#pre-slash because they don't know how to communicate

[prettyoddfever]

why are you so against ryden

I'm literally only pointing out why specific examples of "Ryden proof" don't work, or were misinterpreted by people who don't know much about the band. If me being pro-reality means that you consider me anti-Ryden then, uh… you might want to examine that more.

As long as we're on this topic, I'm going to expand on an older post here and go off on a tangent:

I actually loved the Ryden part of the fandom in the pre-split days! Ryden felt like a fandom-wide inside joke that united so many fans and sparked so much creativity (sometimes it reminded me of inventing bs symbolism in english & art classes lol). I didn’t read the slash, but it’s not like those kids stayed exclusively over in their communities… they were everywhere. A lot of my favorite accounts were massive Ryden fans & fic authors. but even the most die-hard shippers in 2006 & 2007 would scoff if new fans asked if they were ever being serious with their comments. It was all just entertaining wish fulfillment done to amuse themselves. They would act like it was a legit alternate reality and write long funny primers & posts like “look guys, they are in love. this is facts… here I go with my proof," but when it came down to whether or not they actually thought it was real… no, of course not. The fanfic authors were the first to laugh and say they weren’t hurting anyone because nobody actually believed Ryden was real and everyone was on the same page. They argued that every single band had a slash community and it just came with the fame. Some fans genuinely wanted Ryden to be real, while others thought it was entertaining how you could cherry-pick events & isolate them from any context to make Ryden look plausible. And both groups were taking matters into their own hands by trying to tie enough pictures & random dots together to make it look like a happy alternate reality that satisfied everyone. It was funny.

The majority of the pre-split fandom understood that Ryden wasn’t real, so people were on the same page when they shared their “proof.” It was like an inside joke. For example, I’ll argue that unicorns could be real because I know that the person I’m talking to is aware of reality. I can get as creative as I want and just have fun because we’re both on the same page… and the other person will be like “well yes of course they’re obviously real.” It looks like we agree. But that does not mean that we truly believe it lol... we're just bored & entertaining ourselves. Someone else who is unsure whether or not unicorns actually exist might read our convo and conclude that we are certain unicorns are real and have proof! But I never intended for my silly convo with my friend to be taken that seriously.

For me, Ryden was more about the fandom. It was just fun to see a picture or new moment and wait to see if anyone else spotted the same potential too. The slash accounts across different sites/forums would even make fun of themselves for how far they would go to make everything fit Ryden. At times it felt like an affectionate joke about the band and the fandom. 

I’d say the Ryden craze first took over with the huge surge of new fans during the summer 2006 tour (around the time Brendon & Ryan started fully going for the mic sharing each night). This was back when the band still read the forums and different fan sites and were trying to get a sense of what their fans were saying (such a bad idea lol). I was never totally clear on where the guys stood on Ryden in 2006 but it seemed like they were in on the joke… but it was so confusing at the same time. Like one minute they’d complain about the disgusting “pornfiction” in an interview and the next minute they’d be hamming it up for meet & greet pictures. Bden would practically hump Ryan’s leg during a show and then Ryan would suggestively run his hand up Bden’s thigh during a meet & greet exactly when he knew fans were watching… and then they’d both act like they didn’t get why fans ever came up with stories about them. I’m not saying their actions meant they were asking for something btw. I’m just saying that it’s equally true that the guys would claim they weren’t huge on Ryden and that they intentionally fueled the fire to get fans to laugh/scream at the right time. The band was super aware that the Ryden fans were a huge part of the fandom who drove a lot of the hype online… so it seemed like in late 2006 the guys were just trying to connect with a fanbase they were being quickly distanced from as they got more & more famous. Then in 2008 the guys intentionally added extra Ryden elements to their stage routine because they knew what a lot of fans still wanted to see.

So my conclusion was that it was all in good fun (except making suggestive comments to the band irl was horrible… people were even saying some seriously gross stuff to Zack about the boys and taking it waaaaay too far). During the lull of 2007, and even into 2008, there seemed to be a whole section of the fandom that was more invested in their fanfic communities than the irl band (they’d often come onto other boards & communities to ask for facts or details for their fanfics and watching the replies they got was like watching a really bad game of telephone haha so I’m guessing those plots diverged from reality pretty quickly). New fans were also being introduced to the band through fanfiction and seemed more intent on just spotting Ryden moments and learning the fanfic version of history rather than any real-life history. So by late 2008 there was definitely a small crowd who was taking Ryden more seriously and also understood less about the band. But I wasn't always sure if their tone was totally serious or not, because the joking posts had often been written in a serious tone too.

Side note on that: when I started this account in 2020 I hadn't thought about P!ATD much while I had been sick for years. I was just trying to throw myself back into the mindset of 2006 and rediscover a time when my world had been awesome & I was healthy. So when I saw all the sun/moon theories that had formed after I'd left the fandom I was like YES omg this is amazing. I lived for that kind of stuff. But then it was confusing how the same people who were currently posting all of the “ryden was real” stuff were the same ones who would quickly point out that another one of my Ryden posts wasn’t what really happened or that a photo manip that I considered fun was actually fake…  I mean, obviously??? I didn’t get why there was any difference between everything. It took me a few months to get a read on the current fandom and realize that things weren't being done in the same joking spirit. I started struggling to explain why I was posting Ryden-ish stuff if I didn’t necessarily believe what I was saying (and again I’m having a hard time explaining here because it never felt like the fandom was making up crap we didn’t stand behind back then! we were serious that we believed it was a darn good connection/theory or photoshop job haha). Ryden used to be like this shared alternate lens to view events through that felt like teamwork to create. We would intentionally pretend like years of full context didn't exist and create our own parallel narrative that could coexist with reality in our minds. But now it feels like people are sharing "Ryden proof" for real as though the piles of creative nonsense are an actual recap of historic events... and you need to pick some kind of "side" to believe? Idk, it's weird. I dropped any remaining nostalgia connected with Ryden content and ended up shifting the tone & focus of my account to organizing actual facts, media, and info about events I remember.

I don't think it's ok that moments in the band's history are often distorted or erased in order to pass off certain examples of “Ryden proof” as real now. It would be a shame for ridiculous Ryden stories to be prioritized as key info about the band while normal info about band members & events gets ignored now (ex: turning Northern Downpour into some kind of Ryden thing totally erases what Ryan wanted to do with the song). A lot of people have told me that they don’t care what actually happened because they prefer their ideas anyways. And that’s fine, as long as you’re aware that what you’re choosing doesn't track with reality. (Also, I always felt like knowing the real events or original photos from a manip gave me more appreciation for how creative people were… but I suppose that’s because Ryden was more about the fandom for me).

SIDE TANGENT: I drifted away from the fandom after summer 2009 when I got sick, so I don’t know specifically what happened over the next couple years to get so many fans who were impressively uninformed about the band yet super intense about Ryden at the same time... but I'm also not surprised I guess. Some knowledge about the band absolutely faded to the background in the last half of 2006 as the overwhelming amount of newer fans invented their own answers and were more interested in freaking out over cute guys than actually taking the time to learn about the band. The knowledge wasn't lost, it was just drowned out for a while in the midst of their enthusiastic chatter. It felt like a waste of time to correct them too because they were absolutely everywhere and they weren't really harming anyone by screaming things like Ryan took his mom as a date to the VMAs lol. Maybe there was a surge of younger fans by 2010-2011 who didn't have the context to know what they were looking at too, and were very enthusiastic about Ryden? I don't know. This is all purely speculation on my part.

I actually don't care whether anyone thinks Ryden was real or not... that's definitely not my focus and I'm not trying to convince anyone of a "side" either. You can conclude whatever you want. My focus in my posts is simply to provide context for some of the inaccurate stories & examples that are currently being passed around as though they're actual history. I don't expect anyone to care. But at least the info is still available for any younger fans who might be interested in the real-life band.

[masterwords]

the price i'm gonna pay for dreaming

Summary: Coda to 7x09 Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. Hotch isn't taking care of himself, Derek can relate, they do something they rarely do…they communicate. BAM.

Words: 7.7k

Pairing: Hotch/Morgan (sort of. pre-slash.)

Notes: This fic is a fever dream. I watched the episode, I vibed out over 7k words, here we are. I don't know - do I continue it? Do I leave it be? Let me know. You can tell me here, you can tell me on tumblr (masterwords)…I just don't know. Maybe make it a series where they work through their exercise/eating issues together?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"From where I'm standing, it's you who can't trust anyone with anything…"

The words spent the next hour bouncing around in Hotch's skull alongside flashes, moments, a lifetime that flickered before his eyes. He wondered exactly how long Derek had been waiting to lob those words at him, how long he'd been biting his tongue, how certain he was that that was the moment.

He couldn't say a thing to counter it. Even if Rossi and Prentiss hadn't walked in, even if they'd been entirely alone there was nothing he could say to counter it because of one simple undeniable fact: it was true.

And it was entirely his fault, there was no denying it.

His team were all trustworthy. For the most part, anyway. Sure they all had their weaknesses - he probably wouldn't hand a secret worth anything to Penelope, and he wouldn't ask Reid to step into a pressure packed leadership role or require him to make any big decisions, but those things weren't any reason to keep everything quiet. They weren't good reasons to cut anyone out.

What's more, Derek had always proven himself capable of everything. He'd kept secrets for years, he knew things about Hotch that the rest of the team would never know if he could help it. He'd stepped into the Unit Chief role with no preparation, no training, no desire to do the job at all and he'd not only succeeded but he'd excelled. There was no reason in the world to keep things from him…

Except Hotch's deep desire to never be a burden. It wasn't them, it was him. He could trust them but why would he want them to feel the way he did every day? Why would he want to saddle them with ulcers and stress headaches and constant nausea when they could go home and live their lives if he just took it on himself? He'd already made some sort of peace with the physicality of his job. They didn't have to.

But he couldn't say that either because that would only serve to make him sound like a martyr. And maybe he was. That might not be his motivation, he thought everyone would agree with him on that one - martyrs make their sacrifices known and so far he's done a swell job of keeping those locked up tight. He suffered in silence, and when asked, assured everyone that he was in fact doing just fine. Not that anyone asked.

Anyone but Derek, that is.

Derek deserved to be let in. After the grief assessments, after handling Emily's death and reappearance, things were shaky between them. Better than he thought they would be, better by a long shot, but not good. For a while there he thought maybe something might happen between them, before Emily died. There were moments they shared that felt big, that felt like moving toward something, but all of that was gone now. The best Derek seemed to be able to do anymore was tolerate his presence.

They didn't talk about Derek's outburst again, but every time their eyes met Hotch felt the accusation. Felt the unspoken question - now you know how I feel, so what the hell are you gonna do about it?

Read on AO3: the price i'm gonna pay for dreaming

[avaantares]

Guys. I shouldn't have to say this, but

AO3 is not TikTok.

Play all the silly algorithm games you want by tagging every irrelevant trend and current pop song on your TikTok vids to try to boost their visibility, but that nonsense does not belong in a structured, tag-ordered archive like AO3 (which doesn't have an algorithm). It is not acceptable community behavior to list every single relationship tag in a fandom on your fic in order to try to accumulate more hits. Tags should reflect what's actually in the story so it can be properly categorized and filtered. If an 1,100-word E-rated fic is tagged "PWP, smut, seriously it's just porn, explicit sexual content, don't like don't read, [six more specific sexual act tags redacted so nobody has to encounter them on their Tumblr dash without warning]," IT 👏 DOES 👏 NOT 👏 BELONG 👏 IN 👏 THE 👏 GEN 👏 TAGS.

I just scrolled through four pages of the primary gen tag in one of my fandoms, and a full 70% of the fics in the results were slash fics -- many explicit -- that people had added gen/& tag(s) to, either out of ignorance of what those tags mean, or in an attempt to sucker more people into clicking on it. (I promise you, if someone is in the gen tag because they don't want to see romantic or sexual content, they are NOT going to enthusiastically R&R your slash fic. Filters exist for a reason. Shoving content at people who are not its target audience just annoys everyone.)

Some of this is obviously deliberate tag sandbagging: A <1K PWP for the main ship that also includes multiple slash and gen tags for multiple supporting characters? Hella sus. A fic that lists eight slash and gen tags for the main pairing alone, using every conceivable spelling permutation of their names? Probably looking to maximize hits (and clearly unaware of how AO3's search function actually works). But it's likely that not everyone is doing this maliciously, and since there might be some legitimate confusion surrounding the use of relationship tags, here's a review for new users or anyone who needs a refresher:

Which AO3 Relationship Tag Should You Use?

Character A/Character B: A slash between character names means that they are depicted in the story as being in a romantic and/or sexual relationship (it does not have to be both). This relationship can be canon, fanon, headcanon, crack ship, crossover, whatever. It just means they're romantically entangled to some extent within the tagged story. (Fun fact: The slash has been used to denote this kind of fanfiction for over half a century! "Slash fic" has its roots in early Star Trek zines, which were the first to codify the slash between names as indicating a romantic relationship. This shorthand spread to other fandoms in the 1970s and '80s, and became the standard for internet fanfiction archives when they came into being in the '90s.)

Character A & Character B: The et/ampersand ("and") between names means that the characters are depicted in a non-romantic/non-sexual relationship, OR that they might be in a romantic relationship (canonically or otherwise), but the tagged story focuses on non-romantic aspects of the relationship. Stories that deal with characters' friendship, rivalry, family bonds, betrayal, coming to understand each other, etc. all fall under this heading. This is also called "gen" or "genfic," derived from the AO3 relationship category (below):

In the event that a fic qualifies for both types of tags, you can use additional clarifying tags such as "pre-slash" (characters are not yet in a romantic relationship, but are heading in that direction), "background Character A/Character B" (the romantic relationship exists only as a backdrop for or incidental to the main story), or "slash applies to chapter 5 only" (if only one scene or chapter deals with the romantic aspects of the relationship) to help readers know what to expect from the story. (The last tag is also used for fics which jump content ratings between chapters, usually due to an isolated scene of sexual content or graphic violence, e.g. "M rating is for chapter 8 only.")

Learning how AO3's tagging system works and using it as intended will only benefit users (authors and readers) in the long run. AO3's filter system is the most extensive and versatile of any fanfiction archive in existence, so you can find the exact things you want without scrolling for days. (There are even additional search tools you can use to narrow your results beyond the basic filters!) But it all depends on the tags being accurate. If authors don't apply the correct tags to their fics, the system breaks down.

So go forth and tag properly! Please. I beg you.

[union-combine]

Greetings citizens of the Union and beings from beyond! Welcome to Union News Central, I'm your host Bluglakkag Flublabbak. Hello! This is the recent news! ::3

The New Libertopia Cultural Fair has begun! Culture is something that's been lacking in the Union, as the Replicants had very little and the uplifted species of the Union had nothing. That being said, the exposure to so many alien cultures on New Libertopia has inspired the habitat's communities to host the New Libertopia Cultural Fair! At this wonderful event, Union species have been expressing themselves in new and interesting ways, and alien species are encouraged to share the beauty of their own cultures.

Headlining the event is the Vegvian clone band Zoryal-Thunn. Opening with the song 'When Moegmar Arrives'.

The Zoryal-Thunn band members were grown here in the Union as a part of the Vegvian Preservation Project, and once they finished their adjustment cycle, they chose to remain in the Union as citizens.

Their songs revolve around the Vegvian history they studied during their adjustment cycle, and the battles and struggles of the past. Their songs don't celebrate war or violence, instead they honor the dead, sing to inform, and encourage a message of peace. Their iconic instruments catch the eye, repurposing of hard-light axes into musical instruments in a swords-to-ploughshares dramatic flare.

Not far from the concert, the elusive Ugluk artist Bloroworoe Riououeururowuw has set up a stall at the Fair to give some flare to the exoskeletons of Ugluks. Bloroworoe promised that for each decal painted, they'll answer a question about their art.

The stall also attracted some spectators, including Thylaks, who Bloroworoe encouraged to come in and made it clear that anyone, whether it be synthetic life forms, or organics with an exoskeleton or cybernetics limbs are welcome to be turned into a piece of walking art.

Meanwhile, the Mod community of the New Libertopia Ostess-Sat has promised to set up a stall at the fair soon. They're just gatering supplies, data on the anatomy of alien life, and looking for a space to set up at the moment.

The Ostess-Sat Modders are a group of Ostess-Sat speeder riders and racers who enjoy cyberneticly modifing themselves. Their passions grew from engineering their speeders to be safer and faster in the Ammonia Sector race tracks, which then moved to the modification of robots for quick repairs of speeders on the tracks in pitstops. And then of course, they began expressing modification in themselves. Hence 'Mods'. ::3

The Feforyans of New Libertopia have set up a presentation of their martial arts slash dance called Pudra. The teachers said they're willing to teach anyone, so long as people treat the art respectfully.

Pudra originated as an old Feforyan self defence martial art used against cruel Fefings. It developed in the pre-Observer age of post-Nuclear Feforia and in the time since then, its developed into a cultural dance which has a number of different styles depending on the situation and its not restrictive in terms of what someone can do with the amount of limbs the practioners may or may not have. This is in part due to the recent mutations which turned Feforyan legs into a fused tail, but it's also partly because of the many alien races Feforyans have encountered.

Lastly, the Replicants have set up a stall displaying the new lifeforms engineered for Feforia, animals that have been spliced from a number of different creatures that can withstand the planet's toxic atmosphere.

They explained how each critter is being crafted to be beautiful and unique in their eyes, even if some found the creations to be disturbing, none can deny its an impressive show of scientific mastery and biological artistry.

Well, that's all the major attractions of the New Libertopia Cultural Fair so far! I know I said 'lastly' with the Replicant event, but the Fair is still only on its first day, and you expect many more additions from our other alien residents soon! If you find yourself in New Libertopia in the coming weeks, be sure to visit these and other attractions and enjoy yourselves!

This is Bluglakkag Flublabbak saying thanks for tuning in to our signal here at UNC. Be sure to bookmark our wavelength for future updates.

Solace in the Union.

[discowingneckline]

if i'm correct, the timeskip from act 1 and act 2 was 3-6 months, but from my knowledge we don't know how long the timeskip between act 2 and 3 is. HOWEVER! it certainly wasn't a day, and here is my thoughts on why:

vi suffered from some sort of slash on her abdomen and protecting jinx's body in an explosion, yet she is able to fight just fine in the last episode. she even carried gert in episode 9, like she definitely wasn't as injured as she was from episode 6.

ambessa had the time to bury her dead, send for reinforcements to come by sea (and if she didn't send for more outside of piltover, she at the very least had to get communication to those docked, which at that...why wouldn't caitlyn take care of them pre-battle?), and do a bunch of shit with singed.

singed/viktor made the little bubble womb thing viktor is fermenting in, which is hooked up to a ton of pipes and like idk hose things. viktor has time to go and see mel and jayce and fight them, change into the machine herald, change ppl into metal things. singed had time to go and fix up vander. singed at some point leaves to go to his lab to save his daughter.

topsiders and zaunites both had time to train during the whole sequence thing, and i doubt they joined, trained, and then fought within like two days.

topside made more hextech related weapons (see the one loris and the pianist operate)

not necessarily counting these, but like still kinda point to it NOT being a day or even really a few days before the attack:

jinx had time after escaping jail to burn down the last drop, go to her hideout, and fail multiple times (technically) at killing herself

jinx and ekko at some point went to the firelight tree (if we are also going off of jinx fixes everything)

someone pierced ekko's ears

someone cut jinx's hair to look nicer

jinx and ekko both got new fits

jinx and ekko painted on each other (according to one of the writers)

jinx and ekko rally all the different gangs to go up topside to help

jinx configured her hideout into a hot air balloon that is completely redecorated (OR she found something similar to her hideout and decorated it)

so those are some of the big reasons i'm a little like mm no the time between act 2 and 3 isn't a day or even a few days. also caitlyn calls it a war...if this was the only battle (episode 9) with no other instances of fighting...that is a really shit word choice by the writers. like why wouldn't caitlyn just send out enforcers to go and fight ambessa while she's down in zaun with singed and viktor while she's at a huge disadvantage? why would zaunites just be fine with ambessa and her army being in their territory?

prev reblogs hit it on the "but it's armor" argument. like granted piltover is known for not having military and relying on enforcers to do all that stuff (which is it's own world building issue about the ins and outs of enforcers...) but like zaunites have literally built better armor and mechanical suits that protect them better. why wouldn't they use those or just go in their own clothes. you can't say it's so they can recognize friend from foe, because ambessa's army wears red and silver, and piltover is blue and gold. if anyone else wore other stuff, you could still easily identify the enemy.

and the argument over why zaunites shouldn't be wearing their oppressor's uniform has nothing to do with whether zaunites are valid or not. zaunites that end up wearing it for the battle are just as valid as those who don't because they are both fighting for their lives. ambessa was literally in their territory, viktor saved (killed) a good chunk of their community. what is being criticized is that the writers made that choice to show piltover enforcers being nice to some people, and zaunites deciding that they'll help because actually their oppressors are good people! it's a bad choice, end of.

on another note, sevika being on the council is a horrible decision like prevs said. it is NEVER said (and correct me if i'm wrong with some evidence from the writers) that caitlyn gave up her family's council seat for sevika specifically. mel left, leaving her seat empty. jayce resigned, leaving his seat empty. and heimerdinger was kicked off, leaving his seat empty. it is never really said who "replaced" who. all we know (from what the scene shows us) is that sevika has ONE seat. having one voice out of many who are the entire government

i.e piltover council seems to create and vote in laws, conduct trials, and when heimerdinger was on the council, have complete control over piltover education

gets you nowhere. especially when the other councilors seem to find your very presence to offensive. sure, sevika can advocate for changes in zaun, but if she wanted them to do anything, she'd likely have to bribe them. some votes on the council have to be unanimous, others simple majority. this part alone would need another separate post to really go into just how screwed she got. also! hate to be that person, but sevika has like little to no control over the undercity. she has silco's crew (unless some of them left after he died) and vaguely the jinxers by proxy. there are still 3 chembaron gangs (not including those from finn or renni, because idk what happened to their gangs) unaccounted for and the firelights. they have been shown to not really agree with each other on much of anything. you know who would be a better voice for zaun? ekko. he had ties to heimerdinger and doesn't completely hate topside. he, like caitlyn, worked to dismantle shimmer. logically, he would make the most sense. also, if it WAS caitlyn who gave up her seat for sevika, then it makes even less sense why she wouldn't pick ekko. she vaguely knows ekko, but her only real interactions with sevika were fighting her. also she was NOT the only one fighting for their rights and stayed true to her beliefs. we see this when she starts to understand vander's point on not giving up their own people, which she tells smeech. she has grown in her understanding and personal beliefs.

anyway, i saw the response and was like "what in the hell" so hope you enjoyed my ramblings on this topic.

so much interesting nuance regarding all out war between the two cities set up in s1 that is then completely not followed through in s2 cuz they just change the plot halfway through to something more confusing and less grounded and less interesting.

And then they try to pretend they had well developed and well explored themes regrading war and class and progress cuz a character who doesn’t do anything for half the season gets a seat on the council when we don’t even see the complex negotiations that would have led to that happening.

[inkribbon796]

It’s too Early for This

Summary: For Henrik’s birthday. Henrik has been receiving some gruesome leftovers every morning, and all signs point to Anti.

This is the exchange I made up in my head that inspired this whole fic:

Marvin: (sends fireworks overhead written in Jackie’s name)

Jackie: (misses the display completely)

Marvin: (screams in frustration)

Anti: (leaves dead birds to proclaim his love)

Henrik: I do not have enough coffee in my system to deal wiz zis.

Anti: (sad glitch noises)

Anti was an eccentric but after a couple months you got used to him. Or at least you learned to read his moods.

Unlike Dark or Phantom who would just glare at you and you had five seconds to guess and hope you got it right, Anti was straightforward. When he was bored he stabbed the closest moving object. When he was angry he stabbed the closest thing in general. There was no hesitation, no word play, no brooding in his room because things didn’t go his way.

But Anti had been bothering Henrik a lot, and leaving dead things outside his door. First it was small things like robins and finches. Then it was squirrels, and badgers. One morning Henrik had walked out to see a half-disemboweled nightmare beaver from Hell.

So Henrik usually kept a bin in front of his door so they didn’t have to keep replacing the carpet.

Henrik, exhausted from another late night at the hospital, opened his door and expected to see another rodent but what he saw was a human heart in a bin by the door.

Were this post-coffee, and not at 4 AM, Henrik would have his brain fully working and he would have screamed. Now he just stared at the alarm for a couple seconds. Then he picked it up and brought it with him into the kitchen. Jackie was half asleep at the table, looking like death walking, and he hugged his coffee to him as if it was going to save his life.

Seán was in a pair of sweats, and made a double take at the bin, “Shite! Anti again?”

Henrik set it down on top of the trash, immediately going for the coffee. “Ya.”

“Yah want me ta do somethin’ ‘bout him?” Jackieboy Man asked in concern.

“If ze glitch continues to send body parts, zen yes,” Henrik dismissed. “I am not a’vake enough for zis.”

“I feel yah,” Jackie agreed as a tremendous lightning storm hit right over their home, making everyone jump. The lightning hit Seán’s tinnitus particularly hard and spread to the rest of the Septics.

Seán was drinking his coffee, took one look at the heart and the rain again, “Night fookers!”

“It is 4 AM,” Henrik asked.

“Yeah, night,” Seán agreed.

Jackie looked outside and groaned. What he saw was Marvin and Anti were standing close to the street, Anti looking up at the sky and Marvin glaring at Anti. What Marvin had been planning on doing was summoning a huge display of lights for Jackie when the superhero walked out but at the last minute he was distracted by Anti and had messed up the spell, causing a storm instead.

And Marv wonders why our neighbors hate us, Jackie thought dryly.

“Yah fookin’ gopher shite,” Marvin spat at Anti, now thoroughly drenched to the bone.

“Ehh, yah should’a paid attention, maybe next time lover boy,” Anti chuckled.

“Oh like yeh can do any better,” Marvin spat back. “How’s ‘bout I fook over yer attempts ta fook Henrik.”

“Nah, Hein loves my gifts,” Anti reported proudly.

“Anti I s’vear,” Henrik had finally noticed that Anti was standing outside. “If you send me un more organ I vill feed you your own zrough a tube!”

The German doctor slammed the window and Anti had a heartbroken but love struck look on his face.

“Come on, Hein!” Anti groaned. “You can’t threaten me like that an’ not expect me ta fall in love with yah!”

“Smooth,” Marvin started trudging back inside, “real smooth. But, yah know better luck next time lover boy.”

“Shut it fore I kill yah, I sent him a heart, humans love those,” Anti grumbled, following the magician.

“Hey dipshite, yah know humans don’t send real hearts to someone, right?” Marvin reminded.

“What, that’s absurd,” Anti huffed. “What’s the point ‘a givin’ someone a heart if yah can’t hunt it down yer self?”

“We’re human, dumbass,” Marvin spat and once at the door he tried to shake off as much water as possible before heading inside. “Try gettin’ him some flowers or candy, Henrik loves caramel.”

Then he ran inside at a dead sprint to the bathroom to avoid getting as much water on the floor as possible. He failed, Chase noticed and got more than a bit pissed at him.

Anti for his part was just staring, missing Henrik walking out the door until it was too late.

So Anti decided that instead of demon tactics of blood sport and death threats weren’t working he’d try a more human approach, if Henrik wanted flowers and caramel, he’d get it for him.

Henrik day went from annoying to aggravating. He came to work to see Iplier tired but trying to stop himself from cackling. When Henrik looked at his desk it was covered in weeds, houseplants, and dirt. It was covering his desk. Whenever he cleaned up there was always more dirt and flowers. Then around midday he saw a clump of melted caramel just sitting on his desk, speckled with the dirt that Henrik hadn’t completely been able to clean up.

He knew to blame Anti, the glitch demon had been leaving him dead animals for ages, of course he’d dropped melted candy and weeds on his desk.

All day it was non-stop but he never came in time to catch Anti and yelled at him. This resulted in Henrik having a worsening mood all day and going home with death in his eyes. The first person he saw was Marvin who was sleeping on the couch.

“Marvin!” Henrik shouted in fury.

“Didn’t do it!” Marvin’s startled awake.

“Vere is Anti,” Henrik hissed.

“Don’t know, haven’t seen him,” Marvin told him, looking like he was about to fall asleep. “Last I heard he was getting flowers.”

“He put shit on my desk all day und I am going to kill him,” Henrik reported.

“Shit, he’s that bad a flirt?” Marvin grumbled, still half-asleep.

Henrik was so surprised by that statement it jolted him out of his anger a bit, he was still pissed as hell but now he was only slightly less pissed. “What?”

“Ahh, shite, yah didn’t hear nothin’ from me,” Marvin told him, suddenly very awake and scrambling away. “Gonna bug Jackie.”

The magician bolted out the house like he’d been set on fire, leaving Henrik alone with his slowly cooling anger.

The German doctor found Anti throwing his knives at the wall, trying to hit a picture of Seán and Dark’s faces.

“Anti,” Henrik warned.

Anti froze before he could toss another knife, staring at Henrik in surprise, “Sup Hein, you got an invitation.”

“Vhy did you melt caramel und pour dirt all over my desk?” Henrik asked.

“Maybe ‘cause I wanted to,” Anti evaded heatedly.

“Vhy did you put dirt on my desk?” Henrik asked.

“I couldn’t shake ‘em off the plants,” Anti tossed the knife at his dartboard.

“Did you give me flo’vers?” Henrik asked.

“Don’t be stupid, demons don’t give anyone flowers,” Anti denied, getting up to grab his knives again and started throwing them at the board at the other side of the wall that had all the other Septic’s pictures on it, including Henrik’s. Henrik’s picture was also the first one to get a knife thrown through it,

“Are you trying to flirt vit me? Henrik asked, almost certain Anti wasn’t.

But Anti paused and looked over at Henrik, “Is it workin’?”

Henrik took a second or two, deciding if even entertaining the idea of dating Anti was a good idea. He was a killer and more than a bit erratic. “No, I assume ze organs vere also an attempt at flirting.”

“Did yah like ‘em?” Anti asked in excitement.

That excitement was a bit of a surprise to Henrik, and a reminder that he was a demon. “No, ze organs vere vet und kald. Zey also dropped blood all over ze floor, however ze zought vas nice if you vere not attempting to kill me.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Anti grinned. “Besides, you threaten me so amazingly.”

“You like ven I z’reaten you?” Henrik asked.

“Course I do,” Anti grinned, inches away from Henrik in his typical flagrancy of Henrik’s personal space. “Yer so fookin’ descriptive.”

“Vell, maybe I can keep z’reatening you if you stop leaving ze animals, und perhaps,” Henrik offered “help me to start my day. I certainly vould not mind help wiz my coffee.”

Anti looked a little hopeful, “Black?”

“Two sugars,” Henrik answered. “No blood or organs.”

“No promises,” Anti smiled and glitched out of existence. Henrik left Anti’s room and relaxed for the rest of the day. He always felt like he was being watched but Anti didn’t show face.

However in the morning when Henrik opened his door, instead of seeing a dead animal or another organ, he saw a warm cup of coffee in his favorite mug in the container. Henrik smiled as he picked it up. He noticed that there were two sugar cubes that looked like human organs, one was a pair of lungs and another was a heart. It was almost too realistic but they crumbled like sugar and tasted like sugar so best bet was that they were sugar.

Henrik lifted the mug to his lips and went back into his room to change into his scrubs.

[addoration]

fanfic writer 20 questions

i wasn't tagged but @zebsfloppyears invited anyone who wanted to do this to do so, n i was bored. hope u dont mind vienna!

1. how many works do you have on ao3? 79. i have 79 works. and im working on a long fic rn so i probably wont be uploaded another fic for a while to make that number rounded. its bothering me. 2. whats your total ao3 word count? 232,222 3. how many fandoms have you written for and what are they? 7 fandoms! most.. prolifically? if i may use that word.... for loz breath of the wild, and his dark materials. 4. what are your top five fics by kudos? 1. finding words enough - i legit dont remeber much of this but basically link is mute and revali speaks on his behalf. ppl seem to love it. rated G. 2. making cocoa for spencer reid - just a lil criminal minds family piece between rossi and reid, idk. bit of a character study! rated T. 3. magic might stain the air - my first merlin fic i posted (out of 2. lmao) but i really hate this one becaue i rushed it and i could have done so much better!!!!! rated M, beware tags. 4. snow on snow, snow on snow - i rllyy dont remember this one at all. lmao. link/revali pre-slash, rated G. 5. whenever we feel - we evaporate - i think? this was my first fic on ao3! and it's the first part of a lil aziraphale/crowley series that became dearly beloved to me but i never really got back to. rated T.

5. do you respond to comments? why or why not? i do now!! i didn't used to because i had an ocd thing about seeing the number go up when half of them were my responses, but thats an obsession that has since left me. i want to apologise to everyone who commented n didnt get a reply sdfghjsf i feel so awkward n i cant respond to comments made years ago now lmao. now i love responding to comments, its such a joy to communicate with my readers and thank them for their kind words!!!!

6. whats the fic you've written with the angstiest ending? i dont write angsty endings; the fics can get as angsty as possible but they must always end happily. sorry :/

7. do you write crossovers? no, i don't. they're not for me!

8. have you ever recieved hate on a fic? not hate exactly.... but i do recall one comment telling me they thought i had rushed the work and it was a bit sloppy (not in so many words tho). i totally agreed with the commenter but i was a bit :/ at reading that yknow

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind? i have been known to write smut occasionally, though i dont think i have a "kind" or a "brand".

10. have you ever had a fic stolen? not that i know of, but (as vienna said in their answer), it's not something that i think about or check for!

11. have you ever had a fic translated? nope! i welcome it though.

12. have you ever co-written a fic before? nope! in theory i would be open to it however i am probably very difficult to work with lmao

13. whats your all time favourite ship? such a hard question because it rlly depends what fandom im currently in, but. baruch/balthamos live rent free in my head. as do aziraphale/crowley, espeically my specific brand of them which is queerplatonic <3

14. what's a wip you want to finish but dont think you ever will? lmao if you had asked me a week ago, i would have said my current longfic, when you catch him, he burns through your heart, like a shooting star burns the skies but im actively up and working on that again, so. i guess something i dont imagine i'll return to any time soon is my series of harth/link fics, you hold my touch in you, simply because it's been a while now, and i dont imagine that such a minor npc as harth will be in botw's sequel, so... how will i rekindle my desire to write for them. idk! it's all up in the air though - i haven't necessarily abandoned any of my unfinished fics, theyre just on indefinite haitus.

15. what are your writing strengths? i would like to think that my poet's voice shines through my prose and therefore that my description is sufficiently good! lmao i have to sometimes physically stop myself from writing 5 paragraphs waxing poetic about the scenery. also honourary mention to dialogue. im pretty proud of some of the lines of dialogue ive written.

16. what are your writing weaknesses? hhghgh action. handling a big plot sensitively. ive been really struggling with making sure ive got hold of all my threads in my long fic. i dont think ive let go of any yet but im constantly paranoid that ive dropped one lmao. also i find action so hard!! the pacing of it, the choice of words, the making sure the reader doesnt get bored by not over or under describing whats happening! hhg.

17. what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in another language? if this means in the sense that a character is speaking a different language in the fic, then. i've seen it done a few ways. personally i ofc want to understand whats being said, so i like it best when the line is written in english but perhaps put in italics, with a tag saying smth like "they said in french/whatever langauge". ive also seen it done as typed in the langauge followed by the english translation in italics. either way works, i just don't rlly like it when it's completely untranslated!! even having like a lil dictionary in the end notes works.

18. what was the first fandom you ever wrote for? good omens lmao. i wrote fic before that but im not going into that, and i dont even think i could find it again bc it's lost in the depths of ff.net. i was also 13/14. so yeah :/

19. what's your favourite fic you've ever written? ppl dont really like this fic bc it's gen/not shippy and possibly also bc it was inspired by music, but. i have a real soft spot for my fic rose quartz and cool safflina. (botw, T) i wrote it while listening to la dispute's album panorama, and i think having the music helped me write with such a good flow. it's a very poetic piece, though. not for everyone. i also rlly like the great frost of 1684 (good omens, Gen) though neither of them are anywhere near my popular works' stats.

20. who do you tag? low pressure tagging @snidgetwidgeon, @itcantbe, @cyraclove, @unmaskedcardinal and everyone else who fancies it!!

[qqueenofhades]

I heard that Legolas and Gimli are being shipped and I am intrigued. May I ask your opinion on this ship?

Oh. Oh boy. Oh man. You want me to feel about 800 years old this morning, don't you. Sheesh.

/Galadriel voice/ History became legend... legend became myth... and some things that should not have been forgotten... were lost.

How old am I? Old enough that I remember watching the Fellowship of the Ring in the theater for the first time, and subsequently enthusiastically reading all the books and converting my sisters to the cause (they were afraid that it might be too scary). From there, I, an enterprising and precocious teenager with a lively imagination and possibly too much free time, got into the online fandom community at the time it was literally JUST emerging. We are talking pre-FF.net, old-school Geocities, message boards, locked archives that you had to know how to get to, the whole nine yards. THIS WAS 2001. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? TWENTY YEARS AGO.

/pause for muffled weeping

Anyway, as you might imagine, LOTR was a slash writer/reader's paradise (as it was called back then). Tons of attractive dudes enacting devoted non-toxic masculinity at each other and very few women. Everyone you can imagine being shipped together, was shipped together. (This included the actors who played the characters, which was the first time I learned about the existence of RPF.) And since this was, again, twenty years ago, there is no WAY that stuff was openly posted or accepted in mainstream fandom spaces. I was also a dumb teenager who had no idea why I was so drawn to Gay Stuff (this was a long, long time before I figured out the fact that I was a big old queer). But I was likewise very concerned with doing Fandom The Right Way, especially since the traditionalist Tolkien fan community had been very worried and critical about Peter Jackson's adaptation and had a field day critiquing every single miniscule change from the books, even some that were clearly for the best (see: Tom Bombadil. The Bombadil Wars were a big, big thing. Truly).

So (we are getting to the point, I promise) I remember encountering some kind of Legolas fan-board where he was being shipped with Gimli, and being like Oh No This Isn't Canon, Probably Bad while simultaneously becoming guiltily intrigued. I didn't get into Legolas/Gimli as a pairing specifically (though if you want the rundown on why it remains @buffaluff's favorite legacy LOTR ship, you can ask them at some point), but I DID get into reading LOTR slash on the separate archives where it was allowed to be posted. (Anyone remember the Library of Moria? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?) LOTR fic was simultaneously a thriving industry and a thing where the entire subgenre of slash wasn't  accepted in mainstream archives. (Once again, this was when FanFiction.Net, today regarded as hoary and antiquated, was only beginning to be regularly used, and you could and would get Flamed.) Movie fans, or "revisionists," were regarded as possibly suspect or not as good as "purist" book fans, who jealously policed any change from book canon or preference of the movie's version of things. Because of the proliferation of self-insert female characters (aka Mary Sues) who were often shipped with Aragorn or Legolas, we had "Protectors of the Plot Continuum" where people would literally write themselves into other people's fics (often people they had never met or spoken to before) and "erase" all changes deemed contrary to canon, so...

Yeah. What I'm saying was, those was dark times. Dark times. You youth have no idea. You dredged up decades of ancient dusty fandom flashbacks here, youngun. As I said, I didn't get into Legolas/Gimli, but they did lead me to other LOTR slash, and thus my first fandom, and now here I am today, extremely gay, still involved in fandom, and still writing fic. So... in conclusion, clearly, it was all their fault.

[siriuslystarbucks]

I know the anon probably won't see this, but I have a genuine question for them: Can you name 3 fics by different authors that this has happened too? Because I'm sure this sort of talk happens when people are bitching on tumblr or discord, but I personally haven't seen that sort of complaint happen on AO3

As @plecotusauritus said, James/Sirius gets this sort of complaint, but I haven't seen it happen with ANY OTHER Marauder Era ship. I'll point out here that you do get this with Golden Era, but-- as far as I've seen-- specifically only Harry/Ron and Harry/Hermione. I assume this is because of how prolific Harry/Draco is, similar to the popularity of Sirius/Remus. People claim the canon platonic relationship is more important than slash shipping because they simply don't want a fic that isn't their favorite.

Also, using Mary & Marlene isn't the best example, because that's a background femslash ship for a lot of Marauder Era fics. Every time I've read them in the background, it's been femslash or hints of femslash, not pure friendship. This extends not only to Mary and Marlene, but Dorcas. Spin the wheel for which combination you'll get in the background this time, and it's almost always romantic not platonic.

Something I myself have thought before while reading other fics is: Why is this tagged James & Sirius when they don't even seem to be close? Why did this author bother to say James and Sirius are the best of friends and then show them never acting like it?

I mainly write James/Sirius. Within the last week, I shared a fic that was QPR James & Sirius. I got zero (0) comments saying that I should've made the fic romantic. My usual commenters (hello, ily <3) said that they liked how close their friendship was. No one declared the fic was secretly slash or pre-slash. No one said I was being homophobic for not writing it romantic.

I say this with as little ego as I can manage: I write the most James/Sirius out of everyone. I have never made the complaint that James & Sirius as portrayed in someone else's fic is doing something wrong by not shipping them, nor have I received a comment saying I should've kept them as friends.

This whole argument/complaints seem to revolve around "I saw someone complaining about something on tumblr and now I have to take a stand against Those Guys". James/Sirius shippers are a small community; we are vastly outnumbered by the more popular ships. If you have seen this exact complaint before, with this wording or implication, it's a minority. Even if every single person in the prongsfoot community could be saying this, and it would still be a minority and there's no way two-ways about it.

I'm okay with people who ship prongsfoot but the people who insist every platonic interaction between them is romantic are just saying that men can't be close friends the way women are. Because if Mary gave Marlene a friendship bracelet no one would bat an eye, but you write a platonic story about James and Sirius doing the same thing and suddenly 'no men who are just friends would do that'. Makes me so mad.

…

[rottenboysclub]

"there is a problem of fetichization in fujoshi/slash circles" and " the word fujoshi doesn't mean problematic cis female fangirls" are not mutually exclusive statements. The problem is that instead of working to solve the fetichization problem, anti fujo discoursers decided that ONLY fujoshi do this, and by demonizing them, they don't have to do any work in making the community better. Is the worst kind of "activism" possible: useless and performative

Exactly. For instance, white western fans in general do have to be careful that they’re not being objectifying by fawning over k-pop stars to the point of harassing real asian men… It’s something that I’ve actually seen perpetrated by people who are vehemently anti-BL and anti-fujo for objectification reasons, and then thinking that, because they don’t call themselves fujoshi, that somehow means they can no longer objectify various marginalized groups? Which is not how it works.

It’s the same deal when someone does something transphobic and when people call them out on it they say “But I’m not a TERF!” as if only TERFs can be transphobic…No, even trans people will carry some amount of internalized transphobia as a result of being raised in a transphobic society. They’re more concerned about being CALLED transphobic than them actually BEING transphobic or doing transphobic things. I’ve found that this is the case with any marginalized group.

Japanese fans have actually combated a lot of the objectification problems that were present in the 90s and early 00s by creating fandom codes of honor on various sites like pixiv for people new to fandom, and you generally have to read those rules before signing up for a mailing list or forum or other kind of fanclub, like the case was with livejournal and other pre-tumblr social media sites. The main problem with tumblr is that fandom participation is automatic, so you’ll have a lot of very young teenagers running wild and not knowing how to behave because there’s no one set of rules like there are in more moderated fandom spaces.

[lilacskyent-blog]

Breakfast with Alex Wex

People have a million opinions and false facts about the digital world we live in today, and even more about social media. For a lot of people, they use platforms like Instagram and Twitter to follow celebrities, and some use it to bully celebrities. Most forget that that connection can also be used for good. We live in a world of amazing accessibility and, when used properly, could foster a wonderful connection between people. A prime example of this is the Will Smith Jump event that took the internet by storm, that all started with a video message. It’s incredible what can happen when you reach out to people. That was the main thought in my mind before sitting down with Alex Wex yesterday. Alex Wex is an amazing Twitch streamer, and until recently, was a producer for FBE and REACT on Youtube. As of this interview, Alex Wex has fostered a wonderful community through Twitch and Discord known as the Jank Squad, and recently broke his view count record at 210 viewers for his birthday stream, also hitting close to 600 subscribers. Given that I was in Atlanta and he was in LA we couldn’t actually meet for breakfast like I usually do so we had an amazing video chat instead.

So for starters, I just want to thank you for sitting down with me. I’ve been following your work since I first saw you on FBE and I think you’re an awesome dude so thanks. I wanna start at the very beginning because I’m really interested in your story. So, I know you went to high school in Atlanta, GA. What can you tell me about that?

I was actually born in Manhattan, my family moved to Atlanta around pre-K and I lived there up until I graduated from Riverwood High School. All my friends wanted to go to UGA or Georgia Tech but I was really interested in traveling and branching out, so I went to Ohio for college, and now I live in L.A. I made some truly amazing friends in Atlanta, and having this kind of east coast, south culture mixture has made life pretty interesting.

When did you know you wanted to work in entertainment, and what led to you becoming a producer?

When I was a kid, my family liked to record family videos, and I always wanted to see the recording. I had the eye for production pretty early. Once I started high school I got involved in performing, did Grease, The Wiz, and a few other school plays that got me interested in the performance aspect as well. In college, I majored in video production with a minor in film and sociology so I gained real knowledge of the art that happens behind the camera.

How does one go from school in Atlanta to working at FBE?

As I mentioned before I went to college at Ohio University, what got me was their video production department. I actually still work with the head of the department and speak to the alumni when they come here, advising them on some dos and don'ts. As a graduation gift, my Dad gave me an all expense paid trip to anywhere I wanted to go in the U.S for a few days and I chose L.A. So I was here, hanging out with my current roommate Johnny and we just decided to come out here permanently and live the dream. So I packed up my car and drove from Atlanta to LA and started looking for internships while working at Chipotle.I first joined FBE as an intern, then got hired as a PA and eventually was a writer for some of their scripted shows, and I worked my way up until I was offered the producer position. I loved producing because that involved every aspect of working behind the camera, from writing to filming to editing and seeing the baby from birth to fully grown. Being in front of the camera came back when FBE launched the community team and started streaming on Twitch.

Watching Alex grow on YouTube, putting reactors in hilarious challenges, eat crazy concoctions and brave some insane hot sauces that would make Sean Evans proud, his personality radiates through the screen. His passion for both sides of the camera is clear in the quality of every video he makes. However, taking part in one of his Twitch streams gives you an even more full experience. It’s like the difference between a teaser trailer and a full film.

Freddy or Jason?

Freddy is my favorite in Dead By Daylight but I love Jason, in fact, Friday the 13th was the first game I ever streamed. I’d have to say, Jason.

So, we were in high school in the baby years of YouTube, I mostly used it for music videos and anime, I think back then I only followed Phil Defranco and Timothy Delaghetto consistently. Back then, did you ever look at YouTube and think “this is going to revolutionize the world and turn traditional media on its head?”

Yeah, it’s changed everything. Almost every network has a YouTube channel now. Late night shows and things like SNL upload segments that get massive amounts of views. YouTube is still growing, testing out its premium service and channel enrollment and things like that, but it’s exciting to see where it’s going to end up.

It’s even crazier when you think about how much Twitch has already changed the game.

Definitely, I mean we’ve seen what happens when some of the top YouTube creators come over to Twitch and realize that it’s completely different from what they’re used to. It’s more like an improv radio show, you have to be on for two or three hours and avoid dead air, rather than being able to edit something together. It’s hard to be constantly entertaining when you're used to delivering a finished edit rather than a live audience. For example, Logan Paul had over 100,000 people in his first stream but after that, the numbers dropped just cause that’s not his world. Live Streaming is a constant conversation. It’s the opposite of YouTube.

I remember seeing YouTubers flood to Twitch after the adpocalypse and feeling like it made no sense. A lot of vloggers and creators who never expressed any interest in video games were all suddenly obsessed with Fortnite. However, when people like Alex Wex came to Twitch they brought genuine love of gaming, skill, and a great sense of community.

What insight can you give into the world of a producer? Especially on the internet, how to figure out what videos are gonna get views or go viral?

It’s a case by case basis depending on what you make. With Challenge Chalice, we made it during the high point of internet challenges and we had consistent challenges to make content with constantly, but this past year challenges have kinda quieted down so that got more difficult. We revisited and revised a lot of earlier challenges to make them more interesting, and that has to do with being present during every step of the process. You can’t slack off on anything, from script to editing. Being organized is key, and definitely take on the ideas and criticisms of the people working with you. Be flexible and open-minded. It’s not about balance, it’s about harmony.

3 Breakfast must haves?

Bacon

Grits

Belgian Waffles are incredible

Hack-n-slash? RPG? Or FPS? And why?

That’s complicated. Overwatch is one of my favorite games but it doesn’t play exactly like an FPS. For me, hack-n-slash for games like Dead Cells, Rogue Lights, I love games with massive replay value. I’m playing Diablo 3 on switch right now and I love it.

What games are best for streaming? Does the game you play matter?

A little, but it shouldn’t be everything. You want your audience to gravitate towards your personality. Never play something you don’t enjoy playing. I love Overwatch and it’s not one of the current hot stream games but I love playing it. Story games are complicated. If people miss parts of story mode games they tune it out cause they won’t know what’s going on. More than anything put your own spin on what you’re doing. For example, when I do Dead By Daylight I do stream vs chat where my chat helps the survivors escape if I’m playing the killer. In fact, chatting streams are starting to really blow up. It’s more about the person playing than the game they play.

What game has you hype for 2019?

That’s tough, but probably Kingdom Hearts 3. I’m excited for Smash Bros for my last game of 2018 too.

What led you to Twitch?

I’d seen some of it, but Tom had been doing it for 6 months and kept suggesting it until one day I finally did. I had a decent setup with an ultra-wide monitor and Tom’s old video capture device and I started streaming Dead by Daylight. We actually came into the name Jank Squad because of how janky the streams were in the beginning.

What led you to leave FBE and what are you working on now?

I wanted to focus more on my Twitch, and it was exhausting streaming at work on the days when I’m also streaming at home. I wanted to give my audience the most energy I could and be more involved with them as a community. I’m creating new ways to interact with my audience, more active in my Discord, and after working there for 5 years I felt stuck. There wasn’t any new learning experience and things felt a little sour and monotonous with the new direction things were going in. I’m actually getting a new camera and a green screen to upgrade the stream quality. I’d love to make partner with Twitch.

What’s the dream?

I take things to step by step. I’m definitely in a transition right now. I’m looking for another good full-time job at the moment. I’d love to be a full-time streamer but I’d also love to produce my own stuff and then stream after work. Streaming is probably one of the most consistent things I’ve ever done. Funny enough, that’s part of what got me into it cause Tom knew my leisure activity was video games, and streaming just takes that to another level. It definitely takes work, but the community you foster on this platform is unlike any other with the rating system and how everything is set up.

Alright so the zombie apocalypse is upon us and you can have 1 mortal character, one god tier video game character, and one Reactor in your survival squad, who you got?

Kratos from God of War 2 causes his chain blades would tear through everything, my regular would be Leon from Resident Evil 4 cause his aim is amazing and he’s used to zombies, and my Reactor would be Chelsea cause she knows so much about The Walking Dead. That’s my squad.

East Coast or West Coast

East, it’s where I was born and bred.

Top 10 songs or artists on your playlist right now?

Meek Mill- Intro with the amazing Phil Collins sample

Tyler the Creator’s Grinch is great for the holidays

The Cool-Lupe Fiasco

Chance The Rapper’s new songs

Paramore- Ain’t It Fun

You come from the same city I did with only a two year age difference, and you’re the first brown face I saw in relation to FBE and now you’re killing it on Twitch. Do you know how dope you are?

I appreciate that. I like to think I’m dope in some ways but I also do my best to keep it real, keep myself humble, and not letting the numbers get to my head. I hope everyone thinks they’re fucking awesome, cause they are. I have my good and bad days but I like to look at what has been built and keep grinding. Everyone is on a different time stream. I don’t want to rush things, I’m on my own path, and right now I just wanna build this community.

I for one, am excited to see what comes next from Alex Wex, including his stream later this week. You can find him @ItsMrWex

-Strawberry Smirk of Lilac Sky Entertainment

[inevitably-johnlocked]

hey! i don't know if this has already been asked but seeing your mobile post for that huge list of fics i wonder if you could do another one but, like, including every trope? you don't have to of course, but it's a bit difficult on mobile so yeah, thank you!!!

Hi Nonny!

I’m not really sure what you mean by this. The reason I did that with the Pining Fics was because it was so long. I’m going to assume you mean you want a list of my fic recs :P Here’s an updated one!

MY LISTS AND ADDITIONS TO MY LISTS:

My First Johnlock Fic Recs List

Favourite Tropes

Toplock / Bottomlock

The Speckled Blonde / BedSharing

PWP / Smut

Johnlock Body Swap

Marriage and Weddings

Proposals

Gay Bar Scene 

Funny and Fluffy Stories 

Vampirelock 

Epistolary / Texting / Letters

Morse Code

Chapstick and Lipstick 

For a Case Trope

Meeting the Family

Jealous & Possessive Sherlock

It’s An Experiment!

Fairy Tales and Fantasy 

Magical Realism Where John is the Powerful One

THoB Fix It Fics

Top 20 Fave 40K+ w. Fics (April 2017)

Trapped and/or Dirty Talk

Mycroft Flirts With John 

Hoarder Sherlock

Autism 

I-J’s Last 50 Bookmarked 

Fics (June 2017)

Papa Lestrade Fics 

Tooth Rotting Fluff 

BedSharing Pt. 2 and Insecure Sherlock 

Last Bookmarked Fics July 2017 

Sex Clubs / Swinger Clubs 

Sherlock’s Military Kink 

John Realizes How Important Sherlock is To Him 

Pining Sherlock [MOBILE FRIENDLY VERSION] 

John Marries and Sherlock Admits his Feelings 

Irene the Matchmaker 

“Ask the Community” RECS:

Kidlock

Victorianlock

Ice Skating

Harry Watson

Pre-Slash to Slash

Sherlock AU’s

Femlock

Sherlock Gets Emotional and Starts Crying

John Apologizes for Punching Sherlock

Bondage / Impact Play

Potterlock

Sports AU

Clones

Repressed Bi-HomoRomo John

Pride and Prejudice AU

John-Centric Magical Realism

Sherlock Has Glasses

Vampirelock

Blind Sherlock

Parentlock Post S4

Unhappily Married John

Infidelity Fics 

Fics Like “Northwest Passage” and “Ground Beneath Your Feet” 

Training Sherlock to Eat by Getting Him Off 

SINGLE FIC RECS

Sherlock’s PTSD

Medieval AU’s

Mary

Broken

Solar System

An Acquired Taste

Shapeshifter AU

RomCom Fic Recs

Bonfire

Survival Strategies for the British Arsehole

Save me or Let Me Down

Anachronisms

Fallen Angels

The Inciting Incident

Fave Johnlock Vid and Fanfic?

Triage

Sherlock Nightmare

MASTERLISTS

Different Backstory for Sherlock

Secret Relationship 

Superpowers 

Insecure Sherlock

GIFT FICS FOR ME

Someone I Love by hudders-and-hiddles

Linger by queenoftrivia

Extraordinary by queenoftrivia

Johnlock Hanahaki Ficlet 

“Sherlock threads his fingers…”

[xtruss]

Is Bernie Sanders Right About Medicare for All? How Government-Run Health Care Actually Works

Is Bernie Sanders right about Medicare for All? U.S. government-run health care works pretty well:

— By David H. Freedman | 03/16/20 | Newsweek

“Mdicare For All" is probably the best-known plank in Senator Bernie Sanders' campaign platform. He wants the federal government to take over private health care insurance and replace it with a comprehensive, single-payer program. Under this plan, every U.S. resident would automatically be insured for nearly every contingency—hospital stays, dental care, mental health, ambulance services and long-term care, among other things—with nearly no copays or deductibles. Grandma needs a nursing home? That's covered. Your son needs counseling for a drug addiction? Covered. No surprise bills, no copays.

Critics slam the plan as too expensive; Sanders insists it would save money overall. Everyone agrees, however, that Medicare for All would amount to a massive transfer of spending from the private sector to the U.S. government. And there lies the rub. Can the U.S. government be trusted to manage a complex, fast-moving industry in which innovation and efficiency—qualities more often associated with the private sector than a government bureaucracy—are matters of life and death for so many Americans? The question makes many people nervous and puts Sanders' supporters on the defensive.

What goes largely unappreciated in this debate is that the U.S. government already owns and runs one of the most successful health care operations in the world. It's taken on the care of millions of some of America's most challenging patients, including residents of isolated rural communities and older patients who need long-term care. It does so while eliminating many of the racial disparities that haunt American health care. It trains most of America's doctors. It is a leader in telehealth, electronic health care records, precision medicine and many other important, forward-looking technologies. It earns quality-of-care ratings that most hospitals would envy. It keeps costs generally below average and charges most patients little or nothing.

The system is the Veterans Health Administration—commonly referred to as the VA, after the broader agency that runs it, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs—along with the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, operated by the Defense Department. Walter Reed serves about a million active-duty military personnel, military retirees and others. The VA serves about 9 million patients, the vast majority of whom are U.S. military veterans. It provides government health care on an enormous scale, entirely administered, delivered and paid for by the U.S. government. If that's not socialism, what is?

Senator Bernie Sanders (i-Vermont) speaks during a health care rally at the 2017 Convention of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee on September 22, 2017 in San Francisco, California

The VA is, in fact, more of a socialist enterprise than anything Bernie Sanders has proposed. His Medicare for All would be an insurance program—patients would use private doctors, hospitals and clinics, who would then be reimbursed by Uncle Sam. (Much like Medicare, except Sanders' plan would pay the costs of health care received by nearly all Americans.) The VA, by contrast, directly employs 11,000 doctors and owns its 1,200 hospitals.

The VA has become something of a darling among the progressive wing of the Democratic party. Sanders' plan would not only preserve the VA intact, it would increase funding to fill vacancies left open by the Trump administration. Veterans "know they can get high-quality care at the VA," says his campaign website. "It's our job to make it easier—not harder—for them to get that high-quality care."

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive representative from New York, has also vehemently defended the VA against calls for privatization. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," she admonished critics in a town hall in April 2019. "Who are they trying to fix it for is the question we've got to ask. They're trying to fix the VA for pharmaceutical companies, they're trying to fix the VA for insurance corporations, and ultimately, they're trying to fix the VA for a for-profit health care industry that does not put people or veterans first."

Opponents of national health care point to recent scandals that paint the VA as a troubled bureaucracy that fails to serve its constituents adequately. In recent years, there have been stories of fatally long waits for surgeries, filthy facilities, sexual assault and suspicious deaths. That creates an image of the VA as a cold, clueless, lumbering, third-rate bureaucracy—the kind that awaits Americans if plans to increase the government's role in health care are enacted. "Every one of these plans involves rationing care, restricting access, denying coverage, slashing quality and massively raising taxes," said President Donald Trump in October.

To be sure, the VA is neither perfect nor immune from the challenges of providing health care at a time of rising costs and aging populations. But by focusing on the problems, critics ignore the contrary evidence: by most measures, the VA and its DOD counterpart, Walter Reed, make up arguably the best-run health care operation in the United States.

Comparison Tests

Scrutiny can have an upside. As a public institution, the VA has been subject to many in-depth, independent studies that show how well it stacks up against both private and public health care systems in the U.S.

Quality of care, these studies show, is high in VA hospitals and clinics. In 2018, researchers at Dartmouth College's Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice concluded that VA hospitals "outperform private hospitals in most health care markets throughout the country" when it comes to quality of care. The study's lead author, Dartmouth Institute Professor and physician William Weeks, added at the time that "the VA generally provides truly excellent care."

The Rand Corporation, a respected think tank, came to the same conclusion in 2018. And in a second study, Rand analyzed previous studies of the VA and determined that the VA compares favorably with the private sector. "When you see consistent findings like these, it gives us confidence that they're real," says Rebecca Anhang Price, the senior policy researcher at Rand who led the studies.

Perhaps that's why Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell chose a government hospital—the Bethesda National Naval Medical Center, now known as Walter Reed—in which to have a triple-bypass operation in 2003. That hasn't stopped McConnell from referring to government-sponsored care as a "far-left social experiment" and vowing that legislation to enlarge government's role in health care would never pass while he was speaker.

Comparing VA health care directly against Medicare-Medicaid and private insurance is difficult because the systems are so different. Where comparisons can be made, the results usually suggest that the VA is as good or better than private care, private health insurance and Medicare-Medicaid. A 2015 Gallup poll found that 78 percent of those receiving VA care were satisfied with how the health care system worked, compared to 75 percent of those insured by Medicare, and 69 percent of those insured through their employers. Dartmouth's 2018 study concluded that VA hospitals on average performed better than other hospitals in their regions in key measures of care quality. VA hospital patients had lower rates of readmissions within 30 days and suffered fewer complications from infections, falls and blood clots when they were in the hospital, the study found.

America already has government-run health care. Here's how it works.

Perhaps most important, vets themselves tend to speak highly of the system. A 2019 Veterans of Foreign Wars survey of thousands of vets found that 91 percent of respondents recommend VA care to other vets, and most chose the VA for their own health care even though 98 percent of them had other options. One of them is Christine Griffin, a Boston-area army veteran and a lawyer who is partially paralyzed, has top-notch private health care insurance. She also lives within shouting distance of some of America's most revered private hospitals. For her own care, however, she chooses the local VA, including the tests and treatments she needed after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. "Everything is accessible here, and the women's imaging center is almost like a spa," she says. "They're just so good at so many things."

A common criticism of government-run health care is that wait times can be oppressive. In Australia, for example, wait times are twice as high in public hospitals as in private facilities. In 2016 the GAO found that wait times for a third of the VA's primary-care visits were longer than a month, and last year the agency said some vets who were referred to health care providers outside the VA had to wait as long 70 days for treatment. By most accounts, wait times have improved since then. Studies have shown that the VA's wait times for care turn out to be shorter on average than those in the private sector for all types of treatments, with the one exception of elective orthopedic procedures such as knee surgery, where delays usually pose little risk to the patient. According to that 2019 VFW survey, 84 percent of vets said they were able to get care "in a timely manner."

"Government health care" conjures images of a cumbersome bureaucracy. Compared to the Byzantine rules and requirements of the private health care insurance industry, however, the VA has less bureaucratic overhead, says Neil Evans, a physician who runs the VA's Office of Connected Care. VA doctors don't have to get pre-authorization from insurance companies or anyone else. "I struggle to think of a single time when I felt an intervention was in the best interests of a patient and I couldn't get that done— even if it was expensive," he says. The need for patients in the private health care system to get insurance-company approval can wreak havoc on care.

The result, as too many in the U.S. know all too well, is private-sector care that tends to be fragmented and frequently inadequate. And it's almost always costly, which often translates to no care at all. Studies show that a third of Americans report they avoided getting care within the past year because of costs, more than any other industrialized nation.

A sign marks the entrance to the Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital on May 30, 2014 in Hines, Illinois. Hines. A doctor at a VA Florida hospital has been shot by a double amputee in a wheelchair.

An Edge in Innovation

The VA has managed to be at the forefront of virtually every medical trend that experts say is crucial to improving care and reducing costs. For one, it offers an alternative to "fee-for-service" reimbursement, in which hospitals are paid more for providing more treatments, a perverse incentive that contributes to high costs and lack of preventative care. The VA, by contrast, practices value-based care, under which health care providers are financially incentivized to keep patients healthier. The private-health care industry, which has thrived on fee-for-service, is in no hurry to make the switch even while health care costs have soared to more than $11,500 per person, a 30 percent rise in inflation-adjusted dollars since 2003.

Under value-based care, the healthier patients stay, the less the VA has to dig into its budget to provide more treatment. Does this save on costs? It's nearly impossible to compare costs in such health care systems. The VA, for instance, doesn't even bill patients for the care it provides. Its patients tend to have more health challenges than other patients, which include ordinary back injuries as well as exposure to Agent Orange and traumatic brain injury from combat. And they tend to stay with the VA longer because it provides nursing-home and end-of-life care. Studies have shown that many of the VA's patients would be turned away by most private health care insurance companies. "About a third of Americans have chronic, non-cancer pain," says Carolyn Clancy, a physician and the deputy under secretary for discovery, education and affiliate networks at the VA. "For vets it's about 60 percent."

Still, studies suggest that where comparisons can be made, care in the VA costs about 10 percent less than Medicare, even though Medicare pays about half as much as private insurance does for similar treatments, according to another Rand study. That's because the VA is constantly hunting for ways to eliminate inefficiencies, including tests and treatments that don't offer much benefit for patients, says Ryan Vega, a physician who heads the VA's health care innovation efforts. "If we can do something for a vet that will make their lives better, we'll do it, even if it costs more," insists Vega. "But if it doesn't provide better care, we look to reduce it."

Vega says the VA regularly "de-prescribes" medicines that haven't ended up producing the hoped-for benefits, eliminates tests that aren't leading to better outcomes and constantly hunts down cheaper ways to get good results. For example, the VA has pioneered a drive to increase the rate of toothbrushing among patients at its hospitals, after discovering it reduced by 90 percent the number of cases of nonventilator, hospital-acquired pneumonia, an illness that costs the U.S. $35 billion a year. "It's reasonable to expect that an institution that isn't being paid more to do more will avoid unnecessary costs," says Rand's Anhang Price. "You might worry that they have an incentive to undertreat patients, but we can't find evidence of that in the VA."

Another critical area where the VA has leapt far out in front of most of the rest of health care is in addressing the "social determinants of health"—that is, life challenges such as inadequate housing, poverty and joblessness, as well as lifestyle and mental health issues such as poor diet, loneliness, stress and depression, that can have a big impact on health and well-being. Social determinants have about four times the impact on a patient's health as the medical care they receive. Other industrialized nations spend twice as much on such social problems as they do on health care; the U.S. spends half as much, and the U.S. health care system by and large ignores them.

Through the VA, vets have access to professionals who can help them cope with their life challenges, including social workers, counselors, behavioral coaches, acupuncturists and tai chi instructors. In many cases, after meeting with a patient, a VA doctor will simply walk the patient down the hall to meet a counselor or a coach. "We want to offer a big repertoire of tools for dealing with stress, chronic pain and other whole-health problems," says Ben Kliger, a physician who runs the VA's "integrative health" and "cultural transformation" initiatives. "Once a vet gets involved in these other services, their overall costs tend to go down."

"We've changed the conversation here so it's not just about disease," he says.

High-Tech Medicine

The VA frequently jumps ahead of the rest of health care in adopting new technology. Back in 2010, Eric Dusseux, CEO of medical-tech company Bionik, went looking for hospitals willing to experimentally deploy the company's groundbreaking robots, designed to exercise the arms of stroke victims. He soon found a willing partner in the VA. Ultimately, it deployed the robots in 12 of its hospitals, leading to the largest study ever of robotic patient rehabilitation—a study so successful that robots are now part of standard stroke-care guidelines due to the improved outcomes and lowered overall costs from the technology. "They were very receptive and forward-thinking," says Dusseux of the hospital system.

The VA is also pioneering the use of 3D printers to create highly accurate models of the internal organs of individual patients who are scheduled for complex surgeries, so that surgeons can better prepare for the operations by examining the models. In one of the most ambitious health-data projects in the world, it is analyzing the complete service histories and medical records, along with DNA samples, of nearly 800,000 veterans in order to find links between their genes; environments; habits such as diet, medications and diseases, with an eye to spotting new strategies for improving long-term health. And it has launched an institute entirely dedicated to applying artificial intelligence approaches to health care.

The VA has also established a system for automatically analyzing electronic health care records throughout the system in order to spot improvements in patient outcomes at any of its facilities, to see if there are any innovations underlying an improvement that can be quickly shared throughout all VA facilities. "We send teams to learn from those sites that are doing well with outcomes, and then deploy them to any sites that might be having trouble," says Joe Francis, a physician and chief improvement and analytics officer at the VA. "You can't do that sort of thing in the private sector, because there are too many competitive and time pressures." To dig out even more innovation, the VA sponsors a Shark-Tank-style competition for all its employees, the most recent of which inspired some 500 promising ideas aimed at improving care or lowering costs.

The VA's telehealth capabilities, too, are years ahead of most other health care organizations. Some 100,000 vets have logged more than a million videoconference visits with VA clinicians, all of which were entirely free. That's a critical service for the 30 percent of VA patients who live in rural areas. And many of those who can't or don't want to conduct the video visit from their homes, perhaps because of privacy concerns during an exam, will soon be able to do so from one of a network of telehealth exam "pods" the VA is setting up at Walmarts and at American Legion and VFW sites. The first such pod has already opened up in Eureka, Montana, serving some 300 vets.

Tele-visits return large benefits both in reduced costs and patient outcomes for chronic illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease, which afflict 60 percent of adult Americans. They require frequent monitoring and check-ins to avoid the sorts of sudden health crises that can send a patient to the emergency room and an in-patient stay, easily costing a health care system tens of thousands of dollars. "Patients who try it, like it," says Leonie Heyworth, the physician who heads the VA's telehealth efforts. "If they have to fight traffic to get here they can be a mess by the time they come into my office." That's why the VA's video patients have 28 percent fewer missed appointments than in-person patients.

The VA's telehealth practices go beyond convenience. Videoconferencing gives both patients and their doctors fast access to advanced specialty consults available in a handful of leading hospitals. "We use virtual care to match patients to the best specialist for their needs across the entire system, wherever they are," says the VA's Evans. "Just because you're at one of our smaller hospitals or clinics doesn't mean you can't benefit from the resources you'd have if you were at a top-notch medical center."

That tele-specialty capability is one way that the VA is moving to the forefront of so-called precision medicine, an effort to develop treatments that are custom-tailored to a patient's genes and other characteristics. Precision medicine is especially promising in cancer, where doctors use it to tell ahead of time whether a patient will respond to a specific treatment.

In the U.S., only a tenth of cancer patients get precision-medicine testing. At the VA, half of lung cancer patients now get it, as do a quarter of those with prostate cancer—the two most common types of cancer among vets. Unlike most rural patients, who don't have access to precision medicine, vets who live in rural areas are getting tested at the same rates as those near cities. The VA "telegenomics" hub in Salt Lake City services the entire VA system; any physician in the VA can access it on behalf of a patient. "Now we're working to provide rural vets with access to experimental cancer drugs, too," says Michael Kelley, a physician who directs the VA's national oncology program. He notes the VA has also been looking at bringing artificial intelligence software to bear on analyzing vets' tumors.

Answering the Critics

To be sure, the VA has had its share of well-publicized problems. In January, the VA demanded a co-pay on replacement prosthetic limbs from a vet when the prostheses were stolen from his room at a VA long-term-care home. VA officials allegedly tried to discredit a legislative aide who reported being groped by another patient at a VA facility. A Federal grand jury is currently looking into whether a former nursing assistant at a VA hospital in West Virginia may have killed 11 patients with insulin overdoses.

In one of the more sensational scandals, in 2014 some VA employees were reportedly falsifying records of how long patients had to wait for appointments and as many as 40 vets died while waiting. Further investigation suggested that the problem wasn't unusually long wait times, but rather that the VA had been given a target by government officials of limiting wait times to under 14 days—a system-wide goal that few private health care systems could meet. A report later that year from the VA inspector general found that six of the deaths might have been related to wait times, and that the other deaths were consistent with the condition of the patients in question, most of whom had complex health challenges.

The VA doesn't offer excuses for the falsifications. The VA's Clancy points out that as a large government agency the VA has to accept a greater level of scrutiny than its counterparts in the private sector. Its flaws are more readily decried in the national press and it is more directly answerable to the public. In the end, she argues, that closer, less-forgiving, more visible oversight ultimately leads to more accountability and improvement. The VA's overall record seems to bear that claim out.

The VA's foibles also become political weapons in the ongoing debate over the virtues of private versus government-run health care. One of the biggest VA-health-care-related complaints coming out of Washington recently doesn't concern the VA's poor performance but rather the push toward privatization. Veterans' advocates complain that the Trump administration seems to be pushing more vets toward private health care, in part by not filling some VA health care positions that are currently open. "The administration is setting us up to fail so they can dismantle veterans' preferred health care provider," Alma Lee, National Veterans Affairs council president for the American Federation of Government Employees, told the Military Times.

If the VA does in fact provide a better health care system than what most Americans have access to, then vets have surely earned that privilege. Nobody is proposing a similar health care system for all Americans. But Sanders' Medicare for All plan would establish universal coverage, and it would almost certainly be a tougher negotiator of prices than private insurers are. It would likely force private hospitals to focus on care that delivers the best health results at the lowest cost, as the VA does today.

In those respects, Medicare for All could remake the U.S. health care system in the VA's image. To hear most vets tell it, that would be an improvement.

[inkribbon796]

King for a Day

Summary: King just wants a peaceful morning in his park, unfortunately he’s not going to get that.

King had always liked the park on the south side of Egoton. It was a little too close to Dark’s territory for him to be comfortable, but that was why King had always visited the place as a child.

It was King’s personal opinion that his parents had kept him inside way too much, but with his father’s paranoia he guess they couldn’t avoid it. Now he got to be outside as long and as often as he wanted. Leaving home had been the best thing that King had even done for himself, as scary as it was for him and in spite of all the nightmares of Dark finding him.

King hadn’t even learned that he had an aura or powers until he left home. The Manor had never been conducive to owning pets, and even rats stayed away from the place. King, for his entire life thought that in a family of supernatural, superhuman individuals, that he was the only normal one in the lot. Something that the Host and the park had taught him: King was wrong. He could talk with animals, which in hindsight he should have seen it coming. But on the bright side: none of the League knew who he was. He had almost free reign of the city. Which was working wonders for him now, since he’d gotten into a fight with Anti and the glitch hadn’t even recognized his aura.

Although he probably had Host to thank for that. The blind seer had taken a pair of goggles and done something to them. So long as King wore them, not even Dark would be able to recognize his face, and Host admitted that the beard he was trying to grow was certainly helping too. His voice was another matter entirely.

It was early, which these days meant another one of Dark’s network was going to try and take Dark’s territory back. Some days that meant a guy in a suit with shifty eyes, on other days it was someone in an over-sized hoodie with even shiftier eyes, harassing some of the people who had nowhere else to go and found King’s park as a safe haven.

Today was different, King had precious little time to prepare before one of his squirrels raced over in a frenzy. On the outside it probably looked like an intense stare-down, but it was more like a game of charades with body language.

King barely had time to check his goggles were securely on his face before he heard a very familiar voice.

“Oh, Hero!” Bim called out into the trees.

Some of the squirrels raced out before King could caution them not to run out. To King’s relief they weren’t shot on reflex. Peering through the brushes of a tree, he swore when he saw Illinois in his tweed suit at Bim’s side.

“The League isn’t welcome here,” King made his voice sound just deep enough that it would affect his usual speaking voice, but not so gruff that it would absolutely shred his throat in the process. “Leave before I call the cops.”

A couple crows touched down. “Cops,” one of the corvids repeated.

Bim scoffed, “Hey, buddy, I’m just taking a walk. Sides, don’t know if you’ve heard, but I don’t work for Dark.”

King wanted to just chuck a rock at Bim’s head, “I’d have to be blind and stupid not to know you’re connected to Warfstache.”

“Sides, he,” King motioned to Illinois, “has been spotted by a couple of my birds with Dark, so don’t try and lie to me.”

Illinois looked at the gathering group of crows, there had to be twenty of them now.

“Come on,” Bim took a brave step forward. “We just want to know if you’ve seen someone in the area. 5’10” and lanky, his name’s Kay, he’s a recluse. That kind of person.”

“Nope,” King lied. “Haven’t seen him.”

“Right, but I guess you won’t tell us anyways,” Bim took another step.

The forest went on edge without King even directing them to do it, more crows touched down, squawking at both Bim and Illinois, several squirrels were hovering nearby. King tried not to look scared by them, and the goggles and Host’s magic was working. “You’re outnumbered, I suggest you run back to Dark, and tell him that I don’t have him.”

While Bim seemed either overly confident in his ability to defend himself, or didn’t get the hint that forty crows was thirty-nine too many. Personally King was putting his bets on a mix of the two, Bim had the tendency to be about as daft as their dad did and as laser-focused as Dark. “Sides,” King huffed. “It’s one park, you have others.”

“This was our territory first,” Bim spat back, insulted. “This place is mine.”

In King’s mind he could still remember his childhood, the times they’d all come to the park and just pretended to be normal kids. Dark pretended to be a normal parent. Bim and King had often fallen asleep under the shadows of the trees. It had been nice, but Dark had stopped once they were starting to get old enough. Then a couple situations with Yancy got Dark to split them all up to raise them in “a more controlled environment”.

“Not anymore,” King dared. “I’ve turned this place from a defacto drug den, to an actual park. Imagine that, a place where kids can actually have fun without their parents being afraid for them.”

“It was a safe place,” Bim growled, flashing his slightly sharp teeth.

“For Dark and his thugs,” King spat back, wanting to just rip his goggles off and list all the things Dark had done to the city, the things that all of them had helped him do to people. “But I’m sure you’re too blinded by his power and his money to think of that.”

“You bastard,” Bim half-lunged at King, and King tried and failed not to flinch.

Illinois was faster than the forest, arm baring Bim and holding him back. “No, no, the Old Man told us not to get into a fight with them.”

“He can’t just stand there with that smug face and insult me,” Bim fought against Illinois’s hold.

Illinois glared at King, “We’ll be back, and if we don’t find who we’re looking for, we’ll find you again, and we won’t leave you with just threats.”

King hastily sent one of his crows off, “Looking forward to it.”

He really wasn’t, but that’s what the other heroes like Jackie or Silver would say . . . right?

Illinois grabbed Bim by the back of his suit coat and hit something on a pager attached to his belt. A second later a tear opened up in the world behind them as a shrill ringing pierced the area. King’s animals scattered.

“Let’s go,” Illinois ordered.

Bim glared at him, but let the adventurer pulled him through the portal, making sure to glare at King the whole time. As they were leaving, all King could do was stare at the portal. Feeling its siren’s call to follow them through. He felt the void that surrounded the Manor trying to welcome him back home and his skin itched for it. He gripped his arm and bit his lip to stop himself, and only stopped holding his breath when it winked closed.

Racing into the closest brush, King threw up, his whole body shaking. He had to double check no one was around him so he could take his goggles off and wipe his eyes. Still nervous about someone coming across him, King climbed a pine tree with dense foliage for him to safely hide in.

Then he pulled out his phone, calling a number he’d never called before. It had been logged into his phone thanks to Iplier, but there’s been no need to call it.

It took a bit for him to hear the other person answer. “The Host is surprised to receive King’s call.”

“Hope I didn’t cause you too much trouble,” King began, knowing that even with his sight, it couldn’t have been easy for Host to reach the phone on his writing desk.

Host didn’t comment on that, only saying, “What troubles the King of the Squirrels?”

“Okay,” King began half in a panic. “Bad news, I might have pissed Bim and Illy off, and they’ll be back. “What am I going to do? How do the others do this all the time.

There was silence for a bit, “King should listen closely.”

“Okay,” King took a steadying breath to calm himself.

“The King of the Squirrels will not like what the Host has to say, mostly because the Host hates saying it too,” Host began. “Kay and his brother cannot avoid Dark forever. He will find them. But the Host sees King returning to his park.”

“You do?” King felt like throwing up. He didn’t want to go back to Dark’s network.

“Yes,” the Host answered. “So King should do his best to enjoy his time, and make sure a hero is nearby when they are in his park. His crows should more than help with that.”

“Yeah, thanks,” King tried to collect himself, and the Host said a quick goodbye before disconnecting.

King just sat down to collect his nerves. It took a while and a sandwich before he could act like he usually did, patrolling about his park. Making sure Dark didn’t send any more of his enforcers to the park. He came to the conclusion that he needed to think of some other way to protect the park.

He got to talk to some people, rescue a girl’s balloon and genuinely enjoy being a part of the town. At night he went back to the base, hiding out in the Host’s library.

“Host,” King began as he raced through the Host’s library with his phone’s flashlight. “It was awful!”

The blind seer jumped. “The King of Squirrels should learn to announce himself first,” the Host barked at him.

“Sorry, just thought you should know, I think your magic is wearing thin,” King warned.

“Impossible,” the Host replied, through his muttered narrations. “King is merely failing to upkeep them.”

“I did everything you said, and Bim and Illy are still getting in,” King groaned. “What am I supposed to do?”

The Host leaned back in his chair, muttering narrations under his breath. “Perhaps it is Trimmer’s unusual aura that is the problem?”

“Come on,” King sat on a stool next to the Host’s desk, typically Dr. Iplier used it when changing the blind seer’s bandages. “How much different can he be?”

“Trimmer is not merely a carbon copy of both Darkiplier and Warfstache, he is their child,” Host reminded. “As with any child, some things skip generations, others are dormant genes until environmental factors influence them enough.”

A distant knock sounded out and eventually Dr. Iplier walked over to the Host’s desk, making noise as he walked over. “Hey, Host, time to change your bandages.”

Iplier was just looking at King with a hurt but guilty expression on his face. Which King couldn’t understand the reason for. He didn’t really have time to dissect it because King was very suddenly and unceremoniously shoved off the stool by Host’s aura.

“Hey!” King laughed at him. “Subtle much?”

“King will be silent if he knows what’s good for him,” the Host glared at him, and then smiled at Iplier. “The good doctor is early.”

“No, I’m late,” Iplier reprimanded sharply as he set his medical bag on Host’s table. Something that King knew was a rare privilege. Anyone who sat on, or set anything on the Host’s desk was liable get themselves or their stuff unceremoniously dumped on the floor. Even King faced the same treatment. “It’s almost like you want a horrible infection, or something.”

King stood up, smiling at the two as he just walked. This was one of the only times where he wished his dad was here so they could rib the Host for being so obvious.

“The Host was merely busy,” Host commented as Iplier began to work on draining and cleaning his eye sockets.

It was a process that always made King squeamish, he could barely stand to watch it. It always took long in King opinion, but Iplier was anal retentive and thorough about the Host’s condition.

“Busy trying to kill yourself,” Iplier scoffed, making King occasionally glance back to he could watch them banter. Eventually he caught sight of what Iplier had to do and turned away again.

“The Host denies the good doctor’s assertions,” Host chuckled. “He was doing nothing of the sort.”

“Well what were you guys doing in here? Filming the newest instalment of: Introverts Gone Wild?” Iplier joked, rolling on a fresh change of bandages. “Looks like you two are having a real party in here.”

“Ha ha,” King cut into the conversation. “I was just talking to the Host about how Dark’s top lieutenants keep taking walks through my park. I think he wants me to sweat bullets.”

“Not a matter of pressing urgency,” the Host said. “They will give up eventually.”

“Yeah over my dead body,” King reminded, glancing over his shoulder at them.

“Well have it worked out soon,” Iplier warned. “Host needs to go to bed, I won’t have a repeat of last week where I left and you were up until five in the morning in a pool of your own blood.”

“The Host got carried away,” the seer huffed defensively

“Yeah, well I’ll drag you to bed tonight if I have to,” Dr. Iplier warned, cleaning up the area around them. “I’m going to dump these, and you better be ready by the time I get back.”

King held his tongue until the doctor was gone.

“So what’s up with you and the Doc? Ethics will have his license if you keep making googly eyes at him.” King jabbed his thumb at the door to the seer’s library.

“Nothing of the sort is happening between the Host and his doctor,” the Host defended a little too aggressively. “King should ignore the situation, as it does not involve him.”

“Kinda does if I’m going to have a brother-in-law,” King smiled. Then at the Host’s slight blush, King grinned wider. “You do like him.”

“Th King of the Squirrels will forget what he believes is happening,” the Host sputtered. “Iplier and the Host are not in a relationship, nor will they be.”

“Yeah, yeah,” King waved him off. “Sure, won’t tell a soul about your massive crush, whatever.”

“He better not,” the Host threatened.

“Won’t,” King promised, and then walked towards the door, taking out his phone to light the way. He passed Dr. Iplier and tried not to have a big smile as he took the service elevator back up.

Quickly accessing his phone, King made a note to add Host to his list of Valentine’s Day couples. He couldn’t tell anyone, but if Iplier wound up with a batch of candied roses on his doorstep, signed by the Host himself, that shouldn’t be breaking the rules too much.

Might give Host a kick in the right direction.