#reporting it 10 years after the Last Time will not change this or bring me justice i don't deserve

[dykethang]

i keep thinking i'll wake up and be fine. and then i wake up so emotionally devastated i have to immediately shut it down lest i be utterly consumed by the horrors

[dramioneasks]

Top 10 Most “Kudos-ed” (Completed) Fics on AO3 of 2024:

BLOODY, SLUTTY, AND PATHETIC by WhatMurdah - E, 21 chapters, Words: 195,969 - “In my humble opinion there’s only three things that men should be and that is bloody, slutty, and pathetic.” And, on a good day, Draco Malfoy can be all three. When war heroine Hermione Granger and Azkaban-tattooed war criminal Draco Malfoy are forced to wed as part of Shacklebolt’s controversial Reconciliation Act, they openly fight the match and each other—their public brawls breathlessly reported by the press. Secretly, a deeply traumatized Draco delights in Hermione’s attention and pines for a real marriage with her—even as her forced proximity to the Black family magic irritates the cursed scar Bellatrix left on her arm, reminding her why she can never truly trust or forgive him. Then Hermione discovers that Draco’s blood will soothe the scar . . . and Draco is willing to trade his blood for her body. (With post-war blood purity politics, black market potioneers, Pansy Parkinson’s career advice, the Malfoys blackmailing Hermione’s Wizengamot opposition, BDE Neville Longbottom hunting Death Eaters, a slutty Theo Nott serving as Draco’s right-hand man, and Crookshanks loose in Malfoy Manor.)

The Gallows by gillianeliza - E, 23 chapters, Words: 47,332 - Five years after the Battle of Hogwarts the Ministry of Magic has one more wizard to bring to trial: Draco Malfoy. However, it's not a trial they're after, it's a spectacle to celebrate the end of the Death Eater regime with the execution of their final prisoner. When Hermione realizes their plan, she halts the trial and invokes The Gallows Law — an ancient law that pardons any pureblood male without an heir if a witch will marry him. What Hermione isn't ready for is the reality of bonding a broken, shell of a wizard and her new life as she moves into Malfoy Manor as the new Lady Malfoy.

Meet Me In Dreamland by sinflower81 - E, 39 chapters, Words: 229,631 - If there’s one thing Hermione Granger is good at, it’s using magic to fix her problems. And this time, her problem is sex. Luckily, she has the perfect solution: a locket enchanted with the Patented Daydream Charm. Whenever she opens it, she’ll find herself in Dreamland, where she can live out all her filthiest fantasies risk-free. The magic is a bit tricky, though. For some reason, Malfoy keeps showing up there with her. Thank goodness it’s only an illusion—if that was really him, she would never live it down. Meanwhile, Draco is determined to figure out who the fuck is cursing him to suffer through highly realistic, erotic hallucinations of his secret childhood crush. When he finds the culprit, there will be hell to pay.

The Missing Sister by singularritae - M, 75 chapters, Words: 652,727 - The owl appeared late at night and left just as suddenly, he recognised the handwriting immediately and ripped open the envelope. She is yours. If something happens to us, I want you to hide her. Name her Hermione, for she will have my last libation before I sleep and be the messenger of dreamers. Moony and Mary know. Three words. Three words that forever changed the course of the war.

A Gallows Marriage by MilaBelle - E, 31 chapters, Words: 162,244 - “Glee was the last thing she felt staring into the empty eyes that should have been a bright grey. His face had always looked pointed and sharp, but now that gave way to gauntness. His hair, which he had been so particular about in school, hung long and limp. It reminded her of how his father had looked in his mugshot. How he had wanted to be just like his father growing up. And now he was, maybe more than ever. A ghost.” After doing more than her fair share in saving the Wizarding World and bearing the scars of what it cost, Hermione Granger thinks she has earned herself a little respite. But when a charismatic albeit chaotic Theodore Nott convinces her to use an old law to save a dear friend who is about to meet the Dementor’s Kiss, she simply cannot stand by and watch. Follow Hermione as she navigates a world that still believes in blood status, a marriage to save the life of an old enemy and the hurt that comes with surviving.

an ever-fixed mark by ninepiecesofcrait - E, 28 chapters, Words: 208,118 - It was a comedy of errors how Hermione Granger ended up engaged to Draco Malfoy, really. A series of unfortunate events. // Malfoy looked at his bloodied hand and the ring on the cobblestone floor, and sighed. “Well, Granger.” Grey eyes finally raised to look at her. “Now look what you’ve done.” // [while working to break a curse in malfoy’s cellar, hermione accidentally touches an enchanted betrothal heirloom from the noble house of black. things rapidly fall apart from there.]

The Best Mistake by Chels_Writes_a_Fic - E, 26 chapters, Words: 127,444 - Hermione Granger does not make mistakes, at least not often. After making the biggest, dumbest, most horrible mistake of her life, Hermione must deal with the repercussions while keeping her relationship with her Auror partner, Draco Malfoy, strictly professional. He, of course, has other plans. Amidst a resurgence in Death Eater activity, the likes of which Britain hasn’t seen since the First Wizarding War, Hermione will come to realize that the mistake she’s made with Draco might not be so bad at all. It just might be the best mistake.

disparate by Stars_in_motion - E, 4 chapters, Words: 40,708 - au where omegas who go neglected by their alpha for a long time often go into breakthrough heats when being around a different, compatible alpha who displays one (1) caretaking trait around them "You– you brought me supper?" Malfoy eyed her warily. "Don't look so stricken. Do you think I haven't noticed you've been starving yourself for days? You were at your desk when I arrived this morning and haven't moved since." He opened the box of fruit and plucked out a single grape with his sinfully long fingers. Still seated in her desk chair, Malfoy loomed over her entirely so she couldn't look anywhere else. Sometimes it was easier to forget how large he really was. "Now eat."

Mind the Bump by Soap1 - E, 28 chapters, Words: 84,050 - Hermione Granger and her colleague (and, though she sometimes hates to admit it, her friend) Theo Nott, are busy at the Research Institute for the Alchemical Sciences, working together on an innovative, though secretive, project that more than one person might like to get their hands on. She doesn't have much time for dating, and certainly isn't ready to think about starting a family. But after an exciting, though unexpected, one-night stand, she finds herself pregnant. With Draco Malfoy's baby. As her research continues, as her pregnancy progresses, will she be able to make room for Draco in her life?

Détraquée by Hystaracal - M, 108 chapters, Words: 728,097 - "All her growth was the conveying of a corpse of hope." (From 'The Rainbow', D.H. Lawrence) This is a story about coming into one's own, a meditation on the twilight of girlhood and the violence of crash-landing into womanhood. Follow Hermione as she navigates through the quagmire: Saving the world, getting top grades, falling in love, lust, and a whole lot of trouble, and comes out of it hopefully (at least) partially sane.

[kingkatsuki]

— late

This was completely inspired by a conversation I had with my friend about her kids.

Pairing: Bakugou Katsuki x f!reader.

Warnings: girl dad!Bakugou, established relationship, not proof-read as always.

Word Count: 1.1k.

Juggling family as a Pro-Hero in the top 10 is never easy. No matter what you do to ensure your plans go smoothly, crime doesn’t sleep— especially not when it’s your daughters fifth birthday.

“I hate you!” Is the last thing Bakugou hears before his daughters bedroom door is slammed shut, the silence after is deafening as you watch the colour drain from your husbands face.

His chest still heaving from the speed in which he rushed home, dirt and grime stain his skin as he stands dejected in the middle of the living room. Boots that are usually abandoned at the door trudge filth through your home as Bakugou stands statuesque in place.

“Baby,” You hum, reaching around his frame to bring him closer to you as you rest your chin on his chest to stare up at him, “You know she doesn’t mean that—”

“Course she does,” He rasps, “She said she fuckin’ hates me.”

You can tell from the slight lilt to his gruff voice that your big, strong husband is on the verge of tears. Bringing his arm up to rub at his blackened eyes with the ball of his hand, smearing the eyeliner along his cheekbones.

Bakugou was used to being hated, from the public to the media and the Hero Commission. It was usually something he could brush off with ease, laughing off angry emails or poorly written articles. But it was a different kind of hurt when the words had come from his own daughter.

“She’s hurting right now,” You soothe, tightening your grip on him as his Adam’s apple bobs, “She was just excited for you to be at the party, but she understands—”

Bakugou had booked this day off a year in advance, it was always the first thing he looked at on the calendar, even before your birthday. It was his daughters special day, and he was determined for it to be perfect. Fully embracing whatever theme she’d decided on for her celebrations— this year had been a Barbie theme that had left your home embellished in vibrant pink and glitter that would probably stay embedded into your plush carpets until her next birthday.

He’d spent the previous night carefully wrapping a custom Barbie doll in pretty pink paper as you prepared the house for her party. Bakugou had even picked out an entire hero outfit that was an on brand Barbie pink, instead of his usual colours that he was planning on surprising his daughter with.

But even with all these plans in place, and even arranging backup from his dutiful sidekicks at the agency— the life of a Pro-Hero is never easy. And just as Bakugou was preparing to change into his outfit for his daughters party, he was called into work. An emergency that superseded anyone working at his agency today, as the Hero Commission requested his presence in the field.

It’s not the first time it’s happened, and Bakugou knows it won’t be the last. Even a last minute phone call to Deku to take the lead wasn’t enough to save his day, as the Commission ended up calling both heroes to the scene.

Hours later, he was explosive and inconsolable. Telling the authorities to fuck the crime scene reports and statements as he shoved an unwitting reporter out of his face as their camera crashed to the floor, certain his PR team would be in his inbox about that incident first thing tomorrow morning. But he was completely uninterested in humouring any of them today, not when he could’ve been at home with his family.

Coming in through the front door as he finally realised just how late it was when the house was completely empty besides you and his daughter.

“I should’ve been here, she needed me—”

“The city still needs Dynamight,” You murmured, “What was the situation?”

“Bad,” He grumbled, “Shithead derailed a train in the city, had a group of school kids on it. One almost— the look in his eyes when he was fallin’.“

He trailed off, scrunching his nose as he thought back to the scene. You felt his arms wrap around your shoulders as he clung to you, leaning into your warmth as he tried to calm his racing heart.

“But he didn’t, right?”

He shook his head as you smiled, breathing in the scent of smoke and ash from his quirk as soot covered his body.

“Because Dynamight is a hero.”

“But not to my own daughter.”

“You’ll always be her hero, baby.” You soothe as he leans down to bury his face in the curve of your neck, deeply inhaling the scent of you.

“I’m a terrible dad,” His breath tickles your neck as you pull back to frown at him.

“Don’t you dare say that,” You scrunch your nose in irritation, “You’re the best dad, Kats.”

“If I was, I woulda been here for her.” He scoffs.

“You’re out there keeping us safe, keeping other kids safe. Making sure they get to go home to their dads too.” You cradle his face in your palms to press a soft kiss to his chapped lips.

The sound of little feet coming down the stairs breaks him away from you as you turn to see your daughter, still dressed in her full party outfit, standing at the bottom of the stairs.

“Hey, is that my little princess?” Bakugou rasps as she comes towards you both, crouching down to her height and adjusting the pink tiara that sits on top of her head.

“Barbie princess.” She whispers, holding a piece of pink paper out to him as he takes it.

“Barbie princess.” He corrects himself, moving his attention to the words words etched onto the page as he unfolds it.

‘I’m sorry I wouldn’t trade you for any other daddy in the world.’

A smile spreads across your face at the cute sentence as you feel the muscles in Bakugou’s back immediately relax, reaching down to lift your daughter up to hold her to his chest as her small arms immediately circle his neck.

“I’m sorry I missed your party, sweetheart,” He rasps, smoothing her wild hair down.

“I’m sorry too,” She sniffs, “I don’t hate you, daddy.”

Bakugou’s lips curl into a soft smile as he leans forward to press a kiss onto her cheek.

“I love you, princess.” He whispers, nuzzling her cheek with his nose.

“Love you too, daddy.” She smiles.

“But you know you can’t trade me anyway, right?” He frowns, pulling back to meet her gaze, “I’m your daddy and I always will be.”

[natashaslesbian]

Safe With Her

Word Count: 1.9k

Parings: (Scarlett x Teen!Reader)

Warnings: death / abuse / bruising / talks of sexual abuse but not extremely detailed

————

“Hey kiddo” Scarlett said as she came into the guest bedroom “you ready for bed? How you settling in?” She asked. Tonight was your first night in the Johansson-Jost household. Last week, child protection services removed you from your mother’s care after a school teacher reported your bruising to the CPS. You would’ve been thrown into the foster system if it wasn’t for Scarlett, there were no living relatives to take you in. When you were five years old, your dad took you to an open call audition for a minor roll in a new upcoming film. The directors hired you instantly and your first day on set you met Scarlett, she couldn’t explain it but she felt so protective of you and the two of you stayed in contact after the film wrapped.

You fell back into the shadows after the movie released, your character had a total of two lines so you weren’t expected to gain much recognition. You had hoped to go to more auditions but after your father passed away you lost the passion and your mother couldn’t have cared less. Scarlett came to the funeral with you and stayed at your house a few days after. It was clear that your mother was in denial, she was in no state to take care of you. When her next movie came up, Scarlett had to go back to work and since then you had only managed to see her a few times over the last 10 years. Now you were sitting in her guest bedroom after being introduced to Colin and Cosmo, you met Rose when she was born.

“Y/n?” Scarlett asked, bringing you back into focus “I’m okay” you said. “You hardly touched your pizza, thought that was your favourite?” Scarlett warmly smiled “it is, I’m sorry I’m just not that hungry” you tried to smile, but it didn’t work. “You don’t have to apologise sweetie” the blonde said as she came to sit with you on the bed “this is a big change, it’s a lot to take in isn’t it?” You nodded “how about I bunk up with you tonight?” Scarlett asked. You smiled, you’d like that a lot “won’t Colin be mad?” You asked “no of course not, he’s on baby and toddler duty tonight, so I can take care of you” Scarlett said. “Ok” you hummed, Scarlett lent forward and brushes your hair behind your ear. “Alright, I’ll go get ready for bed then we can snuggle, how’s that sound?” She asked. “Good” you nodded excitedly.

You’d been cuddled up in Scarlett’s lap for a while now, she was gently running her fingers through your hair trying to sooth you to sleep. You seemed unable to settle though, constantly fidgeting and shuffling in her arms. “What’s going on y/n/n?” The blonde asked. “I’m sacred” you whispered into Scarlett’s neck “oh sweetheart I know this is scary, it’s okay” she said. “No” you mumbled sitting up “I- I’m scared of Colin” you said as you dropped your gaze. You were preparing for her to shout at you but Scarlett softly pulled your chin up, finding your eyes. “Why?” She quietly asked “He- will- I- I’m scared he’ll hurt me” you shyly said “sweetie Colin would never-“ “I know” you cut her off “It’s just- at home, moms boyfriends” you paused, unsure how much you should share with her. “You can tell me anything darling” Scarlett said.

You couldn’t hold on anymore, the tears you had spent your whole life holding back started to fall. You curled into yourself, bracing for the impact of fists. Your mother hated when you cried, she said it was almost the most annoying thing in the world, the most annoying being you of course. You felt arms wrap tightly around you and for the first time in so long you didn’t push them away. You allowed your body to be anchored into Scarlett’s hold, it was warm and secure. You cried so hard you began to soak Scarlett’s shirt, she gently shushed you as she held you close. “It’s okay baby” she cooed “take some deep breaths for me okay?” She said as she heard you struggle to suck in a breath. “I’m sorry” you sobbed, looking up to Scarlett. “You have nothing to apologise for y/n” she said as she continued to gently rock you in her arms.

After a while, your cries started to soften. So much so that Scarlett thought you’d drifted off into sleep, until you shifted in her lap. “You’re okay sweetie” Scarlett gently coaxed as you began to sit up. “I- um- when- ughr” you sighed frustratedly, all of your words were just stuck. “It’s alright, take your time” Scarlett said as she looked down into your lost searching eyes. “After my dad died, it was just me and my mom for while” you began “things were somewhat ok at first but without dads work we got short on money fast. My mom refused to work and she started drinking to cope I guess” you paused, checking to see if Scarlett wanted you to continue, she nodded “she would get angry and shout, we argued a lot” you continued “after a few years she started dating again, it seemed to help her, she was happy again” you shifted back into Scarlett’s hold, you were afraid she would look at you differently.

The blonde wrapped her arms tightly around you and urged you to continue. “She’d had a boyfriend for a few months and she wanted me to meet him so she invited him over for dinner. It was fine, he seemed ok. He asked to stay the night which I thought was strange but my mom said yes. I said goodnight and went to bed as normal” you pulled Scarlett’s hand towards your own, wanting to fiddle with her rings to keep you calm. “I woke up a little while later and… Matt, the boyfriend, he was in my room. I tried to ask him what he was doing but he told me to be quiet and came over to my bed. He got on top of me and I tried to push him off but he held me down, told me to be good for my mom, I didn’t know what he meant. He was too strong and I couldn’t get him off me. He started touching me” you cried out. “How old were you?” Scarlett said while holding back her own tears. “12” you sobbed.

You held onto Scarlett’s hand so tight it was starting to be uncomfortable for her, but she didn’t mind. “It felt like it lasted for hours” you whimpered “I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t do anything” you sobbed. “Oh baby I’m so sorry” Scarlett said. “After, he left my room and went downstairs. I thought he left so I went to find my mom but when I saw her, Matt was giving her money. She saw me at the top of the stairs and she didn’t say anything, she just looked at me. She took the money and put it in her purse then said goodbye to Matt.” You took a few moments to calm your breathing before you carried on “my mom came up the stairs and she walked past me and went to bed, I didn’t understand what was happening but a few nights later, another guy came round and…he did it again. She took a shopping trip the next day and I finally figured it out” you cried “she was selling me to men so they could-“ you couldn’t finish the sentence, you’d never said it out loud.

Scarlett had never felt to angry in her life. It took all of her energy to not loose control right in that very moment. She wanted so scream, make you tell her each and every name of the monsters that had done this, she’d go out and find them and make sure they never laid another finger on another girl, woman or anyone. But as you laid in her arms, so broken and fragile, she knew that was the only place she wanted to be. “I’m so sorry sweetheart” she said “how long was this going on?” Scarlett asked. “She would never have stopped if my teacher didn’t see that bruise, the bruise he left a couple nights ago” you sobbed. “Oh baby” Scarlett cooed. “They think the bruises are from my mom, I just said they were because I was scared I didn’t know what to say” you whimpered “are you gonna make me tell?” You asked. “We can think about all that another time y/n. Right now we’re gonna stay right here okay. You don’t have to do anything right now” Scarlett said.

The two of you stayed cuddled up for a while until you spoke up again. “I’m sorry, I know Colin would never hurt me” you whispered. “You don’t have to apologise baby” Scarlett said “it’s okay to be scared but I promise that you’re safe here. We’ll all spend time together so you can get to know Colin better but you don’t have to spend any time with him until you’re ready” she finished. “No I want too” you said as you looked up at her “I wanna spend time with Colin, Rose and Cosmo too. And you of course ma-“ you paused, unsure if she would want you to give her that title. Scarlett picked up on your discomfort and reached down to gentle kiss your forehead “mamas here sweetheart” she cooed “my brave girl” she said as she ran her fingers through your hair. You smiled widely up at your mama, loving that she accepted you calling her that. You’d always considered her a second mom and now she was your one and only mama.

After a few more tears, you finally fell asleep in Scarlett’s arms, she pulled the duvet up above you both and shuffled further down into the bed. When she was sure you were deeply asleep, Scarlett let her tears fall. She didn’t want you to see how your story had hurt her, after all you were hurting a lot more and it was up to her to look after you. She kept her tears quiet and ran her fingers along your arm to sooth herself, eventually drifting off to sleep with you. The next morning, Scarlett had Colin take the kids out for breakfast so that you and her could talk things over. She reminded you many times that you didn’t have to do anything you weren’t ready for, and although you were scared you decided you were going to report what had happened. Your mama promised to be there every step of the way and continued to shower you with love for the rest of the day.

You spent the afternoon with Rose and Cosmo. The young boy seemed to take an instant liking to you, fussing horrendously when it was time for his nap. Rose wouldn’t leave your side either and you both ended up asleep on the couch after dinner. Scarlett and Colin stood in awe of the new member of their family, cuddled closely together when Scarlett asked “can we keep her?” Colin looked down to his wife, knowing that the first moment you came home he wanted the same thing. “She’s not going anywhere” he said. The two moved you both to your bedrooms and settled you down for the night. After, they met at the kitchen table, making calls and taking notes, getting the process started of adopting you. Even as you slept you knew you had found what you always wanted along with so much more.

————

Taglist<3

@saraaahsstuff / @dannipotatoo / @tobiaslut / @a-simpfortessa-lesbriean / @marvelnatasha12346 / @yelenasdiary / @mousetheorist / @ashadash0904

[retiredkat]

Great interview with Eric Bogosian

Vulture article

Eric Bogosian Would Get Naked for Interview With the Vampire 10:31 A.M.

Daniel Molloy is a fictional two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, bullshitometer, and sass-kitten, an aging journalist holding his own among monsters while conducting the titular Q&A at the heart of Interview With the Vampire. With clear-eyed wit and a dash of human vulnerability, Eric Bogosian gives Molloy a distinctly Anthony Bourdain–ish edge infused with notes of his own acerbic Talk Radio character Barry Champlain. In Anne Rice’s book and the movie that followed, Daniel Molloy is a cub reporter trembling over his tape deck. But in Rolin Jones’s brilliant AMC adaptation, which just wrapped up its second season, this isn’t Molloy’s first twirl around the vampire hoedown. The conversation takes place 50 years after that first interview ended in blood, gore, and sexual frustration (Luke Brandon Field plays the younger Molloy in flashbacks, including this season’s standout episode five). Now Molloy’s seen it all, has a loaded past with these vamps, and when he trembles, it’s from Parkinson’s, rarely nerves. Molloy’s the audience surrogate, cutting through Louis (Jacob Anderson) and Armand’s (Assad Zaman) competing narratives while ultimately shipping Loustat just like the rest of us.

This delicate dynamic got slammed into a concrete wall and lit on fire (complimentary) in the final minutes of the season-two finale, when Molloy was revealed to have been turned into a vampire by Armand, breaking the ancient vampire’s centuries-long incel streak. And boy, is it a reveal, with a cocky Molloy, riding high on his best-selling book, whipping off his sunglasses at night to reveal color-changing eyes while doing mental walkie-talkie with Louis. He’s even got a sick leather jacket to really hammer home that he’s a cool bad-boy vampire now. It’s an incredibly fun beat to leave this character on and opens up a world of season-three possibilities for Bogosian as a performer who, at 71, has always wanted to play a vampire.

Do you know how weird it is to be hitting record on my MacBook right now to interview you about playing a character who’s always hitting record on his MacBook to interview people?

It’s all weird to me. I’m from another century, so all these things are new to me.

This is suspiciously sounding more and more like an interview with a vampire by the minute! Which makes sense, considering where we last saw Daniel in the finale.

Since we have multiple narratives and jump around in time already, I don’t know where things are going. Personally, I’d love to see more of young Daniel, Luke Brandon Field. I think he’s terrific. I’d love to see more Claudia. I wonder whether vampires can time travel. I think they can move around in time. I’m not sure how much Anne Rice you’ve read, but Merrick can actually bring people back from the dead, so you never know.

What was your relationship to the books when you signed on to this show?

In the mid-’70s, when Interview With the Vampire came out, I was 20-something and reading that stuff and I loved it. Then I got distracted by life. When we started doing the show, I was going to read the first one again, but then I realized that the script and my character were quite different, so I thought, I better stick to the script.

However, I needed to know what happened next, so I started plowing through the books and it was amazing. The Vampire Lestat was a trip — that’s what they’ll be hitting next — and they just got trippier and trippier. I just finished the seventh, which puts all the stories together. I love Anne Rice because her imagination is completely unfettered and she plays with really deep themes in a way that’s not heavy. It’s not like you’re reading Ayn Rand; it’s more like Stephen King. She explores death in the guise of these vampires by asking, Oh yeah, you wanna be immortal? Here’s what immortal looks like.

I’ve always been a big fan of vamps. I lobbied Francis Ford Coppola to get a part in his Dracula in the ’90s. I guess I wasn’t a big star, so I couldn’t get a part in it, but he was nice about it and invited me to set. I’ve told this story in other interviews, but my wife was directing a play in Chicago, which, totally by coincidence, was written by one of our first-year writers. On the plane there, I was thinking about life, thinking, I’ve done so many things. What’s left? And I thought, Man, I still really want to play a vampire. And when I landed, I got a phone call: “Do you want to be on Interview With the Vampire?” At the time, it wasn’t like, “You’re going to be a vampire,” but I figured vampire-adjacent was good enough. And of course, it evolved, and as I got on set, Assad was explaining all of these things that were going to happen with my character. Sometimes I didn’t even want to hear about it because we never know what’s going to happen. There have been slight detours off the main story, particularly with my character.

What were those things you didn’t want to hear about your character that Assad was talking about?

I become, you know, under his spell in later stories, and there’s a whole relationship that goes on between us. I’m not entirely clear at this point how that’s going to shake out or if it’s going to shake out. I didn’t necessarily want to go waltzing into something where they were making me do anything weird or awkward or embarrassing to no particular end. I’ve done nudity and stuff like that a long time ago, and at 71, I’m not really big on getting naked and sexy onscreen.

However, having been around the genius of Rolin Jones for two years, whatever he wants to do, I’ll do it. When you’re around a master like this, it becomes a process of discovery. When I’m learning my lines it’s like, Oh, this is 3-D chess. There’s a lot going on here that I didn’t see the first time I read it. When I first got this job, I thought I was just going to be doing bookends every episode, like, “So, tell me the story,” and then it would be vampires the whole time, and at the end I’d be like, “Hmmm!” And then, “stay tuned for the next episode!” But Rolin had this idea from the beginning and it went deeper and deeper until it was insane by the end of the second season.

I would prefer not to be playing cliché. Sometimes I’m playing something that feels like a lot of other things I’ve done. Even in the service of a show that is terrific, like Succession or Billions, the things I’m doing on those shows are not things I’ve never done before. As a friend of mine said when I was doing Under Siege 2 with Steven Seagal 1,000 years ago, “They just want you to do that Eric thing you do.” My stage stuff is about being very big and very loud, and a lot of the stuff I do on-camera is like in Uncut Gems, being very angry and very broad. But this thing, particularly in the fifth episode, and going into the end — I have to go places that I’ve never gone as an actor before. The subtlety of episode five, where I am brought to tears, that’s new stuff for me, and I was really happy to do it. Not only working with Rolin and the directors but with everybody. The writers bring a lot of sensitivity, a lot of nuance to every scene.

I need to ask if you’ve seen this: Someone from the writers’ room tweeted a picture of a note card that was on the wall for episode five and it just says, “MOLLOY ASKS ABOUT 1973: DID WE FUCK?”

I love that beat. As much as I’m known for my verbosity, I love reaction stuff, too. Jacob and I are very in sync, and we’ve developed a good relationship. He’s not holding back, he’s not being cagey, and that allows you to trust the other person a lot. You’d be amazed how some actors … are actually not good actors. They’re thinking about what they look like and all this crap. Jacob can’t be thinking about what he looks like because sometimes he looks really nasty. He’s letting the emotions build out of him. And yet he’s always very adept at sculpting what he’s doing. It’s a great company. I never work with Sam, I just see him all the time on set, but that scene in the courtroom, and the scene in New Orleans … where’s that shit coming from? The emotion is wild.

You all have incredible chemistry with each other, too. Knowing where your character might go with Armand, or what other buried history may or may not also be between them, how do you play that dynamic?

In scripted narratives, you’ve just got to play what the script is doing and let the audience try to figure out the rest of it. On Succession, I worked with Sarah Snook, and her character was never clear until the end. They were making it very hard to figure out what she was thinking. And I don’t know that she always knew herself what she was thinking. She was playing the script.

There are a lot of ways to look at it, and ask, What’s really going on here? Much of it is the audience putting it together. They hear the lines, they see my face, and an older actor’s face kind of has a narrative built into it. All of it gets put together, and what you don’t know becomes fodder for your imagination.

And this audience has quite the imagination.

I’ve never been through this experience before, exploring where the audience is at. I’m reading a lot of the blogs, and they make a science out of it. Rolin gives them all they can eat in terms of details and Easter eggs that are blended into the story. I think like 30 percent of our audience is really familiar with the books, so they’re constantly checking back and forth between Anne Rice’s story and ours. So far, Rolin’s been scoring pretty well in terms of being consistent with the original material.

But again, Daniel is a whole different ball of wax. The Armand thing is interesting, because it goes into all kinds of fascinating realms far away and weird. I had to get out history books and start reading about ancient Kyiv.

The fans aren’t even just pulling from the books; I’ve seen some draw comparisons from your work like Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll. They’re finding all these crazy parallels.

That I haven’t seen. The character in this show and me in real life have a lot of parallels. Just imagine young Daniel in the show, that was my life. The funny thing is when I used to write and perform these monologues, in my mind they didn’t have anything to do with me. And then last year, Andre Royo, who played Bubs on The Wire, did one of my shows, Drinking in America, onstage. This was the first time that I’ve watched my own solo show, and he did a great job. I started to understand the biographical aspects of these monologues. It isn’t until afterward that I can look at it and go, Oh right, this is about that. Rolin told me that they were always thinking of me for this role. He didn’t know me, so this was coming out of his enthusiasm for a movie I did 700 years ago, Talk Radio with Oliver Stone. That was based on a play I wrote for myself. What I write about has to do with a certain kind of narcissistic personality, which seems to be the theme of this TV show — they’re all narcissists in one way or another.

I’m fascinated by my character. In episode five, when he’s in San Francisco, he’s kind of a loser. That’s what Armand says: “You might as well die right now. Where’s your life going?” And yet Daniel has two Pulitzer Prizes by the time he’s an older guy. What is that about? I would almost not believe it except that it happened to me. I was leading a really dissolute life in the late ’70s into the early ’80s. I didn’t win a Pulitzer, but I was nominated in 1987 and continued to be, I guess, “successful.” So it makes sense that it happens to Daniel. But you can also ask, What motivates this? It’s a way of fighting against the world or maintaining your sanity.

I think I’ll continue to play with the push-pull of this guy if I continue with the show. In San Francisco, he says, “Make me a vampire.��� Later in Dubai, he says, “No, I don’t want it, because I’ll outlive my children.” He’s going back and forth. Of course, what we don’t see in the last episode is how did he become a vamp? Did he say, “Yeah, I want to do it?” Or did he get drunk with Armand one night and when he wasn’t looking, he became a vampire? I guess we’ll find out.

I’m sure it’s the subject of dozens of fan fictions already.

I’ve gotten so close with Assad. We’ve enjoyed spending a lot of time with each other. But when he gets on set, he turns into a different person. That’s some evil shit going on there. The way he ends up in that last episode, kind of smashed, he put everything into that. It’s a lot of fun. I never got into this business to do anything other than make believe and pretend. I feel more whole when I’m being somebody else than when I’m my own self, so the more deeply we can pretend when we’re making the show, the more deeply we can get into all of this, the higher I get from it. And when you’ve got guys like this who are ready to fly, I want to go flying with them.

I know you said you don’t really know what’s happening next season, but I look forward to your vampire adventures.

Rolin keeps sending me notes saying we’re gonna have an amazing time when we start shooting again. I can’t wait. It’s just that there’s a whole formal process of how this goes, and I’m waiting for my engraved invitation from the King of AMC to say “welcome back.”

[arenabreadandbiscuits]

Gosh I HATE X.

Rant below about small artists and not getting much of a chance to actually grow in social media.

Not only do they not tell me what the problem is when the report something so I can't fix it but I get on or try to get on and apparently I can't? My account was deleted? It won't log me in on my art one??? I'm annoyed by it.. I can only be glad I have a following here on Tumblr and Tumblr helps push certain things out compared to X.

I'm honestly mad because I was using X as another way to reach out to people who want commissions but also for fandom interactions. I'm also mad because like I've said for like the hundredth time, you can literally find people fcking on X and their videos and things get to stay up but I draw FanArt and write stories and MINE gets taken down??? Smh especially as someone doing commissions because my mom is in the hospital rn and I genuinely need the funds for a while..

I'm working on one commission right now. I'll take three right now for cheap prices because I understand people don't find value in art all the time but I'll have to bring prices up or either continuously work for the cheaper ones and save up.

Actually let me ask this now.

Some this picture contains four characters, a window with extra background, objects and background, and various expressions and poses. The time on it hit 13 hours on ibis. In my mind of course I want money to help my situations.

With this picture as an example I count people and characters as $10 each, little accessories and such are $1 each and there's at least 12 in here up front from the beer cans to the dresser. The picture took 13 hours so $40 × 13 equals $520. It took me at least a week to get this piece done. Considering the hospital issues, the at home issues, pet situations, food issues, and little transportation I have when I need something important done I think for pieces like this the price is fair.

Idk, people who commission others can you tell me what you think? I'm down to do cheap prices too it just depends of what's being asked like the current commission I'm doing which is this one:

Is $30 dollars for the commissioner considering they just want the lineart which I'm more than happy to do. If anyone knows any discord groups or websites that give artist commissions please let me know. I just can't believe X rn... Also matter of fact this was the wip I posted before my account was taken down... Doesn't like like anything against Twitter guidelines to me but fck us small artists that NEED exposure I guess.

How I'm pricing after finishing this commission and two others perhaps because I literally can't afford to not price it like I'm thinking of doing.

So:

$10 dollars per person/character

$1 for each background object/accessories - cups, glasses, trash cans, ash trays, etc etc

And after all that is set I'll multiply those numbers by the amount of hours I finish which is where the majority of the money goes and after that's it, I get paid and you get your piece. (Of course check ins are allowed and changes as long as changes art completely different from their original idea. I'm always okay drawing at least three sketches for customers to pick from if they don't like the first sketch.)

I've made a post already on my current visit at the hospital for my mom. She majorly deals with everything in the home so her being sick will mean we'll need extra funds. I don't work right now because I myself got sick last year with GBS and I'm still healing, not just that but there's only one car for the household which is my mom's so with everything happening I couldn't possibly get a job now. My grandma has dementia and there's three other people in the house though two of them hardly do much to keep bills paid. It's just a lot and really anything would help us right now. So to any commissioners if you are commissioning me whether it's little or big I very much appreciate you with all my heart.

And even if you can't commission reblogging and liking is just fine as well since it helps boost posts.

[balanchine-ballet-master]

The Story of the Original "Tea" Dancer

There was a delightful story in the Times on February 4th about George Lee, on whom Balanchine created the Tea variation in The Nutcracker. Here it is.

From Ballet to Blackjack, a Dance Pioneer’s Amazing Odyssey

George Lee was the original Tea in “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker.” A documentary filmmaker found him and a lost part of ballet history in Las Vegas.

By Siobhan Burke Feb. 4, 2024

Among the blaring lights and all-hours amusements of downtown Las Vegas, in a sea of slot machines at the Four Queens Hotel and Casino, George Lee sits quietly at a blackjack table, dealing cards eight hours a day, five days a week, a job he’s been doing for more than 40 years.

Lee, 88, was likely in his usual spot when the filmmaker Jennifer Lin was sifting through old photos at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in 2022, wondering what had become of a dancer with a notable place in ballet history. Pictured in a publicity shot for the original production of “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker,” in the role known as Tea, was a young Asian dancer identified as George Li.

For Lin, a veteran newspaper reporter turned documentarian, the picture raised intriguing questions. In 1954, when the photo was taken, it was rare to see dancers of color on the stage of New York City Ballet, the company Balanchine co-founded. Who was this young man, this breaker of racial barriers, this pioneer? Was he still alive? And if so, what was he up to? “I became absolutely obsessed with trying to find out what happened to George Li,” Lin said in a video interview.

In just over a year, that obsession has blossomed into a short film, “Ten Times Better,” that chronicles the unexpected story of Lee’s life: from his childhood in 1940s Shanghai, where his performing career began; to a refugee camp in the Philippines, where he fled with his mother, a Polish ballet dancer, in 1949; to New York City and the School of American Ballet, where Balanchine cast him in “The Nutcracker” to “Flower Drum Song” on Broadway, his first of many musical theater gigs; and ultimately, to Las Vegas, where he left dance for blackjack dealing in 1980. (He changed the spelling of his last name in 1959, when he became a United States citizen.)

The film will have its premiere on Feb. 10 as part of the Dance on Camera Festival at Film at Lincoln Center. Lee, who last visited New York in 1993, will be in town for the occasion, an opportunity for long-overdue recognition.

“So many years I haven’t done ballet,” Lee said over coffee at the Four Queens on a recent Sunday, after his shift. “And then suddenly Jennifer comes and tries to bring everything up. To me, it was like a shock.”

George Lee today. He has been a blackjack dealer in Las Vegas for more than 40 years. Photo: Saeed Rahbaran for The New York Times

But Lin’s interest has been welcome. “Jennifer is so perfect, she knows exactly everything,” he said. “She knows my background more than I do.”

Lin was not the only one who had been searching for Lee. In 2017, while organizing an exhibition on “The Nutcracker,” Arlene Yu, who worked for the New York Public Library at the time and is now Lincoln Center’s head archivist, was puzzled by the relatively few traces of him in the library’s vast dance collection.

“I think I’d tracked him down to 1961, but after that, it was really hard to find anything,” she said. “Whereas if you look at some of his peers in ‘The Nutcracker’ in 1954, they went on to careers where there was a lot more documentation.”

Lin’s fascination with Lee emerged through her work on another film, about Phil Chan and Georgina Pazcoguin, the founders of Final Bow for Yellowface, an initiative focused on ending offensive depictions of Asians in ballet. The role of Tea, a divertissement historically rife with such stereotypes—in Balanchine’s canonical version of “The Nutcracker” and others—has been a flashpoint in those efforts. Chan, too, had been struck by the 1954 images of “The Nutcracker,” which he came across during a library fellowship in 2020.

“I’m like, wait, there’s actually a Chinese guy,” he said — as opposed to a non-Chinese dancer with the saffron makeup or heavily painted eyes or even the artificial buck teeth worn in some old productions. “Who is this guy? And why do I not know about him?”

The "Tea" variation in The Nutcracker at City Ballet in 2015. The dancers are Ralph Ippolito, Claire Von Enck, and Baily Jones. Photo: Andrea Mohin for The New York Times

Lee, in his heyday, was a dancer to know. At just 12, he was already winning public praise. In a preview of a recital of the King-Yanover School in Shanghai, the North China Daily News called him an “extremely promising young Chinese boy, whose technique is of a very high standard.” A reviewer wrote that he “already may be said to be the best Chinese interpreter of Western ballet.” (Lee saved these newspaper clippings and shared them with Lin when they eventually met.)

Born in Hong Kong in 1935, Lee moved to Shanghai with his mother in 1941, when Shanghai was under Japanese occupation. During World War II, his father, a Chinese acrobat, was in Kunming in western China; he died in an accident on his way to visit Lee in 1945.

Lee’s mother, Stanislawa Lee, who had danced with the Warsaw Opera, was his first ballet teacher; as a child, he would follow along with her daily barre exercises. Shanghai had a significant Russian population, and with that a robust ballet scene. To earn money, Stanislawa arranged for her son to perform in nightclubs—“like a polka dance, or Russian dance, or sailor dance,” Lee said. The clubs would pay them in rice.

Little George Li in his Shanghai days. Photo: George Lee private collection via the NY Times

Fearing the Chinese Communist Party’s takeover in 1949, the two evacuated to the Philippines. An expected four months as refugees turned into two years. In 1951, an American friend of Lee’s father sponsored them to come to New York, where he introduced Lee to the School of American Ballet, City Ballet’s affiliated school.

As Lee narrates these twists and turns in the film, one memory anchors his recollections. Before they immigrated, his mother issued a warning. “You are going to America, it’s all white people, and you better be 10 times better,” he recalls her saying. “Remember that: 10 times better!”

The footage of Lee in his 20s suggests he took that advice to heart. In television appearances — with the company of the ballet star André Eglevsky, and in a number from “Flower Drum Song” on the Ed Sullivan Show — his power and precision dazzle.

“He was good; he was really good,” Chan said. “Clean fifth, high jump, polished turns, stick the landing—the training is all there. He’s already 10 times better than everybody else.”

In a 1979 interview heard in the film, the former City Ballet soloist Richard Thomas, who took over the role of Tea, raves about Lee’s peerless acrobatic jumps: “He was wonderful! Balanchine choreographed a variation for him that none of us have ever been able to equal.”

As Lee remembers it, Balanchine spent 15 minutes with him in the studio. “He said, ‘What can you do good? Show me what you can do good,’ so I show him something,” Lee said. “I did things like splits and double turns, down and up, turn again like a ball, and that’s it. He picked up some things and put them together.”

George Li as a student at the School of American Ballet. Photo: George Lee private collection via the NY Times

He recalled that during a “Nutcracker” dress rehearsal, the City Ballet makeup artist put him in full yellowface, and Balanchine insisted he take off the makeup. “He is Asian enough! Why do you make him more?” he remembers Balanchine saying. Lee was costumed in the Fu Manchu mustache, queue ponytail and rice paddy hat often associated with the role, now widely critiqued as racist caricatures. But he said he didn’t take offense. “Dancing is dancing,” he said.

Lee performed in “The Nutcracker” as a student; he was never invited to join City Ballet. But he clearly excelled in his classes and onstage. For that, he credits his strong foundation of Russian training in China — and his mother’s exacting standards. He can still see her standing in the studio doorway at the School of American Ballet, observing closely.

“She was watching the class and then would go home and tell me, ‘You did this wrong or that wrong, you got to do it this way,’” he said. “So I really worked hard, and I was good.” (His favorite teacher at the school was the demanding Anatole Oboukhoff: “He always wanted more, and that’s why I liked him very much.”)

To make a living Lee turned to musical theater, performing in shows like “Baker Street” on Broadway and the cabaret “Carol Channing with her 10 Stout-Hearted Men,” which opened in London. He pieced together jobs for more than 20 years, often unsure of what would come next.

Lee in flight in a production of “Flower Drum Song” in Las Vegas in the early 1960s. Photo: George Lee personal collection via the NY Times

He was dancing in a Vegas revue, “Alcazar de Paris,” now in his 40s, when a blackjack dealer friend suggested he go to dealer school. “I can’t dance all my life,” he remembers thinking. He decided to give dealing a try and soon landed a job at the Four Queens. Aside from four years at another casino, he has worked there ever since.

In December 2022, he got a voice mail message from Lin. With her reporting skills and some crucial assists from Yu, she had determined that he lived in Las Vegas. Of the five phone numbers she found for George Lees, four led nowhere; his was the last she tried.

When they finally connected, she put her other project on hold to focus on his story; she and her small creative team had a final cut by November. “George is 88, and I wanted him to be able to enjoy this moment, where people recognize him for his dancing,” she said.

As he prepares to return to New York, Lee said he felt gratified, most of all, for his mother.

“I’m proud for her that I didn’t let her down,” he said. “It makes me feel better to look up at her and say: ‘Look, mother, now you see what’s happening, what you did for me. You gave me all the good foundation, everything. Through you, I’m here now.’”

George Lee today. Photo: Saeed Rahbaran for The New York Times

[nicolegmattos]

My Christian best friend reacts to Good Omens (part 10): Post discussion

Sadly, this will be last part for now until season 3 releases. Then we’ll probably watch together and I’ll bring you our reactions with us both watching it for the first time.

Link to part 9 if you haven’t seen it yet.

Them: My God, I kin Crowley. I’m dead inside.

Me: *trying to console them* I know damn well how this feels. But remember what God said. “The story starts as it will finish. In a garden.” And they’ll probably end up sharing a cottage.

Them: I DON’T WANNA KNOW ABOUT A GARDEN. I WANT MY COUPLE.

Me: But there can be a garden in the cottage lol. I mean… Crowley loves plants. And Aziraphale pretended to be a gardener once. Also, I’m pretty sure Neil will give us a happy ending in season three.

Them: THANK YOU, NEIL.

Me: HE’S AN ANGEL. And a Demon. We hate you with love, Neil.

Them: Hahaha. Man… I’ll need therapy.

Me: We’ll need. We’ll send the bills to Neil lol. It’s his fault.

Them: Yesss.

Me: *crying* Oh, Crowley’s eyes full of tears before he puts on the sunglasses.

Them: MY GOD, YES, I NOTICED IT.

Me: What’s worse is that he had the best of intentions but not only Aziraphale is a bit dumb lol but also Crowley is not that good in communicating how he feels. Imagine the trauma. The only time he tried to do that it didn’t work.

Them: They both wanted to be together. But Azi still has a lot of that thing of respecting the Divine a little too much. And that ends up getting lost with Crowley.

Me: He has an extremely toxic relationship with Heaven. I can’t get over how his gaze was so sad when he realized he had lost Crowley the moment he leaned down his head to put on his sunglasses.

Them: DON’T SAY IT.

Me: BUT I ALREADY SAID IT.

Them: He’s dependent (of Heaven).

Me: Yeah. And like, he feels he needs it. When he cut off connections with Heaven he started reporting his good deeds to Crowley. He basically doesn’t know how to live without being an Angel working to Heaven.

Them: I think that’s a bit normal. Crowley is the kind of person that after a relationship is “Ok. Dead end”. But Azi has a sort of dependency.

Me: Yes. When both cut off connections it seemed like everything would be alright and that Aziraphale had finally understood how Heaven was. But the moment that was offered to him the opportunity to change Heaven from inside, all of that was lost.

Them: I even thought he would leave it there because he was doing some things out of line. BUT NO. Like, I get it that he wants to change it, but that would take millions of years. And maybe it would never happen.

Me: Unfortunately he believes a lot on everyone’s goodness and the greater good. He actually believes that the system is broken. But the thing is that the system is working exactly how it should and he doesn’t realize it.

Them: Exactly. It was like Crowley said. Both Heaven and Hell are toxic. It’s not for nothing that Gabriel and Beelzebub ran off.

Me: Yessss. And Aziraphale saw they could live without them. But on the other hand they couldn’t live on Earth and would always be hiding or running away. And not just that. He isn’t selfish to the point of grabbing the opportunity of being happy with Crowley in another place if he knows Earth and the people are in danger. Because Hell and Heaven still want the end of the world. He wants to do good. He wants to solve things. Even if it costs his own happiness. Because he said he didn’t want to go back to Heaven.

Them: YESSSS. Like, I understand both sides.

Me: Me too.

Them: But I’m sad.

Me: Sorry.

[xxsksxxx]

Almost Heaven

Summary:

Mulder’s attempt to find more exciting cases to investigate while stuck in the bullpen turns into another weekend trip to the forest.

Meanwhile, Scully is faced with a tempting offer that could change both her future and their lives.

Notes:

Thank you all for your reblogs and wonderful comments! I enjoyed them all so much.

From the people who shared their reactions to every chapter to the people who left theories of what might happen next or thoughts on whether they agreed with how the characters behaved, it was such a treat to read your comments. 💕

And I'm thrilled that people seem to like this story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

AO3 | Back to the Beginning | @today-in-fic

Chapter 12: Take Me Home

J. Edgar Hoover Building, Washington, D.C. FBI Headquarters—Bullpen Thursday, December 3rd, 1998, 10:30 am

Mulder leaned back in his office chair and watched Scully typing away at her report. He pursed his lips and lightly tapped his pen against his chin.

Scully reached over to her right without looking and took the cup he’d placed there a few minutes ago. The coffee was still steaming, and he watched her take a careful sip before she closed her eyes and hummed.

The familiar sight made him smile. If someone had told him a few months ago how happy it would make him to see his partner drink coffee, he’d have opened an X-File on them.

“Mulder, what on earth?” Scully’s coffee appreciation had not been long-lived, and she was staring at her monitor with a disapproving look. “You can’t be serious!”

Mulder grinned. He knew exactly what she had been reading and had waited for her to come across his thinly veiled sarcastic interpretation of their recent interview with a 16-year-old boy. The kid had admitted to hanging out at the Waterfront Resort with some of his friends in the evenings, after sneaking out of his bedroom window with a few cans of his dad’s beer.

‘During our investigation into the highly alarming activities reported at the Waterfront Resort after dark, we conducted an extensive cross-examination with the prime suspect, one Peter Bergtrade, male, 16 years. Mr. Bergtrade bravely, albeit shakily, confessed to the heinous act of having snuck out of his bedroom window late that evening to attend a prearranged meeting with three of his classmates at the Waterfront Resort. He also admitted to the offense of appropriating a supply of his father’s beer. After careful consideration, Agent Scully and I concluded that Mr. Bergtrade contributed heavily to the reported nighttime activities. After confessing to his horrible crimes, Mr. Bergtrade was handed into the custody of his legal guardians under the strict directive to not attend any more gatherings of the kind,’ Scully read monotonously from the screen.

She turned around in her chair, staring at him.

Mulder’s grin widened. “Yes? Anything wrong, Scully? Do you think Kersh will approve of our investigation?”

He watched her open her mouth and close it again with a snap, then she wordlessly turned back around and started typing furiously, muttering under her breath.

Mulder chuckled and turned back to his desk. They might not have the X-Files back yet, but they had each other. And until then, he’d make sure that they’d have interesting cases to investigate to get to the truth. For the first time in months, he felt calmness settling over him. Last weekend had turned out very differently than he could've expected in his wildest dreams. He felt his lips pulling up into a smile. All of a sudden, the future didn’t seem bleak at all. No, he was looking forward to what it would bring. For them. Together.

His eyes dropped to the envelope lying next to his keyboard for probably the 10th time today. Why am I making such a big deal out of this? he thought, shaking his head at his jittery nerves. This is Scully, he reminded himself.

Without turning around, he asked casually, “Any plans for the weekend, Scully?”

Scully was silent behind him, but he could feel her gaze boring into the back of his head. “Well, I was thinking about reading an article or two in the new edition of my medical journal that arrived yesterday. Maybe I’ll even find time to fold some laundry,” she replied playfully, and Mulder felt his shoulders relax.

He grabbed the envelope, turned around, and moved his chair closer to hers, bending his head close so the other agents in the bullpen wouldn’t be able to overhear them. “As wonderful as that sounds, I was wondering whether I could inspire you to join me on another thrilling adventure.”

He handed her the envelope, which she took, a question in her eyes. “Another adventure, Mulder? What is this? And do I have to pack hiking boots? This time, please tell me. My shoes are still drying from last weekend.” She carefully opened the envelope, pulled out a small pamphlet with a two-story building at the sea on the cover, and started to read, her brow furrowing. “Mulder, what is this?”

“It’s a haunted bed and breakfast, Scully,” he explained, and Scully snorted. Undeterred, he continued. “It’s called Aida’s Victoriana Inn, and apparently a former guest died there in the 19th century. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the time to pay his bill before departing this life, so he’s wandering the Inn, trying to leave money for the owner.”

“Well, an honest ghost, one has to love them,” she quipped. She looked up from the pamphlet and glanced around to make sure they were still not being watched, before giving him a look. “A haunted bed and breakfast, Mulder? Really?”

“It’s also considered cozy and romantic,” he added and winked.

To his utter delight, she started to blush and ducked her head. But not before he could see her trying to suppress a beaming smile. “So what do you say, Scully? Want to spend the weekend with me, investigating polite ghosts at the sea? We could leave tomorrow afternoon, right after finishing our exciting day of work.”

Scully looked back up, not concealing her smile, her eyes sparkling with happiness. “You always keep me guessing, Mulder.”

He reached over and curled his hand around her neck, pulling her in, his lips curling into a soft smile. “That’s the plan, Scully. That’s the plan. I’ll always make our lives interesting.”

The End.

[paulagnewart]

Sonic the Oz-Hog Act 12/12: Carry On, My Wayward Sonic!

Sonic the Hedgehog issue 266 AU Publication Date: 29th December 2014 Price: $8.50

Carry On, My Wayward Sonic. There'll Be Peace When 'Botnik's Gone. Lay Your Weary Legs to Rest. Freedom Fight No More.

Obligatory parodies aside, there comes a time when everyone has to stop and say goodbye. Sometimes it's sudden, others gradual and methodical, yet its lingering hurt remains the same. As the space year that is 2024 reaches a close, there's still time for one last super sonic spin back to 10 years ago, when Australian fans prepared to pour one out for their favourite comic book.

Farewells were equally present at the box office. After knocking Katniss Everdeen from her three week domination, eager moviegoers entered a war on which final installment of a trilogy would reign supreme. They paid tribute to the dearly departed Robin Williams and Mickey Rooney, neither of whom lived to see Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb while Christopher Lee and Ian Holm bid goodbye to in what would prove their final film roles in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

But with goodbyes came new beginnings. The final few weeks of 2014 belonged to Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars when their acclaimed collaboration Uptown Funk worked its magic all the way up the charts. And if someone from the future materialised to proclaim Uptown Funk would not only be among the top 3 selling singles of all time, but remain popular enough to feature over seven years later as part of a dance sequence in the second live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movie? Fans would probably reply "There's a *second* Sonic movie?!"

It can be hard to imagine there was a time the Blue Blur's big cinematic feature almost never happened. When news broke in June via The Hollywood Reporter that Sony were deep in developing such a film, fans met the news with extreme trepidation. A live-action/animated hybrid like their successful Smurfs films? The latest news being a conversation a month earlier with co-writer Van Robichaux, whom already proclaimed being a big fan of the series, announced their script was aiming for a PG-13 rating for violence. Fans openly pondered a potential dark and edgy hedgy awaited them. None of which would be found in the equally perplexing rumours of something called Sonic Runners.

So what of the local political scene? After fifteen months in the top job, that oft-quoted "honeymoon period" was well and truly over for Tony Abbott. He may have coerced voters by a grand sweep of electoral reforms including that pivotal "No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS!" promise, but the usually complicit conservative mainstream media smelt blood, and begun the usual trick of turning against their once-adored conservative Prime Minister.

2014 saw the proverbial dominos fell. A harsh annual budget built on electoral backflips and $5 billion dollar deficit, heavy losses in the Victorian election and South Australia by-election, to say nothing of pushing unpopular policies such as deregulating university fees. "Yes, it's difficult..." Abbott (con)fronted the press a week prior. "...but step-by-step it's getting done and I think the public in the end will focus on the substance and not on the soap opera." To Abbott's credit however, he vowed to "sweat blood" in achieving constitutional recognition for Australia's Indigenous population, but not before a pre-Christmas cabinet reshuffle. Ironically said reshuffle played in the favour of conservative colleagues Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton, both of whom destined to play pivotal roles bringing Abbott's leadership, and the prospects of Indigenous recognition, to an end.

As for the increasingly cultural dead zone that was free family entertainment, Toasted TV joined the ranks of trundling over to exclusively digital channel Eleven, and on that day aired a flurry of Care Bears: Welcome to Care-A-Lot, Mia & Me, Pokemon XY, Totally Wild and Lalaloopsy repeats. Only a new adventure of Wakfu at 7:30am was there to break up the cavalcade. Channel 9's output offered little better; a whole day of repeats ranging from Digimon Fusion and Max Steel, to Winx Club, Power Rangers Megaforce and Super Megaforce, along with perennial Thunderbirds half-hour 'cliffhanger' edition of 'Brink of Disaster'. As with their competition, only a single new toon that day; the classic Yu-Gi-Oh! episode 'Unwanted Guest: Part 2', ironically once rival Ten's media darling, this and the entire fifth season were skipped, instead chosen to purchase the supposed white-hot Yu-Gi-Oh! GX.

The carefree days of early morning children's entertainment were long gone, as was the Sonic fandom's critical reception landscape. Social Media had by that point permanently wired itself into its collective consciousness, making it further difficult to gauge unified reactions. Yet at least four vanguards of the message board days remained standing. Sonic Retro… didn't talk about the story, instead focused on speculating the lineup of Sonic and Mega Man's impending Worlds Unite crossover. The fine folks over at Power Rings were in a similar boat. Archie Sonic was still their bread and butter, however its remaining users had shifted more towards sharing their own sprite comics and fanfics. And as for Sonic Stadium, any reviews swiftly disappeared under a flurry of soon-to-be-deleted pages debating Sonic's status as "a Free Spirit that can't be controlled!", or whether Ian would keep his word on Shard making a comeback. It's telling when independent sites like Arcade Sushi were giving the comic more attention.

For any self-respecting Archie Sonic enthusiast still looking to dig deep into their favourite comic, Ian's very own BumbleKing Forums remained the place to be. Cracks were slowly beginning to appear which would ultimately cause the board's demise, but for that moment, its hundreds of rowdy regulars still went about happily posting their comments and speculations. Or at least some were happy.

"Plotwise it was really neat seeing Sonic in a situation like this." They started. "He's so worried about the Werehog hurting people and it makes sense all he knows is he Hulked out and wrecked some stuff and he's not going to let that happen. People keep talking about how a more "Segay" Sonic can't have character development but I've felt more connection with this archie-Sonic than the one Pre-Reboot. I can really truely see that this Sonic is a hero he wants to help people he'll do whatever it takes he'll trin with Moss to make sure he doesn't get anyone hurt.". Such was the enthusiasm that "I never really felt that with Pre-Reboot Sonic he also felt like the moron that SatAM played him as who treated everything like a game and saving lives was an after thought. I really couldn't see Pre-Reboot Sonic staying behind to make sure the Werehog didn't kill anyone. He'd more wing it and hope everything turned out okay."

"Moss is starting to grow on me! :(hearty laughter):" Said another pleased user. "No, but seriously, Moss just became my new fa-vorite character in this universe (Sorry, Relic). Its like, he's cool & calm, can can give sonic a run for his money (In the jungle that is, but probably other places too), & seems like hes trolling even though hes giving wisdom! I also kinda like the idea of Mighty leading his own team of freedom fighters. That would be an interesting concept"

Not everyone shared this sentiment. "Ladies and gentlemen, I think we may have our first post-reboot Mary Sue. Meet Moss: A representa-tive of (some vague version of) a real-world religion, whose teachings in that religion--despite not be-ing at all related to Sonic's beliefs--are just what Sonic needs to hear so he can solve his problem. (Hey, just 'cuz he's not accepting any Personal Lords or Saviors today doesn't mean it's not preachy.)" the complaints began. "Moss is so wise, in fact, that Mighty (who before the reboot was peaceful because that's just the kind of guy he was) now owes his ability to keep his cool to Moss's teachings, and preaches about how wise Moss is at every opportunity. Moss is even so wise that he can crack wise at Sonic, and condescend at every turn, and still have Sonic (grudgingly) respect him! (What is he, the SatAM version of Sally?) But Moss brings more to the story than just wisdom: He can also give Sonic a run for his mony in a race! How does he do this? While he may not possess Sonic's speed, he is able to use his environment to his ad-vantage in ways Sonic can't, just like Knuckles did in the Genesis games. Ugh. If I were in Sonic's posi-tion, there's no way I'd train with this guy to help me control my anger. Every time he opens his mouth, I want to punch him!"

Other users joined in the debate, going so far comparing Moss unfavourably to the likes of Master Spliter or Yoda. A sentiment not universally shared, yet more often than not "…definitely getting on my nerves, and for more than one reason. He's cliched like all heck, but that's not what really bugs me, it's that he's overshadowing Sonic's friends, who belong in Moss's role much more than he does. Tails mentions "we can help [Sonic]", and yeah, he's right. Why is Sonic trusting this random hippie when he has his friends to fall back on to help him control the Werehog?"

Elsewhere Sally Acorn was undergoing her now-standard cycle of revolving lovedom and hatedom, some arguing her place as being "bland" and "a blank slate" in the new timeline. A female character put to task by fans over personality problems? What a surprise. Nor would she be the last, when one member emphatically demanded "Why are Cream and Big sidelined ? I mean, Sonic Heroes took place in this world, didn't it ? Like, seriously? I know Cream is a little girl, but come on! Shes like the only one who barely gets do anything! The only thing Ive seen her do was just serve tea & cookies like 2-3 times now! Heck, even Big is at least doing something in the next SU arc! If Heroes, Battle, & Advanced 3 happened in this world, She had at least have some sort of skills that can allow her to go on mis-sions! I mean she can fly, use cheese as a freaking projectile, she can do a spin like everyone else (I think almost all sonic characters, or at least 7 of them can), & with two other people, she can use thundershoot! & Its not like she has to do missions by herself but let her have some of the spotlight at least!". Others agreed, declaring "For cream it's like old continuity amy rose all over again.".

From the more mixed side of Mobius, "I enjoyed the issue, but does anyone else feel like Sonic gained control over the Werehog way too quickly? For all the trouble it's been giving him ever since he got gassed back in "Countdown to Chaos", it feels kind of cheap for him get it under control so easily after only one out of control transfor-mation." however "I'm enjoying Sonic and Mighty's continued interaction in this storyline. They finally feel like actual friends, unlike the old continuity where their friendship was more of something that was just talked about rather than shown for the most part.". Elsewhere fans had just about their fill of Robotnik's newest creations hogging the spotlight, declaring "I really hope the staff is getting all the E-100s out of their system, because that's a ridiculous amount at this point.".

Archie Sonic's sweeping reboot was proving something of a mixed bag among fans both new and old, with a rift forming between the optimistic and pessimistic. "This isn't going to be over in a year." One fan openly opined in what would prove frighteningly prophetic. "It'll be amazing if The Shattered World Crisis is even over in 2016. I say this as someone who's actually enjoying the Arc/Saga/Epic/Whatever and think's it's the bet the books been in a long time but there's such a thing as a story being too decompressed."

It's a story thousands of Australian fans would miss.

Comic imports were in steep decline, and by late 2014 only a smattering of DC, Archie and Dark Horse titles remained. In spite of being one of distributor Gordon and Gotch's longest-running and best-selling comic imports, the future of Archie Sonic was abruptly cut. Issue 267 was still solicited for a 29th January 2015 release but would never see the light of day. How ironic the comic ended on Sally Acorn, once a media darling and face of SEGA World Sydney, take a hit and collapse from Robotnik's horde. Not exactly a subtle "out with the old" policy.

Beyond a handful of sporadic Super Digests, Sonic's near-unbroken streak of 22 years standing proud at newsagents, toy stores and supermarkets across the land down under was over. Sure fans could visit comic stores for later issues, but those were (and still are) rare compared to newsagents.

It outlived Image, Malibu, IDW and even Marvel imports. It continued the adventures of Sonic between the extensive breaks between cartoons. It was readily available to virtually every town who ordered newspapers. It offered affordable adventures for those of us who lived through "the recession Australia had to have".

In an era of numerous self-aggrandising social media infuenzas who claim everything before a certain year is rubbish, or love pedalling out that ever-present pathetically playground-level buzzword about Archie Sonic being "weird", or those superficially pointless debates over what's a superior canon, none of that matters. Above all else, the comics made so many fans happy. It sparked imaginations, driving them to read more, to create stories and artwork of their very own.

Quite the way past cool legacy.

[betterbooktitles]

Because I was taller than everyone else on my fifth-grade baseball team, my strike zone was slightly larger than most. That fact alone must have led to a few more pitches going unanswered when I was at bat. It also didn’t help that I was deathly afraid of the ball.

My dad, not the biggest sports enthusiast, took the time in the evenings after work both during and after baseball season to toss small plastic whiffle balls (about a 6th of the size of a regular baseball) at me that I would then swat a sad few feet from where we stood in the front yard. He was always in his dress clothes, and as the sun set behind him, it felt like everyone in our neighborhood was hiding inside during our 10-minute drill.

“Keep your eye on the ball.” he’d say before underhand tossing the practice pitch, having no idea the reason I had watched the last 9 strikes in one game pass the plate in front of me wasn’t an inability to see the ball coming, but the exact opposite: I saw it flying right at me and was frozen by fear.

Recently, I found the baseball cards they’d made for our rec teams. There I am smiling, bat in hand, not an inkling of fear on my face since I was staring down a camera and not a pitcher. The back of the cards featured my weight, height, and various stats, including 0 RBIs. The more impressive numbers reported: I had jumped from 5’1” to 5’11” over three summers.

Being tall at 12, and remaining relatively tall until most kids caught up with me in high school, had its advantages. I played center in basketball and rarely had to jump for a rebound, I was a decent first baseman because I wasn’t afraid of a ball when I had a mitt to catch it in, and adults, simply by virtue of my being the same size as them, mistakenly talked to me as if I were a peer. 

“The problem with this fucking place…” the new head of my community theater confided in me as I sat in the box office and handed a parent her change, “is there are too many chefs!” My new boss kept her flat black hair short and wore fat earrings. She was in her mid-50s and had been given the job after the board fired her friend and colleague of 15 years from the same position. Our new leader had spent much of her career teaching children how to sing in harmony, not fundraising and attending advertising meetings, and she was adjusting. I was 11 or 12, hearing an adult woman vent for the first time about what I had assumed was a nice promotion.

“It’s like that pasta fundraiser we did,” she continued, “Everyone brought in a sauce from home, but imagine if we had mixed them all together? You bring your grandma’s famous recipe in and dump it in with a bunch of Ragu, what does it taste like? It all tastes like Ragu, you know?”

I nodded as if I knew. “I get you.” I said, speaking slowly so my voice didn’t crack. I had recently visited New Orleans and had tried to yell something funny at my family while crossing the street, and out came a high-pitched whistle instead. A man in a suit walking past us mirthfully smiled to himself, knowing exactly what had happened. Since then, I remained cognizant of how deep I needed to keep my voice to not slip. Plus I wanted this woman to keep speaking to me like a coworker. “You don’t want to be watered down.”

“Yes. It’s like that. Imagine that for every person who brought in Ragu, someone else brought in a bottle of piss to mix in. That’s what the board meetings are like. Their ideas are like piss mixed into a pasta sauce.”

I giggled and quickly cleared my throat before saying in a deep voice: “Tell me about it.”

The disadvantage of tallness was that from 3rd to 6th grade, it was assumed that I could do everything myself. They started asking for tall guy favors. Tiny teachers asked me to retrieve supplies from high shelves and old ladies I didn’t know stopped me on the street and asked me to help carry their groceries from their cars. No one was worried about a boy who looked 18 at age 11, but that also meant I had to desperately seek out the right friends if I wanted to talk about Pokémon and anime instead of someone asking if I could buy them porn or cigarettes or firecrackers. Still, like many kids, I wanted to be older than I was and I relished my tall kid privilege. I walked to the mall alone, I walked into R-rated movies without anyone on staff stopping me, and I stood outside the back entrance of my community theater where the director and crew members smoked cigarettes and talked to them about their love lives. Never in my life did older people cover their mouths after they swore or steer conversations away from sex at the sight of me. 

This early independence may have been what my parents wanted.

“We treated you like little adults even though we knew we weren’t supposed to.” My mom revealed to me on a recent trip to see my family in North Carolina. In the open-concept house down the street from where my brother settled after college, we reminisced about Cleveland from afar, my brother chiming in periodically to say how our old neighborhood had changed for the better, what buildings had been demolished and rebuilt because they were a lost cause. Schools had been turned into suburban developments, dilapidated gyms became giant complexes for rec soccer leagues, and a bunch of fuck-up alcoholics we’d known in school had become successful lawyers (who still drank too much).

“We let you decide where we ate and what sports you played,” my Mom continued, “you weren’t supposed to let kids decide all that, even in the 90s.” 

My dad, half-awake in a recliner, said that when he told a friend how he used to leave his 11-year-old alone to make sure his 8-year-old son got the school bus on time every morning, and the friend said that practice was tantamount to child abuse. Whatever trauma I experienced from having time alone with my brother (?) fails to compare to how I feel about adults who spoke to me from age 10-15. 

By the time I was a teenager, I’d fully accepted my early adulthood. When I wasn’t playing a sport or acting in a play, my number one hobby was taking a John Updike book (sorry) to a coffee shop. I frequented a place within walking distance of my house in Cleveland called Talkies. I sat at the front bar with my book and ate a second lunch at 3 PM. I talked to random people sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes inside. One was a researcher at Case Western who studied molecular biology. He seemed to know no one in Cleveland except me and the baristas. Another guy was a white dude with dreadlocks, a gifted actor who bussed tables at the fancy restaurant next door. Every barista was a 20-something woman who told me about their various trysts in graphic detail. Multiple times the men offered me cigarettes or to split a joint outside. No wonder it took me years to finish one of the Rabbit novels. I was soaking up more than enough adult content in my real life than any book could offer.

The oddest encounter occurred at a hotel in Annapolis, Maryland when I was 15...

Read the rest here.

[mariacallous]

Jalon Hall thought she was being scammed when a recruiter reached out on LinkedIn about a job moderating YouTube videos in 2020. Months after earning a master’s degree in criminal justice, her only job had been at a law firm investigating discrimination cases. But the offer was real, and Hall, who is Black and Deaf, sailed through the interviews.

She would be part of a new in-house moderation team of about 100 people called Wolverine, trudging daily through freezing weather to offices in suburban Detroit during the early pandemic. When she accepted the job, the recruiter said via email that a sign language interpreter would be provided “and can be fully accommodated :)” That assurance unraveled within days of joining Google—and her experience at the company has proven difficult in the years since.

Hall now works on responsible use of AI at Google and by all available accounts is the company’s first and only Black, Deaf employee. The company has feted her at events and online as representative of a workplace welcoming to all. Google’s LinkedIn account praised her last year for “helping expand opportunities for Black Deaf professionals!” while on Instagram the company thanked her “for making #LifeAtGoogle more inclusive!” Yet behind the rosy marketing, Hall accuses Google of subjecting her to both racism and audism, prejudice against the deaf or hard of hearing. She says the company denied her access to a sign language interpreter and slow-walked upgrades to essential tools.

After filing three HR complaints that she says yielded little change, Hall sued Google in December, alleging discrimination based on her race and disability. The company responded this week, arguing that the case should be thrown out on procedural grounds, including bringing the claims too late, but didn’t deny Hall’s accusations. “Google is using me to make them look inclusive for the Deaf community and the overall Disability community,” she says. “In reality, they need to do better.”

Hall, who is in her thirties, has stayed at Google in hopes of spurring improvements for others. She chose to talk with WIRED despite fearing for her safety and job prospects because she feels the company has ignored her. “I was born to push through hard times,” she says. “It would be selfish to quit Google. I’m standing in the gap for those often pushed aside.” Hall’s experiences, which have not been previously reported, are corroborated by over two dozen internal documents seen by WIRED as well as interviews with four colleagues she confided in and worked alongside.

Employees who are Black or disabled are in tiny minorities at Google, a company of nearly 183,000 people that has long been criticized for an internal culture that heavily favors people who fit tech industry norms. Google’s Deaf and hard-of-hearing employee group has 40 members. And Black women, who make up only about 2.4 percent of Google’s US workforce, leave the company at a disproportionately higher rate than women of other races, company data showed last year.

Several former Black women employees, including AI researcher Timnit Gebru and recruiter April Christina Curley, have publicly alleged they were sidelined by an internal culture that disrespected them. Curley is leading a proposed class action lawsuit accusing Google of systemic bias but has lost initial court battles.

Google spokesperson Emily Hawkins didn’t directly address Hall’s allegations when asked about them by WIRED. “We are committed to building an inclusive workplace and offer a range of accommodations to support the success of our employees, including sign language interpreters and captioning,” Hawkins says.

Figuring out how to accommodate people like Hall could be good business for Google. One in every 10 people by 2050 will have disabling hearing loss, according to the World Health Organization.

Mark Takano, who represents a slice of Southern California in the US House and cochairs the Congressional Deaf Caucus, says that Google has an obligation to lead the way in demonstrating that its technology and employment practices are accommodating. “When Deaf and hard-of-hearing employees are excluded because of the inability to provide an accessible workplace, there is a great pool of talent that is left untapped—and we all lose out,” he says.

Unaccommodated

Hall was born with profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss, meaning that even with hearing aids her brain cannot process sounds well. Two separate audiologists in memos to Google said Hall needs an American Sign Language interpreter full-time. She also signs pre- and post-segregation Black ASL, which uses more two-handed signs and incorporates some African American vernacular.

During her childhood in Louisiana, Hall's parents pushed her into speech therapy and conventional schools, where she found that some people doubted she was Deaf because she can speak. She later attended a high school for Deaf students where she became homecoming and prom queen, and realized how much more she could achieve when provided appropriate support.

Hall expected to find a similar environment at Google when she moved to Farmington Hills, Michigan, to become a content moderator. The company contracts ASL interpreters from a vendor called Deaf Services of Palo Alto, or DSPA. But though Hall had been assigned to enforce YouTube’s child safety rules, managers wouldn’t let her interpreters help her review that content. Google worried about exposing contractors to graphic imagery and cited confidentiality concerns, despite the fact interpreters in the US follow a code of conduct that includes confidentiality standards.

Managers transferred Hall into training to screen for videos spreading misinformation about Covid and elections. She developed a workflow that saw her default to using lipreading and automated transcriptions to review videos and turn to her interpreter if she needed further help. The transcriptions on videos used in training were high quality, so she had little trouble.

Her system fell apart late in January 2021, about 20 minutes into one of her first days screening new content. The latest video in her queue was difficult to make sense of using lipreading, and the AI transcriptions in the software YouTube built for moderators were poor quality or even absent for recently uploaded content. She turned to her interpreter’s desk a few feet away—but to her surprise it was empty. “I was going to say, ‘Do you mind coming listening to this?’” she recalls.

Hall rose to ask a manager about the interpreter’s whereabouts. He told her that he and fellow managers had decided that she could no longer have an interpreter in the room because it threatened the confidentiality of the team’s work. She could now talk with her interpreter only during breaks or briefly bring them in to clarify policies with managers. She was told to skip any videos she couldn’t judge through sight alone.

Feeling wronged and confused by the new restrictions, Hall slumped back into her chair. US law requires companies to provide reasonable accommodations to a disabled worker unless it would cause the employer significant difficulty or expense. “This was not a reasonable accommodation,” she says. “I was thinking, What did I get myself into? Do they not believe I’m Deaf? I need my interpreter all day. Why are you robbing me of the chance of doing my job?”

‘Pushed Aside’

Without her interpreter, Hall struggled. She rarely met the quota of 75 videos each moderator was expected to review over an eight-hour day. She often had to watch through a video in its entirety, sometimes more than an hour, before concluding she could not assess it. “I felt humiliated, realizing that I would not grow in my career,” she says.

Throughout that February, Hall spoke to managers across YouTube about the need for better transcriptions in the moderation software. They told her it would take weeks or more to improve them, possibly even years. She asked for a transfer to child safety, since she had heard from a colleague that visuals alone could be used to decide many of those videos. An HR complaint filed that spring led nowhere.

Black and disabled colleagues eventually helped secure Hall a transfer into Google’s Responsible AI and Human-Centered Technology division in July 2021. It is run by vice president Marian Croak, Google’s most distinguished Black female technical leader. Hall says Croak supported her and described what she’d been through as unacceptable. But even in the new role, Hall’s interpreter was restricted to non-confidential conversations.

Hall says the discrimination against her has continued under her new manager, who is also Black, leading to her exclusion from projects and meetings. Even when she’s present some coworkers don’t make much effort to include her. “My point of view is often not heard,” Hall says. In 2021, she joined two gatherings of Google’s Equitable AI Research Roundtable, an advisory body, but then wasn’t invited again. “I feel hidden and pushed aside,” she says.

Hall filed an internal complaint against her manager in March 2022, and an HR staffer has joined their one-on-one meetings since October of that year. One of the interpreters who has assisted Hall says the friction Deaf workers encounter is sadly unsurprising. “People truly don’t take the time to learn about their peers,” the interpreter says.

The allegations are notable in part because a civil rights audit Google commissioned found last March that it needs to do more to train managers. “One of the largest areas of opportunity is improving managers’ ability to lead a diverse workforce,” attorneys for WilmerHale wrote. Hawkins, the Google spokesperson, says all employees have access to inclusion training.

Hall says when she has access to an interpreter, they are rotated throughout the week, forcing her to repeatedly explain some technical concepts. “Google is going the cheap route,” Hall claims, saying her interpreters in university were more literate in tech jargon.

Kathy Kaufman, director of coordinating services at DSPA, says it pays above market rates, dedicates a small pool to each company so the vocabulary becomes familiar, hires tech specialists, and trains those who are not. Kaufman also declined to confirm that Google is a client or comment on its policies.

Google’s Hawkins says that the company is trying to make improvements. Google’s accommodations team is currently seeking employees to join a new working group to smooth over policies and procedures related to disabilities.

Beside Hall’s concerns, Deaf workers over the past two years have complained about Google’s plans—shelved, for now—to switch away from DSPA without providing assurances that a new interpreter provider would be better, according to a former Google employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect their job prospects. Blind employees have had the human guides they rely on excluded from internal systems due to confidentiality concerns in recent years, and they have long complained that key internal tools, like a widely used assignment tracker, are incompatible with screen readers, according to a second former employee.

Advocates for disabled workers try to hold out hope but are discouraged. “The premise that everyone deserves a shot at every role rests on the company doing whatever it takes to provide accommodations,” says Stephanie Parker, a former senior strategist at YouTube who helped Hall navigate the Google bureaucracy. “From my experience with Google, there is a pretty glaring lack of commitment to accessibility.”

Not Recorded

Hall has been left to watch as colleagues hired alongside her as content moderators got promoted. More than three years after joining Google, she remains a level 2 employee on its internal ranking, defined as someone who receives significant oversight from a manager, making her ineligible for Google peer support and retention programs. Internal data shows that most L2 employees reach L3 within three years.

Last August, Hall started her own community, the Black Googler Network Deaf Alliance, teaching its members sign language and sharing videos and articles about the Black Deaf community. “This is still a hearing world, and the Deaf and hearing have to come together,” she says.

On the responsible AI team, Hall has been compiling research that would help people at Google working on AI services such as virtual assistants understand how to make them accessible to the Black Deaf community. She personally recruited 20 Black Deaf users to discuss their views on the future of technology for about 90 minutes in exchange for up to $100 each; Google, which reported nearly $74 billion in profit last year, would only pay for 13. The project was further derailed by an unexpected flaw in Google Meet, the company’s video chat service.

Hall’s first interview was with someone who is Deaf and Blind. The 90-minute call, which included two interpreters to help her and the subject converse, went well. But when Hall pulled up the recording to begin putting together her report, it was almost entirely blank. Only when Hall’s interpreter spoke did the video include any visuals. The signing between everyone on the call was missing, preventing her from fully transcribing the interview. It turned out that Google Meet doesn’t record video of people who aren’t vocalizing, even when their microphones are unmuted.

“My heart dropped,” Hall told WIRED using the video chat app Sivo, which allows all participants to see each other while a hearing person and sign language interpreter speak by phone. Hall spent the evening trying to soothe her devastation, meditating, praying, and playing with her dog, which she has trained in ASL commands.

Hall filed a support ticket and spoke to a top engineer for Google Meet who said fixing the issue wasn’t a priority. WIRED later found evidence that users had publicly reported similar issues for years. Microsoft Teams generally will record signing, but Hall wasn’t permitted to use it. She ended up hacking together a workflow for documenting her interviews by laboriously editing together Meet recordings and screen-captured video using tools that she paid $46 a month for out of her own pocket.

Company spokesperson Hawkins did not dispute Meet’s limitations but claims support for the Deaf community is a priority at Google, where work underway includes developing computer vision software to translate sign language.

Google leaders have often paid lip service to the importance of including people with diverse experiences in research and development, but Hall has found the reality lacking. Despite her understanding of the Black Deaf community and research into its needs, she says she is yet to be invited to support the sign translation work. In her experience, Google’s conception of diversity can be narrow. “In the AI department, a lot of conversations are around race and gender,” Hall says. “No one emphasizes disability.”

Her research showed Black, Deaf users are concerned about the potential for AI systems to misinterpret signs, generate poor captions, take jobs from interpreters, and disadvantage individuals who opt for manual interpretation. It underscored that companies need to consider whether new tools would make someone who is unable to hear feel closer or further from the people with whom they are communicating.

Hall presented her findings internally last December over a Google Meet call. Twenty-four colleagues joined, including a research director. Hall had been encouraged, including by Croak, to invite a much larger audience from across the company but ultimately stuck with the short list insisted upon by her manager. She didn’t even bother trying to record it.

[anothershorthuman]

Songs That Remind Me Of You: Prologue

A series in which Jihoon realizes that he loves you a little too late.

pairings: fem!reader x jihoon, hints at fem!reader x seungcheol

word count: 2.1k

genre: angst? unrequited love, high school au to eventual college au, slice of life

chpt summary: the origins of your friendship with jihoon and the origin of his feelings for you

track 0 - Falling For U by Peachy! ft. mxmtoon

♫♪♩♫♪♩

I was hangin' with you and then I realized

I didn't think it was true, I was surprised

When I found out I've fallen for you

♫♪♩♫♪♩

I didn't wanna believe my feelings for you

I didn't wanna believe that I could lose you

If I told you just how I felt

When Jihoon first met you, he thought you were annoying. You were paired together in a chemistry class your sophomore year of high school. Working on this lab with you was torture, you’d always skip a step of the instructions or left a solution over a buntsen burner for too long. More often than not, Jihoon found himself fixing your mistakes. 

He complained to his friends about how much of a clutz you were and how he hated the teacher for pairing together. It was only a day later that you changed his mind. You were nearly late for class, rushing into your seat next to his at the last second. You slid a stack of papers stapled together across the table in his direction and his eyes nearly bulged out of his head when he realized that it was your lab report. 

“We were supposed to work on this together over the weekend. How’d you manage to write 10 pages on your own in one night?” He quickly scans multiple pages, all of your work was spot on. 

You pick at your nails, avoiding eye contact, “I thought I’d make up for messing up the experiment so many times. Didn’t want you to feel like you were doing all the work.”

After that, the chem teacher kept pairing the two of you together for labs, saying something about the two of you working well together. Jihoon helped you get better at staying on task and getting an experiment done while you helped him write a better conclusion to a lab. 

With time, Jihoon realized that he actually liked being around you. You never overstepped any boundaries and were hardworking. You were kind but not a push-over. And most importantly, you were the most non judgemental person he had ever met in his life.

Whenever he would tell you about the latest anime episode he had watched, you asked him questions about the lore of the show. If he complained about the band teacher wanting to give his clarinet solo to someone else, you would get annoyed too. You really were the most loyal of his friends. 

During junior year, the two of you settled in the same friend group after being put in nearly all the same classes. It wasn’t a big group of friends, there were five of you: Soonyoung (a trumpet player Jihoon met in band), Sana (your friend from middle school), Changkyun (a boy that coincidentally sat near the four of you in your calculus class), Jihoon and you.

The five of you remained a friend group during the rest of your time in high school. You all went to homecoming together, squished into Changkyun’s car. Sana, Changkyun, and you would go to every football game your team had. Not to support the football team, but to watch Jihoon and Soonyoung march during halftime. You would all go see Sana’s dance recitals. Your basement became the go-to location for any get together, any movie night or half-assed birthday parties. Once, when your parents left the state for a wedding, the five of you got drunk together for the first time, drinking a jungle juice made by Changkyuns older brother.

The point was, you were spending a lot of time with each other. And it was one of those nights, in the middle of your hangouts, that he realized he liked you a little bit more than just platonically. Or, well, your friends realized it for him.

You stood up from your seat on the couch and said that you’d be back, your parents needed help with bringing in groceries from the car. They offered to pause the movie and you said you had already seen the movie before so it didn’t matter. They paused it anyway. You disappeared after going up the stairwell.

“What are we gonna do for her birthday?” Sana asked. Your birthday was three weeks from then. Hm, what should Jihoon get you? Last year he hadn’t known you well enough to get you a present but he definitely should this year. And it had to be a good gift, something you would actually use, something that every time you looked at it, you’d think of him.

Soonyoung nudged him, “What are you getting her?” 

“I don’t really know yet.”

“Really?” Changkyun asked. “I thought you’d already have everything planned.”

Jihoon’s confused, “Why would I already have everything planned?” 

He’s taking a sip of his coke when Changkyun answers, “Well, you have a crush on her.”

Instantly, Jihoon is launched into a coughing fit, having nearly choked on his drink. He clumsily places his drink down and doubles over coughing. Soonyoung and Changkyun are falling over too, but from laughing at him.

“Come on, dude.” Sana chuckles and pats him on the back to try to help him with his coughing. “You’re so obvious about it, you didn’t really think we wouldn’t notice, did you.”

Once the burning in his throat has died down, Jihoon takes another sip of his drink, wanting to avoid talking to his teasing friends.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He mumbles.

Soonyoung snorts, “You mean you don’t look for her from the stands during every game? Or give her heart eyes when you’re in the same room as her? Or turn red when she calls you Jihoonie?”

The three of them are laughing at him again and Jihoon glances at the stairs, making sure you’re not hearing any of this conversation. 

“I'm not even joking, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

There's a beat of silence as your friends stare at Jihoon, trying to gauge how honest he’s being. A look of disbelief comes over their faces. 

“You mean,” Sana softly says, “We figured out you like her before you did?” 

Jihoon can feel his ears burning, and he rubs them self consciously. He can’t even bring himself to look at them. He’s thinking about you and how your smile makes him feel lighter and how whenever he makes a joke he’ll make sure it made you laugh. It definitely would make sense if Jihoon had a crush on you.

Suddenly, you're flying down the stairs. You fall over onto the couch between Sana and Jihoon, giggling to yourself like a maniac. You sit up turning to Sana, grabbing onto her shoulders and giving her a shake, “You’ll never believe what just happened!”

“What is it, woman?” Sana exclaims, trying to stop you from shaking her. 

“Remember Seungcheol? My neighbor?”

Immediately, the three boys are groaning in protest. Of course they know about Seungcheol, you only talk about him every single time the opportunity presents itself.

Seungcheol is a year older than you, currently the varsity captain of the wrestling team. After he moved into the house next to yours at the beginning of the year, all you ever have to say about him is oh, his muscles are so big. Jihoon, look at his hair, it looks so soft. Oh my god, I think he was looking at me. Jihoon wasn’t sure why he disliked Seungcheol when he actually was a kind person, but now he’s able to realize that it’s due to jealousy. The other boys are just sick of hearing you gush over a guy that doesn’t give you the time of day. Sana is the only one of your friends willing to hear you out on this absurd crush.

“What about Seungcheol?” Sana asks you.

“He pulled up to his house while we were unloading groceries and he came over to help–”  “So he did one nice thing.” Soonyoung interrupts you. 

“Shut up, Soon! He’s always nice, but that isn’t the point.” 

Huh, the pout on your face is sort of cute, Jihoon thinks. 

“Anyways, when we finished, he asked to talk to me outside, and he asked me out!”

You’re squealing in excitement again, oblivious to the looks of terror and sympathy that Jihoons friends are sending him. He feels his heart sink.

Maybe it was better to stay unaware of his feelings, it’s not like he had a chance anyways. Still, he put on a fake smile like the rest of his friends.

“Oh my god!” Sana says. “That's so exciting!”

Soon enough, you’re all finishing up the movie, even if he can’t seem to focus on the screen. Seungcheol was a good guy, he should be happy for you. This was something that you had been wanting for a while and it was finally happening. Jihoon refused to be the person to ruin that for you. When the movie is over and Changkyun is driving everyone else back home, there's a tense silence.

Soonyoung clears his throat, nudging Jihoons foot with his own from the backseat, “They barely know anything about each other, maybe this is just a fling. It’ll pass.”

Changkyun looks at the two from the rearview mirror, “Yea, Seungcheol barely even looked at her before this. It’s kind of weird that he just asked her out.”

“Guys stop,” Sana says. She doesn’t turn to look at the boys in the car, instead looking outside through the passenger window. “I know we feel bad for Jihoon, but that’s not fair to her. She likes Seungcheol a lot, he could be her first boyfriend. It’s a big deal, so let's not ruin it for her.”

Jihoon sighs, “Right. Up until today, I didn’t even realize how much I like her… let's just pretend that conversation didn’t happen.”

The car pulls up in front of his house. He hurriedly unbuckles his seatbelt and leaves the car. He’s sniffling when he makes it to his room, flopping onto his bed. Part of him hopes you realize Seungcheol isn’t what you thought he’d be like and you’ll forget about him, but another part of him feels disgusting for thinking that. 

A week later, you’re telling them all about how amazing your bowling date with Seungcheol went. He paid for everything and didn’t make you feel bad for being terrible at bowling. He wasn’t trying to get into your pants and was making genuine questions. He surprised you with flowers at the end of your date and asked when he could take you on another date. You went on a lot more dates after that, there was a picnic date, a trip to the movie theater, a corn maze. 

On your birthday, Sana invited him to your party. Jihoon wasn’t sure what to get you, especially now that he had realized he liked you. He ended up making you a playlist and then burning it onto a CD. But at your party, Seungcheol surprised everyone by showing up with a guitar. He sang you a sweet love song in front of everyone, winning over all of your friends. Jihoon ended up hiding his CD, now embarrassed to give it to you. He couldn’t sing you a song the way Seungcheol did. He didn’t make you hide your face timidly or smile that big. When Sana asked him what he had gotten you, Jihoon said that his gift hadn’t arrived in time and would give it to you a little later.

Now, at the end of the school year, the CD he made for you is sitting on his desk, waiting for the opportunity to give it to you without it feeling like he was trying to steal you from Seungcheol.

The five of you attend the senior graduation. You had told your friends that you were feeling insecure about your relationship, how even though it had been a couple months of going out, Seungcheol hasn't asked you to be his girlfriend. And that he probably wouldn’t since he would be leaving for college. Still, you wanted to support him, so you showed up to the graduation with gifts to give him after the ceremony. To everyone’s amazement, he was the one to surprise you by asking you to be his girlfriend during his graduation party.

As Jihoon watched the romance between you and Seungcheol develop, he couldn’t help but feel many emotions. He loved the happiness that radiated from your smile and the twinkle in your eye whenever you were with him. But at the same time, he couldn’t help the jealousy from creeping in, wishing it was him instead of Seungcheol every time he’d catch the two of you hugging or kissing. He had only recently come to terms with his feelings but had no choice but to watch from the sidelines. He wasn't even upset with Seungcheol anymore, having finally gotten the chance to know him and realizing that he really was a good boyfriend.

Jihoon was determined to be a supportive friend, even if it meant keeping his feeling hidden. He still held onto the CD he created for your birthday, a reminder of his unrequited feelings. For now, he knew the timing wasn’t right to confess his feelings. But maybe one day, the stars would align, and the right moment would present itself.

After junior year ended, and you and Seungcheol officially became a couple, Jihoon’s heart carried a bittersweet melody. The CD, filled with songs that spoke about his feelings, remained on his desk, waiting for the day he could give it to you.

[hit-song-showdown]

Year-End Poll #23: 1972

[Image description: a collage of photos of the 10 musicians and musical groups featured in this poll. In order from left to right, top to bottom: Roberta Flack, Gilbert O'Sullivan, Don McLean, Harry Nilsson, Sammy Davis Jr., Joe Tex, Bill Withers, Mac Davis, Melanie, Wayne Newton. End description]

More information about this blog here

I mentioned in a previous poll how fast culture changed in the 1970s, and that doesn't feel like an exaggeration. This was the final year of the draft and more American troops were being taken out of Vietnam. As American troops were coming home, The Today Show aired a "while you were away" segment to go over how the culture has shifted while they were overseas. Most, if not all, of this segment was a joke, but it shows that even at the time people were aware that something was changing and it was changing fast. To paraphrase historian Rick Perlstein, they left a country where The Sound of Music was the most popular movie, and they came home to a country where the most popular movie was Last Tango in Paris.

To get back to the music, it feels wrong not to shine the spotlight on Don McLean's American Pie. For one, I probably could have used the lyrics as the blurb for one of the 60's polls and saved myself a lot of time. The lyrics themselves show this changing cultural shift as well, reflecting on how aimless this new generation felt. It's hard not to put a 2020s lens on everything. But looking back at a time that was rife with political scandals and politicians not seeming to care about the rising bodycounts affecting their citizens, I'd be lying if I said the sentiment doesn't hit home. "A generation lost in space" indeed.

However, in addition to the longest song on this poll, I also want to highlight one of the shorter ones. Specifically, Joe Tex's I Gotcha. Funk music is going to continue to grow in popularity this decade, even though the full extent of that cultural movement won't always be seen on the top of the charts. But the reason I wanted to highlight this song specifically is to use it as a prelude to what's coming next. If you listen to the song, pay attention to the chorus when the rest of the instruments drop out to put more emphasis on the percussion and how Joe Tex's rhythmic vocals play against the beat.

And for my third highlight, if the artist behind the tenth song sounds familiar, that's because the song was by Mr. Las Vegas himself. Or, if any Fallout fans follow this blog (and judging by the results on some of the 50's-60's polls, I know you're here), Mr. New Vegas. Speaking of gamers, Pong debuted this year as well.

I've rewritten this section multiple times, because I don't want to gloss over a specific moment in history, but it also feels jarring to bring it up in a poll with mostly unpolitical songs. After spending a few polls talking about how the war affected the American psyche, it feels important to reinforce that the people of Vietnam didn't have to be soldiers or reporters to see the war before their eyes instead of on a television set. 1972 also marks the year of the Christmas Bombings, one of the most horrific 12-day stretches in an already horrific war. Even though I don't go over every historic moment in these descriptions, it felt wrong not to bring this up. Even as this event would result in the general population's mistrust towards Nixon and the government growing even more rapidly, it wouldn't be enough.

Nixon no longer had to worry about reelection and it felt like the entire country was holding its breath before something major happened.

[the-scattered-kingdoms]

INTRODUCTORY POST:

I don’t expect this blog to get much attention, but tumblr is a quick and simple format that I know I can use to archive this campaign. To begin, hello. If you’re following me thanks so much. I only hope what you see here is interesting and inspires you to make your own materials for D&D 5e. If you have a good grasp on the rules, I recommend giving homebrew a try, even if it’s just a fun item or a busted feat. 5e is very good for custom content, and when it comes to our imaginations, the sky’s the limit.

So, about this campaign. I was driving with my wife and a friend when my friend mentioned how cool it would be if we were all bugs. I agreed and added “oh that would be a funny D&D setting—what if you were a party of bugs?” and we all got a good laugh, and I have basically not stopped thinking about it for two months.

I did things the classic way: I started with a map, decided who lived where, what happened recently to establish The Way Things Are, and what kind of bugs will be the ones to change things up. Then, I leaned into the hyper fixation, creating a potent blend of custom races, somewhat game-breaking items, and definitely game-breaking feats. I gathered 4 of my favorite people together to answer the question “What can I do to make it look like you’re going crazy up there like a little bug?” The players were limited to North American insects, and chose a Beetle, a Mantis, a Bee, and a Cricket. Details on classes and backgrounds will arrive after Session 0.

And that’s how we got Minisculia! It’s a smattering of bug city-states and kingdoms, located entirely within the backyard of an abandoned house, somewhere in American suburbia. 10 years ago (basically like 500 years ago in Bug Years) the Golden Alliance of the Hive defeated the foul Apocritan Wasps in a devastating conflict called the Last War. Now, as a result of the Treaty of Convergence, the two powers keep to their territories and common folk enjoy a tenuous peace. But not all is well. Reports of Red Ant raids in Black Ant territory terrify the peasantry, and have the guards clamoring for action. The Good Queen Bezeera has decreed any adventurers who solve the problem shall earn their weight in Pollen (our stand-in for gold), as well as lands and noble titles. Investigating the crisis will be the party’s unifying goal.

To keep the game itself simple, I ruled that for classes, backgrounds, spells, and equipment we’ll be using the 2014 Player’s Handbook and nothing else. I’d describe the plot as a delicate mixture of a Bug’s Life and Game of Thrones—several factions are vying for power, and most of them are loose collectives of different cultures or military arms of small kingdoms. All of them are bugs, however, and all of them cling to what little power they’ve scratched out for themselves in a big, dangerous world. Will the party join in that unending political game, or will they bring change to the Scattered Kingdoms once more? Time will tell!

Also I’ll be posting bad art and usable 5e content here. Playtest it, tweak it, criticize it for being too strong, ignore it, do whatever you like. But I’ve made too much NOT to share, you know? Like I said up top, I hope you at least find what I post here interesting. I’m excited to play D&D with my friends more than anything.

Talk to you soon!

Spamdini

[smoldworf]

*cracks knuckles*

I’m still not sure if we’re not all delusional and overestimating the writers of the show or not. I mean, maybe everything is as it seems right now? But, i’m so paranoid by now i don’t trust anyone lol

I mean …

🍎Phee. He was Non’s boyfriend, they seemed very sweet together. He was concerned about Non spending time with the gang, and prevented a suicide attempt. He also seemed pretty suspicious of Non spending time with Keng – and i wondered why he’d jump to the Non cheating on him immediately. It seemed a little weird in the moment? He even cried. idk.

He was the one to bring their relationship to the next level, he wanted Non to change schools, and even got his father involved to help Non. This could be just teenage impulsiveness – or show how serious he was. When the video was leaked he was deeply hurt; both bc Non lied to him when he directly asked if there was anything between Non and Keng, and bc he considered that cheating (it’s not, but bear with me). And in that moment, he reacted very, very badly. What he said to Non ist awful, but especially considering he knows about Non’s mental health issues. Also, there was again this underlying message of Non having cheated (or lied?) before. That made me wonder again. When Non vanished, Phee never got the chance to clear things up. To either make up or break up. He was left hanging, with the gang and the police claiming Non most likely left with Keng.

So, what did Phee know? He knew that the gang treated Non badly, but i’m pretty sure he had no idea about the extent – the camera, the details of the money laundering, the mafia. So, when New (I’ll stay with that name) showed up, he found an ally. Someone who also cared for Non (and who also felt guilty, but i don’t think they shared that), and wanted to find out what happened. I’m still not sure if for Phee it was more about finding closure for himself or make the gang answer for what they did. Either way, i don’t think he had murder on his mind lol

He could seriously have caught feelings for Jin. I don’t see the chemistry, tbh, but that could be copper’s acting. I also don’t see the common interests ppl talk about, but whatever. He was definitely torn between his feelings for Jin and the Plan™. And after seeing that news report about Non and Keng he pushed Jin away (and Jin is still hearbroken enough about that after 3 years to chomp on Phee’s dick lol). But I seriously struggle with Phee considering the gang his friends (like he called them in ep 10). Yes, he spent time with them and yes, they never treated him badly. But he knows they’re bullies. He knows something happened. It just feels ooc for him to just ignore that?

So where does that leave me? Idk i can see both. Phee wants to move on, and joined New in this last scheme to leave that part of his life behind. One last try and then he’s done. Find out what he can. So, when the guys start dying, and everything’s out of control, he confesses to Jin (we still can’t be sure if everything he says is true or just conjecture on his part tho). Giving Jin the water was just a brain fart, and he really found the axe by accident. And they hold hands on the way to the house, and he lets the axe thoughtlessly fall to the ground. It would be … unsatisfactory for me, but possible.

OR (🤡): He’s in on everything. He may really like Jin or not, but he never abandoned the Plan™. What he tells Jin about Por’s and Dang’s deaths, again, may be true or not, but he confesses to Jin just to get a confession in return. He knew the water would be drugged, he knew where the axe was, and left it fall conveniently in front of the house for someone else to pick up later etc. Convoluted, but possible 😊 (i still think the markings on the trees were off)

🧪Now. New. He’s pretty straightforward, i think. He wants the gang to go down. He wants to know the truth of course, but he wants to punish them. Depending on Phee’s „loyalty“, Phee is either on his (s)hit list or his ally, both is still in the cards. He may have found another ally altogether, either one from the gang, OR the 9th person. It’s possible that the killing is his doing, just like Phee told Jin – he hates the gang, and it’s not like he has anything left to lose. On the other hand, we never saw him do any of it, we just have Phee’s story. And i don’t trust anything i don’t get to see with my own two eyes anymore lol

🎞Jin. Well. He has morals, but in the end they don’t mean shit. He’s nice to Non and tries to, idk, make the gang be less assholey to Non, but is ineffective. I personally think he’s just nice bc he likes Non, not because of altruism. (But i’m biased) And when it became obvious that Non not only wasn’t interested in him but also imperfect (being raped aka „cheating), he couldn’t cope. He took the video, he leaked it, he let Thee take a drugged Non away, and he lied about Non running away with Keng. And, like, three minutes after Non’s disappearance he fell deeply in love with Phee(‘s abs).   I found interesting that he „outed“ Tan as New, but not Phee as Non’s boyfriend. And that he claimed he’d trusted Thee. Sure you did.

💉Fluke. He’s a wild one. The most revealing thing he said until now was that he didn’t want to be like Non. He kept quiet bc he knew he could/would have been the next victim of the gang. Interestingly, he knows the most about the bullying, i think. He was there when Top broke the camera and Thee set up Non. He was there when Jin filmed Non and Keng. He’s a little like Jin, in that he knows what’s happening is wrong, but doesn’t intervene.

Maybe the drugs hit him harder bc he’s already high strung and stressed? Idk, i find him weird. I’m not sure if the most logical reaction to a masked killer hunting you and your friends is to … grab a gun and threaten everyone around you? But again, it might be the drugs causing this.

I don’t really see him as a secret ally to New. What would be his motive? Or more like, what would override his very strong instinct of self preservation? He has a lot to lose, and basically nothing to gain.

💰Thee. Ugh. His life sucks, and he’s a victim of his circumstances. I think, in a way, that’s what fuels his distaste for Non. He sees how similar they are, in a way – and like Fluke, he needs to distance himself from Non. When Non told Thee to get out of the mafia situation he’s in, i was worried. I think Thee reacts badly to percieved pity from the wrong kind of person. He did the most damage to Non, realistically. He supported the idea to let Non write the script (as soon as he heard there might be money in it), he set Non up to be the fall guy for the camera/the debt and pulled him into the whole mafia bs. And he drugged him and delivered him to his uncle.

I also think he’s (maybe like Fluke) the most realistic of all oft hem. He knows what he’s doing, he had to grow up quickly, he has no (or not many) illusions about the world he lives in. He knows his actions doom Non. I no longer think he’s doing it gleefully, but he doesn’t hesitate that much, he has too much to lose.

From his (re)actions in ep 10 i don’t really think he’s a secret ally to New or Phee (or Non), but i do see how he could be. I think he really cares about White, and wants to be better. He knows the gang too well to like them. And from the preview … he knows more than he told in ep 10. Maybe he tried to save Non, maybe he failed? Maybe it’s a tit-for-tat – i help bring down Uncle Joe, you help me bring down the gang?

Not that i believe that’s what happened, but let me clown, ‘kay?

👶White. Well, we know next to nothing about White’s backstory, so he has potential lol. Most importantly he’s an outsider to the original gang, like New, and like Phee. He could really be just a lil dude, on a terrible, terrible weekend trip with the boyfie. He’s cute, and scared, and submissive.

But he also somehow ends up in the focus again and again. The radio, the knife, the hard drive, … He’s so good at influencing Thee, it’s impressive! And … idk, maybe he doesn’t like guns, and doesn’t want his boyfriend to shoot anyone, and that’s both pretty normal lol. On the other hand „forget the gun!“ seemed odd to me. In that situation i most definitely wouldn’t want to forget the gun, i would want to have it, even just to make sure no one else had it. When he gets the gun, he (again!) puts it somewhere it could be easily taken (to what end, i have no idea, maybe just to cause chaos??), and later convinces to let Top be, bc he’s tied up now 😊 and won’t be able to get free 😊 after which Top gets free 😊 and is shot (😊). He also confuses me because he seems to go from tiny scared cinnamon roll to rational strong cinnamon roll.

So, if New has another ally, he seems the most likely candidate? For now? As of ep 10? But idk.

In the end, they’re probably all just confused idiots in a cabin in the woods, and Non somehow is out there, taking them out one by one. and that's okay, too.