#i know its typical and something almost everyone on this website could understand

[fenhonig]

hey so im salty.

i saw something on reddit today that reminded me of why i feel such anger towards beauty standards. it was a video of a little girl, she couldnt have been over 5 or 6 years old, and she had a birthmark on her face. the skin right above her nose on her forehead was darker and wrinkled. nothing wrong so far, right?

here's the funny part. in the video, it shows this child before and after getting the birthmark surgically removed, which sounds fine on the surface right? even positive?

i cannot tell you how fucking angry it makes me. this kid, this CHILD, had her parents decide that her birthmark was something WRONG with her. they decided FOR HER to have it removed. it boils my fucking blood that her PARENTS, people who are supposed to LOVE HER UNCONDITIONALLY, saw this unique part of their child and decided that it was something that had to be removed. this kid is going to grow up knowing that this mark was something that was seen as a flaw. and that fucking hurts me.

it doesnt even seem like a big deal at first until you realize that this logic doesnt JUST apply to people with noticable birthmarks. you wanna know who also regularly get their bodies surgically altered at extremely young ages for aesthetic reasons even though there's nothing that would pose a threat to their health? intersex babies. not enough for you? how about babies born with certain deformities that, on their own, pose no threat to their health? do you think its ok to just decide that these children arent aesthetically appealing enough? to just decide for them to make a life-changing surgery happen?

and dont even come to me with the "well some conditions require surgical intervention" because thats not what im fucking talking about. im talking about people who are perfectly healthy, theres nothing about their unique condition that poses a threat to their health, but because that condition is seen as "weird" or "gross", they have their bodies permanently altered without any fucking say in it.

why do we teach these kids that there was something "wrong" that had to be "corrected" for them? why do we refuse to teach other kids that these differences arent a bad thing? why do CHILDREN, LITERAL FUCKING CHILDREN, have to be aesthetically pleasing for their parents to love them? you cant "love your child unconditionally" and then decide that one of their traits is just so unappealing that you decide to remove it for them. you dont love them unconditionally. you love them when they look normal to you.

i dont even care if it looks like im overreacting because this shit can, will, and already has hurt people. imagine growing up and knowing that your parents got rid of a trait that only you had JUST to make you look more pretty. more presentable. it didnt matter to your parents how you would feel afterwards when you could comprehend what had happened, all that mattered to them is that you looked appealing. that you looked correct. that you looked normal.

imagine being at that age and then realizing years later that you didnt look pretty enough for your parents to fully accept you. thats disgusting, absolutely fucking disgusting. children shouldnt be taught that certain traits make you have something wrong with you. instead of teaching kids to accept people and themselves as they are, parents teach their kids that they and other kids have to look normal to be accepted. they dont say it, but thats exactly what they teach.

people shouldnt have to fit into a certain box just to be seen as worthwhile. i dont even think that teaching kids that people outside the box matter too is good enough. we should teach kids that there shouldnt be a box in the first place.

you shouldnt have to look any sort of way to receive acceptance and love. you shouldnt have to BE any sort of way to receive acceptance and love. you're worthwhile. the way you were born shouldnt determine your worth, your actions should. some people arent worth the time, i will admit, but the people who are written off just for being born different deserve so much more.

if you're someone who is hated, seen as gross, seen as disgusting or seen as weird for something out of your control, remember that it isnt you who should take the blame. your own behavior, actions, views, they are what matters. anyone who targets you for something you couldnt control? fuck em.

that is my ramble, im extremely tired, please love yourself. and if you cant then love the people like you, maybe that will help.

[terraliensvent]

I hate terraliens because the price of characters has dropped so much. I spent a lot of effort and valuable characters to get my first terraliens and now they cost nothing.

I blame them for giving out point buy myo to every person and not even making these characters linked to an account to reduce inflation.

I blame them for the species no longer ignites my heart because I see how much bullshit they do and how they don't do anything interesting. They delayed the launch of a new subspecies even though they've already spent a shitload of time on it, and they still can't get enough?

I blame them for being idiots and not bothering to find a better programmer and fix their fucking website. They're idiots and don't understand the consequences of uploading 4 megabyte images, which is what uploading 1k pixel images each leads to. They are idiots and they don't give a shit, because they don't use the site from the average user's point of view.

I blame them for not bothering to find normal extensions for their fucking site, although karma found and installed world expanding for their site, while the theres were open-mouthed at the mention of this extension. ARE YOU FUCKING IDIOTS OR ARE YOU JUST FUCKING WITH US?

Terraliens are burning and dying and I wish them a quick descent into hell.

i agree with everything here anon

the terra economy is one of the strangest to me, they were insanely high value at the start, then grubs tanked because staff never gave anything to spend on other than items, then jasper items tanked because they were made forageable, then terras themselves tanked because the mod team was so shit people just wanted nothing to do with them

point buy myos were the final nail in the coffin for this economy that they royally fucked up by introducing staff myos into (thus creating a focus on lim traits to add value) so not even lims have trading power

they pushed out a new subspecies without thinking about fixing the lore people have been asking for since the species start, and then when confronted about it just said "whoopsies we r dum!!" then delayed the launch of said subspecies that WAS ALREADY LAUNCHED

they use insanely large images for their site, going against the recommended image sizes that lorekeeper gives you right next to the "upload image" button, creating such a workload for the site that now it runs incredibly slow because they refused to read and decided they needed 1000x1000 px images for items

they know NOTHING about their own tools to the point that members suggest very easy implementations and staff turns it down because they cant even begin to comprehend operating lorekeeper; when someone suggested allowing a volunteer coder, kea assumed that they could just delete the whole site which isnt possible at all. even the coder they currently have on has said they have no lorekeeper experience.

the staff are constantly mystified by the most basic parts of lorekeeper, even a glance across the extensions wiki gives you so many options for site features that are typically very easy to add outside of dealing with migrations.

even upgrading the site to v3, which theyve said is supposedly at the top of their priorities, should be incredibly simple considering how there are almost no extensions installed, but they still just havent made the change.

the team is incompetent and has been for a very long time. terras is dying and it has been for a very long time. we are halfway through the month of october and there is still no announcement for this month's event. it took them a full month after the birthday storm event ended to even roll the damn raffle because they just didnt give a fuck. hell, they probably didnt even have a design for it until someone asked in staff-ask saying "hey where the hell is it its been a month" and they had to scramble and throw something together

i just want it to be officially done and over with because its clear that everyone is moving on

[goggles-mcgee]

Hello. I love the prompt " the commission " can we have the full story please ? How will the avengers react of the news about Hawkmoth?

The full story will come later I promise! I unleashed so many things onto myself but I have no regrets XD Though I shall share some headcanons with you guys about the AU in the mean time!

* Pepper has been a fan of MDC since she saw the designs for Penny and Jagged’s wedding attire. Her and Penny are friends and when she asked who made Penny’s dress and Jagged’s suit, Penny was all too happy to tell her and brag about Marinette and show her everything else Mari had designed for her and Jagged and others. 

* When Tony officially proposed, Pepper already knew who she wanted to make her dress. She could tell Tony was hesitant to ask MDC since she wasn’t that well known yet, but they both knew he couldn’t say no to her, so it was no surprise when she caught him looking at her website and commission prices. Later she pretended not to notice him calling Penny and asking for MDC’s email. Pepper liked to let him believe he could keep anything from her, it was the thought that counted. 

* Peter, Harley, MJ, and Ned are all excited for the wedding. Peter gets to be the flower boy which he is super happy about and Harley is the ring bearer. 

* MJ is also a fan of MDC

* The whole “Minion” squad are Jagged Stone fans. Peter’s favorite album may or may not be Rock Giant.  ���

*The Minion Squad are all off school for summer already, Marinette just started summer since it’s the beginning days of July. While the Minion Squad plans to help plan the wedding, invent, prank the Avengers, and just have some good summer fun, Marinette plans to work on her MDC commissions since she knew she would be getting a lot. Penny had given her a heads up. Besides, there wasn’t much friends she could hang out with since Luka had told her that him, his sister, and his mom planned to sail around for the summer. Anarka wantedd to get the kids out of Paris for a while. Chloe and Sabrina would be going on vacation with Chloe’s mom to Milan for two weeks and then to New York for a month so Chloe could see her mother’s business and get a feel of it and see if it is something she would want to take over. Kagami and her mother would also be leaving Paris to visit family in Japan. The only ones she would be able to hang out with would be Alix, Nathaniel, and Marc. 

* Then she gets the email from Tony. Freaking. Stark! She nearly faints! Okay. She faints. He actually wants Marinette to design and make his and Pepper Potts wedding attire!!! His email said that he would house her and her team for however long she needed for the consulting period and the beginning work of the outfits. Okay actually it said till the outfits were done but she would discuss that with him and Pepper when she got there because wedding dresses typically took 6-9 months to make. She figured she had time as he did specify they were planning a December wedding of next year, something about it being a Christmas present. 

* After she talks it over with her parents, she responds to Tony that she would love to design and make his and Pepper’s wedding attire but before the discuss anything further she would like for them to video chat. Tony agrees later that day, which is more than enough time for Marinette to set up at Jagged and Penny’s house, they officially bought a house in Paris yes, along with her mother and father so they could talk everything over with Mr. Stark. When the camera connects, Tony swears he must be rebooting because he did not think that MDC was a 16 year old girl, but he adapts quickly and understands now why she wanted to discuss the arrangement more.

* Tom and Sabine are even more delighted and on board on sending Marinette to New York when Tony offers to let her stay in Stark Tower/Avengers Tower with the heroes and his Minions. Marinette of course asks if she can bring some friends, they’re not officially her team but she would feel better having them there with her. Of course Tony agrees because he could practically hear Pepper scold him if he said no and they continue to set everything up while Marinette calls up Alix, Marc and Nathaniel and ask if they want to go with her to New York to go to the Avengers Tower. It takes too long in her opinion to convince them that no. she’s not joking, and yes she is serious. 

* Once they get their parents permission they plan to leave on Saturday which would be in two days. It’s a little hectic, especially because Marinette didn’t know if she should take the Miracle Box or not but in the end she decides to leave it with her mom and dad, aka the new Turtle and Fox heroes of Paris. They had found out she was Ladybug a little after she had become the Guardian because she had broken down. Everything had become too much for her and Tikki couldn’t stand to see her chosen like that so she told Tom and Sabine that their daughter was Ladybug. 

* Marinette was going to take the Horse, Mouse, and of course, Ladybug Miraculous, to New York though. Her mom promised that she would text her or call her as soon as she could if they spotted or heard an akuma, and that they would fight it off until she got there. 

* When Marinette and her friends get to New York and meet Tony, he can tell they’ve fought in a fight children shouldn’t have to, but he doesn’t know how to ask about it so he pushes it back till he can think of a way to approach the subject. He immediately takes a liking to Marinette, he can tell she’s smart for her age, and he just likes her energy. 

* Then Tony introduces them to his Minions and Peter, Ned, and Harley all have a collective freakout because they are meeting THE MDC. MJ is, of course, happy too but she can at least keep her cool when meeting the designer who made Jagged Stone’s iconic Eiffel Tower sunglasses, the one who designed his Rock Giant album art, and the one who made his Roaring Dragon Jacket! Peter asks Marinette if she can sign his copy of the album and Tony thinks it’s all down hill from there. He can see the kid’s blush from across the room. 

* The consultation happens and Pepper is just as surprised as Tony was when she learns MDC is only 16 but she hides it fairly well. Both are pleasantly surprised by Marinette’s professionalism and are pleased with the overall talk about what they want out of the design. Tony even manages to squeeze in another suit for Peter because he knows the kid and he is not letting him wear a rented tux to his wedding. 

* Tony and Pepper have dinner with the kids and the Minions and it’s decided that they can stay for the summer, and no Pepper don’t look at Tony like that it’s not because he’s trying to help Peter get a date for the wedding.

* Then Marinette meets the Avengers. Thor loves her, but like who doesn’t Thor love? And who doesn’t love Thor? She is super interested in learning about Asgard, especially its fashion and she even talks Thor into giving her some fabric samples to work with. He just loves her enthusiasm and he appreciates her letting him talk about his home and his people. Marc and Nathaniel get a great picture of the two of them sitting on Thor’s flexed arms. Marc also loves to hear about Thor’s home and people and Nathaniel loves to draw him and those he talks about. 

Natasha accidentally sneaks up on Marinette, she never means to do it, it is just how she is, so when this little girl turns around in a flash with a pencil held in her fist as a weapon her eyes narrowed looking for the danger, she is suprised and has to stop her own reflexes from sweeping the girls legs from under her. She respects Marinette’s reflexes and the two spar and Marinette tells her she used to do ballet when Natasha asks her why her turns and spins almost seem like she’s doing a dance and Natasha’s eyes light up. The two bond over ballet 

Bucky, Clint, and Steve meet her one morning when they go to the kitchen and find so many goodies to eat and see this tiny little girl singing to herself as she pulls muffins out of the oven. She turns to them and smiles and says good morning before introducing herself so they do as well. When Steve introduces himself her eyes narrow and she hisses out, “YOU.” He’s so confused until she starts tearing into him about him hero suit. Bucky and Clint of course love this moment and will cherish it forever. 

She meets Bruce and he’s heard of this little terror from Steve and he’s thinking she’s going to tear into Hulk about wearing only shorts but then she’s shaking his hand and saying it’s an honor to meet you Dr. Banner, apparently she’s read some of his papers. And Bruce can’t help but smile for the rest of the day. 

When Wanda meets her she just hugs the little girl for a while because she hadn’t meant to see how her ex friends had treated her back in Paris but she did and this child needed a hug. Marinette had just been asking what material her jacket was made out of so they had touched briefly, then she was being hugged, but she didn’t mind, she figured maybe Wanda was having an off day and needed a hug.

Vision had just looked at Marinette and said, “Miraculous.” nobody knew what he meant but Marinette did and she just put a finger to her lips with her eyes wide with panic. Thankfully he got what she was trying to say and gave her a nod and small smile. 

Tony said there was more people for her to meet but she would have the whole summer to do that so she was content. 

* Then the first akuma alert went off when they were there in New York. Marinette thought everyone was sleeping when she created the portal and leapt through...she didn’t know how wrong she was. 

[dirk-has-rabies]

Gender variance and it's link with neurodivergency

Okay so this is it going to be another long one

All quotes will be sourced with a link to the scientific journal I took it from

Okay Tumblr, let's talk gender (I know, your favorite topic) my preface on why this topic matters to me is: I'm autistic ( diagnosed moderate to severe autism) I'm nonbinary trans ( in a way that most non-autistic people don't understand and actually look down on)  and I went to college for gender study ( Mostly for intersex studies but a lot of my research was around non-binary and trans identities) I will be using the term autism as pants when I have experience with however when ADHD is part of the study I will use ND which stands for neurodivergent and yes this is going to be about xenogenders and neopronouns.

autism can affect gender the same way autism can affect literally every part of an identity. a big thing about having autism is the fact that it completely can change how you view personhood and time and object permanence and gender and literally all types of socially constructed ideas. let me also say hear that just because Society creates and enforces an idea does it mean that it doesn't exist to all people it just me that there is no nature law saying that it's real and the “rules” for these ideas can change and delete and create as time and Society evolves and changes.  gender is one of those constructs.

Now I'll take it by you reading this you know what transgender people are  (if you don't understand what a trans person is send me an ask and I'll type you up a pretty little essay lmao,  or Google it but that's a scary thought sense literally any Source or website can come up on Google including biased websites so be careful I guess LOL) anyway to be super basic trans people are anyone who doesn't identify as the gender they were assigned at Birth (yes that includes non-binary people I could do a whole nother essay about that shit how y'all keep spreading trying to separate non-binary people from the trans umbrella)  some people don't like to use the label and that is totally fine by the way.

now autistic people to view the world in a way differently than allistic (neurotypical) ppl do.  we don't take everything people teach us at 100% fact and we tend to question everything and demand proof and evidence for things before we can set it as a fact in our brains. This leads to why a lot of autistic people are atheist (although a lot of religions and this is not bashing on religious people at all I am actually a Jewish convert)  this questioning leads to a lot of social constructs being ignored or not understood At All by a lot of autistic people and personally I think that's a good thing.  allistics take everything their parents and teachers and schools teach them as fact until someone else says something and then they pick which ones to believe. autistic people study and research and learn about a topic before forming an opinion and while this may lead to them studying and believing very biased material and spitting it out as fact it can also lead them to try and Discover it is real by themselves.

because of this autistic people are more question their gender or not fall in a binary way at all as the concept of gender makes no sense to a lot of us. “ if gender is a construct then autistic people who are less aware of social norms are less likely to develop a typical gender identity”

no really look: “ children and teens with autism spectrum disorder ASD or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder ADHD  are much more likely to express a wish to be the opposite sex compared with their typical developing peers” That was posted in 2014. we have been saying this stuff forever but no one wants to listen. the thing is gender variance (being not cisgender or at least questioning it)  has always been closely hand-in-hand with autistic and ADHD people I'm even the doctor who did that study understood right away that it all made sense the whole time: “ Dr. Strang said they were initially surprised to find an overrepresentation of gender variance among children with ADHD. However, they later realized that prior studies have shown increased levels of disruptive behavior and other behavioral problems among young people with gender variance”  SEE YOURE NOT WEIRD YOURE JUST YOU AND YOURE NOT ALONE IN THIS!!

5% autistic people who did the study were trans or questioning. it was also equal between the Sexes fun fact. that may not seem like a lot till you realize that the national average is only .7% that's literally over 700% higher than the national average. That's so many! and that's just in America.

 in Holland there was a study in 2010 “ nearly 8% of the more than 200 Children and adolescents referred to a clinic for gender dysphoria also came up positive on a assessment for ASD” they weren't even testing for ADHD so the numbers could be even higher!

now I want to talk about a  certain section of the trans umbrella that a lot of autistic people fall under called the non-binary umbrella. non-binary means anything that isn't just male or just female. it is not one third gender and non-binary doesn't mean that you don't have a gender. just clearing that up since cis people keep spreading that. non-binary is an umbrella term for any of the infinite genders you could use or create. now this is where I'm going to lose a bunch of you and that's okay because you don't have to understand our brains or emotions To respect us as real people. not many allistics can understand how we see and think and relate to things and that's okay you don't have to understand everything but just reading about this could be so much closer to respecting us for Who We Are from you've ever been and that's better than being against us just for existing.

now you might have heard of my Mutual Lars who was harassed  by transmeds for using the term Autigender (I was going to link them but if it gets traction I don't want them to get any hate)  since a lot of people roll their eyes at that  and treated them disgustingly for using a term that 100% applied correctly.  Autigender  is described as " a neurogender which can only be understood in the context of being autistic or when one's autism greatly affects one's gender or how one experiences gender. Autigender is not autism as a gender, but rather is a gender that is so heavily influenced by autism that one's autism and one's experience of gender cannot be unlinked.” Now tell me that doesn't sound a lot like this entire essay I've been working on with full sources…..

xenogenders and neopronouns are a big argument point on whether or not people “believe” in non binary genders but a big part of those genders is that they originated from ND communities and are ways that we can try to describe what gender means us in a way that cis or even allistic trans people just can't comprehend or ever understand. Same with MOGAI genders or sexualities. A lot of these are created as a way to somehow describe an indescribable relationship with gender that is so personal you really cant explain it to anyone who isnt literally the same as you.

Even in studies done with trans autistic people a large amount of them dont even fall on a yes or no of having a gender at all and fall in some weird inbetween where you KINDA have a gender but its not a gender in the sense that others say it is but its also too much of a gender so say youre agender. And this is the kind of stuff that confuses allistic trans people and makes them think nonbinary genders are making stuff up for attention, which isnt true at all we just cant explain what it feels like to BE a trans autistic person to anyone who doesnt ALREADY know how it feels.

In this study out of the ppl questioned almost HALF of the autistic trans individuals had a “Sense of identity revolving around interests” meaning their gender and identity was more based off what they liked rather than boy or girl. That makes ppl with stuff like vampgender or pupgender make a lot more sense now doesnt it? We see that even in the study: “My sense of identity is fluid, just as my sense of gender is fluid […] The only constant identity that runs through my life as a thread is ‘dancer.’ This is more important to me than gender, name or any other identifying features… even more important than mother. I wouldn't admit that in the NT world as when I have, I have been corrected (after all Mother is supposed to be my primary identification, right?!) but I feel that I can admit that here. (Taylor)” and an agreement from another saying “Mine is Artist. Thank you, Taylor. (Jessie)” now dont you think if they grew up with terms like artistgender or dancergender they would just YOINK those up right away????

In fact “An absence of a sense of gender or being unsure of how their gender should “feel” was another common report” because as ive said before in this post AUTISTIC PEOPLE DONT SEE GENDER THE WAY ALLISTIC PEOPLE SEE IT. therefore we wont use the same terms or have the same identities nor could we explain it to anyone who doesnt already understand or question the same way! Participants even offered up quotes such as “As a child and even now, I don't ‘feel’ like a gender, I feel like myself and for the most part I am constantly trying to figure out what that means for me (Betty)” and also “I don't feel like a particular gender I'm not even sure what a gender should feel like (Helen)”

Now i know this isnt going to change everyones minds on this stuff but i can only hope that it at least helped people feel like theyre not broken and not alone in their feelings about this. You dont have to follow allistic rules. You dont have to stop searching inside for who you really wanna be. And you dont have to pick or choose terms forever because just as you grow and evolve so may your terms. Its okay to not know what or who you are and its okay to identify as nonhuman things or as your interests because what you love and what you do is a big part of who you are and shapes you everyday. Its not a bad thing! Just please everyone, treat ppl with respect and if you dont understand something that doesnt make it bad or wrong it just means its not for you. And thats okay.

[discotreque]

LwD 2.05: An Embarrassment of Dooplers

So I was a little nervous about this one! I hadn’t heard any spoiler-spoilers, but screeners have been out for weeks now, and I’d heard a bunch of individual, vague, non-spoilery hints about (1) big character moments, on the scale of a mid-season finale even though the show’s not taking a mid-season break; and (2) an ending that would make me cry.

I guess I imagined something relatively serious and dramatic, like “No Small Parts”? This show makes me cackle with laughter and giggle with nerdy glee and “d’awww!” at heartwarming friendships every week, but it’s only ever made me cry once—and then I was impressed that they were going to get there from the wacky hijinks we saw in the brief teaser.

The lack of a cold open made me apprehensive too—in my experience, that’s typically a sign that there’s so much plot in the rest of the episode that they need that extra scene—but after ~21.5 minutes of aforementioned hijinks, I was having so much fun that I’d completely forgotten about the alleged tear-jerker at the end…

…and they were not the tears I was expecting.

I didn’t think I’d be smiling and crying!!!! That was wholesome as SHIT!!!!!

I almost can’t believe they earned that—but they totally did.

After a Mariner–Tendi episode and a Boimler–Rutherford episode, we’re back to the “usual” Season 1 pairings… except the relationships between these characters have changed since Season 1. Mariner still feels thwacked in the abandonment issues by Boimler bailing for the Titan, and Rutherford’s having a tiny little existential crisis about losing an entire year of his life.

Both of which are extremely understandable and very heavy situations—and both of those situations get resolved because everyone in them is vulnerable with each other and honest about their feelings—AND that honesty and vulnerability brings both pairs of friends closer together. Are you kidding me?? I would watch SEVENTY seasons of that shit. Put it in my veins.

Onto the notes:

So basically Dooplers are Tribbles, but for cringe comedy instead of slapstick? Ohhhhh boy.

Look at Ransom the diplomat, tossing his own fork on the floor! I like that he’s actually a pretty competent Starfleet officer, despite also being a completely ridiculous person.

Wait a second, is that—OH HOLY SHIT, THE DOOPLERS ARE VOICED BY RICHARD KIND.

It makes sense that B. Boimler would find William annoying—who likes seeing their own flaws reflected back at them? And who could be a better reflection of one’s flaws than one’s literal duplicate?—but most interesting to me is that it implies on some level, Bradward knows the stick up his butt is a flaw. (Does William?)

Why does the Cerritos model have working phasers?!?!

I’m loving hot pink as the currently en-vogue colour for “dangerous sci-fi energy” in animation (cf. almost every previous episode of this show; Into the Spider-Verse; other stuff I can’t remember right now). As a former child of the 80’s, I’m living for it… but as a former teenager of the 90’s, I can’t help but wonder if it’s going to age as poorly as the harsh neon green of The Matrix, every Borg appearance on Voyager, and like 80% of the websites I made in high school…

SKANTS! SKANTS! SKANTS!

That fake-out joke with the fly-by over the Cerritos model was in the season trailer weeks ago, and I was so enthralled by that handsome lady that the sticker coming into frame still got me good 😂😂😂

BECKY Mariner????? omg yes

Some top-quality Boimler screams in this one. Poor Jack Quaid must drink gallons of throat-coat tea when he records.

One of the great things about Star Trek to me is that you never know what you’re going to get from any random episode. A murder mystery? A road trip? A spooky thriller? A cheesy romance? Broad comedy? Body horror? Didactic political screeds shrouded in tissue-thin science-fiction metaphors? Brain and brain, what is brain??? And after this many years of watching, you’d think I’d be hard to surprise. But if I ever told you I thought I’d see a Blues Brothers–style car chase through a frickin’ shopping mall on an episode of Star Trek, I would have been straight-up lying to you. I loved it, it worked for me, my jaw was on the floor and I was clapping with joy—but I’m definitely comfortable calling this one “unexpected.”

It’s CAPTAIN SHELBY!!! And an ancient babydyke crush rose from the depths of my childhood subconscious… (Also I think her Number One is based on the original makeup—eventually deemed too complicated—for Saru? Now that’s a deep cut.)

In 20th-century Trek, you almost never got to see what was going on inside a starship from the outside. Even after they switched from physical models (where it was next to impossible on a single episode’s budget) to CGI (which was still in its infancy, still not exactly cheap, and still broadcast in SD anyway), it was a rare thrill to see any meaningful interior details in an exterior shot. Disco’s modern VFX have given us some tasty, tasty treats in that department, but nothing quite as sublime as all the pink Doopler light glittering through the Cerritos’s windows.

Mariner says she’ll take her contact Malvus down with her, and threatens that they’ll end up “in the same cell.” Malvus is a Mizarian, a species introduced in TNG’s “Allegiance,” in which Captain Picard is held in a mysterious prison with one. I think I see what you did there, McMahan?

Bartender… so hot… lesbian circuits… overloading…

The Tendi and Rutherford C-story was, well, a C-story within a 22-minute episode, so there wasn’t much to it, but the one scene that mattered actually mattered a lot. I’m ambivalent on whether they should end up romantically involved—I’d prefer they don’t, but they’ll be one of the cutest couples in Trek history if they do—and as long as they keep that pure, sweet friendship between them at the heart of whatever else happens, I’m on board.

Carol Freeman was already one of my favourite captains before this season, and she’s been steadily moving up the list. The quiet throughline about her ambition to be on a better ship has been fascinating so far, and it’s starting to actually make me feel a little conflicted: I’m of course rooting for Captain Freeman to recognize her worth, make Starfleet recognize her worth, and become the ass-kicking captain of a hero ship that she’s clearly ready to be—but that almost surely means she’d be kicking ass off-screen, because LwD isn’t about those kind of adventures, and I’d be devastated not to have Dawnn Lewis on the show every week. So I’m kind of on the edge of my seat about this one!

I had so many favourite jokes this week I put them in a separate list:

“Even the replicated water on the Titan tasted better” is a low-key brilliant dunk on people who can’t shut the fuck up about the cooler places they used to live.

“Ooooh, they have a Quark’s now! That used to just be an empty lot where teens would make mistakes!” ← That’s literally me every time I go back to where I grew up. I felt so Seen™ I almost hid under a blanket.

“I would never go down the stairs!” (evil grin) (goes up the stairs)

The “well, shit” expressions from Mariner and Boimler as their crashed car sank right into the water… which started to bubble innocuously… and then the bottles of Data bubble-bath popped up, paying off a joke I thought had already been paid off—that was the one that woke up my poor cat this week. Just exquisite timing.

“YOUR PAGH IS WEAK, AND IT DISGUSTS ME!” “I don’t even know what that is, but I don’t like your tone!”

“Okona’s in there? He’s not even Starfleet! This is outrageous!” made me shout “NO!” at the screen like I was scolding my cat for scratching furniture. (She did not wake up that time.)

Best background joke: the neon sign at the dive bar advertising FREE SHOTS & BEERS. (Get it? Because they’re on a Federation starbase? Where nobody uses money?)

And of course Quark merchandised DS9.

This wasn’t just a standout episode of Lower Decks, this was a brilliant episode of Star Trek, period. The Dooplers, though extremely silly, are nevertheless also a clever sci-fi metaphor for real and relatable personal/interpersonal issues, and an effective plot catalyst for meaningful character growth from all four of our ensigns and the captain.

The jokes were hilarious, the action was kinetic, the A-, B-, and C-plots linked up thematically, the visuals were consistently and thoroughly gorgeous, the character beats—between Mariner and Boimler, Tendi and Rutherford, Mariner and Capt. Freeman—were all genuine, heartfelt and wholesome, and the references to other Trek canon were both deep and deeply affectionate.

Only 15 episodes in, and this series knows exactly what it is, exactly what it wants to do, and knows that it can knock our socks off doing it. Mike McMahan has said in recent interviews that the back half of S2 (and the apparently almost-fully-written S3) is a straight line uphill in quality from here—which surprised me at first, because McMahan seems like a pretty chill dude who doesn’t normally brag about his own work like that.

But then the Prophets sent me a vision of my space dad Ben Sisko, who reminded me of the words of 1930’s baseball player Dizzy Dean:

“If you can do it, it ain’t bragging.”

[Thanks to cygnus-x1.net for the screenshots this week—I was too lazy to do my own.]

[dryanderestuff]

Who can relate? #4

I don’t know if it’s just me, and if it’s just another one of my incorrigible quirks or vices, but for some reason, in some shows or mangas I read, I like fantasizing about alternate scenarios to the canon (my versions) and the pairings I like. I know this is shallow, and some may interpret this as just me finding a justifiable reason to desperately refuse my love for a show or manga (like Fairy Tail), but I don’t think this is the case. I mean, I can still accept any diagnosis anyone can guess or point out because I recognize that I will never fully understand myself much in the same way I can’t understand others, but get this: I hate Fairy Tail and yet somehow, I still like NatZa and find it difficult to stop fantasizing about the ideal scenarios I would have loved it to have gone. Perhaps it’s because I focused too much on what I didn’t like that I subconsciously always came up with ways to live my ideal version of the manga. I don’t understand how to put this in human terms (yes, I know I sound crazy and desperate for attention at this point), but the best analogy I could come up with is me not liking the original recipe, so I find and think of countless ways to make it better, the recipe referring to the actual fairy tail. 

I know this is just my rant because I didn’t like almost everything about FT, in fact, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say I despise it, and I know I am a toxic person, but this is who I am and I can’t do anything about it. I felt the need to post this because I want to get this off my chest. I’ve gone so far as to blacklist the fairy tail manga from my manga website because it’s obvious that there is 0% of NatZa happening, which is the only reason I was sticking around in the first place, week after week of stagnant and never-changing style in the manga, after all these years. I just feel like the status quo with the protagonist never changes at all. Citing from the Big Three of One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach; Luffy has matured and become more respectable since the first arcs; Naruto became the Hokage and finally recognized positively by everyone; and Ichigo became cooler in the end. Going back to my pathetic rants earlier, one of the reason why I hate FT is because I liked it for the longest time, and I only felt disappointed after 8 long years of supporting this garbage and doing my best to convince myself that it is underrated. I didn’t like how you can still bring the current Natsu, as of the latest and very last chapter I read (ch 63) of the sequel, into the older FT arcs and nothing would change, except his power level. His development as a character was non-existent at all. Most authors are typically prone to finding the right balance of beefing up their character and not making him too OP, but in the case of Natsu, he fell in the spectrum of not being more respectable and admirable as a character in every sense (for me, this is my opinion btw. Just assume everything I say is my opinion). And I am one of those people who believe that an author’s work is also as good as its protagonist because it is primarily through their lens that we see that author’s world. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love the pairing NatZa eventhough I hate Natsu and the actual publication (FT canon), and this is what I can’t explain. Maybe it’s because I love dominant females, and a male who can be dominated by her and at the same time stand up to her when needed. In the case of JErza, it’s pretty much an equal relationship, hell Erza is the one acting coy and weak around him. For everyone, this means a perfect pair, but to me, I find something wrong with it because I have absurd standards and I nitpick about every detail that set me off, that’s who I am. For someone with her personality, I prefer her to end up with someone she can enact her usual quirkiness and be herself and having it actually look cute and adorable with that guy because of their relationship dynamic. I can’t ever see Jellal’s chemistry with Erza when she’s being herself. We always see a different and less “passionate” (I don’t know exactly, I’m trying to say energetic or you know, her Erza-ness) Erza who hides her authoritative and quirky side. And I hate those types of romantic relationships where one partner is acting like someone else to impress or not turn off his/her object of affection. I like a relationship where they are both compatible and it has already been seen that their relationship dynamic, no matter how condemnable it may be, actually works out for them because it is what they were comfortable with. 

I want to find someone who is also perturbed by this inexplainable feeling. I know this was a long post and it will probably not be read by a lot, but for the very few who do, give it a thought. Again, this is just my opinion, so if you disagree with me, please tell me properly and not go off on a rant of your own. It makes you just as toxic as me. 

[folkelorde]

* / GUIDE: CHARACTERS AT A NEWSPAPER.

hi, hello ! here’s just a guide for creating a character who works in a newsroom/for a newspaper. most of this is drawn from personal experience (+ my parents’ experiences) but i did some googling on your behalf as well. this guide isn’t just because i wanna see more accuracy, but also because there’s a lot of things about this environment that would be fun to write that i don’t really see being taken advantage of. so, check out under the cut for all my tips.

note: if you have any questions about your journalist or journalist-adjacent muse, i’m happy to try and help answer ! let me know if you have more questions this guide doesn’t cover, i just went to the points that might be most helpful for your muse plot-wise.

1. WHERE IS THE NEWSPAPER LOCATED/WHAT KIND IS IT? this makes a huge difference. 

the environment in a small town paper is going to be a lot more lowkey and casual than a larger city paper. 

most large papers are now all owned by big companies so really unless they’re the nytimes, they’re suffering because of constant budget cuts, layoffs, etc, that affect their ability to report the stories that the people in their area care about. they’re generally just pulling from AP articles. small town papers these days are mainly weekly or biweekly. 

another thing that has become really popular (at least in the US) are altweeklies. there’s probably one of these in your state, and they generally have a huge focus on narrative journalism, come out weekly, and almost have a magazine-like feel? most probably started out as arts publications but now do a lot of news coverage to make up for the lack of coverage in their area. these are generally independently owned. if you’re curious, there’s a whole list of them here. 

essentially, if you’ve got a larger, conventional paper, it’s probably consolidating and the workers are suffering. if you’re in a tiny small town paper, it’s probably chill and if there’s ever any kind of real news, it’s the story of the fucking year. and if you’re at an altweekly, you’re kind of in the middle and maybe new to reporting news, since you have to make up for what your big city paper isn’t doing.

2. WHAT DOES YOUR CHARACTER DO? there are more people at a newspaper than writers and photographers! in fact, a lot of newspapers don’t really have staff photographers any more, just an army of freelance ones that they call on. here are some ideas for positions that your character can have:

intern: if your character is a writer under 25, they’re probably an intern. internships sometimes blossom into full-time gigs, if the paper is doing well enough to hire someone new on. 

staff writer: if your character is under 30, they’re probably one of the youngest people, if not the youngest, especially if they work in news (arts sections might have a few more younger people, but i’ve never really met a reputable news writer that wasn’t 30+). writers DO NOT spend much time in the office at all and are often on the go, running around, working from home, whatever, and popping into the office for meetings and such. seriously, they’re never there. 

freelance writer: maybe your character writes niche things on the side for a publication, like movie reviews, a political column, book reviews, etc. i know a woman that’s really into opera and she wrote into our paper asking if she could write about that so whenever there’s an opera she writes about it and that’s it. generally the people who have a column (doing reviews of some kind especially) are freelance and don’t work for the paper full time. so if your character is like a “book reviewer,” maybe consider having them do something else too. tbh, they’re probably an author. 

editor: this depends SO MUCH on the size of the paper. at the paper where i work, there’s a news editor and an arts editor. however, a tiny paper probably just has one editor for everything, and a larger paper probably has an editor for each and every section. so consider the size when you consider your character’s role, and seriously, if your character is younger, they will NOT be in this position. managing editors don’t rly exist any more unless you’re like the nytimes or something. even then. 

data journalists/data editor: again depending on the size of your paper, there’s probably one or no people that do this. however, this is becoming a crucial part of most newsrooms – people that do data analytics, build charts, work with lots of spreadsheets. these people do a lot of great shit and have been the frontrunners on a lot of big stories as of late. also, whenever you’re reading something and it’s got charts and graphs, it’s probably a data person behind that. this is really crucial with politics and elections, but also with all of the incoming data about climate change. 

web people: even the smallest fucking newsroom probably has one person who’s doing all the website stuff. web is just as important as print these days, as you probably know, and the only people surviving without good websites are the tiny small town papers because that’s a really niche market. but even they have websites, even if they’re not too snazzy! 

designers: so important!! these are the people that are at the office ALL THE FUCKING TIME, mainly because they can’t really do their work from home and they’re working on deadline, not only with the writers/editors but with the sales department too. where i work, the designers are loud and crass and fun and they’re all super close friends because like i said, they’re there all the time and a lot of late nights working on the paper and on ads and stuff.  

photographers: like i said, they’re mostly freelance and they want to be. but maybe if they have a really good relationship with the paper and have been there a while, they might have a full-time gig. jonathan byers would not have a full time job in 2019. 

sales team: even at the smallest of papers, there’s a good chance the sales team is the biggest team on staff. this is how newspapers rake in money, unless they’re on a nonprofit model, and in that case they probably don’t really have a sales team because they’re entirely funded by the readers (it works like NPR). sales team is probably in and out of the office a lot because they’re making sales calls and full of some interesting characters, you know, like on the office lmao. because of their relationships with businesses, it’s not uncommon for them to be the first ones to hear about a story OR to be the ones bitched at when a story portrays someone unfavorably, especially if its someone who advertises w the paper. 

marketing/social media: nonexistent in a small town paper, but otherwise, this is becoming a more crucial part of newspapers. a lot of newspapers also put on community events, so there’s a lot of event planning and promotion involved here too. 

secretary: a good job for a younger muse, probably answering phones and the door and organizing the calendar and helping with the classifieds and all of that bullshit. this person has to be a real people person. they’re also probably at the office all the time. 

publisher: head honcho! they generally own the damn place and make the calls on all the big picture decisions. if they’re not the owner, they’re still CEO-adjacent, yk?

3. YOUR MUSE PROBABLY WORKS WEIRD HOURS. like almost definitely. the news cycle is 24 hours and even if your character isn’t reporting on breaking news, they’re operating around other people’s schedules to get the story or put it in place, AND, yes, they’re probably working around breaking news or dealing with a crisis. or, unexpectedly, a story can go viral and that affects everyone in the office too. so, sometimes your muse might go into work at 11am and stay until 8pm or they’ll get called in at random times or have to go. this can lead to conflicts with other muses who don’t quite understand, or affect relationships when there’s an important moment and your muse has to jet off for work. it’s nice to keep in mind that your muse probably doesn’t just work 9-5. your muse also likely works holidays and such too, and if they’re not working, they’ve got their phone on them. always gotta be plugged in. more conflict! 

4. LAYOFFS. it’s impossible to talk about the industry without it. here’s a story my coworker told me the other day: “i just started my job at [redacted large paper] and the company was going through layoffs. since i was the new guy right out of college, i thought i’d be the first to go. but i wasn’t. they kept me and started laying off all the old-timers, people who had been with the paper forever.”  – THIS IS A HUGE STRAT FOR THESE CORPORATE PAPERS. it’s actually cheaper for them to keep the newer workers and lay off the people who have accrued a lot of benefits and pto and are close to retirement and such. this could be an interesting angle for a younger muse who’s pushed into a position of a lot of responsibility that they weren’t prepared for, or a muse who was at a paper and is layed off and now works for a smalltown type of paper – could be a fun sort of muse to play in your typical “small town” rps – some bigwig talent that’s now struggling after being laid off. the big name to know is gannett, who owns a huge majority of papers in places big and small, but they’re now merging with gatehouse...which is leading to even more consolidation right now.

p.s. if you’re curious, my coworker was eventually laid off from said [redacted large paper] later on

5. THE BIG SCOOP. your muse probably isn’t constantly on the scoop of the century, even at a big paper. especially if your muse is younger, they’re probably not being given that responsibility. so, if part of your plot is that your muse is breaking a big story, they probably don’t do that sort of thing all the time and it’s a big deal to them! it’s also not unusual for a writer to be working on a story over a long, long period of time, especially if it’s a very big story, or for them to be covering it in bites (like a murder trial). 

6. JACK OF ALL TRADES? writers especially are sort of expected to have a lot more proficiencies than just writing. you gotta be able to shoot your own videos and pictures too, add your posts to the web, so on. there’s more to it than just ‘writing,’ as you probably know. keep that in mind, although your muse might not LIKE that they need to do all of these things. 

7. FOLLOWING THE LAW! you’ve got to let people know that you’re interrogating them for the news, that they’re on the record, all of that shit. it’s hugely unethical if you don’t, and you can’t just be publishing people’s photos without their permission. you see a lot of movies where journalists go undercover and don’t tell people that they’re interrogating them for the paper and that probably wouldn’t happen (gale weathers from the scream movies would’ve been sued so fast for all of her defamation). also, newspapers spend a LOT of time dealing with government bureaucracy. like you expect a records request to get answered within the legal time frame, but it never fucking does, and often times you’re waiting on the state or even suing them for not sending you the records but they don’t give a fuck, they’re the state. it can be a lot of jumping over hurdles and through hoops to get any kind of info from the government...especially from the police. so even if information is supposed to be public, sometimes it can be a challenge to get, and maybe something your muse can struggle with. if your muse is in a roleplay where government workers are also present, this could be a fun plot/conflict to play out. 

[sardonicnihilism]

A Biography of the Woman Who Never Was

Part 3 The Young Adult

Chapter 32

Shannon looked over her list of damnable tomes. *The Liba Lnteus*, *The Beale Ciphers*, *The Voynich Manuscript*, *Magic of Abramelin the Image*, *The Codex Gigas*, *The Book of Soyga*, *The Rohonc Codex*, *The Great Omar Book*, *The Ripley Scroll Book*; each one of these horrid abominations was said to bring death and madness to all those who sought them out. These were grimoires of the most blasphemous and dangerous depths. Yet, none of these were what she was looking for.

Shannon lifted her head, staring off into space, tapping her pencil off the library table she was seated at. She was trying to clear her mind, think of new avenues to approach. The continuing elusivness of the book made her feel uneasy. Certainly there had to be some mention of it somewhere.

She looked over to her right and saw a typical, pink eraser. She stared at it for a few moments and opened up her left hand. The eraser wiggled a bit, and then jumped into her hand. Shannon smiled as she ran it between her fingers.

She then noticed a strand of her hair, resting on the book she had been reading. She put her hand about one foot over top of it. The hair began to move like a snake. It reared up, standing straighter and straighter, until it left the page and floated in the air.

Shannon moved her hand to and fro, the hair following suit. Her hand and the hair danced in the air. She stood up and began to actually dance - swaying, gliding, bending, and reaching. The hair began to glow and catch on fire. It elongated and started to spin around her. The two dance partners floated up into the sky.

They were suddenly no longer in the library. She doubted if they were even still on Earth. It was night here. They were in a forest with trees and vegetation that had no root in Terran soil with the cries of animals that had never trod the world of man.

Shannon's clothes had now been burned away, but she didn't care. All there was, was the dance. The string of fire encircled her even more closely. Eventually it touched her and she burst into flame, but she felt not one ounce of pain. Indeed she was in a state of euphoric rapture.

She and the flame were now one. She flew across the night sky, leaving streaks of light behind her, creating complex, geometric patterns. In her mind she heard a young boy ask what was that; to which the voice of an old woman responded, "That is the Sky Dancer of Chaos and Eternal Night". She then exploded across the sky. Shannon was then back in the library; same position, mindlessly drumming away.

Shannon took her glasses off, laid them on the book, and slouched back into her chair. She was unnerved at her apparent day dream. She was even more upset at her lack of progress.

"Hey stranger," Sam's voice called out.

Shannon looked over in the direction it had come. "Hey. What are you doing here?" She was legitimately curious. She had come to Chambersburg Public Library because her college library had failed to yield any results in her search, but it was more than sufficient for the tasks of any college assignment.

"Looking for you. I haven't seen on campus for a while. I called to see if you were ok, and your mum said you were here. I found a ride in and decided to see if you were ok."

"I am. Just - looking."

Sam pulled out the chair next to her and sat down. "That bloody book again?" he asked both concerned and annoyed.

"I still hear things, see things, sometimes even feel them. Prayers and church haven't worked. Maybe if I find something, anything, it'll help."

Sam put his arm around her shoulders. It was striking how large and muscular she was. She felt more of stone than flesh. Yet her face was scared, sad, and tired.

"Listen," he said softly, "you said yourself, they gave you a strange liquid to drink, yeah? I'm guessing that it was some sort of hallucinogenic and it's messing with brain up there," he gently tapped on the side of her head which made her smile. "Instead of looking for some book which may not even be real; maybe you should go to the doctor's instead?"

Shannon leaned over and put her head on his shoulder. "And say what? I might have had some bad acid? Besides, everyone had masks on. I have no idea who all was there. Hell, my doctor could have been one of them for all I know. Shit, you could be one," she turned her head and looked him in the eyes.

"Nah, ain't me mate. I don't believe in any of that mumbo-jumbo. Strict atheist here. Of course, you could think I'm just lying to you. Not like I can prove my innocence."

"Honestly, at this point, I really don't give a shit if you're legitimate or a spy. You're the best friend I've ever had. So if this is a performance, all I ask is that you keep it up."

"Will do," Sam answered back cheerfully.

Shannon looked at her list again. She tore the paper from the notebook and crumpled it up. Real or not, she was done searching.

Suddenly something came to her, something Jen had said. She had called Lovecraft a seer. She also said that his works were based on the coven's text. Finally her last thought sprung up in her mind again, *real or not*.

She ran up to the librarians desk and asked to sign into a computer. The librarian told her what number to go to, and she ran over and started typing.

Sam was extremely confused and worried. He ran over to her and asked, "What are you doing?"

"Checking out a thought," she said, super focused on the screen.

"Alright, and how's that?"

"I found this new website called Amazon. They're an online bookstore. Fairly large selection too," she said excitedly. "Hopefully they don't try to start selling other things as well and just stick to books."

As soon as the page loaded, she typed "Lovecraftian horror" in the search bar. Once the search was done, she began to scroll through the selections. Her brow furrowed with frustration, not seeing what she had hoped for. Then a look of absolute joy came across her face as she said, "There!" Shannon pointed to a listing and Sam started to read it aloud.

"*Behind the Bleeding Veil* by Shawn Baxter, 1934. *Behind the Bleeding Veil* is the first book in the Goddess Saga. This book of Lovecraft inspired horror revolves around a sheltered young girl, her mysterious past, and her bizarre college roommate. Originally banned due to its graphic depiction of lesbian sex and gore, it was later reprinted in 1967. Includes the standard cosmic horror troupes such as cults, horrifying, unknowable gods, and cursed books ( *The Book of Forgotten Nightmares *)." Sam stopped and looked at Shannon who was smiling ear to ear.

"I don't get it," he said confused.

"It was all made up. Whoever started that coven, must have read this book and thought it was real. Just like the publishing companies made a *Necronomicon*, they must have made a version of *Nightmares*. It's nothing more than a story someone took seriously." Relief washed over Shannon in tidal waves, washing her clean.

"Pretty much how all religions get started." Sam added jovially.

"Unfortunately, that means you were right and I am having a prolonged, psychotic reaction to a hallucinogenic compound."

Sam turned to Shannon and asked, "Hospital?"

"Hospital," Shannon agreed.

As they were leaving, Shannon turned around and saw a massive black shadow, bubbling with white, distorted, grotesque faces. She raised her hand and the mass was blown away in an explosion of fire.

"I am the Sky Dancer of Chaos and Eternal Night," she whispered underneath her breath and walked out.

***************************************

"Can we talk?" Shannon asked, in a low, shy, almost mournful voice.

Chris wiped the sweat from his brow and gave her a suspicious look. "I got some time between sets. Never was a fan of deadlifts anyway. So, what is it?"

Shannon handed him a piece of paper. "It's for your friend. It's the name of the toxin that was used and the drug that's used to treat it."

Chris took it and looked it over.

Shannon hung her head and looked at the floor as she continued to talk. "Given how long it's been, the damage might be permanent. The doctor said that I might have some continuing effects given it's been almost two years. Still, it should help him a little."

She then lifted her head and looked Chris straight in the eyes. "I'm so sorry. I should have listened. You tried to be a friend and I was a bitch. I hope you forgive me, but I don't expect it, and that's more than fair."

Chris handed the paper back to Shannon. "He committed suicide last year." He paused for a beat, then added, "But thank you anyways. I, I know you must have been going through some stuff, and I'm guessing still are. I understand. I might have reacted the same way if the roles were reversed. Understanding doesn't equal forgiveness though. And forgiveness doesn't mean things will go back to the way they were. It's been a while, both temporarily and emotionally."

"I know," Shannon said as she took the paper back.

Chris stuck out his hand. Shannon took it, shook it, turned around and walked away.

Shannon got to her car where Sam was waiting for her.

"Well, how'd it go," he asked sympathetically.

"About as well as I had any right for it to go," she answered back, putting her sunglasses on.

"You going to be ok?"

"Eventually," she said flatly, and got in her car.

Sam got in the passenger side. "You know, you've missed most of this semester. You got a lot of work to make. You think you can do it? Maybe you can take a leave of absence, all things considered?"

Shannon buckled up, turned the car on, and put it in drive. "I'm not going back," she simply said.

[things2mustdo]

I doubt anyone needs to be reminded that the media is rotten to the core; even the most reluctant and closed-minded people are accepting this as a given now. But despite the media being widely condemned nowadays (my special thanks to Germans for bringing the word “Lügenpresse” back), few people know or understand what’s really going on in the journalistic kitchens, where the foul slop of lies that people are fed every day is cooked up. However, there is always a way in—through purposeful infiltration or, in my case, by accident.

I have an old friend—let’s call him Sven—whom I always knew as a kind-hearted and sincere man. However, these traits are also coupled with always assuming the best of people and being rather naive. Due to this, he keeps ending up in awkward and sometimes dangerous situations. One of them turned out to be a short stint as a journalist for a popular online newspaper. He barely maintained contact during his employment and eventually went completely off the grid. In about a month, he resurfaced a changed man, and not for the better. As he explained, he quit the job and then shut himself in for a while, armed with nothing but alcohol, to cope with the depression working as a journalist gave him.

Now, this probably sounds very soft to many of you, including myself. Men don’t sink into depressions or try to drink themselves out of problems. While I granted my friend the clemency of explaining his failures to him, I also recognized the usefulness of his experience and started questioning him about what he saw and heard at the job. I will relay his findings below; however, I will not disclose his true name or the name of his employer—given the “free” country we live in, this can land him in very hot water.

Whoever pays you, owns you

Sven joined the ranks of journalists to tell people the truth. To his credit, he believed he would be doing exactly that. His first assignment sounded so simple, after all—talk to a person, record the conversation, write an article, publish it. The reality turned out to be diametrically different—after our fresh-baked journalist returned from his first interview, he was immediately ordered to transcribe the recording and email it to the content manager. Half an hour later Sven received a heavily edited version of the transcript, with the parts he considered most crucial replaced with meaningless buzzwords or removed completely. When he went to the manager to voice his indignation, the manager simply replied: “This man did not pay us for an article that would disparage him. Get back to your desk.”

This was far from the only case of Sven witnessing how much pull money has in journalism. His numerous colleagues almost never produced independent content—they were too busy publishing one paid article after another. When Sven asked whether these articles should be marked as sponsored, the only reply he got was a bitter laugh. Very often the content manager would come over to his desk and say something along the lines of “Do you know the guy you are writing about is a close friend of our boss? Do not screw this article up.” Sven was also surprised to see that many interviewees (usually politicians) would not even bother to talk to him, instead referring him to their secretaries or assistants. One of them even went as far as to hand him a pre-written speech, tell him to work with it and walk away.

However, our Sven also happens to possess a burning sense of justice, which has several times led him to ignore the “recommendations” his content manager gave him, deviate from the official story and allow small snippets of truth to make their way into public view. For each of such occurrences he was called to the manager’s room, given a strict admonishment and had his paycheck for the month reduced. Any “unsanctioned” things that he wrote were quickly edited away afterwards—even if the article had already been read by thousands of people. And his was supposed to be a “neutral and objective” media outlet!

Standards? Never heard of ’em.

It was a big shock for Sven when he finally realized that his employers were beings without conscience who whored themselves out to the highest bidder. It was an even bigger shock when he discovered how nonchalantly his colleagues treated their responsibilities. Investigative journalists relied on information they got from Google searches and Twitter posts, editors and sub-editors used rumors and hearsay to write scathing op-eds, website managers just posted any content that caught their fancy as long as they could come up with a flashy enough headline for it to attract people. Fact-checking was almost unheard of, unless someone specifically paid for it.

When it came to choosing topics and writing articles, the guideline for the entire establishment was simple: do not make the people angry. Not the regular people, mind you—those were not even considered human beings, just a faceless mass that one threw articles at and got pageviews and money in return. No, the label “people” was reserved for people who mattered. This included representatives of the powers that be, well-known public figures, moneybags with fingers in the political pie and, of course, personal buddies of the outlet’s owner.

These were to be protected, coddled and praised at all costs, while everyone else was fair game. Needless to say, politics held as much sway in the outlet as money did—whenever something noteworthy happened, “protectors of truth and objectivity” immediately went to work spinning the events in a way desirable for those holding their leashes. Hit pieces against political opponents and undesirables were churned out, smokescreens were cast, facts were omitted, denied and misinterpreted. Sven confessed to me later that the day his outlet covered the parliamentary elections was the first day in his life when he spent the entire evening drinking. Journalistic ethics, a term that the media loves throwing left and right, turned out to be nothing but hot air.

In the media omelet, you are an egg

The title says it all. For top dogs in the media business, a rank-and-file worker is not just a pawn—he is a condom. Contrary to what many people think, a typical journalist’s existence is quite pathetic: underpaid, undervalued, thankless and constantly bossed around. Staff turnover in the “kitchen” is very high, and not because people are getting promoted. In this field, the term “veteran employee” frequently means a poor sod who has no alternatives and cannot quit.

According to Sven, plenty of his colleagues worked only for the sake of getting their paycheck, which explains their negligence. Grey faces, pinched mouths, shifty eyes and sour attitudes—whatever it takes to get through the day. In addition, the higher-ups avoided any responsibility for the published content: whenever an angry reader called the office and complained about an article, the guy who wrote it was immediately thrown under the bus, even if his work was reviewed and approved by the management before publication. After all, what does it take to find another office drone with half-decent writing skills?

However, Sven also describes those of his coworkers who enjoyed their job. They arrived at the office with a spring in their step, a smile snaking across their faces and a mischievous glint in their eyes. These were the “talented” favorites of the outlet’s boss—unfeeling, cold assholes who would sell their own mothers for a juicy piece of gossip that they would later smear all over the website. Whenever they got a chance to write a hit piece, spread a nasty rumor or ruin someone’s life, one could almost see them light up from within. Remember all these smug, holier-than-thou, oh-so-intellectual articles churned out by rags like Salon, Dagens Nyheter and Huffington Post? You can bet your pinky finger they were (and are) written by these people. Which brings us to the next topic.

No wrongthink allowed

As you have probably noticed long ago, the media field is a huge and accommodating Petri dish for all varieties of Kulturbolschewismus. In Sven’s case, it wasn’t just a fear-based company policy of snitching and self-censorship, but an actual agenda at work. He told me there was a flowchart hanging in the newsroom explaining what to do when reporting crimes and incidents. It went something like this: “Was the perpetrator native (white)? Y = report in detail, amplify, N = gloss the details over, downplay.”

Sven wrote an article about a national holiday once, but his content manager refused to approve it for publishing due to it being “too patriotic,” advising him instead to “write more inclusively about minorities’ participation in the festival.” Anything praising the country and its indigenous inhabitants was undesirable and omitted whenever possible, while any piece that brimmed with self-hate, praised inhabitants of other (read: African and Muslim) countries or attacked the natives and their way of life was a big hit and flew through approval like a bird.

Needless to say, the outlet’s newsroom was crammed full of women, their pet cucks and, of course, Jews. The former enjoyed absolute power regardless of their position—a simple complaint to HR was enough to fire anyone, no proof required. The cucks, represented by twig-armed, piercing-laden, wispy-bearded creatures in Che Guevara shirts, were very pleased with the way things were going, sipping lattes and snitching to HR on those who expressed ideas incompatible with the narrative. Jews were in their native element in the newsroom, doing their usual “arrogant intellectual” schtick and getting promotions out of nowhere. The majority of articles bashing natives, their culture and values came from them, as later study of the newspaper’s website showed me.

Liars for hire

So, to sum it all up: the media is not composed of good but misguided people, as many still think. On the contrary, it is a very purposeful and self-aware entity that positions itself somewhere between an unscrupulous opportunist and a loyal lapdog of the state. At best, it is faux-patriotic (“such a wonderful country we have, let’s invite more immigrants!”), while at worst, it is openly hostile towards the indigenous population of the country it exists in.

Moreover, it allows for consolidation and self-affirmation of globalist forces—the traitorous governments, the world Jewry, the multinationals, the entertainment industry and the like—against the increasingly disenfranchised and declining native population. And last but not least, the media is complicit in crimes committed in the West by non-White immigrants due to purposeful obfuscation of them and, if that fails, rabble-rousing to pressure the courts into letting the criminals off scot-free. To me, the latter reason alone is enough to send all the journalists and their owners to the gibbet.

The bottom line is to always remember that the media is not your friend in any way, shape or form, even if its lowest tier operatives fit the description of hapless victims rather than nation-wrecking enemies. The media must be opposed, exposed and boycotted at every turn until it starts bleeding money and choking on its own venom.

Read More: Is Washington Post Writer Adam Taylor A Shill Or Part Of Something Larger?

While reading  Roosh’s article about Adam Taylor and the Washington Post, I noticed quite a few things I would like to share with people here. The direct link between Adam Taylor and the Radio Free excerpt is an anomaly. Such blatant copying is a very rare thing to occur because it gives away a possible collusion between entities.

Looking for these open relationships is long and hard. The better way to analyze  the relations and motivations of certain publishers, policy makers and other manipulators  is to study the various themes they put out and where these themes repeat. While Roosh  might assume that Adam Taylor is the paid shill by himself, I’ve noticed that his writing changes to whoever publishes it. Therefore the Washington Post Worldviews section may be the one that is parroting US State Department themes not just Adam Taylor.

As is shown in Roosh’s article, the similarities between Adam Taylor’s piece and Radio Free Europe are quite telling. It is a possibility that it is a coincidence but a small one. People that try to influence public opinion go to great lengths to ensure things like this do not happen which is why I’m assuming that Adam Taylor is  part of larger machine and not a shill by himself.

Looking back at Adam Taylor’s writing for the Huffington Post, he wrote fluff pieces about gay dogs and other mass consumption items for that audience. His writing about geopolitical intrigue only takes the current form when he begins writing for the Washington Post. All his articles are the Who’s Who of what the US State Department doesn’t like. The roster includes Russia, China, Venezuela, Syria, and Zimbabwe. He writes nothing critical of any American allies.

Could this mean that his change in format indicate that someone turned him? I doubt it. Compare his work at the Washington Post to the rest of the “world views” section there, his writing is merely a contribution to a giant echo chamber and not unique to him.

As I said earlier, it’s very rare for open evidence of collusion such as the similar quotations to present themselves. A better technique to discern propaganda and collusion is to analyze trends and themes.You should look for such things as what the work attempts to convey, does it try to get you to think or act in a certain way, and does it try to get you to disregard other things.

In the Adam Taylor case, the pattern changes significantly from the Huffington Post to the Washington Post. You can also apply this trend analysis to pretty much any author. You can even apply to the contributors here at  Return of Kings and see what you get. Do the trends indicate that the publisher may dictate what the writers write about? Do the trends indicate whether or not the writers have freedom to write about whatever they want? To help you readers out on this exercise I’ll inform you there were two articles I did at the direction of the publisher. They were my article for fat shaming week and my article for #backtothekitchen.  Feel free to comment on any other trends you might notice and if they do not line up with the “about” page.

[honestandsincere]

reputation part four

There’s something about living in a city that only those with experience can truly understand. Its disquiet is unending, each hour spirals into the next without any time for composure or evaluation. Sensory overload is a regular occurrence; sound and light and smell and feeling all rage into incessant cacophony.   Life never ceases its movement, at least not until an apartment door is slammed shut on the outside world.

Y/n presses her back against the cool wood, closing her eyes and exhaling a sigh of relief. The elevator has been broken for the past month and having to take the stairs is a task that one would assume gets easier with practice. Sadly, that is not the truth. She doesn't have the energy to take off her coat or her gloves, so she rests against the door as she tries to regain her breath. Her eyes scan the apartment; her dishes are still in the kitchen sink from her rushed breakfast, the faux fur throw hangs off the arm of her velvet sofa in an utterly unattractive manner and the magazines scattered across the coffee table and dog-eared and worn with age. Y/n tips her head backwards allowing a small painless thud from its contact with the stained wood. She doesn't have the energy to tidy up, the day has extracted every tiny ounce of motivation to achieve or accomplish anything she has.

LIFE Magazine has been buzzing with activity for the past month, y/n, in particular, getting the most attention as a writer. Of course, this is extremely flattering and brilliant for her career, but juggling multiple projects at once has proven to be harder than she'd anticipated. Y/n loves working; it's what spurs her to roll out of her paisley duvet set every morning, it gives her life structure and she didn't struggle through four years of college to give up her dream job now. It seems that every journalist on her floor is coming to her for advice, asking her to proofread articles for their website or offer ideas on points they should discuss. Again, this is all very laudatory, considering she's the youngest published writer the magazine has ever housed, but reading has become tiresome and strenuous rather than enjoyable and writing almost insufferable.

She's currently finalizing an article on the trials and tribulations of attending New York's state-funded schools; travelling across the city to interview students and teachers alike. It's fascinating, honestly, considering that for the past four weeks y/n has been mingling with the city's elite. She has her dear 'boyfriend' to thank for that. But the project is time-consuming, she desperately wants to do these kids justice and present them in their truest, most honest form. She's been in the office from eight in the morning until ten at night, eyes squinting at her computer screen despairingly trying to formulate coherent sentences as well as the most applicable lines of dialogue. The whole thing is a digitalized headache.

Mustering her very last measure of strength, y/n pushes herself upright and takes a few steps into her disordered apartment. She peels her coat from her body and hangs it on the hook attached to her wall, her fingers wriggle free from the woollen mittens adorning her hands and they are placed on the side table along with her keys. The hum of the central heating is comforting, but it's offset by sporadic beeps from vehicles passing outside and the steady purring of traffic. This is the sound of the city. This is her version of quiet. Y/n slides off her pumps and shuffles towards her couch, flopping unrefinedly into its plush embrace. The blanket falls over her feet but she cannot bring herself to readjust it. She's exhausted. Her hand reaches outwards towards the table at the centre of her living area, fumbling for the television remote. The screen lights up in a blinding glow and she winces at its vibrancy.

"And in today's news; multi-millionaire businessman Ethan Dolan has decided to donate a staggering $50 million to NYC's very own Project Change, a charity that helps students from government-funded schools apply to Ivy League colleges."

Y/n's tired eyes enlarge, her mouth is suddenly slightly agape. How coincidental.

Her mind flashes to the last time she'd seen Ethan; they were on one of their staged dates last week. The pair walked arm in arm through Central Park, stopping at a quaint coffee shop for a seemingly riveting conversation. Tabloids went crazy, they were followed by cameras for the entire duration of their rendezvous and stopped by a few passersby for selfies. It was unnerving but necessary if they wanted to appear convincing. Y/n had told him all about her latest work and he had listened with acute concentration, nodding his head and humming in agreement after she'd vented her frustrations.

Ethan Dolan is extreme, but he is not this extreme.

Certainly, y/n can't help the way her heart swells with pride as images of Ethan flash across the screen. Him petting an elephant, dressed in safari gear from his trip to South Africa last year. Him standing in a school playground, a child clinging to each of his limbs, huge smiles on their faces from his month in Namibia. He and Grayson stood beside the City's mayor, smiling widely as they open a recreation centre for children in Brooklyn. Him.

"This is the organization's biggest ever donation, commentators are calling Dolan one of the greatest philanthropists the city has to offer."

The newscaster's voice melts into an indecipherable babble, their words dissipating into incomprehensible sounds. Y/n's eyes stay focused on the footage of Ethan Dolan. Her 'boyfriend'. It cannot be denied that the man is consistently portrayed as a saint. His work is commendable, amazing even. She just yearns for different circumstances, prays that his donations are not dirty money. The truth taints everything, it reminds her that ignorance is positively bliss. If she hadn't rifled through those documents, tried to dig up some dirt on Ethan Dolan, then maybe everything would be altered. Y/n knows that if she was not hyper aware of the truth, Ethan Dolan would have her hook line and sinker. Straight sushi.

There's a knock at the door. Not the delicate kind, those that resemble some kind of rhythm or upbeat pattern. Two heavy thuds hang in the air. Y/n grumbles and forces herself to her feet. She already knows who it is.

"Mr Dolan," she croaks as she swings the door open, "I wish I could say I've been expecting you."

He's dressed in his typical suit, but his tie is knotted loosely around his thick neck as if he's letting himself breathe. His hair is tousled and brushing the skin of his forehead, eyes heavy with tiredness but they brighten when they dance across her face. "Y/l/n," Ethan Dolan all but coos, "you're looking tired." "Tell me something I don't know," she steps to one side and he takes this as a verbal invitation, walking into her apartment.

He's all too familiar with y/n's place, he'd come to pick her up for their 'date' last week and she'd given him a brief and begrudging tour of her humble abode. She knows this is well below his standard of living, her mind conjuring images of huge penthouse suites with infinity pools and surfaces that can't be touched with bare hands because they're just too clean. But her space is a perfect chremamorphism of her, an amalgamation of all things y/n in one little space. Ethan studies the pictures she has hung up on the wall. He recognizes her friends from Delevigne's, their smiles all reflections of unadulterated joy. She stands out, she always has to him. Her smile is a little more radiant, her eyes shine with such vivaciousness it's almost painful. Her photographed lust for life is breathtaking. There are pictures of her with who he can only assume are family members, clustered together in somebody's living room, all dressed in matching Christmas pyjamas. It makes him miss home.

"What brings you here, Ethan?" y/n sighs, pushing her hair out of her face. He turns to her, his fixation on her memories interrupted, "I wanted to tell you something." Y/n rolls her eyes but he can see traces of a smile appearing on her lips, "Take it away." "I've talked to Grayson." "Right." "No, y/n. I've talk talked to Grayson." "Oh." She shuffles past him in her pencil skirt and creased navy blouse, making her way to her deliciously comfy looking couch and sitting down. Ethan does not know what to do with himself. He's developed this habit since spending more time with y/n. He stays standing up, almost hovering in her living room.

"I don't think you get it-" "No, I do," she wraps the blanket around her shoulders and stares up at him intently as if he's reciting a trivial poem. "We're gonna change Dolan & Dolan. For the better, obviously," he fiddles with the chunky rings that adorn his fingers, she notices the way they catch the light and glimmer. Ethan Dolan is a magpie's dream. "That's really great," he wishes her voice held more sincerity, he understands she's fatigued but he was definitely expecting some kind of applause. "We're gonna start selling back the companies we took over, cheaper this time. So it's all fair." "Ethan, that's amazing. I'm really glad you've decided to do this."

As happy as she is, y/n knows this sweet is contaminated with bitter. Ethan Dolan has only changed his ways for the sake of his reputation. It was her threat, the idea of her first draft being out there for everyone to read, that pushed him to finally do some good. Beggars cannot be choosers, she knows this. But the reality is as hard-hitting as the truth.

"I know what you're thinking," he crosses his arms over his broad chest. She quirks an eyebrow at him, shuffling closer to the end of the sofa to allow him some space to sit down. She turns off the TV before he has a chance to comment on what she was watching. Ethan lowers himself down beside her, shifting his weight so that they're almost facing one another. "I didn't do this because of you. I didn't do this because of the article."

Y/n scoffs.

"Honestly, I didn't. Of course, it motivated me to make some kind of change, but it's not the only reason I did it." She looks at him; the firm line of his jaw that's now dusted with stubble, the curve of his nose, the furrows in his forehead. He looks sincere. "The truth is supposed to set you free, isn't it? But if anything, my truth makes me want to run for the hills. That's not a legacy I want to leave behind. I don't want to be covering my tracks for the rest of my life, y/n. I may as well change everything while I still can."

Ethan looks at her with such depth, watches as she hangs onto each of his words, analyzing them. He wants her to know that this is the truth, it's her job to find it and showcase it, he's hoping she can see it. Y/n's bottom lip gets pulled into her mouth as her teeth worry it. She's thinking about what to say, how to word things. "That's very admirable," is all she can manage. Ethan feels relief but he does an excellent job of not showing it, "It's not. I've just come to realize that I'd rather play fair than have to watch my back. You've helped me see that."

She shakes her head, quite rapidly for someone so tired. Y/n opens her mouth to say something but words escape her, she wants to tell him what she's been thinking, not the version he's created in his mind. "I think I gave you a wake-up call more than anything," she shrugs. "Yeah, I guess." They're plunged into silence, both trying to determine which way is best to fill it. He wants to thank her but he doesn't know how. She wants to talk, but she doesn't know what about. It's one of those conundrums that can be look back on with such embarrassment that one begins kicking themselves for not saying whatever was on their minds. Both y/n and Ethan are far too scared to do so.

"I saw what you did for Project Change. That's really incredible." "It's the least I could do after what you told me." "It's going to make such a difference." "I hope so." "It will."

Another silence bestows itself upon them. It's slightly more comfortable than the first.

"Listen, y/n. Do you want to maybe go out for dinner tonight? To celebrate? With me?" this is the first time in a while that Ethan Dolan has felt nervous, his usually cocky exterior disintegrating into a puddle of nothingness. She breathes heavily and looks at him with some kind of look that is a bizarre intersection between sympathy and apathy. He can already predict what her answer will be. "Thank you, but not tonight, Ethan. Work has been tearing me to shreds." He swallows, nodding his head in faux understanding, "Sure, of course."

She shows him to the door, still wrapped in her fluffy blanket. He looks defeated, but she brushes this aside as a reaction to her lack of enthusiasm. He spins on his heel to face her as he walks into the hall of her apartment complex. Y/n realizes he looks young again, she enjoys seeing him like this. Ethan Dolan looks closest to normal this way.

"I'll pick you up at ten on Sunday for our grocery shop," he chuckles half-heartedly, "the entire city is anticipating great things from our domesticity."

----------

"Help yourself to some coffee." "I'm fine, thank you, Mr Benson."

Early morning light streams through Howard Benson's blinds, casting horizontal shadows across his spacious office. The room reeks of some kind of sickly scented candle, fake and chemical. His desk is piled high with papers, some separated into folders and others strewn haphazardly across the mahogany.

Monday.

"Please take a seat, y/n," the older man's tone is severe but not stern. Y/n eases herself into the worn leather of the chair opposite his desk. Howard sips on his mug of coffee, purses his lips, then speaks, "You're probably wondering why I've called you in so early. The education article isn't due for another week." She nods, watching the way he places the mug on top of a stack of documents. "But this isn't about your work, at least not necessarily." Y/n can already tell by the way Benson is prolonging the gap between each of his words that this is about Ethan Dolan. Her boss has always spoken of Ethan in the same way one would a rambunctious child, tentative and temperate.

"What can I do for you, Mr Benson?" she asks. Howard folds his hands, weaving his slightly wrinkled fingers between one another and looks at her, "We've had a few complaints since Mr Dolan decided to cause a scene with The Daily Mail, which I couldn't have foreseen." "Right." "You see, y/n, you are an incredibly talented writer with a stellar future ahead of you," she can sense the contradiction approaching, she braces herself, "however our sponsors are not too happy with the credibility of your work following Mr Dolan's announcement."

Y/n doesn't intend on furrowing her brow, but she feels her forehead crease in confusion as she processes Benson's words. She knew Ethan's little games would cause a stir, after all, that's what he wanted, but she didn't think they'd affect her work. At least not negatively. Pretending to be Ethan Dolan's girlfriend is tiresome and inconvenient, but it's not as insufferable as she'd imagined. He's helped put her in the spotlight, helping her establish her name and her work within the field.

"I know it's hard to comprehend, especially because you didn't exactly sign up for this willingly, but they're not impressed, y/n. All of a sudden the whole premise of the Dolan article is warped, people are under the impression that you're biased. It's inevitable that you'd sing his praises in your article if you two are linked romantically." "But surely LIFE's sponsors understand that Mr Dolan announced our relationship a week after its publishing?" Howard sighs, "This is New York, people lie, fact-checking is nonexistent in the world of gossip." "But they must know that-" "Y/n, you've done an excellent job of keeping up the appearance that you are in a relationship with Mr Dolan. I don't want this to impact your career, your impeccable reputation."

Y/n exhales, her shoulders slumping a little.

"You can fix it, though. It's definitely not too late."

Her mind flashes to Ethan in her living room. He's changing, it may be a slow change but it's change nonetheless. Ethan Dolan is changing things while he still can. Before it's all too late.

"I think it's best that you inform Mr Dolan that your public relationship comes to an end."

She nods slowly, imagining old men with whiskers for beards cheering with joy as the reputation of the magazine is suddenly restored. The city's most unbiased publication, factual and fair, returns to its rightful position.

"I hate to do this, y/n, honestly I do. But if you cannot conclude your little games with Ethan Dolan, I'll have no choice but to take matters into my own hands," he looks sombre, full of regret. "You'll fire me?" y/n's eyes are wide and her mouth is now bone dry. Howard Benson's face morphs from an expression of severity to a look of amusement, "Of course not!" he scoffs, "I'd never dream of firing you, Miss y/l/n." She breathes a sigh of relief, her hand coming to her chest to try and still the quickening pace of her heart. Adrenaline had coursed through her veins as panic had set in, she knows now it was unnecessary. "But, I've promised Mr  Reeves that if you cannot escape Mr Dolan, I'll see that your first draft is printed."

Y/n wants to gasp, clap her hands over her open mouth and run from Howard Benson's office. She wants the floor to open, dropping her twenty-five floors until she smacks the hard concrete beneath her. Mary should run in, tell them there's a fire that's swallowed the entire building and they have no choice but to jump from the floor-length windows and onto those weird trampoline-like structures the fire brigade have brought to them. Anything would have seemed more likely than Benson, one of the meekest men she's ever met, threatening to publish her first draft. It is scathing, derogatory and brutal, casting nothing but an awful light on Ethan Dolan. All the lies he told her in order to protect his reputation. His inflated self-assurance, his flippancy. It all seems so separate now, thinking of Ethan does not bring y/n a sickening sensation, she no longer seethes when she hears his name. His promise of change has changed her.

"Mr Benson-" she stammers but can't quite finish her sentence. "For the sake of LIFE, y/n, it's for the best. Your relationship with Ethan Dolan is a hoax and I am certain that a young woman of your intelligence can't have developed a certain romantic attachment to the man."

Two months ago, y/n would have agreed wholeheartedly. She owed Ethan Dolan nothing. He had swanned into her life off the back of a project that was retrospectively destined for greatness. She'd saved his reputation. Nevertheless, y/n has come to learn that even the most stubbornly unyielding human beings have the capacity to change. Under pressure, Ethan Dolan saw the light, not the billboards of Times Square or the spotlights of Broadway, but the truth. It scared her how quickly he'd decided to appease her, shocked that all it took was a threat.

Y/n can't help but feel some kind of loyalty to Ethan. She's grown to find him somewhat likeable, his mannerisms are unfathomably chaotic and unpredictable but his wit is unparalleled. He's a comrade; a young soul in the heart of the most turbulent metropolis in the city, trying to navigate his way through his mistakes. Undoubtedly, their backgrounds are dissimilar but their intellects are not. Ethan Dolan fights with fire and so does she.

"But if I end things, the draft will not be published?" though she's regained some of her composure, her mind is still reeling. "You can shred the document yourself. I suggest you pay Mr Dolan a visit this evening, you should probably terminate your association with him face to face." Y/n shakes her head in agreement, rising from her seat and smoothing down her black cigarette pants. As she heads towards the door she's stopped by the editor's voice, "Again, y/n, I am sincerely sorry."

Something in his words tells her it's not about the article.

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

Ethan Dolan's apartment is just as she has imagined it. All her wild and impudent fantasies have manifested themselves into the reality of polished marble and the smell of incense. Y/n sits in the lobby of his apartment complex in Tribeca, it's a renovated commercial building from maybe the 1930s. Its exterior is bedecked in flamboyant carvings, making it appear old and worn which is heavily contrasted by its sleek and modern insides. She wouldn't be surprised to find out that Ethan owned the entire complex, perhaps he shares it with Grayson.

She rests on a deep purple velvet loveseat, her every move being analyzed by the woman sat behind the reception desk. Y/n straightens her back and pulls out her phone, waiting to see whether or not he was going to let her in. The elevator doors slide open but she pays them no attention, the sound of their shifting has become white noise, blending into the dissonance of sound surrounding her. "Y/l/n," she hears, her head shooting upwards to take a look at him, "how nice of you to stop by." He's in his black dress pants, they cling to his muscular thighs leaving little to her imagination. His white button-up sleeves are rolled up to his elbows and there isn't a tie in sight. "Can we talk?" y/n asks, standing from the comfort of her seat and pacing towards him. Ethan senses her alarm and nods, leading her to the elevator and sending a quick wave to the receptionist. Y/n almost laughs at the woman's hard stare.

When encased by the metal doors, y/n shifts towards him, "I've got good news." Ethan holds his index finger to his full lips, "Wait till we get into the apartment." The elevator pings and they're faced with more shining marble. His hand hovers over the small of her back as he guides her into his suite. He waits for the doors to close before speaking, "Paranoia," he says, "I don't ever know who's listening. The security cameras have microphones."

Y/n looks unsure but doesn't question him. She takes her time absorbing the sheer elegance of his space. It's open and airy, huge mirrors clasped in gold swirling frames adorn his walls, paintings and prints hang idyllically. The huge flatscreen television reminds her of the fact he's New York's most eligible bachelor and the Persian rug on the floor emphasizes the extent of his wealth. "My mother's big on interior design," Ethan shrugs from behind her. "It's stunning," she breathes. "Now," he walks towards his blood red coloured couch and sits down, "you said you have news." She finds herself situated in the crimson armchair opposite him, the space between them makes him feel slightly on edge, "Good news." "Do tell," he folds his arms over his chest.

"They're scrapping the first draft, I get to do it myself. We just have to break up." "I thought that was a given?" "It was but we have to end now. Benson sort of threatened to-" "He threatened you?" Ethan leans forward in his seat, his jaw clenching. "No, not really. Apparently, all the big shots at LIFE aren't happy with me and you being together. It supposedly ruins the integrity of the publication." "That's ridiculous." "Maybe, but if the magazine is supposed to be unbiased and I'm making you out to be God's gift, people are going to assume it's because we're together." Ethan purses his lips, "What was Howard's threat?" Y/n leans back into the armchair, feeling the soft fabric hug her closer, "It was more of an ultimatum. If we don't end things now, he's gonna print draft one."

She watches as Ethan rolls his eyes. He's less panicked than she thought he would be. Y/n was expecting a repeat of his tantrum in Howard's office, intimidations and hard looks, but instead, he looks unamused. "This is preposterous. What a joke." "Is it though? Ethan, this is all pretend, it's not that big of a deal."

He sighs and she notes the way his shirt sleeves strain against his built arms. Her eyes follow his figure as he walks towards a table towards the back of the room and he pours two glasses of what she assumes is scotch. Y/n takes the drink from his hands after he walks back towards her. Ethan Dolan runs a tired hand over his face, dragging his perfect skin downwards in its wake. "We'll just have to break up then," he says before taking a sip. "Yeah, I guess so." "My people aren't gonna be happy." "Your people?" "Friends, business friends. People high up in the company. They love us." Y/n smiles, "We really are New York's star-crossed lovers." "Even more so now that we have to be apart," he scoffs.

They sit in silence, sipping their drinks and stealing glances at one another. She feels the finality hang in the air, the impending climax to their performance. Ethan has grown on her, she realizes she does not mind admitting it to herself now. She feels as though she knows him, she enjoys his company and not having him around will be strange. "Are our paths allowed to cross again?" there's hope in his words but he doesn't sound hopeful. "I suppose so." "Do you want them to?" "Our paths to cross? I wouldn't be opposed to it." "Neither would I."

She swills the liquid around at the bottom of her glass, watching it crash against the transparent sides like miniature storms at sea.

"I never thanked you," Ethan Dolan says, his eyes now boring into hers. "For what?" "Everything; rewriting the article, coming to the Gala." Y/n shakes her head, "It's fine." "It's not though. I was a huge asshole, like a massive dick to you. I'm sorry." She licks her lips, cleaning them of any alcohol, "Apology accepted."

A telephone's shrill ringing interrupts the intensity of their exchange. Ethan leaves the room to go and answer it. She places her drink on the floor beside the armchair and moves towards the windows of his living room. They overlook this part of the city, the overpriced houses, glowing signs of real estate agents and the steady humdrum of traffic. The deep rasp of Ethan's voice is unintelligible, but its soothing mumbles resonate throughout the apartment. This is y/n's first time in Ethan Dolan's abode and she suspects this will be her last too. She watches the sun's bleeding orange light disappear behind the towers and concrete columns of New York City, fragments of light forcing themselves through the crevices between buildings. It's stunning. She feels herself fall under the city's spell, the same way she did when she first arrived. It may be romanticized, but that doesn't debase its unmitigated beauty. This is the embodiment of human craft, the legacies left behind in people's wakes, establishments left to their inheritors to stay solidified within the skyline.

"It never gets old," he says, coming to stand beside her. "This is your world," she utters, her gaze never faltering from the view. "It's your world too, you're part of this now." "It was mine, for a very brief fleeting moment, and even then it was all pretend." "Fake it til you make it." Y/n laughs, at his sentiment and at herself, "I guess I did." "It's gonna be weird not having you around, y/l/n." "You mean it'll be strange not finding time in your schedule to arrange a fake date?"

Ethan slings a heavy arm around her shoulders and pulls her into his side, the smell of his cologne is now familiar, almost comforting, "You know what I mean." "Yeah," she rests her head on the space between his neck and his chest, "I do." "Thank you again, for everything." "Ethan, I swear you don't need to thank me-" "Say it again." "I'm sorry?" she moves from his grasp to look at his face. He watches her, a smile across his lips, "Say my name again, but slower this time. Like we're friends." "Ethan." y/n puts an emphasis on the syllables. "Sounds nice," he hums, "I like the way you say things, y/l/n."

She's reading his expression as if it's the most riveting piece of literature she has ever been given. She wants to drink in every one of his features, learn them all by heart and save them for a rainy day. Nothing in her brain stops her from her admiration, no scream of dread reminding her that this is Ethan Dolan. He isn't allowed to be attractive, is he? Can she not appreciate his beauty and detach it from him as a being. Y/n recognizes that she doesn't want to do this. Ethan Dolan as an entire entity is alluring and gorgeous and irresistible. She wants to hate herself, but she can't. He's too dazzling. "What are you looking at?" his voice has dropped to a whisper, his eyes are a delicious caramel flickering over her face. "You." "I feel like I owe it to you to make a literary reference of some kind." She feels her mouth pull itself into a smile, "Only you could do-"

His lips are on hers before she can finish her sentence. Y/n is encompassed by Ethan Dolan. Nothing within her tells her she shouldn't kiss him back.

So she does.

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

Part Four! I had a tiny nightmare over the past few days because I did intend to upload this part yesterday but Tumblr decided to delete it from my drafts! I’ve definitely now been scared into saving my work on separate documents. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this part! I do love this series with every ounce of my being, but I have been toying with the idea of starting a new project as well as keeping up with this one. Currently in the process of doing research for a Gray piece, but only time will tell!! Let me know how you feel about this! Love always - K xx

THE TAGLIST

@lukescolours @honeybeeesworld @yslbailey @quickdolan  @dolancrew @sunflowerpseudonym @dreamergirl2727 @arrantsnowdrop @ceejay1163 @peruvian-bae @crown-jul @kinkbaby95 @takenbyheartstrings @loveyou3000-tonystarkzine @ergojenn @blackpinkdolan @sara29392 @someonedoingnothing @americasarse @dolanscello @siana2208 @

[dippedanddripped]

It was clear from the beginning what Shayne Oliver was trying to convey with Hood By Air, a brand he founded in 2006 with Raul Lopez that was originally named Elite Urban Brigade. At one of their first fashion shows, which took place at New York Fashion Week in 2007, Mobolaji Dawodu, The Fader’s former style editor-at-large, asked Oliver where he saw Hood By Air going. Oliver, then 18, who looks cherubic in the grainy clip, said he wanted to create a lifestyle brand for the new generation that appreciates what’s going on in the streets, but understands urban culture influences the mainstream.

In that moment, Oliver prophesized the impact his brand would have on an industry that spent years looking to Black communities for cues, but rarely exalted the culture, credited it, or brought people from it into the fold. But the 2010s changed that, and the generation Oliver spoke of 12 years ago became the designers private equity firms want to invest in, luxury brands want to partner with, and stores want to carry.

When something is happening, it’s hard to assess its influence, but as the decade comes to a close, it’s apparent that Hood By Air helped create the luxury streetwear category that’s been fueling fashion. You can’t think about the last 10 years without thinking about Hood By Air, which defined style and trends for almost half the decade. Oliver put his very Black, very queer, and very cool world on a pedestal and changed the way brands design, the way retailers merchandise their stores, they way companies approach casting, and, for many, the way they see themselves and their place in fashion.

“SHAYNE OLIVER’S EXISTENCE AND THE CULTURE THAT CREATED HOOD BY AIR, IN MY MIND, ARE VITAL TO WHAT WE HAVE TODAY AS A MIXTURE OF FASHION AND SO-CALLED STREETWEAR.” - VIRGIL ABLOH

“Shayne Oliver’s existence and the culture that created Hood By Air in my mind are vital to what we have today as a mixture of fashion and so-called streetwear,” writes Virgil Abloh, founder of Off-White and artistic director of Louis Vuitton men’s, over email. “In one word, I would say HBA and Shayne’s vision showed the fashion system at large what the word freedom meant. From garments to runway shows, everything exudes freedom.”

Musician Ian Isiah, a longtime member of the Hood By Air collective, calls 2007 HBA’s official birth year. Urban fashion brands like Sean John, Baby Phat, and Rocawear hit a peak in the late ’90s and early 2000s, but lost their cachet—most of them expanded distribution to department stores like Macy’s. Isiah says there was a void of Black-led brands, and Hood By Air was an attempt to fill it. Dominican tailors made Hood By Air’s first T-shirts and they retailed around $200, which wasn’t typical at the time. The initial T-shirts, which were sold out of aNYThing, a now-closed streetwear brand and store on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, were meant to transition from day to night, another new concept. HBA also became known for a plexiglass Hood By Air nameplate necklace that Kid Cudi wore and Kanye West purchased from Seven New York.

Isiah says although the brand was stocked in a couple of stores, their main priority was “selling it to culture and getting it on the right girls and in the right looks.” GHE20G0TH1K (pronounced “ghetto gothic”), a party series founded by Jazmin Soto, better known as Venus X, in 2009, embodied that culture. Oliver DJed on some nights for a crowd made up of streetwear kids, punks, and queer folks. They would all wear HBA. ASAP Rocky was also a part of that culture Isiah mentioned. Isiah says they met Rocky through Jabari Shelton, better known as ASAP Bari, who would bring his friends from Harlem downtown—members of the ASAP Mob appeared in one of HBA’s early lookbooks. Rocky, who would mix brands like Rick Owens and Hood By Air with Jeremy Scott’s Adidas sneakers and Supreme, adopted the line early on, which brought it greater visibility and hype. The brand went on a hiatus in 2009 and became almost a collector’s item for those in the know.

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“It was sort of like this thing that everyone was still talking about but no one knew how to get it,” says Zachary Ching, Oliver’s longtime friend. “They didn’t have a website. There wasn’t even an Instagram. It was just like this mythical thing that you would see someone wearing once.”

Because of the buzz surrounding the brand, Ching called Oliver as soon as he was tasked with turning VFILES’ space on Mercer into a store, but Oliver, who was taking a break from the line to tour with GHE20G0TH1K, didn’t have any product. VFILES produced the pieces and purchased them from Oliver—Ching remembers ordering about 500 T-shirts across six styles—and on June 12, 2012, VFILES held an opening party for the shop that seconded as an HBA relaunch event. Oliver and Venus DJ’d, ASAP Rocky performed—most of the ASAP Mob came through—and on that night both HBA and VFILES were solidified as relevant movements in fashion. Following the party, the HBA pieces sold out within two days, and VFILES had to upgrade its payment systems to accommodate demand, which Ching describes as bananas.

“It was a pivotal moment in VFILES’ history,” says Julie Anne Quay, the founder of VFILES. “To physically see both the community come together, celebrate one of their peers, and shop it was really rewarding to me. It further galvanized me in my passion to really build VFILES into this community platform that was unlike the traditional fashion world at large and embraced a community that I thought was not only overlooked, but was disrespected.”

“IT WAS SORT OF LIKE THIS THING THAT EVERYONE WAS STILL TALKING ABOUT BUT NO ONE KNEW HOW TO GET IT.” - ZACHARY CHING

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Hood By Air helped set the tone for VFILES’ assortment, which eventually included Abloh’s Pyrex, which transitioned to Off-White, Been Trill, and Fear of God—this was before luxury department stores picked them up. Been Trill and Hood By Air even released a collaborative T-shirt in early 2013, which Oliver said started out as a brunch gift for friends and family but turned into something bigger without him knowing. Because celebrities like ASAP Rocky wore HBA and it had an aesthetic and name that resonated with the hood, Danielle Greco, who managed VFILES at the time, says the early consumers who lined up for the product—she describes them as “big, burly, tough men”—probably had no idea who Oliver was or what some of his messaging and graphics meant. Oliver said many of the logo placements for HBA were inspired by documentaries on gays in prison.

“Streetwear was very much a boys’ lane, and all of the brands that were trending at the time spoke to a very straight man’s world,” says Vashtie Kola, who met Oliver and Lopez in the early 2000s and hosted a Hood By Air TV series on her blog. “I remember they made a tank top with the term ‘Realness’ on it, which comes from the ball scene. And so I remember straight boys wearing tank tops that said realness or banjee. It was really nice to see.”

Because HBA was doing so well, VFILES and MADE helped Oliver secure an official spot on the New York Fashion Week calendar at Milk Studios in September 2013. It was Oliver’s big introduction to the industry and a chance to bring showgoers, who included Abloh, fashion editors, and longtime friends of the brand like Kola, into his world. The music was loud, the lights were dark, and the models weren’t A-typical. Boychild, a trans performance artist, jerked her body in a haunting way as she walked down the runway. This was followed by an appearance by ASAP Rocky, who closed the show wearing a neoprene Hood By Air Jacket. Kevin Amato, a photographer who had never worked on fashion shows until he met Oliver, handled the casting, which became a hallmark of HBA.

“The Hood By Air narrative for me was always just the underrepresented, really,” says Amato, who was casting from the streets. “And that’s what I tried to do with the casting. It was very organic. Rocky wanted to walk the show, but we didn’t just want a celebrity to walk the show. So we cast Boychild and had this contrast of different people and cultures colliding. It wasn’t meant to be hype. But I think after HBA and the casting, the whole fucking industry changed.” You now see this gender-fluid casting from luxury houses like Gucci and Balenciaga. The Yeezy Season 3 collection/Life of Pablo listening party at Madison Square Garden in 2016 featured a mix of professional models and real people, in 2017 Nike dedicated a campaign to voguing, and Victoria’s Secret recently cast its first transgender model, Valentina Sampaio.

In 2013, style was moving beyond the heritage #menswear look. The Watch the Throne Tour with JAY-Z and Kanye West had just ended, ushering a dark, goth aesthetic into streetwear with brands like En Noir and Black Scale. Riccardo Tisci’s Givenchy T-shirts and hoodies were popular—his rottweiler graphic was a hit—and Hedi Slimane’s pieces for Saint Laurent—skinny jeans, tailored coats, and flannel shirts—were selling well at retail.

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Most consumers had known HBA for its T-shirts, but after this show, it was clear HBA wasn’t operating in the same space as its peers. Oliver was playing with gender fluidity before it became a talking point and presenting new silhouettes that played on the familiar, but elevated it. Long-sleeve leather shirts with zipper closures right below the chest could be worn open or closed, depending on the situation; puffer jackets were recreated into capes; and collared shirts were covered in HBA logos. The New York Times’ Guy Trebay questioned if Alexander Wang and Tisci took notes from Hood By Air.

“It was definitely a reinvention. It wasn't a copy-and-paste, which is commonly seen these days,” says Kola. “Shayne understood the hood, but also had aspirations of creating his own unique look and vision. He merged those two worlds so effortlessly.”

Jennifer Williams, wife of Matthew Williams, who was part of Been Trill at the time, handled sales and started showing the line to buyers in Paris, which is where Wanda Colon, Barneys New York’s former vice president of menswear, discovered HBA. Colon says at the time, the luxury/contemporary category was dormant, and the brands Barneys was selling felt “safe and a bit staid.”

“I felt there was an opportunity to offer our customer a new point of view as it related to menswear beyond the brands that were being offered,” says Colon, who purchased the collection. “HBA filled a void in the industry that wasn't being addressed. The brand came to embody the mid-2000s zeitgeist of hybrid XXL silhouettes, deconstructed streetwear, couture fabrics, immaculate tailoring, genderless silhouettes, and big logos—Shayne was there first.”

The HBA merch plan included Hood By Air Classics, which made hood basics like tall T-shirts and sweatshirts, investment pieces, and the more progressive ready-to-wear line, which reconstructed and recontextualized American sportswear. Ching says this changed the way department stores looked.

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“Because of Hood By Air, you go into Barneys and look at a designer section and it has hoodies and sweatpants,” says Ching. “Hood By Air was like a crazy statement jacket, but then you had amazing T-shirts and graphic hoodies to go along with it. And you didn’t feel like you were wearing a Stüssy hoodie.”

On a cultural level, Oliver was a designer who wasn’t typically touted in fashion—he was Black, gay, didn’t have a degree from Parsons or financial backing from his parents. He also represented a movement that was happening in the background. Robin Givhan, fashion critic at the Washington Post, remembers being struck by how he and his team had been able to grab the attention of the industry in an aggressive way with clothes that she says, initially, weren’t well made, but had a bigger story to tell.

“It felt like it was shaking up the industry out of its doldrums and pushing it on a different course,” says Givhan. “The industry needed something that speaks to a moment that was demanding diversity, questioning gender identity, questioning the path that the next generation of designers were going to take the industry on, and into that giant question mark stepped Shayne and Hood By Air.”

While Hood By Air’s star was rising, so was ASAP Rocky’s, and his influence on fashion started to take hold. But in his song “Multiply,” released in 2014, he called HBA weak, and said Been Trill “was booty like ‘Tip Drill.’” At first, Rocky told Complex in 2015 that he dissed both brands because he wasn’t getting the acknowledgement he felt he deserved from them. But he recently revealed he was upset because he asked for ownership in HBA and Oliver said no. "You don't ask Rick to put you on an official level if you wear Rick Owens. You're wearing Rick and that's it. Why is it not the same with us?" aksed Oliver in an interview with Kerwin Frost and Isiah. Years later, Rocky called up Oliver and apologized. But the fashion industry was still intrigued, and Oliver won the inaugural LVMH Prize in 2014 and the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s Swarovski Award for Menswear in 2015.

Isiah says they were skeptical of the recognition, but happy about it, since it supported the idea of giving the underrepresented a seat at the table in fashion after years of going unrecognized. The awards were helpful, but not knowing how to deal with a new brand like HBA, the CFDA would suggest traditional business structures that weren’t in line with how HBA wanted to grow.

HBA had always been a collective, but it became more fully formed before and after the 2013 fashion show at Milk Studios. Leilah Weinraub, a filmmaker who was the acting chief executive officer; Isiah, HBA’s brand ambassador; and Amato, who continued to handle casting, remained on board. Newer additions included Ching, who left VFILES to join HBA full time as commercial director. He looked over T-shirts, jeans, hoodies, and graphic T-shirts so Oliver could focus on fashion pieces. Paul Cupo came on as design director to help elevate construction, and Akeem Smith joined as a stylist. Smith says that when he came on, HBA was going through a transitional phase and Oliver gave him free range “to add some more faggotry to the mix and add more chic elements to the brand.” By this time, HBA was showing about four times a year in New York and Paris. Oliver was the father of the house. He had the vision for HBA, and everyone brought their particular expertise to the table.

“It was almost like living in a nomadic community. Wherever it took us, we went and it just worked out. We were never starving, but I think any creative knows that money's not the motive. It was more about building,” says Amato.

Making money was not a primary concern for Oliver in the beginning. The brand was approached early on about investment, but Weinraub told the New Yorker she wanted to remain independent for as long as possible. HBA worked with Edison Chen for a little in Asia, where the brand was wildly popular—Chen brought it to Yo’Hood, a streetwear festival in China. Ching remembers K-pop stars coming to VFILES and buying up all the HBA, and walking through China and seeing the craziest HBA bootleg T-shirts with Hello Kitty on them. In 2014, Oliver partnered with the New Guards Group and moved HBA’s headquarters to Milan. The New Guards Group, the parent company of Off-White, Palm Angels, and Heron Preston, which was acquired by Farfetch earlier this year, handled HBA’s production, distribution, and sales. Everyone from HBA lived in a monastery, and during the day they worked out of a compound alongside Abloh, who produced graphics for HBA’s third major collection. "I was just like, 'Wait, who is this tall African man playing beats in the other room in this Italian studio?'" says Isiah.

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Isiah says he was hesitant about signing with the New Guards Group and that he and Oliver got into arguments about it, but he opened up to the idea. “Instead of working so hard and spending so much money to get 10 samples made in New York, we were now making 100 samples in Italy. It opened up our inventory,” he says.  

The shows also got more sophisticated and ideas were better executed. In January 2015, at Pitti Uomo 87, which was Hood By Air’s first show under the New Guards Group, they took over a villa in Tuscany but outfitted the space with strobe lights, smoke machines, a DJ, Venus X, and a neon HBA light logo. The show was dominated by tailored pieces with a Hood By Air spin.  Showing in Europe also helped some in the industry view Hood By Air as less of an underground group of misfits and more as a viable brand that presents new fashion concepts. At other shows, celebrities like Whoopi Goldberg, Rick Ross, Jaden Smith, and Naomi Campbell sat front row. Givhan says construction improved, but the show production, which compelled her to the brand, got increasingly tamer. She called it a smart decision to focus more on the clothes, but she did notice growing pains.

“I think they struggled, but I think that’s OK. Brands take a long time for full gestation,” says Givhan. “I think the industry is a bit like a voracious monster sometimes. And it has a tendency to gobble up new ideas and to elevate them sometimes before they are fully baked.”

By then, Amato had left the company due to a death in the family, but he observed HBA’s evolution from afar. Some things he liked, and some things he didn’t. He thought the casting, which was handled by his apprentice Walter Pearce, got more weird, less authentic. And he felt like other brands were trying to get next to HBA for attention.

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“Once business is popping and everything's crazy, it kind of loses some of the main vision, but that happens with every brand,” says Amato. “Instagram was new and it was just a way to strategically align yourself with a brand, and then, boom, all of a sudden, you're in the game. Like Been Trill was a movement, but was it a movement?” From the inside, Ching also noticed changes. Sales were going well and distribution got wider. Once HBA partnered with the New Guards Group, it had 250 stockists, up from 50 in less than three years. At the end of each season, they would assess what stores they would drop and how to edit down different stores’ orders.  

“It was always trying to control distribution, which I think towards the end got a little out of hand,” says Ching. “It was too easy to get it and shit was going on sale. It wasn't cute. It, like, really blew up, and then, you know, the market can only take so much.” While at the New Guards Group, Hood By Air was selling a lot of product, but not the product they thought best represented the brand. Oliver told Numéro there was miscommunication between the business side of things and the management and a lot of decisions were made in a "very panicky way." A clear business structure was never created for HBA within the group, so after a few seasons, HBA got out of the deal. In 2016, Oliver came back to New York wanting to position HBA as a conceptual fashion brand, not just a hype, of-the-moment line. Ching eventually left because he didn’t feel job security anymore, and in early 2017 HBA canceled its Paris show, which led to rumors that there were issues. In March, Helmut Lang announced Isabella Burley, Dazed magazine’s editor-in-chief, would be the brand’s editor-in-residence. She tapped Oliver to design a Helmut Lang capsule collection to show in September 2017. In April, Hood By Air released a statement that the brand would go on hiatus.

“THEY DON’T KNOW HOW TO TITLE WITHOUT OFFENDING. SO, IT’S LIKE, ‘OH, HE’S IN FASHION? HE’S MAKING T-SHIRTS? THERE’S HIP-HOP INVOLVED? HE’S A HYPE DESIGNER.’”  - IAN ISIAH

“I was so excited,” says Isiah about Oliver putting things on pause. “We needed a break. It was mood board overload. The culture couldn’t even keep up. We’ve already created so many daughters in so many fields, so it was time for them to flourish and grow. It was time for Virgil to flourish and grow. It was time for Heron to flourish and grow. It was time for Alyx to be born and then flourish and grow. The empire had to go silent for everyone else to rise as their own empire.”

In the midst of HBA’s trajectory, the industry was reaping the rewards of a market they helped form. Demna Gvasalia of Vetements, which was positioned as a collective of designers who embraced streetwear sensibilities, was named the creative director of Balenciaga, a position previously held by New York designer Alexander Wang. Gvasalia also won the same LVMH award Oliver received a year prior. And eventually Louis Vuitton tapped Abloh as their artistic director of men’s. Oliver went on to design capsule collections for brands like Diesel and Helmut Lang, but people, including Kanye West, questioned why the Helmut Lang partnership wasn’t longer or why Oliver wasn’t being propped up for a bigger luxury brand.

“When I saw it coming, it read to me that you had become the creative director of Helmut Lang —and it read to other people that way, too,” West said while speaking with Oliver earlier this year for Interview Magazine. “And it felt right, and it felt deserved. The reason I’m on the phone with you right now is that, of our generation of designers, you are the strongest of all of us. Of this entire crew that came up around the same time, you are the most deserving of one of these positions.”  

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In a ShowStudio panel discussing the Spring/Summer 2018 collection for Helmut Lang Seen by Shayne Oliver, you get a better sense of how the industry views Oliver and Hood By Air. Olga Kuryshchuk, a Central Saint Martins graduate, founder, and editor-in-chief of 1Granary, a student magazine and showroom, says Oliver was chosen for his hype, not for his design skills. She later offered that no one would reference the collection because it wouldn’t present any new ideas—Oliver told Numéro that because it was only a capsule, it made sense to curate rather than produce something new. Towards the end, Georgina Evans, an editor at ShowStudio, makes a distinction of asking which graduates, not just designers, could take on the role after Oliver. Another panelists suggests that Helmut Lang should look to school in Europe and maybe not one in America or Britain—her logic was although Helmut Lang is identified as an American brand, Lang was Austrian. The video underscored the industry’s tendency to look towards the same funnels or type of person for talent.

“They don’t know how to actually title without offending,” says Isiah. “So it’s like, ‘Oh, Shayne’s a hype designer. Oh, he’s in fashion? He’s making T-shirts? There’s hip hop involved? They’re voguing? He’s a hype designer.’”

Givhan says the most accepted route to lead designer jobs at larger houses is usually graduating from design school, getting a job working for a larger designer, and then being considered for the job when someone retires or passes away. She believes it’s more challenging for designers of color to get into that pipeline and be considered for those positions, but she does think the industry is making progress. She references Abloh going to Louis Vuitton.

In 2019, Oliver announced the relaunch of Hood By Air. Plans around the reboot haven’t been explained in detail, but from different interviews, Oliver seems interested in developing a solid business structure, ensuring that HBA is seen as more than a T-shirt and hoodie brand, and providing a platform for youth to create and not be taken advantage of. Amato, who had dinner with Oliver in Los Angeles a couple of months ago, says he doesn’t want to make any sacrifices this time. “He said it has to be 500 percent or nothing, which I think is the best way to go. I mean, his vision is so strong that it’s hard to even explain half the shit he’s thinking,” says Amato.

The original collective is still cool, but they’ve moved on to other things. Isiah is traveling the world singing and sitting front row at fashion shows—he sang with Dev Hynes at Abloh’s second show for Louis Vuitton. Amato is doing less casting and more artistic directing on projects like Travis Scott’s Rodeo album. Smith is the fashion editor-at-large for Dazed magazine, Cupo is freelancing for different companies, and Weinraub’s film, Shakedown, was a part of the 2017 Whitney Biennial.

And Kola, who was voguing with Oliver and Lopez in her apartment just before the decade started, is no longer just a downtown sweetheart. She travels the world DJing, has her own Jordan, and is paid by brands for her influence—the same influence Oliver talked about at his first fashion show over 10 years ago. When asked what she thought when Oliver said HBA was taking a break, she can’t recall how she felt, exactly. She starts and stops her answer, trying to find the right words to describe her feelings around the hiatus. But when asked about his impending return, she perks up, knowing exactly what to say and how to say it.

“I’m all for it,” says Kola. “I feel like a lot of other brands and designers were birthed from his movement. So I feel like mutha needs to come back and take care of these children she birthed!”

[digitalpaal]

A Complete Guide To Seo For Plumbers

Today, the internet is the main way we find information on almost any business and the goods or services we seek. Of course, plumbing is no exception. As such, any plumber who is serious about their business should have a great website already; one that showcases their skills and expertise and makes it easy for prospects to get in touch. Nonetheless, a great website won’t do you any good if no one is finding it.

THE BEST SEO GUIDE FOR PLUMBERS

When someone is looking up for a plumber online, the first thing they’re probably going to do is search for the available plumbers and plumbing companies near them. SEO marketing ensures that your business appears among the first few results for the audience you intend to reach. The main purpose of this guide is to introduce you to SEO for plumbers and plumbing businesses and walk you through how you can improve and maintain your search rankings.

WHAT IS SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) includes all the exercises and strategies planned for positioning a site to the top places of search engine results pages (SERPs). In the world of digital marketing search engines have a major role in providing users with the best results, including goods and services.  It is a very important part of any long-term marketing strategy.

Overall, websites that rank at the top of the search engine results for particular sets of keywords will naturally get the most visits, as well as links from other websites. The main purpose of SEO is making your plumbing business website to rank closer to the top of search results when potential customers are looking for a plumber, ultimately resulting in more phone calls and more high-value customers.

Think of the last time you looked up something online. You probably entered a word/phrase into Google or another search engine…why? Well, most likely because you trust it to give you the results that you were looking for. Everyone uses the internet in a similar way all the time, but very few people stop to think about how these search engines organize (index) the content and websites that show up in the SERPs.

Fundamental Considerations for Plumbing SEO

Search engine optimization is a long-term marketing strategy, meaning that in order to see the results that you seek, you have to commit to a sustainable and dynamic digital marketing plan. Developing a solid SEO strategy for your plumbing business involves:

Analyzing your business’ existing footprint online using an SEO Audit Tool

Determining where you stand in comparison to your competitors and what sets your business apart from them through a series of action

Ensure you have the right mix of tools, knowledge, and investment to build a sustainable system and process for acquiring, selling and servicing a large number of incoming leads.

Once your SEO strategy has been in play for a while and you’ve started reaping the benefits of increased visibility: tweaking your strategy for a larger customer base, more leads, and sustainable growth.

Keywords:

Keywords and phrases pertaining the plumbing industry are vital, as they help inform the search engines what your website is all about, and thereby make it easy for them to connect the users with your business. Using long-tail keywords that are most relevant to your niche in the industry gives you a better chance of being at the top of the SERPs.

Easy Navigability:

If a user visits your site and finds it difficult to find the information they were looking for, they will most likely look elsewhere. Keep in mind that customers with plumbing problems won’t spend much time trying to peruse your site, especially if it’s an emergency. Plus, search engines track the amount of time people are spending on each page on your site and how often they click the “back” button, all of which affect SEO performance. known as your Bounce Rate.

Technical optimizations:

For search engines to index your site properly, it must contain coherent content, headers, title tags, images, and meta attributions. All these will be used by the search engines to place your site in a relevant position. So, without them, your site wouldn’t appear in the SERPs, no matter how great it is.  Your site must be easy for the Google search bots to read and understand so they know when and how to show your results over another.

Backlinks:

When a user enters a keyword into Google, its crawlers review thousands of sites at astonishing speeds. And when it encounters a link to your site, it will examine the page well. If the page that links to your site is from an authoritative, high-quality website, it’s a sign that you have trustworthy content and it will improve your SERP rankings.  For your local search, you will need to ensure that you are accurately placed in the proper directories and have an appropriate amount of NAP citations, or Name, Address, and Phone number.  Backlinks are absolutely vital that you have and that you have correctly.  This is one of the areas of SEO that can have major gains, but can also cause major losses if done incorrectly.

Content:

To appear close to the top of SERPs, content is critical. Search engines tend to favor sites with original, relevant, and useful content. Well-researched, solid content that is updated regularly and happened to include relevant keywords will not only improve your search rankings but also help keep your visitors engaged.  This is actually much easier than most people think. Here’s some ideas for blog content for a Plumbers Website:

Top 10 Questions My Customers Ask

What I wish customers knew about water softeners

What you need to know about your hot water heater

Live in [city, state]?  Here’s what I wish you knew about your water

How to replace a faucet

How to change your refrigerators water filter

Your plumbing – What happens after it leaves your drain

Did you know your local Plumber can also provide these services?

These are just a few items that you could write about that would bring traffic to your website.  Yes a lot of this content may exist in other places, but it will never have your unique spin on it, and it especially will not typically be specific to your local area.  That is the key.  You can use this to build credibility and authority in both the eyes of your potential customers and Google as well. Effective plumbing SEO focuses on the architecture and structure of your plumbing website, its link profile, and the content on its pages. It essentially maximizes the user experience from the point they click on your site from the search results to when they make a purchase or call you for their plumbing jobs. The best way to develop your SEO strategy is to first conduct an internet marketing analysis for your plumbing website.  Read our Mobile SEO here.

[mcrmadness]

I was tagged by @cupcakecurl a while back (thank you!) and finally I’m on the mood for doing this myself as well!

Rules: tag 9 people you’d like to get to know better!

Top 3 current ships: I actually have just one OTP, which is Bela/Farin (aka FUB) from Die Ärzte, and then multiple smaller ones here and there. I’m finding new ships way too easily and sometimes it bugs me because I meant to enjoy a thing and boom, suddenly I have a ship there to fuck up with my brain. B/F is pretty much the only ship that I can say to actually ship, the rest are more like just for fun, I enjoy seeing stuff but I don’t really do anything about it, you know?

But now as I think of it, I think of it, I could say another band ship here: Paulchard aka Paul Landers and Richard Z. Kruspe from Rammstein, about these I have also watched videos and read some fancomics too and last summer’s tour was a wild one and I was following the events quite a lot.

And then maybe I could throw one fictional ship here too as it’s pretty much current one since I just finished watching the 5th season of Gotham last week, and that is, of course Nygmobblepot aka Penguin/The Riddler aka Oswald Cobblepot/Edward Nygma. I’ve never in my life shipped these before, even tho I’ve been a Batman fan since 1999 (I was 8) as I saw the 60s series on TV and I can remember almost shipping Batman and Robin back then, and I was only 8 years old!, and then had been watching the movies more or less during my childhood, but this was never something I’d even think of before I started watching Gotham and things started happening in the show. But it’s an interesting one. And I have to admit that while the show was still running and I couldn’t watch it because I live in Europe (and was too lazy to look for a website to watch it :D), I was still browsing the tag on Tumblr after each episode and giving myself spoilers of what happens with them. But I think the ending was a lot different than what I thought based on the Tumblr posts, and I’m actually not sure what to think of it. Imho it was not as bad as everyone else seemed to think.

I’m putting this under a read more link as this is getting way too long and I don’t know if people are interested in reading my weird thoughts about ships and other random stuff, so here you go... 

Top 3 all-time ships:  Oh my gosh, I have had so many but only like 2 actually strong ones? And I have to say Bela/Farin here as well, the reasons are found from above and I’m just so obsessed with them and idc what it is, already the friendship is like friendhip goals, you know? But yeah, I’ve been making videos about these two idiots for like last 10 years so... :D

And the next one, okay I’m usually not so talkative about ships. I can talk about them with people in private but I don’t like to go and shout about them publicly, probably the only one I talk about this way is Bela/Farin but it’s because Tumblr is a safe place for this and there’s no hate with this ship or anything (and the other one is Paulchard, every now and then I will reblog something that crosses my dash). But mainly I like to keep ships to myself and like I said in that other tag game post, ships are more like a guilty pleasure. Maybe because of my age as it was very normal at the age of 15 but now as I’m 28? Why am I still “in love with other people’s love”? I actually don’t mind it but I think many people would find it weird, especially when I don’t read fanfictions anymore and I don’t want to imagine anything, I just like seeing cute stuff, but with many ships I don’t even want to see too much, I just like seeing them being close but with many ships even seeing them kiss would be too much.

But anyway, top 3 all-time ships... I think I need to mention here a ship that I was very much obsessed when I was 15-17, that I wrote LOTS OF fanfiction and was there to make lots of fan theories and all, and that one was Frerard aka Gerard Way/Frank Iero from My Chemical Romance. I was SO obsessed it’s insane. If you know anything about MCR and Frerard, you maybe are aware of how was the year 2007 and you can probably imagine how crazy we all went when Project Revolution stuff happened. So yeah, I need to mantion that here even tho I no longer “believe in this ship”, but I guess I’d lie if I said, that I didn’t believe that there was something there back in the day. I’ve actually recently been watching some Frerard theory videos just for fun, because there’s so many things I had forgotten and so many things I still can remember, but also lots of stuff that I kinda missed because they happened in 2010-2012, and even tho I was still very much in the fandom and I was to their second gig in Finland in 2011, I still was not that much into the Danger Days album so I was not so into digging up stuff either. And I had my own identity crisis and Die Ärzte had been my favorite band for 1-2 years at that time so I was spending lots of time watching DÄ videos, so MCR was kinda at the background. And then the whole band went quiet for some time until they quit in 2013 (and now they’re back), so all that Frerard hype kinda died after each of them started to get married to other people and the kids were born, so there just... kinda was no more room for the ship, you know? But Freard was my first actual huge slash ship, I’ve had others before it (for example, my first touch to slash fiction was Harry Potter fanfiction and of course Harry/Draco stuff, but that one also later died out), but it was the first really strong one and then Bela/Farin kinda took its place as Frerard died out but B/F has been going strong and the ship has been sailing itself since the 80s, so... :D

And as the last one I think I could again mention something fictional but at the same time something that is super weird for me as it’s not slash fiction but hetship, which is something REALLY weird for me. I usually don’t like heteroships as they’re just... boring and so cliché. But I need to mention this one that I got into when I was 15: Fox Mulder and Dana Scully from The X-Files. Yeah I know it was 2006 and the series had ended already in 2002, but I was a new fan! I had known about the series since I was a little kid as my dad was watching it back then, but I started watching it myself when the show had a rerun here in 2004-2005. And then I met my friend in 2006 when we were 15 and we found out that we both were very much into TXF and I remember how we somehow both started to ship Mulder and Scully (having no idea of how the series ended), and it was probably until the 6th season (there was 9 seasons at the time) when they stopped airing it altogether, so we were so furious about the fact because the last episode was such a cliffhanger and we NEEDED TO KNOW, so I had to buy them on dvd! So I remember how we would meet at school every day and after every episode, we went so crazy, discussing what had happened in the episode and if there was any Mulder/Scully activity, we were just so hyped :D And then, as we STILL hadn’t seen all the seasons, we went to see the second movie (”TXF: I want to believe”) in theaters in 2008 or so, and it’s set to happen after the events of the seasons, we were both so blown away by what was in the movie because we had no clue :D Fun fact: I actually finished watching the 9th season only last year. So now I understand the events of the second movie a lot better, and I’ve also seen the 10th and 11th seasons so now I’m finally aware of everything. But that really is a hetship that I accept and that is not like a typical movie romance type of ship. It has interesting dynamics.

---

Last song: Tatuoituna by Tehosekoitin

Lipstick or chapstick: Chapstick, I don’t use any make-up, but chapstick I need to use daily.

Last movie: Iron Sky. I’ve seen it before tho, but we’re gonna watch the sequel soon, so we had to watch this to remember what happened :D (And it’s made partially by Finns, so..!)

Reading: Atm I have 3 books I’m reading, all of them in Finnish:

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which has all the short stories in one. But I think there’s some of the newer ones missing and that’s why I bought this bit newer book with more stories, and I’m gonna read those once I’m finished with this one. And I’ve been reading this now for years lol... but I’m slowly getting there, I’m already over halfway through :D

A collection of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories, I don’t know the name for this book and it doesn’t say any name for the original. This one I also started to read a years back, only to pause if for years and then last year I borrowed it again from my dad and tried to continue from where I was left the last time.

The Heroes of Olympus: The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan. I’ve been reading his books ever since I was a, well, teenager probably, and I have had a long pause with these books and reading overall, but now I’m back at it and trying to buy and read all of his books I still haven’t read.

I wanted to read the latter only after finishing with SH and Poe’s stories but I needed to read something and they’re bit too difficult reading at the times, and I needed something lighter but also didn’t want to start over with Harry Potter for the 5th time so I decided to go for this series instead. I really like reading SH and Poe’s stories, but like I said, they’re bit difficult at the times. You can’t just read them, you need to think and use your brains meanwhile you’re reading, and sometimes it’s just so incredibly hard to stay focused on it and I need to go back so often because I wasn’t paying attention and then had no clue what was happening and why.

And I sometimes I skip some of Poe’s stories because they’re so purely scientific about a topic that I cannot comprehend nor care about, e.g. this one story that was almost like a science essay about hot-air balloon flight in the form of a story, probably super interesting for someone who likes this kind of stuff and even more interesting for a writer interested in stuff like that, but I’m really not the target audience of that story :D But then there’s also lots of really interesting ones, I especially like the ones that have something to do with insanity. I guess people would call them as the horror stories, but idk, I just love that kind of mystery. For some reason all of my favorite stories are those where there is a dead woman/love interest :DD But probably my ultimate favorite is the one about writing an article to a magazine with horror stories, and how this guy become beheaded and all just to write a story about how it feels like and stays alive meanwhile, and I just LOVE IT when fictional works play with death and when something that is supposed to kill you, doesn’t, and I just love the idea of that story so much :D It’s just that you never know how a story will be like, as you start reading, is it a scientific essay or a mystery or a horror story or about insanity or what is it? And then when in the middle of reading and you realize this is bit boring or uninteresting, but still want to finish, but also want to skip, and that’s why I get stuck with that book, and I change to SH or something else. Often I also grab some of the comics (or non-fiction books) I own whenever I feel like reading but these books feel too heavy for that moment.

---

I should tag 9 people but I don’t even know that many people to tag lol. Okay I do know people, but I still don’t know who wants to be tagged and who doesn’t. Maybe I’ll be boring and tag @stufenlosregelbar again? :D And idk, maybe @annika-of-the-lost? Eh, I’m so bad at this whole tagging thing. I’m having a bad conscience if I don’t tag anyone/enough people in case they want to be tagged and I can’t read minds; and then I’m having bad conscience when I DO tag people in case they’re all somewhere facepalming and screaming “WHYYYYYY” into the void, as I still can’t read minds. So you can choose, do this tag game or ignore it and ban me from ever tagging you people again, I don’t mind :p

[howellyw]

We Are Alive - Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I originally wrote this on Wattpad and decided to post it on more websites :) This is my original work, not the characters or premise, but Natasha is my character.

"Never be afraid to do the things that make you feel free."

I walk into the bar I usually go into every night and plop down at my usual seat, I come in to watch the basketball game with the boys who are always here.

"The usual?" the bartender Kevin asks me, I nod and lean against the counter.

He hands me two glasses of straight whiskey, I slowly slip one while I watch my team shoot another basket.

"What happened today, Lieutenant Parish?" Kevin asks, I shake my head and set down my cup.

"More homicides, same old same old, nothing ever fucking changes in Detroit," I say, "don't know why I signed up for this job since androids are probably gonna take it away from me" I grumble.

Kevin nods as he takes away my glass, "Ain't that the damn truth" he mutters as he turns around.

Kevin's bar is a no android bar, meaning no androids can come inside, most places run by old folks who weren't for the creation of androids don't allow androids to come in, most people are scared by androids.

I hate them, they're walking pieces of plastic that are going to steal our jobs, they offer us absolutely nothing other than doing our work for us, lord knows we don't need more lazy people in the world.

The door opens a couple of minutes later, I look up and see an android walking in, I roll my eyes and look back at my other cup, so much for a no android bar.

The android walks around the bar as if it's looking for something, but I continue to ignore it as I take another sip from my drink, hopefully, it'll just leave, it's making everyone uncomfortable.

The damn thing walks over and stands beside me, I still don't look up hoping that it'll leave me alone, I'm just trying to watch my game in peace, I really don't want to be bothered by this hunk of junk.

"Lieutenant Parish," it says, I sigh, obviously it won't leave me alone.

"My name is Connor. I'm the android sent by Cyberlife" I roll my eyes and down the rest of my drink.

"I looked for you at the station but nobody knew where you were, they said you were probably having a drink nearby," he informs me.

"I was lucky to find you at the fifth bar," he adds, I swear I can hear the tiniest bit of sarcasm behind his voice.

I scoff but continue to ignore him, hoping he'll eventually get the hint to leave me be.

"You were assigned a case early this evening, a homicide, involving a Cyberlife android."

I sigh and finally look at it, it has dark brown hair that matches its eyes and he wears the typical android outfit to be able to tell him apart from humans since these things look just like us.

"And?" I ask.

"In accordance with procedure, the company has allocated a specialized model to assist investigators."

I scoff and turn away from him, "Well I don't need any assistance, 'specially not from a plastic asshole like you" I grumble and turn back to the bar.

"Tell Cyberlife I don't need any help, I've managed just fine by myself til now," I say.

"Lieutenant Parish, I must inform you that I intend to file a report on your behavior" the thing threatens which only makes me laugh.

"Oh yeah?" I chuckle, I turn back and look at him "they're used to it, nice try though."

He remains stone-faced like my stubbornness doesn't affect him like it would a human, guess these things can't feel.

"My instructions stipulate that I have to accompany you" he informs me.

"Yeah, you know where you can stick those instructions?" I chuckle, "No, where?" the thing asks, I look at it and it looks at me with childlike curiosity.

I roll my eyes, they couldn't design androids with a sense of humor?

"Nevermind" I mumble, I wave the bartender over and ask for another drink, "You know what?" it says, maybe it'll finally leave me alone.

"I'll buy you one for the road," it says, this sparks my curiosity, "What do you say?" it asks.

I look at him then back at Kevin with a smirk "See Kevin, maybe these things are good for something" I say, Kevin chuckles but shakes his head.

The thing throws a $20 on the counter and starts to walk toward the door, "See you next week, Kev" I say to Kevin, he nods as we walk out

I walk to my car and unlock it, the thing climbs into the passenger seat and waits patiently for me to enter the car.

Once I'm in I start the car, it gives me directions to the house where the homicide was committed.

I turn on my radio to make sure that this thing won't try and talk to me, rap is playing, my favorite music genre.

Tinman leans in closer to the radio and looks at it curiously.

"Wake up in the sky by Gucci Mane," he says, I glance at it briefly before returning my attention to the road, "You know the song?" I ask.

"I know every song, it's apart of my programming" it states matter of factly, "Well would you look at that" I mumble.

"Is this your favorite type of music, Lieutenant?" he asks.

"Yeah" I mumble, it nods and turns up the volume slightly, I glance back over at it "Do you like it?" I ask.

It frowns slightly and looks at me, "Like it?" it repeats.

My brows furrow in confusion, were they not programmed to like things?

"Yeah... do you not know what that means?" I ask.

It shakes his head no, "I wasn't programmed with interests in anything or with the capability to 'like' something" it says plainly.

"So you don't have the capability to enjoy something or even fall in love with someone?" I ask.

"Love?" it questions, "no, I don't. I was created to accomplish my mission that's all" it says.

I nod, "So after your 'mission' is done, what then?" I ask, "They'll send me back to Cyberlife until the next mission is available for me," it says.

"Huh, that sounds incredibly boring," I say.

"Boring" he tests the word out.

"Can you stop fucking repeating every word I say, it's annoying" I grumble.

"I'm sorry, I'm programmed with that I need to complete my mission, words like 'love' and 'boring' are not in my programming" it states.

"So... you don't have the capability to show emotions, and on top of that, you're programmed with a limited vocabulary to further ensure you won't feel emotion" I state, I glance at the thing and see it staring at me blankly, "Precisely" it nods.

"And how does that make you feel?" I ask before I even realize how dumb that question was, "I don't feel" it says blankly before returning its attention to the road.

That's such a crazy concept to think about, no androids can feel anything so does that mean they don't have thoughts? And if they don't feel then... what do they do? Just stand around all day mindlessly doing what us humans ask of them?

I pull up to the house and see all of my coworkers outside working.

"Alright, this won't take long, just wait in here" I instruct, I don't want people asking me a hundred questions as to why I have an android following me around, and I don't want him pestering me.

"I was assigned to assist you-" it starts to say but I cut it off.

"I know what you were fucking assigned with, I said to stay in the fucking car so be a good little android and stay in the car" I command before getting out of the car.

One of the news reporters outside runs up to me "John with News 16, can you confirm that this is a homicide?" he asks, I don't even look at him as I walk past him "I'm not confirming anything" I say sternly.

I walk through the holographic police tape, and a couple of seconds later I hear a cop stop someone behind me, "Androids are not permitted beyond this point" he says, I glance back at them and see the android following me.

"Relax, Frank, he's with me," I grumble.

The Tinman walks through the tape and over to me and stares at me blankly, "What part about stay in the car do you not fucking understand?" I ask.

"Your orders contradicted my previous ones" it states, I roll my eyes "Don't talk, don't touch, and stay out of mine and everyone's way, got it?" I ask.

"Got it" it replies, I search his eyes trying to tell if it's lying but I guess androids have the ultimate poker face or was it even programmed with the capabilities of lying.

"Evening, Natasha. We were starting to think you weren't gonna show" Ted says, a guy who works at the station.

"Yeah that was the plan until this asshole found me," I say, I glance at Tinman, it tilts its head to the side almost like how a puppy does.

"So, you got yourself an android huh?" Ted smirks at me.

I wonder how this looks to everyone else, a female getting a male android, they probably think I'm going to use it for some weird sex fetish.

"Funny. Just tell me what happened" I say.

Ted, debriefs me and tells me how the landlord called the police claiming the tenant hadn't paid his rent for a few months so the landlord swung by the house and saw the victim dead.

As soon as we make it into the living room the pungent smell hits me, I think it's actually burning the hairs inside of my nostrils.

I cover my nose with my shirt "Jesus, the smell" I groan.

"Yeah, this thing's been rotting for a while," Ted says.

"Victims name is Carlos Ortiz" Ted informs me, I notice the android standing next to me looking all over the room before walking off and looking at something else.

I squat down and look at the body, he has multiple stab wounds on his chest, his skin is completely drained of all color and so are his eyes.

"I would say this poor sucker has been rotting for a good three weeks" I estimate, I turn around trying to look for a weapon and pretty close to the body is a kitchen knife.

"Probably the murder weapon" I speculate, "Any sign of a break in?" I ask, Ted shakes his head.

"Nope, the landlord said the front door was locked from the inside and all window were boarded up, possible that the killer walked out the back way," he says.

I know the victim had an android, there could be a possible relation between the two, "What do we know about his android?" I ask.

"Not much, the neighbors confirmed that he had one, but it wasn't here when we arrived" he informs me.

I guess it could have escaped but androids don't have a mind of their own so that theory doesn't work out.

I look at the wall above the victim to see the words "I Am Alive" written in what I presume is the victim's blood.

The handwriting itself is incredibly neat, I look over and see tinman standing next to me again staring at the writing.

"I don't think this was written by a human, it's way too neat," I think out loud, it nods and studies the writing.

"It was written by an android" it confirms.

It looks down at the knife and then does something completely unexpected, it sticks its finger in the blood and then licks its finger.

"Oh, what the hell? The fuck are you doing?" I ask.

"I'm analyzing the blood" it responds matter of factly, "I can check samples in real time," it says, I wince and look away from it.

"I'm sorry I should have warned you," it says, "Okay, just don't do it in front of me," I say.

I notice a bag of red stuff sitting on his coffee table, I clench my fist in anger as I pick it up, it's Red Ice, an extremely addictive substance people love to abuse.

It's fucked up how most everyone in the world is addicted to this stupid substance, it offers no benefits to anyone but yet everyone still uses it.

"He was stabbed 28 times in the chest and abdomen," the android says from behind me, I turn around and notice it examining the body.

"Seems like the killer really had it in for him then," I say.

The android walks away and towards the kitchen so I follow it, it opens the back door and looks outside.

"Door was locked from the inside" I inform it, "killer must have gone out this way" I finish.

Tinman shakes its head, "There are no footprints, apart from officer Collins' size 10 shoes" it states.

I lean against the doorframe and stare at it as it looks out at the yard, its eyes squint as if it's thinking.

So androids do have thoughts?

But I guess they don't think like us if they don't have emotion, so their thoughts are probably blank observations.

"Well this happened weeks ago, tracks could have faded" I state.

"No" it shakes his head, "this type of soil would've retained a trace" it informs me, god they really did make it a genius.

"Nobody's been out here for a long time," it says and looks at me.

It turns back around and walks into the house, I look back into the backyard and nod to myself, so if the killer didn't leave through the front or back door then he must still be inside the house somewhere.

But there's no way that the killer could still be in the house without anyone finding him, right?

I walk back into the living room and consult with Ted before tinman walks back over to me, "Lieutenant" it says.

"I'll be outside if you need me," Ted says, I nod and then turn my attention to the android.

"I think I figured out what happened," it says, the corners of my mouth turn up in a smirk.

"Oh yeah?" I ask, it nods affirmatively, "Alright then, shoot, I'm all ears," I say.

"It all started in the kitchen," it says and walks towards the kitchen, I follow it and look down at the ground where a bat lays along with some fallen over chairs.

"There're obvious signs of a struggle... The question is; what exactly happened here" I say and look at it expectantly, testing it, if he can figure this out then he earns my respect.

"I think the victim attacked the android with the bat" it continues, I nod, "That lines up with the evidence," I say.

"The android then stabbed the victim" it finishes.

"So the android was trying to defend itself right?" I ask, "Correct, the victim then fled to the living room" we both walk into the living room and stand in front of the victim.

"So the victim was trying to get away from the android," I say with a nod, "The android murdered the victim with the knife" it finishes.

"Alright, that theory's not completely ridiculous, but it doesn't tell us where the android went to" I remind it.

"It was damaged by the bat and lost some thirium," it says and looks at me, I look at it confused, "Thirium, you call it blue blood. It's the fluid that powers androids biocomponents" it explains.

"It evaporates after a few hours and becomes invisible to the naked eye," it informs me.

"But I bet you can still see it, can't you?" I ask, "Correct" it nods, I smirk and step out of his way.

"Alright then, go ahead and lead the way," I say.

It leads us to the hallway that leads to the bathroom, it crouches down and glances at the ground before standing up and then looking at the ceiling.

"What are you thinking?" I ask, "I need something to get up there," it says, "Gotcha" I reply.

I walk back into the kitchen and grab a chair, I bring it back to where the android is and places it against the wall.

"Wait here, I won't be long," it says, it climbs up onto the chair and into the attic.

I hear it walking for a bit but then it stops, and it stays that way for a minute or so.

"Hey, Tinman! What the hell is going on up there?" I yell up to it, "It's here, Lieutenant" it yells back.

"Holy shit, Ted, Ben, get your asses in here now" I command.

[putschki1969]

A reply

vyselegendaire I don't know why there is bad blood between CPM and Putschki.  Each forum has its plus and minus.  CPM forums have had trolls, but since its a forum I feel people have a chance to be a bit more expressive of their opinions, and thus there is negativity, but frankly its mostly in the forum of  humor and farce.  There are almost no dedicated haters on the site who don't wish to see more great music from our favorite artists.

vyselegendaire Additionally, amidst all of the complaints of negativity and dreariness, lest we forget the scourge of censorship - which is on the rise across the internet - before we cast shade on those we disagree with as being bad.  Censorship and content removal is the tool of tyrants since time immemorial and don't think you are immune, ask

vyselegendaire Just ask Solzhenitsyn

Hi there!

I thought it best to make a proper reply post because I have a few things to say in response to your comments. These comments were made on THIS post here where I am talking about online fandoms in general....It took me a while to get back to you, sorry about that.

All right everyone, strap in for a LONG (and slightly petty) reply...

It feels like in all my previous replies I have been talking to a wall…I have said it before and I am gonna say it one more time, there is no war between myself and CPM, there is no ancient feud and I wouldn’t even say there is any “bad blood” between us. I haven’t really engaged with any particular member enough for there to be “bad blood“. My main issue with CPM is that I do not enjoy the toxic atmosphere over there. Why would I willingly subject myself to all that negativity? I might be the only one out there that feels this way but I wanna ENJOY my fandom. All the nitpicking, bickering, gossiping, bullying and bashing, it’s utterly exhausting and it sucks the life right out of me. I don’t wanna waste my time engaging in polemic discourse and childish quarrels day in day out. I mean, even responding to all those recent asks/messages has been utterly exhausting because I feel like I have been put on trial for simply wanting to be a decent human being.

CPM has had a few trolls....? No kidding....Please don’t get me started on the trolls.... I haven’t even been active on CPM but I still had to deal with them. Why you ask? Because we have had at least two people from CPM terrorise the tumblr fandom in the past….those trolls actually made the effort to come here and cause turmoil just for the fun of it…that’s how fucked up they are...As you can imagine, I wasn’t impressed…

Unlike you, I just don’t see the merits of posting on CPM. Yes, I have been in some lovely forums in the past and they certainly do offer a few advantages but when it comes to CPM, the negative aspects far outweigh the positive ones. Yes, a forum is better suited to interact with people but then again, I have plenty of ways to interact with fellow fans here as well. And if we are being honest, I am not the type of fan that actively seeks out interaction, especially not with people who suffer from a serious case of entitlement. You could call it a pet-peeve of mine but I really can’t stand it when fans act all entitled as if they were owed something. And you know what’s the worst thing about it? The most annoying entitled haters on CPM are usually people who are not invested in the fandom at all! Yes, they are very much invested when it comes to hating on and complaining about stuff but aside from that I don’t see them do anything else “productive”. They just sit back and let other people do the work. They don’t bother to seek out new information, they wait for someone else to do it.... Most also don’t bother to learn Japanese in order to get a better understanding, they wait for someone else to make all the translations or they just pretend to know everything and come to absurd conclusions which usually results in heaps of misunderstandings... Often they refuse to buy releases, they would much rather wait for downloads in order to then declare they are happy they didn’t spend a fortune on that since it’s trash anyways...They also typically don’t attend any lives but they are more than happy to complain from the distance... It baffles me how people like that have the nerve to act so entitled even though they don’t show an ounce of support.

There is another reason I do not wish to interact with a majority of the people on CPM. Many of them find pleasure in ridiculing me. I know everyone over there is making fun of me for being a “pussy”, for playing “Kalafina-police”, for apparently seeing everything through “rose-tinted glasses”. It seems like in their eyes nothing I write can be taken seriously because I am neither “honest” nor “objective”. I guess in this day and age you have to be a disrespectful asshole for people to consider you “honest/objective” and for someone to actually pay attention to you... But really, that’s just not who I am. I have zero tolerance when it comes to any sort of bashing of the people I adore and respect under the guise of so called “constructive criticism” and I do not wish to interact with anyone who thinks that’s okay. And before anyone misinterprets what I am saying, no, I am not implying that Kalafina are above criticism or that every kind of criticism is bad, that’s not the case at all...but as I have pointed out numerous times, it’s all about HOW you criticise...

As for your point about being able to be more expressive in a forum, that is completely untrue. Nothing is stopping me from being as expressive as I want to be on this site. Free expression does not equate negativity, if you think the opportunity to express yourself is somehow a free pass for being an asshole then you are wrong.

“There are almost no dedicated haters on the site who don't wish to see more great music from our favorite artists” Uhmm...and that somehow absolves them of all their wrong-doings? NO! This statement makes me really angry because it embodies the fucked-up mindset of so many haters in fandom. At one point in the past I used to like it so that gives me the right to bash on everything now and I refuse to find something else because I know for sure that one day they will create the exact thing that I want. THIS is how these people think...And it leads me right back to the point I made about entitlement. Throughout many years these fans have created an unattainable image in their mind. Everything that’s not in line with that idea is automatically written off as trash... Fact is it is very unlikely they will ever get what they want. So consumed with bitterness and hatred it’s almost impossible for these people to see greatness in anything. It’s a vicious cycle and the only way to escape is to move on to another fandom.

Your second comment is a tad over-dramatic wouldn’t you agree? It also sounds like a low-key threat and I really don’t appreciate that. I am very much aware that I am not immune to censorship but I am not sure what your point is. Are you trying to tell me that my only chance to avoid cencorship is to relocate to CPM? No thanks. I would rather find another platform or get my own website. Also, I have invested way too much into this tumblr blog, it’s not something I can simply give up and move on. I know many tumblr users have relocated to other platforms as a sort of protest but I will definitely not do that. If things become worse I will have to think of something but as of right now, I can live with the situation on tumblr. Let’s see what the future holds...

I guess instead of replying to questions about CPM you want me to write essays about censorship on tumblr which is - according to you - the very scourge of humanity? Sorry, I am not the type to use my blog for political statements. Yeah, I will admit, things have been a bit troublesome on tumblr but it’s certainly not as bad as some people make it out to be... I don’t necessarily agree with the methods they are using but they are par for the course...And I definitely wouldn’t compare the regulations that are implemented on this website (however sloppy they may be) to actual censorship that has happened and is still happening to people in the “real world”.

Okay, I think that’s it for me...

[the-light-followed]

THE LIGHT FANTASTIC (1986) [DISC. #2; RINCEWIND #2]

“What shall we do?’ said Twoflower. ‘Panic?’ said Rincewind hopefully. He always held that panic was the best means of survival; back in the olden days, his theory went, people faced with hungry sabre-toothed tigers could be divided very simply into those who panicked and those who stood there saying ‘What a magnificent brute!’ and ‘Here, pussy.”

Rating: 5/10

Standalone Okay: No

Read First: ABSOLUTELY NO.

Discworld Books Masterpost: [x]

* * * * * * * * * *

If The Colour of Magic is a bad place to start reading Discworld, The Light Fantastic is 100% worse.  Not because it’s bad, because it’s absolutely an improvement on its predecessor.  It’s just that The Colour of Magic ends on a cliffhanger (only in the metaphorical sense; in the literal sense, Rincewind has just fallen off the cliff).  The Light Fantastic picks up exactly where it left off, with only a little exposition or explanation to soften the shift from one to the next.  I tend to think of The Light Fantastic as more like The Colour of Magic: Part 2, Now We’re Getting Somewhere, because, well, now we’re getting somewhere.

Folks, we finally have a cohesive, over-arching plot! We have stakes greater than “let’s not get killed by this latest thing that wants us dead!”  We have purpose, and drive, and successful barbarian heroes so old they lack teeth and have to make dentures out of diamond, and I love absolutely every bit of it!

In what will quickly become obvious is the norm for him, Rincewind’s life continues to be a series of upsetting things happening one after the other.  Some highlights from The Light Fantastic include:

Being forcibly teleported (back) onto the Disc by the parasitically-attached Great Spell living in his brain, after falling over the Rimfall.  Reality is completely rewritten to do this, but everything remains exactly the same except Rincewind’s new position clinging to the top of a pine tree.  (Twoflower gets dropped back onto the Disc as well, but that seems mostly incidental.)

Going to the land of Death while still alive, picking up his mostly-dead friend, and running right back out to the land of the living.

Camping in the mouth of a giant troll the size of a mountain, while being held captive by mercenaries.  Somehow only the mercenaries end up dead.

Being attacked by wizards and Things from the Dungeon Dimensions, and fighting said wizards and Things in life-or-death battles.

Using the most powerful magical book on the Disc, possibly the most magical item full-stop, and then afterwards, allowing said item to be eaten by the carnivorous sentient Luggage for safekeeping.  Rincewind ends up owning the Luggage before the end of the story—so technically, he still has this wildly dangerous book.

Oh, and saving the world, of course.  He also does that.

I love, love, love the way Pratchett writes ‘heroes’ vs. how he writes his protagonists.  Absolutely none of his protagonists are the stereotypical hero, and his stories are better for it.

Quick sidetrack to define terms: when I say ‘stereotypical hero,’ I’m talking about the kind of lawful good protagonists you see in most high fantasy adventure stories or superhero comics, the stuff with worldwide or even cosmic stakes.  They’re typically well-trained or have some kind of special skills, or they acquire special training/skills along the way.  They almost always set out specifically to save the world, and typically do not have any ulterior motives beyond it being ‘the right thing to do.’  Usually, they’re strong and rugged manly men with impressive jawlines.  I’m talking Aragorn from Lord of the Rings.  I’m talking Captain America and Superman.  I’m talking the real Boy Scout types.

Truth, justice, and apple pie—or whatever the regional-specific pastry of choice might be!

Pratchett’s heroes are not that.  They’re cowards.  They’re scared or confused or unprepared, or making the whole thing up as they go along.  They’re fools, alcoholics, con men.  They’re salty old ladies and know-it-all young girls.  If there is a stereotypical hero-type character, they’re going to be a foil for the actual main character, and they won’t stay perfectly pure and uncomplicated for long—I’m thinking specifically Carrot, though we’ll talk about him later when we get to the City Watch books.  

Here, what we get is Rincewind.  And he is as far from a stereotypical hero as it is possible to be, probably because he would have started sprinting full-speed away from the thought before anyone finished saying it out loud.  Rincewind doesn’t save the world because he suddenly found his courage, or developed bonus superpowers, or found some kind of magical sword to do the fighting for him.  (He actually found the sword back in The Colour of Magic, hated every second of it, and got rid of it as soon as possible.  Goodbye and good riddance to Kring the magic sword.)  He hasn’t secretly had the courage inside of himself all along.

Rincewind saves the world because he’s got nowhere left to run, and that’s excellent.

I’m going to save a lot of my rambling about Pratchett’s deconstruction of the concept of ‘heroes’ for when I get to Guards! Guards! and later City Watch books, since Carrot is, like I said, both the main example and the central thesis.  But it is very important for everyone to understand: for me, nothing is more satisfying from a literary perspective than knowing that, at the end of the Discworld series, coward and hero-only-by-accident-or-mistake Rincewind is one of the two people in contention for the spot as ‘ultimate savior of the world, the universe, and all of existence.’  The other is a teenage girl.

Honestly, the only reason I think Rincewind might edge her out for the title is because he technically saved a slightly larger slice of reality with this whole escapade.  In Tiffany’s defense, I’m 98% sure she hadn’t been born yet when this whole thing went down, so we really can’t blame her for not solving it first.  If she were there, she’d have it handled, and that’s just objective truth.

But Rincewind.  Rincewind.  At the end of The Light Fantastic, the dude’s spent two whole books screaming and running whenever something tries to kill/maim/eat/threaten him.  The audience has absolutely figured out by this point that while he’s smart and sarcastic and surprisingly speedy, he’s totally useless in a conflict.  His priority is saving his own skin, not dashing feats of derring-do or whatever it is heroes are supposed to do.

And yet with the end of the world looming, his back against the wall, and no real place left to run, when the Big Baddie demands that he give up the last Great Spell, the one last thing preventing the immediate destruction of everything and everyone, we get this from Rincewind:

“If it stops anywhere, it stops here, thought Rincewind. ‘You’ll have to take it,’ he said. ‘I won’t give it to you.’”

And that’s it.  That’s what saves the world.  Not a stereotypical hero, not a hero of legend, not a mythic champion showing up for a final glorious battle—it’s a Pratchett hero.  It’s an everyday guy, a coward and a failure, dragged in by accident and against his will.  It’s an average person, nothing really special, who looks at something that he knows is wrong and that he’s sure will hurt him for disobeying.  And yet he still says no.  It stops here.

Even rats fight back, as Rincewind himself says.

This is the moment that really sells me on Rincewind’s character, every time.  Even before Pratchett was really taking Rincewind or the Discworld seriously, even while the whole thing is still one massive joke more often than not, he’s still given the readers a POV character who feels believably real.  He’s scared shitless, he’s tired, he’s sarcastic, and he doesn’t want to be there.  But that’s too damn bad, because he’s the one there, and if he doesn’t do this, no one else will.

And maybe Rincewind’s not Superman, but he still does it. He succeeds, he saves the day, and—despite everything—he’s somehow the hero of this story.  Screaming all the way, maybe, but he still gets it done.

[Paul Kidby does incredible Discworld art, including some of the amazing cover art for the books.  You can find a lot of it on his website— www.paulkidby.com.  This one,The Colour of Magic, stars Rincewind, Twoflower, and their dramatic escape from the Wyrmberg.]

While we’re on the subject of heroes, we can’t skip over Cohen the Barbarian, who makes his debut here in The Light Fantastic. Now, Cohen is technically a hero, but this is still not in the ‘stereotypical hero’ sense—it’s literally his job.  It’s the thing he writes in the little box marked ‘Occupation’ on his tax forms, or at least it would be if he actually paid any taxes.  Or if he actually wrote things down.  

For Cohen, being a hero is how he makes a profit and pays the bills, and he is very, very good at it.  That’s 100% objective truth, and I know that for sure, because the man is old as the hills and still gets into life-or-death fights about twice a day, and that’s the sort of thing that gets you dead very quickly if you aren’t very good at what you do.

But Cohen still isn’t a stereotypical hero.  He does a lot of looting and pillaging, and his body count over the Rincewind books is—wow, it’s up there.  It’s a real doozy.  It’s hard to call his work heroism when it’s hardly a smidge to the left of repeated, outright murder.  I’ll probably circle back around to this in Interesting Times and The Last Hero, because there are some really interesting points made there about the ways that Cohen and his contemporaries play at heroes and villains like they’re a sort of performance they’re putting on rather than a moral act or a choice made out of necessity. But I will say now that putting Cohen in the same storylines as Rincewind really does put both characters into a more complex and interesting light.  Rincewind, the coward-not-hero, and Cohen, the fearless warrior, can kind of play off of each other.

It just goes to show Pratchett’s grasp of people as people, and not unidimensional cardboard cutouts.  Nobody’s always right.  Nobody is always wrong.  And real people don’t always stand up to perfect, pure concepts of what we think they should be.

Also, since Cohen is about a billion years old, we get little gems like his toothless lisp before he picks up some dentures, a concept that Twoflower brings with him from the Counterweight Continent.  (Or, as Cohen calls them, dine chewers.  That, friends, is a pune, or a play on words.)  Also, because he’s Cohen and therefore a dramatic bastard, the dentures are solid diamond.  It’s not as if the man can’t afford it, I guess?

I do want to take a little side trip into some other new details that pop up in The Light Fantastic, specifically the more in-depth stuff about Unseen University and the wizards.  The wizards are a lot of fun in the early Discworld books, specifically if you’re really bloodthirsty, because up until Ridcully arrives in Moving Pictures there’s quite a lot of turnover in Unseen University staff. The wizards are backstabbing bastards early on, and it’s almost jarring to compare the shifty, power-hungry jerks in The Light Fantastic and Sourcery to the fat, lazy hedonists they’ll become. We do get an impression of them as a collective that will stay pretty consistent as we move forward: their values, their skills, the way they do magic.

This is important not only because it establishes a lot of lasting detail for stories involving Rincewind, the University, and the city of Ankh-Morpork, but also because we’re about to get our first glimpse of the witches.  (Hey-o, here comes Equal Rites!)  With a lot of this stuff mapped out in advance, it makes it easier to run a compare-and-contrast of what’s going on with the two main schools of magic users on the Disc, what’s different between them, what’s the same—and the positives and negatives in them both.  (Again, hey-o, Equal Rites!  That all is about to be the whole damn point.)

I think it’s also fun to note that The Light Fantastic features the brief run of Galder Weatherwax as Archchancellor of the Unseen University, A.K.A. He Who Dies So Granny Weatherwax Can Have His Frankly Excellent Name.  Granny Weatherwax is the steel-souled spine of the witches, and the driving force of their run of books, and it’s kind of hilarious to think that Terry Pratchett did the writer’s equivalent of digging through a graveyard to give her a name.  This theft is later lampshaded and then ignored; Granny says something briefly about Galder Weatherwax being a distant cousin she barely knew, and the whole thing is never mentioned again from then on out. I can’t exactly remember where, and it might even have been in a short story or one of the side books Pratchett eventually put together, not in a novel.  Honestly, who cares—Granny Weatherwax is such a force of nature that it only takes a few minutes to forget that her name ever could have belonged to anyone but herself.

But Granny Weatherwax is not a discussion for The Light Fantastic.  It’s time to move on to Equal Rites!

* * * * * * * * * *

Side Notes:

This is the book where the Unseen University Librarian is changed into an orangutan.  It happens early on in a magical accident, as the grimoire containing the Eight Great Spells attempts to save Rincewind and the spell trapped in his mind, and he is never reverted to human form.  

He is referenced but does not appear in The Colour of Magic.  

At no point anywhere in the Discworld does he appear in human form.  At no point does he have lines in human language.  He is never named.  At no point is he described as he was prior to this change, except that the orangutan he becomes is initially said to look “like the head librarian,” so presumably he was already a bit orangutan-ish. 

For something as weird as this is, and for something with such long-lasting repercussions, it is treated in the moment as a thing of very little importance—except, of course, that now he has to be paid in bananas.  I find this absolutely delightful.

Tim Curry plays the wizard Trymon in the BBC miniseries The Colour of Magic, which combines The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic.  Trymon only appears in The Light Fantastic in the books, and I can’t read it anymore without picturing Tim Curry in his ridiculous robes and shoes, with his ridiculous overdramatic murder plots, working his way up to the top just to die a ridiculous death.

No, really. Look at this hat.  Look at this goatee.  Only Tim Curry has the acting chops to pull this off.

Death once again appears, and this time we also get to see his house and his daughter, Ysabell!  I can see why it didn’t take long to go from here to Mort: the concept is way too good to leave to little snatches and side appearances.

Krysoprase the troll shows up for the first time in this book.  Later, he’ll be known as Chrysoprase, and will make appearances in several other Discworld novels: Feet of Clay, Wyrd Sisters, and, notably, Thud.  There’s also a troll named Breccia in The Light Fantastic; Breccia will become the name of Chrysoprase’s gang in Ankh-Morpork.

While going through my copy of The Light Fantastic to work on this post, I glanced at the cover and briefly thought I was losing my mind.  At the bottom, there’s a blurb talking about beloved Discworld character “Conan the Barbarian”—but up until that moment I was 100% certain the beloved barbarian on the Disc was named “Cohen.”  Turns out I’m not crazy, it’s just that the literal cover of the book decides to make a reference to the character that Cohen is parodying rather than to Cohen himself.  And this is the 2008 print edition, not an early run or a badly-assembled e-reader edition, which means it’s being released by a professional publishing company a full 22 years after the original novel came out.  It’s not like nobody’s had time to look over the material and do some copy-editing.

* * * * * * * * * *

Favorite Quotes:

“The important thing about having lots of things to remember is that you’ve got to go somewhere afterwards where you can remember them, you see? You’ve got to stop. You haven’t really been anywhere until you’ve got back home.”

“Do you think there’s anything to eat in this forest?” “Yes,” said the wizard bitterly, “us.”

“Not for the first time she reflected that there were many drawbacks to being a swordswoman, not least of which was that men didn't take you seriously until you'd actually killed them, by which time it didn't really matter anyway.”

“Are you a hero, actually?” “Um, no. Not as such. Not at all, really. Even less than that, in fact.”

“What shall we do?’ said Twoflower. ‘Panic?’ said Rincewind hopefully. He always held that panic was the best means of survival; back in the olden days, his theory went, people faced with hungry sabre-toothed tigers could be divided very simply into those who panicked and those who stood there saying ‘What a magnificent brute!’ and ‘Here, pussy.”