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bytheangell · 3 years

Note

If you are still taking prompts, what would you think about writing something(s) based off of this, either/both, the Professor/TA, or the Writer/Editor?

Dedication (modern AU, Herongraystairs, check the link in the ask for full writer/editor prompt, a wonderful plot idea by @high-warlock-of-brooklyn!) (Read on AO3)

This is the first book Will and Tessa are collaborating on. They’ve written plenty of books individually and Jem’s worked with each of them in turn. But this is the first time they’ve co-authored, an experience that’s proving unique and challenging for all of them.

Being with Will and Tessa while they work on a new project is always a blessing and a curse. They’re two of the best writers of their generation and when they work on their own they’re brilliant, but when they work together - well, they’re also brilliant, but that brilliance is coupled with the occasional near-catastrophic clash of opinions and emotions.

Which is where Jem comes in.

Where Will and Tessa are so driven by passion and feelings, Jem finds it much easier to distance himself from their project (and from the writers themselves) enough to see the bigger picture and find solutions before the issues build up. Like many things about the three of them, it’s a perfect balance - they just work, better than anyone (including Will, Tessa, and Jem) ever imagined possible when they first got together.

It’d been a messy start, with Will and Jem already together but both developing serious feelings for Tessa after they met during a book event. The three of them quickly became very close. There were whispers of which of them would end up leaving, then confusion when the answer was none: instead of two of them growing closer and shutting the third out, they all seemed to adjust and adapt naturally around the three of them coexisting. They aren’t perfect, but they are perfect for each other, at least as far as Jem’s concerned.

Jem knows that what they have is special, which he reminds himself of over and over as Will and Tessa sit on opposite sides of the sofa, voices quickly elevating to nearly shouting over an issue with one of the characters Will is in charge of writing: one he’s chosen to give a pretty damning curse from a trickster faerie in this land of magic their current collaboration is set in.

“Tell him he needs to make the changes, Jem,” Tessa insists, the third time she’s repeated the demand now.

“Tell her that this plot adds depth, and without it, he’s boring,” Will counters. “Sometimes people - characters - need to be brutally honest about their own faults and issues. Sometimes people are disappointing.”

That’s how Jem can tell things are spiraling: when Will and Tessa - who have effectively communicated and collaborated on half a dozen bestsellers and who love each other more than Jem’s ever seen two people experience love - refuse to speak directly to one another. The moment they start talking around each other and at Jem instead is when he knows he has to step in and diffuse.

Usually, it’s a matter of taking a break, getting some fresh air, and coming back with clear minds. Jem normally isn’t one to pick sides, but this is different. He isn’t worried about the direction of the book… but after reading the latest draft from Will, which Will wrote while refusing to speak to either of them for a full week, he’s worried about Will. And he knows Tessa is, too.

“Perhaps a good starting point would be admitting this isn’t really about the character at all,” Jem says softly, gazing closely between Will and Tessa. Will looks a bit guilty and Tessa looks away entirely, which tells Jem that he’s right in guessing their concerns are also less plot-based.

“...what else would it be about?” Will asks defensively. But they can all sense how he’s been pushing them away lately, much like the cursed character undeserving of love he’s written in. It’s obvious that Tessa isn’t sure how to bring it up or else she would’ve already. Or maybe she already had and it hadn’t gone well.

“Tessa, would you mind making some tea?” Jem asks, waiting until she’s out of the room to turn back to Will.

“Will… you know this is about you. You barely talk to anyone for a week then come back with this character in such a self-deprecating mindset…”

“That’s ridiculous. He’s just a character,” Will says, but Jem can tell he’s entirely unconvinced of his own words.

“So if Tess came back having written Evangeline that way?” Jem counters, and there’s that look of subtle guilt, right back on Will’s face as he frowns and pieces together why Tessa’s so upset with him.

“I fucked up, didn’t I?” Will sighs.

“We’re not mad at you,” Jem’s quick to point out. “We’re just worried. It’s been a while since you tried to push us away like this, I just want to make sure you’re okay. We both do. Take it out in the writing if you want, but talk with us, too. Alright, my love?”

Jem’s tense as he waits. This has one of two options: Will relents and listens to him and they all have tea and talk this out, or Will storms out and they don’t see him again for another day or two.

Will stays. “I’m just letting the pressure get to me,” he admits. “I’m sure that’s all it is... But yeah. Okay. Tea.”

Tea, meaning ‘I’ll stay. I’ll talk. I’ll try.’ Jem leans over and places a barely-there kiss on Will’s lips before he relaxes back in his seat. Reaching out a hand that Will readily takes, Jem gives it a tight squeeze as they both wait for Tessa to return.

They talk.

In the end, the character arc stays. With a few redeeming modifications at Tessa and Jem’s entirely unbiased suggestion, of course.

---

A little over halfway through the first draft things seem to stall out. They have a progress deadline that week with the publisher and they’re cutting it close - mostly because Tessa keeps tossing everything she writes without giving Jem the chance to look it over. Recently she’s let her curiosity get the best of her, delving into research she should be allowing Jem to help with.

...and when he says ‘delving’, what he really means is stubbornly obsessing over, nitpicking bits of lore to streamline, and doing hours and hours of research for single-line references.

“When was the last time she slept? Like, an actual night of sleep?” Jem asks Will one day after a quick touch-base meeting that went… not terribly, but not particularly great, either.

“You need to get her out of here. No books. No wifi. I tried to kick her out but… well, you can imagine how well that went,” Will admits, and Jem winces in sympathy.

“The Time Out Cottage?” Jem asks, referring to a small cottage they own for unplugged getaways, where the wifi signal is nonexistent and a landline exists for emergency calls. “That means we’ll both be out of easy reach, and with that Friday deadline-”

“I can handle it,” Will cuts him off. “She’s been getting in her own way for days now, but she refuses to listen to me.”

A few minutes later Jem tentatively knocks on the door to the small study that does, in fact, look more like a makeshift research library. He nearly doesn’t see Tessa behind the small mountain of books on the floor, but he hears her pen tapping rapidly against the hardwood. No, not just rapidly - anxiously. He knows that action all too well.

“Tessa, what number is that?” he asks, the question needing no further explanation past his accusatory tone and pointed look at a coffee mug, which is next to a second coffee mug, which is next to a cup of black tea.

“Four? No, wait… what time is it?” she glances around and seems surprised by the height of the sun in the sky. “It’s afternoon already?”

Jem sighs. “It’s nearly four o’clock, Tessa, and your blood is probably about 90% caffeine. Come on, get your things, we’re taking a trip.”

Tessa looks immediately horrified. “No! I can’t, we can’t! The deadline, and I still have to streamline the fae lore between the two-”

“Will has it handled for 24 hours. That’s all we’re asking. 24 hours without research.” “Jem, you know-”

“-that you’ll be twice as productive once we’re back and you’re refreshed instead of running on fumes and fever dreams?” Jem cuts her off, his tone kind but insistent. He bends over and picks up a piece of paper. “Tessa, my love, this is nearly incoherent.”

Tessa reaches up to take the page from him and frowns. “I… okay, I can make out some of this, but I’m pretty sure that bit talks about aliens which isn’t any more reassuring. Will did say I was writing myself in circles, but I thought he was just, well, being Will, so... Yeah. Okay. Maybe I need to step back for a bit.” Tessa sighs. “The Time Out Cottage?”

“I already packed you a bag,” Jem confirms with a soft smile, leaning down to kiss the middle of her forehead before reaching out a hand to help her up off the floor.

When they return exactly 24 hours later, Tessa gets back to work and the lore practically falls into place between the two of them.

They meet the Friday deadline without a problem.

---

Jem spends his free time playing violin while Will and Tessa go through the first draft and begin to brainstorm fixes for plotholes, new minor characters to add to scenes that feel a bit lacking, and other small improvements to really round out the story and the world they’re weaving. They both claim to think clearer with his music in the background so he stays, even if he doesn’t feel particularly useful for this stage of the process until they have a single, coherent draft to hand over to him.

These are the moments Jem’s own insecurities and flaws float to the surface. The moments he watches Will and Tessa, so alike, so perfect for each other, connect on a level he isn’t privy to. He knows it’s a silly thought, that he and Will have their own things, as do he and Tessa. But sometimes he wonders if they truly need him around, or if he’s simply just become too much a part of the routine to actively get rid of.

He watches them sit next to each other with shoulders touching, hunched over a small screen, whispering back and forth. There’s a small smile on his face, one that’s wistful and tinged with hints of longing that, much to his dismay, they pick up on.

“I know that look,” Tessa says, catching Jem’s gaze and drawing Will’s attention before Jem can wipe the expression from his face. “Get over here. I think we’ve done enough work for today.”

Will is the first to move over, making room for Jem in the middle of them. After placing his violin back in its case Jem heads over to join them on the sofa, embracing the way Will and Tessa immediately crowd into his space once he’s settled, both placing a comforting kiss to his temples simultaneously before resting their heads on each of his shoulders and a placing a hand in each of his own.

They talk a bit, not about the book, but about anything and everything else, and fall asleep there, still entwined together.

---

It’s rare for any part of one of their books to be a surprise to Jem upon publication. He sees all the drafts, talks them through the acknowledgments and dedications, double-checks the reference pages against the chaotic piles of books and notes around their home.

So he’s immediately (and rightfully) suspicious the moment they hand him the first advanced copy and tell him to open it, watching his every move with eager expressions. Excited, but anxious.

‘A dedication to the one most dedicated to us:

This book would not be what it is without the kind heart, encouraging words, and infinite patience of James Carstairs. Neither would we. Jem, you are a light in our darkest hours, and we don’t know where we’d be without you.

We hope we’ll never have to find out.

Jem, our love, will you marry us?’

Jem reads, then re-reads the dedication. He closes the book, then opens it again, reading it a third time for good measure.

“Well?” Will asks impatiently, earning himself a nudge in the ribs from Tessa. Will huffs.

“I see you’re as dramatic as always,” Jem says quietly, instead of answering the question posed in the book. He knows his answer. He’s known for a while now what his answer would be, should the topic ever present itself, but he gets a bit of joy from making Will wait in anticipation just a short while longer.

“He wanted to be even more dramatic and show you at the event tomorrow,” Tessa admits. “But we decided against it. We thought you deserved the chance to say no without two hundred sets of eyes on you.”

Jem raises an eyebrow. “You think I’ll say no?”

“You haven’t said ‘yes’ yet,” Will points out, but he doesn’t sound nervous about it. Nor should he be.

“Yes,” Jem says, smiling brightly. “Of course it’s yes.”

#herongraystairs #will herondale #tessa gray #jem carstairs #tsc #thanks to Jay for letting me play around with that prompt!#SORRY THIS TOOK A MILLION YEARS #making prompt progress between weekly codas and bingo fills slowly but surely #i hope you like it my anon friend!#elle writes a few deadbeat lines #anon glamour activated #ask rune #long post #elle talks too much

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kinogane · 3 years

Text

Essence of Yakuza Combat, Part 1: Counter

(incidental Yakuza spoilers below)

A lot has been said about the core of what brings people to the Yakuza games and plays a role in keeping them interested, which is the way the series juggles its earnest, straight-faced drama with its, let’s say,

eccentricities.

(I don’t bring these up casually, by the way. It would be almost certainly correct to attribute at least part of Yakuza’s growth outside of Japan to the karaoke minigame and someone at RGG Studio thinking that putting a chicken in charge of real estate would be very funny.)

I wrote a bit about that through one specific example here, and while that is core to the series’ identity, it’s just one aspect of the many, many hours you spend playing a Yakuza game. User aggregated times on HowLongToBeat peg the average length of a Yakuza playthrough somewhere in the area of 15 to 40 hours, and even if you’re not on the completionist beat and ballooning your hour count by spending a lot of time playing mahjong and other minigames, you’re going to spend a lot of time with the minute-to-minute gameplay of Yakuza, which is, by and large, getting into fights with chumps and smashing their heads into various surfaces.

Combat in Yakuza games isn’t exactly known for its mechanical depth. Certainly, if you’re willing to poke at its systems you can achieve mastery and do some wild stuff, but I’d wager most players aren’t particularly interested in getting better at the combat. More than likely, they’re content with getting just skilled and/or strong to get past major boss fights (which are genuine highlights of Yakuza combat) with possibly some help in healing and weapons. Yakuza 0 probably exemplifies this most, as the game gives you the option to upgrade both characters’ Legend styles into utter nonsense.

So in some ways, it’s not all that surprising that RGG Studio would make the most of an opportunity to switch combat systems with Yakuza: Like a Dragon. According to series creator Toshihiro Nagoshi, after they floated the idea of a turn-based RPG in a 2019 April Fools’ video, the positive public reception convinced them that changing mechanics could actually work. Which at the time was, and moreso in hindsight is, kinda obvious. Their action combat wasn’t exactly lighting the world on fire, especially with the recent switch to the much more slippery and less weighty Dragon Engine combat in 6 and Kiwami 2, and series staples like random encounters and equippable gear are already part and parcel with more traditional JRPGs like Dragon Quest. Hell, the near universal Yakuza experience of pausing to call a time out and chug Staminans because you’re getting your ass handed to you is more reminiscent of modern Fallout titles (which have turn-based roots) than it is of character action games like Devil May Cry. And to reiterate, it is literally possible to overlevel yourself in Yakuza 0.

There were skeptics, of course. For how relatively unremarkable the combat system is, there were (and still are) players who quite liked the action combat of Kiryu Saga Yakuza games and were a bit sad at the idea of seeing the system go, including myself. Perhaps part of it was just getting used to and developing an appreciation for a system that didn’t wholly merit it. (Though I still maintain that the multiple styles in 0 and Kiwami absolutely rule and also Finishing Hold/Bounding Throw is rad as hell.) But there are two aspects of the action combat in specific that are rather obviously head and shoulders above the rest.

One is the Tiger Drop.

Especially if your first exposure to the Tiger Drop was Kiwami, where it was overtuned as hell, the satisfaction of landing a Tiger Drop, completely stuffing an enemy’s attack, and taking out a decent chunk of their health bar has few equals in most Yakuza games. It’s such a tremendous reward for having quick reactions and mastering knowledge of enemy movesets that it’s warped how I approach combat with characters who don’t have access to the Tiger Drop itself. I absolutely beelined to get Akiyama’s kick counter in 4 and 5 and used it extensively in both, when it probably isn’t even close to being optimal, and when I learned/remembered that Kiryu has access to similar Heavy Attack counters through his Brawler and Legend styles in 0, I absolutely took them for a whirl right away.

The Brawler counter, as it turns out, works well against Sera.

(I probably would have felt similarly about Majima’s Legend style Demonfire counter in 0, for the record, and I did get a lot out of it, but that preceded my first Tiger Drop. So the timeline doesn’t quite fit.)

I did not expect the Tiger Drop, or counters in general, to make the full transition into the new Yakuza combat. While they’re not mechanically impossible, thanks to the Mario RPG-esque Action Commands, Like a Dragon instead opts to reward players for good timing with Perfect Guards that take less damage and don’t knock the character down, which I would argue is for the better.

It’s not difficult to imagine implementing a counter to supplement Perfect Guards as a defensive option, but doing so would fundamentally change the (counterintuitively?) offensive role counters play in Yakuza combat. Additionally, part of the difficulty of landing Tiger Drops comes from not knowing for sure what attack an enemy’s going to throw your way and having to react or make a good prediction. Most turn-based RPGs, including Like a Dragon, let you know a fair bit before an enemy attack properly starts what’s coming your way. Like a Dragon even gives you a bit of extra time, since the Dragon Engine implementation often requires enemies to hobble over to their target before they take a swing. There are plenty of well-telegraphed attacks in Yakuza games of the past, of course, but they’re the exception rather than the rule.

Put another way, it’s not reasonable to expect a player to Tiger Drop every single attack a boss throws at them in Kiryu Saga games. It’s far more reasonable (and for the entirety of the True Final Millennium Tower, basically expected) for the player to Perfect Guard (and hypothetically, counter) every single attack in Like a Dragon. This isn’t a mismatch so fundamental that it can’t be implemented in future games, but at the very least, its absence is unsurprising and not strongly felt.

Furthermore, counters thematically make more sense for Kiryu Saga protagonists than Ichiban. Superficially, counters don’t exactly vibe with Ichiban’s turn-based sense of fair fighting. Not much point in giving someone a chance to take a shot at you if you just punch them out of their turn. (And funnily enough, while my Dragon Quest knowledge is just about nonexistent, the small bit of research I’ve done indicates that counter skills weren’t accessible to Dragon Quest heroes until about 2006, a few years after Ichiban goes to jail.)

On a deeper level, though, counters are inherently more reactive than they are active. Even if you make a prediction that an enemy will attack a certain way, counters don’t work unless they actually do take that action of attacking. Prepping a Tiger Drop means not doing much else but taking up a fighting stance and waiting in bated breath until someone else does something first. This patience intrinsic to counters is temperamentally more suited for the calmer, more stoic Kiryu Saga protagonists (I recognize I’m talking in very broad strokes) than they are for the more hot-blooded, openly emotional Ichiban. Hell, if you really wanna stretch this idea, it’s worth noting that the younger, more impulsive Kiryu doesn’t have access to a powerful counter in 0 while the younger, more restrained Majima does (see the Demonfire counter mentioned above); contrast their playable appearances in Kiwami 2, where the older, more measured Kiryu can relearn his trusty Tiger Drop while the older, openly wilder Majima has no comparable counter.

So the Yakuza combat staple of Tiger Drop and counters didn’t make the transition into Like a Dragon. I don’t think anyone expected them to, and they certainly didn’t need to. All in all, not a big deal.

What about Heat Actions?

(continued)

#yakuza #ryu ga gotoku #rgg #yakuza like a dragon #yakuza 7 #shin ryu ga gotoku #ylad #y7

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silenthillmutual · 4 years

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26 mormor or giomis

tactile

it’s been a long ass time since i wrote for sherlock (like.. probably close to 7 years at this point, though it feels longer) but i wanted to try my hand at mormor

–

sometimes - most times, in fact - sebastian forgets who he is. forgets he is Sebastian; caught up in being Moran. untraceable, unkillable, nonexistent. so when it’s time for the day to end, time for him to be Sebastian again, he has trouble switching gears.

and an even harder time registering the switch from Moriarty to Jim. Jim, always; never James, never unless it’s important, and so far there’s never been anything important enough to bring the proper names out. sebastian hopes there never is, because he hasn’t practiced. he doesn’t know how he’d manage with that big a change.

he won’t have to think of that for a long time now, he thinks. now it’s twilight, and what’s left of their daily activities can be done at an easy distance from their enemies, and an easy closeness between them.

jim always comes to him like a cat. when he’s Jim, when he’s Moriarty, the touches are always practiced. they’re precision-perfect, an act he has rehearsed into smoothed-over nonchalance. it unnerves people, how Moriarty seems to move without calculation, acting on every whim and impulse that catches him. but sebastian knows that isn’t true, as much as Moran knows it.

someone has to be there to feed Moriarty his lines. but that’s not where they are tonight; tonight, jim isn’t quite as graceful as he puts on, dropping with a little too much force next to sebastian on the sofa. he nearly topples the laptop sebastian has up, blessedly not navigated to any site of work-interest. he’s got at least a third of his weight on sebastian’s shoulder, and when he yawns his arm nicks the back of sebastian’s head. it’s the little things, like this, that should irritate him. Sebastian’s never been a pet-owner, and here’s he’s acquired a human-sized cat.

his stubble scratches against sebastian’s arm where jim rubs his face against sebastian’s skin, one of his less-subtler ways of asking for attention. sebastian even goes to run a hand through his hair, to scratch behind his ear, but jim catches the hand he moves before he has time to place it and presses the fingers full against his cheek.

“sing me a song, seb,” he says.

they’ve playlists for this mood. sarcastic ones, ironic ones, ones that house only several different covers of the same words. an entire playlist dedicated to songs with the word shiver, and one they’ll play when the world goes dark. “what would you like to hear?”

“the bee gees one,” he says, his mouth muffled against sebastian’s palm. “no, no, the other one. in the kitchen when you thought i couldn’t hear you. you sang it so well…”

a cat. right. that kind of observance, too, he guesses.

sebastian hums to himself, trying to get ready for the performance. he rarely takes center stage the way jim does, and his voice might croak when it comes time for the curtains move.

“i know your eyes in the morning sun,” he begins. “i feel you touch me in the pouring rain…”

he doesn’t get accompaniment how he expects. instead, he meets his ovation in the form of jim’s lips against the lines in his hand.

#sassyaceari #mormor #nori writes #dont @ me i'm a huge sap for that song #FINALLY managed to finish this i got bigmajor writer's block :(#icarus.docx #mine

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artificialqueens · 5 years

Text

Girls Interrupted, Chapter 1: The Institution: 1, Katya: 0 (Vatya) 2/2 - Maeve

A/N: It’s Maeve again! I’m so freaking surprised and overjoyed at the positive reception Girls Interrupted has received. All of you who have such kind things have truly inspired me to keep going on this. I can now say I'm rewatching seasons in the name of research! As always, feedback is welcome. I write because I enjoy it but also so other people can enjoy it, too. So, really, I’d love to hear any feedback or suggestions.

P.S. I’m having so much fun writing the interactions between Katya and the other queens, but I think my favorite part of this chapter is either an especially cheeky Sharon Needles line or the gym teacher/coach that is very loosely based on a straight Santino Rice

This chapter picks up right where the last chapter left off: Violet and Katya’s ice breaker activity…

Fortunately, Violet realized that she would—at the very least—have to cooperate with the menial activity. “Violet,” she supplied cooly.

Katya tried and failed to stifle her laugh. The raven-haired girl looked at her challengingly.

“Tha-that’s a good choice. Very good. I love every color!” Katya stammered as she wrote down Violet’s response. She couldn’t be sure if her partner was filling out her own worksheet, but Katya couldn’t bring herself to care that much. She just wanted this over and done with. Each moment she spent next to the cheerleader made her feel more and more inadequate. Violet was judging her; she felt small enough on her own.

“If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?” Katya continued.

This one Violet was quick to answer, “Literally anywhere but here.”

Her passive face told Katya she wasn’t going to get a better answer. I’ll just put down ‘Everywhere. She loves to travel.’, she resolved. “I think it would be really cool to go to Russia,” Katya offered.

Violet’s eyes left her phone screen. They searched the face of the blonde across the table, traveled down to Katya’s communism-inspired name card, and finally met her partner’s ocean blue eyes. “No?” Her face contorted in mock shock. “Let me guess,” she pandered, “If you could have lunch with any famous person dead or alive, you’d choose Putin.”

“Good guess,” Katya shook her head with amusement, “But it’s actually Maria Bamford.” It was obvious that Violet had no idea who Maria Bamford was. However, a quick glance at the clock told her there wasn’t enough time left in the class for her to go off on another tangent. “What about you, Violet?”

“Dita Von Teese. Next,” she urged.

“What are your favorite TV shows?” Katya continued eagerly, excited that Violet was finally being an active participant.

Violet’s response was almost instant, “Forensic Files and Sex and the City.” Everything about the brunette screamed confidence and certainty—something that came through in everything that she did. Katya wished it were that easy for her.

“I really like Game of Thrones, The Heart She Holler, and Storage Wars: Northern Treasures…..It’s the Canadian version,” Katya trailed off. There was an unspoken ‘and?’ in Violet’s expression, but she couldn’t produce a single reason for why that mattered. But it had mattered. “Anyway…What’s next?” Katya pushed through her embarrassment. “Something I’m good at? Sleeping, I’m good at sleeping. I guess I’m very bendy. Flexible. I can do theater, too…”

“Just put down cheer for me,” Violet ordered without looking up from her own worksheet. The blonde hesitated at the instruction, and Violet let out an impatient huff. “What?”

Katya was quick to apologize, “Sorry, it’s just that I thought you might say something about fashion.” She swallowed thickly. “I’m-I’ve seen you in the halls before, and you look good. Great. Your clothes. You clearly put a lot of effort into your appearance, and I thou—”

“Well, you thought wrong,” Violet spat. “You don’t know anything about me, so don’t pretend like you do.”

The blonde hurriedly scribbled down the word cheer under question five on her page and grabbed both of their papers. “Right. I’ll just go turn these in,” Katya fled the table without a thought. She had clearly angered Violet. Didn’t the popular kids like it when you stroked their egos? Katya wondered. She hadn’t meant to come off as judgemental. It was obvious that they weren’t on the same level, and hopefully Violet would understand that she hadn’t been trying to judge her. She only wanted to get to know the girl better, but she knew know how stupid she’d been to think that possible. No one like Violet would ever waste time on her. Sighing, she placed the two worksheets in a plastic turn-in bin labeled ‘4th’, and made her way back to her desk.

Katya had been disappointed that she had double A Lunch, but the forty minutes were the perfect break before pre-calculus. While it meant she could eat earlier, it also meant that she had no friends to eat with. Ginger and Bianca both had B Lunch. So Katya found herself on the steps of the stairs in the courtyard by the fine arts wing, eating a peanut butter and banana sandwich. There was beauty in the simple things, though, and Katya could appreciate the warmth of the sun and the slight breeze that late morning.

Mrs. Hugh’s room was stuffy. Katya’s funfetti extravaganza was clinging to her yet again, but she couldn’t adjust the fabric too much without disrupting those around her. She wasn’t willing to risk it. Unlike in all her other classes, the blonde always sat front and center in math class. All of the numbers made a mess in her head, and it was easier if she had fewer distractions. No one else felt the same way, though. So when Alaska tumbled in just before the tardy bell, Katya was forced into yet another less than ideal situation.The sunny cheerleader didn’t share that sentiment. Alaska flashed Katya a hundred watt smile and whispered a hello.

Katya didn’t get Alaska. Alaska wasn’t your stereotypical dumb blonde. She struggled in some areas but always kept up with the pack. So she was smarter than she looked? Big deal. What Katya failed to understand was why such a kind, sincere, and smart person would allow herself to be bullied by her peers. The cheer squad clearly didn’t think she had brain cells; Alaska was practically their punching bag from what she’d observed. So why hang around?

Miss Honard, you are an enigma, Katya assessed.

Katya’s continued curiosity over the duration of Mrs. Hugh’s introductory speech gained her a very important piece of information: if she couldn’t get the lanky blonde out of her head, she was going to have to let her in. And Katya would not be friends with a cheerleader.

Katya praised Marx for the district employee who put Bianca Del Rio in her history class. She and Bianca were unlikely friends—a high school mascot and a theater kid didn’t really run in the same circles—but made an unstoppable duo. Coach A., their teacher seemed to get a kick out of them too.

Bianca was an unexpected constant in Katya’s life. The self-proclaimed bitch was Spartacus, the high school mascot, and the two would never have overlapped if not for their shared love/hate relationship with theater. She was a year younger than Katya but that didn’t stop her from providing Katya with the tough love she needed to keep her head screwed on. Keeping her head on straight was out of the question; Bianca did what she could.

The two girls schlepped over to the far side of the school where the gym was located. Katya, who had made the dumb decision to postpone getting her PE credit for as long, was not looking forward to an entire year of physical activity. Bianca, on the other hand, basically earned herself a double off campus by taking on the role of mascot. And yes, she definitely took pleasure in rubbing the fact in Katya’s face. Sucks to suck.

The other shit thing about a 7th period gym class was that Katya would be in uncomfortably close proximity to the cheerleaders. It felt wrong—almost like she was breaking a nonexistent restraining order. What sick bastard decided the plebs in “team sports” should be forced to observe the pretty girls in peak physical capacity while they drowned in their own sweat? Katya didn’t know the answer, and you certainly couldn’t hold her accountable if they were suddenly beheaded.

One locker and a stack of unisex uniforms later, Katya found herself entertaining the musings of Sharon Needles, resident goth girl.

“‘I look spooky, but I’m really nice,’” Sharon had said when they were assigned lockers next to each other. The witchy teen had a thing for reading people—not that an anxious Katya was hard to see through—and took one look at her and saw a kindred spirit. The funfetti dress and clown shoes didn’t scream normal, either. Katya had been uncharacteristically optimistic about befriending Sharon for all of ten minutes before everything went to shit. Phi Phi O’Hara, Sharon’s mortal enemy, also happened to be in the class.

“I’m surprised you took gym, Party City. Wouldn’t want you to melt in your own sweat.” Phi Phi snarked. The playground bully reclined herself against the row of lockers across from them and examined her nails.

Katya groaned inwardly. Sharon groaned outwardly.

“Fuck off, Phi Phi,” Sharon begged. “Don’t you ever get tired of the sound of your own voice? My ears are bleeding and not in a pleasant way.”

“Eat shit and die, Shar Bear,” Phi Phi called over her shoulder as she skipped off to bother some other poor shmucks.

Phi Phi the schoolyard bully reminded Katya of the villain poodle in one of those Open Season movies. Ironically, that poodle was also named Fifi, which was funny because the poodle was also a boy. Fifi the poodle was groomed like a pretty purse dog and had a little blue bow in his hair. Katya was inclined to take Phi Phi O’Hara—who was not incredibly dissimilar to a trophy pet—just as seriously.

“What crawled up her ass and died?” Katya scrunched up her face.

“If you find out, let me know,” Sharon deadpanned. “I need a smoke.” Katya watched in amusement as the locker room’s resident goth chick removed a pack of Marlboro’s and a lighter from her leather jacket. Sharon caught the blonde’s expression and raised her fist in response. “Fight the system,” she stoically decreed. Katya shrugged as if to say “what can you do?” and gestured for Sharon to walk back to the gym with her.

Their gym class had been banished to the wooden bleachers so the cheerleaders could practice for that Friday’s Back-To-School Pep Rally. The two girls tucked themselves into a far corner on the top row, and Sharon finally lit up.

Coach Rice, who had taken attendance at the beginning of class, had stepped in to assist Coach Calhoun with cheer practice.

Katya and Sharon were fortunate enough to have an unobstructed view of the girls shamelessly throwing themselves at the older man. The majority of the bimbettes were faces she expected: Detox, Roxy, Willam, Courtney, Adore, and Laganja. What she wasn’t expecting, however, was for one Violet Chachki to be the leader of the pack. Stratford’s mean queen never sought out attention, let alone fought for it. Miss Chachki was a one of a kind collectible, and the entire student body knew it. You either wanted her or wanted to be her.

Today, it seemed her flavor of choice was Santino Rice.

Katya udged Sharon with her elbow. “What do you make of that?” She consulted the other girl.

Sharon took a moment to complete her assessment. “I bet a girl that tightly wound is a real screamer in bed,” she answered smoothly. Katya had not been expecting any response of the sort and physically toppled over as she was seized by laughter. Katya’s wheezing drew the attention of those nearby, and Sharon had to hold her cigarette in her mouth so she could flip them off with both hands. They could mind their own fucking business.

Katya was still clinging onto Sharon’s thigh when her fit died down. “You bitch!” She shrieked.

“I’m not wrong,” Sharon defended, taking another long drag from her cigarette. “Ten bucks says she’s hitting on him right now.” In her best Valley Girl impression she crooned, “Oh, Coach Rice, can you help me with my form?”

Katya wasted no time in contributing to the impression. “Can we go to Red Lobster?” The blonde begged in her best Violet-esque bedroom voice.

The absurdity of the request and the thought of Violet, herself, saying those words caused Sharon to half cackle and half choke on her own smoke. Her throaty laugh bounced off of the walls, and this time, it wasn’t just a few pairs of eyes that turned to them.

Uh oh, Katya cringed, busted.

“Sharon Needles, put that shit out and march your ass on over to Assistant Principal Visage’s office!” Coach Rice demanded.

Katya facepalmed hard. What is wrong with you, you stupid whore? She groaned. It’s your fault she’s in deep shit, and she’s never going to speak to you again. The blonde was about to lose herself in an abyss of despair when Sharon’s voice filled the room again.

“Oh no!” Sharon drawled, “Whatever shall I do?” Katya had brought her head up to witness the spectacle and was met with Sharon’s shit-eating grin.

Katya raised her fist in solidarity, referencing Sharon’s anti-establishment words in the locker room. Her spooky new friend shot her a cheeky wink before saluting her corporate whistleblower and unhurriedly leaving the building.

Katya’s eyes left Sharon’s retreating form just in time to catch Violet glaring at her.

The blonde did her best not to worry. It wasn’t like Violet could have known they were talking about her, right?

The bell rang at 3:00, and Katya still hadn’t managed to put the captain of the cheer squad out of her mind. She spent her entire 8th period dodging Bianca’s questions and pleading for some all-knowing entity to tell her just where in life she had gone wrong. Definitely new year, same bullshit. Katya had attempted to begin her junior year with a more optimistic attitude, but after a first day for the history books, she was ready to call it quits.

You win, Stratford, you win. I am but a shell of a man. Woe is the poor soul who dare enter thee, Katya scowled.

The rest of Katya’s will to live vanished when she finally reached her trusty blue Beetle in the junior lot.

“Mother, I am want to commit death,” she muttered.

The cherry red convertible parked next to Katya’s car belonged to none other than Violet Chachki. The bright red exterior was blinding under the afternoon sun, and Katya had to squint to make out faces. A swarm of girls in uniform short skirts and halter tops formed a green and white sea around her only means of escape. Not wanting to engage with Violet for a third time that day, the blonde chose to turn on her heels and pop a squat on the curb.

It was going to be a long year.

#rpdr fanfiction #katya zamolodchikova #violet chachki #alaska thunderfuck #vatya #high school au #lesbian au #slow burn #fluff #angst #enemies to friends #enemies to lovers #drama #maeve #girls interrupted #concrit welcome #tw anxiety and depression

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softhaos · 6 years

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ONE (1) YEAR OF SOFTHAOS

fellas, as of today – jan 14th 2019 – softhaos has turned one year old!! honestly, i never expected to last this long?? over the past year, i’ve gone through many ups and downs, made close mutuals, received so much emotional support from all kinds of people on this site and overall, i’m so thankful that i pulled my shit together and joined the community on tumblr!

i still remember clearly when i first started out with this blog and posted the neighbor aus and got SO much support for it?? like?? i never thought it’d come this far where i could touch readers’ hearts with my word vomits?? that’s just insane. and even if you don’t read my works yet still follow me: wow, i’m so grateful that you managed to cope with my bullshit – be it from my undying hatred towards pcy and kmg, me abusing the uwuwuwu or my personal thoughts.

in other words, this is my message directed to everyone: thank you for keeping up with my bullshit uwu

now on to the part where i thank specific people for making my existence on this site more bearable,, i’ve left a message for everyone i tagged (i would’ve tagged literally everyone but i’m a stressed student i am so sorry if i forgot you kjldl and i would feel bad if i didn’t leave a note to everyone i tagged) and the list is in alphabetical order! @ anons i also left notes from you at the very bottom.

@baekberrie 💌 even though we just talked once literally two days ago thanks to my clumsy ass sending you an accidental ask, i’m so glad i actually did. pola (okay i got this from your about page im sorry kljsdl) you’re an amazing, kind and talented soul with whom i could’ve talked hours about soft bbh if it weren’t for my tiredness. i’ve only read your junmyeon oneshot so far but trust me, i’ll get to that cuddling fic with baek real soon once i’ve got more time uwu you’re honestly a talented writer and i hope we get to talk more in the future!

@baekbuns 💌 i’ve known you for how many days already you anon thot and i really can’t believe that i was vv intimidated by you at first (not gonna lie, you still scream bde but that’s another story-) hope, despite you trying to steal pretty much everyone from anyone, it’s still very fun to fight talk with you and you’re also an excellent writer uwuwuwu i am still very attacked by the thought of bartender yixing one day I WILL SUE YOU ALONG WITH PCY

@baekwell--tart 💌 bella!!!! ngl i’m still very pissed at myself for not realizing you from your old url but i’m glad i found you again!! (did i find you again? idk anymore i suffer from short term memory but i hope i got my point across sdjlkj) you’re such a warmhearted person and i’m really grateful that i got to know you. however, you’re also a funny person and that also shows in your writing - istg one day i will probably have “perpetual boredom” tattooed on my forehead don’t ask why that description of sehun will NEVER fail to make me chuckle!! you deserve all the love and happiness in the world and so much more uwu

@boosoonhao 💌 i know i keep repeating myself when it comes to you aj, but i really have no idea what else to say. i wrote it in the letter, i expressed myself way too often in the tags whenever i reblog your works, yet here i am doing it again (and maybe even more exaggerated than usual, we’ll see): aj, you are one of the most talented writers i’ve ever known and one of the greatest blessings in the community. there, i said it and i mean it! you are one of the very few i know that doesn’t shy away from fantasy-ish aus and executes them brilliantly. the way you have with your words is just fascinating and i find myself sometimes jotting down what you wrote for future references? but writing skills aside, you are a beautiful and kind person and up to this day the key chain you sent me is still intact. aj, thank you for blessing me, blessing everyone with your talent and general existence.

@byuncaa 💌 bianca you smol soft bean you have my heart right there and though we don’t know each other for so long, i hope we get to talk more in the future uwu you’re such a cute soul gaaah it really makes me wanna send you all the soft memes i possibly own anywaY i hope you just stay as bubbly and bright and adorable as you are uwu

@cafechenle 💌 hani, kaito kid, i don’t know whether you’re still alive on tumblr or not but idc i’m still writing this to you anyway. you’re one of the first people i’ve met on this site and gOD i remember it as clear as day where i was so close to blocking you within the first few minutes of knowing you. yes, i’m talking about the entire mansae chan era discourse. anyway, we don’t talk as much but i hope you’re doing fine my wee lil silver boys supremacist!!

@changbeanbag 💌 landon, we literally just met yesterday but as you can see, i don’t care and i’m writing you a wee lil note anyway. you, my dude, radiate uwu energy and ngl i may have squealed when i saw your tags in the ask i sent you teehee - i hope we get to talk more in the future (that is, if school hasn’t killed me until then-)

@changbiinn 💌 kirra, you beautiful, blue haired visual goddess who has everyone else (including jisung yES I WENT THAT FAR) looking like a mere smurf and found dead in a ditch! i didn’t think i’d get an instant dm from that one inkigayo shitpost but you went ahead and proved me wrong sjljlks timezones fuck me up all the time but nonetheless i hope we get to interact a lil more and gET ENOUGH SLEEP OR ELSE

@cheolsjigyu 💌 MISS VAN NO I DID NOT FORGET YOU HEAR ME OUT. first of all, how could i forget you when you provided me all the great twt aus and the wild chats we had back in?? sometime early last year i guess. it’s been a very long time since we talked and i’m sorry i couldn’t reach out to you any time sooner due to school and the usual stuff (also, uh, i’m not the biggest friend of tumblr dms and barely check any messages there so there’s that too) believe it or not i still wheeze whenever i think of your fic swing baby because goddamnit that jyp song was one repeat for a good week. anyway, i hope you’ve been doing well and are not at the brink of near death like me uwu

@cherryxiu 💌 gran, frank, satan incarnate, whatever else i call you. you may fuck me up with the pcy i’ve never asked for but i hope you know you have a soft spot in my heart (i’ll never say that out loud again tho so see it as a one of a time thing). you’re my fav minseok stan and while i wouldn't necessarily jump off a cliff for you, i’d jump with you uwu anyway, aggressively refrain from sending me more pcy content i’m just trying to live an easy life here. but knowing you, you’ll definitely pretend as if that last part was never written so why do i even bother-

@chillihansol 💌 hanni my child!!! i hope you’re doing fine, aren’t as stressed anymore and have received the love you deserve and more!!! i still remember when i was highkey intimidated by you so i went on anon but then somehow you were startled by my lil threat and then i became your mom anon? funny that has changed over the time skldj hanni, i don’t regret ever going on anon for you and you’re an amazingly talented writer. i already said it once but i’ll say it again: guns n roses was the first svt fic i read on tumblr and just thank you for creating that piece uwu

@choco-seventeen 💌 miss choco, i almost tumbled down the nonexistent stairs in my apartment when i saw you ??? sliding into my dms ??? and then reading my word vomits ??? and then you followed me ??? and everything that followed after ??? i don’t know what in the world i did to have you notice me and up to today it remains a mystery to me ngl. we love a talented, kindhearted, fantastic, stunning, visual writing queen who is ofc the right person to love thanks to the avatar discourse she started!!! choco, keep on enlightening everyone’s life with your mere existence, the tags you put in your reblogs that make me smile and of course, wonderful stories <33

@custardheart 💌 taylor, i don’t think we have ever talked (unless you approached me on anon maybe then maybe yes??) but i just wanted to thank you for blessing my notifications. you’ve been supporting me / on my notifs for quite a long time - may i say you’re like one of the first followers i had when i first started out? THAT’S how long you’ve been here already and i can’t thank you enough <333 (please don’t ask me why i know that but goddamn every time i see that jeonghan profile picture i already know it’s you djklj)

@dinoshaur 💌 sha! lee! i know we barely talk to each other but i just wanted to use this opportunity to thank you for making some of my days with your astounding fics!! one of my favorite works from you will always be “flower crown prince” because you have NO idea how much i struggle with finding seungkwan fics dkkjljlk i’m sorry i didn’t submit anything for the lfw challenge i really tried to make it but you know, life problems happened whoops. i wish you all the happiness and inspiration and love from chan himself you gifted angel uwu

@forevershua 💌 dear fossil mother ryan, i can’t believe i internally pronounced your name wrongly for pretty much half a year knowing you. please forgive me. okay, but all seriousness aside, you’re one of the closest people from this site!! i really love you so so much though i can’t guarantee that i love you as much as you love jeonghan more than shua; i still shed tears whenever i pull out your two postcards - especially the minghao one; i think i suffered from mild heart palpitations when i got it in the mail (and still do). i hope we get to meet this year and possibly clown rat together and just stay the somewhat sane person left in the gc <33 p.s HOW DO YOU FUNCTION WITHOUT A FRIDGE I STILL CANT BELIEVE THAT

@gamerwoo 💌 rocket, you’re always active when it’s the ungodly hour where i live and it has happened more often that i stay awake because of you. not only do i have loads of stuff i can queue from you (teehee) you recently started posting stories again and the ones you hammered out lately just??? do things to me??? for real though do you have sadistic tendencies or somethin because you posted TWO (2) nsfw stories that I indulged at 2 AM IN THE MORNING. aside from that minghao and junmyeon stuff, uuuh, i finally got around to finish your ghoul au which i completely adore!! i’m looking forward to your upcoming works uwu and hope you get all the positivity and good vibes only uwu (p.s i have to confess: my dumb ass seriously thought the “woo” in your url referred to jungwoo and for some good weeks i thought you ult jungwoo rIP ME)

@hearttoshu 💌 jess, i don’t know what in the world i did to have you notice me because i’m gonna be honest here, i was scared of you skaljdlkjslkj please i don’t even know why, you seemed very intimidating but i was proven wrong in an instant!! you are one super soft bean with hq gifs and a love for jun and shua that reaches up to infinity and beyond!! your tags always get the best out of me and i’m really grateful for having you in my life uwuwuwuwu

@jejublr 💌 ew rat, you’re finally adulting. jokes aside, you were the first victim to fall under my disastrous typo errors and may i say that i’m just simply ICONIC for forever slapping that legendary nickname on you uwu nat who?? we only know RAT. you’re the one person i can always run to when more serious issues are bugging me since i guess you can relate the most to my personal dilemmas and i just wanted to thank you for being there for me <33 that, and for keeping gran somewhat at bay. i hope we get to meet up this summer where i’ll feed you with lots of chocolate while teasing ryan about her biasing jeonghan LMAO and just like most people from the gc, you’re one of the first close mutuals i’ve made. in a way, you could say you’ve been with me here since day 1 (almost) xx

@jin-hua 💌 mayo / mango / mayo that tastes like mangoes / idk i bet i have misspelled your names approximately 993828 times in 937987 different variations but guess what? i still love u to death uwu i love me a fitness queen, a visual goddess not even god himself could ever and i’m so so glad that you exist in my life <333 i know i promised you a crackhead message but when i think about it there’s not really a lot to say that’s out of place when it comes to you?? you’re an angel uwuwu the light of my life frank could NEVER

@justsomekpopstuff 💌 jj it is i, your #1 supporter!! since you’re also part of the nug club gc from the beginning on, you have an extra special place in my heart <3 jj, i love how supportive you are and i don’t think you realize that i cherish you to the moon and back and that times 903809. i love how you get so fired up about your hockey team and like to gush and suffer from the wrath of Joshua hong and i hope you’ll stay eternally happy uwu that, and dRINK LESS COFFEE ISTG

@lxveille 💌 veille we’ve never interacted a lot but i just wanted to let you know that i admire you a LOT. i haven’t got around to read more of your works lately, but i do have a favorite fic that i still clearly remember. okay, that’s a lie, i have several that left a strong memory. but let’s say, if i had to reduce it to one fic, it’d be the 100wtsily dystopian au with jihoon and 66 & 70! you’re one of the very few writers who hit the dystopian genre spot on and you truly are an inspiration. seriously, thank you a lot veile xx

@middle-of-a-wonshua-sandwich 💌 LOOK, i didn’t even know you changed blogs or something and i’m so eternally sorry that it took me ages to figure that out! (RIP me) you’re one of the first followers i had if i recall correctly (i’m pretty positive of that) and i just wanted to thank you for sticking with me so long uwuwuuwwu i wish you all the happiness bb <3

@multi-yeol 💌 haaaa we’ve only known each other since a day or something but i’m really glad we did!!!! honestly, that Loona song sorter is harder than any of the german exams i had and though we don’t know each other for so long, i hope we’ll talk more in the future bub!!!

@oatmealupdates 💌 lynna, you too are one of the first followers on my blog i’m wheEZING you’ve been here for so long sdlkjlkj thank you for your support and your comments under the fics always make my day i swear!! i’ve also noticed that you haven’t been that active as you used to be (maybe it’s just me idk sometimes my dash is kinda wacky) but all in all i hope you’re doing good!! if you ever need to talk to someone, you can always hmu <33

@queerjunhui 💌 vane, ngl, you really scared me at first. i was really intimidated by your for reasons i can’t even explain and i always thought you were out of my league sdkljlk i think we started talking since the cyzj thing and you’re one of the funniest and nicest people i’ve met so far on tumblr, seriously! your content - be it from your shitposts to mindless thoughts like the entire indirects to j*** * yES I STILL RECALL THEM - you always manage to make my day brighter whenever i see you on my dash. i wish you all the happiness and hope you’re doing good uwu

@seungcheolsbodyharness 💌 katey, sis i still think about that criminal seokmin and the entire au we made up - from FBI agent cheol to incompetent intern vernon and all that jazz. besides the fact that your url is a pure 10/10 as well as your other URLs, you’re such a nice person and i really enjoy your presence - be it in the form of reblogs of any kind of thing to the comments you occasionally leave and don’t get me started on the aSKS; katey, i’m so glad to have met you on this site!!! uwu

@softwonwoo 💌 jian darling!! honestly, i have no idea how you even know of my existence. just like pretty much everyone else i’ve tagged here you kinda had that intimidating aura?? but then the more i talked to you somehow, the more i was proven wrong and you’re such a sweet pea i can’t- also, i’m glad that i found someone who can agree with me when it comes to chungha dsakjlskj pls stay healthy, stay happy jian!!

@swyllh 💌 sara, i don’t think we have ever had a proper conversation, but i just wanted to give you my appreciation. you are one of the most underrated writers within the community yet you always give your best when it comes to your writing and honestly, i really admire you. i haven’t found the time to read your interactive fic yet (i keep pushing that back i am so sorry but i’ll get to that one day) and one of the fics that i absolutely adore is that one end of the world fic with chan, as well as the vernon collab with sha!! i really hope you’ll get the recognition and love you deserve you gifted writer !!

@tonicandjins 💌 faye my snowflake, i haven’t seen you around lately but if you read this, i hope everything’s alright from your side! i’m quite sure i’ve already mentioned this to you but i’ll say it again. i will NEVER shut up about one and two small petals and will NEVER recover from it. another banger is that wonwoo fic with the printer- ugh, you’re such a talented, beautiful person and i truly wish you all the best. remember, don’t stress yourself and relax once in a while uwu

@yeolsmiling 💌 angie hi!! i legit only sent you one (1) ask so i really don’t have much to say so far unless i wanna repeat myself lMAO one day, i aspire to purely emit soft energy for yeol but i doubt that day will ever come. i hope we get to talk more in the future you soft bear <33

honeybunch anon 💌 honeybunch, i hope you’re doing well! i still remember that i called you that when you slipped into my asks and gushed about that one mingyu fic up to this day i’m still flattered and eternally grateful that you’re still here uwu thank you for your support and making my day <33

fromis anon 💌 idk if you’ll ever read this but i miss you uwu i hope you’re doing fine and just a quick update from my side: i still haven’t found a bias yet uGH

sugarpie / tulip anon 💌 you seem like such a cool person i’m really glad you stopped by in my inbox thank you for hitting me up uwu since i have no clue who you are and since i’m a dumbass, i’m can only rely on you messaging me jslkdj

none of the letters are proofread i am so sorry

#i stayed away up until now to make this post #bc i know im gonna fall asleep straight after school oops #if u excuse me i'm going to bed now lkdslk #dara being dumb and dense #in other words: dara is currently mush with zero (0) brain cells and energy #it's 3 am and i gotta wake up in 3 hours pls #i have for sure forgotten someone ugh kms #softhaos antics

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grumpyhedgehogs · 6 years

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Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before

Summary: Henry begins leaving messages in golden ink. Bendy is intrigued.

Notes: Some violence alluded to, but only the canon typical variety. I hope this doesn't seem rushed but I had to get the idea out of my head. I may turn this into a series with all of the cast, but for now this is a one shot about Bendy and Henry being grandpa and grandson of the year. Enjoy!

The first message Bendy sees is so distracting it ends up being a self-fulfilling prophesy.

The cycle has begun anew with the same old shtick; he waits in the ink for Henry to get near enough for Bendy to smell him, to hear his labored breathing and the vibrations of his heavy footsteps. At the end of the hall, he will emerge from the darkness and give chase, forcing Henry deeper into this unending maze to relive his nightmare over again.

Bendy can’t say he hasn’t wondered why they all still go about this the same way every time, but it’s not like he can ask anybody around here. Sometimes he thinks he may be the only one here who remembers. It makes his ink boil in hot rage; this was supposed to be Henry’s hell, not his.

So he waits and waits and finally Henry’s footsteps sound outside his room. He can sense Henry pausing, probably reading the messages Sammy Lawrence has scrawled on the same walls for the millionth time. But Henry seems to be taking longer than usual; for an old man, he usually moves faster than this. There are no further footsteps down Bendy’s corridor.

Oh, this is just great. What is he supposed to do now? It’s not like he can just go tap Henry on the shoulder and tell him to hurry up.

Minutes pass. Bendy burbles his ink in irritation, fuming as the silence stretches. Finally, light as a feather, Henry taps on the boards of his doorway.

Let’s get this show on the road, Bendy thinks for the thousandth time, former maliciousness faded now into something like resignation. He erupts violently into being, large enough to block out the lamps in his room and screams. Whether it’s from the pain that manifesting so suddenly creates, or rage at Stein for leaving, or at Drew for keeping him here, Bendy has long since stopped asking himself. He throws himself forward, barely catching the back of Henry’s shirt with the razor tips of his claws. Henry rounds the corner and disappears from sight, but Bendy can hear his wheezing still. He’s slow in his old age.

Bendy lurches around the corner too, already resigned to slamming his head into the same damned pipe he always forgets until the last minute-

Over one of the old cutouts of himself shining in bright gold letters is the message “YOU MAY WANT TO DUCK NEXT TIME OLD PAL.”

Bendy does not duck. When he falls, one of his horns gets stuck in the floorboards. Up ahead, he can hear Henry’s yelp as the floor gives way.

The words twinkle at him from the wall.

Huh.

The next message is in smaller letters but is no less bright in the dark old studio. It is also not meant for Bendy this time.

It’s for Sammy.

Outside the old music room sits an unopened can of ink. Bendy has no clue how Henry would have been able to get his hands on uncorrupted ink, but then again he wasn’t called the Original Creator for nothing. Beside the can is a tiny pyramid of bacon soup.

The gold letters run over the door to the music room and partially onto the wall beside it; Henry has large, uneven handwriting, especially in whatever paint he is using.

“YOU ALWAYS USED TO FORGET TO EAT WHEN YOU GOT CREATIVE, SAM-THE-MAN.”

Bendy stops. Bendy stares.

Bendy is stumped.

(Bendy isn’t even sure if Sammy Lawrence can eat at this point, to be honest.)

The old rage Joey Drew had instilled in Bendy has long since faded into a resigned state of irritation; he can’t always be raring to tear an old man apart. But this new fashion of communication, this strange willingness to show kindness to two different monsters intent on killing him- Henry’s really throwing him for a loop, here.

Hesitantly, Bendy reaches out and lays his claws on the door, over the ‘o’ in ‘you.’ Like an electrical shock, warmth surges up his limb. He pulls back quickly, growling and waiting for the pain to hit- before he left Joey had shocked him quite a few times to make Bendy compliant.

But the pain never comes. The warmth tingles back down to the tips of his claws, slipping away after a few moments and leaving a sense of- of-

There’s a feeling of comfort, of familiarity- it is, Bendy thinks with a dawning sense of realization, what Henry himself was feeling, probably directed at Sammy Lawrence, when he wrote this.

Bendy lays his claws back on the words. The warmth starts right back up again (Henry could always be trusted to build something and make it work if he were given the right materials) and this time Bendy doesn’t drop his arm until the comfort has lodged firmly in his chest.

There’s another message and more bacon soup waiting in the hallway Bendy knows Boris frequents in search of food. Most likely, Henry passed by this hallway and recognized it as one that he would transverse later with the wolf in tow and so left himself some supplies.

The bacon soup is arranged in a smiley face.

“DON’T KNOW WHAT I WOULD DO WITHOUT YOU, BORIS.”

The same warmth crawls into Bendy by touching the letters, but now the sense of comfort is replaced with friendship, and an almost fatherly affection. It sets off a low, burning want in Bendy, but for the life of him the demon can’t understand why.

Bendy can admit, at least to himself, that he’s getting a little desperate for answers at this point. The messages have begun popping up with alarming frequency and Henry seems to have become fantastic at hide-and-seek in the last few days. He’s seen hide nor hair nor ridiculous sweater vest of the grandfatherly old man.

But the scrawls on the walls have still been coming and at an alarming rate. Henry seems to know that the Bendy statues are important to Bendy himself, because most of the gold writing that is directed to the demon he finds is centered in their hallways and alcoves. It’s all pretty innocent stuff overall; reminders to rest, questions about if Bendy is in pain from his run in with the Projectionist- how does he know, Henry hasn’t even met the remains of Norman Polk yet-, thanks for said run in and saving Henry from the Projectionist, a suggestion to take it easy on Alice every once in a while.

But as soothing as these light-hearted messages should be, they rankle at Bendy’s skin. Ink. Whatever.

Henry should not be able to write these. He shouldn’t remember the last cycles, and he certainly shouldn’t be being kind to a monster that’s actively trying to kill him. Joey Drew is rolling over in whatever godforsaken grave they finally buried him in.

The last message prompts a quick visit to Alice; it’s entirely possible that Henry is with her and Boris at this point, although Bendy has to admit that he’s been keeping less of a close eye on his old Creator’s progress than usual.

At first, he only sees sparse messages here and there; a reminder or two for Henry himself to watch out for the rickety stairs and to favor his left ankle when the elevator drops. On the sign for the Heavenly Toys Room Henry has had an entire argument with himself about whether or not Alice would appreciate Henry leaving her one of her dolls.

Then, when he checks the room with all the dissected toons (it makes Bendy want to retch every time he sees it all, the stink of old ink and the sight of so much corruption roils his nonexistent gut and never fails to pull a whine out from between his teeth), Bendy is startled.

It seems like Henry had a full-on break down in this room. There is golden ink everywhere.

Beside the first dead Boris the Wolf is “SORRY.” The word is sloppily painted, strokes out of line and trailing off as if Henry didn’t have the strength or will to lift his hands away cleanly. Around the pedestal on the floor are smaller scrawls. Bendy has to lean closer to read them through the ink on his face.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE JOEY?”

“I’M SO SORRY I NEVER WANTED-“

“ALICE HOW COULD YOU?”

“I NEVER THOUGHT-“

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER JOEY?”

“PLEASE FORGIVE ME BORIS.”

“THEY WERE ALIVE.”

And the last one, the only one that wrenches at whatever heart Bendy can claim to have, the smallest letters of all, “I NEVER SHOULD HAVE LEFT.”

For the first time Bendy is scared to touch the letters. He knows without knowing how that this is the edge of some cliff- if he does this now, he will have an intimate knowledge of his Creator that he may come to regret.

But something makes him do it- the way the letters are jagged and trail off, the way Henry couldn’t finish his apologies, or maybe, just maybe, it’s the vague memory Bendy has of sharp blue eyes and an excited smile looking down at him when he was ink on paper all those years ago.

The words here don’t elect a comforting warmth- they are the chill of winter, scaldingly cold and sharp like ice in the veins. Bendy grins and bears it.

Sluggishly, the cold inches its way up his arm like slow moving sludge; it collects like sewage in his gut and Bendy has the urge to vomit without the usefulness of a stomach to back it up. There is fear in this cold- these words are made not of friendship or paternal warmth but of regret and fear and so much sorrow-

Bendy doesn’t come poking around Alice’s floor again.

When he gets to the Projectionist’s floor Henry has some serious thoughts on his interior design. If Bendy could laugh he would- he’s never seen so much swearing at ink before, and in such a cheerful, twinkling color. Henry seems especially upset that his favorite sweater is ruined once again, but Bendy can’t sympathize; he may be just a demon summoned to wreak havoc, but even he knows that puce, mint green and mauve do not a good combination make.

“DO YOU EVER GET COLD IN ALL THAT INK?”

The message is scrawled at the base of another statue. Bendy has taken to circling the floor he knows Henry has just vacated for any new ink on the walls- although he doesn’t talk to Bendy as often as he talks to himself, Henry has the habit of keeping up a one-sided conversation with every cutout and statue that he meets. Bendy has been asked several times to relay his thoughts on the taste, consistency and make-up of bacon soup.

“LINDA WOULD HAVE A FIELD DAY WITH ALL THE STAINS I’M GETTING ON MY SWEATER,” Henry continues. “BUT IT’S SO CHILLY IN HERE- I DON’T SEE HOW YOU DO IT WITHOUT A CENTRAL HEATER SOMEPLACE. IF YOU KEEP GETTING WET IN THAT INK WITHOUT DRYING OFF YOU’LL CATCH YOUR DEATH OF COLD, YOU KNOW.”

Bendy cannot, in fact, get cold. But it’s nice to see that someone cares to ask. He’s never had that before.

These words feel soft. Linda’s name in particular elects the feeling of being at home, along with a faint, well-known feeling of grief.

But mostly, Bendy feels that same familial warmth he found in Boris’s messages. It’s really grating on his nerves that he can’t seem to find the writer anywhere these days.

“JOEY WAS ALWAYS THE VISIONARY,” Henry tells him. The message is scrawled on the desk next to Drew’s own recorder. He must have just listened to what the man had to say to Susie- before she mysteriously disappeared, that is. “BUT I WAS THE DREAMER. HOW ELSE COULD I HAVE THOUGHT YOU UP?”

The letters aren’t exactly warm but they don’t have the same sense of lingering fear that Alice’s rooms did. Bendy can sense the same regret, but there’s a kind of bittersweet tang here. He thinks it may be nostalgia.

Bendy is remembering more and more now- there was a time before he was a monster, before all the horror and pain and rage clouded his mind and made his ink run into his eyes. He remembers the faint feeling of happiness, of hands tracing lines and drawing a smile on his face. He remembers feeling safe in hands that are now gnarled and wrinkled and shake with fear when their owner sees what their creation has become.

The cycle is ending.

Bendy can feel it, and Henry definitely knows it, if his messages are any indication. They’ve been getting more and more infrequent ever since Allison and Tom found the Creator.

(The old anger flares in him at that- how could Stein just, just- throw him aside that easily? Then again, Allison and Tom never tried to kill him.)

“DO YOU THINK ANY OF THIS WILL CHANGE?” Henry asks an old cutout, and Bendy has no answer.

Henry is getting ever closer to the end, and there’s nothing Bendy can do to stop him. Not without hurting the old man, anyway.

Bendy isn’t so sure he can now.

He misses Henry on purpose this time when he rushes at him in the hallway and the arena. His demon form isn’t as large, the ink can’t seem to form together correctly to give him the same old height and bulk. His claws too are duller, shorter. His heart isn’t in it anymore.

Henry seems off his game too- Bendy can see him stumble and fall multiple times. He fumbles the reel that will end it all. He slumps over on the steps to the throne in the last room. But Stein makes it there in the end.

Bendy can’t seem to muster up any of the old hatred for him when he does.

There is golden ink on the fingers that stretch out to meet Bendy’s when the End Reel starts playing.

Bendy doesn’t scream this time- he’s too tired. As his ink melts and sloughs away, as his limbs disintegrate before his very eyes, his True Creator holds him. Henry’s voice is low and gravelly with old age.

“I never meant to cause you so much pain, old friend,” he murmurs to the demon in his arms. Bendy feels like crying. “I wish I could have stopped all this-“

Bendy doesn’t hear the rest as he returns to the ink.

Joey Drew forced them all to play their parts; Bendy and Henry are the stars of this stupid show.

Bendy is not going to be beaten down again.

He bursts forth from the ink too early- he can feel the reality around him shake at the deviation, the walls threatening to cave in, the lights flickering. Whatever magic Joey Drew used to trap Henry here doesn’t like the change in script.

Bendy couldn’t care less.

The boards have never seemed to break away more easily than now- his claws sink through them like a hot knife through butter.

The hallway outside looks strangely empty without Henry standing there. The gold of his first message shines a little less now, faded with the new cycle. Bendy ducks the pipe.

It doesn’t take long to find Henry- Bendy seems to know the way without even thinking about it. It’s only when he rounds the corner that he puts it together. Of course Henry would stop by his artist’s desk. He always was a sentimental old fool.

There’s no way Henry couldn’t have heard Bendy coming with all the noise he’s made- subtle, Bendy is willing to admit he is not. He’s a demon not a ballet dancer.

Henry is running his hand over his snowy beard when Bendy slows to a halt behind his chair. There an old drawing of his cartoon self on the desk. Bendy wonders how long it’s been there.

Henry doesn’t turn to look at him when he speaks.

“I first drew you when I was seven years old, you know,” he starts conversationally. His hands shake with arthritis when he strokes the old paper. “Of course, you were just a mess of scribbles then, but you were the first character I ever came up with on my own. I don’t know if you remember that time, or even if you remember any time when you were on paper, but I do.”

Bendy curls his claws carefully over the back of Stein’s chair and listens. Some of his ink drips onto Henry’s sweater- but it really is a terrible sweater anyway.

“I kept drawing all my life and I really had quite a range- stop me if I seem like I’m bragging, now- but I always came back to you. Joey was one of the first people I ever showed you to. I thought he’d be the most appreciative of a mischievous little devil character.” Henry laughs at that and the sound is just like the warmth of his words. Bendy can’t help but lean in a little, trying to leech all that friendfamilykindness away and keep it locked up, safe somewhere in his chest.

“You and he are ever so similar- or you were, before Joey changed.” Henry shakes his head and clears his throat loudly. He seems to have a bit of trouble getting the next words out. He hasn’t looked up from his old drawing. “I- he loved adventure and he was so ambitious- I’m sure I couldn’t have gotten anywhere without him. But he became- possessive and jealous, I suppose.”

One of Henry’s hands lifts then and slowly, softly, his fingers lay across Bendy’s claws next to Henry’s shoulder. Bendy whines low in his throat but stays still.

“He wanted more, always more. And I- didn’t. I didn’t need more. I had him and I had you and that was enough for me.”

Bendy knows Joey Drew like he knows himself; they have the same black, misshapen heart in their chests. That doesn’t make listening to the next words any easier.

“But I guess,” Henry sounds like he’s forcing the words out passed a lump in his throat, “that you and I weren’t enough for my old pal Joey.”

Bendy whines louder now, and he lowers his head, bumping his horns- gently, ever so gently- against Henry’s scalp. It earns him a low chuckle- it’s distinctly wet and shaky, but Bendy will take it.

“I never knew what Joey was doing to you, you know; I didn’t hear from anybody after I left. It was like I never met any of them. But you have to know, buddy, I never thought that Joey would- that he could ever-“

Bendy knows what it means when water leaks out of a human’s eyes; he’s seen it dozens of times, when any wayward urban explorer or old employee made the mistake of crossing his path. He knows that salt water from the eyes means fear and pain but he’s never seen it mean sorrow until now.

Henry sobs and it’s so quiet, it’s almost worse because it’s quiet, like he’s holding it all in and this just slipped out and Bendy hates it. He’s used to loud protests and screams and anger but Henry is quiet and still and in pain.

Bendy growls loudly and Henry doesn’t even flinch; which is good, Bendy supposes, because he’s not mad at Henry. It’s Joey Drew he hates, Joey Drew who took something good from Henry Stein and twisted it to fit the mold Joey wanted it to. Joey took Bendy from Henry and then to top it all off he took Henry from Bendy.

This is his Creator. This is his.

Bendy curls over Henry in his chair. His arms are longer than Henry’s torso is wide and he clutches at his Creator around the shoulders. He holds on tightly, everlasting grin pressed into Henry’s neck. He’s careful of his claws all the same- Henry has been caused enough pain in Joey Drew Studios.

Henry’s fingers are soft when they light on one of Bendy’s horns.

For a moment they sit there, Henry shaking silently and Bendy whining into his awful checkered sweater vest. But then- then Bendy sees something bright in the corner of his vision. Something that looks distinctly gold.

The ink from Henry’s hands- he must have been painting new messages already and where in this fresh hell did he even get that shiny ink- had slid down Bendy’s horn into the black ink over his face. Bendy lifts his face away from Henry’s shoulder and shakes his head not unlike a wet dog. But the gold doesn’t get flung away- instead, it spreads even more.

He whines again, this time in distress for himself and Henry reaches out to him, facing Bendy for the first time. His eyes seem younger than the rest of him.

“Hold on, buddy, let me-“

But Bendy doesn’t let his Creator do anything. The gold it- it burns. Henry is burning him!

It’s not his fault, a voice inside explains reasonably, he wouldn’t know. It’s never hurt before.

Bendy doesn’t care.

He flails away, that warmth from all those times before now too much, too much and he’s melting away, maybe this was all an elaborate trick by Stein maybe he and Drew are just the same-

They aren’t. That same voice is stronger now and Bendy realizes with a jolt that it sounds like him- like the old him, on those cartoon reels. Henry Stein and Joey Drew aren’t the same at all. Henry loves you.

That voice doesn’t stop the melting feeling but it does lessen it somehow. It’s not as painful to watch his limbs shorten and his claws slip away to reveal- white gloves?

The gold ink is everywhere now, slipping in streams down to his feet (no longer misshapen limbs but now rounded off and solid) up his chest (his bowtie is straight for the first time in a decade) and finally, finally, returning to his face. His smile doesn’t feel as stretched now.

His eyes are clear. Bendy can’t remember if his eyes have ever been this clear.

The burn dissolves with the gold ink, sinking down beneath the surface of his black body, igniting a pleasant thrum inside. Bendy thinks it may just be in the place where his heart should be.

He had stilled sometime during the process, when the burning had bled away to discovery. He looks around now at the destruction he had unknowingly wrought- Henry’s desk has a slash in it from his claws, his cartoon self will now bear a tear in the shape of a facial scar. Henry’s ink pot is smashed to pieces on the ground, yet another ink spill to lend the place some character.

Henry himself seems unharmed, thrown back in his chair against the wall by Bendy as he was. He looks a little winded and Bendy remembers how old his creator is. There’s a flash of panic for Henry’s heart before he realizes what’s different about this view of him.

He’s looking up at Henry for the first time in years.

He looks down at his hands- pristine white gloves once again. Not a razor-sharp claw in sight.

“Bendy,” Henry whispers, voice reverent. “You’re back on-model again.” He reaches out hesitantly and Bendy bounds forward, taking the man’s hand in both of his. Henry never seemed as tall as he does now.

Bendy grins and it finally isn’t forced. His heart (because that’s what the gold ink was, it was all the good of Henry Stein and the memories of their lives together and Bendy is never letting that go) beats hard in his chest. He’s finally warm again. Bendy hadn’t even realized he was so cold.

“Henry, my old friend,” he says and speaking seems a gift from above- a gift from his True Creator, “am I glad to see you again.”

#bendy and the ink machine henry #batim #batim bendy #henry stein #dad!henry #grandpa!henry #batim fic #bendy the dancing demon #bendy and the ink machine #my writing

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brownmuse · 6 years

Text

Erik’s Theory of Happiness: Part I - Chapter III (Final Preview)

Hi y’all! I know I’ve been taking more time than originally planned on this chapter, but quality over quantity is highly important to me and I want to always put out the best for my audience. This chapter has been quite challenging from the large amount of information you learn about Erik’s background that plays an essential aspect in the story. BUT looking at my progress I can finally say Tomorrow will be the day! Meanwhile here’s a final Long preview to keep you on your toes till then! Thank you for patiently waiting!

Erik! The modulated voice shattered Erik’s reverie, reintroducing him to an active dimension where life succeeded. Glaze melted from his eyes as he closed them momentarily before opening the curtains of his vision. Erik opened his hands several times before settling them on his lap. A weary sigh escaped his lips. Lost again searching for the doors of his enlightenment he could never find. His voice, his thoughts...would they ever reach the cosmos? “Erik, are you alright? You seem incredibly scatterbrained this session. Did something cause you to remember anything disturbing?” Scatterbrained. The label of forgetfulness. The label of disorganization. An inescapable curse attached to his disposition. Despite Erik’s indifference toward the stigmas he carried, his underlying insecurities regarding his psychological state could never silence the truth. Above everything, Erik feigned his charismatic smile. His endless thoughts of becoming nonexistent weren’t going to be disclosed to a stranger he’d known for only two months. Smiles kept them quiet, smiles kept him ambiguous. “I’m fine. Just thinking.” “And may I ask what these thoughts were that caused you zone out for nearly four minutes?” It’s really none of your damn business. “T’Challa’s having a birthday dinner today and I’m a little anxious.” “Anxious about?” Dr. Nykhor pressed. “People.” “People...” “People being nosy.” “Are you perhaps scared of people discovering you don’t talk?” Erik’s fingers stopped moving in the air and he pondered his next response. Instead, after some time, he took out his personalized notepad used for communication and wrote, holding it up for Dr. Nykhor to see when he finished. “Nobody really likes me, so I don’t care particularly about their reactions. They’ll just wonder why I don’t talk, and I don’t feel like explaining myself.”

Dr. Nykhor studied him carefully, absorbing every everything his soul burrowed causing Erik’s shoulders to straighten under her scrutiny. The intrusion of her gaze stirred feelings reflecting humiliation, making him nauseous. “Surely your family has acquired some skills from sign language to communicate with you.”

Erik rolled his eyes at her baseless assumption. His muteness never rewarded him accommodations from anybody, his distant family being no exception. Communicating through sign language required generous dedication and patience for novices. His insurmountable burden carried weight too heavy for their shoulders, thus dowsing their acceptance in reluctance. Flipping the page, he documented his next response. “None of them are very versatile in sign language besides King T’Challa.”

“Why doesn’t King T’Challa translate for you during this dinner?”

Next page. “He only knows moderate sign language from here, but no ASL. I don’t like switching frequently between both.”

More notes. She soon sighed, alerting him of her subtle impatience and frustration slowly crumbling beneath her professionalism. The suggestions she contrived were approaching scarcity. These moments always solidified how incurable his mind had become.

Erik’s irritation quickly dissolved into dejection. Ornamented melancholy. A feeling he tried suppressing because such emotions birthed weakness, an experience he unfortunately encountered many times beyond his favor. It loiters inside whilst him helplessly trying to shut it out, scratching and aching his every bone; It crawled around in his stomach and fired spears at his heart. Whispering acidulous words inside his heart and biting his tongue. Weakness opened doors for vulnerability. Passable thresholds beholding a light that showcased shame on the other side. Constantly allowing unwanted visitors to denounce his wounds. No key existed to permanently secure the doors from emotional intruders. Somehow his tightened bolts were always dismantled, his heart spilling sorrows onto everyone’s feet. The likelihood of him ever speaking again was minimal.

Official Masterlist

Taglist: @iamrheaspeaks @muse-of-mbaku @eriknutinthispoosy @killmongersgurl @kimpossible1977 @terrablaze514 @chaneajoyyy @jozigrrl @cmonkillmonger @madnessmakers @wakanda-inspired @fruitpunchflavoredstarburst

#erik killmonger fic #erik killmonger x oc #black panther fanfiction #black panther fanfic

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lxveille · 6 years

Text

on numbers

(or: veille thinks, and then proceeds to type, just way too much)

so, back in november i started writing fic again. i’ve written fanfiction on and off since i was in middle school, for various fandoms, and i hadn’t written it in ages when suddenly i decided i wanted to write a thing about dancing at a bar with soonyoung. so i wrote, and then let myself get this crazy idea that maybe if i enjoyed writing it, someone might enjoy reading it.

as i mentioned before, i’ve written in a whole host of fandoms and on various platforms over the years. when i decided to start sharing it on here, i tried to go into it and maintain a different kind of philosophy about sharing fics than the ones i’d had in the past. so, feel free to skip on by, but i’m going to ramble a bit about that, because i would probably not still be posting things at all here if not for it --

i think dissatisfaction is kind of innate in humans, or at least modern humans. and social media is a hotbed for comparison and the unhappiness that can come with it. i’m sure it’s not just an advent of the internet; i’m sure humans have always been a bit fixated on being able to quantify their success -- but being able to have a count of of how many people “care” about what you’ve done (via likes and followers (on platforms beyond just tumblr!) and so forth) is a tempting trap. i feel my worst on here when i find myself looking at numbers or when i see other people celebrating milestones and such, because that’s what draws me into the whole horrid thing of comparison, when i find myself boiling down what i’ve done to numbers as if they are an indication of anything at all. i feel my best when i actually go back to the thought that made me post the first fic here in the first place: maybe someone will enjoy it too. when i remember how big of a number one really is. because it’s not just one speck of dust, but one human (a whole person! with their own lives and priorities and finite existence on earth!) out there who spent time with something i wrote and who, in the end, tried to communicate something back about it.

none of this is meant to invalidate comments other content creators have been making. of course it would be nice to get more feedback; it would be dishonest to claim that i wouldn’t like it. i guess i mostly mean it as a potential mind-frame shift for some of those who are discouraged by the amount feedback they currently get.

(and perhaps this is me being a cynic, but i wonder: if were the standard for me to get a 100+ notes on something, would i instead be wondering why i don’t get a 1000? the honest answer, for me at least, is that i probably would. again, tying back to the idea of dissatisfaction being innate. and perhaps it is natural because it’s part of human nature to want more and to want to do better, but this mindset has its obvious pitfalls)

the truth is we can’t really change how other people interact with our content; we can only try to change how much we value these things, how much we value the number ‘one’ and how we factor those things into our reflections on how valuable/successful/good our work is. and i know this might sound like it’s just another long-winded way of saying ‘just write for yourself, not for notes!’ -- and again, i understand why these kinds of comments are frustrating. the key problem with those kinds of remarks is that if we wrote just for ourselves, we wouldn’t bother posting it in any kind of public space. but i guess in lieu of that, the philosophy that keeps me going perhaps boils down to write for someone, not for notes.

of course getting away from the number-centered mindset isn’t easy; i fall back into it from time to time, and i can get quite down when i do. and it’s not like it’s limited just to tumblr and writing. the fixation upon higher numbers is so pervasive nowadays (it is among the reasons why i’m basically nonexistent on most social media platforms; but at work it’s not uncommon for me to hear young people, who are really only just in the beginning of forming their online presences due to age, stressing over the amount of ‘likes’ they receive on one post or another.)

even ‘write for someone’ can be tricky when tumblr can feel pretty cliquey and isolating at times, for me at least (which can honestly be as discouraging as the feedback thing -- but that’s a whole other, mostly-me issue). this is when i take a step back and think about my experiences as a reader, about fics that have made me smile or clutch at my chest or laugh. when i remind myself that there’s a decent chance i’ve written something that could come to someone else’s mind when they do the same thing.

and on that last note, it’s difficult not to close this all out by encouraging it to be two-way street kinda thing. being a reader can feel like a fairly passive thing, but as soon as you are invested (when your mood changes because of a story, or you find yourself rooting for a character or building hopes for what might happen next, etc), it becomes active. you essentially become the someone it was written for. let the creator know you’re out there.

alright. that’s it.

all the best and all the love to you, regardless, but perhaps an extra dose of love if you made it this far ❤ thank you.

#veille shouts into the void #i'm... mildly worried this might be misconstrued somehow #really it's just me reflecting on my relationship with the feedback i currently get on tumblr #and how i manage how to (most of the time) not be brought down by what could be framed as a lack thereof #i tried to be pretty open in this that i am in fact discouraged at times but that those times are when i really benefit from also having thi #this kind of philosophy about notes in general as well #this isn't meant to invalidate or 'throw shade' at other writers feelings (bc i respect other writers a TON #and other posts about feedback and such still ring very true to me as well)#it's just a potential way of considering things that MIGHT make you less discouraged than what i've been seeing on my dash recently #i wouldn't have really bothered typing this all out if i thought it might not help someone in some tiny way in the least #though of course it's entirely possible it won't bc just because it works for me doesn't mean it will for anyone else #but gosh okay that's probably enough tags #possibly tbdeleted

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survivorkalokairi · 6 years

Text

Episode 1: “How do I bond with people” - Mitch

Dylan C

https://youtu.be/MiBLiRlSzFc

Stephen

It’s round one and I’ve already learnt a foreign word for pee, this seasons gonna be great

Cam

hello everyone and welcome to HOLY FUCK by cameron, your local certified sick kid

so first of all

I HAVE DYLAN AND MATT SUMMERS AND MITCH ON MY TRIBE

which is all fine and dandy

ABBEY IS ON? THE OTHER TRIBE?

which is also fine and dandy

blake is super sweet and i adore this newbie already!! he's like "im so overwhelmed im in two games"....... sweetie

BUT ALSO

so i message jay to idol hunt

"first in line"

i say "this is door 9 all over again!"

i wait about 15 minutes

go through the path, dee dee dee dee dee

"fountain or pay an offering to the statue"

me, in my hellenic witchcraft practices, knowing the goddesses really like offerings, gonna offer aphrodite some food (sorry hera)

guess what aphrodite gives me?

an idol. she gives me an idol. i'm truly blessed. this is ridiculous. i got the idol the very first idol hunt of the season.

i'm shaking.

Dylan C

oh my god how to I play a game with my close friends sksjsh (i’ll make a Proper confessional later)

Brittany

i've been doing duolingo for, like, an hour now and there are so many ways to say the. i've counted around 4. it's pretty fun though, and everyone on my tribe seems really cool and nice cx

Zabbey

Wow ok so my tribe is really cute and wholesome so far. I'm playing with JG, Timmy and Stephen which is cool bc i lowkey know them all but I've never played with them so thats fun! I cant really speak on the newbies since I havent really talked to any of them yet but I'm excited to get to know them! It's wild knowing cam and dylan are on the other tribe, I hope i get to play with them too!

Stephen

Cal is the best, i would love to work with Cal, JG, Timmy, and Zabbey. But i’m still gonna gove the other new guys a chance, still very early days to start making alliances. That being said I’m still very happy we have had a majority on a call, make some ties. *glares at atomic “all-stars”*

Zach

So uh...so far nothing. Unless I’m completely out of the loop. I really like my tribe mate Zabbey. She seems cool and we have the same sense of humor. I really hope to align with her, but we’ll see how it goes. I also really admire Maynor for volunteering to sit since he has to work today. So far I think our tribe vines well. No tea to spill yet, but I’m sure there’s more to come.

Alex

Many people werre talking about drag race and I've never seen it and I kinda knew this would happen to me at some point in mylife when I end up being the bad gay who hates Lady Gaga and hasn't seen drag race and we're here folks. lol I guess I'll stay quiet and hopefully noone will find out

J.G.

Night one was, interesting to say the least. I was a little worried because I knew that I had to work during the first hour of the game and with new people I did not want to miss out on the bonding opportunities. Shockingly few were active among the noobies mostly Zach and Cal. The vets on my tribe, I actually know which is wild. Stephen and I have played together in the past, not together but there is for sure no bad feelings, that I know of. Abbey and Timmy I have never played with them but I know of them from the community. I have always wanted to play with them and excited for this opportunity. I know from a viewer this will come off as boring but I do feel that sticking with the vets is going to be smart at least in the early stages but mark my words, if I have any say, Abbey will be the last boot before merge. There is no way hell, I am letting her get any where near merge, I am not dumb no what she can do. Sorry Abbey, you're queen but the queen is not gonna stay queen. I really want to make a three tight alliance with Stephen and Timmy and ride with them but they could always tip off Abbey and use it to their advantage so I need to just chill and let things play out. I feel that if we are to go to tribal in the early stages, I can picture two noobs being easily targeted for inactivity. Oh, let's also talk about how I got freaking 20% disadvantage night one like I always do, and then turn around to get a 10% advantage the next day. I'm mess but I'm gonna keep eating these grapes because they're pretty good.

So I was really sure I was going to be in the first alliance of the season amongst the vets but nope that didn't happen. I am in a unprecedented alliance with Abbey, yeah the person I said I want to make sure gets out before merge and Zach. Our alliance is called Two Gays and a Bi-by ... iconic as fuck. With a smaller tribe starting size with 8, smaller alliances are key plus I feel that we can easily pull some side votes for numbers to honestly keep our alliance alive and active. This makes targeting Abbey really hard cause it could turn Zach against me. I will have to be very cautious, how I go about this. I also talked to Cal and was making sure I connected with him cause I know he was putting work in on Timmy and Stephen last night. That is something I will have to monitor. That can not be allowed to happen. I think working with Timmy would be fun and cool but it's looking like that if after a early not so active noob goes and we need to find another target, I think Timmy would be a fine first threat to knock out leaving Stephen and Cal up in the air.

Cal

Lots of stuff! I was late to the party at the intro but got to chat with Timmy, JG, and Stephen. I learned about their past in the community as well as talked about the many moods of trying to learn greek. One such mood is probably me always confusing the "pi" sign and the one shaped like the letter "p" leading to accidentally translating baby as fool. Ironically I really don't want to be seen as either while a baby or fool especially since I'm new. I've really enjoyed meeting my tribe mates but I'm afraid to see where the pleasant meet and greet ends and the game begins.

Maynor

My thoughts on this tribe is that i like everyone and i dont want any of them to leave. Ive been trying to talk to everyone n try to be social player since im sitting out the first challenge.

Blake

welp. i still dont really know whats going on but... IM HAVING FUN. Ive talked with Dylan C a bunch and we have gotten to know each other pretty well. The greek challenge? a MESS. I havent been able to do a lot and the little i have done is not even worth mentioning. I hope the next challenge is a little easier for me but until then... YAY!

Maynor

Last night Brittany and I started talking and decides since we are newbies that we will work as a duo to keep each other safe since the game has newbies & returning players. As of right now she is my #1 but i am talking to others.

Maynor

Second day has been very interesting. Ive been talking to Cal and J.G. pretty much all day seperately. And both want to align and J.G brought up maybe doing three person alliance and he said we should try n bring in Cal. In my head i was like yes. So now its an allince of me, Cal, and J.G. which is great. If its all 100% (my end it is) then this is going to be great.

Timmy

Wow, I haven't made a confessional yet. WE WON IMMUNITY!!! I'm very relaxed now, but also I don't think I would have gone anyways so woot woot. I did the worst on my tribe so that's not too great (pretty sure the 810 from the post was my score), but I still did better than the entire other tribe so wooo. I'm so happy to finally be in a game with Abbey and I really want to work with her and we have been talking already about the nothingness that has come from our idol hunts so that's good. I still haven't talked to Zach or Brittany so I need to do that soon, Zach seems nice in the tribe chat but Brittany seems nonexistent at the moment even though she did well in the challenge.

Cam

well i may have won a main season last night

but let me tell you

WE DID NOT WIN THAT MY DUDES LMAO. we were literally beat ten times over. i hope the f tribe feels good about how much they squished us. they... earned that. truly.

but now jay says... there's an announcement? and this is what immediately ensues

On 7/21/18, at 9:29 PM, Jay 🐠 (Kalokairi Host) wrote:

> but first there will be an announcement

On 7/21/18, at 9:29 PM, Cameron Culpepper (Atomic Admin) wrote:

> oh no

On 7/21/18, at 9:31 PM, Dylan R. wrote:

> oh cool

and it was just announced! so there is redemption. this is nice! i'm less worried about work now. like obviously i'm gonna do my best? but... if i fuck up at least there's a CHANCE.

oh yeah and the idol. day 2 in the game, still haven't told anyone, so that's pretty cool! we'll see how long that lasts.

dylan c and i had a conversation about how if we don't work together neither of us will hold it against the other but like... im pretty sure we're gonna work together anyway.

wouldn't it be cute to make f3 with dylan c and abbey? god that's the dream. but it won't happen.

Maynor

The alliance is official between me, JG, and Cal. Are alliance name is MEW but greek that looks like mew. I like both and i hope they are ride or die as i am with this alliance. But just so we could have one more vote, im keeping my ally, Brittany, secret for now.

Mitch

Welcome to Greece! I consume goat cheese, so I'm something of a Greek expert myself you know. I'm very excited to meet all of my tribemates but now I'm probably going to talk about them individually since Idk what else to do

I haven't played a game in so long I have no fucking idea how to socialize oh my god. I feel like everything I type is awkward and sad. At least the first challenge was relatively easy since I never had to type anything and have free time up the wazoo . But fuck we got crushed lmao. I dunno what secret they used but I take comfort in knowing that they were probably worried about us doing the same thing. Maybe I probably won't get voted out for having a score of 600 but WE SHALL SEE

Alex - Where is he? He did the challenge but he hasn't said a word ever. I want to keep him but uh Blake - 15 exp huh. 15? :| I only got increments of 10 where did the 5 come from Cameron - Aaaa. I enjoy Cameron and hopefully he enjoys me Dylan C - Oh this distinguishing between Dylans will be fun. But hopefully this Dylan and I can... meet in the middle somewhere yes Dylan R - One of the 4 people who have spoken to me! This kid is GOING PLACES and I'm glad to help him along for the ride Maddie - She is camping and I completely understand. Matt - I mean sure Matt and I KNOW each other but do we really? It's not like we were buddy buddy in Navarino. Unless he thinks we were? If he does... uh oh

How do I bond with people

Cal

Maynard just brought together me and JG together to start an alliance all while the results of the immunity challenge was finished. I was nervous but not only did we win but we have an amazing three that is called ΜΞΨ(after the first letters of our names), which is called that thanks to me! I just thought it'd be fun to name it like a frat since we've been learning greek and also hopefully dominate! JG and Maynard are great guys and I'm excited to work with them as ΜΞΨ but I also am keeping in mind ΜΞ(me lol) in the game for when we do have to go to tribal! Mu Xi Psi out!

Dylan R

For the first tribal, I'm obviously worried. As for targets, I'm not sure there are any at this moment. I guess I'm voting based on tribal performances, but I would be open to other people's suggestions. I would consider myself closest to Matt, Dylan C and Mitch so those three are who I would want to vote with.

Stephen

I found half a “special idol” in the mangroves! While I am happy and I will still search for the other half I do have to decide if I want to tell anyone. In a previous season I told one person and they betrayed me (thanks tim) but in the end that led the person who had other half to reach out to me. However I can’t expect the same thing to happen this game, every games a new game. So I think I’m gonna keep it to myself, if somebody else tells me or is revealed to have the other half I might tell them, but for now I’m just gonna search for the other half and be content that no one can use the whole thing against me.

Zach

We won the first challenge!!!! I was expecting it to be a lot closer tbh. But I have an alliance of 3 that I’m fairly confident in! I wouldn’t say I completely trust them yet though. Both of them have played before and so it’s scary to think that they might just be playing me. I guess time will tell. I’m also curious to see what other alliances will show themselves when we finally start talking and going to trial. Also a little worried that I might be playing to hard out of the gate. We’ll see and I’ll probably get used to playing as time goes on.

My mom (Jay) has officially cancelled me y'all. My tribe freaking won by over 13 to almost 2k. Holy crap. Like did the vets on the other side never play this comp before? Like with maybe a little work and patience, you could get easily 1500XP without really grinding maybe more. I am honestly perfectly o.k. with these results I wanted us to win badly because of having to go to work tonight, I did not want to bother with the stress of that. Plus, the night before my work had an emergency so I am definitely not in a place ready to emotionally invest and make a move in the game. ΜΞΨ is an alliance that formed between Maynor, Cal, and myself. The alliance names from the first letter of our names in Greek to kinda make a frat/sor name. Maynor approached me wanting to make a final 2 and go really far. I am down with this for now of course, this game is constantly changing and moving. He asked me if we wanted to make a threesome to help our odds and asked me for suggestions. I suggested Cal because I knew I wasn't in any other alliances with him yet and this will allow me to keep an eye on him making sure he doesn't get close to Timmy or Stephen. Before I went off for the night Stephen and I officially talked about how the vets probably should create an official thing because it wouldn't hurt for us to work at least together in the early stages of the game. We decided that it should be discussed and formed today. Once that happens your boy is literally in an alliance with everyone besides Brittany and she actually did really well in the challenge. This scares me that she is either close to others or just someone I am not gonna be able to connect with. I heard from others that people are forgetting she's here, at the least she is a competitor. Either this is gonna blow up in my face or gonna allow me to position myself really well going into merge. Mama mia, my tribe isn't going tribal but I feel I made some of the biggest moves. Time will tell, I guess

Zabbey

SO A lot has happened since I last confessed!!!! I am now in a baby alliance with JG and Zach which is wholesome. Zach is super hype and its v endearing and im a stan. JG also said him and Stephen have talked about a vet alliance which would be the easier way to go but I don't really want to. I don't want to play this game based off of outside relationships, I'm not necessarily going to align with Cam and Dylan is we make it onto the same tribe. In more impotant news ya bITCH FOUND THE IDOL! My literal third search! Timmy told me that he was looking in the hotel rooms so I was gonna do that but then Jay said roof and I was like why not and my witch ass gave that offering and got me a sexy idol! I don't plan on telling anyone about it unless I absolutely have to!

Blake

I'm realizing now that im probably going to be seen as invisible the whole time bthrfnm dont know if thats good or bad LOL. But I finally have an alliance and its with people that I actually enjoy talking too :) Me, Cameron and Dylan C formed a group called Bicons (Bi Icons LMAO) and they seem to be really loyal. I have no idea what im doing but i hope people find me funny and want to keep me hfuiejf. (I HAVE NO IDEA WHO IM GONNA VOTE OFF)

Maddie

I came into this game after 2 nights had already gone by. I am really scared that I will be voted out tonight because I would be the easy since not very many people know me.

Dylan R

The first tribal is the most important tribal, at least from a game perspective. That’s why I’m taking a gamble and trying to target after Blake. We need people who will win challenges, and after his score of 15 I’m not sure if he’s best suited. I need 4 votes to tie. I believe I’ll have Alex & Maddie, so right now I’m focusing on the fourth vote. Dylan C seems wary about this vote, so I’m trying to convince her now. I told her that “other people have mentioned Blake” when really it’s just me lol. I don’t wanna tell anyone else, simply because I don’t want people thinking I’m playing too hard, so I’m hoping the votes will tie or the votes will be spread. I’m taking a bit of a gamble because this could put a target on my back, but I do love gambles so I can’t resist. This will probably come back to bite me, but it is redemption island so I guess that’s always a fallback.

Cal

Missed a lot of discussion about past games because I was meeting up with someone impromptu. It's daunting but also exciting to face the experience of some of my tribe mates. It's the feeling of a glorious revolution of the new players against the old! I aim to learn as well, but also have really enjoyed speaking with my tribe but fear people are getting wind of the ΜΞΨ alliance since me, JG, and Maynor are speaking a lot. I gotta figure out my mist! Mu Xi Psi out!

Stephen

The tribe chat: Jay is about to get represented by an agent!!!!! ajdnfkksxjsnxxcz

Cal in my PMs: I just got laid

............okay cal. I guess he ws just being friendly? But things like that are sort of a hot topic for me, but I don’t think thats something he needs to know. And its probably not something to get into in confessionals. Maybe if we become besties we can have a dnm about it later.

Dylan C

https://youtu.be/8oaTFmpiv0I

Dylan R

Ok so like. Convincing people is hard lol. New tactic: I told Alex that people are targeting him in hopes that it’ll ignite him enough to save himself. I want Alex as an ally, but if he can’t save himself then I don’t want him as an ally

Brittany

so i'm late to making this confession but we won the first challenge and i'm still so?? happy about it?? and by a lot too, and there i was panicking and speeding through duolingo lmao. hopefully this is a sign and we stay doing this well lol

J.G.

Yeet,one last confessional before the round is over. I am honestly really anxious to see what happens at this tribal whether a vet or noob will go. While I do not think that this will be a prevalent theme in decision making, it something I am keeping in the back of my mind. I don't want people to be able use that against me to vote me out. That's why I will feel really inclined to stick with the vets if a vet is voted out tonight over a noob. Who knows what that tribe will do they have several options.

Finally, officially the vets (Abbey, Timmy, and Stephen as well as myself) finally came together to form an official alliance called The Nursing Home. I am really keeping an eye on Timmy and Stephen, they give me some minor sketch vibes but it could just be me over analyzing.

Well, 1 week down, several more to go.

Dylan C

I’m getting a concerning amount of radio silence form some cast members. Is it because they’re inactive or ignoring me?? Lmao mattI'm so excited to be on Kalokairi! This has been a lifelong dream. Who wouldn't want to live on a gorgeous Greek island, where every piece of drama or sadness is resolved by breaking out into 70s Disco Pop and choreographing elaborate dance routines featuring wacky props like scuba fins? And to be able to play the game of Survivor while doing it? Wild!

My tribe is literally so wholesome. The other "veterans" are all so fantastic, and the newbies are so pure and fun and I love talking to them. The only person I haven't gotten to speak one on one to is Alex, and it seems like that's the case for the rest of the tribe. After getting THWUMPED in that immunity challenge, it's nice that we can all come together in a cohesive vote to hopefully power through in the future.

I found a leather necklace at the market, but it doesn't actually do anything until I combine it with another part. I'm not sure if my best strategy is to keep it hidden or let everyone know I have it in case they're also looking for it, but I think I'm going to keep it to myself while I search a bit more.

I'd really like to work with Cameron long term, and I have a crush on Dylan R okay that is all goodnight.

Cam

so i've been wrestling with the decision on whether or not to tell Dylan C about the idol.

I still haven't told him. Day 3! Nobody knows but me. that's pretty cool.

it's pretty quiet around the vote right now? everyone is still asleep i think, and morale is a little low following last night.

-----

I didn't submit that before I left for work, rip

Cam, certified short term memory loss haver

Alex was unanimously eliminated.

#episodes

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crimsonrevolt · 7 years

Photo

Congratulations Bree you’ve been accepted to Crimson Revolt as Septima Vector

↳ please refer to our character checklist

Welcome back, Bree! We are so excited to see your Septima back with us once again, she truly is a joy to have on the dash. You make her such a layered and compelling character with the perfect contrast between how she is ruled by logic but also deeply vulnerable underneath it all. It’s so clear that you love playing her and she has been so well developed that we cannot wait to see what you do with her from here on!

application beneath the cut

OUT OF CHARACTER

INTRODUCTION

It’s Bree! I’ve returned! 20, she/her, CST

ACTIVITY

6/10; I am taking 6 classes and doing hours in a school, but all my classes are evening so my days are free!

HOW DID YOU FIND US?

Simply checking back in and wanted to come back!!

WHAT HARRY POTTER CHARACTER DO YOU IDENTIFY WITH MOST?

I’ve kept this answer pretty consistent for… well, years. It would definitely be one of the Weasley girls, either Molly or Ginny. In more than just the sense of being the only girl in a family of boys, Molly is constantly acting as a mother to not just her own family, but her friends, which is a role that I frequently take. Ginny is strong and resilient which are two traits that I try to embody on the regular.

ANYTHING ELSE?

Not a thing <3

IN CHARACTER

DESIRED CHARACTER

Septima Genevieve Vector

FACE CLAIM

Adelaide Kane (or Lily Collins)

REASON FOR CHOSEN CHARACTER

WHY DO I WANT TO PLAY SEPTIMA? why wouldn’t I want to play my broken dear? I know that back when I applied for Septima like… forever ago, I had been interested in taking on a character that doesn’t seem to have much of a background outlined within the books. Septima is very much one of the background characters, but she still works her love of numbers and logic into helping the cause not once, but twice- in both wars.

So, as far as how I approach Septima, it is in a very closed off manner. Y’all might remember that, me being the worst like I am, wrote the future Professor Vector a real tearjerker of a background where her mother had passed when she was very young and her father had abandoned her, leaving her to be raised by her grandmother until she was 16 and all alone in the world. It caused the young woman to go from being only cautious with her heart to closing herself off completely- since feelings were irrational and she was a sane being. This unfortunately throws wrenches in all the friendships she had formed over the years, leaving the Ravenclaw to be torn between Aversio and the Order.

While the sincerity that she possesses in the depths of her being tell her that their has to be a better way of approaching the fight so no more individuals- innocent and pure individuals- die, the logical side takes precedent now as she rules that no one is innocent any longer and sacrifices are to ensue for a greater cause.

PREFERRED SHIPS // CHARACTER SEXUALITY // GENDER & PRONOUNS

So, I now imagine that Septima(she/her) is pansexual- because despite herself, she has found herself attracted to an individual based on their personality- their wit, really. Of course, relationships are completely illogical to her though so, when it comes to needing a quick pick-me-up, she tends to gravitate toward men more.

(this makes sense in my head, but i have no idea whether it makes sense written out like this…)

CREATE ONE (OR MORE!) OF THE FOLLOWING FOR YOUR CHARACTER:

-A MOODBOARD

https://sxptimavxctor.tumblr.com/post/162328560888/septima-vector-moodboards-1-septima

-AN AESTHETIC

https://sxptimavxctor.tumblr.com/post/159397507118/septima-vector-aesthetics-1-fool-me-once

https://sxptimavxctor.tumblr.com/post/166312112978/septima-vector-aesthetics-6-horrors-are

https://sxptimavxctor.tumblr.com/post/161957391178/septima-vector-aesthetics-4-how-can-part

https://sxptimavxctor.tumblr.com/post/159446175638/septima-vector-aesthetics-2-future-au

-A PLAYLIST

https://sxptimavxctor.tumblr.com/post/164992262123/listen-here-j-o-a-n-n-e

-A FEW HEADCANONS

https://sxptimavxctor.tumblr.com/post/160108406753/23-what-is-one-unique-thing-youre-afraid-of

https://sxptimavxctor.tumblr.com/post/159745650223/brighid-tell-us-about-your-relationship-with-your

Edith Atkinson, Septima’s grandmother on her mother’s side, had spent her entire life reporting on the pureblood lifestyles through her work, realizing long ago that she did not want her daughter, and subsequently her granddaughter, to grow up with such entitlement. Their lives remained quiet, reserved much like the personality that Septima grew into. Small cottage in Devon just for the pair with spacious fields as far as one’s eye could see. For years, the young brunette had no idea that there were individuals in the world who thought they were superior to others because of the make up of their blood; though that possibly had to do with the fact that she rarely thought about the make up of her own blood.

Upon abandoning Septima, her father- Enzo Vector- began associating with former Ballycastle Bats teammates who were strong supporters of “not tainting their pureblood.” He is currently working with the Death Eaters, though Septima does not know how heavily involved he happens to be since she’s had no contact with him since her mother passed.

-A FEW POTENTIAL PLOT POINTS

Death Eater connections who know Enzo, and maybe attempt to use him as leverage against Septima or something to that degree.

A connection who works as a contact for Septima with information on her father and his goings-on

Order connections who are suspicious, or know of her involvement in Aversio.

Order connections who are suspicious of her and accidentally end up following her meetings about her father with previously noted connection.

IN CHARACTER QUESTIONNAIRE

The following section should be looked at like a survey for your character. Answer them in character and feel free to use gifs. Or, if you’d rather, answer them in third person or OOC without gifs. Answers do not have to be extremely lengthy.

♔ If you were able to invent one spell, potion, or charm, what would it do, what would you use it for or how would you use it? Feel free to name it:

“I do believe it would be quite helpful if there was a spell or potions of sorts that could help with more hands, or cloning of sorts. It would make things immensely easier if I could be in multiple places at once. Though I suppose there would be a problem with the consciousness of the clones if that was the case… Perhaps we’re better without.”

♔ You have to venture deep into the Forbidden Forest one night. Pick one other character and one object (muggle or magical), besides your wand, that you’d want with you:

“Oh by far, I would want Aurora by my side. We would both be able to keep our heads about ourselves and not fuss over trivial encounters that may occur in the forest. And as far as the object… well, my grandmother had some spades that were quite heavy. I’d say they would do well to whack someone with, if it came to that…”

♔ What kinds of decisions are the most difficult for you to make?

“Most difficult? I really rarely have any trouble making decisions, truly. Blessing and a curse, as I’ve been told. I s’pose though, if there had to be an aspect where I fail a bit, it would be decisions that involve other individuals. It’s hard to make decisions that involve others when they all tend to think far more irrationally.”

♔ What is one thing you would never want said about you?

“That I’m incompetent, naturally. Though, I suppose that would mostly bother me if it happens to be said by someone who has little knowledge of competency. Ignorance is a very ugly trait that too many do possess.”

REACTION TO LAST EVENT DROP

I know that you had a Septima until just a few days ago, so I don’t know how i would like to approach this. But I had an idea that she may have dropped off the map a bit while trying to find out more information about her dad. The other aspect of this, as long as it is approved by you all, would be that she had been hiding out in Devon in the cottage where she had lived with her gran and left to her in the will when she passed. Her attempts to find out information about her father did not go unnoticed by the Death Eaters, or D.E. enthusiasts, and when they realized that she was involved in the Order, they attempted to attack her there. Surrounded and alone, she grabs as much as she can and apparates back to her flat, figuring that the home will be burned to the ground. I believe that she’d be so shaken up, she would start considering leaving Aversio as she learns about works of the Order to get people to their side.

WRITING SAMPLE

Perhaps it was the fact that her father could not handle the death of her mother, or maybe it was that he always felt the way he was now portraying. At six years old, would any child be able to notice the difference, even one of an advanced intelligence like Septima? All she knew was that within a matter of days, she had lost two parents- one to mortality and the other to immorality. It was hard to understand that neither was her fault, despite her grandmother’s reminding her each day.

It was odd though how different her aunt Honor seemed to be in comparison to the man who she once knew as her father. Letters soon began to be written quite frequently between the young brunette and her father’s sister, in spite of the great distance there was from England to Australia. Time went by though and letters became less frequent, various factors coming into play. With the passing of Edith, Septima’s grandmother, and her becoming more rigid in addition to the stress that came along with being an independent adult and witch in the tension-filled wizarding world, time to write became nonexistent.

That was until the realization that her father was working with the likes of Death Eaters became common knowledge to the Ravenclaw. Receiving word back from her aunt, her suspicions were unfortunately confirmed.

“My dear niece,

It is quite lovely to hear from you after all this time. I hope you are keeping safe- I have heard whisperings of increasing violence back home. To hear this about my brother, unfortunately, is not all that surprising. Growing up with Enzo was challenging once we found out that I was a squib. He began viewing me in a different, less-worthy light; he even accused me of doing something to jeopardize my magic that resulted in my inabilities. He only hung around with individuals of pureblood in school as well, causing me to question whether this sorting hat really knew what it was doing. For some reason, he clung to this mental concept that purity was a necessity in the magical world. Your mother, Vivienne, she was really the only individual that had the ability to return him to the kind, sweet man that I had known as a young girl. It was just so unfortunate how ill she became so soon into their marriage. And despite the fact that they had you, Vivienne was his whole world and losing her clearly broke him in an irreparable fashion. In some way though, I believe it was good that fate intervened as it did. Your grandmother did such a spectacular job of raising you into the fine young woman you are, Sep. Enzo never had time to taint your view of the world into the narrow one that he possesses. Hope to hear from you quite soon, dear.

Love Always, Honor Vector”

#first wizarding war rp #marauder rp #marauders era rp #accepted app #literate rp

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davidmann95 · 7 years

Text

The Current Superman History

So Superman: that guy’s had a wonky time of things in the last few years. He was rebooted, he was rebooted within the reboot by a five-dimensional bureaucrat with a grudge, he died, he was replaced by his own past continuity self, they merged...dude lives a hectic life. And now he’s got a whole new one, as outlined in Action Comics #977 and the new #978.

I’m putting this under a spoiler cut, since some will want to just read the books; I know my dad for instance doesn’t want to know anything until he can get his hands on the comics themselves. But Twitter-pal Kyle Pinion mentioned he was hoping someone would put together a timeline/overview, and I figure that could be useful, especially since there’ve been some important details only shared so far in interviews and minor online statements, or in other Superman Family titles rather than Action or Superman. If you’re perhaps not reading the Superman books right now, but you’re curious what the background of this new-ish version of the character is for whenever you hop back in, here’s the newest edition of Superman 101.

(Ultimately pretty minor) SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

(Note: I’ll be keeping this up-to-date with relevant information post-Reborn via flashback stories and such.)

The New History

* Krypton is still where he comes from - no bold new revelations on that front. Aesthetically it’s a blend of the Silver Age, New 52 and Byrne takes, with maybe a touch of Birthright thrown in; several Silver Age elements like the Vrang occupation of the planet, green comets as bad omens, and the Day of Truth have been restored, and Zod and Xa-Du are known to have been prisoners of the Phantom Zone (the former may or may not have been Jor-El's friend this time around, given in the flashback Jor-El didn’t seem to react to the news of his imprisonment). Bar-El and Lilo went off-planet ala All-Star Superman, but spaceflight was generally forbidden; Jor-El attempted to convince the Science Council to build arks to escape Krypton's destruction, but as "they'd rather count their riches" they ignored his warnings both out of disbelief and the thought that even if it was true they had years to spare. Kal-El and Kara Zor-El were launched into space right before Krypton blew up, as it’s wont to do; Argo City lived on in space for awhile before succumbing to Red Kryptonite poisoning. In all this, Rogol Zaar, who claims to have been responsible for Krypton’s destruction, seems to have been involved to some extent along with the group of powerful galactic figures known as The Circle, and it seems Jor-El survived to become ‘Mr. Oz”.

* Additionally, as far as Superman’s pre-birth background goes, the existence of Superman in the current continuum is also owed to Ahl, the God of Superheroes. Descending from Final Heaven, he touched down on Earth in prehistoric times (in the spot that would eventually become Mount Justice) and imprinted the Earth with the concept of justice, and the platonic concepts that would become Batman, Wonder Woman, and most directly descended from himself, Superman, who would then go on to give rise to all other superheroes. On an additional metaphysical note, Doomsday Clock specifies that the current Superman is indeed the Kal-El of the Golden Age, old-school Earth One, and post-Crisis, who has simply shifted over the years in response to cosmic upheaval rather than being a full-fledged new individual.

* The Kents found Clark in the field, and like in Byrne’s Man of Steel, they decided to pass him off as their own biological child to avoid legal complications. He pretty much lived the childhood we saw in Secret Origin; there are panels from that homaged showing him hanging out with Pete Ross and Lana Lang (Pete’s arm broken from the one time Clark tried playing football), and a red-haired Lex Luthor living there back then with a jar full of Kryptonite he was studying. Also as in Secret Origin he first realized he could fly when saving Lana Lang from a tornado. His life takes a turn though when his parents die the night of his senior prom, same as they did in Grant Morrison’s Action Comics.

* After travelling the world for awhile he settled down in Metropolis, where after revealing himself to the world in the classic costume, Lois named him Superman. His debut essentially went like this:

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There’s a couple differences bringing it closer to how it happened in Secret Origin, but overall this is closer to the movie than that, at least in tone. And while he did not appear in this comic, presumably that dude was still yelling that that was a bad out-fit just off-panel.

* He met Batman at some point, and together they met with Wonder Woman shortly after her public debut (oddly in his Reborn suit, but that can be checked up to some timeline discrepancies given the current history shifts for both him and Diana, or more likely a simple continuity error). All prior to the formation of the Justice League, meaning that however that went, it was probably pretty different from Johns and Lee’s Justice League: Origins given he already knew at least a couple people there.

* He had a whole dang bunch of adventures. It’s clear vast swaths of Silver and Bronze Age continuity are back in play (though many must have happened in radically different forms, such as those involving Supergirl or his own now-nonexistent time as Superboy): the Supermobile - yes, that Supermobile, the flying Superman car with fists he used to fight Amazo that one time - made a cameo in Supergirl #8, a Superman Robot that looked exactly like him drove him, Nightwing, and Batman to the latter’s bachelor party, numerous Kryptonians native to Earth-One with very specific adventures attached to them were citizens of Kandor, and assorted Silver/Bronze Age Superman-associated folks are members of the space team Superwatch. It’s made clear he went through pretty much all the major 80s/90s stories, culminating in him getting engaged to Lois, telling her who he is (though he figures she already knew), his death by Doomsday and return (which is where Eradicator, Cyborg Superman, and apparently Steel showed up), and him getting married to Lois. We also got a look at the Justice League trophy room in the second chapter of The Button, which include artifacts such as the Worlogog and Prometheus’ suit indicating a lot of Grant Morrison’s years on JLA are canon (as emphasized by the appearance of White Martians in the current Justice League), as well as the armor he wore as Darkseid’s brainwashed servant in the finale of Superman: The Animated Series, and elements from DC One Million have been repeatedly referenced. All three major Crisis events have been referenced as occurring in some form. Additionally, it has been confirmed that at some point Luthor served as President of the United States.

* At some point, he switched over to the New 52 armor costume, presumably going through many of those adventures with the caveat of being married to Lois rather than single or dating Wonder Woman (though he changed costumes prior to those adventures, as he was wearing that suit by the time of Batman: Hush). Lois learned she was pregnant and managed to surprise him with the news; nine months into the pregnancy their apartment was bombed by arms smugglers Lois had pissed off, and it was decided it would be safest to conduct the delivery at the Fortress with Batman and Wonder Woman on-hand to insure there would be no intrusions. While Batman waited grumpily standing guard outside, Diana ended up helping with the delivery since she was close with both Lois and Clark by this point (though she and Clark were never a couple).

* Afterwards Lois and Clark took a sabbatical to California, living under the Lois and Clark comics’ status quo for a little while to keep Jon safe, with Superman ducking out of the public eye and League membership, working quietly in the black costume with the beard from that series; he also established a secondary Fortress in the Himalayas, while Lois wrote several famous books exposing corruption as "Author X". Once things calmed down after something like a few months to a year-ish, Lois and Clark returned to work (though they apparently didn’t move back to Metropolis, raising Jon somewhere else before recently moving to Hamilton, commuting by bullet train) and Superman to active duty, where he went through more New 52 adventures; Perry White was named Jon’s godfather. At some point after this, the current post-Reborn suit was permanently adopted until recently returning to his classic look (he also apparently wore the original Rebirth suit, since a version of Bizarro is still wearing it).

* No more than a year or two ago, Kara arrived on Earth. The events of her New 52 series are still to be read as canon, including for instance her time as a Red Lantern, with the exception of her involvement in the events of Final Days since there’s only been one Superman.

* While it’s not spelled out yet (assuming it ever will be), many of the events of the last year of the New 52 seem to have happened to him in some form, with both Truth and Final Days of Superman being cited editorially in New Super-Man in an issue featuring him post-Reborn; he has the Super-Flare, Supergirl says in her book that he was gone for a time, he mentions having power troubles to New Super-Man and fought a villain from Truth during the encounter, Dick Grayson recalls teaming up with him in his t-shirt and jeans look to fight Blockbuster, solar energy was extracted from him to create New Super-Man, Superwoman existed in some form, and Mxyzptlk pretended to be Clark Kent.

* From the “pre-Flashpoint Superman in the New 52 universe” period: most of the events from Dan Jurgens' Action Comics are canon; Doomsday was still a prisoner of Mr. Oz, and Luthor until recently continued to act as the Superman of Metropolis under a truce with his counterpart. Virtually all of the events of Tomasi/Gleason's Superman are canon, specifically the fight with the Eradicator, the excursion to Dinosaur Island on Earth 21, the run-in with Frankenstein and Bride, and the events of Multiplicity. His guest appearance in Deathstroke, his roles in Justice League and Trinity, and Zod’s role in Suicide Squad remain intact. The events of Reborn still happened, though his memory of it is blurred; as of Supergirl #8, he’s aware he was split into two Supermen for an extended period and was recently reformed.

Fine, Great, So What’s Actually His Deal Now?

In spirit, we’re back to the Pre-Flashpoint Superman, specifically I’d say the one before that but after Infinite Crisis: Secret Origin is clearly dominant (though not exclusive) as the narrative of his childhood and early days as Superman, a lot of Silver/Bronze ideas are back in play, and while most of Byrne and Triangle Years happened, he probably didn’t kill anybody in a pocket universe, and he didn’t come out of a birthing matrix. The change - along with Ma and Pa passing earlier - is that after a certain point (apparently before the period equivalent to his mid-2000s adventures) he changed his costume and eventually had some New 52-inspired adventures, and he and Lois ended up having a son who’s now ten and setting out on his own adventures as Superboy. He and the family have moved from a farm in Hamilton County back into Metropolis. Over the years, he’s fought Luthor, Brainiac, Darkseid, Metallo, Parasite, Bizarro, Mxyzptlk, Zod, Toyman, Eradicator, Cyborg Superman, Manchester Black, Mongul, Conduit, Imperiex, Blanque, Silver Banshee, Ulysses, and Xa-Du, among others, so pretty much all the greatest hits. The Fortress is back to having a lot of fun tchotchkes in it again too; the Supermobile’s there, crystal computers that let him Matrix-jack into hologram archives of his life and Krypton’s, Kelex is there, according to a recent Batman arc he’s using the dwarf star key from All-Star, there’s even a full-size train he and the family sometimes have dinner in. In the present though, Lois is currently in Chicago pursuing a story on her own (though she and Clark continue their relationship as normal given his ability to divide his time) and Jon has aged several years due to a time travel mishap on a space trip with Jor-El, and as the original Fortress was destroyed by Rogol Zaar, Superman moved everything to a new location in the Bermuda Triangle.

In terms of the larger world, Supergirl landed on Earth about a year ago, and for awhile lived a teen version of her TV show status quo, but is now in space with Krypto attempting to ascertain the truth of Rogol Zaar’s claims. Lex Luthor, recently semi-reformed though rapidly backsliding, went through events on a recent adventure with the Justice League that convinced him that his more savage and selfish instincts are in fact in accordance with a higher order and destiny for humanity over the supposed folly of Superman’s altruism, forming the Legion of Doom to realize this philosophical ‘breakthrough’ and destroy the League. The New Super-Man of China, Kenan Kong, remains in operation. And Conner Kent has returned with a new incarnation of Young Justice, though even he is unaware at this time how he fits into the current history of Prime Earth.

Which Stories Count?

Stories that definitely happened, whether near-identically to the original telling, or in very different forms to fit the new continuity framework

Secret Origin, And Then There Were Three... in Wonder Woman, The Case of the Second Superman, The Power-Boy from Earth, Superman’s Big Brother!, some of the old Silver Age Superman Robot stories given their presence, The Kents’ Second Super-Son!, The War Between Jimmy Olsen and Superman!, The Super-Family of Steel!, The Lois Lane Doll!, The Superman from Outer Space!, The Second Supergirl!/The Supergirl of Two Worlds!, The Conquest of Superman!, Supergirl’s Secret Enemy!, The Mystery of the Alien Super-Boy, Superman’s Super-Courtship!, The Super-Suitor of Soomar!, Duel of the Super-Duo!, Superboy’s Lost Identity!, Have I Ever Told You the Story About When I Saved Superman? in Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye, Mystery Mission To Metropolis!, It’s A Bird...It’s A Plane...It’s A Supermobile!, For The Man Who Has Everything, Crisis on Infinite Earths, To Laugh and Die in Metropolis, Exile, The Day of the Krypton Man, Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite, The Death of Superman, Reign of the Supermen, The Death of Clark Kent, The Wedding Album, Strange Visitor (from Cursed Comics Cavalcade), Superman Red/Superman Blue, Grant Morrison’s JLA, DC One Million, Legacy (of Superman: The Animated Series), Driver’s Seat and Suprema Est Lex from Action Comics Special, Luthor’s time as President, Our Worlds At War, Batman: Hush, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, The Return of Bruce Wayne, The Curse of Superman, The Ghost in the Fortress of Solitude, Lois and Clark, the New 52 Supergirl series, Men of Tomorrow, Justice League of America: Power and Glory, Truth, Darkseid War, Final Days of Superman, DC Comics: Rebirth, most if not all Rebirth-era appearances and Superman-family titles, Superman Reborn and forward.

Stories that while maybe not directly referenced are implied or are exceedingly likely to be canon

The Mysterious Mr. Mxyztplk!, The Name Game, and the covers of Superman Unchained (images from these are used to illustrate stories Clark told Jon, and given Jon still refers to Mxyzptlk as ‘Ruppletat’ in accordance with that, these would seem to still be canon by implication), Dominus Effect (Sharon Vance, aka Strange Visitor, is back in canon, her origin beginning here), Of Thee I Sing and JLA/Hitman (Hacken exists and is missing a hand in accordance with Zombie Night at the Gotham Aquarium), What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way? (while Manchester Black had other stories and a New 52 revamp, this is of course his most significant story), Superman at the End of Days (the death of Ma and Pa Kent is identical to how Vyndktvx organized it in this arc, and as lead-in stories The Curse of Superman and The Ghost In The Fortress of Solitude are both some degree of canon, as is the native Earth 45 of major villain Superdoomsday, it’s likely this happened), H’El on Earth and Krypton Returns (Shay Veritas’s presence, the confirmed existence of the Oracle, and the assured canonicity of Supergirl’s New 52 run imply H’El was likely around).

Stories that definitely didn’t happen any way we would recognize them

Last Son (the current version of Lor-Zod bears no resemblance to Christopher Kent and was never adopted by Lois and Clark), all Conner Kent Superboy stories for now (his debut in Reign of the Supermen has been omitted), Superman and the Men of Steel/The Boy Who Stole Superman’s Cape (of all modern origins, this take is most explicitly no longer any form of canon), Byrne’s Man of Steel (numerous details contradicting the major elements of this between Krypton, Luthor, Superman’s debut, etc.), New Krypton (Zor-El was still recently alive and a version of Cyborg Superman, with the fate of Argo City being significantly different), all Legion of Superheroes stories, Return To Krypton and any stories of a similar concept (Superman’s holographic ‘trip’ to Krypton in The New World is clearly framed as the first time he has seen his homeworld or biological parents), Identity Crisis (this has been repeatedly clarified as having not happened), Superman/Wonder Woman.

#Superman #Superman: Reborn #Analysis #DC Rebirth #New 52 #Lois Lane #Jon Kent #Superboy #Supergirl #Lana Lang #New Super Man #Lex Luthor #Krypton #Opinion

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caelmoco · 8 years

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2016: The Highlights, The Lowlights, And How Rebels Got Me Through

To say I'm merely stumped about what to say about the last year is a lie. I'm actually thoroughly, completely, dug into a hole, stumped. (Great mental image that is. 6"1 me with short red hair just sticking out of some hole in the ground)

My stumped-ness can also be called writer's block. Which is both a curse and blessing to have when you're trying to reflect on what's being called a pretty terrible year? It’s a curse as releasing some of the stuff into the written word is quite therapeutic, and a blessing as it’ll dig up some emotions I probably want to keep buried for another few months. But I'm gonna break through this block and see if writing some lists will help.

Let's start with the good things about this year... CUE THE HIGHLIGHT REEL!

Highlights:

I got a job

I got my first ever tattoo

I managed my first ever team

I volunteered at ComicCon for the third year in a row

I worked behind a bar for the first time ever

I saw some wicked live music

I made red wine brownies

I went to Carols by Candlelight for the first time

I helped organised some of the biggest events at my university

I successfully documented a whole year of my life (which you can see here)

I pretty much wrote a novel (which you'll probably see never)

I discovered that my friends are what keep me grounded and that it doesn't matter how far away they are, they're bloody well there for me when I truly need it

I got accepted to go on exchange

I start working on my mental health

I finally got into podcasts

I had my most journal creative year

I finally left behind my teenage years

I broke my coffee addiction

I finished that book about vaginas

I discovered Hamilton

Lowlights:

I lost some close friends

I didn't get the job I wanted

I had my most mentally unhealthy year

I discovered I have the family's vaginal curse

I had surgery for the first time ever

I lost some musical and acting heroes

I didn't do so well at university

I didn't do so well financially

I didn't use that planner I bought at the beginning of the year

I lost touch with what I want to do in life

I still don't have my license

I didn't do a bit of travelling (Melbourne doesn't count)

I slowly came to my senses and realised that I really shouldn't own plants

My love life is still practically nonexistent

I realised that the people I love aren't immortal and that I'll have to deal with death in my life soon

I still harbour those teenage feelings of fakeness and the insecurities that come along with it

I didn't write as much as I should have or wanted to

I still haven't gone to a First Friday at the art gallery

I rarely asked for help, and when I actually sought it out I ruined it for myself or didn't get the help I needed

I was sick for most of this year

Quite honestly? 2016 was fucking hard. I physically and mentally broke down in late April/early May, and I haven't really built myself back up yet. I left something that had been apart of my life for the better part of four years and didn't have anything to fill that void.

Actually, I did. I had myself to fill that void but I didn't.

Shortly after I broke down the world seems to have a breakdown of its own: from mass shootings to hate crimes to major shambles in politics to the rise of xenophobia and racism and hate and misogyny to losing our heroes and our icons to continuously problematic industries to acts against human rights... The list could go on and on and on but I'll stop here and let you know how the second part of this blog's title comes into play. As both the world and I broke down, I had a little thing called Star Wars to get me through.

Big shock, I know. Who’d have thought? This is so out of character for me. Talking about Star Wars? I never do that!

Last year I finally pinpointed why I love Star Wars so much - and if I continue on with this blogging thing throughout the year I may go into depth on this - but for now I’d like to say that apart from the fact that it has some kickass characters and is in SPACE, it’s essentially a story about rebels.

It’s about the underdogs. It’s about those who should have no chance at all, who are suffering and enslaved and have gone through tremendous loss. But, despite all that, they find hope. And the hope shown in Star Wars (plus the kickass characters and SPACE) got me through this year.

So cheers Star Wars, I owe you one.

Now enough about Star Wars and back to reflecting on 2016.

In summary, it was a bit shit. I came out of it uninspired and a little unhappy... But with a major change just around the corner. Most tend to end their years with resolutions. I’m not a huge fan of resolutions as they’re essentially broken promises to yourself. Instead, I like goals. And I’ve got a big one in mind that I’m typing down and publishing so I can be held accountable to it (that’s the bit where you come in).

My goal for the year? Get in touch with the parts I've forgotten. Fill that earlier mentioned void with focusing on my fitness, religion, spirituality, my social and political activism ways, by reading, creating, nurturing relationships. I want to work on everything that makes me who I am, I want to continue building on the hope we may so desperately need in the times to come... And I want to rebel a little. The plan is to track all of this through a range of creative outlets. I’ll either write something, or record something, or post something, I’ll do something and I’ll share it online so I’m held accountable for this potential progress (and maybe you’ll get something out of it too?).

So I think it’s safe to say I’m no longer stumped. Let’s remove that mental image of me dug in a hole from your mind, okay?

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lostheartfics · 7 years

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The Return: Ch. 1

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Teen Titans/Young Justice Crossover Main Pairing: Jinx/Kid Flash Additional Tags: smidgen of Spitfire, mild Language, warnings will be added as I go, Teen Titans/Young Justice crossover, mainly Flinx, Mentions of RobStar and BBRae, also some mentions of Joy (Jade/Roy) aka Cheshire/Red Arrow, a very nonexistent pairing, hints of Billy Numerous/Kyd Wykkyd (in future chapters) Chapter Summary: Remnants of the past and an unlucky encounter while on patrol.

Happy Harbor, Rhode Island

June 12; 8:40 PM

Two. Two freaking years.

He doesn't regret his decision, but every time he remembers it, it makes his heart ache.

He misses them. He misses their smiles, their laughter, their times playing video games, heck, he even misses their fights (and not just with bad guys).

He remembers his uptight self (and how he suddenly changed from that to an immature one).

He also misses his team: the bionic, robot man, who was practically his best friend, the green-skinned changeling, who always liked to crack up lame jokes on the spot, the pale sorceress, who always put others before herself, and finally the orange-skinned alien princess, who had managed to look past his uptight demeanor and actually love him.

He misses her the most. Some days, he wishes he could skip practice just to see her. And the team as well. How are they doing without him?

Questions bubbled up just thinking about the possibilities. Are they still the same? Did they change their looks like he did? Are they even still a team? And Starfire-!

He cut his thought short as he pictured the orange-skinned alien princess in his mind. Her long red hair, her bright green eyes glittering with happiness as she gave him her usual cheerful smile.

Robin sighed. Technically it was his fault. He chose to take Batman's offer to go with him because he was promised 'to be of assistance to the Justice League'. They told him that they understood and let him go.

For a couple of months they wrote to each other, but as time passed, he became a lot more busy, with training, school, and recon missions, and couldn't write. Then the Titans stopped writing all together.

Another sigh escaped his lips as he put the picture down. He got up from his bed and headed to his closet. He accessed a hidden panel in the floor, in which he used to hide all his personal, private items. He pulled out a box and took out a pocket knife. He cut open the box and moved the flaps. Inside was his old Titans' costume along with a picture and the black and yellow communicator. He picked up the picture of the team of five with him in his traffic-colored uniform and spiky hair. He slowly traced his thumb over each person's face.

'Cyborg, Beast Boy, Raven, Starfire, I miss you guys.'

Sighing, he put the picture back in the box and pulled out the old communicator. He traced his fingers along the black T in the front. A sudden chill passed through him, and he felt his stomach clench, a feeling that only occurred when something was really wrong.

And his gut feeling was usually never wrong.

With lightning speed that could rival the Flash's, Robin set out to find the connecting wire, connecting the communicator to his glove's panel, opening his built-in holographic computer. "Download, data." He told the computer. Because the communicator was an old model, it was taking forever to download everything.

"Hey, Rob, are you re- What are you doing?" Robin nearly lost his balance, spinning around to face his interrupter. He glared at his green-eyed best friend.

"Jesus, Wally. Has knocking first ever occurred to you?" Robin scolded, while Kid Flash just shrugged.

"Why need to knock when you can just walk in?" Kid Flash grinned at him as Robin rolled his eyes at him. Kid Flash's grin, however, faltered as he looked down at what Robin was holding.

"What are you doing?" Robin looked down to see the communicator, and quickly tried to hid his arm and the holographic computer, even though Kid Flash obviously saw it. "Why are you holding that?"

Robin sighed, putting his arm back to his side. "I have... A bad feeling."

"What does that have to do with the communicator?"

Robin scratched the back of his head. "I was... Feeling nostalgic and looked through my old stuff. Then all of a sudden, I had this foreboding feeling in the pit of my stomach. The kind that I usually get when something's wrong."

Suddenly, there was a beep. Robin and Kid looked down at Robin's holographic computer, which read 'DOWNLOAD COMPLETE'. Robin glanced at Kid Flash. "I just want to make sure they're all right."

Kid frowned at Robin. "You know it'll be harder to say goodbye, right?" Robin's shoulders deflated slightly, his gaze softening.

"Goodbyes wouldn't be very meaningful if they were easy," Robin whispered as he went to access the data. But just before he could open anything, Miss Martian knocked on the door, causing the two to quickly hide everything before the door opened. Robin shut off the computer as Kid Flash zipped past him, taking the old communicator, closing the box, and shoving it back in the closet before Miss Martian opened the door and floated inside the room.

"Robin, Kid, we're all waiting for you. We need to do our nightly patrol around town." M'gann said, cheerfully, reminding Robin of a certain orange-skinned alien princess.

"We were just about to leave, Miss M," Robin said, sharing a look with Kid, who mouthed to him 'later' behind Miss Martian's back. Robin gave him a curt nod.

"Okay then. By the way, I was thinking of baking cookies when we return. What kind should I make them?"

"Chocolate chip/white macadamias," Robin and Kid Flash answered at the same time. M'gann giggled. She began to float out of the room with them following in suit as they began listing off other cookie options.

'No issues in section A.' Miss Martian's voice echoed through their mind link in Robin's head. They had split off into three groups in order to patrol more ground, which was a nightly routine. They were paired up into two's: Miss Martian and Superboy, Kaldur and Artemis, him and Kid Flash.

Kid Flash decided to take the streets, while he took to scaling buildings. Well, okay, he stayed up on only one building as he checked through the data on his old communicator. He smiled at the notes left on there, the alarms that alerted him of schedule practices, even the contact book. Robin was looking through the old calls when something caught his eye.

Recent calls: 4 NEW VIDEO MESSAGES.

Robin distinctly remembered agreeing to have Cyborg install a video voice mail in each communicator.

His stomach clenched once more as he, hesitantly, opened the first message.

At first, there was only static until it was immediately replaced by a certain orange-skinned girl he so missed seeing. But something was wrong, that much he can tell from the way her face showed not her cheerful, usual smile, but a anxious, panicked, and- was that fear?- expressed on her features.

"Robin! Please answer! We are in need of your-" she gasped, and the call ended with a scream as there was a bright green flash and the communicator was dropped, making the screen go to static. Then another familiar face popped up.

"Rob, we need you man. We-" The sound of Cyborg's arm blaster was heard and him shooting something. Like Starfire, the screen turned to static once the communicator fell to the ground.

Another message came on, showing Beast Boy's anxious face. "Dude, IN DANGER HERE! If you get this then-" Robin's heart began to pound against his chest.

The next message played, Raven's panic-filled face appeared. "Robin," the scared, desperate tone of her voice nearly brought him to his knees. "Help." Drop and static. His eyes were wide in panic behind his domino mask. The screen read 'END OF MESSAGES'. Robin fell to the ground, unable to process what was just revealed to him. His friends are in danger. Raven, Beast Boy, Cyborg... Starfire. All of them. In danger.

Without a second thought, he immediately went to alert Kid Flash. 'KF-!' He began, only to be interrupted by said speedster.

'SECTOR C DANGER! REQUESTING IMMEDIATE BACK-UP! SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY NEARING 32ND STREET!' Kid Flash alerted them as Robin's eyes widened. Sector C? That was their sector. Which means...

Robin stood up and was about to access his grappling hook to swing off to another building to 32nd Street, when he heard the loud bang of a gun being shot. Robin dashed to the edge of the building as fast as he could, making it to the edge in time to see a hooded girl fall to one knee. He looked down to see that the street he was looking down was, in fact, 32nd street.

His eyes narrowed as he tried to make out the attacker. Men in black-ninja like costumes.

Wait a minute...

Those men looked strangely familiar. Realization etched onto his features, his mind swirling with questions and his heart tightening with anger and confusion.

Slade-bots.

Robin was in the process of getting down to help the girl when he saw the girl, using one of her free hands, touch the ground. He watched a flash of pink light spark through her fingers and to the concrete, which seemed to explode by her touch, destroying some of the robots in the process. He knew only one person capable of doing that...

"Jinx?"

Patrolling the empty streets was a piece of cake- chocolate cake if he were lucky enough to be rewarded for his awesome patrolling. It took him probably two- three minutes tops just to get the whole sector done.

Well, it would have been a minute, but since that incident that will not be named, I've gotten a tiny bit slower... Kid Flash reasoned in his mind as he continued to run. After running through the last street, he decided it was time to call it cleared and head back to the base and enjoy Miss Martians cookies.

With the thought of cookies on his mind, he dashed back in the direction of his and Robin's meeting spot. Speaking of Robin, the thought of their conversation in his room flooded back through his mind.

Robin is usually never wrong when his gut is telling him something. Everyone tends to listen to Robin's gut feelings, even back when he was the leader of the Titans. 'Is there really something wrong?' His mind began to wander to a certain girl, whom he had left without a notice... 'No, wait, I did leave a phone call, it was her who didn't respond back.' He felt himself slow down a bit unconsciously. 'I wonder how she's doing...' He couldn't help but think turning the corner, only to skid to a stop when he saw a horde of black ninja-like men and a swirling black darkness. They were fast, ranging at a speed that was way beyond the speed limit, and were, from what he could tell, chasing after something.

Taking a guess that these people were not the good guys, he immediately alerted the rest of the Team. 'SECTOR C DANGER! REQUESTING IMMEDIATE BACK-UP! SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY NEARING 32ND STREET!'

A chorus of 'Ok's and 'On our way's resounded through his head before he decided to spring into action. Taking precaution, Kid Flash turned around and ran back to the street over and see what- or possibly who- it was they were chasing after. As he ran, he heard the sound of a gun going off and ran faster. Once he arrived to the front of the crowd, he saw a hooded figure kneeling on one knee, the street before her destroyed. Kid Flash blinked; it wasn't like that earlier.

He took Superboy's appearance as his cue to get the girl out of danger and possibly to a doctor. He picked her up just before she could tip back and fall to the ground. He immediately felt something warm against his arm. He looked down and saw that the girl was bleeding from her abdomen. That was probably from the gun shot I heard earlier. He shook his head. The more of a reason to rush her to the hospital. With that thought in mind, he began to run.

"Don't worry, I got 'ya. We'll get you the medical attention need." He assured her as he ran to the nearest hospital, which was all the way on the other side of the city. He expected the girl to at least sigh in relief or mumble a small 'thank you', but what he did receive nearly made him stumble over his own feet.

"Kid...?" Her voice was weak and tired, but the familiarity of it was clear as day. His eyes widened, and he felt as if his heart almost stopped beating. He looked down at her just in time to see her shake her head and utter a tired laugh. "No, impossible."

He could feel the girl's body begin to go limp as she gave up on trying to stay awake. The wind blew past them, causing the girl's hood to fall away from her head, revealing a familiar bubble-gum pink hair.

It was Jinx. His Jinx.

An exhausted smile appeared on her face as she whispered with staggering breaths, "Still...I'm so glad...that I got to see your face again..." She reaches out to touch his cheek, but only manages to smear her blood on his peach skin. "Even if...you're just...an...illusion..."

Kid Flash gasped and immediately dug his heels into the ground to stop running.

"Jinx?" Kid Flash fell to his knees, grasping at her wound to prevent more blood from flowing out. He shook her shoulders. "JINX!" He shouted her name louder, desperately wanting her to open her eyes. She didn't. "Jinx, open your eyes. Please." he begged.

He removed one of his gloves and used it to put pressure on the wound. Blood covered his hand, and it scared him to know that it was her blood. He put two fingers at her wrist and was relieved to feel a faint pulse. "It's okay. You're going to be okay." He reassured her as he frantically scanned the area he was in. A relieved sigh emitted from his lips as he noticed how close he was from Mt. Justice. Getting back on his feet, he ran as fast as he could, a sonic boom resounding in his wake.

'Please! Anyone! Return to base and save Jinx!'

Meanwhile, the robots and the rest of the Team were head-on brawling against each other. Superboy and Miss Martian, breaking heads and arms of the robots. Aqualad, slicing through the robots with his Water-Bearers. Artemis, exploding robots with her arrows, alongside Robin with his birdarangs.

Robot parts began piling up, the horde becoming but a small pack. As the robots were about to retaliate more, a voice echoed through their robotic minds.

"Retreat for now. Objective lost." The voice commanded. The robots nodded in sync before escaping into the darkness, which then disappeared into itself. Robin, as quick as he could, took out a tracking birdarang and tried to throw it at one of the robots before it could escape.

But he was a second too late, and the darkness disappeared before the birdarang could even touch it. Robin cursed, kicking the ground, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. He doesn't know why the Slade-bots were back or what that darkness was, but he did know one thing. They were chasing Jinx. And, most likely, they were the ones responsible for the attack on the Titans.

"Robin, are you alright?" Miss Martian asked, floating down to her teammate, who had a dark aura radiating off of him.

"No," His voice, usually cheery and upbeat, was now devoid of all emotion and took on a deeper, serious tone. The Team was taken aback by the tone of his voice. They had never heard Robin speak like that; the sudden change in character shocked the Team.

"R-Robin...?" Miss Martian asked, reaching out to him.

Kid Flash's voice echoed through their mind link, troubled and anxious. 'Please! Anyone! Return to base and save Jinx!'

Jinx? Who's Jinx? That was the question that seemed to enter most of the Team's mind, except for Robin's, who seemed to snap out of his reverie. His eyes widened as he remembered the state she was in.

Robin was already running up the street. 'How is she, KF?'

'She's barely breathing, a-and there's so much blood! Robin, hurry!' Came Kid Flash's distressed plea. He felt Miss Martian fly by him as well as Aqualad, Artemis, and Superboy running beside him.

"Who's-?" Superboy began, only for Robin to shake his head.

"No time!" Robin quickly interrupted Superboy as he looked at the faces of each person just as fast. "Who knows how to take a bullet out of the body?"

"I do," Artemis asked after a moment. That seemed to relieve Robin by a fraction. He then turned to Miss Martian, who stood straighter under his intense, focused gaze. "Miss M, how fast can you get Artemis back to Mount Justice?"

"From here? Five- maybe six minutes while carrying someone." She stuttered out, unused to his serious gaze.

"Try to make it four minutes. Hurry." Without another word, Miss Martian picked up Artemis and flew in the direction of Mount Justice. Robin inserted an ear piece in his ear and opened his holographic computer. He typed in a name and waited for the ringing to stop.

"Hello?"

"Red Arrow? It's Robin. Meet me back at the Cave ASAP." Robin ordered in a voice that brought chills to Aqualad and Superboy's spine. What brought on this sudden change of character in the Boy Wonder?

Red Arrow, on the other line, also sensed the urgent tone in Robin's voice, noting how long its been since he last heard it sound like that.

"On my way," with that, Robin pocketed the ear piece and shot his grappling hook up at a building, jumping from building to building for easier transport. Before he could jump onto another building, a hand grabbed onto his shoulder, stopping him. He was about to flip the person over his shoulder, but stopped when he noticed who it was.

"Robin, what is going on?" Robin looked away, his eyebrows furrowed as he frowned. Swiftly, he darted past them onto another building before answering his question.

"My past has come back to haunt me."

#The Return #teen titans #young justice #my fic #flinx

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bookstattoosandtea · 5 years

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Natalina Reis has a new MM Paranormal murder mystery romance out: “Of Magic and Scales.”

With a serial killer on the loose, the baffling mystery of Aiden’s past, and their tenuous budding romance, Aiden and Fouchard tread through a world of magic and myth on padded shoes, terrified to stir up something neither can control or defeat.

Aiden Mercer’s life now centers around lounging on the sunny beaches of his adopted country with a beer in one hand and a coffee in the other while admiring the local male population. After a rough life as a respected detective in DC, playing it cool shouldn’t be too hard, right? With the magical community on his case and dead bodies piling up around town, the responsibility of finding their killer seems fated to fall on him and deny him of his easy living.

Then there is Naël.

Cantankerous merman Naël Fouchard’s life is focused on bringing up and protecting his little sister. When DNA found at the scene of the murders mark him as the prime suspect, Naël seeks out the help of Aiden, whose reputation as a detective grossly belies his lazy lifestyle and apparent lack of ambition.

The chemistry between the strong, stoic Naël and the easygoing Aiden is undeniable, no matter how many walls Aiden builds.

If this unlikely pair can’t come to terms with their feelings for each other long enough to catch the killer, their emotional turmoil might yet allow the murderer to kill them instead.

Giveaway

Natalina is giving away a $10 Amazon gift card with this tour. Enter via Rafflecopter for a chance to win:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Direct Link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b60e8d47109/?

Special Guest Post From Natalina

Why I Love Of Magic & Scales

As a writer, I love pretty much every story I write (why else would I write them, right?) but this one was special for a couple reasons.

First, it is set in my home country. Actually it is set in my hometown. Aiden, the main character owns a coffeehouse by the same beach where I spent many a day in my teens. In fact, in the exact location of his shop there is an amazing restaurant where I ate a myriad of delicious dishes in the past. It was so much fun revisiting all these spots. I haven’t been home in almost three years and writing this book gave me an opportunity to feel as if I was indeed visiting.

I fell in love with my two guys. Aiden is so clueless sometimes and lead mostly by his hyperactive sex drive. But he is also, as most of my characters, a misfit, someone who never felt as if he belonged. Naël is just what the doctor ordered in more ways than one. Aiden may very well find balance and happiness in the strong arms of his merman.

Excerpt

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I’m not sure what I am, but I certainly know what I am not. I know I’m not a witch because—well, I’m male. I’m definitely not an elf, since I have no sudden urges to hop onto somebody’s shelf around Christmas. Vampire I am not. My perfectly straight teeth have never once turned into fangs, neither have I ever had a sudden, strange craving for human blood. I’m not a werewolf either. I do have hair on my body but nothing that would qualify me as a wolfman. Besides, I am still pretty much myself during full moons.

But I am not a regular either, because unlike most normal humans, I can see magic beings. By “seeing,” I mean I recognize them as such. Anyone can see them, unless the magicals choose for them not to. I, on the other hand, can always recognize them, unless they purposely hide themselves behind a special magic charm.

I don’t remember not having the ability, so I’m guessing I was born like this. Whatever this is. Good thing that I’m used to it, because seeing magical beings for what they are can be a pretty traumatizing experience, as it was the time I freaked out during a trip to Greece, when I had a close encounter with a minotaur. Nice chap as it turns out but not a pretty sight.

I’ve lived a pretty normal, average life running Bicas R Us, a coffee shop in a small coastal town in sunny Portugal, for the past year or so. After an incident in Northern Virginia that put me on the pages of the local news—don’t ask; it involved a pretty handsome elf and his irate troll boyfriend—I thought it would be better to start again somewhere new. I had visited the tiny nation some years before and fallen in love with its never-ending beaches and kicked-back lifestyle, so I packed my bags, contacted a real estate agent and the immigration office, and got myself a brand-new life.

I had played with the idea of buying a coffee shop on the beach, but I figured it would be a mother to keep the place—and the coffee—free of sand. So, I bought a store nearby in the town square, a short walk from the beach. Portugal is littered with three things: tourists, ancient churches, and coffee shops. Nobody would notice me, the brown haired, blue-eyed American who came to explore the locals’ passion for the hot brew.

The other perk of living here was that magical creatures were not spotted as often. Vampires were virtually nonexistent because of the year-round sunny weather, trolls and ogres were limited to the mountains in the north and, unless you visited the nearby mountain of Sintra that crawled with magical activity, the only thread of magic on the coast was the sporadic water sprite and the beachcombing witches who sold their wares in local shops. All in all, a pretty placid place for someone like me to live in.

I enjoyed today’s cool breeze blowing from the ocean, sitting on a chair in my small esplanade under a red umbrella with a glass of cold beer in my hand. Yes, in this sunny paradise I was allowed to sell and buy alcohol in my coffee shop. Behind my light pinewood counter, the wall shelves were covered in bottles that held more than coffee flavorings. What a great nation this was.

While Cristina, my only employee, was busy serving the few customers who loitered inside the café, I could enjoy the local fauna as they hurried from shop to shop or headed out to the beach. Summer hadn’t quite arrived yet, but the sun had warmed the air enough for the locals to shed their wintry clothes and don more relaxed apparel. From behind my shades, I followed the trek of three young men, all shirtless and in swimming trunks. Hot. Not the weather, the guys—tanned, lean and muscular, shorts low enough on their hips to reveal that sexy vee—

“Olha para ti, a salivar como um cão por um bife.” Cristina had sneaked up from behind and interrupted my yummy thoughts.

“Speak English, woman,” I told her, sliding my glasses down my nose to look at her over the rim. “You’d think you’re Portuguese, or something.”

She slapped me mercilessly across the back of my head and plopped herself on the chair next to mine. “Idiota.”Without so much as a may I, my small Portuguese friend and employee grabbed the glass from my hand and took a long swig of my beer. “Are you going to sit here all afternoon watching the hot guys walking by?”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Cristina spoke flawless English but enjoyed confusing me with spurts of Portuguese once in a while. She pulled up another chair and placed her feet on the seat, her legs crossed at the knees. “What exactly did you call me just now?”

“A dog salivating over a steak.” She took another swig before I could retrieve my beer. “Don’t you have more important things to do with your life, Aiden?”

I wiped her foam mustache with a finger. “Not really. Why do you think I moved here from Virginia?” She blinked her eyes at me, pretending not to know what I was talking about. “Easy living, sunshine, and hot, half-naked guys.”

Cristina laughed, her face turned to the sun. She had skin the same color as the cork in a wine bottle, a honeyed brown made darker since the early spring weather replaced the cool air of winter. “You’re something, Aiden. You have no other dream or ambition? Just basking in the sun and ogling sexy men?”

Not quite correct but part of the truth. “Are you jealous?”

The skin crinkled around her green eyes as she turned her gaze to me. “Only if you flirt with guys I have my eyes on.” She spotted a couple of newly arrived customers and hopped to her feet. “Customers. Unlike you, I have some interest in making a buck here and there. I enjoy having a roof over my head.”

As she walked away, I yelled, “No need. You can always sleep on the beach.”

Author Bio

Natalina wrote her first romance at the age of 13 in collaboration with her best friend. Since then she has ventured into other genres, but romance is first and foremost in almost everything she writes. She’s the author of We Will Always Have the Closet, Desert Jewel, Loved You Always, and Lavender Fields.

After earning a degree in tourism and foreign languages, she worked as a tourist guide in her native Portugal for a short time before moving to the United States. She lived in three continents and a few islands, and her knack for languages and linguistics led her to a master’s degree in education. She lives in Virginia where she’s taught English as a Second Language to elementary school children for more years than she cares to admit.

Natalina doesn’t believe you can have too many books or too much coffee. Art and dance make her happy and she is pretty sure she could survive on lobster and bananas alone. When she is not writing or stressing over lesson plans, she shares her life with her husband and two adult sons.

Author Website: https://natalinareis.com/

Author Facebook (Personal): https://www.facebook.com/authornatalinareis

Author Facebook (Page): https://www.facebook.com/authornatalinareis/

Author Twitter: https://twitter.com/TichaB

Author Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reisnatalina/

Author Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14883335.Natalina_Reis

Author QueeRomance Ink: https://www.queeromanceink.com/mbm-book-author/natalina-reis/

Author Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Natalina-Reis/e/B01ADQ9FJW/

Blog Tour, Guest Post & Giveaway: Of Magic & Scales by Natalina Reis Natalina Reis has a new MM Paranormal murder mystery romance out: "Of Magic and Scales." With a serial killer on the loose, the baffling mystery of Aiden’s past, and their tenuous budding romance, Aiden and Fouchard tread through a world of magic and myth on padded shoes, terrified to stir up something neither can control or defeat.

#Detective #Gay Book Review #Gay Romance Authors #LGBTQ Books #Merman #MM Romance #Murder Mystery #Natalina Reis #Of Magic and Scales #Paranormal

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clubofinfo · 7 years

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Expert: The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. — Edward Bernays, Propaganda, 1928 For the first time in human history, there is a concerted strategy to manipulate global perception. And the mass media are operating as its compliant assistants, failing both to resist it and to expose it. The sheer ease with which this machinery has been able to do its work reflects a creeping structural weakness which now afflicts the production of our news. — Nick Davis, Flat Earth News, 2008 There is a strange uncanny quality to a number of recent stories. In fact, an uncanny quality to nearly everything recently. And it is a quality that includes paranoia, but also the sense of living within some increasingly malevolent psy-ops experiment. Now everyone runs for cover when this idea of psy-ops is introduced. The conspiracy theorist label is the most feared appellation in contemporary culture. But the truth is that I cannot recall a time when there was so much psychological disquiet running through the populace of North America and Europe. But especially, unsurprisingly, in the U.S. Edward Snowden released information last week that set the CIA black budget at 52 billion (and change) for 2013. Of course, there is some reason to suspect Snowden himself is part of this budget (see how this goes?). One writer noted: In comparison, the Department of Homeland Security was allocated $55.4 billion in 2013. The black budget comes in at a figure larger than the sums received by the Department of the Interior, the Department of Commerce and NASA this year combined. A few years ago the late Daniel Inouye wrote: There exists a shadowy government with its own Air Force, its own Navy, its own fundraising mechanism and the ability to pursue its own ideas of the national interest, free from all checks and balances, and free from the law itself. Today, it is estimated (!) that there are close to 200 special access secret intelligence programs in the U.S. government. Nobody has any idea how many are employed in these programs or, obviously, what they do. Nor does anyone have any clear idea how much money there is to which they have access. Now the recent Snowden leak prompted a number of online publications, many of them ostensively liberal (Wired, The Verge) to declaim the obvious — that’s a lot of money — near more than most small countries spend on everything in a year. But see, anyone paying any kind of attention knew all this. And when James Clapper notes that much of the secret budget is targeting North Korea, you know that such leaks are part of the psy-ops themselves. For you know Clapper is lying because his mouth is moving. Nobody in the intelligence community really thinks the Pentagon fears North Korea. Lots more discussion makes mention of Pakistan, Hezbollah, and Syria. The usual targets the CIA and Pentagon want America to fear. Not a word about false flag ops or domestic propaganda. Are we to believe the black budget is not spent on propagandizing the U.S. public? Are we to believe the CIA covert program does not engage in false flag operations? Take this notification about Armageddon that occurred in Hawaii recently. I mean seriously, think about what happened. Bill Van Auken wrote: The “false alarm” delivered to a population of 1.5 million in the US Pacific island state of Hawaii on Saturday morning has laid bare the clear and present danger of a nuclear war. Cell phones lit up with the text message “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” Television and radio broadcasts were interrupted with the chilling announcement that “A missile may impact on sea or land within minutes. This is not a drill.” For 38 minutes, residents of and visitors to Hawaii were confronted face to face with nuclear Armageddon. Parents frantically sought to find and protect their children, families said last goodbyes and people desperately sought largely nonexistent shelter in anticipation of a nuclear blast. Thirty-eight minutes, huh? Okay. Van Auken adds: There is no reason that anyone should blindly accept this official story as true. Given the record of the US government in staging provocations and launching wars based upon lies, not only severe skepticism, but outright suspicion is called for. Of course. The problem, though, runs even deeper than just the idea that somehow this intentional false alarm was meant to frighten the public about Nuclear War. It may be that, too, although while I don’t think the U.S. will attack the DPRK (they are too useful as the regional villain), it’s certainly useful to normalize the very idea of nuclear war. But this false alarm does something else. It is part of the manufacturing of existential terror. And certainly it fits in seamlessly with the spike in internet censorship (see Diane Feinstein and Adam Schiff letter to Mark Zuckerberg…I mean you can’t make this shit up). Or listen to Monika Bikert, the Facebook rep as she talks of the doubling of Facebook personnel devoted to weeding out subversives, or what she called counterspeech (sic). Fear, fear, fear everywhere. Even fear of your neighbours. Most everyone is aware of Google and YouTube and Facebook now deleting voices they don’t like, and effectively disappearing web sites that are anti- capitalist and anti-imperialist. For your own good, of course. Normal. Or think about the Robert Mueller investigation and the massive propaganda campaign against Russia that has taken place the last year. The entire “Russia-gate” narrative is a fiction. But much of the educated white populace are now literally frothing at the mouth in outrage (for what is often unclear, actually, but Trump inspires a new level of hatred and contempt in many) and falling over themselves to laud praise on Mueller and the FBI. Ponder that a moment or two. Clint Watts, jar head ex Army, and ex FBI, and now head of some creepy organization that works on censorship (Alliance for Securing Democracy), spoke to a judiciary hearing last year and said: Civil wars don’t start with gunshots, they start with words. America’s war with itself has already begun. We all must act now on the social media battlefield to quell information rebellions that can quickly lead to violent confrontations and easily transform us into the Divided States of America. This in an article by Andre Damon. So fear words too. The public faces of repression. A populace now saturated with online psychological manipulation. Now most of us have noticed, for years, really, the Israeli hasbara trolls on social media. They pop up at odd times to attack any critical discourse on Israeli crimes. The U.S. government does much the same thing for a variety of topics. And it should be noted that there is a precipitous spike in antisemitism on the left. Some of it almost just structural in nature, but much of it blatant. But this is the top text, so to speak. It is never that simple. For the deeper psy-op activities are housed directly in the voices of dissent. Others, all those voices that pop up to attack, with faint praise sometimes, socialist countries — Cuba or the DPRK or Venezuela — are achieving something opposite of what they appear to be claiming. There is always this not quite radical criticism of, say, Hillary and Bill Clinton. But if one just asks…just asks, what about that trail of dead bodies going back decades that seem to follow in the wake of Bill and Hill. Ask that and you are slandered. Ask, say, about any left or even liberal journalist…why is this guy saying this stuff. I’ve asked about Chris Hedges’ unwavering attacks on Slobodan Milosevic. I mean Hedges claims he was there. He should know better. Right? But maybe it’s just a blind spot. I find that hard to understand, but maybe. I mean, maybe it’s all in my head, too. Could be. But if one has any illusions about the CIA and media, here is a useful quick primer. Conspiracy exists. That’s just a fact. COINTELPRO, Iran/Contra, the ‘babies torn from incubators’ meme, or those mythical rape camps in Serbia, or Operation Northwoods, or Operation Gladio for that matter. Yet, there is an enormous resistance to even suggesting any suspicion about certain things. And that is understandable. After all, there are countless crazy conspiracy stuff one can find. And there are certainly tons of people propagating these crazy theories. And it is tiresome. And the complexity of the experience of dealing with crazy theories is often also just enervating and depressing. Lodged within much of it are various layers of antisemitism, xenophobia, and racism. For the people who embrace the worst and most unrealistic conspiracy theories are also, usually, just not very smart. Uneducated, and their embrace is part of a character structure built on resentment and anger. From the crude Trumpian build-a-wall-to-keep-out-those-foreigners-who-are-taking-your-jobs, to the latest incarnations of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (just the word Rothschild is enough for me to stop reading) the sheer volume of this stuff is mind numbing. But then there is the possibility that the most outlandish stuff, that which attracts the nativist racists or antisemites might itself fall under the umbrella of that black budget. See how this goes? I mean, I often worry everything too outrageous just might be part of some massive psy-ops. The latest UFO video has garnered a lot of attention. I’d love to believe it, I really would. And it’s compelling, actually. But those drawings of the flying saucers. Why do they resemble Buck Rodgers serials? Why is the alien aesthetic, as it were, so retro? All these retired military guys, isn’t that a red flag? I don’t know. Or the moon landing didn’t happen meme. It was done on a sound stage in London and directed by Stanley Kubrick. I love that one, I admit. Why? Because those photos, the colour ones, DO, in fact, look like something Kubrick would have done. Do I actually believe it? No. But I get the appeal. I get the appeal for all of it. And I get the appeal because the actual world, itself, is so, well, unreal. Edward Said, not long before his death, did a BBC interview in which he was asked the single thing he felt most about the world at that moment. And he said, “the unreality”. Did private security teams shoot people after Hurricane Katrina? Yes. So did a lot of cops. Did land get stolen from the poor? Of course, it did. The ruling class is highly opportunistic. Disaster capitalism and all that. But nobody manufactured a hurricane in some lab at DARPA. But this unreality is not a hallucination. And the denial of it increasingly feels like its own neurosis. It also strikes me, the denial of all conspiracy theory, as a masculine affliction. It is the residual Puritanism or Calvinism of the stoic nose to the grindstone American male. Take Michael Hastings or Seth Rich, and ask yourself if one can with any equanimity accept the official story. Once upon a time people laughed at the idea that the U.S. government trained death squads at a place called School of the Americas. Unreal. But, of course, it was factual. Air America or CIA cocaine importation and the Gary Webb story. Unreal? Yeah. Sure it was. The shocking fact, Cockburn and St Clair assert, is the utterly quotidian nature of CIA operations. This is a healthy bureaucracy in which organizing drug transshipments, reportfiling, business lunches and clocking-out of the office are the workaday routines of well-educated, well-spoken men in suits. In contrast to the glamorous Hollywood depiction of espionage culture, this is the sphere of public servants, who are bid to do the job of achieving American geopolitical aspirations as best they can: “it should again be emphasized,” write Cockburn and St Clair, that the ClA works not as a “‘rogue’ Agency but always as the expression of US government policy” dictated from the Oval Office. All this might be dismissed as conspiracy theory were it not for the impressive research and documentation in Whiteout. — Brian Musgrove, review of Whiteout Catch that? Might be dismissed as conspiracy theory. Would have been. Almost was. For many still is. And yet there are decades of evidence that the U.S. does, in fact, engage in routine clandestine operations on foreign soil (and probably, this same evidence suggests, domestically), up to and including murder. There are a million Hollywood movies with this story line. But if one suggests that something not officially recognised might have been a black op — you are just a conspiracy theorist. Or in another register, look at the remarkable work of the Innocence Project. Look at the number of men acquitted of murder, rape, assault, and kidnapping. These men were set up. Those men were not convicted because of accidents or just bad legal representation (though they often had that, too). No, they were set up by venal dishonorable racists, white supremacists, men in positions to take away your freedom. If you are poor, especially poor and black or brown or Native American, then your life is always going to be precarious. And yet, much of America still needs convincing that the death penalty is wrong. People laugh about how everyone in jail claims innocence. Yet we know many ARE innocent. Or Chelsea Manning’s campaign for congress. The former Bradley Manning launched her campaign with an Orwellian video in which she is dressed in black, wearing a designer hoodie and which suggests nothing so much as some V for Vendetta out take, by way of Oswald Mosley. But, but she is running as a Democrat. What does one make of this, exactly? Unreality. Color me suspicious. But I want to return to the current wave of antisemitism I see in the West. Much of it on the self identified left. For this represents something symptomatic of the dissipation of critical thinking that is helping foster this climate of unreality. An unreality that aligns psychologically with fascism. The British ruling class, which was rabidly anti-Semitic, had its own reasons for this support. Out of the First World War, Arab nationalism had emerged as a major threat to domination of the Middle East and Britain hoped that Zionists could be a useful force for policing the Arabs. But Winston Churchill gave another reason for supporting Zionism–defeat of the left wing “International Jews.” In an astoundingly anti-Semitic article titled “Zionism versus Bolshevism,” Churchill wrote, ‘First there are the Jews who, dwelling in every country throughout the world, identify themselves with that country, enter into its national life and, while adhering faithfully to their own religion, regard themselves as citizens in the fullest sense of the State which has received them…( ) It becomes, therefore, specially important to foster and develop any strongly-marked Jewish movement which leads directly away from these fatal associations. And it is here that Zionism has such a deep significance for the whole world at the present time.… [S]hould there be created in our own lifetime by the banks of the Jordan a Jewish State under the protection of the British Crown, which might comprise three or four millions of Jews, an event would have occurred in the history of the world which would, from every point of view, be beneficial, and would be especially in harmony with the truest interests of the British Empire. — Anne Levin (International Socialist Review, 2002) As John Rose wrote: The shadow of anti-semitism as a partner of Zionism rather than its polar opposite, as the Zionists would claim it to be, hung over the Balfour Declaration. Lord Balfour, the British minister in whose name the declaration was signed, had enthusiastically campaigned for the introduction of the British Aliens Act in 1905 – which aimed deliberately at stemming further Jewish immigration into Britain. The antisemitism of the educated left today, just as much as the rabid Jew hating of the David Duke variety, both serve to absolve the ruling class of its crimes, to absolve the bourgeois plutocrats and even Capitalism, itself. It’s all the fault of the Jews! The Zionist project has always employed antisemites and Imperialists. The Arab revolt of 1936 was brutally squashed by the British (something at which they were to become very adept) but with massive Zionist assistance in the form of the Haganah paramilitary. Once the Arab populace was soundly defeated and demoralized the Zionists turned on their Imperial guardians. Anne Levin again: In 1945, they declared war on the British and drove them out. In 1947, the United Nations imposed its criminal partition of Palestine, which granted the majority of the land to the minority of Jewish settlers. For the Zionists, this was a green light to begin a terrible war of ethnic cleansing. In 1948, through systematic terror and murder, they drove 800,000 Palestinians off their land and founded the state of Israel on the ruins of destroyed Arab Palestine. The legacy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is still palpable. Remember too that Vladimir Jabotinsky, the right wing revisionist of early Zionism, was much enamored by fascism. The Revisionist newspaper of the time even wrote sympathetically of Hitler, who they believed would discard his antisemitism but trusted he would not discard his more important animus toward Marxism and Bolshiviks. The Israeli massacre of the British at Dir Yassin in 1948 marked the final act for the British mandate of Palestine. The point here is that antisemitism is a hugely useful tool for the current Israeli state. Netanyahu beats the drum constantly. Nothing is more pleasing to Israeli officials than to watch the rise of far right parties today in Europe (all of which echo the language of the Protocols). The destruction of the revolutionary left in Europe by Nazi fascism allowed the Zionist propagandists to manufacture a narrative of Jewish ideological support for Israel. The socialists who fought and died in resistance to fascism have been essentially erased from History…at least Israeli history. The socialist anti Zionism among huge numbers of European Jews has been relegated to Western and Israeli rabbit holes of amnesia. (never mind the Bolshiviks put an end to all racist laws and all anti Jewish legal restrictions in 1917). The anti-communism of Churchill and the instrumentalization of political Zionism in order to weaken the socialist appeal to Jews were not endeavors free of contradictions. On the Jewish question, Bolshevism at that time had been opposed to Zionism on the ideological front and to anti-Semitism on the political level. British imperialism, in contrast, was promoting Zionism to counter Bolshevism while supporting the elements of the White Guards in the Russian civil war who had a long tradition of anti-Semitism and pogroms. During the civil war, anti-Bolshevik forces killed at least 60,000 Jews. — Jacques Hersh Socialist and Marxist opposition to Zionism has existed ever since the modern political movement was launched by Theodor Herzl in 1897. Before World War I, Jewish nationalism was, if anything, more vigorously criticized by Jews than by non-Jews, at least outside Palestine. Jewish adversaries of Zionism at that time included much of the liberal communal establishment in Western countries, “assimilationist” Jews, religious reformers, and most of the preeminent “Orthodox” and ultra-Orthodox rabbis in Russia and Eastern Europe. On the secular Left, the Bund (the leading Jewish workers’ organization in Tsarist Russia), and later the Communists, vehemently opposed Zionism as a utopian, reactionary, “petty-bourgeois” movement. — Robert Wistrich Wistrich, himself a defender of the Israeli state, was also a perceptive analyst of contemporary antisemitism. And he recognized the dynamics of prejudice: On the far Left as well as the far Right, anti-Zionism uses a type of discourse and stereotypes concerning the “Jewish/Zionist lobby,” Israeli/Jewish “criminality,” and Sharonist “warmongering” that is fundamentally manipulative and anti-Semitic. This has penetrated the mainstream debate to the point where 60 percent of all Europeans regard tiny Israel as the greatest threat to world peace; where over a third of those surveyed in Europe and America regularly attribute to Jews excessive power and influence; where Jews are suspected of dual loyalties by ever greater numbers of non-Jews; and where “anti-Zionist” attacks on Jewish institutions and targets show that we are talking about a distinction without a difference. Anti-Zionism is not only the historic heir of earlier forms of anti-Semitism. Today, it is also the lowest common denominator and the bridge between the Left, the Right… And this is all exactly true. The problem for Wistrich and those critics like him is that Israel IS a criminal state and one that is engaged in something exterminationist regarding Palestinian Arabs. On social media of late I find a nearly never ending discourse on Jewish power, the New Jew World Order, and evil Jewish bankers. And most recently the Jews were behind 9-11. So, to return to my sense of unreality and psy-ops. One does wonder exactly why this striking revanchist antisemitism? The current sort of stealth fascism of much trendy or branded left discourse fits into this, too. One sees it in the romanticizing of the Kurds (the YPG) and some vague nostalgic and sentimental image of Kurdish nationalism. The Kurds who fight alongside the Imperialist U.S. in Syria, and are armed and trained by the U.S. and UK (long friendly with the Tories). But liberals seem to only care about the perception of Kurdish victimhood. One sees it in the closeted Islamaphobia in much of the left, too. One that often cross-pollinates with western bourgeois feminism. Discussions of head scarves or veils often feel like delivery systems for latent xenophobia. Holocaust survivor Jacques Hersh wrote at Monthly Review: This notwithstanding, some survivors found it difficult to comprehend why, after the industrialized and scientific massacre of millions of Jews, as well as that of other ethnic groups and nationalities, together with the persistent anti-Semitism in both postwar Europe and America, the big powers were now willing to accede to the project of a Jewish homeland. Was this change of heart purely a function of guilt over the treatment of European Jews or was there some “intelligent design” involving the mapping of a future international political architecture which the new state formation would help bring about? Anti-Semitism, the German socialist leader Bebel therefore felt, was ‘the socialism of idiots.’ Yet what strikes us about the rise of political anti-Semitism at the end of the century is not so much the equation ‘Jew ≈ capitalist,’ which was not implausible in large parts of east/central Europe, but its association with right-wing nationalism. — Eric Hobsbawm Gianfranco Fini of the Italian National Alliance and Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom, have also professed their admiration of Zionism and the ‘white’ ethnocracy of the state of Israel, while on other occasions making their anti-Semitic views plain. Three things that draw these anti-Semites towards Israel are, first, the state’s ethnocratic character; second, an Islamophobia they assume Israel shares with them; and, third, Israel’s unapologetically harsh policies towards black migrants from Africa… — Neve Gordon Kim Domenico (at Counterpunch) had a perceptive piece on the Me Too movement. And it touches on this increasing friendliness toward the fascist sensibility in liberals as well as the far right. But reading story after story in the news, hearing the salacious details discussed at parties, one can begin to feel the taking down of successful men of business and the arts as being tinged with that McCarthyist kind of sadism, of puritanical vindictiveness. Like all stories coming from Identitiarianism, it blots out the Much Bigger problems of free market capitalism and imperialist wars, of rule by oligarchy and plutocracy, of which dirty “old satyrs” are but one symptom and not the worst, while forefronting victimhood. And in another piece she writes: Eyes are off the fascism discernible in this mood of furious vengeance that casts the offender as a special category of monster, tosses aside due process, innocence until proven guilty, and ruins the alleged offender’s reputation for life. The crimes of the ruling class are absolved. Institutional violence against women is mystified. I have read, a number of times, in fact, Aziz Ansari described as a pig. Sometimes by people I know and like. The Ansari narrative, driven by an online tabloid site that solicited such gossip for months, is a sterling example of unreality (I have noted, however, a certain backlash to that particular story…however small). The United States is, today, a crumbling empire where the white bourgeoisie clings ever more deliriously and desperately to their privilege…even if sometimes only illusory. A privilege that includes the right to be victims. A nation of bruised feelings. Victim’s rights is partly an outgrowth of a new sub phylum of narcissism. The prison system is cutting out visits by family and friends. Only a pay for Skype call is allowed. Prison libraries are being shut down, too. This is gratuitous sadism. Or, maybe a sort of surplus sadism. For the society is one run on resentment and disappointment. The average American is consumed by both. No prison visits. Unreality. The current under the radar rise of fascist thinking in the liberal West is both disturbing, for obvious reasons, but also haunting. It feels unreal. I see or hear people I know saying things that I find shocking. Racist and xenophobic and mostly just vindictive and vengeful even. The tolerance for American wars speaks to this, I think. Yemen is being reduced to rubble but America simply doesn’t care. The erosion of public education and its effects are partly masked by the addiction to technology. Smart phones, I suppose, in particular. But I say that sincerely. The weird masturbatory text compulsion eats up hours of everyone’s day. People no longer even look at each other. Where Walter Benjamin once marked the shock of late 19th century urban life with the rapid passing of faces in a crowd, today the shock is of the passing faces not seen. Life takes place on screens. A life increasingly unreal. And yet, one will be called a conspiracy theorist for just asking questions. Just that. And right now it seems to me EVERYTHING should be questioned. There are literally a dozen books now, by serious journalists, outlining the media manipulation and covert activities of the intelligence services here and in the UK. The CIA has manufactured fake news stories since Allen Dulles. And they even admit to manipulating polls, creating or destroying website popularity (and page view counts), and hiring trolls or shills to highjack social media discussions. But it is hard to imagine the intelligence community does not engage in far more concrete activities. Of course, the flip side is that such speculation (a side bar benefit) encourages paranoia. It is natural to feel this way given that nothing can be trusted. Nobody and no institution. German journalist Udo Ulfkotte recently said (reported by Eric Zuesse): Most of the journalists you see in foreign countries … European or American journalists …, like me in the past, are so-called non-official cover. … Non-official cover means what? You do work for an intelligence agency… And Hollywood is, again, a means to normalizing such activities. It offers mild rebuke, but mostly it just valorizes the duplicity of the government. Of all western governments. And the consequences for such normalization, and the discouragement of skepticism, is the growing expression of this latent xenophobia, racism and antisemitism. The ruling class and its stenographers, the ownership class and its affluent flatterers, have colonized the western imagination. And it is leading to this sense of pervasive unreality. And this unreality seems designed to promote a new fascism. One that makes use of all the old tropes and symbolism, only retrofitted to appear new. And it is growing. http://clubof.info/

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