone was talking about what they were going to do as a career, and I did think, ‘What the hell am I going to do?’. Then I thought, ‘Well, actually, I quite like what I do now. At the age of 15 I’ve already got quite a few years’ experience behind me. I’ve learnt how to do things and how not to do things’. So it would have been a waste not to carry on, and I’m so glad I stuck at it. When you’re a teenager sometimes the grass is always greener on the other side. When I was getting towards 19, some of my mates were earning quite good money doing other things, and I was thinking, ‘Oh, should I change what I do?’, but obviously I’m so glad I didn’t. I love it more now than ever.

Dangerous Steve will be appearing at Kimpton in Hertfordshire on 4 May, 2019 at the start of his summer season. Check his website for details.

Picture credit: Ian Spooner

Steve’s website

Twitter: @DangerousSteve1 @sideshowmagic

Follow @TheWidowStanton on Twitter

[adambstingus]

The surprising thing her friends worried about when she came out as trans.

In June 2015, I picked up the phone and dialed my old friend Ricks number, guided by the muscle memory of having done it so many times before.

This time, the topic wouldnt be our excitement over the new Dungeon Masters guide or some neat piece of esoterica we had learned in Mr. Zebrackis history class. This discussion would be much more abstract.

I have something to tell you, Rick, I began. I realized recently that Im transgender, and Im planning on transitioning genders at some point in the next year or so, so that I can live my life a little more honestly.

After a moment of silence, Rick said exactly what I was hoping to hear: Youre one of my oldest friends. If thats what you think you need to do, of course I support it, and Ill help you however you need me to. But he also had some questions: Would I still play video games? Would I still like Star Wars?

Rick and I bonded in high school over our mutual love of nerd culture, which we had embraced long before anyone else thought it was cool.

It started with daily after-school pilgrimages to the comic shop to buy Star Wars cards, our beloved pastime that occupied us for hours. The amount of time and money we spent on them was ungodly. As we grew older, Star Wars cards eventually gave way to encyclopedic knowledge on movies, music, anime. Rick even found a way to make sports nerdy with his encyclopedic knowledge of the history and statistics of any given game. It was more than an obsession. It was in our DNA.

Yet Rick, and many others I shared the news of my transition with, still wondered whether changing my gender presentation would affect my bone-deep love of nerd culture.

Friends asked, “Can we still talk about ‘Doctor Who’?” and “Does this mean you wont play Starcraft with me anymore?” My dad even asked me if Id still want to make beer with him the way we do every Thanksgiving. The nature of these questions made me realize how invested people were in the assumed gender alignment of the activities we all enjoyed together.

“Of course Im still going to do all of those things!” I replied each time. From my perspective, I was making a change that would lighten my mood and allow me to enjoy life better. Yes, I would look different, and I would be happier, but I wasnt concerned any of my passions or interests would disappear. To those who expressed these concerns, I may as well have been walking away from everything that made up my personality.

I realized at a basic level, they thought nerd culture was boy stuff.

Before my transition, I hadnt thought much about how that attitude might have affected the girls experience. Now that I was moving from being one of the boys to “just like one of the boys,” I realized how different those experiences really are.

For people socialized as men, being part of a predominantly male clique is an important part of building a self-concept. It supplies men with a healthy sense of validation and inclusion. Its that same pack mentality that gave rise to concepts like “guy code,” “bros before hoes,” and “locker room talk.” Without feeling a connection to it, some men feel they are missing out on a crucial part of life.

The essence of male hierarchy touches all cultures, as Katelyn Burns points out. So it should come as no surprise that it also touched communities I was involved with.

I, too, had been socialized to believe certain things were for men and other things were for women. Any crossover should be looked at as foreign and suspicious. I dont blame men for these aspects of toxic masculinity that seep into the general population. Its a part of the blueprint men are handed in youth. It’s the same blueprint I was given and lived with uncomfortably for 27 years.

Girls, on the other hand, tend to approach being “one of the guys” as something we use to get past gender barriers and just engage with the things we like.

Women tend to see the activities we participate in as less enabled by gender (i.e., “boxing is a sport for men”) and more enabled in spite of gender (i.e., “just because Im a girl doesnt mean I cant be a boxer”).

Women are conscious that participation in male-dominated activities tends to be at the leisure of the men involved, and that membership in the group could be revoked at any time.

For example, if one of the men begins to pursue a woman in the group romantically and she doesnt return his interest, her continued participation may be threatened. This becomes even riskier for women in male-dominated professions like cybersecurity my own field of expertise. In professional settings, the stakes raise dramatically. Rejection of a mans advances can cost us more than our hobby, sometimes it can cost us our jobs.

Often, women deal with this fundamental outsiderness by creating secret spaces where we can pursue feminine interests on our own terms, where being “one of the guys” is no longer the only key for entry.

When I reintegrated into my old hobbies post-transition, I found there were entire subcultures built by women of the group, for women. These small, isolated, and distinctive societies women created were completely invisible to me before I transitioned.

It was like finding a secret room in a house I lived in for decades.

In these women-centered spaces, topics of feminine interest could be discussed openly and out of view of the men in the group. We were shielding ourselves from having to openly remind anyone that we were women. We feared if they noticed, our passageway into acceptance might close.

I watched this happen many times online, in particularly hostile ways. Once men realized an opponent was a woman, players in online games like “Battlefield,” “Counterstrike,” or “Halo,” emboldened by anonymity, would launch into misogynistic attacks after every victory or loss, or sometimes for no reason at all. Any given round I could expect to hear sage platitudes, such as, go back to the kitchen, or why dont you make me a sandwich? not to mention a barrage of slurs.

The nerd culture narrative is that were a group of outcasts who built a community to cope with the awkwardness and rejection of being a pariah in a social structure that didnt value the same things we did. But we brought the seeds of our own inherent caste systems with us.

It perpetuated an unspoken marginalization of girls that bordered on outright contempt. It forced girls to find ways to evolve and to express themselves despite the constraints that exist when men make the rules.

Nerd culture is always going to be a part of me and my history. I wouldnt be who I am without it, and Im glad that I still have a place in my communities no matter what Im wearing, what my name is, or how I look. In many places at my local gaming store, at my friends houses, and in these women-centric spaces I never saw before Ive found the accepting and understanding community that nerd culture is supposed to be.

Ive also realized how far we are from being that all the time, for everyone.

The road to acceptance runs directly through a minefield of toxic masculinity, and womens participation is often tentative and requires we leave our woman-ness at the door.

Our identities are complex. The interests of women are broad and deep, as is our capability to adapt to situations in casual and professional settings. Being the versatile creatures we are, women will always find a way into communities that interest us.

We have a chance to set aside any preconceived expectations we have of gender and fight the goblins together. Were going to need all the help we can get.

This story first appeared on The Establishment and is reprinted here with permission.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/the-surprising-thing-her-friends-worried-about-when-she-came-out-as-trans/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/179733011987

[allofbeercom]

The surprising thing her friends worried about when she came out as trans.

In June 2015, I picked up the phone and dialed my old friend Ricks number, guided by the muscle memory of having done it so many times before.

This time, the topic wouldnt be our excitement over the new Dungeon Masters guide or some neat piece of esoterica we had learned in Mr. Zebrackis history class. This discussion would be much more abstract.

I have something to tell you, Rick, I began. I realized recently that Im transgender, and Im planning on transitioning genders at some point in the next year or so, so that I can live my life a little more honestly.

After a moment of silence, Rick said exactly what I was hoping to hear: Youre one of my oldest friends. If thats what you think you need to do, of course I support it, and Ill help you however you need me to. But he also had some questions: Would I still play video games? Would I still like Star Wars?

Rick and I bonded in high school over our mutual love of nerd culture, which we had embraced long before anyone else thought it was cool.

It started with daily after-school pilgrimages to the comic shop to buy Star Wars cards, our beloved pastime that occupied us for hours. The amount of time and money we spent on them was ungodly. As we grew older, Star Wars cards eventually gave way to encyclopedic knowledge on movies, music, anime. Rick even found a way to make sports nerdy with his encyclopedic knowledge of the history and statistics of any given game. It was more than an obsession. It was in our DNA.

Yet Rick, and many others I shared the news of my transition with, still wondered whether changing my gender presentation would affect my bone-deep love of nerd culture.

Friends asked, “Can we still talk about ‘Doctor Who’?” and “Does this mean you wont play Starcraft with me anymore?” My dad even asked me if Id still want to make beer with him the way we do every Thanksgiving. The nature of these questions made me realize how invested people were in the assumed gender alignment of the activities we all enjoyed together.

“Of course Im still going to do all of those things!” I replied each time. From my perspective, I was making a change that would lighten my mood and allow me to enjoy life better. Yes, I would look different, and I would be happier, but I wasnt concerned any of my passions or interests would disappear. To those who expressed these concerns, I may as well have been walking away from everything that made up my personality.

I realized at a basic level, they thought nerd culture was boy stuff.

Before my transition, I hadnt thought much about how that attitude might have affected the girls experience. Now that I was moving from being one of the boys to “just like one of the boys,” I realized how different those experiences really are.

For people socialized as men, being part of a predominantly male clique is an important part of building a self-concept. It supplies men with a healthy sense of validation and inclusion. Its that same pack mentality that gave rise to concepts like “guy code,” “bros before hoes,” and “locker room talk.” Without feeling a connection to it, some men feel they are missing out on a crucial part of life.

The essence of male hierarchy touches all cultures, as Katelyn Burns points out. So it should come as no surprise that it also touched communities I was involved with.

I, too, had been socialized to believe certain things were for men and other things were for women. Any crossover should be looked at as foreign and suspicious. I dont blame men for these aspects of toxic masculinity that seep into the general population. Its a part of the blueprint men are handed in youth. It’s the same blueprint I was given and lived with uncomfortably for 27 years.

Girls, on the other hand, tend to approach being “one of the guys” as something we use to get past gender barriers and just engage with the things we like.

Women tend to see the activities we participate in as less enabled by gender (i.e., “boxing is a sport for men”) and more enabled in spite of gender (i.e., “just because Im a girl doesnt mean I cant be a boxer”).

Women are conscious that participation in male-dominated activities tends to be at the leisure of the men involved, and that membership in the group could be revoked at any time.

For example, if one of the men begins to pursue a woman in the group romantically and she doesnt return his interest, her continued participation may be threatened. This becomes even riskier for women in male-dominated professions like cybersecurity my own field of expertise. In professional settings, the stakes raise dramatically. Rejection of a mans advances can cost us more than our hobby, sometimes it can cost us our jobs.

Often, women deal with this fundamental outsiderness by creating secret spaces where we can pursue feminine interests on our own terms, where being “one of the guys” is no longer the only key for entry.

When I reintegrated into my old hobbies post-transition, I found there were entire subcultures built by women of the group, for women. These small, isolated, and distinctive societies women created were completely invisible to me before I transitioned.

It was like finding a secret room in a house I lived in for decades.

In these women-centered spaces, topics of feminine interest could be discussed openly and out of view of the men in the group. We were shielding ourselves from having to openly remind anyone that we were women. We feared if they noticed, our passageway into acceptance might close.

I watched this happen many times online, in particularly hostile ways. Once men realized an opponent was a woman, players in online games like “Battlefield,” “Counterstrike,” or “Halo,” emboldened by anonymity, would launch into misogynistic attacks after every victory or loss, or sometimes for no reason at all. Any given round I could expect to hear sage platitudes, such as, go back to the kitchen, or why dont you make me a sandwich? not to mention a barrage of slurs.

The nerd culture narrative is that were a group of outcasts who built a community to cope with the awkwardness and rejection of being a pariah in a social structure that didnt value the same things we did. But we brought the seeds of our own inherent caste systems with us.

It perpetuated an unspoken marginalization of girls that bordered on outright contempt. It forced girls to find ways to evolve and to express themselves despite the constraints that exist when men make the rules.

Nerd culture is always going to be a part of me and my history. I wouldnt be who I am without it, and Im glad that I still have a place in my communities no matter what Im wearing, what my name is, or how I look. In many places at my local gaming store, at my friends houses, and in these women-centric spaces I never saw before Ive found the accepting and understanding community that nerd culture is supposed to be.

Ive also realized how far we are from being that all the time, for everyone.

The road to acceptance runs directly through a minefield of toxic masculinity, and womens participation is often tentative and requires we leave our woman-ness at the door.

Our identities are complex. The interests of women are broad and deep, as is our capability to adapt to situations in casual and professional settings. Being the versatile creatures we are, women will always find a way into communities that interest us.

We have a chance to set aside any preconceived expectations we have of gender and fight the goblins together. Were going to need all the help we can get.

This story first appeared on The Establishment and is reprinted here with permission.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/the-surprising-thing-her-friends-worried-about-when-she-came-out-as-trans/