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[askkwieon]

Hihi lookat my gals

Guest starring Malkoa Brenie, Zav's twin sister and true heir to the throne (except she's hella dead rip)

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[ramonag-if]

Chapter 8 Release Dates

I hope everyone is having a lovely Christmas Eve 🎄 Testing is quickly drawing to a close in Chapter 8, so I wanted to let you know the release dates in advance.

25 December 2023: Patrons of Cyre Tier and up;

28 December 2023: Patrons of the Nomad Tier;

1 January 2024: Public Release.

Please note that Chapter 8 will be the last chapter update for the public demo. Further chapters will be released only to my Patrons and the full game will be for sale on Steam and itch.io when it is completed.

If you would like to support me, consider joining my Patreon for early access to chapters, sneak peeks of scenes and upcoming chapters, bonus side stories and the ocassional smutty side story as voted for by Patrons.

I hope you have a wonderful and joyous holiday and if you're a Scrooge like me, I hope you get to stuff your dislike of Christmas with lots of good food instead 😄

[fanterfane]

Skibbidy! (Sketch)

Bro you've been watching too many late night cartoons, don't you know Robot Chicken is the only good one? That or maybe Xavier Renegade Angel... ... The fuck is a Rick and Morty? That sounds dumb as hell dude, almost as much as that "minecraft" game you mentioned earlier. Snap out of it dude, we gotta take back this killstreak- If you're really wanting to watch weird stuff we'll go to Blockbuster later, or maybe Movie Gallery cause they've got the ooze tubes at the checkout- ... No, I'm not gonna try to convince my mom to invest my college fund in "google stock", you KNOW I use Netscape- Why are you trying to get me to invest money into things all of a sudden? Are you psychotic!? You ruined my concentration for this game. You know what, keep your crazy ranting to yourself, I'm going to subway for a 5$ footlong. ... Who the fuck is Jared?? Isn't that the guy in the ads? Dude, gross, I'm out of here, smell ya later. ---- If only they knew... A quick sketch I made because I love the idea of anachronistic time travel!

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[foundry-fabrications]

Finally, was starting to think I'd never get anything released! Y'all ready to ROCK?!

Now, just to get this out of the way, I was really hoping to have something else done for y'all by now, that thing being the update to Flesh and Bone I mentioned in my last update post. Mechanically, it's done and has been for a while, and I'm VERY pleased with how it's coming along. However, it's proving to be a frustrating challenge to get it formatted with artwork that doesn't look awful. So, I took a much-needed break to work on something else and it's going on the back burner. It'll be out when it's out.

So what's this new thing I bring before you this day? With my main D&D campaign wrapping up, I've been working on a absolute TON of custom stuff for a new character, so that's taken up a lot of my creative energy. Now that we've had our first session and my work is done, I can pretty it up for y'all!

As one may surmise, I'm playing a heavy metal bard, so I put this together based on a combination of an existing college of metal I found on D&Dwiki and Matt Mercer's college of the maestro. The metalheads among you may have also noticed that yes, each feature and solo are named after metal songs, a lot of bangers too. Having run a combat with it, I'm already really happy with it mechanically and since it's my newest character it will be getting LOTS of playtesting. 

Another thing to mention is the little sidebar at the end. For this campaign I'm playing the 2024 playtest version of the new bard so that's what this was originally built for.  However, since most won't be playing it, I reworked it for the existing bard and added a way to "update" it for the new one for those who want it. For future content I would like to do something similar depending on how extensive the changes are, but we'll see how things shake out.

Anyway, I'm really pleased with how it turned out. A little sparse in the art department, but I think the theme I picked does a lot to carry it. Plus, I genuinely couldn't come up with anything that looked better, so hey, I'm not gonna let perfect be the enemy of done.

Anyway, that's all I got for now. So glad to actually be working on stuff again. Stay safe, don't forget to love each other, and I'll see you again soon.

Enjoy my work? Consider leaving me a Tip or supporting me on Patreon! Patrons gain access to high quality PDFs for all of my content, weekly updates, early access, and more!

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[innuendostudios]

I was invited to give a talk on GamerGate over Zoom in early 2021. I've long been frustrated that there isn't a good timeline of GG and its origins on YouTube. When people ask "what the hell was GG anyway?" they often get referred to my or Dan Olson's videos on the subject, but both of them were made while GG was ongoing, and presumed a degree of familiarity on the part of the audience. There was just too much to say about what was already happening to spend time getting the audience up to speed, and it was safe to assume our audiences had enough context to follow along. But time moves fast on the internet, and many people who now care about such things weren't there while it was happening, and are lacking the necessary context to follow the better videos. For a long time, I've only been able to direct them to RationalWiki's timeline, which is excellent but so exhaustively comprehensive that it's likely to scare off first-timers.

I realize an hourlong lecture isn't necessarily helping matters, but the first 20-or-so minutes of this video are my attempt at streamlining the timeline such that people can be up to speed on the most important stuff fairly quickly. The rest is talking about what it all meant, how it prefigured the Alt-Right, and using it to better understand digital radicalization.

This video was made with the help of Magdalen Rose, who edited the slides to the audio while I was laid up with a back injury. Go sub to her channel! And please back me on Patreon.

Transcript below the cut.

FUCKING VIDEO GAMES? FUCKING VIDEO GAMES. THEY MADE DOZENS OF PEOPLE MISERABLE FOR YEARS OVER VIDEO GAMES! NOT EVEN FUCKING VIDEO GAMES, FUCKING ARTICLES ABOUT FUCKING VIDEO GAMES. THIS IS WHAT PASSES FOR LEGITIMATE GRIEVANCE. ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS SHIT??

Hi! My name is Ian Danskin. I’m a video essayist and media artist. I run the YouTube channel Innuendo Studios, please like share and subscribe.

I’m here to talk to you about GamerGate, and I needed to get all that out of the way. I’m going to talk about what GamerGate was and how it prefigured The Alt-Right, and there are gonna be moments where you’re nodding along with me, going, “yeah, yeah I get it,” and then the sun’s gonna break through a crack in the wall and you’ll suddenly remember that all this is happening because some folks - mostly ladies - said some stuff - provably true stuff, I might add - about video games and a bunch of guys didn’t like it, and you’re gonna want to rip your hair out. By the end of this, you will have a better understanding of what happened, but it will never not be bullshit.

Also, oh my god, content warning. Racism, sexism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, rape threats, threats of violence, domestic abuse - I’m not going to depict or describe at length any of the worst stuff, but it’s all in the mix. So if at any point you need to switch me off or mute me, you have my blessing.

Brace yourselves.

Some quick prehistory:

In 2012, feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian ran a Kickstarter campaign for a YouTube series on sexist tropes in video games. And, partway through the campaign, 4chan found it and said “let’s ruin her life.” And a lot of the male general gaming public joined in. And by “ruin her life” I’m not talking 150 angry tweets including dozens of rape and death threats per week, though that was a thing. I’m talking bomb threats. I’m talking canceled speaking engagements because someone threatened to shoot up a school. I’m talking FBI investigation. The harassers faced no meaningful repercussions.

And in 2013, Zoe Quinn released Depression Quest, a free text game about living with depression. They received harassment off and on for the next year, most pointedly from an incel forum called Wizardchan that doxxed their phone number and made harassing phone calls telling them to kill themself. The harassers faced no meaningful repercussions.

(Also, quick note: Zoe Quinn is nonbinary and has come out since the events in question. When I call Zoe’s harassment misogynist, understand I am not calling Zoe a woman, but they were attacked by people who hate women because that’s how they were perceived. Had they been out at the time things probably would’ve gone down similarly, but on top of misogyny I’d be talking about nonbinary erasure and transphobia.)

Okay. Our story begins in August 2014. The August that never ended.

Depression Quest, after a prolonged period on Greenlight, finally releases on Steam as a free download with the option to pay what you want. In the days that follow, Zoe’s ex-boyfriend, Eron Gjoni, writes a nearly 10,000-word blog called The Zoe Post, in which he claims Quinn had been a shitty and unfaithful partner. (For reference, 10,000 words is long enough that the Hugos would consider it a novelette.) This is posted to forums on Penny Arcade and Something Awful, both of which immediately take it down, finding it, at best, a lot of toxic hearsay and, at worse, an invitation to harassment. So Gjoni workshops the post, adds a bunch of edgelord humor (and I am using the word “humor” very generously), and reposts it to three different subforums on 4chan.

We’re not going to litigate whether Zoe Quinn was a good partner. I don’t know or care. I don’t think anyone on this call is trying to date them so I’m not sure that’s our business. What is known is that the relationship lasted five months, and, after it ended, Gjoni began stalking Quinn. Gjoni has, in fact, laid out how he stalked Quinn in meticulous detail to interviewers and why he feels it was justified. It’s also been corroborated by a friend that Quinn briefly considered taking him back at a games conference in San Francisco, but he became violent during sex and Quinn left the apartment in the middle of the night with visible bruises.

Off of the abusive ex-boyfriend’s post, 4chan decides it’s going to make Zoe Quinn one of their next targets, and starts a private IRC channel to plan the campaign. The channel is called #BurgersAndFries, a reference to Gjoni claiming Quinn had cheated on him with five guys. A couple sentences in The Zoe Post - which Gjoni would later claim were a typo - imply that one of the five guys was games journalist Nathan Grayson and that Quinn had slept with him in exchange for a good review of Depression Quest. Given the anger that they’d seen drummed up against women in games with the previous Anita Sarkeesian hate mob, #BurgersAndFries decides to focus on this breach of “ethics in games journalism” as a cover story, many of them howling with laughter at the thought that male gamers would probably buy it. This way, destroying Quinn’s life and career and turning their community against them would appear an unfortunate byproduct of a legitimate consumer revolt; criticism of the harassment could even be framed as a distraction from the bigger issue. Gjoni himself is in the IRC channel telling them that this was the best hand to play.

The stated aim of many on #BurgersAndFries was to convince Quinn to commit suicide.

Two regulars in the IRC, YouTubers MundaneMatt and Internet Aristocrat, make videos about The Zoe Post. Incidentally, both these men had already made a lot of money off videos about Anita Sarkeesian. Matt’s is swiftly taken down with a DMCA claim, and he says that Quinn filed the claim themself. (For the record, in those days, YouTube didn’t tell you who filed DMCA claims against you.) Members of the IRC also reach out to YouTuber TotalBiscuit, who had been critical of Sarkeesian and dismissive of her harassment, and he tweets the story to his 350,000 followers, saying a game developer trading sex for a good review might not prove true, but was certainly plausible.

This is where GamerGate begins to get public traction.

Zoe Quinn is very swiftly doxxed, with their phone number, home address, nudes, and names and numbers of their family collected. Gjoni himself leaks their birth name. The Zoe Post, and the movement against Quinn - now dubbed “The Quinnspiracy” - make it to The Escapist and Reddit, which mods will have little luck removing. The Quinnspiracy declares war on any site that does take their threads down, most vehemently NeoGAF. People who defend Zoe against the harassment start getting doxxed themselves - Fez developer Phil Fish is doxxed so thoroughly, hackers get access to the root folder of his website.

In what I’m going to call This Should Have Been The End, Part 1, Stephen Totilo, Editor-in-Chief at Kotaku where Nathan Grayson worked, in response to pressure not just from The Quinnspiracy but an increasing number of angry gamers buying The Quinnspiracy’s narrative, publishes a story. In it he verifies that Quinn and Grayson did date for several months, and that not only is there no review of Depression Quest anywhere on Kotaku, not by Grayson nor anyone else, but that Grayson did not write a single word about Quinn the entire time they were dating.

In response, The Quinnspiracy declares war on Kotaku. r/KotakuinAction is formed, which will become the primary site of organization outside of chanboards. The fact that their entire “movement” is based on a review that does not exist changes next to nothing.

Some people start to see The Quinnspiracy as potentially profitable. The Fine Young Capitalists get involved, a group ostensibly working to get women into video games but who have a Byzantine plan to do so wherein they crowdfund the budget and the woman who wins a competition gets to storyboard a game, but another company will make and she will get 8% of the profits, the rest going to a charity chosen by the top donor. 4chan becomes the top donor. They like TFYC because the head of the company has a vendetta against Zoe Quinn, who had previously called them out for their transphobic submission policy, and he falsely accused Quinn of having once doxxed him. 4chan feels backing an ostensibly feminist effort will be good PR, but can’t resist selecting a colon cancer charity because, they say, feminism is cancer and they want to be the cure to butthurt. They also get to design a character for the game, and so they create Vivian James, who will become the GamerGate mascot.

Manosphere YouTubers Jordan Owen and Davis Aurini launch a Patreon campaign for their antifeminist documentary The Sarkeesian Effect and come to The Quinnspiracy looking for $15,000 a month for an indefinite period to make it, which they get.

In what will prove genuinely awful timing, Anita Sarkeesian releases the second episode of Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, and, despite not being a games journalist and having nothing to do with Quinn or Grayson, she is immediately roped into the narrative about how feminists are ruining games culture and becomes the second major target of harassment. Both she and Quinn soon have to leave their houses after having receiving dozens and dozens of death threats that include their home addresses.

After being courted by members of the IRC channel, Firefly star Adam Baldwin tweets a link to one of the Quinnspiracy videos and coins the hashtag #GamerGate. This is swiftly adopted by all involved.

In response to all this, Leigh Alexander writes a piece for Gamasutra arguing that the identity that these men are flocking to the “ethics in games journalism” narrative to defend no longer matters as a marketing demographic. Gaming and games culture is so large and so varied, and the “core gamer” audience of 18-34 white bros growing smaller and septic, that there was no reason, neither morally nor financially, to treat them as the primary audience anymore. Love of gaming is eternal, but, she declared, “gamers,” as an identity, “are over.” Eight more articles contextualizing GamerGate alongside misogyny and the gatekeeping of games culture come out across several websites in the following days. GamerGate frames these as a clear sign of [deep sigh] collusion to oppress gamers, proving that ethics in games journalism is, indeed, broken, and Leigh Alexander becomes the third major target of harassment. These become known as the “gamers are dead” articles - a phrase not one of them uses - and they make “get Leigh Alexander fired from Gamasutra” one of their primary goals.

Something I need you to understand is that it has, at this point, been two weeks.

Highlights from the next little bit: Alex Macris, a higher up at The Escapist’s parent company, expresses support for GamerGate; he will go on to write the first positive coverage at a major publication and cement The Escapist as GamerGate-friendly. Mike Cernovich, aka “Based Lawyer,” gets GamerGate’s attention by mocking Anita Sarkeesian; he will go on to hire a private investigator to stalk Zoe Quinn. GamerGate launches Operation Disrespectful Nod, an email campaign pressuring companies to pull advertising from websites that have criticized them. They leverage their POC members, getting them, any time someone points out the rampant racism and antisemitism among GamerGaters, to say “I am a person of color and I am #NotYourShield”; most of these “POC members” are fake accounts left over from a previous, racist disinformation campaign. Milo Yiannapoulos gets involved, writing positive coverage of GG despite having mocked gamers for precisely this behavior in the past, and gets so much traffic it pulls Breitbart News out of obscurity and makes it a significant player in modern conservative news media.

[Hey! Ian from the future here. This talk mostly addresses how GamerGate prefigured the Alt-Right strategically and philosophically, but if you want a more explicit, material connection: Breitbart News took its newfound notoriety to become, as its Executive Chair phrased it in 2016, "a platform for the Alt-Right." That Executive Chair was Steve Bannon, who threw the website's weight behind The Future President Who Shall Not Be Named, and, upon getting his attention, would then go on to become his campaign strategist and work in his Administration. So, if you're wondering how one of the central figures of the Alt-Right ended up in the White House, the answer is literally "GamerGate." Back to you, Ian from the past!]

In what I’m calling This Should Have Been The End, Part 2, Zoe Quinn announces that they have been lurking the #BurgersAndFries IRC channel since the beginning and releases dozens of screenshots showing harassment being planned and the selection of “ethics in games journalism” as a cover. #BurgersAndFries has a meltdown, everyone turns on each other, and the channel is abandoned. And they then start another IRC and things proceed.

It goes on like this. I’m not gonna cover everything. This is just the first month. It should be clear by now that this thing is kind of unkillable. And I worry I haven’t made it obvious that this is not just a chanboard and an IRC. Thousands of regular, every day gamers were buying the story and joining in. They were angry, and no amount of evidence that their anger was unfounded was going to change that. You could not mention or even allude to GamerGate and not get flooded with dozens, even hundreds of furious replies. These replies always included the hashtag so everyone monitoring it could join in, so all attempts at real conversation devolved into a hundred forking threads where some people expected you to talk to them while others hurled insults and slurs. And always the possibility that, if any one of them didn’t like what you said, you’d be the next target.

To combat this, some progressives offered up the hashtag #GameEthics to the people getting swept up in GamerGate, saying, “look, we get that you’re angry, and if you want to talk about ethics in games journalism, we can totally do that, but using your hashtag is literally putting us in danger; they calling the police on people saying there’s a hostage situation at their home addresses so they get sent armed SWAT teams, and if you’ll just use this other hashtag we can have the conversation you say you want to have in safety.” And I will ever stop being salty about what happened.

They refused. They wouldn’t cede any ground to what they saw as their opposition. It was so important to have the conversation on their terms that not only did they refuse to use #GameEthics, they spammed it with furry porn so no one could use it.

A few major events on the timeline before we move on: Christina Hoff Sommers, the Republican Party’s resident “feminist,” comes out criticizing Anita Sarkeesian and becomes a major GG figurehead, earning the title Based Mom. Zoe Quinn gets a restraining order against Eron Gjoni, which he repeatedly violates, to no consequence; GG will later crowdfund his legal fees. There’s this listserv called GameJournoPros where game journalists would talk about their jobs, and many are discussing their concerns over GamerGate, so Milo Yiannopoulos leaks it and this is framed as further “proof of collusion.” 4chan finally starts enforcing its “no dox” rules and shuts GamerGate threads down, so they migrate to 8chan, a site famous for hosting like a lot of child porn. Indie game developer Brianna Wu makes a passing joke about GamerGate on Twitter and they decide, seemingly on a whim, to make her one of the biggest targets in the entire movement; she soon has to leave her home as well. GamerGate gets endorsements from WikiLeaks, Infowars, white nationalist sites Stormfront and The Daily Stormer, and professional rapist RooshV. And hundreds of people get doxxed; an 8chan subforum called Baphomet is created primarily to host dox of GamerGate’s critics.

But by November, GamerGate popularity was cresting, as more and more mainstream media covered it negatively. Their last, big spike in popularity came when Anita Sarkeesian went on The Colbert Report and Stephen made fun of the movement. Their numbers never recovered after that.

Which is not to say GamerGate ended. It slowed down. The period of confusion where the mainstream world couldn’t tell whether it was a legitimate movement or not passed. But, again, most harassers faced no meaningful repercussions. Gamers who bought the lie about “ethics in games journalism” stayed mad that no one had ever taken them seriously, and harassers continued to grief their targets for years. The full timeline of GamerGate is an constant cycle of lies, harassment, operations, grift, and doxxing. Dead-enders are to this day still using the hashtag. And remember how Anita had nothing to do with ethics in games journalism or Zoe Quinn, and they just roped her in because they’d enjoyed harassing her before so why not? Every one of GamerGate’s targets knows that they may get dragged into some future harassment campaign just because. It’s already happened to several of them. They’re marked.

(sigh) Let’s take a breath.

Now that we know what GamerGate was, let’s talk about why it worked.

In the thick of GamerGate, I started compiling a list of tactics I saw them using. I wanted to make a video essay that was one part discussion of antifeminist backlash, and one part list of techniques these people use so we can better recognize and anticipate their behavior. That first part became six parts and the second part went on a back burner. It would eventually become my series, The Alt-Right Playbook. GamerGate is illustrative because most of what would become The Alt-Right Playbook was in use.

Two foundational principles of The Alt-Right Playbook are Control the Conversation and Never Play Defense. Make sure people are talking about what you want them to talk about, and take an aggressive posture so you look dominant even when you’re not making sense. For instance: once Zoe leaked the IRC chatlogs, a reasonable person could tell the average gater, “the originators of GamerGate were planning harassment from the very beginning.” But the gater would say, “you’re cherry-picking; not everyone was a harasser.”

Now, this is a bad argument - that’s not how you use “cherry-picking” - and it’s being framed as an accusation - you’re not just wrong, you’re dishonest - which makes you wanna defend yourself. But, if you do - if you tell them why that argument is crap - you’ve let the conversation move from “did the IRC plan harassment?” - a question of fact - to “are the harassers representative of the movement?” - a question of ethics. Like, yes, they are, but only within a certain moral framework. An ethics question has no provable answer, especially if people are willing to make a lot of terrible arguments. It is their goal to move any question with a definitive answer to a question of philosophy, to turn an argument they can’t win into an argument nobody can win.

The trick is to treat the question you asked like it’s already been answered and bait you into addressing the next question. By arguing about whether you’re cherry-picking, you’re accepting the premise that whether you’re cherry-picking is even relevant. Any time this happens, it’s good to pause and ask, “what did we just skip over?” Because that will tell you a lot.

What you skipped over is their admission that, yes, the IRC did plan harassment, but that’s only on them if most of the movement was in on it. Which is a load of crap - the rest of the IRC saw it happening, let it happen, it’s not like anybody warned Zoe, and shit, I’m having the cherry-picking argument! They got me! You see how tempting it is? But presumably the reason you brought the harassment up is because you want them to do something about it. At the very least, leave the movement, but ideally try and stop it. They don’t, strictly speaking, need to feel personally responsible to do that. And you might be thinking, well, maybe if I can get them take responsibility then they’ll do something, but you’d be falling for a different technique I call I Hate Mondays.

This is where people will acknowledge a terrible thing is happening, maybe even agree it’s bad, but they don’t believe anything can be done about it. They also don’t believe you believe anything can be done about it. Mondays suck, but they come around every week. This is never stated outright, but it’s why you’re arguing past each other. To them, the only reason to talk about the bad thing is to assign blame. Whose turn is it to get shit on for the unsolvable problem? Their argument about cherry-picking amounts to “1-2-3 not it.” And they are furious with you for trying to make them responsible for harassment they didn’t participate in.

The unspoken argument is that harassment is part of being on the internet. Every public figure deals with it. This ignores any concept of scale - why does one person get harassed more than another? - but you can’t argue with someone who views it as a binary: harassment either happens or it doesn’t, and, if it does, it’s a fact of life, and, if it happens to everyone, it’s not gendered. And this is not a strongly-held belief they’ve come to after years of soul-searching - this is what they’ve just decided they believe. They want to participate in GamerGate despite knowing its purpose, and this is what would need to be true for that to be ok.

Or maybe they’re just fucking with you! Maybe you can’t tell. Maybe they can’t tell, either. I call this one The Card Says Moops, where people say whatever they feel will score points in an argument and are so irony-poisoned they have no idea whether they actually believe it. A very useful trick if the thing you appear to believe is unconscionable. You can’t take what people like that say at face value; you can only intuit their beliefs from their actions. They say they believe this one minute and that another, but their behavior is always in accordance with that, not this.

In the negative space, their belief is, “The harassment of these women is okay. My anger about video games is more important. I may not be harassing them myself, but they do kind of deserve it.” They will never say this out loud in a serious conversation, though many will say it in an anonymous or irreverent space where they can later deny they meant it. But, whatever they say they believe, this is the worldview they are operating under.

Obscuring this means flipping through a lot of contradictory arguments. The harassment is being faked, or it’s not being faked but it’s being exaggerated, or it’s not being exaggerated but the target is provoking it to get attention, which means GamerGate harassers simultaneously don’t exist, exist in small numbers, and exist in such large numbers someone can build a career out of relying on them! It can be kind of fun to take all these arguments made in isolation and try to string together an actual position. Like, GamerGate would argue that Nathan Grayson having previously mentioned Zoe Quinn in an article about a canceled reality show counts as positive coverage, and since Grayson reached out to Quinn for comment it’s reasonable to assume they started dating before the article was published (which is earlier than they claim), and positive coverage did lead to greater popularity for Depression Quest. But if you untangle that, it’s like… okay, you’re saying Zoe Quinn slept with a journalist in exchange for four nonconsecutive sentences that said no more than “Zoe Quinn exists and made a game,” and the price of those four sentences was to date the journalist for months, all to get rich off a game that didn’t cost any money. That’s your movement?

And some, if cornered, would say, “yes, we believe women are just that shitty, that one would fuck a guy for months if it made them the tiniest bit more famous.” But they won’t lead with that. Because they know it won’t convince the normies, even the ones who want to be convinced. So they use a process I call The Ship of Theseus to, piece by piece, turn that sentence into “slept with a journalist in exchange for a good review” and argue that each part of the sentence is technically accurate. It’s trying to lie without lying. And, provided all the pieces of this sentence are discussed separately, and only in the context of how they justify this sentence, you can trick yourself into believing this sentence is mostly true.

So, like, why? This is clearly motivated reasoning; what’s the motivation? What was this going to accomplish?

The answer is nothing. Nothing, by design. GamerGate’s “official” channels - the subreddit and the handful of forums that didn’t shut them down - were rigidly opposed to any action more organized than an email campaign. They had a tiny handful of tangible demands - they wanted gaming websites to post public ethics policies and had a list of people they wanted fired - but their larger aim was the sea change in how games journalism operated, which nothing they were asking for could possibly give them. The kind of anger that convinces you this is a true statement is not going to be addressed by a few paragraphs about ethics and Leigh Alexander getting a new job. They wanted gaming sites to stop catering to women and “SJWs” - who were a sizable and growing source of traffic - and to get out of the pockets of companies that advertised on their websites - which was their primary source of income. So all Kotaku had to do to make them happy was solve capitalism!

Meanwhile, the unofficial channels, like 8chan and Baphomet, were planning op after op to get private information, spread lies with fake accounts, get disinformation trending, make people quit jobs, cancel gigs, and flee their homes. Concrete goals with clear results. All you had to do to feel productive was go rogue. In my video,

How to Radicalize a Normie, I describe how the Alt-Right encourages lone wolf behavior by whipping people up into a rage and then refusing to give them anything to do, while surrounding them with examples of people taking matters into their own hands. The same mechanism is in play here: the public-facing channels don’t condone harassment but also refuse to fight it, the private channels commit it under cover of anonymity, and there is a free flow of traffic between them for when the official channels’ impotence becomes unbearable.

What I hope I’m illustrating is how these techniques play off of each other, how they create a closed ecosystem that rational thought cannot enter. There’s a phrase we use on the internet that got thrown around a lot at the time:

you can’t logic someone out of a position they didn’t logic themselves into.

Now, there are a few other big topics I think are relevant here, so I want to go through them one by one.

MEMEIFICATION

So a lot of interactions with GamerGate would involve a very insular knowledge base.

Like, you’d say something benign but progressive on Twitter.

A gater would show up in your mentions and say something aggressive and false.

You’d correct them. But then they’d come back and hit you with -

ah shit, sorry, this is a Loss meme.

If I were in front of a classroom I’d ask, show of hands, how many of you got that? I had to ask Twitter recently, does Gen Z know about Loss?!

If you don’t know what Loss is I’m not sure I can explain it to you. It’s this old, bad webcomic that was parodied so, so, so many times

that it was reduced to its barest essentials, to the point where any four panels with shapes in this arrangement is a Loss meme. For those of you in the know, you will recognize this anywhere, but have you ever tried to explain to someone who wasn’t in the know why this is really fuckin’ funny?

So, now… by the same process that this is a comics joke,

this is a rape joke.

I’m not gonna show the original image, but, once upon a time, someone made an animated GIF of the character Piccolo from Dragon Ball Z graphically raping Vegeta. 4chan loved it so much that it got posted daily, became known as the “daily dose,” until mods started deleting every incident of it. So they uploaded slightly edited version of it. Then they started uploading other images that had been edited with Piccolo’s color scheme. It got so abstracted that eventually any collection of purple and green pixels would be recognized as Piccolo Dick.

Apropos of nothing, GamerGate is a movement that insists it is not sexist in nature and it does not condone threats of rape against the women they don’t like. And this is their logo. This is their mascot.

If you’re familiar with the Daily Dose, the idea that GamerGate would never support Eron Gjoni if they believed he was a sexual abuser is so blatantly insincere it’s insulting… but imagine trying to explain to someone who’s not on 4chan how this sweater is a rape joke. Imagine having to explain it to a journalist. Imagine having to explain it to the judge enforcing your abuser’s restraining order.

Reactionaries use meme culture not just because they’re terminally online but also because it makes their behavior seem either benign or just confusing to outsiders. They find it hilarious that they can be really explicit and still fly under the radar. The Alt-Right did this with Pepe the Frog, the OK sign, even the milk glass emoji for a hot minute. The more inexplicable the meme, the better. You get the point where Stephen Miller is flashing Nazi signs from the White House and the Presidential re-eletion campaign is releasing 88 ads of exactly 14 words and there’s still a debate about whether the administration is racist. Because journalists aren’t going to get their heads around that. You tell them “1488 is a Nazi number,” it’s gonna seem a lot more plausible that you’re making shit up.

MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS

Online movements like GamerGate move at a speed and mutation rate too high for the mainstream world to keep up. And not just that they don’t understand the memes - they don’t understand the infrastructure.

In an attempt to cover GamerGate evenhandedly, George Wiedman of Super Bunnyhop interviewed a lawyer who specializes in journalistic ethics. He meant well; I really wish he hadn’t. You can see him trying to fit something like GamerGate into terms this silver-haired man who works in copyright law can understand. At one point he asks if it’s okay to fund the creative project of a potential journalistic source, to which the guy understandably says “no.”

What he’s alluding to here is the harassment of Jenn Frank. A few weeks into GamerGate, Jenn Frank writes a piece in The Guardian about sexism in tech that mentions Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn. In another case of “here’s a strongly-held belief I just decided I have,” GamerGate says this is a breach of journalistic ethics because Frank backs Quinn on Patreon. They harass her so intensely she not only has to quit her job at The Guardian, for several months she quits journalism entirely.

Off the bat, calling a public figure central to a major event in the field a “journalistic source” is flatly wrong-headed. Quinn was not interviewed or even contacted for the article, they were in no way a “source”; they were a subject. But I want to talk about this phrase, “fund a creative project.” Patreon is functionally a subscription; it’s a way of buying things. It’s technically accurate that Frank is funding Quinn’s creative project, but only in the sense that you are funding Bob Dylan’s creative project if you listen to his music. And saying Frank therefore can’t write about Quinn is like saying a music journalist can’t cover a Bob Dylan concert if they’ve ever bought his albums.

And we could talk about the ways that Patreon, as compared with other funding models, can create a greater sense of intimacy, and we also could comment that, well, that’s how an increasing number of people consume media now, so that perspective should be present in journalism. But maybe it means we should cover that perspective differently? I don’t know. It’s an interesting subject. But none of that’s going on in this conversation because this guy doesn’t know what Patreon is. It was only a year old at this point. Patreon’s been a primary source of my income for 5 years and my parents still don’t know what it is. (I think they think I’m a freelancer?) This guy hears “funding a creative project” and he’s thinking an investor, someone who makes a profit off the source’s success.

The language of straight society hasn’t caught up with what’s happening, and that works in GamerGate’s favor.

In the years since GamerGate we have dozens of stories of people trying to explain Twitter harassment to a legal system that’s never heard of Twitter. People trying to explain death threats to cops whose only relationship to the internet is checking email, confusedly asking, “Why don’t you just not go online?” Like, yeah, release your text game about depression at GameStop for the PS3 and get it reviewed in the Boston Globe, problem solved.

You see this in the slowness of mainstream journalists to condemn the harassment - hell, even games journalists at first. Because what if it is a legitimate movement? What if the harassers are just a fringe element? What if there was misconduct? The people in a position to stop GamerGate don’t have to be convinced of their legitimacy, they just have to hesitate. They just have to be unsure. Remember how much happened in just the first two weeks, how it took only a month to become unkillable.

It’s the same hesitance that makes mainstream media, online platforms, and law enforcement underestimate The Alt-Right. They’re terrified of condemning a group as white nationalist terrorists because they’re confused, and what if they’re wrong? Or, in most cases, not even afraid they’re wrong, but afraid of the PR disaster if too much of the world thinks they’re wrong.

ACCOUNTABILITY AND CONTROL

A thing I’ve talked about in The Alt-Right Playbook is how these decentralized, ostensibly leaderless movements insulate themselves from responsibility. Harassment is never the movement’s fault because they never told anyone to harass and you can’t prove the harassers are legitimate members of the movement. The Alt-Right does this too - one of their catchphrases is “I disavow.” Since there are no formalized rules for membership, they can redraw boundaries on the fly; they can take credit for any successes and deny responsibility for any wrongdoing. Public membership is granted or revoked based on a person’s moment-to-moment utility.

It’s almost like… they’re cherry-picking.

The flipside of this is a lack of control. Since they never officially tell anyone to do anything but write emails, they have no means of stopping anyone from behaving counterproductively. The harassment of Jenn Frank was the first time GamerGate’s originators thought, “maybe we should ease off just to avoid bad publicity,” and they found they couldn’t. GamerGate had gotten too big, and too many people were clearly there for precisely this reason.

They also couldn’t control the infighting. When your goal is to harass women and you have all these contradictory justifications for why, you end up with a lot of competing beliefs. And, you know what? Angry white men who like harassing people don’t form healthy relationships! Several prominent members of GamerGate - including Internet Aristocrat - got driven out by factionalism; they were doxxed by their own people! Jordan Owen and Davis Aurini parted ways hating each other, with Aurini releasing chatlogs of him gaslighting Owen about accepting an endorsement from Roosh, and they released two competing edits of The Sarkeesian Effect.

I say this because it’s useful to know that these are alliances of convenience. If you know where the sore spots are, you can apply pressure to them.

LEADERS WITHOUT LEADERSHIP

One way movements like GamerGate deflect responsibility is by declaring, “We are a leaderless movement! We have no means to stop harassment.”

Which… any anarchist will tell you collective action is entirely possible without leaders. But they’ll also tell you, absent a system of distributing power equitably, you’re gonna have leaders, just not ones you elected.

A few months into GamerGate, Randi Lee Harper created the ggautoblocker. Here’s what it did: it took five prominent GamerGate figures - Adam Baldwin, Mike Cernovich, Christina Hoff Sommers, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Nick Monroe, formerly known as [sigh] PressFartToContinue - and generated a block list of everyone who followed at least two of them on Twitter. Now, this became something of an arms race; once GamerGate found out about it they made secondary accounts that followed different people, and more and more prominent figures appeared and had to get added to the list. But, when it first launched, the list generated from just these five people comprised an estimated 90-95% of GamerGate.

Hate to break it to you, guys, but if 90+ percent of your movement is following at least two of the same five people, those are your leaders. The attention economy has produced them. Power pools when left on its own.

This is another case where you have to ignore what people claim and look at what they do. The Alt-Right loves to say “we disavow Richard Spencer” and “Andrew Anglin doesn’t speak for us.”

But no matter what they say, pay attention to whom they’re taking cues from.

AD CAMPAIGN

George Lakoff has observed that one way the Left fails in opposition to the Right is that most liberal politicians and campaigners have degrees in things like law and political science, where conservative campaigners more often have degrees in advertising and communications. Liberals and leftists may have a better product to sell, but conservatives know how to sell products.

GamerGate less resembles a boots-on-the-ground political movement than an ad campaign. First they decide what their messaging strategy is going to be. Then the media arm starts publicizing it. They seek out celebrity endorsements. They get their own hashtag and mascot. They donate to charity and literally call it “public relations.” You can even see the move from The Quinnspiracy to GamerGate as a rebranding effort - when one name got too closely associated with harassment, they started insisting GamerGate was an entirely separate movement from The Quinnspiracy. I learned that trick from Stringer Bell’s economics class.

Now, we could stand to learn a thing or two from this. But I also wouldn’t want us to adopt this strategy whole hog; you should view moves like these as red flags. If you’re hesitating to condemn a movement because what if it’s legitimate, take a look at whether they’re selling ideology like it’s Pepsi.

PERCEPTION IS EVERYTHING

One reason to insist you’re a consumer revolt rather than a harassment campaign is most people who want to harass need someone to give them permission, and need someone to tell them it’s normal.

Bob Altemeyer has this survey he uses to study authoritarianism. He divides respondents into people with low, average, and high authoritarian sentiments, and then tells them what the survey has measured and asks, “what score do you think is best to have: low, average, or high?”

People with low authoritarian sentiments say it’s best to be low. People with average authoritarian sentiments also say it’s best to be low. But people with high authoritarian sentiments? They say it’s best to be average. Altemeyer finds, across all his research, that reactionaries want to aggress, but only if it is socially acceptable. They want to know they are the in-group and be told who the out-group is. They don’t particularly care who the out-group is, Altemeyer finds they’ll aggress against any group an authority figure points to, even, if they don’t notice it, a group that contains them. They just have to believe the in-group is the norm.

This is why they have to believe games journalism is corrupt because of a handful of feminist media critics with outsized influence. Legitimate failures of journalism cannot be systemic problems rooted in how digital media is funded and consumed; there cannot be a legitimate market for social justice-y media. It has to be manipulation by the few. Because, if these things are common, then, even if you don’t like them, they’re normal. They’re part of the in-group. Reactionary politics is rebellion against things they dislike getting normalized, because they know, if they are normalized, they will have to accept them. Because the thing they care about most is being normal.

This is why the echo chamber, this is why Fox News, this is why the Far Right insists they are the “silent majority.” This is why they artificially inflate their numbers. This is why they insist facts are “biased.” They have to maintain the image that what are, in material terms, fringe beliefs are, in fact, held by the majority. This is why getting mocked by Stephen Colbert was such a blow to GamerGate. It makes it harder to believe the world at large agrees with them.

This is why, if you’re trying to change the world for the better, it’s pointless to ask their permission. Because, if you change the world around them, they will adapt even faster than you will.

THE ARGUMENT ISN’T SUPPOSED TO END

Casey Explosion has this really great Twitter thread comparing the Alt-Right to Scary Terry from Rick and Morty. His catchphrase is “you can run but you can’t hide, bitch.” And Rick and Morty finally escape him by hiding. And Morty’s all, “but he said we can’t hide,” and Rick is like, “why are we taking his word on this? if we could hide, he certainly wouldn’t tell us.”

The reason to argue with a GamerGater is on the implied agreement that, if you can convince them they’re part of a hate mob, they will leave. But look at the incentives here: they want to be in GamerGate, and you want them not to be. But they’re already in GamerGate. They’re not waiting on the outcome of this argument to participate. They’ve already got what they want; they don’t need to convince you GamerGate isn’t a hate mob.

This is why all their logic and rationalizations are shit, because they don’t need to be good. They’re not trying to win an argument. They’re trying to keep the argument going.

This has been a precept of conservative political strategy for decades. “You haven’t convinced us climate change is real and man-made, you need to do more studies.” They’re not pausing the use of fossil fuels until the results come in. “You haven’t convinced us there are no WMDs in Iraq, you need to collect more evidence.” They’re not suspending the war until you get back to them. “You haven’t convinced us that Reaganomic tax policy causes recessions, let’s just do it for another forty years and see what happens.” And when the proof comes in, they send us out for more, and we keep going.

The biggest indicator you can’t win a debate with a reactionary is they keep telling you you can. The biggest indicator protest and deplatforming works is they keep telling you in plays into their hands. The biggest indicator that you shouldn’t compromise with Republicans is they keep saying doing otherwise is stooping to their level. They’re not going to walk into the room and say, “Hi, my one weakness is reasoned argument, let’s pick a time and place to hash this out.”

And we fall for it because we’re trying to be decent people. Because we want to believe the truth always wins. We want to bargain in good faith, and they are weaponizing our good faith against us. Always dangling the carrot that the reason they’re like this is no one’s given them the right argument not to be. It’s all just a misunderstanding, and, really, it’s on us for not trying hard enough.

But they have no motivation to agree with us. Most of the people asking for debates have staked their careers on disagreeing with us. Conceding any point to the Left could cost them their livelihood.

WHY GAMES?

Let’s close with the big question: why games? And, honestly, the short answer is:

why not games?

Games culture has always presented itself as a hobby for young, white, middle class boys. It’s always been bigger and more diverse than that, but that’s how it was marketed, and that’s who most felt they belonged. As gaming grows bigger, there is suddenly room for those marginal voices that have always been there to make themselves heard. And, as gaming becomes more mainstream, it’s having its first brushes with serious critical analysis.

This makes the people who have long felt gaming was theirs and theirs alone anxious and a little angry. They’ve invested a lot of their identity in it and they don’t want it to change.

And what the Far Right sees in a sizable collection of aggrieved young men is an untapped market. This is why sites like Stormfront and Breitbart flocked to them. These are not liberals they have to convert, these people are, up til now, not politically engaged. The Right can be their first entry to politics.

The world was changing. Nerd properties were exploding into popular culture in tandem with media representation diversifying. And we were living with the first Black President. Any time an out-group looks like it might join the in-group, there is a self-protective backlash from the existing in-group. This had been brewing for a while, and, honestly, if it hadn’t boiled over in games, it would have boiled over somewhere else.

And, in the years since GamerGate, it has. The Far Right has tapped the comics, Star Wars, and sci-fi fandoms; they tried to get in with the furry community but failed spectacularly. They’re all over YouTube and, frankly, the atheist community was already in their pocket. Basically, if you’re in community with a bunch of young white guys who think they own the place, you might wanna have some talks with them sooner than later.

Anyway, if you want to know more about any of this stuff, RationalWiki’s timeline on GamerGate is pretty thorough. You can also watch my or Dan Olson’s videos on the subject. I’ll be putting the audio of this talk on YouTube and will put as many resources as I can in the show notes. The channel, again, is Innuendo Studios.

Sorry this was such a bummer.

Thank you for your time.

[clearlynotjanus]

Loceit Week Day 3: Wine/Chess Teaser/WIP

This one's a little rough at the moment so I'm considering it a WIP despite all the plot beats being there. I anticipate having to go back & edit a substantial amount of the phrasing but enjoy what I have of it for now! This was A LOT of fun to write. I had to learn so much about Chess to feel confident writing it & I hope it shows! I based the match they play on Grigory Serper vs Ioannis Nikolaidis' The Immortal Sacrifice Game. Click through to see it played out & analyzed by an amazing Chess Youtuber!

Anyway enjoy this teaser! & as always, if you’d like to be on my tag list to be @’d in works like this as well as my fic related stuff, give this linked post a like or send me a message. If you have any questions or suggestions, my ask box is always open! If you would like to get the rest of this fic early access, please consider subscribing to my Patreon. If you’d just like to support my work or request a writing commission, please consider donating to my Ko-Fi. Thanks so much for being an awesome audience 💛

CW: SFW sexual tension, wine Word Count: 5033 Genre: Gen Rating: Teen Ships: Loceit

Taglist: @robertdownerjr @dangitsbrightinhere @iamuncomffy @bimtrimmerr @catalinaacosta @evertriedsoywithyourpopcorn @dragonfander @virgilstarantula @a-rudethude @poptartsaysurloved @serpentinesomebody @the-dead-and-the-decaying @vexelore @the-snekwhisperer-world @whatishappeningrightnow @sanderssidesangsttrash @trash-bastard @indubitably-emo @gay-artist-626 @cosplayhanna @edupunkn00b​ @wouldntyou-liketoknow

“Well,” Janus concluded before finishing off his wine in a big gulp. “If he’s going to ditch me, I’m not going to do him the service of talking about him all night,” He said with exaggerated contempt, pouring himself more wine. “I know it isn’t quite rescuing Thomas from financial disaster,” Janus continued as he turned & topped off Logan’s drink. “But what would you say to a game?”

“A game?” He questioned, slowly bringing the nearly over-filled glass to his lips for a delicate sip. “I suppose that depends on what genre, though I can’t imagine your choice would be dull.” 

Janus grinned impishly. “Splendid,” The word was almost melodic as he departed the kitchen. Logan blinked & followed blindly before realizing Janus meant for them to sit in their usual spots at the table.

Without more instruction, Janus reached behind himself for a square box that leaned between the bookshelf & wall. It only took Logan a moment to realize what was happening as it was placed on the table & opened.

“Ah,” Despite himself, a small smirk curved his lips. “Are you sure you want to challenge me at Chess?” Confidence radiated off Logan suddenly as he settled in his chair. It was utterly inconceivable to him that any Side could even come close to checking him, let alone claiming an outright victory. 

“Well I figure,” Janus started, eyes focused on the task of setting up their pieces, “Monopoly & Clue are no fun without others, & I’m not quite in the mood for anything trivia based tonight, so,” He finished with a one handed shrug, meeting Logan’s eyes innocently as he took a long sip of his glass.

“I don’t think you should take this so lightly,” Logan warned in a smug tone that made Janus’ stomach warm with anticipation. “The last time Remus & I played, he swallowed his own Queen to keep from being checked again.”

“You know that hardly means anything, he’d swallow pieces for less,” Janus chuckled & Logan joined after a moment. “But don’t worry about me,” He comforted slyly as their laughter ended. He propped his elbows up on the table & folded his hands beneath his chin. “I can hold my own.”

“We will see about that,” Logan promised as adjusted forward in his seat. He gave a small movement with both hands, gesturing at the board. “White moves first.”

Janus smiled lopsidedly, gave a curt nod, & began the game. From the start, his aggression was obvious even if his face & body language said otherwise. With slow & soft hands, he moved three pawns forward, already beelining for Logan’s side of the board as he maintained a neutral expression. Logan’s movements were direct & calculated as he prepared both of his halves with two forward pawns & a defensive angle from his Bishop. Unprompted, Janus brought forward his Knight; Logan blinked & paused before meeting Janus’ eyes & mirroring the move. 

“Hm,” Janus hummed brusquely. He placed his other Knight on guard in front of his King.

“Hmm?” Logan mimicked, drawing the sound out as a question. He placed his other Knight in front of his Queen.

“Nothing,” He sang quietly with a sudden offensive move from the Knight Logan had assumed would remain defensive on his King. 

Preemptively Logan moved a pawn to set up his own attack. Janus paid no mind as he enlisted his Bishop forward. Another black pawn. Janus’ other Bishop. Carefully still playing for both sides of his board, Logan moved an opposite pawn again. Cryptically playing in the center of his, Janus went forward with another of his own pawns.

“You really shouldn’t play like that,” Janus reprimanded, breaking the surmounting tension that Logan only noticed with its absence. He leaned back in his chair, crossing an arm as he took a long sip from his glass. The edges of Logan began to go pleasantly fuzzy & the warmth in his stomach grew into a gentle hunger. “It never ends well,” Janus waved at the board.

Logan cleared his throat & reached to relieve the dryness there with his wine. Janus’ playstyle was nearly as chaotic as Remus’, he mused, but even with a neutral expression, it felt far more purposeful. What that purpose was seemed to be going right over Logan’s head. Perhaps he was giving Janus more credit than he deserved with that thought, though this was the Side that had planned their swap in April which led to an undeniable win in that discussion. Logan pursed his lips & nodded at the board.

“Let’s continue.”

Janus chuckled & splayed his fingers, welcoming Logan’s turn; which was to capture Janus’ intruding pawn with his own, only prompting Janus to quickly do the same as though that was exactly what he had been expecting Logan to do. Pawn for pawn, Logan sighed & pressed his Queen forward. Janus Castled his Queen into the corner.

“Told you so,” He whispered like a song & Logan narrowed his eyes. The harsh expression made Janus smirk despite himself, only making Logan’s frustration grow.

Firmly Logan moved his pawn forward, forcing Janus to retreat his Knight. On the offensive now, Logan attacked knowingly with his own Knight. Janus’ brow twitched as he stared at the board’s new arrangement -- did he see it? Logan watched apprehensively as the wine-greased gears in his head turned. He was one move from Check via his Knight. After a moment that passed fast enough to convince Logan Janus knew exactly what he was doing, his eyes lifted. His expression was taunting & entertained as he deliberately slid his Queen forward one space, conceding before the mess unfolded.

Logan sighed heavily with loose cheeks & leaned back against his chair, crossing his arms. Janus laughed genuinely, delight filling him to the brim.

“We can stop,” He offered while knowing Logan would never accept a forfeit like that. In response, he scrunched his face mockingly & reached for his wine, nearly polishing the glass off. Janus held up his hands, surrendering the suggestion. “Your move then, darling.”

Impatiently Logan assessed the board before sitting up & hastily shifting his pawn forward, making room behind the piece. Janus completed his defense around the right half of his board by bringing his Knight ahead again. Preparing for another attack that may have been too daring, Logan pushed his Knight back, instantly clearing a line for his Bishop which now stared directly down the barrel of Janus’ grouped pieces. He inhaled slowly.

“Your move,” Logan taunted with a smirk as Janus paused.

continue reading

[wordsnstuff]

Hi! How you doing? So I've been wanting to start writing on tumblr for a while but the thing is that I'm not entirely sure what I wanna write? Like one day i think fanfic would be cool but then i really just wanna write about an OC and like poems and stuff... so I guess I'm just wondering if you had any advice for finding out what you wanna write? Thanks

I’ve had the same circular issue for years; since I started posting on this website. I know how frustrating it is to be fully committed to one idea and one form of writing one day and then turn around the next day and find that inspiration in something else. My best advice to you would be to figure out what your goal is on Tumblr. Are you trying to get recognition? Join a community? Get feedback on your writing? Experiment with different types of characters and genres? These things all have their place on this website but unfortunately, it’s not easy to find them all in one place. I think once you’ve figured out what you want, it’ll be easier to figure out how to achieve it. 

I think that if you’re trying to branch out into writing your own fictional worlds and characters, the #amwriting and #authorblr community is fantastic. You can post your original work without fear of judgement and find an entire microcosm of the professional writing world. If you plan on becoming more serious about writing in the future, this is a good area in which to build a base around your story in order to demonstrate its ability to draw an audience to a publisher or literary agent. 

If you’re looking for a more interactive, informal community and you’re just into exploring your own writing wings and playing around with your own fantasies, fanfiction is great. The communities are passionate and very hungry for any ideas you have, especially if they’re more original. The fanfiction community is very loyal and personal, and they’re very welcoming to experimental works like fanfiction expressed through poetry and fix-it-fics. For me, my fanfiction blog is where I explore those ideas where I don’t think I’d want to commit to the full writing process, but still want them to be on paper in some place where I can revisit them when I’m nostalgic for the worlds I’ve created in my own head.

And, if you’re like me and heavily indecisive, you can have both and update both whenever you feel like it. At the end of the day, decisions are usually restrictions and you shouldn’t feel pressure to restrict where your creativity goes. I hope this helped.

—

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[winchester-with-wings]

What We Can Control

Dean Winchester x Reader / Patron Benefit Fanfic!

Author’s Notes: Let me know what you guys think! This is a patron fic from a while back! This is for @abbessolute​ 

Summary/Request: we’re always needing come anxiety comfort fics so here's a smutty comfort fic that takes place during early season 15.

Word Count: 1900ish

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Mobile Masterlist  /  Patreon & Commissions Masterlist

—————–

With the barrier weakening every day, Sam and Dean had called in reinforcements. More and more hunters arrived everyday but there was still the concern that it wouldn’t be enough.

Sam knew most of the hunters better than Dean since turning the bunker into a headquarters.

But there was one person that he knew all too well. He wasn’t counting on her showing up though. Y/N was busy in South America. The chances of her making the trip to a small town in Kansas were 1 in a million.

But clearly Dean wasn’t as good a gambler as he thought.

The car was unfamiliar but the combat boots, and sleek, sun-kissed legs stepping out of the muscle car were.

Sam greeted Y/N first, with a hug that engulfed her in plaid. She didn’t rush into Dean’s arms. It was more tentative as they looked each other up and down. Dean figured it’d be weirder if he didn’t give her a hug after Sam’s greeting so he extended an arm for a sideways/half-hug.

Damn, she still smells good, Dean thinks to himself. For someone who likely just traveled 10+ hours, the scent of coffee and saltwater lingered in her hair.

“Good to see you. I thought you were out of the country?” he said.

“Well this is the ultimate case. All hands on deck, right Dean-o? Sam figured you could use the help and you know I can’t say no to Sam.” Dean shot a glare at Sam who knew to avoid his gaze. Dean cleared his throat, his voice getting gruffer.

“Well yeah then it’s a good thing you’re here,” Dean agreed.

--

It’s not that he was avoiding Y/N. It’s just that there’s a lot of ground to cover and a lot of hunters to coordinate. No, it had nothing to do with the sexual tension he’s fed into for years.

Y/N was one of the best hunters he’s ever known and getting involved with her would only prevent the both of them from doing their job. At least that’s what he told himself.

Some of the hunters shacked up at the school with the civilians. Some of them chose to crash in the houses that were just outside of the barrier. Sam and Dean did both every now and then. All hunters were given instructions to keep the homes in good condition if possible. It shouldn’t look like a soldier occupation...even if that’s kinda what it was.

Sam invited Y/N to stay in the house with the two of them as a chance to catch up. Dean stayed quiet as Sam told her the whole story. The story of God, the big bad puppet master. Just like every other hunter, she was shocked.

Dean could read the paranoia, depression, and anxiety creep into her features. Her eyebrows knitting together; her perfect lips pursed hard to stop them from trembling. He knows she’s tough. She’ll pull through and get the job done.

But Y/N was not without her own demons. Sam and Dean remember that the first few nights when they both wake up to her shouts. Sam checks on her each time. The nightmares have returned, agitated by the presence of so many angry spirits. Sam’s always comforted Y/N instead of him. She won’t let herself show vulnerability around Dean. It’s one of the few ways Dean can tell that she could sense the tension between the two of them too.

But on another night, Sam stayed up at the high school with the townsfolk and it’s the two of them alone in the house.

She doesn’t shout. She’s not loud enough to wake herself but the whimpers were enough for Dean. He climbed out of bed, and padded with bare feet down the hall. He opened the door just a crack to see Y/N tossing and turning.

“No. No, please, no,” she begged in a whisper. Tears glisten on her cheeks; that’s when he decided to enter the room. The bed dipped under his weight as he sat beside her. He tried to wake her with a gentle touch on her arm. It wasn’t enough so he reached out to touch her cheek, wiping away the tears.

“Y/N,” he murmured. “Y/N, sweetheart, wake up,” he said, his voice getting louder. She jolted up in bed and rushed into his embrace.

“Noononono. This can’t be it,” Y/N cried. “This can’t be the end.” Dean shushed her, rubbing her back.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay,” he said as he kissed her hair. Surely that was okay at least, right? That’s when she must’ve just realized it was Dean she was clinging to and not Sam. Y/N leaned back to look into his eyes.

“Dean?”

“Yeah, hey, Y/N, it’s going to be okay.” She buried her face in his chest and continue to cry.

“But what if it’s not. What if this is the end? How could it? There’s so many innocent people who don’t deserve this. We don’t deserve this.” Dean bites his tongue, withholding his own self-deprecating thought that the Winchester brothers deserve nothing but tragedy.

“I know, I know. You’re right, Y/N. Just take a deep breath. It’s going to be okay.”

She followed his orders, releasing a shuttering breath.

“How do you know?” She looked at him and he felt like she could see his soul.

“Because it has to be.” He licked his lips, trying to soothe his dry mouth.  He set Y/N at an arm’s length so that they can look at each other. “I refuse to believe that everything we’ve ever done was just Chuck’s plan. We are in control of our own destiny. I’m in control. We’re going to get through this. You are in control. You control what happens next and how you fight this fight.”

There’s a brief pause and it didn’t sink in right away what Dean had just set himself up for but he’s glad he did.

Y/N leaned in tentatively, resting a hand along his cheek. Her soft lips brush against his and he could taste her tears. It’s not like what he’d ever imagined if he’d ever had the balls to kiss Y/N. It breaks his heart. Not that she doesn’t taste the way he expected, no, his heart is broken knowing that she felt this way, felt so alone and discouraged that in this last desperate moment of free will she had chosen to kiss him.

Although his lips were naturally pursed, when Y/N didn’t sense a response from him, she pulled back--first from the kiss and then from his arms.

“I--I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I just...I mean...when will I ever get the chance again?”

Dean didn’t know how to respond. He’d never been dumbstruck by a kiss before but it figured that it would be Y/N’s.

“Right,” Dean cleared his throat again. “It’s perfectly natural. Apocalypse. Last night on earth kind of thing. I’m sure lots of hunters are hooking up.” Y/N frowned at him and his response. “I mean, I guess I could oblige.” It’s not how he wanted it to happen, but like she said when will the chance come up again? He leaned in but she held him at bay.

“Dammit, Dean. No. It’s not like that! I’m not just choosing some random guy to screw for one last thrill.”

“Oh,” Dean paused, waiting for her to explain.

“Chuck thinks he can control everything. Everyone. But he can’t. We have free will. He wants us to be scared and panicking but I have the free will and choice to do what I want, right here, in this very moment.”

“And what do you want?”

“You. Dean. I’ve always wanted you. And I know you want me too. So why not give into it? Why not give in to a different emotion? Like…” she hesitated to finish the sentence, her hands framed Dean’s face and brought his lips close.

“Love. Like love,” he finishes the thought and follows through, his lips crashing into hers. His arms coiled around Y/N’s waist, holding her body against his. But only moments later, they separated. They held each other’s gaze as Dean stripped her of her shirt and then sat back so she could do the same for him. “Fuck, Y/N, you’re gorgeous. Dammit,” he growled as he pounced.

They had all the time in the world to kiss--slow and passionate until their lips were swollen. But when Y/N’s hand cupped Dean’s ass, pressing his hips into hers, the game changed. There was no time for Dean to shirk off his flannel pajama pants. The two of them just shoved them down past his ass, while pulling her panties to the side.

He slid into her warmth with the perfect kind of resistance.

“Fuck, baby, you’re so tight.”

“Mmm, yes Dean, please,” Y/N moaned. He rolled his hips, thrusting in and out. He didn’t know how long he’d last, all he knew was that he finally had Y/N and he wouldn’t let her go. Her hands roamed the expanse of his backs, fingertips digging in. His hands caressed her skin, gliding across her breast and down her waist until he could grab hold of her thigh, hitching her legs up higher on his waist. They both moaned at the change in position before he took her hands and pinned them above her head. He was thrusting deep and hard, he wouldn’t last much longer. But this wouldn’t be the first or last time. He would make love to Y/N all night if it meant consoling her; if it really was their last day on earth. He’d wasted too much time resisting her and a part of him wondering if that was some cruel kind of torture orchestrated by Chuck. Fuck. him.

Dean belonged to Y/N, body and soul and he wouldn’t let anyone keep them apart. He was in control of his story and his story intertwined with Y/N.

Much like the way their bodies had joined now, in this moment. He slid his hand between their bodies and rubbed her clit until she cried out. There was no one else in the neighborhood, much less this house. Dean would have her, would elicit every sound from her before they were done.

He reached his climax with Y/N. He spilled his seed inside her and for a split second, he fantasized about that seed taking hold. If he kept his resolve and believed that they would survive this trial of Chuck’s then it was a promise of a wonderful future. But then again, would Chuck let that happen? Was Dean really in control of his fate?

He had to believe he could. He had to rely on his faith in Sam and in Y/N and all the other hunters. They would get through this and he would be together with Y/N.

They made love at least two more times that night until they were both too sensitive to go on. He didn’t want to stop but she drew the line, claiming exhaustion. They fell asleep together, naked and embracing.

Y/N slept peacefully that night wrapped securely in the arms of the man she loved, who loved her in return.

The next day, she was ready to take on Hell with Dean Winchester by her side.

------

Tagging: @abbessolute​​ @autoblocked​​ @book-loving--anime-chick​​ @karazoiel​​​ @overlyobsethed​​​  @therealcap​​​  @whoopxd​​​  @bookworm4ever99​​​ @geeksareunique​​​ @pottxrwolff​​​ @barry-writes​​​ @ravenhaviland​​​ @clockblobber​​​ @softdudebro​​​ @melaninspice11​​​ @parkerschurros​​​ @woaahkelsey​​​ @montytheravenclaw​​​ @eds-gryff​​​ @smutfornerds​​​ @fabinapercabeth4179​​​ @faithtrustandpixiedust95​​​ @thinkwritexpress-official​​​ @ladylizzieofdarbyshire​​​ @percyjackson886​ @but-deans-back-tho​ @saxxxology​ @mrswhozeewhatsis​

[kaablooie]

Before the Exclusion Zone

(Back to the beginning: Part 1)

Part 10 - A throw back

50 000 years before the first pyramids were built, there were the Madari. A highly advanced and technological race, they were amongst the first of the civilized species to master interstellar travel. Millennia passed as they traversed the stars exploring and searching for answers they didn’t know the questions to. Gathering together the other advanced civilizations they found, they organized and created the Galactic Consortium - a new, intergalactic organization governing and enabling a level of cooperation never before achieved. Technology and goods traded freely and everyone prospered. A true golden age of enlightenment and peace took hold of the known galaxy. 

Thousands of years later, the Madari exploration vessel, Star Rider, happened upon an exquisite planet on the edge of the galaxy absolutely bursting with life. Enough life that you could see it growing on the land and shimmering in the water, even from space. A huge planet, it was surprising to the crew of the Star Rider that it was even capable of any life at all. A truly surprising and remarkable find. Commander Ratrek didn’t want to waste any time learning all of this planet’s secrets.

“Atmospheric composition report,” he demanded from the bridge.

“One moment,” the surface analyst, Cordu, responded. “I’m getting some odd readings that have to be an instrument error. We’re re-calibrating and scanning again.”

“Sir, the gravity of this planet is 2.6. We’ll have to use the gravity modulators if we want to survive down there without being crushed or suffocating,” the analyst sitting next to Cordu offered.

“2.6! Zentic, have we ever encountered life before on a planet with that much gravity?” Ratrek inquired.

“Technically, yes, but never with anything larger than microscopic life on it. Initial scans indicate that there is a wide variety of massive fauna and huge animal lifeforms,” analyst Zentic replied. Next to him, Cordu finished reassessing his equipment and ran his scan of the atmosphere.

“This is impossible,” muttered Cordu. “Commander, my analysis is showing that this entire atmosphere has an abundance of Oxygen in it!”

“What?” Ratrek skittered up behind Cordu so he could look at the output himself. “That can’t be right. You’re sure your instruments aren’t getting interference from something? Look at the life on this planet! You’re telling me these creatures are not only alive but thriving in this oxygen rich atmosphere?”

“It would seem so, sir.” Cordu couldn’t quite believe it himself. Of all of the planets the Madari had cataloged over the long history of their race, he had never heard of one quite like this before. “Any expedition team will have to use full atmospheric hazard suits to go to the surface. Obviously.”

“Incredible. Let’s get down there then. Cordu, scan those creatures and we’ll see if the largest of them has any intelligence. We’ll start there.”

“Sir, the largest creatures on this planet seem to be aquatic in nature and can only be found in those vast oceans.. they... they are almost as large as our entire ship...,” Cordu trailed off.

“Fine fine, find me the largest terrestrial creature then. Zentic, you’re with me.” Ratrek pushed the com button on the wall. “Ordos and Rados, gear up, full atmo suits, grav modifers, and sed guns. Meet us at the shuttle.” 

As the four Madari stepped off the back of their gravity controlled shuttle, the soft whirl of their gravity mods could be heard kicking in. The readout in their suits was telling them it was cold. So cold, in fact, that the water in the air had somehow frozen on the ground, but not as ice as you’d expect. It was.. fluffy. Fluffy ice? How the lifeforms survived in such frigid temperatures was beyond Ratrek’s ability to imagine. It was just another wonderfully curious question to be answered by the planetary researchers back on his ship. Cordu had given them coordinates to put them just within sight of a group of what had to be the apex predator of this world. Using the enhanced visors in their helmets, they were able to zoom in on their targets. These things were HUGE. Hairy, four legged behemoths, maybe five legs if you included the one coming from its face but didn’t seem to be used for locomotion. They had long, curved protrusions from what had to be their mouths as white as the stuff on the ground. The diminutive Madari, the tallest of them at 2′ 3″, wouldn’t even reach the lowest joint on their legs. Everything around the intrepid foursome, dwarfed them. Even when they lifted off their front two legs to balance on the rear two, they were relatively minuscule. It was quite humbling. If it wasn’t for their superiour tech, it would have been terrifying. 

With their sed guns loaded with the most potent of their sedatives, they began their approach to the massive aliens - and was immediately interrupted from the tree above. A sleek, golden coloured vessel of terror had landed on Ordos and was ripping him to pieces. Five times his size and with curved fangs as long as his arm, it crunched through his suit before anyone could even yell an alarm. Ordos was gone and the remaining party were unloading on it. It took longer to take down than it should have, but there were no other casualties. Likely due to it’s size, the engineered viral sedatives used would have taken longer to work through such a sheer volume of mass.

After lamenting their loss and gathering a tissue sample of the unconscious cat, it was decided they would continue with the mission. They had no special death rites, having outgrown such cultural necessities eons ago. They did, however, take the time to strip Ordos of his tech. They couldn’t leave it for the locals to find and there wasn’t much of Ordos left to do anything with anyway. So not wanting Ordos’ sacrifice to be in vain, they started heading back in the direction of the herd and resumed their march. Within normal visual range of the beasts, they noticed they were following tracks larger than theirs, but considerably smaller than those of their quarry. The animal that created these also seem to only have two legs, or they were walking with only two at least. How strange. They seemed fresh and headed in the same direction as them, directly towards these towers of hair and flesh.

“Commander, look,” Rados pointed towards the grazing creatures.  No, he pointed to just the side of them. Something much smaller was shifting in the snow. With a shrill cry, a small band of bi pedaled creatures maybe 2-3 times the height of the Madari emerged from the ground brandishing crud weapon and wearing what looked like the skin of their prey. Their antics frightened off the herd but they managed to isolate one of the beasts and were using an obviously coordinated maneuver to attack and tire the creature. Maybe these giants of this planet weren’t the apex predator of this world after all. 

Watching the battle from the shelter of a few sparse trees, the trio re-evaluated their situation. A number of the humans had sustained massive injuries and Ratrek assumed them to be dead. No being could recover from such injuries, even with the wildly powerful new regen medications the galaxy was in such a tizzy over lately. No, those Terrans were certainly dead. Until they weren’t. The beast, bloody and dying, gave off a thunderous and final trumpet. Ratrek could feel the vibrations of it’s fall through his feet. Then the victorious Terrans began going around to their fallen comrades and helping them up. They were clearly grievously injured with that odd red blood everywhere, stark against the white of the snow, but they were walking, albeit with assistance in many cases. While the humans didn’t look half as ferocious as the creature they took down, they were terrifying in their tenacity and made of sterner stuff than they appeared. 

“We should go back to the shuttle,” a visibly upset Zentic commented. And who wouldn’t be upset by the violence they had witnessed in such a short trip. A team member was dead, literally torn to pieces before their eyes, and the largest and most intimidating life-form any of them had ever head of had been essentially beaten into submission by other vicious creatures a fraction of its size. They were in an atmosphere that would kill them and was already likely degrading the integrity of their suits, not to mention if anything happened to their grav mods they would be flattened like a crew tech under a landing strut. 

Leaving, at least for now, was looking like an excellent idea. “Weapons up and watch those trees. Let’s head back.” Commander Ratrek reluctantly gave the order. He wanted to see more of this world, but was wise enough to know when a larger and better armed force was necessary. They would return after more extensive scans.

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

If you’ve liked what you’ve read, please consider joining me on my Patreon page where you can get early access to each chapter. https://www.patreon.com/roman_williams

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

Next: Part 11

Other parts:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12 (On Patreon) 

[kumoriyami-xiuzhen]

Hakuoki Drama: Shinsengumi Oni-tan Track 1 Translation

Well im more or less back so I’ll start by asking you to please support me if you can either on ko-fi (https://ko-fi.com/V7V2W0HO), or through paypal (paypal.me/KumoriYami ) …. also let me know if you have any hakuoki drama cds that you’d be willing to share that are on my looking for list since i don’t have the audio for those…..

I’ve also gotten around to getting my patreon account in order (https://www.patreon.com/KumoriYami) while deleting all blog post tls here. My patreon will really only for blog post tls, of which I will be putting out at least 3 each month, and for early access to my next planned post. Right now, I can only do early access for one post since I have nothing stockpiled and since Chinese New Year is this month....I’ll be busy with stuff so I probably won’t be getting around to doing a lot for the foreseeable future.... though I intend to bump that up to 2 posts when I’m no longer as busy....

I hope everyone had a good new year’s day.... cuz im feeling exhausted and my mind feels all waaaaaugh rn cuz of beating Psychedelia of the Ashen Hawk which i keep spelling as Hawke because of Dragon Age.... especially with those endings (i surprisingly couldn’t find anything for it in Chinese but oh well)..... 

Anyway, since this drama is roughly an hour and eight minutes long... it is going to take an extended amount of time to be completely translated since this translation was taken off not exactly great quality/sized images (though i’ll be aided by JP mtl since it’s available for me) which has been a real pain given how condensed some of the Chinese words are... and because im probably going to look at doing this on an on-off basis cuz my mind doesn’t work well focusing on one thing to translate for long periods of time (you have to pay me to do that since i equate that to mental torture lol xD).

enjoy this tl~

Hakuoki Shinsengumi Oni-tan Track 1 “A certain male oni and the Shinsengumi”

Translation by KumoriYami

Kazama: Oni. In this country of Japan, since ancient times, there have been a race known as the oni living here. Holding power that transcended that of ordinary people, no, it should be said that because of this power which transcends that of ordinary humans, they are depicted as evil creatures/beings in folklore and legends.

Sometimes, they are killed, and other times they are used by humans. (the translation of 驱逐 is "expelled" which doesn't seem right so i changed to "killed"]

For this reason we oni have chosen to sever our ties with humans and live in secluded/ hidden villages. However due to the scarcity of oni, marriage with humans has increased, and some oni have chosen to live like/as humans.

And then, there are oni who live unaware of their heritage because of their weak bloodlines.

Yes, for example, the day I met that man.

(intro music)

Flower petals scatter and leaves wither as they fall. The season has already changed to winter. The city was loud despite how cold it was [Despite how cold it was, the city was bustling with activity/ was loud].

When nightfall arrived, it became quite cold. Alright, it's done. Leave/head back before it gets any darker. If [I] return too late, Amagiri will begin preaching again, which will indeed be unbearable. [rephrase later...?]

(sound of running footsteps) But, what's that sound? It sounded like there was a disturbance from a back-alley.

Roshi: che, damn it, the shinsengumi is here!

???: Ronin, there's no escape! Stay where you are!

Roshi: Damn it---  since it's like this let's break this jar, give me some good entertainment! [take a break and get ready? check later.]

(sound of sword being drawn)

Kazama:  hn, that's the light blue haori of the shinsengumi. the bakufu's dog is fighting a wild/stray dog, really what a horrible showing/senseless game/trick.

(blades crossing)

Roshi: Heh heh.... it seems like you're out of tricks. what's wrong shinsengumi, (you're?) all talk! /you seem to be all talk!

???: Che.... Don't... get too... cocky bastard!

Kazama: Nn?

Roshi: Why, why has this guy's eye colour changed....!

(sounds of blades hitting each other again)

Roshi: Uoaaaaah!

???: (heavy breaths) finally caught, caught, caught [my] breath, i just need to wait for the captains to come over.

Kazama: Oi. you. For someone of an oni clan, what are you doing in a place like this?

???: Hm? who are you?

Kazama: Leader of the western clans, the Kazama family head, Chikage.

???: For this first meeting, I am called Sasanami Kurō. Although you speak as though you know me, however(/perhaps) you have the wrong person. [rephrase later]

kazama: it turned out to be the case. i do not recognize that name. However, as a member of an oni clan, why are you wearing the the haori(/uniform) of the shogun[ate's?]'s dog?

Sasanami: Oni clan?

Kazama: Exactly. in my eyes, there is no doubt that you are my compatriot/kin/clansman, that is to say---

heisuke: hey new guy - really , where did you [assuming *he?*] go?

Harada: I can understand how people want to show off a bit because of the team's examination, but to go off chasing someone alone is dangerous/puts one in a really dangerous situation [im assuming its to join the Shinsengumi based on the summary on the drama info page].

Heisuke: although having enthusiasm/being enthusiastic is a good thing, those guys tend to die faster.

Harada: Anyway, pray/hope that he wasn't killed due to his carelessness. Heisuke, check over there, I'll look over here.

(more footsteps)

Sasanami:  oh, Captain Toudou, Captain Harada! I'm [over] here! The roshi has already been captured/arrested.

Harada: oh, over there. It looks like there's nothing wrong...

heisuke: although being popular/recognition is good, it can cause problems...

Kazama: Che, those troublesome guys are around/nearby. No choice then, it's time to go/retreat. The reason for your position, I will listen to it in two days.

Sasanami: Wait, At the end [who are] you----- [rephrase later?]

(sound of Kazama walking away)

Kazama: That/this person, although his lineage is quite weak, there is no doubt of his bloodline. But/However why is there there an oni aside from my wife in the Shinsengumi?

----

final edits will be done when video is posted since im feeling lazy rn.... also i decided that i’d post this drama track by track for text. not sure bout videos yet since i wanna double check the context for what i think is the recruitment examination vs team examination. once that’s done... i think i’ll start making the videos to publish though im going to leave everything unlisted on youtube all 9 tracks of this drama are done.

on a side note, is there something about a location guide in the Hakuoki 3ds game or the ds yuugiroku english patch game (never tried it so iuno how well that worked or if that was even finished but that was one of my first google search bar suggestions)? Asking because I found a Chinese translation/summary of the Zuisouroku ds travel guide (commentary/exchange of certain locations. ex - saito’s room, hanaguri gate, fushimi magistrate)... and well, i just wanna make sure im not looking at game content that was already translated since I know Hakuoki tends to recycle a lot of their stuff before considering to translate it....

also.... this is the only drama where i might translate the interview with the cast (its 4 qs to the VAs sans roshi in text format)... though that would be after i finish this.... whenever the hell that is.

[jamcreates]

Terms and FAQ

As of 4 Jun ‘19

Terms of Use

Don’t reupload anything I create to another file sharing site.

If you do make anything based off my creations, make a decent effort at contacting me. This isn’t for “permission” per se, I just want to know about it. Remember to provide credit to me and a link back to the original Tumblr post (don’t use the direct download links) in your post.

Recolours of my meshes are allowed, but don’t include the mesh if you will be sharing it beyond personal use. If my work is simply a recolour itself, use the original mesh which I used and follow that creator’s T.O.U. rather than mine, since you’re recolouring their work and not mine.

If you do share any recolours (without the mesh, of course), don’t lock it behind a paywall (unless it’ll be made available to the public for free within a week or two) and don’t put the link behind an ad wall (such as adfly).

Don’t share the actual files and don’t share the download links (like SFS links), share the Tumblr post link. This includes /Mods folder sharing. Don’t share your full Mods folder with people if it has anything of mine in it (the fact it’s bad practice to share an entire Mods folder is another point entirely...)

FAQs under the cut

FAQs

What are your Terms of Use?

Look up ;)

Are you WCIF friendly?

Sure. If there’s CC I’ve used on one of my models, feel free to send an ask to jamofjars and I’ll answer you as soon as I can. I try to keep the clothing on show limited to either my own CC or vanilla content. But there are some hairs/ facial hairs that my sims have that they wouldn’t look the same without.

Why do you rarely post?

This is my Creations Tumblr, rather than my main Tumblr. I actually have 2 other public Tumblrs.

I have jamofjars which is my main Simblr, here I post the screenies of my saves when I’ve got some good stories to tell. I always reblog my CC to that Tumblr, as well as reblogging the Tumblr posts of some of the big modders and CC creators who I know and support.

I have another tumblr called HMS Chromakeyed which is way more relaxed and posts very little Sims related stuff. I try to keep it jovial on there, and will post there when I’m feeling inspired to write something. Posts can be long or posts can be short, but I’m a bit more relaxed over there (and complain a lot).

Why can’t I send Asks to this Tumblr?

I don’t accept Asks through this Tumblr, for the sake of cleanliness. However, I’m more than willing to accept Asks through jamofjars. I’ll respond to them there, and (if they’re relevant to this Tumblr) reblog them here occasionally.

I’ve used some of your CC. Want to see?

Yes! I would love to hear from you if you’ve used some of my CC. If you post anything to Tumblr, feel free to tag @jamofjars so I’ll see it. If you use Discord as well, consider joining my server and showing off your screenies there. In short, please show me if you can.

Who do you use to model your CC?

Most of my CC is modelled by my sims, often the sims who I’m playing at the moment. There may occasionally be “guest models” who aren’t my normal sims (or sometimes, not even mine at all) who model, but the ones who crop up on a regular basis are my active play sims generally. You’ll maybe recognise the Swyfts from the Parhayba legacy on jamofjars, so I’d suggest having a look over there if you’re wanting to see more.

Do you take requests?

No, unfortunately not. What I do is highly dependent upon the level of difficulty and my desire to make the CC itself. Sometimes, I might throw out a “What should I make?” on my Discord server looking for ideas and if someone messages me with a good idea, then I’ll consider it. But I will not guarantee anything.

Why do you have a problem with /Mods folder sharing?

Firstly, Mods folder sharing means that you don’t get to see all the CC available, both of mine and of other people’s. So you might not be getting all the best stuff. Additionally, there might be old mods/ pieces of CC which are broken. This is especially the case for Mods folders which are public sharing but can also be the case for sharing among friends. Occasionally, pieces of my CC will be updated, so old versions of those might be around in someone else’s Mods folder.

What type of CC do you prefer?

Maxis Match, I like the cartoon-y feel of Sims 4. I mostly prefer and make male CC too, since I prefer playing male sims and I often struggle to find male MM CC that I like (I’m quite picky). Occasionally I might do other things as experiments or because my interest is piqued, but that’s that I generally use and make.

<Insert CC here> isn’t working for me. What should I do?

Message me, and I’ll take a look as soon as I can. If it’s something simple to fix, then I’ll get an update out, attach an update notice to the post and update the file link. Then I’ll reply to you to let you that I’ve updated them.

If it’s something more serious, I might send you a link to my Discord where we can discuss it in more detail and you send things like screenshots and error files. In which case, I’ll get everything sorted as quickly as I can.

What sites do you use to upload files?

I use Simfileshare, as it’s my personal preference to download from. It’s a file sharing site designed purely for Simmers, so it makes the most sense as the primary download source. I then use Google Drive as a secondary download, since SFS has been known to experience minor glitches occasionally, so I like to have alternative downloads available.

Finally (and more recently), my CC is also mirrored on Patreon posts. These are the Early Access posts which have since been made public. Originally, I was removing the download attachment, and linking to the post, but now I’ve decided to simply leave the download available.

What mods do you use?

Quite a few, and I’m not going to even attempt to list them. I am happy to respond to comments and asks if you’d like to know about one specific mod, or how I do certain things. But otherwise, I’m not going to publish a list of My Mods because that would be WAY too much work to maintain as I add and remove things from my collection.

[mareebrittenford]

The Extra Fakes- Shadow Mirrors Chapter 2

I’ve decided that I’m going to update this every Friday. So here is the 3rd installment (it’s chapter 2 because I broke the first chapter in half). I have made a WIP page, so you can keep track of things there, and I’ll also be posting to Patreon, so any subscribers will get automatic updates when the new post comes out.

As always I appreciate any support for my writing, so please check out my novels #1, #2, patreon and ko-fi!

Also here’s a link to the first part in case you missed it.

Lionel messages me to set up an early morning run, which is a bit surprising, until he shows up with David.

Of course.

I glare at him. Was I really planning on giving this guy the benefit of the doubt? I told him no, and so he went around me to get what he wanted anyway. I briefly consider ditching them both, but that's only going to make me look petty. Instead I decide to experiment on him. That's fair, right?

David is already wearing (rather pretentiously I think) his team shirt. Did he even get a chance to wash it?

"So, you landed him?" I say to Lionel. Perhaps I can ignore David for the whole run.

"We came to terms. Can I go in real quick and use your bathroom?"

I groan. "Use the sucker fan!" I am too closely acquainted with what morning runs do to that boys digestive tract.

Lionel gives me a jaunty wave and heads inside, leaving me and David standing there alone, and me wondering if any of Lionel's 'terms' involved me. He wouldn't do that to me, would he? Besides, I still don't quite know if David was hitting on me or is just really intense about getting a running partner. I haven't figured out how to read him, which is unsettling. Most people are easy to read. Perhaps if I could actually see his face. But he's got that cap on again, pulled down to hide his eyes, even though the sun hasn't even cleared the horizon.

We stand there in awkward silence. The thing that is really annoying me is that before he got all weird and pushy I liked him. Not falling in love with him liked him, but a lets be friends liked him. I'd thought he'd seemed nice. Are my instincts off? I'm not used to that.

"You know the fairy house?" I ask. Demand really.

He looks startled. "The what?"

"Oh, it's this stupid old house that Lyse is obsessed with," Lionel says, joining us, finally. "I guess this means we're going to run a route past it. Where do you normally like to run?" he asks David as we head off down the street.

"I like the river trails, or I head into the hills and trail run." I knew it. He probably uses his runs to scout places to hide the bodies of his murder victims.

"Cross country would probably be your thing then."

"Yeah I guess."

They chatter back and forth, and I drop behind them feeling irritable. I'm completely ignored. They've probably forgotten I’m here. Perhaps I should just take off on my own.

"How many miles do you normally run a week?" Lionel asks.

"Carlyse asked me that yesterday." David glances back at me, as if he knows what I'm thinking and wants to make it clear that he's still aware of me. "I don't keep track. But usually about two hours a day."

"And you don't know your pace either?"

"No, I just run. Sometimes I take it easier, sometimes I push myself, but I don't know how fast I am."

Lionel shakes his head at this. Someone as results orientated as him finds this sort of attitude incomprehensible.

David seems so easy and comfortable I'm starting to wonder if that whole thing he told me about panic attacks and anxiety was fake, a way to gain sympathy. Because apparently I'm ready to believe all sorts of bad stuff about him now.

And then we make the turn onto Orangethorpe. Giddy anticipation starts to build up inside me, knowing how close we are. I don't know when I started looking forward to seeing this house like it's all my Christmases come at once, but that's almost how exciting it feels as I see it coming up.

After the weirdness with Brad I'm curious to see what David thinks of it.

But what I don't expect is for him to stop dead and stare.

"Where the hell did that place come from?"

"I'm guessing it was built in the twenties?" I say, uncertain of what he means. "It looks like that sort of design."

"It wasn't there before."

"It's not fake." I hate fake old stuff. I'm no expert on architecture, but I looked at some of the books Georgia had about local history and houses, and I'm certain this place really is almost a century old.

"Not what I meant. There was a model train store here. I know there was. I've been inside."

He pulls his hat off and fixes me with that intense stare. "What is going on here? What are you guys?"

"Look dude," Lionel says, and pats him on the shoulder.

David jumps in the air like a startled cat and spins, giving Lionel a terrified look, and then takes off down the street.

"Damn. Okay,” Lionel says.

David's fast. And  I feel guilty for thinking that maybe he lied about his anxiety issues, because that was a guy in panic.

Lionel starts after him, but I can see that there is no way he's catching up. So I don't bother. I can't imagine that running him down when he's panicked is the best move anyway. He wants to get away from us, not be pursued.

Instead I do something that I've never done before. I walk up the broken concrete path that curves across the lush lawn.

There is no direct access to the house. Instead there’s a wall made of odds and ends, sheets of roofing iron, concrete block, and a whole section of tiny strips of wood all nailed together like some modern art sculpture. The whole thing is overgrown with vines, and in the middle of it is a gate. It's pretty in a faded sort of way. It's made of wood, with an arched top and a diamond shaped peephole insert made of lattice. It was once blue, but all that's left of the peeling paint is on the lattice and in the grooves between the pieces of wood.

There's no handle or latch, only a keyhole. I push on it, but it doesn't give.

My heart is pounding, I'm sure that someone is going to yell at me at any moment, but I can't help myself, I bend and try to peek between the lattice slats. But all I can see is vines. Does this gate even work?

I press my hand against it one more time, and a thrill runs up my arm, and I know that I have to see what's on the other side.

I start looking for a place to climb over. Perhaps those slats of wood can give me a toe hold.

"Lyse?"

I look around and Lionel is standing on the sidewalk staring at me.

I turn back and test my first foothold.

"What are you doing?" he asks, his voice much closer now.

"What does it look like? I'm going to see what's over there. Maybe I can figure out what scared David."

He grabs my arm and pulls me back, away.

"Are you crazy? You can't just go climbing fences into peoples yards."

I look at him and then back at the wall. "But I really need to see what's over there."

"How about we come back later then? After we find David?"

"He had a panic attack."

"Or something. We should find him."

Once we're back on the sidewalk I shake my head. Was I really about to climb that fence just because? But for a moment there it felt like the most important thing in the world.

But David is frightened. We should try to help him. How did I forget that?

"He really did have a panic attack. He told me that he gets them." I say.

Lionel looks stricken. "We need to find him."

#

We don't find David.

I worry about him until I catch a glimpse of him later at school. He looks- perhaps not fine- but normal. His hat pulled down over his face, his body language making a stab at invisible, although now I've noticed him he's anything but. He's more like a lurking predator, invisible until he choses not to be. When I try to catch his eye he looks right through me.

It's like that for the rest of the month. He's on the team, but he shows up right before practice and leaves as soon as it's over, so I never get a moment to talk to him. He's always alone on the long runs too, I know he’s varying his pace to keep it that way. I'm getting frustrated with him shutting me out, but Lionel is thrilled. The boy really is as good as he thinks he is. He's pretty decent as a sprinter, although he's not really tall or muscular enough to be excellent. Where his real talent lies is as a distance runner. Out there no one can keep up with him. And he is showing up for practices. He's just avoiding social stuff.

Lionel tells me that he tried to talk to the guy and figure out what spooked him that morning, but he can't get him to give a straight answer about it. He's doing better than me. I can't even get him to look me in the face.

I know he's watching though. I catch glimpses of him around school. Which, okay that's normal. It's not like he's hiding the bushes or peeking in my windows. But I feel his eyes on me at school, like I'm a puzzle he's trying to figure out.

I try to forget about him, put him out of my mind.

But the house won't let me. And I guess my conscience won't either. Somehow the fairy house and David have become entangled in my mind, and I can't stop thinking about either of them, and whether I did something to betray his trust in me.

It doesn't help that I'm starting to wonder if the entire team is playing a practical joke on me. Although it feels more like my sanity being questioned.

Because as I run with different people over the next few weeks I start specifically pointing out the fairy house. Asking casual questions.

Everyone else sees a model train store. Everyone. Except me, Lionel, Georgia, and apparently David.

I'm so spooked and frustrated that on Friday afternoon when Georgia and I pick up Melody from school I make them both walk over to Orangethorpe with me, and the three of us stand in front of the house.

"Okay," I demand. "Tell me, what do you see?"

"You've shown it to me before. It's a cool old house," Georgia says. "Is this the one that you've been saying is haunted or something? Because I could totally believe it."

I heave a massive sigh of relief. Okay. I'm not crazy. I'm being pranked. The team is pranking me.

"Oh! Thomas!" Melody squeals.

I look at her with dread.

"What?"

"Thomas, look see? They have trains like Thomas. But I like Percy better. Maybe they have Percy."

I crouch down next to her.

"Did someone tell you to say that? Was it one of my friends from school?"

She frowns at me in confusion. And then before I can stop her she races away from me, and- disappears.

"Melody!" I scream. And then she just sort of comes back, right in front of me. I grab her hand.

"Georgia, did you see that?"

"Huh? What?" She says. She's staring up at the trees rising over the house's fence with a dreamy look on her face. "Sorry, I wasn't paying attention. What happened?"

All my giddy feels for the house have frozen like ice in my guts.

Before now, it was fun, a little eerie, frustrating too, but fun. Or maybe a crazy prank. But I just saw my sister disappear into a void or something. It's not funny or cool anymore.

I grip Melody's hand more tightly.

"Let's go home."

tagging @pinehutch @focusdumbass @timeenoughforamasterpiece @maximillianvalentine @q-oetry @rosy-writes as always if you’d like to be added or removed from this list please shoot me a message or comment on this post!

[percontaion-points]

Camp Nanowrimo Day 12

I didn’t get much writing done yesterday because I didn’t feel well. (I still don’t feel well today, but I NEED to finish this!!)

THE END IS NEAR. It won’t be long now. :D

And as far as today’s chapter...

Daily word count: 4,012

Total Camp word count: 37,032

Words total: 106,138

Read below for a sample of today’s chapter:

It was about a week into their trip when Caruwen tapped on her holoscreen one morning to find that it was full of bridal magazines. Pictures of women in dresses, flower arrangements, and cakes filled the screen. “Huh? What’s all this?” She looked over to Alfryn, who was lounging in bed beside her. “I sent you some stuff,” he said with an absent shrug. “My parents decided to just ask for your opinion on all of that stuff. I figured that maybe it would keep you occupied, since you seem so bored yet anxious all of the time.” Caruwen frowned down at the picture on top. It was of a bride posing in front of some archways, modeling both the cream-white dress as well as a bouquet of pink flowers. “Am I really that obvious?” she said quietly with a small frown. “Yesterday you sat and stared out the window for four hours. You didn’t want to do anything, no matter what I proposed.” Caruwen heaved a heavy sigh and flipped to the next picture. Three women modeling dresses in front of a rainbow-colored bush. “I’m sorry. I’ve got a lot on my mind, that’s all.” “Hey, come on.” Alfryn sat up in bed; the blanket slid down to pool at his waist. Normally, the sight would have enticed Caruwen, but the sight of the bridal pictures set her mind tumbling down the increasingly dark hole of her approaching marriage with Griren. “Don’t close yourself off like that. Not to me. Talk to me, baby.” Caruwen shook her head slightly. “No. Your parents are right: I should get to have a say in planning my marriage, if only from a distance. I’ll look through these pictures and pick out the ones that I like the best.” She set her holoscreen aside and bent over the side of the bed to retrieve her shirt from where she’d tossed it the night before. Alfryn watched in silence as she redressed, and then went over to the sofa to study the pictures closer. She only paused briefly when their breakfast arrived, and then she worked completely through lunch, which grew cold on the tiny table in their room. She kept working as she ate dinner. Although in Alfryn’s opinion, “ate” was too strong of a word. More like “picked at”. Finally, Alfryn slid onto the sofa next to her, wrapped his arms around her from the side, moved the hair off her neck, and kissed the bare skin that he’d just exposed. “If I had know that you would be this distracted, maybe I wouldn’t have sent you the files,” he whispered against her skin. “I’m sorry,” she said. She sighed and put the holoscreen aside. “I never knew how much stuff was needed for a wedding. Before, I was just supposed to show up on Luspotov and get married. I’d never given it much thought at all. My maids put me into that wedding dress, they did my hair and make up. And I never had any female friends before, so it’s not like I had to think about bridesmaids. And I don’t even know about flowers or a cake, and forget table decorations or first dance songs.” “Well, would you like to show me some of what you’ve picked out?” “I know what I don’t want,” Caruwen said with a sigh. “After what happened to me, I don’t want to wear a dress.” “No wedding dress?” Alfryn said with surprise. “No. When I was on the royal ship that was ambushed, I had to take off my wedding dress. It was too heavy, and there was too much fabric. If I’d kept it on, it surely would have been the literal death of me. And as it was, I wouldn’t have been able to take it off on my own. I had maids to do it on Eploigawa, and I would have more maids to help me on Luspotov. But after everything that’s happened to me, something like wearing a dress or something that I wouldn’t be able to get in and out of quickly if I needed to seems like such a big deal to me. I need to be able to move around freely.” Alfryn regarded her for a moment before he nodded slightly. “That’s… an interesting take on things. I hadn’t considered that. No wonder you didn’t want to try on those dresses back on Obletania. Or anywhere else, for that matter. I’ll let my parents know. I’m sure that somebody will think of a good compromise for you. But I think that you could walk down the isle in a sack and you’d still be the most beautiful thing in the- Caruwen? Caruwen! What’s wrong?” She burst into tears. “I’m sorry,” she said. She put her holoscreen aside and stood up. “I’m sorry. Please, I need to be alone right now.” She stormed from the room and ran down the hall. She didn’t know if Alfryn would follow her or not. And the worst part is that she didn’t know if she wanted for him to or not. She finally came to an empty hallway some ways away from where their room was. All of the halls looked the same, and the only thing that kept anybody from getting lost were the room numbers on all all of the doors, as well as helpful signs on every corner that pointed to things like the exercise room and the dining hall. Caruwen slid down onto the floor and buried her face in her hands and sobbed. She had been trying so hard to ignore her looming wedding and to just enjoy the rest of her time with Alfryn. But looking at those pictures of blushing brides to be and needing to think about her own wedding… It was too much. She didn’t know how much that she could take. She lost track of how long that she stayed in that hall. It was late, and nobody came. Or if they did, they saw her having an emotional breakdown and didn’t bother her. When she finally went back to her room, it was with the determination to delete the wedding files from her holoscreen so that she wouldn’t have to think about it again. Only, when she reached for it on the nightstand, she found that all of the files were already gone. “I’m sorry,” Alfryn muttered from the bed. He was facing away from her, and she’d thought that he was asleep. “I thought that it would give you something to do. I didn’t know how upset that it would make you. You picked out a few things, so I forwarded them to my parents. And even though you didn’t make any final decisions, they said that they’d be able to figure out the things that you liked from what you did pick out, and go from there.” “I’m sorry, too,” Caruwen said. She set the holoscreen aside and climbed into bed. “I know that you keep telling me not to keep repressing my feelings, but it’s hard. And you’re making this even worse for me.” Alfryn pulled her into his arms. He kissed her forehead gently. “I know, and I’m sorry. But I promise you that this’ll all make sense when we get to Luspotov. I just want to see you smile again, Caruwen. You’ve been so upset ever since we got on the ship. And we’ve still got another three weeks left to go.” Caruwen was silent for a moment. “Well, maybe you can distract me a little?” Alfryn offered her a faint smile. “I think that I can do that.” He pulled her on top of him and kissed her soundly.

Read the rest by joining my patreon. Members will get access to my WIPs, early access to the snark that appears on the main tumblr, and bonus snark that is only on patreon. Only just $3 a month!

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[the-madame21]

Chapter 3 of Something to Call Our Own is now up for patrons! Chapter 1 of this fic is available for everyone, which you can read on Patreon, or on AO3!

If you like my work, please consider supporting me! I just reached my first goal of $50 a month (thanks to the 15 amazing people who have pledged so far) and I’m onto my second!! If I reach $100 a month then I have all my transportation expenses covered! (California gas ain’t cheap) If you just feel like being kind I also have a Ko-fi you can donate to ^^

“I like your work but like what’s so good about being a patron?” All the rewards of course! Things like:

$1 The Tip Jar: Early access to chapters for APTCH + Sheiji story + Madame Speaks where I give a few thoughts about a chapter

$3 The Coffee Cup: All that + include the weird summaries I do while writing a chapter

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I’ve just gotten my first $10 patron, which means starting in February I’ll be hosting my very first call! If it’s within your budget to do so, feel free to join us in discussing all sorts of fun stuff! You guys are free to ask any and all questions, and get some exclusive insights into how I make my work happen. 

Thank you all so much, and please feel free to reblog to spread the word ^^ As always, thank you to @cool-toru for the artwork :)

[thesundaymorningpost]

The Sunday Morning Post

September 3, 2017                                                          10th Edition

Current News:

Yuri on Ice: ShitBang

On August 31st, if you love Yuri on Ice, your feed may have blown up with stories and artwork created as a means for writers and artists to come together and work on a project together.

What is the Shit Bang you ask? It is an amazing event for writers and artists to come together and write and draw about the amazing anime we all love: Yuri!!! On Ice! But a little more than that this is a direct - non-hateful - response to THAT blog. You know the one I’m talking about. Yup. THAT one. - @yoi-shit-bang

The amount of stories and artwork has been astounding. From one-shots, to multi-chapters, all written by amazing authors. Then there is all the amazing artwork that has come with it, by some amazing and very talented artists.

Please keep in mind that many subjects may trigger, please read all tags before reading a story. 

Story Recommendation: we have loved the stars too fondly by @thehandsingsweapon

“We live in a blue planet that circles around a ball of fire next to a moon that moves the sea, and you don’t believe in miracles?”

After an academic career at MIT and Oxford, Yuuri Katsuki eschews job offers at places like NASA and CERN to go work at the Very Large Array in what Phichit Chulanont lovingly calls The Actual Middle of Nowhere, New Mexico, monitoring radio frequencies from light-years away. He's loved the stars for as long as he can remember, and the universe feels so big sometimes that Yuuri is sure it would be a cruel mistake for humans to be all alone.

Enter the latest scientist to join the staff of the VLA, enigmatic Russian genius Victor Nikiforov, around whom Yuuri’s entire universe seems to bend to make room, and the strange, recurring dreams Yuuri keeps having, where something like love carries him across the stars.

Does love travel faster than light? Do souls?

“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”

"Yuri, on Stars!!   This lovely short story will resonate with anyone that lives the heavens.  Dreamscapes thought to be a figment of Yuuri's imagination turn out to be a more real than tangible science, and Viktor is patient with all his insecurities.  With just the right amount of angst to give it depth, this vignette will take you into the endless cosmos!" - @darkrivertempest

Artist Spotlight:

we have loved the stars too fondly by @shadhahvar

Comic:

Good boy by @floccinaucinihilipilificationa  (Click title to reblog)

Support: 

This week’s Ko-Fi shout-out goes to Discoursemoth | @lowercasewrites  (Click to buy coffee)

im sei! im a non-passing trans boy with unsupportive parents, and im using this account primarily to pay for things that could help me pass better, such as a packer and binder. you obviously dont have to donate but i would really appreciate it!                                

Patreon: YukiPri | @yukipri  (Click name to become a patreon)

Hey there!! Thanks so much for visiting my Patreon. I'm Kazu, also YukiPri on Tumblr. I'm currently a freelance translator and illustrator who is HOPING to support myself primarily through art. My passion is telling my own unique stories through visual media, and I love world-building, costume design, and overall extensively over-thinking all of my stories. This patreon is a step towards hopefully better sustaining myself off of art so I can continue to grow as a professional artist and produce content that you can enjoy! I am unbelievably grateful to every patron who helps me continue to do what I love doing. My wish is for the majority of my work to remain public, but I also desperately need to support myself, and also have a variety of content that I'm not comfortable posting publicly for various reasons. As thanks for your support, my patrons will get access to exclusive content, including WIPs/sketches, previews, art progress/tutorials, higher resolution art, early access, and nsfw content!

Fun and Games:

10 Questions Every Fic Writer Secretly Wants to be Asked by @wyseink  (Click Title to reblog)

There are a lot of fic questions that float around online, but rarely do they ever ask specific questions about the fics themselves. Ask any writer one or more of these ten questions to learn more about the fic and show support.

1. Of the fics you’ve written, which is your favorite and why?

2. Which scene was your favorite to write in [title of fic]?

3. Which part of [title] was hardest to write?

4. If you could change anything in [title], what would it be?

5. Did you make an outline for [title]? Did you stick to it?

6. Which scenes did you cut, and which were added in [title]?

7. Who was your favorite character to write in [title]?

8. Which came first, the title or the fic?

9. Which idea came to you first in [title]?

10. What are some facts readers may not know about [title]?

Story Prompt:

Monochrome by @diamondwinters An AU where people who are sad, down, depressed cannot hide it. Whenever you get sad, you start to loose your color. Your skin turns pale, your eyes loose their color, and turn gray or white, and your hair turns gray. Like an old black and white tv show, you loose all your color when you’re very sad. A little bit of sadness might dim your natural colors, but you wouldn’t loose them. It’s during a time when you feel heart broken, or very depressed that you go Monochrome. Such as a big break up, a death of a loved one, deep depression, etc. Monochrome is the medical term used by the doctors in this AU to describe turning gray in a world of color.

Some people who are unable to get happy, may use make-up, contacts, and hair color to hide the fact that they’re depressed, but eventually even those things will loose their color and will need to be replaced.

The best thing to do is to find your happiness. Be with friends, and family who can help you bring your color back. The brighter you are, the more vivid your colors are, the happier you are.

Art Prompt:

Imagine your OTP by @bumble-beany

Person A: Are you awake?                                         

Person B: I am now                                         

Person A: I was just wondering...                                         

Person A: What do you think it'd be like to be a pregnant male seahorse?

Person B: Really?! You woke me up for that?

W.I.P. Motivation:

Liquor Stash by @severeminx​

I want him.

When the full realization hit him, Yuri felt as though he couldn’t breathe. Detached and fleeting thoughts that had passed through his mind finally took shape in these three words at that exact moment. The I being himself, Yuri Plisetsky, age 17, a Russian figure skater with a list of impressive accomplishments to his name that seemed pretty pointless right now given the context. The want being desire, the need to bury himself, the thought to consume, but never actually act out except behind locked doors in empty beds or shower stalls. The him being the person standing across from Yuri sipping coffee from a take-away cup with creased brows, the low sunlight hitting his face just so to light up his otherwise dark eyes. Someone he considered to be his best friend, who came all the way from Almaty just to spend a week with him and who was blissfully unaware of the fucking turmoil Yuri was feeling in the pit of his stomach. Or at least, Yuri hoped he was unaware.

In which Yuri Plisetsky invites Otabek Altin over to stay with him in Saint Petersburg, freaks out over his feelings and delves into Lilia's liquor stash.

Please go read and support this artist. They are looking for kudos and comments to get them back into finishing this fantastic story!

Fandom Week:  (Click each line to go to blog)

Zarkon Week! September 3rd - 9th.

Yuri on Ice Music Week! September 4th - 11th

NSFW Yuri Plisetsky Week! September 11th - 17th.

Guang-Hong Week! Voting will be Sept 15th - 21st

SeungChuchu Week! October 16th - 23rd.

Help Wanted:

Needed: Tumblr theme editor. Please contact Diamond Winters for details.

Story recommendations!! If you find a story that you absolutely love, and you want to see it get some recognition, please submit a link to it with a 2-3 sentence review of the story. This way it could get in the spotlight in a future edition of the SMP. Requirements are that it’s completed, or a one-shot.

Artist Spotlight!! If you find a piece of artwork that needs more love, please submit a link to it so it may be considered for future spotlights in the future.

WIP Motivation: Please send your support to these writers or artist to encourage them to continue their story or artwork. No good story or piece of art should be left unfinished. - If you know of a good story that hasn’t been updated in a while, and would like to offer encouragement to the author, please let me know, so that I can link to their story here.

If there is ever any section of the Sunday Morning Post that you feel you can contribute too, please send an Ask or Submit to either the SMP, or @d2diamond so that it has a chance at making in a future post. Thank you!  

@yoi-shit-bang | @thehandsingsweapon | @darkrivertempest | @shadhahvar | @floccinaucinihilipilificationa | @lowercasewrites | @yukipri | @wyseink | @diamondwinters | @bumble-beany | @severeminx

[askdawnandvern]

A Lamb Among Wolves Ch:20

This is quite possibly the longest chapter I've written not just in this story, but in general. But it was required for the full scope of the scene. There was nowhere I could clip and separate it that wouldn't ruin the flow of the scene. I was also nervous handling so many characters interacting at once. I wanted it to remain clear who was talking to whom and it was a delicate dance I hope worked correctly. That said, I feel this was a really strong, emotional chapter and I'm super proud of it.

Shout out to my patreon backers whose input helped shape and correct this chapter. They get access to the story chapters early as a perk and the fact that the take the time to note errors and so on is super helpful and greatly appreciate. Thanks to Warwolf416 and Unformed8 for their contributions, you guys are great. And if you guys are interested in sneak peeks and other stuff behind the scenes of my art and fiction, well I've got a Patreon. So please consider donating. Every little bit helps keep me fed and living, and that means it's easier to write and draw.

https://www.patreon.com/wastedtimeee

Alright, that's enough shilling for myself. Go ahead and read.

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

Chapter Twenty: Un-fair Judgements

For Dawn's sake, Vernon was trying not to let what happened at the 'tunnel of love' eat away at him. But the wolf couldn't shake the sickening feeling the whole argument had left in the pit of his stomach. Had it been silly to really not expect that kind of treatment back in the Meadowlands? At a family fair no less? Granted the sheep was an old-timer, and with age came a stubborn unwillingness to accept change and a lack of knowing when to keep ones mouth shut. But the nasty old billy managed to get under Vernon's pelt much worse than anyone back in Zootopia seemed to be capable of.

Dawn was right, everything she had said was on point. The old goat's judgment and attitude was something small and petty in the grand scheme of things. But denying them access to the ride was a severe over-reach, and it left Vernon completely livid. The wolf hated to let something like that slide regardless of how sound the reasoning was. He wanted desperately to bring his Father around when it came to his attitude toward Dawn, and he knew trying to keep a low profile would most likely help that. But standing there, being dressed down by that old culler, allowing him to speak to Dawn so rudely. It made the desire to belt the mammal right in his smug muzzle the more appealing option. And to be honest, if Dawn hadn't managed to pull him back from the brink, the wolf would have most likely done so.

That sobering moment had made Vernon realize exactly just how deeply his emotions were starting to get the better of him. Had that goat been any other mammal in Zootopia, on just an average day, he surely would have handled the situation differently. The wolf would have found a way to diffuse the situation without violence. Maybe he would have outsmarted him, beaten him down with words, something to the effect of how he had handled the wolf couple on the train ride out to the Meadowlands in the first place. But everything that had happened so far, his Father, Yuri, Ana, each encounter had been winding him up further and further. The stress, rage and anxiety building with each dispute while he tried desperately to bury it. To keep a stiff upper lip, to be optimistic, all to try to keep up the facade that he was alright in Dawn's eyes. Or at least, less miserable than he had really been. He had even managed to try to put aside the woes of family acceptance in an effort for just a pure day of fun with his Honey Lamb, but even without the other Hunters present he had been unable to escape confrontation.

The fact that Ana had even been at the fair was as if the gods themselves were mocking him, chiding him for even thinking he could have one nice day with his mate in the town he grew up in. That he could share something close and intimate with Dawn without the weight of his Father's judgment overshadowing it. But Ana and the old goat had pulled it right back to the forefront of the wolf's mind, and the beautiful day at the fair he had planned turned into nothing short of a catastrophe.

It had been so long since the wolf had felt such violent impulses, a trait of his he had believed to be not just dormant, but long dead. But with everything that was layering itself on his mind, he could feel the grasp on his emotions slipping. The old mindset of the troubled young pup he once had been was clawing it's way to the surface. It wanted to fight, his stubborn father, his stupid brother, and that bigoted old goat. And the more he tried to suppress how he really felt about the reunion so far, the more restless it became. Vernon would have to let off some steam one way or another eventually, something to ease the pressure building within. But short of suddenly gaining his Father's approval or simply turning to Dawn in a collapsed heap, weeping and admitting his various fears and doubts about the whole scenario, the wolf wasn't going to get enough of the emotion out.

Still Vernon tried to take solace in the idea that at least hiding in the dark back room of the family corn and pie stall might be enough to at least ease some of his suffering. Especially if Dawn kept up the rather soothing head petting she had been doing since they left the 'tunnel of love' behind. Just the prospect of some, mostly quiet and alone time with his Honey Lamb felt like heaven at the moment. A much needed reprieve from the prying eyes and barbed tongues of other judgmental fair-goers, or possibly even Ana again. Granted, the wolf reasoned the stand would probably be swarming with noisy patrons, but at least they'd be well out of sight.

Yet as the food stand finally came into view, it quickly became apparent that the couple wouldn't have to worry about any noise at all coming from the crowds. The Hunter Family's usually bustling food stall was practically a ghost town. There wasn't a crowd, a line, or even a single customer. All Vernon could see was his Mother and Malcolm, both of whom we're looking bored out of their skulls. His Mother in particular had taken to leaning on the counter, a paw against her face as she let out a tired sigh. It was only as she noticed Vernon's approach did she seem to wake up, snapping to attention and wiping the counter where she had been leaning previously. The wolf's Mother never liked to seem as though she wasn't doing some degree of work, and catching her like that had always been a rare sight. A sight Vernon would have laughed at if not for the alien strangeness that the empty stall created. Audrey offered a jovial wave as the pair walked over to the counter.

"Howdy you two!" Audrey chirped. "I hope ya'll been having a good time at the fair!"

Vernon let out a derisive sigh.

"Trying to." Vernon grumbled. "But we hit a few snags along the way."

"Aww Darlin', I'm sorry to hear that." The she wolf gestured to the pair to sit on the stools near the counter. "Wanna talk about it?"

Vernon sat in the stool in front of him before easing Dawn off his shoulders and into the seat next to him. He hated to put an end to the soothing head petting, but he figured the ewe would have a harder time joining the conversation if he hadn't placed her closer to eye level. Dawn seemed like she was almost in a dreamlike state as the wolf eased her into the chair, only snapping out of it as she was plopped onto the seat. Now alert, she eyed Vernon with concern, but the wolf turned away, eager to shut down the possible conversation at hand.

"I'd rather not Ma." Vernon muttered. "I just want to unwind and not think about anything." Vernon flashed the ewe a meek smile, trying to keep up the facade of being relatively okay. "I think we both do."

That managed to earn him a genuine smile from Dawn, and assured the wolf that the illusion was still in place.

"What about you Ma?" Vernon asked. "I ain't never seen the stand this dead. You just get back from break or something?"

"W-well I-" Audrey sighed. "I just don't know Puppy." She shook her head.

"Stands been doing this bad for hours Vern." Malcolm chimed in, sliding another boxed pie onto a nearby shelf. "Started tapering off after lunch. It's the strangest dog-gone thing." The red wolf muttered.

"Your serious?" Vernon asked.

"Deadly." Audrey replied, giving the wolf a solemn stare.

"We've had one or two stragglers, but otherwise it's been practically as dull as a desert here." Malcolm added.

"If things keep up like this we're going to end up with more pies than we know what to do with." Audrey leaned back on the counter, scratching her head. "I just can't figure out what is going on. It's like everyone's avoidin' us."

There was a brief, uneasy silence as the phrase 'avoidin' us' seemed to hang in the air. Vernon found himself thinking back to the 'tunnel of love' once again. The stares from the couples waiting to ride, the glances he was sure they had gotten on the walk back to 'Hunter's Bounty'. For a moment the wolf feared that perhaps, his relationship with Dawn may have been the source of the drop in customers at the family food stall. 'But it couldn't be.' The wolf was quick to reassure himself. It seemed unlikely that most of the fairgoers could connect the couple to the family by look alone.

"Anywho, don't worry about this mess Vern." Audrey's tone was suddenly less dismal as she stood back up. "How'd you two like some roasted corn?"

"We're holding out for a picnic later today." Vernon chuckled. "I'm going to be doing the roasting myself while we're out there."

"Aww..." Audrey cooed. "Ain't that sweet." The wolfess gave Vernon's head fur a playful tussle, causing him to pull back and swat playfully at her.

"Ma! C'mon now!" Vernon gestured his head to Dawn.

"Oh hush, you'll always be my Puppy, I don't care who's watchin'!" Audrey teased, earning a giggle from Dawn.

"Well if food ain't the reason you're back so soon, then what is it? You can't be callin' the fair quits already?" Malcolm interjected, licking a spoon covered in pie mix. "We ain't closin' for another hour."

"Maybe not if this keeps up." Audrey lamented.

Vernon let out another sigh. "W-we're just tuckered out." He said glumly. "We decided to call it early and relax until we all head back home." Vernon tried to make his voice firm. It wasn't entirely a lie, after all they we're looking to relax. But the why was still something Vernon wasn't keen on sharing with either of them.

The red wolf nodded, turning back to the oven nearest to him.

"Well your welcome to hide in the back until-" Audrey's ears suddenly perked up, and she pivoted her head to the side of Vernon. The she wolf squinted for a moment. "What in the Fenrir's fur is that commotion?"

Vernon glanced over his shoulder to see a crowd building a few stalls down from the stand, but unlike the previous ones that had gathered to gawk at him and Dawn in the midst of fighting, this one was on the move. As Vernon spun around on his stool to get a better look it quickly became apparent exactly where the crowd was heading.

"You've got to be kidding me." Vernon muttered, slapping a paw over his face. While most in the mob remained unfamiliar, at the front Vernon easily recognized a very exasperated looking Kendrick Loupon. Thankfully, there was no sign of Ana, but more worryingly a particularly well dressed sheep was walking next to him. The ram was dressed in a fine green suit and matching top hat, with finely maintained wool and expertly polished spiral horns tightly spun near his ears. Vernon could only describe the look on his face as something close to constipation. His eyes were focused on the stand sitting directly in the path of the mob, his Mother's stand.

"Mr. Ruddy?" Audrey piped up as the crowd arrived. They gave the short representative and his towering wolf assistant a wide berth around the stand as the sheep made his way near Vernon and his Mother. The stout little sheep seemed to be sweating up a storm.

"M-Mrs. Hunter." Damon stuttered. The ram pulled a handkerchief from his suit pocket, dabbing his forehead lightly as he evidently tried to compose himself.

"Somethin' wrong?" Audrey leaned over the counter, eyeing the ram in confusion.

"W-well...um..." Damon glanced over his shoulder briefly at the mob that had swelled behind him. Vernon watched Kendrick as he paced the perimeter, watching the crowd as he mopped his forehead with a napkin of his own. "I-er...well Ma'am. I..." The sheep looked down at his hooves, wringing them nervously as he seemed to fumble with his words. "I-It's just-

"We've received a number of complaints." Kendrick said, making his way closer to the stand. " A great number of the citizens attending the fair are rather troubled. You see they-"

Audrey waived her paws defensively. "Hey now if this is about the food, I assure ya'll everything is fresh and kept refrigerated." The she-wolf crossed her arms. "I've been telling the fair's board of directors for years them food poisoning cases been coming from that sushi stand. I told 'em a fair ground ain't no place to be servin' raw fish."

Ruddy coughed awkwardly, pulling at his collar. It was clear the sheep was uncomfortable with whatever he was leading up to. Vernon had his suspicions of course, but part of him was praying that for once during the whole trip he would be wrong.

"No, no." The sheep chuckled weakly. "W-we've already handled that."

"Yes, we've made sure their refrigeration units were up to code this year." Kendrick added, biting his lip.

"Well then what's the issue boys?" Audrey asked, placing a paw on her hip.

At this, both the finely dressed mammals glanced at each other nervously. Their eyes seemed to be searching for an out, for one of them to get whatever it was off their chests and take the brunt of whatever fallout was going to come from it. Ultimately, it was Ruddy who lost the stare down, snapping his attention back to Audrey as he let out an irritated sigh.

"M-Mrs. Hunter, first I want you to know t-that you and your family have b-been a valued member of our community for years."

"Mhh Hmm..." Audrey hummed.

"I-I mean your husband is the best Sheriff we've had in our community, a-and well, your stand here is a fair favorite!" The sheep added, tapping his hooves together idly.

"Mhh Hmm..." The she wolf repeated, , her tone becoming increasingly impatient.

"But w-well, But..."

"But what?" Vernon finally asked, drawing the sheep's attention on him. He could see fear in the rams eyes as Ruddy glanced at him, and as the little sheep's glance shifted to Dawn and back to again it all but confirmed what he was getting at.

"We-uh..." Ruddy stuttered. "because of the commotion I m-mean, we're u-uh-"

"We're going to have to ask you to leave the fair." Kendrick cut it, his eyes falling on Vernon and Dawn. Vernon could feel his stomach drop. Once again he had to have the misfortune of being right on the money. But what surprised him was Loupon's demeanor. Vernon had expected the wolf to be wearing a smug grin, after all he was clearly making good on his threat. Yet the wolf still seemed very uncomfortable, as if he really didn't want to be there in the first place. That managed to throw Vernon off, and prevented him from being the first to respond.

"W-what?!" Audrey barked, looking over at the couple seated on the stools in front of her. "What for!? What did they do?!"

Vernon sighed sharply. "We've done nothing Ma." Vernon grumbled, glowering at the officials. "Nothin' they got a law for anyway."

Ruddy pulled at his collar again. "W-well you see...I um-It's just." The ram tried to continue, dabbing his brow again.

"A lot of the fair goers are getting antsy." Loupon interjected. " Getting vocal and causing a stir, threatening to leave the fair and so forth. Many of them have threatened to not spend a cent on the fair, and never coming back you see."

"Because?" Audrey leaned on the counter. Vernon could see his Mother's was scowling at the gentlemam almost as badly as he was. A clear sign she was catching on.

"Well-Ah..." Ruddy continued.

"BECAUSE OF THE FREAKSHOW!" A familiar voice barked out from the crowd. Vernon could feel bile rising in his throat as he watched the angry wolfess make her way out of the mob, pushing several members of the crowd aside on her way to the front. Of course Ana couldn't have been far behind her mate, otherwise how would she show him off to anyone? Ana squeezed her way between the two officials before striking a rather confident stance. She flashed Vernon a mischievous grin as she glanced down at the couple.

"IT'S AN AFFRONT TO ALL THE MAMMALS HERE!" Ana continued loudly. "A DISGUSTING DISPLAY THAT SHOULDN'T BE SEEN AT A 'FAMILY-FRIENDLY' FAIR!"

"Ana!" Kendrick tried to place a paw on the wolfess, but she shoved him away slightly.

"WHY CAN'T WEIRDOS LIKE YOU LEAVE THAT SORT OF THING AT HOME!? HUH!?" The wolfess hissed. Unlike before, a few members of the mob could be heard yelling in agreement.

Vernon was off his stool in Ana's face in the blink of an eye. He was growling down at her, gnashing his teeth. But despite his attempts at intimidation Ana hadn't even flinched. Instead she continued to smugly smile back up at him.

"Is yer whole life devoted to making other mammals miserable?" Vernon hissed.

"Just you." Ana's smug grin seemed to widen as she whispered. "But I also can't let that little grazer talking back to me slide. You both need to learn your place."

"Now hold on one second!" Audrey barked, her attention remaining on Ruddy and Loupon. "You folks ain't never seemed to have a problem with the kind of relationships any of my other pups had! So why them!?" She motioned over to Vernon and Dawn.

Ruddy seemed to be coming apart at the seams. The ram was practically swabbing his receding wool line with his handkerchief as he tried to speak. At first it was nothing but barely audible squeaks.

"W-well, we've had complaints b-before." Ruddy said. "Z-zach and Vanna a-alone tend to d-draw attention b-but..." The sheep stammered.

"BUT WHAT!?" Audrey had lurched over her counter slightly, causing the ram to practically recoil into his suit.

"Because the c-complaints were so few, and with your families service to the Meadowlands w-we t-tended to ignore them." Loupon added.

"Well ain't that a fine how do you do!?" Audrey stood back up, placing her paws on her hips as she glowered at the crowd. "This is the first I've heard of this from any of ya'll!" She stabbed a finger at the mob. Some seemed to shrink slightly. "And I thought I knew you people!"

Audrey head swiveled as she pointed at various members of the crowd. "Mrs. Stag? Mr. Hornsby? Even you Mr. and Mrs. Molina? Fer crying out loud I've known you both since grade school!" With each name listed off, various members of the crowd seemed to shrink in shame.

"And Damon, yer one of Dori's best friends!" The she wolf returned her attention to Ruddy. The sheep sunk further into his pressed suit. He raised his hooves in self defense. "What makes this different then those other times!?"

"The number of complaints Mrs. Hunter." Loupon added, nervously straightening his tie. "I-I'm afraid there were far too many to sweep under the rug. I m-mean two preds or two prey mammals of different species are one issue, but a prey and a pred-"

"IT'S UNNATURAL!" Ana pushed away from Vernon, turning her attention to the crowd. "IT GOES AGAINST THE NATURAL ORDER!"

"ANA PLEASE!" Kendrick protested.

The she wolf let out a snort, crossing her arms as she turned her back to the wolf. Wiping his brow, Loupon continued.

"It just makes too many mammals uncomfortable. And we don't want any scenes breaking out today." Loupon said in a lowered tone.

"Well ya'll certainly done a good job on that!" Audrey snapped, gesturing a paw to the crowd. " You stirred up a damn lynch mob and brought 'em here. All that's missing is the torches and pitchforks!"

As his Mother spoke, Vernon noticed Ana's ears perk up at the mention of a 'lynch mob', letting out a low chuckle. Vernon stormed over to Ana, grasping the she-wolf by a shoulder and forcing her to face him.

"You did this didn't you?" Vernon hissed. "This crowd is on you!? Ain't it!?"

Ana flashed a smug smile. "What, me!?" She cooed. "I would never!" The she-wolf feigned innocence as she pulled Vernon's paw off her. "But if some of these good mammals overheard me talking to Ken and were just as disgusted as I was....well..." Ana's grin became practically Cheshire as she eyed Vernon evilly. "I can't help that."

"WHY YOU LOUSY LITTLE B-" Vernon stopped as he felt a hoof grasp his paw tightly, pulling him back. Looking down he found Dawn had stepped off her stool and was now by his side. She looked up at him sadly.

"Floof's, what-?"

"We'll go." Dawn replied.

"WHAT!?" Vernon barked.

Dawn released her grip on the wolf, making her way between Audrey, Ruddy, and Loupon. Turning her attention to Ruddy, she cleared her throat.

"As someone who used to work in politics I understand the awkward position Vernon and I have placed you in." Dawn said.

Ruddy's eyes went wide. "Wait, D-Dawn Bellwether?"

Dawn gave a simple nod.

Ruddy turned to Loupon, gesturing his hooves at the ewe in front of him. "You didn't tell me she was Dawn Bellwether!" He hissed quietly. Loupon scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

"Ms. Bellwether, I am terrible sorry, I truly am." Ruddy said, turning his attention back to Dawn. "I hate to put you in this position considering the circumstances. After what you did for Zootopia I-"

Dawn raised a hoof to stop the ram.

"Vernon and I didn't mean to cause any trouble. But we understand we aren't in a very..." The ewe fiddled her hooves nervously. "'conventional' relationship." The ewe sighed.

"So, for the sake of everyone else here..." Dawn looked up at Audrey sadly. "Vernon and I will leave."

"Honey Lamb!" Vernon barked in disbelief. But Dawn simply shook her head. Walking back over to Vernon's side, Dawn wrapped a hoof around his paw, squeezing it tightly. She looked up at him with sad, glistening eyes. But he could see a look of resignation in them as well. It was a battle they weren't equipped to fight, a stand they weren't in position to hold. For the sake of the rest of the Hunters, they had to back down.

"It's not worth it Vernon." Dawn glanced at the proud she-wolf still smugly smiling at them. Vernon could see Dawn's tearful eyes were burning with disgust. "She's not worth it."

"OH!" Ana laughed, placing a paw to her chest. "Looking down on Preds again are we? I guess you haven't changed as much as you think?" Ana let out a howling laugh.

Dawn turned away from Ana, pulling Vernon with her as they now faced the stand.

"Mrs. Hunter, could Malcolm drive us back to the ranch?" Dawn asked.

"Nothin' doin' Darlin', you two ain't leavin!" Audrey's tone was decisive as she slammed a paw on the table.

"Please Mrs. Hunter, we've caused enough trouble. I don't want to make things worse for you or the others." Dawn said somberly.

"Oh you poor thing!" Ana cooed. "You think you haven't already!?" The she-wolf barked.

Vernon snapped his attention back to Ana, letting out a rolling growl.

"Would you shut up already! You got what ya wanted!" Vernon snarled.

"Not yet." Ana sneered. The wolfess gave her mate a shove, causing Kendrick to stumble slightly.

"Tell him!" She gestured to Vernon. "Tell him Ken!" She grinned.

"What's she gettin' at Damon?" Audrey asked the diminutive ram. The sheep shifted uncomfortably as he returned to twiddling his hooves. The silence seemed to linger as the ram failed to make any sort of noise. He seemed unable to even look Audrey in the eyes.

"A-all of you have to leave." Loupon said.

"What?" Audrey asked coldly, staring daggers at the large wolf.

"W-well...um..." Loupon gulped, going as dry mouthed as Ruddy seemed to have gone.

"YOU'RE ALL LEAVIN'!" Ana cackled. "ALL YOU HUNTERS ARE GOING BYE BYE!" Pushing Loupon aside, Ana pranced up to the counter.

"Maybe now your son will learn his place Auddy my dear." Ana cooed.

"DON'T you call me Auddy!" Audrey hissed.

On the outside, Vernon was frozen. His facial expression was stuck in neutral as the emotions below the surface fought to process all that was happening and respond accordingly. This was it, the worst possible outcome the date at the fair could possibly yield. In the grand scheme of things, Ana and the old goat had gotten under Vernon's pelt and effectively soured the date. But that was something Vernon could stand. It would have taken time for the ire to fully settle, but he would have gotten through it, that he was sure of. But those confrontations were on him, and only affected the two of them. But now the events that had been set in motion were going to cause the one thing that he had been certain was impossible. The one thing that would eat at him worse than anything else. Ana was set to prove his Father's prediction right. He and Dawn would be responsible for ruining the families reputation, for getting the whole lot of them ejected from the fair. The thought alone caused his lips to curl in disgust. His ignorant Father would end up feeling justified, and worse yet, would think even less of Dawn.

Ana it seemed had wasted no time spreading as much awful gossip that she could to any mammal that would listen. It certainly explained why the customers started ignoring the family stand, after all the time frame certainly lined up. Whether she had started dragging the families name through the mud at first, or merely expanded to the other Hunters while ragging on Vernon as the day wore on, the damage had already been done. She had got it in her head to hurt all of them for Vernon's transgression, and she was set to make good on it.

"You are a MONSTER!" That had come from Dawn. Vernon looked down at his empty paw in surprise. The ewe must have pulled away from him while he was lost in thought, and was now standing toe to toe with Ana.

"Well ain't that the pot calling the kettle'!" Anna let out another howling laugh, causing a few wolves in the crowd to let out howls of their own.

"You are so PETTY! So VINDICTIVE!" Dawn snarled. "Are you really so much of a child that you have to punish innocent mammals because you don't like us?!"

Ana let out another laugh. "Look who's talking about PETTYNESS! About PUNISHING INNOCENT MAMMALS!" Ana gestured to the gaggle of onlookers.

"DAWN BELLWETHER! THE CRIMINAL MASTERMIND WHO MANIPULATED THE CITY!" Ana held out her arms.

"ANA!" Kedrick yelled, but by now the she-wolf seemed to be on a roll.

"OH SURE, SHE SAVED THE CITY AFTER THE FACT! BUT WHO REALLY KNOWS HOW THINGS PLAYED OUT IN THAT FACTORY!?" Ana grinned widely at her audience. "WHO'S TO SAY SHE WASN'T LOOKING TO SAVE HER OWN PELT! OR TO MAKE US FORGET WHAT SHE DID!"

"LOUPON, TELL YOUR MATE TO-"

"TO WHAT!?" Ana cut Ruddy off, looming over the small sheep and scaring him into silence. "TO STOP TELLING EVERYONE THE TRUTH!?"

Dawn's firm stance seemed to falter slightly as Vernon watched. His paws beginning to tighten into fists.

Ana spun back to th diminutive ewe. "AND NOW SHE'S TRYING TO HIDE BEHIND DATING A PRED! TO MAKE IT LOOK LIKE SHE'S REALLY CHANGED! THAT' A RIOT!" Ana let out a barking laugh.

Vernon could feel his claws digging into his pads as he clenched his fists tighter. His Mother had always told him never to hit a girl, and it was a rule he had always obeyed. But at that moment he was about three seconds away from slugging Ana and being done with it.

"EVERYONE KNOW'S YOU'RE STILL THE SAME-" Ana was cut off as she suddenly found herself slammed against the Hunter stand, bowling over a stool in the process. It took Vernon a second to realize that he hadn't moved, that the punch hadn't come from him despite his blinding fury. Instead, Ada was standing where he wished he was, the hyeness towering over the crumpled she-wolf.

"Ya got a big mouth doncha? I guess nobody eva took da time to teach ya how ta shut it." Ada muttered, crossing her paws as she glowered down at the wolf. Ana seemed to still be trying to make sense of what just happened. Clutching a paw to her face, she glanced around wildly at everyone. The she-wolf looked terrified, like she wanted to flee. It was the first time Vernon had ever seen Ana make a face like that, and he'd be lying if he said it didn't make him feel good.

"Y-you...wh!? Who?" Ana sputtered, evidently still reeling from the blow. Vernon could see a small trickle of blood coming from her nose.

"Ada!" Vernon watched as Vanna ran up to the hyena's side. The tigress placed her head in her paw. " Sweet Savannah, not again. I told you not to go in guns a blazing!"

"Tch, that's how you deal with a gal like that." Ada huffed. "I could tell by da way she was talkin' she ain't never had to fight for anyting in her life. She's all blusta!"

Ana staggered to her feet, the terror on her face now replaced with blind fury.

"W-WHY YOU! I'LL! I'LL-! Ana hissed, rubbing her muzzle fiercely.

Ada lunged, causing Ana to recoil as the hyeness loomed over her. "OR YOU'LL WHAT!?" Ada sneered.

"I-I'LL, I-I..." Ana stammered as Ada crept closer.

"I know your type, I grew up around goils like you! Youse all love ta talk and talk about hows great youse are, how strong and tuff youse are, how much better you are den everyone else!" Ada huffed. " But da second someone challenges ya on dat you find da biggest fella you can to hide behind, and have him do your doity woik!"

Ada continued to stalk forward, and soon Ana found herself with her back against the Hunter family stall.

"And if dat guy is can't do da job youse move on ta the next one, all so you don't eva have to fight for yaself!" Ada crossed her arms, defiantly grinning at the wolfess. "We had woids for goils like you back home, pletny of 'em, but I tink 'bitch' is the best fit for ya."

Vernon saw a flash of white scurry up Ada's back, scrambling onto the hyeness' head before coming to a stop. Qali was now leaning her palms on Ada's crown, stabbing a finger at the bewildered she-wolf.

"Yeah! What Ada said!" Qali chirped.

Ada grumbled, glancing up at the arctic fox now leaning on her head.

"Youse are kinda undaminin' my point sis." Ada lamented.

"What, you don't think I can take her one on one?" Qali asked, glancing down at the Hyena below. Qali raised her arm, flexing it to the best of her abilities as she flashed Ada a confident smile.

"Chuckles, I cut trees for a living. And I'm fast and wiry." Qali said, as she made her way back to the ground, taking a stance by Ada's side. The artic fox beamed a smile up at the larger canine. "I can topple her faster than a blue-spruce!"

"Y-YOU!" Ana seemed to find her footing, striking a somewhat shaky offensive stance. The she-wolf wiped the little bit of blood from her nose, a steady growl now thrumming from her throat. "YOU THINK I WOULDN'T...I..." Ana flinched, stumbling over her words as she seemed to second guess herself. " I WOULDN'T THINK TWICE ABOUT HITTING A...A..." Ana struggled.

"Not tinkin' twice huh?" Ada let out a hyena cackle.

"WHY I! I'LL!" Ana reeled back a fist, holding it behind her in as threatening a manner as she could between fits of trembling. It was a strange sight for Vernon, seeing Ana vulnerable for once. All of her confidence, her cocksure attitude, all of it vaporized in an instant. Leaving behind nothing but a scared little welp of a pup whose eyes were now darting around in desperate search for help as she tried to regain her composure. It didn't help that Ada was at least a foot and a half taller than she was, and twice as wide. The large canine took another step forward, bearing a cocky smile of her own.

"Oh I'd love ta see it, in fact..." Ada puffed out her chest, drawing an 'x' across it with her paw. "I'll give ya da foist shot for free!"

"Now, now, this has gone far enough." Vanna said, placing a paw on Ada's shoulder. "There was no need for violence before and there isn't-"

"Aw c'mon Kit Kat, you can't tell me she wasn't axing for it!" Ada turned, offering Vanna a shrug.

Vernon saw a glint of mischief return to the wilted she-wolf's eye. Ana, seeing her opening now that Ada was distracted, let out an enraged snarl as she released her fist. It was coming in fast and hard, right toward the back of Ada's head. Perhaps she was hoping to knock her out with all the force she had in that one punch, to use the cheap shot to her advantage and hopefully end the fight before it began. But Vernon knew better. Ada was a mammal who could take her licks and then some. And when it came to fighting, Ada was a mammal who showed no mercy, especially when her opponent chose to fight dirty.

But the blow never connected with it's intended target. Instead of a loud 'thump', there was a weak, almost inaudible 'thwap' as Ana's paw met with Vanna's upper chest. The tigress had simply stepped in the way of the blow at the last minute, standing stock still as Ana put all her might into her swing. Vanna hadn't even flinched, as if the blow was little more than a light breeze against her hulking frame. The same could not be said for Ana, who let out a painful yelp as she withdrew her paw, cradling it like a puppy.

"I said this has gone far enough!" Vanna said bluntly, crossing her arms as she glowered down at the wounded she-wolf.

"If you think I am going to stand by after what that-that MONGREL did to me I-I'LL-!"

"Ma'am please." Vanna sighed. " I agree that my sister overstepped her boundaries and I can assure you it will be taken care of." Vanna flashed Ada a disapproving glance.

"Oh, and who's taking care of it!? You!?" Ana snapped. "I don't care if she's somehow your sister or not, she's not walking away from this!" Ana growled.

"Ma'am, pl-"

I-I'LL-" Ana sputtered, dragging a shaking paw across her scalp. "IF I HAVE TO GO THROUGH Y-YOU TO GET TO HER I'LL DO IT!" Ana quickly grasped the nearest stool, holding it up defensively toward the towering tigress. Despite her threatening statement, the wolfess seemed to be wielding it more like a shield than a cudgel.

"Ma'am, you've already hit me once. Please don't make it any worse by willingly attempting to assault an officer of the law." As Vanna spoke, she reached into her jean pocket, pulling out her badge and displaying it for Ana to see.

"O-Officer!?" Ana whined, dropping the stool abruptly. Ana's stance quickly fell back into a cower. "O-oh Officer! I-I'm so sorry!" Ana whimpered. "I-I really didn't mean to hit you!"

Vanna crossed her arms, giving a simple nod.

"I-it's just that she hit me first!" Ana stabbed a claw toward the large hyena now peeking out from behind the larger tigress.

"As I said, she overstepped her boundaries." Vanna sighed. "Preferably I'd like to work this out without having to take anyone to the station. But just because she is my sister doesn't mean I won't follow procedure should you choose to press charges."

Ana seemed to be starting to calm down, her stance easing into something more relaxed as she began to compose herself. Ana ran another paw through her hair, brushing as much of it back up and away from her eyes as she could.

"Ahem, thank you officer." Ana replied, pulling the edges of her jacket in an effort to straighten it out. "Yes, yes I would like to press charges once the first problem is taken care of."

"And that is?" Vanna asked.

"The Hunter's are being difficult. They've been asked to leave by Representative Ruddy and Assistant Representative Kendrick Loupon. My mate." Ana's smug grin returned.

"I see..." Vanna raised an eyebrow. "And exactly on what grounds has my family been asked to leave the fair?"

Ana's smile instantly dropped, a look of wild disbelief taking hold of her.

"Y-your family!?" She sputtered.

Vanna gave another simple, affirmative nod.

"Officer Hunter." Ruddy said, drawing the tigress' attention. " I'm afraid we've received a number of compl-"

"Too many townsfolk seem to have a problem with 'crosser' couples it seems!" Audrey cut the sheep off, causing him to shrink in shame. " So they're fixin' to throw us all out."

Vanna eyed the representative coldly. "Is that a fact?" The feline muttered. "I've never heard anyone complain before."

Ruddy began to wave his hooves defensively at an almost blinding speed. "I-I mean no disrespect Officer Hunter." The ram sputtered, dabbing his brow with his napkin. "It's just that the fair-goers are-"

"Kitten? Vern? What's going on here?" Now Zach had arrived, complete with Wade, and Trenton. The wolf made his way over to Vanna's side.

"Ah! Oh!" Ruddy seemed to shrink even further as the opposition grew. "Officer Hunter, I mean the other officer Hunter, yes well."

"WAIT JUST A MINUTE!" Ana hissed, stabbing a finger at Zach. The she-wolf looked almost crazed as she evidently tried to grasp what was happening. "WHAT IS THIS!? DO ALL OF YOU WORK IN THE MEADOWLANDS POLICE OR SOMETHING!?"

Zach raised an eyebrow at the rapidly unraveling she-wolf. "Uh..."

"Not the Meadowlands specifically, no." Trenton added.

Ana let out a large, aggravated huff. "ALRIGHT LOOK!" She sneered, stabbing a paw at Vanna and Zach. "YOU SAID YOU'D DO YOUR JOB REGARDLESS! SO GET THE REST OF YOUR FAMILY OUT OF HERE!

"Woah, woah, what is going on now?" Wade asked, glancing around at the swarm of confused mammals at the perimeter of the developing scene.

"We'll we haven't establi-"

"KICK THEM OUT BY FORCE! DO YOUR JOB!" Ana snapped, her eyes darting around to the various Hunters.

"I-I don't think we need to go t-that far Miss Windpaw." Ruddy interjected.

"I should hope not." That reply had come from Xavier, who was now making his way though the mob. The distinguished wolf pulled at the edges of his jacket as he approached the Representatives.

"I-I'm sorry, and you are?" Loupon asked.

"Xavier Hunter." The wolf adjusted his spectacles before extending his paw to the stout ram. The vigorous handshake sent visible shockwaves through the already twitchy ram, nearly causing him to stumble back as Xavier released his grip. Then in one smooth motion the wolf reached into the inside of his jacket and produced a business card. As the dazed ram took the slip, Xavier continued. "I represent the law offices of Fienstag, Goldram, and Hunter in San Francisgoat. Perhaps you've heard of us?" He stated.

"F-Fienstag, Gold...?" Ruddy murmured in confusion as he eyed the card

"Law Offices, as in Lawyer?" Loupon asked.

"Correct." Xavier affirmed. "We handle all sorts of cases from criminal to civil, but we happen to specialize in cases of a discriminatory nature." The well dressed wolf gestured to himself. "In fact I handle most of our firms suits specifically pertaining to discrimination against 'unorthodox couplings'."

Xavier briefly glanced at Malcolm who was now leaning over the stalls counter, flashing the wolf a sad looking smile before continuing "Cases like those tend to strike a rather sympathetic chord in me."

Vernon could see the focus of the crowd was starting to wane, uncertain discussions and uncomfortable mumbling now starting to weave through the mob.

"Of course you realize any attempt to eject my family from this public festival, especially those who have a financial investment in providing services to this fair on the grounds of who members of their family choose to mate with is well..." Xavier chuckled. "...pretty much a textbook case of discrimination."

"W-Well now hold o-on..." Ruddy said weakly, dabbing his forehead once more with his soaked handkerchief. Xavier seemed unfazed by the nervous rams words, pressing onward with his own agenda.

"Legally speaking, I'd say that's pretty much an open and shut case." The wolf clapped his paws together, wiping them free of imaginary dirt. " And with someone as prominent as Miss Bellwether..." Xavier trailed off, gesturing to the small ewe by Vernon's side.

Vernon could feel the sheep lean into him as the attention suddenly drew their way, and placed a protective paw around her shoulder, pulling her in close to his side.

"Why, I'm sure there isn't a mammal here who hasn't seen her in the news over the last few months?" Xavier turned his address to the crowd around him. "Who isn't aware of her most recent deeds, and the publicity surrounding them?" The wolf turned back toward Dawn and Vernon, flashing the pair a smile. "Why, she's become one of Zootopia's greatest heroes!"

Vernon glanced down at the ewe squeezing tightly against him. He could tell the ewe was still worried with the way she was clutching at his side. But at the same time he could see the hint of a smile forming on her lips, and as she turned to look up at him, the glimmer of tears forming in her eyes. Vernon flashed the ewe a broad grin as he gently rubbed her shoulder before turning his attention to the brother now at center stage. It was true the whole situation was a mess, it had all gone careening off the rails so rapidly. Yet despite everything, seeing so much of his family stand up for him and his mate filled Vernon with pride. It was clear they genuinely cared, for him and Dawn. And now that they were standing with them, toe to toe against Ana and the mob she had brought down on them, Vernon felt as though perhaps they might come out of this one clean after all.

"A real media darling, despite her past transgressions." Xavier continued, adjusting his glasses. "Her name being attached to anything would draw a lot of attention." The wolf smiled, turning his focus back to Ruddy and Loupon.

"And a legal case?" Xavier chuckled. "Why, a case like that would get major coverage in the city, hell probably even all of North Mammalia! It certainly would make for a great career highlight for myself, although I don't think I could say the same for the two of you." The wolf gestured to Loupon and Ruddy.

"Why I imagine the both of you wouldn't so much as even be able to find employment as a bathroom attendant at a dive bar after the publicity from a case like that." Xavier chuckled.

"N-now just hold on a moment." Ken tried to interject, but Xavier shut the wolf down.

"For what?" Xavier replied, the wolf's grin widening to something akin to a sneer. "Not only could I sue the both of you for your discriminatory actions, but I could file a subpoena to find out the names of every mammal who lodged a complaint against my brother and his mate and add them to the docket as well."

That statement earned a cacophony of fearful utterances and cowing from the assembled mob. Vernon could see the once firm encompassing ring of mammals now beginning to back away from the scene. But it seemed Xavier wasn't done with them as the wolf turned his full attention back to the crowd.

"As a matter of fact, it might be easier if you all lined up right now and gave your information voluntarily. It would make the process so much smoother for everyone!"

At that moment, several members of the crowd began to break away, hastily jogging away from the scene that was unfolding. The rest of the crowd was fairing little better, as their fearful cries grew louder under the prospect of legal action. The ones closest to the front were starting to push against those behind them, all looking for a place to scatter like rats fleeing a sinking ship. Xavier meanwhile, seemed to be a mammal possessed as he stormed toward the throbbing mob.

"Come now? No one willing to stand by their ideas?" Xavier stated, his voice elevated. "Bigotry not a fine enough sword to die on when your money is on the line?"

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" A voice boomed from beyond the crowd. A loud, demanding and familiar voice that immediately caused Vernon's ears to droop. Vernon watched the crowd part as his Father marched onto the now hushed scene, taking a stand at the head of the crowd and effectively blocking Xavier. The imposing white wolf adjusted his hat, flashing a dull glare in the direction of the mounting madness before crossing his arms. The older wolf let out a sigh.

"Sh-Sheriff Hunter!" Damon sputtered, scurrying his way to the wolf. "I-I'm so sorry to h-"

"It's fine Damon." The wolf said gruffly, silencing the ram instantly. Ruddy gave a meek and uneasy nod.

The wolf twisted his head around, giving the shrinking mob an appraising sweep with his glare. The older wolf let out a snort before turning back to the family stand. Dorian placed his paws on his hips.

"We'll go."

Vernon wasn't surprised to hear that from his Father, he had expected as much. The rest of the family seemingly hadn't though, as the other assembled Hunters erupted into cries of shock and dismay.

"DORI!" Audrey cried, pain evident in her voice.

"Sir!?" Came a confused reply from Vanna.

Xavier took a step back, eyeing Dorian in disbelief.

"We're leavin'. Pack up." Dorian said, gesturing to Audrey.

"D-Dad, how can you agree to such a-"

"It ain't a matter of agreeing with nobody." Dorian cut Xavier off. "It's a matter of keeping the peace."

With that the white wolf turned to face the crowd. Dorian cleared his throat before raising his hands to gain their attention. A useless gesture thought Vernon, as it was clear he already had it the moment he entered the scene.

"I want everyone here to disperse." Dorian stated. "This matter is handled, and you can all go back to your buisness."

"BACK TO BUISNESS?!" Now Xavier was shouting. "Not without leaving their names and-"

"Son, you ain't suin' these folks." Dorian turned back to Xavier.

"I most certainly am! I am not going to stand by an-"

"Most of these mammals ain't got much to their name son. Suin' 'em ain't gonna do anything more than take food out of their kids mouths."

"B-But you, I-" Xavier sputtered, clearly infuriated.

"And it ain't exactly going to endear them to what yer defendin' is it?"

Vernon could see the red emanating from under Xavier's fur as he stood with his mouth agape. It was clear the wolf wanted to argue, to say something. But the rather erudite wolf was evidently at a loss. After making several faces the beleaguered wolf finally let out an irritated huff.

"A-alright fine, I won't involve the towns people in the case. But I will still be seeking action against Mr. Ruddy and Mr. Loupon for their part in today's little-"

"Xavier, stand down." Dorian said tersely. "That ain't how we do things in the North Meadowlands."

"AIN'T HOW WE-AIN'T HOW-" The exasperated wolf sputtered before his face suddenly fell. An almost vile and disgusted sneer flashed on to his face as he processed Dorian's actions.

"Y-You're protecting them?" Xavier said weakly, almost surprised by his own words. "You actually agree with-"

"I said I ain't agreeing with nobody." Dorian asserted as he made his way past the wolf. The white wolf coolly strode toward the district representatives, tipping his hat as he came to a stop in front of them.

"My wife and Son-in-law will be back to run the stand tomorrow." Dorian said firmly.

"Just the two of 'em, and no one else." Dorian continued. "That is if those nobodies are smart they won't." With that, Dorian threw a cold glance in Vernon's direction. Vernon met his glance with a sneer, a low growl emanating from his throat. But he stopped as he felt Dawn ball into his side again. Looking down he could see the ewe had buried her face completely into his torso, her ears as flat against her head as they could possibly be. At that moment, he felt pure hatred for his Father. His mind swam with a variety of curses and slurs that were screaming for Vernon to start slinging them at his Father, but the bile in his throat stung so sharply that all he could muster was to start another growl. He glared back at his Father, but by now Dorian had turned his attention back to his associates.

"My family paid for that stall, and for the license to run it. And we ain't lettin' it go to waste." Dorian continued.

"But Sheriff Hunter, I-"

"No buts." Dorian cut the little ram off. "You know you ain't got no legal right to chase my family out of here over gossip." Dorian replied, leaning a paw against his holster.

"But the fair-goers!" Ruddy protested.

"They don't have to shop at our stall if they don't want. They got the freedom to turn their nose up at us. But we have the freedom to sell our wares."

"I-I." Ruddy stammered, swabbing his forehead with his napkin. "I suppose you're right." The ram gave a nervous glance toward the glowering she-wolf behind the counter of the stall. "Perhaps I was a b-bit hasty with-"

"A BIT HASTY!?" Audrey cried. "A BI-"

"Audrey." Dorian said sternly.

The wolfess stopped speaking, but she turned to staring daggers at her husband.

"WELL SHE ASSAULTED ME! SHE HIT ME RIGHT IN THE FACE!" Ana bolted to the Sheriff's side, stabbing a finger wildly at Ada's direction.

Dorian removed his hat, letting out an annoyed sigh.

"Ada, did you really hit Miss Windpaw?" The Sheriff asked.

Ada grinned widely. "I ain't gonna deny it." Ada said, swelling her chest out proudly as she strutted toward Dorian. As she approached, Ana shifted to a position behind the white wolf, almost using him as a shield from the large canine. "I'm proud of it." Ada cackled.

Dorian let off an irritated groan.

"Alright, well I suppose you wanna press charges then Miss Windpaw?" Dorian glanced over his shoulder at the cowering red wolf.

"YES! YES!" The red wolf pleaded, clutching Dorian's coat as she eyed Ada warily. "I want that BRUTE to pay for touching me!"

Dorian placed a paw to his head, closing his eyes as he rubbed his forehead.

"Ada." Dorian sighed. "I suppose ya'll know the drill?"

Ada placed a paw on her shoulder, spinning her other arm in an effort to stretch out her muscles. "Eh, c'mon Papa Hunta, if youse gotta take me in at least let me get a few more licks in there! At least make it woith da charge!" Ada reeled back her fist, causing Ana to let out another yelp as she slipped further behind Dorian.

"Ada." Dorian said firmly.

"Tch, fine." The Hyeness let out a defeated grunt as she extended her paws toward the white wolf, holding them tightly together. "Slap da cuffs on me Papa Coppa."

Dorian let out another irritated grumble as he reached for his belt. As the wolf brought his cuffs out, another voice rose over the scene.

"ADA, WHAT DID YOU DO NOW!?" Came Yuri's cry as he made his way through the disseminating crowd. A good bulk of the fair goers had already moved on by the time the wolf made his appearance, and the numbers continued to dwindle as the black wolf stopped by the side of his mate. Ada flashed Yuri a wide grin.

"Justa little playful rough-housin'." She chuckled.

"Yer mate slugged this she-wolf here." Dorian bobbed his head toward the red wolf behind him.

"What!? Why!?" Yuri sputtered, glaring at his mate.

"Cause she's got a big mouth!" Ada shrugged. "Why else?"

"No, not-" Yuri paused as he glanced back toward Dorian. "Wait, is that Ana Windpaw?" Yuri asked. "Ain't that-"

Slowly Yuri turned his head in Vernon's direction, his already soured face developing an even deeper sneer as he glared at him.

"Oh, I should have realized that 'Vermin' had something to do with this." The wolf hissed.

Vernon glared back, but he didn't linger long as he felt Dawn still pressing her head deeper into his side. He could feel slight moisture from the ewe's tears beginning to soak through the thread of his shirt. Vernon placed his paw on her back and began to rub it reassuringly.

"YURI! Watch yer mouth!" Dorian snapped. "We got rodent families around, they don't need to be hearin' that kinda talk!"

Yuri crossed his arms. "Why is it you always have to drag the rest of us into your personal problems Runt?"

"Put a muzzle on it Yuri!" Audrey snapped, glaring back at the dark furred wolf.

Yuri opened his mouth again, but Ada cut him off.

"Aw stop whinin'!" Ada snorted as Dorian snapped the cuffs in place. "You ain't the one in cuffs iz ya?"

Yuri let out a derisive snort.

"Alright, well Miss Windpaw, you'll have to accompany us down to the station to file a report." Dorian sighed. The Sheriff gave the cuffs a shake to make sure they were firmly in place before signaling Ada to lower her paws. "And you're probably going to need some bail money Ada."

"Ah, I got enough, and old grumpus over here can help me with da extra." Ada said, elbowing Yuri. Yuri let out an annoyed grumble.

"We're going to be down there for hours!" Yuri hissed.

"Well that all depends on how far Miss Windpaw wants to press the issue." Dorian replied.

"Oh I want to see justice done!" Ana said firmly, strutting over to Loupon. "We'll pursue this to the fullest extent! I want maximum damages for what she did to me! To us!" Ana wrapped her paws around Loupon's arm. "Isn't that right Ken?"

Much to Vernon's surprise, the large wolf responded to Ana's action with a glare so sharp the she-wolf immediately withdrew her paws.

"You can do whatever you want Ana, but I'm considering this matter dealt with."

"What!?" Ana whimpered, the she-wolf stammered, gesturing over to Ada weakly. Ana's eyes were large and pleading, simply begging for Loupon to back her up.

"You've already put me in a terrible position as it is." The wolf's voice dropped as he continued to glower at her. "All you have done is drag me from one scandal to another the entire day. The wolf let out in a whispered hiss. " You're fighting this one alone my Dear."

The crowd had mostly dissipated now, leaving just a few stragglers who had been slow to heed Dorian's orders. Ken turned away from Ana, taking a few steps away only for the she-wolf to chase him.

"B-But Ken!" Ana protested.

"When you are done at the station my limo will pick you up." Kendrick added, his back remaining turned away from the wolfess. "And when you get home we are going to have a long discussion about the nature of our relationship."

With that Loupon joined the rest of the dying mob in their journey away from the scene of the standoff. The wolf didn't look back as Ana dropped to her knees, crumpled and dejected. For a few moments she simply stood motionless, watching the large wolf disappear into the throngs of fair-goers until he was out of sight. It was only when Dorian grabbed her attention again did the wolf move at all.

"Miss Windpaw, we should probably get moving." Dorian said.

Vernon watched the wolfess slowly rise to her feet. She took slow deliberate steps toward the white wolf, her head remaining downturned the entire time. Once at his side, the she-wolf remained silent, still looking at the dirt below her feet.

"W-Well....I.." Ruddy piped up. "I-It seems like y-you have everything under c-control here Sheriff Hunter."

The stout ram turned his attention back to the family food stall. He looked disappointed, as far as Vernon could tell. Vernon's Mother was already in the midst of packing up various implements in preparations for leaving the stall. The she-wolf gathered a clump of spoons and pie spreaders before slamming them into the nearest box without care. It was clear in her actions that the wolfess was broiling under the surface. Most mammals would have known better than to try to talk to Audrey when she was like that, but apparently Ruddy wasn't one of them. The little Ram cleared his throat in a deliberate attempt to draw her attention. After the first try failed, he tried again only to receive a glare from the wolfess. Still he pressed on.

"M-Mrs. Hunter..." He stuttered. "I a-am terribly s-so-"

The she wolf let out a snarl as she stared the little ram down, causing him to once again shrink into his suit.

"I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT DAMON!" Audrey growled.

"B-Bu-Bu" Ruddy protested weakly.

Audrey stabbed a claw at the diminutive ram. "Damon, If I don't ever see ya'll again until next years fair it'll be to soon! GET ME!?"

The look on the ram's face was one of sullen resignation, mixed with deep shame. Vernon watched the ram deflate as he turned to walk away from the stand. He had only made it three or four steps away in his miserable trudge before glancing back and the fuming she-wolf. "I-I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive m-me one day Misses Hunter."

With that, the ram turned his back toward his exit. As he neared Dorian, the larger wolf stopped him with a paw, drawing his attetnion upward.

"Officer?" He asked in a bleak tone.

"Damon, next time a situation like this comes up, let me handle it alright?" Dorian asked. "Last thing we need is you makin' a situation worse by trying to handle it yerself. Ya nearly caused a damn riot!"

The ram gave a weak nod, shame still lacing his features.

"Yes Dorian, I'm so sorry for this...for everything." The ram sighed.

Dorian removed his paw, and the defeated ram continued his trudge away from the stand. It was a slow, methodical walk of shame that kept the ram lingering in sight. All the while Audrey continued to glare at the pathetic mammal, and when he was finally gone the livid she-wolf only turned the focus of her ire to the other source.

"AND YOU DORI!" Audrey sneered. "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!? HUH!?"

The Sheriff let out annoyed grumble.

"I'm doin' my job." He replied.

"If you was doin' yer job you would have NEVER let somethin' like what just went on STAND!" Audrey persisted. "Y-You woulda-!"

"WHAT would I have done AUDDY!?" Dorian snapped back. "Just LET ya'll carry on making a scene like ya'll were!? Let ya make it WORSE!?" Dorian hissed.

"Oh please!" Xavier interjected. "You could have just as easily calmed everyone down and done the right thing Dad!"

"YA'LL ARE ACTING LIKE THIS IS MY FAULT!" Dorian growled. All the other Hunter's eyes were on him now.

"I didn't stir that mob up!" Dorian protested. "I didn't bring 'em over here!" He continued. "And I certainly wasn't the REASON they showed up!" As the wolf huffed, he glared at Vernon again, making it clear to the wolf that his Father's last statement was directed at him. Vernon growled as he continued to comfort his Honey Lamb.

"I'm only tryin' to keep the peace here! To salvage what I can of this mess ya'll made!" Dorian huffed. "Is this the hill ya'll are willin' to die on!? To risk our livelihoods fer!?"

Vernon could see a mix of emotions on the faces of the other members of the Hunter brood. Anger, disgust, disappointment, everyone aside from Yuri wore faces of shame. One by one, Vernon watched his family turn away from Dorian. It started with Audrey, then Malcolm, Qali, and so on, until they had all refused to look at the wolf. Vernon however, kept his eyes fixed on his Father, watching the white wolf grow increasingly incised.

"Ya'll are actin' ridiculous!" Dorian hissed. "I warned ya'll! I TOLD ya'll what was gonna happen! But naw, It's MY fault!" The wolf stamped a paw hard against the earth, letting out a snarl. Vernon watched the wolf huff and puff, trying to calm himself from the frenzy he had whipped himself into. After a few moments of heavy breathing, the wolf let out a disgruntled sigh.

"Alright fine." Dorian muttered, turning his attention to Zach and Vanna who had yet to turn their backs to him. "I'll need ya'll to ride down to the station with me. It'd be faster if-"

"We're off duty Mr. Hunter." Vanna said, crossing her arms.

"You can handle it by yourself Pa." Added Zach with disdain.

Dorian grit his teeth sharply, glaring at the pair.

"Alright..." he muttered, taking off his hat and wiping his forehead before placing it back on. "ALRIGHT FINE!" He yelled.

"DIE on that hill fer all I care!" He hissed. Placing a paw on Ada's shoulder, he began to guide her in the direction of the parking lot, Yuri and Ana close behind.

"Making mountains o' molehills I swear." Vernon could hear him grumble as he passed.

Reaching the edge of the of the path encircling the stall, Dorian turned once more to the Hunter's standing by the stand.

"I'm stayin' out of this from here on out, ya'll got that!?" Dorian hissed. "It's clear I ain't exactly welcome at the reunion anyway. So I might as well stay out of it. Handle everything the way ya'll want, and don't come crying to me when things go wrong next time!" Dorian turned his back to the rest of the Hunters.

"I'll be spendin' the rest of the reunion in my office. So ya'll won't have to be saddled with my presence. I hope ya'll have a fine time." With that, the white wolf continued to guide Ada forward, with Ana and Yuri tailing until they were out of sight.

With the scene dispersed and the mob cleared, an uncomfortable silence hung over the Hunter stall. Vernon traded disappointed glances with the rest of his family members as they slowly broke away one by one, making their way to the back of the stall to help his Mother and Malcolm close up. Xavier, Zach, and Vanna however, approached the wolf and his whimpering lamb.

"You two alright?" Zach asked.

Vernon glanced down at the ewe still weeping quietly into his side, giving her a gentle jostle.

"Mutton Chop?" Vernon cooed.

Dawn pulled her face free from his torso, and Vernon could see the redness around her eyes. The ewe aggressively wiped at the stray tears as if she were trying to hide them.

"I-I'm okay." Dawn stuttered between harsh breaths.

"You ain't okay Darl-."

"I am." Dawn protested, taking a hard sniffle, clearly trying to draw back the tears.

"I-I'm sorry Honey L-"

"No I'm sorry." Dawn replied. The ewe turned her attention to the others now hovering over the pair.

"I'm sorry to everyone, for all of th-"

"Nonsense Darlin'." Audrey tutted from behind the stall. The she-wolf was still packing away supplies. " This one is on Dori and Ruddy, no-one else." The wolfess concluded.

"Bu-."

"Dad was completely in the wrong." Xavier added. "I didn't even think Dad would defend such a thing! I mean look at our family!" Xavier gestured to the mammals around them. "Taking such a stance is a slap in the face to all of us, especially Vanna, Ada, and Qali. I can't believe him!"

Vernon shook his head. "I'm just sorry for dragging all of you into our-"

"Oh don't you dare let Yuri's stupid statements get to you Vernon." Xavier interjected.

"Yeah, you know we don't feel that way about you alright?" Zach added. "You're my brother, our brother." Zach placed a paw on Vernon's shoulder. "And we look out for each other."

"And that goes for our sisters too." Vanna added, flashing Dawn a wide grin. Vernon watched as a weak smile formed on Dawn's muzzle as she let out another sniffle.

"T-thank you all." Dawn said with a whimper." Thank you so much."

"No need to thank us." Audrey added. "We're family, and that's what we do."

Vernon could feel a smile of his own start to form. Watching his family stand up for the couple was enough to make his heart swell with pride and warmth. Even Zach, despite his flub earlier in the morning had stood against Dorian for their sake. They had truly meant what they said, and put themselves on the line for the pair. And for that Vernon felt eternally grateful.

Yet the looming specter of his Father's words hung over his mind. They still had to leave, the entire family, because of himself and his mate. Dorian had ultimately proved to be right, and therefore the wolf could now more firmly believe whatever other assertions he had about Dawn were in the right as well. The possibility of swaying him into favoring Dawn now seemed to be impossible. A goal far beyond Vernon's reach regardless of how much of the family was willing to help. Vernon's smile slowly slunk back into a grimace as the looming hopelessness of the entire situation became more and more apparent.

"Vernon?" Dawn asked. Looking down he could see the concern lacing the ewe's features. "Your ears are all droopy. Are you-?"

"We should probably start packing up." Vernon grumbled, rising to his feet. He wasn't ready to talk, not till they were alone again.

"B-but Puppy-"

Vernon let out a sigh as he crouched back to Dawn's level, wrapping his arms tightly around the ewe as he brought her in for a hug. The wolf squeezed firmly, placing as much reassurance into the gesture as possible. At this point, he needed to hold on just as much as she did.

"I'll talk about it at the picnic okay Darlin'. I promise, I'll tell ya everything." The wolf replied before reluctantly releasing his grip on the lamb.

Dawn gave a meek nod, although he could still sense her worry. He knew that it wasn't going anywhere until he finally spilled his guts about the whole situation. It was time for the wolf to tell her what was really going on in his head, and the plans he had made for the weekend. The time had come to let it all out, to admit defeat and throw in the towel. The weekend was mostly a failure, and the time had come to accept it. Now the wolf only wanted to get through it as quickly as possible, and hope that by some twist of luck or fate, that it really didn't have to come down to his most drastic option. After so many of his family members were willing to embrace Dawn as one of their own, it would be a shame to have to turn his back on all of it.