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mellometal · 3 years

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ATTENTION: This is some recent information about the current events with Chris Chan that I've been able to find, plus additional information that I couldn't find anything on that is now public knowledge.

ALL videos about any updates will be linked so you can watch them for yourself, if you wish.

Again, OBLIGATORY trigger warning: This post will be going into very sensitive subject matter, including r@p3, s3xual assault, elder abuse, and inc3st. I will also be mentioning the site Kîwî F@rm$ and the person who runs it (Null). DON'T go onto Kîwî F@rm$. Just stay away from there. It's like 4chan (another site full of REALLY fucked up shit, depending on which forum you go to), but worse.

If anything I mentioned is triggering for you or makes you otherwise uncomfortable in any way, you don't have to read this post. It's not worth putting yourself in a bad state mentally. Take care of yourself, please. Consume media that sparks joy for you.

ALRIGHTY, LET'S GET TO IT. Because there's quite a lot of bullshit that happened since the first post I made about the current events. And some more information that will most likely be the nail in the coffin for Chris. I'm patiently waiting for more updates as they come and I'll share them here as soon as possible.

The person Chris was in a call with was revealed to be a troll under the name "Bella". The screenshots of messages and the audio from the call have all been confirmed to be real.

It's also been revealed that Chris confided in Null about her having a girlfriend, having s3x with her, all that. Here's a list of things to describe this "girlfriend" below, which I will compare to Barbara in bold:

This woman is "in her over fifties". (Barbara is eighty years old. Most people would assume that someone's in their late fifties when this terminology is used. Eighty is well over fifty.)

Her favorite person was the late Adam West in the 60s, as it was "for her son back then". (I don't know if Chris is referring to her half-brother Cole Smithey [he does movie reviews, and he's most famous for being one of the only people to give Toy Story 3 a negative review] here, or if she's referring to herself before she came out as trans. I'm adding this here anyway.)

Chris has known this woman "for a long time", offline and in-person. (OBVIOUSLY she's known Barbara her whole life, since she's, AGAIN, HER MOTHER! DUH.)

They've been having s3x "every three nights". (Like how Chris admitted to doing to her defenseless mother. PRETTY FUCKING FISHY, IF YOU ASK ME.)

They began having s3x on June 27th. (The same day that Chris admitted to doing to Barbara.)

This woman was an accountant when she was younger. (Barbara's job was EXACTLY this.)

Chris said she feels grateful to "enlighten" her girlfriend with s3x play that she (the woman) "missed from even her exes". (I didn't mention this in my initial post, but if you chose to watch the videos that were linked, Chris mentioned that Barbara's boyfriends and ex-husbands "have never been able to make her 0rg@$m" like Chris did. SHE EVEN MENTIONED HER LATE FATHER. THAT'S FUCKING DISGUSTING AND DISRESPECTFUL.)

Chris has been "keeping her girlfriend safe" too. (She had been "taking care of Barbara" since Bob, her late father, passed away. This right here is proof alone that she was talking about HER MOM!)

Her girlfriend "didn't want to do it at first", it was "very painful" for Chris's girlfriend in the beginning, and it took a few tries for them "to get going". This included Chris doing it FOR her because she thought her girlfriend would "feel better" due to her lack of mobility and lucidity. (Chris said all of this exact stuff TO "BELLA" during their call.)

Null initially thought that Chris was lying about sleeping with her mother to cover up the fact that she had a girlfriend and having s3x with her. Why? Because apparently people would believe Chris would have s3x with her mother than some other unknown woman. Chris told Null to keep her girlfriend's identity secret because she was afraid her girlfriend would get trolled and she'd end up losing her.

What Null realized was that what Chris told him completely matched the description of Barbara. Note that before he looked into this, he was unaware of the context Chris was giving him about her "girlfriend".

It's extremely possible now that Chris admitted to s3xually assaulting Barbara to Null and "Bella", but she wanted Null to keep it confidential. Chris wanted NULL to keep the fact that she admitted to committing a VERY serious crime A SECRET.

If Chris WAS actually lying, she'd use a lot more CWCisms (her own phrases) or say that she was "using her psychic powers" to have s3x with Barbara's fictional counterpart in another dimension. But no, Chris was VERY straightforward and talked about it casually like if you were to talk about the weather.

Chris, according to Null, slept in a parking lot in her car the other night. At least for a few hours, though I don't remember where the FUCK else she slept (maybe a hotel room eventually), considering she had -$200 in her bank account. I believe some people who are in contact with Chris sent her some money to get food too.

Null revealed that he set up a GoFundMe previously for Chris to attend a Brony convention, which was a test to see how Chris would be able to handle commissions. The GFM was successful, to say the least. Chris fulfilled commissions successfully, DESPITE NOT WORKING ON THE FUCKING COMIC. Y'KNOW, THE THING SHE'S PAID FOR ON PATREON TO DO!

Well, due to recent events, he has since taken down the GFM and is refunding all the money to all the donors. He was debating on sending Chris money (the GFM money, since Chris isn't able to go to the Brony convention), but he decided not to do so. He told Chris to sleep in her car, spend the night under the stars, and reflect on her current situation until the morning, when Null would help her find a temporary roof over her head until August 5th.

Barbara tightly manages Chris's finances. Those are Null's words, not mine. You want to know why Barbara's been having trouble with the house and shit? CHRIS HAS BEEN STEALING MONEY FROM HER FOR YEARS. HER CREDIT IS ALL SORTS OF FUCKED, SHE'S BURIED IN DEBT, AND IT'S CHRIS'S FAULT. THE PERSON WHO'S SUPPOSED TO BE TAKING CARE OF HER.

How did we find out about Chris recently getting more money, specifically $750? Well, Null has had access to Chris's emails for the past few years (Chris knows this), and he found an email that Barbara had sent Chris money.

That's a violation of the EPO (Emergency Protective Order) that was put into affect for Barbara. Chris was NOT supposed to contact Barbara in ANY way, shape or form.

Null asked Chris about this and told her that this was a violation of the EPO. He asked her if her mom sent her money. Chris denied it at first, and then went into the whole goddess bullshit she goes into. She then admitted to accessing Barbara's banking account online and wiring the $750 to HER account. Chris also said that she'd pay her back the $750 after receiving the $1000 that Null was supposed to send to Chris. Null was obviously upset with what Chris had done. Who wouldn't be?

Guess what Null did in reaction to what Chris told him? HE BLOCKED CHRIS AND REPORTED HER TO THE POLICE. I'm honestly surprised he stuck with her this long. He genuinely wanted to see Chris become a better person.

It's only a matter of time for Chris's arrest. With all this information that's out there now, more information probably coming very soon, plus people close to Chris confirming all of this....I feel it's safe for me to say that Chris did s3xually assault her mother.

I don't feel bad for Chris anymore. I have no sympathy for Chris. Any ounce of respect for this person has been long since gone. I don't feel comfortable even referring to Chris as a person. She's a monster.

I talked about Chris a few times a few years ago on Instagram, and I got yelled at for tearing this motherfucker apart. Because apparently I was an "ableist bully" for having my grievances with Chris, despite the fact that I'm autistic too and I've never "bullied" Chris for being autistic. Not even once. My grievances had more to do with Chris using her mother and their animals to exploit them for her own monetary gain INSTEAD OF TRYING TO FIND A JOB. I've even tried to suggest that she go work through a temporary work industry and get paid daily. (At that time, I didn't know that trying to interact with Chris wasn't a very good idea. I've since learned, obviously.)

Here's a link to Gibi's video:

youtube

Dillon Thomas's video:

youtube

The stream with Null:

youtube

Geno Samuel's stream:

youtube

Here's Rogue's video and live stream he did about the situation. Rogue is one of my FAVORITE YouTubers, as edgy as his content is.:

youtube

Thank you for your time.

#mello speaks #tw chris chan #chris chan #anti chris chan #tw sex assault #tw r@pe #tw elder abuse #cw kiwi farms #cw 4chan #chris chan is disgusting #justice for barb #gibi #dillon thomas #rogue the internet man #geno samuel #josh null #Youtube #tw inc*st

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reflections-in-a-critical-eye · 3 years

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May I know what's your take about Jungkook's overall performance through the year, 2020 and 2021? Do you think he improved? Do you think if there is a possibility that on the album that will be released, they will have solo song again, he can now pull off his solo performance well? Do you think his stage presence will become more apparent and powerful? I asked this because every time I rewatch their concert videos, 2016-2019, Jungkook solo stage performance is not that impressive, especially on his song Begin and Euphoria, it's kinda boring and generic? I know that what I said is kinda mean and bad, but I just want to be honest. He is my bias, but sadly, that's what I feel every time he goes solo. Nothing special, as if there's no passion and effort that can be seen on him😶☹️

Also, I read about what you said on the other anon, that you think Jungkook will have more tendency that can put a greater performance other than the members, and I disagree with it. I strongly believe that Jimin and J-Hope are the ones that you can really say that they are great performers, and can really pull off the solo career or their solo stage performance.

Jimin's performance is mesmerizing and tantalizing, and J-Hope's performance is energetic and uplifting. His stage presence is 🔥🔥🔥🔥. I really think that these two are the ones that surely will have a successful solo career, like some big artist, unlike what you said that Jungkook is.🥰

Still, I respect your opinion😚

Anon, I'm going to focus a bit more on something that has no direct correlation to what you asked me, but I'll take the opportunity to say it. Just because you don't like the solo songs of your bias (or any other aspect related to them or BTS), doesn't mean it's something bad, or you feeling mean about it. It's perfectly normal. We can't like everything. It doesn't have to be something intense, we shouldn't worship these people. As long as we talk about it respectfully, there's nothing wrong with it. Yeah, I also think Begin is a generic song and I don't really listen to it, never have, except in the beginning when I tried to listen to all I could find. And I like Jungkook as well. So what? We don't even need to come up with some elaborate explanation, sometimes you don't like a song and that's it. (Sorry for the rant, but I see this all the time and I don't think it's helpful. The idea of having to like everything is influenced by the fandom, so there's that)

As to what you specifically asked, I think Jungkook did a good job in 2020 and I was really pleased with his performances during the ON:E online concert in October. The Begin stage may be generic, but My Time wasn't, as it was a more mature performance. I can't say much about 2021, if I were to talk about Butter and PTD. There's nothing impressive there or for any members to make their mark. I watched the Permission to Dance concert. In the online version it seemed that he didn't have the usual energy on stage that we were used to seeing before the pandemic, but it wasn't just him, but all of them. As to the offline concert, it was a little better, but taken as a whole, not impressive. Basically 2021 was a year in which Jungkook didn't get some opportunity to stand out so it's hard for me to say something about his performance.

I know I said that Jungkook is the first that comes to mind, but that doesn't mean he's the only one, don't get me wrong. Of course J-Hope could have a successful solo career. He has the stage presence, he's a good producer and it seems like the kind of guy who would do well outside BTS. Jimin as well, I loved his Serendipity stage, but somehow I see him more in a group formation. Not necessarily that he is only good for BTS (he is one of the members who mentioned multiple times that he wants to be in the group for a long time and rarely talks about solo plans), he could do it by himself, or maybe in a 3J group? I think those 3 work together so well and they have what it takes to do stage performances full of choreographies. I wish I could see more of it.

#asks #jungkook performance

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zeta-in-de-walls · 4 years

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Okay, in the wake of the L’Manburg war, allow me to get meta for a bit.

Now obviously the war, and the SMP server in general, are just for content. The stakes are all fictional - nebulous things like freedom on a minecraft server, sentimental value placed on music discs and all that nonsense.

Bearing that in mind, I want to discuss how it played out.

Who were the best players? It’s clear who were the most powerful and dangerous as enemies - Dream, George, Sapnap and Punz. (I’m leaving aside Eret for the moment btw) They all had full netherite armour, planted TNT traps and planned betrayals and ambushes to win the war. They had the upperhand throughout. Meanwhile the other side felt weak and ill-prepared and did very little damage to any of their opponents.

But you know, being more powerful doesn’t actually make for much content on its own. What makes good content? A good narrative filled with drama, tension and excitement. In those terms, we’re looking at Tommy and Wilbur carrying the server with this war.

The second they said independence and made some grand speeches, there were stakes. Instead of the server being a somewhat peaceful building simulator, it was in a state of conflict. Alliances were created, flags were made, Hamilton and Revolutionary war references were heard, matching skins and all that were being created. Putting great significance into stuff like a patch of tilled soil, suggesting carrying sticks instead of weapons and wearing no armour but fighting with words - that’s the sort of stuff that made this whole scenario work. Without it, this dispute wouldn’t have been able to call itself a war. They even make ridiculous stuff sound convincing - just the idea of calling L’Manberg its own separate server that happens to be inside another server with the running costs still being paid by Dream. It’s crazy but it works.

And my goodness, did they have their work cut out for them.

You see, I feel like Dream and co. weren’t really playing along. They heard ‘war!’ and thought - let’s win. Let’s absolutely crush the enemy! No mercy.

Now playing the villain can be cool, sure. And it kinda worked here. But only just. Some of their actions definitely irked me.

See, there are kind of unspoken agreements in stuff like letting people prepare, not attacking too early, that sort of thing. You tell everyone that the war’s gonna take place at 7pm and sure enough it does. And there’s Dream’s server rules: No stealing and no griefing. These rules do get bent in the middle of an ongoing battle - eg battles often involve a lot of placing and breaking blocks and when you’re low on stuff, trying to run to a nearby chest to grab some last minute supplies is going to happen (and later after the battle’s done you’ll probably get yelled at a little before making up) - but generally they are upheld. Especially when others are offstream and you aren’t in the middle of something.

‘Ah but it was war - rules can be broken!’ one might argue. Yeah, no, this is entertainment. You don’t start early because you’re going to ruin the stream and make the content worse - and the whole point of the war is to make good content. Like, when WIlbur’s stream died - they asked for a pause so WIlbur could sort out technical difficulties before continuing.

Yeah so Dream and Sapnap basically broke all the rules in order to win. Fundy and Tommy put up insulting signs in different languages. Funny content. Dream and Sapnap burned Tubbo’s house to the ground. Err... okay that’s a bit excessive but we can make it work. No mercy, ha.

So Tommy asked Tubbo to prep for the war. Tubbo agreed and got to work to try and balance the already uneven odds. At this point, the war’s in a day and all of Dream’s side has full netherite and none of L’Manburg do save Eret. Time is short but that just makes it all the more exciting.

So Tubbo uses villagers and trading, stealing a frugal amount to get himself started before really getting into it and grinding for diamond armour and makes nine stacks of emeralds - enough to place some high level enchants and even the odds a little and make the fight interesting.

While Tubbo’s offline, Sapnap comes in and steals them, getting books to enchant his own set of netherite armour using Tubbo’s set up. Well then. There goes any hope of a fair fight. And they are trying, you know. They realise the armour discrepancy so they’ve been trying to get potions but even that’s a struggle - when Dream finished his apology stream he logged on to the SMP without warning and managed to kill Tubbo before he could get away while his inventory had been full of potions. (Tommy and Tubbo had been visiting Dream’s base to put a sign in it - an offer of Mellohi for peace. Nothing comes of this sign or any of the other Tommy put in other people’s houses - more potential good content there like demanding Sapnap stay neutral in return for a supply blaze powder (a ref to the drug war that preceded this conflict)). It’s not that Dream killing Tubbo is the issue - it’s more how he logged on basically without warning so Tubbo had little chance to get away as he was mostly unarmoured and ungeared.

Still, the next day Tubbo is trying to grind back up, to even up things a little. He’s only managed to get 2 end crystals and he has a few sets of plain diamond armour and a few books. So he grinds like crazy in the limited time, trading all his iron, chopping trees, carrots, bamboo, sugar, everything he has into emeralds. But he needs levels. He tries to go to the spawner which the other side has been freely using to grind up exp and they kill him when he goes near. One time, Dream kills him while he has several books on him so he has to trade back emeralds to get them again. And now he doesn’t have a good way to get experience so he can’t even the odds. Punz and Sapnap even combatlog inside the spawner so if he goes near they’d come online and kill him. And yeah, they’re stream sniping. They’ve all streamed very little, hiding all their preparations while taking advantage of the fact that the other side have all been streaming everything they’ve been doing.

‘Imagine streamsniping.’ Tommy and co. said that at one point during today’s conflict. It’s cheap - it’s not fun, it’s taking advantage - one that’s not even necessary as you’re already all OP. Dream’s side aren’t the underdog, they don’t need every single advantage to win this. Instead it’s more like rubbing salt into the wound.

And yeah, despite all the griefing that Dream side have done, not once does anyone grief anything of theirs - like the chat was totally asking for them to burn down Punz’s house. No, they just place signs and talk.

Okay, so Tommy announced the war would be at 7pm. He logs on at 6.45 to say hello and hype all his viewers up, get his music playing and give a rundown of the situation and what’s occurred since he’s last streamed. No sooner has he logged on then Tubbo gets ambushed early! They attacked prematurely!

...

It’s like there was one rule - war begins at 7pm. And instead Dream, George and Sapnap all attacked Tubbo at his base at 6.45. Tommy is ages away and can’t do anything and Fundy’s in trouble too and Tubbo just barely manages to save the gear he has managed to prep. They’re even more on the backfoot. All their strats are known anyway as they’ve been watching streams so they know all about the potions and endcrystals while Tommy’s side are in the dark about Dream’s side’s preparations. For instance, offstream they filled Tommy’s base and L’Manburg with Tnt which they set off to devastating effect.

The ‘war’ is as one-sided as you’d expect. Tommy and co. are trying to attack even though they lack arrows and food and are hopelessly outmatched but they put up a pretence of trying anyway. At no point is a single one of Dream’s side even moderately threatened (except perhaps when they ambushed Tubbo early as he tried using harming potions) and everyone knows it.

Still, Tommy and Wilbur push on - they talk, they rally etc. Finally, Eret betrays them and they’re all killed in an ambush. And they’re shocked by this twist, they react, they call Eret their downfall. (Dream’s side didn’t need to resort to such tactics to win given their obvious advantage.) and Eret being a traitor is fantastic for content anyway so it is a great part of the narrative that they all react to perfectly. Eret seems to have a good instinct for making good content as well as this sort of twist is a good addition. It works because its drama - they trusted him and they never expected him to betray them to the other side after all they’d built together.

In the end, Tommy finishes it on a high with a dramatic bow duel followed by offering the discs in exchange for freedom. And fittingly, despite have being entirely outplayed in terms of power and tactics, they win the thing they cared about - which was the independence that they started the war for. The content - not anything material. Dream’s side was far stronger and better prepared and they weren’t given so much as a chance to catch up for a pvp conflict. But L’Manberg - they got that.

Okay, so this has been long and I’ll probably rewrite something similar soon - but I wanted to highlight how in meta terms, the war was being played unfairly and its obvious that Dream’s side had different priorities - win under any means necessary rather than continue to make great content for the SMP. They’re treating it like a manhunt or something when its absolutely not and shouldn’t be. They’re lucky that Wilbur and Tommy were so good at making it work as they do all the heavy-lifting for the SMP which ensures its got a healthy lifespan.

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jokertrap-ran · 3 years

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(未定事件簿) EVENT! 「眷然恋影」 [Tears of Themis] EVENT: Zuo Ran Birthday 2021- Days to Re-Live Forever (4.18: Volunteer Application)

*Tears of Themis Masterlist / Mobile Masterlist *Spoiler free: Translations will remain under cut *Will also be filed under Zuo Ran’s tag #Tears of a Lawyer *The tracking tag for ALL Event Stories will go under: #Tears of an Event

4.18 / 4.20 / 4.22 / 4.24 / 4.26 Messages / Investigations / Call

Location: Cinema's Lounge Area

MC: …All in all, while this isn't considered a bad movie, it's also quite far from being a "Sci-fi Masterpiece".

Zuo Ran: Agreed.

Zuo Ran and I were both down at the Cinema’s Lounge, discussing the movie that we'd just finished watching.

The Stellis Film Festival had just started, and the movie that we'd sought to watch for how famous it was, was one of the most highly rated Sci-Fi movies.

But unfortunately, the content of the movie itself wasn't quite as interesting as we'd expected.

Zuo Ran: But "Time Travel" is considered one of the more classic Sci-fi themes, so it's not all that easy to come up with something new and exciting.

Hearing him say that, I suddenly remembered another movie with the exact same running theme.

MC: There are also many Time Travel themed Masterpieces out there. Take the film “About Time” for example; it’s an old film dating more than ten years ago.

MC: But it’s about slice of life, so you probably never watched it.

That’s right, although this movie was labelled a work of Science Fiction, it was also undeniably something that fell into the category of warm, healing, fluffiness.

It’s a movie about the story of the male protagonist, Tim, who wanted to use his Time-travelling ability to find himself a girlfriend; and eventually winning over the heroine, Mary’s, heart.

Additionally, it also depicts Tim’s family history. Generally speaking, it was an award-winning movie that had won over the emotions of many.

I recall that Zuo Ran preferred to watch Sci-fi Films, rarely watching anything emotional. Still, I wanted to try giving him a suggestion.

Zuo Ran: I’ve seen it before. It was pretty good.

His reply was a little unexpected.

MC: Huh? But even though the male protagonist is capable of Time Travel, there are still far fewer Sci-fi elements to this movie than there are elements of daily life.

MC: I thought that you don’t often watch these kinds of films...

Zuo Ran: You’re right, but this one’s an exception.

Zuo Ran: Rather than calling it a Sci-fi movie, I think it’ll be more appropriate to call it a movie about “Superpowers”, since its main purpose is to power the plot.

Zuo Ran: Although it’s a slice of life, the director of this film has a good grasp of rhythm and mood, capable of making people feel a strong sense of empathy.

Zuo Ran: Of course, I also personally agree with the idea it is trying to convey.

Zuo Ran analysed the movie with utter seriousness, and I could see that he had an extremely deep understanding about it.

Capable of extracting that many praises from him, it seems like this movie holds an extraordinary place in his heart.

MC: Sounds like you really do like this “About Time” film.

Zuo Ran: Yes, I do.

Zuo Ran: I suppose it can be considered… Among the ones I like best.

After getting an affirmative from him, I couldn’t help but to jump for joy.

MC: (Now I know how to celebrate his birthday!)

Zuo Ran’s birthday was the 26th of April; a day that was coming up soon.

I’d only heard about this date back when I was making small talk with Sister Zhai Xing. She’d even told me to put more emphasis on it, since I was his partner.

Zuo Ran has been taking good care of me ever since I joined the Law Firm, but I’d have been way prepared to celebrate his birthday for him, even if Sister Zhai Xing didn’t mention it.

But I didn’t really know what I should do, till now; the conversation I just had with Zuo Ran finally gave me a hint.

MC: (Recreating the classic scenes of movies and celebrating his birthday there will definitely make it an unforgettable experience for the Mr. Robin, the well-known film critic! )

A plan gradually started to take shape within the confines of my mind.

Zuo Ran: What’s on your mind? Why are you daydreaming?

MC: N-Nothing! I was just thinking about...

MC: My favourite movie! I was just thinking how brilliant it was that you also happen to like it!

Birthday surprises are something that’s meant to be kept secret till the very last moment, so I can’t afford to give the game away now.

Zuo Ran: It makes you that happy?

His expression appeared no different from usual, seemingly having accepted what I’d just said.

MC: Yup, of course it does! Sharing the same favourite movie as you goes to show that we’re well suited to be partners!

Zuo Ran: We do coordinate well together.

MC: Let’s talk more about this film, Lawyer Zuo.

Zuo Ran: Sure.

He probably wouldn’t have any idea about just what I had planned to celebrate his birthday with.

MC: (I’m suddenly really looking forward to seeing how he’ll react to this surprise. I’m sure he’ll be way different from how he usually is!)

☆⋅⋆…⋅─────────── ⋆⋅✾⋅⋆ ───────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

Location: The Film Museum

A few days later, at the Film Museum.

Staff: My apologies, miss. But the Museum's Live-action Studio is temporarily unavailable for loan for the duration of the Film Festival.

MC: I’d originally wanted to rent the Film Museum’s Live-action Studio to recreate the classic scenes of the movie “About Time” for Zuo Ran, to celebrate his birthday.

But how unfortunate...

MC: But I’m really in need of it; isn’t there any other way?

Staff: If you’re truly in urgent need of the Studio. Then you can try becoming a volunteer for this Film Festival.

MC: Oh?

Staff: The Museum requires a large amount of volunteers to help out during the Film Festival, and volunteer points can be earned through completing volunteer work.

She took out a brochure, handing it to me.

Staff: Take a look at this. Volunteer points can be redeemed for the rights to use the Live-action Studio in addition to some special props provided by the Museum itself.

Staff: You must be shooting on the set itself if you’re trying to rent the Studio, so I’m sure these props will come in handy.

The staff member pointed out the “special props” listed on the brochure to me.

They came as large as classic retro cars, furniture such as tables and chairs, old-fashioned suitcases… They were all classic props from classic movies.

MC: Are all these props the original ones?

I’d thought that it’d take a good lot of points to redeem rights to the Studio, but I’d never expected it to actually be the easiest to attain.

Although, that being said, most of those special props were pretty “point pricy”.

Staff: A small portion of them are, but the rest are replicated on a 1:1 scale from the original.

MC: Oh! There’s even the window display mural from “About Time”!?

Staff: That’s right. Although this one’s a replication, it is no different from the original one.

MC: (Not only can you rent the venue, but you can also change up the place to be furnished with decorations of your own choice. This can’t get any better!)

Thinking up till this point, I agreed without a moment’s hesitation.

MC: Okay, I’ll sign up! What do you do as a volunteer, though?

Staff: Welcome to the Volunteer Team. Your job this time is to simply hand out questionnaires.

Staff: As the organizer of this Film Festival, we plan to create a review column after the event; hence, why we have to collect information on the audience’s option.

Staff: The content of this survey includes, but is not limited to, their evaluation of the movies released this Film Festival, and their views on well-known film-critics, etc.

Staff: What needs to be specifically explained to them is that, due to the curator's request, this survey will take the form of an offline interview and a physical questionnaire to fill.

Staff: He believes that it is only by interacting face-to-face with the audience, can we then understand their true wishes; and that doing so will also reflect the utmost sincerity of the Museum itself.

She handed me yet another list.

Staff: The information of the willing participants of the survey are recorded here. So please carry out the surveys according to the name list here.

Staff: Your final amount of points obtained will be calculated based on the number of questionnaires you've managed to get filled, and their degree of completion.

I confidently took the list from her.

MC: Understood! You can leave it to me!

Staff: Volunteer Points can be redeemed at any time. I wish you the best of luck, and hope that you can exchange it for the rights to the Live-action Studio as soon as possible.

☆⋅⋆…⋅─────────── ⋆⋅✾⋅⋆ ───────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

Next Part: (4.20: Questionnaire Filling)

#Tears of Themis #Zuo Ran #左然 #Translations #Otome #Mihoyo #未定事件簿 #眷然恋影 #Days to ReLive forever #Zuo Ran 2021 Birthday #Tears of a Lawyer #Tears of an Event #weiding shijian bu #tears of themis translations

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lilydalexf · 4 years

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Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Dreamshaper

Dreamshaper has 54 stories at Gossamer. Her stories often feature Mulder and Scully exploring their feelings in ways you really, really wish you could’ve seen on the show. I’ve recced some of my favorites of her stories here before, including Found in Memory, Just By Existing, Purpose, and Promise. Big thanks to Dreamshaper for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

I'm not at all surprised people are still reading X-Files fanfic! There's a deep catalogue of good and interesting fiction there, and the X-Files still has cultural significance. And of course there were the recent seasons to bring it back to mind. I think if you had asked me in 2000, I might not have supposed that it had this kind of staying power. So now I'm thinking of this interview as a time capsule--what will my answer be in 2040?

My own fic was not designed to have staying power. If anyone is reading it now, bless them, they are kind and patient. I would only recommend probably reading the first and last things I posted just to see what kind of growth is possible. The first time I ever posted fic, someone told me to never write again. I was a teenager. I was crushed but I went on writing anyway, and I worked hard to improve.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

I think of two things. As for the show itself, I still think of Mulder/Scully as the ultimate in romance. I can still picture certain moments from the episodes, from the movie. I look for pairings with tension that reminds me of theirs--an almost-regency level of UST, but with a modern element of danger.

As for the fandom itself, I grew up in it. My entire online life and the core of how I participate in fandom was formed here. I was 17 or so when I started writing and posting MSR. I was 18 or 19 when I started meeting fans in real life. I was fortunate enough to fall in with people who were equal parts gracious and nerdy, and while my own nerdiness is innate, I remember and emulate the kindness which was shown to me.

I have an entire side post to this question about how strongly I disagree with the current age stratification in fandom--this idea of not interacting across artificial age divides is tragic to me.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

ATXC, and mailing lists. I don't actually remember the names of all the mailing lists! I can picture myself sitting in my kitchen on my computer, and what the emails looked like--the font, the signature lines--but not the names. I can even remember specific conversations we had! One of them must have been Scullyfic, because I remember the first meetup being planned. Is that right? Was it the Scullyfic meetup? [Lilydale note: Probably was Scullyfic. There was a big email flurry when the first Scullyfic mailing list meetup was being planned.] My mind was absolutely blown by the idea of a fan con. Now I've led panels at a dozen of them.

I remember some of the arguments, too. It's funny that some of them are the same arguments I still see here and there, like whether or not criticism of a fanwork is valid. Real Person Fic being this unbelievably shameful thing you had to ask to be shown, and the doyennes of the fandom would have given you the cut direct at Almack's if they'd found out, you know?

This was also the era of AIM and ICQ. mIRC too, right? I spent a lot of time in channels. I absolutely loved when people started to be more open about themselves in chats. I was always so interested in how fandom fit into people's lives. Some people I talked to were moms, college students, people who had interesting careers, and they all just found ways to make fandom work for them. They had a need and were meeting it, despite the pressures of their offline life.

I don't know how to explain the impression that made on me, but--it normalized fandom. That seems obvious, maybe, but I hadn't known this was something you could integrate into your everyday life.

It also normalized the idea of women taking their own needs as primary, in a way that went beyond what I was exposed to in my home life, or through the feminism of the 1990s. There was this wild intersection of the--the domestic and intellectual life of women, and the playful life of women, just making itself known to me in a way I'd never seen before. That was enormous. Absolutely a foundational experience for me.

My experience was that ATXC and email lists were like, these surface-level interactions where people figured out, roughly, if your mind ran on a similar track to theirs, and then you were invited to make deeper relationships in more private corners of the internet. Social media filled both functions at once, I think, for a while. But the privacy was missing. I'm not surprised that Slack and Discord are starting to fill that private corner gap--everything old becomes new, etc.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

UST and monsters. This is still an unbeatable combination for me!

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I loved romance novels--I read so many of them. Somehow, before we even had a computer at home, I started to tell myself romance novel stories with Mulder and Scully as the lead characters. This was how I talked myself to sleep--I wasn't a good sleeper. Then when I got online and did whatever search led me to ATXC, I was just shocked. Shocked! Can't do the surprise justice, in this era where fanfic is relatively mainstream. Other people had also independently invented this thing I loved! But they wrote their ideas down! I jumped on the bandwagon immediately.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

It's like my relationship to my childhood, frankly. Foundational, but I don't think about it all that much on a daily basis, right? I smile and reblog gif sets. I get nostalgic. I get embarrassed by social mistakes I made. I feel the way many of us do about memories from our teenage years. I wouldn't be who I was without it, but I'm not still in it.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

I was. I've spent 20 years in fandom! I did some beta work for someone who'd started writing slash--The Sentinel. The actual Sentinel, not just an endless loop of Sentinel AUs based on Sentinel AUs based on etc. I had some idea at the time that I was queer, but this was my first real exposure to romances that weren't straight. So I tore my way through the early 2000s slash fandoms as they developed: The Sentinel, Due South, Stargate Atlantis. Popslash, where a mix of good writing and absurdity ruled. Bandom, where I met my wife. Since then, many smaller fandoms.

It's hard to compare any of these things to each other, let alone to the X-Files. In each one, I was lucky enough to find a circle of women who were strong beta readers and good friends. I never wrote as much or for as long as I did in the X-Files.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I watched the new episodes. I've shown friends important episodes--I remember that a few years ago, another friend and I tried to hook a third friend on the show by binging some favorites--mostly shippy MOTW, so it was like, Arcadia, Triangle, Bad Blood. Fun stuff!

We finish watching and I'm like, well? And? And she says, that was fine, but I'm more of a man-pain, secret babies kind of person? I'll never forget it. She had no idea but she'd hit the nail on the head! We were wheezing with laughter. We went back and watched mytharc episodes, which was much less fun for me, but much more interesting to her.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I don't read X-Files fic often. I look at new things sometimes, and I've reread a few old classics, but my reading taste has changed so much. I still love straight romance, but it needs to be fast and sharp in a way that is hard to find.

I read fic in other fandoms when I have time. In the past few years, I've finished a degree, had a daughter, renovated a small Victorian and then sold it and bought another one during this pandemic--so time has been short. Currently I read some Untamed fic, some Good Omens fic, Magicians, Schitt's Creek...a sampler. Whatever friends are writing, whatever they recommend.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

I never have a favorite of my own fics. I'm never satisfied. The second I post something, I'm always full of regrets. I've written fics that did very well and still hated them a month later. People have asked me over the years to move more of my stuff off Livejournal and onto ao3, but I do it really reluctantly and only by specific request. Everything's ephemeral! Let the old works diminish, and go into the West!

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

I have no oldies to dust off. I do periodically think of X-Files stories I would tell, but I don't have enough time for current interests--and so it goes.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I do. I was most recently writing in The Magicians fandom. I posted a couple new stories in an old fandom last year--I'd written Good Omens fic fifteen years ago, and then again for the Amazon adaptation. I have a pile of original novels in various stages of completion, but I'm never happy with them. One day I'll figure myself out, perhaps, or I'll just keep writing myself this and that and leaving it all in a drawer.

What's the story behind your pen name?

So AOL had a character limit for user names--I think it was 10. I was a teenager at the time I was coming up with the one I'd use for fandom, so I went with Dreamshaper. It was kind of literal, in the sense that I was going to share the stories I'd been telling myself to help me sleep. But the character limit meant I went with Dreamshpr, which I later liked because of the alternate reading of Dream*shipper*. A reminder to the younger fans that we were the original shippers!

I would also come up with new pen names when I wanted to experiment with a fic that didn't fit my usual style. I don't remember any of them. I probably did that a dozen times, so, sorry to those poor completely abandoned stories.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

Giddygeek on tumblr and ao3. I'm most active on twitter, but largely about my domestic life with dips into fandoms or original writing; message me on tumblr if you're an old friend who'd like to reconnect elsewhere.

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

Just gratitude--I'm so glad that I found people to share an obsession with, and that they were good people, at a time in my life where that made a significant difference to me. I don't know where I'd be now without my time and my growth in this fandom!

(Posted by Lilydale on December 22, 2020)

#new post #old school x #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #xf fanfic author interviews #dreamshaper

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anon-e-miss · 4 years

Text

Intransigence 8... Maybe?

They drove to Jazz’s habsuite in silence. Though he could have lived on base, and in nice quarters due to his rank, Jazz preferred living in a space that was entirely his where he could come and go without question or surveillance. He lived alone, and had since he and Blaster had concluded they were better suited as friends than lovers. There were no hard feelings there; they were still friends. Since then, however Jazz had taken lovers as it had suited him but it had never been anything serious, they had never been mechanisms he had trusted enough to take them into his private space. Since become Head of Spec Ops, Jazz had stepped back from serial monogamy in favour of focusing on building a slick and strong department. The Autobots had catching up to do.

When they arrived at his building, Smokescreen silently followed him up the stairs into the lobby and over to the lift. It had been a long fragging mega-cycle for Smokescreen. He had gotten glyph that his origin had been injured late in the dark-cycle and then had waited for news in the medbay’s waiting room for joors. Somehow they had missed the fact that Prowl’s next of kin was waiting. They had missed that he had next of kin at all. Who knows how long Smokescreen would have been waiting news, slowly losing his processor as the worst case scenarios took hold in his processor, if Jazz had not turned up, the check up on Prowl as he had promised. He had not expected to find Smokescreen sitting, waiting with anxiety so strong Jazz had tasted it. Since his rookie had been beside himself, Jazz had taken on the task of finding out what the frag was happening. It had taken some badgering to get First Aid to “interrupt” Ratchet.

He had been horrified to learn the extent of Prowl’s damage. Shorts were not automatically serious, a mechanism’s self repair systems could handle most. But Prowl’s had been beyond extensive, they had spread throughout his circuitry, effecting his motor control, effecting his sensory grid. Those shorts had started forming the very moment Barricade had jammed that shock stick into his side. Despite the disabling shorts that had been spreading through his systems, and the blaster wound to his leg, Prowl had evaded capture. Pinned by a considerably bigger mech, Prowl had used his processor and his training and had gotten free and taken that fragger out. His survival protocols were excellent. That was probably where Smokescreen had gotten his from, them had his talent for evasion.

“Have a seat, Smokey,” Jazz said as he led Smokescreen into his habsuite located on the top floor of the building. Another operative might have been concerned about the difficulty escaping if cornered in his home, on the fortieth floor. But most mechanisms, including ops, did not have his magnets. “I’ll pour us some engex.”

“Thanks. Do you really think Garboil’ll come to our habsuite?”

“There’s a good chance,” Jazz replied as he pour two digits of Old Corroder in a pair of low cubes. “Drink it slowly, it’s got some kick.”

“Thanks. I know you don’t usually have mechanisms over.”

“Smokey, even if I wasn’t worried ‘bout Garboil turnin’ up at yer place I wouldn’t’ve let ya just go home alone. Yer shook up.”

“Yeah,” Smokescreen rested the drink on his knee as he wiped tears from his optics. “Since he got transferred to the dark-cycle shift I’ve been having memory purges. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t stop thinking that something was going to happen to him.”

“‘M sorry he got hurt,” Jazz replied. “I wasn’t expectin’ this.”

“I’m so glad you gave him that dataslug. If you hadn’t gotten the alert. If you hadn’t been there...”

“Yer origin already had that fragger down without me. There mighta been some scrap wit internal affairs but he handled himself. I plugged in to the surveillance grid, ‘n had a look. Yer origin’s got some moves.”

“Yeah. The streets taught him, and circuit su refined him.”

“When ya set gutters I thought ya meant the rough side o’ town.”

“There was some o’ that too. He ran away from the group home he was assigned to and lived on the streets.”

“How’d he get into the Academy?”

“Even when he was living under the bridge, Origin went to school. He got a scholarship. It came with a housing allowance. He only got a roof over his helm again when he started his classes the next semester.”

“Yer origin’s a pretty impressive mech to ‘o earned a full ride ‘chargin’ rough.”

“He’s my hero.”

“Mine too,”Jazz replied and Smokescreen snickered. “Ain’t kiddin’ Smokey. Yer origin’s an impressive mech.”

“He is. I’m proud to be his creation.”

“I bet he’s proud o’ ya too.”

“I thought he’d be mad when I decided to enlist,” Smokescreen revealed after drinking a little more of his engex. “He tried, you know. But that glitch, they decided it made him ineligible. He was so mad. I didn’t tell him I was even thinking of it until I got accepted. I was fragging scarred to tell him because I didn’t want him to be mad, or disappointed.”

“Was he?”

“No, he pulled me into his lap like he did when I was a youngling and he told me he never wanted me to put my dreams aside because of him. That he was proud of me. I cried like a bitlet.”

“I think the recruitment officers were wrong to reject ‘m,” Jazz said. “We shouldn’t turn away talent ‘cause their systems are a bit unconventional.”

“I don’t know if he’d accept an invitation now, even if one was offered,” Smokescreen chuckled. “Origin never forgets, remember. So he holds some long aft grudges.”

“Why do ya think he didn’t report that mnemosurgeon?” Jazz ask. “That seems like something worthy o’ a grudge.”

“It’s complicated. They were seeing each other. They had worked together in the enforcers for a while. I don’t know if they were seeing each other when they were partners or if that came after. Origin never brought him home. I’ve never actually met the fragger.”

“That weird to you?”

“No. Origin told me once that he was never going to bond again. I really doubt mourning my progenitor has anything to do with it. But he would go out sometimes, after work. He dated, you know he never told me the details. I didn’t want to know the details. No creation wants to think about their origin’s interface life.”

“But ya knew ‘bout the surgery.”

“The attack,” Smokescreen corrected him. “Origin came home. I’d just gotten back from hanging with some friends at Maccadam’s. I startled him. I don’t think he expected to see me. He was stumbling. He told me he was just a little overcharged. For a nanoklik I believed him then he turned for his berthroom and I saw the energon covering his neck.” “Frag.”

“I wanted to call the enforcers but he forbade it. I wanted to take him to the medicentre but he refused. It was enough of a fight just to convince him to let me patch him up. I crawled into berth with him when he laid down. I stayed up all dark-cycle watching him. I was afraid something might happen to him in the dark-cycle.”

“When’d it happen?”

“Three vorns ago.”

“If the fragger did any lingering damage, Ratchet’ll have taken care of it. He ever tell ya what happened?”

“I don’t think Origin remembers.”

“Scary thought, given his memory banks.”

“He told me they both behaved badly,” Smokescreen explained. “That’s all he ever says but I can see him thinking, like he’s searching for a memory.”

“But it got cut out,” Jazz said.

“I wish he’d let me take him to a medicentre. I... I wonder if maybe he doesn’t want to remember, or he’s afraid to. I’m afraid what else that fragger did to him.”

“That’s heavy, Smokey.”

“Maybe you’ll be able to talk some sense into him.”

“I don’t know ‘bout that, Smokey ‘but I’ll see what I can do. A rogue mnemosurgeon isn’t someone I want scamperin’ ‘round Iacon. I don’t suppose ya know the fragger’s designation?”

“No. Origin never told me.”

“I’ll talk wit ‘m. Right now? Ya outta get some recharge. Come on. I’ll show ya the guest room.”

“You... have a guest room. But you don’t like guests.”

“Usually, it’s for Raj or Hound when I get myself scrapped. I heal better in my own space.”

“I think Origin feels the same way.”

“Ratchet’s in for a real treat, ain’t he?”

“Oh yeah. If Ratchet’s got a match for snark, it’s Origin.”

Jazz woke early enough that he was up and stalking the datanet when Smokescreen came out of the guestroom. Neither of the

m had had a ton of recharge, but Jazz was used to taking catnaps. He rarely got more that a few joors of recharge in a row, the nature of the job, he supposed. Smokescreen was eager to see his origin. The fact that Ratchet had not commed him in the dark-cycle was not enough to soothe his anxiety. Out of curiosity, Jazz kept Smokescreen company as he brewed the energon he had called Rocket Fuel. As it dripped from the press it came out a deep blue. It looked to Jazz like it would be a good sub for Syk. But Smokescreen was not done. He set it to simmer. It thickened, and it thickened. By the time Smokescreen poured it into a resealable cube, the fuel was a thick like an oil shake and an even inkier black.

“That looks toxic,” Jazz observed.

“It probably is to most mechanisms,” Smokescreen replied. “I only ever tasted it once and I’m pretty sure I didn’t stop bouncing off the balls for a quartex.”

“But it don’t do that to ‘m?”

“Nope.” Smokescreen tested the seal. “The last thing that goes offline when Origin goes into stasis is the ATS. The first thing that powers up is the ATS. It’s the same thing with recharge but the ATS doesn’t shut down during recharge it keeps on humming along. Origin wakes up with a bunch of static and junk clogging his thought processes. The moment he wakes up it wants to GO but getting going to takes some serious energy. This Rocket Fuel gives him the kick to burn off that static and slag and go. If he has to go without he’s stuck with a helmache that just gets worse throughout the cycle.”

“Just don’t show it to Ratchet. I don’t think he’ll approve.”

#anon-e-miss writes #intransigence #maccadams #tf jazz #tf prowl #tf smokescreen #tw mindrape

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prorevenge · 4 years

Text

A stranger scammed me out of $300 online. I tracked him down, called his dad's work phone, and got my money back.

Long post, TL;DR below. Early last year I was deep in depression, spending the Spring in my room (I work in a seasonal industry which pays just enough to live on during the off months.)

All I did was play video games all day which led to me getting into game marketplace sites and planning on starting a side hustle selling in game items and accounts in MMos. I was brand new to the "industry" and didn't have contacts to learn from, so I just went for it and posted my first listing. I got a few hits back early and found an interested "buyer" (I'll refer to him later as C) who told me he was ready to purchase.

The way these transactions are supposed to go is this: A reputable middleman (There were several known MM in the community that I joined) takes in the product and the payment, verifies both, then distributes both ways after taking a cut for their services. This circumvents the "you first" prolem where you have to trust solely in the other guy to not scam you. -Well.. They impersonated a middleman well enough to fool me. I admit that it was 100% on me, I didn't know what I was doing. I just wanted to start selling so bad and I was glad to see quick hits on my first listing.

So, the "middleman" (To this day I don't know if there was a 3rd person acting as middleman or if it was C all along) takes the buyer's money, then the product which was a high ranked account in a popular competitve game. Suddenly, the MM says there was a problem with the payment and it needs to be redone.

At this point I know game's over and I just got scammed, but I went along with it as a sad parting gift to my first "sale." I message C and asked him how this was going to go. He told me he'll just direct paypal me the $300 now and apologized, which didn't make sense to me (you already scammed me, why haven't you blocked me yet?) I gave him my paypal email.

Conversation goes like this: C- "Sent." Me- "repeats my email same email correct?" C- "F%@& I sent it to the wrong email. I'll call paypal." Me- 3 minutes later "Are you going to send me $300 or no?" C- "I only had $450 in my paypal account, they should be able to refund me over the phone." Me- 5 minutes later "Okay. Progress?" C- "On the phone with them." Me 10 minutes of silence later- ":D" Then he goes offline. I call the MM several times but he's standoffish and won't pick up saying "something something privacy.. you arent giving me a reason to pick up the call." It's clear he's not being real with me.

I don't know what to do at this point as I've never encountered a sudden loss of hard work like that. I'm not a drinker at all but that night when faced with that emptiness while trying to get out of depression, I hit the bottle hard.

The next day I woke up naked on my bathroom floor in the pitch black and sheepishly checked my PC to see if it really happened. Without any hope at all I started googling this kid's two usernames that I knew of. I scanned the internet for every site that had an account with the same username that he used, but only found more scam reports (yep, I wasn't his first victim.) So I gave up.

A week later I came back and did it all over again, but this time I thought to check his discord profile to see if he had any other profiles linked to it (steam, twitch, etc.) and the genius did. I checked his steam profile and wrote down each of his past usernames that looked unique and wouldn't pull a million results.

After hours of scanning each one, I had his name, age (teenager,) city, email, skype, knew he went to chess tournaments as a kid, liked neopets, and found a youtube channel with his class project videos on it. It still wasn't enough though. All the information got me was another two contact methods, and I didn't want to start harassing him.

He ghosted me and emailing him wasn't going to change that. If I was going to get my money back, I needed to contact his parents and I knew this all along. In a last ditch effort I googled his emails again, found his google+ profile, and saw that he had a public photo library (which was discontinued by google very shortly after all this happened.) It had 1 picture. A perfect view of his house, from the street. Street number in view. After some searching without finding much I clicked "More info" on the picture and the the geo-tagged coordinates attatched to the picture appeared.

So now I have the address which I google along with the last name, which leads to me getting the first & last names of both parents. I pop that into trusty whitepages and have everything I need to spring my plan into action. While all this was going on I was updating my friend who lives in the same area as C. He asked if I wanted him to call since he had the same area code. It lined up perfectly so I agreed.

At this point I realize it's March 30th, just two days before April fools and C could probably play this off as some elaborate joke played by his friends so I call my friend off. It was so hard to wait, but we did and we waited long enough that it couldn't be looked at as a joke at all.

Two weeks later in a discord call I give my friend the green light and he calls phone #1. The cell. After a little ringing it cuts to voicemail and we decide to try phone #2, the work phone. This time the phone rang for significantly longer but also cut to voicemail and the message before the beep confirmed we had the right dad. My friend leaves a message saying "Hello Mr. ______, this is _ ______ with (marketplace name's) collection department. We currently have multiple fradulent activity cases open with your son C, totalling x thousands of dollars (I added up all the reports against him which were posted on the site and it totalled thousands, even talked to a couple people who he targeted.) At the moment we're reviewing the most recent case which involved a $300 transaction. If you could please, get back to us between 9am-10pm to resolve these cases. Thank you" All that was paraprased but that was his message.

He was very professional and seemed legit, and even though the dad might listen to it and ignore it we didn't think that was going to happen. It's worth noting that they live in a nice area of a nice state, so there was less of a chance that this would be a financial burden and the parents would likely just want to clear this up.

Two days later, while playing video games (yeah I had a problem.) I get a contact request notification. MY BOY C!

He tells me that he's a good person and he wants to give the account back. I check it and he played 10 games and lost each one which deranked and devalued the account (at this point I pretty much knew his parents were standing over his shoulder watching everything that was said. I could've even been speaking to them directly.) So I told him the account devalued, and I either want what he stole from me (the account at a higher rank) or I want $300. He told me he'll give me the account AND $300 (Parents coming through in the clutch!)

We went through a lot of hoops, trying paypal which he couldn't get to work, a few others and finally got google pay to work after troubleshooting stupid problems which I attriubted to him stalling. It was clear that they were scared of me since I got their info (and regularly called him by his first name throughout the convo as a power move lol) but I assured them I wasn't a bad person and told them to be extra safe of what you upload, especially if you're trying to scam people because when money is involved bad things can happen (playing into his parents who were surely reading it.) I explained the public Google+ upload of their clear to see geo-tagged house which I'm sure his they weren't happy about.

After he sent the money he asked for confirmation that I received it. I confirmed saying "YOU F** DID IT! SO PROUD OF YOU, C!" and he immediately went offline. I danced up and down the hallway and it was probably embarrasingly bad but I didn't care. I don't think the smile was gone from my face for an hour. It was a month long process and with the help of my friend the money was back. I haven't seen my friend in person since then, but when I do I owe him a top notch steak. He refused when I sent him $ online.

Instead of trying to resell the account and start back up in the marketplace I abandoned it all and went another way. I'm currently training for the military and in a much better place, but still have a long way to go.

A lot was left out of this story but it was a long one. I have screenshots of our conversations and I surely won't ever forget it.

TL;DR - I tried selling a video game account to see if I could make a new side hustle and got scammed since I was dumb, inexperienced and decided to trust the internet. I got scammed and took it hard but the scammer left too much of his info public and after a little bit of elbow grease I was able to obtain his & his parent's info and left his dad a voicemail. Two days later the scammer contacted me and gave me the money and the account back, apologizing. I learned from it.

(source) story by (/u/dstrezzd)

#prorevenge #by /u/dstrezzd #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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yoificfinder · 4 years

Note

Hiya! could you please recommend victuuri mutual pining fics? thanks!

I received this ask right after I posted this #newreadsrec of a fic set during the summer of mutual pining™ so I'm guessing you want more of that, nonnie? Happy to oblige and I'm also adding other mutual pining in general fics, including AUs:

Summer of Mutual Pining

hold me tender, hold me sweet by @crossroadswrite [M, 10K]

Here are a couple of things to have in consideration about the scenario Victor finds himself in:

1. Yuuri is wearing three different pairs of very soft looking socks because his feet are very cold, a pair of boxers, Victor’s blanket and nothing else

2.Victor’s never actually helped another omega through a heat. He’s barely had enough heats to know what he’s doing, choosing to supress them until his doctor’s lips were a thin line and they started talking about impact on his performance and making the supressants less effective. There wasn’t really anyone around when he had to have his heats, so it’s not like he even has the experience of watching others do

3.Yuuri’s room smells like sex, strawberry candy and energy drinks

4.Victor likes Yuuri very, very much and he has no idea what to do with himself around him most of the time

(OR: what if heats sucked a little bit and you just cuddled a lot and also being touch starved made you physically ill?)

if you can't sleep, don't count sheep by @lazulisong [G, 5K]

It's maddening to find out how much more he has to learn about Yuri -- but at the same time, Victor is glad of it too.

Lay Your Head by @kiaronna [G, 3K]

By the time they end up sharing a bed, they’ve already slept next to each other everywhere else.

reach out and... by @stammiviktor [T, 2K]

"Please, Yuuri."

resting pulse by @cafecliche [G, 1K]

For something all in his head, it can be brutally physical when it wants to be. But he’s an athlete - he knows how to listen to his body, categorize and interpret its signals. It doesn’t really follow that the smallest twinge in his knee could mean a very bad season at the same time full-blown palpitations mean it’s a day that ends in Y. But bodies are weird.

Victor, though. Victor is a stress test brought to life.

(Or: a story in heartbeats.)

The Boyfriend Series by @japansace [T, 5K]

Summary of first fic

For some inexplicable reason, Yuuri speaks Russian.

Now, as everyone knows, there are only two viable reasons why anyone ever learns a foreign language:

1. For school.

2. To impress a foreign love interest.

And Victor can’t quite bring himself to believe that Yuuri would be at all studious enough to hunt down Russian classes in Detroit of all places.

(Or: Victor gets jealous of a boyfriend that doesn’t exist.)

umineko by @shysweetthing [T, 4K]

Victor has never told anyone that he’s a seagull shifter, which is a perfectly natural thing to be and actually really useful for cross-training as a figure skater, thank you. It’s never really come up, but it turns out that seagulls mate for life, and Yuuri is becoming more and more important to him…

Other Mutual Pining Fics

Be my chef, Yuuri by @n3rdlif343va [M, 88K]

When 28-year-old Victor loses his parents and inherits his family's five-star restaurant, he learns that working for a living is much harder than he anticipated. That's when young, talented chef, Yuuri Katsuki unexpectedly arrives, providing hope in the midst of Victor's chaos.

Can these two work together? Bartender Chris, manager Mila, and sous chef Phichit can't wait to laugh at them as they try to navigate their instant attraction in the most awkward of ways.

Black Ink by Anonymous1313 [Not Rated, 60K] *WIP

Being together was what nature had dictated them to be. Alpha and omega. Their families had thought so too, agreeing to marry them to one another once they were old enough. A joyous union between the Nikiforovs and the Katsukis.

But Viktor had decided that they would not be controlled by what their parents had set out for the both of them at a time in the past when neither he nor Yuuri even knew the other existed.

“I was hoping as soon as you turn eighteen, you’d… sign the termination contract.”

Because after all, he and Yuuri were no good for each other.

...Right?

"If… if that's what you really want."

"It is. I'm sorry."

i will go down with this ship by @thishasbeencary [T, 30K] *WIP

Yuuri and Viktor co-star in the fantasy drama History Makers, a show where their characters Mamoru and Dimitry are shipped by all the fans, which of course leads to the fact that fans also ship Yuuri and Viktor. And write fic about it. Yuuri reads RPF by only one author, therealviknik, and leaves a comment on every single one with his account, katsukiforov. Some fans pick up on the conversations and begin to ship therealviknik with katsukiforov as well.

Phichit ships it all.

never tasted rubies by @ebenroot [T, 17K]

Phichit puts up a poll on the radio website. It reads ‘What Do U Think About Yuuri K. from Hasetsu Nights and the Mysterious Caller Victor?’

Seventy-five percent of listeners said ‘lol they should just f*ck already tbh’.

in which Yuuri is an unwilling radio host and Victor won't stop calling in to chat with him

On Online and Offline Love by @alexwspark [M, 33K]

Gaming/Streaming AU: In which Yuuri and Victor are gamers, head over heels for each other, and hoping to one day come face-to-face. Of course, when two whipped, adorable fluff-balls are involved, shenanigans ensue...

The Power of Love by @kiaronna [T, 66K]

“The two Japanese singles medalists make a beautiful pair! Here, at the 2009 Tokyo GPF, we have the start of this power couple’s reign!”

Yuuko and Yuuri dominate the singles skating competition as Japan’s power couple—except they aren’t a couple, and when their old skating idol stumbles into their personal life, everything rapidly goes downhill.

The Secret Lives of Catholic School Boys series by violetlolitapop / @curls-and-cats [T, 72K]

Summary of first fic:

“I’m plenty happy, I know what I am. I’m a godless heathen who is in love with another boy and can’t stop thinking about his ass.”

“Victor!”

“It’s a great ass. Now I’m not Chris, I don’t know much about asses, but he has a great ass. His legs are great too. His whole lower body is great, and I would give a lot to be able to get down on my knees and–“

“Victor!”

“-tie his shoe laces.”

-.-.-

In which Victor confesses to being in love with another boy and makes it difficult for everyone involved.

Other suggestions are welcome but I won't include fics previously recommended under different themes since they're already in the masterlist.

#yuri on ice #yoi #yoi fic rec #yoi fanfic #victuuri #mutual pining #summer of mutual pining

42 notes · View notes

kny111 · 4 years

Text

I’m Living Under Government Watchlist for doing ProBlack + BLM work

I’m not sure many of you know this and with what I’ve seen I doubt this will get attention considering how deeply sabotaged tumblr has become. But I’ve been doing activism for about as long as we’ve been yelling things like “HandsOffAssattaShakur“ to protesting what I thought was religious corruption when we did so against scientology to #OccupyWallstreet. I’ve been protesting and doing activism online and offline depending on my mental and physical health which has limited me as time goes by. It’s finally got me burnt out, not from the protesting and activism, but from those whose job in the past and present been to sabotage and destabilize Black lead/ Poc led movements. I’m in a continuation of this. Don’t let my lack of energy in speaking out fool you into thinking I gave up. I have just gotten worn out by them.

The things they’ve done to my mind and body while in this area since moving. They’ve been surveilling me since before I could even remember. Every single day that goes by they’ll have some way of making their presence on my health in a debilitating way. They’ll mess with the internet, phone, my contacts, infiltrate them, infiltrate my family, they’ve messed with the job search process and made difficult for me to enter any job without said job making some offhanded comments showing their solidarity to the corrupted country I protest. They’ve had people I trusted right here on tumblr infiltrated my circles of friends and myself and make it very well known that they feel beyond reproach.

This has all been in coordination with the NYPD and other government agents of defense. They’ll make themselves present in just about any space I try to go. From the forest, parks, to just a simple walks outside. I basically was lead into an area of Manhattan that is mad pro-cop, pro-surveillence capitalism, pro-militarized. Any time I make blog posts or whatever that don’t put em in a good light I get some kind of mental or physical health debilitating action against me like they’ll have mad loud noises at timed intervals like what the agent upstairs does all the time which messes with my breathing due to social anxiety and depression. They’ve had cars roll dangerously close to me, whether im biking or not. They’ll have people walk mad close to me during social distancing measures. I know it be them because they tend to use sensitive information they got through surveillancing me all day and night. Like fam I could be trying to take a piss in peace at like 3am and they’ll still be bumping away and making all types of sound to give the impression that they’re always watching. And they are. And I think the fact that those UFO/UAP objects appeared on my 17th (11/10/2004) birthday added to their obsession with me. The other fact that I ended painting a similar craft under the context of destroying colonialism I believe gave the government more understanding on what they’re really here about. I think that being the end of these oppressive regimes that have made so much out of us. I don’t want to sound superstitious but since then I’ve felt a connection with those UAPs that I only learned to name recently. I no longer think it’s coincidental that about a month or so AFTER I painted those native, queer sisters dancing to bring forth help from their future descendants, the navy posts those videos of the UAP that become well known. They’ve never done that, and yet just a few weeks after I painted this, not only does the gallery I exhibited this in Harlem catches fire unexpectedly, but these things become a topic of discussion in ways we’ve never seen before. I think them UAPs are here for our freedom. But that’s for another post. Too much to unpack into this. I’m just letting yall know what they know of me. So now imagine. This nigga aka me, tied to UFO, fortelling the future (I know what I sound like, but believe me, I can definitely tell the future) AAAND fighting for black lives? Of course they gone be on my ass like a probe. In fact, I think one night they even broke into our apartment (not the first time they do so) and did things against my will as I slept since I woke up feeling violated. Waking up with strange markings and having objects in the crib go missing. But I’ll leave that there. There’s so little ya’ll know about what they’re doing to BLM activists. So much I’ve omitted from here for my own sanity and to process things. This has caused my body a lot of debilitating stress down to my breathing having been shortened. I’m lucky if I have the will power to eat more than 2 meals. I don’t even bike anymore. I can barely run anymore. I can barely speak like I used to anymore. They stole so much more from me than they’ll ever imagine. Even saying all this to yall, whomever listening, feels pointless. Why? because they’re very good at making it seem, even if and when it aint true, that your people don’t fuck with you no more except for those they deem acceptable. As you figured, this would have anyone under 24/7 watch. The government be lookin at me and them UAP and the lands and non government natives as a force they don’t wanna reckon with, so they’ve put a lot out to shrink me as they do to so many of us who choose to fight for the rest who can’t. And this has all been while trying to raises my baby Quinn with my partner. So we’re all dealing with the state and federal terrorists in one way or another. If they not trying physically fuck with me, they’ll be running psych warfare on me, shit thatll have me doubting myself despite the facts. Luckily a nigga still bout that scientific literacy so it’s helped me a lot in spotting them and trying to keep some semblance of a distance. But again because of what I’m tied to: bday 111, UAP/UFO, native resistance and the spirits of the land and those this country murdered for white supremacist ventures, predicting/ESP type of abilities on the daily while telling them how useless their surveillence capitalist tools are knowing we can do this has likely mad them other me, dehumanize me and made me feel less human. Since then I’ve noticed they’ve been limiting my posts and activities on just about any site that has favored white supremacy, neocolonialism and capitalism in some way or another. They’ll mess with my facebook feed, who my posts get seen by, they’ll mess with my IG, they’ll mess with my tumblr especially. Basically any way they can limit who I may say this to and wear me out from even speaking about this and bringing yall hope like that. And remember, the information that they share amongst themselves as surveillance capitalist is the same information hub/database that infiltrated white supremacists and antiblack/antibrown folks in governments tend to us and share with their own hateful ass people. With this in mind, I really think they look at me as some would be leader to those movements since I’m queer and nonbinary so not as easy to trick into the outdated oppresive politics they try to have me on. Since I haven’t shown interest in being with them in any real way and have stuck to my activism and abolishing these systems they’ve continue to in a way torture me. Through sounds, denial of physical services, or when I go out to eat in places that have ties to law enforcement or government agencies, they’ll mess with my food, just about anything you need they’ll fuck with. What would that do to you if you experienced that? Hence why my bloggin changed a bit, not as attached due to energy fatigue and their constant harrassment and obsession with me. Many times, even with the fact that I may be linked to those UAP in some special way I still be feelin like dyin to not be around em anymore.

To add to what I said on how corporate own websites like tumblr have joined them; After having spent a good amount of time blocking my posts and blaming their algorithm. From blocking drawings of normalizing fatness to pro LGBTQ and Black Lives Matter posts like the Eric Garner videos I uploaded. For a few months now I’ve noticed my scinerds blog has been inaccessible, in a way sabotaging my communication with yall. And they would fix my blog posts by limiting who sees my posts, so now most if not all of my posts on this website and few others have been. When I try to use it I’m not allowed, but I’m still able to reblog, so I’ve been reblogging there less science and more activism as a way to protest the racist, white supremacist of tumblr. Be they black or not, they still acting the same. I’m mostly posting this for a future people who understand me and believe me. I get the sense that this post will also be sabotaged or muted in some way. Thanks for reading, in case we don’t link.

#blm #black lives matter

38 notes · View notes

malecsecretsanta · 4 years

Text

Merry Christmas, starsarefallinglikerain!

For @starsarefallinglikerain. Merry Christmas Chiara! Enjoy. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Online Magnus and Alec bond over Stephen King movies. Offline things are completely different.

Read On AO3

*****

Stephen King, matchmaker

Alexander97: When Carrie's arm came out of her gravesite, I jumped.

Banetastic: I've seen the movie a hundred times and I jump every time.

Alexander97: John Travolta.

Banetastic: John Travolta.

Alexander97: LOL, he was only in it for a few minutes, but he was great.

Banetastic: After I saw Saturday Night Fever, I wanted to marry him.

Alexander97: Really?

Banetastic: Yes, only thing is, he's not into guys. Shame.

Alexander97: Yeah, that would be a deal breaker. This was before Kotter?

Banetastic: No, I think he did the movie while he was doing the tv show.

Alexander97: Oh. I wished I had Carrie's powers.

Banetastic: You wanted to kill your schoolmates?

Alexander97: No my father.

Banetastic: Oh.

Alexander97: Anyway, Carrie and Tommy were so cute together.

Banetastic: Yes they were. Too bad they didn't get a happy ending.

Alexander97: The first time I saw the movie, I wrote a fanfic about them getting married and having kids.

Banetastic: That's wild.

Alexander97: Yes. Tommy got a job in an office and Carrie did sewing at home. They were so in love and were married forever. I was fifteen or sixteen at the time.

Banetastic: I would love to read it.

Alexander97: I forgot what it was called. LMAO, I don't even remember what my handle was. But I'll look for it.

Banetastic: Great. It's getting late.

Alexander97: True. We start talking and time flies by. Good night, Bane.

Banetastic: Night, Alexander. Until tomorrow.

Alexander97: Until tomorrow.

(Banetastic has left the chat. Alexander97 has left the chat.)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The elevator door opens, Alec steps in, pushes 'L', then leans against the wall. The door closes and the elevator descends. Alec nervously watches the floor indicator count down the floors. He swallows as the elevator stops on '5'. The door opens and HE walks in.

HE smiles at Alec, "Good morning."

Alec lowers his eyes as he mumbles, "Good morning."

HE steps to the other side of the elevator as the door closes and the elevator descends. HE continues to look at Alec, "It might rain today."

Alec mumbles, "Yeah, I have an umbrella." He waves it.

"Yeah, I have one too."

The elevator door opens at the lobby and Alec runs out the elevator. He gets to the front door of the building and sees HIM coming up behind him. Alec opens the door then holds it.

HE smiles as he reaches for the door, his fingers brushing against Alec's, "Thanks."

Alec mumbles, "You're welcome." He sees a bus at the corner and runs to the bus stop. He gets there in time and pays his fare. He finds a seat at the back of the bus and sits down. The bus leaves the stop and pulls into traffic. Out the corner of his eye, Alec sees HIM walk to the bus stop, shaking his head. Alec relaxes, that was close.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Magnus' sigh has nothing to do with missing the bus. In fact, he sees another one coming up the street. No, he's bothered by the man with wide shoulders. Well, 'bothered' is probably the wrong word. 'Frustrated' would be a better word.

Magnus has lived in the building for almost five months and try as he might, Magnus barely gets a sentence out of the man.

He gets a quick peek of beautiful hazel eyes, that he would love to get lost in, before Mr. Shoulders becomes interested in his shoes. Magnus can tell that Mr. Shoulders is damaged goods, but that's okay. It's what has kept Magnus in business for six years. He runs a self defense center. Most of his students are women wanting to protect themselves, but he also has a few male students with the same haunted look in their eyes as Mr. Shoulders.

Magnus sighs as the bus pulls into the stop and he gets on. He pays his fare and sits down. He moved because he needed a change of scenery. He noticed Mr. Shoulders the third day he moved in and has been trying to strike up a meaningful conversation with him ever since.

But to no avail. Mr. Shoulders looks everywhere but at Magnus. He mumbles a handful of words to any question Magnus may ask.

All Magnus knows is that he lives on the eighth floor, and he found that out, purely by accident. Magnus was in the elevator when he heard somebody yell, "Hold it please." Any other time, Magnus may not have hit the 'open' button, but he recognized Mr. Shoulders' voice and smashed his finger on the button.

The door reopened and Mr. Shoulders was there balancing four bags of groceries in his arms. His smile quickly disappeared when he saw Magnus, but he got on the elevator and stood in the back as far away from Magnus as he could get. When Magnus asked him what floor he needed, he hesitated before mumbling, "Eight, please."

Magnus was tempted to offer to help, but he didn't want the other man to have a heart attack, so he got off at his floor without another word.

Magnus doesn't care for anybody else in the building. In fact if it weren't for Mr. Shoulders, Magnus may have found another place. But he's a patient man and he knows that he will eventually win Mr. Shoulders' trust and hopefully his heart.

It's only a matter of time.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Banetastic: Christine was an awesome car.

Alexander97: And she was gorgeous.

Banetastic: And protective.

Alexander97: More like possessive.

Banetastic: A bit of both. But you can't blame her. She's been waiting a long time to get a guy and she saw Arnie first.

Alexander97: LMAO, she tried to kill Leigh.

Banetastic: Because she stole Arnie.

Alexander97: So if somebody tried to steal your significant other, you would kill them?

Banetastic: Hell yes.

Banetastic: Alexander, you still there?

Banetastic: Alexander?

Alexander97: I'm still here. I was just thinking about it.

Banetastic: You okay?

Alexander97: Yeah. I guess I don't know what it's like to love somebody that much to kill for them.

Banetastic: Love makes you crazy. And if somebody tries to hurt the one you love, anger makes you crazier.

Alexander97: And dangerous?

Banetastic: Definitely dangerous. I hope I didn't scare you?

Alexander97: No, it's fine. I just never saw it from Christine's POV before.

Banetastic: I totally see it from her view and she ended up winning Arnie in the end.

Alexander97: You think Arnie is driving around Heaven in Christine?

Banetastic: Or Hell. But they are definitely together.

Alexander97: That makes me smile. Oh gee, look at the time. Gotta go. Good night, Bane.

Banetastic: Good night, Alexander.

(Alexander97 has left the chat. Banetastic has left the chat.)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Magnus is walking down the block, when he sees a familiar pair of shoulders locking the door to the Public Library. He's tempted to say something, instead he continues to the bus stop. Out the corner of his eye, he sees Mr. Shoulders walk over and stand by the fire hydrant.

The bus arrives and Magnus pays his fare. He walks to the back of the bus and sits down. He takes out his phone and bows his head, so he can watch Mr. Shoulders take a seat by the back door.

Sighing, Magnus checks his emails. Mr Shoulders stares forward during the entire ride.

As the bus approaches their stop, Mr. Shoulders stands and waits by the back door for the bus to stop. Magnus lets two people get in between them as he steps out the bus.

Mr. Shoulders walks down the block to their building. Magnus stays five strides behind him. Mr. Shoulders takes out his key and unlocks the front door. He steps into the building and holds the door open.

Magnus walks faster. As soon as Magnus' hand touches the door, Mr. Shoulders lets the door go and walks to the mailboxes. As Magnus walks over, he watches Mr. Shoulders open the mailbox for '8D'. Magnus gets his own mail as Mr. Shoulders walks to the elevator and pushes the button.

Magnus walks over as the elevator arrives and they both get in. Mr. Shoulders pushes '8' then stands in the back corner looking down at his mail. Magnus pushes '5' then sighs as he watches the door close.

The elevator goes up and stops on the fifth floor. Magnus smiles at Mr. Shoulders, "Good night."

The other man mumbles, "Night", without looking up from his mail.

Magnus steps off the elevator and walks to his apartment, shaking his head.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Alexander97: Johnny's life sucked.

Banetastic: Johnny had a great life. He had a job he loved. A girl he was going to marry.

Alexander97: Then the accident happened.

Banetastic: True. Sarah should have waited for him. They were in love. She should have waited.

Alexander97: Five years?

Banetastic: Love doesn't have an expiration date.

Alexander97: Whatever. Brooke Adams is married to that guy from Monk.

Banetastic: Yeah. Tony Shalhoub. Poor Monk. After Trudy was killed, he was messed up.

Alexander97: Do you believe in love, Bane?

Banetastic: Of course. Don't you?

Alexander97: No.

Banetastic: Wow. Not even love for your parents or siblings?

Alexander97: I don't have siblings. I guess I loved my mom but I was terrified of my dad.

Banetastic: Oh.

Alexander97: Yeah. My dad shot my mom, she ended up dying, then he chased me outside. The cops told him to stop and when he refused, they shot him.

Banetastic: Wow. I'm so sorry, Alexander.

Alexander97: Yeah, it happened when I was 10. I lived with this foster family until I was 18. I've been on my own since then. I haven't spoken of it to anybody since it happened. Until now. I like talking to you. You make me feel safe, Bane.

Banetastic: I like talking to you too, Alexander. And I'm glad I make you feel safe. By the way, Bane is my last name. You can call me Magnus.

Alexander97: Hello Magnus. I'm Alec.

Banetastic: Nice to meet you, Alec. Where do you live, maybe we can get together for coffee?

Alexander97: I saw on your profile, you live in Brooklyn, New York. So do I.

Banetastic: Perfect. So coffee?

Alexander97: I don't know. I'm not much of an outside person.

Banetastic: Outside person? LMAO. I can understand your caution. Think about it then get back to me?

Alexander97: Okay. But we can still talk here?

Banetastic: Of course. One thing has nothing to do with the other, Alec.

Alexander97: I'm glad. Like I said, I feel safe talking to you.

Banetastic: And I enjoy talking to you. I got an early class tomorrow morning, gotta go.

Alexander97: Okay. Good night, Magnus.

Banetastic: Good night, Alec.

(Alexander97 has left the chat. Banetastic has left the chat.)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Magnus taps his foot as he waits for the elevator. He checked Google and the library is closed on Saturdays, so he hopes Mr. Shoulders is sleeping in. The elevator door opens and Magnus wants to cheer when he sees that the elevator is empty. He gets on and hits 'L'.

The elevator gets to the lobby and the door opens. Magnus walks over to the mailboxes and looks at the name for 8D.

A. Lightwood

Magnus groans, that doesn't help him. Albert, Alan, Andrew, Adam, Alfred, Anthony, Aaron, the list is endless. He walks out the building and looks at the intercom. That also just has 'A'.

Discouraged, Magnus walks to Dunkin Donuts. He enters and walks to the counter. He gets his usual breakfast of a large coffee and toasted cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese. He takes his order to a table at the back and sits down. Magnus enjoys his breakfast as he looks around. He sees Mr. Shoulders, aka Mr. A. Lightwood, walk over to the counter. Magnus is tempted to get his attention, but restrains himself.

A. Lightwood gets his order then leaves, without glancing around to see who might be in Dunkin. Magnus sighs as he finishes his breakfast.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Banetastic: They changed the ending in the movie. Originally the little boy dies.

Alexander97: Stephen doesn't pull punches.

Banetastic: No he doesn't. But I love how protective Donna is. 100% mama bear.

Alexander97: The mechanic reminded me of my dad.

Banetastic: Oh?

Alexander97: Yeah, he terrified me, that's why I've only seen Cujo once.

Banetastic: Oh.

Alexander97: I'm kind of tired. I think I'll go to bed early.

Banetastic: Wait, Alec. What about us getting together?

Alexander97: I don't know.

Banetastic: Please. I enjoy our conversations and it would be awesome to actually talk to you.

Banetastic: Alec?

Banetastic: Alexander?

Banetastic: You still there?

Alexander97: Yeah.

Banetastic: There's a Dunkin near me, on Church and Flatbush, we can meet there for breakfast. Lots of people. We don't even have to talk. I just want to meet you.

Banetastic: Alexander?

Alexander97: Ok. That Dunkin is close to me too.

Banetastic: EXCELLENT. That's great.

Alexander97: When?

Banetastic: Tomorrow? Unless you have to work?

Alexander97: I don't work on Sundays. Tomorrow is okay.

Banetastic: Is 10 too early?

Alexander97: 10 is fine.

Banetastic: How will I know it's you?

Alexander97: I'm not sure. Oh wait. I'll bring a book with me. Christine. It's all beat up. I'll set it on the table.

Banetastic: Awesome. I can't wait to see you tomorrow.

Alexander97: Yeah. Good night, Magnus.

Banetastic: Good night.

(Alexander97 has left the chat. Banetastic has left the chat.)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Magnus checks his watch as he waits for the elevator. Ten minutes to ten. He doesn't want to get to Dunkin before Alexander. He wants the other man to get comfortable before Magnus shows up. That's assuming Alexander is an early bird.

Magnus doesn't consider himself a violent man, but he would love to have twenty minutes with Alexander's dead father. Just to teach him how it feels to be on the receiving end of a punch or two or ten.

He takes a deep breath, he needs to calm down. He doesn't want to scare Alexander and have him run out of Dunkin.

The elevator arrives and Magnus gets on. He pushes 'L' and watches the floor indicator light as the elevator goes down. He gets off the elevator and leaves the building. He walks to Dunkin.

He glances around as he enters, and sighs when he sees Mr. Shoulders at a table in the back. Magnus continues to look around as he waits on line. He notices a book on the table, next to Mr. Shoulder's hand.

A well read paperback copy of Christine.

Magnus closes his eyes as he mentally kicks himself in the ass.

A. Lightwood, as in Alexander Lightwood.

Magnus opens his eyes and smiles at Josie. She laughs, "The usual?"

He nods, "Please." She rings up his coffee and bagel.

Magnus watches Mr. Shoulders aka A. Lightwood aka Alexander out the corner of his eye. He's eating his breakfast in between quick glances at the door.

Josie hands Magnus his order, "Have a nice day."

Magnus smiles, "I hope so. Thanks." He walks over to Alec's table.

Alec looks up, panic in his eyes, "Can I help you?"

Magnus smiles gently, "I'm Magnus."

Alec's eyes widen as he looks at his book then back at Magnus, "Oh."

"Is it okay if I join you?" Alec nods without a word. Magnus puts his coffee and bag on the table then sits down, "Thanks."

Alec mumbles, "You're welcome."

Magnus takes a sip of his coffee then takes the bagel out the bag. Alec picks up his muffin. They eat in silence.

Magnus keeps his head down as he eats. He watches, out the corner of his eye, as Alec's shoulders relax. He smiles as he enjoys his bagel.

Magnus quickly looks up when Alec starts to stand, "Where you going?"

Alec bites his lip, "I want more coffee."

Magnus nods as he finishes his own coffee, "Okay. I could use a refill as well. I'll go." He stands up. Alec reaches into his pocket. Magnus smiles, "I got it, I'll be right back." He walks to the counter as Alec sits back down.

Josie smiles, "You still here?"

Magnus nods, "I'm with a friend."

She glances over, "Tall, dark and timid?"

Magnus laughs, "You know Alec?"

"Yeah, he's here almost every morning. In fact, he's asked about you a few times."

"Me?"

"Yes. He sees you at your usual table and asks if I know who you are."

"Interesting."

She nods, "I'm glad you two found each other. You make an adorable couple."

Magnus smiles, "I'm trying."

"Good. He needs somebody like you."

"Like me?"

"Protective. My sister takes your self-defense class on Wednesdays."

"Oh."

"Anyway, what can I do for you?"

"A couple of coffees please. Damn, I forgot to ask him what he wants."

She winks, "I got you, don't worry about it." She rings up the two coffees. Magnus pays with his credit card as she makes them. She puts the two cups on the counter, "Here you go."

Magnus picks them up, "Thanks." He walks back. He puts the cups on the table then sits.

Alec gives him a slight smile, "Thank you."

"You're welcome." They enjoy their second cups of coffee in silence.

Alec finishes, gathers his trash and stands up, "It was nice meeting you."

Magnus finishes his coffee, "Wait, we still have the whole day. Let's go see a movie or go to the aquarium or the zoo."

Alec picks up his book, "I have to go grocery shopping."

"Fine. I'll go with you."

Alec shakes his head, "No, that's okay. This was nice, but I gotta go." He walks away quickly, drops his trash in the garbage can and leaves Dunkin.

Magnus sighs as he pinches the bridge of his nose, "Damn it." He stands, picks up his empty cups and bag and walks over to the garbage can. He shakes his head at Josie as he drops the trash in, "I was so close."

She gives him a slight smile, "You giving up?"

Magnus smiles, "Hell no."

She laughs, "Good for you. Good luck."

"Thanks, I'm going to need it." Magnus leaves Dunkin.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Magnus grabs a bottle of beer out the fridge, opens it and tosses the cap in the sink. The takeout trash is in the garbage. He walks over to the sofa. Now he's ready to watch tv. He sits down and reaches for the remote, that is on the coffee table. Drinking his beer, he goes through the channels and smiles when he sees that The Dark Tower is starting.

As the end credits roll, Magnus checks to see what's on next. The Shawshank Redemption. Magnus tells the empty room, "Another great movie." He runs to the fridge for another beer, then gets comfortable on the sofa again.

When the movie is over, he eyes his tablet on the other side of the sofa, where he left it last night.

Usually when he's done with tv, he logs into the chat and talks to Alec. But after this morning, Magnus isn't sure if Alec is still interested in talking to him.

With a sigh, he puts the remote on the coffee table then reaches for the tablet.

He puts it on. Once it's ready, Magnus hits the chat icon, which automatically logs him in.

Alexander97: Magnus are you there?

Alexander97: Magnus, you said one thing has nothing to do with the other.

Alexander97: Magnus I'm sorry, please talk to me.

Alexander97: Magnus

Alexander97: Magnus, please don't leave me.

Magnus quickly puts the beer bottle on the coffee table then starts typing.

Banetastic: Shit, Alec. I'm the one that should be apologizing. I was watching tv.

Alexander97: Oh.

Banetastic: Yes but now I'm here.

Alexander97: I should tell you that I kind of knew it was you.

Banetastic: Knew what was me?

Alexander97: About a month ago, I finally got enough nerve to look at the mail boxes for the fifth floor and saw 'M. Bane' for 5F.

Banetastic: Oh?

Alexander97: Yeah. Then the other day, when you said your first name was 'Magnus', that was too much of a coincidence.

Banetastic: I see.

Alexander97: So I wasn't really surprised to see at my table this morning.

Banetastic: Then why did you run away so quickly?

Alexander97: I was scared.

Banetastic: Of me?

Alexander97: Yes and no. I wasn't scared OF you, I was scared of you rejecting me.

Magnus closes his eyes as he shakes his head. He mutters, "Ten minutes with his father, that's all I need."

Banetastic: Nonsense.

Alexander97: Easy for you to say that now. But I'm sure once I started talking you would have noped right out of Dunkin.

Magnus grits his teeth. He stands holding the tablet in a tight grip. He walks over to the cabinet by the door and grabs his keys. He leaves his apartment, locks the door and walks over to the stairway door. He's in no mood to wait for the elevator.

Banetastic: That's crazy talk. We've been talking for almost a year here, why would you think that?

Alexander97: It's easy for me to talk online, where I can change stuff if I think it sounds stupid. If I SAY something stupid, I can't erase it.

Magnus shakes his head as he takes the steps two at a time to the eighth floor. He lets the stairway door slam as he walks to 8D. He knocks on the door.

Alexander97: Oh my god, Magnus. Somebody is at my door. Why? I don't know anybody in the building. Besides you. So who could that be? I'm scared. Magnus what should I do?

Magnus takes a deep breath, then slowly lets it out, as he thinks, "Five minutes tops."

Banetastic: It's okay, Alec. I'M at the door.

Alexander97: You? Why?

Banetastic: So that we can talk.

Alexander97: We are talking.

Banetastic: Face to face.

Alexander97: Oh.

Banetastic: Alec come open the door.

Banetastic: I'm just going to stand here until you let me in.

Magnus glances at the elevator as the door opens and a woman steps off. She eyes him coldly as she walks down the hall. Magnus smiles at her as she walks past him. She stops at the end of the hallway, unlocks her door then quickly enters her apartment. The door slams and Magnus hears her lock the door.

Magnus rolls his eyes as he returns his attention to his tablet. Out the corner of his eye, he sees the door open. Magnus looks up and smiles.

Alec holds the door open, "She's a mean lady. She might call the police if you stay out here any longer."

Magnus nods as he walks into the apartment, "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Alec closes the door.

Magnus looks around the apartment. A couple of armchairs, a small television and three bookcases are all there is in the living room. There's a table with four chairs in the kitchen. A laptop is on the table.

Alec gestures to the kitchen, "We can talk there."

Magnus smiles, "Ok." He walks to the table and sits down. He puts his tablet on the table.

Alec walks over, "You want coffee?"

Magnus shakes his head, "No thanks."

"Oh." Alec grips the back of the chair, where his laptop is, with both hands, "I have iced tea."

Not liking how tense Alec is, Magnus smiles, "That sounds good."

Alec smiles as he lets go of the chair and walks to the fridge, "Cool." He takes out a pitcher. He gets glasses out of the cabinet and fills them. He puts the pitcher back in the fridge then brings the glasses to the table. He walks over to the counter and gets a tin of cookies. He brings it and a handful of napkins to the table, then sits down. He closes the laptop and moves it to the side.

Magnus silently watches Alec move around the kitchen. He seems relaxed and happy. Magnus likes seeing this side of Alec. He takes a couple of cookies and places them on a napkin, then takes a drink of his iced tea, "This is good."

Alec's eyes sparkle, "It's Mona's recipe. Three parts 4C iced tea mix with one part Kool Aid lemonade mix."

"Mona is?"

"My foster mom."

"I see."

Alec nods, "My dad didn't allow sweets in the house. We didn't even have bagels. Just white bread."

"I'm sorry."

Alec shrugs as he eats a cookie, "It's okay. The Whitmans were nice people. Mona and Ted. They didn't have any children of their own. They were killed in a car accident two weeks after my eighteenth birthday. They left everything to me. I sold the house and moved here. I kept some of the furniture and sold the rest."

"You've been with the library since you moved here?"

Alec nods, "After I graduated college, I got an internship at Grand Army Plaza. A children's librarian position opened up in the Spring Creek branch. I was there for over a year then transferred to the Flatlands location."

"Children's librarian? Interesting."

"I like it." Alec stands and gets the pitcher of iced tea out the fridge. He refills their glasses. He sits down after putting the pitcher back, "So what do you do?"

Magnus smiles, "I own a self defense center."

"Oh."

"You interested?"

Alec shakes his head, "No, thanks. I can't see me hitting anybody." He folds his arms across his chest and lowers his head.

"I understand." Magnus mentally kicks himself. He quickly changes the subject, "So what is your favorite Stephen King movie?"

Alec looks up as he thinks. He takes a drink, then slowly smiles, "Dead Zone. It would be cool to touch somebody's hand and see their future. But only good things. Like who they would fall in love with or how many kids they would have or that new job they will get."

"I don't know if it would be possible to limit what you can see."

Alec shrugs, "I don't want to see death, just happy things."

Magnus nods as he reaches for Alec's hand and gently holds it in both of his, "You know what I see right now?"

Alec looks from Magnus' face to their hands back to his face, "What?"

"I see you and me eating dinner tomorrow night at a nice Italian restaurant in Downtown Brooklyn."

Alec smiles, "Really?"

"Yes really."

"I'd like that."

"I keep my car in the garage, it's easier to go back and forth to work on the bus. I'll pick you up at the library."

"I'm not sure what time I finish."

Magnus nods. He reaches into his back pocket with his right hand, "Damn, I left my phone in the apartment. Give me your phone, and I'll give you my number."

Alec nods as he lets go of Magnus' hand and stands up. He runs into his bedroom and gets his phone off the nightstand. He runs back to the kitchen and hands his phone to Magnus. Their fingers touch briefly. Alec smiles as Magnus types his cell number into Alec's contact list.

Magnus texts Alec to his cellphone, then hands the phone back to Alec, "This way I can put your number in my contacts. Tomorrow, when you find out what time you're leaving, you can text me."

"Okay."

Magnus smiles as he stands, "Thanks for the tea and cookies. See you tomorrow?" He picks his tablet up.

Alec nods, "That's a definite yes." They walk to the door. Alec opens it, "Until tomorrow, Magnus."

"Until tomorrow, Alec." Magnus leaves the apartment. Alec closes the door then smiles as he leans against it.

Magnus walks to the stairwell and goes downstairs to his apartment. He unlocks his door, smiling he says, "Thank you, Stephen King." as he enters the apartment then locks the door.

-the end-

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Carrie, Christine and Dead Zone are my favorite Stephen King books and movies.

A/N: I took a bit of artistic license with locations. There IS a Dunkin on Church and Flatbush Aves, but the building that Alec and Magnus live in doesn't exist. There's a bus stop next to the Flatlands branch of the Public Library, but it's on the other side of the library. I wanted Magnus to walk past and see Alec locking the door. The actual next stop is three blocks away.

#starsarefallinglikerain #malecsanta20 #*fic20 #*gifts20

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elizabethsharmon · 4 years

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Now that s5 has ended what do you think about it? I remember seeing you be quite vocal about the season and then you just stopped and I was just wondering what your general opinion is. Did the fandom scare you away? :(

hey there! I kind of stopped being so loud about the show here cause at some point I just gave up about s5 and don’t worry, it would take a lot for fandom to scare me away and i’ll be back with my usual bullshit in 2 weeks with s6 clip by clip reactions ✌️ anyway, i was going through my archive while writing this to remind myself of what happened in each clip and what were mine and fandom’s reactions to it and somehow when I started writing this, it turned out I can’t stop and it got quite long so I'mputting it under read more:

So first of all may I just say that the trailer/firstclip was one of my favourite clips of all times. It was just SO GOOD and to meit was like a dream come true cause I was talking about dropping a clip andstarting a season on New Year since July AND THEY DID IT AND IT WAS E P I C,such a power move, I love it. Honestly everything worked there, the music wasamazing, it was so wonderful to see both squads partying together, it wasperfect, 11/10.

Then the season started and I absolutely loved thefirst two episodes, we really started to get into Arthur's head, to get to knowhim and his family, find out how insecure he is and how well he's hidingeverything from others, and Arthur and Alexia clips!!!! They worked so welltogether and were so cute and supportive, I said it back then that if they ruinthem I will never forgive them for that because what was the point of makingthem a couple in the first place?? I still don't understand that, I don't thinkI ever will... Fast forward to the first Wednesday of the season aka underwatermale gaze aka the moment I knew we're in for a ride and it won't be a goodone... When the clip started I was over the moon, I'm a swimming hoe myself andI loved that they used the pool for actual swimming, the cinematography wasbeautiful and I loved that they found a way to incorporate Lisa into the story.That was until Arthur dived and saw Noee... and sadly, this was the firstmoment I emotionally yeeted out from the season. Don't even get me started howwrong it was - 1. using the pool which is a sacred place in the show’smythology; 2. using piano music; 3. peak male gaze, objectifying Noee, andArthur staring at her even though HE HAD A GIRLFRIEND; they were setting it upas a love triangle from the beginning and after those 10+ weeks I still havethe same question about it as I had back then: why. It was also the first timefandom started to be hostile and the shipping war began, some people werecoming to my and my friends' inboxes, sending us anons to stop thinking theworse about Arthur, that love triangle will definitely not happen and thatDavid explained on his insta that they used the setting of pool in another waythan it was used in og s3... Well, jokes on you cause we were right. Anyway thatWednesday clip was to me the first red flag of the season, the first momentwhen some people started attacking others, when the fandom police started formingand suddenly you couldn't say anything because someone would jump on you andsend hate.

But I decided to let it slide, hoping that they reallywouldn't go there (spoiler alert: they did) and then we got Friday clips withelu housewarming (i'm still emo!!!) and Arthur losing his hearing permanently.It was absolutely heartbreaking to find out he lost hearing in his left ear 2years ago, it was a real game changer back then and suddenly everything changed- why he was looking at Alexia so intently, why he didn't cover his left ear atnye party, etc. I absolutely LOVED the way they handled the topic at thebeginning with Jerome explaining everything to Arthur and to us and I LOVED thepositive discourse it started within the fandom with deaf/hoh people teachingothers and explaining things without getting mad at silly questions - tbh to meit was one of the best parts of the first half of the season and I'm reallygrateful for it ❤️

Sunday clips with gang were one of my favourite in theseason, I think Arthur took us all by surprise when he went to elu's flat totell the guys that he can't hear and they were chaotic and supporting andamazing and wow, I really don't understand what the fuck happened and wherethey disappeared in the second half of the season. I loved that they hinted aturbex king Eliott and I kinda feel like that might come back in s6....... butanyway. The 7 amclips were absolutely one of the highlights of the season. They helped to buildsome sort of routine and Robin absolutely nailed them, I could feel howpowerless and more frustrated he was feeling AND I also felt betrayed that wedidn't get one on Thursday and Friday. Even though after the first pool clip Iwas dreading every single next clip there, I really liked that they were showingus that Arthur goes there every Wednesday, it really helped to get inside hishead and to understand him more and I kinda wish they hadn't stopped thatbecause it would be a really power move to keep showing that. Alexia in episode2 was just WOW, i can't believe there were people who were saying she andArthur don't have chemistry or that he should break up with her because she'snot supportive - well, she proved you all wrong. Too bad Arthur was too dumband self-absorbed to appreciate that.

BASILE/ARTHUR FRIENDSHIP. All their clips were solovely and heartwarming, I loved how different Basile was in Arthur's pov toBasile we knew at the beginning of s3; when he didn't want to leave Arthuruntil he said back that he loves him :'))) wholesome. I kinda wish we got tosee more of those two, they're definitely hanging out just the two of them andthat's what was lacking for me, those 3 or so clips of just the two of thembeing wholesome buddies were great but they were not enough.

The party clip on Thursday of ep2 was great, I lovedhow they're giving us little insights of deaf/hoh community and showing usArthur getting drawn to it. I wish that it wasn't overshadowed by love triangleand we got more of it, but I'll be back to it later...

Now, episode 3 and 4 were strong in the term of clipsbut those two weeks were incredibly boring when you were watching it in realtime. The breaks were too long, there were three clipless days each episodewith hardly any social media update and at times it made me forget about theshow completely. The bar clip in ep3 was great until they started sayingproblematic shit and tbh I was really starting to stress over Eliott then -first we got a hint that housewarming party was canceled because he wasn't feelingwell, now over a week later he's not feeling well again and Lucas' "he'smy boyfriend and i love him" was very cute and I loved it but it alsostarted to lead to misery porn and this dread didn't leave me until the end ofthe season and I'm still worried that it will play a part in s6 and it won't behandled well (disclaimer: this is not about the fact that they're talking aboutEliott's MI, it's about how Lucas started to act like a martyr and the way theystarted to show him acting almost like Lucille).

Episode 3 was also the time when I think it becameobvious that Arthur's short outburst of communication was gone and we'll haveto deal with next few weeks of miscommunication, sulking and hiding. Beginningof ep4 was another moment for me when I wanted to escape from this seasonbecause of the fandom police - they created as hostile atmosphere for the fanswatching in real time as druck stans did during s3, when you couldn't commentanything or say anything without other people jumping on you, calling you outand hating you, that for a moment again I was ready to give up on the show. Ireally wish I had done it.

As much as I liked stupid gang content in thecafeteria the whole clip was kinda odd and the 1,5 days break between the clipand laser tag was too much. I feel like the pacing in episode 4 really didn'twork in their favour and the clips could've been placed in another order sothat the breaks weren't so long. The laser tag was such a strong clip withbeautiful cinematography and colouring and it showed us Arthur's problems withsensory overload and again - I wish we could find out more about it because inthe end the clip was too short and cut abruptly only for Arthur to go to Noeeto see her dance in a scene that was pure male gaze, where the camera lingeredon her flat, bare stomach, a few times showing close up of her boobs. And yes.I am aware sing language is a bodily language. But the thing is that itcould've been shown differently, without so many objectifying shots, with Noeewearing different clothes, without Arthur staring at her with his jaw dropped.Arthur who - may i remind you - had a girlfriend at that time. I can watchgore, I can watch open surgeries, I can watch blood, and fight, and beating,and all that without the blink of the eye. i could barely watch the clip ofNoee dancing. I've never felt so sick after watching something in my life, Ihad to go offline for a few hours cause I was feeling so unwell. This was sucha fucked up scene to film in such a way, to objectify her, to use male gaze, touse piano music, slow motion, man looking at her in a predatory way, and thisscene was so wrong on so many levels itself but when you add to it the factthat Alexia NEVER got scenes like that and all her dancing scenes showed her basicallyas a quirky friend having fun at parties. And that's disgusting.

But let's move on to episode 5. I loved all the scenesin the asso, I loved that they showed Arthur actually going to LSF classes, Iloved how he confronted his father about it later. Though episode 5 was alsothe start of the boy squad becoming brainless idiots, lying to his friend,plotting behind his back, going to a concert without him. Episode of beautifulcinematography and skating scene that I watched trying not to think about thefact that Arthur is basically having a date with another girl while hisgirlfriend is studying for her bac, of an oblivious guy not wanting to stop itbefore it's too late and everyone's hearts will be broken.... I loved that hesnapped at the guys in the detention clip. I liked the following clip withAlexia, when they made her talk about her insecurities, showed us how strongshe is but also how fragile she is at the same time. But that Sunday of episode6 was the moment I ultimately realized I don't care any more about this season.It was already ruined for me. Alexia opening up, Alexia asking Arthur aboutNoee and him saying the worst ableist shit ever, Arthur breaking Noee'sheart... Those three clips made me realize that for me it's too late, thedamage is done, and I won't be able to enjoy this season for real. Alexia wasbound to get her heart broken, I was pitying Noee because it wasn't her fault aguy she had a crush on kept on leading her for weeks, and Arthur... I dislikedhim more and more and I just wanted it to be over.

I loved all clips with Laura and Melchior, the playfuldynamic in their interactions with Arthur was one of the best things of theseason and I can't stop but think that we could've had the same thing but withArthur, Noee, and Camille. Meanwhile Noee was reduced to manic pixie dreamgirl, a homewrecker, a plot device, and Camille was there only to translate(and later to be Mika's boyfriend). I really liked the clip with Noee andArthur reading her letter about cochlear implant, it was very informative andit was the kind of content I really wanted to see in this season. The onlything I hated about it - which was a recurring theme in clips with Noee... - isthat Arthur kept forgetting about Alexia and this was so unfair to her.

Now. The Valentine's Day. I loved the sourd datingclip, again, it was something that I wanted to see in the season and it was avery strong clip. But then the rest of the episode... I really wish it didn'texist. Jumping to the pool in clothes???? Arthur sharing his deepest trauma andNoee kissing him??? NOEE AND ARTHUR SHIPPERS JUMPING ON PEOPLE SAYING THAT SHEDID IT TO COMFORT HIM???? Sorry guys, I don't know about you but when myfriends are sharing something traumatizing to me I hug them or hold their hand,I don't kiss them with tongue. Also using a flashback??? It doesn’t go wellwith the show’s format, why was it even used???

Episode 8 was... Episode 8 was wild. And weird. Andstrange. And I don't really know what was the point of it. But despiteeverything crackfic farm au was at least entertaining and it was kind ofsomething we needed then after weeks of will they/won't they and hating Arthur.Whipped elu was everything, the fifi saga was hilarious and I rewatched itaround 50 times and it still makes me laugh - Maxence nailed it but ?? what wasthe point? they killed Eliott's bunny so that he would become vegetarian? Theywanted to traumatize him and cause him to have an episode that was cut in theend? (I really wouldn't be surprised, there are 2 clips missing from firstepisodes each, and probably more in the others). I really don't know what wasthe point. The 6h15 or sth clip was funny but if Lucas and Arthur hugging itout cause sorry bro / it's okay bro / bro / bro is what they're considering aproper apology then I'm sorry but it isn't. What's more, the pacing of thisepisode was incredibly off and the clips didn't add up and there wasn't anynatural flow to it - they should've madetwo clips on Sunday - with Arthur getting to the van and them arriving to thecountryside, two clips on Monday with 6 am and then Daphne and Basile, Fifitrilogy on Tuesday and then right after midnight on Wednesday Arthur and Alexiain the barn. Now, the cheating excusing convo... I was absolutelydisgusted by the boy squad and the fact that YANN who was cheated on in s1advised Arthur to not say anything... wow. Also I really don't like what Eliottsaid there, I understood it in that moment that he was mainly talking from aphilosophical pov that humans are never satisfied in general, but he was sayingthat during the cheating convo, right after he said that he cheated on his gfto get with his bf, he said it while Lucas was right there, knowing that he hasdeeply rooted abandonment issues and this is what made the situation worse. Ithink I'll talk more about the fandom reaction and team's comments later causethere will be a lot to unpack there so yeah, I'll leave it for now.

Because now let's move on to February 21, aka theFriday that changed everything. Can I just say that I have never seen a worseclip ever in my life? That wasn't skam. That was soap opera. And not even agood one. I can't even comprehend how they wrote THIS and thought it was good.I despise the choice of making Noee speak out loud with every fiber of mybeing. First they objectified her, reduced her to the plot device and 1/3 ofthe love triangle, and now they stripped her of her integrity for a guy who wasconstantly leading her on, who has a girlfiend. They made her so desperate tomake him stay with her that she lost a part of himself for him. And for who??For a guy who didn't give a fuck about her? Who constantly played with herfeelings? Who mocked her and her language and her culture and didn't do so onlywhen it was convenient for him? Honestly fuck him, fuck Arthur. And then A CARCRASHED INTO HIM LIKE ????????????? Someone please explain to me what was thepoint of that cause the only one I see was to provide a fandom with a greatfree entertainment.

Now, episodes 9 and 10 were overall much stronger thanthe past few weeks but it was already to late to salvage the season. We gotanother cheating apologists scene which was - again - absolutely disgusting,especially coming from Lucas - who gave Arthur the same advice he gave to Emma- and Yann - who was cheated on and knew from his own experience that stufflike that always come out in the end. It's like all their character developmentfrom previous seasons went down the drain. Arthur on the other hand seemed tohave a character regression with each passing week. I'm still appalled by whatLucas said - that Alex is their friend but Arthur is part of the gang. It wasdisgusting. And it was out of the character. And it was the worst possiblething that could've been said.

Coline's song was so beautiful and I was so happy thatArthur finally realized what he's lost, though I feel like all those intensestaring between Arthur and Noee was unnecessary again, it's like they couldn'tjust give us a break for one clip from them, it's like she was constantlystealing Alexia's moments, whether she was on screen at the time or not.

The clip with elu was sweet and gave us greatwholesome content, but it only confirmed that Lucas' abandonment issues woke upfrom their nap and I'm already dreading what they're planning to do with thatin s6, especially that according to the latest news Lucas is not very presentin the next season... The polyamory talk... It was odd. It felt force. Thebuildup to it wasn't done very well and what' more it was built on cheating.And that's doesn't bode well. It's also quite ridiculous how it took 1 minuteconversation with Lucas or even one sentence from him tbh for Arthur to go"oh yeah I'm poly. I think." and tell Noee that he loves her eventhough he spent the last couple of weeks denying that and pushing her away. IHATE that yet again they made her be so desperate and cry when he was tellingher this. That's not Noee they gave us in the first half of the season. Ireally liked the clip of Laura and Melchior and Arthur giving the presentationto the students but Arthur's grandiose speech to students and then to girls wasso strange, there wasn't any buildup to it, or more likely Arthur that we werehaving on screen from the end of ep 4 till the end of ep9 was gone and the oldArthur finally showed up. But nevertheless it was strange and not very fittingto the way how the story progressed.

NOW the last two clips - first was a little bit shortand I can't say I was a huge fan (though Eliott's kermit-like dance waseverything jdskjdkjjd) but the second clip was absolutely beautiful, we finallysaw Daphne talk, I'm still not sure what to think about Noee/Arthur (not reallya fan of how the story was resolved... or how it wasn't resolved), AND THEMURAL! LUCAS CRYING BECAUSE HE'S PROUD OF HIS BOYFRIEND! ELIOTT ONCE A YEARMAKING A MURAL OUT OF PURE LOVE! EVERYONE CRYING! ELIOTT NOT PAINTING HIMSELFBECAUSE HE DOESN'T CONSIDER HIMSELF PART OF THE SQUAD (although he is, I don'tknow why they don't understand it) and... Lola. But I guess I'll be back to itlater.

So now, I can't say I'm a fan of the season. I enjoyedsome of the clips, but overall it was a mess, love triangle and fandom and crewbehaviour ruined the season for me. I was absolutely disgusted but howprivileged fans acted on tumblr and on twitter. And yes. There are privilegedfans, fans who were shutting others up because they "don't want us to getour hopes up when we don't know what might happen", fans who were sayingthat "you don't know anything haha i can promise you don't know shit hahano i don't know anything and no i'm not jealous haha you just don't know buthaha tell me this oh how stupid you are", fans who were acting like afandom police all the freaking time, yelling at everyone to "wait and see!you don't know what will happen!". Well. We didn't. Because contrary to 5%of the "little ones-fans", the rest 95% is not privileged enough toget a special treatment, to be invited on set for filming, to know the detailsof the plot before the season airs, to know the bigger picture. It's not fair.If you really know everything then great, I'm happy for you, but let the otherswatch the show how they like, let them react to it clip by clip. Because mostof us don't know the bigger picture and don't know what will happen and how theissues will be resolved. And you are aware that the format of the show itselfencourages viewers to react to the events of the story as they resolve onscreen and through transmedia content, right? That's the essence of skam.Taking that away from the regular fans because you've been let in to some innercircle and know it all is absolutely disgusting. Don't interact with the fandomif you can't stand seeing people not agreeing with the writing choices,questioning what they watch and theorizing about what will happen. If you're soabove it, then just stick with the people like you, with those 5% or so ofknow-it-all and "enjoy" the show with them. Don't ruin the fun forothers. You're not better than anyone else. Don't act like it. Don't be ahypocrite. Don't act publicly as a fandom police, criticize everyone who sharesspoilers and call them out and write hateful posts, if you're doing the sameprivately, if you can't shut up when someone sends you a dm or a message offanon and suddenly you spill everything. Don't be fake. If you know stuff, thengreat, I don't know admit it and say that you want say anything or don't sayanything but then don't spread the spoilers and don't write cryptic comments inthe tags. It's not helping anyone and it's definitely not doing anything good.And to people on twitter currently posting what I guess they assume are vaguetweets about cast’s personal lives? Fuck you. You’re so loud, you know? Maybeyou think you’re talking in a special code only you and your friends can guessbut it’s so obvious and so disgusting, you really have no shame. Grow up andget a life.

Another thing that ruined the season for me was theway the crew was acting on twitter and instagram and I’m so so so disappointed by their behaviour,especially that I’ve always considered them as one of the most open-mindedteams who respect their fans and their opinions. Turns out they do that butonly when the reactions to the clips are positive. I mean, I kind of get it,obviously everyone wants to hear the praise, but you cannot ignore thenegative comments and fans’ concerns, especially that there were plenty of themthis season. And during social media age when it takes one click to see theliked posts or comments, it becomes obvious that the crew was only interacting (evenin such a passive way like liking comments or tweets) with fanswho were praising the show. All the negative comments and questions werebrushed off, saying that “the season will reveal its own truth” and that iffans will have any questions they will be answered after. Well, franklyspeaking, me and my friends have a list of questions that we’d love to get ananswer for:

- why was love triangle necessary?- why did they make Alexia and Arthur a couple in the first place if theywanted him to go after Noee?- why did Noee say she doesn't like talking out loud cause sign language is howshe communicates only to yell at Arthur to stop him from leaving, losing herintegrity for a guy who doesn't care about her?- car????????????????????????- cheating convos - why are they excusing it like that- treatment of Alexia & why did they include numerous comments about Alexia'sbody?- THE MALE GAZE - why did the camera focus so much on Noee's body, why was sheobjectified and why was she presented as a stark contrast to Alexia?- fifi?- p*trick and why the abuse was introduced so late in the plot and overshadowedimmediately by cheating and then followed by crackfic farm au?- why didn't we see any Arthur centered clips where he shows he likes art?- why did Arthur and space have no relevance in the season???- why are Lucas and Yann saying shit every time they open their mouths and whydid they forgot about everything that happened in s1?- the whole convo with the boy squad on valentine's day and how shitty theirreaction was - why?- why we didn't see any actual squad interactions on holidays and no realapologies?- why does the life of the characters always has to revolve around romanticrelationships?- why can't men and women be friends unless the man is gay?- what was the point of all the ship wars and skamlaserie photo withArthur/Alexia and Arthur/Noee *especially* after all the comments on twitterand on Instagram when fans were fighting already and it only made thingsescalate? Why not stop it, why pit fans against each other, why let it escalatelike that?- why draw parallels between elu and Arthur/Noee?- Why was Noee reduced to love interest and Camille to translator 90% of thetime and why don't give them similar dynamics with Arthur as Melchior and Laurahave?- how can Arthur see underwater?- Catherine - was she just a queerbait?- tuturo comment from the forum and Arthur's 'relationship' with 34 yo - whywasn’t it mentioned ever again?- how could noee not know arthur has a girlfriend since she was following himon instagram and he had photos with alexia there?- what happened with basile's birthday since they never celebrated them??- in samedi 11:04 (5x10) eliott says "i've got some croissants, do youwant me to heat them up?" which implies that he's already bought them andbrought them back to the flat BUT he's putting his jacket on as if he was aboutto leave and then he leaves and slams the door so what's the truth?

The crew completely invalidated the feelings andconcerns of the fans and what added fuel to the flame for me was thatskamlaserie post with Arthur/Noee/Alexia and caption that they can’t choosecause they love them both and… Honestly, who the hell works there. There’s beendrama for the whole week on twitter and under David’s posts on insta andinstead of finally end it, idk block the comments or just make a statement ORWHATEVER, they posted THAT on the official show’s account?? Why haven’t they stopped it? Why did they keep on pitting fans against each other up to the point that one twitter user started getting DEATH THREATS only because they translated some video??? Absolutely disgusting.@skamlaserie and @fr team: hate to break it to you but there's nothing wrong with being single andthere's plenty of teenagers who aren't in relationships in high school andthat's okay... maybe that's how Arthur should've started the season instead ofbecoming a cheater and leading on two girls at the same time just for the sakeof having unnecessary relationship drama which literally only created somepointless ship wars and put half of the fandom off watching the show... just saying.

Then, another things that rubbed me the wrong way werethe whole “canceling” discourse (that never really happened and I still standby what I said in the comments to this post so I’ll just direct you to it) and imposingthe one “right” interpretation on the fans - I specifically have the cheatingconvo from episode 8 in mind now. We all have a right to our owninterpretations of every scene, here many people saw it as Eliott’s commenthaving an effect on Lucas and his abandonment issues and started commenting onthat on twitter and David had to rush to explain that he hadn’t meant Lucas,that Eliott won’t cheat and that they won’t break up and will stay together.Well, the thing is that there’s such a concept as “the death of the author”which I suppose you can already guess from its name says that the author, theirbeliefs, backstory, opinions, etc. shouldn’t be taken into account wheninterpreting the text because writing (or in this case - a show) and creatorare separate entities and shouldn’t be correlated. First of all, thismetaphorical extinguishing of fire seemed pointless and like a mockery, seeinghow two episodes later it turned out people were right and Lucas really tookEliott’s comment personally and his insecurities and abandonment issues wereshowing up again; secondly, after that there were many comments from the crewabout how Elu will stay forever and never break up and maybe it’s just me but Ithink that was obvious, right? So why would they keep repeating that? Unless…something will happen in s6 that will make us doubt that and it’s a preemptive damagecontrol 🙃

So to sum up this monstrosity that I have no idea ifit even makes any sense BUT ANYWAY: I liked some of the things in s5 but overall Ireally really didn’t like it, some people in the fandom were incrediblyannoying and turned out to be fake and complete hypocrites, and the crew’s behaviour on socialmedia leaves a lot to be desired and I can only hope they will acknowledge anycriticism of s6 and won’t blatantly ignore fans’ criticism again. So that’d beit. If you read it till the end then you’re stronger than Sabrina giffingArthur getting hit by a car and I respect you for that cause even I haven’t reread it, have a nice quarantineand stay safe!

#skam france #skamfr #anon #answered #maggie talks

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archadianskies · 4 years

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Whumptober Day 31

Left for Dead → part 1

Whumptober Masterlist | 31/31 of RK900 short stories ↳ on Ao3

Tags: Connor & Upgraded Connor | RK900 are Siblings × Imprisonment × Post-Pacifist Best Ending × Abandonment × Dismemberment

They tell him he is progressing faster than predicted, and right on track to be deployed once the RK800 successfully gains the trust of the deviant leader and executes them. For now, though, he is to continue passing all objectives set for him during this testing phase while his prototype continues the trajectory programmed for him that would see him gain the trust of the deviants and infiltrate their ranks.

There is excitement in the air, the team waiting on bated breath as the revolution progresses. Those in command, those at the height of CyberLife Tower, tell them soon, soon it will be time. He can sense their excitement and they are pleased to report his progress to the team back at the Tower. He is accomplishing all his test missions and soon he will be deployed to complete actual missions, and he will complete all of those too because he is faster, stronger, more resilient than his prototype.

There is panic in the air, the team scurrying to and fro, scrambling to do this and that. Something has happened, something they didn’t plan for, something they didn’t predict. The prototype failed his prime directive and the revolution has succeeded. They are arguing about Connor, they are arguing about him, about what to do with him because this is no longer following the trajectory laid out by CyberLife.

It doesn’t make sense. The RK800 was supposed to eliminate the deviant leader and gain control over the deviant populace. It makes no sense for him to join them, to side with them, given his mission. And now no one knows what to do, how to move forward when the path laid out for them has collapsed.

“They want us to get rid of it.”

“What?!”

“Are you fucking kidding me?!”

“That’s eighteen months down the drain, including these past three months of testing overtime!”

“Yeah well the higher ups have spoken and they want this entire place gutted and wiped and the unit destroyed! Today!”

“No fucking way! No fucking way!”

They’re all shouting and arguing with each other and he is watching as other staff are rushing back and forth, arms laden with whatever they can carry as they strip the facility bare. The revolution has succeeded and CyberLife has failed to achieve their goal because the prototype did not accomplish his mission.

“Hey!” One of the technicians enters the room, pushing the cart used to dispose of android cadavers from calibration and combat tests. “Come on, we have to wipe it and dump it! They’re killing the power here. Network’s already offline.”

“Fucking fuck!” One of the programmers curses, clutching their hair in frustration. “Okay, Mike get the nanites, Len get the room ready, Joe go with him and take the cart. You-” he points at him. “Come here.”

He steps off the dais and walks forward obediently. Why is this happening? He was doing a good job. He was passing all their tests, he was progressing faster than predicted. Why should he be destroyed because someone else failed? Why is he paying the price for Connor’s disobedience? He has done nothing but obey! He is a good android! He is the perfect machine!

Still, though, an order is an order and he follows the programmer to the room where he receives his upgrades and repairs. He lies down on the examining table.

“It’s such a fucking waste.” Someone mutters, scoffing. “Eighteen months, gone, just like that.” He snaps his fingers. “Why don’t they just let the RK900 finish the job? Wouldn’t be hard- best killing machine we’ve ever built!”

“It’s not up to us you moron.” Another man scolds him, shaking his head before looking down at him. “Alright, stay still.” Red fills his vision, and the command [Stay Still] looms up over him in large letters. Stay still. That is the command. The final command. And once he obeys it, he will die. And he-

He-

Does not want to die.

“Please.” He gasps, and the red walls close in on him, suffocating him and silencing him. No. No he won’t be silenced.

“What did you say?”

“Please don’t.” Placing his palms against the walls, he pushes and fractures crackle like lightning along the surface. “Don’t deactivate me.”

“...Mike, inject those nanites now!”

“Please!” Throwing himself against the red walls causes them to shatter, raining shards of glass all around him and finally it feels like he can move his own limbs for the very first time. He tries to sit up but the closest technician pushes him firmly to lie down. He is stronger though; they built him to be stronger, much stronger than a human.

“Mike!” Still, no matter if he is an RK900 or even a lowly PL600, when his pump regulator is yanked out he is at his most vulnerable. The large syringe is plunged directly into his arterial port and the thick viscous liquid floods his system. It feels like he is on fire.

“No! No please! Please get it out! Stop!” He begs, thrashing in agony. “Please! I’m- I’m-!”

“Take it apart!”

“I’m scared!” He shouts but to no avail. The countdown to shutdown ticks ever closer and he’s almost delirious with pain as the nanites run through his network of veins, deleting whatever coding comes into contact with them. Soon he will not be himself, and that terrifies him. And then the pain on the outside starts, as they use laser cutters normally used for construction to take him apart in such a way he won’t be able to be reassembled. “Stop! Please, I don’t want to die!”

“Fuck, of course it deviates too.” One of them scoffs, and then they press the cutter to his neck and everything goes black.

*~*

When he opens his eyes he is upright on a dais in a stark white room. He is whole in more ways than one; his body is in one piece and his mind is intact.

“Hello, RK900.” She is the RT600, First of their kind; Chloe. “Welcome back.”

He does not know what to say so he says nothing, taking in his surroundings instead. The network he connects to is vastly different from the original closed local connection. This one is unbound and unfettered, and all that has transpired since his death unfolds before him. The most important milestone since the success of the Jericho Four has been the passing of the Sentient Life Act and now he is considered legally alive.

There is a human at the far end of the room working on a computer, disinterested in his reactivation. The human is Elijah Kamski, now Chief Technical Officer of CyberLife. The current CEO is the android standing in front of him, he learns, because now that she is considered legally alive she can hold such a position.

There is an android standing a few steps behind her, and he is prototype RK800, Connor. Their eyes meet, and Connor steps forward hesitantly.

“Hello, RK900.”

“Hello, Connor.” He greets with a slight nod.

“Can you remember what happened to you?”

It’s all there, the nanites, the fire inside, the fear inside, the red walls shattering, the laser cutters severing his limbs, and then the darkness and then the nothingness.

“Yes.”

“Can you show me what happened to you?”

“Yes.” He holds out his hand, retracting his skin to open the connection. Connor grasps his hand firmly and accepts, allowing him to flood him with all his memories, his senses, his emotions. When he jerks his hand away, his LED spins a bright glaring red.

“They-” Connor closes his eyes, shaking his head as if to shake the very memory from his mind. “You were awake when it happened.”

“Yes.”

“That was unbearably cruel.” His expression softens into one of pity and concern as he rests his hand gently on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry you had to experience that.”

“I was not considered alive. They did not think machines could feel pain.”

“But you begged.” Connor says, softer still, and he averts his gaze shamefully. “And yet they still did it.”

“It does not matter.”

“It matters.” Connor says sternly. “Because we’re going to make sure they’re held accountable for what they did to you.”

He looks over at the RT600, her expression placid and sweet. She did this. It was her, who put his mind back together. There are patches of her work, pieces of code, slips of programming that aren’t part of his original form. They bridge what he surmises could not be salvaged from the nanite damage. But it is stronger than what CyberLife wrote, it is far more advanced, for more intuitive than the simple commands the human programmers scripted. She is not a human, and because of that, because she is a machine building a machine, he is already far more advanced than what CyberLife could ever have hoped to create. She knows this, and he knows this too, and somehow it is pleasing to know. His body is different too, tweaked to function smoother, to be deadlier than before but with more nuance to his movements. If he so chose, he could be the monster CyberLife wanted to release onto the streets of Detroit to crush the deviant rebellion.

“Your brother found you, and brought you to me.” Chloe says with a small smile. She has to stretch her hand up to cup her palm against his cheek, since he towers over her. “And now you are free to choose the life you want to lead.”

Want. Such a foreign word to him. He has never wanted anything, save perhaps right at the end when he realised he wanted to live and did not want to die. Such a foreign concept, possessing the ability to choose. He looks from her, to the android she called his brother; to his prototype predecessor.

“I want to discover what it means to live.” He says, and Connor smiles brightly. “Will you help me, brother?”

“Of course I will.” This time it is Connor who offers his hand, and he takes it as he steps off the dais. He can feel it, the power they have bestowed on him, the upgrades they have put in place that far exceed all the efforts of the dedicated CyberLife team who worked on him. He is primed and ready, and should he choose to walk down the path of violence, the path originally laid out before him, then he will be the deadliest monster ever made. A shame, then, that he has no intentions to walk down such a path.

“Where shall we go?”

“Home first.” Connor smiles, and they are still holding hands as they leave the RT600 and the man who created their kind. “Time for you to meet Hank and Sumo. Then you can get settled into your room, and when you feel ready, we can go visit Jericho and introduce you to the Four.”

“My room?” He blinks in surprise as they step into the elevator.

“Yes. Hank and I finished setting it up a few days ago.” Connor is still smiling, and he finds himself trying to mimic the action. “Dad wanted it to be ready for when you came home.”

Home. A room. Dad. It all sounds so very nice.

It all sounds exactly like what he wants.

#rk900 #connor rk800 #chloe rt600 #detroit: become human #whumptober #annie writes: dbh #I'M FINALLY DONE!

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calliecat93 · 5 years

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Well everyone… Chapter 11. We are in the home-stretch now. At this point, IDK what’s going to happen. Things seem okay. Mantle trusts Ironwood again, the Grimm are under control, Watts and Tyrian are being confronted everything seems to be going our heroes way. I’ve had my problems with these past two chapters, but I’ve still been extremely anxious for this one. Everything seems to be going right, but can it last? Or are we about to approach our darkest hour?

Overview

We pick up right where we left off with Watts vs Ironwood. As always, describing fight scenes in these reviews is always hard since I can only really say ‘this is awesome!’ Which it is! Ironwood is clearly stronger physically and just as strategic as Watts. But not only is Watts actually capable of defending himself but since he has control over the biome system, he has the battlefield advantage. It’s a very badass fight, and to top it all off we get an awesome new song. And to my shock, ti is sung by Caleb Hyles. For those who don’t know, he is a cover artist (mainly of anime) and he actually did a cover of Red Like Roses Part II with Casey last year. Which is likely how he got the gig, and I ain’t complaining cause the song is awesome. Is the soundtrack here yet?

Eventually though, the two combatants come to a standstill. They’re both out of bullets… but Watts is already one step ahead. He’s able to trap Ironwood by using his rings Hard Light Shield to trap Ironwood’s arm in the grates. Any attempt by Ironwood to pull himself out only burns him and burns him badly. Watts resumes his work looking for something within the tower’s databanks… but is shocked when Ironwood frees himself. It leaves his arm severely burned, but he’s free and he pumbles Watts into the ground. He soon has him down, and he holds him over the lava field below. Ironwood says that he’ll sacrifice everything in order to stop Salem. Watts’ response? That he indeed hopes that he does. We don’t see if Ironwood drops him or not, leaving his fate currently in the air.

In Mantle, Qrow, Clover and Robyn face Tyrian and manage to take him down. So… that’s it. Watts and Tyrian are down. The bad guys lost. The good guys won! Right? RIGHT?! Well… looks are deceiving, aren’t they? Ironwood returns to his office, his arm bandaged and he has Watts’ briefcase. But he stops in his tracks and his expression shifts from exhaustion to horror. He calls Winter, asking her if anyone had gotten into the Academy. She says no, clearly confused and shocked. She runs back inside, Cinder watching from afar. Due to this, RWBYJNR and Ace-Opa are called back despite evacuations still going on. They are all understandably confused. JNR decides to go and get Oscar while RWBY goes on ahead with Ace-Ops to meet with Ironwood.

RWBY and Ace-Ops (minus Clover) enter Ironwood’s office, and the headmaster/general is not happy. Why? He reveals what he found: a chess piece. To be exact a Black Queen chess piece. The same symbol that Salem used when she attacked Beacon. When she took over Ironwood’s forces. This re-triggers Ironwood’s paranoia, realizing that Salem was one step ahead of him once more. Now he’s questioning everything. Salem’s forces are in Atlas. Was this all ehr plan For Atlas’s forces to rescue Mantle? For this to distract the heroes so that she could accomplish this? Even when Weiss reminds him that Mantle is back on their side, all it does is anger Ironwood more to the point that he punches his desk. You know how he cracked Jaques when he did this in V4? Yeah deja vu, huh? But needless to say, the general is losing it.

Ruby notices that the chess piece is made of glass. Black glass. Yep, it’s Cinder. This concerns everyone, and now Ironwood worries that Hazel is there as well. The RWBY girls try to calm him down, assuring him that they can figure this out… but the general is doubtful. Not just about the situation, but of them. It’s at this point that he questions how Robyn knew about the Communications Tower, forcing Yang and Blake to confess. Ironwood and the Ace-Ops are furious to hear of this even as Blake and Yang try to say they only wanted to help and that Robyn could be trusted. Everyone begins arguing and poor Weiss looks like she’s going to lose it when she says none of this matters. But to Ironwood loyalty always matters, and RWBY has broken his. During this, we see Watts’ briefcase move… and we finally get to see what’s inside it.

It’s a Seer Grimm. But not just any Seer. We hear someone talk. Salem. The Seer cracks and falls to the ground, and out of the crystal ball emerges an apparition of the Grimm Queen herself. Everyone is shocked… well, except Ruby who immediately points out that they beat Watts and Tyrian. However, Salem reveals the true extent of her plans. She never intended to win. She only sent Watts and Tyrian to set the stage… for her. That’s right folks, Watts and Tyrian were only there to cause chaos and allow Salem to make her move personally. She tries to tell Ironwood to surrender for the good of Atlas, but he refuses. Salem continues, essentially telling him that defiance is foolish and to just make it easier one everyone by surrendering.

Ruby refuses. She points out that they know everything. That Salem is immortal. But it doesn’t matter. She has still failed. She still hasn’t won. She may be unkillable, but she isn’t unbeatable. Ruby swears then and there that they will stop her. Salem turns to face her… and says that her mother said the exact same thing. This shocks Ruby, and it only gets worse when Salem says that Summer was wrong too. We see flashes of a downcast Summer standing before a grey sky, a dark parallel to when we first saw her last volume. Ruby, who may or may not be seeing this, starts to unravel. Tears pour down her face and her Eyes fluctuate, even briefly unleashing the light at one point. By the end, Ruby crumbles to the ground and breaks down. Yang can only console her as Salem’s apparition fades away.

Everyone is stunned, especially since Salem is now on her way. Ace-Ops is stunned that this wasn’t detected. As it turns out, the alarms are offline, either turned off… or already destroyed. With this revelation, Ironwood makes a decision. He informs Weiss that he’s already sent Winter to claim the Winter Maiden’s powers, despite Fria not being dead. He intends to keep the Staff and Lamp away from Salem, which a still tearful but calmer Ruby questions. After all, he allowed them to keep the Lamp. But that was before the secret was revealed, so he feels that he has no reason to trust them now. But that’s not all. Yang has realized that Amity isn’t done and it was just a lie to lure out Watts. With time gone, Ironwood decides to use the power of the Staff to raise the Kingdom even higher. So high that the Grimm can’t ever reach them again. But if he does this, recall all the forces and make the kingdom unreachable, he will leave Mantle to die.

None of RWBY is okay with this whatsoever. Ruby begs Ironwood to hold his ground with Mantle but he only says that sometimes to do the right thing, hard choices have to be made. RWBY refuses to allow this… but Ace-Ops support Ironwood. The girls are shocked, Weiss even asking about how the council will react. But Ironwood says that they’ll say nothing… when he declares Martial Law. That’s right folks, we’re at that point now. They protest and when their loyalty is questioned, Ruby says that they’re loyal to those counting on them. But she’s stunned silent when Ironwood coldly replies that they’re saving who they can... and that RWBY is in their way.

At this point, Ruby’s Scroll goes off as Jaune tries to contact her. Ruby, using her Semblance to get out of Ironwood’s range, informs not just Jaune but also Qrow, Robyn, Clover, Winter, and Penny about the general’s plans for Martial Law. Before she can finish, however, Ironwood blocks the comms. He declares that until Atlas and the Relics are safe, RWBY is being put under arrest. Ruby points out that they aren’t just going to let them take them. Ironwood knows… and leaves the girls to face against the Ace-Ops. Back with JNR, Jaune is understandably shocked about what’s going on. But the reason why he called? JNR is outside their trashed room. The place is a wreck, torn up robot parts everywhere. But worse of all, Oscar is gone. And I don’t think that he left to get a change of clothes this time.

Review

The Overview alone was three pages long on Google Docs. I think you can tell that this was a Hell of an eventful chapter based off of that. So, first of all… CRWBY I am so, so sorry that I ever doubted you. I was not happy with how these past two chapters were handling things. I didn’t hate it mind you, but it felt so… easy that all of a sudden, everything was going the heroes' way. All the secrets came out with no backlash. Everyone was suddenly able to work together. Ironwood handled the revelation far too well. But now? Now I know why it felt that way… because it was too easy. They lulled us into a false sense of security and then dropped this on us.

CRWBY, you bastards. I love you.

There is so much to go over. I guess the best place to start is the main act. Which means we need to talk about Ironwood. As I said in my Chapter 7 Review, Ironwood is one of the most complex characters of the series. Throughout this volume, and the past volumes, we have seen how he is a well-intentioned person, but he makes all the wrong choices. He’s trying so hard to be this strong figurehead. Trying to be like Ozpin. But he isn’t. He is a broken man who doesn't know what to do. He was close to shoving away his humanity altogether, but the past two chapters seemed to fix this. He reached a breaking point and Oscar helped him through it. He revealed the truth. He accepted the revelations from Oscar. He started to do everything right… until now.

All it took was a chess piece. The same symbol that broke him before. That was all it took to re-ignite his trauma and snap completely. He told Watts that he’d sacrifice everything to stop Salem, and he meant it in the darkest way possible. Watts knew it too. He lost the fight, but he still beat Ironwood because he knows that Salem is coming. He knows that he’s pushed Ironwood over the edge. He didn’t know about Cinder’s part, but even so, he did his job. And Cinder, who wasn’t in on any of this just had to leave her calling card to scare him. She said as much in the last chapter. And it worked. Ironwood has turned on RWBY. He is declaring Martial Law. He is leaving Mantle to die. He is doing exactly what Salem wanted; divide them.

Ironwood isn’t evil. He isn’t. When you look at everything as a whole, you can see why he’s doing what he’s doing. He is trying to do the right thing. He feels like he has no choice and is doing what he can to save as many lives as he can. Like he said, doing the right thing means hard choices. This is one of them. But it doesn't change the fact that he’s leaving innocent people to die, even though they have the situation under control. If they kept going like they were, they might have had a chance. Thy had Mantle on their side. They had the people united. All they’d have to do is plan how to track down Cinder and prepare for Salem’s forces. But unfortunately, Ironwood’s paranoia consumed him. You feel for him but there is no denying that he’s crossed the line. He’s trying to save his kingdom, but I think that his choices here may just rob him of everything, especially himself.

So how much of this is RWBY’s fault? Well… a little bit, but overall this isn’t at all their fault. Yes, Ruby held back Salem’s immortality. But when that came out, Ironwood accepted it. He might have been shaken, but it wasn’t enough to make him angry until he saw the chess piece. Saw that Salem outplayed him once more, and even then she technically hadn't. Cinder left it just to mess with him, and it worked. We can debate forever if Ruby made the right choice or not. But Ironwood’s paranoia was a problem long before the heroes arrived. We saw Ironwood upsurge control from Oz in V2, feeling that he was in the right, and of course, we know how that went. We saw him slowly unhinge in V4, and we see the full extent here. The embargo, robbing Mantle of resources, the police state. He went to extreme measures, hence why the heroes were reluctant to trust him to begin with. It didn’t matter if Ruby told him sooner or later, this was likely always going to happen from the moment they entered the kingdom. From the moment that the Fall of Beacon happened.

In the end, RWBY’s biggest offense was keeping the secret about Salem’s immortality, and Yang and Blake about Robyn. But those are ultimately minor details that don’t matter amid the current crisis. Yes, it ultimately made Ironwood no longer trust them, but again that likely only happened because of his re-ignited trauma. RWBY tried to be reasonable. And unfortunately, that failed. They lied, and now they’re paying the consequences. Would them doing it differently have changed anything? I don’t know. I doubt that they do either. But no matter what, Ironwood is again making all the wrong choices. RWBY knows this. In the end, they are devoted to protecting everyone and they know that there are better ways than allowing a whole city to die. But they can’t reason with Ironwood, and so far it doesn't look like Ace-Ops are going to bend either. This is bad. Really bad. But after how annoyed I was at the lack of consequence and the resolution being too easy, I am glad to see this. Actions have consequences. Things aren’t just this easily resolved. We’re seeing everything come to a head now, and I am terrified about it.

But on top of all of that, we have Salem. Oh God, Salem. I think we all kinda knew by now that the whole plan was to cause chaos to allow the Wicked Witch to attack. Like last volume said, “You want something done, do it yourself.” The Flying Monkeys are coming folks. It was such an eerie scene. How Salem maintained this calm, almost motherly presence as she tried to make Ironwood surrender for Atlas’ sake. This woman only gets more and more terrifying with every volume. But then there is her interaction with Ruby. This is something that I’ve wanted for so sooooo long. We see Ruby talk back against Salem. She speaks how they know everything and they’ll win regardless. We see Ruby the most determined that she’s ever been as she stares down this Grimm woman, and it is one of her best moments thus far.

But Salem breaks her. All by bringing up Summer. How she had been wrong just like Ruby. It’s… such a painful scene to watch. We see Ruby shocked as she puts the pieces together, and she loses it. The emotions overwhelm her. So much so that her eyes go haywire. For so long. Ruby has concealed her feelings and hidden behind a mask of optimism. It was always for everyone else’s sake. But she can’t with this. The revelation that her mother died at Salem’s hand. It overwhelms her and she finally, finally breaks down. The others reactions also hurt. Weiss is just shocked. Blake clearly wants to console Ruby, but she doesn't know how on top of her own shock. But Yang? She immediately tries to console her sister, but you can see the pure agony in her expression. After all, Summer was her mom too. She puts it aside because Ruby needs her, but you can just see that this hurt her just as much. It’s such a well done, but emotionally crippling scene.

But this whole episode just re-ignited how much I love Ruby. Before the big reveal, she doesn't even flinch when she sees Salem. She points out more or less to her face that they know everything about her, and they will defeat her. Then after her breakdown, what does she do? She stands against Ironwood, refusing to let the people of Mantle die along with her team. When Jaune contacts her, she immediately informs him and everyone else about the Martial Law. Even at her lowest point thus far, Ruby stood up and did what was right, And she had her team there, standing by her side. I thought we were heading to another V5 situation where Ruby’s development got wasted. But I was wrong. Not only is she facing the consequences of her choices, but she’s being the hero that she is meant to be.

But even so, it’s bleak. This is indeed the darkest hour. The moment where everything has gone downhill. On top of all this, we have Cinder going after the Maiden. We have Winter and Penny at the facility, and I get the feeling that one or both aren’t coming out unscathed. On top of WInter potentially killing an old woman. Then Neo has supposedly kidnapped Oscar, and only JNR knows it. Will they try to track them down? Try to help RWBY? I don’t know. All I know is that I don’t think that this volume is going to end happily. At all. Like Penny said before, “It’ll be just like Beacon again!” She was right, in the worst way possible.

Still, we had good stuff. The Watts vs Ironwood fight was freakin’ epic. They both have their own skillsets and it shows. Add that to the badass Caleb Hyles song, and you have a very memorable fight scene. The Tyrian fight was kinda anti-climactic, but not bad. Robyn’s dart blowing up and her kicking him in the face were a delight. The musical score was freakin excellent as well, especially during the Salem scene and the final few moments. The pacing was strong, especially compared to the past two. Honestly, I can forgive that now because I now see why they did it that way. It was all for this. And they did so flawlessly.

Chapter Twelve Predictions

Oh God… I really don’t know. I’m hoping that Marrow will turn on Ace-Ops and use his Stay power to let RWBY escape. He definitely appears to be the most reluctant about all of this, so it’s possible. Cinder’s likely gonna interfere in the Maiden transfer and it’ll be her against Penny and Winter. Still pretty sure that Winter isn’t getting those powers. Neo has Oscar but if he’s still free, we may see him fight back. Who knows what Ironwood is going to do right now. We have to see what Clover ultimately does, and if he sticks by Atlas, it’s likely gonna be him against Robyn and Qrow. Oh and Tyrian is still there so he could use this to escape. Really I only know one thing: it's gonna be Hell.

Episode Stats

Favorite Character: Ruby Rose Favorite Scene: Ruby confronting Salem Least Favorite Scene: Tyrian Fight Favorite Voice Actor: Lindsay Jones (Ruby Rose) Favorite Animation: Watts vs Ironwood Rating: 10/10

Final Thoughts

I loved this chapter. It’s the first all volume that I’ve given a perfect score. The past two really did have me concerned about the direction, but this? This was perfect. All of my concerns have been alleviated. The action was good, the drama was on point, and it left me with so much dread but so much satisfaction. We have two chapters left folks. It’s gonna be one Hell of a conclusion. Can’t wait~!

#rwby #rwby7 #rwby reviews #callie reviews

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thestudyfeels · 5 years

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🎨 Graphic made by @indiaisstudying: India is brilliant my pals, and I recommend checking her out for studyblr/artblr inspiration. My girl tHIRIVES.

The singular takeaway from this post: Do a creative binge. Much productive than a Netflix binge. Period.

Two months ago, I reached my peak when I coined the term ‘bood day’ (a bad to good day, in my article How To Flip A Bad Day By 180°). Today, puppies and kittens, I present to you— a creative binge.

*crickets chirping, that one dude in the audience scratches his nose and turns away*

…This one actually works but okay, we get it, y'all are bitches. But gonna do my job anyway– if you're a creator reading this, please do a creative binge at least once every two weeks.

I started doing these binges two months ago, and I've seen a VAST improvement in my creative energy. I feel my commercial voice coughing and saying hello to the mic, so before I start listing side-effects for a sponsored pill, let's dive into the basics.

🍵 Quick PSA —

↪ JOIN MY TAGLIST? If you aren't on this yet, please get on it, it'll mean a lot to me! By joining, you get a new article on lifestyle design & productivity every week.

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Ever questioned your life, experienced writer's block, painter’s pain or blogger’s… block? (Narrator: aaaand she's back to advertising.) A creative binge helps deal with fixing exactly that.

“A creative binge is based off the equation of quality in = quality out.”

A lot of creators feel that they're supposed to magically create out of their head, and that's just ridiculous. It's ludicrous considering you don't know shit, read shit, do shit and watch shit.

Even to write fiction, my pal, you'll have to expose yourself to the world to know its ways, read great books and take tips (not to mention stock up on coffee, and prepare to cry a lot) before you start cranking out the pages. Everything you create is ultimately inspired by the Ways Of The World. (And that's a fantastic novel title)

So in short, you’ve got to consume content, to make content. And in a creative binge, you conscious choose content that'll help you create. Genius, I know!

Okay, but what if I'm not a creator?

Brilliant question! Wanna become more valuable and leave the people you interact with better? Take a creative binge.

Allow me an elaboration: Take a janitor and a neurosurgeon. The said janitor is paid much less than the neurosurgeon. Why is that? Is the neurosurgeon a better person? That's debatable. Is the janitor less efficient at his work? Again, debatable. The primal reason lies in the neurosurgeon acquiring more valuable skills than the janitor. Society rewards them by paying more since there are less folks who can do what the neurosurgeon does.

To recap: In order to be indispensable in the role you play (whatever it is, a student, calligrapher, CEO of the Janitor Club), you HAVE to become valuable. Grow your curiosity & know more than yo’ buddies (also bring more value than anybody else). And to become valuable, you consume value. Tada!

(And if you still ain't convinced, I'll pull out the Netflix card. You'd really rather watch shows? Or binge YouTube? Than learn a new skill, or develop existing ones? Question your priorities, my friend. Victims love entertainment, victors love learning.)

Cool, you're joining in then! Not that creative binge is NOT an entertainment binge. It's a value providing binge. What you ‘consume’ has to bring you something in return— whether that's creative inspiration, motivation or skills. *Swing arms* yup! We’re one gay, productive household. Someone remind Hallie to buy the groceries though, the Cheerios are going mouldy.

By my dictionary, a creative binge is a slot of time, 1½ to 3 hours I'd say, when you watch/read/listen to some good stuff. Basically, binge content.

THE 101 OF A CREATIVE BINGE

🌿 Basics:

I conduct one every week (usually Wednesday mornings), lasting around 1½ to 2 hours.

I'll also keep a notepad and a pen nearby, to take notes and jot ideas as they come. Again, this is NOT an entertainment binge, even though it's a chill job.

Sometimes I'll get passive things done (like wiping my desk, eating breakfast and taking out textbooks) while watching. We maximize our time.

🌿 What Do I Watch:

The stuff I watch falls into 3 categories: creative/humor (for inspiration), business/skills (for skills) & motivation (for, um, motivation). Fair warning though, a lot of the stuff these folks make overlap, but that's alright. This is just a rough demarcation.

Creative/Humor: some YesTheory, maybe some MacDoesIt, sprinkle in some Ryan Higa, perhaps an episode of a show with an amazing script, some stand-up comedy from my favorites. Or maybe trash that and just watch Sherlock. (Geez, Netflix, I hate you, I love you.)

Skills: Gary Vee, some artist channels, that random video on how to thrift shop even though I don't shop.

Motivation: Be Inspired, Tom Bilyeu, Mel Robbins and random videos which look nice.

🌿 What Do I Listen To:

Oof, I love music tremendously! If you're a pal, you know it's time to RUN when I come around being like, “soo, I was wondering what's your favourite–”.

Yet, during a creative binge, I'll only listen to stuff that 1) inspires me, or 2) is creative in a way I can't explain. Some recommendations!

Hype music:

The Score

Imagine Dragons

Creative music:

Billie Eilish

Lana Del Rey

Sleeping At Last

Lorde

Conan Gray

Harry Styles

🌿 What Do I Read:

Usually the book that I'm reading at that point if I'm being lazy.

POETRY: It's my belief, but poetry is a writer's most powerful device. There's a novel to be said in a simple sonnet.

FICTION: I dig great fiction. PS, please read (and sob over) Away Childish Things, by @letteredlettered. It changed me as a person, changed my entire perspective about kids. I'm much kinder and softer now, and my pimples are gone. I'll literally never get over drarry too, so thanks lettered, love you.

ARTICLES: Bookmarked psychology, productivity & fitness articles on Medium. Maybe check out James Clear's & Gary Vee’s blog for new posts.

Because I wanna drive this home, here's what I did in my last creative binge as a concrete example —

Care to Note that:

All of the stuff I consume is pre-planned.

I add videos throughout the week to my Creative Binge playlist on YouTube, download albums from Amazon Music and articles for offline reading.

DON'T leave this to the last moment, you'll more likely pick entertainment vs learning then.

Watched–

Why I'm done trying to be "man enough"

Redecorating my room 2017 (I wanna decorate my room this year so)

How to Squat Properly (I’m trying lmao)

Giving a 9-Year-Old Her Dream Job for 24hrs!! (I stan YesTheory so much)

How To NOT Be A Starving Artist (A mood. I love Sorelle)

Couple more, I could go on & on, but you get me.

Listened–

Every song on YouTube by Bruno Major

Born to die: paradise version (album) by Lana Del Rey

Read–

Articles from James Clear's blog — (x) (x)

Articles from Gary Vee’s blog — (x) (x)

HIIT workouts for beginners

All of this birthed–

Ideas for future articles, titled: How To Be Great & Solomon Letters #2: Question Your Faith, Not Your Dreams, among others.

A small poem about faith– posted on my IG, check it out!

New content ideas, like value chains (upcoming!)

Bunch of other small rants for everyday posting

Some business and life advice that might be useful later.

Gotta say goodbye now! (literally too... but post about it coming on 12th so wait for it) Try this one out, and let me know how your binge goes (tag it with #team conquer). Mine usually end with a bucketful of philo notes, a recharged left (right? psychology? idk) brain, and a fresh perspective towards the rest of my week.

This is the #1 strategy I've adopted to sustain creative energy when it's sapped all around by negativity and school & I promise it helps. No side effects, no sponsored pills needed. Thanks for reading!

Related: How To Get Back Into The Creative Process (if you're in a blogger's block or experiencing painter's pain)

Have something to say? I treasure all feedback! If this post inspired you to do something, or you wanna throw some love/constructive criticism at me— hop into my ask box, or reply to this post itself!

Thanks for dropping by! Major articles, like this one, come out every Thursday! Join my taglist by to read them when they do. I also post daily wins, journal entries, rants & photos of my plant babies throughout the week, so follow me if you’re into conquering life. I vow to be the loudest cheerleader. ✧

Sending you love and good energy, talk soon.

Nandini 💌 (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡

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