#like for example today we had like 20+ on the screen which is fine

[gatheryepens]

So I’m like 99.1% going to quit my job

[richardsphere]

Rwby character-writing analasis thing.

Its really interesting to me how much RWBY as a series has changed in the post-beacon era. And while there are many differences i could write page-long essays about,  I think most of those are a story for another day. Today i want to talk about how the post S3 change in genre has negatively affected the strength of its characterwriting. (other topics might come up tangentially but wont be the focus.)

Beacon era RWBY was a verry slow, airy slice-of-life heavy show with only a bit of action sprinkled on top, like Fondant on a cake. It gave the characters plenty of time to breathe, interact and just share a chemistry together.  I’d even go so far as to say the early show was, 80 percent slice of life (at minimum), and maybe 20% action at most. Even “fight for our life” were permeated with moments of dialogue and lighthearted character-beats. (Ruby and Weiss talking out their squables mid-beowolf fight, Weiss VS Boarbatusk cutting to ruby’s little flags for example)  But it should also be noted that, With exception to Pyrrha, who the show knew had only 3 seasons to be fleshed out. Most characters were left deliberately sort-of vauge so they can be deepened out when we get to their arcs later. (certainly they were given “goals” like “find Raven” or “redeem the Fang”, but anything more specific was left out for future writers to resolve). But in a post-beacon world, the showrunners put them into a constant no-time-for-breaks pacing has prevented much of that filling in, as the show repeatedly denied them any moment for them to just “exist” (as well as the infamous stories about how any scenes that do allow characters to do so, having all chemistry surgically removed by production to “prevent romantic spoilers”.) They cut out so much of its slice-of-life moments, that all levity happens either off-screen (Yang+Blake at the disco) or in the background of “actually important” plot-beats. (Meeting Jaune’s sister taking second-seat to a critical debrief re:Ozpin-being-full-of-shit) Not to say there’s been no progress at all on filling out the blanks left behind in their early characterisation but: Ruby’s 6 seasons of constant trauma, ended on a resounding concluding note that “she was fine as-is in S1E1″, meaning nine collective seasons of character development, amounts to a great “Status quo, but now with Laser-eyes”. Yang’s raven-issues “resolved” at the fall of haven, and did so in a rather unsatisfying in the way. Because her and Raven never really explored the abandonment issues beyond a vague “i know you dont care about me, I’ve decided the feelings mutual now Portal me to my sister/Hand me the damn relic”. (which doesnt feel like a resolution, but the show tries to frame it as a “going no-contact” resolution) Blake and Weiss have both actually had their core struggles in the world removed and tranposed onto adjacent characters instead of actually resolving their established “goals” in the world at large. (Weiss no longer wants to redeem the family business, thats Willow and Whitley’s job now, Blake no longer wants to redeem the Fang, thats Ghira and Ilia’s job). and although we now know how Ren and Nora came to be together, their atlas arc only emphasises that even they still dont know who they are themselves.  Same for Ozpin, pf whom we now know how he came to be cursed, he spent so much time dormant “regaining his oldest memories” that we only know we dont know him either.  Six additional seasons of writing for these characters, and they are all (with possible exception to yang) either back at square one, or in BW’s case have somehow stumbled themselves back to square zero. The only character that’s gotten “more” fleshed out in a way that satisfies on a narrative level is Jaune. (to the point that i cant even fault elements of the fandom criticising the show for being “The Jaune Show”) And even that is only because of how well-realised Pyrrha was at time-of-death, It really says something about the drop quality in the shows post-beacon characterisation that Pyrrha is more well-written in absentia then the entirety of the shows namesake team combined. and that is just plain tragic.

[sleepysnk]

the chapter you've all been waiting for.

Team Player: Chapter Six

Pairings: Eren Jaeger x Fem!Reader

Warnings: None

Word Count: 3.0k

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter | Masterlist

The sound of Eren's alarm woke him out of the deep sleep he was in. 

He groaned as he reached over to grab his phone which was still blaring the annoying sound of his alarm. It was morning already? He felt so exhausted and he just wanted to roll over, and sleep the rest of the day away. 

But sadly he couldn't. 

Eren's eyes squinted as he looked at the screen which read the time, it was 8:55 a.m. He sat up in his bed and rubbed his temples, his hair was messy from sleeping, and his ankle slightly ached from the pain he was in. 

Sighing, he sat up and grabbed some clothes. His body felt tired as he yawned and stretched his muscles, feeling a few joints pop as he moved around. Boy did that feel good. 

Eren tied his hair into a bun and threw on a sweater and sweatpants. His usual. Eren didn't really care to get dressed, who was he impressing? Plus it was a pretty chilly morning, the temperatures were dropping as fall began to become more known. He just wanted to be comfortable. 

Eren wrapped his ankle with the wrap given to him by the nurse, and popped a few medications into his mouth before heading out of his dorm to the main campus for class. The exhaustion going through him was enough to make him walk slower to class, plus with his limp, it made him slower than usual. 

He was never usually this early to class, most of the time Eren was with Jean or Reiner talking about the game or simply goofing off. Unfortunately, most of his teammates avoided him or just gave him dry responses. It was difficult for him and in a way, it kind of hurt a bit. Seeing your own teammates being so against you that they have to avoid you really sucked. 

"You're here early Eren… that's a surprise." Professor Ackerman said, opening the door to his room. 

Eren rubbed the back of his neck and walked into the empty class. A few students trailed behind him and went to their own seats, Eren stared into space waiting for class to begin. 

Within a few minutes, Professor Ackerman stood at the front of the class. "Good morning, I hope you all are doing fine or whatever. Let's talk about what you're going to be doing today," he explained, grabbing his papers. 

Eren sighed with boredom and tapped his pencil on the counter. What was he going to do this time? 

"Today you're all going to be starting a brand new project. It's based on the unit we've been covering for the last two weeks, so I hope you've been taking notes and paying attention. To save some time, I decided to partner you up with someone else in the class," Professor Ackerman said, leaning against his desk. 

A few small groans and eye rolls came from students hearing the words "project" and "partners". 

"Enough of the groaning, I know it's not ideal but it's better than going through 20 different presentations." he said and crossed his arms. "I'll be pairing you with someone randomly, this project must be done as a pair. If I see that one person did more than the other it will deduct points off your grade," he added. 

Eren leaned back in his chair and looked around the class. He pondered as to who his partner could be. 

"Listen for your names and once I call it raise your hands," Professor Ackerman said, looking around the class. 

Different names began to be called, some people groaned at the realization of who their partners were, others just shrugged and seemed unfazed by it all. 

"Eren Jaeger and (Y/N) (L/N)." 

Eren's eyes went as wide as saucers hearing that name again. (Y/N) and Eren hadn't talked in years, especially after the embarrassment that went down their freshmen year. He knew she was in his class, but he never really paid much attention to her. 

"Get started on this immediately, the project will be due next week. No funny business either," Professor Ackerman said and turned to sit at his desk. 

Eren shifted in his chair and watched as (Y/N) made her way towards him, she seemed totally unfazed and sort of annoyed by the situation she was in. 

She had changed quite a bit. It had been about 3 years since they last talked with one another. 

"H-Hey.." Eren said as she plopped down in the chair next to him. 

(Y/N) looked blankly at him and opened her laptop. "Here.. put your email in," she said, avoiding his gaze. 

Eren put his email in and pushed her laptop back towards her. The atmosphere felt awkward and thick between them. 

"Do you want to go to the library? When you have the time," she asked and averted her eyes towards him. 

Eren nodded, looking up from his phone. "Yeah.. that's fine," he replied. 

The two sort of silently worked with each other, no words were spoken between them. Eren felt the tension and so did (Y/N). Who could blame them? It had been 3 whole years since they last had an encounter like this. Of course he'd see her sometimes in the hallways, or getting some coffee, but they never spoke verbally to one another. 

"Alright you're all dismissed, remember to work on this project as much as you can." Professor Ackerman said. 

Eren and (Y/N) stood up. "I'll see you later," she said, walking away from him. 

This was going to be just great. 

-

Most of Eren's classes seemed to fly by as it was now the end of the day. He was supposed to meet with (Y/N) in the library later, of course it was awkward. She didn't seem too interested in what he had to say, nor did she seem talkative. 

(Y/N) sat in the library patiently waiting on her phone. Curse Professor Ackerman for putting them together. Her view on Eren Jaeger did not change one bit. His actions caused a lot of embarrassment for her, a lot of people saw the video of her that day in biology, and they made fun of her. 

It wasn't an overstatement to say she hated Eren Jaeger. 

She stared at her laptop screen as she heard the library doors open. Her eyes averted to see Eren making his way towards her, she noticed his limp which made her brows furrow. 

"Hey, sorry for being a bit late. I got caught up with my friend," Eren said, throwing an apologetic look her way. "So uh.. I have some ideas for the project," he added. 

(Y/N) nodded. "What are the ideas?" she asked, raising a brow. 

"So.. we could add some different examples of the different bacteria. You know? Shorten it down a bit, because if we make it longer than we should he'll take points off." Eren explained. "Let's do it that way," he added.

(Y/N) wasn't exactly amused with the idea. She felt like shortening it would also give them points off. 

"I don't think we should do that. If we make it too short then we get points off too," she replied. 

Eren stared at her confused. "Then we just make it medium. I'll do the easier slides," he said, shrugging. "It'll be a good grade for the both of us. You're smart so," he added. 

(Y/N) furrowed her brows and felt irritation going through her. "Dude that's not fair to me at all. We should just do every other slide, that gives me all the hard work. It isn't fair," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. 

"Look, it's easier for the both of us. It is fair, let's just do it my way," he said, looking at her. 

(Y/N) rolled her eyes. "We did it your way last time and you fucked it up," she replied. 

Eren looked at her and furrowed his brows. "You're still mad about that?! Come on (Y/N), get over it. You're being overdramatic," he said, crossing his arms. 

That's when she had enough and grabbed her stuff, pushing it into her backpack. 

"Where are you going?" he asked as he watched her sling her backpack over her shoulder. 

(Y/N) scoffed. "You know… your teamwork skills are absolutely shitty. You're selfish and you always think for yourself. That's why our project went to shit freshmen year, I'm tired of biting my tongue with you. Fuck off Eren," she said standing up. "Maybe for once.. take a look at the shit you do from other people's point of view," she added, exiting the library. 

That's when it hit him. 

He did have shitty teamwork skills. (Y/N) even said it herself. 

Everyone was right about Eren, he was a selfish person. The answer was clear in front of him. Guilt washed over him as he realized what he had done, not just to his team, but to (Y/N) too. 

He had to find (Y/N), maybe she could help him. 

-

(Y/N) stared at the ceiling as frustration ran through her. 

Eren Jaeger really didn't change huh? 

"Why are you sulking? You seem pissed," her roommate Sasha asked while plopping down on her bed. 

(Y/N) laughed a bit and sat up. "Eren Jaeger… that's why," she replied, leaning her body against the wall. "He's so stupid," she added, looking at her roommate. 

Sasha nodded. "Oh! I remember him, he's such an asshole. Did you see his giant fail?! It was so funny," she said, beginning to laugh at the thought of the video. 

(Y/N) looked at her and shook her head. "No? I personally don't care what he does. I'm probably gonna email Professor Ackerman… I can't stand working with Eren. He wants everything done his way! He never listens," she replied, rolling her eyes in annoyance. 

Sasha's phone began to vibrate. She grabbed it and grinned. "Oop! Connie texted me, I gotta go (Y/N). I'll see you later," she said, standing up to get her shoes. "I hope you feel better! I'll kick Eren in the nuts for you," she said giggling. 

(Y/N)'s lips drew to a smile. "Alright.. have fun with Connie. Not too much fun though," she replied, winking at her. 

Sasha opened the door to their dorm. "No promises!" she replied, exiting the room. 

The door shut with a click and (Y/N) was now alone in her dorm. It was a usual night with Sasha leaving to go see her boyfriend Connie. (Y/N) wished she could have that luxury with someone else, but she wasn't exactly interested in anybody. Her dreams were just too much for love. 

A sudden knock came from the door. 

Confused, (Y/N) stood up. Sasha probably forgot a condom or something, the girl was always so forgetful. 

She opened the door expecting Sasha to be there. "Forget a condom-" her eyes averted to see Eren standing there with his backpack. 

"Can I talk to you, please?" he asked with desperation in his voice. "I won't be here long," he added, looking down at her. 

(Y/N) fell silent and opened the door wider so he could enter. "How do you know where my dorm is?" she asked, furrowing her brows. 

Eren looked back at her. "We did the project in your dorm, plus I never really forget what dorms I go to." he replied, looking around her dorm.

"So why are you here? If you're here to work on the project, I don't want to hear it." (Y/N) asked, crossing her arms. 

Eren sighed, placing his backpack down. "Look… (Y/N), I realized what I did to you earlier was wrong. You're right.. it isn't fair to you, and I realize that now. I'd like to also apologize for embarrassing you freshmen year, I was childish and I feel guilty for doing it." he said. 

(Y/N) was surprised hearing Eren sound so apologetic. She's never once heard him speak that way towards anyone. 

"I appreciate the apology… but it still doesn't change what you did. I can forgive you Eren, but I can't forget," she replied, looking down at the floor. 

He nodded. "That's understandable," he said. 

The two fell silent as the tension took over. (Y/N) decided to ease the tension a bit. 

"What happened to your ankle?" she asked, pointing down at his ankle which was wrapped. 

He chuckled. "Oh, you concerned for me now princess?" he asked, smirking. 

She rolled her eyes and opened the door. "Get out," she said, pointing at the outside of the door. 

Eren put his hands up in defense. "Wait wait! I'm messing with you, I'm sorry. That was too soon," he replied, smacking his head. "Let me explain," he added, sitting down in the chair next to her bed. 

(Y/N) closed the door, crossing her arms as she watched him take out his phone. Her brows furrowed as Eren seemed to be looking for something on it. 

He held it out to her. "Here.. this is what happened," he said, looking up at her. 

(Y/N) took his phone from his fingers and played the video which was from Twitter, specifically a sports account. She watched as Eren caught the ball and was tackled to the ground, she could see the way his ankle bent. She cringed as she saw the replay of it. 

"Ouch… that looks like it hurt," she said, tossing his phone back towards him. "But why are you still here?" she asked, nodding her head in confusion. 

Eren pushed his phone into his sweater pocket. "I got kicked off the team.." he replied, looking at the floor. 

Her (e/c) eyes widened hearing the news. She heard people talk a lot about Eren, he was popular considering he was on the football team. She knew he was at D1 level. That's why he was here. 

"Um.. if you don't mind me asking, why?" she asked, sitting down on Sasha's bed. 

Eren ran his fingers through his messy bun. "It's uh.. kind of a long story in a way." he replied. "I can explain it to you if you'd like," he added, giving a weak smile. 

She nodded and looked towards the floor. "Sure… I guess," she said, crossing her legs on the bed. 

Eren sighed. "Basically at the most recent rival game, I ended up playing while I was hurt. My coach told me many times that if I was in pain I should come off the field, but I was fine the day before. I just thought it was nothing," he explained, shrugging his shoulders. "Then during the last play, which we were in the lead by the way, I ran for Jean's ball and we ended up hitting each other. The ball bounced off of us and it intercepted, so they won by a touchdown." he added. 

(Y/N) nodded and started to process what he said. Sounds like a selfish move in a way, to her at least. 

"So wait… that doesn't explain how you got kicked off," she said. 

He chuckled a bit. "I'm getting to that," he said, adjusting his body in the chair. "Basically my coach told me the other day that I was benched, or you know kicked off, because I have shitty teamwork skills and apparently I'm selfish. I guess my other teammates have said it too," he added. 

She nodded her head again while listening to more of what he said. She could see why his coach did it, sometimes you have to do things for the best possible outcome. Considering it was Eren Jaeger out of all people, he probably didn't see why. 

"That is crazy.. I'm sorry," she said and rubbed the back of her neck. "I know things will get better," she added, laughing a bit. Eren stared at her as she sat there awkwardly. "Uh.." she said, looking around the room. 

Eren shook his head. "Sorry.. um, that's what I wanted to talk to you about." he said. "If you want to listen," he added. 

(Y/N) furrowed her brows. "Okay.. go ahead," she replied, adjusting herself on Sasha's bed. 

Eren leaned back in the chair. "I need help," he said. "And you are the only person I know that can help me. Please, help me fix my teamwork skills." he said with a pleading tone. "You don't have to of course, but I need this (Y/N). I need this season majorly for my career," he added, looking at her with desperation circling in his eyes. 

She stayed silent as her gaze dropped to the floor. Would helping him be beneficial at all? Doesn't he have other friends? 

"Um.. Eren-"

"Please. I need your help," he said, cutting her off. 

She sighed. "What's in it for me huh? I'm not doing it unless I get something in return," she replied, crossing her arms. 

He looked around the room for a moment. "You can do the project your way, I won't interfere or tell you what to do." he said, raising his brows a bit. 

She thought for a moment. She'll get a good grade and if it leads to him just shutting up, then fine. 

"I'm not so sure Eren.. I doubt I can help you," she said, shrugging a bit. 

"(Y/N). Please. I'm literally begging you at this point, you have great teamwork skills! I remember your presentation in biology and how you got the best grade in the class with your partner, please help." he pleaded. 

She sighed, blowing air out of her nose. "Fine.. but we do it my way. We'll meet up again in a few days to get started," she said, standing up. 

Eren's eyes were wide. "Wait really!? Thank you (Y/N)! You're fucking awesome," he said, grinning widely at her. 

Heat rushed to her cheeks hearing what he said. "U-Uh, yeah whatever. Text me and we'll talk about it," she replied, grabbing her phone and handing it to him. 

Eren put his number in and handed her phone back. "Say less, I'll see you in class." he said, giving her a toothy smile. 

"Yeah whatever," she said, opening the door so he could leave. 

She watched as he limped down the hall and exited the front doors of the residence hall, she closed the door to her dorm and leaned against it with a sigh. 

What was she getting herself into?

tagging: @ererokii @eremiie @moomii-hime @thicmitten @callmepromise @katsuhera @basket-flower-chick @flam3bird @kc-braun @just-a-little-sad @daughter-of-the-stars11 @chayauwu @lunamoonawatcher @sof-yeager @ryan249057

[linguist-breakaribecca]

[CW: discussion of medical stuff, needles, and therapy]

~~~ ⓘⓣ ⓘⓢ ⓐⓝⓔⓒⓓⓞⓣⓔ ⓣⓘⓜⓔ ~~~

On the 17th, I had my second round of a procedure called a medial branch block. My spine doctor realized my vertebrae are like a bone version of crumbly bleu cheese, and some nerves have been stuck in the crumbles (causing excruciating pain), so as a test they’re injecting numbing stuff into the nerves to see if it helps. Insurance requires two of these tests to see if they help before authorizing ablation of the nerves to get rid of the bits stuck in the crumbles.

The first round was... bad. Far more painful than anticipated. A surgical nurse gave me a little foam stress-ball avocado, and it was crushed flat in my fist.

And so, I was nervous for Round 2. This time was going to involve IV anesthesia and I hate all needles with a fiery passion, so I was anxious about the procedure and doubly anxious about the IV.

That nurse, trying to distract me, asked what I would be doing if I weren’t there. The first thing I could think of was, “Uhh... probably at home watching D&D things?” Which, as soon as I said it, I felt a celestial wedgie and fought the urge to push my glasses up my nose 🤓

Her eyebrows went up. “Do you D&D?”, she asked.

I warily replied, “Yeah... I do D&D.”

The next 15 minutes was spent giving her advice on where to get books and equipment for her teenage sons (“My youngest wants a... a Master’s Screen? Do I need to Etsy that?”), how to help the younger one deal with always being the one DMing for his chaotic friends, some advanced gift ideas for the elder teen, and what skills she didn’t realize they’re sharpening by playing the game. Critical thinking, communication, empathy, math, statistics, architecture and urban planning, just heaps of stuff they’re practicing when they “do D&D”.

She took out a notepad and asked if there were any videos she could watch with him. I had a moral imperative to recommend Dimension 20’s Adventuring Academy, since Brennan Lee Mulligan and his rowdy gang of rascals are what reignited my love for a game I had been gatekept out of for many years.

My anxiety was fully short-circuited, and the procedure went fine! 🎉

A few days later was my weekly therapy appointment (via Zoom). One of the topics we touched on was how people react when you tell them you’ve lost someone — how awkward people generally are when responding to grief, and how much easier such social interactions would be with cards or signals you could flash to let people know how you felt about them broaching certain topics.

I mentioned how much it helped in things like D&D to have safety tools and consent signals in place, and my therapist asked me to explain what I was talking about.

I described how much better it felt to immerse yourself in a fantasy world among people who felt obligated to keep everyone at the table psychologically safe. How inhabiting a character requires a vulnerability that can so often be wrecked by selfish DMs or insensitive edgelords, so when you know those types of people aren’t present, you can let go of the edge of the pool and truly explore.

I was waiting for a “...but you know that’s not real life, right?”, but instead, she asked me to send her links to read up on the lines/veils/cards/check-ins/etc. because her teenage daughter plays D&D and didn’t know there could be a system in place to set boundaries and communicate discomfort.

What on earth was the point of this post... I guess to fully think aloud, Livejournal-style, and document that one of the less-terrible parts of 2020 has been greater digital accessibility to playing and watching TTRPGs. The stigma is crumbling with the growing popularity of Dimension 20, NADDPod, The Adventure Zone, Critical Role, et al., as they serve as vehicles to help us escape reality for a bit. More diverse GMs and players are claiming territory and setting examples to get more varieties of people engaged in the universe. As Discord and video calls became the norm, it opened a whole world for singular players to find groups and for groups to span continents.

It still blows my mind that TTRPGs have gone, within my lifetime, from “True Nerds Only! No Girls Allowed!” to what they are today. In my personal scrapbook of 2020, it would be 75% redacted and 25% D&D.

[lizzytheglizzydogtheglock9000]

10 and 11 Reactions/Preferences

A/N For any preference I do, it will be titled 10 and 11 Reactions, simply because I wouldn't be too sure how to name some of these. This for example, as many of these will be, is going to be based on a personal experience. You see, I have low blood pressure, which essentially means that when I go from sitting down to standing up, my blood pressure stays the same, why my heart rate goes up, and it typically causes me to get extremely dizzy, and unable to see for a few seconds if I stand up after sitting for a long time. People with iron deficiency have this problem too, and I know it's more common than not. So that will be what this reaction is about.

You've been traveling with the Doctor for about a month, and somehow, you manage to hide how dizzy you get when you stand up quickly. Most likely because of how nonstop the Doctor is, of course, but this time, it's worse than you thought it would be.

(You're also going to be between the ages of 16 and about 20 for most of these, you all get to choose :D)

Tenth Doctor

For the first time in a month, you had finally convinced the Doctor to have a lazy weekend with you. He was always such a high energy person, he hardly ever wanted to rest. But when you gave him your signature puppy dog eyes, he just couldn't say no.

You had been sitting with him on a loveseat in one of the TARDIS' many lounges. Soft music played in the background while you read, and the Doctor stared out in space, obviously deep pin thought.

You stretched and let out a big sigh, gathering the Doctor's attention. You could see him smile at the way you moved, but you wouldn't let him know that.

"So Doctor," you said. "How would you feel about some tea?"

He jumped up as if he had been waiting for you to say just that.

"Absolutely I'd love to get some tea," he said, grinning goofily.

He held his hand out for you and yanked you out of your seat a little faster than you thought he would.

You paused for a second, swaying dizzily, waiting for your vision to return to normal. The Doctor stopped when he didn't feel you following him, and jumped back over to you.

"(Y/n)?" he said, face full of worry. "You alright? You look a little dazed."

"Huh? Oh, no, I'm fine. Just a little dizzy, I'll be fine," you mumbled.

He looked at you, not quite believing your words, but he didn't say anything about it. He grabbed your hand and you both bolted to the kitchen.

"Oh my God, you did not!" "I did so!" "Hamlet, one of the most well-known plays, was not influenced by YOU," you laughed. "I'm telling you it was!" The Doctor chuckled right back at you. "Give me one reason I'd lie to you." "Alright, fair enough," you say with a smile.

There was a comfortable silence between the two of you, with some added clinking and the clatter of silverware.

"(Y/n), I had no idea you could bake so well," the Doctor said in between messy mouthfuls of tart.

You smirk at him.

"You say that as if you didn't believe in my skills!" You said. "I'm so offended!" You turned away with an over-exaggerated gasp.

"(Y/n, you know that's not what I meant," he laughed.

He took one last bite, cleaning his plate.

"You wanna go back to the lounge now?" he asked you.

You sucked in a breath, still feeling a tad dizzy from before, but you were determined to at least get back to your comfy reading seat.

"Yup, we can go now," you said trying to sound more confidant in your ability to walk than you really were.

When you stood up, the amount of dizziness you felt only grew. Your vision was like a static TV screen.

"(Y/n)?!"

You could hear the Doctor yell your name as you crumpled to the ground.

When you woke up, you were back in your reading spot in the lounge.

Had you dreamed it?

"Doctor?" you called, voice barely even able to whisper.

Instead of a response, you saw a long, nimble hand reach over from behind you and gently felt our forehead.

"Your temperature is normal," he said quietly. "Why didn't you tell me?"

The look of concern on his face remained, and it didn't look like it would be leaving until you told him why you kept something like this from him.

"I didn't think it would be an issue," you stated plainly. "I've dealt with this for the past few years, and I can usually get a better hold on it. Water always helps of course, but I've never had it get that bad before. With how much we had been moving, we usually weren't sitting around long enough for me to feel dizzy when I stood again."

All he did was stare at you, taking in what you had just said.

"Doctor?"

He reached over and grabbed your hand, putting it gently against his head.

"Please let me know these things so I can take care of you," he whispered.

You leaned over and surprised him with a hug.

"I will."

11th Doctor

The view of the stars and galaxies from the TARDIS truly was a wonderous thing.

You were currently sitting next to the Doctor, looking at all the different galaxies, and stars, and planets before you, with your legs swinging over the side of the TARDIS. The Doctor was rambling on about your adventure from only a few hours before, while you leaned on his side, grasping onto his arm.

Just six hours before this, the two of you had run into an Aggedor. How it managed to find its way to London, you'll never know.

The Doctor continued his ramble, you wondered how he could even breathe while talking so fast. His antics brought a smile to your face, and you closed your eyes, enjoying the moment.

"But (Y/n)!" he yelled, almost making you jump out of the TARDIS. "What you did today was truly something fantastic! I-I never would've thought of..."

He continued on excitedly, like a child at Christmas. You chuckled here and there at what he had to say.

You had been traveling with him for a while now, or at least it felt like a while. Time was a curious thing when living in a time machine. You learned about all of his little quirks and found them all adorable.

You learned that at a time like this, there was no way to get a word in no matter how hard you tried. So you sat there listening.

Then, out of nowhere, he stopped.

You opened your eyes, wondering what could've been wrong, only to see that he was staring right at you with his big green eyes.

"So," he started. "You seem to be clingy tonight."

You looked down and remembered you had been rasping onto his arm, yet you hadn't realized how tightly you were holding him. You quickly backed away, blushing.

He noticed how you reacted and his face fell.

"Oh, (Y/n), it's alright, I really didn't mind," he said softly.

"Pfft, I was only holding onto you so I didn't fall out of the TARDIS silly," you smirked, thinking you had saved yourself.

"Uh-huh?" he taunted. "You do realize that the gravity of the TARDIS extends outside by about ten feet, right?"

You whipped your head around. Crap, he was right.

"Uh, well, I mean, it- uh- Maybe I was still nervous anyways?" you stuttered.

He chuckled.

"(Y/n), I never said it bothered me when you did that."

"Oh? O-okay."

You couldn't believe how flustered you were.

"Well Doctor, I'm absolutely exhausted, I think I'm gonna go to bed now," you laughed nervously and stood up rather quickly.

You started walking away before you began feeling incredibly dizzy.

"(Y/n)?" the Doctor questioned, looking concerned.

He jumped up from his place and shut the doors of the TARDIS.

"I'm fine..." you breathed.

You grasped onto the console of the TARDIS in hopes that you would regain your balance soon. Your vision started going all fuzzy, and because of how dizzy you were you didn't even realize you began falling.

"(Y/N)!"

The Doctor ran over to you and caught you just before you hit the ground. You leaned into his chest as you both slowly started sliding down to sit on the glass floor of the TARDIS.

"Oh goodness, you gave me a scare, dear," he muttered, planting a kiss on the top of your head.

You were awake but couldn't bother moving. The world was still spinning a bit.

"Doctor?" you said. "Can we stay here for a while?"

"Of course dear. Anything for you..."

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Rachel Nobel / Rae Lynn

Rachel Nobel, aka Rae Lynn, has 2 fics at Gossamer, but she’s written many more X-Files stories than that. You can also find fics by her at AO3 and various other archives. She’s one of the rare, special authors who’s posted numerous fic during the show’s original run and again in recent years. Big thanks to Rachel for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)? Absolutely. I joined a Facebook group for fanfic writers where someone recognized my name and asked about some of my stories that have disappeared from the Internet, and I almost fell off my chair. On the other hand, I go back and read original-run fanfic all the time - the Wayback Machine is my best friend for all the late great fanfic archives. Like fine wines, they get better with age! What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it? I was fairly young during the peak of the fandom - I was only 12 when I started watching the show and discovered the fandom online. A few years ago, right around the time we learned the revival was coming, I wrote an essay I called "How 'The X-Files' defined my adolescence," in which I wrote: "If you think about it, 'The X-Files' is a lot like adolescence: You start out thinking it's going to be a little hokey, NBD, and then you end up in its thrall, captivated and occasionally hugely let down. A lot of people behave strangely, and no one gets out unscathed. Mulder, in his own weird way, is the perfect mirror for an adolescent: He doesn't fit in; his life careens between being utterly consequential to the fate of the known universe and being completely pointless; he's socially awkward and can't quite nail it down with the girl of his dreams."

So for me, the fandom is inextricably bound up with adolescence, that feeling of vacillating between desperate loneliness and being on the verge of something enormously significant. Take romance: I was a bit of a late bloomer, and when all my friends were exploring their first relationships I was watching Mulder and Scully navigate this beautiful, complicated, soulful relationship without ever even kissing. That was deeply affecting for me as a teen.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)? I started out on mailing lists - there was an EMXC mailing list and one that I think was called X-Angst. [Lilydale note: There was a mailing list called XAngst Anonymous.] This was back at the dawn of the Internet when I only had 10 hours of AOL access a month, and I remember using what AOL called a "FlashSession" to log on, download all the fanfic from the mailing list and log off to read it. I vividly remember the excitement of watching all that new fanfic flood my inbox! Later on I was on atxc. During the long summer between "Gethsemane" and "Redux," it felt like fanfic was at its peak. There was a group of about a dozen women who got together (virtually) to discuss a work in progress by Lydia Bower called "Primal Sympathy." We called ourselves the "Primal Screamers," and we had our own website with fanfic recommendations and other discussions (it cracked me up to locate us as an entry on Fanlore.org). I was still in high school at the time and I was the youngest member; I felt like I had been accepted into a cool underground club. I worshipped these women, who were fanfic writers themselves. They taught me everything I knew about how to be a decent, respectful, enthusiastic consumer and writer of fanfic and fandom. [Lilydale note: I’ve talked enthusiastically about the Primal Screamers here before, including their fanfic primer.] What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general? In the '90s, I would have been embarrassed to tell anyone I read fanfic, let alone that I was writing it. Now, I look back on it and realize how talented and smart and passionate we all were. It's something to be proud of. What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show? The first episode I ever saw was "Shadows," which was on in reruns between the second and third seasons. I don't think "Shadows" is an episode that anyone today would consider thematically significant, but something about seeing those office supplies float spookily through the air - it wasn't like anything I had seen on television, and I wanted in. What got you involved with X-Files fanfic? I've always been a person who, when I am interested in something, seeks to learn more about it. So I guess I got online as a 12-year-old with this new interest and discovered fanfic. It was thrilling to find out that so many talented people were taking characters I loved and bringing them to life for me. When the screen faded to black each week and I wondered, "That's it? What next?", fanfic was always there to fill in the blanks and take Mulder and Scully to the next level. As a teenager, I was self-indulgent enough to think I had something to contribute, too. Most of what I wrote in the '90s would today make me cringe. I remember literally paging through the dictionary in search of erudite words I thought Mulder and Scully would say! But occasionally I'll feel brave enough to read an old story and I feel encouraged to see a spark: a turn of phrase or a fragment of dialogue that I still feel proud of. I write professionally now, but I've never written fiction that isn't X-Files fiction, so it's something that has really allowed me to hone my creative juices in a different way. What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom? Sometimes I feel like the Statler and Waldorf of the fandom, like I'm sitting up in the balcony grousing "Back in my day...!" Because the fandom is remarkably robust, and I've gotten involved with it to an extent on Twitter and AO3, and now all these young whippersnappers idolize Mulder and Scully just as much if not more as I ever did! Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files? Not really, no. I've of course consumed a lot of media since The X-Files that I wanted to discuss with others - I'm a huge "Harry Potter" nerd, and I was outraged when Netflix canceled "The OA" - but strangely I've never had the urge to read or write fanfic about anything other than "The X-Files." Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully? Every Thursday night! I watch a chosen episode with a group of fans on Twitter and tweet about it - #tbtXFiles. That's great fun. There are episodes I've seen dozens of times over the years and episodes I think I only ever watched once, and it's always enlightening to watch them again with a certain critical eye. When I was a fan during the original run, I really idolized Mulder; I loved episodes where we saw him in all his cracked genius glory. Scully was a trailblazer of a character, of course, but I think the fandom has evolved over the years to give Scully her due. Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom? I was fairly stunned when the revival came around and I realized that people were still writing X-Files fic, and that a lot of it was so good. So yes, I do read fic on Archive of Our Own. But my heart is always with the early days of fanfic. In the revival when Mulder says "I've always wondered how this was going to end" - that felt to me almost like a love letter to fanfic authors who had been trying to answer that question for 25 years. Surprisingly, I've never had the urge to read fic in another fandom. Every time I try, it just feels like I'm cheating on Mulder and Scully. Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors? My favorite author back in the day was Kipler. Her stories were just like real episodes of the show I could vividly imagine in my mind. I adore syntax6, particularly "20" and "The Birthday Stories," because of the way she perfectly and poignantly captures vignettes that span the entire series. Another favorite is Dawn and her "Blood Ties" series - I started out as a "NoRomo," and Dawn was one of the authors who made me believe Mulder and Scully could have a romantic relationship that really worked. And I always had a soft spot for Profiler!Mulder stories, so to this day I mourn the unfinished state of the great Kronos fic "Ascent to Hell." One fic I always come back to that captures profiling Mulder really well is "Domination of Lies," by cslatton. And then there are stories that I consider classics: "Corpse" by Livengoo, "Oklahoma" by Amperage and Livengoo, the "Revelations" and "All Hallow's Eve" series by Windsinger. What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise? I have a soft spot for a story I wrote called "Human Credential." I was attempting, a quarter-century after the first season of the show, to set a story in the very early days of the partnership (which these days is one of my favorite kinds of fanfic to read), and I felt like I nailed it. Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online? I have been doing both of these, as a matter of fact! Or in my case, they are oldies that made it online but vanished when Geocities went belly-up, for example, that I sometimes go back to and reshape. Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work? As the swallows return to Capistrano, I seem to always return to writing fic at periods of transition in my life. The first time I "retired" from fanfic, I wasn't even in college yet! If one can be nostalgic at 21 years old for something one gave up at 17, I was nostalgic for fanfic, and I picked it back up again in grad school. Then I became a teacher and a wife and a mom and years passed, and the revival seduced me back into it again. But the vast majority of fanfic I've written is firmly planted in the first seven seasons of the show - poor Mulder and Scully never seem to get to grow up in my stories. What's the story behind your pen name? I wrote under a lot of pen names over the years! When I first started writing fanfic, no one knew anything about Internet safety and it didn't occur to me that it wasn't wise to use my real name. There was a period when I would have been mortified if anyone discovered my stories under my real name - now, at least I can write it off as a youthful indulgence! When I finally grew into a more mature writer, I started using the name Rae Lynn, which is almost-but-not-quite my real first and middle names. Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions? As far as I know, unless my friends and acquaintances have done some sleuthing, only my husband knows I still write fanfic. And he's never read it, though he's kind enough to give me a glazed-eyes indulgent smile if I ever talk about it. Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now? I am xraelynn on AO3! I have about a dozen stories there - some of them I wrote 15 years ago and some of them are brand spanking new. Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

Fanfic is a true labor of love. Fanfic authors don't write fanfic for money or fame; they do it because they love it. Sites like AO3 and Tumblr have made it so much easier to show your appreciation to writers (::gruff reminiscing voice:: back in my day, you had to send them an email, and now you can just click the "kudos" button!). I can only speak for myself, but I really thrive on that feedback - otherwise I'm just Mulder in his cramped hovel of a home office waiting for Scully to nag me to shave my beard. Every so often I think about the fact that there is so much high-quality writing about these characters I've loved for decades just available on the Internet for free and it feels like a true gift.

(Posted by Lilydale on May 4, 2021)

[itoldsunset]

semi-translating/summarizing some things p’boss said on the hardest brief podcast. putting it under the cut because it ended up being wayyy longer than expected. also, my thai knowledge is that of a little kid who left her country very young so i probably missed some words/references, sorry!

(i got lazy and skipped the last part where they talked about the props and the colors (red = oh-aew, blue = teh, purple = tarn) but i feel like enough folks on here have done the color/visual analysis so we should be good):

he had this story he wanted to tell about two childhood friends and also knew he wanted to cast pp and billkin, but to make it work they had to pull from pp and billkin’s personalities to make sure that the characters they ended up creating would mesh with who pp and billkin are as performers; in writing the script, they sometimes asked pp and billkin to talk about their experiences as teenagers and adapted it to the series, so for example the storyline where teh and oh-aew meet each other again at afterschool chinese class and start out not liking each other, comes from pp and billkin’s real life when they first met and didn’t like each other

the interviewer asked p’boss to talk about how the itsay team has balanced representation in terms of gender and sexual orientation, and p’boss said it was important to have a team that understands the human experience and can draw from life experiences from multiple perspectives, which led to diversity in gender, sexual orientation, and age

when asked whether itsay is a Y series (BL), p’boss said his intention is to tell a story about the relationship between two boys, so it depends on how you define what counts as BL, LGBTQ, etc.

the interviewer and p’boss had this conversation about what characterizes something as BL, and the interviewer said after asking around it seemed like BL is about relationships between boys but more from a fantasy lens and tends to be different from gay couples in real life, and focuses on scenes between the two male leads, scenes that make you “pinch your pillow” (op: like scenes that make you squeal), but not so much on other moments outside of that; p’boss’s response (approximate translation): “i’m not sure myself, but from what i know, BL series seem to be about relationships between boys, but from the perspectives of girls, since that tends to be the target audience. so it tends to be what makes girls happy, what entertains them, that ends up being the content of BL.”

p’boss on lgbtq series: “i think it looks deeply at the real lives of people who are lgbt, it might be more realistic. it might be like, this is a real thing, but when you tell it in a series it becomes dark, but it’s real. in terms of itsay, in the beginning i didn’t know how to classify it, but when a lot of people started calling it lgbt, i thought, okay. [...] it’s just the story i wanted to tell, and i wanted to tell it with as much humanity as possible. i don’t want to limit viewers, i want as many people to see this as possible, so we can call it whatever they want as long as they watch it and it makes them happy.”

this is his first series focusing on lgbtq characters, but in hormones he wrote goi and dao’s characters (op: i didn’t know this?!)

with itsay, p’boss said it was important to him to have slower pacing to explore the intricacies of the emotions in each scene (different types of anger, different ways of sulking, different types of happy, different types of crying), making it somewhat different from my ambulance where things had to move more quickly to keep up with the speed of a tv drama

the interviewer asked “how does having two male leads change how you work?” and p’boss said there’s nothing different in the way you build chemistry between the two characters because you would just pull from their personalities, but the difference is in the conflict of the story which involves confusion and questioning about sexual orientation which a straight couple wouldn’t go through

p’boss: “when we think about how teh is the kind of person who doesn’t say what he’s thinking, or how oh-aew is the kind of person who’s upfront, anyone can play those roles--women, men, gay people, trans people can all have these roles.”

the interviewer said “itsay seems to be expanding the scope of lgbtq narratives by presenting it as easier for the characters to come out and say they love someone of the same sex. for example, especially compared to love of siam where the kiss scene between mario and pchy was considered something shocking, or in hormones, with the relationship between march and tou (phu and thee) where the characters spent a lot of time fighting with themselves about who they were attracted to. but in itsay, oh-aew was totally straightforward in saying he liked bas. do you think that’s because it’s easier and more open today?” p’boss: “i think the content changes depending on the generations, and oh-aew is really of today’s generation. it’s not that there are no longer kids who are confused about their sexual orientation or afraid to come out, even if ten or twenty years pass there will probably still be some kids who experience that. but there are people who are open and happy about how they live their lives. oh-aew is the type of lgbtq character that’s like, ‘i’m gay, and i’m proud to be who i am.’ [...] and it’s very positive that he sees himself as equal to straight people, because when we’re born, we can love anyone. if you’re a man, you can love another man and that’s a normal thing. that’s oh-aew’s attitude: i’m lgbtq, i’m gay, i’m proud, my parents accept me, and i can tell anyone confidently who i can love. i think a lot of people in this generation already see this as something normal, and we really need to make it something that’s equal. oh-aew represents that equality.”

p’boss on teh: “teh is a character who seems to come from older societal expectations where he’s a man, and he has to love women. but there are people who do still think this way. for teh, it’s hard for him to accept that he might like boys, but when he finds out oh-aew likes boys, he’s totally fine with it and sees it as normal. i feel like society needs to progress to this point, and beyond it, because it all has to be seen as normal. a lot of people when they talk about gay people they say there has to be a top and a bottom, but in reality anything can work, love can happen however. one day i could date someone who’s a trans woman, that’s possible, because it’s about feelings. or a woman who has always loved men could one day date a woman, that’s possible too. there’s a lot of freedom, and i want the characters to show that.”

they talked about how in the scene where teh pretends to hit on oh-aew in front of all their friends, the friends are shocked not that teh is attracted to guys, but they’re shocked that teh likes someone in the friend group. and that goes to show that it’s normal for someone to like someone of the same sex, whereas 20 years ago maybe the characters would have reacted in confusion or shock.

p’boss talking about what was challenging about making this series: “in terms of writing the script, we had to think about how to tell the story in a way that shows the characters’ emotions at all times. for example in episode 2, we explored the restlessness that teh feels when he’s confused about he feels jealous or possessive of his friend. when we say it like that, it’s relatable to people who know what it’s like to feel possessive of their best friend, but how to execute that on the screen is a different matter.”

why phuket? p’boss: “when i decided to tell a story about two boys, i wanted the atmosphere to be romantic. even if the story isn’t romantic, like two boys who are best friends eating together, but i wanted the visuals to be romantic that it looks like it could be a romance film. it intrigues the viewers and adds a certain sweetness to it. i wanted a good environment, so i searched in a lot of different provinces. at first i went to ayutthaya, mae hong son, chiang mai, chiang rai, songkhla. but when i talked to the team, one person wanted to go to the mountains, another wanted to go to the cape, another wanted to go to the beach. even if there’s a beach there has to be a city. we wanted everything, and phuket has it all. old town has a city feel, but there’s also the beach and mountains, so we decided to go to down to phuket while we were writing the script, to confirm whether it would actually work. i’m from hatyai, so i’m from the south, but i rarely ever went to phuket so i wasn’t sure if it would work.”

p’boss said filming the underwater kiss was difficult because there needed to be sunlight in order to capture everything in the way they wanted, but when they got to the island, there was no sun and it was about to rain. so they looked up the color of luck/success for that day and it was purple (op: i don’t have context for this so i can’t explain further lol), so they told everyone to wear a purple shirt. the day they went to film the scene, they all wore purple shirts, but when they got to the site it looked like it was about to rain, so p’yong took off his shirt and hung it on the boat, and as they were filming, every time they said “action” the sun would come out and every time they said “cut” the sun would go away, and p’boss said it was magical and that’s how it came out to be the scene we saw.

[skeptomai-krino]

what does justice look like?

(TW for terrorism, gun violence against children, death, brief discussion of christianity, discussion of prisons and prison statistics, including a brief mention of an opiate use rate. this is a heavy one y’all, highly encourage you to read + reblog if you can.)

bolds have been added for readability

__________________________

On July 22, a young man in a police uniform took a boat to Utøya, a small island about 38 kilometers away from Oslo’s city centre. He claimed he was there to give a speech about security to the Youth Camp that was taking place there at the time.

He was allowed onto the island with minimal questioning. After all, everything seemed to be in order. His ID looked fine at a first glance, and perhaps most importantly, he moved with the confidence of someone who had done this a million times before. Someone who knew exactly what they were doing. Someone who felt no guilt, or fear, or even excitement.

Why would he? This was just routine.

Wasn’t it?

What happened that day has gone down in Norwegian history. Everyone knows about it. Everyone feels the ripples. The man in the police uniform has become a household name, and almost everyone in Oslo knows someone who was there that fateful day. It’s almost impossible to talk about Norwegian crime and justice without at least mentioning him.

Anders Behring Breivik shot 69 children on Utøya that day, most between the ages of 14 to 20.

It was his second terror attack of the day.

The first was a car bomb, set off in Oslo’s governmental sector, that killed eight people and injured over 109. 

All in all, 77 people were murdered on 22 July.

What sentence would you say such a man deserves? A man who could do such terrible things, and show no remorse? A self-declared anti-immigration fascist, who calls himself a murderer like it’s a badge of pride?

What he got was 21 years, the longest preventative detention sentence in Norway, though it can be extended in five year segments if it is determined that someone is still a threat to society, as Breivik does seem to be, in a prison system that is known among foreigners, especially US Americans, for being, well, cushy.

Prisoners in newer prisons are given ample living space, a flat-screen television, and access to things that are generally found in a normal apartment. Yes, this includes metal cutlery.

According to a statement by the office of the attorney general, Breivik in particular had three rooms in his cells, one for living, one for studying, and one for working out. He also had a television, a gaming console, a computer (without internet access), and was able to make his own food and prepare his own laundry. 

Norwegian prisons are designed to stimulate external life as best as is possible, in order to help facilitate recovery and reintegration, since most prisoners are returned to life outside at some point. And even when they aren’t, there’s no need for inhumane torture.

Let’s take Halden Prison as an example.

Halden is a maximum security prison that was established in 2010, and has a capacity of 252. It has been often called the world’s most humane prison and is Norway’s second largest prison. 

Even its very design is pioneering; greenery surrounds the prison, with ample trees and shrubbery strategically placed to conceal the fence surrounding the prison. It is built campus style, to encourage prisoners to walk around and interact with each other and their environment. Areas look unique, and the prison is built from materials like wood, glass, and cork, in order to reduce echo and allow light. 

Additionally, guard rooms are intentionally designed too small, which encourages guards to step outside and mingle with the prisoners. That may not seem impressive, but a US study from the late 90s found that prisons with direct contact and direct observation between staff and prisoners reduces the rates of violent outbreaks by 246 percent- 36 to 13. 

The entire design of the prison stimulates normalcy and reduces stress, which as you can imagine is relatively important.

While Halden prison itself is relatively new, and most prisons even in Norway do not reach its standards, the ideology and concern for human life that went into it is present in all aspects of the Norwegian justice system, and Norwegian culture as a whole.

The Norwegian Correctional Service, or kriminalomsorgen (which literally translates to something like ‘crime care’ or ‘prison care’) in Norwegian, is based around the concept of turning criminals into good neighbors. It’s an impressive system, and officers say the most important thing in rehabilitative justice is that taking away freedom and autonomy is enough.

Bad people are still people, and just as good people become bad, bad people can change and become good. To use an over-simplified moral standard.

Initially though, the ‘justice’ system was not at all like what we see today. It was very religious and solitary, even to the extent of priests acting as social workers and prisoners being tested on their bible knowledge before release and after initially being confined. Where religion didn’t work, which was pretty much everywhere, prisoners were overmedicated in an attempt to change and control their behaviour.

As one can imagine, this did not go wonderfully. 

To take one statistic, you may have heard of recidivism rates before. They’re the frequency that a criminal will return to prison after being released, though some areas count by reconviction and others by reinprisonment, which can make things a little complicated.

Recidivism in Norway while the penal model was in effect went up to 91%. 91% of prisoners were reimprisoned within two years of their release. This is astronomical.

To put that in perspective, the United States, which is often internationally mocked for its terrible justice system and high recidivism, has a rate of up to 55%. Norway now has it at 20%.

So what changed?

What changed was civil outcry, mostly. The Norwegian Association for Criminal Reform, or KROM, was formed in 1968 to deal with these issues, as well as to abolish  forced labour camps and juvenile delinquency centres- which they were successful at.

Due to concentrated efforts from almost every Norwegian, the effect on the population has been massive.

Not only has the recidivism rate fallen to 20%, the lowest in the world, other statistics have followed suit. The opiate usage rate is at 0.4% (take that Reagan), a murder rate of 0.6, and a prison population of 0.642 out of every 1,000 people.

Comparing this to the US, with school shootings essentially a normal part of life and a murder rate of 5, it seems pretty obvious that rehabilitative justice works. At worst it works better than punitive justice.

While foreigners may joke about traveling to Norway to steal a banana in order to get themselves a nice place to stay, that’s more a problem with the countries they come from, and Norwegians overwhelmingly would rather not end up jailed anywhere. Partly because they also have welfare programs that prevent people needing basic things like food, shelter, and healthcare, and because the people who built the system were right.

Loss of freedom, loss of autonomy, it’s enough. That’s enough of a punishment.

Remember Breivik? He filled a suit claiming that he was being mistreated in prison, and that it was abusive and was making his condition worse. And the court agreed with him. 

They agreed that imprisonment can make problems worse if it’s not given care. Isolation and solitary confinement are especially dangerous. No matter who a person is or what they’ve done, punishment doesn’t help. It doesn’t bring change, and it will never bring back what they took from the world.

No amount of torture and punishment, as deserved as it would be, will ever bring those 77 people home to their families. 

But maybe some kindness can prevent more from being lost.

Norway undeniably has advantages. It’s incredibly small and rather homogenous. But there is more than enough evidence to indicate that a rehabilitative system works, and works a lot better than a punitive one. It’s cheaper too, since while they have to spend more per prisoner, the reduction in prisoners more than makes up for it. Why hasn’t the US followed suit? And why don’t we do that now?

[wtfockinternational]

An article about wtFOCK translated from Dutch:

How wtFOCK conquers taboos through trial and error

wtFOCK: for one person a key player, for the other a rather strange combination of consonants. Young people can’t seem to stay away from the successful web series. The new season has started, so we can look back at the previous one. For three months many fans were glued to their screens for a sixteen-year-old’s coming-out. Did this pave a way for more and honest representation of LGBTQ+-problems, or did they occasionally stray from that path?

“‘Secret’ series wtFOCK became the most popular search term on Google in 2019”, various media reported in December. This news seemed to come as a surprise, because many people seemed to have never heard of the term, let alone the web series. And still the series could crown itself the proverbial king of last year’s Google. How did that happen?

The online series that arrived here from Norway mostly seems a hit with teenagers and young adults. In nine weeks’ time the third season got about 11.8 million online views, SBS Belgium said. In total around 400,000 young people between 15 and 34 would be watching the series.

The presumed reason for the success? Young people can follow the characters daily via their smartphones through short, real-time updates and real Instagram-accounts. So ideal in a world where watching linear television, especially for the younger generation, becomes more out of the question. Besides that the series is kept out of the media consciously, to preserve its authenticity and let young people discover it on their own. So far, so good, it seems.

Homosexual main character

Concretely wtFOCK follows the lives of young people in secondary school, where all kinds of teenage troubles don’t get avoided. Since the previous season more social problems are being discussed, too. The series tackled a topic that still hasn’t completely removed itself from the taboo atmosphere: homosexuality, a coming-out, and everything that comes with it. From absolute peaks to the sometimes painful lows we are witnesses to the bumpy road towards self-acceptance that sixteen-year-old Robbe experiences.

But is that a new thing, an LGBT-character in Flemish fiction? Florian Vanlee researches the LGBTQ+-representation in Flemish television series at Ghent University. He clarifies: “About 20 percent of productions is said to have a prominent LGBT-character. Regarding supporting characters, it’s about 33 percent. That’s a relatively large part.”

It does seem the first time that in a commercial youth television the full attention of the main character goes towards homosexuality. “It’s remarkable how instantaneously the focus explicitly goes towards homosexuality. wtFOCK is therefore a very valuable program”, Vanlee says. The question therefore arises how the new form of representation was received by the LGBTQ+-community.

About recognition and self-acceptance

Amver Maselis, a 20-year-old bisexual student from Hove, has been a fan of the original SKAM. When the series ended in Norway, she started to follow the other remakes. Therefore her interest also brought her to wtFOCK. Passionately she talks about a series which she clearly values a lot. “I’ve been following the project for several years, and despite the subtle differences between shows, the main topics are always portrayed nicely.”

Out of all the remakes she thinks wtFOCK is the best one. Then again, the Flemish version connects the most with her own environment. “Now that the series has arrived in Antwerp, in my own culture, it suddenly feels very close to home.”

It helps that she really recognizes herself in Robbe, the main character that comes out of the closet to his friends and family in his teenage years. “It touches me, because I notice that I’ve sometimes said or felt the same things. Back then it was a huge secret I kept to myself. Now I know that it’ll all be fine,” says Amber. ‘ For other young people the series could be encouraging, like SKAM was for me three years ago, when I had just come out of the closet and I has to learn to accept myself.”

22-year-old Fabio Olivieri from Antwerp seems to share that opinion. As a teenager he barely saw a gay character to which he could relate. It comforts him to know that that’s different for the youth today. Besides that he commends the portrayal of the fact that members of the LGBT-community often have to learn to accept themselves, too. “sometimes it’s hard to learn how to deal with it, to know how you feel and if you want to feel that way. That’s portrayed beautifully.”

“Do you have questions?”

So the storyline can be a comfort to youth who can relate to it. wtFOCK also consciously wants to focus on that aspect. Not only by pushing the subject forward, but also by working together with the online platform WAT WAT. This initiative of the Flemish Government is a bundling of forces of more than 70 organizations to inform the youth. Together, those organizations want to make sure that “all young people are confident and can develop their identity in a positive manner.” On the website, youth can find answers about exam stress, problems at home, but also about sex, sexuality, … you name it.

After every clip of wtFOCK the possibility to visit watwat.be is shown, “in case you have questions”. That initiative pleases Ferre Lamber, a 25-year-old man from Antwerp who remembers how he also went to the internet for questions about his homosexuality when he was younger. “Sometimes it’s just hard to tell someone directly that you’re doubting your sexual orientation. So I can definitely imagine that young people will look online for answers.”

This way, wtFOCK wants to do more than just entertain. “Even though it’s fiction, which automatically entails the aspect of entertainment, that is not the essence of our show”, screenwriter Bram Renders says, incidentally also the writer of youth series W817. “We mostly want to show the youth that they’re not alone. That element is strongly present, and it’s nice that we can convey that message like this.”

The harsh reality

Thus, the series carries an important reality, which can be harsh sometimes. Fabio isn’t sure if he can always appreciate that. “I thought that the homophobia in wtFOCK was pretty cruel sometimes. Somehow that’s a good thing, because real life is like that, too. I’ve already experienced that myself. But in series the focus is generally on all the problems gay characters come into contact with. It would have been nice to see that this wasn’t the case. It has two sides.”

One specific scene that, for the same reason, caused a bomb of critical reactions on Twitter to explode, was when gay bashing was shown shortly, but very explicitly. The choice to portray it, is understandable based on the fact that it’s still a real and current problem today. At the end of December, two LGBT-boys in Ghent became victims of gay bashing. In Het Nieuwsblad they called for other victims to not stay silent, but to report such senseless violence to the police. However, in wtFOCK it’s shown how the main character and his boyfriend decide not to go to the police.

Ferre can understand that decision. “As a victim you want to avoid even more trouble and je need the strength to do something about it. I understand that not everyone would have that. One single right way to deal with gay bashing doesn’t exist.”

Ferre is concerned by, is the way in which the show depicted the incident as a while. The scene depicts how Robbe and his boyfriend get verbally abused and attacked. It end abruptly with the two left injured. Only the next day do we as viewer get to know if everything is okay. “Two years ago, when I hadn’t been with my boyfriend for that long, we were followed, too. After, we cuddled, drank tea, and watched a series, … at moment like that you just want to be together lovingly. You want to know if everything will be okay. But in wtFOCK nothing happened on the night itself and the matter was resolved quickly afterwards.”

Criticism

So more clarity would have been appropriate. The possibilities that you have as a victim after such an incident weren’t emphasized enough according to Ferre. Especially not for a show that has the support of a platform like WAT WAT.

This is clearly not the first time that Bram Renders hears this criticism. He has already given up on reading reactions on Twitter, he jokes. Hesitantly he does admit that they could’ve handled the scene better.

‘How it was protrayed, is more intense than how I imagined it during my rose-colored writing process.’  He says. ‘ That’s no criticism towards the director, because you can never know something like that beforehand. But in hindsight it would have been appropriate to show a follow-up-clip, in which they come home for example. As writeryou always have moments of which you think that it would have been better if you handled them differently; this is one of them.’

Besides that it was a conscious decision to make wtFOCK more heavy than the original SKAM. That decision came after prior conversations with people from the LGBTQ+-community. ‘According to the most people I talked to, was the internal struggle of the main character in the original version too small en was the world around him to rose-colored. So we made that world more raw.’ said Renders.

Ignorance

Then again, benefit of such heavy scenes is the awareness it brings about in viewers outside the LGBTQ+-community. “If you don’t know anyone who’s gay, then you also don’t know how we feel and how we experience certain things,” Fabio emphasizes. “I think that because of wtFOCK people can become more aware. Especially with the amount of young people that watch the series, it can provide more understanding and tolerance.”

Ferre also thinks that larger audiences are show what LGBT-people have to deal with. “Nowadays we don’t know enough about each other’s lives. I noticed that when colleagues or friends asked surprised if certain scenes are really like that, and if I’m really scared to hold hands with my boyfriend in the streets. The different seasons of wtFOCK provide good insights into different problems and how people handle them”, he decides.

Of course, purely scientifically it’s hard to determine such an impact on the audience. But intuitively speaking, that impact is already very logical, researcher Florian Vanlee (UGent) clarifies. “On one side, it can be important for people who do not meet the social standard to see their own experiences portrayed. On the other side, it can make those experiences for those who have less knowledge about it more obvious.”

New insights get subtly imparted throughout the series, but sometimes also in a more explicit manner, like in the part about the Gay Pride. At one point Robbe sneering tells his homosexual roommate that he isn’t the kind of person to dance around at Prides with “plumes in his hole”. That roommate is a more extravagant character that is mostly portrayed as support, with wise advice. He offers Robbe (but mostly the viewer) rebuttal with a short, but emotional history lesson. “Do you know that those people had to fight to be who they are?”, it sounds.

The show is undoubtedly referring to the protests of Stonewall which later grew into the Gay Prides all over the world. Something that is often forgotten, gets emphasized here: that people in the LGBTQ+-community had to travel a long and difficult path to have equal rights today and to be able to completely be themselves.

Amber thinks it’s very important for that history to be highlighted. “That people would rather die than not be able to be who they are, is the basic principle of the Gay Pride. There’s more behind it than semi-naked, dancing people, as some still see it.”

Better representation

Referring to the Gay Pride, Ferre admits to be somewhat disappointed about the type of main character in this season of wtFOCK. According to him it also could’ve been a more pronounced type for once. According to him, LGBTQ+-representation is focused on the so-called ‘mainstream’ LGBT-people too often.

At the start of September the topic got a lot of attention, when radio-dj Wanne Synnave (MNM) made the following statement in the talkshow Vandaag: “The biggest problem is that all the role models you see conform to the cliché image. I’ve never been able to identify myself in that area. I think that there’s a need for more mainstream LGBT-role models, the normal man and woman in the street. So not those flamboyant role models, which are pretty cliché.”

That statement caused a lot of outrage in the LGBTQ+-community. Many people didn’t agree, and had the opinion that there were already plenty of LGBT-people portrayed according to ‘hetero standards’. Florian Vanlee (UGent) confirms that in Flanders very little stereotypical characters are portrayed. “You could almost go so far as to say that the majority of the LGBT-characters are a sort of reverse-stereotype. For example, you will very rarely find very flamboyant gay characters.”

So television program makers represent (admittedly with good intentions) in a very general manner. “But exactly because of that, a large part of the LGBT-community are kept out of the picture”, Vanlee says. So there is need for more varying representation.

Balance

In the specific case of wtFOCK we can argue that the show follows the original format from Norway, and takes satisfaction in the extravagant gay character Milan, the roommate. “It’s hard to find a good balance”, screenwriter Bram Renders says. “In this case I thought that that balance with the ‘out in the open, take it or leave it’-roommate was enough.

In addition, according to Florian Vanlee, it’s not fair to judge individual series on those choices. “That’s not the right way to deal with what we want to see in media and popular culture”, Vanlee thinks. “Nowadays, in Flanders, it’s normal to represent LGBT-characters, for example Kaat in the soap Thuis. That was already an important step. What could be better, isn’t the responsibility of the television-industry, but also the discourse it generates,” he decides.

Finally, representation in Flemish media doesn’t just concern LGBTQ+-characters. It’s also important to look at the portrayal of people with a migration background or with different religions, for example. But wtFOCK doesn’t shy away from that either. In the fourth season, the show takes a new taboo by the horns by making Yasmina, a Muslim character, the main. It remains to be seen how the young, but critical audience will find the new theme.

[onenettvchannel]

#OnlyOnOneNETnews: The Upcoming 9th Season of RWBY downfalls thru a New Location as Announced between the RTX-VAF & SDCC 2021

IMPORTANT SPOILER WARNING: The following news article may contains an extremely sensitive spoilers. Readers frankly discretion is STRONGLY ADVISED! Also, Reporting our news article without the consent is punishable by law. We are honestly NOT responsible in our small news organization experience for any of it’s wrong doing. Read our disclaimer first, at the end of this article. Thank you.

AUSTIN, TEXAS -- A virtual online panel in both separate places between the Austin & San Diego. Rooster Teeth Expo-Virtual Animation Festival (RTX-VAF) and San Diego Comic Convention (SDCC) 2021 announces for the upcoming 9th Season of RWBY (much actually as Volumes).

For those you don’t know about the show of RWBY, a computer-animated web series was made by the Rooster Teeth Animation (RTA) and a show creator was late named by Monty Oum. He died from the Anaphylaxis of Comatose before Season 3 by the end of October 2015. The real acronym of RWBY stands for the names of Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna & Yang Xiao Long. It's a fictional sci-fi world of Remnant where the Huntsmen & Huntresses to be trained and become warriors to protect the world from monsters called Grimm.

In reality for it’s both places, minus the physical convention panel in America... Austin City at a Travis County in Texas goes for a 2nd Stage (known for as General Community Quarantine or GCQ). While in San Diego City at a same county name of California however (as according to our Research Team of OneNETnews and a local mainstream media like KDFW-TV's FOX 4: Dallas-Fort Worth for example), there is a possibility of Stage 4 (known also for the Enhanced Community Quarantine or ECQ). These stage numbers are subjected to be translated from the Austin Government to a Philippine Quarantine Classification status of Corona Virus Disease-19 (CoViD19).

RWBY was started in mid-July 2013 from a web streaming service of Rooster Teeth. Crunchyroll, VRV and Amazon Prime Video secures for a streaming rights in a legal way possible within the coming years as simulcasted for the entire animated show until today in the present.

RTX-VAF was virtually held last July 8th-17th, 2021 and the SDCC follows individually a few weeks later by July 23rd-25th, 2021. The RWBY Panel commences at the RTX-VAF 2021 at 1pm EDT last Friday afternoon by July 9th & SDCC 2021 ends with a developing conclusion by July 25th, 2021 at 1am EDT. Casts and Crews from this show reveals for the announcements of Season 9 starts with the entire RWBY voice actresses team, along with a Lead Writer & Director named Kerry Shawcross and the 2 show writers were named by Eddy Rivas & Miles Luna.

In a latest pre-recorded panel of RWBY at the RTX-VAF & SDCC 2021, the official work-in-progress (WiP) was released first globally from this said panel, and the same thing follows a few weeks later at the SDCC. OneNETnews had first obtained in an exclusive tidbits of Season 9 as Laura Yates (Supervising Producer of RWBY and RTA) showed a sneak peek with us to the public.

Season 9 is now currently in production as Yates told exclusively to OneNETnews through our independent news media in Dumaguete as virtually from a group of video conferencing of RTX-VAF 2021, "We’re not quite ready to share Season 9’s release date yet, as the productions team being going well thou. We actually have a longer production run in Season 9 which is typically do, as upon allowing some of the animation departments when proceeding to move on to it’s next project such as fully animated, script writings, voice recording sessions, etc., which is very super exciting. We got a lot of big stuff coming up and a lot more updates to share soon". Several productions and preparations are meant to be fully completed for Season 9 by later this September 2021 onwards as Yates added.

-----

As from a start of a sneak peek of Season 9, the entire Pocket Dimension known for as the Evacuation Central Location (ECL) is much more urgently ongoing. Ruby Rose is the ONLY perspective point-of-view, among the rest of her team of Yang, Penny, Weiss and Blake; while Cinder Fall continues for a serious opponent against the remaining team members of RWBY.

Most of it's selected pathways are under attack, the muted suspect against the victim named Neopolitan Torchwick (probably not an actual last name in regular). She was the legal age above her 20s at this said moment.

Yang immediately pushes to safety for Ruby but, Neopolitan was slained to her like a half-moon. Almost everyone else (except the evacuees themselves), the rest of the RWBY team were defeated for now (even with her weapon of Crescent Rose destroys or felled off alone).

Cinder lets herself go with Neopolitan and/or Ruby during the 8th Season FINALE, both of them are in downfall the void at the end of the episode (as well sadly with Blake and others) upon passing out for a while.

Ruby woked up temporarily with an a space travel from this said void. She checked out possibly for what is going on, as even with her left hand if it's related to fireflies or something else.

Until one muted suspect sucker-punches her victim's face in the center as Neopolitan did for a domestic battery.

Ruby tries to stop her muted suspect with a severe craziness of anger, Neopolitan shapeshifts herself within a few seconds in disguise. She was backed off with her both hands and punches again, leaving a muted suspect strangles for an attempted throat suffocation to her victim's point-of-view. Ruby grabs her disguised muted suspect's arm, she was quickly felled back for a gravity distance with it's separation.

Neither both of them were landed from this scene through a mysterious island, as she plunged down the hydrosphere waters and washed ashore to sleep for this early morning (Solitas local time).

Just a few hours later, Ruby woken up the 2nd time and notices a single voice to help with. Most of a gigantic size of sea shells and a medium-sized sea starfish are subjected to investigate and explore this mysterious island. It's a good sunny weather today to start off the entire journey of Season 9, immediately after it's said post-credits from a previous season. The main feature sits from this place of a gigantic tree above.

The troubles of a fictional world like Solitas isn't over. Upon jumping it's entire conclusion, Ruby is about to be checked out on foot and went herself with a jungle trees first to see what it goes.

-----

At the end of a Sneak Peek clip, a similar conclusion with a different web series on YouTube called "Meta Runner" in Episode 1 as possibly connected to RWBY. A single commented basher says, it feels like an animated production company as seeking with Rooster Teeth will be cheated out from the another animation company in plagiarism at a later seasons but, the reference points of RTA looks okay with a permission as long as the homework-like copy is prohibited to do so.

As for Neopolitan Torchwick (the muted suspect herself), she will be automatically committed and charged with a Thrice Violation of Article 250 or the Revised Penal Code of it's Frustrated Homicide for the victim of Yang, Republic Act #9262: Section 3b or Anti-Violence Against Women and Their Children Act of 2004 & Republic Act #9745 or the Anti-Torture Act of 2009 as also for the individual victim of Ruby.

All of these 3 charges books into her jail sentence of 40 total years in prison for a heaviest result of Reclusion Perpetua, as included with a simple fine and punishment between almost U$D2,000 and a mandatory psychological private counseling (as to be scheduled by every other weekends at the Interrogation Room by August 7th, 2021 until further notice for an eligible later parole). She is now confiscating all of her deadly weapons, as soon as a different location arrives but not on this mysterious island this time (in our possible theory).

-----

The excitement at sunrise in Season 9 is almost here, even with a post-Pandemic of CoViD19 in America. We carefully mentioned to OneNETnews from these 2 separate conventions of RWBY panel for what does the Season 9 release date happens but, it isn't ready at the moment as according to Yates. Rooster Teeth Animation is working hard to produce at these tougher times until a final version were soon to be made available to the Rooster Teeth First members.

Season 9 of RWBY commences possibly later this year in 2021 onwards.

#TravelResponsibly

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EDITOR's NOTE: As expected from your immediate feedback last Thursday afternoon (July 29th, 2021), we updatedly corrected the final grammar issues from this said news report. We frankly apologize for that, mga Ka-Bandera.

SCREENGRAB COURTESY: RTX-Virtual Animation Festival & Rooster Teeth Animation

SOURCE: *https://www.austintexas.gov/page/covid-19-risk-based-guidelines [Referenced Stage Numbers in Quarantine Classifications from the Austin Government] *https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/screens/2021-05-26/rtx-at-home-announces-animation-festival/ + https://www.awn.com/news/rtx-home-animation-festival-announces-line [Dual Reference Schedule of RWBY Panel] *https://archive.is/FS4vD [RTX at HOME - Reference Schedule] *https://roosterteeth.com/watch/rtx-2021-rwby-panel [RWBY V9 SNEAK PEEK - Skip to 31m35s for an Actual Clip] *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR7bfwwd3l0 [Comic Con at Home 2021 - RWBY Panel] *https://rwby.fandom.com/wiki/The_Final_Word and *https://rwby.fandom.com/wiki/Unnamed_Shore

EXTREMELY HONEST DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed from this Exclusive News Article are not necessarily those from the Rooster Teeth Animation. This medium-rare suspect like Neopolitan Torchwick does not be imitated in any matter. Furthermore, the assumptions of this Exclusive News Article will NOT state, intervene or reflect those of our Radyo Patrol reporters. The show, the station, the management, interwebs and the network. Thanks for reading! Stay safe and may the Celestia blesses you. Later!

-- OneNETnews Team

[chipsfics]

Part 6 1/2 - Doubles Therapy

Half of part 6! The second half is coming soon ;)

Rated: PG (for swearing and heavy themes)

~~~~

One morning, the sun rose exceptionally orange, filtering through the leaves and harsh through the windows of the hotel. Yinyang was awoken abruptly by a ray of sunshine peaking out from behind the nearby mountains and hitting him directly on the face- He blinked and wrinkled up his face. Another morning... Yang cursed under his breath and turned away from the window. Through squinted eyes, though, he saw his roommate, the Cherries, place what looked like a small brochure onto his bedside table silently. Before they could process what just happened, the Cherries were out the door. What in the...?

After a couple minutes of resting, trying to wake up- Yinyang heaved himself out of bed and stretched their arms towards the ceiling. He reached over and inspected the paper that the Cherries gave him- It read in big, blocky font:

"DOUBLES THERAPY GROUP"

Yinyang stared at it a couple seconds before sniffing and opening up the brochure. 

"Today, 3:30 PM - Hotel OJ event hall B Any and all objects who are 2 or more connected and/or merged are invited to talk about their experiences."

Yinyang read it about 4 times before they placed it back onto the table, thinking. 

"I don't... We don't need therapy." Yang growled under his breath.

"I think Cherries gave that to us just cause we're, y'know..." Yin said. "I don't think they meant any offense. And... I think we kind of do."

"You might. I'm doing fine," Yang said. Yin furrowed his brow at his other half. 

"Anyway, let's go down to the kitchen."

"Fine. But are we going to show up today?" Yin said. 

"Not if i can help it. I've got plans," Yang said. 

"Plans? That I don't know about?" Yin said, standing up off the bed.

"You don't know everything about me." Yang said.

"Yes I do," Yin continued.

"No you don't." Yang contested.

"Yes I do!" Yin exclaimed.

"No you don't." Yang stood his ground.

"We're literally fused!" Yin said, waving his hand.

"Dumbass, we've been split before," Yang said, leading them out the door and towards the elevator.

"For like 20 minutes." Yin continued, talking as they walked.

"Well you still don't know EVERYTHING." Yang said.

"Name one thing that I don't know about you." Yin said.

"I can't, cause then you'd know it and it'd defeat the purpose." Yang responded.

"That doesn't even make sense!" Ding. Yin pressed the elevator button. 

"You don't make sense," They went down and turned the corner towards the snack cabinet- Their usual route. They usually ate a chocolate chip granola bar for breakfast- Because it was just healthy enough for Yin to tolerate and just sweet enough for Yang to tolerate. When they reached up and grabbed the box, it was surprisingly light- They shook it around and there didn't seem to be anything inside of it. Yinyang sighed and threw away the cardboard box in the small trash can in the corner of the walk-in cabinet. They trudged their way out of the snack cabinet, getting even more upset. It was around 11:45- A thought hit him. He wondered if there was any coffee left in the breakfast bar.

Yin hated coffee for how unhealthy it was- plus the old, worn out coffee maker in the hotel looked so.... Dirty. The wear and tear on the machine didn't help the already skunky smell of cheap coffee that filled the air every morning. But, beggars can't be choosers, and they were already making a beeline for the breakfast bar. Yinyang scanned the room for the old coffee machine, still steaming and half-full of coffee from earlier that morning. Yinyang sleepily grabbed a mug off the rack and poured themselves a cup- As they were about to exit the other side, they paused as they saw someone they didn't recognise spreading cream cheese on a bagel. 

They were a pair of blue swimming goggles with a small orange stripe on the outside plastic- one arm on one side, and another arm on the other. There was one face on each of their glass panel "eyes"- and when they noticed Yinyang standing and staring, they awkwardly glanced over and quickly glanced back. Hurry, say something!

"Ummm... Hi." Yinyang said. "I don't believe we've met."

"Oh! Um. Hello, we're Goggles." They turned around, and the two faces spoke in unison.

"Were you on Inanimate Insanity? I don't remember competing with you." Yinyang continued.

"Umm. Cutting right to the chase, huh?" One of Goggles' faces took a bite out of the bagel and chewed while the other spoke. "Nahh, we were never on II. But we're friends with the Cherries, and they invited me to the doubles therapy circle thing going on this afternoon. We live pretty far away, and we didn't know how long it'd take to drive here. I guess we overestimated, haha... but your pal OJ said we could chill out here until the event officially starts."

"Huh... cool. Wait, you drove here?" Yinyang continued. "Its been forever since i've driven or even been in a car."

"Oh, we don't drive a car." Goggles said, and failed to elaborate.

"Really? Then what do you drive?" Yinyang said, his interest peaked.

"We drive a tandem motorcycle." Goggles said, smiling. 

"Tandem motorcycle?" Yinyang said.

"Yeah! It's like a tandem bicycle, but a motorcycle." Goggles continued.

"Huh." Yinyang said, taking a sip of their coffee (which was quickly cooling down). "By the way, we're Yinyang."

"Oh, we know. We've seen you before! On TV. Man, you were one of the funniest characters! We loved the bit about the vending machine." Goggles said, and swallowed. One of the arms passed the bagel to the other face, and they took a bite and started chewing while the other face smiled at them.

"Funny?... Bit?" Yinyang looked puzzled and a bit offended. There was a short but stuffy silence.

"Anyway, I assume you two are coming too? To the therapy circle?" Goggles continued. 

"Yes!" Yin said. "No," Yang contested. "Maybe." Yin added. 

"Well, we'd be happy to see you there!" Goggles said, and finished off their breakfast. "See ya around!" They said, walking off, seemingly in a hurry. What a weirdo. 

Yinyang sipped their coffee. The interaction made them want to go to this event even less... But somehow even more at the same time. That weird sort of curiosity. 

Yinyang took his mug into the game room, where Tissues was already sitting on the floor eating out of a box of cereal as if it were crackers, watching the tv. 

"Oh, hai guyse. I've been waiting for you!" Tissues said, and shoveled a handful of cereal into his mouth and crunched loudly. "What do you wanna play first? I think that we can make it past level 5 in Space Bubble: Galaxy Quest today." Tissues said the title of the video game in a commercial-esque voice. 

"Hmmm.. Yeah! I think so too." Yin said. "I'm gonna blast the hell out of those aliens!" Yang added.

Tissues laughed and loaded in the cartridge, handing the other controller to the two. He booted up the game, selected two-player, and started on their old routine. This was a particularly difficult game to beat- especially the platforming aspect. Neither of them were very good at it. After a couple minutes of playing, Tissues occasionally taking breaks on loading screens to eat another handful of cereal (Yinyang doing the same with his coffee), Yinyang broke the conversational hum.

"Tissues?" Yinyang said.

"Yeah?" Tissues answered, still preoccupied with his game.

"Have you ever been stuck in a situation where... where you want to do something adventurous, but you aren't sure if you should?" He said, and Tissues quickly brought his full attention back to the conversation.

"Hmm. Yeah... I usually go for staying at home. But that's just the kind of person I am," Tissues said. "Oh- Uhh, Here's a good example. When i was given the offer to join Inanimate Insanity like... a million years ago... I thought about it for a long time and I figured "why not." I.. Well, i didn't do so well in the umm. Actual show, but im glad i said yes, because i got to meet you guyse." Tissues said, setting down the controller, as they were between levels.

"Huh." Yinyang said, and smiled. "Thanks, Tissues."

"Now... let's go on to level 6," Tissues smirked, and there was a sweet, knowing silence.

Once they ran out of lives for the 3rd or 4th time, Tissues paused and heaved himself up onto the couch in order to see better, leaving the half-empty cereal box on the ground. He nuzzled oddly close to Yinyang... that or he was just sliding towards them because their weight weighed down the cushion. Either way, it was kind of nice. He was very warm. I guess it distracted him, because before he knew it, they game over'd for a 5th time.

~~~~

3:30 PM. Yinyang walked past the pale orange double doors of event hall A and stood silently in front of event hall B, thoughts racing. Should they? Shouldn't they? Their two halves started to blend together, to the point where it was kind of disorienting. Yinyang took a deep breath. Maybe just for a little while? He thought on what Tissues had told him earlier that day- Adventure, new opportunities. Who knows, they might even learn something. 

What's the worst that could happen?

Yinyang pushed open the double doors and leaned in, the medium sized event room mostly vacant except for the aforementioned Goggles character, the Cherries, and one other object- What appeared to be a traffic light with 3 faces, one on each of the different colors. He was attempting to stay quiet- But Goggles spotted him and waved, causing the other objects' attention to be directed on him.

"Yinyang! You made it." Goggles' two faces said in perfect unison. "We were starting to think you wouldn't show."

"Welcome, welcome!" The green face on the traffic light said. 

"Take a seat, I guess." The yellow face on the traffic light suddenly dinged on and spoke. 

Yinyang sighed and walked through the door, taking a seat on one of the folding chairs they'd set up.

"Alright. Now that everyone's here, should we start?" one of the Cherries spoke up. Everyone looked around and nodded a sort of awkward universal agreement, and the speaking cherry clapped their hands together. 

"Alright! We should go around the room and introduce ourselves, and explain a bit about ourselves. We'll go first." The Cherries smiled. "We're Cherries, and we're twins connected by a stem. We think exactly alike, although Right Cherries handles creative tasks, while I, Left Cherries, handles logical tasks." The Cherries elaborated, the right cherry nodding along to what the left cherry was saying.  "Alright, you next, Goggles!" 

"We're Goggles," Goggles said in perfect unison. "We share the same mind. Sometimes we talk seperately and bounce ideas off each other or tell each other jokes, but most of the time we're in perfect sync. Alright, you next, Traffic Light!" 

The green traffic light dinged on. "We're traffic light! I'm Green, and I'm happy and positive." The yellow traffic light dinged on. "I'm uhh.. I'm Yellow, and I'm indifferent or whatever." The red traffic light dinged on. "I'M RED AND I'M WAY BETTER THAN THOSE OTHER TWO IDIOTS!"

Yinyang chuckled. "Yknow, he kind of reminds me of you, Yang." Yin thought. "Shut up," Yang glared at his other half. 

Cherries sighed. "Alright, you next Yinyang!"

"SHUT UP!" The red traffic light shouted.

"See?" Yin thought, and Yang huffed. After a short silence, Yinyang realized that everyone was staring at him. 

"Oh. Umm. I'm Yin, and he's Yang." Yin said. "I'm good and pure, and he's.... well, he's passionate. We don't always get along, but we need each other. We're two halves of the same whole." Yang didn't feel like arguing with that, because as much as he disliked himself, it was true. 

"Something me and Yinyang have in common was that we were both on Inanimate Insanity season 2," The cherries spoke up. "It was... A little traumatizing. I think i speak for the both of us," The Cherries laughed. "But i had fun while it lasted!" 

"It was weird to have our... whole thing broadcast on live TV like that. It felt like they were making fun of us," Yinyang said. "And when we split... It was really stressful." Yin said. "Well, I thought it was fun. But yeah..." Yang continued.

"I know what it's like to have people make fun of you," The Goggles spoke up.

The yellow traffic light sighed. "Us too, especially Green and Red." 

"Mm. I think we've all been there," The Cherries said, paused, and then perked up when they thought of something. "Wait, Goggles, have you ever been on a bus, or in a movie theater, and you couldn't find two seats for the both of you?" 

"All the time!" Goggles gasped. "Wait, on a similar topic- Have you ever been separated from each other somehow?"

The Cherries looked a bit uncomfortable. "Yes, once... It was kind of scary." Cherries said. "We felt... incomplete. After a little while Right Cherries started to-" The Left Cherry shuddered. "Decompose? I dunno. Disconnected from the stem, they just started rotting. It was really freaky!"

"Woah. That sounds rough." Goggles said. "Our bond is pretty strong, but one time we snapped in two. It was kind of like stapling our brain in half? Unfortunately we died like 2 minutes later, and it was a huge relief once we were recovered and still connected."

"Thats heavy. I think Yinyang can understand, too." The Cherries looked over at the two.

"Oh. Well, yeah... It was. Stressful is all I can say... I just felt incomplete." Yin said. "I could have made it on my own." Yang was completely deadpan. 

The two got really quiet. After that, they kind of tuned out the conversation. They were sitting in the metal chair, weirdly uncomfortable, in a dizzy thought jumble that made them feel like their brain was being scrambled. The other objects' voices got really muffled and far away- and it was hard to form a coherent thought. Some kind of all-consuming bad feeling. Like a shadow suddenly cast over them. What was this feeling?

Yinyang snapped back to reality when he was touched gently on the shoulder by Goggles' right side- He yelped and grabbed their wrist and squeezed it, hard. Once he realized what he'd done, he jumped back and apologized profusely.

"Oww, What the hell?!" The Goggles said, slightly out of sync. "What's wrong with you, man! The session is over. Traffic Light and Cherries are already gone,"

"Oh god, I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me." Yin said, "Don't touch me." Yang growled. 

The Goggles sighed. "Ugh... Just... Man... You've been quiet the entire session. Is something wrong?"

"I don't..." Yinyang clenched his teeth, hard. "I just... I.... I'm... We're.." He opened and closed his fists.

"Whatever. Just don't do it again, ok? Jesus." The Goggles got up and put away their chair. 

Once he was sure that he was alone again, Yinyang cried in the empty event hall until he didn't feel like someone anymore. What was happening to him? How did it get this bad so fast?

~~~~

[terramythos]

TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 10 of 26

Title: The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) 

Author: Oscar Wilde 

Genre/Tags: Fiction, Gothic Horror, Third-Person, LGBT Protagonist (I... guess) 

Rating: 8/10

Date Began: 4/13/2021

Date Finished: 4/20/2021 

When artist Basil Hallward paints a picture of the beautiful and innocent Dorian Gray, he believes he’s created his masterpiece. Seeing himself on the canvas, Dorian wishes to remain forever young and beautiful while the portrait ages in his stead. The bargain comes true. While Dorian grows older and descends a path of hedonism and moral corruption, his portrait changes to reflect his true nature while his physical body remains eternally youthful. As his debauchery grows worse, and the portrait warps to reflect his corruption, Dorian’s past begins to catch up to him. 

Perhaps one never seems so much at one’s ease as when one has to play a part. Certainly no one looking at Dorian Gray that night could have believed that he had passed through a tragedy as horrible as any tragedy of our age. Those finely-shaped fingers could never have clutched a knife for sin, nor those smiling lips have cried out on God and goodness. He himself could not help wondering at the calm of his demeanour, and for a moment felt keenly the terrible pleasure of a double life. 

Full review, some spoilers, and content warnings under the cut. 

Content warnings for the book: Misogyny (mostly satirical). Racism and antisemitism (not so much). Emotional manipulation, blackmail, suicide, graphic murder, and death. Recreational drug use.

Reviewing a classic novel through a modern lens is always going to be a challenge for me. The world seems to change a lot every decade, let alone every century—whether some canonized classic holds up today is pretty hit or miss (sorry, English degree). And considering the sheer amount of academic focus on classic texts, it’s not like I’m going to have a “fresh take” on one for a casual review. I read and reviewed The Count of Monte Cristo last year, and thought it aged remarkably well over 170+ years.

Somehow I never read Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray for school. I tried reading it independently in my late teens/early twenties, and honestly think I was just too stupid for it. Needing a shorter read before the next Murderbot book releases at the end of the month, I grabbed Dorian Gray off the shelf and decided to give it another shot. By the end, I was pleasantly surprised how much I liked the book.

I’m actually going to discuss my pain points before I get into what worked for me. The first half of the book is very slow-paced. The Picture of Dorian Gray is famous for… well… the picture. But it isn’t relevant until the halfway point of the novel, when Dorian does something truly reprehensible and finds his image in the picture has changed. There’s a lot of setup before this discovery. The first half of the book has a lot of fluff, with characters talking about stuff that happened off screen, discussing various philosophies, and so on without progressing the story. Some of this is fine, as it establishes Dorian’s initial character so the contrast later is all the more striking. I just think it could have been shorter. I realize this comes down to personal taste.

I’m also torn on the Wilde’s writing style. He’s very clever, and there are many philosophical ideas in his writing that did genuinely made me stop and think. The prose is also beautiful and descriptive; this is especially useful when it contrasts the horror elements of the story. However, there’s a lot of unnatural, long monologue in the story. Not sure if it’s the time period, Wilde’s background as a playwright, or just his writing style in general (maybe all three), but the characters ramble a LOT. My favorite game was trying to imagine how other characters were reacting to a literal wall of text. 

I also feel the need to mention this book has some bigoted content, as implied in my content warnings. The misogyny in the story is satirical; it’s spouted by the biggest tool in the book, Lord Henry, whose whole shtick is being paradoxical. You just need basic critical thought to figure that out. However, some things don’t have that excuse. A minor character in the first half is an obvious anti-Semitic caricature. There’s also some pretty racist content, particularly when Wilde describes Gray’s musical instrument collection. While these are small parts of the book, it’d be disingenuous not to acknowledge them.

All that being said, there were many aspects of the book I enjoyed, particularly in the second half. Wilde does a great job characterizing terrible people who fully believe what they say. Lord Henry is an obvious example, and Dorian follows his lead as the story progresses. One of my favorite bits was after Sibyl’s suicide (which Dorian instigated by being a piece of shit). Dorian is initially shocked, but as he and Lord Henry discuss it, they come to the conclusion that her suicide was a good thing because it had thematic merit. It’s just such a brazen, horrible way to alleviate one’s guilt. 

Dorian also goes to significant lengths to justify his actions. At one point, he murders Basil to keep the portrait a secret. While he briefly feels guilty about this, Dorian grows angry at the inconvenience of having killed this man, supposedly an old friend. He even separates himself from the situation, expressing that Basil died in such a horrible way. Bro, you killed him! It was you! The cognitive dissonance is just stunning. 

It’s also viscerally satisfying to read about Dorian’s downfall as his awful choices catch up to him. Dorian becoming tormented by the portrait is just... *chef’s kiss*. Is it surprising? No, it’s pretty standard Gothic horror fare. But there’s something to be said about seeing a genuinely horrible man finally pay for what he’s done after getting away with it for so long. I wish real life worked that way. 

There’s the picture itself, too. I know it’s The Thing most people know about this novel -- but I just think it’s a cool concept. I like the idea of someone’s likeness reflecting their true self, and the psychological effect it has on the subject. Most of the novel is fiction with realistic horror elements, but I like that there’s a touch of the supernatural thanks to Dorian’s picture. It’s an element I wouldn’t mind seeing in more works. 

It's sad to read Dorian Gray with the context of what happened to Wilde. The homoeroticism in the novel is obvious, but tame compared to works today. Wilde and this book are a depressing case study in how queer people are simultaneously erased and reviled in recent history. Wilde was tortured for his homosexuality (and died from resulting health complications) over 100 years ago, yet the 1994 edition of Dorian Gray I read refers to his real homosexual relationship as a "close friendship". It's an infuriating and tragic paradox. Things have improved by inches, but we still have so far to go.  

As I grow older I find I appreciate classic works more than when I was forced to read them for school. The Picture of Dorian Gray is a gripping Gothic horror story. Some aspects didn't age particularly well, but that's true for almost anything over time. If you're in the market for this kind of book, I do recommend it.  

[gstqaobc]

CBC THE ROYAL FASCINATOR

Friday, November 20, 2020

Hello, royal watchers and all those intrigued by what’s going on inside the House of Windsor. This is your biweekly dose of royal news and analysis. Reading this online? Sign up here to get this delivered to your inbox.

Janet DavisonRoyal Expert Fact, fiction and The Crown

The last time Arthur Edwards took a photo of Prince Charles with Lord Louis Mountbatten, the heir to the throne had his arm around his great uncle. Similarly, Mountbatten had his arm around his great-nephew. They both seemed to be in fine form that day, not too long before Mountbatten lost his life to an IRA bomb in the summer of 1979 off the coast of Ireland. "They were laughing together," Edwards, the longtime royal photographer for the Sun newspaper, recalled over the phone from the U.K. this week. The recollection came to mind as controversy swirls over the newly released Season 4 of the Netflix drama The Crown. The show takes viewers into the reign of Queen Elizabeth, with the latest season moving the action into the 1980s. In the first episode, Mountbatten is seen just before his assassination writing a letter to Charles saying he could bring "ruin and disappointment" on the Royal Family with his pursuit of Camilla Parker Bowles, who in real life is now Charles's wife but at that time was married to someone else. There's no evidence — again, in real life — that such a letter was ever written or that Charles and Mountbatten quarrelled before he was killed. It's just one of many moments in the latest season that have set off debate over how fact meets fiction in the award-winning drama created by Peter Morgan. "Many people will think it's the truth ... but it's not," said Edwards, who snapped his first photo of Charles feeding sugar to his polo ponies in the mid-1970s, just after he'd left the Royal Navy. "Much of it … comes out of a scriptwriter's brain, which I can understand because … it's drama.” What bothers Edwards, he said, is the portrayal of Charles. "I've worked with him now for over 40 years, and I don't recognize that man in it." And therein lies a challenge of turning history into drama. "Certainly, in every season [of The Crown], there's a blend of fact and fiction, but it stands out in Season 4 because we are getting closer to the present day," said Toronto-based royal historian and author Carolyn Harris. Because so many in the audience will have their own memories of how what is portrayed in Season 4 turned out in real life — how Charles's marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales, collapsed in spectacular fashion, for example — there is perhaps further potential for the controversy now swirling. "It's always a challenge with historical fiction that the people who are being portrayed do not know what's going to happen next, but the audience ... does," said Harris. In some instances, the episodes present events that played out in the public eye and reflect the historical record. "An example is that engagement interview where Prince Charles famously said, 'whatever in love means,'" said Harris. But there are many other examples of events being fictionalized or put together to create a narrative. Take Michael Fagan's break-in at Buckingham Palace, a focus of Episode 5. That actually happened, in 1982. He breached security and made it to the Queen's bedroom, where he spoke to her. "But Michael Fagan describes it as a very brief conversation before he was arrested, whereas for the purposes of the series, he has a more extended dialogue about [Prime Minister] Margaret Thatcher's politics in order to tie this event to the series's critique of political developments while [she] was prime minister," said Harris.

CBC Archives: The leadership fracas that forced Margaret Thatcher from power

Edwards worries, however, that people will believe The Crown's version of what happened when Fagan broke into the palace that night, which isn’t true, with its portrayal of a longer chat with the Queen. "That's what really irritates me," he said. And he remains troubled by the thought that the portrayal of Charles, pilloried for a bad marriage, doesn't reflect the driven and hard-working man he has seen up close, whether he is visiting and offering support to schoolgirls in northern Nigeria or the Jewish community in Krakow, Poland. "You won't see that on Netflix." Edwards went with Charles when he returned in 2015 to the site of Mountbatten's assassination. "I watched him … and he was remembering it." As aware as Edwards is of The Crown, he has stopped watching it.   "You've got to remember it's drama; it's not necessarily the whole truth."

Just let loose and dance Peter Morgan may be the creative mind behind The Crown, but in the current season, at least one moment playing out on the small screen came straight from the actor. At one point, Diana — played by Emma Corrin — dances by herself with wild abandon inside a very well-appointed room at Buckingham Palace — or in this case, a stately home filling the role of the palace where Diana went to live after her engagement to Prince Charles was announced in 1981. "It was one of my favourite scenes to film," Corrin said in a recent interview with the Royal Fascinator. "I loved it because they wanted to choreograph it, and I said, 'Do you mind if we don't ... I don't think we can choreograph a moment like that. I'd love to just let loose and dance.'" So she did, and she chose the song that was blasting over the speakers during filming, a bit of musical time travel to 1998, and Cher's Believe. Corrin's love for the song dates back a few years. "There's a theatre company in Britain called DV8, and they do this show called The Cost of Living, and there's an amazing dance scene," she said. "A guy does this dance to Cher's  … Believe…. It's like the truest form of expression I've seen." In Corrin's research for the role, she was surprised to learn how important dance was for Diana. "It was quite a private thing," said Corrin. "You see her dancing and what that does, how that is such a mode of expression and release, and I thought that was really interesting."

Looking ahead — and looking back

Every so often over the past few years, there have been rumblings about whether Queen Elizabeth, now 94, might step aside from her role as she gets older. And as soon as those rumblings emerge, other royal observers are quick to note how that is unlikely for a variety of reasons, including the dark shadow cast by her uncle's abdication as King Edward VIII in 1936, her deep devotion to duty and how she has always considered her role as one for life. So it wasn't too surprising to see that scenario play out again in recent days when one royal biographer suggested Elizabeth might "step down" when she turns 95 next April. But soon after, there was also a very strong signal from Buckingham Palace about looking ahead in her reign. The first plans were announced for celebrations in 2022 to mark her Platinum Jubilee, or 70 years on the throne. It would be an unprecedented milestone — no British monarch has reigned as long as she has. In the United Kingdom, it will culminate in a four-day bank holiday weekend in early June. Oliver Dowden, the British culture secretary, said it would be a "truly historic moment" worthy of a "celebration to remember," the BBC reported.

Royally quotable

"Let us reflect on all that we have been through together and all that we have learned. Let us remember all victims of war, tyranny and persecution; those who laid down their lives for the freedoms we cherish; and those who struggle for these freedoms to this day."

— Prince Charles,

during a visit to Germany

to attend events commemorating its national day of mourning, which focused on British-German relations this year.

Royals in Canada

While members of the Royal Family have made numerous trips to Canada over the years, The Crown hasn't turned its dramatic attention to them yet, even though the show has featured several foreign visits.

"It's a shame," said royal historian Harris, because during Queen Elizabeth's reign, "there have been some very interesting Canadian tours."

Sure, there's been a brief glimpse of a Canadian flag at a table during a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting portrayed in The Crown.

"But we don't see Canada assuming a prominent role, whereas the series has had at least three tours of Australia," Harris said.

One episode in the current Season 4 focuses on Charles and Diana's 1983 trip Down Under. Shortly after that visit, Charles and Diana came to Canada. Had that been portrayed in The Crown, it would have backed up a developing theme, Harris said.

During the visit, Diana celebrated her 22nd birthday on Canada Day.

"There's press footage of Canadians giving Charles birthday cards to give to Diana, and a scene like that would have supported the theme of that episode of Charles feeling overshadowed by Diana," said Harris.

Edwards, the Sun photographer, was along for that trip, and has been to Canada about 15 times with members of the Royal Family.

The 1983 trip lasted 17 days and was "fantastic," he said. "It was just brilliant. I can recall it like it was yesterday. We criss-crossed the country."

During the opening of the World University Games in Edmonton on July 1, the crowd sang Happy Birthday to Diana.

"The whole crowd. It was phenomenal," said Edwards.

Harris sees potential plotting for future seasons of The Crown possibly playing into how the series has portrayed foreign visits so far.

"We see a stronger Australia focus, and it's certainly possible that the 1999 Australian referendum [on the monarchy] may come up in a subsequent season so some of this may be building towards that.

"But definitely in terms of the Commonwealth, certain nations are emphasized more than others in the series."

Royal reads

1. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip

celebrated their 73rd wedding anniversary today

, and a photo was released of them reading a card from their great-grandchildren. [CBC]

2. In a rare statement, Prince William has said he

welcomes an investigation by the BBC

into circumstances around the controversial Panorama interview his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, gave to Martin Bashir in 1995. [CBC]

3. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex,

did authorize a friend to talk to the authors of Finding Freedom

, a biography of her and Prince Harry that was published his summer, court papers say. [ITV]

Cheers!

I’m always happy to hear from you. Send your ideas, comments, feedback and notes to

royalfascinator@cbc.ca

. Problems with the newsletter? Please let me know about any typos, errors or glitches.

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦🇬🇧🇦🇺🇳🇿

[satoshi-mochida]

Tobyfox has provided a status update on the second chapter and beyond of Undertale sequel Deltarune in celebration of Undertale‘s fifth anniversary today.

First, here are the latest screenshots from Deltarune‘s second chapter:

Get the full update below.

Introduction

Hi everyone.

If you’re reading this, you must have been sticking around for about five years.*

I want to express my gratitude for everyone that has supported and encouraged me over this time.

Thank you.

I’ve said it many many times before, but I didn’t expect the simple game I made to receive so much attention. Because of that, many interesting things have happened, and now I can even spend my time making another game.

It seems both of us received a lot of happiness from this occurrence.

If it’s okay, I would like to keep striving to do things that make both of us happy.

Let me know what you think about that.

*Since the Undertale demo released in 2013, the game has really existed for 7 years. It’s already been more than 25% of my life…

Deltarune

I will make another.

I am making a game called “Deltarune.” It is the second game in the Undertale series.

The game will be released in many “Chapters,” the first of which I released two years ago on Halloween. Since that time, I’ve been working hard to figure out the rest of the game.

However, it’s a game that’s much harder to make than Undertale.

Graphics are more complicated and several times more involved.

Systems are more complicated.

Exposes the weak points of my creative and artistic ability.

Plot is much harder to tie together (more characters, more important locations).

Significantly more content than Undertale in one playthrough (especially cutscenes).

I have only made one game ever.

Unlike Undertale, this is the type of game that would normally have many designers working on each aspect of the game.

A story writer, a composer, an audio director, a map designer, a battle designer, a minigame designer, and an overall director. Instead, all of those roles end up handled by me.

The good news is that a few months ago, I completed a significant milestone regarding the game’s design. I completed readable outlines for every chapter in the game, including first-pass dialogue for almost all the cutscenes, examples of the music, etc.

Although certain details are still hazy, the flow of the game and all major events and battles that take place are now clear.

In summary, I largely spent the past two years writing, composing, designing, and drawing. However, that’s not the whole story.

We had actually attempted to develop the game since the time too. Development started around March 2019 and a 99% work was spent on investigating engines alternate to GameMaker, which I used for Chapter 1.

Without getting into the details, I decided a few months ago to go back to GameMaker after all. It still felt like the best fit for the project. So using Chapter 1 as a base, we’ve started creating Chapter 2 since May 2020.

A lot of progress has been made since that time. I believe we can complete this chapter, content-wise, before the end of the year (not accounting for translation, bugtesting, and porting).

I feel very confident. And the strange thing is, even though we ended up using the original engine, I don’t regret the lost time, either. Not only was I still busy designing the game, but during that long period, I was able to think of many ideas that make the game’s story and characters better.

I’m glad that I’m making the Deltarune that I have now and that we are making healthy progress.

Deltarune Status Estimate

■ Chapter 2 (04.15.20 – 08.13.20)

Phase 1: Design

Main Design: 100% (dialogue, etc.)

Initial Setup: 100% (stuff involved setting up people to make the game, adding debug tools, documentation, etc.)

Phase 2: Implementation (05.01.20 ~ 08.13.20)

Art: 90%

Cutscenes: 80% (90% are started, needs 2nd pass)

Bullet Patterns: 70% (enemies are mostly completed, bosses are about 40% done, needs 2nd pass)

Non-Bullet Battle Elements: 30% (Some ACTs are done and enemies are fightable, but interactive ACTs need to be completed and polished and the bosses aren’t programmed outside of bullet patterns)

Audio: 80%

Maps: ??% most are started or placeholder, most need 2nd pass. NPC interactions are completed in all spots where written.

Other: 65%

Phase 3: Finishing

Balancing: 0%

Bugfixing: 0%

Translation: 0%

Porting: 0%

(Honestly, a lot of stuff FEELS like 80% to me, but the truth is that what’s there is quite rough now. Polish ends up taking a lot of time, so the real actual time value may be around 50% done…? We’ll see what happens. It’ll be a lesson for everybody.)

■ Chapters 3 and Beyond

Phase 1: Design

Story and General Game Progression (first-pass): 100%

Cutscene Dialogue (first-pass, lacking cutscene instructions): 95%

Map Design (textual): 70% (varies per chapter, earlier chapters totally completed)

Map Design (drawn): 0% (this takes a lot of wrist energy so I don’t do it until we start programming)

Enemy Design (conceptual): 90% (all bosses are known)

Enemy Design (bullets / visual): 80% (varies per chapter, earlier chapters totally completed)

Music (concept): 95%

Music (completed): 50%

Visual Design:BG Concept (first-pass): 75%, Important Character, Bosses (first-pass): 100%

Phase 2

Sprite Art: 20%?

Other Content Creation: 0%

Phase 3

Release Readiness: 0%

(These numbers can be somewhat deceptive though. My true design style is to reach the moment where we have to make something, then suddenly think of something different at the last minute. This is always how it’s been with me and my work. It feels like no matter how much I plan, everything comes down to what I think of at the last second…)

Team and Disability

You may have noticed from my phrasing, but yes, there is a team helping me create the game. Other than me, there are about three active team members working day-to-day, with a few other people pitching in from time to time.

Their roles of the main members are overall content implementation and organization, bullet pattern implementation (part-time), and art (Temmie). Other than designing, I still have the role of system programmer.

I’m extremely grateful to have a team helping me carry out my design especially because of my disabilities, which have also made development more difficult.

Although I have long suffered from wrist and hand pain, about five months ago my wrist was the worst it’s ever been. I could not play the piano, use the mouse, and barely could use the keyboard. I navigated everything through voice to text.

Through weightlifting, exercise, and various equipment I have been able to somewhat increase the stamina of my wrist to an extent. Various solutions have included trackball mice for each hand, using voice to text whenever possible, using a foot pedal to click the mouse, etc.

Now I can use the mouse and keyboard for a certain amount each day provided I take frequent breaks. I wish I could work without stopping. Once the world situation improves I would really like to take physical therapy again and/or investigate surgery to repair my wrist.

Future Plans

Once we finish Chapter 2, I would like to use it as the base to create future chapters from. After gaining experience from this chapter, I think making future chapters will be easier.

Part of me wonders if we could make the game faster if we increased the size of the team and did something insane like create multiple chapters in parallel. However, another part of me understands that, adding more people doesn’t guarantee that the game will be created faster if it’s not done properly. I’m already just barely avoiding becoming a bottleneck on development even with a team of this size, due to my physical limitations.

To that end, I am interested in making a list of people that could potentially help me make the game. I’m not 100% sure if I’m going to ask anyone to help, but I think if I could find just 1 person that works well with me, it’s worth asking.

Chapter 2 is proceeding at a good pace, so if we do take anyone on, it will probably only be for Chapter 3 onward. So please understand that anything you send in may not have an immediate result.

People I Am Looking For

Feel free to send in your portfolio if you have the following qualifications:

Worked in the game industry before

Worked under NDA before

Have professional references

A degree of creativity while also being okay with just following directions

Fluent in English

People I Might Actually Use

Music Transcription / Basic Arrangement (Part-Time)

I usually start making songs by playing the piano and singing. An important step after this is to take this basic outline and transcribe it into melodies and chords. Though there are not too many remaining songs to transcribe, it would still help my wrist to have someone else start this process for me. Although I know many musicians, I’m sheepish to ask for help to them, because the main role is actually just to help me compose my own music…

Helpful qualities:

Good at transcription.

Can stand listening to me sing.

Optional: can use an old version of Fruity Loops.

Bullet Pattern Programming (Part-Time)

I’m looking for someone to help me program bullet patterns into the game. These people will work from text and visual designs to create fun battles that match the feeling of the game. I already have one person helping with this, but I think a second person would help a lot. You have to be able to use Gamemaker Studio 2 to manipulate objects on the screen / okay with using pre-existing scripts to accomplish this.

Helpful qualities:

Sense of fun and understanding of player perspective and gameplay balance. This aspect is [many times] more important than programming ability.

Reliable.

Able to make patterns based off of visual/text instructions.

Fine working with a poorly made battle system.

Able to sprite bullets.

Good visual / timing sense.

Minigame Programming (Part-Time)

There are a few minigames and small interactive events in the game, which appear in and outside of battles. These could take any kind of form… who knows what I’m thinking! Have you made a game before?

Helpful qualities:

Same sense of humor as me.

Some level of spriting ability is useful.

You have to have made a game that is fun.

Ability to work together with me.

Unlikely to Hire, But Send Me Your Information Just In Case

Cutscene Programming (Part-Time)

Besides the battles, the largest amount of content in the game is definitely the cut scenes. You will have to understand Gamemaker Studio 2, but the majority of the work is simply using a scripting system that I created to make characters move around the screen. The most important quality you can have here is not programming ability but the ability to efficiently use the system in order to create scenes with a good sense of humor, timing, and emotion.

I’d strongly prefer to hire someone I know to do this because it involves the story. So I most likely won’t hire anyone else.

Helpful qualities:

Can take text instructions and impart a proper sense of timing, humor, and weight to them.

Fine working with a custom scripting system (or smart enough to make something better that makes the game easier to make).

Art (Part-Time)

Sprite art—Temmie has already drawn a massive amount of art for the game, and continues to do so. And I actually already have a few other artists that have helped me that I’m more than happy to keep working with if things become more overwhelming. So currently I actually don’t need any more artists.

However, personally, I’d really like to build up a portfolio of available pixel artists and even concept artists. It’s not as if this is the only game I will make during my life. Anyone chosen for this game needs to be able to match the style of the game, but I’m interested in seeing people with different styles as well. Knowing that I have different options can open my mind up to different creative pathways.

Helpful qualities:

Can take bad looking sketches and turn them into art that looks good (magic).

Don’t mind if your work gets completely drawn over or thrown out.

Anyone that can draw cute or cool poses is good.

Uninterested in seeing people that have an art style outside of the scope of the game.

Write (Full-Time)

Someone needs to transform into a new wrist for me.

Helpful qualities:

Flexible.

Doesn’t hurt.

Musical sense.

That’s everyone I’m looking for. The only other kind of person I might hire would be a single jack-of-all-trades type that can do any sort of things such as cutscenes, bullets, or even system programming, with a good degree of visual flair. (But if you can do those sorts of things, aren’t you busy making your own game already!?)

Anyway, I’ll show you the e-mail now. Just make sure you read these rules first:

Don’t send in e-mails about anything else!

Don’t send to other team members, Fangamer, etc. about helping out!

Got it? Then please send your information to this e-mail address:

deltarunejobs@fangamer.com

Since Fangamer will be sorting through the e-mails for me, we’ll stop taking e-mails at the end of September so they don’t get overwhelmed. Ultimately, I’m only looking for one or two people, and to make a list of the rest of the potentially helpful people in the world.

Undertale is available now for PlayStation 4, Switch, PS Vita, and PC via Steam and GOG. Deltarune Chapter 1 is availble for PlayStation 4, Switch, and PC via Deltarune.com.

[marvels-writings]

I love your writing so much (soft spot for your carol x reader fics). Can you please write for carol x reader where they’re both bffs that act so much like a couple and are affectionate cuz both are too scared to admit their feelings so they settle for that. Examples (carol resting her hand on reader’s thigh while driving / holding hands / cuddling in the cinema/ CAROL GIVES HER CHEEK KISSES) all of which makes them nervous and giddy inside. Please let it end with carol admitting her feelings Xx

A/N: Aww thanks. I might have made this a bit long, maybe with two parts, we’ll see (i always say something like this but it ends up being a mini series bc i never know until i finish writing). Anyway, here!:

“Carol you ready to go?” You asked, poking your head in her room as she picked up her jacket, grinning at you.

You were wearing your fav/color short sleeved t-shirt with navy ripped jeans and black converse. You’d decided against taking a jacket since you couldn’t decide. Carol wore an army green sweatshirt, black leggings and black pumas. 

You’d both made plans to see the new movie, Knives Out. Well it wasn’t new, you just wanted to see it in a cinema where there won’t be too many people. Since it had been out for a few months, there won’t be too many people.

“Yeah, let’s go!” She replied excitedly, heading out the door with you.

You had wanted to go to the movies for a month now, but wanted your best friend, Carol to come with you. It was about time she caught up with pop culture, plus, though you’d never admit it, you liked her. You wanted her to be your girlfriend, but you were scared she didn’t feel the same. As cliche as it was, this was the current predicament you were in. You didn’t want to lose your friendship, so you just stuck with what you had. 

“y/n/n, stop daydreaming, let’s go!” Carol joked when she realized you weren’t paying attention to anything really. In fact, you’d walked past the car the two of you were supposed to go in. You chuckled slightly and got in. 

Carol drove off towards the cinema, switching on the radio instantly. A favorite song of yours and Carol’s came on the instant you switched the radio on. You turned to see Carol grinning her usual contagious grin, you couldn’t help but grin back at her. The rest of the ride was filled with the two of you belting out the lyrics to your favorite songs.

What you had was pretty great, you would do anything to keep it. Even if it meant hiding your feelings from your best friend.

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

For some reason, Carol was being overly affectionate today. The two of you were usually affectionate to the point where many people thought you were dating. Oh how you wish you were, but that was just the nature of your friendship.

Today however, Carol was touching you almost all the time. As soon as you got out of the car, she was holding your hand as you walked to the cashier to buy tickets. It wasn’t that you didn’t like being this affectionate with Carol, it just hurts knowing it might never be anything more than platonic. 

“Two tickets please.” You said, sliding a 20 dollar bill into the small slot. The cashier’s eyes flicked over you and carol. Then regarded the two of you holding hands. You could feel your cheeks start to burn slightly. 

“There’s a discount and a free snack for couples,” He said, bored as he cashed your money in. 

“Oh, uh no, We are-” You stuttered out, but Carol cut you off.

“Thank you, that would be amazing,” Carol said smoothly, stepping next to you, sliding her hand around your waist. Your cheeks were burning even more. “Right babe?” She asked you, grinning down at your flustered expression.

“Ye, yeah,” You muttered, the cashier handed the two of you your tickets and you headed inside. 

Once you were inside, you expected Carol to take her arm from around your waist, but she didn’t. Instead, she walked with you to the snack stand and cashed in the free coupon. She got a small bucket of butter popcorn and held it in her free hand, one arm still wrapped around your waist. It gave her a good excuse to be more affectionate with you. It made your heart do acrobatics which could qualify for the olympics. 

You reached out the hand which wasn’t smushed against Carol’s side to grab some popcorn as you headed into the theater. She unwrapped her hand from your waist to lightly smack the offending hand. You looked up at her confusedly. 

“My popcorn,” She teased, then promptly reached a hand inside the bucket to eat some. You glared at her as she scooped popcorn into her mouth as she giggled at your behaviour. 

You shake your head from side to side and headed towards the back of the theater for the best seats. You and Carol sat next to each other as the previews played before the movie. You pulled your phone out of your back pocket to text Natasha, who knew of your current… predicament. 

That was until Carol snatched the phone out of your hands. You opened your mouth in shock and turned to glare at her as she put the phone in her back pocket. 

“Phone’s away,’ She teased with a cocky smirk on her face. 

“No popcorn, no phone?” You pouted, crossing your arms in front of your chest and glared at the screen in front of you. 

Carol laughed at your cute behaviour, muttering cute under her breath. She placed the popcorn precariously on the edge of the armrest, after making sure it was stable she tapped your shoulder.

“You can have the popcorn if you want,” She offered, once you reached your hand in the bucket and had happily shoveled popcorn into your mouth she added, “babe,”

You choked instantly, popcorn going into your windpipe as you coughed. Carol didn’t expect this much of a reaction, but it was even more hilarious. She was laughing her head off as you were practically dying of popcorn. The little people around you were staring at the two of you.

“People are staring,” Carol said through laughter, rubbing your back slightly in an effort to help you. 

“And whose,” You coughed again, “Whose fault is that?” You snapped, finally swallowing the rest of the popcorn. 

Carol kept laughing as you reached into the bucket for more. The movie began and the popcorn was already empty. Carol put the bucket on the empty seat beside her as you put your hand on the armrest. She gently placed her hand on top of yours. 

You were slightly surprised at the sudden action, but you decided you were okay with it as you intertwined your fingers together. Maybe the movie wouldn’t be too bad, even if you almost died. 

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

The movie theater was starting to get strangely cold, you were starting to shiver almost, maybe the outfit you were wasn’t the best idea. Carol noticed you shivering and debated on what to do, deciding after a particularly violent shiver. 

“Come here,” She said softly, pulling your hand gently towards her. You looked at her confused, before you realized what she meant. She wanted to cuddle while watching, in a cinema hall. You debated your decision, eventually deciding cuddling with her was better than catching a cold. 

“Fine,” You grumbled, lifting up the armrest dividing the seats and scooting over to her. 

She wrapped the hand which was holding yours around your shoulders, she still managed to hold your hand somehow. She was practically a heater, you couldn’t help but snuggle into her further. Your free hand went to wrap around her waist. You felt her tense up slightly, you were about to back off before she leaned backwards slightly, trapping your hand there. Carol’s body heat helped warm you drastically. Your shivering had stopped and you felt warm, in both ways. It felt so comforting to be this close to Carol, but your anxiety quickly came into play. Worry of rejection started to consume you, you almost pulled away, until carol gently started to stroke the knuckles on your hand. 

 Deciding your anxiety could wait, you scooted even closer to carol and decided to treasure the moment while it lasted. You fell asleep quickly, warm and comfortable. 

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

When you woke up, you weren’t in the cinema. You were a bit chilly, there was cold air on your face but a spot right above your knee was warm. Feeling the fabric underneath you, you realized you were in your car. What the hell? You thought, groggily opening your eyes and looking around. Carol was driving, the two of you were almost at the compound, her hand was on your knee. Butterflies in your stomach was one of the first things you felt after waking up. 

“How, Carol did you carry me to the car?” You asked, she looked at you and smirked before returning her gaze to the road which winded into the compound. 

“I didn’t want to wake you,” She said, pulling up in the usual parking spot. 

“Yet you have no problem waking me up at 4 when you want to train,” You joked. 

Carol grinned and laughed while looking at you. You couldn’t help but grin back, even if there were butterflies in your stomach at her smile. The main reason you were cracking so many jokes was to see her smile. 

Carol pulled her hand from your thigh and got out of the car, closing the door behind her. You opened your door, but Carol was already on your side of the car, pulling it open for you. You raised an eyebrow at the action, but got out anyway. Before Carol closed the door, she leaned in and kissed your cheek. 

The amount of reactions your body had to that quick action was hard to count. Heart palpitations, butterflies, face heating up, you were almost sure you were about to have a heart attack. 

“Sorry about that” She whispered against your cheek, then pulled away. Closing the door with a cocky smirk. 

“It, it’s fine, don’t worry about it,” You stuttered, unable to come up with a witty reply. Your body was still overreacting to a small kiss as you walked towards the compound doors. . 

“Sorry for that, and almost making you die in the movie hall,” She apologized, following you. You raised an eyebrow slightly. 

“You’re full of apologies today,” You remarked. 

“Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?” She asked, making you more confused than before. “Before, um,” She stuttered, then stopped. 

“Before…?” You asked, stopping and turning to face her. You heard her mumble ‘nothing’ then start to walk away from you. You grabbed her wrist, stopping her as she faced you. “Before what?” You questioned. 

“Before confessing,” She said quickly. Your eyes widened slightly, at your reaction she continued speaking. “Before I told you how much in love with you I am and how much I don’t ever want this to end…” 

Carol continued with the list of ‘how much’ but you were stunned into silence. She liked you, apparently she was in love with you. She loved you back. Carol Danvers, the great Captain Marvel, loved you. 

You broke out of your trance when you saw tears start to well up in her eyes. You put one finger to her lips to silence her. She didn’t flinch, you felt her lip wobble slightly under your finger as her tears threatened to break. She thought you weren’t responding because you hated her, she thought she was about to lose you and it was scaring her. 

“Jesus you talk more than Parker,” You commented, Carol smiled slightly. “I love you too Danvers,” You said softly, removing your finger and leaning in.

Carol returned the favor, wrapping her arms around your waist, pulling you in. Your faces were inches from each other as you waited for her to make the first move. In another burst of courage, you pressed your faces together, your arms winding your way to her neck. 

She kissed you softly, so, so softly, as if she was afraid she would break you. You didn’t lose your friendship with Carol, Carol didn't lose you. Both of you got something better, each other

[chappedandfadedvds]

Nov 24th, Tuesday 20:13

„Chug. Chug. Chug. Chug!“

Four pairs of eyes were strictly focused on the little square on the bottom left of their video chat, showing Moyo attempting to empty a whole bottle of beer in one go. While the others watched and laughed and cheered him on. Even Sander had abondoned his work in favor of joining them, as he sat behind Robbe on the bed, watching over his shoulder.

They had just finished their English, Geography and, lo and behold, their Dutch homework, not fifteen minutes ago. Now strongly convinced they deserved a beer to celebrate today’s achievment. So they had stormed off to raid their kitchens and were back within seconds almost. Moyo just shouldn’t have told the group that he could chug his beer completely whenever he wanted to.

Moyo came surprisingly close to finish it. There was just the tiniest bit of beer left, which sadly proofed to be too much, and made the poor boy splutter it all across his desk he sat at. 

Very much to the enjoyment of his four spectators. Who immediately began to toasted each other, taking a large sip of their own bottles respectivly, while Moyo ran off to get anything he could in order to clean the mess on the table.

Everyone was busy joking and teasing their friend, as he wished off the beer, cursing when he found that his phone hadn’t been spared.

„So, mhm guys?“ Jens finally found enough courage to speak up about the one thought that had plagued him all day. He needed to apologise for his absence last week. He had thought he would do it right away, but when they all had appeared as if nothing had happened, he hadn’t been able to bring it up.

„Yeah?“ Aaron asked, a little confused by the sudden mood change, but did put his attention towards the screen.

„What’s up?“ Came the question from Sander, who seemed a little more casual about it. But then he wasn’t actually part of the broerrrs. Or at least he wasn’t with them as long and in chat, to actually be offended by Jens ghosting them.

„So, I wanted to apologise for last week, it was just a lot going on and I didn’t mean to cut you guys off. I don’t want to talk about, yet. I will, I promise. Just need some more time. That’s cool?“

Moyo looked a little unsure with forgiving Jens that quickly, but shrugged anyway in the end.

„Sure, bro. Just let us know when you have a bad day, okay?“ He added with a small smile, that certainly helped Jens to not feel as bad any longer. Maybe Robbe had already talked to them beforehand.

„Yes, definitely. I’m sorry.“

„It’s okay. We are still the broerrrs, right?“ Robbe was an angel, as he rose his bottle to the camera, grinning as waited for the others to follow his example. 

„Hell yeah! Cheers!“ Aaron yelled overly excited. They didn’t needed to be told twice.

„Broerrrs.“ Moyo called to toast emptyhanded.

„Broerrrs.“ The choir of Sander, Robbe, Aaron and Jens chimed in cheery, as each of the boys took a sip.

„Fuck I missed you.“ It definitely was the thruth, now that they actually were simply talking and chilling, being the dumb boys they were supposed to be, Jens could almost forget all the other bullshit his life constantly threw at him.

„You’ve seen us on sunday, man.“ Aaron reminded him of their group chat from only two days ago, as if he somehow had forgotten about that.

„Yeah but, I mean you guys. You know. This.“  Jens threw his arms up, moving them about in some general way to indicate he meant this moment right here.

„Same.“ 

At least Moyo got him. The two boys nodding at each other in a mutual understanding.

„I love you guys.“ Aaron blurted out into the small break of them more or less talking over each other permenantly.

„Dude.“ 

The prompt uncomfortableness that settled in Moyo’s reaction was definitely causing the other three boys to further their display of affection, blowing kisses at Aaron.

„We love you too.“ Sander, Robbe and Jens exclaimed brightly in unison. Aaron was more than happy to reply with a big smile.

„I’m gonna get another beer.“ Moyo interrupted, trying his best to sound annoyed, but instead laughed and shook his head at his friends before he got up and left. Right before the phone next to Jens on his bed lit up. 

His hands were fast to open up the notification. It could only be one person. And Jens was right.

Lucas 20:27:  should be there in 10 minutes.  just got off the train. ❤️

Jens smile widend as he read the message one more time. He sat up a bit straighter on his bed, his fingers busy to type a quick reply.

„Good news?“ Sander inquired. The biggest grin gracing his lips knowingly. Wich made Jens a little worried that he was too obvious. He prayed it was just because the two boys knew about Lucas, because Robbe’s expression was not looking much different from his boyfriend’s right now.

Jens did the only thing he could think off. He flipped them off, like the newly turned adult he was.

„Am I missing something?“ Aaron certainly looked a bit puzzled as much as he seemed curious, wanting to to be let in on the joke.

„When aren’t you?“ Moyo provided casually, as he had returned, now busy to open the bottle and not chug it this time, before he added: „But yeah, what’s up?“

„Nothing. Sander is an ass.“ Jens replied simply, certain that it would get them off his back. He knew his friends. Jokingly insulting each other was their primary activity. Nowadays a little less insensitive than last year. Which was a good change to have gone through.

„Toast to that!“ Robbe was the one to call for his friends to join in, much to Sander’s displeasure. The older boy trying hard to pull an annoyed face in light of the betrayal by his own boyfriend. Yet not quite able to hide his underlying amusement.

It gave Jens a moment to rethink his former dismissal of Aaron’s question. He probably shouldn’t hide Lucas that much. The broerrrs knew the boy. They had spent at least some time together. It was normal right? They were friends. Just also a bit more than that, but he hadn’t to bring that up. Two out of four knew already anyway. It was fine.

„Actually Lucas is coming over. He is alone most of the week, so he is here every once in a while.“ Jens said, not sure if he wanted to regret it immediately. Perhaps he shouldn’t have told them and just bid his goodbye instead.

Jens was very glad he hadn’t, given the following second.

„Oh Robbe, careful! I think Jens is getting a new best friend, now that you left him to suck a dude’s dick.“

Jens was snorting so hard at Moyo’s teasing, that he literally chocked on the beer he just had taken a sip of. This response towards Lucas coming over was glorious and to be honest Jens was pretty much on his way to do the exact same thing to Robbe, so really, they did that to each other. Not that Moyo would actually know that. Jens just couldn’t stop himself from finding it hilarious, even less when he saw the scandalised face Robbe made. 

„Moyo.“ Robbe shouted shocked, gaping at his screen.

„He is not wrong, you know.“ Sander provided confidently, looking way too cheeky, as he wiggled he brows suggestivly at the camera and then at Robbe. His boyfriend not taking any of Sander’s shit and tackling the giggling boy instead out of frame.

„I have never....“ Robbe declared laughing loudly. He broke off midsentence, as he turned back towards his laptop, obviously not sure what point he actually wanted to make in the first place. 

Well he definitely hadn’t sucked Jens’s dick, that was for sure.

The truth didn’t made it less funny. Jens was wheezing at this point through all of the discourse unfolding in front of him. Which was stupid because it shouldn’t be that funny, It had simply been a throwaway line from Moyo. So perhaps it was the easieness of them all being together again, or the influence of the alcohol, or the simple exhaustion from their schoolwork. Maybe even all of the above. 

„Lucas should join us. Get him a beer when he arrives, otherwise he’ll probably run straight back home.“ Aaron deverted the topic. And blessed be he.

„Sure.“ Jens barely was able to get out, while he was busy calming down his breathing between occasional coughs. Sander was back in frame kissing Robbe, leaving a very confused Moyo to watch them.

„You know something else I have here, to make this evening even better?“ 

The voice of Moyo caught everyones attention as he proceeded to pull out some weed from a drawer next to him. Sander was the first to declare his happy approval, as he picked up a jacket from somewhere on his left and proceeded to present the group with a little bag of weed and paper. The older boy loosing no time at all to roll one for Robbe and himself.

Jens smirked nodding at his screen, very pleased with the direction this call took. 

They haden’t smoked together for a couple of weeks now. He almost had forgotten how nice it felt to be high and dumb with his friends, even if it was only over a video chat. So Jens leaned over to grab the little bit weed he had safely stashed away under his bed, holding it triumphant into the camera for the others to see. 
Who all cheered in return, except for Aaron.

„Am I the only one without weed?“ The boy said pouting as he shook his head with a frown.

„Sucks to be you, bro.“ Jens replied nonchalant, knowing that Aaron wouldn’t be too mad anyway. Since he was with Amber he had told them he would smok a lot less. Basically exclusivly at parties. And that was fine with everyone. Jens lit the poorly thrown together joint and leaned back, waiting impatiently for Lucas to ring the bell downstairs.

Any minute now.

__ __ __

tagged: @odi-et-amo85, @tayspots