#there were Events TM at the company i work for which will be good in the long run for me | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

erigold13261 · 1 year ago

Note

Hello, I am back again. I know you might be tired of these long winding asks, and I apologize. However, I cannot contain the Category Autism Event Level 7 TM in my mind, or I will explode. (Also, I wish you get that job you've been wanting to get <3 <3)

Here we go again into Crossover Land.

I just realized this. Haibara Yu's kanji name is 灰原雄、and the kanji that represents his given name is 雄, which not only means "brave", but also "male." As in the biological male. And... I like to imagine little Yu choosing the kanji bc he was a Real Boy. Older Yu thinks it was silly of him to do so. (But likes his name anyway.) (Also Yu is an androgynous name, so they might have just changed the kanji to represent who he was.)

Speaking of which, Yu was the first binary trans kid Gwen had ever known. And vice versa. Imagine the shock and joy when they find out that.

Yu was stealth trans until very recently.

Idk how Yu and Gwen found out, perhaps they were both going into the doctor's office for their hormones? (Yes Gwen started Estrogen while in Nueva York. No note has not gotten notes dad's consent.) (Maybe they wouldn't allow that to happen, but Gwen's body dysphoria was pretty bad.)

Commence a "Spider-Man Pointing at Each Other" or a "Spider-Woman and Ash-Man Pointing at Each Other" meme moment.

After a few days, Gwen gives Yu a friendship bracelet. A pink, blue, and white one.

Yu does not know what it means. And thinks that Gwen here has a crush on him, and wants him to wear her colors. But doesn't she like Miles????

Gwen realizes Yu is mistaking something drastically.

She picks up her phone, and points at the trans flag.

Yu did not know the trans flag, and gets more confused.

Gwen starts to frantically point at the trans flag more, to no avail.

He calls for Peni.

Peni comes and explains the misunderstanding.

Now Yu and Gwen wear matching friendship bracelets. T4T friendship for the win!

Well, now more people wanted friendship pride flag bracelets.

So Gwen (Yu, and Miles too) decide to make a bunch of them. A bi one (Miles), a gay man one (Satoru and later Ganke), an AroAce one (Nanami), a nonbinary one (Suguru), two agender ones, (Noir and Shoko), a genderqueer one (Margo), a genderfluid one (Peter Porker), two rainbow pride ones (Peni and Hobie). (I want to know Pav and Gayatri's queer HCs bc they made them one too)

Team bonding hurray!

Another less happy HC.

I wondered why in this world, Japan isn't known for its robotics or technology, and instead J-1, Vandelay, and that UK robotics company are.

Perhaps in this world, Japan fell behind after the economic collapse of the 1990s.

And instead maybe, they are known for people. Powered individuals. (JJK canon explains how sorcerers and cursed spirits are far more common in Japan than in other areas of the world.)

This is why the Gojo clan are rich. And Satoru is the first one in 400 years to be born with blues powerset.

This makes him important. As an asset. As a way to get on top of the food chain.

Then they need to control the boy.

They did just that. Control his friends, the places that he goes to. Every single move so that he can be on top.

It didn't work. Now the boy was hanging out with that Ripoff (Suguru), and that Freak (sorry Shoko).

(Shoko's healing is a good asset though. Might as well have them get married for more blood.) (HC that Shoko has a parent with an object head, making them less valid in that world)

Satoru even was in love with that Ripoff! How dare him! And even Shoko was in a scheme of... what?

Now he was useless, at least with that mindset.

Then Miguel and Olivia came in. Promised to help the boy and others control their powers.

They did not want Satoru or any of them around anymore. They agreed.

Yu was already friends with Nanami, but only heard of Satoru and Suguru before. As he was about to leave his home, he found a bus coming to him.

There was the SaSiSu three, and Nanami.

Yu is confused, but he leaves anyway.

But why weren't they having any luggage? Wearing their school uniforms? And sleeping?

(Olivia wanted them in full shape. An heir of the infamous Gojo clan was going to be an important asset that shouldn't be chipped or cracked.)

... sorry for this HC. I think it's pretty dark.

And a quicker one.

After Hobie realizes that Satoru was in a screwed-up home life, they decide to be a bit nicer to blues.

They know what it is like to be mistreated. And it understands that being a rich person does not equal happiness. (Something that Cyril knows too.)

Taught him music he was never allowed to listen to.

Now Satoru gets taught the drums from Gwen.

Blue loves it!

... sorry for the ask dump. (Might return for more haha/hj) Have a nice day/night!

Lol, don’t apologize! They are actually really fun to read (and now I am getting tiktoks with JJK references in them that I can kinda sorta understand lol)

Also thanks for the luck on my job! Hopefully I get it too (at the moment of writing this I am still waiting for a call back, will call back myself tomorrow afternoon if I don’t get one in the morning).

Anyway! Time to answer!

-Yu’s kanji: That makes me think of nonbinary people who name themselves after nouns for some reason. I don’t know why, but it’s a nice thing to think about since it was/is a name that makes them happy, and I’m glad to hear even if older Yu thinks it’s a little silly, he is still happy with his choice in name!

-Yu and Gwen: Oh wow, yeah! That is true! Gwen is just surrounded by a bunch of trans people who aren’t really binary trans. Didn’t even notice that till now! Neat!

But I can see the two bonding over that. Like it is nice to be surrounded by all kinds of queer people, but sometimes you want someone in an even more similar spot as you. I definitely think if Yu meets Remi he will be even more happy to meet another ftm trans person. Which might make Gwen feel left out a little, but I can see her finding out Tatiana is a trans woman, or even meeting Zimelu and just trying to get to know them and their experiences.

Honestly Gwen and Yu looking up to Tatiana and Neon J as elder binary trans individuals is a nice idea for me to think about. Even though those two don’t really flaunt their transness, they would definitely be willing to talk about it to make Gwen and Yu feel better about their own experiences.

-Stealth trans: Oh yeah, Yu and Neon J could probably have a really good conversation about their experiences as being stealth trans. Like Neon J literally only came out publicly for his kids’ sake as they were getting harassment from interviewers. Yu (hopefully) came out on his own to be more open about his transness but would still probably benefit from hearing about Neon’s experiences. I think Tatiana was never stealth, but also never fully flaunted it. She would tell people if they ask but wouldn’t just be telling without provocation.

-Hormones: I think you would definitely need parental consent at Gwen’s age. Well also Yu’s age, I think you said he would be 15-16. So I can see Yu getting parental consent and being able to go get hormones, but Gwen really wouldn’t. Jess would definitely have fought for Gwen to get them, but it would be shut down because Gwen isn’t emancipated and it could cause problems for Nueva York to give hormones.

Maybe Gwen could get puberty blockers at the very least without parental consent, like that would have been the compromise of Jess pushing for hormones. Though Gwen would definitely be given the proper clothes, accessories, other social transitioning options for note to have even if note couldn’t have hormones.

I can see Gwen talking with a nurse at the Nueva York doctor’s office and Yu overhears and wants to ask or talk to Gwen maybe (would Yu understand enough English at this point if he only knew Japanese?). Maybe he sees Gwen in some trans flag outfit or with a pin of some sort and that’s how he realizes.

I don’t think Gwen could have been the one to figure it out because Yu was stealth (maybe note had an idea just from experience) but I do think Yu would be the one to figure it out in whatever way he does because Gwen is a bit more open about her transness than Yu is (at least at the moment she is more open about it).

-Point Meme: Yeah, if they both wear trans flags at one point, that would definitely be how they find out and react lol.

-Bracelet: For once Gwen is glad to have been forced into Nueva York’s arts-and-craft room (also I should probably read ahead because I could combine points like this and the last one, but I like reading asks point by point lol).

-Crush?: (okay yeah I need to read the next few points lol, so like this one point encompasses the rest of the points until the break in paragraph)

OOOOH! So Yu doesn’t know what the trans flag is! Okay! So that wouldn’t be how they found out! Interesting!

Well, however they found out, Yu thinking Gwen has a crush on him because he doesn’t understand is kinda cute. Maybe he thinks her and Miles are just friends (or maybe he knows a bit about polyamory, probably not the word for it, and thinks this is some kind of relationship like that).

Imagine him going to Nanami for advice as to what to do and his aroace ass is of absolutely no help to Yu lol.

Yu ends up letting Gwen know he thinks she has a crush on him and she so panicked (not in a bad way because maybe she could like Yu, but Yu was right that she likes Miles right now and that is who she wants). So it’s like 10 minutes of charades and maybe Gwen saying colors in different languages or trying to say something but all she knows is like 1 year of Spanish and a few words in French or something, so she is just being even more confusing to Yu.

So she quickly leaves and drags in Peni. Gwen is super embarrassed, but Yu probably laughs at the whole situation (Peni is definitely laughing) and it’s a fun story everyone ends up finding out about. Suguru or Satoru just screaming “rosa” and “azul” to be brats and embarrass Gwen a bit when she walks by, causing a small fight between them and Hobie who (although also found the situation hilarious) is willing to fight on behalf of Gwen lol.

Anyway, once all of that is settled, you better believe the group spent a ton of time pleading for computer time so they could look up flag colors and identities to make sure all these bracelets are accurate and in the right order!

Also, I don’t have any queer headcanons for Gayatri and Pavitr that are set in stone. I do like T4T or Bi4Bi, but honestly what if they were both aroace and together. Maybe one is aroace and the other is something else. I don’t know why I want one to be aroace, or at least asexual, but I do lol. I mean heck, I wouldn��t even mind he/him butch lesbian Pav and BiAce Gayatri. I want these two to be weird in their identities but also totally super confident and happy in themselves. So yeah, nothing concrete with these two, but they love each other and are weird but happy.

-Power/Tech Japan:

I will be honest before reading ALL of these points, the reason Japan doesn’t have a big robotics company in this AU (at the moment) is just because I haven’t found the right media to fill it. Honestly, Vandelay could have easily been in Japan, someone on one of my HFR posts said they personally saw Vandelay Tech as Japanese, while I personally saw it as in California for some reason. So it could have been a Japanese industry, but just how I saw it, it was put in the United States lol. (now I shall read the rest of the points :3)

There very much could be a robotics company in Japan (there’s definitely SOME, but maybe not to the level as the main 3), but I actually like the idea that some places just give birth to stronger powered individuals! I always wanted to think about how some places give different abilities, different elementals, different bodies (like object heads). Like I think South Africa is a place that has a lot of powerful people or that Korea might have more people with light based powers. So Japan being a place where more powerful people are from is something that could absolutely happen!

I can also see the Gojo clan being rich because of this. That is something I haven’t explored all that much is how powered individuals do tend to have more influence and say in the world around them. So families with very useful powers are definitely going to be using those privileges to get an upper hand in life.

Poor Satoru though. Having blues life be fully controlled is awful. I’m glad blue was able to find time to become friends with Suguru and Shoko (even if they did end up doing a scheme that probably irreparably damaged someone because of overhealing, draining power, and matter manipulation).

Shoko and Satoru potentially being in an arranged marriage would have been such a cool story line to look at. Maybe the Gojo family didn’t have any better option at their disposal so they would have been willing to overlook Shoko’s object-headed parent because of its power, but after the scheme went wrong and showed just how far Satory strayed from the family path, the family would have never wanted that girl’s blood in the family bloodline.

Once the scheme was brought to light (and probably brought bad recognition to the Gojo family), you better believe the family was willing to pay Miguel to take Satoru and try to “fix” blue into being a better kid that would follow orders. Nueva York absolutely got a big donation from the family to make sure this happened (also I just imagine Olivia having to contain her excitement at the thought of studying these powers and then Miguel had to contain his excitement when he realized how much money was being donated to Nueva York).

I wonder if Yu and Nanami tried talking with the SaSiSu three on the ride to Nueva York. I can imagine the three not being very talkative to anyone outside the three of them at that moment. Everything went wrong for them and they were now being shipped to who-knows-where. Definitely not the most happy ride any of them have had.

(also don’t apologize, it’s all good! Trust me, I have had more dark headcanons as well as people sending me in way darker stuff. So you’re all good!)

-Hobie lightens up:

Oh definitely. Once Hobie realizes that Satoru isn’t just a spoiled rich kid, they absolutely start trying to be nicer (not to say that the two still don’t bicker and fight a little bit, but nothing like what it initially was in the beginning).

Speaking of Cyril, I wonder if Hobie ends up talking to Cyril and telling him about Satoru Gojo. I can see Cyril knowing a bit of that family, maybe his mom knew them personally or something. She is a very famous singer with a voice similar to Gayatri, which is a very strong power to have. Perhaps there could be a neat little connection there somehow.

Anyway, Hobie and Gwen teaching Satoru rock and metal music is something I really like! Especially if Hobie shows Satoru some Ex-Jay music that is in Japanese. Imagine the three singing in Japanese to rock songs! That would be really fun! (Gwen doesn’t understand what she is singing and Hobie knows the gist of what it is singing. Satoru would know exactly what is being said and loves that blue is able to actually experience something with others that blue can fully understand without having to translate).

I wonder what instrument Satoru would like the best. I can imagine blue knowing how to play a more classical instrument because of blues family, so maybe something less traditional would be to blues liking. (for some reason I see Satoru in the middle of a room just dancing and shaking maracas around and it is very funny to me)

______________________________________

That’s all I have for now! thanks for the info dump! It’s always fun reading stuff like this! And honestly this is the perfect propaganda to push me into watching this show lol! Once I get time I honestly really do want to watch the show. It’s obviously not going to be exactly like this since this is an AU, but just seeing stuff on tiktok and your explanation of canon is starting to be enough for me to want to see what the show is really about! :3

You have a good day/night as well!

#nsrtalk #spidertalk #jjktalk #nspidr #eriverse #eritalks #noart #asks

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beeseverywhen · 2 years ago

Text

So I've been thinking about what tumblr is in this metaphor and I've decided: tumblr is like a pirate radio ship/commune on a boat. Some ppl saw what twitter was doing and they were like yeah we could do that and they grouped together and bought one of those really big ships. Like an ex cruise ship. And everyone was like 'this will never work they are doing what twitter is doing but in a batshit and frankly stupid way. They are more interested in painting the boat to make it look all funky rather than learning about how boats work and what they need to do to keep it afloat and how they are gonna get food and stuff. Everyone is like 'this is gonna end up badly and they'll all come to land with their tail between their legs, apart from those that are chronically sea dogs, who'll end up going to twitterland where things are actually being run properly, or else they'll consider Facebook' (which is actually a harbourside company town, but the houses are all on stilts.)

While twitter was ensuring they got important society running tm people and Facebook was ensuring the company store was filled to the brim with products from their sponsors and was like selling timeshares so that ppl could live part time in their little pods on stilts tumblr was like yeah sure everyone come on board. So you had like a section of the ship full of clowns and another full of tired adults who've quit their professional jobs and run away to find themselves and there's also a thriving lbgt section of the ship that's just like regular lbgt people who don't feel they fit in to the communities they lived in before. And there's a reasonable number of teenagers barely old enough to leave home, who've all run away from the confinement of the societal expectations or whatever

Every now and again there's rumours from the land press that some celebrity is in hiding on The tumblr (this is some kind of pun between like a drinking glass and a boat. I don't know) but all the tumblr residents are kinda shifty about it and no interviewer knows if it's all some big joke or if rockstar of the week really is hiding out on there, apparently along with a few actors, some authors and a few artists. They aren't lying they just don't seem to care. Celebrity? What celebrity? That's just Neil. He's on dish duty this week.

So for a good few years twitterland is thriving Facebook town is thriving. Tumblr is doing better than expected? They haven't sunk the boat yet. Lots of people from various walks of life like to come there to get away from things on a little retreat in to Weird tm culture. People on there are a bit elitist like 'yeah we aren't sheep, living on land under capitalism, we are here, living life as humans are supposed to. Creating art, having weird sex parties. It's all good'. The only thing these groups of ppl have in common is that they don't really vibe with regular culture on land. Its a counter culture thing. But they all live alongside each other pretty well. Mostly keeping to their own parts of the ship but getting on well when they bump in to each other. The guy that owns the largest share of the boat is like 'look. I'm going to sell a stake in the boat to my buddy so we can do some improvements' nobody agrees but it happens and nothing really changes. The old owner is still the captain. People are kinda annoyed cause they are like. 'This was a communal thing' but the guy is like, yeah but I decided to get things going, to find a boat, refit it, invite people to stay. I've been steering the boat all this time. This is for the good of everyone, the boat will be better for it

And then, a group of some of the younger residents, decide to put on an event, but they have no event planning skills and also, commit a deadly sin on board the boat: they bring money in to it. Usually money only changes hands when ppl leave the boat, but they decide to host a party on board the ship and get residents to pay for it. The party is very underwhelming. It's a great embarrassment and lots of people leave the boat for good. Its no longer seen as a good retreat for celebrities, a few stay, but they are more 'tumblr weirdos' than they are celebrities by this point. They've shed the garb of 'celeb' and fully acclimated. The hold outs are mostly ppl that were already kind of uncomfortable with being 'celebrities' they've always been more comfortable just being a weird guy just like everyone else left on the boat.

News places stop bothering with tumblr, they are more concerned with Facebook town and twitter which are considered successful, and are making money with advertising/ product placements in the 'life in a day' videos they churn out. The ppl left on the tumblr ship fully lean in to the weirdness. But without any celebrity following/positive news, on land ppl are very much unimpressed with tumblr. The guy who bought out the share goes bankrupt and the share of the boat gets transferred to a different business. After a while the original captain is like 'you know what. Its been a wild ride but I don't think boating is for me. I'm going to go live in a house. GL.

The business conglomerate that owns the share in the boat is like. Well. You need a captain. Can't just leave you to it. We've got a great guy for the job. Don't worry he loves this whole thing. He's a strict business guy and everyone is like 'he's going to sell the boat off for parts! They'll take our home!' But actually the new guy is very in to the idea of the tumblr boat, though he really doesn't get it. He keeps popping in for little holidays. He's like 'I think we could make this a holiday resort' and all the residents are like, this would be a terrible holiday resort. It was once a cruise ship, sure, but its something very different now. Why would we turn it in to a holiday destination when there are already 100s of non converted cruise ships doing a better job? And the guy is just like sipping a pina colada through a straw still dressed in a suit, like shrugging. 'It's only an idea'. He seems to be enjoying himself but he still seems a bit baffled by things, he's like 'so what's with the sex parties' and everyone is like, it's no big deal. Those of us not involved are used to it by now we don't care. They seem to be having a good time. Good for them.

Tumblr has been finding it hard to find places to moor up and resupply (it's still disorganised as hell so who knows how they're buying their communally owned food) for a while and it's not been helped by the fact that their 'all are welcome' policy has led to a few on the run criminals camping out on board, without them knowing which has given them bad press. The new captain is like 'I can solve this. Don't worry about it' and next thing they know, he's hosting a press conference saying that the boat is banning sex parties. And everyone is like?! How could you do that? Some of them are like 'sex parties are a part of life on board. We'd be nothing without them' and others are like 'personally I'm not bothered about the sex parties but I don't think they are the problem, we keep asking you to remove the wanted criminals we've warned you about, but you did nothing and now you want to boot out the rule abiding, perfectly civil sex party attendees? How could you make a decision like this without consulting us. Who will you be kicking out next? This is a slippery slope'. And the guy is like hold on a second let's not be too harsh. "Look guys. We need to reboot our image. These harbours are saying they don't want us to dock. They say we aren't family friendly. They say we've got nothing to contribute to their economy's. Banning the parties is the only way. Nobody's getting booted. You all have the opportunity to promise not to have sex on board again, and to dispose of all the posters advertising past parties and the photo collages and stuff and If you do that, you're free to stay.'

Nobody's impressed by that so loads of people leave. Either because they were attending parties and want to continue to, or just because they don't agree. By now parts of the boat are straight up abandoned. There's nobody new to move in to the rooms people left, so they are just like, standing dark and empty, still decorated, but abandoned. Time goes on, they don't have any trouble docking but it's getting harder and harder to pay for supplies, with so many less people and the company with the big share in the boat are not so willing to pay for things now they see there's little hope of them getting any of it back. (Things are just depressing now it's all empty. They'll never sell this as a resort) eventually they sell it off to another company.

The ppl still living there are very resistant to the new owners like 'they already took our sex parties and drove away our friends. How much worse can it get? What are you going to do?' And they don't trust any suggestions. But the new owners are like 'look. We kind of understand how things work on your boat. We don't personally have anything like this, but we do have experience managing a load of little communities living as property guardians in abandoned hotels/resorts. Its not the same! But we do have an idea of what you are trying to do here. You are artists. We get that.

And people start to warm up to them a bit when it's been a year or so and they aren't selling off bits but eventually the new guys are like 'look we can't keep paying for your food without any contribution. Our other communes give us a cut of their business proceeds, some of them pay rent. Everyone is very unimpressed by this, but over time they warm up to the idea somewhat (it's made clear that the boat needs major repairs if it's gonna keep floating) and unlike the last guy who was pretty content to drink pina coladas and imagine he was on a different boat, the people from this company do seem to be interested in hearing from the residents. They are making small repairs. They are hosting residents meetings.

They set up a gift shop, stocking things that the residents might find amusing. They set up a few paid for initiatives that get completely shot down. They convert some of the abandoned rooms in to double sized rooms and are like 'you can pay to upgrade and live in a bigger cabin'. You can pay for a new door in an interesting color or new carpeting. They set up a stage and a gallery. People can pay to display their art/ do a comedy routine or play music. Some people pay for stage time to bring issues to light. People are still very hesitant. There's a spectrum of ppl joining in with the efforts they approve of (gift shop. Personalised doors) but ignoring those they don't agree with, and then some ppl strictly refusing to support any of it, and setting up sit ins/graffiting posters advertising the paid for ventures.

And then, some ex twitter residents start dribbling in. Some are like 'I'm only here for a short holiday while they work on putting out the fire' some are like 'I'll be hedging my bets and splitting my time' others are like 'wow this is like vintage tumblr. I can't believe you've remodelled this ship to look just like the one from a decade ago'. Twitter does not work to put out the fire. Long lasting residents are a bit like ??? Do they not know we've been here all along. More and more people move in, trying to bring some of the quirks of their twitter world community to the boat. The gift shop keeps going. Advertisers pay to put up posters. The gallery seems to regularly have art so clearly someone's paying. Nobody is really sure what the future looks like.

I can not tell if some of these bots are bots. By combining random words they are perfectly emulating tumblr users. The only thing that I'm clinging on to is how averse the average tumblr is to having their face next to their posts. But some of these bots are starting to use pictures of ppl out doing things/ messing around and I'm like... this could be a person. Is this them or is it a meme. Their face isn't in it. It's not centred on their body. This could be a person. Especially as twitter continues to slowly sink like a very slowly burning very very large construction in the sea.

It's like one of those big abandoned rigs/sea stations where years after its been left some ppl come across it and move in like 'we can repurpose this' and next thing you know they are living there like 'we are a country now' and things seem to be thriving and they appear to have a functioning society and its like 'have these ppl escaped capitalism' and then one day there's some kind of disaster and loads of ppl abandon it and come back to regular society and they are all like telling stories about how it was.

And then as time goes on every now and again another person gives up and abandons ship, and comes back to land living society with a even crazier story about what's been going down since the last person left. And time goes on and eventually it's like largely abandoned. The ppl still living there are either very loyal or remain thanks to sunk cost. And its pretty well understood that by this point the guy in charge is a dictator and its all a bit culty and there's no real reason to stay. Its just living amongst like empty rusting offices (cause there aren't enough ppl left to keep it running like a society/improving so it's just like an abandoned weather station in the middle of the sea again and the weather's always shit cause its the middle of the sea. The dream is dead, they are just only realising one at a time.

And then one day someone's boat goes past and the place is on fire and everyone's like hey are you guys OK? And tries to evacuate them. But they are all like 'our leader says its fine. Its cool we don't need rescuing. Like you could rescue us. Life on land is shit. Enjoy capitalism losers!' And everyone's a bit like uncomfortable about leaving them there, but it's like. What can you do. They are just like 'the fire keeps to its side of the station we keep to ours, its np.'

But everyone decides to keep an eye on things all the same. Reporting on things out of morbid curiosity and a little bit like 'you can still get out. We're here.' And then one day the place (still on fire) starts to sink in to the sea and you really think they'll jump ship now. What's left? But they are still clinging on to this dream of what it could have been. And the place is like burning but also littered with advertisements cause the cult leader is letting just about anyone sponsor them, and it is a burning wreck sinking in to the sea, but also its on the news 24/7 so there are always ppl willing to stick their logo on it

Anyway, I've got completely carried away with my metaphor here. But twitters like that. And as ppl slowly abandon ship and are like 'I guess we'll return to the shitty lives we thought we'd escaped' they bring a bit of 'comune that's also a country on a rig in the middle of the sea' culture with them. And so there are now more ppl on tumblr doing twitter things like having attractively posed pictures as their icon

#look im not making excuses #but the adhd medicine im on now does this thing where it gives me focus #but it's like. very sticky. it gets stuck to anything. and once it's stuck it's hard to get it unstuck. it's hard to notice it's stuck #the medicine is like glue and I'm driving a car. I'm smothering the (clear) glue over the windscreen to repair it cause its got cracks #but if I'm not careful. a newspaper will get stuck to the windscreen before Its dry. so rather than driving the car I'm reading the paper #i need to be sat in front of the thing i want to focus on. only thinking about that thing. nothing else. when it kicks in. or else #it kicks in and gets stuck to something else before i can get to the thing that needs doing/i want to do #the problem is. before it's kicked in sitting and thinking of 1 thing is hard. & a big reason i take it is my memory is fried without meds #so i forget that i took my meds with the intention of doing a thing and next thing i know its 10hrs later and I've spent the day doing #something inexplicable. funnily enough i was really worried when i first went on any meds years back that #adhd was what made me creative and without it id be a very straight thinker unable to think outside of the box/ create things #this was an unnecessary worry. the reverse is true. unmedicated i was creative in thinking but i couldn't settle on an idea long enough #to get it out. they were all just stuck in my head overlapping and id spend 5 hours holding a pencil or brush unable to just get it out #now. i can get to that point.my creativity is the same but it's not overwhelming w/ wasted potential.its not impossible to do anything with #so I'm creating more than ever! and I'm beginning to learn to be happy creating for the enjoyment i get as I'm doing it.#doesn't matter if its good. I'm getting something out of writing a mediocre story or painting a shitty painting. it's worthwhile!#I'm allowed to put things in to the world that aren't perfect. if i enjoyed making it it doesn't matter if its bad #so yes! not less creative at all. I've unlocked something in myself. i can make the things in my head.#i have an outlet im not just drowning in ideas. definite positive!#but yes slight downside. I'm NOT any less creative and my ideas have always been on the weird/odd/eccentric side of creative #leaving me here. intense but very difficult to redirect focus avaliable to me. & i have a unlocked ability to create and get thoughts out #guess who accidentally picked up her phone and started scrolling tumblr just before she was going to clean the kitchen #its been 8 hours. I've followed like ten blogs. and i literally have no idea where this came from. i was blocking bots!!!!#how did i get here. i was gonna make a short post about a very realistic bot. Next thing i know. i stumble on an analogy thatll haunt me #for hours. i didn't need to write this. i didn't even need to think this. it just happened. one overworked analogy later.#i blinked and next thing i know I'm sat in front of whatever this is. not even the weirdest thing I've made after one of these moods #when i start on woodwork that's when i know I've got a problem #(no i don't have any outdoor space or even a spare room let alone a workshop. we're doing bedroom woodwork in these parts)#well. that's what hoovers are for. this has created less mess but is frankly bizzare. i can't explain it

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traincat · 3 years ago

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I’ve been trying to piece together a few things from your Twitter and Tumblr posts alike and still can’t make heads or tales of things, so would you mind helping out a FF & spideytorch noob? 1) what is currently happening with Johnny in the comics? (I’ve fallen head over heels for this guy, largely all your doing) 2) when’s the last time he and Peter have interacted, canon wise? (And do you think upcoming interactions are likely?) 3) your thoughts on if they’ll have him come out in the near future? (has that ‘biggest change to the fantastic four’ teaser come to pass yet?) Love all your content, thank you!

I'd say no problem but then I started thinking about this current run again and got a headache. But yes, I can do that to save you from reading it, because it is very largely not good.

So I don't think it's unfair to just flat out say the current Fantastic Four run is not very good, largely due to writer Dan Slott's efforts. Slott was previously on Amazing Spider-Man for 10 years, to mixed opinions, but a large portion of Spider-Man fandom, myself included, blames him near singlehandedly for the decline in quality of Spider-Man books over those ten years. I will say, in the interest of fairness, that Slott as a writer has an incredible fondness for the Spider-Man/Human Torch relationship, and that a lot of the recent teamups and interactions between them have been written or co-written by him. So it's all not all negative here. But in general, I personally find Slott's more recent comics (the last seven-ish years especially) to be badly plotted out, messily characterized disasters that feature characters written with all the emotion of a cardboard cutout. That's me putting it nicely.

To explain this fully, you have to understand the position Fantastic Four comics were in from the years 2015 through 2018, both in the fictional 616 universe and in the real publishing world. Following the 2015 Secret Wars event (great if you want some Johnny angst in the background of your plot), the Fantastic Four were disbanded -- Reed, Sue, and their many biological and found family children were presumed dead but in reality were remaking the multiverse, unable, for a reason that was never clearly defined, to reach home. Ben and Johnny were left on Earth. They had an unspecified falling out, likely due to Reed and Sue's absence, and went their separate ways -- Ben joined the Guardians of the Galaxy and went to space. Johnny was featured on both Inhumans and Avengers books. What's notable about this period is that it's the first time since 1961 that there was no Fantastic Four book being published by Marvel. Now the real world reason behind this is both complicated and extremely petty: Marvel really wanted the Fantastic Four film rights. Marvel denied this explanation at the time, stating that the reason was sales motivated, but it was a thoroughly flimsy excuse and Jonathan Hickman, writer of 2015's Secret Wars and overseer of the current X-Men plot, gave an interview saying the decision was film rights motivated. This decision kept the Fantastic Four books off the shelves for three years, up until the Disney-Fox merger, which secured the X-Men and Fantastic Four rights for Disney's Marvel Studios. Marvel then announced that the Fantastic Four book would be returning. So that's a little bit of background as to the precarious place the Fantastic Four currently occupy in the Marvel universe -- it's worth noting that this year is their 60th anniversary, and Marvel has done very little for it. Compare this to the X-Men, whose film rights Marvel also obtained during the Disney-Fox merger, and whose books are currently dominating the publishing lineup. The Fantastic Four definitely occupy an unpopular position, one Marvel themselves is at least partially responsible for forcing them into.

But to move back into the actual content of the book -- the readjustment period Slott wrote reintroducing the Fantastic Four into the Marvel universe can be described as clumsy, at best. It's never fully explained why Reed, Sue, and the kids couldn't return to Earth, something that was explored in Chip Zdarsky's 2017 Marvel Two-in-One, which featured Ben, Johnny, and Doom on a multiversal roadtrip to try and find their family and which I on the whole recommend, despite it having an awkward ending due to being cut short by Slott's announced Fantastic Four main title.

(Marvel Two-in-One 2017 #4)

Instead, the Fantastic Four return to a Marvel universe a little different than how they left it, with the Baxter Building -- formerly the offices of Parker Industries, the company Doc Ock started in Peter's body during Superior Spider-Man that Peter inherited after his defeat and then lost spectacularly when he trashed his own company to fight nazis (good for him) -- occupied by a different fantastic foursome in a plot that goes nowhere and does nothing. This is somewhat emblematic of the early days of Slott's run -- he introduces ideas that fail to go anywhere, including Johnny's rekindled relationship with his other best friend and former college roommate, Wyatt Wingfoot, who he was seen being very cuddly with in the early issues.

(FF 2018 #1) A small group of Fantastic Four fans have argued for a while that if Marvel was to have Johnny come out, a relationship with Wyatt would feel very natural -- they're already close, with Wyatt being an important Fantastic Four supporting character since the '60s. I have some further analysis here on the conspiracy theory that Johnny and Wyatt were supposed to be in relationship at the beginning of this run but that that plot was, for whatever reason, nixed. I don't know that I entirely believe this theory, for the record -- but I do think the pieces line up remarkably well.

Anyway, that didn't/hasn't yet happened, obviously. Slott instead for the most part put Johnny on the back burner for the beginning of his run, up until the Spyre arc, which I have reason to believe is the main story he pitched that he credits with securing him the Fantastic Four title. The Spyre arc suggests that the Fantastic Four's failed space exploration during which they got their powers wasn't just to beat the commies to the moon, as Lee and Kirby envisioned (simpler days), but to reach a specific planet outside of our galaxy. When the team sets out to conquer this mission, they arrive at the planet, but are quickly captured. The planet, they find out, operates like a soulmate AU -- everyone has a fated person that they are matched to via a gold armband. Reed and Sue are soulmates (and Ben is confined to an underground subterranean with the other monsters, because this is a Fantastic Four comic) while it's discovered! Shocker! That Johnny is actually the soulmate of the one the planet's inhabitants, a winged woman named Sky, with the suggestion that this is both why Johnny's previous relationships have never worked and why he loves space exploration -- he was just trying to get to his Soulmate TM.

(FF 2018 #15) "What's going on here? Where are my clothes?" As you can see, this didn't start off super great, with Johnny being separated from his family, stripped naked, and put in Sky's bed with a soulmate armband slapped on him. Did I mention they're only removable if your soulmate takes it off for you? And that Sky has consistently refused despite Johnny asking her to? Yeah. It's bad. (I think it's important to note Johnny's long history as a victim of assault plays into this narrative, whether or not Slott is personally holding that in mind while writing, which I don't believe he is. cw in the linked post for discussions of sexual assault.) There's an additional issue here in that Slott has a history of problematic writing regarding women of color, featuring characters he's created to act as love interests being oversexualized, infantilized, villainized, or some mix of all three, with two examples of this phenomena being Cindy Moon and Lian Tang, both of whom he introduced in quick succession in Amazing Spider-Man. Slott certainly didn't have to write Sky as manipulative or controlling towards Johnny, but that's what he chose to do, and that factors into the bigger picture of unfortunate themes in his writing.

Sky returns to Earth with the Fantastic Four despite Johnny appearing unenthused about the idea and initially generally reluctant to interact with her. Apparently they went on a few dates after this and kind of made up. I don't know because I stopped reading for about ten issues in there but I feel confident I missed very little. It's hard to talk about the Sky plot without referencing Johnny's previous interactions with a character named Lyja, a Skrull whose relationship to Johnny I have a long breakdown of here. It's doubly hard, because Lyja actually showed back up in Fantastic Four during this plot. Lyja's modus operandi has remained consistent throughout almost all of her appearances, which I guess makes sense, because she literally has no storylines that do not involve her being obsessed with Johnny, and this recent story isn't any different: Lyja shows up, Lyja disguises herself as another woman in Johnny's life to get close to Johnny, Lyja gets caught and claims it was all fine because she did it for love. This time she disguised herself as Sky.

(FF 2018 #32) Not gonna lie, kind of proud of him for this one. That's one of my problems with Slott -- very occasionally, he busts out good moments, only to undermine them with the rest of his narrative.

In the same issue, Alicia Masters, the first woman Lyja impersonated in order to get close to Johnny, uses her supervillain stepfather's radioactive clay to control Lyja's mind and send her back to space, and I do think she utilized girl power when she did this. Johnny, left reeling after Lyja's latest attempts to trick him into a relationship, ends this issue by sleeping with Victorious, Dr. Doom's right hand woman.

I know she pegged him. I know it. This scene was a little controversial in Johnny fandom, because a lot of people viewed it as Johnny cheating on Sky and thought that that action was out of character for Johnny. I'm personally of a little different opinion, which is that regardless of whether or not you view Johnny and Sky in a committed enough relationship that Johnny's tryst would count as infidelity when all Johnny and Sky are bound by are magic plot soulmate bracelets, I think Lyja's involvement changes things significantly when it comes to Johnny's characterization. All of Johnny's "playboy" periods, if we can call them that, coincide directly with Lyja having been in and then left his life again, which I think makes a certain amount of sense -- it's Johnny trying to wrest control back after a situation where he had none. None of this is explicitly canon, I have to note, but sometimes in comics you have to do the work yourself. So I think this is a case of something being accidentally extremely in character that Slott accidentally stumbled into because he had these love triangles in mind, not because he put a lot of thought into it.

Speaking of love triangles! Johnny sleeping with Victorious gets more complicated when Dr. Doom announces his intent to marry Victorious -- not because he has any romantic interest in her (this engagement caused a lot of uproar in Fantastic Four because Victorious had been previously referred to as being like Doom's adopted daughter) but in order to install her as Latverian regent in his absence. I'm not going to lie, I love a political wedding. Victorious, for some reason, thinks Doom will be deeply upset that she slept with some closeted blond twink and the member of the Fantastic Four he views least as an enemy and more as an annoyance. Johnny, who Sky is currently not talking to because she "felt" him sleeping with Victorious through their magic plot soulmate bracelets, also feels nervous about Doom finding out about this, which I guess is slightly more valid. Anyway, for some completely ridiculous reason, Victorious decides the best time to tell Doom about this little indiscretion is when they're standing at the altar, which coincidentally the Fantastic Four are also standing at, because Doom asked Reed to be his best man in a not at all homoerotic little setup involving midnight swordfighting and Reed slipping Doom's emerald ring onto his own finger. Sorry to sidetrack into DoomReed territory here but it's just like. It's just a lot.

(FF 2018 #33) Also, Ben walked the bride down the aisle. :,) Look at his gigantic hand.

Anyway then Doom decides he's going to kill everyone in a completely reasonable and not at all overblown reaction to Johnny and Zora having what was most likely both disappointing for Zora and weepy for Johnny sex. And that brings us up to where Fantastic Four comics left us yesterday -- in answer to your "big change" question, that's most likely coming up in the next issue, so it hasn't come to pass yet.

Having gotten all that out of the way -- the last time Johnny and Peter interacted canon-wise was in the recent Empyre Fallout Fantastic Four, at the end of the Empyre event:

It was cute! Slott does right good interactions between them. This is possibly the Stockholm Syndrome talking. I don't know if more interactions are likely imminent -- the Empyre event was fairly recent. On the other hand, Slott does like writing interactions between them. So I'd give it about a 50/50 shot. I was skimming the letter page in the latest issue and someone wrote in asking if Peter was likely to appear in the pages of Fantastic Four again any time soon, so there is definitely a demand.

As for Johnny coming out -- I don't know. It's not a call I feel comfortable making at this moment, which I guess means I wouldn't bet money on it. I'd like to say yes, especially because I think Slott set up, whether that was his intention or more likely not, several good places in his run where Johnny could have come out. The beginning, when he's implied to be living with Wyatt again and where he and Wyatt are paralleled against Ben and Alicia. Ben's bachelor party, where Johnny laments not finding the right person -- specifically person and not woman -- and where Ben tells him to "be brave, Johnny Storm." And the soulmate planet plot, where I think could have had a very different and much better ending if Johnny had told Sky that she couldn't be his romantic soulmate, because he knows he wants to be with a man. But those are just places that I think would have made good opportunities for a coming out story. Instead, Johnny's been involved (dubiously) with three different women over the space of the last 10 issues, which is more heterosexuality at one time than he's been confronted with in the last 60 years. So my thoughts are still that it's going to happen eventually, but quite possibly not anytime soon.

Hope that helps! And that my incredibly long answer about what's currently going on with Johnny in comics sheds some light on things!

#johnny storm #traincat talks comics #*replies #long post/#wednesday spoilers

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qqueenofhades · 3 years ago

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Keeping my fingers crossed for that Black Widow meta

Aha, okay. As usual, I am ludicrously easy to enable, so let's take a crack at this. The ask obviously contains SPOILERS for the Black Widow film (and is also tagged "black widow spoilers" if you're planning to filter), and discussion/reference to other films/properties in the MCU, though I don't feel like any of those are still a secret.

Anyway, as I said in my earlier post, I can't believe I am actually still trying to critically analyse a Marvel production in the year of our Lord 2021, but then, I feel like we all have a complicated relationship with it. Likewise, the feeling of "oh wow NOW you're giving Natasha a solo movie after you killed her off in a cheap and fairly sexist way in Endgame?" If this film had come out ten or even five years ago, it would have been major, but holding it off until now seems to have left most of us justifiably unimpressed. Plus, as I am absolutely not the first person to point out, it renders Natasha's sacrifice in Endgame "because I don't have a family" even more narratively incoherent. I realize that this film was written after that one by totally different people, there's no point in expecting the MCU to make consistent canonical sense throughout its eighty billion different films/series, we were all stuck with a mess after the Whedonified Age of Ultron Nat, and so forth, but still. Natasha explicitly SAYS that she has two families (her wacky Russian found family of spies and the Avengers) and her decision to leap off the cliff in Endgame to save Clint and his retconned perfect white heterosexual nuclear family.... Hmmmm. To which I say to you, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I do bite my thumb at Male Writers, sir.

Likewise, while I am wildly attracted to Florence Pugh as Yelena and deeply desire to be wrapped between her thighs, the movie felt more like her story than Nat's. Yelena drove most of the plot and the action, while Nat was just kind of along for the ride. As a solo piece, we really didn't learn that much about Natasha aside from the opening scene (which felt like it was straight out of The Americans and probably worked the best of the whole film for the reason) with her childhood in America. But even the infamous "what happened in Budapest" backstory with her and Clint was quickly info-dumped rather than shown, and they could have taken more narrative risks or included more flashbacks or otherwise given us more NATASHA, y'know??? Instead of cramming the film into the small space between Civil War and Infinity War and making it even weirder that Nat seemingly has no memory or reference to these events when she returns to the team at that time. Why not show her looking for Yelena or her actual defection to the Avengers or anything else we might want from a film that purportedly exists entirely to provide backstory for a now-dead character? It felt like even in the film universe, the main quest was being repeated -- she tried to kill Baddie McSoviet once before and it didn't work out, so she has to do it again, something something. Okay.

As for that, good ol' Marvel and its American Superiority TM. The only actual Eastern European actress in this film about Eastern Europeans was Antonia/Taskmaster, played by the Ukrainian Olga Kurylenko (and I was very interested in her?? If she's supposed to be a narrative foil and a ghost of Nat's past and mark of her former sins, etc., why not develop her as an actual character?) Everyone else were Brits and Americans hamming it up with even more chew-the-scenery fake Russian accents than Elizabeth Olsen's "Sokovian" accent as Scarlet Witch. If it's established that they all have perfect American accents at the start of the movie, why is Nat the only American-accented character in the modern day if she had presumably the exact same childhood as Yelena? I know it's another way to set her apart, but that and Baddie McSoviet (the Russians are finding a way to steal free will from people's brains! Zomgz!!! Is this 2021 or 1981?) were straight out of the Cold War in terms of its not-so-veiled American Supremacy Message. Likewise, making modern!Natasha a former KGB agent never really made sense, since she says in Winter Soldier that she was born in 1984, and we see her in this film as an 11-year-old in 1995. But the USSR collapsed in 1991, when she was seven, and the Red Room appears to be an entirely unrelated flying....lab....thingy run by a generic evil Russian (Ray Winstone, likewise Hamming Up Accent). So like. What is she, guys?? Make up your minds!!!

Likewise, Baddie McSoviet/Dreykov as a villain obviously plays into the hoary old Hollywood "All Bad People Are Recognizable As Being Terrible Sexists and Also Probably Russians" trope, but aside from that, he doesn't make sense. He has this entire army of basically unstoppable Widows and he has just been.... waiting around and causing random explosions? Or was just waiting for Nat and company to return so he could Put His Evil Plan Into Motion? Are we really supposed to believe that this guy has just been sitting up in his flying saucer and essentially never doing anything this whole time? He had about a million chances to launch this take-over-the-world plan long before Natasha ever got there. Plus, I.... am.... not sure what to think (aside from /deep sigh/ MARVEL) about the fact that all the Widows we see dying/getting killed on screen are women of color. (Then the Black surgeon who was about to remove Yelena's brain in the Red Room and the only other Black guy being Natasha's errand boy, which just... in context... YIKES.) I think the fact that there are random Black background Widows are supposed to mean that they're inclusive and badass or something? Scarlett Johansson also has her own issues with White Feminism and all the other things we've critiqued her for before, so after TFATWS and the Flag Smashers, Marvel clearly has found its subtly racist sweet spot. As usual?

The end of the film also just basically turns into the standard Marvel empty-spectacle/cool-looking fights/people flying through the air thing, and I wanted a lot more focus on the wacky found-family Russian-spy hijinks (I did love them, for reasons) and character dynamics, rather than all of them separately fighting baddies in different places. I did obviously have feelings about Natasha putting the parachute on Yelena to save her life. But why were we then denied Nat/Gamora parallels/relationships/any character development or interaction at all in Infinity War/Endgame? Both of them are trained assassins adopted into a non-biological family that they have a complicated relationship with, but end up forging a strong bond with their sister (Yelena/Nebula) nonetheless. Of course, that would have required Endgame to put more effort into its female characters than what it did, which was one (1) Epic CGI Charge Scene at the very end, and literally nothing else. Not that I am still salty about this or anything.

Anyway. The movie was genuinely fun in places. The wacky Russian found family of spies was definitely the best part, even if it made Endgame even more nonsensical as a result. But I wanted this movie to be a lot better than it was overall, though I probably would have liked it more if it had actually come out in a timely fashion and wasn't only released after they killed her off. It just feels like there were so many possible threads of potential that could have been done with Natasha if they were actually interested in experimenting and exploring the character and not just coming up with new baddies and ways to go boom, and it unfortunately missed the mark with that.

#anonymous #ask #black widow #black widow spoilers #mcu #long post

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odd-kid-42 · 3 years ago

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for the fic ask! 12, 13, 14, 28!!

Cool! I haven't done one of these before. Thank you for the ask! This got long, geesh.

12. favorite character to write this year

Ron and Willy, in different ways. With Ron, there is a development from "Kill Your Father Energy Drink" where I am enjoying the character and testing out writing short prompts on him, to "Alternative Worlds", which is honestly one large thesis on Ron and Willy's relationship.

With Willy, I was spoilered (because I tend to look into a show before putting energy into listening/watching lol) that he was the villian, so I enjoyed his general presence before ep 29 blew my socks off. Still, I was interested in him without fully getting him, and I wanted to get him. The first DnDads fic I published was on Stud & Willy from ATMoD because there was a delay between listening to the first ep and hearing the second and third back-to-back, so I genuinely thought Stud would use the “I have a kid at home” reasoning to snap out of insanity and live. But he didn’t, and I really enjoyed the ending while also feeling like “huh... Stud’s dream was the focus, not his kid”. And with that, I felt like “oh, I get Willy now”, and it progressed into me having Thoughts (tm) on the Stamplers tending to dreams > kids while also enjoying canonically how Willy tries so hard to be the villain to his own detriment. Combined with that sense that all of the events could have been prevented had Stud just stayed and gotten the typical “my adoptive kid is prone to violence and thinks toxic masculinity is going to be his brand, what do?” advice.

Kid Glenn was surprisingly my favorite character to write in "Day at the Park", and that enjoyment is translating over into writing “Teen” Glenn in “Alternate World”.

tldr; So, Ron and Willy, and Glenn is starting to grow on me.

13. favorite writing song/artist/album of this year

Most of the time I am walking somewhere and thinking about whatever WIP I have going on and get ideas from that to work on during the weekend, but when I am trying to crank out a chapter, I have a song on repeat that fits the tone to focus. Albums are if I am just starting and haven’t hit the writing jag of time blending together. The Antler’s “Hospice” is a go-to for heavy mood when I need to focus (fairly depressing album about unhealthy relationship), but I had a phase of getting into Idles’ “Joy as an Act of Resistance” and “Brutalism” as background for more action/upbeat things which is British leftist punk.

Since I like talking about “Alternate Worlds” and haven’t hit the point of sharing the playlist yet, Ron’s end section on chapter two and some of three was Flora Cash’s “You’re Somebody Else” on repeat as I typed; Henry’s chapter 4 was Current Joy’s “Alabama”; Darryl’s chapter 5 was The Dead South’s “In Hell I’ll Be in Good Company” and shifted into Idles’s “The Beachland Ballroom” (some cw religious trauma in songs) because it released and it got stuck in my head. Glenn’s chapter 7 was Godspeed! You Black Emperor’s “Storm” on repeat with some other songs.

14. fic you didn't expect to write

I didn’t think “Day at the Park” would be so long?? It started as a ‘haha what if Henry wasn’t lying when he said he was a wild child’ that then turned into ‘okay, so they’ll play tag, Willy as the scary OP character who tries to interrupt in parallel to canon will happen, fic ends’ turned into ‘actually Frank takes them to ice cream and it ends there’ turned into ‘okay, so Frank calls their moms and fic ends?’ turned into ‘okay, okay. Christine collects Glenn, Willy has an adult to direct his anger at, and Henry is happy despite his father; now can I end it? Okay? Everyone’s relatively happy? Yes.’ I don’t regret writing all of the details. Part of my summer just consisted of finishing it up.

28. longest fic read this year

Around spring of this year, I was listening to The Magnus Archive as they were approaching their finale and, as you do, was reading TMA fanfic on the bus ride to and from work. We should ride this wave to shore (163,580 words) was definitely one of my favorites, and also props to the author for writing a Mechanics album-adjacent/musical play for it? And the length for a group chat fic? And no one died? Dedication. Skill. Finess.

Thank you for tagging me!

#dndads #dndads spoilers #writing #alt world fic tag

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massielandnetwork · 4 years ago

Text

Important Economic Trends During Anarchy

2021 – Let the Games Begin

14. A Christian Secession – Poetic Justice equals Reality Checks

News broke this week that the General Counsel of Coca-Cola resigned abruptly last week over his aggressive championing of the Critical Race Theory. I guess the fizz went out of Coke and they decided they did not want to “Go Woke and Go Broke”. Poetic Justice?

China’s Wuhan Virus vaccine reportedly has an effective rate of 40% or less and fewer than one-third of Chinese have had even one shot of that two-shot vaccine. India is suffering an enormous increase in Wuhan Virus infections which multiple “variants” creating havoc. Some analysts are combining those facts and forecasting that China may be in for a Pandemic crisis since those two countries share a common border. Another case of Poetic Justice?

The U. S. Chamber of Commerce is dominated by large U. S. Corporations. Haters of Trump, in the November 2020 election the U. S. Chamber of Commerce backed many Congressional Democrats and Biden. Biden’s $6 Trillion proposed bills mostly wasteful spending unless you are part of the Democratic Party entourage. To pay for these monstrosities, Biden and gang want to raise taxes on …drum roll please …big businesses (and others). Poetic Justice – yessir.

Also, in the tax crosshairs are anyone that owns any asset such as a home, stock, farm, or business. Not only do the Demented Marxists (DM) want to raise capital gains taxes, but the DMs also want to reduce the estate tax exclusion down to $1M per person. That combination will significantly diminish investment activity and reduce future job growth by punishing anyone who works hard, builds a business, and invests their money. Another reality check full of pain.

If Biden and his merry band of DMs succeed in passing these proposals, it will take decades for the U. S. economy to recover AFTER this stupidity is reversed. If it is ever reversed. Marxism or Socialism has NEVER succeeded. Only an idiot would claim China is an economic success because reality is that China is a debt fueled, economic house of cards.

Do not believe the Democratic propaganda machine about Biden’s ratings. The unreported facts are:

1. Biden’s speech before Congress was viewed by so few folks it makes the NBA’s viewership look superb.

2. Senator Tm Scott’s speech was phenomenal and obviously on target because the DM’s went ballistic to the point that Biden was forced to state the next day that Americans are not racist. Meanwhile his administration continues to push the Critical Race Theory (CRT) which says all whites are bad because they are racists.

3. Idaho became the first state to ban CRT from being taught in its schools. At least four more states have followed suit. Where is Virginia’s government on CRT? – Oh, stupid me, we are controlled by DMs.

4. Five white farmers in Wisconsin have filed suit claiming discrimination over Biden’s proposal to forgive the USDA debt of black farmers.

Here are some critical economic events.

1. Due to the stimulus already in the economy, economic growth has surged to a level almost equivalent to where the USA economy was in January of 2020. That is the good news.

2. The bad news is that economic growth is being retarded by those stimulus programs that made unemployment provide folks a higher income than if they were working. So, workers are staying home and enjoying the government/taxpayer money. Pay people NOT to work and they do not work. Somehow the DM’s have a hard time grasping that equation.

3. Because of the shortage of workers, employers are raising wages and offering bonuses. Great for the employees. Also, a source of inflationary pressure.

4. Supply chains are distorted because of perceived shortages which encourages buyers to buy extra to their actual needs which in turn exacerbates the shortage because producers cannot keep up with the surging demand. Think toilet paper a year ago. Computer chips are a recent example. Auto manufacturers are having to shut down plant because why cannot get the computer chips they need.

5. I hope you belly laughed like I did when Biden talked about the government getting into the production of computer chips. The government is doing such a great job with the Postal Service and applying the same techniques to our medical care, solar power that I hope we dodge the bullet of the government fouling up the computer chip industry.

Compared to Trump who actually solved problems rather than just talking about them being problems, the contrast with the politicians in Richmond or DC is stark. DM politicians just want to get paid for talking about a problem, scoring rhetorical points, and have a fund raiser about the problem, but they never solve the problem. The focus is all about money, how much is theirs.

Keep watching the activity about the fraudulent election last November.

a. The Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the Michigan Secretary of State exceeded her authority when she approved a variety of changes to the state’s election laws. Was the “certified” election in Michigan a fraud? YES.

b. The Arizona legislature authorized recount of 2.1 Million votes in Maricopa County, Arizona is rolling despite the DMs attempt to prevent it.

c. It is fun watching the DMs oppose audits in Wisconsin and Georgia. Odd behavior if there is nothing to hide.

d. Lawsuits have been filed and counter filed by Mike Lindell, Sidney Powell, and Dominion (the voting machine company). Stay tuned, much more to come.

114 days into the DMs’ coup (it is the longest 114 days EVER), here are some quick observations of recent events that will impact our economic future:

1. Financial analysts are beginning to evaluate when The Fed starts reducing their Quantitative Easing (QE). Last week two camps began to evolve – one expecting the reduction in QE to start in June and the other estimating in October of this year. The significance is that a reduction in QE will mean higher interest rates. Higher interest rates mean a slower real estate market and ultimately lower real estate prices.

2. Watch the 10-year Treasury which fluctuated back to 1.70%. Without QE, interest rates would be higher. Various sources estimate that by the end of 2021 the 10-year Treasury will be 2.5% to 3.0% and mortgage rates will increase to 4.0% to 4.5%.

3. The down stock market on Tuesday, May 4, was the result of Janet Yellen commenting that the robust USA economy might cause The Fed to allow interest rates to rise sooner than official Fed statements. The stock market recovered when she “clarified” her statement. BUBBLE ALERT !!!

4. When bubbles burst, shortage becomes surplus overnight.

Unsustainable things continue until that unpredictable moment when they stop. In a financial crisis “Cash is King”. Get prepared.

A great piece of land remains The Best investment long term unless the DMs get us to full-fledged Marxism. Capitalism builds wealth, Marxism/Socialism consumes it in self destruction. Pray for a return to honest elections in the USA. God is in control. Men make plans, but God ALWAYS wins.

“For it is God’s will that by doing right you should silence the ignorance of the foolish.”

(1 Peter 2:15) New Revised Standard Version, Oxford University Press)

Stay healthy,

Ned

May 5, 2021

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softspeirs · 4 years ago

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I was tagged by @rhovanian, thanks babe!

1. what is the color of your hairbrush? White and gold marble.

2. name a food you never eat. I hate kale.

3. are you typically too warm or too cold? I’m always cold. I have a space heater in my office and when I’m WFH I’m usually draped in a blanket.

4. what were you doing 45 minutes ago? Just pulling in the parking lot at work, guzzling iced coffee!

5. what’s your favorite candy bar? Classic Hershey’s.

6. have you ever been to a professional sports game? I’m exposing myself. Listen...... you guys don’t know this side of me, but I’m one of those people who screams at sports. I live in Detroit so I am Suffering TM but I’ve been a season ticket holder for the Tigers (baseball) and Red Wings (hockey) and those are my faves. (By faves I mean the ones that make me scream the most) If you really want to experience this firsthand you can follow me on Twitter (katiiemb) but... you’ve been warned.

Under the cut for more!

7. what is the last thing you said out loud? “Have a good day” - I live with my parents and I was leaving for work.

8. what is your favorite ice cream? Mint chocolate chip.

9. what was the last thing you had to drink? Iced vanilla latte.

10. do you like your wallet? Sure? I have 2. One smaller one that fits in my pocket for when I don’t carry my bag, and a larger folding one for everything else. I don’t really go to stores anymore though!

11. what is the last thing you ate? Peanut butter M&M cookie.

12. did you buy any new clothes last weekend? Nope.

13. what’s the last sporting event you watched? I watched 2 seconds of the Yankees/Rays game from last night before bed.

14. what is your favorite flavor of popcorn? EXTRA butter.

15. who is the last person you sent a text message to? I don’t even know. My volleyball colleagues, I think. (I coach high school girls and we were bitching about our teams lmao)

16. ever been camping? Yes! My family is very outdoorsy. I go camping a few times every year (when we’re not in a pandemic)

17. do you take vitamins? I’m supposed to take a multi but I’m bad at remembering.

18. do you regularly attend a place of worship? Nope.

19. do you have a tan? I have a lingering tan from the summer but I am retreating back to my Scandinavian pale.

20. do you prefer Chinese or pizza? Pizza.

21. do you drink your soda through a straw? Nope.

22. what color socks do you usually wear? Black.

23. do you ever drive above the speed limit? I always go 5 over. Sometimes 10. But I try to use cruise control and take it easy lol.

24. what terrifies you? Uh - a lot. Lol. Death. Failure. Fear that my life will mean nothing and I’ll be alone forever :)

25. look to your left, what do you see? My desk phone. Exciting.

26. what chore do you hate most? It’s a tie between doing the dishes and folding my laundry.

27. what do you think of when you hear an Australian accent? I like it!

28. what’s your favorite soda? I don’t drink normal soda, I drink Zevia (sugar free) - I like black cherry the best!

29. do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive thru? Drive thru because I hate social interaction and try to keep it to a minimum.

30. what’s your favorite number? 9.

31. who’s the last person you talked to? My mom.

32. favorite meat? Chicken.

33. last song you listened to? Fields of Gold by Drew & Ellie Holcomb.

34. last book you read? Book I’m currently reading is “Munich” by Robert Harris, but the last book I completed was “Blood Heir” by Amélie Wen Zhao.

35. favorite day of the week? Friday!

36. can you say the alphabet backwards? No :(

37. how do you like your coffee? Sweet. Oat milk and at least 2 sugars, please.

38. favorite pair of shoes? Slippers. :)

39. time you normally get up? I’m supposed to get up at 5:45 for work everyday but I usually get up at 6, and on weekends I’m normally up between 8 and 8:30.

40. what do you prefer, sunrise or sunsets? I like both, but I hate getting up early. So, sunsets.

41. how many blankets on your bed? 3? Duvet, and 2 throw blankets.

42. describe your kitchen plates. Round. White with scalloped edges.

43. describe your kitchen at the moment. Small. Cramped. Many many utensils.

44. do you have a favorite alcoholic drink? I don’t drink often at all. If I have something, probably a hard seltzer.

45. do you play cards? Not really.

46. what color is your car? Silver.

47. can you change a tire? No and my Dad is embarrassed about it :’)

48. your favorite state or province? I like Michigan because I’m from here but my favorite place I’ve visited is probably Colorado.

49. favorite job you’ve had? I have never had a favorite job. I don’t like to work, haha. My last job was in landscaping which was.... fine. I got to be outdoors. But it was hard work. My current job is marketing which is also fine. Mostly I just want to hit the lotto.

I’ll tag @basilone @mercurygray @mrsalwayswrite @easy-company-tradition (if you want to - feel free to ignore!)

#tag game

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maya-net · 4 years ago

Text

Documentation on a Silver Exorcist, a Small Medium, a Smiling Siren, et al. - Chapter 1

Chapter 1 - Stars Align: Emma Xing Qixin, Tech Support and Professional Administrator of the Unofficial Zheng Ge’s Fanclub

The rustling of the seven large plastic packages of heavily discounted ramen complements the unforgivably nasty squeak of the styrofoam that protects the equally heavily discounted century eggs that Emma had spent the last of her weekly budget on. Squashed together in a trusty, faded blue shopping bag, they are placed very carefully on the chair. Her backpack is dropped just slightly less carefully onto another chair, and she rolls her shoulders, breathing in the various blends of caffeine and sugar wafting around the SunDollarsTM store that she had desperately scouted for.

Xiqiang glides into the chair opposite, and with an elegant slide of an arm, slips Emma’s other equally faded blue shopping bag on to the seat beside her. Emma doesn’t understand how a human being can be that graceful, and sends a silent apology to her mom for being a failure of a daughter.

“I will order some refreshments,” Xiqiang’s voice washes over the background noise of the other patrons in the café. “What would you like? It will be my treat.”

“Oh no no no, no need! I have -” Emma grunts as she bends over her backpack and pulls down the zipper ornamented with the keychain of a blond cyborg, “a gazillion SundollarsTM gift cards! My college orientation and faculty events have the occasional lucky draws or mini contests, and I’d always get something out of them. It’s great, really. I regift them to my friends for birthdays. Saves me time and money from having to buy actual birthday presents. I keep my money, they get their coffee. But. Um. You didn’t hear that.” With some difficulty, she wrestles out a bright red gift card from the stack that is threatening to burst out of the seams of the pouch sewn into her backpack. “Ah, I’ll save this table. Could you help me order a large caramel frappe? And maybe one of their giant cookies. Any flavour is fine. Please and thank you!”

A pause. “Very well,” Xiqiang graciously replies as she accepts the gift card.

Seven minutes later, Emma is happily slurping down her frappe as a countdown timer to the livestream event pops up on her laptop screen. 47 minutes to go. Her ears are now plugged with a pair of earphones. Opposite her, Xiqiang is steadily typing away on her laptop with unnaturally impeccable posture.

It is at this very moment. That the universe decides to be an utter demon and opens the gates of chaos on what was supposed to have been a peaceful night with Emma Xing and the livestream of her Zheng ge, actor-singer and golden-hearted, multi-talented John Zheng.

Incoming Video Call: Estelle Xing

Emma accepts the call on her phone, and props it up on the table with the camera angled at her. She connects her second pair of earphones (won from a secondary school Poetry-in-Motion Competition with her epic poem Blood is a Vein Work of Art-eries) and stuffs the side with the microphone into her right ear. “Mom.”

“Emma. The house has no WiFi. My phone has not enough data to stream Gege’s event.”

“What. Why? Is it the router again? Did you turn it off for thirty seconds and turn it back on again?”

"Yes. Actually, I called Cellularity and they said that they were having a city-wide network issue.”

“Tch. D*mn company. I keep telling you to switch service providers!” Emma pinches the bridge of her nose. “Wait, where’s Gramma? We all know she's the tech-savvy one, shame on you.”

“... She’s with her tai chi group today.”

“What?! I thought that was next week! And how could she miss Gege’s stream?!”

“... They rescheduled because one of their grandsons is getting married next week...”

“... Just... Go to a café or somewhere with WiFi and stream it there. Do you have leftover SundollarsTM gift cards from my last visit?”

Emma’s mom grimaces. “Yes. See, I actually thought of that. I’m at the nearest one.” The camera angle wobbles, and the queue of chattering teenagers at the cashier behind Emma’s mom blips into view for a hot second.

Emma feels a strange sense of pride well up in her chest. “Mommy! So smart!”

Mommy laughs weakly. “Haha. Ah. Yah. I bought a strawberry shake. And then they told me that SunDollarsTM’s WiFi is actually with Cellularity. All the branches. In the whole city.”

… “Mom. Why is your luck so bad. Also. Why! Are! You! Drinking a strawberry shake! You are diabetic!”

“Almost diabetic! And this is low sugar! And! All my good luck was used up to give birth to you. Emmiee~”

“Don’t Emmie me! Aiyah, hang up hang up, don’t waste your data. I’ll message Danny. He’s with DiGiTellTM, not that bloodsucking Cellularity. You can go leech off his Wifi.”

“Aiyoh, your Danny, how can you do this to him - “

“ByeMomloveyou.” Emma ends the call, and snatches her phone off the table to begin typing at the lightspeed typical of her generation. The baby blue smiley starfish phone charm attached to it smacks her knuckles.

“Um. Pardon me,” Xiqiang coughs politely. Emma’s eyes dart up. “Your earphones weren’t connected properly.”

Oh.

“Oh. Aaaaaaahahahahahahaha! Ha! Sorry about that! I’ll just...” Emma mumbles and screws in the earphone jack infinitesimally. “... tighten... this. I don’t use this pair very much. I forgot it does that. Sorry.”

“It is fine.” Xiqiang blinks at her curiously. “Your mother is in WalaysiaTM?”

Emma’s fingers pause in their assault on her phone’s keyboard, brown eyes wide. “How did you know? Oh. Oh of course.” She slaps her forehead. “Our SundollarsTM WiFi here is obviously fine. We obviously don’t have Cellularity here in CanataTM. And yeah, I kind of revert to my accent when I’m with my family. You can tell?”

Xiqiang nods politely. “I see. Well, I do hope that this works out for you and your mother. You seem to be... close?”

Emma beams. “Thanks!” She returns to her phone.

LuckyStar: Danny.

No reply. She frowns.

LuckyStar: Danny DanyDanny. Dannyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Seen by BetterDanU 7.08PM

Emma’s nostrils flare.

LuckyStar: DANNY YOU DIPSTICK WAKE UP WAKEUP I KNOW UR AWAKE EMERGENCY

LuckyStar: DANIEL NG! U WAKE UP OR ILL POST THAT NEW YEARS VIDEO OF U. U KNOW WHICH ONE

BetterDanU: …

BetterDanU: I actually WAS SLEeping because some ppl actually have to WORK friday nite and want to zzz sat morning.

BetterDanU: Have u not headr of timezones. WHAT DO U WANT

LuckyStar: Liar, i know ur schedule, u were def not sleeping.

LuckyStar: Gege’s livestream is today!

BetterDanU: … I know. U wouldnt shut up abt it. wat do u want

LuckyStar: Cellularity’s wifi is down all city and mom cant stream it

BetterDanU: tell her to go to sundollars

LuckyStar: sundollars is w cellularity! 😡

BetterDanU: … bloodsuckers.

LuckyStar: I KNOW. Anyway, mom is at the sundollars near our house. U know which one. Go pick her up n let her use ur wifi pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaz

BetterDanU: …......… fine.

LuckyStar: tnx ur the best!

BetterDanU: go away

With that situation handled, Emma neatly bites off one point of her star-shaped cookie, and turns her eyes back to her laptop screen. 36 minutes to go.

Score: Emma – 1; Universe – 0.

The Universe decides to try again.

Incoming Video Call: Emily Xing

Emma slowly swipes across her phone screen after triple-checking that her earphones are 100% plugged in.

“... Hi Gramma.”

“Emma!” Several ladies’ heads of various artificial shades of red, brown and black bob into view behind Emma’s grandmother’s face on Emma’s phone. “Why can’t we log in to your VooDooTM account on Mimi’s computer?”

“... Gramma, did you all reschedule your tai chi group to watch Gege’s stream together using my VIP account which you definitely bragged about to them?”

“Emily, we kowtow! Your Emma is the best!” hollers one of the ladies. Emma’s grandmother preens.

Gramma, Emma despairs, why are you so Asian?

“Emmie~”

Emma closes her eyes and mutters, “Don’t Emmie me...”

“We have VooDooTM open on my laptop, but there is seven of us and one laptop is not enough! Mimi’s computer cannot access the page! It says – it says – what does it say?!” Emma’s grandmother yells.

“This content is not available in your country!” Aunty Mimi yells back from somewhere behind.

Emma sighs in exasperation, “Gramma, they’ll need to install a VPN. Do you remember how we did it on your computer?”

Emma’s grandmother is stunningly silent for a solid three seconds, and shakes her head. Emma sighs again. “What’s the address?”

One minute later:

LuckyStar: Danny danny danny

LuckyStar: is everytng ok w mom?

BetterDanU: yeah, shes taken over my living room and tv I hooked up to the comp.

BetterDanU: Shes drinkin a poisonous lppking pink drink and eating those giant star cookies they hv. Theyre not going to last until the end of the dtream.

LuckyStar: … wait.

LuckyStar: wHAT COOKIES. Get them away frm her, shes almost diabetic!

BetterDanU: how can someone be slmost diabetic???

BetterDanU: … she says its low sugar. theyre actually rpetty good.

BetterDanU: *pretty

LuckyStar: u traitor! and of all the typos to correct!

BetterDanU: ….......

LuckyStar: anyway, DANNY I NEED UR HELP ITS ANOTHER EMERGENCY

BetterDanU: what now

LuckyStar: dont tell mom this,

BetterDanU: oh? gossip?

LuckyStar: but gramma is with her taichi grp now and theyre trying to stream Gege’s event on two computers but the second one wont work becz they need vpn on that one

BetterDanU: Wow. brutal gramma.

LuckyStar: danny pleeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaase can u go help them install the vpn

LuckyStar: pleeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase 🥺🥺🥺

BetterDanU: ….............

BetterDanU: where r they

Twenty-ish minutes and one VPN install and seven impressed old ladies and one harrassed Daniel Ng later, Emma daintily bites off the second point of her star cookie.

Emma – 2; Universe – 0.

Xiqiang sips her tea quietly as Emma narrates this second victory to her, and then digresses into hero-worshipping multi-talented, golden-hearted John Zheng.

Emma swoons. “We all stan him so much across multiple generations! Sure, he’s eye candy, but you know what, even I can admit that, objectively, he’s not the best looking. No but!” She sucks in some of her frappe to quickly rehydrate, “Even though his eyes are not 100% symmetrical, you know they’re 100% real! Can’t say the same about everyone else! Not that there’s anything wrong with that. And! Even though his teeth aren’t 100% perfect... You should see his smile! Oh! My! Heart!” She clutches said heart. “So genuine! Like a bunny! And most of all, that VOICE! That BRAIN! And that HEART!”

Xiqiang tilts her head slightly in what is definitely interest.

“You should watch his songs and dramas and his interviews! He’s really mature, has a charming sort of wisdom, and he really understands his characters. He works so, so hard, and he’s super nice to everyone, even his janitors! And even his haters! Like, what the heck!” A deep sigh. “He is. The Best Guy. In the Universe.”

And thus, the Universe’s third Attempt at utter buffoonery manifests itself in the yet another round of buzzing of Emma’s Very Tired phone. Emma slowly slumps in her seat. Xiqiang’s almond eyes flick to the poor phone, and she excuses herself as she returns to her own laptop for business-y exorcist stuff.

Emma breathes in. Very Deeply. And returns to her Very Tired phone.

Alicia: Hi Emma!

Alicia: Its been a while. I hope you are well!

Emma scrolls up to check the last conversation she had with Alicia. Eight months ago, when they had exchanged the obligatory birthday wishes, and then slinked back to their respective lives until the next birthday.

It’s a bit sad, actually. Emma and a handful of secondary school friends had once been pretty tight, having gone through the horrors of academia and adolescence together. But ever since graduation, everyone had sort of just... drifted apart. With the exception of Danny, practically everyone she knew and was close to had gone on to different cities and even countries to pursue tertiary education in fields so varied you would wonder how everyone had even managed to grow up together in the same academic cohort forced to take up certain courses due to the way their country’s totally not flawed educational system had been structured because of course everyone absolutely agrees on the complete relevance to real life that is inherent in subjects such as Physics and Geography and Moral Studies (which, in all fairness, would be considered a fairly necessary subject especially in today’s society, had it not been based on pure rote memorisation of the regimented definitions of pre-determined moral values instead of critically applying said moral values in the written scenarios thrown to them every exam) and flippin’ dipsticky CALCULUS and and and -

And we digress.

Emma: Alicia! It’s been a while!

Emma: How may I help u?

Alicia: Heehee. 😇

Alicia: iirc, I think u mentioned that u got a VIP VooDooTM account?

Emma: … Alicia you leech! Go buy ur own account!

Alicia: im poor and u know it!

Emma: We’re millennials! We're all poor!

Emma: go upgrade with a 30 day free trial. Then just unsubscribe after.

Alicia: I can’t. 😭 I did it before and ti remembers my email add and wont let me do it again.

Alicia: *it *won’t

Emma: Then use another email add! We’re millennials! Who doesn’t have a back up email account?

Alicia: I did! I used up my JmailTM, insightTM, innet, etc etc accounts last year

Emma: Use ur parents’!

Alicia: I did! They were

Alicia: Confused when they got the notifs but thank goodness they thought it was Junk 😊

Emma: … Girl, how much drama do you watch on there.

Alicia: Too much. Im in too many fandoms.

Alicia: EMMA PLEASE! It's just to watch John Zhengs promo livestream for The Fox today! I swear I will not misuse ur account!

Alicia: One day when I have money, I swear I will buy my own account.

Emma: That is a lie and we both know it.

Alicia: 🤐

Emma remembers their shared afternoons of literal tears after every Calculus test they barely passed, and curses her soft heart as she gives Alicia her user name and password in an act of benevolence which she somehow has a feeling she will come to regret.

Alicia: Thank you sm. U rock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Emma: Its so u don’t get desperate enough to do anytng illegal.

Alicia: We both know im not that smart lol

Emma: We are legal! And scrupulous!

Emma: For Zheng ge!

Alicia: For Zheng ge!

“John Zheng seems to have an unusually loyal fanbase,” Xiqiang comments from behind her laptop. Emma nods absent-mindedly. She has barely bitten off the third point of her star cookie when her Very Very Tired phone begins buzzing again.

Incoming Video Call: BetterDanU

No longer keeping track of her score with the Universe, Emma sinks lower into her chair under Xiqiang’s intrigued gaze, and weakly answers her phone, “Hello?”

She does not expect her grandmother’s distraught face under the profile name of BetterDanU: “Emmie! Why can’t we log into your account with another computer? It says that – that – Danny ah, what does it say?”

Emma nearly spits out blood. “How many devices are you trying to log into?!” Her hard-earned, greatly coveted VIP account that no one else seemed to want to buy for themselves allowed simultaneous sign-ins to a maximum of ten different devices, a feature that was absolutely necessary for the three generations of the Xing family.

“Mimi’s daughters and granddaughters came downstairs and heard about Zheng ge’s livestream. Two laptops are not enough for all of us, so of course we had to get more!”

Emma sends a silent thank you to Danny who by now must be an expert on VPN installations. Speaking of which.

“Danny, you there? Just sign up for a free 30-day trial account. And don’t forget to unsubscribe later.”

“I did.” Danny’s muffled voice sounds admirably calm, but there is definitely the subtlest note of misery in it. “Aunty Mimi’s granddaughter invited her neighbourhood friends to watch the stream, and we are out of accounts.”

“How! Many! Computers?!”

Emma thinks she hears a suspicious clearing of the throat from Xiqiang that may or may not have been a laugh. Emma locks eyes with her in despair.

There is a tiny, tiny curl of Xiqiang’s lips as she casually remarks, “I am done with my e-mails for the day, and would like to relax with some form of entertainment. VooDooTM seems to have quite the selection of highly rated dramas like you advertised so eagerly to me earlier, and I have been told that there will be a promotional livestream this evening for the much-anticipated... The Fox?” There is definitely a sparkle in those almond eyes. “I thought it might interest you to know that I have decided to watch this livestream, and will do so on my newly purchased VIP account, the user details of which -” she slides over a SundollarsTM napkin covered in the prettiest handwriting Emma has ever had the good fortune to lay her bloodshot eyes on, “ - are written here.”

Emma stares at her with now goo-goo eyes. “Xiqiang! You are a literal angel!”

“Xi-what? Who are you with?” Danny’s head pops into view next to Gramma’s gleeful face.

“Danny! I’m hanging up! I’ll send you a new user account info you guys can use!”

“What -” his calm façade is definitely slipping.

Emma does not hear the curious titters of “Xiqiang? Wah! What an intimidating name!” “Who would dare to name their son Xiqiang?” “Must be very strong!” “Must be very shuai!” as she chirps in reply, “A professional exorcist, your saviour, and my new bf!”

A delicate clink of a white plate ladened with fresh chocolate chip muffins jerks Emma’s eyes up from her phone. “Oh, a snack for the stream? Xiqiang, did you order this? You shouldn’t have!”

Xiqiang leans forward to divide the muffins evenly. “It is fine.”

Danny chokes on the other line, “What what what -”

“Now don’t bother me anymore, Zheng ge’s livestream is going to start. Check your message! I’ll send you the info! See you later! Bye, Gramma! Bye, Aunties! Enjoy the stream! Zheng ge fighting!”

LuckyStar: [photo attached]

LuckyStar: Isn’t that THE prettiest handwriting you have ever seen?

LuckyStar: Oh, but if you can’t read it, the login name is YXQ_Gege

LuckyStar: and password is LuckyStar123

LuckyStar: wow. what a sense of humour.

LuckyStar: Anyway! U seriously rock! Thanks Danny! I owe u my life!

LuckyStar: Aunty mimi makes seriously good cakes, so u might as well stay.

LuckyStar: And remember, don’t tell mom!!!

BetterDanU: WHO IS XIQIANG AND WHY IS HIS PASSWORD UR USERNAME

The star cookie is decimated as Emma congratulates herself on a job well done against the schemes of the Universe. Her laptop screen is flooded with comments when John Zheng’s shy smile fades into view as the livestream finally, finally begins.

“Gege!” Emma whisper-squeals. “You can’t hear me and you don’t know I exist! But! You will not believe the night I’ve just had! Your face heals my eyes and your heart heals my soul!” She silences her desperately buzzing phone.

Xiqiang breathes in deeply, and lets herself smile for the first time in a very long time. After an unusual evening of using the Skytrain for the first time, encountering a low-levelled spirit which the Council had not thought to Cleanse, meeting the most interesting Class Three medium who was currently hugging her backpack as she immersed herself in a long-awaited livestream of a clearly beloved celebrity who she had taken great pains to introduce Xiqiang to, and putting the tiniest dent in her bank account to sign up for a VooDooTM account for various reasons, Xiqiang relaxes in her chair, and does not let herself think about tomorrow.

Character Profiles

1. Emma Xing Qixin

Emma is derived from the Germanic word ermen meaning "whole" or "universal". Emma is also used as a diminutive of Emmeline, Amelia or any other name beginning with "em".

星 (Xīng): star

运气 (Yùnqì): luck

欣 (Xīn): happy

Height: 154 cm; 5.05 ft | 159 cm (error; there is a story behind this)

Tools: Several reuseable shopping bags, backpack, blond cyborg keychain, laptop, secondhand phone, baby blue smiley starfish charm bought by her mom Estelle and customised further by her grandmother Emily

2. Xiqiang

希望 (Xīwàng): hope

强度 (Qiángdù): strength

For the sake of this story, “Xiqiang” is considered a very masculine name.

Height: 179 cm; 5.87 ft

Tools: Laptop, traditional calligraphy brush set, angled-tip pen set, normal ballpoint pen set

3. Estelle Xing

Estelle is a female given name of Latin origin, and means star.

星 (Xīng): star

Yes, her name literally means Star Star.

Emma Xing’s mother. Has rather bad luck. She admits that, although her daughter can drive her up the wall, she is her greatest blessing and happiness.

4. Daniel Ng

Daniel is a masculine given name and a surname of Hebrew origin. It means "God is my judge".

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Ng (pronounced [ŋ̍]; English approximation often /ɪŋ/ or /ɛŋ/) is a Cantonese transliteration of the Chinese surnames 吳/吴 (Mandarin Wú) and 伍 (Mandarin Wǔ). Alternately, it is a common Hokkien transcription of the name 黃/黄 (Pe̍h-ōe-jī: N̂ɡ, Mandarin Huáng).

Emma Xing’s errand boy. And former classmate. The real MVP.

5. Emily Xing

Emily: "rival" or industrious and hardworking, comes from the Latin name Aemilia.

星 (Xīng): star

Emma Xing’s grandmother. Is more techno-savvy than her daughter/Emma’s mother Estelle Xing. Story behind that TBA.

6. Alicia

Alicia means “of noble kind/sort/type” (from Germanic “adal” = noble + “heit” = kind/sort/type).

Emma Xing’s friend from secondary school. They have both narrowly passed Calculus exams together, which cannot be said for all their classmates.

7. John Zheng

The name John is a theophoric name originating from the Hebrew name יוֹחָנָן‎ (Yôḥānān), or in its longer form יְהוֹחָנָן‎ (Yəhôḥānān), meaning "YHWH has been gracious".

战争 (Zhànzhēng): war

Author is now too lazy to come up with a Chinese name, thank you very much.

Author’s Notes

Character profiles will not be written for every single character because ain’t nobody got time for that. They will be updated as the story progresses. If I have the discipline to actually write this dang story. \o/

This is just a test run. I have not truly touched creative writing in a very, very long time, and have sadly lost many different characters and plot bunnies over the years as I never had the will to just put pen to paper, or finger to keyboard. And neither have I ever tried tackling anything this ambitious, if you can call this ambitious. (Well, actually, I did make a pathetic attempt at a novel ten or so years ago, and reading THAT draft just made me cringe and shrivel up and die on the inside. Which will probably happen to this fic in ten years’ time? \o/ )

Oh my gosh, I’m so tired of formatting this now. Please excuse any typos because I just. Cannot.

If you somehow stumbled across this fic and read until the end, bless your heart, bless your eyes, and thank you for reading!

#DSESMSS #Documentation on a Silver Exorcist A Small Medium A Smiling Siren et al.#Documentation #fic #words #writing #my writing #detentio mea #do not copy to another site #don't copy to another site #derp #maya-net

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intomybubble · 4 years ago

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@pechikka Oops sorry, my reply got very long (it’s quite rambly...) so I made it into a separate post. Also I don’t mind reading all your comments so don’t worry that! I’m glad to get some feedback regarding my teams ^^

So to start, I’ve been thinking about this since... around this May so I have a lot of thoughts. The setting I have for this though is just if the main storyline from the game just so happened to also have pokemon too. I considered a lot of things from canon and tried to fit pokemon into that. The way this first started was me noticing how much Muku looks like a Jigglypuff lol

So examples of what I mean with the above...

When I added a Dratini to Muku’s team, I imagined him coming across it on that beach trip with Juza’s family that was brought up in the event Dazzling Beachside Passion. Tsumugi’s Chansey evolved into a Blissey during his break from acting after failing that God-za audition. Chansey spent a lot of time taking care of Tsumugi when he was depressed and from that they formed a stronger bond. Juza and Kumon are the only overlap I have with Riolu and Lucario (by final evolutions). I see Kumon wanting to have a pokemon just like his brother because he admires him so much. I actually typed up a post about this kind of stuff earlier this week so I’ll post that after I make some more edits

Anyways onto your comments!

I’ve been debating about which pokemon is triangular enough for Misumi to fill in his last slot, and I think I might go for adding in the Vanilluxe line after reading what you said. They do sort of give me similar vibes lol. I do think it has more diamonds than triangles, but they’re basically just two triangle and I’m sure Misumi said something like that in the game before too. I can imagine Misumi using his Snorunt and Vanillish to make snowcones for his troupe and other members of the company during the summers to help cool down. Though I can also see it suddenly turning into winter if his pokemon were too excited to pay attention to the amount of ice they were making. Suddenly Tenma is a snowman, Yuki is laughing at him and his Flareon and Charizard have to help him thaw out.

I have thought about Crobat for a bit for Sakyo, but I ended up deciding against it. For one Crobats are HUGE. Like they’re listed as 6ft in the pokedex and that is height, not wingspan. Golbat is only a foot shorter than that. I do love Crobat, it’s one of my go-to flying types but I can’t bc it’s hard to work with when I’m making those (relatively) to-scale team posts. I made a few posts before about Golbat/Crobat when I was considering a change to Itaru’s team and when I was making a first draft to Sakoda’s. I do see how you think it would suit him though.

Also, just on an aesthetic level I don’t personally think it looks right. When I was considering pokemon for Sakyo, I didn’t want pokemon that immediately made me think yakuza. Especially since Sakyo didn’t go down that path until he was in middle/high school. I wanted pokemon that would be found easily around his way home and ones that looked decently plain but mildly intimidating even before evolving. The one that looks the most out of place is Gyarados, but if you’ve read Act 2 Ep 7 they way he got it is sorta similar to when he bought those trading cards (except a Majikarp). I also made a post when I was still considering pokemon for him.

Oh and this is more apparent for older characters, but many of their pokemon were caught over a long span of time. Like Sakyo’s first pokemon were Spearrow and Rattata. Later in elementary were Majikarp and Nicada. High school was Pinsir and Meowth. Azuma’s first pokemon was an Eevee. Chimecho during high school, and most of the rest were caught on trips as an adult (Oricorio, Alolan Ninetales, Froslass, Meinshao).

I did think about Leavanny for Yuki at one point, but I don’t personally see Yuki thinking it’s cute enough to catch even if it does make clothing. Though I can see it as a pokemon belonging to his mom or one of his older sisters. I think Yuki would prioritize his pokemon’s appearances more than anything, and would likely do research ahead of time since there are pokemon like Glameow that start off cute, but lose that when they evolve. I also see all of Yuki’s pokemon being male despite their feminine appearances to reflect himself. Like Primarina has a 12% chance of being female since it’s a starter, and Kirlia can evolve into Gardevior regardless of gender with Gallade only being possible with a shiny stone. I see Muku having a Gallade, but in comparison to Yuki, he only caught his Ralts rather recently.

Hisoka and Chikage having Kalos starters wasn’t something I did on purpose. I had Delphox for Chikage early on since it’s a wizard-like pokemon that aligned with his magic tricks, and since he’s into spicy food I thought a fire-type would be a way to incorporate that lol. Most of Chikage’s pokemon aren’t particularly animal-like since he says himself in the game that he doesn’t know how to deal with them. Though the relationship he has with them are more... business. He does care though.

For Hisoka, I only added in Frogadier a few weeks ago after taking out Shedinja and Eiscue. I thought it would fit in with how ninja-like Hisoka is described and that it would’ve been helpful with his jobs when he was still in the organization. I think the organization gave Hisoka a Froakie to train since the pokemon he had at the time wouldn’t be as useful (Snom & Espurr).

The pokemon that I had in mind for August were Lickitung and Clefable. Since August jobs had a more public role I thought those wouldn’t stick out too much with him working at the candy-shop. Though I wouldn’t mind completing the Kalos trio and give him a Chesnaught. It does look like it would suit him well.

I can totally see that being how Juza ended up with a Pangoro on his team. Though maybe more that it heard the rumors that were spreading about him and sought him out. Like, one of the things I had in mind when putting Juza’s together was how he’s an earnest and nice guy, but because of his appearances people assume he’s a punk/yankee. The backstage story to his Giinji the Wander SSR is a good example.

So for Pangoro, it’s dex entry talks about how “although it possesses a violent temperament, it won't put up with bullying” and “it's eager to tussle but kindhearted toward its companions”. For Absol, it’s dex entires talk about how “although it's said to bring disaster, in actuality, this Pokémon possesses a calm disposition and warns people of any crises that loom”. Lucario is also known for it’s sense of justice. For Granbull, it was a pokemon that Juza saved from being bullies by other pokemon on his way home from school and it wanted him as his trainer. Muku told him later that Granbull was a Fairy type and was surprised about it.

On something else relating to this...

The other night I was thinking about the level ranges for each character based on age and how competitive I see them being. I recently had the urge to put together movesets for each party and I wanted to know what I would be working with. I also wanted to consider the character’s personal finances as to whether or not they’d be able to afford TM/TR moves along with how willing they’d actually be in buying. But other than that I would just go about it as if I were playing. So moves that suit it’s base stats, one or two STAB moves, having enough type coverage, and some status moves. I’m currently working on formatting another google doc for that but havent really gotten into that.

I do know I want Citron’s Slowbro to have Flamethrower though lol

#desiree talks #a3!mon #responses #its REALLY long im so sorry #i feel like sakyo when he goes on tangents about finances

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thecheesybrie · 4 years ago

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Struggles and Triumph

There is an abundance of struggles that I have faced and overcome in my life. With 11 years of childhood trauma and mental abuse, I was diagnosed two years ago with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and clinical depression. This may have been my DSM-V diagnosis but they don't quite paint the full picture.

During the time I became fully aware of the impact of my childhood, my partner of six years, and husband of two had a secret. He had kept this secret locked away for over 80% of our relationship. Together, we had a little girl. She has just started kindergarten and the sweetest little person I have ever had the pleasure of making much less meeting. Though we hadn't been married for long, I never thought the life and family I had built would ever come crashing down. Raised in a Mormon household, our society taught us to believe that families are to be together forever. That once married, you are a unit, sealed, for eternity.

So you can understand my shock to his secret and I quote, "I don't love you. I don't even like you. You're a terrible person. I never wanted to get married. I only did 'cause I thought I had to..." I remained in that office chair as if I was glued. Realization sunk in further with his pained, seemingly constipated expression. His fingers entwined. His knuckles, pale-white, anchored him to his seat.

A year later, I can stare into his eyes an understanding expression spread throughout my face, while a thank-you calls to his ears. If he hadn't finally been honest with me, I would never know what true love was. I don't believe I would have been given the courage to walk into that psychiatrist's room that I had throughout my long history been known to cancel or walk out before even meeting him. I would not have chosen to begin my journey of self-discovery. It was after this major depression, that I truly found not just my passion, but a love for myself.

I was forced to leave the home we have begun building together. I had never lived on my own. It terrified me. The idea that ALL is in my hands I am responsible for it wasn't just me that would be impacted, but my daughter too. My heart had set on the safe and enriched area of Kierland Commons. The events, the community, the lifestyle, and the people I greatly enjoyed. But, no longer did I make twice the income. It was a blow being informed I had too low a salary to afford the area of my dreams. This shouldn't have come to a shock to me. I was raised in a family that was always trying to keep up with the Jones'. So much so, my mother has almost been sent to jail twice for fraudulent checks. I have never used a checkbook and I never will.

I had six months to move out of that home. I was being forced out, without alimony or savings. One can assume this is not an easy task. However, I am a stronger person for it now. So, I saved everything. I cut costs. I stopped throwing money at books, clothes...etc., all of the unnecessary, luxury items. Being a person raised in an "I want" household, it was an internal struggle not just with my environment, but genetic disposition and learned behavior. But, I did it. I researched financial guidance, money-saving methods, and budgeting plans. I enjoyed it. Finances were scary. Until now. Four months later, I had consolidated my loans, cut out over $500.00 of impulse spending, and began creating means for a secondary income.

This idea has paved the way for me to see my true passion. I am an ambitious person by fault. When I was seven I wanted to be a veterinarian. But, I couldn't put down animals. When I was 15, I wanted to be an actress but my self-esteem couldn't handle the culture. College came and I found a love for languages, learning, and a fascination with the human mind. There was a mystery to it. However, I put myself down. I told myself my math skills wouldn't be up to par. I gave up before I even began. I accept this. I know now I wasn't ready. After my Psychology Associates, I transitioned to English. A love for language and people came together. The moment I graduated, I craved more. My ex-husband knowingly held me back from going, which I know now, promising "next year", year after year.

Over the summer, I got an idea for a blog. It had been something I'd considered for years. I thought I was afraid of publishing my prose due to it not meeting my expectations. If it wasn't good enough for me, who would really care to read it? But then, I realized for others to care I had too, myself.

With the habit awareness, I was forming, the healthy decisions I was making I started Trans-cranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to alter the brain chemistry childhood trauma had formed, I worked through my hyper anxiety finally taking my first calm breath, soon after, I met a man who appreciates me, for me. With conscious awareness, I started discovering new things about my daughter every day. And, through the start of this blog, I uncovered my passion for helping others not just through one outlet. Through the translation of prose in multiple languages, certification within therapy and psychiatry, my desire to start a company that brings cultural-ism and capitalism together for the common good of people and with the knowledge, I will be gaining in the Psychology and Digital Audiences major program tracks these life goals will be thrust forward into creation. I decided to take every step that I had ever feared and I don't ever intend on holding back.

#WeBelongInCollege #tw triggers

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agoddamn · 6 years ago

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Since "where the fuck is LB4" is the hot topic these days...

I don't think it's a stretch to say that something is wrong, right? Single longest story gap in the history of the game.

We've also had a lot of things that are just...odd. Of the seven events since LB3, two of them are essentially story-only. Guda3 was rerun after only 10 months where collabs usually wait about a year and a half or more. The Golden Week collab was mostly reused assets. The CCC rerun actually got extended because something was wrong/wasn't ready with an upcoming event. Ooku featured a single new Servant (5*, naturally, like 6 of the 8 gacha Servants released this year have been) and a broken main mechanic that wasn't fixed until halfway through the event.

Now, any one of these by itself wouldn't mean anything, even two or three. Shit happens and FGO is notorious for bad servers and such; the original Accel Zero event was extended an extra week because the game was so fucked up around that time. All together, though? It starts to paint a picture of something being not right with the management.

Based on interviews I'd calculate that chapters are usually done being written something like 6-9 months before they're implemented. America was done before the game even launched (9 month gap) and we know Nasu was tapped to write around London's launch, which was 8 months ahead of Camelot's release. The first summer event was written in December. And Solomon (much shorter and parceled between the Singularity writers as well) was written during the first summer event, about 5 months ahead of time.

So...what happened 6-8 months ago that might have interfered with the production of LB4?

The interview about the end of FGO was published at the end of December.

Now, I'm basing my judgements off of American business/political behaviors but Nasu is quite candid about the end of a two billion dollar game. Instead of vaguely admitting that it's difficult to overhaul the app for modern necessities, he flat-out says that it can't be worked with after a certain point--being too outdated--and a complete retooling and rebuilding is pretty much not gonna happen. Instead of being coy about his involvement, he explicitly says that Part 2 is all he wrote for and he wants to be done after that. There's a general impression that DW could continue it after that point, but his blunt statement about the inadequate nature of the app leaves that as improbable. And I don't think this is just a cultural difference because Shiokawa is entirely capable of giving shallow non-answers in the typical corporate fashion.

People aren't usually this straightforward with two billion dollars on the line.

I don't think Nasu gives a shit about the money, but Sony sure fucking does. And particularly important to remember is that Type-Moon contracted with DW specifically because they were such a new company that TM could afford to set the contract up the way they wanted. Normally I'd say that a head writer of a profitable gacha game couldn't have his finger on the off switch--there's just too many people involved in running a game. But this case, where we know particular care was taken to negotiate an advantageous contract...it's not impossible.

Also noticeable is that Sony or Aniplex or anyone didn't do any damage control after that interview, even though #fgoclosing was trending on Twitter in a panic. If they had had a plan in place, we would have seen it by now. That's usually how this stuff works--if you have to air bad news, have some good news to smooth it over and distract people. Sales have been generally down this year, too.

Pure conjecture here, but I think that while Nasu was probably negotiating with Sony execs about the future of FGO at the time, they weren't ready to go so public with it, especially as uncontrolled information. Nasu, unusually for a lot of writers/franchise heads, is no stranger to the technical side of production (he was running his own website in 1998 and Tsukihime's demo was like a four-man production) and I think that lends him particular insight...and bluntness, that Sony didn't expect. The popular theory is that they're withholding story chapters to drag out the end of FGO as long as possible, and that's definitely at least part of it--but that doesn't explain why the other events this year have been so spotty and plagued with issues.

It's not just padding, I think. My suspicion is that LB4 is being held back and revised to lay the seeds for either a Part 3 or FGO2 and that's why we're seeing not just padding, but rushed padding. If people were pulled off other projects to do a late-stage overhaul of LB4, that would explain things like why Ooku launched seemingly without being playtested on more than one phone.

#fgo #boots plays fgo

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vargiurita-blog · 5 years ago

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The referee didn't help

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#volunteers search memphis to count homeless The referee didn't help but we didn't help ourselves either said centre back Rudy Camacho. Just

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supastareden · 5 years ago

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Inside the Sadness Plaguing K-Pop

by NATALIE FINN | Thu., Mar. 29, 2018 3:07 PM [X]

Nothing cheers you up, lifts you up, brings you life quite like pop music. Even when it's Harry Styles or Adeleor Sam Smith or BTS achingly belting their despair into that cold, lonely night...songs that make you feel all the feelings are still songs that are taking you to new heights. There's nothing quite like a tune that hurts so good.

As we wallow, so do we celebrate.

In South Korea, the genre is known as K-Pop—a catchy moniker established in the 1990s that's starting to catch fire around the globe—and all the hallmarks of the superstars of the Western world are present and accounted for: Charismatic boy bands, polished pop princesses, infectious chart-topping singles, carefully crafted images and tender-aged men and women who've inspired a level of fanaticism reserved for...well, almost no one besides pop stars these days.

Music is the universal language, after all.

But for the second time in four months, the K-pop world is in mourning, this time following the sudden death on March 25 of 100% singer Seo Minwoo. He was 33.

The actor and boyband heartthrob reportedly suffered cardiac arrest; an official cause of death has not yet been announced.

TOP Media founder Andy Lee, the singer turned K-pop impresario who's behind the groups 100%, Teen Top, Shinhwa and UP10TION, expressed his condolences in a statement online, calling Seo a leader known for his tenderness and sincerity.

While American audiences may still be largely in the dark when it comes to the ins and outs of K-pop and its artists, our mainstream exposure fairly limited to PSY's "Gangnam Style" and, more recently, the emergence of BTS on the world stage, fans took to social media to share exactly what Seo meant to them.

"Seo Minwoo is my life mentor. He gave up everything for 100% and perfection. Words are not enough to describe how great of a person he is. How lovely, caring and talented he is. Seo Minwoo, my king... I love you," wrote Haya on Twitter.

She continued, "Seo Minwoo gave up is acting career for 100%. Fought Top Media over and over again (f*ck you tm) to keep 100% together. Everything he did he put his absolute everything in. He openly supported LGBTQ, did vlives often to talk with perfection about their concerns."

Haya's current pinned tweet is from Dec. 24, 2015: "If 100% were a religion, I'd build them a church and dedicate my whole life and soul to them."

While that's a lot, it's indicative of the level of devotion that some K-pop stars have awoken in their fans.

A number of people tweeted that upcoming "selca days"—specific days each month on which fans post selfies with their favorite idols—should be canceled out of respect for Minwoo. 100%'s fandom is called Perfection.

And SHINee World knows what they're going through.

On Dec. 18, 2017, SHINee singer Kim Jong-hyun (known as Jonghyun) committed suicide, baffling fans and even fellow K-pop stars who figured the 27-year-old was on top of the world.

"It was so shocking, because we had seen him so often at events," BTS' RM told Billboard last month. He was so successful."

"My Poet My Artist My Jonghyun I miss you," tweeted w today. In fact, there are so many newly posted photos and video clips of the young man on Twitter that, aside from the occasional mournful missive like this one, you'd be forgiven for not knowing that he's gone.

The account Jonghyun On This Day is also doing its part to keep his memory alive.

But Jonghyun's death—authorities found charred coal briquettes in a frying pan on the stove, which produced carbon monoxide—obviously rattled the music world at large on multiple levels. In addition to the personal loss felt alike by loved ones and fans who felt they knew him, mental health is not an issue that tends to get much media attention in South Korea—or in Asia overall.

"To the South Korean government: Let #Jonghyun be the light in death that he was in life," tweeted Xavier on Dec. 18. "Recognize that suicide is an epidemic in South Korea and takes strides to ending the negative stigmas around mental health and to combat this issue. Don't let Jonghyun be another statistic."

A fan started a Change.org petition demanding that entertainment companies set up mental health support systems for their artists. More than 430,000 people have signed.

After some discussion, his family agreed to make public the suicide note the singer and songwriter, who made his solo debut in 2015 with the well-received album Base, left behind. His friend and Dear Cloud singer Jang Hee-yeon, known as Nine9, posted it on her Instagram. She said she'd obtained the note two weeks before Jonghyun's death and was asked to publish it if he "disappeared from the world."

"I'm broken from the inside," the note read. "The depression that has slowly eaten away at me has finally consumed me, and I couldn't beat it."

It concluded, "The life of fame was not for me. They say it's hard to bump up against the world and become famous. Why did I choose this life? It's a funny thing. It's a miracle that I lasted this long...

"What else is there to say? Just tell me I did well. Tell me that this is enough. Tell me I worked hard. Even if you can't smile, please don't blame me as you send me off. Well done. You've really worked hard. Goodbye."

In a sign that Jonghyun's death could help bring about positive change in the way mental health and depression are publicly discussed, the circumstances of his death continue to be a topic of conversation—one that Seo Minwoo's passing, no matter what the cause, only brings to mind all over again.

Just today a fan tweeted, "Nine said on the last interview Jonghyun once told her that she brings comfort to him. She noticed his condition got worse after blue night and when he gave her the letter she told his family right away, tried to save him, to prevent the worst from happening...

"I really believe everyone around him knew about his condition and tried their best to help him. that's why it hurts so much, that even though he got help he still wanted to leave."

In an interview with Billboard last month, members of BTS said that they wanted to keep the discussion about mental health going.

"I really want to say that everyone in the world is lonely and everyone is sad," Suga, 25, said, "and if we know that everyone is suffering and lonely, I hope we can create an environment where we can ask for help, and say things are hard when they're hard, and say that we miss someone when we miss them."

Bucking national mores and the pressure to be upbeat or put up an artificially glossy front all the time, Jonghyun, who also hosted the long-running music radio program Blue Night, had spoken out publicly about his battle with depression—much like young American stars such as Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, Zayn Malikand Keshahave been widely applauded for doing these days.

His last Blue Night broadcast was in March 2017 after three years behind the mic. He admitted to Esquire Korea that he didn't like traveling and considered himself a homebody—and the close confines of a radio studio, just him alone with some music, had been a perfect fit.

"It may be that I came running to radio in order to escape," he reflected to the magazine, per an English translation. "I don't really like going outside. And I don't really like having to meet a lot of people. I'm also afraid of trying new things. The radio now felt like my own personal space. It had become an escape hatch for me to greet new things without feeling awkward."

Jonghyun, who cited personal matters as the reason he was leaving the radio show, said it had become important to him to share his metaphorical scars with the world.

"I'm fundamentally a pessimistic person," he said. "Ever since I was little I showed a lot of depressive feelings, and it's the same in the present. But I don't think I can keep living my life sustaining those depressive feelings forever. You might be able to go through the early-to-mid-part of your life with that kind of melancholy. But if you want to grow, you can only survive if you throw those feelings away.

"Unless you want to get trapped within yourself and die, you have to grow no matter how much it hurts—but if you stop because you're afraid, in the end it's inevitable that you'd remain in an immature state of mind. I chose the path to transform myself. To reveal myself to the public. To attempt to make my thoughts understood. I have to make people aware that this is the kind of person I am, and I can only be on the defensive if I know that they know."

The translator noted that she avoided using the word "depression," because Jonghyun didn't use what amounted to that word specifically. Even in talking about it, those feelings of sadness remained a beast with no name.

When Jonghyun died, his SHINee band mates and members of the group Super Junior (both groups under the S.M. Entertainment umbrella), all clad in black, carried his coffin from Asan Medical Center in Seoul to a waiting vehicle. His sister headed the procession, carrying a photo of her late brother.

The funeral was private, for friends and family only, but hundreds of people lined up to see the coffin leave the hospital.

A statement from S.M. Entertainment read in part (according to Rolling Stone), "The deep sorrow cannot be compared to ones of his family who had to let go of their loving son and brother but the employees and artists of SM Entertainment, also in deep shock and sorrow, are offering condolences. Jonghyun was the best artist who loved music more than anyone and always worked hard for his performance. We ask you to refrain from making rumors or assumptions based on reports in respect of his family who are in deep sorrow from the sudden news. As his family wished, his funeral will be carried out in the quietest manner with his family members and co-workers."

But Jonghyun's death was hardly the first time the punishing pace of the K-pop machine had come under fire.

In addition to being expected to tour and crank out albums, sometimes in multiple languages (SHINee had also recorded in Japanese), the artists often appear on a never-ending stream of competition TV series in addition to doing talk shows, photo shoots and public appearances to keep the fans both sated and hungry for more.

But despite the seeming glut of artists and groups to remember (there are so manyselca days), truly breaking through as a star remains an elusive concept—and standing out in South Korea's youth-obsessed culture can feel like an insurmountable challenge.

And then there's the appearance factor. "If a girl has a bad face and a good body, the problem can be fixed with plastic surgery," Kim Min-seok, a former trainer with YG Entertainment (considered along with S.M. and JYP as the "Big Three" agencies), told Broadly. in 2016.

Moreover, the litany of groups also tend to be carefully managed, meticulously packaged pop confections, with a management company pulling the strings behind the scenes. Those who hope to make it big are expected to dedicate their lives to that goal, and that's basically what signing a contract entails.

In January 2015, NBC News cited a survey of South Korean pre-teens: When asked about career aspirations, 21 percent said they wanted to be K-pop stars.

"I am thinking only one thing—our song keeps being played," 20-year-old Sowon, a member of the girl group GFriend, which had an international hit at the time with their debut single "Glass Bead," told NBC News. "I hope to perform anywhere, anytime, even if I can't sleep or I am tired."

On Feb. 24, 2015, aspiring K-pop star Ahn So Jin died after falling 10 stories from an apartment building, with police concluding that her death was a suicide. The 22-year-old had made a splash the previous year after making it to the finals of The Kara Project—a competition show held to find girl group Kara a new member after two girls had left.

"It has to be this, or nothing," Sojin said on the show's premiere. "I can't miss this." She had been a K-pop trainee with Kara manager DSP Media for five years but her contract had reportedly ended the month before her death.

Kara disbanded for good in January 2016.

ng Ha-Jin, a 23-year-old university student who had once been a trainee with S.M. Entertainment after winning a talent competition, told NBC News in 2015 that she wasn't allowed to have a cell phone while in the program and the competition to earn a coveted slot in an actual girl group was fierce—and stressful.

"The most difficult part in fact was when I saw myself and felt like I didn't grow up," she said.

The loss of individuality isn't limited to K-pop, either.

In 2013, Minami Minegishi of Japan's AKB48—a group with over 100 rotating members who appear in different configurations at different events—shaved her head and tearfully apologized in a video confession after she spent the night with her boyfriend, an apparent infraction of a no-dating rule.

"I don't believe just doing this means I can be forgiven for what I did, but the first thing I thought was that I don't want to quit AKB48," Minegishi said, according to the BBC. AKB48's manager said Minegishi, an original member of the group when it formed in 2005, had been demoted to trainee status.

Her fans, more appalled by the self-flagellation than anything else, rallied around her, insisting she not be punished for just wanting to live her life.

In 2015, the BBC reported that members of Japanese boy band SMAP somberly dressed in black and publicly apologized on their weekly show SMAPxSMAP after they attempted to leave their longtime agency Johnny & Associates.

The K-pop scene doesn't sound quite so rigid these days, with managers and producers perhaps not wanting to alienate coveted Western audiences with oppressive behavioral strictures, but it still demands a level of old-fashioned poise and accommodation from its artists.

"If you go to the agency, every young trainee will give you a very polite bow and there are notices with the company rules on the wall to remind them how to behave," K-pop industry expert Mark Russell told the BBC in 2016.

In June 2014, Taeyeon of Girls Generation and Baekhyun of boy band EXO apologized to their respective fan bases for the "disappointment, anger, hatred, frustration, and dejection" they presumably felt when they found out that Taeyeon and Baekhyun were dating (a coupling that would seemingly send their fans over the moon, Jelena-style).

Last June, T.O.P. of the group Big Bang was hospitalized for several days after overdosing on prescription medication, the incident occurring a day after he was charged with smoking marijuana—a crime punishable by up to five years in prison in South Korea. According to Today Online, when he was caught smoking in October 2016, he issued a handwritten apology letter stating, "I deserve punishment for hurting the (BIGBANG) members, agency, public, fans and family. I'll regret this for tens of thousands of years."

T.O.P. was found guilty and received a suspended 10-month prison sentence because the judge determined that, although he had admitted his guilt and "disappointed his family and fans," he seemed sufficiently remorseful.

"I'm truly sorry that I disappointed my fans and the public," the 29-year-old, whose real name is Choi Seung-Hyun, told reporters after his sentencing last summer. I will do my best to make a fresh start and not to make such a mistake again with what I've learned from this lesson,"

In August, management company WM Entertainment announced that JinE of Oh My Girl was taking a break from the group while she sought treatment for anorexia, stating, "We will wholeheartedly support JinE while she rests and receives treatment. We apologize once more for bringing this sudden news to fans and ask that you continue to show Oh My Girl unchanging love and interest." JinE's permanent exit from the group was announced in October.

It's impossible not to note a hint of concern over past K-pop tragedy and the pitfalls of fame in this otherwise cheerful birthday greeting sent today (already March 30 in South Korea) to Cha Eunwoo, or Eunwoo, of the six-member boy band Astro.

"Mr. Cha Eunwoo Happy birthday to our sweet and sparkling fluff. AROHA are so lucky to have you," wrote Ashlyn Akiko (who changed her handle to #happychaeunwooday for the occasion). "Stay happy and healthy."

#Inside the Sadness Plaguing K-Pop #kpop #big bang #t.o.p #choi seunghyun #SHINee #Onew #Jonghyun #Key #Minho #Taemin #Kim Jonghyun #Kara #astro #cha eunwoo #oh my girl #jinE

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