#the frustration was mostly because i hate the thing i use to edit images sometimes but actually making it was fun

[simstationdance]

Hi, Marko! ヾ( ´･ω･｀)

WCIF Lily's top please? Thanks.

Hiii Pidge ^_^/

It's eir-sims' 3t2 mitarasi coat recolored by lemonlion in its original colors, from lemonlion's blog

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

Good morning/afternoon/evening/night, Ralph. (I think I covered all my time zone bases there). I have been thinking lot lately about all the rhetoric in the fandom about Harry’s health and well-being, and how loud it has felt this year. To be clear, I am not asking for you to weigh in with your own speculations about how Harry is doing, unless you feel comfortable doing so. (I’m not telling you what to do either way, obviously, seeing as I am only a little grey icon in your inbox and have no right or way to demand anything of you.) I’m more looking for guidance or even just your rambling thoughts about what is respectful and appropriate when we’re wondering about a celebrity’s well being, and how you handle your own thoughts and assumptions about this. I feel like over the course of the last year we’ve just been inundated with all this panic and speculation about how Harry is unhappy or unhealthy or otherwise not himself, going all the way back to the Jingle Bell Ball Golden performance. Every time we get any new content there’s a wave of people saying he looks too thin and overworked like he’s not getting enough food or rest, or overweight and out of shape (pick a lane, people), he looks stressed, he looks sad, he looks angry, his eyes have lost their sparkle, his smile is dim, he’s addicted to drugs, he’d addicted to drugs because Jeff is doping him up to keep him going, he’s going to quit music, he’s going to hurt himself, blah blah blah. And the people making these “observations” hide behind the assertion that they’re just worried for his health when they’re faced with any sort of criticism.

This whole ongoing rhetoric feels really…icky? I suppose? to me. I do kind of think he has looked more drawn and intense (“stressed” and “sad”) in the content we’ve gotten this year, but I also think (1) the content we’ve gotten has largely been pap shots and stunt stuff, (2) this year he had to postpone his tour, and we know he loves performing so that must have really sucked, and (3) this year has just been rather shit for all of us, we’re all stressed and sad and scared and frustrated by the larger political and social goings on, and by the ways our own lives are impacted. In the past, the content we’ve gotten where Harry looks the happiest and most at ease has been performance footage or him with his family and loved ones. We haven’t gotten any of that this year. It makes sense that the pictures we do get would feature him looking less than completely relaxed and jubilant. And then there are all the assumptions that he’s lost weight or gained weight and is therefore unhealthy or on drugs or drinking a lot and that just honestly pisses me off. You cannot tell jack shit about a person’s health from their weight, and especially not in random pictures taken at random intervals in random settings. To pretend you can is harmful, and Harry probably won’t see you making these assumptions about his mental and physical health based on the prominence of his cheekbones in a set of pap pics, but friends and strangers who are already struggling with their weight will. And the assertion that someone is dealing with an addiction of any kind (or, god forbid, and I hate even typing this, being subjected to drug use at the hands of someone with power over them) is an allegation that a) you can’t make from one picture and b) has really deep, life altering, tragic and painful and hard consequences for that person and all their loved ones, and deserves more respect and deference than to be treated as something you can just throw out into the great wild beyond and then forget about.

But beyond the fact that people are making hurtful and invasive allegations and assumptions about a real person’s private life based entirely on a very very limited and posed and edited set of content that was hand chosen to be given to us, I think the thing that bothers me the most is it feels like the people who are driving these conversations are doing so because they want something from Harry. It’s never (or rarely, I suppose) “man Harry looks tired in the pictures we’ve gotten lately, I really hope he’s taking care of himself, things have been so hard for us all.” It’s always “Harry has been so withdrawn and sad and angry he’s not communicative with fans and he’s not willing to engage with them when he sees them in public and I miss him. I miss my Harry. I miss happy Harry. I want him back. Give me Harry back.” Which tells me the concern isn’t Harry or Harry’s health, but rather the feeling that Harry owes us something that he hasn’t been giving, and now he must pay up or give us a valid excuse.

Then I do, occasionally though, find myself thinking “am I doing exactly what I’m complaining about? Am I assuming the worst of people based on a limited set of insights into their lives?” And in the wake of the Britney legal battle that has been unfolding recently, I sometimes wonder if maybe as fans we do have kind of a duty to call out celebrities when they seem to be struggling or acting incredibly out of character. Most of the time I follow this up immediately with the thought that I’m not responsible for anyone else’s health and safety, much less that of a 27 year old man I’ve never met and have no connection to beyond liking his music and his face, and I do truly believe that, but there is some part of me that feels uneasy just turning off all my concern, because I am a person who tends to be greatly concerned about everyone, who just wants everyone to be happy and healthy and safe and loved, and who wants to help people feel that way, where and when I can. So I guess what I’m asking, in the incredibly long winded and winding way I ask anyone anything (my poor husband, he gets a novel from me every time I ask what he thinks we should do for dinner) is do you have any of these same feelings and concerns? How do your navigate them? Where do you draw a line? Do you just withdraw completely from this type of speculation? How do you balance being a kind, engaged, empathetic fan with being a respectful, responsible fan who knows their limits? (And man, isn’t that the ultimate question?). Your blog is one I end up on whenever something big happens or a particular conversation pops up, because I’ve found that I really value the way you break things down and are willing to consider them from many perspectives, so I appreciate you even taking the time to read this.

Thanks for your interesting thoughts about Harry anon. I feel like there's a lot to respond to here and I'm going to start by answering the questions your questions - and then I'm going to get distracted and talk about a post I really hated.

I'm always a little bit worried about Harry, and all 1D members. He might be really struggling, that's always a possibility. Harry has lived a very intensely scheduled high workload life since he was 16. He might have had all sorts of responses to the fact that that schedule was removed, or anything else that is happening in his life. But I feel like I'm generally pretty boundaried about those concerns.

I think part of it is because my base line assumption is that boyband members are pretty fucked up. You don't need to know a lot about the history of touring musicians to know that. I think I've said before that if 1D members are eating every day and not doing needle drugs then they're doing better than we have any right to expect (and if they're not eating and are doing needle drugs, then those are coping mechanisms for intense stress and there's no shame in either of them).

I do think it helps with boundaries to be starting from a point that acknowledges how hard it is to be a popstar. I'm all about fantasies of omnipotence and in my day to day life I think I can fix all sorts of things, but I don't think I can make any difference to any 1D member's life.

In addition, I am profoundly affected by having been a fan throughout 2016. We know what it looks like when Louis was going through a horrendous, devastating, trauma - and it looks pretty normal.

None of this means I don't have opinions, or worries, but I am aware that my opinions or worries aren't facts. It's rare that I think that my worries should matter even to people reading my tumblr, let alone other fans in general, and certainly not Harry. You say 'am I doing the same thing as other people assuming the worst about people...', but I'd argue that that's actually not the problem. There's nothing wrong with assuming the worst of people. What is wrong is when fans think their assumptions about a celebrity should matter to anyone else. You don't have to turn off your concern to think that it's not a priority.

I definitely think it would be a very bad thing if people took the moral as the 'free Britney' movement as 'fans should call out celebrities when they think they're struggling'. That sort of surveillance isn't effective or useful. What has been useful for Britney is solidarity in a well documented power struggle, which is a very different thing.

And I can't emphasise enough how important the 'well documented' aspect of this is. What most fan worrying about Harry amounts to is: 'I don't like what he's doing, and there's no way he'd do things I didn't like and therefore there must be something wrong with him'. That's a really controlling way of thinking about people. I really think it's important not to reproduce that abusers logic.

I am pretty well insulated from that sort of discourse from a very well weeded dash. But I saw a post that was mostly about other fandom stuff, that treated assumptions like: "Harry must hate being with Olivia and he's suffering and it's clear he's not happy with his image and his team" as building blocks that you don't even have to argue for (this is the post - and I'm going to come back to one of the things someone said that was even worse in a second).

Lets stop for a minute and imagine that Harry hasn't got a problem pretending to date Olivia, and his main concerns are about the messiness of life and his career at this point in time. It is really fucked up and agressive, and pretty hateful towards Harry, to say 'oh he couldn't possibly want this. It's clear that he hates it.' etc. (I feel like I've been making this argument for years about people who object to Louis doing such things as smoking and not performing middle-class culture for them). When fans trash talk what Harry is doing at the moment, and suggest that believing he could be choosing what he's doing is some how an act of huge disrespect to him, there is every chance they are trash talking him and the choices he's making.

The final thing I want to draw attention to is how often this sort of fan storytelling is combined with a profound lack of interest in what 1D members are actually going through. The tags screen shotted and added on to the post I reblogged actually described Holivia as Douis 2.0. Apparently assuming that there was absolutely no connection between Douis, and Louis and his family's ultimately successful efforts to privacy as Jay was dying. What the fuck is wrong with people that they ignore that, and erase that? There's far more interest in making up 1D members suffering so that fans can continue to tell the stories they want to tell, than actual acknowledgement of what we know that they went through.

Sorry I got distracted. What I'm trying to say is that there's nothing wrong with having feelings about celebrities or telling stories about them. But it's so important to acknoweldge the limits of your knowledge and power, even when fandom discourse encourages the opposite.

[funkymbtifiction]

How I Write, How I Dream: ESTP Edition

Mod: An ESTP asked permission to submit this, since she noticed I do not have an ESTP ‘How I write stories’ description in the archive to match this series. What follows is in her own words.

ESTP: How I Write, How I Dream

So this submission is like 6+ years late topically, I think, but it’s an understatement to say I get side-tracked easily. First I had to be self-aware enough to actually determine my type with confidence, and then I had to remember to write this up. Hopefully it’s an edition that’s better late than never – in any case, I thought it might be fun to contribute, given the frequent lack of Se-dom voices in things like this.

I’m aware that I might be in a comparatively small group as a regular ESTP writer, let alone one familiar with personality typology, but I wrote my first short story at nine for a 4th grade assignment, and then my first full story/intended book when I was eleven, (both of which I immediately proceeded to act out on the playground), so it’s sort of always been a part of my normal retinue of hobbies/coping mechanisms/diversions/distractions. Usually I find that I write the most when I’m bored or otherwise dissatisfied with my real life – sort of using it to spice things up with more exciting events, even if they’re regrettably fictional. I also suspect that I use writing to experience all the interesting things I find myself unable to physically do, at least for the moment – not unlike what your ISTP contributor described. I think sometimes that I use it to subconsciously work through certain concepts, too, until I understand them holistically. It’s like it gives me a way to actually engage and interact with a philosophical concept through tangible expression – through embedding it into [fictional] human behavior. Like how I understand the nuances of the concept of apostasy better for having walked through the plot of Silence (2016) with Scorsese than I would have if it was still just a definition in a theology textbook. Application helps me. (I also had a counselor a while back who told me that I used my writing to work through the emotions I hate to process in real life, but I was never wholly convinced of that or the connection of my plots to my real life events, so jury’s out, I guess.)

When I was a kid, I liked to read a fair-ish amount. Spies were oftentimes my favorite topic, but I also wanted eagerly to be one and owned probably every kid spy gadget ever manufactured for sale at the Spy Museum in D.C., to which I dragged my parents practically every weekend so I could crawl through air vents, etc. However, my favorite children’s series of all was actually the Ingo series by the late Helen Dunmore, which provided me with exciting, nature-based, and [mostly] emotionally satisfying adventures in my lifelong favorite unpredictable environment – underwater. (I also dragged my parents constantly to our local aquarium.) As I got older, the frequency of my reading dropped, and I now find myself usually pulled more towards nonfiction.

[Note – I just realized a lifelong quirk with me and books. I’m sort of ridiculously set on *seeing* the books I own. I mean, I know what I own, but I still constantly get out every book I own on a particular topic just to see them all at once. It makes the knowledge more cohesive for me to concentrate it visually, I guess. Even just the covers. Anyway.]

My writing habits are kind of awful – in that, like alluded to above, I pretty much only write when I either a) am seized by a great idea, or else b) have nothing better to do. I have little ambition to actually publish or anything like that, regardless of encouragement, and I prefer to think of my writing as just a diversion, an amusement for myself alone (though I do crave minimal approval, as I do in anything). In any case, as soon as the pressure of a schedule is attached to my writing, it drains of all joy for me. Much like your ISTP contributor described, I think I hover somewhere between plotter and pantser, depending on the story. Too much planning leads to my feeling like I have no incentive to actually write it, as I’ve already experienced it, and too little leaves me spinning aimlessly with no real direction. I write both prose and screenplays, and the rule seems to hold true for both, overall. Also, whenever I have a problem in my plotting or characters or whatever, I find that I have to step away, go be busy with something else, sometimes for a long while, and when I come back everything just falls into place. I guess unconscious Ti and/or Ni finding solutions? I’m not totally sure how/why that happens.

As my inclusion of screenplay format may suggest, I experience my stories in an incredibly visual way. I think sometimes that my narratives come across very much like movies, with all the requisite limitations and usual lack of character introspection. I feel like I pretty much focus on the observable actions of my characters – I find describing any kind of extended rumination highly unnatural, at least most of the time. Even my planning is highly visual. I have a tendency to graph, chart, draw, and plaster my options all over the walls. It’s ridiculous sometimes, but in many cases I just have to be able to see them all next to each other, even if there’s no other information provided. Like my books, mentioned earlier. It helps clarify my plot choices in my mind. It’s also a quirk/weakness of mine that I am often entirely dependent on outside images for descriptions. I need to find a real person, place, or thing to base my fictional ones on physically if I hope to have any kind of concrete knowledge to allow description. Again, it helps solidify them/it in my mind.

I have another weakness in my writing that often results in much incredulous laughter – I’m often entirely blind to any hidden meaning or symbolism in my own writing. I might get the vaguest sense of something being a good line, but be unsure why until my ISFJ friend starts praising my deep, archetypal references and crafting – and then staring at me when I clearly have no idea what she means. It’s happened several times by this point, and though it makes me laugh, I’ll just blame it on the subconscious inferior Ni. I pretty much never have any kind of goal of being symbolic or laden with deep meaning. If I were ever to try that, I think it would massively stress me out.

In terms of editors, beta readers, or whatever else we want to call those who give solicited criticism – that’s just what I need/want. Criticism. For the most part, I’m incredibly thick-skinned about my writing and would be absolutely fine if someone told me that it was utterly terrible and the whole thing needed revising down to the very concept. That may be because I think many of my concepts are lackluster to start with. But nothing frustrates me so quickly as readers unwilling to actually [and harshly] criticize. I always tell them that I want him/her to rip it to shreds. I mean, that’s the only way it’ll get better. (I’ve made mistakes before by assuming that other writers feel this way, too – my sister did not appreciate my input.)

I write almost exclusively dramas these days, I guess, though of varying subtypes. (I also maintain the availability/ready accessibility of about 10+ stories at any given time of active writing. I bounce between them sometimes based on what I’m feeling like at the moment or what I have a new thought about.) I have a sort of historical drama thing that takes place in the 1680s, a modern drama prompted by a premise of genetic engineering, a Most Dangerous Game kind of hunting/weapons thing, a detective story in the immediate aftermath of WWII, a classic deserted island story, a thing involving the phenomenon of stigmata… the list goes on and shifts constantly.

However, while I’ve typically enjoyed writing, here’s the omnipresent rub – engaging with it for any great amount of time makes me really unhealthy emotionally. I’m pretty sure that after like two or three days primarily working on a story without other overriding priorities, or like six or seven with those scattered distractions, (at best), I’m plummeting straight down to my inferior functions. My historical stories do this even more quickly, because they oftentimes seem to require more mental effort. I get super irritable, drown in self-loathing, start to think that everything real that I want is never going to happen – it’s really not good. The fact of the matter is that while writing is a fun diversion oftentimes, I go insane doing it for too long, because I need to get out and engage. (Thanks to my pesky Se-dom, daring to ask for more than just incessant fidgeting.)

When I do write, however, I’m known for my in-depth research, my character-driven plots, lines some people in my life seem to think are witty or something, and emotional depth, believe it or not. I’ve been complimented on it, as well as my tendency to accurately portray mental/emotional illness. I don’t know. I’ve never thought I was overly talented at such things, but then again, I never paid much attention. Even this write-up has been hard – analyzing my writing like this. It’s not a strength of mine to scrutinize my own habits.

After all, I’m busy – I have to go blast Maroon 5 as I jump off a 20-foot wall yelling, “Parkour!”

I am an ESTP, remember? ;-)

[thelivebookproject]

Talking Books With @logarithmicpanda!

[What is this and how can I participate?]

Back to normal!

I hope you all had a very nice Bookoween and a good beginning of the month! Today we discuss definitions of TBRs, choosing books, and bookworm frustrations.

Important note: I haven’t changed or edited any of the answers. I’ve only formatted the book titles so they were clearer, but nothing else. Because I’m incapable of shutting up, my comments are between brackets and in italics, so you can distinguish them clearly.

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[Image description: a square titled “Know the blogger”. Name & pronouns: Jo (nicknamed Panda), they/them; country: France (but no longer lives there); three adjectives to describe them: creative, stubborn & sarcastic /end]  

1. What is a TBR for you? A pile of books by your bed? A handwritten list of books you need to get? A folder on your laptop with unread ebooks?

I actually have two definitions for TBR

- the pile of books in my living room that I really need to get to before it gets unmanageable

- the Goodreads list of stuff that caught my interest though sometimes I curate the list and removes everything that doesn't look that worthwhile (generally I'll add titles as people rec them to me but not necessarily check if I really want to read them, it's more a memo than a fixed list of things I'll read).

[Whereas I use Goodreads for what I 100% want to read and Soon for everything else (recs, “oh this looks nice”, books I said I’d read and still haven’t, etc)]

2. Last book you hated?

Love Creekwood! I wanted to go back to Simon and Leah but it was literally just a succession of emails with no meat in between and it was SO BORING

3. Do you prefer fiction or non-fiction?

Definitely fiction! I hardly ever read non fiction, mostly just books about code or writing.

4. How do you choose your next book to read?

A combination of "did one of my library holds came up" and "what am I in the mood for" haha

I always read 2-4 books at a time, so usually it's like, one audiobook, one reread, and two books I've never read before, usually of distinct genres. 

[I can’t do that!!!! I’m always amazed at people who can read more than one book at a time, is my brain too small? I’ll only read two if one of them is super long/slow, but I hate it. I’m a monogamous reader haha]

5. Any bookworm frustrations?

I'm always very frustrated when books from the same series don't match! Last in date was Network Effect (Murderbot 5) which is like, 1cm taller and wider than the first four 😬

Also forever frustrated by the lack of nuance I often see on Tumblr (like if people like a book it's perfect and if they don't like it it's problematic and you're a terrible person if you enjoy it... Yes it's important to acknowledge problematic aspects but I wish people would be more honest and admit you can enjoy problematic stuff or dislike books without demonizing them - all in all, that taste is subjective)

[Exactly. You can be perfectly aware that something in a book you like is problematic but still like that book, and it’s!! not!! the end of the world!! I won’t say it’s only fiction because fiction has never been “only fiction”, but I think it’s important to let people like what they want. You shouting at someone because there’s x thing you don’t like it’s not going to make that someone like the book any less, I think!]

You can follow them at @logarithmicpanda​ and on their Wattpad.

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Thank you, Jo! I loved chatting with you. 

Next interview: Saturday, 7th of November

[rayne-storm]

AUgust 5 - Science Fiction

Cooking With Crewmates - Hannigram & Among Us

This is some violent self-indulgent garbage, and also by far the longest thing I've written for AUgust so far, and I've had to edit this intro to fit the Tumbl's block limit. Contains violence and gore inherent in the fandoms. Possibly extraordinarily ooc. No beta, we die like men.

William Graham had not always wanted to do space things. In fact, if you had asked him ten years earlier if he would ever want to do anything on a space station, he would have flipped you off and run the other direction. He hated being cramped up. He hated not having control of his immediate situation. He would never describe himself as "works well with others" in any capacity.

Yet there he was.

In a fucking tin can in space. With a horrible murderer loose.

Fuck.

And all he could do was grumble as he went about his day, desperately trying to repair a rapidly failing piece of garbage, trying to avoid air vents and being followed anywhere.

His antisocial tendencies had never come so in handy.

There was one member of the team, however, that seemed determined to undermine his self-imposed Exile. The ship's cook and doctor (everyone tried to do double-duty where they could) Hannibal Lecter seemed hellbent on following him everywhere, and it would have been cute if it weren't so frustrating.

The other man wore bright red, with (of all damn things) a chef's hat on top of his helmet. He stood out, in every way possible. Admittedly, Will's little clip-on dog ears weren't the most subtle of accessories, but at least he was a solid color and could blend into shadows if he so wished. Like a ninja. Not like a fire engine.

But it was sweet, kind of, how insistent the older man was that he be with Will so often. He seemed to get his tasks done quickly, and his cooking really was delicious. It was enough, almost, to make Will forget there was a gruesome murderer on the loose.

Almost.

The first time he saw a dead body was back on Earth. He had, for a time, worked with the FBI's Behavior Analysis Unit. He had a sort of "superpower" to be able to get into people's heads, hyper-empathy they called it. He could still remember that first case. It didn't haunt him like it used to, but it was there, the first in a file-folder in his mind that he kept locked tight until he had space to process the things inside.

The things he had seen on this ship were leagues beyond the worst cases on Earth. These bodies weren't just dismembered, they were ripped apart, like they had encountered some kind of… well, creature. Whatever had done the things he was seeing wasn't human. It simply wasn't possible.

He had to reevaluate a lot of personal beliefs very quickly.

The crew eventually came to the conclusion that whatever was doing this to their members was hiding Among Them. They decided on the moniker of "imposter" for the thing.

Now to figure out who it was.

Will had his suspicions. Of everyone, unfortunately. But suspicion kept him alive on Earth, it would work alright here too. Especially as there were fewer and fewer people left.

Will imagined how it would go, if he were face to face with whatever had been destroying their Crewmates. He never came out alive. Best-case was he would airlock it and shoot it into space. Like they had done to several people already (he had refused to participate).

Curiously, Hannibal had also refused to vote, or participate in the discussion. Will wondered if it had anything to do with the Hippocratic Oath, or just personal morals. The strange thing was that the doctor didn't get nearly as much protest against his refusal to participate in these death sentences as Will did. Something about the man radiated this calm, cool authority that Will guessed people just accepted.

Whatever the case, he supposed it didn't hurt that the man was seemingly always on his side.

"They condemn you because they do not understand," Doctor Lecter had murmured to him one evening as another crewmate was launched into the cold void of space.

"Don't understand what?"

"You feel their pain as if you were the one out there, freezing and choking."

Will looked down, shaking his head. He knew that in the empty vacuum of space, ship walls between them, he couldn't really hear the screams, but he felt his ears ring all the same.

"Who are we to play God?"

"I think God must be laughing at this. He kills all the time, and are we not created in His image?"

Will felt a shudder ripple through him. Whether fear or something else entirely he wasn't certain.

He knew he was in trouble, falling way too hard for this mysterious doctor chef. It was ridiculous, frankly, to have even remotely romantic feelings for a fire-hydrant in a chef's hat, but here he was. He wondered numbly if Hannibal had any sort of reciprocity, feeling something for the little edgelord wolf boy Will was dressed up as.

He didn't have to wonder long.

He was in his private quarters after a long day of doing medical scans and fixing wires (reminding him so much of his former hobby of tying his own fly-fishing lures), and was halfway out of his suit when there was a knock at the door.

He debated putting the bulky gear back on, but chose against it, instead walking to the door and opening the little peephole.

It was… an extremely handsome man, in a tweed suit of all things. Will realized immediately who it was when he saw the gorgeous dish of food the man was carrying.

"Doctor Lecter?"

"Please, just Hannibal. We are friends, are we not?"

Will couldn't help but smile. Yes, somehow, despite everything, they were friends. Possibly more?

Will opened the door, stepping back, and he realized that they had never actually seen each other before, without the privacy afforded to them by their suits.

Hannibal was so much more than a red space man with (again) a comical hat. He was slender, and older than Will had initially anticipated. His hair was combed back neatly, and his gorgeous cheekbones looked like they could cut glass. His eyes were just as lovely, and Will realized he was staring only as he became aware Hannibal was as well.

Will wondered what the other man thought of him beneath the wolf ears. He knew he was scruffy and unkempt, far more so now in front of this immaculately groomed man. But Hannibal was looking at him like he was something… beautiful. He felt himself blushing.

Hannibal caught himself and smiled, glancing down as he stepped inside the room. He set the food down on the little table in the room, and Will shut the door behind him.

Hannibal took some cutlery from an inside jacket pocket, setting it down on either side of the dish.

"I didn't see you at dinner tonight, and I thought it might be kind to bring you some food myself."

Will smiled sheepishly and nodded. "Thank you. That is very considerate. It looks and smells amazing."

He sat carefully, wary that he still had his suspenders that attached his suit bottoms to him. He was rather mismatched. But Hannibal didn't seem to care.

He sniffed the meal experimentally, it was some type of meats and noodles in a thick dark sauce.

"What culinary delight have you served me tonight, doc- Hannibal?"

Will caught the little grin that the other man tried to stifle at the mention of his name.

"Teriyaki udon. With blackened chicken."

Will nodded.

"Will you partake as well, or..?"

"Oh, no, I ate earlier. Please, feel free."

Will nodded again, taking a cautious bite.

It was amazing, like everything the man cooked.

He couldn't suppress a small groan of delight, and he didn't mess the slight shiver that seemed to run down Hannibal's body. Interesting…

He devoured the meal, though he did try to at least remember his table manners. He felt embarrassed, honestly, but Hannibal looked so damn happy.

"I am so glad you like it," Hannibal murmured with a smile, packing the container and cutlery away.

"And, I must say, you are… exquisite. If we survive this ordeal, would… could…" he paused, glancing down, and Will felt jitters.

"I would, yes," he answered.

Hannibal blushed - blushed! - and smiled.

"That… makes me extraordinarily happy. Thank you, Will, I… I am so glad I have met you."

Will smiled and nodded. "I am too."

Hannibal ducked his head and waved as he stepped back out into the ship.

Will couldn't help smiling as he watched the man walk away.

--

This became their routine. A break from the monotony of every day, both the anxiety and the boredom. Will felt himself growing ever more attached to his companion, and found that he no longer disliked the doctor's seeming constant desire to be nearby as Will worked. In fact, Will would sometimes speed through his other tasks just to be able to meet Hannibal in Medbay as Hannibal finished his work.

Their evenings were spent together usually with Will eating something amazing Hannibal prepared, the other abstaining due to having eaten already. That was fine. They were together, talking about everything and nothing, confiding secrets. Will told Hannibal about his panic attacks, about how he couldn't work on Earth at the BAU because he felt himself becoming some kind of monster.

Hannibal in turn revealed his own tragic childhood, and confided that the Imposter (and subsequent hunts and ejection) made him uneasy enough to keep a knife on his personal at all times. His left rear pocket, he said, "in case something happens."

They tried to avoid that sort of talk, though. It just led to somber silences.

Mostly, Will enjoyed talking about folklore and food. Two universals of humanity. Hannibal had rich tapestries of experience in both, and Will was content to listen to his companion speak for hours on end, well into the night.

Will wondered, sometimes, when Hannibal walked back to his own quarters, what would happen if Will asked him to stay. To just… be with him, through the night. Nothing more. Nothing less.

He wondered what would happen if they survived this. What would happen if it came down to just themselves and the monster hiding in the ship.

Will knew, without a doubt now, he would die for Hannibal.

It didn't matter if that wasn't reciprocal.

--

One evening, they were down to six, and Will and Hannibal were having dinner (Will was eating, Hannibal talking). There was a knock at the door and Hannibal frowned as he stood to see who it was. He didn't make it to the door when it was forced open and their three remaining Crewmates were there, running in and seizing Will.

"It's you!" Pink screamed.

Will looked around, confused and terrified as hands grabbed at him, dragging him literally kicking and screaming from his own room.

"What?! What's- hey! Stop-!"

The crew didn't pause as they dragged him out, one staying by to keep Hannibal from following.

"We always knew you were a creepy little freak, but damn, Graham, I can't believe we've been so blind."

"It's not me! What the fuck?!"

"It has to be you. You and the Doc were the only two missing when we found the body, and we all know it's not him."

Will tried to process everything happening. He counted, there were only three people surrounding him and Hannibal, who was still shouting (he had never seen the man so upset, so animated), and it clicked.

It was Hannibal.

All this time, the man he was falling for was the monster he was afraid of.

He felt like the realization should have hit harder, should have hurt more, but…

Well it didn't really change much, now.

Hannibal was still the only one who had shown him a shred of decency. Hannibal listened to him, consoled him, cooked for him… cared for him.

Will felt everything move in slow motion. He met Hannibal's eyes. He saw the fear there, of what he couldn't be certain.

He felt a wave of calm come over him. All of this proof, and the crew still had not put it together (he, at least, had been blinded by affection and antisocial tendencies). Hannibal would almost certainly win this morbid game.

He didn't expect Hannibal to go full monster.

His jaw unhinged like a snake's, and his nails became claws, and there was just a pile of meat where the crewman holding him back once had been.

Everything stopped. The pair holding him let go and Will fell to the floor with a sharp cry, the air leaving his lungs all at once. He tried to catch his breath as Hannibal turned to the Crewmates. Will saw how terribly inhuman he seemed, even without the snake-jaw and claws, in the cold light in his eyes, the hard line of his mouth, the fury that Will could tell was bubbling just beneath the surface.

"You!!"

Will wheezed a chuckle. It was so obvious now to him. How Hannibal had almost always just "eaten," how he had so much knowledge about so many things, how he seemed to finish his tasks so quickly. He had attached himself to Will, who protested the ejections, who never noticed whether Hannibal could complete their tasks or not…

Will had to wonder if any of it was real. If he fell in love with a monster incapable of returning his feelings. It had felt real, had felt mutual, he knew he had seen affection in the man's eyes as they talked.

Maybe Hannibal could fake it. But it had been real enough for Will, realer than the simpering cowards who were rapidly backing away, cowering behind Will. As he got to his feet, one shoved him back down, towards Hannibal. Hannibal glanced down at him, worry briefly passing through his gaze as he continued to walk towards the pair of fools.

Will panted, slowly working his way back up to his feet, leaning against a wall. Hannibal stalked towards his prey, and Will was surprised at his own feelings of vicious satisfaction.

They deserved this. They deserved to suffer for all the lives they'd taken in their squabbling.

Hannibal reached towards the pair, a thick black… something… stretching from his hand and wrapping it around the pink crewmate. It squeezed, and with a sickening crunch, that crewmate was no more.

Will staggered towards the action, and saw the remaining figure pulling their gun up, aiming at Hannibal, still busy mutilating the pink body.

Time slowed down for Will. He ran, as fast as he could, reaching for Hannibal.

Back right pocket.

He felt the knife in Hannibal's pocket, gripping it as he felt himself fall, then what his brain could only describe as a chair leg punching through his chest. He gripped the knife as he lay on the ground, and while Hannibal had his attention torn between the crewmate and himself, Will threw the knife.

He hoped that his sense of aim was at least passible and as he felt himself starting to black out, all he could think was that he had been right.

He would die for Hannibal.

--

He hadn't expected to wake up, later. He gasped and sat up, hands reaching blindly, frantically, into nothing. A burst of pain in his chest forced him back down, and he nearly blacked out again.

He looked around, body slick with sweat as he panicked, looking around to figure out where he was, mind trying to figure out what had happened.

He felt a gentle pressure by his feet, and a warm hand pressed to his forehead.

"Welcome back, Will."

That was Hannibal's voice. Quiet, sure. Perhaps it was his own confusion, but Will could have sworn there was something… different. Perhaps a bit of a warble that inferred something beyond the man's usual brand of steady confidence.

It didn't matter.

"I… you… you're okay?"

Hannibal came into view, the same composed man in the tweed suit.

"I am. You very nearly weren't, my silly, foolish, brace Will…" he murmured, sitting down by Will's side.

Will looked down, his chest was covered in bandages, a couple little tubes running from them. So he really had been shot.

"Why did you do that? Why did you put yourself in the way?" Hannibal sounded nearly… angry.

"Because I couldn't lose you," Will croaked.

Hannibal's hand stroked Will's hair, soothing, tender, nothing one might expect from a creature that had done so much damage.

"Even though you knew what I was?"

"You were the lesser evil in my eyes."

"And what now? Will you try to flee as soon as you are well? Will you kill me yourself?"

Will chuckled softly, leaning into the warm hand.

"Seems a bit pointless. I'd starve to death without your cooking."

Hannibal managed a smile, though it was very nearly a grimace, and Will realized with some amusement (and some sadness) that there were tears in the man's eyes.

"Hey now, I'm the one with a hole in my body, no crying," Will chided gently, his own hand reaching out to wipe the tears away.

"I am sorry. I never intended to… get so attached."

Will hummed in agreement. He hadn't either. But that's what they got for being lonely fools, he supposed.

"Just to clarify," Will started, carefully adjusting, "did you feed me my Crewmates?"

That would be… problematic, to say the least, but he would understand.

"I… yes."

"To get rid of evidence?"

"Partially. Partially to… initiate you."

Into what? Was there some kind of monster cult? Hannibal saw his confusion and continued.

"I… wondered, perhaps, if you would… ever consider becoming… more. Than you are. Becoming the purest form of yourself."

"Becoming like you, you mean," Will interpreted, and Hannibal nodded.

"I confess, it gave me great excitement to think about."

Will could imagine. Hannibal must have been even more alone than Will felt, with no one truly understanding anything about him.

"Why not finish it?"

"I would need your consent. I could, in theory, turn you, but…"

Hannibal looked down.

"I would rather you kill me than resent me for turning you against your will. I knew you would likely starve yourself in protest. I… I could not watch you do that."

It was the most vulnerable Will thought he had ever seen Hannibal. There was something deeply endearing about it.

"Well, now what, then? Will you turn me now? If I consent?"

Hannibal looked up at him, tears even greater than they had been.

"You would want to become such a thing?"

"I think I would. If it means I can be with you. If you'll have me."

Will scarcely had time to blink when Hannibal's lips were on his own, and those tender arms were cradling him to the monstrous man's chest.

For such a powerful creature, Hannibal seemed so delicate and fragile now. Will carefully returned the embrace, mewling into the kiss.

He'd never felt like this before. He felt… known. Perceived, all that he was. He loved it.

"Are there many like us?" He murmured as Hannibal pulled away to rest their foreheads together.

"No, there is no one like us."

Will chuckled softly.

"You know what I mean."

"No, I can't say I do, please enlighten me."

"Now you're teasing me."

"I would never," Hannibal purred softly.

"Right, right. I mean, are there more, I guess, imposters? What are we called?"

"Probably. I never cared to know any before. All I need, all I desire, is here, with you."

Will laughed, shaking his head.

"You're lucky you're so charming."

"I am. I'm lucky you appreciate my special brand of charm."

Will hummed in agreement, leaning up for another kiss. He could easily see himself getting addicted to this. It seemed Hannibal could to, because the man was straddling his hips.

"Easy, now, I'm grievously injured, remember? You have to play nice with me," Will teased.

"Of course, of course. Just getting comfortable" Hannibal retorted.

"That so? Well alright, I suppose I can't be mad at that, then."

Hannibal smiled, genuinely, pressing gentle kisses to Will's forehead.

"Don't worry. I'm a patient man. I've waited this long for you, I can manage a few more weeks. Just be patient with me as well. This… is all new."

Will nodded, yawning and adjusting himself again. He felt exhaustion tug at his mind, and though he tried, he couldn't resist just resting his eyes.

"It's alright, my Will. Sleep. You have time to Become something amazing."

[rayadraws]

So I was listening to mr lover man by Ricky Montgomery (AMAZING SONG) and I thought omg, what if Genos got hurt so badly that he had to stay a year with kuseno to get repairs. Of course Saitama could visit, but couldn’t take Genos home, not even for holidays. And poor pining Saitama is all depressed and Genos hates himself for getting hurt and AAA the angst~

Hhhhhhhh

Tags: hurt/comfort, mild angst with happy ending, established relationship, G-rated

Genos had had several close calls. It wasn’t always easy to tell, ’cause the guy would do everything to hide it, like a sick animal pretending it was feeling fine. And it was hard sometimes to even tell what was serious when it came to him - losing an arm or a leg or both was annoying, but not life threatening in the least, like it would be for a regular person.

There was no denying it this time, though. When Saitama found him in the rubble, he felt his stomach drop. The image haunted him even days after. He didn’t even dare pick Genos up from where he laid, he was scared of making it worse, with all those... bits exposed. He just guarded him until the drones arrived and then he went home, unable to eat or read or do anything, so he went to bed at 8 pm and tried desperately to forget this day had even happened.

The phone didn’t ring until almost a full day later and when Saitama picked it up, it wasn’t Genos on the other end but his doc. Saitama had never heard him sound so grim before.

”How is he? Itching to get back up yet?”

”Saitama-kun, are you sitting down?”

It was bad. Really bad.

Kuseno had a bunch of complicated terms for it, but from what Saitama gathered basically the connection between Genos’ brain and his body had been severed, which was really dangerous, for obvious reasons. There was a risk of brain damage, but there was also apparently a risk that his brain wouldn’t correct right to his cyborg body again, or any cyborg body, if those connection points had been too badly damaged. Which would be really, really bad. Brain damage would be kinder. Without a body, there would barely be any life left for Genos, he’d be little more than a brain in a jar.

The doctor kept him in a medically induced coma for what felt like forever. At least Genos didn’t have muscles that would atrophy from lack of use in the meantime.

When he finally woke up again, they had no idea what to expect. Kuseno had warned Saitama that Genos probably wouldn’t move or say much, if anything at all. He’d been put in a new body, one that was set up more for people undergoing full body modification surgery for the first time - kinda like a bubble-wrapped edition. No weapons, no fancy scanners - as little as possible for a badly jostled brain to deal with. Just enough to be a person.

”Hey, bud, how are you feeling?”

Genos just looked at him, not moving as much as a muscle. His face looked the same as before... all this. His hair might have been a bit shorter, Saitama thought. Easier to care for while he recovered. And of course, all the cables and wires connected at the back of his neck, so thick they almost formed a pillow under his head where he laid on the table, covered only with a thin blanket.

Genos could be stoic, but he rarely tried to hide his feelings around Saitama. It was unnerving to see him so still. Saitama couldn’t even tell if he recognized him or not.

Kuseno clapped Saitama’s shoulder as he made his way towards the exit later, but he couldn’t make any hopeful promises.

The next time Saitama came to visit, things were better, thank goodness. Genos could move now, a little bit. Mostly his facial muscles, but enough that Saitama could tell he was happy to see him. Over a month since the accident had already passed at this point, so he was happy to finally see some improvement.

The third visit, Genos was in a foul mood already by the time Saitama arrived. That was unlike him (at least around Saitama). Kuseno explained he was upset because of how long his recovery was predicted to take, which he’d just been informed of.

A year.

If they were lucky.

No monster fighting. No shopping. No tracking the mad cyborg. Genos was going to be stuck in the lab for months and months, watching the world go on without him while he struggled to even move his toes.

Genos could be stoic. He wasn’t that day. Nor was he raging, though. He couldn’t control his body enough to be. The tears flowed quietly as Saitama held his head in his lap and tried to tell him that it would be okay. That his stuff would be waiting for him until he was ready. Saitama too. And he’d visit, as often as he could and Genos wanted him to. He’d bring him his favourite stuff, his notebooks and the chocolate he had hid among the frozen peas back home. The stupid plushie version of himself that Saitama suspected Genos had commissioned someone to make for him. By the fourth visit, all the things he’d brought last time were lined up so Genos could look at them whenever he wanted. He looked pleased at that, at least.

He still wasn’t speaking, couldn’t move anything below the neck. Didn’t even have his own room - lab wasn’t set up like that - but they’d made this one corner all his. Kuseno had pulled down a TV, a radio, audiobooks. A potted plant, though Saitama had no idea what kind it was. At least it added a bit of life. This portion of the lab didn’t have windows, so the doc had hung up a poster of a forest instead. It was as nice as you could make such a place. And in the middle of it all laid Genos, propped up like a grumpy-looking doll, probably wishing he was anywhere else.

About four months in, he started to talk again, which was nice, though it was hard to understand what he was trying to say most of the time. At first it was mostly grunts and sighs, he struggled to form actual words. But at least he could point and make gestures now, if you gave him time, so he could point at what he wanted. He couldn’t write yet, but he could flip the TV channels and change the radio station, giving him at least that little bit of control of his life. And he could eat and drink again, even if he spilled a lot. Must be nice though, to be able to finally do some stuff on his own at least. Saitama couldn’t imagine how bored and frustrated he must be, he was normally so active.

They celebrated Christmas down in the lab that year. Saitama had asked Kuseno if he couldn’t at least take Genos to the nearest town, just for a couple hours, but doc said it was essential Genos was hooked up to all those cables 24/7. Poor guy. But they had cake together and Genos even managed to murmur a ’murry chrysmaz’, which was both sad and cute.

Saitama got him gifts too, a book about space that looked cool and a Gudetama plushie and a hoodie that was really warm and soft. Genos gestured that he wanted to wear it immediately, so Saitama helped him out of the Qseno Tech one and pulled the hoodie over his head.

It contrasted nicely with his arms, which Saitama told him. These arms weren’t polished grey or black like most of Genos’ designs, but white with black accents. They looked so... peaceful, by comparison. Didn’t even have blasters, just soft pads for grip, almost like pawpads. Genos sat completely still as he let Saitama feel his hand over, interlacing their fingers.

Without warning, Saitama felt his eyes starting to burn. He took a deep breath, trying to will it away, but that only made it worse. He looked away, until he felt Genos’ fingers squeezing his.

”Shen...shei.”

He broke down.

It was Genos’ turn to comfort Saitama, which felt wrong, but he was so good at it. He held Saitama in his arms, resting his chin on his shoulder, until he got it all out, which took forever.

”It’s not the same without you there. It’s so lonely...”

”Clean-n?”

”If I’ve... kept it tidy?”

”Yus.”

”Uhh...”

”Shenshei!”

When Saitama dared meet Genos’ eyes, he was giving him that disapproving stare that he knew well from when he was slacking off.

”I’ll make sure the place is spotless when you return home.”

”Goo. Call Kin.”

”I guess I can invite King over.”

”Foobooki. Ban. Moomen.”

”Fine, I do have friends.”

Genos reached up to wipe a tear off his cheek. ”Yus.”

-

Inviting people over meant he had to tidy up. It was a lot and he completely misjudged how long it would take. He was only halfway done when King showed up and he tried to apologize, but King didn’t say much, just helped him with the rest. They got pizza and played video games and it was almost like normal. Apartment looked a lot less glum now, too. Wouldn’t need to be embarrassed when Genos got back home. If he could keep it up for another six months.

”I’d come earlier, if you’d only let me in, Saitama.”

”Yeah, I know.”

”You’re welcome to visit me too.”

”Yeah yeah.”

They played in silence for a while.

”You wanna talk about it?”

”It’s lonely without him.”

”Yeah. But he’s doing better, right?”

”Yeah. He can sit up now.”

”Is it taking that long to fix his body?”

”S’not his body, it’s his brain.”

”Oh.”

They went back to being quiet. After Saitama’s character had gotten his ass kicked half a dozen times, he told King to go home. He was hesitant, asking Saitama twice if he’d be okay. He promised he would be. Besides, Fubuki was coming over the next day. They were going to sort the mountains of get well-letters Genos’ fans had sent him after word finally got out that Demon Cyborg was on extended sick leave. He’d asked them to keep that stuff at the HA, but apparently they had had enough of that and were going to dump the boxes at the apartment the next morning. Saitama didn’t look forward to it.

Fubuki showed up looking very casual, for being her. Saitama wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen her in pants before, nevermind sweats, even if they were brand name. She brought food too, fruit and bread and stuff like that. But she didn’t ask any stupid questions, just shook her head at the stack of boxes of fanmail.

”We’ve got our work cut out for us.”

”Yup.”

”If you’d started months ago, it wouldn’t be this much work now.”

”Yup.”

Still, it wasn’t that bad once they got started. Most of the stuff they threw away, but they kept the treats and a few of the plushies. Saitama helped himself to one box of chocolate, but put the rest aside for Genos. Some kids had sent in drawings and those they kept too. They ate while they worked, taking care to not stain the letters.

”This one’s for you,” Fubuki said suddenly.

”Hate mail again.”

”No, nothing like that.”

”...”

”Listen. ’I read about Demon Cyborg and they say you’ve been seen walking alone in City Z. It breaks me heart to think of you being separated, you seem so close in all the photos. Please know that both of you are in our hearts. Best wishes.”

”Oh, well, that’s new.”

”We’ve all been worried, you know. For both of you.”

Saitama fiddled with the letter in his hands. ”It’s been rough. But it will be okay.”

Before he had the chance to stop her, Fubuki engulfed him in a hug.

-

He’d warned Genos that he was bringing him fan stuff today. Kuseno had encouraged Genos to read some of the letters, but he didn’t show much interest. They split the treats though and piled the plushies up on the least full shelf above the bed. The smallest one, a fuzzy cat, Saitama placed carefully on top of the potted plant. It was blooming, tiny delicate pink flowers.

”You know, I’ve never seen my cactus bloom, even after all these years,” Saitama remarked.

”Too bad,” Genos replied. His speech was getting clearer and clearer. He wasn’t chatting quite as much as he did… before all this, because it still required a fair deal of effort from him, but it was still a big improvement.

”Maybe I’ll bring cake, next time.”

”If you want.”

Genos didn’t remember his real birthdate. He didn’t remember much of the day his doctor found him either, but Kuseno did, of course. They’d picked that date as a stand-in birthday. They kept it simple, cause Genos didn’t like being surrounded by too many people and all, but they’d eat cake and Saitama always got him a little gift, usually slippers or oven mitts or something else that was practical. He’d waffled for like a week what to go for this time, especially with it being such a weird year and all. He still hadn't made up his mind .

Saitama took another letter from the pile and read it aloud. Reading vetted fanmail wasn’t so bad. They didn’t have to worry about weird or gross stuff, though Fubuki’s tolerance for allowing that had proven higher than Saitama’s.

”’In conclusion, get well soon’. That one was sweet, right?”

”I guess.”

”Oh come on, Demon Cyborg, with your ’hard exterior but fragile self within, so barely contained’.”

Genos snorted. It was like a balm, seeing him slowly return to his old self. That also meant he was getting increasingly restless, though. He’d already left his bed three times, now that Kuseno let him go without all the neck cables, once dutifully during physical therapy while supervised, twice at night when neither Saitama nor Kuseno were there to reel him in. The first of those times he didn’t get far, didn’t even leave the room, but the second he fell down a flight of stairs.

Thank goodness for his exceptionally hard head, or they might have had to put a helmet on him.

Saitama got it, though. Genos hadn’t like, lost any intelligence, or forgotten more stuff than, well, he already had. He still had his goals and interests and all that. And his body was still state of the art and ready to rock. The problem was getting the two - his brain and his body - to work together again. It was all way too complicated for Saitama, even when the doc tried to dumb it down for him, but at least Genos was going in the right direction.

The day came when Kuseno said it was okay for Genos to leave the lab for a few hours. They made a birthday date out of it, since they hadn’t had a proper date in nearly a year and his stand-in birthday was so close. It was hard to be left alone, though. People kept pointing and whispering and Genos didn’t want to deal with any of that. In the end, they bought tea and fancy cupcakes to go and then clambered into the nearest woods. Saitama had a bench or something in mind, or even just finding a nice patch of grass, but Genos had other plans.

”No, stop that.”

No response.

”Oi! Don’t!”

”Don’t worry, Sensei.”

He kept going higher. Into the damned tree.

”Genos! If you fall down your old man’s gonna skin me alive!”

”I will not fall.”

The next branch creaked worryingly under Genos’ weight, but he kept going. Slowly, but with great determination. What had gotten into the guy’s head?

There was nothing for it, then. With a great sigh, Saitama put the paper bag to his mouth, grabbing the edge with his teeth so he’d have his hands free. Branch by branch, he followed Genos up the tree.

About ten metres up, the stem of the tree split into two, leaving enough room for the two of them. With an exaggerated show of pretend-annoyance, Saitama made himself comfortable, placing the bag between them. Peering inside, he was pleased to note he hadn’t spilled anything. He looked up again. Genos was sitting with his eyes closed, hair moving in the breeze. He looked like an animal that had been released into the wild after a life of captivity. Maybe you wouldn’t think so looking at him, but Saitama knew Genos much preferred this environment to a busy city.

”Are you happy now, nature boy?” He nudged his companion in the side and handed him his paper cup. It couldn’t be more than lukewarm at this point, but his tea smelled real nice when Genos took off the lid to drink.

”Very pleased,” he all but purred.

”Can’t blame you, I guess.” And then, after a brief pause, ”I’m glad to see it. I’m glad you’re okay. You scared us, you know.”

”I know. I was scared too. And frustrated.”

”Don’t blame you.”

They didn’t say anything else. They didn’t need to. They said the rest through their actions, the held hands, the lingering gazes. The kiss, tasting of tea and pastries.

Saitama had no idea when he woke up that morning that he’d spend his afternoon kissing in a tree, but he had no complaints. Not until it was time to get down, anyway.

”We can jump.”

”Kuseno made me promise I’d return you without as much as a scratch and you already have a patch of mud on your shoulder. We’re not taking chances.”

”It will be fine.”

Somehow, it had escaped Saitama’s mind how goddamn stubborn his boyfriend was.

”How about I hold you and we jump together.”

”Sensei…”

”It’ll be like, romantic.”

”...Alright.”

Fortunately, Saitama hadn’t forgotten how much of a sap he could be.

It was a mess to stand up in the tree, nevermind getting into position, but eventually they figured it out. Genos grabbed Saitama’s shoulders and latched on, piggyback style, making sure to hold on to the bag as well, so it could be recycled back in town. Like that, they jumped down, and then continued. Apparently Genos couldn’t walk, now. Or rather, he’d decided he didn’t want to, that latching on to Saitama like a koala was better. Give that guy an inch…

When they got back inside the lab, Kuseno instantly looked worried upon seeing Genos being carried, but Saitama assured him that he was fine. He didn’t mention the tree climbing.

He was tempted to stay the night, but Genos was already really tired from the day out. Tussling his hair, he gave him a peck on the forehead and said his goodbyes, promising to be back soon.

That turned out to not be the case, but only because Genos was allowed to go home first. He called Saitama two days later, letting him know he’d be home soon. He sounded so happy, like an excited puppy. He just wanted to stop on the way and shop some stuff, so they could have a nice meal together once he was back.

Saitama never fury-cleaned the apartment with as much intensity as he did that morning.

And then, Genos stood there, wearing that baggy Qseno Tech hoodie and shining like the sun itself. He’d still need frequent checkups for a while and no monster fights for another month, at least, but he was back.

He was back.

”Welcome home,” Saitama smiled at him.

[randomarcanatingz]

the arcana characters as youtubers

nadia

always has her hair and makeup impeccably done for her videos and when she meets fans,,,no one has ever seen her look like less than an 11/10

makes videos on fashion trends and fashion history (think a less experimental safiya nygaard), ones where she gives advice to viewers who send in questions, and unboxing/review videos for beauty items and clothes

people always comment calling her “queen” which she thinks is sort of cute and “mom” which just confuses her (“for the last time--i appreciate all the kind words but i DO NOT HAVE ANY CHILDREN”) 

has never been demonetized once and doesn’t plan on it

whenever her videos are sponsored, she manages to sneak the sponsorship in smoothly, in a clever way

goes to vidcon but typically is too busy to stay the whole weekend 

wrote a book on self care and how to be independent and successful that became one of the best-selling youtuber books ever 

 isn’t a huge fan of collabs on her own channel, but appears occasionally on portia’s or asra’s 

does a yearly giveaway of high end jewelry and makeup for her subscribers, and holds a charity donation event for her birthday (like colleen ballinger’s childhood cancer one)   

seems to avoid scandals effortlessly, but actually works hard to stay out of drama 

asra

has absolutely no theme to his channel and just rolls with whatever video idea he can think of at the time

some examples include an instructional tarot reading video, a docuseries on the stigma against reptiles (featuring faust in every episode), a collab with nadia where they just drink tea and talk about current events, and him playing the weirdest children’s games he can find online

LOVES meeting fans and spends the whole weekend at vidcon, has like 7 meet and greets, and appears in every panel that will let him participate

his videos are low on editing and mostly just edited for length, but any special effects he does add in are not subtle at all (aka random sparkles and dramatic jump cuts) 

has been dubbed a “cinnamon roll” by his fans but he isn’t afraid to call out other creators if they say something problematic

 is very expressive and there are many reaction images and videos of him all over instagram and twitter

doesn’t usually make travel blogs but he does travel a lot, so most of his videos don’t have the same background

 all his merch is tye-dye and the best seller is a mug with a faust-shaped handle 

 follows a bunch of fan accounts for him on instagram

 tons of fans ship him with julian and while he’s not super into it, he finds the shitty instagram edits hilarious 

julian

the KING of clickbait titles but his fans don’t mind that much because it just parallels his dramatic personality 

“Staying in a Haunted Hotel???” (it’s not haunted, he just heard the people in the room beside him talking at midnight and thought it was ghosts), “I Solved the Jon-Benet Ramsey Case” (he didn’t, it’s just him discussing theories on it), “Proof the Government is Plotting Against Us” (no solid proof, just off the wall conspiracies that he explains confidently)

makes videos of him exploring supposedly haunted places, ones where he discusses unsolved crime cases and what he thinks really happened, and conspiracy theory videos

very active in the comments section; likes every nice comment he sees and replies to them with a winky face

 also very active on twitter and instagram, especially past midnight, and replies to tweets and dms from fans

sometimes collabs with asra for conspiracy videos which immediately leads to 20 fanmade compilations titled “julian annoying asra for 5 minutes straight”

is always sponsored by the weirdest, most random companies that have no relation to the kind of videos he makes at all

does 6 hour live streams where all he does is look at cursed images on reddit 

is determined to not let any of his subscriber’s discover that his birth name is ilya 

random haters have tried to cancel him multiple times but it Never Works he is literally immune to being cancelled 

portia

vlog QUEEN !!! her videos are mostly vlogs of her daily life, with a few scripted videos scattered here and there, usually involving pepi

contrary to her brother, her titles are very blunt and true to the content and are in all lowercase (“a day in my life”, “getting frustrated in my garden”, “buying my cat clothes online”)

 she tries to make her videos appeal to everyone, but 90% of her demographic is still teenage wannabe aesthetic vsco girls

 has never done a proper collab, but her vlogs always end up featuring nadia, julian, and some of the palace guards 

has a popular merch line that sells unique items like flower seeds, pet food bowls, and baking tools 

her favorite thing is seeing her fans’ reactions when she picks up one much taller and heavier than her for a picture at vidcon

fans all agree that she has bde 

sometimes makes so-called “family vlogs” where she hangs out with julian and mazelinka and calls them “the maz squad”

for april fool’s day, she posted a fake giveaway announcement video where she claimed she was giving pepi away to a fan

her twitter is mostly retweets of fanart and sweet messages from fans (and pictures of pepi, obviously)

muriel 

has the smallest subscriber count of the group but it's surprisingly high for someone who never wanted to be popular in the first place

his videos are very niche and are usually on topics like how to survive in the wilderness and how to raise chickens

many of his subscribers think his quiet personality and unique videos are all an act or persona and muriel does not understand why

he's only ever been to one (1) fan event/meet and greet and it was when he tagged along with asra to vidcon

despite his protests, asra always plugs muriel’s videos on his twitter, so they share many subscribers 

he doesn't really have any haters because those who actually watch his videos think he's super sweet and those who don't are too scared of his huge stature 

didn't want to include inanna in his videos initially, but caved after fans saw her in the background of one and demanded she make an appearance more often

fans (and asra) keep insisting he change his username to “the mountain man” but he heartily refuses 

does his own editing but also isn't great with technology so sometimes his videos are strangely edited and include parts he meant to edit out (but it's kinda endearing)

has never sold merch, never plans to, and ignores any requests to do so

lucio

listen i'm not comparing him to the paul brothers but you know …..

makes prank videos, makeup tutorials (but it's the same look just varied SLIGHTLY every time), and vlogs where he not so subtly flexes how rich he is

his merch is supposedly “the highest quality and extremely stylish” but that just means the prices are sky high and the quality is not that great 

goes to every convention he can and holds random meet ups because he craves attention 

isn't mean to his fans because he couldn't bear seeing his sub count go down, but will absolutely TEAR his haters to shreds and get their channel taken down somehow 

gets demonetized all the time and complains about it (as if he needs more money)

people are either a huge fan or they HATE him there is no in between

uses clickbait just as much as julian but people are less forgiving about it 

none of the other people in the gang really want to collab with him but julian did once, got tricked into eating a beetle, and refused to do it ever again 

king of scandals, tweets random controversial stuff and then deletes it

[bogkeep]

hi i saw your post abt self harm on the internet and i was wondering if you could expand on that!! im not sure i get entirely your point or what you would consider discourse in in regards to that and id genuinely like to understand what u mean because im not sure im looking at this through the right lense

okay, i’m going to make an attempt! i can tell from the tags people write that a lot of people relate or understand what i mean, but if you don’t? that’s okay, and maybe good even, especially if it means you’re taking good care of yourself.

so what i mean is like… when you do something; when you open a social media site or look something up, what will you get out of it? what’s the input going to your head and heart? how will it make you feel? and this isn’t a rhetoric question like “obviously it will make you feel bad” because there’s a lot of good things on the internet - interacting with friends and acquaintances, learning things and sharing perspectives, looking at art and getting inspired, looking at cute cat pictures, etc. we have so much information and media at our fingertips’ reach!! and it’s a double edged sword. because you can like inject all these good things directly into your brain, but you can ALSO inject a lot of bad things into your brain, too. like it’s really easy to look up things that trigger you in any way, and sometimes you might not even know something is triggering you. i don’t know if you’ve ever had that like, curiousity to check something out that you’re better off not knowing, but you do it anyway, because you CAN so why NOT. because we can!!! we can access everything so easily!! like people twenty years ago could not look up their exes on five different social medias and keep up with their lives. it’s wild how we can know what’s happening basically all over the world pretty much the instance it happens. having to care about the fate of the entire world is some superhero angst shit. you’re just one person and you’re alive and you’re going to like, be here for a while, so please take some deep breaths ya feel. but also the world is in a pretty dreary state right now so like. it’s rough. it really is!

and i’m not saying we should all avoid everything that hurts us all the time and put ourselves in bubbles or anything. hurt is gonna happen. the world is gonna be rough. but also, set boundaries for yourself. DON’T look up your exes. you don’t HAVE to know all the news constantly, and you’re not a bad person for taking a break to live your life. if you struggle with body image, looking at heavily curated and edited instagram selfies and comparing yourself to it is really just hurting yourself over and over. so i am specifically talking about the boundaries you hold to *yourself*. just because we CAN do anything and keep up with everything, it’s not…. a good thing to do. there’s just TOO much. a lot of the time i hear people condemn entire sites like twitter or tumblr for being toxic cesspools where only X and Y happens, and like, yeah, some of these criticisms are valid, but it’s also ENTIRELY possible to curate your internet experience. unfollow blogs that stress you out or circulate content or comments you find toxic or don’t like the attitude of. blacklist tags. etc. it’s easy to feel like there’s only this or that kind of blogs out there, but that’s not true. the internet is so full of different people, and there’s bound to be content out there that will make you happier if you need it.

so, in regards to discourse, i’m not referring to a certain discourse - i’ve been on tumblr for what, six years now? discussions come and go, and a lot of the time there’s been a lot of genuinely constructive conversations and discussions! but a lot of discussions out here seem to evolve into something much less constructive. some discussions just don’t GO anywhere, neither side actually wants to listen or change their opinion, people forget there’s another human being on the other side, and it’s just… at some point it’s like people forget what they’re trying to ACHIEVE by doing what they’re doing. some people are just taking out their anger and frustration on the internet. there’s a lot of infighting between marginalized groups - especially the lgbtq+ community, because we’re all hurting and scared and have so many life experiences from all around the world, a lot of us are really young, and it’s. it’s hard! it’s so hard sometimes. and the thing is, a lot of the discourse on internet becomes like, layers upon layers, and what makes sense when you’re on five layers on tumblr is NOT necessarily applicable in real life. sometimes it like… becomes the equivalent of an academic text where you have to go through an education to even understand the terms that are being used. like, personally? sometimes i see discussions i don’t have the heart to partake in myself anymore, and i don’t understand what’s being said at all. and honestly that’s such a relief to me. that’s not to say partaking in discussions is inherently bad! it can be really good! but for me, i can’t do it anymore. my personal experience was trying to act in good faith and be open to learn and change and i kept replying to someone who refused to listen to anything i said, and instead kept attacking me. it was like repeatedly flinging myself against a wall. the impulse to have a constructive discussion with everyone who disagrees with me on my own post is *there*, but it’s not worth it for me, because the stress and time and energy i inflict on myself for the sake of a complete stranger who does NOT have my best interests at heart…. yeah. no. consider if you *really* need to die on that hill. it’s okay to walk away.i don’t know if this will help or if it’s still too nebulous. it’s mostly about what choices you make and considering what you’re trying to achieve, and whether your actions are actually reflecting that, or if you’re just causing yourself pain and frustration. the concept of emotional self harm (especially through internet) has been put forth by several people, but some sources that have like, helped me formulate this whole thing has been- contrapoints video about incels - the podcast ‘just break up’- the podcast ‘conversations with people who hate me’

[titriwrites]

Polaroid Picture -- Chapter Seven

The truth gets out. I'm so sorry. (Also, I might have to edit a bit more today. Until then, all mistakes are mine.) You can read under the cut or here.

Again, they don't talk to each other over the next two days. Beth suspects Tom doesn’t know how to react, how to talk to her, and she's embarrassed and sometimes even sorry for her behaviour.

She knows she shouldn’t be. Doesn’t need to be. She's told him the truth. Maybe even for the first time in over six years. Because who is she kidding? Just because he didn’t come back from that particular shoot, it doesn’t mean they’ve been honest with each other before then.

She didn’t want to go to New York or Hollywood or anything else farther away than the British border, and Tom didn’t want to come back or have her there anyway.

And yet... they’ve never told each other any of that during shooting. At least not when they tried to talk to each other civilly.

Beth blinks, lying on her bed, picking up her copy of The Jungle Book from where she’s dropped it on her stomach with a frustrated sigh when she couldn’t stop thinking about Tom and how he looked like a lost puppy when she kicked him out.

Probably felt like one, too, because for the first time since he’s come back to Oxford, he didn’t look like he was hiding anything.

No. She huffs. She's almost gotten through this damn book, she's going to relax after a busy day at work and finish it.

But she can’t. Beth scoffs at herself and swears softly under her breath. Damn it, she feels like it’s 2010 again. When some nights she couldn't fall asleep because Tom hadn’t called. Leading to days she couldn’t concentrate on her job, because she was too tired and anxious at the same time. Which in turn lead to nights she again couldn’t sleep because then Tom had called and they'd been both bitching.

Beth knows that this is part of the problem, just as she’s told – well, yelled at – Tom days before. She hasn’t been good enough for him to come back and try. They couldn’t compromise. And yet, somehow he can now see himself compromising with someone else.

Her ringing phone interrupts Beth's thoughts – thankfully. She picks it up from the bedside table and frowns when she sees James' number popping up.

They’re set to meet for dinner the next evening, not a Friday roast for once, because it’s not Matt’s week to visit anyway, and Tom has a business dinner in London to go to, James has told her. It seems as if he’s adamant to come back to Oxford after that, though.

As soon as Beth picks up with a soft “Hello” James starts to speak.

“I’m afraid we have to cancel tomorrow, with all that’s been going on, don’t you think?”

Huh? Her heart beats rapidly. What’s been going on? Did she miss something? Is it James, Diana, or the children? Some catastrophe striking Oxford or the UK?

“What?” she asks, rather stupidly. “What is happening?”

“Oh.” That’s all she gets as an answer. Then, “I thought you knew.”

Well, she didn’t. At least she's not aware of it. “What don’t I know?” Beth asks as she drops her book for a second time this evening in order to sit up on her bed properly. She's got a feeling she needs to for this.

There’s a sigh from James. Oh god, it is Diana. “I’ve got photographers in front of my house. Apparently, Tom’s been spotted at the airport making his way to his flight out to London. And when he didn’t appear near his London home—”

Beth feels like fainting all of the sudden. All of these years, and now? “They’ve found us?” she whispers.

“No! No, it’s not that. You’re good. They only found out that Tom used to live here, and that I’m still here. They just know this is where he grew up.”

She lets out the breath she's been holding. “Okay. Okay.”

“And it might be better that you don’t show up at the front door, if you don’t want your face in any newspapers. Tom’s actually quite mad that I have to deal with them. Made phone calls all day.” James sounds impressed, and Beth has to admit she's as well. Tom didn’t make it seem like he cares too much about his family and old friends. But then again, maybe he just doesn’t want to be disturbed or have the truth come out.

And it won’t, because although Tom doesn’t trust this old town, Beth does.

“That’s really nice of him,” she manages to say. “Maybe I can make it through the back door, though.”

James laughs. It wasn’t really supposed to be a joke, she's too stunned for that. “We'll see. I’m sure they’ll be gone in a few days.”

Beth hopes so as well. She doesn’t like to hide.

---

Tom’s fuming as he makes his way through Hinksey Park, running round after round along the path. No, not running. Stomping is more like it.

He hates it, feeling almost helpless.

It’s by far not the first time that the media finds out where he’s currently staying. There are tons of pictures of him walking around New York, Los Angeles, or even London. But they’ve never been here. They’ve never cared for his family. So why now?

Why do they care now that he’s here to finally sort out his past and move on. Is Karma really that much of a bitch? Telling him that he should have done this a lot sooner? That this would have been okay two years ago when he met Julia? Or even would have worked out before he got down on one knee to ask her to marry him? Now they come to town? Really?

He runs faster.

He should have done this sooner. Running, that is, not coming here. But he simply didn’t have the time today, though there were many, many moments he just wanted to forget, leave and not look back.

But instead he’s been on the phone all day, mostly with Brian, because if someone can make this go away it surely is his publicist, right? Wrong. Because while he of course wants to protect Tom and his ‘dirty, little secret’ as he calls it – as he calls Libby, really, something that Tom's not entirely happy about – it is good for Tom’s public persona to be seen with his family.

Sure, he’s a well loved actor, always smiling and very cool with a beautiful fiancé, but wouldn’t it be so cool to have him as a family guy ready to settle down and introducing his fiancé to his family as well?

Tom tends to agree there. But then again, his family has never asked for this. That’s one reason why he hasn’t come back in so long. His family has nothing to do with his fame. They deserve a quiet life, don't they?

Plus, publicity is great, but wouldn’t it be even better, if word of his marriage with Libby doesn’t get out?

Not just because of his public image, but actually because she's never asked for this, either? After all, he’s not just protecting his immediate family. He’s protecting her as well. The fangirls would not just coming for him, they’d probably strangle her.

He runs faster still, not even seeing his surroundings, but just hearing the beat of the music from his ear buds mixing with the drumming of his heart in his ears.

Yes, he’s been selfish. Yes, he probably still is. He wanted his career, and he wanted it to be in America.

But what he never told Libby, what he probably never admitted to himself either, because he had to focus, is that he also protected her.

It may have been in some twisty, pathetic way, but he did. Yeah, he disappointed her, and though her bluntness on Monday night shocked him, her feelings don't come as a surprise for him. He’s just never had to deal with them.

They would have hated each other back then. Either because Tom would have come back to London for her, giving up on his dream – possibly even accusing her of denying him living his dream – or because Libby would have come to America, living somewhere she didn’t want to and trying to be a social butterfly she simply wasn’t.

So, he didn’t come back, and he didn’t ask about her coming to him anymore. They both lived the lives they wanted like this. Yeah, she hates him now. But that’s better than Tom eventually hating her. He couldn’t live with that.

He stops at a park bench, panting and nearly folding himself in half, his hands resting heavily on his knees as he tries to catch his breath. Tom knows it isn’t a sudden lack of fitness that has him panting like this, whispering swear words under his breath. It’s him not caring about his breathing pattern on his run, because he’s got Libby on his mind.

His phone rings, effectively pulling him out of his thoughts. He answers without looking.

“Yes?”

“They know.” It’s Brian. Again. For the umpteenth time today. But that’s not what Tom cares about now. What did he just say?

“What?”

“Someone from your stupid town in stupid England talked today, Tom. I don’t know if they paid them or if some old aunt in Oxford just thought that a certain pap was very charming. But someone talked. They know about your precious Libby.”

First, Tom is too stunned to form an actual thought. Then it’s lots of ‘shit’, ‘fuck’, and ‘why?’.

“I... who?”

“I don’t fucking know, Tom. I just know that I’ve got a phone call from several news sites here that told me since we're still in the middle of the day here, I should expect a story tonight with exclusive pics of Tom Hiddleston’s wife. It’s just a heads up apparently, we can’t do anything, they have the documents and her name. And if they have that, they’ll easily have a pic within the next two hours.”

Good thing that Tom's still next to that bench. Because his head is spinning and his legs feel weak, and he really, really should sit down now. So, he does.

“I don’t... What do we do?”

“We’ll spin a story somehow. I’ve got some ideas. I’ll call you later again, when I know what the media will make of this. Prepare yourself for a long night.”

Before Tom can utter anything or even think of something to make out of this, Brian hangs up, and Tom is alone on a bench in a Park in Oxford, his world spinning and swirling around him.

He can’t fucking breathe. Is that what a heart attack feels like? Because his chest is hurting and he still can’t fucking take a breath. What does he do now? Does he run home? Does he stay here and hide in this park forever, letting everyone else deal with this?

Well, no. Of course not. He can’t do that to his family or to Libby for that matter. He scoffs, rubbing his aching chest. He’s tried to protect her – to protect them – all those years ago, and this is what he gets.

Tom knew it. He knew that he shouldn’t have come here. He knew that he shouldn’t have gone out to that stupid pub or met anyone from his past. This town talks. He was right about that and Libby was wrong. Too trusting. Good thing she's never come to America with him. She would have been eaten alive.

Tom’s phone rings again. “What?!” he shouts into the receiver, again without looking at the caller ID. It can’t get any worse than this anyway.

“I guess you heard the news then, too. When were you going to tell me?” Shit. Julia’s voice is icy in his ear. Tom closes his eyes. This can get worse after all.

“Julia,” he sighs. “I—”

“Don't bother. You’re lucky I can’t get away from this shoot right now. But I’ll be on the plane on Friday morning, and you better have something you’re going to tell me then. Explain to me. And I’ll better fucking meet that freaking wife of yours.”

---

It really is like the old times. Beth sighs. Damn Tom. And damn her stupid brain, because for the life of her, she can’t fall asleep.

So, she checks her clock – it’s 9.30 – and gets up to make herself a tea in the kitchen.

That’s when a ring from her doorbell startles her. After all the days she's had, Beth almost suspects it to be Tom. She doesn’t want it to be him. Why now? Can’t he just leave her alone? She just won’t open. She’ll make a tea, and then she’ll settle in bed. He can come back one of the other days.

But then there’s a knock on the door and Mrs Johnson's voice. “Beth, dear? Uhm... I don’t know, if it has anything to do with that former husband of yours. But you may not want to go outside. Can you please make him handle that? I want to be able to leave my own damn house.”

The next thing Beth hears are steps leading away from the door to her flat. What, now? Make him handle what?

Carefully, Beth makes her way through her flat, opening the front door slowly. She's always been too curious for her own good, so, she walks through the dark hallway and up to the front door of the house.

Are there people outside? Very, very carefully she opens the door.

And is blinded by flashes. And shouts. It’s a blur. People are in front of her house and they’re shouting ‘Beth’ as well as ‘Hiddleston’.

Beth gasps and closes the door with a bang, leaning against it from the inside. Then she slides down. They know her name. They know her.

Shit.

---

Tagging @devikafernando @itsliterallythis @justthelosersblog @avenger-nerd-mom @archy3001 @nuggsmum @majk78 @hakimo2015 @noplacelikehome77 @theheartofpenelope

[darrowsrising]

Red Rising Rage Review:

Ok, so @apex-aureate asked me to share my opinion on Pip's Read's 'Red Rising Rage Review'. Particulary what she thinks about Darrow.

Before all of that, I have to say that Darrow is my favourite character. My absolute favourite character! So take this with a grain of salt.

I'm not trying to change opinions or something, this is just my opinion of the review. I respect the reviewer's opinion in general.

I'll problably get hate anyway, but you asked for this and I'll deliver without sugarcoating (you know, like some people don't do with Roque...sorry, couldn't help it)

Now to the tea spilling:

First of all I have to adress the blasphemy: the Women of Red Rising aren't bland. And they don't exist for Darrow's sexual frustration. There was a single minor incident in GS when Victra tried to seduce Darrow. And that was all. He refused her and that was the end of story. He didn't use her in any way sexually (or otherwise) Victra went on and became one of the fiercest warriors in the Rising. Also, his love for Virginia was in no way only sexually orientated. And Holiday, Orion, Evey, Harmony, Pebble, Harpy, Aja etc. are in no way, shape or form there for Darrow's sexual frustration...he never, ever, ever sees them like that. I mean...did we read the same books?

Secondly, the reviewer is mad at Darrow because he is the only one who narrates. And she's mad that he's not a political person. Yes, he's more of a social-justice fighter, sorry he doesn't like to play political games with the lives of his people when he isn't even good at it. He himself admits Mustang is way better at politics than him, he's more of a man of action. Now, I think the charm of the trilogy is Darrow's pov. But I do understand that it's not everyone's cup of tea.

The reviewer is also mad that there are too many deus-ex-machinas in the series. And Darrow is a dick, because he holds back from the reader. Well, I think that this is a very subjective matter. In my opinion, Darrow holding back stuff from the reader is understandable because there are time gaps between the books, so of course he isn't going to make a recap of everything jist because you want to know everything. And all the mocking she did was really...inaccurate? I think that's the word. For example (if I'm not mistaken), in Golden Son, Darrow says that Cassius deserves his Morning Knight title because he is indeed amazing with his razor and Darrow feels like he would die if he fought like Cassius did - using kravat. But he uses the Willow Way, taught by Lorn himself in that time gap between RR and GS. So, I think this one is a matter of perspective. I loved it. She didn't.

Also, I think it's not fair that she reduced those instances to 'Darow makes deus ex machina plans and it's annoying'. The deus ex machinas work because it's not Darrow who just gets out of tough spots like a breeze. He's saved, he's helped all the time. Mustang, Fitchner, the Howlers, the PitVipers, they always save him from dying. Sometimes it's his own abilities to balance out stuff. But it is as realistic as possible, imo at least.

Also, I think it's not fair to say that enhancing a human being made us think that limb loss or other stuff are nothing. On the contrary, through out the trilogy there are explainatiin as to why people keep dying if we have such technology: Carving a Red to a Gold is very hard and not many survive (Darrow and Titus survived, but then not many survive the Intitute or the Academy - the risk of dying is always high and I doubt there are hundreds of Carved Reds), Carvings are really, really expensive (ask Fitchner), losing limbs isn't always going to end with Carving back the limb - mostly it is going to end to bionic prostheics - see Sevro is Golden Son and Thraxa in Iron Gold and thousands of soldiers in MS, there are Golds who believe in eugenics so they'd rather die or let their loved ones die than use advanced medicine.

Basically, the reviewer really, really doesn't like the 1st person narration at all that she channels that into Darrow. Or she doesn't like Darrow at all and she channels that into the narration. Can't really tell, so it's probably both. Anyway, after laying out how much she disliked the narration and the narrator, she said that Darrow is annoying, she wants to punch him in the face, he is boring, he is so damn self-absorbed and selfish.

My opinion on that is that...idk, did we read the same books? Yes, Darrow is a drama queen. Yes, Darrow is proud of his abilities. He also constantly reminds us that his image is exacerbated. There is a distinction between Reaper and Darrow. Reaper is an image that Darrow and his allies created to be god-like with the purpose of sending a message of hope and fear into the worlds. Darrow - the man - is just that. A man. He is a good friend (not all the time, but who is a good friend all the time), he is a good fighter, he loves to dance and eat strawberries. He genuinely loves his family, his friends, his love. He is from time to time way too focused on his goal that he forgets everyone else. He becomes self-absorbed once in a while. He forgets some important things - like when he was left alone for like 2-3 years and had to be reminded why he fights by Harmony. But that's not entirely making up his character.

Edit: there was also this thing that she disliked - Darrow seeming like he can read people's minds...I guess that is a matter of perspective, but I never even thought of that as a problem. And now that I think about it...I don't feel like it's such a big deal. Many 1st pov are like that. Plus, Darrow is sometimes so damn sure of what other people think and it ends up with him being wrong all along...so, I don't think it's a proble at all. But that's a matter of perspective too...although I think that's nitpicking to hell, but that's just me.

Another thing I noticed the reviewer didn't like was the fact that Darrow has beautiful monologues before battles and that's unrealistic, because he makes stupid decisions immediatelly afterwards ...err, have you ever read a war journal wrote by a soldier? I did. His name was Camil Petrescu, he had very beautiful monologues before he went to battle...where he fucked up and survived through a miracle. After that his carreer as a writer skyrocketed.

Anyway, my point is that...I don't understand why it's unrealistic. Believe it or not it seems to me easier to be contemplative and to philosophe like a true master when you sit in a duroSteel box which will send you into the stratosphere while enemies will shoot at you. I bet it makes you think a lot about life and death and warfare and love and why you are fighting and stuff like that. You know...exactly what Darrow talks about...idk, this again I think it is a matter of perspective.

Can I reitterate that the women of Red Rising aren't looked at from a sexual pov ? I'll hang myself with this one if I have to.

No but really, that's the only thing that propelled me into rage in that review. Darrow of Lykos? Seeing every female as a vent for his sexual frustration? Where? When? How? What the fuck? I can never agree with this. Ever! They are not there for him to get his dick hard! What the actual fuck! The guy refuses Pinks on a daily, why are we even debating this?

I get it that she didn't like the books that much. I respect that. I get it that people who say it's the best sci-fi are stretching it more than a little.

I also understand why she wants a 3rd person narration.

But her points about Darrow being selfish and self-absorbed (and generally a stupid jock tm), her opinion on the women of Red Rising (especially this one), her downplay of Victra's character (she's so much more than her hitting on Darrow that one time and I hate that I have to remind everyone of that, wtf) ar things that I can never agree with. This is so far from factual I can't even.

I'm not trying to be disrespectful or anything. And I'm sorry if it came that way.

Edit: the Women of Red Rising are amazing and the stuff said about them in this review are blasphemous. You can argue with me all you want, you can't change my mind, sorry.

Anyway, hope I don't get hanged for this one! Per aspera ad astra!

Oh, and if you want to, you can still send me asks with 'your opinion on...'. It is a tumblr game thingy I rebloged a while ago and this was @apex-aureate 's ask basically.

I tried to edit the mistakes I made, because I answered this on my phone. I also added some stuff I remembered from the review, but I didn't address in hopes to be as thorough as possible. Hope it is satisfying grammatically speaking. I'm not a native speaker, so if I made mistakes, please point them out and I'll rectify them.

[zoemurph]

to have a friend, chapter four: $80

on ao3 1 | 2 | 3

fun fact i actually finished this like.....tuesday at 4 am cause i died for a bit between like 10-1 and then couldnt sleep. i have edited it since then tho so i promise its not too much of a disaster!

warnings: implied past self harm, discussions of mental health, depression/depressive episodes, some suicidal thoughts. let me know if anything else needs to be tagged

enjoy!

From: Evan To: Connor      Just go t home      Hope things ar eok with yoru family

Connor stares at the texts for a few moments before he falls back onto his bed.

Who knows how his family is.

Actually, he knows. A fucking mess. That’s what his family is.

He can hear Zoe practicing in the room next to him, forgoing headphones and using her amp because she wants to piss him off more. Larry had slunk back to his office, and Connor was sure he did as soon as the opportunity presented itself. His mom is in the kitchen, probably aggressively cleaning dishes like a sparkling plate will fix her shattered family.

Connor stares at the ceiling.

Why did he think he could do any of this?

He lifts his phone and looks at the screen again. Evan is trying. Which is just ridiculous. Evan is trying with this family. What the fuck.

From: Connor To: Evan      cool      they never are but thanks i guess

He tosses his phone to the side and debates doing homework. There’s not really much of a debate — he’s not going to do it — but the fact that he considered it is probably worth something.

It’s not that late yet, which is frustrating. He wants to go to bed, but he’s also too high strung for that. Usually he’d be exhausted but—

Connor studies his ceiling.

He’d been angry. So angry. Burning and explosive. He had been on the edge of his rope and about to break— and then he’d been doused in a shock of cold water. He’d been standing outside the bathroom, insides blistering and turning to ash, and then he’d heard Evan’s unnatural breathing and all of that had just stopped. The fire was gone and he was left with only mild panic that made his mouth taste like metal and an icy chill of not knowing what to do or how to help.

Somehow, sitting on the floor of him and Zoe’s painfully childish bathroom with Evan had been the most real part of the night. It felt the most solid, most tangible. Handing Evan one of those silly cups his mom kept buying, their fingers brushing as Evan took it with shaking hands, that was the most grounded he had felt in days.

Fucking weird.

There’s a knock on his doorframe.

Connor sits up to see Cynthia standing there. “Oh. Hi.”

She smiles, sadly because that’s the only way she smiles nowadays, and takes a step into his room. “Did Evan leave?”

“Uh…yeah. It’s not like he could hide in my closet or anything.” They both look toward the disaster that is Connor’s closet. The doors won’t shut and clothes are piled up on the floor. There was a time where Connor liked things to be neat and orderly. Now he doesn’t have the energy. “He wasn’t feeling great.”

She makes a concerned noise.

“He, uh, gets sick really easily. He’ll probably be fine tomorrow.” Connor curses in his head. Better jot that down so he can tell Evan that Cynthia now thinks that his immune system is shitty. Because she’s probably going to shove all sorts of vitamins and health drinks at him the next time she sees him. If there’s a next time.

God there better not be a next time.

Cynthia sighs. “I’m sorry about tonight, sweetie.”

Connor shrugs and swings his legs off the side of the bed. “It’s not like it was going to be any different than usual.”

The expression on her face is so pained that Connor has to look away. He can’t even be mad at her. He’s pissed at Zoe for her snippy comments. He’s mad at Larry because he’s always mad at Larry. He’s upset with his mom— the most he can be upset with her for is for not trying harder to stop things from getting out of hand. But when has she ever been able to stop it once it started?

Mostly Connor is just mad at himself.

The only reason Evan was here was because he gets paid twenty dollars a week. It’s not like he has any other obligation to be here. Or to hang around Connor. If there was ever a chance that Evan would actually like Connor, that just went out the fucking window.

“Are you hungry?” Cynthia asks, softly. Not as forced as usual. Not as pressing. “You didn’t eat much.”

“I’m fine,” Connor mutters. He tugs off his sweatshirt and throws it on his desk chair. He tries not to notice her eyes going to his arms and then flicking away. “I’ll grab something if I can’t sleep.”

She sighs again. She does that a lot. Sighing. “Okay. Okay, just…” She steps forward and brushes hair away from Connor’s eyes. “Apologize to Evan for us, okay?”

“Why?” Connor asks bitterly. “Because we can be better?”

Cynthia doesn’t say anything. She just stands on her toes and presses a kiss to Connor’s cheek. “Sleep well, honey.”

Connor stands in the center of his room after she leaves. He hates not having a door. It’s like his entire life is out in the open for his entire family to see and judge. Which is some bullshit.

He looks around his room, open and exposed, and thinks that he should clean. Or something. He’s living in a dump.

Connor picks up a sweatshirt and stuffs a few books onto an overflowing bookshelf. Under papers from junior year that he just needs to throw out when he gets the chance, he finds a watercolor sketchbook.

He pauses with four old plastic water bottles in arm to flip through the sketchbook. It’s old as hell, he doesn’t even remember the last time he used watercolors. Or did any art that wasn’t just shitty sketches in his notebook when he didn’t feel like paying attention.

He looks over his shoulder at the light in the hallway.

Connor isn’t entirely sure where his watercolors are. Probably somewhere under the trash and clothing covering his floor. He looks from the watercolor sketchbook to his bed.

He dumps the water bottles in the space between his wall and his bed and starts digging. It takes him almost twenty five minutes to find his watercolor palette. It’s old and dusty, the red is cracked and the purple is almost gone because he always really liked using purple for some reason, but it’s usable.

It takes him a little longer to find brushes. He’s definitely missing some, but fuck it, he never actually knew what the different brushes were for. He just used whatever ones he felt like.

He washes out an old mug that was on his desk from god knows when in the bathroom and fills it with clean water, grabbing a roll of paper towels from the hallway closet. Then he pushes the clothes on his floor into a pile against the wall so he can sit on the floor, because there is no way in hell that he’s cleaning off his desk for this. He fishes his earbuds out of his backpack and plugs them into his phone, turning on some random music that he’ll let fade to into background noise and pulls his hair up into a really messy ponytail.  

Connor can’t remember the last time he actually paid attention to art. He doodles a sketch that’s kind of messy but fine enough because it’s not like anyone is going to see this and then just goes for it. He doesn’t exactly remember how to do this, but he’s never been one for doing things the right way. There’s a reason he stopped taking art classes after freshman year. There’s something weirdly calming about the way the water spreads on the page and something familiar in the brushstrokes. Even when he fucks up and uses way too much water and he knows that the paper is going to be wavy and warped.

He puts down the paintbrush to skip a song on his phone. He has another text from Evan.

From: Evan To: Connor      Im sorr y      YOu should nt feel that way abou tyour family

Connor rolls his eyes. Evan really does try.

From: Connor To: Evan      its whatever, im used to it      mom says sorry about tonight. shes embarrassed      but seriously dont worry about it

He skips through the songs until he finds one that feels right, slower and almost more gentle, he really needs to pick up better watercolors because he’s going to need that purple, before putting his phone back down on the floor next to him.

All things considered, this isn’t the worst piece Connor’s ever done. He studies it as he takes a sip from his mug.

He yanks the mug away from his mouth, gagging. He rubs his mouth with a grimace.

That was paint water.

Connor doesn’t really leave his room much over the next two days. He eats because his mom wants him to, he doesn’t talk to Zoe, and he argues with Larry and wishes he had a door to slam.

Then he sits on his floor and fills pages and pages of his sketchbook with shitty watercolor paintings.

He splashes colors across the pages, sometimes not even trying to create a coherent image. He just needs something to do.

He’s almost out of purple.

Connor waits by Evan’s locker Monday morning, folding and unfolding the twenty dollar bill in his pocket. Zoe needed to be early today for some band thing, so that means Connor is early which just sucks.

This school seriously needs a color palette that isn’t drab and depressing. Connor wears almost exclusively black, but fuck, tone down the gray.

“Oh! Hey, you’re…already here.”

Connor looks up from his phone. “Zoe,” he says. “Band shit. Fuck if I know.”

Evan nods slowly and then reaches for his lock.

“Wait.” Connor grabs Evan’s wrist.

Evan freezes, wide eyes darting to Connor. “W-what?”

Connor leans a little closer. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” he whispers. Evan furrows his eyebrows. “My family is the fucking worst, you shouldn’t have to deal with that shit.”

“I-it’s fine!” Evan stutters. “I don’t— no this is. This is okay.” He slowly pulls his arm out of Connor’s grip.

Connor clenches his jaw and leans against the next locker. Evan doesn’t say anything as he opens his locker and starts taking out books. An unfairly loud part of Connor’s brain wonders if Evan is only doing this because he’s scared.

It’s not that far fetched.

“B-besides,” Evan adds, “Jared is— he’s already asking too many questions and if we just stopped now—”

Connor frowns. “He is?”

Evan gives him an exasperated look. “He hasn’t texted me about non homework things in forever and he’s just been sending me ‘is it a sex thing’ for a week.”

“Wow I hate him,” Connor says before he can stop himself.

Evan laughs in surprise.

“He’s a douche!”

Evan ducks his head. “He’s not the worst person ever, b-but he can be…himself.”

“And that’s pretty bad,” Connor mutters.  

Evan pauses and then closes his locker. “Do— are you still okay with…with telling him?”

Connor shrugs. “Sounds like we have no choice.”

Evan tugs on the hem of his shirt. “Are you…free today?”

“I literally have no life or friends, Hansen,” Connor reminds him. “I’m always free.”

“Okay, right, okay.” Evan takes a short breath. “Can we— today?”

Connor stuffs his hands in his pockets. He hasn’t gotten harassed by Kleinman about this yet, but if they wait, the chances of that happening increase significantly. And if it’ll get Jared off Evan’s back— “Yeah sure. Where?”

“My place?” Evan asks. Connor pulls open the door to the stairwell. “I-if that works?”

“Sure thing.” Connor’s voice echoes uncomfortably loud for this conversation. “Better than being at home anyway.”

Evan glances back over his shoulder at Connor. “Are things…bad?” He says it slowly, like he’s not sure what word to choose.

“They’ve been worse,” Connor admits. “But it’s not a party.”

Evan stops at the stairs where Connor has to keep going down to get to chorus. “I’ll— I’ll text you? About the time?”

Connor nods. “Sounds good, Hansen. See you then.” He steps forward and hands Evan the twenty that has been floating around in his pocket for too long. “Forgot to pay you back for food last week,” he says when Evan’s eyes dart toward people walking past.

Evan gives him a half smile and takes the bill. “I-I told you it was fine. I can pay sometimes.”

Connor shrugs and turns toward the stairs. “Too late.”

—«·»—

From: Evan To: Connor      Im s o s rry just ignore him or block him he grabbed my phon e      Serious ly blockign him mihgt be the best opti n

From: Connor To: Evan      ??????

Connor probably shouldn’t be texting in class, but the class is astronomy and also when has Connor ever given a fuck. He stares at Evan’s messages, trying to decode them while he waits for the lunch bell.

It turns out he doesn’t have to wait that long to figure out what they mean.

From: (522) 101-5414 To: nerd, emo      sup fuckers

Connor doesn’t even have to ask who it is, he just tries not to groan and texts Evan.

From: Connor To: Evan      seriously??

From: Evan To: Connor      Im sorry !!!      Hes being a  d ick      Also does like 3 work?

Connor huffs and glances to the clock. That’ll give him about an hour to kill after school before he can show up at Evan’s. Whatever, he’ll figure something out.

From: Connor To: Evan      thats fine      tell kleinman if hes being a dick i will hurt him

Evan’s response is almost immediate.

From: Evan To: Connor      I wouldnt blame you but ma y be dotn hurt the one pe rson whos gonna knw about us

Connor snorts and puts away his phone. He’ll do his best, but only because Evan asked.

—«·»—

Connor texts Evan as he walks up to the house. The door is open before he can even knock. Evan looks slightly panicked, but also somewhat relieved. Connor lowers his hand from where he was about to knock.

“He here?”

Evan nods and grabs Connor’s sleeve, tugging him inside.

Connor takes off his boots while Evan rambles on about Jared being in his room and talking about something, summer camp? Maybe? And then there’s a tangent about cars? Connor isn’t sure but he puts down his boots, straightens, and puts a hand on Evan’s shoulder. “Breathe,” he interrupts. “You’re going to pass out and you really don’t want to leave Kleinman and I alone together.”

Evan takes a slow breath. “Right. Right. He’s… Come on.”

He shows Connor up the stairs, gesturing vaguely to a bathroom as he moves toward his room. Connor didn’t really notice how small Evan’s house is the last time he was here, but now he feels too large in it, like he’s taking up too much space. But it’s also comforting in a weird way, less empty space for thoughts to echo.

Jared spins around in Evan’s desk chair when Evan opens the door. “Man of the hour!” Jared announces, opening his arms in Connor’s direction.

Connor flips him off.

“Okay, rude. I can work with rude.”

“Jared,” Evan says warningly.

“I know, I know.” Jared spins back and forth a little in the chair. For some reason, Connor thinks giving him a chair that turns may have been a bad idea. “If I’m an ass you won’t give me pizza.”

Connor scoffs. “You bribed him?”

Evan shrugs helplessly. “I just— can we not talk about this?”

“Yeah,” Jared agrees. “I was promised juicy deets on whatever the fuck this is.” He motions between Connor and Evan. “Cause uh,” he laughs, “guys, what the shit?”

“We aren’t friends,” Connor says flatly.

Evan twists the hem of his shirt in his hands.

“Yeah no shit, Sherlock.” Jared grabs the arms of the chair and leans forward. “Wait this is a sex thing, isn’t it! Evan you said—”

“It’s not a sex thing!” Evan shouts. “It’s a—” He looks to Connor with wide eyes. “A…fake friend…thing?”

“Excuse me?”

Connor explains before Evan can flounder any more. “I give Evan twenty bucks a week to pretend to be my friend.”

Jared stares at them.

Evan shifts uncomfortably next to Connor. Connor kind of wants to leave, but Evan wants to do this, so…

Jared snorts. “Are you fucking serious?”

Evan cringes. “Y-yes?”

“This is—”

“We know, Kleinman,” Connor snaps. “But we need your help.”

Evan looks at Connor in surprise. ‘We do?’ he mouths to Connor. Connor nods. Spur of the moment thought, but he literally can’t keep dealing with Zoe bugging him about Evan. Who gives a shit if they never hung out together around school, even if that is a lie. He needs some sort of proof so she shuts up.

Jared spins slowly in his chair. “How so?”

“Evan said we emailed each other,” Connor says. “But my dad checks my email. So this email account would have to be ‘secret’.”

Jared raises his eyebrows. “That’s—”

“We know, Jared!” Evan interrupts. “C-can you just—” He glances toward Connor. “We need…emails from over the summer?” Connor nods. “Can you just, like, show me how to fake the timestamps o-or something?”

“Oh yeah, that’s super easy,” Jared says. He leans down and unzips the backpack leaning against the desk and pulls out a laptop. He opens the laptop and types something out. “Secret email account is very—”

Connor grits his teeth. “Just do it, Kleinman.”

“Yeah, yeah. Watch the monkey dance,” Jared mutters to himself. “That’s super fun.” He pauses. “If Evan gets twenty bucks a week for this, what do I get?”

“The gift of life.”

Evan shoots Connor a look.

“Awesome.” Jared types for another moment. “You know,” he says, “twenty bucks seems pretty cheap.”

“Are you trying to be difficult?” Connor grumbles.

“Always.”

“I-it’s fine,” Evan stutters. “Re-really, Jared?”

“I’m just saying,” Jared says with a shrug. “You should totally charge more for more complicated stuff. Twenty for faking friendship, forty for hanging out, sixty for being around the family.”

“What?!”

Connor glances to Evan out of the corner of his eye. Evan is protesting, but it’s not the worst idea. Especially after the dinner that Evan suffered through. Connor is going to have to ‘borrow’ more money from his parents’ wallets, but hey, at least it’s not for weed.

“I really fucking hate that I’m saying this,” Jared and Evan look over to Connor, “but that’s not a terrible plan.”

Jared smirks. “Nice.”

Evan gapes. “W-what?”

“If you spend a few hours dealing with my shitty family, that probably is worth more than saying hi to me in the hallway.” Connor crosses his arms. “I should probably pay you more when you have to deal with more bullshit.”

“N-no, that isn’t— you don’t have to—”

“Let him give you money, Evan.” Jared types rapidly on his laptop. “I’m making you two up a fucking price chart for reference.”

“Jared—”

“One condition,” Connor says. “If we’re doing this it’s only ten dollars a week, if that’s okay,” he directs the last part to Evan. “I’m not a goddamn millionaire.”

“Annoying but valid,” Jared says. “The weekly flat rate is ten dollars then, nonnegotiable.”

Evan sinks down into the other chair that someone had pulled up to the desk.

“I think the first step up is hanging out outside of school.” Jared glances to Connor.

Connor nods. “Three for outside, five for my house.”

“Do I get a say in this?” Evan asks weakly.

“Nope,” Jared says, popping the ‘p’. “If hanging out involves the fam, I say it’s an instant five more.”

“How about two added on to the location fee,” Connor argues.

Jared scoffs. “That’s three dollars, man.”

“Try to remember we’re high schoolers,” Connor says flatly.

Evan wimpers.

Jared pats Evan’s arm. “Okay. Extended family is another three. No arguing that one, extended family is bullshit. Twenty bucks flat for a sleepover. Like on top of the weekly ten.”

Evan’s eyes go wide. “What?! No!”

Jared looks to Connor.

Connor shrugs. “Fine.” He doesn’t think that will be relevant but whatever. If it gets written down it’s not the end of the world.

Jared smiles to himself and starts to type quickly.

“W-what are you doing?” Evan asks, leaning closer to try and get a look at the screen.

Jared elbows Evan away. “Shh I’m working.”

Connor raises his eyebrows.

“Aaaaaand…done.” Jared spins his laptop to show Connor.

Connor squints at the list Jared has made on the document.

 This is the Worst Plan I’ve Ever Heard But Have Fun You Friendless Losers created by Jared Kleinman

$10 — weekly flat rate no matter what

—

Casual Shit:

$3 — hanging out outside of school $5 — hanging out at the Murphys’ (+$2 to location fee if it involves other Murphys) (+$3 more if it involves any extended family) $20 — sleepover

—

Romance Shit:

$25 — date $5 — hug $15 — kiss $200 — Full Boyfriend Package™

(FFBP™ decreases all things in this section by $10, except for dates, which drop to $20. No, you do not get paid for hugs, hugs are just free now. Congrats, you just paid two hundred fucking dollars for a free hug)

 Connor rolls his eyes. “You’re fucking hilarious,” he deadpans.

Evan pales as he reads it once Jared has turned the screen toward him. “Uh…”

Jared snorts. “It’s called a joke, dude. Learn to take it.”

“J-just delete it,” Evan stammers. “That’s not— we were supposed to make emails.”

“Okay.” Jared highlights the romance section and deletes it. “It’s gone.”

Evan sighs. “Thank you.”

Jared does a keyboard shortcut. “And it’s back!”

“Jared!”

“Gone! And back!”

Evan’s ears turn pink. “S-seriously?”

Jared just wiggles his eyebrows and deletes it again. When he starts to hit undo, Connor leans forward and grabs the laptop out of his hands.

“Dude!”

“We aren’t fucking five,” Connor says. “Can you help us with these emails before my sister tries to call a fucking private detective on me or are you just going to be a dickhead?”

“That’s no way to talk to someone who’s helping you out,” Jared says. But he holds out his hand for the laptop, and when Connor gives it back, he spins around, puts the laptop on the desk, and opens a new tab.

Him and Connor set up a new email account and then Jared has Evan open up his own email. As Jared sets up faked emails that Evan and Connor will fill with mindless shit, Connor looks around Evan’s room.

There’s a window with two small succulents sitting on its windowsill. There are pictures scattered around the room in mismatched frames, a lot of Evan and a woman he assumes is his mother, more than a few of Evan and Jared when they were younger but less and less as they get older until there’s none, and one small picture of Evan with a man that looks vaguely like him that sits on the corner of Evan’s desk, a stack of books obscuring it slightly.

Connor remembers Evan saying something about his dad and looks away.

Evan’s room is much smaller than Connor’s. It’s cozier and cleaner, but still untidy. The books in Evan’s shelves are piled up and tipping over, there are a few sweatshirts draped around the room, and there’s a terrifying looking pile of papers on his nightstand.

“Yo,” Jared says, holding out his laptop to Connor. “Work out what you want these to say with Evan so I can finish this. While you do that I’m going to find some snacks.”

“We’re out,” Evan answers almost immediately from where he’s bent over his laptop.

“I’m going out to buy snacks,” Jared corrects. “See you in a bit, losers.”

Connor stares at the blank form that Jared has pulled up on the screen. How many of these things is he going to have to do and is this going to turn into a school assignment?

“It’s probably easier if one of us starts,” Evan murmurs. “And then we just go back and forth and respond to whatever the other says.”

“Like actual emails.”

Evan rolls his eyes. “Yeah, just faster.”

“Sure. Let’s keep the things that can mark when this shit got sent to a minimum, okay?” Connor’s summer is a blur. He spent probably too much of it high and another big majority of it just doing nothing. Looking back at it, it all just blends together into a mess of shitty and shittier.

Evan nods. “Mhm. I’ll start if you want.”

“Go wild.”

As Evan types, Connor clicks through the other tabs Jared has open. One for the email account, a few google searches, a coding thing Connor doesn’t understand, and the price list. Jared put the romance section back.

Connor makes a note on the document that just says ‘youre a dick’ and clicks back to the dauntingly blank form.

An hour later, Evan has finished his sixth email, Connor is typing out a shitty response, and Jared has shown up with enough chips to feed a small nation. They figure out how to space the emails they’ve already written and Jared gets to work on finishing up the ones they’ve got written.

“Should we do the whole summer?” Evan asks.

Connor shrugs. “I don’t care, Zoe will probably buy it with one or two.”

Jared spins back and forth as he adds all the timestamps. “Someone order a pizza, I’m dying.”

Evan checks the time. “Jared it’s only—”

“Yeah? And?”

“You just ate like an entire bag of chips.”

Jared looks up at Evan. “When has that ever stopped me from eating an entire pizza?”

Evan shakes his head. “W-whatever. The usual?”

Jared shoots him a finger gun as he types with one hand.

“I’ll go with,” Connor says. He follows Evan down to the kitchen to see another twenty dollar bill in the center of the table. “Want me to call it in?” he asks.

Evan nods. “Jared always gets a supreme. If he doesn’t finish he just brings it home.”

Fair, Connor would do the same if he cared more about eating. He can only handle so much of his mom’s cooking. Connor places the call and then waits with Evan at the table. “Does your mom have you get takeout a lot?” he asks, looking at the bill.

Evan follows his gaze. “Uh… I-I mean…yeah. She works all day at the hospital, she’s a nurse, a-and then takes night classes at the college,” he gestures vaguely toward the street and Connor assumes he means the community college that people who are ambitious like Alana Beck go to to take summer classes so they look more impressive to admissions, “so…she doesn’t really have ti-time to cook and I’m— I’m not very good at it,” Evan mumbles. “I can do…ramen? Um…mac n cheese. Instant stuff. Other than that I can make like…pasta and grilled cheese and that’s…sort of it. But she doesn’t have a lot of time to go to the grocery store and I, uh, don’t like going so. Takeout is…easier.”

Connor nods. “I get that. You can’t go wrong with ramen noodles. One day we’ll both be living off them,” he jokes.

Evan looks to him in surprise. He smiles a little. “Y-yeah, I guess that’s true.”

Connor suddenly realizes that he talked about the future casually. About college casually, because he can remember one time when he was little and sick and Larry made ramen noodles for him and Connor had decided that they were the best thing ever and Larry had ruffled his hair and said that he’d get sick of them when they were all he ate in college. It’s uncomfortable. It settles wrong inside him. Because outside of the context of that one quip, the future doesn’t feel real. It feels like some untouchable abstract concept.

Thinking about it makes his stomach turn and makes dark thoughts creep in from the corners of his mind.

He shakes them away and listens to Evan talk about how he’s ruined soup before. It’s better than thinking about a future that hardly exists, one that he’s ready to cut the string on at almost any given moment in time.

Evan buries his face in his hands as he tells Connor about the time Jared tried to make eggs in the microwave and almost set fire to the house. Connor laughs and pretends he’s okay.

When the pizza arrives, Connor pays the delivery person while Evan goes and gets Jared. It’s too early for dinner, but Jared doesn’t care and eats two slices before going upstairs to grab his laptop and then eats another. Evan eats breadsticks and lets Jared carry most of the conversation, about half of which is about how weird Connor eats his pizza.

Evan makes Connor take a slice of pizza back, because he ends up missing dinner at home, and Connor just rolls his eyes and takes the plastic tupperware and promises to give it back at some point. Evan shakes his head and tells him not to, because they have too much and they can never find lids that match. Connor figures he’ll just slip it back into a cabinet the next time he comes over.

Next time. Connor doesn’t think in next times. Weird.

[taemdeul]

KR:/ IDOL Q&A

an idol life questionnaire.

all idols have an image determined for them by the company. how do you feel about your persona and how true is it to your true self? keeping this image in mind, do you ever feel that you were given said image because your real personality is too bland in comparison?

“when shinee first debuted, the company really wanted us to have a “younger boyfriend” image to match our debut song. they expected us to act cutely and coolly, and especially because i was the youngest, i really had to focus on coming across as a cute person. with growing older and trying different concepts, shinee’s image also changed a lot over time, and there were times when the company really wanted to highlight my more feminine features and promote them. looking back, i don’t think it was a bad thing, but at the time it was something i felt really sensitive over. it wasn’t something the general public was thoughtful towards, and i received a lot of comments about being a girl and not coming across as manly enough. i even had long hair for a time, and i felt subconscious going places publicly because of the reactions i would receive. back then, i really hated it and just wanted to fit into the ideal, muscular masculine image— and i couldn’t even if i wanted to, because of my natural features and how my body is built. it caused a lot of frustration, but then i had the chance to explore different concepts and try my own colors as i debuted as soloist. it took a long time, but i think i’ve become comfortable with the sides i show now and with the person that i actually am. i’ve learned to accept my natural features and learned how to enhance them with makeup or through workouts... it’s a perk of being experienced, too, but i think that i show more of the real taemin than an image these days. for me, it’s been a process, but i’m happy with where my image is now.”

do you have any habits that your fans might find unfit for an idol? if ‘yes’, what are those habits and how did they come about?

“i’m trying to think of something, but there isn’t really anything..? only things that everyone does, i think. there’s times when i like to drink with friends, and times when i’m lazy and eat delivery while watching a tv show in bed. there’s always something that netizens like to criticize and i bet there would be a controversy if i were seen during off time, but in the end, it’s things that most average people tend to do and i don’t think there’s any shame in it. idols are human, too, right? we just have to be more careful. i’ll be careful with my laziness~.”

what is your relationship with your family like? when was the last time you’ve contacted them?

“i’m actually really close to my family, since they live in seoul and i lived with them for awhile after moving out of the shinee dorm. i would say my relationship with them is average, though? i have an older brother and we get along really well, but have disagreements like all siblings do, i think. we talk about music and he’s helped me compose things in the past, since he has an interest in producing. i’m closest to my mom, though, and i look the most like her, too. i let her drag me along on shopping trips and help her pick out things for their house, and she meets with the other members’ moms for trips and events. with my dad, i didn’t understand him all that well until i got older, but we’ve recently gotten closer and he’s someone that has always solidly supported me. we can talk about finances and politics, and i think it’s nice to have someone that i can go to for advice now that i’m an adult living on my own. as for when i last contacted them? it was earlier today when my mom asked if i would be having dinner there. i think i’ll be taking home the leftovers... it’s the best.”

after becoming a celebrity, have you noticed a difference in the way your friends perceive you? do you still communicate with old friends or have you cut ties?

“this is something i talked about a lot when i was younger, especially right after debut since i felt a bit bothered by it, but i lost a lot of friendships because of schedules and being a “celebrity”. because i was so young, still in my last year of middle school, it made it really difficult to stay friends with those that i had made when studying and i was a bit lonely even with the friends that i did have, because i wasn’t able to meet with them or contact them often. there is that famous friend group, though— you know it, right~? they’re known as the padding squad. it includes my closest friends since i as young: jongin, moonkyu, and kwonho, and even more friends that we’ve all made since then. i think it’s fair to say that while there were a lot of friends i cut ties with, there were also friends that i became even closer to and have kept for a long time. i think we’ll always be friends, too.”

feuds between companies is arguably what keeps the industry booming. even if idols from opposing companies may not dislike one another, many ceos make sure to keep their artists apart. what are your thoughts on the separation of idols by company? do you think it has become an epidemic particularly with the new generation of idols?

“i think it has changed a lot since i debuted in 2008. the korean entertainment industry seems to be one of the fastest evolving entertainment industries in the world, and because of that, there’s always new trends and new ways that companies are trying to improve, get ahead. when i first debuted, it’s true that companies were a lot more open to working together and collaborating than they are now. the variety shows were more interactive for the idols, and we got to meet others often and work together for interesting stages for the end-of-year shows. there are some shows and projects with similar concepts these days, and i think some producers are trying to bring these kinds of things back, but you can definitely feel more of a divide among idols and companies now. personally, i think it could be really fun to collaborate with other idols, especially those that have newly debuted. i’m still young, too! let’s work together and have fun. you can learn a lot from experiences like that.”

some might say being an idol is restrictive in terms of personal growth. do you agree?

“it depends on the person and their personality, and on the company that they’re apart of. for example, with my company, it’s uncommon for artists to write and produce their own music, right? sm is known for having specific ideas and concepts, and so there’s been friends at my company that have felt frustrated with strict systems like that in place. there’s other companies that encourage songwriting, or provide classes on social interaction and other things that might help an idol personally, and there’s also companies that are really rigid in their routines. there’s also the fact that, as idols, we’re under a lot of scrutiny and it’s difficult to go out or date without it becoming a controversy, so it’s a bit true that it can be restricting. everyone handles it differently.”

do you ever feel disheartened when viewing photo shopped images of yourself?

“when working in an industry that edits a lot to fit ideals, i think you definitely have to have a certain type of strength to not feel disheartened by the differences in images of yourself. mostly, i think it’s about having confidence in both looks— reality and on a screen. for me, rather than feeling upset that i look different in pictures of myself, i work hard to maintain good skin and a good physique so that more of my natural attributes might show through. i think most people know that what they see in images isn’t reality. for example, i have freckles in places and stretch marks just like the average person, but you would never see them in a pictorial.”

how many languages do you speak fluently or otherwise? have you ever been annoyed by your own voice or accent when communicating in another language?

“fluently is a heavy term, ah~... i can only confidently say that i’m fluent in two, and even then i think i have a lot of room to improve. it’s my own language, korean, and japanese. since i’ve been focusing on touring and promoting in japan a lot, my language skills have naturally improved and i can speak confidently on variety shows and with staff, dancers, and fans. i’ve even received praise, and it feels good to know that i’m doing well and doing the language justice while working. i’ve also started working on improving my english, but i’m not fluent at all and i feel subconscious about the sentence structure and my accent when i speak. it’s necessary to improve it since i’ll be working overseas and in western countries more often, and it would also be nice to improve so that i can confidently speak when i travel or do things in foreign countries on my own. despite feeling insecure, it only motivates me to do better in my studies, so i hope to be able to show off my improved english skills soon.”

in what areas do you think the industry has room for improvement?

“since i’ve been working in the industry for so long, i’ve seen a lot of changes and also noticed things that could be useful to change... if i’m thinking about the things that would benefit everyone the most, wouldn’t it be nice to change the standard on dieting and the way schedules are handled? there’s been dangerous circumstances in the past and even now where the artists aren’t able to take care of themselves like they should. even i’ve been guilty of pushing my schedules and body to the limit, and sometimes it’s good to have a reminder or someone to stop you and tell you that you should rest, or eat really well so you’ll have the energy to keep going. there are more things, but taking care of ourselves would be a good place to start.”

if you could go back in time, would you still pursue your idol career under your current company or would you opt for another company?

“i would definitely pursue it through sm again, but only if i would also be placed with shinee. since i’ve already experienced the idol life, unless it could be with the same members by my side, i wouldn’t want to do it again.”

share an anecdote about a time  you were treated differently in school or otherwise by those around you after becoming an idol or trainee.

“i mentioned it before, but i debuted at a really young age, when i was still in my last year of middle school. because i was young and maybe a bit naive, and because the school i attended wasn’t too far from the company, i thought it would be a good idea to continue to study there and then at the high school in the area rather than leave the friends and home i had known. it was hard, though, because of schedules and shinee’s public recognition slowly rising. it was natural that the kids i went to school with and the friends that i had heard about it, and when i would attend classes, i would get followed or pushed around by everyone trying to see the idol that debuted through sm. i think they might have had innocent intentions, but there were also some kids that weren’t the nicest and would get a bit more physical. it was hard to study, because someone would always be looking or standing over me. i would be late to school or leave early because of work, and i would get scolded by administration... managers and the members would walk with me to school, just in case. there were a lot of factors in my decision to transfer to a performing arts school, but i felt that i had a hard time being understood by my peers and my teachers and it was one of the biggest reasons that i chose to leave. i honestly don’t have many memories from school, like playing or school trips. because of my career, i never had the chance to experience them.”

what would you say to those who belittle idols on the web? additionally, many idols have began to take legal actions on negative comments left on the web. what do you think of their decision?

“the things netizens say can be really damaging and hurtful, right? i like to read articles on myself and there’s times where that isn’t a good thing, because i see the negative comments that offer nothing constructive too. the ones where i’m called too feminine, or a girl... misgendered. those kind of comments affected me for a long time, and i can see why some idols might want to fight back against the comments left about themselves. i think it takes a lot of courage to do something like that, and i’m not sure if it’s something i could do, but i understand why they would. comments can affect your career, mental health, and others’ image of you.”

idol diet regimes are infamous for their severity. diets such as the paper cup diet and cucumber diet are industry favorites.  considering that many look upon idols as eye-candy and those idols who fail to fit into this criteria are reprimanded, do you think strict dieting is justifiable/ just another part of your job?

“dieting in a healthy way can never really be a bad thing. if it’s healthily, then its just that— living a healthy lifestyle. there are a lot of idols and others that don’t do it healthily, though, and i think that makes it harder to maintain a good figure and body than eating the right amounts of the right foods. there are some companies that enforce that kind of thing, too, but i was lucky to have management that made sure we never skipped meals, even if were busy and didn’t have a lot of time to eat. it’s apart of my job in the way that i need to be careful about what i eat, such as avoiding greasy foods to keep bloating down and my skin in good condition, but i still eat things that are good for me— meats, vegetables, fruits... it’s a responsibility, but i’d like to think i would live this way even if i wasn’t in the public eye. i might miss greasy and unhealthy foods, but it’s good for me.”

often times managers go above and beyond to protect their artist. some even resorting to physical cruelty to keep fans in line. have you ever witnessed your manager doing so? do you feel their demeanor is vital for your protection or do you think managers of idol groups take security measures too far?

“this is difficult topic because it’s a high stress job with safety involved, for everyone— fans and idols alike. there’s definitely been times where our managers have been more strict, and times where we simply didn’t listen to them because it didn’t seem reasonable, but it’s also that they’re older and responsible for us and, honestly, care about our well being. physical violence is never the right option, whether it’s from fans or managers or idols themselves... i think it would be nice if everyone could be a bit more careful and mindful of space and their actions.”

some fans believe that because they financially support the idol they own the idol. what would you say to these fans?

“in a way, because our careers are thanks to those that support us, we do owe them gratitude and owe it to them to do our best. we owe it to them to put on our best performances, and to live as upstanding citizens— good examples— but there are ways that the line between our jobs and personal lives get blurred when talking about what we owe to our fans, too. personally, i think it’s good to separate our personal lives from our public lives, and i think it’s fair to live comfortably outside of public settings or events. i’ve struggled with this in the past, because there are things i would like to do in my personal life that could upset fans, but there is a right way to open up to them so that they’re more comfortable with things that may come out in the future. someday, i might get married and have kids, right? it’s important to connect with fans over these things. they don’t have to be involved in my personal life, but it’s good to slowly let them know that it will happen, if it does happen, and if it comes out publicly one day.”

is rejection something you struggle to accept? have you ever been rejected? if ‘yes’ does it make you want to give up or try harder?

“i’m the type of person that takes rejection a bit hard, but not in the way that i might cry or blame others. if i’m rejected, it’s for a reason, right? like when i was young, and i couldn’t sing because my voice hadn’t broken yet. they rejected my requests for vocal lessons, and it hurt my pride a lot when i had to debut without singing lines, but i ended up learning a lot from it by working hard to overcome the reasons i was rejected in the first place. i practiced on my own, and i slowly began to receive more lines each time we received an album. my vocal tone got better, and i could sing more notes with a more stable sound. at the time, i might have pushed myself a bit too hard, because i even ended up suffering from nose bleeds and losing my voice... but it paid off in the end, and i think that’s important. rejection shouldn’t stop you— it should inspire you to prove them wrong.”

how often do you rely on stimulants be it caffeine, pills or energy drinks to stay awake during  schedules? which of the three are your favorite?

“coffee! i’m a big fan of coffee, even if i don’t have schedules and if i’m not tired. iced americano is my favorite— i drink three cups a day, usually.”

after a few years, companies allow for their artists to move out of the dorms they were required to stay in during training. did you decide to stay, or are you now living elsewhere?

“ah, this~... i was actually one of the first members to move out of the dorm, along with jonghyun hyung who was my roommate. the members and i get along really well, but we have a hard time living together because our personalities and lifestyles are so different. because i like to have personal space when i have free time, i just thought it was best that i move back in with my family when i had the chance. they live nearby the original dorm, and it made it easy to travel back in forth, so it wasn’t a problem with the managers or the company. before the members enlisted, we would stay at the dorm to make it easier to travel for schedules, too, but all of us have recently bought our own apartments to live comfortably in. we get along better when we have our own time and space. i think we all can say that we’re closer now than when we lived together. we see each other freely rather than having to see each other daily.”

take a look at all of your hairstyles(comeback specific) thus far. show us your least favorite and tell us why you chose it as such. and lastly, do you forgive your stylist?

“my hairstyle at debut! it became really famous and a lot of students and other celebrities copied it, but i didn’t like it as much. it was fine as it grew out, but the bowl shape looks too funny now. i regret wearing it like that.”

name one factor that inspired you to become an idol. was it the pay, the fame or the passion?

“i didn’t know much about the idol industry, and so it wasn’t fame or money or the industry itself that inspired me to try for it. rather, it was that i was really interested in dancing and it seemed like the most viable way to make something of my interest and to improve my skill. prior to training, i had never formally trained in dancing at all.”

arguably the hardest part of idol life is the training period. many restrictions are put in place, some of which are even frowned upon by fans. which restriction was the most prominent and how does that restriction affect you to this day?

“the restriction that affected me most was probably the areas that the company wanted to train me in. like i’ve said before, they refused to train me in singing and it was something that affected my focus and training in the future— even now. before i came to know more about the idol industry, i really only knew idols as soloists; rain, boa, michael jackson, chris brown... there were celebrities like that that i looked up to, and all of them were singers, not dancers. i really wanted to sing, and i wasn’t allowed. rather than helping, i was just told “no, your voice isn’t suited to singing. just dance.” and it really hurt my confidence. although it would have been true that i couldn’t sing, support in situations like that would have been better. in the end, i didn’t even want to debut and begged my family to ask the company to wait until i could sing. i’m grateful that i was able to have the opportunities to improve my singing later on, though.”

outside of the industry, mental health in south korea continues to be a taboo. within the industry that taboo exacerbates. with more and more idols such as brown eyed girl’s ga in, big bang’s top, and aoa’s choa to name a few admitting to suffering from a mental illness, some might think the public may gradually sway to be more open to mental illnesses. do you agree with them? why or why not?

“it’s definitely important for the industry to become more open about the struggles that idols deal with. i think it’s a good place for change to start, too, because if the general public sees that it’s more accepted and less taboo, then it will also begin to change among the public. it might be difficult for those that are more open at first, but changes always start small before growing into something big. eventually, it will become more understood and accepted.”

do you feel that you fit into korea’s beauty standards? if ‘yes’ do you think this feat gives you advantage over those who aren’t? if ‘no’ do you think that being below the standard has  affected the way you perceive yourself?

“it might sound a bit arrogant, but ever since i was a toddler i had people approach to say that i was really pretty. i would always get shy and hide behind my mom when i heard those things, and as i grew up and entered the entertainment industry, i kept hearing similar comments from coordis and fans and other celebrities. ‘taemin is pretty! taemin is good looking.’ but, personally, i think i have flaws just like everyone does, and i don’t think that i necessarily fit korea’s standard. aren’t monolids the trend these days..~? and mine are double, ah... i can’t help the way i was born..

is being an idol a career choice your parents have always been supportive of? what was their initial reaction when you announced to them you wanted to become one? have they grown to support you?

“it was actually my family that encouraged me to become an idol. i knew nothing about entertainment companies back then, but my parents saw that i liked dancing and thought i did it pretty well, and so they said it would be good to try for something like that. we searched around and sm was the most well known, so it was the first and only audition that i attended. since i was young, i think there were probably some parts that made my parents worry, but they were always really supportive and gave me discipline and encouragement when i needed it. if it weren’t for them, i probably wouldn’t be where i am today.”

[scifrey]

Improbable Press put out a call asking fan fiction authors how they went from Free to Fee. Here’s my response. Happy reading!

The Story of How I Started Selling Stories

My parents, teachers, and acting/singing coaches will all tell you that I've always been a story teller. For the first twenty four years of my life, I was determined to do so through musical theatre, though I had always secretly harbored the desire to write a hit stage play. My early writing consisted of plays for my friends and I to put on, interspersed with prose that I supposed would one day become a novel, but which wasn't my passion.

I was a big reader, but where this habit came from, I'm not certain. While my mother always had a book on the go - whatever crumbling paperback law thriller or murder mystery she'd been handed by the woman down the street when she was done it, which was then passed on to the next neighbor - my father and brothers preferred sports (either on TV or outside in the yard) over reading. I stumbled into fantasy and science fiction because Wil Wheaton was hot, and his show was on every Friday night, and from there I consumed every Star Trek tie-in novel my tiny rural library carried, then started following the authors of the novels into their other worlds and series.

So you won't be surprised to learn that this was how I found fan fiction for the first time. My "I love this, gee, I wonder what else there is?" muscle was well developed by junior high, and before the internet had come to The Middle Of Nowhere Rural Ontario, I had already gotten quite adept at search keywords and codexes to track down more books to consume.  Imagine my shock and joy when, in the middle of my Phantom of the Opera phase (come on, fess up, you had one too), the internet in my school library told me about not only Fredrick Forsyth and Susan Kay's stunning re-tellings, but of something called fan fiction.

I wasted a lot of the librarian's ink and paper printing out these books and secreting them into binders and pretending to do school work at my desk or backstage between scenes. A lot. And yes, I still have most of them.

And as we all well know, the jump between reading and writing is a short when one is submerged so fully in communities of creators. Everyone else's "What If" rubs off on you, and it's just a matter of time before you find yourself playing with the idea of coaxing a few plot bunnies over to spend some time with you. Not everyone loves to write, but gosh darn it, if you want to give it a try, then you couldn't ask for a better, more supportive community. It doesn't matter how new you are to it, everyone reads, everyone comments, everyone makes suggestions. People beta read. People edit. People co-write. People cheer, and support, and recommend, and enthuse. Yeah, there are the occasional jerks, flammers, and wank-mongers, but on the whole? There's literally no better place to learn how to be a writer than in fandom, I firmly believe this.

So, of course, born storyteller that I am, I had to give it a try.

I started writing fan fiction in 1991 for a small, relatively obscure Canadian/Luxembourg co-pro children’s show called Dracula: the Series.  I used to get up and watch it on Saturday mornings, in my PJs, before heading off to whichever rehearsal or read through or practice I had that year.

1995 brought the English dub of Sailor Moon to my life, (and put me on the path to voice acting), and along with a high-school friend, I wrote, printed out, illustrated, and bound my first “book” – a self-insert story that was just over eleven pages long, which introduced new Scouts based on us.  From there, I didn’t really stop.

1996 led me to Forever Knight and Dragon Ball Z, and from there to my friend’s basement where they’d just installed the internet. We chatted with strangers on ICQ, joined Yahoo!Groups and Bravenet Chat Boards. (Incidentally, a friend from my DBZ chat group turned out to be a huge DtS fan, too. We wrote a big crossover together which is probably only accessible on the Wayback Machine now. We stayed friends, helped each other through this writing thing, and now she’s Ruthanne Reid, author of the popular Among the Mythos series.)  In 2000 I got a fanfiction.net account and never looked back.

In 2001, while in my first year of university for Dramatic Arts, I made my first Real Live fandom friends. We wrote epic-length self-insert fics in Harry Potter and Fushigi Yuugi, cosplayed at conventions (sometimes using the on-campus wardrobe department’s terrifyingly ancient serger), and made fan art and comics in our sketchbooks around studying for our finals and writing essays on critical theory or classical Latin.  I was explaining the plot of the next big fic I was going to write to one of them, an older girl who had been my T.A. but loved Interview with the Vampire just as dearly as I, when she said, “You know, this sounds really interesting. Why don’t you strip all the fandom stuff out of the story and just write it as a novel?”

You can do that? was my first thought.

No! I don’t want to! Writing is my fun hobby. What will happen if I try to be a writer and get rejected by everyone and I end up hating it? was my second.

But the seed was planted.  Slowly at first, and then at increasingly obsessive pace, I began writing my first novel around an undergrad thesis,  fourth-year  essays,  several other big fanfics that popped me into the cusp of BNF status but never quite over the tine, and then a move to Japan to teach English. From 2002-2007 I wrote about 300 000 words on the novel that I would eventually shut away in my desk drawer and ignore until I published on Wattpad under my pseudonym on a lark. It was messy. It was long. It was self-indulgent and blatantly inspired by Master of Mosquiton, Interview with the Vampire, Forever Knight, and anything written by Tanya Huff, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Charlaine Harris. This was fine for fanfic, but in terms of being comfortable with presenting it to agents and publishing houses, I felt that it wasn’t original enough.

By this time I was teaching overseas, and in my spare time (and boy, was there a lot of spare time while sitting in a Japanese teacher’s office for 40 hours per week when one only actually teaches for 11 of them) I started applying to MA programs (where I eventually wrote my thesis on Mary Sue Fan Fiction). I also spent it researching “How to Get Published”, mostly by Googling it and/or buy/reading the few books on the topic in English I could find at the local book store or order from the just-then-gaining-international traction online bookstore Amazon.

What that research mostly told me was “Write and sell a bunch of short fiction first, so you have proof that a) you can do the work and b) you can finish what you promise you’ll finish and c) you have proof that other people think you’re worth spending money on.”

Short fiction. Huh. Of course we’d studied short stories in school, and I’d even taken a short story writing class in university, though nothing I’d written for the class was indicative of the kinds of stories I preferred to tell. But I felt pretty confident about this whole writing short stories thing… after all, I’d been doing weekly challenges for years. Drabbles. Flashfic. Stories and chapters that were limited to the word count cap that LiveJournal put on its posts. I’d written novellas without knowing that’s what they were called; I’d written whole novels about other people’s characters. All I needed was an idea. Short fiction I could do.

Unfortunately, everything that came to me was fanfic inspired. It frustrated me, because I didn’t want to write a serial-numbers-filed-off story. I wanted to write something original and epic and inspiring. Something just mine. I started and stopped a lot of stories in 2006-2007. I’d been doing NaNoWriMo for years by then, having been introduced to it in undergrad, and I was determined that this would be the year that I wrote something I could shop. Something just mine. Something unique.

While I adored fanfiction, I was convinced that I couldn't make a career on it.  What had once been a fun hobby soon because a source of torment. Why could I think of a hundred ways to write a meet-cute between my favorite ships, but come up utterly blank when it came to something new and original and just mine?

It took me a while to realize that my playwriting and short story teachers had been correct when they said that there are no original stories in the world, no way you can tell a tale that someone else hasn’t already tried. The "Man vs." list exists for a reason.

The unique part isn’t your story, it’s your voice. Your lived life, your experiences, your way of forming images and structuring sentences. Your choices about who the narrator character is, and what the POV will be, and how the characters handle the conflict. In that way, every piece of writing ever done is individual and unique, even the fanfic. Because nobody is going to portray that character’s quirk or speech pattern quite like you do, nobody is going to structure your plot or your imagery like you. Because there is only one of you. Only one of me. Even if we're all writing fanfiction, no one's story sounds like anyone else's,  or is told like anyone else's.

That is the reality of being a storyteller.

And strangely enough, the woman who opened my eyes to this was a psychic from a psychic fair I attended, who told me that Mark Twain was standing over her shoulder admonishing me to stop fretting and just get something on the page – but to never forget character. My strength, she said that he said, was in creating memorable, well written, well rounded characters. And that my book should focus on that above concerns of plot or pacing.

Well, okay. If Mark Twain says that’s what my strength is, then that’s what my strength is, right? Who am I to argue with the ghost of Mark Freaking Twain?

An accident with a bike and a car on a rice patty left me immobile for six weeks in 2006, and I decided that if I was finally going to write this original short story to sell – especially since I would need income, as the accident made it obvious that I would never be able to dance professionally, and probably would never be able to tread the boards in musicals – now was the perfect time. I was going to stop fighting my fannish training and write.

I cherry picked and combined my favorite aspects of Doctor Who, Stargate: Atlantis, Torchwood, The Farm Show/The Drawer Boy, and my own melancholy experiences with culture shock and liminal-living in a foreign culture, and wrote a novella titled (Back). It was a character study of a woman named Evvie who, through an accident of time travel, meets the future version of her infant daughter Gwen. And realizes she doesn’t like the woman her daughter will become. It was a story about accepting people for who they are, instead of who you wish they would be, and had a strong undercurrent of the turbulence I was going through in trying to figure out my own sexuality and that I wouldn't have the future in performance that I had been working toward since I was four.

Deciding that I would worry about where I would try to publish the story after it had been written, I sat down and wrote what ended up being (at least for me) a pretty standard-length fanfic: 18,762 words. It was only after I had finished the story that I looked up what category that put it in – Novella. Using paying  reputable markets, like Duotrope, the Writer’s Digest, MSFV, Absolute Write, SFWA, my local Writer’s Union, Writer Beware, I realized that I had shot myself in the foot.

It seems like nearly nobody publishes novellas anymore. SF/F and Literary Fiction seem to be the last two bastions of the novella, and the competition to get one published is fierce.  The markets that accepted SF/F novellas was vanishingly thin I had to do a lot of Googling and digging to figure out who I could submit to with an unagented/unsolicited SF/F novella. If I recall correctly, it was only about ten publications. I built an excel database and filled it with all the info I found.

I put together a query letter and sent it off using my database to guide me. Most of the rejections were kind, and said that the story was good, just too long/too short/ too sci-fi-y/not sci-fi-y enough. Only one market offered on it – for $10 USD. Beggers couldn’t be choosers, even if I had hoped to make a little more than ten bucks, and I accepted.

It was a paid professional publication, and that’s what mattered to me. I had the first entry on my bibliography, and something to point to in my query letters to prove that I was a worthy investment for a publisher/agent.

And energized by this, and now aware that length really does matter, even in online-only publications, I started writing other shorts to pad out my bibliography more.

I tried to tailor these ones to what my research told me the "mainstream industry" and "mainstream audiences" wanted, and those stories? Those were shot down one after the other. I was still writing fanfiction at the time, too, and those stories were doing well, getting lots of positive feedback, so why weren’t my stories?

In 2007 I returned to Canada and Academia, frustrated by my lack of sales, desperate to kick off my publishing career, and feeling a creative void left by having to depart theatre because of my new difficulties walking. I wrote my MA, and decided that if (Back) was the only original story that people liked, then I’d try to expand it into a novel.

Over the course of two years I did my coursework, and  read everything there was to read about how to get a book deal, started hanging out in writer’s/author’s groups in Toronto and met some great people who were willing to guide me, and expanded (Back) into the novel Triptych. I kept reminding myself what Mark Twain said – character was my strength, the ability to make the kind of people that other writers wanted to write stories about, a skill I’d honed while writing fanfic. Because that's what we do, isn't it? Sure, we write fix-its and AUs and fusions and finish cancelled shows, and fill in missing scenes, but what we're all really doing is playing with characters, isn't it? Characters draw us to fanfic, and characters keep us there. Characters is what we specialize in.

Fanfic had taught me to work with a beta reader, so I started asking my fic betas if they'd like a go at my original novel. Fellow fanfic writers, can I just say how valuable editors and beta readers in the community are? These are people who do something that I've paid a professional editor thousands of dollars to do for free out of sheer love. Treasure your beta readers, folks. Really.

“It reminds me a lot of fan fiction,” one reader said. “The intense attention to character and their inner life, and the way that the worldbuilding isn’t dumped but sprinkled in an instance at a time, like, you know, a really good AU. I love it.”

Dear Lord. I couldn’t have written a better recommendation or a more flattering description if I’d tried. Mark Twain was right, it seems. And fanfic was the training ground, for me – my apprenticeship in storytelling.

Of course... what Mr. Twain hadn't explained is that character-study novels just don't sell in SF/F. They say Harry Potter was rejected twelve times? HA. I shopped Triptych to both agents and small presses who didn't require you to have an agent to publish with them, and I got 64 rejections. Take that, J.K.

At first the rejection letters were forms and photocopied "no thanks" slips. But every time I got feedback from a publisher or agent, I took it to heart, adjusted the manuscript, edited, tweaked, tweaked, tweaked. Eventually, the rejections started to get more personal. "I loved this character, but I don't know how to sell this book." And "I really enjoyed the read, but it doesn't really fit the rest of our catalogue." And "What if you rewrote the novel to be about the action event that happens before the book even starts, instead of focusing solely on the emotional aftermath?"

In other words - "Stop writing fanfiction." There seemed to be a huge disconnect between what the readership wanted and what the publishing world thought they wanted.

Disheartened, frustrated, and wondering if I was going to have to give up on my dreams of being a professional creative, I attended Ad Astra, a convention in Toronto, in 2009. At a room party, complaining to my author friends that "nobody wanted my gay alien threesome book!" a woman I didn't know asked me about the novel. We chatted, and it turned out she was the acquisitions editor for Dragon Moon Press, and incidentally, also a fan of fan fiction.

I sent her Triptych. She rejected it. I asked why. She gave me a laundry list of reasons. I said, "If I can address these issues and rewrite it, would you be willing to look at it again?" She said yes. She was certain, however, that I wouldn't be able to fix it. I spent the summer rewriting - while making sure to stay true to my original tone of the novel, and writing a character-study fanfiction. I sent it in the fall. I do believe it was Christmas eve when I received the offer of publication.

From there, my little fic-inspired novel was nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards and a CBC Bookie, was named one of the best books of 2011 by the Advocate, and garnered a starred review and a place on the Best Books Of The Year at Publishers Weekly.

The award nominations led me to an agent, and further contracts, and even conversations with studio execs. It also made me the target of Requires Only That You Hate, and other cranky, horrible reviewers. But you know what? I've had worse on a forum, and on ff.n, and LJ. It sucked, and it hurt, but if there's one thing fandom has taught me, it's that not everyone is going to love what you do, and not everyone interprets things the same way you do. The only thing we can do is learn from the critique if it's valid and thoughtful, and ignore the screaming hate and bullying. Then you pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and go write something else.

 Because a screaming hater? Is not going to ruin my love of storytelling.

But for all that... the day someone made me fan art based on Triptych is one etched in my memory. It means far more to me than any of the emails I ever received inquiring about representation or film rights, or wanting meetings to discuss series.

The lesson I learned from publishing Triptych  - now sadly out of print, but we're looking for a new home for it - is that if I chase what the "mainstream" and the "industry" want, I'll never write anything that sells because my heart won't be in it. I have to keep writing like a fanficcer, even if I'm not writing fanfic, if I want to create something that resonates with people. And if it takes time for the publishers and acquiring editors to figure out what I'm doing, and how to sell it, then fine - I have an agent on my side now, and a small growing number of supporters, readers, and editors who love what I do.

Do I still write fanfic? Very, very rarely. I’ve had some pretty demanding contracts and deadlines in the last two years, so I’ve had to pare down my writing to only what’s needed to fulfill my obligations. Doesn’t mean I don’t have ideas for fics constantly.

Sometimes the urge is powerful enough that I do give into it – I wrote To A Stranger, based on Mad Lori’s Performance in a Leading Role Sherlock AU recently, when I should have been writing the second and third novels of The Accidental Turn Series. And even more recently, I cleaned up To A Stranger  into something resembling a real screenplay and started shopping it around to film festivals and producers because I love this story, I love what I did with it, and I’m proud of the work. If To A Stranger is only ever a fanfic, that’s fine with me. I poured my heart into it and am so proud of it. But I figure that if there’s one more project I could possibly get into the real world, then why not go for it?

The worst thing the festival heads and producers can say about the work is: “No, thank you.” And being an online writer has taught me not to take the “no, thank you”s personally. Applying the values of Don’t Like Don’t Read or Not My Kink to your publication/agent search makes it much easier to handle the rejections – not every story is for every person.

Maybe once every producer in North America has rejected it, I might think about working with someone to adapt the screenplay into an illustrated comic fanbook? Who knows?

That’s the joy of starting out as a writer in fandom – felixibility, adaptability, creative problem-solving and cross-platform storytelling comes as naturally as breathing to us fan writers. It’s what we do.

You may not think that this is a strength, but trust me, it is. I was never so shocked at an author’s meetup as when I suggested to someone that their “writer’s block” sounded to me like they were telling the story in the wrong format. “I think this is a comic, not a novel,” I’d said. “It sounds so visual. That's why the story is resisting you.” And they stared at me like I suddenly had an extra head and said, “But I’m a novelist.” I said, “No, you’re a writer. Try it.” They never did, as far as I know, and they never finished that book, either.

As fans, our strength isn't just in what we write, or how we come to our stories. It’s also about the physical practice of writing, too. We’re a group of people who have learned to carry notebooks, squeeze in a few hundred words between classes, or when the baby is napping, or during our lunch breaks, or on commute home. This is our hobby, we fit it in around our lives and jobs, and that has taught us the importance of just making time.

We are, on average, more dedicated and constant writers than some of the “novelists” that I’ve met: the folks who wait for inspiration to strike, who quit their day jobs in pursuit of some lofty ideal of having an office and drinking whiskey and walking the quay and waiting for madam muse to grace them, who throw themselves at MFAs and writing retreats, as if it's the attendance that makes them writers and not the work of it.

We fans are career writers. We don’t wait for inspiration to come to us, we chase it down with a butterfly net. We write when and where we can. More than that, we finish things. (Or we have the good sense to know when to abandon something that isn’t working.) We write to deadlines. Self-imposed ones, even.

We write 5k on a weekend for fun, and think NaNoWriMo’s 50k goal and 1667 words per day are a walk in the park. (When I know it terrifies some of the best-selling published authors I hang out with.) Or if we fans don’t write fast, then we know that slow and steady works too, and we’re willing to stick it out until our story is finished, even if it takes years of weekly updates to do so. We have patience, and perseverance, and passion.

This is what being a fanfiction writer has given me. Not only a career as a writer, but tools and a skill-set to write work that other people think is work awarding, adapting, and promoting. And the courage to stick to my guns when it comes to telling the kinds of stories that I want to tell.

This is what being a fanfiction writer gives us.

Aren’t we lucky, fellow fans? Hasn’t our training been spectacular?

*

J.M. (@scifrey) is a SF/F author, and professional smartypants on AMI Audio’s Live From Studio 5. She’s appeared in podcasts, documentaries, and on television to discuss all things geeky through the lens of academia. Her debut novel TRIPTYCH was nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards,  nominated for a 2011 CBC Bookie, was named one of The Advocate’s Best Overlooked Books of 2011, and garnered both a starred review and a place among the Best Books of 2011 from Publishers Weekly. Her sophomore novel, an epic-length feminist meta-fantasy THE UNTOLD TALE (Accidental Turn Series #1), debuted to acclaim in 2015 and was followed by THE FORGOTTEN TALE (Accidental Turn Series #2) this past December. FF.N | LJ |AO3| Books | Tumblr

[theconservativebrief]

Brazil elected far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro in its presidential runoff on Sunday, breaking a nearly two-decade-old tradition of almost exclusively electing leftist presidents.

Bolsonaro, a Congress member and ex-military officer, started off his campaign as a fringe candidate from a fringe party who was mostly known for his streak of racist, misogynistic, and anti-LGBT remarks and for his professed fondness for the country’s brutal military dictatorship.

But his promises to restore security amid endemic violent crime and to stamp out the country’s rampant political corruption won him support among voters looking for a change.

Many in Brazil have grown frustrated with the status quo due to a slew of political and economic crises that have gripped the country in recent years. The current center-right president, Michel Temer, is deeply unpopular in the wake of a struggling economy and a massive corruption scandal that has engulfed all levels of government.

Temer took over for former leftist President Dilma Rousseff, who was impeached in 2016. Her leftist predecessor, Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva, is serving a 12-year sentence for corruption charges. But while Lula himself is still very popular in Brazil, his handpicked successor Fernando Haddad was soundly defeated by Bolsonaro.

On the eve of the Brazilian elections, I called up Benjamin Junge to get a deeper understanding of voters in Brazil supported the far-right candidate. Junge is an anthropology professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz and a Fulbright fellow at the Federal University of Pernambuco in Brazil who studies working-class and middle-class families in Brazil.

Our conversation, edited for length and clarity, is below.

Jen Kirby

Are the Brazilian voters you talk to mostly rejecting the leftist Workers’ Party — or are they actively choosing Bolsonaro?

Benjamin Junge

My observation is that actual ideological, hard-right voters within working class communities — which is to say people who are voting for Bolsonaro because they love him, and they’ve analyzed his plans, and they think they’re great — are a small minority.

I would say the same about the old-school Workers’ Party supporters, too. They’re still there. I see them marching around with T-shirts that have images of Lula from four years ago.

The issue is the mass of working-class voters in between those two poles. The question is why is it that so many of them seem to be open to a guy who has expressed a disregard for democracy and said such foul things.

People are definitely talking a lot about security and violence in their neighborhoods, and they’re genuinely fed up with that they perceive as a failure of the state to take care of security issues. And that’s a real thing.

Jen Kirby

But doesn’t Lula still have a lot of popular support?

Benjamin Junge

Let me give you a quick little anecdote: Right before Lula was found guilty and went to prison last January, the matriarch of a family that I’ve been following very closely, who is a widow and is 66 years old, she’s was watching TV. At one moment she said, “Oh my god, is there any way I can still love this man [Lula]?”

When he went to prison, she posted something on Facebook, saying she was indignada — fed up. She alternates between a deep love for Lula and a kind of hate for him because he seems to have screwed everything up. The guy who did a lot of good and could have done much more but didn’t.

Jen Kirby

So they love Lula the man, but don’t love the system around him.

Benjamin Junge

Yes, very strongly. This is what political scientists are all scratching their heads about, and anthropologists maybe not quite so much. Political scientists say, “Wait, that’s very irrational, if they love Lula so much, why don’t they just vote for the other guy whom Lula anointed, Fernando Haddad?” But that’s not happening.

Jen Kirby

Can you explain exactly why that disconnect is happening?

Benjamin Junge

This woman I mentioned is typical in another respect, which is she has never really taken politics seriously. So she came to love Lula. She would definitely be voting for him if he were on the ballot, but it wasn’t for what he represented — it was just for the kind of man he presented himself to be.

She’s in her mid-60s and she has five grown children who are all in their 30s and 40s, most of whom have children of their own. They all live in the same building in different households, and what is creating stress in this family — and it’s playing out in the family’s WhatsApp group, which is the way that it’s happening across Brazil.

This family’s WhatsApp group was set up for social events and to send memes. But the oldest son is a Bolsonaro supporter. He’s that rare, and somewhat uncommon variety of very ideological serious supporter. He posts stuff about Bolsonaro in the family WhatsApp group. There’s a grandson who’s 18 years old, in his first year of college, and he responds with, “What what are you talking about? That doesn’t make any sense.”

The matriarch has become infuriated — not because she agrees more with her oldest son versus her grandson or vice versa — but because politics has contaminated her family and that’s almost unendurable for her. She doesn’t lose sleep about corruption because she hasn’t had high expectations of the state in a long, long time.

She’s just upset that her family, which is the most important thing in her life, is now this base of disputes and intergenerational tensions. I think that sets her up for an inclination to vote for Bolsonaro. Because his weird discourse is that he will restore order to society.

Jen Kirby

How does Bolsonaro’s image as a strongman factor in here? He has praised the military, and expressed some nostalgia for the military dictatorship. Is that the kind of order people are yearning for, or is it more nuanced than that?

Benjamin Junge

Among people who study cultural memory in Latin America — so places like Brazil that had some kind of authoritarian regime in the 1970s and 1980s, like Argentina, Chile, Uruguay — there is a broad consensus that Brazil did not really do a very good job in the first 20 years after the dictatorship ended in 1985 in promoting cultural dialogue about what that meant, and how it could be avoided, in contrast with places like Chile and Argentina.

Brazil didn’t really get on that bandwagon until later. These days, public high schools typically have modules about the military dictatorship. So in this family that I was mentioning to you, the person who knows the most about the dictatorship is the grandson because he did a whole year-long module on remembering the dictatorship in school.

Whereas his father and his mother, they’re in their 40s, and they were alive during the very tail end of the dictatorship, but they don’t have any real living memories of it, they have a much more idealistic — and from my perspective, problematic — way of remembering that period.

Jen Kirby

When it comes to Bolsonaro, how strong is his support among working-class people?

Benjamin Junge

One of the hypotheses is that the Workers’ Party prioritized social assistance programs but failed to link those incredible welfare benefits to any kind of political position or policy position among the beneficiaries; that the Workers’ Party failed to bring into being a kind of new citizen consciousness — they just created this new middle class of consumers.

I hope that by the time we’ve analyzed all of our data, we’ll be able to chime in on that hypothesis and see if our data supports it or not.

It’s too early for me to do that, but I think there’s something there. That certainly bodes well for Bolsonaro. He’s trying to make his appeal to voters who, when they reflect on having risen above the poverty line during the years the Workers’ Party was in power, they don’t connect it to that policy paradigm, they connect it to their own individual discipline and efforts — it’s more of a meritocracy.

Or if they’re evangelicals, which is a whole another set of issues, they explain it in terms of their religious beliefs.

Jen Kirby

But what about the actual economic situation? Are the working-class and middle-class families you’re studying significantly worse off economically than they were even a few years ago, or it more a perception because of everything that’s happening around them?

Benjamin Junge

We know that around 2014, unemployment rates started to go up and household family income started to go down, after having gone up for several years. We know that the number of people who have private health insurance policies, which is considered a class marker of middle class, started going down. We know that experiences with crime started going up.

So there are certainly objective markers that people who had experienced some kind of upward socioeconomic mobility during the Workers’ Party years have seen those patterns either stall or actually reverse.

Jen Kirby

How does Bolsonaro’s controversial rhetoric fit in? I know race is a complicated issue in Brazil, but his racially charged comments, his sexism, his anti-LGBT statements — how do voters ignore or justify those? I hate to make the comparison, but is it similar to Trump where some of his supporters say, “I don’t love all the things he says, but I’m willing to give him a chance”?

Benjamin Junge

There is something similar to the US, but there’s also something distinctively Brazilian. Brazilians have a kind of cultural image of themselves as playful, lovable troublemakers. It’s a recognized kind of cultural trait that people reflect on and talk about, and sometimes they talk about it in a loving way: “We’re romantic but you can’t really count on us to show up on time, oh well, that’s Brazil.”

When Brazilians — the people that I’m hanging out with in this working-class neighborhood — when they see in Facebook clips or WhatsApp clips that are circulating or on the television news, when they see these of Bolsonaro saying just saying horribly nasty, problematic things about blacks, gays, Indians, and plenty of other groups down the list, one way of interpreting that is to say, “You know all Brazilians are like that, he’s just being honest.”

And that sounds a little bit like the way people were talking about Trump, but I don’t think in the US we have a sense of “Well, we’re all actually playful like Trump, he’s just being a little more extreme and more honest.” Whereas Brazilians have this idea that it’s all playful.

Having said this, I know some people who can’t get beyond it, who will not vote for Bolsonaro. I’m thinking of someone who has a gay father, specifically because of that one statement that Bolsonaro said about how if he had a gay son, he’d rather die in a car accident. That alone they cannot get beyond. There are Brazilians who are reacting to a specific statement that they view as irredeemably problematic, and that includes plenty of Afro-Brazilians.

And here enters the thorny topic of fake news. Because if you were a Bolsonaro supporter you might respond to me by saying, “Wait a minute, let me show you a clip of some black Brazilians telling us how much they like Bolsonaro,” which are circulating. I would immediately say it’s maybe not fake, but it sure is a minority because most Afro-Brazilians in the popular class — lower-middle class or working-class — I think are quite offended by the way he talks about race.

Jen Kirby

You mentioned fake news. It seems that’s played a huge role in the election. How have you seen that play out?

Benjamin Junge

Facebook and WhatsApp are [where we see] the fake news issue. A couple of weeks ago this matriarch who I’ve been talking about, we bumped into each other, and I’m always bugging them with questions about the election. This was before the first round of elections. She showed me a picture of this clip that was circulating of some woman in some public space who took her shirt off and bared her breasts.

She shows this to me and says, “I don’t want this kind of a society, is this what we want?” And I said, “Wait a minute, who is this person?” And she says, “This is what we would get if we support the [Workers’ Party], or at least this is what will be fixed if Bolsonaro gets elected.” And it was just some ridiculous fake news thing, who knows if it was actually the Bolsonaro people who put it into circulation, but it was circulated by Bolsonaro supporters.

Jen Kirby

You’ve mentioned WhatsApp a lot — as something used by the family to communicate, but also to get information about the election. How important is it in influencing the vote?

Benjamin Junge

I don’t even fully appreciate just how pervasive WhatsApp groups are — I think that every family in Brazil has a WhatsApp group that has more than one cellphone user in it. And I believe that that cuts across class in a big way. The way that it might be a little different is that working-class families tend to be bigger than elite families.

Every kind of like religious community, every evangelical church, every individual kind of Catholic church has a WhatsApp group. Uber drivers in different neighborhoods and cities have WhatsApp groups, taxi drivers, students, groups of friends, teachers use WhatsApp,

I’m teaching two classes — one graduate and one undergraduate — at the university here this semester, and I have a WhatsApp group for both classes. I can’t even really imagine what this election would look like without WhatsApp.

And secondarily, Facebook. Facebook is also hugely important, but my intuitive sense is that WhatsApp is where the real frictions and kind of circulation of content is happening. And possibly where opinion formation, the actual congealing of voter sensibility, is concentrated.

Original Source -> Corruption, fake news, and WhatsApp: how Bolsonaro won Brazil

via The Conservative Brief

[wishingfornever]

9/11/17 – No Contact:  In the Dumps

It’s the next day.  Doesn’t feel good.  Still hurts. I saw the new episode of Rick and Morty.  Three times.  It was… moving.  Strange episode.  Maybe we’ll see it sometime. Right now, I’m up thinking up book titles.  I was thinking about it and I don’t like the current title, so I need a new one.  One that’s easier to pronounce.  Might include a colon.  No, not a butthole.  One of these => :

Sort of like “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”  Technically no colon but the “and” is supposed to be the colon.

I’m doing some edits.  Starting on chapter 1 again.  I switched the order from Avdotya, Sarvar, Atlas, Diego to Avdotya, Atlas, Sarvar, Diego. The purpose of this is because the colors are now Green Red Yellow Blue which the seasons are Spring Summer Autumn Winter.  They colors are coded better, I think.  Of course, there is red in Autumn but… it didn’t feel right to have Atlas as Autumn.  So, he’s summer. Might have included this more recently.  I don’t know when I thought to associate them with seasons.

Anyways, I also made the cover.  I hope you like it.  I drew the eyes myself. Years ago.  I took a picture I drew and cut out the eyes and then edited it so it’d look better with the background which is green. The next book will have a red cover.  I think I’ll have a cannon on that one.  Or a sword.  Maybe a guy in a kilt, idk yet.  The third book with Sarvar will have a horse.  Diego, idk yet.  He might actually be the cannon.  The final book will have a series of headstones on it.  Or something to represent the end of the book and the war.  Might have the outline of a flag, draped and torn.  I’ll see. Still depressed btw.  I’m in a terribly mood.  Didn’t exercise yesterday but I will have to today.  I don’t intend to message you, so I’ll be fine.  Going to do a dump run later today, so I have to get out of bed regardless.  Thing is, I’ve been doing all the work thus far (currently 4 am) without that attend pill.  I think later, I’ll take that pill and get started.

I suspect I can get a lot done.  I want to go through your notes, too. I’m trying to also remember that there needs to be more action (your advice).  Now that I’ve written it down, it’ll be easier to remember.  I want to add more substance to Sarvar and Atlas.  Ironic that they’re the two that got switched and they need reworking.  A lot of attention on them. I need to change the setting of the duel.  I can’t remember, but it’s supposed to be winter.  So that means there’s snow in London’s streets.  Or something, idk. I really should start setting dates.  I have some frame of references (such as Avdotya’s birthday being in summer and the escape of that British general from Sweden) so I’ll have to work with the time frame just enough to get prepared for the next book.  Unfortunately, I didn’t start early in 1808 but in the middle.  D’oh! I’ll make it work.  These years were chaotic.  1809 was really Chaotic too.  Thing is, Diego has to be in three battles and one of them is a siege.  After that, he gets exiled from Spain.  Atlas will be in several of those battles but will also be in a few others himself. Probably the most.  In fact, it’s basically everyone gets in battles… The thing is, Diego is technically a commander where as Atlas is a line officer.  Avdotya and Sarvar are frontline troops.  Thus, the perspective of the battles vary from individual soldier to full field scenario.  Avdotya has some super dramatic moments.  I’m exited to write about her.  I love the snow and most her battles are in the snow. I got an idea.  That sea battle.  I should rewrite the chapter to make Atlas a part of the marines on one of the Swedish ships.  More action, right?  That’d be great to.  He’d mostly be standing around and firing when they’re close enough.  That’s a good idea. No one is around to tell me it’s bad so it must be good! ACTION!!!

I also need to explain Diego’s halberdier usage a bit more.  I meant to imply he was using it like a bayonet but I can’t seem to remember if I mentioned that.  Minor thing, can get fixed easily.

Six in the morning.  I just finished creating the covers for the first two books and the bases for the other three.  I don’t want to use too many pictures from the internet (using one thus far for the second book) because I can get sued for using certain images.  That said, I’m going to need to send a picture of a horse to someone to get it on my computer.  Then I can use the image of the horse on the third book.  Halberd could be on the third and the final book will have something just… disheartening.  I don’t want to use a cross but I do want to use headstones.  Then again, that might be too on the nose.  I’ll work on it. Today is Jonny’s birthday. I’m not going to message him though.  Might not have to go to the dump, either.  Because… 9/11.  Government Memorial Day.  Meaning probably won’t be open, idk.  I’m going to use it as an excuse to stay home and not fret.  I’ll end up sleeping here soon.  When I do, I’ll wake up and take my vitamins/pills, do my sets of 25, and then get started editing the book.  I like the new title.  I removed the “The” because I hate how it sounds.  So now it’s… Now that I think about it, I’m fairly certain I won’t be able to be distributed in schools.  Which is fucking DUMB.  Whatever, it’s not hairy butter anyways.  It’s SHATTERED ERA!!!  An era that’s shattered!  WHAAAAAAAAT?!?  SO SUCCESSFUL!!! I hope it is. Honestly, if I write these books and I don’t make it then I don’t know what I’ll do.  Probably kill myself. Not joking, you know how I was with this first book.  You had to blackmail me so I wouldn’t.  Right now, I’ll set a goal.  Second book by the end of 2018.  Series completed by 2020.  That’s my goal and if I fail, I’ll probably kill myself.  I’m taking myself hostage and I’m getting results. I can do it.  I think I could finish the second book by the end of the year if I really tried.  That’s if I didn’t have to edit my current book… I have a lot to do, unfortunately.  So, good thing I set the second book for next year. I want to be a published author by the time I’m 30. I feel like there is a lot of pressure on me.  There is.  There has always been.  I’ve got some push now.  I just need to know where those Attend pills come from and I’ll be set.  Optimism.  :D

Fuck. The dump is still open.  So, in about three hours I have to leave and then I have to meet my dad and mom at the Kopper Kettle.  I’ve shown my mom the cover I made.  She likes it, I think.  Mostly, she just started nagging me about how I need to register my book.  I told her I had to finish editing it first and then she told me I should take an English class. I don’t want schooling.  I don’t think I need it.  It’d probably help but the thing is, I’ve been out of high school since I was 17.  Then I tried community college and dropped out.  There was too much pressure in the household at the time and I felt like I wasted my time.  Haven’t gone since.  I’ve actually avoided it as much as possible. I sent the final work to Adela. I think she’ll like it too.  Currently 6:30 so… it’s time I got some sleep.  At least for two hours.  I’ve been running on so little sleep lately, it’s crazy.  I’ll try to update when I get back from the dump. Kiki is super cuddly right now.  I was holding her and she was loving it. I don’t think she minds being held, provided she’s not upside down.  That’s the problem.  We humans do that automatically because babies are held belly up.  Cats aren’t babies though.  Well, KIKI IS but she isn’t a human baby. That said, I finished the covers for all the books.  Might get sued, fairly certain I will. However, I might be able to pull it off because I edited the images A LOT so they’ll have a hard time proving it’s theirs.  That said, I used eyes for Avdotya, a sword for Atlas, a helmet for Sarvar, a Grenadier badge for Diego, and a rose for the final book (called Perdition).  Perdition also has a white cover to represent a world without color which is would be appropriate for the ending I want. HOLY FUCK!!!  I got a price quote for editing my book by a professional editor.  $4000.  Shit, Dude, I’m in the wrong business.  I should become a book editor.  That is a CRAZY amount of money for something so simple.  Christ.  x.x

Alright, getting ready to go.  I’ll message you when I return.  Love you. <3

That… went poorly.  I got sad at the beginning of the journey when I tried to put on the hat and realized it was too small because you wore it last.  Then I got really sleepy.  It was weird, I wasn’t that sleepy until I was driving.  Might have something to do with those Attend pills?  Idk. Along the way, the tarp ripped.  Then the rope that held the tarp down ripped.  Then it ripped again.  And again.  I had such a hard time, I had to go recollect garbage that had flown into the middle of the road.  I lost my temper again.  I hit my truck so hard, the dash came loose.  Then I hit my truck again while I was fighting with the garbage.  Left a dent. Once I got to the dump, there was a long line.  The lady working the cash register was in training.  It was also Monday meaning garbage built up over the weekend so people are dumping more today than any other day. I got up to the spot, but there wasn’t enough room. Or at least, there wasn’t enough room that I was comfortable with because the rear window was blocked and I couldn’t see so I couldn’t back up safely.  I didn’t have anyone to guide me either.  Really could have used a wingman today.  :/ So… I waited.  Decided it’d help.  I was shaking, I was so upset and frustrated.  I know it doesn’t sound good but I had to collect myself.  Thus, Facebook and waited for room.  Eventually, space opened up and I threw everything away.  The tarp, the cans, the garbage.  Everything.  It didn’t matter what, it was gone. On the way back, I felt… ashamed that I had gotten so upset.  My hand still hurts.  However, today was not easy and it hasn’t been easy at all lately.  You don’t exactly do wonders for my self-esteem right now.  I’m just stressed… frustrated… and this is my only outlet.  On the way back, this was all I was looking forward to. Originally, I was going to go to McDonald’s as I do when I stressed… but lifestyle change.  I wanted a Frappe.  That is basically nothing but sugar.  I considered getting a green tea, but also nothing but sugar.  I decided to just drive home.  My rage had turned to sorrow.  Began to recant everything I did to lose you.  I really don’t deserve a second chance.  :/ I left at 9 and I started writing at 12.  That’s too much time for what I did. My dad just got back.  Not sure from what, but he’s calling me.  I’m not in the mood for it, though.  Allen is also over.  I’m not in the mood for that, either.  My mom wanted to talk to me, but I don’t want to expose myself to Allen right now.  I just need some quiet time to myself.  I’ve had a very rough day and my dad and Allen are the last people I want to talk to right now.

I thought it went well.  Apparently not.  I wonder if those book covers are going to bomb or get me in trouble somehow.  My mom suggested I use her eyes so I wouldn’t get hit with a copyright suit.  I had to tell her that I drew those eyes myself.  Kind of proud of that.

I need new shoes, too.  There are goat heads in them.  Also, they’re literally falling apart.  I was thinking about that as I waited. Started thinking about how we used to go to the mailbox and back and you said I needed shoes that supported me.  You also said we’d get them eventually.  Unfortunately, we didn’t last much longer than that.

I’m afraid of you reading this journal… after everything I’ve said, you’re bound to hate me more.  Why am I trying?  Everything I do ends up a colossal failure.  Speaking of failure, an old business associate of mine died yesterday.  He was 54 years old. Before you feel bad, know I didn’t know him that well and when I first met him he was unprofessional and out of line.  I didn’t have much respect for him but it was weird because everyone else did.

That’s life.  The worst people become successful.  When you try your hardest, you just end up losing yourself.  I wasn’t this bad.  My rage wasn’t so bad.  My depression wasn’t so bad. Ugh… I’m going to stop talking for a little while.  And by that, I mean I’m going to hate myself a bit and associate with my dad and Allen. Fucking fantastic.  Ugh, my neck hurts and I don’t know from what… I realize this as I’m about to stand up.  Again, rough day.  Brb ><

Literally the first thing my dad did was shit on me.  Gee, thanks.

On the way here I nearly drove into oncoming traffic.  Or at least, I was afraid I would have.  I’m not in a good place right now.  Glad I’m leaving.  Of which, I’m leaving on the 30th of this month.  My dad is calling me again.  Appropriate timing to emphasize my point of why I hate it here.

I want to die.  But I can’t.  Not yet.  I wish I could just be left alone for a minute.  I need to escape.

I also need to go to the bathroom but I won’t until Allen has left.

He left.  My dad got me… popcorn balls.  I had to tell him that I cut sugar out of my diet.  He means well.  Of course, he’s also a dick too like previously mentioned, but he means well most of the time.

My mom asked me to move the mirror to the other room.  She told me that she got it for herself but thought that you’d need it more.  I don’t know why but that makes me really sad.  Today is not a good day for me.  My emotions are on a hair trigger right now.  I wish you were here.  I really need you right now.

You hate me for trying… for trying to reconnect.  For trying to get what we once had.  I wish you’d just hear me out.  Fuck me for trying.  Fuck me for doing anything.  I can’t succeed in anything.  Why am I still trying? Ugh… I’m overly emotional.  I’ll stop rambling and spare you my self-pity.  ><

I’ve been having vivid dreams lately.  You were in this one but it wasn’t too important.  It mostly dealt with my rage so it’s for me to remember how it happened.

It’s 11:35.  I woke up like an hour ago thinking it was the next day.  Was getting ready to name this entry and start the next.  I was hearing music and footsteps outside my door and I was just hoping it would go away and I was convinced I was losing my mind. Turns out, my dad is still up.  I feel a little dumb.  Go figure, eh?  I expected it to be like 4 in the morning or something.  I was trying to go back to sleep because I have this kink in my neck that just won’t go away. I feel better today.  I think I was asleep since about 1:30pm?  Hard to say, my last activity was recorded at about 1.  I’m still sleepy, but if my guess is correct, I’ve got a full 8 hours plus another half hour.  Thats if I had to guess, though.

I hate flying by myself.  I asked to leave on the 30th so I could have a chance to see you again.  Ever hopeful, am I right? I wish you could go with me.  It’d make things easier for me.  We could drop you off at Shane’s and I could go back to Adela’s and you could go back to ignoring me.  God, this sucks.  >< There’s just… nothing I can do.  And I’m fairly certain after reading this entry at least, you’ll be convinced not to see me ever again. Not been a good day, not been a good entry.  Regardless, if you still get a chance to read this then you’ll read everything.  All 17,888 words thus far.  Hrm, seems numbers don’t count as words. Whatever…  Only 20 minutes left in the day.  I’ll stop writing for now and get the next entry prepped.  I love you.  Be safe.  <3

[cleopatrarps]

French leader Macron

PARIS (Reuters) – When Emmanuel Macron was gearing up for his presidential campaign in 2016, he set out on an unprecedented “great march” – a door-to-door campaign to hear voters’ grievances in what promised to be a new, more open way of running the country.

FILE PHOTO: French President Emmanuel Macron attends a ceremony to start the construction of the first metro line in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, November 30, 2017. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer/File Photo

A year after his election, things have not turned out that way, and a small but growing number of rank-and-file supporters has voiced frustration at a leadership style that is, by Macron’s own admission, not always inclusive.

Surrounded by a small coterie of close aides, Macron is pushing through a series of contentious reforms with less consultation than is usual even for France, whose 1958 constitution gives the president wide-ranging powers.

The 40-year-old, described by one adviser as a hyperactive who needs little sleep, strongly defends his methods.

“I make absolutely no apology for the verticality of power,” he told literary journal La Nouvelle Revue Française.

“I am proud of the choices that are being made, and I hate the process which means you have to constantly explain the reasoning behind a decision.”

That grates with the likes of Corinne Lepage, a former minister under conservative Jacques Chirac who was one of the first well-known politicians to join Macron’s campaign in 2016.

Initially won over by the ex-minister’s charisma and a promise of doing politics differently, she said Macron’s program was written behind closed doors by the same group of people now in charge at the Elysee.

“What I quickly found embarrassing is the contradiction between the bottom-up approach that was promised and sold to the French, and the reality,” Lepage told Reuters.

“It’s democratic centralism, the Soviet way. Completely vertical. And also very masculine.”

Many grass root supporters, who set up thousands of “En Marche” committees across France during Macron’s campaign, gave up when they realized their ideas did not filter through to Paris, she said.

While there is no sign of Macron changing tack, his popularity ratings have slipped to their lowest point since he took office, with only 40 percent of the population having a favorable opinion of him, according to a recent poll.

Among the reasons for weakening support is people’s perception of an arrogant president worried about looking after the wealthy.

“WE CAN REFORM”

Despite being France’s youngest elected leader, Macron has shown a sure-footed confidence in office so far, backed by a tight group of like-minded administrators – most of them men and dubbed the “Macron Boys”, although there are women too.

Overseen by Alexis Kohler – who like Macron is an alumnus of the elite administrative school ENA and worked in the private sector – the core group of around a dozen members is responsible for driving the reform program.

It has done so at breakneck speed.

FILE PHOTO: France’s President Emmanuel Macron gestures during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland January 24, 2018. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo

In just a year, Macron has made hiring and firing easier, slashed a wealth tax, launched an overhaul of the education system, unveiled plans to cut the number of lawmakers and confronted unions with a reform of the debt-laden railways.

More is in the pipeline.

“It’s started like a sprint but will soon turn into a marathon,” Kohler, 45, told Reuters in his gilded office, one room away from the president’s.

“We’re making plans rather far into 2018, even beyond that. We’re working on the basis that we’ll have the capacity to reform,” he said.

That confidence – in a country where governments have long been forced to water down or scrap reforms in the face of political opposition and protests – comes from a centralization of power that is down as much to men as institutions.

Macron, who wrote his undergraduate philosophy dissertation on Renaissance Italian diplomat Machiavelli famed for his chilling guide to holding power, has ensured competing voices do not easily emerge.

He has capped the number of advisers ministers can have to 10, reducing their autonomy. When Macron was economy minister, he had 25 advisers.

Ministers also allow their press interviews to be proof-read by the Elysee – sometimes by Macron himself.

Many members of the cabinet are technocrats still widely unknown to the public. The prime minister, a former conservative mayor, has had to share advisers – often Macron loyalists – with the president.

Streamlined decision making goes hand-in-hand with tight control of the message, as an occurrence at the Elysee Palace in May last year underlined.

Kohler, Macron’s most trusted adviser, wanted to ensure that French company Alstom was not sidelined by a proposed plan by German industrial giant Siemens to merge part of its operations with Canadian rival Bombardier.

Any such merger could have left Alstom, the maker of TGV high-speed trains, isolated and weakened.

“I need three months without any leaks,” Kohler told the president’s press adviser, according to a person present.

Unusually for such high-stakes cross-border deals, nothing leaked until the day a Siemens-Alstom merger was announced by the two companies four months later.

Perhaps surprisingly for a president hailed as a savior of progressive values in Europe and elsewhere, Macron’s office also announced it would move the press room – a symbol of transparency and accountability – out of the Elysee.

Slideshow (8 Images)

    Macron’s “special adviser” Ismael Emelien has developed a communications strategy using Twitter and Facebook Live to cut out the media and produce slick snippets of presidential life.

LURCH TO THE RIGHT?

Shortly after his election, Macron was given a huge parliamentary majority thanks to an electoral system specifically designed by post-war leader Charles de Gaulle to maximize presidential independence from parliament.

His lawmakers, many of them newcomers to politics, have diligently passed reforms sent their way, often via legal decrees meant to speed up debate.

For investors, the ability to deliver a modernizing program is positive for the French economy and wider euro zone.

But Macron’s controlling style is not without risk.

Rivals and a handful of allies warn that the electorate could turn to populist parties in 2022 presidential elections if they feel their voices are not being heard by the presidency.

Although Macron’s majority remains solid, some supporters, mostly hailing from the left, feel he has lurched to the right and bypassed parliament.

A particularly divisive immigration bill, which critics said was too tough and jarred with Macron’s pro-refugee stance during campaigning, showed one of the first cracks in his support.

One Macron lawmaker voted against it and 14 abstained.

The defector, former Socialist Jean-Michel Clement, said there was a risk that France was drifting toward a situation where “parliamentary control is non-existent”.

“Why was I the only one to vote against this bill when everyone thought it was a bad one? Because they’re not answering the question,” he told Reuters.

“Does that mean the executive branch has a stranglehold on the legislative branch? I think it does,” he said.

And a draft constitutional reform to cut the number of lawmakers will tip the balance of power even more toward the president and the government and weaken parliament, he added.

The stakes are high: if voters conclude that Macron is merely the latest in a line of mainstream politicians that have let them down, that could benefit more extremist forces.

“The most disappointed ones won’t give their vote to the president twice. When you have Marine Le Pen at 21 percent and Jean-Luc Melenchon at 20 percent, anything can happen tomorrow,” said Clement.

Le Pen leads the far-right Front National party and Melenchon represents the far-left.

Advisers shrug off such criticism.

“He (Macron) says Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande’s big mistake has been to try to mother the French,” one top adviser said, referring to the previous two presidents.

“You have to accept the paternal side of the office, with all the unpopularity that it implies. Because a father is also a hated figure.”

Writing by Michel Rose; additional reporting by John Irish, Noah Barkin, Emmanuel Jarry, Elizabeth Pineau; Editing by Mike Collett-White

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