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shimmeringweeds · 8 months

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Link Click Episode 10 part 2 (part 1)

On the Twin Question

Alright, so I still cannot get away from the verifiably insane theory that both twins visited Lu Guang the night Chen Bin died. And since we have points for both Li Tianxi and Li Tianchen being THE twin, I want to put this down as a third option to cover all bases. I hope this can guide people towards their own, individual, answers as to who did what that night.

Starting with the security footage. This is damning. There's only one twin..... Xiao Li never mentioned more than one person. But did he have to? Xiao Li was sent this image and it's not even live footage. Since Lu Guang is obviously okay, he may have thought it was good enough to just show the one photo and ask him about it. Why would Lu Guang lie? He's the victim here. (and Lu Guang doesn't lie. He thinks very carefully before giving a truth.)

Also, this twin in the surveillance image is standing right in the doorway. We can't see Lu Guang. The same applies to anyone else who might be standing inside the room. And you know what, if Episode 10 can reveal a hidden Li Tianxi in the back of the car, then episode 11 can reveal a hidden twin in this room.

The Incident, in Pictures

The first time we are shown a scene of a twin visiting Lu Guang is at the end of episode 2. I'm going to post screenshots in the order that they appear: This gets image heavy, so under the cut it goes.

The scene keeps getting cut. And the angle of perspective changes each time.

---

In episode three, there are two separate times where Lu Guang thinks back on the encounter.

The first time is right after a phone call with CXS/QL. It appears they had to go to the police station, and were not able to check back in with Lu Guang that night (they're telling him about the fight, and CXS notes that LG is acting strange). - pin that for later.

The memory goes like this:

Here, there's an overlap. Not a smooth transition.

Okay, that's just called reusing animation, yeah, yeah.... How convenient for the animators. Bet they breathed a sigh of relief to not have to reanimate this sequence for fluidity. There are multiple "animation inconsistencies" in this show that I'm not convinced are just so. That's another post.

At the end of episode three, we finally get a full scene (or at least, we get one scene.) Cheng Xiaoshi is presumably still inside Chen Bin's photo and Lu Guang gets lost in thought. (He is so stressed by this incident, save him) It follows like this:

We neither see hide nor hair of the "red eyes", and the point of view is consistent.

So what happened? Which twin is this?

We see Li Tianxi run away in a uniform. She shows up later in the same uniform. Similar problem with Li Tianchen, he still has the same hoodie jacket combo In ep 10. (and it could just be character design, but in this particular case I find it unlikely.) The twins run away and then someone, wearing Li Tianchen's coat, shows up at the hospital.

Huge shout out to mimicha-arts (I'm in awe) who noticed that Xiao Ma might have gone back to kill Chen Bin, thereby giving the twins time to move. There's still the matter of Li Tianxi "seeing" Chen Bin apologizing, but I'll accept this small blessing for now because I was ripping my hair out.

So either twin had time to make it up the elevator and retrieve the phone from Xiao Ma. From there, the visit to Lu Guang can be taken at a leisurely pace. In the meantime, they have a multitude of empty rooms to hide in, and the "security" is otherwise occupied.

(For reference, I think the top room is LG. Floor 5 or 6? We don't know about the other occupant, the nurse maybe.)

This part is all untold, a dark space with no light. We do not know what happened that night. We can only guess. So let's weave a story. (there's a huge chance this is wrong, okay, don't take it seriously.)

(EDIT: you can even swap the roles out if you like. I just picked LTC as default. There are no rules.)

Li Tianxi runs to the hospital. Maybe she wants to stop what is happening, maybe she wants to turn herself in. She's distressed and guilty. Li Tianchen catches up before the elevator doors close. He apologizes to Tianxi and quickly hides her in one of the empty rooms, let's say on floor 6 where the elevator stops. He never lets her reach the roof.

Li Tianchen doesn't make it to save Chen Bin. He never planned to. He stays in a blind spot on floor 7, where he collects the phone from Xiao Ma. Xiao Ma walks down the stairs, and takes the elevator on floor 6 down. Li Tianchen returns to Li Tianxi.

Side note about security cams. Xiao Ma wasn't wearing a mask. He doesn't care if his identity is spotted and Qian Jin doesn't care to enforce it, even though he very much cares later. So I don't think anyone was too concered about the surveillance footage.

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Li Tianchen knows that Lu Guang is alive thanks to possessing Chen Bin. He was privy to that entire conversation. They can use that.

When did the twins possess Lu Guang? (assuming LTX's drawing here is accurate and she isn't just choosing to not to draw a possessed QL in front of QL.) That night is the only window of opportunity the twins would have to play this out.

When they block the door, Lu Guang's hand is right there. Possession easy-peasy if this is Li Tianchen alone. But that's not what's shown in Li Tianxi's drawing.

I haven't yet figured out how a potential coat swap works in this. There wasn't anything else besides the plushy left in Chen Bin's bag, right?

I don't want to suspect him anymore, unless Li Tianchen specifically requested the help. Li Tianxi doesn't have the coat later. So it is a one coat operation, in my opinion. And if this is a two twin operation, then one twin is always being hidden out of sight. Tricky, tricky.

Lu Guang is very occupied throughout this scene. He's tracking a whole hospital (but not everyone in it) He stops moving towards the door in order to focus solely on directions. By the end of the fight, his stab wound is bleeding but he's barely moved (it is a serious injury). He doesn't seem to have lost awareness at any point, but how easy would it have been for a twin to slip in at this time?

When Chen Xiaoshi and Qiao Ling speak with Lu Guang (on face call after the fight) Lu Guang hangs up right after Cheng Xiaoshi suggests he handcuff himself to the bed in case of possession. Cheng Xiaoshi notes that Lu Guang was acting weird. We joke and say Lu Guang just wasn't in the mood for teasing, but maybe he's worried those words are the truth.

When did either twin escape?

Remember, Cheng Xiaoshi and Qiao Ling don't return that night, though the police would have checked in on Lu Guang promptly. How much time passed before Xiao Li was conscious and giving orders?

The only exits known to us on are on the ground floor, and that was swarmed.

The twin's timeline stays tricky. Li Tianxi runs away at some point that night, not wearing her brother's coat. A few days later, she is found in the grocery story and taken into custody as an unidentified person.

Li Tianchen has some convenient timing showing up at the police station while Cheng Xiaoshi is still in their photograph. We don't know how many days have passed. What we do know: when a man hunt is declared for Li Tianxi later that evening, she's already been in police custody for two days. Meaning she isn't in contact with her brother.

Is anyone else getting the feeling there's more to Li Tianxi's powers than we know? Or am I just crazy (I feel crazy.)

I do feel that Li Tianchen is walking on a tightrope around Qian Jin. He wasn't asked if he wanted to kill Chen Bin, just told to do it. This play only works if Li Tianxi understands that, and still trusts her brother despite the horrors.

#don't take this too seriously I just want to make sure all bases are covered #link click #时光代理人 #shiguang dailiren #link click spoilers #my lc theories

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familiar-anonymous · 2 years

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10 Hob x Dream AU Fanfic Prompts :

(Cause they are my current drug)

★ Morpheus visits human realm in a different physical appearance for reasons and coincidentally meets Hob. But he doesn’t reveal himself to the immortal man (cause it would require a lot of explanation like him being the anthropomorphic personification of Dream and such). He then hears Hob telling someone about the person he loves who is silent, mysterious and arrogant like a cat. But is also angelic, graceful and softhearted. Dream is strangely jealous and slightly hurt cause Hob didn’t speak about this person (who is clearly very important to him) at all on their last meeting. It takes Dream a ridiculously long time to realise that Hob is talking about him.

★Hob is a teacher who loves his job and his students. When he sees a renowned billionaire is looking to hire a tutor for his son, he goes to the interview. The son has had behavioural problems in school and was threatened with expulsion, so the single father, Morpheus decided to hire a qualified professional to assist in his son's issues. The more time Hob spends with the small family, the more he realizes that the son's behavioural problems stem from his poor relationship with his father. Dream being the stubborn brood he is, initially disagrees with Hob's reasoning, but eventually yields. The longer Hob spend in the role of caregiver to both father and son, the more he starts to feel like this is where he belongs.

★ Dream is a traditionalist Alpha who believes omegas can't play the same role as the Alphas in the society. His alpha sister Death suggests that he should meet more Omegas in real life and befriend them before forming such an opinion. And guess who she thinks is the perfect non-stereotype omega to be able to change Dream's mind? Yes, Hob Gadling of course. (Can be applicable for noble or royal! Dream and commoner!Hob as well)

★The mandatory nerd!Dream × jock!Hob dorm roommate AU. They are total opposite of each other. Dream is always mad at the world and Hob's an eternal optimist. One loves Shakespeare and the other hates it. While one is a cat person then the other is a dog person. Dream's an introvert and Hob is an extrovert, party-animal. Unsurprisingly these two polar-opposite men doesn’t manage to get along at first. But with time a lot of things change, and so do their opinions and feelings for each other.

★ Wrong number texting AU: Morpheus is a CEO (or writer as par the major part of fandom's first choice for his profession). He is not very comfortable with technology. One day while trying to text his assistant Matthew, he accidentally sends the text to a wrong number. That wrong number belongs to Hob obviously. (I will probably elaborate this one in another post. Cause Texting AU is one of my most favourite tropes)

[Edit: I have started this story. You can find it here!]

★ (this one is kinda angsty? And there's too many 'what if's. But still my favourite. So just don't look too closely.) Death dies somehow and the new anthropomorphic personification of Death takes Hob's life without realising he was special. Dream gets furious and devastated. So in order to calm him and bring peace in dreaming and mortal realm again, he was promised Hob's reincarnation. So Hob gets reincarnated but without any memories of his past long life. Dream meets this Hob when he is an adult. Hob obviously doesn’t remember him, but they gradually becomes friend again. The problem is that this Hob doesn’t seek immortality, at least not out loud, not where Dream or Death can hear him. So they can't offer him immortality either. Dream watches Hob getting old (he changes his own appearance to seem as old as Hob too) and dying again. Just like Dream was promised Hob gets reincarnated again... and again, in every century. And Dream meets them and loves them in every incarnation. He collects memories with each Hob in terms of photos, short notes or gifts. Then one day one incarnation of Hob somehow stumbles in Dream's palace in dreaming realm. He finds dream's collection of his previous lifes memories,, and secrets get revealed.

★ Student! Dream x Teacher! Hob AU: Dream is that student who gets the highest marks in all subjects even though they don’t response in class at all. Even if he is asked a question, he just glares and then looks away. But only Hob's class is different. When Hob asks any silly question with his charming smile and cocky eyebrow, Dream can't help but blush and stutter out an answer.

★ It's not surprising that someone like Hob Gadling has many admirers among his students, colleagues or acquaintances from the New Inn. Some nights these admirers dream about him. Sometimes their dreams become a bit intimate. As the King of dreams and nightmares, Morpheus is always aware of these kind of dreams. And before he knows what he is doing, he appears in those people’s dream just to say, "This dream is over".

★ What if Lyta Hall died during or after the child birth? Maybe because of some conceiving-in-dream complicity or from the grief of losing her love of life for the second time? Dream has already claimed that one day her son will belong to him. So in case of Lyta's death, no matter what the cause, he would obviously take responsibility of the child.But Morphius is hardly capable of raising a human child on his own. And who would he take help from? While Lucienne or Death are surely Queens, they are still not human and have their own duties. I know Rose was Lyta's friend and will probably want to help raising her son. But she is young and already struggling with all the brand-new responsibilities (being Jed's guardian, Unity's successor, job-hunting etc). So Dream's sole option is to seek help of the only human being he calls friend, aka Hob Gadling. He already has experience of raising (at least?) a child after all. And after Dream explains everything (including his and the child's real identity) to him, there's no way Hob can refuse to help his desperate long-term friend. So he agrees to take care of the boy. At first they just sort of coparent, with Dream visiting Hob more often, every week if not everyday, to take care of the child. Eventually they get married and be the perfect Gay Dads for their son.

★ Morpheus got stuck in his Cat form.(And, no, I don’t care how it happens) He goes to meet Hob as a cat. But he obviously can't talk in public in his cat form. So it takes awhile for Hob to realise that the cat with sulky mood and teary eyes that's been following him around is his friend.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

I have posted the last three in three separate posts before. But added them here anyway to keep record. I will probably keep adding to this list (that no one asked for) as long as my DreamLing addiction lasts. I mean I already have countless other AU ideas, such as dating apps au, vampire (x werewolf) AU, common ex [ william ;) ] or fake dating au, pride and prejudice AU, fifty shades of grey AU and so on. I didn’t want to make this post even longer and more boring than it already is, so kept those ideas stored for another post, lol.

#the sandman #dreamling #hobmurphy #hob x dream #morpheus x hob #dream x hob #hob x morpheus #the centenary husbands #fanfiction #fanfic #fanfic ideas #dream of the endless #hob gadling #morpheus #otp #gay

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bryhaven · 1 year

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I posted 544 times in 2022

That's 544 more posts than 2021!

171 posts created (31%)

373 posts reblogged (69%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@bryhaven

@onigiri-dorkk

@lecimarkisa

@warbarbie

@svetoch7

I tagged 336 of my posts in 2022

Only 38% of my posts had no tags

#rivamika - 171 posts

#levimika - 104 posts

#levi x mikasa - 82 posts

#levi ackerman - 69 posts

#anime - 67 posts

#shingeki no kyojin - 65 posts

#mikasa ackerman - 65 posts

#attack on titan - 65 posts

#mikasa x levi - 63 posts

#anime art - 46 posts

Longest Tag: 76 characters

#feeling proud that i've caught up on all the pending fics i'm trying to read

My Top Posts in 2022:

RivaMika and their children

Pic Crew: https://t.co/y8xodtpRkM

See the full post

85 notes - Posted June 10, 2022

Welcome to my life, shipping the most hated or least preferred couples in their respective fandoms 🤣😂

RivaMika - Levi and Mikasa from Attack on Titan

FushiKugi - Fushiguro and Kugisaki from Jujutsu Kaisen

YunoElle - Yuno and Noelle from Black Clover

KacChako - Bakugo and Uraraka from My Hero Academia

ZuTara - Zuko and Katara from Aang: The Last Airbender

MeriCcup - Hiccup and Merida from How to train your dragon and Brave

DraMione - Draco and Hermione from Harry Potter

All photos are official arts and canon shots, except for the MeriCcup one - I edited that myself 😁

And a funny coincidence to note here is that, the people who ship these non-canon ships are usually the ones who are nice, friendly, and welcoming. While the people who ship the canon ships are usually the ones who are toxic and rude.

Today, I had an argument with a hater who called me dumb because of my fangirl moment on a post. 😑 And so sometimes, I think to myself. Why is it that I find myself shipping non-canon couples? What is it with me that I find other people to ship than what is already pronounced in the series?

But then again, I realize I'm not only shipping couples just for the heck of it. And just because they're canon, doesn't necessarily obligate me to ship them.

I ship and pair people when I see the romance potential in them, when their dynamics can bring fire to the story, or when they can compliment or align with each other in ways I see fit. It's not just about the lovey dovey stuff for me. It is also the understanding, cooperation, trust, functionality, and compatibility that I can see in them that makes a good and healthy ship for me.

If I see that in a canon couple, then I won't have any problems shipping them. That's all the better. But if not, then it's not necessarily a bad thing.

So to you my fellow shippers of the ships mentioned above, don't lose heart over these toxic people. Your choices and preferences don't necessarily define you. It is our attitude on how we handle our ships that does.

Nobody is perfect. But here's to hoping for a fun and healthy social media experience for everyone ~ ❤️

See the full post

180 notes - Posted July 12, 2022

So I stumbled upon this and...

I almost forgot that young Mikasa always kept Eren in line. Like she always throws him around or punches him whenever he does anything stupid or foolish. Like she gets him back to his senses.

This young girl at the tender age of 9 can be this sensible, rational, and level-headed. And yet the same girl at the age of 19 goes, "What should we do about Eren?"

I know there wouldn't be a story if the rumbling wouldn't happen. But still. She could have bitch-slapped him all the way to Marley if she wanted to.

But Yams said NO. We need the toxic relationship and Stockholm Syndrome to happen here 😑

248 notes - Posted July 24, 2022

Welcome to the Kageyama-verse!

302 notes - Posted June 28, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Yes, I watch sports.

The sports:

417 notes - Posted June 25, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

================================================

It's a shame that not even one of my actual works (e.g arts, edits, fics or AMVs) made it to the top 5. But I guess that's how it is.

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #I hope it'll be better next year

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connor-sent-by-cyberlife · 2 years

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It's me again. Sorry for bother you in your askbox, but I can't answer in comments at any posts, idk why ☹

Yes. I remember your works with LK Parcel 3D model as Connor (btw, I also found this model recently and just "oh wait, I've seen him before…OMG!") and then I saw your post when you finally had Gavin model. Long story short: the links brought me on twitter and I decided to give it a try. And yes, I have few minor questions about DAZ and I will definitely ask them :D I've been working with Photoshop long enough so it's easier for me to edit problems, than looking for solution. How to create raindrops, for example. No, Blender is still tough for me. Too many buttons and I don't have the patience for it. I only use it for import/export stuff. So yep, DAZ and IRAY photoreal. What about you?

Hey, how long does it take you to create a full scene? (from opening DAZ to final render). Last one with Convin, for example?

Hi again!

Thanks again for your reply! I tried to contact you yesterday to tell you I got this message and will reply later, but I could neither tag you nor write you via the Tumblr messanger. Maybe you've selected something in your settings that denies people to tag and send you private messages? Is there any way we could chat directly? Maybe you can try send me a private message here or on Twitter? Do you have a Twitter account? Instagram would also be an option, if you use that.

I've been working with that Parcel model for over a year before I learned about Metoria on Twitter who finally could help me getting all the original models I use now, well, not them alone, but also apathetic-roombas who shared several of their original models with me they had already commissioned from Metoria. I was so indescribably happy to finally have original models to work with!

Feel free to hit me with all your questions! I'll try to help you as best as I can.

Idk, maybe you could also teach me a bit about photo editing? I know a lot of functions in GIMP are similiar to the ones in Photoshop.

I also render in Daz with the Iray Photoreal setting. I was just wondering if you used that for your 2 pictures of Connor alone in a car and Connor and Nines together in a car, because these pics had such a cool grainy look that somehow made them look like real screenshots from the game.

How long a scene from beginning to the finished render takes me varies heavily. For example the "He was beautiful in a way deadly things always are" Nines took me only like 10 - 15 minutes including rendering! The Convin pic with the rainy background though took me several hours with posing including facial expressions and arranging the scene, finding the light solution that satisfies me. And also for full complex scenes like that one my laptop needs two hours to render (and just because I set this as the render time limit). And after that there's the editing of course which can also take some time. What about your renders?

#middleofnothing #connor-sent-by-cyberlife answers

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jennaseniorprojectblog · 2 years

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Project progress update 3

Week 7 ( Sunday October 2nd)

Added a screenshot and free stock photos from Unsplash to Headkanon

Story 1 assets

kitchen - https://unsplash.com/photos/VaGdhK-kI1c?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink

Computer/bedroom - https://unsplash.com/photos/p6inklbZzMM?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink (10/2/22)

Story 2 assets

Breakroom - https://unsplash.com/photos/4HG3Ca3EzWw

Workspace - https://unsplash.com/photos/FSFfEQkd1sc?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink

Another office - https://unsplash.com/photos/deoSlTaI0JU?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink

So stories 1 and 2 are all pau. I just have to turn them into posts and add stickers for the questions.

(Image of computer screen. This is for a scene in story 1.)

Unfortunately, when I make another story, I can't select the photo I used here; I have to input the link again. Meaning when I go to add this asset to another act, I have to input the link again I can’t just hit add art and select it.

Edited text box to have different colors

Made sure the color contrast is disability friendly. (Learned about this from my web design class)

Tuesday October 4th. Made an intro post. I’ll post it once I’m done with the stories.

Also made an Instagram account.

Welcome2ourmind - https://www.instagram.com/welcome2ourmind/

However...

I ran into a problem!

I tested reel features on another Instagram account to get a feel for things. Unfortunately, I've run into some annoying issues. First, there is no question sticker that lets viewers type in responses for reels. Oddly this sticker is only available for Instagram stories, not reels. Another bizarre issue is that the poll question stickers can not be set to appear at a specific time, and yet this feature works for the other stickers. Even if two different videos make up the reel, the question will appear on both. This means that the poll sticker will sit on top of the story for the entire duration.

Have two clips here, and the poll sticker just stays there. I can't designate it to one clip.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CjY81ckAWF6/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

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Possible solutions I thought of

Record the entire computer screen so that there is space beside the video to insert the question

Have the questions themselves be in text so they can appear and disappear and not spoil anything.

Since no sticker lets people write their responses, I will have to urge people to comment below with their answers. I'm concerned that because this is more work, the viewer may be less likely to answer, plus their response will be very public.

(Using the poll sticker and just adding in the question later (nope)

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CjZIgdapdVg/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

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Turn the story into a reel.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CjZmZKhAzfm/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

Nope, the stickers don’t work, so you have to ask people to comment.

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Turn reel into story???

Make a reel first with a question on the side and turn it into a story.

Crop to just show video. Add other clips with question stickers.

Post. Add as a highlight on my Instagram page.

Also nope! That's silly. I might as well just do stories.

-----------------

And so….

Finally, I decided on a better solution (today, October 10th)

Just make stories instead! Keep them permanent by saving them as highlights on my page, use hashtags so more people can find them, and share the page with many people. All I have to do is make sure all the stories are up by the end of week 11 (4 weeks from now) and then continue working on getting people to visit my page.

Ideal Timeline

So week 8 (story 1 acts 1-4), Week 9 (story 2 acts 1-4), Week 10 (story 3 acts 1-4), and Week 11 (story 4 acts 1-4). Even if I'm late one week, it's okay as long as all the stories are on my Instagram page by week 11.

Weeks 12, 13, 14, and 15. Continue promoting the account and collect data.

Right now

Stories 3 and 4 need to have the finished assets added and stories 1 and 2 need to be turned into posts.

#senior project

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neon-moon-beam · 2 years

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Following up on this post as well as this one...

This has been edited due to getting more context.

Some spoilers for PLA under the cut.

Even though it IS official, and was posted early due to bookstores in Japan releasing the book a day early, the initial tweet that got people riled up didn’t have any context to it, so it was nice to see that not everyone took it at face value. I’ve noticed in more recent years especially, people are quick to react to something without looking into it first and this often creates more problems.

Leaving these paragraphs here but with a strikethrough as they are no longer accurate.

As far as I can tell, there’s no real confirmation on the alleged pages from what is supposed to be the PLA guidebook that actually has not come out yet? A cursory Google search showed the guidebook being on pre-order for the 21st, and releasing in Japan on the 16th (today). From what I have seen, the person who initially posted the pages gave no further information about what the images are or where they came from.

Someone else pointed out to me that the image has a lot of hallmarks of being a hoax (though these things don’t mean this IS a hoax); no source, and it plays into a lot of popular headcanons/fanart. Think about it. How much funny fanart of Ingo falling flat on his face to be discovered by the Pearl Clan or Sneasler have you seen, even though Ingo himself says he was found standing around with no idea where he was or how he got there? How many people joked about Submas having receding hairlines due to no official art of them without hats and the way the plushes’ heads look under the hats? The alleged concept art gives us two things many people thought would be funny to see, and one thing most people did not want (that Ingo has been in Hisui for much, much longer than originally thought). However, the next part is still relevant. Several of the tweets mention the inaccuracy between Ingo being depicted as having been found laying on the ground “XX years ago” and his own account in-game, and everyone seems confused as to what “XX” means, and that him being there for decades doesn’t seem to work.

Speaking about that last point again, none of what is apparently stated or inferred (as the photo of the page doesn’t say anything about Ingo’s age) fits into the timeline of events given in PLA at all. As so many other people and I have pointed out, the Rift hasn’t been open for very long, Ingo still appears to be somewhat of an outsider to the Pearl Clan/Irida, who would have known Ingo most of her life if he arrived 10+ years before the events of the game, speaks about him as though he’s still an outsider despite his Warden status, his amnesia is presented as urgent/a more recent problem, he seems to start recovering memories after having a simple conversation with the player character which, well, why wouldn’t that have happened 10+ years ago with someone else?

Also consider this; we know from Laventon at the start of the game that Jubilife Village has only existed for two years. We also know from the end of the first story arc that Kamado and Beni’s home town was destroyed by raging Pokemon and this event has traumatized them and influenced every decision since then. If they arrived in Hisui looking to create a town safe from wild Pokemon attacks and never have what happened to their previous home repeat itself, they probably would not choose to do so in a region with a giant, menacing rift in the sky. And if the Rift had opened early enough in their establishing Jubilife Village, they probably would have packed up and left. It’s probably only been there a couple of months.

If this is canon information rather than an unused or changed concept, it would suggest that tons of players misinterpreted events of the game that seemed relatively clear-cut, or it would mean the developers somehow didn’t notice or care that Ingo’s backstory that would only be mentioned in supplementary material wouldn’t hold up in the game’s canon. Both of these are fairly unlikely, especially given how much detail and care was put into PLA.

Apparently the pages of the Wardens are all we have so far. I’ve seen no mention yet as to whether or not there was text giving additional context as to whether or not these are scrapped ideas about Ingo, or if not, how they fit into the game’s canon when there’s some glaring contradictions. It poses more questions than it answers. The images are described as “concept art”, which could mean they’re unused concepts. For example, the Legend of Zelda series’ Hyrule Historia and Creating a Champion include the final character designs, as well as earlier concept art or unused designs or even entire characters that didn’t make the final cut. However this book seems to only have final designs for the Wardens. This doesn’t mean the information about Ingo that contradicts in-game info IS canon, but the lack of explanation isn’t helping anyone understand his appearance in PLA any better.

If anyone has any further official information, let me know. I don’t want to spread misinformation!

#submas #ingo #ingo pokemon #nobori #warden ingo #bald ingo #this post has been edited in light of new information

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trippin-over-my-fandoms · 3 years

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I’ve seen this done before but here are my modern!rdr2 social media headcanons for the Van der Linde gang.

some of these are LONG and then some are shorter. doesn’t mean I love any of them any less however. I just did my best with all of them.

* I treat the gang as family especially for my modern au

Dutch

frequently uses Facebook and has dozens of friends he doesn’t even know. like if he gets a friend request he’ll accept it. John tells him he might as well just make his page public and Arthur pleads with him to make a facebook PAGE so that his random friends will stop liking posts that Arthur tags Dutch in.

Dutch has no idea how to make a facebook page.

he also has a Twitter and a massive following at that. He’s VERIFIED.

all of his twitter posts are vague though

are they a joke? are they political? is it what he’s eating for lunch that day? literally no one knows.

Hosea

also has facebook but doesn’t use it because why does he need to look at pictures of events he was at. he only uses it to see things he didn’t partake in

also has snapchat but just to keep up with the kids

because life360 was too much to deal with for everyone

and snapchat is cool

also he can and will spam you with bitmojis

Arthur

used to use facebook a lot but stopped because he was tired of his posts getting likes from people he didn’t know and friend requests from people Dutch was friends with.

plEASE

he has a private facebook for a reason, he doesn’t want other people to know his business.

he also has an instagram but anything he posts on facebook also goes on there. it’s not aesthetic or pretty or anything and he doesn’t even caption over half his pictures.

he literally only uses social media so that his friends and family know he’s alive

has snapchat because of Hosea but barely knows how to use it

doesn’t get why everyone wants to use snapchat when teXTING AND CALLING ARE RIGHT THERE

John

the question is what doesn’t he have.

john has been trying to make it big on social media since youtube came out.

his youtube used to have videos on it but he deleted them because they were cringy and arthur liked to send them to the group text.

plays twitch games on the weekends and sometimes with Jack but he thinks most of the subscribers are there for his kid since most of his solo streams don’t do as well

has a twitter, doesn’t follow Dutch, literally envies that he’s verified.

he’s tried everything but no matter what he does nothing pans out

uses tiktok to promote twitch streams

instagram feed is mostly selfies of him but 99.9% of the time he’s wearing sunglasses and the caption is some random quote

also has facebook but only to appease Arthur and Dutch, he doesn’t even have a profile picture. Claims only boomers use it.

an avid reddit user. if he’s got problems he’ll go to reddit. claims reddit saved his life. everyone’s tired of the story so they stopped asking.

also uses snapchat more than he should and the only social platform he has more than 100 followers on.

Charles

same as arthur and has both facebook and instagram and posts the same on both except his are pleasing to look at.

they’re unintentionally aesthetic

he uses a psd on all his pictures and won’t share what it is

has monthly life updates that start with some inspirational or deep quote and then text that pushes the instagram word limit

also has a deviantart , has shared psds there before , constantly tries to convince Arthur to get it.

used to use tumblr but he forgot about it

Abigail

the definition of a facebook mom. 80% of her facebook posts are about Jack or parenting.

Instagram is similar but also different, she’s actually a relatively successful influencer with over 1,000 followers.

all of her friends and family (who have instagram) follow her

has snapchat solely for the cute bitmojis and to send John adorable snaps of Jack playing with all the fun filters.

she also won’t take a selfie unless it’s with snapchat because she no longer trusts her own camera.

also uses pinterest and has a collaborative board with all the ladies.

but in general, on her own, she has too many boards. she uses pinterest for EVERYTHING

Sadie

bold of you to assume she uses social media.

she does just not a whole lot.

checks it once in the morning and once at night.

except pinterest because how dare Abigail get her into it. but even pinterest she only uses in downtime.

has facebook and instagram but there’s maybe only five posts.

if anything she’ll post on her story

will only snap Abigail and Arthur otherwise she doesn’t use snapchat

all of the social apps are mostly offloaded on her phone anyways

if she needs to know anything she just checks the group text which she has on do not disturb because they text way too much.

Molly

she’s verified on instagram

it’s also the only social platform she’ll use, which frustrates Dutch because he wants to be friends with her on facebook

but she’s happy with just instagram

she keeps it simple

and the main theme to her posts are fun outfits in her ever expanding closet

the other posts are usually of plants that she’s managed to grow. she’s not the best at being a plant mom but she’s still a good one to the ones she’s managed to keep alive.

the only thing she contributes to the pinterest board are her own pictures of her plants which are overly aesthetic.

Karen

started out with a normal instagram account then made a spam account which she ended up using way more often.

all of her posts are extremely chaotic

and usually reposts from her snapchat

has a reddit just to troll John

reposted his cringy youtube videos to reddit and got hundreds of upvotes

if you wanna see the most raw and chaotic videos of Arthur and John then she’s the one to follow.

also if you wanna see Abigail when she’s not all put together.

is the reason there’s so many memes in the collaborative pinterest board

Mary-Beth

has a instagram but also has a second instagram for art and book reviews

or basically anything she’d post on her tumblr

which is her second most used social

also uses facebook but only because she is an admin for one of those multifandom blogs.

also begs Arthur to get a deviantart.

uses pinterest most but only second to Abigail

literally the queen of pinterest DIYs

Micah

has twitter

as far as anyone else knows that’s all he has

maybe he has snapchat?

maybe they saw him on snapmaps once?

all he ever does with twitter though is retweet anything Dutch posts.

yet somehow he has so many followers.

Lenny

anyone who has snapchat has streaks with Lenny

even Hosea who doesn’t understand why it’s a thing

he also posts a lot on facebook but it’s mostly travel or vacation photos everyone is just a tad jealous of.

Lenny always seems to be busy but still has time for streaks with his friends.

he’s also an up and coming youtube vlogger

Sean

also has reddit to troll john

but he also legitimately uses it too.

he’s also really popular in the minecraft subreddit , don’t ask

also has twitch and also has way more subsribers than John

and a youtube which he’ll upload (overly edited) twitch streams to

everyone subscribes to him but they don’t tell John that.

also has a tiktok and is up to date on all the trends because of course he is

Kieran

got facebook when he was 10 and just never left.

literally doesn’t use any other social media

he’s not in the group text either so he has to facebook message Arthur to know what’s going on.

but he shares a lot of memes and cute pictures of animals

he used to follow Dutch but unfriended him when he was the only thing he ever had on his activity feed.

Susan

has facebook but claims she doesn’t have time to use it

Arthur knows this to not be true because she will like a lot of his posts.

she’s also guilty of liking every single picture in one post or album.

Arthur has also caught her looking at memes and using recipes she finds on there.

also part of the pinterest board but never contributes.

Trelawny

he has an account for everything

litereally

everything.

even whatsapp and linked in and kik

even tinder

the only one anyone knows about are his facebook, twitter, and instagam

but there’s no posts on any of them except twitter

he’s also verified

but for unknown reasons

any posts on his facebook are ones he’s tagged in

he’s also in a lot of facebook groups

Strauss

runs a subreddit

a paid facebook admin of several pages

the only person who actually knows this is Dutch because Strauss has told him about it

he has no online presence whatsoever out side of those.

Javier

spotify king

has over 500,000 subscribers on youtube

uses instagram but as another platform for his music

edits his own album covers

top tier playlists too

Tilly

aesthetic queen

the most put together and pleasing to look at instagram feed next to Charles.

uses pinterest a lot as inspiration and for making moodboards.

also uses tumblr to share moodboards

part of the sims global community facebook group

she keeps saying she’s going to start a youtube vlog but hasn’t yet

keeps trying to convince John to let her help him with his youtube.

she also uses twitch to play minecraft and sims

oh and she set up a minecraft server for everyone

Bill

facebook boomer

that’s it

I don’t know how else to put it

probably shares heavily republican posts

Swanson

didn’t use social media until tiktok.

he doesn’t do dances or anything but he does post weirdly obscure and chaotic videos that end up trending on more than one occasion

it’s usually drunk ramblings in his car that end up being hilarious

or videos of the others almost dying or ending up in the ER

Pearson

facebook boomer but make it cool.

also shares conservative posts but less offensive ones compared to Bill’s

likes almost every post any of his friends share

also comments on them too

Uncle

does he have social media? no one knows for sure.

yet somehow he knows what’s going on

even if nobody can find any of his social accounts or have ever seen him using one before let alone doing anything on his phone other than playing cheesy mobile games.

221 notes · View notes

purpletaecup · 3 years

Photo

10 ☾ he said that’s how he still remembers me

warnings: explicit language (cursing), mentions of miscarriage, mentions of infidelity (not rlly but on thin ice)

notes: you guys... this is a long one and it’s kind of fast paced, but we are finally getting some answers and the drama really begins! next chapter will be emotional, that’s all I know. I’m sorry for putting you through all this angst!! also, I wanted to bring some attention to the crisis in the Philippines right now with all of the dangerous typhoons. A lot of people need donations and rescuing, so HERE is a link to a twitter thread of donation drives! Please make sure to check it out, share and help spread awareness!

as always, come talk to me in my ask box! and if you want to be added to the taglist, please send an ask, or reply to this post or the masterlist!

not edited!! sorry if there are any mistakes lmfao i usually am sleep deprived when i write so yeah, there are probably some errors.

word count: 5,614

☾

The days following Jungkook’s visit were dull, if anything. You’ve received texts from Yoongi saying that he couldn’t come visit until that weekend because he had to finish wrapping things up in advance at the company so that he could spend some time with you. You had argued over the phone like teenagers when you insisted that he didn’t need to do that and you could take care of yourself until Jin came back. Of course, that led to him ranting about what the doctor said about monitoring you and your symptoms for concussion and to get him to just shut up about the medical stuff (it made your brain hurt more than it did usually), you reluctantly agreed to his ‘visits’, as you’d rather call them.

[nov. 20, 2020]

It was Friday now and you still haven’t gotten any glimpse of actual memories back, although you have been having these strange dreams that you couldn’t really remember when you woke up. You could only describe the feeling it gave you as ‘sinking’, like you were drowning and you couldn’t escape. As much as possible, you tried not to think about these feelings, and focused more on trying to get to know the version of you who lived in this amazing apartment.

The past couple of days that you spent at this apartment put you in awe. It really was the apartment of your dreams, from the color of the furniture down to the little plants stuck in the corner of that tiny shelf in the kitchen. It was beautiful and so you. The only problem was that you couldn’t find anything to help with your current situation. You scoured every nook and cranny and couldn’t find anything dated after your wedding reception. No pictures, no post-its, notes or anything past that date. What you had found in your apartment, you already knew of (aside from the wedding photos). Past photoshoots, high school photos, a notebook full of movie ticket stubs. There was absolutely nothing in this apartment that gave you a clue to the life you lived during the four year gap in your memory.

You even tried to get into your twitter and instagram from when you were nineteen but you couldn’t log in. Wrong password every single time. When you tried to change your password for social media, the email you used had a different password too. You couldn’t figure out what you could have changed your password to. Every password combination you could think of, you tried, but none worked, so you decided to just skip that and maybe go over it later on. Or make a new one. That could work, too.

You couldn’t even look at your twitter account because for some reason, it was private and that seemed strange for someone with almost 130,000 followers. You could see your instagram account from your browser, but it wouldn’t let you see the pictures and posts in full size with the captions and comments, so you were really stuck.

A quick internet search of your name yielded things you already knew. Former model, current writer (that fact was still surprising to you). Old news articles of dating scandals that weren’t true, except for the one with Yoongi. More news articles about your divorce with no further information than what Yoongi had told you already.

It’s as if any clue about your life during your memory loss is unaccounted for. It seemed like at this point, you could only rely on other people telling you about your life and pray to whatever higher power there was to give you your memories back.

This futile search was beginning to make your stomach churn. You almost couldn’t suppress the bile rising up in your throat. Hopefully Jin would return soon. Maybe he could put all of the pieces back together for you.

☾

Jungkook sat in on the uncomfortable leather couch in Yoongi’s office as he waited for the man to finish up whatever he was typing. He looked through his instagram feed and saw one of your posts from July. For a while, he was confused as to why this picture from July would end up on his feed, but he remembered the new instagram algorithm. Curious, he clicked on your profile and looked through it slowly. He couldn’t remember the last time he actually paid attention to your posts.

“I forgot to ask but what did you and Yn do at her apartment? She said you stayed over for a couple of hours.” Yoongi asked though his eyes never strayed from his paperwork.

Jungkook looked up at him and pondered on what to say.

“Hm, yeah. I got roped into staying. She asked a bunch of questions and we looked through her apartment and her photo albums. Her apartment’s cute, by the way. Way different from what your house looked like.” He comments.

“Really?”

“Yeah. It was bright. Lots of green. Nothing I’ve ever seen in the house you guys shared.”

“How was she when you picked her up? She told me a couple of things but I haven’t seen her yet so I can’t know if what she’s telling is the truth or not.”

It was quiet for a moment, with only the sound of turning pages filling the room, as Jungkook wondered what to say to this. He didn’t really know when to start with you, especially with how different you were acting.

“Well, she’s fine. The personality is definitely different. She seems a lot more outgoing, and she had a lot of questions but she didn’t push. I think she wants to try and figure things out on her own.” Jungkook replies as he continued to slowly look through your previous instagram posts.

“She’s been like that. She hates being a burden and gets really defensive about it sometimes.” Yoongi comments.

Jungkook pauses at your most recent post. He checks the date. September 22.

“When did you guys divorce again?” He asked.

At this, Yoongi looked up.

“The divorce was finalized on September 29, I think.” He answered, but looked questioningly at Jungkook as if to ask why.

“Did you know she was going to therapy?” Jungkook asked again.

Hearing this, Yoongi stood up abruptly and hurried over to where Jungkook was sitting.

“What? Where did you see that?” Yoongi asked as he looked over Jungkook’s shoulder.

Jungkook showed him the post. Yoongi took the phone from him and examined the post carefully.

It was a picture of clouds with text on it. Is this the life we really want? The caption read “as per the advice of my therapist, i’m just here to pop in and say that I’ll be going on a hiatus for a little bit”.

“What the fuck? I didn’t know this!” Yoongi yelled, evidently angry.

Jungkook looked at him confused. They were together for four years, how could he not know that you were at least going to therapy?

The same question was running through Yoongi’s head. He took a seat next to Jungkook to process this new information.

“Hyung, can I ask you a couple of questions?” Jungkook requested.

Yoongi could only nod.

“What was Yn like when you were together? Why did you marry her?” Those were the first questions that came out of Jungkook’s mouth.

He was truly, genuinely curious. Though he’s heard some things that Yoongi had said about you, he never knew the full story.

“We married each other because we loved each other. Wasn’t that obvious?” Yoongi retorted.

Jungkook pursed his lips at this. “Well that's what you tell everybody and yeah we get it, but considering the fact that I’ve barely seen you two together more than two handful of times in the past two years, I had to ask.”

“That’s because we were both busy, but that didn’t mean we didn’t spend time together. Of course you never saw it because you weren’t there and I’m not one to actively talk about my love life. Yn and I both liked our privacy.”

“Okay, then what was she like when you were together?”

Yoongi was quiet for a while. There were a lot of things he could say about you when you were together. He just didn’t know how to articulate it to Jungkook.

“When we were together… she was charismatic, beautiful and intelligent. Something about the way she communicated made you feel like you could forget about all of your worries and live life to its extent with her. She constantly dragged me out to picnics and made me forget about the business and my career. She made me feel young again. And she had so much love and care for people around her. For a long time, I felt like I would never be deserving of her. She was kind of like a sunflower. Or sunshine, you know what I mean?” Yoongi poured out.

Jungkook nodded. He realized that this was the time to try to figure out what happened to you in your marriage. From his conversation with you at your apartment, to the description of you that Yoongi had just given, he surmised that the version of you that he knew was someone different and he could only wonder if Yoongi saw it too.

“Did you ever feel like she changed? In the time you guys were together?” He probed.

Yoongi thought about it for a while.

“Yeah, I think so. I always found it strange that she decided to quit modelling. When I met her, she said it was all she ever wanted. I never asked because it seemed like a sensitive topic to her, but I supported her regardless. Writing seemed so out of nowhere for her. I don’t know where it came from. Then she stopped wanting to go to business dinners and events with me and after that we just drifted. And in between that, you introduced me to Yura.”

When Yoongi mentioned Yura, Jungkook winced. He had thought about it some nights ago, but he realized that he might have had a hand in your divorce by introducing Yura to Yoongi. Though he knows Yoongi would have never physically cheated on you, he could see how Yoongi and Yura gravitated towards each other. Jungkook had to admit that Yura was a sweet girl. She was beautiful, and when she smiled it was like sunshine.

Yoongi interrupted his train of thought. “Yura is kind of a complicated subject to our marriage. I would never, ever cheat on someone I loved. And I loved Yn, so much. When you introduced Yura to me, I was happy to meet a new friend and that’s all I saw, but the more you made me hang out with you guys, the more I started to see something in her that I stopped seeing in Yn. I never meant to have any sort of romantic feelings for Yura, but it happened and I feel so fucking shitty for doing that to Yn when I’m the one who promised her a lifetime together.”

Jungkook straightened his posture as Yoongi’s confession.

“Wait, what do you mean by that?” He asked.

“By what?” Yoongi looked at him confused.

“What happened to Yn that pushed you to Yura?”

At this, Yoongi scratched his head.

“I wouldn’t say that it pushed me to Yura, but remember when I said Yn and I started getting distant? As time went on, I felt like she changed and I didn’t know who she was. She used to be so bubbly and happy and always wanting to go look at flowers, but towards the end of our marriage, she stayed holed up in our room no matter how much I asked her to spend time with me. Yura, she was happy to spend time with me. She made me feel like I could forget about everything just by talking to me.”

“Yura made you feel like how Yn used to make you feel?” Jungkook cut him off.

“Well… I guess so.”

Jungkook thought about this for a while but narrowed his eyes at his hyung.

“Hyung, answer this truthfully; do you love Yura?”

The tips of Yoongi’s ears turned red after hearing this.

“Love? I don’t know. I like her? I like the way she makes me feel. She’s beautiful and smart and she makes me happy.”

“Hyung, I don’t know if you realize this, but the way you described Yura is exactly the same way you described Yn.”

“What do you mean?”

“It sounds like you started liking Yura because she reminded you of Yn when you met her. So, do you really, truly like Yura? Or do you just like her because she reminds you of what you don’t have anymore?”

Yoongi lowered his head.

“I-I don’t know. I never thought of it like that.”

Jungkook put his hand on Yoongi’s back to comfort him. Obviously, the man was confused.

“I don’t know if this helps, but I just wanted to let you know that whenever I saw Yn, during those dinners or events, she never gave off the vibe that you described her to be. To me, she was quiet, reserved and never bothered trying to get to know us, your friends, or your business. That’s what she came off as. When you told us that you loved each other and that you eloped, I thought you were joking. When I saw her, she just seemed like the typical trophy wife. Just for show. I never liked her and wondered what you saw in her all the fucking time, but now after hearing this, and after being with her for a couple of hours, it’s obvious that something happened that fucked her up and then fucked your marriage up.” Jungkook ranted.

“I think you might need to reevaluate the relationship you had with Yn so we could help her recover from this whole amnesia thing and hopefully figure out what happened. Something definitely happened, but since I don’t know your marriage like you do, I don't know what it is. I feel guilty now after realizing that I might have had a hand in whatever the fuck she was going through. And maybe figure out what you’re going to do about Yura. Can you keep dating her when your feelings for her are based off of your feelings for your ex-wife, who is currently pregnant with your wife and doesn’t know about it?” He continued.

Yoongi took a deep breath, taking all of this conversation in.

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m almost done with the shit here at the company. When I go home, I’ll sort everything out and talk to Yn and Yura tomorrow. I don’t think I can keep seeing Yura with the current situation. I have to tell Yn about the pregnancy as soon as possible, but I’m scared because the doctor told me to monitor for residual symptoms for her concussion. I don’t even know where to begin with the situation.”

“It’s okay, hyung. I’m here for you. You have to tell her about the pregnancy before she finds out herself. In the meantime, I’ll help you out when you can’t take care of her. I already feel shitty enough for how I acted with her when you two were married. I feel like I had the wrong impression this whole time.” Jungkook offered.

Yoongi remembered the moment earlier when Jungkook confessed that he never liked you and that baffled him because he thought that you two, of all people, would get along well together. More often than not, he would feel jealous of Jungkook, who had your admiration when you first started dating. He remembered you always asking him to introduce you to Jungkook and it took a year for him to budge and actually make it happen.

“I’m sure you’ll get along now. I always thought you did get along. Did you know she liked you before?” Yoongi asked.

Jungkook shook his head. “I didn’t know until the other day when you had me take her home. It probably would have helped if you told me she knew who I was before you introduced us after you got together. She never acted like she was a fan of my music and admittedly, I was a dick to her.”

Yoongi glared at him. It was a first for him to hear about how Jungkook treated his ex-wife.

“Well, you should feel shitty because she really liked you and your music. For a while, I thought she liked you more than me. If I had known you were an asshole to her, I probably would have ripped you a new one. Hearing you admit you treated her like shit makes me feel like shit because I never knew and just assumed you guys were good with each other. You didn’t do or say anything bad to her, right? You’re not that type of person.”

Jungkook could only pretend to smile at Yoongi as he asked this.

He shook his head and lied. “No, never.”

Lying through his teeth to his best friend about how he treated you made his heart fall to his stomach. Well, Yoongi didn’t have to know because it was in the past. You couldn’t remember any of the mean things he’d said to you, so now was the perfect time to make a new, much better impression of himself to you. He decided days ago that he would be better, because deep down, he knew that you didn’t deserve to be treated like how he treated you.

[nov. 21, 2020]

Yoongi had taken the day off after his somewhat enlightening conversation with Jungkook last night. He decided that he needed to go see you and spend some time with you today, but before that, he needed to settle things with Yura.

They decided to meet up at his apartment for maximum privacy, just in case anything happened. He wanted to account for the worst case scenario of Yura probably getting angry and throwing things around, but he doesn’t think she’s the type of person to do dramatic things like that.

Turns out, she’s not. When he reluctantly tells her that he can’t continue on with what they had because of residual feelings for you, in addition to the fact that there were complications in that relationship that he can’t speak about carelessly, she had reacted calmly and amicably. Though Yoongi hadn’t expected her to throw a tantrum, he was expecting some kind of anger, but all he got was a sad look passing on her face followed by comforting words.

He apologized profusely for having dragged her around when he still had apparent feelings for his ex-wife and not figuring out his feelings for her, or lack thereof, sooner. She reassured him that it was okay and she’ll be fine.

“I’ll be fine Yoongi. I liked you, but it’s pretty obvious that you used me as some kind of rebound or replacement for your ex-wife, and I was okay with it. Truthfully, I was waiting for you to just come clean and break it off with me. I hope you and Yn figure things out this time, and I hope you can talk to her. Communication is important.” She reminds him before she leaves, but not before letting him know that she would always be there for him as a friend.

He had texted her after she left, and after a couple of minutes to himself, that he was thankful for her being so nice about the situation and all in all, he didn’t regret whatever short-lived affection they had for each other.

Yoongi still couldn’t believe how smoothly everything with Yura went. He hoped that the rest of the day would be the same.

☾

You woke up to a message from Jungkook asking if you were free, so you had to tidy up the apartment and yourself because you didn’t want to look messy in front of someone you had idolized for a long time.

Luckily enough, you didn’t have to cook since Jungkook offered to bring food. You thank your lucky stars for that because for some reason, you’ve been feeling incredibly sluggish and nauseous. It was probably some symptoms of the concussion you suffered. You remembered your doctor saying something about that the last time you were at the hospital.

About 20 minutes later, you heard your doorbell ring so practically skip to the door, excited to see Jungkook and steal the food that he brought.

You opened the door to see Jungkook standing there with a big back of food in his hands. He was wearing all black, with a leather jacket that looked a tad too big on him.

“You look warm.” You comment.

He rolled his eyes. “Are you gonna invite me in or not? I even brought you food.”

You laugh a little and move to the side to give him room to step inside the apartment.

“So, what have you been doing?” He asks as he makes his way to your dining room to put the food down.

You make your way to the kitchen to get some plates for the both of you.

“Nothing. I’ve been trying to look for some stuff but I don’t know where to start so I just gave up until you or Yoongi could come help.” You reply as you move to the dining room to set the plates down.

Jungkook takes the food out and puts some on the plates. Kimbap, like you asked, and some seaweed soup.

“How have you been feeling? Okay?” He questioned.

You nodded, though hesitantly.

“Eh, I’ve been feeling kind of tired. I think I might be sick because I keep wanting to vomit. Is that my wintermelon tea, by the way?” You pointed to the drink in his hand.

Jungkook poked the straw through the lid and handed it to you.

“Sick? Did you take any medicine? Are you feeling better now?”

You took a sip of your tea and sighed, missing the sweet taste of the drink. It felt nostalgic.

“Mhm, took some earlier and I'm feeling much better thanks to the food you brought!” You smiled.

Jungkook rolled his eyes jokingly once again. “You��re welcome, by the way.”

He didn’t think about your illness any further. It was probably a cold and nothing else.

For about 20 minutes, the two of you ate and spoke about little things, mostly about Jungkook and his career. It helped you get to know him a little bit better since he’s the only person besides Yoongi who could help you in your situation until Jin comes back.

After you finished eating, you told him that you needed his help going through your room in case there was anything that could jog your memory.

“I would ask Yoongi but he’s been busy lately.”

“So I’m just your last resort?”

“You’re literally the only other person in my contact list besides Yoongi and Jin.”

“Right, anyways, lead the way!” He exclaimed.

You laughed as you led him to the room at the end of the hallway.

“Sorry if it’s a little messy, I didn’t have that much time to clean up before you got here!” You explained.

Jungkook shook his head, telling you it didn’t really matter since it was gonna be a mess anyways while you two went through your things.

☾

When Jungkook walked into your room, he was once again hit with the feeling that he had no fucking clue who you were in the past years he’d known you. If he could describe your room in one word, it would be enchanting. White walls, white sheets adorn with a baby blue blanket, wooden floors, giant plants and a mirror much bigger than himself. Your desk was filled with different kinds of pens, different notebooks that look to have been trifled through, and an unnatural amount of books and crystals.

From the looks of the rest of your house, he probably shouldn’t be surprised at your bedroom, but it’s still a bit difficult for him to wrap his mind around the fact that you were this type of person. Bright, intelligent, and incredibly neat.

He walked up to your desk and picked up the different notebooks laid out messily on the table. When he opened each of them, he noticed that they were mostly blank, with the exception of a few doodles. There were some things he’d recognized as lyrics from songs he knew, but nothing truly relevant to the memories you lost.

You stood next to Jungkook and looked at the notebooks in his hands.

“I went through those already. Nothing but a few sad lyrics here and there. None of them triggered any memories.” You mentioned.

Jungkook put them down and started walking around the room with you as you talked about what you did find during the days that you were left alone. What he got from that conversation was that you had no luck with anything and that’s why you waited until either he or Yoongi could come over and help you. Jungkook knew that Yoongi was coming over later, so if he couldn’t help you find anything or answer any of your questions today, then maybe Yoongi could.

“Oh! I forgot to mention that I can’t even access any of my social media, so do you think I can look through my instagram through your phone? I mean, if that’s okay with you. I know some people feel uncomfortable giving their phone to someone else to play around with.” You asked.

Jungkook shook his head and stuck his hand in his pant pocket, reaching for his phone.

“It’s fine, you can look at your profile, I think I follow you. The password is 061313.” He stated as he handed his phone over to you.

You grabbed it excitedly, finally getting the chance to see what your life was like during the four years that were missing from your memory. You fell back onto your bed as you unlocked Jungkook’s phone and clicked on his instagram app quickly.

You took a look at his profile first, staring in awe at the pictures he’s posted. Most of his pictures are very dark and he had quite a few selfies. You smiled a little bit as you admitted in your head that he was indeed handsome.

Okay, Yn, onto the more important things! You thought to yourself as you quickly searched your username ‘faeyn’ on the search bar. At first you were excited, but it deflated when you saw just how many posts you had. 13 posts. And almost all of them were just landscapes. Some had pictures of you by yourself, or with Jin, but that was it. How the fuck were you supposed to try to figure out your life through 13 pictures?

Scrolling through each picture and their captions from the oldest to newest, you quickly realized that you must have decided that privacy was something that should be valued. There was nothing of substance to your situation in the captions you’d written. Just casual mentions of how your day was, or what you did that day. The only thing that caught your eye was the latest post you had, dated September 22. It was a picture of clouds and the caption said something about your therapist advising you to take a break, so you were going to be on a social media cleanse for a while.

Well, at least you learned one thing. Apparently, you started going to therapy again. For what? You don’t know. You only remembered going to therapy a couple of times after the whole incident with your bastard ex-boyfriend.

You filed this little detail into your brain and hoped that maybe it would make more sense later on. Swiping up on Jungkook’s phone took you to his home screen, but you paused for a little. Maybe you could snoop through some more apps and see if there was anything else you can find.

No, that would be an invasion of Jungkook’s privacy, you thought. Another part of you argued that he wasn’t going to know and he’s here to help you. If there was anything worth hiding, he wouldn’t have given you his phone and his password so easily. And if there was anything, it wouldn’t be incriminating since he mentioned that you two didn’t really know each other that well, so you shrugged and clicked on his messages.

I’ll just see if there are any messages to me. I won’t look at anything else, you justified, as if it made it any better.

After scrolling for a little while, you finally saw something worthwhile. A text convo between you and Jungkook and from the preview of the message, it looks like it was from the middle of September. You opened it, excited to see the contents, but what you saw made you furrow your brows.

What is this?

☾

After Jungkook gave you his phone, he continued walking around your room until he got to the side of your bed that was next to the window. He looked around for a bit and saw something in the corner of his eyes. Crouching down lower, he saw something on the floor behind your headboard. He couldn’t tell what it was at first, but as soon as he moved closer, he realized it was a thick notebook. Jungkook surmises that you probably hadn’t seen it despite telling him that you looked ‘everywhere’. He took the notebook and sat down on the floor, completely hiding his figure, but not before he could look at you. He wanted to see what was in the notebook before he showed it to you, and luckily enough, you had been facing away from him.

So he sat down and opened the notebook. From just the first page, he could tell it was some kind of diary or journal. There were lots of drawings and stickers and a picture of you in a field of flowers right in the middle of the first page. He flipped through the whole notebook really quickly and found that half of it was already filled.

A part of him wanted to read through the whole thing and see what kind of things you wrote, but another part told him that it wasn’t appropriate. Despite that, he convinced himself that he should read maybe just one entry, just to see if this notebook was something substantial to your current situation.

Jungkook took a peek at you again and noticed you still had your back turned to him so he took that as a sign that he could probably get away with reading an entry. He flipped to a page randomly and focused his eyes on the writing.

The entry was dated August 4, 2020. Fairly recent. He noticed that there were some dark blotches on the paper that made the ink bleed.

He began to read the entry, not knowing what he was going to find out.

It still seems weird to be writing about my problems in a journal. I’m still not used to it, but it’s been helpful since I don’t really have anyone to talk to about this.

That made him frown.

I went to my OBGYN today because I’ve been having severe cramps and bleeding, but I already had my period so I was worried. And the cramps were starting to really hurt, so I had to go get it checked out just in case. Well, apparently I was pregnant and lost the baby.

Jungkook’s eyes widened and he gasped audibly. Luckily enough, it wasn’t loud enough for you to notice. He clasped his hand over his mouth at the disbelief in reading this information. A miscarriage? And so recent, too. He didn’t know how to feel. Yoongi had never said anything about this.

Jin actually just left my house a couple of hours ago. I don’t think the news hit me until now. I texted Yoongi earlier to tell him but he was busy so I think that was a sign that I should probably not tell him. It’s not like it matters right? Since the baby was gone anyways.

I know my therapist told me to stop with the negative self-talk, but it’s moments like this that really push me to just keep thinking I’ll never be good enough for the men that I love. Thanks to my bastard ex for fucking my mind up like this. No matter how hard I try, I always just circle back to the fact that I wasn’t good enough for him, and that I’m not good enough for Yoongi. Even fate is telling me that I’m not good enough to carry a child with the man I love. How fucked up is that?

Jungkook’s heart dropped to his stomach. He felt sick. There were so many things going through his head right now. He felt like he was violating something that was so private. Yoongi didn’t even know that you went through this. You didn’t even know you went through this. He shut the journal quickly, wiping the tears that formed in his eyes.

At that exact moment, he heard your heavy breathing and quickly got up to check on you. He walked around to your side of the bed and found you trembling with his phone in your hands. He noticed that his messages were open and he began to panic.

“What the fuck is this?” was the last thing he heard you say before your eyes rolled to the back of your head and you fell limp into your bed.

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sodrippy · 2 years

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hey im so sorry but i didnt understand this post the article, like why are they doing it? whats the actual reason, i tried to read but i couldnt

hi! thats ok bud, i hope i can briefly explain it a little bit for you! (i also had trouble reading the full article so my answer here wont cover Everything that was written there, but i know these things are 100% happening)

theres different factors that go into it, and every production is different etc etc but some of the main points are:

a. lack of respect for the sound department. on lots of film sets sound is seen as less important than other departments, and this often means they get the least accommodations.

a common example of this is after a take is filmed, a sound recordist might need a redo for them to get a better quality sound recording, but theyre denied due to time constraints; or the boom mic (the ones attached to the end of a long pole thats held out of frame) wasnt able to get close enough for clean audio, or other such things. (a kind of infamous thing with this is the way soundies have to fight for their fucking lives to be able to record one minutes room tone(ambient noise to put under dialogue so it sounds more real) on set with the whole crew silent)

b. sound is unfortunately victim to the "fix it in post" hellscape, where if its impossible or simply annoying to get a good recording on set, higher ups will just push the problems outlined above onto the sound editors in post production. so lots of times editors are starting out with poor quality material to work with

this has become perhaps a bigger problem in recent years with advancements in audio technology, which means that sound editors can do a lot more nowadays than they could 10 years ago. think of how photo editing was hugely advanced by the invention of photoshop, and what sorts of things you can remove and add from images now. similarly with sound editing, theres lots more options for fixing audio now, and a lot of times sound editors have to cobble together passable edits from audio files that arent clean.

c. still on technology, sound needs to be put together AND played in specific ways for different places in order to have the best quality. there are specific settings for cinemas and different ones for streaming direct to tv, and there is sometimes a gap between how sound is mixed and how its played. the article talks about certain cinema chains who play the sound at a lower level than the industry standard, which greatly affects how its heard

d. a really big one recently is creative direction. in recent years the creative "vision" so to speak has really changed and this affects both how directors want sound to be mixed (including extremely loud ambient noise or music, which makes it harder to hear dialogue) and also how actors are delivering their lines. the article talks about a type of delivery style thats becoming a lot more popular recently where actors speak in much quieter or breathier voices which is much harder to cleanly record.

sometimes this is just a personal style choice by the director, or to serve the story, but generally speaking its part of a trend moving towards more "realistic" cinema. similar to how actors have less "visible" makeup or less glamorized styling, theres been a shift towards more realistic audio, trying to better replicate the real world. in my opinion thats incredibly stupid and to hide it behind "creative choices" by a director is a sign that you dont know how to make a well made film.

im sorry this became a VERY long post, and i apologize if its just as hard to read as the article itself but i hope this made sense and helped u to understand the topic a bit more! if u want clarification on anything send me another msg and ill do my best!!

#ask #anonymous #sorry dude i tried to keep it short (i could talk at length about all of this and how annoying it is jsdjsj) but its still a lot #i tried to break it up into easier to read sections sorry to everyone who has to scroll past it 😭#fr though if u wanna know more lmk i love talking<3 #i hope this makes sense...

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coffeeandcalligraphy · 3 years

Text

A chatty writing update | novels, short fiction, etc!

Hi folks!

It’s been a while since I last wrote an update on this blog! I thought it’d be fun to go back to basics, and just talk about writing. This post chats about: new plans for Feeding Habits, my newest novel, my short story goals & growing collection, along with process reflections.

(image description: a photo of green leaves with the text “writing update” in a white font written on top. /end image description)

Post starts under the cut!

General taglist (please ask to be added or removed)

@if-one-of-us-falls, @qatarcookie, @chloeswords, @alicewestwater, @laughtracksonata, @shylawrites, @ev–writes, @jaydewritesfiction, @jennawritesstories @eowynandfaramir, @august-iswriting, @aetherwrites, @avakrahn, @maisulli

What have I been up to?

For starters, I finished my second year of my Writing undergrad last week and got two of my final grades back today (A+ baby)! For anyone who has taken online university, y’all already KNOW, but this year was so difficult. Would not recommend! Really proud of myself to have gotten through this absolute rollercoaster of a school term and am excited to get into some writing. That leads us to:

What have I been up to (writing edition)?

2021 started off so fast. By the time January hit, I was so consumed in my new semester that I did not have time to write Feeding Habits (my novel). In the first few days of the term, I managed to write between class, until I could no longer keep up! Essentially, I did not write any of that novel until exam season (last week), where I did manage to get in about 3k words in ~4 days.

Feeding Habits

I’m currently drafting what I believe will be the last chapter of this book (chapter 10: Swan Song). This chapter is so bizarre for a few reasons. It begins the book’s third part and also marks the shift back into Lonan’s head from Harrison’s. I originally thought this part would be much, much longer, with at least another five chapters to go, but quickly realized the book’s content was nearly completed. In my 4 day 3k palooza, I hit 50k in the book (the word count goal), and couldn’t see myself extending past 60k. Since then, I’ve made the loose decision to write this final chapter as a ~novella. Here are a few reasons why:

1. This chapter is structurally very strange.

I unashamedly shift from present to past to present to past past, and so much more every 12 words. I mapped out the timeline on a sheet of paper, and there were over 20 shifts in scenes (the chapter is only about 4400 words at the moment). The fictive past is incredibly important to this chapter, more important than the present, and I thought it would make more sense to not break randomly for a chapter so I could upkeep the consistent inconsistency of the chapter.

2. The chapter is very abstract

This stems from the structural changes, but there are paragraphs in this chapter of the fictive present that are loosely based in reality. They’re more poems than they are factual paragraphs, and keeping them all contained in one place (so a mega chapter/ novella) would reduce the most confusion!

3. There’s not much left to cover

Like I said above, Feeding Habits is on its last leg, lol! I know exactly where the book needs to end up, which is very, very soon from where I’m currently at on the timeline. Swan Song should cover what 2-4 chapters would cover in terms of arcs.

Feeding Habits and I have a really weird relationship, tbh! When I realized a few weeks ago that it’d been over a year since I started the book, I realized I just needed to finish it. Not that I want to rush (because I’ve taken longer than a year to write a book in the past), but that in order to move onto another project, I’d like to put this one behind first. This book has been the hardest thing I’ve ever written, and has reminded me there’s always a time to let go. This sort of scrounges up a conversation about letting this entire series go, which is certainly something I’ve been contemplating doing soon(ish). If this spinoff series gets a third book, that may or may not be the last Fostered book for a very long time (or ever)! There are many complex reasons to move on, but the main one is that I have other projects I’d like to focus on. This is not a definitive decision, but something I’ve certainly been thinking about!

Here are a few excerpts I wrote recently:

(TW: death, gore)

Dying feels like being a trout dangled out of water. Clinging to a hook. Mouth open. Scales iridescent in a final death cry. It’s like blood spurting up the knuckles, drowning out the flesh. It’s that moment on the long fall down when the clouds cup the body. Easy drifting. The sound a skull makes when it cracks is really just the afterthought.

(TW: death, gore)

Kill shot. Death blow. Coup de grace. Right in the heart. He feels it. The blood swelling, slicking his palms. He can do it. Reach into the cavity. Feel for the ribs. Part each bone. Then cup the humming heart. Stay there. Right. It’s never been easier.

Look at this PURE moment of Lonan holding a baby I CANNOT:

The grocery store was a fifteen-minute walk away. With Olivia clinging to his shoulder, Lonan was acutely aware that she could feel his heartbeat. Open valve. Close. Repeat. Hers pulsed right above his, a miniature drumming. The sky had bruised purple, misted with clouds. The evening air nipped his cheeks, so he made sure Olivia was securely fastened between him and his jacket. With wide eyes, she absorbed the drowsy suburbia, all its family cars pulling into driveways, all its couples heading back home after a sunset walk. When Lonan passed a young boy walking two golden retrievers, Olivia giggled, and didn’t stop, even after he’d spent fifty dollars on groceries and nearly the rest on a red Corolla marked with a MUST GO NOW sign outside a convenience store.

Let’s move on!

Mandy and Cora

I said I wouldn’t talk too much about this project, but I just love it so much?? I wanted to share my SUPER early thoughts on drafting a novel, especially one that is SO different from what I’ve been writing recently. I talked about this before in THIS post, but the summary about this project is that it’s a YA contemporary novel! Can’t believe I’m writing YA again, it’s been so long, but I also think it’s going so well. Everything I’ve learned as a literary fiction writer has been a fantastic primer for transferring back to the genre. Admittedly, I have not written much, but I’m having a lot of fun diving back into a lighter project. This is the summary:

Cora and Mandy are identical twins who’ve always done everything together. But when Mandy decides to go to university out of province after graduation and Cora doesn’t, Cora takes this as an opportunity to “test run” life apart from her sister for the first time by spending the summer at her aunt’s house across the country.

I have come up with a few ~things since I last talked about this project, mostly how I’d like to structure it. As of now, I’d like the book to be structured super loosely. I’m really pulling on a lot of inspo from “We Are Okay” by Nina LaCour (which is SO good), particularly how “nothing happens-y” that book is. This project (which I still need a title for!!) will be structured in short chapters that cover something Cora does on her own for the first time (without Mandy). For example, a few ideas are “Flight”, “Lunch”, and “Groceries”. “Flight” is the first “chapter” (they’re really kind of vignettes) where Cora flies to her aunt’s house. I still can’t determine if this book will take place in Canada. On one hand, I feel like there will be a wider audience if it takes place in the US (is that just an assumption??? maybe?? someone let me know!), but also: don’t really care too much about an audience at the moment! It could also take place in Canada (So Ontario and British Columbia). But if it does take place in the US, I think it may take place in NYC and San Francisco. The problem is: I really don’t like researching lol, and while I’ve been to NYC many times, I will definitely write it wrong! Does this really matter on a first draft?? absolutely not lol, but of course I am already overthinking!

But back to structure: I am looking forward to seeing what this looser structure will do. This is a story that is solely around one half of a set of twins learning to be her own person (and ultimately that she doesn’t have to completely forget her sister in order to do that), and as a twin who KNOWS this feeling, I think this structure of her doing things for the first time is SUPER relatable.

I was worried it might sound silly/worrying to others who are not twins that Cora hadn’t done things like “lunch” or “groceries” on her own, but I feel this so much as an identical twin myself! Not that she hasn’t done anything at all by herself, but as a twin, when you do something without your twin for the first few times, at least in my experience, you notice. If any twins are reading this--weigh in!

This story is the most personal thing I’ve ever written. It definitely is an OwnVoices book! Usually, I avoid details that are remotely similar to me because they make me uncomfortable haha, but with this book, it’s all me, lol! The characters are all Guyanese, which is SO fun because I’ve been planning what they eat (my fellow Caribbean peeps know: the FOOD!), which is so fun (yes they have pumpkin and shrimp, yes they have roti, yes they have pera, yes they have mithai). Every time I’ve gone to dabble at this book, or even think about it, I get incredibly emotional for this reason? I don’t exactly know why. I think this is a story I just so want to tell, with the culture I love SO much that I definitely struggled to love as a child. This is reclamation bitchessss!

Not going to lie tho: the prospect of writing ~a book~ is kind of freaky! I’m going to make the minimum word count for this book pretty short (50k) and see where it goes from there. I think I will focus on this project this summer! Originally I was going to write a literary novel this summer, but I think this one’s calling my name!

Here’s a pretty rough excerpt:

Try. I remind myself that’s what I’m doing after the flight attendant fills me a disposable cup of Coca Cola and all I can think of is Mandy and I shoving Mentos into a bottle of the stuff when we were twelve. Just me, wedged in the middle seat between an exchange student heading out for summer break and a middle-aged woman sipping a cocktail, thinking of Mandy and I bursting whole oranges in a blender when we were bored one Winter break as the plane dips through a wave of turbulence. Mandy and I dying our hair neon green with highlighters (didn’t work—our hair is too dark) as the plane lands on the tarmac. Mandy and I arguing so loud last month, we both lost our voices as I lug my carry-on out of the overhead compartment and shuffle off the plane and through the airport, searching for Aunt Vel.

Short Fiction

I’ve written so much short fiction this year! I have a goal to write a short story a month (they can range in length, as long as 1 is “complete”), so my short story brain has seriously been soaking it all up lately. Let’s chat my month to month breakdown so far:

January:

I wrote four stories in January! The first is a flash fiction piece called “Shark Swimming” that follows a young woman who attends a shark swimming class after breaking up with her girlfriend. I wrote this story for a “test” workshop for my fiction class, and it was based off the prompt “think about something you’re afraid to do and make the character do that thing”. I’m not particularly afraid of sharks, but had been wanting to use the title “Shark Swimming” for AGES (literally since 2018).

This story is one of my favourites. It’s only about 900 words, but I think there’s something profound in how mundanely specific it is. The entire story doesn’t even see the narrator swim with sharks once; it actually takes place fully in the sanctuary’s lobby. But I really love this narrator. This is the first story I’ve written in second person in a while, though I felt really connected to the unnamed narrator. She struggles with accepting that she truly is a “boring” person, and there’s something about the final image that really gets me!

I’ve been submitting this around, though it’s been rejected a handful of times. Hoping I can secure it at a magazine one day because I really love it!

The second story is “Joanne, I’ll Pray for You” which is actually a rewrite of one of my very first short stories (the first story I did not write for a class haha), “NYC in Your Apartment”. I LOVE this rewrite a lot, and also learned the original is not a very good short story! Revising this story taught me just how much I’ve learned in the 2 years I’ve been writing short fiction. Seeing the 2019 version versus the 2021 version side by side is fascinating because I essentially “gutted’ the 2019 version of its beginning and end until all that was left was the middle of the story (aka the actual story). AKA: this is the only story I’ve ever written with a hopeful ending and I cut out all the happy bits lol I am SO sorry (that arc is more for a novel or novella). That’s how this went from a 5k word story to an 1800 word story (my Submittable thanks me for this lol). A lot of details and scenes I included were more pertinent to a 3 act structure/novel, which of course short stories don’t often have because of their brevity. I love rambling about writing theory, and seeing that actually pay off is so fascinating!

(TW: trauma)

Like the original, this story follows Joanne, a woman in her early twenties, who spontaneously breaks up with her boyfriend. She claims the poltergeist haunting her drove her to this decision. The original draft focused a lot more on the traumatic events Joanne survives, but this draft really loosens them up. It focuses less so on the events themselves, and more on how Joanne’s life is affected. I found the details of these events were less important, and even sort of contradicted Joanne’s insistence she is being haunted. Instead, the poltergeist really takes more precedence in the new draft as a force Joanne doesn’t understand. That ambiguity, I think, is what the story truly needed.

I also centralized Joanne’s relationship with her boyfriend, Julian, here. Now don’t get me wrong, I really didn’t add anything to this draft. It was a matter of trimming the fat around it to leave the lean “meat” in the centre. But by removing that fat, I was able to emphasize what was most important here, and that was her relationship. Julian always played a really big role in the original draft, but I feel like his role as both a friend and partner to Joanne is much more emphasized since this draft literally is only two scenes now. Because there is less, there is more room for Joanne to reflect, which I’m happy about!

A final change I made was the setting and therefore the title. The original, which was “NYC in Your Apartment,” I couldn’t keep because I shifted the setting to Toronto (this is how I originally saw it, but in 2019 I just?? couldn’t?? write?? canlit??), and “Toronto in Your Apartment” sounded sort of gross LOL. The new title comes from a line in the story which I think is more relevant to the themes!

The next short story I wrote in January was “How to Spell Alpaca.” This one is super fun because I wrote it SO fast (in about 15 minutes or so). THIS is the writing update if you’re interested in learning more. I talked extensively about this one in that update, but some developments are that I dove into an edit a few weeks ago to really understand the core of the story. I’m still not quite there (this is just an intuitive feeling; I know not everything has “clicked), but I am really intrigued by the two mothers in the story, the narrator, and her newfound acquaintance, Violet. Both really struggle to understand their place as mothers (the narrator even declares she isn’t a mother anymore). The narrator, who is in her 50s, sees herself in Violet, who is much younger (~20s), and so she views Violet’s relationship with her daughter in a cautionary, yet mournful way, like she can see it will end up like her own relationship with her daughter, despite wanting the opposite. This is a really subtle story. I feel like if you blink, you’ll miss the message. But I think it’s compelling for that reason. It’s really a portrait of parenting and how to grapple with mistakes you may make that inevitably affect your children. Wow just unlocked the theme writing this lol.

The final story I wrote in January is “The Party,” which may be in my top 3 faves I’ve ever written. This story follows Aida, a recent divorcee in her ~40s. The day her divorce turns official, she moves into a new house and receives a party invitation addressed to the previous homeowner, yet RSVP’s anyway. At this party, she’s hoping to find some sense of noticeability, having struggled with being nondescript her whole life. Things seem quite normal at the party, until it gets bizarre.

I LOVE this story, y’all. Like “How to Spell Alpaca” it really delves into motherhood. Aida, our narrator, is incredibly hurt after her divorce. She now lives farther from her children she struggled to feel connected to in the first place, and doesn’t really know how to reignite her life. This party is a means to do that. This is the first story I’ve written that contains a “twist” which is strange because I really prefer stories that give us as much info as possible upfront, but yes, this one sort of twists.

February

I wrote one story in February, and that was “Protect the Young.” This title is SO changing when I think of a new one because it’s thematically incorrect, haha, but this story follows a woman in her late 40s whose daughter, Lindy, announces she is married the same day all their backyard chickens turn up dead. The discovery of dead chickens prompts our narrator to recall her ex-husband’s murder and the role her daughter may have played in his death.

I love this story so much! I think this would make a great closing for my short story collection. It just has that vibe! I wrote this for my second fiction workshop. I thought I had to hand in the story a week earlier than I had to, so I panicked and wrote this in one sitting! Little did I know, I did not need to do that lol but I’m very happy because this story is so fun. We get to learn more about Arnold (her ex), his relationship with Lindy, and how that translates to Lindy’s relationship with her new husband, Malcolm. I LOVE true crime (I listen to about 3-4 hours of case coverage daily), and this is my first “true crime” story. Because of that, I’m very sus of a few details that probably wouldn’t slide in actual investigatory work, so I’ll also be working on that in a revision. My professor also gave me a great suggestion that may alter the story’s structure a bit, though I look forward to toggling with it in the future.

March

In March, I was really on a Criminal Minds kick lol. I’ve been watching this show since I was seven (oops), and dove into a rewatch since it hit Disney+! This story, “Where to Run When the Lamb Roars,” is very clearly Rachel watching 5 episodes of CM a day. Oops! We follow 14-year-old Astrid as she and her older half brother kidnap a young girl to sacrifice for their yearly ritual.

I knew a few things going into this story, but the main thing was that I did NOT want to show any details of a potential murder (if one even occurs). I really wanted to keep all of those elements off the page because this story is not about those events, but about Astrid’s relationship with her brother. They are a murderous duo, with Astrid actually being the dominant partner. I wanted to explore that. I knew her brother, Fox, was more of a submissive partner in their team, even when he used to do this same thing with his father when he was much younger (chilling!), and so it was a task to explore how this young girl’s desire for violence works. The end actually comes right before the story starts, one could say, but I like it for this reason. It really made me contemplate the story by the time I finished it, and helped me examine what it really was about versus what it appeared to be about.

April

(TW: sexual content, non explicit)

I was so busy this month! Who knows if I’ll write a story last minute, but I did write one story this month called “Five Times Fast.” I wrote this during a “writing sprint” that was being hosted at a flash fiction workshop I recently took with one of my favourite writers ever, K-Ming Chang. I learned so much from this class, and am so happy I came out of it with a draft! This story is just over 300 words, so the shortest flash I’ve ever written, but I’m really happy with it. It was based off the prompt “describe the last time you or your character was naked.” In this case, the narrator has a “friends with benefits” relationship with Ricky who works at a laundromat. This story highlights a moment in this relationship (and also Ricky’s goofy personality lol). I really like it! Hopefully I’ll submit it to some magazines soon.

My short story collection

Very briefly I wanted to touch on my short story collection which I’ve titled “She is Also Dead.” I’ve been meaning to make a blog post on this, so look out for that in the coming months, but this collection is already at around 35k words (about 14 stories so far). The collection also surprisingly has a solid amount of flash fiction which is kind of fun! There’s definitely a range here, which is what I personally love in short story collections.

I feel very professional now that I have a ~collection chart. This is her:

(image description: A chart with the title “She is Also Dead.” It is broken into four columns: Story, Status, Word Count, and Published. Entry 1 - Story: Slaughter the Animal. Status: Revisions, Word Count, 3982, Published: N/A. Entry 2 - Story: Joanne, I’ll Pray for You, Status: Polished, Word Count: 1809, Published: N/A. Entry 3 - Story: Primary Organs, Status: Published, Word Count: 2342, Published: The Malahat Review. Entry 4 - Story: Faberge, Status, Polished, Word Count: 619, Published: N/A. Entry 5 - Story: The Wolf-Antelope Will Not Come for Us, Status, Polished, Word Count: 1556, Published: filling Station (forthcoming). Entry 6 - Story: How to Spell Alpaca, Status: revisions, Word Count: 1327, Published: N/A. Entry 7 - Story: Blink Twice for Final Judgement, Status: Polished, Word Count: 6572, Published: N/A. Entry 8 - Story: The Species is Dead, Status: Published, Word Count: 1208, Published: Minola Review. Entry 9 - Story: Shark Swimming, Status: Polished, Word Count: 907, Published: N/A. Entry 10 - Story: The Party, Status, Polished, Word Count 2339, Published: N/A. Entry 11 - Story: Fig, Status: Polished, Word Counter: 947, Published: N/A. Entry 12 - Story: Protect the Young, Status: Revisions, Word Count: 4128, Published: N/A. Entry 13 - Story: Where to Run When the Lamb Roars, Status: Revisions, Word Count: 2174, Published: N/A. Entry 14 - Story: Phantom Limbs, Status: Revisions, Word Count: 4844, Published: N/A.) /end image description.

This order is DEFINITELY not permanent (at this point whenever I write a story, I just fit it randomly into this chart lol), and some of the info is outdated (for example, Slaughter the Animal is now polished!!! thank god!!!). But just an idea of what I’m thinking of including.

This is the summary so far:

In SHE IS ALSO DEAD, characters are pushed to act on their gravest impulses. A small town turns murderous when their local invasive species, the Janices, begin dying. A child struggles to understand her mother’s suicide. A college dropout who insists she’s being haunted by a poltergeist unexpectedly breaks up with her boyfriend. A mother acknowledges her daughter’s murderous tendencies after her backyard chickens mysteriously die. A young girl caters the funeral of a girl rumored to be killed by a wolf-antelope. A newly-divorced mother RSVP’s to a bizarre party she was not invited to, and a murderous brother and sister upkeep their yearly tradition of abducting a young girl. These stories follow characters who navigate death, violent desires, womanhood, and loss, both self-imposed and otherwise.

This is also so subject to change as I may pull and add stories to the collection!

I think I’m going to leave this update here for now! I’ve written TONS of poetry too, but I honestly ~hate my poetry right now lol, so! Hope you enjoyed this chill rambly update. Hope writing has going well for you all! All the best!

--Rachel

#writing #writeblr #writerblr #amwriting #writingupdates

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margarethx · 3 years

Text

I have some slightly controversial take about Sam Wilson fandom here, so maybe don’t reblog this post... Comment if you want, but I really don’t want to start arguing with anyone. I just need to vent and will probably delete the whole rant later.

So...

I know that Sam’s fans complain a lot about the treatment he gets in the fandom... I still do that from time to time and I probably will continue doing it in the future. But I’m starting to feel very, very tired with the people who act like their love for Sam can only be expressed through:

1) criticizing other people’s content,

2) hatered/dislike for Bucky or Sambucky,

3) complaining about other people in the fandom.

It’s so weird. We criticize the people who make Bucky-centric content with barely any mention of Sam and tag it with his name, because it’s annoying, but at the same time there is quite a big number of fans, whose posts in Sam Wilson tag are basically:

“omg he never gets recognition”, “MCU fandom hates Sam”, “Everything is about Bucky, where is Sam?!” “some of you only like sam when he’s with bucky :/”

And... sure. There’s a lot of truth to these statements. But saying that over and over again won’t fix the problem, especially if you yourself don’t do ANYTHING to remedy the situation. You’re flooding the tag too... Just in a different way. A few months ago I had this habit that I liked to follow people who wrote posts like these. Because I had this assumption that: if you complain about Sam being treated badly you probably love him a lot, so we should get along. I love him too!

But I realized that a lot of those people literally complain for the sake of complaining and than don’t even try to post Sam-centric content on their own. Why not??? You don’t have to be an amazing creator to make a good post. It’s not just about realistic fanart and 30k words fanfic with a complicated plot. You might write some weird HCs about Sam instead. Or a joke. Incorrect quotes. Ideas for fics you’ll never finish, but might inspire other people. Doodles that took 2 minutes of drawing. Edited photos. Favourite screenshots. Prompts. Learn to make poor-quality gifs of Sam’s cool fightigh style. Write a short scene analysis. Or ask other people how they analyse some scenes to start a discussion. Link some edits from YouTube.

And if you cannot think of a single thing to make on your own? Well. You can always promote art made by other people. Go through the tag and reblog things you loved. Find a good blog and search throught their archives to find older content. You can compile a post with fic recommendations so other people read what you enjoyed and see how good the content about Sam might be. Or recommend your favourite creators in general. Send encouraging asks to artists who you love so they feel motivated.

--- ----- ---

But these people do none of that. I can scroll throught their blog for 10 minutes and everything about Sam Wilson I see is complaining that people like Bucky more. Or that Sambucky is popular. (As if all the best Sambucky stories aren’t just fans expressing their love towards Sam through Bucky’s eyes...) I’m not trying to say that you have to be a creator to criticize the fandom, but it’s weird when you only yell at others for not posting enough about Sam when you didn’t post anything about him either unless it’s complaining. Kind of ironic...

Also! If you don’t promote other people’s content they get discoraged from posting. It’s a fact. I have probably over 80 different half-made and finished drawings with Sam Wilson on my tablet, but I have zero incentive to post any of them, because every attempt in the past ended with these posts getting 4 notes. Or 10 at best. So why bother? I can look at them alone. And I don’t remember these people who complained about the lack of Sam content supporting my Sam-centric art with nice comments.

You cannot expect the fandom to mass-produce content for you if you don’t encourage it. I got no feedback, so now I just sort of... write or draw for myself, because I enjoy it and have no incentive to publish any of that when no one’s interested. Instead I just make writing prompts or analysis of tfatws, because there’s a bigger chance I’ll have an interesting disussion with other fans in the comments or I’ll inspire other creators to make more art by posting that. I enjoy both of those things very much, but one evokes a reaction I want and the other just... doesn’t. (It’s not even about validation... even if it’s nice to get compliments. It’s just: “when other people are clearly not interested, why make the art public at all?”.)

--- ----- ---

Like I said. I’m not going to call out any specific person here. But there were a few people who harshly criticized me in asks or in private messages for “pretending to love Sam” just because I like Sambucky too. But if you scroll through my blog you’ll find that at least 95% of the posts are about Sam. And if you scroll through theirs it’s 3 posts - all of them about fandom not loving Sam enough. (I just checked.)

But I guess I’m a “disgrace to the fandom”, because I acknowledge that Sam might have a love interest while you said you hate Bucky, so... Apparently your love for Sam Wilson is more real if you despise more popular characters he interacts with. ...Be honest with yourselves. Some of you just like to whine and complain, but prefer to disguise it behind love for Sam, so it sounds justified.

And yes. There should be more content that is only about Sam. Or about Sam’s non-romantic relationships. Sure. But if my two choices are: “get a Sambucky fic about Bucky loving Sam very much” or “get a post where someone cries about Sam not being loved enough for the 10th time”... then pardon me for preferring the first option.

If any of you spent half the energy you waste on complaining on making a single post about your supposed love for Sam the tag would be much more full of good content. But it seems like making actual content requires more effort and talent, so you just stay there whining that other people don’t provide you with what you want and demand. And give zero encouragement and promotion to those who do the work.

So continue doing that if you wish. But I won’t waste all my energy on making my weekly “this fandom fucking sucks” post. I prefer promoting cool art other users made (now or years ago) and creating my own posts that might not be always 100% about only Sam... but are still focused on him. Because I like this fictional little guy. I’m not going to let this weird purity tests ruin my enjoyment. If the pretty drawing of Sam has Bucky on the other side of the canvas I still have a cool drawing of Sam to admire. So it’s a win for me.

--- ----- ---

[Reminder: please don’t reblog this. I really just need to vent. Comments are okay, I can discuss this. I just don’t want some peope to see that and go yell at me all over again. I was already harassed for allowing Bucky or Steve on my mostly Sam-Wilson-centric blog...]

[Also... if you think this is hypocritical of me to complain about complaining... Maybe. I don’t think it’s comparable here, but whatever.]

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silverrstarrr · 3 years

Text

Normal girl (2)

Note: i just edit this chapter a bit and added more dialog. Someone messaged me and helped me out with a few things, thank you!

Chapter 2:

Walking side by side down the stairs, you took a sip of your coffee and place your herd of keys the side of your book bag. yume was scrolling through her phone on tik tok, drinking from her coconut Carmel ice coffee. You didn't understand why she was drinking ice coffee in mid February, it was cold. It was surprising their wasn't any snow.

Grinning like an idiot, she shaked your shoulder, positioning her phone in front of you–you both watched the tik tok. You didn't laugh at first only smiling, yume kept gesturing you to keep watching, waiting for the punchline. Finally it came up and you both started laughing, you slowly shaked your head placing your hand over your mouth.

"NOOO, nooo. That was so wrong, yall are going to hellll" you whined out.

Yume wiped the tears from her face and continued down the last step. She opened up the door and slid out, you trialing behind her. You both proceeded to walk down the street, where all the park cars were out.

"We riding in rich today girlie, jump in," she lifted up her arm that held her drink, her other reached into her purse and grabbed her car keys.

"I thought we were gonna walk there? It's only 10 minutes." You headed towards her car as she unlocked it and sat in the driver's seat. She had a 2018 dark Grey Nissan altima. You remember her having this ever since junior year, you recalled her talking about getting a newer model since this one was old. Like girl what? Old your ass, if the car still functioning there ain't no problem. White people shit, man.

"Well, it's the first day of sweet college life," she dragged out the last few words, adding a sarcastic tone. Yume tossed her bag in the backseat through the open space from the front, She dropped her drink in the little cup holder as well. Catching up with her, you open the backseat's door and chucked your bag in there–immediately closing it after. You pull the passengers door open and sat down, closing it behind you. Yume did the same–letting out a large sigh as she used her long sleeve to rub her legs, which were freezing.

"Bruh, you were just cold. Shouldn't have wore that skirt knowing it was this cold. Your mother would be disappointed," you moved your head side ways, pretending to be disappointed. You dropped your dunkin' drink in the other cup holder next to hers.

"Y/n, shut upp." Rolling her eyes jokingly, She grabbed the buckled next to her seat and puts it on. You placed your seat belt on too. Automatically, her phone connected to the car, you check over at the screen in the middle. It had the time, the degrees outside and all that other fancy things.

"Wanna play something?" she inserted the keys into the ignition and started the car.

"Yeah, I'll type it in,"

You grabbed her phone, showing the screen to her to unlock it, automatically recognizing her face– the lock screen slid up, revealing all her apps. You went to spotify and played "C U Girl" by Steve lacy.

"OKAAYYY, MS. INDIE TIK TOKER." Yume said nodding her, jamming to song. It was only going to be a 5 minute drive, or 7 if you guys couldn't find parking. She swerved to the left, leaving her parking space and pulling off. You whipped out your phone and paused your music, rapidly switching to snapchat–you heard yume's loud singing.

"I WANNA SEE YOU GUURRLL, I WANNA PLEASE YOU GIRL....GO AHEAD AND BE YOUR GIRL," This girl was jamming her out heart out, steve lacy was her favorite along with Brent faiyaz and many others.

In response, you started cackling as you hit the record button—swiftly turning over it to the driver. Her black ponytail moving as she sang and motioning her head in all different directions. Eyeing towards your direction she sees the phone and leans towards the camera flashing a smile, moving her head side to side—still singing through the lyrics. Yume returned back to the road as she lightly taps the steering, avoiding the horn of course.

Once the quick little vid was done, you added a caption,

"I swear if we crash😭😭💕"

Your thumb jolted between posting it on your private or public. You decided to post on the public story because why not? The song was over pretty quickly as the next one played.

"Who knew white people had rhythm?!" It was obviously sarcasm. You knew she was half Asian but it was fun always calling out her white side.

"Naaahh, white people don't have any rhythm. What you saw there was my miki matsubara pop out". She eases down her breaks– the traffic light turns red. Miki Matsubara? Oh yeah, it's that woman who sung "stay with me". It was a good song, you were obsessed with the chorus mostly.

You giggled a bit at her remark, you checked your socials once again.

"If this light doesn-" Yume sentence was cut off by the light turning green. She pressed her foot on the gas and carried on with attending class.

~~~

Pulling up to the parking lot, yume leaned towards her wheel, searching for a place to park. She slowly went down each isle searching for a vacant lot she could snag. You had your drink in between your lips, you took the last sip and shook the plastic cup trying to get a little more. All you heard was ice rattling against one another, dropping the cup back in the holder. You peer out the window looking at the campus, there were a ton of kids, like a lot. Anxiety began spiking up through your veins, this really is the college life, huh? Maria University. It was a school for literally anything, it was one of the biggest universities in the country as well being highly diverse. Yume would be allll the way on the other side of campus while you're slightly in the middle.

"Uggghhh! I regret not leaving earlier, I don't see any open slots." She whined. This was her 2nd time driving around the parking lot looking for a space.

"I said we should walk but nahhh, you wanted to be lazy and take the car." You rolled your eyes as yume, exaggerating, throwing your hands in the air. But you weren't going to be late on the first day. As the generous queen you are, you aided your roomie with looking a space to park. After analyzing for a few moments, you spotted a space and immediately tapped at the window, pointing towards it. Yume car swerved to the left, sliding right into the parking. Taking her keys out the hole, she grabbed her drink and headed out.

"No leaving trash in my car, miss L/n!"

You grabbed your plastic cup and opened the passenger door.

"Yes ma'am," you opened the backseat and grabbed the two bags and closed the door. Beep yume locked her car. She was sipping her coffee but gave a bitter expression when her sweet drink was watered down because of the ice. You looked at your phone, checking the time:

8:38 am

Monday, February 18th

38m ago

Kittykiller27, prettygirlnene liked your photo

45m ago

[Andyhas]: CRONA BECK started following you and 48 others.

Your phone was blowing up from insta notifications. It was time for class and you weren't sure how long it'll even take you to find your classroom. Slinging the bag over your shoulder, you handed yume her own, which she grabbed. You both were speed walking, despite her coffee being ruined she still continued to drink it. It was for the caffeine you guessed. Reaching the sidewalks, it was time to part ways. Yume turned her face towards yours pouting.

"We're leaving each other nooww," she stuck out her bottom lip staring at you. You grabbed her arm, pulling her closer to you. Her arms slithered around your waist, resting her chin on your shoulder–giving you a warm hug. You returned the hug by grunting and holding her tightly.

She started giggling and patted your back a few times, you released your grip and she started to jog in the other direction while looking back, waving at you. You waved back hollering a "BYEEEE!" A trash can was next to you so you dumped your empty dunkin' there.

It was now time for your own adventure, to find this damn classroom. You click the play button on your phone's lock screen, "baby powder by Jenevieve began playing. (Play the song whores👩🏾‍💻)

Walking downwards to the left side of campus, you searched for a pair of doors to go inside of. At this moment, you regretted not going to orientation. That day you were busy setting up your website for your makeup line. You haven't released any products yet, but you had plentiful of ideas and themes you wanted to do. Since it was black history month, maybe you'll drop something as simple as a face cream to help clear and brighten up the skin. But you discarded that thought because you weren't anywhere near ready to start your own small business. Plus, you had bigger things to worry about.

Standing in front of double doors, you grab the handles and pulled it back, you stepped inside while students behind you did the same. You came in slowly, admiring the interior. It was hella spacy with paintings and photos hanging along the walls. Students were roaming the hallways going back and forth from classrooms. Most of the students seemed to be in some sort of costume, or they were dressed fairly well like they were models. You didn't know the directions to your designated class, so you took up the courage to ask someone. You turned to search for someone who didn't seem busy, since most people were rushing to class. Finally you laid eyes on q girl leaning against the wall, typing on her phone. She had long pink acrylic nails, her blonde hair tied into a low ponytail, which complimented her pale skin tone. She had a gold nose piercing on the right nostril.

She seemed nice enough, so you decided to approach her.

"Um excuse me, do you know where Mr. Fargo's class is at?"

The blonde girl averted her eyes from her phone, now focusing on you.

"I'm not really sure—um, I believe it's down that way." She pointed to the right of her.

"Mr. Fargo, he's teaches cosmetic right?"

"Yeah," you replied

"Then I think it should be down there." She scrunched her face in a confusing manner, meaning not to take her word for granted. But you couldn't care less, it was worth a try.

"Ight, thank you." You bid her goodbye. Oop. You accidentally switched your lingo. You were used to speaking in AAVE but you knew how to change your tone and wordplay around others who weren't African American. The girl didn't seen to notice so you just continued down the hall.

"Down... here right..? Yeah this is the way," you murmured to yourself while you strut down the hall. Then turned left as the lady told you. You were now at a hall with multiple doors. Out of all them, you forget the most important, class started in five minutes. You looked to the left as your braids swayed with your movement, then searched to the right. You walked down the hallway, stopping at the fifth door on the left. You were hesitant with grabbing the door, you didn't want to make a fool of yourself walking into the wrong room as all eyes are on you. You pulled out your phone and texted yume.

(I did a different message format just in the previous was confusing)

colonizer but times 2🧑🏻‍🦲

I'm so lost, this is embarrassing.

Lost? What happened

Idk where my class is

& its starting in a few

You don't know where?? Bruh

Ask someone, im sure they'll help you

I did...but she didn't tell me

which class it was😭 all.

she said was "down the hall"

BYEE LMAOO

Uhh

Just open the door you think it is😋

UH- HUH🧏🏾‍♀️ YOU SETTING ME

UP FOR FAILURE.

Imagine going into the wrong class and

all you see are eyes 👁👁

Girl, half of the people won't even see you again on campus👩🏻‍🏫

If you don't recognize the teacher, try to ask a student close to the door for direction

Okay, im blaming you if I make a fool.

outta myself 😟

Read at 8:43 am

(Play quicksand by SZA rq 👩🏾‍💻)

You decided to take your roomie's advice and pick a class, which you already did.

You dropped your phone back into your jacket pocket and swung open the door–you were prepared for the stares. The classroom was vacant, not even a teacher in sight. Just a bunch of stools and white pull down screens. You saw a few cameras standing in front of these screens. "Was this the photography class or sum?" You mumbled to yourself.

And well, eyes were on you but it wasn't a herd as you expected, just one. Sitting on one of the stools in front of the door, was pale skin boy with long brown hair. It rested at his shoulders, some of it covering his face even. He seemed around 6ft, or 6 ft 2? You couldn't really tell since he was sitting.

He had on some black jeans with a black long sleeve sweatshirt as well with a beige greenish short sleeve unbutton shirt rested on top of it– a long golden key necklace dangled from his chest. His hands were sitting between his lap, you noticed sliver rings on them.(his outfit for people who need help visualizing) The teal eyed boy was also rocking black & white air Jordan 1 retro, literally the same as you.

You screamed internally at how fine this man looked and he had shoe gang? Uggghh. Class been started and you were going to be late on your first because this OBVIOUSLY wasn't your class. You decided to break the awkward silence and speak,

"Hey, um, is this Mr. Fargos class?" You stepped more into the classroom for the brunette male to hear you.

"Wrong one, babe. His class is in a totally different building." A different building?! You wanted to die right there and then, especially after hearing him laugh after his statement. Not just the wrong class but the wrong building? Bye–you're so stupid. His eyes scanned your body, his eyes lingered a bit longer at your shoes–it seems he noticed. A smirk appeared on his lips after finishing his quick outfit interrogation–wait, did he just call you-? I-, yes he did. You tried your best to hide your smile and not react.

"O-ooo, I got it. Thanks" Eren released a small chuckled seeing your reaction, he could tell you were caught up with the little pet name.

"I'll walk you over there." He got off his stool and walked towards your direction.

"I-, nah it's good, I got it." You said in defense not wanting to bother him. He didn't respond and just passed by you, exiting the classroom. He held onto the door, looking at you.

"You coming or no?" He was so nonchalant with it everything. You smiled a bit and walked out the class alongside with him. He released his grip once you were out and started trialing behind you.

You paused for a moment because you didn't know where you were going. You turned back to look at him, he caught on and let out an "ah". He quickly got in front of you as you proceeded behind him.

"So," he said.

"What?" You replied. Why did he start a sentence and not finish it? Was he expecting you to start the conversation, weirdo. You just wanted to get to class l.

"Oo, sassy are we?" He raised a brow.

"What—? boy, say what you wanna say."

Once again, he let out a chuckle, flashing you a small. God, was his laugh attractive.

"You're into makeup and stuff?" He questioned.

"Yeah, I'm into 'makeup and stuff' " You said the last few words in the mocking tone, referring to what he called cosmology.

"That's good, at least I'll be seeing you often."

"Often? Oh, are you in that major also?" You said.

"No...Do you really not know anything?" He made you feel dumb by his response. How were you suppose to know what he meant? You clicked your teeth and started walking ahead. You pushed back the door that lead to another hallway and walked towards the end to push the second door that lead to another building.

The brunette boy watched as you left him behind in the dirt, waiting for the moment you'll turn the wrong corner—so he could tease you about it then correct you.

It wasn't too long till you reached your destination, you both stopped in front of the class's door.

"Well, see you. I hope you don't make snarky remarks to every girl you meet."

"Nah, only you princess." He had a smirk on his face, ooo! You wanted to wipe it off.

You glanced at him and his eyes were already on you, you broke eye contact and reached for the handle.

"Wait–" you whipped your heard back.

"Yeah?"

He cleared his throat

"Name's Eren," you let out a small giggle, did he really just stop you to say his name? Puhleasee. Hearing your laugh, his face brightened up and kept his eyes on you.

"Okay, Eren~. Thank you for walking me, I gotten get to class now."

You opened the door and stepped inside. Eren didn't even get a chance to ask your name. Luckily for him, your major mingled a lot with his own, he could only hope to see you again around campus.

‿‿‿‿‿‿‿‿‿‿‿‿‿‿‿‿

Authors note: UGHHH, I STAYED UP ALL NIGHT FOR THIS just to pass out a few hours before school started. 🥲 I wasn't even paying attention in English and math class, but hope yall enjoyed <3.

Pt 3

#x reader #attack on titan #eren headcanons #eren x reader #eren yeager x reader #eren yeager #anime #eren yeager x y/n #eren x black reader #eren yeager x you #aot x black reader #eren jeager #eren jaeger x reader #connie springer #aot season 4 #eren smut #fanfic #anime fanfic

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

Text

Ad-tech's algorithmic cruelty

The wife of one of my elementary school teachers once delivered a full-term, stillborn baby. It was a great tragedy, but far worse came in the months and years that followed, as direct-marketers bombarded them with pitches that tracked the progress of their dead child.

College-savings plan ads, ads for baby food, annual birthday notices - the whole thing running on autopilot as marketers pursued the Procter & Gamble "lifecycle marketing" playbook that targets the turning points in customers' lives, like parenthood.

This got automated. In 2014, Eric Meyer coined the term "inadvertent algorithmic cruelty" to describe his experience of Facebook's "memories" feature, which bombarded him with pictures of his young daughter on the anniversary of her death.

http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2014/12/24/inadvertent-algorithmic-cruelty/

Meyer called it "inadvertent," but there's a strong argument to drop that and simply call it "algorithmic cruelty." Facebook *should* have known that promoting "high-engagement" posts would end up retraumatizing people on the anniversaries of the worse moments in their lives.

And if the company didn't realize it in 2014, they certainly knew about it after, and did not stop. In 2018, Patrick Gerard wrote about how Facebook commemorated his mother's death with a video of animated characters literally dancing on her grave.

https://twitter.com/PatrickGerard01/status/1031920228098355200

Algorithmic cruelty spread to other platforms: for example, Google's smart address book began adding women's stalkers to their speed-dials, sensing a high degree of mutual interactivity:

https://www.wired.com/story/the-problem-with-your-chatty-apps/

The problems of algorithmic cruelty - the predictable ghastliness of a fire-and-forget system of idiotic, automatic cheer - have long been a feature of science fiction.

Think of Bradbury's classic "There Will Come Soft Rains," where an empty house cheerfully greets its dead owners with their daily routine after a nuclear war has killed nearly every living thing.

https://www.btboces.org/Downloads/7_There%20Will%20Come%20Soft%20Rains%20by%20Ray%20Bradbury.pdf

Or David Marusek's pioneering, haunting story "The Wedding Album," about the AI avatars of a couple, created to commemorate their wedding day, outliving the couple and haunting virtual spaces for thousands of years:

https://gumroad.com/davidmarusek

Or Sarah Gailey's instant classic 2018 short story STET, which recounts a particularly horrific sort of algorithmic cruelty in the editorial notes on a scholarly paper about a self-driving car wreck:

https://firesidefiction.com/stet

None of these warnings were heeded. Indeed, algorithmic cruelty - incubated in primitive direct marketing, supercharged by social media - made the jump *back* to ad-tech, in a form that is thousands of times more virulent than its prehistoric paper-based ancestor.

Writing in Wired, Lauren Goode describes the ad-tech algorithmic cruelty trap she found herself in: eight years ago, she called off her wedding. Today, she is still bombarded with messages that track the progress of a marriage that never happened.

https://www.wired.com/story/weddings-social-media-apps-photos-memories-miscarriage-problem/

These are the product of the "memory monetization machine," which surfaces your old social-media breadcrumbs as inventory for spot-market advertising auctions: "This user got married eight years ago, who will pay me top dollar to show them an ad?"

Naturally, this has all the failure modes of social memory monetization - the dead children and parents, and commemorations of other traumas - but with ad-tech's nonconsensual, eternal torture: you can quit Facebook, but you can't control these background processes.

Goode quotes Kate Eichhorn, whose book THE END OF FORGETTING describes how this nonconsensual external memory system disrupts the "memory editing" that is key to overcoming trauma for the most marginalized among us:

https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674976696

Reading that, I was struck by the distance between the algorithmic cruelty of nonconsensual memory-surfacing, and my own powerful, hugely beneficial practice of combing through my own digital history, which is in a database under *my* control - my 20-year blog archive.

For a decade, I've started each day by looking at my posts from this day in the past - at first, it was #1yrago and #5yrsago - now I look back at #15yrsago and #20yrsago, and republish the elements that seem significant today. Here's yesterday's:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/05/zucks-oily-rags/#retro

I can't overstate beneficial this is: tracking my own predictions, concerns and aspirations over time is an incredible tonic for anxiety, a tool to refine and improve my goals, an empirical, external check on my memories and feelings about where I am and where I've been.

It's like a subspecies of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, the process of writing down your worries and aspirations, then revisiting them after the fact to refine your understanding of when your intuition leads you true...or astray.

The difference between what I do and algorithmic cruelty isn't technology - it's control. I'm in charge not an unaccountable, nonconsensual algorithm.

As is often the case with tech issues, the important thing isn't what the tech does, it's who it does it *to* and *for*.

Indeed, thinking this through this morning made me realize how much I'd like to revisit my photos every day; I've got 20 years worth of them stashed on Flickr, where I was literally one of the first users:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/04/21/family-owned-smugmug-acquires-flickr-rescuing-it-from-the-sinking-post-yahoo-ship/

I tried it this morning, but Flickr's tools remain incredibly primitive thanks to years of neglect under Yahoo's ownership. Its new owners, Smugmug, have been making great strides, but they have a LOT of technology debt to pay off.

But having manually pulled up photos from this day 5, 10, 15 and 20 years ago, I was absolutely delighted. I would welcome a Flickr change to made it simple to see pics from a given date - maybe by editing the URL itself (currently a mess!):

https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=&min_taken_date=1586156400&max_taken_date=1586242799

The point I'm trying to make here is that we shouldn't mistake the ability to revisit your past experiences and thoughts for algorithmic cruelty - the answer to this cruelty isn't to destroy our digital time-machines; it's to seize the means of computation.

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

#pluralistic

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novantinuum · 5 years

Text

On the corrupted!Steven theory...

So, originally when I mused on this yesterday I was just playing around with random possibilities.

After combing the series for info about corruption, though, I’m mildly spooked at the increased potential for this to... perhaps be a thing? I’m not saying that this is what I for sure believe will happen- to be honest, I’m not even sure Crewniverse would go this direction at all- but just for funsies, let’s see what kind of “evidence” or “foreshadowing” exists that might support this potential story path in the context of canon.

(EDIT: 10/7/19

I honestly no longer think this creature is a worm at all whatsoever, it’s either more akin to a horned caterpillar or potentially has limbs. Either way we can see so little right now that it’s hard to tell. I’m not editing the rest of this post because I want it to exist in its original form- but do keep this in mind reading the rest! XP)

1) The design of this worm creature.

Let’s start simple. Let’s start tangible.

For future reference and simplicity, I will be henceforth be referring to this creature as... “Wormy Boi.”

So, let’s see what we’ve got here. I’m definitely not the first person to point out this fella’s pink nature, and the jarringly human-like nose they’ve got. (Compared to other corruptions, which have had distinctly non-humanoid features.) In the photo above, we also have Wormy Boi sporting glowing pink eyes, which then send out a flare of pink light/energy. So, seemingly a powerful entity.

If you watch the short segment before they sit upright, you’ll see that Wormy Boi is super, super big. They’re in the background, but BOY do they loom. The shadows cast upon them especially push that sense of size. They’ve also got a whole bunch of spikes on their back and framing their face.

So, then. What evidence could be made for this being a corrupted!Steven, as opposed to some other run-of-the-mill monster?

Steven Universe Future is a limited series, described as ‘tying up loose ends.” To me, as a viewer, it would make far more sense for the antagonists/conflicts to deal with big concepts that have already been established since there’s such a limited amount of time we have left with this world. Introducing a completely alien species in the last act of the show would feel offbeat from both a writing and a viewing perspective. Corruption- on the other hand- is something we don’t have full answers to yet.

We don’t see any gem, yes- but Steven’s gem is- of course- on his belly. If this theory were to be true, that would translate to the gem being on Wormy Boi’s underside, far out of our sight in this shot, due to how massive they are. As an addition to this, not showing the gem gives an air of mystery to this creature’s true nature- which makes it seem like there’s something surprising to discover here.

A corrupted diamond would surely be MASSIVE. Also, very powerful. The beam of pink light hints at Wormy Boi being quite a powerhouse.

The spikes on Wormy Boi’s back and around their face highly resemble rose thorns. We all know how much the Crewniverse loves their rose symbolism, and design wise, this aspect would make a lot of visual sense for a corrupted Steven. Running off of that:

The face/nose shape and the five horns on this creature’s head give off a very Steven-like silhouette.

The nose, of course. The face has a very Steven-like shape to it, overall- although noticeably more angular and sharp. The mouth is reminiscent of the Watermelon Stevens’ mouths. And as for the horns, there’s five of them positioned equidistant around their face, just as Steven’s hair is always formed from five lil’ bumps at the same positions.

Okay, moving on.

(Read more under the cut!)

2) We do not yet understand the true nature of corruption.

“I guess it’ll take more than a kiss to heal damage from the Diamonds…” -Pearl, Monster Reunion

Corruption is still- bafflingly- a huge mystery. The Gems we’ve watched the CGs bubble since season one have been healed, yes, but there are still many gaps in our understanding of it. With Steven Universe Future’s promise to address some lingering story threads, it would make sense if corruption was on the plate for further discussion. So, what DO we know?

We know it’s something the Diamonds can do. Interestingly, it doesn’t seem to require all four diamonds. Three of them together were able to cause all the damage to Earth. There’s also no statement made that more than one Diamond is required to cause effects like that.

In Legs From Here to Homeworld, Blue and Yellow Diamond weren’t actually aware the corruption was something they were capable of producing. They seemed to assume they obliterated the Gems on Earth. Corruption is then, even a mystery to them. That’s... odd, isn’t it?

Pearl states that it’s “something nearly impossible to describe.” Garnet goes further to say... “It’s sorta like... if MC Bear-Bear didn’t tear the fabric of his arm, but the fabric of his mind.”

"A sound… A song?” There’s a lot of association between corruption and music.

It causes Gems to lose touch with their usual forms, instead warping into a more outwardly "monstrous” version of themselves that appear to be “just a bundle of fight-or-flight reflexes and survival instincts.” As seen by Centipeetle in Monster Buddy and Monster Reunion, it appears as if corrupted Gems try to regenerate with their original forms if unbubbled, but are simply not in a state where they can maintain that.

As seen with Jasper in Earthlings, extreme emotional distress very much seems to speed up corruption’s effects. This is less of a stated fact and more of my read on that episode, but I believe it to be an important tidbit, especially since Garnet states that corruption’s damage is mental rather than physical, at least at its core. This can also be seen in Monster Reunion with how Centipeetle’s partial healing backfires when she remembers the trauma of being corrupted and reacts strongly.

Now, when it comes to healing corruption, Steven tries to heal Centipeetle himself, and does make some nice progress... helping her regain a hold on herself as he treats her with love and compassion and understanding... but it’s ultimately not a healing that can occur in isolation, helping her on his own. She needs more support before she can heal from this corruption to a state where she can truly be herself again.

And that eventually comes in the form of the other Diamonds. So, all four diamonds can help relieve the corruption if they help these Gems all together.

3) How could this theory potentially fit into the story anyways, you nutter?

Well, here’s the part of this post where I make some broad conjectures. I honestly am shooting fish into a barrel here because again- we know barely anything about how corruption actually happened initially, and my thoughts are very jumbled. Please forgive me.

"I don’t really know how the corruption works. It’s like they’re sick. They don’t remember who they used to be.” -Steven, Gem Hunt

So, corruption seems to be a mental ailment of Gemkind, turned manifest. It also seems to have a deep connection to a Gem’s emotions, with Centipeetle growing smaller and slightly calmer upon feeling more secure in Steven’s presence, and corruption speeding up as Jasper grew more and more emotionally overwrought and self-deriding about herself.

When it comes to the Diamonds and how they perhaps caused it originally- without fully realizing- we know that at least Blue and White have abilities focused on causing others to act in certain ways. Blue has sway over one’s emotions, and White has a knack for forcing her thoughts and self upon others. (I’m not sure how Yellow’s ability would play in here.) Mayhaps, mixed with their grief and guilt and anger, their power simply pressed all of that hurt emotion onto all the Gems on Earth in one whole fail swoop...? Tearing their minds in the process of it all?

The question I still have, though- is whether a single diamond could produce effects like this. And whether a diamond could turn that ability on themself.

Could Steven accidentally corrupt himself? Why might that happen?

Well, let’s look at our boy here.

He’s got a wide circle of support at this time in canon, but notably, he’s notorious for bottling up his emotion and not letting others in to help him- instead dropping everything to help them with their problems. Just to name a few examples (a few):

The Test. He feels betrayed and hurt at the Gems for a moment about the way they’re babying him with the rigged test, but instead of admitting the hurt he feels about the scenario, bottles that up to help them feel more like good guardians.

Joy Ride. He opens up to the Cool Kids about deep, incredibly troubling stuff that’s long been on his mind, but he’s never once talked about it with his family.

Mindful Education. The perils of bottling one’s emotions is literally the whole plot of the episode. The kid has a full out sobbing breakdown while he’s plunging to his death. Connie gets through to him a little here, but later episodes show that the resolution we see here is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Steven’s internal issues.

Storm in the Room. Externally, Steven tries so hard to put on a guise of content and positivity, but once alone in Rose’s room feels safe enough to let the full brunt of his emotional trauma come out in an almost explosive manner. Geeze, get this kid some hugs.

Gemcation. Steven actually fails bitterly on putting on his customary smile in this episode, simply because the weight of his problems have become such an impossible burden to him. When the other Gems are trying to help him open up, he isn’t immediately responsive to their efforts.

What’s Your Problem? Amethyst spends the whole episode trying to cheer Steven up and find out how he’s doing, and instead Steven downplays his own feelings on the matter and ends up helping her sort out her own emotional issues.

So to sum: Many an Emotional Issue, a chronic tendency to avoid outwardly addressing said issues in favor of helping everyone else instead... and to avoid accepting other people’s help.

Even if he’s surrounded by all these people who love him, the fact of the matter is that Steven still feels as if he has to face his own inner demons alone.

Now, let’s look at the lil’ teasing synopsis that was given for Steven Universe Future:

“After saving the universe, Steven is still at it, tying up every loose end. But as he runs out of other people’s problems to solve, he’ll finally have to face his own.”

Blatantly sounds like we’re gonna finally get some addressing of Steven’s emotional state, now doesn’t it?

4) A concept on what could, theoretically happen

“Maybe… it IS a guy in a monster costume. I don’t mean literally, silly! What I mean is... there might be a conscious Gem still inside there, somewhere. What if the monster is turning back and forth into its original form? If it is, it might not be as corrupted as we think! There might still be a chance to save it!” -Steven, Gem Hunt

Suppose Steven- by some as-of-yet unknown means- ends up accidentally corrupting himself. His sorry emotional state only further amplifies the effects of this corruption, and makes it really hard to retain control. Wormy Boi as a form could be like... all his inner demons made manifest, a metaphoric mirror into his current mental state. But- as he is half-human- he’s not entirely unaware of what’s happening. Perhaps... as the quote above could be sneaky foreshadowing for... how he’s turning back and forth between this corrupted form and his normal form.

He likely wouldn’t want everyone to see him like this, doesn’t want everyone to visibly know the sheer depth of how much he’s hurting. But just like the corrupted Gems were only able to be helped in community, with the support of the CGs and the Diamonds in preparing the fountain, Steven can’t fix this on his own.

He can no longer face the dark alone.

At some point, everyone has to take a brave step. Reach out. Accept help.

Steven’s helped so many people, and surely he deserves that same love and care in return, too.

And perhaps, when he’s eventually healed from this- and has gotten the opportunity to be open with his family and friends about the hurt he’s facing- he’ll be left with “corruption scars” as well. I think it’s an important thing to address, that no one goes through experiences like these without lingering effects. Stuff stays with you. Healing is not always linear. But life is a continuous journey, and with the support of people who love you surrounding, you too can make a change... can continue to live to the fullest at every moment possible.

I think the above would be a lovely moral for Steven Universe to tackle in its last run of episodes, no matter how they approach it- daft corruption theory or not.

Now, in the end- a reiteration. This is just a wild theory. I’m not trying to be any authoritative voice saying that this is for sure what will happen, because in reality I have no idea what Crewniverse is cooking. However, I do think it’s fun speculation, and I am kinda spooked at how well things fit.

Whatever happens, I’m sure it will make me weep like a baby, though. Hoh boy. Grant me sanity in these coming months as we wait for answers.

#su #steven universe #su future #steven universe future #su theory #corrupted steven theory #my post stuff #long post #the mighty 500 #1K #2K #3K #4K #5K

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thegothicviking · 3 years

Text

As re-entering a link from herzeleid.com never seem to work (??) I usually copy and paste the actual text. Remember a transcription of Flake chatting with fans that I posted from early 00'? Before this Paul had a similar if not the same chat. I have already too long post in tumblr now so it will be broken down in 2 parts!

PAUL CHAT WITH FANS part I

Transcribed by Jeremy Williams

Taken from Rammstein.com chat

October 26 , 2005

_____________________________

Mod: Hello to you all. Thanks for coming out. Paul will be here in just a few minutes. And then we're going to get started.

Paul: Let's go!

niti: +++

Mod: Sorry, there was a technical problem. But the chat will start soon.

niti: +++

**atomrt: how do you chose the sounds for each song because all of them fit perfectly?**

Paul: Thanks a lot! Sometimes that works out well, sometimes not so well.+++

**maria: Your album covers have always sparked a lot of controversy. Which cover is your favourite and why?**

Paul: The cover for Sehnsucht was the most dramatic in my opinion.+++

**Benzramm: What was coming out of the fake penis during the live act "Bück Dich"? **

Paul: That was water with Ouzo to make it milky.+++

**Beurgueur: Good evening, Have you ever thought to write a metal-opera based on rammstein’ story?**

Paul: Hopefully not. We have enough theater elements already.+++

**MafiUndomiel: I was at River Plate Stadium in Argentina, 1999, when you toured with KISS. You did almost surpassed KISS music and show with your impact, and many people was really impressed. I still remember the silence during Du Hast, as Till was singing the refrain. What do you remember of Argentina, of this show? **

Paul: Yeah, that was unbelievable. It's a shame that we can't play in South America this time. Flake was seriously ill.+++

**MafiUndomiel: Did Till write Te Quiero Puta on his own, or had some kind of external help? I know it's not very complicated, nor elaborated in the lyrics, but it's not easy to put two or three sentences together if you don't know the language... believe me! I'm still trying with German!**

Paul: He had some help from his girlfriend and from Flake's friend from Chile.

Paul: But Till can already speak Spanish so well that he only had a few questions about grammar.+++

**monkeyman: What type of gear do you use when recording in the studio?**

Paul: This would take two hours to list. Too much for now. Sorry.+++

**Hugo: Why did you choose almost the same cover for the japanese version of Reise, Reise and Rosenrot? **

Paul: Because we thought it would be a shame to use the cover only for the Japanese edition.+++

**MafiUndomiel: There are many bands that edited DVD and VHS with the footage they got when they recorded their albums, the creative process and all that stuff. Since many R+ fans are really interested in knowing "Rammstein's kitchen", have you considered releasing something of that kind?

** Paul: I filmed some of the footage during Reise, Reise and it will come out sometime on a DVD as bonus material.+++

**blastedop: What happened to Live DVD? It was delayed? **

Paul: Yeah a little bit, but we're going to try to do it this year.+++

**MafiUndomiel: I wanted to know how did you put your setlists together when you go to a country you've never been... you mix old and new material, or you prefer to show your new material above all, and play only the "classics"? **

Paul: We play a mix of both old and new.+++

**Jenna: As you are possibly the most successful band from Germany (singing in German) that you are expected to represent German music and culture to the rest of the world? **

Paul: It was never our plan to play all over the world.

Paul: Sometimes we wonder ourselves how this all happened.+++

**beurgueur: what american film director would you enjoy to make a ckip with **

Paul: Tarantino.+++

**Benzramm: Did you ever get hurt when you were working with fire on the live acts ? **

Paul: Sometimes.+++

**aeon: One Rammstein member said you had a movie project with Werner Herzog. Do you think this project will be carried out and would you like to act in something different from Rammstein videos ? **

Paul: It's been awhile with WErner herzog. Maybe it will work out, there's still a plan to do it.

Paul: +++

**Rammsteinizied: Dear Paul: What is your favorite live performance effect? (like the flamethrowes in Feuer frei or the bow in DRSG) **

Paul: The nose flame throwers that we use in Feuer frei!+++

**MafiUndomiel: Which was your first guitar? Do you still own it? **

Paul: It was a Telecaster copy. A cheap one. I gave away my first guitars at an auction for a good cause. No idea whether it worked out.+++

**Straya: This has been in my mind for a while now, and I must ask. From the sample songs on the official site, it seems Rosenrot might be your 'hardest/loudest' albums, the songs seem 'hard', in a way, like Ich Will, Feuer Frei, and Mein Teil; what do you think of this? **

Paul: I don't think so. There are fewer sequences so the guitars come out better.+++

**Synthema: Do you still feel that being in Rammstein is almost like being in a six-way marriage? Does the band still function as a tight a unit or have things drifted apart? **

Paul: Yeah.

Paul: We're still together. Knock on wood. We've been together for 10 years and now that we've gone through our crisis, we feel better than ever.

Paul: We've got money, success, beautiful women and all the rest.

Paul: Things can only get worse.+++

**Jenna: Do you think your videos help to stop you taking yourselves too seriously? **

Paul: We've always taken ourselves less seriously than many people think. our best friends know this.

Paul: At the moment, we don't feel like making any humouress videos.+++

**whiskeypapa: When writing a song, how many/what kinds of revisions does the song go through before finally making it onto an album? **

Paul: Some songs make it out directly as we conceived them. With other songs, we make 20 versions and they still don't make it.

Paul: +++

**Noora: HI! I'm a fashion and design student from Finland and I was wondering about your stage costumes...How much do you participate in the designing and making of the outfits that you use on your tours? I understand that every album has its own look. Do you first design the outline of the look as a band and hen consult a designer and maker? Thanx and welcome back to Finland! :)**

Paul: Most ideas come directly from the band. For the last outfit, we had the idea to combine Bavarian folkloric outfits with industrial.

Paul: Because Bavarian folklore is not very cool and we like to mix things that you're not supposed to.+++

**Beurgueur: Have you ever thought in what your life would be now if rammstein never was created?**

Paul: No. We don't think that way.+++

**minx: It’s been stated in several interviews that the band has two pyromaniacs in the group, but is there anyone who is not so fond of fire?**

Paul: Everybody in the band has a different specialty.

Paul: Each of us is really equally important.

Paul: It doesn'T matter what each does, it could be better when two are on vacation during preparation and actually help us to make a good video this way.+++

**Badeend: Who thinks of the titles of the cd's? Is it some kind of democraty or is it 1 man that decides?**

Paul: We make the decision as a group but it's not really a democracy. More like a board of directors.+++

**Biz: How have older industrial bands (such as Laibach or KMFDM) influenced you?**

Paul: A lot.

Paul: Also Ministry.+++

**minx: What is the oily black/brown liquid that you are all covered with on stage? Is it a fire retardant liquid?**

Paul: No.

Paul: That's a secret.+++

**minx: Why did you wear a paper bag over your head at the concert in Tallin, last November?**

Paul: I wanted to display an Iraqi prisoner.

Paul: There's a photo of a guy behind barbed wire and he's holding his son but he has a bag on his head.

Paul: That photo really had an impact on me.+++

**aeon: Why do you only do signing sessions in London and Paris? Why not in other big cities f Europe or even Germany? Or is anything planned? **

Paul: Actually we've only planned for Paris. London snuck in at the last minute.

Paul: I don't know any more signing sessions details right now.+++

**Badeend: Did you take gitar lessons or did you teach it on your self?**

Paul: Self-taught.

Paul: +++

**minx: I am going to be at the signing in London on Sunday. Do you enjoy doing those types of promotional events or are they just ‘hard work’?**

Paul: Sometimes it's a lot of fun but other times it can be exhausting.+++

**Synthema: It could be said that the "Rosenrot" photos are quite a departure image-wise from what one would expect from the band. Was this something that was decided by the band for a particular reason, or is this the sort of decision that is out of your hands? Does your management or record label have much control over how you present yourselves, or is that left to you?**

Paul: We don't like to repeat ourselves.

Paul: Usually the band always has the last word on these amtters. But weR'e not always interested in all of the details.+++

**Badeend: What is the new instrument you used in the song Te Quiero Puta?**

Paul: Trumpet.+++

**beurgueur: do you think you'll be on stage again when you'll be 60? (like rolling stones for example...)**

Paul: Hopefully somebody will die first. Then we won'T have to worry about that.+++

**minx: Do you do you all do own make-up for the shows?**

Paul: Yes.+++

**OK-River: Will Rammstein play again "Bück Dich" in a concert, or it is something of the past?**

Paul: I wouldn't say no.+++

**blastedop: Rosenrot is so diferent from Reise Reise. How is this possible if these songs are from Reise Reise recording season?**

Paul: I don'T think so. Listen to the whole album.+++

**Benzramm: Are you a sort of scared when flake is going with his boat in the public ? **

Paul: No.

Paul: But it was always Oli last year.+++

**whiskeypapa: Which of your songs invokes the most emotion from you?**

Paul: Seemann.+++

**MsBehaviour: Greetings from Finland and good evening! My question is, you have been playing together as a band for quite a many years now, and there is a big difference in the sound of Herzeleid and the sound of Reise Reise. Does this "evolution" come naturally to you, or do you make conscious decisions as to where to direct your sound? How do you feel about the change?**

Paul: There are some of us who want to stay the same.

Paul: There's some of us who want to always change.

Paul: These parties fight each other and the result is a new album or a black eye.+++

**MafiUndomiel: Have you heard a cover version of Keine Lust made by a Russian guy called Miguel? What did you think about it?**

Paul: Not yet, unfortunately.+++

**Badeend: Do you have a private jet or do you have to rent a plane?**

Paul: When the record company pays, we fly Business. When we have to pay, it'S Tourist class. Sometimes, when the connections are difficult, we rent a litlle jet.+++

**luna: First "Snow White" now "Rose Red". Do the members of Rammstein have a fondness for fairytales?**

Paul: Who doesn't?+++

**Synthema: Do you still enjoy performing live after all these years, or is it more of a chore now?**

Paul: If we didn't like it, we wouldn't have been around so long.+++

**Benzramm: Is there a double meaning in the songtexts of your songs ? **

Paul: Yeah. But the subtleties and double-meanings get lsot in translation.+++

**Badeend: What is your favorite song or cd?**

Paul: Kill Bill 1.+++

**DRS2G: Is "Hilf Mir" inspired by a Heinrich Hoffmann's tale?!**

Paul: Yes.+++

**Synthema: Have you ever felt that the success of Rammstein has been a negative thing for you in your personal life? That it makes it difficult to decide who to trust and who not to?**

Paul: It is difficult to stay normal despite money and success.

Paul: We fight this on a daily battle but we usually win.+++

**Beurgueur: from a viewer: what guitar do you use for your c tuning, and what guitar does richard use for this?**

Paul: I play a Gibson Les Paul and Richard plays ESP guitars.+++

**Benzramm: Did you really go to the mountains for the videoclip "Ohne Dich"?**

Paul: Yes. The was the funnest video of them all.

Paul: The thin air up there was difficult.

Paul: I'm impressed by mountain climbers who go even higher.

Paul: It was difficult for our crew and us.+++

**MafiUndomiel: how did you and richard decided who was going to be lead and who rythm guitars?**

Paul: Good question.

Paul: We're both stubborn.

Paul: It's a fight every time but we're still doing alright up to now.

Paul: Actually, the winner is supposed to be the one who plays the best solo.+++

**Badeend: Do you still have to take guitar lessons to play better?**

Paul: No.+++

**blastedop: Do you visit fansites? How about a Top 10 Fansites in the official page?**

Paul: From time to time.+++

**Badeend: Why did you pick just that girl for the Texas vocal in Stirb nich vor Mir?**

Paul: It was our producer's idea.+++

**MafiUndomiel: Paul, is there any country that you´d like to visit or going on tour, and you haven´t yet? Why?**

Paul: Yes, we would love to go to Turkey, Mongolia, Iraq. We know we've got lots of fans there.+++

**Jenna: Which current musicians (Not youselves, I'm sorry) do you think are creating the best work at the moment?**

Paul: System of a Down, Muse, Snoop Doggy Dog, Eminem, Slip Knot, etc.+++

**Rammsteinizied: Dear Paul, How do you feel about us fans?**

Paul: It's an honour.+++

**Minx: Do you have a favourite guitar part in a particular song you really enjoy?**

Paul: +++

**DRS2G: Will "Rosenrot" be the 2nd single from your new album?!**

Paul: Yes.+++

**Straya: I'm wondering how this question has not come up yet... but, plenty of people are asking if you guys will tour in America and Canada. I don't mean for this to be one of those annoying questions. But, has anything be talked about?**

Paul: I'm certain that we'll tour North and South America with our next album.+++

**rammsteinuk: I read in a recent interview that there were some arguments within the band during the production of 'Mutter'. Have there been any more strong disagreements like this since?

**Paul: Thankfully not. There's always stress when six stubborn people meet, but nothing serious.+++

**minx: Most influential musician on yourself?**

Paul: Laibach, Ministry, Metallica, Nirvana.+++

**blastedop: Did you like Benzin video? Schneider didnt.**

Paul: I don't think it's that bad.

Paul: We've had three really good videos in a row, so it'S hard to keep the standards so high.

Paul: I'm glad that there's some variation, next time we'll improve.+++

**whiskeypapa: First, Reise Reise saw a "country moment" with Los, and now Rosenrot has Te Quiero Puta. If you could make a fusion of Rammstein and any other world music (for fun), what would it be?**

Paul: Yes, I interested in all combinations of things that don'T fit together.+++

**Biz: Are there any downsides to being famous?**

Paul: We're famous but we can still buy groceries in Berlin without bodyguards.

Paul: We've got nothing to complain about.

Paul: Our band is famous around the world but we still have normal lives, thank God.+++

**minty: Paul are you looking forward to the world cup next year? who will win?**

Paul: Yes. It doesn'T look good for Germany right now.

Paul: I hope that a miracle happens.+++

**aeon: Do you hope your music will still be appreciated in many years from now or it doesn't matter to you ?**

Paul: I think that we're relatively timeless.

Paul: But that'S probably what every band thinks and two years later nobody cares ...+++

**DRS2G: Was it good to be directed by Jonas Akerlund?!**

Paul: Yes, he's just a cool guy.+++

#I have had this in my draft since forever #I'm sorry if I have already posted this #paul landers #rammstein interview #rammstein #christoph schneider

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