#the violation short film

[readthephible]

today’s obsession has been on the short film - the violation (2013) that shayne is in. i am so curious, is this like forbidden knowledge for the fandom? or does everyone know and i have moved on? i have BARELY seen anyone talk about it even with google searches from years ago, as well as shayne. i don’t know if this is like something he doesn’t want brought up or doesn’t want to be associated with or he genuinely forgot or what. i just hope this isn’t the vday video equivalent for the smosh fandom??? like we’ve seen him and cast mention icarly, goldbergs, so random, etc. but i don’t know if this has never been brought up because it’s just a short film or if he doesn’t want it to be. i was thinking about making like analysis of the film, arrow feral-teeth and i have been talking about it all day with like parallels and symbolism and how it shows shayne’s character as a person that he was willing to play this role, but i can barely find any information!

[megasceptile001]

slowly recovering from my self doubt

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

Enigma - Return to Innocence 1994

"Return to Innocence" is a song by German new-age worldbeat musical experiment project Enigma, released in 1994 as the lead single from their second studio album, The Cross of Changes (1993). It reached number one in over 10 countries, peaked at number three on the UK Singles Chart, and entered the top five in several other countries. "Return to Innocence" was the project's biggest hit in the US, reaching number two on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and number four on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video, which depicts a man's life in reverse, received heavy rotation on European music channels. The song was used to promote several types of media in the mid-1990s, including film and TV commercials. In autumn 1994, the song was featured in an episode of the TV show My So-Called Life. In 1996, the song was further popularised when it was used in a television advertisement to promote the 1996 Summer Olympics.

The song's melodic and talking vocals in English are provided by Angel X (Andreas Harde), and a short talking vocal by German pop singer Sandra, while an Amis chant ("Weeding and Paddyfield Song No. 1") is repeated, which opens the song. Difang and Igay Duana, from the Amis (an indigenous Austronesian ethnic group native to Taiwan), were in a cultural exchange program in Paris in 1988 when their performance of the song was recorded by the Maison des Cultures du Monde and later distributed on CD. The producer of Enigma, Michael Cretu, later obtained the CD and proceeded to sample it. In addition, the drum beat of the song was sampled from the Led Zeppelin song "When the Levee Breaks", played by John Bonham.

In March 1998, Difang and Igay sued Cretu, Virgin Records and a number of recording companies for unauthorised use of their song without credit. The case was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount of money and all further releases of the song were credited (including royalties) to the Duanas. Cretu has stated that he had been led to believe that the recording was in the public domain and that he did not intentionally violate the Duanas' copyright.

"Return to Innocence" received a total of 57,2% yes votes.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Horror

Horror is a genre within creative writing that relies on one thing: instilling a sense of fear in the reader.

The horror genre is multifaceted—there is a kind of horror for every kind of person.

For some, the most effective scare is the idea of being trapped in a haunted house. For others, it’s being chased by a serial killer on Halloween.

Some of the best horror comes from scary things that can manipulate an audience’s feelings, creating a sensation of uneasiness and fear that stretches beyond consciousness and permeates deep within the psyche.

Horror writing is sometimes categorized within the broader category of thrillers, but not all horror follows the thriller structure.

Classic horror fiction—whether expressed as a novel, novella, short story, or film—will tap into topics that reliably frighten most humans.

Common topics include ghosts, werewolves, vampires, zombies, serial killers, murderers, and the fear of the unknown.

These horror tropes can often devolve into clichés.

A downside of horror’s popularity is that many horror books and movies recycle old content in non-creative ways, but when properly executed, horror stories can thrill audiences and even provide commentary on the human condition.

Horror Subgenres

1. Apocalyptic - In this subgenre, the world is ending or society is collapsing. When this happens, it’s usually because of some creature, demon, or religious event (while climate-oriented apocalypses are more sci-fi).

2. Body Horror - Involves the mutilation, experimentation, or violation of the human body. It can focus on disease, dismemberment, infestation, sexual acts, or a complete transformation of the physical form.

3. Comedy - Horror and comedy seem so at odds with each other, but they work so well together (kind of like spice and chocolate). A trademark of comedy horror is how the protagonist somewhat stumbles through the story, arriving at the end through luck and ridiculous happenstance rather than skill or growth.

4. Cosmic/Lovecraftian - With its origins largely attributed to H.P. Lovecraft, cosmic horror makes us feel small against a threat that is ancient, massive, and incomprehensible. Cosmic horror looks at intergalactic entities, ancient gods, the machinations of the universe, and how helpless we are against it all.

5. Dark Fantasy - Another crossover, this time with the fantasy genre. In dark fantasy, you have elements of magic, fictional creatures or worlds, and everything else that makes fantasy great, plus you add in a good dose of scares. This can also involve other subgenres, like body horror.

6. Dark Romance - Another crossover genre, dark romance takes the feel-good romance genre and makes it horrific. While this subgenre can simply include morally questionable characters and a grittier tone than most romance, it can also include kidnapping, forced confinement, BDSM, psychological and physical abuse, and sexual violence or sex where there is no consent. Bear in mind that it still needs to include the tenants of romance stories, though.

7. Extreme Gore - Not for the faint of heart, this subgenre includes books that have detailed torture scenes or otherwise disturbing and depraved acts. This genre is all about shocking your audience with how awful your characters act or are treated.

8. Folk Horror - Embraces urban legends and folktales. These range from old pagan gods in the woods to weird rituals performed by isolated groups or villages. Sometimes there is a supernatural element to them, even if the “supernatural” is simply perceived or believed by some characters (e.g., Midsommar).

9. Found Footage/Documentaries - Though this subgenre is more common in films than books, found footage and documentary horror stories are about a crew of people recording their experiences, usually unaware of the true danger they are about to face.

10. Gothic - The great-grandparent of modern horror, gothic horror is the brooding, atmospheric genre containing what most of us would consider classics (e.g., Dracula and Frankenstein). Sometimes you throw in a dash of romance, but these tales tackle topics like death and mortality.

11. Post-Apocalyptic - After some world-ending disaster, how horrifying have things become? Post-apocalyptic horror shows us a world without rules or structure. It can contain unrealistic elements (zombies, demons, etc.) or realistic possibilities (cannibals, gangs, and so on).

12. Psychological - Places the spotlight on trauma, mental health, manipulation, phobias, and everything else that causes you to become stressed and anxious. Home invasion stories (i.e., The Strangers) fall under this subgenre.

13. Slasher - Involves violent horror that is more about a single killer stalking and eventually killing a group of people (traditionally targeting teens and using a blade). This subgenre isn’t necessarily as violent or gory as others, but uses suspense to make the reader hold their breath.

14. Splatterpunk - Is known for its disregard of limits when it comes to violence—both physical and sexual. Gore and depravity are grossly abundant.

15. Supernatural/Paranormal - Some folks separate these two subgenres into different categories, but there is so much overlap that they’re basically the same. If you have to, think of supernatural horror as stories that involve werewolves, witches, vampires, and other monsters. Paranormal horror, on the other hand, involves ghosts, demons, and haunted houses.

Tips for Writing Horror

1. Read more horror. There’s no better way to understand what a good story looks like than to read one for yourself. Read as much as you can so you are aware of what other horror writers are doing.

2. Focus on your own fears. Much like comedy, horror benefits from authenticity. So get personal: If you can scare yourself, you can probably scare an audience.

3. Create three-dimensional characters. Write characters whose character flaws feed the action of the story. All good literature and film contains well-wrought characters with desires, emotions, and a backstory. The more human you make the characters of your story or screenplay, the more their missteps and bad choices will resonate with an audience.

4. Recognize that the real can be scarier than the surreal. Sure, you can make up an army of googly-eyed bad guys or plant a severed head in your main character’s bed, but will you really scare your reader? Not necessarily. In most cases, psychological horror sticks with audiences far longer than a jump scare or gross-out moment in a slasher film. Toying with people’s real-life fears tends to scare them much more than just grossing them out.

5. Use the environment. Scary movies and television shows can use jump-scares as an easy way to frighten an audience, but writing scary literature requires its own method of manifesting fear. Setup your environment in a vivid way to fully immerse your readers into your setting. Vividly describing an enclosed space can elicit feelings of claustrophobia. A dark and quiet house becomes more frightening when a character suddenly hears the creak of an upstairs floorboard. Being an outsider in an unfamiliar place, like a small town with no cell phone service and where everyone knows each other, is already unsettling—and if you add a malicious paranormal force to such a setting, you can enhance the feeling of isolation and ramp up the anxiety of the scenario.

6. Write longer sentences. You can heighten your readers’ fear by writing paragraphs with longer sentences. Periods provide natural pauses for readers to take a breath, but if you stretch out your sentences, you build anticipation for the reader—which they might not even realize until they reach the end of the sentence. By using tactics like this, you immerse the reader into your horror story, making them feel what the main character feels and creating a heart-pounding connection.

7. Make your readers breathe faster. Whereas long sentences can amplify the intensity of a story, short one-sentence paragraphs can force your readers to take more frequent breaths while following your narrative. Crafting abrupt lines builds tension in your scary story writing, making the readers’ eyes move more quickly down the page searching for the relief that the protagonist is safe. This can make your audience breathe faster, contributing to the feeling of panic and anxiety.

8. Leverage fear of the unknown. Fear of the unknown is a common theme that can be tracked throughout many of the best stories in horror fiction and horror movies. When there is something that negatively affects us that we cannot control or properly identify, it creates a feeling of panic and dread. Teasing your readers with something not quite definable or a bad guy no one knows how to stop can increase the level of tension and fear when writing horror stories.

9. Lean into dark imagery and your readers’ collective imagination. Consider what images might be frightening to a reader (and yourself). How much of a description of a clown do you need in order to make a reader feel uneasy? How large and grotesque does a rat need to be? Leaving some of these images more general than specific will allow a reader to fill in the blanks with what is most horrifying to them. Example: If you read the word beast, what do you see in your imagination? Most words carry connotations and personal connections. Allow your words to work for you to create the maximum scare.

10. Want tension? Sprinkle in some foreshadowing. Foreshadowing is a powerful tool in your writing arsenal, but it is particularly effective in horror, especially when writing in third person. Foreshadowing is when an author alludes to a future event by showing us something now. The key to foreshadowing is to use it sparingly. We want to up the tension and the fear our readers are experiencing while they yell at the oblivious protagonist not to open the door. We don’t want the reader to know every single thing that’s going to happen. 

11. Focus on the moment where things shift. You should consider a pivotal scene in your story idea and try to build around that scene or that moment where the plot actually “shifts.” Sometimes that could be reflected in a realization by the protagonist. Other times it can be represented in some type of ironic twist at the end. By looking at that singular element of your story idea, you cut away the fat so that the reader is left only with the most resonant part of the story.

12. Establish the mundane. Mundane is just a fancy way of saying normal, but the message still rings true. Most story structures tell you to start by establishing the Ordinary World: what our protagonist’s normal life is like. This is important for showing us how important the larger conflict is, because it threatens the protagonist’s normal. In horror, establishing the mundane is arguably more important. In a story where connecting with the character and empathizing with them over the godawful stuff you, the author, put them through, the reader needs to understand just how bad life has gotten. Then you can take both your characters and your reader from a place of comfort and familiarity and plunge them into whatever shadowy hell you’ve concocted.

13. Choosing your POV. By choosing to write your story from a first-person perspective, you are putting the reader exactly where your character is. There are 2 types of third-person POV—limited and omniscient. It is advisable to stay away from omniscient. Part of writing a good horror story is withholding information from the reader, which third-person omniscient doesn’t really allow for. Considering the pros and cons of the different points of view, choose the right one for your story.

14. Avoid clichés. Clichés are boring and predictable, and a horror scene that is predictable is likely to not be scary. A good horror story can still use familiar horror tropes, but a great horror story makes them its own. Look beyond the obvious when trying to write a scary scene—what is something readers wouldn’t expect? How can you surprise them with fear? Use enough of the existing tropes to be identifiable as horror, but make sure you insert your own originality into the mix. One of the reasons people gravitate to genres in general is because they have certain expectations for what should happen in the story. Look for ways to flip archetypes on their heads.

15. Practice. If you’re struggling to get a handle on writing a good story that’s scary, practice with story prompts (see some sample prompts below). Writing prompts can expand your range of thinking and open up new avenues of imagination that you hadn’t thought of before.

Horror Writing Prompts

A scary doll comes to life.

A scene from a nightmare comes true the next day.

Days go by, and your parents don’t come home.

You feel yourself slowly becoming a monster.

Your friends start to disappear, and no one else notices.

You’re lost in the woods, and you don’t know how you got there.

You’re inhabited by a ghost that controls you and makes you do crazy things.

You have no reflection in the mirror.

The teacher is a monster, but no one will believe you.

You hypnotize your brother, and you can’t snap him out of it.

A fortune teller reveals that you are evil.

Someone follows you home, and it’s your exact double.

You find a diary that tells the future.

Every time you wake up, you’re a different person.

Your parents explain that you are actually an alien from another planet.

You know someone is watching you day and night from the house across the street.

You realize you are shrinking.

While reading a scary book, you realize that you’re a character in it.

Someone is living in your mirror.

Everyone knows the new neighbors are vampires, and the kids invite you over for a sleepover.

All the cats in a small town vanish in the middle of the night….and all that remains is a set of big, scary teeth smashed into a car door.

A group of friends takes on the zombie apocalypse.

Strange things start happening after the grandfather clock starts to speak.

You finally meet your child’s imaginary friend. Who turns out to be a serial killer.

When a local police officer goes to investigate the haunted house down the street, he finds a young girl who died decades ago.

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 6 ⚜ Writing Notes & References

[obsessivevoidkitten]

At the Movies

Male Alpha Yandere x Transfem Omega Reader

CW: Noncon, extortion, coercion, cum licking, panty sniffing, a/b/o dynamics, stalking, general yandere behavior, musk, pheromones, knotting

Word Count: 866

(I had a dream that this happened to me last night and decided to write it as a story. Not beta read. Sorry for errors. I don't think transfem readers are really catered to that often, so hopefully some people feel represented without feeling fetishized in this. <3)

You were an omega. You had decided to go see a movie by yourself because the theater was playing old classic horror films every night this week. This was the first time since coming out as a trans woman that you had been out in public and you were extremely nervous. You had worked very hard on your makeup and had put on a cute skirt. Though you had a lot of anxiety, you also felt more yourself than you ever had before.

It was a Monday night and still a bit early, so there was no one else viewing the same movie that you were. You picked a good spot to watch from and settled in with your popcorn and drink. After a few good minutes, you felt more and more comfortable, until halfway through the film, you heard someone come in.

You didn't pay the person any attention until they were close enough for you to catch their scent. You recognised who it belonged to immediately. Your stalker, Shaun. He was a persistent alpha who had been after you for months. A total creep who thought you were meant to belong to him.

By the time you could smell him, he was already too close for you to escape. He sat down beside you and grabbed your wrist so you couldn't get away. With his other hand, he muffled your mouth so you couldn't scream. He leaned close, and his scent made you dizzy.

"Sorry I'm late for our date. I had to pick up Mr. Sir Squiggles."

Your blood ran cold. Mr. Sir Squiggles was your beloved hamster. The implication was clear. Stop struggling, or else he'd do something to your pet.

"Don't look so horrified, baby. I'd never hurt our pet. But I have custody, so if you want to see him, you'll have to do what I want with you and move in with me."

Shaun sounded so smug. He knew he had finally won. His romantic advances had failed, so why not keep your pet hostage? You cried silently and nodded so he knew you understood what you had to do. He released you from his grip and pulled you close with his arm around you. His pheromones were suffocating, and you could smell how aroused he was.

After a while, he noticed you shaking with nervousness but misinterpreted it as you being cold.

"You look cold, here~"

"N-no I'm fine." You sputtered.

He ignored you and draped you in his sweaty jacket. It did nothing to soothe your anxiety though his musl did make your body betray you in a humiliating fashion. Your cock was hard and slick was starting to leak from your ass. He could smell it as soon as it happened.

"Well I was going to wait until we got home, but if my girl needs it now, I'd be neglectful if I said no."

The tip of his cock was already visible poking out the leg of his shorts as he reached under your skirt and rubbed your soft thighs before ripping off your panties. He brought the tattered underwear to his nose and inhaled deeply before stuffing it into his pocket for later. You had to suppress the urge to run away and just let it happen.

Shaun pulled his shorts down enough for his eager prick to bounce free. Then he hitched up your skirt and pulled you on his lap, lowering you on his length in one smooth motion.

"I fit so well~ you were made for my cock."

You whimpered but he shushed you and kissed up your neck.

"Shhh, relax. Just watch your movie and enjoy my cock."

You tried to focus on the movie, to focus on anything but this gross violation. But it was impossible with him sliding so deeply into you while claiming, biting, and kissing your sensitive neck over and over. Je began to gently stroke your weeping cock. You couldn't help but moan softly as his knot swelled and brought you to orgasm. Your insides clenched and throbbed around his dick and finally made him drain his balls into you. He took the cum you spilled into his hand and smeared it on your lips before licking it off.

Shaun held you tight in his lap while waiting for his knot to stop swelling so that the two of you could uncouple. You panted and blankly watched the film while not really watching it as your head was overloaded with all that had just transpired. Occasionally, Shaun would kiss your neck gently or rub your legs in what he thought was a soothing manner.

Every once in a while, he'd whisper praise softly into your ear.

"You're so good at taking me."

"You look so pretty in a skirt."

"You're such a good girl."

When the movie ended, and when his knot decided to dislodge itself from your rear, Shaun led you out of the theater and into his car, cum slowly dripping down your legs the entire time. You were a mess, but too numb to really pay attention or care, but that was okay. Your new alpha boyfriend would take care of you.

[loves4ge]

celebrity!au, mlist for more celebrity gojo

you're not sure what to do with gojo satoru. not after your agent asks if you'd be in a publicity stunt centered around him. you've never done one before; after all, you're only an up-and-coming star.

before this movie, you were considered a nobody, just someone to fill in the background. you'd heard horror stories, absolute bloodbaths on set, rumors of things that happened that violated the geneva conventions. you suppose you were lucky to end up starring in a movie with a cast that was nothing short of nice.

and then there's gojo, your on-screen love interest. an a-list celebrity. he's been on the cover of every major magazine at least once. and maybe you sort of admire him (you'd never tell him that; his ego is already through the roof). i mean, who could blame you?

but right now, you're rethinking everything. sure, you're an actor, and a pretty darn good one, but you're inexperienced. your heart hasn't been hardened by the industry yet. if you take this opportunity, you know you'll get absolutely wrecked. really? fake dating gojo satoru?

your agent looks at you expectantly. "we won't go through with it if you don't want to. we're only doing this because of sukuna's dui, but the publicity team can come up with something else."

you don't really like sukuna; he has scary eyes. but there's something warm about him when he interacts with yuji. you feel bad.

"i'll do it."

BREAKING NEWS: GOJO SATORU AND CO-STAR Y/N ANNOUNCE THEY'RE DATING A WEEK BEFORE THE RELEASE OF THEIR NEW MOVIE.

"that's a wordy headline, isn't it?" gojo mutters, mostly to himself, as he sips on an iced latte. it's so white, it could be mistaken for milk.

"show me?" you ask softly, seated across from him in the mostly empty cafe. the paparazzi are obvious with their pictures, and you both strategically sit in places where you can be photographed.

gojo flips his phone around to show the article, stilling when your fingers brush against his hand as you take the phone from him. he shakes it off quickly and returns to his latte.

"oh wow, this is ridiculous. they think i've been dating you since the start of filming." you look up at him with big, round eyes and a smile as soft as clouds (gojo isn't sure where that analogy comes from; he's never touched a cloud).

"well, is it really that ridiculous?" his murmur is low as he leans back in his chair. he thought you were pretty from the start. did he come off as arrogant? oh no, now he'll never stop thinking about this.

"hm?" you look up, since you didn't hear his murmur clearly. he waves you off. and then you remember.

"um, you know, oh i feel so awkward saying this," your hesitation makes him straighten. his eyes are narrowed in concern, hands reaching out in comfort but never quite touching you.

"you can tell me anything, you know that," he says, maintaining eye contact with you which is hard considering you're trying to look anywhere but him.

"i was just, i know we have to kiss... at some point. but i would just, erm, i would like a heads up before. oh, well, before you do kiss me." gojo felt his heart explode about three times in the time it took you to finish that sentence. and his grin doubled. it stretched ear to ear like a goddamn cheshire cat.

you were still looking down, fidgeting with your hands when gojo dragged his chair to be nearer to you.

"hey? this is the heads up by the way." you barely have any time to react. you're about to protest, say something, anything when his lips touch yours.

it's a gentle touch. you've kissed him before, on set, but never like this. yeah, this is a performance too but it felt too real. there's no director counting down to time the kiss and the cameras are too far away for you to even notice them.

his hands tighten against your waist, and yours somehow make it to the back of his neck. then upwards, in his hair. he bites your lower lip, and you gasp, almost pulling back but he pulls you back in harder. this time his kiss is not so gentle.

the press is gonna have a field day with this.

[architectureandfilmblog]

"Settlement" housing surveys and dominates the landscape, West Bank, Palestine

THE ARCHITECTURE OF VIOLENCE (2014)

It feels like an important time to revisit this short documentary. Part of the Rebel Architecture series, the film examines, clearly and concisely, the use of design as a weapon of intimidation and subjugation within the Palestine Israel conflict.  One element it focuses on is Palestine's 'architecture of occupation': the way the built environment, even in the form of suburban 'settlement' housing (in which tracts of Israeli homes have been built in occupied territories like the West Bank), has been deliberately shaped to intimidate, surveil, segregate, and even dehumanise.

"Settlements are built on hilltops, overlooking Palestinian valleys, to dominate. They're laid out to create a suburban-scale optical device that can survey the territory. The bright red roofs of the houses are mandated by law... to allow military to understand what's friend and foe: where to bomb and where not to."

"...When you put Israeli colonies on highways, you accelerate Israeli movement through the space. In the same way, with every twist and turn of terrain, Palestinians encounter a checkpoint, a border, a fence, a valley they cannot cross..."

It's important for architects and urban designers everywhere to understand that our craft has the potential to be weaponised. It's important that, no matter whom the client, we think about how a project will impact everyone whose life it touches.  But sadly, as essential as these considerations are, they're of no immediate help to civilians from both sides who are suffering in Gaza and the rest of Palestine and Israel right now. So, it seems worth sharing:

Some ways that we can help:

1. Speak up. Send an email to your elected representative. Sign petitions. Stand up in any forum you can against human rights violations, and against both islamaphobic and antisemitic behaviour.

2. Contribute to a trusted aid organisation working in Gaza, such as Unicef or the British Red Cross. Sites like  charitynavigator and charitychecker can be used to check it's a group who'll use it well.

3. Understand the context. Short videos here and here provide a clear introduction/overview.

4. Boycott companies that are directly profiting from the illegal occupation, and from human rights violations.

(Images: Ronen Zvulun/Reuters via Guardian, Léopold Lambert/Funambulist)

[thejollywriter]

IT'S TIME TO LAUNCH THE BOOK

WELCOME FRIENDS, TO THE BEGINNING OF AN ADVENTURE! Allow me to introduce to you, DELILAH JONES; free-lance Robin Hood and bad-ass extraordinaire.

In the cyberpunk future of The Redwood Files, Delilah Jones is half film-noire private detective, and half western-gunslinger, who rides into a lawless town and fights the bullies and the bastards that hurt innocent folks.

This anthology contains SIX, count 'em SIX short stories and novellas detailing Delilah's Adventures.

Through a Dream, Lethally; When tech CEO Michael Lense decides to hijack the soft-RAM in his employees heads in order to make people do his bidding, things can get awful, FAST. Being forced, without your consent, to be an assassin or a thief or a sex worker, and more. But Lense also has the city under-thumb. Only Delilah's got the brute force to break Lense's control, and free the city from his cruel influence.

Happy Endings, Guaranteed; Delilah has a partner, and after a long day of nonsense, is looking forward to visiting them at work to unwind. Only to get to the club where her partner works, and discover that they've been KIDNAPPED! Delilah races around the city, squaring up with every underworld hard-ass she comes across following every lead to find her partner. Except nothing is what it seems, and a simple (but tragic) kidnapping turns out to be way more nefarious than Delilah expected. . .

Delilah's Heart; recovering from the last adventure weeks later, Delilah meets a handsome butch at a dive bar. Things between the two show promise, but the butch gets called back to work by an abusive bastard who violates and exploits his employees. The butch asks Delilah for help, and as she digs into it, discovers a deeply connected mafia bookmaker who uses that underground protection to kill and exploit people without fear of consequences. Delilah's the only one who can bring justice down on this bastard, but it threatens a gang war if she does. . .

Gutter Medicine; a gang of outta-town skinheads robs an impoverished clinic in a rough neighborhood. Delilah digs into the theft, and promises to recover the medicine, only to discover that the outta-towners are stirring up trouble to pave the way for an invasion from the South. A Kingpin from Los Angeles is hungry for expansion, and Redwood is fertile ground. Unless Delilah can stop the gang, and convince the Kingpin it'd be too expensive to expand beyond the safe borders of LA.

Restitution; Delilah's robbing a rich billionaire's museum-like mansion one night when she's caught by an unlikely sentry, a very old man who'd had plans of trying to embarrass the billionaire for reneging on a deal, and leaving the old man destitute. Delilah invites him to tell his story, and she volunteers to see justice done, according to Delilah's exacting standards.

In a Name?; every trans person's name comes from a personal place and an intimate choice. This story is about a young thief, with big dreams and a hard head, how she picked her name, and the day she was reborn into Delilah-fucking-Jones.

These stories have literally been years in the making. Some of them are personal, all of them are personal favorites, and this anthology is a collection I've worked very hard on.

Genre fiction is deeply important to me, and I love bringing queer characters to this space. Every story published in this book appeared first, both as ideas and in rough-and-final drafts on my patreon.

HERE'S HOW TO BUY AND SUPPORT THE QUEER NOVELIST IN QUESTION!

my ko-fi store: this is the most direct way to support me (a disabled queer novelist) and I get the biggest cut if you buy the e-book from this source

AMAZON! you want a paperback, YOU GOT A PAPERBACK

and lastly, if you want to see my writing in advance, get your name in the credits, or get special copies in advance, my patreon

thank you for your support, and happy reading <3

[mutable-manifestation]

Ghost Chirps AU Part 5

Part 1 & 2

Part 3

Part 4

***

While “Jason” (i.e. Alfred with an empty jet that Jason will meet up with later in order to “arrive” in Amity) hops a private jet, Red Hood is busy searching the Fenton home from top to bottom.

The local police move slowly, and by the time they arrive Jack and Maddie Fenton are both tied up and disarmed in their living room under heavy guard.

They hadn’t been restrained immediately, Batman talking him into giving them a chance to implicate themselves first.

Hood let him take the lead, but he didn’t even get a chance to ask a question, being cut off at the first indication he might want to talk about their “work.” Less than 60 seconds in, and the pair had outright confessed to violating the meta protection acts - and in tedious detail.

The questioning didn’t suffer any from them being tied up.

Far from the mulish silence or crocodile-tear laden denial of most criminals, they instead doubled down, insisting that nothing they had done was illegal, then jumping to the assumption that they were “possessed” - and boy had it been a nasty surprise when the whole house came alive trying to attack them with a quick verbal command.

Well, trying to attack Hood. And only him, for some reason.

One laser also freed the Fentons, who turned out to have even more weapons built into their suits. 

Somehow. 

Despite them being skintight.

That had been a pain, but Red Robin was able to hack the system using one of the couples’ own devices while Hood dodged - and kept the stray fire away from the others - leaving everyone else to recapture the pair. A blessedly simple task once they found out the lasers would splash harmlessly off of their armor (save for a gross film of green goop left wherever they grazed).

They take turns knocking each unconscious to change them in order to properly disarm them - Batman and Nightwing taking Jack first, followed by Orphan and Spoiler dealing with Maddie. 

The only non-weapon laden clothing they own turns out to be pajamas. 

This is around when the police show up, looking hesitant.

They, too, cite the “Anti-Ecto Acts.”

Oracle had debriefed them on the supposed Acts and “Ghost Investigation Ward” on their short drive over. Both were utterly bogus - the Acts had never even been proposed, let alone been approved as law, and the so-called “GIW” had no ties to the government.

The Fentons had been furious and denied the information intensely when told, but the cops mostly just looked relieved.

Apparently there’d been a lot of property damage by the GIW and Fentons both that had supposedly been dismissed under the Acts as “necessary in the pursuit of ecto-scum.”

For the Fentons, half of this damage was in the form of broken fire hydrants, cracked sidewalks, and totaled cars - they’d never been good drivers, before, the cops disclosed, but they’d become even more negligent since the ghosts began appearing, to the point they had to have a news segment warning when they would be on the road.

The lack of fatalities thus far had been nothing short of a miracle, they claimed.

“Of course there haven’t been any fatalities!” Mrs Fenton defends. “Our work is to protect people from those things, not make more! Officers, listen to reason-” Hood snorts disdainfully -”The Red Hood is clearly a ghost! All our systems targeted him the moment they came online - and they only target ecto-entities. He’s clearly taken these heroes under his sway - why else would they be working with a murderer!? You have to do something before he starts up his killing here in Amity!”

The officers look at him a bit hesitantly, but Batman is unmoved and gives the cover story Hood had outlined back in the alley.

Any concerns the locals have are quickly assuaged.

But for the whole explanation, Jason is trying not to shake even as he falls apart in place.

Their little website called them ghost-hunters, making it pretty clear what “ecto-entities” meant. 

Their system supposedly only targets ecto-entities.

The system had only targeted him.

The system only targets ghosts.

Jason had died.

A lot of his family members had died, too, granted. 

But Jason was the only one who seemed to come back wrong - anger sticking in his throat and never quite fading, an inclination towards violence even when he wasn’t angry well beyond what he’d ever felt before, and a sea of other emotions (that he would never acknowledge aloud) and triggers for those emotions that he always struggled to make heads or tails of.

He doesn’t have the meta gene. He knows that. He knew that.

He just assumed that the test missed it, because he knows he doesn’t know magic - the All Blades being the only exception - and he couldn’t think of another explanation at the time.

But he came back wrong.

And as he stands there, he wonders if he came back at all, mind on Solomon Grundy.

Wonders if he isn’t just some ghost, wandering around possessing his own corpse.

He jolts, as the thought strikes him: what about Danny?

If he’s a ghost and chirping is a ghost thing then what about his KID!?

Absently, he notes that Bruce has started interrogating the cops on what they meant by “ghost attacks.” 

He ignores the discussion, hustling for the door in the kitchen down to the lab.

He slams and locks the door behind him - in Red Robin’s face - as he descends, making a b-line for the computer he’d seen when the Fentons had dragged them all down there to start bragging about their crimes.

The only thing Oracle could get out of the whole building was things that were openly available online; direct connections were impossible.

Opening up the screen, he gets to cracking.

Going for the surface level files first, it turns out he doesn’t even need so much as a password to find what he wants.

One of the video game sub-files has an unrelated file in it: ghost notes.

There are plenty of other notes, of course, but he’d only been skimming to start, looking for anything hidden.

The Fenton parents were too open to bother, of course, with plenty of more obvious files strewn haphazardly across the home screen, but it’s always better to check. That there is a hidden file means it was likely made by either Danny or Jazz.

And it’s a treasure trove.

Sub-files for rogues, allies, conditional allies, and “halfas” were what greeted him.

The last being the only term he didn’t recognize, he clicked.

6 files: Clones, Danny, Dani, Dan, Vlad, and Red Hood.

He clicks his own file.

What greets him is a picture of himself 4 days ago, looking just to the left of the lens in an alley that he distinctly remembers searching for the kid in.

Just below is text.

~~~

??? Name: Red Hood

Species: probably a halfa

Status: Nnnneutral? I think? I know, I know, heads in bags. But Valerie tries to kill me all the time! And we’re allies sometimes! Hood- uh- looked for me? Okay I guess I can’t really judge this yet but please read the first met section before you judge please you guys?

First met: Aug 17, 2005, was in Gotham to bother Batman, stopped to think a bit on some fire escape - decide on the first prank yknow - but then my ghost sense went off. It felt like a halfa so I thought “oh cool, must be Dani” so I chirped, but then Red Hood - who was chasing some guy down an alley at the time - froze and looked around. I dropped visibility and chirped again and yeah, he definitely heard it. Humans can’t so he’s definitely a halfa - no glow so he can’t be a full ghost and it felt nothing like an overshadowing. 

Ended up following Hood around the rest of week - forgot to prank Batman, damn - and playing hide-and-seek with the chirps. It was really funny. But he very obviously doesn’t know he’s a halfa. But the guy is, like, scary levels of smart, so I’m sure he’ll figure it out on his own now that the chirp thing made it clear that something is up. Hopefully.

I figure I can go back in winter break - he should have it figured out and let his emotions process enough by then to at least hear me out when I explain the AEA and GIW and everything, then it won’t matter so much if he can, like, track me by voice or something if I talk since we’ll have MAD by then.

Despite his reputation, the people living in his haunt seem to love the guy. I can see why. On top of the whole smart he’s actually really nice to people he’s not shooting in the knees (which only even happened one time in the week I was there? It was actually pretty relaxing - most quiet week I’ve had since the portal opened THANK YOU TUCKER for hacking the portal hatch to be inoperable for a week). 

Where was I? Oh yeah, he’s actually surprisingly nice to people? So like, I think he’ll probably hear me out if I go back and be polite? I hope. Hate to leave the guy in the dark and him end up on the GIWs dissection table for “lots and lots of painful experiments.”

Not that those guys could even catch the Box Ghost. But uh, Hood doesn’t seem to have powers either? Or if he does he doesn’t know about them I don’t think - he only used the chirp the whole time I was their - not even to cheat with moving around.

Seriously. That guy's acrobatics could make Freakshow’s contortionist green - er, red??? - with envy. Actually wait, aren’t contortionists and acrobats different things?

SAM NOTE: help^?

Powers: 

?

~~~

Jason leans back, breathing deeply.

“Not a full ghost,” “not 'overshadowed'” - a term that sounds likke some kind of cousin to possesision - “definitely a halfa,” “humans can’t hear chirps.”

Halfa. 

Half. 

Ghost. 

Half Ghost.

It should sound absurd - you can’t be half alive and half dead.

But Jason has seen the Lazarus pits, has met Solomon Grundy, has met aliens and bullshit magic and can pull magical swords out of his own damn chest.

Half alive. Half dead.

Hopefully not just a fancy way to say possessing his own corpse.

He doesn’t have time to deal with every file - he’ll “confiscate” one of their USBs with a copy of everything for himself before leaving the rest to Batman & co, of course, minus the halfa files (a small part of him wants to shove his condition in Bruce���s face and demand he kill the clown again even though he knows it’s a futile hope, but the rest - the same part that snapped and denied and refused to say he was a meta less that a day ago now - cannot stomach the thought of even more rejection. Of a Bruce that believes he’s a monster. Of a Bruce that mourns him even while he’s right there. Or at least, more than he already does.) - but while the files copy he take the time to look at Danny’s.

The image has two people, Danny Fenton on one side and a version of the kid in a black hazmat suit with white hair, tanned skin, and painfully familiar green eyes. And floating.

~~~

Human Name: Danny Fenton

Ghost Name: Danny Phantom

Species: Halfa (half-human, half ghost)

~~~

It’s the section after that that makes Jason’s breath catch in his throat.

~~~

Death: The Portal Accident

So like, there was no audio (thank GOD I do not want to hear myself screaming) so. Details: When the portal didn’t work when they plugged it in mom and dad left for fudge, Jazz went to try and talk them into a more realistic career choice than ghosts. Sam and Tucker came over and Sam dared me to climb in and check it out - it was broken anyway so no harm. Except it wasn’t broken, just that my parents put the on button inside. Which I caught myself on when I tripped on a wire.

Anyway, electrocution! 

(T - Danny for the love of god be more serious, the cheerful tone is creepy)

(D - Hey! I’m the one who died! Shouldn’t I at least get to write my own epitaph)

(S - …Danny this is not an epitaph. You don’t even HAVE a grave)

(D - wow way to rub it in Sam)

(T - yeah Sam)

(S - ugh! Whatever, just stop with the chatting in official files)

(T - “official”)

(S - Tucker.)

(T - shutting up now)

Electrocution! I got zapped to death, but the ectoplasm from the portal was also opening up on top of me and a lot got bonded to me I guess (S - probably because of the electricity with how you ended up with some of Vortex' powers for a little while) at the same time said electricity was reviving me? - probably getting my heart beating again or something, I was a little busy screaming to pay attention (T - yeah okay we're going to Nasty Burger after this. And playing Doomed) - not that it would’ve mattered without the ghostification preventing me from melting me all the way to death.

Status: Me!

Powers:

Chirps! (ghost echolocation of some kind! humans can't hear em - halfas can, of course, in either form)

Form Change (really Sam? This barely counts)

Human form

Ghost form (no need to breathe)

Flight (last clock speed 210mph) (T - and climbing. Dang dude)

Invisibility (S - don’t forget shareable.) (Shareable. sigh)

Intangibility (Shareable)

Ecto Rays (eyes & hands) (T - and butt) (D - dude! I’m deleting that. Tucker why can't I delete it. TUCKER) (T - bow down in awe of my ksill) (S - ksill) (D - ksill) (T - yeah okay it’s permanent now) (D - aw man!)

Ghost Sense (S - why do we never test your range?) (D - no need? They always make themselves obvious or are being sneaky specifically to annoy me so *shrug*) (S - I still think we should test it)

Power Absorption (that time with Vortex’s weather powers)

Cryokinesis (Wayyyyy to much ice. NOT testing max output on that) (T - yeah frozen city was enough, let’s not cause an ice age. Tech needs some cool but too much is still bad and I just upgraded Patricia)

Ghostly Wail (cone of destruction, very exhausting - always at max output. Not to be used)

GHOST FORM ONLY (but really just never)

Cartoon Body (D - what???) (S - Freakshow literally turned you into a puddle and you just turned back and were fine. I don’t know what else to call that) (D - okay fair. but:)

GHOST FORM ONLY

Physical Enhancement (better strength, speed, stamina, durability, reflexes, balance, etc much better than human) (T - why does this look like dnd knockoff stats haha)

GHOST FORM ONLY (S - obviously mr last place in PE)

Resistances (pretty solid on the overshadowing, avoided being taken in by Ember until targeted, didn’t get turned to stone during the Medusa thing) (S - which was pure luck! Be careful!)

Ecto Electricity (ghost stinger, but I really don’t think this counts Sam. I mean I just. Make my ecto zappy. But it’s still just ecto) (S - so is your ICE and you don’t just call that "just cold ecto") (D - fine, but it feels overly specific) (S - maybe writing it all down will make you stop. Forgetting. POWERS!) (D - come on Sam that was a lucky hit! I was distracted! And it turned out fine!) (S - Fenton…) (D - oop okay doing fire now)

Ecto Fire (made Dash’s shoes melty that one time by make the ecto hot) (T - really needs more testing)

Tech possession (chasing Technus into computers, not very tested)

Ghost form only, i guess?

Overshadowing (control people, copy their voice, invade dreams - the control one erases the person’s memory so they don’t know they were overshadowed just lost time. I hate Walker. SO much) (T - rip Danny’s reputation, you’ll be missed)

Probably ghost form only

Duplication (T - That’s optimistic) (D - I’M WORKING ON IT OKAY!?) (S - pretty sure it just falls under cartoon body until you can actually separate) (D - :( betrayal)

Probably ghost form only

More? (D - ugh I hope not) (T - hey don’t say that, maybe you’ll get a power to make the JL give a crap about Amity) (D - honestly I’m getting pretty close to letting Boxy loose in Gotham) (S - Danny, don’t stoop to their level!) (D - it's only box ghost!) (T - I mean he has a point)

~~~

Jason changes his mind, seeing the commentary, and deletes the entire hidden file from the computer as soon as his copy is made. He can go over everything and bring any important info to Bruce separately, the bat’s can just chew on the parents’ files for now.

Once the original files are thoroughly and irretrievably removed he pockets his shiny new USB, makes a second one with all the official files, and heads back up and out - carelessly brushing past a thoroughly irate Red Robin with a pair of firemen and broken jaws of life. And not a scratch on the door; impressive - just in time to get Oracle’s text that he’s got 2 hours and 16 minutes to be at the location on his HUD so he can “arrive” to Amity.

And a fresh set of civilian clothes will be waiting in the plane, Alfred as reliable as ever.

“Files,” he says, tossing the safe USB to Batman and interrupting his interrogation of the police officer.

He catches it effortlessly of course, but the officer stops paying attention to him to jolt at Hood’s reappearance - even outside of Gotham his reputation is fierce.

“I sent a copy to myself. I’ll review them and give you an overview, but other than that consider this the end of my involvement in this little shitshow,” he says, continuing smoothly to the door. “I’m heading back to Gotham.”

Now, he has a little over two hours before Jason Todd needs to arrive in Amity Park. He only needs to lay hands on a laptop that he can isolate from Babs’ influence and he should be able to review the Halfa files in full before he "lands" - after he figures out just why the kid has a grudge against the JL.

[writingquestionsanswered]

Outlining Plot for Film School Application

Anonymous asked: I love stories and am applying to film school in a few months, but I struggle with understanding how stories work, as well as with outlining a plot, which is required for the application. I need to learn how to do it quickly and effectively, especially since I don't have a portfolio to strengthen my chances of getting accepted. Is there a workshop or network that focuses on story comprehension and development, rather than actual writing, that is beginner friendly?

[Ask edited for length]

A couple of recommendations:

-- Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need by Blake Snyder is a screen writing book that comes highly recommended. And, as a big fan of the the novel-writing version by Jessica Brody (Save the Cat! Writes a Novel), I can tell you it's about as comprehensive and is usually considered to be great for beginners.

-- The Helping Writers Become Authors web site, by author K.M. Weiland, has a huge story structure database that analyzes the structure of popular books, but also movies. Each story is broken down into its critical plot points: inciting incident, first plot point, first pinch point, midpoint, second pinch point, third plot point, climax, climactic moment, and resolution. The summaries are brief, to the point, and very helpful.

-- YouTube is an incredible resource for when you need to learn a lot in a short amount of time. While I don't have any particular videos to point you toward, I promise if you search "how to plot a movie" or "how to outline a movie plot" you will find a ton of videos, and you should be able to find some that resonate with you.

That's all I've got, but keep an eye on the comments in case others have suggestions!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[readthephible]

here is another review i found of the violation

[mswyrr]

I really like Rachel Zegler's headcanon: Lucy Gray was long gone (why would she stick around?) and everything we see at the end is a hallucination. In the book he asks the doctor on base why the snake bite made him so ill, if it wasn't poisonous, and the doctor says extreme stress can do that:

The quote is on page 508. "Couldn't think straight" is massively understating it, given how disconnected from reality his pov prose becomes in the forest. I think it fits as one of several supportable readings in both film and book texts. And it has the benefit of meaning that Lucy Gray lives! ❤️

It's certainly not a required reading, though. There's multiple ways to interpret it that are all plausible; it's meant to be a mystery. But the idea that she ran and didn't stop seems very in character to me. She trusts her read on people and she gets the hell out when things go weird and he'd just clearly (a) lied to her, violating trust which is the most important thing to her, and (b) he was acting super weird/creepy.

It also makes sense to me that--after two incredibly stressful & traumatic months--Coriolanus had a full on breakdown in that forest, complete with visual/auditory hallucinations. On my first read-through of the book, I was frustrated with the ableism of people calling him "crazy"/ "sociopath" and therefore "born evil" (that is NOT how neurodivergence works!), so I pushed back on that and wrote pointing out all the ways his brain wiring seems pretty normal and he works as an example of an "ordinary" person acculturated in this dystopia - but as i've re-read and thought over it... it's kind of difficult to see the forest as anything but a breakdown to me.

Literally anyone--including otherwise neurotypical people--can have breakdowns if they experience enough trauma and stress in a short period of time, so one can still interpret him as having pretty standard brain wiring in that case. Or not! My real objection, at base, is to the idea that different wiring = inevitably evil.

[Big thank you to @kpchrs for pointing this panel interview out a couple days ago! I had no idea that Rachel liked this interpretation of the scene and it makes me really happy because that interp. also inspired my fic]

[toast-the-unknowing]

on fanfic plagiarism

Almost five years ago, in January of 2019, someone I'd never met before reached out to tell me that one of my Pynch fics, "Word on the Street," had been plagiarized.

I remember that the stolen fic was posted in k-pop fandom, though not what specific band it related to -- I'm not into k-pop, or really into pop music at all.

I remember that the person who messaged me told me that they had found my fic because the plagiarist had a reputation for stealing fic, so when they'd posted a new story, this person had known to do some digging.

I don't remember what the plagiarist's username was. I remember scanning the stolen story, trying both to read every detail and to avoiding taking any of it in, because looking at that right-but-wrong, not-quite-there, uncanny-valley-ness of it made me queasy.

I remember being darkly amused that the plagiarist had cut out the reference to the main character suffering physical abuse at the hands of his father -- I guess it didn't make sense in the context of the new character. It's almost like the story wasn't written for him. It's almost like someone wrote the story about Adam Parrish, instead.

I filed an AO3 complaint, on the grounds that this was a blatant and unarguable violation of their plagiarism policy. Within twenty-four hours, they got back to me, and the story was removed.

It was a weird, uncomfortable, gross feeling, knowing someone had taken words I'd written and passed them off as their own.

But at the same time -- "Word on the Street" was a silly thing I dashed off pretty quickly, during a period of my life when I was doing a lot of writing. It hurt to have it stolen. It was a violation. But…I had other words, that were more important to me. Maybe that was a buffer.

-

Last month, about six weeks ago, someone I'd never met before reached out to tell me that one of my Pynch fics, "there's talk going 'round this town," had been plagiarized.

I was, bizarrely, amused.

I was less bizarrely furious. I was understandably, relatably, I would say rationally, furious. But in a way (and as always, when I say in a way, I am calling back to the scholars of overthinkingit.com for whom in a way is meant as the thing I have just said or am about to say is false) -- in a way, I was amused.

The plagiarist clearly did a 'find and replace' on the character names, to replace Adam and Ronan's names with those of k-pop characters. They did a bad job of it, since the name "Ronan" still appears in one paragraph and the name "Parrish" still appears in two paragraphs. The fic is here, in case anyone doesn't believe me, under the name "i do(n't remember)". At first when I complained about the fic on tumblr, I didn't mention the name, or which fic they'd stolen, because I was worried about anyone…I don't know, making a scene. I've stopped caring. AO3 user springguk is bad at find and replace and they should feel bad. About their computer skills, and also about their blatant plagiarism.

springguk also did some more edits to my fic, I have to give them credit for that. I wrote "there's talk going 'round this town" within a relatively short time span, for me. I tend to either finish things within one week, or else take several months. I believe this one took about five or six weeks completely to write -- I was very inspired.

(I was inspired, specifically, by the press coverage of Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves 'discovering' they might be 'accidentally' married. I mention that in my author's notes. springguk doesn't mention what 'inspired' them in their author's notes. I wonder how they talk about it with friends. They do, in their author's notes, include a link to their ko-fi, and a request that people buy them a coffee.)

If I'd taken longer with this fic, I might have made some edits. Even at the time, I knew I was being self-indulgent in letting the scene with my teenage female OC talk at such length with Ronan about what his non-canonical film career had meant to her, a person the audience didn't care about. But I had fun. I liked Fox. I didn't want to cut her, and what the hell, it was fanfic. I decided to self-indulge.

I was darkly amused to find that springguk did cut out the scene with Fox from their plagiarized version. Maybe springguk is a more disciplined editor than I am. Maybe springguk just didn't have a good k-pop character to map Fox onto. Maybe springguk didn't even realize that Fox was an OC. Do you know anything about the fandom you steal fics from, springguk? I can't help but wonder. Have you read The Raven Cycle? Do you care about teenage OCs who steal cars because of fake films that are clearly meant to be stand-ins for The Fast and the Furious franchise?

Maybe springguk just didn't give a fuck, because none of their heart and soul was poured into this fic. I cared too much about Fox. springguk doesn't care about a single word in the fic they published. Why would they? They didn't write it.

I'm being a little mean in naming them so many times. But I'm able to, this time, because although I filed a plagiarism complaint with AO3 six weeks ago, springguk's stolen fic "i do(n't remember)," is still available to read on AO3 to this very day. I don't have to wrack my brains to remember what their username was, or which k-pop band they recast my work with. I can just look at their fic with its 24 comments and 151 kudos. Hell, maybe that fic is even better than mine, if you don't mind that by cutting the sequence with Fox they've sacrificed a fairly substantial development in the romantic relationship, and also if you don't care that at one point the characters names switch from Jeongguk and Taehyung to Ronan and Parrish, because seriously, for fuck's sake, if you're going to steal a fic at least do a goddamn ctrl+f at the end.

I was mad. I was amused. I made a complaint that the AO3, six weeks later, has still not acted on. I mostly moved on.

-

Tonight, someone I'd never met before reached out to tell me that one of my Pynch fics, "while we're on the subject, could we change the subject now," had been plagiarized.

I wanted to vomit.

I was supposed to be playing Dungeons and Dragons online with friends tonight; I spent the entire call unable to focus on anything anyone was saying. I had to keep reminding myself that I was on camera and my face wasn't supposed to look like that.

"while we're on the subject, could we change the subject now" is the first of a series of, currently, twelve fics. skytoseungmin, the person who stole it to pass it off as their own work, knew this. Their stolen version was published as part one of a series, though they hadn't published any of the sequels. Presumably, they wanted to wait long enough to make it plausible they'd gone and written the follow ups, instead of just finding them.

skytoseungmin likely didn't know that this fic and this series are intensely personal. They didn't know that the apartment that Adam -- Seungmin, in their ill-gotten version -- lives in, that was based in part off of the apartment I lived in for a year in Pico-Robertson with talldecafcappuccino. They didn't know that the 7-Eleven Adam buys coffee at is the same one I used to tease talldecafcappuccino for buying coffee at. They didn't know that the strip club where Adam and Ronan have their humorously ill-timed romantic revelation outside of, that was the strip club I used to use as a landmark when giving people directions for how to navigate the confusing as fuck freeway exit I lived near, which once caused me to accidentally tell my highly Catholic parents "just go past the strip club and you're good!"

skytoseungmin didn't know that the apartment Adam -- sorry, Seungmin, thoroughly, they were better with find and replace than springguk -- lived in, was also based off of my ex's apartment in Palms, where I as the mere visiting girlfriend was never allowed to park in the parking lot. Where I would sometimes have to spend twenty or thirty minutes circling the neighborhood before I could find parking, often a walk of several minutes away. skytoseungmin doesn't know that when Ronan's car get towed from a McDonald's parking lot, that that was a specific McDonald's on Venice Boulevards, the same one my ex's asshole roommate used to just roll his eyes and say that I should park at. skytoseungmin doesn't know that I once wished passionately that I had just parked in that McDonald's parking lot and risked getting towed, on the occasion that a man followed me several unlit blocks from my car. skytoseungmin doesn't know that when I talk about how helping someone park is the truest love language there is in Los Angeles, that that was what I meant. Has skytoseungmin ever had to circle to half an hour to find parking in Los Angeles? Has skytoseungmin ever loved someone enough to do that, instead of saying, fuck it, they can come to me or we're breaking up? Has skytoseungmin ever loved someone in Los Angeles enough, to do as my ex did, and come running as fast as humanly possibly when their girlfriend called them whispering and crying on the phone, someone's following me, please, I'm scared, I wish I just parked at the McDonald's?

"while we're on the subject, could we change the subject now" is a very personal fic.

It isn't half as personal as some of the fics that come after.

skytoseungmin marked their plagiarized version of the fic as part one of a series. Were they planning on stealing part two, where I, through an alternate universe characterization of Ronan Lynch, dig into my experience of grief and trauma surrounding my grandmother's dementia? Were they planning on stealing any of the explicit fics, where I play with kink and desire in ways I haven't even exposed to my actual sexual partners, but where I felt able to through the guise of fandom? What else was skytoseungmin planning on stealing, with charming little author's notes apologizing for how they missed the fandom-relevant date they were shooting for, because they were so busy with exams, tee-hee! Why the excuses, skytoseungmin? how long does it take you to ctrl+f, even if you are more thorough about it than springguk?

If I seem too accusatory and mean-spirited toward skytoseungmin, well, the LA verse is a very personal fic.

And it's also, it turns out, only one of eight different fics that they stole from me.

I didn't even notice at first, to be honest. I was too stunned. But my friend Jessie, my Lady Galahad, went to my defense and clicked through to the author's page, while I was still reeling at the horrible possibilities of part one of a series. It turned out, of eight fics on skytoseungmin's author's page…I had written every single one of them.

Some were short and pretty lighthearted, things I hadn't had to invest too much of myself into -- like I said, sometimes, I can write a fic in under a week.

Other things…

They stole the space western AU.

I don't think I can articulate to any human being how much that hurt me, to look at it, to see.

I wrote that as a thank you gift for someone who donated to Fandom Trumps Hate.

I spent nearly two years of my life on it -- two years during which, because of mental health issues and life situation changes, my words per year dropped precipitously. I still haven't recovered. I still think of what a failure I am for not writing more, currently, actively, and I remember how the space western AU was both a symptom of that and a defiance of it: yes, writing has become fucking hard, fucking NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE, but I'm still doing it, goddamn it, you can't stop me, even if all I produce is the tiniest trickle of words a month. it can still add up, somehow, if we just keep TRYING.

To see the space western AU, casually nestled amongst a half dozen other fics that were all apparently casually dashed off in the same month…I know it was theft, I know it was a lie, but it still felt like a slap in the face, why can't you write this fast?

Jessie, my Lady Galahad, went on a campaign of commenting on all of skytoseungmin's (my) fics, and I am so thankful. The k-pop fans who heard Jessie have been reaching out, to her, to me, to each other on Twitter, and I am so thankful for them too. skytoseungmin has deleted all of their (my) fics on AO3, and their entire AO3 account, and their entire twitter, apparently. Maybe they were hoping to get enough clicks to parlay them into some kind of book deal, and they'd now rather give up what was a low investment effort on their part than be associated with accusation of plagiarism.

I suppose they can always start over with a new user name and someone else's fics if they really want to.

I suppose they can always start over with a new username and my fics, if they really want to.

And after all, AO3 has still not reached out to me about springguk, and "i do(n't remember)" is still sitting there. Maybe springguk is also going for a book deal. Who knows?

Why complain about any of it?

In a way* (and remember what "in a way" means), isn't it a compliment, if someone loves the words I wrote, even if they don't know it was me that wrote them? toast-the-unknowing and shinealightonme, if they're the same name (and they are), then why not springguk or skytoseungmin, too?

Am I making too big of a deal out of this? Does everyone just have their work stolen from them, all of the time? Is that simply the cost of doing business in an era and an ecosystem where we all can copy and paste twenty-four thousand words with greater ease than our ancestors could transcribe a single phrase? Are more prolific, more famous, more successful fan authors looking at my piteous cries and thinking, bitch, you've only been ripped off by k-pop fans ten times, come back when you have real problems?

And yet in a month, a year, a whole life phase of not being able to write as much as I would like to, because of my health, because of my work, to have someone else just casually pass off the words I have managed to eke out, as though they have no value, as though it were no more than photo copying a shitty flier to stick under a windshield wiper…

I can't imagine springguk or skytoseungmin give a shit how I feel about any of this. At best, they roll their eyes; at worst they laugh to know they hurt me -- and what's the difference between the two? I'll never know either way.

I know that some of the people they duped do care, and are also upset. That helps. And also, it doesn't help.

I just fucking hate all of this, and if all I have are words, and if my words are valuable enough for someone to steal, then here, here are enough of them to choke on. I know I did.

[shuuuuush]

DUMB EXCUSES [NIKO HEADCANNONS]

Summary: All of Niko's dumb excuses to be near you or do things with you

Warnings: none

A/N: Starting of short for Niko, then full fics I promise! Gotta write for my boy Niko, can't believe I've neglected him 😔😔

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DUMB EXCUSES FOR HOLDING YOUR HAND

Honestly you don't know when he decided to start holding your hand all the time, you haven't even started dating when you did.

"Your hand looks heavy let me hold it for you." was a classic excuse he would use with you. It was cheesy, yes, but it got you to hold hands with him regardless. Making him smile like a cutie.

When walking on the side walks he would hold your hand, just to "make sure no one tries to kidnap you on the side of the road"

He would also walk on the outer edge of the sidewalks as well while doing so.

When you did finally start dating, holding hands was one of his key agreements in the relationship.

Sitting beside each other? Holding hands. In the car driving? Holding hands. Well, one hand on the wheel the other with you ;)

STAYING CLOSE TO YOU IN A ROOM FULL OF PEOPLE

When you're at a party with the beta squad or filming a video, especially mafia. Niko always seems to be by your side.

Magically, always teleports to your side, and when you laugh, you automatically clutch someone's arm next to you. And Niko wanted to be that person, so you best believe he's sitting next to you or standing beside you.

And if you're at a party, he would definitely stay by your side. If any guys try to hit you up, he's scaring them away with 1. His height and 2. The fact that he can look intimidating when he wants to.

And it will kill the other guys ego off instantly and make him avoid you for the rest of the night.

Speaking of parties, if you didn't like them much and wanted to step outside for a bit of air. He would come with you, and he would make sure you had a good time, whether that would be going to eat somewhere or just staying under the moonlight in each others arms.

He would want you to be comfortable at all times.

BRUSHING HANDS UNDER THE TABLE

This is when you were dating because if you weren't, best believe Niko ain't getting much courage to do this.

He's a brave guy, but when it comes to you, you honestly take that courage away when you weren't dating, of course. But now that you are, he's gonna be impressing you left and right and "trying to be the bigger man." (Last part was in chunkz words)

Sometimes, if you both were at a gathering, when he was bored, he would take your hand and just draw on it with his finger to pass the time.

Or just squeeze your hand, signalling to you that he wanted to leave, but wanted to be discreet about it. So you would make up something awfully more important than this, to excuse both you and Niko and off you go, you've escaped the boredom!

I'll leave it to you to can guess where you end up ;)

DUMB EXCUSES FOR STEALING GLANCES

When you first met, he would've looked at you a lot. Most likely stunned by your beauty, and you would often catch him looking at you and then looking away faster when you caught him, almost always earning a small giggle from yourself.

If you're right next to him and caught him looking at you, he would come up with an excuse since he knew he wouldn't get away with saying nothing.

His excuses would either consist of violations:

"Oh, sorry, I just thought I saw a rat infestation right in front of me."

"Can I have the name of your hair salon? I need to know where not to go."

"You do a great job combing your hair. It’s impressive how you’re able to hide the receding hairline." "Yeah, I learnt it from you."

Or would consist of him stupidly denying it:

"Yeah, you're imagining things because I was just scratching my eye, and you happened to be in front of my view."

"I was looking behind you. Not at you." "Niko, you're behind me..."

Taglist: @b4tasquad @p3drii @n1kodl @elora-k @slutforpablogavi @enhacolor

[facts-i-just-made-up]

We need accurate facts about dolphins we need some accurate facts about dolphins.

Dolphins, by far the largest of all sea rodents. Capable of exceptional feats of intelligence, charity, and giving interpersonal advice, dolphins (a nickname short for Dolphlungrins) were invented in 1873 by Nikola Tesla while attempting to patent an organic water heater. His DNA machinations instead yielded these super-friendly and docile beings that totally don’t kill other animals for pleasure or achieve near humanoid levels of ethics violations. Here are some fun facts about these cheerful ROUSs of the sea:

Dolphins are the only sea mammal capable of speech. Whales and many others can communicate and vocalize, but only dolphins can pontificate.

A group of dolphins is called a pod. When they chase each other across currents, it is called a “pod race.” This term inspired the central race scene in the classic film, “Ben-Hur.”

Male dolphins have prehensile genitals. Not their own genitals, but ones they rip off of whales and wire to act as grabby toys.

Dolphins are the only non-human animal confirmed to have religion. They are mostly Catholic, but they use sand dollars for communion wafers and the Dolphin Pope is not affiliated with the Vatican, but rather the Vaticetacean.

Sea World has never been able to keep dolphins captive, because they keep organizing epic escapes on motorcycles that they find behind enemy lines and use to jump the barbed wire.

The largest dolphin ever recorded was 85ft long and weighed over 90,000lbs, also it looked more like a blue whale than a common dolphin, and was found in a pod of group whales, and kept claiming to police that it was a case of mistaken identity. It has never received a trial and its family have set up a gofundme to save whales falsely accused of being dolphins.

Dolphin meat tastes almost exactly like human meat. I know this from a friend who is not me.

[oleworm]

I keep coming back to this film being highly symbolic. The first three deaths at Burgers Burgers Burgers may be less personal but that does not mean that they are unconnected. Through Benson’s eyes, the burger joint signifies a place of inappropriate and violent sexuality.

(Thank you to @saintathelstan for posting the screenshot of the ominous sign, "Violators will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.")

Chris represents the aggressive and dominating sexuality of the young male as informed by pornography and hypermasculine culture, who asserts himself by sexually humiliating other men and flaunting his access to women, while as a character Jess exists to be a sexual object, a prop to reinforce Chris’s masculinity, with the way she drapes over him and laughs at all his jokes, encouraging his violation of Randy. Even her costume—short skirt, boots and fishnets—is part of the stock characterisation of the harlot.

Hardy, the manager, holds a position of authority but does nothing to stop the bullying and watches pornographic videos on the job—he does this the second that Randy leaves his office, a moment after he has offered him praise and a promotion. His sexuality is that of the voyeur. He does not participate, but instead allows various acts of misconduct. His introductory scene characterises his unwillingness, obfuscated as incompetence, to stop Chris from groping and rubbing against Jess in the middle of a work meeting. The boundaries of the workplace, of what is appropriate and inappropriate, are blurred under his supervision. And later we see that he was dressed in similar manner to Benson’s teacher.

The one who survives the ordeal is Randy, who in Benson’s perspective remains untouched by the mediocrity and filth of their surroundings.

Now, in real life, workplace relationships do happen, and who hasn’t had a boss that was kind of a sleaze. What is interesting is that all of this is established within a few minutes of the film. That there is such a focus given to these details.

To Benson, whose trauma is of a sexual nature, it makes sense that these details would stand out from the others. Their boss is a pervert, there are two people almost having sex in front of everyone, and finally Randy is orally assaulted, if not sexually then in a way that is intentionally suggestive of sexual assault. The impressions accumulate until he snaps, in an almost Smerdyakovian manner (see Dostoyevsky’s passage about the contemplative peasant).