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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 1 year ago

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Here's a compilation I made of six different comedians (two per podcast) on three different podcasts saying something about different types of comedy, specially how it's different in Britain and American. Tumblr won't let me embed it even though I compressed it down to be under the max file size, so I'm using a Google Drive. It's just audio, but I made it a video instead of an audio file so I could add text to show what people and podcasts are playing at a given time.

I put those together and then I wrote down a bunch of thoughts about it, which I think start out somewhat coherent but get less so as I go along. It's a whole bunch of stuff I've been thinking about all shoehorned into one post just because they're all on a vaguely similar topic, like a hastily thrown-together Edinburgh show. The point is that I'm going to listen to Mike Birbiglia's albums. That's... that's the upshot. That's how all this started.

I found the chat with Hari Kondabolu especially fascinating, having heard a few of Hari’s comedy specials and albums, and heard him on The Bugle a lot over a bunch of years (also I saw his Problem with Apu documentary, everyone should watch that, and should know that he says all the time on The Bugle he doesn’t get royalties for it anymore so doesn’t mind how people find it, just watch it).

He’s an interesting presence on The Bugle, an outsider as an American, who was there from the very beginning of their reboot in 2016, so you can kind of watch him figure out what this is in real time. At first he audibly has no fucking idea what he’s signed up for, and as it goes along, you can hear him settle into an area of “Well I still don’t really understand why you’re doing this, but I see what it is now and have found a way to do my thing beside your thing and that’s fine.” That’s partly a reaction to Andy Zaltzman, because no one really knows what to do with Andy Zaltzman unless they’ve had a long time to get used to it (except for John Oliver, I’m pretty sure they just met at a student comedy gig in about 1999 and instantly said “Oh look, my comedy soulmate”). But some of it is also a reaction to the British stuff. The references to British politics and history that you get on a topical and political comedy show, and the way they approach all their material. I like hearing Hari Kondabolu on there, an outsider perspective who can pick it apart a bit.

So I found his Comedian’s Comedian podcast interview interesting – honestly the whole thing is worth a listen, even if you don’t really know Hari Kondabolu’s work, as a good analysis of political comedy and the mechanics of good comedy bits and British vs. American comedy and the comedy industry more generally. But for this post, my interest is the British vs. American stuff.

I cut out a big chunk of their Brit vs. American discussion on that episode, and put it in the video above. I debated how long to make the clip, to create what was meant to be a compilation of people discussing British vs. American comedy, and ended up leaving in some stuff that’s a bit off topic where they fawn over Daniel Kitson. I realize comedians fawning over Daniel Kitson is hardly such a rare and exciting event that it needs to be preserved, but I particularly enjoyed hearing Stuart Goldsmith and Hari Kondabolu do it, so I left it in when cutting out the clip. I’ve heard Hari bring up on a couple of other occasions, as well, that he’s wildly impressed and amazed by the Hotmail address.

Anyway though, the Kitson stuff aside, the clip from the Comedian’s Comedian podcast is mostly Hari Kondabolu and Stuart Goldsmith discussing how the Edinburgh Fringe Festival shapes British comedians’ careers into something different from what they are in America. They have to write a new hour every year, because there will be reviewers there who saw last year’s hour and will catch them out if they try to recycle material. Also because it’s a smaller country, so they can only tour one show in so many places before everyone’s heard it and they have to do a new thing. Hari Kondabolu is impressed with the work ethic but mildly horrified by the whole thing, and can point out some aspects of the system that people who are used to it just wouldn’t notice because they seem normal.

I think there are two major factors that mark out the Edinburgh-influenced British model of comedy careering building as being different from, say, American stuff: the new hour every year and the way each hour has to be themed and coherent and structured and preferably built around some story or message. In Hari Kondabolu’s podcast episode he mainly talked about the new hour every year thing, but also briefly touched on the concept of themes. Stuart Goldsmith mentioned that tides seemed to be changing, as it used to be that themes would make you different and interesting, but not anymore, so they’ll become less common soon. I’ve just spent three weeks listening to 38 shows performed at Edinburgh 2023, and I can say, I’m pretty sure that prediction was inaccurate. Themes and throughlines abound, and I’m happy about that. I like a good theme.

I do think there are pros and cons to it, though, and Hari Kondabolu points out some significant cons. If you look at the list of shows by any British comedy who's been doing Edinburgh for a long time, there are going to be some filler years. Some years when they did a show just because it's a new year and Edinburgh is up there so they'd better write a show, even if they don't have much to say. Hari is right to say that British comedians work fucking hard to turn over a new hour every year, but that doesn't mean the quality will always be top-notch.

Also, themes can be limiting. I'm sure there are some themed shows out there that would be better if they were just freestyle, if the comedian let themselves say all their best stuff, rather than cutting good material due to not being on theme. Or adding weaker material because it is on theme.

So that’s an American going on a British person’s podcast to tell them how fucked up the British comedy system is. I’ve made this compilation to compare it to a British person going on an American’s podcast, in which the American thinks the British system is great and in fact what he wants to do as well. Nish Kumar on Mike Birbiglia’s podcast, from just a couple of years ago. It’s an interesting contrast. A couple of people have told me before that Mike Birbiglia is like a British comedian but in the form of an American person. Including @my-excellent-bicycle, who told me ages ago that he's very good, and I said I'd watch him, and then I didn't, so sorry about that. Absolutely no offence to any of the people who'd already told me about him, but I have to admit, when the "Mike Birbiglia is so cool, he's like an American who does British comedy" endorsement comes from Nish Kumar, that does mean a little extra. Enough so I have now downloaded Mike Birbiglia's stuff, will listen to it next.

I can't really speak to the accuracy of what Nish Kumar said in that clip, since I haven't yet actually heard Mike Birbiglia’s shows. But I see what Nish means. He means shows that are built around one topic and/or narrative and/or theme and/or message, and stay on that, or at least around it and vaguely adjacent to it, for an hour.

Later in the 2021 podcast episode from which I took that Kumar/Birbiglia clip, Nish mentioned that actually, even though this is a generally British thing to do, he personally doesn’t tend to do it much, and he’d like to do it more. That was true, as of then. I’ve heard Nish’s 2014 (might have been originally his 2013 show, actually, whichever one got recorded for the Soho Live thing on Amazon Prime), 2016, and 2019 shows, and none of them were all that structured. They were coherent, particularly the latter two, which stayed on the topic of politics. Even that earlier one had some throughlines and underlying bits that kept coming back. But he didn’t do a really carefully constructed narrative show until 2022, the one that just had a video come out, Your Power Your Control.

So I found it interesting to hear Nish Kumar in 2021, just before he wrote Your Power Your Control, say he’d like to do more narrative-type stuff. And then the next year, he did it. Good for him. Nish Kumar just did a new episode of the Comedian’s Comedian podcast as well – it was recorded very recently, to go with the release of his latest special – and in that one, he mentioned that he was pleased with the way he managed to Birbiglia-fy this show in a way he hadn’t done with previous ones, making it a structured narrative the way Mike Birbiglia does. But actually, the way most British comedians do, and apparently this one American guy that it’s time for me to check out.

Then I added a clip of David O’Doherty from a very recent podcast, in which he talks about getting backlash from Americans for not being what they expect, which is just a bunch of unconnected jokes. I added that clip to the conversation because he brings up Hannah Gadsby and Nannette, and I think that’s an interesting point.

Hannah Gadsby got a huge amount of backlash for Nannette, and most of it was misogynistic. Not all of it, I guess. I guess it’s technically possible for someone to just really not like Hannah Gadsby’s style of humour, and they hated Nannette for perfectly legitimate reasons. Just like probably, some of those people on those cesspits of toxicity that were those Josie Long-related comedy message board threads in 2007, just legitimately did not share her sense of humour. Maybe one or two of them. But mainly, it’s the misogyny.

However, DO’D makes an interesting point about Hannah Gadsby’s show. Most “Edinburgh hour”-style shows do not get as massively world famous as Nannette did. So they got hit with misogynistic backlash, but it was fueled by the fact that it was being seen by a lot of Americans who are not used to that type of comedy, and just don’t understand. They thought Hannah was taking the respectable genre of doing 50 punchlines in 20 minutes, and making a mockery of it. Just because it was the first time they’d seen a comedy show with some sad bits. They thought Hannah Gadsby was doing comedy wrong.

So many people – mostly American people – who saw Nannette didn’t realize that ending a show with 10-15 minutes of sad bits is so commonplace in certain comedy circles that it’s also common to make fun of it. You hear comedians all the time, make jokes about the standard hour that’s funny for a while and then has a sad bit. There’s even a term for it: dead dad show. A dead dad show isn’t just a show about a dead dad. It’s any show that’s funny for a while but also poignant and touching and sentimental and has sad bits at the end and wants to make you cry as well as laugh. People joke about it because it’s been done a lot, it’s been done in some hack ways and some bad ways, it’s also been done in some brilliant ways, it runs the gauntlet like anything else.

It’s fine for people to say they’re not into that kind of thing. But Nannette got so big that people who’d never heard of that genre started seeing it, and they had no idea what they were seeing. So that’s how they ended up saying Hannah is not a comedian, this isn’t comedy, Hannah tricked a comedy-expecting audience into seeing a one-woman show! How dare you bring trauma into a comedy show? As though comedians talking about trauma aren’t a dime a dozen in Britain and Australia.

And I think that has pros and cons too. I like a show that works some serious stuff in, that has some deep personal or political message. But also, sometimes, people have a point when they say a comedy show has focused so much on the personal or political messages/trauma dumping that it forgot to also be funny (not with Nanette, though, people forget that Nanette had lots of good jokes in the first 45 minutes, it was a funny show, people just watch clips that have been cut from the last little bit and are then say this so-called comedy show isn't funny). And I guess it's up to each individual comedy audience member how much humour they'll allow a show to sacrifice for other stuff before they get sick of it. How much sad stuff or angry stuff or introspective stuff or educational stuff or heartwarming stuff or philosophical stuff or narrative stuff a show can have at the expense of funny stuff, before they'll say, "Okay, I need more comedy than this in my comedy shows." But I think it's a pretty shallow view of what comedy can be if you're not okay with a show that has any of that other stuff.

I am conflating Britain/Ireland and Australia/NZ quite a bit in this post, and that’s because I think when it comes to this sort of thing, they’re very similar. I’m also conflating Canada and the US, because I think they’re similar, in that neither of have this tradition that I’m pretty sure developed at Edinburgh and MICF. And I’m not talking about any other countries because as far as my comedy knowledge goes, those may as well be the only ones that exist (sorry Anuvab Pal and Aditi Mittal, I do know a couple from India too, but as far as I can tell, the special type of comedy they do in India is “say some stuff and hope you don’t get arrested for it”).

There is an obvious reason for that: Australia has a festival that’s similar to Edinburgh. British and Irish (and Irish, sorry for having forgotten to add “and Irish” in the earlier bits of this post, I just saw Dara O’Briain’s newest special – called So Where Were We, just released by the BBC, by the way, I recommend it – and it’s chock full of trauma, proving the Irish can do dead dad/never met my dad shows with the best of them) comedians develop their careers around Edinburgh, and Australian/NZ comedians develop their careers around the Melbourne Comedy Festival. North America doesn’t have anything like that.

Obviously North America has yearly festivals too, but not ones that are so big that every single comedian in the area wraps their whole career around it. I think the only one big enough to do that around here would be Just For Laughs, but Just For Laughs isn’t nearly the same thing, since people have to audition for it. You can’t just set up a show and show up. People can’t start writing a show in September with the assumption that they’ll take it to JFL next summer, because unless they’re already very famous, they can’t be sure they’ll be accepted into JFL’s lineup.

I found the David O’Doherty clip interesting, as he lists storytelling shows as just one of the many things that are, in fact, comedy, but get called “this isn’t comedy” by mostly Americans on the internet. But also, it’s not like all Americans just do 50 punchlines in 20 minutes and that’s it. They do lots of stuff! They have alternative comedy there, and at this point I’m getting out of my depth, because I have a sort of idea in my head of what American alternative comedy means – the vague idea involves things like Eugene Mirman and Fred Armisen and Kristen Schaal and improv shows in New York – but I don’t really know what I’m talking about. This post would be better if I knew what I was talking about more.

I guess the basic rule I’m working with is: British/Irish/Aussie/NZ do a new hour every year and it has themes and throughlines and narratives and coherent structure and they workshop it all year and then take it to Edinburgh and then scrap all that material and do a new one. And American comedians just write one joke(/bit/funny story, not just the classic type of one-liner “joke”) at a time, and at any given time are performing the combination of their best crop of jokes, and whenever they write a new joke it replaces the worst one in their set, so they evolve that way. I’m trying to understand why that difference exists, and part of the problem with my efforts to understand that is I don’t really know what I’m talking about, and the other part of the problem is that stating the difference that way is a massive oversimplification. It’s difficult to understand why a phenomenon exists if that phenomenon doesn’t really exist in nearly as simple a way as I’ve stated it here.

I know there are exceptions to that rule I just stated, even though I’ve not listened to any Mike Birbiglia yet. For a really famous example, I watched John Mulaney’s new show Baby J earlier this year (fuck him for the Dave Chapelle thing, the divorce and addiction are his own business and people who don’t know him shouldn’t have tried to get involved in his personal life, but fuck him for the Dave Chapelle thing, I didn’t watch his new show in any way that could translate to view count/profit for him – but I did love all his previous shows and was curious about what’s in the new one so I watched it), and that was pretty much all around one story. Even Hari Kondabolu’s new-ish special has a little bit of a theme, about being political while having a kid. And there are plenty of others, so it’s not like this stuff doesn’t happen in America. And there are plenty of British comedians who just do one joke at a time.

I don’t know – I’m not completely making this dichotomy up, right? That’s why I made that compilation in the video at the top of this post. Other people talking about that thing I’m talking about and proving that it is somewhat based in reality. It would help if I knew more about American comedy. You can’t really compare British and American comedy unless you know quite a bit about both, and I don’t know nearly enough about American to really understand this.

That’s why I asked my brother about it the other night, because he’s been doing comedy in Canada for a long time and most of the comedy he watches/likes is American. I asked him if he knows what I mean when I talk about this dichotomy, and why it may or may not exist. And he didn’t really know what I’m talking about, which means 1) the difference is so significant that someone who mainly follows North American comedy doesn’t even know about the dead dad Edinburgh show so can’t compare anything to it, and/or 2) I didn’t explain it very well. Because we had a whole conversation where at some point I realized we were talking past each other. He was using the word “alt” a lot, and it meant one thing to him and a different thing to me, so neither of us really knew what the other was talking about.

That in itself is interesting to me, because it shows that comedy is too big to really make these generalizations. You can’t talk about “alt comedy” as a coherent thing, because it means wildly different things in wildly different places. You can’t talk about “British comedy” or “American comedy” because Britain and America both have a lot of people in them who all do wildly different things.

At some point in my conversation with my brother, I said that when I say storytelling comedy I mean “like the thing Mike Birbiglia does”, and he has seen some Mike Birbiglia but says he doesn’t think what he does is particularly different from what most American comedians do, and I couldn’t refute that because I haven’t actually heard Mike Birbiglia yet. All I could say on that was… well one time I heard Nish Kumar say Birbiglia is like a British comedian, so that’s probably true, right?

So I really don’t know what I’m talking about well enough to understand this, or even explain it. Then again, my brother told me that he thinks British comedians write regular jokes in a way that American comedians don’t, and I said no, I think of the opposite as being true, and when I asked him for examples of why he thinks British comedians are like that, he said Jimmy Carr and Ricky Gervais. So he may not know enough about British comedy to know what he’s talking about. Is it possible that no one knows what they’re talking about? That’s kind of interesting to me too, I assume anyone who actually does comedy must know everything about it. I mean, I try really hard to know about comedy, but I don’t know nearly enough about it to properly do it. So the people who do do it know way more than I do and understand everything. But my brother’s been doing it 13 years, had traveled to perform in the States and nearby cities somewhat often, never made enough money from it to quit his day job but has made quite a lot of money from it over the years, and he may also not know what he’s talking about.

At some point we got talking about recorded comedy, and he said when he listens to audio-only comedy, and then watches a video of those people, he’s often surprised because he was picturing someone young and hot but it turns out to be a balding man in his fifties. I said that often, I can hear hours and hours of audio-only comedy by someone, and have an image of them in my head, and then see a picture of them, and I’m always surprised by how different the picture looks. Because I’m always picturing a person in their forties or fifties, maybe a bit overweight, slightly balding if it’s a cis man, and then I’m often surprised to learn they’re actually around my age or younger (many exceptions there too, Kitson is currently mid-40s and balding but I tend to picture him the way he looked in 2003, though I’m sort of updating my mental image of him now). Which I’m pretty sure says something about the difference between the comedy I watch and the comedy my brother watches, that we have such different images in our head of the “default comedian”, what we picture when we don’t know how someone really looks.

This may or may not be related to the fact that my brother recently started putting clips of his own comedy on Tik-Tok, and has things to say about how the engagement is going that make me despair at the soullessness of humanity. So what does he know? At some point I worked out that when he talks about writing jokes in a classic way, he doesn’t just mean one-liners, he means anyone who actually writes their material instead of just doing crowd work and “comedian destroys heckler” videos for social media. Apparently doing anything besides that is old school now, and he thinks British comedians do more old school stuff than American comedians, and again, I despair at the soullessness of humanity. But to be fair to America, I’m sure there are plenty of soulless British comedians on Tik-Tok too.

That’s part of it though, isn’t it? That my brother thinks of Tik-Tok-type comedy as American and British comedy as stuff that doesn’t do that. You can’t cut out a clip of a good dead dad show and put those 90 seconds on social media. I mean, you could, and I guess some people do, but that’ll ruin it. The British Edinburgh hours need their context, the good ones aren’t nearly as good without it. But maybe American comedy can be clipped more easily, since it’s not written to all flow together. But also, British comedians cut bits of their show out all the time to shoehorn into their twenty seconds of screentime on a panel show. Stewart Lee had a whole thing about that like 15 years ago, how no comedian can be that funny if their set can be cut up for a panel show. But, you know, we can’t all be Stewart Lee (though it’s my understanding that many people have tried). I’m pretty sure this is the sort of thing Stewart Lee knows about, and has strong opinions about. That was my mistake, asking the wrong comedian. I asked my brother, I should have been asking Stewart Lee.

So I still don't have an answer to who invented the dead dad show. I mean, I think I might know that one, Russell Kane may have invented the shows about dead dads specifically. But I don't know how the storytelling comedy with sad bits and themes started, or why it took off in Britain/Australia and not in North America, or if it's even true to say that happened. I feel like Kitson invented it, because it feels a bit like Kitson invented everything, but I know he didn't. I feel like Stewart Lee knows who invented it - I don't feel like he invented it, because he's constantly talking about the alt-comedy godfathers (gendered term there, but they were mostly fathers and not mothers at that time, that is an issue) from the 70s and 80s on whose shoulders he stands. And I don't really know anything about those people, so that doesn't help.

There's a guy named Oliver Double and I think he knows. I just got paid again, my bank account is looking a bit more stable than it did a little while ago, I think I'm going to buy his books. I'm also going to listen to Mike Birbiglia, I'll let you all know if he knows anything. Maybe most people don't know anything. Maybe everything has a smaller cause than I assume and we'd all be living in a radically different comedy world if Russell Kane's dad were still alive. Maybe it's fine to think the British comedy style is to write classic jokes because Jimmy Carr tours arenas and therefore gets to be their representative. Maybe the storytelling/pure joke telling comedy dichotomy doesn't even matter anymore, it's all about the dichotomy between improvised stuff on Tik-Tok and anyone who actually writes material now. Maybe improv just means crowd work now? But I hope not.

...This was going to be a post about how Hari Kondabolu thinks British comedians should scrap the concept of "recycling material" being bad, and just tell their best jokes even if they don't all fit a theme. Then I had a conversation with my brother the confused me and now I don't know. Does anyone else know anything that they want to share?

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pretensesoup · 1 year ago

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How to Publish a Book, pt 2

Q: I'd like to do a print book too, not just an ebook. A: Do you realize that if you do a print book, your mom is going to read it? And the book has sex in there? Like, explicit gay sex? Like it says the word "cock" right there on the page.

Q: Yeah, she's like 77, she knows that sex exists. I've made my peace with this. A: All right, here we go. Publish on Demand books in some number of easy-ish steps.

There are a bunch of options for POD publishing now. IngramSpark, KDP, Draft2Digital, Lulu, etc. Other websites like Barnes & Noble will let you set up paperback publishing but outsource the actual printing to IngramSpark (IS). I think a bunch of these services do. IS is also slightly better if you want to have bookstores sell your book, have it in libraries, etc., because most bookstores won't order from Amazon, for obvious reasons. For Dionysus in Wisconsin, I've done both IS and Amazon, letting IS distribute to anywhere that isn't the Zon.

OH, IS allows preorders for paperbacks while the Zon doesn't.

First, you're going to need to write and edit the book. We went over this in pt. 1. Please refer there if you have any questions on this step. Okay, here is the exhaustive list of what to do once you're ready.

1. Decide what size the physical book should be. Look around your house at books in your genre and select the size that is most pleasing to you. This is called the trim size.

2. If you uploaded your text into a typesetting program like Atticus, tell it your trim size, preferred typeface size, line spacing, and margins and have it spit out a pdf. Otherwise, set Word up with those specifications. KDP has a helpful site where you can calculate the correct inner margins for your number of pages, while I think somehow IS just requires a .5" or .625" margin for all sizes (this doesn't make sense; I assume you just have to fix it after seeing a proof?). The book's gonna be exactly the same, so just do the same thing in both places.

Okay, one thing I couldn't find any guidance on is what size to make the typeface and line spacing. I wound up going with 11 pt typeface and 1.4 spacing. I figured this out by printing out the first page of my book, cutting it out at the correct size (5"x8") and comparing it to pages in similar books until I found one that looked readable and pretty. Anything from 10-12 is probably fine, also 1.1-1.4 spacing, but keep in mind that small/densely spaced typefaces will make your text look more intimidating. Someone on Mastodon said 1.5 spacing looks like a student paper, which I also agree with.

There are loads of websites that detail what typefaces to use for what types of books. "Look at your genre and try to match" is reasonable advice here too.

3. You need not just a cover, but a spine and a back cover. Books are three dimensional objects!

If you hire an artist, they should just be able to provide a wrap-around cover that is appropriate dimensions (again, KDP and IS both have templates), but if you're doing it yourself, I suggest laying out the entire cover on one large sheet of paper/canvas and doing your art like that rather than trying to photoshop together various pieces, unless you are really, really good at color leveling etc. You're gonna want to make sure that you have at least 300 dpi. Make sure you use open access typefaces or that you have rights to use them, ditto for any images you collage into stuff.

GIMP is a great free photoshop alternative. ImageMagick is a free image manipulation program that is incredibly powerful. I had to use ImageMagick to flip my cover file into CMYK and create a PDF. The command you want is this:

magick "inputfile.png" -colorspace sRGB -colorspace CMYK "outputfile.pdf"

4. Submitting your file for stuff: copyright here, LCCN (Library of Congress Control Number) here. Neither of these is obligatory, but both are cool in their own way. LCCN is a way for Library of Congress to pre-catalog your data (creating a stub record in OCLC) so that if a library acquires your book, it's easier for them to get it on the shelf. You need to submit your request for this PRIOR TO THE MONTH OF PUBLICATION. However, you don't need a final manuscript to submit, just a summary of the book. Also, note that you can only retroactively submit your MS for copyright registration for THREE MONTHS after publication, so decide now if you want it. And yes, everything you write in the US is automatically copyrighted, but having a certificate to prove it is nice in a court battle. Also also, you WILL want a finished copy of the text to submit when you make this request, or else you will have to submit two printed copies. By MAIL. So you have to GO OUT OF YOUR HOUSE TO THE POST OFFICE. UGH. (Technically, you are requested to send in a print copy for the LCCN program too. I don't think that's obligatory, but am I gonna pass up a chance to have my book fully cataloged by LOC? Fuck no.)

5. OKAY, assuming you got everything done, now you need an ISBN.

Do you really? Kind of. If you're only publishing on KDP, they'll give you a free one. But you can't reuse it if you try to also publish on IS. The reverse is also true. Technically, the entity that assigns the ISBN is the publisher, so this makes Amazon/IS the publisher of your book. Also, it makes editions slightly weird (technically, it's supposed to be one ISBN per edition). ANYWAY, in the US you buy ISBNs through Bowkers. Don't let them sell you barcodes or any of that garbage. Just buy your ISBN(s).

Sometimes, people report putting in information in KDP and then having the ISBN rejected as "in use" when inputting it into IS, so do this next part all at once. First, assign your ISBN to your book in the Bowkers database. Then assign it to your book at IS and save as draft. Then assign it to your book at KDP and save as draft.

One other note. If you have set up a business to be your press name (mine is Winnowing Fan Press, because the main character's name is Ulysses and I am a GIANT NERD), that will be set up as your publishing house in Bowkers. You won't have an imprint unless you specify one. (An imprint is like a special line of books, so Harlequin has a "digital-first" imprint called Carina Press that specializes in LGBT+ romance, because why would you publish LGBT+ romance in paperback first, ugh.) BUT Amazon will ask what the imprint is for your ISBN and it will be THE NAME OF THE PUBLISHING HOUSE. Why is Amazon using the term differently from everyone else? I DON'T KNOW. JUST GO WITH IT.

6. Upload all your files. Look at the previewers/e-proofs to make sure everything looks okay. Panic and reupload them five times with minute changes.

7. Set a price.

For real at this point I hope you're done making changes, because you suddenly have at least three versions across two different sites to update if you suddenly decide to add a credit for your author photo or something. (cough)

How to set a price the easy way: look at other similar books in your genre (your comps) and just set your book to that price (hopefully you aren't losing money that way).

8. You can order a physical proof at this stage. But if you want author copies, you're going to have to publish your book, meaning it becomes publicly available. I think that if you get through the KDP screens and hit "publish book," it goes live. So...save it as a draft; don't hit the go button until you're ready. IS meanwhile lets you make it available for preorder.

Deadlines: Try to get everything done and uploaded by five days before your planned publication date.

@tryxyhijinks I think that's everything. Wow, I'm tired now.

#how to publish a book #self publishing #print on demand #writeblr #writingcommunity #dionysus in wisconsin

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softforloki · 2 years ago

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Chapter 3: Raven

Chapter List

Word Count: 3,556

Summery: Loki finally meets Selene's daughter, and finds that much like with her mother, there's more to her than meets the eye.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Panic attack is had, and described in some detail.

. . .

It took two and a half months of friendship before Selene introduced Loki to her daughter.

“I have a question.” Selene plopped down on the sofa. “Hypothetically speaking, if I knew someone with powers that they couldn’t control, and are different enough from mine that I don’t know what to do, would you be able to help me teach them or figure out where to go?”

Loki blinked slowly, closing his book. “You’re going to have to give me the specifics of this hypothetical situation, darling.”

He knew something was wrong when the affectionate term went unnoticed. He’d been slipping more and more of them into his language with Selene, and every time she’d reacted positively, sometimes calling him something back in her sweet, teasing voice. This time, she sighed and dug her fingers into the hair at the top of her head, her favored nervous habit.

“Raven has…. Abilities.”

“Different from your own?” Loki prompted.

Selene nodded, scrubbing a hand down her face. “It doesn’t have a physical manifestation like mine- or at least not one that you or I can see. I think… I think she can see death.”

Interest fully piqued, Loki leaned forward. “As in ghosts?”

“Kinda? It’s hard to explain, hang on.” She rubbed her eyes again, lips pursed in thought. “She can see ghosts, or at least some kind of image of a dead person, but only if she tries to. With no effort or control she can….I guess sense the presence of death.”

Loki thought for a moment, turning the information over in his head. “Like she knows if someone’s experienced or dealt death? Like a sort of intuition?”

“Yes!” Selene explained, gesturing wildly. “Yes, I think so. Like, she knows about my-” She stopped herself suddenly, eyes going wide for a moment. “She’s… Aware of death that I’ve experienced.” She finished carefully, looking away.

Loki chose not to probe, but filed away this new development for future reference. “What exactly does she need help with?”

“She can’t make it stop. Every time we go anywhere it’s an onslaught of unwanted information about everyone and their mother’s dead family and friends.” She twisted the hem of her shirt in her hands. “Raven’s told me it’s like voices in her head. Like she's standing in the middle of the lunchroom at school, but instead of talking around her, they’re talking to her, nonstop.”

“And about death, of all things.” Loki mused. “It’d be maddening for anyone, I can’t possibly imagine how awful she must feel.”

“It’s terrible,” Selene agreed, nibbling at her perfect red lips. “I’ve had to teach myself to…. Block certain memories or feelings from her. I don’t like doing it because it feels like I’m physically closing myself off from her, but there are things I don’t really need her knowing at nine years old.”

Loki nodded slowly, once again adding to his mental notes. “Do you mind me asking how you both came into these powers? Is it hereditary?”

“They came from the same source,” She said slowly, voice trailing off as she looked at him helplessly.

Loki didn’t push her to reveal any more than that. “Do you think I can meet Raven?”

. . .

And that’s how Loki, the god of mischief, prince of Asgard and rightful king of Jotunheim found himself standing alongside Dr. Selene Lovelace on a crisp autumn day across the street from Beekman Hill elementary to walk her daughter home. His eyes scanned the clusters of students pulling away from the school, looking for a smaller version of the woman standing next to him.

Selene waved, and he followed her gaze to a small blond girl in jeans and a strawberry patterned sweater, walking on the outskirts of a group of children. Raven’s eyes lit up when she saw her mother, but she then faltered at the cross walk when she saw Loki, confusion scrawled across her small face.

She crossed the street, expertly weaving between pedestrians to get to Selene, who wrapped her in a big hug, nearly lifting her off her feet.

“Hey, girlie! How was school?” She asked brightly.

“It was good.” Raven replied quietly.

“What interesting thing happened?”

The girl shrugged.

“No aliens landed?”

She almost smiled. “No,”

“What about monkeys jumping out of cake?”

A giggle this time, “How would that even work?”

“You’d need a really big cake. Seriously, nothing cool happened?”

“We got our spelling tests back,” Raven offered. “I got a nineteen out of twenty.”

“Hey, that’s interesting! Good job, shortie.” Selene offered her hand to her daughter, who took it as they started walking. “This is my friend, Loki. He’s an Avenger.”

“Hello, Miss Raven.” Loki smiled over at Raven gently.

She looked up at him, her eyes flickering behind him for a few seconds before she returned her gaze. “Hi,” She gave him a shy wave, which Loki reciprocated.

“Loki can do magic, hon.” You told her “He thinks he can help you with your power.”

That made her perk up. “You can make it go away?”

“Not go away, but I think I can help you learn to control it and be able to turn it off when you don’t want it.” Loki replied carefully, suddenly very aware that he had to be mindful when choosing his words around the child.

That seemed good enough for her. Raven nodded quietly as Loki glanced at Selene, who was already watching him, a smile playing at the corner of her lips.

Over the brief walk to the Lovelace residence, Loki found that though generally quiet, if Selene asked Raven the right question or made the right comment, she’d quickly take the lead in the conversation, rambling about everything under the sun. Her closed-off nature from the front of the school melted away, giving way to a quiet manic energy Loki thought he remembered having in his youth. It was rather charming watching Selene engage her daughter in conversation, and heartwarming when she included Loki as much as she could.

The Lovelace’s lived in a little house in Manhattan, not far from the Central Park Zoo, Selene informed Loki. The outside was unassuming enough, but as soon as Selene opened the door and waved Raven and Loki in with a dramatic flourish, he was hit immediately with the pleasant scent of cedar and parchment.

The living room was filled with potted plants, bookshelves, framed photos, and crystals of all shapes and sizes lining windowsills and tables. It was a little witch’s den, he realized with a smirk.

Raven tugged on Selene’s shirt. “Can I pick a smell?”

“Sure, will you go drop your stuff in your room first?”

Raven nodded, kicking her shoes off and pulling her bag off her shoulders as she disappeared through a doorway.

“Miss Girl, where do these shoes belong?” Selene called after her.

Raven popped back in, grabbed the shoes with a sheepish smile and bolted back to her room.

“Silly thing,” Selene sighed, turning to Loki. “Do you mind if we burn incense? It helps for heavy conversations.”

“Not at all.” He assured.

Raven reappeared, sliding with her socks on the tiled kitchen floor to a drawer. She opened it, and Loki peered over her shoulder to find little compartments holding different sticks. The scent wafting from the drawer was mildly overwhelming. Loki found that each compartment was clearly labeled; jasmine, lavender, frankincense, and so much more.

Raven examined the sticks, referencing a little slip of paper tucked into the side of the drawer with a crease in her brow. “Can we do clove?”

“Clove sounds good to me.” Selene replied. “Stick it in.”

Loki watched as Raven took the stick of clove incense to a little brass holder on an end table in the living room. “Can I light it?”

“How about you help me light it?”

Selene showed Raven the mechanical lighter, and let her wrap her little hands around it to press the button to call the flame. Selene guided her daughter’s hand to the end of the stick, touching the fire to it.

“Tea?” Selene offered Loki. “You can come see what we’ve got,”

Loki nodded, following her back to the kitchen. She had a few different options of tea bags, but the real display was the jars lining the refrigerator door, all holding different colored liquid, each labeled with a black sharpie on the front.

“What exactly is chai?” Loki asked, taking the jar and unscrewing the lid. “You’ve mentioned you drink this a lot.”

“It’s a bunch of spices; cardamom, nutmeg, star anise, allspice, cinnamon, all that good stuff. You mix it with milk, and you can add extra sweetener.” Selene explained as Loki sniffed the tea.

A few short minutes later he found himself sitting across her and Raven, mugs of chai tea in their hands, the smell of clove wafting pleasantly throughout the room.

“Raven, your mum has told me a bit about your abilities.” Loki started, smiling kindly at the girl. “Perhaps you could tell me a bit more?”

“Like what?” She asked.

“What you see, what you feel, that sort of thing.”

“I know when people are dead.” She stated plainly.

“How?”

“It’s like….” She trailed off, frowning. “What’s it called when you know something, but no one told you?”

“Intuition?” Loki offered, remembering Selene's earlier explination.

“I have intuition about when people are dead, or know dead people.” She nodded.

“Do you simply know when someone knows someone who’s died, or can you see people who are dead?”

“Sometimes I can see them, but they don’t really talk to me. They kinda watch me. They usually go away quickly.”

“Hmm.” Loki nodded slowly. “What do you know about me?”

Raven hesitated. She looked to Selene, who nodded encouragingly.

“There were two people, but they both disappeared before we got in the house. A pretty lady with a long dress and braided hair, and an older guy with a beard and an eyepatch.”

Loki nodded again, sipping his tea, trying desperately to keep his hands from shaking. “Interesting.”

Raven seemed to clock his hands, and leaned over to Selene, whispering something in her ear.

“You can ask, he may not want to tell you, though.”

Raven nodded, turning back to Loki. “Who are they?”

Loki regarded this young, troubled, wickedly perceptive girl, and her empathetic, loving, and wonderful mother. He found he didn’t want to lie to them. “My parents, Frigga and Odin.”

Selene’s eyebrows flicked up for a moment, but otherwise her face remained neutral. Raven made a sad sound. “I’m sorry. Mama’s parents are dead, too.”

Selene let herself smile a bit at that. “We’ll start a club.”

Loki chuckled, regarding her with a tip of his head. “What did they do before they disappeared?”

“They just kinda stood there. Your mom smiled at me and nodded. She also touched Mama’s rings. Your dad didn’t do much, but he kept looking at you. He seemed sad. He also nodded at me.”

Loki turned this information over in his mind, attempting to keep himself grounded. His hands shook more violently around the mug. Selene gently pried it from his fingers, setting it on the coffee table.

“Do you want Raven to tell you anything else?”

“Hmm? Oh, no, I don’t think so.” He turned to Raven. “Thank you, Miss Raven, this has been very helpful.”

“Can you help me?” She asked, voice small.

Loki felt his heart break a little. “I believe I can, yes.”

“Can I tell you something else?”

“Of course.”

Raven looked at her mother, fiddling with her fingers. “Can you…. Can I talk to Mr. Loki alone?”

“Sure, I’ll pop outside for a bit, get that raking done.” Selene twirled a strand of Raven’s hair around her finger. “I’ll be back in a few.”

She passed behind Loki, leaving a lingering hand on his shoulder. Loki reached up to touch her hand briefly as she moved.

Raven was quiet for a minute after she left, looking down at her mug of tea. Loki waited for her to start talking, forcing his hands to rest still in his lap.

“I saw your parents, but there’s more. There’s more…. Death on you. Like it’s stuck to you.”

Loki froze, eyes widening at the little girl in front of him.

“It’s like old dirt or something, it’s on you and it’s there, but it’s old, you know? Like it happened a while ago.”

“Okay,” He said quietly.

A look of incredible sorrow crossed Raven’s face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

Sad didn’t even begin to cover what Loki was feeling. Pure horror was washing over him in cruel, violent waves. Flashes of the invasion of New York, the dark elves, and every time he narrowly escaped death replayed in his head over and over. He should’ve known he’d be unable to escape it, that his gruesome past would still linger over his head like a dark cloud. His vision blurred, and he barely realized when Raven had gotten up and bolted out of view.

“Mama! Mama, I need help!” She cried, but she sounded like she was underwater.

Not again. Not now. This can’t be happening now. He can’t lose himself now of all time, why does it have to be-

“Loki, you’re in my living room on my couch, and you’re safe. You’re safe, I promise.”

The weight dipped on the cushion next to him, and he felt a warm hand on his arm. Selene. It was Selene. She stroked his skin gently, sending tingles down his arm. Her fingers worked at his balled up fists, which he hadn’t even realized he’d made. He relaxed his hand, and let Selene hold it.

“Can you look at me?” She asked softly.

He managed to tear his gaze away from the floor and met her eyes. Norns, she was beautiful. Had her eyes always looked like that? She was so lovely and so kind. She spoke in soft tones that he was safe, and that no one could hurt him.

And he felt it.

He felt safe.

Loki started breathing again, albeit shakily. He squeezed Selene’s hand. “I’m alright.”

“Good,” she pressed a kiss to the back of his hand. “Do you need anything? Water? Fresh air? 27 kisses?”

Loki laughed unexpectedly at that, squeezing her hand again. “Perhaps later, love.”

“I always offer.” Selene shrugged, turning to look at her daughter, who was standing a few feet away, face ashen and guilty. “Baby-love, are you okay?”

“I broke him,”

“You didn’t break me, it’s not your fault.” Loki said hastily. “You simply reminded me of an unhappy part of my past, it’s quite alright.”

“No one’s upset with you,” Selene added, “Okay?”

Raven nodded, but she didn’t look much comforted.

“You want to take a few minutes? We can chat after Loki’s gone.”

Another nod. Clutching at her fingers, Raven stumbled out and disappeared into her room, leaving behind her half-drunken mug of tea.

As soon as the door closed, Selene, still holding Loki’s hand, squeezed it with a heavy sigh. “This is why I taught myself how to close off this kind of thing from her.” She admitted quietly. “It’s jarring how she can pick up on the worst parts of you. I understand the panic.”

Loki fixed his gaze on Selene, searching her face. She was, as always, being nothing but honest with him, though she seemed to be leaving out several key details. But he caught the understanding in her eyes, the concern.

“You’ll have to teach me that trick for the future.” He replied.

She perked up. “You’re going to come back?”

“I said I’d help, didn’t I?” He smirked a little. “So, Raven has a sort of sixth-sense with death, and she can see remnants of people who’ve passed, but they’re not ghosts.” He summarized.

“They’re not?”

He shook his head. “My parents are in Valhalla, they wouldn’t linger. Not here.”

“Interesting, okay.” Selene nodded. “So, what can we do?”

“I’m not entirely sure, I may have to do some research.” Loki searched his subconscious for the tiles of his mother’s magical texts that he could retrieve from New Asgard. “Perhaps some sort of meditation process would be helpful, to get her to clear her mind?”

“We’ve done that a few times, she’s pretty good at it when it’s just us.”

“Not so much in public?”

“Tried it once, it only made everything more overwhelming.” Her brow furrowed. “She was in tears, Loki. I didn’t want to try it again until I knew how to do it better.”

A bit of her serene, collectedness faltered, and Loki could see the fear and desperation. The fierce love of a parent for their child. The hope to keep them safe and happy.

“I will look into some things, may I contact you when I feel prepared enough?”

“You’ve got my number, you can contact me whenever you like.” Selene winked with a flirtatious grin. “But seriously, thank you so much for this. I truly have no way to repay you.”

“The company of a girl as bright as she and a woman as lovely as yourself is payment enough.” He replied smoothly, kissing her knuckles. “I only wish I could do more to soothe her worries.”

“It’ll be better if we just give her time. She knows that you’re not upset with her, but she usually needs recharge time after conversations like this.”

“I understand the feeling, I was the same way at her age.” Loki took his mug, relieved to find his hands no longer shaking. “And in many ways, I still am now.”

The two finished their tea in pleasant conversation about Raven’s childhood and Selene’s journey through parenthood and understanding her daughter’s needs. Loki talked a little about his own childhood and life on Asgard. Raven- still wide eyed and guilty looking- eventually re-emerged from her room as Loki was preparing to leave. She pulled Selene aside, whispering to her again.

“Ask him, not me.” Selene replied, gesturing to Loki.

Raven approached him hesitantly, and in a voice barely above a whisper, asked “Can I hug you?”

He smiled down at her, faith in all things good restored. “Of course.”

Loki kneeled down so he was at level with the girl, and let her wrap her arms tightly around him. He gently hugged her back, marveling at the innocent charm she had, and how it’d won him over immediately.

She pulled away to look at him with her big, hopeful eyes. “Are you still gonna help me?” She asked, voice wobbly.

“Yes, Raven. I will help you.” He reassured her. “I’m going to do some research, and we can talk when I’ve prepared a bit better, is that alright?”

She nodded, shy smile pulling at her small features. “Thank you,”

“It’s my pleasure.” Loki gave her one more soft smile before he got to his feet, and let Selene walk him outside.

“Really appreciate you going to all the effort for this, Loki.” Selene thanked him again.

“I’m always up for a challenge, darling.” He quipped with a wink. “Not to mention you have an absolute angel for a child and I already loathe the idea of something like this hurting her.”

Selene barked out a laugh. “She has that effect.” She acknowledged.

“So does her mother.” Loki replied with a rakish grin. “Perhaps the two of us can meet when I’ve done my reading- so we can discuss what I’ve found and a possible way forward. Perhaps over dinner?”

“Smooth, Mischief. Smooth.” Selene drawled, eyes dancing. “Whatever you’re doing, it’s working. You’ve got a deal.”

“Excellent. Then I will see you again soon.”

“Very soon.” She agreed, before stepping into him and hugging him.

He hesitated only a moment, before folding his arms around her and holding her. He breathed in her lemon-lavender scent, letting himself linger in the moment. “I should thank you for earlier, when you lost me? That’s not the first time that’s happened, but I don’t think I’ve ever recovered so quickly.”

Selene leaned back to look at him, but didn’t leave his arms. “How often does that happen?”

“Not very, only when I’m reminded of my past in anything more than a passing reference.”

She hummed. “Tell you what. We’ll have that dinner and you’ll give me your report, and I’ll give you some self-regulation tricks and coping mechanisms for your panic attacks.”

Panic attack. Loki’d never had a name for it before. He’d just known them as those terrifying episodes where he felt trapped in his own body. That was a rather wordy name, though. “You’d do that?”

“Licensed psychologist, remember?” She smiled earnestly. “It’s my job and I love doing it. This can be how I repay you.”

“Thank you, Selene. Really.”

She cupped his face, and gently kissed him on the cheek. “It’s my pleasure.”

Loki swore his heart stopped beating. He watched Selene grin, turn away, and walk back inside the house. He caught a glimpse of her through the window hoisting Raven up into her arms, and shaking her around as they both laughed.

He smiled, and with one final longing glance, he tore himself away. He walked a few feet down the sidewalk before disappearing in a flash of green light.

#loki #loki laufeyson #loki odinson #loki friggason #loki x reader #loki laufeyson x reader #loki odinson x reader #loki friggason x reader #loki x oc #loki x female oc #loki x fem oc #marvel loki #loki marvel

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dimonds456 · 1 year ago

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Adding to this! My experience is very limited (as I only just started using a cane full-time about a month and a half ago with no instructions), but I would like to take a moment to talk about some cane-related struggles a character might run into, especially if they came flying in blind like I did!

Theft

Yep. Theft. I actually got a cane around this time last year, but within the first two weeks of my having one, it got stolen. I don't know why, but I have heard from other cane users in my area that that happens a lot, surprisingly. My cane was taken by a fellow college student, though I was never able to figure out who did it or even when, as I was still adjusting to it and kept forgetting it when I left rooms.

2. Forgetfulness

Adjusting to having a cane, especially if it's not medically diagnosed, is weird. You suddenly have to keep track of a stick you need all the time, and for characters who have ADHD or otherwise have terrible memory, that can be a challenge at first. I know I often had to return to classrooms to go get it because I was just used to walking around without one, and would typically only remember I was missing it when my hips/legs started to hurt or I would go to lean on it and there was nothing there.

3. Big clunky stick needs to sit somewhere while you do.

I have an aluminum adjustable cane, so this is specifically in reference to that type. Trying to find somewhere to set your cane down while you sit can be surprisingly difficult at times. You can't lay it on your lap since it's too long and could disrupt those sitting next to you, you can't lean it on a table if the edge is too low/high (might trip someone), sometimes walls aren't super nearby, and sometimes the floor is really, really dirty or you just can't lean down to pick it back up on that day. I've taken up a bad habit of leaning my chin against the top of my cane in car rides to help with that, which is actually a hazard and you should not do.

4. Transportation / needing both your hands

If your character needs to help bring in the groceries and cannot set their cane down anywhere reliable, trying to adjust and find a reliable way to carry their cane can be hard. I made the mistake of just letting it drag behind me the first time I had to carry groceries home from the bus, and when I got there the rubber part had filed down by quite a lot. But I couldn't use only one hand to carry, I had to use both. I am still figuring out how to do this to this day.

'Course, groceries aren't the only scenario a character might find themselves in, it's just the most immediate example to me since I live pretty much on my own and keep making the mistake of bringing my cane with me whenever I go grocery shopping (and if I leave it home, there's a chance I'll need it and won't have it).

5. "...So, do you actually need a cane?" "Oh no, what happened?!"

If your character was usually seen without a cane and then magically had one the next day, it would definitely raise questions. The thing is, the questions never seem to stop. More people and more strangers who just know them (if they're a retail worker or a bartender or something) will assume that an accident must have occurred for the cane to suddenly appear, when that's not always the case. Like I said, for me, I actually got a cane a year ago before it got stolen 2 weeks in, and both times, I have been getting nonstop questions about where it came from. It was endearing at first, but now it's just frustrating. No, nothing happened, I've always needed a cane, was just hesitant to get one because I didn't want it to be stolen again.

And that's all I've got for now! Don't be afraid to make the cane continue to add to the character's struggles instead of them having one being a fix-all. Yes, having a cane can make life a lot easier, but they also come with their own set of problems and struggles, too. I'm sure I'll find new ways that having a cane makes life a bit harder (I haven't taken it on a plane yet, that's gotta be fun. I have no idea how that works), and I'm sure your characters will, too.

Have fun writing, and happy disability pride month!

A general cane guide for writers and artists (from a cane user, writer, and artist!)

Disclaimer: Though I have been using a cane for 6 years, I am not a doctor, nor am I by any means an expert. This guide is true to my experience, but there are as many ways to use a cane as there are cane users!

This guide will not include: White canes for blindness, crutches, walkers, or wheelchairs as I have no personal experience with these.

This is meant to be a general guide to get you started and avoid some common mishaps/misconceptions, but you absolutely should continue to do your own research outside of this guide!

The biggest recurring problem I've seen is using the cane on the wrong side. The cane goes on the opposite side of the pain! If your character has even-sided pain or needs it for balance/weakness, then use the cane in the non-dominant hand to keep the dominant hand free. Some cane users also switch sides to give their arm a rest!

A cane takes about 20% of your weight off the opposite leg. It should fit within your natural gait and become something of an extension of your body. If you need more weight off than 20%, then crutches, a walker, or a wheelchair is needed.

Putting more pressure on the cane, using it on the wrong side, or having it at the wrong height will make it less effective, and can cause long term damage to your body from improper pressure and posture. (Hugh Laurie genuinely hurt his body from years of using a cane wrong on House!)

(an animated GIF of a cane matching the natural walking gait. It turns red when pressure is placed on it.)

When going up and down stairs, there is an ideal standard: You want to use the handrail and the cane at the same time, or prioritize the handrail if it's only on one side. When going up stairs you lead with your good leg and follow with the cane and hurt leg together. When going down stairs you lead with the cane, then the good leg, and THEN the leg that needs help.

Realistically though, many people don't move out of the way for cane users to access the railing, many stairs don't have railings, and many are wet, rusty, or generally not ideal to grip.

In these cases, if you have a friend nearby, holding on to them is a good idea. Or, take it one step at a time carefully if you're alone.

Now we come to a very common mistake I see... Using fashion canes for medical use!

(These are 4 broad shapes, but there is INCREDIBLE variation in cane handles. Research heavily what will be best for your character's specific needs!)

The handle is the contact point for all the weight you're putting on your cane, and that pressure is being put onto your hand, wrist, and shoulder. So the shape is very important for long term use!

Knob handles (and very decorative handles) are not used for medical use for this reason. It adds extra stress to the body and can damage your hand to put constant pressure onto these painful shapes.

The weight of a cane is also incredibly important, as a heavier cane will cause wear on your body much faster. When you're using it all day, it gets heavy fast! If your character struggles with weakness, then they won't want a heavy cane if they can help it!

This is also part of why sword canes aren't usually very viable for medical use (along with them usually being knob handles) is that swords are extra weight!

However, a small knife or perhaps a retractable blade hidden within the base might be viable even for weak characters.

Bases have a lot of variability as well, and the modern standard is generally adjustable bases. Adjustable canes are very handy if your character regularly changes shoe height, for instance (gotta keep the height at your hip!)

Canes help on most terrain with their standard base and structure. But for some terrain, you might want a different base, or to forego the cane entirely! This article covers it pretty well.

Many cane users decorate their canes! Stickers are incredibly common, and painting canes is relatively common as well! You'll also see people replacing the standard wrist strap with a personalized one, or even adding a small charm to the ring the strap connects to. (nothing too large, or it gets annoying as the cane is swinging around everywhere)

(my canes, for reference)

If your character uses a cane full time, then they might also have multiple canes that look different aesthetically to match their outfits!

When it comes to practical things outside of the cane, you reasonably only have one hand available while it's being used. Many people will hook their cane onto their arm or let it dangle on the strap (if they have one) while using their cane arm, but it's often significantly less convenient than 2 hands. But, if you need 2 hands, then it's either setting the cane down or letting it hang!

For this reason, optimizing one handed use is ideal! Keeping bags/items on the side of your free hand helps keep your items accessible.

When sitting, the cane either leans against a wall or table, goes under the chair, or hooks onto the back of the chair. (It often falls when hanging off of a chair, in my experience)

When getting up, the user will either use their cane to help them balance/support as they stand, or get up and then grab their cane. This depends on what it's being used for (balance vs pain when walking, for instance!)

That's everything I can think of for now. Thank you for reading my long-but-absolutely-not-comprehensive list of things to keep in mind when writing or drawing a cane user!

Happy disability pride month! Go forth and make more characters use canes!!!

#i need to decorate my cane more #thank you op i love you #sorry for putting so much here op aha #your post made me realize i had my cane on the wrong setting (which i thought i fixed but having the visual helped)#disability pride month #actually disabled #cane user #writing help #writing #writing advice #writing tips #dimond speaks

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finsterhund · 1 month ago

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so you have any info for an english translation of the original french heart of darkness? you did mention some diffrences in what andy says and id like to know more about it!

I've been on and off looking for a professional translator or dedicated fan who's first language is French to pay to create a transcript and then making a subtitled video of all the cinematics, possibly even modifying the PAF file to create a fanmade English subbed install of the game that properly runs. But finances and stress has put that on the back burner. It is very much planned though. I fully intent to make this a resource available online when I get there.

My French is poor enough that I cannot do this by myself but good enough that I can notice differences and in slower sections pick out specific words and understand the meaning. From what me and other people have said, there's a more serious tone in the general cutscenes with Andy being presented as more younger and naiver and with dialogue that is less "of the time period." Knowing that there was a large cardboard cutout of arnold schwarzenegger in a tv interview that showed a bit of Eric's studio at around that time, the inclusion of a Terminator reference at the final confrontation for the English dub makes sense. Particularly in that scene, it would not make sense for a direct translation. As in French the Master essentially goes "We'll all die" and Andy says "No, you'll die" which sounds more like a meme sort of joke line directly translated into English where as in the English dub the Master goes "You'll kill us all" to which Andy responds with the comeback. Andy being a bit spicier and quipping with the big bad being the ultimate result of the change.

Contrastly, Andy actually swears in the original. In the opening cinematic he says "merde" several times, which in the English dub is translated as "shoot" as oppose to the more correct "shit"

There's some figures of speech that weren't directly translatable. the "sleeping in class" is basically "head in the clouds" in the original French and from what I can tell the Teacher's rant is more along the lines of "if black holes are so boring maybe you'll be more entertained by the black of the cupboard" as black/dark are both "noir" and that's a bit of a word pun with black hole and the dark.

Other notable differences that I can confidently point out are what appears to be a political joke in reference to the European Union when Vicious is first thrown against a wall (this scene due to a mixing error is almost impossible to hear in the English dub so it was a point of focus when trying to listen and understand what the lines were in the original French), and the Ami/Friends/Amigos not being speakers of another human language. They simply speak broken French. Which I think makes more sense that their species is called "Friends" and the one that Andy befriends is called "Friend" because it's them using a human word they know. It's not their actual name. Just something they hope Andy will understand. Interestingly, the English dub and the Spanish dub are the only ones that changed this, instead having the Friends be shown to speak one human language better than that of Andy and the viewer. It's common knowledge for the English dub that Spanish was chosen for the language of the friends. In the Spanish dub, it's English! Not related to the French dub itself, but I found that fun.

Additional fun fact about things lost in translation. Maître (Master) has a dual meaning. It's also the title given to what's the equivalent to primary school teachers by their students. So hahaha the teacher and the master are the same entity hehehe.

There's probably more word puns. I'd argue that if there's any more significant differences it'd be more lost in translation stuff.

Oh, also my current blog title is "Send the Flying Spectres" because that's what the Master says in the original French where in the English dub he just says "Get him"

#text post #heart of darkness #language differences

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theprojectreneblogger · 1 month ago

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Project Rene Datamine MEGAPOST (+More Screenshots, Core Mechanics, Story, etc)

Hello! This post is a "part 2" to my original post from a few days ago. A link to that can be found here in case you missed it: https://www.reddit.com/r/GamingLeaksAndRumours/comments/1frtd5c/new_project_rene_formerly_the_sims_5_screenshots/

As per tradition, I will be leaving my feedback out of my post, and only displaying the facts.

HUGE thank you to the sims datamining community. Many notable figures in there that helped with these discoveries. Some wish to be unnamed which I will respect, and huge thank you to u/Vegetable_Ear_4141 or thesarahmilani for posting the imgur links!

For now, let's begin with the NEW info. I will be separating this post into 4 sections, similarly to the folder structure in the game files (CAS, Garage, The Hub, Live Mode, +Misc)

ALL of these elements can be seen in better detail in the screenshots associated with them. (ex. DLCs)

CAS (Create a Sim)

This is where most of the interesting stuff comes from. Though the playtest did not allow for us to create our own sims, this build actually contains a very early version of what we are going to see in Create a Sim. There's a lot of info to go through here.

TailoringHQ was the original name for the Clothing Workshop.

First look at Create a Sim (debug) (see imgur)

References to Fine Tuning, Body Frame, Body Height(!!), Clothing layering, Clothing Workshop.

Tweens are confirmed.

Within the "Char" folder, there are references to Humans and Horses.

Horses are editable in CAS. There is also a unicorn variant.

Mobility Aids. Only one at the moment for wheelchairs.

"Upper Varients" lets you customize from preset tops to your liking.

Change sleeves and collars on your shirt.

"Fat Controls" (yes, actually called that) is used internally to make body weight significantly more realistic.

"Fat Controls" go VERY in depth, ranging from all parts of the body to a heavy focus on the face.

Various Body type customization (mainly shapes and sizes).

Various Garments including bags, bracelets, socks, watches, scarfs, etc.

Possible careers include "Student", "Poet", "Gardener" and "Chef".

CAS menu tile (see imgur)

Sim height adjustment icons (see imgur)

Test hairstyle thumbnail files.

Pants thumbnail files

unicorn accessory model for horses

Facial hair, Hair loss, and various hairstyles

Screenshots of Files (+More detailed descriptions): https://imgur.com/a/XalnFj9

Garage

The Garage folder contains stuff relating to the story. The only notable things in here right now are two placeholder artworks of the (protagonists?) named Josie and Rachel.

The concept art for these characters can be found here: https://imgur.com/a/project-rene-garage-storylines-3zvyh1z

The Hub

The Hub is essentially the area that was being playtested. It is a public space for all multiplayer and UGC related things (UGC = User Generated Content). Players can either join their friends, or select "quick play" to join a random session with random players.

It includes a "For You" section, "Marketplace", "Multiplayer", and "UGC" folders. To be clear, the hub is the only place you can matchmake and meet random players. The rest of the game can be played solo if you wanted.

The "For You" section:

Purely speculation at this time

The "Marketplace" section:

Used purely just for DLC.

DLC videos will be able to autoplay, have various sizes, thumbnails, etc.

Icons for The Hub have also been uncovered, showcasing SimBucks currency (Likely MTX).

The "Multiplayer" section:

Contains everything related to MP in the Hub.

Invite players

Search for Lobbies

Get notifications from others

Separate part of the game, used mainly in the Hub area.

Ability to invite other players to your Neighborhood

Kick players from your neighborhood

Invite players to a party

Ability to call other players

Mute/unmute microphone

Deafen/undeafen (similar to discord call)

The "UGC" Section (User Generated Content):

Curated user generated items

Basically "CC" becoming much more accessible.

Doesn't require you to visit external websites to download custom content anymore.

The Hub section will also have promotions, including...

A seasons pass

Weekly events

New purchases becoming available

Screenshots of Files (+More detailed descriptions): https://imgur.com/a/e21rU3n

Live Mode

Files contain a rather pretty looking concept art of the city. (see imgur below)

Icons for sim motives (see imgur for more detail)

Live mode icons, including play/pause controls, moods, motive increase/decrese, etc. (see imgur below).

Live mode folders contain low detail debug sim models. Most are unnamed, except for one 'Rory'.

A horse model was found in the files, however it looks to be the same one used in TS4, likely placeholder. (see imgur).

"Play Neighborhood" menu tile (likely placeholder)

"Matchmaking" menu tile (likely placeholder)

"Find a Game" menu tile (likely placeholder)

"Create a Game" menu tile (likely placeholder)

"Create a Sim" menu tile (likely placeholder)

Functional metro system, used for travelling between areas.

Times of day (Afternoon, Dawn, Dusk, Mid-Day, Morning, Night, Sunrise, Sunset)

Weather system

Objects can be burnt, dirty, or covered in snow. (seasons confirmed?)

City controls, includes things like streetlamps and city lights. Interestingly, also contains references to a "Mural" and "Workshop" modes.

Sim Activity icons

Friendships have 4 levels/modes in rene: Unacquainted, Neutral, Friendly, and Close.

Every single social icon (visual icons that appear above sims' heads depending on what they're talking about; see imgur).

The Live Mode in this build is rather fleshed out in the files compared to what we saw in the playtest. Most of the core sims mechanics are present, such as sim aging and being able to control multiple sims in a household.

Screenshots of Files (+More detailed descriptions): https://imgur.com/a/project-rene-live-mode-Ws1TibU

Misc

This section includes misc information about the game that we found interesting enough to share.

This game uses volumetric clouds.

This game uses parallax interiors.

Also, here are spreadsheets including every single interaction, emotion, objects, and more organized in csv format. I won't be going over this in detail as there is a LOT. Make your own discoveries.

Extra Gameplay Screenshots

Can be found here:

Friendly reminder that everything shown above is subject to change in the final version and should still be taken with a grain of salt as things tend to change over time.

AMA in the comments if you want, I will try my best to answer any question you have about this game. I will respond as long as I have solid proof behind my claims as I would like to remain reliable.

Once again, thank you so much to everyone that contributed to this datamine.

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forastic · 2 years ago

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Open Studios interactive project

UCSC DANM grad school winter 2023 - week 9-10

The final prompt for my interactive art class involved a skill share. From one other student I learned how to use a RFID reader with a raspberry pi. From the other I learned how to do needle felting. We each created small figures out of felt and decided to put them in a space together, with different zones that they could interact with. Here’s the felt figure I created.

youtube

This was also the first time I ever sewed anything! I sewed the wings.

Here’s the brainstorming board the three of us put together to create a weird version of a petting zoo:

We planned on showing it off at the art department’s open studio (despite the fact that we’re not part of the art department). While we were able to show stuff at the open studios, other projects ended up taking priority and this didn’t come to fruition the way that we had originally planned.

I wanted to make a reference to Nam June Paik’s TV buddhas, but I wanted to make it softer and kind of silly. I crafted a cute TV out of felt and replaced the dragon’s head.

I intended on having the dragon (now a TV dragon) watch himself on a TV while it streamed to Twitch. I wanted to install COZYSPACE as well, near where this was. When you place the TV dragon in the right place, I wanted a little bit of music to play. This idea got a little out of hand, but I managed to set everything up that I planned, and it worked fine.

I began 3D printing the shapes in COZYSPACE at various sizes with the intention of hanging them near the TV and the dragon.

I also wanted to have the controllers for COZYSPACE be closer to my original vision of regular Super Nintendo controllers, but wireless. I got a pair and began painting them to make them cuter.

I used regular spraypaint from the hardware store, using the splatter technique I learned from making stuff for BEARPAD. I chose a purple and teal color scheme with pastel accents, as COZYSPACE was originally intended to chill me out personally, and I like that early 90s party cup/taco bell aesthetic. The spray paint took a long time to cure - the controllers were still a little sticky for up to a week after I painted them.

I rigged a raspberry pi and RFID reader to activate when placing a chip on it, combining a couple tutorials online to get it to also play music using the pygame library. I have only minimal python coding experience and it took a bit longer than I anticipated. I was amused that people recommended playing .ogg files for audio, as I haven’t really heard of those being used in over 15 years. I wrote a piece of music really quickly to play when the TV dragon rests on the cozy spot. I made a synth sound, threw a bunch of effects on it, and improvised in g flat major pentatonic using my computer keyboard in ableton.

https://on.soundcloud.com/7ALpC

Patrick designed a new shape that would look good alongside the shapes in COZYSPACE, but was large enough to hold a raspberry pi and an RFID reader. We grabbed a raspberry pi case design from thingaverse and dropped it into Blender to make sure we had the size right, built a chamber for it, then he built a shape out around the chamber. Here’s some pics of it hanging in action.

I tried it out streaming on twitch, but it immediately brought up concerns of privacy, so I ditched it and left it on the OBS screen, as though he was about to start streaming on twitch. I felted the RFID sensor inside of the bottom of his head so that his head would activate the sensor. I threaded a wire through him and attached an alligator clip to fishing line from above, so that people could attach it to that and have him rest on the cozy shape, watching himself on the TV. The sensor range was very small, however, making it a little finicky and not the experience I had hoped.

Here’s my todo/sketch board I used for a lot of the install:

I added the LED strips late in the install. There are kits you can buy for ambient lighting that sits behind a flatscreen TV. You plug in your HDMI cable and it takes the video signal and translates some of the colors to the LED strips. I know there are ways to make them with raspberry pis or with arduinos, but i was running out of time and wanted the effect of the colors in the COZYSPACE also changing the color of the 3D printed shapes, so I bought the kit from amazon. It plugged in and worked well enough right away for my purposes. I draped the LEDs a little haphazardly around the install in a way that I thought looked good for my purposes.

Setting up took MUCH longer than I had anticipated. I spent about 2 and a half days of work just blacking out the space, setting everything up, and hanging the cozy shapes.

I was a little worried I wouldn’t have enough time for everything to get done, but I ended up setting up everything I wanted. I left programming the controllers for last because I didn’t want to spend more time in Unity after not using it for so long. I found a way to address the joystick buttons directly in the code rather than using Unity’s input manager, which was a relief.

I also made some tweaks to the sound of cozyspace. Each of the 4 channels is playing a sub bass frequency that is slightly out of sync with the others, giving the sensation of something moving around in space around people in the center of the installation. I made the frequencies closer, which made the movement feel much much slower. I also made the looping track twice as long, adding some slight movement to the tracks, and reset everything to G flat major.

The actual open studios was a very educational experience, hah. I learned that people need to be told when you can touch the art. I assumed (incorrectly) that bean bags and video game controllers would be enough, but I had to invite people to interact with it. In the future I’ll have signage with my name and info about the work, even for an open studios.

https://youtube.com/shorts/PYVX6z-7OGc

https://youtu.be/XffYEqUQ8qc

https://youtu.be/y0zdaRWFfSc

#cozyspace #danm #ucsc #interactive art

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thebluestbluewords · 2 months ago

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okay, here’s some more about The Curse of The Lake:

The knock comes sooner than expected.

Coach Jenkins isn’t a man who spends a lot of time in his little office, but the amount of paperwork that he’s required to file each semester to travel with his students is significant enough that he’s been spending an hour or two each day working through the backlog of parental release forms.

He’s on the T-V section right now, and his tiny scanner is making noises that don’t bode well for its future. The school has the budget for another, but he’s reluctant to make the equipment request when the funds would be better suited for new rapiers for the fencing team. Budgeting is a nice distraction, but it hasn’t escaped his notice that his two newest students don’t have any parental release forms on file.

He can’t legally bring the kids from the isle off campus, but that’s never stopped him before. And it hasn’t stopped the kids from leaving either, which he’s decided to pretend not to notice until they bring it up.

Which….

When he gave his newest competitive player his phone number, he expected an occasional text. A few of the older students prefer to text him when they need reference letters, or to connect with college teams. He has a work phone for a reason, because prep school parents expect to pay for the best, and Coach Jenkins is one of the best high school coaches this side of the Northern Wei pass.

What he didn’t expect was this.

“STOP FUCKING RUNNING—“

“I’m not running! You’re just slow!” Jay shouts, barreling through the open door. “Hey Coach!”

“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU MYSELF!” the daughter of Maleficent, the most feared villain of the last thirty years, shouts as she launches herself in behind him. “YOU MORON.”

Chaos incarnate. That’s what he wasn’t expecting when it came to the four children from the isle.

More the fool, him.

“You’re both stupid!” DeVil shouts, voice echoing down the hallway. Where one of the isle set goes, the others will follow.

Jay throws himself down into the folding chair that Coach keeps out for students. “I’m not actually stupid, by the way.” He informs him. The judgement in his voice is somewhat tempered by the fact that he’s soaking wet. “Mal’s just mean.”

“You are so!” Mal shrieks. She’s not one that Coach sees in his office very often, but again, the isle kids come as a set. “He fell in the lake. In the LAKE.”

Coach keeps his voice as mild as possible. “The enchanted lake, I assume?”

“Well—“

“We’d never leave campus without permission,” Mal assures him, before Jay can finish. She’s also dripping wet, from about the waist down. “We found a little lake on campus. Just a small one.”

“We found a cave—“ Jay starts, and then stops abruptly when his not-girlfriend (Coach has seen a lot of high school relationships come and go over the years, and the best he can tell is that they’re not the sort of kids who are overly physical with their PDA, but he’s never seen them get so close with other kids, so it’s the most logical assumption he can figure) kicks him in the shin. “Ow, what the fuck?”

“We found a lake.” Mal says with a sharp sort of smile. “The details don’t matter. Jay’s just being a little bitch about inhaling some lake water.”

“I fell in!”

DeVil slips in behind the two of them. He’s not wet, which is surprising only because Coach has yet to see him more than a half step behind Jay, and he’s sort of assumed that when one boy fell in, the other would follow. “We need swimming lessons,” he says, as blank and to the point as he always is with anyone outside of his little squad. “I fixed Jay’s phone, but we need to learn to swim if it’s going to happen again. Will you teach us?”

texts from your favorite student

I’ve been thinking ENDLESSLY about this post and while I don’t have a fully baked fic about it, I do have some Thoughts.

The first Thought is that Jay is one of those probably-ADHD kids who will lose his phone at the drop of a hat. To combat this he has the biggest, stupidest phone case possible. Like, sure he can keep track of the entire contents of what he’s picked up over the course of a day, and he knows exactly where the necklace he stole from Evie’s friend three weeks ago is, but his phone?? An item that he actively uses every day?? Gone the second he puts it down.

with that in mind, picture these texts coming from something like this.

(if this were a full fic i would have a further piece where it’s revealed that The Curse is in fact just Mal, who’s incredibly pissed that Jay fell in a lake and is actively attempting to murder him over this)

(tragically I can’t add timestamps directly to the texts with the message maker program I’m using, but just know that Jay will NOT acknowledge a feeling until he’s pretty sure the other person is asleep)

(he’s going to get Dippin Doughnuts off campus with the squad)

(this one will surely not spark any realizations for Coach, leading to the most awkwardly supportive conversation a few days later)

#my fic #the swimming lessons probably go about as well as expected #which is to say: terrible #in my heart Jay likes to pretend that he’s tough and cool and not afraid of anything #but in reality he’s been thrown overboard by too many pirates to not be afraid of water #hmmm maybe this is in the same verse as the one where his mother drowned herself….#add another dimension to that water related trauma #does he mention any of this before their first swimming lesson??#absolutely not :)

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therealvalkyrie · 3 years ago

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exactly the spring

Pairing/setting: Ushijima Wakatoshi x Fem!Reader, college!AU

Summary: Reserved biology student Ushijima finds himself falling in love when you, an adorably disorganized art student, wander into the greenhouse.

Word Count: 3.4k

Warnings: fluff, kissing

AN: Hi!! So, the inspiration for this one sprang from the beautiful, sexi brain of Emme ( @doinmybesthere ) way back in MARCH ahem anyway, it's done! I hope it's just as soft and intimate as you envisioned<33 Also, big shoutout to my beautiful friends Arobi ( @daqueenobooty ) and Cee ( @spacelabrathor ) for being wonderful betas and giving me such kind comments:) I hope you enjoy, and as always don't be shy about leaving comments or coming to chat! Be kind to yourselves and others. ~valkyrie

p.s. check out this amazing art that @/54prowl made of plant boy ushi!! :D

Plants don’t talk back, Ushijima learned as a toddler. He’d babble to them in nonsensical phrases as his mother worked in the garden, and they’d only sway in the wind and listen, waxy under his chubby fingers.

A volleyball doesn’t talk back, either, not even through its bounces and echoes on hands and hard surfaces. It doesn’t listen as easily as plants, but can be herded and shaped like putty into a winning thing if you touch it right. This, Ushijima learned at his father’s hand and carried with him through childhood and adolescence.

The joy and puzzlement of you is that you do both. You listen so intently and openly with your steady eyes and soft body as the words pour out of him. And then, you reply. With your clear voice and new perspective, you offer something new. You offer companionship.

It was the second week of spring semester that you wandered into the greenhouse, eyes lit by the sun and sketchbook under one arm. Ushijima was repotting a large fern, dirt up to his elbows as he kneeled on the floor. He barely gave you a second glance, preoccupied with nestling the plant’s root system comfortably.

You settled a short distance away, crossing your legs to sit on the tile floor in front of an orange tree to sketch its still-closed flower buds with charcoal pencils. He kept working as you did, the sun sliding across glass, shadows shifting into the early evening of winter. When the sun was threatening to set over the city skyline — even with the greenhouse where it sits on the roof of the biology building — he turned to tell you he was closing up, only to find you gone. In your place, sitting on the wooden table that held newly planted basil and sage, was a drawing.

It was a single branch, detailed in shades of charcoal down to the last dewdrop. At the bottom, looping handwriting scrawled, “thank you for the peace.”

That night, he tacked it up above his desk in his dorm next to the postcard from Tendō and hoped you’d come back.

And you do, a couple of days later, on a Saturday. He looks up from where he’s filling in the logbook, this time, catching your gaze and holding it for a moment before you break away to survey the room. Today, he thinks you looked breathtaking. You’re wearing a long, flowing skirt and a sweater that makes him want to feel how soft it is, and how soft you are in it, and by the time his brain catches up with his thoughts, he’s been staring too long and your eyes have wandered back to him. It’s raining, today — it never really snows in this city, he’s learned — and shadowy droplets play across your face as they drip down the greenhouse’s arched glass ceiling, highlighting the curve of your cheekbone and making your eyes glow softly.

He clears his throat and looks back to the thick spiral-bound book on the table before him. Sometimes, when he meets people for the first time, he knows he can come across as intimidating. That worked out for him in high school and on the volleyball court, but in his adulthood, it’s been more of a hindrance than a help. It makes it… difficult to make friends here, where he doesn’t already know anyone.

And the last thing he wants is to scare you away. The last thing he wants is to break the peace you’ve apparently found here.

Which is why he barely dares to breathe when he looks up to find you approaching him where he’s perched on a sturdy wooden stool.

“Hi,” you smile and lilt, and god if it isn’t the most beautiful word Ushijima’s ever heard, if it isn’t the prettiest smile he’s seen.

He doesn’t respond, doesn’t want to scare you away.

“Uhm,” you start again, when the silence makes it clear he’s waiting for you to speak, “I have an art assignment,” you start digging around in your shoulder bag as you speak, “to draw a, um, what’s it called?”

“I don’t know.”

You pause in your rifling and pin him with such a sunny smile it makes his knee start bouncing. And you laugh, too, which officially replaces your “hi” as the most beautiful sound in the world.

“Ha, you’re funny,” you resume digging, “it was um, pretty leafy and... tropical, I think? Oh! Here.” Triumphantly, you produce a wrinkled paper from your bag. It’s the first imperfect thing Ushijima’s found out about you, that you’re shit at keeping your belongings organized, and he files it away for later reference. You hold the paper in front of your face and squint slightly to read in the shifting light. “Canna indica.”

Canna indica, native to tropical climates, notable as a minor food crop for South American Native populations for thousands of years.

“And I was told that you have it, here, in the greenhouse.”

Ushijima nods and finds himself relieved that this is what you’re asking him. Plants, he can do.

“We do. Would you like me to show you?”

“Yes, please,” you also sound relieved, like he’s provided the solution to every problem you’ve ever had.

He unfolds himself from the stool, setting down his pen as he goes. You take a step back and look up at him mildly, as though you hadn’t realized quite how huge he is.

“This way,” he indicates, leading you deeper into the maze that is the biology department’s greenhouse. The winding path back to the tropical room gives him a moment to sink back into the earthy peace of being here, even if now there’s someone sharing that peace.

The temperature change from the warm main greenhouse to the balmy tropical room prompts Ushijima to shed his flannel outer layer, hanging it on the nail hammered by the door while you step in behind him.

“Whew,” you exhale, shrugging off your soft cardigan as well, “it’s hot in here.”

Ushijima hums in agreement and tries not to look too hard at the patch of skin revealed by your cropped tank top. Canna indica isn’t too far into the room, so he just gently moves past draping leaves and ceramic pots.

“Here,” he stops, holding back leaves for you. He stops breathing again when you duck under his arm and end up so close in the narrow aisle that he can smell your shampoo. The moment passes, and he can breathe again when you breeze past him and squat down to peer at the bright, waxy red leaves of your subject.

“Beautiful,” you murmur, and he silently agrees.

You’re leaning so close to the plant he’s afraid you might topple over when you make a noise of realization and sit back on your butt to rifle through your bag once again. Ushijima knows he should probably leave you to it, but he’s glad he waited just an extra minute when you pull out a pair of glasses and pop them on your face. Adorably.

“That’s better.” You’re looking back at canna indica, now, at a normal distance.

He’s figured you’ve forgotten he’s there when you start to pull out pastels from your seemingly bottomless bag, so he turns to leave you.

A soft, “hey,” calls him back to you, however, and he’s met by your face glowing eerily in the shifting rain-light. “Thank you for your help.”

“You’re welcome.”

When he locks up that afternoon, he finds another charcoal drawing waiting for him on the table near the door, this time of his favorite agapanthus africanus. No note, this time, but he attaches all the sounds he heard from you today in its place. He also finds your cardigan forgotten next to where you were sitting and carefully folds it for when you come back.

The drawing joins the orange branch on his wall-- an odd starter garden, he thinks, but all the more precious because it came from you.

The next time he sees you isn’t in the greenhouse, but instead at a cafe a couple of blocks away, two weeks later. He’s walking past, gym bag slung over his shoulder, when he hears your laugh ring out across the outdoor seating area. His eyes find you, head tipped back in sending peals of mirth into the lively spring air. It’s the first truly warm day of the season, though you and your companion are the only patrons sitting outside, and the sun catches on your glasses sat atop your head.

Your friend says something apparently hilarious, because your giggles redouble, and an honest-to-god snort pushes out of your nose. Ushijima catalogues it in his ever-growing list of sounds you make, and pauses at the crosswalk, halfway turned back to keep one eye on you and one on the light. If you were alone, he might’ve approached you and told you that he still has your sweater in the greenhouse, waiting on a shelf between succulents, but he doesn’t want to interrupt your— date?

He isn’t sure, but the person sat there with you seems like someone you might date. Clearly also an art student, judging by the carefully disheveled blue hair and combat boots. Are you the type to date someone with blue hair? Unlikely, he decides. You seem too… bright. Too floaty to be so concerned with looking like you don’t care how you look.

Ushijima’s still debating whether you find blue hair attractive when the crosswalk light begins its countdown and he starts across the street. And he almost makes it all the way across, too, when a voice calls—

“Wait! Hey!”

He turns partially because it sounds urgent enough that it might be an emergency, and his grandmother would roll in her grave if he remained a bystander to some horrific accident. But it’s you, standing up from your seat and waving him back over. He glances at the crosswalk countdown, which lights up red as it ticks from four to three, then turns and jogs back towards you, waving a hand apologetically to the cars waiting at the light. You meet him at the metal fence around the cafe seating area, and now that you’re standing, he can see you’re wearing a yellow sundress that cuts off at your calves and drapes over your hips like the fabric was spun from pure light.

“Hello.” Ushijima talks first this time because if he doesn’t refocus his brain on something else he knows he won’t be able to stop staring.

“Hi! Sorry about that, uh, and I’m sure you have places to be, but, um, did I leave my cardigan at the greenhouse? I can’t find it, and I know I have a tendency to forget things, so,” you finish with a laugh, one hand fiddling with the rings on the other.

“Yes, you did. I put it on a shelf in case you came back.”

“Oh! That’s great!” You sound relieved, and Ushijima’s suddenly very grateful he didn’t take it down to the bio department’s lost and found like they’re technically supposed to. “Is there maybe a time I can come pick it up? When you’ll be there?”

“I’ll be there all day tomorrow, opening at nine.”

He can’t tell if he sounds a little too eager, and he’s about to soften his meaning by telling you that they’re open today, too, and anyone can hand you a sweater, but you’re already smiling big and sunny and telling him,

“I’ll see you at nine, then. Do you drink coffee?”

He doesn’t; his coaches have always told him that caffeine can only harm his athletic performance.

“Yes, I do.”

“Then I’ll see you at nine, with coffee.”

Ushijima says goodbye and turns to wait at the crosswalk again while you swirl your way back to your seat and pick up your conversation with your friend. He can feel two pairs of eyes on him as he crosses the street, red numbers blinking down from ten, and can’t help but turn to look back as he steps onto the opposite sidewalk. Where your friend tactfully looks down into their cup of tea, you catch his eye with yours and wave. He lifts his hand halfway in a goodbye before an eighteen-wheeler stops at the intersection and blocks you from him.

Ushijima’s normal work attire is typical of an average agricultural biology student accustomed to being up to their elbows in dirt every day: practical cargo shorts, dirt-stained but sturdy sneakers, a “plant dad” t-shirt (a gift from Tendō when they’d said their goodbyes and gone away to college), and a soft cotton flannel. He’s usually satisfied with this for his shift at the greenhouse, expecting to be mud-covered at least up to his wrists by the end of the day.

But today… Today, he pauses in the dorm bathroom to scrub his face raw, and he clips and shapes his nails like his mother used to do for him every Saturday. He normally only does it before tournaments, now, and it calms his nerves to feel prepared for a Big Event, even if that event is only handing you your gently pilled cashmere cardigan and receiving a coffee he won’t drink in return.

The air that morning is heady with spring, earthy and alive, reminding Ushijima of lying beneath the hedge along his mother’s garden to pass notes to the girl next door. He was seven and she was nine, so naturally she knew everything he didn’t. She knew about the planets and why worms live in dirt and how to spell the word “catastrophe,” and Ushijima would’ve bet his whole weekly allowance that she was the coolest person in the world, if he knew what betting was. (She did, and once bet him half an ice cream sandwich that he couldn’t climb the oak tree in his backyard all the way to the top. He did, and then twisted his ankle on the way down, and she brought him an ice cream sandwich every day for a week as an apology.) She was all shiny, long black hair and dark eyes and fast words, nothing like the spring blooming around him.

You, on the other hand, are exactly the spring.

He stops at his favorite pastry place on the way to work to pick up two fresh cream donuts. The line is just dwindling from the height of the morning rush, so he manages to make it to the biology building just five minutes before he normally does.

Morning sun sends rainbows through the automatic misting spray as Ushijima unlocks the greenhouse door, letting a burst of humidity out into the rest of the building. The spiral-bound log book is there on the desk, a thick parchment bookmark sticking out from where whoever closed last night marked the page.

Ushijima places his backpack and pastry bag on the desk and reaches to hang his key on its hook just when there’s a knock on the door.

“I know I’m early,” you start, edging your way into the room with a paper coffee cup in each hand. “But I saw it was already open, so...”

Ushijima smiles despite himself. In their second year Oikawa Tooru had told him that his smiles can be unnerving, but he can’t help it right now. You look so lovely today, in jeans and a silky tank top, with a certain morning tenderness in the way you hold yourself.

“It’s okay, come in. I just need to check the temperature controls and I’ll be done opening.”

“Sounds good,” you reply, smiling back.

As he makes his way to the temp controls on the Southern wall, you perch on the wooden stool and set down the coffee.

With his back turned to you for a moment, you allow yourself to slouch, planting two hands on the table and stretching your shoulders with a sigh. It’s earlier than you normally get out of bed, let alone actually leave your apartment, and you can already feel a quiet exhaustion setting into your bones.

But this is worth it, you remind yourself. Worth it to talk to the beautiful boy with broad shoulders and gentle hands.

He’d been unexpected. That first day in the greenhouse, you’d sat down with the intention to calm down from a tedious school day and nothing more. Your hands had moved of their own volition on that second drawing of the orange branch, scribbling out a hasty message that made your cheeks burn. But he was so present that day, in the corner of your eye but staying respectfully out of your space. And you’re not blind -- you saw the muscles under his shirt as he lifted an entire small tree in its pot. You saw the startling shade of green his eyes took on in the sun. You saw it all, and it drew you back, and now you’re here.

When he joins you back at the table, leaning back against it to face you, you stick out your hand and offer your name.

He looks at it for a moment, then back at you.

“I just, uh, realized we never properly introduced ourselves,” you explain, with a hesitant smile.

He smiles again and your heart thuds, then his big hand engulfs yours and he shakes it firmly.

“Wakatoshi. It’s nice to meet you.”

You learn in the following weeks of coming to the greenhouse that Wakatoshi doesn’t like coffee. But he does like tea and donuts, so that’s what you bring him on the mornings you can find it in you to wake up before nine. You sit with him in the greenhouse, talking and listening as he records data and waters plants and sits next to you on the quilt you’ve fallen into the habit of bringing. The occasional professor or student comes through, and you get to watch Wakatoshi show off his brains when he leaves you to help them.

There are several things you learn about him over those weeks. Number one: he never minces words. Two: he prefers grapefruit chapstick over anything else. And three: he kisses like it’s his last day on Earth.

You discover number three late one night when you decide to drop by after class, shooting him a text to make sure he’s still there. Today he’s closing instead of opening, and you missed spending your morning with him.

The city lights cast a different kind of glow at this time of night. They add a distance to everything that’s palpable as you drop your bag by the door.

“Toshi, are you here-- oh, hi.” You turn the corner to find him closing the door to the supply closet.

His cheekbones are highlighted briefly by a billboard outside flashing red.

“You should get some sleep.”

“I’m not tired. And I wanted to see you.”

“You wanted to see me?”

He takes a step towards you and you have to tilt your head back slightly to keep your eyes on his. They’re leaf green and unreadable.

“Yeah, uh,” you wet your lips with your tongue, “is that okay?”

“Yes.” He pauses for a long time, then, watching you carefully in the neon glow of the exit sign. His hand shakes as it reaches up to push your glasses from your face onto your head.

Without them, he looks fuzzy and soft around the edges.

He says, “Can I kiss you?” and it feels like there’s a bird trapped in your ribcage.

“Yes. Kiss me.”

Wakatoshi kisses nothing like you expected, all tongues and teeth and heavy fingers in the dip of your waist. He growls when you gasp and mewl against him, sucking on your lower lip as your hands find purchase in his shirt. He kisses you so absolutely breathless that you think you might pass out. Your knees buckle and you pull away, gasping with your eyes closed for a moment until you come back to yourself.

“Are you alright, little one?”

The endearment makes your cheeks flush with heat and your eyes snap open.

“Yes, I’m alright. Please do it again.”

And so he does it again, and again, and again until you find yourself bringing him home with you on the last bus that goes towards your neighborhood. He’s standing in the aisle, one hand wrapped around a pole and the other wound around you, who’s standing in front of him. He keeps you steady as the bus rounds a corner.

That night, you bring the peace of the greenhouse into your home, and the only thing you find yourself wishing for is that it never leaves.

#ushijima wakatoshi x reader #ushijima x reader #ushijima x fem!reader #haikyuu!! x reader #haikyuu!! fanfic #hq fanfic #valkyrie writes #exactly the spring #haikyuu fluff #ushijima fluff #don't look at me i'm posting this early bc i'm IMPATIENT #*sobs*

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sundayswiththeilluminati · 3 years ago

Note

I LOVE your meta on how essek was the perfect asset and want to ask the follow-up question in your tags: how do you think it went down? The agreement between Essek and the Assembly? And I think the fandom was convinced Essek would be disposed of after the peace talks — how do you see his future if there was no intervention by the Mighty Nein in 97?

ruvi-muffin asked:

What are your specific thoughts abt how ludinus recruited essek??👀👀 oh Person who knows a surprising amount of spy stuff 🙏🙏🙏👀👀👀

Anonymous asked:

PLEASE share your specific thoughts about how Essek was recruited, I'm so intrigued!

Anonymous asked:

Hello yes i am very interested in these very specific thoughts about how Essek got recruited? All these things about how actual intelligence works/uses their assets/how that ties to Essek and the M9 is really interesting :D

Thank you all so much for asking me the specific question I wanted someone to ask. I had to write and rewrite this post a half-dozen times because I kept going off on tangents about other Cold War spy stories so trust me there’s plenty more where this came from.

For reference, my original post on what made Essek an ideal recruitment target and why the M9 were the ideal counter to it.

First off, this is all based on real-world intelligence ops and is only as relevant to the campaign as Matt Mercer cares to make it. Having said that *slams notebook on table* BUCKLE UP, KIDDOS.

There are two ways Essek may have been recruited: he approached the Assembly or the Assembly approached him. I think the Assembly approached him. Not to be too hard on the guy, but Essek said it himself: he’s kind of a coward. I can’t see him mustering up the nerve to take that first step. Plus his espionage seems to have focused specifically on the beacons rather than dunamancy as a whole; that sounds like the Assembly to me. The beacons specifically offer the prospect of immortality and the Cerberus mages are arrogant enough to assume they can figure out dunamancy themselves if they have a beacon in hand. There’s no way the Assembly haven’t been trying to beg, borrow, or steal those beacons for centuries. Essek may not have even been their first try - just the first that worked.

Chronologically, Essek would have popped up on either the Assembly or the Augen Trust’s radar quite early as I assume they keep tabs on all powerful Dynasty mages. As they followed his career, the Assembly would have ID’d Essek as a perfect target for recruitment as a spy, and then further for ego-based recruitment. Recruitment for espionage is a slow process - even slower in a fantasy world where some races reasonably expect to live 500+ years. Many intelligence agencies will do a sort of light meet-and-greet just to start a file on various people who might years later be of interest. The Assembly would have cultivated Essek as an intelligence asset with the same degree of time and care - and using some of the same methods - that Trent used to turn the Blumenthal trio into assassins.

If they followed a modern playbook, they would have made contact with Essek anywhere from 2 to 10 years before the theft - nothing underhanded. A Cerberus mage approaches him at a negotiation or conference and strikes up a conversation. Then it’s increasing “chance” encounters to get Essek familiar with the handler, play the “we’re both mages, really we’re on the same side” angle to earn enough sympathy & trust to start talking regularly. Once the channel’s open, the handler and asset meet and/or talk routinely while the handler assesses the target’s motives, weaknesses, and the possibility that they’re a double agent.

Espionage proper then starts with small favors, acts Essek can rationalize as victimless or even helpful to the Dynasty. In this stage the handler is getting the asset comfortable with engaging in espionage. They reward the asset for what feels like minimal moral trespass. For Essek that would have been praising his research, encouraging avenues of investigation they knew the Dynasty had shut down. Having meetings with Ludinus plays right into the ego trip - the Head of the Assembly himself is taking the time to meet with him! The Assembly gets how important this work is! That keeps Essek isolated from Dynasty members who might convince him to take a step back and builds loyalty to the Assembly over the Dynasty.

Once an asset settles in, espionage becomes easier. Routines get established. Moral hurdles have been overcome. Now the asks get bigger and the rewards get sparser. The handler will suggest larger acts just to get the asset thinking about them, since the more they consider “just hypothetically” how to pull it off, the more likely it is they’ll do it. This is where the idea of stealing the beacons would get introduced (though of course it’s been the goal all along.) I’ll bet the Assembly hinted at all the study that could be done if they could just get to the beacons in person, constantly bemoaning the lack of access. By now Essek sees the Assembly as colleagues in arcane pursuits, kindred minds, unlike the boring, stuffy old mages of the Dynasty. Of course he could outwit the Dynasty’s security and get the beacons to the Assembly - he’s a prodigy, a genius, everyone says so. And it’s not like he was stealing all of them. The consecuted would be fine. Everyone would be fine.

None of this is intended to absolve Essek of personal responsibility. But it provides a context for his actions, and for why he might regret them so much even though he apparently did them willingly. Asset handlers are very, very good at drawing someone willing to commit minor transgressions into far greater crimes. Look at how Trent shaped Caleb, Astrid, and Eadwulf. He didn’t order them to execute their own parents on day one. He spent years coaxing, tempting, and coercing them into darker and darker crimes, letting them rationalize their own actions at each step, preying on the same vulnerabilities as Essek: isolation (separating the three from other students, telling them their work was secret), ambition (the promise of great arcane power, of shaping the Empire’s destiny), and ego (”we were going to keep the empire safe,” telling them they were gifted, they were chosen).

So how do IRL spies rationalize their actions? Those who spy for reasons of conscience or ideology have done the rationalizing ahead of time, but everyone else has to get there somehow. Some who spy for revenge tell themselves it’s what their superiors deserve, while others tell themselves everyone’s doing it. Some just need a lie to get started (most commonly about who they’re spying for), while others have to keep up the charade all along. Let’s look at a few cases similar to Essek’s that demonstrate just how slippery the slope can be.

Aldrich Ames, a long-term CIA officer slash double agent for the KGB, got suckered in by thinking he could control the situation and wasn’t really hurting anyone. Ames had chronic financial trouble related to excessive drinking & his wife’s lavish lifestyle and in 1985 came up with a plan: he would essentially con the KGB by selling them a minor amount of classified info that he deemed “virtually worthless.” In April he set up the exchange and the KGB paid him $50,000, enough to satisfy his immediate debts. But after actually doing it Ames said he felt he’d now crossed a line he couldn’t step back from, and continued to sell information to the Soviets. By the time he was caught he had, by his own admission, compromised “virtually all Soviet agents of the CIA.”

While some assets just need a lie to get started, others require a delicate dance of self-delusion. Col. George Trofimoff was an Army officer who ran the center where would-be Soviet defectors were assessed & questioned. Trofimoff, a Russian émigré at a young age, was chronically in debt. In 1969 he renewed his acquaintance with his stepbrother back in Russia, now a bishop in the Russian Orthodox Church, and began to pass secrets in return for money - but he and his stepbrother never framed the transactions as such. Trofimoff described their meetings as, “very informal. ... First, it was just a conversation between the two of us. He would ask my opinion on this and that--then, he would maybe ask me, 'Well, what does your unit think about it?' Or, 'What does the American government think about it?’” His compensation was similarly informal: “I said I needed money. ... And he says, 'I tell you what, I'll loan it to you.' So he gave me, I think, 5,000 marks and then, it wasn't enough, because I needed more. ... Then he says, 'Well, you know, I'll tell you what. You don't owe me any money. And if you need some more, I can give you some more. Don't worry about it. You're going to have to have a few things, this and that.' And this is how it started.” Trofimoff could pretend to himself that he wasn’t really spying - just having a chat with his stepbrother - and wasn’t really getting paid for it - just borrowing a little money.

This got longer than I intended it to be and there’s still plenty to talk about, so I’ll save the rest for a second post. Next time: what happens long-term to espionage assets? And what happens if an asset regrets their actions and/or attempts to cut off contact with their handlers?

(This accidentally turned into a series on Essek & IRL espionage: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4)

#Critical Role #Essek Thelyss #tradecraft #mostly Cold-War-related tradecraft TBH #hot boi got ROLLED by the Assembly though #sounds like he didn't even get paid!#I do wonder at stealing TWO beacons though #why two? what was wrong with one?#maybe Essek was just showing off at that point #it's been a long pandemic

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caprice-nisei-enjoyer · 2 years ago

Text

I said:

They both create namespaces! But the common usage is different

I'm happy to expand on this! It's a bit long (and maybe a bit basic? hopefully a good jumping off point for more questions) so it goes below a cut.

So, for those in the audience who don't know, a namespace is a region of code in which name collisions can occur. For example, if you wanted to declare a constant called VERSION to track what version your code is, you can't declare two copies of it in the same file, because the compiler wouldn't know which to refer to. However, if foo.cpp and bar.cpp are different C++ libraries, with different namespaces, then you can declare a VERSION constant in each of them separately.

Modules almost always come with their own namespace (in C++ this has to be declared explicitly, but I would argue that it's the correct practice). Classes always create namespaces (typically one static one plus one for each instance). In fact, static class namespaces and module namespaces are very similar! They both encapsulate code! But there are differences in implementation and expectations that make them suitable for different uses.

So, to vastly over-simplify common usage patterns, modules are supposed to encapsulate behavior, while classes are supposed to encapsulate state. A module might provide access to a constant, or a function that generates a value, but it's bad practice to export a variable, especially one whose value might change. (It's also hard to do this without writing bugs!) On the other hand, a class packages together variables and functions which provide good interfaces to those variables. It's common to muck around with some of a class' inner state, as long as everyone who has access to the class knows how best to get its state. (Boilerplate generators DNI)

Let me also throw some practical examples into the mix. Imagine that you are writing a Math module/library, to house some common math functions. You want to support common behaviors of math students, so you might export an immutable constant PI so they can get the value of pi. Or you might export a function sqrt(x), to take square roots. But it would be bad practice to export a mutable variable x, and export a function sqrt() that takes the square root of the value of x.

On the other hand, you might want to do a lot of geometry with different rectangles. In that case, you might write a class Rect, because you want to track information about each rectangle separately. There's a lot of ways to encode information about a rectangle, but you chose to track the upper-left and lower-right points, calling them (x0, y0) and (x1, y1). You can then interface with this data in a bunch of different ways:

Direct access! (maybe a bit lazy)

Constructors: static functions which create instances of Rect with certain values. If you're collaborating with a colleague who prefers to track the upper-left point and side lengths of a rectangle, you might offer them a constructor that converts from their style of rectangle to yours

Class functions: Maybe area() to get the area of a rectangle? Maybe scale(m) to scale the rectangle by some scalar m? Any function that depends on or updates the current state can be a class function.

The common thread here is that all of these things relate directly to the data that the class encapsulates*. So in the future, if you want to figure out how to manipulate rectangles, all you have to read (in theory) is the Rect class. If you want to use Rects for something, you might find functions that work with Rects and other kinds of data in your Math module.

That's the basics. As @kaiasky points out, classes can relate to each other through inheritance, but I'm sticking to one idea at a time!

Object oriented programming question: is there a difference between a class, and a module with an associated data type?

Modules or packages or whatever your language calls them gives the ability to hide things akin to public & private where whatever functions you export are the public methods, while a data type (or I guess specifically a product or record type) contains each object's fields.

#*classes can also have static methods which do not depend on the data of a specific instance #programming

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two-gays-in-a-trenchcoat · 3 years ago

Text

Injured! Itadori x healer! reader

some soft fluffy goodness just for u guys -osa

It was a slow start to the day; you sat fiddling at the desk, bored out of your mind. The little plant that Dr. Shoko kept in the corner of the windowsill seemed a tad bit droopy.

You turned to it with a sigh. “Yeah, me too.” Slowly, you reached out, brushing a finger against the wilting leaves. At once, the plant responded, sitting straight up at your touch with life, sprouting a few more leaves from the top.

“Tending to the window plant more than the patients again?” Followed by these words, you felt a swat at your head, which made you grumble.

“What patients?” You rubbed at the back of your head even though the swat had hardly been hard enough to hurt. “I already finished restocking the med cabinets, sanitizing every surface I could possibly find, and I even organized the filing cabinet. There’s nothing to do.”

Dr. Shoko glared down at you, but it wasn’t malicious; rather, it was like a scolding mother. “Well, if you really want to make yourself useful, you could take out the trash.”

The woman turned her sly eyes to the full trash bin. It was your least favorite job, and she knew that. Groaning and grumbling under your breath, you pulled yourself from your seat and shambled towards the trash.

“What’s the use of being a medical apprentice if I never get to treat anyone,” you muttered.

“Oh, and just so you know,” Dr. Shoko called out, “I have a faculty meeting this afternoon, so I’ll be gone an hour or so. I trust you to hold down the fort?”

You nodded, and hauled the trash bin on its creaky wheels outside, wincing slightly at the bright sun. It was almost afternoon, and as per usual, the school was still. From what you could guess, the few students they had were out training, or running off on a mission.

You sighed for what seemed like the umpeenth time in just the past hour.

Just as you were caught up in your internal lamenting and turned the corner, a figure suddenly swung down from the rafters and landed in front of you with a thump. You jolted back.

“Hullo!” Yuji Itadori grinned at you, brandishing a peace sign.

You gripped your uniform. “Jeez, Yuji, you scared me.”

“I told you, dumbass,” Nobara’s growl came as she sauntered up behind him. “You’d only scare them off even more than you already have, pulling something like that.”

Yuji snapped, “I haven’t scared ‘em off!” Before turning back to you with his hundred-watt smile. “Oh, do you need a hand with that?”

It took you a moment before you realized that Yuji was referring to the garbage can. You had a tendency to kind of get…. Lost, when Yuji was around. “What? Oh, yeah. Sure. Thanks.”

In one fluid motion, Yuji hefted up the garbage onto his shoulders, careful not to spill any. Sometimes, you forgot that he possessed literal superhuman strength.

Nobara rolled her eyes. “Show off.”

The three of you walked to the dumpsters, dropped the trash off, all the while chatting about inconsequential things until you reached the doors of the infirmary. Currently, you learned, the first year sorcerers were training with Panda.

“Training?” You started. “Then why are you here? Just taking a break?”

Yuji shook his head. “Nope! Actually, I broke a couple ribs and might have some internal bleeding so Nobara came with me to have you patch me up!”

You blinked at him for a moment in silence. “You absolute idiot. You choose to tell me now, after I had you haul a garbage can a block and back? What the hell is wrong with you?”

Yuji pouted, hanging his head. “Well I wanted to help you out first. And it’s just a few ribs, not a big deal.”

“Just a few-“ You huffed, and massaged the bridge of your nose. “You know what? Just get your ass in the infirmary. Right now.”

He offered a salute before ducking in. Nobara shot you a glance and a shrug. “You can lead an idiot to the nurses’ office, but you can’t make him get treated, I guess.”

Inside the infirmary, you had Yuji lay down back onto the table. He began tugging off his shirt, and you felt heat rush to your cheeks.

“What are you doing?” You stuttered.

Yuji tilted his head. “Thought you might want to get a better look at my wounds.”

“Oh.” You briefly shook your head, as if clearing the intrusive thoughts from your mind. “Right. Yeah. Of course.”

Nobara gave a sly glance towards you, followed by a smirk. You glared at her.

Once Yuji was shirtless, you had him lay back again, and you could clearly see the prolific bruising and swelling along his midsection. Definitely at least three cracked ribs, but he’s had worse. You ran your deft fingers along his side, feeling his rock-hard muscles (which you tried not to think about) and pressing slightly, which made Yuji wince.

Your brow furrowed. “Well, shit.”

Yuji cocked his head. “What is it?”

“One of them is out of place.” You sat up, stretching. “We’ve gotta set it. Sit up straight.”

Yuji groaned, but complied. “What? Popping bones back into place is the worst. Can’t you just curse it better without having to do all that?”

“That’s not how my cursed technique works, stupid,” You clipped, pressing your hand in the middle of Yuji’s shoulder to get his back ramrod straight. “I can only make things repair and grow, not reverse injuries. If your bone’s not in the right place when I heal it, it’ll still be in the wrong place when I’m done. And it’s a lot harder to fix things after that.”

Yuji groaned again, making Nobara add, “It’s best to get it over with now. I don’t wanna have to be the one to pop it back into place.”

“You heard her,” you said. “Okay, now follow my instructions.”

Yuji nodded, and you settled your palm onto Yuji’s mid lower back.

“Okay, breathe in until it hurts.”

“It hurts no matter what I do.”

You rolled your eyes. “You know what I mean. Until you feel a sharp pain, right about here.” For emphasis, your other hand lightly pressed down onto the area where his rib was misplaced.

Yuji winced. “Okay! Okay. I get it, I get it.”

He followed your instructions, breathing in about halfway.

“Okay,” you said. “Now, on the count of three, take in the biggest breath possible as quick as you can, got it?”

Yuji nodded.

“One, two, three-“

Yuji inhaled sharply, chest swelling, and the three of you heard a faint pop as the rib set back into place, directly followed by a seize of his body and a yelp of pain.

“Dammit, that hurt like a bitch,” Yuji huffed.

“But,” you started, “You can breathe better now. And I can actually fully heal you. ‘Kay, lie back again.”

Nobara raised a brow. “For someone who doesn’t blink at injuries in combat, you sure whine a lot.”

Yuji stuck out his tongue at her. As he reclined, your hands began their work. Pulling cursed energy from your core and making it pour out from the tips of your fingers, you brushed against the skin of all his broken ribs, willing the cells to grow and repair beneath your touch. You ignored the way Yuji’s breath seemed to catch, his stare burning into you as you worked. You made the mistake of looking up, and to your surprise, saw Yuji gazing directly at your face rather than your hands. It almost made you stutter in your work, but you tried his best to brush it off, face burning as it might.

After a few seconds, the swelling went down, as did the redness, until all that remained of Yuji’s injury was a blue-yellow bruise that looked awfully ugly, but not painful.

Yuji stretched and twisted around, grinning. “Wow! I feel so much better now! Seriously, you have the coolest cursed technique.”

“Thanks, I guess.” You blushed and your eyes flicked to your feet at the praise.

Nobara stood. “Okay, now that that’s over, are we gonna head back for training or what?”

“Aw, can’t we stay a little longer?” Yuji whined.

“What’s gotten into you? You’re usually the most motivated out of everyone.”

Yuji deflated, looking like a child that just got told he couldn’t have that candy bar he wanted. “I like it here. With (name).”

“Okay, and?” Nobara countered. “Just take them with us. They can tend to the injuries we receive during training, so we can really go all out.”

If Yuji was a dog, you were sure his tail would’ve been wagging like crazy. Eyes bright, he looked at you. “Can you? Please?”

Although every fiber of your being wanted to scream yes, you were hesitant. “Well… Dr. Shoko told me to keep track of things here while she’s gone, in case anyone else comes in. She’s in a meeting.”

“That’s okay, you can just come after she gets back.” Spry and healthy once more, Yuji sprung up from the table, never turning off his sunshine smile. “I’m sure we’ll still be training by then. We’re down at the field.”

Your mouth opened once, then closed, before pressing itself into a shy smile. “Sure. I’ll come by as soon as the doc gets back.”

Grinning like an idiot, Yuji hummed and darted out the door towards the field. Nobara followed, but stalled at the door.

“Between you and I,” she said, “Yuji’s been working on a new move. Make sure you compliment him. He always gets more fired up when you’re there.”

You gawked as Nobara left, as well, mulling her words over in your mind.

And then, you were grinning like an idiot to yourself.

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audioviglioopperior · 2 years ago

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MAG 001 - Anglerfish

This is a summary of the first episode of The Magnus Archives, with notes at the end about recurring characters and themes. This is part of a personal project meant to categorize the statements and help anyone new to TMA catch connections they may have missed, or for fan creators who may need a quick reference.

There will be spoilers, both for this episode and for connected episodes and events.

MAG 001 – Anglerfish

Statement #0122204, originally given April 22, 2012, recorded March 23, 2016

Statement Giver: Nathan Watts

Content: An encounter on Old Fishmarket Close, in Edinburgh

Content Warnings: Abduction, unsettling strangers/people being uncanny, alcohol, smoking, emetophobia

Transcript Source: here

Youtube link: here

Summary:

Jonathan Sims, the newest Head Archivist for the Magnus Institute in London, introduces himself. He’s worked at the Institute for four years prior as a researcher. He mentions the head of the Institute, Elias Bouchard, and states the purpose of the Institute as, “academic research into the esoteric and paranormal.” He goes on to mention the previous Archivist, Gertrude Robinson, and says that he’d been promoted after her death.

Jon condemns Gertrude’s archiving abilities, stating that even though the Institute has been around since 1818, nearly 200 years, a “half-decent archivist” could keep it in order. He describes the state of the archives, mentioning many open statements left around and un-filed, left without labels, and most being either handwritten or produced by typewriter. He sarcastically observes that the first computer to enter the Archive must have been his own, from that day.

He also says that most of the files have little to none of the actual investigations stored in them, so the only actual information is the statements themselves.

His plan is to digitize the Archive, along with the help of his three assistants, Tim, Sasha, and Martin—though he states that Martin is only going to delay them—and investigate each statement as much as they can. He apologizes for having to record the statements out of order, due to the Archive’s mess.

Done with the "excuses", he the begins the actual statement.

The statement is of a Biochemistry student at the University of Edinburgh named Nathan Watts. He had started school late, so even though he was only in his second year, he was invited to a party with some older students, for a friend named Michael MacAuclay’s acceptance for a Master’s. The party was at a bar called the Albanach, and they had gotten so loud that at some point they’d ended up clearing out other patrons.

Nathan had gotten incredibly drunk, gotten sick around midnight, and so he left to walk home. The road he chose to take, Old Fishmarket Close, was steep, and so he fell. He hadn’t gotten hurt, so he just stood up, and decided to roll a cigarette.

From the mouth of an alleyway, he heard a voice ask, “Can I have a cigarette?”

It startled him, because he hadn’t seen anyone, but he eventually spotted an unknown, unidentifiable figure in a dark alley. Nathan mentions that the figure seemed to sway lightly, and that he simply assumed they were also drunk.

He offered his tobacco, and got no response, just the same swaying, and a repeat of the question.

Nathan eventually managed to see the stranger, describing them along the lines of blank, emotionless, and looking like they had a fever. He noticed that the swaying got worse, coming from the waist. He offered a second cigarette, then, though he didn’t approach, and again got no response.

He mentions, then, the thought of an Anglerfish. The light, distracting you from what’s behind it.

The question is repeated again, “Can I have a cigarette?” And this time, Nathan notices that the stranger’s mouth doesn’t move, and hadn’t for any of the previous repetitions. He also notes that their feet aren’t touching the ground. The stranger was being lifted, and moved from side to side.

When Nathan attempts to turn on his phone flashlight, the figure disappears, “…sort of folded at the waist and vanished back into the darkness, as if a string had gone taut and pulled it back.” There isn’t anything left behind when he manages to look into the alley.

He returns the next day to check, and sees nothing but a Marlboro Red cigarette.

In the last bit, Nathan mentions the disappearance of John Fellowes, someone he didn’t know, but was at the party, and that in his missing photo, John had a pack of Marlboro Reds.

In the end of the recording, Jon Sims returns, stating that there’s no real evidence to support Nathan’s story, and that he’s tempted to place the file in his “discredited” category, which he expects quite a few files to go to.

Despite this, he mentions Sasha, one of his assistants, doing some digging into it, and that between 2005 and 2010, when the event actually occurred, six disappearances were reported in and around Old Fishmarket Close:

Jessica McEwen, November 2005

Sarah Baldwin, August 2006

Daniel Rawlings, December 2006

Ashley Dobson, May 2008

Megan Shaw, June 2008

John Fellowes, March 2010

Sarah Baldwin and Megan Shaw were both definitively smokers, but the others have no evidence of smoking or not smoking.

The final detail Jon mentions is that Ashley Dobson had taken one photograph before disappearing, and sent it to her sister, Siobhan, with the caption, “check out this drunk creeper lol.” The photo is of an empty alley, which seems to be the same as the one Nathan Watts had his encounter in. Increasing the contrast showed, “the outline of a long, thin hand, roughly at what would be waist level on a male of average height.”

The last thing he says is, “I find it oddly hard to shake off the impression that it’s beckoning.”

The statement ends.

Connections:

Entity/Entities: The Stranger, fear of things that look human but aren’t, the uncanny valley, the unknown, the creeping feeling that something isn’t quite right.

The Anglerfish is an agent of the Stranger that is also mentioned later. It uses the skins of its victims to disguise the other Strangers. The bodies left without skins are used in The Unknowing, the Stranger’s ritual.

Sarah Baldwin is mentioned in MAG 28, in Melanie King’s statement. She was recommended as a sound tech for Melanie’s YouTube channel, Ghost Hunt UK. She has been turned into an agent of the Stranger, and is confronted by the resident being, which is of the Slaughter. In MAG 96, Jon and Daisy Tonner meet her in the Trophy Room.

Daniel Rawlings is mentioned in MAG 54, as the owner of The Trophy Room, a taxidermy shop. It’s noted that he bears little resemblance to the original, except for the hair.

Elias Bouchard and Gertrude Robinson are both often recurring characters on the show, both heavily affiliated with The Eye. Jon also mentions that Gertrude is dead, though at this point there isn’t any proof, as her body hasn’t been discovered yet.

Sasha James is another recurring member, up until MAG 39 (July 29, 2016), though her name continues to be used afterwards for a different character that is also Stranger affiliated. She does a lot of the investigations for Jon’s recordings.

Tim Stoker is mentioned once, but he is also a recurring member, up until season 3. Notably, even though he has the strongest connection to The Stranger at this point, he is not mentioned as part of this investigation.

Martin Blackwood, like Tim, is only mentioned this episode, but is one of two of the original Archives team to be part of the finale.

In MAG 199 Georgie Barker says “Can I have a cigarette?” to Jon, which causes him to laugh.

#audioviglioopperior #the magnus archives #MAG 001 #ep - Anglerfish #Jonathan Sims #Sasha James #Nathan Watts #Entity - The Stranger #The Stranger #TMA S1 #Sarah Baldwin #Daniel Rawlings

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