#i mean it was all archival work the one we did for the article? like all the hours cataloguing docs and writing the antalic inventory??? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

wing-ed-thing · 5 months ago

Text

... And the Beast (Yonji Vinsmoke x Reader) Part III

Synopsis: You thought your little crush on Prince Yonji was a well-kept secret. Yonji is mean enough to exploit your eagerness to please in the face of his unrelenting cruelty; the thought of actually developing a soft spot for you never even crossed his mind.

Word Count: 7.4k

Tags/Warnings: Naive!Servant!Reader, No Reader Pronouns, Canonically Mean Vinsmokes, But Reader is Kinda Into It, Eventual Romance, Slow Burn, Language, Reader Falls First, Yonji Falls Harder, Academic Discussion of Dark Themes, Suggestive Commentary

Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI

Notes: We're just doing a slew of fairy tale inspired Vinsmoke fics aren't we? Fun fact, the "the beast" doesn't refer to Yonji at all, but the size of these chapters ay yo! hahahahahaha... haha...ha

When Yonji requested you back in his quarters for his morning routine, you assumed that things were returning to what they were— that is, not normal. Rather than spending time in the archive just downstairs from the attic space where you made your sleeping area, you made directly for Yonji’s quarters just as the sun rose to prepare him for breakfast with the rest of the royal family.

Judge, for as pragmatic as he typically was, always gathered his four children for breakfast and dinner. A rather sentimental notion, the meals were held at strict times every week, and any excuse short of standing in an active war zone or teetering on the brink of death did not hold enough weight for any of the Vinsmoke children to be absent. No matter how spread out the fleet was on any given day, granted that no paid work was being tended to, the towers of all four children, the kitchen, and the throne room convened at least once a week.

You knocked on one of the double doors leading to Yonji’s bedroom, and as anticipated, you received no response. Yonji could sleep through a hurricane— and did once— but you didn’t want to risk the brutal punishment that would have come with walking in on him if he were miraculously conscious so early in the morning.

Light from the hall flooded into his bedroom as you opened the door, and the triangle of golden illumination dwindled as you closed the door behind you. The blackout lights were drawn exactly how you left them the night before as you crept through the darkness of the room.

You approached the curtain to the left of Yonji’s bed, drawing it to the side to brighten half of the room. Yonji’s sleeping form instinctually twitched as he buried himself farther into his luxury cotton sheets. You moved to the other side of the bed to draw the other curtain.

“Prince Yonji,” you called his name softly. Yonji grumbled something incoherent into his pillow. “It’s time to get ready for breakfast.” You turned to rifle through his wardrobe. His attire was the same for the most part, but Yonji liked seeing options.

You let the top cabinets close with a quiet thud. Yonji groaned again, tossing to face the opposite side of the room. He threw an arm up that smacked against his headboard. His covers fell to around his hip on his left side, exposing half of his bare chest. You kept your focus on the drawers of his wardrobe as you plucked out a few more articles of clothing.

You draped two of everything over your forearm and walked once more to the opposite side of the bed. Yonji lay with his eyes cracked open as you placed everything neatly on the end of the bed. You held up two white button-ups, one with a ruffled collar and one without. In his half-awake state, Yonji made a gesture to the shirt with the ruffles. You hooked the approved shirt’s hanger on your arm and placed the other one back at the end of the bed.

You did the same for his slacks, and by the time Yonji finally sat up on his own accord and threw his legs over the side of the bed, you had already established a complete outfit for the day. It hardly took Yonji a single yawn and a few complying motions before he was completely dressed, eyeing you as you knelt between his thighs to finish buttoning his shirt. You had been quick to slide a pair of pants over his briefs.

Even after all this time, the better part of your thoughts were painted on your face. Most of Germa, the royal family especially, was the furthest thing from shy when it came to nudity. Most of the soldiers shared tight quarters, after all, and the raid suits for the princes and the princess required complete disrobing before and upon use. While you hadn’t grown up in Germa yourself, you couldn’t help but secretly consider that the way in which you dressed Yonji in the morning alone was quite intimate, even for Germa’s standards. All of this, Yonji, of course, knew, but he never tired from getting a rise out of you, especially when the means were so simple.

You offered him his earphones, which he took and placed around the back of his neck before standing. You placed his rejected selections back in the wardrobe before turning to make his bed.

“Forget about that.” Yonji waved flippantly toward the messy bundle of sheets and blankets. “Go back to the library and prepare for my arrival. I’ll be there after breakfast.” He didn’t say anything else before walking out into the hall, leaving you to panic.

***

You didn’t quite understand what “prepare the library” meant, considering that your job mostly consisted of knowing what things were and where they were. (Given the infrequency of people taking books from the library archive, you hardly ever had to put books back that you didn’t take out yourself.) Even the custodial duties weren’t your responsibility, given that cleaning staff were sent to your snail every two weeks or so to manage the red carpets that lined the hall and dust the shelves. If anything, your most laborious work occurred every spring on archival week, so you weren’t exactly sure what you were meant to prepare.

You considered bringing down two tea cups and a pot of hot tea but swiftly decided that Yonji would likely not only be insulted but disgusted by such a low-quality product. Unsure of what to do, you collected your documentation from the archival week that occurred just a few months ago and meandered around the center of the large chamber awaiting Yonji’s arrival.

He came just as the sun outside began shining at full capacity. You stood in the center of the room on the intricately woven carpet below, with the files in your arms. Yonji hardly regarded you as he strode into the room before taking the door handles of the massive double doors in his hands to push them closed. Your breath hitched as he latched them, officially cutting off your only means of escape.

Yonji turned back to you, his brows furrowed at the paperwork in your arms.

“A detailed organizational account, Prince Yonji.” You politely dipped your head. Yonji’s mouth turned into a wide, closed-lipped frown as he approached you. When he stood just a short distance before you, he snatched the documents and threw them to the ground.

“Not necessary.” He circled you and stopped just behind you to give you a shove forward. “Go grab all the shit you’ve been reading.”

You swiveled your head back, “Um—?”

“You do everything I say with that stupid look on your face for months, but when I ask about your dumb interests, you go, ‘Prince Yonji, um’?” he mocked, imitating your expression with a pucker of his lips before they reverted back into a scowl. Yonji gestured toward the shelves that lined the walls. “Pull everything.”

“Yessir!” You nodded adamantly as you started toward the closest shelf. Yonji’s eyebrow shot up.

“What was that?”

“Yes, Prince Yonji,” you corrected, already taking a book from the shelf. You tried to spare a glance back at him, but the nervous smile that tugged at your cheeks made you turn back to the shelf quickly.

Even Yonji couldn’t hold his scowl for long, not when you had that gleam in your eyes.

***

He followed you with a closeness that made you conscious of your stride. You pulled a few selections from the shelves, glancing back at Yonji every so often for approval. He positioned himself as awkwardly as he could, trailing to your right and backing up as you slowly skimmed the walls. Yonji, as a rule of thumb, imposed himself wherever possible and least convenient.

With a few books piled in your arms, you wandered past an entire section of Sora comics. Germa 66, whether it be out of vanity or an unspoken sense of humor, boasted the entire running collection of Sora, Warrior of the Sea. Despite the thin volumes, the collection easily took over two long shelves. You hoped that Yonji wouldn’t notice your purposeful ignorance of the comics, but you supposed you couldn’t have been that lucky.

“Not a fan?” Yonji laughed. He placed a hand on one of the upper shelves and the other dipped into the left pocket of his slacks. He purposefully towered over you, not allowing you to move forward to the next section.

You didn’t think quickly enough to hide your expression. Yonji grinned.

“Go on.” He gestured to the collection with a jerk of his head. “I know you’ve read ‘em.”

You looked off to the side with a sheepish grin, and when you took too long, Yonji grabbed you by the sleeve of your shoulder and shoved you toward the shelf. Your reluctant fingers easily found the limited-edition volume somewhere in the middle of the compilation. Yonji snatched it from you the moment you began to pull it and laughed even louder than he had before, quickly yanking the comic from its clear plastic wrapping.

“You know I was fucking with you, right?” he bellowed with another quirk of his brows. An amused hissing teased through his teeth as he flipped through the glossy pages.

The publishing company had released a limited edition volume featuring Germa 66 in which the branding was overwritten from Sora, Warrior of the Sea, to Ichiro, Son of Germa. The short story that centered around Germa 66 commander “Ichiro” depicted a day in the life of the supervillains when they weren’t up to their sinister plots. The end of the comic even included some uncharacteristically heroic actions taken by the group. And while the edition had been clearly named after Ichiji, all four Vinsmoke siblings received a rather generous, albeit exaggerated, depiction. It experienced limited printing due to many complaints that a flattering depiction of Germa 66 was in poor taste.

“I grew up reading the Sora comics,” you said, trying to look anywhere else but Yonji. But even so, you could feel his eyes boring into you. Mischief painted itself on his face as he couldn’t help a mean smirk.

“So you are a fan,” Yonji teased. The comic fell closed. “Or maybe you’re trying to suck up to me.” Your eyes widened in just the way he liked.

“Oh, no, I’m not trying to—”

“Who’s your favorite?” His nose scrunched up in an overwhelming display of amusement. He held up the cover, which illustrated all members of Germa 66 with “Ichiro” in the center and Garuda’s silhouette in the background. The way he seemed to hunch over you didn’t escape you. Yonji drew a bit closer with one hand still propped against the shelves. There was only one right answer, or at least only one answer he would accept. “C’mon, you’ve gotta have a favorite.”

“My favorite?” You couldn’t even look at him. Yonji stared at you, his thorough enjoyment of your flustered state showing no sign of dissipating.

“Your go-to volume is the Ichiro edition? Yeah, you have a favorite.” Yonji laughed. He bobbed his head to himself before inching closer. “Want me to guess?”

He wasn’t going to let it go until you answered. You adjusted the stack of books in your arms, unconsciously treating them like a barrier. You sucked in a deep breath.

“Winch Green is my favorite.”

“HA! Wow, what a suck-up!” Yonji let out a roaring chuckle, finally straightening himself to stand at his full height again in self-satisfaction. Despite his rude words, that was the correct answer and it had been true. He eyed you incredulously when his laughter began to die down. “You weren’t born here. You came here a while ago, didn’t you? You really are a fan! That explains why you’re such a freak.”

You kept your eyes on the collection of neatly wrapped comics as Yonji cackled. You readjusted the stack of books in your arms again, unable to help your visibly flustered demeanor.

“Well…” You started, and your voice cracked. But like every other occasion when Yonji thought he had finally driven you to tears, you bent but didn’t break. “I owe a lot to Germa 66. You probably don’t remember, but you saved my country.” You nodded in accent, quirking your head slightly to the side.

It was a single moment, but you caught it. You caught the millisecond that the harsh crease between Yonji’s brows flattened and the way in which his cheeks fell just before he recoiled. What had phased across his face less than a second before contorted his features from amused wideness to narrowed and disgusted confusion.

“Cut it out with the sappy shit,” he snorted and turned on his heel to move onto another section of shelves, the comic still under his arm.

Yonji continued to hover as you made your way around the rest of the library. He started from a short distance away, but it didn’t take long before he practically floated right over your shoulder. Yonji hunched a bit, imposing himself over you as he studied your literary selections. And to your surprise, he remained mostly quiet, although every so often, you would select a book apparently so ridiculous it would cause Yonji to scoff.

Balancing a growing stack of texts against your chest, you reached up to grab another a few shelves above your head. Your fingers grasped at the spine, trying to pull it close enough to the edge. Yonji reached up and grabbed it with ease. You thought he was going to place it in your hand, but Yonji only scoffed, holding the book in front of his face to read the cover.

“Ancient Alabastian runes?” He squinted before quirking a brow at you. He waved the book in the air in accent. “You know how to read ancient Alabastian runes?”

“I taught myself a bit,” you admitted. Yonji was already thumbing through the pages with a shake of his head. His shoulders tensed upwards with a rude scrunch of his face.

“Why?”

“Well, the architectural accomplishments of the period are legendary. Not to mention the culture…”

Yonji’s chest jumped, a rude snort resounding from his nose.

“The world’s obsession with that desert wasteland is so rudimentary,” he sighed. You blinked at his word choice. Yonji flipped through a couple more pages with an exasperated shrug before snapping the book closed. “They build a few triangular buildings, so what?”

You almost laughed, “The pyramids that are considered an engineering marvel?”

“If you want to talk about culture, you should take more interest in Elbaf,” he said, his boyish rasp drawing out the syllables of the name. Yonji leaned his shoulder against the bookshelf, still holding the book of runes as he spoke. “The way the giants integrate all of their traditional rituals with modern ways of life is pretty insane.”

“How did I know you were going to say Elbaf?” A playful smile crept onto your lips, a stark contrast to Yonji's acute expression of offense. A mix between a grunt and a gasp stalled in his throat. “I read a little bit about turf construction, and I like the sustainable approach.”

“Beats thinking a pile of sand is pretty,” he sneered, but his words lacked true weight. He reached up to one of the taller shelves, scanning the selection with his tongue poking out from his lips before he finally found what he was looking for. Yonji placed the book on your stack, giving it a rude poke that nearly made you drop your collection. “Turf construction is interesting, sure, but if you’re interested in some actually impressive architecture, try that.”

Yonji pushed off from the shelf, meandering backward to a new section of books.

***

It took the two of you the better part of the day to make it through the room, and you had only rifled through the main chamber of the southern tower. None of your searches included scientific texts or specialized materials, just general topics and narratives. You still didn’t understand what Yonji was looking for, but considering the amount of time you spent in the main chamber, your examination of the thousands of books housed in that room alone should have been more than sufficient.

You had started on the lower level at the shelves to the right of the double doors, working your way around the side, up the stairwell, and around the balcony before descending the opposite stairs and ending up at the shelves to the left of the doors. Yonji had run a few stacks of books from the balcony down to the wooden table and at some point, began carrying the mass amount of books you pulled from the shelves.

He had had no issue with the sheer volume— it was, after all, what he asked of you in the first place— but the compilation you held began to slow you down and made scaling the rolling ladders impossible. Just as you made it to the bottom of the first set of stairs, Yonji snatched the unbalanced stack in your arms from you. He held them easily with one hand, along with the other two materials he carried.

“Why are servants so goddamn helpless?” he muttered before gesturing impatiently for you to continue.

Yonji could hold more than triple the amount of books you could, having little issue carrying three stacks by himself until they were piled up over his chin. And while the scoffing didn’t cease, every so often, Yonji would match one of your selections with one of his own.

He had placed The Technological Evolution of Combating Summer Island Summers: Tradition, Astrological Patterns, and Scientific Discovery on top of the stack in his arms shortly after you had pulled another book on Alabasta.

“There are more interesting islands out there than Sandy Island, but if you really like the place, you might as well read the stuff that’s actually interesting,” he sighed before quickly moving along.

Stacks of books littered the long table below, and you allowed yourself to sit down for the first time in hours. The plates from lunch still sat at the far end of the table. Yonji’s lunch, not yours— you didn’t get one— although he requested enough food for two or three people.

The cook aboard the archival snail nearly had a heart attack.

“The prince wants lunch here?” He nearly passed out on the spot. The cook, after all, was assigned to the least-frequented snail in the entire fleet and hadn’t had to face feeding the royal family before. Even during archival week, all members of the royal family typically brought their own crews and, by extension, their own cooks. During all other occasions, feeding the Vinsmokes was Cosette’s duty as she was responsible for the main kitchen.

The library snail only held a servant’s kitchen— something you tried to tell Yonji, but he demanded the quickest meal you could summon. The crew and the handful of other servants who sailed with you weren’t exactly picky when it came to food. In fact, the only people who seemed to hold the most judgment about the cook's meals were his own children.

“Prince Yonji wants his meal quickly,” you warned, making pointed eye contact at the cook. And whatever he made seemed to do the trick.

You had carried in three plates—one on your head even—and all three were cleared with inhuman speed. Now, they sat forgotten at the end of the table.

Per Yonji’s request, you pulled every single book you recalled reading in recent recollection, and they sat piled haphazardly in front of you. Even despite the fact that most of your days were spent reading, you were generous with your selections. Yonji made a face if you walked by any section without taking at least a book or two (he seemed to be under the legitimate impression that you had read every single text in the entire library).

It took you a moment to breathe before you noticed Yonji wasn’t with you. You glanced over to where he stood, just in front of your usual, comfortable reading chair next to the lefthand set of stairs. His left arm didn’t strain as he balanced an excessive stack of books, and he tucked his right hand into the pocket of his slacks as he craned his head toward the book of fairy tales and stories that sat on the side table.

The collection was open this time and Yonji was already messing up your bookmark, but unlike all of the other books in the room, Yonji didn’t include it in his compilation. By the time he turned to where you were seated, he had closed the cover with a frown.

“What are you so tuckered out for?” He placed the last stack on the table. “You didn’t do a goddamn thing.”

Sometimes, you had to remind yourself that Yonji didn’t experience life the same way you did. Yonji seemed to forget the same, but you doubted he put much thought into it.

***

Yonji appeared to no longer be interested in retaining you as his personal assistant from dawn until dusk, although that didn’t mean he had gotten rid of you altogether. He still expected you to wake him in the morning and get him ready for breakfast, but from thereafter, you were to return to and remain in the library. And in his time between mission work, drills, and other responsibilities he typically tended to as a commanding officer, Yonji hovered around you in the library.

Still unsure what he was expecting from you, the first few days of your new routine had been tense. Yonji would drop in at random intervals throughout the day, and if he wasn’t following you around the library as you worked, he was quietly planted somewhere in the room with one of your newly plucked-out books in his lap.

The way he would drop in unannounced used to make you uneasy, and within the context of it all, you were still unsure how he wanted to be served. You bolted up several times from your plush chair in those first few days, placing your book half-hidden in the cushion for whatever startled reason before Yonji waved you back.

“Sit back down,” he would almost drawl as he made directly for the long wooden table still piled high with books. (You were surprised he didn’t evict you from your seat, given how he’d take the chair any time you weren’t using it. It was the only seating with a cushion.)

Your schedule might have changed, but Yonji’s domineering presence certainly did not. You still couldn’t help but consider how out of place he looked, especially on the occasions he wore his raid suit into the archive. Ever-tall, ever-bulky, even the way Yonji contorted himself when hunched over a book made him stand out against the background of your humble archive.

“Prince Yonji,” you couldn’t help but tentatively call as you watched Yonji lower himself onto the carpet. His presence and behavior gave you never-ending whiplash. “Please, take my chair. Royalty shouldn’t lay on the floor!”

Yonji shrugged, propping his head up on his palm as he flipped his book open.

“Your spot doesn’t get any sun” was all he said with a quick glance up at you from where he lay on his side.

As the days went by, you found yourself more at ease with Yonji’s regular presence in your archive and even began growing excited at the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. The table piled high with books became a staple, and for once, to your surprise, you had someone to talk about all of your books to.

“Yeah, the guy kidnapped her. But she ended up liking it, didn’t she?” Yonji started from his usual warm spot on the floor. He had rolled over onto his back, holding both sides of your recommended book above him. He moved it to the side to meet your eye. “I mean, she gets to be a queen and then visit her mom sometimes. I don’t see what the big deal is.”

Yonji tilted his head to one side, then the other.

“It’s a tale told to young girls to make them feel better about being sold into slavery to Celestial Dragons.” You lounged across the two armrests of your chair with your own novel in your lap. “Of course, she’s going to warm up to being with him to prove that the people you take are better off having been taken.”

Yonji scoffed and frowned.

“She chose to stay. There were three goddam chapters dedicated to her thinking about it. It was so boring.”

“It’s less about the characters and more about the context that the story was written,” you gently corrected. Two weeks prior, you wouldn’t have imagined speaking to Yonji in such a casual way. “The whole point is that it’s her decision to stay.” You lowered your book to prop your elbow on the armrest your back was leaning against. “It’s to keep young slaves hopeful that even the Lord of Death is secretly a charming prince.”

Your eyes flickered back to your pages.

“I still think you’re readin’ into it.” A pause filled the air. You didn’t notice how Yonji’s gaze lingered on you. “Where are you in yours?”

“I just finished the section on shipbuilding.”

Yonji slowly sat up. He rested his forearm over his bent knee, and his opposite palm rested on the soft carpet fibers below. An excited grin creased his cheeks.

“And? What do you think?”

You couldn’t help but pause at the expression on Yonji’s face. His brows lacked tension and rested higher on his forehead than you recalled seeing them before. His eyes appeared more rounded as the skin around them was raised. You sat up a bit higher.

“The clinker construction was cool to learn about, and the emphasis on ship flexibility actually makes a lot of sense. And given the history of Elbaf, I’m not surprised, but pretty amazed that there’s really nothing else out there like their crafting techniques… given that this book is accurate.” You absentmindedly took a second look at the front cover, wedging your fingers between the pages to keep your spot.

“I don’t think there’s a ship out there as suited for long voyages, and that stuff’s generations old.” Yonji crossed his legs. One of the books you had pulled from the shelves, the classic West Blue myth for young slaves that you were just discussing, sat closed and finished in his lap.

Yonji, you had learned, could devour books. He read at a rate that made you envious, completely demolishing books that took you a few days at least to read in a matter of hours. Yonji had actually made a significant dent in the compilation he had tasked you to gather, and when he was done, he took great pride in handing it back to you to place back on the shelves.

He wasn’t above throwing them at you nor did he care about what you were doing at the moment he finished. But for as much as he seemed to like seeing you flinch as a hardcover novel slammed into the wood shelf next to your head, Yonji had taken to unceremoniously dropping them into your lap.

This time was no different. Yonji stood as you continued to exchange words about ship construction before strolling over to where you sat and letting his latest book fall directly onto your thighs. He stood over you, and you wondered if he realized he was waiting as you continued your conversation. Yonji, you also discovered, was quite chatty.

—“Well, I think that has more to do with the narrow hull and shallow draft.”

“You think so?” you hummed.

You stood, placing the book on Elbaf to the side and picking up the one that Yonji had just dropped on you. Neither of you batted an eye as you began to move, climbing the set of stairs to your left as you continued.

—“I think I would use a Knarr if I were to try that,” you considered, sliding the book back onto the shelf.

A loud, deep ring resounded throughout the room. You instinctually looked toward the large clock below. Yonji, no matter how long he stayed on any given day, always left just a bit before dinner and made it clear that you were to not bother him until you were to retrieve him the next morning. That had been the most drastic change to your routine, and it was getting to be about that time.

“Dinner already?” Yonji seemed to have the same thoughts as you. “Damn, I’m starving.” And just like every day before, Yonji strolled toward the doors with little regard, shouting some direction over his shoulder. “Work on the rest of that book. I want to talk about weapons, and you’re taking too goddamn long.”

Although, with Yonji gone, your nights weren’t completely free. After tidying up a few things following Yonji’s departure, you headed out of the southern tower, around the back, and down into the cellar doors leading to the servant’s quarters.

The structural material was half that of your standard Germa building and half snail shell. An entire level that sprawled the length of the ship, in addition to a few pockets for storage, was completely furnished and liveable within the snail shell. Sometimes, when the host snail retreated into its shell, you could see its fleshy body move under the floor in the right light. The overall engineering of the “below deck” quarters escaped you, but the animal didn’t appear to ever be in pain.

Now that Yonji was spending more time at the library, it became routine for you to retrieve the cook’s twins from downstairs. You’ve been distracting those children for years, and while you hadn’t intended on playing babysitter to the two little rascals that made your ship a bit more lively it allowed the cook time to prepare dinner a bit faster. From mealtime on, you were able to do what you pleased with your evenings. And given how isolated you usually were from the rest of the fleet— your snail typically trailed at the end of Lady Reiju’s brigade— you weren’t opposed to the occasional company.

When waiting on Yonji, you typically had to request that meals be reserved for you in the fridge, considering how late you’d get back to your own ship. Servants typically ate after the royal family anyway, but with your new routine, you could be on a more manageable cycle.

“Send Walker upstairs when dinner’s ready,” you said to the cook, his two children in tow, ready for storytime upstairs.

“Will do,” he replied, “The doors will be open, right?” You hummed with a nod.

“I usually keep them open. Prince Yonji is the one who locks them when he visits.”

The cook’s face faltered for a moment as if he wanted to ask you something more, but he said nothing and returned to his cooking. You led the children upstairs, letting them run around on the carpet in the southern tower before they settled in for a story.

You took the book from the table next to your chair, enjoying the breeze that blew from the window and out the doors of the southern tower.

***

On a random afternoon sometime in the following week, Yonji sifted through the piles on the table, placing a few books aside. You watched as he did, studying the passing book covers as they landed on top of each other with a soft thud. Most of them centered around spring islands, including local flora and fauna.

“You really read this?” Yonji scoffed. One dark-spined book missed the pile and fell to the side. You picked it up, gazing at the important man depicted on the front.

“Do you remember when people said he was going to change the world and abolish piracy?” you mused.

You pursed your lips, eyes flickering to Yonji to gauge his reaction. You scanned him for approval every so often after speaking, your casual tone only becoming more common by the day. With the way he seemed to be changing his expectations at random, you were never sure when he might decide you were speaking out of term.

He glanced down at you as you plucked the cover open to read the table of contents. His eyes didn’t linger.

“Politicians are full of hot air,” Yonji said, returning his focus back to his sorting. “Especially that guy.”

You breathed in steadily. You were in the clear for another day.

“You know him?” you asked.

Yonji’s chest puffed in what might have been mistaken as a light laugh. He still didn’t look at you.

“Yeah, I know him.” His brows jumped on his forehead as he muttered a vulgar name under his breath at the mere recollection of the politician. You studied the front of the autobiography again. “I can’t believe you read that dickwad’s whole life story. Since you’re here all day, I thought your taste was better than this.”

Yonji tossed another book across the table. It hit another stack, causing all of them to tumble to the floor. You immediately stood to collect them. Yonji didn’t stop you.

“The papers were talking about him a lot. With all his ties to the world government and his background as a Marine, I thought we’d be hearing more about him.” You gathered up the fallen books and placed them a bit more nearly on the table out of Yonji’s way. “Besides, Lord Judge likes keeping those kinds of texts at hand.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t much more than 200 pages of bragging. I’d be surprised if you learned anything useful.”

“I share a birthday with his wife?” you volunteered with a laugh. “But no, the stories were so convoluted, I couldn’t even keep them straight.”

“Figures,” Yonji scoffed.

You meandered over to your reading chair, trying to be discrete as your eyes scanned the book of fairy tales. The bookmark you placed was crooked. You glanced back toward Yonji, who continued to shuffle things around on the table.

Yonji hadn’t been afraid to shove book recommendations into your arms when you had gone around the room before, and you saw him toying with the book at least twice before. And yet, this one had escaped the pile mounted on the table.

Your hand jerked as you reached for the book, hesitating for a second before you ultimately decided to take it in your hands.

You strolled back to the table, placing it with the others on the corner of the table. Yonji’s shuffling immediately stopped, and you failed to notice his narrow stare. Only when you sat down again did Yonji speak.

”What do you think you’re doing?” His voice was harsh, snapping through the tranquility of the room. Yonji’s eyes flickered from the cover to meet yours. His hands had stopped in the middle of what he was doing with a bulk of pages draped over his fingertips.

“It was one I’ve been reading—“ You paused with the intention of ending your reasoning there, but Yonji remained silent and disapproving. “… Your Highness.”

And suddenly, Yonji, as if he had remembered where he was and who he was, scowled severely at your transgression. The sobering reality hit you like a rock and the rapport you had been eased into evaporated at the sight of the sneer around Yonji’s nose. He scrambled the energy in the room in an instant, and suddenly, Yonji was a prince again, and you were a servant.

“I thought Your Highness was interested—-“

“Don’t get a big head now just because I need something from this pit of a ship,” Yonji spat. “Put it back.” You expected Yonji to throw it, but instead, he rolled his eyes and sat down at the table with an annoyed but otherwise light sigh.

Despite his short fuse, Yonji reached a simmer more often than he exploded into fits of rage. In fact, it was almost rare that Yonji grew genuinely angry as much as he seemed to go through bouts of pettiness. Frustration, annoyance, and imagined slights were all on the table, but at least according to the servants from Castle Niji, Yonji’s targeting was nowhere near as cruel as the Vinsmokes could be.

But that wasn’t something you were necessarily eager to test.

A loud pounding suddenly sounded from the library doors. They jiggled against each other, creating a discordant sound as the latch shook violently. The yelling on the other side of the door made your heart sink.

“What the hell?” Yonji frowned, watching as the doors continued to tremble before muffled commotion broke out in the hallway. He walked across the room with wide strides, and you couldn’t even hope to stop him before he flicked the latch and opened the doors wide.

Golden light flooded from the chamber into the dark hallway, and just down the red carpet, a servant tried to wrangle the cook’s two children out of the southern tower. Their little voices reverberated off the stone, as did the harsh shushing that came from the servant.

“Why can’t we go inside?” the boy asked loudly.

You ran up just behind Yonji, eyes widening at the sight. The servant met your eye, his face frozen in petrification has he silently begged for help. Even in the prince’s presence, the children continued to squirm around. The boy kicked his feet in the air as the servant held him under one arm and the girl complained from where she was thrown over the servant’s shoulder. You glanced pointedly from Yonji back to the servant’s terrified gaze.

But to your surprise, Yonji only pivoted a foot on the carpet, turning to glance at the large clock that sat to the left of the chamber’s large window. He shoved his left thumb into his pocket as he tended to do. The servant took the opportunity to make a break for it with the children.

“It’s dinnertime already?” Yonji wondered aloud, throwing his head back with a groan. “I didn’t even realize how damn hungry I was.” He sighed, barely turning his head as he spoke to you, “Don’t bother me for the rest of the night.”

And just like that, Yonji began to walk down the hall without further commentary.

“What would you like me to do with the books, Prince Yonji?”

“Leave ‘em.”

***

Yonji, despite receiving the same education as his brothers, wasn’t necessarily considered the brains of the operation. He liked destroying things through flashy displays of brute strength and was content to assume that role on the field. Not to say that Yonji wasn’t a capable commander of his forces, but when paired or grouped with any of his other siblings, Yonji was typically content with and expected to lay off the heavy thinking.

And so, when Yonji shoved Niji out of the way of the grand safe that was left for them to plunder in the ruins of what used to be a politician’s estate, saying, “I got this one,” the immediate assumption was that Yonji certainly did not have it.

Yonji pinched the lock dial between his fingers, tongue poking out from his lips.

”You’re gonna break it!”

“Got it!” The safe’s door clicked and then popped open, revealing riches for the taking inside. The royal treasure wasn’t explicitly on the table when Germa 66 was originally hired for the mass political assassinations, but what were the townsfolk going to do with it?

Niji gaped as Yonji began unloading the jewelry.

“How the hell did you—?” Niji inspected the lock, even going so far as to run his fingers over the mechanisms. He had been working on cracking that code for nearly a half hour on top of bypassing every other security measure in the room. “Yonji. Yonji.”

Niji shook his brother by the arm, only to be shrugged off. Niji let out a low growl, wasting no time in shoulder-checking Yonji to shove him out of the way. He budged a little, but not nearly enough for Niji’s liking. The two of them immediately began fighting. Niji wouldn’t even get an answer to his question until they returned to Germa.

“Yonji guessed the code,” Ichiji said. He crossed his arms, giving nothing away by the blank expression on his face. The space between his brows twitched. Ichiji was certainly asking a question. “Yonji.”

“Hey—” Yonji spoke with his mouth full, pointing a pea chip toward Ichiji, who stood in front of an equally unamused Niji. “Why’d you gotta say it like that?” he protested. Niji slapped him hard on the back of his head.

“Do you ever stop stuffing your face?”

Yonji reached an arm over the back of the couch he lounged on to push Niji away. Ichiji stood near the end of the short couch, his wrist just shy of brushing the back.

“You just guessed the code,” he stated, the only one in the room remaining with the subject.

“I thought birthdays were obvious passwords,” Yonji spoke with a mouthful of chips, shrugging as he sprawled out over the cushions. Ichiji and Niji exchanged glances above him, two sets of dark goggles meeting each other.

“Did you try the president’s birthday?” Ichiji asked.

“Of course not,” Niji spat. “What kind of moron do you take me for?”

“Not his birthday, his wife’s birthday,” Yonji corrected. One of his eyes squinted closed as he shuffled the last portion of his chips to the opening of the bag. Ichiji and Niji’s eyes met each other’s for a moment for a second time as a beat of silence overtook the room. Yonji didn’t notice.

“Uh,” Niji started with a crease in his brow. “How did you know her birthday?”

The Vinsmokes were typically able to recall unhuman levels of information, and Germa 66’s wealth of knowledge was not easily challenged, but when it came to the string of assassinations they were hired for on Rivulette, the acting president’s wife’s birthday wasn’t on the briefing docket.

“Did we get birthdays in the files?” Niji scratched at his undercut as he turned toward the eldest Vinsmoke son.

“It was in that stupid autobiography,” Yonji spoke before Ichiji had a chance to answer. At this point, Yonji had exhausted his entire supply of pea chips. He flicked the bag around, trying to salvage any large crumbs, not nearly as interested in the conversation as his older brothers were.

“You read that thing?” Niji sneered.

“We do have a copy in the library,” Ichiji mused stoically. His eyes flickered down to Yonji from behind his dark glasses. “Is that why you’ve been spending so much time there?” A deeper judgment, along with a lengthy analysis, lurked somewhere in his words, but as was natural for Ichiji, he gave nothing away.

Niji let out a bellowing laugh, the force of which was so great that his hands flew over his torso.

“You’re actually reading down there? I thought you were just going there for some ass!”

Ichiji said nothing, unnoticeably semi-deep in thought. Niji and Yonji continued to bicker in the background.

***

Another day of Yonji on a job meant another day alone in the library. And while you couldn’t complain about not having to navigate bouncing between ships or waking Yonji up in the morning, you couldn’t help the tinge in your chest that missed the companionship.

It was already a dismal day. The seas had been rough, and dark gray clouds loomed overhead. You spent most of your time securing the library in preparation for the rough seas. With the unique ability of Germa’s ships to occasionally sail vertically, every vessel had equipment made specifically for securing objects around the country. Most fixtures were already screwed into the floor, and a majority of the rooms held special, small, padded chambers for placing objects into that couldn’t be tethered.

And considering the cold that was going around the archival ship, you did most of the preparation yourself. The indoors were unspokenly allotted as your territory by the greater staff, most of whom worked on the more physical aspects of piloting the ship.

You had just finished organizing the books from the table into stability boxes when you heard the double doors to the southern tower open. The unmistakable clicking of the massive entrance was unmistakable and caused your head to snap up. You shut the lid to the box, crossing the room in an instant.

You had closed the main chamber doors to prepare for the storm, but you reached for the handles with a quiet giddiness and threw your whole weight into heaving them open.

“I thought you were going to be gone for another few days—”

Your words died on your lips the moment you looked up. Ichiji stood tall just outside the doorway, as unreadable as ever. But even so, you could feel his cold stare from behind his glasses. He regarded you with a slight frown.

“Were you expecting my brother?”

Thank you to all who liked, reblogged, followed, and supported. Your support means so much and is greatly appreciated.

Notes: I can feel it. The hyperfixation slipping through my fingers. I'm determined to end this before I'm left with a half finished series that I have a hard time writing... like every other series I have... hahaha we will persevere indeed!!! (Sure, Wing, we'll end this when the anticipated length will be about 10+ chapters that are about 6-8k words each sure sure sure)

I was determined to not have this chapter end with another Yonji mission... like the first two, but alas we can't always get what we want.

I also put an obscene amount of time into making gifs, including editing this one together and Yonji's fucking earphones gave away all my hard work dammit.

Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI

#yonji x reader #yonji vinsmoke x reader #one piece fanfiction #yonji vinsmoke #yonji #germa 66 #vinsmoke brothers #vinsmoke family #vinsmoke #one piece x reader #op x reader #one piece fanfic #yonji fanfic #x reader #x you #reader insert

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chiprewington · 7 months ago

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Character Analysis on Chip Revvington, the Chainsaw Consultant.

Genuine Long Post Warning, as well as a LOT of images. This is going to cover literally everything we know about Chip (as of April 25th, 2024) and my take on what's provided In Canon (being his Cogs Ink profile, his Interview, the 1.3 News Article, and In-Game). This is my first try at an In-depth Character Analysis. Screenshots used are from the official Wiki.gg, In-Game, and from the Corporate Clash News Archive.

Prior to being brought on to lead the Deforester Force, it's shown he's clearly a confident Suit, and has a genuine passion for his line of work as a consultant. With his personal statement alone this can be seen on full display with how he writes about himself, including noting how he's not swayed by bribery in any manner. (also the fact he outright pokes fun at one of the bribes will never not be funny to me)

Not to mention his lack of discipline records throughout his 19 months having already worked for C.O.G.S. with his usual job as an external consultant, this plus the fact he has "positive remarks" from his previous places of work shows he's probably in very high demand and really does excel at his job.

This is also shown in his interview, where he also equally shows a lot of passion for his job and genuine interest with answering questions relating to it. Before we get into that though, I feel like it's important to also point out a couple other things that I think about a lot with his profile.

This, being referred to as the "Temperamental Terminator" in the 1.3 trailer, and considering the average age of a Consultant is ~40+ years (and I personally hc him as 48), I think it's safe to say Chip just always was a quick-tempered individual throughout his life. It's one of his less favorable traits that I personally find charming.

And these read to me like Chip's always been considered "scary" among other suits. His behavior isn't the issue (yet) though, he's just a massive guy who happens to have a chainsaw for a snout.

Which. Makes this very interesting. Jennifer, stated something similar above, but I feel as if her intentions are more... unaware than the actual company's. Jennifer sees a guy with a big Chainsaw and thinks "Oh! He can cut down trees with that!" Jennifer ily. The company on the other hand probably has had this idea of what Chip could be a candidate for. They hired him to lead the Deforester Force. His job consists of him sitting in an office. Nothing relating to physical labor in cutting down trees, he just oversees the process. "Chainsaw apparatus will be helpful [...]" suddenly takes on a much darker meaning, in my mind.

Which is how we get here. Chip being modified with a clearly experimental hardware which we all know as the Personality Override. The fact that it was only "partially successful" is a very fun thing to consider.

Note the fact that from a canon standpoint the Override was implemented "2 weeks ago". This will be important later.

(The toon who got the above screenshots is not mine!)

Another fun side-note is the fact that the Override is experimental. It's experimental hardware. Chip is the only one with it. They are using him like a guinea pig. And not to mention "Dealing with Toons far more efficiently" paired with the above company-sourced "Chainsaw Apparatus will be useful [...]", you can't make this stuff up. They turned this guy into a living weapon likely without him knowing the full scope of what would happen if he did get this position in the first place.

Okay. Now we can talk about his Interview. Which even through glancing at it you can see just how passionate he is regarding his work. He is driven and confident that his plans for the Deforester Force will work. He wants to believe that he'll set an example for the rest of the departments to execute a similar plan.

And then this question comes up. And then I have to remind you it's probably been only a couple days since he's modified. And he already has rumors circulating about him.

And the moment the subject is changed, he perks right back up into being passionate about his work.

I also feel like it's worth mentioning the fact he's been actively requesting and wanting Spruce (who recommended him to begin with!!!) to join him in the Deforester Force and keeps being turned down on it. The way this and something else I'm about to touch on are written feels like he's barely been able to see him. These two have a brotherly bond and they're being separated. He misses his brother, man.

That's not even getting into this. Even as I'm writing this I just realized the implications of something at the end of this and I'm going to have to pace around my house thinking about it. But also you can see that even though just the slightest amount of time has canonically passed since the interview, you can already see the toll the Override's been taking on Chip's behavior. While he was once passionate, he's now actively complaining about his job. It's not even about the job itself, it's about what's happened to him.

Not to mention, I feel it also displays his temper in full swing once again- even if he's justified in this sense.

I also need to pay special mind to this ending bit right here because the implication of this with everything else surrounding it fucking broke me. uugghhhhh.

Now this is something I feel is so, so, so important to his character. He actively does not like toons. He clearly shows a certain disgust for them and views them like Animals. Pests. He doesn't hesitate to proudly state his opinion on them. And then you see him in-game.

He hasn't changed his mind about toons at all. Ignoring the fact that "you critters again" insinuates this isn't even his first contact with toons (will get to this later), he's... Restrained. I don't know, this reads to me like he's actively restraining himself from blowing up. "You don't want to see what happens when I get angry." is a warning to just comply and leave.

And then because he doesn't remember he fired the rest of the Deforester Force (another thing I want to touch on), he actively gets upset and angry at the remaining flunky because of course someone as high-rank as himself wouldn't want a Flunky on such an important team. Once again, additionally showing his active temper. His active temper he just tried to restrain and bottle up.

And that's what breaks the camel's back. The Override most likely activates from excessive anger/distress, something that Chip Actively Struggles With. He has to bottle himself up because if he tries to be his usual hot-tempered self, which is who he naturally is, he's just going to lose himself. Lose himself to cog knows how long as being a lifeless machine that perfectly and efficiently complies with the commands its given.

He begs for help when he's able to partially regain control (emphasis on partially, considering the most he can do is speak and prevent Deadwood from happening), but like. Again, to me this reads as the fact he is currently Incredibly Fucking Terrified because he's completely aware the whole time the Override is active. He can see himself acting against his will. It's mortifying. He's willing to beg anyone for help because the Override is genuinely traumatizing for him.

Which makes this all the more harrowing. He can't keep the Override at bay forever (likely the only reason why he partially regained control is from the sheer amount of pain he put himself in by ripping out one of his bulbs. You can see him brace himself and wince when that happens). Once again, "save yourselves" in this context feels more like he's scared. He's terrified. Because the Override sucks. And the implication of "ALL RAM CLEARED" doesn't leave much room to assume anything other than the Override likely clears out Chip's memories in order to make more processing room for this janky hardware to run at a constant overclocked state. I wonder how much of Chip's memories have been removed because of that thing, honestly.

By the way did you know that a normal chainsaw runs an average of 12,000 RPM. Do you think about how the little RPM icon is his saw smoking as if it's overheating. What the hell is the Override doing to him internally.

Another added touch I think about a lot is how his battle as a whole is, for the most part, very predictable. You control what cheats he does. Even in technical battle terms, everything is out of Chip's control. As long as every gag hits, you're really just manipulating an enemy's AI to to make the most optimal choices to your benefit. The Override perceives "X", and responds with "Y". You're not fighting an actual individual, just a program.

Clearly, whatever it's doing to him, it's painful (not mentioning the agonizing scream he lets out during this). And thank Cog he was able to regain control at the last second because it's way too obvious that the Override's "final fallback procedure" likely involved some kind of lethal force when it lunges at the toons. (The Chainsaw Apparatus will be helpful.)

There's no sorrow in Chip's words, that's what I think. Everything here is bitter. It's numb, to me.

He's clearly been through this song and dance multiple times by now. He's pissed at the toons, at the company, and at himself. But he can't properly let it out. You know what will happen if he does. The most he can do is throw a chair and scream into the air. (which that line gets its own custom voice clip, fun fact!)

It's clear he's been isolated ever since he's been upgraded, and it seems like he's bitterly accepted it. The only thing he has left to lose is Spruce, which is why he tells the toons not to tell him. If he loses Spruce...

I don't think he'd have much left. It'd make sense why he's grown so restrained and numb and stilted in his speech. He's quickly grown to learn that he can't let himself express anymore, all because of the override.

The fact that everyone else around him views him poorly doesn't help. His employees fear him. Most of them probably don't realize something is wrong, spread rumors about him, or outright attack him through hatemail. Written in Cipher.

"Chip has some anger issues. I would be careful around him. Don't worry about the Cogs though, I'm sure they'll be fine. Might get demoted back to their initial tier, but that's what happens when you work with Chip. Good thing that Toons can't get fired-- or wait, they can, can't they? Do Toons LIKE getting fired? I will never understand those animals. And you seen Spruce around lately? I haven't. I wonder how his deforesting expedition is going. There is a secret message up ahead in Chip's room. Can you find it? If you are stuck, have you considered looking around your surroundings?"

"I can't stand Chip anymore. I know I'm a Yesman, but I have to say NO. He used to be cool up until his sensors flared off. After what he did to my fellow coworker, I don't know if I can continue working under him. Sure, he's one of the most organized managers I've ever worked with, not to mention the flowing passion he has for the Deforester Force. His personality issues can single-handedly cause all of our projects to collapse. One of my former coworkers had raised concerns about Toons taking over our buildings and ultimately undoing all work that was done on our end. That poor Pencil Pusher overstepped his boundaries with Chip when he admitted his failure to secure "our" project from the Toons. Up until this point, I have never seen a Cog fire another Cog. With a cannon."

"It grinded my gears when I saw that happen. Him and I worked nonstop for days straight, while this pile of bolts just sat there doing his paperwork. I wouldn't be surprised if he was just doing crossword puzzles or writing letters to his little buddy. If you are reading this Mr. Revvington, you are the reason for our decline. We are running out of Deforester Force members because of you. As someone who has gone through close-call battles with the Toons, I hope you experience what it's like to have boulders and anvils fall from above you. You can try to fire me with that shoddy cannon of yours, but you would have to track me down first. I've already left the area and was recruited to a new organization far more stable than you will ever be."

------

...I genuinely love Mr. Revvington. He's a Suit who's been dealt the worst hand he could possibly ever get in life. He was just like anyone else, and then everything happened ever since joining C.O.G.S.. He's isolated, he's temperamental, he's pissy, he'd genuinely be someone hard to get along with because of the fact he's struggling with all sorts of issues and would be incredibly difficult and annoying to even start talking to and forming a bond with unless you're both stubborn and have patience. He's awful, and I love him for it.

I genuinely believe he's one of the most complex, beautifully written, and depressing characters in Corporate Clash. Maybe I dive way too deep into things about him, maybe he's not that deep at all. But I like to think about him. He makes me emotional, but he also makes me happy. Thank you for making him exist.

#toontown #toontown corporate clash #corporate clash #chip revvington #corporateclash #ttcc #toontowncorporateclash #chainsaw consultant #character analysis #long post #image heavy #headcanons #hcips

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mybeingthere · 3 months ago

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Once upon a time in 1885, Welsh singer, songwriter, scientist, and philanthropist Margaret Watts Hughes accidentally invented a method of turning her voice into images.

Hughes explained her invention, the eidophone, and her image-making process in an article for Century Magazine in 1891:

"In 1885, while seeking means to indicate readily the intensities of vocal sounds, I first met with these [voice] figures, and, owing to their variety both in form and production, they have since absorbed much of my attention. The apparatus I have employed I call the eidophone. This is very simple. It consists merely of an elastic membrane, such as thoroughly flexible soft sheet-rubber, tightly stretched over the mouth of a receiver of any form, into which receiver the voice is introduced by a wide-mouthed tube of convenient shape. In some cases the receiver may be dispensed with, and the membrane be stretched across the open end of the tube itself.

My first experiments were made with sand, lycopodium powder, or the two substances mixed. I then tried for the production of voice-figures, flooding the disk of the eidophone with a thin layer of liquid ; e.g. water or milk. Upon singing notes of suitable pitch through the tube, not too forcibly, beautiful crispations appear upon the surface of the liquid, which vary with every change of tone. A note sung too forcibly causes the liquid to rise in, a shower of spray, the movements of which are too rapid to be readily followed by the eye. To facilitate observation denser liquids may be used. By using such liquids as colored glycerin particularly beautiful effects may be obtained. Subsequently I found that by employing moistened powder of different consistencies yet another description of figures appears. The earliest result of my experiments in this material shows centers of motion from which radiations diverge."

By varying the sound of her voice and the materials and methods used to capture it, different patterns emerged.

If we dig a bit deeper into the process, we find greater complexity. Sophie B. Herrick did just that in Visible Sound – Comment [Century Magazine 42, 40 (1891)]:

These voice-flowers are not the simple visual forms corresponding with the vibrations of the air set in motion by the voice. The waves generated in the closed bowl of the eidophone are reflected again and again from the sides of the vessel. The volume of air inclosed has its own rate of vibration; the stretched membrane has also its own rate, which in turn is modified by the character and thickness of the paste spread upon it. Added to these are molecular forces of cohesion and adhesion between the particles of paste, and again between the paste and the membrane. The form which grows into shape is the resultant of all these complicated forces, and, in some instances, new elements of change have been added. A glass plate is placed on top of the vibrating membrane and moved over it. We have a new body introduced with its proper rate of vibration, besides a mechanical motion further to complicate the problem.

According to an article in MIT’s The Net Advance of Physics Weblog, Hughes’ “flower-like forms” were rediscovered in the 1960s by Swiss researcher Hans Jenny, who went on to coin the term cymatics to describe acoustic effects of sound wave phenomena. However it appears as if Jenny was only familiar with the black and white reproductions of Hughes works as published in her Century article.

The larger color works were thought to be lost(!) but were found in 2016 by the staff of the Cyfarthfa Castle Museum, located in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, while digging through their archives. Taken as a whole, Hughes’ work has a foot in two camps —as part of the history and study of the physics of sound, and as part of the history of art. These works were displayed as such during her lifetime.

One can imagine that the Surrealists would have been quite taken with these voice-figures, automatism sans hands, and I find them quite beautiful and striking as works of visual art that do not fit the tidy androcentric narrative of history, art or otherwise (see Hilma af Klint for a similarly jarring example).

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theoutcastrogue · 7 months ago

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the internet is rotting, as Jonathan Zittrain noted in an important (but paywalled) 2021 Atlantic article. A huge percentage of the links on the internet are broken, and there is no single authoritative, accessible universal repository that keeps track of everything. It is frighteningly easy for crucial information to slip away. ...

The practice of making changes to an article without noting that you’ve made them is called “stealth editing,” and even the New York Times does it. ... The existence of stealth editing means that it’s difficult to trust that the version of an article you click on at any given moment is the article as it was originally published. ...

I also, to my alarm, realized just how dependent we are on private publications themselves to give us access to records of their own work. Often, they keep it payawalled behind locked gates and charge you admission if you want to have a look. There are lots of sources in the Chomsky book to which you have to subscribe if you want to verify, such as this 1999 story in the Los Angeles Times about NATO’s bombing of a bus in Yugoslavia. This is a story of national importance, far too overlooked at the time, but if you don’t subscribe to the LA Times, you need research library access or a workaround if you want to read it.

Thank God for the Internet Archive, whose Wayback Machine preserves as much of the internet as they can and is invaluable for researchers trying to figure out what was once housed at now-dead links. But the Internet Archive has its limits. Social media posts, YouTube videos, paywalled Substack posts, PDFs—all can be very difficult to track down after they disappear. If a politician tweets something embarrassing, for instance, and then deletes it, it might be preserved in a screenshot. But we know screenshots are easy to fake. So where do you turn to prove satisfactorily that something was in fact said? ...

it’s very easy to lose pieces of information that seem permanent. E-books, for instance, can be changed by their publisher without the changes even being noted. You might read a book on your Amazon Kindle one day and open it up the next day to look for a quote only to find that the quote has disappeared without a trace. The Guardian, for twenty years, hosted a copy of Osama bin Laden’s “letter to the American people,” an important historical document. After the letter went viral on TikTok, the Guardian removed it from the site entirely. The New Republic did the same after an article of theirs about Pete Buttigieg caused controversy. The documents in question can still be found, but only by digging through the Internet Archive. If that ever goes down, researchers will find that trying to piece together the online past is like trying to learn about a lost civilization from excavated fragments. ...

I think that in an age where people (rightly) don’t trust the information they’re getting to be true, it needs to be as easy as possible to do research. Instead, while we have better technology than ever for sifting through information, it’s still the case that the truth is paywalled and the lies are free. If you want to “do your own research” to check on the veracity of claims, you will run headlong into a maze of broken links, paywalls, and pop-ups. How can anyone hope to find the truth when it’s so elusive, trapped behind so many toll gates?

#Nathan J. Robinson #theory #information wants to be free

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mariacallous · 4 months ago

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Several of the most prominent alt-weekly newspapers in the United States are running search-engine-optimized listicles about porn performers, which appear to be AI-generated, alongside their editorial content.

If you pull up the homepage for the Village Voice on your phone, for example, you’ll see reporting from freelancers—longtime columnist Michael Musto still files occasionally—as well as archival work from big-name former writers such as Greg Tate, the Pulitzer Prize–winning music critic. You’ll also see a tab on its drop-down menu labeled “OnlyFans.” Clicking on it pulls up a catalog of listicles ranking different types of pornographic performers by demographic, from “Turkish” to “incest” to “granny.” These blog posts link out to hundreds of different OnlyFans accounts and are presented as editorial work, without labels indicating they are advertisements or sponsored.

Similar content appears on the websites of LA Weekly, which is owned by Street Media, the same parent company as the Village Voice, as well as the St. Louis–based alt-weekly the Riverfront Times. Although there is a chance some of these posts could be written by human freelancers, the writing bears markers of AI slop.

According to AI detection startup Reality Defender, which scanned a sampling of these posts, the content in the articles registers as having a “high probability” of containing AI-generated text. One scanned example, a Riverfront Times story titled “19 Best Free Asian OnlyFans Featuring OnlyFans Asian Free in 2024,” concludes with the following sentence, exemplary in its generic horny platitudes: “You explore, savor, and discover your next favorite addiction, and we’ll be back with more insane talent in the future!”

“We’re seeing an ever-increasing part of old media be reborn as AI-generated new media,” says Reality Defender cofounder and CTO Ali Shahriyari. “Unfortunately, this means way less informational and newsworthy content and more SEO-focused ‘slop’ that really just wastes people’s time and attention. Tracking these kinds of publications isn’t even part of our day to day, yet we’re seeing them pop up more and more.”

LA Weekly laid off or offered buyouts to the majority of its staff in March 2024, while the Riverfront Times laid off its entire staff in May 2024 after it was sold by parent company Big Lou Media to an unnamed buyer.

The Village Voice’s sole remaining editorial staffer, R.C. Baker, says he is not involved with the OnlyFans posts, although it appears on the site as editorial content. “I handle only news and cultural reporting out of New York City. I have nothing to do with OnlyFans. That content is handled by a separate team that is based, I believe, in LA,” he told WIRED.

Likewise, former LA Weekly editor in chief Darrick Rainey says he, too, had nothing to do with the OnlyFans listicles when he worked there. Neither did his colleagues in editorial. “We weren’t happy about it at all, and we were absolutely not involved in putting it up,” he says.

Former employees are disturbed to see their archival work comingling with SEO porn slop. “It’s wrenching in so many ways,” says former Riverfront Times writer Danny Wicentowski. “Like watching a loved home get devoured by vines, or left to rot.”

This is a new twist in the grim growing world of AI slop. WIRED has reported on a variety of defunct news and media outlets that have been resurrected by new owners and stuffed with AI-generated clickbait, from a small-town Iowa newspaper to the beloved feminist blog the Hairpin. In the case of the alt-weeklies and OnlyFans listicles, the clickbait is appearing alongside actual editorial content, both archival and new.

It is unclear how this effort has been coordinated between the sites, or whether there are several parallel efforts ongoing to produce OnlyFans-centric listicles. LA Weekly and the Village Voice are both owned by the same parent company, Street Media, and some of their OnlyFans content is identical. Meanwhile, the Riverfront Times publishes its OnlyFans blogs under the byline “RFT staff.”

Street Media owner Brian Calle did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment. Chris Keating, the Riverfront Times’ former owner, says he is bound by a confidentiality agreement and cannot name the new buyer, but that he “does not believe” Calle is part of the purchasing company controlling the new Riverfront Times.

Daniela LaFave, an Austin-based SEO expert who is bylined on the majority of the Village Voice OnlyFans blog posts as well as some of the LA Weekly posts, confirmed to WIRED that she is the same person named as the author. She declined to answer whether she used AI tools to create the posts.

Another frequent byline on the Village Voice and LA Weekly posts, “Jasmine Ramer,” has published 910 articles primarily for these two outlets in the past year, according to the public relations platform Muck Rack. (Sample headlines: “Top OnlyFans Sluts 2024” and “Top 10 Finnish OnlyFans & Hottest Finnish OnlyFans 2023.”) There is a profile on LinkedIn listed as a senior staff writer at LA Weekly for an Austria-based woman named Jasmine Ramer, but there is little other digital footprint for the writer. When Reality Defender analyzed the profile photo on Ramer’s LinkedIn account, it found it was likely AI-generated. There is also at least one other account using the same photo claiming to be a digital marketing executive in the UK. (WIRED did not receive a response when it asked Ramer for comment via LinkedIn.)

OnlyFans is an online porn behemoth, one which has spawned numerous cottage industries, like professional proxy chatters who impersonate the platform’s stars. There are marketing agencies devoted to promoting OnlyFans creators, and many social platforms from Reddit to X are swarmed with bots trying to entice potential customers. These efforts are known as “OnlyFans funnels.”

Risqué sex ads have played a major role in the rise and fall of some alt-weeklies. The founders of Village Voice Media, which once owned the Village Voice, LA Weekly, and the Riverfront Times as well as other US-based alt-weeklies, created the classified website Backpage.com in 2004 to compete with Craigslist. It created a lucrative revenue stream, buoying many titles for years, but ginned up major controversy for hosting sex ads.

Vice President Kamala Harris, serving as California attorney general at the time, dubbed the company “the world’s top online brothel” in 2016 and arrested its founders and CEO for facilitating prostitution. With this recent history in mind, the decision to lean into sexual advertorial is especially brash.

It may be that these alt-weeklies are creating these blog posts in an effort to drum up web traffic to their sites, which could in turn help boost digital ad sales. They may also be accepting money from the accounts or from representatives of the accounts promoted, which would mean the posts were unlabeled advertorial. “Online ads, print ads, they all dried up,” Rainey says. “But this OnlyFans stuff is there.”

“OnlyFans has no financial arrangement with these outlets,” an OnlyFans spokesperson who identified herself only as “Brixie” told WIRED via email.

“I think the creators are paying,” says Luka Sek, SEO manager for an OnlyFans promotion company called SocialRise. “An agency that handles multiple models, or someone doing the marketing for such agencies.”

Whatever the reason, it marks a grim new pit stop for declining media publications, one in which blatant SEO bait sits side by side with culturally valuable archival journalistic work and, in the case of the Village Voice, ongoing contemporary reportage.

Tricia Romano, a former Village Voice writer who recently published an oral history of the newspaper, The Freaks Came Out to Write, sees the arrival of AI slop as keeping with the recent deterioration of alt-weeklies. “This is the logical dystopian conclusion,” she says. “But who’s reading it?”

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pluraldeepdive · 6 months ago

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I want to share this article archived by the wayback machine in 1997 and I believe to be written by Dr. John M. Grohol. Here is a link to the archived page. I feel like it's helpful to see a piece of history like this because, even almost THIRTY YEARS later, people are still called fake or have doubt cast on them for simply being open on the Internet about having DID or being a system!

_________________________

"The Prevalence of Multiples Online

Multiple Personality Disorder or DID Seems Prevalent Online

We see a growing number of individuals who visit our Web site and write us e-mail, as well as participate in mental health chats, that seem to have multiple personality disorder (MPD), or the disorder's newest name, dissociative identity disorder (DID). People with DID seem to be in many support rooms found online for mental health support. We even host a popular discussion forum for MPD/DID here on Mental Health Net.

So what's this all about? Is DID really that prevalent online?? Does the online world somehow draw more people with DID to it? Is DID being diagnosed more often because of more accurate tests? What's going on here??

From our experiences, it seems clear that a little bit of everything is involved in the greater numbers of people who suffer from this disorder showing up online. First is the greater knowledge and education amongst behavioral healthcare professionals about this disorder. If they know what to look for, which they are better trained to do more now than ever, they are more likely to be able to accurately diagnosed MPD/DID in individuals. This has been accomplished by greater research in this area in recent years as well as more information being trickled down to the clinicians who actually do most of the diagnosing and therapy of individuals with this disorder.

In addition to greater numbers of individuals being diagnosed with this disorder, many more of those people who get the diagnosis are coming online to find out more information and support for their problem. While there is still debate about how prevalent MPD/DID is within the general population, finding reliable and accurate epidemiological information about the disorder can often be difficult, if not downright impossible. Much of this is due to the political debate which has surrounded the diagnosis of MPD/DID in the past few years (Coons, 1989). Many misconceptions still exist and are even perpetrated by some mental health professionals. So information found online may fill some people's needs with this disorder.

But because it is a rare disorder, it also means there won't be any support groups available in their community for this problem. Like rare medical conditions and the popularity support groups for those have enjoyed online, so too are MPD/DID groups popular online. People with this disorder have found one another and can discuss issues that only other people with DID/MPD can understand and sympathize with.

Last, the symptoms of DID/MPD are such that there is often times an accompanying (and justified) social fear, out of concern of the ramifications of switching personalities when in the company of others (whether at work, at home, at a party, etc.). This fear is not nearly as powerful or present when in an online chat room or discussion forum. This is probably because such forums are devoid of many of the social cues and nonverbal communications which may encourage an emerging personality to present him or herself. It may be easier, in fact, for someone who suffers from MPD/DID to talk to others in such a forum because of the ability to remain present in a singular personality.

There is no clear reason why so many people seem to have this disorder in online chat rooms. It is likely a combination of factors which have resulted in this perception. This should be no need or cause for alarm, since individuals who have DID/MPD we've spoken to have overwhelmingly given high marks to the experiences they've had in online support rooms and forums. As more and more people come online, we will expect to find more rare mental disorders represented, especially those which have a social component which may be helped through an online modality of communications."

#actuallydid #dissociative identity disorder #actuallyplural #pluralgang #plurality #pluraldeepdive #plural deep dive #sunflower posts

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centrally-unplanned · 8 months ago

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I was listening to this cast by The Weeb Crew, with SteveM as a guest, going through some other Evangelion video and dissecting the mythical memetic tropes it buys into. Which was a lot of fun, I recommend the cast, and the video they are critiquing is a bit of a grad-bag of zombie memes about Evangelion from the 2000's, which yeah have aged poorly.

One of the ones they get into is the idea that Evangelion's TV ending was "intensely unpopular", and Anno & crew were getting like bombarded with death threats and stuff. Which happened at some level sure, but certainly wasn't the median response. The video actually sites the "emails" shown on screen in End of Evangelion as evidence:

And like, bro those emails are fake! The staff wrote them for the movie, they didn't use real death threats or fan mail, that would be a huge legal liability. Not saying they are analytically useless or anything but, you know, you need to know that.

Anyway, SteveM mentions that of course there was pushback against Eva's ending, but actually the big wave wasn't interior to the fandom - instead it was sparked by Eva "going mainstream" discourse-wise. In particular a review essay by social critic Eiji Otuska (who is also a former lolicon creator ding ding ding) that was published after the finale aired sparked a widespread discussion in the media by other critics. He links to the essay in their discussion....except he doesn't. He thinks he did, and then when they look, its just someone else mentioning it in an article in 2003:

Bitter disputes broke out on online bulletin boards, with some critical of the producers for failing to provide a clear-cut end to the story, and others who praised the finish for being "typically Evangelion-like." But when commentator Eiji Otsuka sent a letter to the Yomiuri Shimbun, complaining about the end of the Evangelion series, the debate went nationwide. "The debate that erupted over the ending went way beyond our calculations," Gainax's Sato chuckles. "Anno probably knew what was going on. He realized that media other than anime had taken notice of Evangelion."

Which triggered in me the thought - why doesn't he have it? He references it in his own work after all. As you can guess, after some searching I am pretty sure I know why; no one has it. Its never been scanned or reprinted in an accessible format! It definitely is important in the history of Evangelion - I have seen this claim in other contexts, the essay that sparked a discourse, and you can find many works about Evangelion citing Otsuki (generally later works, like an article published in September of 1996 which you can buy) But what the article article said is only discernable via the clues dropped from second-hand accounts.

So can we find it?

First of all I need to figure out what is even being referenced. Searching through contemporary Japanese sources, I dug up an extremely handy find:

A somehow-still-existing 1997 fan page by a Japanese otaku (I'm giving you this stuff auto-translated btw, what would you do with a wall of kanji?) who extensively catalogued every media mention of Evangelion. I am sure they missed some, but they didn't miss a big one like the Otsuki letter - which we know from the above interview appeared in gigantic newspaper Yoimiuri Shimbun:

This gives us three candidates; given that we know it was written after the finale aired, and that was March 27th, 1996, our most likely candidate is the April 1st essay; I was able to find a secondary source mentioning the review was "immediately" after the finale, so I think that nails it.

Which alas does not bring up anything! Try as I might I cannot find any extant blog post, or scanned image, or long quoted form. But after trying the usual methods I did realize something - unlike my average document hunt, this is Yoimiuri Shimbum, a newspaper, a big newspaper. Which means they probably have their own archive, which I might be able to access. and low and behold, they do! And my university research services actually have an account!!

Incredibly blessed by this stroke of luck, I went digging for everything containing "Evangelion" and "Eiji Otsuka" in 1996, and found it:

And it's fucking blank. If the article is scanned or anything it will have that "Japanese Text" you see on the first result, or "Scanned Image" tag or something. I swear its like the only ones not scanned, all the random ads and list of best sellers are all there, but the entire cultural essays section is just an archival void. Shot in the skull right at the finish line.

Alas I am out of ideas of this one - its a newspaper, no one is selling this on Yahoo Auctions. Though hey, at least now we know the title:

"オウム」を超えるはずが... / It should surpass Aum...", 876 characters long.

"Aum" by the way is Aum Shinrikyo, the cult terrorist group that conducted the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin gas attack. Which you can imagine really took the chattering classes by storm; it was the culmination of a series of "extremist" actions that began in the 1980's that built up a narrative of societal decay and alarm. It really isn't surprising that Otsuka linked Evangelion to Aum Shinrikyo; the apocalyptic connections were obvious, there was even an episode of the show that had to be changed due to the attacks as the production team thought the events were too similar. And additionally, if this essay was gonna spark a "societal backlash", it has to say something controversial right? I have definitely seen other critics like Hiroki Azuma discussing Eva in relation to Aum as a "social phenomenon" - I am betting Otsuka is the source of that comparison being so ubiquitous.

From other sources like people on twitter and other articles, I can pick up a few other details on what it contained; apparently he referred to Evangelion's finale as a "self-help seminar" for otaku and lambasted the idea of airing one of those on TV. And from his other writings I think you can certainly piece it together - essentially seeing Evangelion's self-involvement and hyper-introspection as a product of the same societal malaise that birthed Aum Shinrikyo, while failing to deliver a solution that could "go beyond" that. Which, the shit you said about media in the 90's, I want a hit of what he's having! But while today its quite obvious that groups like Aum were, sure, saying something about society but turned out overwhelmingly to be fringe weirdos as opposed to canaries in the mental institute coal mine, at the time this was very much the zeitgeist.

Still, I don't really care all that much what it says - its an important artifact! It started the "Eva discourse boom" that broke out of otaku circles and launched Evangelion into a cross-societal phenomenon! We should have a record of it, it should be preserved. I will ruminate on it, and see if any other ideas pop up. And meanwhile if anyone out there happens to see what I missed definitely let me know.

#evangelion history #Ash anime deep dive bullshit #mini-essay

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brf-rumortrackinganon · 6 months ago

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I respect that you don't cover minor children but I am interested if you can find out anything about the Sussex merching Archie. I feels this reflects more on the parents than the innocent child.

September 25, 2019 was the "Arch meets Archie" engagement in South Africa. This was the first real look anyone had of the baby. Fashion label H&M posted Archie's photo on their website with the jumper he was wearing. Almost immediately it was removed bc apparently the UK Advertising Standards Authority will not allow merching of royal children.

I am skeptical that H&M would do this without the parents permission. CP Victoria wears their clothes frequently and they never use her for ads. Perhaps Sunshine Sachs arranged this behind the BRFs back? I bet they could have gotten $500K. This entire incident has been scrubbed from the internet but plenty of articles remain detailing what he wore. Harry merched Dior at the coronation and MM is selling stress patches. I wouldn't put it past them to sell their kid. Apologies if you have already covered this.

Well, my computer blue-screen-of-death'd mid-answer so...shit and I don't feel like rewriting everything.

But essentially, yes. Meghan did try to merch Archie. The one H&M ad is the only sell she could make.

And we know she tried to merch Archie because she tried to sell his baby pictures to a magazine but, obviously, no takers. The proof:

Her PR was dropping hints left and right about it, including how much she was looking for.

She played the "you can only see parts of the baby and not his face" game that all celebs play when they want a People payday for their baby. We didn't get a clear photo of Archie's face until the christening.

The controversy around the rules Meghan and Harry issued to their Windsor neighbors reek of someone who was worried about neighbors selling photos of their kid (and missing out on a payday) than protecting his privacy.

We also know that Meghan was trying to sell/merch Lili too when she was born. We did get similar PR hinting that the opportunity was available and what kind of price Meghan wanted for it and of course, no takers there either since we didn't see her face until her 1st birthday in pictures taken at Frogmore for the Platinum Jubilee. I think Meghan thought that if she made it look like they were back in the royal fold, she'd have an easier time selling Lili's photo but, again, didn't work.

My gut feeling is that she'll try to merch the kids again when they're a little older, especially Lili. Charlotte is 9 now and growing out of cute kiddie clothing. Meghan might try to launch Lili as the next fashionable toddler princess. (But it goes without saying that it won't work because Charlotte entering pre-teen years and being too big for Amaia Kids means a lot of parents are waiting to see what she wears next/how Kate dresses her as an older kid because, let's admit it, girls' fashion these days is...complicated.)

Edit: Archived link for the "too big for Amaia Kids" article

#sussexes #brf

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dedalvs · 11 months ago

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Fiat Lingua Top 10 for 2023

It's time for the annual Fiat Lingua rewind!

Background: I created Fiat Lingua over ten years ago with the idea that it could be something like the Rutgers Optimality Archive: A place where conlangers could post work that they wanted to showcase, or work that was in progress. We've had tons of contributions over the years, and some standout work I'm really proud of.

Using our fancy statistics program (you know, the free version) we're able to determine the top 10 visited posts for this year (though, note, the numbers for the current year's December post will always be down a little bit, since it didn't have a full month. If you'd like to take a look at it, Carsten Becker did a version of "Silent Night" in his conlang Ayeri!). Here they are!

NUMBER 10

"Road Trip Conlanging with Kids" (August, 2023) by Mia DeSanzo: Fiat Lingua is supposed to be an archive of long, detailed conlang articles, and also short, breezy conlang ideas, and this is one of the latter! It's less than a page long, but a fun idea, and it was quite well-received!

NUMBER 9

"Art & Anxiety: Conlanging through impostor syndrome" (February, 2023) by Jessie Sams (now Jessie Peterson): This is a personal reflection by @quothalinguist on how she has dealt with impostor syndrome, and how it's impacted her conlanging.

NUMBER 8

"Taadži Linguistics" (March, 2023) by Lauren Kuffler: This is a wonderful introduction to the Taadži language, which features a writing system reminiscent of Mayan epigraphs.

NUMBER 7

"Tone for Conlangers: A Basic Introduction" (April, 2018) by Aidan Aannestad: Making a second consecutive appearance in the top ten, Aidan Aannestad's introduction to tone has been an invaluable resource for conlangers producing tonal conlangs for just over five years now!

NUMBER 6

"Afrihili: An African Interlanguage" (April, 2014) by William S. Annis: Afrihili is an a posteriori auxlang from the late 60s that uses Bantu languages as its source, and it is fascinating! One of my all-time favorite auxlangs, and William provides a wonderful introduction. Of interest, this article was number 6 in the top ten last year, as well!

NUMBER 5

"Names Aren’t Neutral: David J. Peterson on Creating a Fantasy Language" (March, 2019) by David J. Peterson: Up four spots from last year, this is my article on best practices when coming up with names in a fantasy setting—even when no conlang is present.

NUMBER 4

"Grambank & Language Documentation: Zhwadi and Its Features" (June, 2023) by Jessie Sams (now Jessie Peterson): The first of the game-changing mega-resources for conlanging Jessie created in 2023, this is a short description of how to use Grambank in conlanging with a link to a fillable Google spreadsheet any conlanger can copy and use to introduce their conlang to others.

NUMBER 3

"Patterns of Allophony" (April, 2015) by William S. Annis: Definitely one of the most popular papers on Fiat Lingua, William illustrates graphically a number of very common sound changes. This article once again occupies the third spot of our top ten!

NUMBER 2

"A Conlanger's Thesaurus" (September, 2014) by William S. Annis: We have a new number 1 for this year! This has, historically, been the most accessed article on Fiat Lingua, and it's obvious to see why. The article is relatively short, compared to the information and use you can get out of it. William Annis details ways in which languages relate words to other similar words. For conlangers who struggle either with coming up with words that are different from English in meaning, or who struggle with coming up with words at all, this reference article should prove very useful. Using the word maps in this article, you might be able to come up with words you never dreamt of before, but words which could exist in some language. A great resource for conlangers who are desperately trying to break out of the influence of their L1 or L2!

And now for the top viewed article for 2023 on Fiat Lingua...

NUMBER 1

"A Surreal Conlang" (January, 2023) by David J. Peterson: Quite the surprise! Late 2022 I wrote an article about how one might go about creating a surreal conlang—neither naturalistic nor regular and artificial like an auxlang or engelang—and it went up on Fiat Lingua on January 1st. I think (or hope) it served as a useful jumping off point for conlangers who are looking to try something really different from what they've seen done elsewhere.

* * * * *

And that's it for 2023! I'm looking forward to posting more conlang articles next year. If you are a conlanger, a conlang-researcher, or conlang fan who has something to say in .pdf format about a specific conlang or conlanging in general, please consider submitting something to Fiat Lingua! We take any and all articles related to conlanging in whatever form you have them. I'm also happy to help you think up ideas, or refine those ideas you have. There is no strong review like in a fancy journal: I just want to get what you have up. I'm especially in interested in hosting personal conlang stories—stories about how or why you started to create a language, or your experience creating your own language—personal stories that are often lost, but are so vital, as there is an absolute dearth of literature about conlangers! If you think you have even the seed of an idea, please get a hold of me! I want to share as many stories and ideas as I can.

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laurelwen · 2 months ago

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Obscure Media: Macabre Myths and Psychological Puzzles: Gregory Read on Like Minds

by Rjurik Davidson, Metro Magazine #151, Jan 2006

Once again a little gem brought to us courtesy of @widowswinter who managed to pull this one up before I could figure out how to get a copy. Working some serious magic out here.

This article comes to us from volume 151 of Metro Magazine, another Australian film publication. This particular article isn't available on their archive, but you can find the issue listed on their website here. I also found this site listing the article, but wasn't able to access it personally.

I have a lot of thoughts about Greg's responses here, but I will save my editorializing for another post. While there are some bits here that are actually illuminating, it's mostly just Greg being peak "Gregory J Read" about his movie. Ultimately: the author is dead. Greg has his own ideas about the movie he made, and the rest of us have ours. His intentions mean little in face of how everyone else approaches and interprets the film.

Below the break is the full text of the interview.

You’ve said that if you’re going to make a film, make it about something fascinating. What is it that excites you about this film?

Rather than say ‘fascinating’, I think you should make something that you can sink your teeth into, something that, I hate to say, you can ‘relate to’ – especially because it’s about sociopathy – but that is going to be engaging for an audience. There are so many projects out of America, where the film means nothing to the makers, it’s just homogenized, plastic rubbish. I find so many films really are just perfunctory. I wanted to explore a story which drew on psychology; rather than just shooting frame by frame, ask ‘What’s actually behind the frames?’ And that’s what appealed to me about this particular story.

It’s deeply interested in the macabre, in the occult, religious history, in half-forgotten histories. What attracts you to these elements, and what do you think attracts viewers?

I think it’s a fascination in psychology, a fascination in our own history and our identity – where we come from. All those elements are to do with obsession and control and Alex’s understanding of history and his lineage. For Nigel it was a matter of knowing where he came from also, so he could understand his own identity and give himself a place in the world. I think that sort of fascination appeals to all of us. We’re all curious about where we originally came from, what our lineage is, what is history, and how it informs our existence and us as individuals. How did we come to be where we are now? And the darker side of history too is quite fascinating – certainly for me – because it’s something which has existed forever and a day. Go back to the dawn of man: we’ve always had these myths, and this look at life, that are quite frightening. But they do inform us of where we are and where we come from.

It strikes me that these macabre stories involving say, the occult, or in this case the myth of Maraclea, touch a part of the modern psyche.

You know these fables – that one’s a twelfth century fable – it’s incredible how they do exist in our society, how people do draw on those sorts of ideas. Not necessarily Maraclea, but certainly other fables and ideas about history. I don’t see Maraclea as being [about] the occult. I see it more as a very strange look at how people believed that they could garner power from obscure and strange and mystical events. [Drawing] power from something as macabre as Maraclea is quite disturbing, and if you’re going to have someone who’s a sociopath who wants to draw on history, and is obsessive about history, what an amazing fable to draw on. Because you can utilize that and create something in the modern world that draws back off that original fable. And there are people around today that do still believe in these old world ideas and try to draw them into some kind of modern context. I think that’s quite disturbing – very disturbing.

Which is the case in the film. It’s what’s going on with the character of Nigel.

Well, he’s using it for a number of reasons. He’s using it to draw Alex into his world, as well – because he was aware of the fable, but without the help of Alex, he could never fulfill it. So it’s part of his obsession, but [also] part of his controlling another being. Sociopaths like to be in control of their environment. So when someone comes into close proximity they try to draw them into their world …

Which brings us to one of the other main ideas in the film, which is Gestalt psychology. The two boys are in some ways latent psychopaths or sociopaths, and they bring this out in each other. It’s a fascinating idea – in your research you discovered that most psychopaths are latent.

That really intrigued me. The American Psychiatric Society released some figures that said that four per cent of the population is sociopathic: one per cent female, three per cent male. I thought, ‘My God, that means they’re everywhere!’ If you take two latent sociopaths, who are going to go on to become merchant bankers or tops of industry (they’re saying most of the sociopaths are actually heads of industry. Because they’re remorseless, they’re without conscience). These are the individuals that you’ve got to watch out for because they don’t give a fuck: they’re going to take you for everything they possibly can, and they’d be happy to cut down companies and close them up. If you have that many people in society it means we’ve all come into contact with one in our time. That’s where the genesis of the story came from, because if these people exist, what would happen if you threw two of them into a room? And you end up with something like gestalt. Would it create something bigger between them, and then, what would that be?

The script has a real density to it – there are a lot of elements to keep under control: the history of the Knights Templar, the myth of Maraclea, Gestalt psychology, and how these relate to the situation of the two boys. Can you say anything about the process of writing it? What were some of the challenges?

I had to really delve into the characters first. So I read material on forensic psychology, on juvenile psychology, on sociopathy, psychopathy and APD (anti-social personality disorder), which is what it’s all under the umbrella of. And then I tried to understand: was it nature versus nurture? I studied forensic psychologists’ notes on case studies, but tried to get into the heads of these sociopaths so I could understand what their true motivations would be, what would happen if you threw them together.

Once I’d done that – it was quite deeply disturbing; your head goes numb with this material – I wrote a treatment and understood how these characters would bounce off each other. I wrote the script, and realized it had to have a strong narrative flow to be able to engage the audience. Otherwise, if it was just an intensive study of psychology, people would be yawning in ten minutes because it’s just not interesting. So I decided to weave two storylines and I thought I should make the story gestalt: to have a fore-story and back-story but weave them in such a way that they create something bigger than themselves. So my storyline is going to be a gestalt flow-through and I decided to tell some of the story out of context. Some things are told back to front, some things are forwards – a lot of people don’t necessarily notice that, but it’s a psychological puzzle. That was part of the process of writing it as a challenge, to see whether it would work.

I sent it out to a producer to look at it, and he just said, ‘Yeah, that really works well.’ He sent it in to the AWGIES [Australian Writers’ Guild Awards] and that’s when it got nominated for the Monty Miller [Award for an unproduced script]. I was so surprised when that happened. And I thought, ‘OK, it works!’ But it was a long process. Even though I wrote it over a six-week period, it took years to really hone it. The original draft was about one hundred and thirty pages and it was too dense and too complex, so I had to simplify elements, but at the same time not to lose the integrity of the story … that it is a psychological study. And that everything that’s told is real. I didn’t want it to be red herrings. I didn’t want to have the situation where Alex is telling a story and then you realize, ‘Oh, it’s all a lie.’ It’s not. The thing about psychology is it doesn’t have to be a lie. The mind is dark and dense, and why can’t a story do the same thing? Whether some people get the depth of it or some people don’t doesn’t really matter. Everyone’s welcome to take it the way they want; people come to me afterwards and say, ‘I got that through line’, or ‘I really got into the psychology.’ It was a challenge but it paid off.

You managed to get some really strong performances from the actors, especially Eddie Redmayne and Toni Collette. How did you go about working with them?

Pretty closely. I sent a lot of material to Toni explaining to her how forensic psychologists truly work. She’s an amazing actress. She’s a chameleon, but I wanted to give her information that was from real forensic psychologists. So I sent her reams of information: studies on psychology from forensic psychologists, papers from forensic psychologists, to inform her of the characters that truly exist out there, and then let her bring what she wanted to that character. At the same time I made sure that it was in tune with where I wanted to be, where I wanted her to sit in the story. It was wonderful. The first day of rehearsal I was thinking, ‘Ok, here we go, I don’t know how she has interpreted this.’ I hadn’t really spoken to her. She sat down in front of me and she started saying these wonderful passages of dialogue perfectly. I just sat there and went, ‘My goodness, that’s exactly where I want you to be, give or take a little bit here.’ It was a matter of honing her rather than [getting her to] create something new.

With the boys [Eddie Redmayne and Tom Sturridge], it was a whole new experience for them. Eddie had never worked in film before, so he really needed to be moulded a little bit more. He was like clay: he allowed me to get into his head and inform him of where that character would be, and I’d give him motivation and concepts that may not necessarily be on the page, but ideas that would put him into that frame, that headspace. He’d start to feel that and you could see it in his posture, his emotional state, which is testament to a wonderful actor. Then I’d say, ‘Action’, and he delivered his lines in that state and he did it every time, even when we cut between a shot we did three months before. We did shots in Australia because I needed the wideness of the location, but we couldn’t possibly shoot the close-ups on the same day, because we had a very strict shooting schedule. We ended up doing them in Leeds at the end of the shoot. It was the last part, we’re doing these close-ups and they were just spot on. I just put him back in the space, he knew the script, he’d worked out his beats. He was just wonderful.

This is your first feature film, before that you were a documentary director. How did you find the transition?

It felt fairly natural, maybe because I’d written the script … I’d had the characters in my head [and] it was more a matter of making sure that’s what I got – a truthful performance. I was so focused on that and the look of the film and the sense of the backgrounds, the sets, the cinematography. Everything for me was part of the mise en scène. I wanted to let the set and let the cinematography be part of the psychology of the film. So I was so conscious of all of that, I was so conscious of my performances being number one, and just being truthful to what was on the page. It wasn’t till I finished shooting: ‘Oh my goodness, I think I just did it!’

I did storyboard the whole film, from go to whoa, every shot. It’s not exactly how I shot it. Sometimes you get the location and it’s not going to be exactly like that, but it was a good process, to take the screenplay, put it in a drawing form that informed the cinematographer and the production designer about what I wanted to do. I had visual references from other films and things: style, colour, texture. Working with people like Steven Jones Evans, who’s an amazing production designer, and Nigel Black as the DP and the music by Carlo Giacco – all of those elements – it was a wonderful process of collaboration. I think that’s where my head was at mostly. Coming from documentary to that felt strangely natural. And it’s normally not.

Can you tell us a bit about your next projects?

I’m working on a number of different projects, at different stages. I’ve just got back from L.A. where I’m represented by a great agent and I’m seeing lots of people … It’s great to be in a situation with these great producers who really enjoyed my film and are willing to consider me. I don’t like talking about future projects at all, unless they’re actually signed on the dotted line. A lot of people do talk about them, and I don’t agree with that. That’s why no one knew anything about Like Minds. It’s just personal. I think you’ve got to focus on what you’re doing and you move forward. I’m thrilled that the Americans enjoyed the film. I’m thrilled it’s sold all over the world. It just means it’s a universal story that people can relate to. What will I do next? I’ll see what opportunity fronts itself first that I can do something with.

[Like Minds Masterpost - Main]

#myths and murder is nigel's version of dungeons and dragons #so much of this is so funny to read now #oh greg #like minds #tom sturridge #eddie redmayne #murderous intent #like minds 2006 #nigel colbie #alex forbes #like minds media

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