#like most of the pictures in the notes are very badly photoshopped

[echo-of-the-eye]

A while ago I subscribed to rusty quill’s patreon for one month so I could get access to the extra bloopers (which are amazing and definitely worth it) and the deluxe transcripts and I’d definitely recommend it. I know they’re not canon, but they’re great. You’ll get such treats as:

• Jon being a tired millennial

• Jon shitting on the police

• Just general Jon snark

• Jon’s degree is in literature (unqualified king)

• Some really sad comments on the leitner statements

• Being subconsciously compelled to cross out this line “grant us the sight that we may not know. Grant us the scent that we may not catch. Grant us the sound that we may not call” from the statement in page turner

• Jon defending the anatomy students

• Statement giver says they almost threw up and Jon comments “a common response to fanfiction” like excuse me?! Sir?? What do you have against fanfiction??

• “Ah, mums. I assume” wtf Jon?! Why are you trauma dumping in your notes?!

• After Sasha talks about how she met up with Michael and kept investigating: “really need a staff training seminar on when to RUN AWAY” Jon I love you

• “Georgie needs to get better taste in friends”

• Just. Some really sad and ominous comments on the prentiss statement

• Implying that he’s sent the british museum MULTIPLE emails and they’re ignoring him

• “If this house is haunted by a ghost clown, I quit”

• And last but not least:

This picture of a random ass woman holding a DUCKLING that’s supposed to be mary keay

[coraxonxcall]

More to the Story: Chapter 15: The Doomsday Dish

"Wow, this has been just so fun, but" The elevator doors opened. "I am afraid I have more important things to do. You know, literally anything else." And with that Velvette took off like someone had lit a fire under her.

"Well, that was rude." Mimzy scoffed, folding her arms. It was, but Charlie didn't really expect much from Velvette. Still, the fact that one of the Vees had actually helped her was not something to be overlooked. There was hope for each and every Sinner, in Charlie's mind, and Velvette was no different. The newest of the Vees may claim that her help was solely to wriggle a favor out of a Charlie, but the princess had taken careful note that Velvette hadn't even asked for anything until Charlie had thanked her.

"It wasn't very nice, no." Charlie shook her head. "But Velvette is busy." She stopped outside of the DamnWay building. She was hoping to catch Rosie, it had been a while since Charlie had seen her and she wanted to be sure the Cannibals had all gotten their gift bags. "And speaking of not nice, it has come to my attention that you like to start drama at the Hotel by making up wildly unfounded rumors."

"Sounds fake." Mimzy avoided eye contact by looking offended and turning away from Charlie. "But you know that Husk is having a torrid love affair with Cain from Cain Organics."

"That isn't true." Charlie happened to be one of the few who actually knew Cain. As it turned out, most of the Sinners knew almost nothing about him because of his anti-social ways. At the Hotel alone she had heard things from: He is secretly an Exorcist sending information up to Heaven; to he was on his way to marry Charlie's father and usurp her mother's throne.

"Oh, it totally is. I read it in an article." Mimzy insisted. She pulled out a magazine and on the dogeared page, was a badly photoshopped picture of Husk with a regular boulder and some roses. Charlie looked at the top of the page: "Gambling with your heart? Husk and Cain's Forbidden Romance." And under that was: An article by Mimzy.

"You wrote this."

"And it wouldn't have been published if it wasn't true." Mimzy insisted, ignoring Charlie's obvious skepticism. The princess flipped the magazine to the cover and tried not to roll her eyes.

"This is from Demonic Deets they publish literally anything. Last week there was an article stated that I was pulled out of a hat as a baby and that's how I was born."

"That sounds like something a hat-baby would say, I'm sorry princess, but news is news." Mimzy took her magazine back, clicking her tongue and shaking her head. "Plus, you can't argue with photographic evidence."

"That's just a rock in the picture." Charlie wasn't even going to address the poor photoshop attempts as that was the least of the problems at hand. "That wasn't my uncle. Mimzy," she sighed, unsure of why she was arguing this point, as the issue was mostly about the lying, but still it had to be said. "You know what Cain looks like. You're one of the few Sinners who has seen him in person." Cain famously did not like to interact with other Sinners, vastly preferring the company of Hellborns.

"I do?" Mimzy's eyes lit up. "How exclusive! Is he that little reddish thing that runs around and screams?"

"I..." Charlie opened her mouth and closed it again. "Okay I need a bit more detail in order to correct you because, no, it's definitely not Cain, but you either described Niffty or Angel's pig Fat Nuggets."

"Come on Charlie, I know who Niffty is." Mimzy looked appalled by the accusations.

"Okay then if it has hooves and is pink, and it's about this big," Charlie gestured with her hands to show the size. Mimzy had been at the Hotel for four months, but somehow Charlie was doubting her claim she knew who Niffty was. "It's Fat Nuggets. If it wears shoes, has one eye, and cleans: it's Niffty." Both were small, screamed, and in the red spectrum of colors.

"So, then who is Cain?" Mimzy had a blank look. To be fair, she hadn't really met Cain so much as she had just seen him in passing.

"Remember that night my dad dragged Adam out of the Hotel and Alastor came down with him and there was another guy? He was kind of average size, grey, horns, brown hair? Only one eye?"

"Hmmm..." Mimzy squinted.

"Remember? We were all on the couch? You had just come home from Gomorrah?" This really wasn't all that long ago, Charlie was a bit surprised Mimzy didn't remember more, as the whole night had been fucking crazy. Then again, it might not have been as memorable to someone like Mimzy who was only tangentially involved with the chaos. Maybe it was only weird for Charlie to see her father wrestling with Adam who was wrapped in a bedsheet and screaming for freedom because she knew her dad, and hadn't really seen him do anything quite so... strange. "He was wearing the black leather jacket?"

"Oh yes!" Mimzy's face lit up. "He was handsome! A man like that probably knows the right way to treat a lady!"

"That's my uncle." Charlie lips drew into a thin line. The idea of Mimzy throwing herself at her uncle was weird for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which was that her uncle had all the charm and charisma of a scorpion that was actively on fire. He was nice to Charlie and to her parents and that was about it. Any of the other royals that would attend her birthday parties would get five words out of him max, before he would melt into the floor to avoid conversation.

"Think of it! I could be your aunt!" Mimzy fanned herself with her hand.

"What about his very real love affair with Husk that you wrote about?" Charlie opened the magazine back to the article and pointed at Hell's most unconvincing photo.

"Oh foo!" Mimzy's bubble was burst and she gave a little pout. "Okay, so my sources might not be the most reliable."

"You have sources?" Charlie raised an eyebrow at her.

"Plenty! But I can't divulge them, journalistic integrity and all that."

"I thought you were a small business owner."

"I have lots of jobs! Being in DamnWay isn't cheap you know!" Mimzy didn't look upset, but rather, mildly annoyed by the question. Charlie actually didn't know the costs associated with DamnWay, but she could guess it wasn't cheap. Mary-Lu had quite the office, after all.

"But you enjoy it?"

"Oh yes! And thank you for taking me to this very important conference. I would have been invited on my own merits, you know, but my invite got lost in the mail."

"I thought they were emailed." That's how Charlie had gotten hers.

"Lost in the e-mail then. It's all the same you know." It really wasn't, but that didn't seem to matter. Mimzy was walking on air, despite the fact that her interaction with the DamnWay CEO had been minimal at most. Charlie didn't really get the appeal of it all, but it made Mimzy happy, and in the end that is what mattered most. When the Hotel patrons were happy, they were more open to Redemption activities! And despite Mimzy's ulterior motives, she had made some progress in that regard. Cherri had admittedly done better, but it wasn't a competition, and Cherri had Angel to help her. Having a friend already at the Hotel was a huge benefit when it came to making progress. Mimzy did have Alastor, technically, but Charlie didn't pretend to understand the nuances of their relationship. (Plus, when it came to Redemption Alastor really wasn't the best role model.)

"Oh Charlie! I thought you'd be gone by now!" Rosie called to her as she and Missi walked out of DamnWay's sliding glass doors. Rosie was helping Missi carry another of the giant glasses. Missi had one in each of her hands, and a third wrapped in her tail.

"Oh yes! We were leaving, just got distracted talking." Charlie smiled seeing Rosie. She was truly one of Charlie's favorite Overlords, given her help in fighting off the Exterminations. "But I was hoping I would catch you!"

"Me?" Rosie struggle to hold the glass as she put a hand to her cheek and batted her lashes playfully. "Well don't I feel special?"

"Look at you Rose!" Missi threw her head back and chugged one of her giant glasses. She tucked it under her arm, taking the giant glass from Rosie. "Moving up in the world! Chatting with a royal. Never pegged you for a Cannibal, Princess. You don't have the... you know..." Missi made a very poor attempt at lowering her voice as she leaned over to Charlie. "The look."

"Oh no. I am not." Charlie quickly shot that down. (Hopefully not too quickly, she didn't want to upset Rosie.)

"She's just a friend!" Rosie laughed. "She's not super into our cuisine. But she does love a good, violent brawl against Heaven!"

"Well... technically, actually: that's not exactly true-" Charlie didn't have a chance to finish as Missi let out a roaring laugh.

"Damn! I almost forgot that was you, Princess. That fight against those fucking birds was brutal."

"Birds...?" Charlie blinked. "You mean the Exorcists?"

"Fuck yeah I do!" Missi gulped down another glass, tucking it under her arms again, and used her free hand to pat Charlie on the back. The princess nearly stumbled from the force of the blow. "That shit was awesome."

"Well thank you for-"

"You shoulda come to my district! My girls live for a fucking fight. Next time though." Missi really didn't like to give Charlie the chance to finish her sentence. And now those words were stuck in her brain. Next time. Four months had already passed. Would they get the whole year till the next Exterminations? Or would the new leader of the Exorcists be flying down here in just two more months? How did any of that work? "That fight earned my fucking respect." Missi's voice snapped Charlie back to the present.

"We all just did our best. Had a nice time." Rosie smiled, seemingly unaware of any of the stress that Charlie was feeling. "We lost some good Cannibals, but we won in a different sense. We told Heaven to suck it." She said the words in the most, polite, sweet tone Charlie had ever heard.

"Yeah ladies!" Missi bent down, moving her giant glasses so they were wrapped securely in her tail. She wrapped an arm around Charlie and another around Rosie. "FUCKING SUCK IT HEAVEN!" She used both hands to flip her middle fingers upward toward the divine ball in the sky.

"Rosie!" Charlie jumped. Part of her expected Sera or maybe God to be calling directly to Rosie, ready to deliver divine justice. But no. It was just Carmilla. Charlie watched as Carmilla approached from an alleyway up ahead. Velvette appeared behind her, and quickly ran off in the opposite direction. Was Carmilla just meeting with each Overlord individually. Rosie's smile didn't waver as Carmilla strode toward her.

"Hey again, Carm! Funny seeing you again so soon!"

"Can we please speak for a moment?" She eyed Mimzy, Charlie, and Missi. "Privately?" Her tone was serious, but Rosie just giggled, she didn't seem all that bothered.

"Why not? It's been so long since you and I had a nice chat!"

"Thank you." Carmilla nodded her head.

"Sorry Missi, I am needed~" Rosie wiggled free of Missi's massive arm.

"Sure thing, Rose. We should go to another riot some time. Don't be a stranger." Missi let her arm drop. Rosie walked toward Carmilla.

"I'll see you later, Charlie honey."

"Oh, yeah... see ya!" Damn. Charlie still hadn't had the opportunity to ask about the gift baskets and to thank Rosie for the billionth time. Next time. She didn't expect Rosie to be so popular at these sorts of things.

"Thank you, Rosie." Carmilla gestured for Rosie to follow her and the two began to walk away. Missi finally lifted her weight off of Charlie's shoulder as she stood back up, stretching her arms out.

"Boo on those two."

"I wonder what that was about?" Charlie watched them leave. She wasn't as in tune with the Overlords as, perhaps, she should have been, given that she was a princess and they were a major part of Hell's volatile politics.

"Hard to say. Those guys have history together, dunno what it was, but I never got the impression it was good." Missi took her glasses back in her hands.

"History?" They hadn't seemed like they were on bad terms, at least, not to Charlie. Rosie seemed downright agreeable to going off with Carmilla. Surely if there was underlying animosity, Rosie would have resisted at least a little bit.

"Oh gosh!" Mimzy's eyes widened and Charlie could almost see the gears turning in her head. "I can't believe Rosie and Carmilla are ex-lovers!"

"N- no one said that." Charlie was quick to try and shut this down before it became a headline.

"I mean... fucking maybe." Missi shrugged. "I never could figure out what the fuck was going on between them."

"Would you like to be a source? I am a journalist as well as a DamnWay sales rep-" Mimzy turned to Missi and Charlie quickly pulled her to her side by the back of her dress.

"Mimzy, no."

"You are a feisty little thing." Missi laughed leaning down so Mimzy was at eye level. Mimzy backed up a bit. "I could eat you whole."

"Please do not do that." Charlie clapped her hands together quickly, only making Missy laugh harder.

"Don't you worry princess; I'm not looking to eat one of your little mascots or whatever they are."

"Patrons, actually. Hotel patrons... you know, for my Hotel that I run? It... um... it had a commercial and everything?" Charlie had been running the hotel for well over a year now and it still seemed as if no one really knew or cared about what she was trying to do. At least her dad seemed to believe in her, at least a little bit. He was letting her help with Adam after all. Though the lessons were typically very short because her dad only liked to bring Adam around when no one else was at the Hotel. Redemption was actually lot harder when Adam wasn't around full time, and the times she could work with him were often cut short.

"I will be honest, I thought you were doing like an underground fight ring. My money was on the chick with the bombs." Missi didn't seem all that perturbed by the correction.

"Nope. It's a hotel. We redeem Sinners so they can go to Heaven."

"Oh shit, does it work?"

"I mean..." Charlie didn't want to lie, "I think it will."

"So, I could go up there and become an Exorcist? Damn, that's a pretty sweet gig."

"T... that's not exactly the point."

"I knew I liked you, Princess. You got some good ideas. We'll chat more later. But I gotta head back to my district. Don't be a stranger!" Missi slapped Charlie on the back once more before taking off running back toward her area of Hell. The ground trembled with every thundering step.

"She seems nice." Mimzy watched her go without much of a reaction.

"Yeah, that was certainly... interesting..." Charlie craned her neck to see if she could catch a glimpse of Carmilla and Rosie, but she wasn't sure where they had gone off to. She liked both of them, they had each been instrumental in the defeat of Adam and the thought of them in some kind of argument concerned her. (But Carmilla had not seemed angry, and Rosie had been far from concerned.) "I hope everything is alright..."

"I mean, it's Hell." Mimzy shrugged. "Is anything ever alright? No. But you make the best of it. I use DamnWay products and gambling to cope. You use positivity and denial."

"I don't think I would say I was in denial per say..."

"Oh honey..." Mimzy patted Charlie on the arm. "What do you say we go back to the Hotel and brag about all the important people we saw today."

"Or we could just go back and tell our friends about our fun adventure!" Charlie tried to rephrase Mimzy's idea in more of a positive light. It was a work in progress, all of this was a work in progress. But she had her father's support. Even Adam seemed more open to the idea, though he was hot and cold with how he reacted. She would really need to work with him... more, and for longer periods of time to get a better hold on how he was feeling about her concept overall.

"I'm still gonna brag." Mimzy put her hands on her hips, puffing out her chest.

"Just think it over." Charlie sighed as she started making her way back toward the Hotel. Her day had certainly gotten an interesting start. It had been difficult even reaching the DamnWay building, the Doomsday District had been a fucking nightmare to traverse. Usually, it was a little inconvenient if something had worked the Sinners up into a frenzy, but this was worse. Perhaps it was just that Hell hadn't quite repaired itself as quickly as it typically did. It was just something that seemed so natural to Charlie as it was something that had been a constant since she could remember. Despite all the destruction, all the devastation caused by the Sinners, Angels, or Hellborns- Hell repaired itself. It was a simple, innate process. (The buildings and Sinner made structures were not repaired by Hell. That fell on the Sinners themselves. But things that her family had made, roads, landscape, even certain plants- would regenerate naturally over time.) To see it staggering was... concerning.

"It's such a hassle walking to and from the building." Mimzy wasn't exactly thrilled with any kind of long, tedious travel. From the looks of it, Hell's repair was almost finished. This wasn't the first time Charlie had noticed it being slower over the last few months, but this was by far the most obvious example. "Once I reach Premium Jade VP, Mary-Lu basically buys me a house. So, then I won't have to walk all this way just to see her!"

"That... seems a little too good to be true, doesn't it?" Charlie did want to believe in meritocracy, but in Hell it was incredibly unlikely.

"It's part of the compensation plan, you really should join under me, Princess. You would have such a big market that you could climb the ranks in no time."

"I won't be joining DamnWay, Mimzy, but thank you for yet another offer." Charlie gave her a sweet smile, Mimzy would pitch Charlie once or twice a week. But that was a small price to pay for one more chance at redeeming a Sinner.

"Your loss." Mimzy had to step out of the way as a Sinner ran screaming between them. That was par for the course when it came to the Doomsday District, so Charlie didn't really react outside of giving a friendly little wave that was completely missed by the panicked Sinner. "Watch where you're running, ya cad! You almost trampled me!" Mimzy, on the other hand looked annoyed.

"I am sure it was not meant maliciously." Charlie tried to calm her, but quickly picked Mimzy up as more Sinners scrambled past them, all in a bit of a fit.

"THE END IS NEAR!" And as quickly as they came, they were gone. Finally, a sense of normalcy had overtaken Charlie's unease. The Doomsday District Sinners were skittish at best, and that was putting things politely. Just seeing the princess was enough to cause a panicking mob to flee. Not that Charlie had ever given them reason to flee, but that was irrelevant. Her position alone was seen as a threat.

"Your end is near if you don't watch it!" Mimzy waved her fist at the vanishing mob as they fled and Charlie put her back down on her feet. "Honestly, the nerve of some people." She dusted off her dress.

"I'm just glad you weren't hurt." Charlie let out a breath.

"Oh please, if anyone was gonna get hurt. It would be those assholes." Mimzy waved off her concern.

"Let's just be careful." Charlie kept walking only to turn the corner and see none other than Vox standing in the Doomsday District looking at a completely decimated VoxTek store. He didn't seem to notice her as she approached. "Vox?"

"What the f-" he turned, spotting Charlie and instantly changed his expression to a wide, toothy smile. "Princess! How are you dear?" His entire demeanor shifted, back straight, chest puffed out, grinning from one side of the screen to the other.

"Um... hey, Vox, does Zestial know you're here?" Charlie was a bit taken aback, as Overlords were typically respectful of one another's territory. (That, and Vox looked like utter shit. Despite his charming smile and clean, well-pressed suit, he looked like he hadn't slept in days.)

"He does." Vox scoffed a bit at the mention of the other Overlord. "I just wanted to see the damage for myself." He gestured to what remained of the store in question. Charlie looked over at it as well. All the screens were smashed, there was still blood caked on the walls, the building itself was mostly intact, but everything inside was completely destroyed and going to fall on Vox to fix.

"Does this happen often?" Charlie couldn't really imagine that the Doomsday District was a super profitable location for easily breakable items.

"Usually like once a month, but it's been getting more frequent and a lot worse. I am starting to think the sales aren't worth it." Vox had his hands on his hips, surveying the damage. "I might just cut my losses and close this whole location."

"That's sad..." Charlie knew how important the vPhone was to most of Hell's population. Alastor hated the thing, but he hated literally anything Vox made so Charlie tried not to take his opinion into account when it came to technology.

"Yeah, can you imagine storming this place and not looting?" Mimzy clicked her tongue in disappointment. "That's just wasteful."

"Who are you?" Vox looked down at Mimzy with the same expression he might have if he were looking at a particularly annoying insect.

"Mimzy, the Princess's best friend!" Mimzy put an arm around Charlie. (Or rather, around Charlie's upper legs as that seemed to be as high as she could reach.)

"Oh. My apologies then." Vox's smile instantly returned. "The technological outages last night seems to have just put me in a bad mood. Hopefully you weren't too impacted, your highness?"

"I was asleep." Charlie assured him. She hadn't slept great admittedly, but she had missed all the chaos. She didn't bother correcting Mimzy. She liked to think of all the Hotel patrons as her friends, that much was true. And it did stop Vox from being rude to Mimzy. Politeness was a positive trait, even if it was superficial. (And with Vox, pretty much everything was superficial. Charlie wasn't that naive.)

"Well good, then at least I haven't caused you any inconvenience." Vox looked back at the mess for a moment before grabbing his phone. "You've reached Vox, how can I help you?" He muted the phone before turning to Charlie. "So sorry, one moment princess this is important."

"Oh of course!" Charlie hadn't really been expecting to have a full-out conversation with Vox, she had just been stopping out of curiosity more than anything.

"Good...?" Vox sounded confused as he talked to whoever was on the other line. Charlie tried not to eavesdrop as that was rude. But Vox was standing close enough that she could clearly hear his side of the conversation. "How was um... your thing with Mary-Lu? That's where you were, right?" Oh. He was talking to Velvette, most likely. Charlie doubted he was on a chatting basis with any of the other Overlords that had attended Mary-Lu's little gathering. "That's... nice." Vox sounded really puzzled by the call. "Is there a point to this, Velvette?" So, Charlie had been right about who was on the other line. "Ah fuck." Vox's whole face fell and for a moment Charlie saw real exhaustion in his expression. "I didn't send you the new one, did I?" Vox rubbed his eyes with the hand not holding the phone. "Sorry, sorry, I'll buzz you in." He looked over at Charlie beside him. "I can tell you in person." His eyes glowed for a moment as his focus seemed to be elsewhere. He took note of Charlie again and tried to clear his throat, straightening up a bit. But instantly his expression fell again. "... I can send the elevator for you." He put the phone away. Sighing heavily. "Apologies, again, your highness. However, duty calls."

"It's fine, Vox." Charlie gave him a little wave trying to reassure him. "Try and get some rest okay?"

"Rest?" Vox laughed. "I assure you, your highness, I am quite well rested and alert!" He closed his eyes, his body crackled with electricity for a moment, before it stopped. He started coughing into his sleeve. He cleared his throat, shook himself, and then his body turned to electricity and he was gone.

"Wow he looks ready to fucking die, doesn't he? You think the Vees are looking for a replacement?" Mimzy looked after him with curiosity.

"I mean... he didn't look that bad. He just had a rough night with all the technical issues, that's all." Charlie had noticed his fatigue, but he didn't look nearly as bad as Mimzy was describing. "And I thought you were going to be under Mary-Lu, not join the Vees."

"Every girl needs a good backup plan. You know, in case something happens to the company."

"Isn't Redemption your backup plan?" Charlie wasn't so bold to assume that Mimzy was making Redemption her priority. After all Charlie had seen her participation in Hotel activities. She was no Pentious. (The thought of Pentious weighed heavily on Charlie's heart. He had made so much progress, and it was all cut so short.)

"It's like... plan C or D... or like Q. But it's definitely a plan." Mimzy pulled herself over the broken window into the abandoned VoxTek store. "Now come on and let's see if anything worth stealing survived!"

"Mimzy no!" Charlie quickly hopped over the broken glass, through the shattered window in pursuit of Mimzy, who- for such a small Sinner- could really move when she wanted something.

"Oh, come on! Free shit is free shit! And if there's extra. We could resell them!" Mimzy seemed to notice Charlie's disapproving expression because she rolled her eyes. "And ya know, put the proceeds back into the Hotel or something. We call it a Fundraiser! Then it's not stealing and reselling, it's: Charity!"

"No." Charlie sighed a little. She really didn't think there would be anything left for Mimzy to steal, but that didn't mean she wanted the Sinner pawing through shattered glass. And on the off chance that she did find something, it should be returned to Vox anyway.

"Where's your sense of fun?" Mimzy gave a little huff. "He's closing the location anyway, right?"

"He was only thinking about it."

"This could help the Hotel."

"It really won't." Charlie didn't actually like being inside the abandoned store. The flickering lights and shattered glass were nothing new. She was Princess of Hell. She had clawed her way through plenty of destroyed buildings. Not so much during her childhood as her parents were fairly protective of her, but as an adult, navigating through destruction was nothing new. Still. Something about this store, in particular, was making her skin crawl. At first it was difficult to tell why she felt so unsettled... but as she looked around, her eyes adjusting to the sporadic lighting, she realized the bloodstains she had noticed earlier, were not the random splatters she had once assumed them to be.

It was writing.

Did you hear that?

The question was written all over the walls in different handwritings... even different languages. (Charlie, of course, was able to understand any human language- it was the gift of being the Devil's daughter. The Tower of Babble didn't really affect her ability to communicate.) Even this wasn't all that strange for the Doomsday District. Bloody writing on the walls was almost a part of the atmosphere. But typically, the writing was something more akin to: The end is nigh! We're all doomed! Or: It's the end of days! This was a bit off-brand for the doomsayers.

The writing was clearly tilted all of it leading in the same direction, combining in one specific point on the ceiling. Charlie followed the writing with her eyes to where it converged, the letters morphing into something unrecognizable as they drew close to that center point. The words almost looked more like... symbols?

The edges of Charlie's vision started to distort, just slightly, as if someone were burning the edges of a film. It was almost unnoticeable at first, but the closer Charlie looked to the center of the writing, the worse the sensation got. There was a faint ringing in her ears, the distortion became worse, bleeding into the rest of her vision. The text became completely incoherent, the ringing slowly getting louder.

"Ugh, there is literally nothing here that wasn't destroyed or stolen." Mimzy's voice broke through the sound and Charlie was finally able to blink her eyes and shake her head. "Guess I wasn't the only one with a good idea."

"It looks like it was mostly destroyed." Charlie's mouth was dry, her tongue felt almost swollen in her throat. "I hope no one was too hurt."

"Judging by all the blood, I'm assuming multiple people were incredibly hurt. But they're Sinners, sweetie, they'll be just fine!" Mimzy chuckled almost as if telling a funny story. She put her hands on her hips, giving one last look over the destruction. "Well, this was a fucking waste."

"Please, can we just leave now?" Charlie felt ice under her skin, the hair on the back of her neck was standing on end. There was an uncanny sense of dread that had settled heavily into the pit of her stomach.

"Yeah, what a bust." Mimzy shuffled some of the glass around with her shoe as she examined the last bit of the store. Charlie felt a pressure in her chest as Mimzy walked beneath the ceiling where the writing merged. Charlie opened her mouth to speak, however, Mimzy stopped on her own, shivering. "Fuck it, let's get outta here." She rubbed her ears shaking herself.

"Thank you." Charlie couldn't leave fast enough. Her eyes traveled along the writing, one last time, the ringing started in her ears as she felt almost drawn to look back. But she stopped herself. She already had a rough start to the morning; she would feel a lot better if she got back to the Hotel. She could bake some cookies! Surely her friends would need a pick-me-up if last night had been so intense!

"Between you and me, Princess, that place gave me the creeps." Mimzy clambered back through the window with Charlie close behind. "You can tell Velvette didn't help at all with that design."

"I mean, it was just an electronics store, I don't think that's something Velvette usually oversees." Charlie didn't know as much about the Overlords as, perhaps, she should given her position. But working with Alastor was probably a good place to start. And she knew Cain. Cain was the first Overlord, after all. So that probably counted. (Though she knew Cain as more of a fun uncle figure, and hadn't really seen him in a political light- but the point stood that she knew him. And it wasn't like Cain interacted with the other Overlords anyway.)

"That is something I can suggest when Vox dies and I join the Vees." Mimzy patted Charlie on the arm.

"I don't think Alastor will want you to join the Vees." Charlie could think of a plethora of reasons as to why Mimzy wouldn't join the Overlord trio. But that was the first one that came out of her mouth. Mimzy was Alastor's 'friend' after all. (At least that was how it was presented to Charlie.)

"Are you kidding? If it meant Vox died? He would love it!"

"Vox isn't going to die."

"You don't know that."

"It's not nice to say Vox is dying, Mimzy."

"But it is nice to publish an article about it!"

"No! No, it's not." Charlie knew enough to know that any sign of weakness could cause a multitude of issues for Hell's already unstable political climate. While Charlie didn't love Vox- or really have any opinion on him outside of using his apps and technology- she didn't want to see any of her people getting hurt and a turf war was never pretty. "So, why don't you write an article about something else instead?" Mimzy looked thoughtful for a moment, contemplating Charlie's suggestion.

"You're right."

"Thank you." Charlie let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"The article about Carmilla and Rosie's tragic romance will sell way more copies. And then I don't have to deal with Vox's stupid lawyers." Mimzy seemed to be speaking from experience. "He does not like it when I write about him."

"I am not sure anyone appreciates being written about in a gossip magazine." Charlie tried to reason with Mimzy. This might be a good opportunity for a lesson, even a small one, about empathy. "Especially when it's something negative. How would you feel if someone made up things about you and published them for all of the Pride Ring to read?"

"Free publicity. I would be flattered."

"You could write something about the Hotel." Charlie suggested.

"I have been! All about the spicy love-lives of the other patrons. You saw my earlier article."

"I sure did..." Charlie gave a soft sigh of defeat. "I was thinking something along the lines of how we help Sinners be better people. It might get us more patrons!" She wasn't really sure how many people read that trashy magazine, but Charlie would try anything to spread the word. Once she proved the Hotel worked, she had no doubt that Sinners would be lining up in the streets. But it was a slow process, and the earlier the Sinners started, the further they could be in their progress by the time that Charlie had her definitive proof.

"That feel-good fluff isn't news, honey." Mimzy patted Charlie on the arm as if apologizing to her answer.

"Princess?" A voice distracted Charlie from her brick wall of a conversation with Mimzy and Charlie realized that Zestial had almost materialized in front of them. (He did move rather silently.)

"Oh! Zestial! Hi!" Charlie wasn't sure why she was so surprised to see him, given that she was literally standing in his district. But the suddenness of his appearance had caught her off her guard. (She was probably still shaken up from the ruined store.)

"How fair thee, your highness?" He gave an elegant, fluid bow.

"I am well. Thank you." Charlie returned the bow with a curtsy of her own. Zestial was a bit old fashioned (and that was putting it nicely).

"I seeth thee has't new robes. 'Ti's not thy usual compliment extern."

"Oh no, it really isn't my usual look." Charlie laughed, rubbing the back of her (still expertly styled) hair. "Velvette sort of... helped me with my wardrobe." That was the simplest and nicest way of phrasing it.

"Velvette..." two of Zestial's glowing green eyes narrowed and the other two widened in a bemused look. "I shouldst has't known. You behold lovely, dear princess."

"Aw, thank you!" It was different, but different wasn't always a bad thing. And Charlie liked to hold to the idea that at least a small part of Velvette helped her to be nice. Maybe it was deluded to think that she was being anything other than selfish, but Velvette hadn't actually asked Charlie for the favor until after Charlie had thanked her.

"Princess, I pray the question is not perceived with mal-intent, prithee, what brings thee here?"

"Just passing through." Charlie hoped she hadn't given Zestial any reason to be suspicious of her. She had caused a bit of commotion just by walking around the Doomsday District, but it was hard not to, in her defense. Even as she just stood talking to Zestial on the street, a Sinner passing by flung themselves through a solid window with a terrified shriek, shattering it.

"Ah, yes. Apologies for the chaos, your highness. We hadst a particularly... rowdy night."

"Yeah, I heard. I saw Vox here earlier." Charlie was almost hesitant about bringing up the other Overlord on the off-chance Vox was lying about having Zestial's permission to be in his district. However, if Vox was lying, Charlie felt Zestial should still know he was here. Oh fuck- she hoped she wasn't starting some sort of new turf war.

"Ah yes," thankfully, Zestial seemed well aware of the other Overlord's visit. "Surveying the damages. We has't did discuss the possible complete closure of his location here due to frequent... incidents."

"That store was pretty messed up." Charlie thought about the ringing in her ears, the way her vision seemed to blur and distort when she looked at the walls. She shivered. "It might be for the best."

"Princess, thee behold as if't be true thee has't seen an unholy apparition."

"I mean we're in Hell. We're all unholy apparitions if you think about it." Charlie gave an awkward laugh. She really needed to work on her poker face. Zestial had read her expression so easily. (Though Zestial was one of the Overlords her family was on better terms with, from what she could recall. She didn't know as much as she should about her place in Hell's hierarchy.)

"Forsooth, 'tis true I supposeth." Zestial gave a small chuckle, but Charlie had a feeling it was more out of a desire to appease her, than it was out of any sense of genuine amusement.

"Hey, what exactly happened last night?" Charlie had heard tidbits from the Overlords that Mary-Lu had drafted into her little photoshoot. But it might be nice to get another perspective.

"A riot." Zestial didn't sound all that surprised by her question. "One of many across Hell from what I knoweth. They hath seemed centered 'round VoxTek locations. Perhaps a new vPhone dropped?"

"No, I definitely would have known if there was a new edition." Charlie shook her head. She wasn't as big on social media as some of her friends, but there was no way she would have missed a vPhone drop. When those came about, every single platform from TikVox to Slither was stuffed to the brim with annoying ads about all the new features.

"Then I knoweth not, princess." He gave a small shrug of his shoulders.

"I just hope no one got too hurt. There was a lot of writing in blood on the walls..." Charlie knew Sinners would regenerate eventually, but that didn't mean she wanted them to get hurt in the first place. They were her people, after all.

"Ah yes... those gents shall doth yond when a feeling of great... paranoia befalls them. Yond is to sayeth, once a day at the very least."

"Oh, well that makes me feel a little better." Charlie let out a sigh of relief. At least the bloody writing was normal. If she could coax a Doomsday District resident into her Hotel, that would be the first habit they would need to work on fixing. "Because it gave me a headache when I looked." She let out a relieved laugh. Zestial's expression changed, only for a moment he looked... concerned? Maybe Charlie had just imagined it.

"Aye, it doest... occur. Tis nothing with which thee shouldst concern thyself. But bid me, Princess? Has't thee seen Carmilla about?"

"Last I saw her; she was talking to Rosie." Charlie wasn't that surprised he was asking about Carmilla. Zestial and Carmilla has been allies for as long as Charlie could remember.

"Rosie," his eyes narrowed for a split second before his default expression returned. "Very good. Alas, I am afraid I wilt taketh mine leave. Doth be careful, Princess. And if thee runneth into ado in the Doomsday District, summon me, and I will gladly assist."

"Oh, yeah. Thank you." Charlie gave another curtsy as Zestial took his leave, swooping past her, into the ever-present shadows. She couldn't be sure, but it seemed as if he was heading in the direction of the ruined store.

"I didn't understand a word that guy said." Mimzy watched him go. "But damn if he didn't sound charming."

"He's kinda old fashioned." Charlie didn't really have an issue understanding him, but she wasn't surprised others might. Many of the older Sinners- her uncle included- adapted their dialect as languages evolved. However, Zestial had made the conscious decision to keep his speech (mostly) unchanged.

"Is he single?"

"I have no idea." Charlie barely knew about the political relationships between the Overlords, the intrapersonal aspects of their lives was completely unknown to her. She couldn't even look up an answer as news on the Overlords was overflowing with gossip just as unfounded as the stuff Mimzy made up. The Seven Deadly had a similar hoard of gossip articles, her dad- especially- suffered from an influx of made-up bullshit that would circle around Hell. Even Charlie would see the occasional article or drama video about how she was involved I'm a love affair with someone she had never met before. That came with the territory of being a royal in Hell.

"I bet I could make a great second in command for a guy like that." Mimzy looked thoughtful. "He looks like he knows how to treat a lady with respect."

"I thought you were joining the Vees or taking over DamnWay." Charlie didn't know why she was asking, as none of these seemed like likely options. And really Mimzy should have been putting her focus in Redemption, but that would come with time. Charlie had no doubt once Angel was Redeemed and she had solid proof of the Hotel's success, that Mimzy would immediately refocus her energy to make it into Heaven.

"Options, Princess. A girl needs to keep her options open."

"Right, well I think your best option is Redemption with the Hotel."

"That's just because your bias. I get it. You have a pet project. I have them too." Mimzy patted Charlie on the arm again, this time looking almost empathetic.

"Yeah... thanks." Charlie wasn't really sure how to react to Mimzy's new-found understanding. Unfortunately, she didn't have a lot of time to process the exchange as she heard a loud sound from behind her. She turned to see smoke wafting up in the direction from which she had just come. She should keep going, but curiosity had been her vice as of late, and she found herself walking quickly toward the billowing grey cloud.

"Wait! Where are we going?" Mimzy almost fell as she scrambled to follow Charlie. "You can't leave me here!"

"I wasn't going to." Charlie assured her as she helped Mimzy get steady on her feet before walking back toward the source of the noise. "I just wanted to be sure everything was okay."

"It's Hell is it ever okay?" Mimzy had to really hurry to keep pace with Charlie's much longer stride. Charlie didn't really give her an answer as she came upon the source of the smoke. The VoxTek store in which they had been standing only a half hour or so before, was now up in flames. Zestial stood in front of it, watching the fire blaze causing his already long shadow to look enormous as it fell over the building behind him.

"Zestial!?" Charlie called to him uncertainly as he seemed rather focused on the flames. He didn't respond for a moment, all four of his eyes narrowed as firelight illuminated his slender face. Charlie waited a moment longer before speaking again. "Zestial, what happened!?"

"Ah, Princess! Seeing thee again so soon tis almost comical."

"Did... did you blow up the store?" Charlie had a good feeling that she knew the answer, but she had to be sure.

"Aye." Zestial's gaze went back to the flames. "The shoppe did need to be destroyed. I hast nary a choice in the matter."

"What the fuck!?" There was a crackling sound as the air surged with electricity. Vox materialized in a flash, looking like he had left in a hurry. "Zestial!?" He turned to face the other Overlord."

"How fair thee, Vox?" Zestial smiled at him, seemingly unconcerned with Vox's apparent distress. (Charlie assumed Vox had been sleeping prior to his arrival. He looked far more disheveled than she had ever seen him. Vox always seemed to take the utmost care of his appearance.)

"How fair- are you fucking kidding me!? My store is on fire!" Vox gestured to the flames and Zestial turned his head, smile widening visibly.

"Aye. 'Twas by mine own hand."

"WHY!?" Vox took a deep breath, trying to visibly calm himself. "We had an agreement, Zestial. Remember? We shook on it and everything."

"Thy shoppe wast endangering mine own people."

"It's a fucking store! The only danger it posed was to their wallets. Jesus fucking Christ what's wrong with you!?" Vox had a hand on the side of his monitor shaped head as he surveyed the rising flames with obvious dismay in his expression.

"Nay." Zestial's eyes narrowed as he looked back at Vox. "Thou art falsing."

"You know?" Vox turned to look back at him, his expression going from shock to annoyance. "For once in my life I'm not. I'm telling the goddamn truth. It was literally just a store."

"Coystrill! Yond shoppe was brimming with dark charm!"

"YOU THOUGHT THE INTERNET WAS A FUCKING EVIL SPELL, YOU ANCIENT PIECE OF-" Vox was angry enough that the crimson blood was starting to drip out of the corner of his mouth. He stopped himself mid rant, taking a deep breath. "Sorry, Zestial," he put on the most unconvincing, sleazy smile that Charlie had ever seen. "I am just a little overwhelmed right now. We're on good terms, remember?"

"We were. However, I doth not associate with those that bring the Eldritch to mine doorstep." Zestial stood firm, making unwavering eye contact with Vox who sighed, massaging the top of his screen, closing his eyes for a moment.

"I didn't graduate from an Ivy League school to put up with bullshit from a man who thought a Polaroid camera would steal his essence." He was grumbling quietly, but Charlie could hear him so she had no doubt Zestial heard as well. Vox finally looked up. "It was a phone store."

"It brought paranoia and ruin onto mine people."

"It's the fucking Doomsday District!" Vox was becoming increasingly frustrated and Charlie could see it in his body language as he turned away from Zestial taking a few steps and finally turning back. "Paranoia and ruin is literally your brand!"

"Thee shouldst be wary of thy temper. I tooketh behoveful actions to assure the District's safety."

"You are making it very hard not to freak the fuck out on you right now. I hope you know that." Both of Vox's eyes were narrowed, he was frowning, arms crossed over his chest, jaw clenched.

"Hey now," Charlie wasn't about to be witness to a brawl between Overlords. The Doomsday District had taken enough of a hit last night, they didn't need any more damage and a full out fight between Zestial and Vox might level the place. "Everything was already destroyed inside the store, right?" She tried her best to downplay the raging inferno to her left.

"That was true." Vox replied. He and Zestial were still glaring each other down without much relief.

"And you just told me you were thinking of closing the store!" Charlie was making small amounts of progress. She could turn this into a lesson later on the power of de-escalation.

"That was a passing comment, not a fucking permission slip for this shadowy technophobe to nuke my goddamn building! That shit is expensive to build!" Vox's fists clenched a little tighter.

"Okay, I get that!" Charlie scooted in between the two, holding out her hands to keep them separate. "Zestial, maybe apologize for burning down Vox's expensive store."

"Nay."

"And he should have to pay me back for the damages." Vox either didn't hear Zestial's refusal, or simply didn't care. (Which was a far more likely option.)

"Now wait a second," Charlie was starting to worry that the situation was getting worse, "you also had a technological failure last night that did incite a riot in Zestial's territory. I am certain the damages were not cheap for him either."

"Tis true." Zestial looked quite satisfied with Charlie's assessment.

"Yeah, but that wasn't my fucking fault! I am looking into last night's incident." Vox protested. "it's the fucking Doomsday District anyway! You could drop a fucking hat and start a riot!"

"Right! I know that." Charlie had no idea if that was true or not, but she would just have to accept it at face value. "But there was damage nonetheless. So why don't you both just apologize to each other and try and work out something new? Maybe a fire proof store?"

"I cannot allow those who partake in such abominable magics to spread their dark intent across mine own realm."

"You thought the fucking rotary phone was a magical implementation of great evil! You called Thomas Edison a witch!" Vox was at his wits end.

"He was a witch." Zestial's smirk made it impossible to tell if he was being honest in his grievances or was simply just fucking with Vox.

"Why don't you both take a bit of time to calm down?" Charlie suggested as she tried to block the locked eyes of Vox and Zestial with her head. "I think we're all a little flustered thanks to the chaos from last night."

"Princess, do you honestly think this is fucking acceptable? He literally burned down one of my buildings I paid for because his people threw a riot! How the fuck is that fair!? I seriously question-" Vox was mid-rant when he hunched over and started coughing again. He covered his mouth, taking a moment to catch his breath. "Fucking fuck, I don't have time for your shit right now." His voice sounded a little hoarse.

"Then begone." Zestial took a visible step away as Vox started coughing.

"This isn't over." Vox narrowed his eyes once again.

"It very much is." Zestial seemed to get the last word as Vox's phone went off in his pocket. He rolled his eyes, flipping the middle finger toward Zestial as he turned around and pressed his other hand to the side of his head.

"This is Vox. Fucking Christ, Velvette, I stepped out for two goddamn seconds." And with a crackling sound, Vox vanished again.

"Apologies, Princess." Zestial pulled Charlie back, gently, by her shoulders before grabbing a jug of foul-smelling liquid from beneath his cloak and pouring it over the area where Vox had once stood, making a trail of it lead close to the fire. The flames caught and almost instantaneously, the liquid was set ablaze.

"I do think you and Vox will need to work this out at some point. Just promise me it won't result in a turf war? Pretty please?" Charlie didn't know Zestial that well, but like Carmilla, he was one of the Overlords with whom her parents had seemed more acquainted. Perhaps that held some sort of water.

"Nay. For a turf war, Vox wouldst need to be allowed back upon mine turf. Fare thee well, Princess." He tilted his feathered hat toward her before swooping into the shadows and vanishing once again.

"Ooooo, I am just stumbling onto all the juiciest drama today!" Mimzy's voice brought Charlie's attention back to her companion. (It seemed Mimzy didn't talk much when Zestial was around- apparently due to the fact that she didn't seem to understand him.) Charlie had been so focused on stopping a possible fight, that she didn't realize Mimzy had a DamnWay brand notebook and pen in her hand and was vigorously taking notes. "Vox is dying and Zestial is poisoning him!"

"That is not what you should take out of that conversation." Charlie didn't even know how Mimzy had gotten such an idea. "Vox is not dying, first of all. And Secondly, Zestial had nothing to do with him feeling badly. Even though we don't actually know that he is feeling badly because that isn't something we can prove without asking him." The coughing was probably a pretty good hint, but Charlie knew that assumptions were not going to help anyone.

"But he's totally dying and Zestial caused it." Mimzy chewed thoughtfully on her pen. "It says so right here in my notes."

"Right. Because that is something you made up. Which is why you wrote it down."

"I only write what I see, Princess. And these eyes don't lie."

"I'm not saying you're lying, just... Maybe... misinterpreting events."

"It's called subtext, Princess, and with you being a business owner who works with people, you'd think you'd understand such a simple concept."

"I feel like misinterpretation is still a better word to use here." Charlie countered as she and Mimzy started back on the path toward the Hotel. "Vox is going to be fine. Sinners can't be killed unless it's by an Angelic weapon."

"And that is why Zestial was definitely concealing an Angelic weapon in his cloak. I can tell that sort of thing from experience."

"I don't think that's true."

"Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, bless your heart." Mimzy shook her head and clicked her tongue in disappointment as she followed Charlie back toward their home. "You poor, innocent little thing. Think about it: Zestial is best friends with Carmilla- possibly even her lover. Carmilla sells what? Angelic weapons. And now, mysteriously, Vox is dying? You see the connection here, right?"

"No. Also, once again: Vox is not dying." Charlie reminded her politely.

"And now Rosie is involved?" Mimzy looked to be deep in thought. "I wonder how she connects to all of this."

"I don't think any of this is actually connected."

"Obviously Rosie knows about Carmilla's plan to help Zestial get rid of Vox- you know, because they're lovers! She must have been trying to pay Rosie hush-money! THAT'S why they wanted to talk in private!"

"Why is Zestial trying to kill Vox, exactly?"

"Please, Charlie, try to keep up." Mimzy looked a tad annoyed. "Because you saw how they were arguing. There is clearly some kind of long-standing animosity between the two of them! Also, Vox may or may not be a witch. I was a bit unclear on that whole point when they were fighting because, as cute as he is, I can't understand a fucking word Zestial says. He's one of those boys that's better seen and not heard."

"That's not very nice." Charlie wasn't going to argue with Mimzy on this point any longer as it seemed clear to the Princess of Hell that some forces could not be defeated with even her regal might, one such force- apparently- was Mimzy's dedication to make shit up based on completely random bits of evidence.

"He's trying to kill Vox. That means I don't have to be nice." Mimzy assure her. Charlie gave up for the moment. She had learned to choose her battles and only continued to debate Mimzy this long out of an (apparently misplaced) sense of hope that she might listen to reason... this time.

They reached the Hotel without much incident. Of course, Mimzy was still in a great mood as she burst through the door with Charlie behind her. Vaggie was instantly on her feet to greet her girlfriend, but came to a stop looking at Charlie's outfit in confusion. "Is that... new? Because I absolutely do not remember you dressing like that this morning... or... ever for that matter."

"Velvette made it for me." Charlie took Vaggie into her arms, hugging her tightly and giving her a tender kiss. God it was nice to be home. "You like it?"

"It's not your usual style, but I would be lying if I said you didn't look drop dead gorgeous." Vaggie put a hand on Charlie's cheek. "But you look great in anything, so I guess that's a bit of a loaded question."

"Aw, you're too sweet." Charlie nuzzled her cheek playfully.

"This was quite the adventure. I have so many articles to write I don't even know where to start!" Mimzy let out an excited squeal before bolting up the stairs, nearly bumping into Angel Dust who was on his way down.

"Jesus Fucking Christ, watch it will ya?" Angel dodged out of the way before going back to looking at his phone.

"What go into Mimzy?" Vaggie watched her go before turning back to Charlie. "I'll be honest, I didn't expect her to be in this good of a mood after being straight-up ignored by what's-her-name for God knows how long."

"Mary-Lu." Charlie sighed. "Her name is Mary-Lu. And we did a lot more than that photoshoot. Did you know Mimzy writes for the 'Demonic Deets'? Because that was news to me."

"The gossip magazine?" Vaggie raised her eyebrow. "No but now that you've said that; I can totally see it."

"Ugh." Angel Dust let out a frustrated groan as he flopped onto the couch, kicking up his legs and stretching his back. All the while he was still glued to his phone. Charlie gave Vaggie another little squeeze before making her way to Angel.

"Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, it's just-" Angel finally looked up from his phone, eyes scanning Charlie from tiara to expensive heels. "Damn bitch, you look fucking amazing right now. You and bitch-tits going out?"

"No, Vaggie and I don't have anything planned. But I might keep this dress for the next time we do." Charlie did like the way Vaggie's face seemed to flush when she saw Charlie dolled up. (It might not hurt to ask Velvette for more fashion tips in the future, just for special occasions.)

"You should. You look like someone should pay you to step on them." Angel gave a nod of approval.

"Thank you, but what was it that was making you upset?" Charlie appreciated the compliment, but she didn't want it to distract her from possibly helping Angel. "If you want to tell me, that is."

"It's nothing big." Angel assured her looking back at his phone, his expression returning to annoyance. "It's fucking Val. He's barely called me for anything these last few months but now he's been texting me over and over again about last night's episode of 'Love after Death'."

"Oh? I didn't know he liked that show." Charlie was trying to be polite and not let her dislike of Val seep into her voice. She wanted Angel to feel safe talking to her.

"He doesn't. He says all of Vox's shows are shit. And he's mostly right. Except for Real Housewives of the Greed Ring. That show is fucking fantastic." Angel put the phone down, rolling his eyes. "I didn't watch the fucking episode. For one thing: I don't even watch Love after Death. And for another: I was in fucking bed."

"Is he mad that you didn't watch it or something?" Charlie couldn't imagine a situation in which Angel would be forced to watch a melodrama for work, but she didn't dare interfere less she upset her friend.

"He says he's disappointed which is fucking weird." Angel made a face. "I told him if he's that upset about it, he can have Vox send me a copy- not that he will. That Flat-Face fucker hates me." He smirked. "It's cause I'm prettier than he is." But his face instantly fell again. "But then Val was all: Oh no Angel, if you missed it, art can't be recreated or whatever. So, I was gonna ignore it, but fucking TikVox is going NUTS with people talking about how the episode is fucking transcendent. So, now I'm legit curious, ya know? I message Vox directly to ask and the fucker leaves me on read. Which he always does because, like I said, he fucking hates me."

"I don't think Vox hates you." Charlie had no idea how Vox felt about Angel, but it was hard to imagine anyone could hate him. "He's just... really busy right now. I saw him on my way back and he was arguing with Zestial."

"Oh fuck, really?" Angel perked up. "Did you record it? I bet that shit was hilarious."

"Well no... they were just talking about a store that got destroyed. Well... more like... arguing." Charlie gave a little shrug.

"Did Vox do his whole: I know better than you because I graduated from an Ivy League school, thing? He uses that shit on Val ALL the time when I hear them fighting." Angel laughed.

"He did mention his school." Charlie nodded.

"Miskatonic University." Angel snorted. "And don't you dare pronounce it wrong or he will fucking go off for like ten hours. He thinks he's hot shit because his parents probably paid a lot of money so he could brag about wasting years of his life in a stuffy fucking building surrounded by other pompous rich bitches. Who won the fight? Was it Zestial? I'm hoping it was Zestial."

"There was no fight." Charlie wasn't sure if there wouldn't be one later- but for now things had been left alone. "Vox accused Zestial of being paranoid and burning down his building- which he did do. And Zestial accused Vox of being... Eldritch? I think was the word... and also a witch." Eldritch... Charlie had heard the word once or twice before, but she had never been clear on the exact meaning.

"Eldritch?" Alastor's voice made Charlie and Angel both jump. "You don't say! Why that IS quite a fight."

"Alastor!" Charlie caught her breath. "How long have you been here?"

"Who knows? I truly am a man of great mystery."

"He walked in just a minuet ago." Vaggie replied flatly. Alastor's eyes narrowed for a moment, but his smile never wavered.

"And now I must head up to my room! I have much to do." He started up the stairs. Charlie watched him for a moment before biting her lip.

"One second guys." She gave a wave to Angel and Vaggie before running up the stairs after Alastor. "Hey!" She called to him as he had his hand on his bedroom door. He stopped, turning to look back at her.

"Hello!" He greeted her with the same enthusiasm he always used.

"You um... you went to a riot with Rosie last night?"

"Indeed! It was far superior to her original plan. A picture show? Can you imagine? Where's the creativity?"

"Y... yeah." Charlie gave a nervous laugh. Despite all the time he had been around, all the things he had done for the Hotel, Charlie still felt discomfort around Alastor. That smile could be disarming, but it could also be unsettling.

"Is that all?"

"When Zestial called Vox... Eldritch... what did he mean, exactly?"

"HA!" Alastor gave a single laugh but stopped the moment he saw Charlie's expression. "Oh dear, you're being serious." As if to emphasize his point, his little 'Oh Deer' mug materialized in his hand and he took a sip from it, never losing his smile. "I would have thought mommy and daddy would have discussed this with you. Then again, that is probably expecting too much from your dad, especially."

"Alastor." Charlie narrowed her eyes.

"No, no. I am simply saying that your father doesn't like competition. And who provides a bigger competition than beings who believe in direct interference with humans? Heaven and Hell are hands off. But The Elders, those responsible for eldritch magic? They love helping humans, living or dead. I can see where it might step on your father's tiny, little toes."

"They... help humans?" Well, that sounded really nice of them. But Charlie lived in Hell, she knew there was always a catch.

"This is all purely theoretical, Charlie dear." Alastor laughed. "It's just things I heard while I was on Earth. I doubt they're even real. I don't think Heaven would allow big magical beings to give gifts to living humans. It goes against their whole- we're the best thing ever motif." He wiped his gloved hand on his suit jacket as if buffing his claws. He examined his work, the glove hadn't really been dirty to begin with, not that Charlie had seen. But now it was definitely clean. "And Zestial being a paranoid old fart who thinks that the radio is borderline sorcery, is most likely just getting senile in his old age. If you ask me... he's been in power a bit too long. I worry the stress of it is getting to his head." Alastor's smile widened.

"I just-" Charlie was cut off as her phone started to ring. "Fuck. Hold on." She fumbled for her phone seeing: DAD across the screen. She immediately answered, turning around to face away from Alastor. "Dad?"

"Hey bitch!" Lucifer's voice sounded surprisingly cheerful. (Though she really wasn't sure why he felt like he had to greet her like this every time.) "I need your help for something, are you busy?"

"Help?" Charlie repeated. "Is this another lesson for Adam?"

"No, no, no, no, no." Her father quickly shut down that suggestion. "I mean... kinda. But it's not a Redemption lesson. It's more like... proving a point. Can you come to the house? If not, it's fine, but I would love your input."

"The house?" Charlie had only been inside twice since her father had promised her that he would make it available to her. And she hadn't made it past the foyer. (His excuse was that Adam now lived there, and he didn't want Charlie to have to put up with Adam's bullshit in her childhood home.) "I can actually go in? Not just stand awkwardly at the door?"

"Yeah, you can actually come in. In fact, you'll sort of have to." Her father didn't sound as avoidant as he usually did on the phone.

"I can be there." Charlie couldn't pass on this opportunity. "I'll leave as soon as I change clothes." No way she was going to go to see her dad dressed like this.

"Perfect! Love you, crabapple! I'll see you when you get here!"

"Love you too, dad." Charlie smiled, hanging up the phone and turning back to face Alastor... he was gone. Ah well. Charlie had to get ready anyway. She could always talk to Alastor after. But for now, it was time to see what her dad wanted.

[chuuyrr]

Hiii i can i request for a headcanon of teen! genz scarlet witch like just her quoting a vine or a meme in a daily basis, has broken sense of humor like she could just watch a vine or meme that wasn't even that funny to others but to her it's like the most hilarious thing she ever seen(minus the dark humor jokes) How would gojo and her uncles along with toji and her friends react to her personality. Please free to disregard this if you feel uncomfortable doing writing this headcanons. hehe ty!

scarlet witch! fushiguro! reader as a gen z headcanons

jujutsu kaisen x reader

masterlist of the series

╰➤ CW(s): possible spoilers for jujutsu kaisen, themes of crack, teen! reader being a gen z and having a broken humor content, dad! gojo & dad! toji being boomers (jk), not proofread because im lazy at the moment & it's 1am

╰➤ PAIRING(s): platonic! jujutsu kaisen x reader

oh my god this request is literally it. tbh, i had fun writing this thank you for requesting and for being patient!! enjoy reading anon dearest, and you're always welcome ♡

headcanons !

you're always seen smiling and laughing about those vine or meme-like videos you see online. whenever you show them to gojo or toji, they're like, "uh-huh, that's nice kikufuku/angel." but like, they really don't get what's so funny about that lawnmower soaring through the sky with some girl singing a high note, or that "f re sh a voca do" one, or literally the vines and memes you show them every single time.

being a "typical" gen-z, you have your slang in your vocabulary that poor gojo and toji just can't seem to get the hang of.

"periodt" uh, are you on your period or are you talking about the exclamation mark?

"slayy" do you mean to kill? what?

your adoptive and biological fathers are so confused when you just start quoting vines and memes, as well as saying gen z slang on a daily basis. they just can't keep it up that well, but i can definitely see gojo working hard to do so. gojo wants to knows what's in and out for the youth to be able to relate to his students, and not just you.

please, even the king of curses is so fucking confused. he's like, "is this the language that people speak now?" sukuna would have also kicked you out of his domain if it weren't for your almighty chaos magic, rendering him powerless while you hit a woah that one time.

gojo definitely asks the students to translate for him whatever slang you just started saying. the same goes for toji, who asks tsumiki and megumi. 

you got into a heated argument with the higher-ups at one point because they were irritating you with all the special grade missions, and side comments they were throwing at you, and you just started yelling things like, "you're done, you're done." "objection, lack of hairline." "wow, it's internalized misogyny for me." "it's not the vibe, stop." "all of you just had to be fire signs." it both disses and baffles the higher-ups; in either way, gojo is proud.

when it comes to memeing and stuff, you definitely relate to the first and second-year students more, especially yuuji and nobara, because your age is closer to them as a teenager. in fact, you show and do tiktoks with them almost all of the time, from dances to skits. gojo occasionally joins in because he doesn't want to be left out, and he also wants to be able to relate to you and the others.

gojo definitely tells nanami all the gen z stuff he learns from you and his students, and nanami is just like (ㆆ _ ㆆ), because it sounds strange hearing those slangs, vines, and memes from gojo himself.

even when you're sad, you say things like "i'm going through it," and when you're really excited, you do that lowercase scream while shaking your head and opening your hand over your mouth.

you have a very broken sense of humor. they could show you a badly photoshopped picture of something with some random words, and you'd find it really funny even if isn't. you are enigmatic for this personality of yours, but they actually like this side of you. it makes you fun to be around. even if people like gojo, toji, and nanami don't really understand you, seeing you smile, laugh, and be enthusiastic about explaining why those videos and slangs are funny is enough to make them happy.

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

The Thrilling Saga of Connie paying real life money for the Worst Sonic TV Show

Let’s begin with the simple fact that me and my sister, @birdsareblooming​ “Cori”, have both been hyperfixating on Sonic the Hedgehog since last March. During this hyperfixation, I was on Sonic Wiki to copy-paste song lyrics onto my stolen mp3s, and I called my sister in and pointed at the template at the bottom. 

“What is this Sonic Underground thing?” I asked. “It has one shit billion songs.” 

So we clicked on the page to read about it, and each sentence we read was a punch in the gut and this quickly became the funniest thing we’d ever read. Highlights include:

It looks like this:

“Sonic[...] is known to be a prince” 

Sonic has two siblings who actually have good characterization but their names are literally just Sonia and Manic. Like. Sonic split into two names. jesus christ 

Also Sonic and his siblings all share a voice actor. honestly Jaleel White does his best with it but 

“The three siblings possess enchanted medallions that transform not only into musical instruments, but also into weapons.”

“Some fans consider Sonia to be a clone of Amy Rose, minus the attraction Amy feels for Sonic.” YEAH I SURE HOPE IT DOES

“Manic is the most often captured of the siblings” himbo king 

Knuckles shows up, and for the first, like, two sentences his description is very similar to the game, and then you get immediately pulverized by “He has a pet Dinosaur called Chomps.”

Literally so many sentences on Sonic Wiki are lowkey salty about this show. The page features lines such as “Sonic Underground bears little relation to the often complex Sonic universe (including previous animated series, as well as Sonic comics and games), and shares only three established characters” and “many of the characters in the Freedom Fighter group that were in Sonic the Hedgehog are completely left out (including Tails).”

“The show met with mostly negative reviews.”

*checks air dates* It only lasted two goddamn months

So after seeing this we thought it was the funniest thing and we showed our older sister, @patema-introverted​ “North.” To our surprise, our at the time “knew nothing about this sonic bullshit” sister recognized the show. Turns out she’d seen trailers for it as a child and that was her sole exposure to Sonic canon. 

We were in quarantine at the time, so we ended up finding it on YouTube and binge-watching it all together as a sibling bonding activity. It was just as hilarious as we thought it would be- some stuff was legitimately good, like the sibling dialogue for instance, but good lord were the character designs ugly, the plot all over the place, and pretty much every song, um, not great. Also there was one episode that we skipped because it got, um, I think “stereotypical” is the nicest word I can use here. 

But the point is, we had a jolly good time watching it, and afterwards we binged all the other Sonic shows and bonded as a family. 

After quarantine, North and I go back to college. My roommate gets groceries at Walmart, while I get them elsewhere, so while she and North collect food I wander the DVD aisle to look at the cool movies and also dumpster-dive in the bargain bin for Cats (2019). I am also short as fuck, so the top shelf of movies I cannot see, I can only read the labels. 

So one day I was browsing the DVDs, and glancing over at the labels for the top shelf. I read over the final one before the shelves end. 

And then I stop, do a double take, and have a heart attack, because there is a label that reads “SONIC UNDERGROUND $3.74″

I immediately climb the shelf but there aren’t any DVDs atop the shelf. However, the label is still there. I excitedly tell my sister and roommates, freak out with them a bit, and then give myself a mission statement:

I will buy the $4 Sonic Underground DVD from Walmart

I did not want it as a gift, I did not want to find it online. I wanted to walk into a store, pick up the Worst Sonic Show on DVD, walk it straight to the checkout, and in front of the cashier and God, pay for it with my own money. I did not care if it was the whole series or two episodes; I needed to do this for my own serotonin.

We would go to Walmart about once a week. Every time, I would go to the DVD aisle, and go right to the end of the shelves. I would stare at the label SONIC UNDERGROUND $3.74 and empty space above it and wonder who the fuck was buying this other than me. I would occasionally ask employees if they had any copies in storage. I would build a shrine to Manic in my room. Okay, no I didn’t, but only because my RA would have murdered me. 

Christmas break comes, and we have to go home. We have a nice Christmas, and Cori and I infodump at each other about how we would make Sonic Underground a good show (note: we’re both galaxy braining) and also play Bendy and the Ink Machine. Fun times. 

When we finally get back to College, it’s late January- long story short we have a very long winter break. My roommate who gets food at Walmart got food without us the first week cause she showed up first, so we take her out to Walmart the first time in the year of our lord 2021 on January 29. 

I wander the Valentine’s aisle, immediately grabbing a sequin puppy. I go to the DVDs and see Animaniacs Season One, also grab that. 

And then.

There it is.

The Holy Grail. 

Above the label SONIC UNDERGROUND $3.74, is one DVD left. 

Already I am losing my mind. It’s roughly seven hours of episodes- I couldn’t find an episode list, but I think that’s half the show, for $4! And the cover is amazing. 

That’s a png of Sonic from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (1993) with a medallion badly photoshopped over it. The medallion is too small. 

Manic is shoved into the corner. He doesn’t have his medallion at all. 

Sonia isn’t even pictured on the front cover, probably because they realized she was the worst designed of the bunch. I’m not ragging on her though, because she’s still one of the better designed characters of the show. Those background characters make me cry 

So you bet your ass I finally paid my hard-earned $4 for this shit. Upon getting home, I discovered that there was even wilder shit with this DVD than I thought. 

For starters: the bonus features listed are as follows:

Original Concept Art - did not expect that these character designs were the final draft

Storyboard-to-screen - did not expect they bothered to storyboard this 

Music Video Jukebox - that’s cute, they thought we liked the music 

Interviews with original screenwriter & executive producer - I fully expect the only questions to be “why.” 

On the left of this list are screenshots from the show, where people can finally see Sonia, who we Know™ is a girl because she is pink and has hair and also an actual body shape instead of just circles like her brothers. 

But wait... what’s that in the lefthand corner? 

That looks like some kind of robot. But it’s not a robot from Sonic Underground! That didn’t appear once. Why is it here? 

The mystery continues upon opening the DVD case: inside are advertisements for other collections, including other Sonic DVDs: two volumes of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (1993) and the final episodes of Sonic the Hedgehog “SatAM” (1993)

First of all, the first volume of AOSTH has the exact same PNG of Sonic as the Underground Volume 1. Not even trying to hide it. But second... the second volume of AOSTH also has this robot on its cover. 

And THIS ROBOT IS ALSO DECORATING THE THIRD DISC IN THE SET?

So you may be asking, who is this robot? Is it from AOSTH or Underground?

IT’S FROM FUCKING SATAM. The one show that doesn’t have it decorating the DVD covers.

Also, not only is it from SatAM, it only appears in one fucking episode. Not a major character! AND IT HAS A DIFFERENT DESIGN ON THE PROMO ART, WITH HAIR AND FANGS.

Why is it showing up everywhere? What is going on? 

I have not yet had the opportunity to watch this glorious piece of animation, but I am so glad at the confusion I have felt upon receiving it. 

But before I go, I must share with you the best part of this DVD purchase. And it was flipping to the back, scanning the details, and discovering the exact runtime of the episode collection. 

Guys, gals, and enby pals, friends and enemies, Nintendo and Sega, the first Volume of Sonic Underground has a runtime of...

420 MINUTES.

Maybe I’m wrong and this IS the best Sonic show. 

[empiredesimparte]

Foreword: After a few weeks I finally took the time to reach your request dear Anon, I hope it will be useful to you. I advise you to read (or come back to) the tutorial of our famous De Villiers which is quite complete! Here are my personal priorities, what goes through my head when I take / prepare a screenshot.

My computer equipment is : - Intel® Core™ i7-9750H CPU @ 2.60GHz - RAM : 32 Go (16 at the beginning, I added some more) - Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti This allows me to play in "Ultra" graphics + some reshades... which helps for the quality of the rendering.

- My tips for screenshots -

> "WRITING LIKE A FILM"

When I go into camera mode, I project myself into the shoes of a cameraman on a film set. Or a photographer in terms of portraits, etc.

It's all about intention, and the choice of your angle of view is the means to achieve your intention.

Here (Image A), it's a point of view with its back to the characters. It is an intention:

From the camera's perspective ("zoom out", image B), we can see that the first screen (A) was from the point of view of the approaching curious princess.

Notes :

There is a play of depth in the shot (a little badly done I admit) : the over-framing of the door, the princess, the sofa where we are talking and finally the background (4).

Ideally, you should have at least 3 levels of depth to give a realistic impression. More if you want to show the grandeur of a setting like a castle.

In my opinion, we must strive to find intentions in the screens. You have to see it as a kind of writing of the image.

Sometimes I don't necessarily have a clear idea when I shoot a scene, so I take the scene from absolutely every angle. Then comes a big sorting moment lasting several dozen minutes, where I observe the screens meticulously.

Don't hesitate to multiply the angles of view with different poses. This will give you more storytelling possibilities! Bring your camera closer to yours characters, for example, by positioning yourself over his/her shoulder.

> THE SETTING

The thing that takes me the longest to prepare for a shot is the placement of the objects/architecture. This is what creates the depth of field. I would advise you to take references to furnish your rooms, and take the time to test the screenshots during construction if you have TwistedMexi's Buildmod Freecam.

In the Tuileries Palace (Image C), I'm trying to create a more or less parallel setting with my Sims in the centre to give it a "French style" in reference to our dear Louis XIV.

For a nature holiday, nature and scenery invade the Sims, with a slight asymmetry (Image D).

Notes :

Present the screenshots from the most general shot, which sets the scene (e.g. a building), to the most specific (e.g. with a close-up on your sims). Or vice versa! This sets the mood for your scene.

I try to use as much natural light from outside as possible, even through the windows. But some people do completely artificial lighting :)

Avoid showing the white ceilings of the base game and unworked scenery... This disturbs the immersion, especially during a BTS. In movies or IRL, especially during a conversation, it is rare to see the ceiling or the floor.

Sometimes "show" is enough to describe a mood, a relationship or an action. In this case, the setting or close-ups can be very important without the characters speaking. For example, in image D, this screenshot can sum up the atmosphere of a whole weekend's holiday, without adding to it.

> YOUR COMPUTER SCREEN AND POST-PROCESSING

For Tumblr, consider the size of your computer screen when decorating. Because your screenshots will take the shape of your screen. As you can see, I have two computer screens: one more square (Images A & B) and one very horizontal (Images C & D).

My sims are naturally more discreet in my horizontal format, which is a landscape format. Whereas the square screen displays the sims better as it is closer to the portrait / small screen format.

You can adjust the format of your screens by cropping your shots with a software (some use Photoshop... I only use the Windows image gallery for my part, or the Pixelr site which is free).

For my last portrait (Image E), I had to crop to portrait size (Image F below). Otherwise my emperor is too much crushed by the background.

Further down, I took a closer screen, zoomed in (Image G). Result: considerable gain in sharpness. Cropping can cause a loss of sharpness, you have to be careful not to abuse it.

> CURIOSITY IS WELCOME EVEN FOR SCREENSHOTS

My main advice is to look with interest at the work of simblr that you like, but also at official films or portraits etc. Understand the intentions and the means used to achieve them. Informed work always makes a difference in terms of quality of rendering. When I like a post, I always take several readings and re-readings of the means used. There is a lot of creativity! There's no shame in taking inspiration from other creators (in Tumblr or outside Tumblr), it's the best way to forge your own style.

Mind you, I'm not talking about comparing yourself to others. Inspiration is an element of curiosity, not comparison, it shouldn't make you feel bad. Nor should it lead you to plagiarize.

> COLOURS IN THE SCREENSHOT

When I set up a set and dress my sims, I pay attention to the colours given to each of them. The colours are also a way to emphasize an intention (colour symbolism), or/and to bring balance to your screenshot.

It's a soft and bright family picture with green/blue/beige colours (Image H). A bright colour would have brought a certain imbalance, either on the sims or the decor.

Bad editing to illustrate! (Image I) It seems a bit obvious when we talk about it here like this, but colour harmony is subtle and sometimes a bit forgotten. Breaking the harmony can be an intention of course, but it's still a dosage!

[jjheejz]

Im sorry to crash the party this late(?) but on your fate saga post 3 you mention a the untamed saga, just what happened?? >>

Although this is a JunZhe account, this post is focused on Xiao Zhan and Wang Yi Bo for awhile. :)

//

Hello anon,

No you're not late :)

Before I get to it, have to admit that I've only witnessed this saga in bits and pieces so the information may not 100% depict the whole story/cause.

However, the general takeaway is that, Xiao Zhan (XZ) solo fans, Wang Yi Bo (WYB) solo fans and BoJunYiXiao (BJYX as short form, cpname) cpfans don't get along. The latter is seen as the lowest level. They are viewed as feeding on fantasies and unrealistic ideals because these 2 actors are definitely not together as a couple in real life. There is "no future". (Despite this, on weibo, BJYX is still on a competitive position with JunZhe in the cp chart till now, rotating between top 1 and 2 - tbh, I somewhat only understand that BJYX hardcore fans does the tedious fan chart votes or sth daily rather hardworkingly).

Today (10 August screenshot): No.1 - BJYX, No.2 - LLD. Bonus below, No.11 - JunZhe

Of course, internationally, we dont think being a cpfan is a problem. Sometimes we just like both actors interactions, doesnt matter if they are real or not, but in the Chinese (hardcore) solo fans fandom, to them it's somewhat on this kind of perspective:

1. These 2 are actors = bound to have competition with each other (brand endorsements, sales, roles, show appearances etc), therefore, in order to build their future career, many choose to side one of them rather than both (not sure of the rationale of siding one rather than both). So most cpfans end up diverting to become solo stans. It's a realistic, long-term kind of thing. Some just end up preferring one over another, and some as we all know exists - prefer one of them as their own ideal fantasy boyfriend (the chinese term is 梦女 meng nv - 'dreaming girl'). These are also apparent in Gong Jun and Zhang Zhe Han solo fans.

2. XZ's AO3 saga: In brief, basically this was an extremely huge issue in 2020 (referred to as "227" - the date of seriousness) and was blown up very badly because it innocently involved those who doesnt know XZ and WYB, to a bad end. AO3 is a famous fanfic site, even internationally, but because of a BJYX fanfic, a group of extremely toxic XZ fans blew it up to the point this site was banned in China. Frequent Chinese writers and readers used this site for all kinds of fanfics (drama, anime, general writing etc) had their works and account gone overnight, so this grew an immense emotionally intense hatred on onlookers/passerbys/unrelated to them AO3 users to XZ and his fans.

This technically had something to do with cpfans since the fic was written by one of them, so yea. Imagine the hatred Chinese AO3 users have on XZ. Even now, I still see people hating on him for it despite it being the toxic fans fault. And obviously that group of XZ extremely toxic fans ain't going to self-reflect but push the blame, and they emerged even more hardcore...This saga's magnitude is beyond how my words can express so feel free to look it up - 227. It was just a mega large hurricane.

So, if XZ and WYB are in the same frame/drama again, the media is going to go wild in their articles. Solo fans are going to create even bigger fanwars with each other and it's really damaging to XZ's reputation for onlookers and passer-bys. WYB as well.

//

In the novel and drama, WangXian is always a couple.

But in real life, the actors are only temporarily Wei Wu Xian, and Lan Zhan. The real them is Xiao Zhan, and Wang Yi Bo, of which BJYX is unlike JunZhe.

Note: If anyone has anything to add/amend please feel free to do so! As mentioned, I've only witnessed in bits and pieces but because the magnitude was so big, everyone more or less had an idea about it, just that what I mentioned may not be the full picture.

Bonus: Just last month - July 2021, BJYX toxic fans started a war with JunZhe/LLD (to know the scale, let's just say, it involved photoshopping on to funeral portraits). So this further grew hatred on both XZ and WYB as some of them were AO3 users/onlookers of the 227 incident. Both cpfandom became straight up enemies. 🤦‍♀️

To them XZ knew this 227 issue blew up but he had never made a public apology or addressed it at all [this is going to be another post if I were to state my stand on why - subjectively]. As a general fan of BJYX, was apparently suspected of being a spy and toxic fan of them, entering LLD to create war - simply by following BJYX. So they grew tight on security and because of that last month, was kicked out of 4 LLD groups (not entirely due to following BJYX but somewhat related). 🥲

Anyway, no matter what, BJYX, XZ and WYB is a sensitive topic on weibo. They go by initial references there: XZ, WYB and last month's war, XZ's toxic fan is referred as 🦐 (idk the reason).

BJYX saga is just a prevalent childish hardcore fan issue + non-fans but brainwash lurkers creating chaos and watching this all (they get paid well to do this). The good Chinese weibo fans are really nice but sometimes I feel it's some kind of underground love story for cpfans of both JunZhe and BJYX on weibo.

I believe XZ and WYB themselves are in good terms, just cut apart by their own fandom. No matter what, both actors are hard workers and are nice people, please continue to support them if you are a fan of them too ^-^

Hope you gain some generic insights :)

Bonus bonus images:

Post update record:

[Edited an error, pointed out by Farrowuk] - Thank you :)

[linssikeittomies]

The Place Between Here And There - Chapter 10: ...And Happiness In Private Life(cont'd)

Masterpost AO3 Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7  Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 9(cont'd)

I've finally updated the status of the fic to ABANDONED, I was going to do that way earlier but I didn't want to admit defeat, and then I just kind of forgot... Time really starts flying by as you get older, it totally doesn't feel like 2 years passed by^^' I'm still writing scenes for later on in the fic, and I've had the general outline of the story planned for a long time, but I haven't been able to write complete chapters for any of my projects for over a year now, it's very annoying. Anyway, this is the rest of chapter 9, not my best work but at least I like the part with Toris. He's noticed Ivan's small efforts of being nicer and wants to encourage them. Thanks for everyone who read this story and sorry for not being able to bring it to conclusion for all of you who were invested!

-

Ivan sent Fredya home until Wednesday – claiming it was so he could concentrate on work, but he was sure Fredya could tell he was just fretting about the upcoming meeting. Ivan was terrified Katyushka would get carried away, and that was closer to certainty rather than possibility, and then Fredya would walk out of his life. He had known from the start that the time would come sooner or later, but he had much hoped it would fall on the later end of the spectrum. This was a wholly different case from that of his first girlfriend - the one he had been with all of three days before Katyusha started talking about weddings. She had left him the next day, not surprisingly, and he hadn’t really cared one way or the other - she had been far too practical to occupy his thoughts when she wasn’t in sight. But if Fredya left as suddenly, and he was certainly impulsive enough to do so on the spot, then... Obviously it still wouldn’t be the end of the world,of course it wasn’t the worst thing that could happen, losing a home for example would be far worse than losing a companion, it really wasn’t that big of an issue when you thought about it – there was no reason to lose what little will to live Ivan had left over something that insignificant. No reason.

So Ivan would not worry about it – he slammed the door on the thought, and worked hard to put all his concentration on his notes. He had not yet studied Rogers enough, his files on the computer had sat abandoned for too long. Opening his folder, going over the routes again, verifying time codes, Ivan fell to a comfortable, familiar routine, cup of tea beside him growing cold. Rogers didn’t have much of a routine, which made observing him a challenge and data collecting a thrill. At least this was an activity that Ivan could still lose himself in despite whatever non-turmoil was boiling in his gut. Comparing coordinates, discovering overlaps, identifying patterns, data was something Ivan was good at. Data had no emotions, so it was easy to handle. Data didn’t mind his extracurriculars, didn’t judge him for his jealousy, didn’t snoop into his past. Though it also didn’t text him at 3 am to tell him about a silly dream it had. Even less it cared about whether he was coming home for the night or not. It not wanting to watch brainless, cliched superhero should have been a positive, but in the dark, the brain gets sentimental. Ivan suddenly wished he had a file on Fredya. Ivan certainly had enough data on him, though so far it was all in his brain and a few lines in his notebooks. One photo on his phone, a selfie Fredya had sent some weeks ago. It was taken with one of those filter things, Ivan wasn’t familiar with the apps so he couldn’t tell if it was instagram or snappychat or whatever others there were. Fredya had cartoon glasses on his nose, on top of his real-life glasses. He was doing a victory sign, and there was a badly drawn pink heart floating in the lower left corner, not anchored into anything. The composition of the photo was bad. A large dead space occupied the top left, a pile of dirty clothes was poking into the frame from the bottom right. The lighting was scarcely better, the only diffuser was the dust inside the light fixture. Fredya’s artistic ability was nil, though he did make for an attractive subject, harsh shadows and all. It would be nice to have proper photo of him, before he got out of reach. With a reference to guide him, it might be possible. Ivan quickly scanned his bedroom for inspiration.

Perhaps it was too much effort for 2 a.m., but Ivan rather liked the end result. The handful of stars drawn on the wall to form a suggestion of a halo – however wrong it looked on Ivan – and hands posed to form a heart on the chest, and some minor lighting adjustments on photoshop, he thought it near perfectly captured how Ivan saw Fredya. Bright, innocent, center of the universe, unashamed of his affections. Fredya wouldn’t put as much effort in to it, even if he did take his own version of the photo as Ivan had requested, but that was also good. It wasn’t in Fredya’s nature to try too hard at something he didn’t feel like understanding - such as art other than of the moving pictures variety. Together, the photos formed a piece – the fantasy and the reality. It was a commentary on expectations. Fredya may or may not look at the photo when he inevitably got up to go the bathroom sometime soon, but he wouldn’t take his own until afternoon if ever, so Ivan finally went to bed. He only had a few hours before his shift started.

-_-_-_-_-

Fredya had sent an emoji Ivan didn’t understand the meaning as response to the photo, followed by hearts and something that seemed to be an abbreviation, Ivan didn’t research the meaning. It likely wasn’t important. Ivan got coffees for everyone again, and Amanda gave him a incredulous look. It was getting suspicious, Ivan acting nice. He should dial down on the social interactions for the next few days. It would be good practice for when Fredya left him, anyway. “Oh, thank you for going through the trouble”, Toris commented smiling. Ivan studied the smile, trying to map out proportions and gauge timings, but again he failed to replicate the gesture. It kept coming out as sarcastic. He would prefer if both would just shut up and their coffees without scrutinizing his intentions. Let a man act civil to fellow humans beings in peace. “If everyone is done sitting around, we need someone to go interview Fowler’s parishioners.” Predictably, Amanda volunteered for the task. That left Ivan and Toris at the office, reading through statements, comparing alibis and viewing security footage, the same draining and pointless sinkhole of never-ending choppy black-and-white footage that glared a print of the screen in your soul, so that in the end when you lost everything else to dementia and cataracts, you would still see that stinging bright rectangle staring you in the eye, smirking gleefully, taking pleasure in removing everything one used to take joy in, and replacing itself in place of loved ones. That metaphor ran a little wild at the end, there. In all fairness, it could be intriguing work when results could reasonably be expected, but everyone and their mother knew the only thing learned from these particular ones would be just how much time were wasting on them. Even Toris, being his professional self, couldn’t resist glancing at the clock every few minutes. He would of course try to make it inconspicuous, just letting his eyes dart to his wrist and back again, but it was noticeable enough when one was more concentrated on the coworker than the work. It came to Ivan’s mind that perhaps this was another aspect of Toris he should try to simulate, rather than keep studying, his work ethic was excellent. Surely that was something most people would approve of. And Fredya did often complain Ivan was rather lackadaisical about his work, he would appreciate the effort. “How do stay so focused?” he asked sincerely. It was admirable, really, how Toris could throw himself at something so tedious. Toris blinked at him in confusion, probably surprised to see his colleague who was supposed to working beside him blatantly ignoring said work. “I’ve practiced it for years, there’s really no easy trick for it.” “Ah. Shame.” “I find that meditating regularly helps. And a good diet.” Well, that was already two things Ivan would not be trying out. “I could send you some articles  if you’d like.” “You should spend your free time on yourself. You work too much.” Ivan went idly back to his files, not really feeling like working, but deciding to at least give it a shot, but feeling Toris’ curious eyes still fixed on him was too much of a distraction. After several seconds of silence he couldn’t take it anymore. “Yes?” “Thank you. That was considerate of you.” Ivan didn’t know how to answer that. It had been such a banal thing to say. Not warranting any response, really. Just a stock phrase, however true of some people and situations - such as this particular specimen. Toris must have heard the exact same statement hundreds of times in his life, knowing that he had an actual social circle who cared for him. Ivan was outside that circle, and people rarely care for the things outsiders say in matters like these - surely Toris should feel nothing particular about anything Ivan said. There was no need for him to smile like that, it was just embarrassing for a grown man to get so giddy about faint praise. Ivan scoffed and went back to his work.

-_-_-_-_-

U maek a habot of drawning on walls huh Outside of his brief childhood, Ivan had only ever drawn on walls three times - once in a drunk, misguided bout of creative frenzy, once to write his number on an intriguing man’s wall to annoy him, and once in an attempt to save a relic of happier times for the future. Mostly when you are involved, it seems. Perhaps you are my muse for wall-related artistry It had been a while since Ivan had drawn a portrait, but now might be the time to dust off that skill set. Ivan considered himself more of a photographer, but there was also something appealing about creating from scratch. Although... he would need to keep the portrait hidden, it would raise questions and pity later on. Ivan wished he was better at abstraction, that way it wouldn’t look like Fredya to anyone else, but his mind seemed to be too observational for it. It could only make sense of things that connected together in realistic ways, it couldn’t create anything out of feelings alone. Perhaps he simply didn’t have enough of them for that kind of art. The dinner with Fredya and his sisters was a few hours away, but Ivan was already nervously ironing his clothes. He once again pleaded Katyusha to control her romantic impulses, and of course she promised, but Ivan knew that meant little. She had very bad self-control. Tasha’s picking me up, we’ll meet you there Natasha was coming? Nataliya was coming?! Fuck - what was she - this was bad news - why hadn’t she said - oh god, forget about Katyusha ruining everything if Nataliya Grigorova was coming! She never mentioned wanting to come along That sneaky little girl, she told me you said it was okay, haha He would not survive this night sober. He wanted to make a good impression. He did not want to be drunk when the only three people who mattered to him were all in the same room. He wanted to be fully conscious, to enjoy an outing with his family while being fully genuine, not just sedated into calmness. But lord knew he would not survive the night sober.

-_-_-_-_-

Remembering the fit Fredya had thrown the last time Ivan had driven not-strictly-drunk-but-also-not-sober, he was glad that they had arranged beforehand for Fredya to pick him up. Because he was observant in the most inconvenient ways, Ivan had been sure Fredya would notice something was off, maybe a smell or the slow movements to counteract the unsteady hand-to-eye-coordination, but fortunately he was too stoked about meeting Ivan’s sisters again, officially, to notice Ivan’s oddly calm demeanor. He babbled excitedly the whole way there, and was halfway across the street before Ivan had even fully exited the car. “Come on you snail! They’re gonna think we ditched them!” “It’s only a few minutes away, you can afford to slow down”, Ivan chuckled. Fredya was so adorably excited, he resembled a puppy on a walk. “Being overeager is as bad as being late.” “Beg to disagree! Pick up the pace slowpoke!” Fredya sped up ahead, Ivan kept his leisurely pace. He missed the re-introductions, but it seemed like he hadn’t been needed for those at all - Fredya and Katyushka already looked like old friends, while Tasha regarded him with a haughty look, but nary a nasty word. She raised an eyebrow at Ivan, as if saying really, you chose this clown over me?, and he simply smiled pleasantly at her. As they waited for their food to arrive, Fredya and Katyushka were unsurprisingly the only ones to hold up conversation. They had found a common ground in Star Trek - in that Katyusha had heard a lot about it, but had never watched an episode and was interested, and Fredya was an expert in all the series and films and liked talking about them. They went through the pacifistic ideas on the original series and how it sometimes contradicted itself on it, analyzing the casting choices for the remakes, some more things that Ivan had no interest in.  When their plates were brought, the were in the midst of trying to speak klingon - the attempts of both of them were saddeningly hilarious. Or perhaps they were both surprisingly accurate. Ivan had no way of knowing, the franchise being something he had never taken an interest in. Of course he liked space, but he was more fact-oriented than a fan of fanciful fiction. “You seem so young, it’s almost like you’re still in college”, Katyusha giggled, and Ivan could not agree more. The youthful energy Fredya exuded was refreshing, at least most of the time. “Never went to college, I went straight to work from high school”, Fredya explained, crumbs flying. That was the one habit that Ivan never found charming in Fredya, it was just plain disgusting. Tasha made a small chortle of contempt that passed Fredya by. “Our brother is a very intelligent man”, Tasha commented sharply, and Ivan knew exactly what she was going for – he had come to the same conclusion, himself. And truthfully, neither of them had been wrong - Fredya really was stupid. “Oh, tell me about it”, the insulted man chuckled, not understanding what was being implied. Ivan would have liked being able to defend Fredya, but the thing was that Fredya was not intelligent – intellectually or socially, and attempting to claim otherwise would have been pointless. He might have been considered smart in some useless areas, such as entertainment trivia, but faint praise is just as damning as admitting faults. Trivia! There was the opening Fredya needed to impress Tasha! “He has a master’s degree in movie trivia and celebrity gossip, if nothing else. Just give an actor’s name and he will tell you every movie they have ever been in.” “And not just that! I can also tell which year each movie came out!” Fredya exclaimed proudly. Ivan started with an easy one - Tom Cruise. Tasha did look reluctantly impressed as the titles and dates kept on coming, but refused to admit defeat. She tried her favorite actor, someone much more obscure. “Ken Foree?” “Hmm… The midnight man, 2017… Rift, dark side of the moon 2016, Cut slash pri- no wait, I think he was in Divine tragedies, 2015, Cut slash print 2012 –“ However, since

Tasha’s obsession with her brother refused to give way to respect for her perceived enemy, she realized that to claim victory she could simply ask about any non-American film star. “Anastasia Zavorotnyuk.” “Anastasia who?” Of course he pronounced the name the American way, but Ivan was still mildly impressed he could tell Анастасия and Anastasia were the same name. “Zavorotnyuk.” Tasha allowed herself a malevolent smirk as Fredya racked his brain for the name in vain. “A true expert wouldn’t limit himself only to Hollywood”, Tasha hmphed in triumphant malice, believing to have proved her superiority over him once and for all, despite not showing an ability to counter his. It seemed the point had only been to prove Fredya was not omniscient. In Ivan’s eyes, it was enough to be merely well-versed. “He does hate subtitles to the point where I thought he might be illiterate”, Ivan joked. “Hey, at least I speak the language of the country I live in!” “Verily, my darling, thou speakest with the most biting of tongues. Shakespeare himself would envy your prowess.” “The guy lived like hundreds of years ago, who gives a shit? Ivan Drago was famous in the 80’s.” “Ivan can sound almost native when he tries”, Katyusha said, trying to diffuse the argument, not knowing the workings of their relationship well enough to tell it was all said in jest. “I haven’t tried in years, I doubt I could anymore”, Ivan thought. He had tried training his accent away in high school, so he would sound less foreign in job interviews. Having a foreign name was bad enough in an application. He had never achieved a smooth, natural accent, he had to concentrate very hard which caused the words to come out very slowly and robotically, and still there was always a hint of foreign phonemes. Combined with his attempts to deepen his voice – an incredibly embarrassing failure on its own – had made him cringe, even back then. Tasha had encouraged him, of course, because in her mind anything and everything her dear brother did was the right decision. Excluding taking romantic interest in someone other than her, of course.

The rest of the evening went by in much the same fashion. Fredya and Katyusha got along swimmingly, Tasha made snide remarks about Fredya, Ivan defended him in mean ways, Fredya played along. It was all very pleasant. Finally the staff started dropping hints that it was time to vacate the table, so they got up and parted ways. Katyusya was enchanted enough to not wait long enough to be out of earshot before starting to gush about her baby brother’s relationship, which made for a perfect opening for eavesdropping. “Don’t you think Vanechka looks so much happier than usual?” Katyusya said, nearly clapping her hands in excitement. “Idiocy might be contagious”, Tashenka grumbled in response. “I never imagined he’d go for that type, but I guess it goes to show opposites really do attract!” Katyushka squeed. “It’s only for the moment. That American moron will start getting on Vanya’s nerves soon”, Tashenka claimed, not sounding too confident herself. Ivan had expected that to happen as well, in the beginning. “I hope he won’t, I think Alfred is good for Vanechka. He’s come out of his shell.” What did she mean by that? As far as Ivan was aware, he had never been shy around his sisters. Or other people, for that matter. “What’re you frowning about?” Fredya asked. “I’m eavesdropping. Katyusha likes you, and Natasha doesn’t despise you.” “Well that’s good news isn’t it?” Fredya smiled, and tried to hear the women. “Man, you got great hearing. I can’t hear them at all.” Yes, it did take some practice to achieve Ivan’s level of spying on other people’s conversations. And by then they had gotten far enough that Ivan couldn’t hear then anymore either, actually. “Your eardrums must be damaged from the all screeching you do.” “You’re walking home, asshole.”

-

Tasha + Katyushka = affectionate nicknames for Nataliya and Yekaterina. Tashenka + Katyusya = one level more intimate. Ivan is being drunk and sentimental so at the end of the evening, the way he feels about his sisters is something like most people do when seeing tiny kittens. Thanks again for reading! Maybe in like 10 years so I'll add a final "chapter" describing the rest of the plot, but I know myself and won't make any promises. I have some more snippets on the masterpost if anyone wants to frustrate themselves with a story that will never be finished.

[gra-sonas]

i think people expected that with CAM gone the cast would be more active, but it looks like nothing changed, the cast is just not very active on sm and the ones that are don't really post anything out of the substance, like picture of a camera or the sunset are not enough to keep us interested. It's frustrating especially since we can't expect the cw to promote the show, they'll probably photoshop the same poster for the third time lol. I worry about the rantings since s4 is not guaranteed.

LOL, yeah, The CW won’t do any promo until very close to the S3 premiere, and even then the promo will mostly consist of posting some old clips and badly photoshopped pics/posters (like you, I also won’t get my hopes up that they’ll do a new photoshoot 😩).

I wouldn’t worry about the S3 ratings all that much tbh. The show will likely air during the summer months (when they usually air reruns of shows bc people have better things to do than watch TV) and The CW won’t expect the show to perform as well as it likely would if it aired during spring (like it normally would if Covid hadn’t fucked up the schedule for every show and broadcaster). 

The show will have 3 finished seasons under its belt by the time S3 airs. The CW makes most of its money by selling their shows internationally + with broadcast syndication. The more finished seasons a show has, the better it sells. Regardless of S3 ratings, I doubt The CW’s going to cancel RNM.

Apart from that, they need shows for their mid-season schedule (which should hopefully be able to air during spring again in 2022) in the US, and why cancel a show that’s been doing well enough so far (and is also fairly “cheap” to make, not much CGI, no expensive explosions or car chases, they also get nice tax incentives in New Mexico), when there’s no guarantee that a new show would perform any better (and would be as “cheap” to make)?

Nah, I’m fairly certain that regardless of the show’s S3 ratings in the US, RNM will be renewed. And depending on what the long term plans are, it’ll run for as long as intended (5 seasons in total was the initial goal, I could maybe see a 6th season happening if the actors are on board, but I don’t see the show go on beyond that tbh - mostly bc of the actors, who have to move to NM for 7-8 months/year, and I guess at some point they’ll get tired of that, no matter how beautiful NM is, and how lovely Santa Fe).

The S3 ratings next year will only be able to give us an indication of how well received the season is (I expect the numbers to be low bc of the summer, but there might be an uptick in ratings if good stories rope in more viewers over the course of S3 - JUST GIVE US MALEX).

Also important to note: overnight ratings are not overly informative anymore, people are much more prone to stream shows at a later point, so what’s more interesting and important (and also looked at by broadcasters) are the 10-day cumulated ratings that include DVR and streaming numbers. 

If you look at those (on Wikipedia f.e.), RNM’s been doing quite well, and those are definitely numbers that matter much more than just the overnight ratings. Those can give a first indication, but the 10-day totals are what they look at nowadays.

We can’t do anything about boosting overnight ratings bc only households with a Nielsen box get counted, what helps is talking about the show on social media while a new episode airs tho. Always using the show’s hashtag, tagging the official account (and The CW) etc. Also interacting with the show’s social media (liking IG posts, sharing them in stories, RTing tweets etc). It won’t have a massive impact but it shows at least that there’s still interest.

What concerned fans can also do to help RNM when it airs next year: stream the show on The CW app or website after the original broadcast (if you’re not from the US, use a US VPN). I did that during S1, just opened a tab in the background, muted it, and streamed episodes 2-3 times a day (it’s important that a good chunk of the episode gets streamed, just starting the stream and closing the tab after 5 mins won’t do). We can’t “cheat” when it comes to overnights, but we can “cheat”, at least a little bit, when it comes to streaming numbers. 😇

What also helps, is buying a season pass for the show on amazon or iTunes (or other services available in your country). I bought season passes for S1 and 2 on iTunes, and those sales definitely count towards the show’s total ratings!

Anyway, this got long. Just think it’s important to be aware that US ratings (esp. overnight ratings) are not the be-all and end-all in regards to the show’s fate anymore. Streaming numbers are just, probably even more important, what counts the most is the international sales numbers tho, and so far the show’s doing fairly well in that regard. 

[ofhenri]

hellllo i’m hayley n i’m from london so natuRALLY i’ve got the love/hate relationship with gmt. anyway i’m super excited to introduce you all to my dumb but well-meaning son, henri ! 

BIO // PINTEREST // STATS 

first off i, much like henri, never know when to shut up dkjfdfdsf so!! a word of warning is that his bio is LONG but worthwhile if u would like to read some dumb boy antics !

ABOUT 

so. it really all starts with a mamma mia styled adventure to europe in 1998. henri’s mother, tabitha, was just out there living her best life as an artist and sleeping with her muses ( i wouldn’t be surprised if it was still complete with musical numbers bc she’s That bitch ). until she returned back home and realised a big oops... the big oops being henri ofc. 

i said it in his bio but he really is a bit more of a concept than a person!! tabitha named henri after her favourite artist, henri talouse-lautrec, but also guessed the last name of one of the potential dads based on the fact she liked paris most from her trip so henri came to be known as henri rousseau as more of a reminder to the trip than anything. kinda like a keychain or a snowglobe but y’know. a baby. 

he was actually born in the obx!! but his mum was only there for a lil trip so they moved to chicago when he was two weeks old. very much a ‘they didn’t have much, but at least they had each other’ kind of situation in a one-bedroom apartment for his early years. 

up until the time he was nine things were pretty idyllic! he had a little too much freedom to explore potential hobbies and his mother really wanted him to follow in her footsteps with painting, but all he really liked doing was making his mum smile ( a Sweet boy what can i say ) ... and playing pranks on his classmates ( not so Sweet )

then his mum met his step-dad, bill, when he was nine at an art show. bill was always a little sterner than his mother, he was an art critic, with a six-year-old daughter called meaghan. henri slowly saw his mum put aside her dreams, albeit in the form of taking down pictures and replacing them with new dreams of having a family. and it hurt! because his entire being is based off his mother’s dreams. by the time henri turned eleven, his mother and bill decided to move in together, and so they moved from their familiar little apartment into a much fancier townhouse in chicago with bill and his daughter.

henri didn’t really adjust to moving schools too well, especially with trying to make new friends and kinda took to just goofing around as that’s totally how you make friends, right? except it came at the cost of his grades n when his report card arrived by the summer he was told something straight out of the fresh prince - go stay with theo in the outer banks as they both thought that being around the other boy would be good for henri. calm him down a little or inspire him to do better. his mum gave him a camera as a parting gift and the rest is history. 

after that things passed without much note. his summers were spent in the outer banks and the rest of the year he’d be in chicago trying to discover what he was good at to no real avail. classrooms always felt a little too limiting and he was honestly more interested in joking around than taking academics seriously. 

( tw: miscarriage ) then when he was sixteen his mum became ill. except he didn’t quite understand why she’d grown distant and sad? or why bill and she were suddenly arguing so much? so he just did what came naturally to him! JOKES a plenty! until one hit badly at the dinner table causing bill to snap at him and his mother to tell him that she’d suffered from an early stage miscarriage. 

and so after that he just got worse as he blamed himself for the continued arguing! he spent more time out of the house, partying, skateboarding around the city n just generally fucking around.

until it neared applying for college and suddenly everyone was more serious about it and honestly he was just like wtf?! about it but uh! he told everyone it was all Gucci - he’d just apply to art school in paris. pay homage to his roots y’know. except he never ended up applying as he got too scared to be so far from home without a familiar face around and instead settled on going to the university of illinois urbana-champaign to study art and design bc not going to college was also just.... not an option? 

and he was due to graduate this year! except uh, surprise surprise! he dropped out!!  because the prospect of getting a real job? growing up? terrifying. but he’s told absolutely no one that he’s done this. like... to the extent he’s probably done some photoshop sorcery to keep up appearances. 

PERSONALITY

okay but that grilled cheese aspiration on the sims is him in a nutshell and i’m not even sorry about it. 

very indecisive. the person to pick up a hobby on a whim one week and then when you ask them about it, will be like ‘aw no, dude, gave that up.’ he spent a long time deciding what he wanted to do at college and wondering if he would grow tired of it. 

takes everything Too Seriously and Not Seriously enough simultaneously. he has a big bucket of emotions that he doesn’t really know what to do with, so the best thing to do is just laugh ‘em all off! lots of humour to mask the fact that he’s v. terrified about the future. 

trusting and Soft. especially when it comes to the gang because he has so much faith in them all. probably greets them all each year with a bear hug and snaps impromptu photos of them all when they’re off having fun or asks them to take part in photoshoots just because. 

with the gang, he’s a bit of an impartial entity. he’s Switzerland. he was raised by his mother to be quite diplomatic and to treat everyone’s views with kindness n respect even when he doesn’t agree, and it’s very much something that’s carried through with him! so he’s the first to diffuse some tension with a joke or by doing something dumb. doesn’t mind if people laugh at his expense, ya know. just wants them all to be happy. 

enthusiastic with a million-watt smile at each and is very willing to support every idea that comes to anyone’s head! even when he doesn’t necessarily agree, he also doesn’t shoot an idea down straight away. 

little bit of a peter pan energy to him, ngl. visiting the outer banks is a bit like his neverland as it means that for the summer he can put aside a lot of his ‘at home’ concerns. 

OTHER TID BITS 

note: i paraphrased some of these from his bio bc :’) 

john! hughes’!! biggest fanboy! henri likes to capture moments of youthful energy in his photography and hughes is defINITELY his artistic inspiration. he makes ferris bueller jokes, he references breakfast club too much. and i’m sorry but he’s definitely the person to ask ‘HoW haVE yoU neVER seen IT’ and then try to force you to watch them with him lmao

his Style is very much Baseball Cap toting, flannel-wearing, Tourist-looking chic with a camera strapped around his neck. it’s low effort at its finest ( but he does spend hours picking out the specific caps to pack for his obx trips so is it...... is it really )

former theatre nerd. yes he can sing. but he won’t bc he’s too shy (!!!!) 

could talk about anything for hours but particularly cryptids. pls talk cryptids with him 

massive chicago cubs fan and hasn’t missed a single televised game in five years and it’s become something like a bit of a bragging right to him at this point tbh.

skateboards everywhere and this should be a relief to everyone bc he’s a terrible driver

is fluent in french as his mother really wanted to have Something of his potential dad’s. if he’s particularly angry sometimes he’ll swear in french as he thinks it sounds less aggressive 

took sea monsters too seriously as a child and is terrified of the ocean as a result. he would rather linger on the beach and take photos of everyone. 

his jokes are terrible n i apologise in advance. bc you all will have to suffer through them w/ me. he tries. he really does. they’re still bad lmaooo 

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep8: Magic Mai

So fun fact, I was out of town around this Thanksgiving and I grabbed a laptop from my Dad’s stack of machinery he’s sort of collected over the years and lo and behold--he put Linux on it.

Like I dunno if you all can relate to this problem, but everything he touches turns into Linux and he’s trying to live this Windows free/Mac free lifestyle, and I get it, I’m friends with so many vegetarians, but like I hate this laptop. I'm using Gimp to make these screenshots...So I can re-do them later in Photoshop because...it just doesn’t feel right to put Papyrus on this computer. It already has Linux. This poor machine has suffered enough. Long story short, this’ll be a small update because right clicking on linux is ass.

Also, because I was on a laptop and realized how small my blog is for the first time--I don’t have control over the size of pictures in text posts, tumblr does, and in this particular theme it’s not allowing me to change the size, and so do me a favor. Click ctrl and + at the same time a couple times (I’m assuming most of you are on firefox). There. the pictures are the right size now. If you hated that, you can click ctrl and - but like lets be real, my font is occasionally...tiny.

Anyway, we start discussing this episode on the confusing legs of the last one, where Mai is evil now, and it’s really not entirely clear if she’s possessed or if she’s just always been this way, or if she just FEELS like it.

And that’s all this episode is about, start to finish--is this Mai’s choice or was this not Mai’s choice? The answer is the same as it would be for a normal person: it’s complicated. Maybe it’s everybody’s choice. Maybe it was because no one did anything that Mai went completely haywire? Maybe it was because Mai hid how she was feeling so no one had any idea she needed help? Or, overall, maybe Mai is kind of a toxic person and wanted to be this way? Especially while she’s on children’s cartoon card drugs?

(read more under the cut)

So to start off, a weird thing happened at the beginning of this episode. After about 4 seasons, someone finally mentioned this:

How many seasons has Yugi been talking to himself? Like, out loud. In front of everyone and Kaiba? This whole time, right? Like Valon just dashed my headcanon where I figured Yugi was smart enough to think his thoughts instead of speak his thoughts. He’s just not that smart, unfortunately.

Meanwhile, Mai has managed to attract this other (teenager?) guy and like...to go worse than Joey so quickly is kind of shocking. Mai just seems embarrassed by the amount of very young boys in love with her. And she’s not even a cougar about it, she doesn’t really seem to want this to happen but it keeps on happening.

And although he is essentially the card form of a drug pusher, Valon has this soft spot for a girl I guess to give him some sort of redeemable flaw. However, she only wears tube tops and minis and spends like hundreds of dollars on her hair, so it doesn’t really make him seem any less shallow, tbh.

PS I’m surprised, that unlike all the other characters on Yugioh, I can’t just type in Valon’s name into Google and get his age and weight. No idea what his age is, and if you know, feel free to tell me but he just seems...exactly the same age as Joey. He seems very 17. Maybe it’s the obsession with motorcycles and children’s playing cards? Maybe it’s his big ol childlike eyes? He just seems young and niave like how a teenager who just fell in love with a very angry older woman would.

Joey tries to remind everyone, multiple times, that this game is the worst idea ever since it requires one of them to super die, but Mai is on card drugs so I don't know why they bothered. Also, why is Joey still surprised by this after 4 seasons of this?

Yo it’s S4 and Mai witnesses magic non-stop but still has basically no idea how it works. She really did say “I have no soul” and it was like...I’m 90% certain she literally thinks she has no soul right now. Which I guess, statistically speaking, is rare to actually have a still intact soul after hanging out with the main villain, with the way this show typically goes.

Meanwhile, last episode it really sounded like Duke Devlin was driving to Pegasus’ company building. It really sounded like he would have gone directly there, since Weevil and Rex told him that Yugi was going to Pegasus.

Remember that Duke Devlin works for Pegasus and probably has his own parking spot.

So where did he go instead?

You know how there’s only one gas station in the entirety of America?

I can’t believe it blew up.

Y’all what is the red splotch in the middle of the pile ps? That is legitimately a pile of blood, right? I didn’t shop that in. There’s just a red puddle in this kid’s show.

Y’all what is that? Like was there a scene with a red handkerchief that I missed? Is that a red handkerchief?

But to move past the mysterious pool of blood that confirms those bikers are so hella dead, I have no idea why Duke was here, I have no idea how he got the tip off that Yugi visited this place, but then he turned around and went back to SF so like...I guess he’ll arrive 3 days from now because again, they are in Arizona. They keep telling me this is right outside SF but like--Mesas. There’s Mesas.

And then this happened.

That one guy on the writing staff who just stans Seto Kaiba so hard got into the drawing room, I see.

PS someone had to pose for this shot for them to draw this shot from this angle.

Meanwhile, lets see why Mai turned evil. Ah, because it is Yugioh, the biggest reason is that she has no friends (probably because she’s got the most acidic personality known to man) and isn’t card popular enough and got super bitter and jealous.

Speaking as an artist who is online, I can understand the frustration here. Sometimes (99% of the time) you work really hard and no one cares and you get like 2 notes. And honestly, why should they? Like, why do you do it in the first place?

Mai echoes a lot of the issues of Seto last season, where she wants so badly to be the absolute best to prove herself to the ghosts of her past who really don’t care any more.

But, since Mai was in a coma when Seto got through all of that, I guess she never got the memo and still seems stuck on just wanting to be the best with no other reason than “to be the best” which again, sounds so much like art school problems. This is everyone who has ever had an interest in animation. We all go through that phase.

Generally we don’t take peoples souls as a reaction to that type of discouragement, but then Mai made sure to mention in almost a foot note that she did spend like an entire season and a half trapped in Marik's shadow realm. And that kind of effed her up in a really big way.

Thanks, Marik.

Really feels like Marik should be dealing with this problem--really feels like maybe Marik is the only person that we can actually point to and say “Oh yeah, that guy is to blame for Mai right now” And he is the only person that Mai does not actively go out and try to kill.

And I’ll have you know I just deleted like a 15 K word rant about the difference between character assassination and your character just--evolving into a jackass, and how it’s OK to have your character change into a jackass, especially after trauma. I felt this need to really have to defend this ancient writing technique that people have been using since about as long as stories have been around.

Then I remembered “Oh yeah, I’m just making this point because a few number of very loud idiots on the internet want to have very lukewarm hot-takes about popular characters solely because they enjoy baiting people on twitter into getting into week-long arguments that don’t go anywhere.” and I just...let it go. I let it just...go into the ether. Ah. The peace that comes when you already know you’re right.

But anyway, back to Yugioh, which thankfully doesn’t take a stance on this nuanced subject, and only presents this very serious problem without actually offering a solution (because there isn’t a one fit’s all solution to falling off the deep end and getting into drugs and murder), Mai decides to just go and blame this decision she made on anyone else. Because, why take responsibility for your actions, when you can pin it on people who were on the other side of the freakin planet when it happened?

Like, I just want to remind y’all that she was in ATLANTIS.

I wonder how good the cell reception is in ATLANTIS.

I just...Mai is like in her mid twenties maybe thirty’s. She’s so arbitrarily old that she plays Yugi’s Mom in the video game spinoff where they’re reincarnations of medieval times. That’s how old she is.

Imagine if you made some epically BAD decisions because you were jealous of some teenager’s success and didn’t want to be weak anymore, and then you confronted those teens, and said “This is all your fault.”

Imagine looking someone as dysfunctional as Joey Wheeler and telling him “You made me like this” because lollllllll

And I present this as a joke but like basically this happens all freakin time. We’ve all had a friend like Mai. Past tense of course, because it’s really hard to keep a friend like Mai for very long. (One of my friend’s who went Mai destroyed my apartment one summer and then literally blamed it on me for going to California for 2 months and leaving her unattended.) But like...don’t let Mai’s do it to you. They can get better, but only if it’s their choice, really. You can’t force them to save themselves.

But, as Mai was finally ready to give up cards and probably improve her quality of life by a huge degree, unfortunately, she got sucked right back into the trap.

Bro note: being a serial murderer cultist is basically working at McDonald's in this universe so maybe this wasn’t even that weird?

But that aside, this is alllllmost like a dark version of “Mai got into an abusive relationship to fill the void in her heart” except she’s not even really dating this guy? Like she hates this guy? He’s just kinda there?

Y’all I really can’t tell if Valon is in an abusive relationship with Mai who is using him for power or if she’s in an abusive relationship with him because he only wants her pretty face and wants to kill Joey because Joey liked her once--and maybe it’s both? Maybe both of these people are just...really bad for each other?

Overall Joey is kind of tossed into this not-a-love-triangle and I’m like

“Hey show? show? Am I supposed to....were any these people ever dating? Is there supposed to be an implied history? Am I supposed to get attached to this?” because I mean...the only character who was able to get some actual physical romance on this show was Pegasus when he macked the ghost of his dead wife because, again, Pegasus is the freakin king of this entire show. Of course HE can do it.

But have this show clarify what the hell is happening between Valon and Mai? I’m gonna take a bet that we will never get to see it beyond Valon being like “Ain’t she a beaut!” Like Steve Irwin talking to an alligator, and Mai just pretending he doesn’t exist. Yugioh romances are so completely one way every single time. If something more than that happens, I’ll be

shook.

Anyway, as all the children on the show keep repeating over and over again, they haven’t had any contact with Mai since she left the freakin country and they went back to High School.

And so someone threatens to kill himself, as is Yugioh tradition, and someone else barks at him to NOT kill himself, as is also tradition, and they decide to play real cards next episode.

This whole entire episode, PS, Joey went out of his way to just...not play cards. that was this whole episode. Way to draw out a card game over three episodes, I guess.

Anyway if you want to read these from the start you can do so by clicking the link here

[tiergan-vashir]

@aegirward​

I wanted to address some things about your reply to me, but all of it was quite long, so to spare everyone’s dashboards, I’m just going to leave a link here for them to read it, as well as @friendly-fire-engaged​‘s response to you.

There's a lot of misinformation here to unpack, so let me just start from the top:

Sorry if I wasn’t clear in my previous reply. I didn’t mean I was wary that Sylb specifically had photoshopped screenshots. I had become wary in general after being burned once.

Whether you were wary in general or wary against Sylb specifically is completely irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if it was Sylb in particular or any other woman on the planet. The fact of the matter is that when faced with a woman who presented you with screenshots of sexual harassment from man with a long established, self-admitted history of sexually harassing women - you still decided the screenshots might have been photoshopped.

That’s not ‘wariness’ - that’s a blatant denial.

You also seem to be extremely determined to paint a very benign picture of yourself in which your only two flaws when it came to Sylb and her harassment were:

You wanted to give Kale a second chance despite his history, because people had given you a second chance in the past.

You made a mistake and believed that Sylb must not have been suffering that badly, because she was willing to continue RPing with the group despite Kale’s presence.

There’s much more to it than that. You conveniently glossed over your most egregious, malicious behavior: 

Despite how kind and accommodating you were to Sylb’s face, you were actively sabotaging her to other people behind her back.

You made the conscious, willful choice to not only buy into the idea that Sylb may have photoshopped the screenshots and that she must not have been suffering all that badly because she was still RPing with EA, but that Sylb was the one who wronged Kale and that other, completely uninvolved people needed to be convinced of this as well.  You held up a double standard where it was okay to trust Kale despite his past, but Sylb was not trustworthy from the beginning.

Here are some screenshots from @diskwrite-ffxiv’s post which show you driving a wedge between AMoB and FLEET by bringing up Sylb out of the blue in AMoB’s moderator chat and intentionally mischaracterize her to Renata and Berrod as someone who was just out to ostracize Kale.

https://imgur.com/a/i7SJjlq

The screenshots show you and Iota worked together to paint Sylb as someone trying to manipulate others into hating and shunning Kale.  You brought up how Zheng ‘questioned her intentions’.  You described her as someone who will “rant to anyone about Kale” - a falsehood I know is patently untrue. Sylb was extremely anxious and nervous about talking about her situation to anyone and didn't want to appear like she was trying to run Kale’s name through the mud. 

She didn’t even bring it up to the majority of her own FC.  Most of FLEET was in the dark all the way up until @diskwrite-ffxiv’s post was created.  The only people who had in-depth knowledge that she was even suffering from anything were a small handful of her closest friends for support, the EA Mods she passed the document off to, and eventually Martin.

The screenshots also show you making the claim that she “copy/pasted her story about needing to block Kale and why to pretty much everyone” despite Sylb ONLY giving that document the EA Mods, Martin, and that handful of close friends she was going to for support.  She went out of her way to specifically ask Iota not to share the document containing her request around to anyone outside of the EA mods without her permission first, as seen below:

https://imgur.com/a/4SHtSLd 

All of this clearly demonstrates that contrary to what you claim, you actually very much did try to stop collaborations between AMoB and FLEET.  You tried to convince Renata that Sylb was trying to smear Kale’s name and nearly succeeded in doing so.  Renata herself admitted that as a direct result of this, she brushed off Sylb’s legitimate complaint.  You smeared a woman’s name to people she didn’t know, because you and Zheng “questioned her intentions”.

In the next part of your reply, you’ve conflated two entirely separate events Sylb wanted to create: The FLEET-Resistance collab event and the Soldier’s Ball.

Your original reply to the ask mentions the FLEET-Resistance event Sylb wanted to create with AMoB.  I was referencing this FLEET-Resistance event when I when I asked why it was suspect that a victim of sexual harassment wouldn’t want to create an RP event where she would have to be near the person who harassed her in the time immediately after she outright blocked him as opposed it being a completely sane and normal response from a victim of sexual harassment.

AMoB was not directly affiliated with EA. The FLEET-Resistance event was not an EA event.  Kale, as a character, has nothing to do with FLEET and the Resistance.  So why was it strange for a woman to want to exclude the man who made her uncomfortable in an event she was trying to collaborate on the day after blocking him?

Here are the screenshots of that conversation: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l_kPtTU-YjJy335F1yB4KLyvFVaNbz2cr0xI2FCTU3U/edit?usp=sharing

You, her, Iota, Martin, and Zheng were all in a group chat together brainstorming.  Sylb mentioned she didn’t really want a public event as she’d been hoping for more of a Maelstorm vs Resistance event and that it was too soon for certain characters to show up.  Note how she went out of her way to avoid mentioning Kale and is wary of discussing her situation in front of someone who is not an EA mod until she is made aware that Zheng is already in the know. Notice how she finally agrees to open the event up further - just before Zheng insinuates she is spearheading a “Fuck Kale campaign”.

Another thing I want to point out is that Zheng never apologized to Sylb after that discussion for the “Fuck Kale campaign” comment and you did not provide a proper apology either.  This wasn't a matter of “Golly! We thought Sylb must not have been suffering so badly, because she was still RPing with EA!” - this was a matter of you both explicitly not believing her and punishing her for it.  As the AMoB mod channel screenshots clearly showed, you admit to questioning her intentions and actively worked to sabotage her.

The Soldier’s Ball is an entirely different event, and I notice that you have a very different timeline of events than what actually occurred.

At the time this conversation was going on, Sylb was still participating in EA events with Kale. If I remember right, it was shortly after the Ala Mhigan Ascension RP. I had not been told that she no longer wanted to do any event with Kale or have Kale at her other events.

Sylb said she would not work directly with Kale and that was the reason for not choosing him as a representive. But prior to that, she was in our group DMs with Kale helping plan for the ascension ceremony. That was the event where I offered to translate anything Kale said and pass it on to her, rather than have her be in the group chat, if that made her more comfortable.

So the situation perplexed me, because in my mind, she had just been dealing with Kale and this combination of choosing Raniall over Kale and Martin over Zheng seemed less about comfort and more about a decision that would make things awkward with Kale’s group.

I told her the situation made me uncomfortable, because it did. I was thinking of the impact it would have on the 4th. The position it would put Raniall in and what it might make the other 4th members think. I never told her not to do it, just that it wasn’t something I was comfortable with, so I wouldn’t be attending the event, but I WOULD make sure it was promoted in all the usual places. I didn’t think my lack of participation would matter ICly, because I was not RPing anyone needed for the event.

Firstly - the notion that “she no longer wanted to do any event with Kale or have Kale at her other events” is flagrantly untrue and easiest to disprove.

In the screenshot conversation with Iota I linked above where Sylb hands over her document to the mods to lay down her boundary with Kale, Sylb explicitly states:  “I’ll continue to be polite to him in group channels and in voice chat, but I don’t want to have direct one on one contact with him anymore. I’m not asking the Eorzean Alliance discord mods (or anyone else) to take any sort of action against Kale. I’m just letting you know about this boundary that I’m establishing with Kale because it’ll likely impact the way that FLEET communicates with the rest of the EA group (as in, I’ll reach out to other GMs instead of Kale about stuff).”

This was copy-pasted word for word from the document that was shared with you and all the EA Moderators.

Secondly - the Ala Mhigan Ascension event happened in December, two months after Sylb had blocked Kale in early October and informed the EA moderators of her boundary. (Timestamps visible in the Discord screenshots where Sylb laid her boundary down.)  By then you should have been more than well aware of it.  There should have been nothing ‘perplexing’ about what was occurring.  

Unless you did not care enough to read her document laying out her boundaries in its entirety when it was shared to you, you would know she was doing exactly what she’d stated her boundary was two whole months ago: cooperate politely with Kale in group chats, but bar him from talking to her in direct, one-on-one conversations.

Lastly - the most glaring mischaracterization you’ve written of everything surrounding the Soldier’s Ball is the idea that Sylb: 

Uninvited Kale from the Soldier’s Ball. 

“Sylb said she would not work directly with Kale and that was the reason for not choosing him as a representive”

Sylb was not selecting representatives - she was literally trying to get people to pick songs.  She thought it would be nice to have a song for each Grand Company at the Soldier’s Ball, and was considering asking individuals from each Grand Company group to pick one.  That’s literally it.

Here is your conversation with Sylb regarding Soldier’s Ball, where she is clearly discussing the selection of songs - not representatives: https://imgur.com/a/2ON3xLf

Because she did not want direct, one-on-one conversations with Kale as per her boundary, it only made sense for her to reach out to Raniall, Kale’s Second-in-Command, to get a Flames song.  And because her last interaction with Zheng/Beowoad was him literally accusing her of launching a “Fuck Kale Campaign” (and even you mention in this exact conversation that Zheng ‘questioned her intentions’) - she understandably felt more comfortable reaching out to Martin to pick a song for the Resistance than Zheng/Beowoad. Yet she even offers to ask Zheng/Beo instead of Martin for the song if it too uncomfortable for you.

I will add that Martin was only initially uncomfortable with the Soldier’s Ball because you misled them entirely as to what the entire situation was even about.  You provided them with a small section of the conversation, outside of its context and mischaracterized what Sylb wanted.

The rest of your reply to me is completely irrelevant, because it’s filled with baseless assumptions on what Sylb may have been thinking and more assertions that it was somehow “confusing” that she was still participating in EA events and working in group chats with Kale, but not in direct contexts despite you having knowledge of what her boundary was for months at that point.

All in all, your response here makes it clear that the public apologies written by you and Zheng are catered more toward damage control than actual reflection, assessment and change.  Neither your apology or this post owns up to the fact you and Iota were kind to Sylb’s face, but actively slandered her as a person to other people behind her back.  Neither your apology, Zheng’s, or this post owns up to the fact that you and Zheng went much further than simply assuming her situation was not as bad as it seemed - you both flat out didn’t believe her.  You “questioned her intentions” and punished her for daring to lay her boundary down.

When asked to leave AMoB, Zheng tried to argue that G&G has dealt with four sexual harassment cases and one had an “issue that appeared to be a plot to discredit someone falsely.” (https://imgur.com/a/r08qz70)  If it is not Sylb Zheng was referencing, then perhaps this other individual’s case should also be given a second look considering how poorly Sylb was treated.

Aegir, Instead of taking responsibility for the your true actions, you eagerly paint yourself as a man whose only flaws were that he miscalculated how serious the situation was and really wanted to believe in second chances. You talk repeatedly about how “confusing” Sylb’s behavior is to try and paint her inconsistent so your actions seem more excusable, while Sylb was doing exactly what she stated she was going to do to the EA Mods to keep herself safe.  You present a timeline of events that is muddled and out of order to serve your own needs and place yourself in a more sympathetic light.  A real apology doesn’t try to replace the other person’s story with your own reconstruction of events, rewriting what needs to be apologized for.  

To put it bluntly, I question your intentions, Aegir.

Your apology, and by extension, Zheng’s apology as it contains much of the same face-saving “we misjudged how serious the situation was and thought the issue was minor because Sylb was still working with EA” language - won’t feel genuine by any stretch of the imagination until you own up to your true mistakes. 

If you can’t admit to where you actually went wrong, how is anyone supposed to trust that this is more than a simple attempt at damage control?  How are we supposed to believe that you and the rest of the G&G leadership have actually learned from this and will truly change?

[janiedean]

What do you think of using historically important real life figures and tragedies to make content about your own ship?

well it depends from what important rl figures and tragedies you mean because I don’t think the french revolution is the same thing as the haiti earthquake, but tldr:

if we’re talking about long-dead historical figures or facts that are completely removed from our context I don’t think there’s much of a problem - you wanna write your fic during idk THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR or THE FOURTH CRUSADE (sorry guys I’m studying stuff I can’t come up with better examples), who cares. everyone involved in it is dead. at most it’ll be laughable to anyone who knows the context but I mean, no one is going to get angry if your historical research about the fourth crusade sucks. I don’t read ancient rome fic because it makes me lol to even imagine those people speaking in english but who even cares.

if we’re talking about current contemporary real life tragedies I think that while I can’t stop anyone from writing whatever they like, people should have the subjective moral decency of, like, not doing it.

perfect case: the infamous j2 haiti fic from the olden times: https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_J2_Haiti_Fic. that fic should not have existed and the person thinking oH HEY LET’S DO A FIC ABOUT A THING THAT JUST HAPPENED WITH DEAD BODIES STILL NOT BEING BURIED and doing it badly while using rl pictures to photoshop the art was... ew. obviously I wouldn’t have stopped them from publishing it because you can write what you want, but at the same time... I mean. have some decency. especially if you use the tragedy in question as your background and not as, like, part of the story.

(if you look at that, there was discussion to be had also about another fic that was about the war in timor east which instead was praised to hell and back because the ship wasn’t the main point, the ship was part of it and the setting/the OCs was very well-researched and the tragedy wasn’t just ROMANTIC CONSUMPTION)

if we’re talking about semi-contemporary tragedies ie wwii, vietnam war and so on, I don’t think it’s a thing you should not do, but I think you should approach it with decency. like, I wrote a wwii AU once YEARS AGO (it was for lost, OLDEN DAYS) and I read like three books on the battle of el alamein, had notes of which real regiment should character X have been in, followed the actual historical movements for the characters, didn’t skim on the fact that it sucked and admittedly I went and picked the easiest side of the war to discuss - the african campaign is a lot less of a mess to figure out than any other - and so on, and I thought I did a fairly decent job of it, but I didn’t, like, skim on things. and if I write veterans I don’t dismiss the fact that they, like, went to war xD (or idk @robb-greyjoy has a splendid vietnam au going on rn which is honestly the best thing in existence as far as I’m concerned and I love it, but it also does not skim at all over the fact that the vietnam war sucked nor ignores the political implications). obviously if you’re doing wwii aus one would think that you wouldn’t do the concentration camp au out of, as stated before, personal decency (also I don’t know what would you get out of such a setting because ew), but again I can’t stop you from doing it and certainly there’s been a lot of excellent published literature on the topic (or movies, I mean kapò is an excellent movie and it should definitely have existed);

tldr: I think that when it comes to things that are horribly serious ie the holocaust, the armenian genocide or the haiti earthquake or mafia killings and so on it’s in very poor taste to use them as a background of your romance/romantic fic/pwp, though I’m not saying you can’t do it period - it would be nice if people as a whole recognized that it’s poor taste and did it just if they can approach the matter with respect and not using genocides to jerk off, but again I don’t want to live in a world where stuff is censored so that’s my personal opinion and if I see that kind of content around at most I’ll try to nicely tell the writer that it’s not really appropriate. same as that time people used real people to plan their mafia au when those real people came from sicily and were part of categories targeted by the mafia - just... I mean, at least I should be able to tell you it’s disrespectful af and it’d be nice if you didn’t go there out of personal decency. if it’s about subjects that are still close to us historically you should do that if you want but it would be nice if you did your research and approached the matter respectfully. if it’s stuff that’s been dead and gone and finished in the centuries whatever;

obviously if we’re talking stuff like civil war au fic you should be wary of doing things respectfully and not doing them in poor taste.

if you want specific thoughts you can go back in the tagged/mafia tag where I was more eloquent on the part where I discuss that specific matter. *shrug*

[journeysintowebcomics]

Lettering in Webcomics - a Reference Post

Imagine you have finished the perfect artwork for the latest update for your webcomic. You feel so proud about it you want to hang it on your wall. You want to post it immediately! You want everyone to see it! But before you can do that, you need to add dialogue between your characters.

And that’s where you get stuck. No matter where you place the speech balloons, you’re covering too much of your drawing. It all looks badly placed. You accidentally make a speech balloon that goes from side to side of the frame. It’s a major disaster! What did just happen and how can you avoid it? Let’s answer those questions now.

The charm about comics and webcomics is that they’re a combination of text and images. It’s true its main strength is the fact the reader can look at the art depicted, but a webcomic is never complete without dialogue or text.

However, filling your webcomic to the brim with text and dialogue is not how webcomics work. It’s rare to find the exception to these rules, such as Homestuck, and even then it’s only because of the difference in format. It’d be tedious to read a webcomic that has paragraph after paragraph crammed in a single frame!

As if all that wasn’t enough, you also have to remember that if you place the text badly, it’ll make the reader overlook the art you worked so hard on or even get confused, cardinal sins in this type of work. If you strive to be a webcomic author, you must understand how to place dialogue and text properly. That’s what this post is here for! Here are some handy tips that will allow your webcomic’s text shine without sacrificing anything in the process!

GREAT! WHERE DO I START?

Not so fast, enthusiastic creator! Lettering isn’t something you add in the end. You need to plan this carefully from the beginning. Webcomics are a visual medium, and that’s a double-edged sword. You can communicate a lot through art, but there’s not much space for dialogue unless you plan carefully from the very start. You can’t clutter the page with line after line after line!

That’s why, before starting to draw the page, you need to be aware how much dialogue you’ll have this time. Write it somewhere, analyze how much space you will need. Keep in mind the text is a piece of a larger picture, so to say. You can’t let it overshadow the rest of the page.

I’M DONE PLANNING.

Congratulations on completing the first step! Now you may start drawing. Whether you sketch on paper or digitally doesn’t matter, what matters is that you sketch. Why? Because this way you can plan where you’ll place the speech balloons. It’d be a shame if at the end your dialogue covered too much of the art, this can be easily prevented if you sketch. While you draw, imagine where you may be placing the speech balloon, and avoid drawing too much inside that small area. You also may adjust the size of the frames, leaving enough space for the speech balloons without having to sacrifice part of the art.

So you got your art done! Well done, now place the speech balloon. There are many speech balloons you may use, depending on what you want to communicate.

These are more like guidelines, the most used meanings for these type of speech balloons. You as the author of the webcomic have the liberty to adjust speech balloons according to your style and needs. You could modify speech balloons to make them fit a character. Color, shape, font, all that are qualities you can change according to situations. You’re the one who has the last word on the matter!

---Guilded Age

To keep your speech balloons orderly, try to accommodate the words in the shape of a square. Avoid long lines, occupy as little space as possible with the speech balloon. Make sure the tails are pointing at the character who is speaking. It doesn’t have to touch the character; all it needs to do is point in the general direction the character is at.

Angelica Maria, the author of Solstoria, mentioned this as her usual technique on how to accommodate text inside a speech bubble:

I try to keep the text in a speech bubble looking like a "Square", so for example

"Oh no, I'm being

held accountable

for my actions!"

The middle line can be extended slightly depending on the shape of the bubble. This is just something I keep in mind, it's not something you have to follow to a T or anything. I just want to make the lettering look somewhat good.

Wait, but how to position the speech balloons? Generally, it’ll be better to position them in a way that’ll guide the reader’s eyes in a natural direction – left to right, in other words. Take this for example:

---Girl Genius

See? The speech balloons are positioned in a way it’d be easy for the reader’s eyes to move towards the right. The dialogue always starts on the top left corner and moves either in an arch towards the bottom right corner or in the top and bottom parts of each frame. It’s not a requirement to set your speech balloons this way, but it’ll certainly make it easier for the reader to read!

To put it in a nutshell: as a rule of thumb, remember to direct the balloons placement in a way that leads from left to right or from top to bottom.

Another thing you have to remember and keep in mind if what font you’ll use for your lettering. What kind of font would be the best for your dialogue? Any font that’s legible at small sizes will be good. Maybe Comic Sans would be your first thought because, just as its name says, it was created for comics, and that is because Comic Sans is meant to be readable at small sizes. That doesn’t mean you have to limit yourself to using Comic Sans. There are many other fonts that could be useful to you!

I recommend you take a look at this website. It has many fonts that can be used in the comic book industry, and most of them would be good for your webcomic, no matter the genre. Some are paid fonts, but there are many fonts that are free to use and can be useful to you.

Here, take a look at some fonts you could use! Compare and decide!

Personally, I like how the Back Issues font and the Kid Kosmic font look!

Generally, it’s recommended you use all-caps in the webcomic, as it’ll be easier to read. Most of the fonts you’ll find for comics often only have capital letters, so most of the time you just will have to type without worrying about activating the all-caps function.

I HAVE THE FONT AND THE IMAGE. NOW WHAT?

Open your sketch or finished image in your software of choice. For the purpose of this post, I’ll suppose you have Photoshop. Most software you can use for these purposes have the same basic functions, so it doesn’t really matter.

Create a new layer above your image. This layer will hold the speech bubble itself – the writing will go in a different layer. Don’t start drawing ellipses or circles yet! Instead, write the text you want to use, and place it where you want it to be, and the size you want it to be. If the text tool didn’t automatically create a layer when you used it, manually make a new layer and place the text there. It’s a good idea to have one layer for each speech bubble, don’t lump all speech bubbles in the same layer.

Once you have the text written, you can make the speech bubbles themselves! The quick option would be to use the ellipsis tool and fill it with white color, but the result will end being rather generic. How about you try to draw the speech balloon by yourself? Use a tablet or, if you don’t have one, use the pen tool. It may take some practice, but this should give your webcomic a more professional look.

You don’t have to make the balloons perfectly round. As long as it’s decently round and doesn’t look like something splattered all over your image, you’ll be okay.

Remember to leave some space around your text, though! Constricting your dialogue into a speech balloon smaller than it is not a good idea.

See?

Also, there’s a technique that could make this easier for you. In Photoshop, there’s a special layer effect called ‘stroke’. If you configure it correctly, everything you draw on that layer will be surrounded by an outline. Make sure to configure it so there’s a black border, of two or three pixels wide, and that it’ll be placed externally. Use a brush with a white color to make the speech bubbles, it’ll immediately be outlined, with no additional effort on your part! If you want to recreate these characteristics in new layers without having to open the window again, all you have to do is duplicate the layer while it’s empty. That’ll give the same characteristics to the copied layers!

Those are the basics of speech balloons.

Dialogue isn’t the only text you may use in a webcomic, though. There’s also expository dialogue, like a monologue, thoughts or notes you’re adding to the page, for one reason or another. What to do, then?

---Between Failures

Usually, these are done in these rectangular boxes. These could be considered similar to speech balloons in many ways, and follow many of the tips and rules speech balloons have. When asked, the author of Between Failures said this:

I've only done this two or three times in the entire run of the comic.  It's not talking because it would make the character look insane if he monologued out loud to himself for a couple of pages.  This is basically just expository narration to set up the premise of the comic in a single page.

How much expository narration is necessary for a webcomic? It’s not like there’s a definite answer to such question or a guideline you need to follow, but it may be worth remembering that webcomics are a visual medium. Sticking to the ‘show, don’t tell’ may be a good choice, since illustrating some of the exposition may help get it across better than text would, with the risk of breaking the pacing a bit. It all depends on the situation, so trust your intuition, ask yourself what you’d like to see!

I UNDERSTAND!

Excellent, I’m glad to hear that.

Oh, right, there’s one thing more you may want to hear about: can you stylize your speech balloons? Give them your own touch? By all means, go ahead! If you feel it’s appropriate for your webcomic and you think it looks good, then experiment all you want. Gauge how the speech balloons look in your webcomic, maybe ask for a few opinions...do everything you can so the end result is something you’re happy with.

It doesn’t have to be anything complicated. Simple measures such as a shadow or a border around your speech balloon can be quite effective to make your webcomic have a distinctive mark to make it stand out from the many, many webcomics available on the Internet.

---Solstoria

I started adding them because I removed the black outline on the bubbles and felt they looked better with a drop shadow and now concrete outline. I also removed the outline of the comic panels of Solstoria in general around that time too! I just did it because I wanted to try something different and I liked how it looked. I know Solstoria isn't highly structured, but I enjoy experimenting with it.

As you can see, speech balloons aren’t something done spontaneously if you want professional results, but the effort will be worth it!

---

I hope everything discussed in this post is of some use to you. Good luck to all your endeavors in the field of webcomics!

[trentteti]

An Unsettling PSA: Your Test Day May Not Go Perfectly

A test that has been administered on pen and paper for decades goes digital … what could possibly go wrong? Turns out, quite a lot! Test-day horror stories from LSAT takers ever since the big September digital switch have been terrifying: three-hour check in queues, tablets malfunctioning, proctors reading outdated instructions … anything can happen! It just goes to show you that you can’t control what happens on test day, but you can make sure you used the best LSAT prep you can!

Although we don’t want to drive you into a panic just a few days before your test, we want to make sure you are prepared in case something does go wrong.

Without further ado, here’s a list of a few things that could go wrong on test day (and what to do if they do go wrong):

1. Long check-in times: Most people will see the 12:30 start time on their admissions ticket and assume it’s a swift check-in, sit-down, start-testing kind of a situation. Unfortunately, this is sometimes not the case. We have heard horror stories of three-hour lines just to get into the testing room.

What to do about it: Bring something to read while waiting! Maybe try a few easy Logical Reasoning questions and an easy logic game? Make that your reading material is disposable — the proctors will make you throw it out prior to entering the testing room. You could also bring an extra snack to have on hand — getting hunger pains in the middle of the test would not be cute.

2. Tablets don’t arrive to test center on time: This sounds crazy, but it has happened! Here’s an anecdote from an October test taker:

“I showed up to my center about 15 minutes before my 12:30 test. After checking us into the room, my proctor announced that the tablets were 20 minutes away. After 20 minutes, he announced they were a couple of hours away. We finally started the exam just after 4 p.m.”

As awful as this sounds, tablet delays are something that have happened in the past and may happen again.

What to do about it: Go to the bathroom, have an extra snack on hand, try not to stress out. As cheesy as this sounds, meditating helps calm test day nerves. You could also try a very Los Angeles method: “manifesting” a higher score. Don’t think of the delay as an inconvenience, think of it as extra time to get into a high scorer mindset.

3. Proctor reads outdated rules: Although the digital LSAT is fairly new, there have been developments since the launch. Some proctors receive outdated rules which may say things like, “You may not bring your own pencils,” which you absolutely can!

What to do about it: Bring a printed copy of the rules to the test center, which you can find on the LSAC website. This way, you can point out any discrepancies to your proctor.

4. Tablet malfunctions while you are taking the test: Here we have an absolute nightmare situation. Your tablet has a small chance of not working, skipping a ton of questions, or completely shutting down. Your first reaction may be to begin panic mode — we get it, it’s a natural reaction. However, there are other ways to get out of this awful situation!

What to do about it: Notify your proctor immediately! If you are unable to finish your exam, or if you lose significant time, LSAC should know about this. Make sure your proctor puts a note about the situation into your file. Also make sure to send a follow-up email to and/or call LSAC about this. Although it may seem like the end of the world, LSAC should work with you to help you take the test again, hopefully for free.

5. The check-in folks say that you don’t look like the photo on the admissions ticket: Look, with all of the college admissions scandals, it’s the responsibility of the proctors to ensure that everyone is taking their own test. Uploading a current photo seems straightforward, but we’ve heard of too many students trying to upload a “pretty” photo of themselves and end up choosing a photoshopped senior-year-of-HIGH SCHOOL picture. This isn’t a beauty contest, it’s the LSAT. Save the beauty for an Elle Woods-style Harvard video. This doesn’t mean you’re banned from taking the test; it just means you’ll need to prove that you are the person on your ticket.

What to do about it: Bring extra forms of identification. A driver’s license, school ID, passport … anything with your name on it!

6. Your proctor eats pistachios as a snack: I have to throw this absolutely ridiculous personal anecdote in here as a PSA that proctors can be inconsiderate. We’ve heard stories of proctors typing loudly and furiously, spilling coffee everywhere, whispering on the phone, humming, and my personal favorite: my very own proctor, eating pistachios (the world’s loudest and most unnecessary snack).

What to do about it: The truth is, your test center will probably not be completely silent, and you can’t let that affect your performance. (Also, you cannot wear earplugs to the test center.) A long-term solution is to practice studying in public places (coffee shops, libraries, etc). Another great option, if you’re a Blueprint classroom student, is to actually attend the in-person practice exams!

7. Your whole test gets canceled: You show up to the test center with your gallon-sized Ziploc bag, nervously wait with other test takers, and then get told that the test was canceled. Again, this sounds crazy — but it has happened. During the November administration, there were multiple reports of LSAC being under-staffed and proctors failing to show up to test centers. The bad news: it’s not a cruel joke and you actually won’t get to take the test that day. The good news: you’ll eventually take the test.

What to do about it: Email LSAC and await a response. Every report of a canceled test center resulted in students either a) taking the test a week or so later, or b) getting a free retake for a later test administration. Either way, do not freak out! View it as an opportunity to get some extra studying in!

————

If you’re freaking out about your test day after reading this — please don’t. For most test takers, the day is very smooth. However, if things do go wrong, you’re not alone. Feel free to vent! No matter how badly you think things went, there’s always a solution, and we’re here to help you!

An Unsettling PSA: Your Test Day May Not Go Perfectly was originally published on Blueprint LSAT Blog

[feeling-unicorns-blog]

10 Must Have Windows Application for a New PC

In no specific request, how about we advance through ten Windows applications everybody ought to introduce immediately, alongside choices for every classification.

1. Web Browser: Google Chrome

Our best pick in this class is Google Chrome. It's still super-fast, incorporates little accommodations like in a split second hunting Google down a picture, and has an awesome library of expansions. Toss in cross-stage adjusting that gives you a chance to open your desktop tabs on your telephone and the other way around, and you have an awesome program for all reasons.

Chrome isn't without its deficiencies, be that as it may. A lot of individuals loathe Chrome, yet fortunately you have a lot of other fabulous programs to browse. Firefox gives you a chance to alter everything, Opera is criminally underrated, and lesser-known contenders like Maxthon Nitro are justified regardless of a look, as well.

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2. Distributed storage: Dropbox

Once an oddity, putting away data in "the cloud" has turned into a regular event. Dropbox is the cloud application you ought to introduce. The 2 GB of free stockpiling isn't much, however you can build that by alluding companions and other little undertakings. Dropbox offers an application for each real gadget so you can take your documents anyplace.

It's additionally super simple to impart documents to others, and the administration brandishes an incredible interface on the web and desktop. Regardless of whether you utilize it for reinforcement, as a cloud streak drive, or for setting up imparted envelopes to others, you can't turn out badly with Dropbox.

You can exploit elective cloud benefits in conjunction with Dropbox to get all the more free space and separate your documents. Google Drive (our guide) offers an amazing 15 GB for nothing, and you can move up to 100 GB for just $2 every month. OneDrive, Microsoft's cloud programming, comes introduced on Windows 8 and 10, and keeping in mind that Microsoft cut the free stockpiling altogether, OneDrive remains a strong decision, as well. Whichever you pick, ensure you read our tips on utilizing distributed storage imaginatively or in ways you won't not have thought of.

3. Music Streaming: Spotify

A long time back, tuning in to music on your desktop implied meticulously bringing in and sorting out a gathering of MP3s. Never again; music spilling administrations dispose of the requirement for purchasing singular collections physically or carefully.

There are a few music gushing administrations in the market, yet we suggest Spotify. Its advertisement upheld free arrangement gives you a chance to tune in to as much music as you like, and the $10 Premium overhaul is unquestionably justified, despite all the trouble for eager audience members. Spotify additionally has a committed Windows application (and an extraordinary web application), while Apple Music requires the enlarged iTunes and Google Play Music is web-as it were.

In case you're put resources into Apple or Google's biological systems, look at Apple Music or Google Play Music, individually. Both are like Spotify, so a very surprising administration like Napster may suit you better. Try not to considerably waste time with SoundCloud Go, however.

Spotify versus Apple Music versus Google Play Music: Which Is Best?

Spotify versus Apple Music versus Google Play Music: Which Is Best?

While there are heaps of music gushing administrations around, there are three noteworthy ones that emerge over the others: Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Play Music. In any case, which is ideal?

READ MORE

4. Office Suite: LibreOffice

Odds are, you'll require a device that gives you a chance to work with reports, spreadsheets, and introductions sooner or later. You may surmise that paying for the most recent rendition of Microsoft Office is the best way to do this, yet that is a long way from reality.

No Windows client ought to be without LibreOffice. It's a totally free and intense office suite that incorporates contrasting options to Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and then some. When you get used to a couple of little tasteful contrasts from MS Office, you'll be flying through your work with LibreOffice.

Note that OpenOffice, a well known option, is essentially a dead program now, so you shouldn't utilize that one. On the off chance that you would prefer not to utilize LibreOffice, attempt FreeOffice or WPS Office. For the individuals who can't get by without Microsoft Office, investigate Office 365. It offers a greatly improved arrangement than purchasing Office 2016 all alone, including a terabyte of OneDrive distributed storage.

5 Good Reasons Why You Should NOT Buy Office 2016

5 Good Reasons Why You Should NOT Buy Office 2016

Would it be a good idea for you to purchase the independent bundle form of Office 2016? We exhibit our case why we figure you shouldn't and demonstrate to you what you can do.

READ MORE .

5. Picture Editor: Paint.NET

Regardless of whether you need to attempt your hand at picture control, require an approach to obscure touchy information from photographs, or need to recolor/correct old photographs, everybody ought to have a picture altering program introduced. You presumably consider Photoshop the highest quality level for this, yet there are a lot of free instruments that are more available for the normal client.

Paint.NET is our best decision. It's much more intense than Microsoft Paint, yet doesn't overpower you with a wide range of confounding symbols and decisions. You can without much of a stretch obscure out parts of a picture, auto-level photographs to improve them look, and add content and shapes to your photos in only a couple of snaps. A lot of modules enable you to grow its usefulness, as well.

On the off chance that you discover Paint.NET excessively essential, GIMP is a further developed arrangement. For more decisions, observe the best photograph altering programs for beginners.

6. Security: Panda Free Antivirus

While you can find a way to ensure your PC without an antivirus program, it's shrewd to keep one introduced. There's a lot of level headed discussion about which antivirus is the best, and no instrument is great. In any case, some transcend the rest.

For most clients, we prescribe Panda Free Antivirus. It's a cloud-based arrangement, so it doesn't stall your framework assets. Setup is fast and simple, and in the event that you need to set up booked sweeps or exemptions, you can. Individuals who simply need a set-and-overlook arrangement, however, won't need to touch Panda once it's set up.

After you've introduced it, pause for a moment to handicap the special promotions. You can do this by opening the application, tapping the three-bar menu at the upper right, and picking Settings. Under the General tab, look down and uncheck Show Panda news, and you won't get notification from Panda unless there's an issue.

In the event that you don't care for Panda, look at Avira Free Antivirus or 360 Total Security. We used to exhort against utilizing Microsoft Security Essentials, yet the redid Windows Defender got a major lift in Windows 10, so it's justified regardless of an attempt on the off chance that you don't care for some other choices.

4 Reasons to Use Windows Defender in Windows 10

4 Reasons to Use Windows Defender in Windows 10

Before, Windows Defender was eclipsed by different choices, yet now it's a significant contender. Here are a couple of reasons why you ought to consider dropping your security suite for Windows Defender.

READ MORE

Further, in this classification, we prescribe a mixed arrangement. Notwithstanding your typical antivirus application, you should keep a duplicate of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free introduced for intermittent profound outputs.

7. Media Player: VLC

With YouTube's fame, you presumably do the greater part of your video seeing in a web program. Be that as it may, you should at present keep a strong player around on your desktop for when you have to play media documents locally.

For this undertaking, nothing beats VLC Media Player. It's the Swiss Army Knife of media players, equipped for playing about each organization possible. Regardless of whether you have to play recordings recorded on your old PDA or in some abnormal organization you've never known about, VLC will take care of business. It's likewise equipped for playing sound, alongside a wide range of different traps.

You won't not break it out frequently, but rather give VLC a download and spare yourself the bother of upsetting video codecs or utilizing the dreadfully uncertain QuickTime.

In the event that you don't care for VLC, there are a few other amazing media players to look over.

The Top 5 Free Media Players for Windows

The Top 5 Free Media Players for Windows

Solid media player applications dependably ascend to the best and it's not essential which one you utilize. The best media player for you is the one you most appreciate utilizing. We propose the accompanying...

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8. PC Cleaning/Management: CCleaner

After some time, Windows develops cruft and futile documents that consume up room. There's just a single device you require in this class to keep your framework lean and clean. CCleaner is our most loved circle cleaner and the establishment to a spotless Windows 10 framework, however it packs such huge numbers of more helpful highlights inside its toolbox.

Beside cleaning the stores of a wide range of programming, CCleaner lets you effectively handicap startup programs, discover which documents are taking up the most space, tidy up your chaotic setting menu, and make a brisk content record of all introduced programs.

You should avoid the pointless Registry cleaner, yet everything else CCleaner offers is first class.

9. Screenshots: ShareX

Screenshots are valuable for everything from recording interesting minutes to having a record of data, so you require a superior device for the activity. Windows' essential Snipping Tool for snatching screenshots, nonetheless, just gives a barebones include set.

You won't locate a superior free screenshot apparatus than ShareX. With huge amounts of catch strategies, an effective inherent supervisor in view of Greenshot, mechanized strides after you take a screenshot, and additional apparatuses like a shading grabber and ruler, ShareX has a great list of capabilities for no cost.

We as of late looked at the best screenshot devices for Windows on the off chance that you incline toward something somewhat slimmer. In spite of the fact that we missed ShareX, it merits the #1 spot as it supersedes Greenshot in highlights and choices. Whichever you pick, read our guide on taking the ideal screenshot to end up noticeably an ace.

[programmerandcoder]

Web Design and Development - The Mile-High View

With the speed of change online, it can be tough to consider that not many individuals really keep up with the flood of new technology, frameworks, and acronyms.  Unless you're designing web-related businesses, it is very possible your customers will not have any idea what"constructing a web site" actually involves, or what happens after you are done designing.  

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In the following guide, I hope to provide you a breakdown of the Internet they can comprehend what goes into a web site apart from Flash or Photoshop which it is possible to point a customer to.

Let us begin with a bit of history.  You'd computer networks before any of the internet malarkey arrived about.  That's to say, folks connected human mainframes (because personal computers did not exist yet) with wires so that they could speak to one another.  

PC's came together so that they could speak and offices began linking the PCs of a building together.  Then something happened: individuals and a different one connected one office system.  Behold and lo, the cornerstone of the Web as we know it had been born.

In its heart, the world wide web is a network of programs.  Typically, that smaller system is the 1-4 computers you have in your home, which connect into the bigger"Internet" system via your router or cable modem or what have you.

There's no"center" of the world wide web, no overarching computer directing all; it is just countless little networks such as the one on your home or office linking together.  There are systems set up to create it so if your computer says"Join me with pc XYZ," it might discover a way to create that link, but these systems (believe TCP/IP, routing, etc.) are too complex to talk about this.

So the Web existed, but the Internet as we know it didn't.  The Web in those times was good for Usenet: email, bulletin boards, and just a couple of things.  Then came Tim Berners-Lee together with his description of a new acronym: HTML.  HyperText Markup Language enabled the very first internet designers (geeky scientists) to make the initial web pages.  

Word / / HTML allows you to provide them a few meaning, although Consider HTML such as formatting in Microsoft Word is there.  HTML enabled page creators to specify their text such as paragraphs, bulleted lists, numbered lists.  Most of all, HTML enabled page founders to connect 1 page to another - that the"HyperText" section of their title - so that related files could be found efficiently.

Like I mentioned earlier, the very first consumers of HTML were unthinkable scientists.  HTML permits them to connect their newspapers, and format the study papers they mentioned.  This was about it plain HTML does not have any actual capability to"personality" a webpage out of identifying what is a paragraph and what's something more technical.  Hence that the Internet was a sea of text, with no single picture in sight.

A couple of decades after, competing for thoughts on how best to provide pages a few designs were merged into one system, CSS.  "Cascading Style Sheets" allow page founders to make their pages prettier by specifying how the"components" of HTML (paragraphs, lists, etc.) ought to be exhibited.  

The webpage founder could state that text also to mention how broad or tall a piece of content must be around the monitor, and paragraphs ought to be crimson, which lists must be bulleted with squares rather than circles.  

Browser manufacturers had inserted this functionality in their programs (such as Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer) for a little while at this stage, however, CSS did something radical: it split the material to be exhibited in the principles about how to exhibit it.  Using CSS, a designer may write without any modifications, two design sheets which made looks from an HTML page.

And despite the guarantee of CSS, it began badly implemented in several browsers, to ensure what seemed good in, say, Internet Explorer 3 has been completely broken up in Netscape Navigator 4.  So, rather than CSS, many designers (because it was actually possible to"style" a webpage!)  Chosen to use the table capability of HTML to put their own content out.  

The thought was to utilize a site like an Excel spreadsheet - create the rows and columns whatever width and height you require, then fill in each"cell" of this table using a picture, or any text, before you get exactly what you would like.  This contributed to layouts that were nice-looking, but totally and entirely broke HTML's notions. 

In a layout, the HTML does not have any significance whatsoever; what is a table cell.  If the designer you're speaking with keeps telling you that"table-based style" is a poor thing, that is why.  Utilizing HTML along with CSS creates a website that loads quickly and that really has some significance to machines (such as Google!), rather than a spreadsheet.  After all, do compose a post in Excel or you try to create art?

Thus, we have got networks, HTML pages, and CSS stylesheets.  How do they fit together?

If a person needs a website, they buy a domain name.  By Purchasing a domain name, you are given the right to assign the title to a computer anywhere in the world, of your choosing.  A system named DNS ("Domain Name System") informs each the planet's connected networks of in which you pointed that title, so that if somebody's computer says"anybody knows how to access myfavoritesite.com?" , DNS can say"Sure, it is at computer XYZ around."

Computer XYZ, meanwhile, is currently running a program called a Web host.  "Server" is really a fancy title which disturbs people, but it all really means is that pc XYZ is sitting about listening to its own cable for anybody to say"Hey, I want the things for arborwebsolutions.com," and after it hears that, it is going to throw that material over the cable.  

That is exactly what folks mean when they say that you want to purchase"Web hosting" - you want to pay a business to conduct a pc with server applications listening to your domain, and handing out these documents whenever someone asks them. 

You can run your own server directly - lots of geeks do but that more duty than many men and women wish to carry on.  Your monthly fee suggests.  If they are a firm that is hosting worth the money they are paid by that you, at the least.

(Side note: "Servers" are not only for Internet websites.  You will find email servers which sit around listening to individuals to say"Hey!  Get this letter to Jane Doe!".  

You can find file servers, normally in offices, so that sit around waiting for somebody to say"I want that demonstration file from a week"  Server applications are everywhere, and each time you have a pc interaction with a different computer, you are likely talking to a host.)

Back to technologies.  Even though CSS was taking shape, the Internet also saw the growth of CGI, or"Common Gateway Interface," skills.  (Notice this isn't the exact same CGI as in film special effects; that is"Computer Generated Imagery."  There are just so many combinations of 3 letters on the market.)  CGI enabled a developer to write an app that also did things more complex than simply handing someone an HTML document or a CSS sheet and sat on an internet server.  

With CGI, you can complete a"type" - these collections of text boxes which allow you to do things like buy a book on Amazon or log into Facebook - and do anything with that advice about the host - such as notification Joe in stock to bill your card and email you a novel, or even taking you to your home page on Facebook.  CGI is not a"terminology" in itself, it is only a system, and there are scores of programming languages which may talk CGI.

Hand-in-hand using CGI is the usage of databases.  Databases allow a waiter to hold on to this info which you put in these kinds, and CGI can store info or get it needed.  So once you make an account at Amazon, they are holding all your account information. 

Amazon recalls all kinds of info about you by dragging it from the database when you log into.  Databases allow you to do more than simple accounts.  If you used blogging software such as Wordpress! , or some of the dozens of other site types on the market (which includes Facebook status upgrades or Twitter tweets), you have used a database to store your posts. 

 All there is a site currently doing is keeping your posts then pulling the latest ones somebody comes to your site.

So you have heard of elaborate new tools such as PHP, or Ruby on Rails, or Django?  They just variants on the CGI / database thought.  Sure, they are a good deal more complex than this, but it gives you a good notion about exactly what the designer/developer is currently babbling about.

Yep, less or more that is all there is on the internet.  I could return to this, although I have made out a ton of things.  Thus, when you employ a designer to Create a Website from scratch, here is what they doing:

Locate a Proper domain name and purchase it (a question in its own right), and point it to the hosting service;

Require all your articles (you did provide them your articles, right?)  And mark it up 

Compose CSS stylesheets which turn content into a nice-looking site;

Learn some CGI / database items which have to get performed, and put them up (generally called"backend" work).

"That is so easy!"  Some customers will state.  "I could do this myself!"  It is true!  You do not require a permit and that is the way.  However, when people with this mindset begin looking for CSS and HTML, they wind up creating pages which place MySpace. 

Knowing that the tools are not enough-.  Hitting on on a couple of nails with it, and Having a hammer is not sufficient to turn you into a craftsman does not make you a master carpenter.

One last note about Adobe Dreamweaver.  Dreamweaver is a program which helps people write CSS and HTML.  That is it - that the Internet doesn't demand Dreamweaver to function; you may make a whole site in Notepad if you would like, provided that you store the HTML document as".html" along with the CSS document as".css".  

Dreamweaver does make things somewhat easier by allowing you"preview" your website because of your code and kind things wherever you need in that preview but recall the bases of HTML and CSS - text articles on a single side, demonstration on the opposite. 

Dreamweaver has difficulty doing this; the websites it generates using those" visual instruments" find yourself like the spreadsheets I said previously.  Any fantastic designer needs to be able to generate a website that is gorgeous without bothering its ilk or Dreamweaver.  That the design business sees Dreamweaver as a crutch.  

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