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#namely like... my value? like people only value fanart and it took me so long to get *out* of that mindset

knightotoc · 1 year

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I just read This is How You Lose the Time War (with no idea what it was about, just because I saw a tweet recommending it), and once I realized it was a time travel romance I of course kept comparing it to The End of Eternity. This is an unhelpful comparison since they are so different, and I worry that this train of thought took me out of the story when I should have been appreciating it for what it was. Nevertheless that's what I did, and here's what I thought (mild spoiler alert + criticisms):

In general, Time War has a more convincing romance, and Eternity has more compelling world-building.

I didn't like Time War in the beginning, but I was crying and having a great time by the end. You're thrown into the middle of very alienating setting, and personally I had a hard time getting invested until I had a better idea of what was happening. Ironically, the characters care less and less about what is happening once they start to value the romance more than their jobs. So the characters and I were kind of criss-crossing each other.

I think the biggest difference from Eternity, and something I struggled with as a reader, is that Red and Blue are immortal and live many lives, and therefore do not really care about any of them. It makes sense that an immortal person would only find other immortal people interesting, and once they get bored enough, they'd only find their immortal enemies interesting. But it still makes me upset how callous these immortal women are with human lives. Even the Greek gods gave some fucks about us. Red and Blue seem to love plants more than humans, and violence more than plants... I don't get it. In Eternity, Andrew and the other Eternals' feelings about the rest of humanity are important to the story.

The two stories' gender dynamics are about as different as it's possible to be, and they are both frustrating in opposite ways. Eternity is all about a misogynist in a boys' club; most of the characters are men, and the only female character is objectified and treated badly until the end, when it all gets flipped on its head. The misogyny sucks, but it has a purpose, and the characters do literally overthrow the patriarchy. Time War is about two shapeshifting (?) women who fall in love, even though they are secret agents on opposite sides of a war. Both of their warleaders are also women, and as far as I can tell, they both live in all-women (?) futuristic societies, unlike anything we know now. So obviously Time War has a more progressive gender dynamic as its focus, but the genders do not technically matter to the story as they do in Eternity, and they also don't reflect reality. So basically I'm unhappy with both of them, lol

I'm wondering if I missed something, because if you look up fanart for this book, multiple people have drawn Red as a short-haired white lady and Blue as a long-haired Black lady. First of all, I didn't think they were literally red and blue; I thought those were just their secret code names, and they would if anything avoid those colors to conceal their identities. Second, I thought they were shape-shifters, though I'm not sure how the reincarnation system works. My best guess is that Blue's people are plantlike space aliens who possess different humans' bodies, and Red's people are cyborgs who evolved past humanity, and both peoples have a transhuman way to quickly hop between timelines. BUT, I am not at all confident in this.

#asimov blogging #scifi #the end of eternity #this is how you lose the time war #nervous to tag a book from 2019 ... meanwhile end of eternity is 68 years old lolllll

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an-agender-disaster · 2 years

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My Past, Present, And (Probably) Future Feelings on the Sanders Sides Series

Anybody active in the Sanders Sides tag likely will not know me. I was a little-known fanfiction writer and fan artist for the fandom from 2018-2020, reaching my peak before Remus ever even was introduced two years ago. My peak was not high, I think being an ~2000 note fanfic posted here. This never bothered me. I was writing for myself, at the end of the day. But this is not what I am here to discuss.

I want to talk about how I fell in love with this show. I want to talk about my genuine hyperfixation on the series. I want to talk about my earliest concerns over the actions of Thomas and his team. I want to talk about my current feelings about the series. I want to talk about how this fandom is dying, and how that is nobody’s fault but those producing the content.

A friend introduced me to Sanders Sides just as season one finished. I had plenty of content to binge and loved watching it. I was young but had been in fandom spaces before this (namely Undertale) and understood that I was falling and falling hard. At this point of me being in fandom, I knew what fanfiction sites I liked the most, the type of content I enjoyed reading, and the length that worked best for me. I was an avid reader. I tore through the tag quickly, my favorite character, of course, being Virgil. He was the character with the most development in season one. I like deeper characters. It was bound to be that way.

I remained in the fandom. I grew to appreciate the fanart, something I hadn’t done for my previous fandoms. It was not the first time I drew fanart, but the first time I seriously looked at it. Appreciated it. I grew to pace myself with the writing, learning to love the deeper plots that people put into their stories rather than just the characterization. It was not the first time I wrote fanfiction, but the first time I analyzed it. Appreciated it.

Had it not been for this fandom, this wonderful fandom that the series encouraged to flourish, I would not be the creator of art, stories, content, that I am today. This fandom made me want to grow, and encouraged a young, preteen me to do so. And for that I will forever be thankful. But this is not a goodbye letter, and I doubt I will say goodbye even after this, as this is something that can only be left to slowly drain, a friend from middle school that I pass on the street. I look at them, pray they do not see me, and keep walking, remembering the old days, good and bad.

In the years between this and what I am about to bring up my favorite character shifted only once, to Logan, who it is still stuck on today. I go to a school filled with gifted kids. Exclusively for gifted kids. This is not a good thing, obviously, and I do not say it to brag. I say it to explain this shift, and that is all.

I grew in my craft, writing and drawing for the fandom, not gaining too much popularity, but not caring enough to want it. I made friends. I got incest shippers mad (I hope they stay mad). I saw the fandom expand and mature.

But things took a turn, even before I felt it.

Episode length expanded. Production value went up. Time between episodes stretched. I entered the fandom after season one ended. I never saw those days where a month was a long wait for a new episode, and I never cared to dig past mutuals joking about it offhandedly. I stayed happy with what I received. I was still in love, to the point that I can remember exactly what I was doing as Selfishness vs. Selflessness came out (I woke up and was getting ready for school. It was too long for me to finish before I got there. I was buzzing all day, wanting to turn off the world and watch.) and, for all intents and purposes, I would say I was satisfied with the fandom.

As I am writing this, I have Thomas Sander’s Youtube channel pulled up in a different tab. I want to know my timeline properly. Accuracy is something I have always had a fondness for in my writing. Continuity is important to me. The video I am about to talk about is not on that channel, something I feel silly for not realizing before now.

“You All Ruined A Bunch of Fairy Tales - Storytime Madlibs”

This, to me, is not the beginning of Icarus’s fall, but when Daedalus first took notice.

Many fan-artist, about half renowned in the fandom for their content outside of this video, took to the call of Thomas and his team. They needed animators. They needed animators willing to work, but they could not pay them much. Amateurs in their field, they accepted ludicrously low prices, mere cents, for seconds of smooth animation. They all finished in a timely manner. They all should have been paid.

They were not.

These people were all in contact with Quill, one of the members of Thomas’s team, which had been rapidly expanding over the past few years. A team expanding to streamline the creative process and get out content faster. We will discuss this later. For now, we will remind ourselves on how most of these artists never got paid in full or at all. These artists never got an apology. These artists, in droves, spoke out against Thomas and his team and how they were mistreated.

I fear that the fandom, as a whole, did not listen to this, myself included. Sure, we can all scroll back on my dash. We can find me speaking about how I, too, was upset on their behalf. I did nothing to truly speak out for them, though, but I saw a curtain of stan culture, blocking so many eyes from what Thomas and his team had done.

I felt upset, looking over to the other side. The people that had some notoriety were upset too, far more then me.

(Writing, I feel like I come across as a false narrator. Maybe I was not, am still not, happy over my lack of attention in the fandom. Maybe I craved, still crave attention. Maybe that is why I am at my computer, writing this at 2:13 AM. I am open to this. I understand this, if I always wanted to have that attention. It’s selfish, but humanly so. As a note to myself, I will address this at a later time, at a later date, in a later post, perhaps.)

I do not think of falling out of hyperfixations as a quick thing. Sure, it sneaks up on you, but it is not swift. It is deliberate. I only first took notice to it when Selfishness vs. Selflessness Redux was released. I did not respond by buzzing through the day, waiting to watch it as I did for Selfishness vs. Selflessness. I did not stay up at night, watching and rewatching four times until 5:00 AM as I did for Embarrassing Phases. I saw the notification on my phone. I paused, and clicked onto a different video, before thinking to myself “That’s not how you should respond. You should be happy. It’s here, finally.” And so I watched it while doing dishes, not even watching the screen. I went back and rewatched it once to see it with visuals. I have not watched it again to this day.

I have now closed my tab to his Youtube channel. I do not need it. There is only one video left. But first, Thomas’s Patreon.

Before it, he had a Youtube membership, giving his fans monthly livestreams and scripts after each video. I think it was for five dollars, but I am not sure. He currently has a Patreon. The max donation is one hundred twenty-five dollars per month. With this, you receive access the “Writers Room.” Fans, now, could contribute to the scripts of these episodes. To streamline the process. To make the content come out faster.

The Sanders Asides episode that came out seven months ago, “Working Through Intrusive Thoughts,” was written almost entirely by this group of Patrons.

I can say nothing of this episode other then I was done. Sadly, most of my love was gone. I watched this episode. It had my favorite character interacting with the center on my first ever Sanders Sides fanfiction main character. These are characters I had been looking at the personalities of not from a fandom perspective, but from what the show had given us.

And I saw how they had changed.

Even Remus, which I though was strange. This was his third episode being involved at all. But he still felt wrong.

One thing I did not mention prior to now is how Thomas Sanders and his team do not interact with the fanfiction side of the fandom almost at all. They have said they do not want it to tamper with or influence their own writing. Then why, please, please, tell me, did they open the fandom to write the script, any part of the script?

Thomas, as a character of course, felt like nothing but the straight man in this episode, somebody who contributed nothing even when he is everyone and he needs to contribute the most, needs to be the uniter of the sides and the one who does the resolution in the end, drives them toward the solutions as we have seen before. Remus felt like nothing but a horny man. Nothing more to be said. Logan, a character who my heart knows, who is inseparable, still, from my own mind, felt like nothing. I watched this episode, waiting to see what we know of him, his unwillingness to participate in silly solutions, his knowledge that can only expand as far as Thomas’s, and his care that he hides behind stoicism, and I saw nothing there. Nothing.

Maybe I’m being cynical. Maybe I care too much because I like his character. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s too convoluted. I don’t know. I can’t know. It;s the past now.

Presently, I have seen a lot of people share my thoughts. I like knowing that I am not alone. It feels, again, like the few weeks, just over a year ago, when that Madlibs video released. This time, I want to stand with those creators, I need to. I need to talk about my own thoughts. And I have been. That is what I am doing now, too, obviously.

But what of the future?

I learned a fun fact today. The season two finale, something that has been in the wings, waiting, for the five years that this season has stretched on, will be split into four parts. Grab a cup of tea, coffee, soda, water, anything, and sip it slowly. Reread that sentence. A five-year season ending in four parts. The last Sanders Sides episode, of course not counting the Asides, was two years ago. We have had no updates of their progress.

We are on a raft in the sea.

This raft has the basics of survival, canned food, purified water, a few dry blankets. We are, for now safe. We have ways for sustaining ourselves for a limited time.

Above us, beside us now, I suppose, Icarus has crashed into the waves. Much of our food, water, and blankets have fallen with the churn of the sea, sinking out of reach. We have far, far less now. We can try to stay afloat or, like those from a year past, abandon this. We do not know their fates, what came after they entered the waves. That is for them. It could be for us. And hope is dwindling. This community is hungry. Is thirsty. Is cold.

Is so, so tired.

I am so tired.

#thomas sanders #tss #sanders sides #tssides #ts sides #ts criticism

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misscricket · 3 years

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Canders

Oh @stark-illerbase, let me take you on a journey...

Anders and Carver don’t like each other in Act 1 of Dragon Age II. That’s putting it mildly. Carver is a young man probably suffering from PTSD, grieving over his twin sister and struggling with the new life his brother and mother are pursuing. He strongly identifies as a Fereldan, hence the tattoo he got at Ostagar being a mabari, and he sees his mother trying to recapture the Amell name and legacy as almost a rejection of the Hawke lifestyle back in Lothering. As to the PTSD, not only did he see his beloved Twin sister get crushed by an Ogre right in front of his eyes, he was also at the Battle of Ostagar. He had to be dragged away from the battle by his fellow soldiers and told to run for it, or else he would have stayed, and fought and died right there, so determined was he to protect his country and family.

“ Said he wanted to protect his family. That someone had to, because his father had died and, well you know how the Champion turned out. Carver took it real serious...” (World of Thedas Vol 2)

Along with a love of using a sword, this was Carver’s motivation for signing up with the army, the Blight was threatening his home, and his family, and he saw it as his duty to protect them.

“The more ground we lost, the harder he swung that plank of a sword of his. He was shouting that we had to win, that it was to keep our homes safe. I swear he was crying when we finally tackled him, but damned if I’ll hold that against him. It took three of us to drag him to cover. I had to slap him back to his senses, to make him see that killing five, or ten, more ‘spawn wouldn’t matter. The wall was on us, and dying there wasn’t going to help anyone. I said if he wanted to do his family good, he’d get them safe. “ (World of Thedas Vol 2)

So he’s a bit of a prickleberry.

And then in comes Anders. Instantly he’s hyper focused on Carver’s brother, because Carver’s brother is a Mage. And Maker have mercy Carver has been hearing about the Mage plight for years. His whole bloody life actually.

He acutely understands the realities of living with an Apostate mage family, from the perspective of someone inside the family unit who doesn’t have magic himself. He couldn’t be too good at anything, or excel, because it drew attention. He wasn’t a Mage himself, but he too lived as an Apostate, in fear of drawing the Templars gaze.

And then Anders says,

Anders: I'm sorry about your sister. She sounds like a special girl.

Carver: Why? Because she was a mage?

Anders: (If Hawke is male) Your brother says she had a good heart. Being on the run never made her bitter. (If Hawke is female) Your other sister says she was a good person. That she never turned down a chance to help people.

Carver: Yes, yes. I'm sure the Chantry's got a shrine with her portrait on it.

Anders: I was trying to be nice.

Carver: Stick to surly. It works for you

And then this one

Anders: You don't like me, Carver?

Carver: I don't like you.

Anders: That's unfortunate. Hating someone just because they're a mage is a shameful thing.

Carver: I don't hate you because you're a mage. I hate you because you won't shut up about it.

Carver: Oppression this, templars that. I'd heard enough long before you.

Anders: Maybe it's time you put some thought into it.

To Anders, Carver looks like the sullen, angry, bitter brother of two Mages, resentful of their powers or perhaps, even, hating them because of them.

This isn’t the case. Carver bitches and moans about his siblings, but most of his gripes are familiar to anyone who has an older or over achieving sibling.

When there is a legitimate threat, Carver immediately steps between Hawke and danger. When Fenris snarls about Mages, Carver, unprompted, says.

Carver: You have a problem with my brother/sister, you have a problem with me.

It’s instantly protective, and it’s far from the only incident in the game. He continually worries whenever Hawke talks to Templars, or stirs up Mage trouble, not because he hates Mages but because he’s worried for Hawke.

Anders however can no longer seem to see greys, it’s all black and white for him. Either you’re for Mages and then you want wholescale freedom and down the Templar order, or you’re a Mage hater, and as good as a Templar.

Carver’s stance on Magic is actually one of the most subtle and nuanced in the game, if not the whole series. He understands the dangers on a level most people, who haven’t lived with unfettered magic, can’t understand. But he also understands the joys and love of those with magic, and doesn’t believe locking them up in the Circle to be the right thing, despite his potential choice to be a Templar.

So Carver and Anders...

Enemies to Lovers

The fit this trope beautifully. Even in Act 1 with surly Carver and judgy Anders. But throw in Carver either being a Templar, the thing Anders hates most in the world, or him being a Grey Warden, the organisation Anders rejected. Oh the potential for angry arguments and heated kisses.

They are not so ideologically opposed that I think they couldn’t understand each other I think, and I think if they actually hashed it out together they’d actually find a lot of common ground. It’s just whether they could get there without the prickles throwing them off course is the question...and no Carver isn’t the only prickly one.

Templar Carver

Carver joins the Templar order for two reasons.

1. His brother/sister hasn’t returned from the Deep Roads with the rest of the expedition. Bartrand has likely told him they’re all dead. That leaves him and his mother alone in the world, and Carver can’t get work. The Guards won’t have him because Aveline told them not to, and the other options are mercenary jobs or the Templars. He no longer has any mage siblings to worry about being caught, and he doesn’t have to disclose that he had Mages in his family if he doesn’t want to.

2. His namesake was a Templar. I think giving him his piece of his identity makes Carver interested in the order in a different way. Up until then they’ve kind of been the boogeymen of the Hawke children’s lives. ‘Be good or a Templar will get you’. But his father named him after a Templar, ‘skill thoughtfully applied’. There was some value to that path. And you can’t tell me that Carver wasn’t, in many ways, his family’s personal Templar. If Bethany or Hawke had fallen...would another Mage have been able to stand against them? They would have needed a swordsman. Carver.

Anders thinks Carver has joined the Templars out of spite, or hatred. But there is a wonderful array of fiction you can have with Anders and the Order and the fact they are continually trying to hunt Anders down. Carver wouldn’t stand for it, if one of his brothers companions was threatened, and he certainly wouldn’t want him to be hurt, killed or made Tranquil, which would have been his fate should Meredith have gotten her hands on him.

Grey Warden Carver

As for the Grey!Warden path, Carver thrives as a Warden, he blossoms under that structure and purpose where Anders did not. But they have the connection of Anders having been the one to beg Stroud to take him, to put him through the Joining.

We also know that Carver knows Nathaniel, who was friends with Anders during Awakening. This likely means he knows a number of the Ferelden Wardens, and you can’t tell me they wouldn’t be curious about Anders.

Alternate Universes ideas I have toyed with writing

Tevinter - Mage Healer who refuses to use Blood Magic and the son of a powerful Mage house who doesn’t have magic himself.

Special Agents AU - Agent Hawke and Anders have a turbulent relationship because the boy always comes back hurt.

Coffee Shop AU - Anders is an overworked and exhausted Doctor. Carver is his caffeine supplier.

Werewolf AU - Alpha Carver learns that being dominant doesn’t always mean barking orders, and Omega Anders learns that brooding wolves are definitely better lovers.

Mirror Universe - What it says on the box...darkfic.

Angel AU - Carver is Anders’ guardian Angel, and he grumbles about it a lot. He also keeps losing his feathers everytime he swears, and it makes Anders laugh at him.

and many many more.

To close out this rambling dissertation on the beauty that is Canders (praise be)

Enjoy this lovely fanart drawn by the talented @frikadeller in a commission for @autumnyte-old

Case closed!

#Carver Hawke #Anders #Dragon Age #Canders #Rambling Ramble

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sourcherrybomb · 3 years

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The SoKai Denny’s AU:

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Grand Slam

Synopsis: After a long and arduous day at work, Sora brings Kairi to the local Denny's to unwind and have a pleasant meal. But of course, things go to shit.

Sneak Peek: “Kairi… You’re not thinking straight…” I said as I slowly raised my hands towards my girlfriend. “Please, I just want to talk. Just put down the-”

But my words landed on deaf ears as she quickly rushed at me, a syrup-drenched butter knife in hand.

Tags: Romance, Denny's, F/M, Food

Words: 2.5k+

Fanart / Graphic by: @blissfulnightrain @the-secret-place

[OCTOBER 31, 2020 - 9:09PM]

Please just give us the details on the incident right before we arrived.

“Kairi… You’re not thinking straight…” I said as I slowly raised my hands towards my girlfriend. “Please, I just want to talk. Just put down the-”

But my words landed on deaf ears as she quickly rushed at me, a syrup-drenched butter knife in hand. Before I could even process which way she swung her weapon, I jumped backwards. Grabbing the butter knife that Kairi had previously knocked out of my hand from the ground, I blocked her attack.

In Kairi’s eyes, I saw the rage of a thousand beasts. Wild, untamed, and out for blood.

Around the two of us, as the cool autumn winds blew past us, an onlooking crowd gasped. Whether it be in fear or amazement, I’ll never know. However, what I did understand is the confusion that they all share and the one question everyone asked:

Why the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks are these two people having a knife fight in a Denny’s parking lot?

[OCTOBER 31, 2020 - 6:27PM]

Care to explain to details as to how she broke into this rage?

Of course.

Kairi headed out to her job at the cafe hours ago, being called into work due to the Halloween rush. She was hesitant at first since it was her day off, but she reluctantly left anyways because she knew the extra pay would help out with rent later in the month.

As for me, I didn’t have work today, so I was home for most of the day doing my usual routine. This is usually made up of playing video games, doing housework, and bothering my friend, Riku. But today I had decided to surprise Kairi by cooking dinner for her when she got home!

Great plan, yeah? I thought so too, right up until I realized I had ruined the spaghetti I made by burning the sauce... and somehow also the pasta? Like I didn’t even know that was possible, but somehow I did it?

I swear, the smell was bad enough to make a rat gag.

By the time I realized I had messed up, I knew it’d be too late. In the middle of my mad scramble to clean up the kitchen and get rid of any evidence, Kairi walked into our apartment.

Now I may be an idiot, but I’m not stupid. I took one look at Kairi and could tell that she was not having any of it. Her work uniform was disheveled and covered in various stains and crumbs. Kairi’s thumbs were fidgeting with the hem of her work shirt. When I looked into her tired, glazed over eyes, I saw a seething flame within them.

It was like a ticking time bomb in the shape of my girlfriend.

“Sora…” Kairi said tiredly. “Were you trying to cook? Again?”

I laughed nervously, shamefully resting a sauce pan into the sink. “I knew you’d be tired from work, so I wanted to make sure you could at least eat something when you got home!” I dried my hands and signaled Kairi towards me. Following suit, she practically kicked the shoes off her feet as she walked towards me.

“Dude, I love you,” she said this as she slumped into my arms. “But please stop burning things in our kitchen.”

“Sorry…” Slumping further into my arms, it was like she was melting. I had to sort of prop her against our kitchen counter in order for me to keep on carrying her. “Listen, let me at least make it up to you.”

“How?” Kairi looked up at me, the fire in her tired eyes dying down a bit.

“I was thinking of bringing you out somewhere to eat while we let the apartment air out…”

“It does smell like a burnt down Pizza Hut in here.” Kairi sighs as she traded her flats for sneakers. “Where were you thinking of taking us?”

I opened up my phone and pulled up my bank account.

Available Balance: $365.13

“Let’s just say I’m looking for a place that’s budget-friendly”

“Oh thank god,” Kairi said. “I can wear sweatpants and not give a crap.”

“Exactly!” I let go of Kairi and started to dump the burnt mass of pasta into our trash bin. “You take a load off and dress into more comfy clothes while I get rid of… this.”

[OCTOBER 31, 2020 - 7:16PM]

You know, bad days at work don’t usually cause people to attempt a stabbing.

Trust me… If it was just the bad shift, I’d agree.

Normally when I bring my girlfriend to the local Denny’s, it’s surprisingly not a bad time. Our friend Olette works as the hostess there, so we can usually get our seats pretty quickly. I usually get a Grand Slam to get my fix on pancakes, eggs, bacon, and sausage. It’s a combo that always hits the spot when it’s 3AM, I’m hyper-aware of the world around me, and Riku is trying to find someone to take home on Sparklr. Kairi usually gets a Hammy & Cheese Omelette, mainly because she prefers the pancakes at IHOP. I always like to joke about giving her a Grand Slam once we get home.

Tonight was not the night to make those kinds of jokes. It was like the gods themselves had it out for my girl tonight.

7:45PM: Kairi and I arrived at Denny's and were told that Olette took the night off due to a cold. We were told that the wait would be close to half an hour.

8:02PM: Kairi’s left earbud died as the toddler next to us started bawling as she sang the ‘Baby Shark’ song. Mother of the child in question was too busy flirting with a busboy 20 years her junior to quiet her child.

8:07PM: Kairi dropped 27,000 Jewels in JHUX gacha trying to get a SN++ Illus. JH III Zola. All the medals obtained were ones that had been out of the meta for months.

8:17PM: Kairi and I were finally seated. Our table had sticky spots from syrup and crumbs on the seats. We asked our waitress, Asheleigh, if someone could come clean this up. The two of us were met with an unenthusiastic “Uhhh, sure?” as she called over a clearly stoned janitor. He sprayed the table once, wiped it once, and knocked the crumbs off the seats. Asheleigh took our orders with a sigh.

When I looked over at Kairi, I could tell the last half hour had done a number to her. An hour ago her anger was already near its boiling point, but now… It was like the seething fire within her eyes had evolved into a star about to burst into a supernova.

A beautiful sight indeed, but also one of pure destruction on a cosmic level.

“So Kai…” I nervously said. “Looking forward to the weekend?”

Her hands folded on the table, Kairi’s dead but fiery eyes staring out the window.

“...yes.”

C’mon man, think! I thought to myself. Anything to take her mind off this fustercluck of a situation!

“So I don’t know if you heard about this at work, but looks like JH: Master of Melodies is gonna have a preorder bonus!”

Silence.

“Y-Yeah, turns out if we get it over at Game Central Station, you get a couple bonus songs that would have been DLC! Isn’t that great?”

“...preorder exclusivity bonuses force game developers to split content amongst greedy retailers, alienating groups of consumers from experiencing the game at its 100% value.” Kairi says in a deadpan.

Crap, she’s being critical about video games... I thought to myself. Now I know I’m never gonna get through to her… Why can’t this food come any—

“Soooo I have your food.” Our waitress said, as she hastily put our plates on the table. “A Grand Slam for the spiky haired dude and a Hammy & Whatsits Omelette for his lady. Enjoy, or whatever.”

“Thank you…” I awkwardly said as I thanked whatever deity heard my prayers. “Well Kai, time to dig in!”

Silently, Kairi cut into her omelette and brought a piece over to her mouth. As if it were on cue, the food fell from the fork and onto her pants. She nonchalantly picked it off her pants and shoved it into her mouth, the look in her eyes somehow becoming even more dead.

I let out a deep exhale and started to stuff my pancakes in my face. I didn’t even notice that I held my breath in. I was honestly just quite relieved that Kairi didn’t explode then and there. We could finally just sit down, eat our food, and take a load off.

[OCTOBER 31, 2020 - 9:01PM]

Man, she really went through the ringer.

Honestly, I’m surprised she didn’t go feral sooner.

Luckily for the both of us, the incident with the fallen food was the only thing that got in the way of our meal. I was able to finish my Grand Slam and Kairi was able to scarf down her Hammy and Cheese Omelette. Looking at her face, I saw that some of the restrained rage in her eyes had been replaced with a much more tired aura.

“Hey Kai…” I softly put my hand on hers. “How ya doing?”

Sighing, she gently put my hand to her cheek. “I… I just want to get home, lie down, and forget today happened.”

After giving her a small peck on the cheek, I smiled. “That can be arranged! Now c’mon, let’s just hand this bill over and head out of here.”

But things are never simple as they seem to be.

Just as Kairi and I got out of our chairs, an ear-piercing “Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo,” came rushing down the aisle. Out of nowhere, Baby Shark Toddler bumped into Kairi, spilling the milkshake in her tiny hands all over Kairi’s legs.

“Oh sonova- Hey you!” Just steps away from the child, her mother called to us. She talked and walked with the cadence of a woman ready to chew out a teen part-timer at their first job. “Just what do you think you’re going to do about this?”

“Excuse me?” I asked in obvious confusion. “I’m pretty sure your daughter was the one who bumped into my-”

“Wasn’t talking to you, Spiky!” she snapped. “Listen up, Red, I want some recompense for my kid’s spilled drink! You think that cheap manager is gonna give me another one for free?”

“Hey now, names are uncalled for!” I retorted. “And not like it’s our fault your daughter ran into my- Kairi?”

A quiet but powerful groan escaped Kairi’s mouth, cutting me off. Her formerly clenched hands had started to crookedly flex open and contort. The tiredness in her eyes died away, being left with the energy of the ticking time bomb.

One that was seconds away from levelling a building.

“A…pologize,” Kairi said in a shaky voice. “Riiiiight. Now.”

“Apologize?” The woman mockingly laughed in her face. “Why woul-”

Before I or any of the onlookers realized, Kairi had the mother pinned down to the ground, a butter knife held to her throat. “APOLOGIZE! APOLOGIZE YOU-”

“KAIRI HOLY MOTHER OF-” As soon as my brain caught up with my eyes, I ripped Kairi off the mother and made space between them. When I turned around, I saw the woman crawling away in a frenzy, trying to escape like a dog walking with its tail between their legs.

“AaAAAaaaaaRrhrrhhgg…” A nearly inhuman growl came out of Kairi’s mouth, the grip on her butter knife tightening. When I looked into her eyes, I understood.

In removing the rude mother from the equation, I had become the focus of Kairi’s blinding rage.

“Kairi…” I slowly raised my hands towards her. “I know you’ve been through a lot today. The car is right outside. I can take you back right now, all you need to do is calm-”

“AAAAaAAaAAaaa!” Lunging at me like a mad dog, Kairi let out a guttural yell.

This is because I told her to calm down, isn’t it? I asked myself mid-dodge. Before a second thought could even pop into mind, Kairi spun into another attack from her lunge. I rolled backwards to dodge the attack, and picked up a butter knife off the table to defend myself with. After all, it was the best I could do right now. With how fast and unpredictably Kairi was moving, my only options were to dodge fast enough, or block if I was too slow.

It was like I was defending myself against a dancing blender with a knife.

Before I knew it, Kairi’s vicious attacks and my continuous defense brought us back to the entrance of the Denny’s.

And into the parking lot.

[OCTOBER 31, 2020 - 9:32PM]

“And right before your girlfriend was able to stab you with the butter knife, we arrived-”

“And tased her, yes.” I respond. “Officer Lockheart, I understand you were doing it for my safety, but I’m honestly still super concerned for Kairi.”

“And that is completely understandable,” she responds. “I can assure you that the officer that took her in exercised the most caution as effectively possible when using the taser.”

“Thank you. Is it possible to see her now?”

“The shock seemed to bring her back to her senses, so her questioning seemed to go by smoothly.” Officer Lockheart taps a pen on her chin. “I suppose it would be fine.”

After signalling one of the other officers to open the door, the two of us walked out of the interview room. Down the hall, I see Kairi wrapped in a blanket, drinking from a cup of coffee. As soon as she notices me, she puts down the mug and rushes into a hug.

“Sora, oh my god I’m so sorry!” Kairi says as she nuzzles into my chest. “I-I just really lost myself and-”

“It’s fine, it’s fine!” I chuckle. “Honestly you’d give Riku a run for his money in a sparring match if you fought against him one-on-one!”

“I’ll let you two comfort each other for a bit,” Officer Lockheart tells us. “For now just stay here, I’ll see what the higher ups have to say about the situation.”

“Thanks, ma’am!” Kairi says back. Smiling and nodding, Officer Lockheart walks away.

For a while, the two of us sort of just sit in quiet. People who enter the room pay us no attention, but occasionally an officer would come up to us and ask if we needed anything. Other than that, it was just the two of us enjoying each other’s comfort.

“God, I really needed this,” Kairi tells me.

“Cuddling in a police station?” I question. “Or getting arrested for attacking people in a Denny’s”

“Jerk.” Kairi giggles as she flicks my forehead. “Nah, I mean just this! Me and you wrapped in a blanket.”

“Honestly I wish we could have done it back at the apartment. Luckily, by the time we get out of here, it should stop smelling like a I blew up a pizzeria.”

“That would have been nice in the moment, but when we get home I think I’d want something else.”

“Oh? What would that be?”

“Weeelll…” Kairi checks her surroundings, then leans towards my ear. “You never did make that Grand Slam joke of yours back at the Denny’s. Does that mean I won’t get one once we get back home?”

The whisper of her voice is enough to send a shiver down my back. I look into her eyes and instead of the rage or tiredness I saw before, I saw something much more… Carnal.

I give Kairi a peck on the lips and flash a mischievous smile.

Destiny Island Denny’s, we might never be allowed on your establishment ever again, which I understand.

But thank you for possibly the best Grand Slam of my life.

#sokai #kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts fanfiction #fanfiction #sora #kairi #oneshot #f/m #romance #tw: food #sourcherrybomb #denny's

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psychovigilantewrites · 5 years

Text

Chapter 12- The Dark King

Word Count: 10, 700

Ao3

TW: Mentions of rape, abuse, violence

A/N: Thank you guys for your kind comments and support so far! I really love the enthusiasm and your responses!

I also wanted to share these amazing fanart!!

by @nessieusagi

by @milas-imaginarium

I think they’re so lovely and it makes me so happy seeing all of this!

Masterlist

Ko-Fi

The first thing you felt when you woke up the next morning was the burning soreness between your thighs.

You winced when you reached down to touch your tender folds. Your labia minora was slightly swollen, and you felt something sticky. You withdrew your hand to see dark red oxidized blood.

You got up from bed, flinching as you walked to your bathroom to wash up. After a quick shower, you head out but paused when you caught your own reflection in the mirror. There were bruises on your waist and your hips, a double crescent shaped marking around your left nipple- you hadn’t even realise he bit you there in the heat. Your eyes then darted towards your neck, taking in the dark spots that had formed on the surface of your skin.

“Fucking hell,” you muttered.

You were a fucking mess. Anyone who saw you would immediately know what you were up to the night before. Even washed and clean, you could make out your slightly swollen lips.

You reached for your makeup bag and started covering up the visible remains of the assault you welcomed- before pausing in realisation.

Mother was quiet. She hadn’t made a single comment about how dirty you were.

And you didn’t feel dirty either.

You saw your own lips quirk up in a smirk as you craned your head to expose your neck even more to dab on concealer. You had just finished getting dressed when you heard a knock on your door.

“ Hey, you up?” you heard Dick’s muffled voice from outside.

You didn’t bother to reply, but went to open the door for him.

You stared at him, as he stared at you.

“You look like shit,” you snickered, then stepped aside to allow him inside.

His eyes were red and puffy, with dark circles underneath them. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days and the fact that his complexion was gray and pale added on to the “looks like death” look.

“I feel like shit,” he groaned. You sat on the chair near your desk as he helped himself to your bed.

“Are you okay?” he frowned in concern.

“I’m fine. Why?”

“You’re walking funny,” he narrowed his eyes at you.

Shit.

You had tried to walk as normally as you could, but you were naive to think that you could have fooled Dick.

“Oh!” you feigned realisation, “My foot hurts a bit. I think I twisted it yesterday when I ran up the stairs.”

Fuck.

Another blunder.

It wasn’t a half truth, it was a straight up lie, and you knew how good Dick was at detecting lies. Judging from the tightening of his lips and the scrutinizing pause, he saw straight through you. You remained silent for a few moments. Then-

“So, Bruce told you, right?” Dick changed the subject, “How did you take it?”

You relaxed.

“I didn’t know him,” you reminded, “So it was more like a surprise to me, you know? I didn’t think it was possible. Then everything just made sense. Like, mind blowingly. The shit he said to me, the familiarity with the gadgets and my uniform, the kidnapping.”

“It killed him, you know?” Dick brought up, “Bruce, I mean. When he saw those bruises Red Hood- no, Jason- left on you. He probably didn’t show much, but Alfred called and told me how badly he took it.”

Suddenly, you were hyper aware of the hickies you currently had hidden on your neck, as if they were burning into your skin.

“Well, that was Todd’s plan, I suppose,” you shrugged. It still felt weird to talk about him in the context of the present.

“It worked,” Dick nodded, “Bruce was messed up. You’re his daughter after all.”

You didn’t know how to respond to his sad smile, so you changed the subject.

“So did you yell at him?” you smirked, “For keeping it a secret for so long?”

“Yell at him? I punched him,” he revealed.

“In the face?” you gasped.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he muttered, looking away.

“How long will you be staying?” you asked.

“I’m taking a week off work. If nothing by then, I’ll go back, but will continue to drop by as much as I can.”

“Anything last night?” you questioned.

“No,” he sighed, “We tried to look for people to interrogate, but it wasn’t our luck. We’ll try again. We’ve been checking out Bruce’s safehouses as well since he never removed Jason’s security clearance so he could be using one of them. So far nothing, though.”

You felt like a dark mass inside of you was eating you up, drowning you in guilt and shame.

While they were out desperately looking for Jason the night before, you knew exactly where he was and who he was doing.

“You’ll find him eventually,” you offered, “And when this stupid suspension is over, I’ll be there to help as well.”

“Yeah,” he hummed, “Jason… I want to help him. Save him. He’s angry, and you know what? I get it. I get why he’s pissed.”

So Dick got it?

He got that it was your fucking fault? That you were Jason’s replacement?

He got why Jason fucking hated you?

Dick must have noticed the change in your expression, because he quickly added, “I meant Bruce. How Bruce let Joker go.”

“Yeah, I got that,” you recovered, “It’s fine.”

“Sure, Bruce beat Joker up and all that, but I felt that Jason was always the type to think that the ends justify the means. He valued the intentions more than the action itself-”

“I said it’s fine, Dick,” you cut him off.

“And of course it does not in any way justify what he did to you-”

“Dick,” you grit, “It’s fine.”

He looked at you warily.

Or was it pity?

You didn’t need or want his fucking pity.

“Anyway,” he got up, “Breakfast?”

“Sure,” you followed suit, willing yourself to not grimace at the shooting pain between your thighs that you had forgotten about.

The two of you made your way downstairs to have breakfast in the dining room, table already set by Alfred.

“Bruce?” you asked Dick, wondering where your father was.

“He’s been in the cave the whole night,” Dick frowned as he took a seat across from you, “Hadn’t slept a wink.”

“I see,” you acknowledged, while you piled your plate with bacon and eggs.

“So,” Dick started with his mouth full, “Where did you go last night?”

“Did Alfred tell you I went out?” you narrowed your eyes.

“Mhmm.”

You immediately started to get more cautious.

“I went to see someone,” you casually told him, trying your best to lower your heartbeat.

“Oh, was it that guy you were seeing?”

“Yup.”

“You never told me his name.”

You swallowed.

“Carter.”

“Carter?” he snickered.

“What’s wrong with Carter?” you feigned a defensive stance.

“Nothing wrong,” he tried to stifle his laughter, “So is Carter the reason why you’re walking funny?”

You did not expect that.

You were going to gasp in shock, but you had food in your mouth, so you ended up choking on it and going into a coughing fit.

“Dick!” you hacked violently, eyes streaming with tears.

“What?” he guffawed, “Oh, God. Are you okay?”

“Why would you say that?” you reached for the glass of juice.

“I need to know whether I gotta have a stern talking with some guy,” he laughed, “It was an honest question! Come on, I’m your brother.”

“Even more reason not to discuss these things!” you grimaced.

“Hey, if you’re old enough to do it, you’re old enough to talk about it,” he said smugly.

“It’s none of your business,” you protested, blushing furiously.

But the universe was a bitch.

Against all your luck, your phone that you had set on the table dinged.

You looked at Dick, and he looked at you, mischief glinting in his eyes.

You had been Robin for a long time, and while your reflexes were good, it still wasn’t as good as Dick’s.

Before you could reach for your phone, Dick had lunged for it, snatching it away mere moments before you could react.

“Dick, give it back!” you panicked, jumping across the table to catch swipe it back, causing a commotion.

He stood up tall, keeping the phone out of your reach.

“Oooh, Sexy Hunk From Library, huh?” he read out the notification on your lock screen. You put in a mental reminder to change your settings later.

“Thought of my proposal?” he read out loud, skipping away from you.

Fuck.

If Jason sent anything else, he’d expose himself.

“Proposal?” Dick continued, “What proposal? Did he ask you to marry him?”

You could tackle him. You couldn’t beat Dick but you could perhaps make him drop your phone.

“Or,” he gasped, “Is he into BDSM? Fifty Shades of Grey stuff? He’s getting you to sign a contract, isn’t-”

“How about instead of distracting yourself and using humor as a coping mechanism for your obvious grief and anger, you come to the terms and accept the fact that it was your fucking little brother who kidnapped and sexually assaulted me?” you spat with venom.

You saw the moment Dick registered your words, the way his smile fell, his teasing eyes darkened, his jaw clench and his back stiffened.

Dick had never looked at you the way he did then, and suddenly you felt small in his presence, the way Batman had always made you shrink away from his excessive aura of authority that he projected while he scrutinized you.

You felt like a dark veil covered the sun, and wanted the ground to open up and swallow you whole as he looked at you with dark eyes.

“Dick-”

“You’re right,” he grit, “Thanks for the slap in the face.”

“I’m sorry-” you tried.

“Clean up the mess you made,” he cut you off before leaving you alone with spilled juice and bacon bits on the floor.

You were never the clingy type.

You never really missed anyone because you never had anyone to miss. The maids and nannies in your childhood home rotated frequently so that you couldn’t get attached to them. Looking back, you were sure your parents did it on purpose.

It was only when you started giving full trust to your new family that you knew how it felt to miss someone.

And it had always been Dick, since you had gotten close to him and he wasn’t around much. You always had a good relationship with him, and he never once got angry at you or looked at you the way he did.

And now, it was Dick you had hurt.

But frankly, you didn’t care.

Because he deserved it.

***

It wasn’t like Jason was hoping for you to agree, but it was part of his plan so he couldn’t help but hope.

At least, that’s what he was telling himself.

He was sitting at his dining table- the fact that he owned a dining table sort of made him pleased with himself- cleaning his guns.

It took you almost an hour before you finally replied his text.

When Jason heard the ding, he looked to his screen to read the notification.

I’m still thinking.

He frowned, then put his gun down. He wiped his hand stained with grease and gunpowder residue on his bare chest, leaving a trail of gray on the surface of his skin before picking up his phone to reply.

Think faster. he simply sent.

He saw that you immediately started typing back.

These things take planning, Jason. I need to make sure no one can identify me if I were to go out with you. It’s not the matter of whether or not I can decide, it’s the matter of whether or not I’m capable of eluding Batman once he sees a surveillance footage of me with you.

Jason smirked. Evidently, you were agitated.

He liked that.

He liked agitating you.

You’re a smart girl. You can figure it out. he replied and went back to cleaning his weapons when you didn’t text him back.

Two hours later, his phone dinged again.

Fine. Where do we meet?

Jason smiled widely at his success.

Meet me at 7th Dillon Avenue, Coventry. I’ll be in the alley between the old tailor shop and a thrift store. 11pm sharp.

Noted.

Oh, and babygirl? he sent again.

What?

Put on that lip gloss you always wear. he replied with a kissing emoji he knew would get under your skin.

***

I don’t exist for him.

I don’t care what he thinks.

I don’t want to please him.

You repeated to yourself again and again as you stared at your reflection in the mirror, the tube of clear lipgloss you always wore held tight in your shaking fist.

After knowing he wanted you to wear it, you were suddenly torn between putting it on or not. You didn’t think something as stupid and simple as that could drive you up the wall.

You were frowning at yourself, at how idiotic you were being.

You were already ready, wearing a tight black suit made from Kevlar thread underneath black armor, your hair out of your face, and steel toed combat boots on complete with black leather gloves you usually wore during winter. The only weapons you were bringing were a pair of escrima sticks strapped to your back, your grappling gun strapped to your upper thigh, and a small knife strapped below it. Your belt only had smoke bombs. You were ready to leave, except for the lipgloss.

You groaned, and smacked it on anyway, hating yourself silently for listening to him.

You left your phone in your room, because you knew that Bruce could track your movements with it and deactivating your GPS and whatever bug he used would be more suspicious.

You managed to sneak past Alfred and head to the garage, thankful that both Bruce and Dick were already out, and chose the most normal looking motorcycle available and slapping black duct tape on the number plate to cover it up.

You thought about how your core would just sting while riding a motorcycle. The pain between your legs had lessened, but it was still sore enough to make your movements odd and stiff.

You left the manor with your heart beat racing, thinking of how you were betraying the man who took you in and loved you.

The man whom you called your father.

The streets in Coventry were dark and empty at that time. The only shops that were open were a couple of empty dodgy bars and convenience stores. You and Batman sometimes would patrol the area because it was such a perfect place for crime to happen. For some reason, it was so empty that even criminals hardly ever targeted anyone in the area save a few residents.

You hurriedly zoomed into the alley that Jason had told you. Both the tailor shop and thrift store were closed. You immediately saw him leaning against a black, sleek classic car, helmet resting on the hood. It was your first time seeing him as Red Hood after discovering his identity.

And the image ignited a fire in your belly.

You parked next to him and switched your engine off, taking off your own black motorcycle helmet.

You walked towards him and stopped a few feet away, arms crossed.

He looked at you, up and down. Then-

“Very homemade. I like it. Black suits you better,” he drawled. “You’re packing light tonight.”

“I had to be careful,” you reminded him, “I couldn’t take much weapons. He would have noticed.”

“I didn’t know you used those,” he nodded at the escrima sticks on your back.

“Dick taught me how to use them,” you explained, “My fighting style is too rigid- Bruce would recognize it if he saw me fight next to you. I’m not as familiar with the escrima sticks, so I haven’t developed a style yet. It could throw him off- hopefully.”

“Hmm,” he hummed, and started walking towards you. You refused to budge. He came close to you and grabbed you by the hips, pulling you close against his chest.

Your breath hitched, but you willed yourself to not show any sort of reaction.

“And this?” he breathed, hands snaking up your waist, rubbing the material up and down, “Kevlar armor?”

“Zylon,” you mumbled, ignoring the growing heat between your legs, “It’s six times stronger than Kevlar.”

“And he wouldn’t notice this go missing?”

“It’s stored away,” you huffed, “It’s more like a bulletproof vest rather than a suit. He wouldn’t miss it. Not the way he would miss the tech he used on the Robin suit.”

“Impressive,” he whispered, his warm breath fanning your face. He started caressing your cheek gently. It could have been a romantic gesture, but for some reason you thought that it was more threatening. “You’re even wearing contacts to change the color of your eyes. See? I knew you were smart”

“That’s a given,” you scoffed, looking sideways. Anywhere to avoid his eyes, though he was wearing a red domino mask with white lens. “Why do you even wear a mask if you already have a helmet?”

“Why did you wear your lipgloss when you had no obligation to listen to me?” he smirked, his thumb pressed on your shiny lips.

You slapped his hand away and looked at him in defiance as you put on a black bandana over your nose and mouth, tying it behind your head to give you a sense of protected identity.

He chuckled, and let you go.

“This is our rendezvous point. If anything happens, we meet back here. Now hop in,” he walked towards his car.

“Why can’t I take my own vehicle?” you demanded.

“Because I want you next to me,” he grinned, and put on his helmet. The minute it rested on his head, you saw it activate, the white glowing eyes switched on and you heard the very soft sound of his electronic breaths.

You frowned.

It was state of the art tech. You knew it must have had additional features like night vision and zoom lenses, not unlike the one you owned. You wondered where or how he had procured it.

“If that’s your only reason, then I’m taking my bike,” you defied.

He was already going to enter the driver’s seat when he stopped midway. He turned to look at you, and for some reason, it made you shudder.

In a flash, he was already behind you, taking your arms to incapacitate you and slammed your front onto the hood of his car.

He was unbelievably fast- you couldn’t believe that they were human reflexes. It must have been a result of the Lazarus Pit that Bruce briefed you on.

He bent over you, a hand in your hair forcing your head down against the warm car.

“Don’t get too cocky, baby girl,” he cautioned, “I still don’t trust you enough.”

You had to admit that the vulnerable position you were in sort of made your pussy clench.

“Fine,” you conceded, “I’ll go with you.”

You felt the pressure disappear and heard the car door slam. You grumbled and rubbed your cheek, before following suit.

Just because you knew it was Jason, you had let your guard down. You forgot how unstable he actually was. You made a mental reminder to be more cautious of his mood bursts.

You slammed the door shut. The interior of the car looked just as sleek as the exterior, with black leather seats- the passenger and driver’s seat were joined together- and an old school cassette player with nothing playing. The car was spacious and looked like a collector’s car. Again, you were left to wonder where he got it.

“Where are we going?” you asked, looking out the window, trying to avoid how sexy his arms looked when he gripped the steering wheel.

How could arms even be sexy?

“We’re heading to iClub,” he stated.

“On Verne Avenue? The one owned by the Ibenescus’?” you frowned, “They still a problem for you?”

“Big operation. Proud family,” he huffed, “International business. Yes, they’re a problem. They’ve been trying to hide it from me, but my men say they’re still active.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

You felt uneasy.

“Just have a little talk with Victor,” he shrugged, “He’s in charge of the operations now after the Patru Fatri, and the cousins. He’s more distant from the main family, but an Ibenescu nonetheless.”

“Well, I hope the club doesn’t check IDs,” you mumbled jokingly to yourself.

To your surprise, you heard Jason bark out a loud laugh. It was an odd sound coming from the voice scrambler inside his helmet.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he rested a hand on your lap, which you felt almost burn, “You look way over 21.”

*** What Gotham lacked in security, it made up with entertainment.

Theatrics.

Its affinity for producing and attracting bizarre individuals always made for good dinner discussion. You just never thought you would be on the side of the crazies.

Jason had parked a couple of blocks away from the club. You recognized the area, as it was just a lane away from The Black Bass Bar, where Jason had decapitated the cousins and put their heads on spikes.

The two of you walked towards the club.

“Listen here,” he started, “This isn’t your area of expertise. You do exactly what I tell you to do. You don’t open your mouth unless I say so. I’ve worked hard to earn fear from these people and I’m not going to let you fuck that up for me. Understood?”

“Whatever,” you huffed.

You noticed how the bouncers started getting nervous when they saw the two of you approaching. They had started to sweat and fidget, trying excessively hard to focus on filtering the going ins and outs of guests.

“Red Hood, sir,” one of them nodded and let the two of you inside. The moment you stepped in, you felt like you were immediately deafened by the loud techno music that was playing, and blinded by the flashing bright lights.

You noticed how many of the customers recognized Red Hood, and flinched away from him, avoiding eye contact. Their gaze would linger longer on you, curiosity in their eyes.

The both of you squeezed past the sweaty dancers on the floor, and towards the VIP area on the other side of the club.

Seated on the long suede purple sofas were three men, each with at least two women on their arms. The moment they saw you approaching, they immediately went rigid.

Red Hood simply strutted to the area and you followed behind him.

“Ah, Red Hood,” the man with straw hair that was slicked back and navy blue shirt that he had left unbuttoned, revealing his hairy chest, greeted. “Take a seat, take a seat! I see you have a guest with you, as well.”

“Victor,” Red Hood nodded, sitting on the chair. He crossed his legs and spread his arms across the back of the sofa, lounging comfortably. He looked over to you and nodded to his side, silently telling you to sit.

You obeyed, though less relaxed than Red Hood. It was slightly quieter at the VIP lounge, but you still had to strain your ears to hear them speak.

“Can I get you a drink, my friend?” Victor offered, “Maybe something for the lady?”

“You want anything, princess?” Red Hood turned to you.

“No, thank you,” you grit.

You hated that he was calling you pet names while in the presence of a crime lord. It was humiliating, and made you feel like you were just an accessory to him, not unlike those hardly dressed girls that were on Victor’s side.

You noticed one of them.

He had his arm wrapped around her waist, but she looked extremely uncomfortable. She was blonde, wearing a black dress with a plunging neckline, and didn’t look that much older than you. Even with the layers of badly applied makeup, you could tell she had eyebags and dark circles, perhaps maybe even bruises on her face.

“Angelica,” Victor called a girl from the other end of the sofa, “Come here give my friend some company.”

The girl called Angelica had tanned skin and exotic features, and was a brunette with curls that hung to her hips and was wearing a body hugging deep purple glittery tube dress. She came to sit on Red Hood’s other side, snuggling up close to him and started rubbing her hand on his thigh, and whispered something that you couldn’t hear.

And he just let her.

You clenched your jaw.

No, you couldn’t be jealous. It didn’t make sense for you to be. Yet, the sudden tightness of your chest said otherwise.

You saw Red Hood angled his face slightly towards you, probably to see your reaction.

You couldn’t see it, but you somehow knew he was smirking.

“So what brings you here?” Victor asked, trying to hide his nervousness.

It was the first time you met with an Ibenescu face to face. You thought that they would have a thick accent, but Victor sounded just as American as you and Red Hood.

“I was just wondering how things were going on your end,” Red Hood shrugged.

“Things are going excellent,” he replied, “As you can see, the club is doing great. People are enjoying themselves.”

“And the drugs?” Red Hood brought up.

“Ah, straight to business, like always,” Victor chuckled, “We’ve sold almost all our stock this month. You can come by and get your share of profits any time.”

“Who are your clients?”

“Local distributors, as well as some international ones,” he explained, “With explicit instruction to avoid dealing with the underaged, of course.”

“And how can you be so sure they’re listening?” Red Hood demanded.

“You know us, Red Hood,” he boasted, “The Ibenescu Family is one of the most powerful families in Gotham. Our name is very well known in the underground. We have people everywhere. Our operations span from the Americas, to Europe, to South East Asia.”

“And which operation did you come from, sweetheart?” he addressed the girl next to him.

She looked at him with shock, gaping like a fish out of water.

“Angelica here is from the Philippines,” Victor answered for her, his voice grittier than normal, “She migrated to find work. I provided for her. Isn’t that right, Angel?”

“Y-yes, sir,” she stuttered, “Mister Victor has been very good to me. He gave me a job when others wouldn’t. I am forever grateful for him.”

You frowned at the way she recited those words, almost like she memorized it from a playcard.

“The American dream, as the say,” Victor continued, “My family are very familiar with it. We are immigrants that came a long time ago, and America provided for us. I wanted to do the same for others.”

“Did you now?” Red Hood hummed.

“Of course,” he nodded aggressively, “But enough about me. Who is this ravishing lady you have here? I have not seen you before, my dear.”

You looked at Red Hood, who nodded subtly once.

“I’m V,” you made up on the spot.

“V?” Victor repeated.

“For Vendetta,” you finished.

You heard Red Hood chuckle next to you.

Victor raised an eyebrow, “Well, my dear, you must be special to my good friend Red Hood, here. I didn’t think he was capable of laughter. Where did he hide you all this while?”

“Ah, you see, Victor,” Red Hood cut in, “I did not hide her, because she isn’t mine to hide. V here is her own person, who happened to become partners with me for tonight. People only hide property, and women aren’t property, am I right?”

There was an unmistakable threat in his voice.

“Of course not,” Victor agreed, “I respect women.”

Suddenly, there was a tension in the air as the two men looked at each other.

Then, Victor started laughing.

“You’re too tense, Red Hood,” he boomed, “And you should trust your associates more. Especially the ones who sacrificed their entire industry for you.”

“Sacrifice, huh?” he said softly. Then, Red Hood turned his body towards you, scooting closer to your side. He let his hand rest on your thigh.

“You got my back, baby girl?” he whispered into your ear.

“Yes, but I’m not killing anyone,” you whispered back, “And you shouldn’t either.”

He ignored you and went back to Victor.

“Victor,” Red Hood said, “I’m feeling a little… Restless tonight. I want one of your girls.”

You clenched your jaw.

“Oh?” Victor widen his eyes, “Finally taking up my offer! Of course, of course! Pick anyone of my lovely ladies.”

“I want that one,” Red Hood pointed to the blonde Victor was obviously possessive over.

“Elena?” Victor started laughing awkwardly, “I’m afraid she’s not available, Red Hood. But you’re welcome to choose anyone else. Angel here is very popular.”

“No,” Red Hood insisted, “I want your Elena.”

“That’s not possible,” Victor denied, annoyance on his face, “Elena is only for me.”

“Well, since you respect women so much, let’s hear it from her, huh?” Red Hood teased, “Elena, sweetheart, would you keep me company tonight?”

Elena’s eyes were wide and terrified. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a car. You felt bad for her and wondered why Red Hood was putting her in such a difficult situation.

“I-I-I’m v-very sorry,” she squeaked. You could hear her thick Romanian accent. “I o-only serve Mister Ibenescu.”

“What, this clown?” Red Hood scoffed, earning a glare from Victor, “Unlike him, I’m sure I can give you a pretty good time.”

“S-sorry,” she stuttered, “T-that is not possible.”

Red Hood kept silent.

“There you go, the woman herself said it,” Victor commented, “And you’d want to respect a woman’s wishes right, Red Hood?”

“How old are you?” Red Hood asked softly, ignoring Victor.

“T-twenty-four,” she replied.

“You don’t look twenty-four,” he hummed, “How long have you been working with Victor?”

“Two years,” she automatically responded.

“I see,” he nodded.

You could tell she was lying, about both her age and how long she worked. And you knew Jason caught on as well.

Jason leaned back, taking out his gun from his thigh holster and casually dumped it on the low rise table, clinking against the glass bottles and shot glasses.

Ibenescu tensed up, and then there were about fifteen men who pointed their guns at the two you. You were about halfway standing up, reaching for your escrima sticks when Red Hood caught you by the shoulder to stop you.

You frowned at him, then sat back down.

You noticed that the music had suddenly stopped, and everyone in the club was silently looking, worry in their eyes and preparation to take off if anything were to get out of hand. You guessed that these sort of things happened frequently, and the club probably had a system for when it did.

“Relax, will you?” he growled at everyone, “Was just getting a little uncomfortable there, Jesus Christ.”

Victor nodded at his men, and they set their guns down. The music continued to play and the customers continued to dance as if nothing had happened.

You now knew what he was doing.

From the very beginning, he already planned out what he was going to say and what he was going to do in order to prepare for an inevitable fight. Based on observation, he knew that Elena was Victor’s favourite and that he would not let anyone touch her, so he provoked him by asking for her.

Asking Elena her age and how long she worked was also a calculated and pivotal move. Since both you and Red Hood could tell when someone was lying, the fact that she was indeed hiding what seemed to be minor information told volumes that she wasn’t supposed to be by Victor’s side, meaning that she wasn’t there by choice, and you could assume that she was trafficked.

From there, he confirmed his sources that Victor had not ended his human and sex trafficking trade, and had reasonable reason to attack.

And by putting the gun on the table, however he relaxed he seemed, was a massive power move. He showed that he wasn’t afraid of being unarmed- though, you knew he was probably packing more than one gun. Tactical wise, when Ibenescu’s men showed themselves, they also showed their numbers to you. You now knew where they were, what weapons they used, and how many of them you needed to take down.

You smirked to yourself underneath your improvised mask. You knew already how smart and strategic he was based on how he conquered the underground in only just a few months, but seeing him act in the flesh, you truly appreciated his brain.

“It almost seems like you’re scared of me, Victor,” he drawled, “Are you?”

“You did kill members of my family,” he mumbled.

“It was their fault now, wasn’t it?” Red Hood shrugged, “I told them to stop. They wouldn’t. Now, if you’re not as stupid as they were, Vic, you wouldn’t have to be scared, am I right?”

Red Hood leaned forward towards Victor, resting his elbows on his knees and tilting his head sideways.

“With all due respect, Red Hood, they were not stupid,” Victor argued, “They were simply protecting the pride of our name.”

“And how about you? You’re not protecting your family’s pride?”

“I prioritize my life over pride,” Ibenescu admitted, “And I respect you as Gotham’s Dark King.”

Dark King? What the fuck?

“Dark King,” Red Hood repeated, laughing lightly, “Got a nice ring to it, don’t you think, princess?”

He elbowed your side playfully.

“A bit cheesy for my taste,” you grit.

“Aw, the missus doesn’t like it. To be fair, I think it’s cheesy too,” he stated, “But you know what I don’t like even more, Victor?”

Victor frowned at him in question.

“I said,” Red Hood snarled, “You know what I don’t like even more, Victor?”

“W-what, Red Hood?” Victor sputtered.

“People who lie to me,” he growled.

In a blink of an eye, with the speed you had witnessed earlier and many times before, he had managed to stand up, reach for the gun on the table, jumped across and stepped on Victor’s chest who was leaning in panic against the sofa, and cocked the gun towards his head.

All before you could even register his initial movement.

The fifteen men aimed their semi-automatics at Red Hood, prepared to gun him down.

The music had stopped, and from your peripheral vision, you saw the crowd were ushered to the exit in chaos.

“If your men don’t put down their weapons, I’ll shoot,” Red Hood looked down at Victor.

“What is the point, Red Hood?” Victor defied, “You would kill me anyways. I might as well try to take you down with me.”

Red Hood paused for a moment. Then-

“Baby girl?”

You nodded. “Got it.”

The first person you attacked was the one pointing his gun to your back.

The sticks felt unfamiliar, yet refreshing.

You managed to knock him out before he could shoot at you, but by that time others were already pulling their triggers. You locked your next target.

You ran at him and slid on the floor, taking his knees out and simultaneously pushing him into the next person whom you used your stick to hit directly at the centre of his head.

But you could sense a gun being aimed at you, and you dived behind the sofa to use as a shield. You heard glass shattering around you, and on the floor you found someone’s dropped mobile phone. You reached for it, and with aggressive force, sent it spinning through the air and hit the culprit in the eye, blinding him.

You came out of hiding and lunged your sticks at his throat.

You spun around to grab the neck of a semi-automatic and directed it upwards, causing bullets to spray across the club.

Your ears heard nothing but ringing for the next minute.

You pounded onto the guard’s chest using your sticks, and ended the attack with a blow to his temples.

You had counted five, so you reacted quickly to lock on your next target, but when you came out of your adrenaline induced tunnel vision, you noticed everyone else were already lying on the floor.

During the time you knocked out five men, Red Hood had already killed ten.

And now, he was left with a sobbing, begging Victor Ibenescu who was on his knees on the glass covered floor.

“What should I do with you, Vic?” Red Hood drawled, “I’ve already gutted your cousins, put some of them on display. And it was a pretty display, wasn’t it?”

You approached them.

Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed a whimpering Elena who was in a fetal position against a toppled over sofa, terror in her eyes.

“P-please,” Victor stuttered, “I promise I’ll shut down the operation, for real this time!”

“I don’t give second chances, Vic,” he told him, “Now I’m just thinking about whether I have the time to skin you alive before the cops show up.”

“Red Hood,” you called out, “You don’t need to. The cops are already on the way- hell, Batman is probably a couple of minutes out. We should leave.”

“And leave him here unpunished?” he jabbed the gun into Vic’s head, causing him to recoil from the heat of the muzzle. “I don’t think so.”

“Red-”

“Elena!” Red Hood barked, “Come here. Now.”

You saw Elena struggle to get onto her feet and limped her way to you.

“What do you think, sweetheart?” Red Hood asked, “Should we leave him for the cops to find and deal with, or…”

He looked over to her and gently took her hand, handing her his own gun.

“Do you want to kill him?”

You gaped at Red Hood, just how Elena was.

“M-m-me?” she managed.

“Yes, you,” he confirmed.

“You can’t possibly make her-” you started.

“Don’t you think she’s the one who should decide what happens to him?” he cut you off.

Elena still looked shocked, and held the gun as if it was going to hurt her.

“Hey,” you approached her slowly, “You don’t have to. Once the police come, they’ll take him away and put him behind bars for the rest of his life. You don’t have to be scared anymore. They’ll help protect you.”

The poor girl was shaking so bad, you were worried she might set off the gun accidentally.

“No,” she whispered.

“Elena-” you tried.

“No!” she shrieked at you, causing you to stumble slightly back in surprise, “You- you don’t know. He do things to me! Again and again! He took me. I thirteen! Now I eighteen! No!”

You were utterly speechless. How could you reply to that?

She held the gun properly now, with two hands.

“He made me kill baby. Two times!” she sobbed.

Your heart broke.

She shuffled closer to him.

“Elena, my dear,” Victor started frantically begging, “You’ve always been my favourite. I’ve always treated you well, haven’t I?”

“No!”

BANG!

You heard Victor let out an inhuman screech.

Elena had shot him between the legs. Next to you, you heard Red Hood chuckle.

She pulled the trigger one last time, and crumpled onto the floor at the same time Victor did.

You wanted to approach her, comfort her, anything.

But Red Hood beat you to it.

“Listen to me,” he growled to get her attention since she was sobbing hysterically, “Are you listening?!”

She nodded.

“When the police come, you tell them that I made you shoot, alright? You tell them that I said I would rape you then gut you alive if you didn’t shoot him. You understand me?” he shook her.

“Y-yes,” she hiccuped.

“Repeat it. Tell me what you are going to tell them.”

“R-red Hood say he rape me and kill me if I no shoot,” she bawled.

“Good,” he nodded, “You did good, Elena.”

He then turned to you. “Let’s go.”

The two of you quickly rushed to the exit. You were just about to leave the club when-

“W-wait!” Elena called out, “Red Hood!”

He looked at her.

“T-thank you.”

He left without saying a word.

***

You were being really quiet in the car.

Jason thought that you were still shaken over what had happened.

Sure, maybe you saved people from being mugged or raped, and perhaps even some trafficked girls in the past.

But he was sure that those girls didn’t have the option Jason graciously gave Elena.

Jason thought that you were probably thinking about what those girls you saved in the past would have done if they were granted the same choice.

He sped up, hands gripped tight around the steering wheel. His body was still buzzing from leftover adrenaline, and he was itching for something.

An illegal car race. A good old fashioned hand-to-hand combat with somebody who could keep up with him. Hell, even a nice and long jerk off session.

He was bothered by the silence, despite being alone the whole time before this.

He put in a cassette and AC/DC started blasting through the speakers. He saw you jump at the sudden noise.

Somehow the ride back to the rendezvous point seemed longer than expected.

“Why do you still have a cassette player, and cassettes?” you spoke for the first time since the club.

“I’m old school that way,” he jested.

You ignored him and continued looking out the window.

That annoyed him.

Fuck, why was he so fidgety? Why did he want your fucking attention so much?

He felt like that kid in kindergarten who pulled on the pigtails of the girl he liked.

Finally, the both of you were back in the alleyway.

He turned off both the music and the engine, and took off his helmet. He combed through his hair with his hands and tossed the helmet in the backseat. He saw that you had taken your mask off as well, but hadn’t made a move to leave.

So he just sat there with you in silence, unsure of what to do or say- like a fucking idiot.

Fuck.

You were driving him crazy.

Thankfully, you broke the silence.

“What did your sources say about the Ibenescus’ still trafficking girls?” you wondered.

“There was a recent shipment of girls from Philippines, Thailand, Russia, and India,” he explained, “Only the Ibenescus’ would still have the guts to carry out the operation. Like Victor- may he rest in peace- had said, the Ibenescus’ are powerful. They have an international business they just can’t afford to sacrifice.”

“But since Victor is dead, someone else would just take his place,” you frowned in the dark, your outline illuminated only by the single dim street light from outside.

“And I’ll keep on killing every single one of them,” he grit.

“But like you said, it’s an international operation,” you argued, “Even if it was just the States, you can’t possibly stop every single operation under the Ibenescus out there.”

“Just like however much you and Batman patrol at night, you can’t stop every single crime, right?” he sneered.

You remained silent.

“It’s the same fucking thing,” Jason insisted, “Except that Elena got her justice. True and proper justice. Or are you telling me she made the wrong call? That she shouldn’t have shot his balls off and killed him after he raped her for years and made her abort her baby twice?”

“There must be some other way,” you muttered.

Jason was annoyed at how stubborn you were, but frankly he understood.

Because that’s what Batman did. He brainwashes you into thinking that his way was the only way.

“What if I told you that one fifth of the trafficked girls were aged below twelve?” he said softly, “What if I told you that the Ibenescus’ have been providing the elite pedophile rings with children? Would you want there to be some other way?”

You looked at him, shocked.

“Elite pedophile ring?” you gaped.

“Batman didn’t tell me either when I was Robin,” he grumbled, “It’s either he didn’t know about it, or he kept it a secret from us. And knowing him, I doubt it’s the former. Weren’t there days where he insisted on being alone?”

You frowned, taking in everything Jason had said. He was proud of himself. Just after a few hours with him, he could already see your resolve faltering.

“As long as I can clear Gotham of sex trafficking, as long as there are less girls like Elena here, and as long as there are no more children involved, I’m satisfied,” he continued, “That’s what I do. I give out justice and fix things. I know most victims like her don’t get the opportunity to get closure the way she did, so I’ll be the one to make that decision and carry it out for them.”

“Oh, so you’re supposedly Gotham’s savior, then? A fucking Angel of Death or something?” you answered sarcastically.

“Didn’t you hear Vic?” he chuckled, “I’m the fucking Dark King.”

You scoffed, and crossed your arms, still looking outside.

“You were pretty good with the sticks,” Jason commented, changing the subject. “Though definitely not as good as Dick.”

Fuck, why was he still talking to you?

“I don’t usually use them,” you shot him a glare that Jason thought was more cute than threatening, “I usually use Krav Maga.”

“Yes, I’m familiar with your subpar fighting skills,” he smirked.

“That’s not fair,” you huffed, “The Pit gave you peak human abilities. You can’t compare yourself to me.”

Of course Bruce knew it was the Pit that revived Jason.

“Baby girl, I was much better than you when I was Robin,” he poked.

Why was he teasing you like this? Flirting with you like he was normal?

Joking with you as if he wasn’t planning to hurt you?

“I doubt it,” you pouted.

Even in the dim light, Jason could still make out the shiny traces of lipgloss that were still left on your lips.

Before he could stop himself, he reached out a hand to your chin, and pressed his thumb against your lips, sticky from the lipgloss.

He saw the way your breath hitched in surprise, the way your eyes darted from his eyes to his lips, the way you gulped.

“Why do you like my lipgloss so much?” you spoke, lips brushing against his thumb.

Fuck.

“Because, baby girl,” he drawled and scooted closer to you, “Ever since day one, I kept on imagining your shiny, wet lips around my cock.”

A small gasp escaped your mouth.

Which made his cock start to fill up.

“Want to make my fantasies a reality, princess?” he smirked.

“Why would I?” you whispered, “I don’t owe you anything.”

“It’s not about owing me,” he came closer, now rubbing his thumb all over your lips, smudging your lipgloss, and picking up some of your spit. “It’s about helping each other out.”

He gripped your waist with his other hand, rubbing up and down through your armor.

“Didn’t you like last night?” he purred, gripping your thigh. He noticed how you easily spread them wider apart.

“Didn’t you come all over my cock?” he forced his thumb inside your mouth, hooking it at your lower teeth and forced your face closer to his.

“Didn’t you wear your lipgloss anyway just to get my attention?” he smirked.

He had expected you to pull away, or even bite his fucking finger, but to his surprise, your lips closed in on his thumb.

And you started sucking.

All while looking up at him with your innocent, puppy dog eyes.

And for some reason, even though it was just his one fucking thumb, he felt like he was being consumed by the warmth and the wetness and the fucking softness of your mouth.

Jason was in trouble now.

Because you had started swirling your tongue around his finger as you sucked.

Jason couldn’t hold back his groan.

And from the delight he saw you in your eyes, he already knew what type you were.

You were the type to get turned on by his pleasure, his approval, his praises.

Typical Robin complex.

“Baby girl,” he breathed, “I’m not going to come unless you do the exact same thing but with my cock instead.”

He smirked when you gave him an irritated look, but then-

“Ow! Fuck!” he snatched his hand away.

You fucking bit his finger.

Again.

And this time you were looking at him with complete smugness.

“Oh, you’re in trouble now, princess,” he growled. Then, he grabbed a fistful of your hair and tugged you to him roughly, forcing his tongue in your mouth as he kissed you violently and grabbed your tits which were still covered by all your-

“Fuck, why do you wear so much fucking armor,” he gasped.

“Because I’d like to actually live in case I get shot,” you shot back at him.

Jason glared at you. He usually loved your attitude, but somehow he felt really irritated by you that night. You weren’t as snarky and confident the night before. Obviously you were less nervous, and less afraid of him.

He needed to change that.

In a flash, he pushed you hard against the locked door of his car, earning a shocked gasp from you. He crawled over to you , engulfing your body with his own.

It was hard to move in the car, but the compact setting made Jason feel like he was trapping you in a cage.

He put his hand around your neck and squeezed lightly while he attacked your mouth with his own again. This time, his kisses were less pretty.

He bit and nipped at your lips, your tongue, forcing both of your teeth to click together.

He could hear you panting hard, and moaning into his mouth, sometimes letting out soft whimpers.

“You trying to sass me, baby?” he breathed over your face, lips brushing against yours. He increased the force of his throttle.

“You forget who’s in charge here?” he whispered, appreciating the way your mouth just fucking fell open.

“Who’s in charge, princess?” he growled.

He saw your eyes roll upwards, your lids fluttering close, and felt your thighs squeeze together.

Fuck.

Were you getting fucking turned on by his choking?

“Y-you,” you said in stuttered breaths.

“That’s right, baby,” he let go of your neck, causing you to gasp for air.

Then, Jason leaned back against the door on his side, and parted his legs.

He was glad the Impala’s seats were joined, without any annoying bumps that parted the passenger and driver’s seat. It allowed more room to move around.

Once he saw you catch your breath, he patted to the spot between his legs.

“My cock ain’t gonna suck itself,” he smirked.

He could see the fire in your eyes as you came over to him, bent on all fours. You laid on the seat on your belly, your mouth close to his cock that was borderline becoming extremely painful.

He had to wear protective cups while he worked, which meant that getting an erection was excruciating.

He tilted his head in curiosity when he saw you stare at his thigh holsters, biting your lower lip.

“You see something you like?” he teased.

Your gaze snapped back at him, a blush creeping onto your cheeks. You ignored his question and started working on his belt buckle.

Once they were off, you impatiently pulled his pants down, but was puzzled when you saw his jockstraps.

He almost laughed when he saw the confusion etched on your features.

“They’re just like normal briefs, baby, but with extra protection,” he winked, cupped his junk, and gave it a little shake to make a point.

“I- I knew that,” you fumbled, and went to hook your fingers in the elastic waistband. You brought them down with some difficulty, as they were tight.

But Jason enjoyed seeing you struggle, so he let you figure it out.

And boy, the look on your face when you finally took his cock out.

He hissed at the relief when his cock slapped back onto his lower abdomen when it was free, but your expression made him chuckle.

“Did- did I really have that inside me last night?” your voice went up an octave.

“Inside you, and outside, and inside, and outside,” he gave you a shit eating grin.

“Very funny,” you glared, but gulped again at the sight of his erection, “Jeez. No wonder I couldn’t walk properly all day.”

“And I assure you, every single time I fuck you, you wouldn’t be able to- ah, fuck!” he got cut off by the pleasure that suddenly shot up his spine when you gripped his shaft hard.

He looked at you and saw you gave the same cheeky grin back.

Fucking hell.

You bent down, and gave a small experimental lick at the tip of his cock. He could see the way your eyebrows knitted together, how your eyes were so full of fucking contemplation. Like you were thinking of a strategy to make him come undone.

You started lapping your tongue a few more times over the head of his penis before taking the tip into your mouth and started sucking softly.

Jason groaned, and then reached his hand to tangle into your hair. Not to control your movements, not to show you how it’s done, but just because he needed to grip something.

From the tip, he saw you let your saliva drool down his shaft, making it glisten. Then, you sunk down and took more of him in. You got too ambitious, because you went down too fast and then he felt you gag around his dick.

“Fuck,” he grunted as he felt your fucking throat try to push him out, “Take it slow, baby. We have all night.”

You released him from your mouth and gasped for air, a string of saliva connecting his tip to your mouth, tears streaming down your face, eyes and nose red.

Shit.

It was a fucking sight, alright.

“I-I’m sorry,” you sputtered, “I wasn’t sure- I don’t- it’s my first time.”

And holy hell, did Jason’s heart flutter at your innocent apology.

“It’s okay,” he wiped the tears from your cheeks like he was your lover, like he fucking cared. “It feels great when you gag on my cock, but you don’t have to take it all in at once. Here.”

He pushed your head back down to take him in rough, but not too rough.

Jason needed to be a little forceful, a little violent with you. He needed to hide the fact that you sucking on his cock for the first time didn’t flick a switch of emotion within him.

“You take in as much as you can,” he panted, “And your hand can do the rest.”

He wrapped your hand around the base of his shaft.

“So when you go up,” he pulled your hair to guide you up his length, slick with your spit and his precum.

“Your hand follows your mouth,” he gripped your hand and moved it upwards as well, following the motion. “And don’t forget to suck.”

He saw that you got the hang of it pretty fast, and soon, Jason was groaning and moaning, and tugging at your hair.

He fought hard to not cant his hips upwards and start fucking your mouth. He fought hard to be considerate, to not hurt you, to not give you too much of what you could handle.

He didn’t want a repeat of the night before.

Yet, the fire in his belly and the dark voices inside his head told him to grip your head with both his hands and fucking use your mouth like a toy.

But, no. Jason was in control. And he didn’t want that. Not tonight.

He saw that you were watching him as you bobbed your head in motion, and he knew you were enjoying the sight of him. He felt vulnerable to you, open and exposed.

He hated that feeling. The shame of being laid out like that when someone was watching him-it made him feel small and guilty.

But the shame and humiliation and guilt was what made the whole thing more enjoyable.

Soon enough, he felt the familiar feeling of his gut tightening, his toes curling in his steel boots.

“Stop,” he rasped, pulling you away.

You looked at him with worry in your eyes that made Jason almost come anyway.

“I- I was close,” he explained.

“Isn’t that the point?” you smirked.

“Wanna fuck you first,” he murmured.

Then, you started blushing.

“Uhm, it still hurts a lot from yesterday,” you answered sheepishly, biting your lip awkwardly.

It reminded Jason of how you were with him the first time he met you at the library, how you were shy and a blushing mess, when you didn’t know his identity. It seemed so long ago, and for the first time, he wished things could go back to being that way.

“Fine,” he gruffed, “Come back down here, then.”

When you started sucking on him again, he added, “Didn’t know you were so weak. Thought you’d be used to getting thrown around by now.”

It really wasn’t fair for him to say that, and he knew it was hurtful.

But he wasn’t the good guy in this story.

You shot him a glare, and then popped his dick out.

“Jason, my mouth was around your cock when you said that, and if I were to accidentally bite you, well,” you retorted.

“You wouldn’t do that, baby,” he chuckled.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because, princess,” he drawled, and forced you to continue sucking, “My cock- ungh- is your favourite part of me, isn’t it?”

And as if you conceded, admitting he was right, you started to suddenly increase the pace. Filthy wet sounds filled the car as Jason heard the sound of rain in the background, and noticed that the inside of his windows had started to fog up.

Your warm, wet mouth consumed him whole, and he felt his balls tighten and tighten.

“Baby,” he gasped, “I’m gonna- I’m gonna-”

Despite his warnings, you still went on, as if you were determined to finish your job.

He groaned loud and long as he spilled his cum inside your mouth.

He felt you fucking drink it up.

Fuck.

When he was done blowing his load, you were giving him soft, gentle licks on his now sensitive cock.

And you then you sat up and smiled proudly.

“You waiting for me to give you a candy, or some shit?” he snickered, “Or a gold star?”

“Maybe you should,” you huffed and crossed your arms, sitting back properly in the passenger seat.

Jason put his pants back on, and sat up as well.

But then he noticed you squirming slightly, your respiratory rate fast, small pants escaping you. You were clenching your thighs together.

He smirked.

He reached out and caressed your cheek with one finger.

“Want me to help you out?” he offered.

“I’m fine,” you said, “I’ll deal with it later. I should go back soon. What time is it?”

“Almost two,” he glanced at the dashboard clock.

“Batman and Nightwing are probably just leaving the club by now,” you said out loud, “I’m sure they’ll keep on patrolling, though. Unless they got a clue.”

“Clue?”

“Yeah,” you hummed absentmindedly, looking outside at the rain.

You remained silent for a while.

Jason hated the silence.

Then-

“It’s your face, by the way,” you started.

“What?”

“Your face. My favourite part of you,” you avoided Jason’s eyes.

Jason was taken aback at your confession.

Why would his face be your favourite part? He had scars all over, eyebags and bloodshot eyes, and he was pretty sure his nose was more crooked than average.

“You’re good looking,” you said as if you were mad.

“Well, you’re not too bad yourself,” Jason blurted before he could stop himself.

You blinked at him in surprise.

Fuck.

He fucked up.

He wanted to punch himself.

What were the two of you doing? It wasn’t like it was a fucking date. It wasn’t like he cared about you that way. It wasn’t like he wanted you all to himself, and never let go.

Fuck.

He was done being the charming, kind, gentleman Jason Haywood.

So why was he still acting like he was?

***

“Where were you?” Dick demanded when you opened the door.

He was still in his Nightwing uniform, sans the mask.

“What?”

“Alfred said you weren’t around, and you left your phone at home,” he persisted, “Where did you go?”

“I got some junk,” you pointed to the big bag of junk food on your bed.

“Alfred said he noticed you weren’t around at midnight, and you only just got back an hour ago. It took you almost three hours just to get junk?” he narrowed his eyes at you.

“Fine,” you conceded, “I went to see Carter.”

“Why did you leave your phone?”

“I forgot, okay?” you exasperatedly flailed your hands. “I’m grounded from patrol, not from going out. What’s the big deal?”

Dick frowned at you.

Your heart was beating so hard you were afraid he could hear it.

“Where did you meet him?” he continued to interrogate.

There were no more room for half truths.

“Robinson Park,” you answered, “We spent some time in his car. Lost track of time. And- you know what? I don’t even need to tell you all of this! It’s none of your business, Dick.”

“There was someone new with Jason tonight,” he stated.

Fuck.

“Someone new?” you repeated, tilting your head in feigned curiosity.

“A girl,” he continued, “She’s skilled.”

You frowned. “Who is she?”

“Eye witness said she calls herself V,” he told you, “She uses escrima sticks and a form of arnis and silat hybrid.”

“Hmm,” you pondered, “And? Is she someone you and Jason knew?”

“We’ve been wondering about that,” he muttered.

Your eyes widen.

“You think that was me?!” you shrieked.

“You tell me!” Dick retorted.

“Why, Dick?” you shouted, “Why?”

“You were out for god knows how long and suddenly Jason has a girl with your knowledge of martial arts at his side?” he snarled, “What else am I supposed to think?”

“One, fucking anyone could learn martials arts!” you argued, “Two, I was out with Carter yesterday as well! There wasn’t anyone with Red Hood yesterday!”

“Red Hood wasn’t seen yesterday,” he debated, “And you haven’t even shown me a picture of this Carter you’re seeing. What’s his last name? Where is he from? You need to tell me. You need to tell me the truth.”

“I am,” you grit, “You need to figure out your bullshit, Dick!”

“What?”

“I get it, okay,” you sighed, and sat down on your bed, “Jason, your brother, he betrayed your trust. He’s angry at Bruce, but why didn’t he come to you?”

Dick simply looked at you.

“You trusted Jason when he was Robin, as family,” you explained, “The way you trusted me. And now that trust is destroyed, you’re questioning me as well.”

You looked at him with a sad smile.

“I’m not like Jason, Dick,” you tried to convince him, “I’m me. I’m your sister. I have no reason to hurt you or Bruce. I love you both. Okay?”

Dick stared at you, and you saw tears pooling his eyes.

That made your heart sink to your stomach.

“I’m sorry,” he blinked away the tears, “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you got up and hugged him. He hugged you back tightly, pressing his cheek into the top of your head, “I love you, Dick. I’ll help you guys out with this, okay? I mean, I know I’m not as good as either of you, but I’ll try.”

“Yeah,” he sniffled, “Thank you. Can’t wait for you to get back in uniform.”

“Me too,” you replied, holding back your own tears while you thought about how fucked you were.

#jason todd x reader #jason todd reader #jason todd #batman #red hood #dick grayson #nightwing #dc comics #dceu #dc universe #under the red hood

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sunbirddtellsstories · 4 years

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I was rewatching one of my favorite episodes of Xiaolin Showdown lately and I’ve been thinking of Jesse’s/Jessie’s character. I really like her a lot. I was always fascinated with that character from the moment I first saw her. Clay was my favorite Dragon, so to learn he had a sister??? Who was a biker girl??? And a BAD GUY?! Like, it was crazy! I loved the episode, and I still love it to this day. I love the lore, the aesthetic, the Black Vipers, the story, and the ending with Jesse under a starry desert sky flying off into the moon leaving behind a magical rainbow trail behind her? Like, tell me that’s not awesome!

So, since I’m bored and have Xiaolin on my mind, I’m gonna rant about her for a little bit.

First off, Jesse’s listed in the credits with the male version of the name, aka Jessie without the “I.” And the first thing I thought about when I mulled over this choice for a name was that it reminded me of Jesse James, who was a famous outlaw back in the days of the Wild West. So it was maybe a crew choice to give her that name as a shout-out to her criminal nature, and because of that, I like to think that in the show’s universe, Jesse used to be Jessie but dropped the “I” the day she left the Bailey Ranch. You know, to show that a) she was starting a new life and leaving her old persona behind and b) maybe to challenge the stifling old gender norms she was relegated to at the ranch. I mean, Daddy Bailey, as cool as he is, did ooze vibes of toxic masculinity in the one episode we saw him. If he was hyper focused on making Clay the manliest man, then it makes sense that he’d push Jesse to be the girliest girl.

But like, Jesse’s her own person, man. She’s hotheaded and stubborn and determined, and she’s got enough grit and pride in her to say “You know what? Screw this. I’m not happy here, I’ll never be enough for you, and life is too short to live in a place where you’re either ignored because everyone’s paying attention to your brother or being pressured and prodded into being something you’re not.”

So she left. I mean we never got a backstory on that (and I would have loved one, trust me), but she left, and she left on bitter terms too, considering Clay’s instinctive animosity towards her on sight. Like, no “hey, how’s life” or “where have you been.” The first thing he did after recognizing her was to call her a varmint. A nuisance. A lowlife.

That’s....uncharacteristically harsh, Clay. You’re supposed to be the sweetheart of the group, and the first thing you do when you see your baby sister after who knows how long...is to insult her?

Wow. There’s a story there. And if we don’t get any background on it, then maybe I’ll write it later? There’s always fandom, kids! And fanfic. And fanart.

But Jessie really does fascinate me as a character. Like even more than Ashley, or Wuya, or Shadow, or even Kimiko! Out of all the (very few!) female characters in the Xiaolin lore, she’s the one I’m interested in the most. It’s everything about her you know? It’s her backstory, it’s her personality, her skills, her likes and dislikes, the way she chooses to live her life, the way she’s constantly double crossing everyone around her - even her brother! No one is safe from her except for her loyal Vipers, who must also like her and trust her a lot too, since as soon as there’s a brief void in the leadership role, they automatically welcome her and her alone back into it, instead of squabbling over who should be the leader of their biker gang. For all their trouble and deceit, the Black Vipers stick together.

Probably because they’re all they’ve got.

I mean the girls live in a MINE! (An abandoned mine, like seriously, how cool is that?!) and they’ve got pet vultures, and know every inch of their hideout, and the place is falling apart in some areas but it’s HUGE and awesome and it looks wicked cool so it balances out.

But that alone implies that none of them have actual houses or trailers or apartments or condos where they actually crash. None of them have a home to go home to.

And why would they? I mean, you don’t just wake up one day and choose to live a life of crime. The show always likes to hammer in the fact that the world’s not black and white. Everyone’s got some good chi and bad chi in them. Everyone’s a shade of grey. And that includes the Vipers. And something tells me that they’re a darker shade of grey than most girls, and not entirely by choice either. Girls don’t just wake up and become bad guys. It’s a lot more complicated than that.

I worry about these girls. All of them are so young, early-late teens at most, but they’ve each got a criminal record and have scored enough infamy to be known all through the American Southwest. That’s kind of awesome. But mostly really, really sad.

Sadly we don’t get much personality from the girls, but I wish we did, I love the quirks in their character designs like WallEyed Short Girl and Tall Freckled Mopey Girl, and even Belle! Yes, the redhead has a name, and it’s Belle. Personally she’s my favorite design out of all four Vipers. The bright red hair paired with the turquoise in her necklace and hat is simple but unique. And her sass! And the fact that she’s like the ONLY XS character with brown eyes. Aaah! I love her so much!

But even with their lack of screen time or even voice lines, there’s enough evidence to infer that these girls are each other’s family. They’re sisters. They’re partners in crime wherever they go, from the arid deserts of Arizona to the neon casinos of Nevada, from the white sands of New Mexico to the empty-hearted prairies of Oklahoma, and hey maybe even as far west as Baja California!

And of course, Texas.

It’s interesting that even though she cut all ties with her dad and her brothers and her mom (I mean, if she even has one), she still wanders through Texas. The last thing she screamed at Jack as he took off in a huff with no Wu was “Don’t Mess With Texas”! She may have turned her back on her family and the ranch, but she’ll never turn her back on her home state. That’s kind of beautiful. It’s nice to think that the big bad biker chick who rules over a gang that kidnaps people and robs them blind....still has a soft spot.

But I mean, of course she has a soft spot. She’s a person, right? Good chi and bad chi coexisting together in a single human being. She’s got dreams, right? Secret wishes that keep her up at night, keep her going when the chips are down, keep her going when things get hard for her gang and she has to be the one to stay strong and lead them through it despite being a KID...yeah. It’s abundantly clear that Jesse is an adventurous soul. I mean, you gotta be if you spend your days riding through the desert and running from cops, and your nights sleeping in a creepy, abandoned mine that goes on for miles underground. That’s certainly not a lifestyle for the faint of heart, but Jesse seems just fine with it.

Because as crazy and as sad as her situation is, a teen girl with no home and, thanks to her record, no happy future to speak of, she’s happy where she is. Probably the happiest that she’s ever been in her life. She certainly has a lot more freedom, and values that freedom to Hell and back (probably.) She’s seriously gotta love the sweet, simple feeling of going wherever she wants and doing whatever she wants. Stealing from people probably gives her such a thrill, and with the jumps she made with her bike during the Showdown in her one and only episode...yeah, our girl’s an adrenaline junkie. Fer sure.

I wonder if she’d ever leave the desert at some point in her life. I mean, being an outlaw is cool and all but it’s definitely got a lot of drawbacks, and it isn’t very sustainable. And, I mean...people change. Maybe someday she’d just grow out of the lifestyle. Maybe one night she’d sit her Vipers down for one last talk, pass her leadership over to Belle, give them all one big hug and wish them luck, get on her bike and just...leave.

I wonder where’d she go then. Definitely not back home. Probably not with Clay. Being a Xiaolin hero, going to monk school, fighting over Warts...that’s his life, not hers. And I mean, she does have that inferiority complex, which aren’t exactly easy to grow out of. Maybe she’d secretly feel that she wasn’t good enough to be Xiaolin. But she definitely wouldn’t want to go full evil and switch to the Heylin side.

Jesse’s not Xiaolin, or Heylin. She’s just....Jesse. And that’s why we love her so.

I think she would wander. She’d wander all over the US, through every last state, seeing all that there is to see. Some places impress her. Some do not. Some remind her far too much of her home back at the ranch and some are so alien and foreign that her heart almost breaks from the loneliness. Sometimes she falls in love. Then, she falls right out of love, never unexpectedly, but only sometimes by choice. And after a few hours of heartbreak and self care, she’s back on her feet again, hunting down her next adventure. If she sees a Wu, she contacts Clay, and waits for him and the others to come. It’s easier to talk to him now, so they talk often. She sends him a pretty postcard from each city she visits. And with each message, she writes an animal fact about a local critter, just for him.

Home is....it’s not home anymore. Daddy Bailey, Mama Bailey, even Patrick...they don’t consider her family no more. At least that’s what she believes. She never writes to them. She doesn’t see the point. As far as she’s concerned, they all said what they had to say the day she left the ranch. Soemtimes she’s overcome with the temptation to give them a call and see how things are. But no matter how hard she tries, she always hangs up as soon as they answer.

It’s too late to fix what I broke, she tells herself.

And sometimes, she believes it.

But no matter what gets her down, Jessie’s a tough girl. She’s smart and clever and knows how to get by on her own. Her independent nature was hard-earned. She can take care of herself. So she does. And she wanders. And she sees the world beyond the desert.

Hey, remember that one line during her episode where she says “the only thing better than riding is flying,” or that out of all the Wu she could have kept for herself - out of all powers she could have had at her disposal - she opted to keep the Wings of Tinabi, aka the flying Shen Gong Wu?

I like to think that Jesse, like her brothers, is a smart cookie. But while Clay’s got animal facts and Patrick’s got computers, she’s more of an engineer. I mean, she’s got to keep her rides in tip top shape right? And those weren’t ordinary motorcycles either. I wonder if she was the one who designed the Black Viper’s iconic bikes. Maybe she built them all from scratch. Maybe they all did.

And maybe building bikes isn’t all she’s good at. I like to think that as Jesse gets older she takes on a whole new kind of project. As soon as she gets enough material and enough space to house her new baby, she gets to work on something she’s always been wanting to make in the back of her mind but never could before. It’s more complicated than motorcycles or cars or even tractors, and there’s a lot to lose if something goes wrong. But Jesse’s a risk taker, and a dreamer. And above all, she believes in herself. She has to. She’s always had to, because no one ever else did. Not until she chose to be her own biggest fan did she ever have someone in the stands cheering her on. She can do it. Of course she can. She’s Jesse Gotdang Bailey, and she can do anything.

I like to think, after a while on the road, exploring every last corner of America, and hey, maybe even Canada and Mexico, she finally gets around to building herself a plane. Wheels and steel are a beautiful combination, but wings? Wings can take you anywhere. They offer a freedom like no other. Hundreds and hundreds of people over countless generations have looked up at the sky and wished to be up there. And Jesse wouldn’t be any different from them.

I like to think that she finishes it right as she reaches adulthood. I like to think that she actually goes legit - for once - and gets herself a pilot’s license. I like to think that she gives her new ride a bright coat of paint, puts on the last finishing touches, gets herself a viper tattoo as a way to honor the occasion, and takes off towards the Xiaolin Temple the very next morning to show Clay how far she’s come.

And I would like to think that on the side of the plane, in beautiful rainbow lettering, is the name she chose for her new aircraft:

The Wings of Tinabi.

#sunbird writes headcanons #jessie bailey #jesse bailey #xiaolin showdown #xiaolin showdown clay #clay bailey #the black vipers #character analysis

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saiyanhajime · 4 years

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My First Artist Alley at a Comic Con… What I’ve Learnt

I’ve thought about selling my wears in artist alley for something like ten years now… And aside from feeling like my stuff isn’t good enough to compete until relatively recently, the main reason I hadn’t given it a whirl until now was the cost. I couldn’t understand how it would be financially viable, and if you’re here to find the quick answer to that same burning question, the answer is it’s not - at least for me. But if I’m being honest and perhaps a little harsh, I can’t really see how it could be what I would consider truly “worthwhile” for all but the most successful artists in the alley when you factor in all expenses.

But would I do it again? Hell yes. Did I have fun? Absolutely! Was there value in networking, making friends and social media gains? Yes, yes and yes!

I went to London Comic Con Spring run by Showmasters. I choose this con because of a few reasons, namely that it was the next local con with tables left when I started seriously obsessing over wanting to do this.

The stall was very reasonable at £80 (but I paid an extra £30 for an additional person to help out.)

This convention is a lot more Film and TV focused than was ideal for what I thought my audience would be - with their main highlight being their guest signings. I knew this going in and my assumptions were right, I think. That said, the “small press” section of the event was wildly varied, but it did feel like actual comic creators were doing the best of us all.

The Expenses

The costs add up, fast. A £ here and there and you’ve racked up £500 or so worth of expenses before you’ve even factored in potential travel, food and hotels… Let alone time. I know you’re probably thinking you wouldn’t spend that much, but believe me - if you record EVERY cost related to getting your stall together, you’ll be shocked how fast it accumulates. You’ll find yourself looking at all the £3-5 you spent on bits n bobs wondering how the final sum is so high.

I know what you’re thinking… You can do it cheaper. I just didn’t try hard enough to get these costs down. But believe me, I did.

I spent way more time than was worthwhile researching costs - these prices include VAT & they include shipping - I wanted the most accurate picture of the hard cash I would actually have to spend up front… And the oddly expensive ones like the postcards cost so much because I effectively paid a premium to have multiple designs. My logic was to try lots of different things, learn as much as possible, but have few in quantity of each design. That way, the flops hurt less. You pay more per item for that privilege, but what’s the use in having 100 of something that won’t sell? I’d rather learn from x10 of something even if I’m making half the profit “per item”.

That’s a mistake a think so many businesses make - don’t think of profit per item, think of it in profit on entire expenses. I made a huge loss, just like I expected. :) My 100 postcards for example costing £50 makes them 50p each, and selling at £1.50 means £1 profit per postcard. That’s £100 profit! Except I only sold 10 - that means a £35 loss for the time being. It’s not a profit until you recoup the whole cost. And I thought of the whole cost as that £550 sum from the get go. Only once I cover all accumulated costs am I making a profit.

But most of these costs are reusable… I could go to another con tomorrow and only pay an additional £150 or so for the table, travel, etc. and have enough stock and a decent display. And that’s my intention - don’t give up, do a few, then evaluate. THEN give up. :)

So realistically, you need to be willing to waste £800+ to find out if this game is for you. That’s a big chunk of money not to be sniffed at and you should be aware of that before you jump in.

The Products

What should I take? Who should I order it from?? How much stock do I need???

These are unanswerable questions because they are highly personal. I see soooo many “where should I get prints from??” with people expecting an easy answer. There isn’t one. But I can try and explain why there isn’t one. I think a lot of newbies assume creators don’t want to share their suppliers because they’re being protective or don’t want the competition - nonono, it’s that the answer is different for everyone. An established, popular and successful artist in the alley is likely ordering huge bulk orders from a supplier that has a minimum order of hundreds or thousands. What good is that information to us newbies? It’s useless.

Prints

In the end, I took 7 print designs…. All fanart, with 4 of the designs being Dragon Ball, 2 of the designs Sonic the Hedgehog and one of GLaDOS from Portal 2. Two of the designs were on A3 and the rest on A4.

I ordered A4 and A3 prints from different suppliers, as they were cheaper this way, EVEN with the postage factored in - which is absolutely ridiculous I know, but you begin to see why “x company is best for prints!” is a useless piece of advice. But sit tight, cuz it gets way worse.

I ordered as few as possible, but a couple of websites had the same price for 5 as the other did for 10, etc. so I went with the one that offered more for the same, obviously. I had x6 (including the display print) of each A4 print and x10 of each A3 - not because I thought they would sell twice as much, just because that’s the least I could get for the cheapest price! And to make matters even more complex - I made those orders based on coupons I had found and you often can’t see the total inc postage until you’ve got everything in your basket and entered your address and email. I looked at maybe 20 suppliers. Imagine how long that took, just for prints. And if I did the same thing tomorrow, it wouldn’t be the same suppliers who were cheaper - coupons and offers change the game, quantity required changes the game. Getting 30 A4 prints might be cheaper on one site, but it might be better to get them from another if you’re after 40, and it definitely will be if you’re wanting them to be all the same - then you can probably get 100 for less than I paid. Nightmare. And you find yourself going “but I can get 100 of the same print for £17 - maybe it’s worth the investment…” Maybe? Who knows! Probably not though.

I don’t think I’d bother with ordering A3 again anytime soon - the main reason is that A3 cellophane bags and carrier bags big enough for such a large print are quite a considerable added expense… And a lot of potential buyers commented how they loved a print but just don’t have the wall space. I also couldn’t find a supplier that would offer to print less than 10 A3 prints in one design. One buyer commented that they would get one of my other prints if it was larger - but would they? I know from experience selling online that people often say “oh man I’d so get a ____ if you did one!” and you do and you even link it to them and then silence. Don’t take what potential customers say too seriously, unless you’ve got a decent number of them telling you the same thing. But for me, 3 people telling me that on top of my other reasons for disliking A3 is enough to go, ok… Forget A3.

Perhaps my best piece of advice is to sign up to every supplier's newsletter. I get emailed deals almost daily now and if you’ve got the time to play with, it’s worth getting your stuff ready for print and just sitting and waiting for that coupon to drop. 15-20% off can make a huge difference to your margins. I purposefully waited until January to place my orders, expecting a post Christmas assortment of deals, and I was right. Bare in mind that many suppliers can take a while to get stuff to you and it might not be right - so don’t cut it too late to order things. I ordered everything just under two months ahead of the con and had plenty of time to then play with and practise setting up how I was going to display things.

So, how did the prints do? I sold out of the Sonic and Shadow print - including the display, which I sold at a marked down rate. I sold 2 of each A3 print - Great Ape Vegeta vs Goku and GLaDOS… 1 of Majin Vegeta, 2 of Fleetway Super Sonic. None of Gogeta or Shenron.

So, Dragon Ball wasn’t so hot, Sonic absolutely was. Is that a long term trend, or just this con? Hell if I know.

I didn’t have a portfolio book with my prints in on the table - I thought that was a waste of space if I can fit them all up on my display - but with hindsight, you get two types of people... Those who aren’t interested in artist alley stalls and pass through at a distance and a print up high MIGHT catch their eye and bring them over. But the vast majority of people you’ll sell to have their eyes down at the tables as they pass. This was the most important thing I learnt - I’d read so much about how important it is to use “vertical” space and tried to get as much off the table as possible, but by day 2 I was spreading more out on the table until every inch of it was covered. I often had to tell people about my prints and they would look up having not noticed them! I had read that people recommend having a portfolio book for people to thumb through - but I hadn’t really understood the benefit of that. Having people touch and interact with stuff on the table is such a valuable interaction that sparks natural conversations. It’s really important to have physical stuff ON the table, perhaps more so than getting a fancy vertical setup. If you’re strapped for cash - ditch the idea of grid cubes or similar completely. Just lay stuff out.

Postcards

When my postcards arrived I immediately realised I’d made a stupid mistake. I was obsessed with getting the display vertical and having lots of different designs. Having so many different postcards to display was a nightmare that I think impacted the whole setup. The wall they created took light away from one side of the display, they were really quite oppressive! - and I knew this before I even went to the show, but I didn’t know how else to display them. I don’t think I would order postcards again, they barely sold… But the 90 I have leftover will be displayed in a photo album on the table next time for sure. Seems so obvious now! They were a HUGE waste of money - they’re expensive for what they are to get made and the retail price of them is abysmal. But, there were a couple of times when people who didn’t have the money for a big print maybe wouldn’t have bought anything, but I had something cheap and cheerful to offer, which was nice. The other cool thing about them is you can have your website on the back and it doesn’t seem out of place or weird.

The main problem with finding a postcard provider was I couldn’t find anywhere that would do small print runs to allow me to order several designs, so I ended up going with the one company I knew who’d do that - Moo. But man are they expensive - I could have got 500 postcards of one design for less than half what I paid for 100 of 25 diff designs - but again, having the variety mattered to me.

Postcards are a pain and not worth it, which explains why I so rarely see them for sale. Lesson learned!

If you have a decent inkjet printer, postcards are super easy to make and I used to do this before I lost patience with inkjet home printers and switched to laser. Just get thick photo paper, already the correct size!

Stickers

I had a mix of kiss-cut and die-cut stickers that by day two I was spreading out on the table and absolutely getting more sales as a direct result… They still didn’t do exceptionally well, but I don’t regret having them. They’re a solid low-retail-price staple of the artist alley table. Pieces of art with a purpose, especially in the age of reusable water bottles. A couple of fellow artists noted that my stickers were very cheap priced at £1.50 and I kind of agree. I think next time they will be £2 and this won’t negatively affect sales. There’s a common fallacy that making something cheaper will increase sales - the likelihood is that it won’t, and when you think how many more sales you have to make to gain the same profit, you realise this is the case. Just that small difference of 50p would mean you have to sell 25% less stickers to make the same amount of money. Isn’t that insane? When you think of it this way, pricing your items right really matters.

I also had sticker sheets - the Baa (from Dragon Ball) ones I only sold one of, to a child who I’m not sure even knew what they were from, but the Sonic sheet did pretty well! I didn’t see many other artists rocking Sonic stuff - or even much Sonic stuff on the wider show floor - which is surprising given the recent film release. I guess I just tapped into a niche, but it’s hard to tell.

Several suppliers of stickers offer multiple designs as standard, or a small surcharge for having multiple designs. Shop around. Stickers are overpriced from many suppliers. The popular choice of Stickermule often run deals where you can get 50 for £19, but even this deal price is quite expensive for x50 of the same sticker. They are by far the best quality stickers, to be fair to them… But you don’t need x50 of one sticker for the purpose of artist alley. I’ve jumped on Stickermule promos in the past where they charge £1 for 10 stickers. That’s a great opportunity to try out design you’re really not sure about. I can’t stress enough how important newsletter signup to suppliers is!

Honestly, Zap Creatives are the only company I’ve used that I would recommend without a second thought. Their customer service is exceptional, their postal packaging is not only environmentally friendly but also adequate (I had a lot of issues with other suppliers packaging and items arriving to me damaged! Another reason you need to order far in advance.) and their prices are transparent and extremely good value. They have free postage (globally, I believe!), which makes it so easy to see how much you’ll be spending at a glance. They have detailed “how to” pages for setting up your files. They’re a dream come true. Sign up to their newsletter, follow them on socials, give them your money - they deserve it. Not sponsored, just genuinely impressed.

Comic

Back at Uni a friend and I made a little comic, and I got some more copies made and took it along because, why not… It is COMIC con after all, and this convention actually calls the artist alley “small press”. It sold pretty well for an independent original to a wide variety of people, young and old. It made me really happy to see an original work sell! You’d be surprised how cheap getting a book printed can be - but be willing for the pages to be slightly misaligned and the paper quality eh. But if you just want a cheap comic printed or a zine, it is very doable in small runs even as low as 10. Remember that stuff doesn’t need to be perfect. Don’t stress over imperfections. I wouldn’t recommend the supplier I used because their delivery was an abysmal royal shit-show, but their customer service made up for it and then their re-delivery was only a slightly less abysmal royal shit-show on the second attempt. So, I won’t mention them.

On that note - if a supplier isn’t good enough, get in touch with their customer services and be nice but tell them it’s not good enough. Give them a chance to fix things.

Traditional Art Originals

I took a lot of traditional media original artworks with me, mostly because I had them already. I sold one low value original.

This was a little heartbreaking because the sale of just one high value original would have pushed the worthwhileness a long way - but it is a lot of money to expect people to spend and is a luck of the draw situation, for sure.

However, the larger ones definitely attracted attention to my stall and created conversation - so I’d say if you have larger originals or small low value quick drawings, they’re worth bringing, but I wouldn’t make any for the intent of selling in the future.

I don’t think a single person thumbed through my plate rack of originals. It was a poor display idea. Don’t recommend it at all. But I can’t think of a better idea other than individual easel displays which take up valuable table space better used for spreading out other items flat.

How could I have done better?

I think having more variety of franchises in my prints was the only HUGE mistake that I kinda knew before I arrived might be an issue. The reason I didn’t was I was worried about space and this could have been avoided had I just listened to the advice I read and had a portfolio out - I even have an A4 portfolio book! Stupid. I’m stupid.

Would I have done enough better to make a profit? No way haha.

How did other people seem to be doing?

It didn’t seem like anyone was doing particularly well… But without knowing peoples numbers, it’s hard to say. And I doubt many people keep the obsessive books I do.

I am pretty sure a lot of convention artists don’t realise the amount they are spending vs the amount they aren’t making… But I could be wrong. There’s a lot of talk of “making table” which I did make back, but I came nowhere close to making back all associated costs. I think for it to be legitimately financially “worthwhile”, you’d have to take about £2k over a weekend - to account for the time and all expenses and paying yourself a decent wage. And if your prints are £10 each, that’s more than 10 prints sold an hour. No one was anywhere near this busy. No way.

A few artists told me this isn’t the most amazing show in the first place and they’ve done worse than they did at this same show last year, even if it seemed physically busier at times this year. A lot of this game is luck of the draw - who’s turning up, how much do they have to spend, what's the weather doing, etc. etc…

Do I need a card reader?

My sales were about 50/50 cash and card… But I ran out of exact change at one point, so being able to take card payments saved the sale. I have a Sum Up reader as it was the cheapest to buy up front and I had no issues with it the whole weekend. At £20 it was a bargain. I think I would rather have that than the cube display grid, for example.

Do you have any cost shaving tips?

Oh hell yeah!

First up - like I said before - sign up to every single potential supplier newsletter. Some of them send out coupons almost weekly.

I bought very little in the way of display equipment and salvaged the rest...

I borrowed some plate stands from my nan, I took empty cardboard displays from ASDA and Sainsbury's (I’d try Walmart or Target in the USA). These were great because they fold down flat for transporting, are light and FREE! Keep your eyes peeled when you’re out shopping for ones which might be the right size for your products. Often times you can transfer the one or two items left in them to another box in the store, or they’re simply empty. I found ASDA best for having completely unbranded boxes. I also made some stands for my small originals from thick card rather than by expensive display racks that are heavy to transport and cost a bomb.

Pick local shows if you can and research thoroughly your transport options and the cost. Parking, trains, hotel costs and eating out can be extortionate additions to your overall expense that are easily forgotten.

Make sure you can carry your setup and don’t need to spend additional money on an Uber or something to help you move shit around!

Use what you have. Don’t buy storage boxes and suitcases and trolleys if you don’t have to. Sure, they might make your life slightly easier, but maybe wait and see how your first few cons go.

Any other tips or things you wish you’d known?

One thing that was kinda stressing me out was leaving stock overnight, but I realised there’s a whole show floor of high value figurines down there...

Leaving the stall unattended isn’t a big deal, either. Obviously take your money with you, but your neighbors can let potential customers know you’ve popped to the loo and I saw several “Back Soon!” signs throughout the day. I took a friend mostly as company, but I would confidently do a con alone having seen how much of a non-issue this is. Having a friend is great for chatting and having a chance to have a look around the show and chat to other artists, though!

I’m not sure carrier bags are necessary. They’re a pretty substantial extra expense you can skip.

Check all your stock as soon as it arrives in the mail. I had an order of cello bags for A4 prints where about 50% of the pack were unusable as the bottom seal with just... open.

Oh! And the “Sundays are always quieter” rhetoric? My Sunday was twice as good as Saturday, despite being quieter on the show floor.

Overall...

I really enjoyed myself. I loved everything. Chatting to customers, chatting to artists, seeing what people were selling, people watching, eating junk, setting up, tearing down and having a friend to chat with and chill the whole time. I gained a pretty significant Twitter follower boost over the weekend and gave away approximately 150-200 business cards as well as meeting some awesome new friends.

I’m not sure if I will be back for the same show next year - we’ll see. I’d like to try a bunch of different shows with different audiences. Many overlap in terms of being around the same time of year. And all the while I’m carrying limited stock to see what works and what doesn’t, I’m reluctant to book two close together.

I’m lucky enough to live in London - so I have access to several big conventions throughout the year on my doorstep.

I have a table at Hyper Japan in July. A very different con to this one with a table almost half as big. So I suspect most of what I’ve learnt won’t even apply! But that’s kind of exciting. My logical brain tells me not to make more stuff, but I think I’ve got the con bug now and just wanna make more profits!

I hope this has been slightly useful to anyone toying with the idea of doing a convention. I recommend checking out @howtobeaconartist here on Tumblr as well as Ben Krefta’s incredibly detailed experiences of being a UK convention artist.

Another thing I found helpful was to watch youtube video walk-arounds from previous years at the same show - see what people are selling, their set-ups, get a feel for space, see if you see the same people returning year after year. Here’s a video from the show I’ve just done! Artist alley starts at around 7:50.

#artist alley #my art #saiyanhajime art #saiyanhajime #conventions #comic con #lccspring #london comic con

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michiigii-writes · 4 years

Text

Of Shadows and Tyr (1/??)

Summary: So, after 20 years of searching, I have stumbled upon a DnD group that is willing to deal with my absurd work schedule, and let me play with them! I have no idea what I’m doing, and I cannot fanart my way out of a wet paper bag, so I appear to have subconsciously decided to write a novel.

Craven and the other Tiefling have written more succinct and appropriately lengthed (that’s a word) summaries.

I have created a neutral 21-year-old Tiefling druid, named Strive. She has cinnamon skin, short garnet hair, black eyes, a whip-like tail, and horns that curve out and then slightly down and back (Bharal sheep horns). We have started our journey at level 2.

This is my version of a “the story, so far.” It is already too long. 8) I have no idea how many installments there will be; I already had to separate into a second part of our first session because I wrote too much. I also have an origins chapter for Strive because IM’ SORRY OKAY.

In the beginning: There was a city (part 1/2)

Master said it was time to see the world.

I didn't want to, of course. I was comfortable enough to live with the Lizardfolk tribe, secreted away in a little hut by the edge of the forest, serving as their healer when Master finally passed on. Why would I need to go out into the world? Our swamp had everything I needed, and that was enough.

But as usual, Master wanted more for me.

As per Master's orders, lightly veiled as 'advice,' of course, the safest way for me to see the world would be with a group. And apparently, the easiest way to find a group of adventurers was in the city.

He failed to mention how busy and loud and DUSTY the city of Kendrith was. I don’t like sand. It’s rough, irritating, and it gets everywhere.

There were too many people. Too many humans. It was a warm, sunny day, but I had to keep my cloak closed and my hood up to hide my tail and horns. Even in the depths of my big cloak, I felt exposed.

And the dust! There was so little natural life in Kendrith; barely any grass or trees. It had been less than a fortnight, and already I missed the lush reeds and soft, insect-ridden mud near Master's hut. The city was dry and lacking, like stale bread.

I was trying to find quieter streets when I somehow managed to almost step on a small figure, tripping them into the road. Naturally, I stopped to help them up, but my apology died in my throat when I saw her horns and tail.

She was a Tiefling, too. A young Tiefling with beautiful blue eyes and a spade-tipped tail.

But...her skin...it was purple.

Unbidden, I recalled warmth, and softness, and a smile resting on a purple-skinned face-

And then the Tiefling bared her teeth at me and the memory evaporated.

"Are...are you okay?" I asked, reaching out to her with an empty hand. She hissed at me and scrabbled back. I froze, then raised my hands, palms out, in a sign of peace.

“My name’s Strive,” I said softly, and asked her if she wanted help, but she just hissed and cocked her head at me. I wasn’t sure if she didn’t speak Common or if she just wanted me to leave. She made me think of my tribe’s hatchlings: feral to anybody aside from their family.

We were interrupted, then, by a human in armor. He had some kind of insignia on the breastplate, but what worried me was that the Tiefling hissed at him, recognition crossing her face.

He was following her and she did not feel safe.

I stood between the human and the girl, tried to brush the him off, but he continued to press forward, offering us shelter, of all things. Why on earth would a human want to help two Tieflings? People in general didn't trust our kind, but humans! I felt anger rising to flush my face. Humans were the whole reason...

If all Tieflings are not alike, the same must be said of all races, Master's voice echoed in my head, stopping my temper.

I wasn’t home, anymore. I had to be smart, and I had to keep a cool head.

I eyed the human knight carefully. He introduced himself as Valzan Corindal, and again, he said he wanted to help. I've always been good at reading people, and for some reason, I couldn't detect any lie in him. It was odd, but...somehow I believed him.

Almost like a natural 20 had been rolled on my insight.

It helped abate my suspicions when an elf woman wearing similar armor joined him, and he backed away. I relaxed a little, although the Tiefling behind me still seemed wary. I spoke a little with the woman. She seemed kind. Bitterly, I wondered if it was easy to be kind when your race was generally admired.

Nobody chooses their blood, Charity. Only their path, Master chided.

I did my best to shut down my concerns, and listened to the elf woman's spiel about their church. Her name was Elyssia, and according to her, she and Valzan were hoping to develop a church worshipping Tyr in Kendrith. I wasn’t particularly interested in converting. Semuanya, Master’s deity, was enough for me, valuing my survival instead of my dark heritage.

Thankfully, Elyssia wasn’t trying to change me, only offering me a place of rest, and then she retreated into a run-down old building nearby. That made me wonder: I'd been taught that churches were grand affairs with coloured windows, not dusty ruins. This 'church' didn't look anything like that; it looked significantly more forlorn than what I had imagined a church to be.

It was then that the Tiefling shook her head and looked even more upset. I didn’t see any flies buzzing near her ears. I couldn’t hear or sense anything, myself. But I knew I was missing something, and that bothered me.

My answer came sooner than I expected: a very tall gentleman decided it was time to join our group and with a booming voiced asked if he could be of some assistance.

I wanted to go home, personally.

The Tiefling girl spat an insult at the tall man, making him dizzy, somehow. I suspected he had done something to upset her.

I, on the other hand, looked at the newcomer appraisingly. He seemed otherworldy to me, somehow. In a loud, boisterous voice, he announced that Craven was his name. He was tall for human standards, but his hair stood up in a crest and his eyes glowed blue.

I had never seen anything like those eyes.

I also started to wonder if maybe the Lizardfolk and I were the strange ones and everyone else on earth had blue eyes. I glanced at the human. Nope, his were green. Stranger and stranger...

I decided then that I was going to try to convince the Tiefling girl to come back with me to the swamp where we would never have to deal with anybody on Semuanya's green earth ever again. That was the only logical thing to do. There were too many things happening out in the world and I, personally, was done with it. Master was clearly wrong; I did not need to see the rest of the world.

Instead, two men in black sauntered over, chains on their belts, and clearly looking for the Tiefling girl behind me.

The way she hissed and backed away from them, by comparison, she had been downright cozy with Valzan only a moment before. Forget not trusting the Paladin of Tyr; these two men, who were soon joined by a third, were definitely an active danger.

To my pleasant surprise, I saw that Valzan and Craven were also of the same mind; together, we fought to take girl’s enemies down.

The four of us made short work of the three men. I entangled the one who was closest to us, using vines, while the girl behind me spat curses with some kind of magic. The tall Craven cut down one slaver with his great sword, while the paladin finished off the other with a few swings of his axe. The third enemy tried to run, but was quickly caught by Valzan, and the coward passed out as soon as he saw his fate was sealed.

Craven carried their hostage into the church, but Valzan stayed behind, hoping to talk us into following them, once again talking about safety.

I looked at how thin the Tiefling girl was, then instead of properly answering him, asked if the paladin had any food. He pulled out some bread, offering it to her. She shifted back, ever distrustful. I didn’t blame her.

Silently, I took the loaf, took a bite of it to show that it was fine, then offered it to the girl. She hesitated, then snatched it from me, munching eagerly away at what I now knew was incredibly dry bread. I mentioned so to the paladin, but with a small smile and shrug he explained that it was rations. I nodded, chewing thoughtfully, noting that he didn’t snap defensively at me. A comment like that would have earned a slap, with Master’s tribe.

I was also impressed to see that the girl was almost done the loaf; quite a feat considering how dry it was. Without thinking, I said out loud that she reminded me of a chipmunk.

She did not appreciate it. She pulled a face, and I regretted saying it.

Again, we were invited to the church. I told the girl that it seemed like a good offer, and if she was anything like me, she didn’t have anywhere else to go. I slowly followed the paladin to the church, and was pleased to see that the girl stayed right behind me.

Crossing the threshold, I paused, and it was with some degree of relief to find that I would not burst into flames. The highest point of my day, so far.

In the main foyer of the church, we found that the elf woman, Elyssia, had prepared a wonderful spread for us. The Tiefling girl made a beeline towards the fruits and sweets, but my eyes gravitated to the cheese! There were great, big, yellow and red wheels of cheese, beside loaves of bread that were so fresh I could still see steam rising off of them. And wine! I loved wine. I’d only had it once or twice, but I knew it was so much better than the brackish moonshine the Lizardfolk made. But first, to business. Craven and Valzan hauled their unconscious slaver into the church’s basement, myself following silently behind. Elyssia stayed with the girl upstairs, so I figured she would be safe.

In the basement, a lone chair, small table, and candle awaited them, along with two large barrels of water. My mouth twisted, hidden by the shadow of my cloak. I could imagine what was coming. I reminded myself that their victim was a slaver, and a cruel one, if the Tiefling girl’s scars were any indication. Valzan splashed water into their victim’s face, effectively reviving him. Craven thought it would be a good idea to dump a whole barrel onto him; I rolled my eyes, hiding a smile at the unnecessary action.

It didn’t take much to make the man talk; almost immediately, he willingly shared everything he knew about his employers, even if it wasn’t much. I frowned when he mentioned that he was just a hired hand, trying to make his way in the world. He was a slaver. A slaver. How could he stomach such work?

But his insistence that he just wanted coin rang true. He needed to work to eat, and jobs were scarce. It just happened that what he had to do was vile.

I didn’t want to hear any more. Without the others noticing, I turned away and slipped back upstairs. I would much rather keep company with the cheese and wine.

--(part two)--

#Of Shadows and Tyr #dnd campaign #dnd #Strive not Charity

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sage-nebula · 4 years

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why didn't you like steven universe future? not mad, just wondering

I didn’t like it for … quite a few reasons. Fair warning that this is probably going to be long, it’s going to contain spoilers for Future, and those who really liked Future for whatever reason are probably not going to agree with me. And that’s fine! But I do ask that if you disagree that you don’t try to start a fight over it. That would be a waste of everyone’s time, including yours, because I’m going to be thirty in twelve days and so I really don’t have the time or energy to get into heated fights with people over children’s cartoons anymore. I’m well past that stage of my life. (Also keep in mind that while I’m very critical of Future, I really like the original series, which is why I’m critical of Future. So if there’s any confusion, let me clear it up now: I am not in the “SU crit” crowd.)

So with that said …

My first issue with Future is with its format, and particularly the issues that it had with character balance. In the original show, while there were obviously some characters who were relegated to side character status and thus didn’t get as much attention as other characters did (e.g. Lapis Lazuli, Peridot, Lars, et cetera), we still had a sensible mix of characters in each episode, there not only to contribute to the plot, but also to bounce off each other. If it was a townie episode, you’d probably see a good mix of human characters interacting with Steven. If it was a Crystal Gems episode, in most cases all of the gems would show up at some point or another, and so on. Characters who had established relationships with each other often showed up with and interacted with each other (e.g. Lapis and Peridot, however you want to interpret their relationship). It felt natural for this to happen. It made sense for all the characters involved for everyone to get focus, for the episodes to not be centered on One Character and One Character Only.

And Future … didn’t do that.

Particularly notable and bad in the latter half of Future, Future’s episodes tended to focus on Steven + One Other Character. “Guidance” was Amethyst’s episode, so Amethyst was the only person Steven interacted with at length. “Volleyball” was Pearl’s episode, so Pearl (and Pink Pearl) was the only character Steven acted with at length, and so on. In a particularly egregious example, and the one that really made me notice the problem, “In Dreams” was Peridot’s episode, and so Lapis was not seen nor mentioned despite loving Camp Pining Hearts so much that she rewatched all the seasons with Peridot, made a meep morp specifically due to her love for the show (e.g. she made fanart!), and in the comics has an entire issue where she and Peridot not only put on a Camp Pining Hearts play, but where Lapis shows that she’s memorized the show’s dialogue and even does impressions for Peridot. Yet although Lapis is such a passionate and devoted fan of the show—although their mutual love for the show was something that helped Lapis and Peridot bond—she apparently has no interest in watching the reboot. Or if she does, we don’t get to hear about it, because again, she isn’t mentioned at all because “In Dreams” was meant to be Peridot’s episode.

Now, a disclaimer: I do ship Lapidot. I think I’ve made that pretty clear before. But the fact that I ship Lapidot isn’t why I’m annoyed that “In Dreams” was only allowed to have one (1) character besides Steven, and thus Lapis was excluded. I’m annoyed because it makes zero sense given things about Lapis’ character that were established in the previous series and supplementary materials. Lapis loves Camp Pining Hearts. Therefore, Lapis should at least have an opinion on the reboot, even if it’s only Peridot saying that Lapis wants a full report on the reboot to know whether it’s worth watching or not. The fact that she isn’t mentioned at all distracted me, because I spent the episode wondering why she wasn’t being included in a watch party for a show she loved so much she made fanart for it and memorized the dialogue to impersonate the characters.

And as I said, this is far from the only episode where this happens. Each non-Steven character seemed to get one, and only one, episode where they were Steven’s Plus One, and therefore were either inexplicably missing from other episodes, or only had brief cameos at best. It took until episode 12, “Bismuth Casual”, for Connie to have an appearance for more than a few seconds, and even then, she was mostly only there to show how awkward Steven was interacting with humans (since apparently all those townie eps we sat through in the original series meant nothing in the end), because “Bismuth Casual” was Bismuth’s episode, and thus the only one she had a real appearance in. In “Together Forever”, we were given a half-assed excuse for why Garnet didn’t stop Steven from getting his heart broken (”you would have done it anyway”) because a.) having Garnet give Steven good advice might have ruined the “plot” and b.) it wasn’t her episode, so they didn’t want to give her real focus. As a result of wanting to keep the Steven + One Other format, they sacrificed characterization and narrative cohesion by excluding characters that it would have made more sense to include. It was distracting, and it didn’t work for me at all.

Now, you might be wondering: why did they do this? Was it really necessary to do things this way to focus on how awful Steven’s mental state was? Well, no — but that’s not why they did it. Rebecca Sugar revealed why she chose to write Future this way in an interview after it ended:

“… There was a lot about the story that the initial run of episodes had told that I wanted to recontextualize because I think that people […] really put a lot of their focus on—not unlike Steven himself in the character—put a lot of focus on the Gems’ stories that were going on when really as a team we were always very interested in his human story.”

To paraphrase: Rebecca Sugar was upset that people were more interested in the Gems rather than Steven, and as such she cut them out of Future as much as possible to put the maximum amount of focus on Steven and his issues so that we could learn to appreciate Steven instead.

And this … does not work for me.

First and foremost: You cannot force your audience to like or be invested in a character. You just can’t. In fact, trying to do that often results in the opposite effect; the more you try to shoehorn audience focus and love onto one particular character, especially at the cost of other characters, the more the audience tends to dislike them. I believe the term that TV Tropes uses for this is “The Westly”, or “The Scrappy”, named after characters that, well, became disliked because of how the creators tried to force the audience to like them. It’s perfectly fine, as a writer, to want your audience to focus on a particular character or story point that you think is cool, and it’s perfectly valid to be disappointed when they don’t. But when you create a sequel series specifically to … punish, for lack of a better word, your audience for, say, taking comfort in how good of a parent Greg was to Steven, or for caring deeply and being invested in the plight of the Gems and all they went through in their past instead of being focused on the child character who, in a lot of ways, acted as the audience surrogate … a.) it’s not going to work, and b.) you’ve lost a lot of my respect (not that you care, because you don’t know me), from one writer to another.

But on a more personal level, this doesn’t resonate with me because I never did care about Steven that much, in honesty. In fact, to be the most honest, part of the reason why I put off watching Steven Universe for so long is because Steven’s bratty behavior in the early episodes annoyed me to no end. I was so frustrated by the fact that this bratty, annoying little boy somehow had all the answers that these strong, brave, very competent women around him just somehow couldn’t see or have themselves. When I did start watching, I watched solely for the Gems. I did come to like Steven over time as character development set in and matured, but even so I was never personally invested in him or his story. I always liked side characters more. Even when it came to the humans, I preferred characters like Greg, Connie, and Lars to Steven himself. (And yes, Lars was a huge jerk at first, but this wasn’t treated like an acceptable thing like Steven’s often bratty behavior, which is why it was palatable to me. Also, yes, Steven was a child and so was allowed to be bratty, but that doesn’t mean that I have to like him as a character even if I acknowledge that his behavior is in-character for a thirteen-year-old who has the maturity of an eight-year-old.) So to have Future focus entirely on Steven and his woes, and especially in a way that clashed hard with some of my own lived experiences and values (tl;dr: as a survivor of parental abuse, I would have killed to have a parent as loving and supportive as Greg, so Steven lashing out at him really did not sit well with me at all) really put me off Future and Steven as a character. Rebecca wanted me (and by me I mean “as a person in the audience”, not me in specific) to focus more on and appreciate Steven, but her writing in Future actually did the opposite. It took a character I grew to like and made me dislike him again.

And on that note, Steven himself. In the Gizmodo interview mentioned above, Rebecca talks about how she believes the audience took what Steven was going through for granted (which I don’t think is very true at all given fan discussions and pleas for Steven to see a therapist even before the Future episodes started airing, but hey), but she also says that she wanted to focus on feelings of inadequacy, overwork, and learning that you deserve love because those were experiences she herself had while working on the original show, and so she wanted to explore those experiences through Future and chose Steven to do it. To quote:

“I learned that I just really needed to take care of myself and respect myself and believe that I deserved friends and love. When I started the show, all I cared about really was working. I was very proud to work myself into abysmal health, and I think a lot of people can relate to this, especially artists and people in animation. […] So a lot of what I ended up writing towards the end of the show was about the work that I was doing to try and build a foundation of self-respect that would just allow me to keep functioning at work. By the end, I think I really arrived somewhere that I’ve never been before, where I felt comfortable reaching out to people and saying, ‘Hey, do you want to hang out?’—something as simple as that without assuming that they wouldn’t want to spend time with me? Or little things, you know? Something as simple as putting down my pen and taking a bath just cause I wanted to, or taking a nap in the middle of the day—things I just didn’t feel I deserved before. That really became part of the arc of the show and a lot of what I ultimately wanted to write about in Future.”

Now, there are two things that I want to say first, before I continue:

The fact that Rebecca went through such a horrible time with her mental health, that she suffered as much as she did, and that the animation industry is an industry which promotes suffering like it does, is all heartbreaking, and I am so relieved to hear that she’s in a better place now, and I am goddamn proud of her for reaching that better place. I’m so proud of her for taking care of herself, I’m happy that she has better self-esteem. It’s awful that she had to suffer breakdowns to get there, but the fact is that she’s been working successfully on recovery and that is amazing.

Fiction is an incredible outlet and way for expressing what you’ve gone through in your life. Anyone who has ever written a story can tell you that they put some part of themselves and their lived experiences into what they write. The fact that Rebecca wanted to use a cartoon to share her experiences with mental illness and mental health recovery is perfectly valid and understandable. Not only can she create what she wants, but sometimes telling stories is the best way to express to others what you went through in a way that makes it easier for them to understand your experiences. I don’t condemn Rebecca for doing this at all.

With those things said, though … I really have to ask if Steven Universe was the correct fictional universe to do it in, and if it really worked for Steven Quartz Universe, the character.

The thing I loved most about the original show is that it was, in Rebecca Sugar’s own words, an idealist fantasy world where all conflicts could be solved by talking them out and that the tone was overwhelmingly optimistic. I started watching Steven Universe during a breakdown of my own, because I needed something soft and easy to digest that also had a ton of episodes (and by that point, Steven Universe did have a lot of episodes). Steven Universe didn’t have Reality Ensues moments, by and large. There were characters that had trauma (e.g. Lapis Lazuli), but although trauma was portrayed realistically (and in fact, as someone with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, a.k.a. C-PTSD, Lapis is one of the best portrayals of it that I’ve ever seen), for the most part the show always erred on the side of optimism. It wasn’t, “Things are bad, and now they’re getting worse, and now they’re getting worse, and now they’re getting worse” on and on for twenty episodes straight with no reprieve. Even when characters were in bad places that weren’t fixed by the end of an episode (e.g. Garnet and Pearl’s fight lasting several episodes, Lapis running away to the moon and then running away again when she couldn’t overcome her hypervigilance and anxiety), the tone of the show typically suggested that there was still hope for things to get better. It dipped the audience’s feet into the angst bucket, rather than grabbing them by their hair and waterboarding them with it.

But Future was so heavy on the angst that it was memetic to call it Steven Universe: Fear instead. Every single episode only seemed to make things worse. And while that is understandable in the sense that the show wanted to lead up to Steven’s emotional breakdown corrupting him (if that is indeed what happened; it’s still unclear), it’s jarring when you consider the original show’s tone wasn’t that dark and emphasized the importance of communication, rather than showing that the titular character, once known for employing Jesus no Jutsu (a.k.a. talking at problems until they’re no longer problems) to great effect now suddenly actively shunning communication as a means of conflict resolution. “Prickly Pair” is, in fact, a great example of how much of a departure Future was from its predecessor. Steven spends the episode having a conflict over how he feels that he can’t talk to the Gems because they’ll feel guilty for not being there for him, which, okay, I can buy that given that he was always acting as their counsel in the original series. The episode ends with Cactus Steven going on a rampage and attacking the Gems, Steven realizing that this happened because he vented to Cactus Steven about the Gems and didn’t show Cactus Steven love or affection, and the Gems (after Cactus Steven leaving) asking Steven if there’s anything he needs to talk about in a way that’s gentle and shows they want to listen to and help him. And Steven, having realized that this entire mess happened because he talked about the Gems rather than to them … decides to double down on not talking to them and instead bottle everything up instead.

See, in the original series, Steven would have realized that since Cactus Steven went on a rampage because Steven vented to it rather than talking to the Gems about the issues he had with them that what he should do instead is, you know, talk to the Gems and tell them how he feels, especially since they now already have a pretty good idea given that Cactus Steven regurgitated it all to them. This would have resulted in, perhaps not an instant-fix, but a definite road to communication and healing much, much earlier than the fifteen-odd episodes of things getting worse that we had to sit through after this episode aired. But because Future needed to build up to Steven having a breakdown, and because Rebecca wanted to write about her own experiences of bottling things up and pushing onward despite her worsening mental health, Steven didn’t learn the obvious lesson that he would have learned in the original series (hell, that he arguably already knew in the original series), and the Cactus Steven incident was literally never brought up or followed up on again in the episodes that followed, because the episodes that followed didn’t have a big focus on the main CGs. (Which, again, goes back to the format issues, because in the original series you better believe the main CGs would have followed up with Steven about that little incident rather than just apparently forgetting it ever happened.)

I’m not saying that it’s unrealistic for Steven to have trauma or issues due to everything he went through in the original series. What I am saying is that being so heavy-handed with showing those issues, plus having Steven do things that don’t necessarily align with previous characterization, feels a bit more like writing for the sake of a message rather than writing for the sake of character. I’m also saying that Future’s hyper-focus on showing just how Bad things were for Steven, as well as how Bad the Gems and Greg were at parenting, as well as the whole “Steven gets CORRUPTED, GASP” bit at the end, felt quite a bit like a fanfiction to me. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking fanfiction—believe me, I’ve written a LOT of it in my day—but there is a reason why fanfiction is, well, fanfiction, rather than show canon. It’s fun to explore concepts such as Steven going darkside and shattering Jasper and trying to shatter White Diamond and then turning into a giant dinosaur, but is that really something that we want written down in the history of the show’s canon? Do we really want to make Steven Quartz Universe the only character in the show to outright murder someone on-screen, and then laugh about it later, and also never give the murdered character any sort of closure or conclusion to her own arc? Is that something better off in canon, rather than in the realm of fanfiction?

Hm.

All in all, I just feel that Future doesn’t jive with the original series in terms of content or tone. The episodes were entertaining enough, but overall it left a bad taste in my mouth. Given that the original series had a perfectly fine finale with “Change Your Mind”, I’ve decided to take that as the ending to Steven Universe, with the movie serving as the epilogue. Future is, to me, something optional. Rebecca wanted to explore her own experiences through the lens of the character she liked the most, and that’s fine. I’m happy that she got that out of her system. But Future didn’t work for me, I didn’t like it, and so I’m electing to ignore it, personally. I’m not going to include it the next time I rewatch the series. YMMV, and that’s fine! If you liked Future, I’m happy for you. But I didn’t, and this is why.

I hope that was a satisfying answer.

#steven universe #steven universe: future #Anonymous #it's just not canon to me #and that's OK

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novelconcepts · 5 years

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Okay, but all silliness aside: I owe a ridiculous amount to Critical Role. Or, more specifically, to having found CR when I did. I came in around the beginning of the second campaign, and I had no idea what this thing was. I didn’t know a damn thing about D&D. I didn’t watch gamers stream. I think I’d been on Twitch a handful of times to watch Jim Lee draw, and that was...it.

I came into Critical Role having seen a handful of gifs on my dash from people whose opinions I trust, and I realized Ashley Johnson was involved. That was my full base of knowledge: Ashley “hey, I know her from Recess/Growing Pains, I like her” Johnson was the whole deal. And that could have been a breaking point early on, because the first thirty episodes of Campaign 1 are a little rough if you don’t know what you’re getting into. The audio is questionable in places, it can be hard to track what’s going on, there’s the whole...obvious cast issue. And if you came in knowing only Ashley, you didn’t even get that lifeline the whole way through.

But here’s the thing: this was 2017? I had just gotten married, and while I married the love of my life, who I had been engaged to--we originally had a slapdash courthouse wedding the day after the election, because it was the only safety net we could grab hold of. At least it would be a legal marriage, in case something really cataclysmic happened before our actual wedding date. I was obsessively refreshing six different news sites every hour while at work, and falling down the darkest political rabbit holes on Twitter every night. I was have terror dreams of nuclear fallout and panic attacks over climate change...and, on top of all the fear and the anger broiling in me, my dysphoria was getting worse by the day. My anxiety. My depression. I was sinking. Fast. So I did the only thing I know how to do when things get truly bad inside my head.

I hid inside stories.

Namely, I hid inside Critical Role. The new campaign wasn’t quite on its feet yet, so I went back and started with Vox Machina. I went into these 3-5 hour episodes, letting them play in the background at work, letting these people I did not know or even really get yet into my head. And, at first, it was just the fascination of the concept. A long-form narrative built by upwards of 8 people, all sitting around a table, just...improvising. Not an inch of that is the way I tell stories, so it was brilliant and baffling, and curiosity had me straight out the gate.

And, if it had just been the concept, that still might not have been enough to hold my attention. If it had just been the idea of it, it might not have been loud enough to drown out the voices in my head telling me the whole ship was going down, that there was no hope, that there was no point in even getting up in the morning to face more bullshit.

But...it was Matt Mercer. Matt, with such an incredible array of characters and maps living inside his head, who could so easily have been That Guy--the English Major Asshole who knew he was smarter than everyone in the room and played it up--and instead chooses to be so kind. So utterly engrossed in the desire to give everyone a seat at the table, to let everybody into the narrative he’s weaving. It takes a certain kind of person to not only write the sort of stories he invents for CR, but to be open enough to lean back and let other people take the wheel every night, and to roll with whatever comes his way.

And it was Travis Willingham. This huge dude who had to sit at the edge of the table because he was all muscle and thumping energy, who I kept expecting to be tight-lipped and brewing with that toxic masculinity judgment straight dudes are taught to value--and, instead of even a modicum of that, he was so excited. So invested in these characters and this game, in these friends, in playing the wisest dumbass ever to cross a screen. Travis, who hugs his male friends, and doesn’t pull the no-homo card, and stans his wife with such delight, there is no way you can watch even half an episode without falling in love with their love.

And it was Liam O’Brien, who could have played the arrogant Cool Dude, and instead leaned so hard into having fun with his place at the table. Into deep-cut jokes, and his love for his friends, and such an affinity for Laura that I genuinely believed they were siblings. Liam, who wears his soft heart on his sleeve, and understands that sometimes the best way through tragedy is to weave it into a story, to let that be a kind of therapy among friends.

And it was Taliesin Jaffe. Tal, who is just gonna be him, and not even fuck you if you don’t like it--he doesn’t even seem to notice. Tal, who is physical with his friends, and who laughs with his whole body, and who has the quickest one-liners in the world one minute and “life needs things to live” the next, and who just is such a joy to watch as he immerses himself at the table. He’s gonna have his hair, and he’s gonna wear mismatched socks, and he’s gonna paint those nails, and love his people, and inspire everyone around him to do the same.

And it was Sam Riegel, who--I’ll be honest--I didn’t get for a while. He was hilarious, and he was a quick-draw, and I loved his songs, but I didn’t understand how much he cared, how truly in it he was. Sam has said he’d do anything to make these people laugh, and I don’t think everyone realizes just how valuable it is to have someone who understands the need of a good laugh in a bad situation. Sam lights up the table in the strangest, silliest ways--but he also brings some of the most vital human moments to the story.

And it was Laura Bailey, who was just so...warm, it bleeds straight through the screen and envelopes me every time I watch her play. Vex is cool as shit on the surface, but Laura is so full of affection, so quick-witted, so hugely into this game that she transforms herself utterly when she plays. Laura comes to the table to play with everything she’s got, and she’s so honest when she does it. Impeccable voice work one minute, flirtatious wink the next, and then she’s dying laughing at a dick joke. It’s so open, it’s impossible not to love.

And it was Marisha Ray. Marisha, who took so much shit, and came out the other side standing taller than ever. Marisha, who commits wholeheartedly in voice, in affectation, in climbing up on her chair or lunging backward out of it. From day one, I was rooting for Marisha--I was inspired by Keyleth getting to grow up onscreen, as I’ve been invested in Beau slowly cracking open and letting herself shine out from the spaces she’s spent so much time shoring up. She loves these characters like true friends, and she loves her people, and she loves her husband, and she loves this craft to such a degree, I want to quit my job and come work for her instead. There’s such a strength and a dignity to her that I find myself needing to be stronger, too.

And, of course, it was Ashley Johnson--deceptively sweet, intensely funny, so much tougher than she looks, and when she turns up in a game, the affection could fill a stadium. Ashley being in town or on Skype for a game is like coming into a party and finding a friend you hadn’t gotten to hang out with in six months waiting for you. Everything just feels brighter with her in the game.

And it is a game, and it is a story, but the family these people have built--people I’ll likely never meet, people who live on the opposite side of the country--is somehow big enough to let complete strangers bask in its reflected glow. I built a habit of listening to CR at work...and then talking about it to my wife, with all the hyper-fixation glee I can’t help when I fall in love with something...and then I was putting it on at home so she could fall in love, too. I was putting on Talks or Between the Sheets while I ran on the treadmill, or when I needed to focus on a project. I put on episodes I’d already seen when I was sad, or when I was lonely, or when I just needed something to fill the silence and keep the darkness in my head behind a wall. For two years, I’ve gone back to these people again and again. To the silly videos. To the serious conversations. To the Twitter feeds and the fanart people can’t resist making to commemorate these characters who feel so tangible.

Matt always ends the stream with a claim of love, and with most shows, with most streamers, with most people, that just feels like words. With these guys, with the way they open up and share this lightning in a bottle family and story they have created with the rest of us, it feels honest. It feels like these are long-lost friends who may never be in the same room, but are always there when I am drowning because the world is a nightmare, because work is kicking my ass, because this gushing essay is the most I’ve written in months. They are so good. They are human, and fallible, and invested in telling stories that get dark and ugly one minute, and devolve into hysteria the next, because that’s what life looks like. Even life with gods and magic and talking swords and goldfish deaths.

Critical Role keeps me throwing my shoulders back, keeps me laughing, keeps me insisting on showing the people in my life how much they mean to me. Critical Role keeps me on the board when the demons in my head have me thinking it’d be easier to throw the game. It’s a show, and it’s silly, but it’s given me such a safe, warm place to curl up in some of the bleakest times of my life, and I love them so much for being willing to share some of that light with the rest of the world. They’ve given me a place on the internet that truly does feel like home.

#critical role #long post #critter #there are a lot of stories and storytellers i love with all my heart #but there are so few that make me feel the things the CR cast and crew and narratives do #and i am so grateful for every minute of it they are willing to give #anyway i've been wanting to write something like this since i finished the VM campaign the first time around

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fatebreaking-a · 4 years

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☀️

I like how this is literally indecipherable on desktop, so I had to go onto my phone (where it was still indecipherable) and then open it in safari to figure out which one this was.

☀ What’s your rp pet peeve?

It’s this one and not the other one right above it that also looks like a sun.

Emoticons, man.

Well, that was fun and all but- rp pet peeves. Stuff under the cut. Pour one out for the entire community, because I’m about to take a pound of flesh from everyone.

There’s a lot of stuff in here that boils down to just being a good writing partner and all that, trying to advance the action in a natural way, and so on… and I think a lot of it can boil down to either a lack of awareness or a lack of experience. People get better at writing by writing, so I find it hard to really be frustrated and stay frustrated by someone who falls into some of these pitfalls. So you’ll notice I don’t really target things that have to do with writing skill as much as I target ‘attitude’ and ‘conscientiousness’. There is a lot that bothers me though, so here’s a short list.

Criticizing the way other people have fun. This is a big one. What this boils down to is conversations about how “this ship isn’t realistic” or “your ideals on writing are dumb” or “you take writing too seriously/not seriously enough.” I’ve seen all of these. And I used to know someone on a forum-based RP site that would actively go out of her way to criticize that people would include a lot of introspection in scenes that were fast paced. For instance, using poetic language, or talking about how they’re feeling, what the situation was, “he felt like he was up against the tide, that his heart was being torn in two, a cut made deeper with every clash of their blades” - stuff like that. She hated it. And she made sure everyone knew that she did not approve of how much they were writing, because it was ‘not realistic’. And yes, there is definite merit to the claim that people do not have time to introspect about their entire lives and their relationship to their allies and enemies between sword swings... But so what. I don’t think it’s wrong to advocate for shorter, simpler posts with less descriptive text, and to manage in 200 words instead of 600. That’s great. Simplicity has value, being concise is great, ‘brevity is the soul of wit’, whatever. But the problem, the problem was that she would criticize others for writing in a way that they enjoyed. No one got on her case for writing less, but she was so grating on this point that eventually people just did not want to be around her.

It was something I’ve experienced even here. Finding the balance between “writing to improve your ability to write” and “writing just to have fun” are two separate matters. People forget that individuals exist from both camps, and I have known people (multiple) who say ‘this is important to me, I’m growing my skills using RP as a medium’ but fail to empathize and recognize that not everyone has the same viewpoint. Caring about things that make you feel something over technically good and well executed writing does not make you a problem.

And as a big follow up, I find that this is a big issue in life in general. I think that people often forget how much time it took them to learn a certain thing, recognize their own investment, or recognize the disparity between their own idea of ‘common knowledge’ vs actually common knowledge. When I joined the community, I did not know what private, selective, independent, mun, muse, or mutuals meant. For someone who’s brand new, these are terms that can be hard to decipher. And it’s the similar with ships - I think that people forget that not everyone who comes to RP is from a writing background. Some of them may just have enjoyed reading fanfiction, or may have enjoyed their favorite bot lane duo, or they have a main and their partner has a main and they like the aesthetic. So long as it’s not inherently problematic (incest, pedophilia), it’s cruel to degrade someone and call everything that doesn’t make perfect sense a ‘crackship’. Fanart also has a big role to play in this. Do I personally like Sona with Ka/yn, Yas, Sy/las, Jh/in, or Dra/ven? No, I don’t. I don’t, but equally, it’s not right for me to get in someone’s face for liking it. If you love MF/Sona because it’s a fuckin’ sick classic wombo combo bot lane... that’s cool, more power to you. I wish people would ease up and remember to just let people have their fun. There’s a Jh/in that follows me, who politely asked if I shipped it and I said no, and then there was no hard feelings at all. And that is ideal for me. Really.

T h e f t.

And being ultra conscious of it. I am in a very unfortunate circumstance that many of my Sona hcs are very similar to another blog in the space. I found that out by accident, and we reached similar (but also different!) conclusions. But now I am terribly terrified of ever speaking to them, because gods above I want to lift all my duplicates into the air, kiss them, and scream about them... but I don’t want anyone to feel anxious that I’m copying them. It’s also why until about a week ago, I only followed one other Sona blog ever - written by one of my very, very close friends. I never want people to feel like I’m stealing from them, but I also want my duplicates to feel comfortable on my blog! I want them to feel okay about reblogging art of their characters if they like it or talking to me about things... And I’ve put in a lot of effort to be very divergent with my portrayals, but I still ended up in this situation. I won’t name names ( and I really hope that no one bothers that other Sona, because she’s a genuine sweetheart and deserves love and appreciation ), b ut... This is a big issue for me.

And it’s exacerbated by the fact that some people are lazy as fuck and actually just straight up steal ideas. It’s not ‘inspired by’, which I usually take care to do, giving proper credits or speaking about where I got information from or from whom or that it is on some level almost collaborative (because this is a collaborative space where we interact with each other, but that’s another topic). But I mean some people just recklessly steal and because we all have anxiety (TM), the line between coincidence, inspiration, and theft blurs. Understand that on some level, plagarism is an ethical dilemma, and I exist in the camp that says “hey man that’s cool come talk to me” - but I can exist in that camp because I insist on a very divergent interpretation that is almost ‘theft-proof’. I do not think any other Sona blog will ever have this combination of headcanons: “is a construct inspired by a house spirit, made up of one part crashed titan goddess, three parts demons, and each demon is represented by one of the strings of the instrument, which by the way shattered because bad reasons”. But if you’re not me, it’s hard to... stay loose about it.

And it’s hard to not get jealous.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE. Alright I wrote down a list when I actually got this ask, so let’s run off that. ( Yuki, you fuck, you’re not done? Fuck no I’m not done. ) These next ones are big for me.

MISREPRESENTING YOUR WANTS / YOURSELF

what does that mean, you ask me. It means this. It means pretending to be interested in ideas or interactions, even if you’re not interested. I do not ever want to be in the situation where I am happily chugging along, talking about a dynamic, and then find out that the other person isn’t as interested.

It’s fine to be mellow about it dude. I would rather know that you’re like... just okay on it all. I don’t want you to be polite and ‘spare my feelings’ and force yourself.

I want you to have fun. Have fun. God just have fun, you know? Please. There are a ton of interactions I’m “just okay” with, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I can be just okay with stuff and it’s fine. Not everything needs to click instantly but like...

Only showing interest to appeal to me or spare my feelings kinda sucks. It doesn’t last forever. It feels really bad. And eventually when things fall apart, it feels even worse. Like oh you really just did not care that much. Or you didn’t enjoy writing with me? Or what is it? See: jealousy/anxiety. Just be honest.

I think you especially have seen this with me, but I have a penchant for just being sincere and honest about how I feel about things. At least a little bit.

Don’t share things people tell you in confidence.

Fucking duh but it needs to be stated. Sometimes people gotta vent. It happens. And I get that ‘talking behind someone’s back’ is not great, but expressing frustration is a real thing that has real value. And then finding out that those things were shared. If I didn’t bring it up with them myself, I didn’t want them to know. Duh. I’m not talking to be catty but because I’m upset. S h i t. Some of the drama that I’ve seen happen from others doing this (and not to me, but in various cases) was entirely unavoidable. I’ve seen so many variants of this. It’s dumb dude. It’s dumb.

Hard vs Soft statements (Stating opinions as facts)

This is another one that gets me. I come from a world where we write, ‘Sona tries to’ and so on to others. Tumblr as a whole doesn’t seem to conceptually engage with the idea of ‘interrupting actions’ and accepting that interactions are a little malleable. And it in turn reflects how others speak about characters.

I never see, “I think Sona is”, I see “Sona is.” This is such a minor little thing, and I’ve come to accept that it’s part of the culture, but it can be terribly frustrating when others speak about your characters. I often say things like “I see Sona as” or “Because of xyz, Ori/anna would probably-” etc. But that isn’t something that I see here from some people. I know that I do this a lot less these days, in part because I have acclimated to the culture.

Incidentally, there are some joke versions of this that are also frustrating. People can really think they’re being funny, but end up just shutting you out of the conversation entirely when they say ‘No’. I might be a little too sensitive to this though, in that I often disengage from conversations because “it’s not really about my interpretation, so it’s better if I not say anything because it’s not relevant and doesn’t contribute.”

Really, I’m just a weenie baby, but I know when someone’s being rude vs when it’s just my own anxieties. I don’t expect everyone to have unshakable confidence, I also don’t expect that everyone be quivering in their boots. Some people can be really, really dismissive and it’s kind of not so great because it comes along with them otherwise being pretty neat.

Last one: Misrepresentation of data / using a ‘preponderance of evidence’ when there really isn’t that much.

How do I even put this.

CONJECTURE IS NOT FACT.

Phew. Okay that’s done. That right there is a big problem (and in combination with the pet peeve before that, it gets worse.)

Something to understand is that sometimes there is no good reason to pipe up to correct someone. Often, people are having a visceral, gut reaction and it’s very emotional. Criticizing that ignores the intent (that they’re frustrated), so it’s often a good idea to let it be.

But that doesn’t stop me from seeing that facts are poorly stated or misrepresented. The community likes to talk about league so I see it in OOC posts, and I also see claims that are just wrong. They’re misstated, exaggerated, or phrased in such a way that you could accept them - except one fact check will prove otherwise. But again, why get in someone’s face when they’re frustrated?

But this leads to some people feeling ‘complicit acceptance’. Which is in itself another problem that I won’t get into.

I as a person tend to be pretty rigorous. If I see facts and I can check them with a quick google search, I often do - especially League. It’s so easy to check a champion’s win rate or popularity. Other people do not always exercise this rigor.

“Alright fuckface but that’s talking about league and not rp.”

Yeah okay you make a fair and valid point, except for the part where you missed bullet points 2-4. I’m more talking about the general attitude people have but let’s talk specifically more about RP.

There’s content. A lot of content. And most of it is really vague, because that’s how R I O T G A M E S does things. We still can’t get a straight answer on whether Sona’s adopted mom, Lestara, is alive or not. H u h?

And this often leads to us making connections and conclusions based on the limited data we have. We’re extrapolating, taking what we know and trying to figure out something new.

Except when we get a new data set, sometimes our extrapolations don’t work anymore.

Except we just spent three months world building around our guesses ( because that’s what they are)

Oops I’m divergent now.

That happens. A lot. My entire blog was evidence of that, where I made extreme guesses and then accidentally got validated as Demacia went full grimdark. But it even happened last year, when suddenly we gained new information! Mage registration! That’s a thing! And it changes how we perceive things.

And you may be thinking, ‘ok fine but what does that have to do with misrepresentation’ and it has this to do with it. People will make conclusions based on their own view, then solidify these conclusions as ‘fact’.

For example, I wrote a small article on how “magical sight was not a reasonable power to have” and then soon after, Mageseekers appeared. Oops. Oops.

And these extrapolations get treated as though they are really fact. The line between what is ‘real’ and what is ‘assumed’ blurs. The truth is this. Unless it’s directly and unambiguously stated, it’s basically not fact. “But we can conclude-” I know. And then we’ll get new information and that’ll change. Ideas in this fandom are like balloons, you need to tie them down with text evidence or they’ll just float away before you even know it. I can talk about how Sona is a literal genius level intellect all day, and tomorrow I can be proven wrong by one little shift or clarification in the lore. ‘Within months’ - okay how many months? Fifteen months? Three months? Unknown.

And this leads me to preponderance of ‘evidence’. This one is long because it bothers me a bunch.

‘Preponderance of evidence’ (quotes required) is basically the situation in which someone goes and tells me:

“Listen buddy, I have these seven pieces of evidence, so I can reasonably conclude that [x] is true.” And that’s solid conjecture and extrapolation and I accept that.

Except that maybe you seven pieces of evidence aren’t all solid pieces of evidence.

Oh.

Oh no.

And that’s happened. I have seen evidence pieces one, two, four, and six all be good. And pieces three, five, and seven are a stretch at best.

But because they have so many pieces of evidence, it’s hard to critique back. Because they still do have four good pieces of evidence!

But the strength of the conclusion increases with more accurate and valid data points, and if your data points aren’t-

And that’s the rub, basically. Sometimes I see people fit evidence to their conclusion without even realizing it. Some of the most intelligent, rigorous, and well-versed writers on this site I’ve seen do it.

And it sucks.

And it’s a peeve because here’s the truth.

The truth after all this talk is this very important fact.

I don’t say anything about these things to people because I don’t want to ruin anyone’s fun or engagement.

People make mistakes and say many things because they are passionate about what they’re talking about. Often that’s the case. And harmless conjecture misunderstandings are not the end of the world because this is not academia.

except that one time I wrote a writeup on how Aphe/lios isn’t mute but whatever.

And so while I have said all these things and have a lot of these feelings, I also think there’s no point to saying most of them directly to the person that bugs me. What good will it do? To someone who is reacting with their emotions and just wants to get their frustration out, or is speaking passionately about something... Just let it go.

And so often I let it go, even if I disagree. I have an opinion, but I don’t go out and toss it back in your face. I just get mad quietly and grump about it.

And that’s why I end up being a very ‘stay in my lane’ person.

The end.

If you read all the way through this, I’ll give you a cookie tbh. Many cookies. This is almost 3000 words and 7 pages.

#yuhl #ooc #long post tw #//3k words I'm sorry dash.

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xmysticalnightxx · 5 years

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The First time we met (Dimeship FanFiciton) This story is a fanficiton base on a drawing made by nixtricya, This fanfiction is beetween two character called, Magica DeSpell and Scrooge McDuck (DimeShip) MagicaxScrooge If you see gramamtic errors, sorry i’m not english XD ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Things to know before read! The story is placed before Scrooge gets his number one dime (infact he is 10 by a day in this story) Magica instead is young too, but since she is a witch, she gets old a bit later Scrooge, but she is still phisical and mentaly a kid like Scrooge. ----------------------------------------------- Scrooge Mc duck after has get a shoe shine kit. He immediately goes to work. He waited…… a lot…. The people of the city wears hardly shoes after a while he was sick of waiting, so he gets his kit and start walking around the city, searching for someone’s shoes to be clean. In those years ( around the year 1877 ) witches and wizards of all kinds where known but no one ever met proprely one of them. Scrooge was walking for two hours now, he was sick of walking through the streets full of people, so he turned the corner and get in a dark street. There was no one, but meanwhile he was walking he heard footsteps someone was running from other people, he could hear horrid, shrill voices of girls, mocking someone. He could heard really horrid descriptions, like “ Oh come one you are such an horrible witch” or “you’re just a failure!” “W-…witch? –“ he though by himself. When he was about to go through another corner he was hitted by a girly figure. He fall on the floor and that girly figure it was next to him. He gets up immediantely and saw two really horrible girls. One it was a duck with blode hair caugh in a chignon, she had a really big fat face, even if she was ugly the secondo ne was even worst… a fat pig with black hair…. That’s what i can say. Scrooge was a bit frozen after they sayd “Looks like Lame-duck hit a human” says the blonde girl “What should we do to him?” sayd the black one He was trembling now, they were witches and he didn’t knwo what to do. Untill “Pina! Tina! KNOCK IT OFF!!!” The girl that hit him before, was now casting a spell on those two. A baloon appear around them and after they were a bit up they were screaming of anger, even if they coudn’t hear them it was obvious they were furios. Meanwhile they were starting to fly away, Scrooge look at the misteryous girl that save him. She had beautiful dark hair falling almost on her shoulder, she had a simple yellow clip on her hair, she was wearing a really similiar dress like those two but with red collar and wrists. She was acually a very pretty Scrooge stand there abit enchated watching her beutiful face untill “Sorry for those two human” He didn’t get it, a witch was apologies to him… but… he never hear of a kind witch before. “They can be pretty mean sometimes” he was really surpriesed but answer “ W-well…. Yeah.. maybe…thanks…” “Well, no problem! But now i have to go before someone see me talk to a human, Buona giornata! ( Good day in italian) Even if she was a witch he was curious “Hey! You talk a bit strange! You are not from here right?” She turned and nod “Well i’m here with my class of school! I came from Italy! Sono nata per essere forte! ( I’m born to be strong )” Scrooge chuckle a bit, she was really nice. He wanted to ask for her name but- “HEY!!!!!!” Those two witches came back, all wet, maybe they fall on a fountain. The girl that saved Scrooge took him by the wrist and start running. They were being follow for a while untill they get to a a big square full of things like barrels of wine or hay bales, Scrooge and the girl hide behind a tower of barrels of wine. Scrooge notice them almost in front of the barrels of wine, they were the same as they were hide behind, so he whisper to the girl “ They are almost in front of the barrels! If we make it fall they will be scared and we can escape!” he sayd “What?! No! They will get hurt!” she sayd “i know but…. They will beat us if they found us!” he sayd “ WELL, WELL!” Scrooge and the witch turned to see those two on the bottoms of the barrels tower. “LOOKS LIKE WE FOUND YO-!” but before she could finish everything start trembling. Scrooge understand immediantly what will happend, so he gets the hand of the little witch and start running, they turned to a close corner and then!- *BAAM* In the square now there was wine all over the floor and all over the two witches that start crying for their dresses. Scrooge and the girl after a long run. They sit on a box. “Thank you…” the witches sayd breking the silence “No problem really… are you ok? He answer “Yes…. But i think i have to get back where my class is…. Or they will leave me here….” After she answer she get up and start walking. Scrooge was happy because she was fine, but he hated that she whould have been bullied again from those girls. “Hey!” The girl turned around and look at him strange. “I know you have to go, but those two will continue bullying you after all of this!” The girl smile and answer“I know! But one day they will apologies to me! Because i will become the most powerful and great witch of all times!” Scrooge smile and blush a little, this witch even if she was a witch she was really cute and determinated to become a great witch. When she was almost in the street he look at her and yell “I BET YOU WILL BE THE GREATEST OF ALL!” The witch turned one more time smiling “Thanks! I will!” Scrooge then sayd “I hope one day we will see us eachother again!” her smile become even bigger “I dunno know! But i hope so too!” Scrooge want to met her again so “ i promise you we WILL!!” She then turn the corner and Scrooge was blushing, even if he didn’t get anymoney today he met someone really special, after he go back to his old place where he was waiting for someone’s shoes to be clean, someone approach him “Hey kid! Could you clean this shoes?” Scrooge look at him and sayd “Of course!” he then start cleaning the shoes and afte he finish this man give him 10 cents, that even if it wasen’t value here in Scotland but it was a start! Many years past, scrooge forget a bit of that girl, the only thing that could remember clearly where her hair and her beutiful eyes, before he met her he heard her name but he really don’t remember it, the only thing it was that her name start with an “M” Other years have past he had become the most rich duck in the world! He forgot even the first letter of her name, he even forgot most of the things that happend that day, the only things where that he was helped and he help a nice witch with black hair and with Black passionate deep eyes. Sometimes when he fight one of his worst enemy, Magica DeSpell, he see a lot of things in common with that witch he met a long time ago, sometimes he wonder if she was that little witch, even if it past 65 years it could be possible. Scrooge McDuck always wonder if Magica was that little girl…. And even if he wasen’t sure… he was right… that little witch that he met a long time a go was Magica DeSpell. Magica instead recognized Scrooge immediately ... it was ... ironic ... When she was small and met him she noticed that he had a little crush on her ... and at that age she too had a little crush on him being that the she had helped with those annoying little witches and that he had also saved her from the barrels. Every time she lost to Scrooge, she thinks of only one thing. “Looks like at the end we met each other again… but looks like you don’t even remember your own promises or... me…didn’t you… Scroogie?”. PLEASE READ THIS!! If you are sad for the ending don’t be it! If you like it i can make a sequel called “Your promise” or if you wanna write your own ending or the all story that fine! You can do it! I wanna thanks again nixtricya for doing that image that ispirated me and monkey-li that support me! I hope you like the story and everyone! Have a good day! the image that ispirated me

the link if you wanna put a like or a comment --->https://nixtricya.tumblr.com/post/182162910923/magica-scrooge-fanart-kids-in-love-i-really

i wanna tag monkey-li and shewhowantsmouseears

this fanfiction is made by xmysticalnightxx (me) ;p

art made by nixtricya

#Dimeship #magica #scrooge #ScroogexMagica #monkey-li #nixtricya

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positivelyamazonian · 6 years

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10 Favorite Game/Anime/Movie Characters

Tagged by: @a-super-evil-cat-who-murders (thanks!!! It was fun!)

The Rules: Name your top 10 favorite characters from 10 different fandoms, then tag 10 different people.

Well I’ve already done a tag for FEMALE CHARACTERS so I’ll leave this in case you wanna check it. For not repeating myself, I’ll do this time just male characters.

I’ll tag: @luluvonv @luthienamell @adayka @hydraballista @anyathebloodshell @anentireamazon @jar-cup @kim-v-croft @autumn-star93 @lady-trent

Of course don’t feel obliged to do this. And yes my characters come in not a particular order!

1. Haplo the Patryn - The Death Gate Cycle (book series)

Posting an amazing fanart by Melusaaste because there’s not an official art that shows him so close-up, and honestly, this is the most accurate depiction of him I’ve ever seen.

Haplo is the anti-hero and main character of The Death Gate Cycle series written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Personal childhood hero (despite being an antihero himself), husbando and whatnot, until today he’s one of my fav characters ever, because through him I learnt the most perfect character development, from a cruel, merciless and amoral villain, to... well, not a hero if you think so, but to redeemed human being.

“A 'why' is a dangerous thing... It challenges old, comfortable ways, forces people to think about that they do instead of just mindlessly doing it.” - Haplo in Dragon Wing, the first volume of the series.

2. Johan Liebheart - Monster

You don’t know what’s a villain until you meet this bastard. I am not an otaku or very enthusiastic of anime series, but Monster by Naoki Urasawa are probably the best manga/anime series ever written. And his villain, Johan Liberheart, one of the most twisted fucks ever written by an author.

Tortured, mentally ill, twisted, cruel, amoral, there’s no way to explain Johan. He experiences no character development and he has not a single redeeming quality, yet you just can’t let him go. An unforgettable character, not recommended for the weak and vulnerable.

There's nothing special about being born. Not a thing. Most of the universe is just death, nothing more. In this universe of ours, the birth of a new life on some corner of our planet is nothing but a tiny, insignificant flash. Death is a normal thing. So why live?

3. Geralt of Rivia - The Witcher (book/videogame series)

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I’m so sorry I met this amazing character through The Witcher videogame series, because he existed already in the book series of the same name written by Andrzej Sapkowski, and I really feel like posting this video because it perfectly sums up the spirit of the character.

Geralt is a witcher, a mutant specialist in killing demons and monsters for coin. He’s shaped like an anti-hero and despised by his society because of his nature and his mercenary job, but despite having everything for being just a rogue scoundrel, he manages to become a very rich character. Full of redeeming qualities despite his grey morals, Geralt struggles in a cruel Middle-Ages world to keep something human for himself, when everyone surrounding him tries to turn him in the heartless freak he was trained to be.

“People," Geralt turned his head, "like to invent monsters and monstrosities. Then they seem less monstrous themselves. When they get blind-drunk, cheat, steal, beat their wives, starve an old woman, when they kill a trapped fox with an axe or riddle the last existing unicorn with arrows, they like to think that the Bane entering cottages at daybreak is more monstrous than they are. They feel better then. They find it easier to live.” ― Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish

4. Raistlin Majere - The Dragonlace (book series)

Again, I’ve to go back to a character created by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (man, this people CAN write characters I tell you), this time for the Dragonlance series. These books are less original and brilliant than The Death Gate Cycle, but more popular and beloved because they are easier to read. And Raistlin Majere is probably the best character written for these series, being saved among them because of being, probably, the less cliché and the more complex of them all.

And again, anti-hero at times, redeemed hero at other times, tortured, twisted, cynic and cruel, but also able to show kindness and a human heart at times. Raistlin was born weak and sick and sacrificed everything (including his own health) for one sake: magic. And power. His only life desire is what will lead him to his own destruction.

"Of course this means a lot to me, Caramon. It means everything! I have worked and studied almost my entire life for this chance. What would you have me do - cast it aside because it is dangerous? Life is dangerous, Caramon. Just stepping out that door is dangerous! You cannot hide me from danger. Death floats in the air, creeps through the window, comes in with the hand-shake of a stranger. If we stop living because we fear death we have already died."

5. Tyrion Lannister (A Song of Ice and Ice/Game of Thrones series)

This little amazing piece of awesomeness needs no presentation. I am again sorry I met through the Game Of Thrones TV series and not A Song Of Ice And Fire books, but it was totally worth it because it’s one of the most well-written characters I’ve had the pleasure to meet, and I must say Peter Dinklage was born to play him.

What can I say? Tyrion is one of those characters who are worth living. A dwarf, deformed, ugly, with no physical or war skills, relying only in his extreme intelligence and wisdom and his political talent to survive, he’s one of the most strong inspirations one can find. Definitely go check him.

6. Kurtis Trent (Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness videogame)

I included Lara Croft in my female characters list, it would be absolutely unfair to forget Kurtis as he’s the other character that got my heart in TR series. Not gonna rant long about him here, because you already know my opinion. He was amazing. He deserved better. Ex-legionnaire, demon hunter and Lux Veritatis warrior, I’ve devoted all my fanfics to develop him as there was no chance for Core Design to do it so.

Fitting more in the role of a hero, I think he was also the perfect partner for Lara. His background is very well written and he had a lot of potential. The fact I will never see it doesn’t change anything. He deserves his place here.

"And I thought this would be one of my easy days." - Kurtis, The Sanitarium.

7. L Lawliet - Death Note (manga/anime series)

Again, I reinforce the statement that I’m not a fan of manga/anime series, but definitely Death Note is, together with Monster, one of those you should watch. And yes for everyone who loves Death Note, I’m a L fan. You always choose between L or Kira sides, and despite I’ve to recognize that Kira is a very complex, well written character, it’s L who gets my heart.

Supertalented, amoral, brilliant, extremely unpredictable and surprising, L is the first one of the agents that will try to catch Kira, the murderer who uses a Death Note to implant his particular justice world. L deserves your attention more than Kira, I presume. Or at least, it’s what I think.

“There are... many types of monsters in this world: Monsters who will not show themselves and who cause trouble; monsters who abduct children; monsters who devour dreams; monsters who suck blood, and... monsters who always tell lies. Lying monsters are a real nuisance. They are much more cunning than other monsters. They pose as humans even though they have no understanding of the human heart. They eat even though they've never experienced hunger. They study even though they have no interest in academics. They seek friendship even though they do not know how to love. If I were to encounter such a monster, I would likely be eaten by it. Because in truth, I am that monster.”

8. V - V for Vendetta (graphic novel/movie)

I know, easy to love him, right? Again I’m sad that I met this character through the movie and not the original graphic novel, though you can’t say a thing against Hugo Weaving’s magnificent delivery. I wish I could get my hands on the graphic novel, so I can know him better.

Anarchist, terrorist, idealist, V is the incarnation of the protest against dictatorship and opression in a dystopian England that has supressed all the rights and human freedom. If you don’tknow him, I strongly recommend at least the movie, for the inspiration this character delivers goes beyond that the mask that has trascended the movie itself to become a symbol of citizen fight.

9. Roger - American Dad (TV series)

Well technically he’s not a he, he’s rather an it, but whatever. Also he’s it’s a different trend in this post since I love him particularly because he’s funny and incarnates all the non-political correct you can expect from someone.

He also gives me, kinda, TR vibes. Roger is an alien who landed in Earth during Cold War and was rescued and sheltered at his home by Stan, a CIA agent who’s the main character of the series. Honestly I think Roger is the best of American Dad - a TV show which basically and mercilessly mocks every American value - because despite being an alien is absolutely, indecently human. I prefer him and this show much more than the overrated Family Guy.

10. Dwight Schrute - The Office (TV series)

Last but not the least, the efficient, clever and adorable bastard hillbilly from The Office. I loved him from the very first moment he appeared. Yeah I know many people hate him or prefer the goofy boss of the handsome Jim but Dwight is really my spirit animal and speaks to me in so many levels. No more comment needed. He’s the best of the show to me.

Well this took forever, right? Sorry for the length of this post but now I’m free I wanted to give it some thought. I see again that I’ve a soft spot for grey morals, redeeming qualities, bad boys and complex characters. This is how it goes! ;)

#lol i'm so sorry this took ages to go #i went too deep insight i'm afraid #also now i did this i regret not having done the same with the female characters #but it was too busy back then to do this #thanks for tagging me #top 10 favourite male characters #tag #challenge #not tr related #personal #positively amazonian

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hope-and-soap · 6 years

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“Cover it up”: Ragnarok and the scars of history (1/2)

Find part 2 here

Thor Ragnarok came out sometime in what was, for me, the middle of a term at uni – which meant, obviously, that I had something like negative four hours in which to go out and watch it. By the time I finally got myself into that theatre (four days ago, at about 3:45pm, a month and a half after the film first came out) I’d been spoiled enough by Tumblr to get some idea of what to expect. It was mostly the usual content, really: a few gifsets. Some really great fanart. A lot of rambling about something to do with Thor and a snake. I got my hopes up reasonably high.

What really got me excited, though, was this post by @deirdrearchleone, in which they talk about Ragnarok as an exploration of the ways in which colonial and imperialist histories corrode and corrupt societies built on oppression. The post (which is great, and you should read it if you haven’t) raised my expectations to a place that scared me a little – where before I’d have been happy with a fun romp with a great soundtrack, I went into the theatre today knowing I wouldn’t be satisfied unless I got a film much braver than I’d ever dared to hope for from Marvel. A film that really did say all those things I’d just read; a film that took a good hard look at the very same society from which it came – and every powerful society like it – and had the courage to say “let’s burn it down”.

Spoilers: I got it. It was wonderful. Thor: Ragnarok said everything I’d expected it to say. But it said a few things I wasn’t expecting, too – things about how these histories of violence damage not just societies, but individual people. About who inherits these histories. About what kind of scars this inheritance leaves.

That’s what I want to talk about today.

I want to talk about the Revengers.

“Banner! Hey, Banner!

“No Banner, only Hulk!”

Let’s start, then, with the Hulk. Hulk is something of an anomaly, as superheroes go; most heroes, no matter how violent, seem to see violence as a means to an end – whether that end happens to be fighting crime, defeating Nazis, or saving the world. But for Hulk, violence is the end to be pursued. He seems to actively enjoy fighting (“winning!”) in the Grandmaster’s games; he clearly recognises Thor, yet is unwilling to relent or make peace with him – a move which has to be driven by desire as, with the Grandmaster giving off every impression of being unwilling and even unable to hurt Hulk should he step out of line, it could hardly be driven by fear or desperation. Hulk doesn’t just fight, he revels in fighting, and in his own ability to defeat and destroy an opponent.

This is not, of course, to say that Hulk is a mindless monster: he’s clearly able to distinguish between enemies and allies, and to fight for the protection of the innocent. But he is more concerned with fighting evil than with ending it; for all his talk of winning, his motivation seems to be based not in a desire for victory but in a love of battle. His rationale for fighting Sutur is straightforward: “but, giant monster!” – there is an evil there, a threat, and so it must be fought. He is not, here, considering tactics, consequences, even the chances of his own survival – his instinct, and his desire, is simply to take the bad thing and pummel it into the ground. The Hulk is, essentially, a creature of anger, not just because he’s “always, always angry”, but because this anger forms the beating heart of everything he thinks and does.

The thing about Hulk is that he does not simply exist – he has to be summoned, let loose, chosen. And this choice is made because he is necessary. Hulk comes when he is needed – in situations which are already violent, like the gladiatorial fights, where only the angry and strong survive; in situations where people need saving, and the threat is greater than anyone else can handle. Where battle is necessary and unavoidable, where monsters exist, where anger is a shield against an even greater horror. Bruce Banner hates the Hulk; he summons him when has no other options. He becomes angry because he has to.

It’s in this context that we have to look at what Banner has to say about his own loss of control. He’s been the Hulk for too long, given him too much power; trapped in a situation where he has had no choice but to be angry, constantly, at all times, he’s forgotten how to be anything else. The creature of anger has seized control because he’s had control for such a long time. Violence has, in this way, infected Banner – he has been practicing it so long that it has gone from being a tool he can wield to being the hand on the wheel, the one with the power, the default state.

The more the Hulk is released, the less control Banner has. The more likely it becomes that Banner will never come back. That Banner will lose himself to this creature of anger; that he will never be anything but that. And we can’t blame the Hulk for that. We can’t blame Banner. He is not to blame. The world is.

That’s the horror of it, really – of evils that need fighting. It is not the chance that we may lose; it’s not even the damage we sustain. It’s the way in which they turn us into creatures of anger. Creatures that are necessary, who might even be heroes, but creatures who are not us – creatures who want nothing more than to smash, to destroy; who lose the ability to want anything else. Systems of violence and oppression don’t just steal our freedom or our money or our happiness – they also steal our control, our peace, our selves. They make us always angry. They make us want to fight. They make us release the Hulk, to save or protect or just to survive, even when we know we might never come back from that. They make us make those choices.

The worst part, of course, is that this is the very thing that ought to make us angry.

“I’m a scrapper, not a Valkyrie”

Valkyrie doesn’t have a name. That’s one of the first things I want to point out about her – the fact that she doesn’t have a name. She’s Scrapper 142 and she’s Valkyrie – a pair of designations that mark her not as an individual but as a member of a community. And that is, ultimately, what she is. She is a member of a community, a victim of violence not just against her personally but against her family and her kind.

I want to take a moment and talk for a bit about collective histories. There has been, lately, I think, a move away from collective History and towards personal histories – a desire to tell not the story of a race or a nation but the stories of individual people. And I love that movement, honestly. If you’ve read any of my other writing you’ll know that I tend to hate totalising narratives, that I see them as oppressive and repressive and stifling, that I place a lot of value on the smaller stories we get to tell about ourselves.

But I think something gets lost when we mark this sort of divide between stories and the Story, between History and histories. Because we start to think of everyone’s story as personally determined. We are the masters of our fates. We are the captains of our souls. We are not affected by things that happen around us, or to people we love, or to people who look like us, or just to people, some time in the past. We talk about individual stories like it gives us some sort of get-out-of-jail-free card that allows us to forget that history exists, or has ever existed, or has ever hurt – not just for the people who lived it, for whom History has straightforwardly become a part of their stories, but also those who have had to read it, and record it, and remember.

I’m Singaporean. I’m Chinese. I’m a woman. I know I live in privilege. I come from a middle-class family and I have never lacked for anything. I’ve had every educational opportunity. I have wonderful parents, friends who love me. Up till I was nineteen I’d never experienced racial discrimination in any real way. History never laid a finger on me; I never fought in a war or had to kowtow to my Colonial Overlords. That wasn’t my story. I am not that person. I am happy and I am lucky and I escaped.

But I am also: one of the colonised. A Yellow Oriental. A member of the weaker sex. I am one of a collective, a member of a community, a victim of shared history. And fuck if that doesn’t make me angry, if I don’t think about that every day. If it doesn’t worm itself deeper into my skin every time I hear someone direct a racial slur at someone not me, every time I hear about another Weinstein or Spacey or Hoffmann. Every time I hear some Englishman or American talk about foreigners coming into their country and taking everything. Every time I turn on the television.

Valkyrie’s story is different from mine. She suffered; I didn’t. She lost people; I didn’t. She faced down evil and felt it scar her. I didn’t. But then again, maybe I did.

When Valkyrie runs, she runs not just from her history but from History, the wounds of her community. She runs from her own identity, yes, but also from the collective identity that ties her into that history. She’s not a Valkyrie; she’s a scrapper. She’s just one person lost in space, not the last remnant of a community torn apart by violence – her losses are personal, only personal, and so they are smaller. She opts for smaller personal trauma because it’s easier to carry than the pain of everything done not just to her but to her people too. She opts to hide. She opts to forget.

And I know the feeling. I understand the impulse. And yeah, I cheered, too, when she put her uniform back on and fought. I cheered when she decided to reclaim that identity. I cheered when she decided to remember. But there was a part of me that wished she’d been able to not – that that had been more of a choice than it was.

Because it wasn’t, really, was it? She would always have had to fight, because she never could have forgotten. She could never have not been a Valkyrie, a part of that community, an inheritor of that history.

After all, after all – it’s written on her skin.

#thor ragnarok #meta #valkyrie #bruce banner #hulk #post-colonialism

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spiralatlas · 7 years

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GCAP (Game Connect Asia Pacific) 2017 Day 1

I’m in Melbourne for GCAP and PAX Australia, and GCAP started today.

Sadly things were cut short by me BREAKING MY WHEELCHAIR in a DOOMED QUEST FOR A SMOOTHIE. I got a replacement, but it was a hassle and I needed to go rest afterwards. But what I saw of GCAP was good!

Below: descriptions of talks by Steve Gaynor and Karla Zimonya (creators of Gone Home and Tacoma) and by David Gaider (narrative designer on Dragon Age), plus misc other conference things.

There were three introductions, all about How Great The Melbourne Games Scene Is and how Everyone Is Friends And Awesome.

Keynote: Steve Gaynor and Karla Zimonya from Fullbright Games: The names didn't mean much to me but then I realised THEY'RE THE PEOPLE WHO MADE GONE HOME AND TACOMA :D

The theme of GCAP this year is The Ripple Effect, and the theme of this talk was how people connect and affect each other.

Steve and Karla met as part of the team for Bioshock 2. Karla was a researcher, and Steve a level designer, and when they were in those roles they didn't interact. But they both finished their assigned tasks and asked around for other things that needed doing, which led them both to the massive task of writing all the little bits of extra dialogue around things like what enemies say when they attack, flavour text on objects, optional little stories told through random audio diaries etc. They made a great team (Steve as writer and Karla as editor) and got really into it. I think you can totally see how this grew into their later approach to games.

The company 2KMoran being willing to let them develop like this was part of them being a good company, with many ex-employees who have gone on to make interesting games.

Steve then got to design his own DLC, and went I MUST BRING IN KARLA. And after they did that, and Bioshock 2 was done, they created Fullbright and started working on Gone Home.

At some point Steve encountered some cool Bioshock fanart and became mutuals with the artist on twitter. Since she was a lesbian, he asked her if she'd be up for discussing things to help with the game. She brought along her wife for an extra point of view. The wife turned out to be a 3D artist, and both of them ended up hired to work on the game.

David Gaider: Creating a World and Making it Stick

So this was like 50% general advice and 50% morality tale about the Hubris Of The Writer Who Thinks His Worldbuilding Stands Alone.

Basically he created all the basic Thedas worldbuilding by himself, then told the rest of the team, and worked with his writers, and never checked in to make sure the game worked as a whole until it was Far Too Late.

He was trying to create a relatively grounded, dark, realistic story...and the art team was making orcs and bikini armour. He had lore about the mages being too oppressed to learn offensive spells or do anything flashy in public, while the gameplay team was implementing fireballs, and specialisations like Reaver which were not connected to the worldbuilding at all. And by the time these incompatibilities became apparent everyone was committed and refused to budge. So the final game is a hodge podge of inconsistent parts that all make sense individually but don't fit together.

Now my general notes:

He scrawled out the original Thedas map on paper the same way he would for a D&D game (his original draft looked very Middle Earth-ish in style), expecting someone who knew geography would go through and fix the rivers at some point. They did not.

One lesson he learned is that you can't just throw pages of worldbuilding at people and expect them to both read and be engaged with it. You have to have a "razor", a short description of the core of the game, and make sure everyone understands what it is. Anything that doesn't fit the razor gets cut. For example, DA2 had themes of The Price of Freedom, Family, and All Things Change. And you have to sell them on why your worldbuilding elements are interesting, and what makes them cool. Once the art team understood what darkspawn were they got invested and redesigned them to not just be orcs.

Remember to feel: Don't just come up with the history of your city: what is it like to visit, is it loud and friendly and sunny or oppressively silent?

Pick your battles: choose the parts of your worldbuilding you really value and emphasise those, be willing to let the others go, especially if it’s to follow changes that make the game more fun. The game being fun is the final aim, your worldbuilding is just a tool to get there.

He got confused by his cursor a lot :)

One good thing about the DAO worldbuilding is that he didn't know where it would be set at first, so worked out all the history for everywhere, and that added lots of depth.

Names are the devil, totally subjective so everyone argues about them and hates any new suggestion. Many names for DAO were bandied about, like "Chronicle". He has a rule to never put Shadow, Dark or Blood in a list of possible names or the publishers will go THAT ONE.

His two rules: 1) People aren't allowed to complain about a name unless they have a better suggestion. 2) Wait six months. Chances are people will be used to it and not mind any more.

When the Grey Wardens were first suggested they were supposed to be pretty minor, based off the rangers in Tolkein. So they got named the White Rangers, but that was too similar, so White Wardens, but that wasn't morally grey enough, so: Grey Wardens! Which was fine until they turned out to be important, people suggested "cooler" names like Blood Knight Brotherhood/Lords of War/Disciples of Pain (not sure if he was joking) but he waited six months and took a vote and lo, the old name stuck.

Track your changes.

Have an elevator pitch (not the same as the razor) If you can't come up with one your concept needs work.

Question your biases. He was originally inspired by Middle Earth and D&D, and his own ideas of Medieval Europe...all of which are way too white. Some of this could be fixed in later games, but the world he created closed off a lot of possibilities (he didn't say any examples but I guess he meant, like, Africa and Asia equivalents)

When he took inspiration from Jews and Romani for the elves he thought he was being very clever, and only later realised that this created all sorts of unfortunate implications, since now anything that happens to elves seems like a statement about those cultures.

He was happily surprised to be able to include bi characters in DAO.

The writers were all pretty happy with how they'd handled gender in DAI, then the Voice Over person was like "why are the vast majority of our lines for men?" and they realised they'd all made most of their background characters men for no reason.

At the start it's hard to walk the line between a long, boring, exposition heavy intro, and players getting confused by lack of explanation. (It felt like he wished players would just be smarter lol) He said "If DAO had started at Ostagar then the PC's backstory would have felt irrelevant" which made me think "So like DAI?".

Players have to know why to care about an event before it happens, or the emotional reaction will fall flat.

When you introduce the first member of a group, they should be fairly typical so the player gets a feel for the default. For example, Sten is a pretty typical Qunari. Only after that can you introduce outliers like The Iron Bull.

Every main character the player interacts with (for a RPG, the party members) should represent a different interesting facet of the worldbuilding.

They didn't think DAO would get sequels, and thus had those wildly differing epilogues. He isn't sure he'd change letting the player died, since it was a cool moment. But it was certainly inconvenient to deal with later.

They had a rough idea of how the history of Thedas would continue after DAO "but no plan survives contact with the enemy, in this case I guess that's EA" loll

Having player decisions affect so much has been a bit of a nightmare.

Card tricks in the dark: if you do something clever and the player doesn't notice, it doesn't matter.

If the enemies drink potions and it's not obvious they're doing it, it just looks like the AI is cheating. If a choice affects the plot but this fact isn't made clear, players will just think that's how the plot always goes. Need to heavily lampshade that this is the consequence of that choice. And keeping track of all the possibilities gets ridiculous with characters like Alistair, who can be any one of dead/king/a drunk etc.

The players who DO pay attention to these changes tend to want way more reactivity than is practical. So nobody is impressed. And most new players found the save game editors confusing and off putting. He thinks perhaps it would be better to have a smaller number of major choices.

He's not going to judge other writers but the HUGE changes at the end of the Mass Effect trilogy mean they can now no longer set anything in that galaxy again.

Question time!

Something about the process leading to Krem being written. He talked about the bad stuff previously, and them realising they'd screwed up. A trans fan on the forums said "Could we have a trans character who isn't a sex worker or the butt of a joke?". They got jumped on, but the team read it and went "Oh."

Gaider wrote Maevaris in the comics, talked to a trans woman friend about it. One of the other writers was working on Kress...*audience shouts KREM* and he seemed a bit boring so he got made trans, since it added some interest and fitted in well with the worldbuilding about the Qun etc.It would have been better with a trans voice actor but they couldn’t find one.

What program is best for explaining stuff to the art team etc early on: Biowre had a sort of Grey Box level for playing through choices, but something like twine is good, just to test pacing. (not sure this actually answers the question asked)

Are there any genres you would like to work on but haven't: Yes :D :D But he can't tell us about it yet :D :D

He got sick of high fantasy after ten years. Would look longingly at Mass Effect sometimes just for a change but then they would implode and he'd think"Actually I'm fine".

Off the top of his head: Victorian London, finding husbands for your girlfriends while fighting zombies and also it's a Western?

Misc other things: I didn't make it to any more talks because Wheelchair, but met some cool people, and played some of the student games on display. My favourite was a time travel murder mystery called Lacuna where you have to connect clues. Apparently I was way better at it than most people :D I also actually enjoyed one of the puzzle platformers (I forget the name but it's about a little grumpy blue hexagon), which is a pretty big achievement.

GCAP has a "food intolerances station" with special food options and knowledgeable staff which was pretty great. Morning tea was just various gluten free biscuits, but for lunch there was poached chicken and salmon and various plain chopped vegetables, as well as dressed salads and gluten free bread and dessert. I could eat about 1/3 of it which is pretty good odds, I ended up happier than my partner who doesn’t have as many intolerances but just didn't like any of the food options.

#gcap 2017 #gcap #migw 2017 #game dev #david gaider #indie game dev #conferences #dragon age #fullbright #gone home

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