#hey if you know any international shipping laws to your country

[haikyuu-sins]

Hiiii sweetie I love your Law writings so much! Oh this sounds like your others are bad, no I didn't mean to say that! I'm sure your others are good too, I just didn't read them yet because I'm Law obsessed lately. Anyways, could I request something? It's actually my first time to request something so I hope I did it right??? I'm sorry if I didn't. Coming back to the request, could you do something like Law x reader (preferably female but gn would be okay too though so everyone can relate!) being kinda close to each other and always teasing each other (she is a Strawhat member) and he is deeply in love with her but his heart breaks seeing her hugging a guy of her crew? Like he knows she's a cutiepie and loves hugging her friends but he just gets so jealous seeing her with Zoro or whoever and his mood changes and he distances himself from her, leaving her all confused because he thinks it's impossible for her to like him when it's so much more likely and also practical to date someone of her crew. But then she asks him about him being so weird and cold lately and he kind of let's everything out and confesses? I'm so sorry if this is too long or complicated, ignore it if that's the case! Sending lots of love to you from Germany! <3

Oh my freaking goodness you’re so sweet! I’m glad you enjoy all of my Law writings as much as I love writing for him! Don’t even worry, you don’t have to read my other’s if you don’t want to, if it’s just Law you wanna read the go right ahead! :) GERMANY?! I have people reading my works in GERMANY?! It always baffles me when I get asks that say they’re from another country because I forget that not everyone is going to live near me. Thank you for all the love all the way from Germany! ❤️

Warnings: None, other than some swearing here and there, not proofread in the slightest.

****Law x Strawhat!Reader

He hated it. There was nothing more that Law hated right now was seeing you draped over Zoro’s back while you watched something over his shoulder. He was stupid to think that you wouldn’t have a close relationship with them, of course you would. Law could only grit his teeth and endure it. It wasn’t like the two of you were in a relationship, he couldn’t tell you to stop.

Law actually could think of something he hated more. It was the fact that Zoro didn’t seem to mind, not in the slightest. It was like this was a daily occurrence for him and it was something he was used to. Part of him wanted to see the marimo push you off and act annoyed. But something told him that even then, you wouldn’t care and would simply do it again.

“Hey Law! Come look at what Usopp made-!” you slid off of Zoro’s back and turned around with a smile, hoping to see the other swordsman you had seen just a moment ago. Your sweet smile turned into a frown, then a pout when you realized he wasn’t there anymore. ‘Where did he go?’ You thought to yourself as you looked around the deck.

You knew that the other captain was a bit more reclusive than you’d like since you enjoyed being around him and it never seemed like he wanted to be around the rest of the crew-probably because most of the crew was so boisturious and loud and Law was, well...the opposite of boisturious and loud.

It didn’t take you long to find him. “You left us!” you say to him, playfully feigning like you were upset as you crossed your arms. “How rude!”

“And for a reason.” he simply responded back, not even looking at you while he did.

“Sorry, were we being too loud?” you chuckled and smiled. “You’re gonna have to get used to that on this ship while you’re here with us.”

Am I going to have to get used to seeing you all over your crew as well? Law kept his thoughts to himself while he opted not to give you another response.

“Um...I’ll just…” you pointed back to Zoro and the others, leaving him to be by himself since that’s what you thought he wanted. It was the opposite. He wanted to be around you, but he just couldn’t stand seeing you so close to them as well. As much as he wished that was him, he’d never say it aloud.

It was something that you had been noticing the past few days. The two of you got along great when you were on Punk Hazard together, so what was different now? You felt more comfortable since you were on your own ship and maybe that was it. There weren't any battles happening and everyone was quite lax...so shouldn’t it be the opposite? Shouldn’t he be more relaxed now that he knew he was safe? Or was that even it? You weren’t sure.

It took you a few days to finally approach him about it. You noticed that every time you he was around you and then when you went over to your crew mates, he’d be gone before you even turned back around.

The crew was inside eating and Law had finished first, opting to go outside in the quiet after he was done. You soon followed after you were done and left the loud dining room to find him. It wasn’t difficult since there was only a limited area outside on the deck.

“Don’t like how loud it is in there?” you chuckled as you walked up to the railing next to him. “I’m not sure how long you’ll stay with us, but you get used to it, you actually tend to enjoy it after a while and when it’s quiet, you feel a little weird.”

“I don’t think I’ll be getting used to Mugiwara-ya anytime soon and I don’t know how you deal with…” Luffy’s loud shriek was heard in the distance and Law’s face scrunched up, “that.”

You only laugh at the other captain, “I take it your crew isn’t like this then?”

He rolled his eyes and almost cringed at the thought. “No. They are. I just choose to ignore it most of the time.”

“And does that work?”

He answered almost immediately, “Never.”

You laughed again and Law felt like his breath almost caught in his throat. It was something he would be able to listen to over and over again and never get sick of-unlike your captain.

“I wanted to ask you something too…” your fingers tapped the railing and traced the design of the wood. “Are you okay? Or did I do something wrong? I thought we were getting along really well and lately it feels like you’ve been more distant for some reason. I just...I like talking to you and I thought you did too. We’ll be in the middle of a conversation and I’ll turn to talk to someone and then when I turn back to talk to you again, you’re gone. But maybe I just misinterpreted it and you didn’t want to talk to me in the first place.” you let out an almost pitiful sounding laugh, along with a sad smile.

Fuck...That wasn’t the reason in the slightest and he hated that he made you think that it was your fault he was just a little jealous of your crew mates that you live with.

“No.. that’s not it…” he sighed to himself, feeling guilty that he had made you feel that way. He was fighting with himself internally. Do I say something to them or not? He knew that there wouldn’t be much of a relationship since the two of you were on separate crews. Pair that with the fact that he doesn’t even know if he’ll survive this attack on Doflamingo.

Law wouldn’t want to get your hopes up about anything if you felt the same way about him. At the same time, this could possibly be one of his only chances to tell you how he felt. All he could think about was embarrassing himself. From the first time he saw you on Sabaody, he knew that there was something about you because of the way you never left his mind since then.

It was a stroke of luck that you managed to see him again on Punk Hazard. Since you were relatively new to the crew at that time, you still hadn’t bonded with anyone in particular so he never saw you acting like you do now with them.

You raised your brow in an attempt to get him to continue with what he was trying to say. “Then what is it?” you ask him slowly. “If you don’t want to say anything, that’s fine I guess. As long as I’m not doing anything to make you mad or hate me.”

“I’m not mad at you. I don’t hate you either.” he paused for a moment, gritting his teeth together. Law couldn’t believe that he was even doing this to himself. “Quite the opposite actually…”

Your brow raised again in slight confusion. “Oh?” you hesitated, the thought registering in your head about what he meant. You knew he wasn’t exactly the person who would let his feelings gush out. A small smile slipped out and you tried your best not to smirk.. “Ooh~ I see.” you drug your words out slowly.

As Law went to open his mouth, whether to object to what you were saying-even though he wasn’t-or let you know that you were right, he didn’t get to say anything before your Captain burst onto the deck.

“Y/N-chaaan!!! Come play with us!!” and you couldn’t even object or tell Luffy that you would be there in a minute when a long arm stretched out to grab you. It wrapped around your waist and you before it was able to yank you away from Law, you grabbed the collar of his shirt and planted your lips firmly on his.

“I’m glad you don’t hate me~” you grin as you pull away, not because you want to but because you’re being forced away by Luffy.

Law could feel his cheeks heat up from the sudden kiss and all he wanted to do was grab his hat and pull it over his face. But then he would’ve missed seeing your smile as you notice just how flustered you made him. He wouldn’t mind being a little embarrassed if he gets to see your smile every time.

#one piece #trafalgar law #trafalgar law x reader #law x reader #trafalgar-law-x-reader #law-x-reader #trafalgar law scenario #trafalgar law fic #law op #trafalgar law op #trafalgar law imagine #one piece x reader #one piece imagine #op

[writersrealmbts]

Cruise

Description: Part of the summer #btswritingbingo, hosted by @bangtanwritingbingo! For the Boating prompt.  A summer cruise as a translator for world-famous band BTS: what could go wrong? WELL, the zombie apocalypse. In the middle of the ocean, are you safe? Or is there danger lurking in the deep?

Warnings: Mentions of death, violence (especially after the third content break), mild language? (I can’t remember if there’s language or not but I’ll tag it)

Posted: 06/11/2021

Tags: Zombie apocalypse au, Yoongi x reader

Angst?: 8,342 words

A/N: Oh look, another zombie au. 

The engine was idling.

The radio was on, and everyone was listening to the broadcast in silence. The horror was slowly growing in your stomach.

“The country is overrun, we’re broadcasting from a locked room, and we aren’t certain how much longer we can hold out…how much longer we’ll be safe. We’ve had news from several other countries reporting the same conditions. They’re mindless, react to movement…don’t like bright lights…most active starting at dusk all the way through dawn. Don’t let them injure you. They hid the mutagen in vitamins and supplements. Whatever you do…don’t ingest anything from Biogene International.”

You swallowed hard, hugging yourself as background sounds of other voices and banging echoed through the radio

“Oh God, they’ve found us,” The radio announcer murmured. “I guess this is it. If you’re isolated from infestations, I suggest you stay isolated. Cut off the heads. And enjoy this last song by Andy Lange. God save us all.”

The radio started playing ‘Not Sure Yet’, and you just listened to it as your heart broke.

They finally ruined the world.

And you weren’t with your friends and family when it happened.

You were with your stupid ex-boyfriend that you’d just broken up with, the staff of the ship that hired you as an extra translator for the last group—a kpop group and their staff that were filming a vacation show of some sort.

And you’d have to be born under a mountain of rocks to not know that the kpop group was BTS, and in any other situation you’d be excited about helping them as a semi-casual fan of theirs.

But right now you really hated them, and their choice of this ship that employed your ex-boyfriend—even if you’d been the one to get him that job.

“So,” The spoken-of devil murmured, coming to stand next to you. “Sounds like the world is actually ending.”

You took a deep breath, because everyone could hear, and were subtly watching.

“Changes a lot of things doesn’t it?”

“Except one.”

“What?”

You turned to him. “I still would rather die alone than live my life with you.”

He sputtered, but you didn’t stay to listen to him try to argue with you, turning off the radio since it had turned to static and going to the other translator.

“Do they know?”

He nodded gravely. “They’re trying to check on their families.”

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” You told him, bowing slightly to the other staff and the boys before going over to some of the other crew. “How much food do we have?”

“Maybe enough for a week,” The cook, Lori, answered. “If I ration.”

“Do it. Same with water?”

“We should have two weeks, more if we cut back on showers, mopping, other excess water usage,” The first mate said, staring out at the horizon. “Hopefully by then we’ll know if there’s a safe port. The captain went to try and radio as many other ships as possible.”

“We should make sure none of that Biogene stuff is on the ship,” One of the engineers said.

The first mate nodded, quickly moving. “Everyone! We need to make sure that there are no Biogene products on this vessel. Please go check all of your pills and supplements, anything that could be pharmaceutical or…just check everything!”

You translated quickly, then went to check your own things. You didn’t have much that could be from that company, but you checked absolutely everything just to be sure.

Then you went to help the staff and band just in case.

They weren’t coming up with anything, so you headed for the captain’s cabin just to see if there were any more plans at that point.

Captain Cobden Alby was an elder man, who tended to become an Uncle, Brother, or Grandfather figure for anyone who’d let him look out for them. You knew him relatively well, because he’d looked out for you when you started working with his tourism company, helping foreigners book trips with him and accompanying them on trips to help out. You’d worked with him for the past three years, and he’d been kind enough to hire your then boyfriend when he needed a job—though you now understood his reluctance. You wished he’d been more reluctant.

“Well, y/n,” Cob sighed. “Guess this is a new chapter. Any ideas?”

“Islands will gain control more quickly, I think, and there are a couple uninhabited islands we might be able to land at if we get desperate. We have nets, so we can fish if we have to. And if we start getting stills set up now, we can provide ourselves with more water. Revert to basic survival, I think.” You chewed your lip. “But if we’re going to use an uninhabited island, I think we should find one and stick around it, because people are going to try and escape by boat and they might bring it with them. The likelihood of the messages and warnings reaching everyone is slim.”

He sighed and nodded. “Our passengers?”

“Scared. But everyone is checking for the products to dispose of them, as you know, and they’re trying to contact their families back in Korea.”

“Have you tried your family?”

You stared out at the water. “I’m afraid to.”

He nodded again, looking grim. “I’ve heard from a couple other ships. We’re going to have issues with food at some point, so the island idea might be good. Maybe we can work with the other ships as long as they stay uninfected to build a sort of safe-haven?”

“Maybe,” You agreed. “We’ll be breaking laws if we land on some of the islands though. Or fish near them. They are wildlife refuges right now.”

“Hon, I don’t think that’s as big of an issue as of yesterday,” Lori said, shutting the door. “We can respect the wildlife. It would only be temporary, right? I mean, things have to stabilize sometime, and I think the islands should stabilize more quickly.”

You didn’t have very high hopes for the islands stabilizing, unless they were able to quickly regulate who came in and out of the populace of Hawaii. But people were creative and there were thousands of boats and planes in existence.

“Alright, so we’re going to go near the closest uninhabited, and weigh anchor, just for safety. But we’re not going to do anything on the island or any fishing until absolutely necessary. We’ll get some water stills set up, and start rationing the food. Try to preserve some fruits, Lori.”

She nodded. “You got it, Captain. But you better get someone else on those stills. Not my division, you know.”

“I’ll get our engineer on it. Dobby will need to be distracted anyway. Y/n, you should go tell our passengers the plan for now.”

“Right. First, I want a thank you.”

“For?”

“Convincing you to invest in some backup solar power for the ship to run things like the radios.” You paused at the door. “How long can the engines run?”

“I made sure we had enough to last us a couple of months, and I’ve got us going slow to reduce consumption. But we’ll have to start thinking about how to move once we run out, which is why I think your idea for the islands is a good one. The ship would be a safety point, and we could use the life-boats to get back and forth. At least until we have some sort of relief. And we might be able to go somewhere before we run out of gas. You never know. This might blow over quickly.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” You went out to check on the idols and their staff again.

They had gathered in the dining lounge, and everyone was double checking each other to make sure that there weren’t any Biogene products.

“Everyone, I’ve just finished talking to our captain, and he’s asked me to tell you our current course of action,” You started, gathering the idols and staff’s attention to explain things. “We’ve communicated with some other ships, but our current course is to head for an uninhabited island and keep to the coast of that. We have the supplies to fish, and our cook is currently working on preparing the food for rationing. Our top engineer is going to work on making sure we have a constant source of drinkable water, but for now we’re reducing our water usage. We’re scanning the radio frequencies to try and find another source of information for what’s going on out in the world, but right now it’s very quiet. We ask for your cooperation as we continue to approach these problems calmly and rationally, and your patience as we try to figure things out.”

“Is food an issue?” Seokjin asked.

You shook your head. “Not at the moment, we’re just trying to make sure it lasts as long as possible, especially our fruits and vegetables. Anything in the kitchen that we can regrow here on the ship, we will attempt to do so. The ship was stocked for at least a hundred passengers, plus the crew, and since we don’t even reach sixty with the passengers and crew combined, we should be able to hold out for a while, we’re just trying to make our food last as long as possible, which is why we will likely be utilizing the fishing nets, so we can eat and still prepare for the future. Because we have had warning, we have time to prepare for the worst, but we are still hoping for the best. We are not giving way to fear. At the moment, all we’re asking is that you remain calm and patient with us.”

That seemed to be agreeable for everyone, so you bowed a bit and then went to check in with the other translator and manager to find out what you could do to help.

Yoongi intercepted you. “Hey, sorry, I know you’re busy.”

“It’s fine, how can I help you?”

“Um, actually, I was going to ask if there was anything we could do to help? It’d be…hard to just ignore the situation.”

“I understand, unfortunately, at this moment, we’re not even certain what we need to get done. When we do, I will let you know if there is any way for you to help. For now, we have solar power that you can continue to use for charging your phones, just in case you get a call from your families, and we can power the lights. Any extra batteries, try to save them.”

He nodded. “Okay. Shouldn’t they turn of the air conditioning then?”

You shook your head. “That would be inviting trouble. People get less rational when they overly warm or cool. Turning it off would reduce morale.”

He considered it, then nodded. “Okay.”

You nodded as well, then moved on to talk to their managers.

You didn’t sleep that night, helping in the kitchen and mulling over different ideas to try for powering the boat. In theory, with the engineers’ help, you might be able to convert the engines to wind power, or at least move the boat using wind power, if you were careful enough. But where would you get the parts?

And theoretically, some of the fruits and veggies and other things could be regrown.

But what would you grow them in?

Lori had some sitting in a shallow tray of water to start sprouting, and some would continue to grow in just water, but others would need soil.

“Wake up, hon,” Lori said gently, patting your back. “Cap’n wants you. Something on the radio he wants you to hear.”

You rubbed your eyes as you forced yourself up. “How long was I…?”

“An hour,” She said in a scolding tone, giving you a look of disapproval. “A young thing like you needs regular sleep. I could have done that in the morning.”

You shrugged. “My mind wouldn’t shut off. You were awake. Like you said, I’m younger.”

“You tried calling your family?”

You shook your head. If they hadn’t tried to contact you, then there would be no point in trying to contact them. Either the call wouldn’t go through, or there was no one to make the call. Or they just weren’t able to call because they had no means or it was too dangerous. Any way you looked at it, it was safer to allow them to try and contact you. They knew you were on a ship, and your father studied epidemiology, so he would know that the ship would either go down quickly or not at all, barring a few statistical outliers.

Your father always called you a statistical outlier.

“Here, take this up with you, find a spot where it won’t get knocked over that gets some sun and some shade. Okay?”

You nodded, taking the tray up with you.

“Y/n,” Yoongi called, waving.

You nodded your greeting to him and the others, trying to pinpoint a good spot for it, finally finding it on a table that was bolted to the wall.

“Is this what we’re regrowing?”

You jumped a bit, turning to the boys with a hand over your heart. “Um, yes. One of the trays, anyway. We’ve got more down there, but they aren’t full yet so…this is the first one to come up for sunlight.”

“Cool,” Taehyung whispered.

Yoongi looked it over. “It…doesn’t look like much.”

You sighed. “I know. But like I said, if all goes well, these should regrow and we’ll just start the process over again. But I’ve been summoned.”

“Summoned?”

“Y/N to the Bridge, Y/N, please report to the bridge.”

You pointed up at the speakers.

“Oh, and maybe bring one of the representatives with you.”

You sighed. “Um, know where your managers are?”

They all shook their heads.

“I could come,” Yoongi offered.

You considered for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, only to save time though, I’m not going to be the one to get in trouble—got it?”

He nodded, gesturing for you to lead the way.

Cob glanced up when you came in. “You’ll love this. Hey, Johnny, I got my person here, mind repeating that now?”

As Johnny started retelling his tale, you slowly processed and translated for Yoongi.

“They were near one of the islands of Hawaii, and sometime in the night they started hearing noises against the hull of the ship…” You paused, horrified. “The creatures…they can survive in the water, and swim. He lost three people when some of the creatures managed to climb aboard.”

Yoongi looked just as grim. “So we’re not safe, even on a ship away from shore?”

You didn’t know the answer to that. “He says he’s going to see how far away from shore they’re able to follow him. That will help us determine how safe we may or may not be.”

Cob thanked Johnny, then turned to the two of you. “Well, what do you think? Do we tell the others of this possibility, or keep it quiet?”

You weren’t sure how to answer that either. There were pros and cons for both sides. But there were more cons for—

“We don’t tell them,” Yoongi said firmly.

You met his gaze and nodded, translating. “It would just incite panic. We don’t tell them until we know that it is a possibility, and even then, we wait until we’ve calculated when they could reach us.”

Yoongi nodded his agreement.

Cob sighed. “Right. You’re right. I just….”

“Take a break. That’s what Jones is for, so you can take breaks. They’re most active between dusk and dawn, right? Then for now, we just slowly make our way to the proximity of an island, Jones can do that.”

He slowly nodded. “Yeah, he’s on his way, just wanted to try his brother one more time.”

You nodded, then signaled for Yoongi to head for the door. “I’m checking back in half an hour and if you’re still here, I’m kicking heads.”

Cob snorted, but didn’t respond further.

Yoongi sighed outside, leaning against the railing. “This is really bad.”

“Really, really bad,” You agreed, leaning next to him. “You okay to keep this from your bandmates?”

He nodded. “I’ll just say that he asked for a representative agreement from our party that he should head for the nearest uninhabited island, as a formality, obviously.”

“Sounds good. And I was there as a translator.”

“What name would you give these creatures?”

“Based on description? The only word I can think of is in English.”

“And?”

“Zombies,” You offered, giving him an apologetic look.

But he nodded. “That’s what we were saying last night. Jungkook said it first, I think we were all afraid of saying it, but he likes watching those kinds of movies, so it wasn’t surprising that he named it first.”

“But watching movies about it isn’t exactly preparation for the real thing,” You whispered, staring out at the ocean. You usually loved going out on trips like this, even if you were just a translator. This time, though….

“Part of me wishes we’d never come on this trip, but part of me is glad that we did.”

“I understand that,” You whispered. “There are a lot of things that I wish. There are a lot of regrets I could have about this.”

“Y/n!”

You closed your eyes. “Speaking of regrets.”

Your ex came over, half-glaring at Yoongi. “This guy bugging you?”

“No, but you are,” You replied, rolling your eyes and pushing away from the railing, walking toward the stairs. “Don’t you have a job to do?”

“I just wanted to make sure you were holding up okay—”

“Well, I am. There’s no need for you to check on me. I’m doing just fine. Please, don’t check on me again. You do your job and I will do mine,” You snapped, turning to glare at him. “I told you, I have no regrets breaking up with you, and even if I knew the future, I would do it again, and probably sooner.”

“Whoa, no need to be so hostile babe!”

“‘Babe’?” You sneered, resisting the urge to shove him over your shoulder and down the flight of stairs. “You never have, and never will be allowed to call me ‘Babe’.”

“Chill out!”

Yoongi pushed past him and grabbed your wrist, pulling you down the stairs after him while rambling in rapid korean about it being dangerous to fight on stairs and ‘that’s how people get murdered’ and ‘unless that was your plan, which I would vouch for you, but I’m not sure who would believe it’ with an added ‘besides, there are a few witnesses’.

Damn was that hot.

No.

Wait.

Yes.

No. No, no. No, no, no.

He was someone you were working for, he wasn’t allowed to be hot.

And his hand definitely didn’t feel strong and sinewy and attractive.

“Don’t walk away when we’re talking!”

Your hold on Yoongi’s hand tightened.

“Ignore him, come with me. Our security team will block him,” Yoongi said, not looking back. “We have a head start, unless he starts running after us. Why did you break up with him? I mean, I get it, but what was the main reason?”

“Cheating, threatening, trying to emotionally manipulate me,” You listed, doing your best not to look back.

“Figures.”

You could see that the heading of the boat was changing, even as you and Yoongi made your way down to where the other boys and their staff were waiting.

“Block the guy following us,” Yoongi called to the security team as both of you passed by them. “He’s letting the panic get to him.”

The security team easily blocked your ex, and Yoongi led you straight to the poolside.

Namjoon came over quickly. “Any news?”

“Nothing new. Just needed a formal agreement to their plan from someone in our party.”

Jungkook dropped onto a seat nearby. “Any new information about the zombies?”

Yoongi shook his head. “Same as before, I think.”

Jungkook tilted his head. “And what is it that we do know?”

“The mutagen makes people into crazed killers, who don’t like bright lights and can only be stopped by cutting off their heads. Strong mutants that can only be stopped by cutting off their heads, and appear to be decaying. I think the mutagen might stimulate muscle growth while suppressing the nervous system. If I’m understanding things correctly, anyway.” You hesitantly sat down, wondering if that would be okay.

“I don’t know exactly what that means,” Jungkook replied, looking a little lost but curious.

“Well, we know that they’re significantly stronger, but their response to injuries is non-existent. Our nervous system is responsible for sending signals to the brain,” You explained, still thinking it through yourself. “Because it isn’t functioning the way it’s supposed to, maybe the pupils aren’t contracting, or something which makes them more sensitive to light.” But that still didn’t explain how they could survive in the water like they did.

“That makes sense,” Yoongi agreed. “I mean, for me, not knowing that much about the human body.”

“Same, but I remember some things, enough to try and puzzle it out, I guess,” You replied, shrugging a bit and looking around. “I should see if there’s anything I can do.”

“Sleep,” Yoongi said. “You should sleep. You look exhausted. I’ll walk you to your cabin so that jerk can’t ambush you.”

“I don’t want you to go out of your way—”

“It’s fine. You’re our designated liaison between the crew and us. It’s important that you’re safe so that we can continue knowing what is going on without pestering the crew.”

That reasoning was fair, and you appreciated it.

But also, you could see it causing issues.

“Come on, I want to make sure you at least go into your room. You should sleep, you look exhausted, and we know that the zombies aren’t going to attack while it’s this sunny out.”

You squeaked slightly as he pulled you up and after him.

But you didn’t fight him on it.

“Which way is your room?”

You quietly gave him directions, following until he reached your door and then tugging lightly on his hand to get his attention before he kept going. “This is it.”

He glanced over the door and nodded. “Right. Okay. Try to sleep, okay? We’re pretty far away from any major population so it should take a while for any zombies in the water to reach us, if they even can. We know they can go some distance, but not how far that distance is. So, rest. We’re going to have to be more alert at night anyway.”

You nodded. “You try to rest too. It’s easier to lie when you’re well-rested.”

He looked a bit grim at that. “Right. Good point. Good thing I’ve always been one to rest when possible.”

You unlocked your door and started in, stopping when he gently caught your upper arm.

“Hey, thank you, again, for everything you’re doing. I know you probably feel guilty because you sold us this package and now we’re all here, but you have no idea how grateful we were to have a ship like this essentially to ourselves.”

You shrugged. “You were booking in the off-season. We were lucky anyone was looking for a ship to commandeer.”

He smiled. “Whatever you say. Sleep well, y/n.”

You watched him walk away for a while, then slowly closed the door, once more pushing down thoughts of how attractive your client was.

———

The first zombie crawled onto the ship during a storm.

You had been eating with all of the guests, looked out the window and did a double-take. “Dobby! Come here.”

Dobby, the head engineer, politely excused himself and came over to join you at the window. “What is it?”

You pointed. “Stern, crawling over the railing.”

He squinted as he tried to see, flinching as lightning flashed—but gasping a bit as he spotted the zombie.

“Everyone is accounted for, right?”

“Right. Okay. Show-time, I guess. Bernie! Clyde! Time to get the lights on and try and decapitate a creature!”

You kept scanning the ship to check for anything else. “Someone tell the captain!”

“Yes, miss,” Clyde called.

Yoongi joined you, looking out. “Guess we know how long it takes for a zombie to swim to us.”

“Yup. Seven days. But it looks weaker than I expected. Maybe it is physically tiring?” You folded your arms, wincing as the floodlights turned on.

It was hideous. It looked like a human, but the skin looked like it had been boiling, and the eyes were strange—the irises almost black, and far too large, to easily noticeable from the distance. It’s jaw seemed unhinged, the mouth hanging open and not moving at all as a guttural screech emanated from it.

“No wonder people are so terrified,” Yoongi whispered.

“I’d like to wake up now,” Hoseok whispered behind you.

“Let’s get to safety, everyone,” You said softly. “Head down into the hallway. Just like we practiced.”

The soft noises of activity soon followed, everyone hearing you in their horrified silence, and moving to act as you had all practiced in the evacuation drills that had started four days ago. There were about eight different contingencies and several ranks of command.

Yoongi’s hand slid around yours, fingers locking around your fingers, and he squeezed your hand slightly. “Assuming it’s contagious. How long do you think we can hold out against the majority of the population of the world being zombified?”

“I think we’re lucky if we last a month like this,” You replied quietly. “We have little fortification, a few sporadic ships that may or may not be able to provide us with help, and no signs of any government being able to assist those who have survived. We’re in a warmer climate, which probably isn’t helping, and we have no idea if this contagion can spread to or through animals.”

“And no way of finding out except through evidence.”

“Essentially,” You whispered, looking around the deck and checking the positions of the crew as they carefully surrounded the zombie to try and dispatch it—the storm not exactly helping matters. “Come on, Dobby.”

You both fell quiet as you watched the crew carefully, and successfully, dispatch the zombie, both breathing sighs of relief.

“The storm should let up soon,” Yoongi murmured.

You nodded, still watching the crew members to make sure they made it to safety.

A few minutes later the all-clear signal sounded over the P.A. system.

Yoongi tugged your hand lightly. “Come on. I need a break from everyone.”

“Then, go, I’ll cover for you.”

“Nah, I want you to come with me. You need a break from everyone’s expectations.” He squeezed your hand, and gently tugged you along.

“But, why do you want me with you?” You asked.

He huffed. “Because I do.”

“Okay,” You replied, still confused.

He led you to his cabin (which was one of the best) and locked the door. “So they don’t come barging in. They do that sometimes.”

You nodded, looking around the cabin casually, even though you knew what they looked like and had cleaned these rooms on more than one occasion.

“We were actually worried at first, because Hoseok gets seasick, but he’s being doing well. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that we’re on a ship.”

“And then a storm hits and you remember all of those movies and true stories about shipwrecks?”

He chuckled lightly. “Yeah. I don’t think I could face them all right now, especially since they’ll be figuring out that zombies can reach us out here. Let them think what they want about us not being around. Our video crew has been filming for posterity, and it’s exhausting. Who’s going to care about how we spent our days on this ship?”

“Well, if we survive, meaning the human race as a whole, I imagine one day they may use it to make a film about you,” You joked, watching the rain pelt the windows.

“You too.”

“Why would they care about an extra translator? No, I’d be cut out and replaced with a super-secret girlfriend love interest, who obviously is terrified and you would save her from the zombies, because the truth and accuracy are inconsequential, and what’s important is the story.”

“Not that you care,” He teased.

“No, never, why would I care. Like I said, I make for a boring story,” You waved it away. “Besides, their movie would probably have a better ending than what reality will give us.”

“Maybe not,” He whispered, also looking outside. “You’re looking at the worse situation, right?”

“Probably.”

“So, best situation is we’re able to survive. We get through this. We set up defenses and we help other people to defend themselves and join us in fighting against these zombies, and…yes, the world will be different, but it will still be here. I mean, there are people in all sorts of remote places in the world, and we hope they’ve been warned, but most of all, they’re there. They may be safe. And maybe some of the defenses of the different countries are still standing. Military bases, forts, bunkers…we have to believe that there is still hope out there. We just…don’t know how to gauge how much hope there is.”

You pulled out your phone, noticing that you still had a signal. Noticing that you had a notification. “We need to get you back to the other boys.”

“What?”

“Come on. We’re going to talk to your staff and get you set up for a live on YouTube.”

“You don’t really think that’s still—”

“I do.”

“Wait,” He pulled you to a stop and turned you toward him. “Explain.”

“You have over 50 million subscribers, and are one of the top boybands in the world. You go live, you might be able to help us figure out how many people are still out there. It might connect you guys back to your family. To the family of the staff. We might be able to get help with making our boat defensible, or we might be able to meet up with a naval vessel that has been unaffected. It’s a long shot, but any sort of chance is a chance we should take, right?”

His eyes widened, and he looked troubled, but he nodded. “Okay. Alright. But you should join us in the video as a proper translator.”

“No, you’ll be fine, we can write out a message for Namjoon to read or something. We can plan things out, what you guys say and all of that. If there are other people out there, members of army, maybe they could use a familiar face.”

He still held you in place. “Okay. Let me change.”

You nodded. “I’ll wait outside.”

He nodded, but didn’t let go. “Hey, y/n?”

“Yes?”

He smiled softly. “If we were destined to get stuck on this cruise ship, I’m glad destiny chose you to be here too.”

Your heart was pounding in your ears, and you felt too warm all over and you spluttered something out and darted out the door as your brain went into a complete meltdown.

“Playboy!” You mind screamed.

“Honeyboy!” Your fangirl screamed.

“BREATHE!” Your lungs shouted as you wheezed and slid down the wall of the hallway.

He came out a few minutes later, and looked at you slightly confused. “Um, why are you sitting on the floor? Did I take that long?”

“Nah, I’m just, you know, meditating,” You refused to meet his eyes because if you did you would start your freakout all over again. Stupid fangirl. It was the zombie apocalypse and all your brain was telling you was that he was glad you were there and he was looking at you and that he kept getting you alone and talking with you and….

And oh no. Oh no no.

Did he like you?

Zombies. Focus on the zombies.

He was holding your hand again.

Apparently, he’d messaged the other boys and they were already gathered and the staff were there setting things up, and you guessed the translator or Namjoon had told some of the crew what they were doing, because they were helping set up. And they were doing V-Live and YouTube at the same time.

You stayed behind the cameras with a small whiteboard to help when they got stuck and to give them further things to say in English to try and help.

You considered them having at least half a million views encouraging, but you could tell that even the BTS staff were disconcerted at the small number.

Eventually the boys were mostly just talking to continue it and reassure anyone that may be watching that for the moment they were safe, and that they hoped that everyone else was safe as well. That they hoped this would pass soon.

They talked about the food, Jungkook and Taehyung belted out a few bars of different songs at intervals, Hoseok did his best to be bright and hopeful, Seokjin and Jimin jokingly flirted with the camera, Namjoon made faces and cracked a joke or two, and Yoongi talked about the future. Yoongi talked about someday looking back on this, just as we look back, and being able to think of it as a historical event that the world conquered.

They had over four million viewers when they ran out of things to say and decided to end it.

“So, again, these videos are going to be posted as soon as possible, and we hope we can meet up with and help those who may be in similar situations, or maybe those who are trapped can get help through this. Even if we just brought a moment of happiness, we will find fulfillment in that. We love you, and hope to see you all again.”

Jungkook and Jimin were crying shortly after the cameras were off.

Hoseok hugged onto them, which prompted Taehyung to hug them as well.

Seokjin tugged the other two into their impromptu group hug.

You set aside the whiteboard and headed outside, the rain finally gone. It was lighter than before, and the sun was trying to peek through again. Not quite successful yet, but every here and there you could spot a beam of sunlight breaking through.

The waves were still pretty intense, but not as bad as they could have been given the storm.

And there were gulls.

Which meant the boat was close enough to a land mass that the birds could fly out.

You hurried up to the bridge, not bothering to ask permission. “How far are we from land?”

“Well, we’ve slowed down and drifted slightly off course, which may be a good thing, since that creature crawled aboard, but,” Cob gestured to the maps he was using. “According to radar and such, we should be able to see the island in about half an hour.”

“But if the zombie came from there, we could be in trouble.”

He grunted.

You sighed, staring out at the turbulent waters. “The island could only be so big, though, which means that if they did come from there, there couldn’t have been too many people there to begin with. Right?”

“Unless it came from one of the ships we were going to be meeting up with.”

“Are we going to die?”

“Not if I have any say in it.”

“Okay. Then we’ll circle around, do our best to fortify and defend the ship, and hope for the best.” You bit your lip. “Right?”

Cob placed an arm around your shoulders. “Take heart, lass. Do something fun, would you? It’s not the end of the world yet, and there’s plenty of daylight to be had. Why don’t you see if that cat-boy wants to go to the bush-whacked deck and splash some paint around. You can take the others there some other time, but he seems to help you lighten up.”

You were a little busy trying not to die from Cob calling Yoongi a cat-boy. “Yoongi. His name is Yoongi.”

“Right. Couldn’t recall. Lots of names to remember. But he reminded me of a cat. Not in a bad way—”

“I’m going to go paint in the bushwhack deck. Don’t expect anything pretty.”

“I don’t,” He laughed happily.

You weren’t sure you wanted to try and find Yoongi, so you resolved to go change into clothes you could paint in first.

“Hey.”

You jumped, squeaked, and lashed out—nearly missing Yoongi.

He looked at you with wide eyes, just sort of blinking while you processed everything that just happened.

“Hi. Sorry. Hi.” You covered your heart to make sure it was still inside of you.

“Where you off to?”

“Um, you know the deck that’s off-limits?”

He nodded, looking a little wary.

“That’s because it’s under renovation. So, the crew goes there to vent and get away from everyone else. So, I’m going to change into clothes that I don’t mind getting paint on, and I’m going to go have fun splashing paint on everything.”

“Ah.”

“Would you like to come with me?”

He glanced over to where the others were still gathered, contemplating it. “Just me.”

“You can tell them to sneak down at a later time.”

He nodded slowly, then more vigorously. “Okay. I’ll meet you down there in ten, and tell them to come down in an hour or something?”

“That works.” You smiled a bit. “See you there.”

He nodded again, leaned in and kissed your cheek, and then walked back toward the others.

Your brain short-circuited as you hurried to your room to change and go down to the deck to pull out the paint and brushes.

Yoongi didn’t say anything as he joined you, simply helped move the paints into the room you wanted to paint in. It was one of the rooms with windows, so it had some natural light. But it also still had a bed in it, so you had to cover that with the plastic tarps.

But Yoongi stopped you. “You rushed up to talk to the captain. What scared you?”

You shrugged slightly. “The seagulls.”

His eyebrows drew together. “Birds scare you?”

“The fact that they can only go so far from land without dying does,” You elaborated. “I just wanted to see if it was a fluke from a storm.”

“And?”

“We’re nearing the island. It will be visible in about an hour at the speed we’re going, which is the slowest speed possible.”

He nodded. “So the zombie may have come from there.”

“Possibly,” You whispered.

He swore, closing his eyes as he pulled you into a hug.

You froze for a moment, then relaxed into the hug, wrapping your arms around him as well.

“You wouldn’t be some insignificant side character, y/n,” He whispered. “You’d be the main character.”

“Yeah right,” You choked out.

He held you tighter. “You would. You definitely would. That would be the only way the movie would have any plot.”

He drew back, resting a hand on your cheek. “I would love to be your romantic interest in the movie too.”

“We’re facing the end of humanity.”

“Which is why it’s important,” He answered easily. “Which is why I want to tell you that I was interested in you from the day we met you on the docks. You’re intelligent, beautiful, and strong. Stronger than me, stronger than most people on this ship. Do you object to me being interested in you? The world has gone to hell, people won’t need a boyband when this is over. They’ll need farmers, builders, engineers, and families.”

“Families,” You repeated quietly.

He nodded, taking your hands. “Families. I can never leave the other boys, they’re my family, especially if my actual relatives….”

“I understand.”

“But…maybe we can live somewhere together. Near each other, but separated.”

“You understand I used to be an Army?” You double-checked.

He grinned, laughing. “Yeah. I knew it when you laughed at one of the jokes. Usually only army’s understand it. I think it’s sort of fitting.”

“I’ve got a concussion and I’m having a weird dream,” You said, closing your eyes because that was the only logical explanation.

Except he kissed you.

And dang was he a good kisser.

“GET AWAY FROM HER!”

You jumped, turning toward your fuming ex-boyfriend. “Oh my God, go away!”

“Take your hands off of my girl!” He bellowed at Yoongi.

YOongi frowned and pulled you closer. “What is he holding?”

You glanced down and realized it was some sort of pill bottle. “Oh my God…tell me those aren’t from—”

“It’s all a hoax, you’re doing this to try and torment me, right? I’ll prove my love for you is stronger than anything.”

“Don’t! Please don’t!” You started toward him, but it was too late.

You watched in horror as he downed several pills.

“There, see! I’m fine! It’s all a hoax so that these terrorists can take over!”

You choked a little. “You need to get those out of your system—now! Even if they don’t turn you, that’s enough to overdose!”

“I told you! I’m fine!” He yelled, but his voice had already started changing.

“We need to get out of here before he changes,” Yoongi whispered. “Windows?”

“Only if you want to go swimming,” You replied. “Grab the chair and throw it at him.”

“Uh….”

“Do it!” You ordered, hurrying to a paint can.

Your ex made an ungodly noise as the chair hit him and you were quick to follow, swinging the full paint can at his head with as much velocity as you could muster.

Yoongi grabbed your hand and both of you started sprinting away. “What do we do? If he goes up, he could run into any number of people?”

“We have to take care of it before he can fully change. We need a way to cut off his head.”

“I don’t suppose he’d hold still while we used a saw?”

“Probably not,” You answered, looking around as the two of you ran. Finally you spotted something useful. “Break in case of emergencies, right?”

Your ex made that ungodly screeching noise again, and his footsteps were unnaturally fast as they beat the ground behind you and Yoongi.

Yoongi hurried ahead and broke open the case with something he must have picked up, grabbing the ax.

You stopped to throw a piece of furniture in the zombie’s path, hoping it would slow him down or trip him up or anything that might give you the advantage.

The two of you darted upstairs after doing your best to block the door.

Then you took the ax. “Sound the alarm.”

He grabbed the handle of the ax. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Leading him away from the crowd. We don’t have time to debate—”

He took it and started running. “Sound the alarm. He’s focused on me.”

You looked after him in horror, then quickly started running toward the nearest place you could trigger an alarm, ducking into a room so that the zombie wouldn’t see you, holding your breath.

Finally, you could hear it going after Yoongi.

You signaled the bridge then hurried after them, looking for anything that would help along the way.

Only to see Yoongi barely holding the zombie off, even in the bright sunlight.

You went barreling into it, all while your mind screamed at you and tried to tell you to stop.

Or maybe that was Yoongi.

But it gave Yoongi the space and time to swing the ax, catching the zombie’s neck and knocking it back.

You grabbed a lifebuoy and pushed it over his head, trapping his arms. “Finish him!”

And Yoongi did, though you both stared in horror at the by-product of your battle.

You met his gaze, swallowing hard. “Is this a dream?”

He reached out and pulled you away from the body. “We need to wash the blood off. Come on.”

You were shaking all over, so it was a miracle you managed to walk without tripping.

Dobby and the others hosed both of you down, making sure the water sprayed straight off the deck, then went to clean things while the Bangtan staff brought both of you towels.

“How did that get onto the ship in broad daylight?” Cob asked, hurrying up.

You looked up at him. “It was Charlie.”

“Charlie let it get on the ship?”

“No,” You answered, confused. “That thing…was Charlie. He had pills. Pills from Biogene.”

“You should have let me throw him overboard,” He muttered, petting your head, and then physically maneuvering Yoongi to check him over. “Good. You look unhurt. Wouldn’t want to cut your head off too.”

Yoongi was just a little stunned.

“Get them out of this wind!” Lori huffed, glaring at everyone and then ushering the two of you inside and out of the wind. “You need to get into dry clothing, come on. You, you’re one of his brothers?”

The boys all froze.

She gently shoved Yoongi toward them. “Make sure he gets changed and tuck him in. Marta! Get soup to both rooms.”

You didn’t object to her manhandling, just accepting it because Lori could take you if she put her mind to it, and she was right there ready to take you.

She bundled you in blankets after helping you change into dry clothing, scolded Marta for taking so long bringing the soup, and she force-fed you the soup.

When she had done that, you knew it was time to push a bit.

“I need to go talk to him,” You whispered, ignoring the trembling of your hands and the comforting call of your bed.

Lori looked you in the eye, evaluating you, then nodded. “Let me fix your hair.”

You nodded and let her work, not even checking her work before you and your blanket wrap were heading to Yoongi’s room.

His door was open, and the others were there, but he saw you, and he pushed himself up.

The others glanced over to see what had caught his attention, then seemed to all find an excuse to leave the two of you alone.

You wandered over to the bed as the boys left.

Yoongi looked up at you, eyes sad. “Are you okay?”

You shrugged, slowly sitting on the edge of the bed. “I now know that my instincts to survive are strong enough to kill someone that I know once they’ve turned. So…I’m dealing with that.”

He shuddered and reached out, pulling you down into his arms. “We did what was necessary for the survival of everyone else on this ship.”

“How many friends are we going to lose because of all of this?”

He shook his head. “Let’s not go there.”

You turned your head into his shoulder, fighting back the tears. You had to separate moments out by mere seconds: him kissing you, a moment, and then your ex turning into a zombie. There was a moment in there, that you wished you could imagine was longer.

His fingers stroked your hair lightly, then rested on your back. “But you know…I think we’re going to be just fine. We definitely need more weapons, but I think we’ll make it.”

“You know something I don’t?”

He nodded. “While we were downstairs, a naval vessel contacted the captain. They’re about a day away from us.”

“They know the zombies can swim?”

“They do. And they’ve checked all quarters and removed all Biogene products. They had a small issue at the beginning, but they’ve got it under control now. They’re going to meet with us, and we’re going to work together. They had some civilians that they rescued, and not enough beds, so we’ll take some of their civilians, and perhaps some of their soldiers.”

“And the government?”

“It’s…sort of functioning. Multiple ones are functioning on a…mild capacity. Enough to try and organize their military to reclaim lands.”

“So, where are we being escorted?”

“I don’t know. That’s about all the information that was received, I guess. I’m sure we’ll find out more when we meet up. But…it’s good, right? That we’re able to meet up with a naval vessel?”

You nodded. “As long as we don’t get overrun by zombies tonight.”

“What a bright side,” He chuckled, lightly stroking your back. “Y/n.”

You relaxed at the gentle tone in which he said your name.

“Whatever happens, let’s make it through this together? I don’t have too many skills that are usable outside of music, but I’ll do whatever it takes to take care of you?”

You peeked up at him. “Are you sure?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I’m sure. I might be relying on you, though.”

You wrapped your arms around him. “That’s fine. I can handle that. If you’re okay with me falling apart now and than.”

“I’ll try and hold you together,” He replied, squeezing you. “We’ve got a couple hours of daylight. Want to nap?”

You pushed yourself fully onto the bed and let him help you under the covers. “Yeah, okay. I could sleep.”

He smiled, taking your hand as you both lay on your sides, facing one another. “Sweet dreams, y/n.”

“Sweet dreams,” You whispered back, still studying him with your eyes half-closed.

If you could make it to safety, then spending your life with him would be great. Better than great.

“Don’t let the zombies bite,” He murmured, smiling slightly at the teasing, and the way you swatted him.

Then you let the subtle sway of the ship rock you into sleep next to the man you just might love.

#yoongi #btswritingbingo #min yoongi #yoongi x reader #min yoongi x reader #suga x reader #zombie!au #zombie au #zombie apocolypse au #bts fic #suga #namjoon #jungkook #seokjin #hoseok #jimin #taehyung

[shadowfae]

We’re all pretty aware that the tumblr otherkin community is at a huge decline; I was wondering if you have any theories as to why that is?

American Protestantism, the decline of queer oppression in North America and the AIDS crisis, helicopter parenting, web 3.0, morality politics, and  Tumblr’s porn ban; roughly in that order and rolled up into one bombshell that was a few years in the coming but nobody really saw it and understood it until it was far too late.

That was a mouthful and probably only made sense if you follow current cyberpolitical theory. For some of you reading this, as with every other hot take I have this has a chance of being passed around, that alone is enough. But for others who had no idea what I just said and need the ELI5 version, let me explain that. Buckle up, this’ll be a long one, and will go into fandom history a bit as well because it is actually relevant.

As we know, tumblr is a very American-centric platform. Twitter is also this way, but less so, but tumblr has it bad. Now, I’m ‘lucky’ in the fact that I’m Canadian and a twenty minute drive from the American border, so that puts me in the ‘privileged’ majority. (I say privileged because I’m not really sure what else to call it. Most of the information going around about politics either directly affects me or indirectly affects me approximately one or two links of contact away. Someone who’s only influenced by American politics because it makes their sister’s online friends sad is not going to be privileged in that way.)

This means that American politics and their social climate overwhelmingly affects tumblr’s social climate. This also bleeds through into other fandom spaces, on twitter, instagram, and Pixiv to name a few places; but here’s where I spend the majority of my time so here’s what I’ve witnessed.

America’s main religion, as far as I understand (from the raised agnostic and currently neopagan view I have), is some weirdass capitalistic-Protestantism that is so many miles from what the actual Bible says that if I were a betting man and knew more about cults than I did, I’d say it’s some weird fucking cult and never set foot in the country again for any reason that isn’t gaming free shipping through a PO box. If you have no idea what I just said but are at least vaguely familiar with Christianity, this graphic explains it pretty well. So we can see there’s some glaring issues with that ideal.

The decline of queer oppression and the rise of queer rights in North America, which is to tenderly include my own country but we all know when people say ‘in NA’ they mean ‘America, and Canada where it applies because the right-wing Republicans are really good in the propaganda department to convince everyone that Mexico is a drug-lords-and-anarchy wasteland to the point where even I don’t actually know what’s down there other than bad drivers and heat’; means two things. One, it’s a good thing by a long shot and do not mistake this as me thinking queer oppression being lessened is a bad thing. But two, it means that thanks to the AIDS crisis, queer folks lost a lot of first-person sources as history.

The queer elders in NA who survived are typically either a) bitter anarchists who are often POC, probably still dirt poor and do recreational drugs or b) university-tenured TERFs (trans exclusionary radical feminists). Category A are the people who Republicans have deemed worthless in every way, because racism, queerphobia, ableism, and all the other ways to be wrong and different and Evil that they can’t handle, because Jeezus would never want them to actually learn to love someone who wasn’t just like them, and they don’t have the compassion to do better. Category B are the people who want to be different in just a teensie little bit, typically with TERFs they want to be lesbians, but they don’t want to challenge the status quo. They’re fine with the way things work, they just want to be on top oppressing others over ripping the whole damn thing down and building a more forgiving system.

Now, due to all those ‘isms and the cheerfully malicious aid of the Republicans, pun not intended but drives home the cruelty of it all, we also see the rise of helicopter parenting. The invention of the internet did not really help this. Basically what you’ve got is a whole bunch of parents who saw the civil rights movement, just got access to the internet and things going viral, know the world is changing, and like all parents, they’re scared for their children. Now instead of parents knowing one or two people in their classes who just went missing one day and everyone assumed they ran away, they hear about eight homicides in the city of kids going to parks at night and dying. The Satanic Panic was another event around this time that contributed to that, but I’ll let you research that one.

This means that all of these parents, instead of doing what their parents typically did and let their kids wander off for the day so long as they’re back by sundown, they can’t let their children out of their sight. There might be a freak accident where their child is decapitated on the playground swing! Their baby might get murdered by an evil Satanist walking home from school! Their dearest darling might go online and tell their address to someone who’s got a 100% chance of being a pedophile who will show up and kidnap them in the night!

…You get the idea. 

Combine those three things I just established, what we’ve got is a lot of queer kids who have a lot of internalized shame for being different and wrong, because they’re queer, and they can’t find spaces offline to be themselves, because all of the elders who would do that are dead and/or inaccessible and their parents won’t let them go to any clubs that aren’t school-related, which they’ll never find a GSA or queer club because Republicans, ‘isms, propaganda, and the war on Category A queer adults have all done their best to ensure that those spaces don’t exist.

So you have a generation of kids who I am the youngest of. The first generation on the internet. The late Web 1.0 (usenets and Geocities) and early Web 2.0 (livejournal was the big one, ff.net too, also 4chan but fuck those guys) generation. What we were taught was: trust nobody on the internet with your real info no matter how much you like them, this is a wilderness and any crimes that happen won’t be punished or seen so don’t put yourself in a position where you’re going to be the victim of one, and everything you put online is never getting taken down so don’t put anything up that you’re not willing to have on the front page of your local newspaper.

This worked out pretty well, actually! You had kids who knew that if they got in trouble, there was no backup coming to save them. Because the form that backup might take - parents and police - wasn’t going to help. Best case, they’d be banned from their friends and online support groups for being queer. Worst case, they’d be jailed and put in juvie and conversion therapy and turn to drugs and become evil Satanists just like everyone says they secretly are already. So they learned very quickly to take care of themselves. Nobody was going to save them, so they learned to not need saving.

And then, well, Web 2.0 shifted to Web 3.0. Livejournal died because parents - the Warriors for Innocence was the big name - went “gasp how horrible my children are being exposed to the evil pedos and homosexuals they’re going to do drugs and die of AIDS!”. Which is uh. It’s filled with a lot of bigotry, and I’m not excusing them - absolutely I am not - but you can kind of see where they’re coming from, if you tilt your head and squint.

Either way, LJ died, tumblr took its place, Facebook was fast taking off, and the fandom folks who had seen mailing lists go inactive, web admins take their fanfic sites down due to copyright, entire fandoms burnt to the ground in flame wars, said ‘fuck that we’re making our own place’ and that’s how AO3 got made.

That’s important. A lot of folks move to AO3, because well, the rules let them. The rules say ‘you can throw literally anything up here so long as it’s fan content and is not literally illegal, so we don’t get taken down’. It’s a swing for the first generation internet users, those kids who know this place is a wilderness and are carving out our own sanctuary.

But. The children under us. The children for whom AIDS is a nightmarish fairy tale, for whom the ghost stories are conversion therapy, for whom know they can’t really talk to their parents about being queer but can trust they probably won’t get kicked out over it. The children who haven’t spent ten seconds without supervision except online, and their reaction isn’t ‘oh thank god I’m finally free to express myself’ but ‘if I get in trouble, who will protect me?’.

And there’s nobody there. Because we went in knowing there was no backup. And that was fine. But now, the actual adults have figured out that hey uh, maybe we should make cyber laws? Maybe we should make revenge porn and grooming children over the internet crimes? And they grew up with that. They grew up learning that no, even if your parents are suffocating and controlling, they’re always be there for you! Some adult will always be there to protect you!

That isn’t the case. It’s not. But they expect it, because it’s always been done for them. They don’t really want to change the status quo, because that means doing it themselves. They can’t do that, because they don’t know how, they’ve been controlled for every single part of their lives thanks to helicopter parenting and without that control, they don’t know how to keep their lives together, and they demand someone come and control it for them, without restraining them.

Effectively, they want someone to ensure they never face the consequences of their actions. Helicopter parents will rescue you from whatever you did, because you’re their precious baby and it doesn’t matter if you punched a kid, you can do no wrong and the other kid clearly started it.

But being queer is doing wrong. Being queer is something Jeezus doesn’t approve of. So they want to make it something he could approve of! But if it’s too off what they consider to be okay, if it’s too different and weird and wrong and evil, that can’t do, that’s still bad, and they’re precious angels, and children, and minors, why are we the adults not protecting them and letting them see it? Why aren’t we being just like their parents  but queer-friendly, why aren’t we protecting the children?

The adults who taught us were the children of those who died as a result of AIDS. The eldest of my generation knew some of them personally. My therapist’s younger brother died at 20 of AIDS, and she told me what it was like. But they don’t have that. These kids of web 3.0, they don’t have that. What they have is over-controlling parents, and the expectation that someone will always be there to protect them but hopefully in ways that don’t hurt them this time, no real understanding of why Category A queer elders are the way they are, and so much internalized shame that they have to do some pretty fancy logic-leaping to keep them from collapsing entirely.

They can’t turn into Category A queer youngsters, because they don’t know how to unravel the system around them, because they’ve never had to actually make choices in their lives and live with the consequences, because they don’t have the example of how to do it. They can’t unravel their internalized shame because again, that’s hard and they don’t have their parents to take away the consequences and pain. It doesn’t come easy to them, so it may as well not come at all.

But, you ask, if Category A queer elders aren’t around to teach the kids, then how are they learning anything positive at all? Well, Category B, our university-tenured TERFs, who don’t want to change the status quo but want to just be at the top of it instead.

For a lot of kids who don’t know how to make hard choices but want to be queer, this is an extremely attractive option. But when they go online to queer spaces, a lot of them say fuck terfs, we don’t support your hate, and they go ‘yeah okay that makes sense’. They can say fuck terfs without ever actually questioning why terfs are bad. They’re Bad and Evil, just like drug addicts, just like fairytale nazis, just like the evil homophobes.

And we saw them say ‘yeah fuck terfs’ and we were like, ‘aight you got it’ and we never questioned if they actually understood us. They didn’t. They didn’t, and we didn’t do enough to fix it, because not enough of us realized the problem. So terfs got a little sneaky. They hid behind dogwhistles and easy little comments, hiding their rhetoric in queer theory that you’ll absolutely miss if you just memorize it and never actually question it and understand why that point is being made.

This goes back to America sucking, because their school system is far more focused on rote memorization over actual logic and understanding of the text. They’re engaging with queer theory the way they’ve been taught, which is memorize and don’t think, don’t question. Besides, questioning and understanding is hard. Being shown different points of view and asked what they think is not only hard but requires them to go against all of the conditioning that says to just listen and agree and never question it, which goes back to tearing the system and internalized shame down, and we’ve established they can’t do that so naturally they don’t do that.

This begets, then, the rise of exclusionary politics. They’re turning into Category B queer youngsters, because we told them ‘hey that’s a terf talking point what are you doing’ and they never questioned why. They learned you can do all sorts of things, just don’t say X, Y, or Z, because they never thought deeply about it.

The children who have grown on Web 3.0 do not want to do any heavy lifting to make things easier for themselves long-run. They want to do as little as possible and have things get better for them. There isn’t enough of us left in Category A, because Category B terfs are very good at recruiting young folks and Cat. A is overwhelming poor, dead, and easily dismissed in the system as evil and bad, so we can’t exactly convince the young folks to listen. If all of the young kids could agree to tear down the system, a lot more older folks might listen. Change always starts with the young, and there’s a reason for that.

But Republicans have figured out, if you get people fighting, they never put together a force that can actually stop you. TERFs, who want the exact same thing as Republicans but with themselves on top, are doing this to queer youth, and Cat. A elders can’t fight back because there isn’t enough of them and the odds are against them, and the young folk like me who follow their lead.

People can kinda handle gay people. It’s not so far from the acceptable normal that it’s impassable. But you want them to handle kinky people? Gay people of colour? Kinky gay people of colour? Trans people? Those are bridges too far to step across. The original idea was to get the foot in the door with marriage equality and inch our way through with racial equality, sex positivity, dismantling ableism and perisexism (forgive me if that isn’t the word for anti-intersex ‘ism), and see if we can’t patch up the system instead of inciting a civil war over this and have to tear down the system entirely.

Well, we might’ve managed that if not for AIDS being the perfect ‘Jeezus is killing all the evil gay people for being sinners’ propaganda machine. As it stands now, not a chance in hell. So long as Republicans and terfs keep everyone fighting, nobody has the power to dismantle their empire, and they stay in power.

So then, you ask me, “Lu what the fuck does that have to do with the decline of otherkinity on tumblr???” and now that you’ve got all that background knowledge, here is your answer.

Those children who want their experiences curated for them and the evil icky content they don’t like to be gone because it disgusts them and anything that disgusts them is clearly sinful problematic and should be destroyed, are what we call ‘antishippers’, or anti for short.

They like being progressive. Sort of. They learned what Republicans and terfs have honed to a fine talent: keep people fighting, hold them to a bar they have to constantly make or risk being ostracized, and harass the people who don’t play along into getting out of your sight forever. Sound familiar?

They learned of otherkinity, and particularly fictionkind, because web 3.0 means if something goes viral on one site, it doesn’t just go viral on that site, it makes it to worldwide newspapers and twitter and nobody ever, ever fucking forgets it. They realized the following: “Hey wait, if I’m this character for realsies, not only does it help me deal with the internalized shame I’ve done nothing to actually fix because that takes work, I can also tell these people who draw gross content I don’t like they’re hurting me personally, and that actually sounds credible, and I can shame them into stopping”.

If this is your first time here and that sounds sickening, it damn well should, and I am so, so sorry that any of us had to witness this, and I am more sorry I and everyone else who personally witnessed this didn’t realize what was going on and put a stop to it. I answer asks and browse the tags and clear up misinformation and it isn’t just a genuine desire to help. It’s damage control, and my own way of trying to deal with the guilt of not stopping this. I’m well aware I couldn’t have seen it coming, I was a teenager myself still learning and no one person has that much power. I still feel like I should have done more, and I’ll do what I can to fix what’s within my power to fix.

So back to the story. This all culminates around 2016 or so. Trump wins the election, and every queer person ever knows they’re fucked, and the younger generation’s only ever heard horror stories, never seen actual oppression that this could bring. We’re all scared. We all don’t know what to do. Nobody has any answers or any control over the situation.

So they lash out. They attack others for drawing things they don’t like, for challenging them in literally any way, for asking them to reconsider the vile shit they just said, for so much as defending themselves from the harassment they just got. And when challenged, they yell “But I’m a minor! A literal child! How dare you attack me, clearly you get off on this, you evil pedophile!” and they sling around every insult in the book until one sticks. Pedophile is a pretty good one, so is abuser, and sometimes zoophile works out too. Freak is great, everyone gets right pissed off about it.

The fact that Category A queer elders were called pedophiles and freaks is not a fact they know or care about. The fact that they are quickly making every fandom community super toxic is also not a fact they care about. The fact that the ‘kin community has words and terminology and they actually mean shit, and the fact that they’re spreading misinformation faster than we can keep up with, are not facts they care about.

So they come in, take our terms, make it impossible for us to find new folks. They realize our anger is easily a power trip, because we’re already made fun of, so they get off on the little power they can find and make fun of us too, and then when we get rightfully annoyed and pissed off, they can hide behind being minors.

Then tumblr implements their porn ban, because nobody’s stopping them, because it isn’t profitable to have porn on here. Considering most of the otherkin community, and most fandom communities, are full of adults who do occasionally talk about NSFW things, and the fact that they’re just banning everyone who so much as breathes wrong, this begins the start of a mass exodus, scattering already fragile communities to twitter, pillowfort, dreamwidth, and a few other places. Largely, twitter, where you can’t make a post longer than a snappy comeback and where the algorithm is literally designed to piss you off as much as possible.

So community elders have largely left, because they can’t stand the drama and the pain of what’s happened, and that’s if they didn’t get banned for being kinky furries who do talk about how their kintypes merge with their sexuality. Most community members have also left or stopped talking about being ‘kin, because they get associated with antishippers and toxicity and it’s just not worth it. Those of us who are left get drowned out by misinformation and trolls and wishkin and antishippers who appropriate our terminology because it supports them getting a power trip, and whenever we argue, we get called pedophiles and freaks and worse.

And now there isn’t much left. I hope we get to find a better place. Othercon was a good place to talk about it, I did a whole panel (it’s on Youtube!) about what we want to do about it. But I don’t really have any answers. 

But to sum it all up... America’s political climate ultimately culminated in destroying queer spaces, and we survived, and then people who wanted to destroy smaller communities to get on top showed up and we were all but defenseless against something we had never, ever dealt with before on this scale.

One of my twitter mutuals mentioned how kinning and otherkin are now completely separate communities. It’s really the best I can do to keep hoping that continues, until nobody realizes the words are at all connected to each other. It’s the best anyone can hope for, now. I hate it. I hate every part of this. But maybe we can salvage what’s left.

#luteia laments #otherkin #fictionkin #alth #alterhuman #asks #anonymous #long post // #discussions #on community history #on politics #on public relations #commentors feel free to add your own thoughts! #Anonymous

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh Ep33 S4 pt 1: Deus Ex US Military

Been a little distracted but was reminded--yo--I gotta finish S4 of Yugioh this year. I think I can do it. There’s like...what...two episodes left? Three? Like I don’t want to tempt 2020, but like...I think I can finish this thing.

That and a bunch of my Photoshop files corrupted, I don’t know why, I’m very scared for my hard drive, and I need to do a big ol defrag and hope that’s enough. Really hoping this is my bad and not my computer’s bad. I’m pretty hard on this computer when I paint digitally.

and I was immediately gifted by the anime gods because yo, it’s my favorite storyboarder! They're back to carry me through my election burn out, every episode they touch has so much style and no matter how freakin weird or confusing the plot is, this storyboarder/animation team doesn’t seem to care. They will this kids show about cards with this attention to detail. They just have a lot of enthusiasm and that’s a thing about anime that I really like to see. No matter how weird it is, you gotta go 150% without any shame. Love it. Love to see em back.

First off, that earthquake from last episode?

Just a little bigger of an earthquake than I originally thought, coincidentally, this is when Roland shows up, only to realize that he’s like...10 minutes to late.

Well, maybe a little longer than 10 minutes when you consider that Mai freakin died and Yugi almost died, and Joey is absolutely dead and being carried across Tristan’s back.

Anyway, Roland just walked into a whole lot and is just trying to process his life. Roland is all of us in October/November of 2020.

If Roland only knew how many times Seto and Mokuba have totally biffed it when he wasn’t looking.

Like for reals...how is Roland still alive? Like...I don’t think the guy has ever died. Not even once. Maybe that’s Roland’s superpower as the secret FourthKaiba, by just being the only one to stay very far away from the constant BS strewn at this family.

Roland is just...too inept to die. He’s always too far away, he comes after the big bad has already murdered a few people, he’s just...too bad at his job to ever be a target. Live long, Roland. The Kaiba who was the smartest of all by actually being the dumbest.

Also, look at him parking far enough away on the actual helicopter landing pad. He is the only ‘Kaiba’ that follows the law. This could also be the other reason for his secret to longevity.

(read more under the cut)

Faced with a stairwell between their freedom and this weird earthquake chasm that just opened on the top story of this building, Yami decides it’s his job to carry...................

...................Raphael.

(Never forget that we know the exactly weight of Yugi Muto.)

And like Yami is weirdly strong because of magic powers but like...maybe Yami should take Joey and then Tristan should pick up Raphael? I’d say Tea could also pick up Raphael, but I feel like she just wouldn’t want to.

TBQH maybe the reason that Yami is carrying Raphael is because literally no one else feels like it? Like no one likes this guy?

Just kinda feels like Yami is holding onto Raphael out of a sunk-cost fallacy. He’s already done so much work to this guy, can’t lose him now. Gotta save Raphael to make up for killing Gurimo, Weevil, and Yugi. Can’t fail a fourth time.

Anyway, you know what else this storyboarder is good at?

How did they even get reference for drawing this? They didn’t, right? They’re just so good at art that they were like “I can draw ANY person in ANY outfit straight up the crotch, I dare you.”

Seto decides to...not help out, much like virtually all of Yami’s other friends, who also just kinda...yelled and cried at this situation instead of...helping.

Which is fine, because the stairwell gave out and then Raphael decided to uhhhh throw this directly at me.

Just one more yeet for the road. Youknow this guy has yeeted the Pharaoh not once but twice in one season, and both times he just chucked him like he was made out of foam core. (Also, please admire the millennium puzzle in this shot going out at like a 90 degree angle. Just...A+, this storyboarder is hilarious)

At first, I really thought Yami was dabbing his way over that ledge.

In a moody shot with his hair and his jacket swaying in the breeze, almost designed for you to lift and stick into your Youtube AMVs, Seto looked onward and seemed...kind of bored because no one’s throwing any cards. And like who can blame him, he has been on the top of so many ledges and so many buildings that he’s seen Yami make this same speech of “DON’T DO THIS DAMN LEDGE THING I SWEAR TO GODS” like...so many times.

He just immediately accepts Yugi died and is like “Well I guess that makes me king of games.”

And Raphael, after like several minutes of begging Yami to just let him die, decides to let go of that ledge on his own, because this is Yugioh, and you gotta fit in that suicide within the first 10 minutes of the episode. Which, PS, is not the weirdest thing that happened this episode.

And because Roland is freakin late to everything, he showed he could have done this the entire time. Honestly I think Roland just didn’t want to deal with Raphael. We can blame this on Roland, right?

PS we never see this building again in this episode.

I don’t know........why they bothered showing this. If anything it makes the next plot twist more weird because it’s like...what was the point of the random ass earthquake and the random ass concept art building if we, in fact, aren’t coming back here???

I mean I guess it’s a nice shot for your Artstation portfolio, good on you, Yugioh background artist.

Unfortunately this chip contains Seto Kaiba’s greatest weakness. (SanDisk card? Jump drive? Which PS--if they had jump drives this whole time, why was Seto using floppies earlier in the season? Like what happened there?)

And then, with the hatch of their helicopter just wide open, no one in a seat belt, and walking away from the destruction of one of the largest buildings in San Fransisco, finally the cops showed up. Real cops this time, not possessed cops. Also, it’s the Marines.

Am I going to get my Monty Python ending? I mean...if cops can recognize these kids in this universe...I might get my Monty Python ending. :) :) :)

For some reason, back on the mean streets of San Fransisco with no people left alive in it, Rebecca just kinda started losing her mind. Maybe this was to make up for the 2 seasons I had to watch Duke Devlin flirt with a 12 yo? That now we have to suffer Duke saddled with this small crazy person?

This small crazy person who is painted as this intolerable person next to Duke Devlin, but is also a love interest for the main character? Like Yugi’s into some weird ass angry girls.

PS the orcs were no longer needed for the plot so they have turned into streams of light in order to join with the Leviathan mass. So now Rebecca and Duke Devlin will just have literally nothing to do for the rest of the season. I guess they can go to Ghiradelli square...someone’s gotta eat that ice cream before it melts.

Also this happened.

In case you were like “Wow Rach, you didn’t update the Death Count, how dare you”--it’s because I uh...completely forgot that the Oricalchos crew is immune to fall damage. Raphael’s just fine now. He fell down 50 stories...and then 50 stories fell on him...but don’t think about it.

Meanwhile, on the back of some aircraft carrier, far into international waters, the kids get recruited into the military of a foreign country and it’s just as weird as you think it is.

Hey guys.

So, Bandit Keith was weirdly in Hell this season for no reason, right? What if he died offscreen because, earlier in the season, the US military threw him at Dartz because they couldn’t get a hold of Yugi or Kaiba? What about that headcanon? What if that’s why his angry ghost wanted revenge?

Anyway, they join the ranks of Shadow T. Hedgehog, which makes sense because...these guys look like human OC’s of Shadow the hedgehog already.

Sorry I just had a moment because Shadow uses guns a lot despite not needing them at all so “people won’t get uncomfortable with how powerful he is” while in Yugioh they can’t even...show a gun. That really is...you ever think about how weird that is? That Shadow the Hedgehog, a strange remix of a 90′s sega mascot, has a million giant guns but Kaiba’s actual gun (which, apparently he does have in the Japanese version of this show) got edited out completely?

Sometimes it just dawns on me and I have a moment.

Now the US Military just hand delivering them to Dartz is so wild because their reason for the USA not doing anything on their own with their fleets and fleets of ships is:

Have you MET the US? I live here, and if we were like given the choice to shoot the ocean...or just die...we’d be like “wait...for reals? So no one gets hurt, we just shoot guns at the water? You mean we finally found our true calling? For REALS? I just shoot this water bucket!??? FOR REALS????” and it would become a national holiday. All pop songs would be devoted to it. Our ancestors would make movies about it.

I mean, our dumbass president considered nuking a hurricane in 2019...in case you forgot because damn, it’s been a STUPID 4 YEARS. (And you better have voted already because for reals do not make me go through 4 more years of this. I do not think this blog would survive it...or the hurricanes that will keep getting nuked.)

Also....the show actually threw the word “proof” out there. Seriously show? You OK?

I figured the mind control situation would be a better reason not to arrest Dartz other than “Dartz is just so good at covering up his tracks” when the TRACKS have a broken down Caltrain on one side of them, and the other side of the tracks have the rest of that same Caltrain at the bottom of a river.

Seto is not amused but he never is. He will take this Nobel Peace Prize and step up to the microphone at the UN and be like “I WANTED IT TO BE A CARDS PRIZE.”

PS--we HAVE a map already, right? Raphael died to give us this map--and then didn’t die, but it’s not like anyone else here knows that. So like...why did we need the US Military to show up at all? Why is this scene important? Other than to look cool, I guess? Like...

...why is the US military here we already have a Deus Ex Machina delivered by Raphael? At least that one was deserved--the whole point of that duel was to get this MAP.

A map that we are never going to use.

...There’s a good chance that two writers wrote this episode in two different buildings and just...glued the two halves together. Animation is wild. Weird ‘Cinema sins’ things like this happen...all the time. This one though, this one is kind of funny because it’s a ton of wasted effort on the very best storyboarder.

Anyway I broke this up into two segments because I’m tired, and also, while a lot of people like long posts, the smaller posts are kinda easier to read. More will be upcoming in like...I dunno it really depends on a lot of things right, now, I’ve been having a time, but at least Yugioh is always there to enjoy. Maybe I’ll need so much distraction you’ll get an update tomorrow? Good things can happen, and it’s not like I get to do anything else for Halloween.

Happy Halloween Y’all! Lets make the most of it!

(here’s a link to read these in chrono order)

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

#ygo #yugioh #recap #photo recap #humor #seto kaiba #yami muto #yami #the military??? #helicopter #roland #mokuba kaiba #tea gardner #tristan taylor #rebecca hawkins #duke devlin #Ep 33 #S4

[sgtpaine]

The Left’s Revolution Dominates Every American Height, And They Don’t Know Why We Aren’t Cheering

Herein lies a glimpse into just what kind of knuckle-draggers the left thinks we are. They think patriotism means we’ll do whatever they say whenever they say it.

By

Christopher Bedford

AUGUST 10, 2021

“Rooting against Olympians, scoffing at Capitol police, broaching civil war — meet today’s conservative movement.”

That’s the opening of an article last week at Vox.com. You’ve probably heard of Vox. Their self-proclaimed, self-aggrandizing purpose is to “explain the news.” But when Vox’s condescending reporters start talking about conservatives, Christians, guns, or really anyone outside of a few coastal cities, they have a habit of sounding like Jane Goodall observing apes.

So, what’s their qualm now? Let’s let them explain it in their own words:

[There is a] rising tendency in the conservative movement to reject America itself. In this thinking, the country is so corrupted that it is no longer a source of pride or even worthy of respect. … Queer female soccer stars demanding equal pay, Black basketball players kneeling to protest police brutality, the world’s best gymnast prioritizing her mental health over upholding the traditional ideal of the “tough” athlete — this is all a manifestation of the ascendancy of liberal cultural values in public life. And an America where these values permeate national symbols, like the Olympic team, is an America where those symbols are worthy of scorn.

Worthy of scorn; imagine that. Underperforming and overpaid people who for a living play a game no one watches want to be paid the same as people who are better players and earn more viewers.

Rich athletes publicly spitting on their country, their flag, and the men and women who have died for it, so they can push left-wing lies.

An enormously talented athlete quitting on the brink of competition, and saying the problem was she wanted to compete only for herself, not for her coaches, her teammates, or her country.

These are indeed “all a manifestation of the ascendancy of liberal cultural values in public life.” They’re the fruits of a spoiled, privileged, narcissistic, and self-obsessed revolution that began in the late 1950s and has been fighting its way to power ever since. They have it now, and it isn’t simply confined to our sacred soccer ball kickers.

Sports is just the latest, but look at its sponsors: You can be a subpar professional athlete, but if you spit on the flag you get a lucrative Nike contract.

Remember that Nike ad, “Believe in something even if it means sacrificing everything”? It featured Colin Kaepernick. The only problem is, he didn’t sacrifice anything — he discovered he could be paid a lot more playing the American public than he could playing football as a backup quarterback.

Now, thanks to his fake bravery, he gets to decide if the first flag of the United States is permissible. He says it isn’t, because America wasn’t perfect 245 years ago — and Nike sanctifies that decision with a lucrative payout.

They don’t mind; Nike may still be headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, but at heart they’re a Chinese company. That’s the People’s Republic of China: a godless slave state that uses forced labor to manufacture products and criminalizes dissent. That’s a country Nike respects, or at least one it cares about offending. Guess what: We don’t like that.

They’re far from alone. Silicon Valley was once a symbol of American enterprise: Young men working in their garages to harness technology and revolutionize our lives. Now Silicon Valley symbolizes the most powerful private companies the world has ever known — and they use that power to crush dissent, censor presidents and critics, and push left-wing propaganda. Turns out, when they do that we don’t like them.

We can go on. Blackrock sends its urchins to buy up affordable homes in growing cities to transform a society of homeowners into a society of servile tenants.

Mastercard and IBM build international databases for tracking humans so they can bar them from travel and commercial activity if they don’t take an experimental vaccine. Or, in MasterCard’s case, maybe they’ll ban you if they just dislike your politics.

Bank of America refuses to make loans to American gun manufacturers out of principle while making a $1 billion gift to Black Lives Matter, a racist, anti-American, anti-family, grifty riot squad responsible for dead police, murdered innocents, and burned-out cities. Huh — turns out we don’t like any of that either.

How about the Pentagon? Conservatives used to respect it because it won wars and embodied the finest of American values while doing so. But now the Pentagon loses wars, throws away lives, and wastes trillions of dollars while trashing those fine American values.

The military used to be a strict meritocracy. Now, they cut standards in the name of diversity. They used to demand that every soldier be fit and ready for war. Now, they slash the requirements for our troops’ physical performance and brag about maternity flight suits.

They teach weak and disgusting left-wing racism in their academies, they target Christians, they insult the middle-America conservatives who do most of the fighting and an overwhelming share of the dying in our armed forces. While our enemies run ads touting the manly virtues necessary to a warrior life, our generals run ads about having two moms. It’s not very intimidating. And hey, we don’t like it.

Ladies and gentlemen, we could all go on with example after example, but the point is this: The left got their revolution, the one they spent decades screaming and agitating for. They got their ideologues into the halls of power — not just the university halls, not just the halls of Congress, but all of them: Business, media, military, sports.

If there is an institution in your life and it’s not a good church, chances are that institution has implemented one policy after another pledging itself to the dogmas of the left. Now, the left is shocked — shocked — that we don’t like it one bit.

There was an America that we loved. It was an America of religious liberty and freedom of speech, and equality before the law. An America that loved what is beautiful rather than what is warped and ugly. An America that loved its founders and loved its children. An America that knew that whatever prosperity it possessed, it owed it all to the Almighty, and that it had a solemn duty to Him in return.

That was the America we loved. An America that hundreds of thousands of young men proved they loved more than life itself. We still love that America, and we’re not just going to cheer and applaud their active desecration of it.

Herein lies a great little glimpse into just what kind of knuckle-draggers the left thinks we are. They think patriotism means we’ll do whatever they say whenever they say it. “Drink your can of beer, sit on the couch, and cheer for sports. You like sports, don’t you, you ape? Come on, watch them on your 60-inch Chinese TV you bought at Walmart.”

“Buy our cheap, foreign products, do it now. You like free enterprise, don’t you? What’s more free than your boys and girls in the Navy guarding Chinese ships shipping Chinese products from Chinese companies to run-down American towns that were once industrial hubs?”

“You like cheap things, don’t you? I thought Republicans loved sports and business!”

“When Gen. Mark Milley says jump, you say how high. When he says you’re racist and you are showing white rage, nod along. When he says standards are overblown, and that diversity is our new strength, salute. Come on, don’t you support our troops?”

They don’t get it. They don’t get that we don’t honor and salute empty institutions and buildings! We don’t just bow down before the local magistrate’s hat on a stick.

They don’t get that a church is not just some building that can be made into a nightclub, it’s where we worship God — and it’s from his presence that it derives its meaning.

They don’t get that people watch sports for athletic excellence, good old American entertainment, and the thrill of cheering for the guys fighting for your team. No one watches sports to be condescended to, regardless of what uniform the athlete has on.

They don’t get that we respect the flag and the Americans who’ve fought and died for it and will again, but that doesn’t mean we stand and salute the Pentagon and all the foolish politicians in the brass.

They also don’t get that we’re not all 100 percent serious and miserable all of the time, like a couple of CNN anchors we could name; we still have a sense of humor. So yes, when a woman with an ugly heart says ugly things about America and then flops in a big soccer tournament, we’re going to chuckle about it. Maybe even laugh out loud. Maybe we will have that cold beer.

We’re Americans; we don’t resent success in sports, business, or military service. But as Helen Andrews of The American Conservative recently wrote, conservatives don’t resent the left’s success — we resent the ways they actively harm us. And we’ll never accept the rotten version of America they tell us we’re supposed to love.

America is worth saving. If you live in a major coastal city, leave it whenever you can and see that America. It can sometimes be hard to find — the left has warped it viciously. Today this country kills its children in the womb, celebrates decadence, and glorifies decay, but if Vox is onto anything it’s this: We are onto them. And we’re not buying it. And America lives on in our hearts.

There are a lot of problems in this country. We’re experiencing a secular elite trying to justify their existence in any way they can. Things are going to get worse before they get better, because they want things to and it makes them feel good.

But there’s no God at the end of this tunnel. Just as with drugs or money or sex, no amount of Black Lives Matter,  climate change activism, and yard signs can fill the hole they’re feeling. The good news is, it won’t work; the bad news is, our experiment is delicate and badly damaged.

The work — going to school board meetings, running for local office, speaking up in our towns and our cities and our states — is hard work. We’re going to lose friends along the way, but we will lose this country forever if we don’t, so there’s really no choice at all, is there.

Christopher Bedford is a senior editor at The Federalist, the vice chairman of Young Americans for Freedom, a board member at the National Journalism Center, and the author of The Art of the Donald. Follow him on

Twitter

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[spookywhumping]

Surprise

(So I have no idea if box boys are still a thing or if the hype’s died down or what, but better late than never, as they say. Finally got time to sit down and write out the idea I had.)

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

5438729 blinked up at the sudden light as the box was opened. He could see two faces staring down at him. Two men, looking almost identical, with the same red-brown hair and dark brown eyes. No, on closer look, one of them had eyes that were slightly different shades of brown. The other one was wearing round glasses.

“Nope. Not kidding you.” The one with the glasses grinned.

The other one disappeared from view as he stood up. “Damn it, Dez. Why did I think it would be anything different?”

“Oh, come on. Don’t say it like that, Ly.” The one with the glasses—Dez, apparently—reached into the box and pulled 5438729 roughly to his feet. 5438729 swayed, struggling to remain standing. His legs muscles had long since cramped up from staying in the same position during shipping. He had to lean forward, placing some of his weight on the box.

“Say it like what?” The other one—Ly—countered, scowling. Now, seeing him standing, it was clear he was taller than Dez, though thinner and not as well-built. “Like I’ve told you I don’t want you to involve me in your work? And yet, here you are, bringing something like...” He gestured vaguely at 5438729. “...you know, into my house?”

“Hey, believe it or not, this actually has nothing to do with me.” Dez grabbed 5438729 by the shoulders, holding him steady. “I bought this online. And not for myself, for you.”

“Oh my god, you’re fucking kidding me,” Ly muttered. He rubbed the side of his head near his temple.

“Listen, Lysander,” Dez said, a more serious tone to his voice. “I worry about you, sometimes. You’re my only brother, after all. You live all alone—literally could not get more alone, you have to drive up a mountain to get up here. If I can’t come visit, I want to know that you have something up here with you that’s alive and not, like, a plant.”

“And you decided to go with this,” Lysander stated. “Instead of a dog or something. Jesus christ, Desmond.”

“Look, you don’t have to worry about any training or anything, the company’s already done that,” Desmond insisted. “Look.” Desmond reached into the box and pulled out a small manual. He flipped through the pages. “They know all these positions and everything. And I specifically looked for one that was really well-trained. Neither of us have to do anything!”

“Oh my god, Dez.”

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“Because what else am I supposed to say?!” Lysander half-shouted. “This is illegal! Where did you even find a company that would do this?!”

“I told you, online. The company’s based in a legalized-pet country, so it’s no problem there.” Desmond shook his head. “You won’t believe how much it cost. Plus I had to pay extra for international shipping.”

“International smuggling,” Lysander corrected pointedly.

“What does it matter? You’ve broken the law before.”

“But not with—with something super-illegal! Like this!” Lysander spluttered. “Look, you can do whatever you want with your own life, but I’ve told you, so so many times, to leave me out of it, thank you.”

Desmond stared at him silently for a moment. Then he shrugged. “Well, alright, if you’re sure. I guess I could take it in. I just started work on another one, but since this one’s already trained, I can make room—”

“Whoa, hey, wait a moment,” Lysander suddenly hurried to say. “I didn’t say I didn’t want to keep him.”

“Really?” Desmond raised a brow. “‘Cause it sure sounded like you didn’t.”

“Hey, I’m not happy that you did this without asking me, but I’m not going to throw him out on the streets.”

“What streets?! May I remind you, mountain! Your driveway is the only road up here!”

“You know what I mean,” Lysander waved away Desmond’s comment. “I’m not ducking out of responsibility, even if you shoved it on me.”

Desmond’s face lit up. He threw the manual at Lysander, who fumbled before catching it. “You’re not gonna regret this, Ly.”

“I will if I end up in prison for life,” Lysander muttered. “Or worse.”

“You won’t, I’ll make sure of it.” Desmond stepped back, looking over 5438729. “This is a good one to have for a beginner. Very docile.”

“Okay.”

“And you see the unique coloration in the hair? Very nice.”

“I got it, Dez.” Lysander rolled his eyes. “Now please leave my house before I decide to commit fratricide.”

Desmond laughed. “Alright. Have fun. I’ll text you later.” And with that, he turned and left. 5438729 heard a door open and close behind him.

Lysander sighed. He looked at 5438729, scanning him up and down. “Well. You’ve been quiet.”

5438729 didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure if that was a cue to speak, so it would be better not to risk it.

Another sigh. “Alright. So. You’ve probably been in that box for a while. Are you hungry?”

The tone of Lysander’s voice suggested he did want an answer this time. 5438729 nodded. “Yes, master,” he said, voice a rasp.

“Okay, then.” Lysander threw the manual down on the nearest table. “You can, uh. Sit down there.” He gestured at a nearby sofa. “I’ll be right back.”

5438729 hurried to sit down, and watched as Lysander left the room through an open doorway. For a few long moments, his eyes remained fixed on the doorway, but when it became obvious that it would be a while before Lysander returned, he turned his attention to the rest of the room. It was a large living room, large enough to hold two sofas, three armchairs, three different tables, and a flatscreen TV. The style was rustic, and out the windows 5438729 could see trees and an evening sky. Out of all the places he could’ve ended up, he supposed this was one of the nicer options. And Lysander, though he was clearly irritated about having a pet sprung on him, also seemed...nice. But he would have to be careful not to get lazy. Anything could happen now that he was out of training and into the real world.

Footsteps. 5438729′s eyes snapped back to the doorway to see Lysander returning with a bowl in hand. “Here we are.” Lysander sat down in a nearby chair, placing the bowl on the sofa’s arm. “I haven’t gone grocery shopping in a while, so I just heated up what I had. Hope you like chicken.”

5438729 looked down at the bowl. Then back up at Lysander, who folded his arms. “Well? Go ahead,” he prodded.

That was permission. 5438729 looked back down at the bowl. He couldn’t deny that the was hungry. It must’ve been hours since he last left headquarters, and the small amount he’d been given back there wasn’t enough to stop the ache clawing at his stomach. He pulled the bowl closer, reached inside and started to eat.

Lysander nodded, satisfied. 5438729 felt a wave of relief that his first command had gone well. He continued, watching as Lysander walked over to one of the windows and peered out. “He’s gone,” he muttered. “Good.” Lysander glanced back over at his new pet, and sighed. “Well. It’s better than leaving you with him, I guess. Look, I love him, but...it’s complicated. Do you already have a name, or do I have to give you one?”

5438729 swallowed hurriedly. How was he supposed to answer that? Well, he couldn’t take too long to say something, otherwise he might get upset. “My number is 5438729, but you may call me whatever you want, master,” he said tentatively.

“Number?” Lysander frowned.

5438729 felt his heart jolt at the visible displeasure. No, no, that wasn’t what he wanted, he shouldn’t have mentioned it—

“Who gives a pet a number? Not even a temporary name? God, what are they doing over there?” Lysander shook his head. “Well, I’ll think of something.” He paused. “Are you finished?”

With what? Oh, the food. 5438729 looked back at the bowl. There was still a lot inside, but that didn’t matter.

What matters most is the wishes of your master.

Did he want him to be finished? 5438729 couldn’t tell. Maybe if he showed him...he tilted the bowl so Lysander could see the food still inside.

“That’s a no,” Lysander surmised. “Well, go on, I can wait.”

So he wanted him to eat it all. 5438729 could understand that. It would probably be better to hurry, so he wasn’t wasting his new master’s time. 5438729 picked up the pace, shoving bits of chicken into his mouth as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, Lysander took a phone out of his pocket and started typing something. He’d occasionally glance back up at 5438729 before looking back down. 5438729 briefly wondered what he was doing, but pushed that thought away. It wasn’t for him to know.

It wasn’t long before the bowl was empty, and 5438729 stilled, waiting for a new command. Lysander didn’t look at him for a while more. Then he nodded, and put the phone away. “Okay, I think I got it.” Lysander stood up, walking over to 5438729, leaning on the sofa’s arm. “So, how about Mocha? That’s a pet sort of name, isn’t it?”

5438729—no, his name was Mocha now—nodded.

“Great.” Lysander flashed a smile. “I just thought, you know, with the white streak in your hair. With the rest of it being brown, it sort of reminded me of latte art or something. Well. Now that we’ve got that sorted out.” He stood up straight. “C’mon, follow me.”

Mocha stood up, following Lysander down a hallway and up a flight of stairs. Lysander pushed open a wooden door, revealing a bedroom inside. “Wait inside for a second, I’ll be right back.”

The bedroom was clearly lived-in, with an unmade bed and a desktop computer on a desk in the corner. Mocha hovered awkwardly in the center of the room. Lysander hadn’t said much more than “wait,” did he want him to sit? Or kneel? Where? Was the center good or was he supposed to be near the wall?

Luckily, he wasn’t left alone with that dilemma for long. Lysander reappeared, holding a bundle of blankets and a few pillows in his arms. He dumped everything at the foot of the bed. “You can sleep here, for now,” he said. “Until I get proper pet supplies, like...god, what do you even need?”

Mocha wasn’t sure how to answer that, so he stayed quiet.

“To the internet, I guess,” Lysander muttered, walking over to the desk and taking a seat. He glanced back over at Mocha. “Don’t just stand there, it’s weird. Sit down, or something.”

Mocha nodded and sat down in the midst of the blankets Lysander had dropped on the floor. Lysander turned away, but didn’t seemed displeased. He decided to take that as a sign of approval.

“And remember to open browser incognito,” Lysander said, typing on the computer’s attached keyboard. “Remind myself to clear my search history in case the government sees what I’m doing...because this is so, so illegal, by jesus Dez, what’re you doing?” Lysander shook his head again. He seemed to do that a lot. “What’s this company again?” He frowned, and reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out the manual he’d previously left downstairs. He scanned the front. “Yeah, okay...Box Boys, that’s...do you just shove pets in boxes? You don’t give them water or anything for the trip? What the fuck?”

Lysander looked over at Mocha again, who straightened.

Remember to make a good first impression for your master.

“If you’re going to ship pets, then don’t just put them in boxes,” Lysander mumbled, tossing the manual on the desk. “Come on. I bet you have some disclaimer about not being responsible for the state the pet arrives in. Bullshit.” He started typing again. Mocha watched him silently. He wasn’t sure if Lysander was upset because of the new responsibility he had, or if he just...wasn’t the happiest person in general. He wasn’t sure which one was worse. He was supposed to serve his master, do whatever it took to please them. That would be difficult if either one of those statements were true.

“You don’t even have supplies listed on your website, what the actual fuck,” Lysander scowled. “Fine, I’m sure I can find a list somewhere. The internet’s a big place.” More typing. Then some clicking that went on for a while. “There we are. Knew it would be here somewhere.” Lysander’s eyes scanned the screen. Then he looked back at Mocha again. “So you need a collar, probably a leash, and a proper bed. At the very least.” A dark expression fell over his face. “Where am I supposed to find that in this country? It’s not legal everywhere, website.”

Slowly, Mocha shook his head. It seemed like a good idea to do that.

Lysander groaned. “I’m gonna have to talk to Dez about this. He knows people in this business. And so getting this stuff...might take a while. Sorry ‘bout that.”

Mocha blinked. Did...did Lysander just apologize? To him? Something about that felt...backwards.

“Well. Guess I can do that tomorrow. I don’t think I can do more stuff today.” Lysander leaned back in his chair and stretched. “Time to...I don’t know, dick around online.”

Mocha waited for more instructions, but it seemed Lysander was done. He stayed sitting at the desk, pulling out a pair of headphones and plugging them into the speakers. Mocha stared at him. Watched him click, seemingly aimlessly, and continue to mutter to himself with his eyes glued to his screen. Was this something that happened every day, or was today an outlier? Was he supposed to expect more attention from Lysander as time went on, or should he get used to this? He...he wasn’t getting a lot of directions, and that fact filled him with a vague sense of distress. Training had prepared him to follow every command his master gave him, but it hadn’t prepared him for situations without any commands.

Well. Maybe he should default to his general purpose.

To serve, obey, and please your master.

He wasn’t getting much of that second part, or the first, really, but he could still fulfill that last purpose. Mocha slowly unwound from the spot where he was sitting. Lysander didn’t seem to be upset about it, though maybe that was because he didn’t notice. Mocha took a deep breath, and crawled forward, across the floor of the room, until he was next to the desk.

Lysander definitely noticed that. He glanced away from the computer screen and towards Mocha. “What?”

Mocha inched a bit closer, until he was sitting next to Lysander’s chair. And there he stopped, looking up.

Lysander stared down at him, looking more than a little confused. After a silent moment, he turned back to the computer screen. Mocha stayed where he was. And after a few more minutes, Lysander looked down again. “What?” he repeated. He didn’t sound annoyed, just a bit confused. “What is it? Do you just want to be there?”

“I thought you would want company, master,” Mocha said quietly.

“Oh.” Lysander softened, considering this. “Well...okay, then.” And he looked back at the computer screen.

A few moments later, Lysander reached down. His hand landed on top of Mocha’s head, and he started running his hand through his hair. Lysander looked down at him again. “Is...is this good?” He sounded unsure. “Do you pet...well, do you pet pets? Like you?”

“If you want, master,” Mocha said.

“Well.” Lysander paused. “I...I guess this is what I’m doing, now. Do you like this?”

Mocha nodded, leaning a bit closer, until he ended up resting his head against Lysander’s thigh.

“Oh.” Lysander sounded vaguely surprised. “Well, in that case, I’ll...keep doing it. I guess.” Then, though he once again turned his attention back to the computer, he kept up with the stroking motion.

Mocha thought, in that moment, that this wouldn’t be so bad. He couldn’t forget his training, of course. But perhaps it would be easy enough to fulfill his purpose here. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad at all.

#whump #whump writing #this is one of the fluffier pieces ive done despite the general premise #whump oc #whump ocs #box boy #box boy whump #oc tag: mocha #oc tag: lysander ahearn #oc tag: desmond ahearn

[wonderlandleighleigh]

Let’s talk about the Sokovia Accords!

Hoo boy! Let’s have a chitchat about the Sokovia Accords, shall we? I’ve seen a number of arguments for and against them, but let’s break them down.

Any enhanced individual who agrees to sign the accords must register with the united nations and provide biometric data such as fingerprint and DNA samples. 

LOL. Okay. So, let’s talk about this data bank and how dangerous it is. Let’s talk about who has access to this information and these samples, because this is a clone saga waiting to happen. 

At best, it gives the UN the ability to make an army. At worst, it gives the UN the ability to make an army.

Those with secret identities must reveal them to the UN. 

Cuz that goes well every time a hero is outed and doesn’t give their enemies license to go after their loved ones.

Those with innate powers must submit to a power analysis which will categorize their threat level and determine potential health risks. 

Uhm.

Whatcha gonna do if you feel their threat level is too high, UN? Who gets to decide that? How is it decided? 

Those with innate powers must wear a tracking bracelet at all times. 

Problem one: Who is tracking them? What if that tracking information lands in the wrong hands and suddenly Hydra is like “WOO! WE GOT LOCATIONS!” and all those people wearing tacking bracelets are suddenly murdered? 

Problem two: This stinks of a way to ID them to the public in the same way the Nazis used the Star of David before they started shipping Jews to camps. And no thank you.

Any enhanced individual who signs is prohibited from taking action in any country but their own, unless they are first given clearance by the UN or that country’s government. 

Hey! This one makes sense! Communication is great! 

Governments are prohibited from deploying enhanced individuals outside of their own national borders unless given the clearance stated above. The same rule also applies to non-government agencies, such as SHIELD, and the Avengers. 

Again! Totally fine. Talk to each other before you bust in.

“Yo! We think maybe there’s a thing happening! Government of foreign nation, are you cool with us coming and helping out?” 

“Yeah, dude! Haul that sweet ass over here!” 

Great!

Any enhanced individual who does not sign will not be permitted to take part in any police, military, or espionage activity or take part in any national or international conflict, even in their own country. They will not be allowed to take on missions run by private institutions such as SHIELD either.

...Eh...I mean...I see what you’re doing here, accords? But a number of things can happen that would be not so awesome surrounding this rule, including enhanced individuals being framed for breaking this rule, and governments ignoring this rule when the shit hits the fan and they need specific people’s help, accords or not.

Also, espionage is espionage for a reason. It’s a great cover.

Any enhanced individuals who break the law (including vigilanteism) or are otherwise deemed to be a threat to the safety of the general public may be detained indefinitely without trial.

Holy shit no. 

Again, I ask, who gets to decide whether an enhanced person is TOO POWERFUL?? And no trial? At all? Somebody get the ACLU on the fucking phone! This is some horse shit right here.

If an enhanced person violates the accords, or obstructs the enforcement of the accords they may likewise be arrested and detained without trial. 

Oh yeah? For how long? Who decides? They’re just tossed into the raft and forgotten about? Damn. Clint and Scott got fucking LUCKY with their plea deals! 

The use of technology to bestow individuals with innate superhuman abilities is strictly regulated, as is the use and distribution of highly advanced tech (Asgardian, Chita’ri).

Oh, regulated. Not banned outright. I see. Cuz Tony.

The creation of self aware artificial intelligence is strictly prohibited. 

Uhm.

This is so awkward. Are the Accords retroactive? Cuz...uh...Vision existed when they were created. And uh...also Tony still uses Friday. A lot. 

So awkward. 

The Avengers will no longer be a private organization and will operate under the UN.

Let me explain why this is bad: 

The UN is run by the world’s governments, which makes any Avenger who signs the accords beholden to their whims and at their beck and call no matter how the Avengers themselves might feel about it. 

If the team or a member or two disagree with what the UN is up to, the UN may just decide that those members, or the team as a whole, are “too powerful” and throw them in jail with no trial for however long they feel like, because the time frame isn’t spelled out anywhere.

Or, let’s look at the current world political climate: 

The United States has an administration that is...fucking terrible, and has pulled out of the UN for the most part. They’re storing innocent people in camps, they’re rolling back civil liberties for women and the LGBTQIA+ community, and they are destroying the environment because they like money more than anything else in the whole world and they wanna help their rich, racist buds.

Since the Avengers are, mostly, American citizens, there’s nothing stopping the US from doing a number things:

1. Taking their toys and going home, amending the accords so the US Avengers are at the beck and call of the US goverment.

2. Disbanding the Avengers altogether.

3. Again, claiming they are too powerful and throwing them in jail when they inevitably turn on the government and start liberating immigrant camps (They do, in fact, have a member who has personal experience in liberating prison and concentration camps, and he’d be the first one on the quinjet for that mission).

So there are literally two regulations in the above list (the only confirmed part of the accords we have as fans) that make any damn sense and don’t violate liberties, or make for some very dangerous situations that would cause some bad, bad things to come about.

TL;DR: The accords are a nightmare of potential “whoops all your DNA got out and now there is an army of clones with the spliced DNA of every single hero we had on file and they know where you are via your cute li’l bracelet so they’re coming after you,” and “LOL we don’t like you right now, so we’re putting you in jail for however long we feel like, bye, bitch!” 

Sing me another one.

#MCU #Captain America: Civil War #Anti Sokovia Accords #Fuck's sake someone get the ACLU on the phone #Steve Rogers #Tony Stark #oh my fucking god you guys #Avengers

[incarnateirony]

Sometimes I feel like SPN’s greatest strength is its fandom’s weakness. And sometimes even the product itself.

When SPN started, it was very insular. The internet screamed at you in most parts of the world to connect. Cable was even pretty rare. It was on a small backwater channel and, even at its hottest fresh burst, was running 1/4-1/5 of the numbers of the leading competitors at the time. When SPN premiered just above a 2.x, Grey’s was running 9.x and was still well above 8.x by the time SPN fell to 1.x. It was a dedicated cult show, with fandoms communicating by postcard, huddled in moderated livejournal corners.

Kripke, Jensen and others have all mentioned SPN really getting its wings around S4 to have a sense of stability, and it even survived the digital conversion mandate, it survived the advertisement crash, it survived one of the biggest TV show culls in history while the landscape changed and, somehow, the ratings that year went /up/. But even still, just because it wasn’t riding the bubble anymore, didn’t mean it was huge.

It barely survived Ostroff’s mismanagement. It barely survived the season 7 crash under Gamble. And then CW struck a legendary deal, and binge watching became available on Netflix, while Carver shifted and serialized the show, now that both DVR and increasing-speed internet and streaming services became available. And within a year, SPN was an international phenomenon. Hell, by seasons 11+, it perpetually ran in the top 20 digitally called shows in the world, ranking higher each year.

I think this is really what caused, in every way shape and form, the constant fighting in fandom. 

I mean sure, we can talk about people who get stuck in ruts in what they think the show is supposed to be about. Those happen in every old as dirt fandom. For every Old School Fan in SPN I point you to Star Trek, to Star Wars, to whatever. You know, Back In My Day The Show Meant XYZ isn’t really a fresh thing to SPN.

But the fighting isn’t just about that. It’s about how to render characters. It’s about what makes good story flow. It’s about what dialogue means. In some corners, it’s about representation.

By and large the fandom endorses, “all interpretations are equal” -- which is valid to a point. Personally, I always asterisk it with “all interpretations are equal as long as your interpretation continues to work for you.”

But there’s some catch-22s to that. In a still developing piece, things change. That’s obvious. And what “works for you” seems to be difficult for some people to identify. I regret to inform you, if you have an interpretation, and yet the piece continues to divide further and further from your interpretation, and you continue to get angrier while the show seems to be going against your interpretation, then technically, no. Your interpretation is no longer working for you.

That is, if you choose to continue to consume content. There’s lots of ways to manage this. One can figure out at what point their interpretation broke away from the product and try to adapt -- you can take pointers from fandom, but realistically, it’s something to do yourself. Taking pointers from fandom tends to be what gets people into this mess where people get angry. You can choose to stop consuming new content and enjoy the canon within the sandbox that made you happy with your interpretation. Or yeah, you can stay angry and keep watching while you’re angry and refuse to figure out how to get un-angry, but I mean, why torture yourself. It’s your right and your decision of course, so I’m not going to tell anyone not to. That’s not the point of this.

Because ultimately that’s a small aside to the “interpretations are equal”, a general disclaimer appended, vs “still developing piece”, but the point I intend to make is it’s more than that. It’s more than Old Fan vs New Fan, it’s more than whatever weird totemic argument fandom ritualistically engages with and faps to. It’s...

A while back I mentioned offering to do an AV studies course. Technically drafts of it are still floating in my draft folder, just between life emergencies, life, covid pandemic, getting grossly ill, I’m just sitting here kind of empty. Full honest. But thoughts still come, so I blog, even while staring emptily at my half finished project in my video editor I don’t have the spoons to finish much less anything else.

But one of the things it was going to discuss was different things like Representations, Audiences, Ideologies, Language, and so forth. And this circles back to my point on this show’s strength and weakness, and how it falls into interpretation.

Two major impacts (I would be far from saying they are the only, or are they themselves laws that make someone somehow oblivious, but are major influencers when speaking of large groups of people) I’ve noticed are generation, and location. Such as... country.

SPN is a very Americana show. It’s filmed in America for America (hey, technically Canada is North America, but it’s definitely American oriented business/studios regardless of filming locale), often making American references, but even getting references doesn’t mean you’re really catching a lot. American shows do not follow the same time/format/delivery pattern as, say, Chinese or Korean shows. Go watch them, put them side by side if you have to of something in related-ish genres. Different cultures deliver their stories differently be it pacing, structure, symbolism and color, or whatever. What Japanese culture perceives out of the idea of a dog in symbolism is like wildly different than what American culture perceives out of a dog. 

Similarly each generation has its own language. I mean, watch boomers and zoomers talk right past each other and that isn’t hard to see in practice. 

Don’t even get me started on representation. America’s in a goddamn trashfire of Hays Code aftermath, which say, British people didn’t have to grow up with and may be used to entire other systems so they see Rando American Show elsewhere and go, well see! but that’s a whole other mess. Just... adding it to the equation (and vaguely thanking the Brits and other Europeans for shipping off so many gay ass films for decades that the MPAA couldn’t stop that they just gave up enforcing the code as much as letting cultural aftermath doing the work.)

So this show absolutely exploded, and like, it’s nobody’s fault that the entire sum of the fandom aren’t all like, media minds/eyes that pay attention to the different methods in international films. But it adds to a lot of talking past each other in the dialogue. It leads to a lot of expectations or readings that may be/seem valid to people because it’s what they know in their area. It leads to a lot of obfuscating of points, infinite carousels of suggestions and alternatives that, after dozens of millions of fans engage for a decade, just becomes a big relativistic vat, but a lot of lanes are now angry in every way. 

Like this isn’t a one-ship thing or one-lane thing, it’s a just about everybody thing. And it’s not about any one subject or angle or view of approach. These days, it feels like Everybody Is Mad About Everything. Their reads aren’t really working for them anymore, regardless of their lane (for every pissed off Wincester there’s a pissed off Destiel fan, for every pissed off Sam stan there’s a pissed off Dean or Cas or even Rowena stan these days). Everybody somehow seems permanently blindsided by Everything if you take the temperature of the sum of an entire lane as a general rule, rather than (impossibly) reading through every opinion in each lane and figuring out where people are still happy vs where they’re upset. Then of course groupthink kicks in and well, if Rando French Cas Stan is Outraged, I Should Be Too I Guess. Everybody’s mad, guess I should be mad, instead of trying to figure out why everybody everywhere is fucking mad.

So people each build interpretations, reasonable in their own way, from their own origins, in their own countries with their own styles, but somewhere along the line, there’s a fracture. The storytelling pacing they thought they knew vanished and turned out wrong. The character dialogue wasn’t what they interpreted out of it. The cinematic stuff they read was coded to a different language than they were used to reading (back to, say, dogs). People are flagged and pay attention to things that may mean nothing to a filmmaker in the area it’s made and other people completely miss things that may mean something to the filmmaker because it really doesn’t mean A Thing elsewhere.

Compound this by lanes, echo chambers, people collectively finding what they enjoy and is -- respectively -- convenient to their mindset. Add in ship warring, slap fights, wasted kilobits. Add in decentralization, globalization. There’s no leaders, no teachers, and frankly, there’s not even a real In The Know anymore. Most people are In The Know to some extent. Some more than others. Hell, the people who most loudly /publicly/ pose as In The Know are often hilarious bags of air that end up embarrassed a year later (here’s to looking at you, blogger that anti-ranted Friendship Fan now facing the return of the Subtweeting Turkey. You know who you are and what I’m talking about.) I mean sure, there are a few legit Secret Masters of Fandom. But that’s it. They’re Secret. You may kinda pick up the vibe between the lines, and maybe just maybe they’ll drop a few genuine hints here and there in public to try to tilt people ahead, but it’s not the clout chasing goblins around here that anyone really should listen to and I /think/ at large everybody’s kinda figured that out. Most SMOFs are just silent contacts that hide in DM boxes and casually ignore the raging thunderstorms in the wild.

So going back to how I started this post-- while SPN found its success mostly post-S8 from the globalization of the product making it a phenomenon -- more than any one ship (but that doesn’t help), more than any one demographic, it’s just... it feels like everybody’s talking past each other and nobody’s introspecting or considering that while, yes, people’s interpretations are valid to them as long as it works for them, that if it’s not REALLY working for them anymore, maybe they’re missing somewhere. Generationally. Culturally. Whatever it may be. And I don’t see any amount of me sitting here in a Thinking Man pose about it changing that, or changing a vast amount of minds, as much as I really just want to /speak/ the thought process.

Because like. I’ve always existed kind of in the grey space of fandom. I “ship” Destiel in so far as I simply can’t be budged from the value in the text be that by antis or honestly even shipping culture itself. I don’t escalate into rants just to prOVE the tRuTH. I write meta about mythology because it interests me. Who the fuck are you MikeDawg1783894jKFbetabitch82398123? why should I care, where is your self importance coming from. I am far too tired to bother explaining anything to anyone, and frankly, I don’t owe anybody jack shit. You know what, you do you. If you’re happy go be happy. If you’re not happy, stop spewing your misery at me. This isn’t hard. But people around here make it complicated for some reason.

The internationalism also harms the product to some extent. Parrot Analytics reveals that this Americana show with Americana origins and methods is also ... *primarily viewed in Russia.* Like, 3x the US audience size. SPN been running the top 15-20 digitally called shows in the world up there with big sling hitters like Grey’s Anatomy now? Grey’s, as I saId above, always dwarfed it. In live numbers we still do. But there’s that audience to account for online now, with SPN treading almost neck-and-neck with it.

Result? Well, with TV being a business, that means that they try to cater to Russia. And like, no hate on my Russian friends out there. ILU. There’s nothing wrong with you. But then it’s like trying to perform for an international audience that this studio is not designed nor predisposed to deliver content in the form of. Read as: whole new interpretive tire fire potential, new arguments. New mess. Just extra restrictions on a core business level about the do’s and don’t’s for authors. Cuz things that are cool in the US may not be cool in Russia and the other way around for that matter. 

So somewhere between “what business chooses to do” and “infinite cascade of fandom white noise, anger and confusion,” I feel lies in the same thing that has kept SPN so successfully on the air so long. It’s strength is it’s weakness, and it’s the international nature of it, the longer I think on it.

And no, I’m in no way implying international friends aren’t welcome or whatever. Most of my followers are international. That’s fine, I ain’t shitting on you or telling you to hang it up and go home. I just feel like a lot of this eternal static is based on this many cultures trying to argue interpretations of a work from an outside perspective with very few anchors on the methodology that drives it from within. And frankly, fandom hotbox dialogue doesn’t exactly lend itself to sitting and truly wanting to discuss the methodology, because people are so high-strung at this point, nobody wants to hear a POV that clashes with what they’ve built for themselves. Because you know, “my interpretation is valid.” I just... wish... people would assist their own health and mental health by, once it no longer is-- kinda figuring out why and where? be that for international reasons of film delivery, be that language, be that generational gaps, be that *WHATEVER* it may be. I feel like that’s a message not often-enough put out there in this fandom.

Like, hell, it’s okay to like. Just. Not watch new episodes. Play in the sandbox that worked for you when it still, like, worked for you. Watch it a million times. Write a million fics to it. It’s okay to not watch the Declared Popular Thing. You don’t have to shackle yourself to a piece when it’s no longer working for you, just like I don’t advise watching a show with a premise you hate only to yell about it from go. And furthermore-- if you do wanna keep going, it’s totally fair and okay to go, hm, I was wrong somewhere. Let me unplug this giant fandom screaming megaphone from my skull, go review, figure out for myself where the fandom egregore led me one way or another, let me find a new way to appreciate this piece as it continues to grow. But that ain’t gonna happen unless people truly want to surrender their current framing. And... you don’t have to. Not anymore than you HAVE to keep viewing. 

I’ve found, for example, a lot of internationals I talk to tend to be upset about something or another, or confused, or what have you. And the reasons vary. They aren’t dumb people. But somewhere they fell off the rails and struggle to get back on and whatever chamber of fandom they’re in isn’t helping. The internationals I find that don’t struggle with any part of it just outright tend to be people who like... specialize? be it film study or lit study or whatever the topic is that helps them bridge understanding; people who can discuss constructivist theory or have read enough books across their barriers that it all just kinda clicks. Doesn’t make them better or worse than anyone else. Not a better fan. Just... happier with the content, which is better for /them/. And that’s really what matters in the end, isn’t it?

So IDK what the solution to this musing really is, as much as trying to put my finger on the pulse, beyond the sticky underbelly that is shipping fandom and its many corners that people blame for a sum of it. And like. Yeah. Y’all know I’m not a fan of Shipping Culture. But I really don’t think My Ship Vs Ur Ship is all there really is to blame. 

The same reason for SPN’s success is often the same reasons for SPN’s fandom’s downfall, IMO.

#supernatural #spn #fandom

[s-j-ace]

The Same Question

Chapter Three

Characters: Shuichi Saihara, Ouma Kokichi

Words: 3360

Summary:

After Detective Shuichi Saihara encounters mysterious thief Kokichi Ouma for the first time, a game of cat and mouse ensues as both men ask themselves the same question. Why exactly does the elusive phantom thief do what he does?

This is Chapter Three, Here are Chapters One and Two

Read on AO3

[Log of Text Messages from Kaede Akamatsu’s Cellular Device]

From: Me

Hey Shuichi! How's it going? I haven't heard from you in a while. I keep forgetting I'm a human person and not a piano machine while I'm on this tour lol.

From: Shuichi! :D

Hi Kaede! I'm sorry! I forgot to check in on how your tour is going, probably because I've been kind of busy myself. How are you?

From: Me

No need to apologize silly 

I'm doing ok

Just craving human interaction that isn't a graceful hand shake or an approving nod rn 

Hey if you've been busy that means you're working another case, right? 

From: Shuichi! :D

Haha yeah I guess.

Or at least I'm trying.

From: Me

👀

You wanna talk about it or is this one still top secret?

From: Shuichi! :D

Uh

Well

I guess there's no client or victim to protect with this one

And there's nothing really stopping me from talking about it

But it's not that interesting to be honest.

From: Me

You're talking to a girl who is on her phone rn to avoid playing hoity toity with a bunch of rich people who like dressing up fancy more than they actually appreciate music :///

Anything is an improvement tbh

From: Shuichi! :D

Haha ok

Well

So like I've been tracking some thieves for a while now.

From: Me

Oooh is this like the Novoselic case?

From: Shuichi! :D

No it's more like a series of robberies than one big robbery.

From: Me

The intrigue,,, 😲😲🤔🤔

From: Shuichi! :D

Anyway it's just a group of thieves

They just robbed this casino and it's a little frustrating

Because I looked at the security tapes and they just kind of…

Walked in…

And the thing about these guys is that they all dress up like clowns

So like it’s literally just eight clowns on the security tape coming in and picking things up and leaving and there’s other people in these videos but no one even looks at them twice????

From: Me

Ffff that’s pretty funny…

From: Shuichi! :D

Hmm.. I’d probably have found it more funny if the owner of the casino hadn’t been crying and shaking me while I watched it. They dropped one of the chandeliers on his car or something.

From: Me

What??? Chandeliers????

From: Shuichi! :D

Yeah, the boss clown dangled these chandeliers off the side of the roof to distract me while these rare videogames were being stolen. Then he broke them when he thought his crew could get away.

From: Me

How is that not interesting??? That’s super intense Shuichi!! It makes me want to play movement three of Moonlight Sonata...

From: Shuichi! :D

Is that the really fast one

From: Me

Yes!!! :DDD

I’ll make a melomaniac of you yet!

From: Shuichi! :D

Does this mean you’ll stop making fun of me for getting a C in music appreciation senior year

From: Me

Oh yeah the real reason we broke up lol

From Shuichi! :D

Haha yeah.

Uh, anyway. With the thieves.

I know they're going to land in Cairo in a few days but I don't know what they're stealing.

From: Me

Hey! Rantarou's going to Cairo tomorrow!

You want me to see if I can get you a ride on his jet?

From: Shuichi! :D

Oh no you don't have to do that

From: Me

Yeah, but I'm going to

Unless you really don't want me to but I think that you do so...

From: Shuichi! :D

I dunno

That would be very nice

I'm a little low on a travel budget and I'm in Reno Nevada right now

From: Me

Oh huh where's that

From: Shuichi! :D

In America, like eleven hours away from where you are

From: Me

So? Rantarou's a trust fund baby he could afford the detour

From: Shuichi! :D

Yeah but also like

I'm pretty sure he hates me?

From: Me

Whaaaaat

Rantarou doesn't hate you

Last time you saw him you literally helped him track down all twelve of his missing sisters

From: Shuichi! :D

Yeah but I just get the vibe that he doesn't like me

From: Me

Shuichi you have social anxiety

---

From: Me

Hey you don't hate my friend Shuichi do you

From: Avocado Hair

Hmmm…

I don’t want to be mean

From: Me

Yeah you don’t >:/

From: Avocado Hair

But I thought he was a little suspicious when I first met him…

Don’t get me wrong, Shuichi’s nice and seems reliable enough

But also he’s your ex and I don’t trust exes of my friends just on principle

From: Me

...

From: Avocado Hair

Listen obviously I think Shuichi is cool now

But also it was kind of sus when he was just creeping around your shows without introducing himself…

From: Me

I invited him to those! >>:0000

From: Avocado Hair

Yeah, I know that now

He’s a nice guy alright? Really, I do owe him one

Or twelve hah

From: Me

Great! You’re picking him up from Nevada tomorrow

From: Avocado Hair

I'm doing what now

From: Me

From: Avocado Hair

So Nevada, huh?

---

From: Shuichi! :D

Yeah but also sometimes I'm right when I think people hate me

Having social anxiety does not make that not true

From: Me

I set everything up :)) he says you're a cool guy and he'll call you when he lands in Reno

From: Shuichi! :D

Oh

That's very nice of him

From: Me

Shuichi Rantarou owes you like 12 life debts

From: Shuichi

Finding missing persons is my job, it’s hardly something to owe a life over

From: Me

Shuichi it was 12 missing persons 

My mans Avocado lost track of twelve whole sisters and you found all of them and now you think he's capable of hate??? smh 😔

From: Shuichi! :D

I'm sorry okay?

From: Me

You don’t need to be!!!

--- 

    Shuichi Saihara found himself, one week after the heist in Reno, on practically the other side of the world. He was  blending in with the scattered crowd of tourists circling around the new exhibit at The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo, Egypt. As he looked into the wide-eyed, gilden face of a newly dug up sarcophagus, Shuichi struggled to convince himself that this wasn’t a complete waste of time. Interpol and the Boulaq Police Department certainly seemed to think it was... 

Back in Paris, Interpol hadn’t ended up giving Shuichi access to DICE’s next encrypted letter of intent. Instead, after Shuichi gave his testimony to the Paris Police and the investigation was essentially wrapped up, it seemed like Agent Kiyotaka Ishimaru decided to make an appearance just to have the pleasure of yelling at Shuichi about how many protocols he would've just broken if he were actually beholden to the employment of any law enforcement agency. 

… okay that wasn't a fair characterization of Agent Ishimaru. He was a nice enough guy. He just wasn't as disillusioned with the authoritarian reality of national militias given power by systems of government forged when people still thought eating your own vomit cured smallpox. One time he gave Shuichi a juice box, and some cookies his husband made, before chewing him out, so that was pretty nice. Although maybe that was only because Shuichi had just gotten lightly stabbed by an internationally wanted drug dealer…

    Regardless, Agent Ishimaru was far from pleased that Shuichi was “performing acts of covert vigilantism again,” despite the fact that Shuichi had absolutely no idea DICE was even on the flight and therefore his reactionary investigation didn’t include anything illegal, such as stalking, that would be classified as unlawful vigilantism without the backing of the appropriate law enforcement agencies. 

When Agent Ishimaru was done giving a speech about Shuichi’s naivete, he ordered him to get off the case. Luckily for Shuichi the Paris Police thought he was with interpol because of this exchange, and they let him look at security tapes and flight records from the two closest airports. He’d been able to deduce their arrival at Reno, but wasn’t able to figure out what DICE’s mark would be until the heist was already under way. He’d just barely been able to stop them from stealing every single vintage game console from the Silver Legacy Resort. 

    After looking at tapes from the Reno-Tahoe International airport too, Shuichi had been able to deduce DICE’s next destination was Egypt, but Egypt was a country and had a lot more national landmarks than Nevada did and honestly Shuichi didn’t even know where to start looking for possible burgleables. Rantarou, a friend of Kaede's who was nice enough to give Shuichi a ride to Cairo, had asked him to check out the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities first. 

Apparently Rantarou's family could trace parts of their bloodline back to old money European families which had partaken in the awful rich people trend of the 16th century where they would just rob graves in Egypt and eat parts of mummies. As a result, they had a bunch of artifacts that didn't belong to them, so Rantarou often made trips to Egypt to return as many as he could. Right now a lot of those artifacts were getting packaged to be shipped to the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, because the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities was due to be superseded by it next year. He was off somewhere mixing with Museum staff while Shuichi took stock of all the possible entrances around the exhibit. 

    The museum was rather crowded, and as a couple walked up behind him, Shuichi suddenly felt that he was very obviously blocking the view of the sarcophagus display he was in front of. He muttered an apology and moved away, turning around to look at a vase closer to the corner rather than the center of the room. Like most of the artifacts on display it was in a glass case, which Shuichi had noticed seemed to be of the make and model of the kind rigged up to a silent alarm system of some sort. If the cases were opened, the guards in the security booth near the front of the museum would most likely be notified. Although, the exhibit pieces in the cases themselves didn’t seem of much note to Shuichi. There were, of course, priceless artifacts held up on stands or splayed out on ornately embroidered mini-rugs inside the cases, but none of it quite seemed to fit DICE’s MO. Maybe he could look into the other exhi...bits….

    Shuichi’s train of thought trailed off as he noticed that on the other side of the vase he was looking at stood a young woman in a headscarf who he could tell was giving him a weird look. 

    Shuichi’s inner voice made a noise that would have sounded like, “Hghhhhhh” if he were speaking out loud.

Was he in front of something again? Did he have something on his face?

    Okay maybe she wasn’t looking at him and he was just being weird.

    His gaze flitted up to momentarily take in the heavily makeuped face and he instantly found himself locking eyes with the very familiar dark purple irises of a complete stranger.

Shuichi did a double take as he realized that this was not, in fact, a young woman.

Wait, did he really know that? Maybe he had just assumed the thief was a guy. Shuichi squinted. How do you ask an internationally wanted thief their pronouns?

“What pronouns do you use?” Ah okay, like that. Thanks for nothing internal filter.

“His majesty/His imperial highness,” The thief replied automatically as if he already knew what Shuichi was going to ask them and had remarks prepared. “Rat/rat bastard are also acceptable.”

Shuichi took that to mean that the thief wouldn’t be offended if he referred to him with masculine terms. Ugh, wait what where was his head at right now? 

Shuichi began to maneuver around the vase to apprehend him, but as he moved the thief moved at the same time, so it ended up looking like they were playing ring around the rosey with the vase display.

Shuichi stopped. The thief stopped too. 

He started going around the other direction. So did he.

They stopped again.

While maintaining eye contact, Shuichi attempted to discreetly move his hand into his pocket so that he could text Rantarou that a robbery was definitely happening right now. He had gotten pretty good at typing on his phone without looking, but as he slipped his hands in his pocket the thief’s eyes followed.

If he considered that Shuichi might have been reaching for a weapon, he sure didn’t look it. The man’s posture was relaxed and as he watched the grin on his face widened impossibly.

“Is that a phone in your pocket that you’re using to discreetly notify the authorities of my presence, or are you just happy to see me?”

Uh.

Shuichi sent the text -- he had managed to type out a simple “HELP” to his most recent contact, which was probably Rantarou -- and quickly pulled his hands out of his pocket. He maneuvered them instead into a placating gesture, glancing around at the trickle of visitors wandering through the exhibits around them.

“I… Don’t want to cause any unnecessary alarm…” Shuichi started to say as he tried to think of any way to de-escalate this conversation.

“Oh, trust me,” The thief began in an earnest tone that Shuichi definitely knew not to trust. “Neither do I.” 

Suddenly, the glass case lifted up and Shuichi realized the thief had somehow managed to pick the display case lock during their impromptu round of ring around the rosey. Which hopefully set off an alarm of some sort?

Yet as Shuichi glanced around he couldn’t spot any form of security in between tourists, none of whom seemed to see what was happening. Or maybe it didn’t register as suspicious to them? 

It certainly registered suspicious to Shuichi, who was now looking directly at the thief’s heavily makeuped face. He didn’t look anything like the first time Shuichi saw him, except for the facial expression that seemed to indicate he could just decide to pull out a knife or jump off an airplane at any moment. Shuichi had only a moment to connect this expression to that of the black and white cat that kept knocking over the potted plants on Kaito and Maki’s balcony before the thief’s hand was raised and already coming down on the ancient vase. The priceless artifact took a nosedive off its display pedestal, and Shuichi dove to catch it. 

Thankfully, Shuichi managed to grab the vase out of the air in the nick of time, just careful enough to prevent it from shattering into a million pieces on the floor. Not so thankfully, Shuichi was the one who fell on the floor instead. He hit the ground, but hey! At least the vase was fine! Then again the natural oils on his hands probably weren’t especially helpful in the grand scheme of the artifact’s preservation…

Shuichi moved to stand up, but froze as he realized that every eye on the room was on him. 

Uh. Okay. Time to. Not. Freak out about that. Yep. 

Oh shit oh shit oh shit they were all looking at him what if they thought he was-

Wait. Where did DICE go?

Shuichi heard a loud, sharp sound, and turned instinctively. He found that the thief had stepped behind him at some point, and had backed up to blend in with the rest of the crowd. As the sharp sound repeated, Shuichi came to the realization that the thief masquerading as a young girl had clapped. And now the man behind him was clapping to, and the woman behind him, and the lady behind her and almost instantaneously Shuichi came to the realization that the whole room was clapping, and that it was a distraction. As the clapping continued, the thief stood still as curious museumgoers pushed forward in the crowd to figure out what was going on in this corner of the display.

The thief was disappearing from view. Now was his chance.

In the brief instant Shuichi and the thief locked eyes, the detective saw his challenge. That it was not only a challenge, but a question. 

Will you drop everything to chase after me?

He had to make the decision now.

Shuichi chose to stand up to his full height and turned to place the vase safely back into the display case, closing it back up.

He wouldn’t make the same mistake he made in Reno, chasing after the man whose face he knew rather than keeping in mind the nine other just as capable operatives. He was starting to learn that DICE always seemed to take two steps ahead, and that if Shuichi wanted to do something it was most likely something that would benefit their plans. So he resisted the single-minded urge to chase the thief in to instead take the preventative measure of scanning the nearby displays for anyone trying to take advantage of the distracted crowd. 

He didn’t even watch as the thief disappeared into the crowd, and instead pulled out his phone. 

Rantarou had replied very helpfully to his “HELP” text with a carefully chosen one word reply. 

---

[Log of Text Messages from Shuichi Saihara’s Cellular Device]

From: Rantarou Amami

What

From: Me

Sorry

Don’t panic

But I am fairly certain that this museum has just been robbed

From: Rantarou Amami

...

what

    From: Me

    Uh

    It’s a lot to explain

        From: Rantarou Amami

    Just call me

    You were in a call with Rantarou Amami that lasted 38:56.04

     From: Rantarou Amami

    Hey is that interpol guy done yelling at you yet

        From: Me

    Oh geez

    Did you hear all that?

    From: Rantarou Amami

    I mean like

I got the gist of it

And the gist of it seemed to be

“Shuichi! Stop being such a good detective! You’re making me look bad!”

From: Me

Oh haha

I guess that was something along the general theme

I’m not really a better detective than him though

He’s just the kind of guy whose like 

RULES NEED TO BE FOLLOWED BECAUSE I DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY

But also I think his husband is like in a biker gang or something

From: Rantarou Amami

Come on Shuichi give yourself some more credit there

If you’re not a good detective that means that at best I’m an awful one

You found twelve missing people in one week who I had been searching for for five years

Also you literally just stopped a museum robbery

From: Me

Oh, sorry I don’t mean to be like weirdly self deprecating

But also I would contest the fact that I stopped a museum robbery with the evidence of the fact that the museum definitely still got robbed

From: Rantarou Amami

Yeah but like

The only part of the museum that didn’t get the carpets stolen from it was the room you were in

Which literally had the most valuable rug in the whole building in it

Like seriously even the carpet built into the floor of the gift shop was stolen

Also you saved that vase

One of the anthropologists here almost cried when he saw that girl push it over in the tape

From: Me

That is weird isn’t it

I think the rug being an actual exhibit might’ve been why DICE didn’t go for it

That’s not their typical MO

From: Rantarou Amami

Wow… that compliment dodge tho…

From: Me

Oh

uh

Sorry

From: Rantarou Amami

You’re good man

Hey do you need a ride back to the hotel

Shuichi?

Hello?

…

From: Me 

Oh sorry, I was doing some research 

I can get back to the hotel on my own

From: Rantarou Amami

Ok, cool

From: Rantarou Amami

Hey just checking in again, did you get back to your room okay?

From: Me

Oh, yes I’m here

Actually I was just about to text you too

I’m sorry to ask so much of you Amami

But could you possibly drop me off in Taipei on your way home tomorrow?

#shuichi x kokichi #shuichi saihara #shuichi danganronpa #kokichi ouma #kokichi danganronpa #oumasai #saiouma #fanfiction #Phantom Thief AU #danganronpa v3 #drv3 #danganronpa #writing #This is later than I said I would post it but I know most people read these at 2 am anyway

[f4liveblogarchives]

Fantastic Four Vol 1 #197

Sun Aug 25 2019 [02:44 PM] Wack'd: The Red-Haired Man doesn't like Reed so he shot 'em into spaaaaaaace [02:44 PM] Wack'd: Nah just kidding it's to hit him with more cosmic rays [02:45 PM] Wack'd: Reed has no idea why the supposed baddie is doing this but whatever [02:45 PM] Wack'd: My guess is that Doom wants him in fighting shape so it'll be a fair fight when he kicks his ass [02:46 PM] Wack'd: Why didn't Reed do this earlier? Well, getting the ship right would cost more money than he had, and by coincidence it would cost exactly as much as a small country might have in hand [02:46 PM] Wack'd: Handwave the fact that plenty of other people have gotten hit by cosmic rays, including the team themselves, in an assortment of spaceships, however you like, I guess [02:48 PM] Wack'd: sure

[02:49 PM] Wack'd: sure

[02:50 PM] Wack'd: Back in Doom's keep, he's got Sue, Johnny, and Ben chained up, and has agreed to release them if Alicia sculpts him [02:50 PM] Wack'd: An agreement I'm absolutely positive he'll keep [02:51 PM] Wack'd: Alicia he's kidnapped your boyfriend

[02:51 PM] Bocaj: Doom there's easier ways to get commissioned artwork done [02:52 PM] Wack'd: In fairness he wanted Alicia specifically so no one would look at him [02:52 PM] maxwellelvis: But none that are EXTRA enough for DOOM, fool [02:52 PM] Umbramatic: amazing [02:52 PM] Wack'd: But also--pay her money, maybe? [02:52 PM] Bocaj: Money can be exchanged for goods and services [02:52 PM] Umbramatic: commission me doom, i'm open [02:54 PM] Wack'd: With every passing appearance before his turn to "antihero", "Doom cares about his citizens and puts nothing above their wellbeing" becomes a hotter take

[02:55 PM] Wack'd: Cool move, Castro

[02:56 PM] Wack'd: Back in space, turns out Red Ghost is here basically by coincidence [02:56 PM] Wack'd: He was like "oh, that ship is going to space to bring Reed's powers back, I'mma stowaway" [02:57 PM] Bocaj: "The rules say I've served out my term as unquestioned god king. Doom is a stickler for rules so he is passing the throne to DOOM's son, that he has always had" [02:57 PM] Wack'd: "I definitely didn't grow him in a vat to be my puppet" [02:57 PM] Umbramatic: amazing [02:57 PM] Wack'd: (That's a joke but I also wouldn't be surprised) [02:57 PM] Bocaj: A son of doom shows up in the Soule run of She-Hulk [02:57 PM] Bocaj: He's great [02:57 PM] Bocaj: Like if Eeyore was the son of a tyrant [02:57 PM] Wack'd: I think it might actually be the same guy? [02:58 PM] Bocaj: "It's my super-power, father" [02:58 PM] Wack'd: Huh, no [02:58 PM] Wack'd: This is a different Son of Doom [02:58 PM] Bocaj: Hey *may* actually be growing them in vats [02:59 PM] maxwellelvis: ISTR one of them was actually the son of the man he deposed or something. [02:59 PM] Wack'd: I made the mistake of looking him up and he is in fact a clone. [03:00 PM] Bocaj: Doom I don't know if you're following the spirit of the laws that you decided applied to you for a change [03:00 PM] Wack'd: Anyway [03:00 PM] Wack'd: Red Ghost drops a buncha spaceship on Reed's head [03:01 PM] Bocaj: As ya do [03:01 PM] Wack'd: Then gets mad at Reed for using his stretchy hand to sneak up behind him [03:02 PM] Wack'd: Look, Red Ghost, turnab--

[03:02 PM] Wack'd: Stupid Reed [03:02 PM] Wack'd: Stealing my catchphrases [03:02 PM] Bocaj: Villains have weird ideas about whats fair play [03:02 PM] maxwellelvis: "NYET! Is not fair! You are cheating!" [03:02 PM] Wack'd: "Fair?! Who's the nihilist around here?!" [03:03 PM] Wack'd: Anyway turns out just as Sue can turn other things invisible, so Red Ghost can turn other things intangible [03:03 PM] Bocaj: Sure [03:03 PM] Bocaj: That actually follows [03:03 PM] Wack'd: And traps Reed between two floors of spaceship [03:04 PM] Bocaj: Its fun how the different intangible characters work in different ways. [03:04 PM] Wack'd: For the record, this vessel was built for one man, for one purpose, and it has three floors [03:04 PM] Bocaj: Kitty Pryde shorts out electronics she phases through. Vision doesn't. But he can cause pain by partially resoldifying in someone's chest and boy does he love to fist people to win fights [03:05 PM] Wack'd: Anyway the ship is now crashing to a fiery demise [03:05 PM] Wack'd: Doom, realizing he might kill Reed by accident, is livid [03:06 PM] Wack'd: I'm not totally sure this follows? Surely that would, at best, allow him to pull the suit out

[03:07 PM] Umbramatic: "Only DOOM is allowed to kill Reed!" [03:07 PM] Bocaj: I tend not to question the particulars of how Mr Fantastic works [03:07 PM] Bocaj: Because that way lies Ultimate's 'bacteria sack' [03:07 PM] Umbramatic: o-oh [03:08 PM] Wack'd: Anyway Red Ghost tricks Reed into entering the decompression chamber and then intangables himself out of the ship and--falls to Earth, I guess? He can't fly [03:08 PM] Bocaj: "Ultimate Reed's body has been radically transformed, his only internal organ being a "bacterial stack" that generates energy to fuel his body.[34] This obviates the need to explain, for example, how his circulatory system can pump his blood when his body is stretched the length of a football field; he simply has none. Lacking a digestive system, he has no need to eat or drink. Similarly, because he has no lungs, Ultimate Reed does not need to breathe in any conventional human sense and can survive in environments lacking oxygen; during his time in the N-Zone, where the atmosphere is essentially acid and contains anti-matter, he is able to survive." [03:08 PM] Umbramatic: what [03:09 PM] Wack'd: What's his endgame here? If he turns tangible before he hits the ground, he will splat and die. If he doesn't, he'll fall into the earths core, burn and die [03:09 PM] Wack'd: And there can't possibly be anyone waiting for him down there because the ship is way off course and he didn't tell anyone he was doing this [03:09 PM] Bocaj: Can he do gradiants of tangibility? [03:10 PM] Bocaj: If he can he can go slightly tangible enough to waft down like a piece of paper [03:10 PM] Wack'd: ...huh. I guess? [03:10 PM] Bocaj: (Apparently this is how Vision flies. Just goes intangible enough to be carried on the breeze) [03:11 PM] Wack'd: Anyway, apparently the wall of the spaceship got cracked during the fight, so Reed just squeezes out of there [03:11 PM] Wack'd: And manages to radio SHIELD before the ship crashes, so they come get him. Good thing they were nearby? [03:13 PM] Wack'd: Fury's like "explain yourself," and Reed's like "I need my Pogo Plane back to find Doctor Doom and kick his ass" and Fury's like "sure" [03:15 PM] Wack'd: And that's where we'll leave things for now [03:34 PM] Bocaj: Everyone is always very understanding of needing pogo planes to kick Doom’s ass

#1978 #Marv Wolfman #Keith Pollard #The Main Book

[mars-the-4th-planet]

Yuri Gagarin harasses a truck driver and talks about politics with Penny Polendina

Yuri landed on the firm Russian soil in a rural town next to a gas station. Well, not that firm, but firm enough. At least, that is what the 4th panzer Corp thought while they rolled through the area, but that is neither here nor there. "Vodka, nyet kaliningrad luftpanzer kozorvorisc niemcy?" She asked the gas station person politely.

Roughly translated the gas station persons response was "No we do not have plutonium fuel, thats not actually a planet therefore it cannot produce fuel!"

Yuri moped excessively until the gas station person handed her a small lump of uranium. "Look, you can have this okay? Maybe you can turn it into plutonium."

Yuri handed it back and shook her head. "I apologize for wasting your time comrade, please have a nice day in our glorious soviet union."

"Our wha-"

"Penny are you a communist or a filthy cappie?" Yuri asked her robot friend, surprised that she never asked this before.

Penny put two fingers together. "I dont know... I am not really into human politics... Personally I think that the best solution would be a society run by robotics like in New Polendine Mesopotamia. It brought peace and prosperity to an otherwise chaotic and violent region."

Yuri Gagarin rolled her eyes. "That is just a mechanically led puppet state overseen and funded by the United States of America."

"Yes but us Polendinas cannot be corrupted by greed or power lust and we always make calculated and empathetic decisions according to our makers... So..."

"Robots supercede the working class Penny, so a nation run by them is anti-worker by default!"

Penny shrugged, a bit nervous about the conversation and to change the subject she pointed at a Republic of Amazon truck and exclaimed "Hey look Yuri! I did not know they had amazons in Russia!"

Yuri frowned and popped up next to the truck man as he applied gas to his truck. "Hello anti-comrade, what are you shipping through my beautiful motherland?" She asked in Russian.

The truck man looked at her, puzzled. His eyes were bagged, his shoulders sagged, his skin was pale and his limbs seemed frail. The man was in bad shape, but that was to be expected of Amazon workers.

"Ma'am... No hablo Español.." He mumbled and continued with the gassing of his truck.

"What are you shipping in this truck for the foul corporation of the Republic of Amazon?" She asked again, in English. There was a slight threatening tone in her voice.

The man blinked. "Bread, ma'am."

Yuri narrowed her eyes. "Right. Give me your keys."

"Are your robbing me?"

"No. I have authority granted to me by the USSR to search any capitalist vehicle."

"My truck does not have a political idealogy ma'am..."

Yuri powered on her rocket and raised her fist. "Silence. Give me your keys in the name of the Soviet Union."

The man sighed. "The soviet union is dead ma'am."

Yuri was about to strike him, but Penny suddenly grabbed her waist and pulled her back.

Penny moved in front of her. "Sir, I apologize for my friend. She is in much grief about the fall of the USSR."

The trucker put the gas nozzle up. "It's alright babe. I best be going now."

"BABE?!" Yuri Gagarin flared up. Literally. "You FOOL! This Penny belongs to ME!"

Startled, the trucker scampered back. "Wait! Fine, take the keys, I'm sorry!"

Yuri nodded and took them, and used the keys to unlock the back door. "Aha!"

"Oh... Oh my... Um" Yuri didnt know what to say about what she saw. "Where are you taking them?"

"C-China..." The trucker stammered.

Inside the truck were what appeared to be twenty humans wearing the yellow and white Amazon Prime uniforms, except they were lacking mouths and their heads had two colorful blue and pink horns or antenna (Yuri wasnt sure which) that were aerodynamic looking like the tail fins on the back of a plane. They curved up and swooped back. The strangest thing about them however was how they all looked pretty much the same. They all had pale skin and black hair, and the males among them were all tall and muscular. While the women were all small and slim and sleek. Every one of them had striking blue eyes that gleamed in the dark. One male was making hand motions but immediately stopped as Yuri Gagarin opened the door.

"Who... Or what... Are these people?" Yuri Gagarin asked. "How could you ship people packed in like this! Like property!"

"I honestly don't know ma'am please... I am just the driver... Amazon has my son in mandatory daycare and I had to take this job to save up for the fee to see him on weekends..."

"they have him in what?"

Penny explained because the trucker was clearly scared. "When Amazon employees complain about not having the time or money to properly care for their children, the Republic of Amazon files a statuate of neglect against them and takes their child into corporate custody. The parents can still visit their child, but it costs them a fee and the price is measured by the minute spent with them. Sometimes with a government permit the parents can get their child back, but only if they make a lawsuit about it and that is even more expensive."

The trucker started crying. "I miss my boy! Please, I know this transport is wrong but it pays well and I am saving everything to see him again! I havent eaten in three days!"

Yuri Gagarin sighed. "Typical abuse of the working class... We are clearly living in the worst timeline. So what are these people? Aliens?"

"I honestly have no idea..!" The man stammered, continuing to cry.

Penny shook her head. "They seem to have mostly human DNA. I would say they are genetically modified human beings made for servitude."

"Why don't they have mouths? How do they eat? What are those things on their heads?"

"I do not know the answers to the last two questions, Yuri my friend. But their lack of mouths is likely intended to keep in accordance with international law on the property rights on genetically modified life forms. If a creature is intelligent enough to speak like a human, it cannot be made into property. This does not apply to robots like me, because I am not a biological lifeform..." Penny added sadly. While she enjoyed her friendship with Yuri, she could not shake the fact that in her mind she was in servitude to her.

"That is rather disturbing, since they are probably just as sentient as you or me or this malnourished worker here." Yuri Gagarin said, and got up into the truck. "Hello comrades, my name is Yuri Gagarin. I believe that your time as chattel is over. Come with me, and we shall run down any who seek to oppress and exploit you. First we must make it to our secret communist headquarters, alright?"

They seemed scared by this, and backed away the best they could with how crowded it was in there. Amazon officials assigned to train these people were sure to really into the idea that any opportunity to escape was just a test, and that failing the test would result in horrible punishment. So they believed that Yuri Gagarin was just another setup to catch disloyals among them.

"Come on, let's go!" Yuri Gagarin insisted. "It is not often that I am optimistic about anything, but I am optimistic about saving you."

They did not budge.

"They are not the brightest beings in the bulb, are they Penny?"

"I think they are just scared Yuri my friend. But they are already in a big truck, why don't we just drive them there?"

"The truck could have a tracking beacon Penny."

Penny doubted that possibility. "You could be right, but my sensors do not detect one. Perhaps I could try to communicate to them that they are safe now?"

"Go ahead, but I don't know how you could do so better than me..." Yuri Gagarin moped.

Penny made a bunch of ASL hand signals to them, reassuring the people that they were safe and free to go now. She added that she was an EA-built robot unaffiliated with the corporate empire of Amazon, and so they had no reason to be afraid of her. For the most part they seemed unconvinced, because they were never taught sign language as that counted as a form of speech. The hand signals they made to each other was a simple code they made themselves, which was punishable whenever they were caught doing it.

Yuri Gagarins brief optimism about the situation seeped away. "Why does everything have go be so complicated and hard! Oh, woe is us!"

She grabbed Penny and held her for comfort. "Oh, my dear Penny! Do you see now the sins of capitalism?"

"To be fair Yuri my friend, many capitalist nations have placed an embargo on the Republic of Amazon for their treatment of their workers. And some other major companies refuse to do business with them. These genetically modified humans were on their way to a communist country anyway... So it is not merely capitalism at fault, but a few corrupt individuals who have a lot of power, and that is a recurring theme in every system. And I mean no disrepect to you by saying that!"

Yuri Gagarin held Pennys shoulders and looked at her eye to eye. She smiled. "You remind me of Freedom Sayori sometimes."

Penny frowned. "Sorry..."

"No no, I meant that as a compliment! I may dislike her beliefs, but I have... A strange respect for Sayori as a person. She is naive, but she is no hypocrite and practices the freedom and kindness she preaches."

Penny giggled. "Hehehe.. I think you like her Yuri!"

"What? No! Never!"

"We should get these people to safety now Yuri. The driver too. Even if there is a tracker, what can Amazon do against a Polendina and a Rocket Girl?"

Penny's sweet and determined smile brought some optimism back into Yuri. "You are right. I am prepared to fight for what I believe is right. Let us go, Penny, and bring some small justice to the world! Even if it is neglible in the larger picture!"

"That is the spirit Yuri!...I think..."

#Yuri Gagarin

[sol1056]

hey im the anon who asked about how you knew the stuff, sorry i wasn't too clear on what. i just read the post explaining EPs and how the behind the scene stuff worked and i wanted to know how you knew all that, like are you involved in the industry? or just a nerd?

gotcha! Well, remember how back in S1/S2, people kept pointing out Hunk could be… awfully nosy? always getting into things, asking questions?

I was over here going, YES HUNK IS MY PEOPLE. 

It’s a hallmark of a certain type of engineer: insatiable curiosity, and never satisfied with only one answer, always sure there’s more to discover. Okay, we’re not all engineers — a lot of us are Russian Lit majors — but the key is our drive to discover. We take apart, put back together, connect dots close and far, turn things around and study them from a new direction. We’re those people who randomly show up in your part of the building, poke our heads in the room and say, “so, what do all y’all do here? what’s this do? hey, what’s that?”

Despite the fact that most of us seem to be (strangely) strong introverts, that doesn’t stop us. We’ve got questions for everyone. We’ll talk to total strangers all day if we’re on the trail of a particularly interesting idea. In a nutshell, we’re utterly shameless.

I did post-production back when NLE was relatively new and the compositing applications required massive nearly-mainframe computing power. I was mostly in the sfx/cg areas, but I weaseled my way into the color suite pretty regularly. I sat in on editing sessions and was a happy lunch-fetching lackey if it got me a chance to watch the compositing team. Any lull meant a chance to chat up directors, cinematographers, producers, etc. I totally took advantage. 

It’s been awhile since I did that – and since then I’ve been a roady, a mental health & substance abuse admin, a doorman, and even owned a bookstore, before going corporate. But for every wacky thing I’ve done, I’ve also kept in touch with people I met. Frex: the friend who got me the post-production job is now an executive producer. Yes, I do call him with questions. He’s used to it. If he doesn’t know an answer, he sends me to someone who does. (Another reason we’ve been friends for so long.) One answer is never sufficient, never a reason to stop there.

Meet one novelist, get introduced to six more, and three of them write for TV. Oh, that’s handy. Should save that contact, could be useful someday. It’s actually rare for someone to say no, come to think of it. idk, as long as I can get access, I can usually get the person to tell me something I can use. 

However, since my actual area of expertise applies across many industries, I’ve worked all kinds of places. A lot of it’s client-facing, and if you think that means I’m not wandering around the client site poking my head into rooms and cheerfully interviewing people on the spot, then you haven’t been paying attention.

Now that I work at a multinational corporation, I have literally thousands of people in my network, including everyone who’s moved on to a new place. You might be surprised how many people are fine with, “hey, I work at X with Y, and Y told me you’d know this.” Of course, everyone has a bias and a view limited to their own experience, so you can’t stop there. You can’t really understand a situation without knowing the agendas of all the players. You gotta ask a bunch of people, make sure you’re getting the most rounded sense of things. 

Not really a hardship for me. It’s kinda the whole point. 

People are people everywhere (outside cultural quirks), and it’s rare I’m ever researching a single person (I’m not an investigative journalist, if you were wondering). Most of the time, I’m looking for the industry-based cultural expectations. As in, “given X and Y, what would someone who does A generally think is a reasonable action, in this situation?”  

The key is to have a believable reason for asking, and being a writer definitely qualifies. “I’m researching for a story, and I have a character who do X. I wanted to know if it’s realistic for them to know Y. Who do you think would be the best person to ask?” I frequently cold-call, and I never ask “is there someone there,” I ask who they think is the best person. A lot of times it ends up being someone that the phone operator knows (personally or by reputation) who’s full of bizarre trivia and enjoys a chance to show it off. (Plus, it’s amazing what you can learn about a person from all the other subtle cues people are unaware they’re telling, when they’re focused on their area of expertise.)

That’s how I ended up interviewing the Director of the DEA about whether a non-US-university degree would satisfy the education requirement. His letter of introduction got me monthly lunches for awhile with the DEA director in my city. (Oh, the stories I heard.) It’s how I learned about sheep subsidies from one of the top execs at the USDA, and that there’s a single surviving Civil War widow still getting a VA pension. Going in person is even more fun. You could wind up talking to one of the very few artists in the world whose speciality is touching up pre-Renaissance books so the repairs aren’t visible. Or the art historian whose job is going through the nation’s attic and identifying century-old fakes. 

I’ve talked to embassy officials from five different countries, NASA biophysicists and astrophysicists, OSHA inspectors, Nobel prize-winning economists, police detectives, celebrity chefs, environmental lawyers, arena-level sound-people, race-car drivers, potters, opera singers, patent examiners, train mechanics, fire marshals, foley artists, and club DJs. I’ve interviewed fashion photographers, farriers, puppeteers, lighting designers, Catholic bishops, bioethicists, rabbis, fighter pilots, public radio personalities, newspaper editors, chemists, club organizers, war correspondents, Episcopalian nuns (yes they exist), textile artists, prison architects, midwives, cabinetmakers, tall ship sailors, haute couture seamstresses, and civil engineers. On and on and on. 

Don’t neglect official avenues, either. The Department of Labor, the International Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, the Screen Writers’ Guild, the list is nearly endless — any organization, union, or federal/state dept that sets or guides policy. Everyone has a bias, so what people consider normal is sometimes… not. Or they just didn’t know (or saw no need to know, the fools) the reason for A over B. You have to check the rules, because a discrepancy between what you’re told should be done versus what people tell you is actually done… is also useful to know. 

(Labor practices are definitely one of those areas, since federal labor policy is something every company must observe. It’s the law. So when a workplace seems to be violating the law, it raises a lot of interesting questions.) 

And finally, of course, there’s traditional research. Textbooks written by people in an industry can be particularly interesting, especially if it’s a book meant for readers outside that industry (which usually means a lot of firsthand anecdotes to round out the gaps). Popular articles, academic essays, post-mortem white papers, TED talks, interviews. You need to do your basic homework, because there’s no waste of someone’s time quite like asking them a question that’s patently absurd once you get past common assumptions. 

I once explained the plot of a popular SF show to a NASA astrophysicist, and his response was simply, “Every word you used was English, but those words in that order make absolutely no sense at all.” Kind of a dead-end, there. You can’t come at a top-level expert with intro-level questions. 

Since I don’t always know who I’ll stumble over next, being an information sponge means I at least have a whole encyclopedia of analogies. If I can find  common ground (cars and houses are two of the best), I can at least get a basic idea of the person’s meaning. “Oh, so it’s like when you turn the key in the ignition, and the lights don’t come on because the battery is dead?” 

It’s asking the right questions, using an open and friendly approach, and having the right timing. Remember: there is no such thing as unskilled labor; there is only undervalued labor. That is, their time is also valuable, so be brief, open, and sincere. Treat every person as if they’re an authority in something, even if you haven’t figured out what that is. 

The world is a massively complex place, and contains more things than are dreamt of in our philosophies, all of it waiting to be discovered.

Or, the shorter version:

btw: I don’t actually recommend going in person to the Dept of the Interior, though. You’ll get lost. Like, instantly. That place is MASSIVE.

#research #asking questions #to paraphrase bertrand russell #it's a good thing #to hang a question mark #on things you've long taken for granted

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT NEWS & STUDIES, late April 2019

Welcome to my latest summary of recent news & studies including search, analytics, content marketing, social media & ecommerce! This covers articles I came across from April 9th to May 2, although some may be older than that. 

I am really interested in hearing what you think of this new format - please leave a comment below, or convo, Tweet or email me through my website. Let’s make this as useful as possible! 

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

US Amazon sellers were told via email that they will have to pay taxes on some Amazon fees, as Etsy has been doing with sellers in the EU and in Quebec. 

The Instagram look may be dropping out of favour; apparently, reality is in. “Instagram museums and walls were built to allow normal people to take influencer-quality photographs—but they worked so well, those types of photos became common enough that they don’t resonate like they used to. “#unfiltered 

In case you missed it, my review of Etsy’s Spring & Summer Trends Guide, including all of the keyword data (which you do need to check out, as they reveal some interesting search info). 

ETSY NEWS

Etsy published a new census/survey of sellers in its 6 core countries, and also did a summary (if you don’t want to read the whole thing). “More than nine out of ten Etsy sellers (91%) are the sole owner of their businesses.”... “The majority (82%) of Etsy sellers would like to grow their business, but more than three out of five would not want to grow so big that they would have to hire more help.”

The bugs & errors with financial statements and records continue; Etsy botched the VAT statements yet again, even overwriting them all the way back to 2016. No word on whether any sellers have notified EU authorities on this yet. 

New seller handbook article covers advertising; not much new or gripping, but it does discuss general ad approaches, not just Etsy’s. 

There is also a new free shipping tool, in case you didn’t realize that Etsy wants more sellers to offer free shipping more often. “When we talk to shoppers during research, many say things like “I want to feel like I’m getting a deal!” and “I would love to see free shipping across the board, even if it meant increased prices.” Offering free shipping can be a great way to give customers like these the shopping experience they are looking for.”

CEO Josh Silverman participated in The Wall Street Journal’s “In the Elevator” interview series [video link]. Every 90 seconds, an engagement ring or wedding ring sells on Etsy. He also talks about free & fast shipping not always being a reasonable expectation when shopping on Etsy, unlike Amazon. 

Speaking of free shipping, a limited number of US customers will be getting it from Etsy, with Etsy reimbursing sellers for the costs. Non-US sellers and buyers get nothing. 

Etsy’s 2019 1st quarter results will be available May 8.

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES 

Rand Fishkin released Part 5 of his Learn SEO in 1 Hour series: technical SEO [video & written transcript]. This is the one most of you can skip or just skim over, as it does talk a lot about coding.Some tips are important to everyone, however, like page linking/site structure (for websites), and having https set up. 

Part 6 covers link building, in 10 minutes. Remember, if you are going to put effort into getting links, do it for your website & not your Etsy shop or other marketplace page. If you are creating traffic, make sure you own it. 

Don’t forget looking beyond Google for your search engine traffic; this podcast [with written transcript] breaks down an approach to several of the biggest ones beyond Google. Spoiler: they only recommend worrying about the biggest, Bing, if you have around 1000 unique search visitors to your website per day. 

How to get keyword ideas from the Google search results: there’s a lot more available now, beyond the search bar suggestions. 

Google is asking local businesses if they would pay for their Google My Business listings. This possibility raises concerns about the impact on organic rankings. 

More SEO tips for Amazon, including discussion of the various factors involved.

If pages on your website aren’t indexed by Google, there are some steps you can take to fix them. (For websites only, not Etsy shops)

Advanced/semi-advanced content: Great tips on using bookmarklets in Chrome to get SEO things done quickly. (A lot of these involve tools that work best in the paid version, so I suspect most of us will not have much use for this, yet.)

Possible Google algorithm update last week. (I am seeing changes)

CONTENT MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA (includes blogging & emails) 

Looking for new hashtags for your social media accounts? Try: https://www.tagshitter.com  (apologies for the name; that’s what they call it. It’s good, too! Just like its regular keyword research partner, http://keywordshitter.com/ ) 

Email subject lines [infographic] are crucial to top interaction with your newsletter etc. Includes Dos & Don’ts, plus the shockingly low open rates in most industries. 

Selling through social media directly is a great way to avoid people losing interest as they keep clicking. Note that this seems to work best with items under $50, though, which they suggest solutions to in the next part of the article.  

Despite all the scandals and negative media coverage, US social media use hasn’t really changed in the past few years. “A 2018 Center survey found that some Facebook users had recently taken steps to moderate their use of the site – such as deleting the Facebook app from their phone or taking a break from the platform for some time. But despite these findings and amid some high profile controversies, Facebook users as a whole are just as active on the site today as they were a year ago.”

Facebook scandal watch:  FB’s “stock price jumped after it said it expects to incur a fine of up to $5 billion from the Federal Trade Commission. And that’s all you really need to know about whether the historically large penalty matters to the company.”

Also:

they admitted to asking for your email password then importing all of your contacts. “...Facebook disclosed to Business Insider that 1.5 million people's contacts were collected this way and fed into Facebook's systems, where they were used to improve Facebook's ad targeting, build Facebook's web of social connections, and recommend friends to add.”

The Canadian Privacy Commissioner is taking FB to court over breaches of Canadian privacy law. 

But hey, it’s all fine, because they beat earnings expectations in the first quarter. 

70% of YouTube videos watched are recommended by its algorithm. “ The recommendations are fueled by the artificial-intelligence arm, Google Brain, of YouTube’s parent company. The machine-learning models help identify videos that aren’t exactly what you just watched, but similar enough that you might like them.“

Does directing people to the link in your Instagram bio really work? Testing says that it probably doesn’t work for most accounts, and more importantly, that Instagram may be limiting the algorithm visibility of posts that direct visitors to the link in your bio. 

Twitter has now limited the number of accounts you can follow in 1 day, to 400 down from 1000; this is intended to cut back on spammers. 

US Twitter users are better educated & better off than the average American.(Good article for target market considerations)

ONLINE ADVERTISING (SEARCH ENGINES, SOCIAL MEDIA, & OTHERS) 

Amazon is reducing/removing the ads for its own products, possibly due to increased complaints of unfair competition. “Amazon is now the third-largest digital advertising platform, behind Google and Facebook”, and could grow 50% this year alone, based on projections. 

Facebook retargeting tips. And everything you need to know about the Facebook pixel for tracking your ad performance. 

STATS, DATA, OTHER TRACKING 

Some Google Analytics tips for websites - almost beginner level! 

The Google Search Console delays are nearly all fixed. 

Stats programs all give you different numbers, and that isn’t likely to improve. (This piece is semi-advanced; don’t bother with it if you aren’t a stats geek.)

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS 

eBay’s Spring Marketplace Updates include several back end changes and a fee increase for sellers who run afoul of eBay’s seller performance standards. 

Amazon sellers can buy so-called “black hat” services to beat its algorithms. These include tips from Amazon employees who are making money by reporting on Amazon’s inner workings. Amazon “also said it takes action against sellers who pay for internal information; penalties include terminating their selling accounts, deleting reviews, withholding funds, and taking legal action.” No doubt the company already has closed some of the loopholes discussed in the article.

Amazon also fires warehouse workers by algorithm, based on productivity. 

GoDaddy launches an ecommerce sharing tool that lets you list across multiple websites including your standalone. Current marketplace options include Etsy, Amazon, eBay, Jet & Walmart. They bought Sellbrite as part of this move. Quite a few different entities are releasing this type of service, so shop around if it is something you are interested in. 

eBay released their 1st quarter 2019 results on April 23. Total sales were down 4% from 2018 (they were close to even when currency fluctuations were accounted for), but eBay’s own income from seller fees was up. “eBay reduced their marketing by a significant amount where their cash was being used to effectively subsidise the sales of high value items. Put simply, eBay have been buying sales and now they’ve stopped and this has seen a reduction in high ticket items being sold in comparison to sales of lower value items.” Easter being later this year may have slowed ecommerce growth overall in the quarter. 

...but Amazon reported record revenue, up 16.9% over 2018. Despite that, analysts note that growth is slowing, & that Amazon’s own projections for the second quarter are lower than many predicted. “Amazon’s CFO Brian Olsavsky said during the call with analysts that part of the lower guidance is due to an $800 million investment in making free one-day delivery shipping the default for Prime members.” - if you thought buyers wanted stuff yesterday already, wait til this becomes the norm ... I mean, Walmart & Target stocks fell after the announcement. Walmart is already hinting at offering the same. 

You can return your Amazon purchases at Kohl’s in the US, starting everywhere in July. Ease of returns is going to be a bigger battleground in the next few years, as retailers continue to increase free & speedy shipping options. 

BUSINESS & CONSUMER STUDIES, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE

Generation Z will be making 40% of US retail purchases by next year; they are going to change a lot about selling. “ Fair trade products, ethical business practices, and a strong mission statement have never been more essential. Vend reports, “Research has shown that this particular generation cares about various environmental issues (76% are concerned about humanity’s impact on the planet) as well as social causes such as racial, gender, and income inequality.” [Gen Z come after millennials, and are currently more numerous than millennials or boomers.] 

Millennials & Gen Z are big gift card buyers in the US - over 1/3 buy a card every 3 months. 

Brick & mortar stores & malls are using your phone location data (location analytics) to make marketing and product decisions. “Every company interviewed for this story said it chooses not to use information that could identify individuals. But for the most part they’re on an honor system because rules governing data remain relatively lax.” This surprised me: “To glean details, including an individual’s age, income, ethnicity, education level, number of children and more, firms connect the phone’s evening location with U.S. Census data”

MISCELLANEOUS 

US copyright law: the USSC rules that your copyright registration must be finished/approved before you can sue an infringer in federal court.  

If you hate Gmail’s current layout, you will love this Chrome extension. 

And if you use Google Sheets fairly often, you will likely learn something useful from these tips. 

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, missed industry revenue expectations in the first quarter of 2019. 

#seo #search engine optimization #etsynews #analytics #stats #social media #contentmarketing #ecommerce #smallbiz #cindylouwho2newsupdates

[jswdmb1]

King For A Day

“Well the way that we're living,

Is all take and no giving,

There's nothing to believe in,

The loudest mouth will hail the new found way”

- XTC

The State of the Union and the Democratic response will be on tonight and I will not be watching (I’ll actually be at the Loyola game where you should be too!).  This is not some sort of meaningless protest but rather a part of honoring a commitment I have made to myself not to waste any given day.  This also has nothing to do with any personal dislike I have for the current president or anyone else in office as I haven’t paid attention to one of these addresses in years (if ever).  It’s a pointless exercise that somehow became a tradition that nobody ever wanted.

The Constitution only requires that the president report back to Congress from time-to-time on how things are going.  This was back in a time when that type of report would have been necessary due to the lack of technology we have now that allows everyone to keep tabs on everybody.  It was also because of the legitimate separation of branches of government existed where Congress and the executive branch generally stayed pretty far apart.  The State of the Union was typically a written report and basically served as an inter-office memo to keep the two branches updated on their activities and that’s about it.  

At some point in the 20th century, this changed and the address became delivered by the president in person at the invitation of Congress.  If you really want to know who, why, when that happened feel free to GTS (I don’t know and don’t do research here).  The television era turned the address into a political spectical that somehow morphed into a sacred tradition of our democracy.  That, of course, never was the intent of the framers of our Constitution and they certainly wouldn’t approve of an administrative provision becoming a partisan showcase.  Besides, with the advent of 24/7 information using technology that the founding fathers could have never imagined, the whole point of providing a status update has become obsolete.  This is true with much of the way we govern, which brings me to my real point - we need a Constitutional Convention.

When our Constitution was drawn up, the writers were incredibly prescient and put in safety valves for updating it when needed.  They were way too smart to believe that they could get things perfect, and certainly did not intend for the document to turn into the equivalent of Moses getting the commandments on two stones.  Parts of the Constitution were left vague for this purpose, or were unintentionally created ambiguously, so that future leaders would have the flexibility to adapt with a future no one could possibly predict.  These safety valves would ensure that the democratic ideals that upon which they founded our nation would stay intact no matter what changes around it take place.

The first one everyone knows is the Constitutional amendment.  Congress can propose an amendment if two-thirds of each chamber approve it.  It then goes to the individual state legislatures, and if thirty-four approve it (also two-thirds rounded up for you math junkies), then the Constitution is amended.  This, of course, was used immediately for the Bill of Rights.  Over the past 200+ years since the passing of the Bill of Rights, there have been only seventeen more amendments with two of those cancelling each other out (the prohibition of alcohol and the subsequent repealing of said amendment).  If you had started a pool among the original members of the first Constitutional Convention about how many amendments there would be in the next 250 years, I’m guessing none would have gone for just 27.  They probably would have envisioned hundreds going through by this point in time. 

Now i am not suggesting that amendments are too hard to get passed.  The mechanisms put in place were designed to make it difficult to adopt frivolous or partisan changes to the basic structure of the government the framers designed. This has largely worked (prohibition being the exception), and the amendments passed so far have been appropriate.  The problem is that the partisan divide that a two-party monopoly has created makes any potential for an amendment to ever occur again almost impossible.  Remember, when the constitution was drawn up, there really weren’t political parties, or at least they did not exist in the form we see now.  At best, the framers likely assumed there would be many parties out there and cooperation among them would occur avoiding any one or two taking firm control.  Of course, that did not happen, and it has led to the constitutional amendment becoming impotent.

So then how do we get progress accomplished without the ability to change with the times as our forefathers intended?  An easy answer would be the rising of at least a third-party (if not more) that would break the stranglehold the Democrats and Republicans have over our current government and force some bipartisan efforts to make or change laws that are for the better of the majority of Americans, not just a few that have the power and/or money to lobby Congress.  I have not totally given up on this notion as I think the weight of internal pressures will break apart one if not both major parties at some point (my bet is that the Republicans go first simply because they have strayed so far from their core ideologies).  That may take a while, though, and we cannot sit around and wait.  Fortunately, the founders gave us another safety valve.

Without congressional approval, two-thirds of the states (again that is thirty-four) can call for another constitutional convention.  Impossible, you say, but think about it.  All that is being passed in this case is to have the convention itself not what happens there or what is discussed.  While thirty-four states may not agree on the reason why this needed, that is not relevant. There could be competing motivations from states on complete opposite ends of the political spectrum that come to the same conclusion that a convention is needed.  Supposedly, twenty-seven states have passed such a request (again, I don’t research so I don’t know if that is true).  If seven more states go with this notion, then one is happening whether Congress wants it or not.  And, the president has no say in this whatsoever.  It is very likely he/she would not be allowed at such an event (in the accounting world, we call this an internal control).  This becomes a much less far-fetched scenario compared to the long-shot that an individual amendment would have in this environment.

What would be discussed at a constitutional convention?  Well, that is up to the participants, but I think the focus should be on a re-balancing of power among the branches and reducing the consolidation of power a few old, rich, white men have accumulated, which is holding government hostage for the rest of us.  Items to explore would be reducing the power of the executive order, instituting term limits (including for the Supreme Court), and revising or eliminating the incredibly outdated concept of an Electoral College.  Two other issues that need prioritization are campaign finance and gerrymandering.  My guess is that a guy like Thomas Jefferson would throw up if he saw a map of my congressional district and the money that was spent to get it that way.  While none of these topics will get settled easily or quickly, some forum is needed for the debate to occur.  As the recent shutdown showed, the current government is not a place for any sort of healthy exchange of ideas to take place.  Even well=meaning and intelligent politicians (yes there are a few - in both parties) have no shot at making a difference due to the stranglehold of their own party leaderships.  A convention would give at least those folks an open forum to get ideas on the table.

What are the chances of this?  I really don’t know.  Even if they are low, it is our only shot.  If our country was a football game, we are down seven with the ball at the fifty yard line with three seconds left.  The only play to save the game and go to overtime is a Hail Mary pass.  While the odds of completing one of those is very low, we have to at least take a shot or the game is over.  The impacts of the most recent shutdown were real and hurt regular Americans deeply.  Without change, that is a preview of what life is going to be like in this country if we continue to allow the current stakeholders to keep consolidating power, money and influence to advance their self-interests at the expense of our freedoms as we know them.  A while back I wrote a post hoping I’ll be alive to see the country celebrate its tricentennial.  I now have a more modest goal of seeing this government survive to its 250th birthday.  A nice present for that celebration would be a constitutional convention to go along with the tall ships and fireworks that will inevitably be trotted out (that will be in 2026 if your really have to ask).  We should start working now at lobbying our state politicians to push for approving a convention.  I have no idea if Illinois has already passed such an amendment, but I’m going to ask my representative in the state house to look into it (remember she owes me a favor after stopping by my house during her campaign and interrupting my afternoon game shows).  It all sounds crazy (hey, that’s my calling card), but we have no choice.  If we don’t try this,then it is the football equivalent of taking a knee and ending the game.  I don’t think anyone at that first convention wanted us to do that, and I, for one, will do my best to not let it happen.

Cheers,

Jim  

[wild-west-wind]

Hey so below the cut is the beginning of my Western/Fantasy/Mystery story Coyote Draw. It’s a very rough draft, I’m not really trying to edit as I go so it should be readable by grammar/spelling alone (readable content-wise now that’s dubious). Tell me what you think, or tell me that it’s trash. Well, I guess if it’s trash tell me something constructive with it like “Do this better.” That’d be cool. Anon message me if that’s easier.

Synopsis: In this section Gertrude Bell and Elizabeth Cagney are introduced as members of the Hesselius National Detective Agency, a semi-international private detective firm specializing in supernatural cases. Gertrude and Elizabeth have been sent out to Sun Springs, NM to prove a potentially wrongly convicted man innocent of the brutal murder of a surveyor.

Notes: It’s probably pretty bad. The style is very brief and to-the-point and I don’t know if I’m going to stick with that. I’m not sure if it’s to brief or too long for the content that it covers. I think I should describe characters more. It starts with an animal dying. If that bothers you skip to the third sentence.

Anyway, here it is:

A few hours outside of Santa Fe the 8:45 to Springer hit a bison. The impact shook Elizabeth Cagney awake. Her companion on the trip, as in all matters, was still awake. It was too loud to sleep. Gertrude Bell thought it was funny how quick her Elizabeth nodded off. City folk sleep through anything.

Elizabeth grimaced as she stirred. Bags under her eyes betrayed a late night wasted in Santa Fe. She wished she could say it was spent drinking and gambling. It was spent reading. Drinking was a strictly a secondary venture. That is not to say that she had not drink a great deal. Elizabeth scrambled for her coffee. She held the canteen of muddy coffee so tight her knuckles went white. She whispered a bit, her eyes closed tight. The canteen popped and fizzled as it got hot. She offered it to Gertrude first.

Gertrude almost smiled. “I’m fine, I ‘spect you need that more than I do.”

Gertrude was right. Elizabeth threw back the canteen. Her face was red with pain, but she brightened up instantly. Gertrude appreciated the routine. Elizabeth always offered, she always refused. Elizabeth was always flushed. Always smiled.

“So how far out are we?” Elizabeth asked. She shook the residual heat out of her hands.

“About 3 hours,” Gertrude guessed. Her watch stopped working after a sand storm in Barstow. “We get off in Springer, then we ride the rest of the way.”

The Hesselius National Detective Agency gave them an advance to pay the thirty-one dollar train fare. They did not offer to pay 25 for a pack horse. They didn’t offer a ticket to ship Gertrude’s horse either. Gertrude never thought to ask for it.

Out in the desert flowers were blooming. Word was there was a big storm a few months back flooded most of the southern Rockies. As the train shot by there were explosions and gold and pink cactus flowers. The effervescent yellow of agave and ragleaf. A spatter of lilac Elizabeth said could have been columbine. Without much prompting she could rattle off every possible name and use for every one of those flowers. Every spell they were good for. It came with the territory. Gertrude mostly knew which ones you could eat, which ones could make a person sick, and which ones could kill a horse.

On a rainy January morning Elizabeth and Gertrude got a letter from the Hesselius National Detective Agency. The two of them had been Hessians in variously official capacities since the war. Usually they would take jobs off the board in their home office. Gertrude didn’t want to hear the message. She took the paper and sent the messenger away. She held it tight in her hand, crushing the paper and cracking the small wax seal on the back. Elizabeth had to read the letter for her. They had been called in. The Director wanted to see them personally.

“Aw hell,” Gertrude spat, “We walked headlong into this one Lizzie.” Her lip trembled, but her hands were dead still.

Elizabeth rested a hand on Gertrude’s shoulder. She brushed a lock of hair from her brow. “We’re not on the outs Gert,” Elizabeth spoke to Gertrude like a child. “It might be a job. May be a promotion.” Gertrude threw herself into her old rocking chair. The floor creaked loud.

“Listen Gertie,” Gertrude looked away. Elizabeth stepped in front of her and forced her head up. “Listen, if we get fired, we can just banish him. That old boggle won’t know what hit him. Hell, we’ll be on the outs but we might get a medal for the trouble.”

  Gertrude coughed up a dry laugh. “Okay, but it better be a big medal.”

  “Of course.”

“Gold.”

“I should expect nothing less.”

Elizabeth helped Gertrude dawn a white bodice and her hound’s-tooth riding jacket. Gertrude tossed Elizabeth her waxed canvas cape from the coat rack. They set out into the rain.

Cole Boggs was a squat, broad man. As a boy some poor soul must have asked him to speak up. He chose to head that advice literally, and has not spoken in less than a bellow since. For 15 years he had been the director of the American branch of the Hesselius National Detective Agency. He despised those under his employ that called themselves “Hessians,” and so almost all did.

Boggs’ office was littered with what might charitably be called mementos. On the wall behind him, between two bay windows, was a rack containing four medieval swords. Every wall was lined with mismatched glass-doored curios. Each was full of old books, tarnished jewelry, carved cubes and spheres with various arcane writings. A suit of rusted Viennese armor stood sentry over two seven foot tall safes in the opposite corner of the room. Save for three chairs and a path from the door, every horizontal surface of the office was covered with superficially valuable trash.

“Ladies?” He roared over a newspaper written in indecipherable script, “Do come in, I need just a moment to finish up here.”

Elizabeth and Gertrude stepped inside, and sat down in adjacent leather chairs. Their arms were worn through by hundreds of elbows. The leather was dry and cracking. They may have been the second oldest thing in the room.

After a moment’s pause, and without looking up, Boggs began to speak; “I presume you know why I’ve asked you to come in here.”

Gertrude’s face flushed. Elizabeth reached over and grabbed her hand.

“Now, you’re aware that our last client was less than pleased with your performance—“

“Sir allow me t’explain I—“ Gertrude tried to interject.

“Ms. Bell, please allow me to finish as I think you will be pleased by what I have to say,” Boggs filled his mammoth lungs, “but you were right. Entirely correct. Mr. Lux was indeed stealing from the town’s till, and he was indeed conspiring to use that money for nefarious purposes, though the authorities are not yet sure what those were.”

Gertrude slouched as much a whalebone corset would allow. Boggs continued; “While we were certainly not hired to have our client imprisoned, you’ve brought a spattering of good press for the agency.”

Cole Boggs finally lowered his newspaper. “We have a client in New Mexico. He has asked for you two specifically. He believes a man was wrongly accused of murder in Sun Springs. Charming little town. He’d like you to go out and prove him right.”

“Who—“ before Elizabeth could inhale Boggs barked, “Who is none of your business.”

“—Is the suspect?” Elizabeth finished. Her crystal blue eyes found Boggs’. A ripple coursed down his body, and for a brief moment something closer to his true form was visible.

“Of course. Yes. The suspect. The accused is a Mr. Balthazar Farkas. A lycanthrope. The evidence is quite damning. A surveyor by the name of Oramel Hawkins was working near Farkas’ home. He was slaughtered and dismembered early in the morning. A local magician, Grant Heston, saw the dismemberment. A local deputy found blood-soaked rags in Mr. Farkas’ cabin. Farkas has been in trouble with the law before: in ’67 he killed a Shiner who had a bounty for his hide, in broad daylight. The folks in Sun Springs remember that well. It’s a quiet town.”

“So he did it?” Elizabeth asked, sensing that Boggs was done.

“It certainly seems that way, doesn’t it.”

Elizabeth winced. “So, are we to try and get a guilty man freed from facing justice then?”

Boggs hummed, “No, I wouldn’t say that. He may not be guilty. It may be a case of mistaken identity. The murder wasn’t observed, focus on that.”

Gertrude, taking care to avoid eye contact with anyone in the room, mused, “Out in the country like that you see what you expect to see. If you’re scared of the werewolf down the way, you’ll see him when you may’ve seen a coyote or a damned cactus,” She glanced at Elizabeth. “Plenty of ways you could choose to see something when you’re looking right at another.”

Elizabeth laughed. Boggs didn’t get it.

To call Springer a town would be an overstatement verging on an outright lie. Most of the 320 acres called Springer on a map were farms. Right around the banks of the Cimarron River were a few buildings. Most of them were liable to get washed away if the river got any nearer to its banks. There were two general stores, a livery, a spattering of houses, a warehouse, and a tavern. The tavern must have been built old because no one lived here 7 years ago. Every month the trail was passable a wagon train full of copper would come in from Sun Springs. All spring and summer folks would drive their cattle and sheep out of the hills for sale.

#coyote draw #wip #for real though #it's pretty bad #it needs a lot of work #also posting this makes me really nervous #even though I know no one will read it

[fyrapartnersearch]

SHAME SHAME SHAME

everybody's people watchin' everybody’s punch clockin’

hey how are ya my name is emmy and i’m here to search for a new rp partner. a bit about me, i’m 22, canadian, work two part time jobs and attend uni full time and i go by she/her pronouns. i reside in the mountain timezone and i am thrilled to hopefully start writing with you. 

why should you write with me? because i promise that if i pick up an rp with you i’m gonna put 100 and 10 percent of my effort into our story. i’m looking for a long term gig, someone who i can really weave a plot with, someone who digs the cut of my jib. i want us to be able to sob over our characters together late into the night. i want us to exchange songs, playlists, posts found on the internet, aesthetic boards, whatever reminds us of our characters/our plot.

i will probably spam you with pictures of my character’s playby and i want to see mad pics of yours, too. i want us to go through our character’s struggles together as well as be able to cheer together when our characters get a hold on their situation and come up on top. i want us to inspire one another with our writing. it’s gonna be great. you & me honey. 

right now I'm looking for 1-2 new rp partners who are interested in something long-term and fully fleshed out. think 'mains'. 

gee, that sounds nice! i’m inclined to agree! but a few things you should know before you go any further: i write anywhere between full lit to lit + to novella style, so expect posts of at least 4 - 6 paragraphs baseline. sometimes i crank out 10. or just 5. depends entirely on what’s going on. i write according to situation, with a great amount of detail spent on what my character is thinking/feeling in response to yours. the replies you get will be fully fleshed out & enthralling. i am a stickler for grammar and spelling, though nobody’s perfect, i do occasionally have my slipups. all lowercase text is strictly kept to ooc communication. i can be sporadic with capitalization ooc but still keep good spelling. i will never pressure you into posting or writing ridiculous amounts just to match my post. i want you to have fun too! if i’ve had a bit too much to drink or am about to hit the hay, i’ll wait to post until i can give my post my full attention. usually i’ll be able to post at least once every week, sometimes multiple times a week depending on work & schoolwork. i'm available for ooc chat almost all the time. i also totally understand life happens and sometimes we just need a breather. ♥ i have bipolar depression, and sometimes my depression kicks my ass, but i’ll let you know when that happens.

oh goodness, what else? i write predominantly m/m pairings but i am open to m/f and f/f as well. i do not write high fantasy settings, sorry doll. my interests mostly align with modern day, slice of life kinda stuff, aside from the fandoms i do have. i don’t have many limits besides excessive gore, scat, mpreg, and writing smut for sake of smut. i love my romance just like anyone else does, but it’s got to have plot. our characters have to have chemistry or else i get bored. i haven’t doubled before but i think i’d be down for it with the right plot. usually i prefer that we play one character each, or we play multiple characters within a plot, but not usually more than one plot at the same time. but!!! i am totally willing to try new things!! just be patient with me as i learn m'kay? i have had several threads going at once with one partner which can be super fun. also most of my characters are pretty kinky but like, i prefer that we talk about kinks and limits one on one as opposed to airing out my character’s laundry. also- i wanna be your friend ooc. let’s chat. i find it’s so much easier to have muse and post if i enjoy the virtual company of the people i’m writing with.

ok but what do you write? 

what *don’t* i write? kidding. here’s a bit of fandom for ya. if i’ve got plots listed, they’re the ideas i have, but i’m totally open to yours as well. stars denote how much i’m craving them. i’ll list the canon characters i write after i list the fandom: 

mafia 2: vito scaletta  ***plot for mafia 2 a: we explore the dynamics of a relationship between vito and your oc. your oc could be in a position of great risk- think outside of the mafia, possibly a police officer, prostitute. some position where power dynamics could be played with. if the pairing is m/m we also deal with the themes of internalized homophobia and coming to terms with one’s identity. 

*bioshock 1, 2 & infinite: brigid tenbenbaum, andrew ryan, frank frontaine & eleanor lamb, sofia lamb & booker dewitt 

**marvel cinematic universe: tony stark, steve rogers

***greater marvel universe: logan howlett, carol danvers  ****random plot: we do a crossover and we ship sharon carter/carol danvers. i just. uuugh i have a lot of feelings about them and i have hella muse for these babes. lemme know if you’re down to give this a shot i will love you forever no word of a lie. 

but honestly where my heart lies is within oc rp. here are a few plots i have of mine, stars denote how much i’m craving them:

****(m/m) power & politics: my oc is a prestigious state senator, who lives a double life. he is currently in the closet with no intent on leaving it anytime soon. however, a certain someone falls into his life, making him question what he thought he knew for certain. your oc breaks down the walls my oc has put up and changes him into a softer, better man. however, with an upcoming presidential campaign on the horizon for my oc, the limits of the secret relationship will be pushed and pulled beyond what both parties have ‘signed up for.‘

****(m/m) the guardian: your oc is a newcomer to the nhl but is quickly making waves- think connor mcdavid style. he’s young and impressive, but mostly, impressionable. he starts to get battered around by both his teammates and opposing teams. after a few hard hits and fowl play within the game that have cost your oc bench and recovery time, the team’s coach calls in reinforcements to boost the team’s morale and serve as a protector to your oc. my oc is a player who hasn’t got the talent part but has got a huge heart. not to mention… huge hands. good for makin’ fists. good for fightin’.  my oc protects your oc during the games, coming to your oc’s aid, picking fights for your oc and protecting him on the ice. as such, the two players grow attached to one another.. perhaps too attached for the captain to be comfortable with. possibilities for a love triangle and other complications, for sure

***(m/m) too good to be true: our ocs start out in the whl, both as promising wingers. their good chemistry is vital to bringing back their team’s success. however, one of our ocs starts to get too attached to the other, and when an nhl draft separates them, one of our ocs is all too eager to cut contact and try to forget. the two excel in their nhl careers without one another, and end up on nhl teams with a history of deep rivalry. occasionally, the gloves hit the ice, fueled by the tension of unresolved feelings and the pressure of the respective teams to keep up the rivalry. the two are reunited when they are both chosen to play nationally for the same team, and are forced to reconcile what they have both buried so deeply within them. 

***(m/m) big money: these two ocs play for rival teams in the nhl. while their teams have a history of tension, our two ocs take it to the next level. audiences are more excited to watch these two fight than they are to watch the game itself. there’s a market in the violence between these two, and a reputation to maintain on both ends. if the public found out that these two were secretly seeing one another, their careers would both be over. 

**** (m/m) sugar daddy: my oc is a law student studying in your oc's country in order to get their degree abroad. they're from eastern europe and uh. broke af. they settle into an arrangement with your oc where your oc agrees to ~pay him for his company after they meet while my oc does camming online to make ends meet. we could take it anywhere- your oc could whisk mine off his feet and 'save' him or. be toxic & trashy and make my oc's life hell.

okay and, here are just some general prompts that could be intertwined with the plots above, or could be something we use to springboard into our own rp:

my oc has serious commitment issues. they often go around ‘ghosting’ individuals after 4-5 dates, with little to no explanation of why. your oc falls for mine, and is the first to confront my oc about their shitty habits. 

your oc and my oc were best friends, but they lost touch over a stupid fight they had when they were preteens. they can’t believe that they’re seeing one another in a bar, halfway across the world from where they met. 

your oc and my oc were flames. my oc proposed to yours, but yours turned them down. they never spoke again… until they were sharing a crammed elevator, with my oc being completely intoxicated, and still confessing their feelings for your oc. 

your oc is a huge fan of my oc’s nhl career/political career. your oc wins a contest to meet and have dinner with my oc. while my oc expects a boring night out, my oc is completely surprised by how well they hit it off with your oc. 

my oc, your first oc and your second oc all grew up together. your first oc has always been pining for my oc’s attention, and is thrilled when my oc and your first oc finally get together. they develop a long term relationship, but my oc knows it would devastate your first oc if they told them that they have been seeing your second oc for most of the relationship. 

i recognize that a lot of these focus on the nhl/the lives of professional hockey players- please don’t be worried about hockey knowledge/nhl jargon/whatever else goes through your head! i’m more interested in sport as a realm for drama than i am for following the rulebook and being 100% accurate to life when it comes to hockey. there’s a lot i don’t know and am still needing to learn, myself! if you know a lot, great!! if you don’t, let’s figure things out together! as for general oc ideas, here’s a list:

professor x student

veteran x civillian

cop x criminal 

psychiatrist x patient

** OC superheroes (I have a lot of muse for this one!)

street racing, fast-and-furious-esque setting

rival gangs 

** nhl/hockey based (lol obviously)

small town canadiana or americana 

fun, fluffy romance based modern settings

darker themes such as addiction, abuse, etc - i find it cathartic sometimes to write about violent material buuuut this has to be really fleshed out between us

historical setting- preferably, the second world war/1940s-1960s 

light worldbuilding - new to this but wanting to learn

honestly whatever you can pitch to me that isn’t high fantasy :)

i can expand on and work with any of these ideas, these are just like, topics. whatever i do with you, i promise it’ll be fleshed out, with tons of opportunity for drama. 

hell yeah let’s do this pal 

if any, and i mean any, of this piqued your fancy, pleaaaase shoot me an email at 

↳ [email protected] ! 

i will respond! but please send me something thoughtful! i’d like to hear what part of my ad that you’re interested in/why you chose to contact me. i am most wanting to rp over email and talk over google hangouts but i can be open to skype, too.  i sure look forward to hearing from you!   ♥

emmy

#indie rp #indie roleplay #independent roleplay #oc rp #multiple paragraph #long term #email #marvel rp #avengers rp #smut rp #submission