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nalyra-dreaming · 3 months

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Hello N,

I hope you are well. Love your blog. I’ll start off by saying I love all the characters but I really love Loustat together even though I know all the relationships are relevant to the story so I’m excited to see them all play out.

I’m kind of a lurker on Twitter and it’s interesting to me to see what different groups have to say. My question is how do you think the fandom is going to respond to Nicki and Lestat’s relationship? I know a lot of people have turned on Lestat after season 1 and will turn on Armand after season 2. There some people already saying Nicki was treated better by Lestat than Louis was if the show goes by Nicki and Lestat’s relationship in the books. They are saying Nicki wasn't beaten, his song wasn’t a ploy to get Louis back, and Nicki wasn’t cheated on. I don't think I agree with this and I don't they understand that Lestat was human when he was with Nicki and the dynamics were very different. Also, we still don’t have the full picture of what really happened between Loustat in season 1. They did say something I might kind of agree with though and that is that a lot of people who are intolerant of Loumand because it interferes with Loustat will probably be more accepting or excited about Nickistat. I worry for Lestat because I can see pitchforks for him all over again.

Hey!

Glad you like :)

Sooooo, first off I'd like to note that one might need to be careful when comparing future canon while mixing show and book.

What I mean here is that we can extrapolate, for the show, but what they choose to focus on (and the abuse angle is certainly a focus) might not be wholly predictable. And comparing what was shown, and the books, and expectations...

But let's look at some of the points

"Nicki wasn't beaten". Right. He wasn't in the books. True! (I'm not counting the shoves with which Lestat tried to get Nicki away from himself after turning here, because that is quite a different setup). But... Louis wasn't either?! He and Lestat fought. Quite on equal level. That's an important difference.

There was no "song" for Nicolas either in the books. Nicolas was the musician, he wrote the music.

Also, as you said yourself - they were mortals, and maybe more importantly their love affair really only lasted a few (intense) months. In the books there certainly is no cheating (apart from some kisses/flirting with others at the theater), but I don't see how that should come into play into that short a timeframe either?

Lestat did not really cheat on Louis in the book either. True, there was Antoine, but... Lestat wanted Antoine to be a part of their setup, not run away with him. With Antoine, too, it was the music that drew him. And the timeframes and actual relationships to mortals are so very different for vampires, I really, really do not see that as the same level. Of course Antoinette was presented very much on that cheating level. But, as said before (and as you say, too), we know there's twists incoming, and there were inconsistencies with her finger in the show, et cetera.

We will not be able to judge Nickistat or Loustat before season 3, earliest, imho. The others probably, too.

So that's my few cents re the points you mentioned^^

... In regards to Nickistat and Loumand.

Nickistat happens between Nicolas and Lestat, while mortal, and one of them is then raped into vampirism. Which, in turn, leads to a downwards spiral for Nicolas, and ultimately to his death. This is a couple that has no say in what is happening to them wrt the vampiric side. They are both - no matter Nicolas original intent to die in Paris, and his viciousness later wrt to Lestat's 'light' - victims there. It's simply tragic. (Edit: Nicolas pressures Lestat into giving him the Dark Gift, while that is with intent I don't see it as a free choice in the context either, given the circumstances.)

And Armand plays his part in all that, too.

Now, Loumand is tragic, too. But for very different reasons. Their relationship happens between vampires. And both chose this life (as debatable as this may be wrt to actually knowing what one is getting into and other... influence). Loumand is tragic because despite the initial interest in Louis by Armand through his fixation on Lestat he falls for Louis, but destroys long stretches of that relationship through his actions. And Louis falls for Armand, and betrays Claudia again, and despite her death and Armand right there... he cannot help but love Armand. Even though it almost destroys him, too.

Now, having said that, and totally apart from the overview - Nickistat can never be a threat to "Loustat" because Nicolas is dead.

He is already dead in the show. We will get to see that death still. We will get to see the tragic events leading to it, no matter how they'll spin it.

But Nicolas is no threat to Louis.

He is the past. He will stay the past. Louis is the future.

And I think that may be why some will be more... "accepting" of Nickistat.

Now, as per the "intolerance" for Loumand...

I'm sure for some there is also the racial issue at play here. Unfortunately.

BUT - Loumand has quite the toxic potential as well, and I really don't think they'll shy away from that. They have more than hinted at that.

Now, these books are 50 years old. There's shit incoming, and a LOT of it has to do with Armand. Armand was the villain of the first books, and then later that changed with his own recollection of events. But it won't change what's about to happen for Louis. Armand is the one who influences him, spell-binds him, kills Claudia (in a very gruesome way), and then lies to Louis, for decades. That is all text. I doubt the show will downplay it, given what we know already.

Those who know the books, and who are Loustat shippers only (to put it that way) might brace themselves in a different way for Loumand than they do for Nickistat.

That's not to say I necessarily agree with this. But I understand it.

The way they set up Armand in the show he is supposed to seem like more of a "threat", the "love of Louis' life"..., while Nicolas... simply cannot and won't be one. *shrugs*

So, last but not least wrt to the pitchforks...

Ahhh, no worries. It's Lestat. (And I mean, since he is fictional...?^^)

The story will unfold, and that will be that.

I for one do not worry about all that at all tbh - I just want this show to get the seasons that have obviously been planned already in someone's head.

Gimme :))

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magnificentstrangerchaos · 2 years

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‘To Do’ List (Summer of 2022)

So, I found the ‘To Do’ list I made at the end of June/start of July. It was shoved /as I anticipated it would have been/ among my other sheets of paper haphazardly thrown into a folder.

I’ll go through all of the points and talk about how things have been going, adding things I have done along the way to make it look like I actually did more than I planned for my own pleasure.

1. Fix Laptop

At the start of December 2021 my laptop started getting really sad. Like, bluescreens and tells me there is no Windows installed kind of sad. I took it to a place my dad usually fixes his laptops and I got a new HDrive and a new battery because the old one said “Goodnight” one evening and stopped working. It’s pretty good, well... better than it was before, faster too.

I might have to take it to the same place again. I tried installing Genshin on it once and it BS-ed. I uninstalled it and commenced with my work but it seems that ALSO if it overheats it bluescreens again. It’s been manageable, I have a fan and everything. All data is backed up.

(Side note I have this USB flash disk that is really messed up and all my art files/refs are there. I need to fix it and get them OUT or else I’m going to cry. I didn’t have time to back it up before the last drive died and this was the only storage unit that could suck up all 200K of my files.... Don’t ask, I’m a hentai writer and draw-er)

I don’t want to push for a new laptop of any kind because a dream for a ‘FUTURE’ experience is to have an actual PC. Doesn’t matter gaming-intended or not (probably not) that inevitably means I need to find a permanent place to stay since it’s a hassle to carry an entire PC around. Two-to-three more years this buddy needs to survive.

Might get a new keyboard though, literally anything side-bought so far would be implemented into the new boyo anyways. And as I name all my PC periphery, I will call the new keyboard Antoine (current one being called Antonio). Guess A’s run in the family C:

2. Fix tooth

At the end of my exams I thought I found myself a cavity. Turns out my teeth are perfect (according to the dentist) and it’s one of those small cavities that is fixable with good toothpaste and mouth-wash. To be fair, the mouth-wash I got (rec by the doctor) freaking does a whale of a job but it also tastes like every medicine you will ever taste at the time time. I’m 1/3 way through the bottle and it’s SO COOL because it’s the type that comes with a pre-installed cup. You squeeze it, fill it up, sip, do your thing. I’d buy it again.

3. Herbarium

...

I mean... I got a couple new flowers to add.

Petals of a rose a friend of mine got me over a sleepover we had; A tiger-rose from our garden (side note, I need to go pick some of its leaves because I only managed to harvest the blossom); A damascene rose; Two types of orchids

I think I’m going to spend a while just going through the entire book sticking rice paper between the pages where the flowers would go, just to have it over with. I’ll concentrate on it over spring when everything blooms anew.

4. Go out at least once a week

...

This is a personal attack

5. Go paint the seaside

Will do, that’s probably what I’ll be doing for the three or four days I’m there other than reminiscing stories/fics.

6. Paint the mountains

I took photos of places I’ve been, so that will happen in the future as well.

7. Finish the ZhongChi fic (Ch. 3)

Listen here, you little [redacted].

Alright, okay. So, I TRIED. ‘Dragon Gazing At a Sea Of Clouds’ was a great story, I really enjoyed writing it when I was in my Childe rut days a little before getting him in Genshin. Chapter 2 - ‘The Fox That Stole The Dragon’s Heart’ was also a success that I don’t even know how I came up with.

This entire thing was a gag, a meme I saw someone post on twitter about regarding Zhongli’s magic portable onahole (it’s a fleshlight) being connected to Childe’s backside while he’s in a meeting with the Tsaritsa. I got invested. And then pretty much slipped out of it.

I WANT to finish it, I absolutely do. I have an outline of what will happen - their Chinese-themed wedding, their wedding night, both tied up to each other, ears, tails and horns all out in display. HORNY hours, you know?

So, I really need some stimuli to get going. I’ve been unable to play Genshin for a couple months and while I’m obsessed with KNOWING about the game (I have it on my phone), it’s been hard to get inspired. I’m doing my best, I want it to be good. It just feels like I’ve been repetitive in other fics or I somehow accidentally wrote what I intended for ZhongChi other places.

Call it deja-vu of an unfortunate writer.

8. Edit ‘Aster Tataricus’

That’s a future project honestly. I wrote it in December/Over Christmas and the responce was SO GOOD. The person who inspired me, Wiann on Twitter is a gem and they still follow me. I also adore watching their works in general, they have their own writing done as well and it’s *bites fist*

9. Write Ch. 2 of ‘When The Owls Cry’

I still can’t decide if I want to make it ‘Owls Cry’ or ‘Owl Cries’, both have a meaning for me.

Haven’t gotten to that part YET either, but I did go back to Chapter 1 and I redid it after the event to feature the whole eyepatch secret and sending letters.

10. Finish ‘Lullabye For My Feeble Heart’

I usually never outline works and just write them out in one breath when I figure I want to, but this one is indeed outlined. I have the entire plot ready, each chapter sorted. All I need is to execute it, but as you can see if you read everything so far - I want to finish those that are on the VERGE of completion and then latch onto longer works.

11. Finish ‘Wish Whispered Upon A Star’

Aye... I recently posted the chapter before the last, so we count that as progress. I’ll force myself to finish writing out my missing lectures this week, so I can spend Saturday and Sunday on that (27-28/08)

12. Take part in 2022 MXTX BDSM week

I DID, but the last story is missing, because I took a hiatus due to personal reasons. You can find the series here days 1 to 6 available.

(Can you feel how happy I am for the easy access to hyperlinks? I borderline was forced to code to figure out how to insert stuff in AO3.)

13. Make the FengQing threadfic

Mmm... I wrote like.... two additional pages for it in my google doc and then scroll past it as if it’s a scratch that I want to itch but I just hover it instead.

14. Draw the Izora mural digitally

Haaahahahahaha.

I have to if things with CSP are getting as serious as they look. I can’t decide if I want to push around with art or press on with fics. Maybe I will take until December to complete whatever I have WITHOUT (lies) adding any new ones, so I can then concentrate on drawing again. It’s a pre-drawn thing on paper, but I want it digitally, because colouring would be so much easier.

15. Make new sketches for CandleHeart and Nyrian Thantis

I’m rather proud of those honestly. I want more portraits so I can use them on the different accounts.

16. Write at least one fic with mermaids

I accidentally forgot about this and when I read it I was like “!!!”

It’s on twitter, but you can check out the teaser here, because while it is complete in the sense of a thread fic, there is more that will be included in the final version that’s going to AO3.

17. Work on the VN maybe?

Yeah, this was a ‘maybe’ since the Visual Novels I have planned will be absolutely pushed back for until this problem with CSP has come to an end so I can know which programs to use and which tools to pick out.

18. Play League of Legends with M

WE DID AND IT WAS SO FUN, I love her. She’s a sweetheart. That’s all you need to know.

19. Read MDZS

I’m at... Book 2 maybe page 130. Book 3 came out not even a week ago, so I’m waiting to see which website is going to offer me that sweet, sweet money-sucking service of delivering it to me.

20. Things I HAVE done as a side-project include

-I got to stock up on clothes I’ve been ignoring my need for.

-I ordered amazing stuff off Aliexpress and while you may think ‘How amazing CAN it be’, I’ll do a little show of them when they arrive. I’m really excited, most of all for the pins I ordered, because I want to stick out like a sore thumb with them.

-I finally bought my brother his birthday present. He’s been waiting for it for SO long. After I finish with my work tomorrow I should zoom to the other tech-shops I know are around town so I can get two more things I need and then I can proudly go back home.

-I set a goal to hit 40 fics by the end of the year, currently we’re at 34, so finishing the stuff above will probably skyrocket me above that number.

-I finally got a new phone case, needed that because the other one was falling apart.

-Got two new wrist-watches because I’ve had an itch to wear one since Autumn last year.

-I’m getting a third piercing on my ear in October.

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mysticalspellsister · 3 years

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History of Tarot Cards

Some misconceptions about the beginning of the Tarot place the first deck in quite a while of a wide range of individuals since the beginning. The theories about the makers of Tarot cards incorporate the Sufis, the Cathars, the Egyptians, Kabbalists, and the sky is the limit from there. Notwithstanding, the entirety of the real verifiable proof focuses on northern Italy at some point in the early piece of the 1400s. Despite what many have guaranteed, there is no verification of the Tarot having begun in some other time or spot. Years and years before the Tarot was conceived, customary playing a card game came to Europe via Arabs, showing up in various urban communities somewhere in the range of 1375 and 1378. These cards were a transformation of the Islamic Mamluk cards. They had suits of cups, blades, coins, and polo sticks, the last of which were seen by Europeans as fights. Like normal playing a game of cards, the Tarot has four suits, which fluctuate by the district. Over the long run, this would incorporate French suits in Northern Europe, Latin suits in Southern Europe, and German suits in Central Europe. The decks likewise included courts comprising of a ruler and two subordinates. Afterward, the bonehead, the trumps, and a bunch of sovereigns were added to the framework.

At some point before 1480, the French presented cards with the now-recognizable suits of hearts, clubs, spades, and precious stones. It wasn't until after a lot of this had happened that, at some point in the primary portion of the fifteenth century, somebody made the first deck of Tarot cards. A deck was appointed by Duke Filippo Maria around 1420. The painter Michelino da Besozzo was given something to do making a 60-card deck with 16 cards having pictures of the Roman divine beings and suits portraying four sorts of birds. The 16 cards were wins viewed as "bests". The duke had created a novum quoddam et exquisite triumph forum, or "another and stunning sort of wins". These were for no reason in particular not for fortunetelling.

Presently, the Visconti-Sforza Tarot is utilized altogether to allude to inadequate arrangements of roughly 15 decks from around 1460, presently situated in different historical centers, libraries, and private assortments throughout the planet. These Italian cards were at first used to play another kind of game. This was like the game scaffold, notwithstanding, there were 21 unique cards that filled in as perpetual trumps. These could be played paying little heed to the suit that was driven, and they outclassed every one of the conventional cards. This was known as the "Round of Triumphs" and it turned out to be uncommonly famous, especially among the upper decision class. Then, at that point, as the game spread all through northern Italy and eastern France, changes were frequently made to the photos and the positioning of the trumps. Nonetheless, they for the most part bore no numbers on the actual cards.

Around 1530, "tarocchi" first showed up. The justification for such a name change is obviously in light of the fact that somebody made the advancement that the round of wins could be played with normal cards by basically proclaiming a specific suit to be the trumps toward the start of each hand. Thus, "wins" turned into an equivocal term, and another word was expected to allude to the conventional round of wins. In this manner, the word tarocchi came into utilization, although its historical background stays a subject of guess. The word Tarot isn't Egyptian, Hebrew, or Latin. It's anything but a re-arranged word, and it doesn't hold the way into the secret of the cards. The soonest names for the Tarot are on the whole Italian. The cards appear to have at first been known as the "carte da trionfi", or "cards of wins". Then, at that point, the word tarocchi started to be utilized in Italy, while the Germans utilized "tarock", and the French enrolled "tarot", or all the more appropriately "Tarot".

What's more, mid sixteenth century artists utilized the secret weapons to make stanzas called "tarocchi suitable", which portrayed renowned personage and women of the court. It turned out to be increasingly more mainstream to utilize the trumps to create sonnets depicting character attributes in a manner that was definitely more complimenting than that of contemporary mental profiling. It wasn't until a lot later that the cards turned into a well known method for anticipating what's to come. Concerning this, a Tarot perusing is actually a custom regardless of whether formal attire and gear are not utilized. By the common arrangement of their meeting up for the express reason, a kind of agreement is shaped between a querent and the mediator of the prophet. The soonest printed composition on Tarot cards utilized in this sort of way appears to have showed up in Italy around 1540 in the work Le Sorti by Marolino. Be that as it may, the main unambiguous proof of Tarot divination, as it is usually perceived, can be found in Bologna at some point in the mid 1700s. Obviously, it is realized that customary playing a card game were associated with divination as right on time as 1487, so it is sensible to guess that the Tarot may have been too.

There is no proof that the early Tarot had Kabbalistic or Hermetic qualities, and it should be perceived that the cards are a result of the early Italian Renaissance. During this time a variety of ways of thinking flourished. These went from soothsaying and Pythagorean numerology to Hermetic and Christian philosophies. Any, or all, of these topics, might have engraved themselves into the later plans. Clearly a significant part of the symbolism is drawn from the Christian culture of Medieval and Renaissance Europe. In any case, it should be perceived that the Tarot has as of late become a mainstay of the secret practice, acquiring impact from different exclusive ways of thinking. Along these lines, it wasn't until hundreds of years after the Tarot sprung up that enthusiasts of the mysterious in France and England experienced the cards and saw exclusive implications in the cryptic imagery of the cards.

In specific conditions, it was unavoidable that elective religions or otherworldly thoughts would need to shroud themselves in secret codes, painstakingly protected and spread the word about just to the started. Along these lines, the Tarot fills in as a fundamental abstract of reasoning and folklore that presents the cyclic idea of life and passing in an image framework that can be perceived by youngsters, uneducated people, and researchers the same. A Tarot deck fills in as a huge mother lode of mysterious legend. It is a bunch of exclusive cheat sheets intended to enlighten even the most scholarly understudy of the esoteric secrets. From various perspectives, the Tarot is a middle age comparable to contemporary devices of brain research, for example, the Rorschach or TAT test. The cards can be a guide to mental mindfulness and otherworldly turn of events, hence going about as an aide along your way throughout everyday life.

This interest with the cards prompted the current standing Tarot has as a mysterious relic and apparatus of divination. The principal such recondite reference to the Tarot showed up in "The Fame and Confession of the Rosicrucians," distributed in 1612. In this assemblage of composing, the Tarot was given the name ROTA. It was portrayed as a gadget that will be counseled for data concerning the past, present, and future. Then, at that point, the Comte de Mellet, whose short article on the Tarot was distributed in Court de Gebelin's Le Monde Primitif, in 1781, was quick to compose of a Kabbalistic association between the Hebrew letters in order and the Tarot. In that very year, Antoine Court de Gebelin made his own Tarot deck and asserted that the Major Arcana was an old Egyptian book containing secret insight. Afterward, Alliette took up Gebelin's thoughts, under the turned around name Etteilla, and he considered the Tarot the "Book of Thoth."

Etteilla asserted that his Tarot deck reestablished the first Egyptian plan. Etteilla additionally designed present day cartomancy utilizing spreads. He would even spread out a whole deck of cards in certain readings. Also, his card implications were the supporting of contemporary Anglo-American Tarot. The representations of French-fit trumps withdraw significantly from the more seasoned Italian-fit plan, leaving a considerable lot of the Renaissance figurative themes. The original of French-fit Tarot decks showed up around 1740 and portrayed scenes of creatures on the trumps. Be that as it may, around 1800, a more prominent assortment of decks were created, for the most part with veduta or class workmanship. In any case, Etteilla's interest with the connections between the Tarot and the Kabbalah prompted revelations made by Eliphas Levi, who promoted the associations between the Kabbalah and the Tarot in his 1856 work, The Dogma and Ritual of High Magic. This was the set up design that Samuel Liddel MacGregor Mathers would later expand on to frame the Golden Dawn Tarot deck.

Mathers, the top of the Golden Dawn, would ultimately record these obscure traits of the Tarot in a great original copy entitled Book T, written in 1887. Their work zeroed in a ton on the Major Arcana ("Greater Secrets"). This normally comprises of a progression of cards now and then start with the Fool as number 0 or finishing with it as number 22, contingent upon the deck. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn caused the Tarot to relate with the Kabbalah all the more intently by putting the Fool card before the Magician, rather than before the Universe. They additionally traded Justice with Strength. All the more significantly, they arranged the implications of the Minor Arcana comprising of 56 cards, partitioned into four suits of 14 cards each. Then, at that point, a significant occasion in the change of the Tarot happened in 1910 with the distribution of A. E. Waite's Key to the Tarot which was given with an entire 78-card deck of elusively planned magnum opuses. These incorporated the development of scene plans for the pip cards, which were painted by Pamela Coleman Smith who was an individual from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, alongside Arthur Edward Waite. Rider was only the distributer.

The Rider-Waite deck has since become the most well known form of the Tarot among the majority. In any case, in 1944 another individual from the Golden Dawn composed a stunningly better book entitled The Book of Thoth. This powerful original copy was carefully assembled by in all honesty the well known and notorious Aleister Crowley himself. Then, at that point, he dispatched Lady Frieda Harris to paint what might turn into the Thoth Tarot in 1969. The outlines of the deck highlight imagery dependent on Crowley's fuse of symbolism from numerous different disciplines, including science and reasoning and different mysterious frameworks, as portrayed exhaustively in The Book of Thoth. Crowley initially planned the Thoth Tarot to be a six-month project pointed toward refreshing the conventional pictorial imagery of the standard deck. In any case, because of expanded extension, the undertaking at last traversed five years, somewhere in the range of 1938 and 1943 and the two craftsmen passed on before distribution in 1969 by the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), which they were the two individuals from. All things considered, the Thoth Tarot has gotten a standout amongst other selling and most well known decks on the planet.

Like the Sistine Chapel, the Tarot is an ideal combination of craftsmanship and otherworldliness. This has assisted with making the Tarot a foundation of present day mystery and an inconceivably helpful apparatus for specialists the world over. I have actually utilized the Thoth Tarot for over 25 years now and albeit numerous different decks have come out since the 1960s, I trust Crowley's deck to be the genuine finish of the cards. While every one of the prior endeavors outlined their point in a straightforward type of a pictorial story, Crowley effectively disconnected the themes by communicating the significance of the cards in a mind boggling imagery. This does, notwithstanding, make it hard for a layman to utilize the deck. Notwithstanding, the fact is that all that has paved the way to this second has assisted with guaranteeing that the Tarot will fill in as the essential system whereupon resulting Western mystery will be established.

From various perspectives, the cards recount the most established story of humankind finishing the Fool a "saint's excursion", as depicted by Joseph Campbell. This additionally harmonizes with the early stage symbolism of the mind, which Carl Jung called paradigms. In the most specialized sense, accomplishing the Philosopher's Stone and climbing the Tree of Life is equivalent to the Fool's Journey through the Major Arcana. They are altogether steps to Enlightenment. All in all, the Tarot talks the normal tongue of the human spirit. Thusly, it tends to be viewed as the reason for the current images and codes of esoterica, following right back to the Italian Renaissance. In this way, the cartomancers of the world have the keys to everything in it. Eventually, the Tarot is an authentic pictorial authoritative handbook for the mysterious lessons of the ages. Accordingly, it has been with us for quite a long time and it will stay with us for centuries…

#tarot tarotcards tarotreading tarotreadersofinstagram tarotreader tarotcommunity tarotcard tarotreadings tarotdeck tarotcardoftheday tarotar

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adultswim2021 · 3 years

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Ephemera Week (2002)

I really wonder how effectively I’ll be able to do this in 2003. In 2003, Adult Swim started doing the black and white text bumps, where they give max sass and NO EFFS (fucks), so every week had unique content. I definitely don’t have the resources to catalogue every bumper or even come up with a decent “best of”. Ephemera Corner 2003 may look very different. To quote my good friend Zorak, “Brak, do you ever think about the future?”. To this I say, yes. Yes, Zorak, I do.

BROADCAST ANOMALIES AND SPECIAL NIGHTS!

Adult Swim Action (and other stuff) | February 23, 2002

February 23rd was the first installment of Adult Swim Action. Up to this point, Adult Swim aired a block of mostly comedy capped off with Cowyboy Bebop. This was the first formal separation of Action and Comedy. I remember the bitter rivalry between the two fandoms on various message boards I posted on. It really did seem like a venn diagram with almost no overlap; action fans hated the comedy shows (maybe they liked one or two but hated the rest) and the same went for the comedy fans, except most of the comedy fans I knew were devout anime haters.

At the height of my anime animosity an internet ex-friend of mine started a message board called ANIME SUCKS. It was an experience I’ll always remember fondly. At it’s peak it had over 1000 members. All but about a dozen of those members were actually ANGRY anime fans who just stumbled on the board and were FURIOUS at us for being anti-anime, and we’d just act like obtuse dickheads about it. Like, we’d act stupider than they were and just wind them up.

We developed a few tricks to really set somebody off. For example: they’d write an impassioned defense of anime as an art form, and say something like “it’s not all like Pokemon or Dragonball Z”, to which we’d reply “actually those are the only two animes I like”. This really got them. There was a special thrill to just replying “miyazaki is an idiot” to a guy’s 6-paragraph essay about why anime was “good, actually”, prompting an even longer response. It was really fun! We didn’t have to harass people online, they’d just come to us to get abused. I’ve never seen bait get taken so effortlessly. One day that guy just closed the message board, locked everyone out, and disappeared forever.

That was some aside, huh? Anyway, the arrival of Adult Swim Action meant that Adult Swim stopped airing the Thursday night repeats of Adult Swim Comedy, which was a shame. It Also meant Adult Swim’s Sunday night had an extra hour to fill, which they did with Rocky & Bullwinkle and the Popeye Show. People complained. I didn’t. Vintage animation is just a different take on the “adult” label. Besides, I was used to tuning out by 12AM anyway, so even if I didn’t like those shows (I did!) I wasn’t missing anything, really. But yes, if it were a full hour of Space Ghost repeats I guess that would’ve been better.

The Lewis Lectures | May 19, 2002 - 12:45 AM

A repeat of Lewis Lectures? IT HAPPENED! But what was so different about this broadcast of Lewis Lectures? Well, they accidentally scrambled the SAP audio with the default English audio, causing the Spanish soundtrack to play in tandem with the English one. It was bloody well fucked mate. This is simply no longer England.

I remember becoming an Adult Swim completist and taping this, considering it some kind of void in my collection. Part of me wishes I saved the recording, so I could combine it with the inferior YouTube rip currently up and have a closer-to-pristine copy than the one that’s available. But also, JESUS FUCKING CHRIST THIS IS LEWIS LECTURES WE ARE TALKING ABOUT. How much pain can I inflict on myself?

Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law Mini-Marathon | September 15, 2002 - 11:00 PM

On this night they aired a little Harvey Birdman marathon of the 4 episodes. This was kinda baffling, as Birdman had 6 episodes to its name and they’d been repeated into the ground by this point. I guess it goes to show that Adult Swim kinda considered Birdman to be their prestige program. I’m hard-pressed to call any one Adult Swim show “smart” in a way that’s apparent on a shallow level. Birdman is set in a courtroom, animated the most competently out of all their other shows, and involved cultural references in a showy way. Like, Space Ghost having Dave Willis absurdly shout “UP THE CHAIN” in the background of a Space Ghost episode is almost just a weird easter egg. But Birdman? Birdman was name-dropping Hanna Barbera characters the same way Frasier would talk about whatever gay shit Frasier talked about.

They aired The Dabba Don, Shaggy Busted, Shoyu Weenie, Very Personal Injury in that order. I would’ve swapped Shaggy and Shoyu and for Bannon Custody Battle and Death by Chocolate, but that’s just me, I guess.

vimeo

Adult Swim New Years Bash hosted by Carl and Brak | December 31, 2002 - 11:00 PM

Adult Swim officially ended 2002 with this: a night hosted by Carl and Brak in Times Square, watching the ball drop (which was FREAKING MEATWAD!!!!). I remember this night fondly. Unfortunately I can’t find the whole thing, but here’s a single segment I found on vimeo to give you some idea. I think I had it up at one point and Turner very annoyingly had it taken down.

I used to have this massive physical media collection; stuff on VHS and DVD and DVD-R that was meticulously catalogued. I ditched a lot of it in favor of digitizing stuff like this, eternally keeping it on hard drives that I meant to back up but never did. It seems more convenient, but it isn’t. If this were 2003 and I needed to show you this, I would be able to retrieve it from one of my many shelves. I might still have this, but would have no idea where to look for it and it would probably involve me getting in my car and going out to my storage unit and pulling every single box out. I turned it into ones an zeros and stuck it on a nondescript black box that could very well be dead. And now it’s not even on YouTube. Sad? Sure, it’s sad.

PEAK EPHEMERA

(phrase stolen from Grifthorse podcast)

Hey, here are some videos I found on YouTube in case you wanna go down a wormhole of watching old Adult Swim commercial breaks. May the gods of posterity keep them online forever:

February 4, 2002

Spring 2002

June 16, 2002

June 30, 2002

July 27, 2002

August 2002

November 17, 2002

November/December 2002

MAIL BAG:

This ends EPHEMERA WEEK. We’ll do actual episodes soon!

What's the scariest thing you seen on adult swim?

I don’t know if I have a real answer for this. I don’t think I actually get scared by stuff in movies or TV shows. I can’t even come up with a funny answer. Remember the end of that Metalocalypse episode where the little sick girl is dead and her eyes turn into maggots and you hear that screechy voice was like I’M DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU!!! I’ll just go with that even though it made me laugh really hard

Ever watch Limmy's Show

I am content just being vaguely aware of Limmy (no, I never watched his show. Seems good).

Please don't do such a big mailbag. I couldn't believe how many r-words wrote inane bullshit to you. Let keep this blog about the real stars: Master Shake, Space Ghost, Brak, Zorak, Meatwad, Frylock, Debbie, Black Debbie, Carl, Sparks, Stormy, Hesh, Moltar, Harvery Birdman Captain Murphy, Dr. Quinn, Paula, Marco, Brendon, Jason, Melissa, The Mooninites, the Plutonians, Peanut, Coach Mc Gurk, Mentok the Mindtaker, Virjay, Antoin, Colby, Trotter, Adair WE ARE THE UPRIGHT CITIZENS BRIGADE :)

I can’t believe this IDIOT doesn’t get that by typing such a long message he very IDIOTICALLY contributed to the length of the Maili Bag... LMFAO, what a IDIOT

This is maybe the funniest blog on tumblr. You really think these nasty little cartoons are special, huh?

Hey than-- oh :( Yeah, I guess so :(

would you like master shake if he did the whole thing

I’m sorry what

#adult swim #adultswim2021 #ephemera

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ninjakasuga · 4 years

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Sonsal Celebration Year 2, Day 7

On the seventh day of the Sonsal celebration hosted by @boundforfreedomsonsal we have the prompt of peace. Something I’m sure many of us would have loved to have seen the Freedom Fighters get to enjoy when their respective series came to an end. Sadly the screw-ups of Archie Comics, Ken Penders well being Ken Penders, and a little of Sega’s own mishandling caused us to never truly see Sonic, Sally and Co. have their day of peace canonically. Luckily we fans can fix that.

PEACE:

“...It brings me great pleasure to formally announce the end of the war started by Julian Kintobar, aka Dr. Robotnik, and perpetuated by his counterpart Dr. Eggman. Any and all allies of the two Empires created by these evil men have also been dealt with, leaving no one seeking to resume their mantle. Not only has this long, and difficult conflict finally over-.” Pausing in her speech, Sally took a lungful of air, but her smile never waned, as she also purposefully dragged out the pause to reign in the audience more. “All the nations of Mobius, be they any species of Mobians, or Humans have signed a hopefully lasting peace accord to not only end any potential future conflict but bring all the peoples’ of Mobius together as they never have before.” Despite prepping herself to keep her emotions in check, Sally found her eyes moisten but she kept a straight face, save for the smile widely forming as she couldn’t hide her joy. “We don’t have to live in fear anymore, and our world is truly free from tyranny. Everyone gathered here or not, thank you for your contributions. Now… LET’S CELEBRATE WE ALL EARNED IT!!”

At Sally’s last words, the crowds gathered before the stage in front of Castle Acorn hollered and cheered. After ten-plus years of living in fear of an evil scientist and his armies; the planet Mobius was free at last. Watching her people be happy made Sally’s heart glow with a warmth she didn’t know she needed. Bowing her head she turns from the podium and walks over to where her friends waited for her; especially a certain Hedgehog with a matching wedding band on his finger just like hers. As she wiped her eyes Sonic took a few steps to meet the distance, instantly his arms were around her for a hug and their lips met for a quick, but sweet and loving kiss.

Once it broke, her dear childhood friend, lover, and husband all rolled-into-one flashed one of his well-known grins. “Way past speech Sal.” “I started to nearly cry at the end.” She giggled, rubbing her eyes some more. “You’d think after all my practice I could have nailed it better.”

A familiar hand rested on Sally’s shoulder, with a soft southern drawl reaching her ears. “Aw heck Sally-girl, so you started to mist a little. Nobody will blame ya’ I mean fer’ Pete’s sake you did just announce the end to a nearly thirteen-year war we’ve been fighting since we were kids.”

Bunnie’s husband, Antoine moving to stand beside his wife, and as always holding her hand, gave a nod with his own smile. “Oui, as my dear beloved put it, no one would be zee upset at you being over the joy with the war’s end.”

Moving over a young two-tailed fox wrapped his arms around Sally’s waist, giving a squeeze before looking up so his gaze could meet Sally’s. A smirk mirroring Sonic’s adorning his face. “I think what we’re getting at Sally is, you did great, so don’t think you messed up the speech for getting misty-eyed.”

With a loud, merry chuckle Rotor merely crossed his arms as he walked closer himself, the old gang gathering once again. “I think I’m going to have to stand by the others in saying you did great Sally. Personally, even after my stint as a council member, I’d have choked up half-way through that.”

Unable to help herself, Sally giggled, enjoying the banter as she looked at her husband and friends with a playful smirk. “What is this, pick on Sally after her speech day?”

As if on cue, Nicole materialized from a nearby emitter, and reached over to pet Sally’s head. “Maaaaybe, we all just love you and wish you still are too hard on yourself. Your speech was lovely, to the point, but also if I may add, the start of the tears I think helped the audience accept this was ‘finally’ over.”

Looking at the faces of her dearest friends, Sally internally acknowledged they were right, and simply held her arms out. “Freedom Fighters… one last group hug? As a team?”

Without a word, the band of friends all formed a group hug with Sally at the center. A multitude of emotions coursing through each of them as their bond as friends and Freedom Fighters held them together and steered the course of their lives as much as the war that forced them to grow up so fast. One by one, not an eye was dry as happy tears began to leak from everyone and their mutual holding of one another tightened but never enough to cut off oxygen.

“D-do you think now that the fighting’s over we won’t see each other much anymore?” Murmured Tails in a soft voice as the thought crossed his mind. It was one that briefly flared when they first thought they won after Robotniks’ defeat. Of course, now things were so different than it was back then. He had his parents whom he was still making up for lost time with. Rotor still had family in the Tundra waiting for him. Sonic, Sally, Bunnie, and Antoine were married and could now start their own lives. Nicole was probably gonna be busy since she now had a bio-nanite living body and could have her own life beyond the administrator of the city and the nanite colony.

Reaching over, Sonic ruffled the head-fur of the fox he deemed his little brother affectionately. “Heck to the no there li’ bro. We all might do our own things for a bit but we ain’t gonna just treat the other like strangers.” Eye twinkling he eased from the group hug to wrap his arms around Tails and give him an affectionate noggie. “Plus don’t forget you’re big brother to Manik and Sonia. That means you’ll see us plenty since Sal and I are also on tap babysitters from time to time like you are.”

This seemed to assure the fox while smiled and wiped his eyes, his expression much cheerier now. “Heh, good point, us big brothers gotta help teach the li’ sibs right?”

“That’s the spirit!”

Giggling, Bunnie smiled at the scene of brotherly love and looked over to Antoine, a crafty, yet loving gaze sent his way. “Now that we know no boogie-man is gonna pop outta th’ ground. I’m all for enacting our plans for extended second-honeymoon Sugah-Twan.”

At the mention of this idea, the coyotes’ eyes twinkled as he held up his wife’s hand and kissed her knuckles. “Oui, oui my love, I am how do you say..? ‘All-in’ on this idea.”

The rabbit’s own eyes sparkle with love and plans, lots of future plans. “Maybe we could start planning for our own li’ brood?” When her husband’s only response was to blush but nod his head vigorously, Bunnie laughed and leaned in to kiss him. “I love you, ya’ you big sweetie!”

“Going for kids already?” Inquired Rotor with a raised eyebrow, and a smile.

“We’ve been discussing it a lot, and frankly being a Mom is something I wanna be, so why not?” Bunnie giggles, her cheeks flushed as she rubbed her belly longingly. “I got all mah parts flesh again, and we don’t gotta fight, so dreams and rest of our lives here I come!”

“Speaking of extended honeymoon’s…” Sally walks over and hugs Sonic from behind. “That sounds like a wonderful idea.”

Nodding, Sonic rested his hands over hers around his waist. “Yeah, we didn’t exactly get to have one. Just a long weekend to ourselves.” Rubbing his chin, Sonic began to ponder on where they could go. With the planet free now, sans any areas in need of rebuilding the sky was the limit.

Then a thought hit him, with a grin he urges Sally to follow him. The two make their way over to another group of friends who were like they had been, celebrating. “Yo Knux’!”

Hearing his nickname, Knuckles the Echidna looked away from the discussion he was having with Vector and Julie-Su. Spying the Hedgehog and Squirrel-munk coming his way. “What’s up Sonic?”

“Can Sal and I borrow your island for our proper honeymoon?”

“Excuse me?” His spines bristled mostly on reflex to anyone mentioning doing, well anything with his island.

Knowing how easy it was for Sonic to antagonize Knuckles without trying, Sally interjected. “What he means Knuckles, is could we visit Angel Island and just… have our honeymoon there? We’d stay out of the way, we’ve just never, been there without some crisis going on. All the different biomes and vistas just scream to be explored and enjoyed.”

“Plus given it flies over the planet the views off the edge are gorgeous.” Quipped Sonic, who now clapped his hands together and bowed his head humbly. “C’mon Knux it’s the perfect place for newlyweds to get lost and have a good time.”

Covering her mouth, Julie-Su snickered. “Oh, you bet it is.”

Picking up on this, Sally smirked widely. “Oh? Maybe you can give us some tips?”

Running with the topic, Julie kept on still smirking widely if her cheeks were now a bit pinker. “Well, not per se Knuckles and I’s make out spots but I can recommend some. Although one mutual spot I must, ‘must’ recommend is this tiny waterfall that has a small spot where an overhanging rock creates this gap big enough for two people to stand inside without being constantly pelted with water. Hmmm..” Her cheeks brightened and her body fidgeted with the memory. “Nothing like standing under the falls with your man behind you, wailing-.” Putting a hand over his ears, Vector turned away, loudly and in a very grumble-y voice chanted. “La-la-la-la I can’t hear youuuu!”

“Walkers alive Julie!” Knuckles exclaimed his muzzle beat red as he gently grasped his girlfriend by the arm. “I don’t think anyone needs to know those details!”

Both Sally and Sonic snicker, and yet also mentally filed away this idea and would get the exact location from Julie later. Refocusing, Sonic reached over to pat Knuckles on the shoulder. “So joking aside, whaddya say Knux? It’s your call but it’d be a way-past cool favor. You know we won’t disturb anything nor go where we shouldn’t.”

“Please? We’ll owe you and Julie.” Sally added, trying to sweeten the deal with the cute-eyes routine and a pouty lip.

After just staring at the two with his usual impassive expression, Knuckles let out a long sigh but then smiled. “What the heck, sure. Consider it a done favor anyway since you guys helped bail me and the island out a number of times-OW!” At a sudden pinch, he looked at Julie. “What was that for?”

“They were gonna owe us a solid and you dismissed it? Knuckles, honey, my one and only…” She cups his face, and pinches his cheeks. “You always accept being owed a favor back! Think about the possibilities!”

“Ow, ow, ow sorry!”

Laughing, Sonic waved a hand. “Consider the favor still on, and thanks a million!” He insisted, figuring he should offer if to help Knuckles out of his situation with Julie in thanks for letting them stay on Angel Island.

“You won’t even know we’re there! Promise!” Sally quipped, giving both Echidnas a hug. “Thank you so much!”

Rubbing his nose, Sonic couldn’t help but smile as he looked around at his friends and the gathered crowds all celebrating. It took a long time, and probably more sacrifices than he would have liked, but finally, they had peace.

He closed his eyes, saying a silent prayer to the fallen, those he knew and those he didn’t. He wasn’t a religious sort but the departed were owed respect. He hoped they could rest easier now, just as those still alive could now truly live their lives to the fullest.

#Sonsal #Sonally #Sonsal Celebration #boundingforfreedom #boundingforfreedomsonsal #Sonic the Hedgehog #Sally Acorn #Archie Sonic #Bunnie D'Coolette #Antoine D'Coolette #Tails #Rotor Walrus #Knuckles the Echidna #Julie-Su #Vector the Crocodile #Nicole the Holo-Lynx #prompt #peace #Sonsal Years 2

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mobius-prime · 4 years

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227. Sonic the Hedgehog #159

System Reboot

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Ron Lim Colors: Josh & Aimee Ray

All right everyone, we've finally made it! After 213 long issues of having him around sticking his fingers into everything, we've reached the final issue that Ken Penders ever wrote for the Archie Sonic comics! Interestingly enough, this isn't actually the final issue he had a hand in entirely - he inked and lettered one final story several issues from now - but since this is the final one he actually wrote, this is where we'll be saying our goodbyes to him. And so soon after Karl left, too! Those of you who know the comics likely know what's coming next issue, so we might as well tear through this one to get to it! Kenders, with your final issue, show us what you got!

So last issue saw Hope lying on the floor injured and unconscious from a blow to the head, and Shadow threatening Sonic if she dies. Sonic then does the most level-headed and reasonable thing a person could do in this situation, meaning he immediately gets offended and attacks Shadow, and they both start punching and throwing each other around while hurling insults in each other's faces. Rosie is quite understandably disgusted with their behavior, and shouts at the both of them to stop at once.

About time! In his lab, a distraught Uncle Chuck reviews the Metal Sonics' technical specifications before lamenting ever creating them in the first place. Rotor reassures him that what's happening now isn't his fault, and reminds him that it's not necessarily the inventor's fault what others choose to do with the invention, obviously hinting at his past with the roboticizer as well. Eggman, meanwhile, finds himself in awe at the sheer destructive potential of the bots, admiring their reckless destruction of Knothole without regard to the citizenry that get in their way, but rather disappointed that he himself didn't come up with these particular models. Shadow, chasing after Sonic, is still worried that they may not reach the doctor in time to save Hope, and he feels a particularly strong connection to her due to her resemblance to Maria, as well as the compassion she showed him back when Locke kidnapped him. This gives him the strength to once again use his Chaos powers in a way he… apparently still doesn't understand. C'mon, Shad, this is hardly the first time you've used Chaos Control, surely you should recognize it!

At Castle Acorn, Elias and Antoine, standing on lookout, are dismayed to see that the Metal Sonics haven't been stopped on their rampage through the center of Knothole, and are on a straight course for the castle where everyone is sheltered. Shadow's Chaos portal abruptly opens behind them, and Sonic hands Hope over to Dr. Quack for treatment, something Shadow begrudging accepts as being the best they can do for now. Sonic, thoroughly annoyed by now at having to deal with such a menace modeled after himself, races back out to fight the rest of the Metal Sonics still bearing down on the castle, and Shadow follows him once again, not content to be left out of the fun. Sonic does his best to take down the attacking force with a whirlwind of his own, but it barely leaves them rattled, and he begins taking some nasty blows, clearly losing the fight. Shadow, coming up on the scene, realizes that despite all their differences he can hardly leave Sonic here to die like this, and raises his hand, emitting another blast of energy that immediately disables all the remaining robots.

Honestly, I'm a little weirded out by the idea of Knuckles of all people explaining stuff like Chaos Control to Shadow, given how hard that role is reversed in the games, with Shadow knowing a lot more about Chaos powers and Knuckles being an isolated loner with no proper knowledge of his heritage or the extent of his abilities. Anyway, with the day saved, Sonic reenters the castle to find Elias holding a medal which he has apparently pulled directly from his ass given the speed with which he's managed to produce it, or otherwise he's just had an award with Sonic's name on it sitting around for a long while for just such an occasion as this. He's awarded the title of Gentleman-At-Arms, something which comes with many privileges that Elias promises to explain later, and then… it's party time! Everyone weirdly acts as though this has been the biggest threat their society has ever faced, despite the fact that barely a year ago a malevolent alien force that had already eliminated civilization on this planet once before tried to suck the entire planet into a black hole, but whatever, we can let them have this one. But what of Shadow? Is he just standing around outside broodi- yeah he's totally standing around outside brooding.

…sorry, Chuck, but what the hell does that mean? What secrets do you apparently hold that are so important that you feel like you have to deviously hide them from Shadow? Like… it's such an ominous-sounding line that means absolutely nothing. By the way, this is where the story ends - absolutely no explanation is given for why the Metal Sonics went on a rampage the way they did. I mean, we know that someone targeting Eggman activated them and sent them after him, but halfway through the story they just kind of switched targets from Eggman to All Of Knothole for seemingly no reason. I suppose you could just say their programming got too scrambled to tell an innocent from their target, but honestly they feel more like a plot device intended to let Shadow discover his own abilities, and therefore something that wasn't well thought out and will be forgotten about by the next issue.

The Despicable Dr. Robotnik: Insidious

Writer/Pencils: Ken Penders Colors: Josh & Aimee Ray

Well, after all the excitement of the previous day, Eggman is looking to recoup at least some of his losses. A.D.A.M. is thankfully online once again, and despite Eggman's sour mood, A.D.A.M. hopes to cheer him up with some good news. He draws Eggman's attention to the nanite fiasco of a few issues ago, and while Eggman is initially unimpressed with him bringing up one of his failures, his interest is piqued when A.D.A.M. demonstrates that the signals the nanites send between themselves can be intercepted by their own equipment here in New Megaopolis. This gives them a direct backdoor into the dealings inside Knothole, and Eggman watches in fascination as A.D.A.M. manipulates some of the nanites in real time while Tommy, Jules, Chuck, and a few others run experiments on them.

Under Eggman's guidance, A.D.A.M. directs small quantities of nanites to "infect" first Jules, then Bunnie, with those two being the main targets due to their inorganic body parts. However, when Eggman tries to order Sonic himself to be bugged, A.D.A.M. points out that since he's organic he can't bond with the nanites, which kind of seems to go against the idea of Tommy doing just that…

See, this bugs me, because I actually put thought into the whole "this is why the nanites can bond with Tommy's shell now" thing, and yet here it's discarded in favor of "I don't know, shells aren't organic or something"? Yes they freaking are, Penders! I researched it! I learned more than I ever thought I needed to know about the biological composition and evolution of turtle shells just to make sure my one little comment about Tommy's shell bonding with the nanites would be accurate! Granted, I get that Mobians aren't exactly the same as the animal species they're descended from, but you'd think the shell of a Mobian turtle would count as similar at least. *sigh*

Well, on that somewhat anticlimactic note, we've finally reached the end of Ken Penders' tenure as head writer for these comics. It's been… well, I feel like saying it's been a wild ride would be a bit of an understatement, but the sentiment is there, at least. And while I know he hasn't been a popular writer among many fans, and I've had my own fair share of criticism for his work (especially the later stuff), I still think it's appropriate to recognize the many good things he brought to the comic, especially the characters and plot points that have by now become mainstays in the world of the preboot. That said, now that we're moving on from the Era of Penders, a lot of the most controversial stuff in the comic is behind us, and we have a bright, interesting, and well-written new future to look forward to! Hope everyone is ready for the excellence that is Ian Flynn, cause here he comes!

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #sth 159 #writer: ken penders #pencils: ron lim #pencils: ken penders #colors: joshua d ray #colors: aimee r ray

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go-events · 4 years

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GO Rom Com Spotlight: @tisziny

The most excellent @tisziny (also tisziny on AO3) has claimed Imagine Me and You to adapt for Good Omens in the Good Omens Rom Com Event.

For reference, here’s a little background about the source material!

About Imagine Me and You: During her wedding ceremony, Rachel (Piper Perabo) notices Luce (Lena Headey) in the audience and feels instantly drawn to her. The two women become close friends, and when Rachel learns that Luce is a lesbian, she realizes that despite her happy marriage to Heck (Matthew Goode), she is falling for Luce. As she questions her sexual orientation, Rachel must decide between her stable relationship with Heck and her exhilarating new romance with Luce.

We spent some time chatting about how the adaptation is coming so far, as well as future plans for it! Now, get to know @tisziny a little better!

* * *

goromcom: So, about your Tumblr. When someone opens a chat with you here, Tumblr reports that you post "about #jinkx monsoon and #reply". Let me take a wild guess -- are you a fan of Dru Paul's Drag Race?

tisziny: I am a fan of Rupauls Drag Race, but a little bit less so lately. It's all pretty repetitive and sold out for straight audiences.

goromcom: I’ve heard that! Such a shame.

You chose to adapt Imagine Me and You as your rom com. Has this movie been a favorite of yours, or is there some other reason you chose it?

tisziny: I love the movie Imagine Me And You. When I first came out as gay my older sister (she's bi and a relationship with a woman) gave me a list of heaps of queer movies and blogs and things like that. I watched Imagine Me and You and it was probably the first lesbian movie I saw. So yeah it has a soft spot with me.

goromcom: That’s really sweet! Knowing that the movie holds a special place in your heart, what's your favorite moment of Imagine Me and You, and are you looking forward to presenting it in your adaptation? Any loose plans for that scene that you can share?

tisziny: My favourite part of the movie is probably just the dynamic between all the characters. Which is silly because obviously that changes. I also really love the character H, Rachel's little sister. She's being replaced with twins, a boy, Warlock, and a girl, Ada (Adam).

goromcom: Do you plan to stick very closely to the story beats of the original movie, or make bigger changes?

tisziny: There will be changes, definitely. The character of Coop probably won't exist in my version, or his part will be significantly smaller. The story of Hec and his shitty boss is changed because Hec is being replaced with Newt. I can't imagine Newt being a bigshot at work or lying to clients, etc. I'm going to stick to the general theme and major plot points of the movie but I don't just want to completely regurgitate it with different names.

goromcom: I think that’s definitely a good call!

What's an interesting decision you've made in your planning so far--a notable casting decision, a changing of venue, or some other plan you have to paint Good Omens all over your rom com?

tisziny: I suppose the biggest thing is I decided to keep it lesbians? So we have Azira Fell (daughter of Gabriel and Michaela Fell) and Antoine Crowley (daughter of Gezibelle Tracy and the absent Louis Crowley).

goromcom: Oh goodness, I wonder who some of those people might be? ;)

With those little sneak previews now given, we’ll move on to the last question, which I am blatantly stealing from The Good Place: The Podcast. Tell me something "good". It can be something big or small. It can be a charity you think is doing good work, or you can talk about how great your pet is.

tisziny: Something good... I've been writing and rewriting this and it sounds so cheesy and bullshit but it's true. My best friend is alive and happy. And if you knew just half of what she's faced, honestly this is beyond my wildest dreams.

goromcom: I’m so grateful to hear that, and that you have someone wonderful like that in your life. Best wishes to your best friend from all of us. <3

Stay tuned to this space once posting for the GO Rom Com event begins, to see @tisziny‘s adaptation of Imagine Me and You!

#goromcom #goromcom spotlight #good omens #tisziny #imagine me and you

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canyouhearthelight · 5 years

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The Miys, Ch. 50

The past week has been an abominably wild ride. I’m in the U.S, and we have had entirely too many shooting recently. Add to that the fact that our election season is starting to ramp up, and the vitriol is spewing at work. I’m a very opinionated person when it comes to politics and human rights (this really shouldn’t be a surprise if you’ve followed this far), and I try to keep the majority of it out of this story and off this blog. That said, I’m down for some discourse if any of you want to message me.

Moving to the actual story: This chapter gives a bit of insight into where the story is going next, plus some of the background stuff I always have cluttering up my head. It always gives me good material to show the different personalities and skill sets of the main and secondary characters. Overall, I really like how this chapter turned out.

And don’t worry - that difficult conversation is coming very soon.

I managed to compose myself by the time the men came into my sister’s public room, but only just. I hardly noticed the jostling on the couch as Tyche refused to move from my side and allow Maverick and Conor to sandwich me in between them like usual. She elbowed me to get my attention, and only then did I realize that she was still sitting next to me. Maverick on my other side, with Conor on the floor leaning against mine and Maverick’s legs.

Antoine looked so amused at the situation, I thought he might explode. When I arched an eyebrow at him, he just shook his head and settled into the one perfectly empty chair. “So, the festival?” he ventured.

Thank you for the safe ground, I thought before responding. “Overall, huge success. I still have to debrief with Alistair tomorrow, but preliminary reports are pretty good. There was a minor kerfluffle with a vendor before everything got set up, but we got that resolved pretty tidily. I think so, at least.”

Tyche shook her head. “I don’t recall any vendor issues.”

“Exactly,” I pointed out. “Originally, there was going to be a location that specialized in a certain pork product, and Alistair caught it when the vendor wanted to be stationed where the Jainist cuisine ended up being.”

“But that was between….” Maverick trailed off, horrified. Conor’s shoulders shook with laughter, resulting in getting a swat on both shoulders – one from the pilot, one from my sister. “Dude, it’s not funny! That’s just deliberately being rude. You don’t put pork between two groups who have religious prohibitions against it!”

Conor held his hands up in surrender. “I’m laughing at the tongue-lashing our Sophie probably gave the poor sod, I swear!”

“Actually, I didn’t.” Four heads turned to stare at me in disbelief. “Seriously. It was so much worse than you’re thinking, but I managed not to chew anyone out… much. Remember all the gourmet bacon that was everywhere at the festival? That was the guy. For whatever reason, the vendor and Simon thought there was nothing wrong with having a bacon-themed stall.”

“At the same event that was intended to help everyone recover from the attack on the ship by a certain terrorist group?” Antoine asked quietly, in a tone that I had learned meant he was boiling mad.

“Yep,” I popped the last consonant in emphasis. “I called him, pointed out how tasteless it was, and we decided instead to let the other alcoves feature the wares. To his credit, it never even crossed his mind that it was a bad idea. He was focused on the flavor list, and the vendor was focused on showing off like everyone else was.”

He nodded thoughtfully as my sister spoke. “So, the bacon gets out there, in the best possible way, without anyone being distracted by the connotation.”

“Pretty much. And, honestly? I think that particular vendor got better coverage than anyone else at the event… that stuff was everywhere. Maple and bacon donuts, chocolates with candied bacon, on burgers, wrapped around seafood, you name it.”

“And that was the only vendor issue?” she asked.

I nodded, before switching gears. “Now, I want to hear about the low-stim portion of the event. I have the official reports from everyone, and Alistair is going to give the highlights tomorrow, but I want to get an idea from you three how it plays against the regular session.” Automatically, I started playing with Conor’s hair, just because it was by my hand. I had no idea how many times I had done that in the past, but I was very conscious of it right now.

Maverick spoke up, snapping me out of my distracted thoughts. “Well, it was a lot calmer, better lit, pretty much as intended. With a very few exceptions, the vendors were much more relaxed during the low-stimulus session, too. I think that had a positive impact on the attendees, since they felt less like a bother.”

“There was definitely less resistance from the vendors in regards to food preferences in the earlier portion,” Antoine added. “In the first session, when presented with a list of foods that were not an option, they largely cooperated. However, when we went back, this dropped by an estimated thirty percent.”

“That’s disappointing,” I muttered.

Maverick reached over to squeeze my hand gently. “Hey, on the plus side, the Japanese vendor kept the natto covered the entire time.”

“That was surprisingly popular,” my sister pointed out. “Probably the novelty, from what you two told me about it. We may need to be on the lookout for natto-eating challenges in the near future.”

I shook with revulsion before composing myself. “To be fair, there are people who do actually like it, and it’s supposed to be very nutritious. Don’t let our bias stop you from trying it. Just… please don’t do it when either of us is around?”

Conor took that chance to jump into the conversation. “Any of the typical disturbances you would see from a big event like that? Fights, drunk and disorderlies, that kind of thing?”

“I haven’t heard anything,” I responded cautiously. “And the alcohol was limited to two drinks per attendee, non-transferable. Even at The Undine, the drinks were low or no content after each person had their allotment. Xiomara will have the exact data, though.”

“Oh!” Tyche grabbed my arm for attention. “The quiet rooms? Huge success. I ducked in several of them both times I was there, and even toward the end of the festival, people were really respectful of them. Any groups were small, and they kept their voices at a whisper or a very low – “ She waved her hand at the word she was looking for. “Mutter. Not mutter. The other one. But that, yeah.”

Antoine chuckled at her excitement. “Yes, the attendees were keeping the noise to a minimum, as she says. It felt very much like walking into a library. You may receive some requests to keep the rooms in place, Sophia.”

Regretfully, I shook my head. “I wish we could, but the majority of the space we used for the festival was only loaned to us by people who actually live there. If those people want to keep the rooms as they are, they are more than welcome to the free re-decorating, but those are still private residences. In fact, most of the people have already moved back in.” A collective groan came from everyone in the room, Conor going so far as to bury his face in my knee out of disappointment. “The best I can do is offer the design plans freely to everyone on the Ark, and I can talk to the Council about the demand for spaces like that. Maybe we can set up a few small libraries or botanical gardens throughout the ship, if Miys is okay with it.”

“I think the botanical gardens will go over well,” Conor offered, glancing up. “Noah is fond of air-cleaning plants, it turns out. Calls them little trooplings.” When Maverick furrowed his brows so hard it looked like it hurt, our resident pseudo-botanist clarified. “Hujylsogox are mycogenetic, which means they evolved from fungus-like lifeforms. Mushrooms grow in colonies, clusters, and troops. The word’s probably not the same, but the closest the translators can get to the concept of a baby Hujylsogox is ‘troopling’.”

“But why would Miys compare plants to baby-thems?” Maverick asked, glancing around for explanation. Tyche, Antoine, and I just stared at Conor, waiting for an explanation.

With a sigh, he continued. “Noah – or Miys – absorbs nutrients and sustenance from the air, constantly. It has to be supplemented with rations, sure, but it’s a function they can’t control. Miys jokes about not having a sense of smell, but they can definitely tell how clean the air is, and they’re sensitive to caustic fumes.”

“Just like the plants,” Tyche ventured.

He nodded. “It’s really similar. The plants are a bit less sensitive to things like fumes from spicy foods, though.” Tyche and I flushed at the reminder of the time we ran Miys out of my quarters while making dinner. Antoine smiled, but Conor roared with laughter and told the story to Maverick.

When he finished, Tyche jumped in. “In our defense, we didn’t know the smell of the chili sauce reducing would give Noah actual burns. The fumes or vapor, or whatever you want to call it, had run a couple people off, but Noah told us before that they don’t have noses, so it never occurred to us that it would be a problem.”

“Nothing in what you just said argues against the fact that you two were deliberately cooking and eating something so spicy that people ran away and one needed treatment for burns,” Maverick pointed out.

“Miys pointed that out, too,” I admitted. “Okay, new topic, before I die of embarrassment. Festival is out of the way, so the gravity adjustment is scheduled for two days from now.”

Antoine leaned forward with laser-focus. “We need to expect increased anxiety and paranoia, along with some fatigue.”

Tyche and I nodded, while Maverick made a noise of agreement. Conor glanced around at all of us. “Okay, superbrains, tell the dumb lug what I’m not understanding here.”

I rolled my eyes at the self-assigned appellation - he had just given us a small lecture on the similarities between Miys biology and that of a potted plant - and gestured for Antoine, following the evening’s convention of deferring to the people with the most expertise. He nodded and explained, “The increase in gravity will only be five-percent of Earth gravity, putting the entire ship at 1.1. It is not enough for anyone to really notice, beyond some minor discomfort, as everyone has already adjusted to the initial increase to 1.05. However, our brains know something is ‘not right’ for lack of a better term. Not necessarily wrong or dangerous, but not the same and not what we have grown to consider normal, similar to if everything was moved two centimeters to the left – just because you cannot tell exactly what changed, it does not mean you cannot tell something has changed. This results in increased anxiety and sometimes paranoia.”

Conor nodded as it started to make sense to him. “Even knowing ahead of time that the gravity will be adjusting, it can still happen?”

I snorted violently. “Never expect people to read all their mail.”

“Good point,” he conceded. “How many total adjustments to gravity are we going to have?”

“Ten, total,” Tyche answered as she flicked open her data pad, shrugging apologetically. “I know, I know. Family rule: no data pads on dinner nights. But I don’t have all the information memorized, and this is a good discussion.” Scrolling through the information, she stopped and mimed tapping a screen. “Kepler 442b has half-again as much gravity as Earth, which is more than our scientists Before had initially estimated. Its star is slightly bluer than Sol, but not quite as bright. It isn’t tidally locked, but just barely. A year there is about three Terran months, with the days half that long. It’s also colder than Earth, due to its star being smaller, but not by much once you compensate for Terran global warming and Kepler 442b having a denser atmosphere.” She scowled up at me. “We need to name our new home, you know. I thought you were going to work on that.”

“I’ve had a lot on my plate,” I objected before sighing and slouching against the back of her couch. “But you’re right. We need to get on that. I want to do an Ark-wide poll, but I need to set the criteria and have it approved by the Council, first. Nobody actually wants to name our second chance ‘Colony McPlanetface’, and I would like to weed out the multitudinous variations of home or dirt.”

“Have people submitting ideas include a justification,” Maverick pointed out. “That will weed out a lot of people who aren’t serious, if they have to include an essay.”

I grinned widely at him, squeezing his arm in affection. “That’s a great idea, actually. Granted, I don’t look forward to reading all those essays – even if a single-digit percent of people submit, that’s still hundreds – but at least it will limit the submissions that are intended as a joke.” I thought for a moment. “And… if we include the criteria that the name cannot be certain words or versions of certain words, Zach can probably write a program to weed those out, as well.” I turned to my sister and Antoine, nudging Conor gently.

“Start thinking of names we don’t want to see. I’ll send a message to the Council tomorrow asking for their input and running the idea by them tentatively. And whoever is keeping track, add Goldilocks to that list. It was unoriginal to start with, and now it just feels cursed.”

<< Prev Masterlist Next >>

#the miys #humans are weird #original sci fi #science fiction #aliens #apocalypse #writing #humans are space orcs #earth is space australia

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scaryscarecrows · 5 years

Text

Conflict of Interest

Some of the Riddler Informants are Militia members. Ouch.

It’s a complete accident that the boss is fucking with the radio at this exact moment. There was…an incident.

By which Antoine means that, in a panic to get out of Scarecrow’s way, a private had bumped into the main radio in the mall headquarters and sent the dial twisting way off. It sounds like they hit a Russian spy network. Oopsies.

The private is currently hiding several rooms away, Scarecrow is muttering darkly about incompetent help, and the boss is attempting to get everything back the way it was. Damage was done. Not serious damage, but damage.

“—swerving through straights!” Riddler gloats, and Antoine hopes he trips and impales himself on a rusty nail. Lockjaw would be a fitting, fitting thing for him. The Knight snorts.

“Like he’d drive any better.”

Huh?

Whatever. This is just going into the pile of ‘things the boss knows that he keeps to himself because nobody’s unlocked his Level Twelve Tragic Backstory’. Humph.

Sports, static-there! That’s Ron…hang on.

That’s not their frequency.

“Sir?”

“I know.”

“—hid that last trophy for my end, headin’ back to base now.”

Trophy? Is that little prick defecting to the Green?

Antoine hopes he shocks himself on one of those damn robots. (Oh, Chito…their love was never meant to be.)

The Knight returns them to the proper frequency and turns around, cocks his head in that way that says he’s entered Little Shit Mode.

“Drouot,” he says, deceptively cheerful, “where is Mister Freeling now?”

Damn. Instant firing.

“Uh, should be in the Cauldron, sir.”

“I’d like to see him. Go pick him up.”

This isn’t going to be pretty, is it.

* * *

Antoine is literally down the street from Ron when the Goddamn Batman plummets from the sky.

It’s over quickly. By the end, when Batman is gone and the street has four new speed bumps, Antoine is stricken with the need to ensure his balls are where they’re supposed to be and not, like, knocked off his body like a punching bag. They’re fine. That guy over there, by the sidewalk? Maybe not. He was on the ground when that punch landed.*

Children are not in his future.

He lifts a shaky hand to his ear and wheezes, “Boss?”

“What.”

“He’s, uh, I don’t…he’s asleep. Due to, uh, the knee of Justice and the knuckles of Pain.”

“What?” There are no better words and he’s not sorry. “Batman?”

Nobody ever died from a little omission.

“Looks like it.”

Silence. In the distance, Scarecrow monologues at the GCPD about fear responses. The giant plant snatches a bird out of the air. Antoine wonders if the sun will ever rise again.

“Bring him back anyway,” the boss decides. “I know how to wake him up.”

That’s ominous.

“Yes, sir.”

Eyes peeled for anything deadly and/or painful, he makes his way down the street, hauls Ron into a fireman’s carry, and dumps him in the APC. They’re en route back to base when the boss comes back on the line.

“Change of plans.”

Fuck no.

“Sir?”

“Take him over to Mercy Bridge.”

Oh, God. This is gonna be one of those times that the boss starts embracing the joys of Irony, isn’t it. Great. Make way for the Drama Queen.

“Yes, sir.”

Mercy Bridge isn’t that far. The boss is there already, leaning against a beam and flipping a knife in his hand. Okay. So he’s probably not, like, overly pissed. That’s his normal fidgety behavior. It’s something.

He’s still kinda pissed, though. He must be. There’s no other explanation for yanking Ron out of the APC that roughly, tying one end of his grappling line to the front bumper, and tying the other end around Ron’s ankles.

“Uh, boss?”

The knots are good, he finds out, when the boss drags Ron to the edge of the bridge-

-and drops him over the edge. Ow. There’s some dislocations for you.

It’s a long way down. That’s only made more apparent by Ron swinging gently in the breeze, dwarfed by the infrastructure around him.

“Boss?”

“He’s fine.” The Knight leans over the edge and Antoine is stricken with the idea that he’ll lose his footing and plummet to his death. “Wake up, Mister Freeling.” He jiggles the line. Ron sways a little faster. “Wake up.”

“Uh, boss,” he says carefully, “that was, erm, he took a. A pretty brutal ass-kicking back there, and, uh…”

“He’s fine.” More jiggling. Ron’s head comes dangerously close to smacking into a nearby support column. “But I don’t have all night.”

He pulls Ron back up, jabs him in the thigh with an adrenaline pen, and shoves him back over the edge. Ron must wake up about halfway down, because there’s now screaming.

“OH GOD—”

“There you are!” The Knight leans over the edge again and waves. “Gotta say, I wasn’t too happy to find you doing the Riddler’s work tonight.”

“How—”

“I have my ways.”

Antoine wonders, about now, how many times the boss has ‘known things’ were actually incidents of accidental discovery. He doesn’t think it’s that many, because he’d have been there for at least some of them, but still.

“It was just once, his guys-th-they jumped me, made me do it, I swear—”

“Stop lying!”

This just might end badly.

But then again, snitches do get stitches. And to be fair, the Knight’s only killed a couple of them, who, uh. Antoine will admit they might have had it coming.

Eh. He’s not going to try and intervene. Ron is probably going to be fine.

Ron, at this exact moment, is blabbering about ‘getting intel on the Riddler’. Which. Seriously. Nobody cares about the Riddler. Batman doesn’t even seem to care! For a while there, every five minutes the guy would come over the broadcast system to complain that Batman was ignoring him. It was almost bad enough that Antoine was considering begging the boss to tell Batman to go deal with the guy, just to shut him up.

Almost.

The Knight seems to be thinking along the same lines, if his exasperated sigh is anything to go off of. Then again, that could be Batman-related; in the distance, there’s a VROOM! and the horrible crunching of buildings being destroyed. Seriously, the guy drives almost as bad as the boss. And to be fair, when your car can crush buildings, why should you stay in your lane?

“So you took initiative,” he says. Ron nods. Well. Maybe. The swaying makes it hard to tell.

“Yessir!”

Another sigh. A few streets away, a building catches fire. Antoine wonders if he really needs to stand here, or if he can wait in the car. Or just leave.

“Sir?” he hedges. “Um. Should we, uh, really be out in the open like this?”

The sheer irritation of the head-tilt answers his question.

“It’s fine.”

“Sorry, sir.”

The Knight hauls Ron back up to solid ground. Antoine has to give it to him, he doesn’t try to lurch away from the edge of the bridge. He does, however, start frantically saying, “I’m sorry, boss, I didn’t think—”

“No. You didn’t.” Uh-oh. “How stupid do you think I am, Freeling?” Ron’s hefted up and slammed into a nearby pillar. “You’d better hope Riddler has good insurance,” he continues, nodding towards the ankle with the line around it. Said ankle is clearly out of socket and the boss is still holding the line in his hand. “Broken ankles just don’t heal right on their own.”

Broken? It’s not—

Crunch.

Oh. Never mind.

Ron is dropped, wheezing desperately, and they’re going to just…leave him here. Um. Okay?

Okay. Right then. He gives Ron an awkward wave, the kind you give your coworkers as they’re leaving for the last time with their desk contents in an Amazon box, and gets back behind the wheel. Dumb it might be, but there’s a little bit of security that comes with being in the car. There’s a least a little bit of a shield between him and any Batmans plummeting from the sky.

“Back to base, sir?”

Before the boss can answer, the ground starts shaking and to Antoine’s infinite horror, something big and green and floral erupts from the ground near the graveyard in Drescher. No. NO! He has a plant! There is a one monster-plant limit per…per…however many square miles Gotham city is! How many plants does he need? How many does he have?

“Are you kidding me?” He’s half-tempted to stab himself in the thigh, make sure Scarecrow didn’t drug him at some point. “Come on!”

The Knight swears, vigorously and in two languages, before jabbing a finger against his ear and snarling, “Sergeant? There’s a weed grown tall in Divinity Churchyard. Cut it down.” They don’t have to go over there, do they? “Yes. Back to base. The Cloudburst should be nearly charged.”

Oh, yeah. That. Is it bad to hope that it’s broken?

“Yessir.”

“And Drouot.”

“Yessir?”

“Take the scenic route.”

Ah. That’s Knightese for, ‘give the plant a wide berth because it’s scary and probably capable of crushing the car like an aluminum can’. Thank God.

“That was the plan, boss.”

He feels a little bad for abandoning Ron, but he knew the risks. And it’s not like the plant is here. And hey! Batman’s probably going to be near the plant, so he’s not here, either! He’ll be fine. Maybe one of his new coworkers will come and get him.

THE END

*Batman can indeed (appear to) punch a mook inna nuts. I don’t even have them and I feel bad when that happens. Jesus, Bruce, talk about birth control.

#the Arkham Knight #the Arkham Knight's Militia #Jason Todd #Antoine Drouot #Ivy's plants #Riddler is the most annoying villain in the series and we all know it #SHUT UP EDDIE I'VE GOT SERIAL KILLERS TO CATCH #YOUR TROPHIES WILL HAVE TO WAIT

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secretfreedomfighters · 5 years

Text

Pre-Wedding Jitters

@lecowardlycoyote

Bonnet stared at the mirror in front of her, wringing her hands. It’s supposed to be a private and quick wedding and yet she was getting nervous about it. Why on earth does her brain do this to her?? She said yes to the proposal, she said yes to the small and private wedding and yet, barely a few days later, on the day of the ceremony no less, and she’s....getting cold feet.

Maybe it wasn’t the wedding she wanted or expecting, but life didn’t work out like that. She was twenty-four, maybe twenty-five years old, pregnant and she’ll be leaving with the other refugees and civilians of the fort in a matter of weeks if not days, while her soon-to-be-husband was staying here and...stalling for time. ....just like she was.

She felt like this was honestly a long and cruel trick that the universe was holding over her. Give her a chance at happiness, a chance to settle down and just not worry about anything and yet she got dragged into another war and she might end up being a widow within the next few months with only a ring, her memories and their daughter to remember him by. Maybe that’s why she was feeling hesitant, since they only had so much time before-

The door knocked quietly as her ears perked up. “Y-yes?” she squeaked, still trying to get used to talking again. She exhaled as Meg entered the room before recalling her manners, getting up to curtsy. “Y-your Majesty, I-I...”

“Relax dear, I just came to check on you and I had to shoo your fiance and my husband away since it’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding,” she reassured as she helped Bonnet sit back down and sitting in the chair next to her. “I’m guessing you’re nervous as well?” she asked, the rabbit nodding timidly. “In both of my weddings, I was nervous as well. My first husband I had known for a few years before I married him, and Elias I had only known for barely a handful of months before we got married and I was in a similar situation as you during that one. Pregnant from my first husband, was left a widow and I remarried in the middle of the pregnancy, possibly weeks before Alexis was born. And you’re not alone in this, but...you seem like something else is bothering you besides the pre-wedding jitters.”

“How...how do you know if you’re doing the right thing?” Bonnet sheepishly asked, feeling like this question was such a betrayal to everything that led up to this point. “I-I know I love him, I love our child and I want to do right by both of them...but I’m so worried about everything!”

Meg nodded as she held her hands, rubbing her thumbs over the back of her hands. “You have every right to be nervous, but do not let that stop you. Antoine is just as nervous about this as you are!”

Bonnet swallowed as she nodded. “I-I know that....but...I’m, I’m worried about what’ll happen if we did make it, we both survive and once we reunite.... what if we both wake up and realize this wasn’t what we wanted and that we stupidly rushed into things??”

“Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie,” she quietly hushed, squeezing her hands gently. “You don’t think I didn’t have those same thoughts with Elias? Especially after finding out that he was a prince?? That I would wake up back in the home I grew up in with him married to some princess from another kingdom and wanted nothing to do with me or my daughter? I had those thoughts daily during the first year of our marriage when we were at the castle and his father was not happy about the arrangement either way, always commenting about how the Source would’ve ‘led him to a better suited wife than a peasant for his son’ under his breath.

But every day, every morning, Elias would wake up beside me with this loving smile like I was the world to him and he honestly thought I was. He never once regretted his actions that led him to me; he may have heard his father’s comments but he stood firm in our marriage, reminding me nearly daily how much I meant to him and I would do the same. He helped me accept that...I deserved another chance at happiness, at love.”

The queen sighed and brushed back a lock of Bonnet’s hair back. “I’ve seen the way you two speak about each other, look at each other, and even now you’re fretting over one another and trying to make sure that the other stays safe and happy in any way that you can; it reminds me of Elias and I all those years ago and I truly believe that once you see him again once this is all over, you two will be stronger for it.”

“...but...what if he...”

“Then that’s a bridge we’ll cross when we get there. We cannot see into the future and can only do what we can in the present. Just know that no matter what may happen to you both, you and Antoine can always lean on us for support,” Meg answered, standing up and helping the bride to her feet. “Now, I remember being at this stage with Alexis, so the faster we do this, the faster you get to sit back down.”

Bonnet felt eternally grateful for the Queen for doing this, for reassuring her and settling most of her nerves. Meg didn’t have to, but Bonnet could see why the King fell in love with her. She exhaled as she followed her Queen out of the room, sending a quick prayer that this really would be fast.

#the rookie; bonnet #an uncommon queen; meg #mun writes; drabbles #((...well I need to put a read more because this was definitely longer than expected and yeah)))#lecowardlycoyote

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garrettauthor · 6 years

Video

youtube

Hello Writer, and welcome back to my life.

Today's question comes to us from patron Kristen Stevens, who asks: "How do you find an editor that you trust?"

Simple question, not the simplest answer in the universe.

Finding an editor is maybe the most important decision in your career. It's just vital. It's like choosing a business partner or a spouse. And, as with decisions of similar importance, you should not rush into it.

Start by looking for recommendations. You are, or you should be, part of a community of writers, either IRL or online. One of their editors can be yours.

The wonderful thing about editing is that it doesn't have to happen in person. You send them a Word document, and they send it back. Lovely.

So start out by talking to authors, finding the biggest and the best authors you can find. You want to talk to somebody who's been doing this a while, who's preferably published many books, and who's used the same editor for several of those books, if not all of them.

Get their recommendations, find out who they work with, and then find out how fast those editors generally work and how much they charge for their work.

Obviously, you should never skimp on editing. Never go for the cheapest or the most cut-rate editor, because you'll get cut-rate work.

The first editor I ever worked with charged around $400 per book. The edits were...let's go with "not good." I had to go and re-edit them all—paying the RIGHT price the second time. So just keep things like that in mind.

BUT, at the same time, you likely won't start out with giant budgets of thousands of dollars to edit your books. So find what you can afford—but don't settle on quality.

If an editor doesn't do good work, it's easy to find out. You can talk to others who may have worked with that person and find out what they're like to work with, or you can get examples of their previous work.

If somebody is offering to edit your books for four or five hundred dollars, and you get a previous book they've edited, and it's filled with mistakes, don't hire that editor. Duh.

An editor like that might EVEN catch some of your grammar and spelling errors, but if you're going to have to re-edit it anyway, why not just do it right the first time? Readers don't care if you've got 3 errors per page vs. 5 per page—they'll think you didn't edit at all.

Side note: it's important to specify what KIND of editor you're looking for. Your first hire should be a copy editor, the person who finds your spelling, your grammar, your wrong words. (Mine is Karen Conlin, who goes by @GramrgednAngel on Twitter).

If you ask around for an editor and get a developmental editor—who helps you with structure and broad-level story changes—you might still publish with spelling and grammar errors, and that's just not good. So prioritize, and be very clear about what type of editor you are looking for.

So after searching awhile and getting a list of prospects, it's time to see if you can actually work with one of these editors.

Any editor worth their salt will do an "audition" editing chapter for you. They'll take the first chapter of your book—provided it's not one of these, like, ten thousand word chapters—and they will edit it for free.

You can look at what they've changed and see if you agree with it, if it makes your writing better. (That's your only criteria).

If you want to be super sneaky, you can also install, purposefully, little mistakes that you already KNOW you often do, writing tics and so on, especially if they're very subtle mistakes, and see if the editor catches them.

I didn't do that, but I've heard of people who have, and it could be effective at finding somebody who can deal with YOUR writing.

Anyway, I suggest you do "audition chapters" with multiple editors before choosing one. Evaluate whose work seems the best, the turnaround timeframe, and who communicates the best about what needs to be fixed.

Fellow YouTuber and indie author Antoine Bandele just put out his first book 'The Kishi.' It's very, very good. You should go buy it.

And Antoine spoke with me during the editing process. He had found an editor through recommendations and had hired him for a very, very low rate.

And the editor took...quite a lot of time. Antoine wanted to know if that was sort of normal? I happened to know the editor, so I said, "No, it is not normal, and, if you want my opinion, don't work with this person."

And he didn't. He found another editor and sampled his work with them. The communication was fast, it was professional, and deadlines were hit.

That's what you want, even if you find a good editor for cheap.

If you're gonna be stressed out, if the editor takes too long or misses their deadlines, if they're not emailing you and letting you know what's going on, it's bad.

Don't work with people like that. There's plenty of professionals out there who want your money.

So we've mentioned budget, but I just want to stress, again, you don't want to get cut-rate editing.

A good copy editor is gonna charge you, at a minimum, at least a cent per word, probably two cents per word, and up to five cents per word.

I know that that sounds expensive. And it kind of is. But you have to think about this in terms of a career.

If you're starting a delivery service business, you have to buy a van. You have to fill it up with gas. Otherwise, you can't deliver the product your business is supposed to deliver.

At two cents a word, an average novel costs around $1,600 to edit.

If your book doesn't make at least five grand short-term and way more than that in your lifetime, how do you think you're gonna build a business model?

Two grand seems like a whole lot when you're first starting out—and it is!—but that book is going to exist forever. And it should earn, if you're putting together a good business, quite a bit more than that.

So keep that perspective in mind when you're looking at editing prices, and just don't skimp!

There's one more thing I want to highlight here.

You've shopped around. You found some editors, you've sampled their work, you found The One. You can afford them, they seem to work well with you, and they've been recommended by other authors.

It is now your duty as an author to remain as professional in your relationship with your editor, as your editor is with you.

Yes, you are hiring them. Yes, you are "the boss".

But don't be a douchebag.

Stay in contact with your editor. Let them know when projects are coming up, let them know as fast as you possibly can. Let them know when things change.

And do not—DO NOT!—do the thing that far too many indie authors do, of expecting your editor to do more work than you are actually hiring them for.

Some authors get their manuscript out and send it to the editor, the editor makes their edits and sends it back, the author makes their changes. So far so good.

But then some authors REWRITE whole sections of the book and send it back, saying, "Oh, can you check these, too, for free?"

To which the correct response is, "No. Pay me."

There's often SOME back and forth. But this is just egregious and exploitative.

Which brings up a good point: yes, you should contract out this work. You should make an exact agreement. This many words, this price, etc.

Once that agreement has been made, don't expect more extra work for free.

Editors are amazing people. They are the foundations of our careers. Don't mistreat them. Just don't be an asshole.

If you're a professional, if you treat them well, your editor will the springboard for you to reach your potential as an author.

You can't do it without them, so it's well worth the time and money investment finding and using the right editor for you.

Thanks to Kristen for this week's question. It was a fun one to answer, and I hope everyone else found the answers helpful, as well.

Kristen and my other $5 patrons on Patreon get these videos two weeks in advance, and they're the only ones who can request future topics.

Pitch in: https://www.patreon.com/garrettbrobinson

Thank you so much. I will see you next time. Byyye!

#writing #writer wednesday #editing #copy editing #line editing

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junker-town · 3 years

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3 winners and 2 losers from the NFC and AFC Championship games

Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports

Tom Brady led the Bucs, and the Bills settled for field goals.

So much has changed in the last year, but with all the world turmoil there remains an ever-present constant: Tom Brady will be in the Super Bowl. Sure, he might have missed last year, but 2021 will mark Brady’s 10th appearance in the game since entering the league 20 years ago. That’s mind-bogglingly absurd. Most players wait their entire careers to play in the Super Bowl, some (like Philip Rivers) can have incredible careers with out experiencing the pageantry once. Brady averages an appearance every other year.

This is different, and Brady made it to the Super Bowl in a very different way. Unless you’re blinded to the game, he really didn’t play very well against the Packers. There was a concerted effort to turn this into a story of Brady conquering the No. 1 seed in the NFC, but in the end it was, much like the prior week against New Orleans, a case where the Tampa Bay defense prevailed. It wasn’t so much that Brady got “bailed out,” as much as the defense ensured that Rodgers couldn’t make a concerted comeback.

Davante Adams, the NFL’s best receiver this season, was held to 67 yards and 9 catches. They reduced his average yards per reception from 11.9 yards in the regular season, to 7.4 yards. While that might not sound like a lot, it’s a huge drop off — and even more astounding considering Tampa Bay was without their two starting safeties for the majority of the game. Antoine Winfield was ruled out before kickoff, and Jordan Whitehead left in the first half. This was destined to be a game where Adams ate the secondary alive, but players stepped up, filled gaps and made the difference.

It’s why it’s okay that Brady threw three touchdowns and three interceptions on the day. Which is hilarious when you think about it, because the Buccaneers moved on from Jameis Winston precisely because he threw as many picks and touchdowns last season. No, obviously Brady and Winston aren’t the same player — it’s just humorous.

Tampa Bay was bad last season because they were close in so many games, and Winston let them down. Brady doesn’t need to be the hero this time around, he just needs to be good enough to be part of the team, not the team. It’s probably a role he relishes a little bit, where he can sit back and be a sounding board for younger players who are bound to be intimidated by the moment. That’s what Brady brings to the table at this point in his career, and honestly, before Sunday I didn’t know if it would be enough — but the Buccaneers proved me wrong. They are a complete football team ready to make a run at the Super Bowl, and while that will be tough against the Chiefs, it’s not impossible.

Loser: Everyone on the Packers except Aaron Rodgers.

A week ago I offered effusive praise for the Packers for how much fun they were having on the field. All of that seemed gone on Sunday. Perhaps it was the pressure of playing at home in front of fans for a berth in the Super Bowl, but everything just looked difficult for a team that made everything appear so easy for much of the season.

The end to this story is the same familiar refrain: Aaron Rodgers was let down by his teammates and coaches. There were a few pivotal moments that Rodgers couldn’t do anything about, that either took the momentum away from Green Bay, or never gave him a chance.

Davante Adams drops a pass in the end zone that’s right on target. The Packers settle for a field goal.

Rodgers throws an interception after referees no-call holding on Sean Murphy-Bunting. It ends a drive at the GB 33 yard line, two plays after a 23 yard completion that had the Packers marching.

Aaron Jones fumbles following a reception at the 25 yard line. Tampa Bay get the ball and score a quick touchdown.

Matt LaFleur elects to kick a field goal with 2:09 left on the clock, instead of letting Rodgers attempt to score and tie the game.

That last point is a little up for debate, because either way the Packers would have needed to stop the Buccaneers in order to win, but it’s the pervasive feeling that the game was taken out of the hands of Green Bay’s best player, and it happened multiple times.

Now Rodgers is sounding pensive about his future, and honestly, who can blame him.

Aaron Rodgers: “A lot of guys futures, they’re uncertain, myself included.”

— Matt Schneidman (@mattschneidman) January 25, 2021

Loser: The referees in Bucs vs. Packers.

I’m not one to complain about refs. I think it’s an easy cop out to single out a missed call and blame a game for it. However, in this case there’s a lot of warranted criticism. The officials decided early on that they were going to let the Buccaneers and Packers go in the secondary. Both teams were jostling, holding, impeding each other all game long.

It benefitted Tampa Bay, it benefitted Green Bay. There were numerous times each team was helped by the lax attitude of officials towards contact in the secondary. The problem arose on the game’s final drive, in which officials called pass interference on Kevin King for grabbing the jersey of Tyler Johnson.

The call came on a 3rd and 4, the last chance for the Packers to get a stop. Instead of seeing a player win the game, we witnessed it taken away by inconsistency. Again, King definitely committed a penalty — on that there’s no question, but there needs to be some form of accountability when players are led to believe they can get away with stuff in coverage, only to see it altered at a pivotal moment.

It was an unfair way to end the game.

Winner: Gutless-ass football.

Big week for fans of conservative boring football, courtesy of the Packers and Bills. We’ve discussed the Packers’ decision to kick a field goal and how it may have led to their loss, but Buffalo’s decision was even more mystifying.

If you watched Bills vs. Chiefs then you know the game wasn’t nearly as close in the first half as the score showed. The only scoring success Buffalo had was courtesy of a muffed punt, which they recovered for a touchdown. Outside of that there really wasn’t much to write home about.

Sitting at 4th and 1, the Bills elected to kick a 20 yard field goal, rather than try for a touchdown. There were 14 seconds left on the clock, and they still had a timeout in hand. This meant they could run a safe play, pick up a yard, and give Josh Allen a few chances at the end zone. Instead they kicked, taking the game to 21-12. It was going to be a two-score game either way, it was just a cowardly move.

Then, without any sense of urgency, the Bills elected for ANOTHER field goal with 5:50 left in the third quarter, cutting the Chiefs to a 24-15 lead. Yep, another two score lead. I know there’s logic about slowly chipping down the lead, but this format just meant Kansas City needed to keep on par by hitting field goals of their own. In totality the Chiefs were out-driving Buffalo, so a field goal made no sense.

The Chiefs scored on the next drive and ended the game.

Winner: The Chiefs.

There is perhaps nothing more difficult than the weight of expectation, and living up to those expectations is so difficult in the NFL. From the first snap of Week 1 everyone predicted the Chiefs would return to the Super Bowl, but actually doing it is an entirely different story.

Patrick Mahomes was incredible on Sunday, but he’s a known quantity at this point. Where the Chiefs really shined was on defense, where they managed to mitigate all the Bills’ weapons and turn them into a shadow of themselves. The biggest regret in football isn’t losing, it’s not living up to your potential — and nobody on the Bills will be happy with how they were unable to move the ball against the Chiefs.

Kansas City is just so dangerous in so many different ways. Their defensive line is stout, their secondary is athletic, they have offensive weapons for days — and every week they’re so well coached they find new ways to needle opposing teams, finding their weaknesses and opening them wide up.

That’s why in two weeks time we’re going to have one hell of a Super Bowl. It’s going to be so fun to see Mahomes and Co. try to work against a tough Buccaneers defense, while seeing one of the greatest minds in NFL history in Tom Brady try to find gaps in Kansas City’s defense.

It’s going to be a blast.

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mobius-prime · 4 years

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219. Sonic the Hedgehog #151

Chaos Emeralds are Forever

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Art Mawhinney Colors: Josh & Aimee Ray

So we've covered what's going on with Evil Sonic in Mobius Prime so far, but how is the real Sonic doing? Well, Evil Sonic went ahead and dressed him in the leather jacket and boots he usually wears and left him in a convenient spot where the evil Freedom Fighters would find him. Sonic awakens to find himself surrounded by them, all hurling insults at him and mocking him for thinking he could ditch them. He quickly figures out what's going on as they start beating him senseless, realizing where he is and just how bad his current situation has become. Perhaps the most surprising thing, however, is that unlike all their previous appearances, they're actually accompanied by Anti-Bunnie now, and interestingly enough, she's not half-roboticized!

I mean, it makes sense I suppose - our Bunnie only became who she did because of Robotnik being evil, and since this world's Robotnik is a good guy, there would have been no reason for this world's Bunnie to end up in a roboticizer. Hell, it's likely roboticizers don't even exist in this universe, at least not how we know them. Back in Mobius Prime, Evil Sonic approaches Rouge with the intent to woo her, but is thrown off balance when he realizes she recognizes him - or rather, his counterpart. He decides to play it cool as she explains she was just on Angel Island, and offers to give her the tour, catching her attention when he mentions the Master Emerald. This is enough to make her instantly scoop him up and take him for a flight, heading straight back to the island. Meanwhile back in Anti-Mobius, the Freedom Fighters have by now hung Sonic upside down above a lake, bound and ready to be drowned. Evil Antoine laughs that he's had this coming for a long time, and - wait, remember, that's not Evil Antoine, that's Antoine Antoine! It seems this entire time he's been forced to play along in the evil Freedom Fighters' ranks, while waiting for his chance to get revenge on the one who got him stuck here. As they cut the rope and send a resigned Sonic splashing down into the water, Rouge and Evil Sonic land on Angel Island, near where Rouge was initially strolling with Locke. They spy him some distance away through the bushes, and Evil Sonic recognizes the entrance to the Chaos Chamber from when he snuck into it all the way back in StH#44. Rouge, emboldened by this knowledge, tells Evil Sonic to wait for her signal and walks out to greet Locke, who is surprised at her persistence. And back again to Anti-Mobius, where the Freedom Fighters stare down at the water musing about Evil Sonic's manner of death, only to be shocked as he appears behind them soaking wet and stripped of everything but the boots, cocky as ever. Antoine, in particular, takes an interest in Sonic's words…

Hold it, buddy! That's your buddy! Sonic begins to fight back against the others, obviously still not aware that he's looking at the real Antoine, kicks off the boots and begins to fight back against the other Freedom Fighters, knocking them out one by one or throwing them into the water. The only one he leaves conscious is Anti-Rotor, who realizes by this point that he's the real Sonic and not Evil Sonic. As Sonic demands that Anti-Rotor send him back home, Evil Sonic watches eagerly as Rouge begins her routine on Locke.

All things considered, I'm glad Penders at least has Rouge's personality right. Too many people try to portray her as this hypersexual flirt who just wants to sleep with the entire male cast or something, but this is the real her - using her beauty and her flirtatious skills to distract her unsuspecting targets so she can rob them blind. Evil Sonic hears his own voice calling him names within the chamber, and is irritated to see his good twin step out from behind the Master Emerald. They begin to battle it out, with Sonic yanking his shoes off Evil Sonic's feet, leaving them both in their socks as they continue to punch each other. Locke, outside, suddenly senses a danger to the emerald and quickly leaves Rouge behind, recognizing now that she was merely a diversion. He enters the chamber to see the two Sonics wrestling on the floor, and deducing which one is the evil one due to him using a rock as a weapon, smacks him clean out of the chamber, leaving a bruised but happy Sonic safe on the floor. Outside, Rouge approaches the winded Evil Sonic, and makes a weird comment about how he only failed because he's a male, because grand theft emerald should only be committed by women, I guess? That's… less in character for her. She walks away, resigned to giving it up here and going somewhere else to acquire the shinies she wants, but Evil Sonic isn't done trying to win her affections yet.

Remember, she still thinks she's hanging out with the real Sonic. Why she hasn't questioned yet why Sonic the hero would want to help her steal his good friend's home's most important possession is beyond me. But either way, the real Sonic is dropped off in Knothole by Locke, where he immediately is set upon by Amy, whom he can't figure out why she's flirting so hard with him. He manages to get her dropped off at home without being smothered, only to be approached by Bunnie, looking for a round two of last night… Good luck dealing with the mess your doppelganger left you, Sonic ol' boy!

Stargazing

Writer/Pencils: Tania Del Rio Colors: Jason Jensen

We've finally made it! This is one of my favorite stories in the entire preboot despite its short length, and it's incredibly important to the future of a specific character. Sally awakens one night when she hears Nicole beeping on a table across the room. She looks over and briefly sees a shadowy figure next to the table, but when she rubs her eyes the shadow is no longer there. Wondering if she was dreaming, she gets up to ask Nicole if she saw anything, and thinks Nicole must be in sleep mode when she gets no response. She's about to go to bed when she notices her bedroom door cracked and becomes suspicious. Soon, she's dressed and outside under the moonlight, looking for whoever the intruder might have been. She spots a figure near a pond in the distance, and heads toward it, finding it to be a pretty but unfamiliar lynx in a dress, letting the wind blow through her hair.

That's right - Nicole's designed a physical form for herself! She sits by the pond and plays with the water, and explains that ever since she and Sally briefly switched bodies she's become fascinated with the idea of having a physical body, and worked on making one for herself using some kind of hard light hologram program. She's realized that though she's a genius in her own right, as an AI, she's never been able to feel the air or touch water, and wants to be able to do that, envying the abilities of living beings. Sally is delighted, and asks Nicole to stay like this permanently, telling her she can become a Freedom Fighter alongside the rest of the team, but Nicole explains that this program drains her energy very quickly and she's already becoming tired. Her files aren't secure in this form, since she's projecting a part of herself outward, so she chose tonight to test it out since all the Freedom Fighters are in Knothole and there's less of a chance of attack.

With that, Nicole's physical form fades away, but Sally doesn't go back to bed. Instead she stays lying on the grass for a while, watching the stars on her own, and as tears form in her eyes she begins to realize that in a way, she and Nicole are more alike than she'd realized - she'd also never properly taken the time to simply admire the stars above her. Not only do I love this story because it's the introduction of Nicole's physical form, but this seems to be the beginning of Sally's healing from her trauma. She's spent her whole life fighting, and been so caught up in all of it that she's never really had the chance to simply slow down and enjoy life, admire the beauty of nature around her. I think she's beginning to realize here that she can't continue on the way she has been, and has to stop and figure herself out first before she can continue on fighting.

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #sth 151 #writer: ken penders #writer: tania del rio #pencils: art mawhinney #pencils: tania del rio #colors: joshua d ray #colors: aimee r ray #colors: jason jensen

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perfectirishgifts · 3 years

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Huawei Just Gave You A Stunning New Reason To Switch Phones

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/huawei-just-gave-you-a-stunning-new-reason-to-switch-phones/

Huawei Just Gave You A Stunning New Reason To Switch Phones

Huawei has been keeping its head down through the furore of the U.S. election. Speculation as to how the tech giant’s punishment at the hands of Trump might change under Biden remains just that—speculation. The last thing it needed were stunning new headlines linking the company to China’s surveillance state, and so this week’s Washington Post story outing its deployment of facial recognition to “recognize Uighur minorities” was devastating.

The new report, which has “sparked concerns that the software could help fuel China’s crackdown on the mostly Muslim minority group,” risks being especially damaging to Huawei’s consumer business. Huawei, for a time the world’s largest smartphone maker this year, still outsells Apple despite crushing U.S. sanctions. Absent those restrictions, it would have taken Samsung’s crown for global sales on more than a temporary basis by now.

Huawei claims 600 million smartphone users—even with most of those in China and international users churning to other brands, it has likely retained between 100 and 200 million across key export markets. In reality, very few of those users have switched from Huawei because of U.S. allegations of Chinese state influence and control, although millions have already switched because of the loss of Google.

Huawei is countering with alternatives to full-fat Android and Google’s apps and services, with some 400 million monthly users across 170 countries for at least some of those services already secured. But where those users are outside China, the risk for Huawei is that they are more likely to be swayed by accusations of racial surveillance and alerts than 5G network cybersecurity warnings.

MORE FROM FORBESBeyond 5G: Huawei’s Links To Xinjiang And China’s Surveillance StateBy Zak Doffman

All that said, there are no real surprises in this new report. We know Huawei technology has been deployed by the authorities in China’s Xinjiang region, part of the surveillance machine used to subjugate its Muslim population under the pretence of counterterrorism. I first reported on Huawei’s links to Xinjiang back in April 2019, covering various agreements signed with Xinjiang’s authorities in 2018. Then last year, I reported on the release of the “China Cables” and claims by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute that “Huawei’s work in Xinjiang is extensive and includes working directly with the Chinese Government’s public security bureaus in the region.”

This latest Washington Post story, based on a document unearthed by researchers at IPVM, is more of the same, showing that in 2018 Huawei worked with Megvii “to test an AI camera system that could scan faces in a crowd and estimate each person’s age, sex and ethnicity.” Clearly surveillance is surveillance, but the emotive use of AI-based facial recognition to detect ethnicity will raise bigger concerns, albeit we have seen stories on such technologies in Xinjiang before. If this particular system “detected the face of a member of the mostly Muslim minority group, the test report said, it could trigger a ‘Uighur alarm’.”

Last year, Huawei told me that the company “reaffirms that its technology—which is general purpose and based on global standards, complies with all applicable laws where it is sold. Huawei does not operate safe city networks on behalf of any customers.” As I pointed out at the time, adhering to the applicable laws in Xinjiang is an embarrassingly empty defense.

This time around, a Huawei spokesperson told the Post that this “is simply a test and it has not seen real-world application. Huawei only supplies general-purpose products for this kind of testing. We do not provide custom algorithms or applications.” Huawei has since said that “we take the allegations in the Washington Post’s article very seriously and are investigating the issues raised within.” For its part, Megvii says that “the company’s systems are not designed to target or label ethnic groups.”

No surprises either in the use of facial recognition type technologies for this kind of dystopian purpose—we’ve seen those stories before as well. China is an unchecked surveillance laboratory for its technology players—be they global leaders in the supply of security cameras or the AI unicorns that have been fuelled by billions from China and western fund managers, keen to tap into the fast growth that China’s closed market and untampered enthusiasm for monitoring and control brings.

MORE FROM FORBESChina Is Using Facial Recognition To Track Ethnic Minorities, Even In BeijingBy Zak Doffman

The irony with Huawei and Xinyang, is that its involvement figured surprisingly late in U.S. claims against the company. Even as other Chinese tech companies were being sanctioned for their own involvement in surveillance schemes targeting Uighurs, allegations against Huawei stuck to cybersecurity risks and alleged state control. Little had been written about its surveillance work. That has now changed, and, unlike the cybersecurity accusations, it is much, much harder to defend and deny.

But there’s a critical angle to this story that passes by unnoticed. Huawei doesn’t want to be peddling its technology to the authorities in Xinjiang. There’s very little money in it—unlike for China’s leading surveillance equipment manufacturers, certainly not enough to justify the dire publicity when news of its involvement leaks out. Consumer products drive Huawei’s growth and profitability, followed by 5G equipment. Huawei’s international business hangs in the balance—5G contracts under threat, U.S. sanctions cutting supply chains for phones and 5G equipment, its CFO still facing the threat of extradition to the U.S. The company doesn’t need any more stresses on its profit centers from these modestly-sized surveillance programs.

Huawei’s obvious move is to back away from Xinjiang, to withdraw its technologies from sale in the region, whether directly or through partners. But it cannot. For China’s best known tech giant to publicly distance itself from Xinjiang would contradict all Beijing’s claims about its security in the region. The government would likely be furious, and Huawei cannot run that risk, certainly not while it is heavily reliant on the support of the state in its political battles with the U.S. and the safe revenues from China’s 5G and other smart city investments.

And so, Huawei’s PR team needs to absorb another Xinjiang story that plays horribly in the West, risking a consumer backlash from all those smartphone users already reeling from the loss of Google and the potential lack of future flagships sporting the latest chipsets. Buying a phone from a company the Trump administration has gone into battle against is one thing, but where there are allegations of involvement in surveillance programs condemned on human rights grounds, that’s very different.

This story encapsulates the issues with China’s technologies and huge investments in its AI machine that will persist beyond the very public wrangling with the Trump administration. The threat to Huawei is that in Europe and elsewhere, critics are shifting from unprovable cyber allegations to this more emotive surveillance landscape, where it is harder for governments to defend their use of Huawei tech.

All of which goes to the potential damage this new report can create, which will play in the media to the very consumers Huawei needs to retain. When Barcelona soccer star Antoine Griezmann cuts his Huawei sponsorship “over Uighur Muslim identification reports,” you clearly have a spiralling problem. The argument for those millions of Huawei smartphone users to switch phones is as stark as it is simple. If the West doesn’t send a message to Chinese technology companies around participation in the more offensive elements of the country’s surveillance state, that’s a huge missed opportunity to try to effect change.

For its part, Huawei remains caught in a trap. It can’t turn its back on Beijing and exit Xinjiang, but nor can it ignore the emotive response elsewhere. The irony, though, is that the more U.S. sanctions bite, the more Huawei needs China’s support and the less likely it is to do the right thing in Xinjiang and risk provoking Beijing’s ire. In the wake of the U.S. blacklist, government and consumer sales in China have sustained Huawei as its export business has declined. So, don’t expect to see any changes anytime soon.

—

Disclosure: My company Digital Barriers develops AI-based analytics and surveillance technologies, including facial recognition. This technology is not sold in China, but the company does compete from time to time with China’s surveillance companies in other countries around the world.

From Cybersecurity in Perfectirishgifts

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