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margarethx · 4 years ago

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I feel like one of the reasons why Sam and Bucky work with each other so well as a duo in is the fact that they are at the same (or almost the same) level of importance when it comes to the MCU. They are in a similar position as characters.

Let me explain...

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Before tfatws Sam Wilson was a character from the background. He is important for the overall storyline, but he’s not at the front of any movie. Even in ca:tws he was less relevant to the plot than e.g. Natasha. He’s necessary and there is a significant reason he’s there at all, but at the end of the day it’s a Steve Rogers’ movie. Not Sam’s. And even if calling Sam a sidekick is most of the time insulting - at least within the MCU - he kind of is a sidekick. That’s the role he has in the narrative. There’s a main hero (Steve) and a guy who follows his lead to help (Sam). Of course Sam has his own life and issues that have nothing to do with Steve, but we don’t even know them at this point. And here we’re looking at Sam through the lense of the Captain America movies.

Almost every scene with Sam before tfatws was connected to Steve. Sam joined the fight in ca:tws to help Steve. He was in AoU, because Steve invited him to Stark’s party. He was in Civil War, because Steve asked him to join the Avengers and he wanted to help Steve with finding Bucky... Similarly, Sam had his own opinions in Civil War, but we only hear them when it’s relevant to Steve’s story. (When Sam and Rhodey argue about the Accords they stand behind Steve, because the scene is about him making the decision.) Even in Ant-Man, where there is no Steve at all, Sam mentions him after Scott left. Etc, etc. You get the picture.

And the same goes for Bucky.

We only see him in ca:tfa where his story is intertwined with Steve’s. When Steve gets his ass kicked before he got the serum. Or when they go to the Expo. Or when they fight during the war. Even when Bucky is saved by Steve it’s less about him being finally free and more about Steve finding his friend again. In ca:tws their meeting is told mostly from Steve’s perspective. It’s a film about Steve facing the Winter Soldier not the other way round. And later viewers don’t see Bucky’s life as a fugative untill the moment he becomes important to Steve’s storyline again in Civil War. And so on and so forth. It goes like that basically from Bucky’s first appearance in the MCU to the last scenes of Endgame.

When Steve and Bucky are fighting on the same side Bucky’s role could also be described as: “a sidekick”. Just like Sam’s.

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And I honestly believe that this is the reason why pairing Sam and Bucky together makes so much sense. Even if you put aside the obvious chemistry between the characters and their actors it just works for them to join forces in multiple scenes.

Both of them walked in Steve’s shadow before they got their own show. Not because they’re less interesting as characters or because Steve’s storyline is better, but because Steve is one of the main heroes in the entire MCU while Sam and Bucky were always orbiting around him in a way. And we, as the viewers, learnt very little about them outside of the stuff that was important for their relationships with Cap.

Why do we know about Sam losing Riley? Because Steve also lost someone who fell to their death. Why do we see Bucky killing Stark’s parents? Because it’s a movie about Steve’s conflict with Tony (mostly) and it’s just one of many things that makes the conflict worse. I’m not implying it’s unfair to the characters or something (even though I’d love to see them having more sceentime in general)... It’s just the role they serve in a story, because someone has to be in that position for the narrative to flow. You cannot make every character “the main one”. That wouldn’t really work.

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But then... When Sam and Bucky are together we suddenly see much more about both of them outside of their connection with Steve. It’s almost like destiny how they always end up in close proximity. They seem to naturally gravitate towards each other ever since they’ve met. And it looks like taking them away from a big, important character (Steve) makes them shine brighter. Most of the little moments they shared became iconic at some point when they were just allowed to exist together.

And again... I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy seeing their interactions with Steve, because I do. Especially Sam’s. But it very often feels like they interact with each other because it’s important for the progression of the plot. When Steve talks with Sam it’s often about their next mission, or how Sam helps him with something, or to show that Steve has difficulties with adjusting to the modern world. And when Steve talks with Bucky (at least after ca:tfa) I always feel like there should be a narrator’s voice talking over a scene, telling me: “see? they were friends in the past, before the war... this is important! pay attention”.

Meanwhile, when Sam and Bucky interact, some scenes just... happen for no purpose. Like they interact, because they want to, not because the script told them to. There’s absolutely no plot-related reason for showing Sam and Bucky sitting in that tiny car in Germany. Or for showing them standing together in Infinity War when Thanos attacks.

What the two of them have is completely different from what they had with Steve in the past.

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To be honest, it always bothered me a little how Steve never really did anything for Sam (freeing him from prison where Sam landed for helping Steve doesn’t count). It’s always Sam making Steve feel better and standing by his side. So it’s a very glaring contrast, when we got to see a whole separate montage where Bucky visits Sam and helps him fix the boat that was important to his family. Or when he casually throws a shield with him for practice, asks Sam if he’s okay, and brings him a new super-hero suit even though Sam never even asked for these favours or suggested that he needs Bucky’s help.

And I know that some people won’t like what I’m about to say, but Steve and Bucky really don’t act like they are particularly close to each other most of the time (especially after their first movie). I believe that they were friends before everything went to shit, but after ca:tws? Not really. They cling to that label, because of their shared story and because Steve cannot let go of the past, but they just... don’t act like they are friends anymore. It’s like they both changed too much and don’t know how to deal with that. So they don’t. It’s like Steve is only attached to some past version of Bucky that no longer exists and the new Bucky doesn’t fully match his expectations. Sam on the other hand has no expectations at all. He builds his relationship with Bucky from the fresh foundations. The creators don’t need to bring back some shared memories from 70 years ago to prove that these two have a strong connection. They just show them doing stuff together. The argument about The Big Three? Petty revange over a car seat? Discussing music tastes? Having “sleepovers” and giving each other slightly mean, but harmless nicknames? Discussing mental health? Having staring contests? Watching goddamn sunsets? That’s what people who are close to each other do.

And that’s why these two simply... work.

It’s not just implied or explained in a flashback. “Look, viewer. They are friends. I know they don’t act like they are, but trust me. They went for a dinner a decade ago... offscreen.” Sam and Bucky even refused to call themselves friends! They’re a couple of guys (allegedly). And yet I still know they like each other very much from the way they interact, speak about each other, or look at each other.

And I really think that one of the main reason’s why it works like that is because they’re both equally crucial (or irrelevant at times) for the story. Both are just as (un)necessary for the plot to move on. Sometimes they are very important and sometimes the plot would easily work without them. ca:tws could’ve happen without Sam. Civil War could’ve technically happen without Bucky if they put more emphasis on the Accords. There were both certainly unnecessary in Infinity War or Endgame. But there’s no way the events in tfatws would’ve happen without both of them being there together. Sam might’ve never taken the shield and become Captain America if it wasn’t for Bucky. Bucky would’ve spent countless years trying and failing to make amends and never finding peace if it wasn’t for Sam. The fandom likes to focus on only Bucky, but you wouldn’t get this much content about him if there was no Sam to share the story with him.

Because they just fit together perfectly.

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Last disclaimer (because I really don’t want people to get the wrong impression): I actually like Steve. And I like Samsteve (romantically or platonically). Platonic Stevebucky is alright too. But it just kind of... pales in comparison when you see what Sam and Bucky have. Most MCU relationships pale in comparison if I’m being honest.

#i don't know if anything i said makes sense #sam wilson #samuel thomas wilson #james bucky barnes #bucky barnes #steve rogers #captain america #captain america sam wilson #the falcon #winter soldier #white wolf #sambucky #sam x bucky #winterfalcon #tfatws #caatws #the falcon and the winter soldier #mcu #marvel

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lightns881 · 4 years ago

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DTeam Tumblr Demographics Survey Results (Part 1):

The Gifted Child Syndrome is Real with this One...

*Rubs hands together in preparation for some juicy data and in-depth analysis of the typical member of the DTeam Tumblr community*

Ooooooooh boy! Here we go!

I want to start of by thanking you guys for over 400 responses to the demographics survey! Y’all have no idea how much I appreciate it! We have so much to cover, so I’m going to divide up different sections of the survey into several posts to make it more digestable and do justice to each topic explored in the form! We’re going to start of with, you guessed it, personality types!

Strap yourself in because we’re about to thoroughly dissect your sub-conscious innerworkings and find out how the typical DTeam Tumblr Fan thinks! (And judging by the majority personality types, you guys will probably enjoy it)

The Delicious Data

From the 449 responses we received, this is a pie chart displaying the personality types of all respondents.

Image Description: INFP (40.5%), INTP (15.1%), INFJ (8.9%), INTJ (8.9%), ISFP (6.9%), ENFP (4.2%), ISTP (4.0%), ENTP (3.8%), ESFP (1.6%), ISFJ (1.6%), ENTJ (1.3%), ENFJ (1.3%), ISTJ (1.1%), ESTP (0.4%), ESFJ (0.2%), ESTJ (0%)

In comparison, this is a pie chart displaying the personality type percentages of the population as a whole according to the MBTI website.

Image Description: ISTP (14%), ESFJ (12%), ISTJ (12%), ISFP (9%), ESTJ (9%), ESFP (8%) ENFP (8%), ISTP (5%), INFP (4%), ESTP (4%), INTP (3%), ENTP (3%), ENFJ (2%), INTJ (2%), ENTJ (2%), INFJ (1%)

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m sensing a tiny difference here... Oh, right!

INxx’s on the Loose!

It’s funny. When I first found one of the 18+ DTeam fan servers through Tumblr, I asked everyone what their personality type was. I was pleasantly surprised when a lot of them told me they were INFPs like me!

It actually reminded me of MatPat’s (Game Theory) survey for one of his Life Is Strange theories that found the majority personality there was also INFP...

Funny enough, can you guess what the second leading personality on that survey was? The third? The fourth?

You probably guessed it right. MatPat found that out of the fans who responded, the leading majority was INFP while INTPs came in second, INFJs came in third, and INTJs came in fourth. The exact order for the personality types in DTeam Tumblr.

But why is it that some of the rarer personalities of the world are dominating DTeam Tumblr or Game Theory’s fanbase? What is it about these communities that attract the rare introverted Intuitive Perceivers (INxP) and Intuitive Judgers (INxJ) of the world like magnets?

The Gifted Kid Syndrome

To answer this question, first we have to examine our leading personalities. As we can see from the data, INFPs and INTPs make up 55.6% and INFJs and INTJs make up 17.8% of the total respondents. That’s nearly 3/4′s of the DTeam Tumblr population made up of INxx types!

Now, here’s me calling y’all out.

A lot of you probably relate to the quiet kid sitting at the back of the classroom who’s put into some type of TAG, gifted program, or some authority figure has probably called you smart and/or “gifted” at some point in your life. Academics probably came easy to you at one point, maybe they still do.

You’ve probably felt your chest swell up at the shower of compliments about your intelligence and at another... you’ve probably felt like people put you in a pedestal and overrate you so you’re stuck with this inherent fear of failure, and it causes you to completely shut down when the things that came easy to you at one point no longer do so.

It’s gifted kid syndrome hitting you like a brick to the face. And if it hasn’t yet, oh you’re in for a surprise, honey.

And I’m sure many of you have come across funny, relatable posts like this:

And you want to know why most of you relate?

Image Description: INTP, INTJ, INFP, anf INFJ’s rate the highest in a giftedness per MBTI Type chart

No. You’re not hallucinating. It’s not even a joke at this point. It feels true because it probably is true.

(Granted, the study that captured similar results to this graph is long lost to the internet, but the best source I found with it was a reddit post I will be citing in the reblog.)

Now, my next point is where we find a split.

INFPs and INTPs and their Need to Question Everything (even if it’s about one sentence [insert creator here] said that one time during a 4-hour long stream)

The strongest connection I found between the two leading personalities of DTeam Tumblr is they share Extraverted Intuiting (Ne) as their auxiliary cognitive function.

I’ll use a quote that explains Ne better than I could ever explain it in my own words:

“Extraverted intuition or Ne is very much focused on patterns and making connections from information they gather... Ne dominant users enjoy being able to explore things in a much more open manner, not wanting to feel closed off to the possibilities around them... They are also highly imaginative people, who enjoy being able to come up with unique hobbies and experiences... They are not afraid of imagining things which seem almost impossible to others... [For INFPs,] Ne is what creates this detailed and incredible thoughts process which keeps them busy for long periods of time.”

And another:

“Auxiliary Ne manifests in people constantly questioning the world around them, but unlike ENxPs, they can be more pick and choose about this. But generally, they don’t take people, things and events at face value.“

Now, think about the community you’re in right now. Think about the post you’re reading at the moment.

DTeam Tumblr is full of over-analysis posts, whether about Dream and George’s secret love for each other or about the inherent problems with Dream’s shipbait and gay jokes or theories about what’s going to happen next in the dream SMP lore and the dramatic betrayals and creator’s descend into madness and more theories about sexuality and charts depicting creator’s personalities and what they’d be likely to do in different scenarios and... ooof, I’m out of breath here. You get my point.

DTeam Tumblr is literally a group of ex-gifted or gifted introverted people who love to read or write analysis, theory, and discussion posts about sweaty Minecraft Youtubers because they’re probably too overwhelmed by real life and find joy in obsessing over “dumb” things.

That’s it. That’s literally the post. I might as well end there.

But I won’t.

Because obsessions is exactly what I want to focus on next.

The Inherent Nature of the INFP and their “Micro-Obsessions”

This is me having a one-to-one conversation with all my INFPs reading this.

Do you sometimes just set your mind on a goal--like, let’s say, writing a book--and you spend so much time obsessing over it to the point where you burn out and suddenly it never sees the light of day because you move onto your next goal or obsession because now you’re getting ready to launch your freelance website so you can start a business on [insert new hobby here]?

Or do you just suddenly find a fandom or a show or a channel you really enjoy and you spend the next few months doing nothing but engaging with it and reading fanfiction and drawing fan art or making dumb analysis posts on your main Tumblr account where suddenly you get an influx of followers from that community and now people are expecting you to just post about MCYT!?

Oh, sorry, I got a little carried away at the end there...

Anyhow, my point is, do you ever develop an obsession over something all the sudden only for it to just disappear when you find something new or just fall into the deep crevices of your mind only for it to maybe reemerge a few years later after you get a deep sense of nostalgia remembering it?

I call them micro-obsessions. And I recently found out, I’m not the only one who does this!

Here’s another quote for you:

“According to Carl Jung’s theory of cognitive functions, when an INFP makes a decision, Ne comes in second to another process known as Introverted Feeling (Fi). Fi does not use logic to make a decision. It uses how we feel about the decision according to our values. In other words, it asks, “Which choice feels right for me?”

Ne, on the other hand, craves new ideas and experiences to explore, which causes INFPs to always be on the lookout for something novel.

Unfortunately, INFPs can get stuck in a loop, going back and forth between their Ne and Fi. They search to understand their values by constantly trying new things. They ask themselves, “Does this feel right?” then throw it over their shoulder as they move on to something else.”

So, you’re probably asking right about now, Light, how the heck does any of this have anything to do with the Dream Team and MCYT!?

Well, my friend, it has EVERYTHING to do with the Dream Team and MCYT and DTeam Tumblr as a whole.

Because INxx’s are predisposed to end up in places like this--fandoms on Tumblr, channels that speculate whether Mario is evil, watching dramatic Minecraft smp wars and elections as opposed to looking at the news that depicts Murphy’s Law as 2020′s new favorite epigram.

The introvert in them causes them to prefer socializing in small communities online where they’re not forced to engage in conversations if they don’t want to or put into uncomfortable situations where they have to talk to that one friend of their friend who wants to make meaningless small chat.

Their Intuition causes them to wonder into places like Tumblr where they can engage in deep discussions about their newest obsessions, and they won’t be judged for writing a 500+ word post about why Dream’s shipbait tactics are a genius algorithm strat or simping over sweaty Minecraft boys.

DTeam Tumblr is a safe haven for INFPs and INTPs who might be placed in the “other” category or marked as weird for being interested in “childish” entertainment or being different from the general population overall, whether that’d be sexuality, point of view, age, gender, etc. A place where you can fully be yourself and not have to worry about disappointing people.

INFPs are predisposed for drowning themselves in their micro-obsessions to avoid all of the madness in the world--even if that means giggling like a little girl while reading memes about your favorite Minecraft YouTube creators.

That is a deep-dive into the mind of a typical DTeam Tumblr user. What do you think? Is it accurate at all? Is it completely off? Let me know in the comments!

And with that, I digress. I’m not sure whether I’ll be covering general demographics next week or diving into the topic of ships (could be a mix of both), but I will be posting about it eventually, so make sure to hit the follow if you got to the end of this post and enjoyed it or learned something new from it!

Friendly reminder that this survey and post is in no way supposed to be taken 100% seriously. These are just the ramblings of a math major INFP with too much time on her hands and way too big of an obsession for MCYT. My asks are always open for literally anything, whether if you want to ask me about this or any DNF related subject, my own opinions, or just criticize the whole of this post and tell me it’s complete trash! I’ll answer as long as it’s appropriate!

And, again, thank you everyone who filled out the survey. Without y’all, this post wouldn’t be possible. I really enjoyed writing it! Adios!

#dteam #dteamblr #dttblr #mcyt #dreamwastaken #georgenotfound #sapnap #dreamnotfound #dnf #dream team #dream smp #dteamblr demographics survey #analysis

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luvdetroit · 4 years ago

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Hey! I 've just read the first chapter of the dbh series you wanted to start, and I really like the plot 🥺 Do you plan on continuing it? 👉🏻👈🏻

hey, sorry for the late reply! i actually do have it planned out a bit differently than i originally wrote it in the first chapter. i think this planned version is better than the one i posted. there are many other ideas that i have in my drafts, i just haven’t released them yet.

thank you for reading it! i'm happy you enjoyed it and i'm sorry for saying this but i think i'll just scrap this idea and go with my new one (VOW). it will be somewhat similar, just more complex? and hopefully interesting!

not sure if you are even interested in hearing about them but i’ll drop them here! maybe if you or anyone is interested, i will follow through with posting them (have been feeling very bad about my writing recently).

for anyone who does read my ideas, please do not steal! i really worked hard on thinking about these and would be really hurt if anyone took them. they aren’t super original or anything, but i still created them 😩

these are really roughly written so please don’t judge 🚶🏼‍♀️🚶🏼‍♀️

please do comment or send me a message in my inbox about which idea you like more, if i should do a specific one or all of them even! 💞💞💞

1. TITLE: VOW

pairings: various! x fem!reader

genre: meta (?), angst, fluff, etc

plot: metafiction. mc surfs the web to buy d:bh and finds a seller who is willing to sell the game for cheap (suspiciously). mc contacts the user and a deal has been made.

we will flesh out the seller later, he ain’t all that important rn. so mc gets the game after maybe two days? and in the packaging the seller wrote a letter to her, it is pretty cryptic. we can get into detail on the letter and stuff later.

so mc starts the game up right away because she is excited to play it. on her first play though everything is pretty normal. there are a few differences/odd occurrences but mc doesn’t bat an eye because it’s her first time playing so she wouldn’t know.

gradually as she plays, the characters (connor and markus) are more aware of them being in a game. (sense they are in the same series and are prototypes it only makes sense for them to be able to sync themselves/go beyond their coding).

connor and markus have broken the fourth wall/have become aware with other players. they grow a deep hatred for the player. sense they can’t throw their anger at the creators of the game, they can do so with the player.

at first, connor and markus only did minor things that didn’t really stand out to the player. when connor/markus breaks the fourth wall and directly talks about the player, the player thinks it’s apart of the game.

but when connor/markus mentions the player’s name that is when they freak out a bit, but assumes the characters got their names from their playstation.

it’s only when connor/markus states some personal stuff about them do they feel fear. (connor/markus can sync with the smart tv that also contains all their info).

connor/markus have tried to sync with the game/tv enough to transport the player in the game so the player can experience first hand what it’s like to live in their world. but their connection weakens each time the player resets. their memories are also wiped out.

over time connor/markus are able to retain their memories a lot faster but forget the previous players of the game. even if they don’t remember the previous players they still think of one goal. transport the player into their world, let them suffer, seeing first hand how THEY feel.

connor/markus will be slightly oc. they will have somewhat of a dark side.

i didn’t explain this in the summary bcus i’m dumb but the game can’t be destroyed (it’s like a possessed object). even if you throw it out or something it will still go back to you bcus you own it. the only way to get rid of it is selling it.

ik some wack logic but sjakwkw

sam is the seller of the game. (his username is GAMER BOY 69). the game is sold for $10 with free shipping and no tax.

mc: does this really only cost $10? why is this so cheap?

sam: i’m just being generous

sam: are you willing to buy it?

mc: can you show proof that you actually have it and it isn’t broken?

sam: sure, hold on a second

[sam sends a video of him filming the game packaging and saying his username (in a bit of embarrassment) and mc’s. he reassured her that it isn’t broken and works perfectly fine. he tells her he didn’t like the game so that’s why he’s selling it.]

sam’s letter is in a white envelope, his writing is slightly messy, almost jittery (from nerves). he feared he was being watched by, ‘them’ so he wrote cryptically.

sam’s note: i’m sorry i did this to you. i really am. i just didn’t have any other choice. don’t play the game, please.

2. TITLE: PARESTHESIA

pairings: various! x fem! reader

genre: dark au, cult au, angst, fluff, etc

plot: in this au kamski doesn’t publicly make androids n stuff

so amanda stern is still kamski’s mentor in this au

she, ‘disappears’ at some point and is listed as a missing person

kamski knows she isn’t gone though bcus she told him her plan

basically amanda is very manipulative and warped kamski’s young mind into thinking humans being lesser beings and that kamski can really create something even more superior, androids.

kamski and amanda are humans but they are excused because of them being intelligent and having that sort of mindset- humans being filth on this planet

instead of kamski making cyberlife public

he instead also disappears after a few years later (once he’s done w college)

it’s a gap between amanda and his disappearance to not completely draw suspicion

cyberlife is created in secret, hidden from the public

belief: humans are disgusting and should be replaced by something far superior, androids.

rules: only those who have the same mindset as kamski and amanda can join the cause and contribute. (so human co workers of amanda and such help gather material and thirium (blue blood) to create more androids in secret).

practices: a member has to willingly be able to sacrifice any body part kamski chooses to replace for an android part or partake in any experiment kamski may have. if not, they aren’t fully in the cause and should be ridden of.

kamski wants to take a oblivious civilian in for a secret test of his

he wants to test out how human his androids can be and if it can blend in with humans in normal day to day life.

so he releases one of his androids, connor (rk800) out into the world. his mission is to find a human he can initiate a relationship with. once he finds that human, he slowly grows a relationship with them over time- kamski is studying all of this through connor’s eyes.

kamski is amazed by this new discovery- his androids do blend in with humans well.

the last secret test for mc is connor telling her his true nature. (telling her he isn’t human, he’s an android). connor breaks this to mc at his, ‘house’ which is connected to their secret compound/underground base.

kamski wants to know how mc will react to this news because her actions depends on whether she’s just another piece of human scum or not. this will validate whether she can join their, ‘organization’ or not.

mc will be confused by connor’s sudden news at first. she won’t believe him until he pulls back his skin to show his porcelain interior.

she’ll be surprised then and question whether their relationship was all real or not.

connor reassures her that he does share her feelings. he admits that at first this was a mission but he truly does feel for her. he asks her if she still has feelings for him even after knowing he isn’t human and mc (after a bit of thinking) says that she does.

this makes connor happy as well as kamski bcus mc got through the test. this is the first android-human relationship too.

a few days pass just to really make sure mc doesn’t act any different and really is telling the truth about having feelings for connor still- when connor informs mc that his creator wants to meet her in person one day.

connor and mc go to his place and he leads her downstairs to his normal looking basement- and there is this really intricate hidden puzzle/door that opens to their underground compound.

connor leads mc to a room and meets kamski. kamski comments on mc- on how he was surprised that mc quickly took a liking to connor and how she still has feelings for connor even after finding out the truth. he’s impressed and approves of the relationship.

he tells her he hopes she keeps her word about this organization being a secret because he wouldn’t want anything bad happening to her so soon.

after that connor and mc go about their relationship like normal. although, connor has been experiencing these odd feelings lately. he’s also been oddly wanting to act out violently towards the most smallest things. like mc talking to someone else, smiling at someone else, touching someone else, even if it was platonic.

it didn’t sit right with him. he never voiced these new feelings to kamski though. he was too afraid kamski might tell him he has something wrong with his software. he doesn’t want kamski to call him defective and replace him for another connor. he doesn’t want to be seen as not good enough for mc.

connor doesn’t act on any of his thoughts. he doesn’t let his emotions control him.

after about two weeks kamski calls connor and tells him he wants him to meet someone (rk900) and that he should bring mc.

so connor visits the compound and meets kamski in a lounge area with mc. they both enter the room with kamski casually laying on a lush couch. a small smile is brought on his face when he noticed connor and mc’s presence. he greets them both and tells them that he’s happy they could make it.

connor opens his mouth, about to ask who the person kamski wants him to meet when rk900 walks in with two cups of tea + thirium in his hands.

rk900 places a tea down in front of kamski, the other tea and thirium on the opposite side of kamski’s before returning his attention to connor and mc. his eyes scrutinizing connor and mc.

kamski’s smile widens at connor’s reaction and stands up, clasping rk900’s shoulder with one hand. he prompts rk900 to introduce himself.

rk900 introduces himself somewhat stiffly in a monotone voice.

rk900: my name is conan.

it was short and to the point. he offers an open hand for a handshake.

connor looks over conan, completely ignoring the hand offered to him, then at kamski with all sorts of emotions. the main ones being confusion and fear. at this point connor is wondering if conan is going to replace him for a reason connor does not know.

kamski breaks the awkward silence/tension in the room.

kamski: “well, connor? aren’t you going to greet your brother?”

connor takes a few moments to process this information and absentmindedly inquires, “brother?” in a small voice. his brows furrow slightly and his gaze draws towards his look alike. from up close, conan looks exactly like connor with a few differences. he was slightly taller than connor and had cool greyish blue eyes. why would kamski decide to make me a brother? i didn’t ask for one.

kamski: “yes, brother. i just thought it might be lonely to live alone in that big house of yours so i have gifted you with your own brother.”

at this point connor is having a mental breakdown. kamski doesn’t do things without a logical reason. he’s not telling me the full truth.

connor finally breaks out of his thoughts, his eyes darting back to kamski and he nods shortly, ignoring conan’s still outstretched hand and his presence altogether.

connor: [in a stony voice] okay, is that all?

conan drops his hand.

the corners of kamski’s lips twitch, threatening to split into a menacing smirk at connor’s cold reaction. kamski clicks his tongue mockingly and sits back down, grabbing his tea.

kamski: “that’s not how you should treat your brother. [sighs] that will be all, but you have to teach conan how things work around here. that’s what a big brother should do, after all.”

connor bites back a disgruntled sigh of his own and settles for a slight frown.

connor: “why wasn’t he informed before meeting me? didn’t he go through the same test runs as me?”

it took everything in connor to not let his irritation show through his tone.

kamski pins connor with an annoyed glare, a small bit of amusement shining through.

kamski: “why are you testing my patience connor? are you not happy with my gift?”

kamski’s words were light mockery, with a dark undertone to them. connor knew better than to irritate his creator further. he bows his head slightly to him.

connor: “i apologize for causing you further inconvenience. i..am just surprised by the new addition, that’s all.”

kamski simply nods lazily. waving a hand, he tells them they are dismissed.

connor turns away from his creator and him to the exit with you following right beside him silently. he places his hand on the small of your back and presses you close to him possessively. the slight tapping of a pair of shoes follow behind connor and you. connor ignores it.

connor walks through the maze of hallways without pause, part of him hoping his, ‘brother’ would get lost and never return.

he knew better though. without even looking, he knew conan wasn’t even a step behind and it irritated connor to no end.

once the three enter the, ‘main area’ which was basically the center of the compound, connor turns around to face conan.

connor: [monotonously] “give me your hand, i’ll transfer the data so this all can be over with.”

connor outstretches his hand. part of him wants to pull it back because he doesn’t want to touch him.

conan looks at connor’s outstretched hand to connor’s face.

conan: “no, i can’t do that. kamski specifically told me to get the information from you the, ‘human’ way. he wishes for us to talk to each other like brothers.”

connor looks even more bewildered at that bit of information..why would kamski do this without his consent? this..has to be some sort of test. maybe conan is just playing the role as his brother to spy on him and catch him doing something that may incriminate him? does kamski know about his odd..’glitches’? did he make rk900 just to dispose of him and replace him?

no, he couldn’t have known..the cameras in his opticals were shut off weeks ago. so why was rk900 here? what is kamski getting at?

connor also took notice of how..machine like conan is. conan walks stiffly and has a rigid stance. in that sentence he brings up what kamski wants rather than his. he follows kamski’s orders as if they were law without question.

connor still has his hand in front of him and ignores what conan says

he’s like, “it would be easier if we just did this.” (he’s irritated and is insistent)

and conan refuses, again repeating, “we have to follow kamski’s orders.”

and connor taunts conan

he’s like, “can you not think for yourself? i thought you were supposed to be alive.”

at that, mc finally speaks, telling connor off, “that’s enough, connor. i think you should just follow what kamski says. conan is just as alive as you and needs some of your guidance.”

connor’s eyes slightly widen as well as conan’s. connor’s frown deepens at your words. you’re defending him. why? you should be on his side, not him.

conan still has a blank face but his eyes are now trained on mc, curiosity being one of the emotions flickering in his eyes.

connor notices conan looking at mc and narrows his eyes in disgust.

connor: fine..we can discuss everything at my place.

connor turns and places his hand back on mc’s lower back, pressing her as close to him and far from conan as possible.

conan follows on without question.

3. TITLE: DARK EXTERIOR

pairings: various! x fem! reader

genre: dark au, angst, fluff, etc

plot: the main plot is androids taking over and humans as pets

so mc is obviously gonna be a human, she is like in one of those sort of adoption places but it’s more like a buy your pet thing

and mc is gonna be 18 y/o because yes

- mc and her parents live in a house that is located in a rather secluded area in the woods

- when word gets out about androids dominating humans and turning them into slaves- mc’s parents decide to live underground. mc is 3 y/o during this time. (the father is an artist/architect, this was originally just a project for himself). years pass with them being undetected. (it was 2038 when androids dominated humans)

- 15 years passed without them being detected and mc is 18 y/o (year is 2053)

- mc’s father scavenges for food and such once a month

- underground they still have a tv, tablet, and phones to keep up with how everything is going in detroit

- mc feels trapped after living underground for basically her entire life and learning second hand about androids, the revolution, etc

- mc starts doubting her parents and their reasons. she questions whether if there are bad androids out there who will snatch her up.

- mc asks her father if she can help him scavenge one day but he along with her mother are against that (this is on her birthday when she turns 18 y/o bcus she thinks she’s mature enough to)

- this causes a big argument between her parents and her and she voices her doubts to them- this ends with mc locking herself in her room. after awhile when it’s night time, her father visits her and apologizes for yelling but tells her she still can’t go up there because it’s too dangerous.

- mc hides her anger and lies to her father about her understanding. when it’s about midnight mc decides to sneak out and go above ground.

- mc is wandering in the woods mindlessly basking in everything- she kind of becomes careless (she doesn’t act cautious when wandering around). she maybe follows a bird she sees (owl) out of curiosity and nears markus and his crew (simon, north, and josh). they were having a picnic or just stargazing.

- simon hears rustling and light footsteps coming towards them so he alerts the others, he’s like, ‘do you guys hear that?’

- the others listen and do hear the footsteps and rustling coming rather close and quickly. all of them are tense (because they have experienced a lot of..attacks in the past so obviously they got their bars raised)

- so mc bumps into markus and everyone is surprised by mc’s sudden appearance

- mc stops in her tracks and looks at markus, it takes her a minute to really look at him bcus it’s dark and her human eyes are very poor at catching details

- she recognizes markus and is frozen. she also faintly recognizes his friends because they are also a big part of the android revolution (or so she’s been told by her parents).

- after a beat of silence north says, ‘a human?’ in a rather disgusted tone.

- josh observes you and asks out loud, ‘how can a human be this far out of the city?’

- north: ‘maybe it escaped from it’s owner or something.’

- after observing you, markus reaches out to you (you are still frozen and too scared to move) and places his hand on the nape of your neck. he realizes you don’t have a chip installed there to tell him who your owner is. (let’s say every human at birth has a chip installed to their nape to identify them and their owner)

- markus informs the others that mc doesn’t have a chip which startles them.

- north: ‘wait..it’s a fucking wild?’

- josh: ‘how could it live this long on it’s own if it is a wild?’

- (markus had his eyes on you the whole time) he asks you if there are more of you in the forest and you slowly shake your head no. they all know you are lying though.

- north: ‘there are more like it in the forest..how come we didn’t know about this?’

- josh: ‘this is pretty bad..if there are more wilds out here hiding this could damage the trust we built with the others. everyone will be outraged if they find out we let wilds slip under our noses.’

- simon approaches you slowly and asks again if there are more people like you out there

- when you shake your head again markus holds your chin between his thumb and index finger, tilting your head up so that you can look at him in the eyes.

- with a dark look in his eyes markus says, ‘don’t lie to us again kitten because i’m not in the mood to play nice. now, tell us the truth. are there more of you out there?’

- you are scared now and regret ever leaving the hideout. knowing it would be futile to lie again, you nod. (you are unable to say anything because your throat feels constricted).

- north: ‘where are they?’

- you don’t say anything because you don’t want to give your parents away. you continue to berate yourself for your stupid decisions.

- north sighs (clearly irritated by you not answering their questions immediately), ‘well? aren’t you going to speak? or can you not speak?’

- josh tries to calm north down, ‘intimidating it isn’t going to make it talk’

- north: why are you defending it? have you gone soft now?

- josh: [sighs] are we really going to do this? i’m just trying to tell you that yelling at it won’t get us anywhere-

- north: babying it isn’t getting us anywhere and i don’t see /you/ doing anything.

- simon steps in before the argument could get even more heated and pushes the two away from each other, “that’s enough. can you both not argue for once? now is not the time.”

- a little bit of pressure on your chin directs your attention from the two arguing to markus.

- markus: show us and i promise we won’t hurt you.

- mc thinks about this, ‘deal’ and realizes at that moment she doesn’t know what the hideout even looks like from the outside bcus she was so caught up on other things.

- mc makes a half baked plan to pretend to know where her hide out is, lead them, then find an opening to escape

- mc responds after a bit of pondering, (in a feeble voice), “okay.”

- north: [annoyed and slightly surprised] that’s it? that’s all it took?

- markus lets go of mc’s chin and gives mc a slight nod, telling her to show them the way

- before mc could take any step north butts in

- north: shouldn’t we restrain it first? tie it’s hands so it doesn’t do anything stupid?

- mc really dislikes north and is pretty scared of north out of all of them.

- markus notices your discomfort and shakes his head at north, “no. we don’t need to."

- north: [irritated] but she is a fucking wild- she’s dangerous-

- markus: [interrupts north + raises one of his hands up] i said, we don’t need to.

- north huffs in annoyance but doesn’t say anything else. part of you is satisfied by seeing north being put in her place.

- markus returns his attention to you and silently tells you w his eyes to lead the way.

- you turn your back towards markus and observe the vast amount of trees before you and walk in the direction you remember vaguely running from.

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dr-nero-is-god · 4 years ago

Text

i felt the urge to riff on the hive streams for a little bit since discussion came up on the hive discord, namely, holding issue with the idea that the alpha stream is inconsistent in that it is about leadership when otto is the only leader, and that it’s also possible that the alphas are just kids with specialized skills, and not actually bonded by any particular unifying element.

and, in response, @vulpix-sinistre brought up a quote from the abridged hive fanfic, that goes something like: “there are four streams: main characters, stereotypical bullies, ?, and nerds.”

and i disagree with the first two ideas, but almost completely agree with the abridged fic quote. that is pretty much how the streams work, and it is IMPORTANT that that is how the streams work.

in the end, you may conclude that the streams system still doesn’t make sense. you won’t be like “well clearly dr. nero was just logically dividing the labor of his students to reflect a specialized training program” because it’s more complicated on that. i hate to do this to y’all, but a lot of everything streams-related requires an out-of-book explanation to get where you’re going, but i can promise that i will at least try to go

first, let’s think about why h.i.v.e. would have streams at all

on the one hand, it’s inescapable to consider that one primary reason that hive has streams is because harry potter had houses, and for the same reason that percy jackson had cabins, the 39 clues had branches, hunger games had sections (or counties, idk), divergent had factions, and so on and so on. the rise of fandom spaces on the internet was concurrent with a big ya/mg boom in the post-2005 world (after twilight was published), and within those fandom spaces it became important to identify with an aspect of the fantasy world as part of your personality. that became a very marketable thing for a while, and so separating children into streams would, to a publisher, seem like a pretty solid storytelling choice.

however! the alpha stream is not the same as gryffindor house. on the one hand, it seems easy to make an alpha/gryffindor and henchman/slytherin parallel, because one group is good (relatively) and one is bad (or at least antagonistic). but it doesn’t work because while slytherin has a reputation for constituents of poor moral character (which has been largely revised in fanon), being a henchman is where you go, according to the books, if you are unintelligent and burly. it’s not a really sexy stream, is what i’m trying to say. and though there are undoubtedly some readers who would look at the henchman stream and see themselves, i think the majority of readers would likely find the henchman stream a completely undesirable stream to be in.

and, given how little importance the role of streams have after the first book, i will go out on a limb and say that mark walden knows that the henchman stream is unsexy. we aren’t interested in the hopes and dreams and motivations of the henchman stream; as we learn in book two, the ideal henchman is weak-minded and easily led—so what dreams would they even have? this leads me to conclude that while mark walden might have sold h.i.v.e. on the “there are personality-based groups in the school!” idea, he had something completely else in mind when he started writing and that, I think, is actually far more interesting.

but really, why would h.i.v.e. have streams at all

a few things about mark walden: 1) he studied english lit in school, 2) he has a background as a video game producers, and 3) he likes james bond. i know the first two things because i have read his bio and i know the third thing because i have read his books in conjunction with seeing all the james bond films. so we will call 1-3 facts.

if you are wondering what a lit degree, video game production, and the james bond franchise all have in common, then let me connect those dots: all three of those things depend heavily on the study and understanding of repetitive structure in storytelling as an interpreter and creator of meaning. each one of these fields requires an understanding of how stories and words work to create meaning in order to be successful.

and, to quote mr. walden here directly (sourced from this here link):

“So, I was playing with this cat one day and it got me thinking that those old-school Bond villains always just seemed to appear out of thin air with very little back story and that got me thinking about how they became world- conquering megalomaniacs in the first place. It was only a short mental walk from there to HIVE.”

so, imagine you’re a writer trying to tell a story about a school for villains like those in james bond—you’ve studied storycraft and you have a lot of experience in a job finding believable and compelling obstacles for people to interact with in video games. you have noticed patterns. and you need to make those patterns work for you.

enter: streams

i have watched all the james bond movies (all of ‘em) (i mean it) (just not the unreleased one yet lol) and you know what?

there’s probably just about four kinds of villains in those movies.

henchmen include the likes of jaws, oddjob, and tee hee. often physically disabled in a cinematically interesting way, these guys are the muscles and the machines in every bond film. they are the ones who tail bond as he takes long train rides and who try to personally throw him into shark tanks. they are the hands and feet of their evil masters and they don’t have a lot of emotional depth or backstory.

politicians/financiers abound in the james bond franchise because he is a government employee who often hangs out with other government employees (he has no friends). these people are like colonel rosa klebb, georgi koskov, prince kamal khan. there are a lot more, as a matter of fact, because the whole point of james bond is that they are in the cold war and even people without titles have political and financial motivations for screwing around with stuff. these types of villains depend on being well and truly embedded in an existing infrastructure or hierarchy, somebody who worked their way up from being a foot soldier or clerk into a powerful leadership position that gives them a lot of state-sanctioned trust and authority.

technicians and inventors include folks like henry gupta and boris grishenko, who use technology as their primary weapon. they are often inventors or innovators and are really good at making high-tech stuff. however, i think this stream is also a direct result of the character Q, someone who is actually on James Bond’s team and who runs an entire department of people who test sometimes outlandish gadgets for Bond to use in the field. (but we love the gadgets. they are fun.) in other words, Bond arguably has a technical stream at his disposal in MI6, which means the idea isn’t necessarily evil, but, likewise, our James Bond School also needs Qs. it’s the rules. if you are familiar with Q from James Bond at all then you understand

and that leaves us with alphas... the “supervillains.” these are the famous ones. dr. no. mr. big. scaramanga. le chiffre. blofeld. max zorin. emilio largo. goldfinger. these are the ones with the master plan, the dreams to recreate the world as they see it, the passion to see their desires to fulfillment and the resources to make them happen. they are rich. they are fancy. they are larger than life. is it weird that karl stromberg tries to incite a nuclear war between Britain and the USSR so that a lot of people can die so that he can colonize the ocean? yes. but by god, it’s fancy and dramatic, and that’s what counts.

are there other kinds of villains? oh, definitely. lots more. but you have to understand, that those kinds of villains generally don’t appear in Bond. sometimes! but it’s not a staple. for example, not many people in the bond films are motivated by revenge because each movie is kind of designed to function as a one-shot. villains don’t come back and so there is no revenge. the villain who gets the most notable reprise, jaws, actually ends up finding his true love in space.

compare: every movie is going to have henchmen. every movie has government stooges making morally questionable decisions. (almost) every movie has Q, or some gadget stuff going on. and every movie has a big bad that has to be better than the last.

so that explains why the streams are what they are.

it was a jumping-off point for mark walden to figure out what this universe might look like and how different character types need to function. consider that while the core four are all alphas and are kind of insulated as a group, the teachers all kind of roughly align with one of these groups. colonel francisco, raven, and chief lewis are henchmen types, doing on-the-ground work to get stuff done. ms. tennenbaum and the contessa are political af, they are all about the corruption and infiltrating institutional power. ms. gonzales, ms. leon, and professor pike all have technical skills that help keep an organization moving forward. and over them all is the singular alpha, dr. nero, who is coordinating and monitoring it all for his own evil plan: to run a high school.

honestly, dr. nero’s hive idea operates just like a james bond villain plot! it works, or it does when pitching the idea. the problem is that the books continued after the pitch did, and with worldbuilding came some complications. namely, the fact that the megastructure of james bond villainy does not replicate well into a small friend group on which the narration focuses. so let’s return to the question presented at the beginning:

how can alphas really be alphas when not everyone on the field trip can be a mastermind?

i’m gonna give this to you in two ways. one, the way i personally interpret it as an in-universe explanation, given the background premises we have already established. and the other, why the stream system kind of ruins the structure it sets out to create.

so, for me, the alphas can be alphas because there is more to villainy than being a mastermind and there is more to being a mastermind than being in charge. as i think about it, this novelization is actually the backstory for every one of the students, who will go on to do great and scary things. they will manage big projects and come up with interesting ways to terrorize the British government, because that is what James Bond villains do (and James Bond does canonically exist in their universe). much like your actual teenage years, this is not the main event.

as students, the core four need to learn to do a little bit of everything. you gotta learn some lock-picking, that’s essential. everyone has to be able to climb a rock wall. it’s the rules. and everyone needs to be able to do some programming. that’s just the way school is. though everyone has a different personality and a different way of looking at the world, their education has to cover the basics because the fact of the matter is, none of them are villains yet. will they become one? that remains to be seen. but they are being given the tools to become the greatest villains if that is something they choose.

the main problem that remains when holding this attitude is that the specialized skills of otto and his friends might be better suited to other streams, in which case, what is an alpha anyways?

here’s the facts: if everyone were assigned to a stream by talent, then there wouldn’t be an alpha stream.

franz? political/financial stream.

nigel? laura? otto? technical stream.

shelby? wing? henchman stream.

you can debate me on the specifics of those assignments, but the point is this: all the other streams are based on hard skills. franz can manage a ledger and that is a financial skill. laura can build a computer from scratch and that is a technical skill. wing can do martial arts, and each martial art is a physical skill that can be taught and performed in a measurable level of proficiency.

the idea of being a “mastermind” is a much softer skill—which is to say, there’s no one recipe that will make it work. my manager at work has coached me by saying that leadership is often about having a “style,” and working at it that way. leadership requires interpersonal flexibility, being able to stay organized and to make important decisions rapidly, it is about being able to prioritize and delegate. and it’s very much open to interpretation, every day, all the time.

let me tell you something else about james bond: there is a lot of classism, racism, and sexism embedded into every aspect of those films, but that goes for double when it comes to the villains in the show. to vastly oversimplify that very concept, it shows up in the bond films like this: henchmen are working class folks, the villainous equivalent of “the help,” and the supervillains are (usually) rich and glamorous and powerful. henchmen are uneducated (read as: stupid) and ugly and poor. no one cares if they die. (there’s more complexities, as always, but this essay isn’t actually about james bond so we’ll fast forward through My Opinions to the end)

the problem with replicating james bond in your villain school universe is that some of the biases of the james bond universe get replicated in there, too. poor and uneducated folks get turned into disposable henchmen whose lives are irrelevant. people who are educated and talented get fast-tracked to a more glamorous and interesting stream that will catapult them to the top of the ladder as soon as they graduate. if you look at the dialect with which block and tackle are written, they are clearly meant to be seen as a different social class than otto, despite the fact that otto is coming from basically nothing. and we understand that when otto graduates, he will be able to do basically anything that he wants to at all.

so, if you’re asking why wing has a role in the alpha stream when he doesn’t seem as leader-y as otto, there’s a simple answer: because dr. nero believes that wing can be more.

the climax of book one is dr. nero explicitly telling otto, wing, laura, and shelby that they are in his school because he believes in them and he wants to see them grow. they are given an elite status other students do not have despite the fact that they have just literally tried to escape. as we see in the case of duncan cavendish, the main way to get on that highway to a guaranteed career is to convince him that you’ve “got it.” for those who are not believed in, there is no way to make up for the special grooming. you’re stuck with the stream you’re placed in, doomed (perhaps) to be a second-in-command at best.

is all this intentional? probably not. but it is implicit in the structure of the story and, alas, that’s the way it is.

all i can think to say in conclusion is that while the stream system tends to replicate some of the unfair and classist realities present in other media and the world we live in, i think part of the reason we read h.i.v.e. is because the alpha stream is so appealing. imagine! you are competent and you have a desirable, specialized skill as well as a proficiency in many general skills and you are certain you are going to do good things—and all because someone believes in you. to receive someone else’s support and confidence can be life-changing. the magic of h.i.v.e. is that yes—lives are changed and ordinary, boring people were elevated to the level of supervillains. we are only left to wonder, are they the only people who deserved that honor?

#meta #spoilers #streams #alpha #henchman #political/financial #technical stream #technical #james bond #hive #h.i.v.e.#higher institute of villainous education #the higher institute of villainous education #otto malpense #max nero #streams post #musings

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lesbianlovelanguage · 4 years ago

Note

YOUTUBER AU I’m such a fucking sucker for those. It can be anything you want really. Maybe they are friends doing a challenge or something and they end up kissing (or more ;)) or they could meet each other at like a creator even and take a pic together and everyone starts to ship them... :)

HI! Anon I am so sorry, life has been *general handwaving* a MESS. But, I’ve finally gotten most of my shit together and look! A fic! Finally!!! I hope you enjoy two ridiculous boys being ridiculous.

---

“You guys asked for it, and here it is. The explanation to Bendy and the Ink Machine! Now, I’ve watched a ton of playthroughs of this, especially The RatKing’s, as well as played through it myself, and I think I’ve got it.”

Such a simple statement, it made it through both of the editors as well as Steve and Dustin themselves without raising any red flags. But as with everything, once it had been released on the internet it became fuel for fans to break apart and over analyze.

The comments started pouring in, the standard mix of support and people trying to break apart his theory. But one comment in particular would stand out and begin something so much bigger than itself.

Twenty minutes after Steve had pressed upload, someone with the username Random Hoe posted a comment saying Awe! A collab between you and Billy would be totes amazing!! While an innocent comment in itself, it began to pick up steam as people ranted and demanded for the two popular youtubers to interact more. It turned from video ideas to outright shipping within two hours, and only five hours after the video had been up, people began tagging Steve on Twitter with everything from edited screen grabs to fanart and video edits, all about Steve and Billy’s secret yet undying love for each other.

Steve had almost quit Youtube as the fanbase for what had been dubbed “Stilly” steadily grew and became all the more ravenous. There were less and less comments and reactions to his theories, whether movie, video game, or even book related, and more and more comments about how he needed to do a collab with Billy ASAP, and how he’s queerbaiting, and how it’s okay to come out, it was 20Gayteen after all. He had tried to do damage control, but it only made things worse.

And then someone showed Billy, and Steve not only wanted to quit Youtube, but also crawl under a rock.

Billy’s only reaction to someone sending him a picture of Steve and Billy during a live stream was “Nice art, like the hair,” but Steve could have sworn his mouth twitched down in a grimace before Billy recovered his composure.

But Dustin had convinced Steve to keep going, and with two months of no recognition or new content, the frenzy of Stilly shipping died down. It never disappeared, but no one sent anymore art to Billy and stopped tagging Steve in all of their posts. That had been in February.

Vidcon was in June, and Stilly was the least of Steve’s worries. He’d been asked to host a panel on the new game show he and Dustin had begun hosting on Youtube TV about pop culture trivia, and then host a live episode with various Youtube guests as competitors. It promised to be relatively simple, a simple explanation of the origin and behind-the-scenes and a simple Q&A session followed by what he spent every Thursday doing for the past two months. And it was, him and Dustin breezing through the panel bouncing off of each other and the first round of Did You Know? You Don’t Say? flying by as the famed beauty guru aced almost every question. But once the second guest stepped on stage, Steve knew it was all going to go to shit.

Because Billy Hargrove, The Rat King himself, swaggered out on the stage in flip flops and an Everlast crop top and flopped into the contestant’s chair with a smirk. Steve froze, mouth suddenly drier than a desert.

Luckily, Dustin didn’t even stutter. “Ah! The next victim. Should we go easy on him?” He waggled his eyebrows as he asked the audience. The audience shouting brought Steve out of his daze, and with a shake of his head, he turned and spread his arms out wide.

“Well then, let’s begin. So, Billy, Do you know what the rarest MnM color is?”

The cocky smirk melted off of Billy’s face, replaced by one of thoughtful determination. He’s silent for only a moment before he looks up and says, “Brown, like your eyes, Pretty Boy.” Steve feels his pale skin flush with heat, but he coughs and tries to play it off.

“Quite the charmer there, Rat King. Luckily, your lines are actually true. One point! Let’s see it!” He calls out and then looks behind him to the television screen currently displaying the scoreboard. A large blocky 1 appears and the audience cheers.

“Alrighty then,” Dustin says after the crowd dies down. “Next question. Billy, Do you know the original name of Istanbul?” Billy chuckles, and shakes his head.

“Easy. Constantinople.”

Dustin fake pouts and looks over to Billy. “None of that Rat King charm for me?” The audience laughs, and Billy chuckles before throwing a wink at Dustin.

“Not quite old enough to ride this ride, bud.”

Dustin scoffs and shakes his head, making the curls bounce around wildly. “Whatever you say, old man. You did get it right by the way. Let me see another point!” Dustin mimics Steve and gestures towards the scoreboard which now shows a big, white 2.

“Your turn, Pretty Boy. Give me something hard.”

“Alright. Let’s see.” Steve pretends to look over his notes before seeing the perfect question. “So, Billy, Do you know which two American states don’t observe daylight savings time?” Billy stares blankly at Steve. This was the final question in their lineup, but he had asked for a hard question.

Luckily, Billy recovers quickly and clears his throat before giving another chuckle. “Damn, I know I said give me a hard one, but I wasn’t expecting that. I’m gonna go with Hawaii and Alaska?” Steve shakes his head and gives a small sigh.

Dustin gives a little cheer, and then runs over to a table off to the side of the stage where they have a cue card that the contestant has to read off of if they lose. It was Dustin’s idea, the You don’t say? part of the title. It’s his favorite part of the show, because they get to see their contestants say some ridiculous things.

“Well, unfortunately, that was incorrect,” Steve announces over the booing audience. “And, following the rules, you now have to read whatever is on this card.” Dustin hands Billy the cue card with a wicked grin.

Billy sighs and flips over the card. There’s a moment of silence as he reads over what the card says, and then he looks up at Steve and clears his throat.

“Would a Pretty Boy want to go out with me?” He says in a clear voice, gaze never leaving Steve’s.

Suddenly too many things for Steve to process happen at once. He feels the heat return to his cheeks and his mouth dry out again, the audience goes wild, and a buzzer sounds, signaling that they were out of time for Did You Know? You Don’t Say? Dustin comes through and pushes a frozen Steve off-stage, where Billy is waiting in the wings. With the audience’s weighty gaze gone, the feeling returns to Steve all at once.

“What the hell man? What was that out there?” He hissed at Billy. The man simply shrugs and gives another one of his trademark smirks.

“Just giving the people what they want, Princess. Try to keep up.” And then he turns around, and walks away. Simple as that. Nothing to it.

Steve wants to scream. Fortunately, he and Dustin have been friends for years, and he knows all of Steve’s tics by now. The stagehands shoo them from the wings, and he pulls Steve through one of the backdoors to outside the convention center. Somehow, he also procures a water bottle in the hustle, and hands it to Steve once they’re both sitting on the steps outside. Steve takes the water bottle gratefully and chugs half of it in one long gulp. He pulls it away and wipes at his face before sighing. He seems to deflate, like a balloon losing all of its helium at once, and Dustin puts an arm around him. It’s awkward because he’s shorter than Steve, but it’s still comforting nonetheless.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Dustin asks quietly.

“I- I’m so stupid. For just a second I thought it was real, but why would it be? What would someone like him see in someone like me?” Dustin lets out a huff before pulling away and turning towards Steve.

“Steve, buddy, pal o’ mine. You’re an idiot. If anything, he doesn’t deserve you. He’s a pompous ass for pulling a stunt like that. It’s bullshit.”

“He could have anyone. Between his paycheck and his pecs, he’s one of Youtube’s hottest content creators.”

“Yeah, sure. But for the sake of alliteration, he also lacks personality. The guy’s a huge dick! And he proved it today. He knew that you wouldn’t shut him down and bitch him out on stage, so he thought it would be funny to pull that shit.”

“Yeah, he is kind of just a publicity-seeking asshole, you’re right,” Steve admits, feeling a little better, and a lot angrier. “You know what, Dusty-Poo? I’m gonna find him, and give him a piece of my mind.” He stands up, itching for a fight and knowing who to go find for one.

“Tha-that’s not exactly what I meant but sure! Go knock him down a peg.” Dustin stands up as well and follows Steve back onto the main showfloor.

It takes about twenty minutes to find Billy amongst the crowd but Steve sees him, and locks in like a tiger stalking his prey. Or something cool like that. Thankfully, Steve doesn’t have to make a huge scene as he walks up to Billy and gets in his face.

“You. Me. Conference Room 3. Now,” Steve says, poking a finger in the middle of Billy’s chest to emphasize his point. Billy chuckles, but still follows along as they walk into the empty conference room. Once they clear the doors and Steve hears them swing shut behind them, he turns to Billy.

“Explain. What the fuck was the point of that little,” he wavs his hand around, “stunt you pulled during the game show?”

Billy raises an eyebrow. “Told you Pretty Boy. I gave the people what they wanted.

“So that’s it? It was a publicity stunt?”

“You tell me. You’re the one who started the whole thing,” Billy shoots back, still holding on to an air of nonchalance, but Steve can his patience waning.

“You- you mean the stuff from February? When I happened to mention you in one video? You think I meant for that shitstorm to start, for fun and publicity?”

Billy only shrugs again.

“Okay. Nope. Again, I mentioned your channel one time, as a source. Gave credit where credit was due. I do it for all the channels I watch! I’ve mentioned Nancy’s channel like 8 times, and Jonathan’s too. Never had this shit started with them.”

“They’re married, Steve. Like super married. Of course it wouldn’t. We’re both single, queer youtubers. Of course shit’s gonna stop. Didn’t your agent or whoever look over your video?”

Steve huffs. “Oh yeah, let me just go hire an agent, cause I have such a need for someone to monitor my every move,” Steve snarked. Billy just looked at him like he had failed to add 2 and 3.

“You’re telling me you, part of one of the biggest channels on Youtube, don’t have an agent?”

“We’re not one of the biggest channels, and we’ve never needed one! We’ve got our team of editors and assistants, no need for some agent.”

“Steve,” Billy says patiently, like he was explaining something to a child, “You have over 4 million subscribers. That’s a big channel.”

“We’re still not one of the biggest channels, dipshit.”

“Oh, I'm the dipshit? I didn’t start a fucking fandom frenzy apparently by accident. Because I was smart and got a fucking agent.”

“You’re such an asshole.”

“Whatever you say Princess.”

“Stop fucking calling me a princess!” Steve screams, voice booming in the silent conference room. “Why do you do that? Pretty Boy, Princess, Stevie? Just- just stop with the fucking nicknames. It’s not fair.” The second part of his outburst comes out as a whisper, sounding almost desperate.

Billy was at a loss for words, but then again, he had always been more of a man of action.

So he says nothing, only gives a seconds’ thought of what he was going to do, before lunging forward and doing it.

Steve’s next words are muffled as Billy crashes their lips together with absolutely no finesse, teeth clacking. It probably constituted as the worst kiss Billy has ever had, but as he moves back, Steve grabs a fist full of blond locks and pulls him forward. Their

second kiss is far better. By no means is it soft, but that was just par for the course with them wasn’t it?

The kiss comes to a natural ending as they both pull back to breath, before Steve starts to giggle.

“You really need to work on your pick-up lines, Rat King.”

A soft gasp from the doorway cuts off Billy’s retort, and they both turn to see a girl decked out in Youtube merch, including a jacket with the Upside Down Theories logo on it. She had dropped her backpack, and was open-mouthed gaping at the two. Her eyes are as wide as dinner plates as she frantically gathers up her backpack and shoots out of the conference room.

“Chances that this blows up online by tomorrow?” Steve asks, turning to the blond next to him.

“I’m betting in the next two hours, Pretty Boy,” Billy replies.

A wicked smirk creeps onto Steve’s lips as he shrugs and says, “Oops. What was that about getting an agent to help with this stuff?”

---

Aside from this taking FOREVER, I hope you guys enjoy this! It was tons of fun to write.

tag team: @lostnoise @gideongrace @stevefuckingharrington @a-magey @catharrington @trashycatarcade @myboyfriendsteve @thesummerof84 @lightsupinthenorth @smashmouth-hargrove (lmk if you would like to be added/removed from the list!)

#tay writes #AGAIN FINALLY #harringrove #billy hargrove #steve harrington #stranger things #youtuber au #anon asks #tons of fun to write!!!

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buckysmischief · 5 years ago

Text

That’s What I Am

Bucky Barnes x reader

Summary: If this were a fairy tale you’d be the princess who was over protected and Bucky would be a knight in shining armor, not your parents first choice. But you are no princess, and Bucky isn’t a knight. He does have shiny armor though.

Word Count: 1.7k

Warnings: language, so much fluff at the end its gross

AN: that summary is very vague but I'm sleep deprived, just roll with it. This is also for @valkyriesryde 400 writing challenge! My prompt was the song Uptown Girl (I just like this version) and it’s been an idea I’ve had in my head for such a long time, I hope you enjoy!

Masterlist

☾

Today’s the day you and MJ had been planning for a month. To others a day spent in Brooklyn probably wasn’t a big deal, but it wasn’t often you left the Upper East Side. Your parents, the ones who save you and then adopted you at a young age, were very overprotective. Growing up you understood, but you’re an adult now, you wanted more freedom.

You never grew up resenting Tony and Pepper for their choices, because of them you had an above average upbringing. Even the idea of taking over Stark Industries one day was a dream. But even with all you had, you just couldn’t shake the feeling that you were missing something.

The sound of your phone ringing suddenly pulled you out of your thoughts. It was Harry Osborn, again. “Harry, please stop calling me every morning. Texting was invented for a reason. Please stop disrespecting its creator and learn to use it.”

Harry was your childhood friend, and your future husband if Tony could find a way to convince you. He wasn’t a bad guy, he just wasn’t the person you could see yourself spending the rest of your life with. There was nothing you didn’t know about him, you couldn’t even think of a time you were romantically attracted to the man.

“But then I’ll never hear your voice thing in the morning, even if it is full of attitude.” oh how you wish he was being sarcastic. “Anyways, do you have plans for today? I was hoping we could go see that new art exhibit-”

“I’m busy, Harry. MJ and I have had these plans for a month.” you interrupted, hoping he would take the hint and let you go. Thankfully, he did.

“Oh okay, maybe another time. Have fun today YN.”

While getting ready for the day you received a text from MJ, Peter and I will be there in 20. He found a really cool bar last night so we can check it out tonight if you want. You send a quick ‘sure’ and finish getting ready. It’s not too chilly now, but if you were going to be out late it would be smart to wear a flannel with your ripped jeans and Vans.

“I’m going out with MJ and Peter, love you both!” you yelled out to Tony and Pepper. Lucky for you, they were too busy trying to get Morgan ready to try and convince you to spend the day with them.

The three of you spent most of your morning getting from the Upper East Side to Brooklyn, occasionally stopping for coffee or to take selfies. Around noon Peter drags you and MJ into his favorite pizza place and start planning the day, but not before you answered a few questions for MJ.

“Before we start doing that, update us on the whole Harry situation.” Where do you start?

“Well, he called again this morning.”

“He knows you’re not a morning person, why does he set himself up?” oblivious Parker being fully aware?

Before you can bring it up in an attempt to change the subject, MJ asks, “What I mean is, why don’t you want to marry Harry? You’ve known him since we were kids, he helps run his dad’s business, he’s stable-”

“That’s exactly it. All of it. I want to meet someone new and actually learn things about them. Harry has everything handed to him, and yes he deserves most of it, but I am not going to be one of those things. Especially since it’s almost expected I spend the rest of my life with him. And, we’re not even dating!” this was a topic you had thought a lot about. Harry has been dropping hints, more like gifts, more and more that he wants to marry you. Why didn’t start with asking you out on a date is a mystery, but it wouldn’t have mattered.

After finishing his slice of pizza, Peter speaks up, “Sounds to me like we found our objective for the day.”

“What’s that?”

“Getting you a boyfriend. Or someone to get Harry off your ass at least.”

“Please no, I’m begging you both.” you give them both a look, they’ve been trying to do this for years and finally they’ll have the chance. You were terrified to say the least.

The rest of the day was, accidentally, spent at an arcade. It was filled wall to wall with different games from new to classic, but you only wanted to play one thing: Ms. Pac-Man. Thankfully it wasn’t the only one in the building, you played for hours until the couple told you it was time to head to the bar.

Once arriving, MJ and Peter go to the bar to get the first round while you look for a booth to sit at. You’re sitting in one you found close to the bar when a man walks up to you, the first thing you noticed were his eyes. Have you ever seen that color blue before? The next was his left arm. How does he have a vibranium arm? The Wakandans don’t just give vibranium to anyone.

“What’s a nice girl like you doin in a place like this?” the more he talked the more you questioned if MJ had sent him over. She knew your type and that accent was at the top of the list. Instead of blowing him off, you decided to have some fun.

“Looking for a downtown man, according to my friends. Any suggestions?”

He gives you an innocent smile, but the look in his eyes are anything but. “That’s what I am, doll.”

You can see MJ and Peter signaling to you from the bar that they’re going to stay there, of course. “Mmm, so what’s your story soldier?” He only give you a curious look.

“I can see your dog tags.” you gesture to his chest. “Do I get that story now? Or at least your name?”

“Bucky. You can call me Bucky.”

“YN.”

A few hours, and drinks, you’ve gotten to know each other better. You told him about you parents and eventually explained the whole Harry Osborn situation. How he couldn’t take a hint and spoiled you with unnecessary, and unwanted, gifts.

Bucky’s friends, Sam and Steve, eventually came over to introduce themselves. You quickly learned that they weren’t shy as they told you about their time in the army. Bucky lost an arm, Sam lost a good friend, and Steve almost lost himself.

“Hey, yn, ask Bucky about his metal arm.” Sam quipped.

“Woah, who has a metal arm?” Peter and MJ would chose that moment to walk in on the conversation, Peter immediately looks at Bucky, “That is awesome dude!”

You and MJ both give Peter a look, but Bucky seems to be unbothered and tells the group how he got him arm.

A group of Wakandans found him floating on a raft after the helicopter he was in exposed. They brought him to their princess, and tech expert, Shuri. She immediately began working on a vibranium arm to replace the one he had lost.

Everyone had lost track of time, surprised to hear the sound of last call at the bar. You were nervous to ask Bucky for his number, there was no way you were going to run into a guy like him and not do anything about it. As you were walking back to the booth, Bucky stood and walked you outside to talk in private.

“So, doll. I was wonderin, if it isn’t too soon, can I take you out on a date? I know I can’t buy you a bunch of fancy things, and your parents probably won’t approve of me, but I’d really like to try.”

He was standing there, looking a lot more nervous than you felt, while you took a second to go over what he just asked.

“I don’t care about gifts or tokens of love, I just want someone who actually cares enough to get to know me and then love me for who I am. As for my parents, they’ll see that you want to do exactly that. They’ll love you. Eventually.”

“Eventually? You don’t sound too convincing”

“Only one way to find out, soldier.” you say to him with a wink.

The next couple of months are spent getting to know Bucky better and introducing him to Tony and Pepper. You were right, they loved him.. eventually. It was during the first night he came over for dinner and he answered every question they could think to throw at him.

Harry, on the other hand, did not take the news well. He eventually stopped talking to you altogether, which hurt at first, but if he couldn’t put his feelings aside and be happy for you then it was his loss.

A year later, the two of you are moving into your own place and Bucky was planning to propose. He had a plan to make you a nice romantic dinner after the house was set up and ask you the big question at the end, but the man couldn’t wait. He needed to hear you say ’yes’ as soon as he could.

That night, the first night in your new home together, Bucky waiter until you crawled into bed beside him.

“Hey Yn.”

“Yeah?” you ask, trying to get comfortable.

He then gets off the bed, pulls something out of his nightstand, and gets down on one knee.

“I was going to ask you after a nice romantic dinner, but I couldn’t wait. Every moment with you is a new reason to live, a new reason to be the best man I can possibly be. I can’t give you everything that you deserve, but I promise to give you all I have. I love you, yn. Will you marry me?”

“Yes! Oh shit, really? Yes!” you sob, happier than you’ve ever been.

Bucky slides the ring onto your finger and gets back into bed. Realizing this was how you were going to spend the rest of your life, you smiled to yourself, knowing it couldn’t be spent with a better person.

☽

Permanent taglist: @sociallyeneptbarnes @valkyriesryde @buckysdumbmetalarm @rogvewitch @infj-slytherclaw @whimsicalatbest @readeity @nea90sweetie @aestheticrelated @pinknerdpanda @justabitoverobsessed @imsoft-barnes @actualdpshuri @goalexis123 @https-bucky @stuckyandsciencebros @moli1497 @agentpeggybarnesfanfics @justmebeingtheweirdmeiam @screaming-fridge @geeksareunique @rhymesmenagerie @brokenthelovely @ivoryhazlewood @sweetkingdomstarlight-blog @mushyjellybeans @sebbbystaaan @rayche776 @buggy-blogs @estillion14 @perpetually-tuned-out @stuckonjbbarnes

#vals400writingchallenge #Bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagine #reader insert #marvel #mcu fanfic

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enigma-im · 5 years ago

Text

More Than Just a Line of Code Pt.1

Robot x Female Character. Tracey Romero recieves a bot from her Auntie Carol. Little does she know that he isnt just some everyday house bot.

Rating: Teen Relationship: Robot X Female!Human Warning: fluff, exposure of genitals, pg13 at most, robot and human relationships

Word Count: 3835

Part 2

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I walk up the steps to my two-story bungalow. Juggling the keys in one hand while adjusting the phone against my ear.

"Two weeks, tops! You can’t expect me to give you quality when you take away my clock," I chided. I unlock the door and head inside. The voice on the other end rants out some excuses and reprimands. It was idle threats, just some big dog talk. I throw the keys onto the side table, missing the bowl I bought for them.

I roll my eyes as I toe my shoes off," Let me explain how this will work if I do what you are asking. First, I will be rushed, I’ll work late with a fishbowl of coffee beside me at all times. Then after about three nights of this, I'm going to get sloppy. Which for me is still really good work but it’s not the best. I always promise my best but only if you work with me on this. So I ask you, do you want it done or do you want it done perfect?". I waited in the foyer for his answer. I already knew what he was going to say. No one wants subpar work, it’s understandable. He is paying big money for my expertise and it would be foolish of him to deny me now.

After a moment I heard the beautiful sound of his begrudging approval. I fist pump, "Two weeks and you will have the best software on this side of the Mississippi. The Tracey Romero guarantee.". With a few words, I hang up. I smirk down at my phone before shoving it into my pocket and walking to the kitchen.

I shimmy around the kitchen, dancing to my own music." I got the extend, I got the extend," I sing. I grab some bread and make myself a sandwich while still patting myself on the back.

I didn’t need the extend, his software was mostly done already. His team did a great job. It just needed some touching up then to be properly tested. Take about two afternoons at the most. I just wanted to go on break and get paid for it. Call me a con, it’s just a living.

As I sat at my computer, I heard the chimes of my security system. Then the quick thuds from the front door. I huffed as I pulled up my front door camera. I saw my front porch and a man walking away from the steps to a van.

"Someone has a package," I quirked to no one. I hopped off the chair and headed to the front door. Once I opened the door, I looked down at a huge box crate. It was as generic as they came, even had the large text of the word 'Fragile" on every side.

"Well, I have no idea how to move this," I mumbled as I tried to push it with my foot. It was heavy for sure. I bent over to try to pick it up, but it mostly just hurt my back. Rubbing my spine I pondered how to get this thing inside.

I would consider myself smart, maybe even a genius. I was a straight-A student, graduated top of my class at CMU in Pittsburgh. So using my beautiful mind I came up with a way to move the box. I pushed it inside.

Using a pry bar in my foyer to open the crate. The nails were removed smoothly, and the lid slid to the floor. Looking inside I first noticed a large black dome near my knees. Looking down from there I saw a large trapezoid shape then the rest was submerged in the shredded bits of cardboard. After a few moments of observing I figured out what it was.

"Of hell yea, it’s a robot," I shouted with giddy. I dropped to my knees and shoved my hands around the head. In most standard bipedal robots the on switch was near the neck. Right towards the faceplate. "Come on, momma wants to play with her new toy," I chuckle. With a flick, the faceplate turned on in a blinding light. It switched off quickly but still left me seeing stars. I jerk back when it jolted forward. It sat up straight then the soft sound of buzzing echoed in the room. I waited patiently for their system to boot up.

I got off my knees and walked around to watch it. Its face was blank, it just had the reflection of light. Showing off the dust and pieces of cardboard it laid in. getting bored I looked over at the lid to see who sent me a full robot. Even though robots are common it didn’t mean they were inexpensive. I make good money; I live very comfortably. Still buying a robot would set me back and make me eat nothing but microwave dinners for a month.

As I found that it is my aunt who sent it, I noticed the bot was staring at me. I turned at looked up at them and still, their faceplate showed nothing. I waved at them as I sat up. To my amusement, they waved back, but more jerky motions.

"Do you talk," I ask.

It dropped its hand, "Yes."

"Then mind introducing yourself," I smile. Its head tilted to the side for a second then back to normal. It faces plate lit up with a standard face. It was cartoony but it was most likely meant to be comforting. No one wants a robot with a mean-looking face. It smiled wide at me then dropped it to neutral. I quirked an eyebrow and they copied me. "You copying me," I chuckle.

"imitating, but yes," he answers. His voice isn't obstructed like in most bots. It sounds basically human, normal even.

"semantics, either way, I'm Tracey. Who might you be,” I greet. I try to coax them into introducing themselves.

"You are very appealing," they look me up and down.

I snap my fingers catching their attention," Getting off track, doll. Name please."

"Yes, I am D-4N1-3L," they finally introduce. I mumble out their text to myself.

"Daniel," I offer. They nod. "Alright, Daniel, do you mind if I call you a he?"

"He," he cocks his head.

"Give ya male pronouns. Or would you rather them/they," I clarify.

"He," they repeat, "I'm a man."

"Alright then Daniel, shall we get you out of that box," I stand and offer a hand. He looks at it before cautiously grabbing it. I don’t need to offer actual help because he stands on his own. He steps out of the crate and I get a good look at him. His build is standard if not a bit retro. Most robots I've seen are completely covered in their shielding plastic. Hiding all of their technical bits. Yet he has his joints exposed and everything else covered. His neck showed his wiring and the air cylinder that limits his neck movement. To anyone else, he would look like junk, some outdated pieces of hardware. But to me, oh to me he looks terrific.

I leaned against the island in the kitchen, watching as he wanders around. He snoops through my cabinets, investigating everything he finds. I look down at my phone that's ringing near my arm. I have set out to call my aunt about Daniel. I placed it on speakerphone so Daniel could listen if he felt inclined to.

After the fifth ring, she picks up. "Whose got three thumbs and is excited you called? This aunt," there was a confused pause," This would be funnier if you saw me, I'm holding a thumb right now. Either way what's up Chica?"

"If I didn’t know you were a mechanic id assume the worst about that severed thumb you are presumably holding," I eye Daniel as I answer. He was currently messing with the microwave. Pressing buttons and jumping when he turned it on.

"besides my possible dismemberment what do I owe this pleasure," She asks. In the background, I could hear some loud tinging noises. Probably in her workshop, or she does in fact have a human finger. Then probably a different workshop if that were the case.

"Well, I’ll give you a hint," I lean on my elbow.

"Oh goodie, I love games. Three hints," she chuckles.

I can’t help but chuckle as well, "alright three hints. Its long, hard, and came in a box."

"Tracey," She scolds, " I don’t believe you should talk about that kind of thing with your aunt. It seems more like a mother conversation."

"I don’t know, mom would be upset that I have him in the house," I answer vaguely.

"Oh, batteries not included? Who needed powered boyfriends when you can get the real thing," She jokes.

I shake my head," we both know battery-operated is better. Humans don’t tend to vibrate.". This caught Daniel's attention.

"I can vibrate," He informs pointing to his face.

"I'm sure you can, doll," I look up at him.

"And who is that," my aunt asks.

"My new boyfriend, best model out there. Even has same-day delivery," I joke. Daniel cocks his head and his electronic eyebrows furrow.

"A robot," she asks before it clicks," Right! The robot, god I'm a terrible creator. How could I forget my baby boy."

"Terrible mother indeed," I click my tongue," tsk, tsk. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of him.". I look up at Daniel again and give him a wink. He turns his head as a pink color shines from his screen. "Aw, he blushes," I coo.

"Of course he blushes, he has a full range of emotions. My best work if I do say so myself," she pats herself on the back," Practically human."

"So it’s an A.I.," I ask," here I thought I was getting a butler. But I shouldn’t be so disappointed, I got a new friend instead."

Daniel turns his head to look at me," friend? I thought I was your boyfriend."

"We can talk about that later, doll," I answer.

"Aw, breaking up already. Poor Daniel, only been alive for a year and now he has his first broken heart," My aunt coos.

"We are talking about its later Carol, I'm sure it will be fine," Daniel says to the phone.

"You have me on speaker," My aunt asks, "Hi Daniel darling, how do you like Tracey's place?"

"It is cozy, living here would be most joyous," He answers.

"that’s a great sweetie. be nice to Tracey, ok?"

Daniel cocks his head," Why wouldn’t I be anything but?"

"No reason, sorry I doubted you," She apologizes.

"Well, I'm going to get off. Just making sure that you did indeed send me a bot. you can never be too sure," I call out.

"Oh absolutely. Love you baby, take good care of him. He is a sensitive bot, you may forget that he is more than a robot sometimes," She warns.

"Goodbye Carol," Daniel calls out. With that I press end. I cross my arms and lean forward. We both look each other over, observing in the silence.

"Do we need to talk," He asks with an adorable head tilt.

"About what," I answer with a question.

"Us. Are you breaking up with me?" I can’t help but laugh. This only confused him more.

"We aren't together, Daniel. That was just a joke I made with aunt Carol," I answer. I step away from the table and walk around to the fridge.

Daniel stepped away from the table as well and laces his fingers together. It was interesting, robots generally don’t have nervous ticks or idiosyncrasies. Auntie did a good job with him.

"Well, that I won’t lie and say that I'm unfavorable to that," He dropped his head. I was a bit confused about his reaction. He is a strange robot.

"You want to date," I ask. What did she program into this guy? It got my brain moving, how could anyone get a robot to seem so human. Most had applications built in to pretend to empathize with someone, but this was too detailed.

He looked up with a wide expression," Yes."

"Why?"

Daniel looks me up and down before walking over. He takes a hold of my hands and intertwines them.

"You are very appealing," He mimics his earlier words. I pull my hands from his and stare up at him confused. A strange robot indeed.

I sit at my computer with my legs crossed. I hunch over my keyboard and stare with my mouth partially opened. I'm working on pulling up Daniel's code and programs. He is currently hooked up to my tower with a bunch of cables. He is sitting patiently, if not happily, against the wall. His 'eyes' were darting around the room, taking in all the area has to offer.

"What is a battery-operated boyfriend," He cuts the silence. I jerk away from the computer, not use to having someone around in my office.

"what? Why do you ask," I blush.

His eyes focus on me, "you said it earlier, I was curious. Technically I'm a battery-operated boyfriend but I'm assuming it isn't me you were referencing."

I can’t help but smile," I guess you are a battery-operated boyfriend. But you are correct, I wasn’t referring to you."

"Then what is it," he asks again.

I look back to my computer, "I'm not going to answer that." I glance over at him for a second and see him pouting. Another curious attribute.

I stare amazed at the lines and lines of text. His code was so long, even too long. There were programs for such minor things like when to twitch his finger or raise an eyebrow. Looking further I found a curious program label 'Surprise'. Of course, I clicked on it, I'm only human. Looking it over I was nosy to turn the function on.

"Oh, this is new," Daniel mumbles to himself. I look over as he raises his hands from his lap. Looking down I see a protrusion.

"Oh indeed," I say shocked. He was majority matte black with traces of blue deep in his wiring. The protrusion was more on the blue side and had the lining of matte black. It was definitely an eye-catcher.

"Why does he have a cock," I nearly shout into the phone.

"Cutting to the chase, I guess. No foreplay, but I'm going to guess there was some if you found this out," My aunt jokes.

"Not funny, I looked through his programs. Also seriously, you named it surprise," I sneer. This was extremely uncalled for. Auntie has always been a mischievous person. Last year she spiked the punch at the family reunion to 'spice up the party'. But this was too much. "Seriously, you sent me a sex robot? Not to steal your joke from earlier but I feel this would be a better present for mom," I scold. Mom divorced dad about five years ago, this seemed like a better gift to a lonely mother than a 25 y/o.

"First off, ew. I don’t want to think about my sister's sex life a-"

I interrupt her, "And you want to think about mine?"

"Do not use that tone with me. You haven't had a boyfriend since high school, you bury yourself in work. You convinced yourself that it’s enough, fulfilling even. Excuse me for thinking of you. Also, I will make this clear, I made his A.I. as a little side project. He was not for you till after he was made. His personality seemed perfect for you, so sue me for being kind," Carol snapped. I grabbed the bridge of my nose and sighed.

"Fine, I'm sorry. It was kind of you to think of me but It's a bit much that you added such a personal feature," I say calmer.

"I know you will find some use for it, till then please don’t treat him differently for it. I'm sure he doesn’t know what it’s even for," she pleads. I sigh again, this is just weird.

"Alright, I will still take good care of him," I relent. He is but a vessel for my aunt's ignorant kindness.

"I'm sure you will," she laughs.

"Goodbye carol," I hang up. I drop my phone onto the kitchen counter and exhale. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Daniel peaking his head out from my office.

"Are you angry with me," he asks. I look up at him and can’t help but smile.

"Of course not, just surprised," I answer. It was honest, I can’t be mad at him. I've known him for a few hours and I already adore him. He has such wonder for everything around him that makes my jaded self feel humble.

A few weeks with Daniel have been both tiring and rejuvenating. He asks so many questions that I gave up answering them and just introduced him to the internet. I got curious one day and checked his history, he goes on a lot of tangents. Now that he can answer his own questions online, he has moved on to asking about myself. He would ask about my interest or my job. Even comment on things he likes about me. For a robot, he was a bit of a flirt. His favorite thing about me was my hands. He said they were 'gentle and talented'.

We currently stood in the kitchen. He watched me as I cooked, he says he enjoys watching my human rituals. He can’t eat so he just likes watching me eat.

I stir the pot of food as I call out to my home bot," Home, play 90's hits." There was a chime then the music began to play softly from the speakers. Daniel looks around the room a bit confused.

"what was that," he asks her.

"My home bot, it controls some electronics around the house like lights or locks," I explain. He nods his head.

I get into the music and shimmy a bit as I finish off my meal. I slide towards my cabinet and pull out a bowl. With a twirl, I slide the bowl to the stove. Shaking my hips I pour a large helping of soup. Another twirl and I turn to Daniel. His face had its pink cheeks and wide-eyed expression. I set my food down and stare curiously. Why was he blushing?

Before I could ask, I caught sight of his blue swelling. I raised my eyebrows in shock and acknowledgment.

"I'm sorry," he stepped closer to the island to hide himself from view.

"N-No needs to be sorry," I stutter," I'm just curious why it decided to make itself known."

He turned his head as he continued blushing," Y-you."

I point to myself," Me?"

He nods, "You w-were dancing around. You have a firm r-rear."

"O-Oh, thank you," I blush. For the time he has been here I have never witnessed his, um, member. Since the first day it has never come up, pun intended, it’s never been noted again.

"Have you ever, um. Have you ever had this happen before," I ask a bit nervous. We have flirted a bit but I'm still off-put of using him. To have a boyfriend was simple, but to fuck him felt wrong. It was a bit taboo to keep a fully functioning robot around as a sex toy. Even if he seemed human, he wasn’t.

"Yes," He answered short.

"When," I look up at him.

"Depends. Sometimes when you bend over, other times when your shirt drops a bit too low. Most the time is when we sit together on the couch," He answers calmer than earlier.

"When we watch movies," I ask. We watch movies every weekend, I never noticed anything. Not that I would be looking at his crotch.

"Yes," He steps around the island and stops on the side. His crotch still blocked but he was in arms reach. "when u start to daze off and you rest your head on my shoulder. I feel the tingle and I want nothing more than to touch you," he smiles. He places his hands on the counter, not moving them but keeping them where they are. Daniel was leaving me to decide.

Daniel is very smart, never doubted it. Yet he still surprises me with his emotional intelligence. It’s easy to program a robot to see patterns or understand words on a paper. To explain an abstract concept like emotions was hard. You can fake it, but it always comes across as wrong, almost psychopathic. In Daniel, it came off as authentic. It felt real, like he honestly felt those things.

I bounce my finger on the counter as I stare at his hands. He still waited on me.

"You want to touch me," I ask softly. I look down at his fingers. One hand was stretched a bit farther than the other. His hand was sideways, his fingers were slightly splayed.

"more than anything," He murmured. His index twitched a bit.

I skidded my fingers across the table and let our fingers tap against each other. He didn’t move more than his fingers, leaving me with the choice still. Daniel was really smart indeed. I moved closer and grasped his hand, intertwining our fingers. I could hear his body make a low buzzing noise and his chest expand slightly.

My other hand grabs his free one. I pulled him around the table and towards me. Releasing my grip, and him reluctantly doing the same, I reach forward and hug him. I rest my hands on his lower back and my head on his chest. He does his form of a sigh again before wrapping his arms around me. He rests his head on mine and we just stand there.

This feels nice. I can’t remember the last I hugged someone. It had to be over seven years ago when I dated that saxophone player in high school. This felt better though, Daniel was warmer. I ran my hands up his back along the cylinders that controlled his back. I leaned back and looked up at him. I reached for his neck and pulled him down. I kiss him where his lips were on the screen. The whirling in his chest became a bit louder and his hold on my back gets a bit tighter.

I pull back with a shy smile. It felt silly to kiss a screen, but his reaction made it less so. He smiled at me too, even had his adorable blush on his screen.

Daniel led his head down and tapped his screen to my forehead. He pulled back after a moment and looked down at me.

"You look pretty when you blush," He mumbles.

"I could say the same thing about you," I smile.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is a part two. Also i did a lot of unnecessary research on this. even the name of the main character is shared with a famous programmer John Romero. He designed games like Doom or Wolfenstein. But check out my Archive page.

#robot x human #exophilia #fluff #programming #john romero #pt1 #pt 1 of 2 #D-4N1-3L #Tracey Romero #Enigma-IM #monster boyfriend

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shadowfae · 4 years ago

Note

Do you want to explain what that last ask was? I gotta say you look like an entitled prick in your response and the asker was making some pretty serious accusations. I thought you seemed chill but that entire thing is painting you in a pretty messed up light.

You’re right. I do sound like an entitled prick, and to be quite honest? That’s just fine. Because if I’m a heartless jerk, they can’t hurt me. They can’t touch me if I don’t give them anything to argue with.

This happened in the Evillious Chronicles fandom - you may know best the Vocaloid song Servant of Evil, that’s their most famous song. In the English discord for it.

Well, there was me and a few other ‘kin folks in there, all fictionkind from EC, all of varying ages. This was... I want to say 2016. I could be wrong. Scroll back in my blog and check when I figured out I was Pale, that happened right at the beginning of it.

I was 16-17 or so, maybe 15? I don’t remember. But there was Seth, who was twelve, and Lawrence, who was like 21.

Seth is Seth Twiright. Lawrence was Adam Moonlit. Me, Pale Noel. Seth decided in all his twelve year old traumatized wisdom he was gonna get Lawrence to date him, because he missed his own Adam and figured this one was good enough. He said they were canonmates. Maybe they were. I don’t know and I don’t care.

Lawrence was this British guy in uni for physics who liked visual novels and talking to like-minded others, but didn’t get fandom very much and was so not prepared for this bullshit.

Seth liked the NSFW channels of the server, before the 18+ restriction on them. He had a few notable triggers - the word ‘daddy’ was the big one, there were others - and the rule was, triggers are banned in all but the trigger channels which were free for all. Unfortunately, this meant there had to be two NSFW channels, one where Seth ruled and you couldn’t say daddy, and one where you could and somehow he was still allowed in it.

(Edit: I forgot to mention, but like. Looking back, why the fuck was a 12yo allowed in the NSFW channels. Why.)

I dunno. Anyway, so Lawrence lets Seth make friends with him, Seth fixates the hell on Lawrence because he’s twelve and gay and doesn’t have a good support system or whatever. I was friends with Seth beforehand, because his kintype was mine’s creator and I did trust him a little automatically because of it. (I also immediately trust anyone named Yegor or Raisa, no surprise there). I shouldn’t have. Damn it, I shouldn’t have. But I did.

Seth also was very, very suicidal. Kid should’ve been hospitalized multiple times. But here’s me, who’s like sixteen and doesn’t know any better. I talk him out of suicide.

Again. And again. And again. I didn’t go forty-eight FUCKING hours without talking him back from death’s door. It got so bad, that after like six months of this, I couldn’t eat more than a third a plate of food or half a can of soup without immediately throwing it up, because of the stress. My family actually noticed to the point I was finally allowed to go get therapy, which I’d needed for years.

Me, who just wanted all my friends to not die, spent over a year constantly talking everyone out of suicide. Even Lawrence turned to me, and I helped.

Lawrence tried to take some time off to work on his visual novel. Seth started having such bad suicidal episodes I told Lawrence I’d kill him with my bare hands if he didn’t come back and help me fucking deal with it, because I wasn’t good enough and Seth wanted him.

This got back to the server, one of the admins said this was too far out of line, and I got thrown from the server. I confessed to Seth how suicidal I was, trusting he’d talk to me the same way I’d been talking to him for probably two years, and he said something like “I don’t have the energy for this I’m sorry :(” like I’d ever had the energy to do it for him and yet somehow, I still did.

I almost failed two finals - two very important finals that determined what universities I could even apply to - because I couldn’t study because I had to talk him out of suicide.

By the time all was said and done, I’d been the only one keeping three people from killing themselves for over six months. Lawrence, and Seth. And also myself.

Two or three years later, you know what I know?

Seth called Lawrence a pedophile when and only when Lawrence proved he wasn’t going to let Seth control his every move. Before then, he doted on him like no tomorrow. He realized he could just say “pedophile” and everyone would believe him. I did too, until I’d been away long enough to realize he’d been manipulating me, too.

Seth started it. He fucking started it! Lawrence just wanted to make some friends and talk about his experiences as Adam. He actually made up a girlfriend and roleplayed as her with her own discord account in hopes we’d fucking believe him and leave him alone. At the time, I mocked it, but I’d been manipulated by Seth and didn’t understand it.

Seth will tell you Lawrence is a pedophile. He wasn’t. He was the poor bastard who just so happened to be kind to a megalomaniacal twelve year old (note, Seth did turn thirteen somewhere in here so if I fuck that up, forgive me) and just so happened to fit what he wanted to do.

I. Kept. Seth. Alive.

I kept five fucking people alive, when I was sixteen, and what do I get out of it? Seth tells me that I’m the worst thing that’s ever happened to him. I do not and might not for a decade be able to interact with EC. My own source. Nobody in this fandom save for Soubi, who knew me before and still follows me, will forgive me, because I told Lawrence I’d kill him myself if he didn’t help me keep Seth alive.

I can’t go back to my own source because Seth wanted to see how many people he could manipulate into adoring him. It’s been three years, and if you stress me out enough, I still throw up.

You’ll notice I have very little fear response anymore. I don’t get scared. I just get angry. Go on, guess why that is. Guess! It’s because he traumatized me! He traumatized all of us!

I don’t like calling myself traumatized. You know why. Other people had it worse. And for the most part, I’m over it. I can’t talk anyone out of suicide anymore, not even once. It reminds me of the pure, primal terror of keeping five people alive. One, I could’ve handled. Two, if one was me, yeah sure. But three? No. It was too much.

One was too much to ask of any sixteen year old.

I still throw up if I get stressed. I can never give anyone who really needs it the kindness I gave a twelve year old who didn’t deserve it. But you know what?

If I had to go back and do it all over again, if you made me go through it all, I wouldn’t change a thing. Because I thought he was a victim. Because I thought he was truly hurt. Because I wanted to help.

He didn’t deserve it. Frankly, if he’d died somewhere along the way and instead of him coming into my inbox and bitching about how horrible I am you’d told me he was dead, I wouldn’t be upset. I don’t want to say “Good riddance,” because I wouldn’t say that, but I wouldn’t mourn him.

Maybe Seth deserved better in the start. But I can’t say he deserved better than me, because saving him and everyone was the strongest, bravest thing I’ve ever done. Because he didn’t fucking deserve me, but I deserve me, and what I did was brave. What I did was cruel. What I did was kind.

At the end of the day, I saw a hurting teen who needed help, and I helped. It doesn’t matter that it was all a lie. I did what I could. I did what I had to.

Let him tell the world I traumatized him, because I made damn sure he lived. Let him call me worse than a pedophile, because I refuse to let his memory silence me. Let him stew in his hatred and his sorrow and his megalomania, because I stopped being suicidal, because I realized nothing could be worse than what I’d just been through.

Sometimes you have to argue like an asshole. I’m not going to justify myself to him anymore. I’m not gonna give them something to argue about, they aren’t doing it in good faith. I’m not going to reason with them, they won’t listen. I deserve better.

I do. It just took me far, far too long to realize it.

#asks #sleeping-deity #kin drama //#that ec drama

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mrswhozeewhatsis · 5 years ago

Text

To stop the accusation that I’m dragging this out to please the drama llamas, I’ve studied everything I got (and spent a fair amount of time searching for things on blogs), and managed to whittle things down to their bare essentials. I’ve also tried to talk to everyone about everything, which took time. I won’t address everything that everyone has said on both sides, just a few points that are either concrete, or I can’t address them privately for whatever reason.

The timeline as I’ve been able to piece it together is like this:

Vanessa made a post about more popular writers complaining about lack of feedback.

Beka messaged Vanessa wanting to know why Vanessa had a problem with her.

Vanessa responded in a way that upset Beka.

Beka blocked Vanessa.

Vanessa got around the block and sent anonymous asks to Beka.

Beka outed Vanessa by responding to the asks publicly.

Vanessa deactivated her blog.

Friends of both proceeded to attack each other.

Claims about Beka (this is not a complete list):

Only supports her friends on her blogs and in Pond Angel Fish Awards

Although it’s been a couple of months since Beka has reblogged fics from other writers at all, by going back through her #read with me tag, I see reblogs of fics from at least a dozen different writers just in May and June. I’ve only been tracking Angel Fish Awards since February, but since then, Beka has nominated 8 stories by 8 different writers.

Ignored asks for Big Fish advice sent to her blog

If there were a way for me to prove this, then I wouldn’t be listing it here. As it is, it’s impossible to prove. As a Pond admin, I’ve experienced the weirdest stuff with asks. I spent one evening chatting with a member while they repeatedly tried to send in asks, and we didn’t get a single one. I do know that asks sent via the app seem to be more likely to be eaten than asks sent via desktop, but asks sent both ways have disappeared.

There are other claims, this is not a complete list, but I will be addressing them with Beka personally (I have already started doing this, actually). I’m only including these two because they can be proved or disproved with facts. Some of the other claims have been leveled against Big Fish in the Pond other than Beka, as well. The Pond will deal with those privately, but we hope you will see an improvement in these areas when the Pond returns from hiatus.

Claims about Vanessa:

I’ve talked to Vanessa about these, without anything constructive coming from it. I tried. I tried to explain to her that she could have gotten further by using less provocative language and offering constructive suggestions. We ended up having the same old arguments about unrelated issues and going around in circles. The only thing Vanessa ceded was that she should not have continued to reach out to Beka after Beka blocked her. She has apologized for this. I don’t need to list the rest here, just know the conversation happened and nothing came of it.

Claims about Beka’s opposition:

Made unsubstantiated claims about Beka sending herself anon hate

I’ll be the first to tell you that I don’t have a single clue how to figure out who has sent an anonymous ask on Tumblr. However, what I do know is that it requires access to the inbox the ask was sent to. In order for someone who is not Beka to say that Beka sent herself an anonymous ask, they would have had to have hacked into her account, somehow. I don’t know much about this, but it sounds illegal. Since there was proof of this offered, it’s a useless claim.

Picked apart posts on her personal blog and said they were intended for her writing audience when they were not

Beka’s personal blog was, she thought, relatively private. It was not meant for her readers to see. (There is an argument to be made about how it’s still a public blog that the world can see, but the charge is that she intended for her readers to see it and respond, and that is not the case.) Yet, someone took it upon themselves to stalk it, and then match posts between the two blogs, making it look like it all came from one blog. They then took their argument to the absurd and claimed she was using her mental health issues to drum up patrons on her Patreon. If that were the case, then it all would have been on her writing blog. But it wasn’t.

Belittled Beka’s cries for help, and then attacked her further

I don’t care if you didn’t believe her when she said she was on the edge, you just don’t do that, folks. That right there is the point where you either walk away or report her to Tumblr as a threat to herself. The last thing you do is double down on your attacks. Take a break, walk away, find a kinder, gentler way to make your point. I don’t care who they are or what they believe or have done, when someone puts the gun to their head, you do not tell them they are an awful human being.

Dissected every post, word by word, including auto tags, using intentionally provocative language

Not every post made was like this, but a lot were. This is high school stuff, guys. To rip apart words used by someone obviously in pain instead of reaching through and looking for the meaning behind it is petty and cruel. Not to mention it takes so much more energy to dig into things like that than to just respond to the meat of things. To take someone’s blog name and twist it into a degrading moniker is sickening. To attack words used in an effort to distract from the topic at hand, or to just add on to the already heaping pile of anger you’re throwing around is unconscionable and pointless. This is not what people who are coming from a place of love or kindness do. This is what you do when you hate someone, and that’s just not cool, guys.

Brought up old issues thought to have been settled a long time ago

My husband calls this “stamp collecting.” There’s a statute of limitations on things, and it depends on the thing, but my personal limit on Tumblr is about two weeks. If nothing has been said about something for two weeks, I assume it’s in the past and I try to move on. I say this because, if it weren’t settled, then we’d all still be working on it, right? If something is bothering me, and I work on it with someone, but I’m not happy, then I’m gonna keep working on it with that person. If they seem to forget (which happens because we’re all human), then I’m gonna send them a quick message. “Hey there! I’m still working on this thing. Can we talk about it again?” I do this with contractors who work on my house. I did this with clients when I worked in an office. To bring up something that happened a long time ago like it’s still an active issue is pointless, and goes against one of the main tenets of effective arguing.

Taking obvious glee in tearing down another person

Do I really have to talk about this? If you had any care for the other person, even enough to just care that they are a person, you would not gloat about how you’re going to tear them apart.

Really, all of this stuff comes down to if you are approaching the world and everything you do from a place of love or from a place of anger and pain. Even if you are angry and in pain, treat other people like you love and respect them, and you will find that everything is just better.

If you feel like I’m coming down on one side or the other of this situation, just know that I’m not. Pretty much, I don’t like things that were done by both sides. These are just the things I feel more comfortable talking about in a public post like this.

Other stuff that’s come up in the course of all of this:

Complaining about notes/followers

So many writers, lately, are frustrated. Tumblr sucks balls on a good day when it comes to notifications and the whole algorithm mess, and that’s still being generous. In an effort to keep the porn blogs at bay, they’ve stifled all creators. Add to that how tags seem to never work when you’re searching for something, and disseminating your work is nearly impossible.

I could tell you all the different ways you can change your focus on the readers you do have, give you lists of things you can do to expand your audience, and offer advice about not comparing yourself to other writers. But you’ve already heard all of that. So, I’m just gonna say it.

If you complain publicly about a lack of notes or followers, you’re gonna look like a dick.

That doesn’t mean you are a dick. You’re just gonna look like one. You’re going to look like you’re ungrateful for the readers that you do have, which is going to turn off those readers, and you’ll end up with even fewer notes and followers. If you manage to disparage other writers while you’re complaining, you’re gonna look like an even bigger dick. So, just don’t do it, unless you don’t mind looking like a dick.

Need to vent about it? Find a close friend and send it to them in a private message. Have a funny thought about it that you want to share? This is exactly what private messages are for. Create a group DM in discord. Heck, I think even Tumblr has a group chat option, now. Just, don’t put it on your blog, unless you want to lose followers.

The number of admins at the Pond

Some folks seem to think that the Pond needs to add more admins in order to react more quickly when something goes down. Honestly, I have talked to Mana and Kale about stepping down as admin because I believe the opposite is true. We have a policy that we all must agree on the big things. However, we are separated by 8 time zones. There is a rare hour every few days (sometimes it’s weeks) when all three of us are awake and not occupied with caring for family members. We have a private group chat thing where we each toss ideas and questions and such into the pot when we’re doing things. When the others get to it, they add their two cents. Usually, there are two of us active at a time, and then we wait for the third to stop by for approval. Often, the third has a question or argument that then needs to be addressed, but the first or second one isn’t available. More admins would only be a good thing if we were all in the same time zone. But we’re not. We are an international group, which I believe is a good thing, but the downside is that it slows us down. Sometimes, being slow is a good thing, too. Generally, at least one of is calm and level-headed at any given time. It shifts on who that one is, but they keep us from doing anything rash.

The whole problem is that no one feels like they can tell you when there’s a problem

I’ve heard this so many times, now, but I haven’t responded to it publicly, so here goes.

Most of you don’t know what I’m like in person, but I’m built like a linebacker. I’m tall, I’m heavy, and I have wide shoulders. I have literally scared small children. Take Jared Padalecki, add another Jared Padalecki on the side, and then take away all the pretty, and you come close to what I’m like when you see me walking down the street.

I don’t want to be a scary person that anyone is afraid to approach. My goal in life is to be kind and fair. I will give you second and third chances, because I know how awful it feels to be written off.

My ask box is always open. My chat windows are always open. My email address is [email protected]. I’m the same on discord and skype. I don’t care if you think your thing is stupid, if it’s something that’s bothering you, and I can help, then I want to help. I can’t always help, but I always want the opportunity to try.

If I have ever done anything that made you feel like I didn’t care, then I give you permission to tell me. I’ll hate hearing it, but I need to hear it.

If I have forgotten to follow up on something for you, PLEASE REMIND ME. Holy, cow, I have a TERRIBLE memory. It’s really bad. I have tricks and stuff that I do to try to make sure I don’t lose track of things, but it still happens. Please, come back to me and remind me that I promised you something. I guarantee that I will not be mad or upset. I will be glad, because you’re helping me to be the person I want to be.

I think that’s about it. The Pond is still on hiatus, indefinitely. We have a lot of things we’re talking about for if/when we come back, and some of them are really exciting to me. I hope we come back. I hope we can make the Pond what we always meant it to be. We’ll need help, and constant feedback from our fishy family, but I still have hope.

#incoherent babbling by mrswhozeewhatsis #michelle rants #mrswhozeewhatsis rants

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dianadragonfly · 5 years ago

Text

Okay, hang on bitches, cause Imma bout ta rewatch “The Final Problem.” I’ve seen it once since 2017. And because there is no commentary on the disc I have, I will be providing the commentary.

[[MORE]] Since I started my “rewatch and comment” spree, I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Things that had previously stood out in my mind as being particularly not-good are really not that bad. Most were actually really short moments that stood out in retrospect because they seemed incongruous with how well-written and acted everything else was.

Up till season 2, the writers could do no wrong whatsoever. The exact moment I experienced a “well that was overdone” moment of questioning the writers was when Sherlock broadcast a picture of Mary on the outside of the facade in “His Last Vow.” From there, I had moments of doubt and questioning plot and directing choices that took away from the narrative. But, except for the moment John sees Mary die, I never ever questioned the acting choices. The actors are so amazing. And I’m not just saying that because Ben and Martin are hot.

As I prepare to watch the episode, there are several scenes that I dread. Opening with the girl on the airplane reminds me of how much I hated this trick. If the girl is Eurus messing with them, then why do we see it acted out? If we cannot trust that what we see is a reality, then all of the “Mind Palace” theories of TFP (i.e. that it actually took place in a dream or in the head of a character) have some authenticity to them. Ugh.

Damn. I’d forgotten the “Hello. My name is Jim Moriarty” part of the intro. No need for that if the girl is just something in Eurus’s imagination.

Oh shit. I hate hate hate hate everything about this scene of Mycroft.

First of all, there is security in Mycroft’s house.

Second of all, he would have skewered any of those actors with the umbrella sword or shot one of them with the gun.

Why are the paintings crying blood? John and Sherlock couldn’t accomplish that... once we add scary clown it’s just too much. Even for Sherlock.

Oh stop with the heavy-handed East Wind references. Dammit, I loved this show for its subtly. Killer clowns are not subtle, even in pranks.

Now with Mycroft here, in the client position, refusing to sit, with the Baker Street Boys in their chairs - this is what I came for. The light, the look on their faces, the composition of the shot.

Oohh Hudson throwing some shade. John’s half smile...

Is the skull portrait glowing? I can’t tell.

“That’s why he stays!” Fuck yeah. John’s half smile again...

“Middle child. Explains a lot.” As a middle child, I resent that remark. And sort of get it.

So the flashing back and forth in time, with the ashes of Musgrave Hall in the apartment, 5 year old Eurus answering grown-up Mycroft’s questions, the pebble: all of that would be okay, if not a tiny bit less than subtle, had we not just fought a goddamn clown in the scene before.

Oh goddamn. The stupid fucking patience gernade and that song.

Of course Mrs. Hudson vacuums to Iron Maiden.

It’s Sherlock’s turn to half-smile. Cute.

Beautifully shot here with the above view and all three of them at different points on a circle around it.

Ugh. I have to turn away at the “action shot” of them jumping out the window. This is not “Die Hard.” It’s not a cop buddy movie. We just got a really well played, fun little scene where they talked a about Oscar Wilde to avoid talking about the fact that they might die. That’s what I watch Sherlock for.

There was a fan fic written around 2012 that mentions “The Importance of Being Ernest.” Coincidence? Creators reading fanfic? I know Wilde and ACD were contemporaries, but it’s interesting. I can’t think of any other literary works that are alluded to in canon. It’s funny it should be this one.

And now we’ve commandeered a boat. Seriously.

All of the other episodes, I had more patience with on this go-around where I get a chance to type out reactions and reflect on how they are put together. But I’m finding that isn’t the case with this one. I’m just pissed. Give me one or two unbelievable moments or plot twists in an episode and I can sustain it. But between the airplane, killer clowns at Mycroft’s, the patience gernade, and this, I’m already done and we’re 20 minutes in. Sherlock looks like a goddamn vampire bat. And seriously, why does Mycroft need to steal a boat? And write a message in the sand? What the hell? Why dress up?

Sherlock’s security guard act cracks me up.

Oh his face when he sees Eurus. His. Face. Curiosity. Heartbreak. Empathy. Pain. Doubt. Fear. THIS is my show. Not patience gernades, killer clowns, dressing up like a sea captain etc in one damn episode.

She “enslaves” people... magical Eurus who makes people kill their family. Really?!

Oh no. He ignores “Vatican cameos.” I forgot that. He chooses to ignore John’s warning.

His face.... Jesus Benedict can act.

Big bouncy red alert! Okay, what was with the spinning John face when he gets knocked out?

This constant shift between wondering what the hell is happening, wondering if the show has become a parody of itself, and then bouncing back to this heart wrenching narrative — is that the point of this episode? Like “The Empty Hearse” or “The Abominable Bride”? But those episodes explained themselves after they pulled the rug out. As soon as something got to the point of absurdity, it was explained. Sherlock didn’t swing in a window at Bart’s and kiss Molly but we briefly were led to believe he did. Moriarty and Sherlock aren’t really kissing on the roof. (By then we knew what was up though). Sherlock didn’t really attempt to dig up a dead Amelia Rocoletti. We understand it’s a drug-induced dream.

This rapid jumping back and forth with half-assed explainations — I’m coming to believe this off-balance feeling is the point of the episode but I don’t like it. I like it even less than I did before.

Oh Andrew Scott. I love you.

The bastards wait till 5 minutes into the Moriarty scene to tell us it’s 5 years ago. That constant pulling out the rug — I will at least excuse that because there is a plausible explaination given. But it’s a cheap trick. This episode is one cheap trick after another, with only a few moments, here and there, of characters actually interacting.

So it’s late and I don’t know if I have the heart to make it through this whole episode tonight. To be continued....

Edited:

Starting at scene 5 on the DVD because that's when Sherlock sees Eurus for the sort of first time. I kind of just want to bask in Ben's performance here again.

After the last episode, clean-shaven Sherlock in a suit is a relief. He's back... at least a little.

His small smile when he asks her how she got out. . .

I'm realizing how much of this scene had to be Benedict looking directly into the camera and talking to Eurus. That had to be intimidating.

***I've skipped ahead to closer than where I was last night because the small people in my house will want food soon. Parentig gets in the way of fangirling. ****

I still love the Hungry Donkey story.

OH MY GOD! I forgot how much I love Andrew Scott here!!!

Are they making out through the glass?

And now the four of them wake up in a cell but this one has glass. Ugh. The plane again. I love how Sherlock changes his voice here to talk to the girl. He isn't incapable of reading people and reacting to them. He just usually can't be bothered. There’s a fan theory that says Sherlock is autistic. I was going to comment that this skill of his is evidence that he’s not but I stopped myself. He -knows- HOW one needs to act to get people to respond to him, but it’s a learned skill. Which actually might add evidence to the “autism” theory more than the sociopath theory.

Mark Gatiss - I forget what an incredible actor he can be. Whoa.

These scenes - these scenes where they have to apply themselves to a task that Eurus sets for them -- they are so fucking good. Tense and well-acted. I can see every emotion on every actor's face. The rest of the episode should have been better to make it worthy of these performances. It physically hurt watching John try to shoot the governor.

Someone said that Jim Moriarty went from a criminal mastermid to manical Thomas the Train Engine on this episode and I can't unthink that any time he flashes on the screen.

I had a moment, when Eurus was using such clinical language of behavioralism ("prompts") etc that I flashed back onto my life as an ABA instructor. Seriously. I know they are a million miles away but no one watching this would ever think, even for a second, that Eurus was morally right. Why, then, do we do a smiliar thing to autistic children? I had a moment of revulsion then. (Restirct physical liberty and autonomy, make them complete a command that's nonsensical for either reward or aversive. Give prompts. Follow through (deny reward) if one deviates from the prompt). She might as well been saying "Touch table, Sherlock." ("Touch table" is one of the first directives often given in ABA. It's easy to manually prompt (force) a kid to do and helps the kid realize the link between following the requests and obtaining rewards.)

Sorry. ABA rant is slightly off topic.

To be continued in comments ..

#bbc sherlock #benedict cumberbatch #martin freeman #johnlock #the final problem #andrew scott

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ggclarissa · 6 years ago

Text

Not Real Pt. 2 (Five Hargreeves x Robot!Reader)

Summary: After disappearing for almost seventeen years, Five returns to the academy. He returns to you.

A/N: The part two nobody asked for, but the part I wanted. The reader acts a little more human here because of Five. Btw, the whole I Think We’re Alone Now dancing sequence never happened in this imagine. Also (Y/F/F) means your favorite flowers.

You sat on one of the plush sofas in the living room as Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus, and Vanya discussed the death of their father. Luther claimed it was murder, which you didn’t quite understand. Pogo told you that Reginald had died of heart failure. Then again, you weren’t there when it happened. You were shut off as you were being recharged, apparently.

“Would anyone like anything to eat?” You spoke up, smiling sweetly. You didn’t mean to intrude on their conversation, but you hadn’t cooked or baked for any of the children in a long time. It was nice to see them all again even if it was during a despairing occasion.

“No, we’re good, (Y/N),” Allison assured you, sending you a pitiful smile. She knew you were only trying to liven up the conversation

Your smile faltered, and it became a little more synthetic. “Oh, okay,” You muttered, fiddling with the hem of your dress. As the children continued their discussion, you looked up at the painting above the fireplace. The painting of Five.

You never understood why Five left. He stormed out of lunch one day after an arguement with his father and never came back. Vanya had tried telling you that Five wasn’t really gone, that he’d be coming back soon. It had been almost seventeen years since his disappearance, and you were still waiting for him to come home.

You stood in the dining room as the children ate the lunch you and Grace had prepared. It was a bit too quiet for your liking, but you wouldn’t dare voice your opinion. No talking was allowed during meal times as it interrupted Herr Carlson. One of the many rules your master and creator, Sir Reginald Hargreeves, had set in place for those living in the Umbrella Academy.

You looked over at the children, each of them doing their own thing. Ben was silently reading a novel as he chewed his food, Klaus was rolling a joint under the table, Diego and Vanya were eating their lunch, and Allison and Luther were stealing subtle glances at each other. Five was staring at his father intently, his mouth opening and closing. You knew exactly what he wanted to say.

Five discussed with you earlier that he wanted to time travel. You opposed the idea, reprimanding him and telling him it was too dangerous. Five only scoffed at your words. He knew you only wanted to protect him, but he was ready. He would propose the idea, with or without your approval, at meal time.

In order to grab his father’s attention—as words wouldn’t be enough—he grabbed a butter knife and jammed it into the table harshly.

“Number Five,” Reginald scolded.

“I have a question,” Five stated, ignoring the look you gave him.

“Knowledge is an admirable goal, but you know the rules. No talking during meal times. You are interrupting Herr Carlson.”

“I want to time travel.”

“No.” Reginald shot down the idea immediately.

“But I’m ready,” Five argued. “I’ve been practicing my spacial jumps just like you said.” You watched as Five teleported and reappeared by his father’s side. “See?”

“A spacial jump is trivial when compared to the unknowns of time travel. One is like sliding along the ice, the other is akin to descending blindly into the depths of freezing water and reappearing as an acorn,” Reginald lectured.

“Well, I don’t get it,” Five admitted, looking slightly embarrassed.

“Hence why you are not ready.”

Five glanced over at you, and you shook your head, mouthing, “Sit down.” Angry at his father’s refusal and lack of explanation, he turned on his heel and ran out of the room.

“Number Five! You haven’t been excused! Come back here!” Reginald yelled out.

You wanted to go after him, but your circuits were screaming at you to stay put.

You snapped out of your trance as you heard a loud, thundering sound outside. Diego’s knives flew out of his hands as they jammed themselves into the wall, and the metal jar of Reginald’s ashes almost fell out of Klaus’s grasp at the strong, unknown force. You all rushed to the backyard to see a blue anomaly forming in the sky.

“Looks like some sort of temperal anomaly,” Luther stated. “Either that or a minature black hole. One of the two.”

“Pretty big difference there, Paul Bunyan!” Diego yelled sarcastically.

“Out of the way!” Klaus shouted as he rushed forward, holding a fire extinguisher.

“What are you—?” Diego started to ask, but he was cut off as Klaus threw the fire extinguisher into the anomaly. It merely repelled, flying back.

“What is that gonna do?” Allison questioned frantically.

“I don’t know!” Klaus retorted, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “You got a better idea?”

“Everybody get behind me!” Luther yelled out as he shoved Allison behind him.

“Yeah! Everybody get behind us!”

Vanya grabbed onto your hand, holding you closely as the wind began to pick up. You watched as a man—no, a boy—began to emerge from the anomaly. The boy fell to the ground, and the portal disappeared, swirling out of existence.

“Uh, does anyone else see little Number Five or is that just me?” Klaus asked as the Hargreeves stared at their long lost brother in shock.

Letting go of Vanya’s hand, you stepped forward cautiously. “Number Five?” You called out, your voice sounding oddly shaky.

Five looked down at himself before looking back up at his siblings. “Shit,” He cursed, realizing he was young again. After rushing him back inside the house, you were all seated around the kitchen table.

“What’s the date?” Five inquired, grabbing a bag of bread from the cabinet. “The exact date.”

“The 24th,” Vanya answered.

“Of what?”

“March,” She clarified.

Five nodded. “Good.” He reached into the bag, pulling out two slices of white bread and placing them onto the cutting board.

“So are we gonna talk about what just happened?” Luther questioned. Five paid no heed to his words as he continued to make his sandwich. “It’s been seventeen years!”

“It’s been a lot longer than that,” Five retorted, glaring up at him. He teleported, reappearing at the counter and grabbing a bag of marshmallows.

“Where did you go?” Diego spoke up.

“The future. It’s shit, by the way.”

“Called it!” Klaus exclaimed, clearly proud of his little achievement.

“I should’ve listened to the old man,” Five continued as he rummaged through the fridge. “You know, jumping through space is one thing. Jumping through time is a toss of the dice.”

Five looked over at you, a small smile breaking through his serious expression. “Nice dress.”

You smiled, looking down at the dress you were wearing. It was the one Five had gotten you for Christmas before he disappeared, the one with (Y/F/F) on it. “Thank you,” You beamed.

“Wait, how did you get back?” Vanya asked, interrupting your little moment.

“In the end, I had to project my consciousness forward into a suspended quantum state version of myself that exists across every possible instance of time,” Five explained.

“That makes no sense,” Diego muttered.

“Well, it would if you were smarter,” Five quipped.

Diego stood up angrily, but Luther held him back, putting his arm out in front of him.

“How long were you there?” Luther questioned.

Five shrugged. “Fourty-five years, give or take.”

“So what are you saying? That you’re fifty-eight?” Luther asked in disbelief.

“No, my consciousness is fifty-eight,” Five corrected. “Apparently, my body is now thirteen again.”

“How does that even work?”

“Dolores kept saying the equations were off.” Five shrugged, taking a bite of his peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich. “Bet she’s laughing now.” He glanced down at the newspaper on the table, reading the headline. “Guess I missed the funeral.”

“How did you know about that?” Luther asked.

“What part of the future do you not understand?” Five retorted. “Heart failure, huh?”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Nice to see nothing’s changed,” Five said sarcastically, walking out of the room.

“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” Allison questioned in disbelief.

“What else is there to say? Circle of life.”

The Hargreeves all sat in silence, trying to process what just happened. You stood up and walked out of the room, intending to go after Five. You hadn’t seen him in almost seventeen years—well, forty-five years, apparently.

You walked up the large staircase and into his bedroom. Five stood in front of his closet, wearing his old Umbrella Academy uniform.

“Number Five,” You spoke up, and he turned to look at you.

“(Y/N),” He breathed, stepping towards you and engulfing you in hug. He squeezed you tightly, tears suddenly pricking his eyes. He hadn’t realized how much he missed you until now.

You wrapped your arms around him, feeling your dress become wet with tears. “Why are you crying, Number Five?” You asked softly, a little concerned.

“I missed you so much,” He whispered, placing his chin on your head. He closed his eyes, inhaling the scent of your artificial hair. Even though you weren’t real and incapable of having a scent, he swore that you smelled of the loveliest things.

Five pressed a small kiss to your forehead and pulled away. He smiled down at you, something that he only seemed to do with you. “I love you, (Y/N).”

You smiled, reaching up to wipe away his tears. “I love you, too, Number Five.”

And those words were real.

#five hargreeves x reader #five hargreeves imagines #number five x reader #the umbrella academy #luther hargreeves #allison hargreeves #diego hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #vanya hargreeves #reginald hargreeves #netflix original #tua

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moltenhair · 5 years ago

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It is sad that Adira’s being used in this way. The thing is, I feel like that S3 has just gone completely haywire. As you said, when Adira is proven to be completely on their side, she disappears completely, only to come back as a pawn. It’s uncomfortable and scary. I think that S2 should have ended with ZT being released. I get that the Cass turn is there to keep the audience on their toes but I genuinely think it would’ve been better to use Adira more and do more worldbuilding in S3.

Hmmm. I’m with you for some of this. But honestly I don’t think Zhan Tiri being released that early would have benefited the show. Zhan Tiri is clearly the “final boss”. Once they are beaten, the big bad guy is finished. The climax of the plot has already happened. Pack it up, we’re done. Could there have been an entire season of Zhan Tiri fighting them? Probably. But I feel like stretching them out over that long would make them less intimating. The longer the big bad guy is around and not defeating the heroes, the more times they fail and the less the audience believes them to be a threat. Plus the character overstays their welcome. That’s already kinda happening with Cass’ arc for a lot of people. She’s been the primary antagonist for an entire season but hasn’t actually accomplished anything or even established what her goal is. Her villainy arc is over staying its welcome and a lot of us are ready for her to be redeemed/saved so we can move on with the story. We’re ready to see the REAL bad guy now.

In that regard I think season 3 did that much properly. Waiting to give us Zhan Tiri was the right move.

On the other hand… It’s all the other new stuff they’re throwing at us that’s messing things up and ruining the pacing. All these new plot devices are coming out of nowhere and have no connection to the world-building at all.. They could have just expanded on what we learned from Season 2 but instead there’s all this NEW stuff. If they had established/showed/even mentioned some of these items in seasons 1 or 2 and seeing them used this way was some kind of pay off would be one thing. Or if they just used things they already had instead of making NEW things. But instead suddenly there are these super powerful, super important artifacts that we’re just now hearing about and we’re just kinda… being forced to roll with it because now there’s not time to explain what’s going on.

And.. yeah what they’re doing with Adira (and the rest of the brotherhood) kinda stinks. And I’m kinda at a point where I’d really rather just not have her return than have her return just to be a mindless drone soldier fighting for… What even is she being brought back to fight for? What is the point of having soldiers? What is even the GOAL? With 4 episodes left in the series we should have at least SOME idea what this is all building towards by now and we’ve got nothing. I’m not a fan of “fanservice” cameos. I’m not a fan of creators bringing back characters just so they can be like “Look! It’s them!”. I like character returns to have actual logic behind them and there just … isn’t any for the Brotherhood- so far. Their involvement in the plot as it’s been given to us so far makes no sense. There is no established reason Adira and Hector need to be brought back into the story. Not with the way season 3 has been going at the very least.

Having Adira and Hector showing up in town one day to visit Edmund or Quirin would have at least given them some agency in the story and given them ties to another character that brought them back into the plot. THEN maybe have them get brainwashed. It would have been SILLY but at least that way they’re introduced back into the story as themselves and then we see them lose themselves. Or have them come to try and stop the moonstone. Literally anything other than this. Instead of a character they haven’t seen in a year of series time brainwashing them for an unclear goal.

#rta spoilers #rapunzel's tangled adventure #long post #Anonymous

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afinepricklypear · 5 years ago

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Compare and Contrast: K Project vs. Bungou Stray Dogs - Part 2

Read Part 1

Story

In general, K Project does a lot better job of maintaining a consistent and focused story, especially in Seasons 1 and 2 than BSD, with almost no filler content. There aren’t nearly as many open plot threads or divergences from the main story, and everyone introduced has a very cohesive purpose to the plot. This may largely be due to the fact that K was originally envisioned as a complete story, with the movie Return of Kings and season 2’s Missing Kings and other added materials being, somewhat, after thoughts consequently ordered due to the popularity of the show. Season 2 does offer a very decisive end to the tale, with the destruction of the Dresden Slate, mysterious source of all supernatural power. On the other hand, BSD is an ongoing serialized manga with no set beginning or ending that we, as the audience, are aware. BSD’s author, Asagiri Kafka, isn’t telling a self-contained story with a determined beginning, middle, and end, so often times characters and plot devices are introduced which may not have bearing on the current arc of the story, they hint at things to come. This might be frustrating for viewers that aren’t interested in long-term serialized works, which does have the tendency to fall victim to filler episodes in attempt to make a certain quota or make up for any lulls in the story.

That being said, BSD, thus far, does a lot better with world.

In K, the concepts of Clans and Kings, the Dresden Slate, and the Swords of Damocles are never fully fleshed out satisfactorily, to the point that aspects of it feel completely illogical, convoluted, and conveniently there merely to move the plot forward. Fantasy stories are generally under no obligation to provide explanations for where magic abilities come from, K makes an attempt with the Dresden Slate, but overreaches with an established protocol of Kings and Clans in regards to these powers with no explanation for where or why these rules manifested or why anyone feels obligated to follow them. For example, the Red King Mikoto is not shown to care too much for being a King, or even wanting obligations to his Clan, yet he maintains it and his Clansmen show loyalty to it, and there’s no explanation beyond “well that’s just the way the Dresden Slate works”. That would be fine, if this wasn’t established as the expectation of anyone who is “awoken” as a King. In that same vein, a lot isn’t really clarified in terms of what really happens to Clansmen when their King dies (Clansmen are shown to still maintain powers granted from their former King but that’s just speculation from viewers, and doesn’t make sense if there powers stem from their Kings) and what is meant to happen when a new King takes their place (though we do see Clansmen turn on the new Blue King, in regards to Munakata taking over Jin Hibari’s role, or choosing to continue following the new Red King, as we see in HOMRA with Anne taking Mikoto’s place). Worse, these rules are just universally known in a world that isn’t supposed to know about these Clans and Kings, leaving no one to explain these rules to newly awakened Kings although these rules are shown to be universally known and accepted by them. More questions than answers are raised.

In BSD, people being born with or manifesting abilities is shown to just be a facet of this world. It’s just one of the physical laws, much like how the sky is blue, grass is green, some people can conjure demons that kill you. This is just the world they live in, and in that sense, the people in this world are the ones that determine the rules that govern these abilities without expectation. This treats us to various different ideas and philosophies for how ability users should apply their abilities or how the users themselves should be managed. The government attempts to regulate ability users, through licensure for organizations that wish to operate as ability user specific. This provided a cool storyline where we see Port Mafia obtain its license to operate as an ability user organization during the Dark Era, through nefarious plotting on leader, Mori’s part, which also highlighted that the Port Mafia is a criminal organization because prior to obtaining this license they were operating without one. We also see the Armed Detective Agency undergo a plot to take their license away, and since they are the morally upright group, in their minds, losing their license means they will cease to exist. This places explanation firmly on the goals of their given society, something that is relatable and understandable for readers, and shifts it away from the realm of unexplainable and increasingly convoluted magic.

On the flipside of that, however, K does a much better job of balancing powers. Which brings me Nakahara Chuuya.

I’ll throw this disclaimer in here, Chuuya is my favorite character. I fell in love at first sight. Unfortunately, he gets little to no screen time, I could count on one hand his number of appearances throughout the first two seasons. He gets three episodes at the start of Season 3 that explores his history with Dazai, and I feel I’m in no way biased (**cough, cough** 100% biased) saying these are the best three episodes of the season. Then we see him maybe in two more episodes until he gets trapped in a book for the rest of the season, leaving me screaming furiously at the screen. Manga chapters that go beyond where the anime left off are not filling me with much hope for more Chuuya in Season 4. Seriously, I don’t recommend loving this character, you’ll only get your heart broken.

The problem with Chuuya that becomes rampant throughout BSD in other characters, is that he’s a side character for a rival organization and he is super OP. Since the creator seems adamantly against making him a more main character (either as antagonist or protagonist…hell, majority of his appearances have been to literally save the day for the heroes), not to mention the lack of anyone in our heroes’ corner that could reasonably take him on (even Dazai is outmatched despite his nullifying ability, because Chuuya also happens to be Port Mafia’s best martial artist) the only recourse is to leave him conveniently absent from majority of the story. Which, okay, this can mostly be explained away that he’s an Executive in Port Mafia and probably has a lot to deal with in terms of making sure their operations continue to move smoothly, but it leads to ludicrous scenarios such as the end of the Guild Arc when a whale sized airship is being dropped on Yokohama by the Guild. We’re told this ship will wipe out a large portion of the city. At this point, the Detective Agency and Port Mafia are on semi-good terms in order to stand against their common enemy, the Guild. You would think, large object being dropped on the city, Port Mafia has a powerful gravity manipulator on staff...one phone call to Dr. Mori, “Hey...do you mind sending Chuuya to take care of that whale bomb....or are you just cool with the city being flattened?” All Chuuya needs to do is parachute down, once he touches the ship, he could tear the whole thing apart and fling its pieces to every side of the ocean. They call it a day in thirty seconds, tops, back home for dinner. Yet, for some odd reason, the course of action that the Armed Detective Agency decides on is to send rookie agent tiger boy to infiltrate the ship and fight his way to a possible transponder they can use to reverse the ship’s course, despite having little experience, and no specialized abilities for the task, let’s not get started on the ridiculousness of that transponder anyways. This decision is based largely on the fact he once was held prisoner on the ship and so…should know his way around? I get that they supposedly don’t want to owe Port Mafia, but this kind of seemed like an odd time to play loose and fast with the city’s safety. The point is, Chuuya is powerful, which makes his lack of presence during crucial moments pretty heavy handed.

That being said, however, this OP situation, is a problem throughout with other characters as well. There’s no balance of powers, and characters are shown to do things that don’t fall within the realm of their abilities, may never have previously been display or given proper explanation prior to introduction, and sometimes comes across as just thrown in last minute as a plot device. A few examples, able to transform into a tiger also, somehow allows Atsushi to heal at a rapid level and regrow limbs. Forget about the implications that he’s got some “special” light attached to his ability, as well. In a recent chapter of the manga, we see a newly introduced character, one of the Hunting Dogs, slap a bullet out of the air and stop a large projectile with her bare hands. Her ability, however, is age manipulation so there’s no given reason why she should’ve been able to do those things. While it is mentioned that the Hunting Dogs are also genetically engineered, she did this to save another Hunting Dog who is duly is surprised by her actions and expresses that he could not have done the same. I’m baffled. This is to say nothing of the multiple time characters without regenerative or durable abilities are stabbed, blown up, and impaled, only to walk it off like it’s nothing. The Agency healer, Yosano, has an ability called Thou Shalt Not Die, she can heal someone but only when they’re on the brink of death, so her ability is essentially that trope in action films where the bomb is always disarmed with one second to spare. Let’s not even talk about the new revelation that Dazai can control his heart beats to the point he can use it for passing secret code. It becomes plot armor so thick that it entirely erases the stakes for our characters. They’re all treated as practically immortal, able to overcome anything thrown at them, I’m not even worried anymore when a character takes a lance through the heart, I know he’s walking it off in the next scene.

K is a lot more balanced with its abilities. None of the characters, outside of the Kings, feel so overpowered that they are impossible to stop and they’re not shown to be capable of things outside of their given abilities or established, and might I say reasonable, skillsets. Even the Kings have their peers in the other Kings. Sure, Clansmen can dodge bullets, but if they’re hit by one it hurts and, notably in the case of Totsuka, it can kill. No one is getting impaled multiple times then walking it off. Mikoto is run through with a blade once, and as it should be, he dies. Not only does this maintain the stakes for our characters – they are at the end of the day mortal, and they can get hurt, they can be beaten, they can die – it also gives us a more complicated, and darker story with characters that we can relate to on an emotional level.

Read Part 3

#bungo stray dogs #k #k project #spoilers #more to come #anime review #thoughts #drabble #long post

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positivelypetty · 6 years ago

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A REALLY long rant on the Joint Training Arc.

Okay, so since the Joint Training Arc is basically done, I thought I would share my various opinions and adress certain issues that A LOT of people had with this arc.

But, before we get into the actual rant, I think I should distinguish the difference between an opinion, criticism and just plain antagonism.

Here is an example of just misinformed toxicity:

This is just being TOXIC!!! You can’t shelter these horrible comments by saying “it’s just an opinion.” Please don’t act like after 4 years of really enthralling writing, he’s now the worst writer ever. Instead, explain why you don’t think this was the best story choice, instead of being clearly misinformed. It’s nothing absolutely terrible, but just a simple example on how people can be so demanding and completely inconsiderate to the creator.

“Forbidding” Horikoshi from writing is actually ridiculous. He WROTE AND CREATED your “precious sons” that you love so much. So, if you claim that the manga is now utter trash because it doesn’t personally cater to you, please abandon or take a long break from the manga/anime to maybe clear your head. Thank you.

We don’t need any more toxicity in this fandom than we already do.

Now with that said, let’s talk about the arc! (Also keep in mind that these ideas spurred from Reddit so, I decided to expand on it)

1-B vs 1-A situation:

I've been reading a ton of comments too, the good, and the bad and it's fine, everyone has their opinions and that's cool, but for me, it didn't seem it was about who won or lost, it was more about how each class was taught. And this boils down to both Vlad and Aizawa.

Vlad has obviously been pushing his students and their quirks to the max in regards to working in teams. This shines through in all of the fights they all work together very well and know the strengths and weaknesses of each other as well as their enemies. They go into a battle with a plan and are ready to execute the plan flawlessly.

Whereas Aizawa I believe has pushed for more individualist thinking style, and I think this comes from his basis of fighting villains. No one will come to save you, you have to be able to handle yourself whether escaping or defeating. He doesn't coddle his students, and he does push them to the brink as well. What's interesting is Class A has had more hands-on experience. With Aizawa’s teaching style I think they sometimes have a harder time working with one another and they can fall apart with their teamwork. HOWEVER their real-life experience has taught them that the best-laid out plans can not go as plan, and they are able to utilize their 'individual' thinking to fight regardless of a plan falling through.

I found it really interesting and I think there's value in both ways of thinking for Vlad and Aizawa. For Class B, they will have to learn how to abandon a plan that's not working and strategize on the fly, and Class A will have to hone their teamwork for long-running battles.

And let's be honest, these are just kids, pushing their bodies and minds to the limit, I don't find Class B to be 'trash' just because they lost, they still fought hard and worked better together in the long run then Class A. Class B didn't have any dead weight with their battles, everyone was utilized and contributed to all their fights. People are so set on who “won” or who “lost” the battle, that people overlook everyone’s overall individual quirks and techniques. I personally believe that many of the 1-B students were amazing and are forces to be reckoned with. It’s just that 1-A knows how to handle themselves when things don’t to go to plan rather than 1-B (as mentioned before) which gave 1-A the upper-hand in most of the battles, but I can definitely name a few fights where Class A's members were carried by their team.

Now to address the Shinsou thing:

To everyone who was PRESSED that Shinsou didn’t win....

What do you expect from Shinsou? I feel like people were overestimating him. Even with those cloth bindings and his quirk. All you need to do is shut your mouth, grab his cloth bindings (at best he has a few months training) keep focusing on him,restrain him, and boom you're done.(I obviously know it’s not that simple, but basically) I love Shinsou, I really do, but he’s basically Aizawa (I love Aizawa too don’t get me wrong). Aizawa mentioned that it took FIVE YEARS for him to truly master his quirk, and even though since this is the younger generation, so he’ll probably get the hang of it sooner, how long as he really been “training” his quirk under Aizawa? Definitely not long enough for him to go 1v1 with someone who is a close combat fighter. (It really isn’t that shocking that Deku won, he could probably win without Black Whip). Don't get me wrong Shinsou has improved MONUMENTALLY but not to the extent of 1-A who has direct experience in fighting villains. I just think people are mainly mad that 1-B lost is as because they think Shinsou won’t get into the Hero Course. Like chill. One of the main reasons 1-A won in the first match was because of Shinsou, so I think that proves that he is MORE than capable to get in to the Hero Course.

The whole OP Deku thing:

First off, I honestly don't expect him to ever match All Might at his prime in terms of consistent pure raw strength. Deku isn't a giant man of pure muscle, so I don't think he'd be able to go 100 and maintain it like All Might could. Deku is more of a person of different techniques and strategy, rather than brute force. Like, I don't know if Deku is going to be throwing punches that can blow away a city block.

That being said, each generation is getting stronger. Like, Endeavor will be surpassed by Todoroki by the time he graduates (if it even takes that long). Iida is already faster than Gran Torino. In the very beginning of the manga, they mentioned Deku will be the strongest holder of OFA, since it gets stronger each generation. Deku will have formidable rivals if the other strong students also reach their full potential. Hell, those rowdy kids we saw at the makeup exam already had really strong quirks at their young age. Generational power creep means that everybody around Deku will get way stronger than the current pros.

I understand the sentiment that Deku doesn't need more quirks, but Deku's quirk development was already approaching a plateau in terms of being able to fully control what power he could handle. He'd just work on his technique and slowly get stronger and stronger. Sure, he's gonna eventually be able to punch/kick hard enough to shoot himself around in the air, but we've already seen that stuff (plus Bakugo does that too). I know Horikoshi is creative and will develop some cool moves for Deku, but Deku's struggle to control OfA was mostly over. All he had to do wast master OFA steadily and he’ll be good. More quirks means that he may unlock more quirks when he's able to use more %. So instead of reaching 30% and just being X amount stronger physically, he may unlock a new tool to try and master/incorporate into his combat toolkit.

If this is a negative turn for the story, we won't even be able to tell until many, many more chapters are released. We may look back and decide that this was a bad move, but we shouldn't assume that's the case when it was literally introduced TWO WHOLE CHAPTERS AGO. (even though I don’t think it was a bad move AT ALL)

What I hope to see in future Arcs:

I think what fans would really enjoy and we could all use some real Deku character development. Deku’s my favorite character, but I feel like people can’t connect to him as much as someone like Todoroki, because his lack of emotional development. He’s indeed way more confident then he was in the beginning, I still feel like he has low self esteem. Someone needs to tell him that he’s worthy of this mega powerful quirk. ( he needs it 😭)We know so much about him, but rarely see him living his day to day life outside of training, costume updates and the occasional villain attack. Last time we got anything close to development in was only told through Aoyama's development.

These next few chapters will definitely give us something, but only as it relates to One for All. I'd honestly like to know Deku's thoughts about his situation, he seems determined that's for sure. Does he feel stressed, uninformed, unprepared, scared...resentful? We can infer a bunch, I'd just like to see him talk to All Might, Bakugo or his mom about it.

In Conclusion:

Honestly, to me,It never seemed to matter who won or lost any of these matches people were gonna complain regardless. When Class A wins they call it predictable and when class B won they say call it BS or plot amor. Even when it’s a draw people got upset saying Todoroki was disappointing. Some people wanted the matches to be fleshed out over a couple of chapters rather than rushed, then a few weeks later complained that it was taking to long. Bakugo wins his match quickly and those same people lose their minds about how they wanted the match to be longer. People complained about Horikoshi not letting the girls shine in battle after the second match, but conveniently forgets Tsuyu was the MVP of the first match and Kendo and Mushroom girl made 1-B win the second match. (AND WE’RE NOT GONNA FORGET HOW URARAKA AND MINA DOMINATED THE MATCH)Then you have the people who say all of 1-B is worthless and then Juzo and Tetsutetsu prove otherwise. Now we have people think Deku is OP but in this new chapter it seems that he much has a limit to using these other abilities but I’m sure that won’t stop the myriad of complaints. Every week the same people come to see the spoilers and complain based off of a fragmented non-contextualized summary of the chapter and wonder why they enjoy the chapter itself less. Maybe going into a chapter with a negative outlook will do that. The part that irks me is that virtually everyone whose binge-read this arc seems to enjoy it only seems to be us week to week readers with a issue. Either way I hope the discussion going into the next arc are far more level-headed constructive than they have been.

I think this will be one of the arcs that played out better once it was animated. Individual panels maybe favored over the anime, but overall pacing will surely favor the anime. Waiting week in and week out, over analyzing every short chapter has really done no favors for fans and Horikoshi.

#mha #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #deku #midoriya izuku #bnha #mha 213 #mha 214 #mha 215 #mha 200-215 #mha 216 #thanks for coming to my ted talk #yall are so annoying #i stg #rant #anime #manga #manga spoliers #bnha spoilers

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toaarcan · 5 years ago

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Scourge the Hedgehog: The Bad Fanfic Apotheosis

Y’all are gonna hate me for this one.

This is something of a followup to my previous post, Fiona Fox: Depth vs. Prominence, and inspired directly by the discussion I had with a friend in the comments section of the DA upload of it.

Part 1: Fanfic vs. Canon- Genesis of the Recolour Elements of the Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comic have long been compared to a bad fanfiction, particularly the parts of the story written by Ken Penders, though other writers like Bollers, Chacon, and Flynn have drawn that label too. I'm one of the people that's done it, and that's largely because I hold fanfic and official material to very different standards. There are certain things you can do in fanfic that you can't do in official material, especially with franchises like Sonic, and especially with more niche parts of said franchise, like a comic series. Of course, there are also certain things you can do in both, but you probably shouldn't. And Scourge is one of them. What exactly the process behind Scourge's creation was is something that's been debated. For a lot of people, he's considered to be a parody of the then-rampant "Sonic Recolour" fad, wherein fans would take screenshots of Sonic X, and other official artwork, and then edit it in Microsoft Paint, or another similar program, to create their own characters and stories. Now, this was long decried by other fans, myself included, as incredibly lacking in creativity and originality. It also had an "Ew, cringe" reaction, due to the often-shoddy editing, text-to-speech voices, and usually some top-tier mid-2000s Nu Metal for the music. These days, it's much easier to look back and say "These were mostly made by kids who were just having fun, and it's completely harmless", and it becomes apparent that a lot of the people that were making fun of them and criticising them were grown men, at which point you kinda realise that this "internet fad" was basically just bullying a bunch of children for not being up to the creative standards of some adults. Everybody was looking for the next Chris-Chan, but Chris-Chan is a near-unique entity, as only one other person alive has ever managed to combine that sheer void of talent with a monumentally repulsive personality, and that person is Ken Penders. But Sonichu is the least interesting thing about Chris, and Chris became the laughingstock that he is because of his inability to avoid posting his entire life on the Internet, which was something of a rarity in those halcyon days before the rise of modern social media. Sonichu was a gateway to the actually interesting content also on his channels, whereas these recolour-creators didn't have anything like that, just endless Windows Movie Maker slideshows. And, like, Chris was in his 20s when he became the Internet's punching bag for the first time, and while he's a horrible person, so were the people that dedicated their time and effort to trolling him- His story is fascinating, but it has no heroes. And into this collective cocktail of grown men shitting on preteens, so Ian Flynn introduced Scourge the Hedgehog. Is Scourge a parody of Sonic recolours? I sincerely hope not. The reason for that is twofold, and I'll discuss how his portrayal generally doesn't seem to be mocking those tropes further down the page, but the second issue with the idea that he is a parody is best explained by Sir Terry.

Parody can never punch down, and as a then-24 year old man writing official canon for a franchise, mocking a bunch of 10 year olds on the Internet for making bad stories would definitely be punching down. And, as I said, nothing about the way Scourge is written is in any way poking fun at the tropes of these fancharacters and stories. It's pretty much all played completely straight. So not only do I hope Ian wasn't trying to mock these fancharacters, but there's also little reason to believe that he actually was. He's not a parody, he is a send-up. And on the one hand, it's kinda nice to throw a bone to those kids. But on the other hand... is Scourge really the character you want to represent your part of the fandom in official material? A cruel, violent, abusive, vicious monster that spends his time palling around with a girlfriend that the writer reforged to be the most unlikable character in the entire comic? Yeah, can't say that's what I'd want if I were one of those people, but he seems to be popular enough, so maybe I'm in the minority there. But now we get to the meat of the problem. You see, the way Scourge is written is one of those things that you can do in fanfic, but you shouldn't do in canon. Part 2: What is a Mary-Sue? The term "Mary-Sue" gets thrown around a lot these days. It's gradually lost all meaning, and has slowly become a term for "Female character that I don't like," mainly used by whiny, easily-offended Broflake Youtubers, who get all pissy that Star Wars films aren't specifically catering to them, to the point that you only have to make a girl be good at something in a movie and these pissbabies lose their shit. I liked Episode VII and VIII more than I, II, or VI, get fucked. But what, then, is a Mary-Sue? And why is it relevant to Scourge? The answer to that first question is a lot more complicated than it might seem. Not just because there are now several different varieties of the trope, but also because the trope itself evolved as it began to be applied to non-fanworks, and additionally because the name itself is somewhat non-indicative. A male Mary-Sue can exist, though these are normally referred to as "Marty-Stue" or "Gary-Stue", or more cynically "The Protagonist". Check out the average Batman comic these days and you'll see what I mean. Originally, the term applied only to a self-insert character in a fanfic, that was an overly-idealised version of the author, dramatically overpowered, hugely popular, normally dating whichever member of the cast the author wanted to bone, or sometimes multiple partners at the same time, along with a few other traits. It's actually pre-Internet term, originating in a Star Trek fanzine when "Mary-Sue" was created as a parody of other fans' similar characters. Over time, the trope evolved to the point that, while the "author avatar" feature is still a pretty big indicator, it's not really necessary. So while there are probably plenty of people out there who want to be Batman, not every character that is a Mary-Sue is someone for the author to project themselves onto, and not every author avatar is a Mary-Sue. Generally, the important features of a Mary-Sue are now: 1) Receives a great deal of favouritism from the author 2) More powerful than the rest of the cast, often to the point of absurdity 3) Faces zero consequences for their actions. 4) Liked by characters that have no reason to do so 5) In a relationship with a character that has no reason to date them, previous relationships be damned. 6) Most importantly, the story will bend over backwards to give them easy wins, even in situations where they logically should struggle. You're probably starting to get where I'm going with this, and if you're not... Part 3: Creator's Pet Scourge is a Creator's Pet. He gets shown a fair bit of favouritism from Ian Flynn, primarily the guise of how much focus he gets. Scourge is the most prolific villain in Ian's run, aside from Eggman himself. While other, better villains like Mogul and Naugus were being imprisoned repeatedly until one retired and the other became a dog, and a huge chunk of the comic's remaining antagonists were being subsumed into the Eggman Empire, Scourge was only moving up, not only being the villain of Ian's first two issues on the book, but continuing to make sporadic appearances for the next twenty issues, before appearing as the new leader of the Destructix under Finitevus in the Enerjak Reborn arc, followed swiftly by a stint as the Big Bad in Bold New Moebius. Does he actually deserve this level of importance? You be the judge, but personally, I don't think so. Even within those stories, Scourge gets special treatment, the biggest and most obvious being Metal Scourge. Now, personally, I think Metal Scourge was a better character than Scourge himself, but the fact that, of all people, Scourge got a Metal counterpart before anyone else, including Knuckles, who had such a counterpart in the games for over a decade by that point. Especially since, well... Metal and Mettle is a fun story, but it doesn't really do anything for Bold New Moebius as a whole, does it? It's basically pure filler, only really serving to add another dead Metal Sonic to Ian's list and stall the plot out for a bit longer. And, of course, the most clear indicator of Scourge's favouritism is that he was he first Archie character to receive his own Sonic Universe arc, and the only one to do so without needing two or three SEGA characters also making up the rest of the lead cast. "Lockdown" isn't a particularly good story, but its existence speaks to not just the insane popularity that such an unworthy character received, but also Archie's willingness to indulge that. Sonic Universe was largely intended to tell stories revolving around the members of the SEGA cast that, for whatever reason, weren't able to regularly appear in the main book. This... frequently got broken, with Sonic, Tails, Sally, Bunnie, Antoine, and Amy all taking centre-stage in the book before obvious candidates like the Chaotix got a look in, some of them twice over, but Scourge was the only time they were willing to try a story based entirely around one of their characters, and they gave it to the already extremely prominent Scourge. It's pretty clear that Ian loved using this character, and did so as much as possible. YMMV on whether that's good or not. Part 4: Scourge OP plz nerf Let's be real, he's overpowered as fuck. Now, overpowered characters aren't necessarily bad, but it's significantly harder to write an OP character than an on-average one, and Scourge didn't work out so well. From the moment he turns green, he's basically unstoppable. The one time he actually seems to remotely struggle is actually in 161, where he looks ever-so-slightly winded after curbstomping Sonic and Shadow at the same time. From then on, while he does start to slowly even out with Sonic, he also continues to utterly demolish basically everyone else, especially his easy conquest of Moebius. It's been suggested that conquering Moebius should be easy, because the big threats are all good, kind people there, but that somewhat ignores that there are anti-versions of the heroes kicking about too. All the (Mostly) benevolent rulers of the Primeverse should be tyrannical despots there, and there are excessively powerful entities like the Anti-versions of Merlin and the Guardians, not to mention whatever horrors Anti-Gerald would've unleashed on the world, and that's without the Suppression Squad themselves. While the comic has generally treated Sonic as being able to stomp the entire rest of the FF, well, who says it has to be a fight? Why the fuck doesn't Patch just poison him? I mean, the obvious answer is "Because then Bold New Moebius won't have a main villain", and sometimes contractual villain immortality has to be a thing, but a good writer should be able to avoid putting the characters in that position. Following on from that, Scourge gets to fight basically the entire FF and Suppression Squad at the same time, (Sonic and Amy are absent and Fiona is on his side), and he's winning until Sonic shows up. Then directly after that is the hedgehog brawl, and despite Sonic managing to get everyone against Scourge, he easily manages to escape and break out his Super form. Even after spending his time in the No-Zone completely powerless, Scourge manages to break out the moment he gets his powers back, despite the prison being full of characters who should be equally or more powerful than him, and the police force that caught them all, basically unchallenged. Scourge never faces an actual challenge in the comic. He never struggles, and the one time he actually loses? Ian makes up some new lore on the spot, which is contradictory to SEGA lore from the same year, and then uses that to have Sonic trick Scourge into depowering himself. Not only does Scourge never struggle with anything, but he also never actually loses a fight. Part 5: When will you learn, that your actions have consequences?! Probably never, because Scourge's actions never have consequences. Throughout his entire run, Scourge gets to go wherever he wants, do what he wants, with or to whomever he wants, and he never has to deal with the fallout of the decisions he makes. Absorbs the energy of a matter world into his antimatter body? He's better than fine, it only made him stronger. Turns up in Knothole with his secret girlfriend's hated arch rival by his side? Never mentioned again. Blows Fiona's connection to him, costing Finitevus' operation a potential spy in Knothole, where Knuckles is? Not even considered a factor. Ditches Finitevus to go and make Moebius into an egopolis? Finitevus isn't bothered, and supports Fiona's efforts to rescue him later down the line after than plan backfired on him. Blinds Patch in one eye out of jealousy/spite? The guy that poisoned Armand and Max, took a torch to Antoine's personal life, took advantage of Sally's frayed mental state, emotionally damaged Bunnie, and tried to assassinate Elias to get what he wanted lets him get away with it. Openly announces that he's going to destroy both worlds? Conveniently does it when he's alone with Sonic so nobody can tell Fiona what she's letting herself in for. He eventually does get sent to jail, but he breaks out with ease the next time he turns up. Because, y'know, that's just what we want to see. Villains never having to deal with karma. Part 6: What does anyone see in him? Scourge doesn't quite get the "everyone loves him" treatment, but he still gets a whole lot more respect than he's ever earned. Both Sonic and Zobotnik are portrayed arbitrarily deciding that maybe there's a shred of good in this monster, and this is the part where I stress that he's abusive again. Maybe if I repeat that enough it'll sink in. Despite knowing full-well the sort of person Scourge is, Sonic's response to Scourge's crappy cribbing of the "One Bad Day" speech is to try and turn it around and claim that Scourge only needs a tiny bit of decency to be a good person, and this is outright untrue, and given what we see of Scourge later, I'm frankly disgusted that Ian tried to pull this with a character he'll pretty much unambiguously portray as an abuser. Zobotnik's case is even more baffling. We're introduced to the guy in the Lockdown arc, and it's implied that he's effectively a tyrannical warden, ruling over the No-Zone with an iron fist, taking an almost sadistic delight in punishing the inmates. But yet, for whatever reason, he decides that it's a good idea to try and rehabilitate Scourge, for no adequately established reason. Even on the other side of the morality line, we have Finitevus, who apparently respects Scourge enough to not just make him leader of the Destructix during the Enerjak Reborn arc, despite him very clearly not being a leader, and not being liked by any of his comrades except Fiona, but then when he promptly ditches the whole plan toward the end, Finitevus apparently decides that he not only wants to get him back, but is willing to go to great lengths and risk losing the only team of mercenaries dumb enough to work for a guy who is quite open about his intentions to "purify the world with Chaos fire" in order to do it. And speaking of, the most egregious case of this comes again in Lockdown, where the Destructix all end up siding with Scourge. Across the second half of the arc, Scourge learns his new team's backstories, and despite them clearly showing traits and beliefs that should make them respect him less, this somehow works in his favour, and he manages to wrest leadership of the team from Fiona. Especially galling is that it appears that Fiona loses their respect early on because of her faith in Scourge, who to them, looks pathetic, but then they end up supporting him anyway, despite doing nothing to earn it. But wait, one's missing... Looks like it's that time again. Part 7: Oh right, he's an abuser. It's time to talk about Fiona. Fiona's heel turn is really, really effective at selling you on the idea that Fiona is a vile, cruel, and selfish person. It's a dramatic, "big bang" moment that, in basically a single panel, got an entire fandom to hate a character. Now for some it was more of a "Love to hate" thing, but there are plenty of people out there who just really hate Fiona for this single moment. And when you're introducing a new major villain, maybe that's what you want to accomplish. What it doesn't do, however, is sell you on her motives for taking that course of action. Fiona, for the rest of her existence, mainly antagonises Sally, whom she has no worthwhile connection to on either side of her turn, other than being the evil Sally to Scourge's Evil Sonic, and stands around or clings to Scourge's arm, looking smug about her abusive relationship. And yes, it is abusive, verbal abuse is still abuse, and the implications that he's physically abusive are present too. I know this is something that Scourge's fans don't really want to accept, but it's true, and we're going to get into that later. For now, what matters is that this character's run as a villain mainly consists of: Fiona: "Hey Sugar-Queen, look at how much my boyfriend yells at me and insults me, and probably beats me when he's angry. I make smart decisions and you suck." We never come to understand why this character, who is so motivated by her belief that everyone will eventually double-cross her that she has decided to start lashing out at people before they can turn on her, is willing to put her faith 100% in someone so repeatedly deceptive that he first approached her by pretending to be someone else. Like, in terms of bad first impressions, that's up there with arriving at a job interview in full clown regalia. The comic makes no effort to show why these characters like each other. Scourge allegedly likes her because she chooses to turn evil and join him, rather than being born evil, but this clashes with not only the fact that Fiona is a genuinely good person before this, who makes a solid effort to stay loyal to her friends first, and is lured into villainy by him, but also the fact that she blames everyone but herself for her current situation, but especially with the fact that all of the foreshadowing for Fiona turning evil consists of people not trusting her because she has a shady history. Scourge claims to appreciate that Fiona is a good person that chooses to be evil, but the narrative has a clear message of "If you started evil, it doesn't matter if you try to become good, you will always revert to type." Which isn't exactly a good message, Ian. In return, all we get from Fiona's side is that Scourge "has no expectations of her and just wants to have fun", which clashes entirely with how we see them interact in subsequent arcs, where Fiona frequently looks disturbed or apprehensive, or just bored, while Scourge yells at her and threatens her for not meeting his standards. Seriously, why do people ship this? But okay, okay. Scourge is a good liar, and Fiona's established paranoia and history do make her vulnerable to manipulators like him, so maybe she falls for his lies and gets taken for a ride. That could happen, sure. Doesn't really explain why she becomes a horrendous person all of a sudden, but whatever. Maybe he convinced her to do it as a sort of hazing, and a means of ensuring she couldn't go back. That fits with his abusive nature (You might also notice that this the explanation I used in Revival). But why does she stay? And why does she refuse every out she's given? Why, after everything that pulled her to his side has turned out to be bullshit, does she remain devoted to him? Now, you can argue that due to the abuse and the manipulation she's suffered, she believes she has to stay with him, and that's a fair shout, but her appearance in Journey to the East is kind of a stumbling block for that theory, because we're shown a Fiona who is fully capable of functioning without him, and even after making efforts to establish herself... the next time we see her she's gone back for him. And now... well, it's time to talk about that "A" word I've been bringing up a lot in this section. Scourge is abusive. I've frequently referenced that he verbally abuses Fiona every time she displeases him across the book, but the most telling scene is this one from Issue 190.

"You do not want to be sent back with me." Translation: "If I get sent back, and you're sent back too, I'm going to beat the shit out of you." Fiona (With her invisible left arm) isn't excluded from this threat. Fiona isn't surprised by this threat either. Nor does she not take the threat seriously. She looks like she's expecting to be struck. He beats her. And please, nobody say that "he's just angry", that's apologism. Now, I dunno if this was in the script, or if Fiona's face was something Yardley did on his own, but given that this arc ends with Super Scourge announcing his intention to destroy both Mobius and Moebius, simply because he can, regardless of the collateral, I'm willing to bet that this relationship wasn't a happy, stable one. But, unfortunately, this element was never made clear enough. Now, your mileage may vary on whether you think Sonic the Hedgehog comics are the appropriate place to discuss abusive relationships or not, but we've got one now, and Ian dropped the ball. This wasn't a Joker/Harley, where the pairing was clearly abusive but also sold DC/Warner millions of dollars worth of merch, this wasn't a RWBY, where Adam took three years to show up and had already won a huge number of fans from his admittedly cool design and powers, so people already liked him before they even knew what his personality was like. Ian had full control over this, no merch to worry about, and Scourge's prolific appearances gave him plenty of opportunity to make it clear that this was an ugly, repulsive thing that Fiona needed to get out of ASAP. And he didn't. Because panels like this, and all the yelling, clearly weren't enough for the fandom. No, you point this detail out to them and they'll make excuses, try to pretend it didn't happen, or just get offended, or worst of all, outright say they don't care and still ship it. We have fanartists who became real official artists creating stories where this garbage-fire pairing is used for sad feels, not because Fiona got stuck in a relationship with a controlling, violent monster, but because oh no they really loved each other and now Fiona's dead isn't it tragic don't you feel sorry for Scourge? No. No I don't. I feel sorry for the thousands of teenagers who support an abusive relationship because Ian was too cowardly to make it clear that the relationship in question was just that. Now, do I think that Ian is an intentional abuse apologist? No. Do I think he wimped out of taking the necessary steps to make it clear that this was bad because he didn't want people to dislike his shitty pet villain? Oh yeah, I do. Scourge's reputation was more important to Flynn than appropriately and sensitively portraying a destructive, damaging relationship between a woman and her monstrous partner. Well, I say "Woman", let's not forget that Fiona was meant to be sixteen, and realistically if you take her timeline into account she's more likely to be about fourteen. Real fucking classy. Part 8: Effort? What effort? So, now we get to our final criteria. And frankly, it's the easiest one to cover. From the moment, Scourge turns green, his life becomes a cakewalk. Everything he ever wants is handed to him with zero actual struggle on his part. Wants to be stronger than Sonic? He is. Zero side-effects to using a Chaos energy form from a mirror universe, or having a Super transformation interrupted, he just seemingly gets to be half-Super forever. Wants another leg-up on Sonic? Here's Fiona, sans personality. Sonic says he's just a lame ripoff of himself? He conquered a planet in a week, look at how cool he is. Also his team all roll over and make him their leader even though they hate him and they could easily kill him. He gets to walk through the entire FF/Squad teamup, and the Hedgehog teamup, and then when he gets to the No-Zone, Zobotnik, who has kept far smarter and more dangerous characters locked up for decades arbitrarily decides to reform him and gets completely suckered by him. The Destructix fully throw in with him, despite him never actually earning their respect. He never loses a fight where he wasn't depowered first. You know what the irony of this is? Ian has a character whom he is contractually obligated to never have lose for longer than an issue or two. And honestly, he wasn't awful at disguising that. Sonic gets a few wins that feel too easy, but for the most part, the issues with this rule mainly manifest in Sonic's limp responses to the tragedies happening around him, and a sprinkling of minor failures and pyrrhic victories ensure that the rule looks more like shoddy writing in a few places unless you're explicitly told about it. And even then, he still manages to make it look like Sonic struggles to attain those victories, that he has to actually put his back into it every time. He is challenged. Scourge isn't allowed to be challenged. That's the irony. Ian has a protagonist who he is not allowed to have lose, and Sonic still manages to be avoid looking like a boring invincible hero, while Scourge just never faces anything that can actually pose a threat to him. Powerful opponents crumple before him. Characters' personalities and development shift to suit his needs. The plot warps to benefit him. Because heaven forbid Scourge actually have to work for his wins. Who needs stakes when you can have the writer on your side! Part 9: In summation... I think you should've all twigged where this is going by now, so let's wrap up. 1) Does Scourge receive a great deal of favouritism from the author? Yes. 2) Is Scourge more powerful than the rest of the cast, often to the point of absurdity? Yes. 3) Does Scourge face zero consequences for his actions? Yes. 4) Is Scourge liked or respected by characters that have no reason to do so? Yes. 5) Is Scourge in a relationship with a character that has no reason to date him? Yes. 6) Most importantly, does the story will bend over backwards to give Scourge easy wins, even in situations where he logically should struggle? Yes. According to these criteria, Scourge the Hedgehog is almost a textbook example of a Mary-Sue. Which is probably why something as disgusting as him got away with so much. I guess, then, that his role in Revival, and a lot of the stuff before that, is the unfortunate reality of a Mary-Sue who suddenly has to deal with the fact that they're no longer getting that special treatment from the writer. That now their actions have consequences, that now the universe doesn't shape itself to their desires.

#Sonic the Hedgehog #Archie Sonic #Ian Flynn #Scourge the Hedgehog #Fiona Fox #Evil Sonic #Critical #CW: Abuse #TW: Abuse

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