#it's online as well i've only ever done one online interview so that makes me even more nervous

[petalsandpurity]

just been offered an interview for my teacher training!!! :D

[armpirate]

Soundleasure | Choi San || CH. 14

Pairings: Soft!San x fem!reader || Strangers to lovers, fake dating

Genre: smut, angst, fluff, online sex, ghosting

Warnings: inexperienced!San, fem!reader, masturbation, online sex, camboy, first times.

Summary: You can do whatever you please and be whoever you want on the Internet. And San knew that a little bit too well.

After finally following all the signs the universe was throwing at him, he started living a double life that no one was aware of. Everyone in his daily life knew him as Choi San, the reserved and quiet boy who wouldn't raise his voice, and would barely communicate with anyone outside of his comfort group. But only a few knew him as Soundleasure, the man with a sexy voice and a filthy mind that had their toes curling just with his narrations.

He never thought of the possibility of those two lives ever meeting, he had always tried for them to follow a parallel route and had always played safe to keep his friends from ever suspecting that side even existed. But his plans will start to crumble when he gets a little too close with one of his subscribers and she invades his real-self and altergo's universes without being able to stop it.

Y/n will not only help him to keep his secret from his circle, but will also show him there's more of Soundleasure in him than he'd like to admit. 

Previous || Next

MASTERLIST

Aprox. time of reading: 20 minutes

Y/n: I already arrived!

San: Nice

San: By the way, sorry for the way Mingi showed up

San: He sometimes doesn't know how to read the room.

San: He doesn't know when he's interrupting others

Y/n: What did he interrupt tho?

She clearly knew what he meant. The environment in her car was too heavy not to know, and she was sure she'd have given in if Mingi hadn't reached her car to greet them. She liked his friends, but at that moment she was hating him with a passion.

It was funny messing with San, waiting for him to come up with an answer as he typed, and stopped, a few times before actually sending anything.

Y/n: Were you planning on doing anything?

San: Huh? No, of cuorse not.

San: Nevrmind

San: Have a good night!

He typed so fast, that he didn't even stop to double check whether there were any typos or not. He was so desperate to find an escape, that he didn't care about anything else.

Wooyoung huffed at the way San was hysterically shaking his leg at the corner of his eye, making his whole body squirm as he tried to hold back from calling him out for the constant move.

He was getting on his nerves.

—Can you stay still? You're making me want to rip that leg out of you —Mingi finally interrupted, huffing as he leaned to look straight at San.

—Gosh, you already met her father. You already went through the worst part. What's the big deal? —Wooyoung rolled his eyes.

The big deal was that it wasn't going to be a two against one like the last time, it'd be them two against absolutely everyone who attended the barbeque. One wrong word, one weird move, and they both would be done.

He couldn't disappoint Y/n that way.

—Just stay glued to Y/n if the problem is meeting new people —Mingi suggested, shrugging his shoulders—. I doubt she'll be annoyed with that.

—What if I'm left alone?

He didn't think about it when he agreed to show up at her father's house; that thought didn't cross his mind until Y/n mentioned it a few days back.

—Act like you're in a job interview —Wooyoung shrugged.

—But he's never been in a job interview —Mingi answered for him, confused at that advice.

—I know, I was going to explain myself before you interrupted —momentarily, he turned to Mingi, who instantly sat back in his seat, before he continued—. Keep a neutral face, don't talk. Just wait for the questions, and answer what they ask.

—You do that in job interviews? —Mingi interrupted again— Isn't that the opposite of what you should do? I've always been told you should speak and keep it as dynamic as possib...

—Who has a stable job, and who's an intern? —Wooyoung asked to get back at him, getting complete silence on his side— That's what I thought.

With that advice in his mind, San hopped in Y/n's car as soon as she sent a text to let him know she was there. On their way to her parents' house, his head was a bundle of different thoughts and tips, confused at how he should be behaving, except for the main information Y/n asked him to remember in case he was asked.

It'd be just that day. She only needed him to make as much as possible that afternoon, and then they'd break up.

He was definitely able to do that for her.

Y/n looked at him as she drove, hearing him answer back to all of her questions that were testing him. She was calm, it was only another day in her office personality, with all those same people she faked it for, but she was worried that it'd be a bit harder for San.

—I like your jacket —her comment worked to make some of that pressure vanish, making him raise his eyebrows surprised as he touched the zip of his black bomber—. Not the t-shirt though, I bet the whole outfit would look better without it.

It took her a second to realize what she said, suddenly stopping to press her lips together and try to correct herself. She wanted to say she hated that blue navy Patriots shirt with her whole soul, and it ended up sounding like she was hoping to see him shirtless. Although, after seeing him in that dressing room, she wouldn't really mind it.

His cheeks started burning after that comment, which he knew wasn't with that double intention he thought of almost instantly. It wasn't the idea of being shirtless in front of her, but that sweet and casual compliment coming from her.

—It's right, though? —he tried to know, looking down at himself.

Since it was a barbeque, he chose to keep it his style, mixing his style with that mature vibe she wanted from him. He wasn't quite sure the mix of jeans, team t-shirt and black bomber were a good mix.

—Hmm yeah —she quickly nodded—. What would you wear for a barbeque if it isn't that?

Just like him, she was wearing a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt with a black leather jacket. They'd be completely twinning if it wasn't for the horrendous Patriots shirt she thought he was wearing. It almost seemed like they did it on purpose.

San just looked around after silence slowly invaded the small space of her car, appreciating how beautiful the brown leaves looked on the trees that surrounded the road. He loved that kind of chilly weather, it always helped him to zone out as he went back to visit his parents at the outskirts of Boston.

Y/n turn right, getting inside one thinner road that allowed him to see the big house after she drove for a few meters past the tall trees that kept it hidden. He wasn't expecting the cozy familiar house that his parents had, but he also wasn't expecting that big palace, with a Victorian style.

Her car surrounded the small garden right at the entrance, managing to park her car in front of the few steps that led to the entrance of the place.

—Hey —she called him, aware of the small details that gave out how panicked he suddenly was feeling—. Just be yourself, and say what we talked about —her hand found a spot right at his knee—. They won't mess with you as long as I'm there.

Her joke seemed tougher for him, as she gave him one last skin over his jeans, making his skirt jump so high that he thought it'd escape his throat at any time, feeling relieved when she moved it away.

Before they started their way to the house, Y/n stopped next to him, offering her hand to him, opening and closing her fingers so he'd understand what she wanted. It was a tiny smile, almost imperceptible, but his eyes slightly squinted with that small curve, encouraging her to move her hand to his and intertwine their fingers together.

—We can do this —she assured him.

—We can do this.

His hand felt so warm as it covered hers, that it gave her that little push she needed to start walking. Unlike what he first thought, Y/n surrounded the house, following the stone trail on the side that led to the backyard.

His stomach squeezed at the sound of several masculine and deep laughs from afar, and the smell of braised meat.

It was real. They were actually doing that.

Her hand squeezed his the same way he tried to give support to her, trying to let him know that she was there whatever he needed -and whatever bothered him-, before they turned the corner and met with the big group of people reunited around the table.

—Here they are! —her father mentioned, excitedly.

They only let go of each other's grip when she moved to greet her father and mother, giving them a warm hug before she went back to standing next to San. Her father looked more relaxed and approachable, and it probably was because he wasn't wearing that three piece suit. Instead, his outfit was similar to the one San was wearing, with the only exception being the jacket that Harry wasn't wearing. Her mother looked elegant, but not because of her clothes. Her aura. As she approached him after her father shook his hand, her mother gave him a welcoming hug.

—I'd love to say my daughter was the one I heard about you from, but it was actually my husband the one who talked non-stop about you.

—Mom —Y/n scolded her.

—Come here, I'll introduce you to everyone.

It was incredible what football could do in the way people behaved around each other. From being skeptical of her relationship, to totally being all over San after they found out they both supported the Patriots to death.

It was better for her though. That should make things easier.

San scanned the table, trying to get familiar with all of the faces that were there. They all seemed to have that fake nice facade on their faces as they greeted him, and Y/n knew what those poisoned tongues were planning to say as soon as they got the chance. Although there was a particular person that wasn't hiding his intentions.

Tim looked at San from head to toe, examining his clothes, his body language, his gestures, even the way his bangs covered his forehead in a careless style. He looked even more mediocre in person.

—So this is the secret boy, Y/n? —one of the ladies, sitting at the other side of the table with the rest of the wives, asked.

—He's here. And considering you all knew about it, I don't think calling him a secret is accurate.

Her father turned to her, giving her a soft scolding look before she faked a smile right after. Time to start the act.

Her arm suddenly linked to San's, gluing their bodies together as her head rested on his shoulder.

—How could I even think of hiding him?

San smiled at that sudden cute act, looking down at her. Her head slowly turned in the opposite direction, hiding her face from the people sitting on the table.

—Hold my hand or something —she asked him.

When she turned back to the initial position, San's hand moved hesitantly over her, brushing her hair away and tucking it behind her ear. His fingers felt soft and delicate on her skin.

—Well, you didn't have a problem hiding other boyfriends before —Tim attacked as soon as they both joined them on the table.

—I wasn't serious about them, I think that's quite simple to understand —she answered.

Before the conversation could scalate, her father interrupted to let everyone know that some of the meat was ready for them to eat. San got up with the two plates, letting her get engaged in the conversation they were having across the table about the last product they were planning to launch. Although her father's attention was on the young man, and the way he asked for a knife to take the muscle fiber away from one of the filets. At first, he thought he just had that same hangup as his daughter had, only to realize he was cutting them for her daughter, handing her the plate of the cut meat before he sat next to her again.

—I think it'd be quite interesting to know how you two met —Lina, one of the supplier's wife suggested as they kept eating.

—I love those stories —Mark, her husband, seconded.

—We met through a blind date that a common friend organized —Y/n answered—. The moment I saw him, I knew it —her hand reached to his under the table, moving her arm exaggeratedly so everyone would guess—. We went to that restaurant on the bay, right? It was really romantic. He showed up with a big bucket of flowers... I'm not a big fan of those things, but I could tell he was genuine about it.

—How long have you been dating? —Miranda asked.

—A month —Y/n turned to her—. We hit it off since we met, and we haven't been able to move away from each other ever since.

—That's so sweet —Miranda fawned—. Are you also working in this industry?

—N... no —San finally answered—. I'm an engineer. Since I was younger I was always drawn to that —he laughed nervously—. I spent most of the time on the computer, so why not use it to earn money?

Y/n squeezed his hand tighter, trying to let him know that he was doing fine.

—That sounds like a tough job though —Tim scoffed—. I doubt it's way more than just sitting in front of a computer. Harry told me you've worked in Vancouver for a year, and I've always been curious about what engineers do. Can you tell us a bit of your daily work there?

—I don't think it's necessary to talk about work now —Y/n tried to get in between.

—And I don't think you're San, let the boy speak if he wants —Tim clapped back.

Right what they thought they wouldn't be asked about, came up on the conversation and on the hand of the man Y/n tried to warn him about. His brain was working hard to get through the sudden block he was going through out of nervousness.

—I worked as a web developer with .Net Core and Webix framework at two projects at the same time, I created a solution for multi-class text classification problem using SVM and Random Forest, Implemented Speech to text, optical character recognition, and face detection on the app of the company, used NLP for recommendation system, implemented full-text search with Apache Lucene... —he gave a quick stop— It's alright if you don't understand half of what I'm saying, and I hope you understand I can't explain any easily what they all are. I think you'll understand I can't give much more details because it's all confidential.

Y/n looked at him with wide eyes, getting lost in what he was saying after the second sentence, surprised by how convincing and serious he looked about it. Too surprised by his speech to even notice the way her father proudly smiled.

—Y/n is right —he turned to her—. It isn't time to talk about work now —after smiling at her, he turned to her father—. Sir, the meat was great, so delicious and tender.

He was in such a hectic and motivated mode, that he thought he'd explode.

After the lunch had gone by and they were finally alone at the other side of the yard, with the excuse that they wanted to be alone, Y/n finally took the chance to congratulate him for the good work he did during lunch, hitting his upper arm.

—I didn't understand a single thing you said, but it was amazing —she excitedly mentioned—. Did you see Tim's face? —she cackled— God, where did all that come from?

He didn't know himself.

He just didn't like the way he was feeling judged, and the way Y/n was almost being judged as a consequence. He was aware of that man's intentions with his question, and couldn't come up with any other way of shutting him up that wasn't that.

—I just used some things I've heard in class —he shyly answered.

—It was great —she answered back, trying to recognize his merit—. I didn't think they'd be so low to dig into your job like that, but you saved it so well, and you came up with something so fast... You left the standard so high.

More than proud of himself, he was smiling at how excited and fulfilled Y/n looked as she bounced on the spot. While, from afar, the same men that tried to interrogate him about his job were looking at them.

—I still think there's something off about him —Tim clicked his tongue—. They don't look like a couple that are crazy in love and haven't been moving away from each other for a month.

—Don't tell me you're still butthurt over Y/n dumping your son —Josh mocked him.

—What do you want them to do? Make out in front of me? —Harry joined them— I really think he's a good guy, and I'm really happy about my daughter settling down with someone like him.

His daughter seemed happy, San seemed to take good care of her... why would anyone, especially his own father, think ill of their relationship?

After watching the match at her parents' living room, basically pushed to be sitting apart when her father hooked his arm around his shoulders so he'd sit next to him, Y/n got ready to drive him home.

It had been a long day, and it was about time to get all that to an end.

They both were in silence all the way back to his place, with Y/n too deep in her thoughts. She didn't want to drop him off, she wanted to spend more time with him despite spending almost all day together. But she was unsure of whether he also wanted to be around her more than needed.

—You were great today —she commented, quickly shifting her eyes to him before moving them back to the road.

—Was I? —he sighed— I don't really know. But it does seem like everyone ate it up, right?

—Yeah. Linda was so into our date. I don't know what more details she wanted me to tell her. Maybe what color my panties were, or I don't know —she rolled her eyes—. But it turned out better than I expected.

San nodded with a smile, allowing silence to slowly kick back inside her car.

—Hmm, do you have something to do? —her question took him by surprise— I mean, it isn't that late. And since it turned out well, I thought we could celebrate we won't have to do this again.

But would it genuinely be a celebration?

—Yeah, sure —he nodded—. Why not?

It took her less than a minute to come up with somewhere where they'd be comfortable and calm. She had been there before a few times, with one of the several failed dates. She loved the place, to the point where it made up for the awful company she chose to have.

Except for that day.

The other times, there weren't that many people. And maybe it was because it was during weekdays. She should've guessed that showing up there on a weekend, right after a football match, wasn't the best choice. But they both still went inside, walking among the crowd until they found a free small tall table.

San went for the drinks and some chips before she could even think of standing up from the stool, thanking him after the hard time she had to manage to sit up there. Despite being noisy and crowded, it all turned calm and silent around them when he came back with the two bottles and the small plate, joining her back at their table.

—So, any feedback about today? —Y/n asked first.

—It was nice —he simply answered—. Everyone was quite... normal —he shrugged—. Except for that bald man that kept interrogating us.

—Ah, Tim —she nodded—. He's always been an asshole, don't worry. I bet he's still bitter after his son broke up with me, and I didn't want to take him back when he regretted it —she rolled her eyes.

—You were dating his son? —His eyebrows raised in amusement.

—For three years —she answered, eating one of the chips—. He is an unfaithful asshole addicted to crack, and Tim just tries to hide it by burying the others' achievements. That's why he picked it up against us two. I guess he was still hopeful that I'd take his son back one day. And I guess my father was also expecting that, at some point.

—That's why you did this whole thing?

—Well, it's a bit complicated —she tried to explain—. Tom is an asshole, but his family has stability and power. And I guess that my father wants to be sure I have that stability and power for the moment he retires —her lips grimaced—. In part, he does it because his partners will give him a hard time in regards to what I choose to do before he passes the torch to me, and I also think it's just a basic worry of a normal parent. But my dad seemed to miss the point that power and stability aren't just money and a name —she shrugged, moving her eyes up to him.

—If it makes you feel better, I think you'll be a great director one day —he assured her.

—Uh-hum, that's right —she agreed, smiling at his comment—. What about you?

San frowned at her question, not understanding where she was coming from with it.

—I opened up about why I do this, now you need to open up, too.

—Well, I lied and told my friends you were my girlfriend.

—I know that —she interrupted him—. But there has to be something deeper than that.

—None of my friends know about Soundleasure —he admitted—. I was sure they'd have searched up for you online or something, and I guess I was scared you'd tell them how we met.

—Tss, do I look like I'd tell strangers that I used to pay to listen to dirty audios?—she clicked her tongue— I rather keep that perverted side hidden as well —she softly added—. Do you enjoy doing those videos?

—I guess? —he shrugged— It's good to know I can do and say anything behind that name, because no one will judge me or look at me differently. It's like a shield. I manage to dig in on what I like or not, I do things that I wouldn't dare to do in my regular life, and behave in ways that would never cross my mind.

—But you're Soundleasure —she puckered her lips—. You're stopping yourself from doing that. I mean, it's not that your alter ego is a serial killer or a psycho. He's just more confident and eager to do things. You clearly find yourself comfortable in that position, but at the same time you stop yourself because you're scared of that change —her head tilted to the side—. You need to stop yourself from avoiding risks. You think too much about what others might think.

Before he could even answer, an elbow hit the back of his head, making it bang forward before he rubbed his hand against the spot that was hit.

Y/n had seen that group of men being overly loud and annoying, getting way too close to their table without being aware of it, because they were the type to think they owned the place and the people next to them only had to deal with it.

—Hey! I know it's weird for a gorilla like you to be around people, but you need to watch out —Y/n called him out.

—Excuse me? —the man was shocked at her comment, turning to their table again after hearing her voice over the chants.

—You heard me —she snapped back, annoyed—. You hit him, apologize.

—Doesn't he have a mouth to speak? —he turned to San— Does your girlfriend have to speak for you? —the man tilted his head— Why don't you just do what you're supposed to? Sit back on your seat, and keep your pretty mouth shut —he looked back at Y/n.

Something didn't sit right with him with the way that man was speaking to her. He could deal with someone being rude to him, and disrespecting him. But his blood boiled when he dared to look down at Y/n as if she was worth nothing.

—And why don't you take that big fat ass out of this place and do all of us a favor? —San suddenly spoke.

—Big fat ass?

—Yeah. You and your big foot complex are ruining the fun for all of us here. So get the fuck out —and suddenly, he was aware of who he was speaking to, and where—, please.

—The little princess knows how to speak —the man mocked him—. Let's see how you speak without teeth.

But before that man could approach him any closer, San's leg moved faster, hitting the heel of his white sneakers against the chin of the tall man before he could even take a step in his direction. Y/n was so impressed by the sudden move that she didn't realize the moment San rushed towards her, gripping her wrist and dragging her out of the bar as soon as all that confidence disappeared and he was aware that it was an eight against one kind of situation.

Y/n didn't doubt, she didn't stop to think anything, she just ran behind him, while he pulled her tight while those men chased them down the street.

—Where the hell did you learn to do that? —she suddenly asked.

—I did taekwondo when I was younger, I didn't even remember I could do that.

The smile on her face quickly dropped when she looked back and was aware of the men getting closer to them, momentarily losing them as San turned left at one of the streets, before he pulled her body abruptly to one of the nearest dark alleys.

Their breaths were shaky as they both hid in the darkness, with his body completely covering hers while the wall worked as a support for her back. It was all so rushed, it all happened so fast, that neither of them seemed to realize how close they were until the eight men ran past the same alley they were hiding at.

It was only then that he looked down at her to make sure she was okay.

Her parted lips were the most dangerous invitation, and their warm breaths mixing in the small space between them worked like the tightest pull between them. Once their eyes were linked among the heavy air, it was over for the two of them.

—You told me to take some risks —he whispered—. Let me take another risk tonight.

His lips felt soft against hers, even more than she imagined after seeing his pictures. They were definitely better than she could've imagined.

His pull was addictive, dangerous... to the point that it had her hooking her fingers around his neck, as she stood on her tiptoes, to make the kiss deeper. It went from a soft peck to a lip sucking experience that had her head running in circles due to the intensity. His mouth was clumsy, barely managing to keep up with how she was moving, despite him pinning her against the wall to glue their bodies even closer together.

He was inexperienced, the kiss was messy, but it was the most electrifying kiss she had ever had. They didn't even need to dig their tongues on the other's mouth to have her toes curling and her mouth gasping for air due to the intensity of her heartbeat.

It was the best kiss she had ever had in such a long time.

[dreamingonclds]

Everything Happens For A Reason | LN4

Summary: Sometimes the people that love us hurt us the most but, you can't seem to stay away. After an immense break up, you've become the most passionate in your career. Going from casting to casting, concert to concert, audition to audition, you become one of the most famous artists of your generation. You were done picking up the broken pieces of your heart when somebody comes into your life and you place your heart in someone else's hands again.

Word Count: 968

Pairing: Lando Norris x female! reader ft. Carlos Sainz

Warnings: none

Chapter 2

Previous Chapter

After what felt like the longest 2 weeks Jen and you were finally on the 14 hour flight to Monaco. You could burst with excitement, one of your biggest dreams was to go to a Grand Prix. Now, you were just trying to catch up with the current season. You’re an extremely busy person so the most you could do was check the race standings online. You knew all the current drivers already, following them on instagram and all. But, you had never seen any of the grill the grid videos or any social media content. It’s safe to say you regret not keeping up with it but your love for the sport never faltered.

Jen’s beside you working on her laptop, or so you thought. She suddenly gasps and starts slapping your side causing you to jump

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!” she semi yells causing some people to give you weird looks

“Holy shit Jen you scared the crap out of me” you say as you put your hand to your chest

“Sorry not sorry” she giggles at you as she places her laptop on your lap

“What was that guys name, Lando, the one you “used” to have a crush on” she says as she add air quotes after his name

You nod yes at her waiting for her to continue

“I was watching some interviews and look” she says excitedly as she puts her headphones on you and presses play

The video starts and it’s a QnA of the McLaren boys, each taking turns interviewing each other.

Looking down at his cards and then looking back up at Oscar, “Who is my celebrity crush?” asks Lando

“Oh umm easy, that girl that sings the song that goes “my heart wants what it wants”. She was in this movie I just watched. Whats her name, oh yeah Y/N Y/L/N” Oscar says confidently

“You know me so well” Lando says proudly,  looking from Oscar to the camera

“Oh it’s not like you only ever play her music or have her picture as your background” Oscar laughs and teases Lando

Lando blushes furiously and hides behind his cards, leaning back laughing and nearly tipping over the chair

“See, see, look!” Oscar says pointing at the staff who were also giggling and nodding agreeing with what Oscar just confessed

“You didn’t have to expose me like that man” Lando says once he catches his breath and recollects himself

Looking at the camera Lando says, “I mean can you blame me, look”

He takes his phone out his pocket and shows is proudly to the camera

“If you guys really loved me you would try and bring her to one of the races” Lando suggests to the Mclaren team jokingly

“If you get pole or a win, we’ll see what we can do”, one of the team members says

“Actually!”, Lando and Oscar yell at the same time

“Wait nevermind, I take it back, I’d be a mess around her. Just thinking about it makes me nervous”, he says as he fidgets with his hand and shifts in his chair

…

Now it’s your turn to blush, you don’t even want to turn and look at Jen. Never in a million years would you think your crush would be reciprocated or that any F1 driver would know who you are.

“Jen that video isn’t even that recent, I'm sure that his “crush” has passed”, you say finding it hard to believe

“Are you serious! He has you as his background, on his PHONE! You only do that when you really like someone” she says 

“And you know it!” she says accusingly, pointing her finger at you

You shyly smile and turn to look out the plane window to hide your blushing cheeks

“Ok, you have a point but that video is nearly a year old. I doubt I've even crossed his mind recently. He’s been so focused on his career to even think about me. People move on Jen it’s okay, it’s not that serious. Besides it was just a crush, no actual feelings involved.”, you say disappointedly and surprised you feel that way

“So”, she says giving up on her argument

You both sit in silence for a couple seconds before you hear her move in her seat

“Wait” she says as she has an epiphany

“No offense but, why would they invite you to a race? I mean, I don’t think you’ve ever spoken about F1 publicly”

“No, I know what you mean”, you cut her off, giggling at her honesty

“Unless he still likes you, I mean like you said, that video was nearly a year old. He must still have a crush on you!”, she says excitedly

You finally turn back to look at her

“Oh my god, you have a point. They actually made it happen!”, you say agreeingly

“They fucking made it happen!” she yells making other passengers look at your direction

You both mouth and whisper yell sorry’s towards the people and laugh at Jen’s lack of decorum. After you both calm down you suddenly get butterflies on your stomach.

“Oh god, I’m nervous now, I wasn’t before”, you say worriedly grabbing Jen’s hand

“You have absolutely nothing to worry about, you are literally Y/N Y/L/N. We just have to dress to impress you know. Might catch more than just his eyes.” she says, smiling slyly

“Classic Jen” you tell her as you slap your forehead

“What? This can be the start of something new! I bet it will be” she says confidently turning to look at you

You turn to look out the window once again, smiling at all the possibilities. Wondering if what Jen just said will have any truth to it.

“We’ll see” you finish

[formula-fun]

Fic Writer Interview (thank you @chandelier-s-notebook for the tag my dear!!)

I'll use a cut as well!

How many works do you have on ao3?

On this account, 6! In total its something like 50 I think!

What’s your total word count?

you will probably not believe this but it's 1,021,939. most of it is on different accounts or on anon. i promise you a lot of the early ones are....not really worth reading

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

fire + sound (you guys are freaks ily)

i'd sing you a morning golden and new

Of Shadow

remember me love, when i'm reborn

something for band of brothers from 10 years ago that's anonymous

Do you respond to comments? Why/ why not?

Yes, i try to respond to all of them! it means a lot to me when people take the time to comment, so i try to always take the time to give a response

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

Definitely this one. I used to have a no sad endings policy and this is the first thing i've ever written that's broken that!

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

if i had words has a pretty happy ending! once the sequel is done it will have a VERY happy ending

Do you write crossovers?

Not in the sense of crossovers with two characters from two different fandoms. i love a good au though!

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I don't think so. Occasionally I get comments that come off as a little rude, but I try to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they didn't mean it like that

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

hahahah do i ever!! and now i have friends who enable me so its only getting worse from here im afraid!!!

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No, i've floated ideas online and had them stolen before but i've never been plagiarized

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! A couple of my older fics. It's one of the biggest compliments imo

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes, I cowrote a crack fic a few years ago and i'm gonna be cowriting another soon! we're still in the brainstorm stage right now

What's your all-time favourite ship?

oof ok canonically i think stucky is kind of boring but some of the fics really went off

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

................we will have GTA6 before we get the pacrim au...............

What are your writing strengths?

Hmm probably setting descriptions? i get a lot of compliments for the capri scenes in if i had words. sometimes i write decent smut but i dont consider it to be reliably something im good at, it can be hit or miss

What are your writing weaknesses?

planning, outlining, anything like that. there are many cases of me writing 90% of a fic and then taking a million years to post the final chapter because i'm not quite sure how everything is tied together at the end. usually i write 20%, stop and make an outline and then write the rest, but the outline for the ending is always so vague that it just doesn't really work out and it takes way more brain power than it needs to. i am aware of this. unfortunately i will probably never change.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

this is such a good question okok so it depends a little? say its charles' pov and theyre speaking french. i usually just put it in english but indicate theyre speaking french because the reader knows as much as the pov does. but if someones speaking dutch i usually just say "x said something in dutch" because he doesnt understand it so neither does the reader. sometimes i put the actual dutch if doing it the other way would break the flow of it, but i dont provide translations unless its something that charles would understand

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

band of brothers i think!

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

actually i dont know if there are any!! maybe piarles? yukierre? honestly though i'm pretty happy where i am <3

What's your favourite fic you've written?

if i had words is my baby <33 i dont know if i have a favorite out of the two parts though. i love them both in different ways. i maybe have a slight preference for charles', though!

going to tag @talkingismylifewrites @wedriftlikelonelyplanets @mvpanda1 @samu-writes

[primal-slayer]

Charmed drama Mega-Post

Mid 2000: Per Jason Priestley

Shannen talks Charmed and the joy she gets from working with Holly/Alyssa:

2001:

2.6.01 - Wanda at E!Online reports that there is definitely something a-brewin' regarding the rumors about Alyssa Milano leaving the show. A source close to the set has told her that there is some not-so-charming tension between Alyssa and her onscreen sibs. Apparently it's stemming from jealousy over better storylines and Shannen's more expensive wardrobe, which is full of Chloe and Versace and has created a few budget problems. Link

2.28.01 - E! Online's Wanda reports that things are getting really ugly on the set of "Charmed." Doherty acts like a primadonna all the time, demanding the best clothes and to be in the middle of all the publicity shots, and Milano is sick of it and threatening to leave. Meanwhile, Combs has managed to pretty much stay out of it.

5.10.01 - This week's Soap Opera Weekly interviews Executive Producer Brad Kern in an effort to confirm the rumors behind Alyssa's said departure from the series in her on-the-set battles with co-star Shannen Doherty. "Nothing I've been told from the people that I work for indicates whatsoever that anybody's leaving the show," Kern says of the rumor that Milano wants off and that her character will be killed. "Alyssa and Shannen are professionals. Are they best friends? No. Do they have to be? No. Do they work well together? Yeah. They're sisters in character only. They come in and do their job well. That's all that matters to us."

TVGO: After all the rumors about why you leftCharmed— including backstage feuding with covenmateAlyssa Milano— would you like to take this chance to clarify things for the record? Doherty: You know, I don't really want to be given the opportunity to clear the record. I have absolutely nothing to say. Details magazine will be out in August — that's probably the most honest interview that you'll ever read with me. I picked one magazine to tell the true story in and... if somebody wants to read it, then great. My opinion is, it really doesn't matter. I moved on, they moved on and who cares? You know, everything gets so blown out of proportion by the press that after awhile, you just gotta bury your head in the sand and go, 'I'm done talkin' about it.' TVGO: Any parting advice for your replacement, Rose McGowan? Doherty: [grinning mischievously] No, I think Rose will do a fine job, actually. I think Rose can hold her own and she's very sexy and beautiful — and I think it's actually going to make for a very interesting show, to be honest with you. I wish them all the luck.

 "I think my passion for my work was too overwhelming," says Doherty of the fur-fly that became the Charmed set. Doherty claims the issue was one colleague's work ethic. "I mean, what do we do?" she continues. "Say a few lines, sit in our trailers, and get paid a fortune. That's really rough. And yet there was a person there that bitched about her job, day in, day out." According to Doherty, a "mediator" was brought in to diffuse all the poisonous estrogen. To this diplomat she said, "Are you supposed to be my shrink? Because I've already got one." Exchanges like these apparently so riled Milano, Doherty says, that the comely newcomer announced that she would not return to the show if Doherty stayed on. Doherty insists that she was the more politic star; to settle things, she took the matter up with the serge suits at Paramount, threatening to quit unless "changes" were made, though she says she wanted Milano to stay. "I would never wish another actor out of a job," she adds. "I think it's terrible karma." (Milano's reps did not return phone calls.) Six months later, at the end of the season, came a frilly pink slip. Though Doherty claims that she actually wanted to leave the show, she remains bitter that she's yet to hear from Spelling and that no one sat down with her to explain what happened. "You know what?" she says. "The lack of appreciation he's showing for me as a human being and as an actor is overwhelming." (Spelling's office issued a terse "No comment.") Others believe Doherty has her charms. "I worked with her for three years," says Charmed witch No.3, Holly Marie Combs. "I don't think she's difficult at all."

But trouble was undeniably brewing between Doherty and Milano by the time production started on the third season last summer. The fawning quotes to the press had stopped, as had the costars' time together away from the set. As Milano puts it, "I wasn't going to call [Shannen] on the weekend to go hand out." Rumors quickly swirled that Doherty was resentful of Milano's growing popularity, which had translated into several endorsement deals, including one with MCI. But those close to the situation claim it was more complicated than that. "There were no angels," Combs says. "We all had our bad days. We all [got] stressed out."

That's hardly surprising, says executive producer Kern. "People on a TV set work together 12 to 14 hours a day, five days a week. Rarely have I seen cast members stay, or even become, best friends." Adding to the friction, says Combs, was the stars' growing frustration with the show's direction. "We were in [a] rut, where we felt like we were doing the same episodes over and over again," she says. Doherty, in particular, "wanted to make the show bigger and better and stretch her boundaries," says Combs, who has been friends with the actress for eight years, and still speaks frequently with her. "I'd see her in the morning and she'd be like, 'OK, how are we going to fix this scene?' She was really dedicated and she didn't have a lot of patience for anyone [she felt] wasn't."

Whatever broke the spell, "we definitely didn't get along," admits Milano. "Shannen and I are very different people, and I think it's almost like a roommate. If you spend that much time with someone and there are differences anyway, you're not always going to get along.

Both Milano and Combs deny tabloid reports that Doherty would only speak to them when the cameras were rolling. But Milano acknowledges that she and her former costar could get downright witchy: "There were times when I'd come in and say 'Good morning, Shannen,' and she didn't say anything to me. And there wer times when she'd come in and say 'Good morning, Ayssa,' and I wouldn't say anything to her."

"The problems we had weren't things some big company mediator could fix," Combs adds quietly. "They needed to be fixed between us [by] going into [each other's] trailers and saying, 'All right, I don't like it when you do this.' Or 'I didn't like it when you said this.'"

That apparently never happened. Doherty has contended that Milano eventually got fed up and issued producers an ultimatum--either Doherty walked or she would--but Milano insists that isn't truel "I never even thought about doing that," she says. "I couldn't sleep knowing I backed out of something I'd committed to."

Doherty's eventual dismissal, then, came as a surprise. And the form Combs says it took--a phone call to Doherty's lawyer after the embattled actress had flown to Winnipeg, Canada, to start shooting Another Day, USA's upcoming Francis Ford Coppola TV-movie--still clearly angers her. "How do you go from directing the season finale to being [given] a pink slip over the phone, when [you're] in another country, at eight at night?" Combs says. "it was really a tacky way to go about it.

While no one's officially saying why doherty was ultimately cut loose, a series insider says, "It eventually became clear that [either Doherty or Milano] had to go." And Doherty may have been the safer choice, according to Stacey Lynn Koerner, an industry analyst with Initiative Media: "Alyssa is just as popular, if no more so, than Shannen. And when Shannen left 90210, the series did just fine."

While answering questions at the TCA press gathering in Los Angeles, a number of WB's own addressed what happened this last year on CHARMED regarding Shannen Doherty's exit. The network's Jordan Levin spoke of the matter, saying, "We knew last year that there were some decisions that probably had to be made in the best interest of Aaron Spelling and his company, our company and Shannen. And everybody came to the decision that they felt was mutually beneficial for all parties involved." When asked if the season finale was geared crafted in order to set up the entrance of a replacement for Doherty, Levin says, "We had an idea that we wanted to give ourselves some flexibility." More specifically regarding the addition of Rose McGowan to the cast, Levin adds, "There's a history within the mythology that there could be another sister because of the Lighter. We're still sort of hammering that out, and we haven't heard the full pitch yet and how that's going to work. But we're looking to bring in someone who could provide some conflict within the group and someone who could bring a younger audience into the show. We feel like Rose does that for us."   

Early/Mid 2001

Alyssa claims that Shannen is out to destroy to her and it caused her to gain weight. Upon Shannens termination, Alyssa secures a substantial raise for S4

”I think it’s hard when you put…[long pause]…two very different people together. I’m very laid-back and passive. I have my Buddha,” Milano says, gesturing to a small shrine at the back of her trailer. ”I come in here and meditate. [Shannen’s] got a lot of energy, she’s very headstrong, she wants to get the job done…. I think it’s unfortunate that she left, and that she needed to bad-mouth everyone involved and the audience,” continues Milano, alluding to the former 90210 star’s recent dismissal of Charmed as ”a show for 12-year-olds.” (Doherty declined to comment for this story.) ”She sounds really angry. I just hope I didn’t contribute to that anger.”Shannen’s not the only one who’s miffed. ”It was done very poorly, in my opinion,” says Holly Marie Combs (Piper) of the producers’ postseason decision to allow Doherty to leave the coven. ”We should have had an opportunity to have her character, Prue, make a graceful exit and have our story writers properly plan for that.” Instead, writers were compelled to turn last season’s standard-issue cliff-hanger — Prue and Piper get thrown through a wall by a cranky demon — into a makeshift tragic send-off. ”Now,” adds Combs, ”we’re scrambling to explain why I live and she doesn’t.”

That stuff's hard to wash out. You're even more famous for those MCI commercials. Oh, yeah. Little kids only know me from those spots. They don't know from Who's the Boss? and aren't allowed to watch Charmed. It's a great night job, especially if Charmed doesn't last. Speaking of which... Shannen Doherty? You know, if you remember the way Shannen left Beverly Hills, 90210, it's almost exactly the way it happened on Charmed. She left for personal reasons, then it started coming out that she didn;t get along with the other cast members. It seemed she was so angry and upset over leaving another hit show that she had to lash out at me. Suddenly it's my fault. I think she did the right thing by leaving, but once she left she attacked many people—not only me, our audience, too, and almost everyone on the show. She lost credibility. She was like a bad roommate. There was a lot of tension on the set. I have a fear of confrontation, and she can be aggressive, so I was afraid of her. Shannen doesn't hate you—she hates herself. I haven't been able to figure it out, and I might die not knowing. And that's OK. OK. You and Shannen Doherty in a celebrity death match: Who wins? Sarah Michelle Gellar.

2004: Alyssa fires her agency over them signing Shannen. Agency sues and apparently wins their lawsuit against Alyssa for $1mill

2021:

While Milano said she's still so very proud of Charmed, she didn't always have the easiest time on set, especially when it came to her co-star, Beverly Hills, 90210 alum Shannen Doherty. After years of tension between the two during the show's eight seasons, Milano said she and Doherty are now "cordial." "I would say we are cordial," she shared. "You know, I could take responsibility for a lot of our tension that we had. I think a lot of our struggle came from feeling that I was in competition rather than it being that sisterhood that the show was so much about. And I have some guilt about my part in that." While the 48-year-old actress admitted that she still has some guilt for her part in their feud, their decades-old spat didn't stop her from reaching out to Doherty when she was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015. 2022/2023: Shannen speaks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHisM0QLPEw&t=85s&ab_channel=Let%27sBeClearwithShannenDohertyPods

So it was interesting that when I had a problem after this all transpired and I wanted to discuss leaving the show and all my reasons why they put me in a room with Jonathan Levin, which I don't know that I had seen since we went to network, and you had told me about your background with him, which is varied and interesting, and he obviously has a very fond spot, shall we say, for you, And I don't know why they chose him to do this meeting, but I can tell you that during the meeting where I said this is not the show I signed on to do, I hear that you're looking for other people. And it's not about the list of names. It's about this was not a show that I wanted to do without Shannon. She didn't want to do it without me. Therefore I don't want to do it without her, and that should be fairly clear. And he hadars in his eyes already because he could see I was getting upset. As you can hear me getting upset, And I said, why would you hire her again just to fire her? And he said, we didn't mean to, And he said, but we've been backed into this corner. He said, you know, we're basically in a position where it's one or the other. We were told that it's her me and Alyssa has threatened to sue us for a hostile workplace environment, which because she went to the therapist or the mediator or the corporate mediator, whatever the heck his title is, she built a case for herself where she was documenting every time she felt uncomfortable on set and for whatever reason, whereas you and I refused to speak to him. So that's where the deck was stacked There was no either even like harsh words exchanged. It was all behind the scenes, it was all in the trailer. It was nothing that anybody or any of our guest stars ever noticed or noted. And you know, there's not a director that would not work with you. Again, there's not any one of our crew members that did not have a great time working with you. So by today's standards, it wouldn't fucking fly, right, And I don't think being laid as a teenager on a set called nine O two one zero would fly for being fired either. Like it's just it's just doesn't make any sense anymore. There are people that actually behave badly and get away with it, and there are men that you know, abuse people, throw things, screaming fits and get away with it. Alyssa/Holly Speak:

Guest stars speak throughout the years:

Michael Bailey Smith aka Belthazor/Shax/Grimlock I did 14 episodes on “Charmed” and had a great time. Whenever I showed up to the set as Belthazor, Alyssa Milano would always give me a kiss on the cheek and say, “You’re not scary.” Holly was really nice too, really down to earth. And I know the rumors about Shannen Doherty, but for me, she was always nice and very professional. I would always see her doing extra work off the set with the stunt people just to make sure her fight scenes looked good. I remember one time when we were preparing for a scene, she got a box of roses from someone. When she opened them, they were dead roses. People can be so cruel. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10157836541399125&set=a.404883944124&type=3&theater

Brian Krause (leo)“ I can just tell you that she was the hardest working person on the set. Yes, she could be terse and abrupt, but she wasn’t always wrong, I’ll tell you that.”“She had everybody’s back, she was part of the family, she was the family. And when she left, we all wondered how the show was gonna last, and it’s honestly a miracle that we did and kudos to Holly and Alyssa and Rose [McGowan] that we did, they kept it together. But I have nothing but love for Shannen Doherty.”“Most of those comments come from guys, men in power with money who don’t like to be told what to do by a woman, especially a strong opinionated woman,” he said, adding: “She wasn’t always right, but she stood her ground.”https://www.pedestrian.tv/entertainment/brian-krause-interview/

James L Conway (producer)"Shannen was nice to almost everyday, she had script problems, always nice to the cast, she was the HEART AND SOUL OF CHARMED" That really says it all doesn't it? She viewed Charmed as her baby.Source: Charmed blu ray special feature

Christine Rose (Claire)"It was all with Shannen, and I thought she was absolutely darling. I had worked with her years before on Life Goes on. That was about a boy with a Down’s syndrome, and I was guest-starring as the boy’s teacher. Shannen was on that episode, too, and I was setting them up to be married, for what that might be like. I was new to L.A. then because I’d mostly been on the stage, and I was relatively new to being on camera. And I remember thinking, «This girl is a pro”. So I was aware of how good Shannen was, and she was very nice when I did Charmed. I enjoyed working with her, Holly Marie Combs, I had played her biological mother on Picket Fences. We didn’t get to work together on Charmed, but it was fun just getting to see her again. Otherwise my experience was pretty straightforward.

Actually, one other thing I remember was being at a table and another guest star was having a hard time. In between takes Shannen said something very encouraging and nurturing to her, and I thought she was very nice. So those are my memories, as sparse as they are"Source Unknown via: https://thecharmedcafe.proboards.com/thread/11658/guest-stars-working-shannen-doherty

TW King (andy) I think some of it is rumor, but a lot of it is based on truth because she was young when success hit her. The great thing about Shannen is that she is a total professional and is always prepared, and she expects everyone around her to be at the same level - and I like to think I am the same way, so I respect the way she is around the set. We get things done, things rapidly and according to the script, so I certainly can't complain.Source Unknown via: https://thecharmedcafe.proboards.com/thread/11658/guest-stars-working-shannen-doherty

Scott Steiner (Wrestling W/Demons demon) Steiner is asked about appearing on the TV show "Charmed" while working in WCW. He said that while explaining to Shannen Doherty's stunt double that he would have to put his hand in her crotch to perform a press slam, Shannen came up to him and said that she would do that and when Steiner told her that he would have to put his hand in her crotch, Shannen told him that is why she asked. Steiner says that she was cool and gets a lot of bad press.https://www.rspwfaq.net/2014/05/rf-video-shoot-interview-with-scott.html

Armin Shimerman (The Wizard) "I hated the ladies on "Bewitched"...um...uh..."Charmed!" "Charmed!" And there's a reason they were cast as witches. I...of all the shows I've ever worked, that was by far the ugliest." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zl24cHSS-w (8:10)

Danielle Harris (Aviva) First AC guy was talking to me - Shannen kept walking by, she wasn't very nice to me anyway but she kept getting mad. Wasn't sure what was going on. Wasn't a fun experience. A lot of fighting between the girls. If I pick Shannen, Holly would be mean. If I picked Holly, Shannen would be mean. Alyssa kept telling me what to do as if I didn't know anything. The AC was using me to get back at Shannen. He had been her boyfriend for 1.5 years. Thats why I was getting stink eye.

Scout Compton (Thistle the fairy) I did 7 or 8 episodes and it was interesting. I wasnt on (when Rose was on NOTE: She was only on 1 episode with Shannen. The rest with Rose)The women were always fighting in the makeup trailer.

https://talkscarytome.podbean.com/e/talk-scary-to-me-e9/ (22:00)

Geoffrey Blake (Four horseman) Alyssa was very welcoming. Most of them were except one that wasnt so nice**. (Shannen was largely absent this episode)** https://podcasts.apple.com/be/podcast/geoffrey-blake-podcast-apocalypse-not-part-2/id1573860155?i=1000526963557

Elisabeth Hernois ( Brooke in the season 3 episode "Magic Hour"):

The dynamic on set was “interesting,” she said, as she “hadn’t really ever witnessed anything like that on a set — where people really aren’t hiding not liking each other.”

“Definitely as a young person, I sensed the tension on the set,” Harnois, 44, said, noting that her overall experience was “actually really good” as she shouted out Alyssa Milano, who she said “was a sweetheart to me.”

“She really took me under her wing, and a lot of my stuff was with her too, so that was helpful,” she recalled.

Shannen Doherty and Holly Marie Combs, who made up the other ⅔ of the sister witches who led the show, “were nice to me but not as effusively kind as Alyssa was,” Harnois said.

“And they were always off in their own space and [Alyssa] would sit all the way on the other side of the set by herself," she continued. “There was a major divide on that set, even back then, and I don’t think that was that long into the show.” https://people.com/charmed-guest-star-recalls-major-divide-on-set-shannen-doherty-alyssa-milano-8604809

[esta-elavaris]

OKAY so from the seminar I attended this morning with a panel of editors, agents, and writers, these were my main takeaways:

They described interviewing an agent as being like going on a first date and discussing marriage - like, that's the level of relationship that'll happen if all goes well, they're part-editor part-lawyer part-therapist, full-advocate. You need to decide if they're for you as much as they need to decide if you're for them, it shouldn't be a thing where you're going in feeling like you have no power and you're begging them for crumbs.

They don't want writers to be nervous. Ofc they get that we will be, but they don't want you do be! They WANT us to send in our manuscripts to them, they're excited at finding new writers to work with, they're so enthusiastic and they want to share that enthusiasm with you.

Obviously different agencies have different query requirements - make sure you tailor your submission to those requirements, don't make them feel like they're just one of eighty getting the same email. They want to feel that you're enthusiastic about them in particular just as much as you want that enthusiasm from them.

Speaking of ethusiasm, that's one of the BIIIIG things they're looking for. They want that sense of enthusiasm and excitement about your story in your email, they want it to be from the heart, because not only does it give them a sense of the PERSON they're considering working with, but it's a loooong process from submission to the book being on the shelf, and with any luck they'll be working with you across your whole career. They need to see that you're as in it as they need to be to do their job well.

They actually do a LOOOOT of editorial work. Like, a lot of the time (more often than not) they will edit your manuscript with you and discuss the project at length and make suggestions (and they ARE suggestions, but you do need to have a level of maturity to take them on board and hear them out) and work on it a lot with you before they take it to publishers, to give you your best chance. One said they had a colleague who'd done this for over a decade and had only had ONE manuscript where they sent it to publishers as is.

And that brings me to the biggest takeaway I had, and the one that stood in sharpest contrast to what I see in online advice that loves to harp on like "if you make any of these ten minor mistakes, you'll instantly be rejected" and, well, basically scaremonger.

They give you soooo much leeway.

They get that you're human, they get that you'll be nervous. They showed example cover letters that contained SO many things that I'd think of as chance killers, and they were like "eh, this isn't ideal, but if I liked the manuscript I wouldn't care", y'know? The only thing that was a BIIIG "instant no" was one that had said "I've read work by your other clients and I can confidently say I'm better than all of them" and like, if you're saying that to an agent, you're an idiot (my words, not theirs!). Which is a good thing, too, because it shows how fiercely they advocate for their clients that they're not willing to entertain comments like that.

With the other mistakes on the queries, though, the consensus was constant "the manuscript matters more, if I like that I'd ignore this error." The biggie was just to pay attention to the agent's website and requirements and follow those, because it shows a level of care and attention.

And how heavily involved in the editing process they are also shows how much leeway you get with the manuscript itself. They don't need it to be perfect, they just need there to be something in there at the core of it that grabs at them, and for you to have enthusiasm and a willingness to work at it.

Overall, I went into it thinking I had an absolutely microscopic chance of ever getting published. That the novel would need to be perfect, that the query cover letter would need to be even more perfect, and that even if both were, it would come down to personal taste.

Turns out, absolutely not.

I literally left the thing feeling 98% more optimistic about my chances than I was going into it. It took SO much anxiety out of my novel writing process - that often otherwise gets so extreme that I can barely work on it.

[rebeccalouisaferguson]

Genuine question and I hope it's okay to ask (you don't have to answer if not) but has Rebecca ever done anything that would be considered problematic? The only thing that comes to mind for me personally is that she is friends with Tom Cruise (who I personally don't like for being a Scientologist).

Hi! It's ok. No I don't think anything you can call problematic. She has done that one interview really-really drunk (London Fallout premiere) but that's hardly problematic, I think we all find that interview quite endearing (not even us fans but like critics and the community in general).

I can say that she was criticized in the past (online in the comments section) for being very touchy-feely during her Graham Norton interview with Tom, Henry and Simon in 2018. I'm not british, I didn't find her behavior annoying or anything inappropriate. And I've seen enough of her interviews to know she is just a tactile and warm person, she loves the connection to people. She commented about it in one interview, that those comments online were very upsetting to her:

" On chat-shows, she’s gregarious and tactile and warm, and this confuses people who go by the “if it looks like a Brit and sounds like a Brit …” metric. It’s a little like painting a cat with black and white stripes and saying, “what’s wrong with that zebra and why is it such an outrageous flirt?” “I’ve seen those bloody comments! It’s so weird. It makes me think I should stop touching people altogether, which is sad because, you know … we’re here, we’re together, we’re human beings.” (Glass Magazine, interview March 2021)

And recently she was criticized in Sweden when she refused to speak swedish with a swedish journalist promoting Silo in April. She commented on this as well, it seems like there was a misunderstanding - she was told by her team that she would meet with an angry journalist and she was prepared to act accordingly . But she apologized to that journalist later on and they had an interview recently again while she was promoting Mission in swedish. You can read about this situation here (click on the link, it's translated in English):

These are the only criticism incidents I can think about. Rebecca is really a very private person who doesn't share a lot when she is not promoting her films and flies with her family under the radar. Nobody is perfect though, everyone has good days and bad days and best to keep that in mind that we are all human.

[warrior-u-preservation]

Interview with The Path Podcast (Full written responses)

(Note: The interview itself will be different, since mod myne represented both mods on the podcast. However, this includes our full feelings on the questions that were provided to us.)

Who are you and how did you end up walking the path of a "warrior u" writer/comic creator?

Myne: I go by worldismyne for fandom related pursuits.

I'd like to clarify that Aisha Thani is the creator of Warrior U. Just like multiple people have written for Stan Lee's creations, I'm just a writer who's received permission from the creator to distribute and monetize works within her universe.

I've been in the WU fandom since 2014; at that time Aisha made the comic, ran an in character ask blog, a concept art blog and the main blog. I can only imagine how much work that was. A hard drive crash killed about 6 or so pages of Ambrosia, the last story arch she was working on; three weeks worth of updates up and gone. I watched writer’s block take hold and kill my favorite series in real time. Having to go back and redo work she’d already done had given her time to look at it and go ‘I can’t post this, this is awful’, but by then all of us were waiting for the next update for over a month, she couldn’t go back and rewrite the entire arch. It didn’t help that this was the origin story for a fan favorite character, so there was all this pressure to make it perfect. Instead, after about six artists made fan comics to feed the hungry fandom… she announced the end. The website, the blogs, one by one they all ran into issues and got shut down. Hundreds of pieces of art and story concepts just… lost. Once the comics were rereleased on gumroad, that was it, the fandom slowly died. Before this project, the last time the creator posted new content was in 2017. Then in the middle of the pandemic, out of nowhere I get 70+ notifications from Coffee reblogging the pieces of art I had saved from the old blog, including drafts from the unfinished issues. 

Coffee: well, i go by coffee online, im 20 years old and when im not working on my various personal projects i work part-time. i was introduced to warrior u WAYY back in the day (i think i was like 9-ish?) by my brother who found out about it through some unknown and mysterious ways. back then i had very limited internet access (meaning i could only visit sites that could be loaded by the internet app on my nintendo dsi), so i pieced together a bit of a plot from what i could find on google images. i wasnt able to fully read the comic until i was 13 (i had to BEG my mom to pay for the pdfs lol), but it had kinda always existed in the back of my mind ever since i was introduced to it. i decided a little over a year ago to start out the tumblr blog because i had recently read through the comic again and was really sad about just how hard it is (or i guess WAS now) to find a lot of things related to the comic. as the name of the blog suggests, its original purpose was to preserve/archive warrior u stuff so it could be more accessable to your average internet user who might not wanna go digging through internet archives. it was originally for official content EXCLUSIVELY, but myne talked me into also including fan-made content (and im glad he did, its WAY harder to find some fan content than i remember it being just a few years ago). its kinda hard to tell how good of a job it does at BEING that archive, but i like to think it could be useful to someone out there.

i had toyed with the idea of finishing the last official story arc- ambrosia- near the beginning of the blogs lifespan, but i knew that it was too big of a project for me to do myself. i didnt wanna dissapoint people by leaving the ALREADY unfinished arc STILL unfinished. i had written in the "about" section of the blog that the dream was a full fandom revival, but i didnt actually expect that to happen. when myne joined the blog we eventually started playing with the idea of finishing ambro. i forget how exactly we officially decided we would do it, but we did! at some point near the beginning of ambro, we had also decided we were gonna write our own fan-arcs and post those too, and the rest is history!

What was it about warrior u that made you say "this is it. i need to make more content of this."

Coffee: honestly? i think it was just how much i enjoy introducing people to the comic. i already make tons of fan content on my own time, so that wasnt really the crazy part. i had shown a couple of my mutuals the comic after i re-read it, and the feeling of seeing other people actually talk about and even make ART of warrior u was absolutely surreal. i guess thats what happens when you just silently admire a dead fandom for years LMAO! another big part of it was HOW the comic ended. after taking a hiatus, the creator ended the comic mid-arc because creating it just wasnt enjoyable anymore, and thats obviously completely fair. however, the arc it ENDED on was elaborating on the backstory of one of (if not THE) most popular characters at the time (and my personal favorite), so i had always wished that the issue could have been finished. its kinda hard to put into words, but finishing ambrosia was like a love letter to the comic and its creator to me. as flawed as the plot of that arc may be (and as unsatisfied with it as the creator was, at least back then) i still felt like it deserved to be finished. it was like fixing an old toy from your childhood, i felt like we were taking care of the comic in a way, giving it the love it deserves. maybe thats just my tendency to personify objects and get overly attached to them coming through, but hey thats how it is sometimes LMAO

Myne: When the comic was still on hiatus after the harddrive crash, some people had asked Aisha if she wanted to hand the series over to other artists to help her. She said she wouldn’t even know where to begin that process or if she’d wanted to do it. I would have offered then, but my skills as an artist and a writer weren’t nearly as strong. I held onto the drafts thinking, one day I’d do it. 

Myne: After Coffee and I started talking I realized, I can do it now. I know what kind of style of pens were used, and I whipped up a page, just the line art and sent to Coffee as a thank you. I thought, it isn’t much, and it’ll take me forever to color everything, but if there’s one person willing to read it, I’ll try. When I explained how difficult it’d be for me to color, he offered to do it for me. Suddenly a page that would take a month for just me to do on my own took 3 days.

Myne: Something, that seemed like a monumental task became a realistic goal. We were able to find, restore, and edit 45 pages within a few months. I’m still amazed we were able to do weekly updates without missing a day. Coffee asked if I’d ever be willing to write fan issues while we were working, not realizing I was the author of the longest fics in the series. Of course I said yes. Seeing Warrior U get finished, even through fan creation, was something I’d wanted to see for years.

You're from Az right, how is the webcomic weeb culture over there as opposed to california?

Myne: Idk about much about Cali, I've noticed the cons are more... professional? Where as Arizona cons have more of a fanclub vibe. Most panels are hosted by your fellow nerds rather than sony or production companies. I will say, that it's become more common and widespread in the last ten years, with multiple anime specific events year round. Back when I was a kid, I'd get made fun of for drawing 'japanese' people all the time.... it was pokemon fanart... Where as nowadays, I feel the average kid recognizes most big name titles thanks to hulu and such. 

What are your favorite anime/manga/webcomics and do any inspire your work?

Coffee: not really an anime, manga, or webcomic, but ive always been super inspired by the "scott pilgrim" series. when i was in middle school i was SUPER into it, reading all the behind the scenes stuff i could find. it even made me look into "comic illustrator" as a career option, but i also did the same thing with "game designer" and "animator" so yknow. as for webcomics, the only one i ever really got into was homestuck. side note- the overlap of oldschool homestuck fans and warrior u fans is FASCINATING to me. my current theory is that all these tumblr kids were looking for other webcomics to read while homestuck was on one of its MANY hiatuses(?) and so a bunch of them flocked to warrior u! theres tons of homestuck crossover content and references in fan art on our blog (some of the art styles also look homestuck-ajacent) so its at least clear that a lot of fans back then were also really into homestuck. ANYWAYS other than that i havent really read many other webcomics tbh? weird considering i MAKE one now but what can i say, im more of a Gamer than anything lol. as for anime, my favorite is easily keroro gunso (or sgt. frog if youre using the dub name)! its another thing i discovered when i was young (this time i was like 8) and have just never gotten over. theres a lot of Questionable stuff in it (prime example is an adult alien being madly in love with a 14 year old girl) but if i dont look at canon its not real so i love it anyways <3.i honestly dont know how many people really know about it since the western fanbase is so small, but its like HUGE in japan (or at least it was at one point, the titular keroro has a cameo in lucky star as a keychian) and the manga is still running to this day iirc. it was created by mine yoshizaki and the basic premise is that a platoon of frog-like aliens come to earth to take it over but they really suck at it. they begin living with humans and from there its kind of a mix between a slice-of-life and monster-of-the-week anime. i cant really say anything in depth about the manga because ive only read the first 5 issues of it, which are basically the same as the anime (fake fan smh), but ive heard that it gets more mature and serious than the anime does (which i guess is bound to happen when it goes on for so long). also the manga has some ecchi moments and blood used for slapstick purposes so if anyone wants to check it out just keep that in mind lol.

Myne: Obviously Warrior U. I'm a bit of a visual novel fiend, so Danganronpa is a series I've found a lot of inspiration from over the years. More recently  Though for the comic, I draw mostly from late 80s / early 90s high fantasy. Things like Labyrinth and Robinhood: Men in Tights. Honestly anytime I get stuck trying to come up with a gag, I look to Mel Brooks. 

So in continuing someone else's work, do you feel a sense of pressure to be just as good as the original?

Coffee: i definitely felt that way when it came to ambrosia, but i feel a lot less pressure when it comes to our upcoming issues. i wrote and made thumbnails for a few small scenes in ambro and i was SO SCARED of those scenes being noticably worse than the rest of the issue. i know the original creator has seen our version of ambro and those scenes by extention, but i dont know her exact thoughts on them. im satisfied with them but theres probably always gonna be that kinda star-struck stage feeling at the thought of the creator reading the scenes i wrote. its like getting stage fright. for our upcoming issues i dont feel as much pressure because theyre fully fan-written. our comics arent official in any sense of the word and theyre basically just fanfiction with extra steps, so its not nearly as stressful as trying to tie together an "official" story. there definitely WOULD be that pressure if we were ever given the rights to warrior u or something (which i dont want to happen) because then it WOULD be official yknow? also if the creator decides to keep up with what we post ill feel a bit more pressure, but i get the feeling that she wants to distance herself from warrior u a bit so im not sure how likely that would be.

Myne:  I do. Partially because, the fan content we’re making is completely free while the original series is purchasable on gumroad. So there’s a chance that some people may start with what we’re working on, then go backwards to the original.  I'm hyper aware of the tonal shift that's about to happen, no matter how much I try, I can't perfectly emulate someone else's writing style. The best I can do is capture the spirit of it. I just keep repeating "it doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be". It's a little harder taking that advice now that it's my scripts we're turning into issues. There is some freedom in knowing the series was never meant to be perfect though.

What drove you to writing the longest fanfiction for the series and how did it feel to be recognized and promoted by the original creator?

Myne: When I was younger, I would write fanfic instead of paying attention in class, and I really wanted a full story about the leads getting together. Knowing that the creator was reading every fanfic at the time added more fuel to the fire. I had a guaranteed audience, the audience. I was so grateful that she recommended it to other fans. That fic was 25k, I've written about 100 K in the last year to help maintain interest in addition to new pages to the comic. To that I blame hyperfixation and hiatus brain. You have to be the biggest fan of the thing you're making.

So i see the that most of your work including the webcomic Warrior U is on tumblr why did u choose to promote om tumblr as opposed to other webcomic outlets like webtoons, mangadex etc?

Coffee: the answer to this one is actually pretty simple; i already had a warrior u blog and tumblr is the social media/blogging site that im most familiar with! we have recently started using comicfury and tapas, but that was entirely mynes idea. im personally pretty content with just hanging out in my little corner of the internet so any attempts to expand or get the word out is mostly (if not entirely) mynes doing LOL!

Myne: It's interesting you bring up those two actually. Webtoons recently come under fire for being pretty crummy to it's indie comics, particularly if you write in any genre other than romance. Mangadex is a pirating website, so most of the comics there are fan translations rather than uploads from the creators : they had a pretty bad data breach a few years back too. At first we only had permission from the creator to upload on tumblr. Once we got permission to move forward with the fanmade run, we branched out to tapas and comicfury. They seemed like the best options for the genre and style we write in. Even still, we see about double the growth in readership on tumblr as opposed to the other outlets, and I think that's mostly because the blog updates daily, even though we only publish one page a week.

Do you have any plans on creating your own webcomic/manga?

Coffee: yes and no. i sometimes draw small fan comics and id like to make more polished and "finished" ones in the future, but nothing with any kind of overarching plot, at least not in the near future. i have a very hard time making original content for whatever reason. i DO have one (1) personal project that is completely original, but i plan on making a game with that. then again i have NO idea what im doing with that project anymore so who knows, maybe one day i WILL decide to turn it into a comic! only time will tell…

Myne: I have a visual novel I'm working on. It's about teen super villains that have to go to reform school. Think teen titans meets gifted kid burnout. The game's been in development hell since our first alpha build and writing about apocalyptic civil unrest wasn't as fun as it was pre 2020. We're about 200k into the draft for the full game and we're having to switch engines, which means cutting a bunch of features, but we're slowly getting there. If that fails, I'll try adapting the story into a comic.

To those people who will see this and decide to strut down the path of comic creation what is some advice you can give them?

Coffee: i think the most HELPFUL advice i could give would be this: you dont have to do everything by yourself. i personally have taken tons of inspiration from indie artists/game designers/etc. some prime examples of this are daisuke amaya aka pixel (who created cave story) and toby fox (who created undertale and deltarune), who both made incredible pieces of art that were defining to me as a person when i discovered them either entirely alone or almost entirely alone. you hear stories all the time of these great pieces of art being made by one or two people, and ive always wanted to be like that. as a result ive alwasy had a hard time reaching out for help when it comes to my art, feeling like if i cant do it all alone that itll never be as good as it could be. as a result though, all this mindset does is keep things from actually getting done and needlessly stress you out. NONE of the warrior u comics would exist if i had never gotten help from myne, and the blog would have probably gone inactive a LONG time ago too. i think thats the biggest lesson ive learned from this whole thing personally. theres absolutely no shame in working with a team of people if thats what needs to happen to see a project be realized.

Myne:  One, try not to put more than 8 panels on a page, that's helped me a bunch with page layout. And two, find someone you can show your work to. That can be a friend, a mutual online, a family member; as long as you have that one person asking "what happens next" you can keep writing. The stories/comics I have that are the longest are because of that. 

What inspires your art and what would u say you consider your style to be?

Myne: Invader Zim, Danganronpa, and Pacthesis have heavily influenced my art style. (pacthesis made a series of free dating sims on deviant art). I've always considered my art style to be pretty shoujo manga, but lately some of my pieces have been labeled too western for weeb spaces.

What advise can you give the next person who wants to draw art and share it with the world?

Coffee: i give the same advice to everyone i meet that says theyre thinking of making art in any form, and i mean it from the bottom of my heart: DO IT! im so in love with art of all kinds and the process of creating it, and i think that getting into any creative hobby is nothing but a good thing and i deeply believe that everyone should do it. whether you wanna draw, write, make music, develop games, sculpt, knit, etc, do it! quality doesnt matter at all, you can make the most technically awful thing in the world but as long as you enjoyed the process of creating it then it still has value. dont be nervous about your art being good enough. if you dont want to share it then you arent obligated to! i dont share like 90% of the stuff that i make but i still create art almost every single day! recently my qpp (queerplatonic partner) has gotten into drawing and im SO happy for them. they primarily use mspaint and a mouse to draw and their art is SO adorable and i love it so much, and im not just saying that because i love them. it doesnt matter what skill level you start at or what tools you have, you can always start making art. and dont compare the art that you make to others art, which i know from experience is a VERY easy trap to fall into. i dont have as much to say about that point because im not as passionate about it but uhhh yeah :3

Myne: Social media algorithms are not going to make you happy; no matter how well you play the game and low engagement does not mean you're a bad artist. If you keep posting and talking to other artists, you'll find your audience.

So at wonder con where we met ylu were cosplaying power from chainsaw man with a group of girls who were cosplaying other chainsaw characters. Do you girls normally group up and cosplay and if so how did you get into it?

Myne:  I was born into cosplay. My parents were gamers and cosplayers, and I started picking my own characters to cosplay when I was 14. I started getting more into it in college when I could find other people to cosplay with, it wasn't until this year I started aiming for photoshoots. I tend to be in at least one large group cosplay a con, and bring a different costume every day.

What was your favorite cosplay you've done?

Myne: It's a toss up between Persona 5 Joker and Alluring Secret Rin. Those were the ones I put the most work in that still hold up. Though I'm currently working on Eris from the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, and that may overtake them.

Have you ever thought to cosplay someone from Warrior U?

Myne:  I do actually! I've cosplayed as the main character Finn a few times. I really like taking simplified designs from comics/cartoons and turning them into heavily detailed looks. '

Where do you see warrior u being in 5 years from now?

Coffee: man, honestly if were STILL working on this project 5 years from now that would be CRAZY. this is already the longest ive worked on a single project before, along with being the most ive ever gotten DONE for a project, so thinking about what it could be like in 5 years is like. WOW. by that point we would have archived most (if not ALL) of the older stuff we could find, so our blog would probably just be new pages and fan interaction if were still going! the dream is still for a full fandom revival, and weve already got a small active fanbase (of like 5 people but still) so who knows, maybe that dream will be a reality?

Myne: We have at least 3 years worth of story drafted and lined up, and even more outlined. So ideally still updating. By then, we'll have some physical releases of the finished arcs that we've written available for purchase online and at select events. The creator has said she has no interest in making physical releases of the original run. I'd love for that to change, but I respect her decision and I won't press the matter. I'm just grateful we have permission to sell anything we make using her characters. 

If you could go back in time 5 years, what advice would you give yourself?

Coffee: 15 and 16 were ROUGH ages for me tbh. i wont get into it because its super personal, but i was struggling with a lot and just generally not having a very good time. i think the best advice i could give to myself would just be that like. things will eventually get better. no matter how dark or hopeless things may be, theres always a silver lining and a light at the end of the tunnel. now if 15 year old me would have taken that to heart is a whole DIFFERENT question, but thats what i would say. 16 was like right before i (finally) started getting treatment for my mental health, so i think considering everything thats what i would say.

Myne: So many bad things happened during those five years, but… I wish I knew what burnout felt like, so I could recognize it. I have this tendency to put my self worth into “how much have you done today”, so once I started working full time and my father passed,  I couldn’t recognize that I was physically and emotionally exhausted some days and needed rest, so I’d just punish myself mentally for not being more motivated. You shouldn’t need permission to rest, and I felt like I had to. It’s healthy to ‘nothing’ sometimes, especially if you’re dealing with things you have no control over.

Coffee: thank you for interviewing myne and i for your podcast :D!! its absolutely wild to think that ive done anything interview-worthy and yet here we are! for anyone thats interested in the comic because of this, i also emplore you to go check out the creators current comic "si3lah" (pronounced like si-ayn-lah i think? the 3 is a stand-in for an arabic letter) on gumroad! it deserves way more attention than it currently has and you should 100% go support the original creator if you like the stuff we do (wink wink).

[princevontwix]

what i wanted to put was too long for tags so I'm just gonna vent here

i really feel this. my parents have been encouraging me to get my masters, when I'm almost done with my bachelors. and the major i have isn't offered anymore so idk what would happen. I've also chickened out on going to the career center to get started on literally anything. i haven't taken any internships at all, done any mock interviews, and have no concrete idea on the career i want with my major.

im gravely worried that once i graduate i wont be able to do the job well, esp since I've repeatedly dumped out whatever I've learned from previous classes, which i HATE. as such, I'm nervous that when something I'm expected to have known about comes up during a crucial moment(s) at my job, ill be left smooth-brained, feel utterly incompetent, or worse.

if i do try and get a masters degree, i feel like id be delaying the inevitable. I'm also just not completely confident in being able to manage my own life by myself. it doesn't help that i haven't truly made friends in uni, just people I'm familiar with for one semester and that's it. Middle and high school were easier to get friends bc i was in the same "class of" as everyone else. but in uni, you're sharing classes with people of different years so you don't really get a chance to be familiar with them. i feel like that's also my fault though; I've been forgetful of people's names unless i see them on a regular basis outside of just classes (only two professors i can say arent the case). and those classmates who give me their numbers for future contact, i just never do. i feel overwhelmed by work and by then, id have fast forgotten anything about them to make conversation of.

im scared that ill be incompetent in my future career, that i might only have a few select irl friends at best or only my online friends (which there's no guarantee that ill ever meet any of them in person and strengthen that bond. AND that this last year in uni will be my last retreat to my shell before it completely shatters and I'm thrusted into the real world. there's also this internal pressure on me for being the first in my family to graduate uni (my older siblings have graduated high school).

My older siblings have been living at home for years, which, nothing wrong with that. but i don't want to end up living that same lifestyle. I want to prove to my family that their efforts weren't for naught. but at the same time, i feel like i don't know what to do when the future comes and ill have no insurance for whatever happens. I'm already dreading the days when my parents pass away and what might happen with my siblings when it does. the absolute last thing i want is to end up homeless and with nothing to show for myself.

Earth, our home, is dying to corporate greed and we're massacring each other, hate in our veins. And if i cant make a dent in any of that, then what was the point? what were my efforts for?

And yet...i want to be selfish and create for myself (no matter how cringe it is) and spend time with my online friends. I want to stay in my comfort zone of being in my dorm for the week and home at the weekends. i want to have those long summers where i don't have to worry to much about what to do and just enjoy myself.

How can I ever possibly balance my practical life with my personal life? My work and social lives?

Perhaps i've never truly grown up, and the unforgiving march of time is a reminder that i need to do something with my life and grow the fuck up. Perhaps it doesn't matter what i do as link rot will snuff out my creations and my second death will follow my first death fairly quickly.

Or maybe i really am just overthinking everything. Maybe 10 years or more from the future, I'll come back to this post and laugh at my naivety and how much i was overthinking. If such a possibility exists, maybe it's narcissistic for me to want this, but i would greatly welcome my future self hugging me, telling me that everything turned out well. that I'm living a life my family and friends would be proud of.

that despite the mountainous amount of work my job requires, i managed to make time to tend to my own projects completely unrelated to my profession. maybe in that possible future, my fanstory Rejuvenation has finally been completed, and i have the improved skills to bring my vision out for my art and fanfics (cringe, i know). perhaps in that future, i don't feel any of the loneliness i feel right now.

i just want some assurance that everything will turn out well. right now, my last year in uni is my temporary shelter against all these worries. but once i graduate? it's the point of no return.

I'm deathly afraid of the future and what might not be. i may bide my time and play games, draw, or just chat with friends. but the clock will keep ticking and if i don't play catch-up, I'm as good as dead. i just hope that I'm still eligible to reach Heaven by then.

but for now, i have some schoolwork shit i need to do. procrastination is a poison, one that might cost me everything.

“I don’t know what my goals are, no. Thanks for asking.”

[rain-fluff]

Journal Six

Everytime I sit myself down to write in these journal entries, I can't help but feel like Roxas from in 358/2 days; the wee lad had only come into existence for about a week and you expect him to just journal his feelings out when he doesn't even understand the concept of emotions until much later in the game. I'm aware I'm not some playable character in some JRPG but that doesn't mean I can't relate to his lack of experience when it comes to journalling. Well, not that I had zero experience prior to this course assignment but it's not like I ever bothered to even make it a habit! I don't really write down what I do because most of the time I'm relatively super unproductive doomscrolling my social medias.

Well, to say I was super unproductive is also a stretch because this week was the week I decided to finish and start my overdue art commissions which I will not share because A. I like the animosity of my "professional" art account and B. One of the commissions is probably something I should not disclose to the public willy-nilly on an account where my IRL friends can also identify me very easily (no, I will not elaborate on the content and if anything you can thank me for shielding your eyes of the horrors I get paid to draw).

I'm pretty proud of the work so far though, it feels like I've improved just a little bit more anatomy-wise and I should really get around to downloading different brushes online instead of relying on the default ones that IbisPaint has to offer. The defaults aren't bad per say, I just want to more variety that I'm comfortable using with. I'm also happy to hear that my clients are happy with my finished results/sketches and bless their patience because my slow ass could do better with my time management for this work. There's also another potential client I may have with a friend of a friend but I promised to finish my current ones before I could continue theirs.

What else have I done this week that doesn't make me look like a horrendous and chronically-online nerd? Not that it matters since many are aware I am one but it's not exactly something I'm 100% proud of either. I used to have complex but embraced being a nerd but now I feel like I should mask myself around certain folks when I joined my current uni. There's something about the environment that makes me want to shield myself from exposing too much. I do have friends from the uni that I can open up to but the level of comfort isn't necessarily on par with the comfort with my more introverted or high school friends.

Speaking of high school friends, One Ok Rock had recently released their vlog for their performance in KL last year and I could see my friends silhouette in the background of one the interviews they had with some of the concert-goers. I was kinda envious of those being interviewed but at the same time I also feel glad I'm not blasted on the official YouTube channel for thousands to see.

I still can't help but reminisce going to the concert though. There were some hiccups that I wish I hadn't started but the night itself was an experience I'll cherish just as much as when I went to see them the first time back in 2013. I also wish I had photos from the 2013 concert but alas the event organisers actually threatened the audience to shut down the whole performance if anyone was caught recording. I'll cherish my personal photos and clips of the 2023 concert where I can. It took a huge chunk of my Google storage though and I should really move them to hard drive when I can.

While we're on the topic of concerts, Final Fantasy has just announced today for their orchestra tour plans for Final Fantasy VII's soundtrack. Exciting right? It's not so exciting when you learn that's it's one of those occasions where they skip over Malaysia just to perform in Singapore instead. Tickets don't actually go on sale until sometime in May but I highly doubt I'll be able to save up enough for the entire logistics of staying in Singapore and purchasing the concert tickets themselves.

They used to come to Malaysia pre-covid so I'm both surprised and really dissapointed that they decided to skip over this time around. I really would've liked to hear One-Winged Angel live. For now I'll just settle to listening to the recorded versions online. I'm finally getting tired. It's 2:30 a.m. and I should get some shut eye where I can.

-rain

[cat-egg-gt]

Daisy (1/4)

Chapter 2

Hello! This is my first story, so I apologize if its not the best, but I've worked hard on it, so I hope you enjoy!

(Summary: A wlw g/t story. Everyone's heard of Daisy Co., Its practically a household name. Mimi gets hired to work for the mysterious company, but what she doesn't know is that this is more than just a job, and her life will never be the same again.)

Chapter 1 -Oddly Secretive Construction Company

Everyone knows Daisy Construction Company. I know, it’s weird for that type of business to be a household name, but it is. Whenever Daisy Construction is brought up, you’ll probably hear all about how they seem to magically build entire structures in a day, or how their main building is supposedly 10 football fields big, not to mention how tall it is. There are tons of theories about what’s inside, some people say it’s full of high tech robots that build everything for them, others say there’s a magical creature inside that gives them the power to build everything so fast, but to be honest, nobody knows. Everyone who works there lives on site on some remote island that only a few outsiders know the location of; the people bringing supplies in and the structures out, but none of them ever go inside.

Me? My name is Mimi. I have short pink dyed hair, although my brown roots show, and I have hazel eyes. I’m 5’4 and I would say I’m an average weight for my height. I'm 22 years old, I was born on July 6th 2000. I’ve never done anything in construction, I’m actually a doctor, so I never even thought about working for Daisy Co. One day though, while I was out getting groceries, I overheard a conversation about them hiring on-site doctors. I guess it makes sense that with all those people living there they’d need a doctor to make sure everyone stays healthy. As soon as I got home I decided to apply online. It would be a great job for me, I would live onsite so I didn't have to pay rent, and it paid very well , but I never expected to actually get hired. About a week after applying, I got a call and had an over the phone interview, but it was the strangest interview I’ve ever had. They asked me strange questions like: “What are you afraid of?” and “How strong are you, mentally and physically?”. Not long after I finished the strange interview, only about 24 hours, I had gotten another call, telling me that they decided to hire me. They told me to prepare all of my belongings and a company vehicle will be there to take me to the worksite in 5 days. I was surprised that they would drive me there instead of me driving myself, but I should’ve guessed they wouldn’t just tell me the location over the phone.

5 days passed faster than I thought they would, and I woke up on the morning of the 5th day to the sound of someone knocking on my door. They handed me an ID and loaded up my stuff into their van, and they sat me down in the back, then put a blindfold over my eyes. They told me to stay seated, and that it would be a long trip. I’ll be honest, I was a little freaked out by the blindfold, I knew Daisy Co. was secretive but this seemed a little excessive. We started driving and I felt around my chair until I found the reclining lever, and I reclined the chair back and tried to relax. I had a feeling it would be a long time until we got there.

…

I woke up to a blinding light. My blindfold had been removed and the van doors were open. I unbuckled myself and shakily stepped out of the van, my legs feeling weak from being still for so long. I saw the driver of the van loading my luggage onto a rolling cart, and I took a look around. The van seemed to be parked on the end of a long road over water, leading up to the island. I turn around and see the gates of the island, connected to a fence ten feet high topped with barbed wire, and the gate was guarded by men that seemed to be armed with some sort of taser. Beyond the gate, you could see a building at least 80 feet tall, obviously the main building everyone talks about.

I looked back at the man unloading my things and waited for him to take me inside, but when he was finished he just got back into the van. 

“Excuse me,” I walked up to the open window on the driver's side of the van. “Can you show me where to go?”

The man shook his head. 

“I’m afraid not, I’m not allowed inside.” He said. “There should be someone waiting for you just beyond the gates though.”

“Oh, ok.” I replied “Thank you.”

The man nodded and drove off. I turned to look at the island and took a deep breath. 

“You can do this.” I said to myself. “You need this job.”

I walked up to the gates, pulling my cart full of luggage behind me. I could feel my entire body shake as I approached the guards. I fumbled through my bag and pulled out the ID I was given this morning and handed it to one of the guards. They scanned the card with some sort of device and handed it back to me. The other guard inputted a code into a tablet he was holding, and the gates slowly creaked open in front of me.

I stepped inside the gates and was greeted by what seemed to be a normal town, well except for the giant 80 ft building in the middle of it all, but other than that, it was like a small village. I could see about 2 dozen houses, but there were also stores scattered around the island as well, it seemed like not a bad place to live. Although for some reason some of  the walkways seemed to be incredibly wide.

My focus was broken as I heard someone say “Are you Mimi Smith?”

I turned to look and saw a well built man in semi formal attire standing next to me. He had black hair in a buzz cut, and emerald green eyes. He had small stud earrings in both his ears, and a nose ring on his left nostril. He wore a decorative button up shirt and black slacks with a pair of dark brown loafers.

“Yeah, that's me.” I replied. 

The man clapped his hands together. “Good. My name is Niko Stone, but you can just call me Nik. Now if you’ll follow me please.”

The man turned around and started walking through the town towards the large building in the center. I started following him and asked,

“Which of these houses will I be staying in?” 

“Oh, none of them.” He said.

“What?” I asked confused.

“Well, we don’t need any doctors in town, so naturally you won't be staying there.”

“Wait,” I stopped walking. “Now I’m even more confused.”

He chuckled and said “You’ll understand soon enough.”

I continued to follow him and we went inside the main building. It didn't seem very big at all on the inside, all the rooms were about the average size for a work building. I guess there must be a lot of rooms, but I have no idea what they would do with that many rooms.

“Here is the cafeteria,” Nik said, pointing at a room slightly larger than the others, labeled ‘Cafeteria’. “If you don't want to go into town for lunch, you can also get it here.” 

I looked inside the window and saw tables set up, and a separate room in the back that I guessed was where they prepared the food. It looked a lot like a school cafeteria. Farther down the hall, there was a room labeled ‘Kitchen’. Weird, I thought the kitchen was in the back of the cafeteria. I stopped and looked inside and saw a huge kitchen full of people cooking enough food for a thanksgiving feast that could feed more than everyone one in town.

“Wow, I guess people really like the cafeteria food,” I joked.

“Oh that food isn't for the cafeteria,” Nik replied. “It’s for Daisy”

“Wait,” I took a step back. “Daisy is a real person?”

“Oh yeah, she’s the heart and soul of the company. You were hired to be her personal doctor actually” 

“Anyone who eats that much would need their own personal doctor…” I chuckled.

Nik looked like he was about to say something, but I guess he decided not to, because he stayed quiet. We walked silently through the rest of the hall and stopped at a door at the end of the hall. 

“Alright, you ready to meet Daisy?” Nik asked with a small smirk on his face.

“Ready as I’ll ever be” I said dryly.

Nik scanned his ID on the card reader and the door unlocked. I opened the door and stepped inside, but I immediately stopped, frozen in fear of what I saw.

[staringatthesky11]

Yeah hi this is me.

For what it's worth 'canon' to me for the purposes of my fandom experience is the original four books. They're what SM dreamed and wrote and published and what I read as the immutable and unchangeable.

The leaked chapters of Midnight Sun actually come pretty close for me. She wrote those before the movies came out, so before she was influenced by the film version, and that leaked beginning always felt as though it matched quite seamlessly with Twilight.

The Illustrated Guide and Bree Tanner I always view as 'canon-lite'. Because yes, SM wrote them, but she wrote it some time after the original series and it doesn't always quite match. There are things that contradict canon. The Guide especially feels like she sat down well after she'd written her original books and (in the same way we've all done with fanfic) took what she had in canon and either expanded on basic ideas or made up a backstory that fit.

I've obviously used heaps of the storylines and background info from the guide in what I've written and I'll stick to it where it makes sense and I can, but I've still labelled my fanfic 'canon-compliant' even if it doesn't exactly match up with the Guide. As an example, in my original Rosalie POV canon rewrites she was an only child - I didn't have the guide when I started, and her having brothers is never mentioned in the main series. So nothing huge, but it's something.

Anything SM said on the Lexicon or that's written in the wiki from some interview or panel she did I don't count at all. If it's not in black and white in the books, it's fun additional info and that's about it. I barely knew about any of it anyway - I read all four books at once in 2009 and wrote my first fanfic in 2012 (???) purely to entertain myself, without ever actually looking Twilight up online at all. It wasn't until after I'd written that one that I searched it out.

Published Midnight Sun is a weird one for me and my feelings about it are a little more muddled. The biggest thing about it for me is that it was written so long afterwards (or rewritten) that it feels like huge portions of it are not actually reflective of her original Twilight vision but are a response to all the discourse there's been about her world and characters since the beginning. All the criticisms about Bella having no personality outside of Edward, about Bella being unkind or dismissive of the human kids, of the Cullens being callous about their killings or selfish with their money, of Edward being an utter control freak were addressed in Midnight Sun in a way that didn't feel entirely organic to me.

None of this says anything about how much I enjoyed the books either! I mean, I consider Life and Death absolute fanfic, but also kind of love it. Midnight Sun was fascinating and there were many parts of it that I thought just added so much to the world.

Also, I freely admit that I'm a Rosalie champion and apologist and that colours a LOT of my feelings here! The first fanfic I wrote came about because I reread the books and this time didn't just take the prevailing narrative of Rosalie as an airheaded bitch. Apart from not liking Bella and immediately embracing her as a sister and prioritising Edward and Bella's relationship to the exclusion of all else, what did she actually do wrong? My whole story was based around the idea of taking every single incident in canon (including every word she said) and rewriting it from her point of view to see if I could give her motivation and a characterisation that gave her a more three dimensional personality. And I guess it worked, because twelve years later I'm still here, still writing her, and still arguing that Edward's not fair to her, lol. But basically I admit that part of my 'it's-not-really-canon' attitude to Midnight Sun in particular is that it throws a lot of what I'd written out, and I just plain didn't want to do that after eight years.

anon please! why wouldn't Midnight Sun be canon??

The question was based on comments I've seen especially from fic writers who struggle with including MS-related content within their own work when some of it was written before MS or when there was only the first 12 chapters of it. I mean there are some fic writers who have their own little universes that go back nearly 20 years at this point! They've written things like Rosalie saving Emmett in their own way, and then we get MS that gives the True Canon story and it's like, well, did/do you change your own version with that new information? How do you fit in the new MS stuff . . . or do you just choose not to?

It's not that MS is not canon in the sense of Official Canon (of course it is), it's more like, is it canon in your personal fandom world or do you have ideas that pre-date it and are so ingrained you can't/won't change them now to accommodate the 'new' (almost four years old!) book? Hence the "is it canon to you" phrasing.

I've definitely seen people, especially fic authors, who basically treat the four original books as "canon" and the other stuff (Bree Tanner, MS, the Guide) as sort of "optional canon" or maybe "opt-in canon." Like yeah it's there and they know it exists but if it's not in the original series it's just extra, optional flavoring. Sort of the "only the parts I like" option on the poll.

It's an interesting conundrum when a new book comes out so many years later.

[causeiwanttoandican]

Harry, Meghan and me: my truth as a royal reporter

I've covered elections and extremism, but nothing compares to the vitriol I've received since I started writing about the Sussexes

By Camilla Tominey, Associate Editor27 March 2021 • 6:00am

It is probably worth mentioning from the outset that I never, ever, planned to become a royal reporter. I mean, who does? It’s one of those ridiculous jobs most people fall into completely by accident.

I certainly wasn’t coveting the position when I first found out how bonkers the beat could be after covering Charles and Camilla’s wedding in 2005. Desperate for ‘a line’ on what went on at the reception, journalists were reduced to flagging down passing cars in Windsor High Street and interrogating the likes of Stephen Fry about whether they’d had the salmon or the chicken.

Watergate, this wasn’t.

Yet when my former editor called me into his office shortly afterwards and offered me the royal job ‘because you’re called Camilla and you dress nicely’, who was I to refuse?

Having planned to get married myself that summer, and start a family soon afterwards, I looked to the likes of Jennie Bond and Penny Junor and figured it would be a good patch for a working mother as well as being one I could grow old with. Unlike show business, when celebrities are ‘in’ one minute and ‘out’ the next, the royals would stay the same, making it easier to build – and keep – contacts.

So if you’d told me that 16 years later, I would find myself at the centre of a media storm over a royal interview with Oprah Winfrey, I’d have probably laughed in your face. First of all, only royals like Fergie do interviews with Oprah. And since when did journalists become the story?

Yet as I have experienced since the arrival of Meghan Markle on the royal scene in 2016 – a move that roughly coincided with Twitter doubling its 140-character limitation to 280 – royal reporters like me now find themselves in the line of fire like never before.

We are used to the likes of Kate Adie coming under attack in the Middle East, but now it is the correspondents who write up events like Trooping the Colour and the Royal Windsor Horse Show having to take cover from the keyboard warriors supposedly defending the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s ‘truth’.

Accusations of racism have long been levelled against anyone who has dared to write less than undiluted praise of Harry and Meghan. But even I have been taken aback by the vitriol on social media in the wake of the couple’s televised two-hour talk-a-thon, in which they branded both the Royal family and the British press racist while complaining about their ‘almost unsurvivable’ multimillionaire lives at the hands of the evil monarchy. And all while the rest of the UK were losing their loved ones and livelihoods in a global pandemic.

Having covered Brexit, general elections and stories about Islamic extremism, I’ve grown used to being sprayed with viral vomit on a fairly regular basis, but when you’ve got complete strangers trolling your best friend’s Instagram feed by association? That’s Britney Spears levels of toxic.

Having a hind thicker than a rhino’s, it wasn’t the repeated references to my being ‘a total c—’ that particularly bothered me, nor even the suggestion that I should have my three children put up for adoption. At one point someone even said it would be a good idea for me to drink myself to death like my mother, about whose chronic alcoholism I have written extensively.

No, what really got me was the appalling spelling and grammar. I mean, if you’re going to hurl insults, at least have the decency to get my name right.

Yet in order to understand just how it has come to pass that so-called #SussexSquaders think nothing of branding all royal correspondents ‘white supremacists’ regardless of who they write for, or sending hate mail to our email addresses, offices – and in some cases, even our homes – it’s worth briefly going to back to when I first broke the story that Prince Harry was dating an American actor in the Sunday Express on 31 October 2016. Headlined: ‘Royal world exclusive: Harry’s secret romance with TV star’, the splash revealed how the popular prince was ‘secretly dating a stunning US actress, model and human rights campaigner’.

Despite my now apparently being on a par with the Ku Klux Klan for failing to acknowledge Meghan as the next messiah, it was actually not until the fifteenth paragraph of that original article that the ‘confident and intelligent’ Northwestern University graduate was described as ‘the daughter of an African-American mother and a father of Dutch and Irish descent’.

Call me superficial, but I was genuinely far more interested in the fact that Harry ‘I-come-with-baggage’ Wales was dating a former ‘briefcase girl’ from the US version of Deal or No Deal than the colour of her skin. A ginger prince punching well above his weight? This was the stuff of tabloid dreams. Little did I know then that covering the trials and tribulations of these two lovebirds would turn into such a nightmare.

The online hostility began bubbling up about eight days after that first story, when Harry’s then communications secretary Jason Knauf issued an ‘unprecedented’ statement accusing the media of ‘crossing a line’.

‘His girlfriend, Meghan Markle, has been subject to a wave of abuse and harassment’, it read, referencing a ‘smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comments’. Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, had apparently been besieged by photographers, while bribes had been offered to Meghan’s ex-boyfriend along with ‘the bombardment of nearly every friend, coworker, and loved one in her life’.

Suffice to say, I did feel a bit guilty. Although I hadn’t written anything remotely racist or sexist, I had started the ball rolling for headlines like the MailOnline’s ‘(Almost) straight outta Compton’ (referencing a song by hip-hop group NWA about gang violence and Meghan’s upbringing in the nearby LA district of Crenshaw), along with her ‘exotic’ DNA (which I subsequently called out, including on This Morning in the wake of ‘Megxit’ in January last year).

Omid Scobie, co-author of Finding Freedom, a highly favourable account of the Sussexes’ departure from the Royal family, written with their cooperation last summer, would later insist that the couple knew the story of their relationship was coming out and were well prepared for it.

I can tell you categorically that they weren’t, since I did not even put a call into Kensington Palace before we went to press for fear of it being leaked. (I did later discuss this with Harry, when I covered his trip to the Caribbean in November 2016, and to be fair he was pretty philosophical, agreeing it would have come out sooner or later. But that was before the former Army Captain decided to well and truly shoot the messenger, latterly telling journalists covering the newly-weds’ tax-payer-funded October 2018 tour of Australia and the south Pacific: ‘Thanks for coming, even though you weren’t invited.’)

The royal press pack is the group of dedicated writers who cover all the official engagements and tours on a rota system, in exchange for not bothering the royals as they go about their private business. It was a shame this ragtag bunch, of which I am an associate member, was never personally introduced to Meghan when the couple got engaged in November 2017.

I still have fond memories of a then Kate Middleton, upon her engagement to Prince William in November 2010, showing me her huge sapphire and diamond ring following a press conference at St James’s Palace with the words, ‘It was William’s mother’s so it is very special.’

I replied that she might want to consider buying ‘one of those expanding accordion style file holders’ to organise all her wedding paperwork. (Reader, I had given birth to my second child less than four months earlier and was still lactating.)

Not meeting Meghan did not stop royal commentators like me writing reams about her being ‘a breath of fresh air’ and telling practically every TV show I appeared on that she was the ‘best thing to have happened to the Royal Family in years’.

As the world followed the joyous news of the Windsors’ resident strip billiards star having finally found ‘the one’, the couple enjoyed overwhelmingly positive press culminating in their fairy-tale wedding in May 2018, which we headlined ‘So in love’ above a picture of the bride and groom kissing. I tweeted the wedding front page, along with the original story breaking the news of their relationship with the words, ‘Job done’. Yet, as Meghan would later point out in a glossy Santa Barbara garden, that was by far the end of the story.

According to the Duchess’s testimony before a global audience of millions, the seeds for their royal departure were actually sown by an article I wrote in November 2018 suggesting she made Kate cry during a bridesmaid’s dress fitting for Princess Charlotte.

Claiming the ‘reverse happened’, the former Suits star railed, ‘A few days before the wedding she was upset about something, pertaining to, yes, the issue was correct, about flower-girl dresses, and it made me cry, and it really hurt my feelings.’

She then went on to criticise the palace for failing to correct the story – suggesting that royal aides had hung her out to dry to protect the Duchess of Cambridge.

All of which left me in a bit of a sticky situation. As I told Phillip Schofield on This Morning the following day, ‘I don’t write things I don’t believe to be true and that haven’t been really well sourced.’

Having seemingly been completely bowled over by Meghan’s version of events, Schofe then went for the jugular: ‘I have to say, though, that’s all addressed in that interview, isn’t it, because she [Meghan] couldn’t understand why nobody stood up for her?’

Yet someone had stood up for her, on that very same This Morning sofa: me.

As I told Phil and Holly on 14 January 2019, as more reports of ‘Duchess Difficult’ started to emerge, ‘I think she [Meghan] is doing really well, she looks amazing, she speaks well. She has played a blinder.’

So you’ll forgive me if I can’t quite understand why Meghan didn’t feel the need to correct this supposedly glaring error once she had her own dedicated head of communications from March 2019 – or indeed when she ‘collaborated’ with Scobie, who concluded in his bestselling hagiography that ‘no one cried’?

Moreover, how did the Duchess know a postnatal Kate wasn’t ‘left in tears’? And if she doesn’t know, what hope has the average troll observing events through the prism of their own deep-rooted insecurities?

It appears the actual truth ceases to matter once sides have been taken in the unedifying Team Meghan versus Team Kate battle that has divided the internet.

Make no mistake, there are abject morons at both extremes spewing the sort of bile that, ironically, makes most of the media coverage of Harry and Meghan look like a 1970s edition of Jackie magazine.

It perhaps didn’t help my case that the day before the interview was aired in the US, I had written a lengthy piece carefully weighing up the evidence behind allegations of ‘outrageous bullying’ that had been levelled against Meghan during what proved to be a miserable 20 months in the Royal family for all concerned.

The messages – to my Twitter feed, my email, my website and official Facebook page – ranged from the threatening, to the typical tropes about media ‘scum’ and the downright bizarre. Some accused me of being in cahoots with Carole Middleton, with whom I have never interacted, unless you count a last-minute Party Pieces purchase in a desperate moment of poor parental planning.

Another frequent barb was questioning why the press wasn’t writing about that ‘pedo’ [sic] Prince Andrew instead – seemingly oblivious to the fact that no one would know about the Duke of York’s links to Jeffrey Epstein if it wasn’t for the acres of coverage devoted to the story by us royal hacks over recent years.

It didn’t matter that I had repeatedly torn the Queen’s second, and, some say, favourite son to pieces for everything from his propensity to take his golf clubs on foreign tours to that disastrous Newsnight interview.

Contrary to the ‘invisible contract’ Harry claims the palace has with the press, royal coverage works roughly like this: good royal deeds = good publicity. Bad royal deeds = bad publicity. We effectively act as a critical friend, working on behalf of a public that rightly expects the royals to take the work – but not themselves – seriously.

So when a royal couple preaches about climate change before taking four private jets in 11 days, it is par for the course for a royal scribe to point out the inconsistency of that message. None of it is ever personal, as evidenced by the fact that practically every member of the monarchy has come in for flak over the years.

If Oprah wasn’t willing to point out the discrepancies in Harry and Meghan’s testimony, surely it is beholden on royal reporters to question how the Duchess had managed to undertake four foreign holidays in the six months after her wedding, in addition to official tours to Italy, Canada, and Amsterdam, as well as embarking on a lengthy honeymoon, if she had ‘turned over’ her passport?

While no one would wish to undermine the extent of her mental health problems, could it really be true that she only left the house twice in four months when she managed to cram in 73 days’ worth of engagements, according to the Court Circular, in the 17 months between her wedding and the couple’s departure to Canada?

And what of the ‘racist’ headlines flashed up during the interview purporting to be from the British press, when more than a third were actually taken from independent blogs and the foreign media? The UK media abides by the Independent Press Standards Organisation’s Code of Conduct ‘to avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual’s race’, as well as by rigorous defamation laws. And rightly so – the British press doesn’t always get it right. But social media is the Wild West by comparison, publishing vile slurs on a daily basis with impunity.

Some therefore find it strange that such a litigious couple would claim to have been ‘silenced’ when they have made so many complaints, including resorting to legal action, over stories they claim not to have even read. There is something similarly contradictory about a couple accusing the tabloids of lacking self-reflection while refusing to take any blame at all – for anything.

In any normal world, informed writing on such matters would be classed as fair comment, but not, seemingly, on Twitter where those completely lacking any objectivity whatsoever are only too willing to virtue signal and manoeuvre.

As the trolling reached fever pitch in the aftermath of the interview, veteran royal reporter Robert Jobson of the Evening Standard called me. ‘Don’t respond to these freaks,’ he advised. ‘It’s getting nasty out there. Watch your back!’

Yet despite my general sense of bewilderment at the menacing Megbots, I can’t say it didn’t appal me to discover a close friend had received online abuse, purely by dint of being my mate. After discussing the lengths the troll must have gone to to track her down, she asked me, ‘Do you ever worry someone might do something awful to you?’ Er, not until now, no.

Of course it’s upsetting, even for a cynical old-timer like me. Worse still are people who actually know me casting aspersions on my profession on social media. Often these are the same charlatans who would think nothing of sidling up to me for the latest gossip on the Royal family, while publicly pretending that reading any such coverage is completely beneath them.

Most pernicious of all though – not least after Piers Morgan’s departure from Good Morning Britain following a complaint to ITV and Ofcom from the Duchess – is the corrosive effect this whole hullabaloo is having on freedom of speech. When you’ve got a former actor effectively editing a British breakfast show from an £11 million Montecito mansion, what next?

I cannot help but think we are in danger of setting race relations back 30 years if people are seriously suggesting that any criticism of Meghan is racially motivated. It’s the hypocrisy that gets me. When Priti Patel was accused of bullying, the very same people who willingly hung the Home Secretary out to dry are now the ones defending Meghan against such claims, saying they have been levelled at her simply because she is ‘a strong woman of colour’.

Of course journalists should take responsibility for everything they report and be held to account for it – but Harry and Meghan do not have a monopoly on the truth simply because the close friend and neighbour who interviewed them in return for £7 million from CBS took what they said as gospel.

If she isn’t willing to probe the disparity between Meghan saying someone questioned the colour of Archie’s skin when she was pregnant, and Harry suggesting it happened before they were even married, then someone must. There’s a name for such scrutiny. It’s called journalism.

The public reserves the right to make up its own mind – with the help of the watchful eye of a free and fair press. But that press can never be free or fair if journalists do not feel they can report without fear or favour. I’m lucky that a lot of the criticism I face is more than balanced out by hugely supportive members of the public and online community who either agree – or respect the right to disagree. Along with the hate mail, I have had many thoughtful and eloquent missives, including those that good naturedly challenge what I have written in the paper or said on TV, which have genuinely given me pause for thought.

I am more than happy to enter into constructive discourse with these correspondents, who are frankly sometimes the only people who keep me on Twitter. I mean, let’s face it, I wouldn’t be anywhere near the bloody thing if this wasn’t my day job.

With the National Union of Journalists this month declaring that harassment and abuse had ‘become normalised’ within the industry, never have members of Britain’s press needed more courage. As Winston Churchill famously said, ‘You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.’

Who would have thought that the preservation of the fundamental freedoms that we hold so dear should partially rest on the shoulders of those who follow around a 94-year-old woman and her family for a living?

If I’d known then what I know now, would I still have written the bridesmaid’s dress story?

Yes – doubtlessly reflecting sisterly sobs all round. But after two decades in this business, I am clear-eyed enough to know this for certain: whatever I had written, it would still have ended in tears.

[phoebe-delia]

Hello! What's your favorite musical and why?

Hello Starry!! Thank you for always being an absolutely incredible writer, friend, and person. Your asks and your fics are such gifts to the Drarry community and fandom as a whole.

Now, that being said, I get to rant about one of my favorite things ever. "Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812."

Before I go any further, I will say that I've already posted a little rant about why the show was robbed at the Tonys and deserved better in general, but now I get to talk more about what makes it so special.

Now, onto the fun part!

First, some background. This musical was written by Dave Malloy. It's based on a 90-page slice of Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace." I won't spoil the plot more than that because this is the kind of show that really ought to speak for itself.

I'm not a musicals expert, but I've loved Broadway since I was a child. If you'd asked me when I was younger what my favorite show was, I'd have listed off several and said something witty about how it was like having to choose between my children.

But now I can say, unequivocally, that Great Comet is my all-time favorite show.

And it is weird.

For starters, it almost never rhymes. There's only one song, "Dust and Ashes," that has any kind of rhyme scheme. It also incorporates a ton of different genres: electropop, traditional ballad, Russian music, R&B, folk, and others.

But it works. It works so, so well.

Every time I listen to the soundtrack, I find something new to appreciate. It's deceptively simple, with seemingly ordinary lyrics that hold a lot of complexity, especially when paired with the nuanced orchestrations.

Oh, and that's not even to mention the set design. I'd try to describe it, but I couldn't do it justice. You can see it here. There are also seats on the stage and tables scattered throughout the theater, meant to be reminiscent of a sort of Russian club/theater.

I was fortunate enough to see Comet twice on Broadway. The second time I saw it was with a summer program in NYC I attended for journalism in high school. I sort of begged my way into getting the opportunity to interview Mimi Lien, who was the set designer for the show. She'd just won a Tony for her work on Comet. It was my very first interview and my very first article. The article is no longer online, which is honestly fine with me since it wasn't well written, but I have a copy somewhere, and I have a recording of the interview. To this day it's the coolest thing I've ever done.

Anyway, in the interview, Lien said that Dave Malloy traveled to Moscow to research Russian club culture, and he incorporated the music and the ambiance of Russian clubs and theaters into the show and the experience as a whole.

And it was successful. They handed out delicious pierogis before the show, egg shakers during a fast song, and little hand-written notes during a song about letters. The experience is like no other I've ever had with live theater. Every detail, every single aspect of the show is deliberate and utterly genius.

If you listen, I highly suggest having the Wikipedia plot page open as you do to help you keep track. There also may or may not be "slime tutorials" available on Youtube.

Also, Comet is unique in that there is both a Broadway and off-Broadway cast recording. I'd suggest starting with the Broadway version since it has Josh Groban as Pierre and Denee Benton as Natasha. The rest of the cast is the exact same off-Broadway, except Natasha is played by Phillipa Soo and Pierre is played by Dave Malloy; Pippa has a great voice, though Dave's is more of an acquired taste. Besides, the OBC recording has a fuller orchestra, which enhances it greatly.

I cannot express enough how much I adore this show. It's truly perfect. I can't compare it to anything else; it's in a league and a category of its own. I wouldn't change a single note.

Thank you again, Starry, for this ask! It was so fun and it gave me an excuse to listen to Comet--not that I need one lol. <3

Send me an ask about Harry Potter, broadway/musicals, The West Wing, and/or Taylor Swift! Or just about life in general :).

Also, I have a playlist of my 99 most listened-to songs of the year so far. Pick a number 1--99 and send me an ask and I'll write you a fic based on it!

[positively--speculative]

It's almost been a year and I'm past the point of caring if someone wants to call me a "Snyder-stan" or whatever (because if you criticize his work without making weird and downright mean-spirited theories about his personal character [such as that he hates his mother or caused his own daughter's s/uic/ide], you must be a mindless stan, am I right?).

I've ranted about this several times, but I just will never get over the fact that Justice League (2017) never had to be the disaster it was. What had happened, however, to make it so was this odd hatred for Snyder. An odd hatred that was so strong that WB chose Joss Whedon to do routine reshoots at a time when Snyder was grieving such a terrible loss.

I only have a basic understanding of how reshoots work (and any filmmakers reading this are free to correct me), but from my limited understanding, reshoots are done just to fine-tune things that are already finished. Reshoots are done to make sure everything is how the filmmaker wants it to be. As a writer, I see it as something similar to the process many of us go through: We write our story and then we put it away for a while. We then let a select few trusted peers take a look and make their suggestions before getting back to work on it and changing what we feel needs to be changed before a wider audience gets to see it. Whedon was only ever supposed to look at the completed work and fine tune what was done, and from my understanding, there was work Snyder had not completed that he was supposed to finish for him. Instead of doing that, Whedon cut a lot of what was planned, and removed a lot of things that the Snydercut was later praised for. He abused the cast, especially Ray Fisher, and would later defend himself for it by calling him a "bad actor." He threatened Gal Gadot's career and then claimed she didn't understand him due to a language barrier. And he did all of this for what? To take someone else's work and make it an Avengers (2012) knockoff?

Like all of this alone is enough to make even just a casual moviegoer with basic morals uncomfortable (at the very least), but I think what bothers me, personally, is how online critics (who tend to be the loudest critics and the ones WB seems to pay the most attention to) continue to handle the whole thing.

Let me be clear that I understand and even align with most rational criticisms of both Man of Steel and BvS. And I honestly didn't give much thought to who directed either of them until the harsh vitriol began to be thrown Snyder's way. To call me a "stan" is laughable. And I feel like there's an irony in the fact that some of the most popular online personalities gained more popularity in defending problematic media such as Twilight, but went all in on their hatred for these movies along with their fans. I'm not saying that the fandom for these movies is not without its weirdos. No fandom is. But it is funny that when the conversation of the fandom's behavior was brought up, fans of marginalized groups who enjoyed the movies were completely erased from the conversation while this narrative that only "straight white fanboys" were fans of the movies was pushed and thus became widely believed.

And again, this is not me saying that Snyder is perfect. I don't know him. He could be an asshole for all I know. All I know is what people who have worked with him, particularly people of color, have said in interviews. I understand that one Brown man and one Black man do not speak for all people of color, but it says a lot that both Jason Momoa and Ray Fisher have nothing but kind things to say about Snyder and their experiences working for him. And it speaks volumes that both Aquaman's and Cyborg's characters were given a lot more depth in his version of the film. On the flip side, both actors (especially Fisher) spoke out against Whedon, which was followed by several women he worked with in the past speaking out against his treatment of them as well. And while a good number of online personalities did write and create videos about this, I failed to see even a fraction of the same passion that was aimed towards the hatred of Snyder that went beyond just normal film criticism, and once again, fans of color were largely ignored when we pointed out the imbalance of it all.

But to top it all off, the reaction of many of these online personalities was to...just...double down on their hatred towards the franchise and the people who enjoy it. Many of them were blatantly dishonest suggesting and outright saying that the Snydercut was 'practically the same movie' as the 2017 version save for a few effects and added scenes. In what world is a two hour movie and a four hour movie 'practically the same'?

I would never ask anyone to force themselves to like a movie. That's just plain silly and a number of my mutuals here don't like Snyder's DCEU movies, and I can joke about it with them. Despite writing about this often, it's not that deep for me. And when a mutual posts about a movie I don't particularly enjoy, I mostly just scroll past and go about my business. What bothers me is the misplaced rage in this mess of a situation. Disliking or even hating a movie is fine, but said dislike and hatred should never have led to Snyder's character being attacked (and in a time when more people are speaking out every day about the abuse they endure from men in power, I think it's fair to point out that a number of people have spoken out against Whedon, but not one person [yet] has anything negative to say about working with Snyder). And it should never have led to this amount of bad faith and plain dishonesty within circles of criticism.

I could say a lot more, but I'm too tired to go any further for now.

[yuki-tsunodas]

The Player's Tribune: I will never forget the tears I shed that day

Article published 25 March 2021, originally written by Yuki Tsunoda in Japanese.

I translated the article with help from Google Translate and Naver Translator + my own interpretations of their rubbish translating, so apologies in advance for any mistakes! Anything I had trouble translating will be bolded with a (?) next to it!!

　I think that was the last time I cried in frustration, in regret.

　Four years ago, I was only 16 years old and was a student at Suzuka Circuit Racing School. It was the final selection to join Honda's Driver Development Program. If I pass, I can run in Japanese F4 the following year, but if I failed...I was thinking of quitting racing at that time.

　Now, I'm standing at the entrance of the stage called F1. Looking back, that was the turning point of my life.

　Of course, I didn't know if I would pass that year's trial because there were not only those who had already run in F4 but also some drivers who had come back from overseas.

　However, I've been racing in karts since I was four years old, and I've been doing well. That year, I was the youngest ever podium finisher in my debut race in the Japanese F4 championship, which allowed me to participate in the spot (?) race, and won the Super FJ Japan's first championship. At the selection test, there were good results until the final round of selection, and I was in a position to compete for first and second place overall. So I thought I could afford to make a big mistake in the final selection, and I was confident that I would still be in the top two in the end.

　I am a strong driver. But if you can't get results here or if you can't fascinate the judges with your running, it's already known (?). So I was prepared to give up my racing career if it didn't work. I think there were many other routes to go, such as running in other training programs or non-formal races, but I don't like it when it's not the direction I want to go. I decided to live a different life rather than to do it half-heartedly.

　However, the worst result awaited. At that time, I was very weak mentally and, of all things, it showed in the final round. Even before the race, I found myself tense and stiff. My fingertips were also stiff. I was not my usual self. I started like that, but suddenly I was flying...I had to drive through the pitlane and then rejoin the course. I felt like I was running alone, far away from the previous group. I felt sorry for myself, and I didn't even feel like running anymore. As a result, the points in that race were almost zero, and Tsunoda lost in the final round.

　I was so frustrated that tears welled up naturally on the train home. It was the first time since I started racing in earnest. I was the youngest among the participants, but I was shocked because I was confident that I wouldn't lose, and I couldn't imagine anything even if I tried to think about the future. I still remember clearly that I was so depressed that I didn't even want to see my parents on my way home from the Shinkansen.

　But there was only one faint hope. That was what the then Honda F4 coach said in an interview after the screening.

　"As a training driver for Honda, you will not be able to participate in the race next year, since the Formula 4 Honda has four cars. Maybe I can put you in one of the remaining two cars running as Suzuka Racing School."

　That was because former Formula One driver Satoru Nakajima recommended me. Mr. Nakajima was the principal of the school at that time, and at the time of the final selection, he was watching us run in the final chicane.

　I was given a penalty at the start, and I was racing without emotion, but I was running hard so that I wouldn't regret it. Through the visor, I saw Satoshi Nakajima standing in the final corner. I didn't want to show Mr. Nakajima a careless run. It was a hopeless ranking, but I thought I should not give up until the end and keep running toward the group in front of me. Then the road opened.

　In 2017, Suzuka Racing decided to enter me into F4 instead of making me a training driver. Then, I suddenly ranked 3rd overall in the annual overall ranking, and the following year in 2018, I was selected as a Honda Formula Dream Project driver, and was able to become the champion.

　It's all because I was frustrated at that final selection.

　The most unusual thing is that I think it's mental. Until I had a setback, I had a feeling that I would do well until the end without doing anything. I knew I wasn't good at starting even though I failed in the previous round, and I had time to practice before that, but I didn't. There was something sweet about overconfidence. And at that time, I was afraid of making mistakes, so I didn't know how to grow up.

　After failing the selection, I realized that I was still not perfect and that I had to be faster. I realized that it is important to make a lot of mistakes without fear of making mistakes, and to make new discoveries and grow from there. Therefore, I didn't feel impatient when I didn't get points as I wanted in the early part of the F3 and F2 seasons last year after I went abroad. Rather, there was no hesitation in the process of making a lot of mistakes first and learning a lot from them.

　Takuma Sato, a former Formula One driver, now driving in Indycar, is famous for saying, "No attack, no chance," but I think that's exactly right. If you don't try beyond the limits of any sport, you won't find the future, and if you don't try, you'll stop there. Therefore, even if there are times when I make mistakes or get no results, I don't feel strangely distressed. Even if you make a mistake, it's up to you to take it. Mistakes make me want to investigate the cause. If you think that you can overcome it, you can be faster than if you regret the mistake, and you can always face it positively.

　Now that I can race in F1, I feel grateful to my parents. I've liked to move since I was a child, and I played swimming, soccer, mountain biking, and also, not sports, but piano. Now that I think about it, I feel that my father and mother were letting me do what I was interested in. And the reason why I started driving karts was also influenced by my father. My father liked motorsports and played gym carna himself. One day, at the circuit venue I was taken to, I was allowed to drive a real cart. That was the first time. Actually, I also experienced a pocket bike at that time, but after trying two, I said, "The kart is more fun." I don't really remember at all (lol).

　But there were times I got sick of karts...

　For example, when I was about seven years old. When I was playing a game while waiting at the track, my father told me to "focus more on the race," and my game was taken away, and I felt like, "I don't like it anymore." Then my father became getting tougher and tougher on me to improve me, and he scolded me for many things. To be honest, I didn't really appreciate my father until I was 15, and there was a time when I hated him. 'This is "The Rebellion Period".' I think I was in the middle of it.

　Not only my father but also my mother was strict in terms of academic matters. I was always told to study in case I didn't succeed in motorsports. My junior high school was not a public school (?), so after the race, I would go home on the day, get ready for school, go to school, study, and take the test. To be honest, it was hard and I never liked it, but I continued to study anyway.

　At that time, I couldn't thank my parents, but now I have the opposite feelings. I think I am what I am now thanks to their harshness, scolding, and teaching me a lot of things back then. Thank you so much.

　I didn't expect to be able to get to F1 this quickly. Not only are there few Japanese drivers, but they are also those taking the shorter route compared to foreign drivers.

　When I first went to see F1 at Fuji Speedway at the age of seven, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso were running. At that time, I wasn't longing for it, but I thought "I wanted to race with drivers like this someday", and those feelings are still the same. Hamilton is already a legend, and it's an honor to run with him, but when I get on the circuit, both Hamilton and Alonso are just drivers. Think of them as enemies.

　It's the same for Max Verstappen, who I think is the fastest and strongest opponent in Formula One, and Pierre Gasly, who's my teammate in Alpha Tauri. I want to know as soon as possible how well I can handle Verstappen and how well I can compete. Gasly was active in Japan's top-category, Super Formula, when I was running in Japanese F4, and I hope I can learn a lot of things from him, but I think he's also my biggest rival that I have to beat someday because we're in the same machine.

　'In the world of F1, "speed" is ultimately required.' No matter how fast you say you are, if you show off your speed, you can make an impact, and if you have speed, you can get back in front in the second half even if you were overtaken or separated from the pack in the beginning of the race. However, it is actually the most difficult to show "speed" in a situation like this. My biggest strength is speed, so in addition to that, I want to learn more of what I lack.

　Come to think of it, at an online conference held this off-season, my goal came out big like, "I'll be a Formula One champion more than seven times, the most ever tied," but that's not what I meant.

　I haven't done a single race in Formula One yet, so I can't say that (bitter smile).

　What I'm thinking about right now is to give the best performance I have in the first race, and to get as many points as possible throughout the season. Just like F2, even if you go up to F1, you will make a lot of mistakes from the beginning to the middle of the season, but I want to learn a lot by making new discoveries there. After saying such a thing at the press conference, there was a question like, "What is Tsunoda's ambition?" So I replied, "Maybe I'll win the championship seven times like Lewis Hamilton?" which became a big headline.To be exact, I really want to concentrate on everything in front of me now, and I hope that my ambition will come true as a result of that accumulated effort.

　What kind of scene will I see in the future? I want to improve my ability and become a race driver representing the F1 world, and I think it will be a different pressure and motivation, so the expectations of the fans may be even higher.

　That's why I want to never forget how I felt when I drove in Formula One for the first time in 2021. I want to cherish the current feelings of a rookie and continue to make mistakes to my heart's content, learn a lot from them, and enjoy them.

　I don't think I'll shed tears like I did four years ago in the final selection. I will never forget the tears I shed that day. But if I were to cry from now on, what kind of tears would I have...?

　I think it's realistic to say when I first win the championship. It's very difficult to get to Formula One, but it's going to be a tough road ahead. It's really hard to win, so if I'm going to shed tears, it's probably not "regretful tears" but "happy tears".