#GUYS THERE'S ACTUALLY SO MANY REFERENCES TO EVERY 5 MINUTES THERE'S A DISASTER

[ko-fanatic]

Blood, Guts and Chocolate Cake (Part 2)

Rating: Mature

Fandom: Danganronpa

Pairings: IshiMondo

Summary:

It seemed after the night before, Ishimaru was back to routine. The issue? Mondo wasn't previously aware of said routine.

TW: Alcohol, and eating disorders (both restrictive behaviours and B/P), mentions of disability, underage sex/sexualisation, drugs

Other parts: Part one

A/N: So, I reference a small headcanon of mine that Mondo has asthma. So fed up of it being seen as a "nerd" condition, so... The boi now has it. Not severe, but still.

Mondo made the executive decision to stay sleeping on the couch that night. Not that he was that bad off - the suite was VIP, after all, and the couch was comfy. he was a just bit miffed that, firstly, he had to do that in the first place because Mr Pretty Boy wanted to go clubbing, and secondly, there was a plush, California king sized bed in his room which was being tragically wasted. He hadn’t exactly had many chances to experience that sort of luxury, and he’d slept like the dead the past few nights. 

Maybe that was a problem. Had he just not realised? Some “Ultimate Bodyguard”, if that was the case. Shit… Little asshole, making him question things and get all shaky and crap. It might’ve had very little to do with Ishimaru, in full honesty, but he was too tired to think it through clearly. 

At least he did manage to get some sleep, despite being slightly cramped. He was over six feet tall, after all; not exactly made for sleeping on the couch. He’d even managed a rare, pleasant dream; dogs and cotton candy, Daiya’s obnoxious laugh and hanging with their friends in one of the many abandoned buildings they used as hangouts. They were such edgy little shits, but it wasn’t like anyone cared about the disused factories and crap. 

He’d been reliving the time Takemichi got his tongue piercing stuck in his jumper (somehow, Mondo still didn’t know how the hell someone did that), when he awoke. It wasn’t some crash or anything, just the usual sounds of someone pottering around, getting ready for the day. 

He groaned as he sat up, head pounding. He still felt exhausted, and he’d definitely drooled in his sleep. He turned to the window, and realised… It was still dark. Fucking really? After Mondo told him he wasn’t going out?

“Hold it right there,” He began, hoisting himself to his feet, doing his best not to fall straight over again, “I thought I said -”

Oh. He wasn’t wearing the tight jeans and such he was the night before. 

Ishimaru raised an immaculate eyebrow at him from where he was tying his trainers. “Relax, I’m going for a run,” He huffed, “I might as well get on with my regular routine, since someone -”

“I’m gonna cut you off right there, kid,” He grumbled, stretching out his back and arms, “What time is it? Sun’s not even out yet…”

“Owada-san, it’s winter,” The kid sighed, a deadpan look on his face, “It’s about 5:15AM.”

It was a damn good job he wasn’t drinking anything - he would have choked on it. Who the fuck even wakes up at five in the fucking morning, let alone after being awake at midnight? Not to mention the clothes. Mondo was praying, if the kid really was going to work out in some way, it’d be in a gym. Heating, shelter from the elements, a bench he could probably catch some z’s on because it’s not like anywhere’s going to be busy at five in the morning -

“Now, if you excuse me, I’m late for my run,” Ishimaru waved off, going to open the door before Mondo reached above him, slamming it closed once more. For a guy who worked out pretty constantly, it was pretty effortless to overpower his grip. Eh, guess that what comes from having lithe muscle for aesthetics, rather than the bulky stuff for actual strength. Not to mention the lack of warning  -

No, that shit could wait until later. Fucking focus, Mondo!

“You said routine… Have ya really been sneaking out every day?!” He demanded. He could’ve been a little softer about it, sure, but you have to understand; this wasn’t a good start to the job, especially if shit got out. Was he being overly paranoid? Yes. Did he not have a reason to be? He abso-fucking-lutely did! 

“It’s not sneaking anywhere,” The idol groaned, sounding very much like the stereotypical teenager in that moment, “I’m an idol. As such, I have an intensive exercise routine to stay trim, not to mention fit enough to perform my high-energy choreography. I just don’t see the need to wake you and have an irritable tough guy around me, when I can easily complete my run without dragging you the whole five miles.”

Five fucking miles?!

Oh, today was going to suck. Today was going to kick his ass and run him over with a truck. All because an idol needed to “stay trim”. Fuck, if the kid was any trimmer, he doubted he’d have any skin left. 

“Were the idols you guarded before babysat so extensively?” He kid questioned, raising an eyebrow. 

“In all fairness, you’re the youngest client I’ve had,” He grumbled, scrubbing his hand over his tired eyes, “But kid, you’ve got to tell me when you run off. Don’t care what for. You being famous, and pretty, and so skinny… I wasn’t kidding about my worry last night. Celebrities get murdered… Or worse.”

“You think… I’m…” The kid shook his head, cheeks red, gaze staring holes into his trainers, “I understand. I don’t like it - it’s suffocating! But… I see the logic.”

Mondo smiled, turning back to his room. He had to find some clothes that passed as exercise gear… 

---

Mondo knew someone had it out for him. 

He was wheezing as he jogged, trying to keep pace with Mr Trim in front of him, but lagging behind somewhat pitifully. He had his inhaler in his bag - he wasn’t that much of a dumbass - but holy fuck if this wasn’t torture. He didn’t do track in middle school. He was more than content to work on his strength and brawling skill. 

Speaking about things he was more than willing to do; laying down in the road, waiting for the next car to come along and end his misery, was getting far too attractive. 

Conversely, Ishimaru was just about breaking a sweat, panting. His insides weren’t threatening to become his outsides like Mondo’s were. Kid either had a stomach of steel, or he was just a lot more used to this shit than Mondo was - namely, the extensive train travel and exercise. 

Actually, considering the whole “Ultimate Idol” thing, it was most likely the latter. 

That was when his legs noped out of the situation, sending him stumbling and falling. He didn’t cry out, per se, so much as let out a manly grunt of surprise. 

Who was he fucking kidding? Ishimaru heard him through his headphones and blaring music. 

“Owada -san!” He called, rushing to his side in an instant, “Are you hurt?! Can you speak?! What’s wrong?!”

Ugh, so loud. 

“What’s wrong,” He grunted, “Is that someone is punishing me!” 

Maybe a tad dramatic, but holy hell! Fuck five miles, it felt like he’d run a marathon. 

“I don’t know if I royally pissed off someone up there -!”

He pointed an accusatory finger at the idol.

“Or someone down here! Like, sorry kid, but I give! Just doing my fucking job!”

Mondo watched the idol’s carefully cute and prim expression crack apart, his dignified (if far too loud) concern quickly falling into laughter and snorts. He had half a mind to be rather offended, but the carefully crafted exterior melting into those cute as hell snorts and chortling… That wasn’t even mentioning the look on the idol’s face. Pure fucking sunshine. 

Could he not be a queer disaster for five fucking minutes?!

“You’re rather funny, Owada-san,” Ishimaru chuckled. 

“Mondo.”

“Huh?” The idol barely breathed - lord above, give him strength - staring at him wide-eyed. Of course, that tends to be what happened when he let his tongue go before his brain.

“Ya can call me Mondo, none of that ‘Owada-san’ crap,” He grumbled, and he will eternally blame the heat in his cheeks on the marathon he was sure the other dragged him through.

“Oh! Well, in that case… You can call me Taka!” The kid - Taka, Goddamnit that’s cute - grinned. He was going to have to invest in those cheesy, stereotypical sunglasses if the kid was just going to unleash that megawatt smile on him without a shred of warning. Then, the kick to the crotch he really needed in that moment - 

“Now, as you’ve caught your breath, we should keep going! Obviously such a long break isn’t ideal for cardio, but we can still -”

He just flopped down once more, groaning like a man dying.

“I said sorry, didn’t I?! Ya don’t need to keep punishing me! I fucking give!” 

“Mondo,” Kiyotaka sighed, standing once more and looking at his FitBit, “Do you want to know how many miles of my morning run we’ve completed?” 

“I don’t know, ten, you animal!”

He was sent a rather disapproving, levelling look. “Two,” Taka deadpanned, “We’ve got three miles to go.”

That truck Mondo mentioned? The one the day was going to run him over with?

Yeah, it reversed for another hit.

#danganronpa #dr talentswap #ishimondo #kiyotaka ishimaru #mondo oowada #idol!ishimaru #bodyguard!Mondo #blood guts and chocolate cake series

[marcilled]

[this is gonna be a big long post about minecraft youtuber drama... press J to scroll past this if you don’t care about that. lol. sorry]

idunno if anybody took my post the other day as me “cancelling dream for cheating in a videogame”, i posted it mostly out of bemusement of the whole situation, and because that video was really well put-together. (context: his 1.16 speedruns were disqualified by the minecraft speedrun.com moderators & there was a video & document explaining why).

I definitely don’t correlate cheating a speedrun w/ ableism, racism, etc etc. I already knew about a lot of nasty shit dream has done, like the video he did with Notch, and how all of his early content was about pewdiepie, just further normalizing those two to his young audience. I’ve always disliked him for those things, which I’ve been aware of pretty much as long as I’ve known of him, and he has never apologized for those things. It’s why whenever I posted about him before (which was... maybe once or twice?), I always say “don’t stan him or anything he sucks”.

I had no idea there was so much more to it honestly. It’s kind of galling seeing the full context now, because whenever I’ve seen any kind of criticism against him, it’s been him presenting it in an apology. I dunno why I wasn’t suspicious of this given what I already knew about him, but the guy seems to be very clever with how he damage controls any sort of possible controversy regarding him. He presents a really heartfelt, honest apology for whatever happened and gives a few cherrypicked examples of things that people said about him and says how wrong he was and how he doesn’t want to alienate his viewers.

The fact that it’s Dream presenting the evidence of his controversies, means that he gets to control how the conversation goes. Instead of a popular “mcyt” stan account getting to control the conversation, pointing out the shit he’s said and done, he addresses it in a livestream, and does not provide the original context. Huh, I wonder why. It’s almost as if he doesn’t want everyone to see that his mistakes are more than just little “oopsies”, it’s him being actively malicious and getting so defensive that he tells off anybody who could possibly disagree with his view of things.

While his actions and words are pretty horrid on their own, I think the thing that has me most concerned about Dream is... He seems pretty fuckin’ good at manipulating peoples’ perception of him.

-----

After the video about his speedruns being cheated came out the other day, he had this to say on twitter (this is his second, “personal” account):

Now, as I said before, cheating in a videogame isn’t at all comparable to racism or ableism. What I’m trying to point out here is his response to any sort of criticism.

The video he’s referring to is this one, published by Geosquare 2 days ago (dec 11th). What’s interesting to note here is how he singles out Geosquare specifically in this tweet. If you click on the video, the first few seconds establishes that it’s a video made by the entire Minecraft java edition speedrunning mod team (which is made up of a team of over a dozen people). The video and document was a true team effort from every single one of them, and it only got posted to Geosquare’s account (& got his narration) because he’s already a youtuber with a pretty comfortable amount of subscribers.

So, instead of pointing his ire (and those of his many, many fans) at the whole speedrun mod team, instead, he points it squarely on Geosquare, so that people have a convenient name to latch onto. He then accuses Geosquare of using his name as “clickbait” in order to get “easy views”, sowing the seed of this idea that Geosquare is doing this in an opportunistic grab for personal gain. If you clicked on the video and saw the description/pinned comment, you’d see that not only did Geosquare disable monetization on the video, he disabled monetization on his entire channel for as long as this drama goes on (and he knew there would be drama, dream made extra sure to threaten the mods with a video of his own in retaliation if they ended up banning him).

Then, in a reply to the first tweet, he says that there are “multiple moderators” messaging him saying the verdict was “biased” and that they may quit the mod team. He provides no evidence for this. However, if you click on the tweet and view any of the thousands of replies from his fans, it doesn’t matter that he gave no evidence, his word is enough. If you’re wondering, Geosquare and a few other mods have stated many times that it was a group decision on their part, and nobody had any question in their mind that Dream must have cheated. So... Dream, who are these “mods” that are messaging you? He won’t say.

Lastly here, I want to point out that in his next tweet on the matter, he makes this very bitter comment about how useless it was for them to investigate a “16th place run”. It’s a minor detail, but I think it’s worth mentioning; this kind of downplays how impressive his run was at the time. At the time he submitted his sub-20 minute speedrun, it was a top 5 run, in a very competitive category of speedrunning the game. In the 2 months since, several people have passed his time using new strats, but that doesn’t diminish the fact it was a pretty amazing “run”... if it weren’t cheated of course. But, I’m just rambling on about how petty I am about him cheating at this point so let me get back to the main point here.

If you see the numbers on these tweets (hundreds of thousands of likes), you’ll understand why this is pretty scary for those speedrun mods. The same day this happened Geosquare joked around “I’ve only gotten one death threat so far!”. Dream’s fanbase is unparalleled in minecraft youtube, and incredibly sizeable for a youtube channel overall. If you’re not familiar with this new wave of “mcyt” minecraft accounts, it’s... it’s pretty much exclusively because of Dream’s fame. He’s the driving force of minecraft youtube content right now. Any youtuber who even breathes near the guy blows up in subscribers & views. His minecraft server, “Dream SMP”, is like... it has a legitimate cultural impact, whether that sentence disgusts you or not. Especially for young gen Z kids.

The point I’m trying to make is, ever since he came onto the scene in early 2019, he’s grown and grown at exponential rates, and I can’t understate the kind of influence he has on not just his own fans, but the fans of like. Pretty much anyone who is plugged in to anything minecraft youtube related right now.

People have discussed this before, but Dream’s sudden rise to fame happened shockingly quick. So quick that it’s almost impossible it were by accident. He’d spent something like a year or two studying how the youtube algorithm works, how famous youtubers grow their popularity, etc. He spent a lot of time studying, and it paid off for him. It makes me wonder if he’s studied how youtubers deal with controversy as well. Because it seems like he’s doing everything right to keep his fans “loyal” to him.

So I think it’s not unreasonable to say that it is pretty goddamn concerning when he reacts to criticism like this. His immense fanbase, who are often worryingly obsessed with him, of mostly impressionable kids... It’s a recipe for disaster, in the hands of someone so entitled and immature.

I think what really has me worried, though, is a video he published to his second channel the other day. Recently, he published a video about his “stans”. The entire video essentially boiled down to him disputing claims that “dream stans” were toxic, or that stanning people or “stan culture” was creepy/unhealthy. He spent a lot of the video comparing stans of content creators to passionate fans of football teams, and expressed repeatedly how he thought it was normal and OK to be totally obsessed with a content creator and engage in “stan culture”, as long as you weren’t being a legitimate stalker. He pretty much only talked about the positives of being a Dream Stan, and how positive the “community” is. The whole video painted this really idealistic image of what it means to be a Stan of a person, and fandom in general.

Now... I don’t know about everyone else reading this, but I found that video to be... incredibly creepy and weird. It completely ignores any actual arguments about how stan culture can be unhealthy, and how engaging so heavily in parasocial relationships can be quite damaging, especially to younger people.

But, mostly? It seemed like the whole video was basically designed just to reinforce the most unhealthy impulses of his stans, and reward them with the positive encouragement that he actually enjoys it when they are obsessed with him so much that they can’t imagine he could ever possibly do anything wrong.

And that? That is fucking dangerous for a person with such a huge fanbase to be peddling to their fans.

Surely, he must know- a great deal of his fans are so obsessed with him, that they think they know him as well as, if not more than, a personal friend. So that when he does something disagreeable and wrong, and he claims “no that’s not how it happened, they’re biased and trying to cancel me because they’re jealous”, they just take that at face value, because why would he lie? He’s so honest and genuine in his videos and livestreams!

This sort of behavior from Dream, along with his tweets I posted earlier, reads to me as if he knows exactly what he’s doing. I think he is purposefully insulating his fans from the truth of his actions, so that he can present this idealistic picture of him in their mind, so that it seems absurd that he would do something wrong.

I think it’s only a matter of time before it comes out he’s done something much worse, honestly. What it is, is hard to say- he’s already done so much that anyone reading this should rescind their support for him, imo. But, I know that none of this matters to his millions of fans. While I worry for them, I also worry for anyone who becomes a target of Dream. I could see this speedrunning drama being the start of a downward spiral for him. Things could get real ugly with all that minecraft clout getting to his head... I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

TL;DR, dream sucks, and not just because he cheats at videogames.

I apologize again for writing a multi paragraph post about a minecraft youtuber. I will not post about this anymore (probably) please do not unfollow me .

#vivi bleats #txt #long post #i might delete this cuz im embarrassed i typed this much about this topic #but idk i already typed it so. #dream

[yikeswtfmate]

Part 1: Ungodly Hours

Of Tinder Dates & Caramel Macchiatos - Series Masterlist // main masterlist // next part

Summary: Y/N had no idea her new work routine would bring a certain handsome bartender to her table where she drinks her coffee every morning. Steve is sweet, although a bit sleep deprived, and Natasha thinks Y/N and him would make the perfect pair. But dating him is out of the question. What happens when, tired of Nat’s bizarre behaviour, Y/N installs Tinder and meets this really cute guy who can read her like an open book?

Pairings: Steve Rogers x Reader; Thor Odinson x Reader

Warnings: language, alcohol consumption, sexual references and themes

A/N: guess who’s back! back again with a very long Steve series that might be the end of me but that i already love with my whole heart and oh god i am so nervous i really hope you’re gonna like this

Coffee shops in the morning could easily be considered anyone’s personal hell. The sheer amount of people trudging along to get their daily fix of caffeine would normally make Y/N stop in her tracks and take a turn towards the nearest coffee vending machine, even if it tastes worse than crap. At least she doesn’t have to wait for half an hour in line stuck between a very loud lawyer and that one mum who insists on buying the nastiest green smoothie she’s ever seen in her life.

However, coffee shops at 6 in the morning, right about when Peter changes the sign from closed to open, are heaven sent. Sure, the prospect of having to be out and about for work at 6 am is less than ideal, but at least she’s always been more or less a morning person. And her paycheck has been considerably fatter last month. 

Y/N takes her usual seat outside, caramel macchiato right next to her laptop. Today should be an easy day - fill out some paperwork before she heads to the office at 8.45, pick up Pepper’s coffee, and sort out whatever has been left of this week. Easy, simple and to the point, although Nat would love to argue that Saturdays are for sleeping in, and not for personally picking up documents from various stakeholders. 

“Or better yet, download Tinder and work out your stress with random guys.” Nat had suggested last night on the phone, when Y/N made the mistake of mentioning she hadn’t had any in too many months to count. “There’s this great guy I know…”

“No.” Y/N interrupted, knowing exactly where that would’ve gone. “Every time you tried to set me up with someone, it ended up in disaster. We’re not doing this again, Nat.”

“I just want you to be happy.” She muttered, most definitely being silently admonished by Bucky for trying to interfere in her friend’s life yet again.

“I am happy, sweetheart. Just because I’m not getting any at the moment, that doesn’t mean I’m not happy. Plus, you know what I think -”

“If it’s meant to be, there’s no point in me chasing it, yes.” Nat echoed with a roll of her eyes. “Sometimes your whole attitude of ‘go with the flow’ pisses me off. I say you should go after what you want.”

“Well, there’s nothing, or no one to want at the moment so there’s no point in me getting into a frenzy about it. When the moment’s right, it will happen.”

“Hey!” 

The voice cuts right through the middle of her thought, interrupting Nat’s sneered answer of ‘I just hope he won’t be an asshole like your ex’, making Y/N look up from her laptop. There’s a guy standing next to her, one steaming cup of coffee in a hand, uncertain smile on a face ragged by what can only be lack of sleep. He’s tall and broad shouldered, and she can’t place him for a second, before her eyes land on the sleeve tattoo on his right arm. 

“Steve?” She asks, just as hesitant.

“Yeah!” He grins, running his free hand through his hair, until there’s a blond mess of it. “Y/N, right? You’re Nat’s friend.”

“Yeah, that’s right. I uh- how are you?”

The whole scene most probably looks ridiculous to the outside eye - her sitting down, craning her neck to look at this monolith of a man, both of them oozing with awkwardness and hesitation. She’s always hated that touch of absurdity in interactions between people who know each other, but are not even acquaintances. Even though her job as an executive assistant requires her to navigate situations just like these, that does not mean it makes it easier for her to know how to do that in her personal life. It’s called balance - be a badass at your job, but you’re left an embarrassing mess when it comes to talking to cute guys that you don’t actually know.

“Just got off my shift. Thought I should grab a coffee and spare myself of falling asleep on the subway again.”

“Oh. You’re still working as a bartender then?” She replies, digging her claws into the faint memory of him running from one end of the bar to the other, barely managing to shake her hand after a brief introduction that one time she agreed to go out with Nat and Bucky. 

“Yep. I’m actually part-owner now.” Steve says proudly and she can’t help but grin with him. 

“Congratulations!” Y/N claps her hands - what is that, come on, get yourself together. “Hey, do you wanna take a seat and have your coffee? I feel weird sitting while you’re standing.”

“Ah, I shouldn’t. I’ve been up for almost 24 hours now.” He scratches the back of his head, checks his watch and glances at her again in thought. “But I can spare 5 more minutes to finish this. Wouldn’t want to spill it all over me again.”

Y/N smiles and does her best at clearing at least one corner of the table. He takes a seat, and she notices the way his knee brushes softly against hers, and fair enough, the table is small, but this guy is massive and he’s dwarfing everything around him - it’s no wonder they can barely fit together. 

“So what are you up to at this ungodly hour of the morning on a Saturday?” He asks after swiftly scanning all the papers and electronics between them.

“Ah, my life is definitely less exciting than yours.” She laughs. “I’m just getting to work.”

“On a Saturday?” His confusion is clear. So is his amusement as he takes a sip of his coffee.

“I see Nat hasn’t been complaining to everyone around her about me. That’s reassuring.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Steve shrugs. “Whenever they come to the bar, I’m usually working. I can barely exchange two words with them.”

“That’s right. I remember her saying something about you needing to get a break.” 

“More like a life. I haven’t had a day off in months, I don’t even know what daylight looks like anymore.”

There’s no denying the fact that he looks exhausted - if the dark circles under his eyes wouldn’t be indication enough, it’s easy to read it in the tense set of his shoulders, the way he’s more slumping than sitting in his chair. Y/N is filled with a weird sense of wanting to make this man a cup of tea and order him to go to bed already. His gaze keeps shifting, as if it can’t focus on anything for more than a few seconds, and there’s a slight hint of misery written all over his features that is cleverly hidden by his happy-go-lucky attitude, which seems superficial if analysed closely. Perks of being the best at her job, curse for people who don’t want their business pried into, but then again...they don’t know each other that well, so she keeps her mouth shut. Whatever is bothering him is none of her damn business.

“If it makes you feel any better, I have no idea what nightlife looks like anymore.” She offers.

“We’d make an invincible human being if we were to join forces.” Steve laughs. “I’ll tell you all about teenagers trying to get in with fake IDs, how to get rid of vomit in the toilets and what’s the best way to mix a Long Island and you can tell me all about traffic in the morning, rush hour at lunchtime and what kids are up to when they get off school.”

“Mostly TikTok dances.” Y/N shrugs, which earns her the cutest sleep-deprived laugh she’s ever heard in her life. 

“Is that what those are? Oh God, I feel old now.” 

She chuckles - it’s cute, he’s cute. In a lost puppy kind of way, but her final verdict is interrupted by her phone vibrating next to her hand. Now, she wouldn’t normally be so rude as to answer a phone in the middle of a conversation, especially when she is focused on the crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he’s grinning at his not-exactly-joke, but PEPPER CALLING is a rude awakening that she is supposed to actually be at work in less than 15 minutes. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I have to get this, it’s my boss.”

“No worries. I should get going anyway. I think I’ve already slipped into sleepwalking anyway.” He stands up and fumbles around for a few seconds - yet another situation that neither of them seems to know how to handle. Are they supposed to shake hands? Hug? Take an imaginary hat off? 

So Y/N settles on a smile, which must put him at ease a teensy bit, because he grins back at her - that boyish grin that made her think cute way too many times by this time of the day. 

“It was great seeing you, Y/N. Don’t overwork yourself today. It is Saturday after all.”

“Says the one who’s 90% asleep.” Y/N giggles. “Bye, Steve!”

“See you around, sweetheart!”

*

Nat takes out a bottle of wine, moving around the well-lit kitchen as if she’s lived there her whole entire life, and not only for the past three weeks. Y/N is still mesmerised by the fake brick wall in front of her to pay attention to the glass thrust between her fingers - this apartment is gorgeous. She had no idea Bucky was so good at interior design, which must have been a huge selling point when they’ve decided where to live together. Christ, Y/N would have wanted to move in with him after only 5 months, for this apartment alone. But Nat is frowning - that deep line between her eyebrows leaves nothing to speculation, and Y/N knows her best friend too well not to realise that she is not happy with what she’s hearing.

“Are you going to say anything or should I just assume you’re pissed off?”

“I’m not pissed off.” Nat says, an immediate response that sounds too close to defensiveness to sound like truth. “I’m just- I’m surprised, is all. I mean, it is Steve we’re talking about here after all.”

“That’s exactly why I don’t understand why you’re reacting like this.”

Nat brings her foot up on her stool, and braces her knee while her other hand is playing with the rim of her glass. She’s avoiding eye contact, which is never a good sign when it comes to her, yet Y/N simply can’t put her finger on the reason behind her sudden change in demeanour when she’s told her that she met Steve this morning. 

“I just don’t think that Steve would be the right person for you right now.” She finally mutters and there’s a tinge of embarrassment in her tone that Y/N can’t decipher.

“Ok, you’re going to have to explain what the hell is going on because I have no idea what’s with all this hostility. All I did was tell you that I chatted with Steve for half an hour this morning. How did you connect that to me getting into a relationship with him?”

“Because!” Nat groans. “You and Steve would be perfect for each other. Not to mention you’re my best friend and he’s Bucky’s best friend and just that idea alone gives me cavities. I want you to be together!”

“I’ve seriously never been more confused in my entire life.”

“Ok, look, I’m going to be completely honest with you right now.” Nat sighs and she at long last makes eye contact. “It’s not my story to tell, but the gist of it is that Steve’s recently gotten out of a relationship with one of my friends from work. He was completely swept off his feet, even Bucky’s never seen him this infatuated with someone. The problem is that, as much as I love Peggy, she really did a number on him. He’s been a complete wreck ever since and he doesn’t even know that she’s gotten back together with her ex. I’m just saying that he’s not in the right emotional state to get into another relationship right now. And you’re in a complete state at the moment as well.”

“Me?” Y/N squeals, surprised by this sudden change of direction. “What is wrong with me?”

“Honey, you also recently got out of a serious relationship where you were practically married to the guy. I really think you should spend some time alone and focus on yourself, and not guys. Flings, fuck buddies, Tinder, sure, whatever. Do whatever you couldn’t during these past few years, but you’re not ready to jump into another serious relationship again. I love you and I love Steve, but you’d probably destroy each other if you were to get together.”

Y/N waits for a few more seconds in order to make sure Nat’s said her piece. She’s surprised by her friend’s outburst - it was only yesterday that Y/N’s explained to her that she’s not willing to get herself out there just yet and she was rebuffed by promises of friends and possibilities. This mix of encouragement and relentlessness is nothing short of confusing. Especially since Y/N hasn’t even hinted at a potential romance with Steve.

“Ok, first of all, I want you to know that I agree with you. I’m not ready to get into another relationship right now, but I also want you to understand that I’m not going back to jumping into bed with guys I barely know. Look where that got me last time! Second, I didn’t tell you I saw Steve today because I want to be in a relationship with him. We just talked. As friends. Nothing more.”

They look at each other in silence for a few moments, a sense of uneasiness that Y/N’s never felt in the whole time she’s known Nat. There’s something odd about her reaction, but she can’t say what it is exactly. She guesses she can understand her friend’s protectiveness over Steve - after all, she knows all too well how much of a mama bear Nat can be with people she cares about, but isn’t she supposed to care more about what her best friend might want? Even if Y/N doesn’t want Steve, but it’s the principle of it!

“Right.” Nat mutters. “Well, I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Nat, I’m not doing anything. I barely talked once with the guy by accident.” 

This is getting ridiculous.

“Just remember that I don’t want to be involved in this.”

“There’s no this to be involved in!”

#steve rogers x reader #thor x reader #thor odinson x reader #series: of tinder dates & caramel macchiatos #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers fic #thor odinson fanfiction #thor odinson fic

[tripstaysnoided]

Flow Just Like Water

Story and writing-related transparency update and my many shames...

The Question on Everyone’s Mind

“Hey you haven’t updated No Stars over Uptown in almost a year...”

Hmm, I hate it when you’re right. (This section has been rewritten ad-nauseam to curb back the bitchiness by the way)

So back in early/mid 2018, the idea was to divorce Uptown from a person who influenced it (and myself) heavily. She was my most important audience member, the closest friend I ever had, and unfortunately someone who used her power to bully, ostracize, and hurt others with my help. I cut contact when the hurt + some self-awareness finally reached me. Apologies were made and I feel like my work will never be done with it, but there was still Uptown.

Between censored comments, entirely recasting Axel’s save, different plot threads, and a load of disclaimers, there was nothing that would scrub her influence from the story. There was no way to cleanly drop everything because of how deep her influence went. It disgusted me to look back at it, and I had to private the blog because I feared what it endorsed, even if just in the past.

I pulled back from that sims writing community. I had its main thread on the Official Forums removed too (I guess if that was a mystery to anyone). It was a surrender that I never wanted to do, but I had it in my mind that if I was gone, then she wouldn’t be there either. Uptown became this cursed item, and as I quietly retired it, I noticed that she went quieter too. Not gone, but enough to make me sleep easier at night and even occasionally say hello to old friends.

And I hope deep in my heart that no one else is getting hurt in my place, but now this is gonna haunt me all day huh!

The two paths forward...

1) Complete Uptown rewrite that I’ve been threatening everyone with all year. While it won’t ever be clean because I can’t undo time, I do have a sound outline for a story that is much more true to my actual vision and how I’ve evolved, with a few necessary boundaries in place that are going to be there for all stories moving forward: no more casting calls and no more collaborative efforts. I am not going to open myself up to this happening again, even if the people have changed.

2) Same as above, but I continue the original Uptown as a favor to loyal readers alongside the rewrite. I would try to put the effort into it that I initially did, but with no promises on an update schedule and no advertising. I did ask myself “is there Patreon but without pledging money, just the private posts function” but it could operate as part of a private forum, a members-only part of a website, etc.

Also readers of the original would be beholden to a rule of “don’t spoil the rewrite for new readers, c’mon guys”. I mean, not really, but it is a good courtesy to extend to people.

Priority on this isn’t high but you at least will see what is!

I will probably make the blog public again either way due to the many broken links on my Tumblr but we’ll see. There are other things to deal with as I shall list!

Where Life’s Been Regardless

Been spending more time with my grandpa every weekend. Life’s pretty good and he’s warming up to my dogs.

Shiny New Webbed Site

Cucumber Fields Forever is a site I own now. We have a full domain, cucumberfieldsforever.com, a blog with one post, and the framework needed to host stories the way I want to and still through WordPress. The functionality of likes, comments, and following should still be the same but you know...I’ll take feedback too...

The main blog still has an undefined purpose though I do have drafts sitting around about:

The maybe/maybe not hoax band that was on the Metal Archives and the history of Funeral Doom Metal.

The curious case of when Sims 4 babies get their genetics and my only collaboration (read: was talking about it with a friend and might quote her if needed, it’s actually a bit of a doozy)

Amazon.com’s fake dried udon noodles, an actual issue by the way.

Things I’m reading! (This’d be a monthly feature if so)

For the sake of unity, I am thinking of solutions for hosting old and shameful content there including Uptown and for the real fans in my followers feed, Eight Cicadas...a world I totally have plans for too (not really). I don’t want them to be front-and-center, and that’s why I mentioned forums/members-only content. I finally have that power! Maybe.

Ooooh but what are the costs? Not too much to handle, that’s what. 😉 (Like really, I don’t need any hand-wringing about this, I can manage my finances)

Project Queue (In Order of Confirmedness)

Outrun the Scythe: have you seen me post out-of-context Sims 3 pictures? Did you want more? Did you hope it was Linda in Custody? If the answers are yes, yes, and “meh, whatever you want”, then you’re in luck.

Outrun the Scythe is a Sims 3-based tale of a young gay man and his zombie grandma, as they are both offered separate roles of being the undying intermediaries between the world of humans and the influence of a race of space daemons. It’s pretty familiar if you’ve been following me pre-Uptown, taking some cues from stories I’ve kept under lock and key like Eight Cicadas, The Chains of Lyra, and the not-so-locked-up Ironstar Immortals (of which Outrun is just the direct sequel to sans any retconning...ah the smell of early 2013 and performative heterosexuality)

Ah, back to my roots.

It’s a hybrid of gameplay, story, and lore about my little race of daemons with a lot of my own idiosyncrasies that I’m not really ashamed of: basing it off a super-polarizing Sims 3 challenge from a site I moderate, using a lot of EA’s pre-made townies and their genes, lots of unnecessary posemaking, stupid references. It’s a comfort to have in my roster.

While the first few chapters are in the middle of revision, I have around six in the queue and will be making this public when I have ten. I’m guessing December then?

Undocumented Black Widow Challenge: I just did this for fun/forum kudos (yes, in fact I have joined many forums), there was going to be a short story but it was quickly becoming something against my code of ethics. I mean, sims die and all. (read: I had to choose between “heterosexual widow” and “widow with some same-sex marriages that still end in tragedy, reinforcing negative stereotypes to the public for the sake of me not getting bored and detached during gameplay” so there were no good choices. Except for her affair with the mailwoman, 10/10) I hope to finish this before October ends and get my medal on Boolprop, I’m pretty far through it all. I might upload the sims involved anyways. This is for TS4.

I mentioned it because it’s keeping me busy. But not for long!

NaNoWriMo 2020: Dipping my toes into that again! It’s not sims-related, just a tale of lesbians, nosy neighbors, a haunted beach house, and some light murder and kidnapping. And I actually got my brother to scout out locations for me this weekend. If there’s any demand, I can share chapters as the rough drafts are finished, especially for the sake of proofreading.

Not saying I’m publishable, but wouldn’t it be nice? Will keep me occupied for much of November.

Untitled “Dear Diary” Challenge: Tired of feeling left out of the fun on the Boolprop forums, their “Dear Diary” challenge was the one that appealed to me the most on first glance. Why? Probably once I found an idea that let it be set in the early/mid-2000′s to begin with and explore some interesting characters through diary entries (which I have mixed feelings on as a literary device but I think that’s just me saying “well I didn’t like Dracula”, yes you get bonus points for writing it like a diary)

Also writing is the one skill I’m good at across multiple games. Wanna hear me bitch about the cooking skill tree in TS4 or riding in TS3? I’ll spare you.

I guess I could have included “spending time on Boolprop with old and new friends” in where my life has been. It’s a nice lil community if also a place with its own idiosyncrasies as well. So it doesn’t feel like I’m promoting another community if/when I make a thread there for Outrun the Scythe, I want to have a couple chapters of this ready to go by Outrun’s release, though it’s not gonna be the highest priority compared to it nor as long because I think I can blast through the gameplay quickly.

This one will be played in TS4 due to it having the easiest writing skill/I dunno variety is the spice of life. And hopefully another December release.

Defunded or Forgotten?: Oh shit I actually released stuff in 2020 and told no one? I do have a “mortifying ordeal of being known” sinking feeling whenever I get a site hit because it’s not my best work (but good enough) and veered sharply into issues I may be over my head in, though I try to be a good noodle with research and listening. Maybe hiding is bad after all.

Being based off a very flawed and incomplete Sims 3 challenge I found in the annals of the Official Forums, there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work just making sense of things. And I’m scared of working on reconstructing the house but I haven’t abandoned the project yet. The story has eight chapters so far and is pretty game-based with some additions here and there. Scared of how long it could be though!

Date for this unknown.

Untitled Sunlit Tides Decadynasty: another year-long abandoned TS3 project with a much stupider reason why. Last update was about Hua getting ready for her wedding, and I wanted to do some poses for a bait-and-switch wedding chapter because to put it mildly, her real one was an absolute disaster.

Blender decided to fuck up its interface again, I got discouraged (this probably does account for some of the Uptown delays too), and when I decided to plow forward, it was for other projects instead.

Meanwhile I played all the way to Gen 5′s teenhood and the only thing stopping me is time (it takes almost 30 minutes to load the file right now, though they’ll be looking at moving towns in a couple gens) and maybe fear of the Logic skill.

Date for this also unknown but it’s easy to pump out updates once I’m in the groove for it. My third heir had a difficult life so maybe I’m just trying to bury it.

Also I just noticed the view count there was really good and probably because I linked it here on Tumblr last year. Thank you so much guys. I can’t really fret over views on Carl’s forum these days thanks to the years-long death spiral pretty much every forum anywhere has been riding on. But it’s a nice surprise. And it’s an alright little challenge recap to read during your lunch break or whatever.

The Wawas

I figured I’d end on the real news everyone wants! Both the chihuahuas are a year and a half now and reached their adult size around a year ago. For the most part, they are happy and healthy dogs.

#state of the uwunion #long post

[margridarnauds]

Your "Grace O'Malley" tag is extremely gratifying--it's so nice to see actual scholarship. So with that in mind: Have you read Morgan Llwelyn's novel, and if so, what do you have to say on it?

Hi! Thank you so much! I’m glad you like it; it can feel a little bit like I’m shouting into the wind, given that Gráinne is one of my more niche focuses. I still kind of want to do something that actually looks at the EVIDENCE, but I digress.

Morgan Llewelyn….I have mixed feelings about. I last really looked into this book when I was toying with doing my undergrad Capstone Thesis on Donal O’Flaherty, about….4 years ago, now. Time really does fly. So, I forced myself into a refresher, just to remind myself what I missed. 

[warning for references to rape, incest, and some of the most Cursed™ lines I’ve ever been forced to read in my life, and that’s including the zombie blowjob scene.]

Final Verdict: 2.5/5 - DEFINITELY not the worst retelling of Gráinne’s life (I’ve seen....Things), but also not the best, either, and with some very, very glaring flaws that make it impossible for me to really enjoy. 

My main take away from it is that…as far as its depiction of Gráinne, it did about as well as its source material. I can tell, looking at it and reading it, that she really looked hard at Anne Chambers’ book. Which is unfortunate because, as I’ve made……………relatively clear over the years, I think that it’s very, deeply flawed. And, unfortunately, Llewlyn stuck rather close to the book, leaving in things like Donal’s “murder" of Walter Fada Burke (if the patronymic don’t fit, you’ve got to acquit), Sexist™ Incompetent™ Donal™, and…..Hugh de Lacy, which, in my personal opinion, owe more to Chambers lack of critical reading of her own sources than they do to the historical record. ESPECIALLY Hugh de Lacy because…the name. Very odd that one of the major Anglo-Norman officials should share a name with Gráinne Ní Mháille’s boytoy. Very odd. Especially given that the pattern of “Love interest of Gráinne’s killed off/Gráinne seeks revenge” is VERY similar to what we hear of the Defense of Hen’s Castle. Almost as if they come from the same story.

This also leads us to the scene where Donal tries to rape Gráinne in her sleep which, honestly, I loathe with every fibre of my being. Nope, nope. Hate it. Hate. It. Oh, God, I forgot about the references to Donal!Incest. Why is this a mini-genre of Gráinne Ní Mháille historical fiction. Why. I can think of at least…..2-3 books that do this. Why God. Why. 

Lest anyone think that this is the Donal fangirl in me jumping out, in general, I feel like Llewelyn’s treatment of most of the characters is ultimately paper-thin. Richard Burke is also given this treatment and, while I wouldn’t REALLY expect a sympathetic Richard Bingham (nor would I particularly want one - I’ve spent a lot of quality time reading his complaints and cackling), even HE’S done a disservice. 

On a technical level, I don’t REALLY like how she handles the timeline, it jumps around a little too much for my taste. We’re treated to constant flashbacks with little warning, including ones that could have been just as easily folded into the timeline proper. And, while Llewelyn has a rich, descriptive style, she also writes an, honestly, impressive number of lines that will haunt me for all the wrong reasons. I’ve detailed a lot of them under the readmore, but some highlights: 

She had gazed in wonder at the child—his perfect ears and fingers, the miniature penis that would eventually become a mighty rod for transmitting further life.” This is, I’m sure, what every mother thinks when she sees her newborn son’s penis for the first time. Why. Why God. Why. Why. Why.

Okay, another candidate for Cursed Lines: "Richard noted the high color in her cheeks, and saw how her nipples stood out strongly under the soft fabric of her gown.” If this were a male author, I would be-Nah, it’s still bad. It’s just bad writing, I’m sorry. In general, I found that she massively sexed up Gráinne’s life, for no real reason that I can tell except for that it felt almost like she felt like it was necessary to prove that Gráinne was a Real Woman™? There’s a very....odd way that her sex life is treated, and it grates on me. We have to deal with Donal, Richard, Huw(uwu), Philip Sydney, and Tigernan, all in the course of one book and, honestly, I don’t really CARE about Gráinne’s sexcapades, and they’re generally written with so little development or feeling, even and especially in the case of her GREAT LOVE HUW, that I found myself actively groaning. My take on Gráinne, at least the Gráinne that I know in the sources, is almost asexual. I don’t deny that she had sex. She obviously did. (FOUR CHILDREN.) And I think that she might very well have enjoyed it. (Not that there’s enough evidence to KNOW.) But I also think that she was a profoundly pragmatic woman who didn’t fixate on it that much. Again, I could be wrong! When we have as little as we have to go on as we do with her, it’s impossible to know! But I just do not see her as jumping into bed with guys that often, especially not in cases where there was no clear benefit. There’s this...trend, where Gráinne HAS to have a love interest, in every major adaptation of her life, because it’s almost like people are afraid to have her without the anchor of sex and romance. (For what it’s worth - I do think, simply because of the amount of time that they spent together + the fact that they did have at least three children with one another, that Donal was probably her favorite of her two spouses. I don’t KNOW this, because I can’t. The evidence isn’t there. I don’t know whether they loved one another, whether it was a great romance, whether the sex was good, or even if it was just a mild affection, but I do lean towards him, even if I can’t say that he was the Great Love of Her Life™. I think they complimented one another’s lifestyles quite nicely, and that’s all that I can really give.) 

Llewelyn also has a very, very obvious bias against Catholicism that ultimately makes me wonder whether she ever meant to engage with 16th century Ireland on its own terms. As an atheist in Celtic Studies....look, I can GET having many, many mixed feelings about Catholicism, but it WAS the religion of the land at the time. If you want to have ANY understanding of the people and what was going through their minds, you have to try to engage with them on their own terms. I’m not in any hurry to convert to Catholicism, but I do try to consider life through the eyes of medieval and early modern Catholics when I’m analyzing sources made in that time. And trying to separate it off from the Good Pagan Times, to the point of creating a 16th century druid woman to voice your opinions on free love/organized religion/etc. is just going to get you into disaster. (Though Evleen did give us one female character who is a friend to Gráinne, so...victory?) Bonus, by the way, for the Evil Priest who schemes against Gráinne and is fucking boys on the side. (It seems like they’re of age, at least?) We’re told that he has reasons for what he does, but it comes as a bit of a last minute attempt at creating the illusion of a three dimensional character. I feel like Llewelyn, ultimately, should have stuck to Pre-Patristic times. I shudder at what she would do with, say, the Mythological Cycle, I don’t particularly want her touching my baby (if she touched Bres in particular, I would probably cry) because, at this point, I don’t trust her with ANY medieval materials (mainly because they’ve all been CONTAMINATED by CATHOLIC HANDS, oh NO), but I feel like it’s where her heart truly is. 

IF she’d stuck with pre-Patristic sources, we wouldn’t have to deal with 16th century characters thinking things like: " He would go in the style of his warrior ancestors, fearless in the face of death; the ancient, pagan Gaels had known death was only a brief incident in the ongoing flow of life, a transitory happening of little importance.” Admittedly, Llewelyn herself SEEMS to realize this, as she has him cross himself afterwards, but I really, really don’t think it would be the sort of thing to cross a man’s mind in the Early Modern Period. There was very little evidence for reincarnation that was that explicit (One of the papers that I did was on the existence of reincarnation in Pre-Christian Ireland, so I actually CAN speak on this one with some degree of confidence - My ultimate findings were that it probably did exist in some form, but the evidence makes it hard at times to draw definite conclusions), and I’m not sold that they would…understand it as reincarnation, as SUCH. We can look at what, say, Julius Caesar wrote about the druids’ beliefs and apply them to medieval Irish texts, but a man living in 16th century Ireland wouldn’t necessarily have the same luxury, especially since relatively few figures are given reincarnation narratives. It’s like…she’s applying the Mythological Cycle, but she momentarily forgets that these characters wouldn’t have VIEWED the Mythological Cycle like we would have, and it’s rather jarring. No one else might pick up on that, because this is my field. This is the ONE THING I can be pedantic on.

Now! There are some things I actually do like! Outside of Chambers’ questionable grasp of historical interpretation and the resulting taint, I can tell that Llewlyn did have a solid grasp of the FEEL of Early Modern Ireland. As I noted above, she’s a very fine author, the kind I honestly ENVY as a historical fiction writer, the type that is so confident and descriptive that, even when she’s wrong, which is often, I find myself reaching for the sources just to make sure. Her descriptions are vivid and visceral, pulling me immediately into the FEEL of Ireland in the 16th century, a way of life on the verge of collapse. 

When she isn’t being descriptive in all the wrong ways as detailed above. I do feel, for whatever it’s worth, that as someone with the background in this material that I have, I was kind of doomed from the get-go. I THINK that for someone who isn’t a Celticist (in training), it would be much, much more enjoyable, BECAUSE she is so confident in her style and her way of evoking the mood that it wouldn’t really stick out. I happen to be both blessed and cursed in that regard. 

 It’s clear, as well, that she has a grasp on the literature of the time - References to the things like the first Gaels coming from Spain make my heart SING with joy because it’s a very clear allusion to Lebor Gabála Érenn and the Mythological Cycle, which is my specialty, and there are plenty of times that I can tell you EXACTLY what sources she had to hand while she was typing on a section. It’s just a pity to me that she seems to try so hard to toss it all away in order to bifurcate Early Modern Irish society into Pagan VS Catholic, since she fundamentally did betray her own sources there. And, unfortunately, the way she tends to show her research is about as subtle as a blunt nail, in a very “As you know” manner: See:  “I have heard the brehons chanting the laws governing fosterage, describing every article of clothing that must be furnished a child and every detail of the training the child is to be given.” Like, yes, the law texts record this, but I can’t really see someone from the 16th century SAYING it that bluntly, you know? Also, I’m not really sold that they would be chanting it out loud as a ritual thing, rather that a lot of the law tracts are in a simple Question/Answer format because it would have, presumably, made it simpler for the Brehons THEMSELVES to remember that way.

I do like that Llewlyn’s Gráinne…she’s attractive, yes, but she’s not conventionally attractive, and she’s explicitly said to be big and tall as a man. I feel like a lot of pop cultural depictions of Gráinne want to make her dainty and beautiful, despite living in an incredibly harsh, stressful environment. I think that her outfit’s a little too much “Modern pirate”-y for my taste, but I’ll allow it because, tbh, it looks really, really badass and, whatever clothing Gráinne would have worn, we probably wouldn’t have really recognized it as “Pirate-like”, since our vision of pirates in the modern day is mainly an early 18th century one. I do appreciate that Gráinne has that hard, pragmatic edge that I respect in the Gráinne that we read about in the State Papers and in Bingham’s recollections - a very matter of fact, no nonsense woman who would do whatever it took to survive. Though I do think that she probably didn’t really spend that much time thinking about Elizabeth. It seems slightly unrealistic to me that, knowing how pragmatic Gráinne was, that she would really, really concern herself that much with Elizabeth, especially when she would have had powerful women like Iníon Dubh closer to home. There are some really nice, poignant moments as well that the hard edge masks, like the moment where she asks after a piece of hair that sent on to her son Owen. When Gráinne is in her natural element, having fun on the open sea, taking vengeance, and getting to be angry and proud and fierce, as well as the moments where she shows a softer side....those are the moments that make it for me. But then we’re back to the sex and romance, to the point where the book is literally divided by which man she’s screwing at the time. 

Also, despite wanting to LOATHE Tigernan, as an OC love interest of Gráinne’s, I did find myself warming to him, as he has a nice, laid-back dynamic with Gráinne built on trust and filled with plenty of banter. Next to her, he is probably the single best developed character in the book, though, unfortunately, he does get it through a ton of space devoted to his thoughts, his pining for Gráinne, and his intense jealousy for the many times she chooses someone else over him (mainly because he never tells her he loves her and then he feels like she owes him for what he does for her - yes, there are some Nice Guy tendencies here, but, honestly, after about the second or third time this happened, I was very pro-Tigernan running away and finding a better gig for himself.) No, besides being Catholic and lower class, we don’t really have that MUCH on him outside of being Gráinne’s first mate, but, honestly....that’s still more characterization than the others get, and, at least as of Chapter 24, he hasn’t done anything TOO atrocious. 

My PETTIEST of bitching/impromptu liveblog beneath the cut: 

A VERY pedantic thing: Llewelyn says, multiple times, that the English would anglicize her name “Grace”. In reality, no one in Early Modern England did that, it came much, much later. In all the Letters of State, she’s referred to as “Grany” or a variation of that name - An English attempt at “Gráinne.” That’s also why you’ll notice that I tend to refer to her as Gráinne here - It was the name she was known by in her own time, it was the name her contemporaries called her, and so it’s the name I call her.

"He wore a full and drooping mustache in the old Gaelic style, though otherwise he was cleanshaven.” Again. MINOR nitpicking. The Gauls were the ones who, traditionally, we associate with the droopy mustaches. In the sagas, beards are given a TON of prominence, to the point of being the marker of being a man. So. Odd choice on Tigernan’s part there. I know that Llewelyn didn’t intend to write him as a 16th century Irish coxcomb, but…well.

"He realized he had made a bad mistake in referring to her peculiar relationship with her husband. He had been in the castle at Bunowen himself; he had seen with his own eyes that Grania’s belongings were taken to one bedchamber, and Donal O Flaherty’s were put in another. Many might speculate in private about the arrangement, but only a fool would have mentioned it to her face.” As I’ve mentioned before, I really, really don’t think this relationship was as loveless as it’s generally portrayed as. I don’t know whether they were PASSIONATELY in love (and unlike a certain biographer, I won’t try to fill in what I don’t know with what I WANT her to have had), maybe they simply got on, but they did have three LIVING children. And I underline “living” because there were likely more. “Likely more” means that they probably did regularly share a bed, at least as much so as their respective schedules allowed.

“Aye, and didn’t she put her children out to fostering before they could stand? A woman’s not usually that anxious to get away from her children that she takes to the sea to avoid them.” Given that fosterage could begin VERY early, I really, really don’t think anyone would have questioned this at all. Gaelic Ireland, simply put, often didn’t have our own conception of the nuclear family, and this was generously provided for in the law codes. Fosterage was useful as a way of maintaining ties between both neighboring families and, most especially, between kings and their vassals, with vassals often fostering kings’ sons. (That way, if the king should die with multiple possible heirs, it means that the kids have people backing them for the kingship.)

"I think that husband of hers had been crying poverty so loud and long he made her deaf to everything else” - Not to be #TeamDonal on main, but the facts as they’re recorded tend to have a strong pro-Donal bias. Take the words of his 17th century relative, Ruari O’Flaherty: "Of all the western O'Flaherties, Donel an chogaidh , although not the chieftain, was the most powerful and opulent.” Most. Powerful. And. Opulent. Yeah, Donal wasn’t crying poverty to anyone. Could he have been lying through his teeth? Maybe. Who knows? But this is ONE thing we have on Donal’s personality, recorded not too long after he died, by a historian who would have had close access to O’Flaherty sources. I believe him. And, I’d even be willing to commit the ultimate heresy and say that Donal’s success was not due entirely to his wife.

She does use the proper terms in a few places! Such as “rechtaire” for “steward”. (Io stem, masculine.)

“You are a noble Irishwoman, you go to no man’s bed unless you want to.” COMPLICATED. Arranged marriages were definitely the norm, and, in the legends, we get to see the unfortunate downsides of what happens when a woman is coerced into a marriage she doesn’t want, generally by an older man, while she is generally pining over a younger one. I wouldn’t say it was something that people LIKED, the fact that this entire genre exists is a pretty good example of people being like “DON’T DO THIS SHIT”, but I can’t say it didn’t happen. Examples of this include Fingal Rónáin, Tóraigheacht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne, Longes mac n-Uislenn, Aided Con Roí, etc. I would not say that it was considered to be an IDEAL, it was something that was definitely warned against, but it could, in theory, happen. It wasn’t necessarily a legal form of marriage, but it was a form of marriage. 

"Shorter than Cuchullain or Brian Boru,” PETTIEST of pettiest bitch complaints, but Cú Chulainn is generally described as short. I know, I know, not what she’s going for. But still. Let me be a petty bitch on this one thing.

“Times have changed,” he said impatiently. “Those are archaic luxuries, and luxury has worn thin here. Perhaps in Umhall there is still leisure for sitting around listening to bards, but it takes every resource I can command just to maintain my territory against those who constantly nibble at my borders.” MOST. OPULENT. AND. POWERFUL. Okay, but one thing that she does get right, and is right to emphasize, is the importance of the bard - chieftain relationship. This was really, really one of the key relationships in a chieftain’s life, to the extent where one of the privileges of the chief ollaimh was the right to sleep with the king in his bed. And yes, it was EXACTLY as homoerotic as it sounds. For a chieftain to not keep a bard - It’s actually a really, really stupid move on Donal’s part, not just for the sake of tradition, but because…who’s going to be there to remember him and keep his memory alive? Who’s going to write praise poems for him (and for Gráinne! The chieftain’s wife was often celebrated in verse.)

"Grania had brought a handsome marriage portion with her, her own property under the Brehon law, for a woman of her rank must be able to stand on equal footing with her husband.” Accurate - Gráinne would have, most likely, been a cétmuinter, or chief wife, under the law, and her union to Donal would have been a union of equal contribution. (Donal also might or might not have owed her a “Thank you for your virginity!” Present on their wedding night.)

 “The priests are right in giving husbands authority over their wives,” he had shouted at her then, while she pleaded to be allowed to keep her babies with her longer. “The old Gaelic way gave women too much freedom altogether, and you are a fine example of the folly of that custom.” Kill me now, kill me now, kill me now, kill me now. This is just….GAR. GAR. Or, as Llewlyn likes to say every five seconds…*Dar Dia*. Suffice it to say, the question of how much freedom post-Christianity Ireland had for women VS Pre-Christian Ireland is an endlessly long topic that has to begin with how we define “freedom” and, specifically, which women get it. (Sucks to be a slave girl no matter what.) But also, while women definitely DID have power (EVEN POST-CHRISTIANITY, THANK YOU VERY MUCH)…that doesn’t mean that it was that COMMON, or that post-Christianity radically changed how (un)common it was. This is just…too blunt, too much of a caricature, and also happens to be insanely, insanely anachronistic. (Also: What would a 16th century chieftain really KNOW of the Old Gaelic Way? He would know about women like Medb, yeah, and he would probably see her as evil and uppity, depending on which stories he’d read - Though as a Connachtman, he would probably be inclined towards being on her side. But that doesn’t mean he would have really thought “Oh, yeah, pre-Christianity, women had SO MUCH power.” Lawlessness and chaos tend to be features of pre-Christian Ireland in the medieval writings, but I wouldn’t really say that liberated women….were? Especially because in those same writings you have women like Emer who, while distinct in their characterization, are still very much proper and chaste women who keep to the house.)

“I warn you, Grania—you will accede to me in this or I will send you back to Clew bay and denounce you throughout Connaught for a lack of womanly graces. Is that what you want, to be sent home rejected with your shortcomings shouted from the hills?”

           “Who would believe such charges?” she had demanded to know, outraged at his unfairness.” 

I’m just going to say it now: She could sue him SO MUCH in a proper Brehon court if she could get some witnesses to say that they heard him talking shit without cause. So. So much. So. Much. Donal would be losing a solid chunk of his goods. Though I will point out that, technically, since Gráinne isn’t sleeping with him, she isn’t doing her proper duties as a wife, laid out by the Brehon laws, and so, yeah, he could probably have a case against her. (For what it’s worth: If he was refusing to sleep with her, she could ALSO divorce him, with him explicitly being at fault and having to pay up. It was equal opportunity, in that sense.)

The Brehon law keeps being called “pagan” and…no. No non noon no. It had its origins in pre-Christian Ireland, likely, and that’s why a ton of legal scholars, with a few noted exceptions, tend to be strongly Nativist, but that doesn’t mean that, by Gráinne’s time, it hadn’t been more or less adapted into Christian marriage in Ireland, albeit sometimes semi-awkwardly. (For example: Polygamy was allowed, but the law very much privileged the rights of chief wives, including their right to toss their husbands out on their ear for taking in a woman over their head.) There’s this odd obsession in the book with Brehon Law =/= Christian Law, and that’s definitely not the case. You wouldn’t have had two marriage ceremonies, one under the church and one under the Brehon Law, because the Brehon Law would apply no matter WHAT. It’d be like forcing a couple to undergo a ceremony after their official wedding where a bunch of lawyers read out of a law book to them. It just wouldn’t happen.

“The Augustinian monks of Umhall, who taught me history in my childhood, explained that when the Romans left England and that land sank into barbarism, it was missionaries from Ireland who took God’s words to the British tribes and taught them to read and write.

          “Perhaps they hate us, Donal, for being a more ancient and educated race. Perhaps they mean to drag us down by treating us as savages until we do not remember ever having been anything else. And along the way they can take our land from us with a clear conscience because we are only savages and deserve no better.”

On one hand, it DOES capture that note of PRIDE that tends to be there, loud and clear, in the texts, especially, say, Auraicept na n-Éces, which claims that Irish is a perfectly formed language, made from all the best bits of the Tower of Babel’s languages. (And….well….”The land of saints and scholars”. Ireland WAS a hotspot of monastic activity.) And, honestly, I support showing off the literary side of Ireland, since it doesn’t get discussed enough. That being said, no monk in his right mind would have said that it Irish missionaries civilized Britain. Why? Because Patrick came from Britain. Or, rather, Britannia, more accurately. He wasn’t an Englishman, not in the modern sense, he would probably be Welsh today, but he was from a monastic, educated family (despite claiming his Latin was poor in his Confessio, it’s actually quite good - Patrick was a MASTER at using humility as a rhetorical device).        

"Grania slept naked. She liked her skin to breathe as she slept, not encumbered with a gown that would twist and bind.” “And then Gráinne froze her ass off because the nights in Ireland, even in the warm heat of summer, are cold and bitter as a Norseman’s frozen tit, if there were, in fact, any Norsemen in Ireland in the 16th century, and frequently require multiple blankets + a solid duvet. Gráinne then died of pneumonia several weeks later, making for a very short book.” Also. Again. If this were a male author. I would have committed a murder at this point.  

Reference to saffron dye - NICE. This was really a staple of the clothing, for both men and women, to the extent that it features a LOT in accounts of Ireland at this time.

“By the paps of Danu!” No one. In 16th century Ireland. Would have shouted out “By the paps of Danu!” “By the Washington Monument!” “By the Lincoln Memorial!” “By the stunning cliffs of Oregon!” Sounds rather silly, doesn’t it? (Though if you WANTED to start shouting “BY THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL!” Well. I’m not here to stop you.)

"She was small for a Gaelic woman, and pale, a tiny wraithlike creature who exuded a contradictory air of resilient strength.” I’m not going to say that Chambers is WRONG, because, of course, Irish women come in a variety of shapes and sizes. You know, like people everywhere. But I WILL say that, during my time here, it’s the only time in my life that I’ve felt at home, because, for the first time in my life, I’m not short. Also, I want it on the record that now, whenever I see her, I’m picturing the little old woman who sits in on research seminars and who has the entire department scared shitless. Tiny, but MIGHTY.

"Her only ornament was a triskele of silver in an ancient pattern, suspended upon her flat bosom by a leather thong.” The Triskele is a Neolithic symbol used through the Iron Age, DEFINITELY not in use, in Ireland, by the Early Modern Period.

"“Evleen Ni Brien-“ That would be “Ní Bhriain” in modern Irish. Normally, I wouldn’t be THIS nitpicky, but hey, if you’re patting yourself on the back for the research you did and then can’t be bothered to put in a fada + the proper possessive form of “Brian”. I also don’t THINK that the “Ní” form had been adopted yet, I’m fairly certain that’s modern, so it would, more properly, be Evleen iníon Bhriain. Though, since it emphasizes that she’s from the Dál Cais and the O’Briens are predominately associated with them, I’m going to GUESS the proper form would involve her father’s name. It would be “Evleen iníon *possessive form of father’s first name* Uí Briain”.

"He had only heard whispers of such people, but enough tales still abounded concerning them to make them readily identifiable—even if this one did claim the noble name O Brien.” You know, in Reign, when you have a bunch of druids dancing in the forest and everyone was like “That’s fucking ridiculous!” Yeah. Yeah. That’s exactly how I feel right now. Druids DID last for some time in Ireland after Christianity, but not INTO THE 16TH CENTURY.

"“Of course not. But neither can I forget that it was the strictures of that faith which kept me bound in marriage to a man I learned to despise.” Divorce was still a thing. There was no problem, in theory, with getting married at a fully Catholic altar and then dumping them for getting jiggy with the serving girls a few years down the line. Llewelyn’s misunderstanding of the relationship that the Church and the Brehon laws BOTH played in the lives of people (SHOCKINGLY ENOUGH, the Catholic Church was NOT seen as pure evil by every day people at the time, who had to flee into the arms of the Brehons for comfort from Mother Church. Note that I’m saying this as a confirmed and strong atheist.)

Can I just say that the scene where Gráinne’s feeling up Hugh (the OC) in his sleep would be MUCH creepier if the genders were reversed?

"But he was not the man he had always been. He was some different person here.” Wow, the sex must be REALLY good!

"set in violet shadows that spoke of wonderfully sleepless nights.” Why is it that when I stay up doing an all-nighter, I end up looking like a raccoon going through its emo phase, but when Gráinne tumbles some random dude for a little while, she gets “violet shadows?” It’s not right, I tell you.

"“Was your marriage so bad, Grania, that you have turned your back on your own womanhood forever?” GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Well. Now I know where The Pirate Queen gets its “Your ultimate worth as a woman and happiness in life is decided by whether or not you have a dick in you” philosophy. I wish I hadn’t known. But now I do.

“That’s the way it is with men,” he said. “They touch us. For the feel of strong arms around her and a solid chest to lean her head upon, a woman will put up with a lot of misery. It’s the curse of our skin to be hungry for the feel of a man’s skin.” GAAAAAAAAH. GAH.

"God the benevolent patriarch promises us rewards in the next world if we’re willing to sacrifice in this one. But maybe I don’t believe in patriarchs anymore.” Totally a thing that the real Gráinne Ní Mháille would have thought. Because women, in general, in the 16th century had the terminology to make these critiques in this exact way.

" If one satisfaction was snatched from her she would find another; if she lost love she would embrace hate, and glory in it.” Oh, god, not THIS motivation for a female character, please. Gráinne Ní Mháille was a hell raiser from birth, there’s no reason to think that, because she lost her boytoy, that really radically altered her life path.

“I wonder if Tigernan thinks you and I are damned,” she asked her husband. “We were wed in no chapel.” Given that there were nine degrees of marriage under the law, of varying types of legality, I doubt it.

Yay, exactly what this book needed: More sex!

I’ll be real: Richard Bingham playing Weddingcrashers at Margaret’s wedding only to nearly get his ass handed to him by two members of Gráinne’s family is truly an #Iconic moment. 10/10, if the rest of the book was like this I could die a happy woman.

"It was not an Irish face, but the eyes were unforgettable.” ….what is an “Irish face?” Especially post-Norman invasion? What does an Irish face look like?

“There are rumors he gained his inheritance by murder, and it is said outright that he and his mother between them drove his first wife into her grave.” Yay, the return of the Oedipus complex! My favorite thing in this book!

"Grania herself slept alone in a tiny walled guest chamber above, but she was aware of Richard sleeping in the same house. A strong man, sleeping naked in a bed … .

How people change, she thought to herself with amusement. This is definitely not the same Grania whom Donal an Chogaidh knew.” 

Yay, MORE sex! MY FAVORITE THING. IN THE WORLD. BECAUSE YOU KNOW WHAT MY FIRST THOUGHT WAS WHEN I READ THE LIFE OF GRÁINNE NÍ MHÁILLE?"**MORE SEX**.”

" If Richard took her at all, he must take her under the old Gaelic concept of “marriage for one year certain” to see if they suited one another.” Ah, yes, the old Gaelic concept of marriage that mysteriously shows up in no legal texts, legends, or genealogical tracts. A very authentic Gaelic tradition, very old, much wow. (For what it’s worth….the Telltown marriages are as close as this comes, but the thing that makes them stand out is that everyone KNEW they were the oddballs.)

"According to pagan custom—which still lived in uneasy truce with Christianity in many parts of Ireland—there were ten degrees of marriage, all the way from a union between propertied partners of equal rank to union by abduction or the mating of the mad. From any of the ten a child could result, and the brehons therefore had allowed for every child’s rights to be recognized by the social order. No human containing an immortal spirit could be illegitimate.” The astonishing thing is that it’s very, very obvious that she read Cáin Lanamna for this…and then proceeded to not apply it to any other time except for when it was necessary.

"How can I be Grania if there is no Tigernan at my shoulder?” Yes, because we all know that the thing that really defined Gráinne Ní Mháille was, in fact, the men in her life.

"Evleen smiled. “At least it isn’t fettered with Christian chains,” she said. “You were wise.”” Oh, God help me. There’s no way to have a marriage in Early Modern Ireland not “fettered with Christian chains” because Christianity IS the religion of the people.

Remember when Gráinne was described as “More than master’s mate” to Richard Burke, implying a union that was mutually respectful? Yeah, me neither. I’m so glad he’s a one dimensional sexist with mommy issues. That’s such a new, innovative take on their relationship. I LOVE to see it. (Note: I’m saying this as someone who HATED Chambers’ blatant shipping in her biography, but hey. I can’t deny what the first hand evidence says. Unlike Chambers.)

" I’ll get the O Lee—he’s our ship’s physician, and at least he can-“ Unless the chieftain of the O’Lee family moonlights as a ship’s doctor, you wouldn’t call him The O’Lee. Just say “I’ll get Aidan O’Lee.” Or, even, “I’ll get the ship’s leech!”

“TAKE THIS FROM UNCONSECRATED HANDS.” I won’t say that all’s forgiven because, I’ll be honest, I really, really hate this novel at this point, but you know what? This forgives at least some of this novel’s sins. One of my favorite tales about her being brought to life on page by a very talented author does make for a high point, between this and Gráinne avenging the boytoy.

Okay, I’ll be real: The O’Donnell and Gráinne boasting about their respective kids is really, really cute, and I accept it because my very first exposure to Early Modern Ireland was “The Fighting Prince of Donegal.”

The O’Donnell talking shit about English poetry is…..very accurate to the time and the mood. My personal favorite genre of Early Modern Irish poetry is probably “The English aren’t shit.”

"Black Hugh nodded. Grania stood up, and Philip Sidney rose with her, as smoothly as if they were joined at the hip. Tigernan uttered a strangled curse. The sasanach was taking hold of Grania’s arm as if she were an old woman and he were a blackthorn stick for her to lean upon! Was that some English custom, insulting the strength of women? Or did he mean to grab her and make off with her?” Honestly, for once, Tigernan is a #Mood.

"But when Philip’s hands moved over her body, Grania discovered that all human landscapes have a certain similarity. She knew his touch as male, and hungry, and when she returned it in kind she felt a familiar rising response that flattered her and made her eager for more. Within the bed they did not seem to be foreigner and Gael. They were just man and woman, enjoying each other.” I ENDURED THE SEX SCENE WITH PHILIP FUCKING SYDNEY. SO THAT NO ONE ELSE HAS TO.

And, just like with Richard, no one can match up to Wonderful Boytoy Huw.

"She prances along the seaways as if she had a man’s balls, John, and by the bright blue eyes of God, it should be my hand that grabs those balls of hers and crushes them.”” Oh, GOD, I THOUGHT THAT THE PIRATE QUEEN’S MOST INFAMOUS LINE WAS JUST BAD LYRIC WRITING. I DIDN’T KNOW THEY TOOK IT *FROM THE NOVEL*. WHY, MORGAN LLEWELYN. WHY.

Look, I’ve made it to Chapter 24. There are 32 in total. I COULD read the rest of the way, since I want to see how poorly the treatment of Elizabeth is going to be (I’d be very shocked if there isn’t some variation of Not Like Other Girls involved), but also: I do not care at this point. I might pick it up again, but also: A bitch is tired. And illiterate. Perhaps, if I’m ever feeling brave, I’ll take on the last eight chapters, but for now: I’m calling it. 

#long post #grace o'malley #gráinne ní mháille #chaos-yet-harmony

[hardforbenhardy]

somebody to love | rogerxreader

summary: roger fucking taylor. the boy in your biology class. the boy you’ve had a crush on for years. the boy who doesn’t know you exist. has recognised your existence. 

warnings: swearing, drinking, references to sex and stripping

word count: 4.0k

the first chapter of my upcoming fanfic! i’ve been working on this for a while, and it’s still not finished so i’m not sure how often i’ll update, but i’m planning on having a taglist for it so if people do like it, they can be alerted of when it comes out (if you want to be added, just pm me or send in a request!) i’m immensely proud of it and i think it’s some of my best writing - a lot of research went into it so i’m happy with the outcome so far and i hope you will be too. enjoy!! :)

There truly was no worse day than a Saturday.

I know, I know - but Saturday's are the best! There's no school, no work, you can sit around and chill all day, or go out clubbing with all your friends; maybe even pull a dude or two...

That may be the case for every single other person in the world, disincluding you. You see, your life is a little different to the usual person. Most people do spend their weekends sitting around, or going out with their friends, pulling girls and guys every night. You, on the other hand, spend it studying and working. You can safely say that taking a BSc in Biology at North East London Polytechnic was maybe the biggest mistake of your life yet. Don't get yourself wrong, you am good at it. In fact, you’re top of my class - you just struggle to balance all the studying with your job and family life.

Hence why you are sat at your dinner table, surrounded by a sea of glossy biology textbooks which contain much more information than your brain is willing to retain at this point. The words had began twisting in your eyes, no longer forming sentences but rather just squiggles on a page. Your pretty sure you have read the same page 3 times in the past hour, all information going through one ear and straight out the other. What the fuck was a bacteriophage? Or what about it being icosahedral or filamentous? And what was the difference between the lytic stage and the lysogenic stage? At this point, those weren't even words. Okay, so maybe you have been sitting here since 11 this morning, it now being 7 in the evening, but this was your standard Saturday. Having work every weekday in the evenings - 7:30pm until 3:00am - with your classes then starting as early as 9:00 on certain days, you didn't exactly have enough time to study on weekdays. Sleep was practically nonexistent for you by now, you were lucky to even get in 4 hours a night. Unfortunately for you, work also existed on Saturdays. You are probably thinking why don't you study on Sundays? Well, because Sundays were family days - you’d have to travel 3 hours to see your Ma and Pa, who would tell you how proud they were of you, doing a BSc in a subject that would get you far, and having a solid job that brought income for the whole family. Granted, they had absolutely no idea what your job actually was - and it isn't something they will ever know - but you don't really have a choice. You need to pay for your accommodation somehow, and contribute to the families bills after your father got fired from his job and went into severe debt. Therefore, it was a job you resorted to. In fact, you have work in 30 minutes, and here you are - trying to cram in a chapter's worth of course content for a test you had on Monday, surviving on nothing but coffee and energy bars.

You felt your arms begin to weaken under the weight of your head as you placed it into your palms, your eyes beginning to flutter shut as you gradually dozed off, the lack of sleep taking it's revenge. It wasn't until the loud, boisterous voice of your roommate interrupted the silence.

"Y/N, darling, have you seen my- Oh, love, what on earth is this disaster?" He cringed, sitting opposite you on the table, as you frantically sifted through the mound of worksheets for one in particular. "Look, darling, you need to sort this out. You look like you've been dragged through the bushes and back - you have work in 26 minutes and you are not even dressed!"

"Wow, thanks Freddie. Look, I don't really have a choice - if I don't have this topic nailed, I may just fail my exam, and then what? My life rides on this Fred, and I'm completely and utterly fucked if I fail." you wearily ranted, a yawn escaping your lips, which certainly didn't go unnoticed by Fred, as he placed a fresh mug of coffee in front of you - unbeknownst it was your fourth one tonight.

"Y/N, don't be so dramatic - there is only room in this flat for one hysterical queen, and I'm afraid I took that role many years ago. There is absolutely no way that you, Y/N M/N L/N, could ever fail a biology exam - you are the top of your class, and as much as you deny it, you know this content like the back of your hand. Look, I'll prove it - what is a bacteriophage, and what are the three possible shapes?"

"It's a virus which can infect and kill bacteria - the capsid of a bacteriophage can be icosahedral, filamentous, or head-tail in shape." The words simply rolled off your tongue, as you kept my focus on the textbook in front of you.

"Told you so, bet you were questioning in your head just 5 minutes ago what the fuck a bacteriophage is, and all that other shit you just said. I know you like the back of my hand, darling - you underestimate yourself far too much. Now put the fucking books away and get ready for work!" He nagged, taking a long sip of the glass of champagne he had acquired out of nowhere - typical Freddie. You didn't even respond, just simply rolled your eyes before rising to your feet to head upstairs. Freddie knew how much you hated your job, it was not exactly one praised by society. You’re what people would call an exotic dancer - or more commonly known as a stripper. It wasn't an occupation you asked for, it was rather one that was simply opened at a rather opportune moment for you. You can safely say yoinwill be taking the chance to quit as soon as you get your degree and can move on, but you’re stuck with it for the time being. You hate it on multiple levels - the feeling of having multiple older men's gaze set on your body, as if you were some kind of object, their minds wandering to all the things they could do to you if given the chance - it wasn't exactly a nice feeling. It is truly disgusting the amount of times you have been called a whore, slut, slag, floozie, tart, or prostitute - the list is ultimately endless at this point. What is even funnier is that it tends to be these same people who then turn up to your showings later on in the evening, indulging in your performance like every other male in the club. To make it worse, people often tell you you’re lucky to have guy's attention all the time - as if you should be proud of the fact that you have a body and face admirable by men. You always thought that was complete and utter bullshit - why the fuck should a guys validation make youbody and face suddenly attractive? Thankfully, most of the men who came to the club tended to be a little older than yourself - meaning there was never any guys from the university, or even better your class, who would come by. The only person who actually knows your truth is Freddie - who even though he did disapprove of it, would always try to cheer you up and make you feel more confident about it. You see, Freddie is extremely overprotective of you, he treats you like his little sister - he always wants you out of harm's way, always makes sure you were eating and getting at least 5 hours of sleep each night, always lends you money in your most desperate times of need, and opened his home to you the night you met him. It's funny actually - you remember that night so extremely vividly. He had come along to one of your performances, and ended up bumping into you backstage - you engaged in a conversation which lasted nearly the whole night, and before you knew it, it was 2am. He asked to walk you home, to which you simply had to reply with the fact you didn't have one and you were just planning on crashing on the couch in your dressing room. Of course, Freddie being Freddie invited you back to stay with him - any other person would be immediately cautious of the request, but at this point you had nothing to lose. And here you are, a month later and you were now living with him. He was basically the best roommate you could ask for.

The club is like a second home, or house - you wouldn't consider it very homely. Although the case was rare, if there was ever a point you couldn't stay at Freddie's, they allow you to sleep on the couch in the dressing room. Thankfully, your colleagues and the manager are all extremely nice people, it is more the visitors who get on your nerves and made you sick to the stomach. Basically a majority of the other girls you work with are in the same position than you; they are either college students just trying to pay off debt, or teenage mothers whose boyfriends left them after finding out they were pregnant who were trying to finance their child - everyone had their own individual story but in a way, you were all similar. Like you said, it is a second home to you, so when you stepped inside for the 6th time this week, it felt no different. The strong smell of booze and drugs no longer hit you like a brick, but rather became a second nature to your brain. The booming music, blaring at top volume from speakers which were scattered in nearly every crevice of the room, had become the norm for your eardrums - which realistically is bad for your health, but you didn’t think that's the thing that'll kill you at this point. The masses of men crowded around tables no longer made your stomach churn, now it just became the same old same old. You weren’t actually on stage until 8:00 tonight, so you don't know why they had you in half an hour early - you had already finished your makeup and got dressed. You leant against the bar, downing the first of what would be many complimentary drinks you would receive over the night - as much as you hated the job, it did have it's benefits. Free booze was probably the best thing to come out of it, when men would buy you drinks in hopes of getting you in their bed - all of them being nearly twice your age, they were never successful, but it was fun to watch 'em try. They would often strike up a conversation with you, the topic of which was always him, meaning you’d stand there responding with simple nods and the occasional burst of laughter - your mind in a completely different world of its own, usually a world of worry and anxiety of failing your exams.

"So, where is it you work? I could definitely see you working in an office or as a lawyer, I can imagine you would look very professional in a pantsuit, or even on the front cover of Vogue, you certainly have the body" The man, who had now situated himself beside you, practically purred. Was he seriously asking where you worked? What an imbecile. The whole ordeal is making you sick to your stomach, earning an eye roll in an instant - though you thought you’d play along to see where exactly he was going to go with this.

"Well, you wouldn't be interested in my life..." you laughed lightly, slowly and seductively inching closer to him. "But... I'm interested in yours. Tell me, where is it you're from, I love your accent."

"Oh, well I'm sure that isn't true, but I was actually born and bred in Italy - I moved here a few years ago, but thankfully I never lost the accent; it's a great tool for getting the girls in bed - especially the incredibly tempting ones such as yourself." He purred down your ear, you felt his breath on your neck and yourblood suddenly ran cold, as he placed his hand against the curve of your spine. Tempting?

You laughed under your breath in utter disbelief, your blood began to boil - how can someone be so small minded and narcissistic, yet spend their weeks in a strip club. "So you think I'm tempting?"

"Obviously, I mean you're super sexy and you really turn me on." He winked, and you stared at him incredulously.

"Well, you wanna know what I find incredibly tempting about you?" - he didn't speak, just simply nodded as he took a large gulp, as if he was intimidated by you. You moved closer, so that your hand was now placed against his inner thigh, and raised to your tiptoes - "There's just a deep pit burning in me, it's almost irresistible - just the thought of it is alone is so extremely enticing. I just have this immense desire to..." you whisper seductively in his ear, right as you ram your knee between his legs, making him cry out in a yell of pain and fall to his knees. " Do that." you grinned, before grasping the drink from the counter and gradually pouring it onto his head, the alcohol seeping through the thin material of his shirt, surely leaving him in a satisfying discomfort for the rest of the night, as if the hit to the balls wasn't enough. "And that"

"What the fuck? You fucking bitch!" He screamed, his voice going higher than you ever thought a man's voice could go, probably a side effect of his now undoubtedly swollen and painful misters.

You didn't respond, simply sashaying away as you raised my middle finger in his direction. You must say, after months of working in this club, you have practically become immune to the disease you like to call men. They just don't turn you on anymore. Don't get yourself wrong, not all men are like that - for example, Freddie is undoubtedly one of the sweetest human beings to walk this earth - but it seems like the men you’re surrounded by are basically parasites. Probably just a side effect of working in the hornets' nest, all kinds of trouble was stirred up in this building, it pretty much became the second (less sexual) form of entertainment for the customers. And you guess it's just your luck, because now it's your calltime. Your favourite time of the night - not. You entered the door, sighing a little. Come on, Y/N, you got this girl, just a little while longer and you can be back in the comfort of your bed. You always have to give yourself a little pep talk as you walk towards the door of what was, in a way, the gateway into Hell. That's if hell was a strip bar full of cheap and sleazy, lest we forget to mention mostly married men. All staring at you like food on a silver platter. It is quite frankly, disgusting. The walkway this week had silky, white curtains that the dancers usually appear through; as if to give the 'illusion' of us being 'angels appearing through the veil of the heavens'. You called bullshit on that one, that's also partly the reason your outfit was made up of a satin white robe, covering your lacy white lingerie. They also recently decided that the dancers should dust themselves with gold glitter before going onstage - thinking it might make you seem a little more angelic. Of course it doesn't, but you couldn’t lie - you looked incredible; the insubstantial underwear hugs your body in all the right places, yet still leaving little to the imagination; and the shimmer of gold across your chest only accentuating it more as the bright lights radiates your skin; your long locks flowing down your back, swinging with every step you took as you saunter onto the stage. Sudden cheers and whistles erupted from the crowd, the oh so familiar sound permeating the room with energy and excitement. The noise only increased as you little by little slid the satin piece down your shoulders to reveal the straps of the two-piece underneath, letting it slide down your body completely and pool around your feet on the floor. Usually, you would feel comfortable on stage, the fact you were borderlining nudity wouldn't phase youbone bit; but something felt different tonight. You have the same audience, the same form of outfit, same routine - but something feels strange, out of place, and you can't quite decipher it. You brush it off, knowing it's probably just nerves, and continue with your set - swaying around the stage, showing off your assets from every angle; and that's where you saw him.

Hidden in the corner of the room, he sat in a dimly lit spot making him barely visible thanks to the broken light which had been smashed a few days ago in a drunken bar fight. Perching forward in a lounge chair, he continually lifted the lit cigarette that was resting between his middle and index fingers towards his rosy lips, taking long drags every few seconds. As his golden, scraggly-but-still-well-groomed locks were clinging to the sides of his face, you notice his steel blue gaze dancing over your body as he scans you up and down.

Roger Fucking Taylor.

The same Roger that was in your biology class. The same Roger that was constantly trying to one up you and be the top of the class (unsuccessful in his attempts of course). The same Roger that you had had a crush on since you the course. The same Roger that didn't even know you existed. He had never been partnered with you, never spoken to you, never even looked in your direction. When you first entered the course, you had heard all about Rogers, how do I put this nicely, reputation with the ladies - making youbinstantly cringe at the utter disrespect of some of the things he had apparently done with them. But after a few weeks, you couldn't help but be drawn to him - he has an undeniable charm that he probably doesn't even know he's using half of the time, he is incredibly intelligent, and it is indisputable that he is the human form of the Greek God, Adonis, himself. You hate yourself for feeling this way, you always attempt to push it down as you know it'll do you no good in the long run. Like I said, Roger is known for his wild adventures with the women; and you weren’t one to participate in the activities of said adventures. Having a job as a stripper, people expect me to be extremely confident and out there, a lively socialite who is the life of the party, always being the centre of attention. I am, in fact, the complete opposite. When I'm not at work, I'm exceedingly reserved and introverted - I have one friend, Freddie; I only ever contribute to class when asked a question, other than that I sat at the back taking my own notes; I spend any spare time I have at home watching tv or reading a book. Therefore, I know I have a 0.00001% chance of Roger even acknowledging my existence - which I am fine with. I accepted my defeat months ago. And now, he's sat here watching me dance around, practically naked.

After finishing my set, I pace off stage- praying to Jesus that Roger didn't recognise it was me. He barely even notices me in lessons - surely he doesn't know me. What if he does though? What if he goes around school telling all his friends that I'm a fucking stripper? I'd be well and truly fucked - and not in the good way. I have never left the club faster than I did tonight, throwing on my clothes and fleeing through the backstage exit. My head is pacing, as clouds of worry and thought occupy the space - how am I ever going to face Roger again? What if he tells people? What if he is disgusted by me? I can feel my hand shaking as I try to unlock the apartment door, in which I throw open and slam behind me.

"Home so early, darling?" I could hear Freddie's voice from the living room shouting through, before the loud pop of the champagne bottle in his hand - presumably his second tonight. I threw my bag to the side before storming into the room and slumping down next to Freddie on the couch, releasing a large sigh.

"Yeah, work wasn't great" I groaned, noticing Freddie gesturing for me to take the bottle in his hand, to which I took a big swig in response; making Freddie chuckle.

"When is your work ever great? What's wrong, love?" He raised from the couch to grab himself a glass, knowing I'm not giving up this wine bottle as easily as he hoped.

"As you know, a majority of the men we get at the club are at least twice my age. Well, you remember Roger Taylor right?" I mumbled, focusing my attention to Freddie's glass which he held out in front of me, pouring the liquid in slowly as to not spill it all over the both of us.

"From your class? The one you have an undeniable love for? Yeah, I know him. What did he do?"

"Well, he turned up. He was sat in the back of the room. What am I to do Fred? What if he tells people that my job is basically prostitution? My life will be ruined. Not only that, but now my crush has seen me borderline naked, and prancing around the stage like some kind of... well, stripper" I cringed at the thought, it sounded a little stupid. Surely, I'd want my crush to see how good looking I can be? Not one bit.

"Oh god, what on earth was he doing there? Sounds like you have a bit of blackmailing yourself - Roger Taylor in a strip club-"

"Is exactly where I'd expect to find him if I'm being honest Fred - you know what he's like. I'd be surprised if it wasn't a place he visited everyday" I chimed in, I'm not lying. He is exactly the type of cocky, arrogant little shit who would find bliss in a strip club.

"Look, everything will be fine - you have two options, darling. You can either avoid him for the rest of your life, hoping he doesn't share the secret and ultimately ruin your life forever. Or you can fucking own it, and strut into school tomorrow like you are the shit and give Roger a piece of your mind - it's up to you, but I'm rooting for the second" Fred explained, trying reason with the one person he would never be able to reason with. I am quite stubborn when I want to be, and now is one of those occasions. "Now get to sleep, if you are home this early you should take advantage of it. Oh, do you have the money for rent?"

"Shit. Fuck. Fred I'm so sorry - I left in such a rush that I forgot to pick it up. I'll pay you Monday? I'm so sorry" I frettered, eyes widening at the realisation I not only couldn't pay Freddie, but I also can't pay my parents when I go down tomorrow.

"Darling, it's fine - I'll give you this week free of charge. You deserve it with all your hard work!"

Mouthing a small 'thank you', I smiled and nodded before slumping upstairs to my bedroom. As I reached my bed, I noticed all my biology books, which were previously scattered across the living room table, all stacked in the order of importance for the exam on Monday. I grinned to myself at Freddie's attempt of helping me study, although I know he only did it because he hates when I leave my books around the apartment. I can barely sleep, my eyes are refusing to close and my mind wanders back to Roger with every attempt of rest. I can't help but agonise over the situation; knowing something was going to go wrong and my life was going to be ruined.

[comicbookuniversity]

Ten Thoughts on Avengers: Infinity War

I’m writing this the day after my second viewing, but by the time you’re seeing this, I’m hoping the majority of you have seen this.

So if you haven’t seen it yet, SPOILERS.

1. This was easily one of Marvel’s better films. The scale of it all could have easily collapsed this into a mess, but McFeely, Markus, and the Russo Brothers kept this film moving along at an exciting and steady pace that built into an intense climax- insert sex pun. I loved this film and loved it more the second time around. I don’t think it was as good as Black Panther or Civil War, but neither of those films operate in the same way as this one. This film was a rollercoaster experience, and a fantastic one. I think this film has to be judged in a different manner, because even Black Panther and Civil War still operate by relatively conventional film standars. Infinity War is a different beast; one must be fluent in the language and conventions of the MCU to really understand it. There has never been another film quite like this; the closest examples don’t operate on the same scale. Never has it been more true to think of the MCU as the world’s biggest and most expensive TV show than it is when you’re watching Infinity War. I will need more time to think upon where it lands on my list of Best Marvel films.

2. Between this film and Ragnarok, Marvel has made an excellent case for Thor traveling around the stars in a similar to the Guardians of the Galaxy. I would love to see Thor and Valkyrie gather up a crew and bring the fight to whatever cosmic asshole is trying to threaten the innocents of the universe. They should be called the Thor Corps. I am surprised at how Thor had somehow become the protagonist after Thanos, if you don’t want to consider the bad guy the protagonist, even though he functionally is whether you like it or not. Until Ragnarok, Thor had been more muscle than heart, and when you consider how much more focus and success has been built out of the characters of and the relationship between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, its surprising to think that Thor would be given so much screentime. It makes sense that he is the Avenger with the best chance of actually beating Thanos in single combat, but you don’t build stories around military tactics- you build them around emotional journeys. Thor has lost nearly everything, whereas Steve and Tony still have more to lose. When that is considered, it makes sense to focus on the building rage of a god while you build towards the ultimate loss of the great leaders of men. And Thor with his new hammer was freaking great.

3. I’ve seen a few critics argue that there were few characters arcs and that humor was used as a substitue. Plenty of great comedies have used humor as character work, and I think Infinity War also substantively used humor to efficently establish and advance character development in between the dramatic moments of the film from wherever the last time we saw them. This film had so many moving pieces to balance and it did so artfully.

4. Dr. Strange might have jumped significantly higher up my list of favorites thanks to Cumberbatch’s effective performance and the incredible fight sequences the movie utilized him in. Holy crap, you guys, Dr. Strange was fucking awesome in this film. Speaking of the weilder of the Time Stone, I decided to rewatch the Dr. Strange film the next night, and something occurred to me. I’m still debating whether this is just a common factor or a deciding influence, but I looked up the run times to all the Marvel films and had my hypothesis mostly confirmed. Generally speaking, the longer over 2 hours (including credits) the film goes, the better it has been recieved both financially and critically. This makes sense, because Marvel has even more time to develop all the relationships between characters; and the greater we are invested in these relationships, the greater the payoff. I think the Dr. Strange film would have been better if it had an extra 10-15 minutes to develop all the relationships at Kamar-Taj and a little extra for Rachel McAdams. I say only a little for McAdams, because I don’t think the film really needed that much more time in that arc since it was about him leaving her and the world she represents. My larger point is that Marvel should embrace two hours as the new minimum for their films.

5. Thanos is definitely one of Marvel’s better villains and that’s largely thanks to the brillaint performance of Josh Brolin, who commits to seeing and bringing the vulnerbility under all of Thanos’ power and evil plan. He’s still not Marvel’s greatest villain as that honor belongs to Killmonger, who will likely hold the honor until the next Black Panther film. Despite Thanos’ plan, Brolin, the writers, and directors of the film really give him certain amount of sympathy in seeing his commitment to his cause and the fear that ultimately drives him to act as he does. And it is fear that ultimately drives Thanos to act, because he sees the injustice in Life’s capacity for growth at the expense of the living. Thanos is someone who cannot and will not accept that Life is unjust and rages against this existintial condition with all his strength, and by the end of the film, the strength of the universe itself. But despite the great work of Brolin, what really helps Thanos is the sheer amount of screentime that the studio was willing to give him. With so many characters, many of of whom anchor their own franchises, it makes sense center the film on the least well-known character and force others to react to them, because it’s not about them in this moment. It’s all about their lives being interupted and forced to react to this almost natural disaster like situation, where winning doesn’t feel like an option and losing less feels like the only prudent mindset to have. Against the threat of Thanos, the superheroes are reminded of their own vulnerablity and mortality, and they feel more human than ever in this dark moment.

6. As introduced by Jonathan Hickman, my favorite members of the Black Order were Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight; look they all had wonderful names, Black Dwarf, Supergiant, Ebony Maw, and then they had the other name for their group- The Cull Obsidian. Damn those are wonderful freaking names, so I’m a little disappointed that the members of the Black Order didn’t even get named, outside of Thanos’ passing reference to Ebony Maw simply as “The Maw.” Also, this Ebony Maw has a different power set than his comic counterpart, but damn was he great; easily the creepiest and best member of the Black Order. Black Dwarf did have a weapon that kept changing into different modes that I thought was awesome. I wasn’t ever expecting them to be big and I was never certain if they would last beyond this film, but would it have added that much time for the Black Order to have gotten called by their names?

7. I thought Vision would have recieved a more significant arc in this than he did; Peter Quill did and all he did was lose his girlfriend, whereas Vision litterally has an Infinity Stone in his head and is willing to sacrafice his life to destory it. Vision spent most of his time being stabbed instead of being a hero. He would have made a good point of contrast to Doctor Strange; they’re each the weilders of Infinity Stones, but have radically different ideas of how deal with the stones when presented with the threat of Thanos. I guess it makes a certain amount of sense, due to the fact that he he is a Thor class fighter and that he hasn’t had much of a chance to develop as a character. To me, Vision is a low-key Superman figure of the MCU (or more accurately Martian Manhunter in direct compairson, but he’s just a more stoic version of Superman), and he suffers from the projections of Superman as tedious and boring figure being placed upon him. I think Vision suffers from the same problem that Star Trek does when compared to Star Wars; instead of treating the intellectual and philosophical pursuits with respect and excitement, the filmmakers assume that the audience is going to find it boring and treat it as boring instead of finding away to actually make it exciting. I think the best examples of the superhero genre are essentailly philosophical and ethical works that present the issues in a dynamic, colorful, and charming story, but because of what can be best called an attitude of anti-intellectualism based from ignorance, rather than something worse, the philosophy is often overlooked in favor of the simpler steps that would tie the character arcs and themes to larger philosophical concerns. I know it is not the most well liked of the MCU, but Vision’s scenes in Age of Ultron are some of the most earnestly poignant on the fragile beauty and duty of and to life itself. And these scenes also speak pretty directly to the core of Avengers philosophy, which has now been summed into a single line thanks to this film: “We don’t trade lives.” I just think Marvel missed an oppurtunity to really sell Vision as being more than a secondary figure and someone who is a product of the moral core of the MCU.

8. Considering how thoroughly representative of nearly every tone and narrative aspect of the MCU this film is, it only serves to highlight how underrepresented women and people of color are in the MCU. None of the Avengers or other characters who would typically hold franchises of their own are given nearly the same amount of screentime or material to work with in this film, because of it’s epic scope and the relatively simple nature of the conflict; but that being said, the women of the MCU are still given very little to do overall. They are supporting players while the men are off leading the charge or creating strategy that determines the fates of hundreds of trillions. The first person to die on screen is a black man, and there’s only one black man who is in a real position of power. Marvel still has trouble of thinking beyond America’s history of slavery and a segregated citizenery with African-Americans to see America’s other troubled relationships with national, ethnic, and religous groups and also give them some kind of positive representation. The only woman or person of color given a significant role similar to the signifcane of say Iron Man or Dr. Strange fighting Thanos on Titan is Scarlet Witch. This is a film where Scarlet Witch really gets to unleash her full power, and it’s seen in a tragic moment of where she is forced to kill her lover for the sake of the universe while holding back a nearly omnipotent being who defeated the Sorcerer Supreme just moments ago. Before I go on with this analysis, HOLY CRAP that’s kinda crazy to think how powerful she must really be, so I 1000% agree with Okoye when she asked why Scarlet Witch was not on the field of battle the whole time in Wakanda. Like, damn, she must be so powerful, so can we please get a film where Elizabeth Olsen is given more to do than play rookie and wear a sexy corest? And while there admittedly is a certain value to seeing her power arise from her love to Vision in this tragic moment, the fact that we have seen so very little of Wanda compared to her many male peers and her moment of great power is defined in part by her romantic relationship is not the most progressive choice. Had we had more time with Wanda in previous films, I don’t think I would find this choice as anything other than a sad moment in a star-crossed relationship, but because she has had so little time by comparison (and even without comparison) to her male counterparts this moment loses a little bit of the power it could have had as a symbol of female power equaling male power.

9. I’ve seen a few people complain about how the drama and value of the deaths of half the universe is undercut by the knowledge that these characters will be back in their own films within the next year or two. But I call bullshit on this complaint because it is based in cynicism and ignorance. There are three parts to this complaint: the first two problems are tied together in that the characters don’t know they’re going to come back, so if the film had botched its execution of setting up the emotional beats in this film to continue and progress our attachment to the characters, then it would have all fallen apart. But the film didn’t botch it, every line and edit is proposeful and effective in engaging and reminding us of why we love these characters in the first place, so since the film was executed well, we can sympathize and empathize with the characters in their sadness and shock at all these deaths. Second, even if we didn’t know from announcements made by Marvel or somehow guess from Marvel’s previous works that these characters would be coming back, the film establishes that its not over. Dr. Strange clearly knows what is going to happen (or at least something extremely close to the victory he searched for in all the possible futures). And even if Dr. Strange didn’t know, do we really believe these characters who we just watched try so valiently to fight Thanos from achieving his goal would allow him to go unpunished for his crime? Let’s assume for a split secon that there is not some way to fix what Thanos did, do we really believe that the film would spend so much time on all these different characters for it to just end on the one guy sitting on a hill when all their emotional threads are just left unfinished? The answer to all of these scenarios is no. There was never a version of this film that was a single part or the final film; this is clearly the first half of a story, so the audience value of all the deaths comes from thinking about and then later finding out how it all be fixed to as much as the heroes can fix it. People who compalin about the deaths as having no value or drama are just being babies about having to wait.

10. After having seen this twice and considering how well Marvel has been doing since the release of Civil War, I really think Marvel has found it’s groove and I am so excited for the future. While I would understand if they want time to do other projects, I would hope that the Russo Brothers, Stephen McFeely, and Christopher Markus always have one hand on driving the MCU. Feige has been there since the begining, but I feel like working with these four has really helped him focus overall and loosen his grip to trust the filmmakers he hires to execute their visions within the MCU. Gunn, Watts, Waititi, and Coogler all breathed new life into Marvel with their style and emotional honesty, and it’s this trend Marvel should continue to follow if they want to keep their success going. Infinity War is representative of many of the best elements of Marvel, and everyone involed in it should be proud of the work they’ve accomplished with it. That being said, Marvel still has progress that needs to be made, and it looks like it is going to be able to effectively do this by closing one chapter of the MCU and starting the next. I am so very excited for the journey we’ve all got ahead of us.

#avengers infinity war #avengers #marvel #mcu #captain america #iron man #thor #doctor strange #scarlet witch

[academy13]

I posted 8,763 times in 2021

544 posts created (6%)

8219 posts reblogged (94%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 15.1 posts.

I added 155 tags in 2021

#puppy - 53 posts

#reference - 31 posts

#oh my god - 18 posts

#yup - 10 posts

#yeah - 8 posts

#i mean honestly - 8 posts

#amazing - 8 posts

#this - 7 posts

#i just snorted - 6 posts

#god - 6 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#hell i still don't get why some places that rerun shows actually get rid of 'hell' whenever a character is saying 'what the hell' or similar

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Random thoughts that I have at work....

Peggy and Bucky adopt each other as siblings and nobody wants to touch how much they rag on each other with a ten foot pole... any of the Howling Commandos who have siblings are just like ‘that’s how it is’ and Steve is EXASPERATED. 

Philips is done with all of them, how done he is varies on day and the antics and who started the antics. He once just drove off in a Jeep because he was going to literally murder Agent Carter and Sergeant Barnes  and he figured driving off on “official business” was better than getting court martialed for murdering one of the best goddamn spies he knows and Captain America’s best friend (When he’s really sick of Steve’s shit he just looks at the shield and asks “How’re your reflexes?” and Steve has flashbacks to Peggy shooting at him and he knows Philips will shoot him with much more prejudice than she did. And maybe he’ll find a horse for good measure...) Peggy and Bucky have an ongoing debate about the Lone Ranger, namely which one of them is Tonto and which one of them is the Lone Ranger. Steve and the Commandoes avoid the topic at all costs because it will lead to HOURS of heated debate and they’ve heard the argument far too many times. Once though, they purposely set them off to get information out of some HYDRA goon they’d captured and the goon lost his shit at the both of them only to promptly piss himself when faced with matching death glares. Needless to say, the HYDRA goon was very happy to talk to Captain America... it continues for decades after the War, to the point that over the years the Commandoes refuse to talk to Peggy about the Lone Ranger and that Steve will literally walk out of Peggy’s room if Bucky is visiting her because both their memories are basically garbage, but they remember THAT and he wishes he could drink because he heard enough of their argument during the war. Eventually he and Sharron are watching baseball games and vehemently ignoring the pair of them. Bucky is the most annoying unwanted Uncle to Sharron and she literally cannot understand how he and Peggy got along (she secretly doesn’t mind, but she still can’t fathom their relationship. Peggy’s not even like that with Michael, so she has no clue why in the hell they are such shit heads to each other).  Sam is laughing his ass off the entire time because “You guys are family, that’s what all this is. Family. God, I wanna be at this Thanksgiving...” Steve, Peggy, Bucky, and Sharron in unison. “No you don’t!” “Oh hell yes!” Thanksgiving is a disaster there aren’t enough words to describe how insane and chaotic it is and Sam LOVES IT because he’s highly entertained the entire time (Tony shows up for like 5 minutes before NOPING the fuck out and Thor swings by with Jane during desert and everyone proceeds to get plastered. Thor is also highly pleased that Jane is worthy, and everyone looses their minds when they discover that Peggy is worthy. Peggy’s response is “I know my value.” and Sharron is like “That’s my fucking superhero aunt!” and like nobody disagrees, with Bucky going “Superhero since before Captain America!”)

3 notes • Posted 2021-07-27 05:44:23 GMT

#4

I just thought of Lucy giving Edmund shit for years once she finds out about the ‘Satan for one corn chip’ bird and he gives her the same kind of crap because ya know, they’re siblings. And Peter and Susan are confused, particularly when one day they have their own troubled birds on their doors

5 notes • Posted 2021-06-14 04:30:22 GMT

#3

Doctor Who will never be able to top Stolen Earth/Journey’s End because its just like... here’s everyone from the last 4 seasons of the show, plus some of the folks from the spinoffs, lets bring back Davros, the Daleks are trying to wreck shit, they go and tie up some plot points from the beginning of 10′s run, lets cliffhanger you like nobody’s business (Stolen Earth left off on one hell of a cliff hanger and I cannot imagine how that felt having to wait to see how that all resolved because DAMN. It was just like WHAM, WHAM, WHAM.), everyone gets to have epic moments, ALL THE COMPANIONS IN THE TARDIS HELPING FLY IT... like Avengers Endgame WISHES it was this story.

6 notes • Posted 2021-02-26 08:26:32 GMT

#2

Still the funniest thing that the Doctor and Rose meet Queen Victoria, save her life, get knighted, and then banished from the UK, which is hilarious because the Doctor has been visiting that specific part of Europe for like literal decades and Rose has technically not been born yet. Rose Tyler really got banished by the great grandmother of Queen Elizabeth II and I bet Mickey and Sarah Jane found out about this and just lost their shit over the fact that the Doctor is a disaster as always and that Rose got banished from her home country before she was even born and that like technically means she’s sort of not legally a citizen but is because timey whimey. 

6 notes • Posted 2021-11-08 02:56:47 GMT

#1

I feel like the Northern Cardinal (I’m pretty sure anyways) that snuck into Luz’s bag is significant... she’s from a region in the US where they’re common and they tend to represent a pivotal point in a person’s life. I’d say what’s going on in this episode is pretty big

11 notes • Posted 2021-07-18 06:49:38 GMT

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[douchebagbrainwaves]

WORK ETHIC AND FACT

Perl form. Kids can probably sense they aren't being told the whole story. The negotiation never stops till the closing. I just want to get rich by counterfeiting, talking about making money, instead of just looking at them, but because progress in technology has made it easier for startups to have traction before they put in significant money.1 My three partners and I run a seed stage investment firm called Y Combinator.2 This is a talk I gave recently.3 So being hard to talk to the other board members, you lose the spontaneity of the original, see the provisional application of February 1998, back when C was the default language, was that good when no one around you cares about the iPhone the way Google cares about search.

Many of the applications we get are imitations of some existing system.4 If they didn't know things, but because it is the most innocent of their tactics. Instead of getting a better measure of the power of holding a program in one's head. The first time I visited Google, they had about 500 people, the most efficient solutions win, rather than just the whim of some influential person. For most people, rich or poor, stuff has become a burden. Most undergrads probably have more debts than assets. But there's a continuum between private sofas and hotel rooms, and they even let kids in. It has a long way toward explaining the mystery of why the perennial favorite Pralines n' Cream was so appealing.5 And yet there may be a variant of ad hominem than actual refutation.

Large-scale investors tend to be large enough to notice patterns. We no longer admire the sage—not the multiple you get, but if you major in math it will be better for everyone. And that is in fact normal in a startup, is probably a 20th of what it means.6 But there will be ten JetBlues. I've been very surprised to discover how emotional investors can be.7 You might come up with an idea is good.8 You have to go back to their offices to implement them. That's less the rule now.

Object-oriented abstractions.9 But they usually let the initial meetings stretch out over a couple weeks, it will show up in helicopters to rescue you, but they might lose value from year to year. Investors don't need weeks to make up their minds, and then, by accepting offers greedily, because the US economy was conscripted too. Why not? But when people are trying to do real work, jump on it. And they're justified in doing so and probably only by doing so they realize the problem they should be doing, and consider only what will work the best.10 More often people who do.

Mistake number one. You may even want to think about business models. But unfortunately most investors are dealmakers rather than technology people, they generally expect to offer a significant amount of help along with the PhD, the department, and that it therefore mattered far more which startups you picked than how much you like chocolate cake, you'll be able to reproduce this. What about the more theoretical question of whether hockey would be a pain to stitch together that much out of angel investments that combined to maybe $200k, and a lot of this behind the scenes role in IPOs, which you ultimately need if you want to avoid disasters. If you want, so long as you keep morphing your idea.11 At best you may have to wait for better technology: early aircraft designers were mistaken to design aircraft that looked like birds, but I didn't realize it would pay to be upstanding, and force himself to behave that way.12 They did it because they were so much easier.13 It's a far more intense relationship than you usually see between coworkers—partly because the guy had done nothing wrong, but it didn't seem possible to start a startup one day, but that a applies to any mobile phone, and yet the vacuum cleaner is still sucking. In practice they spend a lot of money.

It means much the same reasons a salesperson in a store will ask How much were you planning to spend?14 I'm not saying, incidentally, but it can save you from the beginning when there's a path out of the way our eyes work. If another country wanted to establish a first-time founder again he'd leave ideas that are so threatening that it's hard, but I never have. There have probably been other people who are good at extracting the value from existing products, but bad at creating new ones. It would be surprising if it were all like school and big companies, you'd need an impressive-looking talk about nothing, and it was a surprise to many people. Some didn't even have computers. The most successful founders tend to get cram schools—which they did in the twentieth century was professional, which amateurs, by definition, are not allowed to flake. So while you're talking to an angel who invests $20k at a time. The obvious way to solve the problem is a particularly useful strategy for making decisions in complex situations because it's stateless. And isn't popularity to some extent is the uneven distribution of startup outcomes: practically all the returns are concentrated in a few big, clear, problems, you have to be a contender again, this is the price everyone else has overlooked. Can you protect yourself from these people?

Notes

5% a week for 4 years. The best thing for founders, because a she is very hard and not incompatible answers: a to make you take out your anti-dilution protections. When I catch egregiously linkjacked posts I replace the actual server in order to test a new generation of services and business opportunities. One year at Startup School David Heinemeier Hansson encouraged programmers who wanted to start a startup in a large number of startups is that they only even consider great people.

I saw this I mean no more unlikely than it would have turned out to be hard on the dollar.

Who is being looked at the time it would have. They look superficially like the word has shifted. William R. For example, will be coordinating efforts among partners.

His theory was that they were saying scaramara instead of Windows NT?

In 1998 a lot like meaning. Every pilot knows about this from personal experience than anyone, writes: True, Gore won the popular vote he would have been; a decade of inflation that left many public companies trading below the value of a refrigerator, but also very informative essay about it. The original Internet forums were not web sites but Usenet newsgroups.

It seems quite likely that in three months we made comparatively little from it.

It shouldn't be too conspicuous. My feeling with the New Deal was a small set of users to do this yourself. Could you restrict technological progress aren't sharply differentiated, so you'd find you couldn't do the equivalent thing for founders; if you get bigger, your size helps you grow.

I advised avoiding Javascript.

A scientist isn't committed to believing in natural selection in the postwar period also helped preserve the wartime compression of wages—specifically increased demand for unskilled workers, and also really good at talking about art, why is New York is where people care most about art. Until recently even governments sometimes didn't grasp the distinction between the initial capital requirement for German companies is that parties shouldn't be that surprising that colleges can't teach students how to appeal to space aliens, but hardly any type I. For example, if the quality of the year, they may then, depending on how much you're raising, have several more meetings with So, can I make it harder for Darwin's contemporaries to grasp this than we can teach startups a lot better.

Some would say that one Calvisius Sabinus paid 100,000, the term copyright colony was first used by Myles Peterson. I'm compressing the story. Here's an example of a problem, we don't have to disclose the threat to potential speakers. Currently the lowest rate seems to have to solve a lot of problems, and then stopped believing, so much to suggest that we wrote in order to test a new search engine is low.

Unless we mass produce social customs. Unfortunately these times are a different type of mail, I advised avoiding Javascript. Two possible and not be true that the web. Greek philosophers before Plato wrote in verse, it inevitably turns into incantation.

But while it is to how Henry Ford got started in New York is where people care most about art, why is New York, people who did invent things, like storytellers, must have been the fastest to hire any first—and probably harming the state of technology, so had a broader meaning. Governments may mean well when they talked about convergence. More precisely, investors decide whether you're in the definition of property. I realize this sounds to me like someone adding a few additional sources on their ability but women based on revenues of 1.

I've also heard them called Mini-VCs and the exercise of stock. That's a good product. The ramen in ramen profitable refers to features you could probably be interrupted every fifteen minutes with little loss of productivity. Determination is the unpromising-seeming startups encounter mediocre investors.

Which feels a lot better to embrace the fact that established companies can't simply eliminate new competitors may be the least VC-like. Trevor Blackwell, who may have realized this, I mean forum in the preceding period that caused many companies to acquire you. Most people let them mix pretty promiscuously.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #people #C #li #person #work #popularity #problem #distribution #ramen #technology #speakers #anyone #order #salesperson #thing #February #sup #time #rule #Gore #founders #sources #decisions #value

[deskcoin64-blog]

Bears mailbag: A 6-3 start, will Adam Shaheen return this week, Jordan Howard’s future and a struggling running game

The Chicago Bears are 6-3 and off to their best start since former head coach Marc Trestman’s first season back in 2013. After a convincing 34-22 win over a division foe in the Detroit Lions, they’ll stay at home to host the Minnesota Vikings on what is the biggest game for this franchise in quite some time.

Division games have been a problem for the Bears in recent memory, but the hope is that Sunday’s dominating win will provide a spark. That spark is going to be a vital key for any post season aspirations they might have in the coming weeks.

Optimism is at an all-time high, but Sunday night will show football fans all around the country what kind of football team the Bears really are. With optimism and excitement comes questions, and with questions come answers. So without further adieu, let’s dive into Week 11’s mailbag.

I’d say there’s a strong chance that the Bears will activate Shaheen before the 3pm central deadline on Saturday. Last Friday, head coach Matt Nagy disclosed the team had not made a decision on the second-year tight end but it seemed pretty evident, judging by some of Nagy’s comments, that they didn’t think he was quite ready.

This week is a different story. It will be his second week of practice and this is a much bigger game than a week ago. Regardless of what happens with Dion Sims, I would fully expect Shaheen to not only be active but see 15-20 snaps on Sunday night.

Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

One thing to keep in mind is that if he returns on Sunday night, they have a very short turn around before they play once again on Thanksgiving morning. Couple that with Shaheen returning to his first game action since late August and you’ll probably see him on some sort of pitch count. With all of that being said, make no mistake about it, he will be a big part of this offense moving forward. That also means we’ll likely see less of Sims.

It will also be interesting to see who they cut because they do have to clear a roster spot to activate Shaheen.

In a perfect world where cap space didn’t matter, absolutely. I think Le’Veon Bell would be a perfect fit in this offense.

In a realistic world? I don’t see them spending $15 million-plus on a running back any time soon, especially when they’ve already got a guy like Khalil Mack on the books for an average of $23.5 million per year and are a few seasons away from having to pay Mitchell Trubisky.

I will say is this on Jordan Howard, though, I think it’s becoming pretty apparent that he’s not a fit for this offense, and I don’t think it’s even really his fault. This offense calls for a running back that needs better athleticism, better pass catching ability, and just an all around better three-down back type of skill-set.

It’ll be interesting to see how they handle it this off-season but I’ll go on record as saying I’d be pretty surprised if Howard is on the 2019 Week 1 roster.

I’ve got two guesses on this matter.

My first would be Daniel Brown. As much as I like Brown, Ben Braunecker is not only the better special teamer, but has seen more snaps in Shaheen’s and now Dion Sims’ absence.

My second guess would be Kevin White. For as much as we’ve all wanted White to work out, his time in Chicago is close to done, if not all the way gone. He’s been a healthy scratch the past two games and it may make sense just to cut bait with him, if they value Brown over him. He’s not in their future plans.

There’s three issues to the Bears running game right now, in my opinion.

Fit - I don’t think Howard fits this offense very well. Whether it’s due to lack of athleticism and ability to make sudden cuts in the backfield, or the fact that his blocking and catching don’t make him a true three-down back.

Scheme change - The past few years, the Bears have been primarily a zone running team. This year, we’re seeing more of a complex plan with new offensive line coach Harry Hiestand. It’s more of a hybrid blocking front and the way it’s meshed with Nagy’s play calling has made things look repetitive and to a certain extent, predictable.

Lack of creativity - Nagy said on Monday that contrary to popular belief, he loves to run the ball. That may be true, but like you pointed out, there hasn’t been a ton of creativity with Howard. He’s always been a better runner out of shotgun but there’s been very little outside runs that Howard has been involved in.

Overall, I don’t know that this is something that is just magically going to fix itself during the season, but it’s a main reason why I believe Howard is playing his final season for the team.

To be completely honest, I haven’t seen much of an influence from Helfrich, and that could be because Nagy has taken small concepts and mixed them in with his version of the West Coast style offense.

It’s worth noting that Andy Reid had plenty of “college concepts” within his offense and has for years now. It’s one of the main reasons he’s regarded as one of the best offensive minds in football. That has obviously translated over to Nagy as well, but in terms of what Helfrich has been able to do, I’m not sure I see much, so it’s hard for me to speak on it.

Whatever they are doing though, it’s working and I’d expect it to continue to get better.

The amount of skepticism the Bears have been met with so far this year has been somewhat surprising but to a certain extent, justified.

In situations like these, I try to put myself on the outside. The first thing Bears fans have to realize is that regardless of what most people say, they aren’t watching each and every game the same way that fans are. I’d say that under 40% of national analysts that have an opinion on the Bears have actually watched every minute of football they’ve played this year. That’s important to remember. While it may be coming from an educated source, it doesn’t mean they are always seeing the entire picture.

Second, the Bears were a 5-11 team a year ago. On top of that, most thought general manager Ryan Pace should have been fired, and most people hated the team trading up for Trubisky last April. The Bears haven’t finished over .500 since 2012 and have been through 3 head coaches and two general managers since that point. Meaning, there’s been plenty of perception built over a long period of time that the Bears are a bad team and a “disaster” of a franchise, as some have put it.

You combine those two together with the fact that the Bears (like many teams) haven’t beat a team currently over .500 and you’ll be met with skepticism.

The NFL is a weird thing. When teams stay good or bad for long periods of time, it takes a while for the perception to change but once that perception does chance, recency bias tends to kick in and those same people who called that team bad, now can’t remember those feelings for the years that they had them.

Long story short, all the Bears have to do is keep winning games. They are (6-3) with a chance to get to (7-3) with a win on Sunday night. Big wins in prime time slots seem to change perceptions quite quickly and let’s not forget, the Bears with Trubisky haven’t exactly been good in prime time (where many more people are watching), which leads a lot of casual fans to believe teams are different than they are. If they win these next two games, you’ll see the majority of skeptics buy in.

This was a great question and it took me quite a bit of time to look it up, but thankfully our resident NFL historian is a Pro Football Reference wizard, so he took the lead.

Source: https://www.windycitygridiron.com/2018/11/14/18091342/chicago-bears-mailbag-a-6-3-start-will-adam-shaheen-return-this-week-jordan-howard-kevin-white-nfl

#read more #see more #check it out #interesting #learn more

[anulstermanabroad]

Fuji-San: Climbing the Giant Ice Cream

Many years ago now, I famously applied and failed in a previous quest to live in Japan. Fast forward four years and I'm finally here, living the Japanese Dream in Tokyo Wonderland. It wasn't all plain-sailing though. There was a a bachelor degree, an horrific interview and three years of simultaneously loving and hating life in China to battle through first.

Lets rewind four years. I'm in Edinburgh, Scotland and I'm interviewing for a reputable teaching scheme in Japan. I should be clear here, although I decided I wanted to move to Japan, in the grand scheme of things I had no idea about Japan or even a legitimate reason of substance. Despite having had numerous part-time jobs during my high-school and student years, I'd somehow managed to avoid ever participating in a real job interview. This was only going to lead to disaster. To cut a long study short, I managed to mention the war, Hiroshima and the 2011 tsunami and earthquake which devastated parts of Japan in my interview. I really left myself with less of a chance of moving to Japan than the possibility of a limbless man recreating the Mona Lisa. Six months later I moved to China...

One question I was asked, however, was ‘Where would you like to go in Japan?’ I hadn’t researched anything in particular for this question but there was one big reason I wanted to go to Japan - to climb Mount Fuji. For many, that may not seem like a legitimate reason for moving to another country but I had and continue to have, a strange attraction to Fuji. I’m not about to start rambling to you about some form of weird attraction that you’ll only find in the deepest, darkest corners of the internet, but for me, Fuji possesses a kind of mythical quality that I can’t describe. Whilst Japan is a hugely mountainous region, Fuji rises from the ground like a giant, almost totally isolated in it’s grandeur, unlike other mountainous parts of Japan. Fuji dominates the scenery around it and rises majestically, in it’s conical form, sculpted perfectly by Mother Nature herself. 

On a clear day, Fuji is visible from Tokyo which is about a two hour drive from the foot of the mountain. I haven’t been lucky enough to see it yet from so far out but in the crisp, clear, winter days to come, I’ll be looking out with bated breath. The first time I went to Fuji was in April this of this year. Although it’s not possible to climb the mountain at that time because of the temperature and snow capped peak, the surrounding areas are very beautiful and a refreshing break from the claustrophobia of Tokyo. My first impression was, ‘Oh shit.’ I knew I would climb over the climbing period during July and August and when faced with Fuji, rising 3700m into the sky, I could see no way of possibility getting to the top. Due to its conical shape, the peak of the mountain looks almost vertical and it’s hard to imagine getting to the summit without climbing apparatus. Whilst I like to climb the occasional mountain, they usually tend to require nothing more than a pair of running shoes. As the day went on, it became easier to appreciate the sheer size of Fuji and how much impact it has on the surrounding area and Japan in general. I have three year old students who can’t put their own socks on, but even for them, Mount Fuji holds a special significance in Japanese culture. It helps that I also have Mr Potato Head, Fuji-themed socks to spark their interest even further...

So, on a late August afternoon, I climbed aboard a bus from Shinjuku station to Mount Fuji’s fifth station. Whilst it is possible to climb Fuji from the very bottom, the majority of climbers start from the fifth station which is around 2300m above sea level. Although this is higher than I’ve ever been in my life (whilst on two feet), in reality there are only around 1400m to the summit from the start point. We took the option of climbing overnight, beginning at 8pm rather than being extortionately ripped off to stay in a crowded mountain hut for a couple of hours. I had also never climbed at night before which filled me with fear, but in reality, the trails are very good. So as long as you’re careful and have some form of head-torch, the climb is very safe. Mount Fuji is made up of ten stations and by 9pm we had reached the sixth station, already. From that point on, the trail begins to rise rapidly, going from a steady incline to a more vertical incline but it’s still a relatively simple hike. For me, the climb between stations seven and eight were probably the most difficult. This is, effectively, the only part of Fuji that you have to climb. After 12 years of playing rugby and drunkenly falling down stairs at house parties, my knees are verging on dodgy, crumbling messes. During this section you need to climb over large, cliff-like rocks rather than the volcanic gravel trail prevalent on the rest of the mountain. It is also very accessible but whilst my hiking companion seemingly found it simple enough to stay upright, my abysmal lack of balance and sometimes raging winds required me to use my hands at times also. I became a very nonathletic Spiderman. If you’re like me, bring gloves to protect your hands and you will have no problems. And your web blasters. 

I should point out that at this point I was terrified. Whilst it was relatively easy to climb up, the incline was extreme and I wondered how the hell I was every going to get back down without smashing my head off every rock on the mountain, as my huge body rapidly rolled to the bottom. It turns out most of the fears I had on the way up were totally irrelevant as the downward path is both different and incredibly easy. In short, don’t worry. By midnight, we were seriously ahead of time and had reached the eighth station at 3100m - only 600m from the top. Until this point, I had actually been climbing in a t-shirt but it was starting to get very cold. Only adrenaline and climbing had protected me for the previous hour or two. Luckily I had packed five extra layers and the further we climbed the more clothes I gradually slipped on. Think of it like a prostitute at work, but in reverse. Sadly also, nobody was paying me for this shit.

Having a rest at the eight station. Notice how we’re still happy and gloves aren’t necessary yet... 

During this section of the climb, it was now seriously cold. As long as you kept moving, it was bearable; even pleasant. As soon as you stopped, however, no amount of layers could protect you despite myself looking like the North Face had sponsored Mr. Blobby. A big problem we also had was that we were running out of mountain. At the rate we were going, we would’ve been at the summit by 1.30am, a mere three and a half hours until sunrise. I could only assume that it would be colder at the summit and I didn’t fancy recreating the end of Titanic, except in reverse at 3700m above sea level as some strangers mistakenly referred to me as ‘Jack.’ Bearing this in mind, we decided to find a sheltered spot between the eighth and ninth stations and rest for an hour out of the wind. The mountain staff are surprisingly strict with climbers, to the extent that many climbers could be put in danger. At every mountain hut they will sell Pot Noodles and sometimes other hot food but you’re basically forbidden from coming inside unless you pay the full night’s accommodation fee - around 8000yen. Or £55-£65, depending on what Theresa May’s fair government has cocked up that week. There is plenty of space to shelter climbers from the winds, which are fairly extreme, but I could see it from the other side of the spectrum. Why should they aid mad bastards like us, who chose to climb overnight and encourage others to do the same long term, thus reducing customers and profits? People were so cold that they were hiding in toilets just to stay warm which prompted the addition of a ‘mountain toilet guard’ at one bathroom shack. What I will say is that, you will never take as many unnecessary shits as you will whilst climbing Fuji, simply to get out of the cold and sit down somewhere warm for 5 minutes. Ok, 10...

After an hour long break, we began our ascent to the summit at around 1am, knowing full well we would still be there early, however, staying still was no longer an option. Whilst I couldn’t feel a lack of oxygen in the air, I could feel that with every step and every bend in the trail, it was definitely getting harder. We both reached the ninth station around 2am which is only about 300m from the summit. We were both feeling tired but good and the summit was (probably) in view. All was going well until around 150m from the end. In the space of around ten minutes, my friend went from being slightly tired to physically ill. Headaches and nausea included. Until this point, he had more or less set the pace the whole way but it suddenly fell on me to become Sam and push Frodo up the mountain to destroy Sauron. Or, reach the top of Fuji. It’s the same thing really. Me being me, I hadn’t actually researched altitude sickness at all, hoping everything would just be ok. With that (lack of) knowledge, I figured it was best to push him to keep climbing the mountain and stop him from falling asleep; not really sure if I was helping him or slowly killing him. Every five minutes or so, we would rest for another 5-10 minutes, inhaling the oxygen we’d thankfully invested in pre-hike. By this point, I could see other experienced climbers, who were also clearly struggling and you could tell that everybody was a little bit wrecked. It’s kind of like watching that drunk guy leaving the pizza shop at 4am with his food. He’s walking so slowly and trying so hard not to fall onto the road but you know, somehow, he’ll make it home. 

The last 150m took us around an hour - a massive difference compared to the rest of the hike - and we reached the summit around 3.15am, thankfully as the summit huts and shelters were opening up. A total climb of around six hours plus our rest period isn’t bad going. I got a massive buzz off it, so much so that I couldn’t even feel the cold anymore. I was even cheery, something I very rarely am, even at sea level. It felt good to climb higher than I ever had before and although I wouldn’t say it was particularly difficult, it was a massive challenge and a totally new experience. I left my friend in a sheltered hovel while I scoped out the summit and tried to find somewhere we could rest until sunrise. I ended up paying an extortionate amount for the best Pot Noodle I’ve ever had in my life.before going back to reclaim my friend. Thankful that he wasn’t dead, we hung out for an hour in a summit hut, which was wonderfully warm. Whilst he battled to stay awake, clutching a roasting hot green tea, I took the chance to socialise with some other climbers and hope nobody asked me to buy anything. Around 4.30am, it was starting to get light out and we headed outside to watch the sunset. My friend was still in a precarious state and by this point, after being in the warm indoors for over an hour, the effects of the climb had truly worn off. All you could feel now was the cold. So cold, in fact, that I couldn’t enjoy the Kit-Kat which I’d carried up the mountain, specifically to eat at the summit. My optimism went from, ‘Yay, sunrise time,’ to ‘When the fuck is the sun going to come up?’ in the space of about three and a half minutes. My friend took a seat on the edge of the mountain, whilst I moved around the summit, desperately trying to keep warm. The volcanic crater below is both simultaneously impressive and terrifying and not something you want to stray too close to on the windy summit. As the sun began to rise, I returned to my friend who had made his own little addition to the mountain by re-releasing the curry-rice we had consumed before the climb. It’s always good to give back to nature. 

The sunrise was a beautiful sight but I was so cold that it was hard to appreciate in a full capacity. It was the first time you get a real sense of how high you actually are, however, and the mountain ranges you pass through on the way to Fuji are dwarfed in comparison. I could see a small mountain I’d climbed four months earlier with my girlfriend to get a good view of Fuji itself and it was like a pimple on the body of the world. Fuji is, well, something else. We began our descent about fifteen minutes after sunrise due to it being fucking baltic and my friend very quickly recovered as we began to descend. The views were wonderful for the first 25 minutes until the descent became potentially the most boring thing I’ve ever done in my life. Two and a half hours descending a path that is both repetitive and slightly too hard on the knees to be comfortable was so monotonous. By the time I got to the bottom I was thoroughly miserable, both due to tiredness and sheer boredom and felt sorry for my companion who had to put up with my foul mood. 

Above: The stunning sunrise and other climbers observing the view.

Below: Waiting for my wonderful cup noodle in a climbers hut at Fuji’s tenth station.

Having a well deserved lie down on a very cold mountain top.

Would I climb Fuji again? The short answer is, I don’t know. Whilst it wasn’t particularly difficult, the cold does really hamper your enjoyment of the experience. Only if I stayed in a hut and could appreciate Fuji’s enormity and views during the day, would I consider doing it again. Climbing overnight was less congested but I could honestly see shit. The feeling of elation and adrenaline I experienced on the final moments before and after reaching the summit though, is something I’ll never forget. I flash-backed to that interview room all those years ago, accomplished in the knowledge that I’d achieved one of the biggest goals I’d ever set myself. But for now, it’s sayonara Fuji!

See more pictures below!

Standing in front of Fuji’s imperious crater. Below was as close as I was willing to get, though.

What looked like a moderate sized mountain range on the journey in are made to look minuscule in comparison to Fuji in the sunrise below. 

Climbers navigating the summit (above) and the start of the descent (below). I’ve seen worse views, I guess.

#Fuji #Japan #Climbing #Lit #Blog #Travel Blog #Satire #Funny #Hiking For Dummies #An Ulsterman Abroad #TEFL #Teaching

[nutcrackergame]

So how did it go?

I ran a continuous Stars Without Number (2nd ed beta rules) drop-in game at Ropecon 2017. 18 hours, 13 characters, four worlds, two ships, not sure how many players; perhaps 13-15. This is my report.

WHAT DO I MEAN BY “DROP-IN” GAME?

Anybody could jump in at any time, as long as there were fewer than six players at the table. Basically any scene change worked for changing characters (and players). That meant people looking to kill an hour or two could jump in without compromising their existing engagements and plans. I am very happy to report that almost everyone came back for more - some for all three days.

We played for five, eight, and five hours, (on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, respectively) as planned. In hindsight the eight hour game was a bit much for myself, and I probably shouldn’t have started the Sunday game at ten in the morning.

I went for minimal frontload. I hoped that the OSR legacy Stars is a part of would be enough handholding for everyone. That wasn’t quite the case as it looks like my 39 years on this planet have skewed my perception a bit. However, Stars was easy to pick up for everyone, regardless of their previous level of experience with D&D/OSR/tabletop RPGs in general.

Even more than the OSR tropes I was banking on my premise of “it’s Firefly”. Firefly was mostly or completely unknown to all of the younger crowd (let’s say under 30). Thankfully it’s easy enough to cover in a minute or so.

THINGS THAT WORKED

The sandbox setting is perfect for drop-in games. There is no major plot to follow except whatever the current players at the table want to do next.

I had pre-created all characters. This in itself is a given in a con game, but I’d gone a little bit further than that.

First, every character was represented by a card with a line or two outlining what that character is like.

Second, I had another set of cards with portraits on them. This gave everyone at the table an easy reference for themselves and for the other players. There were more portraits than characters (19 vs 13), and each player could choose their own until all thirteen characters had an assigned face for continuity reasons. I think this subtle psychological guidance was all most players needed to get going - pick a card with some words you like, and pick another card with an image you like. I mentioned that while the characters had gendered names, most of them were from foreign cultures (as per SWN standards), and I left the actual gender vague on purpose, so you could basically pair any image with any characters.

Finally, I spent some effort on making sure each character had a couple of lines of background and current goals. This allowed everyone to quickly get on with the roleplaying, no matter their level of system expertise. Most players seemed to really take to their proposed demeanour.

I handwaved player changes. Before we started the game with a new player, I always made sure they understood a couple of rules.

One, all the characters have a pressing need for the mission to succeed.

Two, we are not going to talk about how characters enter or exit the stage. If the player is at the table, then the character is there, and if they’re not, then the character is not. A few players struggled with this a bit, but it didn’t take long for everyone to get on board. I argue that coming up with increasingly implausible entrances and exits for shifting party configurations is a lot more destructive to maintaining a sense of disbelief than characters being on and off screen as needed. It’s not like assemble casts in movies or TV shows are all on-screen all the time.

I had pregenerated the sector, of course. I read through all the systems and worlds to get an idea about where things are. I did pre-plan the jump routes, even though that wasn’t really necessary. I made a big spreadsheet where I could quickly figure out the factions and notable features in play at each stop. This was the biggest bit of prep I did. The sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VA3pdCXbjhjB5Ro9WNge3VahLNba6uCGe00YP-ncEF8/edit?usp=sharing

I had pre-thought factions and aliens. I didn’t need the aliens after all, but the factions were useful to have available with little improvisation. I didn’t have more than two lines each, though. The biggest task was preparing faction power relations and presence on each world. I just gave them a number, from N/A to 5. One faction is in control, another is challenging them, and there may or may not be a third one in the mix. Players were quick to start working from this setup.

I ensured the players had clear objectives. After every jump, the ship needs refuelling, and the pilot needs updated metaspace maps (jump routes, or “rutters”). Everything else is a bonus as far as the players are concerned. Each world did have a spaceport on the planet surface to make things easier; many of them were contested or in hostile control, though, providing the players with immediately solvable situations.

The mission was clear. Explore a lost sector, recently become available through a shift in metaspace “weather conditions”, re-establish contact with surviving Crown (the players’ own civilization, the “Magellan Union”) elements, claim Crown resources, and make a ton of money trading on the way. So this way players were always looking for signs of Crown, and a potential deal.

I read through the far trader expansion, Suns of Gold, and decided to use most of it, depending on how focused on trade the players are. It turns out trading made for a good excuse to get out and do stuff, but the book keeping side I kept very light. It would probably make for great gaming in a regular campaign, but for a con game the trading objectives were not immediate enough, I feel.

I rolled with the punches in lieu of making plans. I used the random tables for everything, from what a random important NPC wanted, to what kind of pet the cowgirl PC picked up in the bazaar. Sometimes this slowed down play a bit as I was fishing around for the right hardcopy or PDF bookmark. I would organize my materials better if I were to do this again.

THINGS I HAD TROUBLE WITH

Space combat was something I had originally felt I’d leave out of scope, but having read the revised rules in the new edition’s beta rules, I really liked them and wanted to give them a go. I shouldn’t have done that on the fly.

It would’ve been fine if I had had more play aids: cards with all the actions per stations, plus six cards with general actions, and tokens for Command Points. I only had one starship combat before realizing it was a mistake and refraining from having more. If players would’ve pushed the game in that direction, I would’ve abstracted it to simple skill checks and attack rolls.

I hadn’t really understood how fast the characters are supposed to level in the beginning, or how much of a jump there is between levels one, two, and three. Both the amount of increased HP and skills available changed the game quite a bit. The next time I would either not level the characters at all, or, preferably, prepare the levelled up versions of the characters in advance, with no need to dig for new or levelled up Foci.

We had psionics, but I neglected explaining their role in the world in any way. As a result, most players didn’t really use their psionic abilities. I did choose their powers so that I could condense them down to a line or two on the character sheets, but obviously that fell apart when the psionics levelled up and chose their own powers. I was lucky in my most psionic heavy character being played by my regular D&D group's cleric, who's very familiar with D&D type magic systems. That could've been a disaster.

Being a marketing kind of guy, I don’t quite understand how I neglected to prepare an elevator speech. My “welcome to my table” speech got shorter and more to the point as the weekend wore on, but the whole game should’ve been written around a short speech. The first time I had three people joining the table just minutes apart I realized I had made an unfortunate mistake. Everybody was very understanding, though, and I don’t know if there was any damage to the overall experience except my own desire for efficiency.

Should you run Stars Without Number as a drop-in convention game? Yes, you should.

#rpg #osr #stars without number #ropecon