#it’s the way people are basically like. false advertising FOR them that annoys me so bad | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

xoteajays · 1 year

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Now I'm curious to know if you have the same thoughts as me.. When you envision Rocky's dynamic ship (any ship) with a black widow type woman. What's the dynamic you think of. Because black widow types of archetype is a very interesting archetype to me. Most of the time.

Yes! Obviously he would buy her any of the favorite flowers she likes if he can buy those flowers. But he does seem like the classic roses guy to me. And like you mentioned, Rocky does have roses designed on a lot of his clothes too (like his clothes in End Of Sky, especially the red gloves). He's definitely the most traditional romantic of the H&L men.

Yes! Grungy. So of the tomboy and punk styles have a grungy style to their fashion.. Like grunge, punk, grungy punk. Those styles would be some of the styles I imagine for some of them anyway. So lots of their styles are definitely eclectic. They were what they are in the mood for.

And I knew about the skirts and shorts for Hinami because of her leg, since I think it would be difficult for her to walk around with any pants over her leg. Did you figure out how she got her injures? Or not yet?

If I'm rating my color coded characters on a scale to girly to tomboy... I would say Red and White/Green (don't know who of those two could be the girliest one), then Orange, then Blue. Blue is the most tomboy.

Despite Blue being the most tomboy one of these characters, I would have to say that Orange's actually the most physically active one with sports. She's definitely someone who would try anything once in life.

I have a vulgar thought. Which is no surprise to anyone. We've already established that if Rocky (or Koo) was romantically involved with girls - if they are really roommates in our stories, the other would probably leave to building for some time. Or just never leave their rooms until a lot of that was done. Or whatever they would do. Whatever happens... Anyway. What do you think would have if Rocky's girlfriend even tried to initiate sex with him while they were watching tv in the living room.

Obviously he would probably drag her to their room before actions do get too steamy between them. But I do also think it would be funny if the girlfriend kept trying to initiate sex with Rocky in public places. In the sense of public place areas being like those living room or kitchen areas instead of their bedroom, or in a backroom of Club Heaven. Not exactly in front of other people. But it's an interesting thought to me.

I keep forgetting that every country uses either °C and °F, so that just keeps throwing me off a bit. I don't know why. But I should be used to this by now. Anyway. 80°F is usually just spring and summer weather here (for the most part), sometimes on warmer autumn days but that doesn't happen that often though. You basically have summer season all year around. Basically like Florida, they always have warm weather.

Wait... Seriously? The new season that they keep promoting for Squid Games isn't actually a continuation to the original series like everyone thinks. But a reality game show of the series. Basically like the spinoff that no one wanted. Looking at the DTC spinoffs whenever I say that.

Then why promote the show like it's a second season then. Just say it was a spinoff show, not another season. I don't even watch the show.. But this is annoying me. That's just false advertisement in my opinion too. So why promote one thing it that thing is something else entirely different than what you're promoting. This annoys me way too much.

Maybe because I hate reality shows, and hate reality game shows like you wouldn't believe. I never had any interest in those type of shows.

Yes! Definitely give Red Garden a chance. I'd have recommendations.. But I should let you finish some other shows and movies before I may end up mentioning any more series. You'd already have a lot to watch.

There was a lot of anime cartoons that I watched as a child, like those 'cartoons' that were actually considered anime. Those cartoons.. But I don't remember every show I watched though so I can't remember if I might have watched Digimon. But I'd remember how the animation is to the show. Animation for anime and cartoons has improved greatly, at least when it comes to that specific series anyway. In my opinion.

At least now I know why you might need therapy then. Even that was the most bizarre animation, acting, dialogue.. You need therapy now.

So far enough. Both guys are attractive in their own way. So I may not blame the women if they have sex with either of those guys but then I would feel bad if the husband and wife cheated on each other though so I'm torn on that thought. Because I'm very strict about loyalty with the people who matter the most to you. So I'm very split on this topic.

But the mafia boss is stupid though. Vincenzo's not like that. Like the moment he feel in love with someone, he didn't act like an irrationally stupid person. He was still really intelligent about how he would have conducted his job as a mafia man and a lawyer. This guy's too stupid.

I feel like mafia men are actually attractive, besides their appearances I mean, is when they're actually intelligent. And he's not so intelligent.

Well.. If he's going to be thrown in prison, maybe even killed, then just have sex with the man once. Because events are just going to happen to him in some way. You'll probably never even actually see him again.

- 💋

i don’t have a full idea in mind, but i’m imagining like. a business rival type relationship. like a hostess club owner who manipulates the men that come into her business. she also takes in girls from bad situations, but as opposed to rocky’s protection of women, the black widow raises and trains up these girls in self defence ….. and also perhaps killing bad men. rocky treats the girls he takes in so carefully and protects them and kind of treats them like they’re fragile, but the black widow is like ‘women can kill. and they should.’ and probably does, admittedly, get her girls into some dangerous situations.

due to that difference, her and rocky butt heads over how they view and treat women. rocky’s ‘women need protecting’ vs the widow’s ‘women can protect themselves’.

also. the opposite colour dichotomy … but they both accent with red.

i haven’t fully decided on hinami’s accident yet. i still like the idea of her getting injured and then a bad infection while living in one of the crappy complexes from the worst spinoff. but i’m still trying to decide.

koo is just locking himself in his room whenever the gf comes around. like a polite ‘hello’ and then gone for the rest of the night because he doesn’t want to see something inappropriate.

i think, depending on the situation and/or location, that rocky might be into it. i could see him maybe being fine with making out. like pda type stuff. but not actual sex. if it’s somewhere a lot more private, then maybe. or maybe just heavy (heavier) petting.

celsius and fahrenheit is so confusing and i have to keep googling a converter so i can figure out what’s what. like if i’d just put ‘27°’ you’d probably have thought i was freezing to death ahdjdl. but yea, it’s like mid-to-late-20s celsius year round in australia.

yea it’s the dumb reality show based on the show. i’m not a huge fan of reality competition shows. i watch a couple cooking ones just for fun and background noise, and i watched ‘physical:100’ which was a korean competition show pitting people from different sports backgrounds against each other (which was pretty good actually, very interesting to see how different sports develop peoples’ bodies, lotta v pretty and fit people in it).

but nah. not a huge fan of reality shows and probably won’t be watching the squid game one. it’s not even a korean production, it’s fucking british.

digimon adventures is great! it’s so good and i’m nostalgic and i’ll take no criticism! it’s excellent!!

another anime i watched a lot as a kid - because my grandma had it on vhs - was orphen. we only had like 2 or 3 tapes tho, so i didn’t watch a whole lot of it but i remember it being pretty cool. and the main character was a pretty boy.

both guys are very hot. and i would like to see Stuff Happening. but also ….. i don’t really enjoy a cheating plot. like it’s uncomfortable.

the boss is smart when it comes to business most of the time! but he’s dumb with his heart and he’s pretty clear on the fact that he wanted to be so successful to eventually end up with the wife. he’s just dumb with his heart!! but he has a pretty decent business mind, i mean, he’s been very successful up to this point in linking up china, japan and korea for the drug trade and has a lot of companies under his control. he’s got a lot of money and control.

if only he could fucking focus on his gang and not his love-life. loverboy p l e a s e!

#💋 anon #tj answers #long post //

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favescandis · 4 years

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NEW interview with Alexander Skarsgård about Godzilla vs. Kong and The Northman with Uproxx

Alexander Skarsgard Knows You Don’t Care About Him In ‘Godzilla Vs Kong’

MIKE RYAN, SENIOR ENTERTAINMENT WRITER MARCH 30, 2021

Yes, Alexander Skarsgard is under no false impressions that you are looking forward to Godzilla vs. Kong to see the adventures of his character, a geologist named Dr. Nathan Lind. You see, Godzilla has been causing some problems for humans for unknown reasons and, just maybe, Kong can take care of business and let Godzilla know that his antics aren’t appreciated by means of a knuckle sandwich. And Dr. Nathan Lind has been studying Kong for years and has a good idea of what Kong’s motivations might be and what Kong actually wants.

So, yes … there are times where there is not a lot to talk about when even one of the lead actors in a movie admits people aren’t coming to see him or his character. Though from past interviews, I know Skarsgard has a pretty good sense of humor, so the real questions soon devolved into kind of outlandish fake questions and, luckily, Skarsgard ran with them.

Also, Skarsgard’s next film is The Northman, which is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, he teams with Robert Eggers, which will be the director’s followup to the acclaimed The Lighthouse. Second, it will completely screw up Google searches for True Blood fans searching for Skarsgard’s character, Eric Northman. And, yes, he’s thought about that and wonders how many people will show up expecting to see vampires. (There will be no vampires.)

It’s funny, because just the title of this movie, that isn’t false advertising.

Oh yeah.

Multiple fights.

It’s almost a two-hour-long movie, and it’s like an hour and 55 minutes of fighting.

So what’s this like for you? When you sign onto something like this? Because it’s Godzilla and Kong and they’re going to wind up getting a lot of the attention.

It’s humbling for a narcissistic actor like myself, to be put in my place, to show up on set and know that no one will go to see this movie because I’m in it.

Well, that’s not true. I have noticed over the years you do have a fan base that goes nuts for you.

That’s flattering to hear. But I’m under no illusion that I’m the star of the show and that anyone will go see the movie because they want to see Nathan Lind, the geologist.

The geologist.

Yeah, well, in a way, to be a vessel and a way for the audience to get to know, in my character’s case, Kong, more so than Godzilla, because I’m with Kong throughout the movie. But in a way to not necessarily humanize Kong, but to show a different side of Kong, to show that he has empathy. He’s lived a very solitary, lonely life on Skull Island without social connections, without family. And the thought of him to be reconnected, or to find his family in Hollow Earth is, is kind of the driving force, to reconnect. So I felt like my job was kind of set that up in a way and to kind of show the audience that side of Kong.

Well, you said people aren’t coming to see Dr. Nathan Lind, the geologist. But once here, where you tell me, how you’ve spent the last five years, studying with geologists and following them around and becoming a trained geologist yourself, people will look at this in a different way.

Right? Well, that’s how seriously I take my job.

You threw yourself into it. The last, maybe, ten years, you’ve been studying with geologists, just to know exactly what you were doing in this movie.

It’s just the kind of actor I am, Mike. Even though I play a very peripheral character and no one cares, I still take my craft seriously. And that means a decade of studying geology and living, breathing the character. Just to give the audience that sublime performance that I give in the movie.

When you’re giving the technical jargon during the movie, viewers can rest assured that you know exactly what you’re talking about, because you studied for so long with trained geologists.

Exactly. And they can see that in my eyes, that I’m not lying. I’m not pretending. I’m not acting. I’m not playing a geologist. I am a geologist.

You are a geologist.

Yes.

So when you filmed at Hollow Earth, in the center of Earth, was that on location?

Obviously, it was.

Yeah, I could tell.

And being there was trippy. I felt like you can’t … the audience can tell whether you’re there or when you’re actually there, or if it’s the soundstage with green screen. So the only way to do it, when you make a character driven drama, like Godzilla vs. Kong, is to actually go there and actually spend time down there and be there with Kong. So it was six very intense months, deep down in the center of the earth with a gigantic ape.

That’s why we haven’t seen you in a while — because you’ve been down there.

I’ve been down there, with a gigantic ape.

Being serious, doing the “there they are” reaction seems especially difficult in this movie, with these being such central characters. And I know that’s part of the deal with a lot of movies, but this seems even more that.

Absolutely. Watching the movie, I could tell that I’m reacting to the wrong thing, like I’m reacting to something else. And they play my reaction to something that I think I’m reacting to, but many things have changed. Or they use that reaction to something else. So they kind of make it work. So it’s like, I look at something, and I think I’m reacting to something completely different, but I’m not. They completely changed that. So it’s quite a ride and exciting to watch the movie, because I’m as surprised as the audience. When I watch it, like, “Oh really? That happened.” And, “Oh, look at my reaction here.”

The scene that we all saw in the trailer, which surprisingly happens pretty early in the movie, where Kong just punches Godzilla in the face. So do you watch the movie and go, “If that really would have happened in front of me, I might’ve reacted quite differently than I did even in the movie”?

Well, that specific sequence, they actually had in the pre-visualization, so that actually looks quite very, very, very close to what the previs two years ago looked. So Adam [Wingard] played us that. So pretty much the whole fight scene was choreographed before we shot our reactions to it. So I knew that that punch was going to land, and that’s what I’m reacting to.

We’ve given Dr. Nathan Lind a lot of time, and we’ve given King Kong a lot of time. We haven’t really talked about Godzilla. He gets annoyed when people bother him. I relate to that.

Me too. Going into the movie, I was very much team Godzilla. I love the old Godzilla movies, like the ’60s and ’70s, that era, when it’s zero special effects.

Just a guy in a suit and it’s awesome.

It’s a middle-aged dude in a suit, kicking a miniature version of Tokyo on a set.

In your next movie, you’re working with Robert Eggers, The Northman. You’re done filming that, right?

We’re done. Yeah, we shot for six months during the pandemic. We started last summer and finished just before Christmas.

Did you look at his prior movies and just go, “I have to be part of this.”

Well, I courted him. I loved both The Witch and The Lighthouse. And was developing The Northman and was trying to find a director for it. It was a very different iteration of the script, and the story was very different from what we ended up shooting. But I had a version of a viking movie that I wanted to make and basically went after Rob. He was my dream director and I thought that he would be perfect for this. And that, when I mentioned it to him, it turned out that he was a huge viking fan and knew everything about the mythology.

That doesn’t surprise me for some reason.

Yeah, he knew so much about that world and that era and got really excited about the idea of potentially making this movie. And then he found Sjón, this Icelandic author and poet and screenwriter. And Sjón and Rob together wrote the screenplay to what ultimately became The Northman, the movie that we shot. So it’s something on that was slowly percolating and growing over the course of eight years. So, to finally be on set last year, with the greatest filmmaker of our time and some of the greatest actors of our time, was the highlight of my career, for sure.

Have you thought about how this will screw up Google searches for your True Blood fans?

[Laughs] Yes, I am very much aware of how problematic the title is.

Well, not problematic. True Blood fans are going to have to put in a few other keywords now.

Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. I do apologize for that. And I’m sure some people will be pretty disappointed if they go to see a stand-alone movie about Eric Northman, and then they sit down and it’s a goddamn Viking movie and not a vampire in sight.

I think they’re in for a treat, to tell you the truth.

Well, I hope so. I hope so. I’m very excited about the movie, but I have to admit that, unfortunately, there are no vampires in the movie.

‘Godzilla Vs. Kong’ hits theaters and HBO Max on March 31st.

Photo credited to Getty. [Paris Men’s Fashion Week Armani show, July 2, 2019]

https://uproxx.com/movies/alexander-skarsgard-interview-godzilla-vs-kong-the-northman/

#Alexander Skarsgård #Uproxx #Godzilla vs. Kong #The Northman #Alexander Skarsgard #long post

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friendshiptothemax · 3 years

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I was recently talking to some friends, and they were surprised when I mentioned that the clock on a six-week abortion ban doesn’t begin at conception.

So here’s the thing: conception is hard to track precisely. Even if you know when you had the sex that led to it, sperm can hang out for awhile before the egg is released, so conception could actually happen days later. Not to mention you might not even know which time was the sex that led to it. So, medically, pregnancy is counted from a date that is very easy to identity: the first day of your last period. This means that when you’re on your period, if you later get pregnant, that would have been the first week of your pregnancy. The end of the second week of a pregnancy is typically when ovulation happened and the actual conception occurred.

So when can you find out you’re pregnant? Hold on, it’s going to get even more fucked up.

Here’s an example: me. I’m a married woman in her thirties who is actively trying to get pregnant. I have a calendar in the drawer by my toilet, I write down all sorts of details about my cycle and sex life it in, I have all kinds of alarms set on my phone to remind me to drop various testing sticks in cups of my pee. I also (though my period can be annoying in other ways) have a perfectly regular four week cycle, like down to the hour. Do you want to know the EARLIEST day I can find out I’m pregnant (some tests advertise earlier but the earlier you go the more likely you are to get a false negative)? A day or two before my next period, roughly two weeks after conception, at the end of week four of my (currently hypothetical) pregnancy.

That means a person like me, who is watching their cycle very closely, has everything going right, has only TWO WEEKS to get an abortion under a six week ban. But actively-trying-to-get-pregnant people like me don’t, by our very nature, seek abortions in the four to six week period (we might need them later for other reasons, but that is a different rant).

What if you are NOT actively seeking pregnancy? If you are not paying super close attention to your cycle? If your cycle is irregular? If you have, like a friend of mine does, a cycle that is closer to five weeks? If you don’t realize the urgency you’re under so you give it a couple of days before buying a test in case you’re just running a little late? A person not actively seeking pregnancy has a high chance of not knowing until the end of week five. Coupled with states that have shut down the majority of their clinics, which might require the person seeking an abortion to travel, arrange time off work, arrange childcare or eldercare? A six week abortion ban is effectively a full abortion ban.

To sum up: you literally cannot get an abortion at 1-2 weeks because you are not actually pregnant, there’s nothing in there. From weeks 3-4, you can use plan B if you’re fast enough but otherwise you have no way of even knowing you’re pregnant. You might need most or even all of week five to find out, which leaves you only with week six, AT BEST.

They want to say life begins at conception? They’re perfectly happy to write laws in such a way that if you don’t know the minutiae of pregnancy, you don't know actually starts the clock a full two weeks before that. That is, by what most people would consider “being pregnant,” is actually a four week ban. They’re hypocrites, perfectly happy for you take them at face value and not to do the math and realize that these laws make abortion basically impossible for most people.

Fuck six week bans. Get angry. Get FURIOUS.

#Texas abortion ban

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lalahbug · 4 years

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False Ring - Levi x Reader

Fandom: Attack on Titan Word Count: 2,296 My Masterlist Warnings/disclaim: general Modern Office AU Author’s Note: Continued under story Originally posted on DeviantArt, under the same username, on 12/25/2016. Revamped/edited in 2020. ___ is a blank for your name/oc/whatever you prefer Written in 3rd person Line/header is to separate paragraphs to indicate time skips, as Tumblr hates my formatting. Story under cut

“Hanji! Take down that mistletoe, now!” ___ barked at her while walking up to her.

“But it’s Christmas!”

“There will be no kissing in the office!”

Hanji kept complaining and trying to defend the decoration.

“Hanji. I let you get away with going overboard on the decor for Christmas, decorating everyone’s desk, the lobby, the breakroom. I am drawing the line at the mistletoe!” ___ was lecturing Hanji basically in front of the entire advertising and marketing team. Hanji was one of the top managers, behind Erwin and Levi, of course.

___ is the CEO but always has a degree in advertising, so a lot of her free time was spent there. Being hands-on and knowing about every campaign and making sure they all appealed to a wide audience.

“But, ___-”

“Hanji, you can put it up at home and the Christmas party tonight. But please just, not in the office.” ___ sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“___!” Hanji whined.

“Oi! Shitty Glasses, ___ said no, so get away with that shit.” Levi stood next to ___.

“Come on, Hanji. I’ll help you with decor for the party, okay?” Erwin wrapped an arm around Hanji, dragging her away.

___ took a deep breath. “Thank you, Levi.”

“Tch, whatever.”

“Will you be at the party, tonight?”

“No.”

“What, why not?” ___ tried to not let the disappointment show in her voice.

“I don’t like Christmas, it’s over-done and all about presents, nowadays.”

“That’s why I am holding the party without presents, though. So we can all get to know each other better and spend time with each other and our families.”

“I have no reason to go, nor do I want to be around all of the brats and lovey-dovey couples.”

“Oh, okay. I’m sure you’d rather just spend time alone with your girlfriend anyways.” She gave him a sweet smile. Levi just glared at her, making her sigh and look away. “I know, I know, you won’t talk about your life outside of the office.” An awkward air settled between them. “Well, I hope I get to know your personality better in the new year. I’ll see you after News Year’s, I need to tell everyone to go home now.”

___ gave a quick surprise to all of her employees, telling them the only reason for them to come into work on Christmas was to clock in and get their bonus check. Telling everyone Merry Christmas, go home and she was looking forward to seeing them and their families at the party.

About an hour after everyone had left, ___ was sitting at her desk, finishing some paperwork.

“What are you still doing here?” ___ jumped a bit, at hearing Levi’s voice, which made him click his tongue at her. “Go home to your family.”

“Oh, there’s no one waiting for me at home. And this paperwork needs to be finished.” ___ gave him a small smile before looking back down to the papers and filling them out.

“Isn’t this supposed to be mine?” Levi had walked over to her desk, taking the paper from her.

“Hey, put that back.”

“Why are you doing my work?” He glared at her.

“I’ve been taking half of your’s, Hanji’s and Erwin’s work lately. We got a new client and I know you guys are already overworked. Since it’s Christmas, I wanted you all to be happy and not too stressed out. I prefer being at the office, so I always find where I can lighten the load of others.”

“You do this often? My work?”

“Yeah, not just yours, though. It’s not like it’s too hard to do or anything.” She shrugged and opened her hand to Levi. “Come on, give it back. Go home, have a goodnight.”

Levi sat down across from her. “When are you going home?”

She stared at him for a moment, confused. “About 3 hours before the party, so I can get ready and get there before everyone. To make sure Hanji didn’t go overboard. But I’ll be back here tomorrow.”

“Are you going to be there all night?”

“Yes, of course. I am the main host after all.”

“What time do you think you’ll go home?”

“Um, I don’t know. Probably sometime tomorrow. Why are you asking so many questions? This isn’t like you, you normally don’t care.”

“Do you ever go home?” Levi glanced around, avoiding her question, his voice was getting harsher and judgmental.

“Sometimes. I usually just go home to shower and get a bit of sleep. But I have a bed in my side office for days where I just would rather get more work done. I have a week’s worth of clothes here. So I guess I mainly just go home to get clean.”

“Wait, you sleep here? How often?” Now, his voice was belittling and demanding.

“I don’t know, like 4 times a week maybe.”

“Tch.” He seemed truly annoying with her.

“Don’t you click your tongue at me, boy. You’re acting hostile and demanding. I don’t need this from my employee, go home.” She snapped at him. Levi stared at her for a moment.

“Did you just call me, boy?” He almost growled at her.

“Ackerman. Go. Home. Now.” ___ let authority coat her every word. It was rare she used his last name or ever had to use an authoritative tone on him. He stared at her for a moment, before clicking his tongue again and leaving her office without another word.

“Hanji, thank you for not going too overboard.”

“Erwin reeled me in.”

“Then I guess I should be thanking him.”

“Nah. You both look beautiful by the way. I didn’t know you had tattoos, ___.”

“Thanks, but yeah, I’ve had them for a while, sometimes I forget about them.”

“It’s awesome to see so much for your skin, it looks so soft!” Hanji rubbed ___’s shoulders, making her smile then push her away.

“Stop it.”

“Where did you get your dress?” Hanji was feeling the soft material. ___ just smirked at her and looked down at her red strapless dress.

“Um, I think my mom got this for me last year. So I’m not sure.”

“How are your parents?”

“Oh, they’re good. They couldn’t make it over to me this year and I have too much work, so I couldn’t go to them, but I’ll be seeing them for New Year’s, I should be done with all of my work by then.”

“Why do you have so much work? Hanji and I finished everything the other day.”

“Oh don’t worry about it.” She gave them a heartwarming smile.

“It’s because she’s doing some of our work.”

___ turned on her heel, to see Levi standing right behind her.

“You what?!” Hanji screamed, gripping ___ and shaking her by her shoulders. “You’ll never get babies if you keep overworking yourself! You’re going to end up in the hospital again for overworking yourself!”

“Hanji! Stop!”

The brunette stopped shaking her boss.

“I love my job. I’m not worried about having children. I won’t overwork myself, again, that’s why I put that bed in my side office.”

Erwin groaned and Levi stared at all of them.

“Wait, that’s why you were hospitalized for a few weeks a couple of months ago?” Levi wanted confirmation.

“Yeah, I came to her for some signatures and she was unconscious at her desk,” Erwin stated.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“You didn’t ask and we didn’t want to tell too many people.” ___ shrugged.

Erwin and Hanji then continued to bug ___ about giving them their work back so she could go see her parents sooner. Eventually, she caved in and told them she would give them their work back tomorrow.

“I can’t believe you showed up, just to tattle on me about helping out with work.” ___ grumbled as she and Levi leaned against a wall, drinking some wine.

“I showed up because Erwin told me to. Ratting you out, after calling me boy, was a bonus.”

“You were mad at me for calling you, boy? But you’re younger than me by a few years.”

“I’m not a boy.” He growled.

“Uh, huh. Sure," she giggled at his anger.

Levi moved so he was blocking her path and his hands on either side of her head, making her blush.

“I’m not a boy. I am a man.”

“Oh, okay.” She was too shocked to say anything else. Levi moved back a bit to look at her.

“You’re blushing.” He smirked at this, which only made the crimson dusting her cheeks grow darker; because she had never seen him smirk before. “You’re blushing more now.”

“Shut up. Why are you teasing me?”

“Because I didn’t know you were single before.”

“What?”

“The whole office believes you’re married.” This made ___ burst out.

“No! Oh, that is funny.” She kept giggling. “No, no. I don’t have a partner, I mean I have some people I have crushes on. But I have no interest in letting them know that.”

“Why is that?”

“I like how things are now.”

Levi and ___ hung out together most of the party, well, he hung around her while she talked with many different employees and told stories.

“So, ___. Tell me,” Jean piped up. He was a new customer service employee. “Is the rumor true that you and Levi are married?”

___ almost spit out her drink. “What? So not only was the rumor that I am married is going around, but to Levi?”

“So I take it’s not true?” Jean chuckled. “Then how would you like to get dinner sometime?”

“Just because she’s not married doesn’t mean she’s desperate enough to go out on a date with you, horse-face,” Eren sneered as Mikasa glared at Jean before he could retort.

“If anyone takes her to dinner, it’ll be me,” Levi grumbled, making everyone quiet.

“So you’re dating?” Jean was the only one stupid enough to ask.

“None of your business.” Levi glared at him. “Come on, ___.” Levi turned on his heel.

“Oh, um. I’ll see you guys after the new year. Have a wonderful holiday!” ___ chased after Levi. “Levi, what was that all about? Why did you confuse them like that?”

Levi scoffed. “Because I meant it. It’s none of their business, but if anyone is to take you out anytime soon, it’ll be me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oi, you’re stupid for being smart. I like you, clearly. That’s why I got mad anytime you asked about my nonexistent girlfriend or offered to have me come to dinner with you. I thought you were married. Anyone would with that ring on your finger.”

“Oh.” ___ was blushing and looking down at the ring on her finger, she had stopped walking.

Levi turned to face her, standing in front of her. “Why do you wear a wedding ring?”

“It was my grandmother’s, she didn’t have much, but being her only granddaughter. It was the only thing she left me. I just wear it because she was like a mom to me. Plus, it kept away creeps. I didn’t mean to confuse everyone, though, or push anyone away, especially you.”

“You’ve been visited by the Mistletoe Fairy!” Hanji giggled while holding a stick with mistletoe hanging from it.

“Hanji, no!” ___ scolded her, pointing a finger at her. Levi glanced up at the small green branch. Levi clicked his tongue before grabbing the back of ___’s neck, pulling her in for a kiss.

___ squeaked while Levi pulled her to him, but she quickly let her body relax against his.

Levi smirked as the tension in her body disappeared, he kissed her gently again, before pulling away, letting his grin slowly fade away.

“Can I expect Levi babies soon then?” Hanji squealed.

“You’re just being stupid now,” ___ giggled. Erwin had popped up and dragged away Hanji so Levi and ___ could be alone. “Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday, Levi.” She beamed at him.

He froze for a second before pulling her into a hug. “Thanks.”

She pushed back a little. “What for?”

“You’re the first person to say that today, a lot of people seem to forget my birthday because of Christmas.”

“Oh, I even got you a gift. I was just going to give it to you next year, but since you’re here.” She smiled and pulled away from him, grabbing his wrist and dragging him over to the coat station. She asked for her purse and pulled out a small box.

“I got it last week. So, happy birthday, Levi.” She offered it to him, he cautiously took it. “Well, open it.” So he did.

He pulled out a couple of sturdy tins. “Is this really Jungpana and Glendale loose tea? This is expensive shit.”

“Is it? I just went to a tea shop with great reviews and told them you really love tea, that you like to be clean and your birthday was soon. They recommended these.”

“They are really good, they have good taste, but pay attention to pricing brat.”

“You like your gift right?”

“Of course.” He pulled her close to him. “I can’t wait to see more of you, you’re the best gift.”

“That’s not what I meant!”

“Well, you being single, is the best news I learned today, so that’s the best gift. But you won’t be single, much longer.” He rested his forehead against hers.

“Well, if that’s the case, I think you should invite me to test that tea out with you.”

“Tch, don’t tell me what to do. But you should come over soon.”

“It’s a date.”

“Damn right it is.” He pulled her close, keeping an arm around her most of the night, showing no signs of leaving her side anytime soon.

Author's Note: Continued As far as I know, Levi’s b-day is Christmas, so this fic was written for his b-day.

#attack on titan #aot fic #fanfic #fanficiton #levi ackerman #levi x reader #levi/reader #fic #lalahbug #lalah writes #reader insert #xreader #self insert

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cheekbites-moved · 4 years

Text

ok i still havent gotten the secret ending but farming for it might take me a bit so im gonna make a thoughts post for age of calamity now:

Major spoilers obvs so ill put it under a read more

things i enjoyed:

revali beatdown simulator

the controls for the divine beasts are a bit clunky, but i think the angles they used for them did an excellent job at really making the player feel like we were actually controlling a divine beast. so i think it was done well.

link’s personality really gets to shine full force in this game with the amount of cut scenes and it was wonderful to see

every character clearly had a lot of love put into how they operate. they truly all feel unique, & all of their play styles fit them really well in my opinion

the game does a really good job of making you understand what a real threat the monsters are. like in botw they’re intimidating at first, but once you’re far enough into the game they become just an inconvenience to work around if anything. this game managed to actually make certain monsters intimidating for me again, and i think that’s a real accomplishment

the blight battles are actually somewhat challenging in this game and that is truly a commendable achievement lol i think all the bosses are good tbh. i didnt rly dislike or not enjoy any of them.

the way daruk and link’s friendship & urbosa’s motherly relationship towards zelda got to shine was. so good. it’s all i could’ve ever wanted

seeing the descendants again was really nice & it was awesome to see the champions interacting with them!! especially sidon and mipha omggggg. that was. really fucking good shit

kohga. just. kohga in general. getting to see more of him was really rad, he’s such a fun guy! and his english va was Excellent. you could really tell he was having a lot of fun playing him, and it was lovely to see! :)

zelda getting to really shine in this game was also lovely to see. and her being so assertive and badass by the end? omg. it was so wonderful especially after botw. man.

the combat is done very well imo. im rly glad that they took so many elements from botw, but also added their own flares to make it feel fresh. it was rad.

sidon’s tagline is “winning smile” and his power is “boundless optimism” and i think that’s beautiful

the music in this game is SOOOOO good oh my god. multiple times during playing i had to pause to just appreciate it. it’s pretty much all remixes of botw with a few originals for the new characters, but they all slap. there was not a single song in this game i didn’t like. it is definitely one of my favorite video game soundtracks officially. maybe one of my favorite overall soundtracks in general tbh.

the visuals obviously look just like botw, but it still looked fucking gorgeous at some points. like. man. they really went off to make it look not only faithful to botw as far as appearance goes, but also as far as capturing botw’s beauty and it was. excellent to see!

if anything is true to botw’s backstory, it’s definitely how op link is. cause he was established to be op in botw, & when u finish botw he is also op as hell. he is so fun to play as the higher leveled he gets. he absolutely kicks ass. especially with a two-handed weapon??? daaaaammmmnnn. thats my badass baby boy!!!!

link eating rocks not once, but TWICE. just showing PEAK gremlin energy. 10/10 for those scenes they were great

the ending was really beautiful actually and i did cry like a little baby for it what about it

things i didn’t like:

obviously first and foremost.. this is not the game we were advertised. and no matter how much i overall enjoyed the game, it will always have some layer of being tainted attached to it due to the false advertising. this is not the prequel we thought we’d be getting. & not using “prequel” specifically doesn’t matter when all the advertising, including the box art talks about this being the story of what happened 100 years ago. with no indication it wasn’t the story of what happened 100 years ago in the botw timeline, but a separate universe/timeline entirely. i do hope we get dlc for the game at some point giving us what we were advertised, but at the same time... rly wish that the story that’s in the final game was dlc, & the story we were promised was the original :/ or just having the game have two separate storylines originally would’ve been cool. i just wish it wasn’t falsely advertised.

fort hateno can fucking eat my whole entire shit WHY is that part so needlessly obnoxious compared to everything else oh my god

being forced to fulfill revali’s power fantasy TWICE hurt my soul

fuck any mission where you have to protect the useless hylian guards. i hate them. they suck.

the ai for player characters when you aren’t playing as them can also be pretty useless. it was really frustrating failing missions because my fellow party members weren’t helping me, and i was basically expected to be in two places at once to get shit done myself. :/ ik you can just switch between characters to make it easier, but like. i like playing as link the most. he’s my favorite character, & ofc since he’s mandatorily played for most of the story, he’s gonna be the most leveled up character regardless so he’s just the best to play as in general especially for harder missions. it was annoying to be forced to play as other people Solely cause the ai was so useless.

king rhoam’s attempt at a redemption arc. i’m not sorry that i just fucking hate this man. i don’t mind him entirely in botw bc you can see clear, genuine remorse during the cut scene at the end of the great plateau. but the redemption arc he gets in this game? after all the fucking shit he does in this game? especially when after his ~redemption arc~ i had to sit through a cut scene of him being an absolute fucking asshole to baby zelda after her mother just died????? absolutely fuck that shit. i don’t appreciate that crap at fucking all. he’s a verbally abusive piece of shit and i hate his guts.

obviously there was gonna be some retconning of how certain things worked in botw in order to make this kinda game work but the way sheikah technology works in this game is so goddamn confusing i do not get it. the works of botw are never outright said or explained completely, but it’s straightforward enough that it doesn’t really matter. this game does try to explain certain things and it just becomes. really clunky and confusing very quickly.

the story is alright, i guess, but..... really confusing/convoluted as hell at times to a point that it’s. really fucking distracting. especially in comparison to how straightforward botw’s story is. like..... cannot help but be annoyed that such a problem wouldn’t have been a thing if they stuck to botw’s story.

i was sad when the egg thing died but i dont like the egg thing.... it is the MAIN reason shit was retconned so much & i just. dont get its purpose. but i did really like the reveal that zelda made it herself. that was good shit!

also the egg glitched out like. a LOT. idk what the fuck was going on with the poor thing but there was multiple times during a cut scene or when i was just sitting there that it was freaking out in the background and it was rly weird

elemental overworld boss monsters................. obnoxious. especially elemental guardians like goddamn bro what the fuck

i know warriors’ games aren’t about exploring anyway but the limitations for exploring was really sad/frustrating. this is still somewhat the world of hyrule before the calamity, which is something we’ve always wanted to see. not being able to explore even the immediate area at certain points because of shit like timed missions was really upsetting, man. :( i just wanted to see hyrule castle Before the calamity why was did they have to rob us like that.....

creepy corrupted egg’s transformation. why. what was that. what the fuck

even though i did enjoy the boss fights, it did get. incredibly taxing eventually to have to fight the SAME bastards so many times. like yeah botw is also guilty of this with the blights, but goddamn.... at least i have a choice to avoid certain encounters with them? this game has you fighting the same bitches like upwards of 3-4 times. it was. really annoying tbh. like the fights themselves are enjoyable, but damn we added new characters and it still inevitably lacked variety in boss fights.

no playable kass >:( if he’s available later in dlc then fine but i wish he was playable in the original game. so many random choices you’d never expect are. why couldn’t he also be there >:(

overall:

it will forever have that sour taste for the false advertising attached to it unfortunately, but that aside, i overall did enjoy the game! i think it has a lot to love in spite of the issues i encountered. as someone who has this as their first warriors game as well, it did lend itself to letting me see the appeal of them. idk if i’ll get more, but i do get why they’re so beloved/popular now. it was an alright time, with some amazing highlights that i’m gonna think back on very fondly for a very, very long time. if i had to rate it..... 7/10

#hw #aoc #hw aoc #hyrule warriors #age of calamity #legend of zelda #botw #danni plays hw aoc #mine #long post #v long post sorry lol i have so many thoughts/feelings

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arlakos · 3 years

Note

Why do you think seasons 2 and 3 of Miraculous are particularly bad compared to the first? #curious

Oh boy where do I even begin...? Ok first of all, for the sake of not sounding biased and condescending, I'm not going to try and be mostly factual here, focusing only on plot points and structures of the shows episodes. No attacks on ships, no salt any characters, and no discussions about Chloe or whether or not she can be redeemed, since that always sets the fandom against each other for some reason.

ALSO MINOR SEASON 4 SPOILERS UP TO EPISODE 3 BE WARNED!

With that out of the way... Let me explain starting with season 1

The structure of how season 1 works is that

someone was introduced,

someone gets akumatized because of something in said episode,

and then there is a cool akuma fight at the end.

Each of the episodes had no connection to each other, and could pretty much be watched in any order, barring a few like origins and Volpina.

While this was rather basic for a superhero show, it worked for season 1, because it introduced a lot of characters that would be loved by many fans, allowed the show to explore locales of Paris and explore the world of miraculous as a newcomer. While I do think season 1 does have its issues, its overall...fine. It was good. Not everything I found to be perfect, but Im tired of being a Negative Nancy here, I enjoyed season 1.

Then season 2 came along and I was excited. The very first episode takes off from where Volpina left off, a first in the show, Gabriel turned out to be hawkmoth (which I later disliked but at the time found cool). We learned about the guardian and learned about his mysterious past. It was all lookin to be great! ...But then as the episodes started coming out, I found myself to be less and less excited. The episodes, while having new villains, didnt really change the formula all that much. It was pretty much all the same as season 1...but I found myself getting bored, which was when I started noticing all the flaws in the show and found myself less and less liking the show. Which is when I started seeing problems

The structural formula of the show was still the same as season 1.

Seasons 2 and 3 still followed the same beat as season 1, with the only differences being that some characters were now being reused instead and the new character that WERE introduced were mostly just one-offs that never really had relevance to the episode again. Even Marc, who is now miraculous token “gay dude for woke points but not confirmed in show because we’d get cancelled in certain countries” character, had relevancy in only one episode and was never heard from again, becoming just another background character. They do not do anything new, such as focusing on developing characters through anything BUT akumas, or even trying to explore the show more.

The show started to have a lot more tonal whiplash as a result of wanting to have a story but also wanted each episode to be separate plot-wise.

The best example of what I mean would probably be the season 3 premiere, Volpina. Aside from opening the floodgates of more toxic aspects of the fandom, it really sets up a plot different from the main show. Lila is apparently going after Marinette and the show seems to want to make that the key plot point of this season...

...but then the very next episode released is either Animaestro or Weredad (depending on where you watched it), neither of which follow upon that plot point. In fact, Lila wouldn’t do anything for (canonically) another 23 episodes, which itself did nothing to change the formula of the show or even advance the plot.

Even though the plot of the premiere hinted Lila to be the villain of season 4, she did practically nothing for a majority of the season, and even the finale, which should have been Lila’s time to “shine”, ended up being overtaken by Chloe. Again, not going into the whole Chloe thing , but season 3 ended up being false advertising for what the rest of season 3 would be.

The Ship between Adrien and Marinette progressed nowhere....then became even more confusing.

I'm not going to win points here, but I feel like, despite 3 seasons worth of episodes, the relationship between Marinette and Adrien has not progressed in any sort of way.

Yes, Ladybug and Cat Noir do interact with each other, but aside from the fact that most of their interactions involve hero battles, i don't really count those.

Most episodes they featured together in didn't have them really doing anything, most of the time just involving Marinette blushing and stammering, and although some people do say they are friends, I only feel that's the case because their own friends are dating each other (Alya and Nino) and I feel that if that wasnt the case they never would interact at all.

So how does the show fix this? By introducing two more people into the love square and still have no interactions! At least till the finale that is.

Look, I’m not attacking the ships themselves, Im fine if you like Lukanette or Adrigami or whatnot, but I still think them being included as “love rivals” is just more annoying because...well they also didn't really do anything with those ships as well until season 3.

And even then it was jarring to have them go from “characters that were only introduced once” in season 2 to “i suddenly fell in love with you after coming back out of nowhere” in season 3, to finally dating in the s3 finale. And the worst part? 3 episodes into season 4 both relationships were immediately terminated and now Marinette and Adrien are both single again. Aside from meaning this will mean more Adrienette teasing for another season, it's kinda sad that they couldn't create a plot about either ship and have it be a multi-episode plot, it just...ended.

Also, ignored and Dropped Plots!

A lot of plot points in this show happen out of nowhere, and those that do seem to be ignored before being remembered 1.5 seasons in and then being answered half-heartedly.

The destruction of the Order we heard about in the premiere of season 2? ignored for nearly 2 whole seasons before it turned out that the whole reason the order fell was that Fu was hangry, making him look incompetent rather than tragic.

How does Hawkmoth have no timer? It takes 3 seasons before it turns out that Adults have no timers for free! Aside from being a lazy response, it begs the whole plot hole of...why didn't Fu recruit young adults instead?

Gabriel caring for Adrien and being his only moral vice like in Gorizilla? Chat Blanc ruins that and has Gabe beat his own son after being shoved down our throats why Gabe would never do that.

Its a running trend on this show.

There are many more reasons, but I feel like this is enough to explain my issues? Thanks for the question and sorry if this was too much to read for ya, I tend to go a bit overboard. XD

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moonieseok · 4 years

Text

Part Five - Focus

You had always been an average person. Average grades, average life. Nothing out of the ordinary about you. Crackhead friends. All of it seems normal to most people.

That was where the similarities between you and Min Yoongi ended. He had always preferred sports over socializing. While it’s true he had been somewhat popular during his last years of high school, it was only because he was the best person on his school’s basketball team. Everybody was all over him, being as nice to him as they could, because they all knew he was going to be someone great.

But don’t misunderstand. These nice people were only pretending. They happened to be the same people who had made fun of Yoongi in his freshman year. Said he wouldn’t ever accomplish any of his dreams, all that stuff.

So he graduated high school and went on to play basketball with a team called the Daegu Agusts. Nobody was surprised, although his parents were very proud. Most of his former classmates tolerated it because they could finally fit him into one of their “categories”.

That’s right. The most popular kids in his class had this obsession with putting everybody into a spot, and it was important that they stayed there. They didn’t like people who were good at more than one thing, if that can explain it. They didn’t like how Yoongi was good at both sports and music. “Pick one.” They said as they made him watch as they took the lyrics for a song he’d been composing. “Pick one.” They said as he watched the song he’d been working on for months be shredded to pieces.

One thing that constantly annoyed them was how he always remained indifferent to their teasing. Not once did he react in a way that made them feel satisfied. But once he graduated and became a basketball player, they finally felt he’d slipped under one of their groups.

Well, they might’ve thought that, but it was far from the actual truth. The truth was that Min Yoongi simply learned not to advertise his passion for music. He fell into a sort of routine. Wake up. Practice. Play a game. Win or lose. Go to sleep.

Most would say that’s not healthy, but it worked for him. He could almost go weeks without talking to anyone by following this simple schedule. Mostly anyone. Somehow four boys, who’s kindness he’d always felt was more genuine then his other classmates, had somehow sneaked their way into his life.

And now he was stuck with them, whether he liked it or not. Fine. He thought. Wouldn’t hurt to have a few close friends. But that’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. But every single motto he’d ever had, every single promise to never let anyone in, every single one had broken into a million pieces the moment he saw you sitting in the crowd.

You were indifferent to the people around you, ignoring the game. He assumed you had been dragged to this event by the loud boy next to you. Boyfriend, perhaps? But from the way you and the boy acted around each other, he guessed you were friends.

It was all he could do to stop looking at your face and focus on the ball in his hands. He was running, hoping to score the winning point. But something inside compelled him to look back at you, to see if you were watching him score. And he missed the shot.

He backed up and stared at his hands, like maybe they weren’t his. What happened? He usually never missed a shot. Even the crowd was shocked. Famous player Min Yoongi, lost his touch? Or maybe he was distracted by something, or perhaps someone in the crowd. He looked at you, to find you were looking at him, seemingly intrigued by the lull in the cheering from the crowd.

Your eyes met, and he felt his face get hot. What was going on? He looked back down at his sneakers and tried to forget the way your eyes had basically torn any walls of his down. He had to focus, get back on his face. You, afterall, were just a person in the crowd. No reason for him to get so flustered, let alone lose this game.

Just a person in the crowd. He looked at the audience, and was bewildered by what he saw. Everyone else sitting seemed to blur, to fade, and you were the only clear person he saw. Almost like there was a spotlight on you, and you were waiting for him.

He shook his head and clenched his eyes shut. No. You weren’t waiting for him, the spotlight of the stadium was probably just moving around to follow the players, and by chance, it had been on you when he looked up. Coincidence.

For the rest of the game, he tried his best to remain focused, but his eyes kept moving back to you. And then, as he looked back, he saw a basketball aimed straight for your head. You would think a basketball wouldn’t do much damage, but at the speed it was headed towards you, it would hurt quite a bit.

He ran over and caught the ball mid-air, and fired a death glare towards the person who’d thrown it. Why was he so mad? It wasn’t like he knew you or anything. He’d just been trying to stop someone in the audience from getting hurt.

His team won, but no thanks to his distractedness. He tried to ignore the looks of his teammates, and stormed back to his room in the hotel they were staying at.

He stood in the doorway, and like a man possessed, his body moved on its own. He walked in and shut the door, and walked over to his desk. He sat down and opened the desk drawer and pulled out his pencil. And to his surprise, the words were in his head for the rest of the night, as he wrote and wrote.

No one knew, but a certain Min Yoongi had never stopped writing songs. They were all unfinished, half-done pieces, but they did their job. But this one, was different. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. It conveyed...a strange feeling he had, one he couldn’t name.

He didn’t want to name it, for fear if he identified with it, it would go away. And he had a hunch that this was the kind of feeling that few people find. So he held onto it, and used it to write the words on his mind late into the night.

He knew it was crazy. That there was no way it would ever work. Right? Come on, there was no way he would be able to find you again, and he wasn’t the sort of person to become obsessed with someone.

But still, he dreamed. What was your name? Your favorite food? As ridiculous as he knew it was, he just couldn’t stop himself from wondering. Did you know his name? You seemed like the type of person to keep tabs on famous people, right? Was he just holding on to false hope?

So even though he tried his best to forget about you for the rest of the week, he couldn’t. But eventually he looked at himself and said, stop. You probably won’t ever see her again, so there’s no point being so caught up in a dream that won’t happen. And even though part of him wanted to know you, he stopped.

He went a week without thinking about you. At least, he told himself he went a week, when in reality he went about 4 minutes. It seemed like an impossible thing to do, but he knew. He knew it wasn’t going to work. Relationships like that never worked out, he barely knew you, he needed to stop being crazy.

But then he did see you again. He was playing a game at some university, he didn’t exactly know the name of it. But there was a hallway in front of the stadium entrance, and occasionally students would walk down, headed towards their classes. The students in the audience? Well, anyone who bought tickets was excused from classes for as long as the game went on.

Convenient. But as he was taking a drink of water, he swore he saw you, walking down the hall, books in your arms. And again, he got distracted. He couldn’t help but dwell on it.

Had it really been you? The girl he couldn’t stop thinking about, no matter how hard he tried. His mind was going too many places at once, from you, to the game, you, the game.

Focus. He said to himself. And after calming down, he thought, there was no way it was you. Just a girl who looked like you. No problem. And then the game started again, and his attention turned to the ball.

They won the game, as he predicted. It hadn’t been easy, the home team for this game were very good. But it was fine. Yoongi walked towards the benches and grabbed his bag. His phone was going off, probably just his friends going off on an unnecessary tangent.

He looked at the screen and saw they were talking about how they wanted to go to a bar to celebrate the win. He didn’t want to, but he knew that they would manage to convince him, but didn’t think about it too much.

That night, he reluctantly sat at a table with his friends, a drink in hand. “You should’ve seen their faces when they realized you scored the point!” His friend Tae was definitely drunk, no doubt about it.

Yoongi internally groaned as he realized he was going to have to be sober to drive them home. He was used to it, but still. Tae couldn’t even do this for him once? He looked toward his friend Jin. Jin, who was still sober, was probably thinking the same thing. His face said, You or me? And Yoongi thought, You, if it was up to me. Jin smirked. And then he started chugging his drink. “I hate all of you.” Yoongi said.

No one answered, they were all used to his pessimistic personality. And they were too wasted to care. And then Yoongi decided he might as well find the exit, Namjoon could never hold his alcohol, so he looked around the bar. Near the door, there were two people coming in, and with a start Yoongi recognized your friend. The boy who’d been with you the first time Yoongi had seen you.

He watched as your friend, along with a shorter boy, walked in and took a seat near the back. They whispered to each other, and pointed to various people seated around the place.

Then the shorter boy began to look towards the entrance. Were they looking for someone? Yoongi looked in the direction of the shorter boy, and followed his eyes. And to his shock, you walked right in. At least he was pretty sure it was you. He was sure everyone in the bar could hear his involuntary gasp, as quiet as he thought he was.

It was you, now that he looked closer. He looked back toward the two people, and the taller one was standing up and waving. Your face lit up. “Hoseok!” You said, and walked to their table.

Your voice. He’d heard your voice. Did all voices sound like that, or was it just you? No, wait, what was he thinking? He didn’t know you and you didn’t know him.

He watched as you sat down, and the three of you kept whispering, and pointing around. You leaned in to hear Hoseok say something, and leaned back. Apparently whatever he had said seemed really stupid to you. The smaller boy whispered something, and you rolled your eyes.

Reluctantly, you stood up and walked to the front, where he was. He saw you sit at the front and call the bartender to order something. Your drink came, and you held it, turning around to face the bar.

He looked at you. Something about you, he couldn’t ignore. You looked around and took a sip of your drink, and your eyes landed on him. His face heated up and he tried to look somewhere else.

Your eyes widened and you almost choked on your drink. Was he that embarrassing? Or maybe you noticed it was a famous person. He had no idea which.

You quickly turned around in your seat and pulled out your phone. You typed something and raised your head, looking back at your friends, trying to point to something with your eyes. Hoseok, it seemed, didn’t notice, and kept talking to the shorter boy.

Yoongi heard you mutter, “Dammit, Jimin, stop talking.” Your eyes narrowed and you went back to sipping your drink. You looked at your phone for a few more minutes, looking bored.

And then, everything went wrong. Yoongi noticed several things at once. For one, a guy with a black hoodie walked in, looking...well, sketchy. Yoongi immediately decided he did not trust this person, and watched him.

That’s why he didn’t notice there was another, similar looking person behind him, walking straight towards you. You kept scrolling down your social media feed on your phone, not noticing.

Yoongi had his eye on the suspicious looking man for a while, but he didn’t notice the other man talking to you. He didn’t hear the man say, “Hello, beautiful.”

He didn’t notice your discomfort, didn’t hear you say, “Uh...what?” The man smiled, although it wasn’t a nice smile. It was pretty creepy, actually. “You heard me, didn’t you?” He said.

“You’re very pretty,” he began. You didn’t plan on letting him finish. “Uh, sorry, I really should be going.” You got up and started towards Hoseok and Jimin, but he grabbed your wrist.

“Stay a while, won’t you? I promise I don’t bite.” You blanked out, in a state of panic. “No, really, I have to go..” You struggled to pull your wrist away, and right as you were sure you were going to break free, the man’s grip tightened.

He growled. “Stay, and nothing bad will happen.” Your eyes widened in fear, and you almost called out to Hoseok or Jimin for help, but they were at the back. They wouldn’t hear you, and looking around at the people nearby, you doubted they were the type to help you.

Yoongi had kept his eye on the other guy this whole time, and watched as the guy he was watching walked out of the bar without doing anything. Just in and out, which seemed suspicious. He turned his eyes back towards you, and noticed your predicament.

And then, something he just couldn’t explain happened. To this day, he still has no clue why he did it. He stood up, and despite all his efforts to remain a loner with only a few people he trusted, he stood up and walked towards you.

“She said no.” You looked behind your shoulder, your eyes a bit watery, as if you didn’t believe that someone would actually help. “Well, she didn’t actually say no, she just said she had to go somewhere, which I highly doubt.” The man replied.

You looked back at the man. Somehow, Yoongi standing up for you had given you a little bit more courage. Some might argue you weren’t a brave person to begin with, but at least now you weren’t feeling completely helpless.

“No, I said no, your ears must need cleaning.” The man was clearly shocked, and loosened his grip a bit, which gave you enough room to slip out of his grasp.

You cradled your wrist, because he really did have a strong grip. “Get away from me, creep.” You said. The man growled again, and moved like he was about to grab you again, and you backed up, bumping into Yoongi.

You squeaked out of surprise and rapidly turned around. “Sorry, sorry, accident!” And then, out of the corner of your eye, you saw the man behind you reach out, as if to grab your wrist once more.

Panic filled you, and you almost screamed. Really, this was all too much for you to handle in one day. Today had been stress-filled enough as it was.

But then Yoongi reached in front of you and stopped the man. “Stay away. And don’t let me catch you harassing another person in this bar.” The man backed up and scowled.

“You’re not the owner, last I checked. And I’m sure everyone here can agree that you only care if I ‘harass’ your girlfriend or not, you don’t care about anyone else here.”

Yoongi backed up, shocked by the comment. You were a bit taken aback, but who did this guy think he was? “Uh, news flash, he’s not my boyfriend, you shouldn’t assume, can’t a guy just be nice without you guessing we’re dating, and it’s not okay to harass people in the first place!”

The words came out a lot louder than you intended, and you picked up your bag and looked at the man in front of you. “You disgust me.” He backed up even more. Yoongi smiled, seemingly smug. “And you!” You turned toward Yoongi.

“Thank you. Uh, you’re Min Yoongi, right? The basketball player?” Yoongi looked embarrassed, he was shocked you remembered him. “Yeah, that’s me.”

You two continued to talk, and didn’t notice as the man behind you got even angrier, and stormed out of the bar. You noticed Yoongi was sarcastic, and almost a bit of a flirt, but he seemed like a genuinely nice person.

You were almost disappointed when you got a text from Hoseok asking where you were. I’m at the front. Look who I’m talking to~, you told him. You watched as Hoseok and Jimin made their way to the front of the bar.

The looks on their faces when they realized you were making small talk with Min Yoongi was priceless. You almost burst out laughing. “What’s so funny?” Yoongi asked.

“My friends have just realized who I’m talking to, and the look on their faces is something I’ll remember forever? Nothing new.” His light smile became somewhat uneasy.

“Well, that’s really not something I advertise...you know?” You immediately realized what he might be hinting at. He thought you might only be talking to him because he was famous.

“Wait, uh, no, its not like that...I’m not just talking to you because you’re..you. Uh...God damnit, I suck at this. What I mean is I’m talking to you because you seem like a cool person to hang out with.”

He laughed. “That makes two of us.” He looked behind your shoulder. “Looks like your friends want to go home?” You looked at them, they were pointing at the door and making subtle (not so subtle) movements with their eyes.

“It was nice talking to you, Yoongi-ah.” You got up and were about to leave. “Uh, wait, would you...take this?” You turned back to look at him. He was holding a scrap of paper.

You took it and read out the number. “Do you just carry around scraps of paper with your number on them?” You asked between laughs. He looked embarrassed again. “No, I just quickly wrote this down, I might be fast on the court, but with getting to know people....not so much.”

Not gonna lie, that fact surprised you a bit. The boy you had been talking to, who seemed so nice and, well, social, bad at making friends? You knew it wasn’t easy to get to know people when you were famous, but the way he talked to you made it seem like, well like you were talking to an average person.

You walked home, being questioned left and right by Hoseok and Jimin, and couldn’t help but laugh at their obvious obsession with Yoongi. Back at your dorm, sitting on your bed, you pulled out the paper.

Almost without hesitation, you pulled out your phone and entered him in your contacts. And then, surprising yourself, your fingers moved on their own.

Hey, yoongi-ah. You awake?

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

part five - focus

(basketball!yoongi x college!reader)

word count: 3.3k

a/n: ok!! after 3 days i finished writing this part lol, and im not sure if this one is long, or whats considered long for you guys, but here it is! im aware its probably pretty bad, but lmk what you think and my inbox is always open!! anyways hope you’re all doing well, stay safe, wash your hands, and enjoy this chapter!!

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orange-waterfalls · 5 years

Text

Say It Back (2/2)

The Host x gender neutral!reader

@thekillingjoke-haha ty for the request(still)

Part 1

A/N: ok i know i made a playlist called "songs to cry to" and listened to it while writing a sappy fic but..... I didn't think I'd actually cry??? I had no idea how to end it I'm sorry ahvsgsvs. also I feel like should point out that I do headcanon that Host is on the aromantic scale, so that's why you are the literal only person who he has fallen in love with. Because. You're special???? I guess????? But uh I hope u like this. Rated T for cursing. Enjoy???

Word Count: 2.4k

Requests are open!

“Host, what the fuck are we doing?” Illinois asks with his hands on his hips.

Host sighs and stops pacing the floor. He turns to the egos- excluding Bim, who is behind him- who he has lined up in the living room. A day has passed since you went on that date with that guy. Host has no idea who he is, but he doesn’t like him.

“Host needs you all to help him,” Host states, his voice managing to stay flat though he was experiencing many emotions at the moment. Not all of the egos were present. The more serious/dangerous ones(i.e. The Googles, Darkiplier, Yandere, etc.) were not there. He’d also kicked out the ones he didn’t trust with something this important(i.e. Ed, Silver Shepard, King of the Squirrels, etc.). There is still a fair amount of them, however.

“Help? Wit what?” Yancy asks. The Host takes a deep breath.

“Host… wants to tell Y/N he’s in love with them…” A series of cheers, groans, and sounds of money being passed follow his statement.

“Okay, but what do we have to do with this?” Dr. Iplier gestures to himself and the nearly identical people next to him.

“Host… is not the most familiar with romantic relationships…” Host explains softly, “He does not know what to do… he needs help…” The room is silent and the Host’s heart beats softly in his ears.

“Oh, hell yeah!” Bing cheers. The other egos join and agree to help. Host swells with joy. These people are maniacs but, dammit, they’re family. Basically, anyways. “So, what do we do?”

“Hm?” Host is snapped out of his thoughts.

“Well, what are we supposed to do? Is there a plan or something?” Host stares at Bing. He… hadn’t thought of that. A plan… would be useful… in this specific situation… hm…

“Uh…” Host scratches his neck while he thinks. Bim rolls his eyes.

“Oh, Christ. Fine,” he pulls a chair up to the coffee table in front of them while the others sit across from him on the couch and in the seats.

“Does… Does Bim have a plan?” Host’s eyebrows raise in surprise.

“I have a lot of free time and believe you me, I knew you wouldn’t be able to do this yourself,” Bim explains. Some of the egos chuckle while Host blushes.

“Now,” He leans forward, as do the rest of them, “Here’s what we’ll do…”

Host does not know how he let himself get into this situation.

He is holding a bouquet of flowers, standing in the middle of your house, wearing a bowtie, of all things, waiting for you to get back. And when you got back, he’d take you to the movies, then to dinner, then the park and he’d finally confess his everlasting love for you while you watched the sunset. And then he’d go in for the kiss. Perfect.

Except… not perfect. Bim neglected to explain what he was supposed to do while all these activities were taking place. He didn’t do romance! He didn’t know how to talk to people! What is he supposed to talk about? The weather? His job? The goddamn election? What?!

Host took a deep breath to slow his beating heart. He could feel the blood threatening to drip from his eyes. He squared his shoulders and faced your door. You should be here soon. Bim said you’d be here soon.

Bim had a plan. Like, a plan plan. An “I have been waiting for this moment for so long that I already have every single detail planned down to the letter” plan. Illinois and Yancy would pretend to get in a fight outside your work. You’d go outside and break it up. You’d ask them what the fight was about, they’d give a stupid answer and you’d tell them to go home. Then Eric would show up, tell you that he thought he left something at your house the last time he was there and he really, really needed it. You’d tell your boss you needed to go home. You’d go home, open your door, and boom! Host takes you out. On a date.

Bim, King, and Dr. Iplier would take care of the rest. Bim would make sure the theater was clear… by doing whatever he does… Dr. Iplier would call the people who reserved a table at a fancy restaurant that they’re dying and need to get to the hospital immediately. King would make sure the park was clear by getting his squirrels to scare people away. It was perfect.

...

What the hell is he doing? He isn’t… like this. This is false advertising for what would actually happen if you two are to date. He’d probably spend a whole day writing and then hug you when you went to bed. Maybe a kiss.

But this? Movies(that he can’t watch)? Fancy restaurants? Watching the sunset? This isn’t him. Is it too late to cancel?

Host stiffens when he hears your car pull into the driveway.

30 seconds to make a decision. A) He can stay and go through with the plan or B) he can throw himself out the window.

He hears your keys in the lock and there is apparently an unforeseen third option where he walks out the back door like a sensible person. He breathes heavily once he’s in your backyard.

Okay. Bim’s plan is officially ruined. Great. What now?

He can go home and tell the other egos how he’s an absolute failure and literally cannot do a single thing right.

Or…

Or he could ask you out. His way. On his own, without any help from Bim. He heard you walk around your apartment, talking with Eric.

“So, what did you leave?” You ask. Host feels the dopamine flow through his brain at the sound of your voice. Unknowingly, he smiles.

“I-I-I don’t know. B-But it w-was i-important!” Eric stutters. He’s a really bad actor…

“Okay, it’s okay, we can look,” You respond gently. Host clutches the flowers tightly. You’re so… gentle. You’re so wonderful with Eric, so patient with the kid. You know what he’s been through, and you try to help and understand him. You did the same thing with Host. Maybe that’s why he likes you so much…

“U-Um, I-I think this is it,” Eric says after a few minutes of rustling around.

“Really? I thought this was mine…”

“O-Oh, uh… m-maybe i-it’s n-not--”

“No, no! You have it! Better safe than sorry.”

“O-Okay… um… a-are y-you sure?”

“Yeah, absolutely. I can get another one, it’s fine.”

“A-Alright… thanks!”

“No problem. Bye, Eric! Have a great day! Don’t forget to take your meds!”

“Okay… B-Bye, Y/N!”

Host bites his lip to suppress the happy chuckle that threatens to come out. He thought your interaction was the purest thing in the world. You’re… so… great.

Great? Really? That’s the best word he can come up with? Not “exceptional”, not “tremendous”, “marvelous”, “magnificent”, “stupendous”, “extraordinary”, “outstanding”...

He’s an author, for Chrissakes!

How was it that you took away all of his cognitive ability by just… being you?

Goodness, he had it bad, didn’t he?

Host jumps at the buzzing on his thigh. He takes the phone out of his pocket and answers. He hesitantly brings the phone to his ear. He has a feeling about what’s going to happen.

“Um… Hello?” He whispers.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” Yancy yells. Host flinches at the volume.

“I-”

“What the hell happened to the plan? What is your problem?” Illinois interrupts.

“Well-”

“Dude, we were rooting for you!” Bing takes the phone next. Host frowned, starting to get annoyed.

“If-”

“We’re trying to help you,” Dr. Iplier said, calmer than the rest.

“Everything was ready,” King said from somewhere in the background.

“Host,” Bim finally took the phone, “What happened?” Host was silent for a minute. “Host?”

“Oh, is Host allowed to speak now?” He teases. Bim chuckles.

“Yeah, sorry… Just… what happened?” Host sighs.

“Host… realized… he wants to do this… his way. Without help. He doesn’t need it. Y/N will either like him, or they won’t. All this… fancy stuff won’t change that. Host needs to do this on his own,” Host explains. The phone is silent. He’s begun to realize that silence does not equal upset. Bim snorts.

“Well, you could’ve fucking said that before we convinced that young couple that they’re dying,” He laughs. Host flushes and he’s glad no one’s around to see it.

“Host is sorry…”

“Eh, it’s fine. I’m sure if I ask Wilford, we can do all the shit you were supposed to,” Host can hear Bim’s smile when he talks, “Good luck Host.” He hangs up, and Host is left sitting on your back porch.

Ok. New plan.

Host tears the bowtie off and throws it in your trash, along with the flowers. Hopefully, you wouldn’t mind.

He straightened his back and cleared his throat, raising his fist to knock on your door. He paused.

Wait. What if you didn’t like him? What if you were already dating the guy? Did romantic relationships work that way? He wouldn’t know.

He shook his head and knocked three times. He’d deal with that when he got to it.

The door opens to reveal… you. You’re wearing sweatpants and a Pokemon hoodie. You raise an eyebrow at him, a slightly annoyed look on your face.

God, you’re perfect.

“Host? May I help you?” Your face softens when you see who it is. The Host swallows nervously.

“Uh… may the Host come in?” You nod and step back, allowing him to step into your house. His knees would have buckled with the sheer smell of the house if he hadn’t been here before. The whole place smells like you and he nearly collapsed the first time.

“Would you… like a drink?”

“No, thank you.”

“Okay, well…” You both stand across from each other, a few feet apart. “What would you-”

“The Host likes Y/N,” Host blurts out. You blink at him, hand in mid-gesture.

“What?” You ask quietly. The Host takes a shaky breath and grounds himself. He is going to get through this, no matter how embarrassing or traumatizing it may be.

“The Host… I… I like you. I love you. I am… in love… with you…” He says slowly, not fully comprehending what’s coming out of his mouth. “I like you. Say it back, please.”

“Say it back, please”? Really?! Could you sound any more desperate?

He looks up to see your head tilted slightly. Why were you so cute?

“Okay…” You furrow your eyebrows, “Elaborate?” Host takes another breath and swallows. His throat is very dry. Maybe he should’ve said yes to the drink…

“Host… is in love with you. He has been for a while. He’s not sure when it started, but he knows it’s a very strong feeling. He loves to hear Y/N talk and laugh and… walk around and… do anything. And… he thinks they are such a wonderful person and he wants to be the one to make them happy… he wants to be the one they go on dates with and come home to… because… he loves them…” Host holds his breath while he waits for the response. The suspense might actually kill him at this point.

“I… like you,” You finally say. Host knits his eyebrows together.

“What?” He asks.

“You… you said to say it back…” you whisper, “And… if it happens to be true… that’s not my fault…” Hosts eyebrows raise as high as they can go.

“What?” He repeats, barely louder than a whisper. He hears the floor creak as you walk over to him and he breathes heavily in response. What’s happening? What are you doing? What’s going on?

His breath hitches when you take his hand and intertwine your fingers with his.

“I love you too, Host.” You whisper. The Host feels extremely light headed. You love him? You love him? No, no, no… but…

“But… date… with… guy…” Host murmurs. There goes the brain function.

“I went out with him to try and get over you…” you admitted, “I didn’t think you actually liked me…”

“Why… not?”

“I’m not… anything special--”

“Yes! Yes, you are!” He raises his voice, “You are… exceptional! And tremendous! And marvelous, magnificent, stupendous, extraordinary, outstanding… and… so much more!” You stifle a laugh.

“You really think so?”

“Yes!” You chuckle. You shift your hand so that you’re holding his fingers in your hand. You rub your thumb over his knuckles. He begins to shake slightly. Too much. He was going to pass out.

“So… what now?”

“Hm?” Host turns his head from your hand holding his to your face.

“What do we do now?”

“Host is not sure, he didn’t think he would get this far…” You laugh out loud this time and a smile appears on the Host’s face.

“Well… do you want to awkwardly kiss?”

“That… It would be nice…”

You shuffle forward a bit so you’re very close to the Host. He stands completely still, not exactly sure what to do with himself. You lay a gentle hand on his cheek and kiss him. Not deep, not… sensual, just… a small kiss. Host still gets very flushed by it and his cheek is very hot on your hand. You pull back after a few seconds.

“How… was that?” You squeak.

“Good… it was… it was good…” He pants. You both stand there, unmoving. Then, you start to giggle.

“We… are adults… and we’re acting like teenagers…” You laugh. Host smiles.

“That… we are…” Host starts laughing as well. You laugh at each other and how ridiculous you’re being before you remove your hand from the Host’s. He immediately misses the contact. You wrap your arms around him and hold him tightly in a hug. Host hesitantly wrapped his around you. You stood, swaying a bit, feeling very comfortable.

“This is nice,” you sigh.

“It is.”

“What do you wanna do now?”

“Host is… a bit hungry…” You snicker.

“Alright. I’ll make something.” You pull away and Host chases after your warmth. You lead him to the living room and sit him down on the couch. You go to the kitchen, leaving the Host alone with his thoughts.

You… like him. You… love him. How long have you loved him? Why didn’t he know? Is he really just that stupid around you?

He sighs and traces his knuckles with a finger.

He loves you… you love him…

He couldn’t remember the last time he was this happy...

#the host #markiplier the host #danger in fiction #danger in fiction the host #the host x reader #the host x male!reader #the host x female!reader #the host x gender neutral!reader #the host x you #the host x y/n #x reader #x reader fanfiction #x male reader #x female reader #x gender neutral reader #x you #x y/n #markiplier egos #markiplier egos x reader

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fuck-customers · 5 years

Text

Got half an hour of over time the other day when I answered the phone and the guy on the other end kept asking me about whether we sell pools and if he could have one.

I work in the Deli department of a grocery store. We don’t sell pools. Pool accessories, yes. Actual pools, no.

But that not being my department I wasn’t willing to assume so I tried to transfer him to the correct department.

Every time I’d put him on hold he would hang up and call right back to our department again. The way our phones work to transfer a call we put the person on hold and just page the correct department to answer the line. He just would not stop hanging up and calling back. Every. TIME.

After seven attempts my coworker answered and just said “We don’t have pools. Goodbye.” And hung up. He called back. She picked it up and hung it up again.

He called back again. This time I tried transferring him to a manager. Basically I just wanted him to stop calling because at this point it had been half an hour and I was supposed to be leaving. Same thing happened.

I answered and pretended to be someone different and tried to my best ability to figure out what was going on that he kept hanging up and calling back. He proceeded to yell at ME for continuously hanging up on him and I had to explain multiple times that being put on hold was not the same as being hung up on. That he needed to stay on the line long enough for the other person to answer and that if he kept hanging up and calling back to the DELI DEPARTMENT that he was never going to get what he was looking for.

This then turned into another half hour of him ranting about how he saw an advertisement from our store claiming we were selling pools for only fifty cents (a whole pool for $.50?? Yeah right. We don’t even sell pool toys that cheap)That he had called every store and no one had it and how it’s false advertising and he even called the corporate number and everyone just hangs up on him because we know we’re scamming people.

At this point I was barely holding the phone to my ear because...I really had nothing to say. Even if I wanted to I couldn’t help him as a Deli clerk...and I bet no one ever hung up on him he just didn’t understand how being put on hold worked.

Tid bits I can remember hearing while holding my head and looking annoyed as my coworkers laughed at my expense.

“I came here from my country and I had a business, I know good business, you are all liars.”

“If you advertise it and you don’t have it that’s wrong, wouldn’t you agree?” (Note: I tried looking this so called ad up after...it doesn’t exist. So I don’t know what he saw that even led to this.)

“Look in you system. You’ll see. Are you looking?”

No...I’m in the Deli. You called the Deli. I don’t have the ability to find out what our stores inventory is.

“I call company office and everyone just hangs up on me. I’m not a push over. I’ll just keep calling”

Finally after he had stopped his tirade I managed to get him to understand that there was literally nothing I could help him with because he was continuously calling a side perishable department and not the customer service counter. He at least had the decency to thank me for being nice while he ranted at me.

I found out later that he called back again only to repeat the same event for another hour with our customer service desk...and then again with our HR director who was basically just like “you’re harassing our workers and preventing them from doing their jobs. Stop calling. We don’t sell pools. This ad doesn’t exist. If you call again then our company will be forced to block your number.”

I’m guessing either they saw an ad for a completely different store or it was a fake, or he somehow thought doing this would get him something but gees, dude, wtf?

#tw #fuck managers #embarrassing #fuck customers #retail law #fuck retail #fuck co-workers #server problems #cashier problems #fuck coworkers #trigger warning #call center problems #retail justice #submissions #happy ending #submission

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keigoloveminty · 4 years

Text

Sweet Angel

Bnha Night club AU

I have a suddenly urge to write this x3 Please enjoy it!

Everyones aged up for this !

Chapter 1: Something new to try

You slammed your head down as you tried not to cry, you were just kicked out of your previous office work, even though it barely paid you,’This is so bad.. ... what am I going to do now!?’,you internally screamed as you scratched your head with both of your hands. You tried to hold back a sob on the papers that screamed ‘You are being relieved from your work, we thank you for your services. Please receive this generous amount of 400,000 yen as thanks’ the money is great an all but you didn’t want to be a burden to your roommates for paying the rent.

You sniffed has you tired to wipe off your tears off while clutching the already wet papers that are now drenched in your tears,”I don't get this! One day they’re are telling me I'm doing great the now I’m being asked to gather all my stuff to cause I’m getting fired. ...”, You placed the papers on the table and walked to the couch and flopped your whole body on it and screamed at a cushion. You friend Ryukyu walked out from the kitchen and gave you a worried expression, she knew you were suddenly fired because you came home crying your eyes out and went straight to your room closing the door quietly. Your roommates including her, Nemuri, Uwabami were quick to try and comfort you, you told them after hours of convincing you to come out and explain but you ended up crying your eyes out while eating your favourite ice cream.

Ryukyu walks to where you were and pats your head,”Maybe this is a sign that you need to try something new, how about that little side Job you do as an artist that takes commissions?”, she says with a soft voice. You looked up form the cushion while sniffling,”I don’t mind that but I don't want to stay cooped up in my room drawing for at least 100+ hours just for commissions, the pays great but mostly all of them are rush orders which is really tiring for me...”, you say. ”Hmmm..Oh! how about streaming?”, She says you tilted your head to the right with a questioning face,”I’m quite shy Ryu-chan and besides it takes awhile to even have a huge fanbase but either way I’m way to shy to even let people see my face anyways...”, this time it was Uwabami’s turn.

“How about working as a model for me? All my models are cool and all but they all have trash attitudes and zero cooperation on shoots”, she huffs as she walks in with two mugs. She hands you a mug,”Its nice and sweet, just how you like your tea”, she smiles. You sat up putting the cushion on you lap and reached for the mug taking a small sip form the tea,”Plus I think you’ll do well as a model with that great body of yours! I’d say you’d do well as a lingerie model”,you almost spit out your tea. You pouted as you looked at her,”I get the ‘Try new things’ but I don’t think putting my body out in billboards or advertisements is too much for me! I’ve done it twice now for you and my coworkers kept asking me if I was working as a part-time model”, you squeaked as you quietly thanked Ryukyu handing a tissue.

“Whaaat? You should flaunt that cute body of yours, besides you're already wearing some of my trial clothings and you look super cute in them already”, she squeals while Ryukyu laughs nervously. Ryukyu was a film director as well as streamer for fun, Uwabami is a fashion designer as well as an online celebrity, and you used to work as a full-time artist that does commissions but decided to try something new and tried to work at a office as someone who basically works their butt off of dozens of papers.

Everyone was user nice and you did considered that you didn't mind working full-time there but after 3 years of serving them you got fired for no specific reason, you were damn sure that you did everything right, learned from your co-workers. You had a suspicion going on that someone who hated you had spread false rumours about you and managed to get to the president which lead you into to being fired. Lastly, is your friend Nemuri, you went sure what her job is, you tired to ask Ryukyu and Uwabami about it but they always say ‘I don’t think you should know..’ or ‘Her work is... something else its like a form of art? But if I tell you it’ll be too much on your soul’ or any answer to redirect your attention.

After 5 years of living together you still didnt know what Nemuri’s job is,”How about working at my job? You should try something wild!”, speak of devil- your friend Nemuri walks out of her room with a towel on her shoulders drying her hair. Ryukyu coughed at her suggestion while Uwabami rolls her eyes at Nemuri,”Nemu I think that work is too much for Y/n, besides thats too wild I don't think y/n will even consider working there even for a week”, she huffs out. Nemuri laughs at this and smirks,”Wanna bet?”, she cheekily says. Before Uwabami could reply to that Ryukyu was kind enough to step in-between the two,”Stop it you two, we are supposed to be comforting y/n and help her find a job. A job that SHE likes working at”, Ryukyu says while gesturing you to face away for her so she could braid your hair as that clams you down a bit.

Uwabami quickly agrees with Ryukyu,”Yeah! Which means she could work with me as a model for my clothes!”, Ryukyu looks at her a straight face,”A job that y/n doesn't MIND working at for awhile or if your’re lucky she likes the job as your model then she’ll your there full-time”, she says as she returns to braiding your hair. Uwabami sighs sadly grumbling ‘She has a small experience for last time and I think she would do well!’ Nemuri laughs at her friends demise and looks back you,”Theres an open spot for waiters/waitress at my job and plus we have a new rule of no touching the waiters/waitress since that incident. Aaanndd we also have a tight security now! five in every floor, room and in the bar as well!”, she walks in the kitchen to grab a beer.

“Isn't is a bit too early for you to start drinking? Don’t you have work later on?”, Uwabami looks at her with a pout on her face. Nemuri waves her off as she take a huge gulp of her favourite beer,”I could take her there to day for an interview plus! y/n already has great experience cause she works at a cafe before! But I wouldn't force you to do it but then again your always open to trying something new and I think--”, before she could finish her sentence Ryukyu cuts her off,”--its y/n decision to either go with you or work with Uwabami or she looks for other jobs that are open to her or continue doing commissions. It up to y/n to figure out what she wants to do next, also I wouldn't mind letting you work as a graphic designer or be my assistant”, Ryukyu says as she now finishes braiding your hair, she leans back to admire her work.

“Thank you Ryu-chan, I think that calm me down a bit. I'll think about your offers”, you say as you look at your roommates, Uwabami silently celebrates and squeals, ‘What ever you pick I'll respect it’ Ryukyu says softly while patting your head. Nemuri rolls her eye at Uwabami,”You haven’t won anything yet Medusa”, she sneers. Medusa is a name that she uses to insult to Uwabami’s hair but Uwabami doesn't care about but rather likes it cause it suits her,”Like your one to talk, what makes you think y/n would work where you work?! You’ll scare her to death”, Uwabami rolls her eyes and scoff at this,”She’s working as a waitress, Uwabami and the pays actually good since its a really popular place and I wouldn't let her go near ‘That’ place, the no touching the waiters or waitresses rule is basically non existent there since its VIP only”, Nemuri reasons out.

The two went back and worth with reasons and all while silently insulting each other, Ryukyu sighs heavily as she looks at you who was silently watching them roast each other,”Well I’m really curious about where Nemuri works at and she did say there's a spot for a waitress and Ive got some experience when I worked at a cafe before, so I guess its not that different, besides I can't stay cooped up in here working on commissions all day everyday. I wanna try something new!”, you stood up with a determined face as he looked at Nemuri.

Ryukyu laughs nervously at your enthusiasm,’I don’t think thats the right expression your wearing, y/n’,she sweat drops at this Uwabami drops her jaw and lets out a loud groan saddened that you didn’t choose her, Nemuri squeals in excitement and quickly runs to your side and grabbed both of your hands,”You won't regret it, I swear on it! I have to call the Prez. to secure a spot for you”, she lets go of your hands and reaches for her back pocket for her phone.

“Now hold on just a second! Y/n hasn't technically agreed AGREED to fully work there anyway!”,Uwabami shouts clearly annoyed that Nemuri is celebrating early, Nemuri sticks her tongue out like a child. Ryukyu deadpans at their childish behaviour,”As long y/n is safe in working-- like you promised, Nemuri-- then I have no problems with y/n working there-- as a waitress--”, Ryukyu says with s strict voice as she puts emphasis on Nemuri’s name and you working as a server there.

Nemuri visibly shakes in her place clearly excited for you to come with her later and check out the place before it opens, her phone rang a few times till the call comes through,”HEY PREZ.!! I finally found someone that could fill in the spot if the previous waiter who decided to quit... ..Yes... Could she check out the place later before the place opens? OH don’t worry use the door from the back.. okay..SHE CAN!! OKAY I’ll tell her right away!!”, she quickly ends the call and turns to face you with a grin.

“Wear your most comfortable outfit y/n!! Im taking you to my work place in 2 hours!!”, Nemuri quickly run back to her room and slams her door close. She opens it again and looks at Uwabami,”Aaanndd if you want her to still test out your cute clothes my work allows waiter and waitresses to wear what ever they want as long as they have thier server badge around them”, she then closes her door again. Uwabami huffs in complete defeat but grumbles out ‘I guess that kind of a win for me, I’ll make sure to have something she could wear-- super cute too!!’ and goes to her room to scavenge and continue her cute designs for you wear.

Ryukyu looks at you with a serious expression,”Well... . seeing as you've decided on going to that work, I guess I can tell you that this job no regular job sure there's some aspects of serving a person their orders or drinks but it goes sometimes goes beyond that, y/n”, you looked at her with a confused look. “How is it different Ryu-chan? OH! Will you finally tell me what kind of work Nemuri has now?”, you asked excited flapping your arms with excitement, Ryukyu cough nervously and looks at your with her eyebrows furrowed and a small smile,”Erm I think you have to seat down for this one Y/n”.

---

Its currently 3:26 pm and Nemuri’s work starts at 6:30 pm, you were squirming in your seat as Nemuri drives you both there. You were wearing your most comfortable clothes you could wear a huge jacket that reaches halfway to your knees, leggings and running shoes while Nemuri was wearing a tight fitting dark purple dress that was way to high up her thighs. You already knew what you chose to work at as Ryukyu explained to you back at the house, but then again you have to be accepted into working here but knowing Nemuri she wouldn't hesitate to pull some strings to make them accept you applying there.

‘A stripper club?! I though Nemuri works for a lingerie model... BUT A STRIPPER?! I would've never guess that if Ryukyu did not tell me this..’,you rubbed your arms as you looked at the road ahead of you. Nemuri looks at you through the rear mirror seeing you were feeling unsure,”Hey, were just checking out the place I'm not actually letting you work there right away, we’ll basically give you a tour of the building and at the end of that tour you have to make a decision that your either want to work there full-time or just keep it as an option. But you have like less than a week to decided cause Prez says that there are a lot of people coming in seeing if they could work there, I'm friends with everyone in the building so if anyone tries to get to touchy with you they have to get through me first, got all that?”.

You looked at Nemuri with a small smile not feeling nervous anymore,”So um.. whats it like being a stripper?”, you asked feeling curious. Nemuri grins at your question,”Weellll its kinda fun and art in a way, it also lets me be myself, let out my true self-- not that I cant outside but this place allows me to get down and get wild! And the crowds cheering as well get me going and I do get down and dirty when someone offers it--- cant say no to that and the money as well”, she laughs.

You sat there laughing nervously and looked at the window,’I don't mind working here well not forever but I'd like to just try it out, after all I still have to look for an actual job. Maybe I should just work for an animation studio?’, your mind began to wonder what jobs you should apply at next since the office life just wasn't for you. You were kind of sad cause the people that surrounded you were super sweet and kind-- except that one person-- you’ll miss Shino, Ryuko, Tomoko as well as Yawara (The Pussy cats real names)

But you could always keep in touch with them after all they literally asked you on a hangout this weekend to comfort you, you agreed to it and can't wait to meet them once this week it over and you finally have a grasp of the job you’ll now be working in which in your case you were quite excited as you don’t know how big of a difference being a waitress in a stripper clubs differs from a waitress in cafe. Your legs were jumping in excitement as you pass the third stop light, you could see a building that has all kinds of lights and expensive--like hella expensive-- a few cars parks in the front as well as moving lights,’I-is this how stripper clubs look like?! This place is almost packed and its not even 6:30 pm yet.. .’,You looked at Nemuri with a confused expression.

Nemuri laughs at you as she turns her car to the back part of the building-- that has three floors??-- where workers could park there car there,”We’re here y/n, try not stay close to me this place is quite big and I don’t really want to lose sight of you”, Nemuri easy has she turns off the engine and got out the car and you followed as well. You pulled on your jacket sleeve as you wait for Nemuri while she get her gym bag where she had all her clothes and all her other stuff. She closed her trunk and walked to my side with her gym bag slung on her left arm,”You ready? You know once you walk inside its a whole new world and scene for you, I’m just giving you a tour along with the prez. as well as the rules. You won't start working here unless you sign the papers”, she says as she walks beside you to the back entrance.

You gave her a soft nod as she opens the door to you, as soon as she opened the door a blast of sexy music can be heard-- but a bit muffled-- and the lighting was so dark you could barely see anything if it wasn't for the floor lightings that could guide you,’What the heck-- why is it so DARK HERE?! To be honest Nemuri I'm not sure if I'm in the right place’, you internally cried as you walked right behind her. You made sure to grab the lose sling of her gym bag as to not get lost as waiters and waitresses scamper around to make sure the place was spotless before it opens its doors to the rich people, each of them had this two things around their thighs--wait a second is that ARE THEY CARRYING TWO HUGE ALCHOL BOTTLES?!-- and are those the uniforms you’ll be wearing- this is getting too much.

Your whole body quivered,’Not only this whole place is super- and I mean super expensive looking-- all the people serving here are wearing those kinds or clothes’,You observed the servers running around trying to get ready some were even strong enough to get change at the corner, your guessing they came in late and didn't want their manager to scold them. From what you’ve observed there were some that decided to wear their own outfit with their server badge of course but majority wore the clubs uniforms. “Hey.. Nemuri are we almost there yet?”, you looked at her as you guys were going up the huge stairs to the second floor.

Th structure of the building was honestly new to you, from what you could observe, it has three floors counting the ground floor-- which had a Two small pole stages levelled on each side of the huge pole stage that had a DJ stationed just behind the huge stage. Surrounding the stages had lounges and seating areas for people to watch the performers from, there were railings on the 2nd and 3rd floors to watch the stages on the first floor from above, there were also seats that curved around a super small stage in the center of it,”We’re almost their no need to be nervous! Everyones super nice here”, you laughed nervously,’I’m basically the odd one out here in this place-- Oh please tell me I can wear legging and not shorts to work, PLEASE’,you prayed silently.

You finally reached the managers room at last, you shuffled nervously on you spot as you looked at Nemuri,”Go inside, I'll meet you in her in a second I have to change into my outfit”, she pats your head softly as she walks to the opposite direction. You looked at the sign on top of door ‘Dancers only’ you sighed heavily,”Figures... well here goes nothing.. ..”, you knocked on the door trice and you heard a faint ‘Come in!’, you slowly turned the knob and peaked at the door meekly.

---

You poked your head out as look inside the room, before you were three people and two of them were in stripper outfits,’I interrupted something didn’t I... GWAHH NEMURI SAVE ME!!!’, you cried internally as the man gestured for you to come inside. You swallowed and stepped inside and closed the door behind you and walked in front of the table,’Don’t look at them, don’t look at them, dont look at them-- will he start or do I have to’, luckily you didn’t have to start the conversation as the-- cute small bear?-- started it for you. “A pleasure to meet you! I’m guessing your’re the new waitress that Nemuri told over the phone, I was just talking to this two about something but I will continue that later seeing that you are here now!”, the manager? jumped down the chair and walked around the huge table to you.

‘Oh my god-- SO CUTE!!! THIS IS THE MANAGER THAT OWNS THE PLACE?!’, you blushed at this, you were cooing how cute the manager was. You held both of your hands on you chest,“N-nice to meet-- YOUUuu?!”, you flinched when someone blew on your left ear. You covered your left ear as you looked the person,”Hello, precious listener”, the person grinned as he looked at you with a playful expression. The person has long silky yellow hair that framed his looks and is wearing a black mesh crop top, yellow tinted glasses, some necklaces, yellow shorts and black boots. You walked backwards only to land against someones chest, the said person held your shoulders softy with his large calloused hands which might be from dancing on the pole.

“Don’t scare her too much Hizashi..”, you flinched at the husky voice behind you--you didn’t know you’d be would be working with a bunch of handsome men-- ‘I don’t know if I should be happy or scared at this.. Nemuri please save me huhuh’, the man that was behind you was wearing a grey mesh top, black leather fingerless gloves, black cargo pants thats tucked in his black combat boots, a few ear piercings and silver chains around his neck. You quickly muttered a ‘Sorry’ and pulled onto your hoodie to hide your flustered state,’NEMURI WHERE ARE YOU HUHUHUHUHUH’, you internally cried. The prez laughed at your flustered self,”Sorry about them! The one who blew on your ear is Hizashi, his stage name is Present Mic and this other fellow here is Aizawa, Eraserhead is his stage name”, the prez says as he taps your leg.

You peaked out from your hoodie to look down at him, he smiles softy,”Your quite shy but thats okay!I can tell your’re going to be a breath of fresh air here at the UA club!”, he laughs softly and all you could do was nod softly, the two strippers in room the can agree to that.

#sweetangel

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the-desolated-quill · 6 years

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Quill’s Swill - The Worst Of 2018

Congratulations dear reader. You survived 2018. And you know what that means. It’s time for another best of/worst of list. Welcome to Quill’s Swill 2018. A giant septic tank for the various shit the entertainment industry produced over the course of the year. The films, games, TV shows and various other media that got on my bad side. As always please bear in mind that this is only my subjective opinion (if you happen to like any of the things on this list, good for you. I’m glad someone did) and that obviously I haven’t seen everything 2018 has to offer for one reason or another. In other words, sorry that Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald isn’t on here. I’m sure it is as terrible as some have been suggesting. I just never got around to watching it.

Okay everyone. Grab your breathing masks and put on your rubber gloves. Let’s dive into this shit pile.

Hold The Sunset

The news that John Cleese would be returning to the world of BBC sitcoms was incredibly exciting, being a massive Fawlty Towers fan and all. Unfortunately Hold The Sunset was not quite what I had in mind. It’s one of those rare breed of situation comedies that chooses to offer no actual comedy. It’s not a sitcom. It’s a sit. Like Scrubs or The Big Bang Theory.

An elderly couple plan to elope abroad only for Alison Steadman’s son to barge in, having left his wife, and forcing them to put their plans on hold. Hence the title ‘Hold The Sunset.’ It’s like a cross between As Time Goes By and Sorry, but if all the humour and relatability were surgically removed by a deadpan mortician. The characters are weak, the plots are thin on the ground and the humour (hat little of it there is) feel incredibly dated. The middle aged mummy’s boy is something that hasn’t been funny since the 90s. It’s an utter waste of great talent and what hurts even more is that this tripe is actually getting a second series. I can only assume the people watching this are comatose. Either that or there’s an epidemic of people in Britain who have lost the remote.

Avengers: Infinity War

Yes this is one of the worst movies of 2018 and no I don’t regret saying that one little bit. Avengers: Infinity War was fucking terrible. Period. There were too many plots and characters going on, which made the film hard to follow (and what staggers me is that the so called ‘professional’ critics have condemned movies for having too many characters and plots before. Spider-Man 3, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Batman vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice and even Deadpool 2. But because this is an MCU movie, it gets a free pass. Fuck off). The characterisation was weak due to sheer number of characters they try to juggle, resulting in characters coming off as one dimensional caricatures of themselves and scenes where characters such as Iron Man, Doctor Strange and Star-Lord sound completely interchangeable. The villain, Thanos, is a stupidly and poorly written villain, but that’s hardly surprising considering what a shit job Marvel have done building him up over the course of these 20+ movies. And let’s not forget that pisstake ending. A bunch of prominent Marvel characters die and it’s all very, very sad... except all these characters just so happen to have sequels planned, which makes this ending fucking pointless and have less impact than a feather on a bouncy castle.

I don’t know which is more shocking. That Marvel and Disney think their audience are that stupid and gullible, or that their audience are actually validating their view. Fuck you Disney.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

I’ve always wanted a Harry Potter RPG, where you could customise your character, choose your house and actually live a full school life at Hogwarts. This year, Warner Bros and Jam City gave us just that.

That was a mistake.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is the epitome of everything that’s wrong with the mobile gaming market right now. The gameplay is boring and involving where you just tap images on a screen until a progress bar fills up. Wizard duels are little more than rock-paper-scissors challenges that require no kind of skill. Bonding with friends and caring for magical creatures just consist of pathetically simple pop quizzes and yet more boring tapping. Oh and of course you only get a certain amount of energy to complete these tedious tasks. If you run out of energy, you wait for it to fill up... or pay up for the privilege. So determined are they to extract your hard earned cash from your wallet, there’s actually a bit where Devil’s Snare strangles your eleven year old avatar and the game effectively tries to guilt trip you into paying micro-transactions to save them. It’s sleazy, gross and manipulative. Honestly, you’re better off just playing Candy Crush.

Agony

When the developers of this game said they wanted to give the player a trip through Hell, they had no idea how true that statement really was. Agony is dreadful on a number of levels. The design for Hell itself, while visually interesting at times, is often not very practical and gets quite dull and repetitive after a while. The stealth mechanics are a joke and the AI of your demonic enemies are pitiful. All of this alone would have been enough to put this game on the list, but then we also have the casual misogyny. Agony is a gorefest trying desperately to shock the player. We see men and woman get tortured, but it’s the women that often get the extreme end. The violence inflicted on them is often sexual in nature and the game seems to go out of its way to degrade and dehumanise women at every turn. The orgasmic cries of ‘pull it out’ quickly become a staple of the game’s experience as we see naked women raped, tortured and murdered, all for the purposes of ‘entertainment.’

I would call Agony sexist, but honestly that would be giving it too much credit. Agony is like a little child trying desperately to be all dark and edgy in a pathetic attempt to impress everyone around him, and we should treat it as such. Go to your room Agony. No ice cream for you.

Peter Rabbit

If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of Beatrix Potter rotating in her grave.

Yes we have yet another live action/CGI hybrid, but instead of something innocuous like the Smurfs or Alvin and the Chipmunks, Sony instead decides to adapt Peter Rabbit, with James Corden in the title role.

It’s about as bad as you’d expect.

Their attempts to modernise the story are painful to say the least with pop culture references, inappropriate adult humour and twerking rabbits. Plus rather than the gentle, but slightly mischievous character we got in the source material, here Peter is a sociopathic delinquent who seems to revel in making the farmer’s life a living hell. He’s unlikable and unwatchable as far as I’m concerned and the film doesn’t in anyway earn the emotional moments it tries so desperately to sell to the audience. And the worst part is it’s getting a sequel.

Wait. Do you hear that sound? That’s the sound of Beatrix Potter tearing out of the ground, ready to kill whatever idiot came up with this shit.

Fallout 76

I was excited for Fallout 76. A MMORPG where players band together to rebuild society after a nuclear apocalypse. Could have been great. Pity it wasn’t.

Fallout 76 is a dreadful game. Not only is it a buggy, glitchy mess that requires a constant online connection to play, which could result in you losing hours of progress if your WiFi went down, it’s also unbelievably tedious, and that’s because there’s nothing to do in the game. There’s no other characters to interact with, the various robots and computers you come across are really little more than quest givers, there’s no actual plot so to speak, and because of the sheer size of the world and the number of players allowed on a server, the chances of you actually meeting any actual players is remote. And let’s not forget all the behind the scenes drama. Bethesda falsely advertising Fallout themed canvas bags and players getting shitty nylon ones. Bethesda accidentally releasing the account information of various players trying to get a refund for said bag. Bethesda failing to program the year 2019 into the game code, meaning that the game’s nukes don’t work.

Maybe there’s a chance that Bethesda could pull a No Man’s Sky and fix everything over the coming years with various patches and DLCs, but the damage has already been done. It’s incredibly disappointing. The Elder Scrolls 6 is going to have be fucking incredible to win everyone back.

Mama Mia!: Here We Go Again

I can’t stand jukebox musicals anyway, but Mamma Mia was always one of the worst. Its boring, meandering story with its one note, obnoxious cast of characters screeching out ABBA songs like they’re at some drunken karaoke session at some poor sod’s hen party has always grated on my nerves. So imagine my delight when they announced we were getting a sequel. Ever wondered how Meryl Streep met her three lovers and founded her hotel? No? Well tough shit, we’re going to tell you anyway.

Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again is basically just Mamma Mia again. The actors still can’t sing, the characters are still annoying and story is still boring and meandering, completely at the mercy of the chosen songs rather than the filmmakers using the songs to compliment the story (you know? Like proper musicals do?).

How can I resist you? Very easily as it turns out. Gimme, gimme, gimme a fucking gun so I can end my misery.

The Cloverfield Paradox

A lot of people were unhappy about the direction Cloverfield was going. They wanted a continuation of the found footage, kaiju movie from 2008, not an anthology series. I was personally all in favour. Partially because I thought the first Cloverfield was a tad overrated, but mostly because I thought it would be a great opportunity for more experimental film projects and could be a great launchpad for new writers and filmmakers. 10 Cloverfield Lane was a great start. Then The Cloverfield Paradox happened.

The Cloverfield Paradox is basically JJ Abrams trying to have his cake and eat it too. Maintaining the anthology format whilst connecting everything together in a ‘shared universe’ (yes, yet another shared universe). The result was a cliched, poorly edited and idiotic mess of a film that actually took away from the previous two films rather than added to them. Everyone hated it and, as a result, 2018′s Overlord, which was totes going to be part of the Cloververse, was made its own standalone film and Abrams double pinky promised to make a true sequel to the original Cloverfield. A complete and total disaster. No wonder it was a straight-to-Netflix film.

The Handmaid’s Tale - Season 2

This is probably going to be the most controversial entry on the list, but please hear me out because I’m not the only one who has a problem with this season.

I was reluctant to watch The Handmaid’s Tale simply because of how gruesome the original book was, but I forced myself to watch the first season and I thought it was pretty good. It remained faithful to the source material for the most part and included some nice additions that helped to expand the story and mythos. If it was just a one off mini-series, everything would have been fine. But then they made the same mistake as The Man In The High Castle and Under The Dome did where they commissioned another season and attempted to tell a story that goes beyond the book.

There’s a reason why the original story ended where it did. The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t meant to be an empowering story about women sticking it to the patriarchy. It’s a cautionary tale about how fragile our civil rights truly are and how easily they can be taken away from us. It’s designed to shock, not to satisfy. So seeing a handmaid blow herself up in a suicide bombing feels very incongruous and just a little bit silly. It would be like doing a TV adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 where the first season followed the source material and then the second season turned Winston Smith into this heroic freedom fighter trying to overthrow Big Brother. It would represent a fundamental misunderstanding of what the book was about in the first place.

And then of course there’s the increased level of violence in Season 2, which many have complained about. In Season 1 and the original source material, the violence was justified. In Season 2, the motivation behind the violence has gone from ‘how can we effectively demonstrate how easily a fascist patriarchy can happen in the West?’ to ‘what brutal act can we inflict upon Ofglen to shock the audience this week?’ It’s purely for shock and nothing more. And with the showrunner (who I feel I should mention is a man) announcing that he has planned ten seasons of this, it seems that The Handmaid’s Tale is going to go even further with this depravity until it effectively becomes the equivalent of a Saw film.

The Handmaid’s Tale exists as a way of shining light on and critiquing misogyny in its most extreme form. Season 2 however demonstrates that there is a serious risk of it becoming the very thing it’s criticising in the first place.

The Predator

I love the Predator franchise, but The Predator is the worst.

People thought that this would be good because director Shane Black had actually starred in the first Predator movie back in 1987. Instead we got this bloated, confusing, obnoxious and insulting mess of a film that seems to go out of its way to ruin everything that makes Predator so good. There’s no tension. No suspense. No intrigue. Just a bunch of gore, explosions and shitty one liners from annoying and lifeless characters. They essentially took this big alien game hunter from outer space and turned him into a generic monster from a bad summer blockbuster. It no longer hunts for sport. It wants to take over the world and splice our DNA with theirs. But don’t worry, a rogue Predator doesn’t want to kill humans (even though he himself kills a bunch of humans), so he gives us a Predator Iron Man suit to set up a sequel that will probably never happen because this movie was a box office bomb and it fucking SUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKKEEEEEDDDD!!!

This film also has a very nasty streak towards those with disabilities. There’s a lot of jokes at the expense of a character with Tourette’s and it has an extremely ignorant and patronising view of autism, portraying the main character’s kid as being a super genius who can decipher the Predator language and even going so far as to say that he represents ‘the next stage of human evolution.’ Presumably the Predators want social communication difficulties because apparently it helps them hunt somehow.

What with Disney acquiring 20th Century Fox, the future of both the Alien and Predator franchises were very much in question. This film needed to be a success in order to make a case for Disney to keep making more of them. It wasn’t. Congratulations Shane Black. You might have just killed off this franchise for good. Thanks arsehole! :D

So those were my least favourite stories from 2018. Join me on Wednesday where we shall discuss something more positive. Yes, it’s awards season. Who shall win the coveted Quill Seal Of Approval? Watch this space...

Or don’t. It’s up to you. I don’t want to force you or anything. It’s a free country.

#quill's swill #quill's swill 2018 #worst of the year #review #opinion

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queuepeaceandcandy · 5 years

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Take Down That

I wrote most of this post up for private consumption, but given the recent news about: http://blog.archive.org/2019/04/10/official-eu-agencies-falsely-report-more-than-550-archive-org-urls-as-terrorist-content/ it spurred me to make it more public.

So reposting with some minor edits, plus one large additional note, to my zen blog to try and find some zen by venting. I’m just so very tired of the world right now.

So firstly I just want to say I like the Internet Archive a lot. I find it very soothing for the "is my memory faulty or is this person saying something that is untrue" - http://web.archive.org/

So when they do their fundraiser I generally donate to it these days as I have the cash flow to support it, and it’s helped me out significantly over the years, even when I didn’t have the cash flow. So here is a cup to The Web Archive, who’s helped protect many sanity for many years, and I hope will continue for many years to come. They accept donations year round here: https://archive.org/donate/

This is a correction to a bit of misinformation that I’ve seen lately that’s annoying me, even though some of the posts that talk about it are quite nice. Disclaimer: while I was in fandom at the time, I was not involved in OTW and in fact at the time all of this happened I was a bit skeptical of it’s chances of long term success - I’m glad to have been proven wrong. I do volunteer for OTW now but not for either of their Policies or Legal teams. Ao3/OTW is also not affiliated as far as I’m aware to Internet Archive in any way.

OTW was not started because of https://fanlore.org/wiki/Strikethrough_and_Boldthrough where a lot of stuff was being deleted from LJ, especially if it was LGBT content, including things that should have been fine according to their terms of service. Much like Tumblr insisting on banning the truth emerges from her well, even though technically it should be find if you took the CEO's letter seriously about classic art being fine.

OTW was started because of https://fanlore.org/wiki/FanLib - this pre-dates strike through. You can see this in the very initial post where they were talking about OTW here: https://fanlore.org/wiki/An_Archive_Of_One%27s_Own_(post_by_astolat)

Think of it as like Pillowfort - Pillowfort was not created because of the https://fanlore.org/wiki/Tumblr_NSFW_Content_Purge, it predated it significantly, but it got a lot of support because of said tumblrpocalpse, since people had a specific need that they were concerned about, which meant that an alternative being available was super useful!

Who was fanlib? Fanlore article here, https://fanlore.org/wiki/FanLib but to summarise... Fanlib was a couple of dudes who wanted to basically incorporate fandom for purposes of making money.

A lot of people at the time, were extremely concerned that this was going to get fandom sued out of existence, and increase the likelihood of militant take down notices. There was also the concern that by submitting work there, you lost any future rights to it - because that’s what the TOS effectively said.

If you wonder if that seems a bit extreme, yeah well, here is a news article from May 1, 1989, about disney suing a, day care center, for putting up some art of disney characters on the walls of the center. https://www.apnews.com/4d98c8dee1c72fa5ac42ce01dff143fd

Like, this is effectively fanart done on the walls. The way it's described - it's not in advertising, not sold directly, just to help make the place brighter and more friendly.

I always remember this example because it's one that tends to get people outraged, but I really want to emphasis that it wasn’t a once off situation, this used to be extremely common that people would link or gossip to me about these kinds of things.

That’s still an issue, by the way. Now days it's less about "fandom" stuff - but take down notices for "criticism" which are protected by fair use*, the same thing that OTW claims helps enable fandom, are still not that uncommon here’s one that’s quite recent with some of the publicity that it’s gotten: https://torrentfreak.com/vox-targets-the-verge-critic-with-dubious-youtube-takedown-190215/

In fact in some countries, criticism technically has more protection via fair use equivilents than fandom does.

This is Anne Rice: https://fanlore.org/wiki/Anne_Rice

I have nothing to say about Anne Rice that has not already been said. She’s not an isolated case.

In general I’ve found if people want to take down one thing - they won’t stop at one, they won’t draw boundaries, they won’t use judgement, because they don’t care - they’ll try to take down everything they can. It’s become an emotional issue in some cases, or a financial one. Neither provide incentive for trying to be diplomatic or fair.

Effectively if people don’t like you, they will try to find a way to make your voice go away and turn take down notices into a bully tactic even if everything you do is fine, and technically could help benefit them. There’s no incentive to not be a dick, if you want to be a dick, other than bad publicity, and the people who want to try really hard to get everything taken down will find the one thing that could be considered “acceptable to remove” to try and push the other stuff off the internet table.

If you can’t get it by hook, then you can get it by crook and they will add as much grease to the slippery slope as they can if they think it will benefit themselves.

New Note: This is why the Internet Archive being threatened on being blocked in France really concerns me, because it helps provide a lot of information and history. I know that they do respond to take down notices, but the fact that Gutenberg project is being asked to be removed in it’s entirety, and the push with the recent EU Single Market Directive makes me concerned that this is not about legitimate concerns such as terrorism, and more using buzzwords to help push copyright boundaries, even on things where that has lapsed.

Basically given the very short time frame - only one hour from receiving the notice to successfully removing the content, with the ruling their trying to implement, is basically setting it up so only one thing can be implemented to resolve - upload filters, of which, Tumblr is an excellent example of why I am extremely skeptical, given that it’s also definitely targeting platonic LGBT content at times. Also, given the stretch of what their demanding - seriously, commentary on the Quran is now considered a terrorism item.

This just in, Muslims are not allowed to talk about their religion in any way shape or form - because all of this is supposed to be taken down: https://archive.org/details/002Baqarah_201712

First comes that beautiful Surah, 15. Each chapter or portion of the Quran is called a Surah, which means a Degree Or Step, by which we mount up. Sometimes whole Surahs were revealed, and sometimes portions, which were arranged under the Prophet's directions.

That means that a lot of information is going to become harder and more expensive to find, and we’ve seen historically used to limit information the public has to make decisions. https://www.freetibet.org/news-media/na/blog-great-firewall-china

You can decide where your judgement falls on that.

I don’t really want to go into the if’s that’s about censorship which is usually why people yell about OTW and make reference to Strikethrough in the tweet/post. People generally make a choice about where they fall on it. I think that some websites may choose to be more restrictive, and some sites may choose to be less and that’s fine. I think that there should be multiple websites out there to met different peoples needs. In fact I really want there to be multiple websites - I think that makes for a much healthier fandom environment.

… I just also think it really sucks when 30,000+ sailor moon fanfics get deleted with no warning (that’s the 2012 one): https://fanlore.org/wiki/FanFiction.Net%27s_NC-17_Purges:_2002_and_2012 It also sucks when people try to make themselves an online home and are forced to move on - even when they were responsible for helping to make a product a success to begin with.

This is Ao3’s terms of service: https://archiveofourown.org/tos

If you actually read it, Archive of our own doesn’t host things that illegal in the US. That means if it’s legally defined as something that is illegal, it’s not allowed on the archive. There are also many things which the archive is willing to host, but has decided need to be marked in some way to stop people from clicking it accidentally.

Additionally some of the things that the archive may be illegal in other countries. For example, all same sex stories that are told in a way that is promotes “homonormativity — content presenting homosexuality as being a norm in society” are illegal in some countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_gay_propaganda_law

I think that the latter is profoundly wrong, and if you think that the Russian law I linked to is an ideal then I don’t even know why you got to this point in my post. There’s literally nothing we have to talk about. Plus! Russia is not the only country that has these kinds of laws! It’s just one of the physically largest ones.

Also in my experience, in general, even if the censorship applies to all kinds of relationships “fairly” in theory, in practice it’s often unfairly applied.

It can be used to bully women: : https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/03/01/xi-jinpings-authoritarian-rise-in-china-has-been-powered-by-sexism/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a4174f02a74c

And it will far more often be applied to minorities than the majority: https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2018/12/11/straight-male-gaze-rules-sanitized-social-media

Just.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/18/stonewall-defends-vital-lgbt-childrens-books-after-spate-of-ban-attempts

So if you’re someone who is very tired of having censorship applied unfairly to you, you’ll often when you make a new service wonder, “how can I fairly police this” and you’ll draw up some lines.

Because Ao3 is not actually interested in hosting everything - they’re specifically a non-commercial archive for fandom. Things that fall outside of that aren’t allowed to be hosted there and can/will be taken down. Ao3 decided one of it’s lines would be “is this legal in the US?”

This is to try and remove as much judgement as possible, attempt to be consistent with rulings. Not the boss says this, but the minion says that. Not, the user is reporting this, but the person they’re complaining about is the founders best friend so we’re going to give them an exemption. It’s also trying to minimise the debate points. For example a length debate I’ve seen online: where “holding hands” now has to be debated over whether it’s shippy (and thus banned) or just “cute” (and thus allowed).

My example is not an exaggeration. That’s an actual argument I’ve seen in the wild, where I genuinely believed that parties implementing an adblocker to image block stuff probably would have been a lot better off mentally; rather trying to fine tune the argument with a rules lawyer who was very dedicated to the cause of annoying a particular individual and/or community. (It’s also why some maid costume outfits are banned on reddit! Like, here is an example of a banned image which I personally think is quite a bit of a stretch: https://i.imgur.com/GBxopor.jpg )

So if you’re wondering what I'm getting at… When I say that it’s not inspired by Strikethrough and instead by fanlib and then spend a lot of time talking about cases where censorship has been abused.

Yes censorship is important to many people in the OTW. But it’s not “some works being deleted” that inspired it.

It’s being tired of the threat of having all fan works being deleted.

#ao3 #otw #venting #censorship #boundaries

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migleefulmoments · 6 years

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They’re freaking out over the pap pictures from yesterday, screaming about how he’s being forced to hold Mia’s hand and then how awkward it all is. But if you look at ALL the photos, not just the one they posted, they’re both smiling or laughing. Darren reaches back to grab Mia’s hand with a smile on his face. He’s completely at ease with her. The picture they keep using is one second of his life. He does look annoyed, but only when taken out of context to fit their narrative.

Their attacks of Darren and Mia together are always over-the-top and not credible but this particular one seems particarly desperate. Let’s look at the context-a year ago, the BoD decided that ccArmageddon would occur at the end of the 2019 awards season. Now here we are, it’s mid-February, 2019, award season has come and gone...and YES, Darren conquered, but Armageddon has yet to commence.... and there is no break up in sight. In fact, Darren and Mia are engaged, they have completed their American pre-wedding checklist:

wedding shower -check

bachelorette weekend - check

bachelor party - check

Ceremony-

and the ceremony is the only thing left to do. This is weighing heavily on their ccMinds. Whether they are admitting it out loud or not, they KNOW that this is looking bad and they are looking for a Hail Mary, a last minute jink to the left where Darren suddenly breaks up with Mia. I have no doubt they really do BELIEVE that a break up is still a very real possibility but they also KNOW that Darren and Chris are deeply supportive of one another and have been happily married since 2012 soooo... Their belief isn’t based on physical data, “listening” to what Chris and Darren are telling us on social media so when a handful of pics come out that show a happy Darren and Mia walking down a random street, the CCers get to work. They spend hours over-analyzing every little thing on those photos, desperately looking for SOMETHING... ANYTHING that will give them the ‘proof’ they need to rewrite Darren’s story. They need to either debunk Darren and Mia as a couple on the precipice of a wedding OR prove that Armageddon is about to commence. Like all CC analysis, it all starts at CC Confirmed and works backwards and there are two basic premises that are always in play:

ALL paparazzi pics are prearranged by the team

There are NO coincidences

These 2 foundational beliefs allow them to claim that Darren and Mia KNEW they were going to be photographed therefore they dressed WITH the intention of being photographed and to speak to the CC family and their behavior is a PR stunt.

D-Criss News

I see an engaged couple walking down the street holding hands and smiling. Why? I don’t know. Photos don’t come with a backstory. They are just a moment in time capture. There is a small blurb on JustJared which says:

Earlier in the day, Darren and fiancee Mia Swier were spotted holding hands as they stopped by a friend’s house for a party

We don’t know if the cameraman asked them where they were going or if it was just a guess. It seems probable that they asked because most of the time JustJared always claims he is going to the for a run or for a meal. Going to a friends for a party seems too specific ..but who knows?

Let’s look at what the CCers said about the same photos:

...If you surprised them how do you know they were going to a friend’s house for a party? It’s probable that they told the cameraman. Telling the cameraman “were’ going to a party at a friend’s house” isn’t exactly spilling their life secrets. Celebs often play a give-and-take game with paparazzi to keep them from constantly stalking them.

It looked like he dropped her hand as soon as humanly possible. I may have actually laughed out loud. Being that it isn’t video, I am fascinated about how she knows this? Also, in which picture did he “drop her hand”? Here is where the desperation starts to leach in. Can you smell it?

There was too much commentary on the other recent pap pics being of him without her, so they had to fix this - and it’s hilarious in so many ways. How “odd” that a pap was right there when they both went to the party of a friend! As if the pap knew they would be there. Oh, wait… Right. The CCers always spend their time laughing when they find demonstrable proof that Darren and Mia are in fact a couple. Such an odd reaction. It almost feels like they have the exact opposite reaction and only claim they “laughed so hard” to cover for their real anger. This is also a we-are-so-important-Ricky-read-our-comments-and-tried-to-correct-the-behavior-we-called-out trope.

Those pre Grammy pap pics are too funny. Clearly painfully posed (the one looking to the right is painful). They appear to be unable to hold hands properly and normally after 1264321 years together and D’s t-shirt has Daisy Duck on it again. Again, it’s “too funny”. I don’t actually know how one “holds hands properly” or rather how one does it improperly as this suggest. I am also not sure this is a skill that one needs to practice for any amount of time let alone, 1264321 years in order to master. The old, tired smoke-signals-via-t-shirt -graphic trope. Of course “come inside me” is DISGUSTING but Daisy Duck saying “Me when I fuck your man” is perfectly logical thing and something Darren would say... to whom exactly? Or is he wearing it because Chris once “like” an Instagram with Daisy Duck?

And M as usual unable to avoid looking directly into the camera for her moment. Ugh, looking at a camera is not illegal nor immoral. It’s common

It’s not just about whether or not they are holding hands. Yes, plenty of couples don’t hold hands in public. It’s about the fact that as ajw pointed out it’s a staged pap pic. It’s set up to try and sell the relationship. And D is doing everything NOT to sell it - from doing the bare minimum to hold her hand, looking like he dropped her hand as soon as he could, and never even looking at her. Not to mention she looks at the camera. Now that D swept award season I expect there will be many more of these staged pap pics to put the focus on more of the GA seeing this “relationship”. Let’s be clear- this is a 3 -frame photoshoot, it likely occurred over a few seconds of their lives. Trying to sell the idea that they aren’t holding their hands lovingly enough or with enough realism to satisfying the CCes is asinine. Darren isn’t selling it because Darren ISN’T SELLING IT...he’s walking down the street and a cameraman jumped into his path. He’s tolerating it because he knows he has too sometimes. This isn’t a video..there is no way to know if he dropped her hand as soon as the could...that is merely the author’s wishful thinking as the wedding weighs on their heads.

Means nothing. It still fake. They are staged pap pics. Paps are called by teams. They knew it would happen in advance. It’s all just promo. Papers ARE NOT called by teams. That isn’t a thing that Darren’s team is doing and it isn’t something that is done by managers as a punishment to their celebrities.

Interesting to me he’s holding her left hand……. This one made ME Burst Out Laughing. What is interesting about holding her left hand? It would have been awkward AF is he was on her left side and he held her right hand.

...I laugh every time i see them walking. LA is all about driving. It is not NYC and people are not randomly on the street. Yet D&M walk everywhere despite them both having cars!!! This is the second most ridiculous comment in this thread. They aren’t walking on an expressway. This is 3 frames taken within moments on one another. They could be walking to a neighbor’s house or they could be walking from where they parked their car. LA is a car city compared to NYC for sure. But there is no car that I know of that drops one off LITERALLY at the front door and only Donald Trump drives across the street.

Yeah, honestly, has anyone BEEN to LA? No one walks that much unless it’s for exercise, sight-seeing or shopping. People don’t just walk to brunch or parties. LOL

A friend pointed this out. Look pap pics that are an ad!! This time for her show in March. When is she forced to fly on her own? What more can he possibly owe her? OMG 3rd LOL. PR for her own show! I a, not sure if this is Guns N Hoses or Guns N Roses but either way....only a stalkier can read this and associated it with her band...and you would have to know there is a show already to read this as PR. Unless they are claiming this is subliminal advertising vis paparazzi.

Every time they try and sell them as a couple it get’s more awkward and creates more doubt. Only among those of you who are TRYING really hard to disprove what Darren says about his relationship.

I get to the point where I think RR should promote them as a couple for anything fake/false/cheap/tacky because every step his team take make her look more desperate and fake and D less authentic. You must realize that when you make these comments, You ARE Speaking ABOUT Darren....about Darren’s choices as a person with his own agency.

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chickadee-sun · 6 years

Text

IRA Propaganda tactics that worked on me

(Note that many posts used multiple tactics, so I'll link to them multiple times.)

Stealing real content from real activists on social media

Most often this is done by screenshotting tweets, Facebook posts, etc. Or at least, those are the easiest for me to notice. Some of these posts don't directly further the IRA's objectives. They just make the pysop blogger look more like a real person and increase their popularity and influence. Other times they add snide little comments to help alienate and demoralize their readers. Stuff along the lines of "nobody is talking about this," or "nobody cares about this," designed to make people despair and give up on improving their country.

Now, screenshotting instead of linking should be a red flag. A link would make it easier to interact with the actual activist, not the person screenshotting their words. But tumblr's coding suppresses offsite links, making screenshotting seem like a completely normal and reasonable way to reference other platforms. The snide comments often fly under the radar because that attitude is sadly common among genuine users as well.

Of course I already knew that grabbing people's tweets and posts is a lazy and effective way to "write" a clickbait article without effort or creating content. Apparently it's also a lazy and effective way to supress the progressive vote and increase division.

I am pleased to note that I grew more fed up with the nihilist comments and less likely to reblog them over time. In another recent post (which as far as I know doesn't come from the IRA) I pushed back slightly against "why isn't this in the news?" So I think I've been on the right track even before this new information. https://chickadee-sun.tumblr.com/post/171839411085/thatpettyblackgirl-urgent-if-you-are-in

This appears to be what I interacted with the most. Here are some posts I reblogged that used this tactic: post/146412193105/musingsofaraven-valerie-volatile post/146757386220/verolynne-open-plan-infinity-swagintherain post/147206820005/chrisevansisbeautiful-areyoucoldflash post/152473414650/bellygangstaboo-this-is-happening-in-america post/153133340745/godzillakiryu91-reverseracism post/153147035545/thetrippytrip-i-wish-the-world-would post/153231802135/ghettablasta-this-is-a-great-story-of post/153483724025/dorowot-gogomrbrown-thread-my-moms post/153538772200/bellaxiao-2-years-ago-today-on-november-22 post/153734325290/an-gremlin-the-real-eye-to-see-and-media-is post/153736403455/mousathe14-raptorific-fromchaostocosmos post/154092886970/17mul-nevaehtyler-so-um-let-me-get-it post/154330979730/thetrippytrip-feminine-black-men-the post/154474122260/lagonegirl-because-we-can-recognize-more-than post/154807853475/ghettablasta-thats-so-annoying-that-no-one post/155697023025/nevaehtyler-this-is-important post/155719509740/fenrisesque-shepherdmoon-foxnewsfuckfest post/156425339773/snailchimera-ephitania-dukeofellington post/157571042371/gogomrbrown-exactly-what-the-whole-terrorism post/157590672069/go1ds-heartless-tony-blog-lagonegirl post/157983742239/roachpatrol-blackness-by-your-side-my-utopia post/160621066778/lagonegirl-white-people-using-their-privilege post/163641274771/blackness-by-your-side-people-need-knowledge-not post/164382771945/lazyscience-nevaehtyler-whats-next-take-away post/168358486495/aokayinspace-witwicky-down-to-venus-when

What I plan to do better: I'm just not going to engage with this sort of stolen content. If someone wants to screenshot *their own* twitter thread, that's fine, but if you just copy and paste someone else's content I'm not interested. Screenshots are inaccessible for people who use screenreaders anyway. This isn't foolproof, as nothing stops a propaganda blog from copypasting and pretending text is their own content, but it's a start. I also plan to push back harder against the "no one is talking about this" "nobody cares" narrative. Even when it's not from psyops on purpose it's still really harmful and counterproductive to activism. (Not foolproof; see "positivity and celebrating accomplishments" below.)

Fake news is not a euphemism for propaganda

A while ago there was a meme going around angry about how often the media allows the right wing to define terms and eumphemises the shit they pull. OK, but it claimed that "white nationalism" was a euphemism for "white supremacy," which is isn't. White nationalism is a specific type of white supremacy and the specificity matters. Likewise it claimed that "fake news" was a euphemism for propaganda. Nope. Fake news is stuff that's made up and factually untrue. Propaganda isn't defined as being untrue; it's defined by being heavily slanted and trying to prompt people into a particular course of action. Advertisements are propaganda even if they never say anything factually untrue about the product.

It's not that I'm completely gullible or without skepticism. But my skepticism and fact-checking were badly, badly miscalibrated to protect me from psyops. I was only looking for false statements from people who were misinformed or lying. I was checking to see if a reliable source backed up their basic fact claims. So when a post appeared to pass this test, I let down my guard. I was completely oblivious to the possibility of people deliberately using a pattern of basically true information presented in a misleading or inflammatory way to sway the public. And like many social media users, I had a tendency to merely skim the referenced article and not pay close attention to how closely it backed up the specific claims in the post.

Here are some posts I reblogged that used this tactic (reliability isn't binary; some are more reliable than others): links to Mother Jones links to Democracy Now and Al Jazeera links to CBS links to the Huffington Post, though the linked article appears to be about Standing Rock in general and doesn't mention Maori activists screenshots Boing Boing, links to The Guardian screenshots CNN, The New York Times, and Amnesty USA links to The Daily Beast gifset of Trevor Noah on The Daily Show screenshots The New York Times, gifset from Fusion TV screenshots Democracy Now and a scanned-in print article screenshots Al Jazeera OK, this one I'm very ashamed of reblogging, since it actually does fall into the fake news category. It embeds a video from the Youtube account 1 Soul Global, which describes itself as "an acronym for “One Source Of Universal Love.” We are a Spiritual Nexus for Global Transformation." I don't like watching videos in posts, but if I'd watched this one I would've figured out it's bullshit. It links to a, I don't know, blog? I've never heard of called Women In the World but it does some trick with the url so that when you hover over it it appears to include "nytimes.com". Oh my god, did I just hover over the link without checking it??? I guess I was too impressed the post having slightly more caution than I'm used to seeing in pseudoscientific woo??? Most of these I can see how I fell for them but this one I don't have a fucking clue. Am I really this stupid? screenshots The Atlantic Screenshots The Daily Mail--not that The Daily Mail is a reliable source for anything other that "what The Daily Mail is claiming," but that's what the post is about so good enough. Or was it? I took this post as "The Daily Fail is a trash rag, let's make fun of it," but the troll blog never really said that they were singling out one evil tabloid for ridicule. Were other people in the thread interpreting this as "news media in general is untrustworthy and unreliable"? That's actually a pretty subtle double meaning for a foreigner to pull off. I'm kind of impressed. gifset of Laverne Cox on CBS, links to Media Matters (Oh my god, Media Matters was created specifically to be a watchdog checking on media misinformation. And it was linked to by the IRA. Nothing is real anymore.) screenshots Quartz, links to The Guardian and MIT's Technology Review, as well as to some local sources I don't know the reliability of screenshots Mother Jones, links to the National Organization of Women

What I plan to do better: if someone claims an article backs up their claims, I will make sure to read the entire thing to confirm that it actually does, and does not just make sort-of related statements. If I don't have time or energy to do this, I won't reblog the post. But for the larger issue? True things arranged in misleading or manipulative patterns? I'm not sure what to do about that, though I suppose just being aware of the tactic might help a little. Suggestions?

Value added later in the reblog chain by non-IRA users

Because of how tumblr works, when I interact with a thread I'm not just interacting with the OP, but with everyone who has added to the reblog chain. Sometimes those are what attracted me to the post, rather than the psyop's post. This is one reason getting popular was so important to them! It allowed their posts to become part of the natural ecosystem of tumblr. I'm not sure how much this counts as a "tactic" because it's mostly passive, but it's significant.

This category overlaps a lot with "fake news is not a euphemism for propaganda" because often what the reblog chain added was sources with more information.

Here are some posts I reblogged that used this tactic:

Added a link to a Mother Jones article better explaining the issue.

Added more information and links to news sources.

Added news stories and a more positive slant. Note the IRA posters pushed their nihilist view of "why aren't we talking about this" while other users shifted the conversation a little to how the guy deserves a financial reward and how 70 lives were saved.

Added a link to a Guardian article referenced by the screenshotted boingboing article and a list of cities from said article.

Added a lot of cool true information about the history of the comics industry. Added something readers can do, a gofundme page. This would seem to run counter to the attitude of helplessness the IRA was trying to encourage. And yes, the gofundme did meet its goal. Added several paragraphs of details from the screenshotted article, including Theresa Kachindamoto's name which allowed me to easily look up the article. Added more information about Evan McMullin. Added more information about Asia Ramazan Antar, and shifted the focus a little (not fully) from how trash the Daily Fail is to how awesome Antar was. Added a lot of debunking of the psyop's anti-science attitude and a lot of information about how science works and how important it is. This one I'm proud of reblogging. Added a lot more information about Cameroon and sources. Added more information about voter suppression and link to the National Organization of Women. Added more information about comic history.

What I plan to do better: I'm... not sure I did wrong here. If I refused to reblog anything without thoroughly vetting the OP, that would be pretty bad purity shit. Some people are feeling vindicated because the threads they reblogged contain pushback against the IRA's narratives, or because they themselves added the pushback. Not so for me; only one example pushed back with any force. But several of the chains did shift the tone or focus of the conversation a little. I guess be less timid about pushing back when someone's tone or emphasis is off? Suggestions?

Positivity and celebrating accomplishments

Remember how I said above that rejecting a nihilist hopeless slant wasn't foolproof? I got exhausted with that attitude, though I didn't connect it to deliberate psyops, and instead tried to signal boost stuff that was positive and/or included a way to help. And yet.

I think some of these were just the innocuous posts used to gain popularity and influence. You can see a some "nobody is talking about this" narrative in a few of them, but not the majority.

Here are some posts I reblogged that used this tactic:

post/147206820005/chrisevansisbeautiful-areyoucoldflash post/152657046470/gogomrbrown-maori-activists-in-new-zealand post/153133340745/godzillakiryu91-reverseracism post/153231802135/ghettablasta-this-is-a-great-story-of post/154007254270/broadlybrazen-badscienceshenanigans post/154330979730/thetrippytrip-feminine-black-men-the post/154474122260/lagonegirl-because-we-can-recognize-more-than post/154505677960/himteckerjam-bitterbitchclubpresident post/154807853475/ghettablasta-thats-so-annoying-that-no-one post/155547170460/jkl-fff-lagonegirl-green-who-lost-her post/160621066778/lagonegirl-white-people-using-their-privilege

What I plan to do better: I don't know? I think boosting positivity is a good habit, even if it's exploitable? Shut down the "no one is talking about this" narrative I guess. Suggestions?

Jokes and memes

There's a reason so many "ironic" bigots hide behind, "calm down, it's just a joke!" People often let their guard down when something has a humorous lighthearted tone. This also serves to disguise English as a second language skills, as people often use deliberately bad grammar to emphasize a joke.

Here are some posts I reblogged that used this tactic. Gonna explain some of these in more depth:

Non-IRA people are joking about the news media's habit of allowing the right to define terms and bending over backwards to be sympathetic to bigots while scrutinizing progressives. I didn't really notice that the-real-eye-to-see went beyond that and said "And Media is Nazi too". Journalism is an important foundation of a democratic society and there's a difference between critisizing it and dismissing it. Trevor Noah's humor is being used to promote blackness-by-your-side's insinuation about deaf ears. Stealing some viral humor that snarks about bigotry. I think this was one of the posts that's just to grow the troll's popularity, as I can't find anything harmful in it. Combines positivity with sarcastic humor, a twofer. The target of the sarcasm is how rare white people using their privilege to educate is. Not really false, but kind of a demoralizing thing to emphasize in a post that could and should have been just about congratulating the white student. People dragging ICE for being evil. The psyop didn't actually add anything bad, so I guess this was more about looking natural and getting popular.

What I plan to do better: Remember that hiding toxic messages in humor isn't exclusive to the libertarian right. Allow myself to be that humorless killjoy who scrutinizes jokes for harmful implications. Be less afraid to nitpick a joke I broadly agree with. It's less that I lacked this skill and more that using it tends to be socially unacceptable. That's part of what makes these "jokes" such an effective manipulation tool.

Conclusions: wow, these people are really really good at this. I've gotten used to right-wing infiltrators who suck at pretending to be progressive, but those are amateurs. These are professionals. I've seen some bad takes going around. "Oh, of course tumblr users fell for this shit, they're horrible people with purity culture who never factcheck." But no. Some of my vulnerability in fact came specifically from not being a negative stereotype of a tumblr user. I didn't worry about purity enough to vet the OP if other people added information. I did factcheck, to the point that it distracted me from other problems with a post. I didn't micro-analyze joke posts looking for imperfections in them. I made an effort to boost positive stories about good people accomplishing things.

You guys, if I were the stereotypical toxic tumblr essjew, I wouldn't have interacted with a lot of these posts, or my interaction would've been attacking them. People who think they're immune to cons and manipulation are the most vulnerable. Maybe don't just groan in disgust at "tumblr culture" while patting yourself on the back for being better?

Anyway, the psyops didn’t try to create entirely new ideas or change people’s opinions 180 degrees. They played on pre-existing weaknesses among progressives such as infighting, defeatism, disillusion with institutions, and so on. Being careful about those lines of attack is good whether the attacker is an agent of a foreign government, an agent of your own government, or a genuine activist who’s being counterproductive. So when I talk about what I plan to do better, I’m not just talking about the Internet Research Agency.

#IRA psyops

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