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mcmoth · 3 years

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Dream SMP fandom etiquette

So. This post is probably too little, too late, considering the fandom and the issues I'm about to talk about have existed for so long now, and a lot of the people who need to hear this probably aren't on tumblr anyways, but I just wanted to dedicate a quick post to talk about fandom etiquette. Mostly pertaining to discourse, and interactions with people outside of our circle. These are just going to be my own personal thoughts, of course, but I felt it could be good to bring some of this to attention. So without further introduction:

Where to (not) talk about discourse:

Don't go into other streamer's vods to only focus about a different character. If you want to analyse, for example, c!Techno, do it in Techno's stream. Don't go into unrelated streams, like Tommy's, Tubbo's etc. to do it, even if they were a part of the event in question. This is, of course, with the exception if the character in question didn't stream their own pov. But otherwise, stay in your own space. This is to prevent cluttering a streamer's comments about unrelated discussion. To give further example: Tubbo's vod comments should primarily focus on Tubbo's character. Not Tommy's, Ranboo's, Techno's or whoever else's.

Don't start discourse in the comments of animatics. Seriously, stop that. Animatics aren't discussion boards. The comments are there to analyse and appreciate the video presented, not argue. It's especially rude if you pick a small detail, that wasn't even the focus of the animatic, or even a completely unrelated issue to rant out your frustrations about. To give examples: starting disc discourse in an animatic of Tommy talking to Wilbur, or rambling about how tragic Techno's character is in an animatic focused on clingy duo, etc.

This applies to fan songs as well.

Video essays are the exception to these rules. I think it's safe to say they're the place to bring your hot takes, if you really feel so inclined to argue in youtube comment sections (Though I'd personally advise to still keep the topic relevant).

Keep negativity out of fanfic comments. This isn't nearly as big of an issue as the last points, but I've seen it happen a couple times, so I'm deciding to mention it. Fanfics are written for fun. Even if you disagree with the characterisation or something else, unless the author is clear in accepting critique, keep criticism to yourself. And definitely don't rant about how you dislike a character unrelated to the fanfic. Sharing your thoughts on the fanfic itself is of course fine and welcomed, but when it turns from discussing the author's story to talking about how you dislike a character in canon, that's when it crosses a line. Example: comment talking about what you don't like about c!Tommy on a Bench Trio fanfiction.

When commenting on art, keep the feedback positive. Even if you dislike any presented character, keep that to yourself. Example: Don't say things like "I hate x character, but this art is good". You might think the author would feel honoured, but it's actually just hurtful.

How to deal with discourse:

This is gonna be a shorter section, because I think we all chose to do it in different ways, and that's valid. Also, it's just that I, myself, am still learning how to do this well, but I thought it could be good to try to lay it out anyways.

Try to scroll past takes you disagree with instead of arguing if you don't think you'd be able to keep your cool. Noone likes a random person yelling at them through a screen, and if you rant, you'll get an equally frustrated reply back, and noone will be happy. Either explain your point in a calm manner, or scroll past/ unfollow/block.

On the keeping cool thing, remember to just step away. Take a deep breath and calm yourself down before proceeding. To minimize the frustration you feel on a daily basis, filter tags, block people, avoid videos and youtube comment sections that you know will upset you, and leave certain internet spaces if you find yourself unable to escape negativity even with all those steps. Remember: in the end, it's all a game played by friends, a story, and your enjoyment of it lies in what you take from it. Abandon what makes you unhappy. Marie Kondo your fandom experience.

Also, here's your reminder, to whom this is relevant, to take care of yourself. Hydrate, eat, sleep, clean up, get fresh air, remember the things outside of all this. There's plenty to do outside of this fandom, and what you can do here can wait. There is no pressure, or obligation. Not for the content you create, not for the discussions you bring, not for responding to discourse, not for anything. Fandom is meant purely for fun, so take care <3

Interacting with people outside of the fandom:

This is something that I've seen a bit of talk about, and I thought I'd drop in my own thoughts on this as well. No matter the differences, we're all just trying to vibe, and I think these are important things to keep in mind to leave both sides better off:

Don't interact with hate posts. Just don't. You don't want to see them, they don't want to see you. Even if your response is lighthearted, their animosity is not. They will feel frustrated regardless, and the grudge will only grow. And if they're being agressive, calm discussion most likely won't happen even if you're being polite. Just leave it, please.

Correct misinformation calmly. I completely get how it can be frustrating to see blatant lies and all, but with our reputation, people will not listen if you're being antagonistic. Provide sources, explain, and leave it at that.

Don't be hateful, send death threats, or assume privilege or whatever else. That's stepping into the same shoes of the people you hate. Misunderstandings go both ways, and the fact of the matter is, I think most people who dislike DSMP, even the ones who are agressive about it, don't have their stance rooted in maliciousness. To expand on why the situation became what it is today, taken from a discussion on discord:

I think it's just a combination of Dream growing so insanely quickly + how internet spaces have changed over the years. When ccs like jackstepticeye or pewdiepie etc. grew popular, activism wasn't as prevalent and held to such importance. Now it's thankfully more talked about, but that also leads to Dream being more scrutinized in comparision. Add twitter trends and the general prevalence of the fandom, and you've got everyone feeling tired and frustrated and paranoid. People also tend not to fact check stuff, especially when it comes to celebrities and stuff they're not really interested in, so rumors spread fast.

And actually, I think there's absolutely valid reasons to be made uncomfortable by Dream SMP, either in it's creators, content or fandom, and there is, of course, stuff to criticise in general. The problem is the hate and misinformation and overexposure, but we are not going to solve any of that by being aggressive in return.

(This is, by the way, not talking about more serious cases. Like doxxing, or leaving gore images in hashtags, or similar instances. That's a whole different complicated issue that I don't feel qualified to tackle.)

And finally, don't overwhelm outsiders who merely mention the Dream SMP. Don't send asks asking them to watch it, don't write paragraphs explaining the lore, don't confuse them with inside jokes, just... Don't jump on people like that. Unless they're explicitly clear in wanting interaction and getting into the fandom, that kind of thing will just drive them away. This is in no way exclusive to the Dream SMP fandom, pretty much every fandom has people enthiastic to have more people involved, but since there are so unbelievably many of us, it's especially easy to go overboard with this stuff. Just... be polite, and don't pressure anyone. Be nice, please.

So.... ya! This would be it for this one, I think. Sorry that it's kinda long, thank you if you read it at all. Hope y'all have pleasant days ^^

#dream smp #mcyt #fandom #fandom etiquette #fandom critical #tommyinnit #technoblade #tubbo #dreamwastaken #let me know if i should remove tjose tags - i'm not sure whether it counts as crosstagging or not sorry #long post #my own post

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tomhardysteeth · 4 years

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u wanna say anything for spn ending? Today's their last day of filming

Yeah sure! I love how you worded this ask, it makes me want to give a very serious answer. I’ve been rewatching random episodes the past few days and thinking about how much of my life was shaped by this random lil tv show, both positively and negatively, so here we go.

I started watching Supernatural during my junior year of college, when I was grappling with being gay and religious, and had a pseudo-girlfriend who was emotionally abusive. I remember I started watching the show because I had been on tumblr for a while and thought, well this is a popular show on tumblr and looks like something I’d enjoy, so I might as well try it. I remember barely paying attention to the first season and thinking it was kind of silly, and I distinctly remember making fun of it right up until the season 1 finale when that truck slammed into the Impala and I said oh.

I remember sitting in the dining hall between classes, hiding in a corner with my pink headphones and my laptop, watching one episode after the other, completely consumed by it. My personal life was a mess at the time and I was angry and sad and frustrated, but I could forget about everything for a little while when I watched spn. I remember falling in love with Dean Winchester, season 3, when Sam gave him the amulet.

Because I had already spent a lot of time on tumblr, I knew about Castiel. I couldn’t wait to get to season 4, the anticipation killed me. I didn’t really have a choice in shipping destiel, I literally shipped it before I even watched a single episode of the show lol. My first time watching seasons 4 and 5, I remember how mad I would feel every time the opening credits scrolled at the bottom of the screen and Misha Collins wasn’t listed. I cared about almost nothing but Dean and Cas interacting with each other. I was totally enamored by them, by their potential. At some point I got over that and watched the show because I liked the show, but boy did my heart and brain break for destiel.

I broke up with my abusive girlfriend. I started coming out to more people, including people involved in the Christian campus ministry I was heavily involved in, and it was very very hard. It was 2013. The first episode of Supernatural I watched live was the episode where Dean turns into a fucking dog.

I don’t remember when I started reading fanfic, and I had no idea how to read fanfic. A friend invited me to ao3, what is ao3? I didn’t know. I used my email address as my username. I read Twist and Shout and Pie Without Plot and other very popular fics that I knew about because everybody knew about them. I vividly remember the first fics I read because I was 21 years old and had never had an orgasm in my life and believed sex was sinful and so when the sex scenes in fics turned me on, I felt guilty about it.

I quickly got over that and started writing explicit destiel fanfic.

I still had no idea what I was doing. I know the very first fic I ever wrote was a mess, I’ve completely erased all traces of it, but other than that I began posting with abandon. Pretty much everything I’ve ever written for spn is still on tumblr and/or ao3. I was running a Hannibal blog at the time and started posting more Supernatural content than Hannibal content, so I created a sideblog, @deancasheadcanons, and things very quickly got out of hand after that.

I was depressed, I was confused, I was spending my last couple years of college trying to figure out my sexuality, trying to hold onto a religion that was rejecting who I was becoming, trying to find my identity while picking a career path and being sad and being pulled in a hundred different directions. Sometimes I was working three jobs at once, on top of 17-credit-hour semesters. I was getting a degree in a field I did not care about, and I spent every class reading and writing fanfic, scrolling through tumblr, making internet friends, letting my life be consumed by Supernatural. I projected myself completely onto Dean Winchester and partially onto Castiel and did not even realize it.

I started dressing like Dean, and my sister and brother-in-law noticed and assumed I was gay. They were extremely unsubtle in their attempts at getting me to come out by pointing out the flannel and army jackets, and I did not have it in me to admit to them that I was dressing like a fictional character, but I DID tell them I was bisexual.

I went to therapy every week during my senior year of college, and I was embarrassed about how often I talked about my “internet life,” as I called it. I remember having the arbitrary goal of getting 1,000 kudos on a fanfic, and I remember the day it happened for the first time and I remember going to therapy that week and saying that I didn’t feel any different, that I thought getting attention for my writing would make me feel better, somehow, but I still felt the same, and my therapist asked me if I would still be writing if I was the only one who got anything out of it and I said yes. But I was still obsessed with writing things that were meaningful, and despite the fact that I would receive 10 negative/mean anons per day, I never turned anon off because I desperately wanted people to tell me that my writing meant something to them, that it mattered to them. I was fighting with myself every day over my sexuality and my identity and my purpose, and I put all of that on the shoulders of Dean and Cas.

There was also chubby!dean. I had lived my entire life with this inexplicable thing, this shame that I knew I could not share, that I knew I would just have to suffer with for my whole life, and then I joined the spn fandom and found that there were others like me, others that had a fetish and had similar experiences as I did and were drawn to Dean Winchester because there’s no other character that could make eating and gaining weight be as enticing as he makes it (in fanfic). For the first time in my life I had a community of people that I could relate to about a thing that I never thought I would ever be able to talk about with anyone in my life. I don’t remember if I consciously chose to start posting publicly about it, but at some point I did, and I started writing kink fic, but I was still so uncomfortable with myself and so scared of the things I felt, and I tried so hard to temper myself and not offend anyone and not go “too far” and not be too weird and I was so sexually repressed and pent up and full of guilt and shame, and so now when I go back and reread some of the stuff I wrote it feels like reopening an old wound and letting myself bleed out.

I was constantly comparing myself to others and wondering why I wasn’t getting as much attention as so-and-so, and I always made excuses about how maybe my writing was too weird and I was too much and maybe I just wasn’t good enough and I hated myself and wanted to delete everything I ever wrote, but also I’m awesome and receive a lot of attention and get a lot of good feedback but maybe that means I’m just a narcissist! I acted like an asshole online and justified it by saying it wasn’t really me, that I could be someone totally different on tumblr than the person I was in “real life,” but in hindsight, now when I think back on my early 20s, I cannot separate what I was doing in “real life” from what I was doing in the spn fandom. I shared so much of myself with the spn fandom without even recognizing that that’s what I was doing.

And I made mistakes, god I made mistakes, and I tried to be so careful about everything I said but I was also presenting a certain version of myself to the spn fandom so that people would like me (for instance: running a destiel blog and trying my best to hide the fact that I also ship wincest) and still I got in trouble constantly, and I grew bitter and mean because you can only receive the “when are you posting the next chapter?” comment so many times before you want to bang your head into a wall. I became defensive and unkind, afraid to check my inbox because it was a nightmare, and yet unable to turn off anon because, like I said, I desperately needed that feedback, I needed people to tell me that they felt what I felt, that they understood what I was writing and why I was writing it.

I expected Supernatural to give me everything I needed. I fantasized about Dean Winchester being canonically bisexual because I thought it would confirm something in me, that it would somehow make my life a little bit easier. I didn’t want to watch other shows that could maybe help me, I wanted Supernatural to do things for me that it had never promised and would never deliver, and it’s because I was defined by it for so many years. Now that I’m back on tumblr, I’ve been going back through some of my old posts on deancasheadcanons and it’s like reading a stranger’s words. Even so, I find myself telling people “I was deancasheadcanons” instead of “I ran a sideblog called deancasheadcanons” because it really was such a huge part of my identity. What’s wild is that every time I’ve tried to explain it to someone in real life, they just look at me like I’m not making any sense.

It was easy to stop watching Supernatural. I didn’t have cable, and I had been driving to my dad and stepmom’s house each week and watching it on their tv after they had gone to bed. I was in a new relationship with a woman I nearly married, I was back in school for a new career, I was working full time and absolutely did not have time to continue writing fanfic as prolifically as I had done for so many years. I finally reached a breaking point in 2017 and haven’t watched any new episodes since then (I don’t remember the last episode I saw). But now, as I rewatch some old episodes, it is easy to feel the way I felt the first time I watched the show. It’s easy to see why this campy little heartfelt show was a lifeline during my formative adult years.

So it turns out I have never reckoned with any of this, have never written it down, hence the 2k jumble of words you see here. And it’s like, I know that a lot of this may seem silly, trivial, especially for a show that in itself is not very serious, but as it comes to an end I have to reflect on it as a person who put so much of my heart, my creativity, my pain and my floundering identity into it. I am somewhat embarrassed and wish I could respond to this ask with a joke instead, but we’re in a pandemic and I live alone and have had way too much time to think and reflect and become a lot more self-aware, and part of that reflection has definitely been about my time in the spn fandom. I remember thinking the show was never going to end, yet here we are at the end and I felt compelled to type all this out with a desire to, I don’t know, get some closure? Convince myself that I was a whole person, that I wasn’t just a faceless URL posting destiel fics into the void, that my real life was not at all disparate from the time I spent online? In any case, I’ll always think fondly of the time I devoted to Supernatural, and I’ll take the good and the bad and everything in between. Thanks for the nice ask, anon, apparently I needed to get some things off my chest.

#madd replies #long post #spn for ts #this is 2k words i am sorry lmao #wouldn't it be cool if i had any semblance of chill

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northwestofinsanity · 3 years

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I was tagged by @ritchieblackless Thank you!

1. Why did you choose your url?

The “Northwest” comes from “Northwestern”. As far as that part goes, it’s a long, complicated story, involving a character from some original stories I used to write for my younger cousins when they were kids, and my favorite vessel on Deadliest Catch (it used to be a good show). “Insanity” comes from exactly what it sounds like. I’m never fully sane... but majority of the time, I’m not entirely insane, so I played a pun on what became my online name to suggest I’m just a little up the road to the north and west of true insanity.

2. Any side blogs? if you have them, name them and why you have them.

None so far.

3. How long have you been on tumblr?

February 2017... so that’s a little over 4 years as of now.

4. Do you have a queue tag?

No, and I don’t really use the queue. I’m not active enough on Tumblr to have much use for it, and I pretty much just post whenever the mood strikes me, and when I have time to search and focus on what my hyperfixation du jour is.

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place?

The community I was in on DeviantArt (not band-related) was melting down in a really nasty way, and one of my closer friends there became abusive, so once I got everything I was in charge of there handed over, I abandoned my account. I was in some *intense* emotional pain, and I needed distraction, and distance from the fandom. I basically came to Tumblr to hyperfixate on my favorite bands more -it was something I’d considered, but didn’t have the time before that to commit to it.

6. Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

My icon is Jeff Pilson and George Lynch. Dokken was one of the bands I was most hyperfixated on in 2017, and they, along with a friend who is also a fan of them, really were helping me get through that hard time when I made this account. Besides that, Jeff and George have a really wholesome friendship despite the turbulent history of Dokken. As for my pfp, I just chose generic guitars I found on Google Images to create a minimalist background. I have a tight data limit, and I tend to force every ounce of life out of my devices, so I make my own stuff as easy to load as possible, and most likely to function even if an outdated, semi-incompatible browser doesn’t format things quite right.

7. Why did you choose your header?

“Classic Rockhaven” (I assume that’s the header?) comes from my love for classic rock, and the idea of rock and roll being a safe-haven for me at the time. “Rockhaven” also closely resembles the name of a neighborhood a few miles away from my own in my hometown, so I knew it would flow right.

9. How many mutuals do you have?

I have 14 as of now. I’ve lost a few due to some people leaving, or switching accounts

10. How many followers do you have?

429. Some are unfortunately fomer-porn accounts I haven’t had a chance to weed out and block. A good number are just empty, lurker accounts as well, but as long as those followers are enjoying classic rock content, that’s fine by me. I’m grateful for the followers I have who do enjoy and interact with my posts.

11. How many people do you follow?

Officially, 38, but there are a good number of accounts I “unofficially” follow, by visiting blogs every night I have the chance. I’d love to follow more, and am looking to officially follow a few of those, since a few of the people I already follow have gone inactive or left. With my lifestyle, and data limits, I just have a hard time keeping up with my dashboard even with the tiny amount of people I follow, so I like to really get to know blogs first, and then slowly add them to my follow list so I don’t get overwhelmed.

12. Have you ever made a shitpost?

I believe so, depending on where you draw the line on that. (at least in my definition, I have). Do snarky posts about Tumblr’s glitches and that time I drowned my phone at work count? Or the crazy, crack-fic cartoons I drew in quarantine?

13. How often do you use tumblr each day?

On my weekends/off-days, whenever I want and can. On my 12-hour workdays, I check my dash before I leave home, once over data while I’m on my lunch break, and then at least once when I get home. If I’m getting home on time, and not late because the evening ran long, I’ll check on blogs I watch without following yet.

14. Did you ever have a fight/argument with another blog once? who won?

Not that I’m aware of... I’ve made neutral posts discouraging other blogs from fighting though, because I’ve seen plenty of traumatic things internet fights can lead to in the events leading to me joining here, and I don’t want to see anyone go through that when usually, nobody wins. At best, I think I had someone misunderstand what I said on a post where there was affectionate teasing of a certain 80s guitarist, and I meant to play along with the joke to say “don’t tease him, he’s a nervous wreck” -and added some band history for any watchers who didn’t know the story behind why said guitarist is so nervous... but it didn’t come to anything.

15. How do you feel about "you need to reblog this" posts?

9 times out of 10, I agree with what they’re saying, but I don’t like reblogging these things, because it feels like it’s being crammed down everyone’s throat -I’m much more receptive to things that don’t feel forced, along with plenty others. To begin with, they’re not really what I’m here for. Tumblr is a place I joined for a mental escape from the world’s problems -not a place to ruminate on them. And when I’m seeing them when I’m half-mentally numb in the middle of a 12-hour shift with only 1 gigabyte per month of data to work with, or when I’m home after that day and dead on my feet, it just turns me off.

16. Do you like tag games?

I like doing them when I have the time at home to sit down and do them over Wi-fi. The only thing I’m iffy with is tagging others, because I don’t want to make someone feel pressured into doing it.

17. Do you like ask games?

As long as the questions aren’t about a certain few things I will not share about, I have fun with those. I just have to find one to reblog from someone I follow that comes up at a time I know I’ll have time at home to answer.

18. Which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

I don’t know if anyone truly is, but @mccoys-killer-queen ’s sideblog is pretty well known.

19. Do you have a crush on a mutual?

No, but I do care for a number of my mutuals (including a couple I haven’t officially followed yet) a great deal, and can say I wish nothing but happiness for them, and if they were to leave, I would truly miss them (but also support it if they deemed it best -as I have with a few past mutuals).

20. Tags

Anybody who wants to!

#tagged #tag game

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snowy-protection-squad · 4 years

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Hey everyone,

My last post on this blog was almost exactly two years ago and I doubt anyone cares much about this message but I thought I would give some final thoughts before bidding this blog adieu.

I started this blog in 2016 as a way to interact with other people in the OMGCP fandom and talk about a comic that meant a lot to me. In 2016 I was in ninth grade (freshman year of high school) and had extreme difficulty making friends at my new school. I was trying to balance high school, high level dance, and my struggles regarding my sexuality. I saw a lot of myself in Bitty and seeing representation in comics meant the world to me. Since I had no friends and was immersed in the toxic tumblr culture of the time, I thought that creating this blog would be a good idea.

I joined the OMGCP fandom near its peak. I had actually already started reading the comic in 2015 but I forgot about it pretty quickly, until I rejoined just a month or so before The Kiss™. After that, I fell hard into the community in one of the worst ways possible. I brought my fanatic SuperWhoLock mentality into a small community with all the confidence of a 14 year old girl who thinks that stan culture is healthy. Looking back on this blog I have a lot of regrets, but I was 14 and having this blog actually helped me a lot. I got to share my dumb headcanons and even managed to make friends through it (shout out to the Bittyholtz twitter group chat). I got to talk to like-minded people and have friendly debates with them. In 2017 I got to meet Ngozi at a comic festival. I probably made a fool out of myself, I can’t remember, but I got to meet an artist I admired and now I own an original Kent Parson pin so it can’t have been that bad.

By 2018 my interest in the fandom had plummeted and I stopped caring about the comic, the fandom, and this blog. This was in part due to the sporadic updates and lack of engaging fan content, but it was primarily due to the growing toxicity of the community and the way the updates felt...weird. All of year 3 was very touch and go for me. I would spend weeks elbow’s deep in the fandom and then a month doing the bare minimum to keep this blog alive. It felt as if the character development of Bitty and Jack up from the first two years had been scrapped, and in its place were caricatures and fluff. The rest of the cast had also lost their personalities. I still posted memes and joking headcanons, but I no longer felt connected with the characters or the story, with the exception of Kent Parson.

This community has always had an issue with Parse to the extent that people have received death threats for liking him. It was like that in 2016 and it’s like that now. I always liked Parse because he was flawed and relatable in a more realistic way than other characters in the comic. As I previously mentioned I found Bitty deeply relatable in 2016, but that changed when Year 3 came out. Year 1 & 2 Bitty was a flawed character with endearing traits, Year 3 Bitty was a selfish mother hen with an ego. He was no longer relatable, and the rest of the cast seemed to have been shoved to the side to focus more on Jack and Bitty’s relationship. The Tadpoles weren’t given enough attention when I was still reading the comic, with their personalities being dumbed down to “confused” and “stand-offish”. This left Kent Parson as one of the most dynamic characters in the series, despite his little screen time. Kent Parson was relatable too many people, myself included. He was Jacks foil and gave us a glimpse into Jacks life before Samwell and how that haunts him. The treatment of Parse during the LVA @ PVD updates was the tipping point in my abandonment of this blog.

I didn’t read Year 4 until Ngozi posted the final update schedule for Check Please on Instagram and I decided to catch up before reading the finale. I was reminded of why I fell in love with so many of these characters and this fandom. I started getting back into the fandom and re-reading old favourite fanfics. It made me realize that it was always the characters I loved, not the story. Seeing how people fill in plot holes or write redemption arcs for discarded characters is incredible. I especially love seeing peoples responses to the finale of the comic. Personally, I found the ending lacklustre, though I did get a little teary eyed over this comic ending after all my emotional investment in it. A lot of my critiques have already been said in the OMGCP Critical tag so I wont bore you with them.

Despite starting this post by saying I’ll be bidding Check Please “adieu”, I don’t think that’s true. I’ll continue reading fanfic from this fandom and I’ll likely browse some OMGCP tumblr tags on occasion, but it will likely not be reblogged to this account. I’m debating writing a Bittyparse fic that I’ve been thinking of, and if I write it I’ll post it here, but don’t get your hopes up. This fandom is bound to die in a couple years, some tags are already being abandoned and accounts are rebranding themselves away from OMGCP. The peak period of this blog was a time of growth for me and I thank everyone who read my silly headcanons and ridiculous AUs.

Anyways. Thanks for everything, Check Please fandom.

ttyl, Mel

#omgcp #check please #omg check please #kent parson #parse positive #the dying tag i mentioned is the bittyparse tag and its a true shame #if any of yall remember this blog thank you #peace out #i speak #check please critical #omgcp critical

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thoseindarkness · 4 years

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DtD News Nov 2020

Thank you to anyone who came back for this nonsense. For brevity I have an announcement that I want to make up front. I didn't have room for it last month so I pushed it back, but I can't anymore. I had to make one major revision to the published story. I want people to know about it.

This is the TLDR version. I tell a more in-depth story at the end.

ANNOUNCEMENT

The summary: I had a bad outline walking into writing Mistrust Goes Both Ways. I ran into a problem mid-story. Instead of stopping and taking the time I needed, I challenged myself to creatively solve my way out of my problems. I re-started with about half of what I'd written, published Mistrust Goes Both Ways, and restarting my outline with high hopes. I was proud of myself for rising to the challenge.

Despite my best efforts, it didn't work out. In the end, I had to scrap my outline. I was able to structure the end I was going for and spent the end of 2019 trying to link the first two stories to the ending I wanted. It wasn't working. Then TRoS. Then COVID. Here we are. In June, I started experimenting with scrapping Mistrust and restarting from Read Between.

Mistrust Goes Both Ways will not be part of the finished story when I'm done. I know some of you love it. I love it. I have no intention of taking it down. I might, for a short time, when I'm posting the final story. I'll let you know if that happens and it will go back up afterward. I don't have specifics as there's no point planning for it now.

For right now, nothing is changing on my AO3 account. Feel free to read and comment to your hearts content. I promise it will stay up forever to remind me that some mistakes are worth sharing with others. I learned good lessons from this mistake. It stays.

That being said I think I owe you an actual update on the progress of this story.

WHAT THE HELL I DID THIS MONTH

After my first update I needed to re-integrate with Reylo friends. Funnily enough, that pulled me into another fic. I've been working on that between following this election. Now that it's called I can get back to writing. I tried a couple of times since I voted on Oct 30th, but I knew it wasn't what I wanted to be thinking about.

Thankfully, I've also begun doing more social/political essays lately. I'm not sure what overall form or shape those may take and I haven't published any. Still, I was creative and I did plenty of writing. Interestingly, all this political focus is good for Deceive the Deceiver. Spinning and listening to conspiracy theories is a big part of weaving a world like this one. A great deal comes from my thoughts and perceptions of the real world.

WHERE DTD IS

As of right now I am in the process of first drafting the entire story with Read Between as the starting point. That is, every one of the short stories in the series. What I'm doing is somewhere between a history, an outline and random scene writing. All of these elements are currently strung together in one long, continuous, chronological, first draft. It's everything from the history before Read Between (which starts in the 1930's), all the way to the final scene of DtD.

I'm taking all the good ideas I've created in the last couple of years and re-organizing them into a first pass. It's the skeleton and some of the meat now. I'm slowly building out now that I have a blank-er slate. It's about choosing what works and what doesn't.

I call it accordion writing. It just gets bigger and bigger. This outline will later level up into the first full story drafts for each part. I've got so much history when I finish this I might… I'm getting ahead of myself. Don't want to give too many clues away.

Another interesting thing that's happened recently is I've started pulling bits of other fic ideas that I’m just not gonna finish. A big chuck of the history I stole from a modern/academia AU where Ben and Rey are history students specializing in the ancient Jedi religion. Another was a complication between characters came from a canon story where I wanted to paint the relationship with a new layer. We'll see if I can pull that off.

I spent a lot of time prior to this year focusing on the heroes but my villains hadn't gotten much love. Filling in the history has given me a chance to flesh out the villains. All their moves and countermoves, woven through the bits I already have, are spinning a pretty tapestry. Oh, the villains are so much fun to write!

This other fic came together in the same sort of accordion fashion and it's been fun working through the kinks in the process now that I've seen some of the weak points on a scale like DtD. I think I've mentioned, but this is a writing experiment for me and I'm most invested now in improving my process and clue-threading with DtD. This other fic is helping me test it on a smaller scale.

Not that this needs to get any longer, I'm just going to throw pretense out the window and go with complete vanity. If you don't give a wet shit about my life (and I don't blame you) you have reached the end of your journey. I hope to see you next month. If not, then I leave you with this parting:

May we meet again in our next fandom, through mutes and not as rival shippers.

The following is the ridiculous story of my ups and downs with Deceive the Deceiver. I figure if I explain to you how much I'm invested in this story some of you will stop worrying that I'm going to abandon it. Trust me. I'm not.

This tale stretches from NANOWRIMO 2018 and the prompt that started it, through the ups and downs of 2019 and 2020, to the writing of last month's letter. Buckle up. I love bumpy rides.

DtD: from NANO '17 to COVID-19

This story truly starts in December 2017 when I drenched the seat beneath me during Last Jedi. I'm a TLJ shipper. I got caught on the thirst train. It hit a time when writing was becoming a really big part of my life. I've been writing since I was a kid. I stopped for a while and came back to it. It's a long story. Ultimately, I'd started writing a lot a few years earlier. A mix of fic and originals but I was running into problems so I start reading a bunch of books to get better. TLJ lit the fires. NO joke TLJ came out on the 15th. I have pages of writing from the 20th.

2018 was Reylo year! I was already on Tumblr for my previous fandom (Batman comics). I found Reylo AU week which is in August. I submitted a story for that. It was the first fic I published for Reylo. Fast-forward August to November. I'm in the Writing Den on Discord and someone throws out this spy prompt. People start running with. Throwing ideas around. One of those was the snuggie in Mistrust! I have that conversation saved and story spots for each crazy thing they threw out. Finally, I said I'd do it!

Mind you, this is November 2nd. Nano has just started and the event is about "turning off your internal editor." This prompt consumed me. I was trying to keep up with SpaceWaffleHouseTM that first year. I did, btw. We both crested 100,000. It was my first Nano. Word count is not my problem. Organizing my crazy ambitious ideas is my problem. Some of that 100k was other stories, like Custard which I wrote half of in November and the other half Jan/Feb 2019. Most of it… probably 80k of it… was DtD.

Read Between the Lies is currently 33,710. I wrote at least 20k of that during that first Nano, as well as outlines and scenes for what I thought would be the starting point. I remember wanting to write Read Between to "get into their headspace" by writing their first meeting. I didn't think it would become a whole story. I was just going with it then. Any idea that came to mind.

I took December 2019 off for a few reasons. Some personal. Some burnout. I'm one of those people that can use writing to relieve stress, but I was so exhausted from that month-long writing sprint. By the last week I was dragging to get the final four or five thousand words to hit 100k.

Also, what I had by the end (no internal editor) was a bird nest of ideas that had too many beginnings, not enough middles, and endings to go around. I knew one thing right away: I knew I had more than one story. There were so many fun ideas. I figured, what the hell. I knew another thing right away: the prompt was at the end of the story. Like, the very end. Like, the last short story. Or the second to last short story, at the earliest. That hasn't changed. Ever. That's just where it ended up.

Between January and April of 2019 I touched DtD a few times. I kept coming back to it, reading through it, trying to untangle it. I made new notes on the stories. Expanded ideas. Tried to structure it. I figured out a bunch of good notes, but no real substance. The hardest thing was figuring out where to start! Did I:

(1) Start shortly before the prompt with Ben/Rey's relationship established and fill the story with the history?

(2) Start a lot earlier and build Ben/Rey's relationship from the beginning I'd written in Read Between?

If I'm being honest, Read Between was a lot better than I thought it would be and I didn't want to get rid of it. For a while I was thinking of publishing it last as a "prequel" if people liked the series.

Funny enough, the turning point happened May fourth weekend 2019…

In the week leading up, I was struggling through another story and decided to take a break for the weekend. I'd start writing again on Sunday when I met with my writing group. I met them through Nano. We used to meet at Panera. Now they meet on Discord. They mostly sprint though and I'm not a sprinter. I miss Panera. Anyway.

May 4th was a Sunday (look it up). I gave myself a writing break for the weekend and marathoned Star fucking Wars. It was nerd weekend. I was going to nerd out. I wore exclusively SW gear all weekend. I remember it well. It was the start of something fucking magical in my life.

Have I mentioned recently I really love this story. Trust me I will fucking finish it. Oh my god the demons won't leave until I do. Get them out of my head…

I had a pretty rockstar weekend. I believe the reason I skipped the PT that weekend was because I'd watched it the month before or so. Right after finishing the Clone Wars animated series (which is awesome and I strongly recommend both it and Rebels). I skipped them and SOLO.

Starting with R1, I went through in chronological order. I stopped at RotJ. I was with my family on Saturday and they were playing RotJ in the living room during the party. We talked about my marathon. My mom came over to my apartment after. We watched RoTJ properly. Then Force Awakens. It was too late by then to watch TLJ. I know I went straight to bed after my mom left on Saturday night.

Somewhere during or right after TFA I started thinking about Deceive the Deceiver. I don't remember what sparked it. I went to bed thinking about DtD. I know this with 100% certainty because I woke up thinking about again on Sunday and I thought it was quite odd.

I dream about this story in a way I have only dreamt about a precious few. Technicolor folks. It keeps me up at night.

I went to my writing group with (a) no plan for what to write, (b) a gordian knot that I had yet to untangle, (c) a sudden urge to re-read it. I opened my notes and read DtD through all our sprints. I read most of it during that writing session. We go about three hours.

That night I had Game of Thrones at my parent's. It was the (spoiler alert) episode where Arya kills the Night King. I remember because two minutes into the episode my brother's car broken down a few blocks from our apartment and we had to go help him. Derailed the whole night (this is foreshadowing).

Side note: I live with my younger brother and he's the best roommate I've ever had in my 35 years of life. Love you, Mo!

The episode was recording so we ran out. Had to leave the car in a parking lot. Someone had already helped him push it out of a puddle but my brother was soaked to mid-calf and the engine was shot. We dropped him off at home and I rode back to my Momma's crib to watch GoT. It was only the beginning of a wild night.

I went to bed late. I had to get up a few hours early to deal with the car before work started for either of us. I guess we were both hoping to avoid taking the day off. That wasn't going to happen. I drove home but I couldn't sleep. That crazy episode and the fact that my brain was already on fire with DtD.

I spent the wee hours finishing my re-read through the rough draft of Read Between the Lies. It saw my starting place. I started writing. I wrote through waiting in a parking lot, for the tow truck, in my car, at 6 am, with no sleep. I did a voice recording as I drove from the parking lot to the mechanic where the driver was taking my brother's car. I thought about it the whole way back. I sat on the sofa a wrote some more when we got home. I went to bed at 11 am and I'd written 10k more words for Read Between the Lies.

Somewhere between the chaos of May 5th and the official publish date on June 5th, Read Between got written. I know it didn't take too long. I remember sending it off to beta (by my amazing beta team on 1 & 2: Em, Jen, and Sai) and immediately pivoting to my outline. I slapped that together far too hastily and kept moving. I was going on holiday in the UK (I'm American and I'm ashamed) in early August so I planned on trying to publish Part 2 when I got back. At the very least I wanted it ready for beta.

Also some to admit, around the middle of 2019 I was fatigued with the fandom. We were hitting a lull. I was psyching myself up for the end and the exit. I was trying to clean house. I wanted to push out unfinished fics. To make them work. There was a lot of that mood from me in 2019. I was trying to make everything work. It's why Read Between came out, and that was a good thing. It's also why Mistrust came out, and that was a bad thing.

With that mentality looming, tough outline in hand, I started writing Mistrust before the end of May. I hit my snag sometime during the period I was publishing Read Between because by the time it was all done I knew I wasn't going to have a finished story by the time I left for London. I would figure it out when I got back. I picked up another project to distracted me from my problems for a little while. That is going to be an original if it's anything. One day…

At some point after I got back I started focusing heavily on problem solving. I had two stories already and a number of plot threads I had to resolve. I have heavy, heavy, heavy notes from September to December of 2019. Lots of possible ways to run this story. It sucks that a lot of that stuff isn't going to make it, but I'm recycling shit every day and I learned so much about the characters/story in that four month period. It really shaped the finished product in an important way.

This period is where I started to look at the bigger structure and how I was going to solve specific plot problems in each short story to bring the whole together. That focus on the different parts is important because it was the last thing on my mind when TRoS happened.

December 20th (the release date) is my birthday. My ass drove up to one of those Reylo-only screenings and I was surrounded by amazing people as I watched a movie that ruined my 35th birthday. Thankfully, I spent it in incomparable company. Thank you to all the hosts and super special thanks to Jen. Not only was she a DtD beta on both, she invited me. Thank you love! You are the reason I still remember that trip with joy.

Side note: I no longer hate TRoS. I've made my peace with it. I'm a far happier person now.

Needless to say, the only Reyloing I did in January of this year was venting frustration. Then I took a few weeks away from the fandom. I'd done my purging into the void. I knew other people still needed the space to vent but I had to get away. Once the toxin is out I couldn't let it back in.

What occurred starting in February of 2020 was a series of situations in which, every time I logged into Twitter I was faced with the kind of vitriol in the fandom that I don't need in my life. Some of it was still TRoS stuff, even as late as May. I'm not judging, I'm just saying, with the world on fire (literally), I didn't need it.

I don't think I have to explain why I've avoided social media like the plague since early this year. I live in America. If you heard anything about our recent President I don't have to explain any further what this year has been like. That has been par for course all over the world.

So here's my secret to happiness. I don't fux with the trolls. Do not engage. Sometimes that means radio silence. I'm breaking that silence because I want you to know 2020 has not destroyed DtD. It's only leveled shit up.

I have pretty much been working on this story consistently since March of this year. I go back and forth with reading, history, documentaries. I'm learning to wield many new weapons. They take time to settle in. DtD is the de-stressor I go to in between the real shit.

Sometime in June I was screwing around with the order of the parts. I had worked out the end but I was trying to bridge the gap between the ending I was certain I needed to get to and the two beginning stories I'd already published. I couldn't bridge the gap. It had been a year since I published Read Between and it wasn't working. Then I had an epiphany.

What if I got rid of Mistrust? Read Between is a pretty blank slate. I didn't want to re-write it and I still don't. I have no intention of getting rid of Part 1. I may clean it up and add some stuff at the very last minute, but it will be right before the new stuff drops as a pre-cursor to the flood of subsequent stories. I may add a few new clues or alter a scene or two, but I have plenty of room to move with it exactly the way it is.

What does that mean for Mistrust Goes Both Ways? To make a long story short, there was no good way for me to continue with what I'd published and still write the story in my head. I'm sure there are cool places to take the existing story, but that's not what I'm trying to do. In truth, I should have left 1 and not published 2 when I hit a snag. Lesson learned.

In June I basically threw Mistrust out and asked myself, "Now what?" I have months of great ideas rife for reshuffling and no restrictions on how to bridge the gap from 1 to the ending I wanted. But the end had shifted.

That brings us up to speed. The last thing I did before taking a much needed break was get through 90% of the history in my accordion outline/draft. I poured the foundation that was missing. I walked away in early October and let it set. I'm going to button up this other fic I'm working on and then go back to DtD and check the foundation I laid.

I'm very confident that not only will it hold, but that with fresh eyes and the fun side stories I've had the chance to lay to rest, I will finally be able to start building the finished products on top of it.

IN CONCLUSION

I'm still as excited as I've ever been for this story. It frustrates me all the time, but that means the medicine for my soul is working its magic. Change it painful, but pain is transformative. I've embrace changed. That ache is just a sign the muscles are getting stronger. Growing pains. As I learn to live with them in my family, my country, and my job, I find that life's lesson's often end up reflecting in every place in our life if we but open our eyes to look.

Growing pains exist in my writing process too. They are as transformative in this corner of my life as they are in every other. They have revealed as much about me as a person in my writing as they have in my politics. They have taught me how to compromise with my family as I learn to compromise with my characters. As I consider how people treat each other I am reminded that struggles in understanding our fictional counterparts may shine a light on our struggles to understand our truer selves.

Take care of yourselves. Once you've got that covered, if you can, take care of each other. Feel free to poke me and say hi. If not, until next month.

Fari.

#deceive the deceiver #reylo #reylo fanfic #reylo fan fiction #modern au #spy au #fan fic #fan fiction

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robotgirldisc · 4 years

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Got tagged by @cl0udstrife

gonna tag mutuals I know or who my brain have just chosen to imprint on for random reasons, idk if I’ll reach 20: @mandymilkovich @cleophidian @frogonadogonaloginabog @gardenersgossip @transgirlterezipyrope @rainyshome @shining-dawn @soshiro42 @dibsontucker

rules: answer 30 questions and tag 20 blogs you are contractually obligated to know better

name: Emma

gender: I guess genderfluid is probably most accurate, although I’m usually in she/her mode like 80-90% of the time

star sign: Gemini, idk what that mmeans, but I like to joke that it’s because I’m so two-faced

height: 1.69m (5′6′’) (actually pretty happy about how “androgymous” this height is)

time: 1:41AM (2:21AM at time of posting, I’m slow...)

birthday: in the summer

favorite bands: Does Starkid count?

favorite solo artists: I’m not interested enough to have one? my music taste consists of: meme-music, musical soundtracks and Weeby vocaloid beats to study and chill to (I can’t write and listen to music I understand at the same time, it get’s all jumbled up in my brain)

last movie: Little miss Norway, a Norwegian Children’s horror movie,

last show: I’m still catching up on the last season of Hero Academia, so it was probably that

when did you create this blog: Maybe 5 years ago? I had another blog, but my younger sister found it so I abandoned it

what do i post: I usually just reblog memes, but I’ve been missing playing Magic the Gathering recently, so there have been a couple of original Commander posts recently, I really want to learn to build more casual decks than what all the content creators on youtube are pushing, they tend not to be super fun to play against

last thing googled: "pokemon types redesigned” I was looking for a blog post I read 5-7 years ago, the author simplified the pokemon type system down to the most essential 7, and it lives rent free in my head, but I can’t find it

do i get asks: nope

why i chose my url:I randomly generated one, the one I got was a little to masc for me, so I feminized it

why you originally joined tumblr: the girl-gang who “adopted” me in middle school all used tumblr, so I joined, mostly for mean girls memes at first I guess safsdgfgr

why you stayed: The fact there’s no algorithm here is way more relaxing than other social media. If I “lose” a post after an hour of scrolling, I can usually find it again with some effort, on other sites it’s gone forever

average hours of sleep: 5 lately

lucky numbers: 13

instruments: we got an old piano from my grandma, but I only know 2 very short songs on it

what am i wearing: I sleep in boxers and a t-shirt, so that

dream job: I enjoy physical labor where I don’t have to think too much and I can leave the work once I go home for the day. My hobbies are Think-y Enough. I think I would enjoy doing child-care, but as a trans-person, I *really* don’t want to have to deal with every aspect of my identity being open to questioning and harassment from parents

dream trip: I have been to England a couple of times already, but I’m def going again as soon as it’s safe again

last book i read: last I finished? probably the Hobbit, and that’s like 6 years ago at this point. I recently started rereading the Phenomena series that I read in middle school, but haven’t really set aside time to finish it,

favorite food: this tomato sauce my best friend taught me to make when they visited, I usually can’t stand tomatoes, but I make this one every opportunity I get

nationality: Norwegian

favorite song: florence + the machine wish that you were here

top three fictional universes: Harry Potter (it feels a little Tainted at this point, but I spent a loot of my childhood an teens hyper obsessing with this world, so I can’t really let go), Pokemon and Quarry Junction (and OC town me and my best friend developed together over multiple sessions of Microscope and Monsterhears 2. Juvenile delinquent werewolves, bitchy vampires, and an immortal lesbian Doctor Frankenstein, all in a run-down mining town in the Nevadan desert)

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shadowdianne · 5 years

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Ok people. Time has come. Let’s be ominous and extra on main

So the order for me posting all my WIPS at once will probably be.... the order in where I finish doing all the editing. I’m currently in my last prompts. I’ll still answer the ones I recieve by the end of the week if there is anyone feeling like sending me some.

Aside from that ...

A few months ago I posted a really rambling text about me leaving the SQ fandom writer wise after the SuperNova was over. In the way it’s over once we all put the fics where they will, later on, be revealed. The full explanation of why I’m doing this is even more rambly than the one I gave and is full of nuances that I’ve talked about a little bit with a few of you.

However, I want to say something about it either way. Because words are the way I communicate the most with. And that’s something that I guess is obvious about myself in a myriad of different ways; not only with my fics.

As I’ve said a few times before, SwanQueen was not my first fandom. If I need to pin it to the moment when I actively began to search for fandom-related things, of how I first stumbled into fics and what that entailed…

Going really back in time my first fandom experience was with Sailor Moon and Card Captor Sakura. Yup, that. I was really into anime back in the day and, don’t ask me how, I stumbled into a website that no longer exists that had these pages upon pages on something people called “fics”.

It was around the same time I was building my own sexual identity so you can imagine the mess; I devoured those fics. Most of them were not even good. Most of them had some questionable themes thrown around. Most of them had language on them that I needed a few years until I realized that was hurtful. But some others taught me what “angst” meant, what “hurt/comfort” was, why “fluff” was about or why “smut” at my tender age of 12/13 was something I wasn’t entirely grasping.

Again, I devoured those fics, I searched for more, I found livejournal and ffnet. By the time I started fully diving into fanfiction livejournal was slightly abandoned so at the end I focused entirely on ffnet and from there… Pretty Cure (another anime) Strawberry Panic and the even more dubious Kannazuki no Miko followed. I found some amazing writers I still follow today and whose stuff I will forever adore on MaiHime/MaiOtome and, eventually, Kim Possible. I still didn’t write though. Probably because my English at the time wasn’t the best, my writing voice in Spanish was barely a murmur and while I had always been the “weird kid who likes to write poetry and if you ask her nicely she will write you a story on the spot” I had never truly considered… writing and posting on the internet.

Funny thing is that this kind of things are like that and those who are content creators will probably understand that: You NEED to create. So, eventually, slightly older, and full on the whole Twilight era, I wrote a very… cringey fic. And then another. And another. And another.

At first I didn’t know shit about editing. My actual first review told me I was horrible at writing, that I was a mess, that I should stop. But my second review told me: “Hey, if you do this and that on the editing process it will help you and this will be more readable.” And I followed that comment. I eventually became friends with that second reviewer but, as life tends to be, I lost contact with her years ago. I still hope she is doing ok though.

Eventually, I started working, if working is something that one can say about writing a chapter in 20 minutes and throw it every Wednesday while your mother is at work, not monitoring what you are doing and you have the internet for yourself back when the internet went through the phone, in a multichaptered story. It is in Spanish, it is awful, characterization is horrible… but it also made me meet the person that became a very important person. And still will be for that younger version of me.

From twilight and the occasional writing on the HP fandom with the Hermione/Ginny pairing [Yeah, I wonder what younger me would think of my current main pairing on that fandom] I “graduated” to Glee. Lots and lots of Glee.

And then I stopped. Completely. Not a peep from me. Not a word, not a line. For over a year.

I was a fan and a shipper, however, of this little show called Once Upon a Time. I started watching in the pilot, in a very shoddy link a friend sent me over gmail. I fell in love with the characters but while I loved them I couldn’t… or wouldn’t really, put myself into writing. At the time my English was slightly better but my confidence levels were even lower than currently are. And the ones who have talked to me can safely say how horrible I am at taking compliments.

Yet, I had a very meaningful conversation, one I don’t know if she remembers still, in where I was told: Writing is you. If you want to write… like you did when we first met, why don’t you do it? I tried with a wip that is still there, buried beneath other stories now, that I never fully took off. And then I said fuck it and wrote several others, badly written, even worse characterized, but ones that helped me say… why not.

Disney World Family Business (in case there’s even someone here who read that mess) comes from there. Interview with the (Evil) Queen does too. Dancing Ring (who I’ve seen people roasting me over it and it’s fine because it was awful) was too. Texts on the cloud was there too, Coffee Black News… Eventually, I wrote a fic I’ve erased since then called The Holiday. Over 2k per chapter every day. I did it under a month.

It was… interesting. It was exhilarating. It was magical in many ways. And I had my favorite writers of course. Those who I followed religiously. Who I absolutely admired. And who I, to this day, still admire. And I even get to call them friends now which my younger self would probably be having a meltdown about now xD

I had opened my tumblr account way before that but I had never truly used it. I didn’t know how. Eventually, though, I dusted it off. I put some cringey theme there and I posted, after being sent a couple of random prompts here and there over ffnet pm’s the first “prompts anyone?” post I ever did.

It’s funny because now I’m a tease but the first time I asked for prompts I did it asking for words that I promised I’d make a smut ficlet out of them.

Words of Desire was born. Is, to this day, the one I feel cheekier about. Even if the writing is awful xd I even got my ffnet account in the line of “am I going to get deleted?” after I posted a story called “Lips”

Why I’m writing all of this you guys probably don’t care about? Because that post led to another. And another. And another.

Point is. I felt drunk on the sudden realization I could still tell stories. And so I kept doing it. At some point I opened my a03 account. Don’t remember exactly when in this story but I was crossposting some of my stuff at some point bother in ffnet and a03 so… who knows really. And then I kept asking for prompts. Or I got them asked. And so I did.

And I met other writers, and other content creators. And I loved it. I absolutely loved watching OUAT and then shit on the show and then create fix it fics at 3am on a Sunday. And I learnt about the narrative process outside class. How fanfiction truly is its own genre. I started developing my own ideas. I started looking at books, at people, at places around me with a critical eye I later on developed further to be able to specialize myself in literature. Because, at the end, that’s what I minored in.

I had roleplayed, I had written conjoined narratives. But fic writing at the scale SwanQueen was during the OUAT was still airing was something else. It still is in a way, but different now. And I think those who were around during the fucking show that basically did us a lot of bad in many ways was a different approach that currently is.

During those years not everything was good of course. I hit several walls, I didn’t have the ability to create the stories I wanted. It is not the reason why I’m leaving, I’ve spoken about the reasons -plural- with some of you. So I won’t bother you all more than I’m already doing.

I still love these ladies. I still don’t know how I will open a doc and not write their names. Maybe I relapse from time to time, who knows. Yet, the constant feeling of not being enough, of not being good enough, has devoured pretty much all my creative juices.

I was talking a few months ago with a writer I absolutely adore and I can’t tell her this enough and we were talking about writer’s block. And she said something that is devastatingly true. “You don’t have a creative block now. You’ve had it for a long time now.”

And I didn’t even hesitate when I answered “Yes. I know.”

How do you have a block when you keep posting? Well. By choosing safer options, options you know you will do on autopilot, without emotion even if you know you should be feeling it. And while writing is part of who I am and a huge part of my own emotional stability the fact that I simply cried when I saw the numbers and the stats while being bombarded with anons that I deleted most of them the second I got them… well. It’s far too much I guess.

I love SwanQueen. And to those of you who I’ve created a friendship over the years with I’m not leaving tumblr and I’m not walking out on you. I’m remaining here. You guys are going to need to do more than this to get rid of me Xd

But I do need that. Otherwise I will keep picking safer options, options that I know will take me shorter and shorter time for me to write. And that’s not quality. And not what I want to write. Because while I love writing about them the pressure and the fear and the rejection and the many other little details have outweighed the good.

Regina is a stubborn woman. No matter what fic you guys are reading or writing. I’m a little bit like her in that department Xd

I’ve finished my wips and I gave myself a few months after that first post so I could create closure and, you know, give you all the best I could do. I felt more relaxed at having a date set. I still feel dread at losing my ability to write now that, probably, the number of prompts will be smaller. But I hope I will still get news from you all. And don’t be mistaken. Me not writing doesn’t mean me not reading. I’ll be actually able to read more so expect lots and lots of fic recs on my side and comments on those fics. So hey, everyone wins.

To those anons, those gatekeepers.

I hope you all wake up one day and realize you are alone in the pit you’ve created for yourselves.

To fellow content creators: There’s always this game I play, on trying to find those headcanons that are truly yours, the ones that repeat themselves on every fic. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a headcanon per se. It can be a word, a special mannerism. I treasure those. I often link you to those in my mind when I’m thinking about you all. Thanks for creating. And thanks for being you.

To everyone really: It has been a few amazing years. Thank you all.

VIVA LA SWAN QUEEN

-Dianne out.

#swan queen #SwanQueen #swen

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alwayshailing87 · 5 years

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It’s time I talk about this.

I created a new tumblr because no one needs to see the sock drawer of content on my older account. I’ll start fresh here.

I had contemplated writing a blog post for a while. There’s been so much weighing heavy on my mind that I just needed to get out to begin with. The decision to finally open up was sort of inspired by a friend’s social media post earlier this week. It touched on fears of abandonment, and anxiety. I felt the need to talk about my own fears. I’m coming to the realization that I’m in much greater pain than I let on.

2019 could have been considered a comeback year for me in a lot of ways. I committed to the fitness journey. I broke free from years of emotional abuse and manipulation. I found my spark again, my inner comedienne. I’ve expanded my circle and have some truly incredible friends at my side. I’ve connected with some genuine people that I’d love to keep in my life. Sky’s the limit, right?

As 2019 came to a close I recalled all of these victories, and yet it was the loneliest I had felt. It was the most...broken...that I had felt. I’m thankful for my mom and all of the hugs she gave me while I was home. There were nights during the Christmas season where I would just well up with tears because I felt so alone. She sort of chalked it up to me missing my grandparents, as I always do at Christmas. But I was too embarrassed to explain that there was more.

Circle back to the mention of emotional abuse. Without getting into dirty details, some of which are of my own fault, I was lured into a situation where a man I trusted took advantage of my heart and my mind. Freshly devastated from the sudden passing of my Grammy in 2013, he white-knighted his way into my world. Promises of protection, love, to “treat me the way I had always deserved to be treated”. He wanted to “tear down my walls”. Lots of that stuff that makes a depressed, vulnerable woman feel like someone gives a shit.

Months prior to this, I stared down a flowing Monongahela from the railing of the Birmingham bridge. I couldn’t do it, obviously. I was in rough shape mentally but asking myself over and over “what would happen to Sylvia” seemed to keep me from ending my life. To have someone essentially reach out a hand to you and vow to be your protector and love you, it would be insanity to not grab that hand and hold on with everything you have left.

He knew of the several times I had been ghosted, or stood up on dates. Blown off on dating sites, and just treated like trash in general. I’m a chubby girl who’s a few eons off from a model body. His whole act was to shower me with affection and I fell for every single fucking bit of it.

When I think back on this, I think of these words and phrases that were said to me: Soul mate. Gorgeous. Dream girl. The perfect woman. Best friend. The greatest thing that ever happened to me. And there was friendship. Laughter. Humor that spanned from highbrow to lowbrow and every terrible pun in between.

Stupidly enough I fell in love. And I loved fiercely, as I do with anyone I care about. I offered up my unwavering loyalty. See, the thing is...I’ve gone through my life dedicating myself to my loved ones as a fierce family member and friend. There have been so many times in my life where I felt alone or unwanted, that I vowed to make sure anyone who settled into my circle would never feel the way I have felt. This was no different.

As expected (and in retrospect, thankfully) this whole thing came crashing down. I found out I was one warm body out of multiple. And that’s when things for me started to deteriorate.

Being toggled back and forth between “I still love you” and “You’re one of the best things in my world” and “I don’t want you in my circle anymore” will eventually warp your mind. Even as a friend, the loyalty given due to the history was thrown out like a used sock. The memories and the bond meant nothing. I began to think I deserved it as punishment for the mistakes I’ve made in my life. Maybe I did or still do. In the aftermath of this, I was on suicide watch. To be outright rejected and shunned by the very person who vowed with everything he was to be THAT person for you, you wonder if you were ever worth anything at all. If your white knight tells you that he doesn’t care about you anymore, then maybe you’re just not worth any man’s time. That maybe you’re just not worth anything, period.

It’s weird now, being able to step out of a situation and say “hey, he was a piece of shit and all of this was toxic”, while also being pretty emotionally damaged because now you feel like any man who expresses any sort of liking towards you is lying. And when you feel fat and disgusting on a frequent basis, you’re highly skeptical of a good looking guy finding you attractive and not chasing some dime of a babe elsewhere.

In the time since I’ve freed myself from the bullshit, I’ve heard those similar words. Gorgeous. Perfect. Beautiful sassy funny and any word in between that makes me think a man might truly and whole-heartedly value a single shred of my existence. And while it feels wonderful, and hearing it makes me smile, my brain retreats back to the feeling of “He’s just saying that while he probably bangs or flirts with a bunch of other women. You know that you’re nothing compared to other smokeshows who are in his league”.

So when the messages go silent, or plans to go out on a date fall through, half of my brain says “he’s busy” or “things happen, it’s okay”, the other half gets back on its bullshit, and I assume the worst. Because it’s all I know.

All I know are lies. Just lies. Lies and excuses and half-assed answers and secrets. I don’t think any man has ever been proud to have me. And it’s brought me to this place where I feel alone and unwanted. It’s brought me paranoia and crippling anxiety. I’m scared of destroying the fledgling of a relationship(?) I have going because I have been so destroyed by lies that it’s so hard for me to believe people. And that terrifies me. The last thing I want to do is push someone away because I know that what I have to give in a relationship is pure and genuine. I try so hard to fight the irrational fear and BELIEVE what is being said to me. Even now I’m a crying mess as I type this, because the one I’ve been talking to...I can’t begin to express how I felt when I saw his huge smile in real time. It was a smile that completely took my breath away. It was a smile that was so genuine and it brought me pure joy when I saw it.

That kind of joy, those “butterflies” that someone feels in moments like that? I felt it. For a while I wasn’t sure if I could feel anything like that again. I think of that smile and I grin to myself all over again, and yet my heart sinks because I’m scared that it will disappear for someone better. Because I am always the second or third choice...or just not the choice at all.

For some reason the holidays just amplified the loneliness. I think of curling up with my someone at Christmas and enjoying the warmth and the lights. I’ve wanted that for so long, and I’m so tired of being alone. I’m just tired. I’m tired of feeling like I’m not worth a man’s honesty or time. The fear and worry that I’ll be told to get lost by someone I care about - again - is like a vice grip in my chest. Sometimes it’s hard to breathe. Sometimes tears just flow out of my eyes and I’m not even moving. It’s not just a fear of losing someone you genuinely want in your life, but it’s also the fear that the devil in your head is right; that you really are ugly, worthless and unwanted.

And I know the only way I can begin to combat it is therapy. There’s zero shame in admitting that I need to go back. My therapist helped me through the first phase of healing form the toxicity and abuse. But now I need to learn to handle the constant fears of abandonment. I tried to fight it for the last couple of months but I just can’t do this on my own. I just want to heal. There are so many parts of me that are strong and grounded, and I feel like this is the one piece of me that still hasn’t recovered from the trauma.

I’ve been told never to apologize for my fears and my trauma because it was, and is real, but I still feel a need to express some level of remorse because this is not the best version of me. I don’t take pride in the reactions I’ve had. I can only humbly ask for patience as I work through this.

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annakie · 5 years

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Notes on a Blog Cleanup (& some other stuff) Part 4

Made it all the way back to to page 1000.

Started with 3021 pages. Currently have 2954 pages, adding in posting 10 - 13 times a day for the last month... deleted somewhere around 87 pages of posts (or around 1300 total). I’m in April 2015. So it took two and a half years to do 50% of my posting here and nearly another year and a half to get that down to 2/3rds. It’ll just speed up from here.

Anyway, here’s a bunch of words about tumblr, fandom, and Doctor Who.

I’ve found myself deleting more news articles lately. There’s almost no cringe-y stuff left. If I go back and do this again it’ll be even more deleting current events stuff unlessI connected to it somehow.

A LOT of the content creation I ever did happened in this time. I did so much giffing for Who’s Line, a lot of video game stuff, especially Mass Effect, cause you know, it’s me, and a lot of edits and such. Some way better quality than others. I was also getting thousands of notifications a day from the few things I did that were really popular back then (still sometimes get notes on that Whose Line/Elmo/Game of Thrones gifset to this day).

I know I’m not like, the best at gifs and edits, but hey, I think some of it is like, pretty good? There’s a few things I’m a little sad about that just never took off, but I bet all people who try and post OC on Tumblr feel that way about some of their stuff. A few things I made did surprisingly well, though.

I still will make the odd gif/photoset there that’s more than just “here’s some nice screenshots I took slightly edited” but honestly, I feel like these days it’s so hard to get many notes on tumblr at all? Like there’s just so fewer people making stuff, and even less reblogging gifsets/photosets? Idk, maybe it’s something more specific to my overall followers and who you all follow? But I made a joking post a couple of days ago about my dash feeling weird because not everything is specifically tailored to me after scrolling through my blog, but on the OTHER hand, I also feel like, overall Tumblr has become just yet another place to post memes and text posts and has the big problem of the Reddit/Twitter/Tumblr/Instagram (+TickTock) circle where each place is like 50% screenshots/reposts of content the others? This obviously isn’t a criticism of any actual people, but just... what tumblr has become the last year or two? Is it just me? Like you can find some gifsets and such with a couple thousand notes here and there but... just not as much is being produced now? Does that make sense?

Like a month or two ago I spent a couple of hours specifically looking for good general fandom blogs specific to several fandoms I’m in and... it’s hard to even find those blogs anymore. Like, “fuckyeah” type blogs that are someone’s sideblog about a specific topic. And hey, believe me, I’ve created and abandoned several of these kinds of blogs on my time here (and at least one I’d keep up with but.. it just doesn’t have any content being generated for it so it’s just... sparse) so I get it. Maybe I’m just not looking in the right places, I don’t know.

I keep wondering how much longer I’m going to keep doing this little project, and then every 10 or pages I come across a post I didn’t tag properly that’s now been found, or something I just really wanna get off my blog and I’m like “Welp, when I stop finding these, I’ll stop looking. So maybe in like, 2018. :p LIterally finding posts I forgot I ever made in the first place and like has made it worth it.

Notes on TAH Fandom

This was also the phase of being heavily heavily like SO heavily into The Thrilling Adventure Hour. And I have a lot of thoughts on that, too.

Literally, one of the best decisions of my life, tbh. Not every moment of being like a SuperFan of this thing was sunshine and roses, but most of them really were. Honestly, I made such good friends. I had some extraordinary experiences, doing things that I wouldn’t have otherwise done, for sure. I traveled to Seattle, Chicago, New York twice, and LA three times, hanging out with new friends, and getting to know the cast of a thing I loved so much, and also somehow getting to be known by them as well. There were things that happened that I didn’t blog about here because I never wanted to come off as braggy, or just to keep a confidence. There were a few not-as-great things that happened during that time, but basically, 2014 through mid-November 2015 will likely go down as one of the best time periods of my life, for a lot of reasons, but a good chunk of that was the experiences I had through TAH.

Hoo boy though, I blogged about it a LOT. Like, it felt like almost as much as early blog was about Doctor Who. I was, uh, real enthusiastic and am now kinda regretful about some of those early fandom tags. Also turns out some of the TAH people looked at my blog more than I knew, I think, so a little yikes there thinking back on it now. But also I was kind and helpful a lot, so all of that was good.

This is a good recap post of all of the awesome stuff. And even that glosses over a lot of the really cool stuff, or skirts around some of it, just to try and stay brief about it.

One of the big things I learned from that experience was that being a very involved person in a fandom is such a double-edged sword. For one thing, it honestly became somewhat of a second job for me, which I 100% put upon myself. But running FYTAH (with Shannon!) and admining/writing a large percentage of the TAH Wiki (with Ange!), working in the booths at conventions (with Jena + Shannon/Kitty/Jamie/Dani) and being available to help in a variety of other ways was A Lot. Which again, I took on willingly. And Ange warned me about it several times but I was like “No I want to do this.” So then it also kind of turned into like a customer service job even outside of working at the cons. After awhile you gotta smile and be nice allllll the time. I ended up taking a lot of things offline to a small subset of friends. And most of that came from other fans, not from the show itself (except like, feeling like I couldn’t show my true disappointment when the show was ending, or feeling like I couldn’t air any criticisms I had about the show except in very private conversations.)

At one point I was having an email conversation with a couple of those friends and realized that, for the first time in my life, I was like a “popular kid”, which was weird. And I tried my damnedest to be as welcoming and inclusive and not to let anyone feel left out. But also there’s a point where like, you can only take on so much, and you can only be actual friends with so many people? You can be kind and welcoming and enthusiastic and all, but you only have so much time and energy to give away. There were so many messages I never answered still sitting in my / the FYTAH inbox or in email and some on twitter because I just didn’t have the bandwidth to give away sometimes. It was a weird lesson to learn because I knew it so well in general in my personal life, but had never had to apply it... in this way before? Does that sound weird? Or braggy? I feel like I’m walking on land mines with this one.

For a more specific example of what I mean, in March, 2015 ten of us rented a house and lived in it for a long weekend for the TAH 10th anniversary show + a fun getaway vacation. Everyone invited was someone I knew or were close with someone else in the group. A few more people had been invited but couldn’t afford it, so word got around a little bit. And it was AMAZING. But I later heard that there were a few people, most of whom I didn’t really know, were hurt that they weren’t invited. Jena and I spent dozens of hours and put a lot of financial risk into being the custodians of the trip for even the ten of us, and it was a huge undertaking. It was never meant to be a thing for the entire fandom, just a group of people who were already friends. But there was still a small kerfluffle from a few people about it. Which, I TOTALLY get feeling bad about being left out but... it was always supposed to be a relatively small thing, never any kind of “Official Fandom Get Together”. And we definitely didn’t have the time/money/ability to host an “open call for anyone to come” type thing. Just coordinating 10 people (and about 25 - 30 overall getting together to hang out at designated times over the weekend) was... more than enough.

At one point sometime later people started suggesting that we organize and hold an actual TAH-Con and I... let that one pass me by without really talking about it. It was definitely too much, and even then I knew it. And I mean, the shadow of Dashcon was still hanging over all fandoms heavily in those days. I wasn’t about to become the next Dashcon. It never got past a few emails being passed around.

So yeah, to be honest, if I could go back and do those years again, I absolutely would, it was like 95% awesomeness. But I think in regards to some of the fandom-specific things, I’d be a little less of a doormat, and I’d be a little more careful about spreading myself too thin.

So now that the show is “back”, I am enjoying listening to it, and I’ll reblog some things or post big news on FYTAH, but I’ve been lazy about even helping out with the wiki (I keep meaning to get back to it, Ange is still doing great) because... although I’m still a HUGE fan, I also am gonna be more laid back about it now.

I also haven’t REALLY loved a thing in the same way since TAH. The closest there has been is Critical Role, and I’ve been real careful to stay out of any actual fandom stuff there. I really love the thing, but I’m gonna keep with my group of 5 or 6 other fans I already know (all from other fandoms) who love the thing too, and stay out of wider discussions. With some of the stuff happening there lately, it was a good decision.

Wow, that was a lot of words. Sorry.

Hey one last thing to catch up on.

Doctor Who Rewatch 2019!

I’m now already at 6x01, into the Silence episodes.

So I did finally rewatch the Desert Bus episode that I hated so much before and like... this time... it was fine? Cheesy and all, but not so bad that I should have hated it as much as I did? Also noticed the Doctor doing the classic “gonna hit on this girl really hard in the beginning then drop her so quick at the end” thing to the companion of the week. Ah, Ten. The most bi-polar of all Doctors. I’m gonna be honest, I decided to skip on through Waters of Mars because I realized I was just ready to be done with Ten at that point. I’ll probably go back to it at some point but I wasn’t ready for another Ten Temper Tantrum, maybe the worst one of all, in that episode.

So I finished Ten (and oh man that whole two-parter to end Ten with... like the whole Master plotline is such a stinker. The first half, in particular, is so bad, the only really good scene is the one in the cafe with Wilf. The rest of it... wow. Wasn’t that whole thing written like the week before filming and never really edited or something? IDK.) The last half hour or so is really good though, with Ten’s sacrifice (after a tantrum) and then all the companion goodbyes (except Joan Redfern’s granddaughter, bleh).

But yay, on to Eleven and Amy and Rory and more River!

Season Five is... wow it starts off strong and really stalls there in the middle for a bit. Picks back up a bit with Rory returning, then somehow has two great episodes without Rory and ends strong, though the first pretty nonsensical Moffat-era “this doesn’t make sense but it looks and sounds so good you don’t care, right?” season arc and ending. Season six, I’m already remembering, is way, way worse for that. But anyway. Rory remains my second favorite companion ever. And episodes with Amy, Rory and River continue to be my favorites. Also? Matt Smith is so good.

But even early on in season six I’m remembering how really dumb the overarching plotline is... Moffat is great at “Oh man this will be cool so I’m gonna throw it in there! (and it really is some very cool stuff!) and hope it all makes sense later! Or just don’t think about it too hard!”

Honestly though, despite all the quibbles, most of the episodes work on an individual level if you don’t think about the the overall arc Moffat is trying to do. Even those that are a bit sloggy, like the Cold Blood/Hungry Earth two-parter, have enough great moments to justify watching them. (Ambrose is still maybe one of the worst “regular people” characters to ever be on this show, though.) There’s still no “Fear Her”. And that’s pretty good.

Also? The blog itself is now about as Doctor Who oriented as it is in the last year. Like... oh the season is airing? There’s a lot more good stuff to reblog, I’ll reblog good stuff. Season not airing, a scattered post here and there. It’s a much better place to be.

After Amy and Rory leave, that was about the end of my true like “Doctor Who Obsession” phase. On my Blog we’re in the break between Amy and Rory leaving and Clara showing up. I never really clicked with Clara, I think like a lot of people. Like I really liked the season with Danny, but after that season I never really rewatched episodes, so I’m looking forward to getting there and experiencing some stuff again for the second time.

#personal post tag thingy #notes on a blog cleanup

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goodnightkisseu · 5 years

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Yoon Jisung - Perfect Fit

Requested By: anonny (“ Hello there! I was wondering if you'll open up requests again? I really liked your When We Met series and wanted to request a first date with Ji Sung scenario. Keep up the good work and take as much time as you need! ”)

Genre: Fluff, First Date

Note: So this was requested by an anon back when I had just opened up my requests again, sometime last year. It’s taken me a bit to write this, but I do hope that this individual is still around to read it ;___; A first date story for Jisung was interesting because I kind of wanted to write something a bit different for him this time around. I hope that you all enjoy it. Please, as always, feel free to let me know what you think!

Enjoy~

Because of the situation with tumblr links, please check my bio for links to my masterlist~

- goodnightkisseu’s admin / ashley <3

Combed and styled hair, check. Comfortable clothes and a nice light cologne, check. No food in his teeth, check. A deep and heavy sigh left Jisung's lips as he tried to relax, letting himself slump in the driver side seat for a minute. Honestly, Jisung couldn't remember the last time he was this nervous. Hell, even going to job interviews didn't seem this nerve-wracking. But tonight, he couldn't help but feel nervous. This was his first date in over a year... and she was utterly out of his league. He had every right to feel apprehensive. After all, for the last couple of years, all he focused on was his job.

Jisung worked as a radio DJ. In the early years of his program, he struggled to make it stand out from the other radio shows. At one point, the station had threatened to cut his show if he couldn't think of something compelling to boost interest for it. Jisung spent the entire day trying to figure out something that could set him apart from the other shows, and he really feared he wouldn't find something. Much to his luck, a long-time listener was the one to save the show. She wrote in saying that, she knew it wasn't the purpose of the show, but she hoped that he could help her with something. She voiced her concern, and after much thought, Jisung gave her some advice on how to handle the situation. He was kind, understanding, and gentle in his response to her worries. He thanked her for sharing her story with them, and he thought that was the end of it.

However, when he arrived at work the following day, he was told that a handful of listeners had sent in their own concerns, after hearing Jisung's show. They asked if he would be willing to give them advice, and like that, a new segment was born. So now, every day on his radio show, Jisung would listen or read concerns that people sent in. He would do his best to assist them in any way that he could. Jisung had always wanted to create a program that made a bit of a difference, and with this, he felt like he had succeeded.

In hindsight, it was only natural that this segment would come to life on his show. Jisung was naturally like this in his everyday life. He was the friend that everyone would run to when they needed someone to listen. He was the one that helped to form the action plan. He was the friend that helped through the hard times, so extending this to strangers was expected of him. Honestly, Jisung felt fulfilled with the way his radio program developed. A calm and relaxing atmosphere where people could feel comfortable to share their stories.

Interestingly enough, Jisung's sensitive nature also helped when it came to romance. On more than one occasion, he found himself noticing how people acted towards each other. Secretly at first, he began to play matchmaker, suggesting that a friend should meet up with that acquaintance from a group dinner, and little things like that. It actually worked pretty well. Even though he didn't want to puff his own feathers, he felt like his success rate was quite high.

There was a small hitch in all of this. Even though he could matchmake for his friends, he was doing a terrible job at finding someone for himself. The dates he went on never went well. The person he met with would either be uninterested or tell him mid-date that he wasn't their type. It was painful, of course, which was why Jisung decided to take a break from dating. It felt like it wasn't the right time to find someone for himself. Instead, he grew content just helping others find their special someone.

Well, that was until he met you.

You tagged along with your friend, Miyeon, when she came to meet his close friend Dongho for their third consecutive date. The new couple promptly abandoned the both of you to go on their day, and Jisung couldn't help but wonder if it was purposeful. Had the two of them just blatantly set him up on a blind date? You also seemed to realize that something was up, but you hadn't mentioned it at the time. Being there with you wasn't bad at all. If anything, he couldn't help but be captured by your beauty. Looks weren't everything, of course, but you entranced him from the moment you sat down. Even your personality was one that he liked. The more that you talked with each other, just passing the time, the more he found himself falling for each one of your little habits. He couldn’t help himself.

"So Miyeon tells me that you're a radio DJ and that one of your segments is to listen to concerns that people send in?" you inquired, and Jisung nodded and smiled in response. "Do you think you could tell me why every guy I date keeps dumping me?"

Jisung felt his heart drop as soon as that question left your lips. He thought that things were going well, but it seemed like you had other intentions. He should have known. There was no way someone like you could be interested in him. Jisung gave a small smile and was about to answer when you started giggling. "I was only joking," you reassured him. “Well, not about the fact that guys keep dumping me, but I’m not here to get advice from you. I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong idea...”

He really thought you were serious, and a heavyweight felt like it was lifted from his shoulders at your admission. Jisung couldn't help but chuckle. "Honestly, I don't know why anyone would dump you. You've been nothing but pleasant and a joy to be around since we met," he replied honestly. This was the start of your friendship... and Jisung's little crush.

The more he learned about you, the more he fell for you. It felt fitting with your kind personality that you were working so hard to get through veterinary school, wanting to work with and help animals. He had told you, at the time, that the only one that seemed to understand him was his dog, and you couldn’t help but giggle. You made a joke that it was possible that the two of you were just destined to be with your pets, and he wasn’t sure what had spurred it on, but he asked you out. The two of you at that point had been meeting up for two weeks just to hang out, but nothing felt like it was a date. Jisung found the courage somewhere within him to ask, and you agreed. And that was where he was now. Sitting outside of your apartment, waiting for you to come down.

Jisung had the evening all planned out. You had told him about a carnival that came to town a week ago, and last he checked, it was still around. He thought the two of you could start your evening there. After that, if you were up for it, he wanted to take you to a restaurant he had heard a lot about from some friend. They said he was the perfect place for an excellent first impression on a date. Usually, Jisung would stick to the places he knew, but he felt like he could use all the help he could get tonight. Then he would take you home for the night and hope to god that you would call him back for another date.

Jisung was so lost in his thoughts, thinking of the more delicate points of the night, like what rides the two of you should go on, that he didn’t realize that someone was at his car door. It wasn’t until you gently knocked on the passenger side window that he almost jumped a foot in the air – only being foiled by the roof of his car – before realizing that it was your smiling face staring at him through the tinted glass. He sent you a smile right away before unlocking the door. Great, he even screwed up on properly greeting you when you finally arrived. This was leaving a sick feeling in his stomach. The date had barely started, and it wasn’t perfect. Ah, what was he going to do…

“I’m sorry, Jisung! I didn’t mean to scare you. I texted and told you that I was on my way down, but you didn’t reply, so I thought I would come and see if you were here already. Are you alright?” you asked after you got into the car. Your hand gently reached over for Jisung, lightly touching the top of his head to make sure a bump hadn’t formed. You felt sorry for scaring him like that.

“I’m fine, but I don’t think that my ego is…” he informed you with a soft chuckle, the feeling of your hand on the top of his head was strangely comforting. You giggled a bit at his response, and when he reassured you again that he was alright, you situated yourself, pulling your seatbelt on.

Jisung looked at you out of the corner of his eye, and he couldn’t help but take in how lovely you looked. You were dressed simply. Just a button-up tucked into a pair of jean shorts, but it suited you well. “You look really nice tonight,” he told you honestly.

You felt your cheeks grow warm at his words. "Ah, it's really nothing. You told me to dress in something comfortable since we would be going to the carnival, so I thought this would be a good choice?" you stated, though it came out as more of a question. You watched as Jisung nodded, another compliment rolling from his lips, making you smile.

You had grown fond of Jisung over the last month. That time that the two of you met, you thought would be the last time you saw him. You had made that joke about needing advice on why guys kept dumping you, and you should have known better. Jisung did that every day for a living. A stunt like that when he didn't know you personally, could have sounded like an actual request. So you thought he would want nothing to do with you, that you had offended him. But to your luck, he did contact you, and you were pretty happy he had. You were shy by nature, so asking someone to hang out was just… not in your list of things that you could do. But with Jisung it was easy, and when he asked you out on an official date, you were over the moon. Now all the two of you had to do was make sure that you were compatible with each other.

The pair of you had a nice chat while Jisung drove you to the carnival. After he parked, Jisung walked around to help you out, like a gentleman, holding his hand out to you so that the pair of you could go hand in hand to buy your tickets. You had offered to pay, but Jisung was too fast and already had his card at the ready. “You don’t get to pay for everything tonight, okay? It’s going to be even,” you warned him, and he only chuckled in response.

Once the two of you received your tickets, you suggested that you go get some food first. Typically, you would eat after work, but today, since you wanted to look presentable to a certain someone, you decided to forgo food to get ready. Jisung apologized for not taking you to eat first, but you were quick to push away his worries, pulling him over to a food booth that you found tasty and ordering, paying before the male could even think of pulling out his card.

With your snacks in hand, the pair of you walked around, looking at some of the games and your eyes lit up when you saw a giant polar bear plush hanging from one of the booths. However, you didn't linger long and pulled Jisung forward, knowing that games like that had a meager rate of success. It was how they made their money. Still, your look did not go unnoticed by Jisung, and instead of moving on, he led you over to the booth.

“So, whatcha gonna try for?” the man running the booth asked.

"I think I'll try for the polar bear," he said confidently, as the man running the booth raised a brow at him. Still, he wasn't going to turn Jisung away and proceeded to explain the rules of the game. All Jisung had to do was knock over three sets of stacked milk bottles to win the polar bear. It sounded easy enough, but the biggest problem was that he was awful at these types of games. Yet he was still going to give it a try. So, winding up, he threw the first ball... and much to no one's surprise, he missed.

"Aw, son, you aren't going to embarrass yourself in front of such a lovely lady, are you? Here, I'll give you that one for free. You get three more tries," the man advised, and with each of the throws, Jisung wasn't able to knock over any of the stacks. He came close with one of them, but it still didn't fall over.

"You really don't have to try for it, Jisung," you urged, but Jisung was already giving him more money for more balls to throw. Three times in and still nothing and you knew you had to stop him. “It’s really okay,” you said.

Even if you told him that it was okay, Jisung felt terrible that he couldn't do something so simple for you. Even while you were pulling him away from the booth, the man chuckled, and that only got him more riled up. "But he's taunting me..." Jisung said with a pout.

"And he was taking your money was hile was doing so. It's best that we go try something else. That polar bear wasn't even that cute," you told him, already moving towards the rides to try and wash away how bad that experience was.

The two of you never got to go on any of the rides, however. Just before you had gotten in line for one of them, Jisung felt something wet his cheek. At first, it was once, then two, then they came more frequently. And before it even fully registered to either of you what was going on, a downpour happened. Wait a minute, there was no forecasted rain today. He checked five times before he sent you the plans for today. Why was this happening?!

The people around you started to scatter, and Jisung knew that you both needed to as well. He gestured for you to follow him toward the car, but stopped in his tracks when his eyes landed on you. He realized that, in the process of telling you to dress comfortably, it also meant that you wore pieces that were a bit thin, your shirt already soaked all the way through. So, he quickly pulled off his jacket, draping it over your shoulders before he led you back to the car.

Jisung gently, but swiftly guided you out to the parking lot, back to where his car was located. He was quick to unlock the doors so that the pair of you could escape the torrential downpour. Yet just as he was about to climb in, he noticed that you were still nervously standing outside. “You’re gonna get soaked if you don’t get in the car,” Jisung finally said, a bit confused by your hesitation.

Your heart had been warmed by his earlier gesture, giving you his jacket when he would end up completely soaked as well. But now, you were having a hard time just jumping into his car. "But Jisung... your nice car seats..." you murmured softly, knowing that the gorgeous detailing would be completely ruined if your drenched forms got inside. You saw the realization cross his features, but it was soon replaced with a soft smile.

"Don't worry about it. I can get the car fixed if I need to. But I won't be able to live with myself if you get sick because of a freak rainstorm that happened in the middle of our date. So please, get in the car so that you can warm up," he urged, before the two of you quickly entered. He thought it was cute that even in a situation like this you were thinking of something like that. You were really too kind.

Once the two of you were in the car, the heater warming up your chilled bodies, Jisung couldn't help but let out a heavy sigh. He thought his plans for the night had been impeccable, but they were proving to be anything but. From his handful of failed attempts at the carnival game to his inability to read a weather forecast. He would honestly understand if you never wanted to see him again. He messed up a perfectly fine evening. Feeling dejected, he finally spoke up. "You know what, I'll just take you home..." he said, his eyes staring out at the rain. He couldn't bring himself to look at you. He felt too ashamed.

As soon as those words left Jisung's lips, you whipped your head up to look at him, confusion evident in your features. Your night was over, just like that? But the two of you hadn't gotten a chance to really connect yet. You were enjoying his company, and now he just wanted to drop you at home. You knew that he felt terrible about how badly this date was going, but you didn't blame him for any of it. He couldn't control any of it.

Though it usually wasn't like you to speak up, you knew that you had to this time. “Jisung, I’m kind of hungry, maybe we could go get something to eat?” you suggested.

Jisung gave you a look. Were you pitying him? Was that why you suggested that the two of you should eat together?" "Your clothes are soaked all the way through, and you want to go eat?" he asked, watching as you gently bit your lip, seemingly forgetting that little fact. “It’s okay if this date ends you know. I won’t be angry with you.”

It seemed like Jisung had taken your gesture in the wrong way. You would have to be more forward with your words. "But I don't want the date to end," you said, barely above a whisper. You could feel Jisung's eyes on you, your hands gently clutching at the jacket that he had wrapped over your shoulders to warm yourself up a bit. “I like spending time with you Jisung. I don’t care that it rained. I don’t care if the date isn’t perfect. I just want to spend time with you,” you admitted. The words were simple, maybe a bit childish, but you couldn't think of another way to put your feelings out there. Getting to know Jisung was honestly really too good to be true. In that short amount of time, you learned to care about him.

Silence fell between the two of you, and you momentarily thought that you had said something wrong. You were about to speak up again when you heard Jisung chuckle. "If you want to go eat, who am I to say no?" he replied, a smile spreading on your features. "But why don't we wait a bit before we go? Let's get ourselves warmed up first, and then I'll drive you to one of my favorite restaurants. I was actually going to take you to this other place. People seemed to like it, but given the way all of my pre-planned things have been going, I figured we should try something familiar, just in case, hm?”

You nodded enthusiastically in response to his words. The two of you shared a look and soon started to chat again. Honestly, you couldn't think of a better way to be spending your evening. Sure, things didn't go smoothly, but maybe that didn't matter when you realized that you did indeed match quite well with the person sitting across from you...

#yoon jisung #wanna one #wanna one imagines #wanna one scenarios #kpop scenarios #yoon jisung scenarios #yoon jisung imagines

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songless-siren · 6 years

Text

The Death of Rael Kertia

Title: The Death of Rael Kertia

Summary: Inspired two Tumblr posts I found online. What happened in the aftermath of the disaster that was Rai’s first visit to Lukedonia since he fell asleep?

Inspired by:

http://ceata88.tumblr.com/post/148066501354/14-hello-fellow-noblesse-fan-i-just-want-to

http://darkicedragon.tumblr.com/post/115866349449/noblesse-canon-divergence-au

Rael Kertia was confused. In his brother’s battle against the blond modified human, he had offered Rajak his soul weapon, Grandia. And his brother refused. Rael couldn’t understand why.

In his eyes, Rajak Kertia was both a brother and father figure. He was responsible, strict, and the best family leader Rael knows. It was because Rajak was so dedicated to being the best family leader he could be that his little brother wonders why he would refuse the chance to get stronger. Granted, Rael had his own ambitions. He didn’t want to give up Grandia but he treasures his brother a lot more than himself. Still a child at heart, he took advantage of the confusion in the aftermath of the fight and ran away to sort out his feelings and thoughts on the matter.

Why had his brother not claimed Grandia?

Why did he not want to get stronger?

During his travels throughout the human world, Rael also took the chance to practice what his brother and other nobles had displayed: cool indifference, sophistication and empathy. In his attempts to be polite to humans and understand more about them, he only found himself more disgusted than ever. Humans grow only at the destruction of others and it was every man for himself outside of Lukedonia.

Why would anyone want to hurt others in order to make themselves feel better?

Why would any self-respecting noble would ever bother protecting them?

He had gone through half of North America and most of South America before traveling to Europe. It was there where he ran into his first crush and a traitor to Lukedonia.

It was late. The faint rays of sunlight were minutes away from vanishing completely and people were hurrying home to escape the cold. Rael himself was jumping from roof to roof, leisurely heading back to his hotel. He was only halfway there when he heard an explosion from a couple of kilometers away.

What did the humans do now? Deciding to investigate instead of ignoring the insignificant beings-he was bored anyways-he changed his course. Minutes later-there was no hurry-he stopped in his tracks, shock coursing through every vein in his body. “Ignes?”

The raven-haired beauty turned. “Oh? Look who’s here: Rael Kertia. What brings you to this part of the world?”

Rael was not a traitor to Lukedonia. During his escape, he did not once consider himself betraying Lukedonia in any way, shape or form. “What are you doing here, Ignes Kravei?”

“Nothing much.” She waved a hand flippantly, not at all bothered by his tone. “Just collecting some more test subjects. How’s Lukedonia?”

“None of your business.” He couldn’t, wouldn’t, tell Ignes that he had ran away. And she doesn’t deserve to know anything anyways, he thought pettily.

A plan was already forming in Ignes’ head. She could use the power of another noble and, if Rael turns out to be a disappointment, she can still use him for experimentation. “Why don’t you come with me?”

“What?” Red eyes widened in disbelief before narrowing in suspicion. “Why do you think I’ll want to associate myself with a traitor like you?”

She smiled gently, with as much care and love she could muster, a look of understanding taking place on her face. “I could help you learn more about humans if that’s what you’re after. You’ll learn more from me than by yourself. Besides, you’re lonely right? We could spend time together, just like the old times.”

It was this argument that won Rael over. The present was confusing. Everything was changing and he didn’t like change. Nobles are constant beings after all. His brother was upset at him, Seira had rejected him, the Lord was very possibly angry at him. He was barely 500 years old, too young to be dealing with all of this, and, with a nod, he agreed.

Ignes was delighted. Rael was young, insecure, and eager to please just so he’d be accepted and loved. Rajak Kertia had helped as well. His most recent encounters with Rael had left the child lost and upset. His lack of emotion, or rather, his ability to hide his emotions so well had led his younger brother to believe that he no longer cared and never cared about him to begin with. She could still remember how much time the two had spent together, how much Rael had idolized Rajak. Rajak’s approval had been everything and now that he’s “abandoned” Rael, Ignes was fully prepared to take his place.

She lavished affection on her little duckling. Despite being slightly annoyed that she doesn’t have as much time to spend on her experiments, Rael was amusing. His stealth was useful in capturing more experimental subjects and she’d only encouraged his ever-growing hatred of humans, showing him nothing but their dark side and all their faults.

Rael was content for a while. Ignes hadn’t tried anything on him and their interactions hadn’t changed much from when they were younger. He knew that spending time with a traitor was betraying Lukedonia, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Much, anyways. Compared to Ignes, who was pretty much his big sister, Rajak was nothing more than a stranger. He had changed so much since becoming family leader that Rael wonders if he’d ever truly known his elder brother at all. Perhaps he was only acting to humor him and decided to stop now that he’s a leader.

He had expressed his doubts to Ignes and the older noble had given him hugs and cooed that she cared. What Ignes gave so freely was such a rare luxury with Rajak that Rael couldn’t help but bask in the attention.

It took a few months for Rael to understand that Grandia was somehow transmitting Rajak’s emotions over to him. There wasn’t much for him to work with as what few emotions there were were rather muted.

Fatigue, stress, remorse, guilt, anger.

Rael could only contribute these emotions to the the aftermath of the battles when all the misunderstandings had been sorted out. Rajak was probably overworked and working hard to fix his mess in the human world. While there hadn’t been any human casualties, he had destroyed several buildings and caused quite a large commotion.

This only cemented the idea that his brother never cared and never will. Nothing changed except for the desire to teach Rael a lesson. Ignes had kindly kept him informed of what little news she could garner about Lukedonia and it seemed like Rajak was sent to look for him, probably to drag him back for punishment like he did ten years ago. So Rael hid on Ignes’s island, careful to cover up his tracks whenever he went out. He was determined to not suffer the humiliation of being dragged back and punished like a child again.

Yet, he was drowning in guilt. He shouldn’t have left Rajak alone to deal with the consequences of his actions. He was the one who made a fuss in Korea and tried to use underhand tactics to win. To add to his conscience, he had kept his soul weapon to himself, not allowing Rajak to gain the full power of a family leader. Rael was sure it was a crime despite it never happening before. It should be one. As far as he was concerned, Lukedonia was down one family leader and it was all his fault.

Ignes did not want Rael to return to Lukedonia. She had done so much for him when he was lost and confused and this is how he repays her?! By getting himself killed?! She didn’t spend so much time nourishing him only to lose him in the end. Deciding that it would cost too much to let him go, she prepared several drones made especially for fighting family leaders, just in case it came down to that.

“I have to, Ignes. Please understand that.”

“I don’t see why you have to, Rael. We were having so much fun together.” She smiled charmingly. “Hearing you talk so seriously, you really have grown up. So much unlike the insecure little boy I first met.” It was true. Dressed in his Lukedonia clothing, he was a shorter version of Rajak and bear slight resemblance to Rayga Kertia, his father and former family leader.

“I know. I don’t want to leave either.” His sad look grew stern. “But you’re still a traitor.”

She shrugged. “By association, you are one as well.”

He nodded solemnly. “I know, which is why I have to go back. I have to take responsibility for my actions.”

Ignes’ lips curled into an ugly sneer. It was this honor that made the nobles weak. While the rest of the world grew, Lukedonia stayed the same, relying on their original power to keep them safe. Instead of being at the top of the food chain, they were falling to the bottom. “Pride and honor won’t save you. Why don’t you let me modify you? I’ll make you stronger.”

Now it was Rael’s turn to be disgusted. “Absolutely not! I would never lower myself to being a mere human toy.”

“Didn’t you say that you and your brother fought a stalemate with a modified human? I check the Union records. He goes by the name of Frankenstein and his weapon was created by sacrificing the lives of many of his people. Don’t you want to surpass him? If he’s modified, then why can’t you be? It’ll even out the playing field.”

“Because I have standards! If you won’t let me go, Ignes, I won’t hesitate to fight you.”

“Oh?” She raised a delicate eyebrow. “But will you win, though?” She snapped her fingers and her robots came out of hiding. “I didn’t want to do this, Rael, but you left me no choice.” One of those was a match for a Union Elder. Three might be overestimating Rael but Ignes was not about to take any chances when Kertias are known for their speed and stealth. Rael will give her what she wants, one way or the other.

Rael felt betrayed. He really did think that Ignes understood him as he had confined in her and she him. But he also knew that she had her secrets and he kept certain things to himself as well. It was foolish to trust a traitor with news of Lukedonia. He didn’t think that she’d go as far as to attack him for wanting to leave but judging by the strength of these attacks, they were aiming to kill or, at the very least, maim him. Regardless of a noble’s regeneration ability, he would like to live his life without knowing that kind of pain, thank you very much. He summoned Grandia in a moment of panic and sliced one of drones into pieces.

Ignes’s original amused stare turned into an absolutely frightening glare, dark with the promise of pain. She stalked forward slowly, like a predatory cat. Rael was suddenly felt very small. “Is this why you refused all my offers, Rael Kertia? Because you’re already a satisfied pig?!”

Rael wisely kept silent. No matter how much he wants to deny it, Ignes was scaring him. She was acting like a completely different person and he wasn’t sure what was the right reaction.

“Why do you have a soul weapon when Rajak is the family leader?” She let out her aura in a show of power. “Why do you have a soul weapon when I don’t?!” She lunged forward to join the fight personally, showing absolutely no mercy. It was all Rael could do to avoid critical damage. Running away was hardly an option right now; when one retreats, the other two move forward to attack, not allowing him a single moment to catch his breath.

“How dare you harm my babies?! How dare you have a soul weapon?!” As much as Rael wanted to talk back, he knew that there was no way he could defeat Ignes even at the cost of his own life. She was older than him, older than Rajak as well, modified and better trained.

“Why so quiet? You were so talkative before. Poor little Rael. No one loves you anymore.” She cooed, sickly sweet as she managed to rip off one of his arms. Tossing the limb somewhere, she returned to glaring. “I’ll make you scream.”

Not wanting to give her that satisfaction, Rael gritted his teeth and keep quiet. Leaping back to avoid another attack from one the two remaining toys, he managed to fall into Ignes’ trap and impaled himself on her arm.

“You’ve gotten lacking, Rael.” She withdrew her arm and he crumbled to the ground as his legs gave out on him. “Is it because your brother always fought your battles for you?” She tore off his legs, sweet composure fading into uncontrollable rage as he still refused to let out a sound and had actually tried to fight back.

Nothing was fair in this world. Rael has a soul weapon when he wasn’t a family leader. Someone had done something so extraordinary while she was the genius. And to rub salt into the wound, she did not take part in any way in the process of splitting a soul weapon and neither does she have the data.

Each thought was punctuated by the removal of another limb. And Rael still wasn’t screaming! She stomped down on his ribs, infuriated at the fact that she had failed to break the child. However, Rael’s body was broken beyond belief and his own ribs had stabbed into his heart, stopping any chance of regeneration. Temper sated at last with his oncoming death and newly-gathered data, she knelt down to caress his soft cheek. “Any last words you want me to pass onto Rajak? I’ll give him a message for you.”

Rael smiled sadly, determined to stop the traitor from getting any satisfaction with his defeat. “Tell him that I apologize for disappointing the family leader of the Kertia Clan, for keeping Grandia to myself, and for constantly disobeying his orders, that I’m sorry for not living up to his expectations and for never addressing properly him as family leader and never acting like a pureblood of the Kertia Clan should.” Despite his efforts, a tear rolled down his cheek, causing Ignes to smile. “For not being the little brother he deserves to have.” The last of his body faded away and the dual daggers disappeared as well, seeking out Rajak to rejoin Kartas.

Ignes laughed loud and hard, gleeful that she’d managed to poison Rael so much that he’d still believe Rajak doesn’t love him. What a conceited child. He got away with disobeying his family leader and having a soul weapon, but still believes that he wasn’t loved. But he did die blaming himself so at least he grew up a little. What would Rajak do if he hears of this, she wondered thoughtfully, making a mental note to actually pass on the message when she has the chance just for the show. Smiling sadistically, she skipped off to collect her babies. Finding the extensive damage on them, a vein nearly popped in her temple. The data was satisfactory but did he really need to destroy her babies? They were so hard to fix. I should have kept him alive for experimentation. This data is great but keeping him alive would have been far more beneficial. Perhaps I do need to work on my temper a little.

Rajak was training with Karias when a sudden burst of sadness emitting from Kartas caused him to pause. It hadn’t taken him as long as Rael to realize that the split soul weapons created a link between their bearers. He knew as soon as he felt contentment when he was stressed. Choosing to ignore the emotions (he can’t just cancel the training session when Lukadonia’s enemies were getting stronger), he pulled back his fist for a punch.

BAM!!!

The sudden surge of power caused the Blerster family leader to fly back and crash into several trees. “Really, Rajak?” He picked himself off the ground and rubbed at his numb forearm. “How do you still have so much energy left?”

For his part, Rajak stood shell-shocked until he came to a very upsetting conclusion. He quickly summoned Kartas, noting the power and sad whisper that came with the summoning of his soul weapon. “I’m sorry, family leader.”

Karias held out his hands, attempting to placate his self-proclaimed best friend. “Can we stop for today?”

His best friend nodded mutely, quiet and thoughtful like he usually was. However, they wouldn’t be best friends if he couldn’t find something wrong with Rajak. Karias noted the way his hands tightly held Kartas and the way he walked much more stiffly than with his usual grace. He swung his arm around Rajak’s neck. “Want to eat something now?”

Rajak couldn’t hear a thing. His little brother was dead. His sweet, naive little brother who insisted on calling him big brother despite his protests. The one that would always watch him train with wide, adoring eyes and used to snuggle in with him for naps after a long day of studying when they were younger. He had failed his father, failed as a family leader to protect Rael from the rest of the world. It was only thanks to his deeply-ingrained training that he didn’t break down right there and then. No matter what happened, he also has a duty to the Lord and the rest of his clan. Shrugging off the arm, he went off as if everything was alright.

But it wasn’t.

Ignes was very quite surprised to hear the 13th Elder mention that the nobles were crawling out of Lukedonia. While Rajak’s excursions were excused because his little brother had ran away, the other little worms do not have any reason to butt into their business. If they decide to isolate themselves on Lukedonia, then they should stay that way. It was time for a little trip of her own.

Although Seira was one of the last nobles she’d expect to leave the island as she is a family leader, Ignes was ecstatic. Seira J. Loyard had grown into a beautiful young woman. Yet, she was still so weak and lack the experience that Ignes has. Sending Regis away was the only smart decision she had made in the fight. Ignes watch the young leader wield the Death Scythe with fascination and felt her anger levels rising. It wasn’t fair. She was so much stronger than both Seira and Rael. Why couldn’t she have a soul weapon as well?

But Ignes was still impressed. Seira had actually managed to survive this long fighting against the Union. However, Rael, who was not a family leader, had managed to destroy one of her drones and injure the other two and herself with an incomplete soul weapon so Seira was still a weakling. “Do you like them?” Ignes draped herself over her soldier, hugging it close. “I modified it with the data I got from Rael.”

At the mention of the other noble, Seira paused and her eyes widened. “Rael...helped you?” The moment of surprise costed her another injury.

Ignes giggled. “Of course. He was such a helpful little boy. By the way, you wouldn’t know where Rajak is, would you? Rael wants me to pass on a message.” Deciding that enough was enough, she stepped into the fight and quickly knocked her opponent unconscious. In her haste to return to her experiments, she was unaware of Regis on her tail.

Karias watched Rajak worriedly, as did everyone else. Yet, the silent noble went about putting the dishes away as if nothing had occurred, like Regis didn’t just tell them that Rael had been working with a traitor all along. That wasn’t completely true; Rajak did pause for a moment there. He conceded.

“I got it!” Their heads all snapped around to Tao’s direction. The hacker was busy tracking Regis’ cell phone signal and managed to lock on. He quickly told Frankenstein the location of the little island.

The blond man was quick to create a plan. “Master and I will go. Rajak, you-”

“I’ll come.” He removed his pink apron and gloves, hanging them in their appropriate spots.

Frankenstein moved to stop him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. If Rael is-”

“Rael isn’t there.”

M-21 looked as if he was about to argue but decided to save his breathe at the determined stare on Rajak’s face. Karias joined the others in watching the house with little protest. As much as he would love to go along, it is true that the house may come under attack and three modified humans are no match for what the Union can dish out.

“Where’s Rael?” Regis’ head snapped back against the wall as Ignes stuck another needle into his arm.

“You should learn to keep your mouth shut, Regis. At least Rael knew how to do that.” Ignes had a lab assistant roll in a cart filled with dissection tools and enjoyed the flinch from Regis. He is definitely more self-confident than Rael but she’ll break him soon enough. Ignes was just about to proceed with her plans when she realized that some of the drugs she needed were missing and left the room to get them.

Ignes had managed to escape during the confusion of Muzaka’s awakening. Rajak wished that he had been there with the Noblesse but the werewolf warrior had kept him occupied. Perhaps he should have trained harder and used the techniques his father had taught him, just like Frankenstein had advised him to, instead of being ashamed of fighting from the shadows.

Nonetheless, their visit to the island on been somewhat successful. Roctis Kravei was dead and they had rescued Seira and Regis before the scientists had been able to experiment on them. The awakening of the former lord of the werewolves only gave Rajak more motivation to train. Things were about to get a lot more complicated and he can’t expect the Noblesse and his blood-contracted to solve every single problem.

Rajak feared that someone else may possibly get to Ignes before he does and leave him forever in the dark of his brother’s passing. He wanted-no, needed-to know exactly who to blame for Rael’s passage into eternal sleep. Nobody, not even the Lord and Noblesse, can keep him from finding out once he gets his hands on Ignes Kravei. He had searched the island once more after everyone had left but was unable to find any trace of the traitor and werewolf. And as computers were not his forte, he didn’t manage to find any information regarding Rael either. Despite his limitations, he made sure to destroy the lab to keep other Union members from retrieving any information they could have stored here. Unfortunately, as he wasn’t familiar with Union architecture, Dr.Crombel’s employees had managed to retrieve some data.

Rajak walked quickly. There was no time to waste with all the conflicts with the Union. Somewhere out there, the Union were creating more modified humans that were stronger and faster than ever. Werewolves were also getting modified and the Noblesse can’t last forever. He needed to train more and learn how to control his newfound strength as well.

“Rajak.” He stopped and turned his head to glance back at the three other family leaders behind him. “Are you leaving now?”

He nodded and tensed when Rosaria Elenor asked if he was going to continue his search for Rael. He was going to look for Ignes to find out more about his brother so that counts, doesn’t it? Rajak wondered when he had started hiding information from his colleagues.

They conversed a bit more before parting their separate ways and Rajak continued on his way, until he meet Gradeus and the other traitors along with three other werewolves.

There was no way they were going to reach Lukedonia before him. He was determined to warn the Lord and the other family leaders. And there was no way he’s going to die here either. Rajak needed to know about Rael, absolutely needed that information before he died.

To his advantage, the Union thought that he was weak because he still had an incomplete soul weapon. Them looking down on him became their downfall as he hid his presence and killed his opponent before anyone of them realized what he had done and had a head start back to Lukedonia. Seeing the other family leaders again couldn’t be soon enough.

The next couple of hours passed quickly with the adrenaline rush. The werewolves and traitors were dead, the Noblesse was weakened even more and Claudia Tradio was made family leader. The truth about Edian Drosia came out and her clan was pardoned. There were no casualties on their side and Lukedonia has less enemies to worry about. Not that it really made a difference with all the modifications everyone else in the world seemed to be getting.

The next major event happened on werewolf territory. M-21 was kidnapped and probably subjected to experiments like the 5th Elder had said when she was trying to convince them all to help. Nothing remotely interesting was going on until he encountered another werewolf warrior. He might have been a challenge provided that the werewolves stopped underestimating him but apparently no one got the notice that he was fully Awakened. After that talk with Frankenstein, he was very uninclined to test his opponent and draw out the battle.

He’d arrived at Rai’s location first, not waiting. Calmly observing the situation, he began to worry as both the noble and the modified human were clearly injured and up against a monster that was a match even for the Noblesse himself weakened as he was. And there was Ignes, laughing loudly and boasting about the abilities of her newest creation. Rajak made his presence known by appearing a few steps behind Rai. Considering Titan’s strength, he held Kartas tightly and shifted so that the light caught on the sharp blades.

The raven-haired scientist widened her eyes and smiled. “Rajak Kertia,” she acknowledged. “I see that Kartas is finally complete after all these years? Are you here to ask about Rael?”

By now the other nobles had arrived and all were staring at him in varying stages of shock with widened eyes and not Ignes or her creation like they should have. Perhaps, if he survives this fight, the Lord will punish him for keeping the news to himself. He knew that Rael was dead and every cell in his body was itching to let go of his self-discipline just this once and wipe that smile off her face but she was the only one with answers. “You fought with Rael.”

“Not at first.” The others watched their interaction intently, taking the chance to take a slight rest. Titan won’t attack without Ignes’s orders. “I met him in Europe and took him in.” She giggled. “He was like a lost puppy since you abandoned him.”

Rajak didn’t react save for the tightening of his fists. Ignes took childish pleasure in watching him lose composure bit by bit. Wouldn’t it just be hilarious if she was the one to make the ever-stoic Kertia family leader cry?

“We spent a few months together but,” she pouted, “he wanted to leave. He refused all the offers I gave him and wanted to go back to Lukedonia. I couldn’t understand why. After all, I was more like an elder sibling to him than you were. So we fought and he destroyed one of my babies.” She gestured a bit. “You couldn’t understand how upset I was. I doubt you ever cared about anyone or anything besides duty. So I killed him.” She launched into a graphic description of how she did so, loving the way Rajak’s look of cool indifference turned into hot-blooded murder, narrowed eyes nothing more than mere slits and hands clenched so tightly around his soul weapon that his knuckles were white.

She thoughtfully placed a finger on her chin. “He didn’t scream at all though. Such a shame that was. He had such a lovely voice.” Shrugging, Ignes continued. “Oh well. He did give me a message to pass on to you. Can you guess what he said?” She laughed loud and hard, manically. “He apologized. For not being a good enough little brother and a pureblood who wanted to protect humans. Because he kept Grandia hidden. He didn’t think you loved him at all or ever, really. And all because you were so good with keeping your emotions in check. Such a cute little lost duckling.”

“I did get a lot of data from him though. He didn’t even realized that he was helping me. I really did want to continue my experiments on him but he made me so angry. It’s not everyday you get a pureblood to play with. Pity father stopped me from completing my experiments back on Lukedonia. Perhaps that was why he had a soul weapon to begin with. To protect him from getting taken advantage of again. Not that it helped him any.”

Ignes wasn’t sure what to expect from Rajak. Whatever possibilities her mind had generated, the dark assassin letting out an absolutely feral snarl and charging straight at her before anyone could recover from their surprise wasn’t one of them. Titan could hardly slow him down, an arm in pieces within seconds and the rest of his body quickly following.

The panic made Ignes hysterical though she still had faith in her creation. “You can’t kill him! He has the best regeneration ability there is and once he recovers, Titan’ll be even stronger than before.”

As expected of a Noblesse, Rai stepped in to help. “If he can keep healing himself, then I’ll just destroy his entire body at once.” His left eye flashed and he began his work. Thanks to Rajak’s work, Titan was severely weakened and the pieces of his body were relatively easy to get rid off. Ignes had barely enough time to scream before her body was in pieces and fading away.

Rajak knelt, head down and panting hard. He couldn’t believe his ears. Was he such a bad elder brother? Did he really neglect to show Rael how much he had mattered and still does matter? Rael didn’t disappoint him at all. He was proud of his little brother though he didn’t show it. He had thought that Rael was too arrogant and more praise would just go to his head. And was he really so neglectful as to not notice Ignes experimenting on his brother back when they were younger? How was he going to explain to his mother that her youngest son was dead at only a mere 500 years old?

Rajak was grateful that he had stopped with his back to the rest of his allies. It would have been awkward to turn away from them and rude to turn his back on the Lord and Noblesse. A single bloody tear dripped down his face and he discreetly wiped it away.

Frankenstein stared at Rajak with sad eyes. He understood what it was like to lose someone close and empathized but Kertias weren’t the type to accept comfort. Rajak pushed Karias away and asked the Lord for punishment for Rael’s behavior which she denied. Even when he was upset with his brother’s death, the family leader was still ready to obey.

Rajak walked down the halls of his home with a purpose; he was headed to Rael’s bedroom. His brother was a neat freak and no one was allowed in except to place his clean clothes on his bed. He preferred to do all the cleaning by himself and will always do it promptly, no matter how tired he was after the day was over. Rajak had respected his brother’s privacy and didn’t allow anyone to enter the room despite the large amounts of dust that were sure to be gathering on every surface.

He opened the double doors and stepped onto a surprisingly thin layer of dust. The bed was still made and everything was well-organized. Locking the doors firmly behind him, he collapsed into Rael’s bed, breathing in the dust and the faded scent of fresh laundry. He mourned there in private because he’ll never have a chance to apologize to Rael for not protecting him better and allowing him to become a family leader.

“He wouldn’t want you to be like this, you know.”

His head snapped up at the sound of Karius’ voice. The other family leader stood by the balcony, staring at him with sympathy. “Rael would have liked it better if you-”

“If I what? If I hadn’t failed him?” Grief made Rajak more talkative, it seemed, angrier too and more likely to show his emotions rather than hiding them. “I failed my father and I failed Rael. I couldn’t protect him. He didn’t even think I cared for him.” His voice began to crack.

His best friend moved closer. “At least he didn’t enter eternal sleep hating you. He still cared for you and you can tell him everything you want to say to him when you enter eternal sleep.” He gingerly gave Rajak a hug. Karius was never awkward in any situation. “That doesn’t mean you should try to get yourself killed. He most definitely wouldn’t have wanted that.”

Rael wandered around on Lukedonia, knowing that he was dead and wondering why eternal sleep looked so much like his home. Perhaps eternal sleep meant that they turn into spirits or ghosts? The halls of his home was empty and he couldn’t detect anyone within the manor. He started to inspect every room and it wasn’t until he reached his brother’s study did he find someone.

“Father?”

Rayga Kertia looked up from his book and his eyes widened in surprise. “Rael?” He bookmarked his page and placed the novel down on the table, rushing to give his youngest son a hug. “What are you doing here?” If anything, he was expecting his wife or eldest son to be here first. Despite having no sense of time when one enters eternal sleep, Rael looked too young to be anywhere close to joining him, much less actually joining him.

“I-I-” Unable to find the words to describe his own crimes, the boy pushed away his father and ran away to where he knew his room was and locking the door behind him. However, as his father was stronger and faster than him, he was already waiting inside his room. This time, Rael had no escape. “Father-”

“It doesn’t matter what you did, Rael. You’re still my son and I love you.” Perhaps it was too cheesy a line for a Kertia to use but Rael had always been insecure and needed reassurance.

The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them, as well as the tears from his eyes. “I went to Ignes Kravei and helped her with capturing humans for her experiments. But I wanted to go back to Lukedonia and she killed me.”

Well, that was certainly worse than what he had expected to hear. Rayga pulled his son into another embrace. He did not regret following the previous Lord into eternal sleep. What he did regret was not having his sons sooner so that he was capable of spending more time with them and for not realizing that Ignes was experimenting on his littlest. Despite accepting Roctis apologies for his daughter’s actions (he understood a father’s need to keep their child happy), he did not forgive the noble for hurting his son. He’d hoped that by giving Rael a soul weapon and making certain that Rajak was capable of watching over him was enough to protect him. Obviously, he was wrong.

Unsure of what to say, he hugged his son closer and patted his hair soothingly. It had been a while since he had done this, and he was a man of little words. Everything was going to be alright and he would hope that Rajak was going to be fine as well.

#Noblesse #Rael #Rajak #Kertia

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doctorwhonews · 6 years

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New high quality audio recordings of missing episodes discovered

Latest from the news site: Kaleidoscope, a non-profit organisation that specialises in locating missing television programmes, have announced that a new selection of audio recordings of missing Doctor Who episodes have been recovered, many of which are an improvement of recordings that have previously been available. Chris Perry on Facebook reported: In late 2018, Kaleidoscope was delighted to be contacted by one of our volunteers who normally helps with photographic restoration. Robert Wyn is normally better known to us as the man who works with glass photo negatives for us; but this time he had been given some audio reels of Doctor Who stories. Kaleidoscope transfers hundreds of hours of radio and TV soundtracks every year that are quietly returned to us without any fuss. We know many audio experts including Keith Wickham, Ted Kendall, Alys Hayes and Mark Ayres. Where possible, we try to give them full access to all our archive so they can create the best CD and DVD projects possible for commercial release. Mark Ayres and I have worked together before; we share the same aims; and we trust each other's work. Mark asked if he could work on the reels first. We agreed, with Robert’s permission. Kaleidoscope is a team of volunteers from many backgrounds, all guided by a love of preservation, heritage and history. Mark and I sit in the same camp, working together to safeguard our heritage for the future. As with all Kaleidoscope projects, we returned the material to Mark Ayres and the BBC free of charge so all may enjoy in the future. Mark Ayres provided a technical report on the find to Kaleidoscope: These tapes are the real deal. Original off-air recordings. The first half of the first episode recorded (The Nightmare Begins) was not captured, so it starts with the second half. That aside, uniquely these recordings include opening and closing music with all cliffhangers and reprises intact. No surrounding presentation was captured, but some episodes have back-announcements on the closing titles. I have two main machines I use for this kind of thing. One is a heavily modified Ferrograph that I use for troublesome tapes. But I got a very marginally better result from the Sony TC377, which tends to be better for good condition tapes originally recorded on decent machines (as these obviously were). The TC377 dates from 1971 and was a very common high quality, reliable domestic deck. It’s recently been thoroughly serviced … and it’s the same machine we used to transfer the Graham Strong tapes. A couple of Graham [Strong]’s Master Plan episodes are trumped by these, but we now have some cliffhangers and reprises that we’ve been missing due to all of them being intact on this new collection. For instance, Graham’s tape ran out a couple of minutes before the end of The Highlanders ep 1, and the best (not very good) patch we had was far inferior. We now have that. And Graham recorded over The Celestial Toymaker so we only had roomy microphone recordings - this trumps those. (These are probably mic recordings, but using a rather good, close mic). It’s all a jigsaw, and we now have some much better quality pieces. And as I say, where other collections can vary from very good to very poor within the batch, these are pretty consistent. It’s amazing these have never come to light before. The Randolph Tapes Original off-air audio recordings of 1960s Doctor Who, being three 5 3/4-inch reels of 1/4” tape recorded 4-track mono at 1 7/8 ips (except “The Savages” episode 3 which was recorded at 3 3/4 ips). The boxes all have the name “Randolph” written on the front. They are also numbered (1) - (3) and finish with episode 1 of “The Moonbase”, suggesting there were originally more. There are also a couple of part-episodes of “The Sky at Night”. Unless otherwise stated, episodes include cliffhangers, reprises, and themes. Most appear to be line recordings (or, at least, very close-mic’d). First half of the first episode of The Daleks’ Master Plan is missing. There are two big faults during the recording of episode 3 of The Ark. The quality is generally very good (within the limitations of the recording medium - frequency response is limited to 6-8kHz at best). Quality is the most consistent of any collection of these episodes we have found; many of the episodes here are now probably our best source for future remastering. They are particularly useful given that all cliffhangers and reprises are intact. It is a shame that reels (4) onwards have not been retrieved.” TAPE CONTENTS TAPE 1 - TRACK 1 Doctor Who - The Daleks Master Plan Ep 1 - The Nightmare Begins [second half only] Doctor Who - The Daleks Master Plan Ep 2 - Day of Armageddon Doctor Who - The Daleks Master Plan Ep 3 - Devil's Planet Doctor Who - The Daleks Master Plan Ep 4 - The Traitors Doctor Who - The Daleks Master Plan Ep 5 - Counterplot The Sky at Night - 111 - THE MOONS OF JUPITER, tx 14.1.66 (complete) TAPE 1 - TRACK 2 Doctor Who - The Daleks Master Plan Ep 6 - Coronas of the Sun Doctor Who - The Daleks Master Plan Ep 7 - The Feast of Steven [microphone recording] Doctor Who - The Daleks Master Plan Ep 8 - Volcano Doctor Who - The Daleks Master Plan Ep 9 - Golden Death Doctor Who - The Daleks Master Plan Ep 10 - Escape Switch TAPE 1 - TRACK 3 Doctor Who - The Daleks Master Plan Ep 11 - The Abandoned Planet Doctor Who - The Daleks Master Plan Ep 12 - Destruction of Time [with closing continuity announcement] Doctor Who - The Massacre Ep 1 - War of God Doctor Who - The Massacre Ep 2 - The Sea Beggar Doctor Who - The Massacre Ep 3 - Priest of Death TAPE 1 - TRACK 4 Doctor Who - The Massacre Ep 4 - Bell of Doom [with “next week” continuity announcement at end] Doctor Who - The Ark Ep 1 - The Steel Sky Doctor Who - The Ark Ep 2 - The Plague Doctor Who - The Ark Ep 3 - The Return [contains two large faulty-connection dropouts] Doctor Who - The Ark Ep 4 - The Bomb TAPE 2 - TRACK 1 Doctor Who - The Celestial Toymaker Ep 1 - The Celestial Toyroom Doctor Who - The Celestial Toymaker Ep 2 - The Hall of Dolls Doctor Who - The Celestial Toymaker Ep 3 - The Dancing Floor Doctor Who - The Celestial Toymaker Ep 4 - The Final Test [with apologies to Frank Richards Estate at end] Doctor Who - The Gunfighters Ep 1 - A Holiday for the Doctor TAPE 2 - TRACK 2 Doctor Who - The Gunfighters Ep 2 - Don't Shoot the Pianist Doctor Who - The Gunfighters Ep 3 - Johnny Ringo [no end titles] Doctor Who - The Gunfighters Ep 4 - The OK Corral Doctor Who - The Savages Ep 1 Doctor Who - The Savages Ep 2 TAPE 2 - TRACK 3 Doctor Who - The Savages Ep 3 (recorded at 3.75 ips) Doctor Who - The Savages Ep 4 Doctor Who - The War Machines Ep 1 [end continuity announcement: later time next week] Doctor Who - The War Machines Ep 2 The Sky at Night - 114 - MAN ON THE MOON, tx 11.3.66 [final 3m36s] TAPE 2 - TRACK 4 Doctor Who - The War Machines Ep 3 Doctor Who - The War Machines Ep 4 Doctor Who - The Smugglers Ep 1 Doctor Who - The Smugglers Ep 2 Doctor Who - The Smugglers Ep 3 “Out of Time” (Chris Farlowe) (part) (recorded at 3.75 ips) “Get Away” (Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames) (recorded at 3.75 ips) TAPE 3 - TRACK 1 Doctor Who - The Smugglers Ep 4 Doctor Who - The Tenth Planet Ep 1 Doctor Who - The Tenth Planet Ep 2 Doctor Who - The Tenth Planet Ep 3 Doctor Who - The Tenth Planet Ep 4 TAPE 3 - TRACK 2 Doctor Who - The Power of the Daleks Ep 1 [voice-over credit for Terry Nation at end] Doctor Who - The Power of the Daleks Ep 2 [voice-over credit for Terry Nation and Tristram Cary at end] Doctor Who - The Power of the Daleks Ep 3 [voice-over credit for Tristram Cary at end] Doctor Who - The Power of the Daleks Ep 4 Doctor Who - The Power of the Daleks Ep 5 TAPE 3 - TRACK 3 Doctor Who - The Power of the Daleks Ep 6 Doctor Who - The Highlanders Ep 1 Doctor Who - The Highlanders Ep 2 Doctor Who - The Highlanders Ep 3 Doctor Who - The Highlanders Ep 4 Unknown US comedy clip (recorded at 3.75 ips) TAPE 3 - TRACK 4 Doctor Who - The Underwater Menace Ep 1 Doctor Who - The Underwater Menace Ep 2 Doctor Who - The Underwater Menace Ep 3 Doctor Who - The Underwater Menace Ep 4 Doctor Who - The Moonbase Ep 1 Mark Ayres 31st December 2018 Details from Kaleidoscope can be found via their website, Facebook and Twitter. Doctor Who News http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2019/01/randolph-tapes.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

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