#i kinda want to make a fan report compilation | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

babyflossy · 4 years

Text

exposed | p.js

pairing: jisung x reader

requested: i’m working on loads of request atm but when i saw this i had to write it straight away lmao

summary: when dispatch reveals your secret realtionship with jisung to the public, the fans aren’t the only ones surprised.

warnings/genre: unedited, kinda just self-indulgent fluff, lots of words, not much happens

word count: 1.7k

a hand on your shoulder breaks you from your slumber, words already being spoken at you. in your sleepy haze, they floated straight through your head, mind still groggy from being woken up so suddenly. as soon as you recognise the voice as your manager’s, your eyes snap open, meeting equally wide ones over the head of your manager. haemee, your leader, shoots you an apologetic look, something unsettling for so early in the morning.

“what happened?” the words are quiet and tired and your manager sighs in pity, handing over their phone. your eyes squint in response to the brightness, stomach dropping when your eyes finally focus on the news article.

BREAKING; DISPATCH REVEALS UQS’ Y/N AND NCT’S JISUNG ARE DATING.

the title is accompanied by three photos; one of you at a fansign, smiling at a fan, one of jisung waving at a camera in the airport, and then a blurring photo of two figures walking hand in hand through a park at night. the park you and jisung had visited two weeks ago.

“there’s a meeting at the company. can you get ready quickly, please?” despite the ‘scandal’ and the stress your manager was most likely under, she shoots you a comforting smile and ruffles your hair before leaving, phone already ringing.

as soon as you and haemee are left alone you reach for your phone, feeling the bed dip as she sits beside you. she rests a hand on your shoulder, rubbing her fingers down your back soothingly. your lockscreen in full of text messages. you thumb through them, seeing many from jisung, along with the other nct members you were close with. you ignored them all, only searching for the ones from your boyfriend.

jisungie <3: have you seen it yet?

jisungie <3: call me when you see this

jisungie <3: are you okay?

jisungie <3: i know you didn’t want ppl to find out like this

jisungie <3: let me know you’re okay plzzz x

“it’s gonna be fine, you know?” haemee’s hands abandon your shoulder and take your phone out of your grasp, tipping your chin so she can look at you. there’s still a smile on her face and you’re reminded of why she’s the group’s leader instead of anyone else; always able to keep things calm. “think about all the other idols that have dated. i bet the fans were expecting this, anyway.”

that was probably correct, you knew. ever since you and jisung had starred on a dancing show in america together, your social medias were full of edits of the two of you, compilations of your interactions from the vlogs you had filmed. as jisung wasn’t fluent in english you had translated for him and done the speaking whenever you ordered food, giving the fans loads of things to include in their edits.

the show had been fun and you had kept in close contact with jisung after it ended, eventually deciding to start dating after months of pining over each other. since then, only haemee, taeyong and the company knew, although you expected chenle knew as well due to the teasing you got whenever you met jisung outside of your training hours.

when haemee left you to get ready you took your phone back, unlocking it and calling jisung as you flicked through your wardrobe, trying to find your hoodie. the call connected after the first ring, jisung’s voice echoing over the line and into your bedroom.

“are you okay?” although there was high chance you were about to be scolded for days, the worry in jisung made your heart beat just a little faster, a reluctant smile taking over your face.

“i’m fine. what about you?” spotting the lilac hoodie at the end of your closet, you pulled your sleep shirt, jisung’s shirt, over your head, replacing it with the warm softness of the purple material. you followed it with a pair of jeans, slipping a face mask on after realising there would probably be reporters outside the SM building already.

“yeah, i’m fine now. i freaked out at first, though,” he chuckled, shouts coming through from his end. “jaemin came in screaming about how he was so betrayed i didn’t tell him, i had no idea what he was talking about.”

“what’d you think is gonna happen?”

there was a pause before he spoke and you had time to grab your bag, throwing in your headphones and a spare mask along with a pair of sunglasses incase. “i’m not sure, taeyong said he’s hopeful, though. so it might not be that bad. it’s not like the company’s finding out about it, though, so it might just be press and stuff.”

“yeah, i hope so. i’ll see you in fifteen minutes i guess,” before you left the safety of your bedroom, you reached for the bucket hat hanging from the corner of your chair, pulling it over your face to hide your eyes. you looked ridiculous, like you were planning to rob a bank, but you guessed it was better than the alternative; hundreds of photos released of your sleep-deprived, drooping eyes.

no one else in the dorm is awake and you’re able to slip out the front door before haemee catched you again, taking a deep breath before heading outside to the car waiting. as it’s just you and your manager, you’re able to sit in the front seat, something you would normally be ecstatic about but due to circumstance it feels lonely and cold. not a word is spoken until the car reaches the entrance to the SM building, throngs of people with cameras waiting outside the front door.

“we’ll go in the back entrance.” you manager says with a frown, eyeing the reporters with concern. “god, it’s impossible to get any privacy nowadays.”

after security escorts you through the back door, pushing reporters out the way when they got too close, you can finally breath properly. for the most part you ignored their questions, signing the first song that comes to mind in your head to distract yourself. ironically, it’s chewing gum, and you realise with resentment it’s going to be stuck in your head throughout the meeting.

upstairs, taeyong and jisung sit on the opposite side of a glass table, two seats left open for you and your manager. their manager stands and motions for him and your manager to talk privately outside, leaving you with the two boys. you take off your hat as you sit down, pulling you mask down so you can talk properly. jisung’s tired eyes crinkle with a smile when you do, a smile you return eagerly.

for a moment you see taeyong think over what to say in his head, trying to find the right words for the situation. eventually, he settles on what your own leader had already told you. “i’m sure this will be fine,” and as if he realises how cliche his words are, he adds “in the end.”

“in the end? what’s that supposed to mean?” jisung tears his eyes away from you to look at the older boy.

“well, i mean, it’s gonna be a big deal at the start,” he states matter of factly, eyes switching between the two of you. the voice he uses is just as level and calm as the one haemee uses whenever she’s trying to sort something out, it must be a universal thing. “the press and the fans will go crazy for a bit, let alone everyone you didn’t tell.”

the reminder makes you dread going back home, knowing the rest of your members will blow this way out of proportion. you were the youngest, and they always managed to be overdramatic whenever it came to you ‘growing up’ as they had put it so many times. none of them knew you were dating jisung, and you could already picture the gloomy pouts you would get for the next few weeks.

after your managers returned, a few more staff entered, filling the last few seats and closing the door, successfully locking you in. they talked for what felt like hours, only occasionally asking you or jisung a question. they decided the easiest thing would be to just come out and admit it, allowing you and jisung a moment to disagree. you locked eyes for a moment, having a silent conversation between yourselves. you raised you eyebrows in question, taking the minuscule nod he sent your way to be the go-ahead.

“i don’t see why not,” you answered for the both of you, smiling at your manager who nodded in agreement back at you.

you don’t get a chance to say goodbye to jisung properly before you leave the building, the staff ushering you in opposite directions to get your schedules for the day started. in the car on the way back to the dorms you send him a text promising to facetime when you both have time, mentally preparing yourself for the confrontation from your members.

“you’re dating jisung?” is the first thing you hear when the front door opens, closely followed by “why didn’t you tell us?” which is swiftly followed by “i can’t believe you’re the first one to date anyone, it’s not fair.”

“that’s mean.” you smile back at the oldest, laughing at the disbelieving smiles covering their faces. “why are you guys so surprised? you didn’t think i could do it?”

“whatever, but, why didn’t you tell us?”

“in my defense, the company told us not to tell anyone.”

for the next few days, your group’s twitter was hectic. you trended on twitter for nearly a solid day, photos and edits and memes of you and jisung together filling your timeline. there were the negative comments, obviously, from jealous fans of both fandoms, some even claiming you should both be removed from your respective groups. they were easy to ignore when the positive comments and the text messages from your boyfriend outweighed them astronomically.

jisungie <3: as much as i hate to say it.. taeyong was right x

a/n: if you got this far im acc proud of you lmao i rlly dont like this but it's been a kinda mentally exhausting day for me so im gonna post anyway and edit tomorrow x

#park jisung imagines #park jisung x reader #nct imagines #nct x reader #jisung imagines #jisung x reader #nct dream imagines #nct dream x reader #nct idol au #idol!reader #nct #nct dream #park jisung fluff #jisung fluff #nct jisung imagine #jisung #nct fluff #nct dream imagine

758 notes · View notes

satoruvt · 4 years

Text

the color of you - blue (6)

ITS HERE. I HOPE I DID WELL. PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THOUGHT AKDSHKFJSDH

pairing → keigo takami x reader

word count → 3213

summary → you’re not really dating, so you can’t really be in love with him... right?

song inspo → hell of flying by jeremy zucker, cassette by demian, a lil of bugbear by chloe moriondo

this chapter → y/n comes to conclusions, keigo’s a dork, tension, a fight, crying.

So it’s been… strange.

Or rather, it hasn’t been strange at all, which makes everything even more strange, somehow. You feel like things should be so much different, but they’re not. You reached a wild conclusion that threw you for a fucking loop, made you sit in your kitchen at Angel Cakes and contemplate what the hell you were going to do about anything that would ever occur to you from here on out. Sometimes you almost ask Keigo how things haven’t changed at all, since you’ve decided that you like him, but then you have to stop yourself from saying anything because, oh, right, you haven’t told him.

You don’t plan to, either.

It’d just mess everything up, wouldn’t it? To say “hey, I know we’ve been fake dating for like two and a half months now but I’m kind of liking the idea of really dating you”? Kinda fucked. Not to mention, from a professional stance, what if it ruins your guys’ chemistry when you’re being watched by the entire world? If someone finds out that the whole thing is fake - regardless of your feelings - it means Keigo’s public image and your entire life at the bakery. Everything would go to shit, and after it’s burned down, you doubt you’d even have Keigo.

So you’re not telling him. You’re in love with one of your closest friends, who you are also fake dating, who is also the Number Two hero in the country, and you’re not telling him how you feel. Yes. Okay.

You’ve had a lot of time to reflect about your own feelings, because after Keigo left to fight that villain the other day (and after you managed to get off the ground and clean up) you were sure it was a heat-of-the-moment thing. Yeah, he looked pretty, and there was something dreamy and domestic about laughing and throwing baking ingredients at each other, so maybe your heart just got confused.

But you’d called him to ask if he was okay (instead of a usual text) and he’d picked up the phone and laughed and your heart had not done that before. Not with Keigo, not on the phone, and not like that. And usually his pet names amused you, but he’d called you “sweetheart” over the phone and his voice was tired and drawled a bit. It made you dizzy. You said goodbye pretty soon after that.

You’re barely walking up the stairs of your apartment complex when your phone buzzes in your pocket. Butterflies (and moths, a few) erupt in your stomach when you read the name, and then immediately die when you read the text itself.

keigo baby 🐦

Do u want to have a playdate with me 👉👈 I could come over if ur mom says its okay

Why him? You think to yourself, swallowing the vomit in your throat and fishing your keys out of your bag to unlock your door. You text back when you get inside, throwing your belongings on the nearest surface.

y/n

don’t ever talk to me again

keigo baby 🐦

Is that a yes??

y/n

….fine, but if u ever use those emojis again i’ll break up with u. legally

keigo baby 🐦

baby no!!!!

You throw your phone down onto your sofa before flopping over it, letting yourself sink into the cushions for a moment. It takes no more than ten minutes for Keigo to be at your door, letting himself in without so much as a knock. You know that it’s technically your doing, since you didn’t lock it when you came in, but you still whine at him about it, and he mocks you jokingly.

It seems he either senses your tiredness or didn’t have anything in mind to do anyways, because all Keigo does is lift your legs up from where they’re sprawled out on the couch and sits down in their place, letting them flop back onto his lap. He adjusts so his wings aren’t smashed against the back of the couch (or, at least, not as much). You move your feet off of his lap.

You’ve come to really appreciate days like this, where you simply bask in his company and he does yours. As much as Keigo is nonchalant about his lifestyle, you know it’s exhausting for him to do what he does every single day, and then to have to talk to people (fans, reporters, anyone). He doesn’t need to say anything for you to know. And, well, if you can give him a moment of comfort -

God, no, stop thinking like that. You can’t afford to think like that right now.

The two of you talk, occasionally sharing posts from social media and laughing at dumb little cat videos (there was one that was five whole minutes of one of the guys from that k-pop band being compared to cat pictures and it’s the most wholesome thing you’ve ever seen to date). Before you know it, it’s been a few hours, the sun just fully covered by the distant mountains. The sky cools down in purple and blue hues, dressing up for the night to come. You and Keigo are laughing over old vines, and in your mind you think that it really couldn’t be that bad for this to be every night instead of just… some nights.

At the end of the compilation Keigo groans out a lingering laugh, stretching his legs out as best he can without hitting your coffee table. You stand up, feeling the need to move around as well, and walk towards your kitchen for a drink. Keigo stands after you but doesn’t move, letting his wings flex and stretch from being contained for so long. You get a glass of water, lift it to your lips just as Keigo lifts his arms above his head and holy fucking shit, his stomach -

Tummy! the tiny voice in your head squeals, but the hornier one screams at the top of its lungs ABS and honestly you don’t know what the fuck to do and neither does your body so you choke on your water. Keigo startles, eyes wide, and with a mumbled “holy shit” makes his way over to you as you cough and sputter over your sink.

It takes a minute, but you eventually come back, eyes watery and face red for multiple reasons. You take a deep breath and Keigo rubs your back, eyeing you, which only makes the entire situation worse.

“Jesus, are you okay?” He asks, and you nod, but you can’t look at him.

“Yeah, uh,” you clear your throat, blinking a few times. “Just… went down the wrong pipe, I guess.”

Fuck.

You barely recover from seeing a sliver of Keigo’s stomach, and the memory haunts you for days. You attempt at willing it out of your brain, try to tell yourself that you just didn’t see it at all, but your heart is strong as hell and refuses to let your head forget it. You think about it multiple times a day. You think about it for at least twenty minutes each time. You think about it until Keigo texts you a little less than a week after it happened.

Your phone buzzes on the counter in the kitchen and you finish up your bread dough, putting it into a bowl gently and setting a timer to let it prove. Once your hands are effectively clean, you open the message, letting yourself scoff.

keigo baby 🐦

Just finished a photoshoot, could really use a donut right now :/

Attached to his message is a picture of himself, and honestly, he looks really fucking good. It takes pretty much everything in you not to collapse and die. God.

You look up a picture of a donut on Google - they sold out today, and you are not going to make one just for Keigo - and send it to him. For my hardworking fake boyfriend, you send with it. Mostly to emphasize fake for both of you. Yourself especially.

keigo baby 🐦

Fake??? :( sweetheart, u hurt me

Your mind stops working when you read his text, so you leave him on read.

The next time you see Keigo in person is when you’re contemplating whether or not you should keep… hanging out with him.

The contract only has a little over a month left, so it’s not as if it’d be that hard to deal with… besides, it’d be easier on the both of you when this whole thing inevitably ends. You don’t see yourself being able to be around him without thinking about kissing him over and over. Not now, at least. You hope it changes. You hope it’s a weird phase or something.

Keigo texts you and invites - demands - you over (his excuse is that with the hero conference coming up soon many of the smaller heroes are taking care of villains and giving him more time off) and honestly, if you’re really gonna try to stop talking to him as much, this could be your goodbye or whatever. Also, he mentioned wine, and you need to get drunk. Like, “give me an entire bottle so I can cope with the idea of falling for you because I know that you don’t feel the same and I am simply trying to ride out the rest of this “relationship” so I don’t ruin our dynamic and chemistry while we’re being watched by literally the entire world” drunk.

Yeah. It’s been a rough few weeks.

Every time you go to Keigo’s apartment it reminds you of just how broke you are, but you suppose the apartment itself is fitting. It’s definitely modern, but it holds the clutter of Keigo’s personality - blankets strung everywhere, LED lights, a poster of Endeavor hung up in his closet (but you’re sworn to secrecy about that, you pinky promised). When you knock on his door he doesn’t answer, and it’s a good minute and a half before you get a text that says “it’s open, come in” and you sigh, because again, why him?

He’s sitting on the couch, and when he sees you he smiles like he didn’t just refuse to open the door because he’s too lazy. “Well, if it isn’t the love of my life,” he says, and for a second you can fool yourself into believing it’s genuine.

“I’m just here for the wine, dude,” you tease, and he mocks offense at your words.

“Ouch. Mid-relationship rejection.”

Nonetheless, Keigo gets the wine himself (selective little shit) and two glasses, pours each of you one. It isn’t long before you’ve had at least three glasses but no more than five, and you’re maybe, perhaps, a little drunk.

Keigo is, too, so you’re not really alone, but he’s talking about something Endeavor did like he’s the greatest hero in the world. It makes you smile, just a bit, but then again, you’re usually sentimental when you’re drunk, so maybe it’s just that. Or maybe it’s because you like him. It doesn’t really matter now.

“Hey, Kei,” you murmur when he’s done with his story. He hums, takes another sip out of his glass. “What happens when this is over?”

You look at your feet, scrunching up your toes inside your socks so you have something to look at. Then your eyes move up more, to the top of his coffee table, and then finally they land on him, and he looks gorgeous. He always does.

Keigo blinks once, twice, then shrugs, goes back to his wine. “Dunno. I hope we’re still friends, though,” he says.

“Friends? You want to be friends?”

You’re drunk. You should go to sleep, or go home, or something. Talking is not something you should be doing.

“What?” Keigo asks, but more like he didn’t hear you rather than he didn’t understand, so you take your chance, even through your hazed mind.

“Nothing,” you say, swirling the wine in your glass. “Forget about it.”

And it seems like he does, because when you wake up on his couch the next morning with a killer headache and he stumbles out of his room with a groan he doesn’t mention anything about it even when he talks about everything else.

Keigo texts you a few days later, a picture of him posing with another wine bottle.

keigo baby 🐦

round 2??

The picture is cute. He’s smiling, all lips and curves and blonde hair and tan skin. He’s dressed in sweats, you can see, but he still looks like a model. It makes your heart sink and fly at the same time.

y/n

can’t, sorry. have to stay late at angel cakes. i’ll see u at the hero conference tho

He doesn’t text you for a while after that.

The conference comes quick, and before you know it you’re in another hotel suite, getting makeup done. It doesn’t take as much dressing up - your dress is shorter this time, less formal, your makeup less extravagant. You don’t feel nervous, not like last time, but you don’t necessarily feel comfortable either. Your makeup artist is different this time.

It takes a considerably less amount of time for you to get ready, and you stare at yourself in the mirror before it’s time to go. Your dress is beautiful - blue, royal, deep and light at the same time and gorgeous. Simple, too, nothing too out there. When you step out of the hotel room you notice Keigo’s still in his hero costume, but you suppose he has to be. You don’t match with him like you did last time.

There’s no banter, no teasing, no compliments. The ride to the venue is quiet. Keigo sends you a look at one point - a “tell me what’s wrong” look - but you only shrug, offer him the best smile you can, which apparently isn’t convincing, because he frowns when he sees it. You wish he wouldn’t frown so much.

The conference is short, but maybe you’re just distracted. An usher walks you to your seat at a VIP table and it seems like you sit down and then it ends. You clap for Keigo, smile like you’re endlessly proud of him - and you are, even if it doesn’t show that well tonight - and watch him make a scene becuase that’s what he does. He winks at you at one point during the night, while he’s talking into the microphone, and you know it’s for the publicity. The conference ends significantly earlier than the awards show, however, so you don’t have to stay in the suite for the night.

The ride back to the suite seems shorter than the ride to the venue and it takes you maybe twenty minutes to wipe the makeup off of your face and take off your dress. You walk across the hall to Keigo’s room, knock on the door. He answers.

“Okay, I’m gonna head out, I’m feelin’ kinda tired,” you tell him with a small smile. “Just wanted to say bye.”

“Let me walk you home,” he says instead, and your brain yells at you no!

“No, it’s fine, Kei -”

“Please. I want to.”

He’s never said that before, and a part of you knows you wouldn’t be able to say no to him even if he hadn’t, so you nod and let him follow you out of the hotel and to your apartment. The walk is silent and it makes you feel uneasy but you can’t really do anything about it, not with what you’re trying to do, so nothing happens until you reach your apartment.

You know where this is going, even if you don’t want to, so you take a deep breath, hold the door open for him so Keigo can come inside. He looks at you weirdly for a moment but then enters your apartment, standing in the junction of your entryway and living room like he’s uncomfortable. You let him, then walk to the kitchen for something to drink.

“What’s wrong with you?” You ask, eyeing him suspiciously.

Keigo scoffs. “Shouldn’t that be my line?”

You know he noticed - it’s impossible not to, but you didn’t think… you didn’t think he’d call you out on it. Your pause is evident, but you pretend like it didn’t happen at all. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say.

“Yeah? Wanna rethink that, sweetheart?”

The almost-malice in his tone when he says your usual pet name startles you, and when you look up at Keigo it seems like it startled him, too, doe-eyed and looking at you. You shake your head, walking out of the kitchen and into the living room behind him to throw your things down, try to pass the message to him that this is not good. “You’re wrong,” you say.

“I’m not - I’m not wrong, Y/N,” he says, turning around to look at you. “Every time I see you it seems like you’re pushing me away, like you’re not here, and I don’t know if I did something, but I -” he pauses, runs a gloved hand over his face and you want to tell him that it’s not his fault, but that would lead to you telling him everything, and you can’t. “I miss you.”

His voice is broken. When you speak again, your voice sounds like his, but somehow worse. Smaller. “You’re wrong,” you insist. You know he’s not.

“I’m not,” he pushes back. “I’d like to think that in the months we’ve been -”

He stops himself, and you take your opportunity. “That we’ve been what? Dating? We’re not dating, Keigo, we both signed a fucking contract to benefit your public image! This is nothing!”

You have no idea what you’re doing. It’s not nothing. It will never be nothing.

“You think this is nothing?”

“Look me in the eye and tell me that you know for sure we’ll still be friends when this is over.”

He can’t, and he won’t. You’re trying really hard not to cry, but it hurts to fight with him like this, and it hurts that you think you’re falling in love with him, and it hurts that if you tell him it’ll ruin everything and it hurts, so a few tears slip out anyways.

“Y/N,” Keigo says, and his voice is so soft. You want to melt into him, but you shy away when he reaches for you. “Please just tell me -”

“I can’t do this anymore,” you choke out. “I can’t - I’m - I’m calling it. I’ll send my lawyer if you need anything but I just…”

You can’t even look at him. Has he always been so far away?

“Get out, Keigo.”

It sounds so cold, so unfamiliar, coming from your mouth and you half expect another person to have said it entirely. This isn’t you, this isn’t how you and Keigo act, this isn’t… this isn’t it. There’s a pause, like he’s waiting for something, but then you hear him sigh - practically feel him deflate, and then he walks out of your apartment, door shutting quietly behind him.

It’s so quiet when he’s gone.

You take a deep breath, walk back to your bedroom, curl into yourself on the bed, and cry in the blue light of the sky left behind by the sun.

#GUYS I LOVE ANGST I HOPE I HYPED THIS UP ENOUGH #AHHHHHHH #bnha x reader #mha x reader #boku no hero academia x reader #my hero academia x reader #boku no hero academia imagine #my hero academia imagine #keigo takami x reader #takami keigo x reader #hawks x reader #bnha hawks x reader #hawks bnha x reader #keigo takami imagine #x reader #reader insert #imagine #tcoy #the color of you

346 notes · View notes

princess-from-another-galaxy · 3 years

Note

I know Lucas' rumours have been quiet and I've been neutral to everything. I recently saw a user here named, i2od, now accusing him of abuse and S.A. threatening more information. I think you should check the page out. What do you think of this? As neutral as I am, I'm not going to lie, I waver a bit sometimes. Abuse and S.A are heavy accusations, yet can be weaponized easily on such a platform. Also I don't understand if the allegations are true why not report in real life? Why online anonymous? I understand it takes a lot to come forward but going online does not help if finally open and ready to have someone held accountable for such trauma. Authority should handle that, not the web. I've been quiet since the scandal began but after seeing a new one pop up, it's getting exhausting at this point. I don't know what to believe anymore. I will say though the consistent anonymity seems like a red flag. From my observation in many credible scandals in the past, victims/accusers always identify themselves. Not one in Lucas' has been identified from what I've seen.

Hi, anon!! I understand not wanting to pick a side in cases like this, I really do!! But yeah, anonymity plus the fact that no real life case has been filled are major red flags.

On which one you should believe?? Bestie, that's kinda of a you thing to decide 😅. However I'll give you 2 articles that just came out that show that he's innocent (or you check out the Google drive link I posted earlier with evidence of you want).

I can't tell you who to believe, but I can show you the information I have and hope you make a choice that you're comfortable with 😊.

(I will check out that user, but I doubt they'll change my mind)

#kpop #nct #wayv #superm #lucas wong #xuxi #yukhei #sm town #sm entertainment #label v #nctizens

3 notes · View notes

iblameashley · 3 years

Text

Shoker - Day 1

Part One of my MShep|Joker fan fic. It takes place at the end of Mass Effect 2 as the Normandy FTL’s out of Collector Space.

Six days and nine hours; that was how long it was going to take to FTL back to the nearest Mass Relay. The collector base was destroyed and most of the crew had made it out safely. John exit the lift and looked around the empty CIC. He had opted for slapping some Medi-gel on the worst of his injuries and letting Dr. Chakwas handle the traumatized crew. Tali and Kaiden were assisting, Garrus was likely working on the weapons systems, and the rest of his squad was nowhere to be found. Likely handling ship repairs on their own. It was quiet, and made the ship feel hollow and cold.

As he made his way towards the bridge, he took note of the damage, of which there was plenty. Systems were beginning to shut down, consoles had been destroyed and the lights flickered.

EDI and Joker were talking as he entered the bridge.

“My apologies, Joker.” EDI said in her synthetic voice.

“For what?” Joker replied.

John looked around but didn’t see Joker immediately. He wasn’t at his station. Finally, John saw a pair a legs jutting out from under a console.

“Cerberus was able to initiate self-destruct protocols on several systems before I was able to disconnect from them.” She replied. John noted there was a genuine hint of remorse in her voice.

“No worries, EDI. They panicked when they learned you were unshackled, they tried to take back control and when they failed, they hit the ‘end it all’ button.” He shuffled under the console. “I’m just glad you were able to stop them from before they hit any major system. Shepard would have been pissed if we blew up just after kicking the Collectors’ asses.”

“Damn right.” John interrupted.

Joker jolted, smacking his head on the underside of the console. “Fuck.” He shouted.

John gave a half smile. He knelt down to get a better look at what his pilot.

“You OK?”

“Fine, Commander.”

“What are you doing?”

“I have been getting EDI to scan the ship for Cerberus system-raze devices. She detected one in the bulkhead here. It seems to have damaged our communications systems.”

“Guess they didn’t want us calling anyone for help.” John mused. He joined joker under the console.

“Pass the pliers?” Joker held out a hand.

John grabbed the pliers and passed them over. He watched as Joker worked at the device.

“When did you learn to do this?” John inquired.

“Disabling terrorist sabotage devices? What, you missed that class at the academy?” replied with his usual sarcasm. He glanced over at John who was just smirking. “I kinda felt like I needed to learn all the skills I could…” He continued. “To, make up for…”

John propped himself up on his elbow. His head nearly grazing the underside of the console. “Your medical condition?” John questioned.

“Is this really time for pillow-talk?” Joker remarked.

“Are you mad I mentioned it? Or are you mad I forgot the pillows?” John shot back.

Joker felt his heart skip a beat, and his face became hot. He wasn’t prepared for that remark.

“Well, if you cared so much about my condition, the least you could do is bring me a pillow.” Joker mumbled.

“Joker, I’m sorry.” The smirk on Johns face was replaced by a neutral-but-serious look.

“For what?” Joker looked over at him confused.

“When we first met, I was an ass to you about your Condition. It was inappropriate and unprofessional of me.” He pursed his lips, and then continued. “Truth is, you really are the best damn pilot in the fleet, and I’m proud to serve with you.”

Commander John-fucking-Shepard was proud to serve with him? Jokers thought. Him? For the first time in his life he had no witty or sarcastic remark.

“I won’t lie; it was inappropriate and unprofessional.” It came out harsher than intended. “I forgave you a long time ago, Commander. If I hadn’t, why would I have joined you on this mission?”

“Thanks.” There was still a hint of sadness in Johns voice.

Joker finished snipping the last of the wires, gripped the round device with both hands, and pulled as hard as he could. There was a high-pitched sound of metal on metal before the razing device was dislodged. Joker tossed it to the side and made some quick repairs.

“That should do it.” He said. “Mind resetting the system, Commander?”

John was still watching him from his perched position.

“What do you need me to do?”

“Top of the console, far right. There is a master reset, I need you to flip the switch.”

John slid out from under the console and rested on his knees. He looked the console over and found the reset. “Excuse me, Joker.” He said as he straddled the pilot.

Jokers face became hotter. He was getting a good look at the Commanders abs as his tank top lifted up from under his pants. The little trail of hair. He closed his eyes.

Think of something else. Elcore, they’re not sexy. Well, maybe the are to someone, but not me. He thought to himself.

John flipped some buttons before opening the cover to the master reset. He typed in his command access codes and hit the button. The few lights that had lit up the console went dark. There was a pause, and then Shepard began to worry.

Suddenly the console lit up and the holographics came back online. A self-diagnostic kicked in and a moment later the system report popped up.

John continued to straddle Joker as he tapped away at the interface.

“Looks like the long-range communications are down; Cerberus was able to fry them before EDI shut them down. We have short-range, but that doesn’t do us any good until were in, what, ten light years?” He commented.

“Twelve if we’re lucky.” Joker replied. “Hey, Commander, do you mind?” Without thinking, Joker tapped John’s thigh twice.

John looked down. “Sorry.” He said.

He pulled himself to his feet and stepped aside.

“I guess you and EDI are doing fine up here. Since you already have her scanning for more Cerberus devices, I want you to compile a list of what you find. Since most of the crew are in various states of trauma, I’d appreciate a damage report on all systems too. Bring it to my quarters when you’re done.”

“Aye, Commander.”

John began to walk out of the bridge, not noticing Joker struggling.

“Uh, Commander?” Joker called out.

John stopped and turned around.

“Yeah?”

“This is embarrassing, but,” Joker sucked in a deep breath, and shoved his embarrassment as far down as he could. “I can’t get up. I need some help.”

His face was red with anger now. He hated asking for help, but he hated asking the Commander even more.

Without a word, John leaned down and grabbed Joker by the legs – gently, of course – and pulled him slowly out from under the console. “Put your arm around my shoulder.” He ordered.

Joker complied and John slipped an arm around Jokers back, resting his hand on the man’s waist, and – again, gently – pulled him to his feet. Both men winced in pain, shocking Joker.

“Are you OK, Commander?” He inquired.

“Nothing major. Just had a ceiling fall on me in the collector base.”

“Typical day in the life of Commander Shepard.” Joker smiled.

Joker realized he still had his arm around Shepard, and Shepard was still gripping his waist. He cleared his throat.

“I think I’m good now, Commander.”

Shepard slowly removed his hand, and backed away. He eyes Joker to ensure he had his balance. Dr. Chakwas was already busy tending to the rest of the crew, and Joker really didn’t need to break his legs, or worse, his back.

“Get on those reports.” He ordered.

Shepard turned around and walked back towards the CIC. Joker watched him the whole way. Those shoulders, that ass. Joker swallowed hard.

“Well, fuck.” He grunted.

“Is something wrong, Jeff?” EDI inquired.

“Promise me you can keep a secret?” Joker stared at her holographic image. There was no way to tell what she was thinking or feeling, she was just an orb of light.

“Of course, Jeff.”

She sounded sincere.

“EDI, I think I’m falling for the Commander.”

“I don’t understand, Jeff. What do you mean falling for?”

“I think I’m falling in love with him.”

“Jeff, you’ve been in love with him since we left the dockyard.”

“No I haven’t!” Joker yelled.

“Would you like me to list the physiological changes I have noticed in you when the Commander is present?”

“I would not.” He remarked snidely. He made his way back to his station and plopped down in the chair. “Now let’s get to work on those reports.”

“Of course, Jeff.”

#MShep #Male Shepard #Joker #Jeff Moreau #Mass Effect #FanFic #Gay #Gay Romance #Romance #Mass Effect 2 #Scifi #Bioware

15 notes · View notes

phoenotopia · 4 years

Text

2020 July Update

Things have gone slowly... again.

The good news is that the game is now submitted to the console "authority" and it's entirely off my hands. Once it gets through the console "checking" process, it can get a release date and we can sprint towards release. Until then, it'd be at least a month's wait or more until I hear anything. Understandably, their checking process is impacted by Corona, so wait times are increased.

On my end, I was also slow to submit the game. I submitted it late late June, since I ended up spending 7 weeks fixing bugs (and not 2-3 weeks like I estimated in the last blog post). There were just SO many bugs - now squished, thankfully. Since this is a blog post, I'll talk about what kind of bugs I've been fixing.

The other thing that slowed down the submission process was simply due to unfamiliarity with how these submissions proceed. There were pages and pages of stuff to read, guidelines to follow, and legalese to wade through. It really made me wish I had a publisher to guide me through the process. But I was able to clear it with a couple days work. I had an impression that the submission process went like A->B->C->D, with no room for concurrency. Turns out I could have done steps B & C at the same time and sped things up by 2 weeks... So that's that. I'm taking that as a lesson for next time.

The Console Revealed

What is this console that I talk about so stealthily? So that this blog update isn't completely unexciting, I'll reveal which console I've been working on until now. Drumroll please!

It's Switch!

We actually got the Switch dev kit in late 2017. From my understanding, around this time in the USA, the Switch kit was quite hard to get for indies as it was just starting out and high in demand. So I was surprised that my application got approved. I didn't know it then, but the game would still need a few more years of development...

Tweaking performance and fixing bugs

Here you can see my "expert" playtest setup. Since the Switch is more powerful while docked, I needed to playtest it in handheld mode, so I could catch and profile any problem areas where the framerate was unsteady. The most common thing that caused framerate drops were areas that went overboard with lighting. For these areas, I'd tweak or swap out the lights with alternatives that looked similar while also being less computationally intensive. Maintaining 60 FPS is a must!

An old camera (Nikon D3100) trained at the screen recorded my playthrough and would let me rewind to any moment a bug occurred. It could only record in 10 minute chunks, so I'd have to repeatedly repress the record button. On the plus side, because it's so old the movie file sizes were small and convenient.

The number one bug that I tracked and fixed in the past two months was what I dub the "Gear Ring De-equip" bug. The Gear Ring functions as customizable shortcut keys for the player to map items and tools (see an old video demonstration HERE). Through regular use of the inventory, somehow the equipped items on the Gear Ring would be de-equipped. It was an elusive bug since the de-equip event would happen very quietly and you would only suspect something had gone wrong much later. By then, the trail had gone cold and you weren't sure if a de-equip had actually occurred or if the player had simply de-equipped the item themselves. Two other playtesters noted that something left the Gear Ring in their playthrough, but I dismissed them. "Are you sure you didn't just de-equip it yourself?" It was a bug that bred mistrust and discord. I didn't truly believe it until it happened to me...

Luckily, with the camera setup, I was finally able to track it. In the literal 67th video, I caught a live instance of the bug occurring. After which, it was all too easy to recreate the exact same inventory and gear ring setup and replicate it.

(With this exact item layout, combine the 2nd item with the 14th item... and viola! Gear Ring de-equip!)

After fixing this bug, I then proceeded to fix it 5 more times. Every time I fixed it, it would later reappear through a different mechanism.

Why do bugs like this happen? Underneath, there are two lists of items. Tools on the right and items on the left. Items can occur multiple times because they're consumable. Both lists start counting their indexes with the value 0. However, both items and tools co-exist on the gear ring. So to uniquely identify an entry you need both the item ID and the data index. Failure to check both data types resulted in bugs like the Gear Ring de-equip. Now throw in a bunch of item operations that can confuse the system. You can split items, combine items, swap items, or discard items. The more freedom you allow, the more ways there are for the system to trip up.

If you didn't get all that, that's alright. It was needlessly complicated. Imagine doing more and better and with less code and less bugs! Such a thing is possible if you start with the right design. I'm definitely taking notes here on how to design inventory systems for next time. In the meanwhile, I'm very confident I've squished all inventory related bugs.

Other bugs squashed and features implemented in the past 2 months include the end game arts not unlocking properly, collection percentages climbing beyond 100, stray doors floating in the sky, low HP sfx blaring when loading different files, balance tweaks on bosses, a max HP display when the menu is open - too many to count really! It was only after I fixed them all that I was confident enough to move forward with submitting the game. I apologize for the delay this will cause!

PC version back in progress

You may recall in the March 2020 update I talk about how in pursuing the Switch version, I unwittingly ruined the PC version. Well, since the game is "done" now and I'm waiting for it to go through the checking process, I've started working to reclaim the PC version.

And there is some good news to report. The PC version can compile again! Of course, it will need to have some work done, since it was late 2017 when I last had a functioning PC build.

The opening menu is broken, the underlying save file system needs to be updated, and the controls... oh Lord, the controls. Controls were probably the #1 factor in pushing me to pursue a console version first. There are just so many controller options. Even just the usual suspects are numerous: Xbox, Nintendo, Sony, Logitech, Hori, 8Bitdo, Steam...

One of the number one complaints received regarding the flash game (which was keyboard primarily) was that I didn't allow controller rebinding to start. It was then that I learned of the vast array of different keyboard types.

(Ever heard of an Azerty keyboard?)

I shan't make the same mistake twice! One of the things I'll definitely tackle is the Right/Left face button feud when it comes to which should one should be 'confirm' and which one is 'cancel'. I want to allow the player to choose which is their "YES" and "NO" preference and allow that to overlap other actions like Attack or Jump.

Even after control bindings are taken care of, some things just won't translate well. The right control stick is currently used to access the gear ring and for fishing. Keyboards have no right stick. Aiming the crossbow with a full 360 degrees of range is done with the left control stick - if keyboard only, would the crossbow simply be locked to the 8 cardinal directions? What about those tutorial prompts with button graphics (e.g. "Press 'B' to Jump"). If using the playstation controller, it'd need to be the CROSS symbol. How many button graphics are we gonna load into the text module? What if the player, mid-playthrough, decides to swap out controllers? Indeed, there are many issues to tackle where controls are concerned...

Perhaps I'm overthinking it because even some AAA games get this wrong (Dark Souls has 'B' as 'Yes' on Switch, and it's not remappable, which I find quite annoying). I've seen games on consoles where the controls wouldn't mention the console's controller at all but instead mention a mouse and keyboard. Or, if you remapped the controls, the tutorial prompts still showed the old control bindings, making for a confusing experience. I definitely want to do the controls justice, so this will take some time.

Phoenotopia DISCORD Channels

Ryan and Firana have been running a Phoenotopia discord since late 2017, which I promoted on this blog once. It's been a couple years and it turns out that the old discord link I promoted expired. It's long overdue, but their channel could use another shoutout. Here's their channel : https://discord.gg/cnjrYST

Also, Khalid recently reached out to me about creating a Phoenotopia discord as well. I see no reason why we can't have 2 or more discords, so he has created that one with my blessing as well. You can find his discord here : https://discord.gg/cfnsCwy

I personally don't use Discords, since I'm very busy and there's too much new tech to keep up with. I hear there's a Tik Tok now? Should I create a Tik Tok for Phoenotopia? Hmmm...

Anyway, if you'd like to chat with other people who are similarly enthused for Phoenotopia, do check them out!

Fan Arts

We have five new fanart submissions this time around from regulars and new alike.

Cody G. returns with this pair of sketches of Gail. One seeks to answer the question, "how is Gail so strong?" Cody's answer is that under her sleeves she's actually really buff! This might be the most ripped rendition of Gail yet. Also, in the right drawing, the letter 'E' kinda melds with her bat, making it look like a keyblade!

What if Gale was a Shrek character? A new artist, Samu Kajin, from tumblr answers that question with a rendition of Gail sporting ogre style antennae. Samu Kajin says she can be called "Gaek" or "Shrale". I like the poncho!

Shafiyahh returns with a pretty portrait of Gail. Unlike their previous digital pieces, this one was made with color pencils! I like how her hair blends pink and purple colors together, and this pattern is also present in the eyes. Reminds me of a certain character. And the eyes are so sparkly despite using color pencils! Major props!

Negativus Core also returns with this relevant image of Gail, masked and running, presumably from Corona. It gave me quite a chuckle! I like the angle and tilt of this run pose because you can see the sole of her foot - that's how you know she's at full sprint! A skillful blur localized to her left foot show's just the right amount of motion. Gotta love the robot's expression too!

A rare 3D art has emerged. Dany Q crafted this adorable figure of Gail that is as cute as a button! I like how well it translates the pixel character over to 3D, capturing the 3 stitches on her shirt and even catching her stray strand of hair. It kinda reminds me of a Wallace and Gromit character, so I can picture it moving and animating in that unique claymation style.

Next Time

I'm ~80% confident we can clear the Switch console checking process and drop the trailer with a release date before the next blog post. But once again, if things go slowly, you'll hear from us in 2 months...

57 notes · View notes

blazehedgehog · 3 years

Note

Sorry to ask this, but what are your thoughts on Dunky's "I'm Done Making Good Videos" with regards to content you aspire to author vs what the average joe actually searches for

I don’t know if I’m the best person to be asking this, really.

Let’s get fully inside baseball here. Let’s pull the curtain all the way back. Actually, let’s burn down the curtain. I’m going to overshare like hell right now. Get ready for the most stream-of-consciousness rambling ever, because a lot of this has been boiling in my head and dying to get out.

For the entirety of my Youtube channel, I’ve pretty much only ever done what I want to do. Very rarely do I chase trends, or do what’s hot, or even do what people want me to do. I do whatever I feel like doing.

I have paid the price for that. My Youtube channel is 15 years old as of this year, and only now am I slowly inching towards 25,000 subscribers. I am incredibly inconsistent. What’s my channel post? Well, a couple times a year, maybe I put together an edited essay/review for a game. But I also sometimes post random, unedited, uncommentated gameplay footage. Maybe it’s a fan game, maybe it’s a gameplay demo, maybe it’s Fortnite. Sometimes, I also post remastered video game music. Every Halloween, I dump a bunch of one-off horror Let’s Plays on to my channel. And then, there’s the podcast.

I know exactly what my problems are. I don’t specialize enough, and I don’t put content out fast enough. Because most Youtube channels are, like, “shows”, right. The Did You Know Gaming show. The Markiplier show. The Angry Video Game Nerd show. And you can point at those and say exactly what they are in two sentences or less.

Did You Know Gaming specializes in informative videos uncovering obscure facts you might not know about popular video games.

Markiplier is a Youtuber that does Let’s Play videos for video games, primarily horror games, but he also focuses on general comedy skits and things of that nature.

The Angry Video Game Nerd is about one guy’s over the top reactions to bad video games.

What does BlazeHedgehog do? Well, he does a lot of Sonic fan content, but sometimes he does horror let’s plays, and sometimes he does multiplayer compilation videos sort of like Criken, but he also does music, and sometimes he makes video games and puts out videos of that, and in general he’s really low energy and sometimes there will be three or four weeks between uploads. Also he sounds like Booger from Revenge of the Nerds Snot from Family Guy (apparently).

If you come to my channel for something specific, you have to put up with everything else I upload. I could start separate channels for that content, but the barrier to entry on Youtube is so massive now that I would effectively sending those channels to their death. Videos that get 200-500 views on my main channel would get 10 views or less if they were on their own self-contained alt-channel.

So I languish. I struggle. I suffer. Youtube shows me red down arrows to tell me just how much worse I’m doing now than my last flash-in-the-pan success.

I’ve tried to chase success. It just makes me sad. I have a sense of humor, but I don’t think I can make “funny videos” like some people can. My Sonic 06 glitch video did gangbusters ten years ago, but I don’t often like kicking games when they’re down. It was a struggle to make that Sonic Boom glitch montage and that’s the reason I never followed through with Part 2 like I said I would.

My only wish is that people appreciate honesty. My Youtube channel might be a scattered mess, but that’s who I am. And more than anything, I think that’s what Dunkey’s video was about. His whole joke was about switching from thoughtful or funny videos to becoming a content farm for whatever is currently popular.

I’ve brought it up a few times here and there over the last few months, but I’ve had several brushes with the Fortnite side of Youtube recently. And there are so many dudes over there who are what I would generously call “grifters.” I follow Hypex on Twitter and routinely check Firemonkey and ShiinaBR because they datamine future Fortnite updates and often have the scoop days, weeks or sometimes months in advance.

Near the end of season 3, all three of them mentioned they had datamined “the next season” but wouldn’t say what it was because they didn’t want to spoil what was coming (the marvel season). They mentioned there were “others out there” that were spoiling things, but wouldn’t say who. I wanted to spoil myself, so I turned to Youtube.

And Youtube was a nightmare. Over and over and over, I would encounter tons of people downright thriving on the same grift. It’s an open secret that Youtube prioritizes longer videos, so if your video is under ten minutes (or I think now 8 minutes), the algorithm isn’t going to be as nice to you and won’t promote your video as well, and you aren’t going to get as much advertising money because fewer people are going to sit through a video advertisement that’s a quarter of your video’s entire length. Longer videos are more profitable for Youtube, and by extension, for the user uploading them.

So it was video after video of these guys making big bold claims about how they had all the answers on what the next season of Fortnite was, and you’re thinking, “oh wow, it’s a 17 minute video, they’re going to spoil everything!”

You load the video up and it’s some guy in his streamer man cave, he’s got his webcam on, and he loads in to a match of Fortnite with his squad. Keep in mind, this video was pitched as a news report of sorts, a big spoiling of future content... and it’s just a guy playing Fortnite with a crew. In the few seconds between matches as he queues for the next one, he stops to deliver a single shred of information, most of which start with “Hypex said...”

The one thing you came to this video for and it’s scattered like breadcrumbs across a 17 minute video of a guy just playing normal matches Fortnite to fill time. It’s not information they acquired for themselves, they all just regurgitate what Hypex said, or what other channels reported Hypex saying. 17 minutes of padding for scraps of second-hand leaks. And I found dozens of these channels, all repeating the same format, all repeating the same specks of leaked information, and all of them had 150,000 to 200,000 views on each of their videos in less than 24 hours. That’s hundreds of dollars per video on a format to scam the system.

But that’s a content farm. Those dudes are vultures. I have a hard time believing their hearts are really in it. I know it’s not a term that’s really in vogue anymore, but I see that as “selling out.” They know what they are doing and it’s to make money, not to make a community better. I mean, one of those videos was a guy who was reading Marvel comic hero profiles off of Wikipedia because it sounded like he literally did not know who guys like Iron Man, Thor and Wolverine even were. How are you in touch enough with pop culture that you’re cranking out factory-fresh Fortnite content for Youtube but you don’t know who Thor is? Answer: because you don’t really care and you’re in it for the money. Gotta hit that 15 minute threshold and put in six mid-roll ad breaks.

I could be that guy. That’s kind of what I was hoping “This Kinda Sucks” would turn in to, which would be sort of a rant video series like The Jimquisition or something. But I did not have the interest or energy to keep that up. So you get a playlist with two videos on it.

I’m sure Dunkey was just funnin’ around. Dude has 6 million subscribers. But for me, like... what he said in the video is mostly true. Following your heart and making thoughtful content you are personally interested in won’t pay the bills. I mean, as I predicted, that Jurassic Park video launched to the sound of crickets chirping. My most hardcore fans and a few curious onlookers checked it out but that was it. I’ve been working on that video since August, and it’s something my viewer base did not care about. But I cared about it, and that’s important for the long-run, I think.

The other problem, sort of a disconnect, is that I’m lucky to be in the position I’m in. I think guys like Dunkey probably make all of their money from places like Youtube and Twitch and Patreon and that’s their career. That work pays all of their bills.

My work does not pay my bills. Or it does, but it’s not enough to pay all of my bills. I am lucky enough right now that I am in a living situation where I can make fractions of money in intermittent spurts. That won’t always be the case. But for now, I get to be honest, and I get to follow my heart in whatever random, chaotic direction it feels like going that particular day. Dunkey faces a different sort of pressure than I do.

All of this is to say I have no idea what I’m doing, I guess. I make the content I want to see.

That being said, I increasingly think about something I heard Woolie say early on when he went solo for his WoolieVS channel, and that was the idea of “One for you, one for me, one for us.”

Because I’ve had more than one friend burn out doing, like, Twitch streams and stuff. You hear about Youtubers who get sick of being shackled to new releases or whatever’s popular. At some point these people wake up and realize they’ve had this struggle, maybe made some money in the process, but they’re miserable because they don’t get to do what they want to do. They’re always being pushed forward by the fans that are behind them.

The “One for you, one for me, one for us” mantra does at least keep you a little more sane. Balance in all things, right? So that Jurassic Park video, it can flop. It’d be nice if it didn’t flop, given what time of the year it is, but it’s a video for me. I have other video ideas in the chamber that I know will be for my audience, or “for us.”

I just have to stay true to myself, and to my messy brain.

#questions #dunkey #youtube #inside baseball #behind the curtain #long posts #spilling my guts #Anonymous

14 notes · View notes

mariaiscrafting · 3 years

Text

Here’s what this sleep-deprived idiot who sucks at STEM got from Dream’s video:

- the problems with the mods’ stats that I could understand/pick up on from this very confusing video include: sampling bias (only using six of his streams and not all his speedrun streams, for some reason); stopping bias (only basing the statistics off of the trades in the videos, which stop when he gets ender pearls; to be more accurate, you need to run an experiment where trades are stopped randomly, not just when one gets ender pearls); the fact that odds were based off the existing streams of speedruns, disregarding that there are millions of other players who speedrun and don’t make videos

- luck isn’t enough to base a cheating accusation on

- I still don’t know if the mods actually found some problem with the code in the world files he uploaded that could suggest tampering

- fabric is a normal mod loader that most top speedrunners use. also, the mod file shows that dream didn’t have any other mod loading in via fabric

- I STILL DON’T KNOW IF THE LOOT TABLES WERE FUCKED WITH. WHY IS THIS SO DIFFICULT FOR ANYONE TO ADDRESS?? (I didn’t even think he had any fucking mods loaded in; that wasn’t the goddamn problem, the problem was whether or not he altered the rng himself with a plugin/other tamper-y method via code)

- my problems with the video include: a lot of his logic seems to be based on the argument that he simply could’ve been super lucky, and that we should simply accept that; he kinda brushes off the fact that the odds the expert came up with, though not as insane as 1/7.5 trillion, are still fucking insane and very unlikely (1 in 10 million); bringing up that there are 37 possible rng factors that one could tamper with when cheating, but only as a means of making him seem more reliable than the mods (who he frames as having picked a “random” number of things they couldn’t even list), and not even listing or going into those 37 things himself

- those 6 streams shouldn't account for too small a sample, imo. it only makes sense to use his last 6 streams, and plus, it wasn't like these were just 6 speedruns; each of these streams had hours worth of speed runs, making for a sizable sample. plus, you can clearly see a spike in his "luck" in those last 6 streams, when you take into account all of them, meaning that if he did cheat, he only started cheating for those last 6

- 25 minutes wasn’t enough for this response, considering that there were so many points (the 37 possible factors, the formula the mods used and his expert’s test with that formula, etc.) that he should’ve attributed more time to, even if the full report is available, too (since most people invested in this won’t bother to read or even be able to understand the report, but they probably will watch this vague, not nearly in-depth-enough video)

- some super manipulative things I noticed that dream tends to use in written and video arguments, including this one: making light jokes he knows his fans will focus on instead of the substance of the video, because that’s how mcyt fans’ attention spans work and he knows it; constant appeal to ethos by belittling the mods as a bunch of kids/volunteers vs. the framing of his evidence as coming from an astrophysicist with a phd; trying to act like he wasn’t super hurt by the things the mods said/the bias he perceived them to display, to establish a false stance of neutrality to viewers, then proceeding to rip into them

- my personal praise for this video: addressing that his past actions were immature, but human and should be understandable (with which I agree); putting in this immense amount of effort in such a short period of time to create a more than sufficient response; addressing that he actually did upload the world files on-time and that that information is now publicly-available

My conclusion: I feel like Dream’s personal argument, at the end of the day, boils down to his feeling pissed off at not being accepted for being able to get such insane luck and, thusly, achieve such a good speedrun. He’s exhibited in other videos and competitions that his egotistical and sensitive nature make it so that he truly does believe that luck is just on his side, and if something doesn’t go his way, it is not the universe’s fault, but rather, either a fault of his own or because of someone else’s hand. He claims he didn’t cheat, and frankly, I really want to believe that, but I’m simply not smart enough at statistics to weigh in on who I believe more; I’ll probably get a friend of mine who studies comp sci and engineering to give me his opinion before I truly decide. For now, based on what I understand and the gaping, wide holes in his argument, I'm going to believe that he cheated. I honestly just want him to apologize and move on at this point. At the end of the day, whether he cheated or not, I frankly don’t care. I’m still going to be obsessed with his content, still think he’s very, very good at Minecraft, and I still think he’s probably a bit of a prideful, resentful asshole, just as I am; I thought this before any of the cheating scandal arose, and I never cared because everyone is flawed and I’d long ago given up on holding any content creator up to an unjustified pedestal. The truth is, all they show us is a fraction of their true selves and lives, and that’s fine by me. I still laugh at Dream’s streams, I’m still obsessed with the Dream SMP, and I still have probably 50+ DNF compilation videos on my Watch Later list.

At the end of the day, whether you liked Dream before this or hated him, I suggest you do the same: simply stop caring so much. This is a speedrun in a fucking lego block game, for christ’s sake. If you like Dream, you like the character he is displaying for his audience; you'll never fucking know him as a person

#anyways #it was a good video overall i will say #dreamwastaken #dream #mcyt #lol hopefully i dont piss off too many people #dream discourse #discourse #unpopular opinions #mine #hopefully i dont piss off the stans too much oof

1 note · View note

curejunereblogs · 4 years

Text

An Extensive List of Phantom Thieves (怪盗)

but first the criteria:

The boundaries for what makes a thief a phantom and whether it's different from a gentleman thief are wobbly

We can't really just allow everyone who calls themselves "kaitou" to qualify, because there's Kaitou Sai from Nogami Neiro who is a serial killer which is A Very Bad Thing. most good examples of thieves have a "no kill" rule

If we set that they have to steal for Good Reasons, we cut off Kaitou Joker, who is very much a phantom thief, so we have to allow "thrill of the chase" as a valid-ish reason for stealing. no bonus points though, it just not instant disqualification

I found that "sends a calling card" is a good rule to stick to so I trimmed my original surprisingly long list based on whether I know for sure they send announcements or cards or letters or such. If you don't say "come and get me" to your target, you're pragmatic, a realist and also a coward

Which led me to a conclusion that to be a proper phantom thief, the main thing you should be after is the spotlight. You have to steal the show. Otherwise you're just a thief, maybe a gentleman, but not a phantom. Contrary to the name, you have to be seen. Good phantom thieves have a give-and-take relationship with their audience - they take the treasure, and give back a performance or some other form of entertainment (or purpose in life in some cases).

The following compilation doesn't include: books, hentai, eroge, BL, things where i couldn't translate the title into English, the ones that don't send calling cards(as far as i know) and in general a bunch of media i most definitely missed

Phantom Thief Hall of Fame:

- Kaito Kid(1987), Kaitou Saint Tail(1994) and Kaitou Joker(2007) are all brilliant examples of the genre, and if you don't know any of them, they all have a bunch of passionate fans each and they can all be googled really easily

- Joker and his gang from Persona 5(2017); i'm consiously placing him in the second/fourth place because even though he's really cool, very popular and is The phantom thief to a lot of people unfamiliar with the genre... he doesn't have a tophat (his persona is not enough)

- ... I'll just mention that Lupin the 3rd(1967) exists and go on

- and of course, Lupin III and about a quarter of all phantom thieves are in some way based on Arsène Lupin(1905) by Maurice Leblanc

- ex. there was a french-canadian cartoon about Lupin called Night Hood(1996)

- Cat's Eye(1981), cited as an inspiration for Saint Tail, is about a trio of sisters who steal stuff in order to get closer to their dad and it's epic

- Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne(1997), like Saint Tail, doubles as a magical girl series and is about magical stealing and the clothing is eastern and the manga swerves into weird territory in the end but it features one of the precious few phantom thief & phantom thief romances

- King of Bandits Jing(1995), while doesn't have the aesthetic, has the weirdness, the charm, the calling card (i think) and is generally cool enough to steal his place on the list whether he’s a phantom or not

- The Acrobat/Man of Twenty Faces(1990), also known as Akira Ijyuin; charming child somehow without most of the problems the CLAMP protagonists tend to suffer from

- Phantom R the titular Rhythm Thief(2012), a great example of a dancer show-off, has a dog

- The Black Rose from Ashita no Nadja(2003) is a tuxedo mask-esque character

- Kaitou Kiramekiman(2000) is a cool retrofuturistic-looking duo trying to save the world in a show that is tragically more about their police counterparts Doing Absolutely Nothing because the villains tend to be more popular in that franchise

- Pacricon(1999) takes place in a world where money has been cancelled(?), has a hella cool calling card

- Shadow Lady(1995)... well, there's a lot of fanservice - like, a lot, and it's tiring and i warned you - but there's also some genuinely funny twists like cancelling her heist on live tv just because she didn't feel like doing it. it also got very unceremoniously axed

- Kaitou Alexandrite(2006) owns/co-owns/frequents a bordel so there's some nsfw to be seen on occasion but it's tolerable and could be described as tasteful i guess. she stole someone's voice once. it also features one of the best identity reveals

- Chat Noir from Granblue Fantasy(2014) is a fighting unit; he has a "calling card" skill and i think that's beautiful

- Phantom Skye from Harvest Moon DS Cute(2005), a not-very-secret character, is an absolute cheese but it loops right back into being charming

- Kaito Rousseau(2006) for Nintendo DS, where a tiny thief boy is horrible at going unnoticed unless he disguises his face as whatever you draw on your ds screen

- Mask DeMasque from Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations(2004) is a thing?

- Sly Cooper(2002) is known as Kaitou Sly Cooper in Japan so he fits the bill

- PxP(2006), short manga about a girl thief in high school

- Sweet Kaitou Vanilla Moon(2010), pastry-themed phantom thief? hell yeah!

- Kaitou Reinya(2010), a short comedy that is not to be taken seriously but you might get a few chuckles from it and i don't regret giving it a second chance (warning: cartoonish animal abuse)

- Cat's Eye(s)(2010), a remake of the original tale of three sisters with different PoVs

- Kaitou Jack from Nishikida Keibu wa Dorobou ga Osuki(2013); it's a gag manga about a cute phantom thief boy and an old man detective that acts like a schoolgirl around that boy. ... I'm only mentioning it here because I like Jack's costume and "i'm-SO-done-with-this" faces and it's mostly intended to be funny. mostly.

- Kaitou Okami-Zoku Shonen(2013), a oneshot about a werewolf who eats people's hearts (metaphorically! through kisses) but is really stylish about it. Think P5 protagonist but alone and a werewolf

- Phantom Thief F's Scenario(2013) is a vocaloid song about a diamond heist on a luxury liner

- Kaitou Le Vin(2014) is about six people stealing wines and it's epic but they can't shut up about wine for one second

- Gaitou Alice(2015) is about a guy looking like Kaito Kuroba going into people's hearts to steal stuff before P5 made it cool. Features amazing artwork but kinda gross stuff closer to the end so it's kind of understandable why it got axed but it has a kind of weird charm to it

- Mystic Thief X from a mobile dating game Miss Detective's Undercover(2017) (i'm scraping for phantom thief content) is honestly excellent at his job. he might only be showing off for one person but damn it's romantic af and i love him

- Kaitou Shounen Jokers(2017) is a sequel to Kaitou Joker, and is directly about the previous protag's kid going to a phantom thief school (i have no hard evidence he sends calling cards but if he doesn’t take after dad i’m-)

- Kaitou Saint Tail girls!(2018), a sequel to Saint Tail, is very cute and has two new Saint Tails working together! i wish i knew more about it

- Kaitou Sentai Lupinranger VS Keisatsu Sentai Patranger(2018), live-action series that is a must-watch for anyone who loves phantom thieves because it's a masterpiece of a tv show; besides the three thieves it also features the best police officers in the genre (it kind of has to since they're protagonists too but boy does it deliver)

- Secret x Warrior Phantomirage(2019) is also a live action and it's all about girls stealing enchanted hearts! i actually don't know if they send cards but it feels right placing them after lupinrangers and they're definitely show-stealers

- Kilroy(2018) is a western comic about a guy who broke an unconventional mirror and has to do unconventional repairs

- Kaitou Kamaitachi(2018) has a cute reporter boy and a lot of butterflies

- Destined Memories(2019) is another mobile dating game, there are thieves (called the Crows) in victorian england and they send notices and it's way better at being a phantom thief story than an actual phantom thief story by this company that i'll maybe mention later if i get to compiling a list of thieves that don't send cards

- I really want to put Majo Kaitou Lip☆s(2019) in this category, I want her to send calling cards, but there's like two chapters out so there's still time. The artwork for this series is GORGEOUS and the idol imagery is amazing and i love it so much I just want her to be popular

i might've ignored some phantoms you may have heard about, but 50% i've checked and they don't send calling cards. If they do, additions are welcome!

#怪盗 #phantom thieves #kaitou #phantom thief #kaito #mysterious thief #phantom thief tag team #stuff i'm passionate about

44 notes · View notes

juju-on-that-yeet · 4 years

Note

I beg you ELABORATE BIGLY

*cracks knuckles* Hell yeah

Actual footage of me writing this all out:

To start off, I’ll say that the egos are technically all roughly the same age. They’re figments, not humans, so it’s all a little fuzzy. Some of them look younger and/or act more childish, but even then they’re physically/mentally 20ish at the youngest. But they’ve all technically only been alive for a few years at the most (except for Dark and Wil, who as we know are ALL sorts of fucky), so the age differences between them all mean a lot more proportionally. I’ve mentioned this in fics before, how even a few months age difference means a lot to figments because they haven’t been around very long in the first place.

(pls lordt let the readmore work)

But on the whole, the egos fall into three groups:

The Older/Oldest Ones/The Elders (or The OGs, as I kinda like calling them) consist of Dark, Wilford, King of the Squirrels, The Host, Dr. Iplier, Silver Shepherd, Google, Bim, and Ed Edgar. They’re the ones at the conference table in MarkiplierTV, because they’re the head honchos. Dark may be the boss with Wil as his right-hand man, but all the older egos have the respect of the younger ones. They’re on the whole more mature than the others, and when things get crazy, they’re the ones the others look to for guidance (some of them are even older brother/father figures to certain younger egos) (tho Dark and Bim each have a boyfriend among the younger ones, which got some side-eyes from their peers at first but everyone’s over it by now). They’re also the group with the most politics in it: Dark and Wil don’t respect Silver at all, for example, and half of them only trust Dark as far as they can throw him (except for Google, who actively hates him in addition to not trusting him). But they’ve been around since the beginning, since before Ego Inc. even existed, and remember what it was like to live apart from one another without a solid way of life or place to call home. Dark was the one who brought them all together (not without resistance, mainly from Host, then The Author), so as wary as the others are of Dark, they do all respect him with various levels of reluctance. They also know very well what it’s like to lose egos, to see them get forgotten by the fans and fade away, and they’re all a little desensitized to it. It usually takes them a while to warm up to new egos for this reason.

If you look at the birth dates of the egos (at least among the main ones + ones that are in my canon), there’s a couple big gaps between new ones cropping up. Not that none appeared, but that none appeared and survived. The first such gap comes after Ed Edgar was made, leaving a space of a year and a half where no egos had enough footing to stick around. This period finally ended when Yandereplier popped into existence and became the first real baby of the family. Even though Ed was previously the youngest, he wasn’t much younger than the next-youngest (Bim) and never felt like the baby, nor was he treated like one. But Yandere, between his appearance after such a drought of new egos and the fact that he was the first one to really look younger than the others, made the whole group collectively say “oh, he’s baby.” It didn’t last very long, though, because more egos showed up pretty soon after, and became…

The Middle Kids: Yandere, MarkBop, Bingiplier, Oliver, Plus, Chrome, Reporter Jim and Cameraman Jim. They’re not quite babies anymore; they’ve been around for a couple years or more and they’ve become savvy to how things work in Ego Inc. But they’re still much younger than the oldest ones, and are still less mature than them. Of the three groups, this one causes the most trouble by FAR (Yandere likes wrecking shit in the city and is constantly getting hurt, Bing picks fights with 3/4 of the Googles and Plus and Chrome pick fights with him in return, and the Jims are just constantly Up To Something™). They mostly see the older ones as authority figures, but they aren’t quite up in the politics that the older ones create (even Yandere, who gets away with everything thanks to having Dark and Wil wrapped around his finger, barely notices that fact most of the time). They haven’t seen as much death among the egos as the older ones have, but they’ve seen enough to make them a little cautious around newbies. The hardest hitting deaths for them were the first pair of Jims, Weatherman Jim and News-anchor Jim. Those two were unusual in that they lived for a good few months before they faded, which hadn’t really happened before. The newer Jims, RJ and CJ, ended up evoking the same “they’re baby” response that Yandere did for this reason (and the one place where my subconscious grouping was inaccurate was with the Jims, who I associated as being in the younger camp, when they’re really just the youngest middle kids).

After the Jims show up, it’s a little over a year before the next ego shows up, leading to…

The Youngest Ones/The Newbies/The Babies: Eric Derekson, Yancy, Illinois, and Captain Magnum. Granted, Eric is almost a year older than the Heist egos, but let’s be real, he’s still baby. These four are still finding their footing among the group, still figuring out who their friends are, still finding the limits of Dark’s patience. They know the written rules but not the unwritten ones, essentially. To them, the middle kids are a mixed bag of fun friends/intimidating authority figures (half the noobs are scared of Yandere, for example, and they’re all intimidated by Plus and Chrome, but they like the others pretty well for the most part). They listen to the older ones and follow their lead much more than the middle kids do, and are intimidated by pretty much all of them. At the same time, the softer-hearted among the older egos (Doc, Silver, Bim) baby them a LOT. They’re not spoiled rotten, but they sure are spoiled. On the flip side, though, they haven’t been exposed to the loss of egos like the others have. Eric’s only seen a few egos die, and the Heist egos haven’t seen any die at all. They’ll be the most optimistic and hopeful when new egos show up – and be the saddest and most horrified when new egos die.

But yeah, I kinda subconsciously had them organized like this and it’s always influenced how I write them, even though I only just recently realized it enough to put it into words. It’s pretty wild what your brain can come up with without even trying! I truly love this dynamic for them, and it’ll be cool to see how it changes as more egos crop up (we’ll see if E-boyiplier manages to survive his first month without being forgotten :3c)

This is already way too long but I did compile a list of the egos in age order with their birth dates for my own reference that I can post if y’all want it (plus their astrological signs because I’m that bitch) (side note @ Mark WHY are so many of your characters Scorpios??) (also idc what Eric said in his video, he was introduced on December 2 so he’s a Sagittarius and not a Libra and that’s that on that)

#kristin says stuff #ask #anon #markiplier #markiplier egos #i am NOT tagging all these mfs #but honestly i live for this shit #I LOVE MAKING UP LORE AND WORLDBUILDING MAN #ask me about this all day everyday #i'm always down to talk about it

12 notes · View notes

nightmare-grass · 5 years

Text

So I’m officially Spidersona trash

Here I have compiled the main characters, their abilities and personalities, and their relationships within the story I am currently working on and have been working on ever since the Spidersona movement of 2018.

1. My personal OC

- Name: Nora Weaver

- Age: 19

- Alias: Jumper

- Based on the Bold Jumping Spider

- Quirky, inventive, sneaky, caring, impatient, smart, and kinda egotistical

- Saw the Prowler fighting Prism on tv one time and thought, ‘hey, those rocket-boot things are pretty cool’

- Later on she made her own rocket boots for a college science fair (it’s a high school science fair, tbh, but colleges scout for talented students to give scholarships to), she promotes them as footwear for rescue efforts and stuff like that

- At this science fair another kid was doing experiments on spiders and one escaped and bit Nora, giving her spider powers

- Since Nora’s thing is mechanics, she got her more chemistry-inclined older sister to help make her web fluid

- Sister’s name is Amelia

- She eventually designed her own suit and was from then on known as Jumper

- Only her sister knows her true identity

- She has arachnophobia (coincidentally)

- She’s adopted and it turns out her biological father is Dr. Octopus

- Her birth mother is a woman named Mary Alice Anders (Otto and Mary split up in Otto’s tragic villain backstory)

- She gets scrap and parts from an auto body shop and the son of the guy who owns the shop is really cute and Nora has a crush on him. His name is Dominic Mazzetti.

- One humid summer day Nora drops down in an alley in her spider suit and peels the spandex off to sit at her waist, having been wearing a tank top underneath, in order to cool off. She realizes too late that she’s right next to the auto body shop when Dominic comes around the corner, looking to take a shortcut, and sees her. She webs him up, jumps onto the rooftop with him, and starts freaking out, but she makes him promise not to tell anyone her secret. From then on they work together more closely.

- Gwen Stacy is kind of the designated bully, seeing her as a rival for good grades, so she mockingly call her “Snora” since Nora falls asleep in class quite a bit due to her hero work

- Eventually Gwen and Nora become friends

- Nemesis: Doctor Octopus

- Recurring Villain: Screwball

“Alright, lets start at the beginning one last time. My name is Nora Weaver. I built some rocket boots, was bitten by a radioactive spider, and for the last year and a half I’ve been one of a few spider-themed heroes in my city. I call myself Jumper. I’m pretty sure you can figure out the rest. I saved some people, joined a spider hero team, graduated, started college, nearly dropped out, and now I’m in the process of saving the city again. By the way, I was in the middle of that. Catch ya later!”

2. Peter Parker Gender-bend

- Name: Penelope Parker

- Age: 18

- Alias: Ladybird

- Based on the Ladybug Mimic Spider

- She was the one with the spider science project

- when one of her spiders bit her, it momentarily distracted her and she let two more escape, one biting Nora, another biting Skylar

- Wears glasses

- When they get to community college Penelope meets Harry Osborn and after a while of being friends they start dating. This will not end well.

- Nemesis: Green Goblin

- Recurring Villain: Black Cat

“Alrighty then! I guess we can start at the beginning one more time. My name is Penelope Parker, and for the past year and a half I’ve been the hero known as Ladybird. I was experimenting with some spiders and radioactive elements when three of them got out and bit me and two of my now best friends, and so we decided to form a superhero team. I figure you know the rest; we saved the city, started college, I got an internship that ended up being a trap, my aunt May died, and now we’re trying to save the city again. Yeah, it hasn’t been great.”

“AGH, Harry is such a dreamboat!” Penelope twirled around gaily and flopped onto her bed with a sigh. “I don’t deserve him,” she murmured with a smile.

Nora rolled her eyes. “Of course you deserve him, Pen! In my eyes, you deserve the world,” Nora said matter-of-factly.

3. OC

- Name: Skylar Tran

- Age: 19

- Alias: Spider-Shine

- Based on the Mirror Spider

- Non-binary, they/them pronouns

- Black hair dyed blue

- Filipino

- Reflective/shiny skin (yes, like the Twilight vamps, get over it)

- Cocky, flamboyant, funny, millennial humor, depressed but doesn’t wanna show it, being a superhero gives them something to live for

- Has scars from depression on their arms

- Very much an anime fan

- Starts out as a “Hero for Hire” where they got paid for rescuing people but quit that as soon as they found out about Tombstone and how he scares the people of NYC into paying him so he doesn’t let worse things happen to them

- Nemesis: Tombstone

- Recurring Villain: The Tinkerer

4. Symbiotesona

- Name: Amber Herald

- Age: 31

- Alias: Prism

- Symbiote

- Bonded with Prism when she was 23 and working for the Life Foundation

- They’re lesbians, Harold.

- Prism’s thing is light refraction, so she can turn invisible

- She’s an established hero when the three newbies get bit

- Their origin story is kinda like the Venom movie except they don’t take down a big bad corporation or stop an alien invasion

- Prism is a forced spawn of Venom

- Life Foundation captured Venom to make more Symbiotes but Prism was one of the few Symbiotes that escaped with a host

- Dreamcasting Idina Menzel as Amber

- Nemesis: Any evil Symbiotes that happen to pop up.

- Recurring Villains: Prowler and Kraven the Hunter

Side Characters

1. Harry Osborn

- Son of Norman Osborn

- Has a degenerative disease that Norman tries to fix with experimental science

- Goes mad, becomes Green Goblin

- Before he’s the Goblin, he and Penelope start dating

2. Gwen Stacy

- daughter of Police Captain, George Stacy

- Gifted in biochemistry

- Wants to become a forensic scientist for the NYPD, following in the footsteps of her father but in her own way

- On weekends she is the drummer for MJ’s band

- Sees Nora and Penelope as her academic rivals and sometimes bullies them

- Loves music

- Is a lesbian and has a crush on MJ but she’s still in the closet

- If I ever want to make her into Spider-Gwen, I could kill off Amber and have Prism bond with Gwen

3. Mary Jane “MJ” Watson

- Intern/reporter for the Daily Bugle

- Sometimes self-absorbed, mostly self-assured and witty

- Has a band called The Mary Janes where she’s the lead singer and lead guitarist

- Keyboard player is Glory Grant

- Drummer is Gwen Stacy

- She’s bisexual and she has a crush on Gwen

- With her hot temper and Gwen’s bull headed stubbornness, they have quite a few disagreements

4. Felicia Hardy

- becomes Black Cat, an antihero

- Her dad used to develop tech for Oscorp when he was found “stealing” some of the tech he worked on and was laid off

- Her dad used the tech he’d developed to aid him in cat burglary because he couldn’t find a job and had to support he and his daughter but he was caught stealing from one of Kingpin’s businesses

- Felicia used her dad’s tech to steal enough money to pay for his bail but kept stealing afterward

- Takes up a Robin Hood-like role where she steals from rich assholes like Kingpin and Norman Osborn and gives back to the homeless of NYC

- She’s really quiet as a civilian, almost unnerving, but that’s because she spends all day coming up with cat-related quips and catchphrases to use when she goes out as Black Cat

5. Screwball

- I want to add more to her character, really dig deep and find the person behind the vlogger/criminal nut job

- Her crimes are just stunts and dangerous pranks on important figures

- She live-streams every crime

- Started off with a prank channel on YouTube but when she started drawing the attention of Jumper and the bunch for her dangerous stunts, her videos started to get more views, so she just scaled up her pranks to draw the attention of the heroes even more

- Expert Gymnast and Media Influencer

- Some of her fans are so rabid for her that they’ll commit murder at her slightest suggestion

9 notes · View notes

quicksilversquared · 5 years

Text

Keeping Up With the Ladyblog

A reporter has to adapt and improvise. It's an important skill to learn, especially when one is a reporter who is still in school and can't skip out to film all of the akuma battles without getting grounded. So Alya gets creative and starts using old security camera footage of akuma attacks. It keeps the Ladyblog active and maybe, just maybe, she'll finally get her scoop of a lifetime.

links in the reblog

Initially, setting up the Ladyblog and getting a devoted userbase had been a bit of an uphill battle. Even though Alya had gotten noticed right away with her footage from the first fight, that didn't guarantee her a permanent position as the best-known blog on Paris's superheroes. Not covering a few fights would mean that someone else could sneak in and steal her spot, so that meant that even if she missed a little school here and there (or had to drag her sisters along during a fight), it was worth it. She had to stay on top of all things Ladybug and right then, that meant getting the best coverage of as many fights as she could physically manage and writing up good, thought-provoking articles for when there was a slow day or two.

(Of course, there were other problems that she had to deal with as well. Alya had to put together a functioning site that was user-friendly, could handle the traffic that she was getting, and offered everything that anyone could possibly want from an official superhero blog, because there was no. way. Alya was going to lose traffic just because some other blog had one option or another that she didn't have or because her blog went down from traffic overload at a critical moment. There were some places that she drew the line- she didn't accept fanfiction of the superheroes, because they were real people and therefore it would be weird, and only appropriate art was allowed- but she had to add all sorts of options so that people who visited the Ladyblog would come back over and over again. It was a lot of work and all had to be done fairly quickly, which meant that her homework sometimes got pushed off until later than it should have.)

Alya didn't consider setting up the blog itself to be that big of a problem, though. Software could usually be battered into submission if she worked on it for long enough, and as long as she didn't try any system updates to the Ladyblog when a lot of people were using it, short outages were usually not a big deal. It was the content that was more of a problem, especially now that her parents (and teachers) were on her back about not skipping school just to film attacks.

She just had to get creative.

Originally, Alya had considered trying to use her fame from being the sole moderator of the Ladyblog to see if she could get a get-out-of-class-free card during the attacks. Her teachers could just check her blog to make sure that she wasn't abusing the pass, she figured, and it wasn't as though most of her classes would be that hard to make up. But it didn't take long before Alya realized that that was just a pipe dream. No teacher would just let her go whenever just so she could keep up a blog when there were professional reporters out there as well that could film the attacks just as well (though Alya would argue with that). Besides, she sometimes had to bike across town to try to get footage, and there were times when it took so long that Ladybug and Chat Noir were already done when she got there. Without any footage, it was a waste of her time.

She had to play it smart. She couldn't just take footage from news channels, but what if there was other footage out there, unseen by most of the public? The Ladyblog already used fan submissions. People took pictures and videos of the superheroes all the time, and most didn't have any interest in starting their own superhero blog but were willing enough to share their superhero content online. Alya always spent a chunk of time every day sorting through the submissions and organizing them by akuma for easy reference.

Still, that wasn't quite enough. Alya had to go above and beyond if she didn't want to be replaceable.

Asking Mr. Kubdel about getting security camera footage from the Louvre partway through the year was a stroke of pure genius on her part. Getting it was a combination of luck, her fame as the Ladyblogger, and the fact that she knew Alix.

"They don't have the best angles in the world," Alya told Nino three days after Mr. Kubdel agreed to her request. She had just gotten the footage from all of the security cameras for the time frames of the last few akuma attacks that had gone through the museum, and digging through the video to find clips of the actual fight was taking a while. Some parts she could just fast-forward through, since the superheroes didn't go into that particular room, but she couldn't go too fast or she could miss the superheroes flashing by. "But I can't really complain. No one has any video of any of these fights yet, so this is incredible."

"It was super-nice of Mr. Kubdel to agree to it," Nino said as he watched the video over her shoulder. "Are you- whoop, there goes Chat Noir."

"Am I what?" Alya asked as she marked down the time Chat Noir entered and when he exited. "Ooh, look, that's a cool akuma!"

"It is a pretty cool design," Nino agreed. "Are you going to ask other places if you can get security camera videos from them, too? Like, there's some places that seem to have a lot of akuma fights go through them. School, the Eiffel Tower, the Grand Paris-"

Alya's eyes lit up at the mention of the last place. "Ooh! D'you think I could wrangle some footage of Chloe as Antibug? I kind of want to see some footage of her getting her ass handed to her by Ladybug and Chat Noir."

Nino cringed slightly. "...yeah, I wouldn't phrase it like that when you ask Mr. Bourgeois about it if I were you. He might say no just because of it." He considered that for a second, then added, "Actually, come to think of it, a lot of the akuma that pop up at his hotel tend to be after Chloe, right? So maybe he would say no if most of the footage you get is of Chloe being tormented, no matter how funny you find it. And he's not going to have anything from inside of the guest rooms, just the hallways and dining areas and whatnot."

Alya sniffed. "I'd be professional and include as much of the fight as I could find. Any compilations of Chloe being pursued by angry akumas would be completely unofficial and only posted to an anonymous YouTube account. Which I would then share with you guys, of course."

Nino laughed.

"I think I could persuade him to help, though," Alya decided, going back to the Louvre videos. "He's nice enough when Chloe isn't pushing him around. I'd just have to ask when Chloe isn't there. Maybe I could ask Sabrina's father for help to get footage from other places." She squinted at the screen, then stopped the video for a moment. Nino looked over and saw that it had gone all blurry and pixilated.

He frowned. "Uh, what happened to it? Is the file corrupted?"

"I don't know. It's happened a couple times before on other files, once near the start of this fight and twice again near the end of the first fight I looked at. I don't know what causes it." Alya rewound a little so she could get the last good frame of the superheroes and record the time so she could cut it there. "And... I know I kind of gave up on exposing Ladybug and Chat Noir's identities on the Ladyblog, but I kind of thought that I might catch them detransforming on the security cams. I wasn't going to post that part online, of course, but still..."

"Maybe they're just really good at moving out of the area first," Nino suggested. "That's gotta be tough, actually. I never thought about it. But there's so many cameras in buildings like that nowadays that they have to be super-careful so they don't get seen by others or by cameras!"

"They're bound to slip up sometime," Alya grumbled, opening another file and starting to fast-forward through it. "I really hope I don't miss an attack when I'm working on this. Like, it's gonna be great for my blog to have this footage and all, but it's the live stuff that people like the most."

The first of the spliced-together security camera footage hit the Ladyblog almost a week after Alya got the first batch of raw video. There was an immediate spike of interest, though, as Alya complained to Nino as they waited for Adrien and Marinette to arrive to work on their group project, some people were whining about favoritism getting her the tapes.

"It was just because I asked first," Alya grumbled, scrolling through the comments. "Because I thought of it first. And- oh! I forgot to tell you! Mr. Bourgeois said yes, I just have to figure out the dates and times of old attacks myself and give them to his security people. And I talked to the principal too, and to Sabrina's father. Mr. Damocles said yes, and Sabrina's father said that he would ask his supervisor and also people at Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower about the security cameras at their individual sites." She was grinning now, momentary irritation gone. "It's gonna be a beast going through everything and getting my homework done, but it'll be worth it."

Nino frowned. "Are all of them gonna give you footage from past attacks? Some might discard video once a certain amount of time passes, or they might think that it's too much work to go back that far to get you the files."

Alya shrugged, face dropping slightly. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Still, going through the past stuff I do get plus new stuff is gonna be hard. At least spring break is coming up soon. Ish. Kinda. And then I can really plow through stuff once it's summer."

"You're gonna vanish into your room and never come out again," Nino joked. "You'll get all pale from lack of sun."

"I still gotta go out for livestreaming attacks," Alya reminded him. "And once I don't have homework to do, I don't think it'll take that long to mark and edit stuff. I can get through one per day for sure, maybe more. I can do it while I babysit my sisters, as long as they don't want to go anywhere."

Nino snorted. "Right, and the chances that they won't want to go out to the park or on a walk?" He shook his head at her. "But I can help with the timing stuff, so you can just focus on the splicing things together."

Alya grinned and leaned forward to press a kiss to his lips. "That would be great, Nino! Thank you so much!"

"You'll have to tell me how you want it done sometime before I start, but it really shouldn't be a problem," Nino assured her, grinning as he returned the kiss. "Though maybe we'll have time for you to show me before Adrien and Marinette arrive. Where are they, anyway?"

Alya just shrugged. "Who knows. I texted Marinette ten minutes ago to remind her we would be meeting, but no response yet. She might be in the middle of a project, and if she is, I don't wanna startle her. Last time I called her when she was busy sewing, she got started by her phone ringing and stabbed herself with a pin."

Nino cringed. "Ow. Yeah, I texted Adrien too, but no dice. No idea what he might be doing- oh, wait, here they come. Finally."

"And from the same direction too, hmm? Interesting!" Alya slid her laptop back into her bag and stood up, grinning as she watched Adrien and Marinette approach. "And neither of their houses are in that direction, either."

"We're here to study, not interrogate them," Nino reminded her. "Midterms, remember?"

"Oh, but come on-"

"You can interrogate them after, once we've gotten our studying done," Nino pointed out, grinning. "But I actually want to pass my classes, thank you very much."

There were times when Alya almost regretted starting to post the security camera footage. It was a lot to handle and process, and it ended up cutting into her article-writing time, which, well, she really liked writing those articles. It was one of the things that set the Ladyblog apart. But the old footage was popular, particularly when there was no good news coverage of the fight, and she could always prioritize which fights to edit together and which could maybe be set aside until she had more time.

It was after Alya was first tapped to become Rena Rouge when she realized how great of an idea it had been to start including the security footage from attacks on the Ladyblog. She couldn't cover her own fights- well, not that she was called for many of the akuma attacks, really- but she could still provide that footage, and it wasn't as though she had only started with that kind of footage after she became a superhero, so it wasn't going to raise any suspicion.

Well. Much suspicion, at least. There might be a few people who wondered why she could never cover Rena Rouge's fights, but there had been few enough of them so far that the pattern wouldn't be apparent. And if it continued- which, well, she hoped that it would- then she could always use her much improved video editing skills to "interview" Rena Rouge in person.

She was sure that Ladybug would let her borrow the Miraculous for a little extra time if she mentioned the need to throw people off of her trail. After all, Ladybug was very big on secrecy.

Most of the time, though, Alya loved her stroke of brilliance. It had been worth the security checks to make sure that she could be trusted with the security footage, and she had managed to shore up her views again. Future employers would see that she was focused and willing to put in the work, and well, she had gotten herself a fabulous reputation at the Louvre after she had spotted a shoplifter on the footage and let them know about it right away. It made her feel like a detective of sorts, discovering things that she wouldn't have otherwise.

And, well, summer was coming. Soon, she could get all caught up, and then Alya was sure that it wouldn't be quite so overwhelming.

"I figured it out!"

Nino glanced up at Alya as she slid into the empty spot at the table he was sitting at. From the other side of the table, Adrien and Marinette looked over at the reporter as well.

"What did you figure out?" Marinette asked, gaze immediately going to the tablet Alya was holding. She looked interested and inched closer. "Is it something to do with the Ladyblog?"

"It is!" Alya held up her tablet. "So you know how I've been putting together footage of the akuma fights from security cameras?"

Nino nodded. Both Adrien and Marinette looked puzzled. Alya groaned at them.

"Seriously? Have neither of you looked at the Ladyblog in weeks?! It's my big new thing!"

"I've been busy," they both claimed at once, before shooting each other startled looks. Alya narrowed her eyes at them both.

"Too busy to even glance at the Ladyblog once in a while, even now that school is almost out? Really?"

"I've glanced, but not looked into the archives at all," Marinette corrected herself. Then she frowned. "Wait, what do you mean, security camera footage?"

"Huh, I guess I must not have mentioned it to you before, either," Alya said, looking thoughtful. "Hm. Anyway, I've been contacting people at the Louvre and at the Eiffel Tower and Chloe's dad and Sabrina's dad and the principal to ask if I can get the raw security camera footage from the akuma fights that go through there, and they all said yes! So I've been going through that and splicing together stuff from different cameras to try to get as much of the fight covered as possible."

Now Adrien was frowning, too. "Really? They just happen to know which cameras Ladybug and Chat Noir have gone past?"

Now Nino snorted. "Of course not. They just basically give Alya all the footage from the cameras for the duration of the fight and she- well, we, I've been helping- have to go through and find which cameras Ladybug and Chat Noir went past and when."

For some reason, both Adrien and Marinette now looked deeply alarmed.

"Anyway, we've been noticing some weirdness on some of the clips," Alya told them. "It get corrupted for a bit, mostly near the start of the fight before the superheroes show up or after the akuma's been defeated but sometimes in the middle, too. I've been puzzling over it for the longest time, and I think I've finally figured it out!"

"Really?" Nino asked, interested and finally distracted from his strangely pale friends. "How?"

Alya grinned. "It was some comments on the Ladyblog that finally got me to notice the pattern. The corruption is either before Ladybug and Chat Noir show up or right after they vanish- or, in the middle of the fight, if one of them has to go recharge, then it happens then, too."

Nino blinked, then caught on. "So you're saying that somehow their magic is interfering with the cameras and protecting their secret identities?"

Alya pointed at him. "Exactly! I thought when I started all this that I might accidentally catch them transforming or see someone where they weren't meant to be, but their magic just means that they can't be caught on camera. It kind of makes me wonder if they always have that effect on cameras when they aren't transformed, or if it only pops up when they're about to transform or just detransformed."

Nino was so caught up in thinking about it that he completely missed Adrien and Marinette's identical sighs of relief as they both slumped in their seats. "It's gotta be the latter. Otherwise how would you explain people never getting a good picture of you, if it happened all the time?"

"Maybe Juleka is Ladybug, then," Marinette offered, giggling a little. "Remember, she was convinced that she had some sort of photo curse?"

"And now she's figured out how to manipulate the magic so that she can get normal photos again," Alya joked, sounding serious for a moment before she laughed. "Nah, she can't be, she was akumatized and fought Ladybug and Chat Noir. Remember that?"

Nino shuddered. "How could I forget? I was stuck in a skirt and high heels for ages!"

"I rocked the platforms," Adrien bragged. He grinned at Nino's raised eyebrow. "What? Sure, they were hard at first, but with a little practice..."

Nino just shook his head and groaned. "You would, dude. You must have been hidden, though. I couldn't find you after Reflecta left."

"Yeah, the outfit and the makeup would do that, probably," Adrien pointed out with a laugh. "I mostly decided to stay out of the way. And that fight didn't last that long. Ladybug and Chat Noir defeated her within an hour."

"Okay, fair."

"What would you do if you found something that told you who Ladybug or Chat Noir are?" Marinette asked, pulling the conversation back on track. "I mean, you can't see them transforming or detransforming, but if..."

Alya waved a hand. "Oh, I would destroy the footage as fast as possible. Hopefully I wouldn't recognize them-" though she wasn't certain about the probability of that, considering that Nino had been picked as a temporary superhero, too. What were the chances of that happening if Ladybug at least didn't know them to some extent? Unless of course it was a coincidence since she was the well-known Ladyblogger and Nino had already been out in the middle of the fight before Ladybug grabbed him- "and so it wouldn't matter if I saw them for two seconds."

Adrien looked astonished. "Really? I thought that was your dream, to figure out who they are! Not that I don't support the deleting thing," he added quickly. "That's probably safer for them. But what made you decide to change your mind?"

Well, she had become a superhero herself, for one. She had realized that she didn't really want the city to know her identity, because what if the akumas targeted her family and friends? And then Nino was a superhero, too, and what if people knew that and she became a target? She had figured that if she didn't want the city knowing her secret identity, she should probably extend the same courtesy to Ladybug and Chat Noir. And Heroes Day had proved that even superheroes knowing the secret identity of other superheroes wasn't necessarily safe. But instead of saying any of that, Alya just said "Well, I realized that it wouldn't be safe for them. And I figured that we should probably respect our superheroes' wishes since they've done so much for the city."

Adrien grinned. "That's very mature of you, Alya."

Alya just shrugged. Really, there had been so much more to it than she had let on. He was probably giving her too much credit, considering it had taken her being in the superheroes' shoes to realize what she had. "Yeah, well. I'll get a big scoop someday. I just refuse to have it at the superheroes' expense."

With the start of summer came more free time, and Alya attacked her backlog of footage with gusto. It was slowly shrinking as she and Nino dug into it with occasional help from Adrien or Marinette, deleting the superhero-less footage out and discarding it. It had become a bit of an obsession now that she had plenty of free time, and Alya had finally- finally!- figured out how to have several streams going at once on her screen and how to pause the others and switch to just one when there was footage that she wanted to watch more closely.

It made things go a lot faster, that was for sure. She was getting through a couple akuma attacks per day, and she finally had to start queuing things up so that the Ladyblog wouldn't get overwhelmed. One per day would be good, maybe two if they were short fights. Alya prioritized newer fights, too, knowing that the old ones were interesting but also old news. The newer fights generated more views and more interest, but it wouldn't be long before the next wave of akumas took over public interest.

Still, Alya loved having that old footage. She loved watching Ladybug and Chat Noir facing up against the akuma, and she loved seeing Ladybug's creativity when faced with a strange Lucky Charm. Their teamwork was so strong, and the way that they absorbed the occasional extra teammate and worked in those powers- yeah, it was pretty obvious why they had been chosen to be the city's main superheroes.

She was digging through her folders of akuma fight footage when she spotted a particularly large one. Alya frowned, puzzled- what, had the entire city been involved in the fight?- when she noticed the date. It was from Heroes Day.

"Oh yeah," Alya said eagerly, grinning as she clicked on the folder. This had been one of the battles that she really wanted footage for. All five superheroes at once in the boss battle? Yes please. All of the existing footage of the fight had been filled by possessed people, so it would be great to get literally anything else.

It was going to be difficult to piece together all of the bits of footage that were bound to be all over the city, but hey, it was summer and Alya could probably rope her friends into helping. And hey, if she could get Adrien roped in, he had several computer monitors. He could use all of them at once and have a ridiculous number of feeds going all at once. But Alya was impatient and wanted to get another look at the fight, so she flipped through the camera files until she found a set on the Eiffel Tower. They opened right before a fox-themed supervillain got there- and ugh, Alya immediately found herself annoyed. Another Volpina? Why were there so many people in Paris who seemed to have some sort of design on the Fox Miraculous?

Ugh. She was going to scour the footage to see if she could get a glance at this new Volpina's unakumatized identity. One Fox villain before Rena Rouge had showed up was one thing, but again? Nuh-uh.

Alya watched as once again, chaos descended on Paris. Volpina detransformed- uh, could Hawkmoth recall akumas? Then why had the baby akuma actually happened at all?- and revealed- uh, was that Lila? What was Lila doing in Paris? She had told the class that she was out of the country and wasn't going to be returning yet!

Okay, something was definitely up there. Maybe Marinette was on to something when she said that she didn't trust Lila. Especially when- they had talked to Lila on Heroes' Day, hadn't they? They had video chatted with her as a class. She had said that she was abroad, and it had looked like she was, too.

Strange. Alya was going to have to do some digging there for sure.

On-screen, the red butterflies descended on Paris. Alya winced as she remembered the terror that had reigned. They had been tricked by Volpina's illusions- and wait wait wait. Alya rewound the footage to when Lila detransformed and- oh, she looked disappointed when she was detransformed, as though she knew what she had been doing and had wanted to continue.

Even stranger. Also really, really concerning. Alya was going to put a hold on making any plans with Lila until she figured out what was going on there.

Alya continued watching. Red akumas found their mark, and Hawkmoth emerged, watching over the panic. Red bubbles bloomed into oversized akumas, and then... well, more chaos. There was screaming in the streets as people were turned into akumas and everyone else fled- well, there looked like there was screaming in the streets, at least. The cameras didn't pick up sound, which did take away from the experience, just a bit, but she could imagine what it would have sounded like.

The sheer amount of footage that Alya was getting from just the Eiffel Tower was astounding. She could only imagine how much she was going to get across the city, though the ice appearing now from the re-akumatized Frozer probably took at least a few of the feeds out. If she just played it all one camera at a time, it would be an insanely long video.

She might have to learn how to play several streams at once in a split screen. Hawkmoth would have to be shown at all times, Alya thought, and then she could do flashes of different akumas and also show the superheroes. They would fill the screen when they were doing an intense fight, maybe and-

Oh, Alya had so many ideas for the video already and she had only watched part of four streams so far. The number of akumas and the civilian resistance- which, by the way, amazing- meant that she could really play with angles and video cuts and oh, it was gonna be great.

It was also going to be a whole lot of work. Alya was probably going to spend the entire week picking out clips and then deciding which ones she wanted to use, and then it was going to be another few days of editing.

Hopefully her friends would be willing to help her out. They could blast through mostly-boring feeds in no time and get stuff trimmed down for her to review. Maybe she could even get Max to help her with the split-screen editing stuff, since he understood all of that technical talk.

Smiling widely, Alya turned back to her computer. Most of the footage at the moment was just Hawkmoth standing up on the Eiffel Tower with his two singers- and boy was Alya going to rake him over the coals for that, it was ridiculous- and so she had to wait for Ladybug and Chat Noir to head up like she knew they had. Thankfully the camera on that level wasn't iced over at all, like the ones on the lower levels were. This time, she had a front-row seat (abet at a bad angle) as she saw Lila get akumatized again (and boy was it interesting that Lila didn't look at all alarmed about the butterfly approaching her- she looked eager) and Volpina conjured up a second Hawkmoth while the real one hid.

And boy, was that ever an anxiety-inducing experience, watching Ladybug and Chat Noir approach the decoy while the real Hawkmoth hid down below, ready to surprise them from behind. Somehow Ladybug noticed him creeping up on them- and how, Alya had no idea how, she and Chat Noir seemed a bit distracted by trying to get Hawkmoth to do the right thing by turning over his Miraculous- and then they were fighting. Hawkmoth's cane-sword went down, but he didn't go down with it.

Alya sat up and watched as the three secondary users re-joined the fight just in time. She wondered where they had gone wrong, where they might have messed up and could have done better. The next bit was also the only example they had so far of the mysterious Peacock user's powers, and they needed to know what to expect in case they came into play again.

It wasn't that the Peacock's powers seemed that dangerous, at least not from what they had seen so far. Their team had just been taken off guard, and that gave Hawkmoth enough of a distraction to run off like the coward he was. Alya watched the giant moth vanish after Ladybug hit it, and she wondered if it would have vanished so easily if Ladybug had hit it when Hawkmoth was still there. Had the Peacock backed off as soon as Hawkmoth had retreated?

On one of the streams, the superheroes glanced around, trying to figure out where Hawkmoth had gone. Meanwhile, a Hawkmoth-shaped blob limped- had he been injured? They should have looked for him!- past one of the iced-over cameras, and then slumped down against a wall. Alya leaned forward, eager, as Hawkmoth sat there for a few seconds, likely shaken by the whole run-in.

Was he going to detransform? Had they really caught Hawkmoth on camera, after nearly a year of attacks? The ice on the camera would make it hard to see exactly who it was, but Ladybug's Miraculous Cure was bound to come zipping past any moment now. Was this her big scoop-?

"Ugh, and there's that distortion," Alya complained, flopping back in her chair as the already-fuzzy footage got even worse as a burst of purple lit up the screen. "C'mon, really? Can't his kwami not provide magical protection for him? The dude doesn't deserve it."

Alya sulked at the screen as a rush of red went by, clearing off the ice but doing nothing for the magical distortion. She could make out a bit of a shape on the screen, and colors- red and white- but no details, and static regularly cut across the already blurry picture. The static stayed there for longer than normal, and then the blurry, pixilated shape of civilian Hawkmoth finally got up, heading for the stairs. It was only once he had fully exited the frame that the picture finally snapped back into focus, one last bit of static cutting across the screen before the picture stabilized for good.

"Oh, come on," Alya groaned, flopping back on her bed. "That's so unfair that we were so close, and this freaking arse just- just waltzes out of there? Just walks away down the stairs and off of the tower and- and- ugh!" She slapped her fist down on the bed next to her- and then she froze. "Wait. Wait, wait, wait. He walked off of the Eiffel Tower. There have to be more cameras on the staircase and at the bottom. If he didn't detransform in front of those, would they have gone out, too?"

She didn't know. She had never really tracked other cameras from the area after the fights ended, so she didn't know if they had caught the civilian Ladybug and Chat Noir or not and she wasn't going to go back and look, not now that she knew now how dangerous it could be to have other people knowing a superhero's secret identity.

But now? There was absolutely no downside to finding out Hawkmoth's secret identity. It would be the biggest break of Alya's journalistic career.

Re-energized and laser-focused, Alya clicked back to her files, looking for the other cameras. It took a few tries for her to find the footage from the stair cameras and then she fast-forwarded to close to the end. There was a minute of anxious waiting, where Alya scanned the entire screen in case Hawkmoth had tried climbing down the side of the stairs or something ridiculous like that, and then a pair of feet appeared, headed slowly and almost unsteadily down the stairs. Before the feet could go down any further, though, the footage came to an end.

Alya let out a frustrated snarl and rewound the video a few seconds, pausing it right before it came to an end. Only a pair of perfectly white shoes and the hem of bright red pants came into view.

Those... those pants looked really familiar. Alya frowned as she stared at them. She couldn't quite place them, but maybe Marinette could, if Alya brought the footage over the next time that she went to Marinette's house. But that was stupid, Alya decided after a moment of mulling it over. Maybe they knew someone with pants like that, but there were several million people living in Paris. There was no guarantee that there weren't other people making the same (awful) fashion choices.

"So close," Alya complained aloud, glaring at her screen. If only Mr. Raincomprix had sent footage that was a few seconds longer! Except- oh, that was it! All she had to do was email him and ask for the footage from the lower-level cameras running from maybe a minute before the end of the fight to several minutes after the current end time. That would be sure to get her lots of footage of Hawkmoth, and surely he would be recognizable in some of it.

She had to hope that the footage still existed and it hadn't been written over at all. It would be close- it had been over two months since that battle- but Alya knew that she had gotten older footage from the Eiffel Tower before.

Hopefully that stuff hadn't just been saved for longer because of the akuma attack.

Excited, Alya turned back to her computer. If she was going to file a request for more footage and hoped to get it in a reasonable amount of time, she needed to have all of the information possible- what the camera IDS were, the exact date and times that she wanted were, everything. Just to be sure, Alya checked her other files to see which cameras would be focused on either the place where Hawkmoth detransformed or the stairs that he had gone down, writing the code for every last one down. Once she had that, she folded up the list and stuffed it in her pocket as she raced for the door.

"Alya, remember that you're going to be babysitting the twins in two hours," he mom called out as Alya raced past. "You'll be back by then, right?"

Alya had to bite down the frustrated noise that nearly escaped because even though this was critical, this was huge, it wasn't as though she couldn't wait a little longer to review the footage. And she could review the footage while sitting out at the kitchen counter with her sisters watching a movie in the living room, it would just be harder. "Yeah, I'll be back!"

And hopefully, she would come back with the footage that would change everything.

Officer Raincomprix was all too willing to bring Alya over to the Eiffel Tower to get more of the footage, all without her having to explain anything. He showed her to the people she needed to talk to and then trotted off to deal with a littering teenager while Alya was ushered inside of the office. The staff were all helpful, and soon Alya was leaving with everything she needed, with no questions asked.

She supposed that it was good that all of the adults were so busy, because she didn't exactly want to explain. Really, Ladybug and Chat Noir should be the first ones to know about Hawkmoth's identity.

Alya jogged back towards her family's apartment, memory stick clutched tightly in her hand. On it, she hoped, would be evidence that would show her Hawkmoth's identity. She was nearly back to her building when she ran smack-dab into a very familiar figure.

"Yo, I was just looking for you!" Nino exclaimed, pulling Alya up. He bent back over to grab the memory stick that she had dropped before the passing pedestrians could kick it away and handed it back to her. "I was trying to text you earlier, but I didn't get any response."

Alya winced. "I'm so sorry! I just got really distracted by my video editing. I opened up the folder for Heroes' Day and I got really distracted."

"Oh, that was a crazy fight. I bet there was a ton of footage. Well, until everything got all icy, at least." Nino glanced down at her as they continued down the sidewalk. "So can I ask why you were out? You look out of breath."

"Not out here," Alya warned immediately. She didn't want a passerby overhearing and trying to grab the memory stick to grab the discovery for themselves. "Come inside with me. I can tell you there, and at any rate I have to be back in-" she checked her phone- "fifteen minutes anyway to babysit my sisters."

Nino followed without question, looking interested.

"So did you find something interesting in the footage?" Nino asked curiously. "You must have. Or was there footage missing, was that why you were out?"

"Not quite," Alya told him, grinning. "I needed more footage, yeah, but it wasn't during the middle of the fight. It was at the end, because I almost had Hawkmoth's civilian self on tape."

"You- what?" Nino asked, freezing for a few seconds before jogging up the stairs alongside her again. "You think you have Hawkmoth on tape? I thought that the magic messed with the cameras!"

Alya grinned. "It does. But where he detransformed- he had to go down the stairs, and there's another camera there. Before, I could see his shoes and the hems of his pants, but now I have an extended clip of the video! It should show him coming down the stairs into sight."

Nino looked impressed. "Oh, that is amazing. But what if it's not someone you know? I mean, there's a lot of people in Paris."

"Well, I'll turn the video over to Ladybug and Chat Noir. They can decide if they want to get the police involved. They might recognize the guy, too." Alya was assuming that she wouldn't recognize Hawkmoth, but she supposed that it was a possibility. "Or we could help by asking Max if he can run some sort of face recognition thing, so that they don't have to go to the police. I'm worried that the police might try to take over themselves and end up getting really hurt by underestimating him."

"Yeah, they might try to do that. Freaking adults, thinking that they know better than the actual experts." Nino shook his head, disgusted. "But do you think Max can do that? I mean, I know he's good at computers, but face recognition- that sounds like he would have to tap into files from, like, ID cards or something."

Alya shrugged. She supposed that was true, but Max was crazy smart and also had Markov. She was sure that if she asked, he would try to see what he could do for her.

"So are you gonna look at the footage now?" Nino asked as they reached her floor. "I thought you said that you have babysitting to do."

"I do, but I wanna at least look at the footage first, if I can." Alya pulled out her keys to open the apartment door. "And I was planning on just putting on a movie and some snacks for my sisters so that they stay out of trouble while I work. They should stay out of trouble that way."

Nino gave her a supremely dubious look. "Your sisters, staying out of trouble?"

"I'd still be in the room! And it's not like I would have headphones in or anything."

"...would you like me to stay there while you do your video stuff?"

"That would be amazing," Alya told Nino, leading him into the apartment. She waved to her mom as they headed down the hallway. "But I still have time to get this done before my mom has to leave!"

Nino glanced at the clock on the wall. "Uh, babe, you only have ten minutes."

"Do you really think I can't get this done in ten minutes?" Alya led the way into her room and wriggled her mouse, waking her laptop up. "You know me better than that. I know exactly where to look in the footage."

"And you really think you'll be able to focus on looking after kids once you've seen Hawkmoth's face?"

...Alya had to admit that that was a very good point.

"I can show you the footage leading up to the end while the computer recognizes my memory stick," Alya told Nino as she plugged the new flash drive in. She rewound the footage. "See, here's Hawkmoth escaping- but he didn't go far!"

"That ice on the cameras is annoying," Nino commented as the footage played. "Is all of it like that?"

"A few cameras were spared, I think," Alya told him. "Including the one on the main level, thank goodness. I mean, there's a few blurry spots from where the ice extended onto the lens a little bit, but it's mostly clear."

"Oh, and now it's worse," Nino added. "He detransformed right in front of the camera, holy cow."

"Yeah, I was really hoping that the distortion would go away since he seemed to be hanging around, but no such luck." Alya watched as on-screen, the ice cleared away and Hawkmoth finally got up, heading for the stairs. "So watch here- there's no one besides him and the superheroes on the Tower, right? Well, them and Lila, but that's beside the point. It got evacuated pretty fast, and anyone who didn't get off got akumatized or hit by Dark Cupid. So he's headed for those stairs."

"So whoever comes down is Hawkmoth, right," Nino agreed. Then he paused. "Wait, you said Lila? But she was abroad!"

"Apparently she lied." Alya stopped the tapes right where Hawkmoth's feet appeared on the stairs. "Okay, so the stuff that I got should start about thirty seconds before the end of these, so there's some overlap."

A tension rose in the room as Alya got the new files set up to play. She kept glancing at the clock while things loaded, watching as the time for her to move into the living room ticked closer and closer.

She wouldn't be able to stand it if she had to stop at this point. Even if it was only for a short break while she said good-bye to her mom and got the twins set up with their movie and their snacks, she couldn't. She was so, so close.

This had to work.

"Loaded," Alya announced as soon as the program was ready. "And here we go!"

She and Nino leaned forward as they watched the feed from the stairs on the screen. There were thirty seconds of anxious waiting, and then Hawkmoth's shoes appeared on the stairs. They headed down unevenly, revealing the red pants cuffs once again.

"Oh, he's shaken," Nino murmured, a grin evident in his voice. "Super shaken. Serves the asshole right."

Another step, more of the pants were revealed. They watched in anxious silence as the red pants gave way to a very familiar ivory jacket, then a striped necktie, and then Hawkmoth took one more step down the stairs, head hanging down as he made his way down the Eiffel Tower.

And much to Alya's surprise, she recognized the face that went with those atrocious fashion choices, even at this angle. And from Nino's sharp inhale, she knew that he had, too.

"Well," Nino managed after a minute of trying to find his words. "This is bad."

And with that, Alya could only agree.

#Miraculous Ladybug #My writing #alya cesaire #nino lahiffe #in which Alya actually acts like a reporter

87 notes · View notes

deeahhnuh · 4 years

Text

2019!

I've done this year-in-review thing since 2007! 2007-2012 are over on my old LiveJournal, and 2013-on are right here on my Tumblr. :)

2020. 2020! That year sounds space-age or something lol, and not like it's just, well, tomorrow. Happy New Year, Tumblr!

What did you do in 2019 that you'd never done before?

Not too much, lol! I guess I just kept doing the things I usually do, but tried to do them better/improve them (when it comes to work!), or do more of them (fun times and family times!).

Did you keep your New Years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Every year I mention that I don't really make New Year's resolutions - more like little goals all year! - but hey, it's a new decade! This year I think I will make a resolution that I will hold myself to. In 2020, I resolve to work hard - like really hard - on being healthy! Eat right, exercise, lose weight, work on maintaining less stress - be good to myself! I know everyone makes that kind of resolution, but it's a good one for a reason. :)

Did anyone close to you give birth?

Aw, no new babies this year!

Did anyone close to you die?

Sadly, yes... my uncle (my dad's oldest brother) passed away in May. ♥ We also lost a beloved neighbor in August.

What countries did you visit?

Lol, none!

What would you like to have in 2020 that you lacked in 2019?

I seemed to lack the ability to chill this year, haha - I stressed out about everything! :O So I’m ready to go with the flow better in 2020!

What date(s) from 2019 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

Can’t think of any big dates, but this December marked 5 years since I graduated (and gave a speech at the departmental ceremony, to toot my own horn lol!) from the University of Maryland! Time is bizarre - 5 years feels both forever ago and also not that far back!

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I’ve been working in the registrar’s office at a community college for three years now! I love it, and I’m proud of the work I do!! :)

What was your biggest failure?

Everything’s a learning experience of course lol, but thankfully I didn’t goof too bad this year! ;)

Did you suffer illness or injury?

Oh my goodness, I started off the year with a thumping in my right ear (the name for it is “pulsatile tinnitus” - which somehow makes it sound scary!). :O Happily, that mess dissipated in a few months’ time, but it sure did worry (and annoy) me! Other than that - all good! :)

What was the best thing you bought?

I was very fortunate this year to buy a few things that really made me smile!

I do love a perfume! Dior Addict is a stunning, spicy vanilla (I love ‘em sweet!) that really hits the spot.

I’m also pleased, on the “I stan goofy dance music” front, to have found a couple of old Ministry of Sound compilations that I’ve had bookmarked on Amazon for awhile - they came back in stock this year and I snatched ‘em up. Anthems Sound of Dubstep (2012) is brash and obnoxious fun, and Sessions Ten (2013) is slightly less brash but just as obnoxious so I love it. They’re both releases from the Australian arm of MOS!

Oh and one of my fave used record stores had a copy of one of DJ Rap’s “Bad Girl” CD singles with mixes I didn’t have; I was kinda shocked to see it and very very happy to buy it! It was only 99 cents. Wow!! I do like a ridiculous deal! :)

Whose behavior merited celebration?

My mom is amazing, as always, and so are my dad and brother! I love my fam!!

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

No one!

Where did most of your money go?

See above - my more frivolous spending went toward perfume and goofy dance tunes, haha!

What did you get really, really, really excited about?

I will never, ever forget opening a very special present for Christmas this year. I love and adore It’s a Wonderful Life, and I even wrote a paper about it in college. I used a fabulous book as one of my sources - The It’s a Wonderful Life Book by Jeanine Basinger - and since then I’ve always had it in the back of my mind to purchase it someday. It’s a fantastic keepsake kinda thing for a fan of the movie. Unfortunately it always seemed to be out of stock, or way too expensive to consider, so over time I kind of just put it on the back burner.

But just a few days ago on Christmas morning as we all opened gifts, I tore wrapping paper off a box, pulled off the box top, and bam - there it was. Decorative tissue paper obscured it, but I could see the book cover peeking through - The It’s a Wonderful Life Book! My mama, the best mama, found this awesome book for me! My Christmas - my year! - was made! ♥

What song will always remind you of 2019?

Here’s a Spotify playlist of the songs that I loved this year; most are old releases lol. New(er) songs and albums I loved this year:

“Like Sugar” by Chaka Khan. Funky!

“Lost in the Fire” by Gesaffelstein feat. The Weeknd. Cool and atmospheric!

“Lights Up” by Harry Styles. Boy band guy makes good lol! Great tune.

Mazy Fly (2019) by SPELLLING. Dark, richly layered, weird, beautiful.

The Destroyer - 1 and The Destroyer - 2 (2019) by TR/ST. Two EP-ish releases that make up a whole album-ish listen. The Destoyer - 1 slightly edges out the second release, but I just like hearing so much synthy TR/ST goodness!

Compared to this time last year (2018), are you:

Doin' all right, and hopeful for a great start to 2020!

What do you wish you'd done more of?

Listen to more albums - new or old! The last few years I seem to listen to a handful of albums a year, then spend the rest of my music-listening time playing dance music compilations. Ah well, maybe I'll catch up on my massive "to listen" list in the next decade lol!

What do you wish you'd done less of?

Stress (see above lol) - but I'm def working on it! :)

How did you spend Christmas?

Family time!! ♥

What was the most embarrassing thing that happened to you in 2019?

Nothing, yay lol!

How many one-night stands?

None lol

What was your favorite TV program?

My silly cartoons! Family Guy, American Dad, Bob's Burgers, and SpongeBob SquarePants (lol idk, nostalgia is hard to kick!) still make me laugh even though I am otherwise a perfectly reasonable adult. :)

Bravo's Real Housewives - all of 'em! - crack me up and bring the totally ridiculous drama!

The Orville is fantastic, one of my fave more recent shows. I love the cast! Each episode really adds to their stories and builds the show's world. Looking forward to the next season!

Emergence is a great new sci-fi show with a strong cast - especially the sensible, big-hearted lead Allison Tolman - and suspenseful storyline!

I haven't seen the first season, and to be honest I don't think I'd be able to explain what the heck it's actually about because I'm easily confused, but American Gods caught my attention this year! The cast is excellent - even if the plot escaped me, lol, I really got into the characters.

And What We Do In The Shadows! Such a delight!!

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2019?

I love a classic, slightly minimal style, but I'm just happy to look decently put-together lol!

What kept you sane?

My fam, my entertainment stuff (music, movies, TV, magazines), working with wonderful colleagues... ♥

Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

No! :O

What was the best book you read in 2019?

The It’s a Wonderful Life Book was probably the best book I read (well, most of it!) this decade. ♥

What was your greatest musical discovery?

SPELLLING is awesome - definitely an artist I'm excited to hear more from!!

What did you want and get?

I won't say The It’s a Wonderful Life Book again! :)

On a more serious note, I had my first MRIs in a while for MS maintenance - my previous neurologist retired and my new doctor wanted to get a baseline. I was very, very anxious about getting the results. My former doctor last ordered an MRI in 2011, so this was definitely a good and highly necessary step, but very nerve-wracking! I'm so fortunate to not be experiencing symptoms - and haven't since my initial occurrence of optic neuritis in '09 (though I was actually diagnosed with MS in 2011) - but what might the MRIs (brain and T- and C-spine) reveal?

I wanted to receive good results - a report of stability, not progression. And would you believe it? I did. My (amazing!) neurologist gave me the greatest news I had all year - stable, no new lesions, all good!! Of course this is for now - who knows about the future? - but I'm thrilled, and thankful. As this year ends and I reflect on all the good, this takes the cake!!

What did you want and not get?

Pffft, nothin' lol! I've got so many lovely things and reasons to be thankful - who could ask for more?!

What was your favorite film of this year?

Lol I did not see many new movies, but of the '19 films I saw, my fave was Knives Out! I only just saw it yesterday - what a fun way to close out the year! Fantastic cast, clever story, funny - just all-around entertainment.

I also loved Yesterday. All the Beatles references and the obvious affection for the group and their fans just felt like a great big hug! So good!

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

Girl I'm well and truly a thirty-something now - 33!! I had fun! I did lots of little fun things with my fam - like shopping, watching movies, that kind of good stuff!

What three things would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Like I said above - who could ask for more? Not me! :)

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

I'm late to the David Harbour bandwagon - but better late than never!

And also Daniel Craig in Knives Out was a good thing.

What political issue stirred you the most?

Ew, there's something stirring like every hour or so.

Who did you miss?

Losing my grandmother at the end of last year really colored a lot of this year... and then losing my uncle added more shadows. ♥♥♥

What is a valuable life lesson you learned in 2019?

I always answer this one with a twist on the Pet Shop Boys song title and my life philosophy - "Happiness is an option." So here we go! The chorus of the song acknowledges that "it is not easy," and some times are definitely like that. This year had those moments, and next year will too, because that's how life is! It is often not easy.

But! The last bit of the chorus follows "it is not easy" with "happiness is an option." Things can stink, but they can be okay too. That's what "happiness is an option" has always meant to me, and it means that just as much this year. Maybe even more!!

What quote can be used to sum up your year?

See above haha! "Happiness is an option” has been my fave quote for years, and I’m gonna keep on living it! :)

#year #deeahhnuh #2019

1 note · View note