#zero: the biography of a dangerous idea | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nicklloydnow · 8 months ago

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Fergusson: “Well, we’re the anti-amnesia shock troops. Our job is to fight against the human propensity to forget. The United States is extremely bad at remembering. It has a kind of permanent state of amnesia. It’s not even clear that one administration is aware of what the previous one did. And so the historian’s role is to try to supply that collective memory that we would otherwise lack.

It was when I was an Oxford undergraduate, fashionable to say that one could learn nothing from history except how to make new mistakes. That was AJP Taylor’s line. I disagree with that, I think we must. We have an absolute clear obligation to try to learn from history. And that’s what motivates me every day.

It’s sometimes rather tedious work. I’m not sure if I’d understood at the start how much history would just involve plowing through the letters of dead people that I necessarily would have spent forty or fifty years doing it. But it is a very necessary task, and all the more necessary when charlatans like Daryl Cooper, legitimised my Tucker Carlson, tell outright lies about the past to the American public and, indeed, the world.”

Roberts: “And are being downloaded by thirty three million people. Because unless you do fight back on every front, who’s to say whether these absurd and very dangerous conspiracy theories won’t take root?

And so I think Niall’s right. And one doesn’t want to sound too pious about it. It’s a wonderful job being a historian. It’s great fun and everything, but there is a moral aspect to it all, I think.”

Hanson: “I think also every historian, whether they’re overt about it, assumes that human nature stays constant across time and space. And it’s sort of the tragic view of history versus the therapeutic.

In other words, in our modern age, we believe if you give enough power, enough technology, enough improvement in the material conditions, they can alter, make a ‘New Man’ like the Soviet Union. And therefore, history is not necessary because the ‘New Man’ reacts so differently from the ‘Past Man’ that it would be useless.

But we go back, I think all historians go back to the seminal text of Thucydides when he says this history will be of value in time to come. Not that the wars will be the same, but human nature is unchanging, and the same principles and the same ideas and agendas will reappear in different contexts.

And that, I think, is what all historians believe, that human nature, even though its technology and wealth, all different types of environments and landscapes change and it’s almost unrecognisable, that we’re still the same people as the Greeks or the Romans, and our appetites are what drive us. And so if you can capture a war of the past or a diplomatic crisis or a presidency or what Andrew (Roberts) does, a great biography, then that is gonna be . . . We don’t say that we’re gonna be didactic or utilitarian, but that’s an implicit idea, that we’re gonna help people understand the present by elucidating the past because we’re the same people.”

[28:31 - 31:32]

“Since the outbreak of the culture war, which dates to the 1970s, there has been a discernible trend toward decoupling the present from the past. In part, this trend is fueled by the palpable sense of estrangement of Western society from its historical legacy. References to the past, and the demand to settle score with it, have acquired an unprecedented presence in public life. Time and again, institutions are accused of not going far enough in their condemnation of the past. According to an American proponent of this school of accusatory history, “the United States does not yet have the stomach to look over its shoulder and stare directly at the evil on which this great country stands.”

(…)

The metaphor of the “bad old days” is often deployed as a corrective to the supposed nostalgia of populism. Populists will pine for an imaginary, “whitewashed” past until politicians offer a “credible” future, asserts Cas Mudde, an international-relations scholar at the University of Georgia. Mudde, who accuses populists of mystifying the past, appears unaware of his own impulse to pathologize it and represent it as an unending story of oppression and hypocrisy. The unintended—or possibly intended—outcome of the cultural war against the past is to morally distance society from its own history.

The Australian historian Geoffrey Blainey has characterized this as the “Black Armband” view of history. From this perspective, the past is haunted by evil, its legacy is malevolent, and it continues to exercise its influence on contemporary society in oppressive and exploitative structures and behavior. This sentiment is particularly directed at the foundational values of the West. Take The New York Times’s 1619 Project, which insists that the American Revolution was primarily motivated by the hope to preserve slavery—a proposition rejected even by eminent liberal and progressive historians.

Since the emergence of the modern era, societies have had an ambivalent and, at times, uneasy relationship with their past. In some instances, political movements demanded a clean break with the past, so that their world could start anew. For example, the attempt to rid the world of its past was imaginatively expressed by the invention of Year One in the 18th-century French revolutionary calendar. The ideologues of the French Revolution, unlike today’s obsessive crusaders against history, recognized that the past has its share of heroes. As Karl Marx famously observed, the revolution “draped itself alternatively in the guise of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire.”

In contrast to the French Revolution, today’s enemies of history take no prisoners. They seek to nullify every dimension of the past. Call this the yearning for Year Zero. What we are seeing is an attempt to punish the past and to place it under quarantine. This project—to establish an ideologically determined Year Zero—is motivated by twin objectives: breaking with the past, and denouncing the historical memory associated with it.

Hence, the ritual of humbling characters from the past. By treating individuals and events in the past as having to account for themselves in relation to the standards of the present, Year Zero ideologues erode the temporal distinction between the present and the past, assessing historical figures as if they were our peers. And so the likes of Aristotle, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Hume, and Kant are frequently hauled before the contemporary court of public opinion and charged with various recently formulated cultural crimes. Ostensibly, these rituals aim to “raise awareness” about past injustices. But at times, it appears that the thrashing of the reputation of historically significant figures is also designed to re-educate the dead. A trigger warning attached to a recent edition of Kant’s Critiques warns:

This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values it would if it were written today. Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read.

(…)

Advocates of Year Zero ideology frequently use the term “outdated” to morally condemn attitudes, forms of behavior, and language associated with the past. Those who practice the ritual of outdating—the act of delegitimating the past—signal that whatever is deemed outdated has no place in the present. The practice of outdating is based on the premise that the language and attitudes of previous generations are likely to be “problematic,” because they are old. In effect, outdating renders the activities and accomplishments of previous generations morally inferior to people living in the here and now.

Among the most sinister examples of outdating is the irrational burning of books on the ground that they are old, outdated, and associated with the unacceptable values of the past. In September 2021, for example, in the province of Ontario in Canada, books featuring so-called outdated content were ceremoniously burned as a goodwill gesture to indigenous people. Year Zero ideology imposes a moral vacuum on society. Disconnected from the past and unaware of its origins, society lacks the moral and intellectual resources necessary for developing an outlook oriented toward the future. This is nothing less than a recipe for moral paralysis.”

#niall ferguson #victor davis hanson #andrew roberts #history #historians #hoover institution #uncommon knowledge #year zero

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on-noon · 3 years ago

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Book Review i guess

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife

okay, this book surprised me. I've read A History of Pi, so I know math books about a number can be good.

but zero is special for numbers, after all. so this book talks a bit about the invention? discovery? of zero, then quickly moves onto it's theme.

the repeated either trying to avoid zero in math, because it sorta breaks things, or people using zero and it really advancing their math and science

and then it started talking about quantam mechanics, and well now i want to read more about quantam mechanics.

also the prose for a non-fiction math book?

sometimes surprisingly impactful

#book review #zero: the biography of a dangerous idea

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panatmansam · 6 years ago

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Zero is powerful because it is infinity’s twin. They are equal and opposite, yin and yang. They are equally paradoxical and troubling biggest questions in science and religion are about nothingness and eternity, the void and the infinite, zero and infinity.

Charles Seife, “Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea”

#quote #quotations #science #physics

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zerohallows · 4 years ago

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Full name: Zero Hallows Nicknames: N/A DoB: 10/31/2003 Gender: Transmale Pronouns: He/Him Nationality: European (German, Irish) City of birth: None, was born in a Hollow in the Moors in Ireland, away from towns. Current living arrangement: Pixie Hollow Employment: Student at Swynlake Secondary & cashier at the Rock Shoppe Magick: Pixie; Decay Talent Languages: German, Finnish, Gaeilge, English + Observant, Curious, Accepting - Unfocused, Morbid, Moody

Relationships Biological Family

Zero has no siblings, as of yet, and was raised by a very loving throuple of Pixies that had been together quite a long while before deciding to stop roaming about and settle enough to have a family. Thus far he has been an only child, but isn’t really averse to the idea of that changing in the future. His mother, Wren, is a Scouting Talent, his fathers Aspen, a Garden Talent, and Skyye, is a Singing Talent. Biologically Wren is his mother but none of the family knows, nor cares, about which of his dads is his biological parent; he was raised by them all equally. The family dynamic is a warm, supportive one; when Zero was named such an unusual talent his parents were quick to defend him and look for ways to help nurture those skills. Beyond that they have taken his fascination with the macabre in stride, encouraged his artistic streak, and urged his independence in wanting to travel to Swynlake alone. Zero misses them a great deal though, and is a little hopeful they will join him in town soon.

General Info Home

Zero prefers his smaller form, and has made a home in one of the trees around the Hollow from a deer skull decorated with feathers, dried flowers, bone and whatever else happened to catch their eye. It’s nice and glowy with a bit of magic and very homey, to them anyway. Living alone is a new experience, even though he isn’t truly alone with the Geist** that keep him company, but misses having company when he can’t sleep, as he rarely does in the evenings.

They haven’t given much thought to relocating yet outside the Hollow but since he would prefer to live among humans too; it’s likely only a matter of time, possibly after graduating Secondary after next year.

Biography TW: death, ghosts, bones, insects (moths), macabre themes

Actually. Zero wasn’t even their original name.

That name vanished somewhere with a few other things Zero simply let go of along the way that no longer felt like their own skin. Some pixies know the burden of time changing everything better than most, some know out of necessity and their very design. Zero was raised to accept change, to move forward, move on.

But it all began typical enough. Zero was born like any other pixie; in a little Hollow. It was tucked away in a corner of the Irish moors, not the original home of their transplanted family but one that took them in after their old Hollow was destroyed. Zero wasn’t any different than other wide-eyed, curious pixie child, if not a bit more prone to scurrying off alone to dangerous places recklessly. Most expected them to become a singing Talent like one of his fathers, or even a scout like their mother, perhaps a garden talent like his other father; but Zero was none of these things.

At first, really, nobody knew what they were; a strange child fluttering around empty paths and studying the broken bits of the forest, the quiet expiration of life, the slide of one season to the next. When it came time to put a name to these odd habits, Zero was declared something the Hollow had not heard of before; a Decay Talent. And, really, there was little avoiding curiosity over it from other pixies, perplexing as it was.

There was purpose to it; seasons change, all green things one day brown, all towering trees fall to ruin in their years, and in the end only the bare bones of what any life was remains left behind. There is a reverence to it, a silent loveliness that Zero finds beautiful; it just has never been very easy. For many outside the Hollow, and some within it, decay and ruin are spoken of in fearful terms that Zero never understood.

Being an oddity in having a rare talent, it wasn’t easy learning; garden talents helped, seasonal ones lent advice, and his parents attempted to find teachers as best they could. But the somber-eyed child had to learn much of it on their own, for a time; as he grew older the family set out to different Hollows in search of a proper teacher. It was quite an adventure and Zero met people and saw things he has never forgotten, but he never really fit in. That was the hardest part; pixies are made to be social creatures; being so different was, well, lonely.

Thankfully, his parents were not wary of other races, so Zero saw as much of Mundus places and life in their travels as they did Magicks; granting a small degree of welcome in strange Hollows with stories of life outside the forests.

In a dusty little Hollow deep within Germany’s Black Forest the family finally discovered another like Zero, but found it hard to feel the same enthusiasm for the connection as he once did; with age came restless, unfocused emotions. They did try to make the best of things. It was an unconventional Hollow in an oddly haunted forest, but it suited Zero just fine in that regard. He was never much good at listening though, a stubborn, wild child; their parents assumed it would be home enough for a time.

Until it was destroyed.

Zero didn’t have a direct hand in it, even if he doesn’t always have full control of his talent yet, but it certainly spread rumors and speculation that having two Decay Talents in one Hollow may have been a poor choice, and the teen realized they didn’t want to place that burden on the family they loved, nor his mentor, after the disastrous fire that swept through the Hollow.

Superstitious locals were certain evil spirits lurked in the forest; and Zero cannot deny some guilt in their frightening travelers with his ghostly games and tricks, but never meant for such terrible things to happen.

Even as their family returned to traveling rather than moving to the new Hollow most of the remaining pixies relocated to deeper in the forest thickets, Zero decided to take the next journey by himself; thinking it best for the sake of not bringing bad luck to their parents. They set out alone for a new place; a little English town called Swynlake that was known to have a thriving Hollow filled with a diversity of Pixies where he might fit in. Or at least get to practice his skills without too much scrutiny or too many questions about the trouble they ran to put behind them.

Magic

A very rare talent; these are pixies who are in charge of tending to the natural changes of time and the breakdown of all things. Their role in the Hollow is to help transition through times of ruin, and otherwise to see to it that the decay in things is coaxed into bringing forth new life. They exist for the purpose of transition, because from ruin always springs new purpose; Decay Talents can harness that natural decline and direct it in ways that grants the Hollow a chance at rebirth. Rotting leaves in the autumn guard spring sprouts under the snows, life faded away in one creature gives energy to the soils to grow lush once more; their abilities are often puzzling but they are driven by the need for change rather than destruction, but do not fear it.

It is a hard talent to harness; older Decay Talents spend long lives understanding how to carefully usher in new life through ruin in balance, the young often stumble. As they can cause decay with a purposed touch, very often young pixies are cautious in how they interact with things; not wanting to bring needless harm. It’s expected for them to be active members of their Hollow but also careful in how they tend to their responsibility. (Not shockingly, Zero isn’t the best at that with their impulsive curiosity, and as such usually always wears thin black gloves to avoid accidentally using his talent.)

One might think Decay Talents work outside the realms of others in the Hollow, but the opposite is true; it is a skill that overlaps most everything. Working most closely with Garden and Seasonal talents, they wither and prepare the natural world for growth, few creative talents would argue the inspiration found in watching a Decay Talent dissolve an unnatural element left behind by careless humans back into the earth, and what would there be to celebrate in life without the reverence in watching nature’s beauty flourish from the ashes? More info can be found here

Misc. Education.

Growing up a great deal of the time nomadic, as bouncing from Hollow to Hollow was a necessity either from the destruction of them, seeking a teacher for Zero, or simple family preference as drifting pixies; they have experienced a lot of Europe and the surrounding areas. He speaks a few languages thanks to this, and a lot of his education came from his parents and various libraries and experiences along the way.

As their first Hollow was located near and on good terms with a local Magick-friendly commune and they spent time around Mundus while traveling, they’re comfortable around humans. Small town life is a bit different, a bit bland, but being aware of the modern world is a definite advantage for him.

Formal education was a bit of a side-bar, so Secondary school hasn’t exactly been an easy transition. Honestly, Zero is a barely functional student and doesn’t put much effort into the idea; curiosity about humans keeps him there but most of the lessons taught seem circular or downright pointless to them. But it is an excuse to explore town instead of just living in the forest, and his interest in technology is a little difficult to satisfy out in the woods rather than somewhere he can actually use it.

Gender

Zero is nonbinary, which is a basic term very common in pixie culture. They had some exposure to the concept of how other species don’t always recognize gender without rules, however, and in reference to that has gradually made sense of the strange concept of being transgender; by the opinions of others really since Zero was never raised to see a difference or need for terms.

It still is highly puzzling though that their being, mostly, male, comes with stipulations to some people; baffling in fact. He has gone so far as to make efforts to have a more masculine outward appearance, as he does identify as male primarily; something Zero’s family has also puzzled over but been supportive of.

Names.

Their mom, Wren, and dads, Aspen and Skyye, introduced Zero to the idea of picking his own name at the time their talent was noted, for both that reason and to leave their previously female gendered name buried behind him.

The young pixie quickly decided upon a name that fit the idea of being nothing and everything all at once, masculine and neutral. Their surname, Hallows, was one the family as a whole adopted from both their life of roaming from Hollow to Hollow as well as the nod to Zero’s unique and macabre talent.

Naptime.

Having a talent that is used a great deal, and throughout the seasons, is a bit tiring. And being that they prefer to be nocturnal, Decay Talents are perfectly capable of being up and about during the daytime but they are prone to being lethargic easier. Zero naps a fair amount in daylight hours. Short naps, yes, it doesn’t take long for pixies to recharge, but it’s bound to happen that he might nod off a couple of times during the day.

Ghosting Around.

Zero had a lot of fun darting around the Black Forest and toying with people who wandered into it. Since pixies are very small and Zero is very quiet in movement, more than a few thought themselves being teased by some spirit in that dark place. Zero enjoys scaring people, actually, loves it; and has never grown out of playfully wanting to startle others. They actually enjoy it so much they wear the title of ghost proudly and do miss haunting the ancient forests and making a nuisance of themselves.

#bdrpbio #tw death #tw insects #tw moths #tw illness #tw fire

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surveys-at-your-service · 4 years ago

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Survey #466

“she is the butcher, she wants the air / she hides the scars under her hair”

Who do you think cares the most about you? My mom. What do you do when you’re pissed off? Isolate and cry. Have you ever had unprotected sex? Good luck catchin' me do that. What did your mother study at university? Social work. What was the last thing you took a video of? I have zero idea. What is your least favorite kind of weather? Hot and humid weather can actually fuck off. What was the last housework you did? Does changing my cat's litter count? Have you ever had famous neighbors? Not to my knowledge. Have you ever lived in a small community where everyone knew each other? Nope. Have you ever actually drank warm milk? NO EW EW EW EW EW Do you talk to your pets? If you don't, are you REALLY a pet parent??????? Who is a famous person you could see yourself reading a biography about? He's always said he doesn't want to but I really hope Mark writes an autobiography one day alskdjklafjw;ejr Are there any numbers you dislike for any reason? No. What skill that you have do you make most use of? idk man Have you ever done something sexual that you regret? Nah. Have you ever said anything to the last person you kissed that you regret? No. Have you ever ate so much you puked? No. Do you care about what others think of your physical appearance? Sometimes/some places yes, other times/places, no. Would you rather eat cookies or brownies? It would probably change with what I'm feeling, but I lean towards a nice center piece brownie. :^) If you’re out late, where are you likely to be? This literally never happens. Do you ever visit your mall’s arcade (if it has one)? Our mall is lame as fuck. It definitely doesn't have one. What’s your absolute favorite topic to discuss? Mark, lmao. What is your least favorite topic to discuss? Politics. Have you ever been confined to a wheelchair? "Confined" seems like a strong word, but a nurse did give me one at the doctor's office when I massively tore a ligament in my foot and could barely walk at all. If you have a job, who’s your closest friend at work? Don't remind me that I don't have a job. Have you told anyone you love them today? Not yet, but I'm sure I will later. Have you ever worked in an office? No, but I guess that's what I'm going to wind up going for once I'm ready to job-hunt again... It feels sad that I'm actually aiming for the cubicle life now just because my interaction with people would be much more limited than with most other jobs. Who does the grocery shopping in your house? My mom. Do you prefer margarine or butter, and why? I don't even know if I'd recognize the taste difference. Have you ever been in serious trouble at work or school? No. Do you have any strange fears or phobias that you’re embarrassed of? That I'm embarrassed of, no. Can you smell anything right now? No. Have you ever tried coconut water? No. Which Asian country would you like to visit the most? Idk. Maybe Japan? How old were your parents when they got engaged? I have no idea. Have you ever done a first aid course? No. If so, would you be prepared to perform CPR if necessary? No. Have you ever ‘done it’ in a hotel room? No. Just the idea grosses me out. Where is your next vacation? Couldn't tell ya, buddy. Which are better black or green olives? I'm not a fan of black olives, and I won't even TRY green ones. They just look so fucking disgusting to me. Does your car have a backup camera? Mom's doesn't. Have either of your parents ever been in trouble with the law? No. Do you have a preferred brand of bottled water? Essentia. Is your skin more oily, dry, or combination? It's a combination depending on the location. Where did you meet your current significant other? High school band. What kind of house do you wish you lived in? One that's in the woods. What was the last compliment you received from an old lady? I don't have a clue. Do you know how to cut hair? Properly, no. Have you ever had a classmate die? I believe maybe once? If you have a song stuck in your head, what is it? I recently discovered "Foxy, Foxy" by Rob Zombie and it's Good Stuff. Do you tend to space out a lot? Very much so. What people have changed your life for the better? My parents, my psychiatrist, a PHP therapist, Sara, debatably Jason... Have you ever had any kind of dangerous addiction? What’s this addiction? Caffeine, I guess. Are your parents still married, divorced, or split up? Like this decision? They're divorced, and while it sucks for your parents to split up, it's a decision that I definitely approve of given all they ever did was fight when I was growing up. Them staying together would've been very destructive. Have you ever heard of Hollywood Undead? Do you like them? Well yeah, and I like a large number of songs to where I'd consider myself a fan. I actually had a shirt in high school. Has anyone ever called you a coward before? Who called you that? I don't believe so. Are you a Jeffree Star fan? Or no? Do you think he’s awesome/dumb? Honestly, yes. Like he's done dumb shit, but has more than sufficiently apologized for it in my opinion and changed his behavior for the better. I also - astonishingly - like his music quite a bit. As well, his work ethic is fucking INCREDIBLE, like extremely admirable. Has your grandmother ever made you anything? Not including cookies. I don't think so. I don't even think she ever liked me. Do you disgust anyone? Did they tell you that? Why is this, anyways? Not that I know of. When was the last time you cried, and why (if you want to share)? I don't remember, actually. Probably just about life. Who was the last person who was rude to you? *shrug* Do you have a relationship with God? lol no, and even if I believed in him, I wouldn't have a remotely decent opinion of that entity. Is weed legal in your state? No. Have you ever thrown up in class? In kindergarten, yes. What is something that you used to be ashamed of, but now you’re not? As a kid, being a girl, I was so embarrassed by liking Pokemon. Now, I am literally wearing an Eeveelutions shirt and went out in public lmao. I couldn't care less about loving them cuties. Have you ever walked outside in below zero weather? No; I've never experienced those temperatures. Have you ever held a newborn baby? Yes, but I was sitting down. I would be WAY too scared of dropping a baby otherwise. Are a ton of your Facebook friends getting married and having kids now? I legitimately think most of my friends on there already have kids and/or are married/engaged. It's triggering sometimes and was a massive motivator for me taking a break from there. What’s something you believe in that most people don’t? So uh, I hope this doesn't sound insensitive given how it just passed, but I 100% believe the U.S. government was to some extent involved in 9/11. There is an incredible amount of evidence when you do the research. Is there anyone who’s dear in your heart who’s going down the wrong path? I worry about one of my good friends quite a bit. She is horribly addicted to pot (like, she admits it) in a state where it's not legal, and I'm concerned she'll face legal repercussions eventually. She also dates an absolute lowlife asshole, but they've been together for a very long time, and I just worry about how that might damage her later down the road. Do you get enough sleep? God, it never feels like it. What’s something you wish you would have known sooner? That college wouldn't work for me. Like, I dropped out of three. I do NOT want to know the debt I'm in. What’s the next big project you plan to start? Idk. Possibly something for Girt's birthday because Mom really pissed me off and doesn't want to spend *any*thing to help me get something for him. Is that bad on my end? Like she pointed out he knows I don't work, but like... come on. He's my bf, one of my greatest friends ever, and you can't spare anything? I really don't know if that's selfish or not; it's just that if I get him nothing, I will feel like ACTUAL garbage. So making something may just be my only option. I just dunno what... Do you think you were cute in your baby pictures? omg yes, idk what happened Do you remember pre-school? A lot of it, yes. My long-term memory is pretty damn amazing. Would you allow your children to date prior to 16? Yes. Does your town have a farmer’s market? I think so? Which app on your phone do you tend to get the most notifications from? Pokemon GO, lol. How old were you when you met your current best friend? Around 11. What is something you gave up on after many failed attempts? Photography is coming real fuckin close. I've been trying to go somewhere with that for YEARS. Would you rather read a book, or listen to the audiobook? Physically read. I think my attention would stray listening to an audiobook. Do you think tomorrow will be a better day than today? It's possible, idk. I had a doctor's appointment today that absolutely slaughtered my mood, so I feel fucking horrific, but Girt is also coming over today, and I'm sure he'll cheer me up. I won't see him tomorrow, so that's a bummer. With which friend are you most likely to share a secret? Sara. What is the last thing you complained about? It's hot as shit outside. Is there a show you swear that you will never watch? 13 Reasons Why. What was the last topic that you ranted about? Anti-vax bullshit. Who is the most sensitive person that you know? Bitch, me. Have you ever had a tooth (or teeth) pulled? No. What did you do last Halloween? Literally nothing on the actual holiday. :/ Fire drills: Did you ever wish they were real… just once? ... To get out of school, yes. :x What was the last thing that you felt strongly about? I am still positively livid about Texas' "heartbeat bill." Fuck that place and fuck that law. What is one insecurity you have about your body? Um, everything???? What is one part of your body that you are proud of? Nothing????

#survey #surveys #random questions #lyrics: ''foxy foxy'' by rob zombie

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nenya85 · 5 years ago

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For both Giving Up the Ghosts & The Newly Revised Book of the Dead; 💡-What was the motivation behind the story? + 💎- What was your favorite part?, if you'd like. Thank you!

@rainstormcolors - Thanks for asking!

If anyone has a question, the link to the asks is here!

Giving Up the Ghosts

💡-What was the motivation behind the story?

When we see Kaiba fly off from Alcatraz, I was struck by just what a pivotal moment that was in his life. He’s accepted that he needs to search for his future in the rubble of his past, that he has to let go of his own bitterness and anger. But it’s equally obvious he has absolutely no idea – not only how to do that – but even if he’s capable of change. It occurred to me that one thing Kaiba might do was create a virtual world that would challenge him to do those things. So I really wanted to write a story where the entire world was a map of who Kaiba was, so that when the characters were inside of it, it was like being inside of Kaiba’s soul. I wanted to look at how Kaiba could develop and change – and also at the limits of that change. So, I ended up using the virtual world Kaiba created as a 51 chapter metaphor.

💎- What was your favorite part?

The Wicked Worm Beast. In the first chapter, the Wicked Worm Beast shows up in Kaiba’s virtual world and attacks him. This keeps happening over and over throughout the entire rest of the story, with Kaiba insisting to anyone within earshot that it’s a stupid computer glitch that has no significance whatsoever. The thing is, for at least the first dozen chapters, I had no more idea than anyone else why the Wicked Worm Beast was there. I just knew he belonged. It’s the biggest leap of faith I’ve ever taken in a story. Then when I was about a quarter of the story in, and the Wicked Worm Beast had made several appearances, I went back and read every scene with him in it and all of a sudden I knew why the Wicked Worm Beast was there and what his part of the story was.

The Newly Revised Book of the Dead

💡-What was the motivation behind the story?

I felt like the ending of the manga left so many questions not just unanswered, but unexplored. There seemed to be a conflict between the insistence throughout the story that your life chip should never be wagered on a game and the events of the Ceremonial Duel. We don’t know how Atem feels about going to the after-life or if this is what he wants. The only time he talks about the possibility, earlier, he says that he would rather stay with Yugi even at the cost of his memories. We don’t know if he changes his mind because it never gets discussed.

Also, it occurred to me that Atem was no longer the same person who had once ruled Egypt. He’d changed in his time in Domino, he’d had to form his own personna all over again from scratch’ he’d developed roots here and a way of looking at things that was in keeping with more modern times. Essentially, there was a lot of Yami in him and some of the things he’d learned about himself, might be things he wanted to keep. It struck me that Atem might regain his memories only to feel a bit alienated from them.

It also occurred to me that after Yami no Yugi manages to convince Kaiba that losing equals death, and that they were friends, Kaiba might very well feel betrayed by watching Atem lose a duel and die. Assuming Kaiba arrived after the duel, that he might feel betrayed by Atem leaving without a word to him and without a rematch. And I could see Kaiba, as someone who has experienced repeated abandonments, not recognizing the sense of hurt and loss that was fueling his anger.

I wanted to write a story that encompassed all of that.

💎- What was your favorite part?

I’ve always seen Yu-Gi-Oh! as a fairy tale with some modern day trappings, so I enjoyed writing something that really was a flat out fairy tale – and then putting Kaiba in this fairy tale world was irresistible. One of my favorite parts was having Mokuba tell Kaiba fairy tales and having Kaiba (grudgingly and disruptively at first) try to search for the meaning in them.

This is Kaiba’s take, from his first person point of view of trying to find the meaning in Jack and the Beanstalk:

Mokuba was looking at me expectantly… like he was waiting for me to say something.

"How did they clean up the giant?" I asked awkwardly.

That's when I remembered that fairy tales are supposed to have morals – and Mokuba must be waiting for me to find one in this mess.

"Well," I said slowly, "Jack sneaks into this giant's house, takes his stuff, and then kills the giant when he tries to recover his stolen property."

If this is what fairy tales were like, I'm surprised Gozaburo hadn't told me any. Of course his lessons were usually delivered much more directly.

"But he was a giant," Mokuba explained, staring at me intently. "Giants are always bad. It's a rule. Fairy tales have their own laws."

"And the sooner we figure out what the rules are the better," I agreed. "Because in any battle, you need to learn the lay of the land. But what matters most is being smart and fast… and having a family member ready to hand you an axe when you need one." I stroked his hair. "Got it. You're one hell of a story-teller, Mokuba.”

OMG! One last thing I forgot to add is that I’d just read “Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea” by Charles Seife, and I was thrilled to work the discovery and use of zero as a dividing point between the after-life world and ours.

#thanks for asking!

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kanejw · 5 years ago

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What was Read

For years now I’ve wanted to take a long sabbatical in Italy, to have a small room with a terrace and simply to read working towards a novel of my own.

I’ve read in Cheshire instead; in the sun, the rain with coffee and cigarettes.

What follows is the works (in no particular order) that I’ve read in the last 12 months(26.09.19-13.09.20)

Dates given are the known years in which the works were completed in the respective language of the Author and not necessarily their first English Translation. Collected works dates are of the specific publication read.

+ denotes a repeat read.

In Search of Lost Time - Volume 1 The Way by Swann’s - Marcel Proust (1913)

In Search of Lost Time - Volume 2 In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower -Marcel Proust (1919)

In Search of Lost Time - Volume 3 The Guermantes Way - Marcel Proust (1920-1)

In Search of Lost Time - Volume 4 Sodom and Gomorrah - Marcel Proust (1921-2)

In Search of Lost Time - Volume 5 The Prisoner and The Fugitive - Marcel Proust (1923 &1925)

In Search of Lost Time - Volume 6 Finding Time Again - Marcel Proust (1927)

The Collector - John Fowles (1963)

1Q84 - Haruki Murakami (2009-10)

Men Without Women - Haruki Murakami (2014)

Killing Commendator - Haruki Murakami (2017)

The Dumas Club - Arturo Perez-Reverte (1993)

The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje (1992)

Why I Write - George Orwell (Collection Published 2004)

Decline and Fall - Evelyn Waugh (1928)

If Beale Street Could Talk - James Baldwin (1974)

Another Country - James Baldwin (1962)

Giovanni’s Room - James Baldwin (1956)

The Rings of Saturn - W.G. Sebald (1995)

The Italian - Ann Radcliffe (1797)

Fear of Flying - Erica Jong (1974)

2666 - Roberto Bolano (2004)

Crime and Punishment - Fydor Dostoyevsky (1865-6)

My Wicked, Wicked Ways - Errol Flynn (1959)

The Pleasures of the Damned - Charles Bukowski (Collection Published 2007)

South of No North - Charles Bukowski (1973) +

On Writing - Charles Bukowski ( Collection Published 2015)

Men Without Women - Ernest Hemingway (1928)

The Temptation To Exist - E.M. Cioran (1965)

Kill Anything That Moves (The Real American War in Vietnam) - Nick Turse (2013)

Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury (1953)

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet - Becky Chambers (2015)

The Rachel Papers - Martin Amis (1973)

Metamorphosis & Other Stories - Franz Kafka (2008)

Creation - Adam Rutherford (2013)

Ask the Dust - John Fante (1939)

1933 Was a Bad Year - John Fante (1985)

The Brotherhood of the Grape - John Fante (1977)

Wait Until Spring, Bandini - John Fante (1938)

West of Rome - John Fante (1985)

Earth Abides - George R. Stewart (1949)

Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller (1934)

Cat’s Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut (1963)

American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis (1991)

Naked Lunch - William S. Burroughs (1959)

American Gods - Neil Gaiman (2001)

Why I’m no Longer Talking to White People About Race - Reni Eddo-Lodge (2017)

Hunger - Knut Hamsun (1890)

Zero. The Biography of a Dangerous Idea - Charles Seife (2000)

A Short History of Europe - Simon Jenkins (2018)

Ghostman - Roger Hobbs (2013)

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 & 3/4 - Sue Townsend (1982) +

The Small Hand - Susan Hill (2010)

A Gentleman In Moscow - Amor Towles (2016)

The Other World, It Whispers - Stephanie Victoire (2016)

Brief Answers to the Big Questions - Stephen Hawking (2018)

Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: And Other Lessons in Life - Michael Caine (2018)

Heavy Water - Martin Amis (1998)

The Book of Dust. Vol 1. La Belle Sauvage - Philip Pullman (2017)

The Burning Chambers - Kate Mosse (2018)

Franny & Zooey - J.D. Salinger (1955&57)

The Fall - Albert Camus (1956)

Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse (1922)

The Road - Cormac McCarthy (2006)

Lord Byron Poems selected by Paul Muldoon - Lord Byron (Collection Published 2007)

Content Provider Selected Short Prose Pieces 2011-2016 - Stewart Lee (2016)

Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (1955)

The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway (1952)

Winesburg, Ohio - Sherwood Anderson (1919)

Survivor - Chuck Palahniuk (1999)

Lullaby - Chuck Palahniuk (2002)

Notes from Underground - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1864)

The Double - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1846)

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick (1968)

I’ve got a wonderful job and I’ve been reading Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace (1996) for the past two months.

________________________________________________________________

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toxikku · 6 years ago

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Ducktales Switched AU: Masterpost !

I was asked to make a masterpost pertaining to my feelsy AU and figured considering how far it’s come, it was needed!

Brief summary: This is an AU where Scrooge and Magica’s roles have been swapped. Gladstone takes the place of Lena after Scrooge saved him from the House of Lucky Fortune, whilst a shadow child called Lena takes the place of Magica’s niece. Magica lives in the mansion with Lena, Webby, Mrs. Beakley, and her brother-turned-raven, Poe. Scrooge’s family is of magical heritage, including Donald and his boys who are currently estranged from the old miser after a terrible accident involving Della Duck. The unlucky duck avoided Duckburg all their lives up until the kids hijacked and sabotaged the boat to visit out of curiousity. And then the shenanigans began.

Now the core aspect of it is out of the way, more information under the cut! Biographies may vary in length (and key events) as I am still figuring out concepts. As a result, I may make edits occasionally! If you have any further questions, even about characters I’ve already talked about or have YET to talk about, please shoot!

The official tag for it is #ducktales switched au, until further notice!

CHARACTERS:

Magica De Spell: The richest duck in the world, Magica is a well reknowned figure in the world, running huge companies as well as owning a considerable amount of land. Her estate used to belong to the one and only Scrooge McDuck, until she bought it out after his disappearance. She does adventure in her spare time (and has done in the past, crossing paths with Scrooge AND Goldie), though is quite a busy business woman so rarely has time for her domestic life. Extremely eccentric and a little chaotic, but she does get the job done. Has dabbled in magic before, but after her brother was turned into a raven, doesn’t much do so anymore.

Scrooge McDuck: An infamous warlock of his time, Scrooge McDuck was a former treasure hunter and magical artefact collector, jolly and passionate. He ventured the world with his nephew and niece gathering items which slowly corrupted his mindset, much to the worries of Donald. He became power hungry, possessive, and stuck in his own decisions - and that ended terribly when Della Duck tried to lead him away from the life of corruption. A reflex stray of magic ended in disaster, and in one day, both relatives left him. Grieving over the loss of Della and how it was all his fault, he left behind his estate and relocated to Mt. Vesuvius, then spent the following years lost and searching for a way to get Della back, no matter the casualities. His first real attempt to get her back was thwarted by Magica De Spell, and he was trapped in his own dime for five years up until the events of the Shadow War.

Lena De Spell: Magica’s ‘niece’. After fleeing numerous boarding schools, Lena turned up on Magica’s doorstep and wound up adopted. She was created during the fight between Magica and Scrooge, much like in canon, only this time around, Gladstone was there to take her place. Magica took her in partly out of guilt and responsibility for her creation, and they’ve been together ever since. Lena rarely gets to see her aunt much, and Magica’s spoilings don’t really help this - though that does change eventually, around the time she met these three weird kids. Lena’s connection to Scrooge is something Magica does stress over though...

Webby Vanderquack: Lena’s best friend and local conspiracy theorist. Not much different from her canon counterpart, she gushes over the De Spell family’s history, much to the irritation of Lena who frankly could care less. With how busy Magica is, Webby and Lena are constantly together, and go on adventures with Gladstone Gander, the triplets, and the entire family if they’re lucky. Family dictionary, and her world totally wasn’t shaken when she discovered Scrooge McDuck’s belongings in the manor.

Gladstone Gander: Scrooge’s lucky adopted and non-magical nephew. At some point before Scrooge was shadow-fied, Gladstone was saved from the Lucky Casino by his uncle. In exchange, he agreed to help Scrooge out without reading the fine print (binding contracts are never good). After Scrooge and Magica’s battle, Scrooge’s shadow attached to his, and the rest rolls out as you’d expect. He eventually becomes involved in the De Spells’ lives, trying to retrieve the number one dime for his uncle and earn his freedom. Unfortunately, his growing attachment to the family means his luck doesn’t really work with him, at least for Scrooge’s goals. Becomes quite protective of Lena and Webby (and usually stands up to Scrooge because of them), and develops awkward feelings for Magica.

Has no idea what Scrooge’s actual motives are, and Scrooge is hesitant to say them in case Gladstone rebels. Not that he doesn’t eventually anyways. Come the Other Bin, the goose has enough of his uncle’s orders but that ends badly for him, and the freedom in the Shadow War is temporary. Cursed a shadow, but that doesn’t stop him protecting the kids, which is his end - least in waking life. Stiiiiill pondering who his shadow gets attached to.

Donald Duck: Scrooge’s magical nephew and your typical bad luck magnet. Before the incident with his relatives, he ventured the world while studying magic under his uncle’s wing. Lived in Duckburg until Della’s disappearance, then left with the boys, constantly on the move for a new home (and job). Wary about the usage of magic after what happened to Della, though hesitantly taught the boys what he knows (at least the bare minimum). Occasionally traveled with his friends, José Carioca and Panchito, and didn’t return to Duckburg until his curious nephews hijacked the boat and stranded them there. Spends most of his time looking for a new job to fix the boat. Fixed up the boat over the course of season 1, but it wound up getting broken again by its end. Magica offered his family to stay come season 2 in thanks for the battle against his uncle.

Della Duck: The missing mother. She ventured with her uncle and brother, though unlike them wasn’t that invested in magic. Della focused on practicality, and although she was a talented witch at a young age, she ultimately lost interest and wanted to tackle everything hands on. She disappeared before her children were born, sucked into a portal to the underworld after trying to confiscate an artefact from her uncle’s grasp and being hit by a stray bout of magic. As far as everyone knows, Della is long dead. Her memorial can be found at Castle McDuck, and her family visits it often.

Huey: An incredibly bright child with a knack for reading; takes to spellbooks like a duck to water. Typically the nephew most knowledgeable on spells and if you need a magic dictionary, then he’s your guy. Has about as much potential as Donald when it comes to magic ability, but he’s still learning and as a result his spells vary in strength. Into science and idolizes Gizmoduck, finding the practicality of science and technology fascinating.

Dewey: Darts right into danger just like his mother; Dewey has had accidents with his spell casting, and accidentally snapped his wand at a point (those are expensive to replace)/ His spellcasting has pretty good strength for a boy his age... until you realize it has zero handling. Until he can get a lid on it, his spells are pretty unstable and the wand doesn’t help things. Despite its defects, however, only Dewey knows how to somewhat work it because he’s had it so long. Dewey headed the ‘let’s sabotage the boat while Donald is sleeping and go to Duckburg’ plan.

Louie: The lazy triplet has a lot of tricks up his sleeves. Spells are usually pretty tame as he has a tendency to just use them for house chores, but out of all the triplets, he has the strongest magical capability. The downside is he’s just never motivated to push himself that far. As such, he has a habit of getting into the most trouble - and since he’s still building self confidence, fear isn’t the motivation he needs.

Poe de Spell: A duck cursed to be a raven by Scrooge McDuck; he was transformed into a raven during Scrooge’s final confrontation with Magica. Generally acts as her sister’s advisor of sorts, wary, wise, but still as snarky as in the OG Ducktales. Acts as a Zazu to Lena, in that sense, but cursed teens are always able to evade a watchful eye. He’s a raven the entirety of Season 1 before the wizard, Donald Duck, is able to turn him back after the events of the Shadow War.

Launchpad McQuack: The family driver/pilot - Magica admires his positive and smashing energy and wouldn’t have any other person to drive her to and from her destinations.

Goldie o’Gilt: Scrooge McDuck’s old flame; she had history with the warlock before he took a turn for the worse. Their relationship was about as you’d expect until the incident, then it grew colder with every encounter because Goldie’s rivalry was intrusive to Scrooge’s plans. She had no idea what incited this change. Attended a party and ran into another old rival: Magica De Spell, and they ventured to white agony plains together (where Goldie was reminiscent of the days with Scrooge, though she said little about it to Magica).

Mrs. Beakley: Agent 22 - used to work with Scrooge McDuck, and soon as his housekeeper until Della’s disappearance and his leave. Signed up for the same job with Magica de Spell, awaiting her former boss’ return and to keep an eye on his belongings.

Duckworth: The manor’s ghost; previously served under Scrooge McDuck before his disappearance. Along with Mrs. Beakley, is currently guarding the warlock’s belongings. Extremely loyal to Scrooge in general, but due to the bonds he’s made with the people around him, that loyalty is a tad strained. Unlike in canon, he actually stayed behind before the events of the Shadow War.

STILL TO COME:

Fenton Crackshell:

Gyro Gearloose:

Downy & Fergus

AND A BUNCH MORE. PROBS.

LINKS:

REFERENCES:

Scrooge

Donald.

Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

Poe De Spell.

LORE:

The Scrooge sketch that started it all - This was just a random idea I came up with one day; I loved role switch AUs, especially when they’re with antagonists and protagonists.

Initial Magica Concept - Later adapted the design to better fit the design in the reboot.

General PSA about the AU - 1 - Not everyone changes drastially; they’re just adapted.

General PSA about the AU - 2 - About the general storyline.

McDuck Family Lore - 1 - The McDuck family are one of magic, Gladstone being the exception as he is adopted. Della died due to a magical accident and Donald was unable to save her.

De Spell Family Lore - 1 - About Magica’s relationship with Lena and her characterisation in general.

De Spell Family Lore - 2 - Information on the raven, Poe de Spell, and Lena.

Poe & Gladstone - stuff about Poe’s personality and fate, with a bit about Gladstone.

Lena’s Existence in the AU - shadow child, ye.

Donald - 1 - Initial Donald design; pretty basic and eventually got changed.

Donald - 2 - Doodle of that boy.

Scrooge - 1 - Doodles; Scrooge’s infamy is pretty well known and he won’t stand for family members getting in the way of his goals.

Donald and the boys - 1 - Donald teaches the boys magic... but only with restraint.

Donald and the boys - 2 (+Gladstone meta) - Slightly scrapped concept; Donald was stranded in Duckburg with the boys instead of constantly traveling the world across the season so he and the boys would be more involved with the plot.

Donald and the boys - 3 - and where they’re living.

Donald and Della’s childhood - they were so smol.

Della’s Scarf - ouch.

Dewey’s Wand - 1 - it broken.

Dewey’s Wand - 2 - but he knows how to use it.

The Triplets & their involvement - I still love this idea so much.

Scrooge and Gladstone - 1 - An old concept I suppose; I’m honestly thinking about scrapping this as ‘marriage’ takes a little too long for Scrooge’s liking and the concept just irks me a little.

Scrooge and Gladstone - 2 - Gladstone trying to casually divert attention to something else does not work in the slightest.

Scrooge and Gladstone - 3 - Summary of how Scrooge’s quest to save Gladstone and get his backup plan for the fight against Magica went.

Scrooge and Gladstone - 4 - Decided to mess with a different kind of perspective.

Voice Musing - I saw stuff in the tags it had me thinking emoji.

Scrooge and Gladstone - 5 - lore galore in the tags, btw.

Scrooge’s relationship with Goldie - talks a bit about her debut ep.

not canon but HOW DARE YOU ANON - scrooge and goldie hurt me.

Gladstone’s interactions with the kids - 1 - Lena is generally suspicious but Webby is painfully open.

Gladstone’s interactions with the kids - 2 - Lena is a suspicious child wary for Webby’s sake. Also I am called out for having too much Gladstone in this AU. Looking at this list, I can confirm I am trash.

Gladstone’s interactions with Magica - 1 - spoilers: he’s a dork.

JAW$ redraw but it’s Gladstone and Scrooge - I spent so much time on this but it was really worth it. He likely would have had the friendship bracelet Webby gave him but I was too burnt out to draw that section.

JAW$ doodles (Lena, Gladstone and Scrooge) - in which a teenager is baffled and shocked this guy would save anyone but himself.

Other Bin Doodles (Gladstone ft. Lena) - Some sketches I did after rewatching the Other Bin; Lena and Webby both get turned into dolls in this one.

Other Bin suffering - goose boy sad, save him.

Gladstone and Magica content (ft. Lena) - someone asked for Magicstone so I delivered.

Fenton & Gyro - some general stuff and their relationship with their boss.

Mrs. Beakley’s role in the Switched AU - I don’t talk about her enough tbh.

Scrooge’s old personality and his relationship with his niece and nephew - meta is so fun to write out but ouch.

Scrooge’s Motives & About Della - was rather painful to write about.

Scrooge and Donald - 1 - Did you know Della’s scarf used to be whole?

Shadow War Sketches - 1 - Man I really was on a field trip with these.

Shadow War Sketches - 2 - in which Gladstone perishes.

Shadow War Sketches - 3 - got to work with good expressions with these.

Shadow War Sketches - 4 - veeeeery proud of these.

Fake Shadow War Screenshots - got asked to edit suffering and I delivered.

Fake Triplet Screenshots - edits of the children.

Fake Scrooge Screenshots - I still don’t think green suits him tbh.

Fake Magica screenshot - she.

Shadow Gladstone and his fate - This... was dark.

Fenton and Scrooge - Took place after the Shadow War, I guess, while Scrooge is grieving.

This is a serious AU - yeah... i got nothin to say.

Inspiration - I’m a nerd, go figure.

Fanfiction WIP - who knows when I’ll finish it, but it’s in the works.

Scrapped Visual Novel - Maybe? Idk, depends if I ever get time for it.

Misc. Sketches - [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x]

Misc. Asks - [x] [x] [x] [x]

Headcanon commentary - [x] [x] [x] [x] [x]

BEAUTIFUL ART BY BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE:

domiinon:

Scrooge

Scrooge again and I am sobbing

All the Scrooges need hugs tbh

THIS LOOKS SO AMAZING?? LOOK AT IT??

scrooge support squad for all the angst we put them through

KJGNJFDNGDJ THEY ALL LOOK FABULOUS

bloosume:

Scrooge

fini-mun:

The End

kats-kreations:

Last Christmas aka kat breaks my heart

#ducktales #ducktales 2017 #ducktales reboot #scrooge mcduck #magica de spell #gladstone gander #ducktales au #ducktales switched au #ducktales switched au master list #long post #disney #disney ducks #au #alternate universe #STILL working on this and will be making updates every now and then; i'll reblog this when i do!

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polarishq · 5 years ago

Photo

Meet NESTA BREWSTER. They are NINE HUNDRED AND SEVEN years old and hail from NUREMBURG, GERMANY. Nesta embodies the comet, SWIFT-TUTTLE. They use she/her pronouns and are currently employed as a CRYSTALLARIUM RESEARCHER at the CELATHERS INSTITUTE. Their faceclaim is LAURA DERN.

Swift-Tuttle reminds me of a candlelit bubble bath, a passionate monologue you needed but didn’t ask for, unfulfilled potential, sharp heels advancing quickly and with purpose down an empty corridor, commanding a room when no one else seems capable of it (read: always), an always closed office door, a 2000-year plan (gone off the rails), bright red lipstick, a summoning circle, an excellent and expensive fountain pen–with a powerful hex attached to it.

BIOGRAPHY

Nesta was born in Medieval Germany, and although she came from a long line of witches, all she knew was the orphanage she was abandoned at and the rotten children she was housed with. When one of them told her she was better off dead, Nesta one-upped them and set them on fire, and with no child protective services, she was promptly kicked out and lived most of her formative years homeless. Luckily, being spiteful and with remarkable survival skills, she earned the Swift-Tuttle sponsorship early and was carted away to Polaris.

She proved to be both a great student and a terror, all wrapped up in one pretty package; Nesta was always infuriatingly smart, effortless in all of her classes and naturally talented to boot, but she was a dangerous bully who got a great deal of joy in boasting her unfounded superiority. While Nesta did not feed on the fear from others the way dark witches could, it fed her ego, which was arguably just as dangerous.

It would be a lie to say that she had not thought that she was a shoo-in for a planetary sponsorship after she completed her PA studies; Nesta took a research job in Russia to bide her time, but when she was ultimately passed up for someone else, although there was some lingering bitterness, she didn’t let it ruin her day. Although she liked the idea of the prestige that came with being a planet and having a teaching post at one of the top schools in the world, Nesta knew there were other worthwhile ways she could spend her life.

For years since, Nesta has been underground doing research with a group of dark witches; their goal was to learn and harvest new forms of magic, often designed for destruction and chaos. Their work, often with Nesta’s encouragement, have caused wars and plagues throughout the years, all as a means to experiment with their discoveries. Although Nesta isn’t the type to kill people outright, she has plenty of blood on her hands as a result and zero regrets.

After threats of exposure, the group has since scattered across the globe, but they continue to work toward their central mission. Nesta originally had no desire to return to Polaris, but when someone in her past asked for her to come, it felt conveniently timed; she took up a position at the Celather’s Research Institute, continuing her studies and casually summoning some creatures in her spare time. Still with an ego and a threateningly commanding essence about her, it’s almost like she never left the Village to begin with.

INCLINATION

Swift-Tuttle is a comet closely monitored by astronomers, as it’s known to often come close to the earth, likely to destroy it; Swift-Tuttle likes the uncertainty and the fear, so while it might not be slated to destroy the planet anytime soon, it’s likely to sponsor someone who has the fire to destroy it from within. Fond of passionate, fiery individuals with an inclination toward dark magic (although they don’t often care what the witch’s originating element is), Swift-Tuttle wants destruction and they want a show in the process. The current Swift-Tuttle is particularly skilled with crystal-based magic, especially darker summoning spells.

CONNECTIONS

Filling the role of Jinwoo Yoon’s The Smart Skeptic.

Filling the role of Santiago Inclán’s Please Don’t Hate Me, I’m Trying.

Filling the role of Aurorette Nix’s Best Friend… Or Something.

The Demon: One fateful fall day, as Nesta set forth to try and summon someone from the dead to ask them a simple question (”First of all, how dare you”), she accidentally summoned this demon instead, going so far as to help them inhabit a body. She has since failed to rectify the situation, and now this demon-person just exists, being a pain in the ass, but they can’t stray too far from Nesta, for whatever reason. It’s like a roommate situation from hell. It happens, but she’s not happy about it.

Her Person: This is someone that Nesta has known for a long time, likely with at least complex romantic feelings on Nesta’s side, even if not reciprocated. Either way, this person has been rooted in her life for quite some time. Although Nesta had once vowed to never return to Castle Hills, when this person asked for her to be closer, Nesta put aside her feelings and took up a position at the Research Institute. Doesn’t matter why they asked; maybe they’re using her, or they need help with something, or they just wanted her there–doesn’t really matter, in the end. It’s worked out for both of them.

Penned by Ashley ★

#swifttuttle.#fire.#taken.#ashley.#town.

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bookcoversonly · 5 years ago

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Title: Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea | Author: Charles Seife | Publisher: Penguin (2000)

#books #Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea #Charles Seife

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ratsontheroad · 7 years ago

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Translation of the Ghost cover feature in Finnish music magazine Soundi 06/2018

[T/N: SO I finally finished this translation that I had been meaning to work on ever since I first saw this magazine on the shelves back in June. It’s a really interesting, detailed article with some new insight to how Tobias views the past and future of Ghost, so I would highly recommend giving it a read!

Thanks to @mistashadesu for proofreading!]

Ghost – Against the odds

Matters of Faith

Heavy rock bands capable of making an international breakthrough have become a rarity nowadays. During the past few years, one band has succeeded in this feat better than others: Ghost. Its story is already filled with an astounding amount of interesting turns and strange coincidences, but if we ask frontman Tobias Forge, Ghost has only taken its first steps.

Prologue: Once upon a time…

…there was a little boy from Linköping, who took an interest to heavy rock music thanks to his older brother. Around the same time, the boy, named Tobias Jens Forge, grabbed the book Stone Alone which was about the life of The Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman. The reading experience was so fascinating that the boy started devouring the biographies of other musicians as well. One of his most influential early musical experiences was Metallica’s colossal The Black Album, but soon the darker, more mysterious and dangerous paths of death and black metal swept the boy with them.

In 1998 the boy had grown into a young man, who founded the death metal band Repugnant, whose only album Epitome of Darkness came out in 2006, after the band had already disbanded. On the verge of adulthood, the youth also played the guitar in other underground acts, such as Magna Carta Cartel as well as an early incarnation of Crashdïet.

The same year Epitome of Darkness came out, a song in Swedish, Satans Natt, was conceived “for a possible new project”. A musician friend of several years [of Forge’s] heard the “not particularly serious” demo version of the song and urged him to compose more songs in the same vein. That’s what happened.

Soon the project got the name Ghost, and in 2008 the title of Satans Natt was changed to Stand by Him, whose lyrics begin with the sentence “Devil’s power is the greatest one”. Bingo! Like almost always in the case of the best rock music, the deal with the good ol’ Devil had been sealed.

Ghost did not hurry, however, since the air was thick with a fragile “now or never” atmosphere that was not worth shattering with something unfinished. The D-Day dawned on Friday 12th of March 2010, when Ghost released a three-song debut demo on their plain MySpace Page.

First Act: Year Zero

It’s April 2018, and Tobias Forge has arrived at the Universal Music facilities in Södermalm, Stockholm. The slender musician has taken off his black leather jacket, whose front is adorned with Misfits, King Diamond and Venom pins among other things, and settled into a comfortable position on one side of the black sofa in the conference room. Forge, who has been extremely busy during the past decade, has had some free time with his wife and two children during the past couple of weeks.

It doesn’t require being an adept judge of human character to notice that Forge is positively exuding happiness and calm. Though why wouldn’t he be, seeing as his dreams for his musical career have come true. Even the wildest ones of them all.

–When I founded Repugnant, I was hoping for the band to become a big name in the field of death metal. I was dreaming of achieving something that for example Amon Amarth have reached. Anyway, it didn’t come into fruition for a multitude of reasons. For starters, our timing was completely wrong, since the popularity of death metal was at a low while nu metal was dominating the charts. No matter what I tried, Repugnant didn’t seem to provoke much of a response. It was inevitable that my enthusiasm started to wane.

Despite his adolescence having been permeated by extreme metal, Forge has always been far from a thick-skulled metalhead, who refuses to see past the end of his nose. The time had come to do something other than death metal.

–If you ask what my favorite album is, I might mention Season Of The Dead by Necrophagia, but I could also mention a thousand other albums. My earliest musical memories have to do with the releases of Rainbow, Iron Maiden, Kiss and Mötley Crüe – especially Shout At The Devil terrified me as a kid – and I still love these bands. Queen, Misfits, Pink Floyd and The Doors have always been huge favorites of mine. I really like many Swedish artists, such as Lars Winnerbäck. The world of AOR has killer names like Journey and Foreigner who have affected Ghost’s vocal harmonies tremendously. Yeah, I could continue this list endlessly.

When Forge started planning “yet another project”, that is to say Ghost, his idea was to combine Satanic and occult imagery (“I read Necronomicon at a young age and its impact was pretty huge”) with progressive and organic hard rock (Uriah Heep, November, Blue Öyster Cult), mystic and sinister heavy metal (Mercyful Fate, Pentagram), obscure metal (Voivod) and huge, shamelessly catchy hits (Africa by Toto).

The end result was a some kind of cross between Black Sabbath and Abba.

–After a few Ghost songs had been finished, I started looking for a singer for the band. I’m a guitarist and I wouldn’t have thought I would become the band’s singer. I inquired the interest of many of my famous colleagues, such as Messiah Marcolin of Candlemass, but no candidate expressed any. Not a single one. However, I still wanted to play the cards I had been dealt, so I had to be the singer.

“From rags to riches in one night” is a horrible cliché, but that is exactly what happened to Ghost, at least to some extent.

–I uploaded the demo songs on MySpace and turned off the computer for several hours. When I turned it back on again… Well, I could hardly believe my eyes. During a short time, the page had been flooded with praise from fans, record labels and colleagues alike. At that moment I realized that if I had been given one chance to succeed in the world of rock ‘n’ roll, its time – Ghost’s Year Zero – had now come.

Mysterious are the workings of higher powers, which is something Tobias Forge got painful proof of later on the very same day. Only a few hours after Ghost’s emergence Forge’s world collapsed: his 41-year-old older brother – his mentor and role model – had passed away.

–Two of the biggest changes in my life up to that point happened on the same day. I don’t believe in the supernatural, but the timing of these incidents made my skin crawl.

Second Act: I love Ghost

Ghost’s explosive popularity on MySpace really set things in motion, and it wasn’t long until they signed a record deal with the former Napalm Death and Cathedral singer Lee Dorrian’s Rise Above Records. Their first album Opus Eponymous was released towards the end of fall 2010.

–When Opus Eponymous was released, I was 29 years old and had been playing in different bands for maybe 15 years. I had been involved in making albums that music magazines didn’t pay any attention to – they didn’t even bother to review them. At some point I was seriously plagued by self-doubt, and daunting thoughts like “maybe I will never have a successful music career“ crept into my mind. After all this, the warm reception and positive reviews Opus Eponymous received felt fantastic, Forge says.

–I am a perfectionist, and Opus Eponymous is, of course, far from being a perfect album. If I listen to it today, I find myself constantly thinking that “I could have done that and that so much better.” But Opus Eponymous is a product of its time and it opened countless doors for Ghost. The material on the album was written with no plans for a future record deal on the horizon, and this is why the album is extremely stripped-down and genuine. In many ways Opus Eponymous is and always will be my most important release, because it gave me a chance.

When Opus Eponymous was released in mid-October, Ghost hadn’t played single gig. And performing is at least equally as important as recording to Forge, who has loved the performing arts ever since he was a little boy.

–We played our first gig in Germany at the Hammer of Doom festival five days after Opus Eponymous was released. The gig was such a bizarre experience… As I said, I have the identity of a guitarist, and only doing the singing felt weird at first. And I looked weird too, in the mask and robes of a satanic pope, Forge laughs.

–I felt that the hype around Ghost also caused the audience to just observe the gig instead of really enjoying it. The atmosphere was reserved and I couldn’t really tell if they liked us at all. Luckily we performed in London the very next night, and the atmosphere at Camden Underworld was fantastic. The venue was packed and everyone sang along with the lyrics like there was no tomorrow. It was one of those important moments when I understood that Ghost could really become something.

The character of a satanic pope that Forge, who had been impressed by the “skull mummies” in Indiana Jones films already as a kid, had created answered to the name Papa Emeritus I during the era of the debut gigs and album. For their next album Infestissumam (2013) Ghost “changed singers” and Papa Emeritus II, who of course was Forge’s next character, took the stage. A similar metamorphosis occurred with the album Meliora (2015).

–During an early stage of planning I decided that songs like these that flirt with mysticism and occultism cannot be performed dressed in a t-shirt and jeans in the corner of a pub. In other words, it was as clear as day from the start that Ghost’s show had to be very memorable visually. One of the ideas had to do with the stage, which I had wanted to look like a church of some kind. This in turn led to the thought that the night’s Master of Ceremony had to be some kind of a satanic clergyman or the leader of a cult. The system that the Catholic Church and the Vatican have had in place for centuries, where a new pope rises to power every now and then, offered the perfect model for Ghost’s upside-down world.

Ghost’s concept is so ingenious that it instantly arouses the question of why nobody came up with it earlier. Something that further adds to its ingenuity is that if Forge starts running out of ideas at some point, he can turn his attention to years past and reanimate Papa I or some other former frontman of Ghost. And the fans will rejoice.

–Nostalgia is an important part of rock culture – and it has become even more important as many of our heroes have passed away. Some older rock fans are extremely proud about having seen Led Zeppelin live in the 1970s. Or if we consider Metallica… Did you already discover them during Cliff Burton’s era, or did you only get excited about Load? For die-hard fans this is a question of life and death.

Speaking of Metallica – even though Ghost is superior among newer bands, it would not have reached its current status without James Hetfield. When Metallica played in the Ullevi Stadium in Gothenburg in summer 2011, Hetfield appeared in an interview in a live broadcast on Swedish television wearing a Ghost shirt. “Papa Het’s” comment “I love Ghost” reached millions of metal fans through the internet, which marked the end of Ghost’s days as an underground band.

–We performed at Roskilde that same night, and suddenly my phone was full of messages telling me that Hetfield had praised Ghost on television. It did feel incredible, Forge reminisces.

–It’s been baffling to notice how adaptable the human mind is. As you get to know your childhood heroes personally, they become less exceptional. I don’t mean to say that meeting James Hetfield isn’t great every single time, but nowadays things like these are a part of my life. Just like endless travelling. Before Ghost, I had barely travelled anywhere and now I have visited dozens of different countries.

When did you visit the USA for the first time?

–Oh, this is a fun story! I was determined that I would only go to the United States when I had a gig there, and that’s what ended up happening when we played at Maryland Deathfest in the spring of 2011. It was an unbeatable feeling!

Third Act: My name is Tobias Forge

And the Grammy goes to… Ghost!

Who would have thought that a Swedish metal band in the beginning of their career would win a Grammy, the most esteemed award in the world of pop music, with some help from Metallica or not. That’s what happened, however, when Forge and his then-nameless ghouls picked up the award for Best Metal Performance in Lost Angeles in winter 2016.

–[The Swedish producer] Max Martin probably has something like 50 Grammys, but otherwise there aren’t many of those within Sweden, Forge says.

–I was already dumbfounded by the fact that we were nominated, so winning felt completely unfathomable. So many famous bands have been nominated for a Grammy numerous times but never gotten the award, and we took it right off the bat.

–My mother was so excited about the news about the Grammy that she started telling everyone about “her son’s band Ghost”. Despite all the times I had emphasized that we were going to hold onto our anonymity as long as possible… Well, I did know that the rocketing growth of Ghost’s popularity meant that our road of being anonymous and faceless would end sooner or later.

The words “My name is Tobias Forge and I am the singer of Ghost” were broadcast on the frequency of a Swedish radio station late in the summer of 2017 [T/N: Here the author misquotes the Sommar i P1 interview slightly – what Tobias actually said was more along the lines of “My name is Tobias Forge and I am the man behind the mask in Ghost.”]. It was the first time Forge had publicly admitted to being Ghost’s frontman.

–I am a control freak, but unfortunately controlling everything is not possible. Especially not when a rock band grows faster than anybody could have expected.

Forge having to reveal his identity has to do with disagreements that arose following Ghost’s success. Some of Ghost’s background musicians – the no-longer-so-nameless ghouls Simon Söderberg, Mauro Rubino, Henrik Palm and Martin Hjertstedt – sued their former boss in the spring of 2017. The reason? Nothing particularly surprising. The four of them thought that they had not been paid enough.

As an outsider, it is easy to understand the views of both the visionary dictator Forge and his former bandmates. It’s one thing to dream of a jackpot, but during Ghost’s early days no one could have predicted the diabolical heights that they would reach. As their popularity skyrocketed, and the original lineup consisting of an old group of friends had no written agreement, both sides could claim anything.

–A famous musician said to me that all successful bands have to settle their accounts in court sooner or later. He added that things like this are a sign of success and that many things have been done correctly. He was right.

The legal battle remains unfinished, but the former members of Ghost got one small win so far – at least if their purpose was to throw a wrench in the works. After all, isn’t it the case that the mystery surrounding Ghost has somewhat decreased, now that everyone knows the identity of the visionary behind it all? Or is it?

–Well, the situation is what it is and there’s no changing it. If Ghost’s brand is as strong as I hope and want it to be, the band will survive this with no significant repercussions. It’s true that a part of the mystery is gone forever, and if someone can no longer enjoy Ghost after seeing my face, so be it. But ultimately I’m not that worried, since I can still control the publicity fairly well. I have no intention of going to speak nonsense in some reality show.

Fourth Act: Don’t you forget that you will die

This summer marks the beginning of yet another era in Tobias Forge’s unholy books. The recently released fourth studio album Prequelle mischievously flits from one atmosphere to another, and has already become a cornerstone in Ghost’s constantly strengthening fortress.

As is the custom, the frontman of the band has “changed” yet again and Papa Emeritus III, who became a fan favorite with the album Meliora and the EP Popestar, is gone with the wind – at least for now – and the group is currently led by Cardinal Copia.

A cardinal is below the pope in Vatican’s ranks, but only a cardinal can be elected Pope, and Forge intends to make the most of the possibilities that the band’s “new and wild figurehead” offers. For example, it’s worth checking out the promotional video for Rats, a song inspired by former bandmates (“Them rats,” Forge croaks) – no Papa could ever have executed such dance moves.

The instrumental songs on the new album are in a league of their own. When I first listened to the advance copy of Prequelle, the stylishly flowing Miasma and Helvetesfönster took me by surprise. Ghost goes… Vangelis?

–I dig instrumental music and was planning a few instrumentals already for Meliora. My plans didn’t pan out back then, but this time I was determined to not leave those ideas unused. Naturally, I also wondered if I was completely nuts for releasing 12 minutes of instrumental music… After all, it is quite a lot in this golden age of short hit songs and music streaming. Well, if someone dislikes Miasma or Helvetesfönster, there is nothing I can do about it, Forge laughs.

–I intend to continue in a similar vein in the future. Ghost absolutely isn’t a band that keeps on releasing the same record over and over again. I could have played it safe and written ten songs like Square Hammer or He Is, but that would have been dreadfully boring. In other words: I love Ramones and AC/DC, but Ghost is a band more like Queen – always surprising and exciting. To me, Prequelle sounds just like that – sometimes the music makes you smile but sometimes cry.

A key song on Prequelle is also the delicate and beautiful Pro Memoria.

–The song is about death, such as the deaths of legends like Lemmy Kilmister and Ronnie James Dio. “Don’t you forget that you will die” is a reminder that you must enjoy life in the present and not take things for granted because tomorrow it may already be too late. For example, if Alice Cooper has a show in your city, you should go and see him, because there might not be a next time, Forge reminds me.

–Death has already been sung enough about in the circles of heavy music and usually the point of view is always the same, which is to say that death is praised and glorified. Ghost’s message is different, a slightly more positive one. I want to remind people of how great it is to be alive and how tomorrow things may already be better, even if you feel low today.

Prequelle is a crucially important album for Ghost, who have managed to gain a foothold in the difficult to break into US market – Prequelle might even be the “make it or break it” release that determines the rest of the band’s career. Forge knows it better than anyone, but he refuses to take any pressure about it.

–Nowadays Ghost has many fans all around the globe, and they will surely check Prequelle out. Will they fall even deeper in love with Ghost, or find the album lousy? I don’t know, I really don’t. But what I do know is that I wrote every note and every word on Prequelle from the bottom of my heart.

Epilogue: One more time…

Who would have thought that an unconventional underground band calling itself a “satanic doom metal band” at the start of their career would rise to world fame? No one, not even Tobias Forge himself, though he knew his own skills as a songwriter.

But this is where one of the greatest attributes of rock music lies. You can make all kinds of probability calculations, but the weight of strange coincidences and sheer luck in the equation cannot be measured.

Now Ghost is on the threshold of an ultimate breakthrough. The band is facing that imposing gate that leads to fame similar to Black Sabbath’s, Iron Maiden’s and Metallica’s.

Towards the end of this year, Ghost will be performing at Forum in Los Angeles and at Barclays Center in New York among other places, and both of these two American venues fit approximately 20,000 people. Strangely, even concert plans this huge feel like a logical next step for Ghost.

Tobias Forge, what will Ghost be doing in 2051 when you turn 70 and reach Lemmy’s age?

–(Pauses to think and starts laughing) By then Ghost will be the biggest theatrical rock band in the world, the Queen and the Rolling Stones of its time. Do I really think this will happen? Maybe!

#tobias forge #ghost #the band ghost #ghost band #interview #this is the only time you will see me using proper capitalization ok

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annellspethraven · 2 years ago

Text

7/5/2020 How Bullies Run Us Over. Why We Let Them.

Reposted from DeviantArt. Crosspost.

Pretty funky title for a journal series that is supposed to be about the experience of writing, huh? You'd think so, there is little room for an ode to possessive pronouns and no participles are dangling thus far, with that for a subject. No, no, as with so many things, this would be the intersection of assorted topics in my sphere of thought. These essays are like rapidly forming moons; enough disparate things spin for a while and gravity gloms them together until an opinion spews forth. No one will read it, but at least I'll be able to quit thinking on it so it's all good.

I mentioned bullies, so let's discuss. Bullies are like rotten eggs. Everyone in theory knows what they are, everyone knows they are undesirable, but until you have had one break open under your nose and experienced the intense miasma in all its retch-inducing glory, you really have no idea of the severity under discussion. There are bullies in schools, in homes, in offices and oh yes, on the Internet. The ones in the latter location are particularly difficult to eradicate, for like their real world counterparts the cockroaches they strike from a hidden place of safety, make themselves inaccessible and invulnerable as possible to attack, feel entitled to use the resources of others to their full advantage with little or no compunction, and will accept zero personal responsibility for any conflict (including failed communication) left in the wake of their activity. Any attempt to resist them usually leads to...a greater infestation.

Any who feel online bullies are not a problem might wish to take the time to view Natalie Wynn's exactingly detailed video discussion titled 'Canceling' viewable here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjMPJVmXxV8 sorry for the clumsy link, my account must not be fancy enough to embed URLs. However it does open with the powerful quotation by Spinoza:

I shall return to this sentiment but do not wish to digress. In my observation of writers, which is admittedly flawed, limited, subjective and skewed -- and yet reinforced by not only my personal acquaintance and friendships by the dozens but a lifetime of perusing biographies and autobiographies of dozens more authors that contributed to the literary canon, I feel it fair to say that I have noticed some commonalities of temperament that transcend time, culture, and gender. Interestingly, as a fanfic writer, my literary circle is almost overwhelmingly female. But the authorship of the literary canon is almost overwhelmingly male. So I'm going to argue the gender balance is fairly represented. Obviously my circle is alive, now. Most lit. fiction authors I have read are quite dead. Almost all hail from Western European or American culture, so there are my attempts at disclosure. What are these commonalities? A propensity toward melancholy (depression/anxiety or other behavioral health difficulty), emotional sensitivity (sometimes extreme), introversion (also sometimes extreme), really damn smart, artistically gifted, and able to use words like a fish moves through water. Of course it is anyone's prerogative to disagree, but then there would be essays with footnotes and citations going back and forth and that would be so very tiresome.

Obviously I write in the Tolkien fandom, yet I exist socially somewhat at its fringes. Often what I learn of it is told to me by friends who have been involved far longer and far more deeply than I. While mostly positive, I was beyond flabbergasted to hear of some of the gobsmacking BS that has gone on in some of these groups. Backstabbing and Machiavellianism worthy of the era of Versailles, apparently engineered by a handful of narcissists with too much time on their hands. Small minded people, Internet Kardashians whose purpose is to exist for the sake of having sycophants. What an interesting world except not! of which I want no part. However, the appeal and also the danger is that like anything else on the Internet, online relationships can bleed into real life both to amazing benefit and amazing Oh Noes, when one meets the wrong sort. And it's so, so easy to be duped.

I belong to a few Internet spaces where writers and readers of Tolkien themed material lurk, and as a writer-advocate for those who are Other I definitely am at home in spaces that are wholly welcoming toward LGBTQIA+ but I am also an incredibly busy writer who generates a lot of output, and when I am not writing I am trying to learn digital art software so that story illustrations can be possible. In short, I live under a rock and that is my running joke in many online groups. I keep up with a very few close friends. So I became dismayed, and then quite angry, to learn that a friend who I deeply admire as a talented writer and a dear human being was being openly trashed by an online bully who had formerly been her writing collaborator. I read what the man had written about her. It was not left to vagaries, couched in terms of a general essay such as what I am writing here.

No, her very well-known pseudonym was trotted out for all to read, so that the magnitude of her alleged sins could be broadcast to all. And then, once he had itemized all the ways in which my friend had abused his good nature, he made a point of being so magnanimous as to instruct his hangers-on not to 'cancel' her. Oh, how very generous, after he took a character she created, used it, and had a misunderstanding unfold concerning said character. Then, instead of graciously parting ways, he elected to vomit out a temper tantrum for all to behold, trying to smear the name of someone who has earned nothing but respect in the writing community -- whose characterization skills have reached so high that they will dwarf his own for years to come. Whose ability to weave complex narrative from external sources soars so high over his own I don't have words. It was a mistake to behave so untowardly, and an ugly mistake at that which left him appearing terribly pathetic.

Newsflash. I have my own original characters (OCs), and I have written stories that use the OCs of other people. In my opinion, the OCs of other people are sacred. They are brainchildren. I've written massive, massive story lines (yes, hundreds of thousands of words and up and if it were millions I would still give no f*cks) that have gone unpublished because the character owner was unhappy. Hasn't wanted to get around to the story. I don't care. If the OC creator so much as twitches that's all I need to know. The reason? The comfort of the creator concerning their creation is my absolute priority at all times, not how many words I have written. The OC under discussion here is not the equivalent of Schroeder on Peanuts, some relative obscura; we might as well be discussing one of Tolkien's flagship characters such as Frodo or Sam. Writing with others requires first and foremost humility, caring greatly about the other writer, patience and consideration. Sacrifice any of those to put the story first and I guarantee a shipwreck. If a person needs to sacrifice any of those, frankly, they will struggle to collaborate.

I said I wanted to return to Spinoza. "Not to mock, execrate or lament human actions but understand them." Spinoza is a better person than I, because I did have to vent some anger. I had to vent some anger at how fed up I am with entitled children taking cheap shots at people when they launch vitriol like that from a web page and don't have the basic courage to allow comments on what they've written. But Spinoza prods me to abandon my criticisms of the behavior in favor of comprehending the reason for why it occurred in the first place. To which I must respond that I am not a reader of hearts or minds, but I know someone who feels hurt and who is lashing out with emotions similar to that of a teenage boy having his first breakup when I see it. I have seen others accuse this individual of a pattern of unkind behavior of similar nature. Maybe that is true maybe it is not; were I to claim to know him I would be committing the same folly he himself sets forth. But I can comment on what this man did not consider. He never took into account that maybe none of the things he claims were said and done against him were done with the motivations he projects onto my friend. It interests me, when a person can write an entire diatribe using the second person voice, "you this, you that," as if he actually can know what is in the thought of another person. The level of assumption and overlooked possibilities is staggering.

Enough about the bully. What about the bullied? My friend's business is her own. I'm going to discuss my own experiences with being bullied. It's happened to me more than once and interestingly, of the three serious instances two of them were from women. The first time I dealt with this I was in my early twenties. The second time, my thirties and the third time my forties so I felt like the spacing was really nice in terms of seeing how my responses changed over time. Each time I put up with the crap for a shorter amount of time before finding a means to assert what resources were available to me. The first time, I honestly caved to the bully. I just wanted it to go away. The second time I had HR, I was at work at a large institution and didn't have to put up with such treatment. The third time concerned someone who used up a lifetime's worth of chances and I learned there are risks when a person refuses to tolerate certain things; this complex circumstance is too much to elaborate on here but...a bit more about it at the end.

That's just it though. Certain things. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Actions have consequences. Standing up to bullies, or trying to, is an action. Cancelling, doxing, hacking, cyberstalking, online threats, message bombing, or if you are a writer, mass spamming of your story comments, or attempts to sully your name or otherwise make your life hell in your online communities. They sound like just words until they happen to you. In my short time in the fandom I've had an angry person start a fake account with my own pseudonym so they could try to leave comments on all my stories saying what a shit writer I am, harass me in chat groups or direct messages trying to trash talk about online personal drama, and a few other instances that I like to call Teh Dramaz and that I endeavor to avoid. Even this above mentioned instance I might usually call Teh Dramaz but this escalated beyond that into actual bullying which is why it has my attention. So to call out this abysmal behavior is that thing where in order to rebuke, one sticks out one's neck and we all know that in this world that can lead to it getting chopped off.

Isn't that sad? Doing the right thing, speaking out about an injustice can basically get a person lined up for some pretty crap consequences, and so this is why people stay quiet? Clam up? Remember though, I mentioned earlier about writers and temperaments? As a group, a lot of us can ill- afford to stand up for ourselves at all. Even an ordinary person thinks twice about rocking the boat. So what about when one self-describes as mentally ill? When one is actively under treatment for depression and anxiety and perhaps more difficult things yet? Well hello there! Lining up to potentially be in the sights of a person capable of doing what was done to my friend is quite literally asking to have life brought to a halt. If that shitbomb were levelled at me, I might be pondering a whole lot of evil to find out where this guy lives and do something special five years later, but would I try to do anything at all online? Would I try to stand up for myself, and risk even more of this crap coming at me? Or worse, risk it escalating, because if someone can do this, how far are they capable of going? I wouldn't, because of everything I just wrote above. I'd roll over and take it. I'd let them get away with it. Because in this day and age, one has to consider all the scenarios, and I personally would not be able to navigate the added stress. I'd desperately need this to all just go away, and so the bad egg wins.

Except he does not, and here is why. I truly believe that Karma sees all things, She is a right bitch, and she in fact knows where everyone lives. It's seriously the universe. What goes around comes around. How one treats people, whether a person does good or ill; it finds its way back time and again. So yes there is anger, and the terrible sense of violation and feeling helpless in the short term. But eventually....well. I mentioned a third person who bullied me, earlier. There was a night I was so, so angry, I literally went outside and screamed at the moon for something to happen to him, because he was a horrible person. Now that man is living in a ramshackle RV, a drug addict, his family won't speak to him, he lost the respect of every friend he ever had and I never did a thing.

**********

Comments:

spicedwinefanfic

Jul 6, 2020

You have reached 5 million words! That’s astonishing and many congratulations 🥳 Reply 2likes

spicedwinefanfic

Edited Jul 6, 2020

Oh, and I’ve been in the fandom (as in posting fanfic) since 2007 and in that time yes, you meet a few strange people that you choose not to interact with, or people you simply don’t mesh with and avoid, but I still talk to people now that I met in those early years. Unlike *him*, I don’t need to move from community to community, changing names and shouting ‘Victim!!’ Because I’m really not that bad. I’m not a Narcisstic Predator, which he is, or a bully, which he also is, and I don’t think I’m above everyone else, that everyone else is wrong and I’m right. Which he does.

He would very much like me to be as he describes me, I’m sure, so again he can shout: ‘Victim!’ He stamped about because he apparently heard at second hand that I didn’t want him writing my characters. A lie. I certainly didn’t want him to and I made it plain his version of them was nothing to do with my ‘verse, and that I didn’t like it. However I never told him to stop. I believed he would simply get bored and fizzle out and hoped he would take the large hint that I would prefer it if he didn’t write them. There was no more reason in fact, for them to be in his fics (except that he wanted to ‘play’ with them more, write more bad porn and write a seven-some orgy, but for storytelling purposes, there was no need for them to be there. I thought I couldn’t actually prevent him from writing them and was not in contact with him so I thought, just let him get bored. Please!

I could have gone his vindictive route. I could have posted all the links I have about his previous damaging behaviour, with screenshots, showed all his various names, shown people who had had their reputations trashed by him over the last 15 or more years.

However, I didn’t. A big part of me thinks he simply isn’t worth it. And he is such a massive energy vampire that having nothing to do with him and his dirty, sticky hands-all-over-my-characters ideas-thievery is the best thing for me. Reply 2likes

AnnEllspethRaven

Jul 6, 2020

Makes popcorn and sits down to read

spicedwinefanfic

Edited Jul 6, 2020

Okay, this was a letter I wrote to someone I respect before he wrote his diatribe.

so you can see that he did want an excuse to vilify me.

I’ll keep the person’s name out of it, but she is highly respected in the Silm fandom.

____

Early in ‘19, someone ( I’ll call him Seb for a reason — this is not his fanfic pseudonyn, but it is one he has used) added me to their access list on DW. I had no idea who he was, but it transpired that they were in an online relationship with someone I knew and who sometimes podfics my fic. So I added him back.

Although, oddly enough it transpired I had heard of him, although not by that name, a few years before.

A little later Seb announced he would be offering his work for FandomTrumpsHate, which was laudable, and so I bid on him. It became clear from what Seb said that they wanted to (had already been) writing my OC Vanimórë in a Star Wars fic and so I said well, if you want to write him, write him for FTH, in anything. Apparently they’d read my work, introduced to it by their partner.

I thought it would be a short fic, and wasn’t bothered really, what he wrote, as it was for charity. I was interested, as who does not like someone writing their OC’s? A few people have written mine and I’ve been delighted. But, well, my stories are quite long, and I tend to think if a reader has read them they’ll also understand them and the characters. I didn’t comprehend that to Seb, characters he deems ‘hot’ are there for sex. They’re meat. And they’re his. (He is, by the way, 40, not a fandom baby).

At the same time, a friend of mine in the Tolkien fandom was also added to this person’s access list and — a little later — we opened a Discord, when it became ever clearer that this person wished to use all our OC’ s in their fic. We had, prior to to this, decided to write a ‘crossover of both our ‘verses and Seb wanted to be a part of it. And how!

First we received the: I never give many people access because of bad experiences but you two are wonderful, which was a bit of a warning sign to me.

And then it got more and more bizarre.

Seb was trying to get me to bring my verse into line with his and add his characters to them; he wanted his characters to be in anything we wrote, as well as his own AU series. He got really, really upset if they were not in the stories and said that his own OC’s were incredibly upset and impossible to live with if they were not in all the stories. Oh, the drama, the pain.

He tried to steamroller — and I was just relieved at that point that I’d finished my main series last year. I didn’t say much, due to the fact I thought I might come across as ‘precious’. I didn’t like to make a fuss.

He took over any ideas we had and incorporated them into his fic as if they were his. Many of mine are very ‘in ‘verse’ specific, not canon, and don’t make sense without knowledge of my stories. All he ever talked about was his main OC having sex with ours, (His tag line was ‘When do they fuck?) and then he began to drop his guard a bit and say that he was in fact his character, and also an Elf (Fëanor) reborn as a mortal.

I thought, oh not not again! Because this happened to me in 06-7 just when I was writing and posting my first story, and that person did get the better of me in that she insisted on writing within some of the fics and changing the storyline, resulting in my having to edit her part out when she left in a strop. (I was glad to, it was the same thing, every male in the story apparently loved and wanted her OFC)

Anyhow, she said she was Legolas’ wife, (reborn as a mortal) not Fëanor, but the same basic claim going on. (I honestly don’t care if people want to call themselves a god, a reborn Elf etc, as long as they don’t deceive or hurt vulnerable people or screw them for money).

Something was niggling at the back of my head at this point, that I had heard of someone in the pagan community doing this kind of thing: data mining for ideas, stealing (in that community) people’s spiritual experiences and saying they were their own. I am not a pagan as such, but do read pagan Wordpress blogs and have for some years. Seb had been a pagan, or something like it, I gathered.

I couldn’t quite put my finger on what niggled, and I had no energy. My mother was in worsening health all last year and I was already in grief about her dying; I just didn’t have the wherewithal to fight or wonder all that much.

Seb soon proved to be impossible to deal with. If you said something like ‘I don’t think that would work because...’ He would throw a huge fit and storm off, leaving the server and then rant on his Dreamwidth about people being mean to him. He would constantly demand to know why his OC was not in a story, or how mine could be in one world when they were supposed to be in his (I have no idea, mate, you wrote them into your fic and it’s an AU, anyhow).

In the end, he simply left the server in a tantrum, but we remained briefly in touch on DW. He said he avoided Discord because it was too ‘immediate’. (Couldn’t control it, I think).

When my mum died in Feb, I had already decided to cut ties with Seb, but I was still wondering why I was so sure that he’d done this kind of thing before. So I emailed two people I knew in the pagan community and asked if they knew him, or rather someone who acted like him.

Oh they did, although not under the pseudonym he uses for fanfic. One of them said: ‘What did Seb do now?’ (I thought who the hell is Seb, that’s not how I know him?) And the other linked me to something that pretty much blew my mind.

(It is worth noting at this point that Seb was in the Star Wars fandom immediately before Tolkien, last year, and left because they tried the same trick with some people there, as they did with me and my friend).

Bear in mind, this deals with people who believe in demons, spirits, etc (well, I do in a vague way but the meat of the matter is the behaviour of this person)

And this was where I realised I had heard of Seb (or rather what he called himself on Tumblr: Nornoriel Lokason) I read this post at the time! I still cannot quite believe that I came across him via a different venue and ended up knowing him!

I have also screenshot a couple of other people regarding him. He has gone through many, many names.

So Seb, also known a few years ago in the pagan community as Nornoriel Lokason, (and many other names) is a long-time predator of vulnerable people apparently. He cuts people out of the herd by making them feel ‘special’ then bullies, gaslights, controls and plays the victim card for all he’s worth. He has reinvented himself many times.

This was more important in the pagan community, obviously, as it involved peoples’ spiritual beliefs and those communities do tend to have a lot of vulnerable people. In fandom...well, the first people (as far as I know,) he’s tried this on with in the Tolkien fandom was myself and my friend — who aren’t vulnerable, but apparently had something he wanted. (He called us both ‘Senpai’ — ‘Senpai has noticed me!’)

On a post about Narcissistic Predators that was inspired by Seb/Nornoriel Lokason someone said that:

In some cases the NP (Narcissistic Predator) may actually leave the community when called out. Or they may stick around and construct several false identities to sockpuppet and manufacture the illusion of support for their cause. (In a non-pagan community I once watched an NP use at least four separate author identities at once to congratulate himself on his accomplishments in forum threads and give his own stories high ratings and good reviews, and he was only proven as a sockpuppeteer when he accidentally answered an email for one identity as the persona of another.)

Seb has sock puppet accounts on his DW to reply to him, that he answers (like a kind of role play I suppose) and also, I am very sure, on his AO3 account to leave him shining comments.

He used sock puppet accounts when he was in the pagan community apparently. That doesn’t really matter, only in that it shows that this is what he does, wherever he is, whatever community he’s part of.

His DW, when not filled with references to his characters banging, talking to him, etc was all about how abused he was, how much PTSD he suffered, how disabled he was, in how much pain. I sent him adding up to about $180 via his Ko-fi so he could buy marijuana as he said it eased his pain, and it was legal where he was. He is used, it seems, to people sending him money.

He was moving, also, as his relationship with his mother was toxic. Some of the money I sent him was to help with the move. I don’t care about the money, but it seems I fell into the same trap as a lot of other people. I was sorry for him.

What he did to me (and my friend) was basically this (from the post about Narcissistic Predators)

* Love-bombing, IE really intense relationships really fast, combined with “everyone else in my life has been terrible and abusive, but Not You!” I know many people who have had multiple previous toxic relationships/friendships and who are lovely. Equally I know of a few who have a repeating pattern of deciding everybody in their life is terrible for them, burning all their bridges, finding new friends/lovers and deciding they are perfect and the only good thing in their lives and their saviour. Rinse and repeat. People who see every last person in their life as either terrible or up on a pedestal are toxic and sooner or later, everyone up on the pedestal will end up being The Worst.

Except, I’m not in the pagan community, save tangentially, and am not vulnerable and neither is my friend. I don’t need to be love-bombed, but for a while, I was quite caught up in the possibilities of the ‘multiverse’, and am still using some of the ideas. (My ideas).

I hoped that Seb’s full-on enthusiasm to the multiverse and his desire to utterly control it (and us) would burn out, but as he’s disabled and never goes out, he writes all the time and so far it has not.

I don’t want to tell him to delete my characters from his fic; I think that would mean, but I do want to tell him not to use them any more, and at this point, he no longer actually needs them. When he told me he would be writing an idea I have not even developed yet, I asked him not to (except as an AU) because I’ve not even got to it — and of course he wanted his OC to be in that too, but that was never going to happen. I never got an answer to that.

He has asked (on a public DW) post that anyone he’s fallen out with not comment on his fics or via a mutual on DW and he moderates his AO3 comments.

Am I within my rights to ask him not to use my OC’s any longer? I have had to change my policy on people borrowing my OC’s due to him just treating them like masturbatory fantasies to service his OC (himself). His stories are two thirds bad porn, and I simply don’t want characters I’ve spent years writing and developing being reduced to ‘porn stars’. (Yes, I know orig fic authors have to put up with that,lol, but I don’t mind people writing my OC’s — I just don’t want him to!)

The thing is, in all my years in online fandom I have known mostly Silm-fic writers who I would completely trust to write my characters; they wouldn't even have to ask really, I’d just wave and say, go ahead. (Which I did with Seb) They also write stories, not just porn with a thin plot and no character development.

Then Seb came along, very complimentary about my OC’s. I didn’t know him prior, had never read anything he wrote and didn’t bother due to the fact what he was writing was for charity, which was the important bit. He knew a friend of mine so I thought that was okay (they split up a few weeks ago by the way!) He isn’t a Silm-fic writer. He just wants his porn.

There’s something extremely off about Seb, and I thought that even before I knew about him, and is partly why I did some investigation.

He’s gross, in the truest sense of the word. He demands people respect his boundaries, but seems not to recognise other people have any. Any form of ‘No’ and he would just, as I say, go into a massive mood and slam out of the server than accuse people of being bullies.

The people he lived with said (in that link) he used to scream and throw things, and I can well believe it. Also he acts as if he owns you, all your ideas, stories and characters. It really was a very weird experience. Imagine someone did that with your verse, not only wanting to write stories within it but wanting you to write and act as if their own stories had always been within it, and including them — and ending up that they were acting, talking and thinking as if they in fact had written your ‘verse. I’m still trying to wrap my head around that as I’ve never come across anything like it.

I did hope he had dropped writing my characters until recently one of them was mentioned in a current WIP of his, with the suggestion that he might be involved in a foursome, and my heart sank, as I really don’t want Seb to write him. He also has some kind of seven-some orgy planned with my OC’s in another fic. I just honestly don’t want him to put his sticky hands on them any longer 😭

I don’t want to sound horribly precious. Another fanfic author wrote her OFC having extremely explicit sex with one of my OC’s but she is a superb writer and in her hands there is elegance and some agency and beauty (and an actual story) What Seb wants to write is just dirty porn, over and over. My characters have agency beyond being used for someone’s sexual fantasies. And I know that is all they are because Seb heavily hinted out that he knew Van and shagged him on the ‘Astral’ and all sort of hur hur innuendoes which (I think) were supposed to ‘mark his territory’ as in ‘I have absolute freedom to write your characters and there’s nothing you can do about it as I KNOW them (better than you)’. And his constant comments that ‘Vanimórë is like a cat, he knows who he likes.’ (Him and not me apparently).

Whatever.

I absolutely do know that if I request he not write my OC’s any more, I will be a bully and he the victim — he thrives on that kind of drama. he will undoubtedly talk of it on AO3 comments and chapter notes; he will probably make a (public) DW post and have his sock puppets rage at me on both. I may lose readers and all good feeling in the fandom, I suppose. I am not well-known, my fic is definitely niche, and in general am quiet, so there is no reason for people not to believe him. He has readers who comment on his stories because they read mine, and I expect he will rant to them, as well.

His aim (I believe, going by his past history and comments on Discord) is to be a BNF and have followers as he had in the pagan community; he seems to need followers, to control people. He always made a great fuss about not getting many comments when he was such a good writer, and about never reading hardly any Silm fanfic as there was no ‘good sex’. I think he does not really know the Silmarillion at all, just googles it. His work is all set in modern times with Elves being reborn as human because that’s what ‘he’ is. It’s an interesting premise, but the continual porn and the same story (retold) gets old really fast.

I don’t suppose anyone save me really cares about this, and I wish he would just go away, or just stop writing my characters. He ought to be aware that I don’t wish him to. I deleted the fics I had written for him every time he was ‘having a bad day’ (every day) I have excised all mention of his characters from my own fic, which frankly were just shoehorned in to stop him whining and causing scenes.

But I am beginning to wonder if he actually wants me to say something so he can cause drama.

I stopped commenting on his fics, removed him from my DW circle and he never received a reply to my request for him not to write my ‘future fic’. I just got on with things and hoped he would fizzle out. I wanted to cut ties completely, and then he begins writing about my OC’s again. There’s no reason for him to reference or write them in this current WIP.

He was exhausting be around. He wanted adulation all the time. And he is the kind of person you cannot give enough attention to. A few hours later it’s the same thing: He’s having a bad day, tell him he’s a brilliant writer, etc, etc. My strength was going into trying to keep my mum calm and bracing myself for her death. With that, Seb simply drained me.

I doubt he would allow any comment that I write on his fic to go through — except to use it to say ‘Look, look, Spiced Wine’s a horrid bully. I’m poor and disabled and writing’s the only thing that keeps me going and she’s trying to take it away from me, etc, etc.’

People have read his fics because they read mine (I mentioned it and some readers went over to see) and he knows my OC’s are a draw for those readers but also hates it. (which is why I think he wants to own them, to try to make himself believe they are actually his)

If people comment that they miss seeing my OC’s, he rants about why don’t people like his — I don’t know, Maybe because his OC is him and he’s simply not a nice (or interesting) person? So I think unless he just gets bored and finds another ‘shiny’ he will keep writing them (or rather not writing them (one of my readers told him that she did not recognise Vanimórë at all) writing them shagging with his OC).

So I’d be really grateful for some advice, XXXX

Should I just ignore everything and hope it burns out, or am I within my rights (as the creator of my OC’s) to ask him to not write them? As I say, where he has got to now, he does not need them, he just wants them for the porn. I’m not asking him to do a big rewrite, just not to write them into anything else. I don’t want to ‘out’ him.

Apparently in the pagan community, if people fell out with him he would threaten to ‘Fuck up their wyrd’ which I take to mean their entire lives, temporal and spiritual. He probably thinks he can, as well! That’s not why I don’t want to ‘out’ him, by the way, just that well...he’s not harming anyone, just aggravating me, so I think quietly is the way to go.

Thank you for reading this ramble, sorry it was so long. I thought I was overreacting until I read Seb’s history and realised he was doing (or trying to do) in fandom what he had done to people in the pagan community.

Take care Reply 1like

AnnEllspethRaven

Jul 6, 2020

Well, my thoughts settled. What you have described herein falls into the category of "gobsmacking bullshit" that I referenced in the body of the essay. The first thing that comes to mind is that anyone of a creative bent could have the time or interest to channel their efforts into this kind of communication or (let's sum it up) Teh Dramaz. This is why I don't watch TMZ, read entertainment magazines, or I guess go to parties. I just can't, it begins to feel otherworldly. Reading all this, I am just glad things settled for you however you were rid of the hassle. Going through the decline and passing of a parent...we've discussed this enough elsewhere and while our experiences were different they were profoundly devastating. It is indeed not something that leaves a person with extra energy to battle cosmic unicorns in the seventh dimension or whatever plane or planet is under discussion (gimme a multiverse, tell me what colour the sky is, beam me up!).

Regardless, I am grateful if this small corner of literary #WeToo gave a means to vent all around. I certainly feel better, and shall return to my projects. I am certain you will do the same! <3 Reply 1like

spicedwinefanfic

Edited Jul 7, 2020

There is so much more, which I won’t go into. Comments about this person, the damage he’s caused to people: dozing them, writing to government agencies about them, being the cause of people being physically attacked.

As I‘ve said, had I the energy at the time I would have put my foot down much earlier. (I began to have major doubts very early)

In one fic I wrote of a Mirror Fëanor created, pieces of which ended up scattered throughout the multiverse. And what was one thing he could think it would be used for? Vanimórë (after the destruction of the universe) using it to watch the main OC masturbating while using a dildo.

This incensed me. As did the comments of Vanimórë clearly being a perv. Of course it was a perverted thing to do, and Vanimórë never would. He has better things to do than watch some grotty little tit pleasuring himself 🙄 and never would anyhow; it’s just not the kind of thing he would do. It’s the author who was a perv, not my character. I was infuriated. It was clear then, and had been clear for a while, that the author didn’t know my characters in the slightest and was just using them for his own sexual gratification. Unlike him you read the last chapter of Magnificat IV; from the comments I received on AO3 and Faerie, the readers did absolutely comprehend how shattered Vanimórë was — he didn’t, because apparently Van’s so unfazed that all he can think of doing is being a voyeur.

If he wants to write what’s basically self-insert role play, fine; not with my characters, though. Reply 1like

AnnEllspethRaven

Jul 7, 2020

Wow. That is indeed incredibly out of character. I will not claim to be acquainted with how Van was used in all the other person's stories but I did read one out of curiosity just to see how Van 'was' and the depth of 'not-Van' characterization struck me quite a bit. I felt it was a Stepford-Van, the physical trappings of a Van but generally a vanilla wealthy mattress stallion and not recognizable as the intricate spirit forged out of thousands of years of trial and survival. The mirror-gate you describe would be a horrid misapplication of any creation of Fëanor; however sexually passionate your Fëanor may be, there is a difference between passion and insatiable, omni-directional lust. Makes me wonder if there is much comprehension there of the fëa Míriel bequeathed to her only-begotten, the burning brilliance meant for so much more than mere carnality; the mind that could not stop at even the Silmarilli but had to conceive of more, and more, and greater...far beyond what rests on the head of a dildo -_- so I can certainly understand your dismay and ire. It'd be so much easier if the person would simply stick to their own OCs. There is a subreddit r/Sindarin where one can get help with a nice elvish moniker, grammatically sound and everything. Alas. Reply 1like

spicedwinefanfic

Edited Jul 8, 2020

No there was no comprehension of who and what Fëanor was at all. I could never swallow the ‘is really Fëanor’, and never believed it. I’ve seen Fëanor written as mad, bad and dangerous to know, 😏 but never as someone who is only interested in who he can shag and who can shag him 🙄

An author has to make a reader believe in their story, but then his fics are not stories — they’re role-play. There’s no story at all, just the same thing over and over again. Fine, write it, but in the Silm fandom, no-one’s going to end up being hugely read by real Silm fans for something that is just role-play. Tumblr is the place to publish role play.

Silm-fic readers tend to also want to read about actual canon characters. Of course you and I both write OC’s, but we also write canon characters, too.

The bit you read was a mild OOC-ness for Vanimórë (even though he would never be with anyone like the OC in any universe anyhow)

I did wonder, very early on if the author was in fact trolling me, as Vanimórë was so OOC. As the first fic was for charity, I just shrugged and let it go.

At the end of the day, I think his lying, childish tantrum was supposed to get me ostracised from the Tolkien fandom, but although very few people know anything about it, I’m sure that those who have known me for many years would simply not believe his spite and falsehoods. He knows nothing about me at all, because everything is always about him. He wants certain things to be true and they simply are not. This is just his modus operandi; it’s how he acts. As someone said of him on a Tumblr comment, ‘same shit, different date on the calendar.‘ He acts like he writes, the same scenario over and over. Reply

AnnEllspethRaven

Jul 6, 2020

I have so many things to say about this...my thoughts need to settle a bit. I shall return...Reply 1like

spicedwinefanfic

Edited Jul 6, 2020

This was an amazing essay, and quite true.

Of course the person mentioned doesn’t want to engage in comments, as it might lead to revelations he most definitely doesn’t want to come to light: that he’s been engaging in this behaviour for at least 15 years in different communities and always leaves them (claiming bullying) and reinvents himself when people call out his BS. (There are so many links online about him I was utterly gobsmacked when I read it because his behaviour — taking into consideration the different venues — was exactly the same.

The onus is on him to correct his behaviour but he never has and never will, I think. He need ‘followers’ and he needs drama, and to feel himself above everyone else. (Hence claiming, even years ago, to actually be a god on the astral plane).

My mistake with him really, was to assume he‘d actually read my work and could write my OC’s, not just take them and mould them into sexual drones serving ’him’. A few people have written Vanimórë (going back years) and written him well, so I just assumed he would. I’m not *that* strict about it, but if you’ve written a character over 14 years, you expect there to be some resemblance. I don’t think that’s arbitrary.

He was just bitching and fuming because he planned to write some OOC rubbish that now he can’t. And that’s it. Reply 2likes

Note: there is one last comment that for whatever reason I cannot include in the post; if anyone is actually reading this please find the same entry at DeviantArt under the same username to finish reading; sorry for the inconvenience!

#bullying #writing #fandom drama #fandom toxicity #defamation

0 notes

leagueoflegendsarchive · 7 years ago

Text

Ekko

Biography:

A prodigy from the rough streets of Zaun, Ekko manipulates Chronobreak time to twist any situation to his advantage. Using his own invention, the Zero Drive, he explores the branching possibilities of reality to craft the perfect moment. Though he revels in this freedom, when there's a threat to his friends he'll do anything to defend them. To outsiders, Ekko seems to achieve the impossible the first time, every time.

Born with genius-level intellect, Ekko constructed simple machines before he could crawl. Amazed by these displays of brilliance, his parents, Inna and Wyeth, vowed to provide a good future for their son. In their mind, Zaun, with all its pollution and crime, was no place for a child of his genius. They toiled through long factory hours and worked in dangerous conditions in order to forge a path for their son to have opportunities in Piltover.

But Ekko saw things differently.

He witnessed his parents aging beyond their years, trying to make ends meet with small wages while their handmade goods were sold to wealthy Piltovans for exorbitant profits, profits they'd never see thanks to the greedy Factorywood overseers and their shrewd buyers. Pilties wandered over to the Promenade for good, cheap times, or down to the Entresol to indulge in 'everything goes' type clubs. No, his parents' vision of Ekko living a good life in the privilege-filled City of Progress was one he didn't share.

Zaun, however... where his parents only saw the oppressive layers of choking pollution and a blight of criminality, Ekko looked beyond and discovered a dynamic city overflowing with energy and potential. It was a hotbed of pure innovation, a melting pot of faraway cultures, immigrants united by a single desire to pioneer the future. But even they could not hold a candle to the native Zaunites. Not the tech-augmented thugs or bottom-feeding scum whose wicked deeds dominated Piltover newspapers; but the sump-scrappers, the chem-jacks, the horticulturalists that tended to the cultivairs. These, and so many more, were the heart and soul of the city. They were resourceful, resilient, and industrious. They built a thriving culture out of catastrophe and flourished where others would have perished. That Zaun spirit enchanted Ekko and drove him to build his machines exclusively out of junk no one else valued, and spurred him on to test them on himself.

He wasn't alone in possessing that spirit. Ekko befriended scrappy orphans, inquisitive runaways, and anyone whose thirst for excitement was as infectious as the grey-pox. Each had unique talents: from climbing to sculpting, from painting to planning. While many Zaunites eschewed formal education in favor of apprenticeships, these self-dubbed Lost Children of Zaun looked to labyrinthine streets to be their mentor, and as such wasted time in glorious, youthful fashion. They challenged each other to footraces through the Border Markets. They dared each other to climb the precarious routes from the Sump to the Entresol and up to the Promenade. They ran wild and free, answering to no one except their own whims.

To stand out from criminal gangs and other chem-punks, he and his friends opted to keep their bodies whole. Augmentation was, to them, a waste of money and frowned upon. So was stealing from anyone who had nothing or less than they had. This made uppercrust Pilties and tech-enhanced bullies such enticing targets for their mischief. They adorned their secret hideouts with pilfered goods and works of art painted directly on walls. The Lost Children of Zaun felt invincible.

As he grew up, Ekko's inventions became more fantastic and complex, requiring exotic components that needed to be 'liberated' from the scrapyards. Good thing he subscribed to a conveniently flexible view of trespassing. Soon, tech-enhanced vigilnaut thugs and unnervingly aggressive security guards were constantly on the lookout for Ekko and his misfit crew, and often gave the teens a merry chase. It always amused him how Piltover laboratories and Chem-Baron factories fiercely guarded their junk. It's not like they were using these discarded bits of tech for anything. He, on the other hand, could put their trash to good use with a little ingenuity.

One night, while Ekko scoured the rubble of a recently demolished laboratory, he made an astonishing find: a shard of a blue-green gem that glittered with magical energy. He quickly searched and discovered other fragments of the glowing jewel. The shards hummed like they were trying to sing a broken melody, the song growing louder when near other pieces. He painstakingly searched for every splinter of the broken crystal, though some were buried deep beneath tons of debris that required him to squeeze and wiggle between chunks of smelly rubbish. Every child of Zaun heard tales about hextech crystals. They powered weapons and heroes. They could create energy on their own. Hextech crystals had the potential to change the world. Now he held a broken one.

Before he could celebrate his find, the place was crawling with vigilnauts scanning the ruins, searching for something. Ekko knew it was the pieces of the crystal he held in his hand. He barely escaped detection.

After meticulous study, Ekko noticed that faint traces of energy surged when the crystals were brought closer together; the edges crackled and sent waves of rippling distortion through the air. When he pulled the pieces apart, a magnetic-like resistance fought his efforts. It was as if the splintered crystals remembered being whole. Even curiouser, Ekko felt the strangest sensation; a haunting feeling of remembering a moment, only slightly differently.

His hands couldn't keep up with the ideas his mind had for the crystal. During one of his less-than-scientific experiments, the gem exploded into a vortex of shimmering dust, triggering eddies of temporal distortion. Ekko opened his eyes to see several splintered realities - and several 'echo' versions of himself - staring back in sheer panic amid the fractured continua.

He'd really done it this time.

After some tense coordination between Ekko and his paradoxes, they contained and repaired the doozy of a hole he'd torn in the fabric of reality.

Eventually, Ekko harnessed the shattered crystal's temporal powers into a device that would allow him to manipulate small increments of time - well, at least in theory. Before he could test his latest machine, his friends badgered him into climbing Old Hungry to celebrate his name day - so Ekko slung the device over his shoulder and brought it along.

They trekked out to the old clockwork tower in the heart of Old Zaun, and climbed, occasionally stopping to paint an obscene caricature of a prominent Piltie or two. They were near the top when a handhold gave way causing one of his friends to slip and fall off the spire. Instinctively, as if he'd done it a thousand times before, Ekko activated the crystal-containment device. The world shattered around him and he was wrenched backward through swirling particles of time.

The hair on his arms tingled with electricity. A strange wooziness clouded his mind. Then he saw his friend reach for the rotting plank to repeat his soon-to-be-fatal error. CRACK! The plank gave under the boy's weight, but Ekko reached out and grabbed his plummeting friend by the shirt collar and swung him to a nearby ledge. Unfortunately, he misjudged the trajectory and tossed his friend into the clockwork tower's grinding gears. Whoops.

Numerous rewinds and some adjustments for windshear later, Ekko saved his friend's life. To others, it looked like Ekko had the reflexes of a god. Instantly, his status was elevated. He told them about the crystal and the time manipulation and made them swear to keep quiet. Instead, they shamelessly exaggerated their friend's exploits and dared each other to attempt increasingly reckless stunts, knowing they would be kept safe. With each trial (and so much error) the time-warping device - which he'd dubbed the Zero Drive - grew more and more stable. Ekko found he could pilfer components, clobber imposing chem-punk bullies, and even get pickup lines right, making a good first impression every time. The only limit was how much his body could take before exhaustion set in.

Rumors and tales of Ekko's time-bending antics reached the ears of certain powerful people within the twinned cities. Viktor, a much respected (and feared) Zaunite scientist, has a keen interest in an audience with this defiant genius, and outfitted several of his low-level enforcers with powerful enhancements to encourage the boy to join his services. Piltover-renowned innovator Jayce, meanwhile, was eager to size up the Boy Who Shattered Time and reverse-engineer his technology. However, Ekko values his independence too much, and has no desire to be a part of anyone's agenda. A few pursuers might catch a glimpse of Ekko before being thwarted, often embarrassingly so, by the sump-snipe with a preternatural knack for pinpointing their exact weakness.

In his wildest dreams, Ekko imagines his hometown rising up to dwarf the City of Progress. Piltover's golden veneer would be overshadowed by the sheer ingenuity and relentless spunk of a Zaun born not from generations of privilege but from utter daring. He may not have a plan yet, but Ekko has all the time in the world to make his dream a reality.

After all, if he can change the past, how hard could it be to change the future?

Powers/Abilities:

1. Z-Drive Resonance

2. Timewinder

3. Parallel Convergence

4. Phase Dive

5. Chronobreak

#Ekko #League of Legends

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