#But I live here because my partner is a director here

[jesncin]

The Potential of Asian Lois Lane: An extra addition

A bonus addition to my Asian Lois essay. I know Lois Chaudhari isn't technically a Lois since the premise of the comic she's from is where the Superman mythos is fictional and the characters in it happen to be named Clark/Lois etc. But since she's a Lois stand in and romantic partner to the Clark Kent of that story, I figured she deserves an honorable mention at least.

Here's where I position her in my Spectrum of Asian Lois Lane chart. And I'd like to talk about her!

Compared to American Alien, this Lois is actually specific and textually Indian in Superman: Secret Identity. Unlike American Alien Lois (that never specified what kind of Asian Lois was), she can't be replaced as a white woman because the text acknowledges her Indian identity (her name, lines of dialogue like this, etc.) hence she's not interchangeable with whiteness. So this take has that going for it.

Where Lois Chaudhari still falls behind Girl Taking Over (and what it shares in common with American Alien) is yet again a sense of missed opportunities narratively.

In Superman: Secret Identity, a man named Clark Kent from Picketsville suddenly has Superman's powers. After years of being made fun of for his namesake, he suddenly is what everyone has been making fun of him for- and as he lives through life he slowly understands why fictional!Superman is the way he is. It's a great story but where it misses the mark for me is its failure to recognize Superman as an immigrant. Secret Identity's Clark isn't an alien immigrant, or a human immigrant, and is instead ostracized because of his name. Government baddies want to do experiments on him so he has to hide from them too. But then he meets city girl Lois Chaudhari, and they connect because people keep teasing them for their names and Lois knows what it's like to keep secrets because she,,, committed a crime as a teen once.

"I guess we're both dangerous felons, then. Public menaces."

Being hunted by the government and being experimented on isn't really the same as being caught shoplifting.

It works well enough as a connection but to me is a huge missed opportunity to have an Indian American relate to your Superman stand-in as an immigrant. To connect on a deeper level other than "people make fun of us for sharing names with fictional characters". Later in the story, Clark and Lois have twin daughters who are visibly Indian. They too, have Superman's powers. While we're treated extensively to the narrative showing us why Clark would hide his powers from the government wishing to seek harm on him, we never get to see what Clark's daughters have to deal with on top of being visibly non-white.

Superman as an alien immigrant is an anecdote in this story. Because after all, that's not what a white American man from Picketsville would find relatable about him, is it? I have the same thing to say about Secret Identity that I did with American Alien: "Clark isn’t the only American Alien in American Alien, if you catch my drift."

I think this story is the perfect encapsulation of the limits of a white writer. One of my hottest takes on Superman is that the best and most holistic take on his character doesn't exist in the white imagination. Take a look once more at the Spectrum of Asian Lois Lanes chart that I made. All save for Girl Taking Over were headed by white men (MAWS may have Asian directors and writers on their team but ultimately its pitch and main ideas are the brain child of Jake Wyatt, a white man).

People have taken issue with me saying this and assume that I mean white people can't write a good Superman story, and no. That's not what I'm saying. I like Superman: Secret Identity. I even like American Alien. But it's been 80 years of predominantly white writers of all backgrounds getting the chance to write Superman- and already multiple attempts at an Asian Lois- and yet it took until Gene Yang (and artists Gurihiru) with Smashes the Klan and Sarah Kuhn (and artist Arielle Jovellanos) with Girl Taking Over that I felt Superman's themes as an immigrant finally took center stage and weren't just a mention or anecdote.

In no way do I want to imply that getting writers of color or Asian writers specifically will mean you'll be guaranteed a great Superman story. I'm against promoting the idea that diverse talent is infallible or tokenizing and essentializing them in such a way. What I am saying is that the best and most holistic story on Superman as an alien immigrant isn't even a goal in the white imagination. Immigrant Superman doesn't live in that mind. He doesn't pay rent there. He doesn't stop by to visit. And no, Superman creators Shuster and Siegel wouldn't have written that story either. Superman may have been the "Champion of the Oppressed" from another planet under their pen, but he would never have related to or have had immigrant solidarity with America's perpetual foreigners the way Smashes the Klan portrayed him as having. Superman's creators were too busy writing Slam Bradley to be able to write that kind of Superman.

The appeal of these cape characters for me, is the process of adaptation. Seeing them be handed off to someone else with different life experience. Seeing them bring a whole new perspective that surpasses even the creator's intentions on their character. That's what makes these characters rich and worthy of constant revisits. I just think that people of different backgrounds should be able to get as many chances as white men have with writing Superman and his cast of characters.

[tam--lin]

feeling sad about camp today

[gardenianoire]

my one lunch break is my one break and this is the coworker that was "helping" me in my class yesterday. And by help I mean she sat and a chair and left me to do everything by myself

[mrs-stans]

Sebastian Stan Tells All: Becoming Donald Trump, Gaining 15 Pounds and Starring in 2024’s Most Controversial Movie

By Daniel D'Addario

Sebastian Stan Variety Cover Story

It started with the most famous voice on the planet, the one that just won’t shut up.

Sebastian Stan, in real life, sounds very little like Donald Trump, whom he’s playing in the new film “The Apprentice.” Sure, they share a tristate accent — Stan has lived in the city for years and attended Rutgers University before launching his career — but he speaks with none of Trump’s emphasis on his own greatness. Trump dwells, Stan skitters. Trump attempts to draw topics together over lengthy stem-winders (what he recently called “the weave”), while Stan has a certain unwillingness to be pinned down, a desire to keep moving. It takes some coaxing to bring Stan, a man with the upright bearing and square jaw of a matinee idol, to speak about his own process — how hard he worked to conjure a sense Trump, and how he sought to bring out new insights about America’s most scrutinized politician.

“I think he’s a lot smarter than people want to say about him,” Stan says, “because he repeats things consistently, and he’s given you a brand.” Stan would know: He watched videos of Trump on a loop while preparing for “The Apprentice.” In the film, out on Oct. 11, Stan plays Trump as he moves from insecure, aspiring real estate developer to still insecure but established member of the New York celebrity firmament.

We’re sitting over coffee in Manhattan. Stan is dressed down in a black chore coat and black tee, yet he’s anything but a casual conversation partner. He rarely breaks eye contact, doing so only on the occasions when he has something he wants to show me on his iPhone (cracked screen, no case). In this instance, it’s folders of photos and videos labeled “DT” and “DT PHYSICALITY.”

“I had 130 videos on his physicality on my phone,” Stan says. “And 562 videos that I had pulled with pictures from different time periods — from the ’70s all the way to today — so I could pull out his speech patterns and try to improvise like him.” Stan, deep in character, would ad-lib entire scenes at director Ali Abbasi’s urging, drawing on the details he’d learned from watching Trump and reading interviews to understand precisely how to react in each moment.

“Ali could come in on the second take and say, ‘Why don’t you talk a little bit about the taxes and how you don’t want to pay?’ So I had to know what charities they were going to in 1983. Every night I would go home and try not only to prepare for the day that was coming, but also to prepare for where Ali was going to take this.”

Looking at Stan’s phone, among the endless pictures of Trump, I glimpse thumbnails of Stan’s own face perched in a Trumpian pout and videos of the actor’s preparation just aching to be clicked — or to be stored in the Trump Presidential Library when this is all over in a few months, or in 2029, or beyond.

“I started to realize that I needed to start speaking with my lips in a different way,” Stan says. “A lot of that came from the consonants. If I’m talking, I’m moving forward.” On film, Stan shapes his mouth like he can’t wait to get the plosives out, puckering without quite tipping into parody. “The consonants naturally forced your lips forward.”

“If he did 10% more of what he did, it would become ‘Saturday Night Live,’” Abbasi says. “If he did 10% less, then he’s not conjuring that person. But here’s the thing about Sebastian: He’s very inspired by reality, by research. And that’s also the way I work; if you want to go to strange places, you need to get your baseline reality covered very well.”

A little later, Stan passes me the phone again to show me a selfie of him posing shirtless and revealing two sagging pecs and a bit of a gut. He’s pouting into a mirror. If his expression looks exaggerated, consider that he was in Marvel-movie shape before stepping into the role of the former president; the body transformation happened rapidly and jarringly. Trump’s size is a part of the film’s plot — as Trump’s sense of self inflates, so does he. In a rush to meet the shooting deadline for “The Apprentice,” Abbasi asked Stan, “How much weight can you gain?”

“You’d be surprised,” Stan tells me. “You can gain a lot of weight in two months.” (Fifteen pounds, to be exact.)

Now he’s back in fighting form, but the character has stayed with him. After years of playing second-fiddle agents of chaos — goofball husbands to Margot Robbie’s and Lily James’ characters in “I, Tonya” and Hulu’s “Pam & Tommy,” surly frenemy to Chris Evans’ Captain America in the Marvel franchise — Stan plunged into the id of the man whose appetites have reshaped our world. He had to have a polished enough sense of Trump that he could improvise in character, and enough respect for him to play him as a human being, not a monster.

It’s one of two transformations this year for Stan — and one that might give a talented actor that most elusive thing: a brand of his own. He’s long been adjacent enough to star power that he could feel its glow, but he hasn’t been the marquee performer. While his co-stars have found themselves defined by the projects he’s been in — from “Captain America” and “I, Tonya” back to his start on “Gossip Girl” — he’s spent more than a decade in the public eye while evading being defined at all.

This fall promises to be the season that changes all that: Stan is pulling double duty with “The Apprentice” and “A Different Man” (in theaters Sept. 20), in which he plays a man afflicted with a disfiguring tumor disorder who — even when presented with a fantastical treatment that makes him look like, well, Sebastian Stan — can’t be cured of ailments of the soul. For “A Different Man,” Stan won the top acting prize at the Berlin Film Festival; for “The Apprentice,” the sky’s the limit, if it can manage to get seen. (More on that later.)

One reason Stan has largely evaded being defined is that he’s never the same twice, often willing to get loopy or go dark in pursuit of his characters’ truths. That’s all the more true this year: In “The Apprentice,” he’s under the carapace of Trumpiness; in “A Different Man,” his face is hidden behind extensive prosthetics.

“In my book, if you’re the good-looking, sensitive guy 20 movies in a row, that’s not a star for me,” says Abbasi, who compares Stan to Marlon Brando — an actor eager to play against his looks. “You’re just one of the many in the factory of the Ken dolls.”

This fall represents Stan’s chance to break out of the toy store once and for all. His Winter Soldier brought a jolt of evil into Captain America’s world, and his Jeff Gillooly was the devil sitting on Tonya Harding’s shoulder. Now Stan is at the center of the frame, playing one of the most divisive characters imaginable. So he’s showing us where he can go. The spotlight is his, and so is the risk that comes with it.

Why take such a risk?

The script for “The Apprentice,” which Stan first received in 2019, but which took years to come together, made him consider the American dream, the one that Trump achieved and is redefining.

Stan emigrated with his mother, a pianist, from communist Romania as a child. “I was raised always aware of the American dream: America being the land of opportunity, where dreams come true, where you can make something of yourself.” He pushes the wings of his hair back to frame his face, a gold signet ring glinting in the late-summer sunlight, and, briefly, I can hear a hint of Trump’s directness of approach. “You can become whoever you want, if you just have a good idea.�� Stan’s good idea has been to play the lead in movies while dodging the formulaic identity of a leading man, and this year will prove just how far he can take it.

“The Apprentice” seemed like it would never come together before suddenly it did. This time last year, Stan was sure it was dead in the water, and he was OK with that. “If this movie is not happening, it’s because it’s not meant to happen,” he recalls thinking. “It will not be because I’m too scared and walk away.”

Called in on short notice and filming from November 2023 to January of this year (ahead of a May premiere in Cannes), Stan lent heft and attitude to a character arc that takes Trump from local real estate developer in the 1970s to national celebrity in the 1980s. He learns the rough-and-tumble game of power from the ruthless and hedonistic political fixer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), eventually cutting the closeted Cohn loose as he dies of AIDS and alienating his wife Ivana (Maria Bakalova) in the process. (In a shocking scene, Donald sexually assaults Ivana in their Trump Tower apartment.) For all its edginess, the film is about Trump’s personality — and the way it calcified into a persona — rather than his present-day politics. (Despite its title, it’s set well before the 2004 launch of the reality show that finally made Trump the superstar he longed to be.)

And despite the fact that Trump has kept America rapt since he announced his run for president in 2015, Hollywood has been terrified of “The Apprentice.” The film didn’t sell for months after Cannes, an unusual result for a major English-language competition film, partly because Trump’s legal team sent a cease-and-desist letter attempting to block the film’s release in the U.S. while the fest was still ongoing. When it finally sold, it was to Briarcliff Entertainment, a distributor so small that the production has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money so that it will be able to stay in theaters.

Yes, Hollywood may vote blue, but it’s not the same town that released “Fahrenheit 9/11” or even “W.,” let alone a film that depicts the once (and possibly future) president raping his wife. (The filmmakers stand behind that story. “The script is 100% backed by my own interviews and historical research,” says Gabriel Sherman, the screenwriter and a journalist who covers Trump and the American conservative movement. “And it’s important to note that it is not a documentary. It’s a work of fiction that’s inspired by history.”) Entertainment corporations from Netflix to Disney would be severely inconvenienced if the next president came into office with a grudge against them.

“I am quite shocked, to be honest,” Abbasi says. “This is not a political piece. It’s not a hit piece; it’s not a hatchet job; it’s not propaganda. The fact that it’s been so challenging is shocking.” Abbasi, born in Iran, was condemned by his government over his last film, “Holy Spider,” and cannot safely return. He sees a parallel in the response to “The Apprentice.” “OK, that’s Iran — that is unfortunately expected. But I wasn’t expecting this.”

“Everything with this film has been one day at a time,” Stan says. The actor chalks up the film’s divisiveness to a siloed online environment. “There are a lot of people who love reading the [film’s] Wikipedia page and throwing out their opinions,” he says, an edge entering his voice. “But they don’t actually know what they’re talking about. That’s a popular sport now online, apparently.”

Unprompted, Stan brings up the idea that Trump is so widely known that some might think a biographical film about him serves no purpose. “When someone says, ‘Why do we need this movie? We know all this,’ I’ll say, ‘Maybe you do, but you haven’t experienced it. The experience of those two hours is visceral. It’s something you can hopefully feel — if you still have feelings.’”

After graduating from Rutgers in 2005, Stan found his first substantial role on “Gossip Girl,” playing troubled rich kid Carter Baizen. Like teen soaps since time immemorial, “Gossip Girl” was a star-making machine. “It was the first time I was in serious love with somebody,” he says. (He dated the series’ star, Leighton Meester, from 2008 to 2010.) He feels nostalgic for that moment: “Walking around the city, seeing these same buildings and streets — life seemed simpler.”

Stan followed his “Gossip Girl” gig with roles on the 2009 NBC drama “Kings,” playing a devious gay prince in an alternate-reality modern world governed by a monarchy, and the 2012 USA miniseries “Political Animals,” playing a black-sheep prince (and once again a gay man) of a different sort — the son of a philandering former president and an ambitious former first lady.

When I ask him what lane he envisioned himself in as a young actor, he shrugs off the question. “I grew up with a single mom, and I didn’t have a lot of male role models. I was always trying to figure out what I wanted to be. And at some point, I was like, I could just be a bunch of things.”

Which might seem challenging when one is booked to play the same character, Bucky Barnes, in Marvel movie after Marvel movie. Bucky’s adventures have been wide-ranging — he’s been brainwashed and turned evil and then brought back to the home team again, all since his debut in 2011’s “Captain America: The First Avenger.” Next year, he’ll anchor the summer movie “Thunderbolts,” as the leader of a squad of quirky heroes played by, among others, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Florence Pugh. It’s easy to wonder if this has come to feel like a cage of sorts.

Not so, says Stan. His new Marvel film “was kind of like ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ — a guy coming into this group that was chaotic and degenerate, and somehow finding a way to unite them.”

Lately, knives have been out for Marvel movies as some have disappointed at the box office, and “Thunderbolts,” which endured strike delays and last-minute cast changes, has been under scrutiny.

“It’s become really convenient to pick on [Marvel films],” Stan says. “And that’s fine. Everyone’s got an opinion. But they’re a big part of what contributes to this business and allows us to have smaller movies as well. This is an artery traveling through the system of this entire machinery that’s Hollywood. It feeds in so many more ways than people acknowledge.” He adds, “Sometimes I get protective of it because the intention is really fucking good. It’s just fucking hard to make a good movie over and over again.”

Which may account for an eagerness to try something new. “In the last couple of years,” he says, “I’ve gotten much more aggressive about pursuing things that I want, and I’m constantly looking for different ways of challenging myself.”

The challenge continued throughout the shoot of “The Apprentice,” as Stan pushed the material. “One of the most creatively rewarding parts of the process was how open Sebastian was to giving notes on the script but also wanting to go beyond the script,” says Sherman, the screenwriter. “If he was interested in a certain aspect of a scene, he was like, Can you find me a quote?” he recalls.

Building a dynamic through improvised scenes, Stan and Strong stayed in character throughout the “Apprentice” shoot. “I was doing an Ibsen play on Broadway,” says Strong, who won a Tony in June for his performance in “An Enemy of the People,” “and he came backstage afterwards. And it was like — I’d never really met Sebastian, and I don’t think he’d ever met me. So it was nice to meet him.”

Before the pair began acting together, they didn’t rehearse much — “I’m not a fan of rehearsals,” Strong says. “I think actors are best left in their cocoon, doing their work, and then trusted to walk on set and be ready.” The two didn’t touch the script together until cameras went up — though they spent a preproduction day, Strong says, playing games in character as Donald and Roy.

After filming, both have kept memories of the hold their characters had on them. They shared a flight back from Telluride — a famously bumpy trip out of the mountains. “He’s a nervous flyer, and I’m a nervous flyer,” Stan says. Both marveled at the fact that they’d contained their nerves on the first day of shooting “The Apprentice,” when their characters traveled together via helicopter. “We both go, ‘Yeah — but there was a camera.’”

Stan’s aggressive approach to research came in handy on “A Different Man,” which shot before “The Apprentice.” His character’s disorder, neurofibromatosis, is caused by a genetic mutation and presents as benign tumors growing in the nervous system. After being healed, he feels a growing envy for a fellow sufferer who seems unbothered by his disability.

Stan’s co-star, Adam Pearson, was diagnosed with neurofibromatosis in early childhood. Stan found the experience challenging to render faithfully. “I said many times, I can do all the research in the world, but am I ever going to come close to this?” Stan says. “How am I going to ever do this justice?”

Plus, he had precious little time to prepare: “He was fully on board, and the film was being made weeks later,” director Aaron Schimberg says. “Zero to 60 in a matter of weeks.”

The actor grappled for something to hold on to, and Pearson sug gested he refer to his own experience of fame. “Adam said to me, ‘You know what it’s like to be public property,’” Stan says.

Pearson recalls describing the experience to Stan this way: “While you don’t understand the invasiveness and the staring and the pointing that I’ve grown up with, you do know what it’s like to have the world think you owe them something.”

That sense of alienation becomes universal through the film’s storytelling: “A Different Man” takes its premise as the jumping-off point for a deep and often mordant investigation of who we all are underneath the skin.

The film was shot in 22 days in a New York City heat wave, and there was, Schimberg says, “no room for error. I would get four or five takes, however many I could squeeze out, but there’s no coverage.”

Through it all, Stan’s performance is utterly poised — Schimberg and Stan discussed Buster Keaton as a reference for his ability to be “completely stone-faced” amid chaos, the director says. And the days were particularly long because Oscar-nominated prosthetics artist Michael Marino was only able to apply Stan’s makeup in the early morning, before going to his job on the set of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”

“Even though I wasn’t shooting until 11 a.m., I would go at like 5 in the morning to his studio, or his apartment,” Stan recalls. The hidden advantage was that Stan had hours to kill while made up like his character, the kind of person the world looks past. “I wanted to walk around the city and see what happened,” Stan says. “On Broadway, one of the busiest streets in New York, no one’s looking at me. It’s as if I’m not even there.” The other reaction was worse: “Somebody would immediately stop and very blatantly hit their friend, point, take a picture.”

It was a study in empathy that flowed into the character. Stan had spoken to Pearson’s mother, who watched her son develop neurofibromatosis before growing into a disability advocate and, eventually, an actor. “She said to me, ‘All I ever wanted was for someone to walk in his shoes for a day,’” Stan recalls. “And I guess that was the closest I had ever come.”

“The Apprentice” forced Stan, and forces the viewer, to do the same with a figure that some 50% of the electorate would sooner forget entirely. And that lends the film its controversy. Those on the right, presupposing that the movie is an anti-Trump document, have railed against it. In a statement provided to Variety, a Trump campaign spokesman said, “This ‘film’ is pure malicious defamation, should never see the light of day and doesn’t even deserve a place in the straight-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store, it belongs in a dumpster fire.” The campaign threatened a lawsuit, though none has materialized.

Asked about the assault scene, Stan notes that Ivana had made the claim in a deposition, but later walked it back. “Is it closer to the truth, what she had said directly in the deposition or something that she retracted?” he asks. “They went with the first part.”

The movie depicts, too, Ivana’s carrying on with her marriage after the violation, which may be still more devastating. “How do you overcome something like this?” asks Bakalova. “Do you have to put on a mask that everything is fine? In the next scene, she’s going to play the game and pretend that we’re the glamorous, perfect couple.” The Trumps, in “The Apprentice,” live in a world of paper-thin images, one that grows so encompassing that Donald no longer feels anything for the people to whom he was once loyal. They’re props in his stage show.

“The Apprentice” will drop in the midst of the most chaotic presidential election of our lifetime. “The way it lands in this extremely polarized situation, for me as an artist, is exciting. I won’t lie to you,” says Abbasi.

When asked if he was concerned about blowback from a Trump 47 presidency, Stan says, “You can’t do this movie and not be thinking about all those things, but I really have no idea. I’m still in shock from going from an assassination attempt to the next weekend having a president step down [from a reelection bid].”

Stan’s job, as he sees it, was to synthesize everything he’d absorbed — all those videos on his phone — into a person who made sense. This Trump had to be part of a coherent story, not just the flurry of news updates to which we’ve become accustomed.

“You can take a Bach or a Beethoven, and everyone’s going to play that differently on the piano, right?” Stan says. (His pianist mother named him for Johann Sebastian Bach.) “So this is my take on what I’ve learned. I have to strip myself of expectations of being applauded for this, if people are going to like it or people are going to hate it. People are going to say whatever they want. Hopefully they should think at least before they say it.”

It’s a reality that Stan is now used to — the work is the work, and the way people interpret him is none of his business. Perhaps that’s why he has run away from ever being the same thing twice. “I could sit with you today and tell you passionately what my truth is, but it doesn’t matter,” he says. “Because people are more interested in a version of you that they want to see, rather than who you are.”

“The Apprentice” has been the subject of extreme difference of opinion by many who have yet to see it. It’s been read — and will continue to be after its release — as anti-Trump agitprop. The truth is chewier and more complicated, and, perhaps, unsuited for these times.

“Are we going to live in a world where anyone knows what the truth is anymore? Or is it just a world that everyone wants to create for themselves?” Stan asks.

His voice — the one that shares a slight accent with Trump but that is, finally, Stan’s own — is calm and clear. “People create their own truth right now,” he says. “That’s the only thing that I’ve made peace with; I don’t need to twist your arm if that’s what you want to believe. But the way to deal with something is to actually confront it.”

[mareastrorum]

These are just initial thoughts, and perhaps I’ll learn something that changes my mind on it, but I’m glad to see Critical Role making the leap to their own subscription service with Beacon.

As a lead in: I’m an attorney that has some background in IP law, though it isn’t what I practice currently. I’ve kept in contact with several active practitioners, particularly those that represent small-time creators either in their own independent practice or via nonprofits. I do not have an extensive Rolodex of IP peers, nor do I spend the money to keep up on IP CLEs. I’m just someone who used to know a ton because I did heavy research and work in that space, and that hasn’t been the case for years.

So here’s my thoughts a bit on the IP angle:

The primary reason I’m happy to see this leap is that CR is taking active steps to keep control over its IP. It’s a boring thing to most people, but when I start paying attention to a specific creator (authors, directors, companies, etc.), I tend to be very attentive to how they use their IP. How freely do they license their marks to partner with other creators to make merch? How often do they allow others to make adaptations or derivatives of their copyrights? What is the quality of those products? What is the supply chain like? Are those third parties objectionable in some way? Were the other parties faithful to the original works or marks? Was this a cash grab or an earnest effort to make something worth the price tag?

Honestly, I like how CR run their business. They have a history of tapping fans and fellow small businesses when making new merch or spinoffs. They embrace the culture of fan-made derivative works, both by featuring fanart/cosplay and by sharing their success. Do you know how rare it is for a company to pay fan artists for their already-made and freely posted work and then sell books of it? Let me be clear: CR bought a limited license from each artist so they could print and sell each work in a physical book, then paid the cost of publishing that book with no guarantee that CR would make that money back, let alone profit. I have a copy of the collector’s edition art books: they’re actually very well made and the packaging definitely cost a pretty penny. That’s not a rainmaker idea, that’s genuinely risking financial loss to sell something people could access for free if they wanted to.

The art books aren’t a one-off either. Darrington Press is CR’s separate LLC for tabletop games. (It’s good business practice to split off companies that handle products in different industries.) CR has also made shows based on those games, and the Candela Obscura series has quite a dedicated audience. Everything about Candela belongs to them: the game itself, the rule book, all the art in the book, the web series based on the game, and merch. It’s so successful that they invested in scheduling a live show for Candela later this month. That’s HUGE.

Contrast that with the distribution of Campaign 1 and the first 19 episodes of Campaign 2. CR cannot host those videos themselves; Geek & Sundry still exists and still holds what I presume to be distribution rights (but I don’t have the contract to review). So G&S gets to host those videos on YouTube and reaps the advertising. I can’t speak to whatever share CR gets from that, but considering that CR is locked out of hosting their own copies of those videos, I doubt it’s much, if any, revenue. (If you’re wondering why CR just didn’t buy those rights back, I ask: what incentive does G&S have to sell something that’s making them money for no cost?)

Knowing that background about G&S, I was wary of CR choosing Amazon to host and distribute The Legend of Vox Machina. Originally, TLOVM was not the plan; CR had a kickstarter for an animated special based on C1. It was only because they blew past the goal that CR was able to make an entire season. The reasonable assumption is that choosing Amazon had to have secured CR additional funding for future seasons of the show, which seems evident from how quickly season 2 was announced, Mighty Nein Animated is also going to be a thing, and that season 3 of TLVOM is scheduled for fall 2024. CR had the option of just doing 1 season and keeping it purely in their control, but going with Amazon meant they could animate more of their works. Animation is expensive. I cannot stress enough how doubtful I am that CR would have been able to afford this many episodes and both campaigns if they had not gone this route. As wary as I was in the start, it paid off, and it’s going well—so far. Hopefully CR doesn’t regret that decision if Amazon tries something sleazy. But, as before, we don’t have the contracts and can’t know how secure CR’s position is if any dispute came up.

CR also partnered with Dark Horse Comics to make Vox Machina comics and Might Nein Origins comics. What’s especially surprising is that each of the cast had a hand in writing the MNO comics for their characters, with Matt listed for multiple. That isn’t very common with comic adaptations. Often times, IP owners let comic companies go ham with minimal oversight. Being listed as one of the authors comes with IP rights that have to be negotiated. That means that Dark Horse had to talk with CR about whether that warrants more or less revenue going to which party in exchange for that—or, alternatively, whether the comic gets made at all. That’s a ballsy move. You think people can just demand to write the comics that a publishing company is going to pay to print? Pffft. CR wanted some creative control, and that is a big ask. However, Dark Horse still has the distribution rights, both digitally and for physical copies. You couldn’t buy the comics from CR until they came out with the library edition, a book bound compilation of 4/8 comics. But the publisher is still Dark Horse; CR is just allowed to sell the book directly from their own site as well.

Contrast that with the novels about CR characters. CR partnered with Penguin Random House to publish novels about Vex and Vax (Kith & Kin), Lucien (The Nine Eyes of Lucien), and Laudna (What Doesn’t Break). Liam and Laura were vocal about having some say in K&K, whereas Madeline Roux said in an interview that she had full control over TNEOL. Both of those novels were narrated with CR voices, but narrating a book doesn’t come with IP rights, it just brings in a paycheck. There’s a lot less IP control in there compared to the comics, but this isn’t abnormal for book publishing. To be blunt, I doubt PRH would have agreed to publish the novels if anyone from CR had been a co-author or had heavy oversight over the author or the editing. I don’t think PRH even considered that as an option. Either an author that has already managed to sell X number of copies or nothing. Creative control over a book a huge ask, asks come with reduced revenue, and switching to books from a web series is already a leap. The fact that Laura and Liam had any say is surprising, really.

That was a long meandering tour of what we’ve seen CR do with its IP. The reason I bring up each of these things is that navigating the way to protect an IP in this space is rife with challenges. Different types of IP warrant different strategies because of the cost involved in creating each medium and the challenges placed by industries that have already sprung up around them. Any time that a third party is tapped to create an IP, it’s usually because they already have the funds and resources to create the work, and CR has to negotiate for revenue, creative control, distribution, and—the big one—who gets to be the owner. These are not easy, quick, or fun conversations, and CR is always going to be the smaller company at the table.

Knowing that, I’m not surprised or worried that CR is creating its own independent subscription service with Beacon. It tells me that they’re being careful with their IP whenever they can. A subscription service means they don’t have to trade away distribution rights or give up ad revenue to a third party. They’re in this for a long term investment, and that requires solid income not tied to third parties that can definitely outspend them in litigation in the event of a dispute. A subscription for bonus content is one of many parts in a diverse revenue stream.

(All that said, this isn’t meant to criticize creators that cant afford to do this type of thing. It took 9 years for CR to get to the point where Beacon is financially feasible and a desirable business decision. They have enough ongoing, popular content to warrant paying for a subscription, and they’ve built sufficient trust with their audience that more will be added. That takes time and an awful lot of money.)

As a final note, I take this step as a sign that CR definitely intends to stick around. This isn’t a move people make when they plan on ending the business after the current campaign. I’m glad to see CR is taking steps to secure their foundation and keep making new content.

I’m sure people will chime in on other issues (cost, content exclusivity, etc.), but I hope my perspective gives an idea of why this sort of thing is good for business generally and why it would be good for CR.

[covenawhite66]

Researchers found 11 new gravesites believed to be enslaved African Americans.

The graves are in Bull Run Regional Park next to the Atlantis Waterpark in Centerville in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Chrystal Gaskins is a descendant of families who used to live on the site. It used to be a plantation owned by Robert Carter III. Carter owned hundreds of slaves.

“Robert Carter III was one of the richest people in the American colonies at the time,” said Paul Gilbert, the Executive Director of NOVA Parks. “And he certainly knew George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and all the other founders. He actually believed when people said all people were created equal, that they were.”

Carter’s newfound Baptist faith seemed to change his views of slavery.

On January 1, 1791, seventy years before the Civil War, Carter signed a Deed of Gift which gradually freed his 500 enslaved individuals beginning with the oldest.

Gilbert said that was the largest emancipation prior to the Civil War.

“He [Carter] recognized his half-brother, who was enslaved, as his brother,” said Gilbert. “He had a religious awakening and created a church right here - one that was an integrated church in 1775.

He continued on his moral and spiritual journey, and in 1791 decided to emancipate slavery. It’s a very remarkable story that really should be in the history books everywhere. The story continued: one good deed led to many others. The state legislator that created the first HBCU grew up right here at Bull Run - was the grandson of one of those emancipated. Generations later, the Harris family who were descendants of the emancipated, donated the property that Atlantis Waterpark here at Bull Run is built on because they wanted an integrated pool. And they donated the land in 1963. 1963 was the height of the Civil Rights movement and they wanted an integrated pool. And NOVA Parks agreed to build one. We opened one a few years later that was integrated from day one. It's layers in history that all go back to this point and a really good deed that happened in 1791.”

Chystal’s family was among those freed by Carter.

“When they were free, they were given options to rent and later to purchase property,” said Gaskins. “And so our families had homes, they had farms. They ran businesses. They opened about 18 churches in Fairfax County, family cemeteries, so here is home.”

“My emotions coming through here are very spiritual,” added Gaskins. “They are very deep. There is a lot of emotion. The saddening part is we are here and we really don’t know who they are right now. That’s the sad part. But I won’t give up in my lifetime continuing to research somebody here that we know.”

“It's been an absolute joy to work with the descendants of the Harris family that have brought in their knowledge of the history of what happened here,” Gilbert added. “We have partnered very closely with the NAACP branch in Fairfax County.”

[the-au-collector]

Linked Universe College Radio AU

Since I recently got some motivation to work on this one, I figured I would brain dump a little about my LU College Radio AU. It's basically a college/university AU but each of the main LU Links are somehow associated with their college radio station at Kakariko University.

Why radio? I was listening to The Oh Hellos when the idea struck me so each of the works are hopefully going to have titles taken from Oh Hellos songs. This will, hopefully, just mostly focus on the Links + the radio station but who knows? I added way too many characters to this braindump but oh well

The Links

Time

Staff coordinator for the radio station

Broadcasting professor

Usually gets stuck teaching the freshman and sophomores

Married to the zoology professor, Malon

Taking care of Twilight's dog, Wolfie, until Twilight finds a dog-friendly place. Acts like he hates it, but he actually loves it

Infamous for being a hardass

"Call me Time. Don't call me Link, that's my nephew. Don't call me Professor Lon, that's my wife"

Legend

Has done just about anything and everything

Knows everyone, but just because he's been here so long and has done so much

Has officialy been an agriculture major, a meteorology major, a humanities major, a fine art major, a fashion design major, and an engineering major in the past

Has finally settled with being a broadcasting major after doing the Jaded Boys radio show with Wild

Part of the Jaded Boys with Wild, then is part of Triple Threat with Wild and Hyrule

Lives off-campus with his current partner, Ravio

Also lives with Warriors

Used to date a girl named Marin from Mabe City. No he doesn't talk about it

Does not like driving. Or storms.

Has a cane

Even in an AU he can't escape the Koholint Trauma

Wild

Campus cryptid

Everyone knows him. No one knows what he's studying

(It's engineering. He, Purah, and Fauna are a terror to the school together)

Addicted to energy drinks

Never studies, always passes exams

Always socially overbooked

Has amnesia and bad scarring from a house fire

Was adopted by Teba and Saki after said house fire

Has a twin brother named Age. Most people think Age is older but Wild's actually older

Was the one who coerced Legend and Hyrule into radio

Lives in a house off-campus with Twilight, Age, Sidon, Yunobo, Mipha, and Revali.

Has committed arson before

Has gotten arrested for committing arson before

Twilight

Zoology major

Is the reason Wild's still alive

Used to be roommates with Wild in the dorms when they were freshmen

Took a gap year between high school and college

Has a dog named Wolfie

Regular guest on Triple Threat

Runs the Helpful Paws club, which is a club all about service dogs. Ilia helps run said club

Works on Legend's uncle's orchard during the weekends

Four

Computer science major

Technology director at the radio station (yes this position only exists because of Wild)

Friendly rivalry with Wild because Wild breaks everything

Shadow is his step-brother

Warriors

Fashion design major

Joined Legend and Ravio's lease at the last minute because of stuff that happened between him and his other roommates

Has a restraining order against Cia and doesn't talk to Lana

Is currently dating Artemis, a fashion merchandising major

Met Legend when Legend was doing fashion design. No one knows how they're friends. They fight all the time.

Legend forced him to make his own radio show when Wild roped Legend into doing the Jaded Boys. So now Warriors has a show called Wednesday With Warriors

Sky

Senior aviation major

Runs The Loftwings with his fiancé, Sun, and his best friend, Groose.

Has a bad habit of sleeping through his alarm

Currently taking care of his older brother's mouthy parrot, Crimson.

Also lives with Groose and Sun

Wind

Freshman metrology major

Super friendly

Cares more about the college experience than learning

Hyrule's roommate

After Hyrule starts doing Triple Threat, Wind gets the idea to do the Wind Waker podcast with Tetra where they sing sea shanties and tell pirate stories

Spirit is his introverted cousin and he's made it his goal to get Spirit to get out more

He also does the same with Hyrule

Hyrule

Freshman undecided major

Joins Triple Threat under Wild's insistence

Very shy

Grew up in a really small town

Wind's roommate

Is regularly forced out of the dorm by Wind but prefers to just wander around town and campus

Childhood friends with Dawn

Age

Wid's twin brother who is very different from Wild

Business major, accounting minor

Dating Mipha, a senior nursing student

Rarely goes to parties, but plays damage control when Wild hosts them at their house

Does remember his and Wild's past. Wild's amnesia caused a rift to form between them for a while, but they're working on getting past that now

Was also adopted by Teba and Saki

Shadow

Four's step-brother

Vaati's his dad, but he's cut Vaati out of his life now

Theater major with a minor in set design

Got his nickname from no one being able to see him onstage when moving props around

Everyone is convinced he has some sort of magical powers

A bit shy, and a bad boy

Dating Dot

Spirit

Freshman engineering major

His roommate is Niko

Wind's introverted cousin who's often dragged out of his dorm by Wind

Would much rather spend time with construction documents than people

First

Sky's older brother who's not around a lot since he's in the military (he's a doctor)

Married to a woman named Hylia

Has a parrot named Crimson that he's trusting Sky to take care of

The Zeldas

Lullaby

Works at Kakriko Univeristy as a broadcasting professor

An old flame of Time's, but they've both moved on by now

Usually teaches upper division classes

Fable

Legend's older sister who lives in Castle City

Already graduated with a business degree

Comes around for the holidays and drops in occasionally to see how Legend's doing

Flora

Constantly overbooked with school

Double-majoring in anthropology and history

Part of hundreds of different clubs and student organizations

Hard to get a moment alone with her at all

Has recently gotten close to Rauru and Sonia, who are both anthropology students

Fauna's twin sister. Flora's younger, though

Dusk

Political science major

Knows Twilight through Midna but since Twi and Midna broke up, Dusk doesn't really talk to Twilight anymore

Roommates with Midna and Artemis

Dot

Political science major and Four's childhood friend

Hopes to get into law school one day

Dating Shadow (her dad isn't too happy about this)

Lives with Aurora and Dawn and used to be roommates with Aurora when they were in the dorms

Artemis

Fashion merchandising major

Warriors' girlfriend

Used to also be his housemate, but after things happened with Cia and Lana she moved in with Midna and Dusk

Still occasionally talks to Lana

Sun

Senior aviation major and Sky's fiancé

Runs The Loftwings with Sky and Groose

Also lives with Sky and Groose

Appears to be very level-headed on the outside, but is secretly kind of crazy

Tetra

Ecology major with a minor in biology

Eventually becomes close friends with Wind

Roommates with Phantom and they get along like fire and gasoline

(seriously do not let either of those girls near a lighter... or boxing gloves)

Part of the Wind Waker podcast with Wind

Aurora

Senior political science major

She, Dot, and Dawn live together

Dawn is her younger sister

Is going to move to Castle City after graduation

Refuses to go home after having a horrible falling out with her brother

Dawn

Freshman early childhood education major

Wants to teach kindergarten and preeschool one day

Lives with her older sister, Aurora, and Aurora's roommate, Dot

Doesn't plan on returning to her hometown either

Childhood friends with Hyrule

Fauna

Flora's twin sister who's majoring in engineering and minoring in biology

Best friends with Purah and Impa

Closer to Age than Wild, but she's in a lot of classes with Wild

It is a horrible idea to leave her, Purah, and Wild alone in a room together

Has a cat named Terrako, who hates everyone except for her

Her father puts a lot of pressure on both her and Flora, but Fauna feels it the most since she's the oldest

Phantom

Freshman communications major

Tetra's roommate

She looks like any old upperclass girl but she is always ready to throw hands

Somehow becomes friends with Spirit

Hylia

First's wife who's a doctor at a local hospital

Keeps an eye out for Sky even though she knows he doesn't really need it

Will bring Sky and his friends food and snacks

Absolutely willing to drive Sky and his friends home when none of them can drive

Very motherly and open

Some Others:

Malon

Time's wife who's a zoology professor

Twilight has started a protection squad for her (all the Links are part of it. Even Time)

Everyone loves her

Ravio:

Legend's partner

Business major

Has a bird named Sheerow who poops everywhere

Despite this he is the cleanest one in the apartment

Constantly roping Legend into new business ideas

Used to run a shop out of his and Legend's dorm room when they lived in the dorms together. Legend's pretty sure it was against the rules. Ravio doesn't care

Acts greedy, but is actually living off his loans

Never goes home. He goes over Legend's Uncle's house for holidays now.

His younger sister, Hilda, often sleeps over and Legend and Ravio's

Has a horrible relationship with his father, Yuga

Sidon, Mipha, Revali, Yunobo:

Wild's housemates alongside Twilight and Age

Revali claims he's the only reason the house hasn't burned down

Revali is also one of Teba and Saki's adopted children, and had a bit of a superiority complex over being adopted first (he was there first) when they were kids. He's gotten better, but he's still a bit of a jerk to Wild. He and Age have bonded over Wild constantly giving them heart attacks

Sidon is a sophomore political science major who is super friendly, but has a hard time stopping conversations. Head over heels for his girlfriend, Yona. Is also super tall and often mistaken for being the older sibling

Mipha is a senior nursing student. Sidon's older sister, Age's girlfriend. If there's a medical emergency, chances are the Links are calling Mipha first even though they really should go to the hospital instead

Revali is a senior aviation major and hopes to join the air force after college to "get away from the filth" (meaning Age and Wild. He would never call Tulin filth)

Yunobo is a sophomore geoscience major. Works at his grandpa's coffee shop, Goron City Coffee

Urbosa, Daruk, Riju:

Urbosa is Riju's aunt and and mother figure to Flora and Fauna. She lives in Castle City, but often comes to Kakariko to give guest lectures. She's a businesswoman

Daruk is Yunobo's grandpa who owns Goron City Coffee. He often lets the radio host events at his coffee shop, and acts like a father figure for Wild's friend group

Riju is a freshman business major who wants to be like her aunt, Urbosa. Flora and Fauna see her as their younger sister.

Teba, Saki, Tulin:

Revali was adopted first, then Age and Wild

Teba is retired from being in the military

Saki teaches private singing lessons

Tulin is the Baby of the family and is in middle school. He is an absolute terror. Never let Wild babysit him, they will both get into trouble. Tulin is everyone's favorite and Tulin will use that to his advantage

Ilia:

Twilight's friend who helps run the Helpful Paws club

She has a huge crush on Twilight but doesn't want to overstep, especially after the bad break up with Midna

Rusl, Uli, Colin:

Twilight's family in Ordon who adopted him when he was about 8

Colin's just starting high school and is dealing with a lot of bullying, so he calls Twilight often for help

Rusl is a detective, but he's on paternity leave right now since Uli just had their daughter

Grandpa Smith:

Four and Shadow's grandpa

Took them both in after their mother died and Vaati went to prison

Four was usually a good kid, but Shadow was a little terror

Lives in Kakariko City so he gets to see his boys often

Cia and Lana:

Twins who both had huge crushes on Warriors

Cia got jealous when Wars started dating Lana

Cia is a psychology major, but now is largely known as the campus creep

Lana was a fashion design major, but changed schools after the drama with Warriors happened

Groose:

Sky and Sun's roommate and fellow host of The Loftwings

Proudly boasts that he's their best man

Also a senior aviation major

[mvjerbs]

Beyond the wall au

CW: some depictions of gore and murder and blood

Present events of the story:

Years have passed since Ambrosius, and his search party have disappeared. (planned it to be 15 but still unsure)

With Gloreth's descendant gone, people have been anxious of the fate of the kingdom. And everyone pretty much blamed Todd since he and his group were the reason why Ambrosius went out in the first place.

He lost everything to say the least, and he was getting tired of it.

With the director's permission (he's not going to make the same mistake again), he left the wall with a group of 6 knights to search for Ambrosius and regain his old life back.

Which is easier said than done because all evidence or traces left behind by Ambrosius are gone since it's been years.

They searched and eventually stumbled upon the village, but due to the villagers being sacrificed and imprisoned, the village was abandoned.

Thinking that Ambrosius might have camped there once, they split up and searched the place to look for possible clues to where he might be.

Two of the knights went missing not long after they parted ways as they were caught by Nimona. The lucky ones ended up finding Ambrosius, not too far from where the village was. He was chopping up some wood from the tree that he had just cut down.

They almost didn't recognize him because of his long hair, but they all soon felt relief and joy when they found him.

Meanwhile, Todd searched on his own because his partner abandoned him because of annoyance. In his search, he stumbled upon a small cabin with a garden in the front.

Todd was surprised that Ambrosius (he assumed) lived and survive outside the wall that was infamous for being dangerous. He approached the cabin when someone suddenly emerged out of the house, and his eyes went wide,

Ballister was the said person who emerged out of the cabin, holding a small basket in his arm. He could faintly hear him hum happily as he headed to the small garden, this of course stopped when he saw Todd.

Todd froze when Ballister greeted him with a smile, asking how the kingdom and he has been. It was a warm smile, and it could have been a warm smile if it wasn't for the situation he was in. It was eerie and sinister.

Todd tried to hide his fear and went back to his old and arrogant self. Trying to taunt and insult Ballister saying that he's so lonely and all because the realm hated him. Todd expected him to snarl or glare at him

What he got almost made him shit his pants.

Ballister laughed at him, it started out as contained laughter then turning into giggles and eventually a full blown laughter. Laughter that made Todd shiver in fear.

"Oh silly idiotic Todd, I'm not living alone, I have a family! And besides, even if I was, I'm never alone out here."

The way Ballister looked at him and how he said it gave Todd the urge to run away. but before he could do anything, Ambrosius arrived along with the other guards.

Feeling relieved from the sights of the others, Todd regained his confidence he ordered the knights to capture and kill Ballister. Even taunting him that he'll just cut off the other arm for him.

Todd raised his sword along with the other knights who moved towards Ballister, but before he could bring down is sword and slash Ballister, an axe flew and lodged itself deep into Todd's arm.

Todd screamed as he dropped his sword and gripped his wounded arm. Everyone was surprised to say the least, and they all turned to the person who threw the axe.

There they saw a very enraged Ambrosius, breath raged from the immense anger that is seeping out of him. His eyes that are filled with rage were focused on Todd who was staring at him in horror.

"Don't. Fucking. Touch. My husband"

The threat and the anger really surprised the knights, not that they haven't seen Ambrosius angry, but seeing him harming a fellow knight out of anger really surprised them.

With everyone distracted, Ballister took the chance and ripped the axe off Todd making him scream. The things that happened next was like a blur to Todd, the bloodshed, the clashing of weapons, and eventually a monstrous scream.

It was the scream that snapped Todd back to reality, and when he looked at the direction of the scream, he saw Nimona.

Todd abandoned the others and ran away to escape, though it was hard with his dangling bleeding hand. He eventually reached another cabin, and he immediately went in, ignoring the fact that the door was a bit heavy.

Turns out it wasn't a cabin but a walk-in freezer that Ballister made from scraps that they got when they went hunting in the kingdom. Upon realizing this, Todd turned to leave only to find the door locked. Panicking, he started to pound on the door.

Meanwhile on the outside of the freezer, Ballister, Ambrosius and Nimona(who was currently snacking on a knight) watched as they listened to the desperate screams and banging of Todd. Mocking and talking about how Todd was a fool and an idiot for trying to run away while leaving a trail of blood.

Nimona, who had just finished her meal, moved towards the freezer only to be stopped by Ballister.

"Nimona, I know you want to, but I won't let you eat him. There are others back there you can eat sweetheart."

"Listen to your dad on this one Nimona, we don't want you to eat trash."

The family left and abandoned Todd in the freezer.

The next morning, they cleaned around the cabin before heading to the freezer to check. Sure, enough they saw Todd lying on the floor, frozen, pale, and surrounded by his own frozen blood.

The couple smiled, satisfied as they watched Todd's frozen and lifeless body.

Nimona came in a few moments later in her (disproportionate) child form, immediately walking towards Todd before she was stopped by Ambrosius who grabbed her and carried her in his arms.

The kingdom was once again in a state of panic as Todd's search party never returned and the killings continue.

That's the last part :) I might add something soon if I have time in college. hopefully.

[lordarsonizzzzt]

The SCP doctors' reaction to finding out their friend or s/o (who presumably didn't even know what they did for a living) has some kind of anomaly and has been contained? :0

SCP DOCTORS FINDING OUT THEIR S/O IS CONTAINED.

characters: Dr. Bright, Dr. Kondraki.

DR BRIGHT

★ He found out after a week you've been contained.

★ On that week he really thought you died or something, he called you every day, broke into your apartment to see if maybe you were ignoring him,,, for some reason. He asked your neighbors and they seemed confused because no one with that names has ever lived there.

★ And he started putting the pieces together, there was no way they didn't remember you, unless a third party was involved.

★ So after a week, he has a little 'chat' with his older brother and not only it starts a verbal fight but it gets physical, Bright demanding they let you go or he gets assigned to you, being the only one that has access to your files, is able to interview you etc.

★ At first the just allowed Bright to give you a visit per week, but after seeing that you were not willing to cooperate unless he was around to explain what the fuck was going on they had to approve his 'petitions'

★ Once you two were able to finally talk for more than 30 minutes, Bright understood if you didn't want to be his partner anymore, but he still will be the one to 'take care of you' in his words.

★ If you choose to still date him, let's all be honest here, chances are you will be able to become a junior researcher or something like that, the Bright family can move a lot of strings in the foundation.

DR KONDRAKI

✴︎ He pretty much prefer dying before you found out about the foundation, he knew something was up with you but you never did anything wrong in his eyes, so why worry?

✴︎ Your anomaly was weird, in a way that it isn't exactly dangerous, but it has an impact in others. Any strong emotions you had would make others around you have them too, if you are really sad, people around you will feel sad too, if you are mad chances are that someone is going to start a fight.

✴︎ But you were a sweetheart, you were always happy and you brought happiness to everyone around you, that's what Kondraki loved, with you he finally could feel calm and warm inside.

✴︎ He knew the foundation took you a few days after because Draven told him.

✴︎ My dude was mad, he went straight to your cell and demanded to be let in, being a Site Director and all they let him, but when he was outside your cell he could already feel it, his chest felt heavy and his eyes were watering.

✴︎ When he came in he saw you sitting on the floor, hugging your knees and crying, he didn't even realize when he started to cry too.

✴︎ When you noticed him it was like a switch, the heaviness in his chest turned into words that wanted to get out, his hands turned into fists.

✴︎ One look at you and he knew, you were angry at him, and you started yelling for some kind of explanation, this was the first time he ever saw you mad and honestly? it was scary because he could literally feel it.

✴︎ He tried to explain, but you needed some time to calm down and he left.

✴︎ A few days went by and when he went to see you again you were,,, you were talking to the guards that protected your cell like they were your friends.

✴︎ I mean, at least you weren't going to kill him now.

✴︎ He talked to you and you told him they already explained it, he felt guilty for not telling you before but oh well, you are here now so it doesn't matter anymore.

✴︎ You would be allowed to hang around the site with two guards escorting you, if Draven can and they allow it, he is going to be one of the guards.

[reluctantjoe]

‘Baddies are my new type’: Mathew Baynton on Ghosts, Wonka and wicked villains

He is about to say goodbye to his role in beloved spectral sitcom Ghosts. But dastardly turns in Wonka and the a festive Agatha Christie drama suggest the actor’s future is bright – if somewhat nefarious

“I feel like I’m moving into really wanky territory now,” says Mathew Baynton, looking a little anxious. We are talking about Ghosts, the much-loved comedy about a gaggle of spirits consigned to spend the afterlife in a crumbling country mansion, which Baynton co-writes and in which he plays a deceased Regency poet. After a triumphant five seasons, Ghosts officially breathed its last in October – except there’s now a Christmas episode on its way. (Last year’s Christmas special drew 5.9 million viewers, making it the BBC’s biggest comedy of 2022.)

When I ask Baynton what it is about Ghosts that struck a chord with viewers, he worries he might sound pretentious. “But here goes,” he says. “I have learned that, as a writer, you don’t always know what you’re writing. There are the quite boring times where you have an idea and it comes out as you imagined, and there’s no mystery in that process. But when it’s exciting, you have an idea and it leads you to places you don’t expect.”

With Ghosts, he and his co-writers initially imagined hundreds of spirits haunting Button House, which would have allowed them to tell different stories with a new set of characters each week. “But when we looked at the taster tape we made, we all went: ‘Hang on, there’s something much richer here,’” Baynton continues. “We realised it was a show about people being stuck together, potentially in eternity, and how they find ways to get along. All of which is to say that I’m enamoured with Ghosts too because, right from the get-go, we had absolutely no idea what it would become.”

Baynton, who is 43, is talking from his study at home in north London where he lives with his partner, the film historian and film-maker Kelly Robinson, and their two children. He is self-effacing and thoughtful, choosing his words carefully and, at intervals, wondering if he could be expressing himself better. “I think it’s partly the writer in me,” he says, “but I do come away from conversations thinking how I’d like to rewrite things I’ve said.”

As an actor, Baynton has cornered the market in ultra-sensitive men who walk a fine line between pathos and silliness. Along with his lovelorn poet in Ghosts, there was his turn as a Victorian psychiatrist in 2017’s Quacks, who masterminds a new treatment for patients called “talking”; his lute-playing bard in the 2015 film Bill, about the early life of Shakespeare (“London is not going to know what hit it!”); and good Samaritan Sam in The Wrong Mans (2013-14), which he co-wrote and starred in alongside James Corden.

But this winter heralds a new set of projects that Baynton has dubbed “my Christmas of villainy”. In Murder Is Easy, based on the Agatha Christie novel about a spate of killings in a sleepy English village, he plays a doctor who, he says, “is an awful person with some very awful views”. Next year brings A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, based on Holly Jackson’s bestselling YA novel, in which a young true-crime enthusiast investigates a five-year-old murder case; Baynton can’t reveal too much, although he confirms his character is a far cry from the puppy-eyed romantics for which he is known. And in the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory prequel, Wonka, released in cinemas earlier this month, he plays the devious Fickelgruber, Wonka’s Brylcreemed rival in the confectionery business.

Baynton can’t account for this sudden pivot into treachery beyond the fact that “a few [casting directors] had the same idea at the same time … Acting is strange like that. You do one notable thing early on and you are put on a track that for 10 years that can be hard to get off. Perhaps baddies are my new type.”

Wonka was co-written by his friend and Ghosts compadre Simon Farnaby (who also co-wrote Paddington 2) and was filmed at Warner Bros Studios in Hertfordshire. For Baynton, it “felt like you were with the same kids but in a plush playground … Even though you’re working with this huge Hollywood star [Timothée Chalamet, who plays Wonka] and you’re on a set that probably cost the same as an entire series of Ghosts, it’s still a comedy with a big heart, so for me it felt like home.”

Baynton and Farnaby first came together on the set of Horrible Histories, the anarchic children’s sketch show that recreated history’s most ludicrous and bloodthirsty moments, alongside Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard and Ben Willbond. Shortly after it finished its decade-long run, the six of them wrote the madcap puppet comedy Yonderland, largely because “we couldn’t bear that we weren’t going to get together for more mucking about in front of the camera”. This was followed by Bill, and, four years later, Ghosts. They have even given themselves the collective name Them There, mostly for production credits, though “no one actually calls us that”. Aren’t they more Britcom’s answer to the Brat Pack? “I don’t know about that,” Baynton says, bashfully, “though it depends on which of them you think I am.”

The youngest of three children, Baynton grew up in Southend on a diet of sea air and his dad’s Monty Python cassettes. He reckons being lowest in the pecking order at home contributed to his desire to perform and be noticed. In his teens, he went through a morose period during which he was overtaken by self-consciousness, but then he discovered theatre via a production of Bruno Schulz’s The Street of Crocodiles by Theatre de Complicité “which moved me to tears in ways I couldn’t understand and ignited something in me. I knew I wanted to be in that world in some way.”

Baynton went on to drama school, where he studied directing, but when he got there he realised acting was his calling. He spent a summer as assistant to Cal McCrystal, then director of the physical theatre group Peepolykus, who pushed him to join in with improv games. Later he went to Paris to study under the renowned clown Philippe Gaulier, which cemented his love of slapstick. Upon returning home, McCrystal gave him his first break on the stage in a production of Joe Orton’s Loot.

But it was Horrible Histories that really opened doors for Baynton, both as an actor and writer. On being offered the job, he nearly turned it down, fearing that he might get stuck doing nothing but children’s TV, but his agent persuaded him to take the job by telling him: “No one will see it.” In a talk last year at the Oxford Union, Baynton remarked how, were they making it today, they would do certain things differently, such as not using white actors in tanning makeup to portray Egyptians.

“I think it’s important that we examine where the line is [around portrayals of other cultures],” he says now. “It’s a murky area where intention sometimes doesn’t match reception. Certainly, no one had bad intentions making Horrible Histories and none of us at that time, in the culture as it was, hesitated and thought: ‘Hang on, maybe I shouldn’t play an Egyptian.’ But times have changed and I would hesitate now.”

If the odd Horrible Histories sketch hasn’t aged well, it is worth observing the sensitivity and inclusivity that runs through Ghosts. Baynton notes how throwing together characters from different historical periods allowed them to “highlight wrongful attitudes and interrogate how they had arrived at them. At one point, there’s a gay wedding at Button House and [the ghost of] Lady Button is appalled and goes on this journey in which she faces her own homophobia. When we were writing that story, it felt like I was having a conversation with my homophobic nan.”

Baynton is content moving between acting and writing, not least because “if I’m between acting jobs, it means I get to dream up new projects for myself and my friends”. Keen to avoid any signs of egotism as his career soars, Baynton keeps his feet on the ground by recalling the “pure dystopian hell” of his time as a school leaver working in a call centre. There, every second of the day was monitored and he was once upbraided by a manager for taking too many toilet breaks. “So when I’m on set in a scratchy costume or I’m feeling a bit tired and thinking what a terrible time I’m having,” he says, “I remember that time, and what a privilege it is do what I do.”

[obsessedelusional]

opposite

paring ✦ Bella Ramsey x Reader

summary ✦ It’s hard to move on when your ex is a famous actor. As a even more famous singer your bound to see each other. What happens when Bella allegedly starts dating their costar? Who looks entirely the opposite of you.

word count ✦ 3,700ish

authors note ✦ I saw Sabrina Carpenter live and this song has been stuck in my head so it inspired this. Also the most recent request I got had the sweetest not ever just about cried reading it. Just wanted to let who ever sent that know I appreciate you so much. Almost to 900 omg thank uuuuuuuuuu

masterlist

FEEDBACK AND REBLOGS APPRECIATED!!!

⊹ ꙳ ✦ ⁺ ‧ ⨯. ⁺ ✦ ⊹

Your ex partner, Bella Ramsey, had finally found the success they always wanted. Which only made the break up harder, seeing their stupidly handsome face everywhere.

You were an even more successful singer, your rise to fame began when you stared in a popular children’s show. As you aged and left the show you began posting covers online. Eventually sharing snippets of your original work, one went mega viral changing the trajectory of your life. Releasing the song began your music journey and you hadn’t acted since.

It all started when the director of a movie Bella would be staring in approached you to write a song that would be featured in the movie, you were ecstatic. You were invited to the premiere where you were introduced to Bella. Your attraction to them was instantaneous.

Unfortunately you didn’t get to see them again that night. When you arrive home that night you throw on your comfiest clothes. Laying in bed you waste no time cyber stalking Bella. Doesn’t take you much time to find their instagram. You smile seeing the follow back button. You click it before sending a simple message about how you enjoyed the film. Truth be told you weren’t paying much attention to it. It takes a couple hours but Bella responds thanking you. This conversation sparked many more before finally inviting Bella over. A handful more of casual dates lead to you two making it official.

Your relationship with Bella was extremely private entirely on their part. You wanted the world to know but they weren’t ready. So you never pushed the issue figuring Bella would be ready eventually. Six months later and they weren’t ready, starting the downfall of the relationship.

Missing opportunities because Bella wanted you with them. A big event would be nearing and suddenly Bella desperately needed you in England. Only for you to arrive and Bella be distracted. One time you arrived and Bella never responded to your messages. You were in their home town for a whole 24 hours before they got back to you. They came out with some bullshit excuse.

Making you feel like shit for going to events while they were in town. Leading to arguments because they were always invited. Sometimes you couldn’t help but feel like they were jealous of the fact that you were on a whole different plane of fame than them. Or maybe they felt inadequate. Bella shut down at every conversation about the relationship so you never understood the underlying issues.

It all came to an end when you had planned a trip to Paris for the two of you, somewhere you had always dreamt of visiting. They were well aware of this fact, telling you that one day they’d take you.

Bella would be done filming their most recent project around the time you’d be on a two week break from tour. You wanted nothing more than to spend it with Bella. Things had started to go stale, hoping this would help things to be like when you first started dating. When you arrive to Nottingham you surprise them expecting them to be as excited as you.

“I don’t want to go.” Bella responds flatly, reading over the card you worked hard on. The plane tickets slipped inside.

“Why not?” You ask, irritation heavy on your voice.

“Because I’ve been there before so many times. Plus we can’t go anywhere without paps following you around. Surprised you made it here without being followed.” They set the card down, walking away from you.

“Would it be so bad if people knew we were dating?” You respond, Bella just looks at you unable to talk.

“I don’t understand. Every single time I try to do anything besides sit in your apartment for weeks on end you shut it down. I’m always traveling to see you. Not once have you come to LA when it wasn’t part of your job.” You speak, voice shaking. Not sure if your about to start crying or yelling. Maybe both?

“You know I don’t like LA.” Bella says only responding to part of what your just said.

“I don’t like being a secret but I do it because it’s what you want. We do things we don’t like for the people we love.” The mention of love sends tears running down your cheeks.

“Whatever.” Bella huffs pulling their phone out. Every time you tried to discuss anything uncomfortable Bella always shut down, typical.

“Fuck this.” You spit out wiping away at the tears, reaching for the card. Pulling the tickets out of the envelope and taking one. Tossing the other ticket at Bella, their face fills with confusion as they pick it up from the floor.

“I’m going to Paris with or without you. Our hotel information is in the card. You know where to find me if you want to continue whatever the fuck this is cause I’m done.” Bella doesn’t plead or try to stop you like part of you wish they had.

When your out in the hallway of their apartment complex that’s when the real waterworks start. Between tears you shoot a text to your personal body guard that had dropped you off requesting a pickup.

Your sat outside crying just long enough for some one to sneak a video of you. Posting it to twitter that day going viral, most people wondering why you were so upset. The greater half of the internet turning into a meme. So that for the rest of your existence you’d be reminded of the day your relationship with Bella ended.

A couple days later your were in Paris all by your lonesome self. You decided after two days of moping in the hotel room it was time to get your shit together. Taking a long hot shower washing the breakup off your body and out of your hair. Hadn’t heard anything from Bella which was probably for the best.

You take your time to do your make up. Spending even more time on picking an outfit out. This would be your first time making an public appearance since the video. Your manager pressing you to post something about it. When your done your body guard is waiting for you in the car outside. They drive you to the Eiffel Tower.

Your in awe as they park, the tower perfectly in your view. Your quick out of the car your body guard hurrying to catch up. Your late start to the day puts a pip in your step. Momentarily you forget about everything doing the stereotypical tourist things. Taking pictures of the tower and then photos of your self with the tower. Enlisting the help of your body guard to get better photos, laughing at their attempt.

When you finally get your phone back you scroll through the photos smiling. Until you hear your name softly, looking up your greeted by a young girl.

“Hi,” you smile. They start talking about how much they love you and your music. You thank them pulling them in for a hug, the fan not realizing how much you needed that hug.

“I know it’s none of my business but I hope whatever had you so upset in that video has been resolved or something. I just hope your feeling better, I guess that’s what I’m trying to say.” They laugh at their own words, you smile thanking them again. You ask them if they’d like a picture, your body guard snaps a few for the fan.

“Thank you,” the fan says before going to leave.

“No thank you, I appreciate you.” You respond.

—

It doesn’t take long before a small crowd of people forms wanting your attention. You talk to each one, taking photos with everyone. Thirty minutes have passed and the suns starting to set. You say you goodbyes before following the body guard to the car. In the car you scroll through all the photos you took tonight. Favoriting a few, deleting the rest and editing your favorites.

Once in the hotel room you decide it’s time to make a post. You post several photos in one post, doing a photo dump of your adventures from the last few days. The first photo you in front of the Eiffel Tower, the second a shot of the tower by itself. The third photo you crying in your hotel room, a snap chat you had sent your friend. Deciding to attach a screenshot of the video that went viral or you sobbing outside of Bella’s apartment. Ending it with an off guard photo of you laughing.

caption: if you’re going to be sad you might as well be sad in paris

—

3 Months Later

Bella’s most recent tv show has been doing so well that the entire world was tuning in every Sunday night. Expect you of course, you refused for your own well-being. It’s hard to avoid her though at this point everyone’s talking about the show. Your feed flooded constantly with posts about the show.

Clips of the Bella and their love interest had been blowing up all over TikTok flooding your for you page. Causing you to fall down a rabbit hole every time which only made their videos appear more often. The only good thing to come out of this was you spent less time on your phone.

Tour has come to an end, it was amazing but you were ready to relax. Your recent breakup was inspiring many songs, the next album coming along easily. Your visiting your parents in your home town, staying in the room you grew up in. Not much has changed since you left years ago. To your dismay your younger sibling was obsessed with Bella’s new show, begging you to watch it with them. Constantly bringing it up in conversation.

“I’m surprised you haven’t seen it. The show has girl on girl action in it.” They casually say at the kitchen table.

“Don’t refer to it as that.” You roll your eyes.

“Whatever. You’d love it. We should binge the show today and then we can watch the new episode tomorrow.” They suggest.

“I’m good.”

“That Bella girl is in it. Remember she starred in that Amazon movie you made a song for?”

“Yeah I remember.” You respond, ready for this conversation to end.

“I ship her character and her costar, Cleo. They’re so cute. I think they’re dating in real life.”

“Why do you think that?” Suddenly interested in the conversation.

“They’re always together all over social media. They look pretty much in love.” You reach for your phone pulling it out, opening instagram. Typing Bella’s at into the search bar, clicking on their profile once it pops up. Photos of Cleo filling Bella’s feed.

“There’s no fucking way.” You groan aloud, seeing the photo of the two of them hugging in front of the Eiffel Tower. The place you had begged Bella to take you to before the breakup. They refused to because they didn’t want anyone to know you were dating. Or maybe it cause they didn’t want Cleo to know? They were filming this show the entirety of your relationship with Bella.

“What?” Your sibling questions.

“Nothing.” You mutter, leaving them sat alone at the kitchen table. Straight to your bedroom you head. You find Bella’s new “friends” Instagram, taking note of the follow back button. Scrolling just far enough to find a post with your lyrics as a caption. Bella was still keeping you as a secret. You could feel your self getting angrier by the second. You had cried so much over this entire situation now only anger left.

Then noticing all the differences between you and her. Opposite colored hair and eyes. Body entirely different, looks nothing like you. Apparently Bella had a type and obviously wasn’t you. Why does Bella look so happy in this photos? Why could they be happy with you?

It all starts to click Bella was holding out for the opposite. Most likely dragging you along until they found what they actually wanted, Cleo. Even if you never left Bella that day your relationship would of never worked out, you weren’t Bella’s type. They’ve at most been dating for three months and Bella was ready to be public in Paris of all places.

That night you stay up super late. Your brain heavily inspired by the news shoved in your face this morning. After several hours you have a shell of a song deciding to title it Opposite.

♫ Oh, so you do have a type? And it's not me.

Oh, so you can reply? Just to not me.

So y'all are in Paris now? Guess it's public. ♫

—

Some time has passed since you finished writing Opposite. Normally releasing a song took months but you stressed the importance of this being done. So a week later it was upload to all steaming platforms. Within the first day it is clear it’s on its way to becoming a massive hit. You phone is flooded with compliments on the song.

The smallest part of you wondering if Bella’s heard it. Curiosity gets the better part of you, pulling up Cleo’s instagram on your secret account. Clicking her story where it shows a screenshot of your song with the caption, “Can’t stop listening to this.” You can’t help but smile thinking about Bella being forced to listen to this over and over again.

—

Weeks have passed since you released Opposite. It went number one on the second day and hasn’t left since. Your next gig is an awards show, you’ve been busy practicing. Adding Opposite into the mix among the other songs you’ll be performing.

“You think your ready for tonight?” Your agent asks.

“Yeah.” You respond, you had just finished the last rehearsal for tonight. Getting approval from the award shows reps. The show started in three hours.

“Time to get you to hair and makeup.” You nodded following your agent to your backstage room. Your name posted on the door.

Once inside your greeted by the girls who regularly did your makeup and hair. They spend a solid two hours working on you. You rush getting dressed in the red carpet dress. Just as they’re applying the finishing touches your agent comes into room notifying you that it’s time to walk the carpet.

Your walked out of the back of the building, ushered into a car. The car drives around to the entrance where everyone arrives to walk the carpet. As soon as you step out the crowd starts screaming for you. Camera flashes nearly blinding you as you walk out. Your agent is close behind guiding you through the carpet, instructing you where to stand and how long. Before you stop to do interviews you take pictures with some of the fans lined up outside.

The first two interviews you do are entirely harmless. Asking you questions about your music and if there’s a possible album on the way. You thank them when it comes to an end, quickly moving on to the next.

“You look so good tonight.” The next interviewer says.

“Aww thanks, you too!”

“Thank you. We’re really loving your new single! Is there an album in the works?”

“Perhaps.” You smile sheepishly.

“We can’t wait. You were recently turned in to a meme..” You physically cringe at the reminder.

“You we’re crying and a few months later Opposite was released. Are the two incidents related?”

“Yeah actually they are.” You laugh.

“We’ll I’m sorry you had to go through that but Opposite is a bop. That many can relate to, including me. So thank you and I can’t wait to listen to whatever you put out next.”

“Thank you. Thank you for saying that. You’re so sweet.” You say before saying your goodbyes. You move onto the next interview. Your busy answering their questions when you notice a familiar face a few spots down, it’s Bella. Cleo following closely behind. You rush through the last half of the interview, finding your agent letting them know your done.

They lead you inside where your sat at a table, where’d you be sitting until your performance. You read the name plates breathing a sigh of relief when Bella’s name isn’t on one. Your sat with other young female artists sitting fairly close to the stage. As the table starts to fill you create small talk with the girls.

You can’t help but notice Bella and Cleo enter. Cleo’s scanning the room her eyes light up when she sees you. She starts heading towards you. You turn your back to them muttering a silent fuck praying that she’s going literally anywhere else. Your prayers aren’t answered because you hear the sound of your name leaving her mouth.

“Hi.” You smile at Cleo. Bella stayed back watching the two of you intently. Probably terrified because if the math is mathin Bella was dating both of you at the same time. You could expose them in a heartbeat.

“Oh my god. I can’t believe it’s actually you. I love you so much. You’re music is everything to me. Like you have no clue.” Cleo gushes over you.

“Thank you. You’re too sweet.” Cleo asks for a photo so you agree standing up. She pulls you into a hug, any bad feelings towards her fade away. Realizing Bella’s the asshole in the situation. You pose for a quick selfie with her.

“Thank you so so so much.” Cleo pulls you into one last hug before running back to Bella. You can’t help but feel bad for her as she fangirls to Bella. Bella and Cleo sit a few tables down.

—

Your currently under the stage listening to the women who’s announcing your performance. You weren’t all that nervous until you realized Bella would be in the audience. The stage floor opens and your platform begins to rise, it’s time to go.

You start with a mashup of your most popular songs. Singing short snippets of each, moving on to the next. Hitting every note and dancing along with the back up dancers. Everything is going smoothly. Just as planned. The crowd cheers you on and most sing along. The lights go out briefly just quick enough for an outfit change. When the lights shoot back on your at the front of the stage, hands holding onto the microphone stand. The music for opposite stars, spotlight on you.

As the words spill out you can’t help but look to Bella. They look uncomfortable sat there, doing everything in their control not to look at you. As you continue signing Cleo looks happy signing with you, unaware of Bella.

♫ “She looks nothing like me. So why do you look so happy? Now I think I get the cause of it. You were holding out to find the opposite. Said I'm beautiful Was I being lied to?” ♫

You finish the rest of the song not once looking back to Bella. Too hard to look at the person who caused you so much pain. Once your done the audience erupts into applause. The host comes out greeting you.

“Damn girl that was amazing but that song is so so sad. Are you okay?” The laugh.

“I’m great actually. This is probably the coolest moment of my career.”

“Your on fire. I’d hate to be the one who hurt you.” They tease.

“Their loss.” You shrug your shoulders.

“Absolutely. Thank you for that amazing performance.” You thank the host before exiting the stage.

—

You busy changing into your final outfit of the night. A more casual dress that you can wear the rest of the night. A soft knock at the door has you looking up from the shoes your busy trying to shove on. Your entire team in near so you have no idea who it could possibly be.

“Can someone get that?” A few moments later Bella is stood there in the doorway.

“It’s Bella Ramsey.” Your assistant says. They don’t know any better because no one knows about your past with them.

“Can you give us a moment?” Your team nods leaving the room. Bella finally enters the room, keeping their distance. Wary of you might do next.

“What do you want? I don’t have much time before I have to go back out.”

“I wasn’t lying.”

“What?” You ask, confused.

“When I said your beautiful.” A laugh leaves your mouth, finding Bella’s cheesiness stupid. Bella’s phone vibrates.

“Thank I guess. Are we done?” Bella is busy looking at their phone so you ask.

“No I want to apologize-“

“Whatever you’re gonna say. Don’t.”

“Please just listen.” They plead, moving closer.

“I made a huge mistake. I should of taken you to Paris. I was a shit partner. You-” Bella rambles so you interrupt them once again.

“Don’t do this. It isn’t fair to Cleo.”

“You don’t understand the whole picture.” Bella responds their phone vibrating again.

“Seems important. You should take it and leave.”

“Not until you hear what I have to say.” They respond. You only cross your arms across your chest waiting for them to speak.

“I’ll be honest I was scared to go public with you because I knew no one would care about me and my acting. I’d always just be Y/N’s girlfriend. That’s it.”

“Doesn’t matter anyways your with Cleo.” You respond.

“Right before the last time you came to see me. Right before we wrapped up filming the director and a handful of PR pulled us into the office. Insisting that Cleo and I should pretend to date. Get more people to tune in.”

“I don’t believe that for a second.”

“It’s true. Said that fans shipped us heavily. They vaguely indirected that if we didn’t our characters might not see the next season. I was so distraught on what to do and then you came and broke it off. I took it as a sign on what to do.” Bella further explains, phone buzzing again.

“We are suppose to present an award any minute hence the persistent phone calls. I was told to announce our relationship on air tonight. I miss you so fucking much. I can’t do it knowing there’s even a slight chance you’ll forgive me.”

“This is all too much.” Is all you can manage to say letting your arms falls to your side.

“You don’t have to make your mind up right now. Just tell me not to go out there and announce it and I won’t.” You look over Bella their filled with panic.

“Don’t do it.” You whisper barely audible. Bella’s panic turns into joy. Smiling ear to ear before leaving you alone in your dressing room.

⊹ ꙳ ✦ ⁺ ‧ ⊹

thank you so much! I hope you enjoyed! If you did, please consider reblogging or leaving feedback. its all greatly appreciated and helpful!!

[youngtomhardy]

single no. 3 ‘kiss kiss bang bang’ is out now 💋💥

this one might be the most important part of the MM2 story. this song was born the night i died. you can literally google ‘michael medrano kiss kiss bang bang’ and find the night i conceptualized this song — and the whole era really.

grief is incredibly hard to process, especially when it’s sudden and swift. i was in the room with people i thought were going to change my life forever. i wasn’t exactly poor growing up, but my family struggled for as long as i can remember. i moved 4 times, my dad worked his ass off and we still couldn’t afford to live somewhere comfortably. this caused turmoil and constant instability in my household, which in turn led to some really traumatic times i wish i could forget.

so when you end up in this kitschy club with incredibly successful and wealthy people, you suddenly feel wow… the struggle is over. i’ll finally get to take care of my family. they’ll never have to abruptly move again or live under a landlord who won’t even fix a broken fridge. i can take care of myself and everyone i love — i can have it all. and i’m about to sign the paper that puts it all in motion.

i remember my creative director at the time kept telling me to “never forget how incredible” i am. over and over again. going as far to call me “the next weeknd”. it was in that moment, high off of a shroom pill, i knew they’d killed me. my project was dead. and before i could wrap my head around it, i found myself sitting in the corner of a dingy karaoke suite watching it all end in slow motion. in my mind, i like to pretend it was more of a penthouse suite decorated to look like a humble, midcentury modern dream. they did go all out and get the most expensive suite anyway, as they always had.

the next day, everyone goes silent on me. texts aren’t replied to anymore. resources are cut off. album plans gone. the mystical “sylvia” i’ve been told so much about had vanished. it is probably the most devastating heartbreak i’ve gone through right next to my mom initially rejecting me once i was outed… a story for another time.

so i sat down in my tiny hometown apartment. and cried. drove to literally nowhere screaming at 3 am. praying that maybe they’d come back around and save me. but no one was coming — i was in free fall. alone again and so suddenly, like a rug pulled from under me or gunshot to the head. after months of the endless spiral, i got back to working a regular part time job, hating this life i was once again trapped in. but one day, after all that grief welled up inside me, i started writing again. and writing. and writing. and writing. i’d never been so angry in my life. i’d also never been so fucking determined. and now, here we are. 3 years later. 3 singles deep into MM2. and so much has changed.

never did i think id be sitting in the middle of hollywood in my new apartment, typing this and pulling and all-nighter to get the music video out to over 100k fans listening to me every month. my little guy abel laying next to me while my partner hacks away at editing.

i might not have the deal yet. i might not have the money or the team yet. but i woke up from the nightmare one day and you were all right there in front of me. i love you all so much and i hope you love this song as much as i do. MM2 is coming and i hope you’re ready, because i finally am.

[project-zorthania]

so what do you think are hytham and basims ages?

I hope you'll forgive the amount of snark and sass that I'm about to use to answer your question anon, because if I had the time and energy to spend making an hour long video essay to reply to this, I would.

You’d think tying in all your games around real historical events would mean creating a consistent timeline for your characters, but no! Ubisoft’s canonical timeline continues to be an absolute disaster, which makes this ask both a blessing and a curse as I’m left with a plethora of information to source for my answer.

I want this to make sense for everyone reading along so bear with me, I’ll try my best to keep this as short and sweet as possible.

A fair warning that this post will be riddled with spoilers for the following:

AC Valhalla

AC Mirage

The Golden City

Sword of the White Horse

Giermund's Saga.

Now without further ado, let’s break it down.

By the time we first see them in Valhalla, I estimate Basim to be in his late 30s and Hytham to be in his early 30s with no bigger than a 6 year age gap between them.

Here is what we know.

AC Valhalla starts with Sigurd meeting Basim and Hytham in Constantinople just a few months prior to their long trek up to Norway together in 872 CE.

We also know that the book 'The Golden City' takes place in 867 CE, during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Basil I in Constantinople. That’s exactly 5 years before the events of Valhalla.

And exactly 6 years before the start of 'The Golden City' was the era of extreme instability in Baghdad after the assassination of the Caliph Al-Mutawakkil in 861 CE.

Here’s a visual of the timeline surrounding these events:

The following clip is from the official Ubisoft Developer Trailer Breakdown, the rest of the video is available to watch on youtube here.

According to the Narrative Director at Ubisoft Bordeaux, Mirage takes place 20 years before Valhalla, which...

*confused whale noises*

One could argue that Sarah Beaulieu meant 20 years before Basim’s betrayal in Norway, which takes place in 877 CE, (that’s still only 16 years) but if all of this were true, then the entire timeline for 'The Golden City' starts to get very messy.

If you haven't already read the novel, the story follows Basim and Hytham and their mutual struggle with fatherhood. The author, Jaleigh Johnson, seamlessly manages to tie in the AC universe with the reign of Emperor Basil and the very real assassination attempts on his child, Leo. It is the origin story to their inseparable companionship and elaborates on how Hytham develops a striking degree of loyalty and trust towards his partner/mentor.

There are a couple instances within the book that allude to Hytham's age.

The Golden City - Chapter 6: Hytham's first encounter with Justin, Leo's former personal guard.

The Golden City - Chapter 15: Justin defines his relationship with Leo.

The Golden City - Chapter 25: Basim's call-out.

A couple things to note here:

Hytham considers Justin, a man in his early 20s, young.

Justin considers Leo, a very small child no older than 10, a little brother.

Hytham is old enough to consider this same child his son.

If Hytham considers a man in his early 20s young, and said 20 year old considers a child his little brother, what on earth does that make Hytham? The book is telling us that Hytham must be between his mid to late 20s in order to think this way. His struggle with his paternal instincts and numerous conversations regarding the topic with Basim are a testament to that.

And if you're still not convinced:

Hytham is explicitly telling us that they're not far apart in age. This isn't speculation, he's telling us that he knows just how old Basim is. Granted, he doesn't know that Basim has merged with an Isu reincarnation, but right here, standing before all of us, Basim is still Basim residing in a human body that has lived through very human years.

Now if we go back to Mirage's canon of their ages and compare what we know from the book (and bear in mind, the book was released prior to the release of Mirage with intention to setup for it, so this really should've been something deeply considered by Ubisoft before Mirage released)

My god, it's like Ubisoft didn't even TRY.

Muhammad Ibn Tahir even makes a passing comment about Basim looking to be in his 20s. Granted, the man's definitely guessing here, but he's likely not far off given that the game starts with Basim being 17. If we go by what Muhammad says, this tells us that 3 years has passed since Basim killed Al-Mutawakkil in Anbar at the start of the game.

This is the same 20 year old bearded Basim that we see meet Hytham atop a minaret in Karkh (approximately... we really have no idea what the timeline of events are within Mirage, which is another thing that irks me to no end).

I'm reluctant to entertain the idea that Hytham is any younger than 14 here because 'The Golden City' is dependent on portraying both Basim and Hytham as older men with relatively similar ages, and since the novel relies heavily on historical events, that leaves us with little to no wiggle room in moving the story's timeline around.

It must take place during the reign of Emperor Basil between the years of 867 to 886, and they're already in Norway by 872.

I want to honor the author’s dedication and research into making a cohesive timeline between all the main line games and their novel, especially when its story expands on the characters in question.

Because if we even attempt to go by Mirage's canon, we're going to run into all sorts of problems trying to make sense of a 22 year old Basim running around Constantinople with his acolyte, who is apparently... also a child.

The part that really breaks my heart? That scene between them atop the minaret is such a touching moment. I was beyond conflicted when I finally happened upon Hytham in Mirage, and now I'm being forced to contend with its canonimity :/

Hilariously, if Ubisoft truly intended for Basim to be 20 years older in Valhalla, it only further solidifies that they wanted to canonize an older Basim in his late 30s. The bad math could've been an oversight... even if it is a big one.

Let's delve into Valhalla next.

Thanks to Eivor's AC Rebellion bio, we know that her age ranges between 25-30 years old throughout Valhalla. This is further supported by Kjotve's comment about 17-18 winter's passing since the death of her parents near the beginning of the game, and further cemented when she's talking to Basim by the campfire, stating that she lost her parents at the tender age of 9.

This is important to note when observing the way Basim interacts with Eivor throughout the story, especially since Mirage's canon insists that they are only 2-3 years apart.

Early in the game Eivor teases Basim about jumping the gun to find a new apprentice to tutor, and his response is to lend her guidance.

In Cent, when completing the quest 'The Instrument of the Ancient's, a dialogue triggers when Eivor and Basim are on their way to infiltrate Canterbury's Cathedral to rescue Sigurd:

This is not how friends talk to each other in their late 20s. This is a man with years of experience, eager to impart his knowledge to one much younger. He's not using a condescending tone here, he genuinely believes he can guide her.

Also, have you SEEN the man?

Does that look like a 30 year old to you?

Better yet, have you seen Hytham?

Because this man looks like he's in his 30s, but according to Mirage he's supposed to be barely 20 here?

I'm sorry, I know this sounds like I'm harping on Mirage a lot, but you have to understand that all this frustration comes from a place of deep affection for a franchise I practically grew up with. Part of what makes Assassin's Creed so incredible is it's ability to immerse a player in a historical setting and create impactful stories within those settings, but so much of that has been lost overtime due to corporate greed, it's become disheartening.

Why on earth would Ubisoft create such an expansive and incredible recreation of 9th century Baghdad only to spend little to no effort on it's story? So little effort in fact, that they couldn't even tie in the story with their main line series properly. Imagine having a team of historians and architects dedicated to bringing an accurate depiction of old Arab/Persian/Levantine culture to life, only to drown it out with a lukewarm story and poorly constructed timelines?

The point I'm trying to make is that I'm being forced to pick and choose my canons because of inconsistency's like this. Will the canons I choose to abide by for the sake of world-building be the same as everyone else's? No! And I don't expect it to either. This is my opinion based on the research I conducted, and this is how I'm choosing to make sense of everything to provide myself with an ounce of sanity when creating fanworks.

Which is also the reason why I haven't included 'Giermund's Saga' or 'Sword of the White Horse' in this response, as I personally found their depictions of Hytham and some supporting characters a little ooc for my taste.

And before I get into why, I want to make a disclaimer that my intent in dissecting the stories told in these novels isn’t to undermine the work that the author has poured into these works. These writers have my utmost respect and admiration for dedicating so much time and effort in expanding the AC universe and bringing to life their own interpretations of these characters, and I feel it’s important to acknowledge that my opinions here are my own and not a reflection of the entire fanbase. This is not an invitation to dunk on any of the works that they’ve so clearly poured their passion into. I only mean to dissect it for the sake of analysis and I want to be honest for the sake of this ask.

Here's an excerpt from Giermund's Saga as Giermund meets Hytham for the first time.

Giermund observes that Hytham looks to be in his 20s. This observation is given from the perspective of an outsider. He is an unreliable narrator guessing the age of a man he has just met. I could easily do the same thing- guess the age of a stranger I see down the street and for all I know, I could be woefully wrong.

Additionally, Hytham appears to have pierced ears. Do I have a thing against pierced ears? Absolutely not 😂 and I'd be over the moon to see fanart of this, but has Hytham ever been depicted with them in Valhalla before? No! What an odd addition that contributes nothing to his character for this brief appearance.

In Sword of the White Horse, Hytham is described to having brown eyes:

Which again, I don't have a single problem with brown eyes, it's just not what canon Valhalla has depicted him with.

There's also mention of him sustaining a lasting leg injury from his assault on Kjotve. You know... the one where he's swatted away like a fly on the wall. This is supposedly the same injury that confined him to his bureau for the entirety of Valhalla, but it couldn't be farther from the truth because in actuality he sustained a punctured lung, likely from a cracked rib that never properly healed. This change almost feels like it's understating the severity of his inflicted injuries. A punctured lung would've been infinitely harder to tend to than a leg that long ago, especially since the fall of Rome in the 5th century ended the advancement of surgical knowledge in Europe (not that it was that advanced at the time to begin with).

However, the biggest deal breaker for me is Hytham and Eivor's reluctance to return an artifact belonging to it's indigenous ancestors.

The premise of the book revolves around the retrieval of a sacred weapon to the protagonists people, Excalibur. But Eivor's reluctance to do so is in direct conflict with her character in Vinland, as she quite literally comes across an apple of Eden and returns it to the indigenous population of the land without a second thought. Given Hytham's overall generous nature, and the fact that he's played an advisory role within Ravensthorpe for some time now, it would make just as much sense for him to respond similarly and give back to the people what is rightfully theirs.

Furthermore, neither of these novels follow historical events with impact to the Valhalla story line. With a bit of research, I was able to find that Giermund was a real viking but very little else is known about him.

I cannot reiterate enough that these works are fantastic and should be enjoyed and appreciated in their own breath, but for the sake of breaking down canons and making sense of their ages, I'm opting to keep them out of timeline discussions, along with any other material with depictions of Hytham and Basim that have little to no impact on their speculated ages.

With all of that out of the way, here's a side by side comparison of the timeline Mirage has setup vs what I'm proposing based on all the canon information we've dissected.

I sincerely think that the mess of Mirage's timeline could've easily been solved if Ubisoft had simply aged the boys up a little.

As much as I adore tiny Hytham being shown how to do a leap of faith, I would've equally settled for Basim being introduced to Hytham training under Rayhan in Alamut as a young man instead.

There's even a cleverly placed letter making mention of Norse warriors in Constantinople that can be found in Fuladh's office just beside Enkidu's perch.

A subtle nod to the plot of 'The Golden City' soon to come:

Which means that the writers fully intended to tie Mirage in with 'The Golden City,' making it impossible to ignore.

I will leave you here before I ramble any further. I promise I'm not always this exasperated with my replies _(: 」 ∠)_

I sincerely hope this wasn't too convoluted to follow. Please do with this information what you will anon, but this is how I've chosen to make sense of everything and I hope you can track my logic.

To those of you who managed to get this far, I send you all my love and many kisses. Thank you for reading, and please do feel free to send me any other questions you may have!

I'll try my best to keep my response shorter than this one ;)

PS: I am aware that Hytham's wiki states that he was born in the 850s, but this wiki entry infuriates me to no end because there is NO SOURCE. Never has Hytham's birthday been explicitly stated anywhere, and someone just decided to randomly give him one. Please be VIGILANT in your research when you look up stuff about your favourite blorbos, as wikipedia can be edited by literally anyone.

k, end rant, thank you for coming to my ted talk. That's all i wanted to add 😂

[ashen-crest]

[ID: the meme of Andy from Parks and Rec looking excitedly at the camera, with the following text overlaid: "That Feeling When The Rival Most Vial Audiobook is out." end ID]

The Rival Most Vial Audiobook is here!!

Like, literally, you can get it right here, on Audible, B&N, Kobo, Chirp, Libro, etc. (I'm working on getting it into the LA public library system as well.)

The fact that this thing exists is bananas to me.

I always assumed that audiobooks were for fancy, popular authors. People with mega newsletters and five-books-a-year release schedules and like, actual headshots. Not me.

But this audiobook was actually the narrator and voice director's idea! Brendan and Zach are a) my good friends and b) dating each other, and they came to me saying "hey, we read this, loved it, and would like to make an audiobook of it."

Which is frankly, fucking insane, because:

1- Brendan is an actor whose studies focused on Shakespeare and he absolutely CRUSHED his role as Hamlet in Hamlet this summer

2- Zach works in video games and has literal years of experience voice directing talent.

3- two gay men who genuinely enjoyed the book and connected with the characters bringing their lived perspective to this work?! while also being able to uniquely communicate with each other because they're partners?? it was such an honor for them to even suggest it, and even more of an honor to be in the recording booth and work with them. I really can't emphasize enough how special it was.

I am so so glad that we were able to make it work this year and deliver what basically amounts to a radio play of A Rival Most Vial.

Like, I don't even want people to buy the audiobook so I can make money. I want people to buy it so they can listen to it and tell me what they think! I want to gush over Brendan's performance with someone! I want to ask them what their favorite parts were, or what they were expecting if they've already read the book! Like, this isn't even my work anymore, I want to fangirl over Brendan and Zach's work with you!!

So, pretty please- if you're looking for a cozy audiobook for holiday travel, or something to drown out the in-laws with, or just something to listen to while you drink hot cocoa or craft or play viddy games- give this a shot and let me know what you think.

[ID: a square image with an audiobook cover over a background of faded party lights. The audiobook is purple with gold accents and reads "A Rival Most Vial: Potioneering for Love and Profit by R.K. Ashwick." The text underneath the audiobook image reads: "Out Now on Audible, Spotify, Libro, Chirp, and more! (link in bio)." end ID]

[thefirsthogokage]

So, the AMPTP basically said that the studios take too much risk to pay people anything for streaming shows. Here's John Rogers and David Slack responding to that.

(link to top of thread)

[Image ID: A tweet thread from John Rogers on July 23rd, 2023 that reads in its entirety:

Last time I had a failure - which was collateral damage in an argument between the studio and the network - I had to personally fire 200 people, they all were off payroll by that afternoon, and I was also out of a job. The executives all continued to get paid. So fuck off.

Actually, that’s not true. The failure after that one happened as collateral damage in one of the mergers, so it had nothing to do with the quality of the show. And I had to wait, forbidden to work, not earning a dime, as they shopped it for six months.

Also several of my writers were cheated of their expected salaries, some losing up to 75%, for reasons too complicated to explain here. Those executives, both studio and streamer, all kept their jobs. So double fuck off.

Actually no, my last failure was a show where after delivery the network made us wait *seven months … for a PASS*. Seven months where I was in first position, and again, was forbidden from working.

Do that was one pilot fee, cut in half with a partner, for a year and a half’s work counting development. Those executives, both studio and network, kept their jobs.

So *triple* fuck off.

Luckily I had my tiny sliver of back end from TRANSFORMERS - no, wait, no, because according to the Hollywood accounting while that movie grossed something like a billion dollars all in, it unfortunately wound up $36 million in the hole.

So QUADRUPLE fuck off.

If you’re dumb enough to take that AMPTP statement at face value, responsible adults should remove all the scissors from your home. You are the reason hair dryers have the “Do not use while sleeping” warning.

/End ID]

I believe that merger one was Leverage or The Librarians. Both were doing REALLY well before they got cancelled due to network shit, I know that much. So the network/studio one could be either of those as well. Probably Leverage?

(Link to top of thread)

[Image ID: A tweet thread from David Slack posted July 21st, 2023 that reads in its entirety:

The studios claim they shouldn’t have to share revenue for the success of the shows we make succeed because they assume all the risk.

Well.

To paraphrase a famous actor: There’s more than one type of risk, motherfucker.

While the studios and their new hedge fund besties may assume some modest financial risk, any losses just go on a balance sheet next to the C-suite’s golden parachutes.

The workers in this industry, on the other hand, risk a hell of a lot more than that.

Most working actors live with the constant uncertainty of never knowing where their next paycheck will come from or how long it will be between jobs. That’s risk.

If they work a second job, they often risk losing it every time they take time off for auditions or jobs.

Actors also generally have little control over the final product, so *every* role is a risk for them. Sure, it could be the hit that changes everything. But it could also be a flop that hurts their career for years. They become “the guy from that thing” and can’t get more work.

Under our old contract, writers put in untold hours of free work developing and rewriting pitches and scripts for features and TV. Much of this work is on spec. That’s a huge risk writers take on — yet the studios are happy to benefit from the upside without taking on any risk.

Writers, actors, crew, and directors also risk our personal relationships, spending long hours at work, frequently across the country or around the world. Our partners soldier on without us. Our kids miss us and we can only hope they’ll understand.

That’s a huge risk.

Stunt performers literally risk their lives for the shows we make. Productions and crews take every possible precaution to ensure their safety, but accidents still can and do happen.

You gonna try and tell us that’s not risk?

All of us risk our health and safety working insane hours to keep up with the schedules our bosses create. When was the last time David Zaslav or Bob Iger worked a Fraturday? Do they even know what one is?

In production, where 14, 15, and 16 hour days are common, people have died from falling asleep at the wheel driving to and from set.

And the studios have the fucking gall to say they’re taking all the risk?

We risk our finances, our families, our friendships, our futures, and sometimes our lives to make a product for you that you have no idea how to make yourselves.

All you risk is money.

And by the fucking way, we *know* you can afford to give us success-based pay — because you’ve been doing it for 83 YEARS.

Remember 1960? When both the WGA and SAG went on strike and won…

residuals for TV?

Residuals for TV *are* success-based pay. Great movies and TV shows re-ran more often, so the people who created and starred in them got more money as a reward for that success. It’s a great system that incentivized workers to bust their asses to make great shows.

And you know what happened to the entertainment industry in the 8 decades studios have been making these success-based payments?

IT THRIVED.

Studios made billions in revenue selling our product all around the world.

But now, the studios say they can’t afford it. They say it’s not “fair” for actors to ask for success-based pay because they don’t take on any risk.

That’s stupid.

It’s offensive.

And it’s a lie.

It’s shameful that the AMPTP and their studio bosses are trying to deny the workers who make their product a bonus for success that is time-tested and has 83 years of precedent.

And that they’re lying about it?

That’s just… uncivilized. #WGAStrong #SAGAFTRAStrong

/End ID]

The absolute fuckery of this statement that came from the AMPTP is that the studios thought this would gain them sympathy. They were wrong. They genuinely thought this was a good statement from them because they DO think they take all the risk because they can't see people who don't have their wealth as real people. They can't.

Wealth is a disease.

No one should make the kind of money these people make. It makes them so out of touch they think of themselves as gods among ants. They step on those ants? They don't notice. They don't care. They just keep moving forward to gain as much money as possible, even though they have no way to spend it.

Fuck the studios, a new system needs to be built around them so that they'll die.

[starwarsmum]

Day 10 for Maribat BioFamily September y'all! And today it's: We're Hiring

@maribat-calendar-events

“I just can't move here full time, even if I wanted to,” Marinette protested, head buried in her arms. Summer was nearly over and everyone was trying to convince her to stay in Gotham for the whole year. As much as she loved spending time with them, she missed her parents and friends in France. 

“I'm just saying that if you wanted to work with Wayne Fashion, we would absolutely hire you now,” Tim said slyly, working on his laptop at the dining table. Marinette looked up and glared at him, but he merely shrugged. “It wouldn't be a full-time gig or anything, and you'd probably have to go to school with Damian, but you'd be working for a major name in fashion.”

“Please, I've had offers from the style queen and Gabriel - pre-takedown, obviously - and Jagged Stone endorses me. I don't need your nepotism, thank you very much. Also, stop trying to think up things to tempt me! I doubt Damian would like you using him like that.”

Tim pulled a face at her but didn't say anything. They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes before Tim started up again. “Look, I'm not saying you have to live in Gotham if you don't want to. But I am willing to make a genuine offer to partner with you. I've been looking to hire MDC for ages, so it isn't technically nepotism.”

“...I'm not sure how to feel about it being ‘technically not nepotism’,” Marinette said drily, doodling designs into a sketchbook idly. “Besides, I like being commission based, I get to turn down anyone I don't want to work with. And I get to work with a greater variety of people. But maybe I could work out a couple of pieces for you.”

“Seriously?” Tim jerked his gaze away from his work and looked at her excitedly. “No, wait, seriously, you would? Because I really want an MDC original, and if you would let me commission you, it would make my year.”

Marinette laughed and promised to sit down with him that evening and get a design or two under way.

_ _ _

While Tim was waiting for Marinette that evening, he had brought up a bunch of saved images of different clothes he liked the styles of. He also, at Marinette's command, grabbed a range of his most comfortable clothes, although she hadn't said why. 

“Sorry, I lost track of time,” Marinette chirped as she burst into the room. She had told him that morning that she was planning to walk Titus with the demon brat that afternoon and apparently she had only just returned because she was flushed and slightly out of breath. Even her hair, usually in neat bunches, was loose and slightly mussed as though wind had been running through it. 

“No problem,” Tim replied easily, sitting forward in his chair eagerly. As he launched into an explanation of what he wanted for the first commission, his sister nodded along, making notes in her sketchbook and asking seemingly random questions. 

An hour later, she finished asking him questions and he had exhausted every possible description of what he wanted, she sketched out several designs. One in particular stood out to him, a casually scruffy suit jacket. She explained that it would look worn but be impeccably stitched so that it wouldn't be worn out easily. 

“Just based on what you were saying about wanting to mess with your board of directors,” she added, highlighting various additional aspects. “Obviously I'll make it out of easily washable fabric, in case you spill coffee on it. And it'll be durable, because I know you like to skate around the halls of Wayne Enterprises.”

“It's perfect, Nette,” Tim breathed, grinning widely at her. She looked pleased with herself, jotting down last minute notes before they discussed pricing and timescales. Then she started the process all over again to design clothes for non-business use.

It was nearly midnight by the time they finished and Tim called an end to their chat. When he stood up and stretched, he could see that she was still pondering the sketchbook, muttering and making notes of her own that he couldn't decipher.

“You should get some sleep, Nette,” he said, dragging her out of her own thoughts and offering a hand up. She jumped as though startled and gave him a sheepish grimace. “Lord knows I'm going to bed.”

“Mmm, I'm just going to check in with Jay, make sure he doesn't want to do some baking and then I'll head to bed too,” she said with a more genuine smile. “Besides, once the ideas get going I find it hard to just sleep, you know?”

Tim agreed that he did indeed know, walking her towards the kitchen. They said goodnight and Tim went to bed feeling like he'd won the lottery - by the end of the year, he would finally have a commissioned MDC original.