#i can draw cars and perspective correctly but no time for that now

[muffinpines]

Quick comic to get out my FEELINGS I want to THROW UP Neil

[butterflyinthewell]

To trans folks who are trying to set trolls straight about Chris-Chan’s gender: Your hearts are in the right place, but the trolls do not care. They will keep misgendering Chris to piss you off and screenshot your reaction.

Yes, I’m talking about THE Chris-Chan. CWC, creator of Sonichu.

(TW: this post will mention rape and incest.)

I know, I know… “But if we let people misgender Chris, what’s stopping them from doing it to other trans people?”

Nothing.

There’s nothing you can do, unfortunately. The thing with trolls is they aren’t here to learn, they’re here to frustrate, annoy and anger you. They throw out all kinds of little hooks by saying offensive things, or things that trick you, and it’s all a game to them when somebody bites the bait.

It wouldn’t surprise me if trolls are saying horrible things about autism, too. That’s more my lane and partly why I don’t dig too deep in the tags about this situation. Again, I stress not engaging with that to correct trolls. They don’t care, they want to offend you.

As frustrating as it is, take note of the people who use Chris’ current pronouns and recognize that there are people who make an effort to get them right. I’m sure the trans people reading what you say will see that and know you care to gender them correctly.

It’s possible Chris transitioned believing she can get with lesbians. It’s entirely possible she’s exactly the stereotype that TERFs rant about and her shitty behavior might be used in the future to argue their views. TERFs will be TERFs. Some of Chris’ trolls may be trans themselves.

As it stands, Chris presents as a woman, so I’ll use she/her pronouns unless she decides to present as non-binary or a man again. You’re welcome to do the same when talking about her. Don’t waste your time trying to correct trolls, just use Chris’ current pronouns and leave it at that.

It sucks, but that’s how trolls troll.

Moving on…

I wonder if Chris would’ve been a weird, harmless nobody if Mimms never took her photo in The Game Place.

This all started because her photo was taken without her knowledge or consent and posted on a forum, which ended up spreading to the wider web and…yeah.

Would she have been an internet sensation? Would she have transitioned? Would she be a known name on the web?

Maybe everything would’ve gone down the same, but without an audience to bear witness.

Regardless, Chris is a trainwreck of a person. I don’t say that lightly. She didn’t deserve the trolling and abuse she got, yet she isn’t innocent in this either.

I felt sorry for her at first because I’m autistic too and was bullied severely in high school, some of it included physical assault and attempted murder. I reacted to the constant name calling and mockery irl a lot like Chris reacted to her online trolls. I’m thankful that my most volatile years happened before I had internet access. I’m two years older than Chris. I had my own drama with trolls that lasted a few years, but I grew up a bit more.

But I digress…

Chris didn’t get the internet safety talk that I got before getting let loose online, and people took advantage of her gullibility, her autism, whatever mental illnesses she might have and her obsession with getting laid. She ignored warnings to the contrary and in some instances her mom enabled her while her dad tried (and failed) to reign her in.

At the same time, Chris has a history of being racist, ableist, homophobic and misogynistic. She ignores people’s boundaries even when they were clearly stated. She’s entitled and thinks everything bad is a conspiracy against her. She acts like the world operates on cartoon rules and can’t handle it when situations don’t turn out in her favor like she believes they should. It’s a strange view of “Anything I do is good because I did it, and anybody who tells me it’s bad or treats me badly is evil or a troll.”

How she comes across to others and how she thinks she comes across are incongruent with each other, and she refuses to take any correction. An example is the claw hand she used to do while railing at trolls. It’s clear she’s imitating stuff she saw in cartoons, but doesn’t grasp that it looks silly in real life. It leaves me wondering if she ever watched her videos back to see how she really looks before uploading them.

Chris did a lot of disgusting things of her own volition, like not leaving people alone, uploading that sexual drawing featuring Megan, using pepper spray without provocation and trying to hit someone with her car.

Trolls tricked her into humiliating herself and shared the results, like hacking into her email, sharing chats where she gave out embarrassing details about herself, prank calling her house and posting the infamous blowup doll video.

If you know “Christory”, you know what I’m talking about.

If you don’t know, it’s something that’s gone on longer than some people have been alive.

No side is innocent here. I don’t blame Chris for attracting trolls, they chose to go and harass her because she jumped when they poked her.

I’ve followed Chris’ story off and on since 2008, back when she was making her Sonichu comics and being awkward. I never participated in trolling her. I’ve only ever seen the aftermath of troll operations, but the things she endured were cruel. (The Miyamoto saga and the BlueSpike saga come to mind.) I looked her up to see if she was alive and okay. I sent her my AFBV message a couple years ago, but never got a response.

I wonder if this could’ve been avoided if Chris never got trolled and was supervised better while online. That’s where her parents failed her. I felt bad for her; she didn’t know how to conduct herself and kept falling for trolling schemes because she was so desperate to get a girlfriend. It’s like she ignored that little gut warning that says “hey, this feels like a trick” and it was like watching someone fall down the same hillside over and over.

But after what she did to her mom, I lost any sympathy I had for her. Yes, trolls have traumatized her and messed with her head for over a decade and that’s gross, but what she did to her mom was unconscionable. It’s indefensible. It’s morally abhorrent.

She had sex with (or possibly raped via coercion) her elderly mom, who may have dementia.

Chris’ autism was taken advantage of for years, and now she might’ve taken advantage of her mom’s dementia to harm her for the past month.

Think about that. There is no defending that. She finally did something she can’t just wave away or pay her way out of.

Trolls didn’t put Chris up to that, she did it all by herself.

Now she’s under arrest.

Time and again Chris has had run-ins with the law and got away with slaps on the wrist, but I don’t think she’s going to walk away from this so easily.

I hope this situation finally gets Chris the help she desperately needs. I don’t know if her dimensional merge stuff is a delusion from undiagnosed and untreated mental illness or if it’s a paracosm she’s chosen to live in and act out because she can’t handle how cruel the real world is. Please note that I don’t say mental illness lightly either, because I’m aware of the stigma.

At this point I think she needs a caregiver who will supervise her online activities and help her manage her finances. (She will likely resist this…)

Chris’ autism and whatever else she has going on appears to make it very difficult for her to see things from any perspective besides her own. I’m autistic too, so I understand this— sometimes I get this way and have to walk myself back to see other perspectives, or I ask people to give me their side of it to help me understand how they see it even if I don’t agree with their view.

Chris needed more guidance and reality checks growing up, but didn’t get them, and now she needs both more than ever as she faces the results of her behavior. If she is delusional, she needs help to navigate it and I hope she can do that away from trolls. She needs to face consequences for (possibly) raping someone.

I wonder what the legal system will do with her, and I hate that her life has come to this. It was so avoidable. 😞

Sorry, Chris…I hope you’ll get help now, and I hope Barb is okay.

[duhragonball]

Battle Tendency Liveblog: JJBA Ch. 71-76

Let the joy of love give you an answer

And I will hold you when you're lost Just walk on to the light 1938 Bizarre Summer Every road will lead us to a memory of

Great Days

When I started reading the Battle Tendency Manga, one of my goals was to find connections between Part 2 and the others, because I feel like Part 2 is sort of isolated from the rest.   You never hear anyone talk about the Pillar Men in Part 3 or 4, and Joseph Joestar never appears again, save for an entry on a genealogy seen in JoJolion.

But thematically, there’s a lot of connective tissue here.   I already pointed out the scene where Smokey steals Joseph’s wallet in his first appearance, echoing Joseph’s final appearance, where Josuke steals his wallet in Part 4.   And I already mentioned the Italian connection.    Hirohiko Araki’s love for Italy is pretty well-known in the fandom, but only two JoJo parts have the distinction of taking place on Italian soil: 2 and 5.

But there’s other, subtler connections.   Joseph’s Clacker Volley relies on angular momentum, much like the “Spin” techniques used in Part 7.    But then you also have this moment in Battle Tendency where Caesar explains Hamon to Joseph, and compares it to the way a discus thrower spins around to gain distance on his throw.   In the same vein, the fictional Ripple techniques used by all the good guys is just an extension of something natural.    Everyone gains energy from respiration and blood circulation, but Hamon users can amplify that many times over to do amazing things with that energy.    It’s very similar to the lessons Johnny Joestar learns about “Spin” in Part 7.   I never really thought “Spin” had much to do with Hamon, and conceptually they may not be related, but the way they’re presented to the audience is very similar.

More Part 5 connections, you ask?   Well how about a trip from Rome to Venice?  No assassins on the train this time, so Joseph doesn’t have to steal 100 cars to finish the journey.

And how about a meeting with a mysterious person wearing a strange disguise...

Who turns out to be a lady?  What’s weird about this is that when I went through JoJo in order back in 2017, I never noticed the Lisa Lisa/Trish connection.   There was just so much crazy stuff happening in Parts 3 and 4 that I forgot all about how Lisa Lisa debuted.  

So yeah, let’s get back to the main plot.   I mean, I was going to talk about some connections with Part 6, but I seem to be drawing a blank.   Joseph’s parents died when he was very little, so there’s no way for him to have a contentious reunion with an absent parent.    There’s no way for his mom or dad to reveal that they were looking out for him this whole time, but they couldn’t tell him how or why.    I mean, Lisa Lisa kind of reminds me of Jotaro.   They’re both stoic badasses who smoke cigarettes.   But that’s kind of a stretch.  

Anyway, Joseph convinced the Pillar Men to let him live for another month so that he could give them a better fight later on.   To hold him to that promise, they implanted poison rings in his body, which will kill him in exactly 33 days, unless he defeats the Pillar Men and receives the antidote.   Caesar realizes that they both need more training to face the Pillar Men again, so he takes Joseph to Venice to meet his Hamon Master, for more training.   That’s Lisa Lisa.

I’m confused as to why Lisa Lisa wasn’t brought in a long time ago.   The plot progression of Part 2 implies that she only heard about this crisis when Caesar contacted her for more training, but we’ll soon see that the Ripple Clan has known about the Pillar Men for thousands of years, just as the Pillar Men knew about them.  

Actually, now that I think about it, why didn’t Straizo recognize the Pillar Man in Mexico then?   You’d think he would have taken one look at the guy and said “Oh shit, these dudes are back,” and forgotten all about his dreams of becoming a vampire like Dio.  Maybe Straizo had just lost all perspective by then.  Well, we’ll see if that gets explained later.

Anyway, Lisa Lisa starts the training immediately, by putting a mask on Joseph to control his breathing, which is a vital component of Ripple/Hamon stuff.  One thing Caesar explained to Joseph before they left for Venice is that their Hamon powers were about equal.   The only reason Caesar’s seems stronger is because he’s learned to concentrate it into smaller points, like his fingertips.   Joseph, on the other hand, has to express his Hamon power through his entire hand, which reduces its effectiveness.   Caesar compares this to the spray of water from a water pistol.   The smaller the nozzle, the more powerful the stream.

As for Speedwagon, well he just flew back to New York.   Joseph forbade him from telling Erina about the bind he’s in, so Speedwagon simply tells her that he’s bumming around Italy for a month.  Meanwhile, Lisa wants the boys to climb the Hell Climb Pillar.

So the Ripple Clan has this island castle off the coast of Venice, which they built in 39AD to train their students.   This was after the Pillar Men wiped out most of their guys, so I guess they wanted to really ramp up their training for the future.   Lisa opens the front gate and the first step inside takes you into this big pit full of oil, and she just kicks them inside without a word.   Ha ha, Lisa Lisa is awesome!

So the object of the Hell Climb Pillar is just to climb out of the pit.   Except the only way to do that is by clinging to a sheer pillar in the center and ascending 24 meters (about 79 feet).  Oh, and there’s some sort of fountain built into the pillar that keeps it covered with oil at all times.   The only way to make this work is by using Hamon power to cling to the oil and work your way up.  

Caesar is familiar with this test, and he at least has a general idea of how to do it, but he’s never attempted it before, and he knows a lot of students have died in the attempt.   The first thing he figures out is that it’s such an exhausting process that if you fall off part way, you won’t have enough stamina to start over, so you really only get one try at this.  

He spends most of his climb, however, worrying about Joseph, because Joseph’s Hamon skills are so rudimentary that he doesn’t even know how to cling to the pillar in the first place.   Fortunately...

Hermit Purple?   In my Battle Tendency?  It’s more likely than you think.   Joseph tries ripping his shirt and fashioning a makeshift rope for himself, but Lisa cuts it with a dagger before he can even try to use it.    I’m somewhat skeptical that this would have worked anyway.   She may have only foiled his attempt for his own benefit.   Joseph might have wasted a lot of precious energy trying to use this trick before giving up and doing it correctly. 

So, after all other options are exhausted, Joseph finally follows directions.  He watches Caesar for a while, then realizes that Caesar has been clinging to the oil with his fingertips, and not his palms.   It looks precarious, but Joseph remembers what Caesar told him about the water pistol and figures out that this is an application of that concept.    So he quickly catches up to Caesar, only to discover that the pillar gets harder to climb around the 18 meter mark. 

Around that elevation, the Pillar “protrudes”.   I think that means that it gently widens as you go up, something you can’t really see until you’re already climbing up there.    So now you’re not climbing straight up any more at a 90-degree angle to the ground, you’re more like 95 or 100 degrees, making it that much more of a struggle to hold on.  

But things get even worse when Joseph discovers a small crack in the pillar.   It’s the only handhold on the entire pillar, so he figures he can get a firmer grip on that and rest a bit.   Big mistake, because it’s booby-trapped, and when he touches the crack, it turns on this high-pressure stream of oil at the 20-meter level.   Oil just spews out from all sides of the pillar, and the pressure is so intense that when Caesar sticks a pen into it the oil stream cuts it in half.  

Joseph thinks Caesar is angry at him for his blunder, but Caesar’s actually worried for Joseph’s safety.   He only knows one way to get past the oil stream, and he isn’t sure Joseph has the skill necessary to pull it off.    See, you can use Hamon to cling to the oil, but you can also use it to repel the oil, and protect yourself from the high-pressure stream.   But Caesar now has to use use both of those principles simultaneously.   He has to cling to the pillar while moving through the stream.   He ends up doing this mid-air jump thing, and it works, but now he has to haul ass to get to the top of the pillar.   It’s not just for his own sake, but Caesar feels that he has to convince Lisa Lisa to call off the test to save Joseph’s life.   He doesn’t know how to do the trick Caesar pulled off, and Joseph’s the kind of guy who might get desperate or frustrated enough to do something drastic and get himself killed.   But when he reaches the top, there’s no one around.

But he needn’t have worried, because Joseph’s drastic idea actually works.    He apparently can’t repel and cling at the same time like Caesar, so instead he just clings.   Instead of passing through the oil stream, he clings to it, sliding across the flow of oil to the edge of the current, then flipping over it, where the pressure is low enough that it won’t hurt him.   Then he bounces off the top side of the oil stream and clings to the outer wall of the pit.  

Everyone is impressed, except the walls of the pit are even harder to climb than the pillar, and Joseph can’t quite make it to the top.    Caesar saves him with just 10 cm to go.   

Joseph is still sore at Lisa Lisa for putting him through all of that, but she tosses him an upside-down glass of water and Joseph is surprised to find that he can hold the water inside the glass with his Hamon, something he couldn’t do back in Rome, when Caesar told him they needed to train.    So now Joseph’s finally on board with all of this, and Lisa introduces the boys to he assistants, Messina and Loggins.   They put Caesar and Joseph through a grueling three weeks of training montage, until finally...

...They go shopping!  Some guy with a pompodour tries to steal a necklace from Lisa, but she catches him and lets Joseph deal with the guy.   Joseph covers the dude in mustard and then he complains about her carrying around a bright red stone like that for pickpockets to see.    Wait... red stone?  Yeah, it’s the Red Stone of Aja.

On their way back home, Lisa explains the backstory of the Pillar Men.    They created the Stone Masks to improve themselves, and tested the technology on humans.    No one knows how the Stone Masks work, but the “bones” that jut out of them somehow bring out “latent power” in the human brain and it turns them into vampires. 

I never really considered that before, but I suppose the bony spikes in the masks are kind of analogous to the effect of being pierced by the arrows in Parts 4, 5, and 6.  Part 5 offers a partial explanation for the Stand Arrows by saying the heads of the arrows were carved from a meteorite found in Greenland, and there was an alien virus in the meteorite.   You get cut by this metal, and get sick from the virus, and you either recover with a Stand power or you die.   There was a text piece in Part 7 that tried to connect the Stand concept with Hamon, the Stone Masks, and “Spin”, suggesting that the latter three were attempts to achieve what Stands can do, and I guess that makes sense.    Maybe the Stone Masks were the Pillar Men attempting to invent whatever the alien meteor was supposed to do.   Except it’s not as advanced, so it can only do vampires instead of Stands.

Eventually, Kars’ experiments led him to the discovery of a particular stone that amplifies and focuses light.   He believed that if he could work that into his Stone Mask technology, then he could create a more powerful mask that would bring about greater improvements into his own body.   The problem was that he needed a bigger, more flawless stone than the ones that were available to him.   And that’s why they went to Rome to find one.   The 1st Century B.C. Ripple Clan couldn’t stop the Pillar Men, but they did manage to secure the stone they were looking for, and it’s been in their possession ever since.   Lisa Lisa holds it up to the sun and blows up part of her boat just to show off what it can do.

Joseph suggests that they just destroy the thing.    After all, it does them no good, and it means everything to their enemies, so why keep it around?   But there’s some legend that says it will be impossible to defeat the Pillar Men if the Red Stone of Aja is destroyed.

This seemed kind of hokey to me at first.   Lisa Lisa even admits that she doesn’t understand what that legend means, but she’s convinced that she has to protect the stone anyway.   But then I remembered Tonpetty, the leader of the Ripple Clan in Part 1.   He taught Will A. Zeppeli how to use Hamon, but warned him that it would lead to Will’s gruesome death.   Presumably, Tonpetty had some sort of gift of prophecy, and maybe it’s not far-fetched to think that others in the Ripple Clan had the same ability.   So maybe someone, a long time ago, foretold the ultimate fate of the Red Stone of Aja, and the Ripple Clan has been following that vague counsel ever since.

This might explain how the Ripple Clan knows so much about the Pillar Men in the first place.    It never made much sense to me how the Pillar Men would travel to Rome and this secret band of warriors would be there ready to oppose them.   It’s also kind of convenient that the Ripple Clan knows so much about the Pillar Men’s Stone Mask research.   I mean, the Pillar Men barely acknowledge humans as it is, so why would Kars deign to explain anything to them?   

Now that I think about it, this might be why the Ripple Clan turned to divination in the first place.   Their enemies were so mysterious and their motives so baffling that they may have had no choice but to consult fortune-tellers and psychics for insight.    And, one way or another, they managed to get some solid intel this way.   Kars really was doing R&D on Stone Masks.   He really did go to Rome in search of a “Super Aja”.    Will Zeppeli did die, as Tonpetti warned him.   Kars really did return in 1938, as the Aztec’s predicted.   And it really will be impossible to defeat the Pillar Men without the Red Stone of Aja.    Lisa doesn’t know how that works yet, but she knows it’s true.

But that’s not important right now.   For now, it’s time for Joseph and Caesar to complete their training by heading back to base for a final showdown with their instructors.   Joseph’s final test will be a battle with Loggins, so I assume Caesar has to take on Messina.   But when Joseph shows up for his test...

He finds two people on the battlefield.   One is Loggins, and the other guy is killing him.

And yeah, it’s Esidisi.  Who invited him?   Well, Joseph was going to fight him in a week or so anyway, so why put off tomorrow what you can do today?

[blissfulsaturn]

Scene analysis time!

This is one of my favorite scenes to analyze, it looks like there isn’t much to say here but in reality, there is so much, more than I have expected.

Up front, it looks like a simple and meaningless scene to toy around with, but once layers and layers start peeling off, you see the real deal.

The first time I watched the movie, I was really taken aback by this scene and left with a lot of questions. Those questions were the result either from what happened prior to this scene, or what happened afterwards. In the end, I was left with three theories and each carried their own questions. I’m gonna try and stay on the right lane, maybe I’ll mix the movie and the book, I apologize in advance, I’ve watched the movie…only the good Lord knows how many times, and I’ve read the book close to ten times.

Let’s start.

Let’s see what this scene looks on the surface; they meet up and drive to lake Garda, Sirmione. In the meantime, Chiara comes by and she and Oliver hang out, exchange kisses and Elio is there watching them. Once they’re in the car, Oliver is mad at Elio and Elio took it as to not talk about Chiara the way that he thought would upset Oliver.

And if it looks that simple, it’s not. Here are my three theories, and I’ll go ahead and explain each and every one of them:

Oliver was pissed at Elio for talking about his new summer girlfriend like that.

Oliver was teasing Elio.

Oliver was pissed because Elio is trying to keep him away from him.

The first theory:

The first time I watched the movie, I thought he was really mad at him for meddling into his personal life. Elio about Oliver to Chiara saying how he’s a good dancer and that he’s handsome, and Chiara remained silent. Then he talked to Oliver about Chiara and how she looks naked and has a great body, and how she's into him, there are even deeper explanations in the book. Oliver didn’t really like that and that’s why he told him that he can find a girl on his own if he wanted to. The night before, Oliver and Chiara hooked up and Elio was pretty bumped about it. In the book, Elio’s goal was to keep on talking to him about Chiara and treat her like a sex object. Oliver didn’t like that, not only because it was none of his business, but because he didn’t understand what was Elio’s plan behind all of this. And let’s say here that Oliver didn’t know Elio was already drooling over him. If he knew that, then this theory doesn’t make sense. And it is important to know that Elio never set him up with her, it was all Chiara, the same in the book.

Question: Was Oliver pissed at Elio because he was picking into his private life and was constantly trying to show his new girlfriend in a very bad way (talking about her naked body) and was hoping he’d dig out something out of him if they continue treating a girl like she’s a sex object?

The second theory:

This one came to me just recently and it’s not an uncommon behavior. Let’ follow the pattern of Oliver knowing about Elio being into him, and he liked him back as well.

By teasing I mean that he was only a little mad but couldn’t stay long mad at him because he really liked him and didn’t want to be mad at him this summer. What the other one didn’t know is that they liked each other, that’s all we know. Other part of the definition teasing is this: he was pretending to be mad only to draw more attention to him. The famous law in the Universe is if someone pushes you back, you just want get closer to that person, no matter how hard they push. Was Oliver doing that to Elio? Because if he did and if this was his plan, Elio bit pretty quickly, he was rushing to make peace with everything at the lake (and all it took was a second, the word Tregua, and they were back to their old stuff from before). I can only analyze this scene because of the material from the movie. In the book, if I recall correctly, they ended up on Chiara and everything was back to normal. I could be wrong, don’t believe me. But in the book, they never went to lake Garda, because the town Bordighera which is the infamous B in the book isn’t close to the lake, but it’s rather on the opened Ligurian sea, where Monet really did come to paint.

Question: Was Oliver teasing Elio just for fun because he knew Elio wouldn’t be able to stay away from him?

The third theory:

This one I like very much, I don’t remember anyone considering this. In the scene “God we wasted so many days”, Oliver said he kept his distance because he felt like Elio was making him look like he had molested him on the volley ball court. So let’s say here: Oliver likes Elio, Elio doesn’t know that and he thinks Oliver is a creep. Following that theory, I kinda liked what I found and this is from Oliver’s perspective: What if Elio was creeped out by him so much that he simply couldn’t tell him to back off and instead sent his friend to make Oliver busy during the summer and not be all over Elio? And by creeped out I mean that Elio openly knew Oliver liked him and Elio didn’t, he found that creepy. And not to want any further problems, he sent Chiara off and Oliver had something to do while he’s staying there. If he didn’t send Chiara, he sure as hell showed his blessing as he was talking to him about her naked body the next day. What I wrote until now, it’s just theories and from Oliver’s perspective. In reality, we know they both liked each other but were too big of pussies to say anything and continued playing this silent game of cat and mouse.

Question: Was Oliver just pissed, offended and sad that Elio didn’t like him and didn’t want him that close at all and that he had to include a third person just to get him off his back?

What are your thoughts?

Because this has always been so fascinating to me because it just leads so another pile of questions: If Oliver liked Elio and Elio didn’t like Oliver then why was he pissed at him? If he was into Elio then it didn’t matter what he said about Chiara or the fact that he kept selling her out like that, but if he minded the way he was selling her that would mean he liked Chiara and not Elio. If he didn’t care that much about Chiara and liked Elio, was he just teasing him to pull him closer? So many things to consider here. Was Oliver in the end just pissed that he messed with his personal life? If that’s the case, why not just tell him that and be nice again? Why throw in the good host wording? What does that even mean? He's telling him not to set him up with his friends anymore, or not to talk about his girlfriend that way, or because he's their guest he gets the full treatment, what's the deal man? Oliver is indeed a very complicated character, hence so many questions.

Thoughts?

I’ll tag some so that we can discuss this: @notthatmuch25 @growtolikehim @s-e-n-s-u-a-l-italiansummer @mumbjumbo86

[rebellect-writes]

[SIZE=1][b]Name:[/b] Jess. [b]Age:[/b] 21. [b]How did you find us?:[/b] Well, you see. You found me!

[align=center] [color=WHITE]Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. -- [b]Edgar Allan Poe[/b] "The Raven"[/SIZE][/color] [IMG]http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lilkhvalW01qzozmk.gif[/IMG] [color=WHITE]Tell me would you kill to save for a life? Tell me would you kill to prove you're right? Crash, crash, burn let it all burn. This hurricane chasing us all underground.[/color] [/align]

[b]Name:[/b] Fallon. [b]Nicknames & Aliases:[/b] [LIST]Fall; He’ll acknowledge you if you’re not being funny. Autumn; He may change his hair colour a lot but that will get you smacked. Sadistic; Why thank you! Lust; No, he’s not a chick even if he wears guy-liner. [/LIST][b]True Age:[/b] 3004 [b]What He Says:[/b] 1018 [b]Date of Birth:[/b] December 26th [b]Age at Death:[/b] 30 [b]Gender:[/b] Male. [b]Sexual Orientation:[/b] Bisexual, though guys are more his thing. [b]Occupation:[/b] Owns his own theatre plus company, sometimes steps in at Club Hell to help Noah.

[b]Bloodline:[/b] Belle Morte. [b]Power Level:[/b] Master. [b]Mind-Set:[/b] Dominant unless submissive suits the situation. [b]Animal to Call:[/b] Wolves. [b]Powers:[/b] [b]Standard Vampire powers:[/b] Like all vampires, Fallon’s got heightened physical strength and he has steel like grip. He could send a human flying with a slightest touch and like the newly dead, he’s capable of lifting a small car with ease. He’s also very fast, more than capable from switching from a death like stillness to a speed that’s perceived faster than the human eye can follow since he can cloud people’s minds. It’s like as if he vanishes at will! His senses are pretty spot on, Fallon can smell a human’s emotional state, and to some degree, he can taste weaker shifters or vampires and his hearing? Well, he can hear a whispered comment from the other side of the house. With his age, Fallon can disguise himself and appear mortal, but unlike a human, he can switch from being a completely animated being to something that is still, expressionless and silent. The last thing of note is that he’s extremely difficult to harm like most of the older vampires and wounds made from heavy objects, and even bullets, heal with moments even though it hurts like hell he doesn’t let it show.

[b]Feeding Via Mind:[/b] Now, this is a tricky thing for him to do since the human mind is complex. He has to touch people to do this, skin to skin, for it to work and he can only enter a person’s mind to feed from their more promiscuous thoughts and deepest fantasies. He can’t sustain himself on this for long, maybe a day or two extra, but he can use it to hold back the ardeur and the blood hunger. To avoid doing this often, Fallon takes precautions and wears a pair of leather gloves.

[b]Empathic Voice Manipulation:[/b] Fallon can use his voice to bring out the better aspects in peoples moods. He thinks of it more as a mental power than something actually physical because he doesn’t have to touch someone when he uses it, however it still gives off a physical sensation at times to the people he uses it on. In his mind, it’s supposedly like rolling a victim. They want to stay and listen to him, even if they wouldn’t normally do it or despise him. He's only ever really used this power on his wolf, Jesse.

[b]The Ardeur:[/b] Fallon is an incubus, and one of Bella Morte’s special little boys and girls. The most basic way to describe it is that anyone under its thrall is gripped by the intense desire to have sexual intercourse with the user or the closest person to them despite their general preferences. This power’s truly frightening because the Ardeur drains the energy from those it feeds on and can potentially drain a person to the point of death, so incubi and succubi have more than one general lover if they want to feed correctly.

[b]Animal/Human Servant Creation:[/b] In theory, Fallon could take a human on as a servant as well, outside of his animal servant Jesse Harley. Basically, this power allows Fallon to magically bind someone to him, making said servants greater resistance to injury and mental powers and almost complete immunity to his own power (first mark). It also allows him to draw power from his servant and experience what they eat and drink, and even enter their dreams (second mark). He has to take some of the servants blood, but by doing so, it conveys increased healing powers, immunity to poisons and allows him and his servant to communicate mentally (third mark). After that, it’s just a matter of getting his servant to drink his blood and he can make them immortal like him, it also gives them a bond of almost complete mental communication and allows the servant to draw on Fallon’s strength (fourth mark). However, should his servant die, Fallon’s would be metaphysically crippled and most likely go insane since he’s old enough to survive the death. [b]Rank:[/b] Témoin

[b]Face Claim:[/b] Jared Leto. [b]Description:[/b] [IMG]http://images.sugarscape.com/userfiles/image/july/0707jared2.jpg[/IMG] [i]Height:[/i] 5’10. [i]Weight:[/i] 166lbs. [i]Eyes:[/i] Blue. A very distracting blue. [i]Hair:[/i] Naturally, brown and stays brown. Unless he dyes it a different colour for fun! (and 6 months out of 12, it’s one colour or another.) [i]Build:[/i] Very lean, almost to the point he looks underweight but that’s a lie. [i]Visible marks:[/i] He has two tattoos, one on the inside of his wrist in Latin with a quote he forgot years ago, and the other ( a small triad ) on his collar bone. [i]Style:[/i] Normally loose clothes, grungy punk like clothes. Beaded bracelets, necklaces and so on. He can wear suits, if he does though that’s another story since they make him feel confined. He’ll wear them though, if the occasion calls for it and keep the complaining to a minimum.

[b]Special Skills:[/b] [LIST] [*] Can speak French, Romanian, Spanish and Italian. Oh! And sarcasm. [*] He can appear human, unlike newer vampires. [*] Since he’s second in command of Jackford, he does actually have a network of spies and snitches at his finger tips that he uses when he has to. He’s built this up over the years, so in a way it’s a special skill, because he uses it to keep Noah updated and the Kiss one step ahead of things most of the time. [*] It isn't really a special skill, but he prides himself on not being power hungry. [/LIST][b]Personality:[/b][LIST]Fallon is just a giant ball of multicolours. No, seriously, his hair isn’t the only thing that changes. Normally, he’s an ok kind of guy that doesn’t go out of his way to annoy people too much. He likes to help people out and offer them a shoulder to cry on or wall to bounce ideas off. He’ll give advice where it’s due, even if he’s stepping on toes or going to piss someone off, if he feels the need to say it then he will. He’ll always try and apologize afterwards, but he’s Old World, so sometimes things don’t click right despite being fairly modern. What most people don’t notice, and sometimes Fallon doesn’t either, is that he gets bored easily and he acts out, heck the only people that probably would notice one of his acting out fazes are his brother, cousin or Jesse because he goes beyond the typical theatrical, creative and eccentric, he strays into maliciousness. He’s a bit of a charmer when he’s not being a whacky nut case that should be locked away for societies own wellbeing. Fallon’s loyal and backs up any threats and promises, if he says that he’ll do something then he will do it, even if it makes him squirm and whinge like a kicked puppy.

With his vast age, Fallon’s adopted a slightly twisted perspective on vampires and other supernatural. He comes from a time when they were monsters and did drop bodies where they could be found by others then slaughter others. He’s also well versed in the way many Kisses are run. Masters of the City are treated with the utmost respect, and he would give his life if it was what his “master” would want. Masters within the Kiss don’t get instant respect either; if they’re not strong enough then they have to earn it. In a dog eat dog world, its sink or swim baby. Lower Kiss and fledglings jump when he tells them too…Or at least that used to be the way. Fallon treats the Kiss like extended family, they have their ups and their downs but at the end of the day they’re not that dysfunctional. That doesn’t mean he’ll put up with blatant endangerment of his family. If it’s for the better good of all, he will stop people by any means appropriate and has at times locked vampires away in coffins and forgotten about them, or simply ripped their hearts out. He hasn’t held the position of second in command by only being a funny bastard; he has his ruthless streak well hidden as it may be.

While he’s been in Jackford, he’s made it his job to be friends with all the local werewolves where he can and provide them with an alley should they need it. He’s only ever once called the wolves of Jackford without their permission and he won’t do it again. Those he call come to him willingly or not at all. It’s the same with any partners he has as force is very distasteful. No one in this life time has seen Fallon at his worst. Sure, he has his moments where he withdraws from the world and appears bored with what’s going on around him and with what’s going on in his life, but I’m not talking about a depressive vampire. The anger in him is deep, and it’s destructive and in some ways protective because he does rant and he does rave and he does lash out normally in his head these days and prays that he never needs to get violent properly. [/LIST][b]Likes:[/b] [LIST] [*] Playing video games with Jesse. [*] When there’s no trouble for the Kiss. Running around like chickens is annoying. [*] Riding his bike through the city. Screw your cars! [*] Shopping in person, though he’ll never own up to it when he does it online. [*] When it snows. [*] Swimming. [*] Protecting the Kiss. He wouldn’t be second in command of the city if he didn’t. [*] Tormenting Jesse on their [i]movie nights[/i]. [*] Writing poems, short stories, you name it. [*] Playing the guitar, that’s something only Jesse and Noah know about. [/LIST][b]Dislikes:[/b] [LIST] [*] Religious talk. Followed by the words "vampires have no souls." [*] Getting blood on his favourite clothes. It’s hell to get it out.   [*] When Jesse gets into trouble and doesn’t tell him straight away. [*] Fighting with Noah. [*] Jesse disobeying him in some form or another. [*] Silence. He has to have a little noise around him otherwise his mind wanders. [*] People underestimating the Kiss. [*] People that try and hurt his wolf. [*] Getting blood on his clothes. [*] Having to make an example of someone. [/LIST][b]Strengths:[/b][LIST] [*] Goes to great lengths to make friends with the wolves before calling any. [*] Jesse makes him look at the world a whole new way again. [*] Is brutally honest when he needs to be. Suck it up, princess! [*] He’s pretty intelligent, even if he does look like a typical punk.   [*] His brother. Enough said on that matter. [*] Can and will walk into a church, much to the surprise of many. What? He’s fine as long as there’s no flaming crosses or bible toting idiots. [*] Patience of a saint, it must be said. When things look rough, he’ll look for other options. [/LIST][b]Weaknesses:[/b][LIST] [*] Having to be invited into a home. [*] Holy symbols. [*] Jesse Harley. Hurt the pet and you hurt the Master. [*] His older brother Noah. [*] He has to feed the Ardeur or risk it getting out of control and no one wants that. [*] Has a habit of running his mouth off at times. [*] Likes blood a little too much. [/LIST][b]Fears:[/b][LIST] [*] Small spaces. He can deal for a little while but not long time frames. He feared them as a human and it has carried over as a vampire. [*] Seeing Jesse hurt and being unable to help him, he wouldn’t know what to do if he didn’t have his wolf around. [*] Noah's temper or Jaspers. He fears that in a big way like any baby brother/cousin would. [*] Being starved from touch again. [/LIST][b]History:[/b][LIST]Seven years after the birth of Noah, during a particularly rough winter, Fallon was brought into the world kicking like any normal babe to be welcomed by his older brother Noah and his father as his mother lay exhausted. His mother knew something was different about her second son; womanly intuition of course, brought on by the fact Fallon was quiet as a babe. Her first son and her husband didn’t seem to notice it, so she didn’t mention it to anyone. From the moment that Fallon could walk on his own two feet, his brother was teaching him all kinds of things as well as his parents. They were growing old; they wanted both of their boys to survive in the harsh life that had been given to them and in less than six years Fallon and Noah were left orphans as their parents passed on. Noah tried at first to make things work, he took up the responsibilities afforded to a man and Fallon tried his hardest too help, even at such a young age. Eventually the local story teller Alaric’s wife came and helped, and then the rest of the settlement rather than see the boys waste away since they had no other blood kin close to hand.

When he was ten, Fallon was left in the care of the story teller and his wife as Noah went off to fight for the clan and settlement with other young men. As much as he hated it, he couldn’t blame Noah much but he did feel abandoned. For most of his life Noah was the only constant in his life, and to be left with strangers that some in the settlement considered mad was a little…scary. After the first few weeks though, he was fine and Noah was the last thing on his mind. Up at dawn he would go hunting with the story teller while his wife kept the house and small farm that they had and they’d go into the woods to hunt birds and the like and every day Fallon was told a different story about Gods and Goddesses, demons and all kinds of great and wonderful things. He was also taught how to shoot a bow and arrow over the nine years he spent with them, he was also taught to hunt and forage in the woods and the land around them, and every night when he lay down to sleep he no longer thought about Noah like he had when he had when he’d been younger.

Nine years later and Noah stumbled back into the settlement. Fallon wasn’t the first to great him as he’d been out fishing at the time, but when he found out that his brother was back, he raced back. Only, things weren’t as they were. Before he embraced his brother, Fallon hesitated for a moment and he knew that Noah noticed it because his brother had to clear his throat to get Fallon to even move forward that last few steps. There was just something different about Noah that he didn’t like and yet he couldn’t explain it. So instead he pushed it aside and embraced his brother and tried to summon up the elation that he just couldn’t feel. Yes, he was happy that Noah had returned alive and whole, but it was the joy of having a warrior return from battle and not that of a baby brother. Maybe it was because Noah didn’t seem that enthused to see him or it was the fact that the entire settlement had hounded him. So, after a quick hug and a ‘I’ll see you later’, Fallon slunk off with his tail between his legs in no mood for the celebration.

Over the following years, the brothers tried to reconnect, they really did. Fallon showed him everything that he had learnt but Noah seemed to always find something to pick and poke at while fending off the women folk that wanted to hear tales of the war and offers from wealthier travellers that wanted a mercenary. Every time Noah poked, Fallon snapped, every time he prodded, Fallon hissed until eventually he just took off and left Noah to the mercy of the villagers.  Alaric’s wife, Ava, tried to get the brothers to bond but to no good, and they got in to enough fights both verbal and physical that on occasions Fallon was left with a bloodied lip or black eye and Noah was left with another dent in his conscious. Fallon may’ve been good with a hunting knife or a bow, but his brother was deadly with or without weapons so Fallon never fought back. So in the end both brothers were left sitting on opposite sides of a chasm that only seemed to get wider and wider and ultimately led to Fallon’s mounting frustration and anger, even Old Alaric called him up on that a time or two when it cost them a night’s dinner.

Old Alaric died two years later, just after Fallon’s twenty sixth birthdays. Ava had passed the previous autumn before and it was the only reason that had Fallon alone on the coast watching a pyre burn rather than finding out about the war in the south. It was then he decided that he really wanted to make things up with Noah. He returned to the settlement too late, apparently his brother and the other warriors had gone that morning. Rather that race after them like an idiot, Fallon retreated to the old shack that had been his home for years with Alaric and Ava and broke down. He screamed and he raged and he prayed that his brother would return again, just one last time, but he never did. It was only then he realized how stupid he’d been for letting the gap between him and Noah stay so wide.

Noah never returned.

It was six months before he really gathered himself together to carry on with things. He became the story teller for the village like Alaric had been before him. He told the children stories that defied all possible imagination while the adults got on with things. After about a year and a half though, things got a little hectic. A very bad harvest had left the settlement running low on food and to make matters worse they’d gotten word of a small wolf pack that had been scavenging to close for anyone’s comfort. When the first body turned up and it was decided by the head of the settlement that they needed to do something about the wolves, when Fallon saw no one volunteering, he offered to go out and hunt the pack down. He was given a horse, supplies enough for a week if he stretched them, and sent on his way. Of course he wasn’t stupid and he didn’t really trust the villagers much, more so the so called leader that should’ve gone off with his damned warriors to war. He stopped by his home to retrieve what he would need, his bow was better than any dagger.

Setting out properly this time, he tracked the animals for a week before setting up a trap far enough away from the village that no one would be bothered by it. Rather than taking the wolves on all at one time he settled into picking them off, one or two over the space of a few days, then another few weeks would pass before he would take more out disrupting their routine and scaring them away from villages they even looked towards for their next meal. Eventually however, he got them  all and returned home with the wolf pelts almost a full year later. It was a bit of a shock to find that the settlement had changed so much, so many of the elders had passed on and the leadership had shifted to a new generation. One that Fallon knew all too well. Abner, son of Esca; One of the other boys that had missed out on the last war had taken over the headship to allow his father some peace through his final days. Fallon wasn’t allowed to approach the old leader directly and when he brought his ‘case’ to Abner, the other male dismissed him. Called him mad, said he’d made a pact with the devil because no one would’ve been able to kill a pack of wolves alone. Rather than accept or deny, Fallon dumped the wolf pelts at the man’s feet before walking away as Abner made it a law before everyone that he should be shunned. Any help of any kind would be met with a punishment and so on and so forth, Fallon didn’t catch the end of it. He did work out what was happening though about fortnight later when no one would look at him, trade, and talk or even walk by him without warding themselves.

It hurt Fallon to his core because of what he and his family had done for the village, but he was determined to weather the bad patch. Only it was a bit longer than any patch, for six full years passed and he was alone through it all. Starved of touch and conversation, Fallon withdrew into a hermit like lifestyle living in the village so to speak but not a part of it. Then the strangest thing happened, after returning from a fishing trip on the coast, Fallon almost walked smack bang into his brother. His dead ice cold to the touch brother. Naturally he gaped like a caught fish before bolting for his home leaving Noah standing there like a statue. He must have been mad! For the next two nights he was scared to close his eyes and stayed locked away in his home and then on the third night Noah banged on his door asking to come in. Rather than have an argument with his dead brother, Fallon invited him in…and fainted.

The following night Noah walked right in and Fallon didn’t even flinch but kicked out a seat from his table and going back to his stew. Since he believed he was mad at the time, Fallon happily listened to what Noah had to tell him for the next few weeks. Fairies were real? Could’ve fooled him! People changed into animals? Get out of here! Noah had been turned into the undead on the battlefield by the Lord Fallon had seen with him weeks previous….No, seriously, get out demon. Fallon snapped and the brotherly fight lasted for weeks before either one of them were calm again to sit in the same room without threats of impalement of some kind, and not once did Fallon tell his brother what had happened in the village to cause him to live like a hermit. He didn’t mark the year passing, but he did try his damnedest to try and fix things with Noah despite his frustration and then one night – exactly a year to the day – he met Master Mikhail. Noah was powerless to do anything as the old Master vampire deep rolled Fallon and tore into his throat.

Sometime later, Fallon woke up starving with fangs in his mouth. Naturally he panicked because he was no longer in his home and he was out of his element. Noah caught him before he could bolt anywhere and tried to explain things before Mikhail came to them. Apparently Mik had grown impatient and turned Fallon and now Fallon would live forever if he fed on the life blood of the living. Gods be damned! If Noah hadn’t already been dead, Fallon would have throttled him or Mikhail. Since he didn’t trust Mikhail as far as he could throw him, Fallon stuck to his brother’s side as the Master told him what was going to happen next and if he didn’t stop hissing and spitting like an annoyed kitten then he could easily die the true death. Rather than argue, Fallon accepted his fate and in a roundabout way, thought of it as a way to see if the old stories Alaric had told him were true. It didn’t stop him from cringing and whimpering when Noah and Mikhail showed him how to feed, and yet again another argument erupted between the brothers that left Mikhail ordering Noah away for the evening while Fallon stayed with Mikhail. He probably would have been scared by his brothers parting words “No, Master Mikhail. You won’t use him.” But he wasn’t. He found it exciting, almost as exhilarating as the rush of blood he’d taken from the girl they’d gotten him. Truth be told, he’d never liked any of the girls in their village because they were stuck up.

He should’ve been humiliated by the actions he took with his master but he wasn’t at all. In fact it was the first he’d really felt in years after having been starved of touch. It also explained why when Noah and Jasper had pushed girls towards him growing up, Fallon had sent them away. He wasn’t a virgin by any means, but it wasn’t something that he’d broadcasted in life. For once in a long time he was happy and content, and in a way it opened himself up to all kinds of guilty pleasures. While he learned to control his new instincts, Mikhail would use him when Noah misbehaved, and when Fallon misbehaved, he would use Noah. Both fledglings learned fast that their ‘father’ wouldn’t be swayed by a honeyed tongue and sweet actions eithers.

Centuries came and went and they travelled all over the world, and then one day Noah reached his Masterhood and the attention shifted from the two of them to Noah. Fallon was jealous and he hid it be slinking off more and more on his own and risked his neck more times than he could count. His brother was only six hundred and forty seven years old! Why couldn’t he have new powers as well? Oh yeah, he sulked. Mikhail snapped one evening and threw him in a coffin while Noah was away for an evening. The sulking turned to panic and out right fear. Being trapped in a box reduced him to nothing within hours and when Noah tore through it, Fallon clung to his brother and cried his eyes out for all he was worth. Fallon didn’t blame Mikhail at the end of the day, he hadn’t told anyone about his claustrophobia ever thinking it humiliating enough, but it was a good century before he felt truly comfortable about his maker again.

More time passed and as Fallon approached his seven hundredth and eleventh year as a vampire, something happened that changed him. Something clicked inside his head, he could feel werewolves and without knowing what he was doing he called the local pack to him. However that wasn’t the only thing that clicked in him, the Ardeur. Unbeknown to him, Noah and Mikhail had gotten into a little trouble with the church and Mikhail was using Fallon as a proxy to feed from. The pack wolves that came were sent into a lust induced frenzy and Fallon was in the centre of it and enjoying every moment. It wasn’t until a few evening safter that he found out one of the wolves that had come had been barely fifteen years old, shocked by that revolution, he waited patiently for his maker and brother to return, still riding the high from the new powers and feeding. Mikhail and Noah were just as surprised as he was when they came back. It was nice…

And then six hundred years later the nice changed. Fallon had grown bored living in his brother’s shadow as well as Mikhail’s and asked if he could leave, after asking his brother of course. Mikhail granted his wish and the brothers said good bye but promised to stay in touch. One thousand and three hundred years old and it was safe to say he’d learnt a lot in his time. He’d gotten a hold of his master powers, fed his incubus side on a regular basis so there’d never be a mistake again with the teenage wolf from when they first showed. He eventually settled in Coventry at age two thousand one hundred, but he hid his powers from the Mistress that accepted him into her Kiss. Morgana was an interesting woman, he’d been drawn to her beauty and she’d been drawn to his bloodline powers. He was her personal toy for the next five hundred years, he jumped when she said so, he started to plot her downfall when she personally tore into a werewolf and rather than letting the poor shapeshifter die, Morgana infected it with her corrupting bite. He was forced to watch as the young boy – barely eighteen – rotted to death in slow agony on the floor because she’d been insulted by the shirt he’d worn. When she’d been lulled into a false sense of security and had had enough of Fallon, she traded him away for something new. Little did she know that he’d given the Temion of her kiss the keys to take her down and the last thing he heard from Morgana or anyone within the Coventry Kiss was that the manor house had gone up in flames.

Oh well. Jackford was interesting enough, even though he’d been ‘gifted’ to the Master of the City at the time to do with as he pleased. Luckily, Fallon won him over and fought his way to the top by wit, skill and sheer power once he was settled in. The Kiss from what he could tell was really new and finding its feet, so he used it to his advantage to get a hold on the city over the next five hundred years. The only interesting thing that tickled his fancy was meeting a werewolf in 2007 on the outskirts of the city. Fallon had been dealing with a rogue alpha that had been the companion of a vampire that had insulted a previous Master of the City and out of a misguided sense of comradeship, Jesse attacked him after Fallon had killed the other werewolf and Fallon had no option but to defend himself from the spirited pup’s mauling while nursing wounds from the other wolf. Jesse staggered off and Fallon traced him back to the Pack house, rather than leaving the wolf to stay unconscious on the kitchen floor Fallon took him back to his home outside of the Kiss manor and patched him up as much as best as he could. When Jesse woke up, he came back singing and Fallon unknowingly gave him the first mark as an animal servant as he taunted and teased the irritable wolf before explaining what had happened. Simple enough right? Right.

Jesse decided to stay with him as his willing blood donor the following year and Fallon was ecstatic. Then he got a call from someone he hadn’t heard of in a long time in early 2010. Mikhail wanted him to return to deal with some delicate werewolf issues for him. He was surprised because he’d thought that Mikhail would’ve known other wolf callers but apparently not anyone as experienced as he was. Shrugging off his curiosity, he bade Jesse fair well and slipped across the pond to New York. Trouble was an understatement, there were four packs fighting for one territory! Fallon was in New York for just under a year and counted down the days until he could get home, he even had a chance to drop by New Jersey and visit Noah for a few nights before him came home to find Jesse picking a fight in one of the local clubs. Then when the last Master of the City left Jackford, Fallon did the only thing he could as he was still wheeling from the trip and familiar faces, he called his Maker and got the promise that Jackford wouldn’t be without a Master for long.

A fortnight later his brother showed up. [/LIST]</span>

[lokizalien]

Avengers: A Bleeding Rose // #1

//Originally I planned to make this story into a comic but unfortunately school just started and I will not be able to focus on drawing it. So I decided why not post it here! I hope you enjoy :) ❤️//

Warnings: some cussing, (there will be much more warnings in future chapters)

“Why must you always play games? Now look at you. You are who you said you would never be… Was it worth it?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Samantha! Slow down!”

Loud panting coming from the man’s lips as he rest his hand on the detective’s shoulder. A satisfied click of the tongue was all he received, as she gave him a knowing glance. The sides of her mouth curling upward as the soft curls of her short black hair fall over her right eye.

“I mean, we’re already here so we might as well.” She cooed, playing with the ends of the strings of her navy blue American eagle hoodie. Repeatedly tapping on the plastic at the end of it, waiting for her partners response.

“Rose, I’m not skipping an hour of work just to stand here and read a bunch of biographies for the twentieth time” He huffed, slightly tugging on the hood of her jacket. She pouted, glaring at him.

“Fine, you can go Sean.” She sighed as she began to walk towards the entrance. Breaking the grip he had on her in the process.

“Hey! Rose! What the hell do you-”

He was cut off from a silent ‘shh’ coming from Samantha’s lips. Her middle finger pressed against them as a smirk grew across her lips.

“Run along, Pawjer. I’ll meet you there” She replayed with a smug smile.

Sean rolled his eyes, biting the inside of his lip as he watched her continue walking to the entrance of the build.

“You get there any later than an hour and I’m throwing away your secret stash” He sighed, starting to walk away with a small smile.

“Go ahead! Let’s see how far you can carry me!” She chuckled, glancing over at him as she saw him walk around the corner. She sighs softly as she turns her attention back to the museum.

The museum was like her quiet place. It was a good place for her to think and gather herself mentally before she went to work or to start day in general.

As usual she quickly made her way to where the World War II information was. Her eyes lit up just from the thought of it. The corners of her mouth curling upward as if she was watching her childhood replay when she first visited this museum.

She always found history inspiring. Her love for it only grew by the day, ever since she was little. Her main inspiration being from Steve Rogers also known as Captain America. Just like every kid in her generation, when she was little she looked up to him and wanted to be a hero just like he was. That’s why she became a detective for the NYPD. Always trying to do her job to the best of her ability, that’s until the battle of New York. After that her perspective on a few things changed. Her job after that day was to help anyone from the destruction and the amount of casualties just made her sick to her stomach. Samantha is a stubborn brat that only listens to what she wants to even if she knows she’s wrong. So the fact that the 'Avengers’ saved the world was something she didn’t want to consider. But could you really blame her though? The fact that she had to tell many children across the city that their Mom and or dad wasnt coming back home, broke her heart.

She wanted absolutely nothing to do with the Avengers.

As time went on, her mind got lost in the many different biographies and information she was being presented. Her imagination only being cut off by her phone vibrating in her pocket. She could feel a groan develop in her throat as she took the phone out her pocket.

Sean Pawjer: Alright sunshine it’s time for you to come to work. Boss seems to be a little annoyed with your absences lol. But before you come can you buy me a souvenir? I’ve been keeping my eye out on one of those USAAF hats they have there.

She just rolls her eyes. A smirk forming across her lips, putting her phone back in her pocket.

As she made her way down to the gift shop her eyes scan the room, looking at all the creative jackets, bookbags, handbags, and any other accessories they held inside it.

Once her eye catches the hat Pawjer was talking about, she picked one up and placed it on top of her head.

Spotting a mirror from the corner of her eye she started to fix the hat properly on her head. Her smile only growing bigger the longer she looked at herself, thinking she looked cute.

“The hat looks nice on you, detective”

Her body froze. In the mirror she saw a slightly taller redhead with gorgeous blue eyes standing behind her.

Is that the agent from shield?

She asked herself, her mind jumping to different conclusions on why she was here. Taking a deep breath and clears her throat as she turned around to face the woman. An awkward smile plastered on her face.

“I beg your pardon?” She replied, the sass in her tone being much more than what she would have hoped.

Her eyebrow cocked upwards, the corner of her lips curled as she seem to be amused by the sass in her tone.

“Good evening Detective Rose. My name is Natasha Romanoff, an agent from S.H.I.E.L.D. I’ve been ordered to come find you and bring you back to H.Q..” she stated, slowly stepping closer to the smaller female.

Her chest heaves, trying her best to keep her place and not to seem so intimidated by the agent.

“May I ask why?” Her voice sounding a little more stern.

“S.H.I.E.L.D. monitors potential threats an-” Natasha was cut off by a chuckle that left Samantha’s lips. Her nervous gaze now replace by a smug smile.

“and when did I become a threat exactly? If I recall correctly I haven’t done anything wrong, Miss Romanoff” A sly tone in her voice.

The smirk on Natasha’s lips grew bigger. Her hands slipping into the front pocket of her jeans as, she closed the space in between them. “How about 2 years ago, S.H.E.I.L.D.’s base. Where you stole a piece of the tesseract.” She whispers.

Samantha kept quiet, her body tensing as the other female stood over her. A small scared whimper built in her throat. The worst part being that she was right. She did steal a peice of the Tesseract, but why are they coming for her now?

“You do realize you’re in so much more trouble than you think.” She let the words roll off her tongue, the smirk on her face only growing bigger as she looked down at Samantha. “You’re lucky were willing to offer you a job instead of throwing you in prison as planned. Now it’s your choice, you either come with me or your under arrest.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Samantha sat down in the passenger seat of the agents car, pouting her lips as she kept her glare on the red head. She walked around the car with the same shit eating grin on her face, it only getting bigger when she noticed Samantha’s stare.

She opened the door and sat down in the driver’s seat. Her fingertips tapping the steering wheel as she started the engine of the car.

“You put this on yourself, Detective. Might as well just run with it.” Natasha place her hand on the rim of the cap Samantha still had on her head and fixed it properly. A small Huff was the only response Natasha received.

Time flew by as the two sat quietly in the car, the wind blowing through both of their hair as yet another light turns green.

“ So…Do you care to explain to me, Why you thought it was a good idea to steal a piece of one of the most dangerous weapons on the planet? According to the NYPD you don’t even like any cases that has to involve The Avengers.”

Samantha’s eyes flutter in surprise from the sudden question, her heart nearly skipping a beat when she mentioned the NYPD.

“You confronted the station?” She asked rather annoyed. Sighing in defeat before Nat can say anything, she clears her throat.

“There’s been a rumor going around about the stone and I never really believed it but ever since New York… I was intrigued. I wanted to see what the big fuss was about it. I mean it opened a portal to space for God’s sake!” Her eyes sparkled like a little kid on Christmas morning.

“I wanted to take some research on it. Honestly seeing what happened with the stone already I’m surprised I didn’t get in any more trouble.” Her smile automatically flipping when she felt Natasha’s glare on her.

Natasha clicked her tongue in annoyance.

“Mhm, we’ll see. Did you get anything from your 'research’?” She asks, amplifying the sass in her voice.

Samantha scoffed at that, her tongue rolling around in her cheek as she turned her attention to out the window.

“not exactly, the last thing I remember about my research was that the stone emits gamma radiation. The amount of radiation in that stone could really do some damage to a Human…. Which is funny cause, the little bit of radiation that was in that tiny piece is now in me.” A nervous laughter escaping her lips, realizing that she’s in much more trouble than she would have hoped.

A sharp inhale came from Nat as the car came to a holt. Samantha hisses at the friction the seatbelt made with her skin on her neck. A small bruise left on her dark skin. After few seconds of silence, the two girls shared glances. Samantha’s was cold and filled with annoyance. Her nails digging into the leather material of the seat as she pulled herself up properly. Natasha on the other hand staring at her with wide eyes.

“What?” Samantha panted.

Natasha still didn’t answer. Her eyes were filled with concern and worry which only made Samantha feel more tense. Her annoyed expression started to soften as she could really tell that the agent didn’t know what was going on, but what she did know is that whatever happened 2 years ago was NOT good. “We need to get to the tower”

Samantha nods slowly, her mouth becoming dry. She became scared, her heart beating rapidly as she slowly turns her attention away from the agent. “O-okay…” She mumbles as Natasha drives off in a hurry.

Taking deep breaths, Samantha sat there impatiently, her fingers tapping against her thigh. Her eyes following trees and people. Anything to help her forget the look on Nat’s face. It gave her such an uncomfortable felling I’m her stomach. She was scared. No. Terrified, but all she could do was.. wait.

[luciana-galvez]

rockstars & runaways | part 6

Nikki and Kat go way back, but with his issues and her family history, finding their way back together is a long and rocky road. And with the rockstar life, what’s the hurry anyway?

Fandom: the dirt

Words: 2.4k

Pairing: nikki sixx x oc

Warnings: implied smut i guess

Note: full disclosure this is a filler chapter and i tried to write it three different ways and hated all of them. this one included. i’ve given up so go enjoy this mess before we move on to different & better things.

1980

Kat leaned against the bar and watched the band play, occasionally tapping her foot to the beat of the music.

It was her night off, but London was playing, so she had decided to stay. Plus, it was December, and even for LA it was getting fairly cold at night, so if she could postpone going back to her car, Kat didn’t mind.

She was impressed with how much of a crowd the band was starting to draw, and she was pretty sure they weren’t far away from starting to sell out weekends. It wasn’t for their great chemistry, though. It was still evident that they couldn’t stand each other, but apparently their music was hitting a nerve with a lot of people.

In typical London fashion, they ended their show by playing Public Enemy No.1 and throwing beer all over the crowd, which is why Kat hadn’t opted to stand closer to the stage. She also knew better than to follow them when they headed of stage, because based on their antagonism toward each other, she knew it wouldn’t take long until Nikki came back to get a drink at the bar.

“Can I get a beer?” Kat asked as she turned back toward Michelle, and the girl gave her a small nod before grabbing a bottle and opening it.

“How long do you think it’ll be before they kill each other?” Michelle asked as she placed the bottle in front of Kat.

“I give them two months tops,” Kat shrugged.

“Six weeks,” Michelle retorted with a raised eyebrow.

“You’re on,” Kat grinned and Michelle gave her an acknowledging wink before going back to serving other customers.

In the last couple of weeks the Starwood had stayed consistently crowded after London played, which thrilled Gary but annoyed Kat as she just tried to drink her beer in peace. She ignored the level of chatter around her as best as she could, but it was harder to ignore the tall, skinny guy next to her as he bumped into her when trying to order drinks for him and his date.

“Sorry, dude,” he apologized quickly and then went back to raving about the band to his date, and for a moment Kat seriously contemplated not waiting for Nikki.

It took another ten minutes before the rush on the bar died down, and even longer until Nikki finally took up the seat next to her.

“That guy is a pain in my ass,” he huffed as he lowered himself onto the barstool, and Kat turned her seat to look at him.

“You know you don’t have to stay in a band with people you hate, right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Nikki sighed and thanked Michelle as she brought him a whisky without him having to ask for it. “We rock though, so where’s the harm?”

“Me bearing your mood swings,” Kat told him. “That’s the harm.”

“Oh, come on, where would your entertainment be if it wasn’t for my complaining?”

“I can think of a dozen things. For one, watching you play without rolling your eyes every five minutes, now that would be more entertaining. Polishing these glasses,” Kat grinned and pointed behind the bar. “The dumpster out back.”

“Which one?”

“The one on the corner. For glass.”

“You think it has more perspective than me?”

“Oh yeah, it’s going places.”

“Like where?”

“The dump. You should try it some time.”

Nikki simply huffed in response and lowered his head. For a moment they were silent, and Kat watched as he played with his fingernails and took the occasional sip from his whisky.

“You okay?” she asked eventually.

“Mh?” Nikki asked and looked up, clearly pulled out of his train of thought. “Oh, yeah. All good.”

Kat was pretty sure that it was not all good, but she also knew better than to ask. Instead, she excused herself to go to the bathroom and give him a minute.

When she came back, however, Nikki seemed to have worked through it just fine, judging by the redhead that had taken up her seat and was in the process of seductively whispering into his ear.

Kat suppressed the urge to roll her eyes and cleared her throat to announce her presence when she came close to them.

“Oh, yeah, right,” Nikki said. “Leanne, this is Kat. Kat, this is Leanne,” he explained, clearly misinterpreting her gesture. After a moment he added, “We’ll actually be getting out of here.”

“You’re having an afterparty at your place?” Kat asked, trying not to sound irritated. It had been a few weeks since she had first come to one of his parties, and she had been to most of them since, so she tried not to be offended that he hadn’t told her about tonight.

“Well, it’s a private afterparty, if you know what I mean,” Nikki leaned in closer and winked at Kat.

Kat knew what he meant. It was not like she had a problem with his ever-increasing number of one-night-stands. Well, she willed herself not to have a problem with his ever-increasing number of one-night-stands. Kat had told him that she wouldn’t sleep with him, and she was still convincing herself that she would hold herself up to that promise.

And it might have been easier if it wasn’t so easy for her to be around him. There was something about Nikki that she felt so drawn to that she couldn’t help but let most of her guards down in the process. She hated in how much of a bubble she was whenever the two of them were alone, because it was so much more irritating whenever she was pulled back to reality.

The bassist seemed to understand her in a way that no one so far had, and it wasn’t easy for her to accept that this connection had to end eventually, too.

But before Kat could answer, Leanne whispered something in Nikki’s ear that Kat couldn’t quite catch, and then walked off toward the exit.

“Well,” Nikki said, with a cheeky grin that wasn’t directed at Kat, “I’m off.”

Kat watched as Nikki got up from his seat at the bar and followed the redhead with a sinking feeling in her gut. She had always been jealous of people her entire life, but usually she was very good at pressing it down and accepting her circumstances. With Nikki, however, that seemed increasingly impossible, so she couldn’t stop herself as she opened her mouth.

“No,” she said simply, and Nikki turned around with an irritated yet amused expression on his face.

“What do you mean, no?”

Kat took a deep breath before deciding to push her better instincts away. “Don’t take her home,” she told him.

Nikki didn’t respond right away. For a moment, he simply eyed her before asking, “What?”

Kat had no idea what to tell him. She kept up the eye contact, and the longer she did the more Nikki’s expression changed from amused to something a little more serious.

“Don’t take her home,” Kat repeated eventually.

“And why shouldn’t I?”

Kat swallowed before answering. “Because I want you to take me home.”

Nikki didn’t answer, but he didn’t drop his gaze either. Kat didn’t know how long they remained like that, a few feet apart from each other, staring at each other with postures that were so tense that they almost seemed rigid, but she knew that she wouldn’t be the first one to back down either. It had spilled out now, so she might as well commit.

Before Nikki could say anything, Leanne showed up at his side again to complain why he was taking so long.

“Change of plans,” he told her after a moment without taking his eyes off Kat. “You can go home.”

“Excuse me?” she told him, clearly annoyed.

“I forgot that I have other plans.”

Leanne clicked her tongue at him before turning around and leaving in a way that clearly suggested how pissed she was. Not that either of them had the capacity to notice.

Kat held her gaze on Nikki for a moment longer until she eventually broke into a small grin.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”

And with that, she broke the eye contact and walked past him to head to the exit.

Nikki only caught up with her when she was already outside, and by the time he did, he was already back to his cheerful self.

“So, if I remember correctly you told me you wouldn’t sleep with me?”

“A girl can change her mind,” Kat shrugged, not looking over at him as they started making their way back to his place.

“You don’t seem like a girl that changes her mind,” Nikki smirked.

“Are you trying to talk me out of it?” Kat looked at him long enough to raise an eyebrow and Nikki only innocently raised his arms in response.

After that they were silent for a while, and the next time Kat looked over to Nikki, he was wearing the same contemplative expression from earlier.

“Okay, seriously,” Kat started. “What’s going on?”

Nikki turned his heat toward her and waved it off. “Nothing.”

“Nikki.”

“I mean it.”

Kat studied him for another second before backing down. “Okay.”

It didn’t take much longer until they reached his building, and Kat followed him up the stairs and into his apartment.

Being there without other people and a bassline loud enough to move her insides felt like an entirely different experience. All of a sudden the apartment was large and left way too much silence for her to fill.

So Kat stood off to the side and subconsciously crossed her arms in front of her chest while Nikki went up to his counter and poured himself another glass of whisky. This time he drank it in small sips rather than chugging the whole thing, and he used the time to eye Kat with a curious expression.

“You’re nervous,” he determined eventually.

“I am not.”

“Yes, you are,” Nikki grinned.

Instead of replying, Kat only clenched her jaw and avoided eye contact.

“Did you change your mind?” Nikki asked, this time a little more serious.

“No, it’s not that,” Kat waved him off. “It’s just…. complicated.”

“What is?” Nikki asked, but Kat only shook her head, so he didn’t push it.

There was another silence until Nikki eventually spoke up again. “I hate the holidays,” he mentioned casually and threw back the rest of his whisky. “Always have.”

“Is that why you’re being weird?” Kat asked and slowly came closer to the counter.

“Part of it,” Nikki shrugged. “When I was younger all the kids in my class used to show up with fancy gifts after the winter break, and I would just show up with a new shiner. Not exactly what I asked for.”

Kat dropped her arms and contemplated for a moment. “You think Santa is nepotistic?”

“Definitely,” Nikki huffed.

“Son of a bitch,” Kat muttered with a smile. “We should do something against that.”

“Like what?”

“We could go one of two ways. Either we get you a shitload of decorations,” Kat smiled. “Or we go burn someone’s Christmas tree.”

“Definitely number two.”

“I figured,” Kat smirked. She didn’t know if Nikki was doing it on purpose or if he just had a natural way of putting her at ease, but her nerves had vanished almost completely. “Let’s put it on the list.”

“What else is on the list?”

“Mh,” Kat contemplated for a moment and then started counting her fingers. “Burn someone’s Christmas tree. Get furniture that doesn’t smell like alcohol. Steal the sign in the hallway of the Starwood. Punch your lead singer in the face,” she grinned and moved a little closer to him, and then counted off the last finger. “And do this.”

She closed the distance between them with a final step and craned her neck up to look at him. Nikki’s eyes were trained on her intently, but he didn’t move. It looked like he was giving Kat room to change her mind at the last second, but she didn’t intend to.

She pierced his eyes for another moment before finally moving in and pressing her lips to his. Nikki didn’t hesitate before moving his hands to her waist, and when he pulled her closer, Kat almost felt dizzy. She was finally doing what she hadn’t allowed herself to even think about for months, so now that it was happening she felt like it was pulling the ground from beneath her feet.

She instinctively moved her right hand to his neck and her left hand to his hip, and when Nikki tried to clumsily pick her up, she couldn’t help but laugh into the kiss.

“Shut up,” Nikki grinned before he finally managed to find a proper spot on her waist and pick her up in one swift motion. Kat wrapped her legs around his hips and focused her attention on his neck while he carried her to his bedroom.

When they got to his bed, they stumbled onto it rather than fell on it, and both of them couldn’t help but laugh through the kissing.

“Will you take those off already?” Kat mumbled as she fumbled with the belt on his jeans, and Nikki grinned as he pressed sloppy kisses to her jaw.

“Eager, are we?” he smiled and went to pull her shirt off, but Kat shot out her hand and grabbed his wrist before he could. She also pulled away from him to look into his eyes.

“The shirt stays on,” she said and fixed him with an intense stare, and Nikki paused for a moment before nodding and moving on without question.

He pushed Kat onto the bed and hovered over her, showering her neck in a lot of sloppy kisses before moving down and taking off her pants in a few easy moves.

Kat was surprised by how easy he accepted all of her idiosyncrasies, and at the same time she wasn’t. He kept surprising her with how well he was able to look straight through her, so for now, she was willing to ignore all the consequences of her irrational choices and just enjoy the moment.

“Nikki,” Kat moaned and he moved up a little to look at her in question, and Kat couldn’t help but grin at his expression.

She quickly leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips before pushing him over so she could move on top of him. She knew she would probably regret this tomorrow, but what stood in the way of her enjoying it while it lasted?

Like she enjoyed trailing kissed down his stomach.

Or the way he squirmed under her touch.

Or the way he moaned her name.

tags: @supernaturalvikingwhore  @miserablecunt��@sighsophiia  @fandomshit6000  @flizaa @hi-my-name-is-riley  @electradestiny  @starlalove  @kingbouji3  @sweetshutter  @baiabouk  @swoopygorl @calspixie

[onisionhurtspeople]

The Spiral of Narcissistic Abuse: Onision Edition

I originally wrote this post in April 2017, but in the year and a half since it’s been published, there have been literally dozens of new victims targeted by Greg (Onision) and his wife Lainey (Laineybot) that I felt were severe enough to warrant inclusion; and so here I am to re-write this post to include this new information. 

1. “Love Bombing”: Display of excessive attention and professions of deep love. “Soul mate.”

Love bombing is the practice of overwhelming a person in a new relationship with signs of adoration and attraction in the form of gifts, compliments, meaningful gestures, discussions revolving around long-term future plans (marriage, children, vacations, etc), and professions of true love. The difference between love bombing and genuine love is that real love is earned over time through intimacy, trust, and consistency, whereas love bombing creates artificial feelings of intimacy that have not yet been earned. 

Greg routinely engages in love-bombing when it comes to either a) trying to lure in new victims, or b) making attempts to reel in previous victims (such as exes), or current victims who are becoming disillusioned with him and beginning to pull away. In 2015, after Greg had convinced his wife Lainey to “explore her bisexuality” by getting a girlfriend, she had settled on an 18-year-old YouTube personality and makeup guru named Billie, and flew her down to their house for a visit. What Greg neglected to tell Lainey was that he had ulterior motives for pushing her to get a girlfriend, and this was because he wanted to convince Lainey and whoever her girlfriend was to enter a three-way, polyamorous triad with him. While Billie was there, in an attempt to draw her in, Greg showered her with gifts, compliments, and an excessive amount of attention and admiration; according to him, he paid her $1800 a month to manage his social media accounts, spent thousands of dollars buying her gifts of makeup and clothing, and his videos were full of glowing compliments towards Billie. 

He tweeted this at Billie after she managed to “fix” a broken camera lens by throwing it on the ground. He screams at his own children just for losing at Mario Kart, could you imagine Onision having this reaction to anybody else treating his expensive equipment that way?

Every time he and Lainey broke up with Billie (usually because she refused to go along with their bizarrely strict and controlling expectations for her behavioral conduct, such as having to ask their permission before smoking weed - and yes, you read that correctly; the problem was not that she was smoking weed because it was illegal (as Greg and Lainey had originally claimed), the problem was that she didn’t ask their permission before doing it), Greg would begin to reel Lainey back in by trying to love bomb her again. This comment was made just two days after he’d cheated on Lainey with Billie, while she was pregnant with their second child:

…and every time they get back together, he begins love bombing Billie again, and ignoring Lainey. He is careful not to do this overtly on Twitter or Instagram like he does with Lainey, but during this time, he expends much more effort into communicating with Billie over Twitter and in videos than he does with Lainey. He is also very clearly more physically affectionate towards Billie in videos where the three of them appear together than he is with his own wife.

(And maybe this is just my unprofessional opinion, but the manner in which he compliments Lainey rings much more hollow and inauthentic to me than the compliments he used to give to Billie. It comes off as very rote and robotic, not genuine or sincere.) 

2.  Over-protection and isolation in the name of love. “We only need each other.”

One of the most common tactics that abusers use to control their victims is by isolating them from friends and family. They do this so that it’s harder for them to escape or see the truth of what’s happening to them. This behavior is manifested in ways such as convincing the victim to stay at home and not have a job, by controlling all of the money that flows through the household (including the victim’s money, if they DO have a job), and by slowly convincing the victim to stop talking to their friends and family members, because the narcissist “doesn’t think they’re good for [them]”. Without a sense of perspective or anybody from whom to gain a third-party point of view, it’s extremely difficult for the victim to objectively analyze the severity of the situation. 

Throughout the history of his relationships, Greg follows this pattern with all of his partners to the tee. He makes repeated attempts to convince Billie to stop flying home to spend time with her friends and family members, who she is extremely close with.

Unbelievably, he attempts to manipulate her by bragging about how he’d already managed to successfully convince Lainey to not visit her own family more than once a year. In a livestream, Lainey once admitted that earlier this month (October 2018) was the first time she’s attended a family funeral in over five years, because Greg wouldn’t give her permission to go to any of the other ones. He also frequently attacks Lainey’s family on social media, as well as diminishing them in Lainey’s eyes by making his disapproval of them quite clear:

This is what he said about Lainey’s sister:

He especially does this to Lainey’s father, who saw through Greg from the very beginning, and desperately tried to stop his 17-year-old daughter from marrying him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sAjnkASwOo

He also did this with Skye while they were still married, restricting her from seeing anybody but members of his own family, and members of her family that he approved of (which was basically just her younger sister, a 15-year-old girl who Greg admitted to fantasizing about having sex with, including (more than once) accidentally moaning her name while being intimate with Skye). A quote from his website at the time:

January 24th, 2007

Alright, so it has been a few days since Skye and I hung out with another couple… judging from the fact that these people were the only ones we knew that had a lifestyle that wasn’t drugged out, beered out (also known as drugged out), smoked out, ethically lacking, rude etc. and we can’t even enjoy ourselves around them as much as we do each other… I just really don’t see myself and Skye spending time with anyone in the future other than family…

It seems that everyone who isn’t blood related has something extremely wrong with them… it may not be apparent at first, like a used car, but when you get on the road with them, and get to know them, the clanks and pings begin to show, maybe not after the first few miles, but definitely after the second or third ride.

(Source)

This isolation of Skye got so bad that eventually, two of their friends actually tried to convince her to leave Greg:

January 27th, 2007

I was going to post something extremely long about how upset I am with two people I know, within my personal life - who are continuously trying to break my wife and I apart psychically and vocally… but I’m not going to as I believe it can only cause a greater level of drama, which is exactly what they feed on.

In fact, they probably know I’m talking about them right now, and are dialing my number just to tell me/others how wrong I am for my wife, and somehow by saying I love her every hour of the day, feeding her full of yummy food, trying to make her happy emotionally/other ways, putting a roof over her head, that in result of that I’m a bad husband.

(Source)

A former classmate of Greg, who had gone to high school with both he and Skye, also gave an interview with someguy827, in which he detailed his observations of Greg slowly but surely isolating Skye from all of her friends and family members:

You can read the interview here. (Source)

And read the comment that he made on lolcow here. (Source)

3. Power gained by social isolation and artificially inflated self-esteem. “I feel like a better person with I am with them.”

Greg has claimed this about every single one of his exes. I can’t track down photographic examples of him claiming this about all of them never mind, I managed to find examples of him saying this to at least three different women. Here’s an example of when he said it to ex-girlfriend Adrienne:

Keep in mind that they had been dating for a grand total of two weeks when he made the claim to her that she had helped him grow into a better person in the short amount of time they’d been together. 

He made the same claim about a high school girlfriend, Tanya, whom - again - he had known for only a couple of weeks; and they were not even officially dating when he said this to her:

Here is another example of him saying this about his first wife, Skye - again, only weeks into their relationship. The journal entry this screenshot was lifted from is much longer and I was having trouble pasting it into the body of this text in a way that was readable, so here’s a very short, cropped version of what he said. You can find the source for this quote here. (Source)

At the end of his relationship with Adrienne - while they were in the process of breaking up - he called her repeatedly while she was at work, leaving her over a dozen voicemails in less than a day. During this time, Adrienne managed to get in touch with Shiloh, another of Greg’s exes, to compare notes about the similarities in their relationship. When Shiloh listened to the voicemails that Greg had sent to Adrienne, she posted this comment on Facebook:

He had been telling the two women, only hours apart from each other, about how special and meaningful they were to him. The saddest thing about this is that at the same time, he was also calling Skye; and this exchange between himself, Shiloh, and Adrienne occurred only days before he started talking to Lainey. 

4. Creation of a feeling of dependency; induction of fear of the loss of relationship.

One of the ways that Greg likes to induce feelings of psychological dependence on him is through a tactic called “manipulation break-ups”. The phenomenon is explained here by dwayners13:

One of the most common tactics used by manipulative & emotionally abusive individuals is the ‘manipulation breakup’. This is simply when a person repeatedly breaks up with their partner, not because they truly want to end their relationship, but rather to gain power & control over their partner & the relationship in general. There are a variety of issues & events that can cause a manipulation breakup (far too many to list here), but it can range from their partner doing something they don’t like/approve of to the emotionally abusive person being confronted on their abusive/manipulative behavior (by their partner &/or their partner’s family/friends). [...]  Instead of taking the time to discuss or even arguing about the issue in an attempt to resolve it, the person will just break up with them, knowing that their partner doesn’t want to break up. They will then refuse to speak with them about the issue (& the relationship in general), essentially shunning or ignoring their attempts. This can include ignoring phone calls, text messages, VMs etc.., If the couple live together, they will simply refuse to speak with their partner (aka the silent treatment). Their intention is to make it seem like the relationship is over, so that the person will practically beg & plead with their partner & be willing to agree to anything in order to get back together.

(Source)

Greg and Lainey both admitted to him doing this multiple times throughout their relationship; and still, to this day, they admit that he attempts to break up with her every single time they argue, even though they’re married and have been for over seven years. It is extremely abnormal for a 34-year-old father of two who has been married for seven years to threaten to “break up” with his wife every time they get into an argument. These attempts at manipulation on Greg’s part terrify Lainey so much that she readily complies with whatever he wants in order to convince him not to leave her. This pattern could not be more apparent than how this manipulation tactic played out in their relationship with Billie. 

During the time when Greg and Lainey were in a polyamorous relationship with Billie, Lainey expressed repeated discomfort about Greg and Billie spending so much time together while she was excluded by having to spend so much time cooking, cleaning, looking after their their son (she was pregnant with their daughter at the time), and managing their household (which we now know, thanks to Maya, that Greg does not help out with at all, meaning that Lainey spent the vast majority of her day doing these things while Greg and Billie were in another room playing games, making videos, and hanging out). She felt that Billie was only there for Greg, and was not comfortable with them being sexually intimate together, even when it was all three of them together. After a while of this - despite Lainey’s continued discomfort, disapproval, and lack of consent (which is vital for any healthy, functioning polyamorous triad) - Greg told Lainey that there would be more more boundaries, no more jealousy, and that he and Billie were going to do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted; and that if Lainey didn’t like it, then he was going to divorce her. 

Naturally, terrified of losing her husband, her family, her home, her source of income, and the only lifestyle that she’d ever known - with a three-year-old in tow, and pregnant with their second child - Lainey felt forced to remain in the three-way relationship that she didn’t even want to begin with. 

A quote from his video, “Onision’s Break Up Story”:

“I told my wife that there would be no more rules in the relationship. That there would be no more boundaries, no more jealousy, and that I would do what I want.”

(Source)

After this quote, Greg goes on to explain that he reassured his wife that he had no intention of leaving her; however, how could Lainey believe this, when just a few months before he had attempted to leave her for Billie, which only didn’t end up happening because Billie told him that she didn’t feel right about it? When he had threatened to leave her so many times before over much smaller and less significant things? He goes on to say this:

“Regardless, it is important to note that Billie did tell me that she thought Lainey might be upset if she and I slept together, but every time she indicated she was worried, I would remind her of the conversation I had with Lainey where I repeatedly told her there would be no more boundaries, we would all have balanced relationships, and that there would be no jealousy.” 

This is an ultimatum. The reason why Lainey went to Billie to ask her not to sleep with Greg is because she already knew that he would shut her down if she tried. Ask yourself this question: for what reason would a woman feel more comfortable asking other women not to sleep with her husband, instead of just going straight to the source and simply asking her husband not to sleep with other women instead? The answer is that it’s because she already knew that he would say no and try to divorce her if she kept bringing it up. It is not unreasonable for Lainey to believe Greg capable of doing this, considering that he has admitted in the past to leaving one woman for another (when he left Skye for Shiloh in 2011):

Greg doesn’t just do this to Lainey, however; he has done this, to my knowledge, with every other woman he’s ever dated. The following is a screenshot of a portion of the letter written by Adrienne - the 26-year-old that Greg dated for three weeks just before he met Lainey - describing how Greg attempted to manipulate her through making her fear the loss of the relationship:

Later on in the same letter:

The entirety of the letter written by Adrienne can be read here. If you’re interested in understanding how Greg’s mind works, I highly recommend reading it - it is extremely insightful, analytical, and well-written. 

5. Restrictive control of resources and activities enforced by induction of guilt, or fear of anger.

It’s no secret that Greg attempts to restrict the activities that his girlfriends are allowed to participate in. This ranges from the aforementioned control over how often they’re allowed to visit their families, to whether or not they’re allowed to have a job (a tactic reported by several of his exes and by Greg himself), to how often they’re allowed to go out with their friends, and even to what they are and are not allowed to eat.

In the following screenshot, a blog post by Shiloh months after they’d broken up, she details how he not only manipulated her into cutting off contact with her friends and family back home, but also convinced her to put her music career on hold so that they could be together all the time:

(You can read the full post here.)

He also talked Skye into quitting her job once he began making enough money off YouTube, with the reasoning that couples should be spending at least 50% of their time together. (I’m having trouble finding the screenshot for this, but it’s out there somewhere - I’ve seen it before.) Here is a similar screenshot, however:

He would also become extremely angry with Adrienne when she wanted to go out with her friends…

...and tried to manipulate her into quitting her job, moving in with him, and depending entirely on him as her source of income, all within three weeks of meeting her. 

6. Gaslighting causes victim to doubt what they see or hear. Inability to trust own thoughts and reasoning.

When Lainey first broke up with Greg and was considering divorce after he cheated on her with Billie, she admitted that she had never even wanted a girlfriend to begin with, and that it had been Greg who was pressuring her into it…

…but later, when Lainey recounted her side of the story in a response video to the one that Billie released, she adamantly maintained that it was she who had wanted to experiment with her bisexuality - evidence that Greg had been gaslighting her into believing that he was not at fault, yet again, and that it was Lainey who had desired to keep bringing back Billie over and over again. The tweet posted in first part of this screenshot was taken only six months after the tweet in the second part:

In addition - despite having told Lainey that it was his decision to sleep with Billie, and despite having literally admitted in a video that he published on YouTube to Billie having repeatedly brought up her discomfort with going behind Lainey’s back in order to be intimate with Greg - he still managed to convince Lainey to doubt her own perceptions enough to the point where she now, to this day - over two years later - still considers Billie to be the homewrecker, and that it was Billie who cheated on her with Greg, not Greg who cheated on her with Billie. That is how manipulative he is. 

During one of the periods in time when Greg and Lainey had broken up with Billie yet again, Lainey began talking to a new girl named Hailey (known online as Luxymoo). At first, Hailey believed that her relationship with Lainey would be exclusive; but after Greg informed her that the relationship would actually be an open polyamorous one, she realized that she was uncomfortable with the arrangement and decided to pull out. Despite the fact that she had every right to choose not to go through with it, Greg then attempted to gaslight her and invalidate her feelings:

After that I started doing research on what it meant to be in a three way relationship, I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t for me. Which killed me, because all I wanted to do was be with Lainey. I wanted to try for them, but at the end of the day, I had to consider my personal feelings on the matter. I knew I couldn’t be what they wanted, because I wanted Lainey.

I told Lainey as soon as I came to that conclusion. I wanted to be honest. I didn’t want to drag it out. Lainey didn’t respond to me.. but Greg did. He said that if he were in my position, he would do whatever it takes to be with Lainey. He said that I didn’t really care about Lainey, that all I was looking for was friendship. He said that he thought my mind was broken. He said he thought I may be sexually dormant. He then would say that he thinks i’m a good person and that i’m the safer alternative. He called me a good distraction.

He wanted me to still come up. But that was a fleeting thought. He said friendship would be hard, and that I was doing everything I could to avoid a relationship with Lainey. Then he pitched the idea of me being with Lainey exclusively, while he’s with Lainey exclusively. Like we wouldn’t be doing sexual things together. I still declined because 1. he had spent so much time invalidating MY feelings on the matter, attacking my personality, pressuring me, etc. and 2. I also knew that that wasn’t what they wanted, and I told him that we would still hit that road block of me wanting exclusiveness. He had said in a previous conversation that it was like him and Lainey were on an island and I had a boat, but I wouldn’t throw them a life line because I wasn’t the right boat.

(The full conversation and screenshot can be seen here.)

He also tried to use this tactic on Maya - a girl who dated Lainey very briefly in late 2017 - in an attempt to preemptively gaslight her and discredit her, should she choose to come forward with her story about what he did to her:

Which he did, in fact, try to do later on, by attempting to accuse Maya of being a “homewrecker” for “wiggling while she was sitting on his lap” (despite not mentioning that he was the one who had placed her there, which she did not consent to, and only went along with because she felt so uncomfortable). The posts detailing her full account can be found here and here. 

7. Increased emotional and psychological dependence of victim on abuser.

Greg has already succeeded in doing this with Lainey and many other girlfriends in the past, and has attempted to do this to several more. When married to Skye, Greg insisted that she not have a job outside of the home because he believes that a couple should spend most of their time together (despite later claiming that spouses who do not have a job outside the home, or at least have children, are useless). After meeting Shiloh, despite the fact that she was a celebrity in Canada at the time they met, he forced her to quit her singing career and move in with him to work for and with him full-time; to this day, over seven years later, her singing career still has not recovered. Upon breaking up with Shiloh, he dated a woman named Adrienne, who he attempted to manipulate into moving in with him within three weeks of the start of their relationship - and she almost did. And likewise, when he began dating Lainey, within a month of meeting her, he had proposed to her, rented a house in the state where she lived so that she could finish high school, and then married and impregnated her within the year, so that he could groom her and keep tabs on her until she was old enough to marry. 

Lainey does not have a job, and is completely financially and psychologically dependent upon Greg for not just survival, but her very sense of identity and self-worth as a person. In fact, she is so dependent on Greg as a source of ego regulation that I wrote an entire post breaking down and analyzing my impression of Lainey’s personality matrix because I was so baffled by the extent of her psychological dependency on him. You can read it here, if you’re curious (and have a lot of spare time). 

8. Punishment through anger, verbal abuse, forced isolation, character assassination, etc.

When angry with ex-girlfriend Shiloh, he pushed her into a door frame, causing her to miscarry (although some people do not believe that she was pregnant, since she and Greg had once faked a pregnancy and stillbirth):

He also forced her to shave her head bald, calling her a “whore”, “his property”, and “a good bitch”:

When Billie lied to him about smoking weed, he attempted to punish her by forcing her to dye her eyebrows green, shave off her hair (the third time he has attempted to, or succeeded in, manipulating a girlfriend to shave her hair off), get an ugly tan, be chained to his basement wall for a week wearing a sign saying “I’m sorry for lying Lainey” around her neck, and tattoo “I’m a liar” in the small of her back:

When he breaks up with exes, he also slanders and demeans their character on social media. He even does this with friends, other YouTubers, and sometimes just with people - usually women - that he doesn’t like. Including myself, by the way:

Proud moment. :’)

He made a video criticizing his ex (Adrienne) for the number of sexual partners she’s had, as well as implying that her vaginal hygiene was poor, and even made a series of videos in which he went and got himself tested for various STDs in order to imply that she was so promiscuous that she could have given him one (a video which later got deleted off YouTube when he realized how many downvotes it was getting); however, you can see her reference the video in her letter here:

When he and Skye divorced, he slandered her by calling her a thief and a liar, and continued to milk sympathy from his fans by implying that he was unfairly being forced to pay alimony, even though he agreed to the amount in the settlement, and she was rightly owed that money for her part in producing his early Onision videos.

When he broke up with Billie, he said and did several things to demean her character, including calling her a drug addict, imply that she’s “less than” for being a high school dropout who lives with her parents still, and also revealed to his entire fan base that she has an eating disorder, accused her family of being drugs addicts, and that she had been sexually assaulted and had an abortion, a secret which she had previously revealed to only a handful of close friends and family:

After Blaire White called him out for his actions, he made a video calling her so many different vile names, with such vitriolic hatred in his voice, that I actually have trouble watching it all the way through. You can really see his narcissistic rage coming out in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEVHT6No5Xc

He has exhibited this cycle over and over again with YouTuber Cyr, who he has been friends with off and on for years:

Most recently - meaning since I first wrote this post (about a year and a half ago) - he has continued in this pattern of slandering ex-girlfriends and ex-friends a further three or four times at least; and so this is the part of this sub-heading that will provide new information that was not included in my old post.

After Jaclyn Glenn began dating Richie of SocialRepose, Greg flew off the handle, making a series of insulting comments about Jaclyn’s physical appearance on Twitter and YouTube, including remarking that tall women are gross, and that had she been dating him, he never would have allowed her to get breast implants, because they’re disgusting (and she’s disgusting for having them):

Since she has broken up with Richie, Greg has now reverted to his attempts at love-bombing Jaclyn (and her friend Jessie Paege) on Twitter, hoping to reignite their friendship (and the possibility of bringing her into a new trinity with Lainey, or at least hoping that she’ll be able to give a boost to his YouTube career). 

A few months ago, a close friend of both Greg and Lainey - model, actress, and member of the BDSM community Madison DeCambra - made a video with Greg about the DDlg (Daddy Dom/little girl) kink, which was received very poorly by the DDlg community. Feeling responsible for having hurt and contributed to the misrepresentation of the community that she loves so much, Madison posted a video on YouTube apologizing for any pain that her involvement in Greg’s video may have caused. Greg reacted to this by terminating their six-year-long friendship, as well as - predictably - going on a tirade of character assassinations against her on Twitter, including bringing her two-year-old daughter into it despite having previously accused anyone willing to bring a person’s children up during an argument of being trash. 

These were the texts he sent to Madison, which he then posted publicly on Twitter in order to discard and defame her:

(Source)

Here is a screenshot of Madison arguing with TomatoBisquette (another former friend of Greg’s whom he has discarded, in his case for being friendly towards MrRepzion, a YouTuber who Greg hates for having called him out in the past), who had tried to make light of how upset she was when Greg posted on Twitter telling her that he was disgusted by her and never considered her a friend:

He also used the opportunity to take another pot-shot at Beck - a former fan of Greg and Lainey before she, too, was ousted from their lives - for defending Madi:

However, the worst part of this interaction is that he chose to bring Madison’s two-year-old daughter into the argument, just because he was angry with her mother. Here was Madison’s (understandably angry and hurt) response:

A recent addition to the roster of the Avaroe’s stable of ex-friends, Maya - a 19-year-old bartender who briefly dated Lainey, and who visited them for about a week over the Christmas holidays in 2017 - described Greg’s behavior towards her as being bizarrely, uncomfortably interested in probing her about her past. She felt that he was pressing her for information to use against her in the future, and described the odd, inappropriate expression of pleasure that would come across his face while he was listening to a person describe some misfortune that had befallen them:

It would take me ages to compile a list of all of the exes, friends, YouTubers, and other randoms that he’s demeaned on social media or in his videos, so instead I’m just going to provide a (probably incomplete, and still-growing) list of people whose characters he has assassinated on Twitter or YouTube:

Exes: Skye, Shiloh, Adrienne, Billie 

Friends: Cyr, Andy Biersack (and his father), TomatoBisquette, Maya, Madison DeCambra, Beck, Jaclyn Glenn

YouTubers: Social Repose, Blaire White, Eugenia Cooney, Dan Howell, Keemstar, LeafyIsHere

Other: Ayallah (best friend of Billie, ex-girlfriend of Social Repose), Lainey’s family (father and sister), his own father, Luxymoo (Hailey)

9. Scouting new supply.

Before he had even divorced Skye, he moved on to Shiloh. When Shiloh left him and went back to Canada, he met Adrienne. When he broke up with Adrienne and she refused to take him back, he was texting Shiloh and Skye within 24 hours. When Skye, Shiloh, and Adrienne all refused to take him back, he then moved on to Lainey, who he had met and proposed marriage to within just a few short weeks of meeting. When he got bored of the ultimate power that he exerted over Lainey, he used her as queerbait to pull in Billie. When he and Lainey broke up with Billie - still bored with Lainey - he began auditioning new girls for a spot in his harem (Hailey/Luxymoo, Eryn, Maya, Sam, Beck). Here is a timeline of Greg’s known romantic relationships over the past fifteen years:

If Greg’s high school classmate is to be believed, however, then there are many, many women that Greg has been with that did not make this list.

And finally, here’s a funny, tongue-in-cheek chart chronicling the pattern of what happens when Greg and Lainey bring a new girl into the house: 

Lainey doesn’t know it yet, but this entire cycle is going to begin repeating itself sooner or later. It’s just a matter of time. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were lowkey auditioning girls as I write this.

10. Acting as though nothing happened.

Need I say more?

[mi4011mariamurawska]

12 Principles of Animation

Here I did some brief research into the 12 Principles to help me get a better understanding of them and what they can be used for before doing any more of my animations. Overall I found this research very helpful in solidifying my understanding of the fundamentals of animation. I will be incorporating these into my own work to make it more interesting and visually appealing to a viewer.

1 – Squash and Stretch This principle states that as objects move the shape of them should alter realistically – as a ball falls, it will stretch downwards (and squash inwards sideways) as it is being stretched downwards by gravity. Then as it hits the ground, all that energy that was falling down is now dispersed onto the ground and the ball stretches sideways upon impact and squashes downwards, before bouncing back up again. Squash and Stretch has a range of uses: it can be used to show what an object feels like by mimicking the flexibility and material of it – e.g. a rubber ball or water balloon will have a lot of squash and stretch as they are soft materials but a bowling ball would have none as it is hard and solid. It can also show the speed, momentum, weight and mass of an object, as well as the effect of gravity in general. It can be used on objects or characters bodies to exaggerate movement and on faces to exaggerate expressions. This can be for both comedic effect and for making a movement clearer (and more visually appealing) to a viewer.

2 – Anticipation This principle states that actions should have a build up before they happen, both to follow how momentum and energy works in the real world and also to help prepare the audience for what is about to happen. For example, a character would bring their leg back before they kick a ball, as their foot is about to move forwards very fast so it needs to build up momentum first. This helps apply realism to animation as in real life, you couldn’t kick a ball without winding up your leg first or jump without bending your knees. These preparations often happen in the opposite direction of the anticipated movement – if you want your character to start sprinting to the right, you should have their wind-up action going to the left. This also makes movements more interesting and life-like, as opposed to being stiff, sudden and awkward.

3 – Staging Staging is the composition of a shot, and where objects/characters are placed within a frame. This can mean using photography principles like Framing, Leading Lines or The Rule of Thirds to guide the viewer’s eye to where they should be looking. Staging is all about keeping the focus on the important information/movement within a scene.

4 – Straight Ahead vs Pose to Pose These are two different ways of animating; Straight Ahead means drawing frame by frame in the order that the movement is happening whereas Pose to Pose means drawing in keyframes, or important poses, first before filling in the in-between poses Straight Ahead is best for fluid movements such as fire, or unpredictable poses such as in action scenes. Pose to Pose is best for having a lot of control over exactly how the movement will look. It can be useful for extreme poses and figuring out how to get the character into them. It can also be helpful when trying to incorporate Follow Through and Anticipation. Often, these are both combined as needed for a more cohesive effect.

5 – Follow Through and Overlapping Action Follow Through is the principle of momentum within animation and that different parts of a character or object will move and stop at different times. This is used to make actions more visually interesting and to mimic how real life works, for example when someone comes to a sudden stop after running, their hair or jacket might still move forward for a little before also coming to a stop. If an object has built up momentum, it will take it a while before it comes to a complete stop, especially for lighter objects like hair and clothes. Overlapping Actions are actions that are happening simultaneously but at different rates to each other. For example, when a character is running, their arms and legs will move at a different pace to their head

6 – Slow in/Slow Out This principle is used to show the build-up of momentum – how an object can’t go from still to fast in motion instantly. It has to build up this speed by starting slowly, building up speed and momentum and then gradually losing it as it slows down. This can apply to rolling objects, cars, pendulums, characters beginning to move or run. In hand-drawn animation, this principle is represented by having more frames near the start and end of an action and fewer in the middle to show the speed of the object at that time is greater.

7 – Arcs Arcs help the movements of objects look more natural as they follow the laws of physics. Most objects will naturally move in an arc shape when thrown or moving due to gravity. This principle can apply to both characters and objects.

8 – Secondary Actions Secondary actions are smaller, often more subtle actions used to emphasise the main action. They help add more dimension and visual interest to scenes. For example, a primary action could be a character skipping and a secondary action would be their arms waving as they do so, or their hair moving or a facial expression. It should not be overpowering over the main action. They can be subtle things to reflects the mood/emotion of the scene or character, e.g. playing with their hands or tapping their foot to show anxiety; or rolling their eyes and tapping their fingers to show boredom.

9 – Timing Timing is all about the number of frames used for an action to convey how fast it is happening – the fewer frames an action has, the faster it happens and the more it has, the slower it happens. This is an essential principle that when used correctly helps all the other principles work better too, especially things like Slow in/Slow out. It helps show that objects are obeying the laws of physics by demonstrating their weight and how they react to certain stimuli.

10 – Exaggeration Since imitating reality exactly can make something look static and dull, exaggeration is used  in animation  for movements, characters, environments, designs and even storylines can be stylised. However this has to be balanced properly so that if there are several elements in a scene, the viewer knows what to focus on and is not confused (e.g. exaggerate a character design but not a background or exaggerate one of the character’s features but not all of them as then they will all look the same.).

11 – Solid Drawing Solid drawing is all about giving characters and objects volume to make them look like they occupy the space they are set in. This is often achieved by studying from life by doing life and gesture drawing. Using 3D shapes to build up a character’s guidelines before adding their key features to the space can also be helpful. This principle helps to show an artist’s understanding of volume, weight, proportion, perspective and anatomy.

12 – Appeal Appeal is simply about adding charm to your designs and characters. A simple way to make a character look young, friendly and innocent, for example, is to give them round features and big eyes. The designs need to be easy to read and show personality - this incorporates aspects of character design such as shape – triangles are associated with dangerous characters, circles with friendly and non-threatening characters and squares with solid and balanced characters. Similarly, colour theory can be used the same way, although colours often leave more room for interpretation – green can indicate evil due to its connotation with poison, but it can also be used to represent good as it is a colour associated with life/nature/opposite of red which usually represents danger or extremes.

[dda-unit8]

Overview / Discussion / Final Evaluation

My animation is a nice head bopping, entertaining that ends in a realistic possibility. My main objective that I had from the beginning of the project was to have the character being looped in the city ( or should i say just being looped constantly / technically a GIF ). I was able to stick to that idea to the very end ( If someone plays the video on repeat.  Video start off with black intro is Immediately about smoking which fades into the character driving. At the end it fades back into black and could smoothly transition back into the beginning. The beginning of the animation shows a very quick bright yellow text about smoking. Because  it appears so fast I hope for the viewer to either replay the video or try and keep what the text said in their mind. Later on the character gets in an accident. I wanted the animation to not only be a interesting animation with a guy driving a car but also trying to portray a tiny story. It could be portray and shown on the BBC website for smoking and health for kids. It can also be an ad on you tube that can be shown. Because you tube is one of the top mainstream company's that kids, teens and young adults use, The ad could be seen more. 

When it comes to “ If I understood the specialist are of design my project was centered on “ I would say that I had a pretty big understanding on how Parallax animation worked. Before I even new what the name was for the type of animation, I had known what it was and how it worked. Because I showed interest in animation and how different types of animation works when I was younger, I feel like that has given me an advantage. For future referencing though, I would make sure that even the most unnecessary things that I might not think needs to be in a separate layer, go in a layer. 

When It had come to research, I figured I didn't do a bad job. I didn't just go on YouTube and look for ideas or stuff that Inspired me. I ended up taking my time and relaxing at home. Enjoying what i love, which is watching different animations. All different styles of animations. I even used myself when it came to how I wanted my character to be placed in the car. When it came to the sources that I used for references, I don think I used to much. In fact I would say I used a moderate amount of varied sources. With what I had researched I made sure that I could get the maximum output of it. For example, There was a lot of simple and short tutorials on you tube that would give me an easy way to do a smoke fx or a quick and easy explaining video of parallax animation. I didn't want that . I wanted to get as much knowledge and do the best I can do. I think next time I will actually go and travel to a different place like Birmingham or lecister to see and get better references. I will branch out more, use more fx, tools and create something even better.  

As far as problems, I came across actually deleting half of my progress when I started. I was pretty upset but I could not go back and change the past so all I could do was continue and work harder. I also had the problem of time management and not sleeping. That has always been a big problem for me and Im honestly trying to change that as each day goes past. I would tend to stay up from 24 - 48 hours. If i have learned anything it would be to take breaks a lot more.

What I was also shocked about is how I was keeping a steady pace in my work and not stressing to much over time. Until I had to go to work I was using my schedule and I never lost sight of the due date. I had always kept in my mind when it was due. I even had alerts on my phone to keep me updated. I tried to stay as focused as possible. Even when my idea slightly changed towards the middle / end I didn't want to panic and overthink. I had to focus and relax for a second. For this specific animation, there are indeed things I wish I could have added in if I had not had to start half way over. I would have loved to add ambient sound of highway traffic ( cars going past ) and the song thats playing in the background to sound like its from the radio. I would have also loved to add a night street light that passes every so often ( with starts and a moon in the sky ). But because I didn't add those things, does not mean that I cant create something better or add them later on. This summer I can practice not only my drawings but my animation. I could practice practice practice

I used more than what I had learned in class. 

When it came to the animation, I had to draw everything as a draft as what I envision and how I see it in my head. I had to then make the lines more fine. Add more detail. Add color. Sort out all the layers. Make sure the layers are stacked correctly. That was all in Photoshop. I had to add all the detail in Photoshop and that takes time. I then had to transfer what I made into after affects to ANIMATE it. That takes time. I could have done a simple animation like I had made before but I wanted to exceed that. I wanted to try and add different effects that I have not used before. I wanted to branch out myself and look at different techniques I can use and learn myself. I have attained new techniques and skills because of this animation. I can improve on the new skills and techniques i have learned by practicing this summer. Try and create fun projects, films, animations.

So yeah ... Looking at my animation now. I can see what more I wanted to add. I am proud ( comparing the previous animation I did ) of the animation that I have made. I am still learning but that is why practice makes perfect. I want to learn more effects in after effects and see all the possible effects I can use in animation or even film. I will branch out this summer and practice using the software myself, Practice more drawings on perspective, foreshortening, mecca, human anatomy and even simple shapes. One thing that I noticed was different about my drawing this time, is that i tried to draw less anime / manga related. I tried to focus on a realistic anatomy, head shape and where the eyes, ear, hairline etc would be. Doing so I also took the time in shading.

To ensure that I have a lower chance of making the same mistake again , I will make sure ( If possible ) not work so many days when I have a week of from college. I will try and priorities my time more.

looking at my blog from when I first started Unit 8 ( how well its structured ) it looks organised and labeled pretty decently. I made sure that the topics where relatable to what was being said. I made sure important things where in bold. I will be honest and say that I was lacking a little in screenshots of my progress in the animating side but I tried to remember each time. That doesn’t mean that my idea, experiments and creative process cant be explained and presented in a clear way. I specifically made sure that each section flows to the next and shows what was to come, what I did and how the week was. I do appreciate all the help that the teachers gave me and opinions that they had on my work.

One thing that I think would be cool is to do a collaboration and create something super cool. Yeah you have animators that do animations by themselves but  I can imagine what cool things I can make by doing collaborations and sharing ideas and skills with another person. In doing so Im sure I can create some interesting work. I could do short and narrated stories. I have already done a voice over for my first animation so it wouldn't be to difficult. Because I have gotten used to the software a little more than before, I feel more comfortable in creating different things. 

The cool thing about possibly doing a collaboration is the endless possibility of what we can create. If we wanted too, we could create a music video, short story, fight scene anything. With the skill that I have learned, I can also reach out to different company's and see if they would like to do a collaboration. This would then get me work experience. 

[okmica]

Black & Blue | Jaehyun

life without you is colorless – literally

Soulmate! au: you gain your ability to see color when you touch your soulmate for the first time

Pairing: Jaehyun x reader - oneshot!

Genre: Fluff

Word count: 1,682

As you entered the dimly lit club you were hit with a strong combination of scents: alcohol, expensive perfume, and desperation. Admittedly, you added to the aura, your small hopes trickling in noticeably behind you. Looking around, you realized the identical image you shared with the mass of strangers. Overly dressed, stiff posture, hesitant eyes. How pathetic.

But that is how clubs are now. A gathering place for the impatient. Where people go pretending they’re not there for one task and one task only. The place where the hopeful and hopeless intervene in order to acquire the same thing: their soulmate. You’d be lying to yourself if you weren’t there for the same reason. 

There was a twist to your yearning though. As others sought restlessly for love, you wanted to find your partner to suppress your curiosity: you wanted to see color. The desire gradually built up to a near palpable aching.

Your mother was a painter. She was incredible at her work, paying attention to every little detail. When you were younger, she would sit you on her lap letting you watch her bring the canvas to life.

“Why are you doing that?”

“I have to mix the paint to make the perfect color,” her soothing voice replied.

“They all look the same to me.” She chuckled at your remark, using short strokes to fill up the blank canvas.

“You’ll understand when you’re older.”

Oh how you wished to see the full beauty of your mother’s paintings.

Jazz music filled your ears as you pushed your thoughts away, ascending back to reality. Taking in your surroundings made you feel a bit out of place. There was a small crowd huddling around the pianist, swaying and laughing from the music, or maybe the alcohol; most likely the alcohol. It was a social fest, people were talking to each other and moving on to the next like there was a pattern to follow.

Trailing your eyes to the left, you noticed the unoccupied bar stools. The bartender was cleaning the counter while waiting for someone to throw him a request. You headed to the counter, the empty stools beckoning you. He put away his rag as he saw you approaching.

“Anything to drink?” asked the bartender. A dimpled smile appearing on his face.

“Water please.” He paused at your request, unsure if he heard you correctly, but still went on with your order. You didn’t trust yourself with alcohol, especially here. 

A full glass of water appeared in front of you shortly. You thanked him and he threw you that same dazzling smile as he pulled out the rag from his pocket and began cleaning again.

You sat at the bar for what seemed like ages, sipping your water like wine and waiting. Hoping for someone to appear next to you and take your breath away. A few people passed you only to get a drink, never drawing attention to you. Pretty soon your glass was empty and thirty minutes of pure boredom passed. 

“Are you alright?” Looking up from the wood counter you found the bartender’s worried eyes. You nodded and smiled in response. How pathetic you must’ve been. Sitting there pitifully. He opened his mouth to continue the conversation, but a man spoke before he could.

“One shot of vodka.” The stranger next to you embodied prestige. You could tell by the way he held his head high and the confident glimmer in his eyes. Not to mention the expensive suit he had on. He turned to you and you looked away bashfully, embarrassed that he caught you staring. “Make that two.”

The flush on your cheeks was now deeper. Your stomach twisted in a combination of fear and excitement. A grin crept to your face as he took the seat next to you. The bartender placed the two small glasses before the man catching your eye in the process.

“I saw you as I came in and I had to talk to you. You are breathtaking.” He slid one of the glasses toward you, downing his in seconds, not even flinching in the process. You followed his actions, only you did not take it as well as he had. The liquid burned your throat and nose. Tears sprung in your eyes as you endured a coughing fit.

“Not a drinker huh?”

“No, not really,” you admitted, placing the small glass down in front of you.

“Tell me a bit about yourself,” he insisted gesturing the bartender for another glass. You could only think of one thing to talk about.

“Well, my mother is a-”

“No, I want to know about you,” he interrupted downing another shot. Your heart dropped a little. You didn’t know what else to say. Talking about yourself wasn’t as easy as you’d like it to be. 

After a few attempts, you began to get a hang of holding conversation. The two of you settled on talking about careers, his career to be exact. It wasn’t the most interesting discussion, but it was better than nothing.

A hand on your thigh shocked you. You didn’t expect the sudden contact. You waited for something to happen, but you were left with disappointment. You were stuck in the same colorless setting.

A roar of laughter ripped from the man next to you causing him to remove his hand from your leg. You could smell his bitter breath. “You thought I would be the one to cure your blindness? Don’t be naive sweetheart, I gave up on that a while ago.” He looked back at the bartender, raising his empty glass. “Another.”

“I think you’ve had enou-”

“Another,” he demanded. You shot a concerned look at the bartender. His angry eyes softened at the sight of yours, reassuring you that he was alright. 

Discomfort flooded through you. You were disgusted by the drunk man next to you and you were even more embarrassed that the bartender witnessed how helpless you had been. Unfamiliar with a situation like this, you did the first thing that popped in your mind: you left. The creepy man grabbed your wrist, but you slipped away from his grip as the alcohol had taken a toll on his reflexes.

You burst out of the building into the chilly night. Pacing, you caught your breath and took a seat on one of the benches close by. It was much more peaceful outside, the quietness calmed you down a bit. Only muffled music from the club interfered with the silence.

Sounds of ruckus arose. Glass breaking, shouts, even the music stopped. You wanted to go back in to see what was happening, but you didn’t, scared that you might make things worse. After a few passing moments, the doors blasted open following the chaos.

“And don’t even think about coming back here!” You lifted your head to find the bartender pushing the despicable man into the street. He stumbled a bit before staggering across the street. 

The nameless hero turned around and stopped upon seeing you. He strolled toward you, attempting to straighten out his disheveled clothing anxiously. “Sorry about that, I don’t have the best control over my temper.”

“I can tell.” He took note of your playful tone, smiling a bit, but only for a second as it pained his split lip.

“Are you alright?”

“Me? I should be asking you that question,” you said, gesturing to his injured face. A dark shadow cast under his slightly swollen eye. Just looking at him made you feel queasy, you didn’t like blood. The dirt beneath your shoes took in your attention instead.

"He was stronger than I thought.” He paused. “Do you not like eye contact or something?”

“Blood isn’t really my forte,” you admitted. 

“That’s a relief.” He took a seat next to you making sure to leave a small space between the two of you. “I thought you weren’t making eye contact because you were afraid of falling for me.”

A light giggle escaped your lips and he joined your laughing. It was an odd satisfaction, how you two were so comfortable with each other having only met a couple hours ago. A moment of silence passed. Only a few passing cars and the buzzing of insects suppressed the slightly awkward moment. You opened your mouth once to say something, but the thought seemed silly so you never said it. The man next to you was the one to speak up first.

“I’m Yoonoh by the way.” He outstretched his hand, welcoming yours. Your face morphed into a sour expression as you noticed his bloodied knuckles. He realized your discomfort and stretched his shirt sleeve over his hand, covering his wounded hand. It was an old gesture, handshakes, one you really only saw in past movies when colorblindness wasn’t a worry. You threw him a hesitant look before taking his hand.

“I’m-” you were unable to finish your introduction as the world around you changed instantly. An explosion of newness started from your connected hands and spread to the scenery around you. The sky, the ground, you, him; it was all so breathtaking. The lights surrounding the street were vibrant and full of life. The flowers surrounding the bench you were seated at exhibited a new beauty. Everything was now different and you loved it. How did you live your life without this perspective of the world? 

Looking back at his face after catching your breath, that tinted shadow under his eye was now a grotesque bruise with different tones of dark colors. And the blood dripping from his swollen lip was given more danger. The bright color stained his light shirt sleeve. Trailing your eyes from his beat up face, you noticed how the messy locks on his head looked so intricately placed, complimenting his skin color. The eye that was not victim to the beating sparkled under the star lit sky. A masterpiece was placed before you. 

He licked his plush, tinted lips before speaking. “Is it a bad time to ask you on a date?”

“Let’s get you cleaned up first.”

[this-is-big-lady]

Swipe Right part 6/10

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, can be found on AO3 here

Hey all! Full time work has been kicking my ass, so this took longer than I would’ve liked, but it’s here now! Also, this is my first time writing a Jewish character talking about their Judaism - please, if I have anything wrong, flick me a polite message or direct me in the way of resources and I will be ever grateful for your kindness. 

After passing texts backwards and forwards between him and Jack, Davey found himself at Jack’s apartment in the afternoon of a day not too long after their coffee date. He was ready for his portrait to be drawn, perched on a small stool a couple of arm lengths in front of Jack, who had a little table set up in front of him. The flat surface on top was angled down towards him with a piece of A3 paper laid out, and a collection of pencils, sharpeners, and erasers in his lap. Jack’s phone was propped up on a small shelf behind him. He explained to Davey that he’d record the session so that if he missed anything important, he could go back to it later to draw inspiration from the recording. Jack asked his subject to angle himself slightly to his left on the stool and to relax - Davey was picking at his fingernails, and if he was as tense as he looked, Jack would have a hard time getting information out of him.

Soon the silence between the pair was filled with a gentle scratching sound from the pencil on the paper, and Davey looked around Jack’s apartment. It wasn’t huge, but it was cozy - a typical student place. They were currently in the living room, Jack sitting on a couch with a few stains and rips, and Davey’s stool was purloined from his roommate’s bedroom. Did he really say that his roommate’s name was Spot? Surely Davey wasn’t hearing him correctly. There was a window to his left where the afternoon sun was streaming in, and the curtains appeared a little worse for wear. The shelf behind the couch with Jack’s phone had a few political science textbooks - presumably Spot’s - and the walls were dotted with various drawings and paintings - presumably Jack’s.

Jack could see Davey’s eyes gliding around the room, and while Jack was trying to get a rough outline of Davey and his features, it was a little distracting. So he tried to get him to settle down the only way he knew how, talking.

“So, Davey…” The boy was snapped out of his observations by Jack’s voice, replying with a soft ‘hmm’ sound to show that he was somewhat paying attention. “I’ll ask you what I ask all my subjects. Why’d you join tinder?”

Davey balked a little at the question, slightly surprised at exactly how forward Jack was with it. He rubbed a hand across his face to hide how awkward he was feeling from the artist currently studying his facial features. “I mean, I guess there were a few reasons, if you want a list?”

“Sure,” Jack said flippantly, frustrating Davey slightly with exactly how nonchalant he was with this whole situation. “Well, I guess I was relatively lucky because I have a pretty accepting family, but we’re also Jewish, so there was a bit of a conflict between the Jewish and gay elements of my identity-“

“Lets start there. If your family was accepting, where exactly did that conflict come from?

“We’re Reform Jews, so my family and community didn’t have a problem with me liking boys - my synagogue back home even has a lesbian rabbi - but it’s not uncommon to see people in the media twisting and interpreting holy text to support homophobia.” Davey carded a hand through his hair, tugging at it a little harder than he normally would. Why did he have to start with the topic that hit closest to home? He glanced over at Jack, who had his head down sketching furiously, or maybe he was writing words? All he could do was take a deep breath, drop his hand back into this lap, and carry on.

“And I guess being shown those perspectives every day through social media took a toll, and I probably internalised some of it along the line. That I, to some extent, expect people to do that. And even though I had an amazing support system, knowing that other people out there could use something really important to me as a way to devalue me can really hurt.” Jack’s pencil stopped skidding across the paper, and he looked up to face Davey. His eyes were honest, he was actually listening to what Davey had to say, and he could feel the breath catch in his throat at the end of his sentence.

“But as I got older I saw that my Judaism and being gay didn’t have to be seperate parts of me, they could totally interact - I’m pretty happy to say that I’m a gay Jew now. So I guess by using a dating app, I hoped I wouldn’t be interacting with people trying to pit the two against each other. I mean, I’m yet to meet any antisemitic people on tinder, but you’re also the first person I’ve met on it, so I’m one for one so far.”

Jack let out a little huff of laughter, putting down his pencil, and leaning over his table a little as he made eye contact with Davey. “That’s very true, and thank you for being so honest with me.” Jack’s easy smile was infectious, making Davey’s nerves settle down and allowing a small grin to spread across Davey’s face. “You said you had a whole list, hit me with something else.”

The pencil Jack was holding was being chewed on by its owner as Davey racked his mind for some of the other reasons. “I’m quite introverted, you know? And I guess I never really felt comfortable dating back home. Like I knew almost everyone my age in my area because we went to school together and the idea of dating someone in that tight-knit community just made me… nervous, I suppose. As did approaching someone I didn’t know, kind of a catch-22 I guess.” Jack chuckled softly at Davey’s involuntary shiver as he talked about his discomfort. It was pretty cute, if Jack was to be honest. “So I would rather be able to chat with new people with some slight veil of anonymity and see if I’d actually like to talk with them in person. Being able to connect with people from the comfort of my phone before actually meeting them makes me far more content with the idea of dating. Just… talking to people is scary.”

Davey ducked his head a little, staring at his hands in his lap. He knew it was silly: here he was, talking to a guy he met of tinder about why he was scared to talk to guys. He found the dirt buried under his fingernail very fascinating to pick at until Jack brought him back to his attention with a gentle repetition of his name. “I totally get it, Davey. Why do you think I ask people to sit for these drawings on the internet, rather than approaching people on the street? It’s easier, I understand. You ain’t got nothing to be ashamed of with me.” A small smile spread across Davey’s face, which eased Jack’s mind in knowing that he was being of some sort of help to his subject. And gave him enough courage to ask a niggling question at the back of his mind. “So then why did you choose to meet up with me, Davey?”

Davey’s eyes locked with his, and muttered a barely audible sentence that caused Jack’s heart to start hammering: “I just knew I had to meet you.”

A few moments of silence passed as both boys processed the implications of that sentence. Was it some of of simple attraction, love-at-first-sight kind of phenomenon? Or could there have been a more heavy spark between the two, an intangible sense of feeling what was to come, and the resultant revelation in hindsight? Neither party could say. But they enjoyed toying with the possibilities.

Davey had had enough time in the spotlight, it was his turn to spin this onto the artist. “So Jack,” he began, “why did you join Tinder?”

Jack couldn’t help but laugh at Davey’s change in tact, he was too smart to just let this whole session be about him. But Jack still needed to get a sketch done, so he gave Davey the abridged version. “Well, I’m bisexual, and I liked Tinder because it meant I could put it flat out in my profile and didn’t have to deal with coming out to people. And it meant I could see both men and women together, it just made life easier.” Jack’s gaze drifted down from Davey’s actual face in front of him to the sketch of Davey’s face lying on the table, meaning he missed Davey’s excited smile at hearing Jack was definitely into guys. Jack shrugged as he continued, “And I mean it’s good for casual sex, but I’ve met some pretty cool people on there too… Some that I hope that I could consider a friend.” Jack knew that already thinking of Davey as someone that he could get close to after only a few days was dangerous, but  he didn’t really mind. There was something about Davey being reserved but so willing to be open with him that pulled Jack in, and he wanted to know more about the guy whose profile made him genuinely intrigued about the person behind it.

Quickly leaning towards Jack, Davey simply answered Jack’s sentence with, “Me too, Jack. Me too.”

The pair fell into silence as Jack finished off the portrait of Davey, but they asked questions of the other when they popped into their heads. As it turned out, Davey hadn’t been to a service since moving to college - he’d yet to find a synagogue that was both close enough to his apartment and that he felt comfortable in. Jack was adopted by a local theatre artist after his parents died in a car crash when he was 7, and his roommate Spot (his correct name, another shock for Davey) is his adoptive brother too. Davey considered taking a gap year to England before college. Jack dyed his hair blonde for a year in high school, but stopped after he burnt it all off one morning when retouching his roots while hungover.

When Jack’s pencil finally stopped scratching across the pencil, the sun that was stretching across the floor had disappeared behind an adjacent building and Davey could feel his bones stiffening from sitting upright on the stool for hours on end. Jack leaned back into the couch, sighing with a hint of laughter in his voice. “I’m done, ol’ Davey boy!”

Davey just groaned, leaning forward to push himself up to standing, hearing a couple of joints click as he did so. He could help but wonder exactly how Spot could ever want to use that stool for more than chucking dirty clothes on top of it. Davey took a step towards Jack, asking if he could see the drawing. Jack snatched the paper off the table and gently help it facing towards his chest, insisting that he couldn’t see it until it was done. After a bit of moaning and whining on Davey’s part (he just wanted to see how Jack saw him, was that such a crime?), his stomach decided to let out a rather loud growl. Realising that they both skipped dinner because of the portrait sitting, Davey took that as his cue to say goodnight to Jack and to go find some food for himself.

Jack walked him to the door, and leaned against the door frame to say goodbye. He quickly reached out to brush his hand against Davey’s wrist, both boys staring down at the point of contact between the two of them. It didn’t feel like sparks, or electricity between the two of them, but more like a comfortable warmth. Like when you’re leaning against a sunny window in summer, or like slipping into a item of clothing after it’s just come out of the drier. It just felt right.

“Thanks for doing a sitting and being so honest with me, Davey. I, uh, really enjoyed it.” Jack’s eyes were still cast downwards in an attempt to hide his blush. Being honest with his emotions always scared Jack a little, while Davey thought it was incredibly endearing. The taller moved shifted his arm so he gently held Jack’s forearm, insisting that he had an equally great time, and couldn’t wait until he saw the finished product. Davey dropped his hand from Jack’s arm, turning towards the door and reaching towards the doorknob, but froze before he could turn it.

Because Jack’s placed a very soft kiss on Davey’s cheek. It was light, gentle, and barely there, and yet it was. As soon as Davey felt the pressure on his cheek, it was gone, but the way his heart soared was unmistakable. He turned with a stunned expression towards Jack, with whom he locked eyes in an instant.

“Text me when you get home safe,” he insisted, his eyes displaying an honestly and vulnerability that made Davey melt. Not trusting his voice to not betray him, Davey just smiled and nodded, before slipping out onto the doorstep and closing the door behind him.

[gwynne-fics]

Silver Lining

chapter forty-three

Father waited for him and frowned when sat down. “This is the second month you are late. What is wrong with the company?”

“Nothing,” Young-Do said quickly as he set his empty briefcase down beside his chair. He kept his head bowed because that was what Father liked. “Our stock is up another three percent from last quarter. I…I need to be more careful. I was informed that we’re being watched.”

“I always assumed that. That’s why you aren’t stupid and bring anything with you.” Father sounded disgusted with him. At least he didn’t make any snide comments about Hyo-Shin. “Do you have the software yet?”

“No. I’m working on a proposal. Abeoji, my relationship with Cha Eun-Sang is not adversarial. I would like to keep it that way as I hope to have children with her and make this last.” He caught Father rolling his eyes and it made him angry. “Our shareholders like her. It is because I am selling my relationship to her the right way that I have recouped the losses from my mistake. If I am caught cheating on her, it will devastate the company all over again. I am being careful for good reasons.”

“Real men aren’t careful. They take risks to get what they want. You shouldn’t let this woman have any kind of control over you. I’m not surprised, given your poor judgment in the past. I heard your precious wife fucked him, too. You must be so jealous of her.”

Young-Do breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. He slowly stood up and bowed. He wasn’t going to let Father convince him to do anything that might hurt his relationship with Eun-Sang. It was the only thing he had that wasn’t tainted by Father.

“If you had your way, I would be the one in that jail cell. My judgment was poor because you deliberately withheld vital information from me about that account. I never would’ve tried to use it or guaranteed it if I had known it was empty and useless. I am a real man. Even if I was gay, Abeoji, I would still be a real man. I will see you next month.”

He left before Father could get worked up and yell at him. He still didn’t trust that glass to hold Father back. Young-Do went out to his car and thought about never returning to the prison. He knew he wasn’t strong enough to cut Father out of his life. Good sons did not ignore their fathers in prison but he didn’t want to be a good son right now.

Young-Do pulled out a cigarette and lit it up. He took a long, slow drag and exhaled smoke in the autumn air. He didn’t know how Eun-Sang felt about smoking so he decided he would wait to see her until the smell of it faded.

He picked up his phone when Eun-Sang texted him an invitation to have lunch with her and the bird girls. Young-Do briefly closed his eyes and called Hyun-Shik. “I need a full day that keeps me out of Seoul. I don’t want to get home until after ten.”

His secretary didn’t even question his demand. “There are two properties that need site inspections. Will that work?”

“Yes. Thank you. Send the details to my phone. I’ll leave from the prison.”

“Of course, sir.”

Young-Do texted his apology to Eun-Sang and was relieved that she didn’t push him. After their painful conversation last night, he didn’t know how to handle being around her. He wanted, more than anything, to go back to the moment before he made love to her on the couch and they both cried. He wanted Hyo-Shin to…stop being a part of their relationship. He wanted to be a better man to Eun-Sang but he didn’t know how because the only example he had was the very man he was trying to avoid.

He didn’t even know why he cried. He tried to convince himself that sex he had with her yesterday wasn’t the best he’d ever had. It didn’t work because it was the best sex he’d ever felt.

His first site inspection was one of his clubs on the edge of one of the less reputable parts of Seoul. Part of the reason Hyun-Shik wanted him to look at it was because of rumors that it had become a front for some drug runners. Hyun-Shik thought Young-Do’s presence would spook them off.

Part of him was grateful that the inspection took all day and revealed that there had been a staff change hidden from the Zeus managers. It allowed him to get intimately involved with their records and make some calls to clean up the club. He closed it down before going home. It almost worked to keep his mind off of Eun-Sang.

When he arrived home, he was surprised she was in the kitchen, standing in front of the stove. Wook greeted him at the door and took his briefcase and jacket. “President Cha requested that your driver inform her when you were on your way home. She wanted to wait up for you.”

Young-Do tried not to gape at the stoic butler as he was herded to the kitchen table and Eun-Sang set���beef and bean broth soup in front of him. Once they were alone, she met his eyes and he caught the familiar glint of determination in her.

“It would be easier to avoid each other after last night,” she said frankly. “I’m not dissuaded by hard things. So we’re going to talk about our days at work instead of our awkward sex. Work might not be a safe topic but it is something we’ve got in common. I’ll start.”

“Eun-Sang—“

“Eun-Hee put together a gift for you as a thank you for the toy you got her.” She pointed at…a very detailed drawing of a standard car engine. Everything was labeled correctly in a child’s handwriting. It included a thank you note for both the gift and the movie about talking cars. Young-Do picked it up with reverent awe. “She wants to impress you. I think she has a little bit of a crush on you.”

“I’m sorry,” he said after a few seconds. “I really couldn’t come to lunch.”

“These girls really do understand that. They saw how busy you were at the movie.” Eun-Sang reached over and took his hand. Her fingers were cold. “The bird girls like you, Young-Do. They don’t know anything about you except that you are nice to them. I just want you to know that even if things are weird between us, there are three little girls who think you are the coolest man they’ve ever met. Jae-Hee called you Tower Ahjussi. Even Sung-Hee, who hates everything right now, likes you.”

His throat hurt and he had to clear it several times as he let out a low breath. “I don’t want things to be weird with us. I don’t know how to fix it because I don’t know how to…” He didn’t know how to love her the way Hyo-Shin had loved her. That was her standard for everything important.

“I just want you to feel secure in our life. We are building this together. We’re both bound to make mistakes. I’m sorry I hurt you last night.”

“No,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry I misunderstood your attempt to explain your feelings. I’m sorry I’m not…”

“I’m glad you’re not him. You don’t have to be sorry for that. How were your site inspections? I hear those can be scary on both ends.”

He took the out she offered him and tried to concentrate on the amazing soup she’d made him. “I have a drug dealer trying to use one of my clubs. I didn’t even know that the management had changed. Sometimes it feels like every time I put out one fire, another three spring up in its place.” He paused and then set down his spoon. “How do you feel about spending a weekend in a small, country hotel?”

“Incognito or with bells on?” She put some kimchi on his rice bowel and he automatically ate it before she could take it back.

“I don’t know if it is possible for me to go incognito but I want to try. The manager is making excuses for his bottom line and I want to see if they’re real or not. It’s going to involve a lot of market research and it might be boring. There is supposed to be a tour package offered by the concierge but he claims not to need one. A concierge is—“

“Part of the Zeus hotels experience.” She smiled faintly. “Hyo-Shin would only stay at hotels under your umbrella whenever we went on a small holiday. It wasn’t often but we went to the one in Jeju and it was amazing. I’m only bringing it up to show you that I have a basis for my perspective and opinion.”

He had to be able to show her a better time. It would be difficult to pull off but he might be able to do it if he put enough time into researching the area himself. “Do you enjoy hiking?”

“I’m not a camper but a day hike can be fun.” He tried not to show his disappointment. He owned a camping ground that he held employee events at once a year.

“I’ll set it up and have Hyun-Shik work with your assistant on your schedule.”

“Alright.” Her smile didn’t seem forced so he chose to believe that they were relaxing around each other. “Is the soup okay? I don’t make this often enough to be good at it but Hee-Jin said you request it at the beginning of the month.”

Young-Do blinked and looked down at his empty bowl. “This tastes like home to me,” he said after a minute. It was the last thing his mother made for him before she left. “It’s my comfort food. The beginning of the month is when all the problems rise to the top. I’m sure you know what it’s like as a president.”

“I do. I ate about six rolls of gimbap today.”

“Gimbap?”

“There’s a stall close to my offices. They are amazing. I’m sure you’ve had gimbap.”

“Of course I have. I just…”

“He hates it.” Eun-Sang grinned cheekily as Young-Do ducked his head. “He hates it so much. He likes to pretend he isn’t a food snob but he won’t touch it.”

“But it’s so easy when you’re busy and there are stalls everywhere.” For the first time, it didn’t hurt. He found himself smiling at her. She smiled back and placed a piece of braised potato on his rice. He reached out and did the same with the fried zucchini. “No fish?”

“I can’t handle the bone crunch. There are some in the fridge. Would you like me to get it?”

“No. It’s not my favorite either.” He swallowed and reached for another bowl of soup. “Thank you,” he said after a moment. “It’s nice to feel like someone waited up for me.”

Eun-Sang’s eyes softened and she reached across to squeeze his hand. “Tell me more about your country hotel.”

[covid19worldnews]

What If Facebook Is the Real ‘Silent Majority’?

The Shift

Right-wing influencers are dominating the political discussion on Facebook, raising questions about whether it will translate into electoral success in November.

President Trump continues to have a lot of support among users on the social network.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times

Published Aug. 27, 2020Updated Nov. 4, 2020, 6:42 a.m. ET

Listen, liberals. If you don’t think Donald Trump can get re-elected in November, you need to spend more time on Facebook.

Since the 2016 election, I’ve been obsessively tracking how partisan political content is performing on Facebook, the world’s largest and arguably most influential media platform. Every morning, one of the first browser tabs I open is CrowdTangle — a handy Facebook-owned data tool that offers a bird’s-eye view of what’s popular on the platform. I check which politicians and pundits are going viral. I geek out on trending topics. I browse the previous day’s stories to see which got the most reactions, shares and comments.

Most days, the leader board looks roughly the same: conservative post after conservative post, with the occasional liberal interloper. (If you want to see these lists for yourselves, you can check out @FacebooksTop10, a Twitter account I created that shows the top 10 most-interacted-with link posts by U.S. Facebook pages every day.)

It’s no secret that, despite Mr. Trump’s claims of Silicon Valley censorship, Facebook has been a boon to him and his allies, and hyperpartisan Facebook pages are nothing new. (In fact, my colleague John Herrman wrote about them four years ago this month.)

But what sticks out, when you dig in to the data, is just how dominant the Facebook right truly is. Pro-Trump political influencers have spent years building a well-oiled media machine that swarms around every major news story, creating a torrent of viral commentary that reliably drowns out both the mainstream media and the liberal opposition.

The result is a kind of parallel media universe that left-of-center Facebook users may never encounter, but that has been stunningly effective in shaping its own version of reality. Inside the right-wing Facebook bubble, President Trump’s response to Covid-19 has been strong and effective, Joe Biden is barely capable of forming sentences, and Black Lives Matter is a dangerous group of violent looters.

Mr. Trump and his supporters are betting that, despite being behind Mr. Biden in the polls, a “silent majority” will carry him to re-election. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s oldest and most online son, made that argument himself at the Republican National Convention this week. And while I’m not a political analyst, I know enough about the modern media landscape to know that looking at people’s revealed preferences — what they actually read, watch, and click on when nobody’s looking — is often a better indicator of how they’ll act than interviewing them at diners, or listening to what they’re willing to say out loud to a pollster.

Maybe Mr. Trump’s “silent majority,” in other words, only seems silent because we’re not looking at their Facebook feeds.

“We live in two different countries right now,” said Eric Wilson, a Republican digital strategist and digital director of Marco Rubio’s 2016 campaign. Facebook’s media ecosystem, he said, is “a huge blind spot for people who are up to speed on what’s on the front page of The New York Times and what’s leading the hour on CNN.”

Image

Mr. Trump with Terrence K. Williams, a conservative comedian, at the White House last year.Credit…Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Agence France-Presse, via Getty Images

To be sure, Facebook is not the only medium where right-wing content thrives. Millions of Americans still get their news from cable news and talk radio, where conservative voices have dominated for years. Many pro-Trump Facebook influencers also have sizable presences on Twitter, YouTube and other social networks.

But the right’s dominance on Facebook, specifically, is something to behold. Here are just a few data points I pulled from CrowdTangle this week:

The conservative commentator Ben Shapiro has gotten 56 million total interactions on his Facebook page in the last 30 days. That’s more than the main pages of ABC News, NBC News, The New York Times, The Washington Post and NPR combined. (Data from a different firm, NewsWhip, showed that Mr. Shapiro’s news outlet, The Daily Wire, was the No. 1 publisher on Facebook in July.)

Facebook posts by Breitbart, the far-right news outlet, have been shared four million times in the past 30 days, roughly three times as many as posts from the official pages of every Democratic member of the U.S. Senate combined.

The most-shared Facebook post containing the term “Black Lives Matter” over the past six months is a June video by the right-wing commentators The Hodgetwins, which calls the racial justice movement a “damn lie.” The second most-shared Black Lives Matter post? A different viral video from The Hodgetwins, this one calling the movement a “leftist lie.” (The Hodgetwins also have the 4th, 6th, and 12th most shared posts.)

Terrence K. Williams, a conservative comedian and Trump supporter, has averaged 86,500 interactions per Facebook post in August, more than twice as many as Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, who has averaged 39,000 interactions per post. (Mr. Trump outdoes them both, naturally, with an average of 92,000 interactions per post.)

A few caveats, before my Democratic readers jump off the nearest pier.

These figures include only posts on public pages, in public groups, and by verified accounts, and they don’t include Facebook ads, where the Biden campaign has been outspending the Trump campaign in recent weeks. Counting Facebook interactions doesn’t tell you how someone felt about a post, so it’s possible some conservative posts are being hate-shared by liberals. And Facebook has argued that engagement isn’t the same thing as popularity.

“These points look mostly at how people engage with content, which should not be confused with how many people actually see it on Facebook,” Joe Osborne, a Facebook spokesman, said in a statement. Mr. Osborne added that “when you look at the content that gets the most reach across Facebook, it’s not at all as partisan as this reporting suggests.” (Facebook does not disclose this type of data publicly, except once in a while in response to my tweets.)

Democrats aren’t totally absent from Facebook’s upper echelon. Ridin’ With Biden, a pro-Biden page started in April by the founders of the liberal Facebook page Occupy Democrats, has quadrupled its following over the past three months, and routinely gets more engagement than Breitbart and other right-wing heavy-hitters. Individual posts by Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama and other prominent Democrats have broken through in recent weeks.

And political campaigners have pointed out, correctly, that being popular on the internet isn’t a guarantee of electoral success. (“Retweets don’t vote,” as an experienced Democratic operative once told me.) In addition, Facebook’s older, more conservative user base may not reflect what’s happening on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, which draw a younger crowd.

Still, the platform’s sheer scale makes it vital to understand. As of 2019, 70 percent of American adults used Facebook, and 43 percent of Americans got news on the platform, according to the Pew Research Center. (Those numbers may have increased because of the pandemic.) We know that the company’s product decisions can make or break political movements, move fringe ideas into the mainstream, or amplify partisan polarization. Registering four million voters before the November election, as Facebook has said it would do, could be a decisive force all on its own. (Typically, higher turnout benefits Democrats, but given what we know about the media diets of hyperactive Facebook users, who knows?)

The reason right-wing content performs so well on Facebook is no mystery. The platform is designed to amplify emotionally resonant posts, and conservative commentators are skilled at turning passionate grievances into powerful algorithm fodder. The company also appears willing to bend its rules for popular conservative influencers. Recent reports by BuzzFeed News and NBC News, based on leaked documents, found that Facebook executives had removed “strikes” from the accounts of several high-profile conservative pages that had shared viral misinformation in violation of the company’s rules.

Image

The Biden campaign has been outspending the Trump campaign on Facebook in recent weeks.Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York Times

Over the past few years, I’ve come to view my daily Facebook data-dive as a kind of early-warning system — a rough gauge of what’s grabbing America’s attention on any given day, and which stories and perspectives will likely break through in the days to come.

And looking at Facebook’s lopsided political media ecosystem might be a useful reality check for Democrats who think Mr. Biden will coast to victory in November.

After all, Mr. Trump’s surging popularity showed up online before it showed up in any polls in 2016. And even though much about Facebook, and American politics, has changed in the past four years, the basic laws of social media physics still apply. Controversy wins. Negative beats positive. All attention looks good to an algorithm.

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Brad Parscale led Mr. Trump’s digital efforts in 2016. Credit…Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Brad Parscale — the digital director of Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign — told “60 Minutes” that of everything Mr. Trump did that year, the thing that actually moved the needle was Facebook.

“Facebook was the method,” Mr. Parscale said. “It was the highway which his car drove on.”

That highway is still open. And right now, the fastest cars on it have MAGA bumper stickers.

Read More

https://www.covid19snews.com/2020/11/04/what-if-facebook-is-the-real-silent-majority/

[mioreos]

Shidge or kidge gambling au?

I was watching kakegurui and was “coincidentally” thinking about shidge and kidge during the whole time, so I wanted to contribute a new au to the shidge and kidge community. Warning I never intended for this to get this long, so I apologize for all of you that don’t like reading long stuff. Anyway please enjoy! Got to add another disclaimer, I wrote most of this around the hours of 1 to 2 am, so your probably gonna see a bunch of errors, Sorry in advance! In this au, it’s set in a similar setting to Kakegurui (a school based society system based off gambling). Shiro in this au is 18 while Pidge is 15. The school they both attend has a “chain” of schools. They are both in highschool but what I mean “chain” is that there is elementary and junior high that have the exact same system as the highschool is operating. Only thing that is different, is that money is not betted at the elementary school or junior high but something that appeals to the maturity of the age range in the school. Anyway in this au Shiro’s family is quite wealthy at the very beginning,(were talking about when he was a child here) because they are able to send him to the same exact chain of schools mentioned above that have a good 50,000 per month tuition fee.(which doesn’t even include a uniform fee, which I’ll let you decide how much that is…) Anyway from that young age, Shiro is consider a prodigy gambler being able to find himself out of very sticky situations and being able to compete with people who have trained for years to get to the level Shiro plays at the age of 5. This then allows him to earn the title “champion” from a young age. Several years pass and many things happen to Shiro. One of those things is finding out about the birth of his little brother Keith (who was born 3 years ago, when he was 5 but shiro was not informed because Keith is shunned from the family for only being Shiro’s father’s child and not the result of Shiro’s Father and Mother.) The second thing that happens is that Shiro’s family start to slowly loose wealth, which by the time Shiro and Keith are both in highschool, they are both accepted as “special category” students. With the tuition I mentioned earlier for both Keith and shiro to go to the same school, their family has to pay a good 100,000 each month for them to keep attending. But since their family wealth is not as grand as it use to be, by the time Shiro starts highschool since their family has helped build the school to the foundation it is today, they both get accepted into the school for a lower tuition fee. Shiro and Keith are lucky as they get the lowest tuition fee in the entire’s school history, (excludes scholarship students) paying only 5,000 a month. Aside from all of that the last and final thing that happens is that Shiro’s mother becomes very very ill. Because of this it makes Shiro have to mature at a very early age, so he can prepare to become the next family head. During the time Shiro’s mother becomes ill, him and his father get into a car accident which leaves Shiro with a dead father and Shiro with only one real hand. Eventually, by the time Shiro enters his first year in highschool and Keith in his second year in junior high, his mother is on death’s clutches and is only surviving on life support. Which takes a heavy toll on him, which causes to cloud his judgement during sticky situations while gambling and let losing a common thing for him. For Keith even though Shiro’s mother isn’t his mom, Shiro’s mom cares for him like he is her own child and goes as far as arguing back at other family members for criticizing Keith for his entire being. So hearing that his mom is in death clutches make it harder for him to gamble correctly. Now going back to Shiro’s late elementary years, he meets his first real best friend; Matt Holt. He’s had friends in the past but they used shiro to carve fear or just plain out use him for the things he won from previous gambling matches. Matt and Shiro first meet during a private gambling match. But Matt manages to win against Shiro, who at the age was still reigning as “champion”. Matt reassures Shiro he won’t make the results public because Matt dosen’t want to draw in unwanted attention from people asking or bugging him about how he beat the “champion.” Their friendship goes on until 2nd year junior high, when Matt tells Shiro that he has to withdrawal from the school due to some “personal” and not money oreintated things that are going on in his family. Shiro wants to stay In touch with Matt, but after his last day he just disappears Now for Pidge! Pidge or Katie fully is aware of Shiro’s existence in some shape or form, but has already disguised herself to Pidge Gunderson, a student of the lowest middle class accepted as a scholarship student. Since the school operates with the gambling social system, scholarship students are loaned up to however money based off their monthly ranking in class. The lowest a scholarship student can receive is 2,00,000 for one month due to scholarship students required to rank in the 1-10 places out of the whole school in order to keep their spot. Not to mention, scholarship students can always keep whatever extra money they have from previous matches or whatever extra that was given to them by the school, but are required to play atleast one gambling match against another student once per month so one student dosen’t become powerful with money given to them by the school. In any gambling match on school grounds you are required to have a referee that is not biased between any of the students, 2,000,000 or enter with an "all in" and be able to pledge with the school’s gambling rules. The school’s gambling rules are very basic, as it includes no cheating (unless you are not caught), no biased dealers or referees, and everything you can think of that can prevent a unfair outcome. To continue, back to The holts. The holts in this au own a very rich company that do their sales in fields like medical all the way to tech or creating the latest software and hardware. The company the family owns have gotten several awards and nominations for awards which makes them a more trusted company to buy from. And can be considered one of the Big 7. The big 7, are companies that have large amounts of wealth and fortune that it’s not considered funny anymore. Some of the companies are able to even gain illegal monopolys in some of their fields they spealize in too. Of course all of these companies have heirs, which Coincidentally all attend this gambling school. As you can infer already, the school is basically money=power or class in this school is based off how much money or how good have a gambler you are. Back to the Big 7, the student council is composed of 5/7 heirs of the Big 7. The president Lotor, Vice President Axca, Tresurer Narti, Public relations Director Ezor, and Secretary Zethrid. The other two students part of the Big 7 currently do attend the school but under alias as they both see that joining the council is a sign up for a bunch of unwanted attention. Now back to the "personal" things I mentioned with Matt earlier. In this world, companies will try to attack others so victim companies can either lose consumers or get their companies reputation dirty. When Matt tells Shiro he has to withdrawal for personal reasons, he leaves due to the holt family general safety is in danger. As mentioned above they are part of the Big 7, and most companies that have to compete with them will do anything to eleminate the competition. That may be doing things that can put someone's life on the line. But anyway, for the next few years the Holts leave the country traveling to Europe to go into hiding while still continue operations on their company. Matt is the same age shiro is when the main events of au occur which leaves a 3 year difference between him and Katie. In Europe the Holts stay in a different country every year, until things calmed down and they would be able to go back home. During the 3-4 years they stay in Europe, they've stayed in the U.K., Italy, France, and Germany. Which has allowed the whole family to learn the perspective languages that is spoken over there. After the 3-4 years they return to their original homeland. The family is still worried though, so they continue to use the names and alias they used while abroad. While abroad the holt siblings did attend school. Which coincidentally had the same system as the school's back in their original home so they've become even better gamblers. Learning tricks and techniques and noticing the littlest things that can go and support an arguement that their opponent is cheating. Matt is able to skip a grade while he's abroad, so when the family returns he dosen't have to go back to school. However Katie has to start highschool as Pidge. During the years the holts are gone Shiro's family struggles even more. To where Both Keith and Shiro are reduced to the lowest possible thing. They're both in debt which In total both owe 8,000,000 not even including interest. Shiro is no longer considered a human at school but rather a house pet due to the amount of debt he owns. Keith is close to becoming one but whatever extra money Shiro has from after paying their mothers medical bills he tries to pay off Keith's debt. Even though it's not a lot it's able to save Keith from becoming one of the student councils house pet. When Matt and Shiro were bff's the holts would go on and even pay for the tuitions of Keith and Shiro. The holts pretty much have done so much for Shiro's family that their mother has gone and personally thanked them for doing a lot for them. The holts like to always treat keith and Shiro as if they are their own children while Keith and Shiro look up to them as a 2nd family. Either way when Pidge starts school she immediately recognizes Shiro and Keith when they both give her a tour of the school but they don't recognize her. On the first day she goes against One of the class reps in which ends with her winning a match and rep now oweing her. After she asks to speak to Keith and Shiro and gives them enough money to pay off all their debt. Shiro asks "Why are you doing this?" And she only replies with "don't I look like someone you've known before?" And then it just hit them in realization that this is Katie holt, sister of Matt holt. The person who rivaled the champion at the time. Once again shiro and Keith owe the holts once again and now both start crushing on the youngest holt for what she's done for them. And like just think about all the of the small tidbits and moments that could happen, ok now I'm done. Ok I'm done if any of you have really good writing skills and want to write a fanfic on this please go ahead. I'm a terrible person when it comes to writing dialogue so yeah. Just please credit me? Anyway have a nice day and thank you for reading all of this. @rebelgirlmatrix1213 Thoughts on this au I thought of?

[kurlykookster]

Forbidden Fruit: Part 23

Pairing- Yoongi x reader (ft all of BTS and some of Got7)

Type- Mystery, supernatural and angst here and there and i guess some fluff

Warnings- Swearing n’ stuff + violence and blood

Word count- 3,186

A/N-  so like... I’ve finally redone it. Wow guys, part 23?! I’ve never wrote this before and wow it has been a while!? Bet yall thought i wasnt gonna post anymore since Tuesday is dead now :) bet yall are surprised.

If you’ve already read “part 23″, i HIGHLY recommend you read this part 23 since it’s much more different to the other one and i changed it a bunch so you’re better off forgetting the other “part 23″ that totally never even existed *nervous laugh* I hope it’s better than before

| Part 22 | Part 23 | Masterlist |

The sunlight danced on your eyelids as it began to rise and you sleepily cringed away from it, trying to find shelter for your eyes by shifting your head around. As you tried to do this, a sleepy moan rose from whoever was near you and out of confusion you finally opened up your eyes. You were surprised to find that you were in fact in the living room rather than in bed, and you were even more surprised to find your head resting on Yoongi’s shoulder. What the fuck. You looked around the room and saw that the TV was still turned on. It took a minute, but you finally managed to recall what happened.

“Y/n, I swear to god, just go to bed already! I want to sleep, and I don’t know if you remember this or not, but this couch is technically my bed and you’re still not leaving.” Yoongi groaned at you with frustration.

You didn’t give him a single glance as your eyes stayed glued to the screen. “Look, I promise to leave as soon as this episode finishes… and maybe just one more after that, but I promise it won’t take long.”

He gave out a defeated sigh. “If you fall asleep before that, I’m pushing you onto the floor.” You hummed in response, not paying too much attention to what he was saying.

If you remembered correctly, he had fallen asleep soon after that, and before you knew it, so had you. Over by the kitchen you could hear someone close the fridge, so you peered around to see who was up. It was Jungkook, and he was holding a fresh glass of milk.

He instantly noticed you and smiled at the sight before him “How cute.” He teased, gesturing to you and Yoongi.

“Says you, you and Taehyung are cuter.” You jokingly scoffed.

“Eww, don’t say that. We’re cousins!” he almost spat his milk out as he took a sip.

You rolled your eyes at him “I wasn’t implying it like that you baby. Now go and drink your milk somewhere else.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“You drugged me when we first met, this is the least you can do.”

“You’re still bringing that up? Wow, you really hold grudges don’t you?” he sipped his milk and retreated further into the apartment, out of sight.

Reaching for the remote, you stretched and turned the TV off. At least I’m not the one paying the bills. As you got up, you looked back at Yoongi. He was slouched on the couch and sleepily looking up at you.

“Oh, you’re up?” you spoke.

“Yeah, because someone was having a loud conversation.” He murmured with an unchanging expression pointed straight at you.

“Hmm, I wonder who...” you innocently pondered. “ Well I’m gonna go take a shower, so bye.” You walked towards the bathroom with a quick pace.

“I’ll be in my room if you need me.” You heard him speak before you closed the door behind you.

Minutes later you found your body embracing the warm beads of water that bombarded your still waking body. Your mind went deep in thought as you mulled over all the events that had happened to you leading up to this peaceful moment. You weren’t too sure on how long you had been living here for now, but you were grateful for what the boys had given you without any questions or prejudice towards you, though if it hadn’t been for Yoongi, you probably wouldn’t have this opportunity. You teared up a little as you remembered how no one was willing to help you in the slightest after you found yourself without a family, however you weren’t sure if you teared up because of that memory or because some soap got into your eyes. Well, at least now you had people you could consider close to being family.  Even after getting the horns, you really didn’t lose much did you? The people who knew you no longer know you even existed, and even if they did, you doubt they would even miss you. And pretty much the whole life you had going for you seemed too mediocre for your liking with the way it was heading.

You would’ve stayed under the falling droplets longer, however, all too soon you were already stepping out and drying yourself off because you felt guilty for leaving the TV on all night and you didn’t want to add to that with a bigger water bill.

Lazily, you brushed your teeth and turned the tap off with a squeak. You began to pat your face dry with a nearby towel, but something not quite right made you pause. The distinct sound of water dripping filled your ears and you looked back down at the tap. It was screwed tight and definitely not dripping. Then you looked at the shower, but once again nothing. Your brows scrunched in confusion at the mysterious dripping sound, but seconds later your breath hitched when you realised you could also hear breathing, it wasn’t yours and it was right behind you.

You didn’t hesitate when you spun around, determined to find who the culprit was. However, what you found was not what you expected. What you expected was one of the boys, (mostly Jungkook), playing a prank on you, but the person stood in front of you was none other than your brother. He was completely soaked from head to toe in water, so soaked that he was dripping. Along with him came the distinct smell of fresh lake water, a smell you were all too familiar with.

“Jackson?” before you could ask him questions, his hands were suddenly holding the sides of your cheeks and face came softly to your forehead where he planted a chaste kiss.

“I’m so sorry baby sis.” He whispered.

“For wh-”

Darkness shrouded everything around you and the air felt thicker and much damper.  You wondered if you were still in the bathroom, but it only took another second to realise that you were in fact seated in a car, and no further explanations or thoughts were needed for you to know what car it was. You hurriedly tried to zone your senses back in after you realised you couldn’t actually hear or see anything, but eventually you managed to break through and heard your parents last words.

“We love you-”

Your head was all too soon plunged under the rising water, but it didn’t feel right, if you could even say there was a right feeling in the first place. It seemed as though you weren’t sat in your usual seat, but supposedly the seat your brother was buckled in. Your hands frantically reached for the seatbelt buckle and undid it, and then they reached for the door of the car. At that moment you realised that they weren’t your hands and they weren’t in your control. From the position you were in, this was no doubt all from your brother’s perspective, your brother’s memories. He struggled with the handle and the door just wouldn’t budge as the water from the other side pushed back with all its might. You could feel his lungs already straining for breath from the lack of oxygen around him.

He stopped his desperate attempts of escape and turned towards your unconscious form. A spark of conviction flooded through his body as he got you out for your seat belt and wrapped one of his arms around you while the other began using all its might against the door window. He didn’t have much time and you both knew it. You felt the way his muscles begged for oxygen with every hard hit he placed on the glass, and eventually it finally shattered, you couldn’t see it because of the darkness of the water, but you felt it with the stinging of his arm that clearly came from a wound inflicted by shattered glass.

His arms desperately grabbed at the water as he pulled himself out of the slowly sinking vehicle with you close behind him in his grasp. You looked up at the glimmer of light above you, it was so far away. There was no way he could make it. He struggled against the water, groping and pulling at it, desperately attempting to swim both of you to the tangerine glow of daylight. You wanted to close your eyes and look away, but you couldn’t since you were technically already unconscious in his arms. So all you could do was watch as he fought for both of you. You felt everything, the way his lungs begged his mouth to open and give in, the way his fingers were stinging with numbness from the glacial waters, how his legs grew weaker and weaker with each exhausting kick that barely propelled you forward, you even felt the muscles in his arms begin to seize up from hyperthermia. Despite all this, he persisted and refused to give up. You could faintly hear his thoughts, ‘mind over matter’, he kept repeating like a mantra, distracting himself from his screaming body and encouraging himself to keep going. He was always like this, so stubborn and unwilling to lose, unless it was against you of course, he always let you win. But this time it seemed that it would be a draw.

A sudden gasp of air came through him. He made it; he finally broke through the waters unforgiving surface. However he still had to make it to the shore before hyperthermia completely took over him. Just let me go, I’m weighing you down! You screamed in your mind. You hated being so helpless, you wanted to help him, but you were just a ghost roaming in his memory.

It all came to a sudden stop and you blacked out. Nothing but his breathing and the lapping of water could be heard. The dim light suddenly came flooding into your vision. A beautiful magenta sky glided above you, fully aware of the misfortunes it flew over but it was too selfish to pay it any attention. Maybe he was too selfish to care and look. ‘He’ being the almighty being in the sky, if he even existed that is.

Jackson quickly caught his breath and turned his head. You were lying beside him on the dirt bank of the lake, still unconscious. Your chest was unmoving; no signs of life at all, even your skin looked pale. He scrambled towards you and frantically looked over you, panicking. His fingers came to your neck in search of a pulse; he brought his ear to your mouth intently listening for a breath. His search came up empty. You were cold and lifeless.

“No no no no! Oh god no! Y/n!” he croaked out, tears welling in his eyes.

His mouth came to yours as he used his hands to widen your jaw and cover you nostrils. Two large breaths came from him and into you. Then his hands came to your chest and he used his palms to firmly press into your chest, once, twice, three times and more. He did this for five minutes in a cycle without a break. You wanted to tell him to stop. It was too late, you were undeniably dead. As if he was listening, he stopped his actions and broke down. The side of his head rested against your chest as he held you close to him. Through his blurry vision you could see something else a few meters ahead of you down the bank. It was another person; their back was turned to you and they had dark clothes and messy charcoal hair, and looked just as lifeless as you as they lay on the bank. There were many victims that day, you recalled. Everyone said you were lucky to survive…

Lucky to survive? This suddenly didn’t make sense; you had forgotten that this was a flashback. If anything, this memory was showing you that you died and that Jackson survived. This was the opposite of the reality you were living. There was no way this could be true.

Through Jackson’s hysterical cries, footsteps could be heard approaching the two of you.

“Need a hand?”

The bathroom lights blinded you. Tears were steaming down you face at a never ending pace as you struggled to breath and body shivered and trembled against the tiled floor from shock. You had to get out of this room ASAP if you didn’t want to go mad. Somehow you managed to get yourself up and off the floor and you stumbled towards the door. Confusion and fear consumed your mind and you let instinct take over, so you almost ran towards your room where you knew he would be. You hoped to dear god that he was there and sat by his computer.

You burst through the door and relief washed over you when you saw the screen adding a white glow to his features. Surprised, he turned to you with a questioning look. You heaved a sigh of relief and rushed over to him.

“Y/n?” He glanced over at you “What happened?” he swivelled his chair around as you began to make you way over to him and he instantly looked worried when he saw your tear soaked face and trembling hands. He stood up without hesitation when you were less than a meter from him and you pressed yourself up against him with a desperate hug and he held you close with your head tucked under his chin as he tried to calm you, but you couldn’t help but weep further as he comforted you. He ran his hand up and down your back in attempts to. Eventually he managed to get you over to the bed so you could sit down, but you still didn’t dare let go of him, too afraid of the things you witnessed. “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?” he cautiously whispered.

You nodded in return and took a deep shaky breath.  You told him everything, you told him about your nightmares, the crash, your brother, and what you just experienced minutes before coming to him, though you kept it all short and didn’t bother with minor details. You paused and wiped a few tears as you tried to get through it all, it wasn’t often that you told people about the car crash.

His hand gently smoothed over your wet hair. “Don’t push yourself kitten, I’m here for you as long as you need and I’m glad you’re telling me this.” he reassured with a soothing voice.

“Thank you.” you subtly smiled up at him.

You took another moment to compose yourself before you continued to speak. His hand squeezed you tighter when you mentioned the speeding dark figure and once again when you mentioned the other person on the bank, it was subtle, but you noticed it, though you brushed it other with other things on your mind.

“Did… did you see who it was? I mean the person on the shore… or the black figure...?” he awkwardly questioned. You shook your head in response and he breathed out light-heartedly.

“Why wouldn’t your brother tell you anything?” he questioned, wanting the answers you didn’t even have.

“I-I don’t know. It’s almost as if there’s something stopping him. He just keeps saying that I’ll find out when the time is right and that I just need to keep pushing forward, but I don’t think that I can do this anymore. It’s impossible.” You whimpered into his chest.

“I’m sure he’s already told you this, but you just can’t give up now. You’ve probably already gone through so much, it would be a waste to just let all that go now. I’ll always be there for you whenever you need me, like right now.” He took hold of one of your shaky hands and leaned back to look at you, so you sniffled and reluctantly looked back at him. “And I know that you’re much stronger than this, you made a pillow feel like a brick when you hit me, but if you ever feel like you can’t keep going, just remember that there are seven of us here that would gladly do anything for you. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re part of this family now, and family means nobody gets left behind.”

“Thank you Yoongi… I really needed that.” You finally smiled. “But I can’t believe that you just seriously quoted Lilo and Stitch, and you didn’t even do it accurately.” You laughed out tiredly.

“Look, I felt under pressure, I’ve never had to comfort someone like that before so I kinda panicked okay. That speech wasn’t easy for me to do.”

“I really appreciate it.” You sighed and sniffled once more. “But now that I’ve basically opened myself up to you fully, it means you can’t keep secrets from me either.” His face looked concerned and all he could do was nod and lightly laugh.

He turned the attention back to you. “So what was your brother’s name?” he piqued.

“Jackson. But he wasn’t just my brother, he was my best friend.” Yoongi seemed to mull something over in his head. “Yunno, you’re asking a lot of questions.” You teased.

“Well, I really want to help you as much as I can, but to do that I kinda need to know as much as I can, otherwise I’m pretty lost Y/n. You’re not on your own, we’re in this together if you can’t tell.” He smiled and pointed at his horns. “So we have to work as one body and our minds need to be on the same level…or something.” He wiped a few tears from your cheeks and you shyly grinned under his gaze.

You slowly gave a light punch to his shoulder as you both let out light-hearted laughs. “This is too sweet for me Glucose, hold back on the sugar. I’m not used to you being so openly nice to me.”

“Hey, I’m always nice, it’s called tough love.” It went quiet as you both sat with in each other’s presence, though eventually after the emotions simmered down again you spoke up.

“But I still don’t understand. Why am I alive if I died? And why is Jackson dead if he survived? Did we switch bodies or something? Or is this an alternate dimension…?” you looked at the floor in deep thought with scrunched brows.

“I don’t know, but we’ve got plenty of time to figure it out, so don’t let it consume you. We’re gonna get to the bottom of this, emphasis on the ‘we’. We’re your family now, so don’t let yourself feel like you’re alone anymore.” He took a deep breath. “Do you wanna go do something to cheer you up?”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.” You quietly spoke.

“What do you wanna do?”

“Can we put chilli powder in Jungkook’s milk?”

He looked at you puzzled, but you could see the smile creeping up on his face. “Sure?”

A/n- Sooooo, how are things?