#every single time I asked this question the results got funnier

[fabrizio-art]

Birds Are Just Dinosaurs-

Just happened upon "birds are dinosaurs is silly, sure it might be scientifically true but it is SOCIALLY wrong, they are nothing alike, how can you call them the same??"

That's very annoying but actually a lot of people have this wall in their head. Birds and dinosaurs might be technically close but come on, functionally they're day and night, right?

So let's play a little game, shall we?

Name me ONE macroscopic anatomical trait that BOTH:

A) is common to ALL birds

B) NO other dinosaur has

Then ask the same question when it's your turn.

[mellow-em]

Bittersweet Temptations

CHAPTER 2

[special dt @bluewingedangel <3]

Your neighbors, Nathan and Elena, have been friends with your parents for years. Whether it’d be family gatherings or vacations, they were around; they were family. But when you return home from your final years of college, what will happen when you find that it isn't just them living in the house next door anymore?

_____________________________________

The afternoon sun brought in a relaxing mixture of natural light from the windows, but I wasn’t even remotely focused on it.

My right leg was bouncing hastily under the kitchen table while I prodded my salad with a fork. I tossed a particularly small carrot around in the bowl, swirling it around the sea of other vegetables.

“Are you gonna eat that or play around with it sweetie?” The sound of my mothers voice raced right through one ear and out the other one.

I only sighed in response, and leaned the side of my head on my hand, not bothering to look up at either of my parents that sat across from me.

They urged me to consistently have family meals with them today, in an attempt to dine on the experiences I had away at college. If they’d asked me to do this at any other time, I wouldn’t mind.

But my head was clouded by something else; or should I say by someone else.

Last night refused to escape my line of thinking. Even after it all went down, I went back to bed to try and fall back asleep, but it was absolutely no use.

The cunning quirk of his lips as he smirked back at me was an image that glued itself to the front of my brain. I reeled around in bed until sunrise, unable to silence my thoughts regardless of any persistence. So as of now, I was beyond exhausted.

“y/n? Are you alright?”

I jump faintly in my chair, with my fathers words pulling me away from my cogitation of the man from the pool, “I’m um.. I’m fine, sorry.”

I gave them a toothless smile as reassurance, but by the exchange of looks they both gave each other, they didn’t seem too convinced.

I shifted uncomfortably, and stabbed the carrot I was messing with. I slowly bring it towards my mouth, finally having the compulsion to take a bite.

Until the man’s wink decided to project in front of me, as if I was experiencing the whole ordeal all over again.

I abruptly dropped the fork into the bowl, resulting in a reverberating clash that not only startled my parents, but it startled me back into reality again.

“Jesus y/n, what’s gotten into you?”

I’m asking that same question, mom.

“Nothing, I uh- think I’m just tired,” the excuse flew out of my mouth in a panic, “I’m just.. I’m gonna go shower for the party later.”

I hurriedly sprung from my seat, and scurried up the stairs to the bathroom.

“Well that was smooth, dumbass,” I muttered out in the open, while slamming the door behind me.  

That son of a bitch is driving me crazy, and I haven’t even had a single conversation with him.

I take a few steps into the bathroom, placing both of my hands on opposite sides of the sink, leaning over with my body weight. With my head bowed down to the direction of my feet, I suspired deeply.

This was stupid. The brief interaction was embarrassing, yes, but with how I reacted today during lunch, especially when the party was happening later on today..

I just needed to stop thinking about what happened last night.

Act like it didn’t happen.

It didn’t happen.

____________

Turmoil carried on in the form of muffled conversations, and distinct bass from the speakers on the lower levels of the house. Even being upstairs in my room, the walls weren’t thick enough to block the noise that derived from the party.

Of course, my dad’s annual excuse backfired, and instead of the party being fairly small, it was as big as the rest of the parties we've had in the past. Although I really shouldn’t be surprised, knowing this really has carried on for 10 years at most.

As of now, I could only assume that the booze was already out for everyone, and by the end of the night, I could guarantee that almost half the people here will be drunk. It reassured me though, especially when I’ll probably end up being one of those people.

I could use a little alcohol in my system; to let myself go a little bit.

While fixing the straps of my white sundress, I looked at myself in the mirror, making sure any scraps of exhaustion were not visible on my features. Despite longing for a few hours of rest, I knew for a fact that I wasn’t going to get much yet again.

With satisfaction, I back away from my vanity, and start for the door that barricaded me from the chaos.

The exchanges of laughter became much more pronounced as I slowly opened the door, and traveled down the hall. My feet carried me towards the stairs, shaking from the rumble of the speakers seeping through the walls and floors.

It was a blessing that the noise didn’t affect our neighbors enough for them to make complaints; but that was mostly because they were all here.

With each step down the flight, more of the party overtook my vision. Guests were dispersed amongst every room as far as I could see, gathering around each other in hopes of starting conversation over the music. It had been fairly crowded to say the least.

Immediately after I make it to the ground floor, I’m bombarded by my mother.

“Hey honey, Nathan and Elena are outside if you want to say hello to them!” her slightly raising her voice didn't really help much, with us being right next to the speakers. But I nodded letting her know I understood.

Turning away from her, I then faced the crowd of people in front of me. I start to weave my way through, making slight pauses along the way to thank them for coming. Most of the people around me had a slight stench of beer already, making me scrunch my nose; that smell is definitely going to linger afterwards.

Eventually making it to the door, I slide it open and step out, letting the freshness of the outside air fill my senses. I quickly noticed the difference between the outdoors and the impeded aura from inside the house. It felt like I was finally able to breathe.

After shutting the sliding door behind me, I strolled away towards the yard.

I made sure to make a slight detour to the cooler to grab myself a beer though, rashly cracking it open as soon as I got my hands on one. I take a swig while observing the guests around me.

As soon as I saw a familiar head of blonde hair a few yards away, I could feel myself smile widely. I hadn’t seen Nate or Elena in four years, and being back home now is making me realize how much I missed them.

The both of them had moved into the neighborhood about a year after my family, and that was over 15 years ago. Ever since then, they hit it off more than you could imagine.

They had all gotten so close to one another, that they’d have annual dinners together, game nights and tag along on all of our family trips. They would even bring in their ideal vacation spots up to us, which evolved into us traveling to entirely different countries most of the time.

While Elena and my mom went to any beach they could find, and my dad found the bar, Nathan really wanted to drag me along to the historical landmarks and teach me about everything he knew. It made our relationship blossom, and now I considered him my second father.

Plus, because of him I began to develop an endless love for history.

I liked it so much that I made the decision to go to college for it. Nathan’s reaction when I told him before I left was something for the cover of a photo album, and I just knew already that a million questions were going to arise when I got to them.

I stepped down from the deck, and walked towards them with my lips still curled in a smile.

As I made it closer to them though, my gaze became hazy. With my brows contorting, my confused demeanor became more visible with every footstep I made closer to Nate and Elena.

There was another man wrapped into their conversation. He was taller than the other two, especially Elena. I noticed his hair slicked back ruggedly, from above the others’ heads. Though, I still couldn’t get a proper look at his face yet.

I turned my direction slightly to discreetly see who my neighbors were conversing with. My curious nature was overriding my body.

I should have just listened to that universally cliche phrase.

Curiosity did kill the fucking cat, and I wish it would just kill me now.

From here, I had a clear view of his face. He stood there listening to Nate’s banter, with a cigarette wedged between his lips.

The lips I had been staring at the night before, along with the rest of him.

Shit shit shit shit shit.

By this point I would’ve  been repeating my annual habit of staring in place. But  fortunately, I turned on my heal sharply to try and escape.  

“Oh my god y/n?” My breath hitched while Elena's voice rang out towards me.

Well great.

I held that particular breath in as I turned my body once more to face her. My warm smile returned to my face, but a layer of embarrassment and panic riddled beneath the surface.

“Elena, it’s so good to see you,” I went over and wrapped my arms around her carefully, keeping her baby bump in mind, “I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you too,” she returned the hug, leaning close to my ear, mumbling, “especially when I’ve had to deal with him all alone. I swear sometimes I really question whether the pregnancy hormones are hitting me or him harder.”

I look over at Nate for a quick second, stifling a laugh while I let go of Elena. The two of us continued laughing faintly, certainly gaining the attention of Nate.

“What are you two laughing about? What’d I do this time?” Nate looked genuinely perplexed, which made it funnier.

“Oh nothing, Nate,” Elena and I looked at each other, smirking as she spoke.

Even with Elena and I’s pleasant interaction, that uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach just wouldn’t quit. I just knew he was watching my every move.

Especially, when in the corner of my eye, I watched his travel with me as I went to give Nate his hug.

“It’s good to have you back, Crash.”

Hearing the nickname took me away from my thoughts on the man behind me for a moment, and made my smile lift. 

“It’s been too long, Aku.”

We stayed this way for a few more seconds, until I feel him pat my back. I let my arms fall away from him, and return to my spot in front of them.

I then feel my head slowly turn over to the unknown one of the three; well to me he was unknown. 

“So who’s this?” I cross my arms in front of me, anticipating an answer from one of them.

But silence continued to radiate around us. 

They all stood there, exchanging looks with one another, making me raise one of my brows. While awaiting a response I decided to take a long sip of my beer, feeling the cold liquid slide down my throat. 

That is, before Nate finally spoke up, “Y/n, this is Sam,” he paused, and I could see the hesitation written all over him, “Sam Drake.”

I almost choked on my beer as soon as I heard the last name. I thought for a solid minute that my eyes were going to fall out of their sockets. 

“Is this your-” I pointed between the both of them.

“He’s my older brother.” Nate finishes my sentence, as he scratched at the back of his neck. 

My face fell even more if it was even possible.

Wait.

Nate was in his early forties to begin with, so that would make Sam…

I looked at Sam’s face intensely again, specifically at the wrinkles that were tainted across his face. Now that my brain was functioning properly, unlike last night, I noticed how many there really were. 

Great. Not only was I checking out Nathan’s BROTHER, but the man that was more than twice my age.

Fuck.

[ot3]

wait wait wait can you explain more how to be funny and what makes humor work preferably a la essay form if you’re up to it. I’m reading a comic and the jokes aren’t sticking so I’d love to be able to properly be able to figure out what makes some joeks works but others not so I articulate what I hate about it

This response got kinda long so i’m sticking it under a readmore. TL;DR: I don’t think I can tell you how to be funny and what makes comedy work, I don’t think anyone can tell you that. However, I can give you a bunch of advice and guiding questions on how to go about figuring out these answers for yourself

Honestly I don’t think that’s something I’m capable of doing this in any sort of reasonable amount of time. It’d either have to be something really short and really general like what I wrote in the rvb0 post or it’d have to be incredibly long and incredibly specific where I pick specific good and bad examples of comedy and break down what I think works and what I think doesn’t. It’d take a lot of slow and meticulous work I don’t really have the time for, and I’m also not sure how helpful it would be, because once again, comedy is super super subjective and I don’t want to risk overemphasizing my own tastes/general observations as any sort of gospel.

the best advice i can give you would be to try and properly figure out for yourself why these jokes aren’t sticking! because processing something as Funny is much more of an innate reaction than, like, engaging Cerebrally with Narrative Developments it can be much harder to actually realize why something works or doesn’t. I’m going to start by sticking in what I said in my original RVB0 post here in case anyone is reading this without context. 

A rule of thumb I personally hold for comedy is that, when push comes to shove, more specific is always going to be more funny. The example I gave when trying to explain this was this:

saying two characters had awkward sex in a movie theater: funny

saying two characters had an awkward handjob in a cinemark: even funnier

saying two characters spent 54 minutes of 11:14's 1:26 runtime trying out some uncomfortably-angled hand stuff in the back of a dilapidated cinemark that lost funding halfway through retrofitting into a dinner theater: the funniest

The more specific a joke is, the more it relies on an in-depth understanding of the characters and world you’re dealing with and the more ‘realistic’ it feels within the context of your media. Especially with this kind of humor. When you’re joking with your friends, you don’t go for stock-humor that could be pulled out of a joke book, you go for the specific. You aim for the weak spots. If a set of jokes could be blindly transplanted into another world, onto another cast of characters, then it’s far too generic to be truly funny or memorable. I don’t think there’s a single joke in RVB0 where the humor of it hinged upon the characters or the setting.

Then there’s the issue of situational comedy and physical comedy. This is really where the humor being ‘tacked on’ shows the most. Once again, part of what makes actually solid comedy land properly is it feeling like a natural result of the world you have established. Real life is absurd and comical situations can be found even in the midst of some pretty grim context, and that’s why black comedy is successful, and why comedy shows are allowed to dip into heavier subject matter from time to time, or why dramas often search for levity in humor. It’s a natural part of being human to find humor in almost any situation. The key thing, though, once again, is finding it in the situation. Many of RVB0’s attempts at humor, once again, feel like they would be the exact same jokes when stripped from their context, and that’s almost never good. A pretty fundamental concept in both storytelling in general but particularly comedy writing is ‘setup and payoff’. No joke in RVB0 is a reward for a seemingly innocuous event in an earlier scene or for an overlooked piece of environmental design. The jokes pop in when there’s time for them in between all the exposition and fighting, and are gone as soon as they’re done. There’s no long term, underlying comedic throughline to give any sense of coherence or intent to the sense of humor the show is trying to establish. Every joke is an isolated one-off quip or one-liner, and it fails to engage the audience in a meaningful way.

When you see a joke that doesn’t land - try mentally rewriting it. Is there anything you could do to make it funny? Can you bring to mind any similar jokes from other pieces of media that you did like? How does the joke effect the pace of the story - is it an awkward and unnatural pause within the flow of events/dialogue? Is the joke well implemented - that is to say, regardless of how ‘objectively’ funny or unfunny the actual meat of the thing is, is it coming from the right source and directed at the right target? Does it add to your understanding of events/characters/setting, do nothing in this department, or does it detract from/contradict them? Is it immersion-breaking (and if so, is this intentional or meaningful?) or does it pull you deeper into the world you’re being shown?

Once you start asking these questions of both media you like and media you dislike you’ll start to recognize patterns in what lands and what doesn’t, and I don’t think they’re questions anyone else can really answer for you.

I think it also is a question of whether comedy is the intended final destination of a piece of media or just a step along the way. Media that exists solely as a vehicle for jokes is going to have comedy that looks very different than the comedy present in media that exists for heavy narrative purposes but includes moments of levity. 

Here are two examples of shows I think are really good and are also about as different in concept, execution, and intent as humanly possible: phineas and ferb and breaking bad.

Breaking bad is probably the most emotionally taxing television experience I’ve had in my life. I mean this as a compliment. breaking bad is supposed to be grueling to watch. It also has jokes in it. the scenes that are funny server to really meaningfully increase the immersion, not break it, and they do this by bringing a very realistic sense of human interaction that grounds the high-stakes melodrama into something that looks a hell of a lot more like reality. There’s one scene in particular i think does just such a great job of exemplifying this. here we’ve got jesse having dinner with walt and his wife while they are, as always, fighting with each other viciously and creating such a horrible and suffocating miasma of tension over the entire narrative, and jesse is trying to break some of this tension very poorly.

Then, in literally the complete opposite vein, you’ve got the phineas and ferb episode ‘lets take a quiz’ which i consider incredibly formative in the development of my sense of humor. The entire Bit of literally this whole episode is that they’re doing this terrible quiz with no rules that makes no sense and candace is trying to win but nobody knows how to play this game. 

Phineas and ferb is an episodic children’s cartoon that deals almost exclusively in unreality and the absurd, and so this kind of bit works here.

Saying ‘whats good comedy’ is really hard because it’s just like saying ‘whats good narrative’. There’s no one set of criteria; it boils down to what is the intention of your comedy, and how successfully were you able to act on these intentions?

This really got away from me sorry I am working on extremely little sleep i hope this helped even a little bit. My final piece of advice is: go watch hot fuzz. seriously. go watch hot fuzz (2007) dir. edgar wright and look at how the jokes in that movie are because theyre perfect and i love hot fuzz and it’s fucking funny

[theshy1sout]

Inseparable - Chapter 1

7th February! What a lovely day to start brand-new trolls Au!

As I promiced, this is part 3 of 300-special This one is again for @starlight-jamy who asked for broppy oneshot. I’m sorry, it’s not a oneshot. It’s the whole frickin fanfiction. It’s also kinda my gitf for you, my followers, cause today is my birthday! I Always wanted to give people things at my birthday, just like hobbits.

Today I post first two chapters. And then I will post a chaper every Sunday. (today is Sunday, right?). Short chapters. Usually 2k words, sometimes more.

Ship: Broppy

Rated: Nope.

Au: Trolls Mythology Au

Type: Slow Burn Fluff :3

Ao3 

Summary:  - There's the guardian of the Night, but no one takes care of the Day - Peppy, the God of Friendship and Harmony, King of the Gods, looks around the big hall to get everyone's attention. Gods listen to him as always, carefully and with huge respect they have to their master. He catches even Branch's attention this time. - I summoned you to discuss this very important topic. - King Peppy raises his hand and turns to the beautiful pink lady in the bright blue dress. - My daughter becomes a full goddess today. And it would be an honor if you all agree that she is a good person to take care of the Day, which means holding the Staff and looking after the whole living world under its Light.

________________________________________________________________

Far, far ago, when the gods walked through the Earth and love didn't exist yet, trolls were like other creatures in the world. They didn't have the awareness, free will, or feelings deeper than the animals have. The only difference between them and critters was some kind of civilization. They worked, played, and bred during the day and rested during the night. They built villages and formed families and communities. But all the things they made were the result of the intervention of gods [divine intervention], who wanted the best for their creatures. Immortals taught trolls all about working, having fun, building villages, and playing music, but trolls couldn't create things on their own. And no one saw anything wrong with that, because nobody knew it could be different.

Day passed by day and nothing has changed. Whenever it's time to rest, Branch, the god of the Night, walks on the highest hill and grabs the Staff Of The Light, making the gold shining Sphere on it glow much less bright than during the Day. In Branch's hand, a magic source of light that trolls call "the sun" beams slightly bright blue. The whole world meets the darkness and the silence; every creature on the Earth can do nothing but sleep and rest. When the day is supposed to be started, the God of the Night walks on the highest hill again to dig the Staff Of The Light on the top, and freeing it from his cold hands puts brightness on the whole world.

- There's the guardian of the Night, but no one takes care of the Day - Peppy, the God of Friendship and Harmony, King of the Gods, looks around the big hall to get everyone's attention. Gods listen to him as always, carefully and with huge respect they have to their master. He catches even Branch's attention this time. - I summoned you to discuss this very important topic. - King Peppy raises his hand and turns to the beautiful pink lady in the bright blue dress. - My daughter becomes a full goddess today. And it would be an honor if you all agree that she is a good person to take care of the Day, which means holding the Staff and looking after the whole living world under its Light.

Everyone's eyes lay on the young pink-haired woman, who stepped shyly onto the middle of the Hall of Parley. She takes a deep breath and smiles, mostly to reassure herself. But when she notices friendly smiles appearing on more and more gods' faces, she feels kind of proud and excited.

-My King, I think there's nothing to discuss - Holly, goddess of Hospitality, points out. - If there's someone who fits perfectly for this job, it is Poppy for sure!

- Hell yea! - Barb, Queen of the Underworld, yells. She always finds a reason to yell.

- I'm not that sure - Delta Dawn, the goddess of Justice, adds. - Isn't that too much for someone that young?

- Poppy, tell us - Quincy, the god of Wisdom, turns to the pink little lady in the center. - How would you feel about that responsibility? Isn't that too overwhelming for you?

- It is, I guess... - Poppy starts, looking down. - But I have been watching trolls and other creatures since I was a child and... I really attach to them. I enjoy making them happy more than anything else in the world and if you give me your trust, then I'll do everything to protect them and give them all I can.

She ends with full confidence and when she looks up again, she sees all the gods smiling at her, nodding. Cooper, the god of Fun, starts applauding with joy and everyone slowly stands up and joins in. Besides one person... But Poppy quickly forgets that, cause the low tone of her dad's voice catches her attention.

- So that's it! - King announces, also standing up. - I have my honor to introduce our new Immortal: Poppy, the goddess of the Day and the Light!

Gods and goddesses start yelling and cheering. Poppy doesn't even notice when she ends up surrounded by them. They all grin and laugh, wishing her the best and congratulating her over and over. She's never got so much attention, it's even a bit overwhelming. But in this crowd of Immortals, one wish sounds a bit different than the other.

- I appreciate you. Good Teamwork!

Poppy turns to the dull face of Barb. Queen of the Underworld doesn't look like she's joking.

- Teamwork! - Pink girl tries to play amused. - With whom?

- Don't ya know! - Barb laughs at her and throws her hand at the corner of the hall. - Him.

Poppy lifts her head to look above her arm. Far from talks and laughs, there's the guy with a grey hoodie on his head, all covered by a long, dark capote. His face isn't visible, but for some reason, Poppy is sure that he isn't looking at any particular thing. He is just here, sitting very still on his god's seat. As if his presence here was enough to call him a part of the event.

- Branch. The god of The Night - Barb accents the word 'god'. - The guardian of the Darkness and the Silence. And the most important for ya: the one holding The Staff of the Light. - Goddess shows her teeth in a kinda creepy way. - Just like you.

- He's um... - Poppy now has so many questions, that she doesn't know from which she should start.

- You'll get to know him - The pink-haired girl feels a hard hit on her back. - Don't worry, I'm just playing with ya! It's just holding some dum' stick! You give it to him in the evening and then he gives it to you back in the morning. Easy!

- But why is he...

- Nobody knows, he's just different! - Poppy is interrupted once again by the energetic Underworld's Queen. - To be honest, I don't even know how he looks like.

- He's never shown his face?!

- No... I just don't remember. But that's enough about this grump, let's talk about a much funnier thing on the Earth! Or should I say: Under the Earth!

Poppy already feels a bit overwhelmed by the goddess energy. All she really wants right now is to talk with her father and start her job. But she thinks, if she was waiting for it whole years, then she can hold a few minutes more. Right?

- What do you mean? - She asks, not even hiding her tiring.

- Girl, you'll see, nights will be so boring for ya there - Barb starts a bit less loudly and less throwing-her-arms-and-legs-everywhere-ly. - Underworld is always welcoming ya. There's a wild, loud party nonstop!

- What's a party?

- You'll see - Barb smirks at her and finally starts moving away from her. - The total opposite of boredom.

- Ok, thanks - Poppy waves at her, trying to smile as wide as she can. - See ya later! ...I guess...

After way too many wishes, pieces of advice, and cheers, after another long talk with her father, after a million little things she has to go through, Poppy finally steps on the hill and faces the Staff of the Light. Don't get her wrong, normally she really enjoys hanging out with others. Well, she was mostly spending time with King Peppy or trolls on the Earth until now. She feels like she should have taken this opportunity of talking with every single Immortal much more than she did. But she was looking for this little moment almost her entire life. She couldn't think about anything but standing here, on the hill, in front of the Staff of the Light and grabbing all of her dreams, the role of her life, her vocation, her...

- You're gonna grab it or not?

Poppy blinks, surprised. She looks around just to notice a silhouette darker than the Darkness itself. She needs a minute to realize who is he. The god of the Night. Of course, he's here. It's his job to be here. It is still the Night after all. But she is a bit upset at him for destroying the magic of the moment.

So once again Poppy glances at the Staff of the Light, takes a really big breath and... She grabs it! And with her very first touch, the sphere on the top explodes with gold light and the whole world is being filled with so many beautiful colors and Poppy has never been happier in her entire life. Even a dry "So see ya later I guess" by Branch can't destroy it. Ah! She is so happy! She runs down the hill with the Staff glowing in her hand, laughing so loud and so long, till her cheeks start to ache and she loses her voice, but even then she is so happy. So happy.

After one day, and then another, and then one more, and then the whole week of enjoying this exhaustingly happy moment in her life, it comes the time to grab the Staff seriously. Poppy knows exactly what she wants and how the perfect Day should look like. She has planned it for years! So the first thing she changes is the start and the end of the Day. She adds so many colors to the sky: pinks, oranges, reds, and yellows. She asks Suki, the goddess of the Music, to make melodies for birds to let them greet every Day's beginnings and ending. With Milton, the god of the Critters, she teaches birds to sing them. She designs with Satin and Chenille, the twin goddesses of Beauty, new kinds of flowers. Every Day she runs through the whole Earth creating new things, changing the old ones, adding colors and light everywhere it is possible.

Until one Day she finishes all of her ideas and she can finally make the last point of her plan: enjoying the brand-new happy world she created.

But after a week of just guarding the Day and taking care of the Light Poppy feels there's something wrong. She has missed something. She is lost in her thoughts, trying to find the missed thing, when she walks on the hill, like every evening. She hears peaceful "Good evening" and feels it when somebody's hand takes the Staff of the Light off her. Poppy blinks like she's just woken up, but before she can answer, Branch throws "Good Night" and walks away.

''Oh. So that is the thing." Poppy thinks, ashamed.

It's been half of the year since her pink hands grabbed the Staff for the first time. The goddess was too busy with her big plans to even notice the Night. After giving back the Staff, barely even noticing Branch, she just falls asleep. She always finds sleeping the most boring thing ever, cause it's just laying down and closing your eyes to open them a few hours later. But although Immortals don't need to sleep, after a whole day of running and creating she was just exhausted.

And now Poppy realizes that the god of the Night was greeting her every morning and every evening and she has never answered him. It isn't even rude or mean, it is a complete disaster! Poppy as a daughter of King Peppy, the god of Friendship and Harmony, should be the one making friendships and building harmony, not ignoring people!

She has to fix that now.

__________________________________________

Special thanks for @livinginithilien-blog for editing the chapter in the middle of the night XD

Chapter 2

[rocohen20]

He Knew He Fucked Up- Part 7

I hope you enjoy reading this!

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Series Update, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7

~~~~~

Since the talk with Tyler the seed had been planted and he became more and more open to the idea of using Joanne's services only for the purchase of the new house, and be guilt free when asking her out later. However every time he winded up thinking about it, it made him feel like a shallow person who use loopholes in order to harass someone who somewhat works for him. In result of that guilty feeling at the pit of his stomach, he decided to talk about the situation with Darth sometime during the Christmas break. His older brother knew him well enough to give good advice, yet live far enough on a regular basis, so he was able to give an objective opinion.

Once he knew that he wanted to talk it through with Jordie he was impatient and eager to go on with it. However he still had a bit of a common sense left, and realized by himself that he can't steal Jordie right away from their family while they wanted to catch up with the both of them. What he ended up settle on was that their first day would be with the family, and on their second day back home he would get the chance to have a little one on one chat with Jordie. When he sensed an opportunity for their talk (when their mom went for a nap and their dad was at work) he just led Jordie to his childhood bedroom. He was hesitant for like two seconds about how to start off the conversation. Yet apparently it was one second too late, because Darth already started talking.

"Chubbs, before you die out of self-doubt I would like to say that I agree with Tyler. If you like her and no longer hires her, then you do nothing wrong with just asking her out. She could always say no, and you are gentleman enough to know that no means no. So I don't see any harm in it".

When Darth stopped talking he looked expectedly at his younger brother, waiting for an answer or some sort of typical lecture of Jamie's set of codes. Yet, Jamie was too busy processing the fact that Tyler kept his older brother posted. At last he came up with the articulated response of "You knew about my situation in Dallas?"

To that he heard a familiar voice, that he may or may not was too fond of, saying "What, about your crash on Joanne the realtor? Yeah, Segs gave me a heads up for an incoming heart-to-heart talk over the Christmas break".

After hearing that, his insides filled with happiness from how his bros were looking out for him. However he tried to push it away, just for a few seconds, in order to press Jordie for his real advice on the situation. His brother saw how much he counted on this answer so Jordie gave him a much more serious answer.

"Honestly, I haven't met her yet, but from what I heard about her from you and Seggy I approve. Furthermore, I know that after what happened with Julie you were a mess. And the incident over the summer hadn't helped.

But, you are better now, and things between Tyler and you are better now. There's no reason for you to keep punishing yourself. You are allowed to be happy".

Jamie felt so much better after hearing his brother's advice. Now he knew for sure that he would ask her out after the house buying process would be behind them. Once he told Jordie his final verdict he was sure that they could stray to another subject, like their seasons thus far, however he stopped when he spotted Jordie's worried face. He asked tentatively what matter was, once it was clear that Jordie wasn't going to explain himself.

Even after the question it took eternity for his brother to answer. However at last he answered with a simple "What did you say her last name was?"

Jamie was expecting some major bad news, so the question kind of landed out of left field. It took him a few speculative seconds of trying to figure out the question's motive before answering "River, Joanne River. Why?"

Jordie didn't acknowledge the question. He just started firing off a set of confusing and ridiculous questions such as "Is she sarcastic and judgmental?" Throughout the interrogation Darth remained with the same seriousness, even becoming bleaker looking as the time passed. As it exceeded from one or two question to an impressive amount of questions Jamie became more and more worried, trying to think of some reasonable explanations as to why this barrage of questions were even subjected to him. Finally he came up with the theory that Jordie met Joanne before, prior to the trade, and tried to confirm that indeed it was the same woman before warning him about her. This theory made the most sense, so he went along with it, trusting Jordie to finally tell him what was wrong. Only with the question of "Is she a bit of a fashionista?" he started to suspect what the gig was about.

"Did you just imply that my realtor is the same person as the comedian from 'The Fashion Police'?"  

With that Jordie got his que and started laughing so loud that Jamie was worried he'd wake their mom from her nap. He didn't want Jordie to feel validated about his unfunny prank, so he just started to wait him out. Only he really under estimated his brother because not only was he still laughing a full minute after, but now he was also crying out of laughter. And that was his limit and what pushed him to fire up an angry "Could you stop being a dick?!" at his brother.

For a moment it felt like it made his situation worse, but then Jordie wiped his eyes away the tears and actually looked at Jamie and actually redeemed himself by stopping with the laugh. Once he stopped with the laughing he still had a big smile on his face, almost like he was egging him to start laughing as well. Jamie then on principle decided not to laugh (it would only encourage Jordie to continue with pranks like that in the future). From then on they started a staring contest, with neither of them willing to admit defeat. Eventually, after what felt like century, Jordie started talking (which meant that Jamie totally won the battle).

"I'm sorry, okay? It just accord to me that her name is awfully close to the name of Joan Rivers, the comedian, so I decided to have some fun. And if you weren't lame unlike me, you would have appreciated my joke".

Jamie was still a bit frustrated, yet he wasn't that angry anymore so he decided to throw his brother a bone.

"It would have been funnier if it weren't right after me asking you on whether I should ask her out or not. I for sure thought that you remembered like an encounter you had with her when you lived in Dallas. I was ready to hear how she was a horrible person and I should run for my life or something along those lines".

With that Jordie showed more sympathy and had a rueful smile. Then he just gave him an apologetically bro hug. Of course Jamie took it as the appropriate apology and from there they just took the conversation to another path. From than Jamie got his decisive answer and knew what was the game plan for his return to Dallas. Since the conversation he just laid back and exploited the quick vacation as much as he could.

+++

When he got back to Dallas he felt refreshed and relaxed, ready to the second half of the season. He was also ready for another round of house hunting with Joanne. He told her beforehand the dates in which he would be at Canada, for the Christmas break, fully expecting her to take a break as well. However she obviously hadn't taken the break because as he was back in Dallas, getting ready for their short trip to Minnesota, she sent him a full list of no less than ten new places to check. He was shocked and felt guilty about the off chance that maybe she thought that he expected her to work while he was gone. After a full minute of him considering with himself what to do, he finally decided to review the houses.

He was aware that they had been for quite some time at that process, so he was not that surprised to see that on paper every single one of the houses was perfected to his set of expectations. After reviewing one last time every house she sent him info about he shot her an email where first of all he thanked her dedication and her time to still work on the house search during the holiday break and second of all his affirmation that every single house she sent him he would like to check first hand. After that Joanne just sent him a schedule for the next few days, with an expectation of his approval.

+++

As they first stepped into this particular house he knew that it was different from all the other options and previous houses he stepped in. it was a two stories, six bedroom house, and a basement, which was really nice with hardwood floors. But what really sold him about this house as opposed to all the previous options was the back yard. It was a big yard that as oppose to the pool that so many different places offer, this place had this big field full of flowers, vegetables and spices. Something about this field just fascinated him and when he asked Joanne about it she explained to him that the previous owner was a botanic who enjoyed growing his own food. He was still mesmerized and speechless with the field that Joanne started to reassure him that they could get rid of it if he indeed purchases this house. That remark took him out of his thoughts quickly and he assured her that the field is not a problem. After that he asked for another tour inside the house. At the end of the tour he was sure of himself- he wanted to live here.

The tour of the house was just before the bi-week, so it worked out lovely that they had a full week where he was fully available for any back and forth with the previous owner. And by the end of the bi-week he was the proud owner of a new home. During that said week he also did a thorough research on what it entailed to grow your vegetables and spices. Because he never thought of himself as an organic fanatic, unlike different captain of NHL teams, but as part of his plan to change a bit and become a better person he could see himself devote to that. Plus, it is a nice challenge that he could see himself winning at the end.

Once he got from Joanne the keys to his new house and the phone number of a realtor that Joanne recommended him with regard of selling the previous house he owned, he felt like it was truly possible to check where Joanne stood. He took a deep breath and stammered a long speech (much longer than he planned originally) about how he started to like her and how he would like to take her out on a date considering that they longer under professional relations. At the end of the speech he was mortified about the amount of silliness that came out of his mouth, as well as the number of details that he was pretty sure made him look and sound like a total creep.

He was too caught up in his self-hatred that he almost missed completely Joanne's positive answer. It took him a few seconds to realized what her answer was, and then he just shot her an incredulous "Are you sure?" that she just laughed to and once again told him how she was sure and was interested in giving him a chance. Jamie was pretty much on cloud nine so he was all smiles as Joanne gave him her personal cellphone number while telling him to give her a call. After that she left him alone to enjoy his new house, and he was grateful for the fact that that was the only one to see his embarrassing celebration at the entry of his new house.

+++

With the season starting back again, his process of moving out to his new house, and Joanne's packed schedules, the date of their first date was scheduled towards the end of the month. So in the meantime he just basked in the moment. They had more wins than loses thus far this month so he felt good. Plus, he once again cashed his invitation to one of Tyler and Emma meals. It was the second time that he went to Tyler's house for a meal, however this time he was finally the only guest and he didn't get to share the meal with another teammate. He was especially grateful for that because he had a lot of recent events that he wanted to share with Tyler and also he didn't want an audience for him thanking Tyler for sticking up for him.

During said dinner, which was surprisingly tasty considered the fact that most of the food was done by Segs, they first chatted on the season and what they needed to do to improve their performance. But from there on it pretty much evolved to a chat about Jamie's escapades from the last few weeks (they both wished him luck on the fast approaching date). After they stopped talking about Jamie, Tyler and Emma's (though it was really Emma's) turn was on. Emma told him about her new job and how she was still adjusting to Dallas (yet she did admit her growing fondness for Dallas). After that she told him how they celebrated Christmas and what she did during the All-Star Week.

At the beginning Jamie wasn't sure what exactly the deal between the two of them was or what to think of Emma. However as the season progressed, he the rest of the team saw more of Emma and got to know her better (greatly because of those said meals). And that was how they found out about her being a total sweetheart and ridiculously way too good for Tyler. Yet, they were good together, and it was kind of obvious why they were together. Of course Tyler was still a jerk and never told them that he and Emma were dating and together. Yet, considering what he put them through over the summer, they didn’t really push him to talk about it and gave him a bit of a slack.  

The rest of dinner was nice and they followed it up with a movie. By the time he went home, it was much later then he expected and he was pretty much out the second he laid his head on his pillow.

+++

On the day of their first day he woke up with a nervous energy. It was a day of morning skate followed by conditioning at the gym, so he tried to exhaust himself onto relaxation. It didn't really work, yet he did get compliments from Coach and various teammates on being a beast today. So once he got back home he spent the next few hours just relaxing while trying to boost his self-esteem. By the time he drove over to her place to pick her up to the restaurant he made a reservation at, he was pretty confident that tonight would turn out okay.

Pretty much from the get go it did. Joanne was stunning in a beautiful black dress so he was quick to compliment her. She blushed in response and told him he looked nice also. The car ride wasn't long and before they knew it they approached the restaurant. But more importantly there wasn't a second of silence. A few seconds after him picking her up she asked him about whether he phoned the realtor that she recommended him and that opened their conversation. As they were led to their table they still talked about that subject.

It was a nice place that from various teammates' recommendations he knew it was supposed to be real romantic. Once he was there himself he was really impressed by how nice the place was. They spent a few quiet minutes while scanning the menu and ordering their food. The restaurant itself mostly served Italian food, so he took ravioli while Joanne took lasagna. Once the waiter took their order they pretty quickly resumed talking.

They started with basic first date talk- where are they from originally and talks about their family. Jamie was surprised to find out that Joanne was born and raised in Dallas and her family was still living in Dallas as well. When he talked to her about his upbringing in Victoria she confessed to him about how she never left the country, and that just led to more talk about family vacations and dream destinations places.

When the conversation of their professions came up Jamie talked first about how it was being a professional hockey player. Plus, Joanne told him that she didn't really know how the game worked ("I grew up in Texas, so shut up") so he then just had to teach her the basics of the game. Throughout the conversation it was obvious that Joanne was willing to learn, so he was optimistic.

Once they started to focus on her job the conversation didn't die to one bit. At first Jamie asked her how she got to that business, and then from that point on she just gave him an in-depth insider on what entailed in being a realtor. Jamie liked how charismatic Joanne got once she was on a roll. With a loll in the conversation he asked curiously "What is your favorite part on the job?"

To that Joanne just watched him for a minute before she answered with a teasing comment of "You sure you want to know?"

Jamie honestly didn't care if she would start talking about the most disgusting thing in the whole world. So with what he hope would be an earnest face just nodded encouragingly. To that Joanne just nodded in an affirmative matter, took a long sip of her wine and started to answer.

"Okay, since you insisted I'm going to tell you. However, first you need a little background. I assume that you know in what realtor company I work for, considering the fact that you just used my services".

Joanne looked at him with expectant look, obviously waiting for an answer. That was why he hurried to reassure her that he was aware of the company she worked for. Once she saw his affirmative face she started to talk again.

"Well, so originally Laviston Realtor Company started with two brothers. They started the company together in the 70's. Since then the company grew and grew to the point that the company is currently one of the main realtor companies in all of the U.S. So the company has a large number of branches if it wasn't clear, and every year the company throws a seminar to a large number of their employees. The seminar is four days long, and every year a different branch is the host. They have technically two seminars- one for the north states and one for the south states. And like every branch sent four employees, mostly from different positions, to attend the seminar. The hosting branch gets to present their accomplishments from the past year.

Anyway, so like two years ago was the first time that I was one of the four employees out of the Dallas branch. I was so excited to go to the seminar. And let me tell you, it was really fun. It pretty much consists on lectures all day long. But only the bare minimum is work related and the rest are lectures for fun about verity of different subjects. Plus you get to travel said city after the seminar ends for the day. We were staying at a local hotel at the city and there were so many people at the seminar. I got to befriend some of them and I still talk to the majority of them till this day."

Throughout her speech she wore such a wide smile he was sure it would split her face to two. So he followed it up with "You got to go to another seminar?"

To that Joanne was quick to say "Actually this year the hosting branch is our branch, so my second would be in little less than a month. The hosting branch gets to send six employees, so I am one of them. But what would be different this year is that I was chosen out of the branch to present ourselves on the stage. I seriously can't wait for it, yet I have to be honest and admit that I am a bit nervous".

To that Jamie was quick to respond with a reassuring "I'm sure you would be great. There was a reason why they chose you to represent the branch's accomplishment out of all the other employees".

Before they could get to a different subject the waiter came to clear their dishes that were long gone and he gave them the dessert menu. With Jamie being a professional athlete and all, they settled on a shared relatively healthy desert.

Once they finished the desert they asked for the check and left the restaurant. The following day was a game day for Jamie, meaning a morning skate, so they kind of hopped in the car relatively quickly. During the drive to Joanne's place there wasn't much talking, but it wasn't an awkward silence kind of thing. It was rather a content silence kind of thing. Once they got to Joanne's home he parked his car and chaperoned her to the door. At the front steps of her house he told her honestly "I had a good time tonight. Would you be interested in going on a second date with me?"

Joanne was quick to respond with a shy "I had a great time too. And yes, I would like to go on a second date".

Jamie smiled a little and then he just gave Joanne a chaste kiss on her cheek. When he stepped back he watched how Joanne said a final goodbye and went inside her house. He stalled for a second, before he turned around and began striding back to his car. He had the broadest smile he ever had, and went inside his car filled with great hopes for the future.  

[blk-chauvinist]

Why Women Aren’t Funny

BY CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

JANUARY 1, 2007

Be your gender what it may, you will certainly have heard the following from a female friend who is enumerating the charms of a new (male) squeeze: “He’s really quite cute, and he’s kind to my friends, and he knows all kinds of stuff, and he’s so funny . . . “ (If you yourself are a guy, and you know the man in question, you will often have said to yourself, “Funny? He wouldn’t know a joke if it came served on a bed of lettuce with sauce béarnaise.”) However, there is something that you absolutely never hear from a male friend who is hymning his latest (female) love interest: “She’s a real honey, has a life of her own . . . [interlude for attributes that are none of your business] . . . and, man, does she ever make ‘em laugh.”

Now, why is this? Why is it the case?, I mean. Why are women, who have the whole male world at their mercy, not funny? Please do not pretend not to know what I am talking about.

All right—try it the other way (as the bishop said to the barmaid). Why are men, taken on average and as a whole, funnier than women? Well, for one thing, they had damn well better be. The chief task in life that a man has to perform is that of impressing the opposite sex, and Mother Nature (as we laughingly call her) is not so kind to men. In fact, she equips many fellows with very little armament for the struggle. An average man has just one, outside chance: he had better be able to make the lady laugh. Making them laugh has been one of the crucial preoccupations of my life. If you can stimulate her to laughter—I am talking about that real, out-loud, head-back, mouth-open-to-expose-the-full-horseshoe-of-lovely-teeth, involuntary, full, and deep-throated mirth; the kind that is accompanied by a shocked surprise and a slight (no, make that a loud) peal of delight—well, then, you have at least caused her to loosen up and to change her expression. I shall not elaborate further.

Women have no corresponding need to appeal to men in this way. They already appeal to men, if you catch my drift. Indeed, we now have all the joy of a scientific study, which illuminates the difference. At the Stanford University School of Medicine (a place, as it happens, where I once underwent an absolutely hilarious procedure with a sigmoidoscope), the grim-faced researchers showed 10 men and 10 women a sample of 70 black-and-white cartoons and got them to rate the gags on a “funniness scale.” To annex for a moment the fall-about language of the report as it was summarized in Biotech Week:

The researchers found that men and women share much of the same humor-response system; both use to a similar degree the part of the brain responsible for semantic knowledge and juxtaposition and the part involved in language processing. But they also found that some brain regions were activated more in women. These included the left prefrontal cortex, suggesting a greater emphasis on language and executive processing in women, and the nucleus accumbens . . . which is part of the mesolimbic reward center.

This has all the charm and address of the learned Professor Scully’s attempt to define a smile, as cited by Richard Usborne in his treatise on P. G. Wodehouse: “the drawing back and slight lifting of the corners of the mouth, which partially uncover the teeth; the curving of the naso-labial furrows . . . “ But have no fear—it gets worse:

“Women appeared to have less expectation of a reward, which in this case was the punch line of the cartoon,” said the report’s author, Dr. Allan Reiss. “So when they got to the joke’s punch line, they were more pleased about it.” The report also found that “women were quicker at identifying material they considered unfunny.”

Slower to get it, more pleased when they do, and swift to locate the unfunny—for this we need the Stanford University School of Medicine? And remember, this is women when confronted with humor. Is it any wonder that they are backward in generating it?

This is not to say that women are humorless, or cannot make great wits and comedians. And if they did not operate on the humor wavelength, there would be scant point in half killing oneself in the attempt to make them writhe and scream (uproariously). Wit, after all, is the unfailing symptom of intelligence. Men will laugh at almost anything, often precisely because it is—or they are—extremely stupid. Women aren’t like that. And the wits and comics among them are formidable beyond compare: Dorothy Parker, Nora Ephron, Fran Lebowitz, Ellen DeGeneres. (Though ask yourself, was Dorothy Parker ever really funny?) Greatly daring—or so I thought—I resolved to call up Ms. Lebowitz and Ms. Ephron to try out my theories. Fran responded: “The cultural values are male; for a woman to say a man is funny is the equivalent of a man saying that a woman is pretty. Also, humor is largely aggressive and pre-emptive, and what’s more male than that?” Ms. Ephron did not disagree. She did, however, in what I thought was a slightly feline way, accuse me of plagiarizing a rant by Jerry Lewis that said much the same thing. (I have only once seen Lewis in action, in The King of Comedy, where it was really Sandra Bernhard who was funny.)

In any case, my argument doesn’t say that there are no decent women comedians. There are more terrible female comedians than there are terrible male comedians, but there are some impressive ladies out there. Most of them, though, when you come to review the situation, are hefty or dykey or Jewish, or some combo of the three. When Roseanne stands up and tells biker jokes and invites people who don’t dig her shtick to suck her dick—know what I am saying? And the Sapphic faction may have its own reasons for wanting what I want—the sweet surrender of female laughter. While Jewish humor, boiling as it is with angst and self-deprecation, is almost masculine by definition.

Substitute the term “self-defecation” (which I actually heard being used inadvertently once) and almost all men will laugh right away, if only to pass the time. Probe a little deeper, though, and you will see what Nietzsche meant when he described a witticism as an epitaph on the death of a feeling. Male humor prefers the laugh to be at someone’s expense, and understands that life is quite possibly a joke to begin with—and often a joke in extremely poor taste. Humor is part of the armor-plate with which to resist what is already farcical enough. (Perhaps not by coincidence, battered as they are by motherfucking nature, men tend to refer to life itself as a bitch.) Whereas women, bless their tender hearts, would prefer that life be fair, and even sweet, rather than the sordid mess it actually is. Jokes about calamitous visits to the doctor or the shrink or the bathroom, or the venting of sexual frustration on furry domestic animals, are a male province. It must have been a man who originated the phrase “funny like a heart attack.” In all the millions of cartoons that feature a patient listening glum-faced to a physician (“There’s no cure. There isn’t even a race for a cure”), do you remember even one where the patient is a woman? I thought as much.

Precisely because humor is a sign of intelligence (and many women believe, or were taught by their mothers, that they become threatening to men if they appear too bright), it could be that in some way men do not want women to be funny. They want them as an audience, not as rivals. And there is a huge, brimming reservoir of male unease, which it would be too easy for women to exploit. (Men can tell jokes about what happened to John Wayne Bobbitt, but they don’t want women doing so.) Men have prostate glands, hysterically enough, and these have a tendency to give out, along with their hearts and, it has to be said, their dicks. This is funny only in male company. For some reason, women do not find their own physical decay and absurdity to be so riotously amusing, which is why we admire Lucille Ball and Helen Fielding, who do see the funny side of it. But this is so rare as to be like Dr. Johnson’s comparison of a woman preaching to a dog walking on its hind legs: the surprise is that it is done at all.

The plain fact is that the physical structure of the human being is a joke in itself: a flat, crude, unanswerable disproof of any nonsense about “intelligent design.” The reproductive and eliminating functions (the closeness of which is the origin of all obscenity) were obviously wired together in hell by some subcommittee that was giggling cruelly as it went about its work. (“Think they’d wear this? Well, they’re gonna have to.”) The resulting confusion is the source of perhaps 50 percent of all humor. Filth. That’s what the customers want, as we occasional stand-up performers all know. Filth, and plenty of it. Filth in lavish, heaping quantities. And there’s another principle that helps exclude the fair sex. “Men obviously like gross stuff,” says Fran Lebowitz. “Why? Because it’s childish.” Keep your eye on that last word. Women’s appetite for talk about that fine product known as Depend is limited. So is their relish for gags about premature ejaculation. (“Premature for whom?” as a friend of mine indignantly demands to know.) But “child” is the key word. For women, reproduction is, if not the only thing, certainly the main thing. Apart from giving them a very different attitude to filth and embarrassment, it also imbues them with the kind of seriousness and solemnity at which men can only goggle. This womanly seriousness was well caught by Rudyard Kipling in his poem “The Female of the Species.” After cleverly noticing that with the male “mirth obscene diverts his anger”—which is true of most work on that great masculine equivalent to childbirth, which is warfare—Kipling insists:

But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same, And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail, The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.

The word “issue” there, which we so pathetically misuse, is restored to its proper meaning of childbirth. As Kipling continues:

She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast May not deal in doubt or pity—must not swerve for fact or jest.

Men are overawed, not to say terrified, by the ability of women to produce babies. (Asked by a lady intellectual to summarize the differences between the sexes, another bishop responded, “Madam, I cannot conceive.”) It gives women an unchallengeable authority. And one of the earliest origins of humor that we know about is its role in the mockery of authority. Irony itself has been called “the glory of slaves.” So you could argue that when men get together to be funny and do not expect women to be there, or in on the joke, they are really playing truant and implicitly conceding who is really the boss.

The ancient annual festivities of Saturnalia, where the slaves would play master, were a temporary release from bossdom. A whole tranche of subversive male humor likewise depends on the notion that women are not really the boss, but are mere objects and victims. Kipling saw through this:

So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her.

In other words, for women the question of funniness is essentially a secondary one. They are innately aware of a higher calling that is no laughing matter. Whereas with a man you may freely say of him that he is lousy in the sack, or a bad driver, or an inefficient worker, and still wound him less deeply than you would if you accused him of being deficient in the humor department.

If I am correct about this, which I am, then the explanation for the superior funniness of men is much the same as for the inferior funniness of women. Men have to pretend, to themselves as well as to women, that they are not the servants and supplicants. Women, cunning minxes that they are, have to affect not to be the potentates. This is the unspoken compromise. H. L. Mencken described as “the greatest single discovery ever made by man” the realization “that babies have human fathers, and are not put into their mother’s bodies by the gods.” You may well wonder what people were thinking before that realization hit, but we do know of a society in Melanesia where the connection was not made until quite recently. I suppose that the reasoning went: everybody does that thing the entire time, there being little else to do, but not every woman becomes pregnant. Anyway, after a certain stage women came to the conclusion that men were actually necessary, and the old form of matriarchy came to a close. (Mencken speculates that this is why the first kings ascended the throne clutching their batons or scepters as if holding on for grim death.) People in this precarious position do not enjoy being laughed at, and it would not have taken women long to work out that female humor would be the most upsetting of all.

Childbearing and rearing are the double root of all this, as Kipling guessed. As every father knows, the placenta is made up of brain cells, which migrate southward during pregnancy and take the sense of humor along with them. And when the bundle is finally delivered, the funny side is not always immediately back in view. Is there anything so utterly lacking in humor as a mother discussing her new child? She is unboreable on the subject. Even the mothers of other fledglings have to drive their fingernails into their palms and wiggle their toes, just to prevent themselves from fainting dead away at the sheer tedium of it. And as the little ones burgeon and thrive, do you find that their mothers enjoy jests at their expense? I thought not.

Humor, if we are to be serious about it, arises from the ineluctable fact that we are all born into a losing struggle. Those who risk agony and death to bring children into this fiasco simply can’t afford to be too frivolous. (And there just aren’t that many episiotomy jokes, even in the male repertoire.) I am certain that this is also partly why, in all cultures, it is females who are the rank-and-file mainstay of religion, which in turn is the official enemy of all humor. One tiny snuffle that turns into a wheeze, one little cut that goes septic, one pathetically small coffin, and the woman’s universe is left in ashes and ruin. Try being funny about that, if you like. Oscar Wilde was the only person ever to make a decent joke about the death of an infant, and that infant was fictional, and Wilde was (although twice a father) a queer. And because fear is the mother of superstition, and because they are partly ruled in any case by the moon and the tides, women also fall more heavily for dreams, for supposedly significant dates like birthdays and anniversaries, for romantic love, crystals and stones, lockets and relics, and other things that men know are fit mainly for mockery and limericks. Good grief! Is there anything less funny than hearing a woman relate a dream she’s just had? (“And then Quentin was there somehow. And so were you, in a strange sort of way. And it was all so peaceful.” Peaceful?)

For men, it is a tragedy that the two things they prize the most—women and humor—should be so antithetical. But without tragedy there could be no comedy. My beloved said to me, when I told her I was going to have to address this melancholy topic, that I should cheer up because “women get funnier as they get older.” Observation suggests to me that this might indeed be true, but, excuse me, isn’t that rather a long time to have to wait?

From Vanity Fair 

[chaniters]

Blood in the water

Part 8 of @kruk-art‘s Awan Cormac’s series. 

Awan mixes out some detective and thieving along with Steel and Anathema. 

Tried to write up something a bit funnier this time too!

___________________________________________

“It’s like she’s everywhere now,” Anathema says watching Elyise’s billboard trough the car’s window. This isn’t the first sign you’ve seen, they’re all over the highways and TV. This one is massive, displaying her in a power pose in full costume. The fine print states her new slogan, which she accidentally said in an interview. If you recall she was crying about her mother’s death as the reporter kept pushing the questions “It’s not the powers or the cape that define a hero, but the sacrifices they decide to make”

“Reaper’s investing lots of money on her career,” you say leaning back. With Steel on the wheel and Anathema on the companion’s seat, you’ve got the whole backseat to yourself. “He’s even become her manager. I talked to him, and he says he thinks she can carry off his legacy now that he's’ retired.”

“Well, she’s amazing right?… Fighting her own supervillain mother… I thought that shit only happened in the movies they make”

“Not anymore,” Steel says taking a turn off the highway.  “And there’s already a movie in the works”

“Already?” you ask

“Yes. She’s a real inspiration. Doing things by the book all the time, even if it means fighting her own. Registered as a hero in under a week. Unlike some other people.” you can feel his gaze squinting at you through the mirror.  

“Well maybe you should ask her to join the Rangers” You say looking back.

“That’s a very real possibility” he answers dryly.

Eventually, Anathema breaks the uncomfortable silence that follows. 

“So what do we know about this scene?”

“Nine dead. And they’re saying it’s not pretty so I hope you didn’t have too much for breakfast” Steel answers “Because we’re almost there” 

-----------Half an hour later------------------

“This is fucked up,” you say circling around the bloodstains. Forensics already took samples and pictures so you have free reign over the scene. This isn’t the worst you’ve seen considering your past, but the killings in this warehouse are not something you’ve seen before.

“It’s really bad,” Anathema says looking at the corpse on the floor and the stains on the wall. “But I bet Steel’s seen worse right?” he adds nervously.

“No kid, he’s right” Steel answers looking at a severed hand, nearly split in two between the fingers. “This really fucked up. You have to be a really sick bastard to go all the way about actually dismembering people” 

Anathema goes silent, his first time in a murder scene bloody enough to put Steel off his game. He’s clearly feeling the pressure but trying to keep appearances while you and Steel are unphased. 

“Annie, why don’t you go talk to the forensics team, see if they can get us a first hand on the DNA results when they’re done?” you ask “We could end up catching the culprit from the database alone.”

“Aahh.. sure! I’ll go do that!” he says walking off trying not to look too relieved. 

Steel approaches, speaking in a lower tone as Anathema goes outside.

“You beat me to it”

“It’s good enough that he didn’t throw up in here.”

“I’ll be honest, I’ve never seen anything like this, even during the war. It’s sickening. And it makes me wonder what’s the worst thing you’ve seen Sidestep because you’re going through this mess like it was a walk in the park”

You frown lightly. Always looking for clues, this one. Can’t let your guard down for a minute. 

“It’s usually the living you should be scared off” 

“True enough. You’re the detective, or so you claim. What do you make of this?” 

Your gaze runs trough the crime scene slowly as you describe what your instincts are telling you.

“Seven males, two females, all dead and the cause seem to be severe, brutal slashing cuts. I haven’t seen a single stab wound, this isn’t knives we’re dealing with. Some sort of sword perhaps? The assailant also must be of incredible strength, enough to dismember with clean cuts, going straight through the bone. Went through them like paper” 

Steel nods slowly, seeing what you see as you continue your assessment

“The victims had an impressive array of firearms, and two of them are modded with extra strength” you add glancing at a thorn mechanical arm “And what’s more, they fought back as hard as they could. The attacker came trough this window, and their response must have been almost immediate” you point to the numerous bullet holes and cracks on the wall by the window. 

“The attacker did not use a gun, or at least none of the victims was shot, so unless it was bullet-proof we’re most likely going to get a clear sample of their DNA around one of the bloodstains on this wall. I mean, every shot here must have been aimed at them.” 

“They used heavy ammo too,” Steel says running a finger through a large crack. 

“I’ll defer to you on that, you’re the specialist. How much firepower would you say the victims were packing?”  

“Let’s just say they would have put my armor to the test”

“Now that’s unnerving. Alright, so the attacker broke in, messed them up while they kept shooting at it, broke through here, and entered this hidden room which they somehow knew was here, then stole everything inside these medical-supply boxes and finally jumped down the street this way” you say looking through the broken window.  

“Impressive” Steel nods “And It could be just right I'd say.” 

“There’s more. They had tons of guns, were hiding in a nowhere apartment on the bad side of town in a semi-abandoned building,  and they had a secure room hidden behind a false wall with broken needles and medical supplies behind them. I’m going to make a wild guess: They were dealers. Hero-drug dealers that is. That’s why the boxes are empty. The attacker took the drugs”

“You can’t be sure they were dealing hero-drugs” Steel complains

“Not from the scene. But look through the window” you say looking down. He joins you trying to see what you see. 

“You know who that is, right?” you say pointing at the stout figure with the top hat.  It waves back with a jovial smile revealing sharp shark-like teeth as it walks to the building’s entrance... 

“You’re right. Hero drugs it is. No way in hell Hollow Ground’s number one stooge would show up here otherwise.”

“We’ll need to talk to him. Lewie doesn’t show up to these things for nothing. This definitely must be one of HG’s places.”

Steel sighs. “Do we have to?” 

“He’s the only one who might know who did this”

“Agreed. But he won’t say a word to us. He must be just showing up to assess the damage. I bet he owns the building, that’s always his excuse”

“I can take Annie and then see what we can find meeting him at his office? He doesn’t really know us well. An I know you can’t stand talking to the guy”

Steel squints at you. “Are you trying to make me owe you one?”

“Not really, but it wouldn’t be terrible if you helped out next time I need something”

He studies you with a calculating gaze for a moment.

“Fine. You and Anathema go for it, he makes me want to squish his head every single time he gets within arms distance after the things he pulled on us”

“So you’ll owe me one?”

“I’ll think about it” he offers, but you know it’s a yes. 

“Great! Enjoy your crime-scene big guy” 

________Later, that afternoon____________

“Smells like fish in here. Can I open a window?” you ask without waiting for a response as you simply open it yourself.  

The big, shark-faced person sitting in front of you squeezes his plastic cup with a huge scaled hand while holding the forms you presented in the other one. Fish references are no to his liking it seems.  Anathema’s just reading a magazine on traveling he found in the reception room. 

“So let me get this straight Sidestep… You want a loan from me, for the purpose of -and I quote-  “Fucking fighting crime hell yeah”, but you won’t give me your real name, or your social security number. In the “Gender” item you just wrote “Enemy of the Patriarchy” and your occupation just states “Kicking evil’s ass”. No assets to your name, no previous employments, references, no bank accounts, insurance or anything. Also no driver’s license. … hm... And let’s not forget your address “1234 Chicken Dinner Road”. Excuse me but I’m not sure that’s an actual road here in Los Diablos…”

“Ok fine, maybe I don’t have all my paperwork with me, but I’m totally reliable!” you whine from your chair. 

 “I know you think I’m dying to get every hero to enjoy one of our exclusive loan products but this is really stretching it. Perhaps if you offered some fingerprints or took off your mask, we could…”

“Sorry! I think I got glue on my hands while putting on the costume today. Do you see? Can’t take it off” you say pretending to try.

He narrows his gaze at you, his annoyment palatable in your mind. 

“Do I kick them out boss?” Debra, the modded thug standing on the corner says looking at the two of you.

“I’m really really busy Sidestep. Perhaps it’s time you and your friend hit the road?” 

“What? You haven’t even read Anathema’s form yet!” 

“He’s just wasting your time!” Debra complains

“Not true! Anathema’s the one who wanted it, I just wanted to see how good my credit is… sorry. I just never asked for a loan before. Maybe I’ll do it better next time?”  you talk back.

“He’s asking for a loan too?” Lewie says turning to him, losing all pretense about being interested in you. Giving a loan to a ranger would be great publicity to him 

“What?” Anathema snaps out of his magazine as he’s mentioned.

“Of course he is. For his vacations. He’s taking several friends on a cruise for a few good weeks of wild fun, you know, the really good stuff.  And we know you've organized some of the best cruises for your own friends. Maybe you can help him out?”

“Well I have on occasion been known to organize legendary cruises, that’s true,” the Loanshark says with a smile that aims to be cordial but just looks plain murderous. He’s vulnerable to flattery, you sensed as much. 

“Dear Sidestep. What the heck are you doing to me?” Anathema whispers gently at your ear pulling back at your suit’s shoulder fabric. 

“What does it look like I'm doing my dear friend Annie? Getting you a free vacation” you whisper back with an equally charming tone, smiling at Debra and the Loanshark as if this were your normal interactions. You’re also sending them a mental command to distract them from the whispering because sharks have a very good hearing of lower sounds. 

“Yes, I know that. But have you considered I don’t want to ask for a loan from a literal loan shark?” he says pulling you even closer.

“Remember the time I got the wrong door and accidentally entered Steel’s room once and he had a two-hour fit? Well to get back at him I stole his ranger manual and sort of never gave it back. I’ve been studying your regulations, and you’re allowed extraordinary expenses during investigations. This is an investigation, and the loan is an extraordinary expense. You can have the Ranger’s pay for it” 

“That can’t be a real thing,” he says squinting at you. 

“Perhaps you forgot the time Ortega went to investigate those mobsters in the casino and lost all that money on the dice table to overhear their conversation…?”

“Uh… that’s not... right”

“Of course it’s not, but it’s legal,” you say handing the Loanshark the paperwork you filled in for Anathema

“Ohh what have we here” the Loanshark goes over the forms. “Now this is a completely different story” he adds going over the pages. “We can do things kid. Great things! How many grands do you need for this cruise…?” he says standing up “Have you gone over destinations yet?” 

“Ehr... no?” Anathema goes on.

“Give him the whole speech Lewie. I don’t think he’s ever had so much money at once before, least of all spent it”

“I will! Come here my new best friend!” he says patting his back “Follow me to the other office. We have to discuss this over drinks. Me and the rangers! I knew it would happen one day. We’re going to talk business!”

“I’ll be out of your hair Lewie... I’ll show myself out” you say sending another distracting command, specifically to Debra this time. 

“Wonderful, wonderful. Your friend leaves you in good hands Anathema. This way please”

“... help…?” Anathema whimpers as the Loanshark guide him away. 

You head out to the streets pretending to leave while actually maintaining the mental command to distract Debra so she doesn’t make sure you’ve walked far enough. She just acts as if you had already left for good. 

Perfect. 

As they turn a corner, you start climbing the rooftops making your way back. A single push of a button activates the scrambler you had prepared for The Void, freezing all the Cameras in a loop, while turning the alarms in the building offline. You knew that thing would come in handy. A single jump and you enter trough his office’s window. That’s why you opened it from the inside it in the first place. 

Time for the fun part. Snooping around his stuff…

You sensed stray thoughts about his ledger being in the room. It takes a few moments before you find the safe, hidden under the carpet. The hatch’s lock is relatively easy to pick, but the computerized code lock on the actual safe is not. 

It takes a painfully long amount of fiddling before you manage to plug in the cellphone you modified to the electronic lock. Normally a lock like this would be impossible to crack, but you’ve got access to the farm’s top-of-the-line black-ops decryption protocols programs… another thing Nathaniel thaught you. 

It had been a while since you felt this thrill… They could get back and find you anytime. A quick scan reveals Debra hasn’t returned to the security desk yet, preferring to check on Anathema.  He seems to be playing along with your plan, distracting the Loanshark just long enough for….

*Bleep* the lock goes, as the safe opens. 

“Yes!” you whisper to yourself as you check the contents. 

Several ledgers, and a few labeled data-rods. And a lot of money. You get to work immediately, taking quick pictures of each page with your phone. It takes a painfully long time, but you have to do it, the Loanshark’s old-school and he believes nothing’s safe inside a computer so everything he knows about Hollow Ground’s operations should be here. 

You sense they’re about to be done with their chat as you finish the last pages. 

You scramble to check out the data-rods. The labels are all names of relatively known people…politicians, and some heroes. You notice several dedicated to Ortega. One reads “Public drunkness, barging at the casino”. Another one goes “Unlawful arrest of citizen -me- claiming he’s blackmailing witnesses”. The next one goes “Crazed claims about me working for Hollow Ground and threats of violence”. And the last one simply reads “Marshall Charge, getting to second base with Lady Blades”.

Wow. Lady Blades? That villain was one of Ortega’s first enemies when he was just a sidekick. Clearly the Loanshark is digging dirt on Ortega and has found a fair share of it. It’s not a real surprise since Lewie is the closest thing Hollow Ground has to a spokesperson, and Ortega’s been trying to get him to talk for ages. 

You’re about to close the safe when one last rod catches your interest. Its label reads “Riley.  Ask first before using”. So he’s got dirt on her too? Weird since she’s only just now become a public hero persona. The Loanshark would never admit to having a boss. Hollow Ground doesn’t officially exist. Whom else could he ask about this? And it says Riley, not Elyise? 

The rod could contain anything, and this could ruin her chances of entering the rangers. You’re not going to let him blackmail her. You plug the data-rod and copy it as well before setting it back. You’re not sure why you’re doing this even... There’s something funny about this being in the Loanshark’s safe. 

Time to free all these people from his clutches. 0

You take a small device from your inner pocket and set it into the safe around the data-rods. A press of the button and it starts buzzing before emitting an electrical discharge that fries all the electronics inside.

The Loanshark might find out it was you at some later point, but you’re not going to let him keep dirt on half the city. Charge and Elyise can thank you later. 

Footsteps approaching… you get out through the window, jump off a few rooftops and land on the streets before deactivating your scrambler, the alarms inside his building going back online. You don’t sense anything from Debra so they don’t suspect. 

Turning around the block, you find Anathema waiting for you nervously.

“Did you get it?” he asks as you approach

“Oh, I got it. And some extras too”

“Great. Because he’s waiting for me to make a final decision about the loan”

“So are you going to take it?” you smile

“ Of course not! I’m not going to owe anything to that asshole!” 

“Well, I could give you a loan myself now!” 

“You? How? You never have any money!”

“Lies. I have a job now!” 

“And what’s that?”

“Stealing from assholes!” you say letting him take a peek of the Loanshark’s money in your pocket.”

______________________________________

My fanfics: https://chaniters.tumblr.com/post/181692759294/my-fanfiction-for-fallen-hero

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fan fiction using characters and the setting of the Fallen Hero: Rebirth and upcoming Fallen Hero: Retribution games written by Malin Riden. I do not claim ownership of any characters from the Fallen Hero wold. These stories are a work of my imagination, and I do not ascribe them to the official story canon. These works are intended for entertainment outside the official storyline owned by the author. I am not profiting financially from the creation of these stories, and thank the author for her wonderful game/s, without which these works would not exist.

[luki-fanfic]

A Kingdom For a Book: Part 2

I’m having way too much fun with this idea...

With one failed attempt under their belt, they end up having lunch in Chinatown before heading back to the hotel to regroup and debrief.  Tsuna and Gokudera end up sitting on one bed, Gokudera nose deep in a laptop, while Yamamoto leans back on another, and Ryohei slumps the wrong way round in a chair.

“I see why the Ninth didn’t want us to come here,” Yamamoto says.  “Do you think the owner knew who we were?”

Tsuna shook his head.  “No, I think he would have treated us that way even if we weren’t Vongola.  There was something about that shop...it just felt wrong.”

Ryohei frowns. “That’s strange to the extreme.  This could be challenging.”

Gokudera is nodding, digging up the research he’d been tinkering with even before they arrived.

“Okay, so that building?  It’s been there since the 1700’s,” he explains. “That’s when Soho was built up for the aristocracy, and the book shop’s been around since then.  Which is pretty damn impressive considering the wealthy all more of less fled mid 1800’s when there was a cholera outbreak and the neighbourhood took a serious dive.  I don’t think there’s a lot of business in London that have been in the same building that long, and if they did, they’re a lot more successful.  At this point, A.Z.Fell & Co should be a historic monument or tourist attraction just due to it’s existence, but it’s only reputation-”

At this he tosses his hands up in the air in disbelief.

“-Is a handful of websites for rare book dealers bemoaning it’s existence!  There’s a 3000 word essay on here that’s just analysing the opening times! I’ve never seen a white noise spot as bad as this outside of the mafia!  It shouldn’t even be possible without mist flames!”

“Are we sure they’re not?” Yamamoto asks, head tilting.  

Tsuna shakes his head.  

“No,” he insists.  “I don’t know what it was about that building, but flames weren’t involved.  Besides, it’s too obvious in its refusal to sell.”

Everyone gives a slow nod at that, and Tsuna bites his lip.

“What we need it witness accounts,” he says.  “We need to know what doesn’t work.”

This quickly results in Gokudera frantically tapping on his laptop again and setting up a video call with Dino in Italy.  When he learns where they are, his face flinches – as if he’s just watched a man belly flop from a high dive.

“Reborn sent you where?” he asks.  “The Ninth can’t possibly have approved that.”

“He wasn’t happy about it,” Tsuna admits.  “But...it’s Reborn.  You don’t really tell him no.”

Dino grimaces.  “I feel for you little bro.  I wish I could help, but I’ve never tried my luck against the devil of Soho.

“The devil of Soho?” the four repeat, and Dino chuckles.

“Oh, it’s kind of an in-joke among people who’ve tried,” he explains.  “The shop is on a crossroad, and someone one suggested you’d probably have to sell your soul in exchange for a book from A.Z. Fell, and it kind of caught on.  Plus, according to Christianity, devils or demons are supposed to be fallen angels, and they guy is called ‘Fell,’ so...”

Tsuna guesses it’s probably funnier for the Italians, because Gokudera’s openly cackling.  Although that said, Ryohei is also grinning, so maybe he’s a fan of the crossroads story.  The boxer does often enjoy American music…

“You might as well give selling your soul a shot though,” Dino continues.  “Because I don’t have the slightest clue what else would work.”

Yamamoto frowns, leaning back in a stretch that almost looks painful.

“If we can’t buy a book, can we just buy out the shop?” he asks Dino, and Gokudera brightens.

“The Baseball Idiot has a point.  I mean, this is Soho, and that shop can’t be making enough to stay in business.  Can’t we just buy the building, or bribe the owner?”

“You really think nobody ever thought of that?” Dino asks, eyebrows raising.  “The Fell family are loaded; they own that building, and they’ve never accepted a single offer.”

“Then we’ll make it a really good one.  Reborn said our credit limit was unlimited for this-”

“Ten years ago Mr. Fell was offered five times what the building was worth and he didn’t even think it over” Dino interrupts.  “And if you think you can scare him out, think again.  People have tried everything from hiking his electric bills to bribing the council to shut him down for health reasons.  I hear the building was even set on fire once.  Nothing sticks, and it always comes back round to whoever tried their luck. An awful lot of enforcers change careers after a run in with A.Z. Fell.”

Dino sounds a little bitter by the end, and Tsuna frowns.

“That sounds a little personal,” he says.  “Did Reborn try and make you go?”

His self proclaimed older brother suddenly finds it very hard to meet his eyes.

“No, but let’s just say I have it on good authority that one of the reasons my family ended up in such dire financial straights is because my grandfather tried to ah...convince Mr. Fell to move into a building owned by my family so he could have regular access to his collection,” Dino says.  “A week later, there’s a freak accident with our accountant’s computer systems that sees 60% of our assets frozen while a record of all our recent financial dealings was sent first class to the local police department.  By the time we cleared it up the money was gone.”

Gokudera does a full body flinch.

“How-”

“I don’t know. And I don’t want to know” Dino tells him.  “Some of those financials weren’t even supposed to have a paper trail.  When my negotiation trial came up, I told Reborn I wasn’t setting foot in that shop.  That I’d try and negotiate peace in Korea before I went to Soho.”

Yamamoto whistles, and Tsuna’s optimism sinks even more.

“Where’d you end up?” Tsuna asks.

“Guinea-Bissau,” Dino says.  “Came out of it with only two bullets wounds too.”

“...Thats...good?” Tsuna offers, frantically trying to remember exactly where on a map that was, and Dino shrugs.

“Better than Xanxus any way” he offers.  “He was lucky to get out intact.”

Yamamoto immediately lights up.  “Oh yeah.  The Ninth said he’d tried.”

“Lets call the Varia, to the extreme!” Ryohei agrees.

“Not sure how useful he’ll be,” Dino warns as they say goodbye.  “His tactics weren’t really compatible with you.”

That’s hardly news to Tsuna, but a list of what definitely wont work is better than no list at all at this point.  Yamamoto is already punching in Squalo’s number.

---

Two minutes later, Tsuna is wondering how far he can be from a video screen without appearing offensive, because Xanxus is glaring like he wants to reach through the computer and strangle Tsuna for the crime of bothering him.  

Which, to be fair is Xanxus’s general mode of being, but Tsuna hasn’t survived this long by getting complacent.  Given his life, it’s not impossible Xanxus has figured out how to do it.  

At least the Varia commander is taking his question seriously – the glare had almost vanished when Yamamoto had explained just where they were.

“Whatever you do, don’t steal one” Xanxus warns when Yamamoto finishes up, and Tsuna finds himself leaning forward.

“You stole one?” he says.  “I thought the requirement was legal purchase.”

“I was getting desperate!” Xanxus snarls, almost defensively.  “Fell-Trash is impossible to reason with.  Not that it did me any good.  Cost me three months, my body weight in pride and a Lightning Guardian.”

At that Tsuna pauses, and glances to the corner of the screen where he can see Xanxus’s guardians, Levi included, not-so-subtly listening in. Xanxus rolls his eyes.

“Parasol-Trash is number 2” he tells him.  “Huge improvement over Belias, I assure you.  Idiot walked out with some old folio under his jacket, figuring we could negotiate after it was in our hands.  To this day, I have no clue what happened to him, but that folio was on display in the window next morning and Fell’s creepy ass boyfriend was wearing Belias’s shades when we walked in.”

“Boyfriend?” Yamamoto asks, and Xanxus chuckles.

“Oh trust me Trash, you’ll know him when you see him.”

In the background Lussuria is fanning himself with a hand, while Squalo is glowering and inching closer to the screen.  Tsuna ignores both of them.

“You didn’t try to find out what happened?” he questions, and Xanxus glares.

“Of course I fucking did!” he snaps.  “Even had the lightning member’s we brought along tried to put on the squeeze, but both of them are mental steel traps.  If anything, threats just amuse them.  Two of Belias’s closest tried physical violence – the boyfriend has this classic car, beautiful piece of machinery; I’ll give him that – smashed out every window and made it clear we were coming back to finish the job.  Car like that can’t be easy or cheap to fix.”

“It didn’t work?” Gokudera asks, and Xanxus shakes his head.

The trash left the hotel to get drinks, next thing I know the shark trash is getting a call from the hospital about them.”

The Varia boss jerks his head back, and Squalo freezes for a second, before slinking up to his boss, not even pretending to be subtle in his approach anymore.

“Were they still alive?” Tsuna asks, not sure if he wants to know.  Xanxus merely glares at Squalo, who reacts as though it pains him to answer.

“Voi, they lived,” he says.  “Looked like they’d been run over by that stupid car a couple hundred times, but they lived.  Not that it mattered to us, both of them up and joined a monastery in New Zealand the second they were released!”

Yamamoto frowns. “New Zealand?  When you abandon your old life to join a monastery, don’t you usually got to somewhere like Tibet or something?”

“Voi, according to them, they picked New Zealand because there aren’t any snakes there,” Squalo snarled.  “Don’t ask me why, never had a problem with them before.”

“Yeah, and that car come morning?” Xanxus adds.  “Perfect. Condition.  After that, I cut my losses while I still had something to lose.”

“It was their own fault for making compensation jokes about the darling’s car!” Lussuria defends from the back, and Xanxus throws a wine glass in his direction.

The Varia side of the call inevitably descends into a brawl, and little advice is coming.  All Tsuna’s managed to gather is, stay legal, screaming is pointless, and don’t threaten his associates or their possessions.

Tsuna silently vows that Gokudera must never enter that building unaccompanied.

Also, before the screen cut off completely, Lussuria popped onto the screen with one final titbit.

“Oh, one more thing.  Don’t flirt with the boyfriend,” he says with Bel half in a headlock and the screen on it’s side.  “Crowley-darling seems to think it’s funny, but it ticks Mr. Fell off no end.  Not sure how he did it, but I got food poisoning whenever I ate out the rest of the time we were there.  Ciao!”

The screen immediately goes black, and as a group, Tsuna, Gokudera and Ryohei all glance in Yamamoto’s direction.  The teen immediately starts pouting.

“Why are you all looking at me?” he whines.  

“Because out of everyone in this room who would think it would be funny, you’re the only one who’d actually try his luck, Baseball Idiot,” Gokudera snaps, and Yamamoto’s lip quirks, point taken.  After so much time hanging around Squalo and Reborn, Yamamoto’s baseline for appropriate behaviour and etiquette will never recover – not that there was ever much to save, if Tsuna’s being entirely honest.  

In the end, after looking at a spreadsheet of the opening hours Gokudera has on hand, they decide to hold off this evening, and try again in the 40 minute window that there should be just before lunch.

Who knows, maybe Mr. Fell will be more agreeable after he’s eaten?

---

One more part, and think it’ll be ready to migrate to AO3...

[undertheinfluencerd]

The Boys: Hughie’s 9 Best Quotes | ScreenRant

Hughie is definitely the odd man out when he is first recruited by Billy Butcher to go after Vought International and The Seven in The Boys. However, Hughie has proven to be one of the most capable members of the vigilante group. His usefulness stems from the fact that he is mostly brains while the rest of the members are all muscle.

RELATED: The 10 Strangest Friendships In The Boys Comics

Hughie Campbell doesn’t just demonstrate his intelligence by his actions but also by the way he chooses his words. While the comic version of the character speaks in a rather basic manner, the Amazon Prime version prefers to color his sentences, resulting in a fun, fan-favorite character.

9 “As A Rule, I Don’t Usually Go Out After A Gory Massacre.”

Some fans have nicknamed him “Bully” Butcher and he earns that nickname by causing turmoil with one of the best couples in The Boys. He orders Hughie to go on a date with his girlfriend Starlight and hack her phone. Given how many people have just died, Hughie doesn’t think it’s a good idea.

Once again, Hughie shows how uncomfortable he is with being a member of The Boys. If he had a choice, he’d be living a different life. But he’s in too deep now. The quote also highlights the vast difference between Butcher and Hughie’s characters. Having lived a life of chaos, Butcher has no problem using people for his own agenda. Hughie is different and there’s no way he is going to hack his crush’s phone.

8 “He Is Too Much Of An A**hole To Die.”

When Butcher disappears for a couple of weeks, Frenchie speculates that maybe he is dead. Hughie doesn’t think so, stating that Butcher is despicable but capable of survival.

Hughie is right about Butcher since he shows up at the end of the episode like nothing happened. And in keeping up with his arrogance, he refuses to explain everything in detail. It’s one of the many reasons why The Boys fans hate Billy Butcher. He’s an effective leader but his personality is far from admirable.

7 “I Managed To Go My Whole Life Without Seeing Someone Die Horribly, And Now I’m Up To About A Half Dozen.”

Hughie has the biggest conscience out of all members of The Boys and late in the first season, he suggests that they should slow down on their violent ways.

RELATED: Ranking The Costumes Worn By The Seven In The Boys, From Lamest To Coolest

This quote is a reminder of just how much Hughie’s life has changed for the worse. Before the start of the show, he was an ordinary citizen looking forward to a bright future with his girlfriend. Now he has to chase after super-powered individuals every single day. Butcher is cut out for this life since he was previously in the military but Hughie feels a bit too overwhelmed.

6 “Saw It On, Uh, Jimmy Fallon.”

Butcher is impressed when Hughie stops Translucent, one of the most villainous members of The Seven, by electrocuting him inside the TV store. He wonders where Hughie learned how to do that, and the response is rather interesting.

Hughie’s comical nature doesn’t come out too often but he’s proven that he can be funny when sometimes. It’s impossible for him to have learned how to electrocute invincible Supes on The Tonight Show Featuring Jimmy Fallon since that’s a late-night talk show. People with a large reservoir of knowledge don’t always remember where they learned everything hence there’s the possibility that Hughie actually forgot where he learned the electrocution technique, so he just threw Jimmy Fallon out there.

5 “Just Coz You Fall On Your A** Doesn’t Mean You Have To Stay There.”

Hughie isn’t the one who comes up with these words. He quotes his late girlfriend who was killed by A-Train. This is what she would say whenever she fell while skating.

RELATED: 10 Super Pieces Of The Boys Fan Art You Have To See

The words apply to almost every member of The Boys at the start of the series. Their lives have all been destabilized by either Supes or Compound V. Instead of wallowing in pity, they have decided to team up and do something about it. The quote is not only useful in the context of the series but is also inspirational to any person watching.

4 “You Look Like You’re Starring In The Porn Version Of The Matrix.”

The first time he tries to recruit Hughie into The Boys, Butcher lies that he is a fed. Hughie doesn’t believe him, arguing that he doesn’t look like an agent. What Hughie thinks Butcher looks like is even funnier.

Butcher’s shades are what make Hughie compare him to some of the best characters from The Matrix since almost everyone in the critically acclaimed movie had a pair. The porn reference fits well with the show since neither it nor its source material has ever shied away from sexual themes.

3 “I Could Be Your Tech Guy. Like, I Could Be In The Van Like, ‘He’s Down The Hall To The Left.'”

The first time he feels the thrill of hunting down superpowered baddies, Hughie feels that he should continue. Unfortunately for him, Butcher wants him to take a back seat because he feels he isn’t tough enough. Hughie isn’t willing to do that so he suggests being like the tech guys who stay inside vans in action movies as they monitor proceedings and advise field agents.

Hughie’s description of how these characters act is entirely accurate. The application of the same techie-guiding-hero concept wouldn’t work here since A-Train and Homelander would have disappeared by the time Butcher got down the hall to the left. Nevertheless, the words still come off as totally hilarious, making viewers wish Hughie would make jokes more often.

2 “That’s A… Nickname?”

When Butcher introduces Hughie to Mother’s Milk, Hughie has a hard time believing that is actually his real name. Even after Mother’s Milk insisting that his mother did indeed give him that name, Hughie remains doubtful.

RELATED: 10 Ways The Seven Are Different From The Avengers

Hughie is right to be baffled since it’s rare to meet someone with such an unconventional legal name. Mother’s Milk’s mother must have had a very interesting sense of humor. Sadly, not much information is given about her. Instead, details are given about Mother’s Milk’s father who worked hard to expos Vought but got killed before he could achieve anything.

1 “I Don’t Think It’s Morgan Freeman Up There Or Anything But It All Can’t Be Random Chaos.”

Butcher asks Hughie an important question when the two attend the Believe Expo to follow up on a Supe lead. He asks him if he believes in God, to which Hughie responds states that Morgan Freeman (who has portrayed God in a couple of movies) is definitely not up there but there is a force controlling everything.

With the remarks, Hughie sounds more of an agnostic individual than an atheist. Discussions about deities often end with an agree-to-disagree conclusion. Some viewers definitely wouldn’t agree with Hughie but some will. The Morgan Freeman reference is also a clever one, serving as an aide-memoire of the large pop culture knowledge stored in Hughie’s mind.

NEXT: 5 Ways Billy Is The Best Hero In The Boys (& 5 Why It’s Hughie)

The post The Boys: Hughie’s 9 Best Quotes | ScreenRant appeared first on undertheinfluencerd.net.

[hellyeahrpmemes]

※ JENNA MARBLES SENTENCE STARTERS, PT. IX ※

here’s sentences from 10 more of jenna’s videos! feel free to change names/pronouns/zodiac signs/etc.! more jenna sentences

PANCAKE ART CHALLENGE

“I’m not very good at drawing things.”

“Yours won. Yours so won.”

“It looks like a feral cat.”

“You’re just pretending to be a chef.”

“I made your forehead in pancake form.”

“Don’t look at mine - don’t look at mine…!”

“She looks like a ghost of herself.”

“It looks like a tombstone walking a dog.”

“It looks like a can of silly string gone wrong.”

“That’s a bunny. You draw it every single time we’re at dinner and you find a crayon or a pen. That’s the one thing you know how to draw really, really well.”

“So it’s a flamethrower?”

“What the fuck is your problem?”

“I’m gonna put this on your bed tonight. On your pillow.”

“It’s an Ankylosaurus, duh.”

“Can you autograph my pancake?”

“I wonder if it tastes good.”

“It looks like a weird calculator.”

“If he can do it, we can do it, too.”

“In the end, we both lost.”

“It was a lot harder than it looks.”

CHILDHOOD STORIES

“There are some moths in my house, and I don’t really want to kill them, but they are driving me crazy. I swear to god, if they start chewing my clothes, it’s gonna be game over. I’m gonna burn this house down.”

“I have lost my mind a little bit.”

“Worship me, Pinterest.”

“I feel like I am now the queen of DIY.”

“We would just sit there, and maybe look out the window, and maybe talk to each other.”

“You really needed a friend, but I really liked to play with it alone.”

“What did you do? That looks so cool!”

“I forgot I had a rope, and I forgot this thing called friction happens, and I sawed it in half.”

“I didn’t say anything to my dad, because I knew that that would be certain death.”

“I am a really bad liar and I have a terrible poker face.”

“My brother wasn’t going to tattle on me, because he is not a snitch, and I appreciate that.”

“It was like top ten most angry moments I’ve ever seen my dad.”

“Shut up, my gerbil is not fat.”

“Dude, your gerbil is so fat.”

“It was the most disgusting thing I think I’ve ever seen.”

“Sometimes, if your mom can’t take care of you, she’s just going to eat you.”

“I took a pair of scissors, and I decided to give my cat a haircut.”

“Damn it, now the cat’s gonna get his head stuck in everything.”

“I’m fired, I quit, I’m fired.”

MY DOG CHASING A DRONE

“I got Julien a drone for his birthday.”

“He really just loves to chase it.”

“Why fight it when you can just work with it?”

“It really is completely hysterical.”

“This is what I want to watch on the Internet.”

“We love each other forever.”

“I would never do anything to put him in any sort of danger.”

“We work together to make fun things happen.”

“It’s just really cool and really amazing and I just wanted to share it with you.”

“You don’t even care, do you?”

UNPOPULAR OPINIONS

“Do you need a snack or anything? You good?”

“I think avocados are propaganda in Southern California.”

“You hate something as meaningless as an avocado, Jenna? Really?”

“If I was a ghost, I wouldn’t just help people when they needed me, I’d be there all the time.”

“What’re you doing? Cutting your nails? I’m gonna stand here and watch.”

“Are you ever truly alone? I say no.”

“Why am I turning? I hate this chair…!”

“I don’t think ghosts and/or spirits just limit their visitation hours to when you need them. I think they’re there all the time. Creeping on you.”

“I think parasailing is boring as fuck.”

“That looks intense, count me out.”

“It’s very boring. It’s not worth it.”

“Why are you so famous? It really bothers me to the core of my being.”

“I think almond butter tastes like blood. I think it’s gross, and it tastes like blood.”

“I think tonic water tastes like earwax.”

“I think that making a salad is way too much work for the end result.”

“I’m not really talented at hard manual labor, which I’m sure my grandparents would find as a character flaw.”

“I think Jenna is the best name ever. Sorry, all other names.”

“I would buy her a drink like the gentleman I am.”

“I have a landlord that says no, but I say otherwise.”

“Go check out the otters. You won’t be disappointed.”

“They’re literally just there to have a great time.”

“I mean, it’s cool to see you, man, but you seem sad.”

“I think curtains are way too expensive for what they are, and a waste of money.”

“I’d see that, like, four times in the theater.”

“I’m legitimately terrified of prescription drugs.”

“I don’t really care what anybody says. I mean, I do a little bit.”

“Think for yourself, use your own brain, it’s a fun thing to do.”

REVIEWING BAD APPS

“Guess what? This is life.”

“I think it’s funnier now that the song is two years old.”

“If I paid money for it, I’m angry about it.”

“This is the weirdest fucking app.”

“I think it’s genius. I think it’s great.”

“Does this not know that google exists?”

“Did that horse fall?”

“Is this porn? Is this porn? This feels porny.”

“This one makes me feel like I’m really there.”

“That’s pretty annoying.”

“It’s not the worst, but it’s also not not the worst.”

“One small tattoo for man, one giant leap backwards for mankind.”

“Oh my god, oh my god, that’s nightmare fuel.”

“It’s so stupid that it’s amazing.”

“Just that name is the funniest thing ever.”

“Oh, I hate this so fucking much.”

“Think of all the times you just needed a candle, but you don’t have one.”

“Whenever I find something really cool, I just tell Julien, and he never appreciates it, so I hope you appreciate it.”

GIRLS DAY

“It’s time to go.”

“This is the cutest shovel I’ve ever seen.”

“I got this on sale!”

“I feel crazy.”

JENNA’S RACHET FASHION BOUTIQUE

“I like to sew, even though I’m not very good at it. I just refuse to fail.”

“We used to have to take home economics, where you learn how to sew and cook and stuff, and, apparently, people don’t take that anymore.”

“I still am mediocre at it.”

“If shit ever went down at a zombie apocalypse, everyone’s gonna be butt-ass naked, and I’m gonna be over here, sewing, with electricity.”

“I’m just gonna try and sew myself a sick outfit.”

“I also don’t want to spend a lot of time doing this.”

“Fuck patterns, fuck all that shit, let’s just do it live.”

Everything that I sew is gonna be with navy blue and/or black thread, which, if you have a problem with, just go away now.”

“I’m gonna make a long maxi skirt, ‘cause those are overpriced.”

“I would do this drunk, but it seems really dangerous to sew drunk.”

“Something smells like burning.”

“It looks crooked, but you just pass it off as fashion.”

“Get your scissors, and cut whatever the fuck is bothering you the fuck out.”

“Backwards and forwards and backwards, it’s just like life.”

“The best way to learn is to just look at a shirt, and make it.”

“Just don’t even bother finishing anything.”

“Yes. Yes, cape, yes.”

“Somebody could have made something really nice out of this. Not me!”

“I’m literally wearing a tube of pajamas, and I love it.”

“When I was at the fabric store, I saw this, and just really couldn’t resist.”

“What lady going to a ball couldn’t fit this into her wardrobe?”

“A fun, exciting fabric to make a hat out of is denim.”

“Don’t laugh, it’s fashion!”

“If you saw this, you’d be like, that is couture.”

“I really should’ve just made my entire outfit out of this, but that’s for next time.”

“Looks great. I’m scared of you, but it looks good.”

“I feel like the outside matches the inside.”

“Yes, bitch, you fuck that outfit up.”

“Honestly, I’d wear this shirt. And this skirt.”

THINGS I WISH I COULD LIE ABOUT

“I’m also sorry. But not that sorry.”

“Most of it just stems from being terrified of authority. I’m scared of getting in trouble.”

“Whenever someone asks me for my phone number, I always give out my real phone number. I can never lie and give them a fake number.”

“I’m terrified of having that confrontation.”

“Yeah, I got it really wet. It’s soaking wet. Just fully submerged in water. It’s wet.”

“I just wish that I could lie, but I feel too bad, I have to tell the truth.”

“I could’ve saved myself a lot of money with just a couple lies.”

“Their dogs are not therapy dogs, and you can tell.”

“I know for a fact that, by saying yes to that question, I’m just gonna get a lecture for the next ten minutes.”

“I don’t need to hear the lecture. I know the lecture.”

“Eggplant? Ew! The fuck is wrong with — my god, no…!”

“I don’t need to violently argue with someone when they say they don’t like something.”

“I can never, ever, ever lie to a police officer or a cop, ever.”

“I wasn’t speeding that much, but I was definitely speeding.”

“I was listening to R. Kelly’s World’s Greatest, and it was just getting me so hyped up that I just, I went so fast, I didn’t realize how fast I was going.”

“He gave me a $300 speeding ticket.”

“That started the ‘do not play’ list in the car.”

“You’re singing with your eyes closed, which is not good for driving, at all.”

“I think this is a good look. I think we should make this a thing.”

“Some of you guys are fuckin lying.”

HOW I TALK TO PEOPLE AT PARTIES

“Oh my god, how’s it going? So good to see you!”

“Hey, thanks, I’m a catch.”

“It’s a conversation, we should listen.”

“I don’t wanna listen…”

“I’m gonna use my eyes and pretend I’m listening.”

“She just asked us a question — did you hear what she asked us?”

“So how’s, uh… how’s what’s his face?”

“I just don’t want her to tell the tree story again.”

“One time, I was climbing this tree in my backyard…”

“She can smell your fear, you know.”

“I can smell time. It’s 11:30.”

“I can rap. Quadruple threat.”

“Did you watch the baseball game the other night?”

“Are we drunk?”

“This is bad, we shouldn’t have said that, why did we say that?”

“Hey, we should get this pierced.”

“Do you feel like breaking something?”

“I really love you so much.”

“She’s already drunk ‘I love you’-ing.”

“At least she didn’t make any drunk plans yet.”

“We are not going to remember that. Not at all.”

“What do you think happens when you put a ton of lettuce into a woodchipper?”

“I fucking hate you guys. You guys are idiots.”

“My brain is a terrifying prison.”

WHAT’S IN MY MOUTH CHALLENGE

“Why are you laughing already? Stop laughing.”

“You put the heel of my boot in my mouth? What are you, insane?”

“This touches the ground?”

“I was mad, sorry.”

“No, this is not going to turn into you solving a Rubik’s cube.”

“Who makes appointments a year in advance? I do.”

“This is my inhaler, you asshole!”

“Did you just say scoff?”

“You sinus-blasted me?!”

“Do you have any idea the mental preparation you need to have before you take one of those!?”

“As soon as it hit my tongue, I knew I was fucked.”

“Open up, we are playing a game.”

“Julien, my mouth tastes like Christmas tree!”

“Oh my god, what the fuck is that? It’s wet…”

“Open up all the way.”

“You put yeast in my mouth. That was fucked up.”

“Wow… I hate you.”

[srta-jax-blog]

Summer Camp I mean NTPRS Day 2

I didn’t take that many notes today, because overall, I think today was a lot more hands on. Now… do I remember what we did at the very beginning of the day super well as a result… no, but I’m going to do the best I can to cover the important stuff.

Story asking and assessment in Mandarin

In the beginner track during our Mandarin lessons, we experienced some real story asking and ended up with a fairly complex story in the first hour. (Okay… complex to someone who has barely had two hours of Mandarin.) After lunch, we had another hour of Mandarin, but in that session, Linda Li demonstrated various ways we could assess our student’s acquisition. First, we did three different activities that reviewed the story and reactivated it in our minds. Each time we reviewed, Linda incorporated more details from in the morning. Then we did eight or nine things to assess our comprehension. Most of this assessment was informal. One of them (the timed retell) I think could be used for a grade in a level 1/novice class if necessary. Several of these “assessments” were great for students to prove to themselves that they actually understood what they were hearing. And the last two things involved us speaking in groups of three. I don’t know about all the other groups, but in my group, we didn’t want to stop talking, and it was so cool to see and hear Mandarin falling out of the mouths of my partners and my own mouth too!

Image description: A picture of a whiteboard with two sheets of paper attached. On the left sheet are six boxes. Each box has a drawing that goes along with one sentence from the story. Box 1: A stick figure named mark looks at a stick figure named Lindsay. Box 2: Mark gives Lindsay pizza. Box 3 shows only Lindsay and that she doesn’t like pizza. Box 4: A stick figure named Rob looks at Lindsay. Box 5: Rob gives Lindsay a heart, which represents love. Box 6 shows Lindsay with Rob and a bunch of hearts between them, showing that Lindsay likes Robs gift and likes him too. The sheet on the right side of the board has the same story written in Chinese using roman letters. Some pieces of information are emphasized with smiley faces. End Image description.

Props

With just a few props, specifically, a pizza slice mask, a hamburger hat, and a giant cardboard heart, the two stories we did today in Mandarin came to life and were way funnier. We did a warmup story with the whole class, and one woman wore the piece of pizza, because she was a piece of pizza, and another wore the hamburger hat. It was very funny, very lighthearted, and foreshadowed the real story for the day. In the real story, two guys liked a very pretty girl. One gave her pizza romantically. The other gave her love (secretly). She did not like pizza, but she did like the love. Having the pizza and the heart props really supported the action and helped increase the humor for the audience. As of right now, I don’t have many props. I plan to fix that. I also plan to actually use student actors in my classroom next year, because they did make it way more entertaining.

Image Description: Student actors are being coached by the teacher in their dramatization. The student closest to us is a man playing Mark’s character. He is on one knee facing away from us so he can romantically give pizza to the very pretty girl named Lindsay. Lindsay is standing between Rob and Mark, the teacher is in front of Lindsay. She has her hands on the piece of pizza that Mark is trying to give her, but she is looking at the teacher for direction. Behind the teacher Rob is standing and holding a large piece of cardboard shaped like a stereotypical heart to represent “love” in front of his chest. End Image description.

Practice, Practice, Practice

One of the other things we did in our sessions was practicing using circling and triangling with a mock class. We were broken down into groups of 8-10 and each group member took a sentence from a basic story about a boy named George who was in California but had a problem. (The problem was that he wanted a Coke but didn’t have one). This story was being told in the past tense (but in the real world… you could choose to tell it in the present tense too. Preferene and needs will dictate that.) Our groups were able to work with a coach to develop a script for us to use that first had us circling a statement, then triangling it with an actor, then adding a statement about a “parallel” (read: additional) character, triangling that with another actor, then adding ourselves as a parallel character, circling the statement about ourself, and then triangling that statement using the two actors once again, and triangling the actors with statements about each other.

That sounds really really complicated, and I’ll be honest, I only got to practice the first part (up to where I introduce myself as a character) but it was really neat to get to go through that coaching process as the teacher, as a student, and as an observer. In my group, we had several Spanish teachers, a French teacher, a Mandarin teacher, an English teacher (ESL) and a German teacher. I only speak two of those languages fluently, but the three that I don’t speak fluently I still understood and was able to participate in the conversation about their given sentence. I look forward to practicing adding myself into the story and the advanced triangling at the end, but that may have to wait until open coaching tomorrow.

Image description: Several pieces of paper are hanging on a wall. The piece in the middle is the largest and is meant to be written on like a whiteboard. The rest are 8.5 inches by 11 inches. To the right of the large center piece are three sheets arranged vertically that explain the roles of the coach, the student, and the observers. Below the center piece is a single sheet that states the purpose of coaching. To the left of the center piece are three sheets arranged vertically. The top sheet has question words in English for the “teacher” to point at when they are speaking. The middle sheet options for the type of circling question that can be asked based on the answer they elicit (a No question, an Either/or question, a yes question, or a question using a question word like Who, How, Where, etc.) The bottom sheet reminds the teacher of the options they have as they go through their lesson. Above the center piece is a piece of paper that talks about pre-teaching considerations for the “teacher” to consider before they teach to their mock class. End Image description.

Speaking of open coaching…

I went to that today, and it was awesome. I taught a very simple sentence to students who were Chinese speakers and it was really successful. One of my main takeaways here was the types of gestures I used to get feedback from my students. In the demonstrations, Linda used a fist strike on an open palm to indicate that we didn’t understand something she said, and one to slow down. I struggled to get my students to do that consistently back in the Spring semester, but I realized that the gestures I tried weren’t good enough because if my back was to that student, then I didn’t know they didn’t understand. I also saw the power of “teaching to the eyes” which is a phrase I learned from Tina Hargaden. The feedback I got from the coaching was all positive by design, but it was so affirming and such a confidence boost. I have a much better idea of what it means to go slow and celebrating accomplishments.

Getting out of my shell

One of the other things I loved about today was getting to know some other attendees. I don’t remember the names of everyone I talked to and chatted with today, but it was so awesome to get to know colleagues from around the world and hear their stories as educators and pick their brains about different things they do and strategies they use and how they got into CI. The encouragement and affirmation that I got from those five or six conversations throughout the day will last me for a while and will help me on those hard days. (I also finally got a grasp on what International Baccalaureate and Seal of Biliteracy are, much to my joy and relief.)

Major takeaways:

1)   Rapid fire review and mini assessments don’t have to be hard, but should give me an idea of where my students are at and give the students the opportunity to see where they are and own their learning. They should also build in complexity and rigor over the course of the assessment.

2)   When the students feel safe and confident in what they know and see that confirmation repeatedly, they take more risks.

3)   A few simple props and gestures go a long way to helping students comprehend what they are hearing and reading.

4)   Teaching to the eyes helps me go slower and catch when my students aren’t understanding, which means I’m less frustrated.

5)   I need to have an “I don’t understand” sign that makes noise, AND ENFORCE ITS USE.

6)   Talking to colleagues who teach a world language is some of the best professional development I’m ever going to get. Thanks to some of the conversations I had today with colleagues, I feel more confident that I am on the right track, I can do this and I have a pretty good plan for how I’m going to get my bosses to give me the money to support the methodology changes I’m trying to enact. (Mua ha ha haaaaaaa)

Oh... and here’s my retelling of the story. I had 7 minutes to complete it, and I was allowed to extend the story or add details if I had time, which I did.

Image description: a picture of a legal pad. The author wrote the class story in Mandarin using roman characters. The text is written on every other line, but takes up almost the entire page. The last two lines make note of the activities that followed the timed writing for later reference. End image description.

[saitou-shuka]

[2017.04.21] CYaRon! Niconama

Figure 1: This niconama in a nutshell.

The VOD is here!

Intro

The intro was a throwback to the first CYaRon! niconama!

Teased the CYR Subunit single. It’s a secret, says Shuka.

Letter reading! Lots of birthday wishes for You.

Reminder that there is an ongoing subunit competition. They’ll be earning points for the competition in both today’s niconama and the talk stage on the 23rd!

Just like the last niconama, Anchan promises that Shuka will do something for every million hearts they receive on LINE LIVE. (They raised the bar this time! Last year’s nama it was for every hundred thousand hearts.)

Drama Corner

Skit 1

Role Prompt: You in 70 years (85-86 year old YouRuby LOL) Scenario Prompt: It's the start of a new semester. Encourage a worried student (aka Anchan).

Aiai collapsed at the end of the prompt RIP old lady Ruby

Skit 2

Role Prompt: Someone who woke up 30 seconds ago Scenario Prompt: Say something to someone who was supposed to be studying for an important test, but got distracted by cleaning their room and reading manga.

Each of them had to do this skit one-by-one. Shuka’s sleepy face murdered me and I think Aiai straight-up said something like “Let’s just sleep together” LOL

Quiz Corner

Today’s quiz question is brought to you by Guilty Kiss! Featuring a recording taken on the Happy Party Train ( *˙0˙*)

Question: How heavy is one meter of train track? Answers:  ① 30kg ② 40kg ③ 50kg ④ 60kg

The audience favored ③ 50kg.

CYaRon! guessed ② and the actual answer was ③

(LOL please put more faith in the audience)

Shuka kept pouting when they got it wrong _(:3 」∠)_

Subunit Single Reveal

Single preview here!

It’s called “Kinmirai Happy End”!

Album cover reveal!!!

Lantis posted the preview to YouTube after the nama ended — it comes with B-side called “Kaigan Toori de Matteru yo” :D

SIF Challenge

Song: Genki Zenkai DAY! DAY! DAY! EX Goal: 300k points!

Result: ~396k points, 172 combo — Pass!

CYaRon! briefly advertises the Chika Birthday Set before they head into their next section. 

Aiai asks Shuka to imitate Shiitake’s face on the Shiitake pouch with hilarious results:

are u ok anchan

Kinmirai Happy End Survey Corner

CYaRon! reads survey questions and tries to guess which answer is most popular with the audience.

Disclaimer: Questions and answers may be heavily paraphrased.

Question 1: In the near future (kinmirai!), technology has advanced. Which of these inventions would you want to have? Options:  ① Teleportation Device ② Time Machine (though you can’t change the past) ③ A drug that can cure all colds, hayfever, etc ④ Robot that will do all your cooking and laundry

The audience and CYaRon! both picked ①

Question 2: Which of these solo activities is most difficult to do? Options: ① Solo Amusement Park ② Solo Yakiniku ③ Solo Karaoke ④ Solo Festival

Again, audience and CYaRon! both picked ①

Question 3: Which of these expressions makes your heart race the most when you see it on the person you like? Options: ① Giant smile ② Peacefully sleeping ③ “What happened?!” Crying face ④ Smug expression like you’re plotting something

Shuka wanted to pick ③ (?!?!?!?) so CYR picked ③, but the audience (unsurprisingly, given who they’re watching) picked ①

Worldwide Poster Girl illustrations! The illustrations were also released online earlier today.

CYaRon! earned 13 million+ hearts on LINE LIVE. As promised, Shuka will have to do 13 ad-libs ( ‾▿‾ )ゞ

They also earned 1550 points for the subunit competition!

Shuka actually ended up doing 14 ad-libs lmao:

Baseball club member

Sloth

Rabbit

Giraffe

Rikyako's elephant

Kappa

Parrot

Coelacanth

Lion

Sexy Home Tutor

Ocean Sunfish

Aiai

Starfish

You-chan's best smile

It’s a lot funnier if you just watch it tbh

Anchan and Aiai were also bullied into doing sexy embarrassing things in front of the handheld camera :3c

CYaRon! will be holding yet another stream for the Mini SIF Thanksgiving Festival in Numazu in less than two days! See you then (:D)|￣|＿

[torisfeather]

Also on AO3

Written with and dedicated to Shane, the most wonderful space rock out there.

This is the tale of two space rocks. Two tiny space rocks in the immensity of the universe.

Of course, everything is tiny in the universe. To us, those two rocks would have seemed quite large at the time. To us, those two rocks would have been a stone meteoroid resulting from the collision of two asteroids and an iron object orbiting around a short-period comet.

But to themselves, the two rocks were just two tiny rocks racing through space and looking at other rocks going by. Big rocks, small rocks, round rocks, long rocks, hot rocks, cool rocks and weird rocks. Tons of rocks that lived their rock lives.

They were long and busy lives. This one had helped a young sun receiving its first planet. That one had seen a little white star wrap itself up in its cold dark blanket and fall asleep slowly, rubbing its eyes. Another bragged about barely making it past a greedy black hole that had almost swallowed it whole. Our two rocks hadn’t lived such things, but as soon as they would see another rock go by, they would ask it to tell what it had seen.

The two rocks couldn’t see each other often. They had to obey the Great Gravitational Law, that decided where they’d go, when and at what speed. They had to follow larger objects and attract smaller ones. It was always the same thing. But the two rocks ended up meeting each other, one day, between two orbits.

“Tell me your story,” they had both asked when they saw each other, and both had been surprised. They were usually the one to ask that question. So, they both started, and stopped at the same time. They started to laugh.

“Do you ask this to every rock you meet?” asked one.

“Of course. You?” the other said.

“Always! Have you heard a lot of stories?”

“Plenty! And you?”

“Tons! Tell me one first, and then I’ll tell you mine.”

And so they did. The two rocks told each other stories, one after the other, until the Law separated them. So they promised to do it again whenever they’d see each other.

It became a habit. When they’d see each other from afar, even from very far, both rocks cried to get the other’s attention, and started telling storied from so far away they had to yell to be heard. And when it was time to go separate ways again, they tried to leave as slowly as possible, so that the moment would be longer. Since there could be decades before they saw each other again, they often had a lot of new stories to tell each other. But after several meetings, they eventually ran out of stories to tell. So one of the rocks had an idea.

“The planet that was blown up by that huge asteroid, what if that was where the little comet I told you about came from?”

And the other added, stunned. “Of course! How many moons did it have, remind me?”

And the two rocks suddenly had an infinity of new stories to tell, not stories they were told but stories they imagines, inspired by what they knew. When one didn’t know what to come up with, the other rebooted the whole thing with a new idea, funnier and more interesting than the first one. The two rocks shared a universe of stories, so numerous and different nobody remembered what was true and what wasn’t.

But then, one day, as one of the rocks saw the other and cried out to it to come and join it, it realized the other wasn’t shouting, that it was going slowly, that it was sad.

“What’s the matter?” it said when the other was close enough to hear.

“Every time I go around this system,” the other explained, “I slip past a little planet, a little bit closer each time. Last time, I barely made it. Next time, I am sure I will crash into it, and I won’t be able to see you again.”

The rock didn’t understand at first. Then, when it understood, it felt overwhelmed with sadness. “That’s not possible! You could try to avoid it one more time! Just once!”

“I’m sorry, friend, but it’s probably the last time we are together.”

So, for the first time, the two rocks spent their meeting in silence, going as slow as possible, gazing at each other and praying to see each other again. The meeting was way too short, and soon it was time to go separate ways again.

“Goodbye, friend. Remember our stories, alright?” the rock said before leaving again.

And the other rock, the one that circle around a comet, just refused to say goodbye. Instead, as it saw its friend leaving, it dug deep into its own strength and, in a desperate attempt, disobeyed the Law to take the same direction the other had taken. It didn’t want to lose the other storyteller.

The other rock saw it follow, amazed but glad to had its friend with it. “You are going to be in trouble!”

“I don’t care!”

And this is how the two storytelling rocks, one following the other, started their last trip around the Sun. They joked about being two rebels trying to overtake the unfair power of the Law and the merciless reign of the Sun. They told each other someday anarchy would prevail in the universe, and all the celestial bodies would be free to go wherever they felt like going and to follow whoever they wanted to follow. Everyone let them dream, since they wouldn’t live for very long anyway. Nobody ever heard again of the rocks that fell down.

Soon, too soon, the two rocks saw approaching the little blue planet they were going to crash into. It was pretty, from afar. It had a single, pale, tiny moon that greeted them both when they raced past it.

“I’m scared,” one said.

“Me too,” the other said.

“So it’s over?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a shame, we knew so many stories. Nobody will hear them now.”

“Maybe there are other storytelling rocks out there, and we didn’t meet them.”

“Maybe there are two just like us, and they are both in orbit around a planet, and they are always together.”

“Maybe they’ll actually manage to rebel against their sun.”

“Maybe they’ll break the Law in the entire universe.”

“Say?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

And as they said this, both rocks felt irresistibly sucked down by the gravity of the planet its inhabitants called Earth.

No space rock knows how painful it is to get through an atmosphere. You’re surrounded by millions, billions, millions of billions of atoms, too small to be seen, yet so many they scratch and scratch the surface. It burns like a sun, it harms, it hurts. The two rocks, as they fell, sincerely thought they were dying. They felt themselves burn and crumble away, leaving behind them a trail of bits of themselves, like two little comets.

Then one of the rocks hit the earth, and the pain slowly fainted. At first, it was surprised that it was still alive. Then it looked around. There was sand around it, and other rocks, big and small, and even rocks that didn’t look like rocks. But it looked weird itself now. It had burned so much while going through the atmosphere it had become tiny, ridiculous, a speck of what it used to be, and it was all black now, like coal, and on the white sand you could only see it. There was liquid water, a little further away, and it started to dream it could bath in it to cool off after its fall.

The other rock was gone. Maybe it had burned completely. Maybe it had fallen somewhere else. It didn’t know. It was alone. All alone. Had it had eyes, it would have cried. It thought it could stay with the other until its last moments, but now it was alone, without any way of finding it. So the rock didn’t say anything. And let itself live quietly on the white beach.

Time went by. Sometimes, the planet’s inhabitants would come on the beach and walk around it. It listened, in silence. One day, a child picked it up and sat it at the top of a sandcastle. It wasn’t the first time. But then, when the sandcastle crumbled apart, the child found it again and brought it back to their grandmother who was reading in a deckchair. And the grandmother agreed to keep it.

She wrapped the rock in a handkerchief and dropped it inside her pocket. The rock could see anything anymore, it was even lonelier, and the tissue wrapping it up was rubbing against it and reminded it of the time it fell into the atmosphere. It hoped it wouldn’t last for too long. But when the grandmother eventually freed it, it wasn’t on the beach anymore.

She set it on a dusty shelf, above a desk, in a small bedroom. The walls were beige, the curtains were blue, and the wooden floor would shine every morning when sunlight flooded the room. There were a computer, books, a globe and picture frames. On the shelf, around it, there were plastic trinkets, seashells, an old varnished chestnut.

In that bedroom, people came and went. Usually, they were young. Their nose in papers. Staying awake even when the moon greeted them through the window. Never more than one at the same time, but they never stay for too long. One year, two years, and they left. The grandmother that came to clean up every couple days ended up leaving as well. The rock wondered where she had gone but never got an answer. A younger woman replaced her. When the room was empty, she would come inside to cry, sometimes. The rock felt sad for her, but still kept quiet.

The young people coming and going through the bedroom knew a lot of things. The rock was curious, and from its shelf it could see everything they did. Some struggled with weird symbols on white boards and drew on squared paper. Some compared tree leaves pictures and carried around cages with white mice in them. Some knew very long words and what they meant. Some used very long words to mean something. And the rock listened, and learned what they knew. After all, what else could it do on its shelf?

One day, one of those young people noticed it. He took it in his hands and looked at it up close. “Ma’am,” he said to the woman. “Isn’t that a meteorite?”

“I don’t know, maybe?”

The rock thought it was a pretty word to say it came from space, but it was still easier to just say “space rock”.

“It looks nice, you should put it in a museum.”

“Is it worth it? It’s just a rock.”

“Maybe to you, but it would be of more use somewhere people can see it, instead of locked up in a student’s room.”

He put the rock down, and it thought the woman was probably going to accept. Which was good for it had never seen a museum.

The woman took it there one week later. As the grandmother had done before her, she wrapped it up in a handkerchief and put it in her pocket. The rock thought earthlings had really weird ways of carrying things around. When it was free again, it was blinded by the white light of a small lab. A big man with a mustache and round glasses was staring down at it from behind a huge magnifying glass. He examined it for a moment, then wrote something on a notebook before putting it in a plastic box, with other rocks.

The rock wondered if that was really a museum, it didn’t look at all like what he’d imagined. The room was empty, there was nothing to see. But the big man eventually picked up the box and left the lab, and this time it really was a museum.

They followed corridors, climbed up stairs, and the rock wondered where they were going like that. It could see things behind windows and tiny tags, but it still didn’t talk. The big man eventually stopped inside a small room with dark walls and planet posters. He opened the box and took the rocks out, one by one, to set the down on different shelves, behind different tags. And when he was done, he left without looking back.

No rock talked in the room. Rocks are not usually talkative, but these ones seemed to have forgotten they could speak. So the rock kept quiet for it didn’t have anyone to talk to.

Soon, earthlings started getting in and out of the room. They looked at the different rocks. Some had big curious eyes, and some looked bored. The rock was bored too. It missed the other storytelling rock. It had been years since they’d talked. It wondered for a second if, like the other rocks, it didn’t know how to do it anymore.

Then it suddenly hear a familiar voice cry in the room.

“I’ve known black holes that weren’t as boring as this place!”

Most people in the room started looking around, wondering who had said that out loud. It was quite funny, but the rock didn’t pay attention because it knew who the voice belonged to.

“Is that you, friend?”

“Yes! Yes, it’s me! Where are you, friend?”

It was the other storytelling rock’s voice. The rock couldn’t believe its ears and scanned the shelves. “Here! Here! The top shelf!”

“I can see you! Can you see me? I’m right in front of you!”

And the rock did see, on the shelf right in front of it, another rock like it. Had it not talked, it would have never recognized it, the poor rock had also become black and tiny, like a piece of coal. But the rock was filled with joy from having found its friend again, even though they had to yell to hear each other, from either side of the exposition.

“What happened? Where were you?”

The rock told it fell on a beach, just like it. A child had picked it up and brought it back home. It was set upon a fireplace, and for years it saw the life of a happy family. Everybody told jokes, parents and children alike, and everybody loved each other. And one day, the eldest daughter had noted this black rock, sitting above the fireplace, came from space and could be useful to a museum.

It had spent several months in this room before cracking, that day, mad from all the silence. Good thing it was also the day the rock had arrived.

It told its story as well. They had so many things to say, so many things to tell. Earthlings were amazed by their conversation. Slowly, they feel silent around them, captivated by the storied the rocks told so well. But the two rocks didn’t care, they had finally found each other again.

They told each other old story, invented new ones, and earthlings would come in numbers to listen. Some wanted to take them back to the lab to know how they could talk, but protests rose from the visitors. Soon, the people in charge of the museum gave them their own exposition: the two rocks, together on a small table, stressed by a pretty white tablecloth. They kept talking, and earthlings kept listening to their stories. The one that had spent time in a student’s room had learned many things and made the story believable. The one that lived in a family have discovered humor and made the stories genuine and enjoyable.

They loved each other more than ever. Sometimes, they’d stop telling their storied and just compliment each other, tell how much they loved each other, how happy they were to be together again. And they laughed together from how cheesy they sounded, and kept inventing stories, always new, for a public that never grew tired.

And sometimes they’d stop talking together and didn’t speak for an amount of time, and earthlings wondered if they didn’t love each other anymore. Earthlings were wrong, they still loved each other and would probably love each other until the end, for it was a love that didn’t depend on anything, not even themselves. Sometimes, they just didn’t want to talk. So they kept quiet together, and in the end, it was like talking. Talking or not wasn’t important, as long as they had the choice to do it or not, that they were together and could decide to say whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted.

They were never separated again. They stayed together, in that museum, talking and not talking, forever. When there’d be no more earthlings to listen to them, they’d still be there. And when the sun would die, millenniums later, taking with it all of its closest planets, the two rocks would still be together, telling the thousands of stories they imagined.

[gffa]

I’m at the point of Star Wars Feelings Hell where this is all I want to do anymore, I just want to talk about Star Wars, I just want to cry about the Star Wars characters, I just want to read Star Wars things, I want to watch Star Wars things, I want to play Star Wars games, I want to cry some more about Star Wars feelings, I want to have novels and novels worth of Star Wars fic to read, I want to curl up in my bed and lay there for three hours reading nothing but fluffy fix it fic and fic that makes everything even worse and everything in between. Just. All Star Wars All The Time! That’s all I want! STAR WARS FIC RECS: ✦ Fire and Ice by Yesac, obi-wan & anakin & some anakin/padme & cast, 111.9k    Anakin wins the duel on Mustafar, but doesn’t kill Obi-Wan. Along with Padme, Obi-Wan finds himself living in a chaotic world where the man he thought he knew has become the thing he swore to destroy. Can Anakin be turned back? If so, what then? ✦ Negotiation by Glare, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka, NSFW, modern au, serial killer au, 50.4k wip    Over a year ago, Coruscant Police Detective Anakin Skywalker vanished without a trace while hunting the prolific serial killer known within the media as “The Negotiator”. ✦ Soldier, Poet, King by Glare, obi-wan/anakin & qui-gon & mace & dooku & palpatine & cast, sith!obi-wan, NSFW, 95.4k wip    Second chances are very rarely given, but the Force smiles upon two of its favorite children and returns them to a time before their actions have met their consequences. Anakin Skywalker, also known as Darth Vader, seeks redemption while Obi-Wan “Ben” Kenobi, disillusioned with the Jedi Order and its Code, falls to the Darkness. ✦ The Light You Leave Behind by laventadorn, obi-wan/anakin & anakin/padme & ahsoka, 18.9k wip    Because Anakin and Ahsoka have set out to learn what they can about the Sith - and to destroy them, once and for all. ✦ you’re gonna wish you never had met me by cosmicocean, obi-wan/padme & leia/han & luke & cast, 13k    Leia Kenobi, struggling to keep her head above water. ✦ An Enlightening Experience by Valmouth, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon & ahsoka & the father & the daughter & the son & cast, 2.3k    “You… have been Chosen,” the Father says, and he sounds about as upset on the matter as Obi-Wan knows he will be, when he finally understands what that means. ✦ untitled by stonefreeak, obi-wan & anakin, ~1k    Anakin wakes from nightmares tinted red. The darkness of his bedroom seems oppressive, and no matter how many times he blinks red seems to seep into the edges of his vision. ✦ I’ll Be There For You by SinkingLikeASunset, obi-wan/anakin/padme (eventual) & qui-gon & clones & cast, 40.7k wip    Obi-Wan must alter events and make changes as he struggles with memories of a dreadful future and deals with new developments this time around. ✦ Wearer of the Veil by englishable, leia & ben, 1.4k    Leia Organa-Solo knows that her son is not quite like everybody else, although she’s uncertain as to whether this means he should be protected more from others or himself. Either way, these strange dreams he has are beyond her reach. ✦ those immortal dead by notbecauseofvictories, padme & leia & luke & ben & poe & rey, 2.1k    Padmé Amidala is forgotten, not gone. ✦ untitled by cadesama, anakin & leia & bail & tarkin, ~1k    Anonymous asked: AU, Vader sues Bail for custody (either the Empire is intact and he has standing or its gone and he absolutely doesn’t, whichever is funnier) ✦ A Game of Chess by Kayarde, obi-wan & palpatine & cast, 4.3k    Chancellor Palpatine and Knight Kenobi sit down for a game of chess. ✦ sometimes you don’t get it right by randomdreamer01, jyn & han (background han/leia and jyn/cassian) & cast, 2.6k    Han Solo and Jyn Erso get drunk on the Millenium Falcon and find that they are similar in more ways than one. ✦ Unearthed Bones by Glare, obi-wan/anakin, human au, mafia au, 2.5k    Obi-Wan Kenobi has given up a life of crime in favor of the questionable comforts of witness protection. Placed in a boring library job, everything appears to go great until he realizes his incompetent handlers somehow managed to drop him right in the middle of another man’s operation. full details + recs under the cut!

✦ Fire and Ice by Yesac, obi-wan & anakin & some anakin/padme & cast, 111.9k    Anakin wins the duel on Mustafar, but doesn’t kill Obi-Wan. Along with Padme, Obi-Wan finds himself living in a chaotic world where the man he thought he knew has become the thing he swore to destroy. Can Anakin be turned back? If so, what then?    This is one of the earliest fics I read in the fandom and I imprinted hard on it, but I wasn’t sure if it would hold up to a reread, so I decided to pick it up again for another read–and it absolutely holds up. In a lot of ways, this is the fic that got me into this relationship–I liked both characters, I had feelings about their relationship, but this is one the that really cemented in that this is what I’m here for and this is so much of how I wanted to see them done. It’s resolutely a gen fic and I’m fine reading it in that vein, I enjoy their dynamic on that level as well, but I think it’s worth reading if you ship them as well, because their relationship is so important to both characters, it’s the foundation on which they stand for both of them, and it’s also just really, really spot on. This is an Anakin who has so much power at his fingertips, but is the emotionally weak one, this is an Anakin who is consumed by fear and anger and desperation and cravings for approval from those he loves, this is an Anakin who has such good in him, but took a very wrong turn. And this is an Obi-Wan who can be cut off from the Force, who can not be up to his usual speed, and yet he still has this iron will that’s incredible, he still looks Anakin right in the eye and refuses to be worn down, this is an Obi-Wan who cannot be compromised in the way Anakin wants him to be, because Obi-Wan’s strength of character is incredible. This is what I imprinted on and this is what I remain true to–that this is why they’re both such fascinating, complicated characters who become so entwined with each other and supporting each other and loving each other and trying to figure out a way forward together and working through their issues together, all in a way that’s about growth and healing in such a good, emotionally satisfying way. But also on a sheer id-pleasing level, the first half of this fic is fucking delicious, it’s the best “Anakin wins the duel on Mustafar and keeps Obi-Wan prisoner” fic I have ever found, it understands Obi-Wan’s character just as much as it understands Anakin’s character, how strength comes in different forms. That even without the Force, holy shit, Obi-Wan is goddamned nightmare because he’s so smart and he may not be the Chosen One, but he was one of the best of the Jedi. And, oh, Anakin so desperately trying to gain his approval, when he climbs into bed with Obi-Wan it was one of my favorite scenes, it didn’t need to be anything more than what it was to be perfect. There are a ton of character insights in this fic, there are some great lines, there’s a great plot, and the writing is top-notch. To this day, this fic remains my #1 favorite in this fandom, the first half of this fic especially is everything I want re: characterization and writing. It was practically emotional/id porn for me and even if you don’t usually read genfic, I would suggest giving this one a shot, because, boy, is it ultimately ever really, really about the relationship between Obi-Wan and Anakin and it delivers on the emotional climax moments. ✦ Negotiation by Glare, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka, NSFW, modern au, serial killer au, 50.4k wip    Over a year ago, Coruscant Police Detective Anakin Skywalker vanished without a trace while hunting the prolific serial killer known within the media as “The Negotiator”.    Chapter 18-19: This is an update rec and will focus on these chapters rather than the fic as a whole. I still can’t believe how good this fic is for me, how much I love every single scene of Anakin’s life being just an absolute mess, and the slow slide into where we know he’ll ultimately end up. It’s been 50k now and he’s still not there and yet every moment is just as interesting and engaging, it never gets old, each moment is useful in the journey along the way, it’s never repetitive in the ways that Anakin’s defenses are slowly crumbling against this person who is his only social outlet, this person who takes care of him, this person who he’s asking for things from, this person who is so charming and attractive, this person who is holding him here against his will, this person who is a murderer who feels no remorse about it, this person whose moods he cannot fully trust. Having this fic set from Anakin’s point of view works so well, because he’s such a relatable character in this situation and because the story focusing on his descent into Stockholm Syndrom is the heart of the fic, and it just works better in his pov, but it also gives me iddy happiness every time he’s so expaserated with himself and so frustrated/not a little terrified of what’s happening with him. But also, oh, man, the way the dynamic between him and Obi-Wan subtly shifts. The way Anakin’s so guilty about blowing him the night before, the way he still is drawn to Obi-Wan the next day, the way little moments, like Obi-Wan standing behind Anakin to guide his hands in chopping vegetables is so quietly intimate and there, all of that is SO GOOD FOR ME. And chapter 20 is set in the future again, a contrast against the chapter just before… but not as much of a contrast and I love it for how I felt the progress (?) Anakin has made along the fic. And, you know, Obi-Wan just looking people dead in the eye and able to say exactly what he wants to say to get the result he’s aiming for, how he can play a role and it’s utterly false but it gets the reaction or he can just look someone/something dead in the eye and you see the predator underneath and it’s… it’s not canon!Obi-Wan, but I feel like it’s what he might have been with the chains taken off him and I love getting to see such a sharp and immoral version of the character. It’s so much fun and also so good. And then Bail shows up! And, oh, man, the dynamic there is fascinating in what it says about Anakin, what it shows about Anakin and what calms him down, what puts him at ease and just… this fic is really good at being self-aware about what it’s doing, but still embracing it, and that makes it the fic I’m probably most eager to see a new chapter of, whenever it comes out. ✦ Soldier, Poet, King by Glare, obi-wan/anakin & qui-gon & mace & dooku & palpatine & cast, sith!obi-wan, NSFW, 95.4k wip    Second chances are very rarely given, but the Force smiles upon two of its favorite children and returns them to a time before their actions have met their consequences. Anakin Skywalker, also known as Darth Vader, seeks redemption while Obi-Wan “Ben” Kenobi, disillusioned with the Jedi Order and its Code, falls to the Darkness.    Chapter 30: This is an update rec and will focus on this chapter rather than the fic as a whole. Should I have waited until there was another chapter for an update rec? Ehh, probably. But I also don’t care. Because it’s a bit of a breather chapter after the previous one, it’s dealing with the aftermath of events that happened recently and it’s really satisfying–for both versions of the characters. Stepping carefully around spoilers, what happens with Padawan!Obi-Wan left me all excited and bouncing because I’d wondered and I loved the conversation with Plo Koon and how this chapter left off with this Obi-Wan, what it could mean for his future, because oh man yes do want! But also the future version of Ben and the downtime he has with Anakin, how it’s nice to have a chapter where they spend time together without any other pressing concerns in the very immediate future, as well as some really lovely, delicious shower sex. Where it’s just the two of them and Anakin whining for more so Ben opens him slowly and carefully before sliding into Anakin, who needs this, you feel how much he needs that connection again, rather than the fic telling you about it. That Ben has a moment of actually allowing himself something nice, to be pressed inside this person he loves so much, to have Anakin back after everything they’ve both been through, how it leads up to telling Anakin he loves him, because it’s one thing for us all to know it, but to read the words is so satisfying, right along with the lovely sex, that Anakin is safe in his arms again, trusts him again, listens to him again, wants more of him again. That they’ve found this balance, right exactly like this, and it just really made me happy in my soul for all the characters. ✦ The Light You Leave Behind by laventadorn, obi-wan/anakin & anakin/padme & ahsoka, 18.9k wip    Because Anakin and Ahsoka have set out to learn what they can about the Sith - and to destroy them, once and for all.    I think I’ve recommended this fic before, but there was enough time between updates/I reread enough of it that I’m gonna do a fresh rec. I LOVE THIS FIC, I am super intrigued by it already, where things go a little differently when Ahsoka leaves the Jedi Order and Anakin starts thinking about going with her, but is torn between wanting this other path and the desire he has to be a Jedi, to stay with Obi-Wan as well. The writing is lovely and sharp, the characterizations are complicated and bittersweet, in the way that Star Wars so often is. When Obi-Wan says that he thinks they’re losing the war, it sends Anakin into this tailspin, because Obi-Wan’s not supposed to say that, he starts a slow boil panic because Anakin is not good at dealing with feelings like this and, oh, it’s painful but it’s also so very good. It’s really a group fic, though, it has Padme and Ahsoka and Obi-Wan and Anakin, but there’s also some good stuff with Bail Organa and Asajj Ventress, there’s some great ways each of the characters see each other–I especially loved Padme’s view of Anakin and his need for guidance and how Obi-Wan could be “charmingly, annoyingly, passive-aggressive” in one description and really actually idealistic in another. And, oh, I do love the feeling that I get from this fic that there’s no “evil” side (other than Sidious and the Sith, of course), that the Jedi may have lost their way, but they’re not bad people, that Padme can disagree with people, but both sides have validity, that there’s nuance and complicated circumstances here. I live for that in fic, it makes things so much better and stronger as a story! It really is fascinating and so easy to see/hear the characters and so engaging a read. ✦ you’re gonna wish you never had met me by cosmicocean, obi-wan/padme & leia/han & luke & cast, 13k    Leia Kenobi, struggling to keep her head above water.    This is a sequel to turn my sorrow into treasured gold, which should be read first. I admit, this fic focused a little too much on the ESB plot, which meant not nearly as much new stuff happened in it, and I think that held it back from being as good as the first one was. But I also still tore through this fic and it’s a great look at Leia’s character and the writing is lovely and I am just so, so here for an AU where Obi-Wan and Padme raised the twins, where Leia knows her mother and considers herself Obi-Wan’s daughter, how that both does and doesn’t change who she is. The character moments are lovely and it just… really felt like Star Wars, I enjoyed it a great deal. ✦ An Enlightening Experience by Valmouth, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon & ahsoka & the father & the daughter & the son & cast, 2.3k    “You… have been Chosen,” the Father says, and he sounds about as upset on the matter as Obi-Wan knows he will be, when he finally understands what that means.    I both wish that this had been like 50k long and think it’s perfect exactly as it is, it’s sort of crack-treated-seriously, but also very light-hearted, but also comes with genuine emotional weight. It’s one of those neat concepts that isn’t really in line with canon, but it’s happily embraced by being what my id wants, giving Obi-Wan a special Destiny, especially as the embodiment of the Light on Mortis. It’s such a fun fic, it has just the right amount of detail and ideas sketched out to really capture my imagination, but also to give me feelings (both happy and heartbreaking!) about Obi-Wan, exactly as it should. It was a really lovely read. ✦ untitled by stonefreeak, obi-wan & anakin, ~1k    Anakin wakes from nightmares tinted red. The darkness of his bedroom seems oppressive, and no matter how many times he blinks red seems to seep into the edges of his vision.    This is a short ficlet, but oh it’s lovely and adorable and bittersweet and heart-warming and perfect. When Anakin is 13, he feels he should be too old to sneak into Obi-Wan’s bed for cuddles and sleep, but a nightmare gets him up and sneaking out anyway and, oh, I love how easy it is in this moment, how it’s simple and quiet and Obi-Wan just lifts up one arm in invitation and I can see it so clearly and it’s perfect and my heart feels so much better after this lovely piece. ✦ I’ll Be There For You by SinkingLikeASunset, obi-wan/anakin/padme (eventual) & qui-gon & clones & cast, 40.7k wip    Obi-Wan must alter events and make changes as he struggles with memories of a dreadful future and deals with new developments this time around.    Chapter 1-8: I believe I’ve recommended this fic before, but it’s updated since then and I continue to enjoy it! The beginning takes a bit to get underway, but once Obi-Wan is in the past and has settled a bit, the fic shifts into gear and really engaged me. I like that it’s a fic where things aren’t really in a rush, even as they’re often tense and there’s a looming sense of things on the horizon. There’s room to breathe here, as well as some really good scenes between Obi-Wan and various people, especially Anakin, who gets frustrated that Obi-Wan won’t tell him what’s wrong, but Obi-Wan is slowly getting him to learn to trust that he’ll tell Anakin when the time is right. Not that Obi-Wan knows precisely what to do, he stumbles and is at a loss at times, but he’s still making his way carefully and is still determined to make things better this time. But what I’m really here for is the slow development of Obi-Wan/Anakin/Padme as a threesome and how Obi-Wan/Anakin is getting so much of their communication finally worked out. Chapter seven has a nicely id-satisfying scene where much of the building confrontations finally happen, where Obi-Wan and Anakin finally really talk to each other, how Obi-Wan finally says directly what he now realizes Anakin needs to hear, how Anakin warms under that praise and affection. The fic is at its best when it’s focused on them (and Padme), when it lets me just happily roll around in the tropes that it embraces and just makes me feel all warm-hearted and content!    Chapter 9: This is an update rec and will focus on this chapter, rater than the fic as a whole. This fic starts a bit rough in the beginning, but once the timeline starts changing and the fic settles into the more daily life stuff, it becomes really cute and charming and chapter 9 really exemplifies that for me, it was just so adorable to watch Anakin verbally flailing and tripping over himself because Obi-Wan knew about his marriage to Padme, like I would have read five chapters in a row of that, because that’s where the fic is at its best and it’s just fluffy and pure iddy fix-it and cuteness! And I’m enjoying the slow roll towards Obianidala as a pairing, that it’s been 40k of fic now and they’re just sort of getting around to it and Obi-Wan’s affection for them is very nice and both Anakin and Padme are really cute, especially when Obi-Wan is so calm and serene, because that’s how he is, while they trip over themselves trying to pretend they’re not in a relationship. But also I will apparently eat up with a spoon any time Anakin has a panic attack and Obi-Wan’s presence and guidance helps bring him back, yesss, give me that always, that’s what I’m here for! ✦ Wearer of the Veil by englishable, leia & ben, 1.4k    Leia Organa-Solo knows that her son is not quite like everybody else, although she’s uncertain as to whether this means he should be protected more from others or himself. Either way, these strange dreams he has are beyond her reach.    A lovely, bittersweet look at Leia and her son, how his childhood went and the dreams that loom over him, how a kid can start out so sweet and so loved, who is always loved, and still you see how things could end up the way they did. The imagery in the fic is used really well and the sheer amount of feelings of the piece are just right and it really was a really, really lovely piece to read. ✦ those immortal dead by notbecauseofvictories, padme & leia & luke & ben & poe & rey, 2.1k    Padmé Amidala is forgotten, not gone.    This is really more of a fairy tale type of story than one that’s grounded in the Star Wars details (though, I wouldn’t say it’s a straight up fairy tale, either, if you’re looking for that kind of thing, just that it’s fuzzy and dreamy and not quite how SW works, but that style works for the fic) and it’s more about fleeing impressions and moments, the lingering of a ghost that’s not quite in your field of vision. That Padme’s influence on the galaxy is still there, even if she herself or her name are not, and it’s a really delicate balance to walk, but I thought the fic did a lovely job of it! ✦ untitled by cadesama, anakin & leia & bail & tarkin, ~1k    Anonymous asked: AU, Vader sues Bail for custody (either the Empire is intact and he has standing or its gone and he absolutely doesn’t, whichever is funnier)    I think I grinned my way through this entire thing, there’s something just so… hilariously surreal about Vader suing Bail Organa for custody of baby Leia, who is just totally content to crawl all over him, while Wilhuff Tarkin moderates the whole thing with such utter… I don’t even know how to describe the mix of academic interest with complete detachment. Then you add in a fantastic last few lines that completely captured my imagination and you have a great little read. ✦ A Game of Chess by Kayarde, obi-wan & palpatine & cast, 4.3k    Chancellor Palpatine and Knight Kenobi sit down for a game of chess.    I have a great fascination for the dynamic between Obi-Wan and Palpatine, as two people who are playing a game of chess against each other (literally here, metaphorically in canon, even if Obi-Wan’s not entirely aware of it) and rivals in some ways. The series of scenes in this fic, spread across the years, the way they come to respect each other as rivals, the way Palpatine sees Obi-Wan as a genuinely interesting person to play against, and how that changes some fates and not others, was a really interesting little read tonight! ✦ sometimes you don’t get it right by randomdreamer01, jyn & han (background han/leia and jyn/cassian) & cast, 2.6k    Han Solo and Jyn Erso get drunk on the Millenium Falcon and find that they are similar in more ways than one.    Oh, this was a beautifully written fic, it’s all rough edges and unhappy moments and jaded undercurrents to everything, but with real and genuine heart underneath it, just as it should be for these two characters. It works beautifully and understands both characters and draws these really beautiful parallels and contrasts, for the way they look at the world and the feelings they have for these people who are so deep into the Rebellion and how Han and Jyn try to deal with that. It’s a gorgeous fic that I never expected to get and it really was a treat. ✦ Unearthed Bones by Glare, obi-wan/anakin, human au, mafia au, 2.5k    Obi-Wan Kenobi has given up a life of crime in favor of the questionable comforts of witness protection. Placed in a boring library job, everything appears to go great until he realizes his incompetent handlers somehow managed to drop him right in the middle of another man’s operation.    I didn’t know I needed this fic until I had it–which I say a lot, but I always mean it! It’s such an interesting beginning, I love that this Obi-Wan is living this peaceful life, but he can’t just not notice what’s going on around him, Obi-Wan is too fundamentally an observant character which of course leads exactly where it was always going to go. I loved this opening chapter, it could have stood on its own the way it is, the ending would have worked for that, but I am also really here for more of it! I love the potential of it, the way it captures my imagination, the scene between Obi-Wan and Anakin, both of them sizing the other up, especially the way Obi-Wan is just so… calm and centered, that even when he’s being tempted back to what he really is, there’s something solid and steady about him, which compliments the more wild feel of Anakin and I liked the way that sense of who they are was mapped onto these versions of them. And also I am super ready for more of this whenever it comes out, especially if it has undercurrents of being fucked up in super tasty ways, as the author is really good at. ♥

[peter-ino-salinas]

The Rise & Fall of Nerd Kingdom

First, let me say, while I adore and appreciate so much the underground movement and support of the select few who have kept Nerd Kingdom alive in your own ways, as well as our work, thank you. In so many ways you will never know those few of you have kept me going on my own path today.

Second, anyone who was involved who is looked at negatively, you shouldn’t, they are all brilliant people, but brilliant in their own regard, we are human, people had the best intentions, but sometimes values can change and shift when elements are introduced that people do not understand, for better or worse.

If any of you are reading this who were involved in any politics with Nerd Kingdom in any form, know that I always look back and appreciate the things I learned from all of you. Even if I did not always agree, I could have done better to listen and understand. In spite of my own best intentions, I lost myself with so many divided agendas and for that I am sorry. One day I genuinely hope we can be colleagues again, in whatever form that may be.

Genuine Intentions

The earliest forms of Nerd Kingdom were not EXACTLY what it was at the time, but the motivation was quite the same. It was based on some VERY old academic work and mutual interest of my colleagues in various fields. It was very simple, young minds in a social environment with the correct tools have the capacity to advance upon and outmaneuver larger entities which are subject to walls they engineer themselves into. Neat.

In not so technical speak, it was about Modders and Gamers. That was is. We had a quantifiable understanding (creepy topic, different post) that young minds who were not beaten into accepting conventions would define worlds. As it happened, the worlds we cared about were games for all the nerdiest and still most scientific reasons. Early on we had a variety of ways to access data or work with modders, but it wasn't the same as what happened when we saw Minecraft VERY early.

Comically the way we raised money in the first place wasn’t even intentional, we were just a bunch of outcast nerds who were not always understood in Academia or “Business” and we called out some truths about it before it happened. It was simple “The slow nature of content creation in Minecraft will inevitably lead to someone decompiling Java, building various versions and we can correlate that to the rise and fall of any industry or business. And low and behold, what we predicted happened.

To be clear, while we had a more technical articulation, at our core, we were also very much like many modders and gamers, we were passionate hackers who were ignored by masses and still did things that were valuable to people, even if very often we were taken advantage of. Admittedly, some of us had a chip on our shoulder early, but we hid it well, myself included. Assuredly, that chip is now gone, I have you all and my own children to thank for that to force me to see who I was and people around me.

ALL THE MONIES!

We were asked what we would do if we had access to money given that we just proved MAGIC (which was sadly obvious from our views of things) and the natural response was “Create a platform to empower people to learn and play and connect while also identifying measurable patterns of interactions to determine how to teach people how to solve problems and turn them into engineers or better creatives”. As you can imagine, this was confusing. We took some advice from some “Business Folks” we met and this was awesome and horrible down the road, but one of our first curses, which was what we had to do.

“It's like Minecraft with Better Graphics and we have PhDs and stuff”

As you can imagine. All the monies. Its something a lot of us had a conflict with, it was never about MINECRAFT, it was about an environment to play and understand. The reason we actually built our own engine was that the engines in the game industry, even now, are not REALLY all that great at empowering creation, its an inherent flaw in their architecture. So we had to go back to basics... SIMULATION! It's all nerd talk, but it's simple. A simulation engine or simulation at all is simply a single structure of code that allows access to all parts of it. Wanna know what else was a simulation engine, sorta? Minecraft Java. It's not really... well, it's slower than we liked, so we built our own. Several times over in fact, and each time we managed to benchmark performance of various areas that would actually outperform commercial engines, even now.

This resulted in some strange divides, however, this whole “Minecraft killer” thing, gave me anxiety EVERY day and I did my best to try and curb that from a market perspective, but I am sure many people saw it as a sales guise. It wasn't, but I get it, this is what “Games” and “Business” does, so I cannot even be mad about it. But as a result we actually became amazing friends with many amazing influential minds in Minecraft as a community, though the members of Minecraft themselves didn't pay much attention to us, I actually think some of them took jabs at us more than once. That was a bummer.

ALL THE DATAS!

What we tried to show, but did not always do so well with so much going on, is this really was a massive “experiment” that had a lot of potential impact in a LOT of places, not just games. But there is a good reason we kept attracting academics, amazing engineers, investors, and also REALLY pissing people of or outright confusing them. No matter what if you were exposed to what we were doing you paid attention in some way and you certainly had feelings about it in some way.

But our approach was meant to be genuine, its why we were always so transparent with stuff to the point that the industry saw us as these cathartic consumers, not developers like them. Also, nothing I can be upset about now, I get it, especially after now having spent so much time in the “Core Industry”. All that Data, all that research, all the things we were doing we wanted to go back to all of the community. To expose the environment to allow Academia to connect and understand people better, to demonstrate what young minds could do with the correct understanding, tools, and support, to break several walls with one elegant and comically obvious statement, the only way to solve a slew of problems, was understanding and empowering young minds to see how brilliant they all really are and not let us dumb adults or “professionals” make them feel otherwise.

What was NOT obvious to a lot of people, even some of them involved, is we were creating a massive digital brain. This was a result of the kind of engine we built and tools as well. The latest iterations actually had the capacity to understand the input of one thing and the output of another. And it was getting WAY faster with time. This impacted AI, which could learn from players, matchmaking, content distribution, everything. And it was funnier still that we got better at doing it the more we realized that doing it the way the game industry does, would never work.

This is something we wanted to build and give to everyone. It made the most sense that if we can create a great environment for people to play and learn from, they would naturally want to make their own versions of it and people would challenge those things and create new games with it which we could empower. This is also why we became VERY close to influencers in preparation for that. We had “big plans”, which were honestly ridiculously obvious, but we had too many motivations in too many directions which stopped that from happening.

Fighting Hacker Culture

Something that I often forget myself, but have found better ways of reminding myself of, is we are all hackers in nature, very few of us are architects or have the time to question “What was the impact of this thing”, we idolize a hack and create religions around it. Unity, Unreal, Playfab, Python, R, C++, Organic Food, Emotional Intelligence, Data Science, AI, etc, etc, etc. It all “Does a thing”, but we don't take the time to ask “WTF is it REALLY doing and how can it solve my problem better, or do I REALLY need to reinvent the wheel here”.

That being said, a hackers mentality very young when validated and accepted by the people that matter most, the masses, consumers, gamers, etc THAT is powerful and meaningful. THAT is what we wanted to empower. It's not that people who are set in their ways could NOT figure stuff out, it's sad that sometimes as adults and professionals we don't have time to ask why and we are trained to get ready to defend anything we believe in with emotions so big logic doest exist anymore.

But with games, this was powerful to us. We could empower young scientists, engineers, hackers, gamers, storytellers, who were not yet programmed in how to TREAT people, but still curious who could learn and leverage one another to do great things. That to use was disruptive, we didn’t talk about that dream much in the studio, we knew it would freak people out, but the few of us involved leading who drove it, or who was with us but had to leave, we all kept it as our motivation and reminded one another in every way we could.

The Power of Influence

The influencers were also people we became VERY close to early on, not just for their insights into the culture of gaming, but also to find ways of creating a new “Business Structure” for them to connect with indies and modders. Our goal was to not control that business, but create better connections and better tools. To us, this was sadly the most obvious thing to do.

Influencers have a LOT of Data, and even their MCNs have big teams that are sorta... well, built by humans with not great motivations, so it's hard to make sense of Data. On the contrary, we were CREEPY good with that stuff, so we were starting to explore that wedge in between. Not ironically, the same stuff we were building for our own stuff was going to be used for the data coming in from the influencers too.

To us, the influencer was the PERFECT game publisher and the solution would have been able to negate their own reliance on brands, advertisers, MCNs, etc. They would get access to games and content, they would be able to stay genuine, modders could monetize, profits could be split with influencers, we would use smart data and “AI” (still hate that term) to create a full loop. More data would come in, Science, Tech, Influence, etc would all create a symbiotic ecosystem and we would just take cuts of profits to keep building tools to keep making everyone better.

Saying Goodbye

As a few of you may know, I live and breathed this project. It cost me a lot on an emotional level. While trying to find balance and losing myself it cost me a relationship with my children, it did result in a divorce, and it led to a lot of pain and anxiety from failing everyone. I sadly was raised to take on the rough situations, but I always got good at “processing” and “growing” as it were, its also what led me to do things in Academia and in Business which would ALSO make people feel some kind of way about me :P

While its unfortunate things ended this way, and I still hold the weight of it and I refuse to ignore it, I understand why it happened. In the end, it helped make me remember who I was before we got caught up with the money. But the things I did AFTER Nerd Kingdom were interesting, things I still do today. And still, the things I do today either REALLY piss people off, resulting in amazing friends or outright confuse people, but when they hear of me or see what I have to say, or awkwardly and playfully call out every buzz word they throw at me, they pay attention in some form.

I have been offered executive roles at HUGE studios in games, many of which you all know by name, many of which are also in the public eye for missing the mark. I have become friends with “big name Venture Capitalists” literally around the world, I have become an advisor, mentor, colleague or friend to these brilliant minds who are Loved, Hated or Ignored in the space and I keep them close. More important to me, I keep them close and connect them with one another, its important to me that people have a chance to connect and understand to challenge their views but ultimately see they are wanting the same things, even if they forgot their path to getting to their success.

Saying Hello?

I noticed something a year ago after about 40 ish studios or tech companies that I was being offered work at, was advising, consulting, or just visiting to say hi... they all suffered from the pains they seemed to be ignoring. Their views on Data, Culture, Games, Technology, and even AI was... well, human. The very nature of the market in games and the creative passions and pains of gamers created a divide that results in... well, human responses, which are not so great.

As it happened the further I looked I would see little pieces of technology we were building or trying to build at Nerd Kingdom were popping up. I took the time to chat with them, even brought some of their own tech and tools into games at a few studios, then started to formally start chatting with more studios to just ask questions. Turns out, we built at Nerd Kingdom the earliest version of what a few big game studios are doing now and in tech, but they seem to be overlooking how they should connect, which simply comes from language barriers inside and no time to REALLY solve problems.

Then, those few big names from big studios out there now who know me, some famous designers, some brilliant engineers, a few investors and a handful of others put some pressure on me to get something going again. And I think it might. As it happens my meetings with people are becoming more frequent, my brain is fried, I am connecting and reconnecting with like minds in places like IBM, Qualcomm, Google, and even a few very large tech entities and it seems that with a bit of dialog we are all on the same page.

NOPE

Now, if something DOES happen, it happens because it makes sense and I would not be so bold as to promise we went back to making TUG, that would be tricky, though I did adore the world, which was also VERY calculated at the time, but what I can promise is that my work will always involve efforts of giving more power and understanding to all of you.

If somehow I do manage to make another thing I have to personally be more careful about who is involved, the money, and the terms. Hard lesson learned and I have to do it in a way that would allow things to be flexible enough to make it up to the many of you that invested a lot of time, or money where you could support what we did, while I will say it, assuredly, none of us ever forgot. And none of you were ever just “consumers” to us.

While I do have VC colleagues even if they wanted to, you can’t fund nothing without them taking a LOT of control fast, so some of the stuff I am exploring is simply a mutually beneficial agreement with a group I know well. Help them build a thing, let me take a thing and use it to make the deal work correctly. I have been fortunate enough to have a team of people, even a few very famous influencers you wouldn't suspect to support us when the time is right.

The names involved and the people in some form are easy to figure out, but others are not so easy to figure out and some names I am talking to now I won't name drop, because in my business world that is still rude until they are more comfortable with the idea of doing business is this... awkwardly honest.

Playing It Cool

While Nerd Kingdom is dissolved and TECHNICALLY this is within my “Legal Rights” I do understand that sometimes business against its better nature can result in “actions”. So I’ll do the same thing I do with each awkward conversation in games, just in case anyone is paying attention from the business world.

To whoever is potentially considering legal actions, it would be a silly thing to do. While your legal teams may not understand this, your executives certainly know it, I pay attention to details and I am not motivated by money, which makes trying to take legal action on me VERY silly. On the contrary, I’m collaborative, helpful and tend to make everyone else a lot of money ALL the time if I am given the ability to do so and their own internal politics do not devour the work I do. 

In short, it's a short-sighted move to take action on someone that you know VERY well is capable of bringing people with a lot of potential together to do things with a lot of amazing potential. I do happen to have a LOT of friends in “big places” in the strangest way, I took the time to plant seeds and do a LOT of favors, any actions I am sure would be public for all the wrong reasons and in the end it would only validate the work I have done in the American and European market of the things we did and are capable of doing. So, I would rather just be friends :D

To My Nerds

To anyone that has had the patience to have gotten this far, don’t let me forget who I am, ever again. And thank you for the weight of failure I was able to pick up to remember it when I was important. I don't know how yet, or when, or in what form, but something is telling me that soon ill be doing something of interest, with a few people of interest, with a lot of potential.

Thank you, each one of you, troll, evangelist, or otherwise, you keep me human, in the best possible ways.