#I thought it was about time I posted some images from my fine collection of tom pictures again | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

notyour-valentine · 1 year

Text

A Christmas Journey ~ Tommy Shelby (Fluff)

[Masterlist] [Taglist]

Summary: A Journey back from London in the Christmas Season with his secretary doesn't go as planned

Note: written for @runnning-outof-time and her Holiday Bingo Challenge . You always have such incredible ideas for us to join in on celebrating your milestone - congratulations! I chose forced proximity, a family tradition, subtle hurt/comfort, and (self) confession

All my writing is produced by an adult and created with an adult audience in mind (18/21+). You are responsible for your own media consumption. I do not consent to my work being translated, copied or posted elsewhere on this platform or any other.

Wordcount: 2473 words

The outside looked like one of these paintings one could buy in a collection to hang in some corner of a large room, a quiet, calm, peaceful scenery, an image of the countryside snoozing under a blanket of freshly fallen snow, coating field, house, and trees alike.

It was the kind of cold that ought to make one stark a fire and climb under a blanket, warm tea in hand.

Only it wasn’t a painting, and to Tommy Shelby, there was nothing calming about it.

The cold, especially a cold like this, meant problems, and problems meant a slowing of work, of traffic, of business. And he had neither time nor means for that.

The end of the year, of any year, meant hastily signed contracts, quickly closed deals before the new tax year would start, as well as end-of-year obligations, useless mingling for Christmas parties, dinners, company celebrations, and the like, as well as the demand of anyone and everyone wanting a piece of him.

It meant he was stretched out even more so than usual.

A particular contract that needed signing before the New Year had made him rush to London earlier today, taking only his suitcase and one of the Birmingham Secretaries with him. That way he had time to fill her in during the train ride there about what was going to be discussed in the meeting.

She was fairly new, and more a typist than a secretary, with quick, nimble fingers that could dance over the typewriter at a dizzying speed.

Now she was quite a sight, bundled up against the cold in a thick coat, with scarves and gloves, and a hat that drowned out her face.

She had taken those off once inside the train compartment and was now removing her coat as well, revealing what looked to be a home-knitted woolen cardigan.

Tommy glanced up from his reading, a business report about the annual revenues from one of his factories, as soon as she opened her mouth to speak, only to see she had changed her mind, instead offering him an embarrassed smile.

With a hum he returned to his reading, only to see her scoot about on her seat out of the corner of his eye.

“Mr. Shelby?”, she asked after a moment, unable to keep still “Is there any task you have for me during our ride back?”

Tommy considered for a moment, but there was no way she could transcribe with the bumpy up and down of the train, so he shook his head.

“Would it bother you if I did some knitting then?”, she asked, reaching for her hand.

“It’s a tradition in our family - my Ma’ always makes sure we get a new pair of socks in each year’s stocking and this time I wanted to surprise her with a pair of her own, even though it’s a bit foolish.”

She offered him an embarrassed smile.

“I’m not much good so I’ve had to start over.”

“Fine.”, Tommy grumbled.

What a silly gift, he thought, remembering the knitted socks from his earlier days. They had been warm enough, but not perfectly so.

Bothersome to mend, and too thick in good shoes, he had had no qualms about throwing them out a few years back in exchange for softer, more delicate Merino socks, which were just as warm.

“Thank you!”, she said, beaming from ear to ear as she reached into her bag and pulled out a ghastly dark red ball of wool, and two brown needles, a good half sock hanging from the edges.

Before she began, she scooted closer to the light source of their compartment, bringing her right across from him.

Tommy’s eyes returned to the numbers and comparisons, as the clicking began.

As if the rattling of the train hadn’t already been enough.

It was persisting, never-ending, click click click, click click, click click click.

After a few minutes, even the hiss of the wool made his jaw tighten in annoyance.

The lines on the paper became impossible to read with the neverending sound.

Click click click, click click click, hiss, click click click.

Always uneven, always unpredictable.

It was a sound to make a man go mad.

“I’ve changed my mind.”, Tommy said sharply, snapping the file shut. “Can you stop?”

She looked up, needles in hand, with thread wrapped around her finger, her eyes wide and round as dinner plates.

“Oh.”, she gasped surprised, staring at him in disbelief for a split second before she cleared her throat and nodded.

“Of course Mr. Shelby, I’m sorry, Sir.”

She scrambled to tidy up, hastily twisting the needles and sticking them back into the ball of wool as if she was afraid he’d open the window and toss it out if she wasn’t quick enough in the removal of his ire.

“No need to apologise.”, he mumbled.

The moment he opened the file again, they heard the brakes screech as the train came to a slow halt.

For a split second, there was silence all throughout the train. Then the both of them looked towards the window, seeing only darkness.

They were in the middle of nowhere.

Her whispered “Oh no.” gave voice to Tommy’s thought.

“Wh-what just happened?”, she asked breathlessly, her hands clutching onto her brown leather bag.

“I’ll see what the conductor says.”, he muttered as he got to his feet. “Just stay here.”

A delay was the last thing he needed when all he wanted was to get home, make the calls to Boston and New York, finish revising that speech, and - there was something else that he knew he had forgotten, but he knew it would come back to him.

But unless they got moving soon, it wouldn’t matter at all.

The last thing he wanted was to be stuck in a train with a good half hundred strangers, and in a compartment with his little typist.

That strange feeling of irritation and subtle anger spurred him on as he walked nearly half of the train before he found someone in charge, already swarmed by a dozen other passengers.

He was lanky as a tree, with a narrow face and small piglike eyes.

“Please, Ladies and Gentlemen, stay calm!”, he assured them all, both palms outstretched. “Retake your seats, I am sure we will resume the journey shortly. There is no need to be concerned.”

That did little to block off the hail of questions, to which his only response was to flair his hands as if they were all little flies bothering him.

He had to practically shove them back into their respective compartments all the while nodding and repeating his meaningless babble over and over.

Tommy stopped his flight to the head of the train.

“What’s going on?”, he demanded to know.

“There is no need for concern!”, the conductor told him, “I am sure the journey will resume-”

“The name’s Shelby.”, Tommy hissed, undercutting any attempt of him to repeat his speech for the umpteenth time.

The man’s little eyes went wide.

“Oh, well, in that case, Sir, well,”, he began to stammer, wiping his hands on his uniform.

Tommy raised his brows in impatience, urging him on.

The man’s face turned the colour of his uniform.

“Due to the snow, Sir, they are having to clear a railroad switch ahead of us before we can continue safely. It will only be a moment Mr. Shelby, Sir.”

Tommy gave a single nod and patted him on the shoulder before returning to his compartment, thankfully first class, which meant it was mostly abandoned this time of night, with only his secretary being the other one.

“And?”, she asked breathlessly, getting up from her seat as soon as he entered.

“It’s fine.”, Tommy assured her, before sitting back down again.

Even though the door blocked out most of the noise, the restlessness and uncertainty found its way into their compartment, infecting first her and then him too, and more so with every passing second.

“You know,”, she mumbled after a near half-hour of tense silence and stolen glances out the window, “There’s stories about this happening in the United States. They can’t get the train to work again and the people freeze to death.”

“It’s not the train.”, Tommy told her.

Besides, it wasn’t that cold. Sure, it was chilly, but nothing compared to the winters spent in the trenches, unable to properly get a fire going. Here they were dry, with a roof over their head and coats and scarves to warm them.

His secretary didn’t seem convinced. She kept craning her neck to look out the glass door for any sight of any possible change, her hands nervously picking at her bag.

It was making him nervous too.

“We won’t freeze to death either.”, he assured her dryly.

“Are you sure? Because it already feels a lot colder if you think about it. And we are out in the middle of nowhere. No one will know where we are and-”

She shut herself off at the sight of his gaze and quickly averted her eyes, her hands still fidgeting nervously, her whole body shaking.

What an easy life she must’ve had for a mere thing like an unplanned train stop to put her in this state.

But then again, she was so young, part of this new, reckless generation who had been little more children during the war. And it was all too easy to paint the world a bit brighter for little ones, to hide the nasty truth behind soft lies and gentle facades.

And now the girl was unsettled by a little train delay, poor thing.

Tommy had suffered half a dozen a ride on the trains that carried him back and forth during his time in France.

Still, when she began trying to breathe heavily to steady her nerves, he felt a pang of pity in his chest. And her nervousness was beginning to irritate him.

“Why don’t you take up that knitting again?”, he asked.

“Oh no, I don’t want to annoy you.”, she quickly said, shaking her head.

Tommy huffed, a twitch in the corner of his lips.

“I’m not reading, so it won’t bother me.”

She was slow to reach for her bag, surveying his every reaction.

Tommy made sure to give none as she reached for her things, and slowly began to knit again, her eyes darting from her work to his face and back, eager to see any sign of disgruntlement.

But when she found none, she slowly settled into her knitting more and more, until she was fully focussed on that.

Tommy allowed himself to watch. The repetitiveness in the motion, even if the sound had irritated him earlier, seemed to calm him now.

Especially watching the tips of the needles work together, settled his heartbeat.

It wouldn’t be the most perfect sock, which was clear to see even now, but the longer Tommy watched, the more times she repeated it, the more he felt the idea growing on him.

But his words, or rather the fact that he said them out loud, even if it was just a mumble, surprised him.

“I don’t think it is foolish.”

The clicking stopped as she looked up.

“I beg your pardon, Sir?”, she asked.

“Earlier,”, Tommy explained, “You said I’d think it foolish. I don’t. It’s a sweet thing to do for your mother.”

She bit her lip and lowered her hands, growing flustered at his words, with a smile forming on her lips.

“Oh I don’t know.”, she admitted, “I do hope she likes it, but in the end it’s just a little part of Christmas. Our Christmas I mean.”

She offered him another shy smile.

“It’s not as grand as your Christmasses, I’d wager. With a ten-foot tree and a hundred baubles but it’s nice.”

Tommy hummed in response, as he let his eyes find the darkening landscape.

These days his Christmasses were like stepping into a glossy catalog, every inch of the house decorated, countless candles shining, a hoard of wrapped presents with large bows, steaming meals, and more sweets than anyone could ever eat in a whole year, let alone a few days. Every treat, every delicacy, it was all right there.

As it should be, a part of Tommy thought, the part that was proud of all he had achieved and that he could share it with his family, with his son. He alone would receive a dozen presents worth more than a factory worker’s annual wage.

But another part eyed those slightly uneven socks closer.

They were far from perfect, and yet every loop was laced with care and effort.

The memory of the socks his mother and Polly had knitted for him in years past, which he had thrown away as soon as he could afford to, made shame creep up his cheeks.

He already knew what he would get from them this year - cufflinks from Polly and a tie needle from Ada to match, expensive gifts, undoubtedly. Like every year.

Expensive, flashy gifts for an expensive flashy holiday. And that was it.

Nothing close to the memories of his childhood, even if they were feeble and poor in comparison, but at least they had been excited about it, about the food, about the oranges they would sometimes receive, about snow, even about the hymns they’d sing, less for the meaning and more of them all doing something together.

Singing together, cooking together, decorating together - and now the cooks did the cooking and the maids the decorating.

All Tommy did was pay. Like with any other day.

Taking a deep breath, he shifted in his chair and shook his thoughts.

There was no need to deprive Charlie of all the presents he could afford, anything he could enjoy. But perhaps the boy would want to do a little more than merely opening and receiving gifts.

Perhaps he’d like a little tree to decorate on his own, just a little one, even if it ended up not nearly as perfect as how Frances would instruct the maids to do it. But then again, those socks wouldn’t be perfect either.

The longer he thought about it, the more he came to enjoy the idea.

Maybe they could even take the horses out into the forest and he could pick one for them to cut down.

Just as it had taken hold in his mind, they heard a mechanic screech before the train slowly started moving.

“Oh thank God!”, the secretary cried out, dropping her needles in her lap and offering him a relieved smile.

But Tommy’s mind was already back in that snow-coated forest to the back of Arrow House in which Charlie would choose their Christmas tree. A proper one, not flashy and big, but real.

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed and as always I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Taglist

Overall

@lilyrachelcassidy @jyessaminereads @chlorrox @watercolorskyy @books-livre @quarterpastmidnight @lilyevanswhore @polishcrazyone @zablife @just-a-harmless-patato @stevie75 @flyingjosephine-blog @runnning-outof-time @cillmequick @alex-in-the-wilderness @babayaga67 @butterfly-skinnylegend @shelbydelrey @mrkdvidal1989 @raincoffeeandfandoms

Tommy

@knowledgefulbutterfly @babayaga67 @signorellisantichrist @lespendy @geeksareunique @look-at-the-soul @lothbrokcore @rangerelik

#valentineswritings #tommy shelby #thomas shelby #tommy shelby imagine #thomas shelby imagine #tommy shelby one shot #thomas shelby one shot #tommy shelby fic #thomas shelby fic #peaky blinders #tommy shelby fluff #thomas shelby fluff #a christmas journey #k's 2.5k holiday BINGO challenge

170 notes · View notes

hellhound5925 · 2 months

Text

Welcome to the next Chapter ☺️ I have decided to post once a week and I’m going to try to stick to Tuesdays so mark it on your calendars! Also, I will like the previous and following chapters in each of these posts to make life easier for those of you who might just be joining us. I hope you enjoy!

Cyare Verd

*OC Raven x Hunter

Previous: Chapter One

Chapter Two: Spoils of War

Sleep has never come easy for me. Every time I close my eyes - even for a few minutes - the image of the surface of my home world, left to be nothing but ash. Followed by the night I thought Aspen and I would die…

After hearing news of the bombardment Aspen and I were at one of the many cantinas of Ord Mantell drowning our sorrows. After everything, we needed some time to mourn and think through our next move. It was too risky to make the trip to Mandalore with everyone looking for me and my family.

Since others had found out about what we were doing, a bounty had been placed on our heads. Most people weren’t dumb enough to mess with a mandalorian let alone two so Aspen and I stuck together.

Only after Aspen mouthed off - like she tends to do when she's drunk - to the bartender did some di’kutla (fool/idiot) try to make a move. He came for me first and even though my body didn’t do exactly what I wanted it to, he went down with little fight.

I knew we had quite a bit to drink but I can hold my liquor. Nothing was adding up.

It wasn’t until the rest of the merc’s filed in did I realize it was bad. My vision began to blur and patrons were running out screaming. My head spun at the chaos. Sober, we could have made it out. But it almost seemed like we had been drugged.

Before I had time to process, I was shoved to the ground and hands bound behind me as the same was done to Aspen. The familiar click of a blaster safety as the barrel was pushed against my temple. The cold metal biting my skin. If there was ever a moment I needed my beskar it would have been this one. Too little too late.

Hunter

Raven woke with a startle, smacking her head on the bunk above her. The sound echoed through my bones and up through the walkway where the others took notice. Her breathing was so ragged, it pounded in my head. The horrors of whatever she was dreaming were all over her face.

"Everything okay?" I asked, preparing for a snarky response.

"Yeah, fine" She snaps, brushing it off.

Echo and I exchange a look. We’ve both seen that before, the days after Echo was rescued from Skakko minor.

Our eyes meet briefly before she stands and moves toward the fresher. The haunted look in her eyes causes my chest to tighten. Only when the door clicks shut do I let out a breath and run a hand through my hair.

Something broke her between Kamino and here. I resist the urge to comfort her but what would I say? She’s practically a stranger.

“What is it?” Echo asks as if he’s the one with enhanced senses.

Sighing heavily, and tear my eyes away from the door.

“We uh, we spoke on Kamino a few times. She trained some of the other Commandos.”

Echo smiles at me like he knows something I don’t.

“I knew it was her.”

He laughs at the confusion written on my face.

”No offense Hunter but even back then we knew something was up.”

”What do you mean?”

”You never could take your eyes off her.”

The thing about Echo is he has always called things as he sees them. This time I’m not sure I’m happy to be the one he calls out.

As on cue, the console alarm goes off for the jump out of hyperspace. Mentally I thank whatever powers at be for coming to my aid.

“We’re coming out of hyperspace.”

Raven

Mumbling to myself I place both hands on either side of the sink.

“I don’t need their sympathies.”

Splashing some water on my face and trying to shake off the images from my dream, I collect myself. There is a slight rattle in the ship indicating we’ve likely excited hyper space. I quickly rebraid my hair and secure it in a bun at the back of my neck.

Opening the door to the fresher Hunter is there as if he was about to knock.

"We're here" is all he says.

Understanding. His expression was one of understanding. Not pity like I’d expected. The walls I’ve built around myself threaten to come down.

To avoid further conversation, I quickly exit the fresher, grabbing my helmet on the way and join the others as we prepare for landing.

————

Serenno - as much as I almost hate to admit it - is beautiful, the lush grass and forest that seems mostly undisturbed. I can almost imagine myself camping out under the stars.

In the background the boys are arguing about how they should be doing 'more' to fight against the Empire. I can't say I blame them, with a group like this they could do enough damage and tell the Empire to nar'sheb (shove it).

Yet I roll my eyes at brothers fighting. Mine have done this time and time again. Sometimes I’d take bets on who would throw the first punch if it was bad enough - it was usually Ordo.

Sliding my helmet on, I turn back to the boys with hands on my hips.

“Are we going or what?”

They all stop and look at me like something important was interrupted. But let's face it…they were getting nowhere.

Hunter is the one who gives me a sidelong glance. A challenging smirk tugs at my lips and I tip my visor up to meet his gaze. One eyebrow raises and a shadow of an amused smile hides under the skull tattoo. For whatever reason that has my stomach doing a flip. I spin on my heel and strut towards the woods. His eyes were no doubt on me the whole time.

“She’s right we need to get moving.” I hear him say behind me.

We make our way up a large mountain in silence to get a good vantage point. The trees provide enough cover from the sun I mentally thank whatever powers that be its not unbearably hot.

"That's the city?" I scoff seeing all the imperial ships.

"What happened to it?" Asks Wrecker.

"Imperial orbital bombardment. Same as Kamino." explains Echo.

"They bombed Kamino too?" I guess I was so caught up on my own stuff to hear about it. A chill rakes down my spine. Unable to suppress it, their attention is drawn to me. Echo’s helmeted head tilts from me to Hunter whose eyes are still on the city below. The latter is the one who speaks.

“Mandalorian’s aren't the only ones who lost their home.” His words strike deep, the tone meant to be of understanding.

Once again, I find myself turning my attention towards him. It’s anyone’s guess what he’s looking at but there’s no doubt he can see me staring. The half skull painted on the same side of his helmet as his face. For once I don’t think my visor is the most intimidating one here. There’s something quite attractive about it.

Tech looks through his binoculars and speaks, getting us back on track. "It appears that they are beginning to transport the war chest off-world."

I drag my attention away from Hunter and flip through my HUD to see what he's looking at.

"Our window of opportunity then” Hunter speaks like maybe he was too busy paying attention to notice me.

"It's quickly closing" Tech continues.

A moment of silence washes over the group as we continue to observe.

Hunter shifts "There's over 40 troopers down there."

I scan around making note of where they are and their patrol patterns. Scoffing, I stand and brush the dirt off my knees. “And?”

"That's nothing!" Wrecker says, enthusiastically slamming his fists together.

Three visors snap his direction as if he isn’t taking it seriously. “I agree with Wrecker” I add flipping my thumb over my shoulder at him.

"Stealth, Wrecker. Remember?" Echo says, causing me to chuckle - I’m not sure how someone so large can be stealthy.

"Imperial escort ships” Tech continues. My attention drifting towards them.

"That's standard protocol for when high-level cargo is being transported." I say matter of factly. My turn to have all visors on me. I throw my hands to surrender. "At one point we were all a part of their army, remember.”

"Get to the nearest container and grab what you can" Hunter barks at us. His tone sparks something in my blood. "I'll be eyes on the ground. If things go sideways, I'll divert their forces and buy you some time."

I tilt my visor in his direction, "that’s too much for one person. I can help." If he thinks he can order me, he’s wrong. He shakes his helmet covered head.

"No, I'll be fine, now go.”

I huff an annoyed sigh and glare daggers at him - not that he can see through my visor - hoping he feels the sharpness of them.

The rest of us all head down the hill in silence before - other than Wreckers thunderous steps - taking cover behind some trees.

"In position. And the second transport's launching" Echo’s voice comes over our com channel.

"We've got roving patrols. Stay alert." Hunter commands.

A figure - I now realize is Hunter's - darts onto the landing pad. I watch as he tactfully places detonators on a few of their escort ships. As if he didn’t trust me to do that.

“I coulda done that” I sass.

His winded voice comes back over coms. “We need as many as we can to get the crates.”

Echo interrupts "Let's go.”

I follow reluctantly, rolling my eyes.

When we approach one of the chests, Wrecker takes out one of the troopers with one swift movement which earns a look from the others.

"What? I did it quietly" he throws his hands up in defense.

"Yeah, but they will definitely notice when he doesn't report in" Tech scolds him climbing into the first container and the rest of them follow.

"Well, let's be gone by then” I hesitate for a moment before continuing, “I'm going to head to the next container over, I'll catch up with you guys."

"You shouldn't go alone" Tech says to me.

"I'll be fine" is a poor attempt to dismiss him.

If I can go alone Cid won't know what I have and don't show her. Tech turns to Echo like he’ll back him up. Only he doesn’t say anything.

“You don’t trust me.”

“We simply do not know you.”

I sigh in annoyance standing my ground. “Don’t think that I’m not capable of loyalty just because I have no one left to be loyal to.”

A few tense seconds past and I realize we are just wasting time. “Fine” I climb in behind them.

————

"Woah so this is what a war chest looks like" Wrecker says in awe.

Sliding the door mostly shut behind me, I glance around the room. Floor to ceiling boxes that are full of what I can only imagine. Personally, I've never been much of a thief. Honest work is much more satisfying - another reason why Cid was never my favorite - but again, here we are.

Tech speaks as we begin to look around "Our priority is anything of high value.”

"Like what?" Wrecker asks. I now realize that Wrecker is basically a large child at times.

"Well I suppose anything shiny or heavy is probably a good start.”

Together we work for a while to determine what is worth taking and put it into one of the emptier crates.

There's enough in here I'd never have to take another Osik (crap) job again. I could even disappear.

Tech speaks breaking the silence, “How did you come to know Cid?”

Halting my movements, realizing he’s talking to me. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

”You want us to trust you. Yet you won’t tell us about you.”

My temper starts to flare, ”I’m not worth knowing. Okay?”

Echo cocks his head in confusion. Yes, he opened up to me but that doesn’t mean I’m just willing to talk about me.

“What I’ve heard about you on Kamino says otherwise.” He says carefully.

I turn back to picking through crates. Their eyes feel heavy on my back, turning my head slightly. The three are standing there staring at me. They really aren’t going to let it go.

“Everyone that gets to know me either gets hurt or dies” My voice is so soft it doesn’t even sound like my own. No one comments and they go back to work in silence.

Aspen's face being shoved into the carpet with a blaster also pointed at her head flashes in my mind. Even though she was smirking, I could see the real fear in her eyes. We thought that was it.

Taking a breather, I head towards the door and peek out to look for patrols. The trooper Wrecker knocked out is still out cold on the floor next to me.

Conversation seems to pick up and I listen while staying on look out.

"Woah" Wreckers voice echoes in the container. "How could all of this belong to one person?".

A sigh, "A lot of this probably came from the worlds Dooku and the Separatists controlled."

"Grab as much as you can.”

The unconscious trooper’s com goes off as another one tries to get ahold of him.

”Osik (shit)” I mumble. Just as two troopers around the corner. Fumbling to quiet the troopers link, I open ours to Hunter.

"Hunter, I think we're about to have some company."

Next thing I know, there's an explosion. Jumping up I help the others finish getting the crates around. “That’s our distraction. Oya!”

An alarm sounds shortly thereafter, even through my helmet is ear piercing. As if on cue, Hunter's voice fills my ears “I'm on my way to you.”

"Let's speed this up. Wrecker, that one goes first" I take charge not really meaning to, but no one objects.

Wrecker picks up the container and heads out to meet Hunter. Just as he makes it out the door begins to shut. I grab onto the sides and pull, trying to keep it open.

“A little help would be great!” I grunt out, straining against the door.

Echo rushes over to the port and connects his socket to it. Our comms buzz.

"The ship's taking off. Get out of there" Hunter sounds worried.

"Hurry Echo!” I yell, my fingers getting closer to being crushed.

“Let it go. There’s nothing I can do from here.”

Once I let go, the door shuts sealing us in. We all look to Echo for any kind of update but it's like he’s in a trance. I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything like it.

After a few moments he speaks, voice strained "It's externally sealed. I can't open it."

I comm Hunter, "Hunter we're trapped in the container. We can't get out."

"On our way" Hunter replies.

I take a few hurried moments to look around to see if there's another way out. Tapping at the walls to see if there's a hollow one we can cut through I continue my search but it's taking too long.

"Hunter, where are you?" The question comes over the comms.

"Sorry, we Got a little sidetracked. You need to get off that ship before it jumps to hyperspace" he continues sounding winded.

Tech puts a hand to his chin thinking for a moment, "If we gain access to the ship's main hold, we could commandeer an escape pod—“

“—Do it. We'll get to the Marauder and recover you.”

After moving some containers my search finally produces some results, "There! We should be able to get into the rest of the ship from there" I yell towards the others and point at the hatch to the maintenance panel.

Tech comes over, and gives his assessment before nodding.

"Are you sure this hatch will lead into the ship?" Echo asks.

Tech looks at his datapad. "If I am incorrect, we will instantly be sucked out and perish. I am seldom wrong."

I roll my eyes. "Ba'gedet'ye (you're welcome)" comes out under my breath. Echo must have heard me because he lets out a light laugh.

The door slides open.

"Congratulate yourself after we escape". Echo's sass makes me giggle and Tech tips his helmet towards me, probably giving me a look. He looks back down at his datapad.

"The closest escape pod is five corridors away."

I peer around the corner down the hall. "Let's get going then.”

Drawing a blaster (my westar-35) from my hip and head out with the others behind me. Tech and Echo carrying another container. We make our way down a few different hallways per Techs directions.

Once we get closer to the escape pods a door slides open and troopers step out "Freeze" one of them yells. Echo and Tech drop the container. The three of us duck behind it as a barrier.

With a quick glance between the three of us I make a split-second decision. My armor will hold up against blaster bolts. There's will not. Decision made.

I nod to myself for a brief pep talk.

“What are you going to do?” Echo asks.

Whipping around to peek over, I tell him, “Cover me.”

In one smooth motion, I slide over the top of the container landing on two feet. Bolts of blaster fire begin to fly past me, forcing my HUD to adjust to their brightness.

Crossing my arms in front of my body, I use my vambraces to block the shots coming for my visor as I move closer to the troopers. Even through my beskar, the shock of them sting - But far less than it would for the two in plastoid. I can feel bruises already forming under my skin.

Tech and Echo return fire from behind me, taking out a few of them. I swore to myself I would never harm clone troopers, only stun if it came to it. Once I’m close enough I can tell they aren’t. So death it is then.

I eject my blade from my vambrace with a skunk that's barely audible over the sound of blaster fire, and plant in just above the collar bone one trooper. He goes down with little struggle once the blade is gone. His body now becomes a shield taking the brunt of the bolts for me. I drag him with me for as long as I can while shooting my way through the others.

Fighting my way through them seems to be never ending. With that being said, I can hold them off long enough for the others to escape.

"Find another way to the escape pods!" I yell over the comms. Even though my helmet I can already smell the scoring left behind by the blasters.

"They just ejected all the escape pods!" Echo yells back.

Cursing under my breath in Mando’a, I drop the body of the trooper I’ve been dragging. Two of them take the opportunity to lunge at me - fortunately I’m able to get a shot off as the three of us hit the floor.

"Go- Get out of here!" I yell, trying to shove the now limp trooper off me. Just as I do, the other one crawls over me towards his blaster. It landed out of reach further above my head. Rolling onto my stomach I reach for the knife in my boot and cram it into his calf. His pained cry echoes through the all too quiet hallway.

With a quick glance behind me the other troopers are now incapacitated in a heap of limbs. Electricity arcing between them. By the time I swing my attention back to the trooper in front of me, his blaster is aimed at my helmet.

Using my arms I block the front of my head for the impact. A lone shot echoes through the space but the impact never comes. As I lift my eyes slowly from behind my arms, the trooper is face down on the ground unmoving. A hole through the side of his helmet. Tech is standing over him with a hand outstretched holding a smoking blaster. Plastoid. What a joke.

I take the opportunity to catch my breath and roll onto my back. "Do you trust me now?" I grunt.

”I suppose.” Tech’s matter of fact reply.

“Vor’e (thanks)” my tone is quite sarcastic.

"Ba'gedet'ye (you're welcome)" Echo hollers back. Then it clicks, ah me must have been the one in Cid's Parlor who laughed at what I said to her.

————

We take a few moments to catch our breath and come up with a plan. "There has to be another way off this ship" Tech says which has Echo simmering with irritation.

"Other than over taking this vessel, what do you suggest?" He sasses.

Wait a second. Idea. "Hey, aren’t these containers equipped with reentry thrusters?” Both Echo and Tech shift their visors towards me. I shrug. Tech goes back to his datapad.

"You are correct. I am impressed. However, the containers must be ejected before leaving the atmosphere, which means our window is rapidly closing.”

"Great, this just keeps getting worse" I sigh.

"Come on, we need to hurry," Echo says, taking the lead.

We carefully make our way back to the container we came from, taking out any troopers we cross paths with.

"How much time do we have?" Echo checks in.

"Very little" Tech says in his usual tone.

Finally making it into the container, Tech immediately goes to work on the panel on the wall "initialing cargo release".

I steady myself, cursing in mando’a as my stomach drops and the cargo starts to free fall. After a few very long moments - and a lot more cursing - nothing happens. We’re still in a free fall.

"When are the reentry thrusters supposed to fire?" Echo asks.

Tech thinks for a moment. "They should have by now."

“Great. Suddenly I’m wishing the troopers had just finished the job!” My irritation is boiling over.

I make my way to the cargo net on unsteady feet, with Echo and Tech in tow. Echo and I make it first and just as we turn to help Tech but the container turns over. Thankfully he holds on but his feet are hanging in the air, "that is going to be a problem" he voices.

“Thanks Captain Obvious!”

Next Chapter

Wattpad link here.

Taglist: @cloneloverrrrr @lune-de-miel-au-paradis @idoubleswearimawriter @techs-goggles9902 @clonethirstingisreal

#the clones #star wars clone wars #the bad batch #tbb hunter #hunter bad batch #starwars the bad batch #tbb hunter x reader #clone force 99 #tbb hunter x you #hunter #hunter the bad batch #the bad batch hunter #bad batch hunter #hunter x reader #clone trooper hunter #mandalorian oc #Raven Skirata

11 notes · View notes

husbandhannie · 2 years

Note

hi livvie <333 i saw your post about trying requests and was wondering if you have any thoughts about being neighbours with c-c-chan? 🤧 totally no pressure and dw at all if you don’t end up writing it 💗 i hope you’re doing well!!

chihuahuas

pairing: dino x reader

word count: 980

genre: fluff

warnings: none

a/n: ah sol, thanks for sending! i made this uni au because i'm looking at my accommodation pictures these days. also this wasn't meant to be so long, but i started writing and well.....you know how much i like writing chan haha. not proofread, i honestly don't know if i'll ever do it.

taglist: @itsveronicaxxx @husbandhoshi @zurikyo @leejungchans @junhui-recs.

you’re barely out the door when the object rolling towards your feet grabs your attention, followed by the call of your name in your neighbor’s exasperated voice. a closer look reveals the offending item to be a bottle of glue, and you bend down to pick it up so you can hand it to its owner.

the first time you met lee chan, he was carrying a basket of clothes down to the laundry room, wearing adorable dinosaur-printed pajamas and sleepy eyes. it was the week before the start of your master’s, and he had introduced himself as ‘the guy in 111’. “let me know if you need anything”, he had said, before getting flustered at the sight of underwear poking out of his basket. even flustered and sleepy, he was beautiful.

(he looked beautiful later that week too, when he ran into you on his way back from the gym, sweaty in a sleeveless shirt. you’re proud to say you managed to keep your cool in front of him, only letting out a scream into your pillow when your door was securely closed.)

“thanks”, he accepts the bottle, “slipped from my hands”.

you’re not surprised. it seems like he’s carrying a third-grade teacher’s craft supplies - large sheets of colored paper folded up in his arms, and a transparent folder that contains scissors and some cutouts of - wait, are those dog pictures?

“i can see why”, you smile, “um, what’s all this for?”

you know his major is education, but you doubt his assignments include making posters. maybe he’s supposed to work with kids as part of a project? the image of lee chan bending down to help a kid glue cute dog pictures on a poster comes to your mind before you can help it, and -

no. you can’t do this today. you don’t have the strength.

“uh, we’re supposed to decorate the common room for world animal day”, he adjusts the supplies in his arms, “didn’t you know?”

oh yeah, you do remember reading about that on the bulletin board below. while you’ve never been the one for decoration and related activities, you’re even less inclined this week, with the number of assignment deadlines you have. thankfully, there’s only one left now.

“i think i read about it”, you answer, “and you decided to, what, make an entire poster by yourself?”

“no, i - “, he sighs, “the guys and i collected material and only some cutting and pasting was left, so we played a game to decide. and well”, he shrugs resignedly, “guess who lost”.

“oh no”, you shake your head in mock sympathy, “it was rock-paper-scissor, wasn’t it?”

“hey, it’s a perfectly fine - “

“i know, i know”, you grin, “what’s the subject of the poster?”

maybe you can take some time out to help him if he’s making a poster on cute dogs.

“uh, chihuahuas”, he manages to push the folder up, urging you to pick it up, “and how, uh, expressive their expressions are?”

“what?”. is he serious?

“yeah”, he tries to convince you, “take a clipping out, you’ll see what i mean”.

you take the first picture out and, well, realize he’s not completely insane. it’s a chihuahua alright, making a face that can only be described by the string “aaaauuuuughhhhh”.

“oh god”, you take out one more, letting out a cackle at the indescribable yet vivid emotion on the dog’s face, “oh my god. this is brilliant”.

“i know”, he exclaims, laughing with you, “there are so many of them too. we really found more than we thought we would”.

you say nothing, just snap the folder close and put it back to its original place, trying not to focus on how ridiculously buff chan’s arms feel.

it’s quiet for a moment then, the two of you just looking at each other, neither commenting on how close you’re standing, and how your hand is still on his arm.

“well, i should - “

“would you mi - “

both of you pause, grinning.

“you first”, you offer.

“well”, he clears his throat, his ears an endearing pink, “i was wondering if you could help me? paste these, i mean? if that’s okay?”

“ah”, you smile slightly, fighting the urge to fix your hair, “i will, if you take me out to dinner later”.

fuck, where did that come from?

do you want to go out with lee chan? yes. he’s cute, hot, sweet, thoughtful, hardworking -

you get the point.

but did you plan on asking him out today? asking him out ever? no.

it must be those freaking arms.

“um”, his eyes widen while he considers his response, “like a date?”

“no? unless you want to”.

what?

chan looks at you, clearly trying to figure out what the hell you’re talking about.

oh, well. if you’re doing this, might as well do it properly. well, what’s the worse that could happen? it’s not like you live right next to the guy or anything, right? not like you have to avoid him in hallways if he rejects you.

“i mean”, you start, proud of how confident you sound, “if i help you, take me out to dinner. like a date”.

chan blinks once before a grin takes over his face, his eyes shining by the strength of it. you think your heart skips a beat. oh, you’re down bad.

“sure”, he answers excitedly, “it would be my pleasure”.

“great, then”, you close your door and make your way into his room, picking up the folder from his arm on the way, “let’s do it”.

a few seconds pass. chan hasn’t moved. one look over your shoulder shows him staring at you, an almost dreamy look in his eyes. stop, you want to say, we haven’t even been on a date, i can’t fall in love with you yet.

“c’mon”, you shoot him a teasing look, “the chihuahuas are waiting”.

#seventeen fluff #dino fluff #lee chan #dino #seventeen #seventeen x reader #dino x reader #seventeen imagines #svt imagines #svt fluff #dino imagines #asks #sol

133 notes · View notes

lhoandbehold · 1 year

Text

Balloonomania Part I: Putting the mania in, well, balloonomania

A collection of my balloonomania posts got more notes than I expected them to (see: more than, like, 10) and a fair few tags of people saying they wanted to hear more. I can’t deny people who want to hear about balloons anything, so I thought I wanted to do a little series for whenever I maybe have an hour and don’t want to Draw. (This is a long post but I promise there's a dirty balloon joke at the end if that's what you're into).

Why do I care about the early days of ballooning so much? Well, one thing about me, is I’m a little guy who LOVES when history is silly. And hot air balloon history is extremely silly. This was a time of SO much fuss. Here are some highlights

Humans took to the skies powered by the smell of burning old shoes and rotten meat.

The Montgolfier brothers launched the first ever hot air balloon in 1783 (in front of an audience at least). It worked very well all things considered, but it’s worth nothing that the Montgolfier brothers were the sons of an affluent paper-maker, NOT scientists. They had figured out that hot air had the capacity for lifting pieces of paper and cloth, but not actually why. What they thought was going on was that a particularly thick and solid smoke was able to induce the lift-off they needed. So they ‘invented’ what they named ‘Montgolfier gas’, a particularly vile recipe for thick black smoke. Burn some wet straw, old shoes and spoiled meat and bob’s your uncle. Take-off! (Hydrogen had been discovered like 20 years prior and other actual scientists basically immediately starting implementing hydrogen in their balloons, but the first launches? Stinky)

Hot air balloons were all the rage, right away

It’s hard to understate the absolute strangle-hold hot air balloons had on particularly France and England very early on. Sept. 19, 1783, the brothers launched their famous ‘manned’ hot air balloon (the passengers were a sheep, a duck and a rooster, who, yes, were all fine in the end) to an audience of yes, King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and a whopping 130.000 spectators. When Vincenzo Lunardi (gentleman, heartbreaker, lover of cats) launched his first balloon on british soil in 1784, it was to an audience of 150.000 people. Again, this was in the late 1700’s. An estimated 1 million people lived in London at the time. Not all balloon launches in the coming years would have such wild accumulations of crowd come witness them, but they were often times still very big, very anticipated events.

Anywhere you look? BALLOONS

Contemporary accounts describe it as the balloon madness. The frenzy. The rage.

And aside from the staggering number of people willing to stand around and watch a balloon take off (or fail to) I think a lot of these adjectives are the result of an interesting overlap between an early culture of consumerism and Balloonomania.

Not only was being a balloonist an entire business model. Charging subscriptions for people to come see your launches, branding yourself as a rockstar personality (again, VIncenzo Lunardi would have women come up to him and tell him they had written his names on their garters) - there was also balloon merch. Fucking. Everywhere.

Balloon images were appearing on almanacs, on waistcoats, in bonnets, in sleeves and in hairstyles. Dishes were being named after balloonists as well as aerial concepts .

And if you were bored of buying physical things? Hey, you could sing one of the songs about balloons. Or read a poem about balloons (for all the goths out there Percy Shelley wrote at least one poem about balloons). Or why not pick up a book heavily featuring balloons as a plotpoint. Or go to the theatre! Where they will awkwardly incorporate balloons into their plays, just to draw in an audience. One play even marketed themselves as having a real inflated balloon on stage. Of course, this particular play was canceled on opening night due to it’s ‘offensive and dangerous nature’, turns out having an open fire burning consistently in a small, crowded room is a bad idea (especially if that fire was made according to the recipe of Montgolfier gas).

And of course… the riots.

The problem with the fact that if a balloon launch didn’t take off successfully, it would often-time instigate a riot is that I don’t have time to get into the details of all the many, many balloon launch riots. This will require an entire post onto itself, honestly. So sit tight - but the balloon riots were real, and not a one-off events.

And for what?

The funniest and silliest thing about balloons (and gods, there are so many to choose from) is the way they were actually pretty useless.

So much of Europe was daydreaming about how balloons would revolutionise travel, military and social life. Girls would be able to sneak out of their houses to MAKE OUT WITH BOYS. Boys would be able to sneak into girls houses to MAKE OUT WITH GIRLS. You would need to instate balloon police to catch all the robbers fleeing in their balloons! Balloons would make the basis of crafts taking scientists to the most remote corners of the earth, and armies would be able to flood cities over night. Well, you might have noticed, this world was never one we got to live in. Most of all because balloons are so incredibly difficult to steer, even today.To the extent that when they first invented a balloon you could navigate with, they literally named it ‘balloon we can actually navigate with’ (dirigible balloon). How do you sneak out for your hot make out session with your boy if even just having the balloon take off isn’t a given, let alone directing its path?

So for a couple of very interesting years, the people of northern europe were gripped in the balloon frenzy, but what balloons really did was spark imagination. Human flight was possible! What on earth could be next?

Anyway, as a treat for making it all this way down, here's a drawing of Vincenzo Lunardi looking exactly like the kind of 18th century heartthrob that would make people write his name on their underwear

And here's a contemporary drawing aimed at him which is, yes, a dick joke

#balloon posting #balloonomania #history of flight

49 notes · View notes

northwest-cryptid · 1 month

Note

Curious about the VRChat equality thing

Oh boy time to get into weird shit about how capitalism infects the brain through being able to benefit from it and how despite the stigma, even pirates and communists believe people deserve fair compensation for goods and labor but what is fair is an often debated topic.

So this is going to be a really long post if I'm actually being entirely honest, and as such I will give you a tl;dr up front, however I will say that if all you read is the tl;dr you're going to maybe understand about 15% of the overall situation on this and that's merely because there's no way to explain everything without giving a ton of context and information first and then going into dumb details about it all.

TL;DR essentially people took a model of a communist utopia, learned they could profit from it; and then capitalism took hold and is now destroying not only an entire application through basically micro dosing on micro-transactions, but also through creating extremely hefty barriers of entry to an already expensive hobby that once existed in a way that equalized people.

Now to actually get into the meat and potatoes of what I'm actually talking about here. If you've followed me for any amount of time you likely know the drill by now, I'm putting a "Keep Reading" here to save everyone's dashboards in case you don't already use the feature that automatically scrunches long posts since this is likely going to be pretty hefty as I'm fairly passionate about it and have a lot to say.

I ask that if you've made it this far, and actually clicked the keep reading button; that you stick with me and don't go skipping all over the place. I say this because I'm going to start off pretty boring and seemingly off topic but I promise this is all important for understanding my views on this topic; if you don't agree with me that's totally fine but I ask that you at least try to understand how I'm looking at this from my specific viewpoint.

Point 1 - We are all equal in the eyes of the Internet.

The internet, yea? It's kind of weird to talk about the internet because different people will see it as a different thing. Some of us may see it as nothing more than a collection of data that can be updated, called, and sent between a shared network all over the world. That alone is pretty cool, but others of us may see it as a visible extension of cyberspace. I'm somewhere in the middle myself, I feel as though people ask too much of cyberspace. While I won't get into it here, I have a lot of thoughts on the topic of things like "phantom sense" as VR becomes more of an accessible thing for people, I've found that specific subcultures begin to pop-up, and among them there are people who desperately want Virtual Reality to simply drop the "virtual" and become akin to meatspace.

Now if you're asking me, I personally think that much of the appeal of cyberspace comes specifically from the "cyber" part. Virtual Reality is inherently Virtual and there's nothing actually lesser or wrong about that. People gauge much of Virtual Reality AGAINST Physical Reality, which is dumb. They're both their own reality, why do we want them to be functionally identical, we could make use of so much of what Virtual Reality has to offer if we embrace that it's Virtual. Let's take a quick moment and think about that, what does it mean to be Virtual? To exist within a digital realm?

Well here's a thought experiment for you, let's say I take you and 9 other willing participants and put you all inside different rooms. In these rooms you have nothing but a computer and a desk. On that computer you can access a virtual chat room, there are no profiles, no images or avatars; you merely choose a name to represent yourself and are dropped into a chatroom with 9 other people.

How old are the other participants? Are they around your age group? Are you even aware of their age? Does it matter to you? Did it matter before I asked?

Following this line of thinking, let's look at some other features, are they all the same gender, or different genders? How tall are they? Do they come from a wealthy family? Do they have a job? Are they perhaps disabled at all, in any way? Do they make a lot of money if they do have a job?

I do ask these questions genuinely, so to make this little thought experiment easier to manage let's have you think of this; narrow the number from 10 participants to just 3, you're 1 of them so there are two other people here with you. You cannot physically see them, and everything from their usernames to their appearance is up to your personal interpretation. So I ask you to look over those questions and give them even a baseline answer, it doesn't need to be elaborate; you don't need to give it a lot of thought. You're not making a D&D character with a lengthy backstory. For anyone who said "I'm not doing that" I'll do it as well right here for you, you can ignore this if you wish to do this yourself; I do believe it's important to making my own.

The first other participant other than myself will be an older woman in her late 50s who works as a butcher, she lives a fairly average life; she has a roommate to help pay the bills as she is lower middle class. Even living in a fairly average home, renting no less; she has to save up for any purchases that aren't absolutely necessary for survival.

The other individual I am in this chatroom with is a younger nonbinary individual who claims to be 23, they don't currently have a job as they're studying and attending law school. They come from a wealthy family and while not rich; do enjoy a life as an upper middle class household. Despite their hefty schooling costs they're never short on money to pay for things they want.

Alright cool, now I know who I'm here with; and you know who you're here with, so here's the most important question to ask.

...Does any of that really matter here?

This isn't a deep philosophical conversation, it's a very simple question. Let me elaborate.

Does age define knowledge? Not really, it can help understand something better if you've spent a lot of time with a specific field of study, and yes our brains pick up knowledge better at certain age ranges, but overall it has no real merit over how well we can navigate something. If a 50 year old and a 20 year old are both passionate about learning how to model an avatar, script a code; or exist within a VR space they'll both be able to do so roughly just as well as the other. Sure we're all human and have our own quirks we work through, someone might pick up something far easier than someone else. However the capability to learn is always there.

Does money carry any weight in a digital world? Well, here in this chatroom no. It really doesn't. There's no pay to win system in a social setting like this. Having $1 to my name, or a million doesn't make a difference. I'm not able to see what computers everyone else has, perhaps someone has a really fancy, fast, nice computer; while I'm working with something a little more "run of the mill" but at the end of the day they both access the same internet data.

Things like money, age, physical ability, even social or economic standing; they have no real sway over the virtual. Not unless you account for third party outside influences.

Point 2 - But you know what I like more than materialistic things? Knowledge.

So now let's go back to a simpler time on the internet, when VR was still new and we all had to pay upwards of $200 - $300 and even sometimes $400 to strap an oversized projector to our face so we could experience what it's like to have a monitor not even inches from our face. Applications like VRChat were all the rage because most VR applications and games felt more like tech demos, people didn't know how to use the tech yet and most actual home VR headsets were development kits.

VRChat was fairly open source at the time, lending most of it's success to a community building assets, systems, and avatars for their own use within the application.

As with any good open source application a lot of the files and thus the understanding for how things worked were being shared around and people began to notice a pattern as with any form of labor.

Not everyone wanted to put in the time and effort to actually learn. In fact plenty of people who were purchasing VR headsets were fairly wealthy people, sure not everyone; some people got them as gifts or saved up money over the course of a long time; or they'd use large sum of money given during tax returns or holidays as a means to purchase a VR headset while they were on sale.

However yes, a lot of people had a lot of money sitting around and wouldn't mind throwing a couple bucks your way if you were willing to go through the trouble of making them an avatar, world; or asset.

Now, this isn't anything bad on the surface; but it poisoned the well and it began the conflict.

"So you're saying artists commissioned work is bad and it should all be free and artists should starve." Only as much as I'm saying we should piss on the poor. Which is to say, no I'm not saying that; but if you jumped on that train immediately I don't blame you for thinking I'm going there, but bear with me.

As time went on and we developed more and more for VRchat's main engine; we also developed tools like Udon; a scripting language made for VRChat specifically. The ways in which we could customize avatars, worlds, and even assets was ever changing and it seemed like it was only getting more and more complex.

So what happened? Did people provide tools, lessons; and understanding to those around them in hopes there were others who would pick up the knowledge and create brilliant things to continue the ever exponential progress?!

No. Well yes, but mostly no. See some people did in fact provide easy to follow tutorials! You can find plenty out there, at least for basic things; but many saw the chance to really make a point with this.

A point that they understood the system, and you did not.

A point that you were better off paying them for the things they know and you don't.

A point that you should never question them, and that if you fuck up it's your own fault and maybe next time you'll listen.

If you think I'm exaggerating you should consider yourself lucky to have not come face to face with the truly disgusting underbelly of asset sales.

See I don't mind selling goods and services; I am an artist myself and I believe fair compensation is important! If someone likes what you're selling and deems it a fair price that's great, that's a win win; everyone's happy.

However what if the person purchasing your wares doesn't understand their value?

Asset flipping is something we see a lot of, done entirely legally through fair use mind you. People will buy assets along with their commercial license, and then quickly and easily slap those assets onto an amalgamation of other cheap gimmicks only to sell the new model at a profit from it's component parts.

"But that's how things are sold Cryptid, what's so weird about that?"

Well, okay let's look at how sales in physical space works right?

If I buy a single banana, and that costs me $1; then to turn a profit I'll need to sell it for something like $1.25 this is literally just because once you buy my banana, I don't have any more bananas to sell.

So if I sell the banana for $1 I'm at a net neutral, I don't have the ability to generate any additional funds off the single banana I've bought. So let's say I buy 4, I sell each for 1.25 and all 4 sell, now I can buy an additional 1 and I've only made .25 cents.

Well shit, it looks like I need to hike the price by a decent margin if I'm actually going to make any sort of sustainable income from selling bananas right?

But what happens if we say, I have 1 banana that generates infinite bananas. I bought my infinite banana generator for $25 + Tax. Now I could say I want to sell my bananas for $30 because I had to pay $25 to get this one.

However, I can also make infinite bananas, and if my bananas are good quality; they should sell out; or at least sell a decent amount. So rather than pricing a single banana higher than the original price, I should logically sell my bananas a lot cheaper; let's say I sell them for a simple $1.25 same as before. Once I've sold about 20-ish bananas I'll have not only made my money back, but I'll likely have made a small bit of profit.

"But Cryptid, you could have made way more from selling even one single banana at $30! Why gamble on 20 people buying a banana instead of just selling the one!?"

Because if I sell my banana at $30, but you can buy an infinite banana generator for only $25, what's stopping you... wait... what's stopping you from-

No. Hold on you don't know how it works! You couldn't possibly use the banana generator like I can!

NO DON'T GO LOOKING AT THE SOURCE SALES, SURE I LEGALLY HAVE TO CREDIT THE BANANA GENERATOR BUT-

Listen to me it's a very difficult device to understand! You don't have the years of understanding I do! You should pay me instead! You'll only fuck it up! You'll WASTE YOUR MONEY if you buy it from the original creator!

IT'S ME BOY THE PS5!-

Ahem, sorry I got a little sidetracked there. My point with all of this is how digital sales work far differently given that I'm not actually giving up any resources when I make a sale, the product is infinite; and I could sell it over and over again. So selling it for less than it's component parts is essentially saving my buyers some money over buying each individual part and putting it together themselves. I save them time as well since I'd likely have put together all the shaders, blend trees for emotes, menus and submenus for toggles- oh no... hold on why is that still pink? OH MOTHERFUC-

Point 3 - Missing and Outdated scripts, assets, shaders, and best of all fear mongering!

See a big part of this whole sales concept for virtual good comes from the idea that if I sell you an avatar, world, or asset; I'm selling you a completed product. Something I devoted my time and expertise to that you may not have to devote to it. So then what happens when I no longer allow you to contact me for support, and half the product is missing? Well there's no refund policy on the website I use so uh, tough.

This is unfortunately very common. Outdated scripts never being updated while assets still remain up for sale with scripts in them that will absolutely DESTROY your project unless you specifically dedicate time to going through your files with not only an understanding of what each file controls, but also the surgical precision to remove the files in such a way that doesn't accidentally trigger a chain reaction.

Because believe it or not, most of the avatars, worlds, and assets for sale are not ACTUALLY quality made models.

"But Cryptid, the artist sets the price and the consumer deems it fair when they purchase the goods!"

Correct! However, at what point do we argue for false advertisement?

Not only are many of the avatars, worlds; and assets for sale priced at insane prices (we're talking upwards up $150 - $460 for some) but most of these avatars, worlds, and assets do not disclose important information about their products that consumers should be allowed to know prior to purchase. Like how in some cases a file is so big that it can take more than 2 real life days of uninterrupted loading and then still crash unity. Enjoy your $460 world map that doesn't have active support, says you're shit out of luck if you fuck up importing it at all; and doesn't actually load because don't forget, there's no refund policy.

So let's say an avatar, world, or asset DOES actually import correctly.

Once you get through all the fear mongering about how you need to import the model, and no I'm not joking; people are openly lying in their readme files to scare people into following useless instructions.

i.e according to one readme if you import the shaders after the avatar your entire project will become corrupt beyond saving and you'll need to restart from scratch. In reality shaders automatically update if a model calls for them; so importing the shader at any point would simply just update the model to use the correct shaders. In that same vein let's address "YOU NEED TO START A NEW PROJECT, DO NOT IMPORT THIS AVATAR INTO AN EXISTING PROJECT OR IT WILL FUCK UP AND I WILL NOT HELP YOU" guess what? I tested it, like any other avatar/model importing the unity package at any point in the project just, you know; imports it.

I have also heard stories of people saying there are scripts in the unity files that can corrupt your computer's core files if you don't follow their instructions SPECIFICALLY, which A. isn't true; and B. why are you selling what you basically call a potential trojan?

So anyways, once you get through all the fear mongering about how you clearly can't do anything on your own (literally one of the readmes had a link to visit the site that tells you how to log into your account. For reference/context you're not even allowed to get to this point and upload an avatar/world until you've logged into VRChat and been an active user for about a week. They talk down to you and treat you like you're stupid because they rely on you NEEDING them to tell you exactly how to navigate this "super scary" application otherwise you wouldn't pay them upwards of $80 for a model they basically took from other people and used a plugin to glue together.) You can now look over your avatar/world, since you've managed to do the unthinkable and import a unity asset pack correctly!

Not all assets are made equal, and I think it's very important to understand that while yes the artist and consumer enter into an agreement over price that they both deem fair; it's important to understand how capitalism comes in many forms.

In this case I've noticed that Gumroad recycles almost all of their assets from other people on the website, and their models are extremely sub par when you compare them with far cheaper models on Booth. While some Gumroad shops do link back to their Booth counterparts, a lot seem to want this to remain a eldritch knowledge.

So on the off chance everything just works, you're good to go; congratulations I genuinely hope you enjoy your likely overpriced avatar because ultimately that's what matters, if you're happy with what you paid for then there's no harm done.

However in more cases than I care to admit, the readme will tell you to go buy various other plugins and asset packs to make the thing you just bought work.

Now as an example of how to do this right, and it's still shitty; but at least I think it's done right. There's a fishing system for sale that directly mentions in it's website based description that you'll need two other asset packs, those both being linked. Here's the hard part to justify though, for the system itself is about $23 after conversion, the other two asset packs are respectively $50 and $10, so in total something you thought would only be $23 is about $83 if you want it to actually be functional.

Now again in that case everything is listed on the website clear as day and this is at least generally how I see things being listed which is okay with me. However I've seen more cases than I care to admit where this information is advertised as "this avatar has XYZ" and then in the readme says "you'll need to purchase XYZ from [User] to get the XYZ system working!" So now we have false advertisement AND hidden fees?!

When avatars can cost more than $250 and not be a unique model of your own OC or something commissioned and still be missing additional features, sometimes shaders; which require a monthly patreon subscription to access. Only to then see that the avatar/world/asset comes with a ton of stipulations and regulations of use? It's all very hard to figure out what "fair" is anymore.

It may just be my opinion, but when someone sells me something I expect it to be a complete thing that I then own, not something I'm not "legally allowed to edit" or that isn't entirely completed and that I'd need to go purchase additional things for.

Important reminder here, all of this is for a VR application where you just kinda vibe and hang out in a virtual space. People are happy to pay expensive prices for good quality, but few people are willing to deliver good quality; fewer without a ton of rules and restrictions.

Literally not but a week ago my partner was looking at an avatar that specifically said VIEWING the blend shapes was "breaking terms of service" so that's cool. For the record blend shapes are literally just adjustable values most people use for editing an avatar without needing to mess with the mesh. It allows you to hide parts of the avatar so that clothing will fit over the mesh without clipping, or lets you easily adjust face shape to better manage your expressions or facial features.

Can we also quickly touch on the fact that I was helping a friend edit something on their avatar, and found out that the person they bought it from had positioned an entire 3D watermark of their username inside the head of the model which;

they bought the base from someone else. they bought the clothing from someone else. they bought the gimmicks and additional features from someone else. All they did was actually slap it all together.

"Yea but that takes effort" no it really doesn't see that's the thing about Avatar creation, the more you know the less any of this makes sense!

There's a plugin called Modular Avatar, it basically does all the work for you, all you have to do is select the clothing, hair, whatever you want to add to your model; right click it and select modular avatar's "setup outfit" button. It then manages all the bones for you!

This person put more effort into branding the model than they put into putting the avatar together!

I know this because while working on adding one thing to the model, one of it's core outdated scripts fucked up and caused a bunch of issues that we managed to work around by literally never allowing the avatar to enter play mode. Which makes it significantly harder to work with, so we're using two variations of the same project open at the same time, one of which is entirely fucked; but lets us nab values from the avatar while it's in play mode; the other can never enter play mode and must continue to contain a broken and outdated script; because removing it causes the blendshapes to entirely fuck up.

This would be like if I went to google images, found a bunch of pictures of anime characters; slapped one of their heads on another ones body, took another one's hair and slapped it over top, poorly merged all the layers together and then aggressively plastered my signature on it while also totally admitting where I got all the art.

Now I do admit there's a little bit of weird grey area here, see no one is commissioning these avatars; they're just up for sale. So someone who buys it is saying they feel like purchase of this avatar as it is, is entirely fair for the price. Whether or not that's true is besides the point because you could argue that the buyer wasn't forced to pay for something if they didn't want it.

But like, let's do a quick simulation...

Hi welcome to my Gumroad shop, $30 please.

What do you mean you do not want... uh... Shipiku my totally original avatar I made (with assets from other creators) for like $30?! HE HAS GIMMICKS.

...Okay yea looking at that image is physically painful to me, I have created something truly horrific. We should move on, to my favorite part of all of this which is-

Point 4 - The Eroticism Elitist-ism of the Machine!

With the Oculus Quest being a more budget friendly VR Headset for people to pick up more and more people got into VR and thus VRChat by extension. So how did VRChat respond? By making the Unplugged Quest basically the standard for "good quality" which means that a ton of worlds and avatars just won't be accessible to the VR equivalent of taping a chromebook to your face; and yet that will be the new norm. This created a pretty sizable divide in how things function. Now you have a camp of people who refuse to even permit entry to their private worlds unless your avatar is rated "good" because of "performance issues" but why would they care about cramming so many people into their world?

Oh... it's because they are monetizing access. Yea, of course they want everyone to have access to their world, the only way to get in is to know someone who's already in, or sleuth around until you find their discord; then you need to boost their discord and more often than not pay either micro-transactions inside VRChat (because that's a thing now) or pay directly through patreon/donations to the world creator.

On the other hand you have some creators who outright refuse to let quest users access their world. Even though technically the world is optimized enough that a quest user COULD access the world, there are scripts that have been implemented into various worlds that are outright hostile towards quest users, where if it detects you're using a oculus quest headset that isn't plugged into a computer; you'll essentially not be able to interact with the world. There are many ways this is accomplished, in some cases it's literally just having hostile entities that cause you to constantly respawn, other times it's more directly just moving your spawn point to a box way off the map so you're effectively locked behind a prison you can't respawn out of.

As you can imagine there's a good bit of elitism on both sides. Which yes, is just another way people are gatekeeping VR behind a paywall. Not only do you need an expensive headset, but you better buy "the right one" not to mention you'll likely want to/need to pick up full body tracking, and pay a considerable entry fee or upkeep fee to a good handful of private worlds.

"but Cryptid, people are allowed to charge for access to things they create, that's just business!" Yea I'm not saying it's not allowed, I'm saying it's shitty.

I don't insert these blurbs as though I feel like you, the reader; are ALWAYS aggressively saying these things while reading my post. I put these here because they're things I've been told before, and they're things I want to address. So please understand that these aren't hypothetical cases of arguments in my head; nor are they meant to project any personality onto you.

That in mind, let's address this; I'm not saying people aren't allowed to seek capital investment in their hobbies. Obviously as a streamer I would love if people donated to me. However this is more akin to locking my streams behind a paywall, again; totally legal and totally allowed but still kind of a dick move. Why do I have so much problem with it? Well let me explain it this way

I work at an escape room, my CEO once asked my manager what the difference between a group of 7 and a group of 2 was. My manager confidently responded "we make more money from a group of 7" to which the CEO corrected him "no, there is no difference. We do not use any more or less resources, we don't take more time to reset the room; there is no difference." We have also been asked if a group of 2, and a group of 7 come in at the same time; who do we prioritize? The answer? Whoever booked first.

What's the core concept here? Well it's a simple ideology, if we don't use any resources hosting a group, there is no difference between groups; if someone took the time to book with us earlier, we see to them earlier. It's basic logic that we take into account the care that someone has put into being here, and also what we lose in providing them the service of our escape room.

So let's apply this to a private VRChat world.

Remember, VRChat hosts these servers, so I'm not paying any upkeep costs for having an active world. Considering how scripts and programming work I have little need to pay someone to monitor or moderate my world; especially considering I do not take responsibility for the acts of those who visit my world.

Then what is the difference between a private and a public instance of my world?

Well, I'll tell you because there actually IS a difference here.

See private worlds have two very special properties.

Public display, whether streamed to an audience or done in a public world; of any NSFW imagery or behavior will result in a ban. The important take away here is if this is done in PUBLIC. Private worlds and instances are exempt from this. VRChat doesn't care what you do in private as long as it's not being streamed publicly.

Likewise, Private worlds require access to be granted via someone already in the world, and the only people who can access the private world are it's creators. Meaning that if someone wants into my world they HAVE to go through me. If I make it public, then anyone is allowed to access the world, and even host their own private instances of my world. There's one more thing about this that people don't like but we'll get into that a bit later because that's going to be a pretty lengthy discussion.

So what IS the difference? Is it just that you can partake in NSFW shit in a private world? Well, kind of; but it's more that second point that's important.

People understand that VRChat as a whole is a very, let's just say passionate place when it comes to ERP. I have no judgement on the topic, but I think the exploitation of it is a bit unnecessary. By which I mean the hosting of private worlds designed specifically to be clubs, sex parties, or otherwise exclusive NSFW events that people must pay to access. Now obviously any NSFW world is going to be private, but not all require the use of financial compensation to access.

If you're wondering how I know all this:

A. I frequent NSFW communities, my side gig is literally adult animation. Who cares. B. I have a lot of friends who participate in that sort of thing, I personally live with my partner and while I do understand the appeal of that sort of thing, it doesn't really interest me.

Regardless, it's not exclusive to NSFW worlds, more so that those are the ones I've seen asking extreme prices.

More often than not it's done through patreon, you are given a special role in a discord or you're given access to secret worlds if you pay enough monthly, with some worlds stating that for $100+ a month you can have your picture in the world. Yes, a picture; of your avatar; in an exclusive paywalled world... for $100.

Again I know this goes back to "if the consumer and the seller deem it fair blah blah blah" but if you're still arguing that, you're missing the grander point here.

If that's the case allow me a moment to try to make sense of a summary:

the internet is a place where we leave behind any inequality; a place where you and I, no matter our background, financial situations; or social standing, are equals. We bear no difference in status; only in interests. That is, unless I have access to parts of the internet you do not.

So you pay $499.99 for a headset, congratulations; you had to get a cheaper model because it's what you could afford. Now you're the target of much harassment and general dislike as you bought "the wrong headset" without consideration for how you'd be treated for it. You can't access much of the virtual net, so you decide to spend even more money to buy a few accessories; a cable that will link you directly to your computer for example (or better wifi if you use the wifi link, which yes; good internet also costs money and isn't available to everyone depending on their location. Again it's inequality.)

Now you blend in, you appear to be a PC user like anyone else, congratulations you now have access to almost just about everything, except you don't. You try to join me in a world only to see I'm in a "private instance" and my social obligations say I'm not allowed to answer your invitation request because you didn't pay to be here. I send you a discord link, it's to some random group you've never heard of, you need to join this if you want access to this one world. You can live without it, so you don't click it.

The next day you see I'm again, in a private world. You go to a few public worlds and find they're mostly populated by younger children, random people who don't want to talk to you; and most only have 1 - 2 people, with most instances of even the popular worlds being set to private. So what do you do? You ask to join me, and I again; send you a different link this time. A patreon link, that states you can gain access to the world I'm in for $10 a month, payment up front; and then you'll need to get approved through a discord.

Oh but you can't show up like this, your avatar quality is "poor" you'll need to optimize that. Looking it up online most people say to buy something off Gumroad or Booth, so you look; most avatars are extremely sexualized; the ones you can find aren't "good" quality nor are they optimized and some are outdated by a few years.

Eventually you find one that's not horrible; it's an extra $25. At this point you're paying the following, grabbing these numbers directly from the internet mind you:

$499.99 for a headset. $79.99 for a link cable (it doesn't even charge the headset) $24.99 for an avatar that is allowed on the world. $10 a month for access to the world. Oh but wait, you're not assured a slot in the private world; it can only support up to 30 people per instance and if you want to reserve a spot you need to boost the discord server, so let's tack on nitro as well, and extra $9.99 per month.

Even if you only do these as a one time payment to access this world once. Here's what you're out, in total: $624.96 before even factoring in taxes.

All of this, so you can experience a few hours of hanging out with a friend. Well, was it worth it? Let's see;

In America, the average hourly wage (not minimum, average) across all 50 states is $29.81 as of December 2020. You can look that up if you'd like I found this number via Indeed so grain of salt and all that.

But let's go ahead and say it's $30 an hour. Now for the record, most people I know work for far less, but we're not concerning ourselves with minimum wage just yet, but we will.

So if you're making $30 an hour, and you need to reach a total of (again rounding to be fair here) $625 and we're not accounting for tax eating half your pay, we're looking at:

((30 an hour * 8 hours per day) * 5 days a week)

or 240*5 = $1200 a week.

Well hey that's not so bad! You make enough in a WEEK to almost buy this all twice o-oh no. I didn't think about cost of living...

Well no this is fine let's just check the average rent!

A quick internet search will tell us "The average rent for an apartment in the U.S. is $1,718."

Well... okay, that sucks. How much is gas right now? Right okay well Forbes says "today's average price of gas in the U.S. is $3.47 per gallon" and I need about 30 gallons per tank, and I need to get gas about twice a month, I live about 15 minutes from my work and I drive a fairly fuel efficient car but that's still roughly $208 I'm spending on gas each month.

What about groceries? Again a quick search says "on average, Americans spent $779 per month on food in 2022" which means we're looking at, without even factoring in utilities, taxes, or ANY leisure activities a grand total of roughly $2,705 per month?!

This mind you, is the AVERAGE. We're low balling some of those prices and not even caring about taxes, fees, and utilities.

But hey it's okay we're making 1,200 per week! So we take that number and multiply it by 4! That means before taxes we're left with 4,800!

Hey speaking of, how does that work? Let's do another average!

Well it turns out because of how taxes work averages are hard, but I'm seeing that about 13.3% is a safe bet, so let's go with that.

13.3% of 4800 = 0.133 × 4800 = 638.4

okay, that's not TOO bad right? That leaves us with 4161.6 and then we can pay the monthly costs which leaves us with $1,456.6

Alright so now we can afford rent, gas, groceries, taxes, the works! Plus we have enough left over to pay for our fancy headset, an avatar, and access to a world, plus nitro and... jesus that's a lot isn't it?

What are we left with after all of this? $831.64

I sure hope you don't have any student loans, no credit card payments; no other obligations.

You're left with less money for the month than you made in a day of work.

"Okay sure, but the bulk of that comes from the headset!" Correct again!

One of the cheaper headsets available at that!

But did you notice that the average person would only be able to scrape by if they went out of their way to purchase something and jump through all these hoops? All for what? Paying an extra roughly $45 (20 of which renews every month) for basic access to the thing they bought the $500 headset for? That's considering the avatar you bought was actually only $25, actually still functional; and has everything included with it.

I won't make us run all the numbers again, but I want you to consider that minimum wage in America is $7.25 or just $290 before tax PER WEEK.

Let's contextualize that...

an avatar that costs $25? That's 3.44 hours. $10 access to patreon? 1.37 Tack on another 1.37 for nitro boosting.

Total cost for that $45? 6.18 hours of work before tax.

Now if you're lucky enough to have a full time job, that's not TOO bad; but this is also just for one singular world. For one singular avatar.

Remember, the cost of living stays the same; the price of gas doesn't change just because you don't get paid as much as the guy at the pump over from yours.

Working at minimum wage you'll make $1,160 a month again; before taxes. That's not even enough to cover the average cost of rent.

So if you don't make enough money to splurge on patreon and discord access, I guess you're just going to have to stick to public lobbies.

Again, it's possible; and it's legal, and that's all fine and whatever.

It's not about whether you CAN; it's about whether you should HAVE TO.

Not only is it true that not everyone can, but I genuinely don't believe anyone should have to.

It's not that I don't believe people should be paid for their hard work, or that some work doesn't "deserve compensation" rather I believe equality extends to things like paywalls.

There have been studies that prove that piracy drops the second people can afford a product. Using a piracy as a "try before you buy" format is one of the most popular; and we see this being so prevalent because for so many people, money is just so tight they can't afford the luxury of leisure activities.

Technically speaking you can access VRChat without the need for a VR Headset, however most worlds are designed around the headset and hand controls. Furthermore, arbitrary rules being held by people with private worlds allow creators to literally make the demand that you use a VR Headset and in some cases you'll not be allowed in the main instance of a private event unless you have full body tracking; which can cost upwards from $300+

Which yes, does in fact mean that gatekeeping doesn't just stop at the paywall, it extends to the disabled.

Imagine if you will, being turned away from a private event that you paid money to go to; just because of the fact you happen to be in a wheelchair and not have the ability to use leg tracking. You love to see ableism slipping into "quality control" don't ya?

Okay so what all do we know now? Let's quickly recap before I get to my last point because boy is this one gonna be a doozy and I want to make sure we're all on the same page before I break that ice and dive into that iceberg never to be heard from again.

For starters we understand that, as far as the internet is concerned; we're all equals. Money, social standing; even your background don't really mean anything here. You're an identity you put forward, allowed to be whoever and whatever you want. Chatrooms, forums, blogs, video games; these things DO but shouldn't; gatekeep their communities by putting up paywalls quite often. This is generally frowned upon more often than it's not, even when it's understood.

We know even when a company states they need to charge membership for the sake of keeping a game running or keeping a website up; we still frown upon the idea of a company gatekeeping content or usability behind a paywall. Yet in spaces like VRChat this gatekeeping is often disguised behind the idea of fair market trading and "supporting indie developers" which in some cases, is actually what's going on, and in others is sleazy cover from the likes of people like me who will point out when putting up a paywall and making demands of your users is, while totally legal and technically allowed; STILL just as shitty.

Which brings us to our next point, which is that even among that market; we have extremely overpriced and broken avatars, worlds, and assets; many of which don't come as a complete package requiring you to obtain other goods and services from other creators to get them working; most of what you can find is a jumbled mess of other people's stuff, haphazardly thrown together and thrown at you for a quick buck, a typically overpriced quick buck at that. With extremely predatory fear mongering designed to keep you from exploring unity and the VRChat Creator Companion to possibly find out how to do things yourself, because remember that this is all absolutely just wizard magic and if you fuck it up your computer will catch on fire and open a portal to hell and then slenderman will come out and Jeff the kill you! Or... you might need to restart unity or something, yea that's more likely... Oh and speaking of actually using VRChat!

Most of the actual populated worlds are hidden behind discords, patreons; or other paywalls. With most public worlds including additional features only available via patreon or by purchasing a subscription through in app micro-transactions. With costs for something as simple as having your picture presented in a world costing as much as $100 per month in same cases. If you attempt to go the route of using the non-VR app you'll likely face elitist gatekeeping where map creators do not want "ugly default posing avatars" in their private worlds they charge people to get into, so you'll still not be let in unless you buy a proper headset, and no; they don't mean the cheap ones, unless you're willing to purchase an additional attachment to make it function just like the $1,000 alternatives. Even then you may STILL be kept from the "main" instance if you don't have additional $300+ full body tracking in some cases.

So then, what do you do?

If you want to enjoy the absolute brilliance of VR in the modern era, if you want to see what it's like and experience it before capitalism chokes even more life out of it where are you to turn?

Point 5 - AHOY! WE BE COMMUNIST PIE RATERS ON THIS HERE INTERNET, TAKE YOUR CAPITALISTIC ASS BACK TO YOUR 9-5!

I have never seen such hatred and fear for anything like I have for piracy in the VRChat community.

Now this might largely stem from the idea of "rippers" people who literally rip assets live, this is why a lot of people won't put their worlds up for the public. Because they fear someone will come along and just reupload their world; and I think that's really silly because if you pay attention, it happens and it doesn't change anything because the people who are actually going to publicly available worlds continue to access the same publicly available worlds they've been going to, rather than reuploads. Most people use favorites lists or find a world through a creator, so reuploading the world will only really fool maybe a small handful of new first time users into maybe actually spending some money on a micro-transaction for a reuploaded world. Which can easily be remedied by getting rid of micro-transactions and instead maybe relying on a direct donation system if anything.

People are very up in arms about people ripping avatars and assets; and the reasons for this branch from "that's stealing" to "it's a violation of someone's personal identity!" Which sure, I can understand that somewhat.

So here's the other thing to consider, the majority of models; including "unique models" are actually just pretty simple edits or whatever of existing models.

You may not believe me, so here's a quick example:

Popular Vtuber and Twitch personality Filian!

Great model, absolutely stellar work on this one; and I am not joking, I'm not being sarcastic. Yea, I love Jingo's work... what? You thought Filian made that herself? Oh no wait you likely thought it was commissioned right? Like she had this made specific for her?

Nah she's using a Rindo base!

AND THAT'S NOT A BAD THING!

JINGO is a great avatar maker, and Filian has done some minor edits to the $46 avatar:

Oh huh? Yea no you heard me correctly, Rindo is only $46 USD.

She comes with a few toggles for outfits, she has plenty of blendshapes (and JINGO won't yell at you for adjusting them), she even comes with her own custom emojis and voice clips! Really easy to edit features and tons of clothing that is very affordable you can easily set up using modular avatar.

If you're not a fan of her base, you could use a Moe, or maybe a Selestia base fits you better, or a Kikyo; oh you want a male avatar? Try Minase he's pretty good as a base, he's the male counterpart of the female base; Shinra! All of these base models come complete with everything you need baked right in, or if they do need a shader; it's entirely free for download and the link is provided; the prices for these? Roughly range around $50 entirely affordable, easily editable; you can make your own entirely unique avatar right now using any of these as a base.

"Cryptid I thought you were talking about Rippers! Where's the PIRACY!"

Oh well, do you remember what I said before? When you make something affordable people will still buy it. There's a ton of places where these models are available for download whether or not you wish to buy them from their proper respective shops. However most people I've spoken to admit they go back and purchase the base after making their model with it because "it's affordable, a fair price for what you're getting; and the bases are very good quality!" Couldn't agree more.

But I also say this because if we humor the idea that someone rips Filian's avatar, what do they really get? They get a free Rindo with minor changes. They didn't hurt Filian, they hurt JINGO if anything; and even then "piracy is a victimless crime" applies here as well.

I will say I don't really endorse the idea of ripping things live, but the idea that live ripping is any different than piracy is also a little silly if I'm being honest.

When you build a 10 foot paywall to entry, people are going to build an 11 foot ripping tool to get over it. That IS the internet, and I wouldn't care if there wasn't such a big stink about rippers and piracy in general when it came to VRChat.

There's this idea that if you pirate something you're stealing from a small indie creator uwu and that's bad because now they can afford to eat because you were greedy! Or this concept that by pirating something and using it on your avatar, in a world; even if they'll never know, even if you're only using the models privately, you have in some way violated their privacy and commit identity theft.

As someone who has actually been the victim of identity theft multiple times, let me tell you right now, unless someone uses my avatar to specifically open another 5 Verizon accounts in my name I don't really care.

This is the only time in my life I've seen the internet HATE piracy so fervently and it made me wonder why; until I recognized that the loudest people were in the readmes of those gumroad avatars, the loudest voices weren't the creators of popular bases or models like Rindo, Kikyo, or Selestia; they were people on gumroad who fear monger and spread this message that "if you didn't pay for this avatar I will block you from my discord, ban you from ever accessing my world, and you'll never be able to buy from me again!" Like okay man I'll just go directly to the source you buy everything from get over yourself, guess I won't give you money for another overpriced avatar with awful optimization then.

When I listen to the way people talk about piracy in VRChat it's never seen as a victimless crime, it's never seen as being a normal thing the internet does, it's seen as a vile, evil; horrible soulless act of devilish greed! But they all share a common word that being "my" or "your" when people talk about it they say "yea rippers will reupload YOUR world without any care" or "yea someone took MY asset and reuploaded it on a file sharing site"

It's personal.

"Okay what about you Cryptid wouldn't you be mad if-" No.

Let me make this abundantly clear, if I ever made something for VRChat, an avatar, a world, whatever. I don't care what it is; if I made something and I put it out there on a site for like $5 and then I saw it on a website with someone saying "hey does anyone have this? I want it buy I can't afford it/don't want to pay for it." I am NOT fucking with you, I would simply answer the post myself and say "yea here ya go, if you need any help getting it set up let me know; I made it. If you ever feel like tossing me a donation or tip I'd appreciate it but don't worry if you can't afford it."

BECAUSE THAT'S COMMUNISM BAY-BEE.

I have, in the past; and even now, benefit from piracy. I'm pretty sure most people have. The only way I will ever listen to someone tell me piracy is wrong and bad and evil, is if they have literally NEVER benefit from any form of piracy, communism, or sharing of files and information; and even then I will simply understand that their opinion comes from a place of privilege.

I don't at all find it surprising that most of the people complaining about rippers and pirates come from:

Countries with good economies where they can actually afford shit (such as Norway)

Sites where they're allowed to sell the models at an extreme premium and offer no refund policy.

And that my friends, is just the tip of the iceberg of shit that goes on in Virtual Reality spaces regarding paywalling; gatekeeping, and general capitalistic bullshit.

Remember, piracy is all well and good when it benefits me, but if you want to take what I'm selling for significantly too much money, you're a soulless vile creature and I will make sure everyone knows it!

^ That's sarcasm if anyone out there has the "piss on the poor" reading comprehension.

I'm going to go eat a burger and touch grass.

4 notes · View notes

silentwillowwhisperer · 1 year

Text

I'm finally doing it.

Hi! Ummm... I'm pretty sure you've noticed the fact that I haven't posted the tattoo parlor thing for the past 2 weekends, but Imma do it now.

HUGE thanks to @multi-fandom-collection for their ideas!!! I'm gonna be using a few. (Some will come later though.)

I'm currently sketching out a tattoo for Lance, and I'll either do watercolor accents or just do the whole thing digitally.

By the way, here's a fun fact about me! I'd like to be a tattoo artist at some point. I have a mini-fantasy of opening a tattoo parlor that connects to a flower shop.

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

Keith spent the next half hour asking Lance basic questions about why he wanted the tattoo, and what he had in mind.

As the other man spoke, Keith found himself drawn into his bubbly personality. Sure, he came off as rude and a bit cocky, but he could tell that Lance was a naturally friendly person.

Keith still ignored the various pick up lines hurled at him, though.

Apparently Lance had been wanting to do this for a while, and his friends had taken matters into their own hands. They placed a bet with him that they knew he would lose, but everyone knows that Lance can't back down from a bet.

As Lance mentioned something about getting his ears pierced, and Keith found himself imagining Lance like that. Hiding his blush, he made a mental note to ask Shiro about that. He was fine sticking needles in people, but it freaks him out to see it come out the other side. Whenever he gets a new piercing, he has to ask Shiro to get rid of the mirror. If he can't see what's happening, then he doesn't mind the pain too much.

Keith is derailed from his train of thought when he realizes that Lance is holding a phone in his face.

As he takes the device, he takes note of the Forget Me Nots and blue Hydrangeas dotting his phone case.

The image Lance is showing him is one of Keith's own designs. Its a purpleish-gray dagger surrounded by roses.

Shut up, Keith's allowed to be cliché sometimes.

"I noticed that you put a lot of flowers into your art. Could we maybe do something with that? I was thinking about going for a blue theme. I don't really mind what flowers you choose. And could we replace the dagger with a lion?"

Keith smiles. All his last client told him was that she wanted something 'aesthetic.' That's it. It makes Keith's job a whole lot easier when people actually know what they want tattooed onto their body for the rest of their damn life.

He grabs the nearest sketchbook and doodles a rough design of a lion.

"Like this?"

Lance nods excitedly. "Yes! Thank you! This is awesome."

It's so sincere that Keith decides to give Lance another shot. He holds out his hand.

"Hi. I'm Keith, and right now is gonna officially be our first time meeting. I have had no crappy first impressions of you, and as far as I know, you have no association to Allura."

Lance grins and returns the handshake. "Oh, thank goodness. I was honestly worried that you were gonna hate my guts for the rest of time. And my name is Lance. It's nice to meet you, Keith."

The both laugh for a second before Lance glances at the clock.

"Oh crap! I'm late to help Hunk out with his baking! See ya, Keith!"

Keith chuckles as he watches Lance race to his car through the window.

Thank goodness not all cute boys are jerks.

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

#tattoo shop au #vld #voltron #voltron legendary defender #tattoo artist keith #keith kogane #klance #keith vld #lance mcclain #vld lance #lance vld #vld keith #tawny post

20 notes · View notes

theold-ultraviolence · 1 year

Note

hi!!

I hope this isn't too annoying - and if it is feel free to just delete this - but I was wondering if I could ask you about Aemond? I'm very much losing my current hyperfixation and I was looking around for another blorbo to put in a little glass jar and set on my blorbo collecting shelf to obsess over. and I came across your writing for Aemond (which is incredible btw) and I also saw some images of him from the show and I was definitely looking ~respectfully~ 😳

the only problem is that I don't have hbo max, and then I was wondering if it would be worth it to do like the free trial to watch house of the dragon? gosh is this just like completely unhinged?? I feel like I'm blorbo shopping or something - maybe I am just totally out of my mind at this point 😭 but I guess would you recommend watching the show for Aemond? what are the qualities that drew you to him as a character?

okay I'll stop now before I come across as unhinged and crazy beyond any hope of saving, but I would love to hear any Aemond thoughts you have to share! (and also I cannot wait to read more of your writing for him!!)

thank you so much and sorry again if this is super obnoxious! your work is amazing!!

Hey!! omg no this isn't weird or annoying at all. I'm very flattered and happy that you decided to come chat to me about it! (and thank you for reading my works, I really appreciate it!) Also, long ass answer ahead.

I'd never been interested in Game of Thrones before, at all. And at first, when HOTD came out I was just absorbing it through gifs and didn't think much of it. When Aemond came on the show and I started seeing pictures and gifsets of him, I was immediately intrigued, and super attracted to him. The more I saw his face on my dash, the more I wanted to watch the show but I was reluctant because I thought I wouldn't get it at all, without watching GOT previously. Then besties on here assured me it would be fine because it's a prequel, and that I would enjoy it without having much context other than it being a show about a very disfunctional family - and it has dragons! so I did, and let me tell you I was HOOKED. PROPERLY HOOKED ON THE PREMISE AND CHARACTERS AND EVERYTHING. So in my opinion it is definitely worth getting a trial if you're considering it, it's an amazing show!!

Knowing Aemond now (show Aemond that is, I still haven't gotten around to reading the books, and at first I wasn't going to, but because I'm so obsessed I'm thinking I might finally just dive into them. What I know about book!Aemond is what I've gathered from going through the wiki and reading posts on here), I love him because on some layer I can relate to him. Especially on that line where he says, 'TIS I the younger brother who studies history and philosophy...TIS I who should be (king)'. Also what happens to him is very tragic, and the fact that that drove him to make himself a machine is fascinating to see. Love me some good, 'transforming myself out of spite and to seek revenge' arcs in my fictional dudes. Also, his kind of silent yet deadly demeanor really speaks to me. I was imagining his voice to be just something else entirely, was picturing him as being more of a straightforward villain when I saw him in pictures, and I was really struck when he finally spoke. His voice is super collected and tender, a total contrast to his looming exterior. That contrast is just, ughhh, *cheff's kiss*. He's in a scene and you just know he's got all this energy contained, brewing under the surface until the right moment to snap. The fact that he just has one eye doesn't take anything away at all from the immense intensity of his gaze. The scenes where he's fighting - dear lord - he's so agile and brutal, and it's amazing that the actor did it all with one eye. And also just...Ewan Mitchell is crazy hot lmao, and his acting really stood out to me on the show. I thought his performance was incredibly nuanced. He doesn't have as much screen time in this season, but I feel like despite that, he definitely stole the show.

#aemond targaryen #aemond rambles #ewan mitchell

12 notes · View notes

bikenesmith · 11 months

Text

its insane how even with photorealistic ai images that don''t feature human figures, ai art that's just environments or sky/space, my "is this ai art?" alarm still goes off. it's not like i've fine-tuned a skill, beyond my knowledge of how art is made and how art looks - i only learned about ai art in the last 1-2 years.

i don't even know what my eyes + mind are actually picking up on. its different from seeing the errors in say, hyperrealistic cgi environments. its the limitations of the program/medium and human error are peeking out from behind the veil. when i see these errors i see reality. immersion breaks, and im not thinking about the movie or game, but the vfx artist who unfortunately didn't catch some wonky physics before the deadline.

with ai art there is just a very subtle Wrongness. there is no one behind the veil. no person - no medium. (tbf the Wrongness is undoubtedly increased by how many people try to pass ai images off as real photography or human-created art)

i think it's the absence of the golden ratio. sacred geometry? my mind can look and quickly see: "this is not right." these patterns make up the natural world and all the natural world creates, and my eye rarely dwells on them, but when they are absent, i can't look away from the incongruence. "this is not of my world. this does not exist in my world."

(at the same time it's specifically lack of incongruence, imperfection, that can also tip us off to ai. no visible brushstrokes. mistakes look like computer errors and not an unknowledgeable artist making a valiant attempt at drawing hands. etc. but i think this "its not right" thought is specific to images pretending to be photos.)

and this is so interesting, because what it is it about ai art that makes it so unnatural, and what is it about digital art and vfx that circumvents that reaction? is the act of intentional, individual and collective human creation really that powerful? does it show that much in the end product? or is it that the complete absence of that intentional creation that is so powerful? it makes sense that a homunculus of thousands, millions, billions of creations of thousands, millions, billions of people will create something that looks entirely like and entirely unlike anything we have ever created with our own hands. i wonder where this ingrained sense of uncanny valley comes from and why its there. it's like "big eyes = cute" except the purpose of it isn't immediately obvious.

no idea why this post is so long or why im posting it btw

11 notes · View notes

lukewarmkraftsingle · 1 year

Note

hi can you elaborate on divorced au mp100. i saw your video and i just went fucking nuts sitting in bed. in my brain. i need to know is it /j or /srs i need to know. im really obsessed. i think it would be really good

[the post. for context]

8:44 AM

thanks for the question! i woke up the morning of January 1st, this lovely, beautiful morning, with some animal crossing song stuck in my head. i know it's from new leaf because it has the theme for that game in it, but i cannot for the life of me remember what track it was. it can't be any of the new year's ones, i know how the new year's ones sound. i have an excellent memory for music and not much else, you see. the song is in very vivid detail in my mind, but i just cannot put the face to the name. or whatever. i'm listening to the whole ost right now to see which one it is. but after my eyes were open and whatever, i opened my phone to see what time it was, about 8 am, which is fine. i didn't stay up until midnight last night anyway. i fell asleep much earlier, passed out sideways on my bed, until the fireworks they do nearby every year kicked up right at midnight and woke me up. but i did get back to sleep. had weird dreams.

back to this morning, then. after checking my messages and all, i opted to look at my tumblr, because why not, sure, i have been known to do that sometimes. i scroll through any new posts, then i see something in my inbox, i open this message, read it quickly, still only half awake, immediately started cackling. there is no better way to describe the sound i made.

the animal crossing ost is on the hourly music now. i know it's not any of that either. but i like the hourly music. i'll let some of em play out. whatever.

but this message intrigues me. i thought about it while i got out of bed and took a shower. the animal crossing song was still trucking along at this point. i cleared out my shower drain the other day, so it was nice and in full functioning order to start off the year. lovely. but i also washed my shower curtains and completely forgot to put them back, but it was too late by the time i realized that i needed to do that. i was already determined to go through with the shower. maybe this is some kind of metaphor. for the new year i mean. mayhaps i will have the strength to take on whatever sort of stress that the year will throw at me, as the shower drain did, but it will be done with a sort of messy transparency, as the shower curtain-less experience offered. maybe this is the only way we can properly take on our greatest challenges. insert reigen quote. whatever. the floor is dry now, it's fine.

anyway. i think i can offer you the initial discussion that led to me making that video. much like a weed-adjacent post i made a while back, this is a discussion between me and The wife. i will offer brief commentary and context as needed below each image. or as not needed. none of this commentary has been needed. i will keep up the trend.

i take a lot of screenshots when i'm going out and about on the internet. just of little things that i find entertaining. or intriguing. i find it to be a much more reliable method than just liking the post or putting it in twitter bookmarks or whatever. much less likely to get deleted, or buried, or whatever. said reigen folder does not really exist. i do have a collection of snippets of posts like that, but there is no dedicated folder. it's with all the other mob psycho ones. there are currently 150 screenshots in that folder. do with that information what you will. i may be interested in posting those reigen ones, though. i'll think about it.

oh. it's on the rainy versions now. i think i'll just skip over those ones. about the same, just less instruments. same for the snow ones. this playlist is thorough.

this is one of the major issues with the divorced au: is it a mischaracterization of reigen? there are concerns that no woman would ever want to be within twenty feet of him. gf has expressed such sentiments previously, and i am partially inclined to agree. but i cannot say much, as anyone can see my post history on here. and you can see my reigen profile picture in these messages. while my picture was not that exact reigen image in november of 2022, it was still a reigen image. i will provide below for full immersive experience.

i am not taking questions at this time. anyway. back to the important discussion.

this is the one part of the au that i provided myself at that time that is not included in the actual post, and the main catalyst of the divorce, perhaps. i have seen other proposals in the tags, yes, but i am refraining from bringing those up. this is the initial discussion, yes? i'm keeping it disconnected from anything outside of this initial conversation.

all of the creation of the picture in the video was done in paint, with it only being moved to photoshop later so i could better flip the image. this is relevant later. i feel the need to specify, i ultimately did not end up tracing a photo. much too difficult to do in paint, and it wouldn't provide a very good look for what i was going for anyway. i did, however, heavily reference another better stock photo i found. surely said photo is not very difficult to find, which is good, because i do not have it on hand either. sad!

and here is the reason why the drawing was turned into a video. for whatever reason, i was possessed to flip the small drawing of mob (psycho 100), and i discovered that it was, perhaps, the greatest activity i could have possibly chosen to partake in. it was mesmerizing. this message was sent after the video was made, but i feel as though it is much more clear than the message i sent before making the video, which was simply a crazed declaration of it "flip[ping] so good," followed by a complaint about the lack of a flip shortcut in paint. if anyone knows of a "flip selection" shortcut in paint, please let me know. i could not find one, even though i searched very carefully for one.

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

the animal crossing song was not the new year's one. it was the fireworks festival music. from new leaf.

youtube

listen to it. it's one of my favorites. i can't believe i forgot when it plays. very sorry! and to all of my one-earbud user friends out there, use both for this one. as you should for all animal crossing music. or turn your sound onto mono i don't know.

anyway. i suppose i should offer a brief summary of where we've gotten: reigen arataka, greatest psychic of the 21st century, had a wife at some point, and he no longer has a wife, due to a divorce, presumed at least a bit messy. questionably canon. it could certainly be inserted into canon fine enough. he is gay.

let's take some questions from the audience, then!

there are a couple of tags along these lines, i believe, but this provides a degree of severity to any sorts of divorce theorizing. it's a bit of a spectrum in my mind. i like the percentages. really meshes well with the rest of the series. 100% divorced. y'know?

not me creating lore for this. i think this one offers an interesting perspective on all of it. i suppose that my depiction does offer a sort of swapping of their usual dynamic. when i first saw these tags, it brought to mind an alternate approach to the usual depictions of the standard "age swap" au, in which i feel, in my heart, pushing 30 mob is at least 16% divorced. the dynamic in the video, when taken at face value i think, would be more descriptive of overly enthusiastic younger reigen and some degree of "divorced in vibes" mob. surely most are familiar with such au shenanigans, and surely you are too, dearest anonymous person, if you have read this far. you seem to have some interest in alternatives to canon. if not, it is certainly not hard to come across. i have no other constructive comments on age swapping. someone else go and do that. i don't know.

but i suppose i should be speaking with slightly more relevance. i do have some purpose in drawing them in this manner. i see the show as a bit more lighthearted, generally. this is absolutely not to downplay the themes it tackles. but the average episode is generally more playful. and with reigen often being the cause of that. uh. m. i feel like i was going somewhere with this. but uhh. such shenanigans in the drawing are for the purpose of exaggerating the uh. the abnormality. yeah. sure. definitely did it with Grand Purpose and not just because i thought the mob looked funny.

and now we come to some constructive criticism! i love receiving constructive criticism.

uh. yes. but this is divorced au. anything is possible. the fabric of reality is tearing apart as we speak.

and now, the question we've all been waiting for: who was he married to? there are certainly some possibilities. as i currently have none, i am turning to my notes again.

i believe this tag presents an interesting possibility. this is not a marriage of romance. i was not actually familiar with the term "lavender wedding," but i am certainly familiar with the concept. two people going into a heterosexual marriage to conceal their true attractions, yes? this does go against my suggestion that the divorce is caused because reigen is gay, but it does resolve the constructive criticism presented above. i find this concept incredibly entertaining the more i think about it, however. imagine being so desperate to try to conform to societal norms that you marry Reigen Arataka. imagine coming to find the concept of having to pretend to be in love with reigen so aggressively unappealing that you are willing to forgo the social acceptance you've gained for yourself and divorce him, which depending on what kinda situation you're in, that's no good either. and after all the work you've had to put in to pull this off. imagine. incredible. does he fight for it? does he go deeper into the act?? do you start getting convinced that he was straight and in love with you the entire time?? actually maybe not that far. whatever. entertaining concept. love that.

and now we get into something a little bit funky. !!!!!!!!!!! and this section is a tad bit spoilery if you haven't read the reigen manga yet this is your first and final warning !!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!! and also go read it it's not that long and. i think you should !!!!!!!

i'm not sure how that timeline would work. they knew each other before the manga? imagine the drama though. a whole new way to read the spinoff. reigen's ex-husband (wife???????) comes across his goofy little psychic business, and reigen immediately starts trying to one-up him with spiritual level bs. and both fake psychics, they're soulmates <3 until they got divorced. whatever.

OK I'M DONE WITH MINOR SPOILERS YOU CAN COME BACK NOW

and finally, i uh

uhh. um. well. i sure hope not.

but i suppose as the arbiter of mp100 divorced au, i should offer my own thoughts on who his ex-wife is. uh. i don't particularly have any. it could be literally anyone. maybe they don't even need to be named. but i suppose if someone really needs to be his ex-wife, it's whoever you think is funniest, dearest anonymous asker person. whoever you feel is his ex-wife in your heart. i am only here to present a handful of possibilities. the truth that you seek lies within you. as long as his ex-wife isn't me. god i hope it's not me.

i guess i could consult gf about this hold on

HHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i can't do this

you don't have to listen to them. ok. you don't. it's not true.

anyway. just a few things to tie this up nicely at the end.

much appreciation to everyone who put keysmashes in the tags. i am honored. and everyone else too! i like reading my notes. fun times. you're all cool. i tried to keep the tags i put here focused on the task at hand, but every tag has been thoroughly appreciated, do not worry.

i am also honored to present the award for Tag That Made Me Absolutely Lose It When I Read It to this one:

thank you for being significantly funnier than i could ever dream of being.

and finally, to send all of you off, one last thing tossed together and heavily inspired by a couple of the tags, which i am upset that i did not think of myself:

is this all /j? is this /srs? i want to say it's /j, but i've put too much time into this now. very sorry dearest anonymous person. you have sent me into a sort of crisis. i suppose i put too much effort into everything that should remain as 5 minutes max /j Content. well.

hope that answers your question!

4:20 PM

#mp100 divorced au #proud to be the second post on the tag #mp100 #mob psycho 100 #sincerest apologies for this one #my stuff #terribly sorry posted left didn't even add a keep reading thing on it this thing is very long #a protein bar is my meal. main course. it isn't very good

11 notes · View notes

bizarrequazar · 2 years

Text

GJ and ZZH Updates — August 21-27

<<< previous week || all posts || following week >>>

This is part of a weekly series collecting updates from and relating to Gong Jun and Zhang Zhehan.

This post is not wholly comprehensive and is intended as an overview, links provided lead to further details. Dates are in accordance with China Standard Time, the organization is chronological. My own biases on some things are reflected here. Anything I include that is not concretely known is indicated as such, and you’re welcome to do your own research and draw your own conclusions as you see fit. Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or additions. :)

[Glossary of names and terms] [Masterlist of my posts about the situation with Zhang Zhehan]

08-21 → 361° posted a photo ad featuring Gong Jun.

→ Another similar tea-peddling scam seems to have started being used with Deng Lun, another cancelled artist.

→ The Instagram posted another set of photos and a video of the supposed biking trip Zhang Sanjian and co. went on. Fan Observations: - One photo shows his knee being improperly iced; the length of his leg and toes do not match Zhang Zhehan’s. - The trip from Yunnan to Hunan that they supposedly did in a day takes fourteen hours by car. - The caption uses vocabulary not used in mainland Chinese.

→ Two unreleased photos from a photoshoot Gong Jun did for Marie Claire last year (released 21-05-28) were posted by the photographer.

08-22 → Peng Lihu, Golden Shield Cloud Institute, and 上海成雨’s Weibo accounts were muted. Peng Lihu had said he was going to “voluntarily mute himself to focus on work” less than 12 hours earlier.

→ The Instagram posted ten photos from the supposed bike trip, two of which show “Zhang Zhehan”. They finally thought to put dirt on the bike.

→ Go Fighting! episode 8 aired. Gong Jun did not appear in this episode as he was busy with filming. [full episode]

→ People’s Energy Network posted a quote from Gong Jun, citing him as a positive energy icon for youth: “Chew the hardships you encounter like a meal, life is meant to be digested slowly by yourself anyway. No longer wander the endless road of growth, but win through experience, search for direction and keep looking.” [quoted translation]

→ The teashop was fined 900 RMB for false advertising with the person in charge listed as Chen Qunling, Chen Yiling’s relative (presumably her sibling).

08-23 → Hsu Fu Chi posted a photo ad featuring Gong Jun.

→ Sheena announced the total amount raised during the charity drive she organized over the weekend of 08-13, totaling $3,186.13 USD.

→ Colgate posted a photo ad featuring Gong Jun.

→ VogueFilm posted a solo promotional image featuring Gong Jun for the short film “Hello, Hello” shortly followed by the magazine cover featuring both him and his co-star. Gong Jun’s studio reposted the latter with the added caption, “Multi-dimensional space changes, virtual and reality are intertwined. Start a wonderful fantasy journey together with boss @ Gong Jun Simon 😎.” A hashtag about this got on Weibo’s hotsearch.

An hour later VogueFilm also posted nine promotional stills from the film, followed by a ten second teaser video. The caption for the video included, “After experiencing the life of AI firsthand, we asked Gong Jun, if you had an AI, what kind of settings would you like to give him? Gong Jun thought for a while, and then said with certainty: ‘I hope he can be as firm and persistent* as I am.’ These are the words Gong Jun said to ‘AI Gong Jun’, but also to himself.” *执着, specifically persistence in refusing to let go. [source]

→ Gong Jun posted four of the same promotional stills. Caption: “Hello, Hello.” This was reposted by his studio with the added caption, “The virtual world is full of smoke. Boss @ Gong Jun Simon invites you to watch the movie ‘Hello, Hello’ 🎬.”

→ VogueFilm posted nine behind the scenes photos.

→ #龚俊simon and #GongJun trended on Twitter.

→ The Instagram posted eight more photos from the supposed bike trip. The bike bag in one photo looks like it was intentionally rubbed in dirt to make it look less new. A ridiculous amount of water armies were hired to like Xie Yihua’s Weibo post of the photos.

This whole bike trip saga isn’t being met with the enthusiasm Xie Yihua and co. seem to have hoped for, as a number of other big accounts (that have been shown to have ties to CAPA) have been trying to direct traffic to it.

→ Rising with the Wind’s screenwriter said in comments that the show’s trailer is currently in editing and might be released soon, and that the editing of the show itself has been completed.

08-24 → #ZhangZhehanIsInnocent and CAPA trended on Twitter.

→ Gong Jun posted a commercial he did for Hogan. (1129 kadian) This was then reposted by Hogan.

→ Hogan posted four photo ads featuring Gong Jun. (1129 kadian) Gong Jun also posted these on his Instagram. Caption: “Cool? 😈”

→ The Zhang Sanjian WeChat account posted a laughably cringey “a day in the life of” post only to delete it shortly after because of how bad the reception was lol.

→ A staff member posted a couple behind the scenes photos from the Hogan photoshoot, including a picture he took with her and a couple others.

→ Colgate posted a commercial and a photo ad featuring Gong Jun.

→ The Instagram posted ten more photos and videos of “Zhang Zhehan” and “Xiaoyu” from the supposed bike trip.

→ Hogan posted nine behind the scenes pictures from the photoshoot. Fan Observation: Not an exact kadian, but this was posted at 17:29.

→ Gong Jun reposted a post from Chongqing Post about recent severe weather conditions in the region with the added caption, “Heavens bless Chongqing, help Chongqing, let us #protect this city together# !” His studio did the same with the caption, “Help Chongqing, let's guard it together!”

→ #GongJun trended on Twitter.

08-25 → The Instagram posted more photos from the bike trip.

08-26 → Hogan posted a behind the scenes video from the photoshoot. (1129 kadian) Gong Jun’s studio reposted it with the caption, “On the set it is unrestrained, recording the infinite energy release of boss @ Gong Jun Simon!” Fan Observation: Possible kadian on the repost. 12:20 → 1+2+2=5 → 51129 with the Hogan timestamp.

→ Fresh posted a photo ad featuring Gong Jun.

→ 361° posted a photo ad featuring Gong Jun.

→ Reporter Bai Ying’s Weibo account was muted and the ability to change his personal information was disabled, with the reason given being that the account had violated laws. It’s unconfirmed at this time, but this is believed to be done in cases where the account holder “has infringed another’s rights and is in litigation or is currently being supervised and punished.” [source]

08-27 → A Twitter space was held reviewing the timeline of Zhang Zhehan and Gong Jun’s relationship in autumn 2020. [recording] (written notes forthcoming)

→ Gong Jun posted a vlog, caption: “Shallow tour of west Sichuan”, and commented with the background music: “BGM: 1.accusefive - Pain Toast 2.Coldplay - Orphans 🤗” [subbed video] His studio reposted it with the added caption, “Come and travel west Sichuan with boss @ Gong Jun Simon 😎, and there is an exclusive ‘Gong’ revealing content, come quickly.” He later also posted the video to his Xiao Hong Shu with the caption “Eat, play and visit western Sichuan. Wuhu~” Fan Observations: - Eleventh 浅, ninth only counting Weibo. - Gong Jun was wearing a blue mask at one point in the video. - At 2:16 in the video, there is what seems to be a second voice for a moment that sounds like Zhang Zhehan. Take this with a grain of salt.

→ #JunZhe trended on Twitter.

→ Kangshifu posted a photo ad featuring Gong Jun.

→ The Instagram posted ten more photos from the bike trip. Fan Observations: It was determined by signs in the background that the photos were taken in Yunnan, about 240km (about a 13-16 hour bike ride) from where they started.

Additional Reading: → Flora’s daily fan news thread

<<< previous week || all posts || following week >>>

#Zhang Zhehan #Gong Jun #Word of Honor #woh cast #lld timeline

24 notes · View notes

voyageofthenautilus · 1 year

Text

A Pearl Worth Ten Million

Mod Blue: It's taken me a while to blog about this chapter, but I do intend to blog about it, because this is an Important Chapter. Upon re-reading it, it may have become my third favorite chapter in the book (first is "The Coral Realm," second is... you'll see).

-“Rifles! What for? Don’t your mountaineers attack bears dagger in hand? And isn’t steel surer than lead? Here’s a sturdy blade. Slip it under your belt and let’s be off.”

Omg, I can just picture Aronnax's eyes going wide, and he starts to say something like "wait, are you sure about this?", but then the helmet goes over his head and everyone sets off and he's resigned to let go of his fears and follow them. I'd say "someone should draw this," but the more I say that, the more I think that someone should be me.

-I had no idea that crabs that eat coconuts were a thing, but I am very happy to now know that they ARE a thing.

-I wonder how that oyster feels about Nemo periodically coming by to open it up and check on his pearl. Also, how would Nemo determine when it's "done," so to speak? It would make a fine addition to his collection even at its current size. I feel like he's just showing off by this point.

-"...soon we reentered Our Element. I think I’ve now earned the right to dub it that." Yeah, yeah, Pierre, don't get a big head about it. (This is giving me some of the same vibes as the last line of the book, but I can't talk about that because SPOILERS...)

-Captain Nemo fighting the shark= YESSSSSS! Mentally I'm jumping up and down and squealing like a teenager whose crush has just asked them out. (And how lovingly Aronnax describes this incident, too... "I can see Captain Nemo’s bearing to this day..." He IS the teenager and Nemo is his crush.)

-Also, gotta hand it to Ned here for helping out- I hope he'll calm down now that he's finally managed to kill something.

-"How startled he must have felt, how frightened even, at seeing four huge, copper craniums leaning over him!" This is another image that MUST be drawn, as I can see it so clearly in my head.

-Aaaaaand there's the Important Moment from this chapter- Captain Nemo giving the diver his pearls. I wonder if he was prepared to run into someone and that's why he brought them along? Anyway, this shows that underneath it all... Nemo DOES still care about humanity, to an extent. He DOES have a heart and a conscience. (Back when I posted that earlier meta about Nemo, I was planning on writing an addendum discussing this moment, but I didn't want to mention it until the emails caught up to it, and now I don't remember what exactly I wanted to say. Anyway care to expound upon this moment and what it means for Nemo's character?)

-One final spoilery note (if you don't know Nemo's canonical backstory and want to be surprised, don't keep reading):

So, the last line of the chapter has a LOT of significance.

“That Indian, professor, lives in the land of the oppressed, and I am to this day, and will be until my last breath, a native of that same land!”

When I first read this line, having read The Mysterious Island which explains Nemo's backstory, I thought... did the translator intentionally implicitly reference Nemo's backstory with this line? Because anyone who's read that book can tell you that Nemo is, in fact, Indian. And as I recalled the story, Verne hadn't written Twenty Thousand Leagues with this backstory in mind. As I recalled it, Nemo had originally been written as Polish, but at the urging of his editor, he obscured all direct references to his background, and later wrote him as Indian in The Mysterious Island since a Polish character fighting against Russian oppression may have caused political controversy, apparently. This whole time I've been re-reading this book, I've been under the impression that Verne had not, at this point, determined Nemo's official background. But I was wrong- it looks like Nemo was only written as Polish in early drafts of the book, and despite keeping his background vague, he may have already settled on depicting Nemo as Indian by the time the book was published.

Now that I've read this chapter, I now see that Verne likely already had Nemo's Indian background in mind. This is how he wrote the line in French:

« Cet Indien, monsieur le professeur, c'est un habitant du pays des opprimés, et je suis encore, et, jusqu'à mon dernier souffle, je serai de ce pays-là ! »

And going off my VERY rudimentary French knowledge, it means something close to how Walter translated it:

"This Indian, professor, is an inhabitant of an oppressed country, and I am still, and, until my last breath, will be from that country!"

If anything, this almost makes it MORE explicit, with Nemo specifically saying he's from the same country. However... even though it appears Verne was dropping a huge hint with this line... This should not be taken as THE background reveal. That only occurs in The Mysterious Island. This line does not keep Aronnax from wondering about Nemo's background. It does not illuminate anything for him, except confirming that he has empathy for citizens of oppressed nations. There's no moment where he puts two and two together. Up until the end of the book, Nemo is still somewhat of a cipher, and while readers can probably figure it out, what's important is that Aronnax doesn't, and therefore it should not be assumed that he does.

#thoughts from mod blue #voyage of the nautilus

8 notes · View notes

pbandjesse · 7 months

Text

Today was a good day. I am not as bone achingly exhausted. I am just mildly tired. So I am pretty pleased about that. Though I am still really excited to go to sleep.

I slept alright last night. I woke up and was just like if bleh. I stretched for a few minutes. And went to get ready for the day.

I liked my outfit. And my face. But my hair is still really bothering me. It is feeling really healthy and that's nice but it's just a little. Flat. And I only feel pretty when it's pulled up. Frustrating for sure. I can't wait for it to cool down so I can wear hats. Hats will make me feel a little better. I also just want my hair to be longer. I did trim it at work yesterday but mostly just my bangs. I don't want to take anything off the bottom. I got all the splits cut off already. So now we just focus on making it healthy and good.

James left for work and I took a few minutes to get myself together. My first stop was to go to the restaurant store. I was nervous but I would get there at 8am and it was neat! I liked looking around at stuff and seeing the large containers of things that are normally in smaller portions.

The guy at the desk was very helpful and I found the coffee percolator and paid for that and headed out. The nice cashier lady carried it outside for me but that wasn't necessary, it wasn't heavy, just a bit awkward in size.

It was a longer drive to work. But I would still beat everyone there getting there before 9.

I went to the lodge first to set up the coffee thing. I collected the old broken one and took it to the recycling shed.a s the. Spent some time talking to Bonnie and petting buddy the dog. It was a nice little way to start the day.

I would have a really productive day. But it was also full of different parts which I liked a lot.

When Heather got in she let me know it was Elizabeth's birthday! Happy birthday Elizabeth! And because it was her birthday we were going to go have breakfast at the filling station together. I was excited. I have never worked at a job where we could just stop and go have breakfast as a group?? That's so cool.

I wasn't even particularly hungry but it was fine. Once Elizabeth got there we would all get in Heather's car (well her daughter Sophie's car, Heather got a flat tire yesterday) and went to the cafe.

I've heard lots of good things from people at camp about the filling station. I was surprised that it was Mexican! I thought it was just a cafe. But I love Mexican and absolutely want to go back.

Me and Heather got savory bagels and Elizabeth got a sausage burrito. They also got lattes and I got an iced Mexican hot chocolate. Which was spicy and lovely. I don't often get to get special drinks because they are usually coffee so this was exciting.

We sat and talked and it was fun. I liked telling stories and hearing theirs. We talked work as well to make it a business expense. It was a beautiful day.

We would stop at the post office before going back to camp. I told them stories about when I worked for the insurance company and how much I loved it but how stressful it was. And how me leaving there lead me to meeting James. Everything happens for a reason.

I would get a lot done when we got back to camp. I worked on some more research. I worked on my lessons. It took a while but I got all my reference images on every project. All 46 pages of them. And added all the supplies for each. Eventually I would start adding Amazon links but I wouldn't get a lot of that done.

But I wasn't just doing one thing. When I would feel myself getting bored I went and did something else.

I would take my two packages up to the art building. It was my little caboodle boxes and now I'm going to be so organized with my supplies. I'm really pleased. I need to get more feathers but I think on Tuesday I'm going to investigate the Yukon basement to see if I can find any there first. And once I was done organizing I started going through my books to decide what ones might be useful for summer. I had to take out any that said they are only read in the winter and put those in a box labeled "winter stories". I also took out any that were written like a grandparent telling a story to a child. Didn't need that meta. Just direct stories please.

I would eventually wander over to homestead. Which I feel like is pretty embarrassing right now. Just a mess. I came up whole a whole list of things to be done to make it not a nonsense area. And would try to collect up some stuff that was left on the ground or in the pens. But it's to much for me to tackle on my own.

So I went back to the office and made a list and started pricing out my projects. When Heather came back from helping clean the pool with Elizabeth I talked to her about it and she thinks getting the boy scouts to help with this is the best course of action and she made me feel really good about my work. That I'm handling the programing and that while they have so much going on they are really happy to have me handling this stuff and following through. That made me feel really good. Really useful.

I would print all the journals I'll need for next week. And after I folded all 60 of those (while listening to a video on YouTube) I took a little break.

I would use my coupon and a sale at Ulta to get two of my lotions for the price of less then one. So that was exciting. I decided to order it for pick up. Something I've never done before. And it stressed me out when after the 2 hours (it was supposed to take) I wasn't sure it was going to be ready to be picked up. Jess said I should just go and it would be fine.

So as the day wound down, after I had made a few walks around camp, went and hung up the blanket I got for decoration in the pueblo, made sure the art building was locked, I headed out.

I went to Ulta in Towson. And they were wildly busy. But as I was waiting in line to ask I got the email that my order was ready so I was directed to the pick up table and they apologized for the delay but I was just happy to have my lotions.

I drove across the street to target next. Where I smelled all the deodorants. I got a jumpsuit for layering, which is something I have been on the lookout for so I was very excited about it. And I found some period underwear. Because on Wednesday I'm getting my IUD out. And I don't know what is going to happen but I am assuming I'll get my period for the first time since 2017. And I got two pairs because the sign said I'll get a $5 gift card.

But apparently I needed the app and the line was really long and once I was directed to guest services the guy was like. Oh you need the app. And I was like it's fine then don't worry about it. And he just quietly got me the gift card and when I told him he was so sweet he got the cutest smile. It's so nice when people are nice.

I got home at 530 and James was at the front door waiting for me. Which made me feel so happy. Because I was kind of emotionally exhausted. And needed to be frustrated and vent for a little. But they made me feel better.

I put on my new jumpsuit and they told me I looked great in it. I can't wait to wear it with sweaters.

James and me would hang up our Halloween decorations and I am thrilled. I love the paper bats on the mantle best. I am also just excited to have the Halloween stuffies out again.

James would walk to get us pizza. I took a shower while they were gone. I got a little upset and just watched videos on the couch and didn't feel my best.

Eating dinner helped a little. Having a little cry helped. I would pack up the bears for the market tomorrow. Talked to Jess about the highlights of our days. And eventually got in bed.

Which is where I am now. I'm going to go brush my teeth soon and try to just go to sleep because I have gotten more tired as I've been writing this. I have a very long day tomorrow. Market and then a break and then a wedding st the museum. I hope to get a little nap in between and that will help me. I hope it's a fun day.

Sleep good everyone. I hope you are taking csre of yourself. Goodnight!

2 notes · View notes

transhawks · 1 year

Note

What even is this so-called "hero and villain" side of fandom? Why are we so divided? Why do people assume "so and so" must be friends and obviously know of each other as "a group" thus representing, the entire "other side." Why do we believe certain "groups of blogs" must definitely hold a certain opinion because of a few posts from other blogs that are part of that "other labelled side" not realizing they're completely unaware of each other and do not agree? Is that what creates this "middle ground" of not really fitting in with either of them?

I've been shifting between all three, and I've noticed some hero stans think villain stans think a certain way, but those villain stans are the same ones you and some others disagree with, but yet those opinions seem to largely define "the other side." I've also often seen villain stans act petty and engage with hero stans in the way your anon does here, and some anons constantly share that "perceived majority view point" with hero stans, and I think this is what's causing this huge disconnect. These individual people going from blog and blog sharing stories and that colors our perceptions of each other, and we put everyone into a collective bubble despite these three sides of fandom having smaller groups with their own perspectives on the series that don't match that perceived image. A lot of these three sides even have things they agree with each other on, and things they enjoy about the series, the common ground is there, but we're too divided and chose to stay in our own areas, and I do think that is for the best because one way or another, the differences in opinion will collide somewhere.

I just wish some individuals would stop trying to stir up trouble, it leads to things like someone calling all Hawks stans annoying with a petty meme over proper communication, all because of a basic post where an anon was saying Twice wasn't a good person for his willingness to kill, and the OP clarifies that that wasn't the reason they thought Hawks called him a good person, but because Hawks thought Twice had the potential to be a good person because of the positive traits he'd seen in Twice and wanted him to channel it into something else. Which is a fine opinion to have whether you agree with it or not or think it's all wrong because Hawks is the devil obviously, but my point is: It's a basic post like every other basic post on this website where nobody is attacking anyone or being sassy or rude, which makes the response received completely uncalled for imo, and with the lack of fact-checking? Leads to a "common idea" of a certain group of people "acting a certain way" without knowing what prompted that idea and if it's even deserving. For the record, I used to be guilty of this as I thought all villain stans read the League as positive revolutionaries, not realizing how harmful they were to themselves, but it's been a good year or so since then ever since I decided to actually see what some of you were saying instead of going off word-of-mouth. But that's also why I know how much making exaggerations and spreading assumptions can be an issue.

So, I love my fandom history. I'd say the divisions were less a thing prior to 2018/9 for a couple reasons - the League were less interesting. We had less of them, and the villains were just not given the same depth...yet (i argue 115 is one of the best chapters in this manga). You had stans, of course, and essentially people into the adults over the kids really gravitated towards the villains.

I'd say a few things changed that.

The League went after Overhaul and cemented themselves as a 'group' more so than a bunch of random wackos.

And Dabi is Touya theory got really a lot of confirmation from the Pro Hero arc.

Essentially, once the Hawks Infiltration plot entered this manga, the manga shifted in focus. The villains got more time, more depth, often more than the kids for certain villains. Then MVA happened.

So it went from interest to genuine interpretation of the manga after this. Horikoshi basically threw away his earlier statement of not wanting to humanize the villains too much and started doing that. Villain stans went from people who just found the villains more interesting to being in a space where we were debating how right the villains were as the world started kind of proving they might have a bit of a point. This did divide the fandom. One of the uhh core divides is really about narratives and how we read the story.

I'll give myself as an example - I'm a Hawks-focused blog, right? From the very start I made this blog to talk about him, since I was fine on my main account randomly rbing bnha once in a while, and I was really into Deku before I caught up circa June 2018. It was wanting to write meta on Hawks that changed that. Now, a lot of the names of people who wrote meta alongside me back then are no longer active as far as I can tell, but I'm still here. And yet you know why I've not gone into the Hawks tag in a year and a half? Every time I try to do a mass rb of fan art there's always a couple I can't because I'm blocked. People I've never interacted with or seen in my life. It doesn't really bother me, just gives me pause because I'm rarely the type to block. Unfollow, yes, but not block. The only people I've really blocked were certain unhinged people I absolutely do not wish to engage with or former friends who hurt me deeply and even seeing their blog names causes me discomfort. So I always wonder what was it that made these people block. It comes down to interpretation and talking about.

I've made peace with the fact those random Hawks-likers dislike my take on the character. It's fine, I don't have to prove much to them these days. I've been right, I've also been wrong. But I've written stuff for this small fandom space for years, and I know enough that if I am wrong, I'll accept it when it comes out. But those fans are bothered seeing my posts, and I think that's where the divide is - when we challenge each other's view of the manga. And visibility is unfortunately as good as. I don't tag my meta as #antihawks or #hox because I'm not "anti" the character, just able to articulate and criticize and CELEBRATE how flawed this character is (that and I get really upset when i see people tag my stuff with #hox as it reminds me of the people I once thought were my friends).

Simply, it's about the interpretation of the manga. You have people in parts of this fandom who absolutely do not believe the villains can be saved or that the hero children should save them. There's little communication I can have with people when we so fundamentally disagree on this. Same with my views on Hawks being wrong. Those people who block me fundamentally disagree with me on Hawks having done the wrong thing. Conversations are difficult.

I get your point here. Like I don't assume all "hero" stans are like the unhinged anon who sends me asks about the kids doing emotional labor or something. Some part of me is just "we have different interests" about people who mainly focus on the kids.

But there is a boogie man kind of anon thing, you're right. A lot of people don't see the bad takes they're told of them through their inboxes. It makes things go haywire. I will say my recent stuff is in response to seeing discussions and feeling absolutely dismayed at at a few villain-focused blogs that I know interact with me. The message was for them.

But you're right in that there isn't a "common consensus" because fandom is not a hive mind and shouldn't be. I've been in a space where we tried to make a hive mind in 2020 and let me tell you, it's awful. I refuse to like censor or remove my opinions to be part of a group these days because I did that in 2020 and it hurt so badly because nothing was good enough in that space - we all watched each other like raptors looking for the slightest misstep or transgression, to the point where the person I'd consider the ringleader of it all would look at who like what post when she didn't like the post or not engage with a post. It was insanity. I wish I can attribute it to pandemic lunacy, but like.... I can't. It was just a lot of absolutism and power highs. No nuance. People got cut off quickly like contestants in a contest reality tv show.

But views change. I did read the League as that, or more was inclined to. I hoped Tomura would change his mind and break free from AFO, because even I saw his beliefs and wants as self-harming back in 2019. There was a lot of this tied into his name being Tenko, a term for the coerced ideological renouncement of communism prior to WWII of many prominent Japanese leftists who then supported the emperor. I was sure there was a "turn" somewhere in his future and I hope he'd fight AFO and lead the League to something greater. When the possession plot happened, that ruined most of that for me but it took me a year or so to really process where the manga was headed.

If anything what I'm most dismayed about is people not like... letting their earlier views go as the manga goes on. Dabi is very different than we thought initially, and very few people accurately predicted the sheer level of jealousy, or how much he adored his father (compared to his other siblings). Endeavor is far more complicated than we thought initially, and while I still call him an abuser and rapist I also ponder a lot about Endeavor with broader questions about abolitionism and restorative justice and whether rapists and abusers can be reformed because these are the sort of difficult questions all this makes me ask myself. But a lot of people refuse to even question previously held opinions. idk, sorry for rambling. Your ask made me reflect on how much the fandom has changed in the years I've been here, over and over again.

#asks

12 notes · View notes